Podcasts about nancy harrington

Dr. Nicole de Paula has been globally connecting policymakers and researchers for more than a decade to create a public understanding on key issues related to sustainability and public health. As a Planetary Health advocate, she champions the socioeconomic advancement of women through environmental conservation. She is the founder of the Women Leaders for Planetary Health and in 2019, she became the first awardee of the prestigious Klaus Töpfer Sustainability Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies in Potsdam, Germany. Nicole is the author of the book “Breaking the Silos for Planetary Health: A Roadmap for a Resilient Post-Pandemic World.” Learn More about Nicole. Learn more about The Passionistas Project.   FULL TRANSCRIPT: Passionistas: Hi, and welcome to the Passionistas project podcast, where we talk with women who are following their Passionistas to inspire you to do the same. We're Amy and Nancy Harrington. And today we're talking with Dr. Nicole de Paula, who has been globally connecting policy makers and researchers for more than a decade to create a public understanding on key issues related to sustainability and public. As a planetary health advocate, she champions the socioeconomic advancement of women through environmental conservation. She's the founder of Women Leaders for Planetary Health and in 2019, she became the first awardee of the prestigious Klaus Töpfer Sustainability Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS) in Potsdam, Germany. Nicole is also the author of the book “Breaking the Silos for Planetary Health - A Roadmap for a Resilient Post-Pandemic World.” So please welcome to the show Dr. Nicole de Paula. Nicole: Hi, Nancy and Amy. Thank you for having me. Passionistas: What's the one thing you're most passionate about? Nicole: I think recently it's definitely planetary health. Uh, we've been advocating so much and at the beginning, the term was what is planetary health sounded like a horror cop thing. Right? So it was the, it was a term that sounded, it was a bit weird in some language doesn't translate. Well, I think in German, for example, it's, it's, it's hard to translate in Portuguese as well. I'm from Brazil. So, uh, it was also a bit funny, but definitely is the topic that we should be talking about specifically. Now when we need to recover. Hopefully from this pandemic. Passionistas: So tell us of what planetary health means and how it relates to what you do for a living. Nicole: Yeah. So maybe what I do, I'm my background. I tend to say I'm a fake doctor, right? So I'm a, I have a PhD in international relations, so I'm not a magical doctor cause I've been talking a lot with public health experts. It's quite an interesting exercise. And so planetary health, uh, from my perspective is of very interesting narrative of things that decision makers should. Talking about or acting. So it's basically everything. So the planet is changing, right? We say that if the planet is sick with all the climate change impacts biodiversity loss, pollution, you know, we, we don't know anymore what we have in our foods. So much chemicals there processed food, you know, and crisis. We used to have a big problem of course, with hunger and. You know, half of the population is obese. So of course we're changing our lifestyles and the way the planet is changing and the way that we are impacting our planet. So that's why we say this anthropogenic impacts we need it's impacting public health. So the decision normally is what is health at the end of the day, right? Is everything that is inside our bodies and is just this small system. Or we should talk about health. Connected to the health of our planet. So the planetary health is a scientific discipline or, um, not discipline is there is discussion that I think is started as saying as a discipline, but let's say it's an approach, a new area of studies calling that way. I think many researchers were already discussing sustainability connecting to the, to human health. So again is very simple. It's just trying to connect sustainability to public health policies and on the, on the issue of. scientists are trying to understand how exactly climate change impacts, you know, human health. We have heat waves that impact, you know, the most vulnerable in cities. Uh, so we're trying to measure that's. So that's not exactly what I do, you know, when people will do modeling and, but in the end, we need to communicate and inform decision makers of this field and say, what do we do about it? And that's the, what I'm passionate about. How do we get the science and bring it to the people who can take these decision? And it's of course not an easy thing, especially this days, but we keep trying. So you mentioned COVID talk about how the relationship to COVID and planetary health. Like what, how is it affecting the world on the planet? Yes, COVID is as, um, sometimes mentioned and I notice in a book it's. Of course, it's a very bad thing, but if every crisis brings an opportunity, that's the sad reality. If we need change, we probably learn through love or pain. Right. So it's very hard to change behavior if you don't have a big crisis and COVID is now showing I think stimulating this conversation about, okay, what is exactly connections? It's, it's just, just a sanitary thing. It's, uh, the disease, but what you're learning now and, and. Trying to communicate. Actually, I think a lot of people have been trying to communicate this before, but the way, for example, deforestation, the way we are transforming our environment, we are, uh, increasing the chances of this contact with new viruses. So for example, illegal wildlife. Trading, you know, if you're bringing species to different and because the world is so connected in three days, the whole, if you have a new disease in three days, the whole world is contaminated. So the COVID is really showing that we need to connect more. The dots. Between these issues of biodiversity conservation. You know, this, there is a link with zoonotic diseases. When you have pathogens, frighten animals, jump to humans, we still, we don't have definitive answers about how exactly COVID was created, but six out of 10 new diseases come from animals. You know, so this, this zoonotic disease. So, so we know that we are creating some sort of this possibility of increasing diseases and, and climate change. For example, Our natural ecosystem. So new mosquitoes there wouldn't be in Europe, for example, because of the climate. Now, if we find, so we have a new ecology of, of these diseases that it's important to understand and study again, we have, uh, researchers doing that. So planetary health brings this conversation and links, uh, this points. Passionistas: So let's take a step back. You talked about the fact that you're from Brazil. Tell us a bit about growing up there. And when did you first become aware of these issues and what inspired you to pursue this field. Nicole: Of course, I mean, I think I always wanted to, I remember as a, let's say teenager, the time you need to decide about university, I was between. Two things. I think I, I love studying. So I think my thing, I love learning. So doesn't matter what it is. I people say, oh, what's your favorite? You know, subject? I liked everything. Uh, at the end I started being better at humanities and others, but I was still at some point. Good, very good in chemistry. Very good in math, some parts of physics. So I wish I had more talent. I wish I had kept my talents. I found that time would be great for calculating it or model. Days, which I don't feel they're very capable, but I enjoyed, uh, learning and, and, and I enjoyed traveling. So that was a big thing. So I think, you know, if you're uncomfortable in new places. So for example, from Brazil, I remember going to Portugal at early age and I didn't enjoy so much because it was so similar. To Brazil. And I think nowadays I would think, uh, differently because it's a fantastic city in LIBO, for example, it changed so much, but the traveling part was inspiring. And so I was trying to find things, you know, what is, what can I do that unite all this many disciplines that I enjoy and, and traveling. So I initially, um, I also was very good at debating, especially my family. If I wanted something I would debate until they were tired. So it was, uh, some people found that of course, very annoying, but they thought would be, I would be a good lawyer. Right. So I thought about it. And in the end I found this brochure, that's saying, oh, international relation. It was a new course at that point, you know, remember also globalization and all this. So that's something we have a very, of course at the university of Sao Paulo is let's say top university in Brazil, depending on the subject, but is very, uh, important center, but they didn't have international relations when I was applying for it. So there was another univers. The head leading that in Sao Paulo and from Sao Paulo. And so I joined that and started doing international relations, but at that point, nobody knew what do you do with international relations? Right? It just, and in the first year it was, it was actually the time when the United States. Was not ready to sign or, you know, was withdrawing from the Coda protocol, which is the whole, the initial agreement, uh, in the whole climate sphere. So as a student in political science, I was like, why, if it's such a good thing for the planet, why we have the biggest power saying that they don't wanna agree with this? You know, that's, it's good for the plant. So that's how I entered the, the climate diplomacy conversation. So again, I entered the sustainability sphere through the political. Perspective. Right. And then from that on, I was started doing a lot of understanding how countries negotiate about the trees. So it was climate then biodiversity and quickly I could actually move to France. So my university had an agreement. So I moved to France and then started studying a lot from the perspective of European union, which is another whole in region and negotiations of agreement to have a global position. So all that it's endless and it was fascinating. But I tended to focus on the sustainable stable development aspects. And, you know, we have in Rio, Brazil also, we are very, it's a very important country for sustainable development. The Amazon has always been on the agenda. We have infinite natural resources, you know, is the mega diverse, uh, countries top. So Brazil has been very important for this negotiations. And so that's why I started my academic life. And there was no specific moment, right. This, I had an aha moment for other things later, but for that, I just really enjoyed the disciplines. And, and that's how I think also. We say the planetary health is really about multidisciplinary, you know, whatever we do, we need to unite disciplines. And international relations was always a, let's say a collection of disciplines. You did economics, law, sociology, you know, theology, linguistics things. And you had to make sense of all this. So I think from the early age, I was maybe comfortable navigating multidisciplinary systems and which today is very useful because, you know, you're kind of comfortable. You're not there to protect a discipline and you're just free to kind of have this dialogue, which is so, so important. So tell us about some of the fellowships that you've done through the years, the international Institute for sustainable development. Passionistas: What was your work like there? Nicole: Yeah, so, well, the international for sustainable development is actually the it's more, um, it's a think tank and that's through this organization that I could. Actually be in the practice of sustainability tracking sustainable development in real time, because you are, uh, going to all this at the UN and, and, and trying to understand the country's positions and why. So it's a lot of work of Intel in the end, the product you would say you would do reports and informing in a very succinct, uh, way what countries are doing. However you need the whole background. So we were, most of the people there were doing their PhDs or at least a master in one of the specific negoti later negotiations. So it was more, uh, yeah, so we were part of a global team tracking this, but usually also connected to your academic. Research. So this was during my PhD times where I could, I think, you know, I don't know, almost 60 countries and, and it was gave a lot of perspective, you know, from what people think, because one solution, you know, in Europe is not a solution in Africa is on solution in Latin America. And that's, that's why it's so slow. And that's why it's so difficult because of course we do need global solutions. However, you still need to kind of get the. Contextualized moments of this. So very challenging, but that's what I did there. It was really getting, uh, and track and sustainability in practice at the UN level. Passionistas: And as we mentioned in our intro in 2019, you became the first awardee of the Klaus Töpfer Sustainability Fellow. So tell us about that period and what, and what that experience was like. Nicole: So that's a very recent experience and it's, it's one of my favorites because it gave so, um, gave me a lot of freedom to, I think, do follow my passion and do the things that, you know, I use usually say it's it's. When is a time that you have time and money together, you know, it never either you have time or no, uh, no money or money and no time. So this was, this fellowship is really dedicated for two kind of people do their projects and elevate them. And so I was so proud to, uh, cost software is the former Minnesota environment in Germany. He was also the head of the United Nations department program before. So it was someone who was, you know, doing politics in Germany. But also went moved to Kenya and was the head of a large organization. And he had to also understand, right. This compromises, how it works. Africa is not the same as Germany. So, um, and of course it's very influential. Public figure. So I, he, uh, and together a few of, I think Noble Prizes founded, uh, this Institute in, in Potsdam. And it's a very interesting, I think I had a lot of intellectual freedom there and I could develop the book, "Breaking the Silos for Planetary Health," which if you don't have time to sit down and write it's, you know, you never finish. So I could do that. I could support Brazil in a large planetary health global event together with the Harvard university. And this was a fantastic, uh, really expanding the field of planetary health in Latin America. Because one of the things I try to say is there's no point of having planetary health conversation. If it's only in Australia, Europe and you know, north America. So I need to bring that to the global south. And I could found the social enterprise, uh, called women leadership, monetary health, and, and this has opened so many. To a lot of my work today. So I really enjoyed that and, and very supportive colleagues and directors, and it was really, really a very fun time in my career. I must, I'm very thankful for that. I think it was, you know, when you got these things at the right time, you really could. I think I used the opportunity and then COVID came and that for me professionally, Was good because I was talking so much about health sustainability, and unfortunately, see, you need a crisis to push these things and it's a sad reality, but from that perspective was a good timing to talk about this. Passionistas: Talk us through what you do. You connect policy makers and researchers. So what is that process? What's your day like? Nicole: Well, that's funny. My day has been the most. I don't have a routine I have now. I think it's first two weeks that I'm having more of a routine in my life and I'm almost 40. So I enjoy that. I think I worked a lot to get a lot of flexibility in my work life. So I have absolutely no routine because every day, and now with the pandemic, it became then a different world. Why we could do so much virtually and things, but it was more about, so I did a lot of work in different countries when. You know, ISD the internet. When I said I was tracking sustainment about negotiations, every time was in a different country. So I would be in the desert and the next week I would be in the Arctic literally. So you'll have to Pack, you know, for north of Finland and Dubai. So it has been very hectic, but I enjoyed that, but definitely not a common. Existence, especially for women, as we know, you know, people expect that you have your traditional things and then you have your family life like a traditional way and all that. And I always refused in a way and said, no, that's really exciting to not have these routine. That's not what I want. And during this time, so you, why, if you travel so much, you're also connecting with people around the planet. So it facilitates so. Your work doing, you know, if you have to gathering intelligence, you have to see what that country's thinking and what the others. So how can I, if I'm writing a paper. Or, or, you know, even my PhD, I had to really, for, for five years you were doing research and, and, and I was about the strategic partnership between Brazil and EU on the specific agreements. So things are evolving, right? So I need to track that. And so this connection is. First through research because you have to inform and you have to publish and you have to get the knowledge, but then once, once you are working with these organizations, you're actually also transferring that knowledge or trying to, you know, it's not so much of an academic exercise, but if you do, if you're working with think tanks, then you do round tables and you do other events. And it's more of the networking part, exchanging the word that I like here. Cross pollinating knowledge around disciplines. Institutions. So that's a lot of what I do. And so it's not a clear cut thing, but when you see, you have to yeah. Do your research like political scientist and a lot of interviews. For example, the method, if you're this participant observant, you know, you are in the process. So not only reading cuz what is published in the end, it's not necessarily what was happening. There's so much in politics that cannot be published. That's why these personal connections are so important because you need trust from these individuals to get the information. That's how I think, think it's a very important talent. So this personal [00:18:00] diplomacy with trust building networking in many countries that really helps to kind of today. I have my colleagues that, oh, we will. And I moved to Bangkok after, right. So I lived in France, then I moved to Thailand and I lived in Canada. I lived in Washington, DC, and I lived in more in Brazil, of course. And now I'm in Italy. So it's kind of, some point gets Tre with the bureaucracy, you know, the visa things. That's, uh, what I'm, but apart from that is fascinating because you adapt and I think that's what the world needs today. Right? We all had to adapt so fast, but honestly, for me, it was. When the lockdown came, I just felt that was just my regular life that everybody could finally understand that we could do so much online, that we could do so much virtually. So a lot of distracting of the negotiations we did virtually and I worked. Like this with slack or all this chat functions with people around the world that I never met since 2012. So, you know, 10 years later, the world figured out that it is possible. We don't need to fly across the world to have, you know, a one-on-one meeting that that's absolutely insane Passionistas: We're Amy and Nancy Harrington and you are listening to The Passionistas Project Podcast in our interview with Dr. Nicole de Paula. To learn more about Women Leaders for Planetary Health's mission to empower women to lead planetary health solutions at frontlines of development in the Global South visit WLPH.org. We'd like to take a moment to invite you to the third annual Power of Passionistas summit this September 21st through September 23rd, 2020. The three-day virtual event is focused on authentic conversations about diversity, equity and inclusion, this unique gathering of intersectional storytellers and panelists harnesses, the power of our rich community of passionate thought leaders and activists to pose solutions to the problems plaguing women and non-binary people. Early bird tickets are on sale now through August 21st for just $99 at ThePassionistasProject.com. So be sure to register before the special discount rate ends. We'd like to thank our sponsors, Melanie Childers Master Coach, Graceful Revolution, The OSSA Collective, Tea Drops, Aaron's Coffee Corner, Flourishing Over 50, Espinola Real Estate Team, Sarah Finns Coaching, Tara McCann Wellness, Aspira Public Affairs and TrizCom Public Relations. Now here's more of our interview with Nicole. Did you miss traveling though for someone who likes to be on the go. Nicole: Exactly, that's a very, you know, interesting question and. The good thing is I did so much that I feel that. I feel a bit satisfied with, you know, the places that I've been and it's never enough there's no, if you like traveling, you know, you can always do again and, and learn more and spend more time. But I definitely felt at the beginning was fine because, you know, with the lockdown you could produce everything and write, I used my time, a lot to do the writing and. What I miss is just, um, the easing, you know, the facility that you could go. So now, if you're in Italy, Italy, you have to go back to Germany. It feels like you're going to another continent in the civil war, you know? So, and that's the thing, it's very, it's sad because, you know, if you have family also abroad and it's just, it's kind of a, a worry that if you need to travel fast and, and, and not every. We'll have, you know, the same advantages or being treated equally. So in the end, the most vulnerable will always suffer more. They will not have support. They cannot. So I miss, I miss the, the easy connections to exotic places. so in 2019 new co-founded the planetary health research group. So tell us about that and what the mission is of that organization. So this group is at the, is hosted by the universal Sao Paul in Brazil. And, and it's hosted by the, there is an Institute for advances studies there and was with together with professor Antonio Saraiva, who is an absolutely partnering crime and that in Brazil and an amazing group of. Interdisciplinary researches. So we were, we actually with professor sarava, we met in the first meeting of the planetary health Alliance in Boston. It was hosted by Harvard and we met in a museum, uh, with, you know, I think it was natural history and you have like ping wings around us. So it was a very fun dinner. And in the bit of the. And we just connected. And for many years we were, you know, discussing and going to these meetings. Every, every it's an annual meeting until Brazil got the right to host for, for the first time the planetary health Alliance would, you know, give the right for a developing country to host this, this conference. And then we, we were just natural partners and we had, we were working direct together. So we decided to have this an official center, uh, at the university of Sao Paulo in the most interdisciplinary center. And this is growing now I'm affiliated I'm founder co-founder and professor is really leading that. Now he's a very senior professor there, so it's, it's just fascinating because it's not something, you know, that belongs to the university. Of Sao, but it's something that belongs to Brazil because we have many partners. We have people from all regions, as you know, Brazil's a very, very big country. So it's kind of really well distributed now. And it's fascinating to, even for me, when you go to meetings, you have all different accents from Brazil. You know that sometimes you, if you'll sustain your bubble, you don't even listen to different voices. And, and if you're advocating for this diversity in decision making it. You know, it starts there. We have to have people from different regions, so that's, it's growing and we could host successfully the. In last year. Yeah, because January, so definitely like, uh, last year, I think April, we got 5,000 people who register for this and, you know, from 130 countries. And, and because also it was the first time it would be in Brazil, but the pandemic had to be online, but we really took the opportunity to make this. An inclusive, you know, not that a lot of people would, this conferences would be usually around 400 people and we could at least bring that to the houses of, you know, in people in hundred, 130 countries. So, and that's why the, what I like to talk about also volunteer health movement. It's a scientific thing, but also if you don't talk and people don't get excited and don't wanna do things, it's usually right. The planetary health movement, as you know, social movement is very important as well. And I think we've worked quite well and there are now new programs of young ambassadors from different universities and they're doing things. So it's about also inspiring others to, to get to know more about the few, to apply to their, how would they think, you know, in their topic of research discuss this. So, yeah, so very proud of that one. That's how I could help my own country. Explore the team. And in 2020 you founded the Women Leaders for Planetary Health. So what is the mission of that organization? Nicole: Yeah, it was so the United nations climate conference, the cop 25 December. I had it with the support of, I, I asked this organization that was in pots. I really wanted to do something that would, I was doing so much on voluntary health, but the gender dimension was really mentioned. I wasn't hearing about it. It was just. You know, unknown issue. So, so, uh, I, I definitely the mission is we want to empower women to lead planetary health solutions in the global south, simple as that, because how many women, you know, and sustainability is very full of women, but how many women really leading solutions or, you know, receive funding to do their own thing, or that's the challenge that we have. Right. And so I wanted to focus. On that discussion first to understand why if we empower women, what's the difference for planetary. And I mean, we're doing research on that, right. But of course there's many indications that you can accelerate the impact of sustainable development policies. If you have women empowered and able to, to take the lead and, and make a change, if you wanna like in food systems, for example, if you, you can be investing agriculture in bio things, however, if women don't have land. You know, legally they're discriminated and they cannot produce their own things or do practices. Um, it's kind of useless. So we need to pay attention to this, to many of inequalities of inequalities, not only income, but also opportunities. And that's why I wanted to again, bring the planetary health conversation to low and middle income countries. So I was really targeting that as part of the. That's why the first, um, round we created a digital academy, which was with the pandemic was great because everything could be digital. And it could, we, we had third more than 30 countries participating in our things. So, and, and, and very, let's say non reachable, difficult countries, you know, we had people in Palestine had people from Sudan. We had people named Zimbabwe from Brazil, you know, in Latin America. In all these women, they all share the same problems, but also the same passion and the same solutions. You see the they're doers, you know, and the, the [00:28:00] narrative is really not to make oh, women is, I didn't create organizations to say, oh, we are suffering. It's so difficult. They're discriminated. The point is how we empower them to, to do what they wanna do and, but have the right resources and the leadership. So we focus really on, on leadership training sessions and with, we had our wonderful Angela field who also supported us on that. And I was mostly focusing on, on this research part of planetary health. And so we write papers and do the research as well. How climate or. Biodiversity. How does things connect to gender? Yeah. So that's how we, and it's, it's growing the UN, so it was good to also have that conversation at the UN that's, how it started. And now we are a social enterprise, you know, legal institution in Germany. And, and that's, I'm very excited to see how this is growing. We have a team in Brazil. Now we have things growing Africa. We have things in Southeast Asia. Yeah. Very excited. That's I think how we get that's the, the passion, I think our jobs. And if you work with the policy makers, it's not always fun. Right? They're of course politics entered in the middle. Things can be delayed and take time to, to drive change. But this is really the fun part. I think of my work, cuz you see the results and you see also the results at the personal level. You know, you have sometimes I think we underestimate how much we could help people by simple things, just, you know, supporting them with the letter. So the mentoring part of our, we had this digital academy, but also we were pairing individuals with senior mentors. So we had a mentorship program. Targeting low middle income countries, women in low middle income countries. So, and I heard so many stories after, because at the beginning I thought, well, you know, this is not, I mean, it's not a big deal. It's just, okay, we're helping a little bit. But when you see the later, what they tell and the things, the decisions that they took in the end, or the courage that they had to do, their own things, they really, you get surprised and you say, wow, and this is, you know, we did this and that's very rewarding. Passionistas: Can you tell us about maybe a success story, something that you've seen come through the organization? Nicole: Yeah, I think it, I mean, what I saw a lot was this positive. They tell stories that, oh, when I joined the program, I was, you know, I was a bit lost. I didn't know what to do or maybe careers. And they normally, they felt empowered to take the decisions that they already knew that they would do, but they felt validated somehow that that's, oh, that's I can do this. So I heard many stories like this. If they wanna maybe start a new master's program or if they wanna change careers, if they wanna quit their toxic. You know, there were stories like this or people who they want to change industries and do more work on sustainability. I saw a lot of this and simply, and maybe at the end, I can tell another story, but don't keep it a secret. Passionistas: So what can women who aren't kind of full-time activists in this field? What can we do on a day to day basis to have an impact on the planet? Nicole: Yeah. So this is a very, it's a common question that we get, right? So how, of course, everybody wants to know how they can make a better place of role, but I like to call attention to, to another point, because yes, you can do your recycles. You can eat, you know, reduce, consumption meat, normally, what is in terms of impact. If you change your diets, that's the easiest and the biggest impact you're gonna. So not so simple to do it. And especially it depends where you leave and your culture or your habit, but that's what researchers show that that's the biggest impact you can have. If you change your diet, you have of course, more, more, less meat, less a more plants. And so there is something called plenary health diet that it doesn't say you can never eat meat, but you know, Definitely. We have to shift the quantity and the proportion of things that we are eating, as we know we're not so healthy these days. So I would invite our, our participants to, to, you know, Google planter, health diet. That's an interesting exercise. But what I like to think about, and that's why it's, it's important also to think in this, which is also hard, but the systemic part, right. Nobody will completely change. What I'm trying to do is really how do you address the root causes of this problems that are saving? I don't think it's our five minute, three minute or 60 seconds shower that will do that. So when we try to put the, the solutions on the shoulders of individuals only, you're not addressing the problem. You're just masking. The problem. And you're just, you know, you want to delay action because what you need to do is to change drastic. You know, you need to change trade rules, you need to change the way supply chains you need to, it's not only one company, right. That company has thousands of companies involved in their business. So how do we do that? So I'm more interested now in, in really in. Transformative systems for sustainability. And of course we have the UN sustainable development goals who, who addressed it. It's a very, it's a plan for development and address so many questions that they're important. But as you see there, it's very hard to disconnect one goal from the other, but many institutions they say, oh, I do, you know, SDG two or four or five. I do gender. And what I like to say, no, if you don't do everything. A little bit, if you don't understand the connections, you're not doing much. So, which is difficult to do because obviously capacity and is limited. Time is limited. Resources are limited. We need to prioritize, use your best skills and maybe focus on what you can do best, but you need partnerships. Nobody will do this alone. So that's why the individual quest, what can we do is yeah, you can start with your house and then maybe influencing your own family and your building and start expanding, but also try to educate yourself about these connections, because I see a lot of people. Oh, use this or consume that, but there's so many inconsistencies things, you know, they would, maybe they are young activists, but they're using Neo Polish full of chemicals for, because it's cheaper from, I don't know, another country try to understand the whole picture. And, and I think that's the way we can have a bigger impact and on women. Right. Let me just, uh, address that. And I think because. Women need to support women. That's simple, you know, for too long, we are also trying this narrative. Oh, women are difficult. You know, today I was hearing someone, if you, since a lot of positions of power are, you know, occupied by men. Also, if, if you're a woman you're just maybe used to kind of, let's say. Working for men or serving that, you know, the ideas of men have. And, and then if women wants to do things they're normally considered difficult or challenging, you know, this is so typical and, and it's happening every day and it's just getting tiring now. And I think women need to stop that and help each other. To, instead of making things worse for ourselves, because we already have a lot of challenge in life. So it's, it's just not acceptable that we are also struggling with other women. So I think it just is more cohesion and support solidarity would make life for all of us so much easier. Passionistas: Thanks for listening to The Passionistas Project Podcast in our interview with Dr. Nicole de Paula. To learn more about Women Leaders for Planetary Health's mission to empower women to lead planetary health solutions the frontlines of development in the Global South visit WLPH.org. Please visit ThePassionistasProject.com to learn more about our podcast and subscription box filled with products made by women owned businesses and female artisans to inspire you to follow your passions. Double your first box when you sign up for a one-year subscription. And remember to get your tickets to the third annual virtual Power of Passionistas summit from September 21st through 23rd. Early bird tickets are on sale now through August 21st for just $99 at ThePassionistasProject.com. So be sure to register before this special discount rate ends. And subscribe to The Passionistas Project Podcast, so you don't miss any of our upcoming inspiring guests. Until next time, stay well and stay passionate.

Kirsten Barrie is the Founder and Owner of Verte Consulting. She has over 16 years of experience as a CFO working with large corporate brands, small businesses, marketing agencies, tech start-ups, retail/e-tail and professional service businesses. She's passionate about effecting change of financial equality by supporting women and founders and helping them achieve their dreams. Learn more about Kirsten. Learn more about The Passionistas Project. FULL TRANSCRIPT: Kirsten Barrie Passionistas: Hi, and welcome to the Passionistas Project Podcast, where we talk with women who are following their passions to inspire you to do the same. We're Amy and Nancy Harrington and today we're talking with Kirsten Barrie, the founder and owner of Verte Consulting. Kirsten has over 16 years of experience as a CFO, working with large corporate brands, small businesses, marketing agencies, tech startups, retail, e-tail and professional service businesses. She's passionate about affecting change of financial equality by supporting women and founders and helping them achieve their dreams. So please welcome to the show Kirsten Barrie. Kirsten: Thank you. Thank you for having me. Passionistas: Oh, we're so excited to talk to you about what you do and we're gonna hopefully learn a lot of things becasue we could use it. Kirsten: I hope so. I hope everyone listening to the podcast. The takeaway is that they have a interest in their business finances. I have a goal to make finances sexy. I really want women plus founders specifically to have a good feeling when they're thinking about their finances. And when they think about the tasks that they have to do for the finances. I want women to fall in love with the process, not the outcome. So I don't necessarily want women to be like, oh, I'm gonna be rich. Because that doesn't get any of us anywhere. What I want is getting excited about what it takes to do organizationally in order for whatever that outcome is. So if women leave this podcast with that takeaway, I'd be very excited. Passionistas: What's the one thing you're most passionate about Kirsten: Specifically, women founders having their own freedom, with money and their business. And that freedom comes from my belief is control and being organized. I want women to have a wonderful team, ideally, a very diverse team and creating opportunities for lots of people and feeling really great about themselves and the team feeling really great about whatever their business is that they're doing. The result of a really well functioning business in the profit would be that the women founder, has her own personally, she's giving herself a paycheck that is comfortable for her, and she is never in a situation that she can't get out of. That's a thing that I've been in and a lot of other women I speak to have been in where even at various levels of wealth, sometimes there's a situation where domestically or just in some other physical location, you can't get out of it because of a financial barrier. And I don't want anyone to have that. So the business owner, the team members that work in the business, I want everyone to feel like they have that freedom and that opportunity to be able to do that. I think I'm very, uh, Bernie Sanders. I'm very much like if you have the money, pay your team as much as you possibly can. I do not believe in, oh, this role. Benchmarks for this fee and that's all you're gonna get. I'm I believe if the company's making more money, pay them more money. They're not, they're only gonna do great things with that. So I really would love to see that and have everybody just feel good and, and their life work life balance is so much more improved. So that's what I get really passionate about. Passionistas: And why is it so important to you to focus on women and female business owners? Kirsten: I didn't at first, I think I'm now actually my 17th year. So I took on all clients because I I'm very excited about businesses in general. And startups we all have like a soft place in our heart for our startups. And, but what I observed over all the years was that I wasn't really bringing the same light bulb and aha moments value to my, the male clients versus the women clients. That was one thing that. It dawned on me that I have male colleagues that could bring the same value that I'm bringing to my male clients. And I believe that there's more than enough business to go around. So why not let them work with them? I really enjoyed at the end of the day is when I go to bed at night and I would recall the conversations I had with women where they're like, oh my gosh, this male CPA, no offense, male CPAs, but I get this. If I had a nickel for every time I heard this phrase, this male CPA, wouldn't explain this concept to me, and you've just explained it in two minutes. It's so easy. It now makes sense to me. So they spent years asking the same question to somebody and being either mansplained to, or talked down to or brushed off. And finance is a science. It's definitely specific. It's not brain surgery. Like it definitely can be explained. It can be understood. We're not like we with small brains, like it's very, it's very tangible and very easily able to be executed. So. That really excites me. And then statistically, our wealth gap is like 32 cents to the dollar. Um, that's not the pay gap. The pay gap is also an issue, but overall women's wealth gap. Is that in, I think statistically in the United States, that includes women that don't want wealth. So that's totally fine that they're in a, in a lifestyle where that isn't important to them, but there are plenty of us that it is important to that. So I think that's really important. And then it gets even worse with black and Latin women, like it's cents to the dollar with the wealth gap. And again, that comes back to power and them having financial freedom and freedom to make choices in their own personal lives. And that's a really big deal to me. So those two factors. I had an aha moment. I was in England. I was taking a walk in the park. I don't know why it came to me and I just had this moment where I thought, wait a minute. At the end of the day, I want to know that I moved the needle in the style, I helped more women CEOs, I helped those women create amazing teams and those teams did amazing things, and I created improvement on quality of life by doing this. And I will take on male clients as long as they prove diversity and actually prove equality. They can't just say it . Um, I need actually see the proof, insane thing. Like I would never take on a female client that would be acting in an in equal way. And unfortunately that some of those women do exist, but very rare so that I think those are the two reasons why it became really passionate to me. Yeah. So, let's take a step back. Tell us a little bit about where you grew up and what your childhood was like. And how did you start this path to where you've ended up? I was a child of divorced parents. I don't know if that lends itself to seeing the world a little sooner than maybe you should, like, I don't recall having much of a childhood. Like I do, I believe children should have childhoods as long as you possibly can have help them do that. I'm fairytale in that way. I think that's actually really important for people. I did not have that. And I think that experience, led me to want to create idealistic situations because I didn't see that. And I could see the problems that were happening at quite a young age. And I thought there was love fairness in things that didn't makes sense. So I think traveling and that environment, I don't know, led to some kind of just like observations like, personality traits. I ended up meandering into boarding school and then meandering to college and then transferring colleges and then getting married, then getting divorced. I think everything built upon itself, and I grew as a human we've talked about this, off the air, but I had an acting career and worked in entertainment, wrote a little bit, produced it a little bit, loved creating art in that film performance away. And I think that still led somehow, culminated into what I do now, which is running this business, being the spokesperson of the business. Um, I do speaking, I do these lovely podcasts. Thank you again. So, I think that that somehow all the path kind of meandered into this viewpoint and this passion of, I wanna see a change and I wanna make things better. And I feel like there is a better way to be and strive for that existence. Passionistas: So, what did you learn during that period where you were acting and in the entertainment business that you carried forward into your more entrepreneurial career? Kirsten: I think one of the biggest, and it's not really related to giving any financial advice, but just entrepreneurial advice is, when I used to audition, we were trained that the audition was the performance. And not to think past that, not to think like, oh, the action. If I get this role, what will that be? But to really just focus on the audition as a moment in time. And that's your like three-minute amazing performance and you walk out of that room, usually the casting room and move on with your life is if you just did the thing and then you do that over and over and over and over again. and, and that can wear on someone if they're constantly thinking that the outcome is the role. But if you change the outcome to be even just that, you know, three-minute experience you have with those people as the actual, like that's the product, it doesn't wear you out. I think it's very like and uplifting so I think in business, sometimes we get exhausted because we have the outcome and if we're not hitting that outcome, like I talked about the beginning. It feels horrible. So to fall in love with the process is really the most important part of it. And the outcomes will happen, but it's really the process, the habits that you develop as you're trying to get to that, that I think, keep you going. Passionistas: So then talk about 2005, you started Verte Consulting. So what, what was the process? Why did you start it and what was the inspiration behind it? Kirsten: Oh, I wish it was so much more romantic and sexy than the actual story. I got divorced. I was teaching yoga. I was not paying the bills. My ex-husband was hiding money. I found out later. Left me with all the bills and I, you know, was young. I was in my twenties. See, these are things that I don't want, anyone would have to go through. I thought, oh, okay I'll, you know, I'll, I'll pay my own bills. Even though I had like completely. Spent, you know, five years rearranging my life around an narcissist, which is what they do. So yeah, not good. I didn't, I didn't know. I was so young and no one was like, I was so naive. So because I had a website design company and a design company that did photography and all this stuff, some colleagues of mine from that industry knew that I actually had done a bunch of business courses and a bunch of business training and accounting, because as an artist. And the goal was to have acting career and everything else was just like paying its bills. I wanted to be a successful business person to run my artistic career. And I thought everyone else knew this business had business acumen. I didn't, I might like, I need to do that too. Turns out no one had business acumen and I was this like rare golden person that actually gone and, and taken myself to get educated in this way. So these colleagues hired me to do their accounting. For 20 hours a week in their SEO business, remember the SEO companies of use exist. So they were this really high end, very expertise, high level SEO company, and they were pretty huge. And then 20 hours a week, I ran their SEO depart. And then eventually it grew so big that I turned over the SEO management, took them on as a client. And at the time remember 2005, remember the economy in 2005? Oh, the days. So at that time I was turning away work. Businesses wanted me left and right. I basically said, Hey, I'm gonna be your outsource CFO for Monday. You could have me on Monday. You could have me on Wednesday. You could have me on Thursday. I gave them all like a day or two of my time. And so that that's actually how I started and I just ran around from client to client. And then in between that, I ran around auditions and did performances. So it was actually really flexible and really nice that I was able to juggle all of that. I mean, it was, I did have a lot of free time, but in a week I was able to do all of that very well. Passionistas: And so at what point did you become more of a digital nomad and, and not stay focused in Los Angeles and, and live that dream? Kirsten: So from 2005 to 2013, I ran around Los Angeles in traffic. The farthest was, uh, I think Calabasas from Hollywood to Calabasas, do not recommend. So I ran around all over LA uh, driving the clients. For those many years exhausted. And they discovered cloud-based apps in 2013, the end of 2012, 2013. So worked from home from 2013 until your question of being, becoming a digital nomad, uh, 2018. So the sad part of it is that my dog passed away. So I realized I could go anywhere. I've been working from a home office in this beautiful town home, I had the whole bottom floor I made at my office. It was like very professional and wonderful, but then once she passed away, I just thought, oh, I can work anywhere that there was internet. That's actually how it started, and then I started traveling and then like 18 countries later. Here I am. Passionistas: We're Amy and Nancy Harrington. And you are listening to the Passionistas Project Podcast and our interview with Kirsten Barrie. To get your company running efficiently on cloud-based apps, so you can start leading your digital nomad dreams, visit VerteConsulting.com. If you're enjoying this interview and would like to help us continue creating inspiring content, please consider becoming a patron by visiting the Passionistasproject.com/podcast and clicking on the patron button. Even $5 a month can help us continue our mission of inspiring women to follow their passions. We would like to take a moment to share a special announce. We'll be hosting the third annual Power of Passionistas Summit. This September 21st through September 23rd, 2022. The three-day virtual event is focused on authentic conversations about diversity, equity and inclusion, this unique gathering of intersectional storytellers and panelists harnesses, the power of our rich community of passionate thought leaders and activists, to pose solutions to the problems plaguing women today. Early bird tickets are on sale now at bit.ly/2022PowerofPassionistasTickets. We'd like to thank our sponsors, Melanie Childers, Natural Born Rebel, The Ossa Collective, Tea Drops, Aaron's Coffee Corner, Flourishing Over Fifty, Edith Espanola, Mermaid's Garden, Sarah Fins Coaching and Tara McCann Wellness. Now here's more of our interview with Kirsten. Tell us about some of those countries and which ones were your favorites. Kirsten: I could ask the favorites a lot and it's hard to answer that because every country has pros and cons. Every country is for me, was related around my experience. I noticed that if my Airbnb was troublesome, my feeling for the country lowered. So are the city. So for example, everyone loves Lucerne Switzerland, but I had a really rough Airbnb. It wasn't anything. It was, although one of the first Airbnbs that was not at all like the pictures. So everything in the pictures were staged. They had like completely different furniture and completely different everything. And then when I walked in, it was like dirty and dark and gross and like not comfortable. I ended up getting a gym membership and taking showers at the gym instead, cuz I just was so comfortable with the Airbnbs bathroom. But like Lucerne is like gorgeous. I have photos that I go back and I look and I'm like, look at the beautiful bridge and look at the water and look at the flowers. And so it's interesting that my feelings for each place tends to be related to like my own experience. So from there, for example, I went to Grindelwald um, and I am a big hiker. So I got to hike the Alps, which is like a bucket list situation. So I was there for like, I don't know, three weeks just hiking all the time, like working from looking at the Alps, like literally looking at the Alps, hiking in the Alps, so amazing, right. Japan was definitely one of my favorites, but I only saw the bottom island. I did, uh, hot Springs week. I hopped over from South Korea and just did a week there. Uh, so I haven't seen the rest of Japan yet, but I don't think anyone is a bad thing to say about their visit to Japan. So I think it's usually a top list. Italy is also by one of my favorites. I've only again, seen the Northern part. I was in Chiquita, Pisa, Florence, and then lake Como or Como de Lago. I mean, the lake that I hiked, of course I hiked around there too. The lake is like this, and then the mountains come up. So like there's the towns on the water. And then there's like up in the mountains, like all the houses, the rich people's houses. So, gosh, let's see. Yeah. I was in Africa, Europe and Asia. So all over, there are places that I didn't get to go. And they're still on my bucket list. Things like Ireland, Wales, more of Europe. I can't see enough of Europe. It feels like definitely Japan. I did not get to go to any of Southeast Asia that was on the 2000. Let's see, what would that be? Was it 20? Was that the year of our pandemic mm-hmm , mm-hmm 2020, right. Beginning the beginning of our pandemic. So I don't know how many of the listeners here are into vision boards, but I'm really into vision boards. And I cried when I looked up my 2020 vision board, I made it, I think it was the end of 2019. Like I always do at the end of the year for my 2020. And literally nothing, nothing. When is planned, the vision board was just like a joke and I stumbled upon it like eight months later. And I was like, oh yeah, this thing. Yeah. So I didn't, I didn't see Southeast Asia yet. I didn't get to Australia or New Zealand yet. Those are definitely ways off. I have colleagues in New Zealand and Australia and you can't even get to New Zealand, uh, Australia. You can maybe, I think everyone saw they'll let someone in, but I think both of those are pretty like business only. You've done like special. Yeah. You know what I haven't visited is Canada. It doesn't feel exotic to me. Right. It's just like there . So it's funny. It is a different country, but like it's not on my bucket list. I mean, ban would be, but like generally speaking, I don't think of Canada, something I would like go live at. Whereas these other countries actually go and I live and I work out of usually an Airbnb or I find like a local apartment to lease for three. And also just to point out, I love helping other people. If they wanna do a digital nomad work lifestyle, I love answering questions on that. So anyone can always reach out to me on those questions as well. Passionistas: Well, let's talk about that. Let's talk about that's one thing you do to help people, but what are some of the other services that you provide? Kirsten: So the main services at the company is the monthly recurring one on one CFO services. So those are businesses that are usually 500,000 to 5 million, usually 100, 1 million to 5 million annual revenue, and they need CFO services. They need payroll, accounting, forecasting, budgeting, finance models, just general help. I make sure that they don't make huge MIS. I don't control the money of any business, but I am their devil's advocate. I will say, no. Keep outsourcing your dev team, do not hire an in-house dev team here is why. And I will break it down for them and they will see the light. I, once I give 'em the right information, they always make the right financial choices. It's just that they don't know. For example, like a lot of business owners don't realize when you hire someone in a different state, you are then paying payroll taxes in that state and it gets extra complicated. In each state you add on, you get a whole bunch of extra complication for payroll. So also subcontractors versus employees, making sure that's sorted out. It's all these like little intricate things that can eat away at a company's profit. Those are the main bread and butter of the company. Is these one-on-one out. CFO services. And it's usually about five, 10% of the gross revenue of a company, which should be the minimum one pays for, for the accounting. I cannot stress that enough. do not go cheap on your accounting with my company, with anybody. It just will not serve you. And then I'm working on a beta that I'm about to release. I had released it right before the pandemic and then paused it and pulled it. And was like, okay, this, this isn't gonna work. taking another stab at a do it yourself finance course, and that is for the, the startups, the solo pioneers, the under 500,000 businesses that really don't have the budget or the activity to hire someone like an outsource CFO. But what I don't wanna see is, and this happens a lot businesses outsourcing to a entry level bookkeeper that may be detrimental. This happens more than not. And I don't really know if it's. The bookkeepers. I get the sense from all the years of doing this, that someone will have done some accounting in a business, and then they'll call themselves a bookkeeper later and go and try to outsource themselves as a bookkeeper, but they actually don't have any accounting knowledge. So what that does is that's detrimental to the business tax wise organization, wise planning wise, it just isn't good. So this course is gonna give the big picture and how it relates to the small picture to a business owner and why they wanna do certain. Smaller steps and habits because of the big picture. And I'm hoping that will enlighten people to not just use a bookkeeper that only maybe is working on the small picture and working on the small picture incorrectly, which is what I commonly see. Uh, because it goes. You know, your daily activity to like your monthly and annual activity to your filing your taxes. That's kind of the sequence of small to big picture. Um, so that course is coming soon. If you're interested in joining the beta, um, we'll have my contact information at the end of the podcast and please reach out and I will see if you're a good fit for the beta. And then if not, we'll get released in the summer as a full course. And then I'm adding, helping companies, getting over the finishing line for equity and fundraising. So it's gonna be a service that is kind of like low key being done right now for some clients, but it will start to be added on as a service. And then the five-year plan is to get some specific CFOs for the 5,000,00 and 1 to 5 million and more businesses that are going to go public. So we'll have CFO services down the road for those larger companies, cuz that's a whole different ballgame and there's a lot of requirements, industry requirements that would need to be done for that. So that'll be down the road, but the idea is that going forward, there will be services from the person starting their business all the way to taking to public and specifically women plus founders. So that should. Give a lift to this industry. Passionistas: So now you also offer on your site a free business plan template. So talk about that aspect of the business. You, you mainly just deal with financial stuff for you or clients, but why is it so important for a startup to put a business plan together? Kirsten: Beginning business, won't be able to fill out every section of that. But what I like about this is that they can look at what they do need to research. So I have a little bit of like a drip email campaign that gives recommendations, you know, put this on your to-do list for this week. Like this one section go and research sections of the swot analysis or go and research. Like, do you have a regional market or a national market? I think all those things are important for the business to, to start to think with they, most of the businesses, it might take a year, or more, I think to answer each one of these questions, but it'll get those juices flowing. It'll get them thinking about it. And then in turn, the part that I focus on is the finances. They should come to me and do some sessions to get the finance part organized. And I can tell them how to do that because it usually takes a couple steps of organization before you could spit out those numbers, that are in the business plan, but those numbers are important for so many reasons. If they're needing to make sure they have enough cash to keep running, I really believe. Money is a commodity as much as possible. You should use money to make more money. Money is not like a finite thing where like you make it at the end of that. And it just pays us what the businesses need to do is obviously we need to do payroll there's expenses that, you know, aren't commodity, but generally speaking, we need to take that money and figure out how to scale and grow that business in order to do that. The financial sections in the business plan need to get filled out. And that's where I come in and help them. But I do really believe that whole, the whole business plan is beneficial. And I will, while I won't be an expert in those areas with my clients, I do coach a little bit outside of finances for every client, because I care about their business. I'm their team member. Like I want their business to grow because it means everyone is happy. What's your definition of success? I think it changes. I think part of it is financial freedom and that vision of like being healthy at an older age and doing what you want I'm of the generation that doesn't have the pension doesn't have like amazing savings and 401k plans. And I just, that boat missed me. So I'm trying to do catch up work now. It's not fun. So. I wanna be healthy so that I could work until my last days. I personally don't wanna just like retire and do nothing. That to me would be the opposite of success for me. I know that's a lot of my that's my parents' generation success. That's what they're doing right now. But I would rather that I have the flexibility to do whatever it is that I'm doing. And it pays for my lifestyle, whatever that is and keeps me happy. I'm not like forced to work and I'm not. Uh, so unhealthy that I can't work. So, and then the other part of that is seeing other people succeed, that if I had a hand in someone else succeeding, that I think makes me feel. Like I was of service. Like there's that mantra, like be of service, like that is really our job. We're put here on this planet to be of service to others. So, and that can go in all different ways. Like sometimes being of service may seem, but look, the person might seem like they're self-involved, but that's not always the case, like artists and musicians, they're being of service to the world. Even, it might seem like they're doing it for themselves. So I think, yeah, those are like my two ways that I swing back and forth, like my own personal. Future versus what am I doing in the world right now? Passionistas: What advice would you give to a young woman who wants to follow her passions? Kirsten: Have a sugar daddy, just kidding. Just kidding. do not do that. I met many of those in LA. I was always in awe of those women. I met so many of them and they're like, I have a sugar daddy and they'd explain to me the details. And I was just like, my eyeballs would open up. Right? Like I was [00:28:00] divorced and left penniless. And so here's this like women that's like only having sex with, as the rent is paid. And I just was like, I can't, I can't. No. So seriously ladies and everyone. if you have a passion, be flexible in what that Passionistas. For example, in my twenties, I never thought I'd be running a finance company. Like that sounds horrible and boring. That's not, that's not something you're passionate about running a finance company, but I am passionate about making the difference for other women and having climbed a mountain that hopefully. They won't have to climb it because I did already. And I'm trying to help them steer around this mountain, avoid the mountain. That is exciting. So I'm able to, to feel fulfilled through this avenue. Um, and it gives me ability to do other avenue. I do art in my free time. I'm writing a book, I'm creating this course. There's all these things that I can do because I have this course, sorry, because I have this business. So if you have a passion are like, um, a clothing designer. And you're like, this will make me happy to make these clothes and you do it and you succeed, go for it. But if you run into so many roadblocks that you can't seem to get success with that find a way to whatever the joy is about that fashion designing, find a way to get that out in the world. Maybe it's like doing large murals, like somehow you just fall into mural making instead of clothing making. And, but you're still getting. Art in the world, you're still making people smile. You're still making this city prettier, whatever it is that like makes you excited of being a fashion designer. So I think that falls back into like, there's the whole lean business canvas concept, where you have an idea of what you wanna do and you test it out as minimal as possible. And if it doesn't hit. It doesn't hit. No one buys your thing. No, one's gonna buy your thing. There's nothing, you can't force it down. People's throats. So as a business owner, you have to check your ego and be like, okay, let's adjust the thing I'm putting out there. And then you see if it hits. And if that doesn't hit you go back and you iterate big keyword here, you fix it again. You set it out into the world and be like, does this hit? So I think you kind have to do that with your passion. I think if you set your site too much on the outcome, and that is. The only key to your own happiness, you will forever be unhappy. So you can't put your key to your happiness in this like external thing you need to find. And I think this takes a lot of soul searching. What is it that you're, what's the core why? Simon, Sinex of why you're doing that. And you can maybe find various ways to get that out into the. Passionistas: Thanks for listening to our interview with Kirsten Barrie to get your company running efficiently on cloud-based apps, so you can start leading your digital nomad dreams visit VerteConsulting.com. Please visit the PassionistasProject.com to learn more about our podcast and subscription box filled with products made by women owned businesses and female artisans. To inspire you to follow your passions. Double your first box when you sign up for a one-year subscription. To sign up for our mailing list, to get more information about the Power of Passionistas Summit at bit.ly/2022PowerofPassionistasTickets. And be sure to subscribe to the Passionistas Project Podcast, so you don't miss any of our upcoming inspiring guests. Until next time stay well and stay passionate.

Lisa Thompson is a Mountaineer, cancer survivor, and sought-after speaker and coach. She worked for 25 years as an engineer and in leadership roles at technology companies. In 2008, she began climbing and has summited most of the most challenging mountains in the world, including Mount Everest and K2. She's completed the seven summits reaching the top of the highest peak of each of the seven continents. Through her company, Alpine Athletics, and other platforms, Lisa shares her message of strength and resilience with corporate and private groups worldwide. She is also the author of “Finding Elevation” which chronicles her path from novice climber to world class mountain. Learn more about Lisa. Learn more about The Passionistas Project.   Full Transcript: Passionistas: Hi, and welcome to the Passionistas Project Podcast, where we talk with women who are following their Passionistas to inspire you to do the same. We're Amy and Nancy Harrington and today we're talking with Lisa Thompson, a mountaineer, cancer survivor and sought-after speaker and coach. Lisa worked for 25 years as an engineer and in leadership roles at technology companies. In 2008, she began climbing and has summited most of the most challenging mountains in the world, including Mount Everest and K2. She's completed the seven summits reaching the top of the highest peak of each of the seven continents. Through her company, Alpine Athletics and other platforms. Lisa shares her message of strength and resilience with corporate and private groups worldwide. She is also the author of “Finding Elevation,” which chronicles Thompson's path from novice climber to world class mountain. So please welcome to the show. Lisa Thompson. Lisa: Great to be here. Thanks for having me today. Passionistas: We're really excited to have you here and hear your story. And, uh, we always like to start with the question. What's the one thing you're most passionate about? Lisa: Right now, I think this has changed over the years. I'm sure that's just the normal progression of a life, but right now I am most passionate about giving back to. Women in the communities that I love communities in Nepal and in Pakistan where I've, you know, really feel at home in the mountains and have spent a lot of time and have great memories there. And it's important to me to give back to those communities, especially the women. I recently started a nonprofit to support women in Nepal and specifically to support their education. It was shocking to me to learn that something like 58% of women in Nepal over the age of 15 have had. Zero education, none at all, which is just, you know, alarming on many levels. But in one regard, they're really the center of a Nepalese family and community. And the fact that there's been no formal education for so many of those women just felt like something that was, that I wanted to impact in a positive way. Passionistas: Where did you grow up and what was your childhood like? Were you always interested in, in, uh, climbing and being outdoors? Lisa: So I grew up in the great mountaineering state of Illinois, where the highest point I believe is 120 feet. And it's so predominant that it actually has a name. Whereas in most states, if that elevation would not be named, so I didn't grow up. Aspiring to be a Mountaineer. I didn't grow up learning or reading about, you know, sir, Edmond Hillary or other sort of pioneering mountaineers. And I wasn't even really that athletic, you know, looking back, I grew up in a small farming community, uh, called Lincoln in the very center of Illinois. You know, every kid sort of makes the, the softball team or the volleyball team. I think there were a couple years where I did not even make it. I was so uncoordinated and unathletic a and I didn't grow up really with parents who pushed me to Excel. You know, I think part of their sort of distance is what motivated me to prove myself and to, you know, you know, back then it was about getting their attention. Lots of time in therapy talking about that. But one of the positives of that I've realized is that it pushed me to really want to Excel and to push myself mentally and physically. And that translated first, you know, I'm still by my account, but only person in my entire extended family to graduate from college, which is sort of sad, you know, to me, but it pushed me to do things that were unexpected. In my community and with my family. And so, you know, going to college was sort of the first step in that direction. I studied engineering, you know, not because I was super interested in it, but because I felt like that seems hard and I can probably make a decent salary when I graduate. And so I was fortunate to get a job with Hewlett Packard right out of college as an engineer, then it was, you know, that was the mid-nineties. I was the only woman at my level. And that taught me a lot. I was certainly not prepared coming from. You know, a very sort of hardworking farming-oriented family. I was not equipped to be thrown into a corporate environment at that age. I was 24. And so there was a lot of sort of flailing and trying to understand dynamics and politics. And I was often the youngest person in the room, the only female in the room. And. Upon reflection. Um, there were definitely some missteps, some things that I just, frankly didn't understand, cuz I was ill-equipped to be in that kind of environment. But one very positive thing that came of that was that through that job, I eventually moved to Seattle, which is where I live today. And here. You know, mountaineering, we're fortunate to be surrounded by the Cascade mountains and the Olympic mountain range. So climbing and mountaineering and just being in the mountains is really part of the culture in Seattle. When I moved here, uh, for that job still with, you know, it wasn't any longer with Hewlett Packard, but it was a derivation of that company. All the men at my level would go climbing on the weekend. And so I had no idea, right? I no, like I'd maybe been camping with my family, but I didn't like know anything about mountaineering. I didn't know what a crampon was. I had no idea the equipment, the gear, the, the, you know, the sort of aesthetic of climbing, nothing. But these men, you know, would go out on the weekends and they would come back to the office on Monday and they had all. You know, incredible stories. And again, it wasn't that I aspired to be in the mountains, but I aspired to be a part of their group. And I wanted them so badly to see me, the only woman on their team as capable and strong. And I wasn't getting that in the office environment. So this seemed like a way to do that. And instead of doing the totally logical thing, which would've been to say. Like oh, climbing. That sounds really cool. Can I come with you or can you tell me more about it? I just got frustrated. I got mad and eventually just decided I was gonna go climb my own damn mountains. And I had no, I again had no idea what that meant, but I started really just hiking around my house in the cascades. And then eventually in 2008, I attempted Mount Rainier, which is the highest mountain in Washington. And after that I was, I was just hooked spite no spite I was hooked at that. Passionistas: Do they know what you've accomplished since then? Lisa: I've lost track of them. I could probably, you know, through a network, get back to them, but I don't, I don't know. Probably not and they probably don't even, you know, these weren't bad guys at all. It just, I think didn't occur to them to ask me to join. And so they probably would have no reason to wonder like, Hey, I wonder if that girl ever climbed any mountains. Passionistas: You started to do this as, you know, a recreational activity, but then at some point that obviously shifted and you started to set these goals for yourself. So what inspired you to climb Mount Rainier and then to take it further from there? Lisa: Yeah, there was something about, so I didn't summit Rainier. My first attempt, the weather sort of turned bad on our second day and retreated. And, and I was relieved in that moment. I was happy cuz I just, I. Again, no idea what I was doing. Although I was with, you know, I was with a guide company and I was safe and all that, but I really just mentally wasn't prepared to be on a mountain and to just feel sort of the vastness of that challenge. And so I went back the next year before I got back to the parking lot in 2008, I was sure I was coming back. I tend to look at climbs like projects. And so even after that first year, I was like, okay, these are, you know, my backpack needs to be lighter. I need to have, you know, not red boots and have my own boots and just little things like that, that I started to like to learn and to, to tweak and adjust what I knew and my gear and my knowledge of the mountain. So I went back in 2009 and summited, and there was a moment, you know, where I sort of it's dark out and you're, you know, you can't really. Appreciate where you're at on the mountain and the sort of vastness of everything around you and the risk of falling. And because all you can see in the dark is just this little tiny circle of light from your headlamp. And so there was a moment where I remember looking what would've been east and seeing the sun just slowly start to split the horizon from the earth and. Just seeing like colors that were so magnificent and awe inspiring and thinking. This is an incredible experience and such a, a daunting place to be that taught me so much, so much humility to be learned in the mountains. When I got to the summit, I just had this incredible sense of accomplishment that I hadn't found anywhere else. I hadn't really gotten it from my parents as a kid. I hadn't gotten it at work. I, you know, graduated from college, any accomplishment I had had in my life until that point hadn't made me feel that way. And I loved that. I still love that climbing is. Obviously a very physical pursuit, but there is an enormous mental challenge that comes with climbing, you know, in any discipline of climbing. And I really loved that combination and I loved the idea of setting. Lofty goal and working hard and accomplishing it. And so I was completely hooked at that point. In two, I was 2009 and ready to just, I did, again, didn't know a lot about what to climb next, but I was sure that I was gonna keep doing it. Passionistas: You know, you were kind of inspired to do it by this being in this male dominated world. When you got to climbing, were there a lot of other women who were in doing what you were doing? Lisa” No. In fact, I, in the beginning was gonna name my book, the only girl, and it has changed. This is, you know, the late 2000s. It is getting better. You know, there's more diversity that the only, and first all black team summited Everest last month, which is incredible to see. And I was fortunate to play a small role in coaching them. So it's changing the dynamics, the face of, of people who enjoy the mountains is changing. But then I was. I don't always is maybe a strong word, but 95% of the time, I was the only woman on the team. And, you know, I was used to being in male dominated arenas, so that wasn't unusual for me, but I think it, you know, being an intense environment like climbing, just sort of heightened all of the challenges that come with that and made them much more potent. And it took me a long time to realize. Or to think about how I showed up in those roles. There was always the, like people doubted and people would say, oh, it's cute. I think you're gonna climb Mount Everest. That's a whole other conversation, but what I tended to think about myself and how I showed up in those situations. And at first I would just be one of the guys, I mean, so much so that they would undress in front of me and not even like, consider that there was a woman standing next to them. On Everest was the first time that I, that just didn't feel authentic to me anymore. It didn't feel right to laugh at crew. That were often, you know, demeaning to women. It didn't feel right to overlook little comments that just didn't sit well with me anymore. And so that was the first time. And there's a moment. And I talk about it in my book where I, you know, all men and I sort of separated myself from them for a minute because it just, I needed to feel like a woman and I needed to feel like myself in that environment. And, you know, at the time it. We're sort of arguing back and forth about my opinion about something versus theirs. But I realize now that it was me sort of stepping into my own strength and my own sort of persona as a woman and saying like this isn't okay anymore. And I'm not gonna just, you know, sit here and let it happen without saying anything. It's still challenging. It's getting better. But yeah, there were a lot of moments there just being, the only woman was a challenge for me. Passionistas: Do you think there are certain qualities that you, as a woman bring to a climb that's different than the male energy of a, of a climb? Lisa: And again, generalizing. Right. But I, I'm fortunate now that I get to coach mountaineers and I coach men and women. Um, and I, you know, I can see those nuances, even as I'm coaching them, women are much more interested in like the mental side. Of taking on a challenge, like a big mountain and making sure that they're very well rounded in their preparations. They wanna make sure that they're understanding the route. You know, they know where the challenges will be and that mentally they have the tools to get through them. And men generally, again, not always the case, but often just like they wanna like train and work hard and do all the runs and all the hikes and all the preparation climbs. And don't often sort of step back and say, There's a whole other side of this. There's a whole other, you know, facet to climbing big mountains. And, you know, my experience is that when you look at everything holistically is when you're the most prepared and when you're the most successful. And I think even on the mountains, you know, it's tough, there's difficult situations. And I find that women often add just a little bit more compassion to those situations. A little bit more empathy. and sometimes that's what you need to get through something that's difficult. So there's my experience. Yeah. There's a big difference between what men and women bring to those situations. Passionistas: So you, you have the successful Mount Rainier climb in 2009. What happens next? And how do you kind of plan where you go next? Lisa: Yeah, so I didn't do a lot of planning. I just knew, I knew I wanted to keep climbing more challenging things and there's, you know, back in the eighties, I believe it was a couple of mountaineers society. It would be really cool to climb to the highest peak of every single continent. And so I thought, okay, I'll just start doing that. You know, I don't know what to do. I picked the easiest, one of those, which was in Russia, a Mount called Elbrus and was successful there. So I thought, okay, well, Keep sort of on that track and climbing in the cascades as well, sort of, you know, like thinking, okay, I wanna be more independent and learn different skills, like building anchors and self-arrest and rope management. And so I, I would take excursions on the weekends locally to do those things. And then about once a year I would climb something big somewhere else in the world. And I was on that track and I had sort of decided. Mount Everest was kind of the next logical thing for me to climb just in terms of skill and difficulty. And at the time I felt like, oh, Everest is so commercial and there must be more interesting mountains in the Himalaya to climb. And so I had decided, and this really is a big moment. I think, in any mountaineers' career I had decided I was ready to climb in the Himalaya. So, you know, the Himalaya is this huge mountain range that bisects Asia and. It's special for a lot of reasons, but one is that. Most of the highest mountains in the world are there. And when we say high, in terms of mountaineering, we're talking about any mountain that's higher than 26,000 feet or 8,000 meters. And there's only 14 of those in the world. And so I, in 2015 thought, okay, I think I'm ready. Like I'm ready to try an easy one and just see how it goes. So. I picked that mountain, which is called Montes SL. And I was just beginning to prepare for it when I was diagnosed with cancer, you know, we, we've already established that. I'm a very stubborn person and I was a little cocky, you know, I was 42 years old. I thought and, and an athlete, like I ate organic vegetables. I wore my seatbelt. I floss my teeth. Like I, all those things that you are, you are taught to believe will keep you healthy. I thought I was doing it turns out I had a tremendous amount of stress in my job, which is, you know, like looking back and sort of analyzing how my body could get reacted that way to an external thing. It probably was a lot of stress at work, but nonetheless, I was diagnosed with breast cancer at the beginning of 2015. I was determined. Not to let cancer dictate my priorities so much so that I sat with my surgeon and said like, is there any way we could just postpone this whole cancer thing? Like, can we just like, how much could those tumors really grow in eight months? Like I just go do this climb and I'll come back and then you can do whatever you want with my body. When I get back and she very compassionately said that that would be a full hearty decision. I always remember that she used that word. And so I was very fortunate that I was able to get rid of the tumors in my, uh, breast with a bilateral mastectomy from which I did at the beginning in April of 2015. And I was, I mean, determination. Isn't a big enough word for how focused I was on getting my body ready to still travel to Nepal and attempt Montes SL. That autumn. And so I went, um, I was not, I was not a hundred percent. I had all, you know, all my doctors, all my care, healthcare providers knew what I was up to. They all thought I was a little bit crazy, but I had their support to be there. And. You know, their cell phone numbers, if anything went weird. And luckily it didn't, I didn't summit Manaslu in 2015, there was an avalanche above our camp. And, you know, the team felt that it just wasn't safe to continue. So we all turned around and I, I firmly believe that mountains and, you know, nature teaches us things. And so. When I got home, I, you know, I just sort of did some reflection about that climb. And I think sometimes you learn the most when you're not successful when you don't summit. But I realized that, you know, life is so fragile and that it's up to us. Each of us to define the lives that we will live. And so I became determined then to sort of reprioritize my life. My pause, my corporate career actually got a divorce and I decided to climb Mount Everest at that point. And, uh, went back to Nepal in 2016 to do that. Passionistas: So talk about that. Talk about preparing for that and you know, and the mental preparation, especially. Lisa: I learned a lot on Monte SL again, you know, success doesn't always mean you, you gain the most from a situation. And so I learned what my body was capable of. I knew that if I was healthy and trained, that I could be even stronger. And so I, I started working with a sports psychologist to really dig into the mental aspects. I was still a little bit unsure about what my body could do, you know, I, I, and I had. Probably four more surgeries before I went to Everest for reconstruction. So I depended a lot on a sports psychologist to just help me understand why Everest was important to me, what my body was capable of. To give me some really important tools that I use still today when things get difficult in the mountains to have something to focus on and to sort of rationalize what's going on around me and break it down into manageable chunks. So that was hugely helpful. I worked with a, a climbing coach as well to get me ready. You know, it was a very tumultuous time in my life as I was preparing to climb the most difficult mountain that I had climbed to that point. I was in the middle of getting a divorce. I wasn't sure I wanted to keep working. My dog died. Like all these, just so many things happened and looking back. It felt like just a really big reset, like the universe sort of saying, like, you know, that was your life then before cancer, and this is your chance to find your life after cancer. You know, that really is a big gift. I always think that cancer, I am grateful today in the moment I was not, but today I'm grateful for cancer because it showed me so many things about priorities and what life is about and how I want to spend it. I know that there's a book worth of conversation to be had, if not more about actually climbing Mount Everest, but kind of in general, what was the experience like? Passionistas: What was the biggest challenge that you faced in, in the midst of that experience? Lisa: Yeah, so climbing a big mountain, like Everest, I'll just provide a quick sort of background as to how it even. You know, it's, those mountains are so big, right? Your, your body could not possibly function. Even if you're breathing supplemental oxygen. It's not as easy as just walking to base camp and then starting to climb. There's a whole process of a climatization. Where you start at one camp climb to the next highest camp and then return to that first camp. And then you repeat that process gradually moving up the mountain, and that allows your body to change physiologically, to build more red blood cells so that you can survive at those higher elevations. And so for me on Everest as I was going through that process, I really felt in sync with the mountain in contrast to K2, which I'm sure we'll talk about in a little bit, but I really felt like things just went smoothly. I felt like the mountain and I were working together and that we sort of [00:23:00] shared a level of respect. That, you know, ultimately ultimately allowed me to be successful, but that doesn't mean there weren't difficult moments. I recall climbing from camp three to camp four and it had been very, very windy. So, you know, hadn't slept at all the night before was lying in a very cramped tent. That was my side of the tent was actually can levered over the side of the mountain because it, you know, it was so steep. And, you know, a lot of emotional, like, is it too windy? You know, are we gonna have a chance to summit? We need to descend. And then it's a very quick decision by our team to like, we look, it looks like we have a window. We're gonna go up. I had sort of envisioned like having this moment to like get ready. And that was none of that. It was very rushed and harried and chaotic. And I, I walk out of the tent and I clip into the fixed rope with my, with my harness. and it was so incredibly windy that it kept blowing me over. And I remember these moments of just hearing the wind coming towards me from my left side, and then just lying face down on the ice to let it pass me by before I could continue. And that luckily subsided after, I don't know, a couple of hours or something. And, and then. I got to what I knew was gonna be the easiest part of that day, which is sort of a flat section that curves to the left towards a rock feature called the yellow band. And the yellow band is about 25 degrees. So it's not super steep. It's limestone. It would actually be fun to climb it at sea level, but as I'm walking towards it, I realize that I'm moving so slow and I'm actually. Like I get distracted by someone's glove, rolling down the ice. And my friend came up from behind me is like, what, you know, what do you what's going on? And I was like, I don't know. I just, I just wanna like lay down and I had run out of oxygen. So my brain and my, my muscles were not getting the oxygen that they needed to continue. I had a couple, I had a decision to make, I had a few choices in that moment. I could have turned around and gone back to camp three and said, you know, my climbs over or looked for more oxygen. I could have sat there in the snow and asked someone, probably a Sherpa to bring me more oxygen where I could have kept going. And. Those first two options just didn't feel right to me. And so I continued climbing. I will never forget. So climbing this relatively, you know, at sea level, easy section of rock and telling myself to just focus on the climber ahead of me and to never let him outta my sight, like just, he's not gonna get outta my site no matter what it takes. And I don't know how long it took me. I, you know, everything got really fuzzy at that moment. And I was still safe. I still had people around me and people knew that I didn't have oxygen, but I, that made that situation made me realize that we are so much stronger mentally than we believe or that, that we give ourselves credit for, because my body was literally like, it didn't have the gas that needed to continue. And it was just, I think my mind is pushing me, just willing myself forward to get through that situation. And the best feeling in the world. Like I hope nobody has to experience that, but I can't tell you how sweet it is to not have oxygen and have oxygen. Like, as soon as I got a fresh bottle, it was like, the world was right again. So a challenging moment. But like I said, I think mountains teach us things and you know, it taught me that I sort of have this untapped tool in my, you know, mental capacity that I really. You know, even now I feel like there's so much more potential to hone that skill of being mentally strong. Passionistas: We're Amy and Nancy Harrington and you're listening to the Passionistas Project Podcast in our interview with Lisa Thompson. To learn more about her adventures and get a copy of her book, “Finding Elevation,” visit Lisaclimbs.com. We'd like to take a moment to share a special announce. We'll be hosting the third annual Power of Passionistas Summit, this September 21st through September 23rd, 2022. The three-day virtual event is focused on authentic conversations about diversity, equity and inclusion. This unique gathering of intersectional storytellers and panelists harnesses the power of our rich community of passionate thought leaders and activists to pose solutions to the problems plaguing women today. Early bird tickets are on sale now at bit.ly/2022PowerofPassionistasTickets. We'd like to thank our sponsors — Melanie Childers, Natural Born Rebel, The Ossa Collective, Tea Drops, Aaron's Coffee Corner, Flourishing Over Fifty, Edith Espanola, Mermaid's Garden, Sara Fins Coaching, and Tara McCann Wellness. Now here's more of our interview with Lisa. That process of getting in tune with the mountain and going back and forth to the different camps. How long does that take? Lisa: It takes about a month, maybe six weeks. It just depends on weather and how fast people are moving People climbing in sort of the standard style climbing, big mountains and 8,000 meter peaks. Usually it takes about six weeks to, to two months to, to do that. So it's a long time. Passionistas: In 2017, you actually won an Emmy for something related to the Everest climb. Lisa: Right? So we, so this is totally serendipitous. So the expedition leader is named Garrett Madison He had endeavored to capture our climb in virtual reality, you know, technology has changed a lot since 2016. And so the way we did it was to strap all these GoPros sort of in a sphere and then carry that on a wand up the mountain and thereby, you know, create this 360 degree view. Of our climb. And then later some very smart people stitched that together and actually made it a virtual reality film, which is called capturing Everest. And, you know, I didn't know that was gonna happen when I signed up for that climb. There were, you know, a lot of. Sort of deals made and, and it just happened to be purchased by sports illustrated, um, and turned into this really cool documentary that later won an Emmy, not for my acting prowess, surprisingly, but for just the technology. It was the first time that anyone had captured virtual reality footage in that kind of an environment. You can find it on the sports illustrated website and on their app. And it's really, it's really fun if even if you don't have a headset, you can watch it in 360-degree video with your phone. And I will tell you, it will make you dizzy. Like even me having been there, it is very, very real to watch people, you know, climbing or walking across the ladder or climbing a steep part of, of the, the mountain. So I feel. You know, never in my life, if you've said like you could win an Emmy, I would like never thought that. So it was a really, really cool experience and cool to be able to just share that in a very tangible way, with cool technology, to people who, you know, may never endeavor to climb. But now get to have a little bit of a taste of what it's like. Passionistas: So that same year in 2017, you, um, became the first all American women to summit K2. So how did that differ from climbing Mount Everest and what unique challenges did you face on that? Lisa: Yeah. So it was 2017. I, I endeavored to go to K2 for the first time. My team actually fell apart. And so I didn't climb that mountain that year. I went back in 2018 and in 2017, the first American woman did summit. And I felt like, you know, I, I, this is still an important climb for me. It's something. I think being the first is very cool. I think not being the only is even cooler. And so it was important to me to just sort of continue showing what women could do in the mountains. So K2 is the second highest mountain in the world. It's about 800 feet shorter than Mount Everest. K2 is in Pakistan. It's on the border between China and Pakistan. Most people, like if I'm at a dinner party and you know, someone finds out that I've climbed Everest, they get super excited and they wanna know what that's like, and I'll say, yeah, but I climbed this other mountain called K2, which is actually like really, really hard. And they're like, yeah. But tell me about Everest. Did you see any dead people? So most people don't even know. You know, not even heard of K2, it's in a much more remote part of the world. For example, you know, the, the walk to Everest space camp is, you know, in a lovely valley, there are tea houses. There are commercial helicopters. There is an emergency room at Everest space camp. There is none of that. In the Karakoram mountain range in Pakistan, you are farther from any kind of definitive medical care that you'll probably ever be in your life. And that, you know, would involve a Pakistani army helicopter ride to a small hospital in a remote village. So it's, it's much more remote. The weather on K2 is also much more fickle. So it's, you know, known for just monster storms that sort of whip out of nowhere, dump a lot of snow. Cause avalanches. K2 is also steep from like the second you leave base camp. It is just unrelentingly steep and it is also known for a lot of rock fall. So you can imagine that my family was super excited to hear about me. Deciding to climb this mountain, I had just, you know, beat cancer. My father was diagnosed with cancer when I was climbing Mount Everest and, and died about a month after I got home. And so I sort of promised him that K2 would be the last, really dangerous mountain that I climbed. I was very determined to give it a go in 2018. And, and I was so fortunate that. Everything aligned, you know, the, I had a great team, the weather was decent and we were able to make it work. And, and, you know, and I mentioned earlier that I felt very in sync with Mount Everest and on K2. I felt every day like that mountain was trying to kill me, you know, in the form of rock falls in the form of other climbers dying. I just never really felt like I was in sync with that mountain. And there was a moment where again, climbing steep rock much steeper than the rock I describe on Everest. It's a section of the route called the Black Pyramid and it's at 25,000. And so in this moment I'm wearing a down suit. I'm actually breathing bottled oxygen because the climbing is so difficult and I'm attached to a rope. And that section of the mountain is sort of really like chunky, just unstable rock and there's snow and ice. And I wanted to quit. Like I wanted to just turn around. I fantasized about like reversing my direction on the rope and I thought I could be. Back at base camp in a couple of days, and I could get a helicopter to Islamabad and I could take a proper shower and like eat, you know, I'd really just let, like all the things my sports psychologist told me not to do. I just really let that real like play out. I wanted to turn around and I remember, you know, from somewhere there was a voice in my head that said, is this all you were capable of? And I realized that it was not all that I was capable of, that I was, you know, I was frustrated and I was tired and I was mad at myself, but I was capable of more. And so I kept just. Putting one hand above the other one foot above the other. And I knew that would be the hardest point in the mountain. And once I got past that, you know, the, the rocks were relented and it was more snow, which is my comfort zone, but there were many, many moments where I wanted to quit. So then what did that moment feel like when you finally reached the. So I remember climbing. So a couple days after that scene that I described with the Black Pyramid and we attempted the summit and, you know, the night before the summit, you're sort of, you're laying, I was laying in a tent with two other men in the middle position wearing my down suit boots. Like you don't really sleep. You just sort of lay there for a few hours, like waiting and breathing bottle oxygen. I had this sort of like checklist in my mind of like making sure that I had food in the right places, on my, down, in my down suit that I had like turned on my GPS device, like going through all those sort of pre-flight checklist things. And then we, we left for the summit and it's dark out and I knew the climbing initially would not be. The steepest part. I knew it would be a little bit chill for a bit, and then it was gonna get steeper. And I had, you know, that sort of pre-flight checklist. I had put new batteries in my headlamp. And as I'm climbing, I realize that the batteries are about are dying. They're dimmer than everyone else is. And I say, I'm fine. I have a, I have a spare set. It's close to my body. So they're not frozen. I stop, you know, with thick gloves, like fumble around, finally get the batteries in there. Good. Keep climbing, catch up with my team. And it happens again. And I don't have a spare and I can't expect anybody else to give me their spare. They're sort of, you know, they're sort of ethic and climbing that. You need to be self-sufficient up there. You can't rely on anybody else. And so I remember screaming at the guy in front of me, Rob Smith, a fantastic guy from Ireland, and he gave me his spare batteries. You know, it's very delicate exchange, right? If you can imagine we're in these thick gloves, we're on the side of a mountain, it's dark. And I just remember him like pushing that battery into the palm of my glove. And I remember thinking if you dropped this, that's it. The reason it was, I mean, obviously it was important to see, but we were about to cross, what's called the bottleneck traverse on K2, which is, you know, it's actually flat, but it's about, it's less than one boot width. And so you're walking and there's like two miles of air beneath you. And so you cannot make a mistake there. You obviously cannot have compromised vision there. And so literally without Rob's help, I would not have. I wouldn't have made it. And that moment, you know, several hours later, I got to the summit and I remember it was it's light out now and I'm climbing by myself and it's, it's very, um, unconsolidated snow. So I'm sort of take one step and, you know, I'm, I'm putting my boot print in other people's path. So there's a little sort of steps there and sometimes they would just break and you would just slide down and, you know, it's just incredibly frustrating and you exert a lot of energy. But I looked up and I saw where the snow met the horizon. I saw bright colors and I thought, that's it. Like those are other peoples standing there at the summit. And more than anything, I wanted to cry in that moment. But I was like, do not cry. Like you you're not there yet. And just to sort of bring things full circle I had, after my father died, I had, you know, carried his ashes to like every mountain. Sprinkle them on the top. And it was a very, you know, just peaceful sort of full circle moment to spread the last of his ashes on the summative K2, which is, you know, he never in his life could have imagined traveling to Pakistan. So it was fun to just sort of, not only to have him with me, but to be able to share that with him as well was really special. Passionistas: What is the coming down like physically and emotionally? Lisa: So, I'm glad you asked that question, Amy, because most people and I was very, very conscious of writing about this in my book because the summit is halfway like it is literally halfway and more mountaineering accidents occur on the dissent. Then then climbing up and that's because you're tired. Many people push beyond what they're capable of. You're you know, just logistically you're facing away from the mountain. Oftentimes gravity is not working in your favor. And so the dissent to me is very. Harrowing like it's I very consciously at the top of, at any big mountain do not celebrate because it is, you're not done. There is still a lot more work to do. And on K2 in particular, you know, we talked a little bit about like that moment on Everest, where I felt like I was sort of stepping into my own strength and on K2, I'm [00:41:00] descending, very steep ice face and. There are ropes there. And one rope is meant for climbers coming up. There are still some climbers ascending, and the other rope is meant for climbers who are descending. Another climber had, uh, started to ascend the rope that I was about to use to go down. And I scream at him. You know, he's very, he's far down the slope. He can't hear me. He's just sort of laying there. And I sort of looked, my friend Garrett was next to me and he recommended that I descend. Using not the most secure technique, a, a technique arm wrapping where you wrap the rope around your arm and you, um, you're connected to that rope with a safety carabiner. It's locked, but you lean forward and just walk face first down the mountain. And I had done it many times, but, but I, it just didn't feel right. To do it then. And I didn't even, I don't even know where this voice came from, but I just told him no, like I'm not, that's not how I'm gonna do that this today. And so I, you know, set up my repel device, which takes longer, is much safer, but you know, takes longer repel down to this man who's laying face first and the ice, not, he wasn't response, he was alive. I could, you know, he was alive. He did survive by the way, just before I get too far in the story. But he wasn't responsive to my, you know, yelling at him, trying to get him to move. And so I had to execute this very, very delicate sequence of moving my gear, you know, establishing a safe anchor, moving my gear around him on what I know, because I, you know, study this mountain intimately is. The place on that mountain where most people have died and thankfully it went well and he survived and, you know, I was able to continue, but that was a moment that, to me, that just underscores that [00:43:00] the dissent is so in some ways more important than the ascent in terms of difficulty. And that, that moment looking back, or I said to my friend, Garrett, like, that's not how I'm gonna do this today. I really felt like was pivotal in terms of me, sort of, this is a man that I've climbed with for years. I've always trusted him. He knows my capability. And so for me to just, you know, take a different tact, I think was, you know, just more of me, like stepping into my own voice and strength in the mountains, which is a good feeling. Passionistas: Can you compare for us the fear that you faced being diagnosed with cancer versus the fear you faced on a mountain like that? Lisa: Knowing how dangerous it is and if those are different and if you have the same or different tools to deal with both. Yeah, that's an awesome question. They feel to me like somatically, they feel very different. I feel like different kinds of fear. When I was diagnosed with cancer, I felt completely unprepared to deal with that scenario. It was not anything that I ever thought I would have to encounter or deal with in my life. And I felt out of control. I felt like, you know, my body was, had turned against me initially. I, you know, before I had a team of people to support me, I felt alone. And without like a path or a, you know, a guide to get me through this situation. And luckily that changed and I found incredible healthcare. It felt much scarier to be diagnosed with cancer in the mountains. I feel like, you know, I have, I understand what I can control and I have the skills to get myself through it. And I think fear for sure in the mountains. I, I believe that a little bit of fear is a good thing because I think that it keeps you focused. It keeps me alert to what's going on around me. If the weather's changing, if the route is changing, if. You know, someone climbing above me that doesn't look super safe, that little bit of fear sharpens my awareness too much fear. I think in the mountains and in fighting cancer can be stifling. And I think it can actually, you know, sort of stop you from progressing. But that's a, a really important question because they, for me are very different flavors of fear. Passionistas: So what's the next big challenge for you? Lisa: Yeah. So we talked about it a little bit in the beginning. I don't endeavor. I don't have any desire to climb anything more challenging than K2 in my life, but I do wanna keep climbing and it's become more important to me to give back to the communities, particularly in Nepal and in Pakistan, where I have just learned so much about myself and gotten so much from them personally. So I wanna, I wanna start to give back to those communities and in particular to the women who, who live in those communities. So along with some female mountaineering friends of mine, we were setting up a philanthropic climb for this fall to a mountain called Cholatse which is in, uh, Nepal. It's about 6,800 meters. It will not be the hardest mountain we've ever climbed. But the point is that we just wanna show that anything is possible when women support one another in the mountains. And so to us, that means. That our team will be fully comprised of women. I don't know if that's ever happened before. I think there've been some all women's climbs that maybe had support from men, but, and not that we don't like men, but like we just wanna show that women can do everything in the mountains that a man can do. And so we're building that team. We're super lucky to have a great, uh, Nepalese uh, climbing leader. Pasang Lama. She's helping us create a team of all women to, to cook, to carry loads, to plan, to do everything. And we just think it's an incredible sort of opportunity to raise some money for at least one, depending on how, how fundraising goes maybe more, but we want to. We're soliciting input for Nepalese women who have some educational related goal in their life. So if they wanna learn a trade, if they wanna open a tea house, um, if they weren't wanna learn about economics, like we want to be able, we wanna be the catalyst that helps that woman learn those skills so that she can better not just her life. But I think, you know, that sort of has this trickle-down effect and has the potential to positively impact generations. So. I'm, you know, just beyond excited to be a part of this team and we'll see where it goes. We'd love to do it, you know, multiple years, but we're all, you know, just we're dedicated and excited to, to climb with a purpose now. Passionistas: So what inspired you to write your book "Finding Elevation"? Lisa: I had always wanted to write, which I studied engineering in college, you know? I felt like I was very far away from that as, as an adult, but as a kid, I had a desire to write. And in my twenties, I tried out different topics. You know, none of them just sort of seemed to fit. And then when I was diagnosed with cancer, I really relied on journaling to, to get me through that and to be this, you know, sort of outlet for everything that I was feeling. And. Probably two years of journaling, I sort of realized that there were a lot of things that I had encountered that seemed to translate to other people. You know, that if I could share what I had learned, the hard way with another woman that maybe, you know, she would have an easier path than I did. And so it became really important for me to share. Um, and, and, you know, at the time I thought this will just be about cancer. And then as I continued to climb and I continued to learn more about myself and what I'm capable of and how to overcome obstacles, how to find your voice. Most of that through K2, it, it just really turned into a much bigger project than just journaling. . What was the thing you learned about yourself from writing the book that maybe surprised you the. I think I learned a lot about my childhood when I was writing. Um, I, and I, you know, I spent a year studying memoir at the university of Washington, and I remember like my, there was nothing about my childhood in, in an early draft. And my instructor was like, you can't leave that out. Like that's a part of, and I was like, yeah, but it wasn't, you know, it wasn't super, like, it's kind of painful for me. I really don't wanna put it in here. Um, and of course it, you know, needs to be a more balanced story, et cetera, etcetera. And so by me sort of digging through that, I realized, you know, this sort of these traits that I have today and where they came from. And there was a lot of therapy in there as well. And it made me realize that, you know, something that. Because I said, my parents, you know, were not very reliable. They weren't always around. And, and that made me a very independent person. Um, there's certainly some downsides to that, but I think there's, I think there's always a silver lining. There's always some positive. Outcome, even of bad situations. And we often just have to look a little bit harder, like, you know, dig a little bit deeper to find them. But those I think are, you know, the real nuggets and like where, where we really learn why we are the way we are. Passionistas: Thanks for listening to our interview with Lisa Thompson, to learn more about her adventures and get a copy of her book, finding elevation, visit LisaClimbs.com Please visit ThePassionistasProject.com to learn more about our podcast and subscription box filled with products made by women owned businesses and female artisans to inspire you to follow your Passions. Double your first box when you sign up for a one year subscription. Remember to sign up for our mailing list, to get more information about the Power of Passionistas Summit at bit.ly/2022PowerofPassionistasTickets. And be sure to subscribe to the Passionistas Project Podcast, so you don't miss any of our upcoming inspiring guests. Until next time stay well and stay passionate.

Tia Lessen and Emma Pildes are the directors of the new HBO documentary The Janes. Tia is an Oscar nominee for her work on HBO's Troubled the Water and Emma is an Emmy nominee for HBO's Jane Fonda in Five Acts. Their new film, The Janes, tells a story of a group of unlikely outlaws, defying the state legislature that outlawed abortion, the Catholic church that condemned it and the Chicago mob that was profiting from it. The members of The Janes risked their personal and professional lives to help women in the pre-Roe versus Wade era, a time when abortion was a crime in most states and even circulating information about abortion was a felony in Illinois. The Janes provided low cost and free abortions to an estimated 11,000 women. A raid in which seven members of the collective were arrested, became the driving force for Roe vs. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion nationwide in 1973 and is inevitably going to be reversed in the United States in 2022. Learn more about The Janes. Learn more about The Passionistas Project. FULL TRANSCRIPT: The Passionistas: Hi, and welcome to The Passionistas Project Podcast, where we talk with women who are following their passions to inspire you to do the same. We're Amy and Nancy Harrington, and today we're talking with Tia lessen and Emma Pildes, the directors of the new HBO documentary "The Janes." Tia is an Oscar nominee for her work on HBO's "Troubled the Water" and Emma is an Emmy nominee for HBO's "Jane Fonda in Five Acts." Their new film, "The Janes," tells a story of a group of unlikely outlaws, defying the state legislature that outlawed abortion, the Catholic church that condemned it and the Chicago mob that was profiting from it. The members of The Janes risked their personal and professional lives to help women in the pre-Roe versus Wade era, a time when abortion was a crime in most states and even circulating information about abortion was a felony in Illinois. The Janes provided low cost and free abortions to an estimated 11,000women. A raid in which seven members of the collective were arrested, became the driving force for Roe vs. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion nationwide in 1973 and is inevitably going to be reversed in the United States in 2022. So please welcome to the show Tia Lessin and Emma Pildes. We'd like to begin by asking you both what you're most passionate about. Let's start with you Emma. Emma Pildes: My skillset when I'm good at what I've worked hard to be good at being a filmmaker to lift up stories like these in moments like these, to give a platform for in this case, these extraordinary women to testify about things that are important. I'm passionate about using my powers for good. I think this is what I'm saying,  but I mean, you know, that's it, we, we, there's so many things in this world that I can't do and I'm here and this is a path that I've chosen and I want to make something of it. The Passionistas: What about you, Tia? Tia Lessin: I'm passionate about storytelling. I'm passionate about democracy and passionate about my 11 year old son and living with. A good world in the future. I'm passionate about women's rights and racial justice and economic equality. I'm passionate about making pottery, which is something I do when I'm not making films and making dinner for my kid. The Passionistas: Tell everybody who The Janes are. Tia Lessin: The Janes are a group of infinitely resourceful women in the late sixties and early seventies. At a time when abortion was illegal and most of the country, they decided to challenge that they went underground. This was a group of pretty unlikely outlaws. They were college students and college dropouts and homemakers and clerical workers, and they knew that they wanted to use their resources and their time to save women's lives and to make safe and affordable abortions accessible to women in Chicago and actually women throughout the Midwest who flocked to them at that time who had few options when they wanted to end their pregnancies. And one other thing I'll say is that they defied the Catholic church. They defied the Mob, they defied and invaded the Chicago police for many, many years and used all sorts of underground tactics and techniques. To build this sisterhood of care. The Passionistas: What compelled you to make the film? Why tell this story now? Emma Pildes: Three years after Roe became law of the [00:04:00] land, the Hyde amendment passed. They've been chipping away at abortion access and abortion care and reproductive justice from the get-go. So I suppose in some way, anywhere along the way in the last few years, this film would have been important and relevant. It certainly switched into hyperdrive in 2016 when Trump got into office and immediately started packing the courts and his rhetoric was all over the place and ideologues were more and more in government and in the courts, it got scary in a new way. And Daniel Arcana, one of the other producers on the film started developing, daniel also happens to be my brother and we have a family connection to this story. So he sort of had this in his back pocket and it was pretty clear that now is the time I don't think he knew, or we knew as we came together quite how timely it was going to be. You know, I don't think we could have ever predicted that in the same month that we're premiering on HBO. We are going to lose Roe. So I would not go so far as to say we got lucky with that, because that is certainly not the case. You know, we wanted to tell a historical tale because it seemed important. And to give these women a voice and it seemed important that it was starting to become relevant, but never could we have imagined that it would be quite so relevant, but we're just grateful to have something to contribute to the conversation. And we feel really fortunate and humble to tell these women's story. The Passionistas: Beyond the abortions themselves, what were the legal risks that The Janes were taking and what did you learn from talking to them the reasons that they felt it was so important to do what they were doing at the time? Tia Lessin: Well, they were risking charges of abortion and conspiracy to commit abortion. Actually at that time, even advertising their services was a felony crime assisting a woman to get an abortion was a felony crime holding her hand during an abortion was a felony. So it wasn't just providing the service, the medical service. It was everything around it that could have landed them in prison and almost did, were it not for Roe. So look, they were well aware of the potential consequences of their actions, not to mention the social stigmatization that they potentially faced from friends and family members, because at that time, it wasn't a socially acceptable thing and still to this day. So they were willing to risk all that professional loss, personal loss time in prison because they so believed that this was a moral obligation to stand up, to help make sure that women had this ability to control their own fates, to decide when and whether, and with whom to have children. And they were highly influenced by the civil rights movement and the anti-war movement and the student movement and the women's liberation movement, of course, where they had a righteous calling against racism and economic injustice and the killing of innocent people in the unjust war. And I think all that experience gave them the grounding to do this political work. And it was work, not just taking a political stand, not just signing a petition, but actually doing this day in day out work to, to create this group of mutual aid. The Passionistas: What were the advantages of this collective being an organization run almost completely by women? Emma Pildes: I can't remember Katie's exact quote at the beginning of the film, but she's basically saying, because nobody pays any attention to us as women that, you know, really worked hard advantage in this instance. And I think that's really true. I mean, they're so smart. They sort of utilize that as a superpower to be under the radar with this. I think there's probably a lot of things I think quite highly of women, what they're capable of and what their super powers. So there's quite a lot that they brought to the table from being mothers or not being mothers from not talking, but listening and all of those other movements, because they weren't sort of allowed to talk. I mean, they probably soaked up quite a bit of knowledge. They're being marginalized and they picked that up and they brought that with them and they use that to their advantage. So these are brilliant moral human beings. That as Tia said were really willing to put it on the line to help other people in need, no matter what the consequence is and that bravery, I mean, I don't know that there's, that's, that's something extraordinary. The Passionistas: We're Amy and Nancy Harrington and you're listening to The Passionistas Project Podcast in our interview with Tia Lessin and Emma Pildes. qatch their documentary, "The Janes" on HBO and HBO. Max. We'd like to take a moment to share a special announcement. We'll be hosting the third annual power of Passionistas summit this September 21st through September 23rd, 2022. And. The three-day virtual event is focused on authentic conversations about diversity, equity, and inclusion, this unique gathering of intersectional storytellers and panelists partisans, the power of our rich community, a passionate thought leaders and activists to pose solutions to the problems plaguing women today. Early bird tickets go on sale on June 21st. To learn more, visit The Passionistas Project dot com backslash 2022 dash summit. We'd like to thank our sponsors: Natural Born Rebel Melanie Childers Tea Drops The Ossa Collective Aaron's Coffee Corner Flourishing Over 50 Edith Espanola Mermaids Garden Sarah Fins Coaching and Tara McCann Wellness. Now here's more of our interview with Tia and Emma. Abortion became legal in New York what were the effects on women of color or poor women even after that momentous event? Tia Lessin: It was true then. And it's still true that when women have to cross state lines for legal abortions, certain women, certain people are left behind large groups of people. People that can't afford to travel, they can't afford the cost of a plane ticket or a bus. And they don't have access to a car or take a gas, you know, or they don't have a place to put their children because many of these were already mothers looking to terminate, maybe the fourth or fifth or sixth pregnancy, or they didn't have the luxury of taking time off of work. And so this was primarily low-income women and young women, disproportionally brown and black women who were stuck, you know, they were left behind. And their very best option. And it was quite a good one was to turn to Jane the worst option. People who didn't have the resourcefulness or the luck or the connections to find Jane turned to the mob or to back-alley abortionists or, and if they couldn't find that they may have self-inflicted some harm, they might've tried to self induce. And a lot of those women have. In the septic abortion, where to cook county hospital, which is a dumping ground from all over Chicago, for women who presented with bleeding or injury from a induced abortion. And when they got there, they were interrogated by police who had done this to them. And if they were lucky enough to survive, you know, to live another day, that was great. But many of them didn't, many of them work damaged beyond repair and too many. And just to be clear, this is for a very simple medical procedure. We're talking about a procedure that is commonplace one in four people of childbearing age with a uterus, have an abortion. And we're talking about a procedure that's safer than a colonoscopy and a tonsillectomy, and is far safer than childbirth. They're not dying because there's anything inherently dangerous about the procedure they were dying because they couldn't get one safely in a clinic situation. Emma Pildes: The amount of women that died and were injured up against how safe the procedure is makes you realize how little the practitioners out there at the time cared. That's a tough pill to swallow. Nobody should be dying from this procedure when you're in a country where the government is saying that they don't value women's lives. I guess that's not surprising how unscrupulous the people out there in the back alleys. Some were doctors that were in it for themselves who injured, murdered, sexually assaulted sterilized women. It's just, just none of that has to be the case here. So, yes, it's a, it's an incredibly simple procedure that a group of young, some of them are 19 years old. We're able to take on and do safely just because they cared. The Passionistas: What's the lesson that we can learn from the film in the midst of the current situation with Roe vs. Wade? Tia Lessin: The remarkable thing about Roe vs. Wade is that it created federal protection for abortion. That means that every state had to subject career and other respect a woman's right to choose. And without Roe V Wade, as we see, you know, it's every woman for herself, your healthcare is dictated by your zip code and the state you live in and whether or not the people representing your state in the state legislature give a damn about women's autonomy and women's choice, or want to use that issue for politically. So what's going to happen. What's clear. It's not a question of, if it's a question of when Roe V. Wade is overturned and it in this month is that large swaths of this country are gonna be without abortion care, like existed. pre-Roe only, in some ways there are much more punitive consequences for women and the providers who serve them. People are subject to criminal prosecution. If they cross state lines for the spinach. Doctors potentially are subject to that prosecution for serving patients out of state. And everyday citizens are being incentivized with bounties to turn in their neighbors and friends and colleagues. If they suspect that person has had an abortion it's madness, none of those laws existed pre-Roe. In Ohio, there's a bill under consideration that prohibits abortion in cases of incest and rape, because the legislator who defended it says, you know, there's, there's always contraception in the case of rape and incest. Anyway. So in the context, I think we're [00:16:00] hoping that the story helps to pass on some of the lessons learned from that era and engage audiences in the fight. The Passionistas: How did the Janes feel about what's happening right now? Tia Lessin: Neither of us would put words in their mouth. Emma Pildes: It's a dangerous thing to do. Tia Lessin: They've been interviewed and they've been on stage when we've heard them enough to be able to say that they are in fighting shape. Look, 50 years ago is a long time, but they've moved on in their lives. And many of them are in retirement and tending their gardens and their grandchildren. And Eleanor is in a quilting circle. And, you know, they're all doing their own thing. They are ready to fight. And they're using this film as a vehicle to do that. I mean, they're speaking out, they're speaking loudly, they're offering up whatever wisdom they've gained. And they're also really very happy to pass the baton to the next generation of young people who really have to take this on and fight the fight. The stakes are very high and it involves their lives. So they're happy and mad as what I'd say. The Passionistas: Do you think there'll be a new movement of Janes? Do you think there are already women out there who are coming together to be prepared to do this hard work? Emma Pildes: Yeah, I think there's a lot of people coming together to do this hard work. I don't think we know exactly what form it's going to take. The conservative right. Has gotten very creative in the last 50 years, but we have to, you know, and we have the abortion pill now, which is a big leg up, you know? I mean, it's really, it's, it's a big difference. We have the internet. That's a big difference probably for good and bad, but that's a big difference. So I think what's clear is that people care that was evident from the. I think that will people up a bit. I don't think it's enough yet. And what we hope to do with the film is to wake the sleeping giant of the majority. You know, we don't have to change hearts and minds. We just have to remind people that they have to speak up. You know, all those things that Tia was just saying, that's a miscarriage of justice. That's a failing of our democracy. This, isn't just one issue. They're coming at us with this unrighteous moral high ground, and they're going to keep going, telling people how to live based on their beliefs. So I don't think that's going to stand. I do agree with he, I think the ship has sailed. I think we are going to lose row, but I think people will come together. And the other side of the coin for us and making this. Yes. We were quite aware and have been for the last couple of years of the detailed reality of what this country looks like when women don't have a right to choose and how many people die and how many people are injured and all that. But we are also steeped in this story of human trials. That the moral code of these women is part of the human condition too. So that's been very inspiring and I think there's an unfathomable amount of work to be done, but we can do it, but we got to take to the streets and open our wallets and do all the things necessary to make that happen. We can't rest on our laurels anymore. The Passionistas: What's your dream for women? Tia Lessin: Some days I'm very hopeful. So I think of the dreams and some days I just think of the nightmare that people are living in the U S has the highest incarceration rate in the world. There are millions of people in prison right now. There are millions of people sleeping on the streets every night in our country. There are 30 million people. I just looked that up that don't have healthcare insurance that don't, that don't have access to. And now they're tens of millions of people who aren't going to have any say about whether and when, and with whom they're going to have children. So that's the nightmare part of it. And that their access is determined by how much money they have in the pocket or what resources they can connect to. So I know the nightmare part of it. The dream would be that that all goes away. You know, that women, people with uteruses who want to have children can at the time they want to and have diapers for their babies when they're born and have baby formula or the ability to nurse and have good schools to send their children to, and the support they need, you know, the childcare support. You know, and the economic support that they need to raise those children in loving homes with the resources that they need. And, and the, those people that do not wish to own a child, but want to be part of children's lives. Won't get stigmatized and can do that as well. So that's my dream is that women's professional and economic lives. Aren't determined by whether or not we have. Our social status is not determined by whether or not we have children. And our economic status is not determined by whether or not we have children. That's the dream. Emma Pildes: My dream for women, I guess, would be that they can fulfill their dreams. It's about feeling valued and equal and having bodily autonomy and not just stopping there. That's such a basic human, right. I feel like we've been fighting for basic human rights forever. So I guess my dream would be that we could stop talking about that and that we could thrive in all the other ways that we want to thrive. And fulfill our dreams and see it through to the, you know, to the next generation and not be damaged by male and female. Unfortunately, lawmakers for generations, there's a lot of female generational trauma that comes from this kind of legislation. People lose mothers when they're very young and that changes their whole life and their children's lives. The ripple effect. It's very profound. So I wish we could stop talking about all this and stop having a fight for all of this and able to thrive. The Passionistas: Thanks for listening to our interview with Tia Lessin and Emma Pildes. Watch their documentary, "The Janes," on HBO and HBO max, please visit The Passionistas Project.Com to learn more about our podcast and subscription box filled with products made by women owned businesses and female artisans to inspire you to follow your passions. Double your first box when you sign up for a one-year subscription. And remember to sign up for our mailing list, to get more information about the Power of Passionistas summit. And be sure to subscribe to The Passionistas Project Podcast, so you don't miss any of our upcoming inspiring guests. Until next time stay well and stay past.

After 25 years in law and academia assisting women during life transitions, such as divorce and reentering the workforce, CinDiLo created her own second act of writing and workshops for fellow Generation X women seeking to live their midlife with purpose and clarity through whentheclockstrikesmidlife.com. She recently published the easy-to-use weekly journal "When the Clock Strikes Midlife, It's Your Time to Shine," to inspire women to cultivate their midlife awakening with its interactive guided prompts and witty yet truthful perspective. CinDiLo has also started a new movement: #myfirsttimeover50, where she encourages women over 50 to try a new activity and ask the question: When was the last time you did something for the first time? Learn more about CinDiLo. Learn more about The Passionistas Project. FULL TRANSCRIPT: Passionistas: Hi, and welcome to The Passionistas Project Podcast, where we talk with women who are following their passions to inspire you to do the same. We're Amy and Nancy Harrington. And today we're talking with CinDiLo. After 25 years in law and academia assisting women during life transitions, such as divorce and reentering the workforce, CinDi created her own second act of writing and workshops for fellow Generation X women seeking to live their midlife with purpose and clarity through whentheclockstrikesmidlife.com. She recently published the easy to use weekly journal "When the Clock Strikes Midlife, It's Your Time to Shine", to inspire women to cultivate their midlife awakening with its interactive guided prompts and witty yet truthful perspective. CinDi has also started a new movement: #myfirsttimeover50, where she encourages women over 50 to try a new activity and ask the question: when was the last time you did something for the first time? So please welcome to the show, CinDiLo. CinDi: Hello! Thank you for having me. Passionistas: Oh, we're really excited to have you on the show. We've been using our guide and we love it, so we wanted to talk to you about it and your journey. What we want to start with is, what's the one thing you're most passionate about? CinDi: I think overall it's growth. Not only growth myself, but others. Whether it's myself, my children, my loved ones, my friends, my BFFs on the internet, which I call my Cyber BFFs, and strangers. I always believe in growth and encouraging people to grow and learn about themselves in the world. Passionistas: Why is that so important to you? CinDi: Everything stems from childhood. Probably stagnant people around me, people that, you know, just don't have that mindset. They don't, you know, immediately you say, "here, try this..." "No!" You know, it's just an automatic shut down, shut themselves down and don't ever try anything. Passionistas: Let's take a step back. You mentioned your childhood. Tell us a little bit about your childhood and what it was like. CinDi: I was born with something called a TE fistula, which I like to mention the name because most people don't know about it, but people that do know about us saying, "oh." It's a birth defect where your esophagus isn't connected to your stomach. I was lucky in the fact that that was my only birth defect. Many babies are born with a lot more issues that are a lot more severe along with that. And I was repaired in the hospital for the first year of my life back in the 1960s. I won't tell you when in the 1960s. But I was in a bed. And they would put injections in my thighs because I would get pneumonia laying in a hospital bed. So they would treat that back then with penicillin shots or antibiotic shots in your muscles, which they don't do any more because it causes atrophy of the muscles. And so by the time I was a toddler, I pretty much couldn't bend either of my legs. And when I was four, I had my right leg operated on and I spent a whole summer in a cast. But I still had my left leg that didn't bend. Then I went through that way all through elementary school up until eighth grade. The summer between eighth grade and high school, I got my left leg opreated on. Again, spent the whole summer in a cast. But I did everything. My parents never told me that I couldn't do anything, even though I had so many issues. I think I was their third spirited child. And because of what I went through, they kind of let me do whatever I want, as long as it wasn't too dangerous. So I rode a bike. I ran in gym, you know, I never sat out of gym or anything like that. I played dodgeball and got whacked in the head like everyone else. So, you know, that didn't come without issues. You know, I was teased, especially in middle school. Some of the boys would tease me and were mean, but for the most part, I would say it wasn't on a regular basis and it was one or two boys. But in the meantime, again, it never deterred me from doing anything. I continued actually to go on, to be president of the school when I was in eighth grade. Passionistas: Do you feel like that still impacts... these experiences you had as a child still impact the person you are today? CinDi: Oh, of course. I think everything that happens to us now makes us who we are in this present moment. Yeah. I think it makes me more sympathetic and empathetic to a wide array of people. And maybe that is one of the reasons I'm more open-minded. And maybe that also is one of the reasons that I never let anything stop me and weren't really worried about what people think, because that seems to be a big thing with some people around. You know, just sometimes even the silliest things like, you know, make sure your hair is perfect for whatever it might be, make your bedroom, you know, like somebody is going to judge you if you don't make your bed that day. Passionistas: So what inspired you to get into law and academia? CinDi: I found myself, graduated high school, and I didn't have an idea in mind of what I wanted to do. I was the first person to go to college as far as my sisters and I. So long story short, I worked for a year in retail. I went to a seminar of a woman who did a little thing about being a paralegal and it really intrigued me. I went on to become a paralegal and get my degree, which back then, in the 1990s, mid nineties, nobody had... not that nobody had paralegal degree, but it wasn't needed really. You know, all you have to do is have some experience working in a law office and they'll throw you to the trenches and teach you what they want to teach you. So I did that. And then of course, me being me, by the year 2000, I created a website called njparalegal.com because, at the time, there was legislation going on in my state of what was going to happen with paralegals. Were we going to be licensed or not licensed? And many of us wanted and want to be licensed. It's still not licensed anywhere in any state in the United States, but it is more regulated. And education is more of a priority for employers now, which elevates the industry. Passionistas: And how did you come to focus kind of on women's issues and helping women through transitions? CinDi: That's another thing that in hindsight, I don't know if you ever got to a place and I think midlife might be this place where you kind of look back on all of the things you did and you start noticing a thread or a pattern. And one thing I even noticed, again, going back to childhood is I was a connector and a networker back then. I created clubs, when I was like eight years old. I had like a cat club. Then I told you I was president in eighth grade. That continued, you know, when I became a paralegal. I always have, whether it was school or work or even mommyhood, I've always gotten involved in groups of women. We still have a group of women... we're friends for 26 years. We were all new moms. We started with 10 moms and grew to 30 children. And we still try to get together once a year, even though we're in different states. Maybe it's from growing up with all, you know, all girls, but I always thrived in women's circles. Ironically, I have two sons, so I've learned a lot about living with all men. For some reason, that's something I've always been drawn to. And again, I noticed that pattern later in life. Passionistas: So you've told us that you had a midlife crash when you were around 45. So tell us what happened and what personal changes you made during that time period. CinDi: Like I said, I don't consider it a crisis. For whatever reason, I don't like the word crisis, but the word crash. Because it was just what I call again, that Jerry Maguire moment where I was just like, enough is enough. Something's gotta give. And I think I just named three movies all in... One in a row. I was just at a point in my life where my children were probably the most active they were and couldn't drive themselves yet anywhere. So they were at an active stage in school and probably at some point starting to work. And my mother had just passed, I believe. And soon after that, my father became ill. And on top of it, as luck would have it, I worked for a woman who was really worst employer I ever had. She was just, you know, a very difficult personality and everything just kind of... Oh, and by the way, at this time too, I decided to go back and complete my bachelor's degree because I never finished that back in my twenties. So anyhow, that was all going on. And it was just a really, really difficult moment. And... I apologize, my mom did not pass away yet. This was the crash. The crash was my mom was actually dying and I had to leave. And they all knew this, but in the meantime, I drafted an email telling them what I was working on, I had it covered. I covered all the bases and my boss's reply back was "I need it now." And she claims she didn't mean that for me, but whatever. It was just one of those aha moments where I was like, nothing is worth this. And I didn't quit my job that day, obviously. But soon after it, you know, once I got back into the swing of things, I eventually found a new job and, you know, and I never, knock on wood, I never worked for anybody like again. And I've been very fortunate since. And I've been trying to, uh, I guess, make better choices and just... you know, sometimes we're all just stuck in certain places that we didn't mean to be in, but we just got there. So that was, it was just a terrible, terrible time. It was really difficult. And when I look back the entire time from when my mom was sick, until then she passed and my dad was sick and then he passed. That was a decade. And that was hard. I mean, it was, again, my sisters and I still talk about that and it's, again, one of those things where you turn around, and you're like, "I have no idea how I did that. I have no idea how I got through it, how I still took care of everyone." So that's the other thing. I realized I'm taking care of everyone and not taking care of myself, which I think women do in general. And I also think at this point in life, you get to the stage where I can't do this anymore. You know, I took care of everyone all this time. So it was just all around. One of those aha moments I needed. Something needed to change and it had to start with me because everybody else is just continuing to do what they did and I allowed it. You know, so everybody else had to kind of step up and realize what I was doing and they did. But you know, sometimes everybody needs an adjustment, including you. Passionistas: So what adjustments did you make besides getting a new job and how do you today take care of yourself? CinDi: I had to have a serious conversation with my husband, who's great and helps a lot and does a lot. But again, it was a really busy time and he is also a glutton for punishment, like me. And he always did coaching. And he couldn't just coach. He had to be like president of the football team... of the football organization. So we're both like that, which can be commendable, but it's typical. And you know, I also always wanted to be involved in my child's education and the community and the school things. And, you know, it was hard. I tried my best and that's all we can do. So my husband got on board. You know, my kids were pretty good again as well, but I had to just remind them of everything I was doing and everything. And, you know, when you can, you need to try to help yourself or call dad. And it got to the point, before my dad passed, the last two years especially, where my sisters and I all were just running ragged. And we tried to balance that out as well, too, especially with one sister out of state. It's communication with yourself and everybody else in your life of what you need. And sometimes you don't even know what you need and that evolves too. But the biggest thing at that moment was really, I think, making everybody aware of what's going on. Because I don't think they see it and nor maybe do I see it either. You know, we're sometimes consumed in our own lives and everything we have to do when we don't know what somebody else is doing or going through internally or all the things that they juggle on a day. So now the way I care for myself is easier. So we moved after my youngest son went to college. We were in the Northeast and my youngest son went to college that came down to South Carolina and we knew we were eventually coming down here. So he knew the area. And I think even though initially he was far from home, he felt comfortable because he knew the area already. And also knowing we would eventually be down here. So lo and behold, after the real estate market opened up, finally, we got down here about a year later than we expected, but that's fine. I think everything happens for a reason. And here we are. So we are 600 miles south. And so that has afforded me to live a little bit of an easier life, as far as I don't have to work full time. I do have a part-time job that I really enjoy. Ironically, pretty much all of us in the office have New Jersey roots, so that was fortunate there as far as, you know, feeling comfortable and feeling at home. I will also confess I'm not a morning person. So I picked my hours, which are 12 to 5. So, you know, I still get up in the morning. I have a puppy now. Well, she's not a puppy anymore, but I have a dog and we go to the beach and take walks in the morning or we go for coffee and she's my little buddy. And I'm just that type of person: I need at least an hour where nobody talks to me in the morning. Honestly, it might sound silly, but that makes me a much happier person and not that rushing, rushing, rushing. And you know, in between mornings and nights and weekends, I fill in with my blog and my book and my... all the other things that I do. That to me is still a --luckily-- a passion of mine. So I don't look at that as working. I enjoy doing it. You know, some people don't get that. They're like, "oh, you're working on your blog again." Or, "oh, it's Saturday." I don't look at it that way. I look forward to doing it, believe it or not. So my life has really improved where I was able to create more of what I love in my life. And then sharing that and encouraging other women to do that was really important to me because it's true. I feel like I needed, and a lot of other women need, basically a free pass to tell them that they can do what they want or that they can create the life that they want. And granted it's much easier for some than others, but to a certain extent, we need to try to do that for ourselves, even if it's just feeling a little bit of time here and there. Oh, I forgot. The biggest thing I went back to and what I changed in my life was I went back to writing. I went back to my first love and I never realized what an outlet that was for me, because I stopped my personal writing. I still did some writing as a paralegal and also on my paralegal blog, but that was more technical and industry related and it wasn't personal writing. So that is really what I think got me out of my midlife crash slump at the time. It was definitely one of the things that really, really helped me. And again, going back to things I loved as a child. Passionistas: We're Amy and Nancy Harrington, and you're listening to The Passionistas Project Podcast and our interview with CinDiLo. To read her blog, find out about her workshops for Gen X women and get a copy of the weekly journal "When the Clock Strikes Midlife, It's Your Time to Shine", visit whentheclockstrikesmidlife.com. And follow CinDi on Instagram @whentheclockstrikesmidlife to share your hashtag #forthefirsttimeover50 adventures. If you're enjoying this interview and would like to help us to continue creating inspiring content, please consider becoming a patron by visiting thepassionistasproject.com/podcast and clicking on the patron button. Even $5 a month can help us continue our mission of inspiring women to follow their passions. Now here's more of our interview with CinDi. Let's talk about you going out and sharing this with other women. You started The Midlife on Purpose planner. So tell us what that is and why you created it. CinDi: Okay. Yeah. So again, it's a tool to encourage women to do different things, to think outside the box, and actually even plan what you're going to do. I'm not saying that you need to plan every moment of your life, but sometimes, and I'm still a perfect example of this, I forget to have fun and to plan things that I've been meaning to do for the past three years. You know, I live here and there was, of course you have so many things you're going to do when you do something new. And I've done some, but there are still, you know, some things that aren't even, you know, far away. Or I just say, oh, I'm going to do a day trip here, or I'm going to go to the zoo or a museum and, you know, some things I still haven't gotten to. And that's okay, but it's just a little bit of encouragement. And then I found that women really loved it during 2020, as you can imagine. And then we all had to, and I tried to get a little bit more creative in the calendar because okay, now we have to rethink things a little bit. And even though most of the time, the things I suggest are a lot of outdoors-y things, which hopefully a lot of us were able to do during 2020. Since we couldn't do much of anything else, you're either indoors or outdoors. But I tried to get a little bit more creative with doing things or suggesting, you know, a zoom party or... you know, we were all trying new things back then. Which was actually great in certain ways. We really had to rethink a lot of things. And I also think that was a halt for the universe well, the planet, I should say for all of us to step back. Again, and I know this has been said before, about what's really important. Creating the life that we want, many people are finding working from home is a much better quality of life. My sister had that one hour commute each way in New Jersey traffic. And I know California is the same way and they're really enjoying working from home and have a better quality of life. So I think that's something we all need to rethink as, as a planet. Passionistas: So tell us about whentheclockstrikesmidlife.com and what inspired you to start that? CinDi: So I was turning 50 in 2018 and I just, I don't know, I'm always sort of researching and even on social media, certain things catch my eye. And I noticed this woman wrote, I think she eventually wrote a book about it, but she did 50 things for turning 50. So that got my wheels turning, and I didn't necessarily want to do that, but I also, again, went back to something from my childhood, which is, "my name is Cindy, not Cynthia." But I have a cousin and sometimes my sisters would call me Cinderella or CinDi-lla. So I started jotting-- I still have my notes somewhere-- "Cinderella Turns 50." And I was trying to think, and I'm not really a Disney princess person, but first I just want to parlay it into something like that. And then I don't even know how my brain works. I was trying to think of themes for Cinderella. And then "When the Clock Strikes Midlife" just came to my brain, and of course the first thing I did was Google it and see if anybody had it and all that. So that got me going and that got me excited. I knew I wanted to start a blog. So that's kind of why I was brainstorming. And I had the name and I had already jotted some things down. The first thing I wrote about was my mid-life crash because I wanted to talk about that. And I knew I couldn't have been the only one that felt that way at that age. A lot of people don't think of 50 as midlife or middle aged, but I think we do as Generation X or it's, I think, more of a stage than anything. So if your children are leaving the nest, when you're 42 or they're leaving when you're 62, that's one of the times you, I think, feel that. As well as a lot of other life changes, you know, losing your parents or going through a relationship change or career change, whatever it might be. We get to that point somewhere between 40 and 60, where we have to make a shift, or we feel like whether we wanted the shift or not, something happened to kind of make that change. And I think that it's amazing that I feel that our generation is really changing the changes. Not only all the women we see at the political arena and celebrities and the corporate arena, authors and you two wonderful women, you know, in entertainment and everything. I mean, you name it. We really are shining these past few years and I think that's only going to become more, I know that women entrepreneurs are starting more businesses than any other group combined over the past two years. So I just feel that it's just a thing. And somehow I feel sort of the proudest altogether, but it's almost like build it and they will come. And I feel like that happened with our generation and this point in our life because a few years ago I had somebody tell me, also another entrepreneurial woman, but in a completely different industry. And she was like, first of all, I don't like the name midlife. Second, I don't see that many midlife women doing anything. And I'm like, "well, where have you been?" You know, I don't know what you do. But perhaps, because that is my quote unquote industry or my genre or my arena, I feel like we're everywhere and, and we're doing it. We are changing careers. We are excelling our careers. We are starting new adventures, getting degrees, going back to school, you name it, you know, more and more of us are doing it. I'm not saying it hasn't been done in the past, but I feel like there's definitely a larger percentage of us doing it and really, you know, not making any excuses and leaning on each other and getting encouragement from each other. Even if you don't necessarily know someone, you would just be inspired by someone who has done something and you think, "Hey, I can do that." Or "That's really cool." You know? Passionistas: So what do you help women take away from reading your blog? CinDi: Well, first and foremost, that they're not alone. And some of the thoughts that they have had, or the things that they have gone through, you know, other people have gone through. Well, at least I know I've gone through. And again, little bits of encouragement. That's how I started with my quotes. In my blog, I would always input little pieces of encouragement, which actually many I pulled out of my old writings from when I was young. They're not alone, encouragement ,and just finding ways to create a life that you want, even though, you know, nobody's life is ever going to be ideal. But if you can imagine certain things in your life that really bring you joy, doesn't have to be a lot of things. It doesn't have to be expensive. It doesn't have to take a lot of time, but whatever they are, it really, really fulfills you. And it makes such a difference in your life and bringing some of your joy, fulfillment and power back. Passionistas: So tell us a bit about the workshops that you do with Gen X women. CinDi: Okay, well, thanks to 2020, I haven't done one in a while. Actually, right before COVID I did a vision board workshop, in-person and then I did a virtual one. So yeah. So one of the things that I do is a vision board workshop, and I've always loved vision boards. When I first learned about them, probably close to 10 years ago, and again, this was all part of my midlife awakening and learning new things and doing things to grow. And at the time I was going to yoga, which I'm limited with my physical abilities, but I always just do what I can. And I still love yoga more for the relaxation part of it. So, they were having a vision board, you know, class one day. And I went to the vision board class and I fell in love with that. And I've been doing them ever since. The other thing that I really loved and I haven't done a course on yet, but I'm working on a few things is... For the beginning of the year, I love Word of the Year. And I've been doing that since 2018, as well, when I started my blog and I really, really loved that idea. I haven't done, as I said, any workshops in a few years, and I do want to get back into that. And there are a few things I'm thinking of and need to work on that and hone in on topics. I want to take survey topics. And the few surveys I have done, the number one topic women our age always want is stress busters. Their biggest thing is stress. So that is something that I definitely would like to work on, but I need to structure. When I first moved here, it was almost like a honeymoon, you know. Neither one of us worked or did anything for six weeks. And we were still an empty nest at that point before the 2020 hit and we had one back in the nest. So, you know, we first moved down here... you know, I just felt so free and relaxed. You know, we were going to the beach, going out to dinner and it was lovely. And now that, you know, life happens again and you just start getting involved in life again. And just recently, I was like, okay, we're here two and a half years, I think I need a vacation. So somehow it creeps back in, but you have to try to do the best you can to manage it. But I also think it's part of living life. For most women like us, I think that we are blessed to be busy and stress with things, for the most part, that we're creating. And we are hopefully enjoying and doing work that we love and with people that we love. So, it's a catch 22. And you know how sometimes they say change your language. You know, don't say I have to go to work, I get to go to work. So a lot of that is mindset as well. Passionistas: So while we're on the subject of stress, tell us about your Facebook group Let's Distress, Gen X. CinDi: Funny that you said that because just a few days ago, I actually closed that group, but I'm doing everything on the main page now. Because I was trying to post them to many places, as you can imagine. It was just, I was trying to do social media, and there wasn't actually that much interaction. So I decided to just put it on the main page. Which I knew that at least there was some interaction there and I had the decent amount of followers involved. So yeah. So what I'm working on in 2020, as far as the mission of whentheclockstrikesmidlife.com and its platform is midlife, wellness, mind, body, and soul. So every day during the week, I try to post something, it might be a blog, or it just might be, you know, an inspirational quote or a product or a book, um, something that is going to help us. Mind, body or soul, it's going to nourish you in one way or the other and hopefully get some value out of it. I know if I recommend certain things like a book or, um, even something as silly as a water bottle sometimes. I'm not saying I'm becoming the new Oprah, but, you know, I do feel that people respond to that. And once they get to know you and like you and your work, they are more responsive to that. So I enjoy doing that. Again, I've always been a connector. And I found too, you know, my friends are that way with me. I, you know, I think for whatever reason, people believe what I say or they appreciate my point of view, I guess. So. Yeah. So that's a work in progress, but that's what I'm focusing on for 2022. And you know how it is. You're always pivoting and figuring out what works, and on top of that, what you're enjoying doing. Sometimes you try something and it's not working, or you're not really enjoying it. So you have to pivot the other way. Passionistas: So what inspired you to pivot and write your weekly journal When the Clock Strikes Midlife, It's Your Time to Shine? CinDi: Over time, you know, more recently, of course, some of my friends were like, "when are you going to put these quotes in a book?" So what I started to do was... Actually before I even started the blog, and you two know this because I did The Passionistas Summit and did a recording, but I've always been secretive about my work. So I didn't write for 25 years. And then when I did, I was still wanting to be secretive about it. So the way I encouraged myself to do it was I went back to my writings from 20, 25 years ago, some of them even longer. I wrote some short stories and things, or even poems. And some of the things I just, I thought to myself, well, I'm not going to write a book or a novel today. So let me just take some of these lines and make them into quotes because I think some of them are cute and they're good. And they're inspiring. And again, I was starting to think along the lines of eventually starting a blog. So what I did was I took some of the quotes and I took some of my nature photos. And I put an app on my phone and I took the quotes and I put them on the photo and I created what they call quota-graphs, which I did not create that word, but it is a word. And that's how I started. And I started posting them on my personal Facebook page and, you know, friends and family were like, "oh my God, you wrote this," you know, and that kind of thing. So that gives you a little bit of encouragement. And then eventually, within that year, less than a year by November, I started the blog, but that was kind of how I came out to my writing career and decided to share it. Then when I started the blog, I started putting these little quotes, original quotes, in my blog that had to do with whatever my blog post was about at that time. And people seem to really appreciate them. And I also use the quotes on social media to promote the blog post and things like that. So people got to really like them. And 2020 was really, of course, one of the years where I was like, okay. And as many of us have said, the universe all gave us a stop sign and it's like, okay, are you going to do this now? Or when are you going to do this? So I decided to try to figure it out. And I put it all together. I hired someone through Fiverr to format it and put all the information together. I sent it to her. After a few back and forths in editing, we had a format. The other thing is I used to meet friends through my children. Now I meet them through my dog. So I made a friend at the dog park. And we were talking one day and I was telling her that I was putting... actually, I think she showed me. And it's just funny how sometimes you don't know people that well. And we started talking and I think she must've told me or showed me something that she drew. And I was like, wow. I said, I need a cover. I'm writing a journal. And all I said was, I like the work, the art of Henri Matisse, a French artist from probably close to 100 years ago. And you know, one of my quotes that is somewhat famous that people really like is, "Be a starfish and find a way to regrow." And that's kind of like my motto, again, through growth, and for my life and midlife is always try to grow no matter what life throws at you. So she didn't say anything. And about a week later, she showed me the cover that you're looking at, that you have now, just the way it is, except for I had her add by CinDiLo at the bottom. I'm like, oh, my God. She's like, "well, I don't know if you'll like it." So I absolutely loved it. And she's the one actually who suggested the black background, which I wasn't sure about at first, because you read all these things on the internet, like no black books or no white books. And anyway, long story short, it was a hit. People really love it. And I really love it, for the most part. It really... you know, if you notice her hair is actually ocean waves and she has a starfish earring on. And, you know, but simple and we just have the little gold bling just to schnazz it up a little bit. It was just one of those things. And I love when that happens, you know, serendipity and something just came together. And we've actually become good friends since then. And she was there for launch and I just loved the way it just seemed to all come together. Even though there was a lot of frustrations with formatting and you know how that stuff goes. It's sometimes more frustrating than you think. And then getting it on Amazon is another challenge, but it all got done. It all got done by November of 2021. Then I was able to launch it on 11/11. So yeah. So there we are. So I'm really happy with that. And the feedback that I'm getting is, you know, they really love it. As you've mentioned before, too, is, whether it's the 30 seconds or the 30 minutes, I kind of give you quick prompts. And you can do with it what you like without it being too daunting, because I know some people think," oh my God, I don't have time to color and write and all this stuff." So people make it what they want. Passionistas: So is there one particular lesson that you've learned along your journey that really sticks with you? CinDi: The word that's coming to me is flexibility. But that word, sometimes it has a negative connotation, and I don't mean it in that way. And I think it's served me well. And I think because of what I've been through in my childhood, and I think also being the third child, I just learned that. And while I think it may at times, and when I was younger, I used to think that that was not a good trait to have. I think now that I'm older, it's my sanity. Because as you know, when we talk... go back to talking about stress, a lot of stress, and I do this to myself, you know. As I say, a lot of stress, all stress is really in our minds, and we are always thinking about it or getting anxious about the stress. So flexibility, especially at this stage is allowing me to say, "okay, this didn't work this way, so we're going to go this way." Or I'm really feeling now that things happen for a reason and that life will guide. You know, you can't control everything. So life will guide you. If you have some faith, be flexible. Passionistas: Thanks for listening to The Passionistas Project Podcast and our interview with CinDiLo. To read her blog, find out about her workshops for Gen X women and get a copy of the weekly journal "When the Clock Strikes Midlife, It's Your Time to Shine," visit whentheclockstrikesmidlife.com, and follow her on Instagram @whentheclockstrikesmidlife to share your #myfirsttimeover50 adventure. Please visit thepassionistasproject.com to learn more about our podcast and subscription box filled with products made by women owned businesses and female artisans to inspire you to follow your passions. Get a free mystery box with a one-year subscription using the code SUMMERGOODIES. And be sure to subscribe to The Passionistas Project Podcast, so you don't miss any of our upcoming, inspiring guests. Until next time, stay well and stay passionate.  

Tara McCann is a menstrual health coach. Her mission is to help women use the power of their menstrual cycles to tune into what their bodies need. Tara guides women to identify patterns in their menstrual cycles and helps them find ways to support their health. Her goal is for women to live in the flow of their hormones and to stop fighting with the natural functions of their bodies. Learn more about Tara. Learn more about The Passionistas Project.   FULL TRANSCRIPT: Passionistas: Hi, and welcome to The Passionistas Project Podcast, where we talk with women who are following their passions to inspire you to do the same. We're Amy and Nancy Harrington and today we're talking with Tara McCann, a menstrual health coach who helps women use the power of their menstrual cycles to tune into what their bodies need. Tara guides women to identify patterns in their menstrual cycles, and find ways to support their health so they live in the flow of their hormones and stop fighting with their bodies. So please welcome to the show, Tara McCann. This is such an important topic that no one ever talks about. And we're so grateful that you are joining us today to educate us a little bit and to help us spread the word about something that's so important for women. Tara: It is, and it really isn't talked about very much. And that's one of the things when I do speak on this, women come up to me and I'm like, "why was I never taught this as a child? Why have I, you know, I'm 45 years old and no one ever told me this was happening in my body." And so I think it is valuable information. I think it's been missing from our growth and development and education, and I am on a mission to teach people all of the things. Passionistas: So what's the one thing you're most passionate about? Tara: You know, I think the biggest thing that I'm passionate about is women shifting from just enduring their menstrual cycle to really understanding and knowing themselves in a very different way through their menstrual cycle. It's the space where we tap into our intuition. It's where we are powerful in our wisdom. It's our creative force and power in the world. And for so many of us, we are taught the exact opposite of that. And so really, what I'm passionate about, is telling women about this and watching their growth as they start to understand that. I love women coming through my programs and be like, "oh my God, look what I just did!" And, "I understand this. I understand why I've done this for years." And then they can give themselves grace. They can give themselves understanding, and then they just start to move through the world differently. They're not fighting with themselves anymore. And so I just love supporting women through that transition. Passionistas: So, what was your childhood like? And was this something that you were comfortable talking about with your parents at a young age? Tara: No, not at all. So I probably had a very similar experience to you. Like I think it was fifth grade that they separated the boys and the girls. And the girls went with the nurse and the boys went, I don't know who they went with, but you know, the nurse basically explained, "you're going to have your period, and you're going to bleed and then it's going to hurt. And here's a pad and here's a pamphlet from this, you know, maker of products that is going to tell you all about it." And then that's basically it. And I don't remember having conversations with my mom about it. Definitely not my dad, like that was, you know, not going to talk to him about it for sure. But I don't remember having conversations with my mother about it, like other than, "Hey, I need more tampons" or "Hey, can you go get me some more medicine to take care of my period pain." But there wasn't a lot of conversation about what was going on in my body, how things changed through the month, how it was going to feel. And I think part of it is she was never taught. It wasn't something she was taught. So it was not something she taught me. It was not a conversation we had. And so I had that one experience in school. For me, like my first period, I was so excited. I was like, "oh my God, I'm a woman." And I just had this feeling of belonging to something bigger than myself and that finally I was part of the club or something. It was... and I remember feeling that. But then, as it progressed, it was like, "oh, you're not supposed to feel that way. It's painful." And you know, all the magazines I read as a kid were like, "take this medicine because it's so painful and here's your perfect pad for the blue liquid we pour on it." And you know, all of this messaging from around me and, you know, people teasing you about, "well, what are you on the rag?" And so you want to hide it and the shame and just all those things started piling on. So that initial power and excitement and that feeling I had was just kind of piled on. And it went away and it was hidden for a really long time because I didn't want to talk about it. I was like, "oh no, we don't talk about this. Okay. I can do that." So yeah, that was my early experience with this. And I think that's true for a lot of women in the world. Passionistas: So, you said you didn't start to understand some of the stuff until you were in your forties. So then what was your early career or were you a full-time mom back then? Or what was your earlier years like between, you know, high school and the time you started working with fertility information? Tara: So, you know, I, had my cycle and it was fine. And it was like, I take the Advil for the pain and, and then I just have my cycle and no, I don't like it. And it's a mess. And, you know, just kind of those general feelings of it's something I have to put up with. I didn't have the experience of having really horrific period pain or really heavy flow. It was just... it was there for me. And, you know, it was kind of a nuisance, but not really a nuisance. I didn't have super strong feelings about. But what really started me on this path was my husband and I started having a family, you know, decided to have a family. And in my experience with my cycle, I had always been really regular. And I was healthy. My husband was healthy. I'm like, "oh, we're going to get pregnant, you know, we'll be pregnant in months. You know, just a few months and we'll be pregnant." And months turned into a year, turned into two years, turned into two and a half years and reproductive medicine. But during that time I found menstrual cycle tracking through a book called "Taking Charge of Your Fertility." And so I started paying really close attention to my cycle in the aspect of fertility. Like when am I going to ovulate? And when is the best time that we could get pregnant and just riding that rollercoaster of, okay, "we got to get geared up, you know, I'm going to ovulate soon." And so " we had to go have sex and we gotta be prepared for this." And then that two week wait of just sitting there, like, "am I pregnant? What does that twinge." Or "wait, wait, I don't know what that is." And then that devastating crash when your period comes, like just that utter crash. That like, "oh my gosh, what is wrong with me? Why am I broken? Why can everyone else in the world get pregnant and I cannot?" You know, what's going on? But also having to switch gears really fast, cause guess what? You're going to ovulate again really soon and you've got to get going again. And so it's just this up and down and up and down. And, so that was really challenging. But through that, and through my tracking, I really came to understand my cycle well. And I'm a scientist by nature, and I'm trained as an occupational therapist, so I had worked in occupational therapy for a really long time. So I have a science background and have always been fascinated by the human body and the amazing things that the human body can do. And so I really dug into this. Learning about my cycle and learning what was going on for my body. I knew I didn't have enough progesterone in my cycle, basically. And I had worked with acupuncturists and I had changed what I was eating all through this fertility journey. And we were in reproductive medicine and we were doing intrauterine insemination. And we had come to the last one we were going to do. The next time we tried something, it was going to be IVF. And so in that moment, you know, you're sitting there on the crinkly seat, waiting for your insemination, with the freezing cold room. I don't know why the rooms can't be warmer, you know, shivering in your little thing that doesn't cover your back. And I asked for progesterone. In my mind, I was like, "this is our last chance to try this." And I know this is what my body needs. And so the tracking for me really became that supportive piece that I could advocate for myself. I knew my body and I trusted what I knew about my body. I trusted what the tracking had taught me about my body. And so I said, "can we add progesterone to my regimen this cycle?" And my doctor was like, well, he had already shoved off my charts before. He's like, "I don't need those. I don't need to look at those." Which in his world, he doesn't because he's controlling the situation, right? And that's what that reproductive medicine specialty is about. He's like, "well, I don't think it's going to hurt, but I don't think it's going to help either." He wasn't, "no, you can't do that." But I didn't feel like he was like completely on board with it. But I asked. And I got the progesterone and I got pregnant and we had a baby 10 months later. So, you know, that was what I needed. And so that was really what started this journey with tracking for me. And then my two girls were born pretty close together. And so I had been pregnant or breastfeeding or trying to be pregnant for four or five years. And my health was not great after all of that. And so I went to a health coach and found a health coach for my own health and was like, this is really what I wanted. I wanted this support when I was trying to get pregnant. Like I wanted somebody there every week who I could talk to about what was going on in my own body and who was going to help me. Because I knew my body could do more, but I didn't know what to do at the time. And so I was just trying to Google everything and throw all of it at it. Not hardly having tons of guidance. So I went to coaching school and my first jump into coaching was fertility coaching and helping preconception coaching, you know, people getting ready for pregnancy. And then a couple of years ago, I started talking in the mom-owned business networking group. I started talking about cycles and how you can use your menstrual cycle to be more productive in your business. And women just started coming to me and like," why did I never hear this information before?" And so that really spurred me to broaden my message to menstrual cycles in all ways. And not just fertility though, I still do fertility work and it's very near and dear to my heart. But just also talking in the broader realm of menstrual cycle. Passionistas: Talk more about that concept that tracking your cycles can help you with productivity. Tara: In our menstrual cycles, our hormones shift and change every single day. So there's this, you know, big ups and downs that are happening. And we have grown up in a society where we think we get up in the morning, we go to work, we work all day long and you know, do all our work. We come home, we go to sleep, get up the next morning, rinse and repeat over and over again. Every day should be the same. Our bodies don't work like that. Because we may get up one day and have all of the energy. And then the next day we're like, "where did all that energy go? It's gone." And that's... our hormones are shifting in our bodies and that's shifting what we can do. So, when we're thinking about our periods and the time that we're having our bleed, our hormones are really low. And so that's really kind of a time for quiet and for rest and for that introspection that I talked about. Because the way that our hormones are balanced during that time, it's a great time to evaluate, see what's working and what's not working, and think about what are my intentions for this next month? So it's not that nothing is happening during that time. It's not that you're not being productive. You're being productive in a different way. And then moving through the cycle, the next part of the cycle is after your bleeding, but before your egg is released. And during that time, your estrogen is rising. And during that time, your hormones are supporting you to do things like writing. Or to do things like planning and thinking of big ideas and outlining things. And it's also a really creative time, so brainstorming is really good. And thinking about all the different ways to do something can feel like essence of ease during that time. And then ovulation is that time when you're putting yourself out in the world. And so things like presentations can be really good, or if you have to have a hard conversation with someone. Because of the way your hormones are balanced, you are very open and receptive and your verbal skills are really good. And so if you want to go ask for a raise or if you need to talk to a coworker or a parent or a partner, you know, this is a really great time to kind of plan for those conversations because of the way that you are hormonally supported during that time. And then after ovulation: our luteal phase. So that's the time from ovulation to our next period. That's really a time when we're kind of getting things done, like checking things off the list, detail oriented type things. And so, cleaning out your closet or cleaning out the pantry or. Filing your taxes or doing data entry and things like that can be something that's really supported. So when you start to move through over a longer timeframe, you're getting all the things done, but you're not fighting with yourself to get those things done. And so that's one of the really powerful pieces of understanding how you move through your cycle, understanding what's true for you and what feels like ease and what feels a little harder during different times in your cycle, so that you can think ahead and plan ahead and decide, "oh, you know, I'd really love to record a podcast during my ovulatory time so that I'm speaking and my words are flowing" and things like that. So it really helps you to plan ahead so don't spend so much time fighting with yourself and like, "why can't I get this done today?" I was like, "well, today not may not be the day." But what about in a week from now? You could batch four of your newsletters or whatever that might be. So just thinking about it in a longer, cyclical way that ease is going to come back again. Passionistas: So what is the actual tracking? Is it as simple as "this is the day my period started" and going from there? Or are there other things that you track as well? Tara: When I'm teaching people to track, we start by tracking just two or three things, because there's a lot that you can track depending on what information you are wanting. So you can track your energy levels. You can track your sleep, you can track how does exercise feel? How does your movement practice feel? Do you have food cravings? Are there sometimes you're really hungry or not so hungry? Do you have certain days that you have headaches? So there's a lot of different things, depending on what's happening in your body. One of the places we often start is energy. So what does your energy feel like? How is your energy today? What kind of things did you get done? What felt easy? And then as you move through the cycle, like, okay, where are you in your cycle? Those hormones that shifted and move, what's underlying that. So how do you support your body to flow through that cycle, and to support your body to be able to move through fluidly without forcing things. Passionistas: We're Amy and Nancy Harrington and you're listening to The Passionistas Project Podcast and our interview with Tara McCann. To learn more about tracking your menstrual cycle and to download the free cycle tracker, visit taramccannwellness.com. If you're enjoying this interview and would like to help us to continue creating inspiring content, please consider becoming a patron by visiting thepassionistasproject.com/podcast and clicking on the patron button. Even $5 a month can help us continue our mission of inspiring women to follow their passions. Now here's more of our interview with Tara. How does what is learned during your work apply to women who are in menopause or post-menopause? Is there still work that they can do? Tara: There is actually. One of the programs I do is actually using the moon as that cyclical rhythm. Because if a woman is post-menopausal or perimenopausal, when their cycle is maybe not consistent anymore, or post-menopausal when they no longer have a cycle. Some women who are on hormonal birth control don't have cycles. You can use that rhythm of the moon to plan and to create that flow of energy and the different tasks that might feel easy so that you're really prioritizing that rest and prioritizing the different types of like creative work or speaking work, or just getting things done. Because as women even if we're not cycling, we have this imprint of the cycle. We have this just knowing of the cycle because we are cyclical beings and we have been, and we've always been. And so tapping back into that cyclical rhythm, you can do that even without having that indicator of having a physical bleed. Like even if you've had a hysterectomy, but you still have your ovaries, you're probably still cycling. You just might not know it because you don't have that indicator. So you can also track with the moon until you figure out what your body's signals are of those different parts of your cycle. That's the other way that I talk about and use tracking. Passionistas: So the best way to get started is to sort of start keeping a journal then of your energy levels, your hunger, your cravings... things like that.? Tara: Yeah, you can. I created just a paper tracker with a paper and pencil because I'm a paper and pencil gal. I like to be able to see that... I like to be able to compare one to the other, right, side-by-side. Because then you can say, oh, look on day 10 of my cycle, this happens. On day 22 of my cycle, this happens. And so you can compare month to month. There's lots of, you know, online trackers out there as well. So if you are a, you know, you want to do it on an app, there's lots of apps out there. Or I've had lots of women create spreadsheets. Sometimes that can get a little expansive because they'll start with like two things. And then they're like, "oh, I wonder about this and this." And suddenly they've got like 15 things that they're tracking every day. And so that's why I recommend, you know, honing in, or what are the most important things that you're wanting to understand about your body in this time and space? And some of the things you can track simultaneously. Like if you're having period pain, that's only going to be on a certain number of days. So you could track period pain with how heavy your flow is, and also your energy level and your sleep, like your sleep patterns and see if that changes. So there's ways to kind of incorporate more than one, cause they may not be on every day. And then once you have like a really good understanding and a really good knowledge of, "oh, my body typically does this around this time," then you can add another layer. Then you can add in, okay how does movement feel? How does it feel when I do a really strenuous exercise during the time that I'm bleeding? Like, does that feel good or does that not feel good? Does that feel supportive or not supportive? And so you can start to understand that too, and plan your movement or other things during the timeframe or during your cycle. Passionistas: Do you have like one or two success stories from the women that you've worked with, where you've seen, like, just this major transformation? Tara: Yeah, there's a couple. So I had one woman who tracked... there's many, but we'll go with a couple. So there was one woman who tracked with me last spring and she had had heavy periods and really debilitating period pain for years and years and years. And she just assumed it was normal... assumed that it was what happened. And so she started tracking with me and shortly into our time together, she had her period. And she got into a situation where she was taking Advil and then she couldn't get the period pain to stop and then was taking more Advil. And just her body got more and more pain. And then she didn't feel good. Got sick. Had to go to the emergency room... was, you know, all of these things. And she had just moved to a new space. So she didn't have an established practice with a doctor. So she couldn't get more pain medication to help alleviate what was going on for her. So, it was that situation that she was kind of stuck with. But she realized in the group setting we were in-- we were in a group of four women-- and another woman in that space had been an ovarian cancer survivor. And so both of us were talking about, you know what, this much pain is not normal. Like there is pain involved. There can be pain involved, but there's a lot you can do to less en that. But this much is a lot and you need to go find someone who will listen to you. And so what tracking did for her, was it really allowed her to advocate for herself. She found a doctor. She found a space where... you know, cause she was within that 30 day period that we were checking together. She's like, "I'm going to have another period. And what am I going to do then? Cause I'm still not established with a doctor." So, you know, she was creating a plan for, "okay, can I talk to my old doctor?" And "how do I take care of myself?" And then she was able to find a really good doctor and get in with them, even though they were further away because she got a recommendation from someone else in the group and was really able to establish care with someone who would listen to her. And so I think that was a really big transformation for her... being able to know what's going on. And, you know, she had gotten some pain medication and then she was like, "oh my gosh, is this what it's supposed to feel like? Is this what it feels like to not be in such excruciating pain? Is this what typically, you know, people experience during a flow? Cause I've never had this little pain before." Passionistas: So aside from the pain, what are some of the other myths about menstruation that really need to be debunked? Tara: So pain is one of them. That's one of the biggest ones that you have to endure your cycle and that it's painful. You know, the other big myths are the shame around it, that it's something you shouldn't talk about. It's something that should be hidden. And one of the women in one of my communities was... her transition over the 30 days with it, she realized that it was just this natural process that her body went through and such forgiveness for her body and understanding that this is something that is natural and wonderful that's happening to her. But she had also had a lot of pain in her cycles as well. And so coming to a different space with what your body feels like. So, you know, shame and the myth of that and wanting to hide it. I think one of the things that I experienced going through my fertility journey was, I think at the beginning we talked about, you know, when you first get your period and you're fearful of pregnancy and like, you don't want to get pregnant and all of that fear that surrounds that. And so, you know, there's birth control and there's ways to prevent pregnancy. And we live in this kind of like, "oh my God, you know, did I have... we had a pregnancy scare" or "I think I might be pregnant even though we're on birth control." And so there's like this holding that happens. And then when we go to get pregnant and we're like, "oh, I stopped the birth control. It'll be fine. I'll just get pregnant right away." Because there's this fear that we could get pregnant at any moment. And then when we stop, we're like, "of course I'll get pregnant right away because I can get pregnant at any moment." And then our bodies have changed, or sometimes we go on... women go on birth control at a very young age because they're having difficulties in their flow or difficulties with pain or heavy periods or things like that. And instead of looking at the underlying cause of what's going on, they're just put on medication, which just kind of masks it. And then when they come off of the medicine to get pregnant, that underlying whatever it was is still there. And their body has to adjust to coming off the birth control and then it takes a long time to get pregnant. And then there's that feeling of "what is wrong with me and what's wrong with my body and why can't I get pregnant?" And so it just kind of piles on top of each other. Passionistas: So how can people work with you? How can women that want to get in touch with you do that? And what services do you offer specifically? Tara: My signature program is called Tracking With Friends, and it's a 30 day program where we track our menstrual cycles together. And we get on together every day, and I give you a little video and a little meditation for you to check in. And then each person gets to do an individual check-in. So we create this sense of community around talking about our periods. Because for so many of us, we don't have a space. There's no space where we can go and talk about it. And so this small community of women-- it's usually three to five women tracking together-- is that community where nothing is TMI. You know, we talk about all the things and it's just this amazing container that happens. And women get to know each other so well and so quickly in this space. And so as we track together, I'm going through with each person, like this is where you are in your cycle. This is what might be going on underlying in the hormones. So this is something you might want to keep track of moving forward. So there's the accountability piece to it. And then once a week, we get together, live on Zoom and talk about, you know, "okay, here's what's going on in your hormones." And I do a little bit of teaching, but it's also just a lot of sharing of all of the things that are happening in cycles. And then I also do one-on-one coaching. So women who really want to dive in and support their hormones and figure out what's going on. So when I talk about, you know, that period pain is really common, but it's not normal. Like we shouldn't be in so much pain. There's a lot we can do to support our bodies with nutrition and the foods we eat and taking care of our gut and taking care of inflammation and sleep and movement and all of those things that I can help women to create and help them understand what's going on. First of all, understanding their own bodies and then making those small shifts that are going to have really big impacts in the way that their cycles flow. Passionistas: You mentioned that you're a member of MOB Nation. So can you talk a little bit about that organization and what it's meant to you? Tara: Yeah. The Mom Owned Business, MOB Nation. And so it's a group of mom owned business owners, entrepreneurs who... it's a supportive network of women. So it's networking, but it's so much more than networking because yes, there is... there's incredible support for your business and, you know, MOB economy. Because you know, the tagline is that "There's a mob for that." Because there is. There's another mom owned business that you can buy from for just about everything. And so our directors have created a directory of mom owned businesses, and so you can find someone to buy from. And so we've created this whole economy where we buy from each other and support each other's businesses. And then even beyond that business support, it really is support for your whole life and your whole being and who you are. And the MOB Alliance, which is the paid version of the MOB Nation is really this close knit group of women who... you know, you can hop on at two in the morning and be like, "this is going wrong and this is going wrong and I can't," you know, "I need somebody." There will probably be another MOB on that can hop on and support you and supporting women through, you know, their grief or closing their business. Or, you know, in this pandemic, it's been an incredible lifeline for staying connected with other business owners, you know, because we've gone virtual and been able to support each other in that way. And so it is a networking group and it is a, you know, supportive life group as well, I would say. So, so much more than just networking. Passionistas: Is there anything else you want women to know that we haven't asked you about? Tara: I think one of the things that we touched on a little bit, but not too much, is the fact that there is this physical piece, there is this hormonal piece to the way that our bodies move and flow. But there's also this energetic, spiritual piece, this connection to our wisdom, that we flow through and that our cycles can be, I don't want to say a tool because that's, you know, tool feels very like masculine. You know, like this is a tool. It's not. It's a process and it's a journey and we can use the, you know, the life and death and rebirth that happens with a cycle, right? Every month our uterine lining sheds, we grow an egg and mature an egg, and then that egg and the lining gets shut again. And then we are reborn again. And so it can be a really supportive process for our growth and expansion in the world. And so not just with that physical cycle, but that creative process that I was talking about. That creation in the world and staying in alignment with the world. And then using that time when things are getting broken down, using our cycle as that supportive, grounding space that we know that even as things break down, you're going to be reborn into what's next. And that the cycle just continues and goes on and that you are always supported by it and with it. And it's that constant companion grounding force for ourselves. Passionistas: Thanks for listening to our interview with Tara McCann. To learn more about tracking your menstrual cycle and to download the free cycle tracker visit taramccannwellness.com. Please visit thepassionistasproject.com to learn more about our podcast and subscription box, filled with products made by women owned businesses and female artisans to inspire you to follow your passions. This quarter's box is a collaboration with the MOB Nation and features products from mom owned businesses. It's the perfect Mother's Day gift for the mother in your life, or a treat for yourself. Get a free mystery box with a one-year subscription using the code SPRINGGOODIES. And be sure to subscribe to The Passionistas Project Podcast, so you don't miss any of our upcoming, inspiring guests. Until next time, stay well and stay passionate.  

Sara Fins is an accountant, financial coach and mom of two who helps solopreneurs and small business owners discover how simple it can be to take control of their business finances. In doing so, Sara helps them save time, stress less and keep more of the money they earn. Sara is the creator of Easy Business Bookkeeping, a course and system that teaches business owners how to keep track of their business finances and prepare for tax season confidently and with ease. Learn more about Sara. Learn more about The Passionistas Project. FULL TRANSCRIPT: Passionistas: Hi, and welcome to The Passionistas Project Podcast, where we talk with women who are following their passions to inspire you to do the same. We're Amy and Nancy Harrington, and today we're talking with Sara Fins, an accountant, financial coach, and mom of two. She helps solopreneurs and small business owners discover how simple it can be to take control of their business finances so that they can save time, stress less, and keep more of the money that they earn. Sara is the creator of Easy Business Bookkeeping, a course and system that teaches business owners how to track their business finances and prepare for tax time confidently and with ease. So please welcome to the show, Sara Fins. So Sara, what's the one thing you're most passionate about. Sara: The one thing I'm most passionate about is empowering entrepreneurs to learn to manage the finances of their business, so that they know that they can do it themselves and feel confident in that area of their business. Because I feel like once that's unlocked for them, they can take their business wherever they want it to go. Passionistas: And why is that a passion of yours? Sara: I started out as an accountant in my previous, previous life. And then I went into health coaching and I became a health coach before circling back to do finance coaching. And what I found during that time is that so many of my colleagues were amazing at the coaching. They were so passionate about what they were doing. But when it came to the number side of their business, they were either afraid to look. They didn't know what to do. They felt uncomfortable. They felt overwhelmed by it. And it was preventing many of them from moving forward in their businesses. And so I discovered that. If they had that knowledge, it kind of unblocked a whole new path for them. And they could feel more confident moving forward because they were actually able to make the money they needed to make their businesses businesses as opposed to hobbies. And so that's kind of how I came about that. And I just realized by seeing the transformation in their businesses and their selves, that this was something that could really help them, and then, on the, you know, the ripple effect, help their clients and help other people and other women succeed. Passionistas: Let's take a step back. Tell us about your childhood, where you grew up and were you always interested in math? Sara: So I'm from Long Island, New York. I grew up in Suffolk County and when I was young, there were lots of farms around where I lived. And, you know, over time it's become more suburban. But I went to college in Pennsylvania. And then I studied accounting and I actually, wasn't always interested in numbers. I really was interested in psychology and I was interested in those types of classes. And that's where I excelled. However, the practical side of my brain said, you need to have a good job. So I had an uncle who's an accountant, you know, very successful. And so I thought, Hmm, okay, let me try this. And I went into accounting and I just jumped right in and I graduated with a degree in accounting. And then I went and got my CPA and I worked in various corporate accounting roles in New York City. And then also moved to London and worked in London and lived abroad for a couple of years. And when my daughter was born, I resigned from the position that I was in and went back to school to get my health coaching certification, because that was always something I was really passionate about. And it kind of pulled back in the interest I had in helping people from when I was young. You know, I wanted to be into psychology and helping professions. And I wasn't feeling that from the accounting rules that I was in. And so I, you know, merged my passion for health with my passion for business and helping people. And I started my health coaching practice. Then I ran that practice for 10 years and it went really well. But like I mentioned earlier, I discovered through that time that I could really help from a finance perspective, because what came easy for me in those two areas, other people were struggling with. And so that's kind of the long story of how I got to where I am right now. We moved back from being abroad and have been living in Long Island, more Western Long Island, closer to New York City for the past 10 years now. Passionistas: And what was that time living abroad like? What brought you overseas and did you enjoy that time? Sara: Yes. We really enjoyed that time. I was newly married at the time. My husband and I had just gotten married. And he's actually an accountant as well. We met at work years ago. And so I was working, actually, in a recruiting role, at the time, recruiting accounting professionals. And so he got a job offer with his company to move there and I was able to transfer with the company I was working for at the time. And so, you know, we were young, we had just gotten married. We didn't have any children yet. And so we lived in London for two years. That was so much fun, especially working in an office environment there because it gives you such a different perspective than just being kind of an ex-pat, you know. And then we wound up actually moving to Paris because the company that my husband worked for was, is a French company. He actually still works for them in a different capacity today, and they wanted us to be... wanted him to be in Paris. And so when my daughter, well, I may have jumped ahead a little bit, but my daughter was born in London. So while we were there, we wound up having my daughter. And when she was about six months old, we moved to Paris and lived there for about two years as well. Which was equally amazing. However, we had a little baby, so we didn't do quite as much traveling or quite as many things as we had done in London. But that was the point where I resigned from the company and went back to school for health coaching. It felt like a really good time. I could be home with my daughter while also pursuing this second career of mine. And we came home because we found out we were having our second child and felt like we just needed to be back closer to family. So we were kind of feeling that pull. So that's what, that's what brought us back to the United States. Passionistas: So, now tell us the name of your current company and what services you provide. Sara: Currently, my company is Sara Fins Coaching. And so what I do is financial coaching for solopreneurs, and small business owners. And so the main thing that I offer right now is I have a course called Easy Business Bookkeeping. And in that course, I built a very user-friendly basic spreadsheet template that I teach business owners to use to track their expenses, their revenue, and then categorize everything for tax purposes. And so it's really to help them track everything. Either, if they're not ready to outsource yet to a bookkeeper. You know, many coaches, I find even ones that have been in business for a long time, don't need to, because there's not that much, you know, going on in a business. As opposed to, if you have a company where you're manufacturing products and things like that. And so it's designed to really help them manage their finances and then get ready for tax time. And also use the information, like I said earlier, to have the information they need to know. What offerings they have that they might want to focus on that are bringing them in more money. Where they might be spending, you know, money they don't need to be spending. Or, you know, do they have money to invest in certain things for their business? And so I teach that all within the easy business bookkeeping course. And then I also do offer some one-on-one coaching. If someone really wants to talk through, kind of, how to personalize that very closely for their own business. How to set things up for themselves. And then if they're just at the point where, they just don't want to do it themselves. I help them get set up by taking their information and putting it all into the spreadsheet and getting them ready and then teaching them how to do it on a going forward basis. So what I don't do, is I don't do the bookkeeping for them. Because as I talked about before, it's really bad empowerment. I want to empower business owners to look at those numbers and see what's going on and get really, really comfortable with their business finances. Passionistas: And, you know, money can be an emotional and stressful topic for a lot of people. So how does the psychology and coaching training that you've had over the years factor into the services you provide? Sara: Yeah, absolutely. The coaching training I've had has been invaluable in that respect. And then also, as being a business owner myself and being on the other side of it and running my health coaching practice for so long, I really know what they're going through from that perspective. And although I didn't struggle with the financial management because I went into it having the background in accounting, I understand some of the challenges that come up as well. But yes, what I find is, that a lot of the times, what's keeping business owners from managing their finances or from looking at their finances and getting deep into the numbers is fear, like you mentioned. Either, they're worried that there might not be enough money. They might not be bringing in enough money. They're worried that they just don't have the skills; they don't know how, they have to be a numbers person or an accountant to do that. Or they just don't have time. Right? So I try, in my coaching and in my programs, to create a really safe space, so that, any question they can ask is not a silly question. Everyone has to start from somewhere. And I compare it to, you know, what you've learned in your business and what you bring to your clients you didn't know when you started out, right? So it's something that you cultivated over time. And it's the same with getting comfortable with your finances. You have to start with something little. Just look at your bank statement every month and take a look at what's going on in there and then move on to the next thing. It doesn't have to be all or nothing. And you don't have to. And in fact, you can't be an expert overnight, right? It's impossible. So I try to create a safe space where, they can ask any questions they have, you know. And I have built into my programs... support. You know, we have a Facebook group. They can email me. One thing we also do, is we do monthly money dates. So basically I have a dedicated time each month where we meet on zoom and it's like a study hall just to give the participants time to, you know, look at their numbers. And so that's to create the container so that they actually have a time dedicated to do it. So, yeah, so it's a blend of, kind of, using the coaching skills and then using also my accounting skills to empower them with the knowledge to make decisions about deductions and you know, how do I classify this revenue? How do I classify this expense? The basics of that as well. Passionistas: What do you find is the biggest financial mistake that most small business owners make? Sara: I think the biggest mistake is that they don't become familiar with their numbers. So either they outsource it to a friend, or a partner, a spouse, or, you know, a bookkeeper, which absolutely has its place in certain businesses, I think. But it's really important that, you know, what's going on there yourself. And so technical mistakes can always be corrected, right? Like I was just talking yesterday on one of my classes that if you're categorizing your deductions and you accidentally put it in the wrong category, it's not the end of the world. Like it can always be fixed. But if you don't know what's going on with your business financially, three years down the line, you can wind up not being able to even keep the doors open because you haven't paid attention to what is going on there. And so if you do nothing else, I think it's really important to know what's going on there. And that's the biggest mistake I make is people just kind of turning a blind eye or thinking, oh, I'll deal with it later. Or that it's not as important as it really is. Passionistas: As a female entrepreneur yourself, is there something that you wish you knew when you started your business that you've learned along the way? Sara: Oh, so many things I learned along the way. I mean, again, as it relates to finances, another thing that I see quite often from the women business owners I work with-- and most of the people that I do work with are female business owners-- is that they lack the confidence around numbers. So for whatever reason, whether it was their parents or whether they grew up just... you know, in our society, we're told like math is for boys, numbers are for boys. And that translates into, at least what I see, a lack of confidence around managing that side of their businesses. I hear a lot of times, like, I just want to work with the clients. I just want someone else to do all that stuff for me. You know, it's great to outsource all for that, once you're at a space where you can do that. But it's important to have the confidence yourself around knowing that part of your business. And then also charging what you're worth, because that's another aspect of it. If you don't know that you're not making enough money from this course, and you don't feel like you have the right to kind of ask for that money, you're not going to charge appropriately. So on kind of the same bucket, right? And then you're not going to be able to keep your business sustainable for long enough to keep it, to keep it going. So, yeah, the confidence, I think. And I discovered that, you know, all through my business, that even I had to work on that in some respects. Like when I was making a proposal for, you know, to do a talk or something like that. And it's always kind of like, "oh, well, what's your budget?" You know, something like that, it's hard to sometimes speak up and say, "this is what I charged for X, and this is what I charged for this." and so I think we need to, or at least the clients I see and myself, practice that muscle of kind of standing in the power of saying, "this is what I'm charging and this is why." And it's okay. Passionistas: We're Amy and Nancy Harrington, and you're listening to The Passionistas Project Podcast and our interview with Sara Fins. To discover how simple it can be to take control of your business finances, visit sarafins.com. You can hang out with Sara in her free Facebook group, the Easy Business Bookkeeping Community, or on Instagram and Facebook at Easy Business Bookkeeping. If you're enjoying this interview and would like to help us continue creating inspiring content, please consider becoming a patron by visiting thepassionistasproject.com/podcast and clicking on the patron button. Even $5 a month can help us continue our mission of inspiring women to follow their passions. Now here's more interview with Sara Fins. Is there an example of a success story that you've worked with someone who's come to you that was a complete mess and figured it out and flourished? Sara: Yeah, there are a lot of them, which, you know, makes me really happy. I did this business pivot just before COVID and then I kind of took a step back because it wasn't the right time. And I jumped back into it maybe a year-ish should go. And just in that short amount of time, I've seen a lot of transformation. So this has been the first, kind of, full year that many of my clients have been using the system. And so they're coming back to me and letting me know that they're already ready for taxes. So, you know, it's February and they've already got their numbers. Whereas in the past they would spend an entire day with their receipts and trying to, you know, get it all ready in time. And so I've heard a few stories lately about that. How everybody's feeling prepared, and their tax accountants are so happy that they have this, you know, buttoned up thing to show them. I have another client of mine, Lisa, who was using QuickBooks. For those of you who don't know, it's an accounting system that... really it's geared towards accountants, but they also market it towards late people. So a lot of people think, "oh, I have to get this for my business." And then they pay a lot of money to have somebody set it up for them properly, which, you have to have help with that because it's complicated to do it yourself, unless you're an accountant. And then oftentimes it's too much. And so they never do it because every time they think about going into the program and using it, it's very overwhelming. So Lisa was using QuickBooks when she came to me. And she's like, "it's fine, but I never want to do it. I don't have everything up to date in there. It overwhelms me. I'm paying all this money. I don't even need to be paying this money." And so, she started using my program and she came back to me not too long ago about a recent launch that she had. And she said to me, 'I had my best year ever. And I truly believe that if I hadn't been on top of them by finances, looking at those numbers as my launches were happening, and as I was going through, I wouldn't have even had the motivation to push for those higher numbers of enrollments. And I wouldn't have known how well I was doing.' And so at the end of the year, she's like, 'I've made the most money in my business this year than all the other years past. And I think it's in part to my confidence around my finances.' So that's my favorite client to talk about because she's really rocking it. And she got rid of QuickBooks because it wasn't meeting her needs. And so she stopped paying for it. So she saved money on that end too. Passionistas: Financially or not financially, what do you think your best habit is? Sara: I would say my best habit is time management, and that's something I've cultivated a lot over the years. I mean, I think, you know, you learn a little bit each time as you go along, but then as a business owner, you learn it for sure. And then as a parent, and a business owner, you learn it also. Because before I had kids, you know, you feel like you have all the time in the world. But then you have your children and you realize you don't because your schedule is not entirely yours. And so it's gotten very, very good at managing my tasks and managing my time. And when I'm working, I'm working. And when I'm not working, you know, I'm trying not to work. That's, that's another story. But when I'm dedicated to those hours that I'm actually working, I'm really good about prioritizing what I need to do and turning off distractions so that I can just get it done. So that's been a, you know, that's been something I've been cultivating for a number of years. Passionistas: What advice would you give to your younger self? Sara: Don't be afraid to take risks and to be, you know, a little bit risk averse. And I think if I had taken more risks, maybe I would have, you know, gone into psychology, for example, even though it wasn't, in my mind, a safe career, you know. However reason I thought that in my twenties, I don't know. But, you know. So I think taking more risks in my career path and maybe in the jobs I was in and in the earlier stages of my business. I think that would be one thing that I would tell my younger self. And then the other thing that I would tell my younger self is to get help. So when I started my business, I waited too long to reach out to people who could train me to do the things I didn't need to do... that I didn't know how to do. I remember floundering for the first like year in terms of marketing and really just like throwing spaghetti at the wall and trying to figure out what was happening and what I should be doing. And then once I invested in a program that taught me a marketing framework, it was a game changer. So, you know, don't wait so long to reach out for help in the areas that you need support in. Passionistas: Have you ever suffered a professional setback that seemed devastating at the time, but actually ended up being a blessing? Sara: The first company I worked for in my accounting days, went out of business. And at that time, my office wasn't involved in the scandal, a different state, but the whole company closed. And at that time it felt like, "what's going to happen now? Am I going to have a job?" I was in my twenties, you know, I was about to get married. I didn't know what was happening. And then that opened a lot of doors because the next job I took introduced me to, you know, the person who would eventually hire me for the recruiting role. And then that helped me to move abroad. And it just was kind of a domino effect from there. And that enabled me to go back and follow my passion to have my own business. So, yeah, but at the time it was like, "uh oh." Because when I was growing up and when I was in college, you know, your path was you get a job in corporate and you work in New York city and that's what you do for the rest of your life. And so if that hadn't happened, I'm not sure everything would have played out the way it did. Passionistas: When you were a kid, what did your mother teach you about women's roles in society and what are you passing on to your children? Sara: I come from a long line of very strong women. But my grandmother went to college and wasn't super common, you know, back then. And then she also had a job which also wasn't common. My mother always had a job and my parents divorced when I was young. So my mom was, you know, pretty much the one who was running everything and working to support my sister and I. And it was never really taught that you can't do something. You know, my mother was a professional... is a professional. She's a nurse practitioner, you know, she always was all about school and just very supportive in the way that there's really nothing you can't do. And that was the impression I always felt for my sister and myself coming from both my mom and my grandmother, that there was never really a question. Like if I wanted to go to college and become an accountant, then that's what I would do. You know? So I think that that was really helpful in my upbringing, to have such strong female role models. Because it was... from that perspective, it was never a question that I could do what I wanted to do in my professional life. Passionistas: What's your dream for women? Sara: Honestly, my dream for women is that they feel empowered to follow their own dreams. So that might be starting a business, that might not be starting a business. That might be staying home and raising a family. That might be, you know, remaining single, or not having a family. But I want every woman to feel empowered to follow the path that they feel in their heart is the right one for them, instead of feeling the pressures that we have from society to do X. To do Y. Because I think there's a lot of that. And I think it can go both ways too, right? Like in a lot of ways, we're taught to be quiet and stay small and all of that. But then in my house, it was, you can do whatever you want to do, and then you feel the pressure to be a career woman and have, you know, that life. And for myself, I didn't truly resonate with that either because I wound up leaving corporate when my daughter was born. And I just knew that I didn't want to live that life and have kids at the same time. And so, yeah, I think for me, it's for women to feel empowered to follow whatever path they want to follow and be supported by the people around them and then also society. Because as we know the structure of at least in the United States, it doesn't support women in the workforce. That we have those support systems in place to actually do what we want to do and reach our goals. Passionistas: Thanks for listening to our interview with Sara Fins. To discover how simple it can be to take control of your business finances, visit sarafins.com. You can hang out with Sara in her free Facebook group, The Easy Business Bookkeeping Community, or on Instagram and Facebook @easybusinessbookkeeping. Please visit thepassionistasproject.com to learn more about our podcast and subscription box, filled with products made by women owned businesses and female artisans to inspire you to follow your passions. This quarter's box is a collaboration with the MOB Nation and features products from mom owned businesses. It's the perfect Mother's Day gift for the mother in your life, or a treat for yourself. Get a free mystery box with a one-year subscription using the code SPRINGGOODIES, and be sure to subscribe to The Passionistas Project Podcast, so you don't miss any of our upcoming, inspiring guests. Until next time, stay well and stay passionate.

Aria Leighty is the founder of MOB Nation, a networking group she founded in 2012. After finding networking opportunities inaccessible to mom owned business, Aria wanted to create a space of true connection. After years of working with hundreds of mom-owned businesses, Aria realized there was so much more that MOBs needed to thrive in life and business. In addition to The MOB Nation, Aria is a thought leader, trailblazer, and business mentor. For almost a decade, she's combined her diverse experience, creative ideas, wide range of connections, and unique perspectives to help women on the edge of change up-level in their businesses and lives. Learn more about The Mob Nation. Learn more about The Passionistas Project.   FULL TRANSCRIPT: Passionistas: Hi, and welcome to The Passionistas Project Podcast, where we talk with women who are following their passions to inspire you to do the same. We're Amy and Nancy Harrington, and this is our 100th episode of the podcast. We want to take a moment to thank all of the women who have shared their stories and to all of you for tuning in and listening. We hope you've been as inspired by all of these Passionistas, as we have been. We've picked someone very special to be our hundredth guest: MOB Nation founder, Aria Leighty. We were introduced to her by two other women who have been guests on the podcast. Stacy Newman-Weldon, the founder of Adventure Wednesdays and Dr. Melissa Bird, the founder of Natural Born Rebel and the new Heart of the Warrior Program. Not only is Aria today's guest, but we're currently collaborating with her and her incredible community, The MOB Nation, on this quarter's Passionistas Project Pack. As usual, our subscription box is filled with women owned products. But thanks to the MOB, for this installment, they're all from Mom Owned businesses. Aria founded the networking group The MOB Nation in 2012. After finding traditional networking opportunities inaccessible to mom owned businesses, she wanted to create a space of true connection. After years of working with hundreds of mom-owned businesses, Aria realized there were so much more that MOBs needed to thrive in life and business. In addition to building The MOB Nation, Aria is a thought leader, trailblazer and business mentor. For almost a decade, she's combined her diverse experience, creative ideas, wide range of connections, and unique perspective to help women on the edge of change up-level in their businesses and lives. So please welcome to the show, Aria Leighty. Aria: I love that. Thank you for that intro. Passionistas: We're so excited to have you here. We love Mob Nation. We're huge fans. So Aria, what's the one thing you're most passionate about? Aria: Really getting money into the hands of women and mom owned businesses. I think that that is like the overlying like concept in all of my businesses. All of the things that I do is the intent of redistributing the wealth into really good hearted women and allowing us to tap into that feminine energy of money. Passionistas: And why is that so important to you and what personal experiences have you had that made those things a priority for you? Aria: Well, I have just personally witnessed that it really does change the world. Like when we can redistribute the wealth, it has been proven that when women have more control of the money, they go and they spend it locally. They make more investments, they do more things. They have all the spending power in their family, so they can decide how to use that money to, like I said, change the world, whether it's, you know, outsource and their business to create more jobs, whether it is tipping better, women tip better. Also, you know, it just has more of that cycle of change in the world when women are earning it and spending it. Passionistas: So let's take a step back. Where did you grow up? What was your childhood like? And did your childhood have an influence on these things that you're doing today? Aria: I grew up... I split my time, my whole life has been split between Honolulu, Hawaii, Portland, Oregon, and San Diego, California. My dad was in the Navy. He met my native Hawaiian mother. It was kind of one of those cliche sailor meets a Hawaiian and so we moved around a lot. It's funny that you ask this because I was just asked this. And I said that my childhood was actually very lonely and I spent most of it very alone. And I was like, so I don't think it really had an impact on me. And then I was like, okay, well, duh, it did because I went out and built these massive communities so that people didn't have to do it alone. Passionistas: So let's jump ahead to MOB Nation. What were you doing prior to that? And what led you to create this amazing community? Aria: I had just opened my first brick and mortar location of a kid's art studio called Art a la Carte. I was in Portland, Oregon at the time. And so I was a single mom, single young mom. And my daughter was starting kindergarten and I decided to open a business and I knew that I was absolutely nuts. And I got to this point where I was like, what have I done. This is crazy. And so I started to go out and went to build my business, went to build my network. And I just didn't feel like networking was successful. I couldn't find my people. And I always joke that I was like, I've got to find at least one more. There's gotta be one more mom that was crazy enough to also start a business and balance that with motherhood. And then, you know, thousands of members later, here we are. Passionistas: So what were you experiencing as a mom owned business owner that was unique to what other business owners go through? Aria: I mean, it literally wasn't accessible, like it just wasn't. During times of the day, I felt like I had to take my mom hat off and kind of run a mask when walking into those rooms. At the time, I mean, this was a decade ago. It really felt like traditional networking was kind of like... like the boys club and it was very masculine energy. It was very competitive. There wasn't a lot of like collaboration. Even if there were female centered, women centered circles, it still felt like we were modeling that masculine behavior of competing with each other and one-upping each other. And some of the other traditional networking things... like you can never miss a meeting or you'll get kicked out .And it's, you know, if my daughter has a play or, you know, she's not feeling good, that's coming first before anything else. So that was really what made me start to realize that moms needed so much more than just what was being offered at the time. Passionistas: So how did you go from finding that one other mother, who had started a business, to building this community of thousands of women? What was the process? Aria: Well, first we just started meeting. I mean, it started with a Facebook post, like, "Hey, anybody know anyone else that's doing this?" And we had the first little quote unquote meetup around my dining table. I think there was like six moms, who a couple of them are still members today. Then we started going into a couple of different coffee shops and then people would just hear. Like, you know, word of mouth spread really quickly because it was like, this is unlike anything that I've ever seen. You know, moms are actually collaborating, they're purchasing from each other. It's just, it's a completely different dynamic and energy and the referrals aren't forced. It's a very organic connection. When I brought my kids and they were coloring, you know, during the whole thing. So when we started like really making structured meetups, it was very intentional how I've created them to make sure that everybody walks in feeling seen, everybody leaves feeling heard. Like they made a new friend. Like they got a new connection. Like they had an opportunity to share their pitch and their big ask. And then again on a national level... that just... it went crazy. People were talking on Facebook. Like I joined this group where I went to this event and I saw, you know, my sales doubled within a week. Or, you know, I've never felt this level of community before. And so people started calling and emailing saying, "bring this to Phoenix, bring this to San Diego, bring this, you know, over here to Florida." And so we really just began expanding from there. I had no intention at the time. And Gwen, our COO, was like, "As soon as you asked me to be a part of this, I knew that this was going to grow on a national level." But I really thought it was just going to be community-based. And I'm still shocked all the time when I talk to somebody from across the world now, and they've heard of The MOB Nation. Passionistas: So talk about that process of expanding from being a local community, to taking it online and expanding throughout the country. How did you go about that? Aria: Pre COVID times, we began with bringing on different leadership in the different cities. So the people that would say, "oh, we would love to have this in San Diego." It's like, if you want to lead it and you want to learn the secrets behind it, and you want to create the meet ups in the way that we have created them, and you want to duplicate in that in your area, then come onto our leadership team. And I would travel out there, help train them, help run their first event. So prior to COVID, we were doing 30 in-person events per month across the nation. So there were several nights that would have, you know, one in Bend, Oregon and one in Texas and one in Honolulu. And it was really awesome to know that all of those were happening at the same time with these incredible leaders. Then COVID happened. And it actually was a blessing for us because taking it to the online model... I don't want to say blessing, but you get what I'm saying. It did impact it in a positive way. We were able to make it a lot more accessible and expand the virtual meetups that we were doing to offering those 12 times per month. And so people were able to come and, you know, have that experience. We were luckily able to duplicate that experience that we have and the structure that we have on Zoom. And people that are from small towns that don't get access to that community, people that have online businesses, where they can really benefit from sales from anywhere, they're able to hop on, get that experience, make those connections. Passionistas: I mean, I think one of the most impressive things is this micro economy that you have fostered. So talk about that, and especially during COVID, the benefits that that has had for your members. Aria: That is the thing I'm the most proud of too, is the micro economy. We like, we love to say, "there's a MOB for that." And so that's really what we stand by. We encourage our members to support MOB first. And again, we take that same idea that when moms have more money in their pockets, we can change the world. We can make a difference, we create more jobs. And so being able to cultivate that culture within the group, getting them thinking all the time, what big box purchases can I switch over to mom owned and get this economy going. And we saw, like during COVID, when all of these businesses were shutting down, our members were still seeing the same amount of success, if not more, because now there's so many more people saying, "go support mom owned. It's more important than ever." And even the really, you know, successful businesses were purchasing gift cards from stores, they knew that they would probably never go to because it's in a completely different state just to make sure that those stores were able to remain open on the underside of this. Passionistas: Tell us a little bit about your core team. Cause we know you mentioned Gwen, like you have some women that are kind of the nexus of this organization with you. So can you talk about how you brought them together and the roles that some of them play? Aria: Yes, my people! So I had the MOB and I was running it for about five years... four years before taking it to the next level with the alliance and the paid membership version of the MOB, the up-level next step. And I knew before launching that that I really needed to have a team that was going to be able to support that feeling that I wanted to do. To be able to love on the community. To be able to bring in their zone of genius so I can focus on mine's zone of genius. Because I fully believe in outsourcing and bringing on team, whenever you can. So I actually asked a group of four women. They came into my glittery painted art studio and we sat at this trashed, painted table. We have a picture of it. It's really funny. I was like, I have this idea. I think it's going to really blow up. I think it's going to change the way that networking in business is done. I want you to be a part of it. Gwen... I don't even think I had actually met her in person yet, but she was one of those women around the table. But she was just always showing up in the MOB group and providing so much value, had so much insight. You couldn't help, but just be drawn to her energy. And I was like, this person loves this community the way that I do, and they, you know, are generous and give the way that I want to give as a leader. And Gwen has stuck with me through this entire time. Mori was actually a chapter leader. And people would come in saying, you know, "I was so nervous to go to this Vancouver/Washington event. And Mori made me feel so good. And gave me a hug." Like I was hearing stories every week. Like" Mori made me feel this," "Mori, you know, gave me the best hug." "Or she held my baby so I could, you know, eat a meal." And I was like, I need this to be duplicated so that every member that we have nationwide can feel this level of love. And so I was like, you need to be the VP of membership, but you need to spread this joy throughout the nation. And she has. And still, every week, it's like, "Do you know how cool Mori and Gwen are?" I'm like, yes, thank you. But that's all anybody wants to tell me is like how great those two are. Passionistas: You're listening to the hundredth episode of The Passionistas Project Podcast and our interview with Aria Leighty. To work with her as a coach and business mentor, visit arialeighty.com to join her alliance of women owned businesses visit themobnation.com. If you're enjoying this interview and would like to help us continue creating inspiring content, please consider becoming a patron by visiting thepassionistasproject.com/podcast and clicking on the patron button. Even $5 a month can help us continue our mission of inspiring women to follow their passions. Now here's more of our interview with Aria. So you mentioned the paid level. Can you talk about the tiers and how women can be a part of MOB Nation? Aria: Yeah. So if you identify as a mother and you have any size business, then we welcome you in. There is a show up level, which means that you're going to show up in then directory. So that's a great first start. If you are just wanting to get that marketing, that visibility, The MOB Nation directory, which is theresamomforthat.com, is the largest mom owned business directory in the nation. So you're going to get that visibility. You're going to get seen. Again, you're going to get our members who wanted to support mom owned first, going there and to look, to see who they can support. If you're really ready to dive in to the community and attend the meetups and, you know, get really invested, then the go up-level is for you. So you can attend all the meetups. You also have coffee chats and pitch practice and goal-setting calls. Our alliance community are really the ones that are super invested. So you know that you're going to be networking and in a private community called MOB Social. Networking with those people that really have the MOB culture on lock. We get a lot of different amazing discounts and opportunities for our members. We partner with amazing people like The Passionistas Project, where we get our alliance members, you know, featured. So there's so many opportunities. The directors team is always looking for more ways to highlight these members and to get them seen and to get more money into their hands. And our glow up members are members that have been a part of our community and are really the outstanding members, like look to these members to see how to have success in this community. And so they apply after a certain amount of time and get their directory listings featured on the website and a lot more benefits. Passionistas: And even if you're not a member of The MOB, you can sponsor a meetup. Right? Tell everybody about that, cause we did that and it was an amazing opportunity. Aria: Yeah, anyone that is really, like aligns with our community culture and wants to get their business or offering in front of our group of amazing members, they can sponsor a meetup. They can sponsor a MOBCON Mini, and be able to hop on virtually to tell our group, and then we share it in our social media platforms. And we take it very seriously, who we partner with and work with because our members have built trust with us. And they know that we only bring them the best of the best, like The Passionistas Project. And so they are, you know, so excited to support these different organizations back that partner with us. Passionistas: What have you learned about yourself from all the work you've done with MOB Nation? Aria: What haven't I learned about myself. I saw a thing that said, if you really want to see where you need to heal, like own a business. That's going to teach you everything that you need to know. So, I mean, it's just completely changed the trajectory of my life, and how I show up, how I connect with people. I think allowing people in and allowing myself to receive community and friendships has been a big blessing for me. And I think I've learned everything about money mindset through working with mom owned businesses and seeing the different stories that we all carry about ourselves that, you know, men just aren't really carrying around about themselves. So, yeah, I've learned all of my important lessons through this project and this mission. Passionistas: Every year, you have a big convention called MOBCON and then a couple of MOBCON Minis. So tell us about those and tell us the plan for the big MOBCON. Aria: So we are having it in person. Yes. Haven't had that since 2019. It's in San Diego, California, the last weekend in September. And it's really the most amazing time where all of our members on a national level have a chance to be in the same room, feed off of each other's energy, learn from incredible speakers. We have a lot of different networking and connection opportunities. And really our intent is to fill your cups personally and professionally. So you're going to walk away with new tools. You're going to walk away with a new, like fire lit under you with new connections, new friends. And you're also just going to have this belief in yourself and walk away that even though you poured all of time, you're still somehow going to walk away feeling like rejuvenated and rested and cared for and loved on. So it's an incredible experience. I think like I cried for like a week after the one in 2019 because it was just... there were so many breakthroughs and so many hugs. And these people are so close and they've never met in person. You know, they've been talking for years across the world and they finally get to sit next to each other and hug and, you know, share a hotel room together. And they're just, they're so stoked. Passionistas: Besides all of this amazing work you're doing with MOB Nation, you also have a very successful coaching and consulting business. Tell us about that and how you work with your clients. Aria: Yeah, so that kind of formed organically. I realized that I was a consultant without even really charging for it or giving it a name. I've just been constantly mentoring different businesses throughout my decade of working with mom owned businesses. So I love to work with creative entrepreneurs and really I help them step into their power. I help them create collaborations, help them step out and show up into the world as the expert and the leader in their industry. Help them really discover and tap into their zone of genius and then stay there so that they can make money from that space. It's something that I really love to do. My favorite thing right now is my new program "Show Up to Go Up." And that's a six week program for those really ambitious, audacious women that are ready to build that power network and to build their name on a national level, get press mentions, all of that fun stuff. And we work through everything from mindset to literally how to network intentionally. And already the women that have gone through that program, like, they are getting more bookings. They are being featured on podcasts. They are making more money within just a few weeks. So it really is a program that I'm really, really proud of. Passionistas: And how can women work with you? How do they sign up for these programs? Aria: They can go to arialeighty.com. I'm actually completely full for one-on-one clients until after MOBCON, which is insane. So the best way to work with me right now is to join that Show Up to Go Up program. I have one launching right now, and then there'll be one late summer/early fall that we'll be launching the next cohort. Passionistas: Do you find that there are limiting beliefs that women tend to have that are holding them back when it comes to business? Aria: Definitely that everything has to be hard. Like that they have to hustle and that everything has to be hard work. That it can't be easy. You know, things around the worth of their value. When we are tapped into that zone of genius because it does come so naturally and easily to us, moms are always like, "well, is it allowed to be this fun? Is it allowed to be this easy? You know, aren't I supposed to work hard and lose sleep and..." No, absolutely not. And then the money, because so many women and so many moms they're doing heart's work, right? Like Passionistas Project is heart's work. You love it. You want to be changing the world. And so a lot of people think that if I'm changing the world, I can't be making a lot of money from it. Which you're allowed to do both. And you'll actually change the world even more if you are making a lot more money. Even just from the people watching you. Like, if we can all be, you know, breaking those limiting beliefs and those stories and those stereotypes down, it gives permission to all the women watching us to also go after what they want and to make a lot of money as well. Passionistas: You talk about tapping into the feminine energy of money. So explain what you mean by that. Aria: So tapping into the feminine energy of money. We have these stories around money that it's like, again, you have to work really hard. You have to sacrifice time with your family in order to, you know, make money. Money is the root of all evil. We've seen a lot of masculine examples of men having money and not doing amazing things with it. But money is a tool. So it's only going to amplify whatever you are, whoever you are. Right? And so when we have control of it, we're doing better things with it. So when I am talking to clients and having them tap into the feminine energy of money, I really have them think "what kind of difference can you make?" Like make an impact list of how you would be spending this money. And that often helps women because they're not looking at it anymore as this toxic thing or this greedy thing. Now they're really seeing it as like, I can be more giving and generous and compassionate. I can make better choices for my family. I can set my kids up to not have to, you know, work so hard and to be able to enjoy their lives. They think of the few things. They write it down and it's like the few obvious things. Okay. I can create some jobs or whatever. But then when they really get into it, it's like, "Oh, I can buy all of my groceries or all of my produce from organic farmers who are not, you know, destroying the earth and who are now taking that money back and being able to contribute to their family." And all of a sudden we're really realizing what an impact we're going to have on the world when we are thinking of it as a positive tool, rather than this greedy thing that we shouldn't have. Passionistas: When you look back at your journey, is there like a moment where things just looked really dark, but they ended up being the catalyst for something really positive? Aria: I think every couple of months I have times where it looks... I gotta be honest. I mean, I just, I don't like to talk about things until I'm on the other side of them or until it's like, you know, a long ways back. But I just went through something where I really honestly thought, back in November, that I was going to just have to shut everything down. I made an investment that looked like it was going to bring the MOB forward. It wasn't everything that was promised. And so it just really looked like, wow, this is not... this is the end. Like I can't keep going financially or emotionally, or, you know, I just don't have it in me physically. So, I mean, four months ago that happened. And before that it was MOBCON 2019. Everything that could have gone wrong, did go wrong. I mean everything. My card got declined checking into the hotel. And I was like, oh my gosh, like we are at our last penny to make this, you know, crazy thing happen. And it all worked out. We had so many members join because of that. We had so many amazing opportunities open. So yeah. But I would say every year, there's one major thing that I'm like, "okay, this is it." Passionistas: What advice would you give to a mother who wants to start her own business? Aria: Don't do it alone. Definitely, I mean, join us for a meetup. Join us in the community so that we can support you. You don't have to start... it's kind of like getting a head start, right? Because you have all of these moms championing you throughout the process and helping you with resources and, you know, getting you there quicker. And I think also, just starting with whatever you have. It doesn't have to be perfect. I think a lot of people want to wait until they're this, or they've accomplished this, or they read this book. But show up now with what you have and evolve in front of your audience. Like I sold out masterminds and sold out clients with Google forms before I even had a website, you know? So you can do it with whatever you have and the world is desperate for what you want to be bringing to life. There's people out there desperate for it. So go start showing up now. Passionistas: Thanks for listening to our hundredth episode and interview with Aria Leighty. To work with her as a coach and business mentor, visit arialeighty.com. To join her alliance of women owned businesses visit themobnation.com. Please visit thepassionistasproject.com to learn more about our podcast and subscription box, filled with products made by women owned businesses and female artisans to inspire you to follow your passion. And remember, this quarters box is a collaboration with The MOB Nation and features products from mom owned businesses. It's the perfect Mother's Day gift for the mother in your life, or a treat for yourself. Get a free mystery box with a one-year subscription using the code SPRINGGOODIES. And be sure to subscribe to The Passionistas Project Podcast so you don't miss any of our upcoming, inspiring guests. Until next time, stay well and stay passionate.

Amy Chin is the founder of Calm Better Days, where she educates clients on CBD, its uses, different delivery methods and figuring out the proper dosage. As someone who has suffered from anxiety and depression, she found great relief with CBD and knew she had to help and educate others. By sharing her personal findings, Amy helps clients find a tailored CBD regime based on needs and lifestyle, so they can dive into their CBD journey and live calm, better days. More about Amy Chin. More about The Passionistas Project. FULL TRANSCRIPT: Passionistas: Hi, and welcome to The Passionistas Project Podcast, where we talk with women who are following their passions to inspire you to do the same. We're Amy and Nancy Harrington and today we're talking with Amy Chin, the founder of Calm Better Days. As someone who suffered from anxiety and postpartum depression, she found great relief with CBD and knew she had to help others understand how CBD could help them in a myriad of ways so she became a CBD educator. Calm Better Days walks clients through what CBD is, what you use it for, different delivery methods and how to find their dosage. Clients also receive a tailored CBD regimen based on the individual's needs and lifestyle, so they can dive into their CBD journey. So please welcome to the show, Amy Chin. Amy: Hi. Hi Nancy. Hi Amy. Thank you for having me on today. Passionistas: We're really excited about CBD and want to learn all about it. Tell us what's the one thing you're most passionate about. Amy: Well, it's cannabis. I'm most passionate about plant medicine. It is a gift that can heal in so many ways. And I think that, you know, as a society, we need to learn to tap into that. And I think that we are gearing into that category as we are learning that, you know, health these days is a integrated health, right. That means eating more plant-based diet, as well as doing your exercise, meditation, getting adequate sleep, all those play a role into our health. Passionistas: And so how does that translate into what you do for a living? Amy: Understanding that everything is integrative, right. I always talk to my clients and remind them that CBD will fast-track your health to where you want it to be, but will slow down depending on your other health lifestyle habits. So for example, let's say two people are battling, you know, hormonal imbalance. And if one is doing everything, having healthy habits in terms of sleep, exercise, diet, and let's say spiritually, they're going to be healthier, faster. However, if one is not adapting to those, you know, healthier lifestyle habits, it will take much longer. So that's how it all relates. And I think that we're all learning that as we go now, especially with COVID around. Passionistas: Well, let's take a little step back. Tell us where you grew up and what your childhood was like. Amy: I grew up in New York City, born and raised right in Chinatown. And being in a Chinese household, we didn't really speak much about health. We didn't speak much about feelings and emotions as well in a Chinese household. So for me, growing up now as a mom and being diagnosed with anxiety and postpartum depression was very new to me. I was very thankful it was diagnosed by my marriage therapist because I was not aware of the symptoms because we never spoke about it in my household. And that's why I love talking about it. Because now that I realize when it was diagnosed, I can then treat it. I can address it and take care of myself. When I didn't know what it was at the time, I just thought, oh, this is part of motherhood. This is something that I have to learn to deal with. And I assumed that this was just how it was. So I was very thankful it was diagnosed. And it was my marriage therapist who recommended CBD to me because I was leaning toward a more holistic life after being a mom. And I was not having good reactions from pharmaceutical meds. So I was very thankful that she did recommend something that was more holistic. And this was about eight years ago. At the time that was when you actually had to get a medical card to get CBD. And I got my card and started taking CBD. And that's when my life changed. It went from that cranky, irritable yelling mom that flew off the handle. And I hated who I was. I hated how I was with my children. And once I started taking CBD, I became so much more patient, so much more present and mindful. I was able to enjoy the time when I was interacting with my kids and realize, oh my goodness, life can be like this. It didn't have to be the way it was before. And when I felt that change in myself, it was so eye opening. I was finally able to respond to the days, you know, challenges instead of reacting. And once I felt that calm and ease, I was just like, I knew that I had to get the word out there. Because I knew that if I one, didn't also knew I had anxiety and postpartum depression, I was sure that other moms out there maybe going through the same thing, and may not be aware of it. And knowing that there's a natural alternative out there with no side effects, it is such a big, great help. And so that's how I started Calm Better Days, to help people find their calm better day. I know we go through that a lot where we're just living and, you know, suffering from something, right. Everyone's suffering from something, whether it's pain, whether it's mental, whether it's, you know, different health conditions. And that's the great thing about CBD is that it can address so many different issues, so many different health issues. You almost wonder how can it be? How can it be so wonderful that it addresses so many different health issues from anxiety, epilepsy, Alzheimers, heart disease, arthritis. It's almost too good to be true, but it really does. Passionistas: So I think there are misconceptions about what CBD is, and especially as it relates to cannabis and marijuana and people getting high and all that. So can you kind of talk about the myth of CBD and clarify for people that are listening, what it is? Amy: Absolutely. So CBD and THC, there are both cannabinoids found in a cannabis plant. And THC is the cannabinoid known to get you euphorically high and CBD does not get you euphorically high. They are however, both cycle active in the sense that if I have depression, a person who takes CBD, their moods and feelings will be elevated in terms of not feeling depressed, however, not intoxicated. So that's the big difference between CBD and THC. And because you don't get that euphoric high with CBD, a lot of people sometimes don't know when it's working. Because with THC, you know it's working when you get that euphoric high. But with CBD, because you're not getting that euphoric high people are like, well, what am I supposed to be feeling? And so I describe it as you know it's working when you're not feeling the negative symptoms that you're normally experiencing. So that can be that anxiety, right. With anxiety might come that overwhelm, that high level of stress, that tightness in your chest, or pain for some people, right. So when you're not feeling those negative symptoms anymore, that's when you know CBD is working. It makes you feel normal, not suffering. CBD is a potent bioaccumulator. So what that means is, it's going to soak up all the toxins in the soil, which can be heavy metal, fungi, mold, pesticide, mycotoxins. These are things we do not want to ingest. So always buy organic. And you know, hemp is such a potent bioaccumulator, they actually planted at Chernobyl to clean up the soil from the radiation. So if you're not buying organic and you're not looking at the certificate of analysis that every quality CBD product comes with, you can be ingesting toxins that will set off at another health condition. Passionistas: Is that what inspired you to found Calm Better Days? And what was the process of starting it? And what's your mission? Amy: I started Calm Better Days at the end of 2019, right before the pandemic started. So what happened was in 2018, the Farm Bill was passed. So CBD was federally legal and you did not need a medical card anymore to buy CBD. So that's when we saw that the market was getting saturated. We saw CBD products everywhere. And I saw two issues for new consumers. And that was one: because CBD was so new, not everyone understood how to properly use CBD to really access the benefits from the plan. And then two: because it's such a saturated market now, finding a safe and quality product was another unknown for new consumers. And so that's when I wanted to address both issues. So, what I do is... people can sign up for a virtual consultation, so it can be done anywhere, any state. And I walk people through the basics because if you don't understand the basics, you're not going to really be able to access and understand the plant fully. So when I say the basics, I mean, what is CBD? How does it work in your body that it can address so many different symptoms? And then walking the person through the different delivery methods between tinctures, edibles, vaporizers. What are their different activation times and how long they last for in your body? Understanding that makes it easier for you to develop a routine that works for you. And then also understanding your dosage. Everybody's dosage is very unique. And we're used to going to a doctor's office, let's say. And your doctor says, let's say you're starting an SSRI. We'll start you on a certain milligram. And the doctor will say, well, come back in a month and let's see how that works, and we'll adjust the dosage if necessary. And with plant medicine, it's no different, except that you're able to... if you're able to track and learn to read what your body is telling you, your body will tell you how much CBD you need. And I teach, you know, people that tracking system so that they can find out what works best for themselves. And lastly, after the education portion, I take a look at your specific health condition to recommend the best products for you. Everybody suffers from different things. And, you know, we're learning that CBD is just scratching the surface. There are other cannabinoids and other turpines that play a role in each product and, and the effect. So if you're telling me your issue is say Crohn's disease or a gut issue, then there is a cannabinoid CBG that is great for that, that will help clean up the gut, promote good gut flora, and also help with digestive issues. But let's say your issue is sleep. Then there is another cannabinoid, CBN, that is great for that. So this cuts down on time and money for the consumer because now they don't have to waste money on thinking, well, I think this product might work for me. And then also, you know, they're finding relief faster because now that they have the products in hand that are right for them, now they know how to use it as well. So that's how Calm Better Days was born and the mission behind it. I also carry about 15 to 20 different brands. And I support and focus on small farmed, women own and BIPOC owned brands. One, I believe that small farm that's where the quality is. I don't believe in, you know, huge commercial grows. The standards are very different, as well as you know, I like to look into the company's mission. I want to make sure that they're really about helping people and growing quality product. And that's why I believe that, you know, especially people new to this industry, right. They may not be aware of the history behind it and what goes on. So I want to steer them toward good quality companies that are, you know, really focus on the quality of the product and really helping people. Passionistas: So how do you go from being diagnosed, that this is a treatment that will work for you as an individual, to gaining all this knowledge that you now have, where you can help other people? What kind of studying and practices did you do to get to this place? Amy: Before I started CBD, I was a cannabis enthusiast. And once I discovered the CBD side, I was just blown away. I was like, is there anything this plant cannot do? And it was when I felt the results with CBD, that I started diving into it myself, doing all the research possible. And once I knew what I wanted to do and start my company, I then became cannabis licensed with Dr. Mary Clifton. She is a board certified internal doctor who specializes in cannabis. And the studies don't stop because every day we're now finding new studies, right? Because now we can study the plant. Before we were not able to study the plant because it was, you know, it's still a Schedule 1 drug, and that's why there are no studies beforehand. But like I was saying, now studies are coming out. So it doesn't stop. And every day there are new industry trends that I need to keep up on. But I love, I love finding out all this information. So I take what I've, you know, been consuming myself for years, as well as the studies that are now available, and apply that to people who are looking for new alternatives to health. Passionistas: Tell us a little bit about the pop-ups that you do.. Amy: So I do a lot of pop-ups. I don't have a brick and mortar store, so I do a lot of pop-ups. Especially at women networking events, because, you know, I am a mom. And I know that moms ,we take on so much that our anxiety and stress is... I think a lot of moms suffer. So I'm hoping one day we'll have a brick and mortar so that I can do more explaining and education in the store. I find that right now, although people are in need of it, I think because we're all so busy right now with COVID and everything is online, we're just too busy to sometimes even have that consultation. Or even too busy to go online to order things. So pop-ups are helpful to be right in front of them. Passionistas: We're Amy and Nancy Harrington, and you're listening to The Passionistas Project Podcast and our interview with Amy Chin. To learn more about her CBD related personal events, group and individual consultations, and pop-ups, visit calmbetterdays.co. If you're enjoying this interview and would like to help us to continue creating inspiring content, please consider becoming a patron by visiting thepassionistasproject.com/podcast and clicking on the patron button. Even $1 a month can help us continue our mission of inspiring women to follow their passions. Now here's more of our interview with Amy. You talked a little bit about the different forms that people can take CBD in. Can you kind of talk a little bit more in detail about that? Amy: So back then the only, not the only, but the most common way was through inhalation, smoking a joint or a blunt. Nowadays, we have vaporizers. And I love vaporizers because one, you're not burning carcinogens. Like before with the joint you had the paper, the flour is all burning and that's consuming carcinogens. Which I want to save my throat, so I don't consume flower anymore in that form, but I do use vaporizers. There's no scent to it. There is no carcinogens in my throat, so it saves my throat. But also I love it because it provides the quickest onset. So you'll feel it within 5 to 10 minutes. And this is great for, let's say a person suffering from panic attacks or anxiety attacks, and they need that quick relief. Or maybe they have severe, intense back pain that they need real quick relief from. The vaporizer will get to that quickest. But I also understand that, you know, for some people they just don't want to inhale anything. And that's where, you know, the industry has been so innovative in the different formats that CBD comes in. So there are edibles. And edibles are gummies, honey, chocolate, anything that needs to go through your stomach and liver to metabolize. But because it has to go through your stomach, it will take much longer to kick in. So it takes about 30 to 90 minutes. But people love it because it's portable. It's easy to consume. You just, if it's a gummy, you could put it in your bag, just pop one when you need it. And, it does last much longer than a vaporizer. It can last from 4 to 6 hours, even 8 hours for some people. So when we think about different delivery methods, you want to think about what's going to make it easy for us to consume on a daily basis. Because then you make it easy as part of your routine. But if you're doing something that you don't like, and it's difficult, then it doesn't become part of your routine. So other formats are tinctures. Tinctures are CBD suspended in MCT oil. And it comes in a bottle with a dropper. And normally you want to drop it underneath your tongue. Hold it there for 60 seconds before you swallow. And that allows it to be absorbed into your bloodstream and will take about 20 to 40 minutes to activate. And will last about four hours. And when I talk about delivery methods, there is a time and place for everything. So what I mean by that is we want to think about our situation, what we need to address, and then also about the place where we're at, right? Because we want it to be easy and convenient. Once I wake up. That's when my anxiety and depression is at its worse, right. It's hard to be motivated. I'm, you know, don't want to get out of bed. And it's hard for me to be focused and productive. So I know right away in the morning, I either use my vaporizer or my tincture because I want to set the tone for my day. And I want it to be quick to get out of that slump and kind of like jumpstart my day. So, I either do one of those two things. And then after that, because I know it lasts for about four hours and I work at home, thankfully. So that's when I take an edible. I pop a gummy right before my lunch, because I know I have a long afternoon ahead and I don't want to have to think about redosing. And I take it right before my lunch, because I want it to go down with the good fat from my diet. Because then your body will absorb more of the CBD and also quicker, versus taking it on an empty stomach where your stomach acids might get to it first, or after a full meal where your liver just has to metabolize more. And then after the gummy wears off is probably around dinner time/after dinner. And it depends on what I need to do. If I need to do more, then I'll dose accordingly. But let's say, you know, I put in a hard day's work. I really want to relax. I don't want to think about work, then I can also do something relaxing, like a tea to kind of like set the mood for my night. Set myself up for good sleep and have a really relaxing night. And that's a great thing about it. Is that now with so many different products, it feels like a self treat. I can do an afternoon little chocolate piece or, you know, have my tea, right. Or maybe it's honey drizzled on top or fruit as my dessert after dinner. So there are different ways of consuming it. And not only that, but after my shower, you know, my muscles usually there's like soreness or stress from my neck down. And I love after a shower putting on a good CBD lotion just to melt all that tension, all that stress away. And that also eases me into my, you know, good nights rest. Passionistas: I think everybody associates weed with patchouli. Like these creams and the tinctures and everything. Do they smell like cannabis or do they come now in like lavender? Amy: They do. They come in so many different formats, so many different scents, and I love it. I have this one by Common Ground and it's bergamot and I love bergamot. And it goes on so smooth, so luxurious. So satiny too. I'm loving the creams that they come up with now because it doesn't smell like cannabis and it goes on so nice. It feels like any other luxurious cream, you wouldn't . Even know that it's, you know, specifically CBD. Not only does it smell great, but it really helps ease that tension, melt away any stress or pain that you may have. It's great because it's anti-inflammatory, which can be acne, rosacea, the redness, right. That's all inflammation. So that takes care of that. It also regulates your sebum control. So back then, when I was hormonally imbalanced, I had horrible cystic acne. My face would get shiny in an hour because I was over producing oil. So the CBD oil helps balance out your sebum. So instead of over-producing oil, it was balancing that out. So now my face doesn't get shiny in an hour. And also my cystic acne, it would hurt less because the CBD oil was taking care of the pain, as well as the inflammation. So CBD facial oil is also anti-aging and anti-oxidant. So it's great for the face. And I use it every day. It's cleaned up my skin regimen. Like before I used to apply so much acne medication, so many different retinals this and that. Now is just double cleanse and the facial moisturizers, CBD facial moisturizer and nothing else. It will take out the puffiness. I have an eye serum. And also for dark spots. Because it quickens the cellular turnover, so the dark spots will fade quicker as well. So it's cut down my steps and products. I love it. I recommend it for everyone. Passionistas: What if someone is on traditional medication? Are there interactions that they should speak with a doctor about before starting a regimen? Amy: Always speak with your doctor especially when you are on pharmaceutical drugs. And on my website, I have a partnership with Leaf411, which is a nonprofit organization of cannabis nurses. So what that means is you can call them and say, you know, you were referred from Calm Better Days. And that makes the call free. You do have to pay for the service, but because I have the partnership, it is free. And what you can do is say, "I am on medication X, Y, Z. Will CBD interact with it?" For the most part, CBD does not interact with most drugs. The only concern is if you are on blood thinners or blood pressure medication. Anything that interacts with grapefruit and you cannot take, CBD works like that grapefruit. It's, an enzyme inhibitor. So that you would have to watch. Passionistas: You talked a little bit about how your personal life has changed from making this discovery. But tell us a little bit more about, kind of, the transformation you personally have made since you started using CBD in this way. Amy: Well, let's see, I've been on it for about, CBD specifically, for over eight years now. Cannabis in general, probably over a decade. So I have now become a more mindful person, definitely more aware about my health. And this was also after becoming a mom, more holistic, more plant-based. Because when I was at my darkest point with anxiety and postpartum depression, that's when my health was out of balance. I was hormonally imbalanced. I wasn't eating right at that time. So during the time when I was consuming CBD was also when I was making healthier lifestyle changes in terms of my diet, more plant-based. And as a mom, you know, I know I'm supposed to exercise more and also get adequate sleep. However, it's very hard to fit those two things in as a busy mom, also running her own company. And I know that, right. And that is why I make sure to take my CBD every day. So at least then my body won't crack from not doing the things that I know I'm supposed to do. If I can, I do try to, of course do it. But in terms of lifestyle, that's how it's changed. I'm more aware of what I do need to do, as well as my mental state. I would say before CBD, I felt like my life felt like, you know, how, when you're that hamster on the hamster wheel and it's constantly going. And you just feel that you have to. And then once I took CBD, it kind of took me out of that hamster wheel and I could see, oh my gosh, I'm that hamster. And it didn't have to be like that. It allowed me to have calmness and mindfulness so I can see and be aware of what goes on in my life. And the funny thing is, you know, they always suggest therapy and all that. And I have been going to years of that and try to practice meditation and yoga, but my mind would not be still. And I just could not tap into it no matter how hard I tried. But with the CBD, I was able to finally tap into that and calm my mind and be aware of everything that was going on, so that now if I take CBD before a yoga session or a meditation, it just enhances that session because now I can really focus in and tap into that. Whereas before I just could not calm my mind to, to focus in on that. Passionistas: Do you find that people are, like who don't get it, who don't understand it personally, like are judgmental about the concept of CBD? And how do you address people who come at you in that way? Amy: Absolutely. I get a lot of people who don't understand it. And that's why I love to talk about it. And I get that they don't understand it. And sometimes it comes with, of course, you don't get it because you don't have the basic fundamentals. And, and that's why I'm here to help you understand that, because I feel that once you understand that, then everything starts clicking. And then after that is you have to experiment and try it. And you know, we've been so conditioned as a society to think that, okay, a doctor is here, they prescribe medicine. And then you just take it blindly, right? And with plant medicine, it's a different approach in that you can do it yourself, but you have to be patient. You have to be open to it and you have to be open to tracking it so that you can tell yourself, well, how much does my body need? But we haven't listened to our bodies in so long that it seems like a new practice. And we have to remember that herbs, cannabis, that was the original medicine of days long ago before pharmaceutical medicine was made in a lab. So we have to understand that that's what we started with and it's going back to that. And I understand sometimes even with the education, it may still be hard to understand. But once that person tries it and they feel it, then that is like, I'm hooked now. Now I want to understand more and dive into it more. And sometimes it's all about finding the right dosage to get you there. Or finding the right product because everyone is going to respond differently to a vaporizer versus a tincture versus an edible. You know, for some people edibles, for whatever reason, doesn't work for them, for their body, their genetic makeup. So sometimes that's when a vaporizer can really help. And I love vaporizers because I find that because of the quick onset, that people really feel it. Where sometimes when they're waiting for an edible to kick in, they forget that they're waiting and then the day goes by and then they're not mindful of, oh, my day actually went by smoother. I wasn't blowing up at everything, right. But sometimes people don't notice that because we're not mindful. We're not reading what our body is telling us. And usually we only hear what our body is telling us when it's screaming, right. And that's when it's like suffering from a pain or suffering from something that happened in our body. Passionistas: From all the people that you've worked with, is there like one specific example that you can think of as like a success story that you're especially blown away by? Amy: Well, right now, a lot of clients are coming to me for sleep issues and stress issues and actually gut issues. Well, gut and mind is all related. So that's why stress and gut health are like hand in hand. And that's why a lot of people are coming for that. But sleep. So I've seen a lot of people come back and say, you know what? I've been getting good sleep. And stress has been lowered. I've had a lot of clients who were on pharmaceutical meds for anxiety, stress, depression, and have weaned off of it. When I hear that they've weaned off of pharmaceutical meds and still feeling great, I am so happy because I know that they're feeling better because they're no longer feeling the side effects from the pharmaceutical drugs. Which was the main reason why a lot of them wanted to get off of that. So when I hear that, I just know that, you know, that makes me feel wonderful that I'm actually helping people feel better. Passionistas: Thanks for listening to our interview with Amy Chin. To learn more about her CBD related personal events, group and individual consultations, and pop-ups visit calmbetterdays.co. Please visit thepassionistasproject.com to learn more about our podcast and subscription box, filled with products made by women owned businesses and female artisans to inspire you to follow your passions. This quarter's box is a collaboration with the MOB Nation and features products from mom owned business. Get a free mystery box with a one-year subscription using the code SPRINGGOODIES. And be sure to subscribe to The Passionistas Project Podcast, so you don't miss any of our upcoming, inspiring guests. Until next time, stay well and stay passionate.  

Cairo Eubanks is the new Future Foundation Youth Representative to the United Nations and Youth Steering Committee Member. She is also the Global Correspondent for the Global Oved Dei Seminary and University (GODSU). A curriculum developer, Cairo's created programs for students in Tamil Nadu, South India, and Broward County, Florida, which is the foundation for Bringing the World to Florida. Cairo received a Proclamation from Mayor Dale Holness and the Rising Star Award from Mayor Wayne Messam for her community work and program development that foster leadership development and culture exchange. She reigns as Miss Back Florida USA 2022 for Miss Black USA. Cairo is on a mission to nurture a global community of leaders and professionals by strengthening their voice and confidence. Learn more about Cairo. Learn more about The Passionistas Project. Full Transcript: Passionistas: Hi, and welcome to The Passionistas Project Podcast, where we talk with women who are following their passions to inspire you to do the same. We're Amy and Nancy Harrington, and today we're talking with Cairo Eubanks, the New Future Foundation Youth Representative to the United Nations and Youth Steering Committee member. Cairo is also the Global Correspondent for the Global Oved Dei Seminary and University, GODSU. A curriculum developer, Cairo's created programs for students in Tamil Nadu, South India and Broward County, Florida, which is the foundation for Bringing the World to Florida. Cairo received a proclamation from Mayor Dale Holness on October 10th, 2020, and The Rising Star Award from Mayor Wayne Messam for her community work and program development that fosters leadership development and cultural exchange. She reigns as Miss Black Florida USA 2022 for Miss Black USA. She's on a mission to nurture a global community of leaders and professionals by strengthening their voice and confidence. So please welcome to the show, Cairo Eubanks. Cairo: Hi Amy! Hi Nancy! Thank you so much for having me. Passionistas: We're so excited to have you and to learn more about all of the amazing things you're doing. We like to start by asking, what's the one thing you're most passionate about? Cairo: Oh, that is a fantastic question. I would say what I am most passionate about would be... can I have two? I'd like to put two into one answer, and it would be leadership development and cultural exchange. And just based off of the experiences that I've had as a Jamaican and American, as a dual citizen, and getting to travel the world. I've had the honor and privilege of getting to travel to about 26 countries by the age of 26. The lessons that I've learned as it relates to the dialogue conversation, the importance of being able to connect with others and use your story is what makes me so passionate, because I realized the weight or the power and the value that comes with telling your story. So when I talk about leadership development and cultural exchange, it really ties in together with my passion of being able to help people tell their story and to tell it with enthusiasm. Passionistas: What has inspired all of this travel and how have you been able to do that? Cairo: I believe that when people ask me that question, it's always great to start at the beginning, right? And when you think about my name, Cairo, my parents, they wanted me to have an Afro-centric name that tied me back to the African continent. And they did this, not just with myself, but also with my siblings. So I'm Cairo like Egypt. My sister is Sudan like the country because she's 14, she's a whole country within herself. And then my brother Dakar, like Senegal. And they wanted us to really have curiosity and to learn, you know, be more curious about our heritage and realize that our connection to Africa, you know, is still there. And so by having my name Cairo, I wanted to not only go to Egypt, I wanted to go to Senegal, I wanted to go to Sudan as a young child. And then on top of that with my mother being Jamaican, I would go to Jamaica for days, weeks, months at of time. And the experiences that I got to have living with my grandparents, getting to hear stories about, you know, how they saw the world, right, relative to how my family in the United States, from my American side, saw the world. And also some of the similarities are the commonalities that they shared. It really helped me realize that no matter where I was in the world, I always felt at home. And, you know, I really credit that to my parents being from two different countries. But then on top of that, you know, having my name, getting a little taste of the world and getting to be, you know, throughout the Caribbean, because of my mom being Jamaican, it made me realize that I wanted to see more and I want it to learn more about the world around me. And so I got opportunities to study abroad and to travel abroad, most notably with Semester at Sea. So when I was a junior in college, I got this opportunity to go to, let's say it was about 10 different countries and, you know, three different continents. So we were actually in, well, actually more than that, we were in Europe, we were in Africa and then we were also throughout the Americas, as well as. Just the experiences that I had, it really helped me realize, wow, I can do this. It's not so daunting to get to be able to get your visa or to get to travel. And, I mean, the stories I can go on and on about some of those memories that I had. But it really inspired me to continue to travel and to combine my love for traveling with my passion for education and leadership development. So after I had that experience at Semester at Sea, actually during that time, I had a conversation with a professor who told me about opportunities to get to teach abroad and to work with non-profits internationally. And that's how I got that opportunity to teach in Tamil Nadu, India. And when I was creating public speaking workshops for students that were targeting on their development, their personal and professional development, I had some incredible conversations about discrimination, about prejudice, but also about, you know, different traditions and what made our, you know, different cultures, so unique, but also what did we have in common. And just these experiences as a whole. And I'm trying to bring you up back to, you know, the present, but, you know, seeing that origin story of having my name, recognizing that my name connected me to the world around me, and then recognizing that those experiences that I had getting to travel the world. I then knew that it was then my mission to create opportunities for others, especially younger generations to have those same experiences. Passionistas: So you're a Global Correspondent for GODSU. So tell us about that organization and the work you do with them. Cairo: Absolutely. So as the Global Correspondent for Global Oved Dei Seminary and University, it's an interstate e-learning institution. And a lot of the work that I do outside of representing GODSU at different conferences. So most notably we were the first sponsor of the African Investment and Trade panel for the Florida International Trade and Cultural Expo. We were able to have dignitaries from, you know, six different African countries, throughout the continent, come together and talk about trade and opportunities to get to invest in their countries. So that's a lot of the work that I've done, either being able to promote, you know, international trade opportunities that exist throughout the African diaspora. That's a lot of the work that we do in terms of, you know, different conferences that we host different events that we're part of. And then also being able to host some of the Empower U Conferences that we have here at GODSU. So it's like, there are a lot of different things that I do, but it's all titled and really targeted towards international development and empowerment as well. Passionistas: So you're also a Youth Representative for the UN. So tell us how you got involved with that and what exactly do you do? Cairo: Yes. So I'm a Youth Representative for New Future Foundation to the United nations. So I represent my NGO. And the way that that happened, it's actually connected to GODSU. It's a funny story. So I was speaking, I was hosting one of the Empower U conferences, and we had a guest speaker. Her name is Queen Mother Dr. Delois Blakely, and she has been affiliated with the UN for over 50 years. And she is a UN goodwill ambassador to Africa for the African continent. And so when I had the pleasure of getting to hear her speak as a panelist, I just said, you know what? At the time I was in college, I wanted to be connected. I wanted to be able to intern in some way and just get as close to the headquarters as possible, because I knew that my, as you can see my passion for development, is really, has a global focus. And I thought, what better place than to get to be in that, in that space, at the UN? And so I pulled her aside after the conference and I just told her, I said, "Queen Mother, I want to work with you. I want to learn. I want to be mentored by you." And it's actually quite interesting because that opportunity of asking for help or asking for guidance and just telling her, you know, as a young 20-something year old, I wanted to be able to grow from, you know, being under her tutelage. She allowed me to be first an intern for her NGO and then a Youth Representative. And then I had the opportunity to be selected for the Youth Representative Steering Committee under the United Nations Department of Global Communication 's Civil Society Unit. And so when I got the opportunity to be on this committee where it's about, I want to say about 25 different youth representatives that represent different NGOs all across the world. And we are the voice and we advocate for the youth perspective as it relates to, you know, civil society or the community.  So I say all of that, just to say that I got... I went from approaching her as someone who just wanted to learn and just, teach me and I want to learn anything. I'll send in reports, whatever you need me to do, Queen Mother, to then being able to progress where I'm on the committee and I'm representing my NGO for the second term, as of actually this month. So that's a huge blessing. Passionistas: You mentioned your travel to Tamil Nadu in India. Tell us what the mission was on that journey and what you took away from that experience. Cairo: So I had had a capstone project as an Omprakash Ambassador to create public speaking workshops and to see how we can be able to use public speaking as a part of breaking the cycle of poverty. Because the program that I was working with and the organization that I was working with in South India, they had this concept of education breaking the cycle of poverty and being able to empower others using knowledge. And so they would create opportunities for students to be able to get scholarships, or education, and be able to then provide for their families by giving them enough education of skills to complete undergrad, and then be able to then give back to their immediate families.  So that being said, when I learned about this mission of the school, I realized that I wanted to create, you know, leadership programs. And I had done them in the past, but I never created something on this scale where it would actually be a part of my capstone project and I'd be doing research on it. And so I got guidance. Guess that ties right back into the previous question about Queen Mother Dr. Blakely as to how to proceed for that research. And next thing, you know, I submitted my proposal and it was accepted and, then the next thing you know, I'm in Bangalore, India, and then traveling to Hosur. And I, and it was wonderful being able to work with the high school students that I did. Getting to use the program that I created, you know, weekly. The public speaking workshops that then became the foundation for what I'm doing right now, which is bringing the world to Florida and international virtual student exchange program. So I feel like, I feel like with every question I'm trying to bring it full circle to bring you to where it first started, and then how it got me here today. Passionistas: We're Amy and Nancy Harrington, and you're listening to The Passionistas Project Podcast and our interview with Cairo Eubanks. To learn more about her mission to nurture a global community of leaders and professionals by strengthening their voice and confidence visit cairospeaks.com. If you're enjoying this interview and would like to help us to continue to create an inspiring content, please consider becoming a patron by visiting thepassionistasproject.com/podcast and clicking on the Patron button. Even $1 a month can help us continue our mission of inspiring women to follow their passions. Now here's more of our interview with Cairo. So tell us about the work you're doing in Florida. Cairo: Absolutely. Okay. So not only am I Miss Black Florida, and I have different communities, or I should say different committees rather, that I'm a part of including the Broward County Social Justice Task Force. I was on the Mayor's Public Safety Council and more. So I say all of this to say that I have a vast interest in being a part of the community and finding solutions to the communities, you know, any issues that may arise. And so the story for Bringing the World to Florida really began when I had an issue that I created an event out of, and it inspired students to then ask me to create a curriculum. And the event was unfortunately birthed out of cyber harassment. So there was a guy on my campus and I'm just going to call him Andrew, just for the sake of argument or for a conversation. And Andrew had been trying to, you know, reach out to me and I would block him and whatnot. I didn't really know too much about him. I just knew that there was something like, kinda off about him. And I didn't, I didn't really feel comfortable around him. And I found out from someone I didn't even know because I didn't have Instagram at the time. But he had taken my pictures off of Facebook. I don't even know. I don't, we're not even friends on Facebook. He took my pictures off of Facebook and he posted them on a lewd Instagram account that he created himself. And so, not only was my picture up there, and someone sent me a screenshot, but there were other people from my school, other people in my sorority and more. And I got so upset about this, and I said, something has to be done. Many of them had actually filed police reports because he had created a fake academic study. It's ridiculous. He created a fake academic study to try to solicit explicit photos or to give them, and he said that he had faculty permission to do so. So this is, yeah, so that was a situation. And I created a Facebook post and 150 comments later, we had about 30 plus individuals who were able to provide like a compilation of screenshots of things that I was able to say, you know, what. Even though they provided this to the police and they did, you know, police reports or they would report it to the school, or to his then fraternity. It just didn't feel like there was enough. And so I said, what can I do? What can I do so that not only do I not feel stuck, but also other people do not feel stuck as well. Because he was not only doing this to me and all those other individuals, but we know that he was also harassing others online. And some people were saying that there were issues where they felt like he was stalking them, like he was trying to follow them home. So we said, you know what? We need to take preventative measures. And how can I do that? Create a community event for resources for students. So teens, incoming freshmen, sophomores, and then parents. And it became a huge success. We had partners with the Anti-Defamation League. We had the Broward Sheriff's Office. We had the Broward School Climate Action and Discipline Department among other organizations and partners, both locally and nationally. And then we had kids who said, "you know what? We love this. Can you come to my school? Like, you know, I don't even want community service hours for this. Let me get you to my school." And we said, you know what? This was intended to be a one-time event. But what I did was I used the students who had been part of the program and I said, okay, "what kind of curriculum do you want to see? What sort of programs would you like to see that do not exist in your school at this time or within the community that you haven't found?" And we surveyed them and we took their answers. And then we created a whole course wrapped around some of the answers that they asked for. So we have a curriculum that's self-paced, we have workshops and events and conferences like Operation Stop Cyber Harassment. So that's now a part of our Asking for Help Module. And then we have other opportunities for skill building as well for the kids, so that they can take what they learn in the curriculum and actually get apply it. Passionistas: You are also Miss Black Florida USA, as part of the Miss Black USA Organization. So tell us how you got involved with that and what you do to challenge the misconceptions about title holders in the organization. Cairo: Oh, my goodness. My story is quite interesting. Okay. So, the short version of this, because I do want to keep this brief and get to the whole point of the misconceptions. That's really what I want to focus on. But it began in 2020 when I competed in my first competition, for Miss Broward County for Miss America. So I competed and I won on my first try and that was a huge blessing for me. And it was big for me because I had never seen myself as a pageant queen prior to competing for this. And if it had not been for my mother, if it had not been for those around me, who said, you know what? This is your last year. You're going to age out. You might as well try it out. You'll get a good experience. You can use that towards, you know, programs that you're creating, et cetera. I just decided to take a leap. And then was shocked. I was shocked. That being said, I was competing and preparing for Miss Florida. And I remember the opportunity that came up for Miss Florida for Miss America. I was getting ready. It was June, 2021, and literally three days before my competition, I had a rocking chair like roll over my foot and crushed it. And I got nerve damage in my foot. So I was like literally in a scooter all through competition week and it was tough. And I ended up not being Miss Florida for Miss America. And I remember thinking to myself. I was like, you know, God had told me, and I'm a spiritual person, right? So I talk about God, but you know, God had told me that he saw that I was going to be a state title holder. And he said that "you were still going to be able to create and move your project, Bringing the World to Florida as a state title holder." And I applied, I actually got asked. It's so funny cause I got asked to send in my information and they had allowed me to be on the spot accepted. So I sent in some application information, but I ended up accepting the role. And I really appreciated just the opportunity that I got to then, you know, be able to be Miss Black Florida and to get to promote what it means to really be a state ambassador and to promote, you know, not just the wonderful things that people associate with Florida. Which of course is, you know, we have Disney, we have Orlando, we have Miami, we have the beaches, we have the Everglades. Yes. But we also have business. We also have culture here that you cannot find anywhere else. So that being said, one misconception that I believe a lot of people have about pageant queens in general, is that it's just about looks, you know, and it's not just about looks. And I believe that a lot of these competitions, they're purposefully, really showcasing that it's not just about how you look when you see some of the winners. For example, some of the different systems that exist like Zozibini Tunzi from Miss Universe, Miss Universe 2019. She is a Black South African woman with short cropped hair. And no one had ever seen someone like her, you know, take the world by storm as Miss Universe.  There's really a chance for us who have been seen as not necessarily the stereotypical or the traditional pageant queen to really showcase the other qualities or the characteristics that Queens have, like our ability and desire to be servant leaders, to be part of the community. I don't know anyone else who would say yes to community service opportunity faster than a pageant payment, honestly. And it's because of the fact that we do want to be out there, and we realize that part of our responsibility is to be present and to be able to be a connector for the community. And, like, I can't even begin to describe to you the personal and professional development that I had. And I know that there's some people who are like, what, like getting ready for Miss Broward County? Yeah, no it changed my life because it allowed me to be in that space where I had to learn something completely from scratch. And I had to be humble a hundred percent and be like, listen, I don't know how to walk in heels more than three inches high, you know? And I don't know how to do my makeup, but I learned. And it was a humbling experience to learn. So there's some misconceptions, but I believe that the more that people learn about the stories, the tragedies, or the challenges that, you know, title holders have had individually and how they overcome that and how they use their stories to inspire others can help to balance out some of the misconceptions that people have about wearing a crown. Passionistas: Where does this desire to be of service come from? Is this something that your family has always done? Did your parents teach you to think this way? Cairo: Absolutely. My parents, they always instilled in me this idea or vision of being a servant leader and what it means to serve first. When we talk about leadership and what it means to be a leader, there's always people assuming like, oh, you have to be the loudest person up there and you have to be the one that's like telling everybody what to do. But oftentimes you can lead by example, and you can lead by example by serving others. And because I grew up in a very, you know, spiritual household, it was this concept of being able to discover your passion of what, you know, God or the universe has intended for you to have, and then to be able to share that and to recognize that we're all connected. And if there's something that I can do to bless someone else or to be of service to someone else, then that allows me to also get blessed in return. So we would say like a little saying, that we would say in my home and also in Jamaica, is this idea of like lotioning up your hands. Like if you lotion up someone else's hands, you end up getting moisturized too. And so it's just this concept. And the more that I got to do that and got to help others the better I felt. And the more I felt like I had a light to share with others, you know, and that inspires me and that keeps me going. And so that's really where it comes from. It's like this family concept of servant leader and recognizing that the more that I get to be of service, the happier that I get to be. I don't know. I think it's a, win-win. Passionistas: Tell us about CairoSpeaks/CairoWrites and what your mission is with those projects. Cairo: Yes with CairoSpeaks/CairoWrites. So out of CairoSpeaks/CairoWrites. Okay. So let me back up a little bit. CairoSpeaks/CairoWrites, there are two parts to it. CairoSpeaks. So there are leadership development and all-in speaking coaching aspects to, you know, the services that I provide there. And then also with CairoWrites, I've written biographies, I've ghost written material, as well for my clients. And I've also written speeches. I would say that the best part about what I've done with CairoSpeaks/CairoWrites is that I have created a space for me to get to share like what I love most. And I've shared, you know, when it comes to the leadership development and cultural exchange. But also from not just from a youth perspective, but being able to be of service, to everyone. So for example, I had an opportunity to be the keynote speaker for Martin Luther King Day for the city of Boca Raton this past month. And that was a huge blessing. And I got to, you know, inspire and empower with my keynote speech not just youth, but also people of all ages. And so a lot of the work that I'm doing right now and what I'm transitioning my business to doing is focusing a lot on, you know, speaking opportunities, sharing my message, sharing my light as-- my business partner Rena would say, "not dimmering your shimmer, but instead being able to show that shimmer everywhere"-- and being able to transition more into that route. Just because a lot of the leadership development programs that I was doing at one point, I've now focused all of my energy into Bringing the Globe and Bringing the World to Florida. Passionistas: What's your dream for women? Cairo: My dream for women is to really understand their value. And that was a conversation that I was actually having prior to this interview and just realizations that I have even about myself. You know, I realized that, you know, someone can look at my bio or look at my background and look at the bullet points of, you know, my resume or my CV and say, wow, you know, this person has done so much. But that doesn't necessarily mean that that's how I necessarily could feel about myself. And see, and I recognize that there are books that I've read, you know, talking about women who are CEOs and high performing executives. And the reality is that there are so many women who are working so, so hard and they have accomplished and achieved a lot and yet don't feel that way, you know? And so even though I do feel accomplished and everything like that, I took a moment today and I said, you know what? Wow, Look at how valuable I find myself to be. We have to remind each other of how valuable we are, way past what we can do on paper, but our hearts and our souls. And that is what I would tell women today, is to recognize your value, recognize your value past a monetary dollar amount, and to realize that you are incredible just the way you are. And I know it sounds cliche to say that, but it is true. And we don't hear that enough. And if it is cliche, because we've heard it too many times, maybe it's gone out, you know, gone from one ear and out the other, but we really need to internalize that. Passionistas: Thanks for listening to our interview with Cairo Eubanks. To learn more about her mission to nurture a global community of leaders and professionals by strengthening their voice and confidence visit cairospeaks.com. Please visit thepassionistasproject.Com to learn more about our podcast and subscription box filled with products by women owned businesses and female artisans to inspire you to follow your path. Get a free mystery box with a one-year subscription by using the code SPRINGGOODIES. And be sure to subscribe to The Passionistas Project Podcast so you don't miss any of our upcoming, inspiring guests. Until next time, stay well and stay passionate.    

Nina G is a comedian, professional speaker and author of “Stutterer Interrupted” and the new book “Bay Area Stand-Up Comedy: A Humorous History.” She has been featured in or on everything from NPR's 51%, BBC's Ouch, Psychology Today, Tedx, multiple day time talk shows, Howard 100 News and the Stuttering John Podcast. Nina shares her wit and wisdom with corporations, colleges, libraries, conferences and community events. Her no nonsense approach to disability awareness and acceptance helps to bring institutions, communities and individuals to deepen their understanding of the disability and bring practical approaches to making a more inclusive society. Learn more about Nina. Buy Stutterer Interrupted. Buy Bay Area Stand-Up Comedy. Learn more about The Passionistas Project. FULL TRANSCRIPT: Passionistas: Hi, and welcome to The Passionistas Project Podcast, where we talk with women who are following their passions to inspire you to do the same. We're Amy and Nancy Harrington, and today we're talking with Nina G, a comedian, professional speaker, and author of Stutter Interrupted and her new book Bay Area Standup Comedy: A Humorous History. She's been featured in and on everything from NPRs 51%, BBC's Ouch, Psychology Today, TEDx, multiple daytime talk shows, Howard 100 News, and even The Stuttering John Podcast. Nina shares her wit and wisdom with corporations, colleges, libraries, conferences, and community events. Her no-nonsense approach to disability awareness and acceptance helps institutions, communities, and individuals to deepen their understanding of disability and bring practical approaches to making a more inclusive society. So please welcome to the show, Nina G. Nina: Hi, th-th-thanks for having me. Passionistas: We're so glad to have Nina here on the podcast. She was part of our comedy event last year, Chronically Funny, and we've been trying to get her on the show ever since. Nina, what's the one thing you're most passionate about? Nina: There are two things. One is stand up comedy and the other is d-d-d-disability rights, d-d-d-disability in general. So it's kind of like a head-to-head race there. Passionistas: Tell us why those two things are such an important part of your life. Nina: I mean cause they are my life. Like I am as a standup comic, who's stutters and has dyslexia. And I've loved comedy my entire life, and that's why I have the book, book out now on Bay Area comedy, because I'm also from the Bay Area. I'm from Alameda and I've lived in Oakland now for 20 years. Just love, love, love comedy. I've been doing it now for 12 years. So that's one thing. Then also I'm fourth generation d-d-d-disabled on my dad's side. So my dad is hard of hearing. His dad was hard of hearing and his mom was hard of hearing. So since we've been in America from Italy, we've been d-d-d-disabled. And just knowing my own experiences, I went to Catholic school in the 1980s with dyslexia and stuttering. I could tell from your very Irish names that you may know some of that experience. And what I always say is that you should never pity me for having a disability, but you can pity me for going to Catholic school in the 1980s with those things, because that sucked. And so I just hope that we can make a world that less sucks for people. And that may be through access, it may be through laws, it may be through services, or it may be through re-representation in the media, in Hollywood, in whatever. And hopefully I bring a little bit of that representation when I go to colleges, when I go to corporations or when I am telling a Dick joke in a dive bar. Like the representation should be everywhere. Passionistas: Tell us when you first really became interested in standup and who were some of your early comedic influences? Nina: Yes. Okay. So, I mean, I think I kind of found comedy when I was around like four or five, like my family. It was the seventies and my family was super into Steve, Steve Martin. And then as I got a little bit older, when I was like 7, 8, 9, my parents never put any restrictions on us around TV me, me and my brother, and they also just brought us in to watch whatever was on. So I would stay up and watch, like the old sa-Saturday Night Lives, which then old was like five years prior. And so I was exposed to all of that, to first cast and I have like a stuffed animal that I named gi-Gilda after gi-Gilda Radner. So it was that kind of stuff. Very early influences. My first fan letter that I ever wrote was to Emo Phillips when I was 13. And he sent an autographed picture back and it hangs in my kitchen there. My kitchen is all of my comedy stuff. So just always loved it. Then when I was like 11, I was like, I think that I want to have this as my job. And I would write jokes and I planned to go to open mics, never went because at around 17, I was like, this is not very practical. It is 1990s now. And I've never seen a stuttering comic. You have to be fluent in order to be a comic. So dream dies. I picked it back up when I was 36 and I've been doing, and I've been doing it now for 12 years. Passionistas: How did you decide, "no, this is something I can do? Nina: It's a, it was a whole fricking process. So when I was 35, I had attended a conference for people who stutter. It's the na-National Stuttering Association. And at that, I realized how much space I relinquished up to other people. I think as a woman, we are socialized to give that space up to others. And I realized at that, it got kind of doubled and tripled up because I'm a woman who's st-stutters. And so I realized, like, I would feel guilt to make people sit through my speech, to make people sit through my stutter. And when I was at that conference, I was around all these women. And women in stuttering are way outnumbered by the men. And the ratio is for every four stutterers, three are going to be men, one's going to be a woman. So it was really important for me to be around women who stutter. Because I realized I was like, well, I wouldn't want them to relinquish space up to others. So why am I? And that just made me really question that. And in my book, my memoir is titled Stutter Interrupted because we're interrupted all the time in our speech, but like I was self interrupting. Like I wasn't even talking, I was interrupting myself. And with that comes your wishes and your dreams and your desires and just everything. And so when I came back home from that conference, I started to make changes in my life. And within six months I got up on stage at an open mic and did my first one. Passionistas: What was that experience like to finally be on stage? Nina: You know? It was to like three people, four people, five people. I don't know. It's a very small audience. I did it in the context of a class. So I took classes at this San Francisco co-comedy college, and then they had like an open mic that they would kind of like trick trick to tourists into coming into. And I, I'm not sure if it was that night or a night soon after people laughed at my jokes. And I was like, "oh, I did this joke about st-stuttering, do you st-stutter?" And she's like, "no, it's just funny." I was like, oh, you don't. Oh, okay, I get it. It's like that. So it was really great to make a connection with someone else and kind of share my own experience having a disability in a way that I kind of had control of the narrative. And also so many times when you talk about a disability experience people like, "oh, oh." And they give you like a pity face. And like, everyone tries to be super empathetic. And like, I just want people to just talk about it in a normal way. Like they would everything else. So humor kind of helps to D D diffuse some of that. And it just kind of puts things on a more equal level. Passionistas: Let's take a step back. So between the ages of 17 and 35, before you pursued your passion, you got involved with disability activism. So tell us a little bit about what you were doing and what that period meant to you. Nina: You know, I went to grad school, I went to college, I did all of that stuff. And I found myself doing advocacy within the co-college and looking at access issues there. There are so many ways that we could penetrate issues around access, and issues around D D disability rights. And for me doing like the individual piece and working with an individual to get access, I think that is really important. And I would work with students around accessibility. But, that's just one piece of it, but we need to get to a bigger change in our culture, a bigger change in corporations and bigger change in colleges and like just more of a cultural shift. And that cultural shift is both in America and the world, but also in your lo-lo-local area. And so, it would get kind of frustrating, because I didn't have that reach, especially this was pre so-social media and all of that stuff. Also for me, I was in academia and academia is not always kind to people who learn in a different way. And for me, it's really hard because my dyslexia is, is more than my stuttering. Like it impacts me more. And also I was in sp-special ed when I was a kid, when I was in high school, cause I eventually went to a public school for high school. Thank God. And, so, I did not come from the same place that most people in academia did. But I still had a lot to say, but I really felt like I didn't have that freedom to express what I wanted to. And also, my mom brought me to see Richard Pryor Live that the Sunset Strip when I was nine. Like I want to say fuck, and like, I just need to, and that helps me to express what I want. And I can say the same things that I might say in an academic sense, but I can say them on stage, and I can say the words that I want to use that I think, you know. Like someone can read a journal article and that's going to be read by like 10 people. But you can do comedy or you can find some other avenue that people will be able to access, and access meaning that people will actually see it. And, and I think it's just a better way to get, a, a, a message out. So it's that frustration that I had in academia, I was able to, I was able to work out. And that's why I like my book, both of the books. It was great that I learned how to do research and it was great that I went through all of that, but I also didn't want to hide behind big words. And luckily I haven't had to. Passionistas: So you did that first appearance. How did you start to build your career and extend your reach as a comedian? Nina: Well, I like kind of kept it hidden from most people I knew for about six months. And then even then it was like slowly, slowly, slowly. The first year in comedy, you're developing your voice. And I wasn't sure which way I would go. And I don't quite know when it was, but I think it was like my second year in, I was like, I'm a disability activist and I'm a comic. That disability activist thing is through my entire life. Like that's... when I walk down the street and I see a sandwich sign and it's blocking the way I was like, "what the hell is this? You got to move this!" And I move it or I tell them, or I do something. So like ingrained into my head and a big part of that is because of my family and being born into it. So I realized that, like, that was the thing that kind of led me first. And comedy was a second piece. I think that I've kind of balanced that out a little bit more, but that activism piece is always, always, always there. And so I think my development as a comic really helped me because I was able, like I'm able to do two things in comedy and now three. So I'm able to go to colleges, and I'm able to talk to them and also corporations to do disability awareness. So there's that. And that is like a half hour of comedy and story telling, and then like Q&A afterwards and the Q&A is always like the, the funnest part. And then I have the other thing, which is like the pure art form of standup, where I can do dick jokes. Last night, I told jokes on the sidewalk of a San Francisco cafe. And it was totally fun and it was great, and I got to develop that more and just work on that. And then, you know, I have a bunch of shows coming up and so there's that piece where like, I feel I can be an artist there and I don't really have to like... like, there's not a lot of 48 year old stuttering comics on TV.  I don't think like, like I doubt they're going to give me a sitcom. I doubt like Netflix is not knocking down my door. They're not like, because my opinion is, is that Hollywood thinks that if you have more than one intersectional identity that people's heads are going to explode. Which is why a lot of the disabled comics out there are white men. So like, you know, like, I, I, I know where I'm at. So I feel I don't have to kind of compromise my standup because it's like, I'm not going on TV. I'm good. The other piece now that I'm, that I'm transitioning into is as a comedy history consultant as an author. And that just kind of brings my love of comedy. And like when I was in school from like high school on, anytime that I had to write a paper, I would write a paper on comedy. So this is just the natural development of the thing I love. And, you know, you write a book, it kind of puts you as like, okay, this was, she's now an expert. Like I've been saying to everybody, I'm an expert for a long time. They don't believe me, but now I have a book that says that I have some in that. And also I wrote it with my friend, OJ Patterson. I kind of tap out on standup around 1993 and then he picks it up from there. So he loves the old comedy and he has followed it so we co-complemented one another well on that. Passionistas: We're Amy and Nancy Harrington, and you're listening to The Passionistas Project Podcast and our interview with Nina G To learn more about her performances, speaking engagements, and to get your copy of Bay Area Standup Comedy: A Humorous History, visit ninagcomedian.com. If you're enjoying this interview and would like to help us continue creating inspiring content, please consider becoming a patron by visiting thepassionistasproject.com/podcast, and clicking on the patron button. Even $1 a month can help us continue our mission of inspiring women to follow their passions. Now here's more of our interview with Nina G. Tell us a little bit about the Comedians with Disabilities Act. Nina: So that was started by my friend, who has passed away, but st-“Stutter Interrupted” is, it is dedicated to, to him. He so started it because there wasn't a grip, at least locally that featured only d-d-d-disabled comics. And so it was Michael O'Connell, Eric, and Steve d-Danners as the first core. And then I, I joined, and some of the guys are, have been kind of in and out of comedy and we lost m-Michael. So we have expanded the group to have more of a showcase. And the showcase has included my, my, one of my best friends, Mean Dave, who is in recovery. And that is covered under the ADA, but people don't always talk about that. But you can access your rights and access, you know, all kinds of things because of that. So he brings that as a really important message. Jade Theriault, who's out of Berkeley, she does the sh-show a lot, and she uses a wheelchair, a-along with other comics. But not all stages in comedy are... not all of them are ramped. So, like, to get even on the stage is an issue. And, also, to kind of bring that voice in, I think sometimes people, producers or comics or whatever, kind of think like, "oh, well that's disabled comedy." And like, like it's a different thing. No, it's just another kind of perspective, whether you're a man, whether you're a woman that, that you can bring. And so it's, it's really nice to have the opportunity to do that in a group and also do it for people who want to hear it. Because I will do a show just with a stuttering audience, when I do stuff at a conference. And they get the premise and not the punchline. Like I don't even have to do the punchline because they're already with me at the premise. And so it's just a different experience doing comedy for people who come from that same cu-culture and that same experience. Passionistas: You touched on this a little bit, but as somebody who has such a deep knowledge of the history of comedy and your own experiences. You know, comedy is legendarily more difficult for women. And as you've been saying, there are a lot of challenges for comedians with disabilities. Do you feel like this is changing at all for women and for people in the disability community? Nina: I think so. I think there's still a thing of, "well, like we only have one woman on the show, so that's good. We, we have enough." It was like, oh, why don't you just book people who are funny and the rest will come. But also people tend to book their friends. And so if it's a male producer, they're going to have more gu-gu-guy friends. And so there's that. And that's not always the case. And I think at least in the Bay Area, I think there's more of a consciousness around that, because the women have been bitching about this for centuries now, since we're now in the 21st century. And so I think that they are getting that they need to have a more ba-balanced show in terms of the disability access. Like I have not seen Netflix have a compilation of disabled comics. I produced a CD, or not a CD, but an album called d-d-d-Disabled Comedy Only. And it featured the Comedians with d-d-d-Disability Act. And that was the first one ever done of a compilation of disabled comics. That should not have happened. And there hasn't been one since. You know, HBO and Netflix and all of that, you got to have disabled comics, both in your mainstream, but also having a show where why doesn't like, you know, a famous d-d-d-disabled, comic bring in other comics to have a big show. And I would love that. And it also, I think that Comedians with Disabilities Act was really conscious about the message that they send out. I also think it's equally as important for a disabled comic to get up and not talk about a disability whatsoever so that there is both, both of those things that should be happening. Passionistas: How did COVID impact your work, and do you feel like things are finally getting back to normal now? Nina: So it dried up my speaking gigs, because we were like, we don't know what to do now. And people have zoom fi-fatigue. So for me, when, when my first book, or when my memoir came out, it was great. I was booked. I did, like, an event at Coca Cola. I sold books afterwards, making money. Like it was great. And then 2020 happened and like, oh! Like I need to talk to my st-student loan people to see if they'll base my income on last year's instead of on the prior years, cause there's such a change. But I think people are seeing that there is a possibility to do events online. And so, yeah, I am traveling less, but I'm still doing, doing corporate and college shows. And some of those are picking up in, in person, too, so that's great. As a comic, I have performed into the void of Zoom and it's okay. Like it's really taught me to trust what I'm saying and to trust my comedy. Because there isn't the ha-ha's and they're, you know, not even the LOLs. And I always encourage people to do the LOLs in the tags so I get something out of it. So in, in, in, so that that's changed. I think lo-locally, comedy's opening up. I'm finding with doing book, book gigs, now that it's about half and half. So releasing a book, which my book came out on February 14th. And yeah, it's a heck of a time to release a book because you're not going on a big tour. And so it'll be interesting to see how that rolls out. Passionistas: You did have one unbelievably cool gig during the pandemic, which we're dying to hear about, right around the inauguration. Can you tell us about that? Nina: Yeah! It was the first night of the inauguration festivities. I got asked to do a performance, and so it was all online. Like I wish I was at the White House, but no, it was all online. And what I did was I pre-taped it at the Alameda  com-com-Comedy Club and we brought my pa-parents in, and, and I performed for them for the inauguration. So my parents were very happy to have the back of their heads in the screen as well. And so I did my five minute set there and sent it in and it got in with all of the other speakers, which included Whoopi Goldberg. Also, now I can say that I opened for the Vice President. A lot of my comedy credits are so weird and so, un-un-unbelievable that people don't even think they're true when they're said. And opening up for the vice-president is one of them. Passionistas: Speaking of home, let's talk about your new book, Bay Area Stand Up Comedy: A Humorous History. What inspired you to write it, and why is the history of Bay Area comedy so important? Nina: Well, the thing that inspired it was being bored in the pandemic. So that was the biggest piece. I was finding that I was going toward like old comedy and watching that on YouTube. And also I was doing a project where I was interviewing comics about the pandemic. So asking them what that experience was like, to transition into Zoom, or what did they think was going to, was going to happen. So I did that under The Comedy Time Capsule. And in doing that, I had interviewed ma-Marga Gomez, who is a staple in San Francisco comedy. She also comes out of the queer comedy scene and she was telling me about her past experiences and her own history. The first place that she felt she could really bring her whole self into, into her stand-up was at the, the, The va-Valencia Rose in San Francisco. And that was the first LGBT open mic. And they had LGBT shows and I was like, "oh, this is such an interesting history, and so is San Francisco!" I don't know this, and I'm a big nerd, so other people must not know anything about this. And I was like, okay, something needs to happen. So I contacted OJ who now lives in, in Southern California. And like me and him, when he was doing comedy, he is, he is retired now from, from it. But when he was doing it, we would just talk endlessly about stuff and like interesting things we heard and just the in, in just analyzing it. And so I was like, okay, you want to write this book? I'll do it to this point, you do it to this point. And he said yes. And we worked on it for a year. And the book has over a hundred pictures in it, so it almost feels like a yearbook of Bay Area comedy. And the reason why I think Bay Area comedy is so important is that it's been the place that people can develop their voice, and then kind of move on to the next stage. So we had a lot of comics here from Boston in the 1980s, like Paula Poundstone and Bob-Bobcat and d-Dana Gold. And, like, San Francisco audiences, at least back then, were just like patient and just like wanted people to kind of experiment. And they were just great around that, which I think lent itself to the improvisational style that had developed here. But before all of that, there was The Hungry Eye and The Purple Onion, and The Purple Onion is where Phyllis di-di-di-di-Diller ca-came out of, and her being especially important to with women comics. She developed her act in San Francisco. And right across the street at The Hungry Eye is where Mort Sahl developed a whole new way to do comedy. So Bay Area comedy, especially in the North Beach area changed comedy forever and, and had that really, really big impact. And the first stand-up comic was in the mid 18 hundreds. And I, and I, I know this because the work of Rich Schneider has put, a, has put, a-a-a spotlight on this. And the very first comic in the mid 18 hundreds came to San Francisco. And people would pay cover in gold because greenbacks were not totally, a thing yet. So the, so the history goes back to Mark Twain and then onto the pandemic. A-and of course, Robin Williams being kind of the pinnacle of the whole thing. And not only in his comedy, but also the heart, because he just gave so much to the world, but also so much to Bay, so much to, to, to the Bay and was just the most gracious and nicest guy that, that people still, uh, talk, talk about the things he did. Passionistas: What can people who aren't in the disability community do to advocate for people who are? Nina: I think everybody can kind of choose their own way in that. Because if you are a teacher or you are a speech therapist, I'm going to have very different expectations of that than somebody who works in more of a retail industry. I think they can kind of choose what they want to do and how to be an ally. I think a lot of times people think you have to go march or you have to go do some kind of activist role. No, you could just be cool. Like you can just listen and not be overly empathetic. And I think the main thing is to listen to disabled people and take their lead. They are in the lead. I think that word "empowerment" isn't always a great word because it kind of assumes that like you have the power, and your empowering the other person. That person already has that power. And it's you who should be fo-fo-following them. And also don't expect disabled people to teach you. I think that's the other thing, because sometimes people are like, "oh, so tell me about what it's like to have this." I was like, ugh! Unless you're paying me, no! Like go read my book and then we'll talk. So I think there's also putting people who have a disability into a position to hear their voices, but in a way that is respectful and not exploitive. Passionistas: Thanks for listening to The Passionistas Project Podcast and our interview with Nina G To learn more about her performances, speaking engagements, and get a copy of Bay Area Standup Comedy: A Humorous History visit ninagcomedian.com. Please visit thepassionistasproject.com to learn more about our podcast and our subscription box, filled with products made by women owned businesses and female artisans to inspire you to follow your passions. Get a free mystery box worth $45 with a one-year subscription using the code SPRINGMYSTERY, and be sure to subscribe to The Passionistas Project Podcast, so you don't miss any of our upcoming, inspiring guests. Until next time, stay well and stay passionate.

Suzie Lewis is the Managing Director at Transform for Value and host of the podcast "Let's Talk Transformation." She's passionate about connecting people, their potential, collective intelligence and equipping organizations to get the best out of individuals and teams. Her quest is to constantly bridge the gap between digital and human and create more inclusive and collaborative cultures in organizations. Learn more about Suzie here. Learn more about The Passionistas Project here. Full Transcript: Passionistas: Hi, and welcome to The Passionistas Project Podcast, where we talk with women who are following their passions to inspire you to do the same. We're Amy and Nancy Harrington, and today we're talking with Suzie Lewis, the Managing Director at Transform for Value and the host of the podcast, Let's Talk Transformation. She's passionate about connecting people, their potential collective intelligence and equipping organizations to get the best out of individuals and teams. Her quest is to constantly bridge the gap between digital and human, and create more inclusive and collaborative cultures in organizations. So please welcome to the show, Suzie Lewis. Suzie: Hi, I'm thrilled to be here. Thank you very much for inviting me. Passionistas: Thanks so much, Suzie. Thanks for your time today. So what's the one thing you're most passionate about? Suzie: People. I think people and connecting people, which is where the unlocking potential comes from. I worked in an organization for 20 years and I just saw so much wasted potential or untapped potential. And I just thought, wow, we've got to do something about this. And I come from a family of very strong women. And I'm a big believer in sistership and we've always had each other's backs and I've always had that privilege, to have that space. And I thought if I don't create it for others, I'm missing a trick and I'm not putting myself at the service of creating a more inclusive and equitable world. But I work mainly in organizations. I'm also a cellist in an orchestra. I have been playing the cello for a very long time, over 30 years, and I love the analogy between the orchestra, and what I'm trying to create in society. Essentially, each person comes with that individual potential, but it's essentially about the collective result and how each person contributes to that and how the diversity of profiles and the diversity of capabilities, how it brings to the force something completely different that is harmonious. Even if the way towards that harmony is not harmonious. So I'm passionate about people. I love connecting people and I love playing in orchestra for the same reason. It's about listening intently and deliberately to what's being played, but also what isn't being played. And I think in organizations and in human relationships, it's exactly the same. We listen to reply and not to understand. So my big quest is to democratize access to these dialogue skills and for people to have different conversations and more courageous conversations in the workplace. And I think women bring something innately to that table. So I'm a big believer in the emotional layer of organizational culture and how we unwrap that and make it more normalized in the way people with. Passionistas: So let's take a step back. Tell us about those amazing women from your early life and where you grew up, what your childhood was like. Suzie: Basically today I'm based in France, but I grew up in UK and those fabulous women where my mom and my three sisters and my dad's great as well, but we had this safe space and it was predominantly discussion on equity, and how to create different spaces. My parents were both doctors and researchers, and also spent a lot of time counseling people. And we've always had these discussions on the table explicitly around healthy challenging, listening to others and making sure each voice is heard. And my grandma, who is actually my role model for courage and confidence. She was just incredible. And she worked in a time, unfortunately for her, when women didn't have the empowerment we have today. My goodness, if she'd have had the empowerment we have, and she always used to say that to us. Oh, if I had your opportunities, I'd be doing something different, something bigger, something, but she was already big for me. That was the inspiration and it runs through the family. And when I did my studies and I started studying cultural identity, as well as French and international economics, and I thought, okay, there's something in here about how the world works. And there's something in here, where I feel like make a difference with my innate skill set, which was, I just love discovering people, and I just really want to understand what their potential is and what that means for me, but also for where we work and how we can scale that if you like across what's happening. Particularly today in the digital age, where what keeps us relevant is our innately human qualities. So humility, creativity, imagination, which is where we come to my quest for different types of leadership in organizations, but also elsewhere. And then I've always been parts of orchestras and charities and associations. And I'm currently part of an association to get more girls into the tech world and into stem. And it's a big, important piece for me, partly because of what women bring to the table, but just parity in. Equal opportunities and getting people to have real conversations because otherwise we just skirt around these issues and we just don't go there. And I want people, particularly women to know that it's possible. How many times have people said to me, it's not possible. You can't do that. No, you don't have those skillsets. And I've always thought, well, don't tell me it's impossible. Cause it's not. That's always been my driver. And that came from my grandma and my parents and my sisters. And my sisters are my three best friends. And we have this great space where we're still helping each other. We were all in different countries. And it taught me how to be humble. It taught me how to ask for help. And it taught me how to think about how I want to show up. And I think those questions are fundamental and they don't get asked enough. And I just had so much fun. I think once you have that type of relationship, you can have fun doing really serious quests. I found my tribe, if you like. And I decided that building tribes was the way forward. I remember when I moved to France and I was working in France, and I thought, this system is really different. I'm finding it quite constrained, quite rigid. So what do I? I either sit and complain about it or I go back to UK or I think about how I can change it. And I thought, no, that's going to be my challenge. I'm going to look at how I can change organizational culture and create the space that we work in. I worked in like a manufacturing production environment, very masculine, but I just thought I'm going to take that as an opportunity. So I'm not going to sit and think, oh, there's only 17% of women. And I thought, okay, how can I get like-minded people and make this an inclusive discussion and move forward with it? I just found some of what I was seeing so unfair. And I thought, okay, if I stay and if I just don't do anything, I'm condoning it. And I refuse to do that. So I went and found as many people as possible and created small communities within the organization. And we may change. And clearly, you know, large organizations, you can't change everything, but it's very satisfying to watch people have light bulb moments and then suddenly their potential just explodes. And that's just brilliant. And I think, wow, I thought you might do this, or I thought you might do that. And they surprise themselves. And I think that's a very satisfying thing to see. Passionistas: Now is this the industry you're talking about, is this the aeronautical industry? Suzie: Yeah. Passionistas: So tell us a little bit about working in that industry. What did you do? Suzie: It's very interesting. I basically started as a lean expert on the supply chain and they trained me in that. And I do like operations, and I like doing, and I like seeing the impact of what I'm doing and there's no better way than lean on a production line. You see it, you see it coming in, coming off, you see what's happening. But as we started to put lean in place, I thought, okay, how are we going to lead this? This is quite a different way of working. And we set up the leadership academy and we started looking at all the issues, challenges, but also the opportunities that were coming up from that. And I got more and more involved in the HR system where I was working and I thought, I don't really understand this, and I don't think it's  unlocking potential. So I went to join HR. So I went to join HR to understand what was going on and how I could make a difference and how they worked and what their mindset was. I think the best thing about where I worked was, yes, it's quite a traditional sort of industrial manufacturing environment, and the mindset goes with that. But I never had any issue going and asking for what I wanted. Sometimes they said no. But more often than not, they said, if you're willing to try it and it's your responsibility, then off you go. And maybe I just had great bosses or people who were willing to take a chance on me, but, you know, I did have bosses who said no. And then my thought process was okay, so how else can I make a difference? So I started as a lean expert and then I went into HR and then I got hooked. I got hooked on, why are we only talking about process? What's going on here? Why aren't we talking about the emotional layer? So I stayed in HR for 10 years. I thought if I want to change, what's going on here, I need to understand the operation. So I went into HR operations and I did HR business partnering, and I ran the recruitment services and we set up the shared services for recruitment. And during that time I looked at the recruitment process and the talent we were bringing in and thought this is not very diverse. So I said, can we do an experiment on diversifying recruitment? So that got me thinking about how I could think outside the box and how I could get the organization to think outside the box. And then I went into take on a position as head of diversity and inclusion because I thought, okay, this is a big subject. And for me, it is the subject for competitive advantage. And it's not just HR tick box exercise, and it's not just how many women we've got or how many other minority groups we've got. This is about people. And this is about creating an environment where people can thrive as opposed to strive. And because the culture was quite command and control in terms of leadership, there were quite a lot of people's suffering and I could see that. And they couldn't see a way out. And I felt that it was HR's job, but also every leader's job to look into their teams and have that discussion, which of course is quite a big ask because it's a difficult discussion to have. So I basically took diversity inclusions that I want to put it up with strategic objectives, culture, change, business objectives, leadership. And then we moved into a time when we wanted to build an internal leadership university. And they asked me if I would like to do that. And I was just thrilled with that project. It was a fab project, but there was four of us running it, so that was a collective management thing. And the more I got into these activities, I thought 1) I have a massive volume proposition here. 2) I'm seeing the impact of people co-creating together and seeing what that can do to organizational culture wellbeing, but also productivity. And 3) organizations are missing a trick if they don't want to look beyond what they do today. So we did that and we basically looked at the whole thing, organizational design, but also how to create a platform for human transformation. What does it mean? How do people learn. How do we interact with the business? How do you support people on the job day in, day out? And how do you equip organizations with a coaching culture? A culture of more lifelong learning, as opposed to I sit in a classroom for two days. And then, yeah, I do remember something they told me about emotional intelligence and how to communicate. Which is why of course change stalls because they don't practition it. They don't practition what I call the human systems of an organization, which is, you know, the human element. And now we're in the digital age where everything's about ecosystems. I just felt really strongly that if we don't equip people to understand the human systems, it's just going to get worse because we can collaborate with online tools and we can have virtual meetings, but the human connection is the way we're wired. So we built the Leadership University and that was one of my favorite favorite projects ever. And we built communities of practice and we went from 900 members to 12,000 and I was just like, wow, what can we do here? This is so cool! The best thing was the other people that thought it was so cool, which meant that we got momentum in the organization. Some people didn't believe in it, but, you know, fair enough. That's humans, isn't it. You don't always get a hundred percent unanimity. But it was great. And I got massively challenged on my ideas and we created new ideas. I just felt that we unlocked so much potential in the groups we were in that we took it to the talent management and said, you know, what do we do with this? And then digital transformation came along and we got more and more tools and more and more speed of change. And then I decided that I was a bit bored of the big machine and it was too rigid and there were reasons why I couldn't do things that were outside of reasons for my competence, it was either political or it wasn't the right time or budgetary. And so I decided that I would step out of the organization and do exactly the same thing on my own, because I also wanted to see other organizations, other industries. I wanted to work with charities. I wanted to work with start up. I wanted to work with SMEs. So that's what I did. It's quite a bold move actually, now that I think about it. I probably didn't think about it enough, which is why I just did it. But yeah. So I stepped out with the organization and I set up my own business. And I thought, what do I call it? Transformation was clear. Value was clear. I thought, okay, well, don't overcomplicate this. I'll just call myself Tranform for Value because that's basically what I want to do. And behind that, it's about unlocking potential. So it's about transforming with a deliberate intention to create human value.. Passionistas: While you were getting people to think more about diversity and inclusion, and while you were creating this university, what was the impact that you saw on the company and through those initiatives that you helped create? Suzie: I think the first impact is always engagement. You have engagement scores and things like that. But you also have people coming to you when you think that's why I do what I do. When people come with, yeah, I wanted to leave that job, but now I'm staying. Or I never thought that was possible, and I never thought I could lead that. And I saw that scale. I saw people getting excited. I saw top management asking more about it. I saw them wanting to understand it. I saw it as being able to open doors at levels where I didn't think we would be able to. And I just think that just makes it a more attractive place to work. And you can see people honing in on that. You suddenly find out or people contact you, "I hear you're doing this, I've seen you're doing this, I've seen the community does this." And you're thinking, wow, okay, I don't really know who you are. Which is brilliant because that's what we're aiming at is to federate and make powerful communities. So I saw a lot of communities being built. I also saw lots of room to maneuver, to bring in new ideas, whether that be in the leadership space or in the cultural space. An open box for experimentation, if you like. I think the hardest part about experimentation is when you go from proof of concept to industrialized idea, because then it becomes part of the organization. That's almost a different discussion. So I saw the difference in that. I saw the difference in the way I lead, and I saw the difference in the way the teams were feeling and innovating and defending the project or taking the project forward. When I was in the operational area, we did a lot of change based on lean on the operations. And I remember, after 18 months, we did a retrospective on what's changed. And the biggest change they'd seen was engagement and happiness at the workplace. At the time we didn't have metrics, we had mood boards and things like that where we didn't have sort of people analytics, but it was incredibly satisfying that that was a collective observation, was that even though this didn't work in that didn't work, we actually wants to come to work everyday. Which I just think is just so satisfying. And it was interesting. I had somebody contact me a couple of months ago who worked for me 10 years ago. And just saying, "I still remember that day when the team did that, and I'm now doing it with my team. And it still really works." So that for me is the type of legacy that I want to leave, and I want us to leave as a collective. Because I think, you know, particularly platforms like Passionistas and things like that, they are so inspiring and you can unlock so much potential without even knowing it. That's why I'm a big believer in collective intelligence. And I think, these words have become buzzwords now, haven't they? Like collective intelligence and lean and culture change and employee experience. But experience is so important because it's the human experience. And I think we need to de-mystify it, and we need to operationalize it. And that's partly what my podcast is about. My podcast is around breaking things down into actionable chunks of learning so that people can go and do something with it and try out what works for them, and basically build the confidence to actually challenge the status quo in the organization. And I think emotional intelligence is becoming more and more and more key in the way we work. And I feel that women don't voice that enough, that they innately bring something to that table. I also like to work with groups of women to just turn the volume up on that voice. I think every time I've done that, we're all in agreement. It's just not formalized. The volume isn't loud enough on what women can bring to the table. And it has been ever thus for me. But it's getting stronger and it's getting louder. And this was a conversation I had with my mum. When I was 10 or 11. And we've been discussing it ever since. So yeah. I just think I can add something to that debate. I can make a difference and however, small, it may be in society, if I can make it bigger within what I'm doing, then I'm hoping it will just add into the mix. That's why I don't think it's impossible is the statement I would accept. Ever. Passionistas: We're Amy and Nancy Harrington, and you're listening to The Passionistas Project Podcast and our interview with Suzie Lewis. To learn more about her mission to help organizations and leaders understand human systems so that they can create sustainable change and bring about cultural transformation, visit transformforvalue.com. If you're enjoying this interview and would like to help us continue creating inspiring content, please consider becoming a patron by visiting thepassionistasproject.com/podcast and clicking on the patron button. Even $1 a month can help us continue our mission of inspiring women to follow their passions. Now here's more of our interview with Suzie. So with Transform for Value, what types of clients do you work with and why are they seeking you out? Suzie: So I worked with large organizations. I also work with governmental institutions. I work with charities and I work with startups. Which is great because I wanted a massive mix of clients. They seek me out because they've understood that something needs to change in their organizational culture. It's either through additional transformation lense. So we need to be more agile. Our process needs to be more agile. We need to understand innovation creativity more. Or it's from a leadership perspective. We know that we need to change our leadership models because this one is no longer working. So can you help us 1) understand what that means and 2) co-create it so that we can create sustainable change. Or they come to me more specifically for coaching. So how can I either show up as a leader differently? Or I do quite a lot of systemic coaching in groups around what I call human system practitionering. So, you know, how do I create that environment and how can I make it sustainable in terms of behavioral change in my team or in my organization. Passionistas: Is there one success story from your work in this field that really kind of stands out to you as one you're particularly moved by or proud of? Suzie: So, yes is the answer to that. I think there's one success story from inside the organization. Which is the one I spoke about when we decided that we would federate all the women's networks, which brought it to 900 people, and then we decided to make it inclusive. And then we decided we call it Balance for Business to link it to the business, the bottom line. And that went from 900 people to 12,000 in five or six years. And it took on a whole different perception in the organization, but also a whole different impact in terms of what subjects they were dealing with and how they could create a feeling of belonging across sites and countries. So that was a vision for me. And I saw it unfold, which was fab. That was great. And the leadership university was also part of that for me. It was sort of contributing and creating a platform underneath to make it more systemic. And very recently I've been doing some consulting on an inclusion strategy and we've done co-creation from a to zed. And we've gone from discussing strategy and looking at visioning to training all managers in self limiting beliefs, basic coaching skills and psychological safety. And we've just done the whole spectrum. And it's something I've always wanted to put in place outside of the organization where I've worked. And they gave me that opportunity. And it's a fab project. And every time I think about it, fondly, I just think. Wow. How many lives are still being impacted by the fact that we're equipping people for different conversations. We're equipping them to thrive, you know, as opposed to survive. And so many people do just survive in organizations. I'm proud of that because it was the right thing to do. And I'm proud of that because I've got the feedback on the impact it's having. And I'm proud of that because it's creating a different culture, or building on a culture that wasn't quite as explicit as that, on those things in that organization. And I'm interested in a year from now to go back to it and see where they're at. Passionistas: So what are some of the biggest challenges for leaders in the 21st century workplace? Suzie: So my short answer to that would be themselves. Leadership comes from within, doesn't it? And I think particularly now, leaders are having to really understand what they're about in order to be able to deal with the circumstances and lead the uncertainty that's around them. And going inside is quite a difficult conversation with oneself, isn't it? And it's not necessarily something that everybody is used to. So I think there's that for individual leaders. I think then the codes of leadership in an organization are changing very quickly. Where the paradigm is, it shifts. So, you know, the whole "I'll give you the information you need and information is power" type of paradigm has gone with social media and collaborative platforms. And they're now having to move from a sort of managerial, "I'll tell you what to do to" to more of a coaching stance of, "Either let me empower you to take decisions in a more decentralized way, because that's the way we're going to organize our organization," or "I am here to develop you based on your competencies and your potential." And that often means developing you out of my team, but that's okay. So we're moving away from paradigm of talent is mine because it's in my team. Which I think is fabulous because that's what we need to do. But I think it's a quite hard conversation to break those paradigms also on a strong is a leader that doesn't show vulnerability and that knows everything. So I'm being very black and white now, but these are the polarities we're working within. And I think it is hard to turn around and say, "I don't know. What do you think?" Or "I'm not quite sure how to navigate this." I think it's the unwritten codes of organizational cultures around their definition of strong leadership, their attitude to failure and risk, and also their attitude to this discussion around the emotional layer. So challenge doesn't have to be aggressive. It can be healthy and inverted comments. And I just think we're moving from compare and compete to care and collaborate and that care and collaborate means that you have to have an understanding of yourself, and empathy with the understanding of others, and creating an environment where people feel safe enough in their interpersonal relationships to bring things to the table. So I think from a leadership perspective, that's a shift everybody is working on and undergoing, but it's not the way cultures are. So I feel like it's not the way we do things around here. So they're constantly hitting the cultural codes and that's quite a tiring place if you're one of the only ones doing it. So I think it's a wider discussion for particularly top leadership, because what do people do when they want to know what's going to be rewarded and how things work? They look at the top. I think it's a big piece for top leadership, and that's why we need more women in the higher levels of management, as well as the board level, because they bring that discussion. They open that dialogue because they have very different ways of leading. And not just women, but people with more female leadership traits or with a more developed emotional intelligence. And I just think we're back on the inhibitors of learning, aren't we? Ego and fear. And everyone always says to me, there's a lot of fear in organizations. And there is, but there is a lot of courage as well. There's a lot of curiosity and there's a lot of excitement. But you have to go and find it. And I think that's the most exciting thing is going and finding it, in an organization or anywhere else. But I think the leadership challenge is that they have to deliver in a world that is uncertain, but they're not like comfortable in, and they're not quite sure how to go about it. It's a big shift, I think. The circular models and the sort of what data brings with it in terms of decision-making is a big conversation, both for systems and organizations. But also as individual leaders, I get a lot of individual leaders asking me the question, you know, I'm not quite sure what to do with the fact that that I don't know. So that's new conversations for quite a lot of people. Passionistas: And do you find that more and more companies or individuals are seeking to make these changes? Suzie: So, yes, it's the answer to that, but I think there are two categories. The companies that are seeking because they actively and deliberately want to create developmental organizations because that's what they believe in and that's what they want to do. And other companies, because they've been told that that's what they need to do to remain competitive. Either way they need to do it. It's a very different discussion. Passionistas: So how can people work with you at Transform for Value? How do they find you and what can they expect when they work with you? Suzie: They can find me on LinkedIn. They can find me through my website, transformforvalue.com. They can find me on Twitter. They can expect to first discussion because my approach to transformation is holistic. It has to have that systemic view to it, even if it's just an inverted commerce, a two-day workshop, the discussion will always start with what's the strategy, what are the objectives and where does it fit in? And I do that on purpose because I'm a big believer in systems thinking. It comes with the sort of collective intelligence thing. And I do think that particularly in today's world, systems thinking and sense making is key for leadership to come back to your earlier question. So I will always have that discussion. And they'll also get honesty. If I don't think I can help them, I'm going to tell them because you know, I do what I do to make a difference. If I don't think I can make a difference, then I will tell them, I don't think I'm the one for them, but  I will refer them to people I know. But that's important for me. So it's about a holistic discussion. It's about a fit between me and them. If I can't help them, I'll tell them. And I will always be honest about what I think they need, even if it's not what they came to me for. So I think that's important for me that we work within those boundaries. And then hopefully they'll have fun when we do stuff together. Passionistas: Shifting gears a little bit. Tell us about the cello and when you first started to play and why you fell in love with it and why you're in the orchestra? Suzie: Yeah, the cello. I think I was 10. And they came around the schools with all these instruments and they said it was in discovery day. And I heard the person play the cello. And I heard the sound of the cello and I was just like, I want to play that. I want to do that. I was a little bit bewitched by the sound of it. And I thought, wow, I didn't realize how difficult it would be to recreate that sound. But I just fell in love with it. And I thought, this is for me, I really love this instrument. So I asked my parents if I could play. And they said, yeah, we'll hire one thought. And I said okay. And my granddad was a pianist. So we had music in the household and all my sisters played instruments as well. And it was hard. I found it quite hard to learn to play, and it was quite a lot of discipline. And I was like, do I really want to do this? And then I started thinking, okay, well, I'll join an orchestra because that will be really cool to play with other people. So I joined an orchestra when I was about 12, a youth orchestra. And I just, that was it then. Because I think I'd taken the pressure off myself to perform and to get it right. And it was just like, wow, I'm part of something bigger. And I think being part of something bigger than yourself is for me very inspiring, hence what I do and all the communities that we create. So that's what I did. And I just learned so much about people and I had so much fun just being part of a bigger collective and playing and watching myself progress. And then I was quite willing to do my scales and do the practice. And we went on tour with the orchestras and my sister was in the same orchestra and yeah, it was a big collective thing. And then, when I was 16, I bought my own cello. Which was like this big thing because I was like, I bought my own cello. And I bought it in a sort of market where we were that was selling all the instruments. And a guy I knew helped me tune it and put it together. And I was just like, wow, I've bought an instrument. So that was a big thing for me. And then it's just stayed with me ever since. And when I went to university, I found an orchestra and when I came to Toulouse, I found an orchestra and I still play in that orchestra. And I've always played that. And I love, I just love cello music. I think it just communicates an emotional sort of bewitchment that I don't feel when I play. I really like playing it and it sort of takes me elsewhere. It's a little bit like mindfulness for me. I just sort of step out of what I'm doing during the day. And then when my grandma passed away, I bought a more expensive with the inheritance. So that was symbolic for me because she accompanied me in my cello exam. She came to play the piano with me and we did them together. So that was very cool. And yeah, that's just my instrument. I just feel something passionate when I hear the cello. Passionistas: So we also love the sister connection. Obviously we're sisters and we have two other sisters and we are also each other's best friends. What do your sisters do? And how often do you get to see them since you all live in different countries? Suzie: Let's take COVID out with this. Before that we saw each other about four or five times a year. But we would always take the time to have one weekend for just the four of us, dedicated to us. To just having fun and being together and that sistership thing. So that's how much we see each other. One is a lawyer, one is a translator and one is a communications director. And we're just sort of all over the world. But we're always connected. You know, oh, I must ring her. And it just so happens that she's okay or she's not okay. But they're my go to place for constructive and sisterly feedback that will help move me on whether it's what I want to hear or not. They're sort of my muses, if you like. It's funny because you know, when we all started sort of moving away and getting other groups of friends, I never once asked myself, "I wonder if that space will remain." You know, it just wasn't. And we've had this discussion between all four of us and it wasn't on anybody's radar. It was just like, oh, how are we going to make space for that? Not will it change. So I feel very, very, very privileged all the time, but just so grateful for that because it's a no matter what unconditional safe space. And that's what really inspires me as well to create that for other people, because it's so powerful. Passionistas: People don't understand if they haven't experienced it, but to know from birth that you've got people that have your back, no matter what, is really the greatest gift anybody could receive. Suzie: Yeah. It's a fab feeling. It's a get up and feel good feeling. And I just think you can recreate that in teams. You can recreate that in organizational culture. And it's such a shame not to, because it's so inspiring for everybody. And they don't have to be inspired by the same thing or motivated by the same thing, but they all want to work together. And clearly if you're in an organization you will have a collective purpose or vision depending on what the organization does. And I just think it's one of those things. I spend a lot of time doing pro bono stuff on this topic, just because it's so important. I mentor everyone, but predominantly women on building their own business. We go into colleges before they've made their choices. And it's not just about getting women into areas where they aren't. It's also about believing yourself. Build your confidence. Don't let anyone tell you it's impossible. Surround yourself with people who can help you or who can have that space with you, because I don't think I would be the same person I am today. If I hadn't of had that space. Passionistas: Thanks for listening to our interview with Suzie Lewis. To learn more about her mission to help organizations and leaders understand human systems so that they can create sustainable change and bring about cultural transformation, visit transformforvalue.com. Please visit thepassionistasproject.com to learn more about our podcast and our subscription box filled with products made by women owned businesses and female artisans, to inspire you to follow your passions. Get one for your Valentine and save 15% on your purchase with the code BEMINE2022. And be sure to subscribe to The Passionistas Project Podcast so you don't miss any of our upcoming, inspiring guests. Until next time, stay well and stay passionate.  

Tobie Spears is the founder of Guatemalan Humanitarian Tours, an organization that helps Guatemalan children, teens, and their parents reach their full potential with early nutrition and education. Their service vacations take companies, families, and individuals on a journey where they give back while having a blast and remembering what really matters. Learn more about Guatemalan Humanitarian Tours. Learn more about The Passionistas Project. FULL TRANSCRIPT: Passionistas: Hi, and welcome to The Passionistas Project Podcast, where we talk with women who are following their passions to inspire you to do the same. We're Amy and Nancy Harrington and today we're talking with Tobie Spears, the founder of Guatemalan Humanitarian Tours, an organization that helps Guatemalan children, teens, and their parents reach their full potential with early nutrition and education. Their service vacations take companies, families, and individuals on a journey where they give back while having a blast and remembering what really matters. So please welcome to the show, Tobie Spears. Tobie: Thank you so much, ladies. It's great to be here. Passionistas: We're really excited to hear about everything you do, Tobie. What's the one thing you're most passionate about? Tobie: Right now what I'm most passionate about is creating win-win situations. So for businesses, for corporations that are looking to give, then I feel like it's so fun to be that conduit. Where I'm like, Hey, you want to give, I have a great suggestion. So I think just being a conduit for good is by far the funnest, the funnest thing to do. Passionistas: What is that suggestion that you make? Tobie: To find a project for people in need in any place of the world. My chosen place is Guatemala, but I really encourage others to be, to choose their own place. So if it's local activism, if it's local involvement, then. And do it, you know, jump on board, like be involved if it's in a different country, if it's, you know, anywhere in the world, there's so much need and so much opportunity to do good. Like that's my real ask is if what I'm doing, doesn't resonate with you and find yours. Passionistas: How does translate into what you do on a day to day basis with your word? Tobie: My job in the states is finding donors, finding sponsors, working with corporations, networking, and meeting awesome people. So that's what I get to do and encourage people to join me on a service vacation to Guatemala, or get involved as a sponsor or a donor. We have loads and loads of opportunities for any volunteer that is interested. So then we have day to day operations in Guatemala. I also oversee and am involved with, but definitely I'm not on the ground. So my work is focused in Guatemala, but my work actually occurs here in the states. Passionistas: Let's take a step back. Where does this love of giving and supporting other people come from? Was it something you learned when you were here? Tobie: My mom and dad divorced when I was quite young. And so my mom raised six of us by herself. We were really quite lucky to live in the United States where we have so many social programs. So we were on housing and section eight and food stamps and all of those services free lunch, free breakfast at school. And those were, although the, it was embarrassing, it was embarrassing to me as. To grow up knowing that like my family couldn't afford to feed us. Right. But it took me like to become an adult to realize how grateful and how lucky we were to have had that opportunity. So, I mean, we didn't go hungry. Like we didn't, we certainly didn't have an excess, like that didn't happen, but we didn't go hungry. So my mom really instilled in. That there was somebody in our world, in our orbit that probably had it worse off than us. So we would always find a family, even if it wasn't a financial struggle. If it was a death in the family, a sadness and illness, something that had caused grief or pain or suffering in their lives. She really encouraged us to get involved and be service. One of my biggest memories is what she coined as the 12 days of Christmas. And so for those 12 nights, we would run, we would choose a family in our local area, in our neighborhood that had had a rough year and we would choose gifts for them every. And we would run and knock on the door and then hide in the bushes and see their face when they opened up the door. And sometimes the funniest part was when they yell at you. And they're like, thank you, you know, because they don't know who you are. And so it was something so fun about being that secret Santa. So I think it just was something that I loved doing because you can do so much more when you have like additional people. Fighting the same fight or working on your same cause. So I remember seventh, eighth grade, so maybe 12, 13 years old. I wanted to do a coat drive in Utah, winters are cold. And so I knew that the homeless population would need coats for the winter. And I just was like, I thought to myself, like personally, I could go and collect 10 coats. Right. If I got the whole school involved, like then it's endless how men, you know, the possibilities are so much larger than what I can do on my own. So I remember getting the whole school involved and we receive in a, we collected hundreds of coats and the school newspaper was involved. The city newspaper came and they just thought it was such a big deal. And I was like, it's not that big of a deal. Everybody has extra coats, you know, like, so it was just giving away something that you didn't need already. So those are, those are the funnest part. So that conduit work is so fun. And then getting people that are like-minded, that are involved and wanting to be invested in service for good. Like those are my people. Passionistas: The other aspect of what you do is travel. So when did you first fall in love with traveling and tell us about some of your early trips. Tobie: So going back, I mean, we were raised on welfare, there wasn't money. So my father actually worked for an airlines and so we got to travel by standby. So we, we had the opportunity to travel with his airline points, which was amazing. But my first travel was probably. So two of my best friends, they said, Hey, let's go to Europe for the summer and backpack. I was 17 and we were crazy kids. And I think our parents were just as crazy to let us go. I mean, there was no GPS, there was no cell phones. There was no email, like to try to go back in time, back then, you know, like to explain that to our kids. What you had no cell phone, you had no GPS. We had this funny little calling card and we would call once a week and let them know that we were alive. But that experience really changed me. And my mom said that when I came home that she felt that shift in me and that I was more concerned with just the basic. Of life instead of like, oh, this is her example. We had been traveling to a family reunion and we needed to eat out. And my little siblings were like, Hey, there's a McDonald's let's stop at a McDonald's. And I was like, we don't need to stop at a McDonald's. We have like a loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter. Like we're fine. And she just remembers like this back to the basics philosophy that we don't need to, we don't need this excess. Anymore. And I truly believe that I believe that travel does that to us. It changes us on a fundamental level when we see how other people live outside of our daily bubble. Passionistas: You took a trip in 2002 to Mexico, and that trip had an impact on you. So can you tell us about that? Tobie: I got this little bug of, oh wait, like the world is out there and there's so much to see. And I had dreamed of traveling through Mexico. So we actually packed up our backpacks and our daughter who was not yet two. And we spent three months backpacking through Mexico and we got to see things that Mexicans don't get to see. You know, it's like, because so many times in our lives, we are so inundated with the daily. Hustle and the daily grind that we don't get to get out and see those cool things. So we saw the butterflies migration and Morelia. We saw, you know, we just, we were able to see so many beautiful, cool things about the country and put our daughter on our backpack. And we took, you know, she wasn't two yet, so she's still napped every single day. So every afternoon we'd sit down and put her down in. She would take a little nap and we would write in our journals and the world becomes smaller. When you meet people that live in different areas of the world, then you're like, oh wait, we're like the same. Like, we don't speak the same language. We don't have the same color of skin or the same color of eyes, but we all want things that are the same. We all want our children to be happy and our children to be healthy. And we all want to be loved. Like those basic. That it's basic human humanity. So I think that just makes a big impact for me. Passionistas: What inspired you to found Guatemalan Humanitarian Tours and tell us a little bit about that. Tobie: It's been nearly 11, 12 years ago, I met a woman who had talked about traveling with her family and she was able to go to Guatemala with her family and my husband and I had looked for years, actually, we had wanted to live internationally with our two children and every organization that. Connected with, they were like, oh, you have children. No, thanks. Like, you know, that was just too much of an ask. It was too big of an ask. And so we had looked and looked and not found an organization that would take a family unit. And so she told me that she had come home from Guatemala and she had taken her children and I was like, wait, that's what we've been wanting to do. So it was as easy as that. Meeting the right person at the right time. And she put me in contact with the director of a private school in Guatemala. And from there we just made the crazy plan to drive. I just decided I didn't want to fly over everything because then it felt like we would miss out on so much. And so we decided to drive from Utah to. And so we packed up the car and the girls were, you know, five and nine, five and 10. And we put a bunch of CD, bunch of books on CD and just hit the road. So that was like one moment, right? Like I never anticipated Guatemala to become like a lifelong passion. We thought we were going to go there for three months. We thought we would just live there and come and go, you know, just like it was like a one-time. And then after, when we returned home, I told my girls that it was something we needed to do each year, that it was for our souls, that we needed to do something for soul food. And so that was what happened is that I wanted to be able to travel with my girls. And I felt like this was the best way that we could spend the summers together and that we could do good. And I got to. Capture their, you know, their moments instead of us just being in the daily busy-ness of life, we got to escape in this little pod and have these memories of their summers. So it was really quite a selfish reason. I got that time with my kids and we got to see the world and change ourselves. But by doing good, like it was just a winter. Passionistas: How did you change by doing good? Tobie: I've had my eyes opened to what life is like just outside of the states. You know? So I was in my thirties the first time we were in Guatemala. And like all of these funny things that you don't realize are really important aspects of your daily life, like a washing machine and a dryer and a sink that's inside your kitchen and floors with carpet and floors that aren't dirt. And, you know, like these luxuries of our daily life that we live, it just has helped me travel has helped me open my eyes, that I feel it's a responsibility that I have to alleviate others, difficult life or others pain. And if it's possible, and I believe it is that we can make the world a better place. Passionistas: What effects have the travels had on your daughters? Tobie: Yeah. So Guatemala is like, you know, it's like part of home, it's part of who we are and they have friends. I mean, the cool part of this technological advancement is that they talk to people that they met in Guatemala nine, you know, nine years ago when, and so they still get to connect. And when volunteers, that's a huge part of it. I want my volunteers to be able to connect to the families that we're serving and the kids that we're meeting, because like I said, it just makes the world a smaller place to have that actual connection. It's when you're helping somebody, you know what it's doing, you can see, you know, you've been to their home, like, you know, their living conditions, you know, how their life is, and then you get to. By adding something cool, like a water filter that you're like, oh my gosh, I did that. I helped fundraise to provide a water filter for this family. You know, this is awesome. So just those re it's so easy. I think that's the coolest part is it can be so easy. And so life changing just by being involved and they've done it. I mean, my girls have done it. They've installed wood, wood, burning stoves, and they've met the kiddos that weren't eating lunch and we're eating breakfast and we're trying to attend school and trying to learn, but it's really difficult to do that without your brain being fed. So they had friends at school that were not eating and they would come home and be like, mom, like, you know, little Guatemalans that were attending school with. They were like, mom, they're not eating, you know, how can that happen? Cause it's not a reality for them. They never, so it opened their eyes to the reality of life in a developing country that not every kid gets a free lunch. Not every kid gets a free breakfast, not in Guatemala. And it created a lot of gratitude and appreciation for both of them. And it's definitely not just them. It's every volunteer that's ever joined us on a service vacation. They have that appreciation like, whoa, okay. I get to see how the world works in different places and especially in a developing country where it's not all fancy and it's not all nice and it's not all new and not everybody gets to eat. Passionistas: Talk about a bit more about Guatemala because I think a lot of people haven't been there and they don't have firsthand knowledge. What is it like down there? And also what's it like for women is it difficult for women? Tobie: Absolutely. Most women like statistically in the country, they terminate their schooling by the third grade. So by the third grade, a young girl is needed to be working in the fields or working at home, helping her mother with younger siblings or helping her mother with house. Or cooking or any of those menial daily tasks that moms don't have enough time to do. So definitely we're huge advocates for education, especially for girls, because I believe that will change their world. And Guatemala is a teeny little country. It's the size of Louisiana. If you can picture this teeny Louisiana. But nearly 18 million people live there. So there's a lot of people and a lot of meals are prepared over open flame. So in for breakfast, you can smell when it's breakfast time. Cause you can smell all the wood-burning, all the wood coming for lunch. You can do the same. I mean the most amazing corn tortillas that you've ever tasted in your whole life. You could just walk down the street and little ladies are making corn tortillas and you just take them home fresh off the, the fire. Most families don't make $2 a day. So education ends really young and people start working. They are a very hardworking people and they are a huge food producers. So an enormous amount of food is produced in Guatemala and then shipped through central America. So they do do a lot of food production. Although the food doesn't stay in country. So. Guatemala changes from about fourth to the sixth, most malnourished country in the world. So the beauty of it is that we can make a huge impact everywhere we go by providing nutrition and education to any area in that little country. Some fun stuff about Guatemala is that they are very Mayan. So they're still. 20 plus 27, 29 Mayan languages still spoken. And they were , which is like their traditional clothing. And you can tell, I couldn't tell, but watermelon could tell where that person is from depending on the attire that they're wearing. So they have their own like tribal outfits, you know, super, super fun. They're kind and generous and grateful, gracious people. Passionistas: Tell us about your education program and what you do for nine years prior to COVID. Tobie: I had been leading humanitarian service vacations in countries so that people could see the country and experience what it was like to live in a developing country. And last year, at the very beginning of COVID, I had a woman reached out to me and she had just lost her. And she has been an English teacher at the American school in Guatemala. And she had taught for 20 years. She has two young children at home and she said, I would like to start a preschool. I was like, okay, we've been taking school supplies, hundreds of pounds of school supplies, backpacks books, all sorts of things. We've taken all of those things to Guatemala for years. I'm a huge advocate for education. However, I don't think that. Education goes with out nutrition. I believe that they go hand in hand. So I told her that I didn't see the point of starting one program. I thought we needed to. So we started a preschool and a nutrition program and they go hand in hand. So we've got kiddos that arrive at our preschool. They get breakfast first and start out their day and then they have their education and then they leave with a full belly afterwards. So they really do go hand in hand when we began, we had 19 kiddos right now we're at 25 because I believe that we need to have a program that is sustainable. I have kept it small on purpose so that it's something that we can really afford, something that we can really do and not quit. That was my biggest thing. These families are, depending on us. These found these kiddos are depending on us. And I needed to make sure that this was a program we could continue to do for years and years. So we have 25 adorable kids and they come for nutrition and we've been able to provide them with birthday parties and their very first book that they've never had a book at their home before. And so they get a book for their birthday. We've been able to provide them with Christmas and Santa. And one thing that sets us apart about our program is that we require all of our moms to volunteer inside our program. And so each of our moms is volunteering six hours a week. And so she is invested and she has to be there in order for her kiddo to be involved in our program. So. We're all a community. It's not just two people up at the top that are making everything work, that it takes an entire village to make this happen. So we're all working together to make it happen. Passionistas: We're Amy and Nancy Harrington and you're listening to the Passionistas Project Podcast and our interview with Tobie Spears. To learn more about her service vacations that take companies, families, and individuals on a journey where they give back while having a blast and remembering what really matters visit GuatemalanHumanitarianTours.org. If you're enjoying this interview and would like to help us continue creating inspiring, please consider becoming a patron by visiting ThePassionistasProject.com/podcast and clicking on the patron button. Even $1 a month can help us continue our mission of inspiring women to follow their passions. Now here's more of our interview with Tobie. What do people who sign up for your humanitarian tours, what do they do when they get down there and what's the day to day activity like for them? Tobie: Part of my personal philosophy is that if you're in a country, you need to see it and experience it and fall in love with it. So we do hiking and we hike a volcano. We go zip lining and we explore the awesome cities and go shopping and, you know, just have like a sight seeing adventures and some fun adventure travel. And then every day we have a service project as well. So we do get to spend. Almost an entire week, five to six days at our preschool, so that we go there each morning and we get to know our kiddos and we're working with their homework or reading with them and playing and making sure that their education is going in the right direction. And then we get to go into their homes. So all of our families are a part of our community. And so we do an assessment of. And we've done field trips where we go into each home and say, what do you need? So last summer, we actually had the opportunity to do bookshelves during our home visits. I noticed that there were not like bookshelves and that there was just piles of stuff, piles of items, clothing, or cooking items or any of that. But it was just like on the floor. And I thought for cleanliness, for sanitation, for. Just organization, maybe a bookshelf would be a good fit. So I approached the moms, asked the moms how that felt, and everybody thought that was a great idea instead of just gifting everyone, a bookshelf, which we could have done. We required that everyone build their own. So we provided all of the materials and we asked a carpenter to come and show our families how to build. Piece of, you know, it will be like a centerpiece for many of their homes because it's a nice wood bookshelf. That's not going to go anywhere. It's going to last for years and years. And so they all got to make them and stay in them and work together. And we had families working together due to COVID. We had a couple of families that were ill and not able to build their own. So our teacher and her husband got in there and helped build theirs for them. Our projects change every year. And that's just on, what's important to the village, you know, to the village and what they need. We did have the opportunity to install several wood-burning stoves, and that's a huge gift. That's something that changes the whole family life in a day. So they're no longer cooking over open flame, which is safer for burns or. And then the fireplace is actually fluted out. And so then it's better for air quality and lung issues and asthma, just the air of the kitchen. So we were able to do all of that. I had a volunteer who did a big fundraising effort and she raised enough to do water filters for all of our. So it was less than 700 us dollars and she was able to provide 19 families with water filters, which is a really big deal considering that they were drinking dirty water before. So we're really on the basics. Like we, we did new mattresses, we did new bedding, our kids for gifts. They get blankets and pillows and. Items that are of necessity. And then we throw in boxes of food and we, you know, just like items that are of real need instead of just frivolous, frivolous items that we often give here as gifts. Passionistas: Tell us about the requirement for your volunteers to bring suitcases with them, but not for themselves. Tobie: We are able to provide, uh, hundreds, if not thousands of pounds of donations, each time we're traveling to Guatemala. So H volunteers is able to bring 100 pounds, two large suitcases full of donations. And then I ask all of our volunteers to pack their personal items into their carry on bag. And so we've done all sorts of donations. Washable menstruation kits, washable diapers that are reasonable in Westville. We've had organizations that have put together kitchen kits. So it's a whole wash class, hot pads, you know, scrubbers, just those items. We've had newborn baby kids, which is washable diapers and onesies and socks and a little hat. And so any cool item like. We had some amazing women that made these stunning baby blankets. Like they should have, they should have been sold like on a really fancy website, but they were just so stunning. And so we get to gift those to all of our kids. This past summer, I had this amazing kid reach out to me. His name is David and he wanted to do a service project. I think David was twice. And so he himself made six blankets, fleece blankets and tied them and he delivered them to our home. And so then all of our kiddos between several groups of organizations and volunteers got a brand new blanket. So just cool stuff, books, you know, we're huge about education. So we had books and loads of school supplies, soccer balls. San toys, things that the kids can play with and cars and trucks, and then clothing, we do take brand new clothing. So I've had boutiques that have reached out and they are interested in donating their excess goods. So I can either sell that here and fund our projects, or we can take items there. It's like being Mrs. Claus, for sure. It's gifting things that people really need. Passionistas: And how can people who can't go on the trips, how can they participate? How can they help donate and either raise money or send in products that you need to give to people? Tobie: There is an awesome organization called donor box. We've signed up a donor box and just yesterday we received 12 boxes of donations and they're brand new backpacks, full of school supplies, full of brand new. Awesome school supplies. So there's an organization, smile.amazon.com. So we're a 501c3 nonprofit. And so we're able to be on smile.amazon.com. Anybody can choose us as a charity. And then we get a percentage of each purchase purchase that they make on Amazon. We have a sponsorship opportunity. So each of our kiddos have nutrition sponsors for breakfast, for lunch and for their education. And so there's an opportunity to get involved and to really know a kiddo we send thank you notes. We send artwork from the kiddos so that they, their sponsor gets to have a piece of art from their sponsor. I am willing to brainstorm with anybody. If somebody has a suggestion, I've had people reach out about doing the reasonable hygiene kits and the washable ministration kids and wash, float diapers. Like those are items that are life-changing to our families and to their health and finances so that they don't have to buy. So any way that anybody wants to get them. I will take that and we will make something beautiful happen. We are a 5 0 1 C3. So a corporation, a family foundation and individual that is interested in donating will get a tax receipt to use for their tax purposes as a tax write-off and something cool that might not have crossed anyone's mind is. Because we are a nonprofit, the service vacation trip can actually be a tax deduction. So you can talk to your CPA about that. And it has been a huge tax deduction from my volunteers in the past that legally you have to talk to your CPA about it. Passionistas: What are some of the trips you have planned for 2022? Tobie: We've got some awesome trips for 20, 22, and it's so crazy to think that that's the year we're coming in. So I have had the opportunity to team up with another organization. It's called the Institute for the study of birth, breath and death. And so we are taking birth and death workers to Guatemala to study the death culture and the birth culture of the Guatemalan people. And that's something, this is our first international trip, but we will be doing a trip like this every year to a different. So that's a huge, huge move for us. And we're super excited. We've also had a business owner. He is bringing his staff, so he wants to pay for all of his staff to attend as a team building experience. So he's paying for all of his staff to come and join us on our trip. So we've got our annual trip. That's 11 days. And I lead that trip and we do all of our awesome stuff. And then I can customize a trip as well. So like Zack, the business owner, I can do a seven day trip for him and his staff and we can go and install wood-burning stoves or garden towers or garden, you know, work in people's yards and gift them this really amazing. So we can do that as a customizable option. And if there's a corporation that's involved and wants to do a bonus for an employee project or a team building opportunity, we can make any of those customizable. And the coolest trip that I am waiting for it is it's like the Mexican version of DIA de Los Muertos day of the dead. And it's called all things. And they go and fly a big humongous kites, and that's how they talk to their loved ones that have passed on. So there's some really fun opportunities to go there for the kite festival. We could go to the beach and released hurdles. There's. I mean, there's the Caribbean side of Guatemala. There's the Pacific side of Guatemala. There's T call there's Highlands. There's rainforest, there's ancient Mayan ruins. Like really the whole country is just so fun to visit. So if anyone's interested, we can, they can join our already awesome trip or we can customize one for them. Passionistas: Well, that's the most rewarding part of all this work that you have done? Tobie: There's so many, so many, but it's so fun to watch our kiddos grow. So we started with children that were like in the three percentile, as far as height and weight. And so now we have, we're tracking them on a regular basis. And so we know if they're growing in the right direction. And so we get to see them and in the Spanish culture, It's socially acceptable to say to someone that they're fat. I know it's not acceptable in our culture. However, our, our teachers always like, oh, Tobie, they're getting so fat. It's so great. So just to watch them grow has been phenomenal. None of these kiddos had come to a preschool before they didn't have the social interaction that they have now. And so they were uncomfortable. Uh, you know, like, remember your kiddos or your nieces or your nephews first day of kindergarten or preschool. They're like, what are you doing? So they've crawled out of their comfort zones and they've become dear friends and the parents and the moms have also done that. They're working together in the kitchen, they're working together, you know, to make this organization work well. And so they team up together and they're learning from each other. We also have this really cool program. That's called the parent education program. And so our parents jump on a zoom call once a month and we have all sorts of classes. So we're educating our parents as we're educating our children. We're talking constantly about nutrition and malnutrition. Healthy foods versus junk foods. We've covered topics such as personal hygiene. COVID protections of washing your hands and staying very safe. We've covered birth control and women's bodies. And we have a medical director who's able to con you know, convey all of his medical knowledge as a Guatemalan doctor to the Guatemalans, so that it's on the same level. Like someone from the outside coming in and educating. So we have awesome education programs going on. We've got charity concerts that we're involved with that have been fantastic because we get to involve our families. We get to thanks to zoom. You know, you get to like turn on zoom and have a concert with our families in Guatemala and with people all around the states or the country here, you know, the world is just. That's so fun. Passionistas: What's your dream for Guatemalan Humanitarian Tours? Tobie: I'm a dreamer. My husband, he says he keeps me grounded because I would fly away with my dreams. So big dream. We would like to have a building. We would like to have a building and a soy farm so that we would be, we would be growing soybeans. The dream is to produce our own Tempe, our own soy milk, our own soy milk ice cream items like that. There is a program that's not far from us and Guatemala that was created nearly 40 years ago. And it's still running successfully today with the Guatemalan people managing it all. So that's like big awesomeness. And then inside that building, we would have a commercial kitchen. Our moms have taken canning classes and baking classes where they could put that kitchen to use, and then just open it to create a cooler community vibe where it's a safe place for people to come for learning for education, for work, and definitely including the soybeans and all of that. Passionistas: What's your dream for the kids that have been a part of the program? Tobie: That they finish school. That from our preschool, they migrate into a private school. And so that their sponsor gets to sponsor them through our preschool program, through their schooling program until they graduate high school. And then college, I mean, there's so many different opportunities for Guatemalans with a good education. So I believe that we can change the trajectory of their lives with education. So that's the big one. So last month we actually had a terrible tragedy and one of our kiddos passed away. Anthony was four and he died because his appendix burst and he didn't get the help he needed. So to try to come to terms with that, we decided that we would create a sponsorship program for Anthony sister so that she can go to school in, on, in his honor and that we can change her life. Through education because although her mom doesn't know how to read or write that doesn't have to be her reality. She can learn to read and write and she can have that voice and she can stand up for herself and she can choose when she gets married and she can choose her education. All of those things that we want for all of the kiddos, those are our big dreams that they're safe and happy and healthy, and they have autonomy where they get to. Their own choices about changing their own lives. And I'm sure you've heard this. There's this beautiful African proverb that says, if you change the life of a girl, then you change the life of that community. Because statistically, she stays statistically. She stays where she was raised. She stays where she was born and she works diligently to change the community of where she's from. And so then we get to do that with Kelly in Anthony's honor, we get to change her life just through, just through education. Passionistas: Thanks for listening to our interview with Tobie Spears, to learn more about her service vacations, that take companies, families, and individuals on a journey where they give back while having a blast and remembering what really matters visit GuatemalanHumanitarianTours.org. Please visit the Passionistas Project dot com to learn more about our podcast and subscription box filled with products made by women owned businesses and female artisans to inspire you to follow your passions. Get $45 of free goodies with a one-year subscription using the code WINTERGOODIES, and be sure to subscribe to The Passionistas Project Podcast so you don't miss any of our upcoming inspiring guests. Until next time stay well and stay past.

Sonali Perera Bridges is an award-winning, dynamic, innovative leader with over 20 years of progressive experience in a wide breadth of educational settings. A lifelong mentor and advocate, particularly for young women, she's the mother of two vibrant young girls and the driving force behind Shero's Rise. The non-profit organization is dedicated to providing young girls and women from underserved communities with the essential skills, experiences, tools and support needed to become empowered agents of change in their world. Learn more about Sonali. Learn more about The Passionistas Project.   FULL TRANSCRIPT: Passionistas: Hi, and welcome to the Passionistas Project Podcast, where we talk with women who are following their passions to inspire you to do the same. We're Amy and Nancy Harrington. And today we're talking with Sonali Perera Bridges, an award-winning , dynamic, innovative leader with over 20 years of progressive experience in a wide breadth of educational settings. A lifelong mentor and advocate, particularly for young women, she's the mother of two vibrant young girls and the driving force behind Shero's Rise. The non-profit organization is dedicated to providing young girls and women from underserved communities with the essential skills, experiences, tools and support needed to become empowered agents of change in their world. So please welcome to the show. Sonali Perera Bridges. Sonali: Thank you. Thank you for having me and what a great introduction. I wasn't expecting all of that. Goodness, you started my morning off great. I appreciate it. Passionistas: Well, we're so excited to have you here. We others fascinated by Shero's Rise and by your story. So we can't wait to share it with everyone. What is the one thing you're most passionate about? Sonali: Gosh, that's a lot, but I think what I'm most passionate about is being a service to us. I felt that way even as a young girl. I was like, I'm going to be a psychology major because I want to help one person. Psychology wasn't for me, because I'm not a science and math person in any regard, but I have always been given the opportunity to be of service. That's what was modeled for me when I was growing up is always being helpful and, um, servicing. To me, the rent you pay on this planet. I'm also passionate about girls and girls education. I'm a product of a woman's college. I worked at girls schools. I've worked at women's colleges and I'm a teacher at heart that's who I am. The words counselor and teacher are what I hold nearest, dearest to my heart and working with youth is really what I care about. Passionistas: Let's talk about that for a second. What do you think it was about your childhood and the way you grew up that inspired you at such an early age to want to be of service to other people? Sonali: To go backwards a little bit. I'm an immigrant, right? So I am the low income first generation student of color. Um, that's me. That's the background that I come from. We came to this country when we were five years old. I'm originally from Sri Lanka. We lived in a one bedroom apartment and it was the four of us. And we didn't have very much, but one of the things that I watched my parents do is to be a service to others, whether it was dropping off a casserole or visiting a sick friend r volunteering at church. It was something that was always a part of our lives. Even to this day, my parents host college students at their house. If they need a place to go for Thanksgiving, it, our house has always been a place where. Um, you open up the doors and let others come in. And even as I grew up and I, I was lucky, I went to Mount St. Mary's University. That service is again, a part of, of who we are. You give back and you serve the community. And in all of the work that I've done, um, I've been in the route of college admissions. That's that? That's my background. I've taught. Um, I've done a lot of different things, but I've always chosen institution that provide for low income underrepresented students, because that's me, even as I grew in, in the field of education and the higher up I went, I always made sure that I came back to the San Fernando valley and recruited students and showed up at events. Because again, I'm serving the people that supported me. It was this community that supported me. I've been blessed to have mentors in my life. Who've invested in me and parents. Who've shown me the importance of service and being kind. I can't tell you the amount of lectures I've had in my life about the importance of that. And it's also what I pass along to my children as well. You can be great at something, but if you're not kind to people and you can't help someone, you're not doing good in this world, you know, that's how I measure success. Passionistas: Tell us about Bridges Educational Consulting and why you started that business. Sonali: When I started with Bridges, I was still working at colleges and I kept going up and up and up the food chain. Right. So I went from being an admission counselor to the director of admission. Then I went and was the Dean of Students for 36,000 students at a large university. Became up the enrollment channel that the higher I went, the more time I was spending in meetings, making decisions about students, then I was actually meeting with students. And so Bridges started literally because I wanted and I was doing it for free. You know, I was trying to find ways to connect with students and understand where they were coming from, because I couldn't make good decisions. Um, uh, the, the chain of, of higher education without getting to know the students. And I couldn't spend all of my time in meetings. And so I did this on the side, on Saturday afternoons. I would, I would see students and I would do it for free. And then I started charging $25 because someone was like, you should charge somebody. I'm like who, who charges for college admissions? It's a big business now. Right. But back in the day, um, it was literally the reason and intention behind it was so I could get to know what students were dealing with so I could make good decisions for them. I've always been, um, had a student centered model inside of me. And so it's whatever is in the best interest of students is what I care about pushing forth. And I can't make good policy decisions for a university if I'm not in touch with students. And so that's how bridge has started was literally because of that. And, um, a few years ago, as I became a mom, it was taking up a lot of my time working in education, especially when I was a Dean of students. And over 36,000 students, I left my house at six in the morning, and sometimes I would walk in the door at eight o'clock at night and still be responding to phone calls and. It was just part of the job, but it was unfair to my kids and I didn't get to spend time with them and be a part of that in the way that I really wanted to, I could spend time doing things for other people's children and, and students, but it couldn't do it for my own and it just didn't feel right. And so I happened to be married to the most gracious, wonderful partner on the planet, this wonderful, amazing man who I give most of his credit to, because. I wanted to do this full time. And I really believe that if you're going to do something, you can't have one foot in one place and one foot in another, but it was a really big chance. So we sold our house. We are renting a townhouse that what you see as my own. Which is at the top of my staircase. Um, it's enough Carter. This is where she rolls her eyes. And Bridges happens is in this neck, in my house. And he said, you know, if this is really what you want to do, then spend the time doing it. Um, and we'll live within our means in order to make that happen. And it was an adventure. It was hard. It was really, really hard to make that sacrifice, but we talked to our kids about it and we were like, this is what we want to do. Do you want to choose this or do you want to choose this? Right? Like we left the option to. And, um, they decided that they would rather share a room and be able to help other people. And they made that decision when they were like five and eight years old. And so that in itself makes me proud, get me teary-eyed because, you know, clearly I did something good, um, in, in helping them understand that at an early age. And so. Sheros is really, uh, the subset of Bridges because when I was able to focus on doing what I love, which is meeting one-on-one with students and helping them in their transition in the most chaotic college admissions process. There can be, especially now, especially after COVID and especially after the college admission scandal, there was a need for good ethical people who were doing the right work. And I'll never forget the day that the college admission scandal. Everyone went to our national associations website. And I was the first recipient of the national association for college admission counseling. We call it NAC act. Um, I was the first recipient of their Rising Star Award many, many years ago. So I had been featured on the bottom of the page as the independent counsel. The college and high school side rotates, but I've always been there for years now. Um, I don't ever want them to change it, but I'm grateful for it. And so when the admission scandal hit, everybody started calling me and my phone started ringing at 5: 30 in the morning and didn't stop for like two weeks straight. And people were like, we want to know what you do. Is it. I have an ethical process. I don't put undue influence. I work in partnership with high school counselors. My families have to tell their school that they're working with me because I work in collaboration. That was unheard of. Right. It's still unheard of where it's like, you know, college counselors are dirty little secret. No, I don't work that way. I work from a very ethical perspective of helping a student and I believe in really building that partnership with the school so we can best help this. And so all of my clients are referrals and most of them are referrals from high schools, themselves, high school counselors themselves, because they know I work in partnership and we collaborate about a student. And so Bridges has grown. And, um, in the past year we've added five extra counselors to our team. Um, and that's, that's certainly because we are at capacity and again, we don't advertise. We literally. It's been word of mouth of clients who really value the work that I do and believe that I can help their child. And it's really understanding their story and the core of, of who they are. And I, I love that my, it doesn't feel like work to me when I'm working with a student it's just organic and natural. And then as we started to grow, what I found is that when students are working on their personal stuff, One of the most important things is understanding yourself and sharing that story about you. A lot of these girls and gentlemen too, didn't know their story, they didn't know their history. They didn't know their background. They didn't understand their worth and value to sit down and even write about. So I had to do what you're doing. I had to interview them. I had to kind of get things out of them, go through a journaling process, like really kind of dig deep for them to find their story and their worth in their value. And I was like, there's something wrong with this system. If we're not teaching our kids, you know, what their worth and value is that kind of sparked that in my head. Um, there needs to be something done about this. I'm doing this work individually, but there's more. To it than that. Passionistas: So how did that help inspire Shero's Rise? Sonali: Well, one it's always been in the back of my head that, um, you know, kids need to know who they are. They need to know who they are before they are applying to college. Number one, and then understanding girls' education because I've worked at girls, schools and colleges and having two girls of my own. When I looked around as to what was around, everyone has programs for leadership and community service and civic engagement. Nobody has ever focused on the internal discovery of a girl, at least not intentionally. They may have social, emotional curriculums at schools and they do some schools have it. They certainly don't have it at public institutions, public school districts. They don't have that. Um, and even some private schools have it, but not to this extent. It's, it's what is encompassing for you to understand? Certain ways of going about the world, right? Um, with respect and kindness towards one another, but it was never about who they are on the inside and the way that I was raised and the way I raise my children is it's great that you do well in school, but if you're unkind to somebody and you don't know who you are, that's not something that is okay with me. And. For me in my culture, my voice was not valued. I may have learned the value of service and things, but it was always a girl's places to be quiet and sit down and listen and follow the rules. And don't say anything else. And I did learn the importance of my voice or that I had won, or that I, I could give my opinion on things until I went to college. And that all changed for me. And as I became a mom, I realized what was important that I wanted my children to learn. I had to set up their self-esteem and then sort of doing some research and some digging and realize girls' self-esteem peaks at the age of eight. And by nine, it, it rapidly decline. That doesn't make any sense to me. Right. And especially today, um, it's a world that I'm grateful. I didn't grow up in there's social media, there's information coming at them 24/ 7. It is a lot of noise and a lot of things to filter through. And how do you, how do you even know what you think when everybody's telling you what to think in various different mediums and forms? And so. I sat down. Um, it was my friend's Margaret and in her backyard, we're watching our kids play. Her girls are best friends with my girls and, um, we're having some tea and just kind of chatting about what we want. And it's like, this is what we want to build in our, in our kids. And it was COVID and grateful. A lot of people had a lot of time, you know? And so just started reaching out to people that we know and that we care about and ask, you know, Hey, let's, let's brainstorm together. And there's nothing more powerful than a couple of women in a room together because we can solve all the world's problems. Right. Um, that in a bottle of wine and you're good to go. Um, and we came up with the pillars of what was, what do we want it to have ourselves? And what do we want girls to have? So our 12 pillars is everything from self-esteem to self-confidence, to self-reliance, um, to how do you find your joy all the way up to love and gratitude. It builds upon itself. Okay. Let's try it. Let's try this. Let's see if there's a need for it. We have this great idea, but even if we do it for nobody, other than our kids, let's try to instill this in them. Maybe we can do it for our friends and maybe we can, um, and a couple of their friends and maybe we'll have like a group of 12 girls. It'd be great, but it turned into something. And I gotta be honest. I am overwhelmed with how big it has gotten so fast. And I think it's because there's such a need. The things that we're talking about are lifelong lessons that we as women have to work through. It is not an everyday quick fix. So when I talk to the girls, I always share with them, we're providing you with. That you need to keep in your toolbox and use. This is not the beginning or the end. This is just your foundation. And talking to you about some of these things. These are things that you're going to have to literally pull out of your toolbox and use at various times of your life. I still struggle with my self-esteem or my self-confidence or how do I, you know, with me being so busy, how am I taking care of myself? Am I drinking enough water or, you know, walking outside? How do I replenish myself after, after doing so much, when we started doing that and talking to people, it just sort of grew. We went from having 40 women who volunteered their time. Um, to now almost over a hundred volunteers that are made of women from every different walk of life, various different professions, various everything to being mentors to these girls, because that was the other part that was important. Wasn't just our curriculum. And our curriculum is based on science, as well as research, you know, we've had pediatricians be a part of it. Um, we've had child psychologists be a part of it. We've had educators be a part of it and developing this curriculum and it's been a journey. It's been a journey and we didn't know if it was going to hit. Right. And so we did a pilot. Um, with about 53 girls and we partnered with a local public school. That is the only public girls school in the greater Los Angeles area. And we said, you know, can we do this 12 week pilot, one pillar a week? And we can teach your girls. But we'd love their feedback. And so every week we tweaked it, we listened to them. We heard got their feedback and was like, okay, what worked? What didn't work? What did you need more of? What questions do you still have? Um, and it turned into this beautiful reciprocal relationship. With the girls because they were invested in it and they wanted more, there were like 12 weeks is not enough. And like, I hear you get me a minute. Let me work on that. You know? Um, and so hopefully in January, we'll launch with a full-fledged program where it can be more than, than that. And we did a summer program as well. So it was like over 80 kids that we served and we have volunteers that are waiting to do more. And if we're going to serve 250 girls, which is our. We need a lot more volunteers and we need a lot more donations because the only issue that I have right now is not the curriculum. It's not the need. It is literally how do I financially support these girls and be able to put on quality programming that is meaningful to them? Who can I reach out to? Who can be corporate sponsors? You know, I want this to be free for girls from underserved communities. I don't want them to have to pay for one penny of it. That's also not sustainable in a business model, um, because you have to be able to bring in some revenue to pay for it. Um, so that's the challenge I'm having right now is getting, getting people to not just invest their time, which is very, very important. But even making small monthly contributions, you know, even $25 a month will go a long way in keeping us sustained and giving us income coming in. So we're working on that aspect of it as well. You know, running a business is one thing running a nev, a nonprofit is a whole other thing. So I'm learning as I'm going. I'm constantly learning. That's the fun part for me. I'm learning from these girls as much as they're learning from us. It's heartwarming. I feel like I'm doing my heart work, you know, and really fulfilling my purpose, um, which is to. Be a service to others and, um, be able to offer these girls things that I didn't personally have myself as I was growing up. And if I had those tools, I would have probably made different decisions to land here. Um, but I also share with them that you have to trust that process because no matter which path you go on, you're still going to end up exactly where you're supposed to be. And that's the joy and beauty of life. And that's also the joy and beauty age, I think because you can kind of see the little moments that, oh, that's why that happened. And this happened because it led me to this. Right. You can see that in perspective. Um, that's the wisdom that comes as you grow. Many have told me, I'll be honest, many have told me we need to, we need to stop. We need to, we need to hold it capacity and it can't do that. Um, Something in me is telling me I can't do that. I can't cap it at a hundred girls or 250 girls, because it's bigger than me. It's bigger than me. This, this may be something that I founded, but this is a responsibility for everyone. And, um, we all need to participate in it and grow it in every way that we can, you know, that's, that's really important and I can't. I can't cap it. I need to be able to have these girls and be able to find, um, sponsors and donors and others to make this free and available to girls and have volunteers that will help support our organization. Um, but there's a need, there is a clear cut need and the girls are very specific on what they want as well. And to them an hour and a half was not. And doing it virtually was not okay. They want to do it in person. They want to do it longer. They want to build community. They don't want to just hear from speakers and break out into small groups. They want to spend a lot of time in their small groups. They want to be able to ask questions. They want to put our pillars in action and try them out. Um, they want to have lunch together and learn from each other. And I think there's a beauty in that and a sisterhood in that. I think we have so many different ways in which we can grow and expand. And if we've accomplished all of this in one year, there's nothing that will stop us from growing and helping more girls in the future. And we'll just do it one step at a time for as long as we can. And this Hillary Clinton says, you know, you do the best you can for the most you can, with all the resources you can or something to that effect. This is me. Um, and then, you know, we're gonna, we're going to move forward in the best way that we can with people who really believe in the bigger picture and the bigger dream. Passionistas:  You're listening to The Passionistas Project Podcast and our interview with Sonali Perera Bridges. To learn more about her work visit SherosRise.org.   If you are enjoying this interview and would like to help us to continue creating inspiring content, please consider becoming a Patron by visiting ThePassionistasProject.com/podcast and clicking on the patron button. Even $1 a month can help us continue our mission of inspiring women to follow their passions. Now here's more of our interview with Sonali. So speaking of people who believe in the dream, I want to back up a little bit to talk about how your daughter and their friends contributed to the creation of the organization. Sonali: They're awesome. First of all, there's four of them. Um, and I have two girls and the others are two girls. You know, they spent a lot of time together in COVID because they were our COVID family. Um, so that was the only, that was the only outside bubble that we saw. And it was just the bubble of our two families together, their mom and I had chatted and, um, I had the four girls one night. It was my, it was my night to have them. Um, and I was in the car and I'll never forget it because I was like, ladies, I'm thinking about doing. This kind of work and programming. What do you think about it? Do you think that that would be something cool to do? Or do you think it's silly and hokey? You know, because this is like, this is my idea. It they're the age group. And one of, one of my daughter's friends who was 10 at the time literally said to me, Sonali, I love that you're doing exactly what you're supposed to be doing and what you're passionate about. Who says these things? And I turned around and looked at her because I was like at a stop sign and I turned around and looked at that. Well, thank you for saying that, you know, I appreciate it. I was like, maybe you guys can help me think about some things. So it turned into a pizza party, um, that night. And I was like, if you could draw what would be the names? So they helped come up with the names and then we all voted on it. There was all sorts of names. Um, and then we decided upon she rose rise, they came up with that name. I said, okay, well, what does a Shero's Rise look like? What does a Shero look like? And so they drew these beautiful pictures, you know, some up, they were so cute and they're on our website. If you want to see it under, you know, her story. Um, but they drew the pictures. One of them was like, perfect. It was a girl standing on shul on her mom's shoulders and she had a cape on and she was looking at, and she had. The fist, uh, it has like, this is brilliant, but it was a rainbow flag and it was like, that's even more brilliant. So. My daughter will tell you that I scared the crap out of her. I got a cape. I ordered a cape on Amazon and I took her to the top of Mulholland. Cause we couldn't figure out a logo. Right. Couldn't figure out a logo of like, it can't be a kids design, but I could do something else with it. And I had this image in my head of what she had. And so I took my daughter and um, I literally put a cape on her and took her to the top of Mulholland and it was a beautiful day and I had her stand right on the edge of the mountain. She was like, mommy, I'm gonna fall. I said, I don't need you to smile. I just need you to pose for one second and took a picture of her, you know, with her fist up and the coupon and animated her. She's like, this is crazy. I was like, I know, but you got to do some crazy things to make these happen. Like you can do this, like you're a Shero. And it was like, yes, I'm a Shero. You know, like they were, they were powerful about. And then when we were coming up with the pillars and talking about what we would want, they, they kept giving us input. I realized at that moment, I couldn't just have a board of directors with adults. Right. Um, and I do have an amazing board, which ranged from college students, to women who are in their seventies and eighties. You know, there's a broad range of ages and ethnicities and backgrounds and everything else. But I was like, I need girls who are between the ages of eight and 18 to be able to be a part of a young sheroes board. And. I take, yes, my board sets policy and helps me make fiscal decisions. And we have a leadership team and an advisory board that specializes in things, but the four girls and others. Now, I think there's a group of, 12 of them are part of my young sheroes board. And my young sheroes board provides the direction in which we move. So if we come up with these pillars, it goes past. What does this mean to you? Does this look right? What are we missing? If we're going to put on a curriculum, what does that look like? How does that work? Cause we said to them, okay, we got to do this in. I don't know how to do zoom. I'd never this whole computer thing. That was a whole new world for me, that I work face-to-face with students. And they're the ones that told us, well, you need to be able to have zoom, but we get tired on zoom. So you have to have us break out into groups. And like in my head, I'm going, how do you break out into groups on zoom? They taught me how to do that. You know? Um, this is how you break them out. These, I would want to do these kinds of activities. Okay, great. Were gonna put this stuff up on social media. What do you think about this? Well, I'd like to see this. I'd like to see this. I'd like to see this. This is what engages me. And so all of our input that you see outside is literally coming from the girls. We had. I have ideas, but we take our direction and make sure that what we're delivering is because of the girls. And so, again, I I'm, I'm not that age group, but I want to know what they're thinking about, um, what their friends are thinking about. And they are powerful beyond belief and they, you know, even my eight year olds on the board are giving me input. I think this would be. I don't like that, you know, they're really honest. And so we take that feedback from them. And I think that's the beauty of, uh, Shero's Rise is not only are we serving girls, but we're, we're getting direction and input from the grow from girls that age themselves, so that we're delivering it and meeting the mark. Um, cause that's important. Us adults can, may have the wisdom and the knowledge and the degrees and everything else to come up with them but how it lands. I don't know unless I'm literally, you know, talking to my young Sheros. Passionistas: So on the flip side, um, who, who does Shero's Rise serve? What are kind of the target girls and how important is inclusivity? Sonali: We serve anyone who identifies as a girl. So that, that is very clear. And we best serve girls from underserved communities. And those that may be of mixed heritage may be BIPOC. Um, that may be, um, from foster care, maybe from on free and reduced lunch, they may be, um, biracial, they, any kind of thing. And underserved is hard to define because. A lot of people think it's socioeconomics. It's not, um, it's not just socioeconomics. It is those who've been marginalized. And we as women just for the fact that we are, women are marginally. Number one. So that's one thing that they already have, but you know, who are these girls that are not getting this kind of support? And they may even be from a independent school, um, but may not have families that can support their social, emotional development, or they may be part of the LGBTQ community. And they're not getting the support that they need to be up then typically who they are. And when I say we tell our girls to show up as they are, I really mean that, you know, we want to meet them exactly where they are and help them to discover who they are. This is work that they have to do and they have got to want to do. And it's not an easy thing. It's not an easy process. It's not easy for me to do my work. Um, it's just not. And so asking, uh, a 12 year old to do this work is challenging, but it's important. And. The girls themselves, the feedback that we've gotten is, well, this is the first time someone's asked me my opinions and really put it into action. Or we talk about the, I am statements for self-confidence. I am this. I am. One of the girls that spoke at our anniversary, said every single morning, that's what she does. She does her. I am statements and her affirmations in order for her to even get out of bed because it's difficult because she deals with anxiety or depression. And that's the other thing is kids are dealing with anxiety. At such young ages because it's so difficult being a kid right now in today's world. My biggest worry was going down the street after dark. Like that was my biggest concern and worry. And now that's, that's not the case. So we, we really are making that impact. And some, some girls are saying, you know, I'm every night before I'm going to bed, I'm now grateful for the little. I used to just be like, I'm grateful for my house and my parents amiss, but now it's, I'm grateful that I had a good day or there was the sun that was shining or, you know, I have. Really good dessert because that made my day. Um, that was the one good thing about my day and getting those, those daily habits in, um, when we talked about financial literacy, the little ones were like, what do you mean? I can't spend all my allowance. I have to save, spend and give, what does that mean? I can only have like a dollar to spend and I have to save and give to the rest. Yes, because that's what your responsibility is. And what do you mean? I have to save this. I have to make this much money and do this. When I go off to college, what does that mean? You know, so we're giving them practical tools, but we're also giving them everyday tools that they can count on for themselves. And it's been a beautiful journey thus far. I got to tell you and. When they're done with the program, they not just get a certificate of accomplishments, but they also get kind of like a transcript of these are the hardwired skills that they've learned. People call them soft skills. I don't call them soft skills. I call them hard wired skills that you need to have and develop in order for you to survive on this planet as a woman. Um, we need to have that, right. Um, so they get that and they also get to. Their cape and the end of it, we did a cape ceremony and each person got a Shero's Rise cape. And they had earned that. And I was, it was so upset because it was COVID and I couldn't put it on them myself. I was just so sad about it, but we mailed it to them and we're like, please don't open anything. And we had our final ceremony and they got to a farm for themselves and put the cape on or have somebody put it on for them. And recognize that they were a Shero and, you know, people are in their bedrooms, they're in their homes. Uh, the first few times they didn't even want to be on camera. And at the end of it, all, everyone was in their capes, in their rooms showing up exactly as who they were, that in itself was really powerful, but the expressions on their face and the pride that they took in that. It's indescribable to me about how that meant and what that cape means to them. And, um, the reason we chose a cape is because. And it's like, Wonder Woman, you know, you need that cape sometimes to like cover yourself up in moments of strife and pause and reflect and be, or you, you flip that cape around and you use it to fly high and soar above anything that, that you are capable of. And when you know your worth and value, you can do anything. You can absolutely do anything. Um, so when people tell me, you know what, we gotta, we gotta pause you as rise. So it could be this. And like, no, we don't know if, um, first thing, if somebody tells me no, I'm gonna find a way to find a way to get it and figure it out and look at it and realize that not everything needs an immediate response. It requires pause and moments. And, you know, we model that for the. We have to model that for the girls. And it's hard. It's hard to model that for the girls because we, ourselves, we need our village. Um, women have a very strong village where it's like, okay, you can do this. I tell them once a, she wrote always this year out, um, because it's important that they know that this is a place that they will always have. The one thing I'm proud of is may have been in education for, um, 25 years and all of the people that I've come in contact with all these girls I still have in my life. They are kids that I still mentor. They are mommies of their own. I've been at their weddings they're professionals. They, you know, I take my kids to children's hospital and some of the doctors and nurses are kids that I admitted to college. And that's something that I take pride in. And every single one of these girls also has a mentor. And it's a one-on-one mentorship relationship because. If you invest in a girl and it's not just about, Hey, let me, let me mentor you by you calling me every once in a while. Or we connect every once in a blue moon, the commitment is one hour a month, at least one hour a month. You're making the intention to check in on this group. See what she needs, how does she need to grow? How can you assist her? And hopefully that's a lifelong relationship that you're building with someone, but for an eight year old, even if you spend that time playing a game or reading a book, you are spending an entire hour just devoted to that. Think about how that would be impactful for just an eight year old or a 13 year old who was constantly arguing with their mom or I'm struggling with their self-esteem and going through puberty, just that conversation to know, you know what you're going to be. Okay. I've been there too, and it's going to be okay. Or, um, you know, a college senior who's going off to college. He doesn't know. I don't know if I can do this. Yes, you can. You're going to end up exactly where you're supposed to be, and I'm here to support you. What do you need? Just those little affirmations. I still need them in my life every day. You probably do as well. And for a young girl, just that one hour will probably change her whole world of somebody spending some undivided attention and. As a parent, I know it's difficult to do that even with your own children because you're busy. We're, we're busy moms, you know, they see us working, but I have to make time even once a week to spend at least an hour with each girl individually. And that's hard. So when everything is going on and they're single moms in the picture or other things going on in that family, And you're able to make an impact and connect even for an hour. The impact that you're making is profound and it's got ripple effects. It's pretty powerful. Passionistas: What's your dream for the girls who go through the program and for, for the future of girls in general? Sonali: My dream is for every single girl and woman, but it's out there to know her worth and value. And that she has everything inside of herself to be able to get through anything that the world throws at them good or bad. You have it in you. It's, it's literally the Wizard of Oz. You know, you've always had the power and you've always had the power to go home. You always have the power to look within yourself and to connect and to reshift and to move. It doesn't mean that life's not going to throw things at your way, but you have it. You have the tools and everything else you need inside of you, and you just have to trust your, trust your gut and your women's intuition, basically, you know, um, to be able to know that you are worthy, you can always bet on yourself, you have value and you have value just as you are. You don't need anybody else's affirmation or confirmation of who you are. You are enough. And it seems like a cliche term these days, because you see that in various different places, but what does that really mean? And how does it work inside of you? And my bigger long-term goal is for this to go beyond Los Angeles. I want it to go national. I want it to be global. I want to join Michelle Obama's Opportunity for Girls to go do this across the globe. Because there, this curriculum that we created is very, very special. It's curated with science behind it, but it's also created. With love and intention for this to be able to serve every girl in some capacity. And you know, my only issue is capacity at the moment of being able to move it bigger and broader. This is groundbreaking. And I didn't realize that because my husband even asked me that yesterday. Cause we had the, the interview that, that came out yesterday and he goes, do you realize what you're doing? No, I'm just doing. And he said, I need you to pause and think about it. And I was like, I, I had an idea, the world needed this and now everybody needs this. And I am one person. My team are a team of volunteers. They have jobs, they have everything. Um, we, we need to move. We need to be able to maybe create a structure where we have actual staff that are doing this work. Um, plus volunteers, um, we need schools to believe in us and share their students with us. You know, it, it's a whole ripple effect and we need major corporations and people who can sponsor us. To be able to invest in these girls because as you know, with the Passionistas Project, um, when you invest in a girl that changes everyone's lives around them. It doesn't just change that girl's life because girls always have the need to better their friends and better their families. And the more that you invest in their internal self comes back to you, tenfold in all the different areas. That's why single-sex educations are so important because those are the doctors, lawyers, and CEOs of this world. They're not, they're not teaching anything groundbreaking. They're teaching them with an education of, of, of skills that they may need to have to be professionals. But it's what you learn about your own confidence that you're okay. Walking into a room and being perfectly comfortable with yourself or not being afraid to sit at the table and give your thought and opinion, not caring if it works or doesn't work, just throwing out your idea. And those are the women that we see. Up and up and up. I mean, I'm one woman, I'm, I'm amazed at what we've been able to do with this team of volunteers. I can't do it alone. I have this team of volunteers and we're going to grow and we're going to expand. And, you know, even in five years, I hope that we can do more and more and more. I'm proud of what we did in year one. It's astonishing to me and what we've done just year one. Um, but clearly there was a, there is a certain need. And I just want every girl to know their worth and value. And I know my worth and value because people invested in me. I've been mentored and blessed and all of this is because somebody put me on their shoulders and helped me to rise. And it's my responsibility to reach back and pull up. And every girl that goes through our program stands on our shoulders and it's their responsibility to reach back and pull up. That's what we women do for each other. Passionistas: Thanks for listening to our interview with Sonali Perera Bridges. To learn more about her work, visit SherosRise.org. Please visit ThePassionistasProject.com to learn more about our podcast and subscription box filled with products made by women owned businesses and female artisans. To inspire you to follow your passion. Get $45 of free goodies with a one-year subscription by using the code WINTERGOODIES. And be sure to subscribe to the Passionistas Project Podcast, so you don't miss any of our upcoming inspiring guests. Until next time. Stay well and stay passionate.

Dr. Melissa Bird is a clairvoyant coach, author and fiery public speaker. Melissa has traveled around the world, talking to audiences at universities, conferences and churches. Her combination of education, real life experience and practical advice, makes her a powerful force of change in the lives of the people she speaks to. Past audience members have described her as fierce, revelatory, life-changing, enthusiastic and inspirational.   Learn more about Melissa. Learn more about The Passionistas Project.   Full Transcript: Passionistas: Hi, and welcome to The Passionistas Project Podcast, where we talk with women who are following their passions to inspire you to do the same. We're Amy and Nancy Harrington, and today we're talking with Dr. Melissa Bird. As a clairvoyant coach, author and fiery public speaker, Melissa has traveled around the world, talking to audiences at universities, conferences, and churches. Her combination of education, real life experience, and practical advice, makes her a powerful force of change in the lives of the people she speaks to. Past audience members have described her as fierce, revelatory, life-changing, enthusiastic and inspirational. So please welcome to the show Dr. Melissa Bird. Hi Melissa, we're so glad you're here. What's the one thing you're most passionate about? Melissa: It's evolved over time. Right? So it used to be that I was the most passionate about helping women and girls use their voice. Right? Like that was sort of the foundation from which I operated for a long time. And lately, like in the last two years, I think it's really turned into helping people really learn how to harness the power of their rebellion for good. And really healing the shame and wounding we have around rebellious, honest, and helping people really identify what it is that they feel deeply passionate about so that they can go out and do that thing. And usually it is an act of rebellion to be able to go out and do that thing. Why is that so important and what exactly do you mean by. Well, I think we get sent this very powerful message from internalized misogyny and externalized patriarchy that says, you know, if you speak out, if you, if you have an opinion that is different than what we think is appropriate, which is often steeped in white supremacy and racism, by the way, like if you speak against anything that is outside of that normal. Then you are a rebel. And for so long, we have been taught that we're not allowed to say what's on our mind. And yet we all have a different opinion and we all have feelings and we all have things that are on our minds. And I think that it is time for us to judge. Screw it like, forget about it. I just say it and I can easily say that from my little, you know, beautiful corner of the world. And sometimes it's, it's deadly for people to say that. And in fact, right before this, I was in a mastermind group with a bunch of other people that I'm participating in and I was sobbing and I was like, I am terrified. To peel off this next layer of who I am and speak this truth about dismantling empire Christianity. And here, I'm just going to come out on the podcast right now about dismantling empire Christianity as someone who believes deeply in God, like, and I preach it, my Episcopal church and thinking about how do we heal the pain of years of patriarchal. You know, internalized messaging and how do we start to engage in absolute rebellion around those things so that it's no longer dangerous for everybody to speak because we're all speaking. Passionistas: Why does that scare you so much? Melissa: I'm just really afraid of being killed for it. Like honestly, like whether I get eviscerated, you know, trolled taken down, shut down, literally killed, you know, When I was doing LGBT activism in Utah, before I went to get my PhD, I was born and raised in Utah. Like I'd grown up there. And I remember I had been with my wife, my ex-wife and, um, you know, we never held hands in public cause we couldn't, it was dangerous to do that. And I remember when. She left. And I ended up dating men again because I'm bisexual. And I remember when my now husband held my hand for the first time in public and I pulled my hand away and he's like, what's wrong? And I was like, we can't, that's dangerous. And he's like, looking at me like, what is wrong with you? And I was like, I had that, I started crying and I was like, I had this moment where I realized I haven't touched in the human being in public and. Because when you do you get attacked and physically and emotionally abused, right? So here I am on this edge of this next expansion in my life. And like, this is what I love about the work that you all are doing is the stories you highlight and the work that you all are doing brings us to the next level. You're showing how we evolve over time. The woman I was when I was in my twenties is not the woman that I am now. Like my whole. The things I focus on, the things I'm passionate about has evolved over time and we have to allow for that as women supporting other women. And I think oftentimes we think we're only allowed to be passionate about that thing. We were still passionate about 15, 20 years ago. No. And really honing in on what does light us up and what does make us feel passionate and being willing to honor that and in each other.   Instead of trying to destroy that in each other. I think that's why I'm afraid. I think that the point that it all evolves and that we need to keep evolving. Somehow we expect ourselves to like, be fully evolved by the time we're like 27. Like I see it in my daughter, who's 19. She's like, she's like, I feel like I'm totally behind. And I'm like, what are you behind? Like behind what Jesus did. And she's like, and she always refers back to. Instagram and Snapchat. And you know, these, these people that she's watching who have made it by like 23 and I'm out, but that's not real. And, and how to help her still be excited and ambitious and support her and like, I don't want to say that young people are diluted because I think they can do whatever they want, but sometimes these delusions of being behind and somehow they're supposed to be catching up to something that's not that doesn't exist. I think it's just, we're in such a fascinating time. I think I really do believe we're on the precipice of really major change. I mean, if there's anything we've learned from COVID-19 at this. Everything is different. And, and so I love how people keep trying to tell us we're going to get back to normal. I'm like, no, we're not because your normal, my normal are not the same. And what you thought was normal was actually called white supremacy and racism and heteronormativity and sexism. And that's not, you know, that's falling. Passionistas: Let's take a step back. You mentioned that you grew up in Utah. Tell us a little bit about your childhood, your family background, your heritage, and what impact that has on your life today. Melissa: I did grow up in Utah, but I'm okay. I'm just kidding. I grew up in park city, Utah before Sundance became a thing. So we lived in salt lake and then we moved to park city. I did not grow up in a traditional LDS household. So, um, part of that was because my dad committed suicide when I was. And my mother was basically forcibly pushed out of, um, our local ward by our Bishop. And so she lost her faith. I don't know that my mom, my mom was funny. Cause I don't know that she'd ever say she had a strong faith, but you know, she did what she was supposed to be doing. So this was 1980, which even though we like to pretend that Utah's like, you know, this goody two-shoes state, it was also the height of the cocaine epidemic. Right. So mama started partying and she started. Her heart was broken. Like my dad broke her heart. And, um, I didn't realize that at the time, of course, cause I was a kid, I was six years old and we ended up in a lot of chaos growing up. My dad is Southern Paiute and so I was also cut off from my indigenous native American heritage. And that was a very complicated relationship anyway, because. My grandparents are not the kindest people on the planet, on his side of the family. And so what happened was I ended up being mostly raised by my aunts, my aunt Nancy, and my grandma Mary. So my grandma and my aunt basically raised me and my sister. And they were both very involved in the junior league and the league of women voters. And so I learned that it wasn't rude to talk about politics at the time. And I learned how to volunteer, because say what you will about you. I actually feel like the, the strong service component of the LDS church is really beautiful. And I learned a lot about serving others and talking about politics. And so, as I was growing up, I always just assumed that women were involved in. Because of my aunt and my, my grandma. And so I staged my first protest when I was 17. I was a senior in high school and I found Ms. Magazine. And I could not believe that there were all these atrocities happening in the world. And so I staged my first, it was a one-woman protest cause no one else would go with me, but you know, they didn't want to get in trouble, but I liked discovered that there's this whole world out there. And really started getting involved in action and activism. Then I think that was really the birth of it. And it was not a very good student. The only reason I have a PhD was to just prove myself, I'm really smart, but like I was in and out of college and just really struggled and really struggled with my sexual orientation and really, really struggled with religion because I was told my whole life through messaging that I was not worthy of. God. And love. And at the same time I was hearing from my grandma, my aunt, how fabulous and wonderful and beautiful and worthy I was of all these things. And so it's been a hell of a ride. I've always wanted Angelina Jolie to play me for my made for television movie on lifetime television networks. I really like, that's always Angelina Jolie is going to play me in my movie, but, you know, I, I like to say I've been married almost as much as Liz Taylor. I've been through a lot of marriages to men and. And, you know, here I am living in Corvallis, Oregon with three kids and this husband and running three businesses actually, cause you know, one just wasn't enough and I'm coaching these women to like heal their rebel, shame and wounding and, and really like engaging in tapping into their intuition and their magic to make a difference in their lives and their community. It's really awesome. So had this really chaotic bananas childhood, and it was partially homeless, like technically like couch surfing and didn't know what I was doing. And now here I am, who knew. Passionistas: At what point, if at all, did you reconnect with the indigenous side of your family? Melissa: Because I was cut off from that part of my family. I actually was trying to figure out more about my dad, but I couldn't really ask my mom because it's too painful for her and I didn't want to bug her with it. So back in 2006, I Google searched my dad, his name, cause I wanted to find his obituary. Cause I didn't, I don't think I'd ever seen it. And so in 2006, I Google search my dad and my uncle Arval popped up because my uncle Arval is a music. And I remember my uncle Arville because he used to play, the devil goes down to Georgia on the fiddle for me when I was little kid by before I was six. And I remembered that and he played the fiddle for Alabama back in the day. And he had become this, you know, native American musical award-winning artist with his flute and his fiddle. And I had no idea, like I had no idea. And so he had a phone number on his website and so. And I thought I was going to die. Like I was like, why am I even doing this? It's so scary. And his wife, Kimberly picked up the phone and I said, hi, you know, is our hole there? And she said, who's this? And I said, this is his niece, Melissa Bird, Vern's oldest daughter. And she just started crying in any way. And we ended up talking and he actually reconnected me with the Vernon, my grandmother, and we talked and wrote letters back and forth. She was very disappointed. I wasn't a member of the LDS church because she was a very staunch LDS woman. And so there was a lot of pretty hurtful rhetoric there. But through her, I connected with actually through our role. I think I connected with my cousin, Vanessa and my cousin, Steven, and my cousin Steven lives on the Navajo nation. And then my cousin Vanessa lives here in Oregon. And so it was through them that I started really putting the pieces of our lives back together and learning more about, you know, our native American, who we are and our client that should what clan and, and really learning about that indigenous identity. And it's been a really fascinating process because we complicate it so much. You know, I started learning about what it would mean to enroll and I can't enroll because my great grandmother. Opted not to in 1936, she started the process, but she opted not to because they wanted her to move to live on the reservation and she didn't want to. And so there's a lot of complication when it comes to that identification and it wasn't until I met one of my really good friends here in Oregon. And she looked at me and she's like, you know that this is in your blood. Like your ancestry is in your blood. It's who you are. And it doesn't matter if you are enrolled or not. You are a Shivwit Paiute. And yet at the same time, there was all of the stuff coming out about pretending there's this horrible term. So often. And there's this list that's been put out of academics who are supposedly not really quote unquote Indians, like they're not native American, except for they all totally are. And there is this idea of what it means to be an indigenous native American person in the United States. That varies depending on who people are. And it's because of colonialization and it's because of white supremacy. And it's because of. And this is something I like to tell, like really explain to people historically, when you think about the one drop rule for blood, the one drop rule for Africans was to create a workforce, right? Of people, the One Drop Rule for native Americans for indigenous people on this land was to annihilate them completely and eliminate them from the face of. So we're doing that pretty effectively here, you know, in the, in north America and in other parts of the world. And it's so complicated. And yet we, we drill it down to enrollment, which by the way, is a very separatists construct that people don't understand. And so reconnecting with my cousins and the people who understand. Language and our history and who want to reconnect me to those things has been a really emotional journey. It's a lot, it's a lot. And finding those letters from my great grandma, like my cousin, send them to me and just reading that story of her, trying to figure out who our great, great grandparents were and confirming who our great-great-grandparents were and when they died and how they died is really it's amazing. And it's also that until I think those are the stories we don't talk about. Passionistas: You're listening to The Passionistas ProjectProject Podcast in our interview with Dr. Melissa Bird. To learn more about her Misfit Magic Hour one-on-one coaching and masterclass series, visit NaturalBornRebel.com. If you're enjoying this interview and would like to help us continue to create inspiring, please consider becoming a patron by visiting ThePassionistasProject.com/podcast and clicking on the patron button. Even $1 a month can help us continue our mission of inspiring women to follow their passions. Now here's more of our interview with Melissa. In 2017, you found it Natural Born Rebel. So what is the mission of Natural Born Rebel and how did you get started? Melissa: I didn't want to go into academia. I mean, let's be real. I will not go work for a research, one institution on a tenure track position. Like I was like, I was not having it. I just wrapped all the things. So I did not want to do that. And I happened to go on a retreat with the coach. Susan Hyatt was my. And I went on this retreat and she's like, we need to get you up on stages and you need to be talking to people and you know, you've got this vision and this mission of helping women really find their voice. And we've got to figure that out. I was like, okay, whatever. Like I'm just in Scotland, like peeling apart, all the layers of what the heck am I doing next? And two things happened on that trip. One was that I decided that I was going to become a coach and really start to create programs where I could. Take, I taught social justice and advocacy and schools of social work for like 15 years. And I wanted to bring all that to the masses. Like I wanted to really help people learn how they can engage in advocacy on their own terms. And so I did that. And then the other thing that happened was that I had the vision for the Mermaid's Garden, which we'll get to in a second. I'm sure. But I met a woman named Susie while I was there and we didn't talk after. After we left Scotland, basically. Like we talk every once in a while, but you know, we lost touch and then randomly, she called me a couple of years later and she's like, I just got this divine download for you. And you're supposed to start this thing called Natural Born Rebel. And I just bought you the URL and you need to teach this thing called Rebel School. And these are all the components you need to put into Rebel School. And we need you to write a book. And in that book, we want you to talk about these things. And so I'll send you the URL. And did you take notes because I've got to go back into a meeting and I just want to make sure you're going to follow through with this. And I was in a Lyft going to the airport cause I'd been flown to San Bernardino to teach a class on social justice. Right. Does this happen to you often? And I was like, well kind of, not that directly. So I get on the plane and I've got all this stuff from Susie. And I just started writing and I outlined and wrote like half the book on the plane from San Bernardino to Portland, Oregon. Right. And then I get home and I just start, like, all this stuff just starts flooding out of me. I called the person who did my original website for Bird Girl Industries. And I said, I'm transitioning to Natural Born Rebel and I need you to build me a website. And these are the things that have to be on it. Here's the lesson like when you get the messages that seem totally random and out there, they're not because what has happened is that rebel school has evolved into this. I can't even explain. It's so old school. It is so beautiful. And it's gone from being the 16 week. I don't know what the hell I'm doing here. Have a couple of one-on-one coaching sessions to this 18 week program. Is the most gorgeous, amazing thing that I have ever had the privilege of facilitating. And the book is free on my website, Natural Born Rebel, and there's journal prompts in it that are amazing. And I'm actually just getting ready to do the second edition of it, because now that I've been doing Rebel School for so long, I just say there's so much, that's not in there that I want people to know. And I would not be here teaching, doing this work coaching because I do one-on-one coaching. And then I do clairvoyant reading, where someone comes and brings me up a problem. They want clarity on what their business or their life. And we do a reading and it's amazing. And I just never thought that I'd be sitting here having this conversation with y'all about how, like I'm a lay preacher and a clairvoyant where to like, you know, I mean, no, this was, this was not the grand plan. When I got a PhD four years ago. I couldn't, I didn't know what would, how Natural Born Rebel would happen. Passionistas: Tell us about Misfit Magic Hour and how those sessions work.   Melissa: Oh, my gosh. They're so fun. I had no idea. Again, this is me listening. So my amazing virtual assist, assistant Emma. She was like, I told her, I was like, I, I finished clairvoyant training cause I did this huge year long clairvoyance training. That's what I did independent because I was like, I'm going to totally figure out how to channel dead people. Like he doesn't want to be able to do that. I was like, okay. So I finished my clairvoyance training and Emma was like, you need to start doing readings. And I was like, oh no, I know I do this and this and this. And it was like, no, we're going to call it Misfit Magic Hour. And you're going to just, you're going to give people clarity and confidence in one hour, and then people will learn what it's like to work with you. And I was like, oh no, no, no, I'm not going to publicly. Like, what are you talking about? She's like, don't worry. I've got all the copy done. We're just going to make it happen. And we're launching in two weeks. And I was like, oh no. Now I have to start telling people that I want to do, like channeling and clairvoyance and coaching with them. And Emma was like, yeah. And I was like, oh my God. She's like, it's, you're going to be flying. And I'm like, I don't know what if people hate me. It's like, what if I say something stupid? What is the ghost? Don't come in. Like, what if I can come in with spirit and I've made this promise. So the coolest part about magic hour, it's so good. So it's like 20 minutes of coaching. So people come in, I tell people, come in with two or three things that you really want clarity on, whether it's in your life. And then the last, like 25 minutes or a card reading where I either use Oracle cards or tarot cards, depending on my mood and the person. And we do a reading to talk about their current situation, what they need to know, and then their, their future situate. Like if you do these things, this is what could happen. Never in a million years. Y'all did I think I was going to have so much fun doing this? Cause I was like all serious. I was like, well now. So incredible. The things that I see visually like amazing what spirit can do to get the message across the ad. Because I leaned, my teacher gave me all these tools and, and so now I have this framework to go on, but I've turned it into my own, which is the point. Cause we can't all do things the same. And I'm like, oh my gosh. And everyone who does them, it's like, oh my God, I feel so clear. I'm going to sign up again. You know, like it's just, it's, it's so hard to explain it, but all I can say is that I get the best visuals. I had one client whose heritage is all Russian and I spirit ended up giving me all of her grandma's as these Russian nesting dolls. And they kept pulling out messages. And like I had one rating where everyone was in a spiral moving out and it was just like hundreds and hundreds. Of just spirit, just there to hold her. Cause she was in a crisis and they were like, we're right here. And we're holding you. Like, I see like spirit doing this. Like we're holding you, like, we're rocking you. Like we are holding you. And like, I have like this whole reading where, um, people were like frolicking naked through a field and they were like, just be free, just be free. And I was like, all of a sudden your spirit guides are a bunch of hippies. I don't know. I get these visual. That are never the same. And they're so unique to the person that I'm reading for. And if I'm like, what is happening, you don't have to carry this for me to even admit this because I'm like, you know, I got the whole witch wound getting burned at the stake thing. Like, you know, I literally in a dream the other night I was talking to my friend, Stephanie, I need to call her and tell her about this. She picked me up in a limit. And she's like telling me this message that was being given to me in my dream. And I was like, people are gonna think I'm mad because this is what we do to women who are healers and prophets and preachers. There's that beautiful song. The High Women sing "The High Women's Song," it's an archetype from throughout history of like a witch and a preacher and a freedom writer and somewhat. It's beautiful, but the context of the song is that we come back over and over and over again, and that you will never eliminate us, even when you try, it's a beautiful song. And it's the fact that I'm able to even have this conversation with you, Amy and Nancy, you would have, you could have knocked me over with a feather. If you would've told me, this is my last five years ago. I would've been like, uh, no. Did you always have an ability to see things? What triggered you going to take these lessons? I've always been magic, always. Like I've always been able to like the first dead person I actually saw was my dad. He came and told me to take care of my mom and, and I very distinctly remember. And so I've always had the feeling or the vision that I could, I used to make little magic birds nest out of grass in the backyard, like all over the place. And then all of a sudden birds would just come and nest in them. Like, you know, I was like, I didn't think that was actually going to work, you know, and the quail would come and get him. My nest was awesome. Not my expectation, but there was so I've always felt magic. I have my. I can connect people. Like I, when I listened to people speak, I go, oh, okay, you need this person and this person and this person and this person. And that is one of the magical things that I do is I connect people to that, to other people I'm a web Weaver. But what spurred me to go work with Eileen and, and be taught was that I had some very large intuitive hits about some really big things that happens. And it scared me. And I had had a friend of mine say, you know, you really, you need to understand this more and you, what you're what's happening is you're being called into. Understanding your own particular brand of magic and what you do and listening to your intuition because you see things very differently. And the other thing she said to me is that back in the early days of Christianity like tenth, we're talking 10th, 11th century days, there were groups of women that would navigate between the pagans and the Christians. So they were the bridge between the two. There wasn't such a separation. And she said, that's just, you, you are the bridge builder. You go back and forth and that's who you are. And that's who you're meant to be. And stop thinking. You have to be one thing or the other. And that was actually a huge part of my coaching with Susan was I was like, if people find out that I am both a Christian, I love Jesus. Social Justice Jesus is my favorite Jesus. And like that I love Jesus. That I do magic and I read taro and I channeled dead people. Either the witches are going to hate me because I love Jesus. And I believe deeply in the. Or they're going to kick me off the pulpit at church, and I'm not going to be able to preach anymore because I'm a woman. And in fact, my priest, at one point, he's like, can you stop with the witchcraft thing? And I was like, no, not really. And then I started telling him about how the pagans used to be bridge builders and all this stuff. And he found a paper like a booklet that he had from a researcher in Scotland who had researched those with. Yeah, thank you Jesus. Right after I told them about this and he's like, you're not, I was like, see, I told you, like, there's nothing wrong with me. And I thought, for sure, no, one's gonna hire me. No, one's gonna want to learn from me. And all of a sudden y'all like, these women are coming to me and they're like, I love Jesus too. And on totally. Which I'm like. Here. I thought I was coming up with this innovative hashtag Christian, which no, I was not, no, you can follow hashtag Krisha, which on Instagram. And I was like, oh my gosh, we're everywhere. I was like, whoa. Cause you know, trained by misogyny and patriarchy that you have to pick a thing. And actually when I did my dissertation, my dissertation was about how women in rural California navigate religious stigma to get contracept. And it's, uh, you know, I did all these interviews with women to ask them how they navigated religious stigma and slut-shaming to get contraception. And it was all based on the Madonna-Whore binary that you are supposed to be a Virgin until you are married and then you are supposed to be a whore. We have a psychotomy that we live with that Virgin whore dichotomy that of course started in the Bible with Eve. And that binary is what keeps us in our place as women. And so it's that same binary that says you can be this, or you can be this, but you can never be both of those things. It's why there's this huge joke in the gay community by now gay later. Right? It's why it was so hard for me to sit. I had to pick, right? Like, oh, if I'm with women, I'm a lesbian. But if I men with men, I'm straight, which I'm not. And you know, like we put people in these boxes and we categorize everyone. It's the thing I was talking about with being Native American. Like either you're native, you got to know what percentage you are of Native American. And I'm sitting here going, but I know these things. That I have found out only in the last six months or prep spiritual practices that were handed down by my tribe, that I just know that I didn't know that I knew until like I read a paper on it. Like we put ourselves in these categories and say, this is who you are and you have to be this way, your whole life. And we're not, I mean, look at all this work you all are doing with Passionistas. Yeah. The stories you all are telling and the diversity of thinking that you are tapping it. It's amazing. Passionistas: Talk about the importance of leading with intuition and just following your feelings. Melissa: I think it goes beyond knowing what you want. Cause most of my clients actually don't have a clue what they want, right? Like they're like, I don't know what I'm doing, but here I am. Most people who join rebel sport are like, I don't know what this is exactly, but I just. Like, I don't know what I'm doing here, but here I just felt compelled and I was like, oh, good. You fit. Perfect. So I think some of it is thinking about we all this externalized information about who we're supposed to be. I remember when I was getting divorced from my ex-wife and I kept calling my psychic, like I, like, I was text messenger. I was like, what's going to happen next. What's going to happen next. What's next. And she's like, you already know. And I'm like, I don't like that, man. I need you to tell me, right? So we go to other people to get information. And what I do when I'm working with my clients is I'm like, here's the information. Now you have to take it and decide what resonates with you and what you're going to leave behind, because we could go to other people all day long to try and get more information. But if we don't listen to our hearts and we don't listen, not just our intuition, but our hearts that say, Hey, How about, we just love ourselves more today. If we don't have more self-compassion for ourselves and the things we want to do, then we're not going to go out and do the things we are here to do. I was listening to Meghan Waterson is an author. She wrote a really great book called Mary Magdalen revealed about the gospels. If Mary Magdalen, the lost gospels of Mary Magdalene. It's so amazing, y'all. She talks about how the body is the soul's reason for being here. So without the body, the soul can't come in. Right. And if each one of us in these bodies, as I'm looking at my little kiddos, they're two completely different souls, right? Three, actually, because I have an older one, but I'm not looking at her right now because she's in college. Thank God. As I look at my kids, as I look at the kids, when I used to teach preschool, as I look at each one of these little individual humans and us as adults. We are each here with a purpose. We are each here with a purpose on purpose and we have to listen to that purpose, no matter how bananas, it sounds, no matter how uncomfortable it makes us feel. No matter how mundane we think it is, it's still our purpose. And that's why we're here. And we can avoid it, which makes us sick a lot of the time. Right? Whether it makes us this buyer, body, mind, spirit, this concept of reconnecting to ourselves because we get disconnected after we're about six and we start going to public school, we start going to school, we get disconnected from our intuition. Cause you know, we gotta, you gotta sit in that chair. You gotta listen to the teacher who knows everything. And that's when we stopped. To everything around us. And so if we get back to this idea that we know what it is, it was me when I was six and building bird's nest in the backyard and just laying there and just humming along and singing and, you know, just whatever come on in little birds. Cause I really loved the birds. I mean, I'm Dr. Melissa Bird who doesn't love the birds. So really thinking about those things that before they were yelled out of us, beaten out of us, taken away from us. Patriarchal you were removed from us. What was that thing? We all have it and it's still there. Sometimes it's just a little more distant than we'd like it to be. Passionistas: Thanks for listening to The Passionistas Project Project Podcast and our interview with Dr. Melissa Bird. To learn more about her Misfit Magic Hour, one-on-one coaching and masterclass series, visit NaturalBornRebel.com. Please visit ThePassionistasProject.com to learn more about our podcast and subscription box filled with products made by women-owned businesses and female artisans to inspire you to follow your passions. Get $45 worth of free goodies with a one-year subscription using the code WINTERGOODIES. And be sure to subscribe to The Passionistas Project Podcast. So you don't miss any of our upcoming inspiring guests. Until next time, stay well and stay passionate.  

Jessica Lorion is the host and producer of the Mamas in Training podcast. She supports pregnant women and aspiring moms on their journey into motherhood. What makes her show different from other pregnancy and motherhood podcasts is that she is NOT yet a mom. An autoimmune disease has delayed her journey into motherhood, so she has decided to learn right alongside her audience. With a background in performing on stage — acting and singing — her mission is to spread the importance of studying motherhood. She intends to use her voice and desire to connect with women everywhere, to share the lessons she has learned and give community to those in need. Learn more about Jessica. Learn more about The Passionistas Project.   Full Transcript: Passionistas: Hi, and welcome to the Passionistas Project podcast, where we talk with women who are following their passions to inspire you to do the same. We're Amy and Nancy Harrington. And today we're talking with Jessica Lorion, the host and producer of the Mamas and Training podcast. She supports pregnant women and aspiring moms on their journey into motherhood. And what makes her show so different from other pregnancy and motherhood podcasts is that she is not yet a mother. She has an auto-immune disease has delayed her journey into motherhood, and she's decided to learn right alongside her audience. With a background in performing on stage in front of camera, as well as being a professional singer, her mission is to spread the importance of studying motherhood. She intends to use her voice and desire to connect with women everywhere, to learn the lessons that she's learned and give community to those in need. So please welcome to the show, Jessica Lorion. Jessica: It's so nice to be here. I, I really, really appreciate it. It's wonderful to sit down with. Thank you both. Passionistas: It's really great to have you here. So what's the one thing that you're most passionate about? Jessica: You know, it's interesting because as you were reading the intro, I was thinking about it and. First of all, I love what you do. I think it's really important for women to be reminded of their passions and to be reminded that there's more to us than whether it's a job or motherhood or whatever the million roles are that we usually carry. Um, so I think that's so important, important what you're doing, but I also find it interesting how passions can shift and adjust and take more priority than others at different times of your life. And so growing up and throughout college, high school, beyond college, professionally here and living in New York city, my main passion has always been performing, um, acting, singing, dancing, performing in any capacity, really. And that's what I went to school for. That's what I did professionally. Um, and then, you know,  I still have that passion and that's never going to stop, and it's going to be something that I'll be giving more energy to. Coming up soon, but COVID sorta hit. And I had had dabbled in this podcast and then when COVID hit and I, all the performing opportunities went away and online and voice was so prevalent. I was like, well, this is a perfect opportunity to dive fully into this other hobby that I had, because it was truly just a hobby. And then as I was putting more energy and effort into it, and I was realizing that. Why behind what I was doing. I was like feeling this passion kind of bubble up and grow, literally develop. And so it's interesting because now I guess I would say my, my second to acting one of my biggest passions is definitely this podcast and more than the podcast. Cause it's not. Of course, I'd love to have more downloads and I'd love to, you know, do all this stuff monetization wise, but the real root of the podcast and the mission and what I'm doing is the fact that I'm able to connect to these women. I'm able to reach out and have real relationships. Through meetings that we meet every month and online, social media, everything, but these women that sometimes have no support and no, no community, no even family. Um, and so that's been the biggest passion through it all. Passionistas: We'll dive into that more in a little bit, but let's start with, when you first had that spark for performing where were you a kid?. And what was your childhood like and performing, growing up? Jessica: Oh yeah. I, um, I was surrounded. By performing my entire life. Um, growing up, my mom was a choir director and she ended up taking over the department there. So she was the head of the music department and the choir director. She also taught, um, sorry, that was at a, um, high school. And then she ended up being the department chair for basically the entire town. So all elementary, middle, junior, and high school. She also worked at a college. She also performed herself in musicals and she did the musical. She was also, um, creator of a show choir. If you've ever heard of show choir. And my father, he was also, um, growing up, he played the trumpet. He was a singer. They both sang at churches and my parents were divorced. And so it was kind of like, During the week I would live with my mom and on the weekends, I would go with my dad. And so on the week I would, you know, be totally at my mom's school. When I was growing up, I was sitting in those rehearsals and watching her do what she was doing and seeing the kids and growing up with the kids, doing it. And then on the weekends, I would go with my dad and we would go to church and I would be sitting in the, um, in the, uh, little pews there waiting for him and watching him, seeing. Two three masses sometimes. And he was always exposing me to music and all these other things. And so it was really from as early as I can remember. I think the passion developed. I remember when I was in middle school, I went to a summer arts program. It's called smarts. I actually think it still exists if anyone lives in Massachusetts. Um, And it's a wonderful program where for the summer, for a few months, you choose a major and a minor. And so I majored in dance because I grew up dancing probably was the first thing I did. I never really acted as a little kid and singing came later, but I chose a major, so that was dance. And then my minor was musical theater. And so I'll never forget, we did this little song thing from. Uh, little mermaid and I sang this little solo from Ariel and afterward. I don't know what it was, but my mom came up to me and, you know, granted she's my mom, but she was also a professional. Like she knew what she was doing. She came up to me and she was like, Jessica, that was fabulous. And she just started praising me for how wonderful it was and not just my singing, but my acting of it. And I I'll never forget that moment because that was always the moment that kind of really, I was like, really, I mean, I had a lot of fun, but if that's really as good as how it felt then. Cool. So I think that was really, I can say the initial spark of it all after that. Passionistas: Did you go on to study, uh, theater and perform? Jessica: Yeah. So that was kind of the initial bug. And then my mom put me in some of her, uh, two of her high school productions. So I was, I didn't go to her high school, but when I was in middle school, she's like, oh, let me just put you in the course. And so that was super fun. And then of course at that time, when I was in middle school, I was hanging out with the high school kids. So I just also thought that that was super cool. And then when I went to high school, I pretty much started doing. All the time I was in, you know, in the musicals and the drama club and everything. Um, and I would do summer shows. There was this wonderful summer program, um, in my town. And so I would do shows there and then it was really in high school. I was like this, I think this is, you know, I can't imagine doing anything else. And so I decided to go to school for it. So I went to school and got a BFA in musical theater. Um, went to school in Virginia. Um, and you know, it's funny, I'll another moment also kind of never forget is when we were looking for schools, we went to Ithaca and we came across the head of the music department, musical theater department. And she looked at me and she said, if you can picture yourself doing anything else, but theater don't do theater. And I was petrified at the time, but you know, rightfully so that was wonderful advice because you do need to have this level of. You know, blinders on and just be so focused because you get a lot of nos and you get a lot of rejection and you don't have control over a lot of things. And so it was great advice, but also terrible advice at the same time. Um, but it, it didn't scare me off. I said, well, no, I can't imagine myself truly doing anything else. And so I went to school for it and then graduated and moved to the city right away. And what was that experience like as a young actor? Getting to New York and starting your career. It was crazy. My mom always likes to tell the story. I don't know now being 35 and looking back, I don't know if I was an idiot or not, but she and my stepfather offered me as a graduation gift, a trip to Italy. She's like, we've been saving up some money and we'd love to take you to Italy. And I was like, Hmm. You know what? I think I just want to move to New York city. Stupid stupid, stupid. But, um, yeah, so I, uh, I ended up moving right away. I literally stayed at a family friend's place for two weeks. I had no job. I had no place to live. Really just figured I would I'd I'd fix, I'd figure it out. And if anyone is listening, who knows the musical 42nd Street, it was truly like Peggy Sawyer. My mom took me to the bus station. I had my one suitcase in my, you know, a couple bags and she just waved goodbye to me on the bus. And she left sobbing and I got off the bus at 42nd street and I made my way to grand central and I was staying right. Um, the family friend was like right over tutor city, like 41st in first. And I just, I walked into that apartment. I'll never forget that feeling. And I was like, wow. All right, I'm here. Let's do it. I don't know what to do next, but, and my dad ended up coming down a week later and walking me around the city to help me find a job. I found a job a week later and just, yeah, started hitting the ground running, but it was a truly, when I moved to the city, I really didn't know anybody. There were a couple people from college who had moved up, um, But I, I mean, it's not like a lot of kids graduate from musical theater and move up and have a big community, you know, and I really didn't have that. So it was, it was crazy. It was scary. It was exciting. It was overwhelming. And now I always think back in high school, we would take these weekend trips to, to New York. And I would, I remember standing in Times Square and always being like, I'm gonna live here at one day. And so I often have to remind myself of that because you know, the city can be. And it's, it's the love, hate relationship with it. Um, but it's where I've always wanted to be. And so that was a passion of mine tooth that I fulfilled, which is really cool. Passionistas: How do you get through the challenging times, especially with COVID and everything. How do you take that rejection and how do you deal with the challenges of being an actress? Jessica: You know, it's an interesting question. I think if you had asked me 10 years ago, um, I'd have a completely different answer, but. I think now, honestly, it's having another passion project and it's having something else that lights you up. I think it's necessary. And I think anybody who is looking into going into any career that has to especially has to do with performing, but as any aspect of artistry behind it, you have to have something else that lights you up. Something else that, um, You know, Phil's you something else that drives you and I, and I, at the time, when I say, you know, if you had asked me 10 years ago, I was so narrow focused and yes, that's what you need, but you also need to be a full person. And I think that took me a long time to really understand that. And, and that comes with many things. You know what I mean? Like, even if you're working a corporate job, you need to have something else that lights you up because. It bleeds into everything else that you do. And so I found, you know, when I started having these other passions and having these other hobbies, even before it was a passion, a. I think to talk about, you know, you walk into these audition rooms and people are like, you know, they might ask you questions or you might meet with an agent or a casting director, and they're asking you things. And when they say like, so tell me, tell us a little bit about yourself. They don't want to hear it. Well, I'm an actor. I love to dance. I love to sing. Like they know that. So they want to hear like, oh, I have a podcast and it's for moms. And it's really cool. And I did this the other day with that. And. Yeah, that's the stuff that makes you a person and that what makes you interesting to work with? So my advice to someone who's starting off in that career would definitely be to get yourself another hobby, whether it's fitness, whether it's crafting, whether it's podcast, whatever it is. Um, and that definitely helped helped me. Passionistas: So tell us a little bit about your own career. Like what have been some of your favorite parts that you've had? Jessica: My absolute favorite, favorite role was I got an opportunity twice actually to play Mary Poppins, um, and goodness gracious. That was like both times. It was just a dream. The very first time was just so magical because it was the first time doing it. Um, but there was something about that role. It, I love children, which is why I started a podcast about babies and children. Um, and so it fit for me. And I just, it, it felt like a glove, you know, there are certain things that you do in life that just like, yup. That's that's right. That works. That feels right. And, um, I had an unbelievable cast. I had an unbelievable Bert. He's just Kyles and he's just amazing. And he's working in Disney now. Um, But it was, it was like no other, I mean, there's truly no words to describe it from top to bottom, everything just fit. Um, I'll tell this one really quick story connected to that show. Um, I was in the audition room actually. I had sang a couple of times and was asked to do the dance audition was in a dance callback. So if you go to a professional audition, you're, you're in the room with a ton of girls and they usually call four or five. Whether it's girls and guys, or just girls up together. And they do the dance with everybody else in the room, kind of on the side. And they just cycle through and cycle through and cycle through. And we had done, it was a tap combination. And so this one group had gone up there and as they were about to go, this one girl started freaking out. She's like, oh my gosh. And her tap shoe broke. And she was like, oh my tap. Ran over to her. And I said, what size shoe are you? And she said eight and a half. And I said, me too. And so I just took my shoe off and gave it to her. And that little moment, literally. Was the biggest talk of the story from that director. And of course, like I did a good job in the role and I was talented, but honestly I think just that random act of kindness booked. Because not only did he comment on it three times that day, but he proceeded to talk about it when I came back in for callbacks. And then when I eventually got the job and we were at, um, so before we, when you worked with this one director, he's a fabulous mark Robin, before you work with him. Um, I mean, when you work with. The day before you go into your tech week. So when you start adding all of the lighting and the set design and all those implements you, he always has a talk and he it's like the tech talk. And it's basically to hype you up for what's to come because the tech week can be kind of challenging, but he delivers this unbelievable inspirational. Uh, motivational speech, but in the conversation, he decided to call out and retell the entire shoe tap shoe story. And basically it was wonderful what he said, because he was saying, you know, that we're being led by someone, myself who is inclusive and is this Mary Poppins type figure and is looking out for everybody and. I truly was just doing it because I wanted to, I mean, everyone should just have an equal chance and if she was my shoe size of why not, um, but it just blew his mind. And so that was a really cool experience to just, and also lesson. And, you know, we're technically not in competition with anybody. I mean, we are, but just having that open heart can really give you a lot of opportunities. So, I mean, bar none, I would say that Mary Poppins experience. The best. Um, and then secondly was just tour. I mean, being on tour with the national tour Beauty and the Beast was just like an experience I can never explain. You have to travel the country and Canada and get paid and perform and have kids waiting for you at the stage door. And I mean, it's just, it was amazing. Absolutely. Passionistas: We're Amy and Nancy Harrington. And you're listening to the Passionistas Project podcast and our interview with Jessica Lorion to tune into the Mamas in Training podcast. Visit JessicaLorion.com. If you're enjoying this interview and would like to help us to continue creating inspiring content, please consider becoming a patron by visiting ThePassionistasProject.com/podcast and clicking on the patron button. Even $1 a month can help us continue our mission of inspiring women to follow their passions. Now here's more of our interview with Jessica. So let's talk about your podcast. So what inspired you to create Mamas in Training. Jessica: We've been talking a little bit about this acting career. It's like you have ebbs and flows as an actor. And I especially didn't really have anything else that I was doing besides my job. And I was kind of looking for something creative. I was looking for something that I could control, because also, as I mentioned, there's very little that you control as an actor, or at least it feels that way. And. I was also in this place that all of my friends were starting to have kids. And so I was in conversation about motherhood almost 90% of the time. And so I was also a little bit of a birth story junkie. I love hearing birth stories. I know it's weird, but I do. Uh, and so I was naturally really just asking my friends about these things and was curious about them and the. Spark happened when my, one of my best friends had just had her and I went to go visit her two weeks after the baby was born. And she was just talking to me about how, when she was pumping or she's breastfeeding feels kind of lonely and isolating because she said, you know, if I'm over my in-laws, I have to go to a second bedroom or I have to like sit in the car and do it before we can go into a store or whatever. And so I thought, well, that's kind of crappy. And two of my friends at work were working on a podcast as well. So the podcast word had kind of flitted around my mind and I was a fan of podcasts. And so that was the moment I said, wait a minute. What if I interview moms about their journey into motherhood and the initial idea of the podcast, which has now changed, but the initial idea was. I would interview moms about their journey. And so that moms who were currently pumping or breastfeeding could listen and know that they weren't alone. And I originally called it the Pumping Podcast, but then it was truly over COVID and everything that I was introducing myself as a Momma in Training. And so I kind of thought, where am I in this story and in this podcast. And that's when I kind of discovered. That there needed to be a shift and I needed to narrow it down and make it more something that I could do. And I was doing, which was learning. And so now more specifically, it's called Mamas in Training and I interview moms, who often happen to also be experts in whatever they are doing now as a result of whatever challenges they experienced. So, um, and I learned from them what they wished they had known before they were pregnant or when they were pregnant or when they were a new mom, so that I can learn selfishly. And then any of my audience who are listening can learn right alongside. Um, cause we kind of study everything else in life, but we rarely study motherhood. And I think it's a really nice opportunity if we have the luxury or even if we don't when we're pregnant or a new mom, but just hearing from other people how things are going. Passionistas: What are a couple of things that you've learned that really surprised you? Jessica: There are three main topics that I've learned. And then I'll give you like another example of a couple of practical things. So the three main things mostly have been advocacy. So the importance of advocating for yourself, whether it's. When you're trying to conceive when you're pregnant or then when you're actually giving birth or postpartum, even, I mean, it continues and we have so much more control than we think that we do. So advocacy is huge, huge. Um, the second thing is community, the importance of community and how you can set these things up for yourself before that moment comes. And it doesn't necessarily have to just be like a food drain. Um, it can be, you know, a doula, it can be a lactation consultant. If you have the finances to do that. Having the community that extends even beyond your initial family or whoever's going to be there hopefully to help support you. Um, that's really key because first of all, we need to do a better job at letting our moms heal and we need to do a better job at talking about the stigmas that we feel. We know that we're not alone and we have that support. So community is huge. And then sort of the practical things are like little things. I didn't know that you can even, you know, there's a certain way to push when you're giving birth that can actually damage or not totally damaged, but can cause damage to your pelvic floor, like something called purple pushing and that's holding your breath and puff your cheeks out. And you're pushing down really hard instead of taking a deep breath in and letting it out as you breathe up. And a lot of. Nurses who are there with you when you're giving birth, we'll often say, take a deep breath and bear down and push, like you're going to poop. And yeah, there's a level of that, but there are other ways that we can do it. And I think we often take for face value what the doctors and the nurses say, because they do this all the time, but you can also say like, thanks for that advice. But I've actually learned that there's a better way that's going to work for me and my body. And I would have never thought something like. I would have never even thought that you can put music on or that you can ask to not know what your measurement is. So they're going to measure your cervix as, as your. Labor, but you don't have to know what it is. And oftentimes women feel like that's a better thing, not knowing because then they don't get in their head. You know, if they don't think that they're progressing because they're only two centimeters, you know, then they don't have to think about the number. They can just think about what the experience is and what they're feeling. And oftentimes when women don't think about it, they progress even faster because it's kind of that mental block. So it's moments like that and things like that, or the last tip I'll give is like a formula. So a majority of women, not all women, but a majority of women plan and prepare and hope to breastfeed. But what they kind of do is like, okay, I know that formula is an option, but I want to breastfeed. Yep. I plan to breastfeed. I know it's going to be hard, but I'm going to breastfeed, but what happens if you're in. Moment in that baby comes out. And that first day, those first few hours, you're trying to get that baby to latch. You're trying to get your milk to come out. Like there's so many different things that can slow down that process. And it's going to come to a time that baby's gonna need food. And if you don't have colostrum that you've prepared or you don't have a formula picked out now postpartum just a few hours after giving birth filled with hormones, filled with this overwhelming, like feeling you have to now. Either, just be comfortable with whatever formula the doctor decides or the nurse decides to give your baby, or you have to just sort of pick one out of thin air, or you have to just go with whatever they have at the hospital. But instead I've learned from this formula experts that I interviewed pick out a formula, whether or not you think you're going to use. But a formula that worst case scenario, if you had to use it, you feel comfortable with it. You feel comfortable with the ingredients, you feel comfortable with the price. You feel comfortable with everything and physically buy it, put it in your birth bag, take it to the hospital, but in your hospital bag, take it to the hospital and have it ready. And if you don't use it. But at least that level of stress is there. So like it's kind of these little practical things that I'm learning that I'm like, Ooh, love that. Ooh, that too. Passionistas: So have you ever thought about taking this beyond the podcast, a book or something else like that? Jessica: We have in different ways yeah, we'll have to see kind of how it develops right now. The way that I've extended it is that I have a membership. And so women, if they want more community, like I mentioned, they can sign up and they can, well, I have a free community on Facebook that anyone can just join as long as you're a mom expecting or seasoned mom. But I also have. Uh, a more in-depth community where we meet monthly on zoom and I bring in experts. So usually past podcast, guests to talk about a specific topic. So like I had one expert come in and talk about your pelvic floor and. Women who are in the group can ask questions directly to that podcast guest. And it's kind of cool for them cause they just, you know, they listened to the episode and now here's that person. Um, so that's the biggest benefit of the group. And of course I hope that that just grows and grows and grows so that more women are in there. And then we can all continue to connect and support and you know, there'll be breakout rooms and like all these fun things. But I have dabbled with the thought of some sort of a future course or something like that. Maybe not a book because I interviewed Heidi Markoff at What to Expect, and she's already got that pretty covered. But, um, I think some, some sort of reasonably priced course would be a good idea maybe along with a support group, because oftentimes I find that expecting moms. When they just get pregnant or just find out, they're kind of like, okay, what now? And they're going from all these different places and trying to sort through information. And so I would like to put all of the information that I've learned in one place. So someone can just say like, this is how you walk through this process slowly but surely. So with. I think I have to go through birth on my own first, before I feel comfortable doing that. So it'll probably be a couple of years, but in the, in the, in the brainstorming mind. But if anyone's listening or has women in your life who are expecting or new moms or aspiring moms, you can join now the free Facebook group or join our premium membership as well. I can send you those links. Passionistas: So you have an auto immune issue that's impacted your journey to motherhood. What advice would you give to somebody who may be going through kind of a similar situation? Jessica: When I mentioned earlier, I was trying to figure out where I fit in. A lot of people would say, you know, why the heck do you have a podcast about motherhood when you're not a mom? And it really was because when I got, I got this diagnosis actually right before tour, and then it just progressed and it was so bad, it was awful. And, and so the reason why I can't have kids right now is because of the medication that I'm on for that auto immune disease. And the medication has to completely be out of my body for months before I'm able to even try to conceive. You know, I'm 35. I would love to have had kids a long time ago. I've been with my husband for 13 years. Like it would be nice, but I can't. And so I kind of thought that this would be a nice opportunity to turn something that's kind of feels a little crappy and do something a little bit more positive. And so honestly, I will say that many people deal with autoimmune diseases in many different ways. And you have to do whatever is right for you at whatever stage you're in. So the things that I'm doing right now, I would recommend to do for anybody to do, but I can understand because when I was in the heat of it and my disease was at its worst. I could not picture doing anything that I'm currently doing. Um, so like my first recommendation is to completely shift your diet. And I know nobody likes to hear that, but there is a reason I, I won't try to stay on this soapbox for too long, but there's a reason why our world is so infused with. Fast food with terrible food, with all these fake things, going into our food and that correlates so directly with the reason why so many more people at such a young age are developing all these auto-immune diseases. Why do you think we have all these commercials for all these steroidal, you know, injections like Humira and that's what I was on. And in my opinion, I think that caused my arthritis. That's my personal opinion, but why do you think that's so directly related? You know, it's just this cycle and people get paid when we take these medications. So I would say if you have an ear to hear this, I would highly recommend checking out your. I went on Dr. Amy Myers autoimmune solution diet. It was basically an elimination diet. And then you add back in things over time. And by doing that, by controlling my stress, by finding something that gave me a passion like this podcast and keeping myself busy and occupied in a positive way, um, I really think completely has changed my disease. And I can proudly say that as of now, I'm on the lowest possible dosage of my both medic of both of my medications. And I'm hoping that as of next week I can drop down one of them completely. And then within the next month, the other one completely, and I was on a full dosage of these medications and I was my, my. Situation was severe, like hard, really severe. I had to buy a cane very severe. And so the fact that I'm managing. With food and with no other medication. I mean, it kind of sounds like a no brainer to me, but it's, it's hard. It's hard to hear that when, when you're struggling so much, so it would be to really take a look at your diet and it would be to get yourself something that just lights you up and makes you feel good because we need to lower the stress in our bodies for autoimmune diseases. Passionistas: What's your secret to a rewarding life? Jessica: I think it has a lot to do with. Being present and something that's kind of come over me in the past few years is sort of this definition of success. And so to circle back to my acting career, you know, because you have to have such a narrow focus. When you start out in the acting world theater world, you paint this picture of what success is going to look like. And so for so many years Broadway was it. And then I kind of started to get older and I kind of started to have freak outs with my husband and I was like, Broadway hasn't come yet. I also want to be a mom and how do I get on Broadway and be a mom? And I mean, people do it, but you go through all these things. And I remember specifically, he sat me down and he was like, well, what is success to you? And I was like, well, it's being on Broadway and that's what it was. And this could be anything for you. Like this could, if, if you're in a corporate job, this could be like getting that position or whatever. But then he said, which kind of shook my world a little bit. He was like, so just checking the national tour that you did, that wasn't success that wasn't successful? The Mary Poppins that you did, that wasn't successful? The commercial that you shot, that wasn't successful? The relationships that you've built and you've created that wasn't? Our marriage that's not successful? When you have a baby, is that successful? Is that success? And I was like, my mind kind of exploded for a second. I was like, wow, you're right. Like, there are so many other things. That success can mean. And so I think the way that I've kind of readjusted my thinking over the past five years or so, because it is hard to think, like, of course I wanted, I had that goal of Broadway, but just because I haven't gotten there yet, still have time still could doesn't mean that anything else that I do in my life isn't successful. And so I think the way that I sort of celebrate that and stay present in what I have done is by being aware and hairiest about everything. And so actually for 2021, I like to choose words at the new year. I don't necessarily like, um, resolutions. So my word for 2021 was awareness after I had read the, the greatest secret. It's really been unbelievable because every now and then I just remind myself about awareness and whether it's that I'm trying to be aware of the message that my husband is telling me, which is like, come sit on the couch with me for a second stop doing work. Or whether that's awareness of like this one thing has quote, unquote crossed my desk three times like maybe I should look into that. Or whether it's your body is feeling a little tired, a little push to the edge. Maybe you need to chill out a little bit. Like whatever awareness it is has really allowed me to stay more present and acknowledge that what I have and what I've done is really actually extraordinary. And there's more to come, but I can't discount what I've already done. Passionistas: Thanks for listening to The Passionistas Project Podcast and our interview with Jessica Lorion. To tune into the Mamas in Training podcast visit JessicaLorion.com. Please visit ThePassionistasProject.Com to learn more about our podcast and subscription box filled with products made by women owned businesses and female artisans to inspire you to follow your passions. Get $45 of free goodies with a one-year subscription using the code WINTERGOODIES. And be sure to subscribe to The Passionistas Project Podcast so you don't miss any of our upcoming inspiring guests. Until next time, stay well and stay passionate.

Angela Philip is the founder of Queen of Possible. With a focus on women's leadership and personal transformation coaching, Angela's clients reconnect with their creative energy and accomplish what's really important to them with greater power, joy and ease than they ever thought possible. Learn more about Queen of Possible. Learn more about The Passionistas Project.   Full Transcript: Passsionistas: Hi, and welcome to the Passionistas Project podcast, where we talk with women who are following their passions to inspire you to do the same. We're Amy and Nancy Harrington. And today we're talking with Angela Philp, the founder of Queen of Possible with a focus on women's leadership and personal transformation, coaching Angela's clients reconnect with their creative energy and accomplish what's really important to them with greater power, joy, and ease than they ever thought possible. So please welcome to the show, Angela Philp.   Angela: Thank you very much for inviting me onto your show. I am so delighted to be here and have this conversation with you both.   Passsionistas: We're so excited to have you here. What's the one thing you're most passionate about?   Angela: Women's leadership. And you, you mentioned it so well in your intro, joy, creativity, and passion. And so my joy, my creativity and my passion is having women in 50% of the leadership positions worldwide within the next 10 years. That's my big mission. And what's really important to that is also having it be with joy, passion, enthusiasm, and creativity, because I think that it was just a false.   It's not going to be worth it, but what we want is for women to be standing in positions of power and standing in their power with all their joy and creativity.   Passsionistas: Why is this such an important mission to you?   Angela: It has been an important mission to me since I was young. I didn't voice it like that though.   When I was, you know, when I was young, I used to read all these stories about, you know, women and men at the time of world leaders, but I was really attracted by the women had made a difference and. It just inspired me and I dreamed of being that woman one day. And so there's that, but also as I was growing up and with my parents, I sort of was always taught that I could do whatever I wanted.   And that's a very white privileged thing to say. And, you know, I didn't come from a privileged white family. I came from a normal or slightly under wealthy family, but what was most important was that. I was learning that for myself, but also when I got to university, I really started studying these things.   And then I decided I wanted to work for UNESCO and I'd do a big jump because what I recognized after working for UNESCO was that in 25 years, I mean that, that, that organization and many organizations do a lot of great work, but we're still talking about the same time. And we're still writing education programs so that women, you know, desensitize men as to why women and girls should be educated and I don't get it.   I don't, I don't even understand how 50% of the whole world's population is not counted as equal. So that, that's why it's so important to me, just because, and also, you know, because I know what it is. Feel like within yourself, you're standing in your own power as a leader. Um, I, I think the world will be different when we have women and 50% of leadership positions and when they're standing as leaders in their families and not as less than, and when we're standing as leaders in community.   And so it's not about having to be at the top of. I mean, that will be included, but I'm talking about all levels. All strata standing as leaders and equal is vital. I think, to the wellbeing of the world you're making,   Passsionistas: Let's take a step back. Tell us where you grew up and what your childhood was like.   Angela: Like I was born in New Zealand in Christchurch and which has a gorgeous little city and I grew up there until I was 11. And my memories of that place are fantastic. It was really funny because when I moved to Australia, I recognize that I needed to get a fashion sense because I had none where I was living in New Zealand.   It was just, I don't know if it was my parents, so me, but, you know, I was quite happy to have a track suit on and I never really cared what I wore. It didn't matter. As long as I wasn't wore more, you know, I wasn't too cold or not woman off or whatever. And I was a real tomboy and I lived outside and I love to read.   And so, I've always had friends that I've loved, but I spent a lot of time wandering around the fields and sitting out under trees, reading books, and drawing and playing with color. And then my souvenirs of my youngest days. And I wasn't so much adult person as a climbing tree person or playing with paint or my mother's lipsticks and squashing them up person.   And then we moved to Australia when I was. Because the economy was better over there. And my mom's twin sister lives there and my whole life changed from that moment. And there I became like almost a different person. I learned that I needed to create my life and that, that was what life was all about.   And that if I wanted something that it was up to me to go out and get it, you know, to create what I wanted. And my father and my mom both changed jobs. My dad has done several different jobs in his life. You know, when, when he met my mother, he was, uh, an apprentice butcher and a singer, and that's how they met.   And then he got into sales. Somebody asked him if he would be interested in sales, and that was the sort of person that is the sort of person my dad is. Take up. And that's what he taught us through just watching him. And so he had all of these books on think and grow rich and you can do anything and I dare you.   And he passed all of that onto me. And I took it from there. So that was what my growing up was like, you know, with it was with horses and I live on a horse farm now, still, and it was outside and it was all about how to grow your life and lots of creative.   Passsionistas: When and why did you decide to leave Australia and move to France?   Angela: I had told my mother when I was young, apparently that I would grow up and live in France one day. And I have no memory of that myself, but my mum said that's, that's what I had said. And so I studied French at school. Didn't do particularly well at French at school. Became an exchange student. And all I could say was like shocker, last show and costs on and that's about it.   And they translated the Stevie Wonder song. You know, "I just Called to Say, I Love You." And you had to say to my parents and my host parents. I called them before I went as an exchange student. And then I thought, I can't say, I love you. I don't know them. So I'm like your top people there. And that's all I knew is like, hello.   So I learned French. And you, I wanted to move back there and it was, as I finished my university studies that I just knew that I wanted to work for UNESCO. And they're based in the headquarters are based in Paris and for various reasons of which one was a relationship that was a bit violent. I got a one way ticket to New Zealand to live with my auntie, who was this amazing woman, amazing as well.   And living with her, she was like, right, I've got the book, uh, Shakti Gawain's "Creative Visualization." And so she said, you need to visualize being at UNESCO. And so I would sit in the bath and write out what it was like to work for UNESCO and how amazing it was being in there. And really imagine myself there already.   And in a place, I had no idea what it looked like. And back then we didn't have the internet. So, I mean, I could have got an encyclopedia, but no photos, no. So I'm just amazed, imagining this with my fantastic auntie. And that was it. It was from there, but it was like, right. I have to get there and I sent CVs and I sent CVs and I sent CVs and they were returned and returned and returned with refusals.   And I thought, okay, I just have to get to France. So I was working as a conference manager, writing conferences on different. And I knew that our competition had an office in Paris. So I went and saw them and I said, would you send me to Paris? And they said, yes. And from there, the sort of the rest is history.   A great friend of mine who lives in Barcelona. Now introduced me to a, uh, a wonderful friend of his, that had met in San Francisco and we're still friends. And she said, but my boss works at unity. And I would, oh, well, could I meet her? And so I did. And then that was it. That was my, that was how it all started.   Passsionistas: For the people listening who don't know, tell us what UNESCO is and tell us why you were so focused on working for them.   Angela: UNESCO is the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization. And I knew that they did work on educating women and education. Do you know, I don't know. I don't know why I haven't looked into why, but education is, I don't know when it became so important to me, maybe it was because I loved, I actually loved school and I loved learning and I homeschooled my own children as well.   You know, all of these years later for, for a while before the pandemic. And I really wanted to work with women's education. And I believe that education is vital. I found that. And so that was what was so important about me working there as opposed to any other of the great United nations organizations.   And I mean... Paris... Paris.   Passsionistas: So tell us about the work that you specifically did at UNESCO.   Angela: When I started, it was analyzing the like, so it was statistical, it was really looking at all of the information that was coming in from the programs that were in place around the world and noticing the comments about what was working and what wasn't working, and then giving a report back as to what that, you know, what I made some recommendations, but of course it was my boss who really made the recommendations, but I, I did the.   The groundwork, the pulling apart the numbers and saying, this works, this is what this many people have said. This is what this is. Many people have said, and these are all of these, you know, this is how many people have said it's not relevant enough or this doesn't work. And this is what people have said about this great part or about these reading books here are really pertinent and we need to change this stereotype.   And from then on it moved, I did some work as well, writing for my attic. I have, I had a great boss. She's awesome. And we're still in contact. So sometimes it would be writing articles for her as well on, you know, gender parity and women's education and girl's education. So it was the basic education sector.   And from there, it became, you know, working with her, helping her write the programs towards the end. And by that time I was married with two children and. I had also the idea that I wanted to look after my children. And so I was doing, working on a consultancy basis. So I was like on a six month rotation of contract.   And it was like becoming, working from nine at night, till two in the morning on some of the programs that I had in some of the projects. And I thought, I don't know if this is sustainable over the long-term and for various reasons, including the work that my husband was doing. And. I had some illusions about international organizations.   And I really thought that, and I do still believe this, that everybody is out to create something amazing in the world and create change. And I became a di a bit disillusioned watching some of the internal politics and sort of had an inner rejection of it back then when I was young and pure and idealistic and, and thought that everybody should get on nicely.   And that. And that was, you know, it was quite incredible. Cause my husband as well sold military aircraft was coming from New Zealand, saying anti war, anti, you know, anti war, anti nuclear, anti everything. And then. You know, somebody whose father is the head of the world association of nuclear operators, and then the next boyfriends selling military aircraft.   And I'm like, what is this a test?   And so anyway, we, we, um, then we moved down to Toulouse after that. So it wasn't possible. I made that choice though. I noticed how interesting it is. Cause I'm like, Disloyal saying something because it was such a big dream of mine. And I still, and I really believe in how important, you know, the work is that, uh, all of the, uh, the, you know, the humanitarian organizations do, that's, that's ande discus tablette, as we say in French.   But, and I recognize now as a 51 year old, that there's politics everywhere. But back then, it really made an impact on me and, and it wasn't directed at me. It was my outside observation. I mean, I didn't have. I didn't have a huge position. So I wasn't in anyone's way. So there was no politics directed at me, but it was something that was really, I just watched it.   And I like, I fell off. I fell off my cloud. And so now my job is helping women stand as leaders within situations like that within, within situations where there is politics to really stand in their leadership and to. Reconnect with your joy, not keep it when they feel like they've lost their mojo. And you know, all of the, the human, the human political issues in a human dynamics start becoming too much.   So it's interesting the circle back around.   Passsionistas: We're Amy and Nancy Harrington, and you're listening toThe Passionistas Project Podcastt and our interview with Angela Philp. To join other Wild Spirit Leaders, to create the next level of your leadership and more deeply impact the world, starting with you, visit QueenOfPossible.com.   If you're enjoying this interview and would like to help us to continue creating inspiring content, please consider becoming a patron by visiting ThePassionistasProject.com/Podcast and clicking on the Patron button. Even $1 a month can help us continue our mission of inspiring women to follow their passions.   Now here's more of our interview with Angela.   You moved to Toulouse. So what did you do when you moved there?   Angela: With three young children, because when we moved my son, who's now nearly a teen was six months old. I had always dreamed as well as becoming an artist. I'd actually dreamed of becoming an actress as well.   I mean, I've dreamed of a lot of things. And I remember when I'd said to my parents that I wanted to be an actress that I said, oh my goodness. After, after telling me, you know, you can be anything you like, you can be anything you like. That's it. Oh, no, don't do that. You will be working in a restaurant for the rest of your life.   Like, and I can tell they were like for my economic security, that wasn't a good thing. It wasn't so much about being any sort of like social level. It was like, you don't want to be doing that. It's hard work. So it's like get a degree, but I'd also really wanted to do something that was artistic and creative.   And so I studied calligraphy for eight years. Part-time in the evenings, looked after my kids. And in that time I was renovating furniture, renovating lights and selling, selling those I'd sort of like came in, went into a completely creative job and did a little bit of work for action aid at the time as well.   I think it was writing articles. If I remember rightly on gender, gender parity. I let my creative juices flow and my creative self live. And I became an artist and I started writing a blog, which is no longer online called Signed by Ange and wondered what it would be like to put my voice out there and felt really intimidated and small, and like an imposter as many women can do and read the blog anyway, and it grew.   And, um, I met some of the most amazing people that. And I, I sold my artwork and my, my first goal though, when I did that was actually an idea when I realized that I wasn't, I thought maybe I'm not cut out for a big organization. And so I thought what I'd love to do is create a program for women in developing countries that allows them to.   Express themselves. And what I'd known from growing up, you know, with my dad, who was always about the language that you use is what creates your reality and how you speak to yourself, fuels how you, the actions you take. And so I thought I got thinking about, oh, how do we speak to that? How do we hold ourselves back? What is confidence? How, how would it be to have more confidence? And I thought, well, through my art, I'd really gained confidence and it was all about making beautiful words. Beautiful. And so there were signed by Andrew Woods or. And I created this workshop called opening doors, and it was all about stepping into who you could be.   And so I trundled off and, you know, a couple of years later to India for my 40th birthday, and I went to the north of India and was just a few steps away from the Dalai Lama. It was amazing. And so I spoke to a couple of organizations because I about putting my workshops in place there. And I took my book of the things that I'd created and the idea of.   Women being able to tell this story. Through a piece of art and to use like discarded pieces of, you know, whatever was around like that we can at the time, my idea was that, you know, I saw human transformation and transformation of objects as a parallel path. And so as we transformed an object, we transformed ourselves and.   That meant that we didn't have to spend lots of money on buying things, but we used the ink that we could make. And we used the colors that we could find in nature or in our clothing or whatever it is that we had or local powdered inks from around the place. If that meant finding a piece of wood, that was something that inspired you within.   They could use that. And I created a whole two day workshop on really looking at, okay, so what are, what are our pirates? What are those. Thoughts that hold us back. And then the next day was all about what are the new words we'd like to use? And then how would we put that on a piece of art that we created ourselves in?   Well, for me, it would have been in English, but whatever it would be in Tibetan or Hindi or, um, whatever the women's language was. And then my idea was to bring that back to France with the woman's story and sell it and return the money to, uh, to them. Um, At that time things weren't going that well in my marriage.   And so I decided that with three small children, it probably wasn't the best idea to try and move between India and France. And so I was telling other people about my ideas in France, and one of my girlfriends said, couldn't you do that for us? And like, again, a falling off perch moment. Why does everyone, like who else has a problem with confidence and imagining that anyone had a problem with confidence?   And I started doing it that way. I just said, well, I'll just run two as a test. And the results were really quite fantastic. And so then I started like putting them out there onto the. And one day someone who came and Jen, you know, she said that was an amazing workshop for her and what I coach her. And I'm like, no, I'm not a coach.   I'm only bringing in my experience of what I learned when I was young and all of these books that I'd read and what I knew was possible, cause I'd created possible for myself and all of the art that I have. So I was really reuniting all of the things together that I loved the most and putting that out into the world as an office.   And then she really insisted. And I said, well, if you don't call me a coach, I'll accompany you and we'll see how it works. She blitzed what she had set out to do. And that was when I thought, right. It's time to start developing this and there, and the rest again is history.   Passsionistas: So now was that the beginning of Queen of Possible?   Angela: It was, that was the beginning that was after opening doors and even opening doors continued. That was the beginning of Queen of Possible. And it was a conversation, which is what I do now. Right. And she said, wow, you're the Queen of Possible. And I just thought that was so cool that I kept it. Yeah. And it's been with me ever since.   And, you know, as I was telling you before I. Uh, about a year ago, I was thinking, you know, that's a bit nath, you know, that sounds too like fluffy. And what does that even mean? And I, you know, working with these women and I worked with all women and I want to say all the women, I work with all women who are a stand for leadership and women's leadership in the world.   And I do work with. And I also work with women who are young and aspiring to be executives. And I, and I work with women who want more than anything to change the leadership paradigm. So it's not a, again, I, I don't like silos. I really, I like bringing women in together. And what's important to me is the mission that they have that little inner voice. Again, that's not serious enough. You know, you don't sound professional. How powerful do you think you'll be with people? You know, all of, all of those beliefs and thoughts that I just weigh us down and I thought, okay, well maybe it's time to change that. And I have been moving into the Wild Spirit Leadership and I have my Wild Spirit Leadership coach.   And that was an idea of also moving from the individual to the collective. So that's, that's really important to make this more collaborative and collective. But when a couple of people wrote to me during the pandemic and went, oh my God, the Queen of Possible that name, that's so inspiring. And I think, I'm keeping it, that's it. We're going with this cause anything I can do to inspire, I will. Anything, any conversation, any blog posts, any written piece? If I can inspire any, any woman, any human, because you know, my driver is women. Women's leadership. If I can inspire any women, any woman to step into who she really is and to live that fully, that's what I live for. So Queen of Possible it is and Wild Spirit Leadership.   Passsionistas: What are the various ways that you work with?   Angela: Well, one-to-one coaching. Of course. So now I, now I do now I do coach women and I still don't like to say really I'm a coach because I find that. So, and in a way it's really limiting, you know, I really help women step into their power and it is three coaching methodology, but it's also three creativity and art and running sometimes and hiking and all sorts of way.   Yeah. So there's, one-to-one coaching. There's the Wild Spirit Leadership collab, which is specifically for women who do have a mission and really want to step into their leadership and they want to play at their next level. Like it is what terrible. She's a great woman's coach. She's called it playing bigger.   And I love that, but it's not playing bigger as in getting more and doing more it's like that inner expansion, which creates an outer expansion. So really being more of yourself. And that sounds so. Like cliched at the moment. Cause everyone says it, but it's such a powerful and real important thing. And so it's, one-to-one, it's theWild Spirit Leadership. And at the moment I've also running, running some leadership programs, one with Millie Rasekoala and Daniel. Who's got this amazing mission to create a million leaders in Africa. And we had this conversation about. I mean, she said I wanted to create a million liters. I said, that's awesome. 500,000 need to be women.   So from there have been these conversations with these other awesome, awesome people. These women who've designed a course with. So there's a course for African women. And then how there's women for planetary health with Nicole DePaula as a leadership program, this. You know, there are all sorts of ways. I think I get creative.   So I've got my two ways for the moment. And it really in the process of creating something with Kylee Stone, who you had on your podcast last time as well. So really looking at making more collaboration, but for the moment, just personally, there's one-to-one coaching or The Wild Spirit Collab.   Passsionistas: How have you been able to connect with so many women globally?   Angela: First of all, it's been a desire. So for anyone who's staying within their little store, I would say, listen to your desire. And I know this will sound very hazy, but follow it. And so what that means is I have followed the most, one side is inconsequential, like seemingly like Philly little things, and others have been like moments where I felt really scared and I've stepped in anyway.   And so I followed without asking myself too many questions. A friend of mine said, I should do this really great course in Cancun. It was, and it was quite a lot for my budget, right? At the time I was like, oh my goodness. And she said, it's the best leadership training you'll ever get. And this was in 2019 and I'd already been doing leadership training.   And she said, it's, it's, it's amazing. So I, I followed my friend's advice. I'm also really admired her. She's an amazing. So I signed up and I went to Cancun, not thinking it was possible in the beginning and went there anyway. And, you know, I met the most amazing people there. So I think there's an openness, there's an openness and a willingness cause that was quite an expense.   But when I didn't have any money and goodness knows, I've had moments when I really didn't have any, it's also been following me over. Actually allowing myself to talk to people when I felt like maybe I wasn't worthy or not at their level, and really letting my commitment guide me, like, what am I committed to?   And so I met this fantastic woman. Who's become a friend of mine, her name's Alison in Cancun on the last day in particular. And I met lots of amazing people of which another coach who I've done, ICF coaching training with she lives in eyesore. And now she's in France next weekend and I'm going to drive up and see her.   So it's just, it's, it's sort of being a yes. You know, it's stepping in and saying yes and, and not letting myself get held back by the little thoughts of saying who are you? And then anyway, to go back to Alison, we had a conversation in the waves on the last day of that course, just before we all got dragged and caught a plane.   And that conversation led me. She said, would you like to be part of another conversation? And without even thinking I went, yeah, it was about education. And so from there just saying, yes, I met all these other people and I think that's the same as you know, when I was 19 and in New Zealand, actually I was 23, sorry, 19 got up and finished my study.   And then at 23 is when I left. I was starting out my career. I was on a normal, early career salary. It wasn't like, you know, I could buy my first BMW or anything. And again, it was doing what I could to like, where do I want to go? If you know, school is not working, how else can I get there? So have your mission and just allow yourself to follow the flow of life and keep saying.   Like, like, you know, this looking at our conversation that came from speaking with Kylee who knew Ellison and Kylee said, you need to meet Amy and Nancy. I was like, okay, that sounds great. So being a yes. Yeah. And knowing what your commitment is, and not, not, not letting anyone talk you out of your commitment to be. I think of commitment.   Passsionistas: We noticed that you have said before, there is no power in commitment to a compromise. So talk a little bit about that.   Angela: That is a quote. I don't have the book with me, it's in it. And it's not in that book. I don't think called create your life as art by Robert Fritz. But that, that particular quote there's no commitment and compromise is something that I took from it.   There's a whole quote, which is all about creativity and all the rest. His quote is the life energy of the universe cannot be sustained in a commitment to a compromise. And that was when I really realized that if you accept a compromise specifically, it's not a commitment anymore. It's a, it's just about which means you're always just about there.   You're not mobilizing all of your resources. You're not mobilizing all of your energy. And it's sort of like, it's like, it's a slippery slope back down. And I know as women, cause I've, I've heard that from another friend. She said, you know, compromising is a good thing. And I said, this isn't about saying, I want all of the pie.   You know, like there's only a certain amount of pie and I'm going to eat all of it. It's about, you know, and not caring about other people. So it's not that sort of, I am not committed to eating all of someone else's pie, for example. But I have a commitment to having women and 50% of leadership commission, uh, physicians worldwide, which means that every conversation I have leads towards that.   And if it's like, oh, that doesn't really matter. If we get to 25% or whatever, you know, we've, there's a commitment for you. I know some organizations they're really committed to having women in 25% of leadership positions and they're at 17. And see that's the power of it goes into something that isn't a full on commitment.   It's sort of like sketchy almost just about, and there's no energy in it. No guts, no Jews. And so if you keep compromising, then you keep settling and you let yourself down. I'll give you a, an example. I'm doing a detox at the moment and I could say, well, what's one extra or one less. But then that becomes the one actor.   What's one, one who cares if I have 20 grapes instead of 15, I mean, you know, I could say it like that, or I could say, oh, just this once I'll have a biscuit and it's not about making, having a biscuit wrong, but it's about like, what is the energy you're putting into this? And where else in your life are you settling for?   Just about, that's actually nibbling at your resources, gnawing at your energy, shutting you down. And that's that slippery thinking that slippery slope. And that's why to me it's so important is all of the energy is in the commitment, not in the compromise, it takes strength. And I think it takes as well.   When I say belief in your commitment, you know, something that touches your heart, that's it, it takes heart. You're going to have a reason for it. And if you've got some heart in it, then don't set it. Th that's then, then you start also having that negative image of yourself that you never managed to really do anything properly, or you never get it.   Right. And that's when those doubts can start sneaking in. Whereas when you're fueled by commitment, oh my God, you can move mountains. You can end up in Paris from Auckland, New Zealand. How the hell did I get here? So, and when I say that as well, I think what's important to qualify is the end goal is important.   The middle. How I get there. It's not so much a compromise. It becomes a game. It becomes a game of creativity. Like it's not focusing. I have to get there this way and there's no compromise. It's I have to get here now. What are all the fun ways that might make that happen? Because if this way doesn't work out well, there's another way.   And if that way doesn't work out well, there's another way. And, and that's where it's like, it's not a compromise on the way to get there, but it's, this is my mission.   Passsionistas: I love the fun way, but I think it's such a heavy thing sometimes to try and get to a goal. If you're not getting there, you get frustrated and then it gets hard.   Angela: So to explore it as fun. It's really interesting because we often hear detached from the outcome, like have a commitment, but be detached from the outcome. And that's been a big learning for me because it is hard. Otherwise it becomes then another weight on your shoulders and a burden. And somewhere, like you said, to get to.   I don't see my commitments that way. It's like, if, if it's not fun, I mean, life has so much potential and opportunity for fun. I mean, when I was in that, like I was talking about the, um, those waves, we joked about this being an ocean office. I mean, seriously, and I, I miss living by the beach, but I have a country.   And we can choose to do things the hard way or the easy way and within whatever environment we're in. Okay. So I'll, I'll I get that I'm in a privileged environment environment, you could say. Yeah, well, what am I going to do if I'm in a favela or something? So I, I don't have a, because I've, haven't been to one.   I don't have a, any idea for that, but I know that we always have a capacity. The human being has a capacity to find the best, to find the fun ways to find something regenerate. And I think, you know, the patriarchal system that we're in is all about survival. And for me, fun is about thriving. And we forget the creative healing, motivational, all encompassing power of joy and what that can create for results.   And I just wrote a newsletter yesterday about love as well, because I mean, when you bring love to something, it grows. And what you focus on expands, right? So the more we love you bring something you bring to something. And I don't mean bad boundaries and dependency. I really mean heartfelt love when you pour love into something.   Oh my God. It can only be amazing. And then you can bring all the fun. And the joy coming from commitment is what I like to call. It. Doesn't have to be a slog and you don't get brownie points for suffering extra. That's the way I see it. And I, and it's so important and we can connect with that. All of us can connect.   It doesn't depend on finances. It doesn't depend on situation. It doesn't depend on social status. It depends on wanting to be more real and come back to connecting to what's true inside.   Passsionistas: Thanks for listening to The Passionistas Project Podcast in our interview with Angela Philp to join other The Wild Spirit Leaders, to create the next level of your leadership and more deeply impact the world, starting with you, visit QueenOfPossible.com.   Please visit ThePassionistasProject.Com to learn more about our podcast and subscription box filled with products made by women owned businesses and female artisans to inspire you to follow your passions. Get a free mystery box with a one-year subscription using the code WINTERMYSTERY.   And be sure to subscribe to The Passionistas Project Podcast so you don't miss any of our upcoming inspiring guests.   Until next time. Stay well and stay passionate.

Gabrielle Claiborne is Co-Founder and CEO of Transformation Journeys Worldwide, a cutting-edge transgender-focused inclusion training and consulting firm. Her passion is teaching businesses, religious and civic organizations, schools, educational institutions, healthcare providers and municipalities what they need to know to create an environment of belonging for transgender, gender nonconforming and non-binary patients, customers, colleagues, congregants and kids. At Transformation Journeys Worldwide they believe that, when all people are respected and empowered, we all win — and our world becomes a better place. Learn more about Transformation Journeys Worldwide. Learn more about The Passionistas Project. Full Transcript: Passionistas: Hi, and welcome to the Passionistas Project Podcast, where we talk with women who are following their passions to inspire you to do the same. We're Amy and Nancy Harrington and today we're talking with Gabrielle Claiborne. Her company Transformation Journeys Worldwide is a cutting edge, transgender focused inclusion, training, and consulting. Her passion is teaching businesses, religious and civic organizations, schools, and educational institutions, healthcare providers, and municipalities, what they need to know to create an environment of belonging for transgender, gender nonconforming and non-binary patients, customers, colleagues, congregants, and kids at transformation, journeys, worldwide. They believe that when all people are respected and empowered, we all win and our world becomes a better place. So please welcome to the show. Gabrielle Claiborne. Gabrielle: Thank you so much for having me. It's such a joy to be with you today. Passionistas: Well, we can't wait to share your story with our listeners and to have this conversation, we've been very excited for it. So what would you say is the one thing you're most passionate about Gabrielle: Most passionate about is making sure that when I wake up in the morning that that I lean into that day with, with every fiber of my being and that I show up and the, and the best way that I can show up in integrity with who I know myself to be authentically, hopefully, and given the opportunity to inspire others, to live their highest, uh, as their highest and best self. That is one thing that I try to do every time I wake up and. Passionistas: Tell us how you help other people do that through your company, Transformation Journeys Worldwide, and the path to starting that. Gabrielle: Early on in my transition. I have always felt purposeful as an individual in, early on in my transition. I wanted to find what was mine to do. And so, uh, as I, uh, as I began exploring, you know, what was mine to do, I actually started seeing a life coach and she. Taught me how to live out of my heart space. And when I started living out in my heart space, I realized that I did not have to find what was mine to do. The more that I showed up authentically and embracing my truth of who I was. Opportunities and doors opened up for me and allowed me to step into new spaces that allowed me to show up more, authentically, more powerfully owning my own voice. And as a result of that seven years ago, uh, my business partner and I coped a transgender inclusion and training from transformation journeys worldwide. So today we help a myriad of organizations, whether it's Fortune 100, 500 companies, whether it's mental or medical health care providers, whether it's educational institutions, spiritual communities, and even municipalities on their journey of transforming their environments into fully inclusive cultures for transgender nonconforming and non-binary individuals. And this has been a labor of love for me in many ways. I guess you could say that I live my work as so to speak. You know, I wake up every morning, not really feeling like I'm going to work because I'm showing up advocating for my trans gender nonconforming and non-binary siblings. And, uh, it just, it gives me a great joy to know that every day that I, that I stepped into this world, that I'm living a purposeful life and I'm hopefully making it possible for someone who is coming behind me and their own journey of authenticity to be a little easier. So we're helping them. These cultures, uh, create these inclusive spaces for these individuals to show up so that they can live authentically in these spaces. So I find great joy and, and a world-changing purpose as a result of that, Passionistas: Talk a little bit about why it's important to give these organizations the tools that they need and that you are offering so that they can create that respectful space for all gender identities and expressions. Gabrielle: Well, the reason it's important is because, uh, this is a growing demographic, uh, just a couple of months. Uh, the Williams Institute came out with a statistic that in the U S there are 1.2 million non-binary individuals. And in 2017, a Harris bowl revealed a statistic that 12% of millennials identify as some form of trans or non-binary. So this is one of the business case reasons for why organizations are really leaning into this conversation. Understanding. What they need to do in order to be an employer of choice for this demographic. So what they're understanding is that this journey of creating this inclusive culture is not only does it not only require a partial cultural competency of their employees. Uh, the employees, excuse me, but it also requires them to look at their organizational cultural competency. So in our trainings, we offer individuals, his strategies and suggestions on how to interact respectfully. With this demographic, understanding how to navigate the conversation around pronouns respectfully, right? Because we can no longer make assumptions around, you know, what pronoun and individual uses, especially those individuals who identify as some form of gender nonconforming or non-binary who uses they, them or theirs, or even ze/hir ze/zir pronouns as their personal pronouns. We also share strategies with them on how to push back on offensive jokes and comments and quality, why this is important for not only the trans and gender nonconforming or non-binary individual in the workplace, but also for those colleagues who may have. TGGNCNB children or, um, family members. Right? So these are some of the reasons why organizations are really leaning into this conversation and, you know, the good thing, the thing that we help our audiences understand is that. Sometimes it requires getting comfortable with being uncomfortable in the spirit of learning to do better. And the good news is, is there a lot of organizations that are really wanting to be intentional in creating, having spaces for these crisis conversations and creating these inclusive cultures? So they're taking it to the next level and looking at things like the policy. There are restrooms, how they connect not only within the four walls of their organization, but how they're showing up outside of their organization through their supplier diversity initiatives, through their, uh, involvement and local LGBTQ, uh, communities like the LGBTQ chamber of commerce or their local pride. So there's a lot of moving parts and pieces. That requires an organization to create this culture. And it is a journey. It is not a destination. And that's one thing. These organizations are really recognizing. Passionistas: What does it mean to you to be able to have this kind of impact on all these different types of organizations and beyond into the culture, beyond their work? Gabrielle: I appreciate you bringing that question up because I'll never forget the first time. That Gabrielle showed up in corporate America, fully aligned, right? I'll never forget sitting in the lobby of our, one of our first clients. And I looked at my business partner. We were waiting on our, our client to come out and greet us. And I looked at her and I said, Linda, do you realize what is just about to happen? We, I am. We are show up in December. Fully authentic for the very first time. And I reflect back over that moment because it was a surreal experience for me. And it's a surreal experience knowing that not only I experienced that, but other individuals have the opportunity to show up in spaces within these organizations who were doing the work to have that same experience. And to know that your. You're moving the needle every time you're showing up, it just, it does my heart. Good to know that I am leaving a legacy for folks that hopefully have a path that is a little easier than the path that I had to navigate. So, you know, again, I wake up every morning feeling like I'm not going to work. I've just feel like that I'm showing up advocating for the. Who needed to be advocated for. So it's just a great joy. And you know, when we have. You know, now that we're seven years into our iteration as a business. Now we're having folks reach out to us as opposed to us reaching out and marketing our services to prospective clients. And knowing that these folks are actually finding us and saying, Hey, we heard you do this work. We want to start the conversation, but we don't know where to start. Can you help us knowing that they're reaching out to us and they're finding us wanting to have these conversations. It just really makes. The work that we're doing all the more rewarding. Passionistas: You said that the transgender community and the nonbinary communities or the demographic is growing. So is the opportunity for businesses like this also growing, do you find that there are more companies reaching out to you and, and what are they asking for? Why do they come to you? Is there a specific reason or incident that makes them reach out to you? Gabrielle: They're recognizing that in order for them to be an employer of choice, that they have to get over. And here's the thing, you know, we all know that the, the workplace demographic is changing. I mean, just in three or four years, millennials will make up 75% of the workforce. And there was a recent pew research poll that, uh, in 2018 that indicated that while millennials personally knew someone, 25% of millennials personally knew someone who uses gender neutral pronouns, Gen Z years, 36% of Gen Z years personally knew someone. Who was, who uses gender neutral pronouns or they, them and theirs as their pronouns. So you can see with the, uh, with the, the advancement of generations, these generations are becoming more gender inclusive. So in order for them to set themselves up as that employer of choice and to attract and retain that talent and the workplace. They're really recognizing the need to get on board and they are doing just that. And so when they approach us, they're, you know, a lot of times our clients don't know what they don't know, so we kind of help them understand, you know, first of all, when we have. That first call with them where we have a disclosure conversation of just kind of where you are on your own journey of understanding gender diversity. We kind of understand from that perspective, how to guide them of where to start, whether it's in a Trans 101 or whether it's a more focused training for HR talent acquisition, or even it, uh, so it depends on where they are meeting them where they are is. But, uh, making sure that they understand, and this is the one thing that we tried to impress on our clients is that this is not just a 60 or 90 minute conversation. This is a commitment to a journey. You know, while you may have a 90 minute one-on-one training with your. There's much more work to do. So there are other organizations like my, my company who are actually working with organizations, setting them up for success or these gender diverse demographics. Passionistas: And so do you work with companies long-term? Do you help them set up kind of ongoing programs to continue the education? Gabrielle: We do all the above. Yes. And you know, we meet a client where they are, by the way, to, to your earlier question. Oftentimes clients reach out to us when someone is transitioning in the workplace. Th this is perhaps their first gender diverse individual who is showing up authentically in the workplace. And so consequently, they want to make sure that they're doing the right thing, not only for this employee, but for all the other employees and colleagues around this individual. So making sure that this is oftentimes. You know, how, why clients are reaching out to us. You know, when they're wanting to wanting support, we're doing a 90 minute one-on-one training with clients. We are actually supporting clients throughout their entire journey of creating inclusive culture for gender diversity individuals, which, uh, requires us to look at training specific trainings. Like I mentioned earlier for HR managers, you know, how does a manager, uh, support. Uh, gender diverse individual on their team, whether they are hired. Or whether that individual transitions on their team, how does a manager support that individual as well as manage, you know, the other members of that team, you know, we offer support for, uh, facility individuals who are creating these, this. All gender restrooms and workplaces understanding, you know, steps that you need to take in order to make them work for not only trans individuals that identify as binary women or men, but also non-binary individuals who identify as some form of male or female or a combination of both. So, uh, it is a journey and we just recently had a client of ours ups. You actually rolled out a, uh, initiative around their dress code policy, making it inclusive for their non-binary individuals. And ups has almost 500,000 employees globally. So we were very instrumental in Hedland helping that client roll out that, uh, inclusive, uh, dress code policy. So that was. We, we felt like that was a huge win for us. So again, meeting our clients where they are and supporting them as their needs come up, that they need support in. Passionistas: So how can people find a Transformation Journeys Worldwide and what can they expect when they approach. Gabrielle: I am all over the social medias. I'm on a LinkedIn. I'm on Twitter. I'm on Facebook. I'm on Instagram. Our website is Transformation Journeys, ww.com. And I'll also let the audience know that we have a wonderful resource. For you to use as a learning tool for you, wherever you are on your journey of understanding and interacting respectfully with gender diverse individuals, we have a lot of, uh, terms and definitions. We have a lot of videos and it's specific for a specific market. So again, we're trying to meet our partners, our prospective clients, where are they? So that they can see themselves in our work and a great way to reach out to us. You can go to our contact page on our website, send us an email, and we will be, uh, responsive to that, uh, inquiry and get back with you. And we can set up a call to talk about next steps. Passionistas: You're listening to the Passionistas Project Podcast and our interview with Gabrielle Claiborne. To learn more about her work, visit Transformation Journeys ww.com. If you're enjoying this interview and would like to help us to continue creating inspiring content, please consider becoming a patron by visiting the Passionistas Project dot com backslash Podcast and clicking on the patron button. Even $1 a month can help us continue our mission of inspiring women to follow their passions. Now here's more of our interview with Gabrielle. You've talked a little bit about living authentically. So why is that so important and how has living authentically transformed your life personally? Gabrielle: I think I have to go back a little bit to answer that question. And I would start at when I was eight years old or even a little younger, you know, I, when I was a young child that I knew that there was something different about. You know, I grew up in a very conservative environment. My daddy is a Pentecostal preacher. I'm actually a fourth generation Pentecostal preacher's kid. So, and this was long before the days of the internet. So I didn't have the language to understand, you know, what was going on inside of me. So consequently, I did what culture expects of a cisgender male to do. I got married to a beautiful. We had three amazing children. I had a very successful career owning multiple businesses in the construction industry, and I was a very prominently. And our church, a large church here in the Atlanta area, Atlanta, Georgia area. And so by all outward appearances, you know, I had life by the tail, but the reality was I was living a life of turmoil because of this internal gender dilemma, which I still had no words to describe. I was 45 years old. I accidentally stumbled across a website showing pictures of trans women. And when I saw these images immediately, That's me. So I spent the next five years doing online research, living between the exhilaration of knowing that's me and the despair of thinking. I can never live my life as a woman that would change my world, turn my world upside down. But after going through all of this turmoil, I finally decided to get help. And it was been in my online research. I found a woman. By the name of Ramona who actually made a living, dressing, biological males as women. Now, this just goes to show you that you can find anything on the internet if you're looking for it. Well, I finally mustered the courage to make an appointment with her. On the day of the appointment, Anzaldua, driving to her home, I was just, I was a nervous wreck, but as soon as she, as soon as she greeted me at her door and ushered me upstairs to her dressing salon, I thought I had died and gone to the cabin. And so she spent the night. You hours dressing me head to toe in my true feminine expression with the clothes, the heels, the wig, the makeup, the jewelry, this says stories. And when she got done, she walked away and I saw myself in the mirror for the very first time I was 45. I was 49 years old and meeting myself for the very first time. And it was in a. That's me. So I answered that question by saying, because I live so long in authentically, I knew, and there were a number of invitations in my life that invited me to get honest with what my heart was saying about who I was as a. Long ago, even though I met myself, you know, 40 years later after living an authentic wide. And so meeting myself the very first time, set me on the course of finding what was mine to do. And it turned my life upside down with my family, with my children, with my parents and sister who by the way, have chosen not to have any contact with me since coming out 11 years. Uh, with my vocation, with my spiritual community. So understanding these perceived risk and pain that I might experience, I realize over the course of the last year or last 11 years, that they pale in comparison to live in an inauthentic life and waking up at the end of the biolife and looking back and saying, did I do all I could do? To be in integrity with who I was created to be. So I've learned that the power of authenticity sets us up for success. Yes. The path to authenticity is not a straight line and yes, it has some bumps and difficulties along the way. But the view on the other side of authenticity is like, no, So Passionistas: Talk a little bit about those bumps. Like give, give some advice to someone who might be contemplating going through this. Not quite sure the steps to take and, and the, and the biggest stumbling block perhaps is that reaction from family and friends. And do you have any advice for people going through that? Gabrielle: First responses by my book. Embrace Your Truth the Journey of Authenticity uh, which came out last year, it is a memoir meets self-help book, uh, which is, uh, uh, a capitulation of my personal transition story. But it's also an invitation to an individ, to those individuals who are looking to embrace an aspect of their own authentic authenticity, whatever that looks. For the, you know, it just so happens that one aspect of my authenticity authenticity is my gender identity. That I am a transgender woman, but I am so much more than just a transgender woman. So the book was written for also the larger audience. But some of the things that I had to learn along the way was I talk about in chapter two, the importance of building a support system, because anytime we undertake a significant aspect of our truth, stepping into our truth a lot of time, that's a lot of times that step or those subsequent steps are going to impact those around us. So it's important to understand that this is not a journey to be traveled. So it's important to build that support system around you. That is going to be there when you can't get out of bed. I remember nights after night, waking up with my pillow drenched with my tears because of the reaction that my family was having. You know, towards my transition and learning, how do I navigate that to be in integrity with who I know myself to be, and at the same time, honor them and honor their journey of where they're trapping and where they are. Right? So this support system is crucial to be able to, to be, be there for you as you're navigating that. Another thing I learned was to honor the voice of my heart. You know, as I was growing up, I was taught to not pay attention to your, your intuition or your feelings because they will mislead you. Oh my goodness. Was I misled because as I've learned over the course of my journey of embracing my true. That it was actually my heart talking to me through, you know, my drains through my bodily symptoms, through my intuitions, our hearts, talk to us in five languages and understanding that I should pay attention to those things in order to live my most authentic life and understanding how to do that. I that's why I had to go see that live coach for a year. And she told me. She taught me how to get out of my head and into my heart and listen to my heart. And what I realized and learned over the course of that year was that I can do that and that my heart will not mislead me. I'll also learn the importance of holding space for those who are in my life and allow them to travel their journeys around. Whatever you don't mind journey of authenticity looks like for me and how it implicates them, right. Or the impacts that it has on them. Because you know, a lot, often times, a lot of friends who are embarking on a similar journey that I've traveled the last 11 years, they asked me say, Gabrielle, how did you navigate this with your family, your spouse and your kids. And I tried. Uh, support them and help them understand that even though this is our journey, it's also their journey as well. And you can't expect them to turn on a dime. You know, when I saw myself for the very first time, met myself in the mirror, it would have been unreasonable for me to then approach my family and say, here I am, this is the new me and expect them to welcome me with open arms. And in fact, it took me two years. Before I actually approached all of my family members and let them know who I was and tenants it's, it's been the last nine years of navigating those journeys with him, holding space for them, allowing them to grieve the loss of the person that they thought they were. Right. And then redefining what it looks like moving forward. You know, one of the, one of the things that we have realized my family speaking, speaking of my children and my ex-spouse, one of the things that we've had learned navigate is, you know, the special rec, uh, dates of recognition that we recognized here in the U S like father's day, you know, how do we celebrate father's day down? Do you, are you still are. Well, what does that work? What does that look like for you? So it's having those courageous conversations often difficult, oftentimes difficult conversations with your kids, understanding that you still want to be there for them as their parent, but finding a place, finding a space, finding a, um, a resolution that works for you. And works for them. So those are just a few things that I've learned over the course of my journey. Uh, I'll share one other bit of information with the audience and that is, I encourage you to also check out my Ted talk, building your courage muscles, because in that Ted talk, I'll talk about three things that we all have to do, regardless of what truth we're trying to unearth within. To step more into our authenticity. And the one is listening to your heart. As I mentioned previously, the other one is not, not necessarily needing to have a roadmap before you take that first courageous step. I know when I came out, I had to listen to my heart and I, it wasn't until I took that first courageous. That I learned what my second and third and fourth steps were. It was that first step that informed those steps. And it, it was after taking that courageous step, that those second, third and fourth steps became a little easier. And as I took those steps, I became, I became more courageous and bold and stepping into those steps. And also the final thing is understanding that, you know, the journey of authenticity is not a destination. The journey of authenticity is just that it's a journey. And we, every day, how we show up today determines our tomorrow. And so it's important to live in the moment, learn what we have to live today, so that as we approach tomorrow, we're setting ourselves up for success. Passionistas: You've been on this journey for 11 years, but in writing the book, was there something that you discovered about yourself from that process that surprised you? Gabrielle: That book has been the most vulnerable piece of work that I've done to date because I laid it all on the line. I, I shared with the reader, the things that, you know, I made mistakes with in my past. And come to terms with those things. I mean, you know, over the course of my journey, I've, I've learned the importance of recognizing and reframing those failures, those disappointments as invitations, as opposed to things that, that I'm not good enough or that I'm, you know, that I should be guilt, uh, shameful for. Right. Uh, but writing the book invited me. Deal a little bit more with forgiving myself and working through that grief process, you know, being gentle with myself. And I will tell you, as I wrote. Aspects parts of this book, parts of the book, there were these feelings that came up again, and I had to, I had to grieve things. I had to go through the forgiveness process and kid, I thought I was done with this. All. I had to learn that there was more work to do. So yeah, writing this book, uh, has been the most vulnerable. Way that I've shown up, but this is one thing I've also learned that it was, it was also a way that I could, that I could show myself and honor, honor, may four, or having navigated those difficult moments in my life. And to, to say, you know, If I can do that, then there's other things that I'm ultimately going to face down the road that I'm going to have to navigate. But I, you know, part, part of writing the book allowed me to build those milestones in my life that I can look back to what I needed courage and, and encouragement and think, well, have I did there, if I made it to there, I can keep moving forward. I can take that next step. So. It is a vulnerable piece of work, but I feel like the more we're vulnerable, I think that invites other folks to be vulnerable with themselves as well. Passionistas: How can we as allies best support the LGBTQ plus community? Gabrielle: Well, a couple of things that you can do is you can educate yourself. The good thing is that there are so many great resources out on the internet right now. That you can, you can invest in your own education. You know, oftentimes I think organizations and individuals make the mistake of relying on their trans friends, their trans family members, their trans colleagues to educate them, but not every trans gender nonconforming. And non-binary individual wants to bear the burden of educating you as an ally. We are, we're all about supporting you in your. But we're also wanting you to take the initiative, uh, and the responsibility, right. To do your own work. And when you do your own work, when you take that initiative to do your own work, you're going to learn a lot. That's why I shared our resources page in the earlier conversation, because it's a great resource that you can use to educate yourself. Another thing that you can do is understand how to use pronouns. You know, like I said, We can automate assumptions about what pronoun an individual uses, especially in our new virtual world, right? If we're on a call with a gender diverse individual and we're not identifying no pronouns, or we're not giving them the opportunity to identify their pronouns, especially in online, your individual that uses . We're not acknowledging them for who they are. So being intentional and creating these spaces to use your, you know, where you can use your pronouns. It goes a long way and normalizing our experience and helping us feel like not only are we safe, but this is a space where we can belong your pronouns in your email signature. If you have bios on your website, but your pronouns there as well. When you introduce yourself, How are you introducing yourself? How do you navigate that conversation with your gender diverse brand family member colleague? And what we recommend is, you know, when you introduce yourself, you say, hi, my name is Gabrielle and my pronouns. Are she her about you? But the, how about you does, is it sends a message to the person that you're talking with. That one, you understand the importance of pronouns and. Did you want to connect with them in a respectful way, and you're not placing the burden on them to educate you on the importance of pronouns, you know? And when, when you start doing this and you know, don't think that you won't make a mistake because the question is not. If it's, when we're kind of all make mistakes in the spirit of learning to do better. And if you make a mistake, you simply apologize. You don't make a big deal about it. You say, look, I'm just. I'm committed. I'm still learning. I'm committed to do better and do better. You know, as trans people, we understand that when someone innocently miss pronouns or mis-genders us and the spirit of learning to do better, as opposed to when someone does it deliberately, you know, another thing that you can do as allies is understand, understand, understand why it's important, not to deadname. Deadnaming us is using our pre-transition name. This is fair. This is considered very disrespectful by trans people. Another thing you can do is afford curious questions about anatomy or surgeries. You know, our anatomy has nothing to do with our identity. There are completely different. It doesn't define who we are as people. And the same thing was surgeries. You know, not all trans gender non-conforming and non-binary individuals may elect to pursue all aspects of physical transitions. One, it may not be their personal journey and two, they may not have the resources to pursue all of these aspects of physical transition. So understand and avoid use, asking questions. Those curious questions goes a long way and showing respect. And those are just a few things that you. Passionistas: So what's your dream for the TGNCNB community? Gabrielle: Oh, my goodness. Monitoring for my community is just what I said earlier is for folks to recognize that we have more in common than not that we are just another expression of the human experience, that our gender identity is just one aspect of all that we bring. So the table of all that we bring to the conversation of all that we bring to a relationship of all that we bring to a workplace. Right? We have, we are, we are qualified individuals. We are competent individuals. And if you give us a chance, we will show you that we can, we can set your organization of. Yeah, we can set yourself your organization up for success. We can create, we can help create an inclusive environment in your organization that improves innovation that improves your collaboration right. And ultimately improves your bottom line, but it starts getting comfortable with getting uncomfortable and having those courageous conversations and re and really understanding. You know who we are as human beings, we are first human beings and then all of the other intersections that we bring, then those that show up. Passionistas: Thanks for listening to the Passionistas Project Podcast and our interview with Gabrielle Clayborne, to learn more about her work, visit Transformation Journeys, Ww.com. Please visit the Passionistas Project dot com to learn more about our podcast and subscription box filled with products made by women owned businesses and female artisans to inspire you to follow your passions. Get a free mystery box with a one-year subscription with the code Fall Mystery, and be sure to subscribe to the Passionistas Project Podcast so you don't miss any of our upcoming inspiring guests. Until next time stay well and stay passionate.

Kylee Stone is a descendant of the Wakka Wakka and Kulluli First Nations with 25 years in the business of storytelling. She has an intrinsic talent in the power of personal stories to create meaningful connections. Certified in the neuroscience of resilience, Kylee's mission is to disrupt the status quo on the traditional view of leadership and enable people with the courage to take action in direct accordance with their vision, values, passion and purpose. Read more about Kylee. Learn more about The Passionistas Project. Full Transcript: Passionistas: Hi, and welcome to the Passionistas Project Podcast, where we talk with women who are following their passions to inspire you to do the same. We're Amy and Nancy Harrington and today we're talking with Kylee Stone, a descendant of the Wakka Wakka, and Kalali First Nations with 25 years in the business of storytelling and an intrinsic talent in the power of personal stories to create meaningful connections certified in the neuroscience of results. Kylee's mission is to disrupt the status quo on the traditional view of leadership and enable people with the courage to take action and direct accordance with their visions, values, passion, and purpose. So please welcome to the show Kylee Stone. Kylee: Thank you. So good to be here with the two of you. Passionistas: We're so happy to have you here. What are you most passionate about? Kylee: I am passionate about the relationship between design and storytelling — so the design of storytelling and its ability to influence the way that we lead specifically, and more importantly, women's ability to do that. And when I say that, because I do believe that as an indigenous person and I'll, and I'll reference that… our cultural background is fundamentally historic. And what we know about storytelling is very different from a cultural perspective to what we know in the world today. But when we do look at that, fundamentally, the whole purpose of that really is, if you imagine sitting around a fireplace, for example, which, you know, from an indigenous cultural point of view is more around fire, where you would have people. You know, there was no language for it as what we've created today, but certainly it was all about people connecting. It was just about the connection of people. And so when we look at that lens and we put that over the world today, you know, if we even dissect, I suppose, the entertainment industry — movies, you know, I love drama, right? I love a good story. But great drama is based on a great story. And when we look about our relationship to the story, I think there's always a real connection where, you know, if you go to a great film and you cry, there's definitely a great story in that. You know, there's an immediate connection with us as a human being. So for me, I like to be able to take that, in terms of its architecture, and apply it to. Each of us has an individual understanding how that works for us at the level of human being, and then how that influences our strength, our character, our courage, and fundamentally the way we communicate so that we have the experience of being able to pursue what it is that is important. And for me, what that means is being able for a woman to express and experience her own self-expression. In terms of leadership for me, that's very different from what I've been raised in. I say this whole thing about a new paradigm of leadership because in my generation, I was raised pretty much in a model where you've got companies that are designed basically out of the industrial revolution, right, where it's very much a command and control method. But I think for me, I'm not saying it's not about change, so I'm very clear, it's not about change now. I'm not here to change. I'm here to create something new. And when we create something new, we're not changing the old we're actually just at work on crafting a new future. And that for me is really designed around women leading the way on that because I do think women are natural nurturers. They're natural storytellers. And I think that's where we can get a real transformation. Passionistas: Let's take let's step back. Tell us about your heritage and particularly your grandmother and mother. Kylee: Well, I'll start with my grandmother. So. My grandmother was, uh, born and raised at a controlled country. So I'm a descendant of the, a couple of nations. One is the Wakka Wakka nations, which is where my grandmother was born and her mother. So my great grandmother was a tree, was originally from a place called Kalali, which is when we talk about our nations. It's really the air in the region as an Aboriginal person. And. Um, some, a descendant of what what's called the stolen generation, which was a group of indigenous people who, children who were removed from their family because they were considered half. So the Wakka Wakka area was, was where a lot of the indigenous. So when the British came, they moved all the indigenous people out of their, their, their communities. And they put them into, I'm not sure what the technical term that you would call it, but they'd put them into areas. And one of those areas was called Wakka Wakka. So Wakka Wakka was not an original nations. It was. Multiple nations. And so my grandmother was removed from Kalali and taken to Wakka Wakka when she was discovered to be pregnant. And she was pregnant to the men who she was on a farm with. So she was already moved originally to a place where she was at which at two years old. So at two years old, she was taken from her family, put into a, essentially with the local school teacher and his family. So, you know, whilst on the one hand, you know, we look from the view called, oh my goodness. She was, she was removed from her family, how awful she wasn't put into an environment where she was not taken care of from the other way. When we look, you know, she was with a school teacher and his wife and their family. So she was there till she was 20. In her late twenties and then fell pregnant. And we have paperwork that actually says she wrote a letter basically to the police department, letting them know that she had fallen pregnant to the, to the gentlemen who was the, the owner of the property. But of course he denied. So that was when she was moved. So then she was moved to Wakka Wakka and, you know, within, I think six months later, she had gave birth to my grandmother in the Wakka Wakka region. And then all the women who were single and had children, there were homes for them on this property. So there was a home where there was the kids, there was a home where there was the mothers. Children. And then there was the rest of the community. And so she might, my grandmother was born and then in this particular part of the village. And so when she was three that the government had come in with buses, from what school here, the salvation army and the buses came in to take all the children who were half cast. So if they looked like they were white, they were taken and removed. To a salvation army residence where they were believed to be being raised for a bit of a better education and a better future that will given that we're given education, basically. So again, you know, uh, my grandmother was three taken from her mother. So you know that there is trauma and there's, uh, you know, horrifying kind of, you never want your daughter to be taken from your mother, you know, and nor do to your right. And at the same time, you know, if we look from the other view, you know, she's, she was given education education and she was given these other opportunities. So that was, that was my grandmothers, my grandmother, and right. My grandmother's story. So my grandmother had married a British man and they had children. There was some dysfunction in that relationship, you know, as for whether I can speak the truth to that. I really, I can't, I can't because sadly my grandmother's no longer here, but my, it was my grandma. It was a situation where my grandmother felt like she needed to leave. So she left and left my grandfather with all the. So there was my mother, my mother's dead. My mother was five twin sisters. She had twin sisters who were two years old. They had a brother and an older brother, so there was four of them. So he moved them into a home salvation army home, bizarrely enough. So at five years old mum was taken from a family and put into there with her sisters. And she, she lived there till she was 15, basically. So for 10 years, from five to 15, She stayed there on this property and then came out and one year later, after coming out, she fell pregnant with, with me. And so technically, uh, when I, when I started to, uh, understand the story, I discovered, you know, it was in the seventies. So I discovered that actually I was technically the first woman out of four generations to not have been taken away from or removed from my mother and in some respects. So yeah, it's. Uh, I think in the wa you know, it made me question actually, because I think when I looked back at the timing of that, you know, the seventies where the, the, the, the civil rights movement, there was a big push around women's liberation. And, you know, my mother was only 16 at the time. And at that time, she was told that if she gave birth to. She would not be welcome home because any woman who had a child out of wedlock, they would take the children from them. Now they didn't go to take the children from her, but they said to her, if you have this child, you're not coming home, you know, it's like disown the family, which is very common, you know, it wasn't, it's like, you know, we look at that now. Oh my God, that's just atrocious. But it was very common back then for a lot of women. In fact, it was only until 2012 that the government here actually did a national apology to all the women who gave. To children in the seventies and had their children's take taken away from them. So there was a generation of children who are now my age, who were raised without their biological parents, because they were out of wedlock. So it's kind of serendipitous too, in terms of my mother, she just clearly decided to be some kind of rebel and decided, no, that's not, that's not how it's going to go. Passionistas: She must have been incredibly strong to make that decision in the midst of that. Kylee: I think to myself, imagine being 16 years old in a hospital by yourself, isolated, having your family say, we don't want to part of it. And now you're stuck here. They did. I was in a waiting room for four weeks. They'd actually filled out all the adoption papers and she'd had four weeks to make the decision. And it was, she said it was the last day. She said it got to the last day. And she said, I just could not, I couldn't do it. I just could not bring myself to think about what it would look like if I had to try and find you. Passionistas: So how, how did those experiences impact your childhood and did they impact your life to this day? Absolutely as a kid, I would say no way. You know, I, I, I, my nickname as a kid was Smiley Kylee. I was a joyful kid. You know, my mother was 16, so she had lots of great friends around her and her friend's parents actually. So she had a lot of support that way. So I none, the wiser, you know, you don't know what you don't know, you don't know. So as. I don't know, except definitely subconsciously The, there was a, like, one of the things that I'm now dealing with is the, you know, the there's the whole theory around attachment theory. And you know, one of the things that, you know, because I was not raised in a very stable, traditional household, I was moved around a lot. So I'm not very attached to people. And that has been really difficult. You know, I've, I've lost my grandfather just recently. And it was really challenging because it was the first time I'd had, you know, I've only ever really lost grandparents. I've not had the experience. Well, we've had close friends, very young to pass. It's just a very different experience. Cause it's a tragedy, but people relatively close to. You know, I, I, I had this experience called God. I felt like a real cold beach, you know, because I just, I wasn't emotional, you know, I wasn't this really torn upset person. And I really, it challenged me because I thought, oh my God, what is wrong with you? You know, that was my immediate, what is wrong with you? I spoke to some friends of mine. One of whom is just got a background psychology, and she's just an extraordinary human in terms of what she knows. And she said, you know, she explained the whole thing about grief and this attachment theory. And I went, God, that explains everything. You know, the, the way I was raised, the knot I learned to not be attached, I was the kid that you could stick in the middle of the room and she'd be happy with anybody, you know? And so if I look at it from that perspective, it was like, well, of course. She, she expects people. I gotta leave, you know, and it wasn't a problem for me as a kid. In fact, it's one of my greatest skills, even as an adult, you know, I've mobilized, you know, I'm my, my whole strength. In fact, it's very aligned even to my cultural background. I'm all about community. I'm all about others. I'm all about, you know, being of service to everybody else. And you know, I, you can stick me in the middle of anywhere and I'll blend with anybody. And I think I've always fought for that. I've always fought for, for diversity and equality and injustice and, you know, enhance why it's no accident. I'm fighting against some hierarchical view of leadership. Like what the heck are you serious? Like, just because you've got a title and you're sitting on some top pain, half a million bucks a year for your salary doesn't mean I need to treat you any different to the person who's cleaning the goddamn bathroom, you know, and I respect that you've got experience and talent. I listen and respect that because that's fundamental to who we are in our culture is all respect. You don't need a title, have respect. You just have respect period. So that, that definitely shaped, had a massive impact in who I've become in life and how I've surrounded myself with creating communities and building communities. And, and what I'm doing in the area of women is, you know, even five years ago, I started a women's group called team women, Australia, and it was all about story to. And I called a team for the purpose of team. I D I didn't want this hierarchical view. Of course, it's taken me seven years to mobilize the damn thing, because I was stuck in the existing paradigm myself and say how we were trying to build it was inside that paradigm. And all it was it's like, why is this not working? It was like, oh my God, why didn't you just stop doing it? I know, finally, here we are, you know, post pandemic and it's mobilizing, you know, we took the lid off and off the boundary itself and just went, you know, actually the whole purpose is team and collaboration and community and create, you know, it's not about having some organizational structure and I just want to, if I can implement it there in terms of how I see what's possible in the world, then I'll, I'll I'll know I've kind of achieved what I'm here to, which. Passionistas: We're Amy and Nancy Harrington and you're listening to the Passionistas Project podcast and our interview with Kylee Stone. To discover the power of storytelling to ignite your passion, grow your influence and amplify the impact you have in business leadership and life, visit ThePerformanceCode.co. If you're enjoying this interview and would like to help us continue creating inspiring costs, please consider becoming a patron by visiting ThePassionistasProject.com/podcast and clicking on the patron button. Even $1 a month can help us continue our mission of inspiring women to follow their passions. Now here's more of our interview with Kylee. You also had the straightforward traditional career, and that certainly has impacted where you are today and you're thinking about structure, so tell us about that career. Kylee: I've had such a great career. I feel so blessed, you know, I really do. And I feel blessed because I was in a time when media, in my opinion, feet here in Australia was really thriving. So I got to work with some really just extraordinary, extraordinary people. And in fact, whenever I reflect on any of the jobs I've had, I like there's been people that have stuck with me my entire life since then, you know? So it was actually an accident that I landed in media. I did not want to leave home when it came to university. And at the time I was living on the gold coast, which there was, there was no university on the gold coast, which meant for me, if I was going to go do a university, I would have had to travel away from. Of course I did not have enough. My prefrontal cortex wasn't developed enough to have enough emotional intelligence to know what was going on, so I didn't go beyond it. Right. So I didn't go straight to university, but what it meant was I ended up going to, uh, you know, uh, did a full-time intensive college. On the gold coast in business and marketing and advertising. And, and I excelled, I mean, I'm, I'm very smart. And I, I taught, you know, I think I did three first-class honors, uh, in business management, sales management, and marketing itself. And then over the college, they had different areas of industry worked within the unit within the college. And I had came through his class on, was over the entire college. So I so. And it was on the graduation evening that, you know, typical graduation, you have sponsors tables, etc. And as I was coming off the stage with the awards, the guy who was the marketing director at the time at the media company, pulled me over and gave him his business card and said, listen, I've got a job for you. Just give me a call on Monday. And I was like, you beauty, you know, graduated college. The last thing you want to do is try and find a job. So that was, that was literally how much my study. I rocked up on his doorstep. No kidding. On the Monday morning, without an appointment, not knowing, I mean, I had no idea how, what was protocol and best way to do that. And anyway, he was in meetings. So I sat there for half the time until he was ready to say me. And that was the beginning of my career. You know, he actually did not have a job to be honest. He was like, I just want this person in here and made a job for me. So of course, the first six months of my job, my career was born. Boring on one aspect from a technical point of view, because I was in this marketing and promotions team and I had to pay stuff. In those days, newspapers, you had to paste up the content inside the paper. So that was part of my job, needless to say it was also fun because we had the very first Indy grand Prix here on the gold coast. And we were, you know, we were the major sponsors. So, you know, we got to go to these big fabulous events and stuff like that. But I was invited by the head of the research, uh, team to come in and say easy. Do you know anything about computers? I had done a bit of. A bit of what do you call it? Uh, just data stuff in college. Like nothing really learning how to talk. I was like, yeah, sure. I know how to use computers. He so great. He said, but because at the time his department with the exception of editorial that had one was the only department that had a computer. So he sees a great, can you come in and do you want to help me just do some data crunching? And he asked me, yeah, sure. Next night, I'm home that night with the manuals, you know, the old Microsoft Excel, Microsoft, I would manually. Teaching myself how to use a camera, as I say, he's a computer, but I went back and, uh, anyway, I fell in love with it. I fell in love with the data we had. Basically our job was to interpret the data, to help the sales teams, you know, sell and commercialize the business and help the editorial teams understand the readers of the paper and blah, blah, blah. And that's what I did for the next 20 years. I, I just, I loved it. I, I loved the connection between the data and being able to convert that into. You know, sales presentations for the sales teams and when they would sell, they would sadly they'd get all the bonus. And I didn't, but I was paid pittance at that stage as a 19 year old, but, but that's, I just loved it. I loved what I did and I just kept doing that. I did that for four years and he was a real supporter of mine and just, he was like, you got to get to Sydney, you know, get, get, take the next level. And I went for a job. I didn't get it initially because I didn't have a degree and I'd only just started doing a part time. And, but three months later they rang me back. Oh, the person with the degree didn't work out. Can you take the job still? Yeah. So that got me the big. Um, I moved down to Sydney at the time and, uh, worked for, uh, you know, our, our major metropolitan papers here, the Australian and the Telegraph. And this is the main ones and that's kind of what set me off. I just, then I, I, it, and it really was a methodical journey from there. It really was. I worked hard. I loved what I did. I got a promotion and then I got a pay rise. And then, you know, there was a bit of dysfunction in that team. I went and looked at our trade press and went, oh, I want to go work in the Marie Claire, you know, they're going to launch Marie Claire, I'd love to do that. And I got the job and that's how it unfolded. It really was like, no kidding. It's like the traditional, here's a letter. Here's the steps you take to get to the top. Here's what you need to do that. And you work hard. You do a good job next year, you'll get a 2.5% pay increase or whatever the CPI rate is at the time. And if you do that well, then you'll move up and then you'll move up and then you'll move up. And so I did that until 2006. Uh, and, uh, and in that time I've got to do some extraordinary work, launching some incredible brands and was then the marketing and strategy director for News Corp, which I know being global. Everyone knows that. So it's easy to say that, but, uh, I did that for six years and I just loved it. You know, I really, really loved my job. I had a T I, you know, worked on the expansion of this team and. Transformed the way that we worked at just hi, my commitment to delivering great products was at the heart of everything. And having people really enjoy what they do. I just really loved it. Loved it, loved it, loved it. And then of course, three kids had got to really suck on my God, how do I do this? So it was, that was, that was really the first turning point of like, oh my gosh, how do I get to, how do I get to still make a difference and be a leader? Do what I really love now that I've got three kids in my kids. You know, this was when I, when I'd had the third one. So the first. I navigated, like I went back to work after three, you know, three months. Cause my child, God bless him would sleep 12 hours a night. So I'd be up during the day and I'm like, oh my God, I can't handle this. Child's just to alert. I need to go back to. So I'm sleeping 12 hours and night. I feel really quite, except you're just running around crazy. I can't cope with this. I went back to work. So I went back to work two times, you know, with the first child and the second child went back to work. Full-time on both occasions and on both occasions, just, I think this is a story I think is really important for women to hear, because not all the stories about. You know, I know we hear a lot of bad stories about women who return to work and they get treated badly and they, you know, like that. And sometimes I think we do do ourselves a disservice by not being able to hear stories that actually go really well because when we hear stories that go really well, we've got an access into what could I have done differently to, to do that. And on both occasions, I got the biggest pay rise I've ever had in my career. And I got the biggest promotion I've ever head whilst I was on maternity leave. So it was an extraordinary time for me. And it wasn't until the day I had my third child and I went back to work that I, that it all fell apart. I was like, okay, three kids in three years, Colleen, who the hell, even kidding, like really, you can't keep doing this. You're going to burn out. You're going to kill your family. You know, something's got to shift and that's when everything started to change. Really. So what happened. Uh, huh, I call it the, I call it the dirty dancing story. So I'm w I'm walking. Literally my third child is 10 months old Harrison, so it was 2010. And, uh, I'm walking back into the office, thinking to myself, I am so desperate just to get a hot cup of coffee and be able to go to the toilet and piece, you know, three kids under three. And it was like, oh, I need to, I want to go. I want to go back part time. And I wanted to go back into my job because I just come up the back of three years of working on this major rebranding project and strategy, and is keen to get back into that project with the team. So I'm walking into the office and literally as I'm walking through the corridor, I think to myself, You are crazy. You can't do this. You can't, you cannot go back know to a full-time job or a big job, or you've got three kids. And so I sat into the, uh, sat down with him and said, look, I want to come back. And so I immediately decided for myself, I need to ask for part-time, that's the only way to do that. So I said, you know, can I part time he didn't want me in the job? He wanted somebody in that particular role full-time and he said, and I, and so I negotiated to split it. So I had marketing and strategy director and I said, well, what if I take the strategy? Part of all that work and the guy that's doing my MetLife, you know, he can kick the operational aspect. So he agreed. So I came back and did three days a week just doing strategy and. Showing up. It was really grateful. I'm really grateful to just be able to get away from having three kids and really the stress of that coming into work. And I was in an office and so right outside. So where are my, so I've been put into an office that was in the executive area and I don't know, you know, Certainly in Australia, you know, traditional corporate stolen environments, usually executive suites are either on a particular floor or certainly NewsCorp all over the world. It's like this, right? Either it's the Taj Mahal, which is what we would call it that sits at the top. Or there's a floor, a dedicated floor. That's all for the executive suites and it's luxurious. Right? So I'm in the. Area. So when I was marketing director, I was in the marketing area with all the staff. And so now here I am in the executive area, in an office, outside the executive boardroom. By myself and, you know, I should be grateful because I've got my own office and it's peaceful and it's quiet and blah, blah, blah. I can do my own thing. Yeah. Great. But then all of a sudden there was a day when my old executive team, so we're in the boardroom. They start walking in the boardroom and I'm sitting there on the outside. There's a glass window on my side, outside the office. And I think to myself, what the heck. What the, this is not, this is not the picture I imagined. So, so, and I had this like all of a sudden for myself. Okay. So I've just climbed 20 years to get to this role now, just because I'm doing three days a week and I was actually in the executive team, but now I'm sitting here no longer part of the conversation or not, not only am I no longer part of the conversation, I don't have any staff anymore. So I'm alone and. I don't have any accountability. I'm not accountable for a budget line. I'm just on the sideline. And I kid you not. That's like, you know, you know, that scene in dirty dancing where baby Houseman sitting in the corner, waiting for Patrick Swayze to, you know, he walks in the door, my Patrick Swayze didn't walk in the door, sadly. I thought, no, this is not okay. I am not okay with this. And I just, at that moment decided I needed to do something about it. I I'm not, I just need to do something about it. So I decided to go back to true style, made tomb, to turn things around. Went and sorted out the fact that I had completed my undergrad degree, I decided at that then I had a conversation actually with one of the guys at work. And I said, look, I said, what what's next for me? And honestly, what immediately Curt is the only thing I could do is I, well, if I'm going to compete here, I need to go get myself an MBA. That was immediately what I thought. But really that's what I thought. I thought, if you're going to compete there to get what you need to get you going to have an MBA. So I got to the guy who was CFO at the time, I said, right, I'm going to have to. And he said, well, you do realize you don't need to given your experience. You actually don't need to complete your undergrad. You could actually make an application to have it authorized and you could go and do your postgrad. Guess what I did. I submitted through to the university. I got my undergrad approved and they approved me to go into post-grad studies so that I could start doing an MBA and, or specializing in change management. Right. All the meanwhile still doing three days at work, still juggling the three children. Oh. And let's just say added a coach in there into the mix as well, because it was just like, ah, I don't know what the heck I'm doing. Right. And so I just, everything. And so that was what I decided to do. I was like, you know what? I got to turn this around. This is I'm not going to get stuck because in marketing, one of the big problems in marketing is everybody in the company always thinks they know better as a marketer. Somehow that's just one of those. It was a, everybody can do. And I thought I'm not going to get stuck with this future. So when I did make the decision to change, that's when I changed direction and went, okay, what is the future for me? If I looked out there somewhere in the future, and rather than looking at a step change, I was like, what could I imagine for myself? And I, and that was when I got present to the opportunity of transformation and actually dealing more directly with people as opposed to customer. And that was why I chose to do the change management certification. And then of course I did two subjects of that. Very proud, got two high distinctions in both subjects, but was sitting down there while I was submitting my final paper. It was a school holiday period when we were on holidays with the kids and on aided to submit this piece of work. And I, as I sat there doing it, the kids were at my fate and I, and I hadn't had another one of those moments. I looked down at them and I thought, is this what you want your life to be about? Do you want your kids. To grow up thinking that you and you, that you're going to look back not having had these moments because you're too busy attending to what you technically think is getting ahead in your career. Let's just so at that point I quit. I quit the study. I said, this is not the right time. I spoke to my boss at the time at work and they were doing a lot of transformation work and I made a request. I said, I can do that job. And I know I can do that job. I don't need to get a piece of paper to tell you I can do that job. And quite frankly, I've seen people doing that job who had the paper and they're actually not delivering results. And so he pointed me the hate of change and strategy planning at the point at that time, that new school and was put on a project. What that adjust again? I just loved, I loved to work with the people and literally that was my last gig at new school, but I did that for a few years. And at the same time was, became so passionate about, you know, other women who were dealing with the same stuff. And I remember walking in the office one particular day and I've got to the coffee shop, which is clearly the first step for any mother, get to the coffee first. And I'm standing in line with the coffee, having coffee. And there was a lady who was, I'd worked with maybe four or five years previously. She was standing in the queue behind me. And you tapped me on the shoulder, says, Hey, don't worry. I say, most of the time when I get to the front of the coffee shop, I'm like, don't talk to me. I just want to not talk to anyone. Just, you know, just nod and say, yes, good. Except the turnaround. I saw who it was. And I just said saving really, but you really want to know and very pissed off. Oh my God. Well, And I told her, I said, listen, I just really fed up with this whole, I've spent all these years to get where I've gotten. And I said, I just seriously just feel like my, somehow my intelligence just seems to be dissipated. You know, it's not relevant anymore. Or I should just be part time. And because I'm doing part-time, I'm not contributing at the level. Even though I had this really great trainers role, there was a lot of the aspects of the role that it wasn't getting. And when she said me too, I was like, really. And I'll tell you at that point, I honestly did not see that it was more than just me and I want to aspects, I go, that's very insolent. Right. But, but I didn't get at that point, the degree to which, because I hadn't, you know, there hadn't really been a huge awareness at that point around the issues of working women in senior leadership positions and the challenge. It was very early days. But when she said that, I said, that's awful. And I said to her, what are you doing? She said, well, what came up. I was like, really? And that was, as you, you know, as I was saying, I had gone and started taking a number actions. I'd got myself into a UGA gig. And so I said that basically, people, listen, I'm happy to share with you, you know what I've done. And to kind of start to carve out a new future for yourself. And we went and had lunch at the pub, sat down and started sharing with her about what I was doing. She said some amazing. And I said, oh, you know what I said, well, here's a few things to get you started. I've got to start it. And. Long story short, next minute, I'm running a weekly mentoring. Well, I call it a mentoring, but it was really a weekly chat with a group of women that went for, went up to 55 women who were all technically dealing with similar staff attempting to really carve out a future for themselves as a leader. And it went outside of new school. So we had women in news Corp, but then women in news Corp had friends who were in other companies and it just kind of went from there. And then. That's what turned into team women, Australia. Like we just like, oh, we did this event. And then that went like that and it just kind of organically just took off. Passionistas: What is leadership transformation? Kylee: Leadership transformation is two things. To firstly acknowledge it. So transformation is a new view. So if you think about a butterfly that was a caterpillar, it's still the same animal. It's actually still the same, right? In many aspects, it comes from the same core. What once was a caterpillar, has a new view, becomes this butterfly. So transformation is a process of seeing a new view that opens up a new world. And so leadership transformation is about acknowledging what we already know about leadership and our own view. So one of the things too, to have a transformation in the area of leadership, you've first got to get out of the way. What do I already know? And how do I already relate to leadership that's constraining myself. So for me, it was really confronting, I have lived inside of this paradigm where leadership is something that you do and you progress to, and you get some academic qualifications along the way. And then when you get those qualifications, you get into a position. And once you've got that position and you're accountable for people, you're released. Right? So I first had to get that my behaviors and how I was showing up was conditional on that, that's design. And so when I got that, I noticed that actually I have to separate myself from that perspective and to acknowledge that I'm not a leader because of my credentials. I'm not a leader because I have the title. I'm not only a leader if I get into a position where I have accountability of people. I'm not that, not that, not that, not that. Okay. Well, if I'm not that, then where does it exist? Does my leadership in being a leader exist and that's this whole new world. That's the leadership transformation. It is the transformed view of who I am and what's possible as a leader in the world. And that's the part where I say, you know, using the storytelling stuff, it's really by design. It's by design. Who you are as a leader is by design. And I've interviewed hundreds of people in various leadership roles, not just in a I'm a CEO or I'm a founder, or I've spoken to people who are in leadership development. And I've spoken to people who've exuberated leadership as an athlete. And I can tell you, you ask them what their definition of a leader is and not one single person says the same thing. So, leadership transformation is about the individual acknowledgement of what's been constraining the view, and then by design designing what that looks like for you. And so the design piece then is the same as story, you know, when you craft a story about how that new future is very similar. To brand story. And you know, this kind of brought in all of my background in building brands and media and storytelling was there very simply two things at the beginning level. That is what is the future I see for myself. What is that vision? We call it a vision. And then what is the purpose for that vision? What is my why for doing that? And when you bring those two things together. Quite simply, if there is a universal view, it's someone who has a vision for a future and is out to fulfill on it with purpose and connects people with purpose. They're not connected on anything other than the fulfillment of a vision with purpose. And how you do that is up to you. That's by design because what you want in the future you're committed to is going to be very different to the person beside you. But when we do that individually and we do it collectively, it is very powerful. It mobilizes, it really aligns people on what's really at the heart of who we are, which is our purpose. Each one of us has a purpose. People mistake often that my why is about my why? Well now actually that's, it's your why, but your why speaks about others. So my purpose is to create meaningful connections. It's about what happens out there in the world. It's not what happens in here. So in that aspect, it's a leader in the sense that you, you are clearly here in the service of others. And yet your view of others is not independent of you. It includes you. So there is no you and me, there's just who I am and who I am is who you are. There's no me and you there's just you and me, me and you. Passionistas: Tell us a little bit about the Unchartered Leaders Podcast, why you started that and what you hope people take away from it Kylee: Starting a podcast was actually one of the, one of the most challenging things I've done actually to do the first one. I was really nervous, but I, the thing that got me off the ground was a commitment to one thing in particular. And this is right. Goes right to the heart of my concern and my passion for creating a new paradigm of leadership and leadership transformation in particular. And I, and I, and I, because when I look at what happens in an organization, so in the current structure, in a hierarchy, what tends to happen, and I did this myself, you know, when things are not going well in a company, right. We all blame the boss. We blame the company, you know, it's definitely the people sitting at the top who are not doing this, who are doing that and data day to day. Right. So except when things go really well, we don't say, oh, it's because of the box. Right. We go, oh, that's because of us. It's because of what we did. We're so fabulous. Oh, give me a pay rise. Oh. But the bosses want to pay themselves more money. We have, but what about us? And it's because of the team and what we did. So what what's really, if we're really Frank, there is no freedom inside of it inside of bank. As someone who actually eats in that seat while that's all going on, that leader has no freedom to thrive and be successful. That I, that is not okay for me. I'm like, that's not okay, because if we want to be a leader, what are we doing to our leaders? What, who, who are we that we are not embracing a leader's decision? You know? And so for me, the uncharted leader podcast was to, to achieve things. One, I want it to be able to tell the stories of those who are in leadership. So people could get an insight into actually what it's really like. That they are human beings with a commitment to make a difference. They were you, they were at some point climbing someplace to get somewhere and are now being courageous enough to step into a role where they know everyone else is going to shoot them down. Fundament. You know, now it happens more at Australia here. I think then what it does potentially in Australia, because in the, at least in the states, you know, you don't have this tall poppy thing where you want to, people are really great about being, being okay to be celebrated. Whereas here it's, it's less. So I wanted a chance for people to, I want it to deal with that illusion called those people. You know, they've got beautiful stories to be told, so that's the first thing. And then the second thing is in sharing their stories. I wanted people who were aspiring leaders to get that being a leader is a great, is great. It's a great opportunity. See, in, in, in the world that we live in today, being a leader is a bad idea. Being a leader is a really bad idea because it's, you, you're going to get shot down. And, you know, people are going to have a whole stack of opinions about you. It's exhausting. It's a burnout, it's hard work. And so I'm like, yeah, Yana. What if being a leader was a really great idea because being a leader has more to do with how you choose to show up yourself and to operate from being accountable, rather than judge someone else. You know, we sit in our lounge rooms, complaining about our political leaders. We all do. And yet we complain sitting on our couch, never having, ever set in a role as being a prime minister or a president ever. Uh, so we're very good at sitting back and judging others and, and, and, and I'm saying, no, the uncharted leader is someone who's saying, okay, I'm going to step back and take a look over here for me. What is, what is it for me to express myself as a leader and to embrace that and to chart out a future that is completely uncharted. It is uncharted, no matter where you're at really, it's the way we think all of a sudden, because it's a pandemic it's uncertain. Are you kidding me? The world is, it's never been certain. I mean, we live in like with some certainly, I'm sorry. You walk out the front door. You've got no clue about what's going to happen. You know, this is an uncharted life. Being a leader is uncharted and let's embrace that because actually everything that we need in order to be the best leader we can possibly be is all over here within us. Passionistas: Thanks for listening to The Passionistas Project Podcast in our interview with Kylee Stone. To discover the power of storytelling to a night, your passion grow your influence and amplify the impact you have in business leadership and life visit ThePerformanceCode.co. Please visit ThePassionistasProject.com to learn more about our podcast and subscription box filled with products made by women-owned businesses and female artisans to inspire you to follow your passions, get a free mystery box with a one-year subscription using the code FALLMYSTERY. And be sure to subscribe to The Passionistas Project Podcast so you don't miss any of our upcoming inspiring guests. Until next time, stay well and stay passionate.

Lori Lynn of Overall Buddies is a national early childhood specialist, an international speaker and an award-winning children's singer/songwriter. She is the creator of Overall Buddies a series of original songs and videos for young children and the grown-ups who care for and love them. Recently she expanded her business to create her first children's book. Read more about Overall Buddies. Learn more about The Passionistas Project. Full Transcript: Passionistas: Hi, and welcome to the Passionistas Project Podcast, where we talk with women who are following their passions to inspire you to do the same. We're Amy and Nancy Harrington and today we're talking with Lori Lynn of Overall Buddies. Laurie is a national early childhood specialist and international speaker and an award-winning children's singer song. She's the creator of Overall Buddies a series of original songs and videos for young children and the grownups who care for them and love them recently. She expanded her business to create her first children's book. So please welcome to the show. Lori Lynn. Lori Lynn: Thank you so much. I'm honored to be. Passionistas: We're really excited to have you. What's the one thing you're most passionate about? Lori Lynn: I am most passionate about early childhood, so everything and anybody that has to do with early childhood, that's my number one passion. And that includes teachers, or of course, young children, zero to five is my expertise. So anything having to do with that teachers and librarians and families. And quality programs that serve early childhood children. And then second to that in a very close second is my music. So right now, in this last act of my life, as I've heard of your, you hit a certain age you're in your last act. It was my mother's last wish that I follow this dream finally. And I am using both of those passions early childhood in music. Passionistas: How are you combining those two? Lori Lynn: I combine those two things with the brand that I created, the business that I've created is overall buddies. And I create quality content, um, for children and the people who love them, like you said, and that's the biggest part of my mission is that it's going to be quality content and number one, Is the social, emotional connection that music can have for young children and those around them, their families, their classmates, their teachers, um, just feeling connected through the music. Passionistas: So now you mentioned your mom, so let's take a step back a little bit. Where did you grow up? What was your childhood like? And when did you discover your love of music? Lori Lynn: I grew up in a small, small town in Iowa. I'm an Iowa farm girl and it's called prim guard. It's the only prim guard in the world. We had a big whopping number of 900 people in our down. Yes. I had like 30 people in my classroom and we were one of the biggest classrooms. I knew I loved music. From the earliest earliest age. My first song I wrote was when I was five years old and it was about my brother's motorcycle. Cause everybody was excited about this motorcycle. So I went around singing this song about how he loves this motorcycle. And, um, it was kind of a cute little song and it was about, I love my Yamaha. And now I live by Omaha. And so I'm writing a song about how I love my Omaha. And so it's the same tune since I was five years old. So it stuck in my head. And so I've always written these really ear wormy songs. You know, that, that my brothers will say, I remember that song and it sticks in my head. Darn you, you know, those kinds of things. So I always loved music. It was something that saved me. My, um, Father was had real angry trouble and took it out on us. Sometimes it was somewhat of an abusive childhood. Um, it wasn't every day it was very sporadic, but he died when I was 12 and my life after 12 was just blissful with my mom and those of us that were left and. You know, my dad, bill loved music and music was always allowed in my house. And my mom was 16 when she got married. So she grew up really with all these children and she grew up, I mean, she was 16 and got married. It was like the late fifties. So she was in her early twenties when the Beatles came out and the rolling stones and you know, my brothers are 10 years older than me, so I grew up. Tons of music in my house. And you know, my mom was a young woman and so she had all these albums and music. So my life was surrounded by music and I always, um, it was always tugging at me. I, I would say to people, okay. I don't know what God wants me to do with this. It's either a curse or a blessing. I don't know. But the songs keep coming to me and I'm like, okay, I'll write it down. Or I'll record it on a Dictaphone is what I used to use. You know, it was a cassette recorder and then I had a Dictaphone and now I use my voice memo on my, on my phone, but it's like, the songs will come to me and I'm like, it's either really a curse or they're going to blow. Me or other people someday, I just kept answering to it and capturing them. So now I'm trying to figure out if it's supposed to be what I was supposed to do all along. Right. Did you ever perform. Oh, yeah. I sang at church from the time I was, I think second grade I was singing in the little choir and singing solos and I loved singing in front of people. And I got a guitar at fifth grade and I was always singing at church. And then I was singing in school and I was a music major, a voice major for two years and then at college. So yeah, I didn't know what to do with music. I just knew it was going to be in my life. I kind of struggled in college, like. I don't think I want to be a music teacher and I didn't really know what else to do. So I just went to elementary education. I thought I can use music in my classroom all the time and which was true. And so that's kind of how that happened. Passionistas: So then tell us about that progression. You studied education, you got your Master's and then you started teaching. So tell us a little bit about that. [00:05:49] Lori Lynn: Well, I'm glad you asked because it's really a funny story, actually, that I became a teacher because when I was little and people asked you that question, what do you want to be when you grow up? I had no idea, but I would say this is my standard answer. When I was little. I don't know what I want to be, but I know I'm not going to be at. That's what I said to everybody. Not going to be a teacher. That's all I know. And why did I say that? Because I was one of those little children who had what they would probably call add. Right now. I was busy. I was answering my brain was always working and, you know, I told you I came from somewhat of an abusive childhood, so I kind of needed attention and I wasn't mean to kids, but I was an annoyance to my teachers. I'm sure. But, and I could feel it from. Right. And I learned at a very young age school was very easy for me. And if I got a paper and I got done quickly, I got more work to do. So I learned to not finish that last question just, but my brain was going, going, going, and I would think things like, can I throw this big eraser out that window? How, how high of a velocity do I have to get it? Cause a window opens this way. I was always thinking. Right. And so I knew. But it wasn't fun for teachers to teach. I could feel it, but the transition happened when I knew I didn't want. Probably finished my music degree and I didn't know what I wanted to do. I went home and I taught Bible school at church and there was this fifth grade boy who was really antsy and just kind of difficult. And I just knew what he did. He needed something hands-on he needed all those things we know now. And I just got it. And this person at my church said, you really have a gift for this, for healing. You need to be a teacher. So I went back and that's what I did. And I always say that teaching found me I did not pursue it because that was the last thing I was going to do, but it has been the biggest blessing for me. And I do think that. Those of us who struggle in school, especially young ages probably make some of the better teachers because we get it right. Then we kind of know what they need. Yeah. Passionistas: Was music always a part of your teaching process? Lori Lynn: Oh yeah. Always, always, always. It was because I didn't know it then, but early on, I just knew that music connected us and music made the atmosphere and atmosphere. Collective consciousness almost right. I didn't know those words, my first years of teaching, but I just knew it changed the atmosphere when I utilize music to transition or I use utilize music to teach something. Right. Cause the power of music we know most, so much now. And I love to train on this cause I train teachers as well. What music does to our brain and how it lights up our brain and gets us so ready to learn. So it's so powerful. And so, yeah, I always used it just natural instincts and also it was a great place to try out my songs that I had written. Like, let's just have some fun singing and just bond. Right. And so I always knew what songs really worked and they would give me ideas sometimes of songs. And so, yeah, it's always been a part of who I am and where I go. Are your songs always geared towards children? They are now. They weren't, as I grew up. When I was growing up, I just kind of, you know, you start realizing, you know, about three or four chords, you can write some songs. And I wrote the most horrific, awful stuff in seventh grade about may Evie and Louie were happy and free. Something bad happened and it broke them up. You see, I mean, it was just horrific, right. They ended up, you know, it's a Romeo and Juliet thing where they ended up killing themselves as awful. And, but so, no, I, I mean, you experiment, you know, I was like sixth grade or seventh grade and my mom even said, well, that's an interesting. But I also wrote a song that's about can't do nothing and it it's on my CD. It ended up sticking. It was just kind of a silly little song about how you go about your day and everything bad goes wrong. And that one was something that we put on the CD. Producer really liked. And he goes, put that on there. It's fun. So it's, yeah, it's always been part of it. And then I went through a country Western stage, and most of those songs will never see the light of day or no one will ever hear it, but there's a couple that have some, have some, some legs I think. And I would like to show them to somebody someday. I don't have a voice for that. But that was kind of a long stage, actually, that I wrote a lot of country Western songs. I like to tell stories and songs, but it was when I had my own children. That's when my pastor had the best saying, and I wrote it down and I've never forgotten it. He said, when you find your purpose in life, it is the most peaceful place to live. That's where you live is in your purpose. It's not just be, it's not just fine. You live in it. Right. And when I started writing songs for my boys, the little buys and the fun songs, I'm like, this is what all this has been for. And I knew that it was something for my boys and I, but. There was always something pulling at me. Like that's not, it, there's more, you're supposed to be sharing this with other children. And I always wanted to, I just never had the money right. To do it or the know-how to know where to go and how to start. And, um, I just got started really seriously recording it like about eight years ago and I was going very slowly saving money and going into the studio with my mom would have. Every story and she just I'd get done at the studio and she goes, come and tell me what happened. And do you have anything recorded and can I hear your bits and how far are you? And she just, she listened to all my dreams. She was a quiet, quiet lady and I am not. And so I have moments. I love to be quiet too, but when I talk about my passion, Talk a mile a minute and go on forever. Right? I think a lot of us that have passions and dreams, it's it's, uh, you can talk somebody's ears off unless they stopped you. And that was my mom. Passionistas: Tell us about her. What was she like? Lori Lynn: I said, they, um, got married young, um, 16, 17 that right around there. And she was a housewife. We were, um, farmers and farm wives work hard. Um, especially my dad was an only child, so there were no brothers around to help with the farm work and. And so mom, we had, she had eight children, so she did all the house stuff, the cooking, and worked in the field and never did I hear her complain ever. She just did it. You know, that's just, she always says, this is what I do. You just get up and you do. And so it was the true, true farm model, really. Right. You just pull up your bootstraps. Um, you know, you have a storm and things are, you know, falling apart, you just go figure it out and fix it. Right. So you kind of get that growing up on a farm. I think. How did her life change after your father passed? There were four of us left at home and she was only 39 because my dad died at 49. He was 10 years older. And so I think of that now. And I think, wow, how did she, she, she had finished her GED a couple of years before my dad died. He kind of knew it was his third heart attack. So he said, you need to finish your GED. So you have more options if I go. And, um, she started working. At the school, which I loved, she was a cook at the school. And so I got to see her every lunchtime and she'd always give me extra vegetables, you know, that you need a little more of those. That's so funny. And so I was like seeing her, but it didn't pay enough. So she had to. Changed jobs after a couple of years, she, that was something nice for her to do, to keep close to us. And, um, then she started working in a factory about 30 miles away. So she was gone every morning, about six. And so my older sister had graduated, so it was kind of just me and my little brothers and I. You know, if they were sick, I wrote the notes for them and I was just kind of got 'em up in the morning and fed them breakfast. And, you know, it was just, I always, it was just the three of us. It was kind of nice. And mom got home, you know, and she worked at the factory for a long, long time, like most of her life. And she really kind of liked it. She, she was the type, she was so laid back and she was happy to go and do the same thing every day and just kind of have her friends and she just did not complain. Passionistas: What do you think you learned about women's roles in society from her? Lori Lynn: I've learned things that I mimic from her. And I've also learned things. About boundaries and standing up for, for things like I remember when I was little, I didn't say it so nice. I said, I am not going to be a pushover, you know? Cause I saw her that way. But as you grow and you learn about what women's choices were back then, what they were dealt and how they dealt with that, what kind of supports were available for a woman that had eight children and no high school education? Her husband was not particularly kind to the children, but if she had left or done something else, would it be worse? I mean, I think it was, she kept the peace more than I realize, you know, and stepped in when she had to step in, but it was, it's been a process for me to, to try to. To come to terms with my sadness for her life, my, my pride for her life, my love of what she sacrificed for us, you know? Um, so it's a very different choice. We're very different choices and, but I've learned that. No matter when you're born or what era you live, women have those choices and they can make that choice to stay, or they can make that choice to live. Now, if it, if you're in an abusive situation, please, please get help. And I hope you go, right. Um, because now we have much more support for that. So I think I've learned a lot and, and we got really close her last few years. She came down to live by me because she was very sick and I had four. Five years with her down here and saw every single day. And it was pretty amazing. Passionistas: We're Amy and Nancy Harrington, and you're listening to the Passionistas Project Podcast and our interview with Lori Lynn of Overall Buddies. To learn more about her original songs and videos for young children and the grownups who care for and love them visit OverallBuddies.com. If you're enjoying this interview and would like to help us to continue creating inspiring content, please consider becoming a patron by visiting the PassionistasProject.com/Podcast and clicking on the patron button. Even $1 a month can help us continue our mission of inspiring women to follow their passions. Now here's more of our interview with Lori Lynn. So tell us more about overall buddies. How can people see the content and hear the music? Lori Lynn: Well, I knew, I, I thought, okay, I want to make a CD, but I thought I'm kind of a miss, a plus person. Like, I'm like, if you, you know, I'm like, I want to know how do I make this more than just a CD? What do people doing? So just like you, we met through a class, right? So I signed up for independent musician class with Rick Barker. And, you know, I just learned about the business side of it and how musicians nowadays we have to have, they say seven different ways to make money because. Basically our music's free. Right. So I thought, okay, how can I do this? So I thought let's create a brand and make some videos and have some storylines maybe going, and that's coming and maybe get a book, um, series going. So I had this big picture in mind. And so I just started with the little steps, but. I think I'm the type of person. Not everybody has to be this way. I have to know what the big pictures. So it looked like I was stalled, but I knew that in my brain, I had to know where am I going with this? So I knew what steps. And I knew I needed to come up with a name and I was trying to find a name that nobody had on the internet. So I had other names that I tried and I'm like, darn somebody got the.com and I wanted the.com. Right? You want to own that SEO? And so I, I just knew overalls have a meaning for me because my dad, you know, we grew up on the farm and there was. Uh, time, like in the spring and fall, there were these big jobs to do in the, in the farms and the neighbors would help each other. Like whether you were bailing hay, for instance, that's a big job and you need other hands, so, or shelling, corn, that kind of stuff. Well, the neighbors would show up and help and I'd see this. Big neighbor guys in their overalls come and they were ready to work. Right. It's like overalls, mint, friendship, and we're here to work and cooperate and get things done. So I just, overall it's kind of silly that I have. It's such a deep meaning for overalls, but it was just such a visual for me as a little girl to see these neighbors coming together. And, and then my dad and my brothers would have their turn to help the neighbors and put on your overalls and go help your neighbors, you know, so I loved the whole idea of overalls. I was doing overall friends and I was doing, trying different things and buddies came up and I'm like, oh gosh, that's fun to say. And there was nobody that I owned everything. There was nothing, nobody had.com.net.org. And I bought them. All right. So, and it's cheap if nobody has them, it doesn't cost much to get them. And so now if people just. Search Overall Buddies, you're going to come up with my stuff and that's really nice to have. Right. So I'm really fortunate that I found that name and saved it early. I saved that name probably eight years ago when I first started. I'm like, I'm going to save all that, even though I don't know what I'm going to really get to. Using it, um, cause I've had a couple of different ideas stolen because I wasn't careful. So I thought this time I'm going to be really careful. And so that's kind of how that name came about and, um, the overall buddies and I love the whole double meaning of overall after all an overall we're all overall buddies. Right? So. Excited about that name. It's been catchy and it's been a happy and I'm happy about that. So I had three missions really when I started over all buddies. Um, cause you gotta really figure out what is your, why, what is your purpose? And so my, why. Was, why do you want to do this? I read this book by Wayne Dyer wishes fulfilled. If you have not read that book, anybody that's listening, it's so marvelous, especially if you're going to be an entrepreneur, which is, you know, and encourage people. It's he quotes all kinds of religions and, and he talks about the collective consciousness and. Just connecting to the energy and things, but I'm a Christian. And so he also uses that. And so I think we're all connected, no matter all of those things. And so he said, you have to know your why, and I've heard this more and more now, but that was the first time I'd really heard it. And I read this book probably seven years ago and I still go back to it because I'm like, what is my why? And it's really pretty easy when I get caught up in. Can I make money at this all my goodness. Was I crazy to quit my job early and take lists, you know? And like, I just have to go back to why are you doing this? And it's those days, like my lullabies, when I sat with my children, On those wee hours of the morning, and there's no light except that little nightlight and you're feeding your child and you make up this lullaby and you sing to them. Right. And there's, it's like nothing else exists. And it's so marvelous. And I just, that is my why for my lullabies is. When I picture mothers singing that to their children, or a friend of mine sent me a picture of her three-year-old daughter singing one of my lullabies to their new baby. And I just started crying. I'm like, if I never make a cent, that is so worth my time, you know, to know that she's sharing that love like that. And then my funny songs, the same thing when I would write I'm a pig, for instance, um, which seems to be a favorite. And that's the book I'm going to be. My boys would help me with ideas because pig goes, shows up at this little girl's in her town at different places. And we lived in a small town at that time. They're like, mom, the pig needs to show up at the library and the pig needs to show up here. And I said, well, the song can't be an hour long, but these are great ideas. Let's choose four, four places, you know? And so, but we would sing it with the, you know, how you sing in the van with the windows down and then their friends get in the van and you're like, you want to sing my mom's song? And we would laugh. And. So when I can picture. My mom's doing that. And our family's doing that. I don't care if they know it's me. I don't care. I said, one of my visions, I told my boys, I said, someday, I think it'd be so cool if I was at an airport somewhere in a different state or different country. And I hear somebody singing my song and they have no idea it's me that wrote it. You know what I mean? Just saying, oh, my songs in the world. And it's making somebody happy. So when I get lost in all the other stuff, I'm like, okay, you're leaving something behind and that's good. Passionistas: How old are your sons now? Lori Lynn: They're 30 and 31. I have a grandson now he's 16 months old and it's amazing. And he's helped me. Right? Well, his daycare closed during COVID. And so I said, you know what? I lost all my gigs. I was just starting to get up and go. 'cause my first CD just came out in 2019, the spring, and I was doing some free stuff, getting myself known. And then I was just starting to get really nice paid gigs and had like 30 things lined up for the summer of 2020 womp like, well, darn, hopefully that comes back. It's not coming back yet for children. Stuff. People are still tentative, but I have a few libraries and schools lined up, but it'll come back and I'll do other things. Right. That's why we're supposed to have other, other branches on our business tree is what I call it. But yeah. So he's been here since June, every day and now. We're starting part-time, but we've written like six songs together with him sitting out in the front room and, and he just loves hearing me play guitar and, and every now and again, he'll hit the guitar and point to the stand. Like I'm done. I put it back now. Okay. You're done. Okay. But yeah, we've written some songs together, so it's kind of fun to kind of like what? Well, we wrote a fishing song. And we wrote a back time song because his mom said, I need a song for bath time. And it goes, it's my bath time, skinny to dial back. Whoa. So it's just kind of cute. And it talks about. You know, getting in the bath and I'm thinking, what would help a parent? You know, I need it to be long enough, like, okay, we gotta take her shirt off. And, but also being careful about don't make it so somebody can use it the wrong way. Right. You know? Cause you gotta be aware of these things. So I said, you're just gonna step in. And then you got to wash your face, wash your hair. And so it just kind of goes through that and it's pretty cute. I haven't recorded it yet. It's just, I've got about six songs that we've written. And one's a dance song that I think is going to be really fun, but I need to just, uh, all the income stopped so well, we got kind of back at that. Okay. Let's get some things going where I can get back in the studio. Right. So yeah, you know, I was talking about my mission statements and one of them is to create quality content for young children and the people who love them to help them connect. To those people around them. And so, and to help parents, like songs can help. Right. And so there's all these different things that I think about my songs like this, one's going to maybe be a helpful song. And at the beginning it goes bath time. Like you're calling him in right. And the, the, the, the, the, that time. So it's kind of like, Hey, cause that's the, um, Well, they called it that's the universal is a universal through the world. Is those that interval. So I use that time. It's a universal interval. I don't know if you knew that, but now, now, you know, you mentioned your upcoming book. Tell us a little bit more about it. The book is I'm a pig. It's my song. Put into it. And if you're familiar with Rafi or Lori Bergner some of the gurus of children's singing. They have books based on their songs as well. And the reason that is. Really important is that music and literacy connection, right? If a child knows a poem like itsy bitsy spider, right? And then there's a book there's so many books made on itsy bitsy spider. And there's a reason because when children are so familiar with the words, they're going to be really feel like they're confident in looking at the book and going, oh, I already know what that looks supposed to say. Right? So they start thinking, oh, these words are what I've been saying. And so that connection is strong. And so it's not just, Hey, I want to make a book on my song. There's real research behind why to do it. And so I've always wanted to make a book out of that song plus other ones. And then I have a series of my puppets and, and characters I want to make eventually, but I thought let's start with this one because teachers and librarians have been asking they're like that make a great song. And the other thing about this book is there's some really great extension activities with it. And, their story elements that you can teach children with it. And I want, I want to be able to teach that to families and parents, like, you know, there's settings because they go to different places. So you can start using those story element vocabulary with. But it's in a fun way. So it's going to be, and I'm going to make the words very interesting on the page. So that's another strategy to motivate children, to look at print and be excited about talking about the print. So there's a lot of really purposeful, intentional teaching things that go in it, but it's going to be really. Passionistas: Did you do the illustrations? Lori Lynn: I cannot draw at all. I have. If you have back my kickstart, I put something on there, but this is why I have an illustrator because I kind of mocked up the, the, um, The title page. And I just have no sense. I don't like the legs are just like, they don't even connect. I don't know. I have no sense of space of how to draw, so no I've hired an illustrator and that's one of my other mission statements is to, um, utilize local artists in the Omaha council Bluffs, Iowa was where I live and it's right across the river from Omaha. So to utilize the Omaha Metro area, artists, as much as I can and, um, pay them for it. That's so, um, my mom's last wish for me was to use anything. She left for me to do this CD and that's how I was able to get it done quicker than I would've. So I paid people fairly even children. And so the money went faster, but I feel good about that because I did the right. I think too often artists are, oh, you'll get exposure and no such a cute story. I have to tell you, there was this little boy who came and sang at the studio and we were in Christmas Carol together. So I've done theater, um, quite a bit. I do a lot of theater and we were both in Christmas Carol at the Omaha community Playhouse. And I used, there were like 24 children or something. I can't remember 18 children. And I asked them all to come to the studio and my producer. Oh, Lori Lynn. I said they won't all be able to come, but I can't just choose some. I just can't. I said, we'll do them and it's my money. We'll do them in sections. We'll just prove six at a time. And it's, you know, and 12 could come, so we did six and six, but anyway, he came and did that and then I paid him just, it was 30 minutes and they were done, you know, so I gave him a little bit and he came to the. Dressing room the next night. And he knocks on the door and he goes, Lori Lynn, I need to talk to you about somebody said, what is it? And he said, he had the money in his hand and it was so cute. He grabbed my hands and he said, I need you to take this back because I was so honored to get to sing on your CD. It meant so much to me. And I really don't need you to pay me. And I thought about this and I said, this quick little prayer. And I'm like, I want to say the right thing. Do I take it and honor what he's asking or. Do I tell him what I'm really thinking. So I said, okay, I'm going to say something to him. I said, listen, you have a gift, you have a talent, and that talent is worth something. And there's going to be so many times in your life that people are going to take advantage of that and, and want you to do it for just experience. And I said, I want you to take this and remember that you are. Yes. And so he said, okay. And then he kinda got a tear in his eye and I'm like, I got a tear in my eye. I'm like, I need it. You know? And so I think it was the right thing. I really debated like, gosh, you know, but I wanted him to hear that, you know, We're in a small, it's a, it, Alma has a big city, but it's a small city and there's not a lot of work paid work for artists as much as there probably should be. Right. And we just need to get that pendulum swung the other way that we need to pay people what they're worth. Right. Passionistas: What's been the most rewarding part of your career? Lori Lynn: Seeing the things I've envisioned for so long. Actually happened. Like my mom, when I talked about precious baby, the first lullaby I wrote for my first child and. I told she goes, are you going to put precious baby on your CD? And I said, mom, I just don't know if I can, because what I hear in precious baby is at least a string quartet. It just, I hear it. I hear it. And the video I want to make with it has a ballerina and she's orchestrating this rest time and the orchestras there. And then she goes and orchestrates the rest time. I just envision it and that's going to take money. I said, I think I need to make my first CD and then make some money. And then, you know, that'll be. So my mom was never the kind, she was this tough farm life and she, she did not give advice. It just wasn't what she did. Right. It's like, you got it. You're capable. Right. So when she did this, it was not typical. And it was the day before she lost the ability to speak when she was dying and she grabbed my hand, I was going to go and I said, I'll be back tomorrow, mom. And she grabbed my hand. So weak. Right. And she looked me in her, uh, in my eye and she said, you take the money that you're getting from me and you finish those songs and that video the way you want it to be. And I just kinda went okay, mom. And she just kept holding my hand until I looked her dead in the high. Right. And I said, I promise. And she just relaxed. And she lost her ability to speak the next day. So I'm telling you that day that we recorded that video. Cause I had the money to do it. I flew up above when the ballerina started dancing my body rose above everybody. I can't even explain it. I was above everybody watching it. And it was like, my father was saying, look, you did it. And it was just the most rewarding, wonderful thing. And I just can't even. I couldn't believe that that was happening. And then I'm like, oh geez, I got to pretend to sing. Now I'd better get back down to earth, you know, stand in my spot. And it's funny because when I went and saw Elton John's movie and his vision, he wanted to go to the Hollywood Bowl. And when he got there, he rose above and I'm like, oh my God, this is a thing. This happens to people when they see their dreams manifested. Right. And so. I kind of feeling the same way about the book. Like when I first saw the cover, it was like I wasn't in my body. And so I think that is just the best answer to that question, because whether anything comes from this, I hope to make a living off of. But to know that some of these things that were given to me from God, the songs themselves in this vision, that I was able to just leave it on the earth is pretty amazing, I guess. Passionistas: Thanks for listening to our interview with Lori Lynn of Overall Buddies to learn more about her original songs and videos for young children and the grownups who care for and love them. Visit Overall Buddies.com. Please visit the Passionistas Project dot com to learn more about our Podcast and subscription box filled with products made by women owned businesses and female artisans to inspire you to follow your passions. Get a free mystery box with a one-year subscription using the code FALLMYSTERY. And be sure to subscribe to the Passionistas Project Podcast. So you don't miss any of our upcoming inspiring guests. Until next time stay well and stay passionate.

Lynn Harris is the CEO and founder of GOLD Comedy — the online comedy world for young women and non-binary folks who want to nerd out about comedy together. Lynn is also a creative partner to select brands, organizations and individuals, blending her experience in writing, communications, advocacy and entertainment to create strategic content that brings maximum fun to serious issues, for maximum impact. Read more about Lynn Harris. Learn more about The Passionistas Project. Full Transcript: Passionistas: Hi, and welcome to the Passionistas Project podcast, where we talk with women who are following their passions to inspire you to do the same. We're Amy and Nancy Harrington. And today we're talking with Lynn Harris, the CEO and founder of Gold Comedy, the online comedy worlds for young women and nonbinary folks who want to nerd out about comedy together, but is also a creative partner to select brands, organizations, and industry. Blending her experience in writing communications, advocacy, and entertainment to create strategic content that brings maximum fun to serious issues for maximum impact. So please welcome to the show. Lynn Harris. Lynn: Thank you. Passionistas: What's the one thing you're most passionate about? Lynn: Besides salt? I'm into salt and I'm into comedy is power. I'm passionate about a lot of things. I'm passionate about a lot of things. I think the most on-brand thing for me to say right now is comedy is power and comedy, as I'm passionate about comedy as power. And that's why it matters to me. Who's got the mic so to speak. Passionistas: So what does that mean? What, what does comedy as power mean and why is it so important who has the mic? Lynn: It's certainly at an individual level and to the cultural level. When you make people laugh, you make people listen. And comedy really has been, as you know, at this sort of level of joke and at the level of industry and at the level of culture has really been defined by a kind of a small narrow group of people since the beginning, which is. Because if you think about it, comedy, everyone thinks of comedy as this outsider, art that you get into comedy. Cause like the underdog and you're punching up at power. And why are white dudes running the whole thing? It makes no sense. I'm working to try to change that. How are you changing? The more women do comedy. The more women define comedy. And that's true, not just for women, but for anybody who is not a straight white dude, many of whom are very funny, but I think that comedy will be funnier if it is defined by more types of voices. And if comedy is funnier, the world's a better place, honestly. Not just because laughter is the best medicine, which it's like the second best the COVID vaccine is the best, but also because comedy affirms connections. When you laugh at a joke, that means you get the joke. And when you get the joke, that means you're in on something you like, you got the reference, you follow the comic on there. On their bait and switch. And a lot of people say that, you know, that's, that's the reason that comedy brings people together. I'm not super convinced that it does because for better and for worse, I think it's sort of affirms who we are. Not that it doesn't have something to teach us, which I can circle back to, but I think, you know, comedy does affirm who we are and what we think is funny and, uh, what we think is important. And it can also change that to some degree it can, um, cause as comedy, you know, comedy kind of is sort of a fun house mirror for color. And what we're allowed to laugh at can change for better and for worse, usually for better the arc of a let's see, how can I destroy that? Quote, the, you know, the arc of, of comedy? What is it? They have bends toward justice, right? As things become okay to say not okay to say, I think that's a, both a driver and a reflection of culture evolving, and that's why it's important to have. For a lot of us to be in charge of how that culture is evolving. Passionistas: So let's take this back. Tell us a little bit about your childhood and when was the first time you remember that you were funny? Lynn: Okay. This is so dumb, but I remember I was, I don't know, six, seven, I don't know. And my mother was kind of the kind of person who, like, if you sneezed, she would be like, what's wrong. And I remember I was little five or six whenever and she said, Are you and she heard me cough, or like I said something, I don't know what, and she said, are you okay? You're a little horse. And I said, no, I'm not. I'm a little, child's obviously my parents thought that was side splitting and I got a big laugh and I was like, oh, I can let them getting last as fun. That's the first one. I remember, by the way I moved away from puns. Another time they were building. They were building like a new bath or renovating our bathroom, the house I grew up in. And so there was like the frame for a closet, but there was nothing in it yet. It was just like, the space was defined. And so I went into the closet and I said, look, it's a Lynn in closet. That's where it all began. Folks Passionistas: Was humor, always a part of your household? Like where your parents funny? Lynn: Yeah. My parents are funny, white parents in very different ways. And they also, but in very different ways, but they definitely both of their families or also super funny in very different ways. But at the end of the day, they really just, they just, they liked a good joke. They just really liked a good joke. A funny movie, funny TV show. It was, there was, it was definitely. But like a high-value currency. Passionistas: What sparked your interest in comedy? And did you immediately want to pursue a career in it? Lynn: Maybe the career part came when I was a little older and wanted to find ways to upset my parents as opposed to delight them. But I just, I always just gravitated toward, I never defined or pursued a career in a certain kind of comedy, a certain kind of. Like my, I did stand up for a long time, but my goal in doing standup was to do stand up. So I didn't, which is nice because it kind of took the pressure off. I worked at it, but I didn't, I didn't attach not that this is a bad thing, by the way, this is a completely legitimate and great thing. My goal at the time, wasn't to like, get on a show or get to, or, you know, get an agent and move to LA or whatever it was. So either it just means I had, I was just content or just that I was really not at all. I just really liked standup. I just like it as an art form. I just, I just like it. I never attached it to a next level dream. And then I just kind of stopped doing it when I just got tired when I just couldn't stay up past 10 anymore. Basically I used to host shows that started at 10 and now I'm, I don't know. And I'm not a napper, so I don't, I just powered through, I just always gravitated toward basically like the wacky red head, not the lead, but the leads weird from. Like the Janeane Garofalo character in the truth about cats and dogs, not to directly compare myself to her majesty, but, um, Jimmy grew up a little, but, um, but that idea was always my jam, I think in high school. I went to, I had a pretty good experience overall, but I went to a very preppy high school and I had very preppy. They were very nice, but very preppy classmates who were sort of all tall and live and blonde. Um, none of which describes me. And they could like burst into lacrosse the way that I like the fame kids burst into song. And so it just wasn't, I wasn't like miserable. It just was not, that was the central culture and I was not in that. And so I think I defined myself against it even harder by being like the theater kid played the goofy roles. That was just, I think it, I probably would have been that anyway, but I think I probably kind of defined myself against the lacrosse team. And now. When I was in high school, um, I went on a ski trip. It was like a Jewish youth group ski trip up to this winter Wonderland. Um, that was called every year. It's still going on, still going on. This is the eighties it's still happening. And we all went up to Manchester, New Hampshire to ski and do other stuff for the weekend. And on the Saturday night, um, a bunch of dudes. Somehow got ahold of like some grapefruits and some borrowed nightgowns and went and did this completely made up impromptu improvise, drag skit in the social hall that brought the house down. And my, it was sloppy. It was made up. It was, there's nothing inherently funny about dudes dressing as women, but it brought the house down and I, my first thought was okay, what are the girls going to do? And my next thought was. Because I knew even then that wit girls would not be received the same way we could not be equally slept. And, and bring the house down. Not because we're not funny, but because that's not the way people view women as funny, or, you know, it's just women don't have that kind of audience. Um, we didn't in the end, we maybe more now, definitely not back then. And so, like I just kind of, you know, my my third thought, you know, my first thought was, what are we doing second thought? And my third thought was. And so we didn't, I didn't say con let's come on, Debbie and Jenny let's go. So I didn't say anything. And, um, I don't regret that because I think my instincts were correct, but I was bummed out out of, I was bummed out about it for years and I, that really, really stuck with me. It really, really stuck with me. I had this real sense that. That was not cool and not fair. And, uh, something would have to change. Uh, and so I I'm, who knows, but that may be, oh, and fun fact, one of those dudes may or may not have been Adam Sandler who was there. So, um, I, as a civilian, it was his high school. So I have Adam Sandler to thank for Gold Comedy. And what I'm doing now is. Passionistas: So that was high school. Where did you go to college? And, and what did you decide to focus on when you were in college? Lynn: I went to, as we all like to say, I went to college in new Haven and, and very much enjoyed the pizza by the way, in new Haven, as the New York pizza snob, I will say that navens even better. So yeah, I went to, so I went to college at Frank Pepys and. I did there wasn't any, there was improv. This is, this is the eighties. There was improv. I believe there was maybe a sketch group, but there was no awareness. There's no standup. Like now I hear they have stand up groups and I'll get back to that, but I didn't do it. So I didn't do like straight up comedy in college. What I did do was I was in an acapella singing group once again, continuing on my nerd track. And I became, I was, I am not a great singer. What came naturally for me was doing the, like the shtick in between the songs. And so I became the ringleader of those things and that's where I kind of scratch the scratch to the comedy itch. What did you do after college? Did you pursue a career in comedy or did you do some. I was always drawn to being a writer. That was always just what I was. I never decided that was what I was going to do. I just kind of knew that I was going to do something where I had to write. And I just had this tractor beam of wanting to be some form of writer, not in the way that, like I thought about it. I didn't think about it. I w I didn't like journal about what dreaming of being a writer. And I didn't watch movies about thoughtful writers that I didn't, I just do it. And so after college, so I did a lot of journalism in college. And after college, that's really where I focused in terms of it didn't occur to me. I could really make money as doing comedy. I loved theater and I was always, I loved being on stage, but I knew that I didn't have the gumption or that Moxie or the, I just didn't think I wanted to go to LA and compete with anybody. In that world. And I just didn't see myself as really an actor. I saw myself as more of a I cam then, or just a wise ass than a serious actor. So I didn't really occur to me to head to the head, to the, to Hollywood or even New York for a few years. I went back to Boston for a little while and then, but I started doing, I started taking stand-up classes when I lived in Boston, when I lived. Laundry distance from home. Basically, I actually sort of freelancing as a journalist and I took a stand up class and I also had a day job. My dad is a retired MIT professor. He, my dad's actually a very famous phenologist, which means that about seven people know who he is and that he's a heartbeat away from Noam Chomsky, which made me very popular. And I did. I had an office job at MIT that I'm sure was pure nepotism. So I called myself the rejectionist. So I sat at a desk and told students that they had the wrong forms. And, but then more and more as I was able to get paid more and more for journalism, I phased out. My night job became my day job. And then I also did, started doing standup in Boston and Cambridge. Passionistas: Tell us about your work as a journalist. Because I, uh, we saw that you like wrote like the first national mainstream article about dating violence and what kind of, uh, topics were you writing about and what drew you to those topics? Lynn: That is a true story about you. Remember, you know, Parade Magazine, they insert. Frankly, if you want to get an issue out there, I think it has the pattern or had I'm going to get this wrong, but either the first or first, second, or third largest circulation of anything. And so I, I did make a choice back then based on two things, I always cared a lot about various social justice issues. Influenced by my parents, especially my mom. And especially I, I wound up carrying the most about gender, gender justice, and related, um, you know, feminist stuff back then, we were not as nuanced about what we meant by gender justice. It was, it was much more narrow focus on, on women's rights and probably white women's rights. I'm sure. But, you know, I thank my mom for, you know, making, being a feminist, not rebellion. So I, I gravitated toward social issues. Social justice issues, especially I was always really interested in how pop culture reflects or shapes culture. As before. When I was talking about comedy, I was, I've always been interested in that in any culture, in any forum when Ellen came out. And culture had led it to be okay for that to happen. But then when she did it, it also changed culture. Like it's back and forth. And I just cared about it mainly because I really love television. And, and in all seriousness, I do think, I think it matters. And it was always, there was always some combination of what gets me out of bed in the morning is social justice. And what keeps me up at night is till. Burning the candle at both ends. And so at that somehow first, it just kind of happened. But then I evolved into making a real choice about choosing to write for the most mainstream possible publications about issues that would kind of push them a little bit, push things a little bit, maybe not push the publication, but push people a little bit. And, um, and even if I had to do a little bit more, more like both sides or whatever, To appear balanced or whatever. And maybe I wouldn't write it quite the same way as aggressively as I would write it for, um, uh, you know, a real, like a lefty. We didn't have blogs then, but blog, I made the choice also financial, you know, because they paid more to, I'm not, I wasn't that noble to write for. Um, I kind of got lucky with Parade, but, um, no. Okay. I worked hard on that, but I wound up gravitating toward women's magazines also, which were. Terrible in many ways, but way more feminist than people ever thought. I'm way more aware, like anyone who didn't think Cosmo was performance art and God, I just, nobody should have any, should waste any time being angry at Cosmo it's it was, I just don't. I never understood that. And so I wrote a lot for Glamor and Glamor was way ahead of a lot of those. They went back and forth a little bit after. With Whitney, but under Ruth, they had a Glamor had this column about all the female senators, all of them, the definitive legions, a female senators that reported on exactly what they were doing. Exactly what they were. And weren't doing for Glamour readers. You're not gonna find that elsewhere. Um, no one else has wrote about the women's senators. Nobody cared and. And so in Glamour, would you way back then would write about abortion and all those things. And sure. Their audience was huge and included people who were anti-abortion, but I, but then when I got to write about it, I wasn't preaching to the choir necessarily, and you can humanize the issue and you can really actually change hearts and minds a little. And so I that's what I, that's what I gravitated toward. And I was able to eventually. I worked so hard at writing for so many different types of publications. I wrote for a sewing newsletter. I wrote for obviously Glamour tons of different publications each with their own style. And the most important thing I learned was aside from feeling that I was, in some cases, doing something important, the most important, important skill I learned was to be able to write in the publications voice and not be fancy about that. Cause I wasn't ready to express myself. I was running cause I liked writing and it was, I mean, I just, wasn't all precious about that. I, it was a fun game to be like, okay, how do I write about this thing in that voice? And how do I channel that voice? It's really, it's interesting. It's a project. It's a puzzle. It's not. Like, that's what you do in your journey. For those of you watching the podcast, I'm miming, I'm listening to the podcast, I'm miming some sort of like, kind of BS self-expression, but like you wouldn't have to deliver a product and it's, it's fun only after you learn how to do that. Do you really get to a place? I think where you then get you get assignments from people who are asking you to write in your voice. Um, so that eventually after I worked and worked and worked for years and years and wrote. Uh, probably thousands of articles. I can't even remember. Then I was able to do things like for Salon and other publications where they'd be like, no, please, you do you. And, and, and really have my own voice. I had a bunch of different columns in my ear that were supposed to be Edward a column for the DailyToominNews. Like things that we're supposed to be sound like me, not sound like them, but that is not where you start. And, and, and, and it's, it's so much the better, you know, the better for it. It's like TV, it's like TV. Our usual friend, Amy Toomin Strauss was, um, is teaching for Gold Comedy now. We were talking to her about what to teach and when, or what are the different things that she could teach. And, and, you know, I do sort of hear and feel out there that everyone's like, well, I've got a great idea for a show, um, because, because rightly things have been, so, um, the platforms have been so democratized now that like, sure you could do, you, you could write your, you know, put your show on YouTube and maybe. You know, maybe it'll get picked up or maybe, you know, that it's not that that doesn't happen now, but Amy's point was. Yeah, but I don't want to teach how to write your own show. First. I want to teach how to write someone else's show and it's the same thing. Learning how it show you needing to be able to show a show runner that you understand, obviously the basics that apply anywhere and everywhere, but also how to write for that show, how to channel those characters, those voices, those situations. How to replicate that world. And so it's definitely analog that I really learned in journalism. I've learning how to write the other stuff first. Then you get to do your own thing. It works the same way on stand up. I'm not that you should go around telling other people's jokes or writing other people's jokes for them. It doesn't really start that way unless you're Ava on PACS, which we love. And she didn't start that way either. But anyway, 2, 0 1 almost comedians. I know. Or people who either teach or mentor comedians always say, find the comedians that you like and learn them, know them, live them, and even go ahead and do the exercise of writing jokes. Like there's obviously you can't go and do that and get paid for that. Or, or, you know, there's a point past which that's stealing, but just that the imitation. The imitation and the practice and the imitation and the practice is really helpful. And it helps you learn how any joke works. Passionistas: We're Amy and Nancy Harrington, and you're listening to the Passionistas Project Podcast and our interview with Lynn Harris. If you're a young woman or identify as nonbinary and want to turn your sense of humor into your superpower, visit GoldComedy.com. If you're enjoying this interview and would like to help us to continue creating inspiring content, please consider becoming a patron by visiting ThePassionistasProject.com/podcast and clicking on the Patron button. Even $1 a month can help us continue our mission of inspiring women to follow their passions. Now here's more of our interview with Lynn. So in 1997, you found your own voice and you created Breakup Girl. Lynn: Co-created. Passionistas: Co-created. Yes. So tell us about that character in the show and how it expanded as time and technology. Lynn: I co-created a Breakup Girl with Chris Cobb. So, so in '97 it was much, much easier to get a book contract. You didn't have to already have a blue check mark. You didn't already have to have a sub stack or whatever, like you, if you had an, you really just had to have a good idea. Seriously. I had an idea about writing a humor book about surviving a breakup and. I went to bat to have Chris who's a brilliant illustrator. And we had collaborated before I went to bat to have Chris have us be a package deal. It'd be the designer and illustrator of the book, which also would never happen now. So we actually, literally, we actually realized we were roommates in a different block and you were sitting there figuring out all the real estate and what we had written and what he had designed. And we realized we had like a few more, like we had like. You know, 16 more pages to fill in. We were like, ah, and then Chris was like, you know, I was just kind of thinking that we, that, I don't know if there should be like a superhero character. And I was like, oh my God, we should've done that from the beginning. And so we created this, it was originally Chris's idea. But, but from that moment, we collaborated and came up with the idea of this, the superhero who helps people with romantic emergencies. We have superheroes who can bend steel bars, but how about one that it can mend broken heart? And so that we invented this kind of classic, like kind of a winking version of a classic superhero who had like a utility Fanny pack. And who's really, but actually really smart and thoughtful character who had her own problems, but was able to help others. And so we added her origin story and all this other stuff in the book and added her as this voice and presence in the book. And then the book did. Okay. But then people were like, what? I liked that character. And so in actually that was in '91, whatever '96, I don't remember '96. And then in '97, Chris was like, there's this thing that mostly NASA uses, but it's called the worldwide web. And I think it would be super fun to make a page on the worldwide web about. And so we created a website in '97. That was literally an overnight success because no one else was doing anything remotely like it. And we just did it. We did the thing that does not happen now, which is we built it and they came and it hasn't happened yet. But the advice column, I decided to write an advice column. It got super popular. I think it was, you know, Chris's artwork is amazing, but I do think that, um, and this goes back to the idea of the intersection of pop culture and social change, what we were doing that was different. And this was intentional. We kind of wandered into this enterprise, but the part, once we kind of get our bearings, um, the part that was intentional was that it was not going to be a female superhero talking to women about related. Because that's stupid and it's reductive and in the world, at least of like binary, heterosexual people, half the people in relationships are dudes. So like, why is it thought of as like this lady thing that's so stupid. And, and we kept coming up against that because then people would assume that because Breakup Girl was female, because we were talking about relationships that it was a site for women. And it never was never, not even, it never was. We just, we made it it's about relationships and we wanted to change. This was, we were like intentional about this. We wanted to change the way people thought and talked about relationships. So from the very beginning, the letters that we would get online, we're not even close to all from women. So many from dudes. And we had no letters from people that we have different words for. Now, people would say, do your breakup girl, I'm a secret. Cross-dresser my wife doesn't have. And all these things that we talk to gay people and straight people, a trans people at all these things that no one else was doing, not because we were like brilliant, but because we, there was intentional that we really did think it was dumb that, that only half the people in relationships were talking about relationships or had a place to talk about relationships. I think that plus the combination of humor, she had a really specific style of nerdy, superhero comic book humor that people felt comfortable with. And was nice to everybody. It got really big. And then the property. Got we got acquired by Oxygen and, um, in a really kind of great deal because they hired us. They didn't buy it away from us. They ha they bought us with it. So we got hired to create it for Oxygen on an even bigger platform. Um, and that all went straight to hell a while ago, awhile, awhile later, but that's a story for a less jaunty podcast, but, but out now we actually are. We're playing around with it with a new version. A lot of the stuff that she talks and talked about is, is eternal. But a lot of it is like, we talked about like computer dating. Um, and so, you know, some of that stuff has to be updated. Passionistas: You have so many things that we could talk to you about, but let's focus a little bit on Gold Comedy. When and why did you start. Lynn: Well, that part goes kind of goes back to Adam Sandler and wanting to, and also having them stand up myself. And I didn't have a lot of people have a lot of women who worked a lot harder at it than I did and did a lot more of it than I did have much worse stories about, about everything from just garden variety, sexism to outright horrific. And not just the harassment itself, but would it having a law? I didn't really get into the whole world where I, that many other women did, where you have to actually make choices about jobs that you don't take and jobs that aren't even offered to you because they're cause you don't, you can't work with that guy or because that guy already has a woman or whatever. So even my mild experiences were exhausting and outrageous and. All paths lead to this idea of making sure that women, especially young women and anyone else outside the comedy norm, which is often a way to name norm had access to the fun of comedy and the power of comedy. And it matters. It matters because women are people and it matters because comedy is a job and it ma it matters because comedy is power. I just had this idea of how much better would the world be if we had an even broader idea of who's funny or, or who makes us think, or who helps us process that, that day's crazy news. And I thought, what if I just start building the farm? And so now it's gone through various forms in reality, and in my mind, but now what we have is the only, and this was by the way, just, we, I was envisioning this online long before anyone knew about any kind of COVID or a pandemic, because part of the vision for me was, first of all, nobody wants to, I don't recommend starting a brick and mortar place in New York City because it's. But also, I wanted to find the funny young people and not even young people who don't live in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, LA, Toronto, where can we find the Carrie Underwood of comedy? Let's like if they can Zoom in from Dakota and they're funny then. Great. So I always had this idea of creating an online school and community and online place of learning and social interaction, where, where you could find your comedy crew no matter where you live and get the learning and collaboration and interactivity interaction and helping each other out that I did get from my crew in New York and many people do, but it's hard to find. And again, what if you don't live in New York or what if you're not old enough to go to club? We opened again, went through lots of different ideas and permutations, but we opened our current members member, only members only club last fall. And so we now have this amazing online platform, which is powered by a company called mighty networks. Basically they built the bones of the app and we just bring our people in our stuff. And we have a place where. Women and young women and non binary folks come to, let's see Mondays, we have open mics with feedback. Like they're the nicest open mics in the world. Plus you get feedback from me and other and your peers Tuesdays and Thursdays usually are when we have our courses right now, we're in the middle of the standup course. We just finished improv. We posted on storytelling and sketch, which yes, you can do all of this online. Wednesdays, every Wednesday we have a Q and A with a comedy pro or celebrity. Writers who have toilet in the trenches whose names you don't know, but who shows, you know, to, uh, Rachel Dratch and Bloom, Ashley Nicole Black from A Black Lady Sketch Show, like an amazing range of people. And you just show up in the Zoom and ask them like you totally just fan girl out and ask them questions. We have monthly shows that are open to the public. We pay our own comics for. For performing because it's work and you want to set that tone set that precedent. We just did a pride show, which is amazing with Murray Hill and Sydney Washington. And so we basically just create the experiences that, that, that young or new, or not even new medium. We have a lot of comedians in the gang who have been doing comedy for a little while, but still want to find the people in the place to really nerd out and really like level up as fast as they can. And we have folks. I think our youngest is an eighth grade with a couple of eighth grade and then all the way up to people Myers. And then we just. Uh, a course that's outside the member's club. So like we had, so you get all that with a subscription, it's all inclusive with a subscription. Then we have a one-off course that we call gold label, which is being taught by your friend and mine, Amy Toomin Strauss, who is the one who wrote The One With the Embryos, um, on Friends. And she's teaching in a three series on about TV writing, con TV, comedy writing, and that's open to people inside and outside of the. It's really the place. It's the place to find your way to level up your work and find your crew. And it's great if you, you know, there's a lot of like improv for T-Mobile. And stuff like that, which is great. But we really present comedy as a path to comedy it's comedy for comedy. However, there are many people, we also attract a lot of people who may or may not want to be professional comedians in whatever capacity, standup writers, whatever, but who know that comedy skills are life skills and they like comedy. So they're like, well, that's perfect. I can learn to be, I can use this thing. I love. To learn how to, you know, write better sink faster, listen, better, get out of my head. Um, stop self-editing react more quickly. Um, all those things are, things are things you can do. And, you know, find your voice, which is, which sounds abstract and woo, but it's a thing. Um, understand your what's, your unique take on things. You can do all that. So we have a real mix of people. It's sort of varying levels of intensity around their comedy career goals, but there's room for everybody. Passionistas: How does the average person get involved? How do people become a part. Lynn: Funny, you should ask. Um, all you need to do is visit our website, which has a lot of free resources on it. Also, I believe that the, uh, irritating term for that is freemium. If lots of articles and, you know, useful, actionable snackable, actionable resources to, to help you just kind of learn. Basics of joke writing and you know how to make your PowerPoint funnier without being a group without being too much of a dork. So there's just a ton of ton of free resources. And then if, um, if folks are interested in joining what we call the, the club, the Gold Comedy club, um, Click right through from our website to there and learn more about that, frankly, the price is amazing. Um, and frankly, it's going to go up. Um, so one of these days, so, so it's $299. 99 a year for all of that stuff. Anything we do in the club, you get any course, um, any, all of our self-paced, we have a ton of one-off classes that are just an hour. With, you know, a writer from James Corden talking about topical jokes, you know, um, you could just nerd out without, and just inhale all of that stuff. You can take our, um, our lives, you know, live on Zoom classes, all those things. So that's all with that one price. Um, so, and then we, we, we record and archive everything that we do. So you also have active. That's why eventually the price is going to go up because our, our resource libraries is getting bigger literally every week. So, um, it's really, really fun. And the. As much as I'm proud of all the resources and I'm happy to like drop all the names of the famous people who have, you know, who swing by and answer questions. And I'm happy to talk about the quality of the, of the instruction and all that stuff. Really. The thing is the community, really the thing. And because you all these people who have literally never met, unless it's their friend that they brought in, um, are like this incredibly supportive. Like cheering section for each other and people will post like stuff they're working on and get feedback. Um, people will come to other classes, final shows just to cheer the others on. Um, people really have there's. We have a lot of 1, 2, 3, few people who have now done open mikes for the first time, because they felt, you know, got those skills and the confidence from us. And, um, and then, and now like people are going now that we can do this. People who live in the same city are like starting to go see the other people in your life. And it's a whole thing. So it's really, um, just it's that kind of, you know, safe, supportive ad-free, um, welcoming place that you can't, you can get. And, and most comedians say like the most important thing is to find your crews. You can do that, but this is. This is not, instead of, if you start doing comedy in some city and you meet your friends, it's not instead of that, but this is, this one is going to be there for you wherever you are, um, and all the time and it's on your phone. Um, so, uh, yeah, it's really, that's the most moving thing that I've seen. It was my goal. So I'm not surprised, but I'm delighted that it really has turned out that way. Passionistas: Listening to the Passionistas Project Podcast and our interview with Lynn Harris. If you're a young woman or identify as nonbinary and want to turn your sense of humor into your superpower, visit GoldComedy.com. Please visit ThePassionistasProject.com to learn more about our podcast and subscription box filled with products made by women owned businesses and female artisans. To inspire you to follow your path. Use the code FALLMYSTERY to get a free mystery box with a one-year subscription. And be sure to subscribe to the Passionistas Project podcast, so you don't miss any of our upcoming inspiring guests until next time. Stay well and stay passionate.

Quest Skinner is an artist who is always striving to find new ways to make her artwork break away the emotional blockade between artists and buyers. As a mixed-media artist, teacher and community activist. Quest is influenced by the energy of cityscapes, music and the personalities she encounters every day. Then, in her studio, she brings them into her world; a world that takes raw feelings, vibrations and various moments in our lives then captures them with flowing pigments. Quest's artwork tells a story that changes with every person who sees her work. Working with different traditional and non-traditional mediums, her fluid and always interchanging style of work keeps patrons coming back to explore the world through Quest's eyes. Read more about Quest Skinner. Learn more about The Passionistas Project. Full Transcript: Passionistas: Hi and welcome to the Passionistas Project Podcast, where we talk with women who are following their passions to inspire you to do the same. We're Amy and Nancy Harrington and today we're talking with Quest Skinner, an artist who is always striving to find new ways to make her artwork break away the emotional blockade between artists and buyers. As a mixed-media artist, teacher and community activist. Quest is influenced by the energy of cityscapes, music and the personalities she encounters every day. Then, in her studio, she brings them into her world; a world that takes raw feelings, vibrations and various moments in our lives then captures them with flowing pigments. Quest's artwork tells a story that changes with every person who sees her work. Working with different traditional and non-traditional mediums, her fluid and always interchanging style of work keeps patrons coming back to explore the world through Quest's eyes. So please welcome to the show, Quest Skinner. Quest: Thank you guys for having me. Passionistas: What's the one thing you're most passionate about? Quest: I think as I get older, staying honest and true to self. Over the years, you know, we compromise just a little and sometimes it really will take one moment and make it eternal. I just want to make sure that I stay true to self and vibe and keep my, my spirit in life and love. It's so easy to get knocked off of your posts when things aren't always, or don't appear to be what you want or aren't in focus in that moment. So staying focused. Passionistas: Let's take a step back. Tell us a little bit about where you grew up and your childhood. And, um, in particular, where did your name come from? Quest: Childhood is one of those sensitive issues with me. I think like anybody who really creates and put your heart in your blood and your mind into it, it's got to come out of something. And I look at my childhood coming out of Pittsburgh, a little like a coal miner's daughter. I was, I learned how to sew. I learned how to hunt. I learned how to fish. I learned how to live organic and be a part of everything around me. And then I also learned we're fine. And I learned how to dress and walk the part and go to Bible school. And you know, this, I went to Colfax Elementary School, so a little Jewish elementary school, and I learned the world from being in a microcosm that was so filled with culture. The one thing I can say is those mountain cities, like the one that I moved to now, Seattle, they're filled with so much art, so much culture vibing communities that in the worst of times, really make the most intricate and extreme and brilliant thought process manifest out of nothing. So, yeah, Pittsburgh, that was part of it. And then about 16. And after my 16th birthday, my mother kind of packed me up and said, we're moving Arizona. And I went from mountains to Val. And it was very amazing. I got really interconnected with, um, one of my cousins and she's just a spirit of fire and life and by vivacious. And here we both are at 43 and we are alive. I think it all comes from being, being in, in extreme different environments and not really knowing what I was getting into, but being a part of that environment made emoted and really created this like international, global little phenomenon spirit. It was everybody to go a little bit deeper into it. How did I even get my name? I was in high school and I had to write a paper. It was like one of those graduating papers, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I remember choosing to write it about two sisters, one Simplicity, and the other one was Quest. And Simplicity was everything that a parent would want, calm, chill, responsible, this, that, and a third. And Quest was everything that everybody should want to be — free, expressive, full of love, sexy, but not sexual, sensual, but not offensive like me. And I realized in that moment that that is who I would always be. And it wasn't so much, like, I think when we think of artists choosing names, we don't look at the history of the country and look at the tribes always. We didn't really name. We didn't look at it as naming. People, pick their names, their souls were picked upon these growth and developments. So to just adjust to my original into who I am now, the name just gave it gravity. Passionistas: What is your cultural heritage? What's your ancestry. And how does that kind of impact the path year one? Quest: So how about this love life. Had a little had that I'm about to turn 40 nervous breakdown and made everybody kind of like dig in and do the genealogy by records. And our family is actually a Cherokee, Iroquois, uh, Choctaw, Chickasaw, uh, Shinnecock, uh, and Piscataway natives. You know, you think about it over time in 500 years. It's so beautiful that maybe not all the tribes got together, but they created together this gorgeous entity and being so, you know, that's why, where my head dress and that's how even Burning Man found me. And it was funny to me, when presented with all these great minds from around the world. And I'm like, yeah, I'm a black native. You know, I'm a native American. We came in on hues. And they're looking at me and they're like, why aren't you mad? I'm like, man, this is so big. It's so deep. It's bigger than even me. Right. But this is the story that has to be told so that we can heal. There's a reason why it was called the melting pot. We had every color, we had every spectrum and we always have. And when we go back to loving all of our unique ancestry and our, and our spirit, and we can begin to know who we really are, then we set ourselves free. Passionistas: So let's talk about you getting into art. Were you always an artist? Quest: I think I was, I think from the little tie dye shorts when I was a kid and the first time I kind of got a hold of a bottle of bleach and understood that I could take my genes and create and alter something else out. Uh, I made bandanas a little hint. Here's scrunchies for kids in elementary school. Like so poetry, you know, in high school and toured what's up with people. I think I always was this, but it's when we find our art forms. It's when we find our medium or maybe I should say when they find us, when we have exposed ourself enough that we can be a channel and a conduit and really pick up as a vessel, all the possibilities. I think I always was an artist, but I remember my first art show. So funny. I remember I'm in DC. I'm having this, like, you know, gotta come through big. I've got an art shit right now. Just have one. I get to, so my first opening night, I got two shows. I'm bouncing from here, running down the street to the next one. And I remember my parents coming and my stepfather looked at me and he. That's what you are. You're an art. Okay. We can take it from there because we didn't know what you were going to be because you can be anything. So that's what you are. You're an artist. And I looked at him and I said, for sure, and always, and now I get it like two decades later, massive amount of pieces done, you know, and, and created. And somehow to be able to create. 13,000 pieces, but it's so hard for some people to pull them all together and see them as one beam, because there's so many different styles and, and I just, I would get tired. I would get bored of something. I don't want to think the same little lady all day long. I refuse. And it got to the point where I would tell clients when I'm done with the color it stuck. When red is over, red is dead. When it's time for green. That's right. When it's blue will be true, but when it's over, you will not ask me again for this painting. I think that that one move is what saved my psyche. Cause I had payment this Africa lady, so cute. God, I still leverage it as day, but I had a dozen women try to get me to paint this painting over and over again. And insanity is doing the same thing over and over again. Passionistas: How did you take that moment? And what, where did your art go from there? If you can do anything, how do you, how do you channel, um, what your inspiration is into the right piece of art? Quest: I wish I had that formula. I wish I could literally sit back and go, oh, this is what makes it. Honestly, I think it's like my neighbor who knocked on a door earlier. It's just having those spirits randomly come through who I'm working on something and they just go, you know what I was thinking? And it amplified being open really, I think creates better pieces. As I get older, I wanted to worry about creating a perfect circle. Right. That's the ultimate like something so simple. But to be able to do a complete circle is a sign of a very ingenious individual. So how much time do you spend trying to do a perfect circle before you realized you could have just removed everything else around it and made it perfect. And it would have been a circle tip. Right? So I got to a point where I don't tell my work what to do it doesn't tell me what. I, I literally go in there and have fun smoke a Chile, listen to some Isley brothers or some really good music, maybe Shaka Khan. If I'm having a low day, I want to hear that. Tell me something good. I'm going to have some fun, like, but this was meant to be fun. It wasn't meant to break me down and worry about anything. It wasn't something that I chose so that I lost sight of like a beautiful sunny day and getting out there and enjoying it. It was something that I picked because it was cathartic, it was loving. And it allowed me to heal people that I love. They literally, even in like the worst times going through the pandemic, I would occasionally get like little emails and texts that said, like, just being here with my piece of art. I've made it like my little cuddle corner. It's where I'm finding my safe space. And that was the goal that when we have to go into our homes or go into our deeper selves, you have these totems around you to live your spirit and to carry you on to make you move forward, to think of yourself in that higher light. So when you flow like that, do you get to tell God what's. No. Okay. Do you get to tell angels how to like bless you? No. Okay. So art doesn't get to, I don't get to tell arc what to do. I'm lucky to be in a presence and to be a vessel up. And I seem like that defeats a lot of artists trying to found something that is endless and boundless without you in beautiful. And you're just here to transcribe for the audience. Nobody worries about the little lady in the, in the courtroom who actually puts all the words down forever. But in hindsight, she's the most important person because most people will be lost with her emotions instead of following a stenographer and understanding her words are creating the whole play out of everything that has happened in front of us. When we lose sight of that. So in sense, maybe I'm just that little humble stenographer for, in a corner, just typing away on the keys and nobody paying attention. Other jobs. I've had people go, that's your job. You're a flight attendant. I walk in the room as an artist and people are looking at those, you did that. Yeah. Yeah. I built that thing and it's like two stories high, in my apartment. Passionistas: You create in many different mediums, in many different styles. You say you don't want to create the same piece twice. But is there a, is there a common thread if you had to describe your style to somebody, what would you say? Quest: Regrounding, elegance, alchemy magic, fun, free, cocoa, sexy diva. And that's just what I get to live in and bring out of me and drop on a world. But I realized like my cocoa divas are my cream divas and my golden girls, and they are everybody in between. And there is no spectrum on it. It's a, it's a spirit on it. So I think I create for us as divine, feminine, as placed in a little zones where we can go. Like you see the pieces. We can go and smoke a cigarette over by miracle mile in Chicago, if we need to, or go ahead and like, you know, become warriors and battle dragons. But whatever it is when I was growing up, little girls had Barbies. And that was like the rate of our consciousness. Right? Little miss Barbie. And I love her. She got more adventurous and stuff, but she didn't always equate all of them. And the brush gives me what it, what it wants and the space and the canvas or the boards, they give me what they can bear. So some of the time, my little divas off might be pencil thin and other times they might be thick as rockstars and look like they go kick down a door and I love that. Like it is every woman and as somebody who's been 240 pounds to 150 pounds. You know what I'm saying? It's like, I'm all of them. We go through so many stages in our life. We deserve to have little, little dolls that really do fit all of us. We deserve to have gorgeous little warriors that still in our heart note, if they're going to, like, after the war is over, go sit under those, some underneath the bullet bath and read books with kids. We still have to be the mother, the warrior, the festival, the nurturer that everything. But we, we need more variety in our attitude about how we accept that. You know, we're not every little girl wants to wear the little tube, pink release, gargle nights. Some of them want to put on her little Carhartts and go out and get sustainable and ground themselves. And they don't want to be considered less because of how they, they find their, their, their speeds. Passionistas: We're Amy and Nancy Harrington and you're listening to The Passionistas Project Podcast and our interview with Quest Skinner. To learn more about her art visit Quest Skinner dot com. If you are enjoying this interview and would like to help us to continue creating inspiring content, please consider becoming a Patron by visiting The Passionistas Project dot com backslash podcast and clicking on the patron button. Even $1 a month can help us continue our mission of inspiring women to follow their passions. Now here's more of our interview with Quest. How did you get involved with burning man and what does that experience mean to you? Cause it seems like it's a very significant experience to people who are part of that movement. Quest: It's like when you say burning man, the first thing you got almost in your heart as welcome home. So that would have went. That's really what it was for the outgoing autodidact. Little little diva who pretty much speaks multiple languages has traveled the world, but always can be seen in one dimension, depending on the United States where I'm at. Right. I get there. Everybody's like, it's going to be different. You have an nymity, people will just let you be quests. And it's like, I walk on Playa, no anonymity rockstar. And from the moment I get there and it was. I at least found kids like myself who were still trapped in her older they're adults, but needed to run around in our moon boots and our little tidy whities and be free. One last time before the lights go out, I needed to be around other artists who love their work, but were afraid of the spotlight at the same time, too, because if you don't feel that anxiety and those butterflies, how do you, I know you're real. Like it burn. Okay. Going back. So, um, man, it's so crazy how my labs have always crisscrossed. Right? So my neighbor across the hallway, his name is Jr. Rest nexus. Um, we go to burning man together. He had been a burn a couple of times before we'll come in, show me the videos, the whole nine you're born with me next year. And I'm like, yeah. Okay. Well next year and he called me and I'm sitting in new Orleans. Getting ready to get on a flight. And he goes, what are you doing at the end of August? Beginning of September asset? I don't know. He says you want to go to Burning Man? And I put so many H-E and hockey sticks behind it and Y-E-SSSSSSS that I figured my heart was in it. So I ended up, um, getting ready to go to burning man announcing it at Eastern Market, finding out that I couldn't like, I, I. It was almost like blacklisted, right? It's like, you're going to, you're going to burning man. And you're leaving the fine art world of Eastern Market that you have been over here building, and you want to go party in the desert with people. And I'm like, no, I want to go to build art. I want to learn how to like be with the baddest engineers and see some of the most epic art pieces in a world. And that was my goal. When I started this. Just to see a life of art, where else in the world, can you go and see that much art and make a life out of it? So the whole thing with these star market, I remember calling one of my mentors for burn and he said, so, okay, most people lose their job coming back from burn. You lost your risk before you left. And I was like, he goes, so do you still want to go? And I said, If that's all they can do is try and stale me. Yeah, my dream I'm gone. I will always be able to make the artwork, sell the pieces, find a new fucking venue. And only when I come back, went back, talked to them, basically told them you guys have gone way too fucking far. We're looking at lost wages, restitutions and gag orders for the whole group. I think we should figure this out. Got my job back everything. Right? Like life was normal again. And I'm still on my way to Burning Man. I got to give them my ticket through BurningMan.org. They were looking to bring more people of color would project radical inclusion. And it was really, it was a, it was a blessing, not in disguise, announced in loud to be able to venture out. And when I got there realized. They were just as intrigued. And I think had spent just as much time learning about me, my art, my spirit, to make sure that I was a fit it's different when you're invited somewhere and people don't take the courtesy to understand who and what they're dealing with. I got pulled in with such, um, a nurturing spirit and I went from one camp my first year and I'm at the camp and everybody's like, Quest, it seems like you have a job. And I was like, yeah, I kind of do I'm working with foam camp and stuff and doing a front of house. And it was awesome. And they were like, you're the only person we know who came on vacation and picked up a job. I say, because even in my playland, I still got to have something to do with them. I'm not just going to be here on debaucherous is I'm damn near 40 and y'all some of y'all are my kids' age and I want to make sure you're safe. You know what I'm saying? It's not, it's not for me to go backwards. It's for me to go forward and be futuristic while forgiving those things that were backward in life. So end out on Playa. Next thing I know the next year, that camp, um, That I was working in front of the house with, I get called until you took one of the hardest jobs. And most people get yelled at screamed at the whole night and you just worked at, and we would love to have you mentioned your come out with us. So that relationship blossomed, I ended up doing costume, makeup, artistic design for them, direction shows with Alison and Alex Gray at Burning Man. It just was going home. Where, no more improving of yourself and what you can do, but in the right spirit in spaces where people were able to obtain, see, and you can grow and make these connections. So the following year, which would have been my third year, I got asked to have my artwork, artery in everywhere. And that is the heart of the Playa. That's where they put out all the artwork. And of course it's mind blowing. When some of the best artists in the world really do come up and, and go not, oh, I know you you're like for real, like, dude, you're, you're pretty decent. Like it's mind blowing and the pieces that they create with heart and salt, you know, I wish more people understood how artists truly do sacrifice and put everything in it to be able to have. Such a small glimmer on a window of opportunity to showcase and show like, you've got to love this thing. You got to love, like staying up, you know, like us, when I told you guys I'm up till five in the morning, this morning working on a mermaid, like, I'm sorry, I'm going to be 15 minutes late. You got to put it all in here. And sometimes you got to know like one thing may cost or, you know, go slightly undone because of, but it's worth it. Burn showed me. In a, in a whole nother capacity. Like I now know how to do plumbing. I know how to run solar panels. I know how to build an infrastructure in a middle of a desolate environment. I know how to help people who may not know how to help themselves. It almost is like being cute. Sparkly. By the time you pack up all your gear, your bags, your headlamps, all this, that. And the third, I feel every year, like I am almost like an itty bitty Marine worn out there in my tutus. And ready to go. Passionistas: Tell us about the commission, the mural you were commissioned to paint at The National Museum of Women in the Arts last year. Quest: During a pandemic after months. Um, you know, isolation, yeah, one of my best friends hit me up. Her daughter is my goddaughter, love her little like amazing lightning and a little yoga at nine years old, like best. And her mom calls me and she goes, babe, you know, we got to board up the museum and you know, I want to put one of your pieces up there. Would you be willing to do. And I was like, dude, okay. Yeah, actually I'll do it for you. What can I do? What should we do? And she said, it's all up to you. And I said, then I want to do Octavia Butler quotes. And we went drum and we picked some Octavia Butler quotes, and I just did the words and some little stencils and stuff on the side of the two doors. And while out there she walks up to me and goes, I need you to do one. Come around. It shows me the front of the women's museum. And I said, I know what to put there. I got it. I'm going to do it real quick and just need like two hours. So I put the woman with the headdress on and it said, um, in order for a Phoenix to rise, we must first burn. And that's the truth. Like we literally left one old world last year, one. Thousand year link and it was great, but it's over. And some things now must be put to Ash and sense to be able to rise to true potential. And a lot of that is people's fears and our hurt and our pain. And that was just one of my favorite pieces last year. And I started crying because when I think of the people that I love, they're the ones who will actually get me out to go. You know, to make these things into create these pieces don't fall. And Malani her name is Malani Douglas. I think that's who I would like you guys to work as your neck as my next Passionistas it's out there. Um, she's just an amazing spirit and her energy. We have been friends since we were in our twenties. When a great woman called her shoe, you get on a phone and you go to, and that's what, one of the greatest women that I know, and to be able to put that up at the Women's Museum, all of the women walking by, and then to see those who are indigenous people, black, indigenous Aboriginal Americans, who don't even know that. And go, we got a little Cherokee in us, or we got a little Choctaw in our family too, and it's like, we are, and I love you all for that. And to give you a total man for you to start seeing that it's a natural progression where we are, who we are, it just makes it all simpler. It makes it better. It was a fun piece. I really did enjoy doing that one, but more than anything, I just love doing it because Melanie. That's pretty hard. He's just like, when it comes to me doing pizza, she's like, dude, whatever you do, whatever you need, whatever you want to do, rock out so supportive. Passionistas: While you were doing that, the people walking by were part of the Black Lives Matter protests. Right? Quest: It was everything, you know, I'm down here and I'm realizing like you've got black lives matter. People walking by, you have people who are out of uniform, walking by who are down there, holding them back. It was so just pose because you have people who it was their job, and they did not want to be there. And you have people who were fighting for their lives. And that was now their new job in a pandemic. When your people have to come out and plead for civil civil rights, like plead for food for better education. Because now they understand that their children have been defeated for the last five and 10 and 15 years. When they, when they realize that they believed in something and they were looked down by their beliefs, it said to think that out of all the so-called, um, first world country, We had, uh, we had a 10th world approach. We left our children out there. We left our elderly out there. We left Black Lives Matter for sure. You know what I'm saying? But we left everybody last year. Scared, exhausted, fighting for love, fighting for rights. When in all honesty, it's almost appalling when you think of the other countries that literally. In your bank account tomorrow, you will wake up and there will be $10,000 or $20,000 because that's honestly, and we know because we have accountants, we have eco economists. We know this to survive for six months. As we're asking you to please stay home so we can keep you safe. You are workforce, you are our doctors. We need to lessen the burden on everybody. Last year. It was a perfect piece to put in front of everyone. Given a chance though. I would probably now put a mirror there and let people know that year was supposed to be for you to focus on reflect on and change yourself. What excuse can you have while watching someone's child shot dead in the middle of the street? What validity can you give me? What communication can you tell me is important over here? And if you can find that there is something perversed and sick with you, and we need to call it out. Like we are so geared to call out everyone's atrocities and offenses, but we won't call out the simple fact that this has been atrocious and offensive for just the global community outside the United States. I have to bear witness and watch every day. It's interesting. How many people, I think, lost focus of how much of an opportunity this was, you know, too, we did it smart. There would have been free classes. I'd have yarn, a Yale, Harvard, Duke, and. For everyone so that you can get skills trades, do physical therapy, be able to, you know, talk to counselors. We literally left a whole world almost abandoned and abated here without any guidance in any care. Passionistas: So what's your dream for the future for your little granddaughter and for your little goddaughter? When I was young, I used to say every morning when I woke up, God make me strong. Cause yesterday I was. I probably wasn't the best one in the world. And I know there are hundreds of little girls and then one day I realized after like worshiping and post covers, that were thousands of little girls looking up to me as great as she is the little girl who surpass it's me, that she stays elegant, refined, beautiful unapologetic about her spirit, her body, her mind operated. We opened the flood gates for every little girl where they can walk. And be safe and protected instead of disrespect, rejected and raped by people who were supposed to be there for them. I pray that she knows none of the pains in which I, as a woman have had to endure because we should be the last ones. I pray that she gets to walk on golden like bricks and, mm. Ever knows anything but joy for her. And I've told her that before and my goddaughter, my other goddaughter is coming to visit me this week. And you know, these were little girls who got dropped off by my stands by their parents. And some of them, their dads would just go, this is what a real black woman looks like in an entrepreneur. And they started their business. It's my other little goddaughter now she's in her twenties, 24, right? He came in and all my clients are in there and they're like, oh, we want to buy in advance the guys. She looked at me and she said, no, I'm buying a van. She said, that's where you pulled us to the side and made us women and made us go. People will not argue in public. You will not disrespect yourself or anybody else out here. We're going to figure this out. I will show you how to battle and be mad because people don't understand that you have a right and you shouldn't be picked with, I will show you how to protect yourself, but we will not disrespect us. I want them, I want them to constantly know that every woman was ever had to stand on her own for self up by the bootstraps, you know, put everything in a perspective. I did it not just for me. I did it for you because at 60, I do not want to be sitting in a room and somebody disrespect him again, lady. And at 60, I got to get up and go say something. These days should be in the buckets. If men do not know how to conduct themselves around women, you probably shouldn't work around. Period. If you do not know that you came from a woman, then you probably shouldn't have one period. If you can't get over the fact that not everybody was perfect. And half of the people didn't know what they were doing, you probably. I hope that we can give them everything, everything, every starring role, every center at a stage, I hope that she is Misty Copeland. I hope she has the presence of Lena Horne. I hope they're endowed with the greatest gifts of knowledge. I hope that thought and emo tap and everybody touched their grace from, from here on out. I want them to be able to live a full life and not die from exhaustion, racism, fear. I want her to know what it's like to be a human being and not marginalized by color or financials or this, that and the third. And if I get my way, I want to make sure they get a big coin before I go. Then when you got a nice little trust fund, one day. Passionistas: Thanks for listening to our interview with Quest Skinner. To learn more about her art visit Quest Skinner dot com. Please visit The Passionistas Project dot com to learn more about our podcast and subscription box filled with products made by women-owned businesses and female artisans to inspire you to follow your passions. Get a FREE mystery box with a one-year subscription with the code FALLMYSTERY. And be sure to subscribe to the Passionistas Project Podcast so you don't miss any of our upcoming inspiring guests. Until next time, stay well and stay passionate.

Katie Chin is a celebrity chef, award-winning cookbook author, spokesperson, food blogger and the Culinary Ambassador to the National Pediatric Cancer Foundation. Katie has had a cooking show called “Double Happiness” with her mother Leeann, has appeared on TV shows like “The Real” and “The Today Show,” and written five cookbooks including her latest — “Katie Chin's Global Family Cookbook” filled with internationally-inspired recipes your friends and family will love.    Read more about Katie Chin. Learn more about The Passionistas Project. Full Transcript: Passionistas: Hi, and welcome to the Passionistas Project Podcast, where we talk with women who are following their passions to inspire you to do the same. We're Amy and Nancy Harrington. And today we're talking with Katie Chin, a celebrity chef award-winning cookbook, author spokesperson, food blogger, and the culinary ambassador to the National Pediatric Cancer Foundation. Katie has had a cooking show called "Double Happiness" with her mother Leeann, has appeared on TV shows like "The Real" and "The Today Show" and written five cookbooks, including her latest "Katie Chin's Global Family Cookbook" filled with internationally inspired recipes your family and friends will love. So please welcome to the show Katie Chin. Katie: Hi everyone. Passionistas: Thanks so much for being here today, Katie, we're thrilled to have you. What's the one thing you're most passionate about? Katie: The one thing I'm most passionate about is honoring my mother's culinary legacy, because everything I know about life in cooking, I learned in the kitchen from her. Passionistas: Talk about how you came to that place, where you wanted to honor her legacy through food. Katie: We have to go all the way back to 1956. When my mother immigrated from China, from Guan Jo China, to Minneapolis, Minnesota of all places, she didn't speak any English. She was making 50 cents an hour as a senior. But she always loved to cook. She couldn't even find fresh ginger at the market at the time, but she improvised. She grew bok choy in our garden and somehow whipped up these gourmet Chinese stir fries. Even though our family had no money. One day, she decided to throw a luncheon for some sewing clients in the 1970s. And they were blown away by her cuisine because back in the day, they only had to chop suey each domain and they had never tasted authentic Chinese cooking. So, they encouraged her to start teaching classes to cater. And one thing led to another, she became very popular as a caterer, but bear in mind, she didn't even have a car. She had to take the bus. Okay. But her popularity continued to soar. And one day she hooked up with a socialite and the socialite wanted to open a restaurant with my mother. So, the socialite happened to be friends with the owner of the Minnesota twins and the owner of the Minnesota twins was friends with Sean Connery. What like that's crazy. So, what happened is Robert Redford was in town, directing ordinary people in Minneapolis and Sean Connery came to visit. And somebody threw a party and my mom was catering it. So, both Robert Redford and Sean Connery were at this party and I served them dumplings. Okay. I was a little girl, but I served the dump legs and my knees were buckling and I'm like, ah, anyway, Sean Connery decides to invest in my mom's restaurant too, which is unbelievable right in Minneapolis. Oh my God. And so, once word got out that Sean Connery w seven was investing in my mom's restaurant. There were lines around the block and it was quite a quite elegant restaurant. She opened more and more restaurants. Now I'm in high school at the time. And I barely saw my mom. She literally was sleeping on the cats. She worked so hard, but she opened more restaurants and more restaurants. And by the late eighties, my mother had over 30 years. So general mills, uh, bought my mother's company and made her head of this division, this restaurant division at general mills. Now bear in mind. My mother never even went to high school and had been making 50 cents an hour as a senior. So, it was a remarkable story, really, for anybody, any woman, any minority, but really anyone with a dream, but she was also quite philanthropic. She served on several boards. She was on the board of the Minnesota Vikings and the Minnesota twins, but had never even been to a game. She spoke on the steps of the white house. She met the Clintons, just unbelievable, but she became this huge star. Anyway, she ended up buying it back cause she didn't like what they were doing to her food. And she went on to create a chain with over 50 locations, which still exists. Our family's not affiliated anymore, but it's called Leeann Chin. Okay. So, I grew up working in my mom's catering business in our tiny basement in Minnesota. And while all the other kids for ice skating or at the mall, we were frying chicken pieces gritting our teeth, but we knew something magical was happening to her. I just vowed to never work in the food business and to get the hell out of Minnesota, it was freezing cold, no offense to Norwegians or Swedish people, but there was, it was not diverse at the time. We were like the only Asian family for miles. So anyway, I left, I went to school in Boston. You guys, I went to BU actually, and then I moved to LA and worked in the entertainment industry for 14 years. And I was just so busy if I had forgotten how to cook. And while I thought I was making my mother proud. I had actually done the opposite because I had forgotten how to cook. And I think because in so many Chinese American families, you're supposed to become a doctor, a lawyer, a professor, and all my siblings are those things. And I did something that was so radically different. It forced me to work even harder to be successful. So, they wouldn't worry about me, even though they had no idea what I did. So anyway, long story short, I decided to throw a dinner party one night. I kept calling my mom asking her questions because I forgot how to do everything. And she was like, this is ridiculous. So, she got on a plane with frozen lemon chicken. She showed up on my doorstep. She cooked the whole meal, but she let everyone think that I had cooked it because she was just that kind of mom. So meanwhile, she opened my fridge and found only champagne and yogurt, completely mortified. And she set out to teach me how to cook again. So, she kept flying to LA and teaching me and my friends how to cook. And they're like, oh my God, you guys make this look so easy. You should do a book together. And I was like, we should do a book together. So, I got us a book deal, but then I realized that I was lacking. Passion and meaning in my life, even though my career was very good to me, I was in a very unhappy marriage. So, I just decided to completely change my life. And I quit my job as a senior VP at Fox. And I left my husband on the same month. Now I don't recommend doing all those things in one month's time, but first of all, I didn't have kids. So, I felt like I had the luxury to do so. And I also felt like, if not now, then when like life is social. So, I just did a complete 180 and she and I came together. We did the book together. We had a catering business together called double happiness. We had a show on PBS together called double happiness as well, which was a mother daughter cultural cooking show, but she hated to be on TV. So, she really focused on the cooking. So, I had to do most of the talking, so I'd go. Okay. So, if you don't have Asian hot sauce, you could use Mexican hot sauce right now and she'd go. No. So she was hilarious without trying to be hilarious. She was totally the straight man, but so funny and charming because of it. But anyway, we had lots of wonderful culinary adventures together, going to China for the food network and going on the today show a bunch of times it was truly a gift because finally coming together as adults, she opened up to me and told me a lot about her life in China and all of the hardships she endured. Passionistas: Tell us a little bit about your entertainment industry career. What did you do? And did you have a passion for it in the beginning? Katie: I just fell into it. I wanted to move to New York city and work in advertising like that girl. That was my dream. I wanted to be Marla Thomas, but what happened is I was, my boyfriend went to school at brown. So, I was working at a radio station and Providence, and the Warner brothers rep walked in. And we started chatting and being from Minneapolis, I didn't know anything about the entertainment industry. So, he was like, oh yeah, I represent Warner brothers and bubble lives. Like, why don't you comment for me? And I'm like, what people get paid to do that. So anyway, I was the on-campus rep for Warner brothers, and then I moved to LA and I do, you know, Nancy Kirkpatrick, Amy? Yes. Yeah. So Nancy was my boss when I worked for Warner brothers in college. And then she got me a job at a PR firm called climate Feldman, which became climate and white. So, I worked in PR when I first moved to LA, but then I realized PR wasn't really, for me, I'm more of a promotions person. So, then I went to Orion and I was a consultant, but I didn't drive to take [the bus and cabs and I lied and said, I could drive. You do what you gotta do. So then from a Ryan, I went to Disney. And then I was a manager of national promotions, and then I set up a college internship program, much like the one I participated in at Warner brothers for Disney flew all over the country, hiring interns. What a great job when you're like 25. Oh my God. So much fun. Then I got promoted and worked in national promotions at Disney. Then I left and went to Fox when I was a director of TV promotions. There. Then I got promoted. Well, see, I never wanted to stay in it. I didn't ever want, I didn't want it to move to New York. I didn't want to stay in LA and I'm on my third marriage. My life is an open book. I'm just going to tell you everything. So it was, I got married when I was 23, which is really idiotic and then he was gay. So we got divorced obviously. And so, I was going to move to New York, but I was just kept getting promoted and I'm like, why don't I keep getting promoted anyway. So, then I became a senior VP of synergy. When I was like 29. And then I ended up moving back to Minneapolis to run my mom's company for a year, which was a mistake. I won't go into that, but I came back and where she worked at universal rose had a promotion there. Then I went to an agency. Then I went back to Fox and that was my last studio job. Passionistas: So you must've been ready for a change when that moment came in your life, because those are exhausting jobs. None of those jobs are nine to five jobs. Katie: It's one thing. If you're very passionate about your career and you have this incredible, uh, stress in your life, but when you feel dispassionate and there's that incredible stress, it really is harmful to your body, your mind, body, and soul. And I felt like it just wasn't worth it. It just, it was very hard to face the studio. Exactly. Chairman of the studio, the unbelievable pressure that you're under people don't realize you guys do. And that feeling in your pit of your stomach. So, I was just like, I just saw this as like a chance to escape. I really felt like I needed to escape my life, but being like the good Chinese American girl, that I was, everything looked perfect on paper that was really living a lie because I wasn't feeling passionate about my career, but then also was not happy in my marriage. So, I just feel so lucky that a lot of people don't have the luxury to escape their circumstances. Passionistas: Let's talk about that moment where your mom flew out and helped you with the party. What did that mean to you that she did that. And how did that really start to trigger this renewed interest in food? Katie: I was surprised that she did it, but then she was so amazing in that way. Like it was amusing to me that she did it and I of course wanted to bring her out into the dining room. She was, and it was about saving face is very important in Chinese culture. And I think she was just like, I don't want them to think that you can't cook. So, you just do that. I would have stay back here. A lot of Chinese people express their love in interesting ways, non-Western way. If I did well in school, she would make a special dish. You would get a whole steamed fish and black bean sauce. If I came home with all BS, I get pork. Tell me if I got a promotion at work, she would, her secretary would send me a product purse typed by the secretary to Katie, from mom. Congratulations. It was no love. Proud of you. Love you anything. So very subtle actions of love. So ,coming out to do that was an expression of love. My renewed interest in cooking really came more from at first it was my business acumen because my friends were reacting to this. You guys are such a cute team. You make such a great team. You two together, you could really do some great stuff together. You should do a book. You know what I'm saying? I started to see a mother daughter culinary brand. That's the first thing I saw it, wasn't conscious to me. Wow. I can really now get to know my mom. I was like, Ooh, this is cool. This is like a giant big mound of putty and I'm going to shape it and I'm going to build this brand. It's going to be great. So, in the beginning, I wasn't really that into the food part. I was like front of the house. I'm going to get us gigs on TV. I'm going to develop a series. And so what ended up happening is my mother was doing most of the work and I was the front man. And so, this went on for a while and my mother was very wise and she, after we had our catering business for a couple of years, she announced that she was going to Europe with her friend, Denise for three months. But we had all these catering gigs lined up and I was like, what? Huh? What are you talking about about it? So, she left me to my own devices cause she knew it was the only way I was gonna. So, I figured it out and I added some things. Like I modernize some of the recipes and then she came back with, she didn't like it because I changed a couple of things that we got it. We only had two fights because she passed away. About 13 years ago. One was, I changed an at a mommy recipe and I used to Haney instead of peanut butter, she got mad and drove away. Very passive, aggressive. Didn't really say anything. She's like Chinese peanut butter always best gets in the car. Yeah. Another time right before we went on the today show for the first time with Ann Curry for Chinese New Year. So, it's customary to serve a whole fish to symbolize abundance because the word for abundance in Chinese is in hominine abundance means fishermen's abundance, but also a whole chicken with the beak and the tail, the head in the beacon, the tail to symbolize unity, family unity, and a favorable started finish. So, my moms, you have to have a whole chicken on the set. Mother, we cannot show a whole chicken with the head and the feed and everything on national television. And then she, we were staying with my sister at San Francisco and I'll never forget. She slammed… my mother never slammed the door. Like she was just raised in such a way that she wasn't allowed to scream or be aggressive or violent in any way, but she slammed the door. I slammed the door. And then my sister Jeanie was like, and I know what she was thinking. She was like, how could I have raised such a white daughter, such a why low. That means that white ghost, that's a derogatory term against white people. How could I have raised such a white daughter in her mind? Sure. That's what she was thinking. Anyway, I went out because we got on the conference call with the producer and I was like, I'm just wondering, we typically show a whole chicken and the producers. We cannot show that on national television. And I wasn't like, yeah, I won or anything like that. I was like, in my heart, I knew I was right. So, it was just interesting dynamic, but it was for the most part, very respectful. And like I said, the biggest gift is in those quiet moments when we were cooking together, she would open up and talk to me more like a friend. And tell me about my God being in an arranged marriage, meeting your husband 10 minutes before you get married to them. So many crazy things that happened to her. Passionistas: Tell us a little bit about your first television show together. Katie: It was called "Double Happiness." it was on PBS and because of my marketing background, I, and I just wanted to, you know, say this because a lot of people, particularly when they decide to begin, become an entrepreneur and to pivot and try something new, it's scary. They don't know how they don't know what to do, where to turn. And I think you just have to grow some balls sometimes and just ask for things. And then what's the worst thing that can happen. A person rejects you or they say, no, you're not going to die. You just move on. So, I was like trying to figure out the best distribution channel for us. We had pitched Food Network, they passed. They didn't think a Asian show would fly, which I think is ridiculous. But I was like, PBS seems like. Starting point. So, I just did some research and I found a producer based in Hawaii on the internet. She had produced a Roy Yamaguchi show and Charlie Trotter show. So, I just found her number and called her up and I was like, Hey, my name's Katie. My mom was his famous chef owned a restaurant chain. I'm coming to Hawaii. Do you want to get together for coffee? And she said, yes. So sometimes it's as simple as that. So, I think sometimes just the stars aligned. Oprah said luck is when preparation meets opportunity. And I think it is so true. So anyway, she had gotten Kikkoman to fund Roy Yamaguchi. She still had a contact there. So, they happened to have money left in their budget. They needed to spend. So, this rarely happens in a life, but we basically made the phone call and had the funding. In two weeks. We worked closely together. We shot 13 episodes in 10 days, time in Hawaii, which was fantastic. And it was challenging because I had never done TV before. And as, as you guys know, like getting up and doing a PowerPoint presentation for a bunch of executives is one. Being on television with your mom who doesn't like to say anything is another thing. I actually tricked my mom and forced her to train with my acting coach, but I told her we were going to get manicures and we pulled up to his house. She's like, where are we? I go, we're not getting manicures. We're trading with my, I take killers. So, we go and he was adorable. My acting coach was a lot like Billy crystal, like his personality, very warm and loving and so funny, but we're working with him and he's like, okay, Leanne. So, you know, what you're making right now is three ingredients. So, you can't keep your head down. It's a pretty easy recipe. You got to look up, you got to look up. Okay. And then as I've mentioned, my mother never really touched me or said, I love you. We just, she wasn't raised to hug. So, at the end of our first trial segment, he was like, yeah, got to put your arm around your daughter. At the end of the sec, she looked at me, she goes, do I have it? It was challenging for me and learning how to do TV. Isn't really something you can practice. You can try, you can work with a media coach, particularly live TV. You can't get better at it unless you're actually doing it. So, I'll say it was hard in the beginning and then we had a blast doing it. And honestly, cause I'm working on the solo show. I hadn't looked at any of the footage because it's just too painful. So, I'm planning to incorporate some of it. I've been watching some of the clips. This was years ago. We did this in 2004. It's been many years, but it's very difficult to watch and not get emotional. Passionistas: [We're Amy and Nancy Harrington and you're listening to the Passionistas Project Podcast and our interview with Katie Chin. Check out her blog filled with delicious recipes and get a copy of her latest book "Katie Chin's Global Family Cookbook" at chefkatiechin.com. And look for Katie during the 2021 Passionistas Project Women's Equality Summit being held virtually on August 20th through August 22nd. Katie is taking part in the AAPI panel called Kitchen Table Talk and the AAPI Community on Sunday, August 22nd at 2:00 PM. Pacific 5:00 PM Eastern. Later that evening, we will present The Passionistas Persist Awards to Margaret Cho and Dr. Jane Goodall. Our producing partner, Selena Luna will have an intimate conversation with Margaret Cho and we'll chat with our hero, Dr. Jane Goodall. For details, go to ThePassionistasProject.com/2021summit. Now here's more of our interview with Katie. You've written five cookbooks. So, tell us a little bit about where you draw inspiration from when you're writing a cookbook and what that process is like. Katie: The first book I did with my mom and all honesty. She did most of it because of my, I told you I was still actually working at box and then she had passed away. So, I had to really not rely on her platform or her name. And so, the next book I did was 300 best rice cooker recipes. And I had to test 300 recipes in different rice cookers. So, I had all these different testers coming in and out. What I draw my inspiration from travel. Cause I've been fortunate. I've traveled to many different countries. Most of my friends happen to be children of immigrants. I think we just birds of a feather. So, I've been so privy to so many wonderful meals cooked for me by my friend's parents. And eating out just pre COVID, obviously, and also pre- I have 13 year old twins now, but so I didn't eat out a lot when they were younger and LA were so, you know, fortunate, cause there's so many awesome restaurants and such a diversity of exciting food and so many different mashups happening. I just try to draw inspiration mainly from my friends and their parents. Also, what I see on TV and I just try. Also, as a mom more recently. So, my most recent cookbook, the Global Flavors cookbook, I think because kids have grown up watching the Food Network, watching Top Chef, making food on TikTok, their parents being able to travel, being able to take their kids to foreign countries. I think today's families in the US have a much more open and sophisticated palette than our generation. And whereas back in the day, if you went to a mini mall, oftentimes you just find pizza and donuts. Now you're likely to find Pokemon or an empanada shop. I just felt like people wanted a resource to replicate some of those flavors at home in an easy way, not requiring a million trips to an ethnic market using their everyday pots and pants. So, I'm always, I love to eat. I'm here in Vegas right now. Passionistas: You did a special for the Food Network and then you traveled to China with your mom. Can you tell us about that experience and what was it like going there with her and experiencing that? Katie: It was really awesome to be able to go back to not only been to China a couple of times, but wow. To meet her family and because of the cultural revolution, you know, she didn't see her family for 30 years. So, I can't speak Chinese, which made it challenging obviously. And they would just start laughing at me and I know enough to say hello, how are you? Nice to meet you. But they would just point at me and laugh at me, but this is one of the most memorable parts of the trip. So, we were tending to celebrate my mother's birthday at her brother's apartment and her family in particular. And I think this is quite common in China. The purpose of sitting down to eat is to eat, not to speak. Like, you're not like having conversations. You're just eating the point is to eat, not to make like chat. So, the producer who happened to be Chinese American, she was like, okay. And there's like a whole pig. They're like, it's like a big, huge banquet of food. And there's probably 14 of us around the table. She said, it's really important that when the cameras start rolling, but you guys are really gregarious talking about the food, cooking your glasses. So, I go over to my mom. I'm like, mom, they want us to sip of a, I go, can you tell them to do that? And she goes, oh, they're not going to do that. I was like, okay. So, I go back to the producer. I'm like, you really not are equipped. They're not capable of doing that. She was like, okay, that's fine. But if they can just look excited and clink their glasses without talking, you do the toast, they click their glasses and then they dig into the food gregarious. I'm like, okay, I think they can handle it. My mom tells them that. Between how to sign. I'm like, okay, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. We're here to celebrate somebody translating. And then I do the toast and then they all sit there like this. Cause you can you imagine how bizarre and foreign all these cameras are rolling. And they're just like that. So that was pretty funny. Then we went to the world's largest floating Dim Sum restaurant it's called Jumbo in Hong Kong. And we're back in the kitchen with the dumpling master. He's teaching me how to make the delicate fold on the hard gal in the kitchen was rolling. He's teaching me, my mom, mom says, why are you so slow? But it was always out of love. That was like, thanks mom, but so wonderful. Full to be there with her. And also, again, just being there, she told me a story while we were there. That after world war II, the Japanese mafia were still threatening. A lot of the neighborhoods there that if they didn't get, get paid off, they would bomb different communities. So, my mother's father owned a grocery store. She was 12 at the time and my mother was a tomboy. So, she would deliver 50 pound bags of rice in the back of her bike. She was really a master of the Abacus. So, she had all these skills, but because she was like a tomboy, she had the least value. So the Japanese threatened to bomb and I guess her family and a bunch of the neighbors decided to leave just in case they bombed, but they didn't tell my mom. So, my mom came home from school and realized everyone had evacuated except for a couple of the employees. And I said, oh, the family decided to go to another village in case the Japanese bomb. And she realized in that moment that she had been left behind to die, but they needed somebody to stay behind just in case they didn't. So, she was there, she told me, eating dinner with the employees by candlelight she'd play Mahjong with them. And the day she would restock the inventory of the canned goods, things like that. And then three weeks later, her family came back, but they didn't even acknowledge what happened. She woke up and she said, her mom just said, get your other sisters ready for school again. So, she did that. But in that moment, she realized her life had no value in the family. And I think that's what really motivated her to work hard, to not look back to overcome. And so, her way, her survival system was all about push your feelings down, move forward and be efficient. So, we all inherited a bit of that, but through therapy, my brothers and sisters,because that's not healthy either, but she did say because my father was also emotionally abusive. If your daddy had been a supportive husband, I probably would never have done all these, all of these things because she was raised to be a contented housewife and just cook and clean and raise children. But I think that's just who she was as well. Like glass half full. I'm just gonna look at this as a gift, like in a way I would never have done all of this. He was the person that he was. Passionistas: What did you personally take away from hearing that story? Did it affect you moving forward? Katie: I think I had a lot more, I think respect for my mother, even though I was a full adult by that time, I think I, I had to grow up a little bit too, instead of relying on her, to do everything, spending so much time with her during this period and learning about that. Cause she was a person that never complained. She just never complained about it. And she rarely had a bad thing to say about people, too. I think she really taught me also coming out of the entertainment industry, the gossipy and complainy, it's both those things. So, I think it really helped me to understand her a little bit more. Like when I got divorced second time, you know, she picked me up from the airport, you know, and I was crying and she was like, you know, you should really not cry so much. It's inefficient. I was like inefficient, but I realized she couldn't help. It that's, she would never have survived unless she had that attitude. So, I try to have some compassion for that, but also important for me to break the cycle for my own children, because I don't want my daughter to think it's okay to go around life, not crying cause it's inefficient. Right? The not complaining part. That's something I'm really trying to it's not doing successfully that way. Passionistas: So speaking of your, your children and especially your daughter, you've carried on the tradition of filming, cooking shows with relatives. So, tell us about what you did during the pandemic with your daughter. Katie: So I have a catering business called Wok Star Catering, and I obviously had to pivot and we have a home in Lake Arrowhead. So, we decided to skip town for about seven months. So, when it started, I was so bored cause I had to get bored easily. I just thought, oh, why don't we do a live streaming cooking show? I had done a few here and there with some friends. I mean, she's pretty, gung-ho about things, so she's okay. And it just started out something to do and something to get some friends involved and have guests on the show via Zoom. And so, we started doing it three times a week, and then we got sponsors. Then we got all these people interested in being on the show and it became a thing and we have a pretty loyal following and we have friends helping us out, like all him straight. And my brother now is actually part of the crew, too. So, it just became so fun for her and I did it to do together. And what was so beautiful for me was to watch her evolution being on camera because she's a dancer. So, she's used to performing, but in the beginning, she was pretty shy and then she just, I don't know, large and in charge and. My husband just pointed out in the show with your mom, she would criticize you and correct you the whole show. And now my daughter does that to me. So, I just can't get your break. I get it. I got it for both EDS because Beck is very like type a, I think she'll be a producer. Not necessarily like on-camera talent. She's just very, don't forget to do this, mommy. And don't forget to do that. Mommy, you didn't add the soy sauce. Talk about the giveaways. It's been really fun because she now takes charge. Like I intentionally try to remember during the show to just turn it over to her, Becca, take it away, tell everybody what to do next. And I also think this generation of kids doing TikTok and growing up, being on YouTube, they're not as self-conscious about being on camera has been really great. And she has all these fans, like people just want to see Baca. This complete stranger was like the nibbler, Becca is the nibbler. Cause she's always taking bites of food. She doesn't realize she's doing it. This has become a thing, hashtag the nibbler. And we actually have merchandise that says Hashi, the nibbler that we're selling and also a Becca rocks. That's been just so really a lot of fun and adorable to do. And then since then she joins me when I do these monthly TV segments for bloom TV, for national pediatric cancer. So, we cook along with a pediatric cancer warrior along with the host of the show. And also trying to teach her about philanthropy [and it's just a great way to do it. And also to build her confidence. Passionistas: Do you think you have a particular trait that has helped you succeed? Katie: My friends have said this. I do think I have.  like, I, I really try to see the good in people and I really try to have fun. And I think that what has really been helpful to me are my friendships with other women. And the network of women that I felt because a favorite quote of mine is for every successful female entrepreneur entrepreneurs, there's five other successful female entrepreneurs that have her back. And I think that there's a stereotype of successful women being bitches and too aggressive. And I've found that to be not the case, maybe once in a blue moon, but most of the women that I encounter that are entrepreneurs or even in my career, really just try to help each other out. So ,during COVID, what happened is a friend of mine and I, she runs a PR firm. We decided to start a virtual women's game night and it was just like a handful of us. So, we were playing Taboo on Zoom, but all of a sudden this magical thing happened more and more women started to join this chat. And very few of them actually played the game. It became a drawing game, but it became this community of women in this chat, sharing advice, lifting each other. Cheerleading. Like I would see something, this might she's on the chat. She's a documentarian just saw that she was doing a fireside chat. I put it in the chat. Then everybody started to do that for each other political commentary. Where are we on my eyebrows plug? Like everything under the sun. And as a result, I can't tell you how many of these women have gone on each other's podcasts, become friends. Lifting each other up. And we finally, and so many of them hadn't actually met in person. We finally had to get together two weeks ago, you guys are going to have to join. We hired a DJ, we dance for five hours straight. It was so phenomenal, but the whole point wasn't to let's network and see what business comes of it. But it just all happened so organically in that. And I think I'm just really proud of how did that I didn't set out to, for that to happen, but it did happen and it continues to grow and it's just been so fulfilling for me. Passionistas: Thanks for listening to our interview with Katie Chin. Check out her blog, filled with delicious recipes and get a copy of her latest book "Katie Chin's Global Family Cookbook" at chefkatiechin.com. Please visit ThePassionistasProject.Com to learn more about our podcast and subscription box filled with products made by women owned businesses and female artisans to inspire you to follow your passion. Sign up for our mailing list and get 10% off your first purchase. And get your tickets now for the 2021 Passionistas Project Women's Equality Summit featuring Katie Chin on the Kitchen Table Talk in the AAPI Community panel on Sunday, August 22nd [00:34:00] at 2:00 PM/pacific 5:00 PM and The Passionistas Persist Awards featuring Margaret Cho and Dr. Jane Goodall on Sunday, August 22nd at 5:00 PM/pacific 8:00 PM. Eastern. For details, go to the ThePassionistasProject.com/2021Summit. And be sure to subscribe to the Passionistas Project Podcast, so you don't miss any of our upcoming inspiring guests. Until next time, stay well and stay passionate.

Bethany Halbreich is an innovation consultant, the President and Founder of Incipe Insight and the Founder of Paint the World. This global, collaborative art project is dedicated to inspiring creative expression in individuals, organizations and communities by providing collaborative artistic experiences that enable participants to spontaneously engage their creative minds. Paint the World does this by securing large blank canvases and art supplies in low-income communities around the world that otherwise have little or no access to art education. It's a simple idea with a lot of potential. Read more about Paint The World. Learn more about The Passionistas Project. Full Transcript: Passionistas: Hi, and welcome to the Passionistas Project Podcast, where we talk with women who are following their passions to inspire you to do the same. We're Amy and Nancy Harrington and today we're talking with Bethany Halbreich, an innovation consultant, the president of Incipe and the founder of Paint the World. This global collaborative art project is dedicated to inspire a creative expression in individuals, organizations and communities by providing collaborative artistic experiences that enable participants to spontaneously engaged a creative minds. Paint the World does this by securing large blank canvases and art supplies in low-income communities around the world that otherwise have little or no access to art education. It's a simple idea with a lot of potential. So please welcome to the show Bethany Halbreich. Bethany: It is my honor to be here and speak with you, too. Passionistas: What is the one thing you're most passionate about? Bethany: That is a very easy question for me because I feel like the crazy canvas lady, sometimes I, everywhere I go, I carry around blank canvases. So it's wild that I don't have one sitting here with me right now, but I am the most passionate about providing the tools for others to create. And my vehicle of doing that is Paint the World. So I am most passionate about what I get to work on every day. Passionistas: So tell us about Paint the World. How did you come up with the idea and what is it? Bethany: The idea emerged by accident five or six years ago, because I was with a bunch of just a few good friends actually in the middle of the woods in a cabin and are well on our way to the cabin we needed to come up with some fun activities to do during our time together. So we just went to an art store and got a canvas and some supplies and then thought it would be a fun thing to collaborate on the canvas together. And these are really fun friends that I have. They're always encouraging creativity and they're just wonderful. That's what we did. And then I was just really shocked by how beautiful the canvas turned out. So later that summer I did the same thing in a couple of different places. Usually when I'm by a canvas I'm very much an observer. I don't encourage other people to paint on the canvas. I leave it there and I see what happens because in my mind, Yeah, just in doing this for years. It's very obvious that there's several stages to the canvas. There's the blank canvas. And this is usually when it's the most intimidating to people and people usually are a little bit confused. Is this a, is this an installation? Is this meant to be painted on? Is this just what is going on here is an artist going to be using this later and they just left it here. Do we touch it? So anyway, I always find that stage of the canvas really interesting. And then someone always comes along and just finds the boldness in themselves. Usually they're with a group of people. Sometimes it's an individual, but they find the boldness in themselves and they pick up the one of the paint brushes and they paint.  And then after that, slowly, the canvas begins to be filled up, but it actually looks pretty bad in the beginning.  There could be a sun in the corner. There could be a stick figure in the middle of somewhere and because it looks so bad And I don't mean to put the judgment on it, but it's good that it looks bad in my mind because it encourages people who wouldn't define themselves as artists to actually paint on it. And if it looks amazing, they wouldn't. That's the most magical part of the whole thing to me, because there've been so many people who have picked up a paintbrush and done some sort of contribution on these blank canvases that have never picked up a paint brush before. Hundreds of people have done this and it is their first time picking up a paintbrush. That's wild to me. And it's usually those people who had impacts the most and it's always just blown me away and they always turn out so beautifully in the end because after they begin to be filled up over time, I usually leave them in a particular location for around 24 hours sometimes just during the day, so around eight hours but they always tell a story of that community vision. They, if you look at it, they visually feels like that community. It's amazing. So that's where I started to bring in some union analysts and there's a whole other part of the project. They're really understanding the community through the art that the community gathers to create. But that's Paint the World and over the last five or six years, even though it started out as an experiment it quickly became clear that this needed to be a bigger project than just something I, did every now and then for fun. So it's an now it's a nonprofit and it's growing. Passionistas: That first person who comes and paints I don't know how often you see that moment, but did they tend to paint in the middle of the canvas or did they pick a good corner? Bethany: It actually varies and  it depends on how confident that person is feeling, and you could tell when a person is unsure they, they, usually start in the corner, but the person who does contribute to the canvas first, they tend to be bold. They tend to be confident. And then it's only after them that the people who haven't picked up a paint brush before contribute to it. But so usually actually it is in the middle because they're more competent people are feeling more creatively, confident in that moment. And that's interesting, cause I really does define, it takes the piece in, on a path. That first move is it's so important. Passionistas: So how do you get to know the people. Did someone interview them afterwards?  What's that process. Bethany: It's certainly been a bit of a challenge over the past five or six years to position the nonprofit as it is because it's neither an art program or a public installation. It's a mix of the two. And if it were more of an art program there would certainly be an element to it where I would interview people and, there, we might do a workshop around it and stuff like that, but, and also there could be an element to that if it were public installation, but I just am so committed to it, taking on a life of its own. The only thing that I've gotten close to in that realm is just pretending to be a an onlooker. And so sometimes I walk by and I'm like looking at it and I act confused and I noticed someone else's standing there and I say, Hey, do you what's this, I just pretend to be in their shoes, but I've done that a lot. Yeah. And I've gotten to in the beginning, I think I asked  more direct questions and there were actually a couple of people who said you need to who figured out who I was and who said or who figured out what role I play in the installation, but who has, who have said, you have to do this everywhere. This should be in more places. And there were people who really inspired it to grow at that stage. Passionistas: Have you set up like little GoPro cameras to capture that? Bethany: There have been a couple of times that I've done that, but believe it or not, I haven't found a GoPro locking system with a key. Someone should make it, I can't find it anywhere. Maybe someone's made it in the last few months and I haven't noticed, but but yeah, that's also another, that's a challenge cause I usually just leave them. And but yeah, that would be ideal to do time lapses of all of them. Passionistas: How many cities have you done this in so far? Bethany: About 35, thus far there've been a lot of repeat canvases in the same city. And we hit the most cities when I did something called the Mongol rally. Have you heard of the Mongo rally? It's it's this crazy drive from Prague to Mongolia and that through that drive we passed 23 countries and so I did a blank canvas and in 12 or 13 of those countries, and that was really fun. So that probably up to the country count, But through the, actually the tiny home video I have a tiny home as well. And someone filmed a a YouTube video of it a little while ago, and it had so many views and the YouTube video was really just meant to be a tour of the tiny house. But the videographer asked me some questions about what I do, and I told him about Paint the World. And he said, we have to include this. At least at the end, it has to be in there some somewhere I'm usually don't do this, but, and I was like, okay, great. That's awesome. Thank you so much. So I talked a little bit about it and the video ended up being 15 minutes long and I, and there was a two or three minute segment about Paint the World at the end. And I thought, for sure, no one would watch a video of that length until the end. But I should believe in, I guess I should believe in YouTube viewers a little bit more in there. And their attention span because so many people watched until the end and then reached out after that. And that was a tipping point for Paint the World because before that the audience was really small. It was just me trying to push this nonprofit forward. And now there's, there are people who reach out every day because of that video. And I'm so thankful for it. So now there are people all around the world that are launching blank canvases. We just started an ambassador program. And there was someone from Zanzibar who just emailed me this morning about doing a blank canvas and in her village there. And it's just the power of the internet. Passionistas: So did people get their own supplies or do you send them supplies? Bethany: So I've just created this community of ambassadors and I've connected them with a ton of resources. I've made a ambassador portal on the website. So it basically has this really in-depth FAQ question, everything that I've found really useful throughout the years. Just basically examples of how you can set up which stores supply lists, stuff like that. We were going to use Go Fund Me Charity to set up separate team fundraisers for each of the ambassadors, but they unfortunately actually are discontinuing Go Fund Me Charity. We're going to have to move to another platform, but the canvas setups are usually pretty cheap. Usually it, depending on where you're located definitely can do a big blank canvas for under a hundred dollars for a whole set up. So yeah it's mostly just building the momentum, making sure that everyone isn't feeling like they're doing this alone because it's a bold activity. And it's not every day that you see someone putting a blank canvas in a community and just leaving it there for other people to do what they want on it. So it's a lot of community building and seeing where it takes us. Passionistas: And now what happens with the paintings after they're completed? Bethany: There are so many things that we can do with these paintings afterwards. In the past, I've held a little art auctions alongside restaurants in the area where the paintings were done. Usually the money that we raised just went back into doing more blank canvases. So it's a very cyclical thing. So each ambassador each location where we'll have link canvases, we'll probably end up doing something like that post COVID, hopefully. It's hard, you can never know. The timing of the blank canvases has been delayed a little bit just because of the restrictions, but I hope that in the next couple of months we'll be able to get them popping up everywhere. But the other thing about this project, it's a completely different aspect. So there's the benefit of the activity itself which is certainly increasing communities, creative confidence, increasing the agency that particular collective or community feels in moving their own ideas forward. And the canvas is just a tool but I really do believe there's a big connection there. And then the other aspect of this is really, really understanding a community, working to understand the community through the art that that the community gathers to create. And there's so much literature on looking at mostly street art in communities and using that as a tool to understand that community's trajectory and there, there are so many communities in the world where the voice that seems to be the most prominent from that community is usually not the most accurate. Someone who might rise to power in a particular community might just be the one with the most money, but might not represent that what's really going on in the community.  So  using this art is a way to do that. So one of the larger goals and purposes behind paint the world is really to to navigate the relationship between art and community decision-making. So to really make it obvious that investing in the arts is urgent and not just an extra activity as we often see it as, but I truly believe it's critical in progressing forward in a collective and a positive way. It makes me so sad that the arts community feels so constrained. And usually, it's because the funding that's offered to the arts community puts you in buckets. It's either a program or an installation. It always focuses on artists, people who define themselves and artists. It's just wild to navigate government funding and all anyway. So my wish is for the art community to feel much less constrained than it does now. There's so much potential there. Passionistas: You're listening to The Passionistas Project Podcast and our interview with Bethany Halbreich. To learn more about her global, collaborative art project visit PaintTheWorld.com. Save the Dates for the 2021 Passionistas Project Women's Equality Summit, being held virtually this year on August 20 through August 22. For details go to ThePassionistasProject.com/2021 Summit. Now here's more of our interview with Bethany. So how did COVID affect your project? Bethany: The original program of Paint the World which is the, putting blank canvases up and and really scaling the the amount of blank canvases in the world that was tremendously impacted, obviously, because there was no encouraging of public activity safely. So public collaborative activity safely. About, I think that in April I started to get real, which isn't long. It only took me a month to get restless. Yeah. And probably the beginning of April. So it really took me only two weeks. I was like, you gotta do something. So I rented a van and a white van, which was not a good idea because I learned that white vans are are usually not housing the most innocent of there were always police after me. It was wild people reporting the white van. And that's another story, but I rented a white van. And I dropped I dropped blank canvases and supplies off at hospitals across the country. And so I drove to I drove to the west coast and back I started in New York and I went to about 30 actually in the end, I think it was closer to 40 because the project grew a bit but yeah, dropped off supplies at 40 hospitals and Was really pleasantly surprised, raised by the fact that the hospital staff that ended up it was the supplies were just for the staff members because I was just hearing that they were so overworked and obviously this is a, this is an activity that could bring stress relief. And and also one that could help us understand what they're going through. But but the most responsive hospitals were actually the ones that were the busiest. That was amazing to see. And the ones that, that appreciated the project the most, like really saw and felt the the positive effects of it. That was really, it was amazing. But that wouldn't have happened if it weren't for COVID obviously. And that, that, made me think of other avenues for Paint the World and men. We, didn't a virtual paint the world project as well. And that was fun because there were people from all, all around the world who participated in that and that idea might have not emerged if it weren't for COVID. So despite the challenge in the beginning, towards the initial activity of the organization the mission has actually been expanded and and now it's much more global than it was a year and a half ago. Passionistas: How did the virtual version work? Bethany: Basically I got together a number of the people who reached out over the, since that YouTube video was actually released and we got together, had several zoom calls to talk about possibilities and they basically each ended up hosting their own version of Paint the World within their communities virtually. But they all did different things with it, which was the intention. So the the woman that became involved in South Africa, she basically made a video of her completing an activity. Basically she did a handprint she used that as a metaphor too, because our hands are, the carriers of germs and we're like afraid of other people anyway. So she did a hand print and then you had to write your COVID story. Each piece really looked like a multimedia masterpiece. It was beautiful. But then at the end of that, she combined all of them into the south African flag. Using the, basically just using color blocking. And so she made the collaborative peace in the end. But each person had an individual experience. Passionistas: I would love to see an exhibit of all of the pieces from the project in general, but specifically from the hospitals during COVID. Yeah, sure. Those are really powerful. Bethany: The pieces that came out of the hospital project were really were light-filled. They were optimistic and the colors that were everyone gets the same colors which I think is important because then it's easier to see the contrast between what everyone does with them, but but the colors used were usually lighter tones, brighter, happier. The images were positive. And those were from the, usually from the busier hospitals. Passionistas: Have you thought of doing a book? Bethany: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Certainly a book of all of the pieces more of a coffee table book that you could just, browse through and see where the, where each piece came from. But I'm also working with a few of the Jungian analysts that I've been speaking to about creating a book that's really focused on the. Potential impact of the arts in policy and in community. Decision-making because there's a huge disconnect there. And there actually isn't a lot of literature out there around it. So it's been a challenge for me to find the evidence, even though I know it's, it's clear that this works and there is so much, there's so much benefit on multiple levels, but it's difficult. It's difficult to find  literature on it because not a lot of people have tackled that that relationship between between arts and really, community decision-making and policy and everything there's. Anyway, we're working on that. That'll be cool that'll be a book. Passionistas: So now how can people get involved? Bethany: You can go to Paint the World.com and click the join tab. And there's a few options there, or you can, and you can follow the Instagram @gopainttheworld, or you can reach out to me directly @bethanyatpainttheworld.com and I would be so excited to speak with you about being involved. Passionistas: So you've done other things that we want to talk to you about, too. So you have a company called Incipe Insights.  So what is that? That is basically how I earned money to keep paint the world going. That's my day job and Paint the World, my life job. But basically it's a it's a strategy and design innovation consulting company. It's a boutique consulting companies, so very small it's me and a team of right now, four other fabulous women. And basically we work with. Really interesting. We work with companies like PepsiCo and IBM, but also a lot of interesting startups on strategizing the most impactful path forward. The reason why I started doing this was because there, there are great consulting companies like McKinsey and Deloitte and and all of those, but they are so expensive. And smaller organizations that don't have millions of dollars to spend on consultants. Don't have access to to that sort of strategy work. And to me that's ridiculous because they're the ones that really need it to grow and to move forward and to make the impact that they need to make. So that's what we focus on. Incipe insights, basically a cheaper version of McKinsey or of those larger, but a much better version. But but yeah, that the work that I do with Incipe I actually started from PepsiCo. Because I began the internal innovation expo alongside a really incredible man within PepsiCo, but we basically work together within R and D. So PepsiCo is a lot of different different departments, but but the food scientists within R and D weren't necessarily leading the innovation. So we want to, it usually came from marketing. So we wanted to shift the shift, the innovation power really to, to R and D. And so we started this internal innovation expo to do that. And through that, I really learned so much about new product innovation and and what it takes to move products forward and to actually make an impact with them and use, the materials, the technology necessary, all of that. So that was a great, and that was what began Incipe Insights. So yeah, that's what I, that's what I do to to earn a living and and support, Paint the Worlds basically What's one of your favorite success stories from Incipe? Bethany: It's one kind of in the making right now. So I've been working on for the last couple of years with the University of Hawaii on building their Connor innovation program. And that has been, that's been really fun because it's an academic culinary. That's basically bringing methods that these big companies use to. They're bringing those methods to their students and actually working with a lot of restaurants in the area I met on innovating in that way. They're open to having fun and they're open to experimenting. They have a chocolate bar. It's so cool. This has all been virtual. So I, I only dream of experiencing all of this fun stuff that we've been working on, but but that will be, as I know, that will be a success. And that's the thing that I'm most excited about that Incipe Insights worked on. Passionistas: Are you an artist yourself? Bethany:] Oh, thanks for asking.  I paint and I do love to make art. I'm one of those people who believes everyone's artists obviously, but yeah. But yeah, it's something that when I do it, it's like my meditation, my version of meditating. I do have a website where you can see the art it's called awakened art.co. So a lot of animals and very colorful animals. It's what I enjoy painting the most. Passionistas: What do you think is your best habit? Bethany: Exercising on a daily basis is my best habit because it brings me so much energy. I would never say that I'm an athletic person. I've never felt like I was an athletic person. But I started doing at home workout videos and sanity, which is a kind of an OJI at home workout video with Sean T as the host. And I just changed my life cause I, I feel I feel so much more energy. I don't diet. But I just move my body every day and I exercise and that keeps me in tune with my body. And there's such an incredible relation between the health of our body and the health of our minds and, while we're able to produce whether that's, with work or creatively. Passionistas: So what's the most rewarding part of Paint the World for you? Bethany: The most rewarding part of Paint the World is just seeing people paint on a canvas that have never painted before. I think that is the most mind-blowing thing. It just feels like I can't explain it. It gives me life. It's just such a beautiful thing to see that someone is creating and doing something that they wouldn't have been doing if you didn't just do it. This one bold move and go at it. Cause it's, it takes me out of my comfort zone sometimes to be carrying around a canvas and supplies. And I'm like, now I'm used to it actually, because I'm always the crazy canvas lady lugging all of this stuff around.  But that moment is what makes it all worth it. Passionistas: Thanks for listening to our interview with Bethany Halbreich. To learn more her global, collaborative art project visit PaintTheWorld.com. Please visit ThePassionistasProject.com to learn more about our podcast and subscription box filled with products made by women-owned businesses and female artisans to inspire you to follow your passions. Get a FREE mystery box with a one-year subscription with the code SUMMERMYSTERY. And be sure to subscribe to the Passionistas Project Podcast so you don't miss any of our upcoming inspiring guests. Until next time, stay well and stay passionate.

Lorelle Miller is an award-winning artist who expresses a lifetime of developed technique and personal investigation in her works that comprise oils, pastel, marble sculpture and other mediums. Evidenced in her artwork is a unique sensitivity for mood and emotion, which offer a glance into the deeper wells of her experience. Lorelle shares her vision of natural beauty and the intensity of the human experience through her paintings, sculpture and street art. She utilizes a broad yet finally tuned spectrum of media, each of which contributes to her expression and visual art.  Read ore about Lorelle Learn more about The Passionistas Project. Full Transcript: Passionistas: Hi, and welcome to the Passionistas Project podcast, where we talk with women who are following their passions to inspire you to do the same. We're Amy and Nancy Harrington and today we're talking with Lorelle Miller, an award-winning artist who expresses a lifetime of develop technique and personal investigation in her works that comprise oils, pastel, marble sculpture, and other mediums. Evidenced in her artwork is a unique sensitivity for mood and emotion, which offer a glance into the deeper wells of her experience. Lorelle shares her vision of natural beauty and the intensity of the human experience through her paintings, sculpture, and street art. She utilizes a broad yet finally tuned spectrum of media, each of which contributes to her expression and visual art. So please welcome to the show, Lorelle Miller. Passionistas: What are you most passionate about? Lorelle Miller: My strongest passion, and it may just be one thing, but it's basically, I love nature and my art. So those are probably the two things that I love and I'm most passionate about and feel happiest being involved with. Passionistas: But it seems like you've managed to tie those two things together. Lorelle: Yeah. I've always been somebody who loves to work outside. So a lot of my things that I do artistically, I'm happiest when I'm outdoors in nature or outside, I suppose. Passionistas: Did you grow up in nature? What was your childhood like? Lorelle: My main growing up years were just in the San Fernando valley, but I think I always took sort of, you know, I had sort of a, a calling towards being out in nature. I used to backpack. Yeah. So camping and, and all of that sort of thing. And I'm an artist, you know, I've always loved to draw and paint. So I don't know. Nature's always been a kind of a soothing place for me, even as a little girl, you know, I'd find a hiding place up in a tree or something. Passionistas: Were you always an artist? Lorelle: It seems like I started, yeah, super young because of that back in the day of, you know, growing up, if there weren't all the electronics and stuff, when I was young. So, I guess I'm sort of mechanical. And also I like to draw. It started probably when I was like eight or nine years old. Passionistas: Did you study art formally? Lorelle: I went to Cal State Northridge and I have a bachelor's degree from there. And then, um, I started a master's degree there also, but that didn't finish because I ended up having children. Like that kinda got carried away and I've studied with many master artists after that, just on continuing education going on in various areas. And I've learned a lot just on the street, literally. Passionistas: What do you mean by that? Lorelle: Well, I'm a street painting artist, which is a nice segue, I suppose, I guess as a little kid, you know, one of the first mediums that I worked with was pastel. I mean, cause they're so forgiving actually. And I had a lot of private art lessons, luckily, cause my mom saw a lot of potential in what I did and I got a lot of accolades growing up in school. Like even in with meeting my friend, Gayle who nominated me for this, I used to be pulled out of my normal class to go into a special artist class — like for gifted kids. I did a lot of pastels at that time. And so, years later, you know, when the street painting idea came up, you know, there was something that came about in my community for that. It sort of seemed like a natural thing to try, kind of took off from there. Passionistas: Tell everybody what street art is in case they don't know and how did you get started in that? I've always done painting and drawing and sculpture and I wasn't in 3d sculpture before it was 3D, like on a computer. Yeah. You know, that sort of thing, but I always did pastels. And so I think I was judging an art contest for my local artists association. And I was, I still remember this sort of weird, we were all judging these like high school students paintings or whatever. And I remember they mentioned this thing that they were having this event in the community called the Bellavia, which. Uh, street art. It was going to be a street painting or a street art festival. And I mean, street painting is something that's been going on since like the 1500s in Europe and so forth. And I actually had seen a street painter. I went to Europe like three times before I was 20 years old by some miraculous manner. I don't know a lot of different circumstances that I actually saw street painter. But at this time when they were talking about this event, I thought, you know, I really ought to try it. It just was like, it's like, I heard it. And it was just like, crystallized, like, you know, you really ought to try it. You just need to go see what this is about. Like, it rang in my head. It just like, you know, some things you just don't pay attention to, but it was like, yeah, I gotta see what this is. So they did this terrific event here in, I live in Santa Clarita and they had this event called the Bella. And they invited these more experienced GE painters. And then, you know, other people were able to apply and so forth. So I applied and I, they, I got in to the street painting festival and I just started out with like a, I think a three by four foot square. And I was really nervous cause I had not really done that before. Basically what street art is. You asked me to tell you what that is, is that you. Um, usually asphalt or like the street and you create artwork on the street that is, you know, either classical renditions or something that your system, original composition or whatever it is that you're doing. And people basically walk, can walk by and watch you create the art. Because a lot of times when artists are working, they're in their studio. So this is a public art form. And then. They can watch you. And then, you know, when they, you take a break, you're down on the ground, they're above you looking down at it. And so when you stand up or take a break or something, you know, people can ask you questions and interact with you. It's had a far reaching effect on my life. I got to tell you, so that's what it is, but that's where it started because I did this piece by Renoir called the dance of bocce ball. I think. I'd done it in oils. And I thought, well, I know this painting well, so I did this painting and then a scout, there was a talent scout going around and picked me up for another festival, which was down like towards Irvine. And then it snowballed because I've traveled all around, doing this, barely traveled to festivals around the world.  So what are some of the places that you've done work? Lorelle: I've gone to Mexico to a place that's on the other side of the bay from Puerto Vallarta, it's a festival called Bucerias. And that was really neat because just the experience of being in a small town in Mexico and cross cultural types of things. And we worked with children like children from the orphanage there. Teaching them about street painting. And then I went to Norway. Also. I have family in Norway and my sister-in-law. She had a friend who had an octillion in a little town called Harmar. And so she asked if I would come and produce a street painting for her  and expose the kids to street art in Norway. And I actually had one circumstance. I went to a middle school in Norway and I did a demonstration there and there was kids from Somalia, Russia, all these exotic places. And then the teacher was, I think the teacher was from Scotland and I was from America and we were doing the street painting thing in Norway. It's like that happened. It was just amazing. Passionistas: How do you decide what work you're going to do? Where do you draw your inspiration? Or did they have themes for the different events? Lorelle: They sometimes have themes and sometimes it's just something that hits me. I can't even explain it. It's just like, you know, artists, how do, how do you pin down their muse? You know, it's just an inspiration that strikes you. Like I did this big project, like in 2019 called the garden of Eden. It's probably the biggest thing I've ever done, but I, that inspiration was because I like to play an air paint and I go around to different gardens, my husband and I love to go walking and gardens and stuff. And so I created this, the street painting. That was huge, enormous thing that was done by a collaboration of, I don't know how many artists all worked on it. Maybe about 15 artists. We all worked on it and created this botanical garden. As a street painting installation, but that was what the inspiration came from, was me traveling around and just doing my watercolor painting. And then I thought, wow, that would be like a cool street painting idea. That's one example. Passionistas: So it seems like street painting has evolved recently. You see the things on the internet of someone sees a building with a crack, and then they turn that into, you know, this dark hole that you look like you can walk through. Do you do that kind of street painting too? Or do you mainly concentrate on your own style masters and the masters and things like that? Lorelle: I kind of do all of it really. I mean, I worked for, I think I kind of still do, but there's a company called We Talk Chalk. They did a many commercial, like big commercial projects. And I would come in and these were not just made out of chalk, but were done on canvas and painted with acrylic paint because they have to be sent out to like cores or all the different commercial, you know, Kia, all these big commercial companies wanted to use that art form to promote businesses. So I got involved in helping produce those types of things for them, which was really wonderful. And I've done many 3d things on my own as well. I don't think it's my strongest suit. I like doing it and it's fun for me, but I think I love a lot of the classical kinds of little. So sometimes it's impressionist. So, you know, I'm not one of these. It's really hard for me as an artist. Cause I kind of migrate. That's probably one of the, I don't know if it's a good thing or not, but I migrate to different, but I do. I love class, very class, whole looking things too. And I do the 3d. I was like a moving target. It sounds like you continued to study. I just wrote something to one of my artists, friends. I said, you know, artists, I don't know my exact quote, but it was kind of like, you're always walking around the next bend to try to sort of see what's there. It's not, it's not like you're never done. You're just always kind of seeking and curiosity pulls you around that corner to see what's next. Passionistas: You know, you said that doing street art has had a far reaching effect on you. How has it changed your life? Lorelle: I suppose it's just the connection to so many various artists that I know all over the world. I have actually met them. They're not just virtual friendships that have gone to a street painting festival in Florida for about 10 years or more than that now, and this festivals international festivals. So they bring people in from everywhere. Ukraine, Australia. Mexico everywhere. And these are all people you create. You've got a community suddenly, you know, you've got a community of people who you've known each other. You kind of come back to the same place every year. And so we really connected in Italy. I've a lot of friends in Italy and that is huge because we all, we help each other when we need, and we support each other. If there's questions. It's just a terrific and amazing thing. And it's sometimes it's been in very funky situations where, you know, I mean, cause you practically are living together sometimes, you know, and like these artists just imagine what you would think and still almost like a community or commune of artists that are, you know, eating together and talking and doing, you know, just whatever it is and talking about your ideas are creative. So I have that, you know, that community that's grown over the years and that's just one festival, but it's many. So it's almost like a circus that's kind of travels around together. Yeah. Sort of thing. And then, um, the effect that it has, I think just the travel and the community. And then, and then also the effect that see that it has on people as they're looking at what you're doing, the public effect is, is a really big deal. Passionistas: What kind of reaction do you tend to get? Lorelle: It's all different. You know, I was in North Dakota two years ago and I got invited to come back there again pretty soon. So that's going to be interesting. I dunno. I just, I, you know, I, for that festival, I kind of was thinking about that. It's a little town called a Putin and, uh, Industry there, how to do with the trains. Like it was a big train community and my husband more, and his mom was Frank from St. Paul and her father worked the train. And I connected with that thought how cool it would be to think about the trains and going there and doing some that speaks to their community. And they have the bison there. They have big Buffalo bison and combining those images. And I did this piece that meant a lot to me. I just felt like it showed the power of the animal and the power of that iron, you know, train. And, you know, even though it didn't really talk to every single person that came by, but there was somebody that came by. Whose whole family was, had been historically in this train, kind of, that was everything that their family was, you know, from his historically. And they really got it. You just, without even saying anything, they were just like, you could tell that they connected with it with the imagery and stuff. So it ranges from the very emotional response to something as silly as like I made an anamorphic snow cone for one project. That was out in Cerritos, California, and you know, it was the anamorphic. So it was this huge thing that was like 20 feet long, but you could stand there and hold it. And it looked like you were eating a snow cone and people are goofing around with it and kids were having fun. And so, you know, there's such a broad range, but it can be a very emotional one too, just silly. Passionistas: We're Amy and Nancy Harrington. And you're listening to the Passionistas Project podcast and our interview with Lorelle Miller to learn more about her art. Visit LorelleMiller.com. And be sure to save the dates for the 2021 Passionistas Project Women's Equality Summit being held virtually this year for August 20th through August 22nd. For details, go to ThePassionistasProject.com/2021Summit. Now here's more of her interview with Lorelle. Before we started recording, you were telling us about a collaborative piece in Pasadena. Tell us what that is and how that works. How do you actually do a piece with other people? Lorelle: I wasn't really instrumental in bringing that about at all, but basically what happens like what's going to happen with that one is that there's a, a big image that I told you. It was a Norman Rockwell that was suggested and everybody thought it was cool. It was a good image, but they basically break it down into sections, like, like long triangular sections. And then everybody works on their section and it kind of comes together. Now I've worked on many collaborations. I've worked with another big influencer for me was a very, very famous, um, street painter named Kurt winter. I've been actually involved in like two or three of his projects. Two of them were in the Guinness book of world records, but the one in Pasadena, we're all doing individual sections. When I worked on a big piece that I did for Kurt winter, if you look up the garden of wonders on YouTube, you'll see this giant anamorphic shark. I think it was like 27,000 square feet. It was in the Guinness. And then my little garden of wonders that I created was off on the side of that. You can see it just kind of kept adding to it because that was on a runway in Florida. Then as Florida, we took over an airport runway and created these huge installations. So it's really interesting, but so sometimes it's done in sections like collaboration. Sometimes people will do sections and then sometimes they work in layers like Curt Winter would have. Do a layer and then other artists were work on top of that layer. So that it's almost as though all the different styles kind of merged together, which is really crazy. That was really interesting to be a part of that, to see how that was all done, you know? Cause you think, cause everybody has a different handwriting, every makes a different mark, but somehow when it's all pulls together, it can Nash and that's not unusual. I mean, even in the classical. You know, they would have somebody who would do a lot of the, let's say the, you know, organic botanical types of ideas, you know, for painting. Then another person who was a figurative painter would come in and work in, do the figurative and they'd work it together. Is there a lot of pre-planning in that type of project or is it just like, here's your corner go for it? It ranges like when I did the garden of wonder, cause that, like I said, that was a huge endeavor and it took a year to prepare. And I had a lamp, uh, my friends, uh, the Renshaw has this couple that I know they're architects and the landscape architect when I wanted to do that garden. So I had the help of, I had the concept and I made a maquette, a model for it, of what I wanted, and they worked out the geometry with me. And my idea was just to, to create this format and then, um, The artists themselves, the people that I asked to join the team, I wanted a nice cooperative team. Cause that's, you gotta kind of watch that, you know? Cause you gave people that are too like, you know, that will resist. So I found this wonderful dream team of people that were extremely talented and I wanted them pretty much to do their, their thing. I wasn't going to like art director. But I wanted to give him the format and then have it all kind of work together. That's kind of how we did that. One. We, we, it was a combination of do your own thing, and this is kind of the, your parameters that you have to work with. And then once you get onsite, it always changes a little bit too. Like you have the idea. And then when it comes to the, the actuality of it, You know, we wanted to kind of like, maybe have some of the leads carry into another part of the, the other side. Like you have Asia and then you have Africa. I forget all the different ways I did it. You know, I had each continent was divided up. Passionistas: So what happened? That was different on the day? Lorelle: Well, then for instance, like the, like we wanted a little segue, like if, you know, I had it kind of like structured in walls, like, uh, I think it was, this was an octagon, it was seven, seven sites. Septic on. So it was very linear, like an end. And then some of the artists said, well, wouldn't it be kind of neat. Like I have a cherry blossom tree if it kind of like moved over into the next side just a little bit. So it kind of flowed. So that is something we discussed on that. Passionistas: How has COVID impacted your work? Lorelle: All the street painting basically pretty much stopped just now the drums starting to, you can hear the drums starting to be now the festivals. You know, I was up in Canada. That's another place I've been to. So they're starting to come about, some of them are still virtual festivals. Some of them are starting to like, okay, we're going to do it here. Anyway, like in North Dakota, um, Pasadena is doing it. Um, but as far as my own personal work, I have not really skipped a beat. I mean, My art in its own, you know, just my, my painting and all of that. I've been doing it consistently throughout this thing, I think probably saved my mental health, quite frankly, but I did participate in several virtual festivals and so forth, but it did have an impact for sure. And I, you know, I was teaching, I've been a teacher for 25 years off. And that had to come to a halt and I'm, he's still evaluating how I want to carry that forward. But you know, this, this time during the pandemic, I, I just thought to myself, you know, at my age, and everything's like, you need to be doing your best work. Like this is when you need to bring it. I mean, I can still goof around and do whatever, but, you know, it's like, I'm really trying to like focus on, you know, how many years of your life do you have to really put out your best that you can. No, we don't live forever. That's true. So tell us more about that. Passionistas: Tell us more about your non street art. Lorelle: I love to draw and drawing and painting work hand in hand, and sometimes, you know, I'll concentrate. I think what I do, because I, like I told you, I kind of migrate to various. Aspects of my work and with painting and drawing, like you can concentrate on where it's just painting and it's just, I mean, it's just drawing and it's just like black and white or graphite or charcoal or something. And I'll focus in on that, but then I'll get hungry for color. And I may move into working more with my oil paints where they're thick. And I have to, you know, manipulate the plasticity of the paint where, you know, you have to drag the edges and soften the edges and so forth, or sometimes I'll get hungry again and I'll need to move over to my watercolors because of the fluid nature of it. And the fact that there's not as much control sometimes, or you have, it's just, each thing seems to have a different draw for me. So I, you know, I've been moving through those throughout the pandemic and I was taking. Some online classes and listening to lifestyle. Totally. I didn't listen to podcasts that maybe I, I do actually, when I think about it, cause I was listening to several artists like, you know, very helpful, you know, on Fridays, Craig Nelson is a terrific artist and he had this online thing going on where you could ask him questions and watch what he was doing. And I actually started doing that myself. Not that I really can talk and paint that well, I would put up my camera and show my process of whatever like that. Ruth Bader Ginsburg behind me. I did that live and I did, I did that a lot throughout all the pandemic, but I basically, I guess I do, I do my oil painting and I like to draw and I love water color and I still need to get back to my sculpture. That's I have that too. It's dormant right now. You mentioned that you also teach art. So it seems like you've done that a lot. I worked for Segerstroms Art Center and I did, I did a lot of I've done teaching really since, I guess since, uh, probably about 25 years. I think I, I worked for our community college as an adult. Instructor for all kinds of things, different community classes and, um, art camps for kids. And I worked at the school in the school district. And, um, then later on I, I did stuff for seeker sons, which was great, that that had a lot to do with science and art. We were trying to create programs where we were using different artistic. Vehicles to help explain scientific concepts. And that was a collaboration between seeker Sims and university of Irvine. And we were visiting artists. And then I do a lot of workshops. I'm a visiting artist to a lot of schools. Like I worked at a school for Al the, um, you do an artist residency, like at a French school. I did that out in Orange County, which is really cool. Cause I got to use the tiny little bit of French that I know I learned a little bit, but it was teaching students street painting. I did this huge, this huge street painting with all kids from kindergarten all the way till I guess they were maybe fourth or fifth graders. So I've done teaching like that. And I, and I've done my own private classes too. I taught for the community college. Yeah. Out here. For like 15 years, I taught seniors. Like I went around to various senior living homes and I would teach in those areas, you know, different people at those places. And then I had private let, you know, did private classes at my house for many years too. So I've had a broad range with teaching and then I teach also on the road, like when I would go to. A festival, they would have me teach, like in Chicago, I would show street painting techniques or in Nashville, I've gone to so many places. That's another part of the extraordinary experience that I've had with just traveling and teaching too. Passionistas: What do you like about teaching? Lorelle: I like the sharing part of it, and I like it when the people are serious and get something out of it, you know, when they are, they. I think one of the biggest thing is, is when they see the growth or I can see the growth in them. I know it's an entertaining thing to do, but I like it when it's like, somebody is really getting it and wanting it more than play. I like the play part too, you know? And I got to tell you one other thing I did, I taught a high school junior high Institute that was really. Gosh, that was a great fun, the energy. It's such an interesting thing, too. When you, when you teach such a variety of ages, like from kindergarten to 90 year olds, and then you teach the junior high kids and their energy is just like off the wall. I taught a sculpture. I taught sculpture in this class of junior high kids that were, you know, I ha I had all this assemblage stuff to do, like assemblage scope thing. And I, you know, they would make like, whatever. Some kind of creature or something like that. I would say now, imagine if you can make it like, as giant as a planet or as small as a cell, you know, I had them use their brain to think of how those ideas could be expanded or God, it was, that was a lot of fun, but it wasn't no, you know, I thought they would come in there and make like maybe one thing and they ended up making like three things, you know, all in the same amount of time. Cause their energy sucks. It's really fun. I love like when I was, uh, I went to a Sonoma school, but it was a kind of, a little bit of an inner city school type thing. And I had a lot of fun with the kids. I enjoyed that a lot, you know, doing the street painting and having them kind of develop their ideas. I was there for six weeks, right before the pandemic. Passionistas: What's the most challenging part of being a street artist? Lorelle: There's always physical challenges because the streets. Is extremely physical. I mean, you can be working for like 12, 14 hours a day on the ground. So you have to really, I mean, that's suppose that's a big challenge to sophisticated city of it. And luckily I've been doing it for so many years. I still am pretty good, but that's one challenge. I think most of the challenge just comes from yourself. Like just wanting to do your best work and not emotionally getting hung up on competitive stuff with other artists and stuff like that. That's that for me, honestly. And it's kind of, cause you know, as an artist, sometimes you get rejected too. So that's, I mean, that's a hard thing for me. I wish I could. I'm trying to work on that. That shouldn't be a thing. I, you know, you really just want to kind of do your own thing and not worry about the others stuff. Like, you know, you win some, you lose some. Passionistas: What advice would you give to a young woman who wants to follow her passion for art? Lorelle: Probably to be fearless and curious and just do it. Passionistas: Thanks for listening to our interview with Lorelle Miller, to learn more about her artwork, visit LorelleMiller.com. Please visit ThePassionistasProject.Com to learn more about our podcast and subscription box filled with products made by women owned businesses and female artisans to inspire you to follow your passions. Sign up for a one-year subscription and get a free mystery box worth $40 using the code SUMMERMYSTERY. And be sure to save the dates for The 2021 Passionistas Project Women's Equality Summit being held virtually this year from August 20th through August 22nd. For details, go to ThePassionistasProject.com/2021Summit. Until next time stay well and stay passionate.

Emma Zack is the founder of Berriez, a curated online vintage shop that celebrates curves, colors and fruit. Although they launched in Brooklyn in 2018, the seed was planted when Emma was just a teenager, frustrated by the challenge of finding fun and stylish clothes that fit her curvy body. Emma turn to secondhand shopping as a way to find what made her feel good in her skin. Berriez brings the fruits of Emma's satorial eye to others. Accessibility and representation are the core of Berriez. Like fruit, Emma wants every Berriez' customer to remember that they're uniquely vibrant, sweet and desirable at any size and shape. Learn more about Emma. Learn more about The Passionistas Project. Full Transcript: Passionistas: Hi, and welcome to The Passionistas Project Podcast, where we talk with women who are following their passions to inspire you to do the same. We're Amy and Nancy Harrington and today we're talking with Emma Zack, the founder of Berriez, a curated online vintage shop that celebrates curves, colors and fruit. Although they launched in Brooklyn in 2018, the seed was planted when Emma was just a teenager, frustrated by the challenge of finding fun and stylish clothes that fit her curvy body. Emma turn to secondhand shopping as a way to find what made her feel good in her skin. Berriez brings the fruits of Emma's sartorial eye to others. Accessibility and representation are the core of Berriez. Like fruit, Emma wants every Berriez' customer to remember that they're uniquely vibrant, sweet and desirable at any size and shape. So please welcome to the show Emma Zack. What's the one thing you're most passionate about? Emma: Well, if you had asked me that just a few years ago, my answer would not be what it is today. But, today, it would be making fashion accessible to everyone. Passionistas: So how does that translate into what you do? Emma: Berriez, I source vintage clothing over size, I would say, about medium and which surprisingly not many other vintage shops do the vintage world. Like the fashion industry in general is... primarily caters toward straight sized people, which is about like sizes double zero to six, eight source plus size vintage, which is actually pretty difficult to find. But, I try my hardest to find it lately. I've been working with independent designers on expanding their size ranges, so I can also sell small sustainable brands in sizes XL to 5s. I understand there's people who are double zero out there. But what I don't understand is that it's more, you can more readily find a size 00, then you kind of size, XL where, where like over 60 or 70% of the population is over a size, XL. So something really isn't adding up. So I've been trying to, you know, confront that. Passionistas: When did this first become something that you were aware of and something that evolved into this passion for you? Emma: It became something I was aware of since I was like 10 years old for really going back because as I was a kid, I was also considered plus size quote unquote and You know, I always tell the story of shopping for my Bat Mitzvah dress. And I was, you know, 13, I was plus-sized, but I wasn't like, you know, above a size 12 women's 12, you know, and I, for the life of me could not find a dress. You know, I couldn't find anything in the teenager section. My mom and I went to all these stores. I remember sobbing in the dressing room. And that's when I kind of let fashion, let me down. And I was like, I'm not, I just can't find anything in my size. You know? And then it wasn't until a few years ago that I was so fed up with it, that I was like, you know what? I'm just gonna, I'm sick of this. I love fashion. And I'm sick of never finding anything in my size. It's just absurd. Passionistas: So you mentioned your childhood, tell us where you grew up and what your childhood was like. Emma: I grew up in Brookline, Massachusetts. It's just a suburb right outside of Boston. And I had a good childhood love my parents shout out to them and, but my sister and I were both always plus-sized. So it was something that, or weight and body image and clothing was always something that we discussed in our house, whether it be positively or most of the time negatively, because even what, 20 years ago, it was not like it is today. It was very much like you're going to fat camp because you're a size 14. But yeah, I mean, I was always the fat one in my friend group, which always left me feeling really shitty.  And but I always loved clothing. Like I can I've loved clothing since I was, since I, I can't even remember, but my mom says that I always dressed myself and I would play dress up in her clothes and my grandma's clothes. But yeah, I, I. I've been thinking a lot about my childhood and how that has influenced what I'm doing today. And there's an, a connection that so strong and so powerful that, you know, I didn't even realize how much it has impacted me until now. Passionistas: Who were some of your positive fashion influences when you were a kid? Emma: I genuinely can't tell you any one, except for My grandma. I never met her, but my mom I was named after her and my mom swears that I am her reincarnated. She was also a fashion-y stuff and she was also considered plus-size back in the 1940s, fifties. So she was like a size probably today. 10, maybe 10, 12. But you know, I grew up looking at her clothing and wearing her clothing. And other than that, I mean, it's sad, but I never saw anyone who looked like me in the media. So I didn't really have anyone to look towards. Passionistas: Your mother was a role model for you as far as starting businesses. Right? So tell us about that.  Emma: She started her own business when she was I actually don't know how old she was, but it was a long time ago. And she started her own business, founded her own company that she still has to this day. She actually just stepped down as. CEO after 30 plus years of that role. But, you know, I grew up with her and she was always working so hard and like, I just remember going. On vacations or like on the weekend she'd be responding to emails and I never understood, you know, why does she need to respond to this email right now? And now I'm like, oh my gosh, she was just so passionate about what she was doing. And that I'm the same way I always have to, you know, I'm always doing my job, you know, even if there's a day off, but. It's just because you love it so much, but that's what I grew up with. And you know, she has such a great work ethic and she is so kind, she treats everyone with so much respect and love. So that's kind of how I've been approaching my business. And you know, it's, it's just really hard to run a business, which is what I'm learning now. Passionistas: What was the business that she started? Emma: My mom, her company is called Houseworks and it's an elder care business. So she helps seniors stay at home and she actually started it after her parents both died. And that, that whole experience really took a toll on her. And she was just like, I'm going to devote my life to this. And she sure did. And now she's has one of the best elder care companies in the country. Passionistas: What made you decide to leave Massachusetts and come out to California to study at Occidental College. And what did you study there? Emma: I knew I wanted to go to a small school and, just cause I like more like individualized learning. And and I saw all the small schools on the east coast and I just wasn't really vibing with them. And then I saw Occidental and I was like, oh, is just perfect. Loved the energy there. My cousins all live around there. So I decided to go out to California. My parents were not thrilled because it was so far. But I actually went to college and in my freshman year of college, I took this class called the prison industrial complex about the United States prison system and race in America. I learned about the prison system and I. I thought it was the most, a horror. It was such, it was just atrocious. And I did an internship with the ACL of Southern California's jails project, and that's when I decided that I wanted to go into criminology and work in criminal justice. So that's what I studied in college. Passionistas: That's a pretty far away field from fashion. So how long did you work in that area and how did you make that transition after college? Emma: I moved back to Boston and I got a job at the CPCs innocence program, which is part of the public defender's office in Massachusetts that helps get innocent people out of prison. So I worked there for about two years and then got. Another job in the field at the Innocence Project in New York City, which is like the head organization. So I moved to New York City for that job for, it was four and a half years ago. And I actually only left that job in December. Passionistas: And what did you do there? What was that work like? Emma: [It was very difficult. So when I first started, I was more of a paralegal and I'd have, I would answer all the calls. So I'd be on the phone with all of our clients all day. And it was just very mentally draining and difficult, but I learned so much. And then I became a case analyst. So I would analyze all the cases that came into. The project and decide if it was a case that we should pursue or not. Then that road became just so draining because I was literally reading about rape and murder all day, every day. So I moved into our communications department where I was a writer. So I wrote all of our annual reports and yeah, I worked on publications and I, I enjoyed that a lot. Passionistas: In your spare time where you starting the fashion company? Emma: About two years into my job at the Innocence Project, my friend and I were just at my house and I was like, and that's how I'm going to start selling vintage clothing online. And she was like, okay, cool. So we just inventoried a few pieces that I already had and made an Instagram. And just started from there. And then, yeah, so it was really, it's funny. It was totally just, I wasn't thinking of it as a business or anything. Excuse me. I was just thinking of it as like a side hobby that would get me kind of distracted in a way from my day job, which was so mentally draining. Passionistas: Did you start by looking for pieces for yourself, and then you'd found you just had enough that you wanted to sell? Like, how did that happen? Emma: So I was really into vintage. And at the time, I don't know if you know about the like Instagram vintage scene, but a few years ago people or businesses started using Instagram as a selling platform to sell vintage clothing, home decor. So I was really into this world because I love sustainable fashion. And obviously I love vintage, but I was never, ever, ever able to find anything in my size. And at the time I was like a 12, 14, so that's wild. So I would buy pieces from these other sellers and, you know, they would have, they would model the pieces on Models that were like size four and something that size for that looks oversize on that model. I would get it and it wouldn't even go over my arm. So to make a long story short, I just kept buying this, you know, really hoping that one day I'd find some stuff that fit me. And most of it didn't. And so that was where my. First batch of shit came from. And then obviously I started to have to go and get more, but it, yeah, it really came out of just like stuff doesn't fit me. I have so much of it. And also, I didn't see anyone on the internet on Instagram. Selling clothes for vintage for plus size people. So I was like, I'm going to just do this myself. This is it's out there. You know, it's not like plus-size people didn't exist back in the day. Passionistas: Once you started selling on Instagram, were you surprised by how many people were connecting to what you were doing? Emma: I'm trying to remember how it grew so quickly, but it did. But honestly people would, and I still to this day, get all these messages that are like, oh my God, I'm so happy. I found you. There's no one else doing this. This is so necessary and, and stuff, but So it wasn't really surprising because I was like, I know I'm not the only plus size person. And again, I'm old at the time. I was only a 12, 14. Now I'm a solid 16. But like at the time I should not have been like 12, 14 and not fitting into literally anyone. So I wasn't surprised to be honest, but I was surprised at how quickly it picked up. I was not expecting what's going on now. I was not expecting that. Passionistas: So, is that why you quit your job because Berriez became a full-time job for you? Emma: Yes. A few reasons. I think that the work, I think I was very burnt out from the Innocence Project or not even just the Innocence Project, but that work cause I had been doing it at that point for 10 years and it was so draining. I'm an empath. So. I'm really sensitive to emotion. So I like I take on so many emotions and it was just, I couldn't disconnect, you know? So that was a big part of it just burn out. But also I couldn't juggle both anymore. Cause you know, it was 40 hours a week for innocence project and then another 40 hours a week for Berriez because I was doing Berriez on all evenings mornings, starting at like 6:00 AM and then all weekend. So I never. For about like a year. I just didn't take a break. Really. Passionistas: So besides wanting people to have pretty clothes, is there like an emotional mission that you have with the company? Emma: Of course. I mean, I think it's so much more about pretty clothes it's about being able to go somewhere and not feeling defeated and like someone doesn't care about you because I, even two weeks ago, my I went and visited my mom. My mom was a size eight. I would say we went to the mall for the first time in about like, what two years here, whatever. And we literally couldn't go into any stores because nothing, there was not a store in the, in the mall that had anything of my size. And it's like, that's so disheartening and frustrating. It's like, I don't want other people to feel excluded. It's just not a good feeling. And I grew up with it and have felt it over and over and over and over again that I want people to come in and be like, oh my God, wait. Stuff fits me. And, oh my gosh, I feel good about myself because feeling good about yourself is what's gonna help you. Do you know, your day-to-day tasks, whether that be working criminal justice or, you know, working at a bakery or whatever you're you're doing. I think clothes are so much more than just. How, you know, they look and I've really been getting in touch with that, especially during quarantine. Passionistas: We're Amy and Nancy Harrington and you're listening to The Passionistas Project Podcast and our interview with Emma Zack. To check out her “Curated for Curves” store visit ShopBerriez.com. Save the Dates for the 2021 Passionistas Project Women's Equality Summit, being held virtually this year on August 20 through August 22. For details go to The Passionistas Project dot com/2021Summit. Now here's more of our interview with Emma. So they're a form of self-expression. How do you use fashion as self-expression? Emma: I love to express myself through fashion. I wear a lot of bright pop patterns and bold prints. I wear a lot of like novelty, sweaters and shirts that. Are funny and that don't that just show that Fasten doesn't need to be taken so seriously. I think there's and I experienced this as I'm in the fashion world, there's so much of it that is so exclusive. And so like, oh, well, if you don't look this a certain way, or if you don't wear this, this and this, you're not actually in the industry. Well, that's B S you know what I mean? So I try and just wear whatever I want to wear right now. I'm wearing lime green shorts, this really weird top in this big flower necklace. And yeah. I just encourage people to not listen to the quote unquote rules and fashion. Just if you like a shirt that's really bright, but you're, you know, bigger where it, who cares, you know, if it's quote unquote flattering. Passionistas: How has COVID  affected your business? Emma: It's been weird because before COVID, I was able to do pop-ups every weekend to make money. And during COVID, I obviously had to switch to like a a hundred percent e-com platform. So now I'm back. I'm like doing this a hundred percent e-com excuse me. And now of course, as I finally figured it out, popups are happening again. So but business, honestly, hasn't, it it's been, I've been growing, but I've been learning how much it takes and costs to grow and sustain a business. And that's been probably the hardest part for me. And some, it just gets me so frustrated every time I think about it, which is every day. But Yeah. So COVID has not been great for business, but it's also at the, at, on the flip side, it has been great because my company has grown. Passionistas: So now what are your future plans for Berriez? Emma: So I've so many. This is my biggest problem is that I have so many ideas, but I also have, truthfully, I have ADHD. So my ideas are literally everywhere. I cannot sit still or focus, but my goal, all right, now, one of them is I've been, like I said earlier, working with independent women designers who are extending their size line for Berriez and these designers, the clothing is a bit more expensive than I usually sell, but that's just because all the designers are sustainable and the fabrics are all just like really beautiful fabrics and everything is just hand dyed or whatever. It may be. Everything is material meticulously crafted. And on top of that, I mean, I'm making sure that for each garment that I put out, I fit it on plus size people before it goes into production. So that we're not just grading up from small sizes to plus sizes. It's like, we're actually going to fit this garment on a plus body. So that it's actually true to size where it's not that problem of like, Okay. Size 16 fits like a size 10. You know what I mean? Which I'm so sick of designers these days doing that because so many are like, we're a size inclusive and then their size 16 won't even go on my foot, you know? So that's one and then two, I've been thinking a lot about, you know, I just got a studio space because I'm also. All of my stuff was in my basement and, February. So I finally moved it out of my basement. But I think that it would be really great to have a storefront because as a plus size person, it is so important to try on clothing before I buy them. And also back to the experience part where, you know, if you're a plus size person, you'd be able to walk into the store and be, find everything that fits you. You know what I mean? And not just like maybe one thing that's really stressed. Passionistas: And I would imagine have a sales person who was supportive and understood, stood your normal trepidation about going into a store to shop for clothing. Emma: Absolutely. I mean, probably a plus size sales person who knows, you know, who's got gone through this experience themselves and knows how to like fit the clothing on our to our  Passionistas: Do you have any desire to design your own clothes? Emma: Yeah. And so that was another thing that we're working on is my employee Eilee Lichtenstein, who is a brilliant creative genius. Have you ever heard of the designer, Michael Simon? He made those like novelty sweaters in the late eighties and the nineties. So he's one of my all time here. I was, I think he, his mind is like, so genius to me. So what we've been doing is we wanted to make our own novelty sweaters, but we didn't want to produce anything new. So we've been sourcing vintage sweaters and hand felting over onto the vintage sweater. So we've been making these novelty sweaters, but that are still sustainable on vintage sweaters. So that's been a really fun idea. Our first collection sold out in 10 minutes, which has never happened in the history of anything. He will want the sweaters. So we're working on a batch of actually like knit tanks and sweater vest for the summer. So those will be ready and hopefully three weeks or so. And then I would love to like, start producing those in a larger scale. And then also with vintage shirts, of course. And then also using like vintage shapes that I've found, you know, and patterning those to make new stuff, but out of sustainable or dead stock materials. So I've been trying to keep the business the sustainability model. Passionistas: So you've talked about the frustration that you felt with the fashion industry, not representing plus size people. Do you think it's changed at all? Is it getting any better? Emma: It absolutely is. It's even the past year. There's so many brands popping up that are like actually trying, I mean I have to shout out this one brand called Wray W-R-A-Y. And she is just so brilliant because she is making, she just started extended her size range up to 6X, but the clothing is not like, you know how a lot of no offense plus size clothing is not cute. So. She is making plus-size clothing. That's like actually wearable art. You know what I mean? So that's great. And then, yeah, there's so many brands, not so many, but there's a lot of brands popping up and doing that at the same time though. There are still so many that aren't doing it. Or doing it so wrong, like being like, were we sell a size XXL and the execs outfits, like a large and another thing is, is that media it's, the fashion media itself is changing in that like brands are hiring plus size models. Like, I don't know if you've seen athletes just extended their sizes target. Big companies are finally getting hip to it. You know, Passionistas: What advice would you give to a young woman who wants to follow her passions like you have? Emma: I would say to take the risk, but I didn't take that risk until I had fully thought everything through. And organize everything. So I think that was really important. And that was because of my parents. They were like, you want to quit your job, quit your job. How are you going to live? But, you know, it's a huge, it's a huge risk, but you're not going to find out if it works until you do it right. And if it doesn't work, then this is a whole long life ahead of you. So take the risk. Passionistas: Thanks for listening to our interview with Emma Zack. To check out her “Curated for Curves” store visit ShopBerriez.com. Please visit ThePassionistasProject.com to learn more about our podcast and subscription box filled with products made by women-owned businesses and female artisans to inspire you to follow your passions. Sign up for a one-year subscription and get a FREE Mystery Box worth $40. Save the Dates for the 2021 Passionistas Project Women's Equality Summit, being held virtually this year on August 20 through August 22. For details go to ThePassionistasProject.com/2021Summit. And subscribe to the Passionistas Project Podcast so you don't miss any of our upcoming inspiring guests. Until next time, stay well and stay passionate.

Meridy Volz is an internationally acclaimed artist who's known for her paintings of figures and use of shockingly innovative electric color to create a mood. In 2020, Meridy's daughter Alia published the book “Home Baked: My Mom, Marijuana, and the Stoning of San Francisco,” which chronicled Meridy's life running Sticky Fingers Brownies, an underground bakery that distributed thousands of marijuana brownies per month and helped provide medical marijuana to AIDS patients in San Francisco. Learn more about Meridy. Get a copy Alia Volz's book Home Baked. Learn more about The Passionistas Project. Full Transcript: Passionistas: Hi, and welcome to The Passionistas Project Podcast, where we talk with women who are following their passions to inspire you to do the same. We're Amy and Nancy Harrington. And today we're talking with Meridy Volz, an internationally acclaimed artist who is known for her paintings of figures and use of shockingly innovative electric color to create a mood. In 2020 Mary's daughter, Alia published the book. "Home Baked: My Mom, Marijuana and the Stoning of San Francisco", which chronicled marriages, life running Sticky Fingers Brownies,an underground bakery that distributed thousands of marijuana brownies per month and helped provide medical marijuana to aids patients in San Francisco. So please welcome to the show Meridy Volz. Meridy: Hi and thank you. It's great to be here. Passionistas: Oh, we're so excited to talk to you today. What is the thing that you're most passionate about? Meridy: I'm most passionate about my art, about expressing emotion through my art and about our activism in this day and age. Passionistas: What is art activism? Meridy: For me, art activism is using my creation of art to contribute to positive movement in the community to express feelings, things that are going on in the world right now in our, in our country right now, and do it through different mediums using color line, text your. And subject matter to express that and to bring change, to kind of shine the light on what is happening and give a very true response to it. I'm very happy to be part of a movement for change in our time, which really is calling out for it. Passionistas: Let's take a step back. What was your childhood like? And were there things in your childhood that inspired you to become an activist? Meridy: It was a mixed bag. I was raised in a middle-class Jewish family in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. My mother was a school teacher. My dad owned a Tavern. I always had art. I was born with a cran in my hand. And by the time I was three, I was drawing colorful people, which now 70 years later at the age of 73, I'm still doing it. And it was a somewhat difficult household. My mother was very strict and critical and somewhat abusive. And so for me, that place. Where I was laying on the floor and leaning on my elbows, drawing that place where my cran touched the paper was my sanctum sank, Torian. It was my space and nobody could get into that world was mine alone. And it still is that for me, it's been that for me, man, entire life. And I was. Recognize very young. I was six when I got a scholarship to go to art school at the Milwaukee art center, which had just opened by a teacher from the, who come around from the Milwaukee school board. And she'd pick up little samples of artwork from young students. To show. And I guess she, she showed them in different places. Her name was Ms. Yuri, and I'll never forget. I forget her. She had pure white year and as a child Ms. Berry rhymed with flurry, and there was a lot of snow in Milwaukee. So I always associated her with whites. No, I'll never forget that white hair. And she got me my first scholarship. And then from then on, I had great teachers all along all through university. There were some fabulous teachers who took me under their belt and mentored me. And I was born an artist and I'll die in artists. So I've always known my calling. That's been clear. I've been really lucky that way is I didn't have to search for my calling. It was there. Passionistas: Was that part of the reason you went out to California? Meridy: I was illustrating writing and illustrating children's books for the Rockefeller foundation in the seventies. And it was a great gig because I could do it from anywhere I love to draw. And it was the first medium that was bilingual. That was Tran translated into Spanish. It was reproduced on. Really early re reproducing machines. And so it was cheaply produced, but it was bilingual material. It was the first and I illustrated it and I had gone to Europe because I could, and I could send my work into my boss from any country. And then my dad would pick up my paycheck and wire my money. I'd go to the next country. Well, I ended up going to Morocco and falling in love with a bare bare man that I met at a new year's Eve party. And he turned out to be gay in the end, but he did end up coming to Milwaukee. And my dad said him back to get his act together before we got married. And he never came because he was clearly gay. He was living at that time with a hairdresser in Switzerland. So I was heartbroken and needed a change. And I had a friend who was in San Francisco and she was like, come on out. And so I did, I packed everything up and I arrived in San Francisco to find that at that time, San Francisco was quite a wonderful place, a Haven for artists and. Gay and lesbian people where they could be more free and very open-minded. And so I coming from rather conservative Milwaukee there, I was, I was in San Francisco and that's how I got there and fell in love with the city, which was quite beautiful. Passionistas: Then how did that lead to you making pot brownies? Meridy: Well, I've always been spiritual. My spirituality is, is a smorgasbord of things. Even now, everything from Zen to Zen Buddhism, to Judaism, to Christianity, to Santa Maria. And part of that was I was into the Ching and into consulting the Ching. And I had a friend who had a little business on fishermen's work, she would go and she'd make all these wonderful baked goodies. And she had a basket put the goodies in a basket to sell to the street artists who were on the Wharf. And she also had a bag where she carried one dozen pot brownies. And also, so those, and she called me, she had made enough money to move herself to Findhorn in Scotland, which was a commune at the time. And she asked me if I wanted her business and I was like, Hmm. And I had been still illustrating children's books. I did a book for Filipinos, a book for the Chinese of book for the Jewish academy and was still working for the Rockefeller foundation. And I thought, well, that's interesting. And I tossed a hexagram and it surprisingly to me, it was very, very positive and I went, oh, wow. But I'm not a baker. I can't cook, but I love seeing people and working and interacting and perhaps selling. And I had a girlfriend who loved to bake and still does. And so I took her on in the business and long story short. That's how it started. And we were stoners. I won't lie. We were, and we got the secret of how to do a good pop brownie back to grade five by only, and pretty soon the brownies caught on in the bakery at a go. And that's how Sticky Fingers was born. And it started off recreationally and ended up with the, with the aids epidemic being the only thing which gave the people who were dying. And there were so many, it was stunning. I lost many, many, many, many friends during that time during the epidemic, it was the only thing which gave them relief. And so it became something else. It was the birth of medical marijuana, and there was always art involved because we designed our own bags every time we went out. And so people collected those. So that was sticky fingers. When I look back on it now and having read Alia's book, my daughter's book five times now, it looks like somebody else's life to me. Like I look at it. I was like, wow, that was really me doing that. Wow. So that's, that was then, and I never told people about it. Even my closest friends, it stayed secret until we were outed in Alia's book, which it was certainly time to do. Passionistas: Certainly San Francisco evolved significantly during the time that you were there and you were doing that. How did your art evolve during that time? Meridy: I've always been figurative. All my art, all of it has the figure in it, except one painting that was a commission in which I did on Anza-Borrego  in the spring, which is a place in the desert. And I did flowers and flowers and cacti, and I kept wanting to sneak a figure in there, like where's Waldo, but I've always been figurative. Even my designs and the brownie bags were very often, most often figures, always a figure in there. And it's because the figure is a great vehicle for emotions. You can express your personal feelings or an idea, but for me, it's always very emotional. From the time I was little, it was that you can express that through a figure what the figure is doing or what's in their eyes. That was the same. I was always colorful, always love color. I love pushing color to the maximum. I love using combinations of color that are revolutionary, that people wouldn't think of that where I take a lot of risks. With my color. And, you know, I always tell my students, especially my life drawing students, that if you, if you don't take risks, you can't be great. You have to like be willing to fail in order for, to really, really be extraordinary. So those risks. I was, I've never been a safe artist. Never not in subject matter. Not I've always been right up on the edge. And that's where an artist needs to be an artist who just settles in to something is not on their edge and artists need to be on the edge. And if you're not on your edge, you need to push yourself to the edge. And sometimes up and over the edge, may I add. So that's it. So my work back at that time, I've always gotten a lot of awards and things like that from the artwork, uh, you know, all through high school and then college. And then as an adult entering shows, you know, I've won many, many awards. And I think it's because of taking the risk now, as far as marketing my work, that's another story is that. I have an enormous body of work here. Enormous. I've worked from the front row almost right from the beginning around me and I'm prolific, which means there's a lot of work here. And during the pandemic on some of the arts sites, I've made friends with digital artists and have viewed their work. And I got a handed to him, man. They can put everything on a thumb drive. Like that, like as big as yours, um, right. I'm like looking around and I, I have a three bedroom home and every single interval has stacked artwork. Every inch, every closet, every shell, my garage so much work. And I always, like, I never wanted to be an art dealer. And, you know, I'm a you'll inherit this way. Never wanted to be an art dealer. So she could do a big bonfire. I told her because everything is in the process anyway, you know, it was all in the making of the art for me. So I know that won't happen, but so I've never been great at the marketing of my own work. And part of that is that it's very. I find it off putting when people are like, my work is great way to you see it. And I find myself in any medium musician or, you know, right. Anybody, I find myself stepping back from that a couple of feet and, and so it's very hard to do that. And so I sell, but I sure have a lot of work here so that I would say the art marketing. I've been weakened, the art making I've been strong in. I dunno if that's evolved much my marketing skills. Passionistas: You're listening to The Passionistas Project Podcast and our interview with Meridy Volz. To learn more about Meridy's artwork, visit MeridyVolz.art. And to get a copy of her daughter Alia Volz's book, "Home Baked," go to AlizVolz.com. If you're enjoying this interview and would like to help us continue creating inspiring content, please consider becoming a patron by visiting ThePassionistasProject.com/podcast and clicking on the patron button. Even $1 a month can help us continue our mission of inspiring women to follow their passions. Now here's more of our interview with Meridy. How would you describe your art for someone who hasn't seen it? Meridy: I would say my art as expressionists slash impressionist with an extreme palette and texture. I would say my work is extremely emotional, which goes under the category of expressionism. I would say Neo expressionists slash impressionists. Passionistas: And where do you draw inspiration from? Meridy: From what I'm feeling at the moment, my deepest, some of them dark feelings, not, you know, it's not, and in this day and age, somebody said, people came to see my work the other day and they were like, it's so deep. And you can just feel, especially the pandemic artist has a real feeling of sadness to it. And I'm like, if you're not sad in this. These times then you're not paying attention. The loss of life been integrity and so much loss now. And I don't mean to wallow in our negative emotions. However, as an artist, I feel like I'm almost duty bound to record that like years from now, it'll be. An age in the movement of art that contains very, very deep feelings and you see less and less of figurative art and more and more of abstract art probably for that field for that reason is that I think abstract art comes from a different place in general. I think it can dip into deep emotions, but you can look at a piece of abstract art and it can be a lot of things. The series that I've done during the pandemic, my black lives matter series was another story. I found that to be very relieving because it comes from a different place. It's not about me, and it's not about my emotions. It's about a life well lived and recording something about the beauty of that person's soul something, you know, because the face. Is a map to that really in most cases. And so for me, it was coming from a much more objective point of view. So from the time George Floyd was murdered to new years, I did a hundred black lives matter portraits. And that was starting out with black artists, artists who have passed. Who have contributed greatly to our culture. And that was my point. This is why black lives matter is that look at this image, enormous contribution to, to our culture, into the world's culture, but our culture specifically. And by first one I did was James Baldwin. And I'm still working on this because it's evolved. But at which I will talk about, um, and I began to sell them all proceeds, going to different black lives matter causes. The first section of them went to the bail fund in Portland, when that was happening, the next section of money, which was raised, went directly. Two black families in my community who are struggling, really struggling. And it went in, honestly it went through community members. I also work with at-risk teens. And so I worked in a church right here in desert hot Springs, where I taught gang kids off the streets. Art. So I met community activists in that community and they distributed the money for me directly. Like there was a grandma who is feeding three kids who is being evicted because no stimulus check for so long and money went to them and, and so went directly to the community. And then the last section to Georgia for, uh, the election of Ossoff and Warnock. So I feel great about that. I mean, I personally gleaned a lot out of it. One being able to come out of the deep emotions and just, it was soothing. It was like taking a nice girl shower after being in the heat and also to be active because I couldn't get out and protest. I'm too old to bang the streets anymore. And, and I could be a contributor. And that made me feel very much alive while in lockdown alone for 13 years. So after that hundred I've been approached by, and this is current happening right now, I was approached by the democratic party of Riverside county. Did I want to do anything with them? So, yes, indeed. I do. And so I had the chair of the party. I had five women all. Meet here last Friday. In fact, everybody vaccinated. Yay. And we met and they looked at my work. And so we're going to do merchandise using some of the portraits that I've done. For example, we're going to be doing posters, probably a calendar for 2022. And we're going to be starting with t-shirts or we're going to be starting with a John Lewis, onesie for newborn babies that says good trouble. And I think that's just, as my boys in juvie hall would say, that's dope. So that's what we're working on now. And we're going to do a Stacey Abrams and Amanda Gorman and, uh, uh, Kamala, etcetera. And so that's happening and then a big fundraiser in the fall where I'll take some of these paintings and I'll split the proceeds with the party. And I feel great about that because yay for the good guys. Anything I can contribute? I glean, I mean, it's not like, oh, Meridy you're so selfless. It's not, honestly, it's not, I gleaned so much out of it. It makes me feel productive. As does teaching my boys are in juvenile hall. Passionistas:  Tell us how that started and tell us a little bit more about it. Meridy:  It actually started in 2006 when we started to have the economic collapse, right. And in the recession and all of that. And I thought, how am I going to make money to survive during this. And people were not able to afford classes at that time. It was so bad. And I thought, Hmm. And I walked into juvenile hall and I said, do you have anybody teaching art here? I had in the past done workshops at San Quentin, may I add that? I painting workshops that, and that was like in the, it might've been the nineties. And I really liked that. It touched on touch something of the rebel inside of me, maybe the outline side of me a little. So I've walked into juvenile hall and they said we don't have money for that. And I said, how about a five, five the money? So I wrote a grant first grant I ever wrote, and I was awarded the grant and that's where my program started in juvenile hall, where it was for a few years. And then it moved to the church. All on grants. I'm a 16 time recipient of grants from the Anderson children's foundation. Then it was working with kids on the streets, out of the church here in desert hot Springs, which by the way, has no air conditioning in the summer. And it's 120 degrees here in the summer. That was a real sweat box. I have to say. And then there was gunfire at the church. There was some hassled between the rival gangs. And there was a shooter who is shooting at my kids coming into class. And that was an eye opener for me. At that time, what I did was I took the boys into the sanctuary and we kind of hovered there. And I was like, if any of you are carrying anything, get rid of it because the police are on their way. And I said to myself, I don't want to get shot to do this, you know, bullet through my head. So I then started going into alternative schools and bringing the art there. And in addition to teaching the art, we did the fair and they won awards. We did different shows where the boys were able and girls in the schools as boys and girls. Now it's just only boys are housed in India. The girls are in another facility. I think it Riverside. And so I started going into schools and I have been in schools since and virtual now with the pandemic. Now I'm sent into juvie by Riverside county office of education, and it's a pilot program it's not done anywhere else. And it's very effective. You cannot reform kids. You can't change them without giving them some positive juice and our bins around corners. That's what I have found is that as an artist, I mingle with what you might consider incarcerated people. You might judge them and say that's lower, lower end. And then very high-end with the adults that I teach artists can run the whole spectrum. And you just are the same. I'm married the artists no matter where I am, nothing changes about that. And so that's where it's at now. That's where our heart is now. I find that schlepping art supplies with my back right now becomes more difficult. The physicality of it all is just a little harder than it was before, but I'm still in there. I'm still in the game and doing it. Passionistas: What is the impact on the kids that you're working with, but also on that community that they live in? Meridy: That's huge in juvie. That's why I find out their first names and address them by their first names and not just the last names I try and get personal with them. I never asked them what they're in for, what was their crime or anything like that. That's not my concern. What my concern is, is my interaction with them, right at that point. And art is very individual. Because it's you and the paper and the medium you're working on and your individual expression. So there's no right and wrong. Sometimes the kids are like, ah, this doesn't look like anything. And I'm like, it's great abstraction. And then I'll hunt up a picture of like a Pollock or a Kandinsky. And I look at this, this guy is paintings are worth billions. Look at that, there's our room for everybody in art, everybody. And so I try and make it like that for them where it's very individual, I always deliver good news. So they're very anxious at the end of class to show me their work. I get to play music for them, which they don't get music. So I'm their disc jockey. And I like to say that I know more about rap than any 74 year old should, but I find clean rap for them and a play it. They can request songs. Sometimes we do all these because they get nostalgic for home, like Otis Redding or the temptations, or like that. And even the rolling stones are considered oldies. You know, it's like, oh God. So it becomes pleasurable for them. They put their head down and they do their work in the hour and then they come up and they show me and I'm like, that's great because you did that. That's fantastic. And I'll dress them. If I can do it by their first name, they're all dressed in the same uniform. Same sweat pants and ma wearing masks. And so it's very hard to tell one from the next, but it means a lot if I can remember their names and I start to get it by seeing their artwork like us to see a style emerging and they're like, oh, that's Jonathan or that's Luis, or, you know, I'm getting it in my head. And so the impacted them, number one, I look at them and I don't see a criminal. I look at them and I see the goodness and them, and that's huge when you're in a punitive, terrible lockdown situation. I've been in person there. I've taught in person many times and it smells like fear. There's a terrible rafting smell in there. A recycled fear. It's not like any other smell and kind of teen boy BO mixed in with it. Smelly socks and gym shoes and sweat. And then it's got a really, because there's no open air, no open windows. So the energy recycled, if you look at it on an energy level, there's so many pictures, psychic pictures of destroyed vibes, fractured lives, broken, broken people, sadness. Abandonment. I mean, it's all of that. So in that little hour, when I'm the weird grandma artists, because they get to see the art, it's special for them. If I sell something, I'll tell them, oh, I saw that. How much did you get miss? Would you do one for me? That's meaningful. I believe that I will be that experience will be something that they will remember in their lives. It's a takeaway, whereas probably almost everything else in juvie. You want to forget because it's hard and horrible and they're just horrible. I certainly bring color in there too. Another wise, very doll situation. And I think I bring a little joy and I bring acceptance. You know, I don't judge them. I only have to say it once. If you're requesting a song, say, please, so they always can I please listen to this? Thank you, miss. You know, they're all was pleased and tech and that's a good skill to learn. That's a life skill. And I always ended by saying, be kind to each other and be safe and I love you. And they're always like, we love you more, you know, and that's a counter herself that I think it's a small contribution, but I think it contributes to the positive for those boys. I think if it was in every juvenile hall, we'd see less people in juvie. Factor. They had the art class before they committed the crime, which is why I took it to the streets and out of juvie. I thought if I could head this off before it gets in there before the kid does the deed. And so that one is hard to judge how effective versus I know I'm being effective here. Passionistas:  Is there one lesson that you've learned on your journey so far that really sticks with you? Meridy: You gotta take risks. You gotta just, if you fail, you fail. If you crash and burn you crash and burn, but if you succeed, you can be extraordinary. That would be one thing. And the other thing is just open your heart. If you get it, be loving and accepting of people. Uh, frankly, it's a struggle for me right now with certain demographic of people. And I struggle with that because you gotta be loving, you gotta be open. And I feel so pissed off at 7 million people right now in this country. I just feel like, but you just gotta try, you know, be kind, be loving if you can, and contribute, take risks who contribute. Get out on a whim. If you get bad feedback from somebody, that's their problem. People always say, follow your heart, but it's true. Find something you're passionate about. Passionistas and follow it. Do it, do it for the good, the greater good. Passionistas: Thanks for listening to our interview with Meridy Volz. To learn more about Meridy's artwork, visit MeridyVolz.art. And to get a copy of her daughter, Alia Volz's book, "Home Baked," go to AliaVolz.com. Please visit ThePassionistasProject.Com to learn more about our podcast and subscription box filled with products made by women owned businesses and female artisans to inspire you to follow your passions. Get a free mystery box with a one-year subscription using the code SUMMERMYSTERY. And be sure to subscribe through The Passionistas Project Podcast so you don't miss any of our upcoming inspiring guests. Until next time stay well and stay passionate.

Judith Halbreich's lifetime of advocacy work is focused on the importance of all children having a home base and continuous mentorship. She is a licensed clinical social worker and psychotherapist with a successful executive career in social services, clinical research and mental health. Judith is the founder of Home of Champions, a unique program in Upstate New York that identifies leaders emerging from the foster care system and supports them towards becoming champions of their best selves. Learn more about Home of Champions. Learn more about The Passionistas Project. Full Transcript: Passionistas: Hi, and welcome to the Passionistas Project Podcast, where we talk with women who are following their passions to inspire you to do the same. We're Amy and Nancy Harrington. And today we're talking with Judith Halbreich. Her lifetime of advocacy work is focused on the importance of all children, having a home base and continuous mentorship. She is a licensed clinical social worker and psychotherapist with a successful executive career in social services, clinical research and mental health. Judith is the founder of Home of Champions a unique program in upstate New York that identifies leaders emerging from the foster care system and supports them towards becoming champions of their best selves. So please welcome to the show Judith Halbreich Judith: So happy to be here. Passionistas: So Judith, what's the one thing you're most passionate about? Judith: I am most passionate about changing policies and procedures and instituting some programming for the disadvantage youth or kids coming out of foster care, going to college that want to graduate and want to have a career and want to be leaders, but there are difficulties in obtaining that. So I am so passionate about them achieving their goals. Passionistas: Why is that something you became particularly passionate about? Judith: As a social worker in New York City, and as a caseworker I started off with having teenagers from probably the worst areas of New York, like East New York. And I had a group of kids 13 to 17 and we took them and I decided to take them away on retreats with staff to empower them, to give them self-esteem and we handpick them. Many of them were in care foster care because they were abused, severely abused. And I can tell you one story of  a girl that was so severely abused, but she's so smart. And she went on to college and she became a director of a Bronx Rehab Center. So we took the youth to retreats with an independent living skills program, but with the sense that they are diamonds in the rough, they just need to have the support to be the best they could be. I realized that, and then I became executive director of that agency. And one day after I left that agency to relocate. That one person that was severely abused, who made an incredible life for herself, came back to the agency and said, if it wasn't for this group of staff, that helped me. I wouldn't be where I am. And to me, that was like the impetus for starting this program without a doubt. No one ever he has professionally. What? Because no one looks for it. What they've done. Right. You just do what you do on your path. But she came back and said, I want to say, thank you for the love and the encouragement. She went to college. She became a director of a clinic. That's one. And there, there are many, but she's the one that came back. And that was kind of the realization that this absolutely works. The mentorship and the support that is needed for disconnected disadvantage, foster care youth to come out of a system that want to go to college that want to achieve. They can do it. And Nancy, Amy, can you imagine that you and I had to support growing up and even if we didn't, it may turned out maybe mediocre for some people and maybe our situation, but for us, it's great. But can you imagine for those kids, it is a disaster, it's a disaster. They don't have that support. Passionistas: Tell us about where you grew up and what your childhood was like. Judith: My childhood. I had a mother who was an incredible lady. She went through hardships on her own, but always cared for and supported and foster care kids and adoption. She was a woman that was self-empowered. And not only did she take care of the community, those kids, but also she was. And incredible business woman in the suburban long Island. So through her divorce, she actually went to the dark night of the soul and she retreated in the basement, but I learned what impairment is. She became a spiritual leader, a universal spiritual leader. Aside from that, her grandmother living in Queens, New York supported the community. So all many young mothers she would bring, the grandmother would bring my mother's grandmother would bring baskets of food. Diapers anything or not diapers at that time, but a lot of food and anything else that these young mothers needed or the community needed. So I come from that background of giving back to the community when it was time for you to go to college, where did you go and what did you decide to study? I actually went to, it was the time of the Civil Rights. We were witnessing a lot of stuff going on in New York. We couldn't get gas. There were some violent protests. It was very calm, nothing like today. So my mother decided I'm going to, you're going to go to Indiana. So I spent time at St. Mary's in Indiana. I actually started the first drug rehab program online in Indiana University, but I had gone to St. Mary's and I worked under Birch by just doing a policy and procedure stuff, but I went into college, wanting to, I saw it teach elementary education and then one day I decided, no, this is not me, even though I wanted to do see it. I did art and I said, no, I'm going to be a social worker. I'm going to impact whatever policies and procedures there are. That need to be, you know, revamped. I need to be an advocate. So it, my junior year, that's when it started. And then I had gone on to a graduate school in New York City. Passionistas: So now tell us about your first job out of school. Was that McMann services for children? Judith: That was Angel Guardian on Long Island. And I worked there for three years. I had some clients in Brooklyn and there was an opportunity for me to go to Fordham Graduate School of Social Services, and they had a one-year program, but because I graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Social Work too. I was able to get into that program at Fordham for a year, and I received my Master's and then moved to New York City following an offer at McMahon, which were run by the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary. And the Franciscans are incredible because they are professionally in all walks of life physicians, social workers, nurses, teachers, and here, they had this organization on 45th Street and First Avenue that it was a small operation. Maybe we had 200 kids, the budget was a million something. But it made an impact. So I left my graduate school, got hired there as a caseworker, and that's when I started programming with independent living skills. Then later I became the director of social services and I started actually the first HIV foster boarding home program. Now that was in a time when no one knew what HIV was. An AIDS. Well, we had, we had babies coming in and out of care back in the hospital, back and foster care and no one knew what to do. So I worked with the city of New York and with Ari, I'll never forget Ari Rubinstein and Albert Einstein who they, they were researching what this thing was, this disease and why kids were dying. And then we established the first foster boarding home program because I had to go to Albany and fight. To get foster parents a better rate to take care of kids that was severely sick. I mean, can you imagine having babies that are going back and forth to the hospital and staying there, coming back, going there? You know, it was an incredible time. And then I became executive director and the first lay executive director of a Franciscan order. Passionistas: And so why did you move on from there? And did you go to Boston after that? Judith: The reason I left was because I got a proposal to be married and well, when you're in, you know, in your thirties and you get a proposal and I had proposals, but I thought, Oh no, this is my career, you know, but I got a proposal from my dear husband, but he had to be in Buffalo. So he is I had to move from, after being executive director for a year, I moved to Buffalo with him, but the agency called me back to be on the board of directors. And then we had gone to Boston just for a year, but I stayed two years because I loved it. I wanted to move there. We had our daughter and I said, this is like the best place in the world. So I stayed there two years and then came back to Buffalo. Passionistas: What did you do there? Judith: Well, I was the marketing consultant for the commissioner of social services in Boston. Yeah. And my daughter went to a public school that was incredible. And I absolutely a hundred percent wanted to stay there, but what can you do? Right. Passionistas: But then you ended up back in New York City. Judith: So I worked with the University of Buffalo doing clinical trials for depression and women's studies. And then my daughter graduated high school and went on to college and New York City. And I then decided, cause my grants ended my husband and I agreed that I could get a position in New York City. And then we would just go back and forth, which works for us cause we kind of travel, you know, for work anyway. And that's when I procured a position as director of a clinical director of a mental health facility in Harlem. And I was there for eight years. Passionistas: What was that experience like? Judith: It's very challenging. I loved my staff without a doubt. I had about 35 people seven psychiatrists and the rest psychotherapists, and we provided 33,000 visits, medical visits a year, but it was tough because. The community needs so much more than what we were offering. So it was tough. I started in my clinic coordinating healthcare and mental health. Which is so important for the kids too. You can't just take care of one arm. You have to take care of the whole body, right. Something's going on. So I absolutely loved the community there. Some were dependent on drugs because that's the system, right? It's not just there it's everywhere, but I was really happy to hire a nurse who coordinated health and with us. And psychiatric care. Passionistas: So now how did all this lead to founding a Home of Champions? Judith: My daughter said that she had to interview somebody in Panama and would I come with her? And that's the time I was in New York city, my husband and I were going back and forth because he had a job here in Buffalo. And I was in New York and Bethany was at school in NYU, but she was interviewing somebody in Panama. So I went with her and we decided to go to an off shore, like a, a small, tiny Island. And we did. And you can only bike ride there. So we did that and you don't get too many services there. So we stayed in a tree house and they had bikes, but the bikes were not suitable really, but we took them anyway and we later found out they weren't suitable. And I fell off a bridge on the bike. I came up and my daughter said to me, and I would, you know, blood was gushing. And she said, when are you going to do this Project? When are you going to do this thing that you love for kids? As I was bleeding, mom, when are you doing it? Do it. You talk about it, like gushing the blood. I come up, the bike wrapped around my neck does the handle and I went down, but then I was like, and then write your book. Do those things matter now, but that's a story because they were there no clinics. So some guy that was drunk, a taxi guy picked us up and he was throwing beer cans around. He took us to a clinic and he said, these are the symptoms that you have to watch. You're not going to be alive if you have one of those symptoms, because it's takes three hours to get you out of here to a hospital. So it worked. Passionistas: What were the symptoms? Judith: You said the symptoms were brain clot. Right? Then I would phase out, but I had no symptoms. I just bled, which was good. I would be dizzy, you know, unconscious, but I had none of those. That was the turning point of that. Because I was, again, I was working full time and it didn't matter. She, my daughter just said, Do it, you're not going to die now, mom. Passionistas: So tell us about the organization itself and what's, what's the mission? Judith: I was searching for property. I had gone to New York city looking upstate and found this property. That was perfect. It's an hour away from New York city. And it was the old estate of Floyd Patterson and the training camp of Muhammad Ali, Johannson and of course, Floyd lived there and Tracy Patterson, his son, who's still there in the area. So we purchased it. And for the past few years, it's a startup, we've been doing workshops and we have a champion curriculum. So our mission is to identify potential leaders in the foster care system. So statistically. 400,000 kids are in care. 26,000 are discharged from care. So you get a kind of perspective. Now, a certain percent, I'm just talking about New York state a certain percent want to go to college. They do want to go. They want to learn about vocations. They want to learn. So when they are discharged from care, it's either 18 or 21 and some can still remain if they're in college. But what happens is 3% of them graduate from college and it might be a little bit less. So in New York state, statistically, I mean, once they're discharged from care, one out of four become homeless. One out of four are incarcerated two years after they're discharged, which is, and 42%. And, you know, I have the research to confirm this 42% don't complete high school, but I was, I, the reason that I did this mission and this vision was because of the kids I worked with. If they have an opportunity. Look, what they do. One went off to college, became a director and that, that was like three or four retreats. And two years of mentoring. So this particular organization that I created is to screen foster care or now disadvantage youth that get to college on their own merit, or want to get to vocational school and have leadership qualities. So when you look at the issue with kids in foster care, they go from one home to the next. And it's the average three, three transfers a year to different homes, different schools. So what happens is some of them create resiliency. So these what the society calls a misfit. No, some of them. Have this resiliency to adapt their tune into details. Why you have to go from one home to the next. So when that happens, right, they have this extraordinary creative activity. Those are the kids we want before they get to pimps and create their own business, a fortune that way. But these are the kids. We want the ones that are resilient, you know, the ones that can. Survive in a college atmosphere and that's what they want. So just let me skip Muhammad Ali said “Champions aren't made in the gyms.” So champions, they have the will and the skill are champions, but what's most important to be a champion is the, will the will. So I've noticed doing the workshops. And speaking was kids doing the workshops that when I have 35 kids in the workshop too, I know that it can be leaders. Why? Cause they march on forward. They bring the rest of the group. They're not followers they're leaders. So that's our mission to identify future leaders among foster care youth or disadvantage youth. And I'm saying that because there are other kids in homeless shelters that want to go to college that are kicked out of their home because of abuse, but they have a potential and a strong, productive, they want to be strong, productive leaders. So those are the kids were screaming. Passionistas: You're listening to the Passionistas Project Podcast and our interview with Judith Halbreich. To learn more about Home of Champions, visit HomeofChampionsNY.org . If you're enjoying this interview and would like to help us continue creating inspiring content, please consider becoming a patron by visiting ThePassionistasProject.com/podcast and clicking on the Patron button. Even $1 a month can help us continue our mission of inspiring women to follow their passions. Now here's more of our interview with Judith. So, how do you find the kids or how do they get involved with the person? Judith: Right now, I've been connected with New York City agencies and invite them to our workshops. But at this point, we're in a, we're trying we're fundraising to get. The residential part of the programming done. Now, when kids are discharged, I don't know anything about how to take care of themselves in an apartment, in a home. So we're building a tiny home village. So each tiny home is about a little under $20,000. So on this property, our aim is to get those tiny homes in so they can learn independent living, financing, wellbeing, but it's a metaphor because they're going to learn how to build one. And then we're going to have those on campus for them to live in. But metaphorically, when you build a tiny home, you build the base, the foundation, the walls. Well, our creation of this curriculum is what is the foundation of your life? You know, what are the rules? What's the roof, what's the interior. So the important thing is a consortium having a consortium and I have connected with not only New York City agencies and linkage agreements with many of them that know me from the past, but also the SUNY. And then we have West Point coach in boxing who wants to come over. But this one of the things is discipline. If you don't have discipline, you can't do it. So they come over and Tracy Patterson has been at our workshops, just talking about boxing, but what. He's a world champion boxer, but he didn't get there overnight. He had to have that will and the discipline to do it. And these kids, when I see them in workshops, they get it to two out of 35. And I don't know statistically what that is, but maybe handful get it. And they want to be part of the program and the others. Gradually if that's what they want. So our program is unique because it screens for leadership. Cause you know, you and I had the opportunity. They don't, they don't have an opportunity and I'm a proponent for kids being in care until age 26. Because when they're discharged, they're discharged with the, I'm not saying agencies do a great job. They try to do a great job. Many of them, these kids are discharged, but they carry a backpack of, I read something, an article about a gal who carried a microwave in her backpack to go to college. So what is going on? Where are they during COVID where are they? Yeah, they do get computers. Maybe if they're in a foster home or in a college. But really, I mean, I had an online summit and it was free talking about new careers the next 10 years. And it was really dynamic. Many of them couldn't get on for some reason they were absent. Where are they? So that's another issue during this time we have to figure out. How to change a system. And I mean, it, if they have trouble trying to vaccinate all of us well, and they find a way, thank God to vaccinate all of us. Thank God. Maybe they can find a way on how to connect the disconnected. That is my mission. Passionistas: What are some of the techniques and things you use in these workshops to help these kids get prepared for their journeys? Judith: There is a curriculum that we've established. And I have an educator who goes through several methods, right of training. Now we realized just with his methods and then having kids there that basically we had to mentor them and train them on basics, how to use the computer, how to get on social media. How to be interviewed, what is your goal? Just basic stuff. Now, this is very different than residential because residential that's a whole other and we're not there yet because I have to get these tiny homes in and I can place nine kids in the main house, but I really, and staff. But right now I'm thinking in a bigger way, I realize that they don't have the basics. So I've invited several agencies and the SUNY at New Paul's business center to talk about just basic financial organization. I have a nurse practitioner who is amazing. She talks about wellbeing. What is wellbeing taking care of? A lot of the kids that come to us we take surveys and. We get their feedback. They are not motivated or they're stressed out. They're worried about finances. So we have all that information and that's how we program our workshops and what they need. Basically. I noticed that a lot of the kids that are coming from New York City up to that area go back home and they can't communicate with their families after they're freshmen in college, they don't know the basics of living outside of home. So our programming is going to be a little bit different now because we're going to have retreats on those youth that are going to college, but that spent two weeks with us on an orientation. What it is. To get into school, what will the skills they need and that it has to do with wellbeing, mental health, right? When you're stressed, what do you do? The horrors of drug addiction, alcohol, all of that. Now I know colleges do that and I know social services do that, but when they're in a community of kids that are going to college, and then I have also a group of students that I'm working with that are going to be like mentors to the kids. Before they come in. They're so excited. This is the first time I'm using this approach because. A lot of them are in homeless shelters and they want to get to college. They don't know how, but our programming has been very didactic. You know, you can't do so much with two days or three different weeks of training. You have to see them for a longer period of time. So that's what we're aiming for in the summer. Hopefully we can do this. With COVID. We have to be very strict. And with young team with teenagers that are 18, 19, 16, 17, 18, 19, they have to be supervised with the COVID issue. That's a liability. So we've gone from doing workshops there to virtual, which that doesn't work. It doesn't work. I don't know where they are and the kids that come on, I could see that they have a support, but the ones that I've invited are not there that were in our workshops. It's like a continuum. I think that there's lack of continuity, wherever they are. Lack of technical support has got to be. And I know that several different outlets, like Time magazines, writing an article on this, several people are writing articles on this. These are the forgotten kids during COVID, but they were forgotten before COVID. I think it's much better that, you know, we see them face to face. Obviously, but we're going to do our best to do what we're doing now. Like zooming, some of them don't know how to, or don't have a computer. They don't, and some of them don't have enough food. I don't know what's going on with them. Finances, lack of emotional support. This is a big issue that I don't hear it in the news at all. Where are they? Passionistas: You mentioned the summit. Tell us more about that. When you did it recently, what was it about. Judith: We did a summit — Future Ready Summit. And it was an overview. It was very interactive. So our participants were able to interact. It was to find out where they're at and what they need. Now they'd have to, again, be screened. They filled out a registration form. They went online. It was free. And it was all about what their desire is for vocation or college, what they need to do to get there, like an overview. And then also building a, we haven't done the second, third one yet building a resume and interviewing. But most importantly is what are the jobs? That are out there that are $70,000 plus that you don't need a college education for. It could be detectives or electrical line checking or electrical system checking. I mean, I didn't know that, but a lot of these kids have their own one wants to be a coder. The other one wants to be a social worker. So what do they need to do? This is what's the focus. And the dialogue. And then first of all, to show them how we're changing rapidly to robotics and what kind of jobs are there and the environment, where can they go to school? Where financially, cause they do get some financial support and a good deal of it, but we can, they sustain themselves during college. What kind of careers there are, what's a knit community that they can work now. Now, some of them said, Oh, Uber, they could work for Uber because some of them were from New York city gardening because there are gardens in Brooklyn and there are all kinds of positions there. And then I'm also LinkedIn with an agency that does entrepreneur planning. So if they have an idea to say agencies, fantastic, we it's called. We thrive. They actually sponsor them for an entrepreneurial product and design implementation. And I'm working with SUNY business center. The director there comes in to teach them about finance. These kids don't know what's available for them. So we're, we're trying to do our best with, to link the kids that are. We don't know where they are. We've done a lot of research as to where they are. Many schools don't want to share because they don't know where they are. So how are we supposed to know? But we start with what we have and then hopefully when we can manage this without, you know, the COVID crisis, we can get them on campus and start a residential program. Passionistas: Is there a way for young people in need of support to find you and get involved with the program? Judith: Right now, I have again, linkage agreements with the agencies, but I've reached out to freshmen in the neighboring colleges. And I have got a group of, of kids that are phenomenal. They're actually assisting with community outreach. They're assisting with creating a critical mass list of where are these kids. All right. You could see it's statistically on paper, or we've got a number of these kids, right? Where are they? So I've got students that are working on it. I also have a Bronx reporter that is going to start working with me and hopefully I can get her to be on the board, but we're going to try to do TV spots, cable or whatever, because kids watch TV if they don't have computer. And I noticed that if you have 15 minutes segments and you, you girls know this, right? I mean, this is the way to go, but kids watch TV. They don't go to the computer. Anything we can do to get them. Aware and to find out what they need. And as you know, Nancy and Amy is like I don't know how many articles about the Governor Newsom has increased the budget for foster care youth. In many different ways, I mean, he's given social workers more money to take care of them, family resource centers. I mean, he's really acknowledged that. And surveyed 16 social service agencies in this article to keep up with, it says California foster youth face even more challenges and mid pandemic, but it seems to me that he is on it. So I really appreciate what he's doing. Passionistas: As allies. How can we, and our listeners support what you're doing. Judith: If anybody knows anyone that has the same passion that I do. I'm looking for a consortium of a group of people that would be willing to sit in a think tank to see how we can solve this issue of connecting the disconnected. That's number one, number two, anyone interested in marketing because I'm trying to market and raise funds for community center. If anybody knows a boxer that they could connect with, that would be terrific to spearhead this campaign. Basically that's what is needed, but I do need advocates with the same passion and mission, the same passion that I have to move this ahead. Anybody in the tiny home business that would like to help us plan it because we're thinking about the tiny home on wheels. Cause then you don't need permits at least in California though. So, and then to be aware of when you, in living in your community, have your ears and eyes open because we need to know where they are, where are the kids? That are discharged from care in the, even if they would just charge two years ago, what's happening in the homeless shelters. Are they there? Where are they? And to, I guess, support your local Congress person to be an advocate for connecting the disconnected. And I really mean that let's change the system. If they could do this with COVID right, they're doing it. Maybe we could do this for our youth. Maybe we can have a system where we know where everybody is. Yes. Is it possible? It is. Passionistas: What's your dream for these kids that you're helping? Judith: That they love themselves and know, you know, whatever past they've had, that they. Love themselves, who they are and they are diamonds. People just have to see that, but they have to know at first, too. I've had such great opportunity and I'm so filled with, I can't get over these kids that I've met that are amazing. They could change the world and they need to have that support. And you know who the foster, the famous are. I don't have to tell you well, why? Because they had that one person that cared… only one, one, one person that cared enough to say, you can go to college because you're so smart. Even I didn't have a big mouthand you're telling me you're so smart, and this is how you're going to do it, that encouragement. So that's what I hope for them because it can be done. To see them flourish is an then to come back. You'd never, you very rarely see that when someone comes back to say it's because of being empowered, that changed my life. And this is a girl who was severely abused. I mean physically with her phalanges off the smart kid smart kid. And she was told that aside from all those physical things that happened to her. So there is a transformation that happens when somebody tells you you're worth it. Passionistas: Thanks for listening to our interview with Judith Halbreich. To learn more about Home of Champions, visit Home fChampionsNY.org. Please visit ThePassionistasProject.com to learn more about our podcast and subscription box filled with products made by women owned businesses and female artisans to inspire you to follow your passions. Get a free mystery box with a one-year subscription using the code SUMMERMYSTERY. And be sure to subscribe to the Passionistas Project Podcast. So you don't miss any of our upcoming inspiring guests. Until next time stay well and stay passionate.

Santina Muha is a comedian, actress, writer, producer and disability activist. Her many roles in film and television include appearances opposite Joaquin Phoenix in the Gus Van Zant film “Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot” and the role of Beth on “One Day at a Time.” She recently wrote, recorded and shot a music video called “Ass Level.” Learn more about Santina on her Instagram feed. Learn more about The Passionistas Project. Full Transcript: Passionistas: Hi, and welcome to the Passionistas Project podcast, where we talk with women who are following their passions to inspire you to do the same. We're Amy and Nancy Harrington and today we're talking with Santina Muha, a comedian actress, writer, producer, and disability activist. Santina's many roles in film and television include appearances opposite Joaquin Phoenix in the Gus Van Sant film "Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot" and the role of Beth on "One Day at a Time." She recently wrote, recorded and shot a music video called "Ass Level." So please welcome to the show. Santina Muha. Santina Muha: Hello, how are you? Passionistas: We're good. We're so glad to have you here. What are you most passionate about? Santina: I'm very passionate about TV and pop culture and all of that. I'm also very passionate about food, particularly Italian food and Italian culture. And I'm very passionate about dogs and animals and tea. I drink tea every day. I drink black tea in the morning. I drink green tea in the afternoon. I drink herbal tea at night, so I do drink more tea than anyone I know. Passionistas: So let's go back to your childhood and when did you first become interested in pop culture and what was your childhood like and what role did pop culture play in that? Santina: I was in a car accident when I was almost six years old. Any memories I have walking, I know I was at least five or younger. Right. And I can remember walking every time, like certain commercials would come on, I would jump up and position myself. Like where would I be in this commercial? Okay. It's Zach, the legal maniac. I'm his little backup girlfriend and dancer, you know, like. And I was in dance when I was little and Oh, and then MTV. So I lived with, I lived in what I like to call an Italian full house because my mom and I moved back in with her parents after my parents got divorced and my two uncles lived in the house and they were young, my mom was 20 and they were her two younger brothers. So they were still in high school. And I had so much fun living with these cool young uncles. We would watch MTV. I would dress up like Bon Jovi. I mean, cause I'm a Jersey girl. So of course Bon Jovi. It just was always in the background. And then when I got in the accident, I watched beetle juice every day. They only had two movies on my floor, "Beetlejuice", and "Ernest Goes to Camp", which, so I watched the "Beetlejuice" every day and I played Super Mario Brothers. You could rent the Nintendo for like blocks of time and I would play that. So, I mean, it also kind of got me through some of those hard times where I couldn't leave my hospital room for essentially a year. And so it got me through those tough times, too. I remember watching PeeWee Herman during my sponge bath every Saturday, it was like PeeWee's Playhouse during the sponge bath, you know? So it, it, it really got me through would watch golden girls with my non that that was my mom's mom and they were Italian off the boat. So I spoke Italian as much as I spoke, if not more than English growing up. And my Nona who didn't really speak a lot of English and me who was four years old, we would watch golden girls together. So we, we didn't really understand the jokes. But we did know that when Dorothy made a face, the audience laughed right. I learned some of my comedic timing from Dorothy Zbornak and Sophia on "The Golden Girls", you know, and all of that sort of translated to when I got out of the hospital. And now here I was this little girl in a wheelchair, the saddest thing anyone ever saw, you know, in our society. And they would look at me like, How you doing? And I'm like, Oh God, I am depressing. So I would have to cut the tension. And I learned from golden girls and one day at a time, which I later got to be on the reboot. All of these shows, I learned like, Hey, make a joke, make a face, do it thing. And then it will ease the tension. It really has helped me just make it through, you know, life. Passionistas: That seems like a common thread with the women that we've interviewed, who were in the comedy show, that we did that feeling of it's your responsibility to make everybody else feel comfortable. Santina: Yeah. At six years old, I'm like telling adults. No, it's okay. We're I'm fine. I'm happy. I I'm in school. I have a boyfriend, whatever a boyfriend was at seven years, I held hands with a boy, whatever. I mean, I had to convince everybody that I lose. Okay. All the time. I'm still doing it. Passionistas: Did you consciously feel that at six years old where you were aware you were doing it? I was adjusting, no, but it's an automatic thing. Santina: Automatic. I didn't realize it until I was older. That that's what I had been doing. When you're younger, it's really the adults that you have to make feel better because the kids are like, cool. What is that? Can I try? Can I push, can I sit by you? Can I go on your special bus? And then once, once those kids start turning into adults, middle school, high school, that's when you're like, Oh no. Now they're sad about me or think it's weird or think it's different. And now I had to start dealing with my peers in the same way that I was dealing with the adults, you know, cause kids don't care. First I was crawling, then I was walking. Nobody told me that change. Wasn't tragic. So then all of a sudden I was walking now I'm willing. So I was like, Oh, that's wrong? Okay. Sorry. I didn't know. You know, as far as I knew, I was just on the trajectory. I didn't know. It was quote, wrong thing until everybody was like, that's not what we all do. And I'm like, Oh, sorry. I don't know. I'm just trying to get from point a to point B. Like you. Passionistas: You had this love of pop culture, you kind of integrated comedy into your daily life to get through the reactions you were having from other people. When did that love of comedy and acting become like a real thing for you? Like, I want to do this when I grow up. Santina: The whole time. I mean, like I said, I would jump up and be in the commercials or, you know, I would watch "The Mickey Mouse Club" after school and put myself off of basically an order and say, Santa Ana, you know, wherever I thought I would fit, I wanted to be on saved by the bell. I wanted it to be on nine Oh one. Oh. When I was little, I did my mom. I lived in New Jersey, so my mom would take me to audition. Sometimes I had an agent like commercial auditions and stuff like that. But in the end, a lot of times they would say, it's just too sad. You know, we can't sell fabric softener if the girl's in a wheelchair. And it's like, why do you think. That the fab. Do you think people are so stupid? They're going to think this fabric softener, it's going to paralyze their children. Like what? We don't give people any credit. And then I'm like my poor mother who they have to hit to hand me backdoor and say, sorry, it's too sad to have a daughter in a wheelchair. My mom's like, okay, well, great. Cause that's what I have. You know, it's like that right. It's up right when I was little, I just thought, Oh, that person stupid. I didn't realize wow. Society is kind of stupid. Sorry to say. No, it's getting better, but I'm talking about, it's just slowly starting to get better now. And that fabric softener commercial. I was seven. So I mean, w come on six glacial pace here. I was a dancer before the accident and that I still dance like here and there, but I don't know, like comedy was always. Acting, it just always, I went right into the school plays in summer summer theater programs. And I didn't think there was any reason why I couldn't do it. I just felt like, all right, I got to keep convincing people. I could do this. Just look I convinced them that I could be in the regular class in school and not in the special ed class. So God, there's something wrong with being a special ed, but if you need it, I didn't need it. I just had to prove to everybody I could be among my peers. At all times, and not now, I'm still doing that in the acting world, but it was just always something I wanted to do. I just felt drawn to the entertainment industry. And in college, I didn't major in theater or anything, but I did major in communication. So I did a lot of interviewing. And then my first job out of college was I had two jobs. I worked for the national spinal cord injury association and I worked for tiger beat magazine. It's like, I can't escape either one of these, because it's funny in the intro, you called me a disability activist and I'm like, God, am I? I mean, it's like, I didn't mean to be, but you kind of can't help it because if you're doing anything normal, like in high school, I was a cheerleader and I thought, great, I'm gonna just going to be a cheerleader because everybody wants to, to do wheelchair basketball and wheelchair this and wheelchair that. And I don't want to, I just want to be a cheerleader and I'm going to buck the system and I'm not going to be an advocate for anything. I'm just going to be asleep there. Meanwhile, I was the only cheerleader in a wheelchair. You can't help, but be an advocate because just because of the fact that people are looking at me. Passionistas: Tell us a little bit about your work with them National Spinal Cord Injury Association. What did you do for them? Santina: I was there communication director and also media point person I wrote for their publication, sci life spinal cord injury life. I interviewed a lot of bull, like different athletes, Paralympians. I worked with the spinal cord injury hall of fame. I worked with putting that together. And things like that, but it was just all disabilities talk all the time. For me, it was just a little bit of an overload. I wanted to do comedy and it'd be more of a creative. And so eventually I had to leave there and move to Los Angeles and start working in comedy, but taking everything that I learned in all of those connections. And now I have a show called "Rollin' with My Homies", where I interview other people with disabilities. And when we, when it was on the stage, we did improv off of those interviews, which was really fun, but I'm able to still keep in touch with all of the coaches, the texts that I made at the national spinal cord injury association. And I know who these people are and what they're done, and I can sort of help bring them into the mainstream, which is my overarching goal is to help normalize the disability and. Where, you know, where if you see someone with a disability on stage, you're not like waiting to see like, Ooh, where's the joke. I can't wait to see why she's in a wheelchair. You know? It's like, that's not funny. It's not, that's not the joke. Sometimes it's part of the joke, but it is the joke. Passionistas:  Before we go to LA. So what did you do at Teen Beat? Santina: We all had those posters on our walls growing up. Right? I mean, if you're pop culture, people, you I'm sure you did. I did too. You know, Jonathan Taylor, Thomas, right. And Luke Perry is my number one love of my life forever. Everybody knows that. I had a friend who was working there and she got promoted to the LA offices and they moved her out to LA and she, they needed someone to replace her as their East coast correspondent. And she was like, I have a friend who is very jealous of my job. She would love to do this. I had an interview. And then the very next day from that interview, I was in Manhattan at the opening of Dylan's Candy Shop interviewing Jesse McCartney. Oh. Was so fun. That's good at MTV music awards and movie awards, all these red carpet events, and I was freaking out. It was so fun. So cool. I got to interview the Backstreet boys and the Jonas brothers and just whoever was hot at the time. Kelly Clarkson, LMF, FAO. You know, he was just really fun. I really loved being able to do that. And sometimes it was hard. Like one time I showed up somewhere and I had to interview someone who was doing Broadway show while they were getting their hair and makeup done. And it was up a flight of stairs and there was no elevator in that building. And luckily I had my boyfriend at the time had driven me to Manhattan and he was going to go like, have a drink or something while I did my interview. And instead he ends up having to carry me up and down. So there were times where I had to navigate around being in a wheelchair, but I ultimately, I love that that was a job that I was doing that had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that I was in a wheelchair. And then once I moved to LA, I started working with hello giggles, which I also really loved because I was writing more pop culture stuff. And again, when I applied for that, when I sent in my samples and I got the job, it was not based nothing to do with being in a wheelchair. Again, it was just based on my love of pop culture. And that was another like nice win for me because sometimes you never know, like, Are they giving me an extra edge because sometimes it works in my favor. And then also it's like, wait, did I not get the job? Because I'm in a wilderness. Sometimes it works against me. So you just, it's nice when I don't have to think either way about it. Have you always been a writer? Yes, I remember in third grade they sent me as the ambassador to represent our school to the young author's club meeting. Every Friday was creative writing day. And then on Monday they would read the best ones. And it was like weird. If, if mine didn't get read on that day, it was like, Whoa, I wonder what happened to Santina on Friday. And I was, I was a big reader growing up. I went through a hiatus of reading, like once I discovered. Hot to be honest in middle school and high school, not middle school, high school. I started smoking a little, like having partying and then I was like, really? It's not cool. And then when I got older, I was like, Oh yeah, that's right. I like reading. And now I'm back to reading again and now I can do both. Now I can read what I'm gonna look, you know, smoke a joint and read on a Sunday. Hey, why not? Passionistas: You created the Ask a Woman in a Wheelchair series for Buzzfeed, and it was hugely popular, got 10 million hits and counting. So how'd that come about and why do you think it was so popular? Santina: They had a few, right. I think they had like an ask a lesbian one or something. And then someone there was like, I want to do a wheelchair one and co contacted me. And, um, and I was like, yes, let's, let's put this together. It's more about addressing the fact that people are asking these questions than it is about answering these questions, because there's a time and a place to answer those questions. But I think that's why they do well, because I think people see themselves in it. You can't help, but be like, Oh God, I've definitely used the handicap stall before. Or I've for sure. Stared at someone or even gone up and asked somebody what happened. I can't blame people for their curiosity, but think about it. If you've asked one person what happened. Think about how many times that person has had to answer that question, you know, it's like harmless to ask. That means I've had to answer it. Literally thousands of times I'm writing a book right now where I talk a lot about different things. And it's like, I just want to answer these questions from people because I understand the curiosity. And by the way, if a child ever asks me, it's like, okay, great. Let's talk about it. But when it's an adult, I'm like, Do you really want to know how I Santina have sex? You want to know what I enjoy personally me? Or are you asking how people in wheelchairs that's like, what are you asking me right now in the middle of the supermarket? What are we talking? I don't even know you. I get it. But also I'm like, come on. I try to think, like, if I see somebody with an impairment or something, do I want to just go up to them? What up? And it's like, no, I don't. So I don't know. It's a weird, weird line. It's like, we're just not doing a good enough job in. The representation of people with disabilities in pop culture and in media. And it's always like so dramatic and they want to kill themselves at the end. And then the actor that portrayed them gets an Oscar. Meanwhile, I can't even book a commercial for a fabric softener knowing you're giving him an Oscar it's like, come on. Passionistas: Absolutely. And, and I think what you said earlier is really important. Like we have to normalize the concept so that people will stop approaching you and asking that question. Santina: For example, I'm dating, right? I mean, I'm single and dating, right. So sure. Of course, if I'm dating a guy, who's going to want to know like, what's going on, what happened at some point. Right. But if that's like out the gate, I'm like, I don't know. Do you really want to get to know me? Or like what's, if your profile said you're divorced, it's not like I come at you, like what happened? Who blew it? Who, you know, who was the cause of that divorce? It's like, we'll get to those conversations. We'll get to them. It's important to know. Everything about the person that you're with, but it is not important to know everything about the person who's sitting next to you at a show or whatever. And then also it's like weird puts like a weird pressure on me where I'm like, okay, I'll answer. I can answer. But I'm only answering on my behalf because I don't know what XYZ other people do. You know how they drive, how they swim, how they, whatever. I don't know. I can only tell you what I do. So I don't want to answer this question. And then you go off in the world thinking now, you know everything about spinal cord injury, you know, you know what I mean? I don't even know. I mean, that's part of my, what I love about my. "Rollin' with My Homies" is when I interviewed these other people in wheelchairs, I learned so much and I'm like, Oh, what a great idea I could do that? Or I should be doing that. Or, or like, Oh God, I would never do that. You know, it's, it's interesting to me to see the differences among the community, as well as the similarities. Passionistas: How did you start that show? Santina: I went to Italy and I, and I hadn't gone to Italy for. The whole beginning of my life, even though I really wanted to, like I said, I grew up speaking Italian. It is my motherland Sicily in particular, I'm Sicilian. And I just want it to go so badly, but everybody always said, Oh, it's going to be hard. It's not really accessible. So old. And kind of, I let that get in my head for too long. And ultimately, you know, in my early thirties, I think was when I went and I said to my, my best friend, I was like, Please can we go? And she was going through some marital stuff at the time. So she was like, yeah, let's just go. So we went, I trust her. I've known her since seventh grade and she's just like a great friend who has always had my best interest in mind. Like when she got her first car, she made sure it was a hatchback cause she could fit my wheelchair in the trunk, you know, and she doesn't even need that. So it was just, I knew she was the right person to go with. We went to this town in Sicily where my Nona grew up, my grandmother grew up and I was like, pleasantly surprised by how accessible it was. And I said to my cousin, there are so many ramps here. What is going on? It's just an old fishing town in, in Sicily. And she said, Oh yeah, well, you know, if you, years ago we had a mayor or whatever, they call their person there. And Sicily who decided to spend a day in a wheelchair. And roll around the city in a wheelchair and see what needs to be done. Um, and then he did it and then he put ramps here and there. And I was like, Oh my God. Yes. And it's like, not the exact same thing, but a day in the life can be helpful. We live in a world where people are obsessed with celebrity, right? So let me, I have some access to some celebrities, some comedians through UCB, let me put them in wheelchairs and see what they learn and then how they can take what they learn now and bring it to the. Grips that they're writing and the shows that are show running and the shows they're directing, that's how it started. And I did the first one was a fundraiser called don't, just stand there and then it's spun off their slot of wheelchair puns. People it's been off into Berlin with my homies. So I had a show at UCB called that girl in the wheelchair. It was a solo show. And I learned that when people came to see the show, they knew what they were in for. They knew they were coming to see some disability humor and they could laugh. But when I did, uh, Piece of the show in like a variety or best of show at UCB and people didn't know what to expect or didn't know a girl was going to come out and start making fun of disability life in any way. The audience was like, Oh my God, are we, can we laugh at this? I don't. What's she doing? She making fun of disability. Wait, is she really in a wheelchair? Like they didn't. Right. And so I learned that. I had to again, make my audience comfortable with disability before I could even start making these jokes. And so I found that if we first made fun of the episode of saved by the bell redacted thrill on the wheelchair, right? The episode of "90210", their cousin Bobby comes to town and he's in a wheelchair. If we first made fun of that, then I could get my improvisors on board. Cause even the improvisers didn't want to touch. The wheelchair humor. I had been the monologist for as cat, you know, UCBs like flagship show four times. And I would tell great stories about being in a wheelchair. And they would even the most seasoned improvisers would often take the wheelchair element out of the story. And I'm like, Nope, that's why it was funny. But they were like, I know, but we can't do that. So I said, okay, here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna spend the first half of the show making fun of Zack Morris and NBC and the eighties. Then I'm going to bring up a person in a wheelchair. The second half of the show, I'm going to interview them. And by then, you're going to feel comfortable doing the wheelchair humor. And it worked, it really worked, but it took me a long time to sort of like figure out how to disarm people and get there. And it works for the audience as well. So I think that's some of the things I've like honed over the years is how to incorporate disability and with comedy and make it okay. Cause you can't just come at people with a joke and they're like, are we allowed to laugh at that? You have to make, unfortunately. Make them comfortable first it's annoying, but it is what it is. Passionistas: I imagine nowadays people are even more overly sensitive towards not laughing at things because they're trying to do the correct thing. And so even though it's becoming more of an awareness for people, is it, is it in somehow in some ways, a little bit harder now or is it getting easier? Santina: It's both, it's harder, but in a way that it just makes you work a little smarter work a little harder. You didn't have to figure it out. Yeah. It's hard, right? Because you don't want to insult anybody. And that's really hard because there are people out there who are looking and to be insulted. There's a quote. I love that. I try to remind myself constantly, which is you could be the juiciest, ripest peach, and there will still be people who don't like peaches. If I make my jokes, like if I try to make them too inclusive, I'm, I'm always going to be leaving somebody behind and then I don't want to hurt anybody's feelings. You can't please everybody with every single joke with every single thing with her. And I'm writing this book of essays right now, and there are times where I'm like, Oh God, this is going to piss somebody off. I know it. No pun intended paralyzes me as a writer of like, then maybe I just won't. But it's like, no, you've got to put the book out because you're going to help more people than you're going to hurt. But I don't want to hurt anybody, but, uh, it's a lot. We're all, you know, we're all as content creators, we're all dealing with this. Right. But it is scary because we are at a time right now where you don't know even something that's okay to say today might not be okay to say next year. And you're like, Oh shit. Now it's in print. Once it's published, it's that it's done. You know? And even if I changed my mind or my point of view, which is. Something that has already happened to me, even from drafts that I've written, you know, before COVID times. And I'm like, Oh wait, this is, I gotta change this. You know? So it happens once it's out there, you know, good luck to us all. Yeah. You have these open conversations with people and it's like, okay, you know what? That's true. That's sorry. I didn't realize that's messed up. So as well, I just, I want to be aware and. I try to give people the same courtesy. Like if someone says something that I feel like is sort of abelist, which is a term that even, I only learned in the past few years, I mean, people were being able as to me all my life, but I didn't know that's what it was called or what it was, but I try to educate before I cut people down or out, it depends on my mood. I said early in the beginning, you know, if you get me on a compassionate day, great. But if you get me like on a day where I'm just like, I've had it, I don't know. Passionistas: We're Amy and Nancy Harrington. And you're listening to the Passionistas Project Podcast and our interview with Santina Muha. To keep up with her projects, follow her on Instagram @SantinaMuha. If you are enjoying this interview and would like to help us continue creating inspiring content, please consider becoming a patron by visiting the Passionistas Project.com/Podcast and clicking on the patron button. Even $1 a month can help us continue our mission of inspiring women to follow their passions. Now here's more of our interview with Santina. Passionistas: Was it through UCB that you hooked up with Amy Poehler to do the conversation on disability and comedy? Can you tell us about that? Santina: I love her so much. Yes. I met Amy Poehler at UCB in the hallway one time and I was just like, woo. Oh my gosh. It was like, because she's, you know, she found it she's one of the four founders of UCB. Uh, and so she's like the queen and it would be like running into Dave Thomas, right. His daughter at Wendy's. Right. So it's like, and, and I, I introduced myself to her. I was just a student at the time. And then I kind of came up through the ranks of UCB and became a performer. And then, you know, when they opened up. The sunset location, which we were also excited about was just recently as closed now, which we're also sad about. We had a big opening party, you know, and I was on a house team at the time. So we got to like decorate and Amy was there. All the, everyone was there. Everybody was at that party and dance and just together, all of us dancing. And it wasn't like we were there to watch Amy perform. We were all, all performance together. It was like, amazing. Oh my God dreams just coming true left and right for me, And then we kept in touch and then, you know, she did that. She directed that film wine country on Netflix. And she sent me an email that was like, I need a voice of a receptionist and she's from the East coast, too. And she's like, and I feel like receptionists are always, they always sound like a little sweet, but a little bitchy. And I feel like that's how you sound. So could you come be the boy? I'm like, yup. I just like, felt so seen I'm like, that is what I am that's me. She nailed it. So I'm like, she got me. And then after COVID and there was a lot of issues with, you know, UCB in the way they handled diversity and inclusion and stuff like that. And they made a lot of mistakes and they, you know, they're working on those mistakes. So a few of us started this group called Project rethink, where we addressed a lot of those issues. And Amy and Matt Bester, I met Walsh, Indian Roberts or the other founders, and they were all involved. We had a bunch of zoom meetings with them to tell them here's what we as marginalized. Comedians feel, you know, we have all different types of marginalized comedians in Project rethink. So Amy and I got to talk over zoom that way over quarantine. And then through emails, we were like, Hey, why don't we do something like take this time that we have, that you see these not running right now that we have this sort of extra accessible platform accessible, meaning we can reach more people than just the people that can come to the LA location and do this thing we did. And Amy is very passionate about giving a voice to comedians. That wouldn't otherwise, you know, or, or trying to do that, whether it's women, she has her smart girls thing and just UCB in general was created for that purpose to give comedians a platform. Passionistas: Tell us about your experience working on the film “Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot.” Santina: That was amazing. That was also through. UCB because they came, you know, Gus Van Sant, who directed that film. It's a very serious film, but he wanted it to have some levity. So he thought, well, I know what I'll do. I'll hire comedians to play the doctor, to play the journalist, to play them. So that even though the topic is serious, there'll be some level of levity within. I think that, you know, there was like a smart move by Gus. So he came to UCB. It's based on a book written by a humorous too is quadriplegic. And he had a friend. In rehab, who was a spunky brown haired girl in a wheelchair. So they came in, they're like, Hey, do you have this? And they were like, actually we do have one of those. They called me in for this audition. And then I got the call back and the callback was with gusta and sad and Francine Maisler, who's cast it, all these great things that, you know, when you're an actress, like the casting people are celebrities stress, right? So I'm like, Oh my God, I'm going to be friends. I went in and did the call back. And I knew like, you know, sometimes you just know like, Oh my God, you know, you just can tell. A lot of people who have spinal cord injuries, what we do is we celebrate the day of our injury. It's like, because you could either mourn the loss of your legs or whatever, or you can celebrate the fact that you survived on this day. When I was in high school, I locked myself in my room and I was very email about it. And then somewhere in college, on it's my anniversary is March ninth. I decided I it's. So when I had my accident, I was. At Robert Wood Johnson hospital in new Brunswick, New Jersey. So I always have like a bad connotation attached to new Brunswick. Then when I went to college, I went to Rutgers, which was also in new Brunswick, New Jersey, and also the four most fun years of my life. So it kind of switched, you know, the way I thought about new Brunswick and being so close to Robert Wood Johnson. I said, one March night, I said, you know what, let's go bring flowers to the adolescent ward where I stayed. There were two nurses sitting at the desk. One was sitting a little further off and one was sitting up front and I went up to the one sitting up front. I said, hi, I just want to give you flowers and thank you for everything you've done and everything you do as a nurse, you know, I was here many, many years ago. I had a car accident and I was here and the nurse at the far end of the station goes Santina. And I was like, Oh my God. And she came over and she goes, Oh my God, you look the same, whatever she's telling the other nurse, this is Santina and this is San Antonio. And they're just like, Oh my God, you're saying, so it was like such, you know, I had made already an impact here and I thought, okay, this is what I need. This is the universe telling me, this is the way to go. Now you do something like this every year on this day, because you've made an impact and you've got to keep doing that. So then every year on my anniversary, I would do something nice. And this one. Other things I've done is one year I had a roller skating party and I rented out the roller skating rink. And I put all, because I said, we're all my friends were all on wheels today. Right. We're all going to be on wheels. And that was nice. So anyway, it just so happened that my first shooting day of don't worry, it was on March 9th. So I got to spend that day, that year in a park, right with Joaquin Phoenix and Gus Van Sant, directing us, just dancing in the park with walking Phoenix, both of us in wheelchairs. I mean, it was amazing. That's when you know, those are the times the universe is telling you you're on the right track. Passionistas: So in 2018 you were cast as Beth on the TV series, the reboot of "One Day at a Time." So how did that come about and tell us a little bit about your experience on that show. Santina: That was another thing where a friend of mine who I'd met through UCB was good friends with Gloria Calderon Kellett was the showrunner was the showrunner of "One Day at a Time." And she said, you gotta meet my friend Santina. I think she'd be a great addition to the show because one day at a time was great about inclusion and diversity and not making a big deal about things and just kind of normalizing them. And I think that she would be a great addition to the show and Gloria was like, Oh my God, I know Santina. And I've seen her perform at UCB. She would be great. And then they offered me this part. I do not do audition. So like we have the main character. Penelope is a veteran she's in the support group and the support group is run by Mackenzie Phillips, who was the original daughter on the show who, like I said, I used to watch with my nonna. So another full circle moment for me to be sitting there in this support group now with Mackenzie Phillips and my nonna used to wear this ring. And I remember like I would play with the ring while we watched TV together. And I would wear that ring on the show every, every time. Just to kind of like, I'm really big on all that stuff. I'm big on full circle moments and I'm big on like that happened then to get me to where I am now, you know, I pay attention to all this stuff. And what I loved about doing one day at a time is that it was like the best of, of all of my worlds here, because it was a multi-camera. And so for people who don't know multicam is like, when you're watching a show like full house or family matters or whatever, where the audience is laughing. Right. And it it's. So you get to shoot the show. In front of a live audience. So that's like the improv, but then also you get hair and makeup and craft services and you get to tell your family and friends what channel it's on. Right. Which is something you don't get from improv. So I got to do both things at the same time that I loved and feed off of the audience, but then also tell my family, you know, what time they could watch it and where, and when. And then I got to work with all of the, I mean like Rita Moreno. Are you kidding? Me and Jesse Machado, who I loved on "Six Feet Under". And I was just like in awe of everybody around me, Judy. Right. It just, I feel like now I have to, I'm not going to mention everybody because all of them, Oh, it was the best. It was the best. And I've been on like other sets. They're not all the best. That was great. Passionistas: You're not just a comedian. You're not just an actress. You're a creator. And I think that's really important to give you a chance to talk about that. Santina: I have two films that are actually at slam dance right now. And one is "Ass Level", which is a comedic, you know, parody, rap song type thing, where I talk about all the perks of being in a wheelchair, because I thought, God, everybody's always talking about how much it sucked all the time, but sometimes like it's a cut the line sometimes, you know, I get free parking. So I thought, Oh, you know, rack is like a fun way to like brag, you know? And it's like, I, I grew up loving. Uh, Salt-N-Pepa and Missy Elliott and all this like will kill all was like really fun. Nineties raps. I wanted to paint, pay homage to that. I also did for the Easter Seals disability film challenge this year, the, the street last year, the theme was the genre they gave us was documentary. And so the, my team that we decided we were going to do the spilled challenge, we were like, Oh, okay. Now we've got to make a documentary. All right. We're all coming to, you know, comedic creators. So we're like, well, What are we going to do? And I said, here's something cool. In COVID times I've been meeting all these people over zoom and they don't know I'm in a wheelchair until I tell them, which is very different because usually people see me, they see the wheelchair and right away that that's everything. Now that I tell them it's filtered or wow, she's in a wheelchair. And she did that. She was in a wheelchair and she did that. Right. So it was really like, this is interesting. I get to meet people. They get to know me first and then I can fold the wheelchair into the conversation. So we did a documentary and that's called full picture. It's doing really, really well getting great reviews. It's a short doc and I hope people check it out because I learned some stuff about myself too, in my own, like sort of implicit bias that I had internalized ableism that I have, you know, from whatever media and pop culture has put into my head. Right. And I'm really proud of that and proud of this book. And I'm also writing two movies right now, one by myself and one with two writing partners. And I'm just trying to create content, especially now that. In this time where I can't really, you know, go anywhere, do anything because the world is on pause. There's a great opportunity to, to write. And that's what I've been doing, just so I don't feel like lazy. Passionistas: What advice would you give to a young woman who is living with a disability? Santina: If you think you can't do something, then. And you probably aren't thinking of all of the ways that you could do it. You might not be able to do it like this, but I I'm sure that there's a version of the thing that you want to do that you can do. Or maybe that thing that you want to do is leading you to the next thing of whatever it is. Right. So just know that even if it doesn't look like. What you're imagining sometimes it's not about the experience of the circumstance, but the feeling that you, that you have. Right. And you can achieve that, feeling, doing something, doing something you'll get there. Right. You'll get to that feeling. Even if it doesn't look externally, like what you thought it would. Passionistas: Thanks for listening to our interview with Santina Muha. To keep up with her projects, follow her on Instagram @SantinaMuha. Please visit ThePassionistasProject.Com to learn more about our podcast and subscription box filled with products made by women-owned businesses and female artisans to inspire you to follow your passions. Sign up for our mailing list to get 10% off your first purchase. And be sure to subscribe to The Passionistas Project Podcast. So you don't miss any of our upcoming inspiring guests until next time. Stay well and stay passionate

Tammy Levent is a keynote speaker, business strategist, best-selling author and TV travel correspondent. Tammy is the founder of Elite Travel, an award-winning national travel agency and the founder of It's My Bag, a nonprofit organization that donates suitcases to children in foster care. Tammy most recently launched Heavenly Puffs, a classic Greek dessert that are like donut holes with the policing crunchiness on the outside, and a unique fluffy, airy interior. Having overcome many obstacles in her personal life and career, Tammy is on a mission to teach others that it's truly not what happens to you, but how you deal with your situation and move forward. She proudly shares her remarkable rebound story as a lesson for others who are currently suffering. Learn more about HeavenlyPuffs. Learn more about The Passionistas Project. Full Transcript: Passionistas: Hi, and welcome to the Passionistas Project Podcast, where we talk with women who are following their passions to inspire you to do the same. We're Amy and Nancy Harrington and today we're talking with Tammy Levent a keynote speaker, business strategist, best-selling author and TV travel correspondent. Tammy is the founder of Elite Travel, and award-winning national travel agency and the founder of It's My Bag, a nonprofit organization that donates suitcases to children in foster care. Tammy most recently launched Heavenly Puffs, a classic Greek dessert that are like donut holes with the policing crunchiness on the outside, and a unique fluffy, airy interior. Having overcome many obstacles in her personal life and career, Tammy is on a mission to teach others that it's truly not what happens to you, but how you deal with your situation and move forward. She proudly shares her remarkable rebound story as a lesson for others who are currently suffering. So please welcome to the show, Tammy Levent. Tammy: Thank you. Thank you. I enjoy being here. Passionistas: What are you most passionate about? Tammy: I'm passionate about the travel industry since I still own Elite  Travel, but I also have a consulting business, which is Task, which I felt like people were stumbling over travel. Host agencies came in, they didn't know how to up, I'll travel for travel agents and online's ended up ruining a lot of businesses. So I ended up getting the consult business and that's doing amazing. We're sold out for this June in Cancun. Everything I do. I think I'm passionate. I really can't single it out. I have the charity, it all ties into travel. I get suitcases for foster care kids. We've gotten over 20,000 suitcases now. And recently I have a manufacturer of suitcases that gives us their older versions or models of their suitcases. [Honestly, they look the same. There's no difference, but I'll take the suitcases for the kids and they deliver probably 300 every other month to us brand new for kids. And they're in Canada and they ship them all the way to Florida for us on their dime. So it's great. And then of course my new adventure, which has been crazy, it's a rollercoaster. I mean, who would think of 58? I'm starting a new business. I would never think that this is time that you think about retiring. Passionistas: That doesn't seem like a word that's in your vocabulary. Tammy: No, it's not. My daughter does when you get to retire and I go, wait, what is that? I think I'm a control freak. So I don't think it's a matter of sitting back and doing nothing because even if I was to retire, I would find something to do. I just can't do nothing. Like I know people that are retired that basically sit around the house to gardening and really don't do anything. If I did that, you just might as well bury me because it's not, it's not gonna work well for me. Passionistas: We just talked about the end. Let's go back to the beginning. Tell us about your childhood, where you grew up and what your childhood was like. Tammy: I grew up in New York. I am from immigrant parents. I think I heard about the war about at least 10,000 times growing up, my mom was a war baby. She went through world war two. She had [00:03:00] a baby brother that died in our arms at two years old from starvation. So took them two weeks to bury the baby. You know what I mean? I heard these stories over and over again. My grandmother was a red cross volunteer, met my grandfather at a hospital because her husband. At the time was not my grandma's not my biological grandfather. He died during the Albania or so it seems like there was war after war, after war, back in those days. And I listened to a lot of that. I learned to not to be frugal because they were very giving, but I learned to save money. I learned from a young age, you're not going to throw food out. Or make something else with it. Like my grandmother would have leftovers and now she made something else, completely else different with it. And I know from my children do the same thing, but I know of my children's friends who just like, Oh, throw it out. I didn't grow up that way. That's like the worst thing you could possibly do. I hated it, but I learned fluid Greek. I know how to read it, write it, speak it. I was the first born here. So there was a lot that I had to sometimes translate for them. And I was the only child my mother met my father. She was 15, he was a very famous singer. He was an actor. In fact, I found an old ticket of his not too long ago. And he was charging in 1957, $15 to go to his concert. So he was very famous. His songs are still played until today and, but he was 30 and she was 15. That was normal back then. The sad part of it is he was very abusive. I found out later in life that he was a big a mess. He was already married in Greece with a family. They ended up coming here, met my two brothers and my half brothers and my half sister eventually. But what a way to, to find this out later on. He was extremely emotionally and physically abusive with my mother. And with me later on, mostly not sexually abusive, which I'm very shocked about because he did rape my three-year-old niece. And ended up in jail for quite a long time in Greece. And that was not that long ago. Then he died about four years ago, but I stopped talking to them when I was 12, but I spent a lot of time with my grandmother. My parents were entrepreneurs. They owned a smaller restaurant than a bigger restaurant, and they made so much money that they had property in the Hamptons. They had a bowling alley that had two other restaurants. They had yachts, but they didn't forget about me. I mean, they were still in my life, but it was like a part-time parents and full-time grandparents. If that makes sense. I learned a lot from my grandmother. I mean, that's who pretty much raised me. And a lot of who I am today has a lot to do with her, instilling with me with a lot of things. When I was little, all my friends it's coming, I went to a private school to see my big fat Greek wedding. It's the same type of, you know, the mascot and the whole lunch thing. And that's what I went to school with. But I, you know, how they talked about the Greek thing. It's exactly the same thing. Um, but I used to get teased a lot because I never was allowed to really wear pants. Don't in school, we wear dresses. I was different. I was not normal. There was something different about me. I don't know what it was like. I think it's because my parents had so much money. I was raised differently when I would go with them to the restaurant. They wouldn't spend time with me, so they would send me upstairs. So the girls that were in charge of decorating the Macy's windows and Harold square, I mean, how lucky can you get right. But I was little, I didn't understand now I get it. But I was with the sales team all day. It's like listening to Tony Robbins all day, but you're a child and you're listening to this and you're learning, I guess I was absorbing and then watching my parents work and work and work and work. And then they sent me away on vacation to Greece by myself. When I was seven, I was the first child to ever cross international waters. Without an unaccompanied adult and not jury war, like for no reason. Okay. The kid's going on vacation by herself to Greece. Yeah, that itself. I remember it like, it was yesterday, it was very frightful, but I mean, that was my upbringing. And then they moved to Florida and then I went from the straight private school to a school that I could do anything I wanted to. And I was just not used to that. My mom used to be a seamstress. So she used to sew on the side and by then they were divorced. Now my parents work and I used to find her vote patterns. Like we're like really chic in New York and Paris, but not here in Florida, maybe two years later or something. So I used to wear the freakiest looking clothes to school, and I used to get always like, who is she? What is she, what does she do? And, and teased again. But I think I created that myself, but I didn't care. I've always been a free spirit of do whatever you want and do what you feel is right and best and what makes you feel good? And I've been that way since a young girl. And, uh, I think that's, what's also developed me and made me who I am today because I pretty much do whatever I want and say what I want. And it's gotten me to a lot of trouble sometimes, and maybe lost some deals along the way. But at the end it feels good. Like it was the right. Passionistas: So what was your first business venture and how old were you? Tammy: I had to lie about my age, going to my first job. I started working at probably 13 years old for my parents. And then I moved to New York when I was 16. I graduated when I was 16 and I graduation day, I told my mother I'm leaving for New York. She goes, where are you staying? I go, I don't know. I'll figure it out. When I get there. She's like, you can't just go to New York and figure it out when you get there. I'm like, why not? So I go to New York and I went to a laundry mat. I remember back in the day, we didn't have cell phones. We didn't have computers. I had a sheet of paper on a wall. And it used to be strict with phone numbers, like maybe in your door or something like looking for a roommate or whatever, get that's how I found my roommate in the worst neighborhood, in New Jersey, in East orange, New Jersey. Like, can it be any worse here? Anyway, and then I worked for my uncle a little bit, who was weird, um, but that wasn't too long and then six months working for him. And then I worked three jobs. What a surprise. I worked in two diners, working as a hostess at a rest in a waitress that was when I only have three hours sleep. And then I worked for this shipping company and this shipping company was shipping overseas and needed only someone to speak Greek. That's all they wanted. Wow. That's not what they got. So I was fans, lady for them and it was that's where I met my husband, but he was my boss at the time. And I was 17, but I had a lie because there's going to hire me in 17. So I told him I was 18 just to get in and get the job. And I was translating. And one day they left me there by myself. When people walked in and I said, Oh, I could sell you a refrigerator, washer, dryer, the whole kitchen, the whole apartment. I can do it myself. So I sold everything and they came back and they were like, wait, First thing I yelled at for, cause I'm supposed to only be the translator, like assistant. I'm not supposed to be selling anything. Yeah. Oh, you're pretty good. Okay. So they kind of annoyed me because I found out that they didn't have any competition. I'm like, what world are we at? It's 17, but there's no competition. So I decided to go against my boss, go to him, his shipping company that he shipped with and asked them if I could create all new business. Within their company as a first strategic partnership, no money with the appliances and say, I could speak Greek you're Greek. Why are you buying from him? He's taking away your customers. Why don't I come in and let me start my own division here with the appliances. And at the time I was 17. When I started the negotiations, it was December. So it was like 17 and a half. By the time I was just turned 19. 19 years old in charge of all the appliances that they never even had before in that company. Passionistas: That's incredible. And that's just the beginning of the story. Tammy: The very beginning. Passionistas: When you ultimately moved to Florida in 89, you opened a jewelry store. Tammy: I moved to Florida because I was pregnant and I wanted to be near my mom. And you are my family. So, and the export business was slowing down because then it became open trade in Europe. So I ended up, we sold our portion of the company. We came down here. I had a lot of complications during my pregnancy on my daughter wants me to come out at six months and I was in the hospital probably for a good month and a half. While I was in the hospital, my nurse was worrying like the biggest, most gigantic diamonds I've ever seen in my life. I'm like, are you sure you work as a nurse? And she's like, yeah, my husband owns a diamond company. I said, Oh, I don't want to know more about that since I was in the hospital for so long where I was, I came in to visit me. And I said, Oh, I'm really intrigued. Maybe when I'm out of here, I'll open up a jewelry store. We opened up on Halloween day and then five years later, we had an armed robbery. They came in and they robbed and beat my ex-husband now, but, uh, pretty bad, 50 to 60 blows to his head to the point that it was very violent till he was brain damaged. In fact, when I went into the hospital, I kept on telling him that that's not my husband. He was so disfigured that I couldn't even recognize him. And we lost everything. Everything at that point, the angel, the shore, everything that we got robbed, my kids were young. And then I started, then I went to work in a telemarketing company, total Loyola room. When I tell you I worked for a company that was a boiler room every day, I thought that somebody was going to come in and I was going to get arrested. But at the time I didn't have a choice. I had to do whatever I had to do to support my family. My husband wasn't able to do anything. And I was working about 14 hours a day, seven days a week, selling fake trips. And the police did come in about a year later, but it wasn't because of the business they came in and they asked for me, that was because we just found out that my grandmother was driving the car. She passed out at the wheel and my daughter, who was nine at the time. And my baby was two to control the car to save her brother. And she turned the steering wheel and her grandmother. Died on the impact. They hit a brick wall going 45 miles an hour. And my grandmother's body when she turned the steering wheel to the right fell on top of Katie, my baby took off his seatbelt and jumped in the front seat to be with his sister and his grandmother, not knowing. And he flew out of the windshield and he had an orbital eye fracture. They told me they didn't know if he could see my daughter's face, went into the air conditioning duct, and her mouth was open from screaming that the. Do you know where the vent is, where the AC is, that comes out. That blower went right into a ramp and completely severed her tongue and then cut all of the inside of her mouth. And her kneecap was cut as well. They told me how fortunate I was, my grandmother died. So at the time, now you have to understand it's only about a year later. We have no money. My husband's still has brain damage. She never even came to the hospital. It's like, he was just in another world. My children were both in intensive care. I didn't know how I was going to find them. I just prayed and said, just God given to me anyway, and we'll figure it out. Uh, we had the funeral to deal with that. I, I didn't know what to do. And I was working at this, the telemarketing place. We just moved into a bigger location and they just gave me a new position as Tammy the trainer. To train all their 500 employees when I started with them, those 20, because I was the top sales person to train all their employees. And they gave me a whip, the pleather weapon. That's how the whole WHIP IT story starts. And I was sitting in the hospital, looking at this whip and all I could think about it was Easter week and Holy week. And all I could think about is how Christ sustained all this torture. And I'm like, but I don't understand why. And I'm looking at this pleather little whip. And then I came up with incredible Women Having Infinite Power In Themselves. WHIP IT. My license plate says it. I have an avatar that says it. I would have it a lot that I do. I have a WhipIt.com. A lot stems from that. And while I was in the hospital, my kids were in there for a while. A nurse came in and she said, if it had nothing to do with money, what would you do? So I would travel the world and she goes, that's your passion. That's what you need to do. I can't really say what I said, because as I said, yeah, I'm really going to pull in the money out of my, you know, what I will get out of? Like, are you crazy? Do you understand that I lost everything? She gave me a newspaper the next day. And I found a job in outside sales built this guy's company, and then he retired. I took over and when I started my own, it was minus 180,000 and I built it over 180 million in travel business today, but just think it all started from. That room in the hospital. So nothing is impossible. Nothing, nothing is impossible. I don't believe in problems. I believe in only solutions. I don't believe in “I need money” because I proved it over and over again, you could start a business without any money. I have an ebook. I think you guys downloaded it. I got a little message that you did. It gives you examples of how many strategic partnerships that I've done along the way. Passionistas: How did you take it from nothing to what it is today? Tammy: There's a lot of things that I did as first. And a lot of people don't know I'm going to share that with you. The worst thing that happened to me is that I decided to, I, I, I had his company, he told me to go around the block and get corporate accounts. Like, let's say you have an insurance company and go and get that corporate room. Well, what's he going to do? What kind of travel was that going to be? So I really thought about where I should be in who I should be contacting. So my very first contact. Was Frito-Lay and PepsiCo, because I knew somebody who worked there and I ended up getting that account and we did the Herman lay award, which was half a million dollar budget account. And I did this huge event for them and it went flawless and they loved me and it was great. Then the next account I got was like Ikon office solutions. You know, them from the copiers, they were around the corner, but I knew the girl there. So. I don't throw away people. In fact, I still have every business card that I've ever collected from day one that someone gave me, even from the time I'm in New York, it's a filing cabinet. That's huge. I can't throw it out. Or any of the cards out. It's a really bad thing to have because I could use the space, but I feel like I'm throwing people out. And it's so funny to look at some of these because some of the numbers on them, even from New York still have letters. I mean, even back then, there were still using them in some of these businesses that were still using old cards that just a name and a phone number was no email. There was nothing logos were like hardly anybody had logos, but I collect people. So join that sometimes when I need someone I'll look, look through it and say, Oh, well now it's used, I can Google that person and find them again, or search them on Facebook, what I need, you know? And I always built, I always say in strategic partnerships, you need to bring what you have to the table and what your assets are and what your attributes are to bring to the table. And then you have to know what Amy's attributes are Nancy's are and what they could bring to the table. So what I wanted to spin off and leave my home. Cause I was working from home, which is so weird, isn't it like, that's where it all started. And here we are backing in is back to where it started. So leaving my home, I really wanted to leave and I needed a partner, but I didn't have money for an office. I didn't have that kind of money. So I went ahead and started looking, where would I look? Where would I look to find somebody that's in the travel business? That's the top of their game. That would listen to me and say, I have 3 million and following I'd like to partner with you open up the Tampa Bay business journal. And it had a book of list and it lists the top travel agencies in the entire area. The first one was like, Amex. Second one was like, AAA I'm like, okay, third one down was this company called Bay travel. And this is how the conversation went. I can't even make this up. Well, we travel. Yeah. Hi, this is Tammy Levent is the owner in that's Don Allen. And, um, what did you need? I said, well, you tell him that I have $3 million in following that I'd like to bring to the table and partner with him. She goes, hold on place. And gone comes on the phone. He's like, what? I go, yes, I have a following of business. I'm willing to give you 30% of it. If you could just give me a home for my business, I don't need anything else from you. That's all I need. Okay. Come in and talk. Within a week, I was there. So I was there for like two years and it was time for me to move on because as changes were made, I didn't pay rent. I didn't do anything game 30%. He did not want to conform with the changes. Does that make sense? Like we saw commissions were cut. He didn't want to charge fees. He was only corporate corporate, corporate corporate. I was leisure, leisure, leisure. Cause I knew that leisure was more money. And I enjoy planning a trip for Nancy and Amy. I did not enjoy planning a trip for the guy who called me and see two way and said I wanted one a, I just did not do it for me. You know what I mean? I hated it. So. I told him that I was leaving. I left on September 1st, 2001 with my own place, with everything really super excited had 22 employees moved into this place in Clearwater, but before 9/11. We had a really bad hurricane hit. And I came into the office to check up on it over the weekend after the hurricane, it I'm like, I'm good. I'm in an office building the roof leaked. It was a flat roof. And all the ceiling tiles fell on every computer that we had, everything was like gone. Thank God I had insurance and it took a minute to get the claim done. But then of course, 9/11 happened all my new employees that were with me left. They're like, okay, travel agencies are gone. And all the customers that I had, I was on the phone with each and every one of them saying, Hey, it's $200 deposit. Really gonna make a difference if he canceled today, if you wait 30 days in 30 days, if you still want to cancel, we'll go ahead and we'll refund you the money because to break a habit. Or to make a change or to forget something will take about 30 days. So I knew this and going in with it, and that's why I was like playing psychiatrist with all these people, not to cancel their trip that I saved each and every person. And at the time that that happened was also something we markable right before then sandals was doing their, their wedding. But nobody in as a travel agency was selling destination weddings. I was the first to do that. So my business has soared from $300,000 a year, let's say at leisure bookings to like 3 million in one year doing destination weddings. And that same year I was writing for AOL wedding I'll dash for the, not for brides.com. They had all these forums that I was speaking in, and I was getting so much business because I was the guru of destination weddings. So I started that and we really built that. So we had that going to all these weddings. Now I want to cancel. I'm like, just wait, just wait. There was only one person, only one that actually canceled. So, but then we stuck with it with a little team that we had and we just kept plugging away. The first thing that I did was get an equity line on my home to make sure that all my employees were getting money. And then I just started calling all my creditors and said, Hey, this is what's going on. Can you work with us? And everybody did at the time, not like now they don't care. You know, it was a little different, you could discuss things and talk things then. But what happened to me a 9/11 is what saved me today during COVID. I knew exactly what to do the minute I heard. You have to train your brain to think the way that I do. I don't think I was born with this. I think I've trained myself through these years. What to do in a crisis, how to overcome it. Like I was watching the list the other day and it says, Oh, it seemed that most Americans now are saving money and they're frugal. And the things that were important to them back then were not important. Now you should've been doing that from day one, maybe because my grandmother told me this, like during the war, what's important. What's not important. A label is not important. We all like it. Yeah. Like my Louis Vuitton purse. But do I have to go out and get a hundred of them? I don't think it's that important. It's certain things, certainly criteria, certain, certain things are in our lives that we don't need. At the end of the day, when we're gone, we want to leave a legacy. We want to leave something, invest back into yourself because that's what you have. And that's the only thing that you have is your own. Passionistas: We're Amy and Nancy Harrington and you're listening to the Passionistas Project Podcast and our interview with Tammy Levent. To learn more about her delicious Greek dessert visit HeavenlyPuffs.com. Now here's more of our interview with Tammy. You have a problem, something happens to you. What's your initial reaction is your initial reaction to go to the place of, okay. What do I do? Or do you have like a period of time where you kind of let it wash over you? Tammy: My kids were tragic. I didn't have time to think I had a funeral. The husband, no money, everything got thrown at me. And the first thing that was the most important was what the kids. Right. We have to get them better. And then I evaluate, evaluate everything, but everything is on a notepad. Everything is written down of the process of what I'm going to do next. And everything is a process of here's the problem. Here's a solution. Even if you write it down, what's the problem. What's the solution. What is the potential problem? How can I resolve this problem before it becomes a problem? What is the potential problem? I mean, if you want me to give you an example of what happened with COVID and the travel agency, So I went and got my award in New York in February, and things were strange in New York. They were just weird. When I tell you weird, it was like, what's going on? And you shoes. There's like, no people here. I think New York knew before anybody else does. That makes sense. I think they were talking about it, but no one knew anything yet because it was just bizarre. I felt like I was walking. In a black hole, like everywhere, we went, restaurants weren't going on. There was no mask to wear, but I went to this event and every year this event is like sold out, but there was like half sold out. I came back to my room. Then I went to DC to another event that was even worse, like what's going on. So after that I went to Chicago, that's when it hit. So from February, when I went to these events to be was the end of February. Now I'm in Chicago, I'm with my son and his 8,000 square foot home is a little sheltered as little bubble. We put on the TV and they're talking about the Corona virus pandemic, and I'm watching Cuomo and I'm watching this. My son goes, there's a bunch of bullshit that listen, and I have the millennials going to talk to me, right. I'm like, yeah, you believe what you want. I don't care if it's government controlled aliens came down, China gave it to us. Whatever happened, this is not going away. So you have to have a plan, Jordan, how plan? Because this is going to go down. He's like, what do you mean, mom? I said, just like anything else, this is a war on us in a different way. Listening to my grandmother. We go back again. So what I did was I took my pen and paper and I said, okay, the first thing I have to do is I got to call my creditors, find out what they're doing. The second thing I have to do is call my, lease my car payments and extend them and put a hold on car payments for three months. Next thing I have to do is call my mortgage, see if I can refinance. And now I have so much equity in my house seat, not take out all the equity to take out half the equity. So at least I can live off of that for a year if I needed to. Next thing I have to do is call all my clients before they call me, be proactive, tell them that we're going to hold onto everything, move everything for a year and hold onto their payments. May try to get any cancellations where due. I learned that from nine 11. The next thing I have to do is call the IRS. Cause I have a forever mortgage with them. So I have to call the IRS and tell them they're not getting their 2000 a month that they're going to get $25 a month. That went over very bizarre, which I called him. And I go, I know that I paid 2000 a month, but we're only gonna pay you 25 a month. And he goes, excuse me. I go, yeah, go to your supervisor is COVID I don't have any money. He just COVID hasn't hit yet. I go, it will. I'm telling you right now. So make your $25. He goes, he came back. He goes, wow. My supervisor said, you'll give you $25 for two years. I go, okay. Sounds good. So we got that taken care of. I called all my cars, three cars that we have for all three companies. Every one of them gave me three months that I didn't have to pay for it. Well, that's 1500, 1600 a month times three. Save that money. First thing I did the minute that SBA opened the mid, that opened midnight, have my alarm. First thing I did was filed for the SBA loan, got approved, got way more than I even thought that I would got the PPP down the same way and then follow it up with those. I also got a twenty-five thousand dollars grant. Got the house refinanced. Guess what? They're not doing it now. They're not giving any loans out anymore. You can't even get a loan if you want it. Or if I now got the house refinanced, put my husband on it, he wasn't on it before and said to him, I'm slapping 30 years. I know that only had 10 years on the house. I don't give a crap about the house. Here's 30 years. You can pay it off. Whatever happens, lived in it all my life. I really don't care. Got the money out of it. It's yours when I'm gone. I really don't care. So I got that all taken care of, talk to all my suppliers, try to figure out what we were going to do, how things were going. And then the last thing that this is all, while I'm in Chicago. In one day, I got all the stuff from winning tonight because I was making my list the most important things to halt on all my credit cards. You're not charging any more. Tammy, first thing I did, then the second thing is that I opened up new accounts. I had savings account and escrow account to put all my customers money in an escrow account. Make sure that's not touched. Did all that and make sure all that's taken care of. I did that when I got back. But the next thing that I did was I said to my son, I have to leave tomorrow. He's like why? I said, because they're going to shut the airport. No, they're not. They're not. I said, the next thing they're going to do is shut down, Chicago. No, they're not. I'm like, okay. You're just remember. Remember my words. I leave the next day. Ghost town in Chicago airport. Following day, they shut down the airports. What happened a week later, everything was shut down. So that is being proactive and knowing what to do, I guarantee you, 90% of America is going to know what to do. Next time. Something happens. And if you don't live through it, you're not going to go through it. Somebody could be telling you over and over again. I think my grandmother told me enough everyday how poor they were and they had, they didn't have any food that I listened to it so much that the first thing that came we're going to get any food. And then you go to the grocery store, right? Any toilet paper? I, this is a little bizarre, craziest part of the whole that story. I did. One more thing that others thought about too late and couldn't do it was too late. I said, people aren't going to have jobs. I need to figure out travel's going to be halted. I travel consulting is going to be halted and that's all I had at the time. I have the food truck, but no one is going to do events. Right. So that was halted. I said, I need to find a job. That's idiot proof that I could do that will always be needed, that I can get it now, before everybody else bombards it. So I signed up for Instacart. And I got in with Instacart and they don't hire anymore. And I got in with them. So I'm in grandfather now. So if I want to do is to card today for a little bit, I could do it. And since everyone was quarantine, the first month I worked Instacart was in April for the whole month of April. I made $6,000 doing Instacart. I was exhausted. Like I couldn't move. I started like so early in the morning until seven days a week. And then my husband started doing it by now. They don't even let you let anyone in anymore, but, but I'm grandfathered in God forbid that happens. So there's another, you know, fate, you're gonna lose your job. You're gonna lose your income. Think of it another way. Never went on unemployment. Never did it. Passionistas: How did all of this lead to Heavenly Puffs? Tammy: When we first started Puffs about a year and a half ago, I was invited to do a New Year's Eve party at someone's restaurant with the food truck, because that's all we had was the food truck. And we wanted to do something as a side business. Warren Buffett said that if you don't have 51 different streams of income, you're going to go bankrupt. I was like, Oh, my God. I only have two more now. So I said, let's do a food truck. My mother goes, let's get in real estate. I can always get you a food truck because what do you wanna do a food truck for? I said, because this way we can meet people on the weekends and maybe I can get some more travel business, like register to win a free trip or something like that. So let's just work on the weekends for festivals and we'll be fine. It'll give us something to do. Like we have nothing else to do, right. So we go ahead and we started doing festivals and we were booked every weekend. Every weekend, we're making 3000, $4,000 every weekend that New Year's Eve, we were at this guy's restaurant and people were coming up ordering these puffs, which are so delicious and greet their local mothers to one of the oldest desserts in the world. It was created seven 66 BC from a Sicilian. They gave it to the Greeks for the first Olympics and only given to the winners. That's it. No one else could have them. So it's really crunchy on the outside and a really light and airy on the inside. So it's almost like a vignette. It's almost like a doughnut funnel cake. It's so amazing. We drizzle honey and cinnamon a little bit though. So we were doing it and we did that event, but now people are drunk. This is what they're doing. $20 round here. I'll have an order of pops. There were only $5, but I get $20 because they're drunk and it's new. Year's, everyone's happy. $50, $20 when gave me a hundred dollars for two orders. I'm like, can you guys do this? Like every night at this place? At the end of the night, the owner of the place was a little tipsy and he goes to me, Hey, it's four in the morning. I want to get home. He's still partying. The place looks coyote ugly. It's like champagne everywhere, food everywhere, napkins everywhere, the old Greek guy, he says, I'm going to give you an idea. If you can make these frozen. You just tell them to a food service and to supermarkets. And we would buy them because we don't make them. Cause it takes three hours to make. And then some people don't order them. Then we have to throw them out. I go, you would tell me that no one has these frozen. And he's like, no, for real, he's like, yeah, I go, okay, year and a half later we have COVID what did I tell you about throwing away people where people say. Listen, the problem with this world is no one listens. Listen to it. Half the time this media, this whole thing with bias is going to do this. Trump's going to do that, blah, blah, blah, is people don't listen to the entire conversation. They take one excerpt and that's the way things are going to go. Listen, Google learn. So it may, I'm sitting hold. We can't do Instacart because now they're, I mean, we are, but not really. Cause people are saying, just drop it off at the door. We're not even making the tips anymore because people are going broke. So I decided to go ahead and. Just say home and figure out what I'm going to do. Okay. I'm making my list of things that I could do. So you're looking for this work, that work. I said, no, I can't work for someone. It's not going to happen. I go home. Maybe I should try making these little pops frozen. Like he said, it's not a bad idea. I've time right now. Nothing else to do. So I would start with the truck, go in there every day. I was making five to 700 of them and throwing them out. They were not coming out. Right. I go, no wonder no one in bed did this. Cause it's stupid. They're coming out like silver dollar pancakes. I would take them. I would cook though. Halfway put them in the freezer, excited to get up in the morning to look and see. And my little round ball was like, It was like flat out, like, no, he can't look like that. So I practice and did it over and over. My husband was helping me like the first week. And after that, he's like, why do they know what's invented it? You know how my mother's whatever. So I was stuck there doing it myself. I was determined to get it done. And then the chemistry came from school. Uh, everything is temperature, temperature. Let me start using temperature control and temperature. That's the temperature of that. And the yeast I started researching and reading, I could write a book about yeast right now. I read everything there was about use. I got rid of the instant yeast that I was using. I got rid of the other yeast that I was using, and I started making my own yeast and using the real old fashioned like grandma used to make use of. What a difference. Anyway, so I did that. They made it opened up the freezer. It was still around ball. I'm like, Hey, so I started frying up my oil. I said, I'm going to defrost them. Cause I don't want to put them in there frozen. And now I'm going to see what happens when I cook them. I put them in the fryer. I tried it. I go with that. It's tastes like I just made it like from scratch on believable. Let's see what happens when I leave it in there for two weeks. So now we're looking at the end of May, about their beginning of June. Sure enough, they were perfect. I take them June first take my little bag of frozen bag. Go to the guy who said you should embedded them. I said, I want you to try these. I went to the chefs that do not tell them what they are cooked in them back, watered in the front. He says, Tammy brought these over. Oh yeah. She makes them amazing. Well, thank you. I said try them because I've had them before I go try them now. So he tries no disease. You're super good. Just like you make her the best. And I go, huh? They've been frozen for two weeks. He goes no way. And I go, yeah, he goes, you need to get a package. This, you do that. I know nothing about food service. I was thrown to the wolves, but I had time and I had COVID on my side. He was the first restaurant to get it. Then I went to another one and another one and another one before you. No it, and I have, I built a sales team. Then I, then somebody from food service called goes, I've been in the business 40 years. What you have is amazing. You're the only one in the world with this. I want to help you. He comes and helps me. He's a consultant. He turns 300 an hour helps me for free. Helps me get distribution. Now this week. Just today. They got it. Yeah. Where a supermarket in Canada wanted five pallets. They just got their sample today at a clear customs and at 500 supermarkets. This is only since June that it got created, but we didn't get it. We were testing it out here or there. And then I got my manufacturing license in September and then got asked to be in the Superbowl experience because I can't make these in the food truck anymore. So I partnered. With a catering company. Cause I knew that they're deader than dead and I can't use the space in a restaurant. It's not enough room for me. So I partnered with Delectables, find catering, what do I do again? Another strategic partnership, pay them very little rent. Every time I had an interview, make sure that I included them, but she had a way to get into the Super Bowl because she did it every time it was in Tampa. So she got me into the Super Bowl. And we were in front of 35,000 people a day. Like I was blown away. I was there going, is this for real? Like, it keeps on pinching myself. Like I just created this just a couple months ago. And here I am at the Super Bowl experience. And today I have a letter of, this is my first announcement. You guys want the first news ready? We just got invited to do the Grand Prix today. We, I just can't believe we will be honored if you were participating in partaking with your heavenly puffs of the Grand Prix. So we went from starting it from zero money, nothing to, I don't even know where we are right now, to be honest with you. All I know is that we just keep growing every day. I mean, I have like six employees now, and now we're looking for a bigger space. We already outgrew that and now they want us to stay there and they're trying to work away that we could still stay there and build a bigger place within the place. We're trying to figure all this out now. Like we need to figure out something. Passionistas: So what's your definition of success? Tammy: So funny, cause I have something on my wall and I live by it and it doesn't matter how much money you have, what you have. There's [00:38:00] one thing, integrity. It's something that my grandmother instilled in me. Definitely integrity, no matter what you do or how poor you are, no matter how rich you are, you always have to have that integrity of how you treat others, how you're treated and how you live your life. Passionistas: Thanks for listening to our interview with Tammy Levent. To learn more about her delicious Greek dessert visit HeavenlyPuffs.com. Please visit ThePassionistasProject.com to learn more about our podcast and subscription box filled with products made by women owned businesses and female artisans to inspire you to follow your passions. Sign up for our mailing list to get 10% off your first purchase, and be sure to subscribe to The Passionistas Project Podcast so you don't miss any of our upcoming inspiring guests. Until next time, stay well and stay passionate.

Nekei Lewis is an entrepreneur, Amazon author, technology enthusiast and startup coach. Nekei has worked for over 10 years as a digital expert creative with an extensive background in branding, marketing and strategy. She's assisted more than 475 businesses with branding, marketing, digital and guerrilla marketing strategies. Her expertise ranges a variety of industries from retail, real estate, restaurants, service-based businesses, mobile apps, sustainable solutions, nonprofits, solar, tourism, hospitality, advertising, cosmetics and apparel. Nekei advises startups and is capable of building brands from the early idea stage. More about Nekei Lewis. Learn more about The Passionistas Project. Full Transcript: Passionistas: Hi, and welcome to The Passionistas Project Podcast, where we talk with women who are following their passions to inspire you to do the same. We're Amy and Nancy Harrington. And today we're talking with Nekei Lewis, an entrepreneur, Amazon author, technology enthusiast and startup coach. Nekei has worked for over 10 years as a digital expert creative with an extensive background in branding, marketing and strategy. She's assisted more than 475 businesses with branding, marketing, digital and guerrilla marketing strategies. Her expertise ranges from a variety of industries from retail, real estate, restaurants, service-based businesses, mobile apps, sustainable solutions, nonprofits, solar, tourism, hospitality, advertising, cosmetics and apparel. Nekei advises startups, and is capable of building brands from the early idea stage. Her company specializes in logo, design presentations, website hosting, early stage advisory and digital marketing strategies.   Nekei Lewis: Hi everyone. Thank you so much for inviting me. I'm so excited to be here. Passionistas: Thanks for being here. We really appreciate it. What are you most passionate about? Nekei: I am most passionate about inspiring others and helping people too. Become their best version of themselves that can either mean from being the best version of building your first company to maybe you have an idea that you already started and you are just looking to improve upon it. I feel super passionate about that. Passionistas: How do you do that? Nekei: Through my business,  I have actually developed a program, which is to help people and coach them through the idea stage into. Full production of the company. So example, you may have this idea. You want to start, let's say like haircare brand or something of the sword. You have no idea where to start, but you just have this vision, right. But sometimes, you know, when you have a vision, you just, you really don't know what's the first steps. Like what should I do? So, what I have done is I've created a 30 day programs. We'll get everything you need to get done for your idea and your vision off the ground. So I've made it actual a book. It called “Launch X in 30 Days,” which it is on Amazon. And I host like private coaching to help people through that. So that is one of my passions. It's my main passion. It's like my, my give back way. I help and inspire others. I've always had this goal to inspire like 1 million entrepreneurs. I don't know. That's a lot, but from women and also men, I've worked with so many different people in so many different industries. So when you said part of 75, I knew, I thought about, I was like, Oh my gosh, you're right. It's been so many, like use amount of people I've actually encountered and companies, the people coming to me and they're just like, okay, I have an idea. Let's say. I want to start my first store. I worked with a lot of retail owners and building their first store and getting that first apparel store. When, you know, people are more used to shopping a little bit more back in the day, actually go into a store, picking up a product. So, and it just happened. People started their first apparel brands too, even in the, in the, in the solar industry. I had worked previously with, with different ideas station. Most of the people I'd worked with all ideas stage. I was like, look, I'm the early stage of my business a year in two months in three months in people like, look, I don't even have a name for the company yet. Can you help me? Passionistas: So let's take a step back a little, tell us where you grew up and what your childhood was like. Nekei: I grew up in a smaller town. It's called walkie village and it's in Clifton. So it's area in Clifton, very quiet town. I went to, um, private school for eight years. So I was one of those nerdy girls. Okay. Who sat in the front seat, like where the teacher was. And I was like, hi. Hello. Yeah, I'm going to do that. I'm doing my homework. Okay. Sure. What else do you need anything else? Like, yeah, I was that one. I was that one, right? The teacher's pet. The one getting the perfect day is I actually, for three years I got perfect attendance. Grades five through eight. I did not miss a day. Ladies. I was not playing. I actually remember in my childhood, I was the one, like, I was really like 10 and I was still now learning different little small things. But anyways, so I had a lot of clothes that were small and I actually grew up with my dad. So I actually wasn't raised by a mom. I was actually raised by my dad. So I just honestly was like, Oh my gosh. These clothes are so small. What am I going to do with it? So I don't know. I had this crazy idea to take my clothes, go in front of my house, put little hangers up. And like on Sundays. And that was my first entrepreneurial experience. Right. So I would be out there and I hung up my little clothes and everything like that. No waiting to people if a little side up. And I was just waiting, you know, for someone to come by and I make money because people were like, yeah, they saw my shoes for $2, my shirt for $1. They're like. We'll take, we'll take it off. I mean, I think it'd be like $20 that day, but guess what? $20 back in, am I going to tell you when, because I was telling my age, but when he dollars back then was like, you could buy a whole basket of stuff. Like I'm going to shop for $20 and told me like six bags, you know? So I was so excited to sell my first little things. And that was one of my first like entrepreneurial projects that kind of got my feet wet. And then we had the school project. So we have this school project and the school project was to create like a little company. I think it was, this was like more high school was a little bit, a little bit early and later I remember actually in high school, I was like, okay, well, I'm going to do a fitness company. So I did my first fitness company. And I created it. It's probably like 13 or something, but yeah, I did a membership-based fitness company. Now, if I went global with this thing, I would have built planet fitness. It was so similar. So then you went to Rutgers, right? I went for like two years and then some way through it, I just felt this entrepreneurial, but I wanted to kind of go off on my own. So I did go off on my own for a bit. I wanted to pursue like my own thing, my own passions. I actually wanted to start my first model agent thing. So I actually started my first Molly to see at age 18, I started working at 16, but I was doing my first mile, age is 18. So I left college and I was like, look, I'm starting once the big Apple I had about maybe about 12 models signed. And then I landed my first gig. So when I was 18, I got this girl to a course light campaign. And I made my first $3,000. I remember like the check gave it for her. And I was like, I'm her agent? And I got a piece of that super exciting show. I was booking models. That was my first business. You know, booking models back in the day was called demure models. Passionistas: How did you figure that out? Nekei: I was learning all this stuff in college. I was like, what is this? I can go build this on my own. So I was like, you know, I'm going to be proactive and I'm going to go out there and there was. Oh, running and making it happen. And it's probably exciting. But then I got lost in the world of modeling and, you know, I did some modeling stuff. So I did a couple of print things here and there. After I started working with the girls, people were like, Hey, you know, cause I'm young. And at that time, okay, well you're young, you're hot. Right? Why can't we use you? You know, I was like, no, I'm going to be the background. See, only background I wanted to collect whole money. Passionistas: Did you go back to school or did you just move on to your next venture after that? Nekei: After that I would say I just continued pursuing my dreams. I really did. I just felt that pursuing my dreams was the best way that I can live. And I felt living that way was more pure for me from a heart perspective. So I was the die hard. I'm going to live from my dreams kind of girl from then on to be frankly honest. And I continued from there too. I did a couple of moving around. So I ended up getting an opportunity to start another different company in Florida. So that's when I went down to Florida. Passionistas: And what'd you do there? Nekei: When I was in Florida, that's when everything, a little bit more started to click for me, I did a little music for a little bit, a little while I was a singer. I wanted the entrepreneurs who was trying and doing everything and it was like looking to figure out, okay, how and where can I really get there? So. I did [00:09:00] some saying I was the one performing really passionate about music. Like I love music. I love dancing. I love all that stuff. Right. So from then in Florida, it was just open. It's just different. Like, everyone is like, Hey, you know, you're from New York praying, you know, what do you do? And I realized along that part is when I started getting into graphics that I had to do graphics for myself. And then I realized like, Whoa, I can actually live doing this. I started doing some graphic for myself, and then I learned a little bit more than I started to do myself, a little Photoshop for myself. And then I started doing some other programs and I was like, wow, this is interesting. And then other people saw my graphics and they're like, can you do that for me? I'm like, yeah, like, okay, we'll pay, you. You'll pay me. So they loved everything I was doing for myself. So I started a PR firm. So it was doing the PR from some people who may know me from back in the day, it was called like cliche PR firm. And it was so cliche, that was the thing. Right. And then I'm like, okay, I'm getting clients. Now. People are like, Hey, you know, you're going to promote yourself in marketing, which can I pay due to that? Really great. So now I'm going to key our clients to market and I got graphic clients. And now because I'm doing the music and print CDs, I'm printing, t-shirts, I'm doing graphics, I'm doing CD covers all this stuff. Right. And we're paying me for it. So I'm like, okay, well, that's how it was kind of making, like, my little living had my little side jobs still, but I was still feeling it out. You know, I didn't go quite all the way. Passionistas: What inspired you to go all the way? Nekei: Meeting different people, especially down there in Florida, I met so many different aspects. So that's when I actually started really saying, you know what, I want to develop my firm a little bit more. So I changed with cliche P R firm to cliche brands. Now I was like, okay, I'm going to be all about brands and, you know, helping people with their Brandon's. So I started doing printing with the flyers and the business cards. Because I saw I was able to print and then, you know, I was able to get some deals with some bigger printers to help me out. And I was like, you know what, I'm going to be an all in one solution. And I want people to say, Hey, when I go to, at that time, like I was one memory, same. So, so we were like, okay, Stacy, that's another thing we'll talk about that. We'll talk about sometimes with branding and everything, I'm going to start it out there. I was one of those type of people that would each brand. And I morphed into, I changed my name. I changed my brand. I changed my image and I was like a morphine, you know, the transformer probably transform to this and I'm a music artist and I'm the front person. And now I'm the PR person. And I was like morphing through time morphing through time. Okay. Yeah. So morphing through time, right? And I'm working now into the next best version of me, which is cliche brands. So I was like, all right, cliche brands, I'm here to help your brand. We're going to help you be the most amazing, right? So I'm doing the printing, I've got the craft fix going and everything. I asked if you were coming to me now, I was getting now actually I started being a little bit more corporate. I started getting like a little like working with some of the cosmetic companies. And then I was able to get some of the solar companies to do some branding and then even a couple of like refrigerator type brands, things like that. And I was getting more bigger clients as I morphed kind of like into a more corporate brand. Right. And at that time it was a little harder to find graphic designers, stuff like that. So I'm definitely getting hired for those types of things, which was amazing at the same time. I still didn't quite pivot. It took a while before I was like, you know what, I'm going to do this full time because I still didn't quite believe yet. Passionistas: Was there a moment that made you believe that you could do it? Nekei: I had a certain individual, again, it's good to have great mentors and people who inspire you, you know, like, Hey, maybe we should try really going out with this a little bit, you know, harder. So I did leave and I was only just doing the business for a while, a very long time. And that was like my main sauce. So just the branding graphics, working with businesses. And I realized everyone kept coming to me with their ideas. So that's how, from that time I was able to work with so many of the companies, because if I'm having maybe 30, 40 clients a month or whatever, I'm doing all these practices, other people they're like, Hey, I want to start a company. I've got to come. Now. I want to start a company. Okay, let me help you with the name. Let me help you with the logo. Let me help you with the brand. Let's get the website going then. I was hosting websites. Then I started learning how to build websites. Then I became a hosting brand company, which now I can host brand and do your website. Passionistas: You're listening to The Passionistas Project Podcast and our interview with Nekei Lewis. To find out how to hire Nekei as a business coach and order a copy of her book, “Launch X in 30 Days,” visit asknekei.com. If you're enjoying this interview and would like to help us to continue creating inspiring content, please consider becoming a patron by visiting ThePassionistasProject.com/podcast and clicking on the patron button. Even $1 a month can help us continue our mission of inspiring women to follow their passions. Now here's more of our interview with Nekei. Passionistas: Is there anything you've ever wanted to do or been asked to do that you haven't been able to figure out? Nekei: The things that I didn't know how to do, what I would do is I would hire someone who did. So regardless, I knew how to do it. If I did not know how to do it, I would figure out. So just so you ladies know on this call, that I'm the master reseller here. Do you understand? So I will resell you your own shirt if I could. Right. So people come to me, can you build me this type of website with these type of functions and this, and then they would give me their specs, right? And I would not do it. I'm not a developer or anything, but guess what? There are people out there that can do it. So I just become a third party person. You don't have to know how to do anything because I have no cell. Okay. I don't know how to do this website. I don't print CDs. I don't print. I never printed up things in my life. Understand it, people doing it for me. I had shops doing it for me. I had other designers doing certain things for me, but me actually. Pick up a paintbrush and print impossible. I'm a hustler, right? This is that way. And I'm like, listen, you got to hustle. And you especially dealing with, uh, other men in the industry, the whole print industry was all man. So the reason I was actually getting a lot of jobs too, it was like, Oh, you're a female in the print industry. Like, yeah. So you want to pray with me? Yeah, hell yeah. You know, do my, t-shirts do my love. I'll do my business cards. And I started. Doing all these things for all these people building with all these new entrepreneurs coming to the table, do my banners for this real estate brand that I know they're doing very well. Also too, nowadays, another hair Kay brand. They started with just the logo with me. And now they're into a store now they've made their own hair care products with the same logo with everything you see. So it's. It starts with that little idea and kind of like mixing Google batter and having the perfect mixture of Oh yeah, this smells good, right. So then we're going to put that out into the world. Passionistas: Do you have any like a few tips for people who have an idea and want to start up a company? Nekei: I have this vision, it's all about getting clear about the idea and clear about the vision. It doesn't matter what kind of idea it is, because guess what? Somewhere, somehow someone has started some kind of version of it. Where, what 20, 21 you, I think about. So someone has started it somewhere, right? You want to find maybe the closest thing that is similar. Do your research on it? Cause that'll be not only maybe your competition depending, or it may be just something that you miss. Hey, I like that. I like this. I like this. I like that. So I like to take a pick and powder and take a little bit of each person, different brands. What I like about the brand before, like I'm creating my branch so that I'll actually have a brand that reflects what my vision. Is clearly like portraying and what I really want to build. Right. So that would be a next value point that I would definitely specify for you is create that vision, that way of seeing what else is out there, but then putting your own spin on it because there's nothing new under the sun really varies. Passionistas: Why do you like working with startups so much? Nekei:  I like working with startups because I love the passion. I love the fire that comes with it. I love the, like, I don't have a claim. You know, I have an empty vault here in a Chi feel my goal. Yeah. So I think that's pretty cool. You know what I mean? So it's like, okay, if it was me and it was something, it was like 20, 30 years, let's say down the road before. And someone was like, Hey, do you have a vision to build something? Let me help you build a vision. There was no one telling you that, but I'm just telling you, I was out there telling other people that you have an idea, let's start it. What do you want to do? You know, and I just feel like I really enjoy that spark because as you get into corporate America, then you have to get into the structures and it's like this, and it's like, there's no leniency room to move and create. Cause I'm a creator, right? I'm a Passionistas creator. And I just love the fact that when you just have that idea and you have that, that, like, I have so many ideas. Now, like I said, startups and branding and coaching, that's my passion. Right. And I have other passions, but that's one of my passions. Passionistas: Now tell us about Quuirk, which you founded in 2018. Nekei: Quuirk is my brain child. It is the beginning of that transplant. I started and everyone's going like, okay, well, I remember she was kind of doing this, but it was a version of, of the whole big picture. Right? Because sometimes I actually can help other people with their big picture and painting it and putting that pain and splash and glitter smell like great stuff on it, right. But then sometimes for myself, it's like, well, should I do that? So should I do that? Should I do that? You know, I don't know. So that's where I'm been. Right. I've been like, because I have this great brand vision. So Quuirk ventures came from cliche brands and I morphed it into that because I was like, I've always had the idea to start work like Quuirk. I had 10 years ago. It was sitting in the back of my head and it sat there and it's out there and it sat there. So I said, you know what, we're going to take that out of there and stop sitting from there. And we are going to put it in a forefront, put it out there. What is it that you want to do? What is it? Okay. So I realized, all right. So yes, I have a passion for real estate. I have this really, really huge passion for real estate and creating. And I'm into sustainability, I'm into solar, I'm into container homes, I'm into renting and also dealing with guests and creating. So I was like, okay, I need all these passions. Passionista one, Passionista two, Passionista three three, all of those passions, right. Put into the container, mix it up. All right. So. Quuirk was born to help startups, which now will always be part of my thing. Like when this, when my company blows and you know, I'm a 1 billion validation kind of company I said to your first, you would feel good one day. Right? I'm going to say that I started here, but I love the fact that I still want to help startups. You see what I mean? So even as a company, I still want to be able to have that. Community kind of piece where, whatever profits I have, I can still help startups. You see? So that part I never wanted to lose. So what I have done is morphed again, to, to do, to do more for, for, for always morphing. So of course the brainchild is now a rental real estate album, and we are going to be helping homeowners, landlords, renters. Like I was one of those people and I realized this is something from the core, my parent. You know, they rented for 18 years. That's a long time to rent and I was never taught about buying house or any of those. Right. So I also now became one of the product of renting for many years now as well. And I realized, you know what, I'm sure there's other people out there who have been renting for years and were renting and were renting. And like, do we ever get out of this, renting it? Oh Lord, what are we going to own? What am I going to buy? So Quuirk I'm like, okay, I want to help renters. So one of the future we'll be adding, which I'll be adding soon is being able to report your rental income from like, whatever that you rent on the app. Also report it so that you can get credit. So boost your credit. I mean, it's not a benefit. So I want to make it all a one rental solution to help renters and to make it more simpler and easier, whether it's furnished unfurnished. And that's basically what Quuirk is about. Right? So the foundation, it's your home, your foundation then of course, I split up my passionate piece. So as Nekei Lewis, I've just now made my own brand, which is called asthma cock. So that is the second part. I just decided to split it. I just created Ask Nekei because when people want help, they just come to me anyway. Passionistas: Tell us more about Ask Nekei. What is, what is that and how do people ask you something? Nekei: Ask Nekei is my brand. I've now transformed that into, from the coaching and working with startups. So ask the Chi is all about that is no longer in court where it's just real estate, ask the pies about helping others. So I have my radio show, which is an iHeart radio and Wednesdays when PM and WDRB, as well as. My website, which I've just launched. And now I'm helping others as my passion with either asking me to help you about your business or your startup, your idea. Or wealth. So anything dealing in terms of like wealth management, the financial aspect, I'm now also have been adding that and studying those pieces to add. And I have another business partner that helps on the wealth side to help businesses really set up their foundation so they can create that generational wealth and they won't miss any money or opportunities and know how to retire because we start our businesses. And then what. We don't even set up a retirement plan, an exit plan, nothing. So I'm a micro influencer in that space. Um, I'm continuously creating that part and that's my passion part of just helping others. And I'm just morphing and developing that into one big online resource. Passionistas: You mentioned your book. So tell us a little bit more about it. Nekei: “Launch X in 30 Days” is on Amazon. It's also part of Ask Nekei where, you know, you get coaching and things like that. And then if you want to say, Hey, you know what? I just want to go ahead and start my idea. You can actually get this on Amazon search “Launch X in 30 Days.” So this is the workbook edition, right? So this workbook goes along with the coaching and with the course like of that for 30 days. So we help you get an idea, start an idea and launch it within 30 days, the minimum version, some people don't even get this far. They just have the idea and it's fitting in the backseat for 10 years. Passionistas: What's your dream for women? Nekei: My dream for women is exactly what I'm concentrating on right now, which is wealth, right. And her legacy. That is what my dream is right now for women, which is her legacy. We as women, we do not think, or, you know, even back in the day, like what, I think, what women we had to have men like sign up and credit cards and all this stuff, right? No one says, well, what is your legacy? We all know. If you have children, usually quote unquote, that's your legacy, right? That's your little, you passed the version of you that lives on forever and ever, and ever, and ever right. But what about business? What about your creations? What about your recipes? What about, you know, that is your legacy. You know, what you eat, how you eat, how you are, your whole being, what you want to create, what you have created, the legacy, the legacy of you, right? So for women, I want women to be able and the vision for the future is really take hold of your legacy. Dif is my legacy. Right. And what do you want to leave? How are you? Let's say they got a special spaceship and we're out of here tomorrow, right? And you had to leave back a box, right? Stuff. The Passionistas Project box. What are you gonna leave that box? What is your legacy? So is it that lip balm that like, Oh my God, it makes my lips feel so amazing. Isn't that hairspray? That feels so great. Is it the cupcakes? Is it, what is it? I feel that every woman has a special, unique thing to bring to the world, whatever it is. Is it a book? Is it a poem? Whatever your contribution in the world is. All for your contributions to the world, we all have something to offer others, whatever it may be, write it down, put it in physical form. That's my whole thing. Do the legacy. Right. And in addition to create avenues a way so that your generations is set up your generations after that, and after that is set up. For continued wealth for continuing, maybe passing on the company, to who, your grandchildren, your children's children. Right. And then setting all those levels of things up so that everything falls into place. Sometimes people even write a basic, well, even if you're 15 York, 25, whatever it is. We need to really create our legacy and make sure that it is ready at any time at any time at any time, really, and truly, and instructions of what to do. That's what I'm passionate about. Passionistas: Do you have a mantra that you live by? Nekei: Yes. Causes there's a bunch and there's always some mantra. One in particular is just be, you be you. A lot of times we just get morphed into this morphed into that and morphed into this. And many times along the journey, I've lost the version of myself in morphing. Sometimes you lose little parts of you. I would say, be you once you're able to just continue to be, you just be you in your interactions with others, being you in your products that you deliver, being you in those aspects. It's it seems simple, but it's kind of hard for certain people and just being authentic so that authentic self. You know, because you may have a view of a YouTube channel. You may have Instagram, we have seen certain aspects and you're not typically all you, so you're not really drawing in the audience. So if you be you and try to learn how to continue to just authentically come out naturally and just be your best self, it works. Passionistas: Thanks for listening to our interview with Nekei Lewis. To find out how to hire Nekei as a business coach and order a copy of her book “Launch X idea in 30 Days,” visit asknekei.com. Please visit ThePassionistasProject.com to learn more about our podcast and subscription box filled with products made by women owned businesses and female artisans to inspire you to follow your passions. Sign up for our mailing list to get 10% off your first purchase. And be sure to subscribe to The Passionistas Project Podcast, so you don't miss any of our upcoming inspiring guests. Until next time stay well and stay passionate.

Helen Torres is the CEO of HOPE — Hispanas Organized for Political Equality, one of the nation's most influential Latino organizations. She has been instrumental in the development and implementation of the HOPE Leadership Institute (HLI), a program that prepares adult Latinas for the next level of civic participation. HLI has resulted in more than 180 Latinas being appointed to state and local commissions and over 200 Latinas serving on nonprofit boards to improve local communities. To date more than 565 Latinas have graduated from HLI. Learn more about Helen and HOPE. Learn more about The Passionistas Project. Full Transcript: Passionistas: Hi, and welcome to the Passionistas Project Podcast, where we talk with women who are following their passions to inspire you to do the same. We're Amy and Nancy Harrington. And today we're talking with Helen Torres, the CEO of HOPE — Hispanas Organized for Political Equality, one of the nation's most influential Latino organizations. Helen has been instrumental in the development and implementation of the HOPE Leadership Institute, a program that prepares adult Latinas for the next level of civic participation. HLI has resulted in more than 180 Latinas being appointed to state and local commissions and over 200 Latinas serving on nonprofit boards to improve local communities. To date more than 565 Latinas have graduated from HLI. So please welcome to the show, Helen Torres. Helen: Thank you so much, Nancy and Amy. It's a pleasure to be part of this. Passionistas: We're really happy to have you here. What are you most passionate about? Helen: The first thing that comes to mind is my family. I'm most passionate about my family and making sure they're okay. Especially my twin boys, Adam and Joshua, who are teenage boys. And I want to make sure they grow up to be good kind people with a feminist streak and a Star Wars fans. Right now are good in kind. They definitely understand that I'm a feminist and I can hear them speaking in those terms as well. And we are all Star Wars fans in our family. So I think I'm on the right route with them on that. Outside of my family, I am very passionate about our democracy. And very passionate of creating opportunities for everyone to be a part of this huge social contract and to really, truly define how we can all, you know, have the pursuit of happiness. And so I do that through HOPE ensuring that Latinas are part of that equation. Ensuring that Latinas are part of government non-profits corporations, businesses, so that we're really creating a place where there's liberty, freedom and justice for all. Passionistas: Love that and love that you're raising Star Wars fans. That's very, very, very important. Talk more about the work that you do at HOPE how do you do the things that you just described? Helen: Everything that we do at HOPE has a civic engagement lens, as well as a financial literacy education lens. And so how we do it, we break it down into three key bucket areas, if you will. First is around leadership development. And we have leadership programs for high school students, college students, young professionals and Latinas who are already at the executive level. And all of those programs are to ensure like from a high school program is to ensure those young ladies are already finding and defining what type of leaders they want to be. Engaging them in the political system. So understanding how they can be advocates around education in their school board. How they can engage their community and position themselves as community leaders. And then the ultimate goal is to ensure that they see a pathway into college. So we have 92% of the young women that go through our program end up being accepted into a college program as well, which is way above the national average. So we found that civic engagement. Coupled with realistic learnings of a pathways. Works in college. What we do for our college age, Latinas is still, we give them a civic engagement project. If it's voter registration, if it's getting more people to sign up in their community around the census, and then we give them a format to run a town hall among their peers. Yeah, Rhonda subject area that they decide to tackle. We give them a lot of professional development around workforce integration. How do you interview for your job during these COVID-19 distanced zone times? Right? How do you position it? You write that resume. How do you review? We do a lot about how they're reviewing their social media. And positioning themselves. And then we connect them with various corporations, business opportunities. So that they can hear from peers in these organizations or role models. So they understand what they can expect when they're going into the workforce. So that's our college program. This college program enrolled over 3000 people in the census they added outreach for. And so we're really proud of our college program. Then what we're known for is our HOPE Leadership Institute, which is, target audience is about a Latina that's about 35 years old. Ari has to prove quite a bit of years of community activism. And this Institute is designed to get the Latina to her next level of civic engagement. About 10% of them will end up running for office. About half of them will serve on a local or statewide commission and close to 80% will be serving on nonprofits or running nonprofits. So it's really seen that civic engagement taken to another level. And that's a program that we're really proud of as well. The HOPE Leadership Institute. The last program we launched three years ago is the binational fellowship where it's for Latinas across the United States and in Mexico who are already at the executive level and are looking to take their leadership at either a national level or international. So we have two sessions with policy experts on trade, workforce development, the future of the two countries and negotiations and political understanding of each other. But also we have a lot of conversations about how to really truly bring best practices around policy to each other as well. That's our leadership development and that's really what we are known for. We also have an advocacy agenda where we create reports. We do a lot of studying a lot of reports on the status of Latinas. How are Latinas fairing in the United States? And how are they fairing specifically here in California? And from those reports, we create an advocacy agenda. So for example, we did our economic status of Latinos report about two months ago and found that 60% of Latinos overall made up the COVID-19 cases here in California. And our population's 40%. Over representation in an area that we don't want to see over representation in. Right. We also know that for the first three months of the shutdown that we had back in March through May 30% of Latinos lost their jobs. So what does that mean to us economically? We're able, when we do these types of reports, we're then able to go advocate in Sacramento, in Washington, DC, around policies of like, how do we help individuals that are losing their jobs during this time? To reenter into the workforce. Is there training programs? Is there the stimulus package that did not reach Latina micro businesses or small businesses? Is there an opportunity for the third stimulus package to be much more concentrated on small businesses and micro businesses? So that's what our advocacy agenda looks like. We do a lot around health care reform issues. Wanting to ensure when we first started healthcare reform conversations and part of the coalitions about 20 years ago, the uninsured rate of Latinas was at 30%. Now we're at 13%. So it's incredible to see that, you know, and a lot of that's because of the Affordable Care Act, but advocacy works. You just have to be patient and know that it's going to happen eventually. And then the last thing we do is what we call this bigger education bucket. We do do a lot to educate the general market and ourselves about the impact Latinas are having on our government, on our corporations, on our businesses and our civic society overall. Passionistas: So let's take a step back. Let's talk about growing up. What were your experiences that led you to be interested in this kind of work? Helen: I blame my mom a hundred percent. And I mean that with all well, with a lot of endearment and love, my mother was a single mother in, in Puerto Rico, beautiful Island, a Commonwealth of the United States. She had to work really hard in the garment industry, in Puerto Rico. I was born with a heart defect and disease. And that she was advised to come to the United States to ensure I had the best care. Everyone knew that eventually I would have to have open-heart surgery by the age of 12. And some of the best doctors happened to be in Detroit, Michigan, where also I had an aunt and uncle were living. So it made it easy, somewhat for her to migrate to the United States, but it was really difficult for her. And as her daughter, I witnessed the struggles she had with people accepting her accent. You know, as she was learning English, she was made fun of a lot. People ridiculing her, correcting her. And just little by little, you saw this very independent woman just being her spirit, been chip away at. When we moved, when my mother remarried and our stepfather moved us out to the suburbs. She even had a harder time because in Detroit, we at least had community the, of fellow Puerto Rican's and Mexicanos that we could, you know, she would at least have friendships with, but it was when she went outside of that community, taking me to my hospital visits, doing banking transitions, trying to get a job is where things really kind of, it showed me the level of, I would quite frankly say discrimination that so many people face, right. When we moved to the suburbs that even multiplied because we moved into a very blue collar, very lovely in so many ways, but blue collar, a hundred percent Caucasian. Give you an example. When I graduated from high school, our high school itself had 2000 people. I think we were four Latino families out of those 2000. It just gives you a sense of the isolation she was feeling. I always hated there, there was this one moment in my history that crystallized, I think my pathway into advocacy and being very passionate about people being included and ensuring that we have an inclusive society. I was in third grade. It was the first year that I was going to a public school. We always had a, I went to Catholic school up until that point. And my mother received a call from another mother that was organizing some kind of bake sale or something for the school. There was something lost in translation. My mother just understood that she was asked to bring a cake. So she baked this beautiful cake. When she showed up with the cake, the mother that was organizing on this just really yelled at her saying, I meant cupcakes, not a cake. You have to learn how to speak English. And even at that age, being a third grader, I step in between them. And I yelled at the woman saying, how dare you? My mother knows two languages and these are beautiful cupcakes. I think that's where the advocate in me started. It's crazy to think, even in third grade, you can see some injustice. So I always think of that incident. And I experienced similar changes in my mom. She went through her own stage of depression. It wasn't until I was in college, that I really started getting more involved in political and started really understanding the need to understand how the system works and the part that I can play in it. But at the end of the day, I found HOPE the organization I run as a place to ensure what happened to my mother doesn't happen to other Latinas. Now, of course, we're not a hundred percent in making that happen, but I feel like I'm working towards that. And that's why I'm so passionate. My mom is still very politically active. She's still my role model in so many ways. I often think, you know, she, wasn't given a form, an opportunity for a formal education. And I think somebody, women in our society have not been given that especially of different generations and just the waste of human capital, that if we don't invest in each other, what does that mean to our society? Passionistas: So you were saying, obviously there's still a lot of work to be done, but, but how do you think those kinds of issues have changed since your mother's time and what still needs to be done? Helen: Education is the incredible gateway and a lot has changed to ensure education, especially through a public education system and the United States that everyone has access to education. But we also know that that access doesn't look the same. In the quality doesn't look the same. It's really much based on your ZIP code is very much based on your income level. So I think there's a lot more to be done. So I think we've seen more accessibility. Now we really need to talk about the quality of the education. We have to be very honest about what the workforce of the future is going to look like. Are we marrying education and opportunities and innovation with what the future is going to hold for us? So I think that's where a lot of work needs to be done, especially for Latinas. We are one of the few groups that are not going into STEM education, if you will, at the level that we should too, when we're looking at the future of the workforce. A lot of that is because of the access to certain science courses, advanced science courses are not being made available in low income communities. I always think that's one of the key factors that you can look at. So we know through our reports at hope that we're seeing a great increase, almost 13% over the last 10 years of Latinas, not only graduated from high school, but going on right across California. So we see these great numbers moving in the right direction. Not only do we need to continue that and grow that movement forward, but we need to think about quality of education and how we're preparing young Latinas as well as Latinas of all ages for this new workforce. So I think that's really important and I'm very much proud to be part of that work. Passionistas: We're Amy and Nancy Harrington, and you're listening to the Passionistas Project Podcast and our interview with Helen Torres. To learn more about Hispanics Organized for Political Equality, visit Latinas.org. If you're enjoying this interview and would like to help us continue to create inspiring content, please consider becoming a patron by visiting ThePassionistasProject.com/podcast and clicking on the patron button. Even $1 a month can help us continue our mission of inspiring women to follow their passions. Now here's more of our interview with Helen. Tell us about your education and what path you took to get to where you are now. Helen: I was one of those individuals that was told from a very early age and probably cause my mother's experience and not being able to access formal education. She didn't know the pathway. Right. But she just always would tell my sister and I. You have to go to college. You just have to go to college. I don't know how you get to college. I don't know how we're going to pay for college. I don't know how to answer any of those questions. So we fumbled a lot and we figured it out. I went to Michigan State University, which is one of the great public universities in Michigan. My first year was really hard. It wasn't like anyone in my immediate family could tell me, this is what you can expect in college. This is how you should study how to work 30 hours a week while going to school to help pay and make sure I wasn't going into debt. That was really important for my mom. Not to have a huge student loan at the end, always reconciling these two things, this mandate to go to college, but also this mandate that you have to work. You have to not get into debt. We didn't know. We didn't know that it was okay to have a little bit of debt because you'd make it up sooner in, you know, in better wages and salaries. So that was interesting. Michigan State University. Found a passion around communications, but not PR or advertising. It was actually the study of communication. So one of the things I did and I had a great experience with a professor was we studied a deception model. How can you detect the differentiation around men and women and how they, what they consider as deception. So that was a fantastic study. I went on for my master's degree in communications and urban studies, which is more like a sociology really was, became very interested in how. Communities are shaped in urban areas and how people interact in urban areas around civic engagement. And I took a little bit of a breather. I thought I was going to go on for my PhD program in Santa Barbara, actually. But then I had to have this real honest conversation with myself. I didn't like writing. I still don't like writing. When you go out for your PhD, you've really got to love writing. I love the research part. I love the human interaction and understanding how humans thought about communication and. The implications of the study of how that can enhance communications either interpersonally or culturally, but I just didn't like writing and it made me really miserable. So in a whim, I came out to California. I had one friend that lived out here and after my master's program, I met her boss. He was in public relations. He saw that I had a communications degree and just assumed that I knew what public relations was. And so I'm like, sure. Why not? Um, and that's how I ended up in California, but all my degrees are from Michigan State university. Passionistas: And how did you get involved with HOPE? Helen: I went through five years of being very miserable in public relations. I was really great at the pitch and getting media coverage. But once again, that writing thing came back to haunt me just was not happy, ready, and all these press releases and whatnot and white papers. So I did it and I did it fine, but it was just not where I was. I didn't find my passion there. And then I just said, you know, I'm not using my master's degree, the way that I envisioned that I would about really building community and understanding the psychology and sociology behind community building. So I just applied it, you know, from a, an, an ad to United Way of Greater Los Angeles. They needed fundraisers. I thought that would get me my foot in the door because I felt PR is very much about sales as well. Just made that transition. They hired me. It worked out, I loved the opportunity, not only to fundraise for great causes like you doing United Way, but there was a lot around the community development piece that I was also exposed to that I just loved. And I was very fortunate that one of the board members of United way was the founder of hope. Maria Contreras-Sweet an incredible leader and trailblazer in the Latino community. Maria know, founding the organization always recruited people to volunteer. So I started volunteering at HOPE and HOPE at that time was about 98% volunteer run. That 2% was consultants and administrator that would just help the train keep on moving if you will. And I always said, gosh, you know, if we can ever get a grant that can hire an executive director, that's my job. So what happened? After volunteering for almost two and a half years, this opportunity came up. I was all of 31 years old. That was 20 years ago. I just followed my passion. I had this vision of where I could see the potential and the growth of the organization. And here I am 20 years with really a pride moment of not only the growth, but the impact that the organization's making in California and nationally now. Passionistas: Tell us about that growth. What was the organization like when you started with it? And we know how far it's come but tell us about that process. Helen: Part of it is, I always say, you said you're, you're, you're handed this beautiful gift of that is made up of a vision and a pretty good brand at, by that time. Right? Cause HOPE was already 10 years old by the time I was hired, but no infrastructure. No real long-term funds. Uh, so I had to come in and kind of be this operational person of not only raising money, not only keeping the vision and the excitement that was around hope already, but really developing programs that foundations and corporations and individuals would invest in. So it was putting, you know, five years of my life, I would say that I started at 31. I remember my 35th birthday. I said, Oh my gosh, all I have done is hope. All my friends are part of HOPE my mom tesingly would always say, you know, who is this Hope person that keeps you from visiting us and stuff? Cause they were still in Michigan. Uh, but she, you know, she said that jokingly of course she knew it was my job, but she didn't understand what I was doing. Right. I think sometimes it's a little bit hard to explain to your parents when you get involved in civics and politics. Exactly what you do. It consumed me because I had to put in the infrastructure of one day hoping to hire staff. Right? So putting in that infrastructure with you, following all the rules and regulations fundraising for the first two years was my mandate so I can build up the team. So we went from an organization that was driven by event to event. You know, you just fundraise whatever you need to get that event going to the next to an organization that now has four established programs, has an advocacy agenda, 10 staff members, one located in Sacramento as a policy director and has a national profile where we're able to provide not only the governor. But, you know, the new incoming administration names of women, they should be considering in appointments. It was about professionalizing it, the first five years were, you know, very difficult because it was building it up, building up your board, building up your stakeholders. And then we went into a recession. Thank goodness. We built it up. And we had this great brand and credible programs for five years that people can see that track record. So we survived the recession, but we didn't do any growth really, you know, and sometimes just surviving is pretty incredible. Right. Then we were back into a growth pattern where we were becoming even more statewide because we were very much a regional organization to begin with in LA, but now we're going through COVID-19 in, which is very interesting because it's provided us an opportunity through our virtual programming. We pivot within a month. Everything went virtual for us, which allowed us to get to a bigger audience. And so, as we're looking almost like at a hybrid model next year, we're really thinking about how do we market even to, for all our programs, not just one to a much larger audience. So that's part of the growth and the trajectory of HOPE Passionistas: You mentioned all of the different programs that you do. Are there one or two specific success stories of girls or women that really stand out to you as ones you're proud of? Helen: One from the HOPE youth leadership program, the first class, which was 15 years ago, now two of the participants, one of them is now a chief of staff for an assembly member in CA in Sacramento. So it was just great to see that the other one is. A co-leader of an advocate national advocacy group that has done incredible grassroots work to ensure larger Latino and Latina civic engagement and voter registration specifically is in at great success in this past election. So those two come to my mind from the youth leadership. We've had a couple of the youth leadership women after their graduation, from college that they went on and ran for their school boards. So we have to have those success stories when it comes to our Hope Leadership Institute, uh, success stories. We've had quite a few, we have elected officials that are now serving in. Or have served in the state Senate. We have a couple that are now serving the assembly. The most recent is we had a high-level appointment in governor Newsome's cabinet that came from HLI. So that was an incredible success story as well. But we have so many grassroots success stories from the hope leadership Institute. And even success stories of how these women come together and support each other. We are a nonpartisan nonprofit, so we don't get into a electionary. We can't support a candidate individually. This network can do that. And they individually really came together to support the first Latina supervisor in San Diego County. Those are some of the success stories of HLI. They often the women often help each other. So they're from Silicon Valley view of our alumni a few years ago. Donated X amount of, uh, computers to alumni that was working at LA USD. And so there was this great computer exchange that wouldn't have happened otherwise. Right. So those are some, a great success stories. The binational is a little bit early still to see how that evolves. We are starting to really measure the impact where you are going to be entering with a contract with Dr. Manuel Pastore to do this great study of the impact mentors of HLI or our leadership Institute, women, but of Latinas that they're, that we're having in local communities, either through civic engagement. Or because of our economic contributions, they're starting businesses being part of the workforce, going to be a one-year study. So it's going to be pretty intense. Passionistas: And you yourself are a success story from the HOPE leadership Institute you were graduate yourself. So what did you learn personally from that experience that you've taken away? Helen: I thought I was pretty already savvy about understanding how government works. Right. We all probably took those civic classes that aren't as offered as much as we need them to be offered now. But, you know, through civics, through being engaged in college and working on some campaigns when I was in college, too volunteering, when I was a professional. But when I started going through the leadership Institute, it was really that insider baseball about how the sausage is made both from a policy perspective, but how candidates are brought along and that road, that was incredibly insightful. So that's one of the things that we constantly do is we create this environment of people feeling safe. So they can share stories because see, you can learn from a textbook about how a bill gets passed, but you need to understand the census building that you have to do, how you bring together, what does negotiations look like? How do you even plant that seed with that legislature? What's the timing of it? We do so much around budgeting people sometimes don't realize that your state budget is really your blueprint of how advocacy and how programs are going to be funded. Right. So part of it makes a lot of sense. But if you're a strong advocate in your community, you need to understand what the budget looks like. And you need to understand how you can influence where the dollars are going. So that's what I got out of the HOPE leadership Institute was that more minutia, that detail of how government works and the role that advocacy can play in it to be effective. And then the second thing, and this is. I say the second thing for me, but from all our evaluations from the alumni, they say the number one thing is the network itself. Is meeting other Latinas who have probably very similar, humble, beginning stories. We don't all think alike. We don't all approach students the same way, and we're not all friends. But through the Institute, you learn from each other and you really do create a bond in which there's this unspoken promise to be of support. Passionistas: And as non-Latinas, how can we be supportive of your community? Helen: Come and be part of the training. Come and understanding, you know, read our reports. I think part of it is we're always looking to have this exchange of how do we understand each other better? How do we walk in each other's shoes? And there's a lot of opportunities. Most of our trainers, half of them are Latinos and half are not. And we do a lot around putting the women in situations. Where they're not always surrounded with people that are thinking the same way or come from the same background. That's what's true. Leadership is, is when you're able to bring everyone together. So I think that's one of the key ways. And then we create so many reports that hope that really is for people to understand our community, reading those reports, getting those reports out, understanding that Latino lens, if you will. And that data. I think it's just beneficial, especially in a state like California, where there is no clear majority, even though Latinos are now at 40%, but there is no clear majority. And we also know that future generations and you can see this already with gen Z. There's going to be a lot of mixture happening, right. And that's a beautiful thing and that needs to be celebrated. And I think also it's the celebration of understanding each other's cultures and having those exchanged and you know, why do you see the world the way that you do? And that comes from a place of judgment, but really come from a place of understanding. Passionistas: What's the most rewarding part of what you do. Helen: Seeing the success and the impact our graduates are doing, or when we've been advocating for a specific policy issues, seen it implemented next to being with my boys and my husband. That is like the biggest thing that gives me a smile on my face, the success of our graduates across the state and the nation, literally all pun intended, that's what gives me hope. I get to see it every day, but not everybody else does. It just makes you think, okay. For all the craziness that we sometimes think about what's going on in our nation or in our state, there's a lot of good things going on too. And I get to witness those daily. I get to hear those stories. Passionistas: And what does your mother think about what you're doing and the success that you've had? Helen: When we hope publications and stuff, she looks through things and says, well, where's your picture? Where are you? I go, mom, that's not, it's not about me. It's about the women that we're putting forward. I think at the end of the day, she's just proud that I followed my dreams and that I've been able to create a life that it brings happiness to me. And so that, that brings a lot of joy to her. Passionistas: Thanks for listening to the Passionistas Project Podcast and our interview with Helen Torres. To learn more about Hispanics organized for political Equality, visit latinas.org. Please visit ThePassionistasProject.com to learn more about our podcast and subscription box filled with products made by women owned businesses and female artisans to inspire And be sure to subscribe to the Passionistas Project Podcast so you don't miss any of our upcoming inspiring guests. Until next time stay well and stay passionate.

Cara Reedy is the Program Manager for Disability and Media Alliance Project, aka D-MAP. She's a journalist, an actor, a director and a photographer. She worked at CNN for ten years, produced documentaries, wrote about food and reported on disability. And in 2019, she co-produced a short documentary for The Guardian called "Dwarfism and Me." Her goal within her work in the media is to have disabled people control their own narratives. Learn more about Cara and D-Map. Learn more about The Passionistas Project. Full Transcript: Passionistas: Hi, and welcome to The Passionistas Project Podcast, where we talk with women who are following their passions to inspire you to do the same. We're Amy and Nancy Harrington and today we're talking with Cara Reedy, the program manager for Disability and Media Alliance Project also known as D-MAP. She's a journalist, an actor, a director and a photographer. Cara worked at CNN for 10 years, produced documentaries, did some food writing and reported on disability. And in 2019, she co-produced a short documentary for the guardian called “Dwarfism and Me.” Her goal within her work in the media is to have disabled people control their own narratives. So please welcome to the show, Cara Reedy.Cara Reedy: Hi, thanks for having me. I'm really glad to be here.Passionistas: What is the one thing you're most passionate about?Cara: Justice and equity because for so much of my life, I haven't really received a lot of that. So it's made me kind of fighting mad about it. Everything I do, I believe should further the cause for other people like me, because at some point we have to stop treating people, poorly black people, disabled people, like all of the cross sections that I inhabit. But more than that, once you start fighting in this space, it becomes more clear how much the system kind of keeps us down and it keeps everyone down. And I think that's what people don't really realize is that you may think that, okay, well, it's just the disabled people that are not doing well. It's like, no, when disabled people aren't doing well, we're all actually not doing well because the system is broken. That means that system's broken.Passionistas: Take us back to your childhood. And you know, you said that you feel like you've often been treated unfairly. So tell us about that.Cara: Growing up, I had a really good childhood. I would say I have great parents and a great brother. So I didn't experience any of that at home. But when I went outside of my home space, there was a lot of, no, you can't do that. Whatever I wanted to do, there were a lot of barriers put up that had nothing to do with me that had to do with other people's perceptions. I was a dancer. I still call myself a dancer because I started off when I was six and I had a wonderful dance teacher who was like, you can't do ballet just because of the way your legs are, but you can do all of these other things, things growing up from elementary school, I had this really great kind of support system between my parents, the dance teacher, Mrs. Wren, I'm going to shout out her name. She's gone now, but she's amazing when I hit high school, that's when I felt it. I was an actor too. Like I love performing. I perform all the time. Even when I'm in the grocery store, like, this is just who I am. I like to tell stories and stuff. But when I got to high school, there was a definite like, Oh no, I don't. So you don't think you really fit in the place. And if you do, maybe you can go into the chorus, but kind of somewhere where we can't see you, I ended up my senior year trying to trick the system. And I figured out that if I tried out for a kid's part, they would have to give it to me. So I played a kid my senior year, which was super embarrassing, but I did it cause I was like, well, I want to perform.And I want to be in the senior play. So I'll play a kid. So I think I played Agnes in, meet me in St. Louis. Well, all of these, like sophomores were playing my big sister and there were times when there were dance choruses and I would try out theirs. We did anything goes, which is a tap show. And like tap dancing is my that's my jam. And so I go up to audition and the choreographer said, do the time, step on my Cher did it because I've been doing timestamps since I was six. And then she said, do the double-time step. Oh, okay. Did that do the triple did it? And then she kind of looked at me because that's something you get when you're different. You figure out people are testing you and trying to figure out how they can eliminate you quickly. So she said, okay. And then I looked at her and I said, you want me to do a quadruple? Like, how far do you want me to go? I know all of 'em and she went, no, that's fine. When the call sheet was put up, I was in like chorus B, no dancing at all. There were girls in the dance chorus who had never put on a tap shoe in their life. It was like, well, you know, she has a creative vision. C'mon it's high school. What creative vision does this lady have? She's not going to Broadway. This is it for her. So like, what, what is this? And my dad just lost it, which he does sometimes. And he wrote her a note and just said, yeah, you're super prejudice. I'm calling you out. He go, he handed me the letter, ISA, don't read it. Don't say anything to anybody. And just put it on her desk and walk away. I said, all right. So I did that morning, went to class and it was in the middle of the Spanish class. And there's a knock on the door. Also in the letter, he said to her, do not speak to care about this. And she went and knocked on the door, pulled me out of Spanish class to yell and cry at me about how unfair I was being. And what did I tell my father and how dare you? Me prejudice. And she was balling like just flipping out balling. And I was just standing there, not in class while managing this grown woman's emotions. That to me was one of the pivotal moments in my childhood. I realized I don't really have protection because no one would do that. No one would do that to any other kid. They would never pull a kid out of a class. She ended up calling Mike because my dad left his phone number in the note and said, call me. And she ended up calling. And I was in the house when she called and she was crying and screaming on the phone. She said, you called me racist. And he said, Oh no, I called your prejudice for height. And he said, but now you make me think you're racist too. And then she flipped out. And then I ended up getting in the court in the dance course because she had no case. What could she say? There are girls that don't even own tap shoes in the chorus. I went from there to college where I was like, college is going to be my space. And it wasn't at all. I got into theater program at Loyola. We did a freshman showcase and everyone, I think we did a scene from Antigony Tiffany and I played and Tiffany sister, everyone, after the freshman showcase, all of the teachers came up to me and say, you are talented, really talented. And I thought, Oh my God. I mean, a year I did it. I got it. All right. And then the head of the department pulled me aside and he said, I want to talk to you privately. So make a meeting with me. And I'm 18. I don't know any, like I literally had just turned 18. I didn't know any better. So I was like, okay. And so I saw, I, I schedule an appointment with him and I go in and he says, I really want to work with you, but there's so many challenges with this, but we'll figure it out. 40 five-year-old Cara would understand what that meant. ATM care of thought, Oh, he's going to work with me. And then year after year, there was nothing. His wife also taught there. She was my advisor. And I went to her and I said, I don't know what I'm doing. Like I'm an actor. And I mostly just work on the crew. I don't know how to move past this. She said, well, I think what you need to do is go write your own stuff. You're telling a 19 year old, who's paying thousands and thousands of dollars for you to train her that she needs to do it on our own. So I left for a year because I had a meltdown and my mom said, you can do one or two things. You can transfer schools or you can go abroad a year, pick your poison. And I chose to go abroad. And I studied at the Lee Strasberg acting school in London. And it was fantastic. It was the best thing that's ever happened to me. My teacher was Mariana Hill, who was in the godfather movies. She was Freightos wife. And she was also in a bunch of Elvis movies, wacky lady, she's still alive. She's super awesome. And she was, it was the first time I was in an acting class where the teacher, first of all, trained me second, whole leaned down and said, you're very talented. And I want you to keep going. And I almost lost it in there. Cause it was the first time anyone had said it to me. I come back from London and I go to reregister at Loyola that summer. And I was staying with friends and we all went out drinking. And the head of the department ended up out drinking with us, which is a different inappropriate, like why was he out with us? But there you go. I turned to him and I said, listen, this is my senior year. And I just came back more than I was at Lee Strausberg school. I did really well there. I learned a lot. What do I need to do to get into a show? And he said, Hmm, well, if you really enjoyed it so much over there, you should go back. And Oh, I melted down. I melted down in a way immediately. I had a meltdown, but then I also had like a mid-life crisis at 21 where I didn't know what I was going to do. I took some paths that weren't the best. After that I graduated, my mom said I was a double major anyway. And she said, drop theater. Just forget it. She didn't mean like, forget it as in your life, but forget it at Loyola. And so I dropped it, graduated with a degree in political science, like got out in that year, pushed through, but I also started drinking heavily. And I'll be honest about that. Yeah. I started drinking. Cause that was all I knew. And I didn't know where I was going to go.Passionistas: Was it an option for you to return to London at that point?Cara: My mom just was like, we can't, they couldn't afford to sit because it was so expensive and that's why they calculated that they could pay for a year there. Or if I transferred, I would probably have to do extra time in college. And so that was the calculation. I tried to go back because I also was in college over there. Not only acting school and the Dean of the college professor Hilditch I love this man, Scottish man. He tried his best and offered me scholarships. That's why I loved London so much because I sort of found my place in my people. And I had a Dean who loved me and was trying to figure out a way for me to stay financially. It just didn't work out. That was a big heartbreak and I've never really returned fully to acting since then I've been in and out of it. And I think that happens to a lot of people when you experience trauma like that, you dip in and then someone says something the wrong way. And you're like, Oh, Hey, well, all right, that's enough. Latner okay. And I've done that. I did the improv scene and experienced some things there. Abel ism, sexism, like all of the things that people are reporting. Now I saw I never got raped or anything. There were a lot of people that did. And I had some friends that almost got raped in the improv scene, nothing like that happened to me, but there was definitely an aura, a massage journey that was really prevalent. And I don't think they've mastered that and gotten rid of it yet. So I dipped out of that because people are like, how come you didn't make a team? I was like, cause I didn't even graduate from improv school. I dropped out. I've been in and out of sort of performance and that kind of space for years. I finally decided in 2017, after I quit CNN that if I was going to be in performance or I was going to do any performance, then I had to control it. So I have, from this point on is controlled everything done. I taught myself how to direct. I know how to produce because I worked at CNN for 10 years. So I learned those skills. They're not by their choice by mine because they didn't want me to. But I was like, well, I'm here. I'm going to do it. Everything I've ever done, I've manipulated systems to get there because if I don't, I'm not going to go. I'm not going to ever walk in somewhere. And they're going to be like, here are the one because that's not what people see when they see me. That's not the image of a little person. An image of a little person is a clown. Someone that's not very serious or someone that's super sad and kind of an isolated figure. I always get comments on the street. Sometimes people will come up and they want to like, talk to me like I'm a pet. I smart off because that's who I am and I'll get responses like, well, you're not very nice. I don't know why you expected me to be. You walked up to a random stranger on the street and decided that they would be nice because of their body. I'm not nice at all. I mean, I am nice, but not, not to randos on the street, talking to me like, that's not going to happen. You chose this. This is not my choice for you. It was not great for me, CNN. There was great. And it also was not great. I learned a lot. I know a lot of things about production, about how networks work, how decisions are made, but that's by accident. That's because I was in rooms where people didn't know I existed. Like they knew existed, like, you know, doorknobs exist, but they don't think of you as a thinking human being that can take this information in and use it. The 10 years at Santan was awful.Passionistas: How did you last so long there? That seems like a long time to put up with that.Cara: I mean, I tried to get out multiple times. I applied for other jobs, but early in my career I was working for a particular anchor. I won't name that person. I went to this person and said, I'd like to produce, I was their assistant. They said, okay. You know? Yeah. I think you should be pretty good at that. Every time I would get like a little project to do, they would spend that time kind of sabotaging my time, but I would still get it done and get it done really well. But because I was running this person's life, they weren't into me doing other things, even though I was running their life and doing it because I understood that that was the deal. Like I couldn't shark my duties on the other side, but it just was not that person was like no way, no way. And so that was a pretty brutal that person actually started sabotaging my work in really, really gross ways. And I've kind of never talked publicly about this people know, but I've never spoken publicly about it. And there's, I can't get into too much detail about it, but I will tell you the, I got fired from that job because they couldn't really pin anything on me because there was nothing to pin. It was all this weird, like, Whoa, you're not managing her expectations and blah, blah, blah. And like all these weird words and the, uh, final straw I was, I was leaving and I was going, but I was staying at CNN, but going to a different job. And the executive producer who had been my champion up until that point, you know, it was my last day with this person. And they said, I want to speak with you before the day ends because it was also the holiday. So it was like, everybody's last day before the break. And I said, okay. And my friend who sat with me, it was an assistant to, she looked at me and said, you cannot cry in that meeting. Do not show any emotion. And I was like, okay. And she was right, like, totally right. But I needed her to sort of prep me. And so I got into the meeting and it was just a character assassination. He said, we thought you would be good at production. You're not, you're not ever going to go anywhere in it. We really had high hopes for you, but it's not, you should not pursue you. You can't pursue it that he said, but you're going to be an assistant again. And I think this'll be a good move for you. I said, okay, okay. Okay, walked out. He walked out smart. He walked out smiling. Like he had done something great and left. And then I am just crying. That was another pretty dark period after that conversation, because I was stuck with basically what they had done was all of the credits that I'd worked up towards those past two years, they erased. They just completely erased it. So I wasn't assistant again. And every time I try, I would try to tell someone that I had done all this other stuff. They would sort of look at me like, you're crazy. That didn't happen. And no one would vouch for me. So I was done. That was also why I couldn't get out of CNN because I kept getting kind of punched. I didn't have any credits, so I couldn't leave. So kind of got stuck. No believe me and I had no references. So I went off to be an assistant again. And I was an assistant until I left. I ended up in a safer space. I won't call it safe, but a safer space. When I went to the digital side, I had a boss that kind of just was like, listen, you can do whatever you want to do and just get your job done. So I started writing there. I actually started writing because I knew that no one could take it away from me. And once you get a byline, it's yours. And it's PR the internet is written in ink. I went to cat kinsmen who is now at food and wine. And then she was starting the ITAR Crecy blog. And I just went to, I was like, can I write for you? I've never written about food, but I'll figure it out. She said, yeah. And so she gave me a break. She gave me the two biggest breaks at CNN. There was that one. And then she was doing a series where people could kind of like talk about their biggest, I don't want to say fear, but it's kind of talk about their feelings around something that makes them different. And so she had me write about being a little person and what that's like, and that was in 2014 and it went viral, translated into other languages when all over the place. So without Kat, I wouldn't be here. She really saw me and kind of helped me and propelled me and did great things. She was one of the only people like in my career that just didn't have any idea whether I could do it, but said, let's try. It just worked. That's a long road. That's why I think I'm so passionate about it. Never happening to anyone else because it's still brutal and expensive quite frankly, to deal with this stuff. I haven't had a full-time job since Santa Ana. I mean, not until I went to D map and that's because I couldn't, I was so messed up in the head because when people spend years telling you that, you know, and absolutely not. Why would you even think that I'm giving like the big picture of what happened at CNN? There was so many microaggressions that happened there where people would come up to me and you know, when I would write a piece, they would go with me and be like, Oh, you could write. And what do you mean who I could write? Well, I did this. Let's be some kind of like magical thing that you just come out. Right? And I'm like, no, I went to college. I worked for somebody at some company and it was like, Oh, where all fine black writers. Um, and at the time Ebony was still around. Essence was still around. I'm like, go poach, gal patch, all those people there really talented. You got BT down the street. I mean, that's why those places exist. Disabled people. Don't sort of have those spaces yet. So were locked out in, we're locked out everywhere. I had a meeting with somebody recently and they said, Oh, we're working on a project and you were referred. Have you ever covered the subject? And I said, no. And they were like, Oh, like kind of like, why did you, why am I being referred to you? And I said, I haven't covered it because I haven't been allowed to cover it. No, one's been allowed to cover it. Like no disabled people have been allowed to cover it. I said, are there people that could cover it yet? Let me name some people that could cover it. And they're like, Oh, and like, I'm not blaming that person. Cause they were, they were just literally trying to find people like that's, that's not what I'm saying here. It's it's that there's because we aren't seen no one knows where to start. And there's people that are out there, like guy I was talking to the other day, he's actually actively like, okay, how do we do this? Like, let's do this. So there are, I feel like there are people, all of a sudden waking up to the fact that there are disabled people in the world that need to have their issues covered and they need to be in film. They need to be in all of these places. So it's starting at D map. I'm trying to push it forward faster, a little faster. Cause I'm impatient. And I'm like, let's move on. C'mon guys.Passionistas: Tell us more about what D-MAP does. And how did you get involved?Cara: Actually Lawrence Carter long. Who's the director of D map and of communications for draft, which is our parent non-profits disability rights, education and defense fund. Right after I did, uh, the doc dwarfism and me, one of my friends from CNN, one of my good friends who actually saw all of the things that happened to me. He was at NBC at the time and he emailed me and he goes, why is it this vine about dwarfism? And you gave this to somebody else. I'm like, Whoa, first of all, it wasn't my initial idea. And he's like, fool, we should talk about doing something together. So we ended up talking about it. And then as the news business does about a week after I sent him the proposal, he got laid off, he said, he said, I'm out, but let me transfer. You won't be the big doc we were thinking of, but let me transfer you to this smaller department. And maybe we can get something cooking there for you. I pitched this very small thing. It's about inspiration porn because it's something I want to kill. It's my goal to murder all of it before all of this was over inspiration. Porn will be dead. I've decided we were going to do this little thing. And I wanted, I really wanted to find someone that has either written about inspiration porn or has been the subject of it. Moritz was a March of dimes poster child. So in my research I found Lawrence and I was like, he was a poster child. So I called him and he, we ended up talking and he came in, did the interview. Then about a month later he messaged me and he said, can we, can we set up a zoom chat? Yeah, sure. He said, I want some, I want to talk to you about something. And he said, I really think that you should come work, get this D map started. And D maps been going on since 2008, but there's sort of like this resurgence now that they're trying to build it up. And Judith human who was in Crip camp and is the leader of the disability rights movement. She's w is, uh, she wrote a paper for Ford that actually started this new iteration of D map. Lawrence called me in. And I interviewed with him basically. Then I interviewed with Judy and then I interviewed with Susan who's the executive director, Susan. Then they brought me on and that's how it started. But what we've decided is we're going to do is sort of be where the infrastructure, the support system for disabled creatives, journalists, all the things that I never had, I am building up for everyone. That's my goal. So we're starting the disabled journalist association. We're starting really focusing on journalism. So we're doing some programming where we take issues that the news media hasn't quite covered as a disability issue. And we're going to really deep dive into it, but all of the programs are going to be run by disabled journalists. And then we're going to invite the other news media just yet so that they can see what they've been missing. Not only in content, but also people so that they can see. Well, I can't find a disabled journalist. Yes you can. It's right here. It's right here. It's all right here. Come up, take your pick. That's our goal, disabled creators in particular, don't get the support that other creators get. I did a lot of interviews over the summer. Not only with journalists, but actors and comedians. Like what is it that you need? And a lot of it is basic stuff. Like I need captioning or I can't find a job. I don't know. I don't have the network to find a job. So we're trying to build all those networks. So those connections so that people can come and find us. And if we don't have it right, then, then we'll go between Lawrence, me, Judy, Susan, like we'll, we'll figure it out for them. Which is because when you're a disabled creator, you're really by yourself most of the time, because nobody wants you to do it anyway. Like just give that up. So we're actually working with Selena Buddha who was a previous passionista and we've had a lot of deep conversations over the last month. And a lot of it was, well, people told me not to talk about my disability because no one will like that. I used to hear that journalism too, where I would pitch stories about disabled people and it was always, Oh, nobody wants to know, Oh God, that's too much. No one will click on that. That's depressing. It's like, but 26% of the population is disabled. Just for business purposes, you are leaving 26% of the population's money on the table and walking away from it because you're afraid. And how many people are actually disabled in this room. But won't say it because you say things like this, like how do you get there when no one wants to talk about it?Passionistas: As people who don't have disabilities, what can we be doing to be better advocates and allies?Cara: I think the biggest thing is listening. Cause there's so much, especially in the disability space, there's so much talking, being done by non-disabled people for us in particular because our agency has been taken away and it, you know, people are like, well, we have to give disabled people agency. It's like, no, they already have it. Like you just have to stop talking. I think that's the biggest thing, because some people will be like, I don't know what to do about the disabled people. Well, be quiet, like, and listen, because there's all these movements and things happening within the disability community. But no one knows about because no one's listening or they'll go to some organization that is not run by disabled people. Those people will like have ideas about what disabled people want and it maybe isn't maybe you going to them. It's probably not the best thing. And not to say that there's not advocates that are non-disabled, there's a lot of parents that are really good at it. But for this for a while, can we just listen to disabled people like truly listen to them.Passionistas: Thanks for listening to The Passionistas Project Podcast and our interview with Cara Reedy. To learn more about Cara, follow her on Instagram @infamouslyshort. To learn more about the Disability Media Alliance Project, go to d hyphen map dot org. Now here's more of our interview with Cara. Please visit thepassionistasproject.com to learn more about our podcast and our subscription box filled with products made by women-owned businesses and female artisans to inspire you to follow your passions. Sign up for our mailing list, to get 10% off your first purchase. And be sure to subscribe to The Passionistas Project Podcast so you don't miss any of our upcoming inspiring guest. Until next time stay well and stay passionate.

Kimberly Stewart is the founder of Be Weird Make Money. She helps people design a life and make a living in a world where they feel like they don't belong. She works with creative people to identify different ways to combine their passions and talents to build completely unique individualized profitable businesses. Learn more about Kimberly. Learn more about The Passionistas Project. Full Transcript: Passionistas: Hi, and welcome to the Passionistas Project Podcast, where we talk with women who are following their passions to inspire you to do the same. We're Amy and Nancy Harrington. And today we're talking with Kimberly Stewart, the founder of Be Weird Make Money. She helps people design a life and make a living in a world where they feel like they don't belong. She helps creative people identify different ways to combine their passions and talents to build completely unique individualized profitable businesses. So please welcome to the show. Kimberly Stewart. Kimberly: Thanks guys, for having me. I'm so excited to be here. Passionistas: What's the one thing you're most passionate about? Kimberly: Doing your own thing and you know, me doing my own thing and helping others to do the same. It's the one thing I can remember throughout my entire life being a driving force is, you know, being able to be myself, be original. My rallying cry, you know, like my Superman moment is when I hear people being marginalized or, Oh, you can't do that or, Oh, just be quiet or, you know, and I just really want to help people be more themselves in the world. Cause I think that's what the world needs. Passionistas: So what is the name of your company and how do you help people do that with your topic? Kimberly: So being weird, make money, uh, came about from when I was applying to speak at a convention. And they said, if you, you know, what would the title of your talk be? Because at the time I was more, uh, my company was catalyst Kim productions and, you know, catalyst being, you know, the chemical production that gets things moving. And I thought, you know, I've been to a lot of really fun, funky conventions. And if I was looking through the program to see which talks I wanted to go to, I said, be weird, make money. I would go to that. It was short sweet. And to the point I've been helping people in some form or fashion for the last 17 years, create their own livelihoods. My mentor, my one mentor, Valerie Young created changing course and the profit from your passions consulting. And so I was trained in that. And the guiding question with that is what do you want your life to look like? You know, I had been trying to help people in what felt like a very normal standard mainstream way. And I wanted to break out of that because I didn't quite understand the folks from like the cubicle farm people were, you know, having regular jobs and stuff like that, which are very fine, you know, just regular things. And you know, here I am, I'm very creative. I'm a theater person, Renaissance festivals, sci-fi conventions, I wrote a book about how to have Halloween based businesses. And so I was like, there's a whole world of people who are ignored by traditional career counselor. So like all those people who want better jobs or better careers, there's plenty of people to help them. But the people who are like soft and nerfy and weird, you know, who want to do like really odd ball things, it's, there's no one really to help guide them. And so it was like, I will be the pied Piper of weird little businesses. So, you know, and how I help them is I kind of identify what they love and what they want their lives to look like, which again is not a traditional career question. Usually people, when they say, when they're talking about work or jobs, they know your life is going to look like most likely it's going to be nine to five or eight to late, you know, 50 weeks a year. And I don't want assume that ever once I get an idea of what people want their lives to look like and what they love and, you know, then we can start generating some ideas. And so that's kind of the basis of where I start. Passionistas:  Let's go back a little bit. Tell us about where you went to college and when you were there, you were a success team leader. So tell us what that is and how that helped you in your path. Kimberly: I went to college at Naropa University, uh, here in Boulder, Colorado, and that's a Buddhist based liberal arts college. And I was studying psychology and visual art. I had originally gone there wanting to be an art therapist and kind of halfway through my studies there, I, I became aware of Barbara Cher and her work, creating success teams. And I remember I had listened to one of her audio books on a road trip. And I, she mentioned success teams, which is a group of about six people who get together for, you know, and help each other identify and go after goals. And I thought, wow, you know, I could use one of those. And I know a whole bunch of people who could use one of those. I wonder if there's one in Boulder. And at that time she had just started registering people as success, team leaders. She couldn't do this all herself, so she needed to be able to train people to do this. And so I wrote to her and she goes, I think you'd be a great fit for, for being a leader. And I said, okay, if you say so, and I signed up and got trained, she came out to Boulder later that year with Valerie young and Barbara winter. And they ran this really cool four day event. And before it, you know, Barbara called me and said, Hey, do you want to come attend as my guest? And I was like, sure. And so I got to meet all kinds of really neat people and kind of get started really with this process because secretly, you know, I picked her up at the airport cause I was the local team leader. And as soon as she got in the car, I was like, Barbara, I have a confession to make. I registered as a team leader back in February and now it's June and I haven't run a team. She's like, Oh, don't worry about it. Nobody has yet. I thought it was a failure. And you know, she's like, Oh no, don't worry. No, one's no one's really run one yet. So she helped me kind of leapfrog. And soon after I think it was within like three or four weeks of that event in June, I ran my first success team. And you know, I'm still in contact with some of those people, you know, so was all the way back in 2003, since then, I've, I've run about 15 teams and on average about one a year. And they're just amazing. I really love the people that I get to meet what I love about this work and what keeps me coming back to it is that moment when someone feels heard, you know, because they've often been holding onto this like quirky little idea that they're afraid that they're going to get laughed at. If they tell anyone and they just kind of share it with me in the group. And everyone's like, yeah, I think that's how it's great. And they're just like, really? You mean, this could happen. It's just such a beautiful thing. I mean, even as I'm talking, I'm getting goosebumps because it's happened so frequently. And one of the fun things about the success team, so a formal success team runs for eight weeks and in the seventh week after people have been kind of working on their goals and making progress because each week you talk about like, okay, so, you know, once you figured out your goal, what are you going to do this week? And then you report back in and you said, your team will be like, okay, how did it go? And a lot of times, like, I didn't actually get anything done. She was never going to reprimand you or be me. That was like, okay, okay, what do you need help with? You get it done with the idea party in the seventh week, you invite friends and family and you say, okay, I've been working on this school. Here's my dream. Here's my obstacle. Does anybody have anything for me? The best story I ever had from an idea party was there was these two fellows in Denver and one guy was born in Denver. The other guy was born in Ghana, in Africa and their goal, their dream was to get mechanized farming equipment from the United States or wherever to Ghana, to help people who were still farming by hand. And it's not that the land wasn't good. It's just that they didn't have the technology. And the guys said, here's our goal. We don't have any money. We don't have any equipment. We just have this dream. And so, you know, they're like, does anybody have any ideas to help us? And so one day raises his hand and says, well, why don't you contact the manufacturers of farming equipment to see if they would sell you or donate to old equipment or something like that? As I live in breeze, the second person to raise her hand said my brother-in-law is the retired CEO of John Deere. I was like, get that lady's phone number. I lost touch with them to find out what happened after that. But it was just that kind of power of you never know what, you know, until somebody asks you. And so I've been doing the success teamwork, and I love that. And, but that, and that's group work. And then from the initial event in Boulder, in 2003, I met Valerie Young, who I mentioned earlier, and she has a training program that teaches people how to work with people. One-on-one and I love that too. And so I kind of blend them both. And that's kind of again, where be weird, make money was born from, it's kind of my synthesis of, of the training I've gotten from them. Passionistas: So talk about how you work with people one-on-one. What's that process like? Kimberly: First I have them do, uh, some homework where I have them write out, you know, thing, all the things that they love, even if it doesn't feel like it would be part of the money-making process. And then I have them do an exercise that's called the ideal day. And some people can do the ideal day, week, month, year, whatever. So I can get a picture again, of what they want their lives to look like a funny example that, that Valerie gave that I realized it applies to my folks too, is I would often start our working together process with the question. So what time of day, you know, what time in the morning do you want to wake up? And somebody said, does it have to be morning? Nope. I guess not particularly for my tribe, A lot of really nocturnal people, but it's, it's kind of like, um, if people want to work in bursts, like if they want to work for half the year, six months, a year and travel half the year, again, that's something I can accommodate. So we, you know, have them fill out their assignment and then we have a 90 minute talk where, you know, I get a clearer picture because what they write is one thing, but it's that listening to when they talk and when they get excited or when they're really excited, usually the voice drops a little and because they're afraid because it's, it's very special. And so that's, that's what talking to them. And then once we kind of bendy about some ideas, I'm like, okay, do you want to make a living that is connected to your passion? Or do you want to make enough money to, to have a comfortable life, you know, so that you can work on your passion? Cause sometimes people, especially creative people sometimes there's that fine line of, I don't want to create on command, you know, because that takes the fun out of it. I just want time to work on my creative projects and I don't, I almost don't care what the work is, as long as it pays the bills. So then we, you know, once we kind of figured that out then I walked him down the nuts and bolts process of, okay, well, here's what you need to do. You know, here's the, the steps, the first steps that you're going to need, something I've learned to say is I help bridge the gap between knowing how to art and knowing how to business, because I have studied small business for so long because that's, that's a passion of mine. Even though if it's like straightforward, boring, boring business, you can apply creative fields to that. But a lot people aren't necessarily doing that. So that's what I like to do that. And so that last part, the nuts and bolts part is that bridging the gap, like, okay, so here's where you need to go. Here's who you need to talk to. Sometimes I don't really know how to do the thing, but I know what you need to do. And so I'll say I'll tell people right out of the gate, you know, like, I don't know how to do this. I don't know how to make a website, but I know you need one. You can go to help. You know, here's the best practices for website. I just don't know how to do it. And that's okay. Like, you know, for a long time I used to be really shy like, Oh, golly, I don't know how to do this. And it's like, why do I have to know how to do, I just have to know where to send people and be a resource. Passionistas: Do you find that there's a common, like stumbling block or issue that gets in the way of your clients getting started? Kimberly: You know, a lot of times it's one of two things. One it's the, I don't know how to monetize this or, you know, I just don't know like what this would look like as a business. I know I love to do this, but I don't know if anybody would pay me for it. But then the other part is something that my mentor, Valerie actually wrote a book about the imposter syndrome. And that's that lack of confidence that fear of being found out as a fraud and that, who am I to be doing this? Who am I to be sharing this? But it's like, why would anybody pay me to do this? I think the biggest thing is kind of like the lack of confidence. And then the, the lack of just basic know-how, you know, cause I think once people are with, Oh, that's how people make money with that. Okay. I can do that. You know, it just it's like learning a new practice of anything, you know, learning a new exercise and muscle memory. It's just like, Oh, okay. I never knew that nobody ever taught that to me. So now that fills in that gap and now I know how to move forward. Passionistas: We're Amy and Nancy Harrington and you're listening to the Passionistas Project Podcast and our interview with Kimberly Stewart, the founder of Be Weird Make Money. Learn more about Kimberly at BeWeirdMakeMoney.com. Now here's more of our interview with Kimberly. What are some of your success stories that if people you've dealt with and has there ever been anything so weird that you weren't able to help them figure out how to make it into your business? Kimberly: My favorite success story ever of someone I worked with was this young lady. I helped she, she was an artist and we met at, uh, where I was doing a live event. She was like, wow. So what do you do? And I told her, I, you know, I'd help people be creative and get paid for it. And she's like, great. I want you to do a thousand things. Cool. I want you to do it all sounds and all of them, but we have to start with one. And so we started working together and it turned out that she wanted to get her artwork printed on a multitude of different products. Like t-shirts mugs, beer cozies, you know, that sort of thing. And she's like, but I don't know how to do that. And she's like, I want to use this one printing process called sublimation printing, which is where it actually imprints it into the material rather than just on top of. And so we, we talked about it, but as we talked, she kind of let me know that one of the things she really struggled with is she had a lot of health considerations. She had cluster migraines and everything, and it just made it really hard for her to commit to jobs and stuff. And so she's like, you know, I just, I'm embarrassed cause I'm broke all the time. Cause I can't work. I want to create. And I was like, all right, cool. So we, we found some people who did sublimation printing here in Colorado. And I said, all right, go see if you can get some samples made up, either you or someone else can present the samples to different shops in town to see if they'd carry your stuff. And these big printing guys wouldn't even talk to her because she wasn't ordering in bulk. So because she wasn't going to order like a thousand, they, she wasn't worth their time. I kind of know what we can do. I don't know how to do it, but I said, I want you to go to your local small business development center. Every town or County has one. And I want you to talk to them about getting a loan or a grant for this printer, because I was like, how much do they cost? And she goes, well, you know, they can go up to $25,000, but you can get a real basic one for $5,000. And I said, great, because you are a woman. And because you, you know, facing are facing other challenges, there are monies available to you because they want to help you start a business because they know, you know, you've had a rough go of it. She went to them and she got a grant for a machine. And so, you know, about a month later she had her machine and it was fantastic. And she was all excited because she's like, wow, now I can start printing my stuff and then we can start doing this. And I said, now hold up. I said, what's really cool is now you get to be the small batch printer for all your local friends and artists that those other turkeys wouldn't talk to. And she just stopped. And she was like, Oh my God, you're right. You know? And she's like, I didn't even think of that. And I was like, that's why he hired me. It was just one of those moments where it was like, and she she's said to me, you know, over the years we've kept in touch. She's like, I can see a time when I can be a really, truly like contributing member of my household and my community and everything in a way that I never would have been able to before. And so that by and large is my favorite success story. That's kind of why I want to do the work that I do because a lot of people would have said, Oh, you can't work a whole lot. Then you're probably just destined to not make a lot of money. It's not even about, you know, about like a number or whatever, but it's just her feeling. Her confidence grow sometimes even for me, I'm just like, huh. So I was at, I was at a horror and Halloween convention, um, with my Halloween business book and I was doing kind of on the spot consultations, which is something I like to do just again, a quick snapshot to have somebody tell me what they love and I'll say, well, have you thought about doing this, this there, so this and this one kid comes up and you just kind of stares at, you know, he's like, so what do you do? And they told him, he just kind of blurts out. I have over 600 skeletons. I was like, what they, you know, and I just kind of read it. Cause I was like, that makes a lot of questions for the human animal. Do I need to call the cops? But he goes on to say the little 12 inch toys. And I was like, no, no, no, you didn't. But I can work with that. Really? How can I make money with that challenge accepted? You know? And I said, all right, so you have 600 skeletons. I said, first off, you'd give them all names and personalities like the Smurfs, right? Dokie, skeleton, Papa, skeleton, whatever. And then, you know, I said, you could do any number of things. She was also an artist, a visual artist. And he said, you could make a comic book about them. You can make stop motion animation. You could create a series of calendars. You know, you can have a web comic. Well, you know, it's the adventures of Skelly town in Wisconsin. There's the house on the rock, which is a roadside attraction. And they boast that they have over 6,000 Santa clauses. So he said, all right, so you're one 10th of the way there with your skeletons. They said, kill miniature trains. And you don't have them sit in the cafe or whatever and charging mission. And he was just like, what? Like a fool. I gave him my business card and I said, call me and let me know what to do with this. And I did not capture his information. So people who are listening always make sure you get the contact information of people you'd like to follow up with. I always wondered what happened to that kid. And I thought, how many watch lists would I get put on? If I put something out like on Craigslist, you know, in the misconnections, Hey, do you have over 600 skeletons? You want to be calling me the FBI? Excuse me. Ma'am is there something we need to know? Like I said, I don't know what happened to him, but I was always very curious because I was just one of those times that even for me who I think I'm pretty worldly and up first, anything, I was like, huh. Passionistas: That is brilliant. But I can't believe you came up with so many ideas. So when we were researching you, we read that you say that it's an asset rather than a hindrance. Kimberly: When you don't have money when you're starting your own business or it can be so talk about that because that sounds something a lot of people think. But yeah, I think traditionally it's the thought is, you know, you have to have money to make money and while money can be helpful, that's for sure. What's nice about not having any money to start. Is it forces you to be really creative because if you just have money to throw at problems, it doesn't really help you learn a whole lot. That could be important lessons. And maybe you're just wasting money because maybe you're, you're being taken advantage of by service people who are like, Oh, this person just has lots of money, you know? So I'll just keep telling them, Oh yeah, we need to keep doing this project. Or yeah, I just need more money to get your website up or whatever. And so it kind of fosters some creativity also now more than ever. There's a lot of power in social capital and the way things are going with crowdfunding, et cetera, you know, there's something really powerful about putting your goals and dreams out there, which that's something that a lot of people are very nervous about. They've held onto this idea for so long that they don't want to put the baby out there either to get stolen. Like, no, don't take my idea. It's mine. Also that fear of what if nobody likes it. That's the other part. That's another asset of not having a whole lot of money, because if, if you don't have a million dollars to put into a product before you launch it, what if you create a dud? What if you spend all that time and money and nobody wants it. And so, you know, if you don't have a lot of money, you have to be resourceful, try things out things out on a small scale and try it out with people to see if anybody would want it. And you know, you can adjust as you go something. I, I suggest to people when they're like, when they have say, you know, a product that they want to sell and they're not sure what people would want. I tell them have an old school Tupperware party type thing, but nobody's allowed to buy anything. It's just, you print out, say you're making like soap or jewelry. You, you invite friends over and you give them cider and donuts and you have your wares out on a table and you just sit back and watch, what do people pick up? What, you know, what do people like, like, Ooh, clearly you kind of see this. And then that's a lot of invaluable market research right there. And then you can even say, you're not allowed to buy anything today, but what would you pay for that? You know, because that's, you know, a lot of people have questions. What should I price my stuff at? So you can just ask. So again, having to be creative about things and be resourceful without wasting a lot of money is, is really good. I just think you learn a whole lot more about yourself and what you're trying to sell, whatever that might be. If it's a product or service information, whatever, it just helps build a solid foundation. And what about people like the woman you were talking about earlier who do need some kind of seed money and don't know where to go for it? What suggestions do you have definitely check with your SP your small business development center, wherever you are, see what might be available to you because you never know, there's all kinds of little grants and loan programs that they will know about that you might not necessarily have access to. Also, you know, again, the, the crowdfunding model is becoming so powerful as a resource for people, because if you can get out there and get your story out there, even if you don't have a prototype or a product yet, if you can, you know, tell the story strongly enough and get people behind you and to back you become essentially your initial investors, that might be a really good way. But again, that that's kind of encouraging you to be really resourceful and ask for help, because I think that's something, a lot of people that's a big stumbling block for a lot of people is, you know, needing to ask for the help that they need. People want to help other people, the idea parties that I was talking about earlier, that just, you know, that's a really great example of, if you just tell somebody in a way I want this, but I can't because this do you know anything, people will just automatically help. You can do that. You know, in public, on the bus and strangers are even better because they don't have any investment, but like, Oh, have you tried this? Or maybe you could go here and it's, I think people are inherently helpful. And, um, we forget that when, when we're having our negative self-talk of who am I, why should I be doing this? Blah, blah, blah. Passionistas: And what about the woman you spoke about who came to you with a thousand ideas? What's your advice for people who have multiple passions, they want to pursue and want to create more than one revenue stream? Kimberly: I love them. So that's something I also learned from Barbara Cher. She identified those folks as scanners. That's someone who has a lot of different interests and, you know, they have a lot of energy. They get kind of a bad rap because they get into stuff. And then when they get what they need out of it, they leave it. And a lot of people want you to finish things and stick with it. But I say, I want you to do all of those things, but in all honesty, you do have to pick one, one to start with at least another person I mentioned earlier, Barbara winter uses this analogy a lot that I love. And it's that of the plate spinner. If you see a street, Esker somebody who is spinning plates, they don't take all 10 plates, they get one on their foot and they get that one going. And then they get the one on their knee going, and then they have the one on their shoulder going. You choose that with projects as well. I love when people have multiple streams of income, because you never know when one is going to dry up or, you know, when one's going to take off, if you want to have a couple of different things going, that's great, but you do need to give enough life. You know, you need to give enough breath to bring it to life. I am also a scanner. So I understand that desire of wanting to do lots of different things, or I don't term it for myself as getting bored easily. I just have a lot of interests and I like to have things to go to. So it's, it's figuring out where the energy is strongest for someone. Sometimes it comes down to picking what would be the easiest, fastest win to kind of get the energy going and the momentum going. So it's like, okay, we get this going. And then now what what's next? Because there are some things that you only want to do once there are some things that you do a couple of times a year. There's some things that you work on all the time. So I think that's the other thing that people get overwhelmed with or bogged down by is they think, Oh my gosh, it's so overwhelming. I'm going to be doing this all of these all the time. No, no, you're not. Everything takes its turn. And, but you have to figure out what that looks like. And again, that's kind of where I help people determine, you know, kind of like what that might look like for, I never tell anybody what to do. I always give suggestions and then I let people figure out what it looks like for them. But I think just the permission that it's okay to want to do a lot of things is, is really powerful. And so again, that's part of my mission is in the world, if everybody to do their own thing, no matter what that looks like, even if it's doing thousand things, Passionistas: Do you have a weird business idea of your own that you haven't tried yet? Kimberly: I'm kind of in the midst of trying that out, you know, cause I've done a bunch of things. I was a candle maker for a while. My bread and butter business is as a massage therapist. I've tried a lot of really interesting things. And what I'm hoping to move into more with be weird, make money is go on a, like almost like a larger scale and start reaching branching out into all the different areas that feel like weird or non-traditional or whatever. And just finding these people and highlighting them. I did, um, two things earlier this year, a virtual summits. And you know, we're, it's a different topic for each summit and you interview people who are making money. Like the last one I did was about gaming. So if you love games or video games, board games, role playing games, whatever it is. And everyone's always told you, or you can't make money, playing games, just grow up and get a real job. You know, what are you going to live in your mom's basement forever? You know, I talked to some really awesome, fascinating people who are really killing it in games. And so I wanted to highlight them and say here's who are really doing it. And so I want to just keep branching out, kind of become a pied Piper of weird businesses and be like, great, whatever you're into. We can probably find a way to either monetize it or find a way for you to bring in money so that you can enjoy life. What's your dream for weird women everywhere. I want weird women to be able to share their ideas with out fear of shame and ridicule. Like I always think of myself as skewing younger as far as like who I'm attracting or who I want to talk to. Like, I want to save people from lives of quiet desperation of, you know, doing that thing for 20 or 30 years that they hate trying to fit in. But this market of women over 60 who come to me and again, they have this like, Oh, you know, I never really wanted to tell anybody about this. Cause I feel it make fun of me. I want to help them, but I want that to not have to be a thing. I want everyone to, you know, I want all these weird women to just be fearless and bold and be like, I am doing this cool thing and I know you guys are gonna love it. And Curtis, yeah, that's that's my dream is to, you know, take, take the fear of ridicule away. Passionistas: What advice would you give to a young woman who wants to start a business based on her passion? Kimberly: Try it. Don't be afraid. Be careful who you talk to about it because you know, when dreams are new or read somewhere, every great idea is born drowning. And so you need to foster that little idea, but just give it a shot because you don't know. So just try it. And what's nice is when you're just starting out, if you sit on that idea and never try it, you won't ever know whether or not it will work or something people don't often talk about is if you're even going to like it. Because I think some things are, you know, sound really good on paper or in your head. But in reality it's like, Oh yeah, I didn't realize that, but there's no harm in trying. And so just get out there, find some supportive people and you know, maybe who are also going after dreams. So they're going to be less likely to bash yours, give it a shot. I think that would be my biggest advice is just get out there and try it Passionistas: Thanks for listening to the Passionistas Project Podcast and our interview with Kimberly Stewart, the founder of Be Weird Make Money. Learn more about Kimberly at BeWeirdMakeMoney.com. Please visit ThePassionistas Project.com to learn more about our podcast and subscription box filled with products made by women owned businesses and female artisans to inspire you to follow your passions. The Spring box is on sale now. Sign up for our mailing list to get 10% off your first purchase. Visit our social media pages to learn about the first annual International Passionistas Day on March 15th and find out how you can win prizes, including being a guest on this podcast, by nominating a Passionista in your life. And be sure to subscribe to the Passionistas Project Podcast, so you don't miss any of our upcoming inspiring guests. Until next time stay well and stay passionate.

Amy Honey is a pull, no punches, powerhouse, speaker and trainer in the areas of customer engagement, body language, behavior modification, sales and habit transformation. She has extensive background in high ticket sales and is known by her peers as a powerful closer, Amy is also passionate about helping girls and women find their courage just as she had to do starting at the age of 16, when she found herself alone and independent through her own resourcefulness, she still managed to graduate from high school. Her passion for personal growth, travel and transforming lives has taken Amy all over the world, helping people transform their lives through behavior, observation and habit change.   Learn more about Amy. Learn more about The Passionistas Project. Full Transcript: Passionistas: Hi, and welcome to The Passionistas Project Podcast, where we talk with women who are following their passions to inspire you to do the same. We're Amy and Nancy Harrington. And today we're talking with Amy Honey, a pull, no punches, powerhouse, speaker and trainer in the areas of customer engagement, body language, behavior modification, sales, and habit transformation. She has extensive background in high ticket sales and is known by her peers. As a powerful closer, Amy is also passionate about helping girls and women find their courage just as she had to do starting at the age of 16, when she found herself alone and independent through her own resourcefulness, she still managed to graduate from high school. At age 20. She became a single mom and chose to put her family's welfare first while overcoming numerous obstacles in an unreceptive marketplace. It was during these life challenges and her entrepreneurial journey that she crossed paths with personal development and discovered her love for speaking and training her passion for personal growth travel and transforming lives has taken Amy all over the world, helping people transform their lives through behavior, observation, and habit change. So please welcome to the show Amy Honey. Amy: I'm so happy to be here. Passionistas: Oh, we're so happy to have you. What are you most passionate about? Amy: Personal growth. My path through that is sales. Do you ever watch any of chef Ramsey, Gordon Ramsey stuff? He does this show called Kitchen Nightmares and he goes in and what that shows really about is about personal growth, but his, his avenues through cooking, you know, so that's his version of it. So I think everybody has their version of personal growth. Passionistas: Talk about your journey through life, where you started out your experiences, that we talked about a bit in the intro at the age of 16, becoming independent, and why personal growth has become such an important concept to you through your journey? Amy: I probably started in sales at two years old. I was just like, I was just in, I was just, I loved the idea of being able to create something and then, and then make money for my time or my creation. And so even as a little kid, I made like pet rocks and sold them to my family, or like we would travel through Germany were my dad was a military. So we traveled and I was, I was adopted. So it's my, I'm a single, an only child. Oh, come into play later. So we were traveling through Germany and we had this like VW bus and it had this rack in between. So my parents was very difficult for my parents to get to the back of the, of the VW bus, you know, camper and the frigerators right there. So they would ask me for food and I would just charge them. So it was like, it'd be like a nickel, like, okay. Yeah. And I would like walk up with my little, you know, you know, I'm like eight years old and I'd walk up with my little paper and say, you know, okay, I'll take your order, you know? Okay. That'll be five cents, you know, whatever, but they paid it because they didn't want to get it into the back of the bus. Little did I realize supply and demand, but I learned it very early on, I guess. And and so then from there, uh, later on, I actually started out. So, so it was a dance instructor. So I'm really into dance. I'm really into moving energy. So I became a dance instructor at age 13. So very young, my dad, since the time I was three taught jazz, tap, ballet, gymnastics. I taught everything. I started assistant teaching at 13. And then by the age of 16, I was teaching my own classes. And then at the same time I was working two jobs, so, and going to high school. So I was working on the phones for Kirby vacuum cleaner. So I sold Kirby vacuum cleaners on the phone from the age of 14. And then at the age of 16, I was allowed to go door to door. So I wasn't allowed to do door to door sales until I turned 16. So this is back in the eighties, dating myself here. So at that point, I just was good at talking to people because for me, it was about connecting. And then at age 16, I'm out on my own. And I moved out on my mom and dad's house. I just they're great people. We just had large differences in opinions. It's very interesting DNA to me is very interesting because my parents are really good people, but I got the opportunity to meet my birth family about five years ago. And now I'm really, really close with my brothers. I've got four brothers that never knew I existed. And so what I found so interesting is that I'm so much like them in the way that I think about the world and my sense of humor and all that stuff it's naturally in your DNA. Right. And so there was just a difference of opinion. And so when I moved out at 16, I always felt like it, like I did something wrong. This is my fault. I'm a bad kid. I'm horrible person. But in the meantime, I am putting myself through high school. Like I still worked. I still graduated high school on time. So, you know, it was, I was just had a really, I always had a really strong work ethic anyway, but I also had an ethic of like, okay, I just, whatever it takes to get it done, like whatever it takes to get it done at the same time, I started really seeking at that point. Because I really thought something was wrong with me. Like I was, something was wrong with me. So I started seeking and I sought out counseling and I sought out, you know, which was also kind of like wrong. Like if you went to counseling, like by my parents' standard, you know, you were wrong or you needed to be fixed or something goes wrong with you. But I don't think that we put enough emphasis on the importance of mental health. So I just started seeking and I, I started finding books and I remember one of the very first books I read way back, when is a book called peeling, the sweet onion. And it was always all about the layers of who we are and how we're going to forget it kind of over and over and over again, and how to really become more of, of the center of who we are, like getting the layers of the, kind of the crap off, you know? And so that was one of the very first and it's, it's an old book and it's not really popular these days, but it's still super relevant, like really super relevant. So, and then I just, you know, went on to Tony Robbins and you know, all of these other people. And then I started working in the seminar industry, doing sales, like doing sales, but doing coaching because for me, sales is not just like getting the number, like it's funny. Cause like I get on, like I talk to my family all the time. I was just talking to them last night and you know, all sale. I had a good day or I had a bad day, you know? Uh, and, and my daughter was asking me, well, what, what makes it good is like, if you just get a sale and I said, no, no, it's the conversation. If I can get on the phone and help somebody and have a great conversation and they don't buy anything from me, I had a great day because I impacted somebody's life in a way. So to me, sales is about service and connecting the right people with the right products and figuring out the right flow of energy with the sale. So maybe that right flow of energy might be a no, but when you come to the highest point of service with that person, and you're not just looking at them as a transaction or a number, when they are ready, they will come back to you and maybe they never will be ready and that's okay too. But if you push them into a sale, you're going to it's, it's just, it's horrible, bad karma on you. I think bad energy on you. You're, that's where you're going to get higher cancellations. You're going to get people complaining about your company. You're going to get all these things, right. So to me, it's just not worth it to push a person into a sale. Passionistas: And then when did you start public speaking? Amy: I've been a teacher since a young age. So I was in front of groups of people with no problem and teaching dance. And I teach zoom by owned. I owned a gym. So, you know, just I've always been in front of people, not a problem. I was also a stuntwoman. And so I'm don't have any problems being in front of cameras. That's my husband and I are both stunned, Exxon actors. So I just never had a problem being in front of people. But when I started working in the seminar industry, I was forced to get in, you know, we would have to intro the speaker. So it was like all of a sudden I had to introduce a Les Brown or somebody and I'm just, Whoa. Okay. Okay. So it was just kind of run into it. And then I just started speaking. And for me, I just think when you can speak to a group of people, it's a lot easier than trying to one-on-one because there's always things like a, every single, every single business. I believe that we have to educate our clients because an educated client is a good client and when they understand it and they're educated enough. And so I feel that there's things that every single business repeats over and over and over again. So if we can take those things that we repeat over and over again, and I end make a video or, or get them as together as a group and say it, you're not exhausting yourself saying it over and over and over again to each client. Passionistas: Tell us a little bit about being a stunt woman. What attracted you to that world? Amy: I was always into fitness. I wanted to do martial arts from non-time. I was a real little kid, but I was, I had to do, you know, I had to dance. So dancing was the thing or piano, piano, piano for a while. It was not ladylike to do martial arts. So it wasn't allowed to do martial arts. So as soon as I turned eight, well, as soon as I turned 16, I moved out. But by the time I was 18, I had my feet underneath me and I'd graduated high school and stuff. And so at that point I was like, Oh, I can take martial arts. No, one's stopping me. I can pierce anything. I want, I can get tattoos. So yeah. So I did, I went and started taking martial arts. And at that same time I was body doubling as an actress. So I was living in Oregon at the time and I was on this movie set and I met a stunt coordinator on the movie set, Steve, his name was Steve, really super nice guy. And I was like, huh, that's interesting. And so I was, I was an extra on the set. So as I was body doubling and I met this I met the stunt coordinator and he said to me, and I started just digging and asking questions. And he said, look, if you're really interested, why don't you fly out to LA and meet with our stunt guys and see what you think? And I said, Oh, okay. And so I booked a flight to LA and it was so funny. Cause I'm like, I'm 51 years old. Now I think I was 22 or 23. At that time I weigh a lot more now than I did then. So I was probably like 105 pounds, like soaking wet, five foot tall, I'm little. And so I get on this plane, I get on the plane. This is 1994. It's like, get on the plane and no one's on the plane. And I'm like, this is really bizarre. Right? Well, come to find out, that was the 1994 earthquake in Northridge that had just happened that morning. So everybody canceled their flight, right? So like I'm on the flight by myself and I'm heading to LA and they've got this guy, his name was big. Wayne picking me up at the airport. This is a guy I've never met before. Right now, big Wayne is like a massive dude. He kind of looks like the rock and is probably about as big. And I walk up and he's holding the sign and I'm like, this is how every horror movie war starts like, Oh my God, what? I'm like, I'm just like, I'm walking into this thing. I don't know this guy. I'm getting in the car with a stranger. I'm in a strange town. I was just like, what was I thinking? Like I'm freaking out at this point, like inside my heart is like, but I'm like, no, no, I trust my gut. I trust my gut. So he took me out to eat with a couple of the other stunt actors. And it was very interesting because they wanted to know my philosophy on life. Like they wanted to know if I believed in fate, they wanted to know if I believed in circumstance. They wanted to know if I believed if I created my own reality at that point, like I was really young, but they wanted to know these things because they weren't going to trust me with teaching me some of these things. If I didn't believe that things happen for a reason that you're in the right place at the right time that you trust yourself. Because it's very important when you're doing choreography with another stunt actor, you have to trust that when they're supposed to Zig, they're going to Zig. And when they're supposed to zag, they're going to zag. Otherwise you're going to collide and people get hurt. So that's how I learned. And so the kinds of stunts that I do were our high falls and lighting myself on fire and fight scenes. Passionistas: What projects did you do? Amy: Oh gosh. Like I did a lot of a lot of TV and I did quite a few like Showtime, HBO movies. And I couldn't even tell you some of the titles because they have what's called a working title. And then, and then, and then it goes to print crime strike was one of them like any like cops reenactments. I played in a battered woman a lot because I get beat up really well. So I can really, I can really sell, I can really sell a punch. There's a really cool chase credit card commercial. And it's actually a friend of mine. Her name is Melissa Barker and she's gets hit by a car and she comes off and she's like, yeah, you know, like you can't, I can't predict everything what's going on, but I can predict what's in my wallet kind of thing. And um, so she's actually a really big stunt woman. And she, she was one of the girls I trained with early on and with her and her husband, Eric, Betsy's another big stunt guy. So yeah, she's still going strong. I'm 51. I don't bounce. Like I used to. And um, and I got out at a point when, you know, I realized that most stunt people have broken their back at some point. So I was like, yeah, I think I'm going to cash it in quit while you're ahead. Passionistas: Your husband was also a stunt person. Did you meet him in that industry? Amy: The funny thing is we did not. We actually met, do you know who, uh, Joey Dispenza, Dr. Joe Dispenza. He's written a book called breaking the habit of being yourself. He's a, he's a speaker. And again, it's personal growth. So we met doing personal growth. That was really funny. Cause we were at this thing where he was talking and I think we were like the youngest people in the crowd. So like, we were both like 36 at the time. And so we were like the youngest people there and everybody else was like, well, over 60. And so we were just like, Hi, a young person. And so, and it was like, he was like, Oh yeah, I'm a star. I'm like, Oh my God, I'm gonna stop a woman. So that was interesting. But he did, he is from Australia and he did stunts for a live action shows. He did some movies, but he mostly did live action. So he did, he was a Warner brothers movie world. He opened up the universal Japan. He went to Indonesia. So he was a stent, a livestock action performer for years where he did shows daily after it, that you eventually opened your first business together. Passionistas: So what was the first business you started together? Amy: It was the gym that we started together before that we were kind of doing our own things, but then I'm an entrepreneur and a big risk taker. And it's funny, he's a stunt man, but he's not risky. So I'm more of a rule breaker and a risk taker. And he's more by the book by the rules. So jumping off a building is not risky to him. As much as like purchasing a brand new business is scary, scary to him. So, uh, so he always worked for the people kind of thing, but now he's learned to be an entrepreneur. So the gym was the first business that we opened together. Passionistas: Tell us about running your own gym, what was that like? Did you like doing that? Amy: Oh, I'm so glad we're not doing that. I loved helping the people. It was great, but God, it w like what a babysitting project that was because our gym was a little different. We were like our more high-end studio. So you didn't just come to the gym and work out when you wanted everything was classes. So I taught Zumba, I taught spin. I taught, I created my own classes like riding row, which was like a, like a spin and row class combined. And then I had employees and stuff, but Oh man, what a headache? What a headache and a brick and mortar. And I'm so happy that we do not have that during, like when the pandemic started, all I kept saying was like, I'm so glad we don't have the gym. I'm so glad we don't have the gym. We never would have survived it. Passionistas: Now while you had the gym, you developed the Five Elements of Health. So tell us about that and why each one is important? Amy: What Jamie says is you've got five elements of health, exercise, sleep, hydration, nutrition, and emotional environment. And when you get all five, you've got a grip on your health. That's what he says. You got a grip on it. Um, so they're all important, but the most Important one of course is emotional, uh, environment. And what emotional environment contains is the energy around you. Emotion, emotion is energy in motion, and it's the people around you. And it's your, it's your health space. And it's your, it's everything that has to do with your mindset. And the emotional environment is the most important one because you, it's almost like if you think of a triangle and you think of like, the emotional body is like at the top of the triangle and the physical bodies at the bottom. If you change the physical body, but you don't change the mind up here, you're just going to come back to that physical body that you were at before. So you could lose all the way you could do it. This is why people lose weight. And then they come right back to here. This is why people win the lottery and then spend all the money and don't have the money because they got the physical level, but they didn't do the mind level up here. So what I realized in that is that the mindset was the most important piece. So, so for me to really help people would be to focus on the mindset. So that's what we kind of shifted to, is focusing on the mindset. I worked with people that needed to lose hundreds of pounds. That is, it can be a slow moving boat. You got to kind of give them a wide berth and let them be able to, you know, come around to this new lifestyle. And it takes patience and it takes, but it's really takes shifting that mindset. And so this has changed. Nothing's going to change in the body and if it does change, it's just going to go right back to where it was at. If the mindset doesn't get changed along with it. And so, Passionistas: So is that what inspired you to create Improv for Impact? Amy: Improv for impact is more my husband's business, but it's a tool that I use in sales, Tai Chi. So improper impact. He's, he's always done improv, but when people think of improv, they think of comedy or they think of like, whose line it in any way, or they think of like comedians. Oh, that's funny. What I realized when I was recognizing it and watching what he was doing was I was like, Oh my gosh, what a brilliant way to, and a fun way to figure out what people's habits are that are holding them back from success. Because as he's playing the games, I'm watching the patterns. And what happens is when you play a game, there's always rules on the game, right? So anytime you add rules, it adds stress. But even though it's fun, stress, anytime we're in a moment of stress, like it, like if you think of like, like fun games where you're like, ah, and you're like, you're like kind of get a little stress. We always revert back to our habit in times of stress. So then I could identify, I easily identify what the habits were. So there's certain games where we can watch it or say, Oh, that's interesting that person doesn't like to take responsibility for things, or, Oh, that's interesting. This person always wants to push their idea, but they're not willing to listen to other's ideas or, Oh, that's interesting. This person always says no before they hear it out because in their head and this is, this really can help teams. It can help innovation with business. Because what we see, a lot of people do is like, say I'm an employee. And I come to the boss with an idea and the boss goes, well, we can't, no, that's not. We can't do that because in the boss's head, he's thinking, what's going to cost this. It's going to cost this. What are we going to do? Right. But if the boss had just said, yes, okay, well, let's figure out how that can happen. Maybe another idea is going to come out that maybe it's not that idea, but if he was open to it, instead of just immediately blocking that idea, he would be able to innovate and be able to come up with something completely new. I love Apple. What Apple did. Steve jobs came back. When he came back after he had been gone from his company for a while, they spent, I think, a few days on this. And they said, well, what business are we in? And they said, well, we're in the computer business. And he said, no, no, no, no. What business are we really in? We're what are we really in? What are we really doing here? And they took days to figure this out. And they spent time just minds, you know, brainstorming what they ended up coming up with was no, we connect people to their passions. And that's how they came up with the iPod. That was when they first came up with the iPod because, Oh, well, their passions are what their passions are, music, their passions or photos, their passions, or family emails, their passions are, you know, these kinds of things. So that's was, became their motto. And it was like, it was a different, innovative way of thinking about things. So if we can stop blocking that, then we can, then we can, then we can identify who in the companies doing these things. Passionistas: We're Amy and Nancy Harrington. And you're listening to The Passionistas Project Podcast and our interview with Amy Honey. To learn more about Amy, visit her website amyjohoney.com. Now more of her interview with Amy. How can people transform their habits to, to connect better with their clients and communicate their values better? Amy: We teach about the energy of sales. So we teach about looking at the energy and then we also teach really active listening, truly active listening to somebody, and we teach them how to stop blocking them. So for instance, if I come to you and I say, Hey, Nancy, I got this great health product. Are you open to taking a look at it? And you're just like, no, I'm like, Oh, okay, cool. What, what interests you the most? Right. So like trying to connect on a different level, right? When somebody tells you no or blocks it, you have to accept it. So what I see a lot of salespeople do is they keep pushing. Yeah. But this is really good for you, but this is really… no, Nancy, this could really benefit you. Like really? You need to look at this, right? No, she already said no. Right, stop it. And just stop. Like sometimes it's better just not to sell. Passionistas: You really are passionate about helping girls and women find their courage. So how do you do that? Amy: And especially single moms because I was a single mom. So especially single moms. I met my husband when my daughter was 18. So how do I do that? How do I help women? I, I think that women are really powerful in who they are. And I love, I specifically love helping women and teaching women how to sell because we are, we are nurturers. We are naturally a nurture and we naturally create through pleasure. So men push, push, push hard, hard, hard, buy, buy, buy women don't function that way. So I like to teach women sales by just using their own nature of who they are. You know, don't try to be me. Don't try to be the other best salesperson in the world. You've got to be you to do it. And you are valid and you are valuable in who you are. And so that, so I, I, I, I, especially just, I mean, I work with companies and corporations, but I really am super passionate. Like when I see a woman, especially a single mom, I'm kind of like hone in on her. And I'm just like inner ear, like really amazing. You can do it. Passionistas: What's the philosophy of Sales Tai Chi. How does it work? Amy: So Sales Tai Chi right now, the main thing that we're training teams to do, we're training them how to recreate their live events to online, because it's just necessary right now. So how do you recreate that live event experience and do it online? Sales Tai Chi is all about the energy of the sale and the flow of energy and how to take whatever comes at you and move it into the energy that you want it to be moved into. So rather than blocking the energy of a no accepting the energy, turning the energy into what you want. And when, when you do get to know what I train our teams to do is to accept that no, you know, when you get objections, that's different than a no. When you get objections, you want to turn that objection and vet and validate their objection. Because if somebody says to you, Oh, I just, I just don't have the time right now. Well, that's just, that's an ex an objection in reality. It's an excuse because they just told me they really wanted this, but now they're telling you they don't have time. Right. So you never want to say, Oh, but you've got plenty of time. Or you got, because you're just invalidating their excuse and their excuse in their own head is really valid. So it's more about asking questions, you know? So when they, when they say, Oh, I don't have time. Oh, I know. Yeah. Time can be. That can be tough. Do you want more time? You know what I mean? So it's like, it's like accepting, accepting it. And if it's a no, except the no sales is like kissing, the other person has to be leaning in, or you can't kiss them. Passionistas: You talk about how I shouldn't try and sell the way you try and sell. So how does somebody tap into their, their personal strengths to figure out what their best approaches? Amy: So I would just ask you, like, when you're like, do you, do you sell anything right now? Passionistas: We sell a subscription box. Amy: Okay. Oh, cool. What's in it? Passionistas: It's all products from women owned businesses and female artists. Amy: I love that. That's great. Okay. So what is your favorite thing about the products? Like what are you most excited about that excites you about that product? Passionistas: To me, the most exciting thing about the subscription box is that we're supporting other women. Like it's just, you know, we, we beyond selling the products, we, uh, interview every woman in the box and we share their stories so that people are, aren't just buying the product. They're supporting the woman behind the product. And to me, that's what I love about doing the subscriber. Amy: What do you absolutely hate about selling? Passionistas: Asking people for money. Amy: Okay. Yeah. So then what I would do with you is I would shift your mindset around about that because are these products gonna serve that person? Passionistas: Yes.    Amy: So if you're not selling, you're not serving. So I would just help you shift that mindset around asking people for money because it is value. It is valuable, right? Passionistas: Oh, yeah. Amy: And then how do you sell as yourself is you just find the things that you like. So if you really love connecting with women, then just connect with them. You don't have to sell them anything. Right. Just connect with them. If that's your favorite part about it, and you hate asking money, but you love connecting, then just connect and then it's, it doesn't even feel like you're asking for my needs similar to like, you know, would you tell your best friend about a great movie that you just watched? Passionistas: Sure. Amy: So why wouldn't you tell them about the subscription box? So you're going to just tell your friends as if you were telling them about a great movie. I'll leave you with a little story. This was a kind of a big lesson for me. So when I did own the gym, I had a, I would help people lose hundreds of pounds. And I had a program that was $5,000. I'd be with you for a year. I guaranteed at least a hundred pounds of weight loss. So during that, I thought, you know what? I want to really help everybody. I really just want to help everybody and not everybody can afford me. So maybe I should just run like a free, almost weight Watchers type of a class on the weekends. So on Saturday I did an, a full hour. I had about 18 as a smaller town side, about 18 people that came during that entire year that I did that. I was there every week. Not one person lost one pound. And the worst part about it was there was a guy and he passed away at age 36, at 450 pounds. I feel like if I had sold him that package, that he would probably be here today because when people put, put money in the game, they're invested, they're, they're gonna do it. They're gonna, you know, and, and just think about the women that do buy your box and that why, like how excited are they when they get this box? I mean, who doesn't love to get a box of stuff where you're just like, I don't know what's coming and I can't wait. It's like opening. Right? Like, so tap into that excitement that the women feel that buy your box. And then that makes it a little bit easier to ask for the money because you know, they're going to be excited to get it. Passionistas: What advice would you give to a young woman that wants to be an entrepreneur? Amy: Go for it. Jump in with both feet. Don't hesitate. It's like stunts. Once you go to jump off that building, if you stop yourself in the middle of it, you're going to get hurt. Once you commit, commit and do it, don't hesitate that hesitation. That's like, there's, there is a lot of dead squirrels on the road to indecision, right? So don't hesitate when we hesitate. That's when we know, are we going to make the right decisions all the time? Probably not. That's okay. Stop beating yourself up about it. Take a little risk. It's okay. Get out there and do it. Passionistas: Thanks for listening to The Passionistas Project Podcast and our interview with Amy Honey. To learn more about Amy, visit her website, amyjohoney.com. Please visit ThePassionistasProject.com to learn more about our podcast and subscription box filled with products made by women owned businesses and female artisans — to inspire you to follow your passions. Sign up for our mailing list, to get 10% off your first purchase. And be sure to subscribe The Passionistas Project Podcast, so you don't miss any of our upcoming inspiring guests. Until next time stay well and stay passionate.

Jess Weiss is the Publisher and Co-founder of Trix, where she looks after the magazine's commercial, editorial and brand viability, strategic partnerships and overall business strategy. A full-time strategist for Google's Executive Leadership Development team, she leverages her organizational psychology background to steep Trix's editorial angle in research about media gender bias, stereotype threat and the positive impact of visible role models on young girls and women. Learn more about Jess. Learn more about The Passionistas Project.   Full Transcript:   Passionistas: Hi, and welcome to The Passionistsa Project Podcast, where we talk with women who are following their passions to inspire you to do the same. We're Amy and Nancy Harrington. And today we're talking with Jess Weiss, the publisher and co-founder of Trix, where she looks after the magazine's, commercial, editorial, and brand viability, strategic partnerships, and overall business strategy, a full-time strategist for Google's executive leadership development team. She leverages her organizational psychology background to steep Trix,' editorial angle in research about media, gender bias, stereotype threat and the positive impact of visible role models on young girls and women. So please welcome to the show, Jess Weiss. Jess: Hi, thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure to be here. Passionistas: Well, thanks for being here. What's the one thing you're most passionate about? Jess: I would say in this day and age, it's really about giving women a platform to have a voice. And, you know, I think it's a really interesting time to be a woman today. We've seen these remarkable movements over the past few years, such as Me Too, the Women's March and then that has had global reverberations. Uh, so I think it's a, it's a really wonderful and interesting and challenging time to think about what it means to be a woman. Um, you know, we still have tremendous gaps of all kinds across the world, pay gaps, um, investing gaps, gender gaps in hiring, you know, positions of occupancy and executive, um, leadership roles. But at the same time, I think more than ever women and girls and allies are really raising their hand to say, let's change the dialogue, let's change how we speak to think about and, um, project power into the hands of women. So I'm very passionate about doing what I can through Trix and my, my work at Google to really elevate voices of women and girls around the world in a way that's empowering and, uh, demonstrates their agency in a way that is not necessarily tied to their beauty or their looks, which I think has really been the traditional way that we've, um, portrayed women in power. Passionistas: So talk about how that relates to the work you do at Trix. Jess: So Trix, um, has been my passion project and now official side hustle, functioning, small business that I run with my two founding partners and about a hundred freelancers all across the world. But it started from an idea a couple of years ago. Um, so as many things in life start as, um, Trix started to sort of, as a happy accident, I had been thinking about getting more involved in journalism, but, you know, being really mid-career and quite advanced in my field, which is not directly tied to journalism, I didn't really know how to get in. Right. I thought, well, I can't really go back and get a master's degree and started as an intern in the mailroom of CNN. That doesn't sound appealing. So I wonder if there's another entry point. So I had that in the back of my mind, then one day on vacation, just right after Christmas day, a couple of years ago, I happened to be sitting by a pool on vacation with my family and my phone died. So kind of being a busy minded, new Yorker, I not very good at sitting still and doing nothing. So I kind to scramble to pick up the nearest reading material, which happened to be a couple of magazines that I probably normally wouldn't have read. Um, but because I had time to kill, I picked up the first one and it was a typical women's fashion and beauty magazine. Um, but the title on the cover really caught my eye. It said "how to have your best year yet how to kill it in 2018." And I thought, Oh, okay. Maybe fashion and beauty magazines are creating more content for ambitious hustling women. Maybe there's something in here for me. And I'll never forget when I opened up the magazine, the first article I saw on this section of how to have your best year yet was called "An ode to liquid eyeliner." And it was like 250 words, praising liquid eyeliners ability to disguise your hangovers. And so if you're running low on sleep or I'd been out all night party, that all you had to do was swipe on this magical liquid eyeliner and all would be well in the world. And I just remember laughing and thinking like, okay, well, first of all, no judgment. I wear liquid eyeliner and I've been hung over before. So that's not really like a problem per se, but the fact that it's packaged as how to have your best year yet to be just felt like an incredibly low bar, almost comical to think about. So, you know, it really, that really stood out to me. Um, but I probably would have just set that aside and not thought twice about it because I'm so used to seeing women's magazines that really focus on this kind of shallow content, only talk about fashion and beauty and portray these really unrealistic standards of beauty through their models and their advertisements. But I happen to also pick up a men's magazine, a men's lifestyle magazine, which I had never read before. And I opened the pages and was immediately blown away by the variety and depth and intelligence behind the editorial. There were articles on activism and politics and extreme travel and leaders in their fields and the models were varied, you know, and didn't have these perfectly chiseled abs. And I just thought, wow, I want a magazine like that, but for me, for women. And does that exist yet? So that became the start of what turned into six months of R&D um, talking with friends, family members, our network, and really trying to figure out like, does that kind of magazine exist for women? And what we found out was, no, it didn't, you know, there are sort of some more truly feminist magazines like Gloria Steinem's Ms. mag. And then, you know, teen Vogue and Marie Claire have started to introduce articles occasionally that are more kind of political by nature, but there was nothing really like what I had seen in the pages of that men's magazine. So that, um, became our idea to start one and make one. And here we are two years. Passionistas: How did you come up with the name Trix? Jess: It's a fun one too. Um, so a little trip through history to explain the origins of the name. Um, you know, my co-founder Carly, our editor and chief and I were for months batting around different names for the magazine. We had all kinds of names, but we really wanted to make it not feel so on the nose about empowering women. Like we didn't want to use words like fearless, boss babes or, um, you know, moxie or something that kind of was labeling the fact that women had power. We really want to take like a show, don't tell approach to demonstrating women with agency and power in our pages. And I can talk a little bit more about the psychology behind that and why that's very intentional. Um, but we were sort of doing research and I was Googling things like, you know, words that are aren't frequently used that refer to strong women. And I stumbled upon a listicle of like 10 different words. And one that stood out was editrix. I thought I've never heard that before. And when I looked up the definition, uh, said that editrix was a female editor, and this took me then down a Wikipedia rabbit hole to figure out like, why have I never heard this before? And it turns out that any word in the English language that ends in T O R, which there are quite a few of like reporter litigator, administrator, doctor creator, editor aviator, those are all technically the masculine forms of the word. So, you know, if you speak Spanish or French or some of the romance languages, you you'll notice there's a feminine and a masculine, like an elle and a la version of the word and in the English language, we've actually simplified that, um, to exclude the Trix, which would be the feminine version of those words. So technically it's correct to say aviatrix or reportrix or doctrix. Um, and that refers to the female version. So we thought, huh, let's just call the name. And the magazine was called magazine Trix, which really is a nod to agency and action, you know, all of those words have some sort of doing or verb or action attached to it. Um, and yet there are so many different possibilities for what, uh, Trix can follow, um, in that word. So that's sort of the origin and we're certainly not trying to bring back, you know, people using words like aviatrix or reportrix, but it was a fun plan word and a fun sort of nod, um, to, you know, to language and history and how we think about, and talk about. Passionistas: Talk about the path that you and your partners took to actually get the magazine off the ground. Jess: When we thought of the idea, it actually started as a conversation on a Facebook group. So I was part of this private Facebook group of like 400 mutual female friends. And I had posted about my experience of the liquid eyeliner article and the men's magazine, and had posed a question to that group of, you know, does a women's magazine, like what I'm describing exist yet. And a bunch of people chimed in and said, you know, Oh, like the Atlantic or NatG"eo have some elements of that, but no one could point to a specific women's magazine that had the content we were envisioning. And my now co-founder at the time chimed in onto that thread and said, "let's start one side hustle?" But she always tells the story. Like she was very much kidding. She was a joke. I kind of took that and ran with it. And what's funny about that currently in our history is we happen to share an ex-boyfriend. Um, so we knew each other sort of as the other woman for many years. And, um, now we sort of have a laugh about that because our now, you know, ex um, is a subscriber to Trix and he loves the fact that we started a magazine together. It's a very positive experience overall, but it was sort of a funny, um, you know, again, kind of repeat accident of her chiming in and sort of jokingly saying, let's create this magazine. And then a bunch of our other friends chiming in and saying, I think you should actually explore this. This is a really good idea. So once we have the momentum there, Carly and I started meeting regularly, um, she also happens to work at Google. So it was easy for us to meet up over lunch and have a bite and shoot around some ideas. And what we decided to do to really test the concept was to do two things. We, one held a series of focus groups all over the world, including a few in London where we would get together kind of 10 to 15 women. Um, strangers usually that we would just sort of promote this over Facebook groups or Eventbrite, and we've got them together and we would pitch our liquid eyeliner story and our concept and said, you know, if you, if we were to create the perfect magazine for you, that felt relevant and interesting and engaging, and really spoke to you like you were intelligent, which you are, um, what kind of content would be in there. And that was really fun. Cause it got women really engaged in thinking about the possibility for content that would really resonate with them and speak to their more purpose-driven lines. And actually a few of our articles that we ended up publishing our first issue came from those focus groups. So that was kind of a fun way to really understand, you know, our readers before we had a product. And then the second thing we did is we wanted to understand the competitive landscape. So we actually hired a consultant to do some competitive analysis for us. And what we found was just jaw dropping. Now he found that 95% of women's magazines on the market in the English language are fashion and beauty focused. And I was just shocked by that number. You know, I sort of had a hunch, but seeing the reality, um, contrast it, you know, the fact that there were so few magazines targeted towards the many different things that women are interested in outside of fashion and beauty contrast it with the excitement and the appetite we were seeing in these R&D focus groups, um, to, to us that felt like it was really clear that there was a need for this. There was space for this in the market. And all of that really pointed us towards the realization that this was a need. And then the next part became figuring out, okay, well, how do you actually make a magazine? And neither of us had experienced doing that. So that's sort of a whole other chapter of the story as to how we sort of went about figuring out how do you find the writers? How do you create the layout? How do you get people on board, um, you know, to subscribe before you actually have a product? So that part of the journey took a little over a year, but once we had decided we had enough data and decided, yes, there's appetite for this, yes, there's a need in their space in the market. It was just a matter of finding the resources and finding space in our schedule, you know, to, to carve out for this on top of our full-time jobs. So the whole process, you know, from conception to launch, our first issue took about a year and a half. Um, and then of course when the pandemic hit, we completely changed our business model. So I see this year as of last March as being kind of the third chapter in Trix's journey, Passionistas: Tell us how has the coronavirus shutdown affected your business and how have you pivoted during this time? Jess: You know, it's been challenging. I think that we're seeing all over the world, some businesses not being able to adapt because their model, you know, like co-working spaces, you see organizations like the Wing or Albright, you know, these women focused co-working spaces and their model is so dependent on in-person gatherings. It's been really challenging for them to, to pivot with all of that overhead, um, for us, you know, because we are the perfect case example of a gig economy, you know, we, we don't have full-time staff. We actually just hire out, um, individual gigs to freelancers. And because we don't have a brick and mortar space, everything is done virtually anyway, we didn't have that high overhead sort of tr tying us down. And so what we really started thinking about when the pandemic hit is, okay, what are our readers going to need in this particular moment in time? And after serving, you know, a few folks and kind of batting around a few ideas, we really landed on the fact that, you know, most readers would be looking for information that was either relevant to their lives in the coronavirus, um, and or distracting, but not too expensive. You know, we, when we first launched, we had a really premium print product. Our magazine was beautiful, thick coffee table style magazine, that was like $15. And we thought, Hm, with all the economic uncertainty, some people losing their jobs, you know, really trying to strip back, spending people probably aren't going to be eager to spend $15 on an individual magazine. So how do we actually make a pivot to make Trix content more accessible to a wider audience and also affordable? So what that meant for us is actually, um, going completely digital. So we no longer have a print product at least for now, but what that's enabled us to do is to produce content on a more frequent basis. So rather than these quarterly issues, which we were at publishing prior to the pandemic, we're now releasing new articles every single week. And we're tapping into an international network of freelance journalists, people who write for, you know, the times in London or, um, report on the region of West Africa for the New York times or report on border issues in South America for the BBC. Now all of these journalists all over the world, um, now we can access and say, Hey, tell us what's going on in your part of the world. We can put that up on our website and actually move to an annual subscription plan. That's a lot more affordable than the individual magazine. So I think in a way, you know, I hate to say, I hate to say that there's any sort of blessing from such a terrible global pandemic, but I do think in a way it was sort of the best thing that could have happened for our business in terms of what we're able to now produce in the readers that we're able to reach that happened very quickly, that happened over the course of maybe a month or two. Um, but I'm very, you know, grateful to my team for being willing to say, okay, this isn't what we had in mind when we started, but this is what the time is calling for, and this is what our readers need. So let's just make sure that we're meeting those needs in this moment and we'll continue to watch the market and see how things change, you know, if, and when that can come out. The other side of this thing. Passionistas: That's great. I do think there are going to be blessings like that on so many levels for people and the people who can adapt and change are the ones that are gonna survive and thrive at the end of this. You know, so it's, it's really great that you were able to do that. Jess: I agree. You know, one thing just to build off of what you were saying there, we actually ran an interesting article on, uh, the common factor that surprised us when we did research into what businesses were actually thriving and able to adapt. Like, is there anything that they have in common? And what we found is really interesting, you know, most women owned businesses or small businesses are actually very, very few that have, you know, over 500 employees, um, which is a gap in and of itself. But so we really looked at surveying women, um, women, small business owners. And we found that the ones that are really thriving right now are meeting basic needs. So they're, you know, meeting people who are in a state of survival and they're doing things like, you know, whether it's food related or meditation, focus for health and wellness or connecting people in some way to online communities, those are the ones that, um, people really need products and services from. So to the extent that's helpful for any of our listeners out there, if you're thinking about pivoting your own endeavors, you don't really think about the fact that society is in survival mode right now. And how can you meet their most basic needs in this moment? Passionistas: We're Amy and Nancy Harrington, and you're listening to the Passionistas Project Podcast and our interview with Jess Weiss. To learn more about Trix magazine, visit Trix-Magazine.com. Now here's more of our interview with Jess. You mentioned the global network of journalists that you're working with. How do you find the journalists that write for Trix? And do you take contributions or pitches from women outside of that network that you have? Jess: Yeah, we do. So we in fact started finding all of our writers by posting to different Facebook groups that are designed for freelance around the world. So there are a couple, um, Binders Full of Writers is one that has kind of a fun name and, uh, the other is Study Hall. So these are listservs and Facebook groups that anyone around the world can join and are known to be sort of the go-to for sourcing freelance writers. And then in some cases, you know, we had our eye on particular writers that had a voice that felt very aligned with Trix, you know, not just writing about women's issues, but also very solutions oriented and can write in a very sort of elevated substantive intellectual way. So in some cases we proactively reached out to writers and photographers whose work we admired. And in other cases, we would just post to these listservs and Facebook groups with an open call for submissions. And so, uh, that has enabled us to basically fill out our editorial calendar, but we continue to accept pitches on a rolling basis. And, you know, while we look to really go to seasoned journalists to help build our brand credibility, and also just to make the editorial, um, part of the process lighter on, you know, our very small team, we tend to go first for those more established journalists, but because we so much believe in elevating women and lifting women up in mentoring, aspiring and emerging writers, we reserve about 25% of our stories for non-professional writers. You know, people who just do it for a hobby for guest author op ads, or for really the newer ones who are just trying to get their feet wet. And our editorial staff has a real passion for actually mentoring aspiring and new writers. So we do try to keep a little bit of room for those folks and coming, um, later this year, we'll be introducing storytelling workshops. So we actually can provide educational training for the newer journalists on the field while also producing that more kind of credible long form feature and investigative journalism. Passionistas: So now is that mentoring in addition to the coaching and consulting kind of stuff you already do now? Tell us about those services. Jess: We have not yet come out with our workshops. I'm, we're kind of right in the middle of a planning mode to expand our business model. And, um, since we've had to make this pivot, you know, away from in-person events, which we really heavily relied on, um, for, for income and also just to build community and have moved away from this print product, we have to think about diversifying our revenue streams. So the plans that we have for that involve what we call the three Cs. So content, which is the magazine, um, coaching and community. So our coaching and consulting services will be expanding to go beyond just one-on-one coaching with one of the founders of what, which is what we currently offer and is quite a popular, um, product that our readers really enjoy. Um, but what we're going to be doing is announcing plans to expand our network of coaches. So folks can tap into people other than just the founding team and then also offer consulting services. So we would like to work with brands more in a B2B model who have an interest in speaking to their female customers and maybe a more elevated, empowering way. And so we're really eager to really help brands and other businesses, um, rethink, you know, how they approach their female customers and then the community aspect. Um, we are really moving towards sort of the court's model of building in member benefits. So anyone who subscribes to the magazine will also have access to online workshops for personal and professional development, um, group coaching. So, you know, coming together with maybe a group of 10 other women, if they can't quite afford the higher premium individual one-on-one coaching and then also access to speakers. So we've had some really great fireside chats with people like Sally Krawcheck, who is the CEO of Ellevest, the first woman focused investing firm. We've also done great panels with senior editors from the New York times and vice and helping to post teaching women who have expertise in their field, how to turn that expertise into an op ed and actually get published. And I was so thrilled to learn that after our last workshop on that topic last year, um, three of those attendees actually had their op-eds published, uh, one in Newsweek, one in ProjectSsyndicate and one in Politico. So it's really exciting for us to see that this kind of training is working and helping writers and women to have their voice heard. So that will all be coming, um, probably this July, but we'll offer us a way to just reach different readers and really elevate women in a more direct skill building and development kind of way. Passionistas: While you've been doing this, you have also been working full time at Google. Tell us about your work there and tell us about how you do both of these things at once. Jess: So my background at Google is in organizational psychology. So I am trained in social organization, psycho organizational psychology, which is essentially the study of how groups interact. So group dynamics, group behavior, and my team at Google really looks after development for our leaders and managers, and thinks about how to apply best practices and organizational development to support them and being good stewards of culture in, um, really bringing out the highest potential in their reports in, um, getting into sustainable high-performance. So they're not burning out. And so I'm really interested in things like unconscious biases and stereotypes and how, you know, you can write an unbiased per for view, especially for minorities, um, women, women of color, marginalized groups, uh, that can be particularly impacted by these very invisible stereotypes that we tend to place on others. So a lot of my work is really focused on, you know, bringing down those invisible barriers that might be holding some back. And that links very nicely, I think, to our editorial for Trix. Now, in terms of, um, balancing both, you know, I feel very lucky that our work is so distributed, know we have a small but mighty army of so many freelancers who contribute both to our editorial and also to the operations. So we have, um, uh, you know, business associates, digital marketing folks, partnerships leads, um, and then a whole slew of advisors who really help us to, uh, share the burden. So it doesn't all fall on one person. So that makes it a lot more manageable. And so the other thing, which I'm sure you can relate to is when you're really passionate about something, it doesn't feel like work. You know, I can happily spend my entire weekend and evening hours after I get done with my day job, you know, really diving into, you know, editing an article for Trix or, you know, sourcing new content because it's, it's just so rewarding. And so I think, you know, when, when you find something, it sounds very cliche, but I think it's true when you find something that you really love, you know, it doesn't feel like you're working, it just feels like what you naturally want to do. And the, the space that you naturally want to inhabit. Passionistas: Is there something that you've learned while at Google that's helped you in building Trix? Jess: The thing that's applied to tricks most, I think is how I've been managed by incredible leaders at Google, you know, I've had the privilege of working with some incredibly strong, intelligent, talented, mostly female managers who have really, you know, brought out the best in me, brought out the best kind of work in me, um, really set the bar high, but do so in a supportive way. So, um, the growth trajectory that I've been lucky enough to have in my career is really supported by really great leadership and a certain kind of way of speaking to and treating women. And I think we really try to leverage that in terms of how we speak to our readers. Um, you know, I'll give an example. So I actually hate the word girl power, and that might be a controversial statement. And I, and I actually don't like to use the word empowerment very often. And the reason for that is because of this thing called Stereotype Threat. So the summary of that concept is, you know, there are certain stereotypes that are connected to aspects of our identity, and they're not obviously necessarily true in many of them are harmful, but they tend to impact the way that we behave and think. So, for example, psychologists studied this, for example, a stereotype that exists is Asians are good at math, or African-Americans are good at sports or women are bad at math. And there are many different versions of those stereotypes that relate to talents and abilities. And what researchers have found is that when you remind someone of their identity and then ask them to perform a task that has a stereotype related to that identity, they perform better or worse than those who aren't reminded of their identity. So, you know, if a woman takes a math test and is asked to mark her demographic before the math test and then is told, this is a test about your abilities, math, what happens is she thinks of herself as a woman is subconsciously reminded of that stereotype that women are bad at math. And that increases her performance anxiety, which causes her to do worse on the test than if she didn't think about the fact she was a woman at all before taking the test. And, um, research has shown that in those cases, those control groups, the women perform just as good if not better. So all of that is a learning for me in not speaking to women, always in terms of them getting empowered, because it implies that they don't have power. And that they're always in the process of trying to find it. And while I think it's true that there are plenty of inequalities that we need to pay attention to and plenty of, you know, rights and progress towards women's rights that still need attention. I think we also have to start to speak to women. Like they already have power and to not constantly be reminding them that they can be fearless or they can have power that they can get empowered, but rather to assume that they have it. And I know that that's really worked for me in terms of how my managers and leaders have treated me as, as a woman, you know, at Google. And that's what we really try to convey in the pages of our articles. Passionistas: Is there a word that you prefer to empowered or just no word at all? Jess: We actually take a show, don't tell approach. So whenever we talk about or tell stories of these incredible women, you know, thought leaders or leaders in their fields, I'll give you an example. We have an article on this ultra-marathoner, um, Pamela Reed, who's in her fifties or sixties now, and has won several 135-mile ultra-marathoners, sometimes outpacing and beating male competition. It's just this incredible story. But, you know, I think a traditional media outlet would take an article and a person like that and talk about how fearless she was and how, you know, what a bad ass she is. And to me that is almost, it almost works backwards because it's, it's put it's, it's like naming the thing. And just by comparison, like if you ever picked up a magazine about an ultra-marathon or man, or, you know, a really great businessman, you don't see words like fearless boss, bro. Yet we see things like fearless boss, babe boss babe, or girl boss, you know, all the time. And so I hope that makes sense, but for us, it's really important to just demonstrate how these women are remarkable and tell their whole story, including the challenges they faced, how they overcame adversity, how they overcame obstacles, um, rather than telling the readers that they're fearless or brave. Um, so it's, it's very subtle, but we think it makes a difference in terms of elevating the tone, um, and how we speak about, and to our female readers. Passionistas: Is there a particular trait that you think has helped you succeed? Jess: I always attribute, um, my career success to first of all, incredible opportunity and privilege. You know, I think it's important to name, um, those things, but I also really tried to adopt a growth mindset in everything I do. So Carol Dweck, who became very famous for this concept of growth mindset and this, this idea that most successful people don't think of themselves as ever really being done. You know, you never really sort of win or are best at something. Um, it's instead of mentality, that you can constantly improve and constantly grow and constantly learn. And that failure is actually a natural output of those things. So I really try to think about an approach, you know, a situation like with Trix. I had never made a magazine before I had no journalism background, but I didn't let that sort of get to be, even though like tons of well-meaning media veterans that I would have coffees with at those early days would really sort of subtly tried to dissuade me, you know, like, how are you going to get a journalism is dying. Print journalism is dying. You know, how are you going to make a magazine? You've never done this before. And, you know, we said, okay, those things might be true, but we know that we're resilient. We know that we love to learn. We know that we're passionate about this and we think we can figure out how to do it and learn as we go. So I think it's that, um, not being afraid to fail. That's really allowed for us to learn as we go and then grow and pivot where we need to and not sort of being held back by this idea that we don't have experience or that we'll fail. You know, I see failure as, as a sign that we're onto something and that we're, we're learning as we go. Passionistas: What's your definition of success? Jess: I love this question because our magazine tagline for Trix is a magazine for women who define success on their terms. And we came up with that as a way to, again, nod to women, you know, for me have been so held back by standards of, you know, what others think they need to be to be successful. You know, whether that's being beautiful or thin or a mother or a, you know, a homemaker or someone's girlfriend, you know, there's, there's so many expectations placed on women, you know, really around the world. And for me, the most liberating thing I think we can do for ourselves is to define success on our own terms and to, you know, it doesn't mean becoming like a social reckless, but essentially saying like society and external validation. Isn't what I need to feel successful. You know, success for me is based off of my values and what I care about and where I want to place my energy and time. So my definition of success is of course more personal than that, but I thought I'd just nod to the fact that, you know, we really think that women should be defining success on their own terms, you know, whatever that looks like for them. Passionistas: Thanks for listening to the Passionistas Project Podcast. In our interview with Jess Weiss to learn more about Trix magazine, visit Trix-Magazine.com. Please visit ThePassionistasProject.com to learn more about our podcast and subscription box filled with products made by women owned businesses and female artisans to inspire you to follow your passions, sign up for our mailing list, to get 10% off your first purchase and be sure to subscribe to the passionate Easters project podcast. So you don't miss any of our upcoming inspiring guests. Until next time stay well and stay passionate.

Julie DeLucca-Collins, the founder and CEO of Go Confidently Coaching, host of the popular Casa De-Confidence podcast and author of the new book, “Confident You.” Julie's been a successful executor for 20 plus years, and recently completed her tenure as Chief Innovation Officer for an academic solutions company based in New York city. Her goal is to help others re-imagine their life. She has extensive experience in business development, strategic planning, staff development, leadership skills, life coaching and a vast history of assisting people in finding success. Her individualized positive approach helps her clients identify and attain their goals. Learn more about Julie. Learn more about The Passionistas Project. Full Transcript: Passionistas: Hi, and welcome to The Passionistas Project Podcast, where we talk with women who are following their passions to inspire you to do the same. We're Amy and Nancy Harrington. And today we're talking with Julie DeLucca-Collins, the founder and CEO of Go Confidently Coaching, host of the popular Casa De-Confidence podcast and author of the new book, “Confident You.” Julie's been a successful executor for 20 plus years, and recently completed her tenure as Chief Innovation Officer for an academic solutions company based in New York city. Her goal is to help others. re-imagine their life. She has extensive experience in business development, strategic planning, staff development, leadership skills, life coaching and a vast history of assisting people in finding success. Her individualized positive approach helps her clients identify and attain their goals. So please welcome to the show, Julie DeLucca-Collins. Thanks. Julie DeLucca-Collins: Thank you ladies. It's so exciting to be joining you again for some amazing conversation. Passionistas: We're so happy to have you here. What's the one thing you're most passionate about? Julie: My most passionate, uh, thing that I can talk about is just becoming a better version of myself because there are so many directions that life can pull us. And I have found that when I am just stagnant and not growing and, and in my growth takes place through a lot of different things, right? But it takes place through anything that I read or my, my trainings, or, but for me, I'm passionate about being the best version of me, because then I can show up better for the people that I love and I can show up better as a wife, as an auntie or as a community leader. And that's, that makes me super passionate. And again, things that make me better also include traveling, which we're not doing. I'm a, I'm an avid traveler. And I miss that a lot and I can't wait because I think what I have gained from being in other places, learning other cultures and meeting people from around the world has definitely changed me. And I'm passionate about that overall. Passionistas: How does that translate into what you do for a living? Julie: It was a, a small transition really, because everything that I am doing now is everything that I've done in my career before, while working for an educational company, I really had to figure out one how to strategize for the organization and grow the organization. And number two, I had to really be able to also learn some things that maybe were a little bit out of my comfort zone. And the organization grew from a small mom and pop to a large organization, a multi-million dollar organization. We expanded to provide services, but I wanted to make sure that everything that we were creating was something that was going to be meaningful to wherever our partners were in education, whether it'd be a school district or a parent or teachers, and in the same way in how that translates right now to what I'm doing is I know that I need to continue to learn right. And strategize, like, how do I, how can I help these women in this group that I'm helping. Through self-love right. Or a lot of women that I'm working with as well are dealing with overwhelm because let's face it. It's a little bit of a, what everyone has been experiencing right now. So it translates in the sense that I have been learning so much more about for myself and growing myself. How, how can I be more peaceful? How can I grow my mindfulness practice? And then translate that into giving those things to the people that I partner or, or work with in my practice. And again, strategizing helping them strategize. I'm really good about you. Tell me what you want to do or what your goals are, or maybe you're not sure how to figure it out. My mind works in such a way like, “Ooh, have you ever thought of?” and then I start to, you know, maybe you could partner with this or this may be an opportunity. This is really a great gift for you. And this is a way to go. And my mind just starts to put pieces together that then I help people work through in the same way that I did in business. Right? “Oh, Pat, how about we offer this service and be able to support principals and maybe training their teachers and yoga or mindfulness or whatever it might be.” Passionistas: Why did you choose a career in education? Julie: For me, it was something that was just a neat. My grandparents who were a big influence in my life were both educators. My grandmother in particular, she was born in 1905 at the turn of the century and she was in El Salvador, but she came from a very affluent home. Her father was a well, very well-regarded engineer. He was very well known in the country and traveled extensively. He came from Spain. He studied in San Francisco as a matter of fact, and created this life from my grandmother of comfort. And as most women in that age, she was encouraged to just follow her passions. She was, she loved to play the piano, but she also wanted to become an educator. She wanted to be a teacher. It was something that she felt passionate about. So my grandfather continued to encourage her to go to school because he wanted to keep her busy and not necessarily go out into the workforce. Cause that was really unseen for someone, um, of my grandmother's background. Eventually my grandmother said, okay, I'm done. I really want to teach. So he built a school for her. So growing up in El Salvador until I was about 10, although we traveled to New York to see my dad's family, I really had this amazing influence in my life in which I saw her as a teacher. I saw her as a community leader or principal. So for me, I started teaching my sisters and my cousins in a very early age. I also, we used to play kingdom with my cousins and my sisters and I was not the queen. I was the prime minister because my grandmother would always say to me that, you know, the prime minister is the one that has the power. So I learned from that early age that I wanted to definitely teach. And it, it comes very naturally to me. However, I also liked the leadership component and that's something I was always told that you better be a leader, not a follower, my grandfather, and the same way he came from a very different background. He was an educator, but he really came from a very poor environment. He was a child out of wedlock and had to fight for everything. His brother wanted him to be a Shoemaker and sent him to the capital city from their small village to learn the trade of being a Shoemaker. But my grandfather wanted more. So everything that he earned in the Shoemaker and shop, he actually saved. So he could put himself through school. And that's what my grandparents met when they were both teachers. And in a, again, I, he went on to teach at night at the university and, and, and at night school, but he also went into business and was an executive in a large company. So I had those two examples. So growing up, I definitely had no choice. I started my career as a teacher, as a preschool teacher. I later on worked with middle school and I loved it, but I also had this sense that there was more in me and there was more so I sort of floated through life in my late twenties. And when I was living in New York, I was hired by a company that sort of took both of my skills in education. And also because I put myself through school, working in retail, my retail business background. And from there, this company does a really great job at just growing people from within training them, building them. And I grew through the company for the next, almost 10 years to the executive level and learned a lot from them. Passionistas: And what was that company? Julie: Huntington Learning Center. So it's, it's a, it's a national tutoring company and the tutoring company itself. It's, I mean, I, I, I do, you know, worked for them and I have great passion for them because I know how well they do what they do. Actually. I just had in Huntington, who is the daughter or the founders on my podcast, it's amazing to see her because when I first met her, she was in elementary school getting ready to go into, into junior high and or middle school rather. And now she is the president of the company cause she's taken over the legacy of her parents. And she's so passionate as well as, as far as education and everything that she does. And it has been a phenomenal journey and reconnecting with her and being able to work together because she, she is a supporter of arts and programs and a philanthropist. So it's amazing to see that, but that company really helped me come into my own in, in meld both of the sides of me, the education part, but also the, the entrepreneur or that business like, and I, and throughout the company, I had the opportunity to really, they were exploring, entering into contracts with school districts. So I helped to develop this brand new line of business for them. And I went from being just the coordinator of the program to grow into the manager, to then, uh, training the national franchisees, to developing a whole strategy for expanding this business side, to partnering with school districts. By the time I left the company, I actually had helped to create over 157 school district contracts, which they didn't have before and get us approved in over 40 States to be a provider of services and partner with them. So it was a great experience and I loved it. And, but I also wanted to move into a different direction as far as not traveling as much. And I wanted to also the woman who the company that I went to was very similar, but she was based in New York. And she was a woman who was passionate about also teaching, but also didn't have the experience and expanding in the business side. So it was a great marriage for me to be able to come in and help her expand her business. Passionistas: And what business was that? Julie: The name of the company is Brienza's Academic Advantage and Mrs. Brienza or Lillian as, uh, every money knew her was a former educator. And she was just an incredible mentors. Another mom, if you, if you would. And, uh, she, she did such an amazing job at just by sheer force and passion starting this, this business out of nothing. And she grew it to also be a multi-million dollar company, but she wanted to really be able to bring other people in. And I had met Lillian doing some advocating in Capitol Hill. As a matter of fact, we had both representing our individual companies. We're talking to lawmakers on education issues and things that mattered when it came to funding and how they should hopefully send some fund to help underprivileged kids. So that's how I met Lillian. And I was with Lillian. I was with her company for over 12 years. The difficulty is Lillian passed away three years ago. So, you know, the, the vision and, and obviously changes in the company came about. And really we scaled a little bit back. And at this point with COVID things really took a, a challenging turn. And for us, it was a mutual path that I started to had been doing some of the stuff that I'm doing now, working with women, leadership programs, coaching and mentoring. And it was a good time for me to, you know, unfortunately they had to let me go. And it was something that I, I, it was a difficult partying, but a mutual, you know, beneficial in the sense that they needed to grow and continue. And obviously it's hard to keep everybody on staff on your programs have been scaled so rapidly. Passionistas: So the good news is that you struck out on your own. It's not always an easy transition. We've there before too. But sometimes it feels like the universe is telling you that you're supposed to be doing something else, whether you think you're ready for it or not. Julie: Oh, Amy. I totally agree. I think that in the last year, and as I was going through my social, emotional learning facilitator training in the yoga teacher certification, which I did in order to, to create programs, to support the schools and districts that we worked with, I really found that I was so passionate about, wow, I really loved working with these women. I really love in this mentoring program. Wow. I'm working with this private client. And I thought, you know what, someday, maybe this is something I can transition to it some day. Maybe this is something that I could do, but of course the fear of, Ooh, how would I do this? And you know, what would that look like? Now? Obviously, if I were coach and myself, I would have been able to lay out a plan and say, this is how you do it. This is how you go about, it's no big deal. You can do it. It does, you know, and it wasn't until I was faced with a choice of, okay, I have to do something. And I thought, well, no time like the present. So here we are. Passionistas: Since you do, do this for a living, you do, do this for other people. And I don't think this is unique to you. Why do you think it's so hard to be that cheerleader for yourself when you can do it for so easily for other people? Julie: Because I think that when we are dealing with other people, it is easier to be able to say, okay, take the leap. It's no big deal, but when you're doing it for yourself, you're also dealing with that imposter syndrome. And you have to really be able to overcome that negative voice that says, Oh, who are you to do that? And who are you to go out and, and, uh, speak at a, at a conference. And who are you to think that you can get this up and running? And there's a lot of evidence that we create for ourselves. And sometimes we need to just be able to look back when you're self-coaching yourself, you have to find that evidence and look at it when you're coaching somebody else, you can show them that evidence, and you can talk about it where it really takes a lot of introspection to be able to find that for yourself. Passionistas: For the people who don't know, describe what a life coach is. Julie: I think that Amy kind of hit it on the head. I'm sort of your cheerleader. I am the person that when you are at a place that needs clarity is able to, out of stepping out of the main picture, be able to say, this is what I'm seeing. This is where you are. And also breathe some belief into you. And an end will be that cheerleader that you need, because sometimes we are. So as women's sport in particular, we're so hard on ourselves. We're so quick to say, I can't do it. Or who am I? Or we get caught up in the minutiae of the, every day that we don't see that there is possibility. And I think that sometimes as well, we need someone to hold our hands through the process, right? Because like, for me, yes, I had to do a lot of self-coaching, but I will tell you that the process of jumping onto my own really was also possible because I have a very supportive husband who he would say, well, what would you say to a client if you're a coaching them? So he really reminded me. So he in essence became a little bit of a coach for me. And that's what happens. And that's what a coach does for you. A coach is not going to be a therapist, is not someone who's gonna, you know, revisit your past the past. When you're coming, when you're doing life, coaching defines you, it creates some habits and the coach will help identify what are the habits that don't serve you. And really for me, with cognitive behavioral techniques is really being able to use the mind and some of the mindset that it takes to be able to re shift your brain and create some of the new thought process that will help you go after what you're looking to do and could be accountability. A life coach also provides us very important. Passionistas: We're Amy and Nancy Harrington, and you're listening to The Passionistas Project Podcast and our interview with Julie DeLucca-Collins. To learn more about her one-on-one coaching, the Casa De-Confidence podcast and her new book, “Confident You” visit GoConfidentlyCoaching.com. Now here's more of our interview with Julie. Are there some tips you can give people if they're feeling stuck? Julie: One of the things that I want people to see is especially like, Oh, I'm so down. I'm so depressed. You are not the feeling. And foremost a feeling does not define who you are, what defines who you are, is a lot of other things. The first and most important thing that you should do is if you're feeling sad is we sometimes try to push all of that away. Or if we are angry at someone, uh, again, that inner critic will say, Oh, you're not a good wife. If you're going to yell at your husband, right. Uh, it's not true. What happens is all of our emotions are really driven by what we're thinking. Most importantly. So for instance, if I trip over my husband's size 15 shoes, then maybe he perhaps left where he shouldn't have. And my first reaction is going to be to snap and be angry. And if he's not there, like be really annoyed, like, Oh, so sloppy. Why would he leave his shoes here? And I can't believe he did this. Right? And then all of these thoughts that I'm beginning to think of what he did, then create that feeling of anger or annoyance or whatever. Once we have a feeling and for most of us, we feel a lot of different things. And we also have over 60 to 80,000 thoughts a day, that's a human nature. And what happens is we don't realize what our thoughts are. And we more importantly begin to experience these feelings. And then two things happen. One they're the people who actually act on a feeling in that action, right? So if he comes in the door and I'm feeling really annoyed at his shoes being there and me tripping over them, the first thing I'm going to do when he comes in the door, it's going to snap at him and that's going to also, you know, generate a reaction from him, or I can choose to like, well fine, I'll put these away. And then I'll be angry. And I'll stuff, these feelings inside. And I, when he comes home, I'm that, you know, inaction is also an action. And that is also going to have a result on what we're doing. So your thoughts will generate your feelings, your feelings generate an action, and then your actions typically create a result in your life. So if I'm thinking my husband's a slob and my, my action was to snap at him and he just drops his, uh, drops his jacket on the ground. And I puffs over Mike, it's going to start to prove that, right? And I think that for us, really being able to feel and be more aware, you can't go from feeling, you know, things. And then all of a sudden switching them off, like you, you would have switch. You really have to one become really aware and really start to recognize what are the things that you're feeling and really not try to push them away, not try to change them, but really become more understanding of what is going on because we live our lives in this autopilot. We live our life. A lot of our feelings becomes a white noise of sorts that we don't pay attention to. And what we need to do is once we identify what we are feeling, and then we can start to explore, what am I thinking that is making me feel this way? What is that thought? And then we have to start to really evaluate, is that true? So for instance, with me losing my job and at first, uh, not thinking that I could go out on my own, I really had to say, wow, are you really incapable? Are you really not able to? How is that thought true or not? And proving that belief becomes something that if you start to shift what you're thinking, then you're feeling a little more confident. So for me, wait a minute. I know how to, I know how to do marketing. I know how to coach someone. I know how to working with a business person, show them how to create a business plan, help. I know I have these skills. So as I started to see that, then what started to happen is my feelings like, Oh, wait a minute. I can do this. And then the more that you feel that you can do this and your actions begin to sort of resonate and become in line with what you want your result to me, here's what I usually start my sessions with. And if you had told me 20 years ago that I would be this person, and I still don't think I am in a way, because I think I'm a little too New York times for people, but some people would call me a little woo, woo. Right. Because when I start a session with a client, the first thing is, yes. Hey, how was your week? Let's, let's talk about that. But I stop. And I say, okay, let's take a deep breath and come into this moment because we go through life, just, you know, jumping from moment to moment from meeting to meeting from, or from lunch to, okay, let me check email or here and that instant thing. Right. Whereas we need to really be able to regroup. We really need to be able to take a moment. For instance, I found myself, uh, Tuesday and I, I really did not want this to happen, but I found myself feeling a little anxious. And I started to do some of the things that I typically do when I, when I, when I'm anxious, right. I started to clean incessantly and I, then I thought, Oh, maybe I'm going to have some wine and then just kind of relax and take the edge off. Right. And then I thought, no, I, I do, I did plan to have a glass of wine tonight, but really I'm working on being a little healthier and dropping my COVID-19 pounds that I gained. And I, I, um, I decided, okay, I need to finish my water. That was my goal for today. And really like, as, as I was drinking my water, I started to feel that anxiousness. Right. And I started to feel my heart and I thought, okay, what does that anxiousness feel like? Where is it in your body? And really taking a moment to relax in the same way with a client when they start. And they come in, I want to make us aware, how are you feeling? Let's be in this moment, let's take a deep breath and kind of resetting our nervous system. And that's been something that's very important. Passionistas: What do you think is the most common obstacle that people have that prevents them from achieving their goals? Julie: I hate to break it down to this, but having worked with both male and female clients, I can tell you that the obstacles are different from male and female. For most females. One of the biggest obstacles that we have is that we tend to want to do it all. And then we give ourselves a real hard time when we don't do it all. We want to keep all these balls in the air. And as we're juggling all these balls, we also think we're terrible at it. So that, that, uh, Oh, I just know, you know, I just, I'm a terrible mother or I'm a terrible wife. And, but really did you give yourself credit for the volunteering job that you were doing or for the little distance learning that you were working on or the project that you did at work? Or did you also give yourself credit for the house that is clean? And here's what I tell my clients typically, uh, to overcome some of these obstacles as one, you really have to be able to prioritize. You really have to be able to understand one. If you're looking to accomplish something, you need to identify what that is. Number one, I think that all of us have an idea like, Oh, I want to retire rich someday. That's not specific. Right? You have to really be able to figure out what do you want, why you want it as well, because everybody wants to have money and retire and be, you know, safe. But you know, is it because you want to spend more time with your spouse or is it because you want to provide for your children, whatever it is, identify what your why, and what's pushing you because when you don't feel like doing something, understanding the reason behind your goal is gonna give you that ability and motivation to move forward. And I think that that's the first thing for women. And the other thing too, is prioritizing and realizing, okay, when you say yes to one thing, you're going to say no to something else. And really being able to evaluate if these are my goals, this is where I'm going. What are the actions daily, weekly, monthly, and maybe even yearly that are going to take me there and identifying all of that. And that's really the process with our clients now with males, uh, they don't, they don't necessarily have the same obstacles in the sense that, you know, they, they do juggle stuff. I won't give you that in, but they don't feel like, Oh, I'm a terrible person for not doing it. All right. So I go, okay, well, I gotta do this. I gotta do that. But for them, it's being more again, reverse engineering the process for them. And, and I think that with males, a lot of times they don't explore their, their why at times, or they don't create a realistic plan for themselves. And they allow themselves to get sidetracked. At least that's been my experience so far with them, with, with my clients. Passionistas: Tell us about your podcast and what inspired you to start that? Julie: I always knew I wanted a podcast. I, a podcast listener and I thought, well, what would it talk about? And then when I worked for my company, I thought, Oh, we should do a podcast on education, but I couldn't get anybody on board. So when COVID hit and we went into lockdown, I guess, March. And, um, and then I got laid off two weeks later. It really like, I, my husband really, he cause he's really the brains here. Sometimes he realized that it was going to be a little challenging for him. He has a wife who had lost her job, who is really a high level achiever, who is, you know, also an extrovert who loves to be socially involved in different things. Um, I was turning 50 in April and I had planned a big birthday party. And as the days continue to come, the likelihood of me having this 50th birthday party was looking very slim. So he decided that he was going to buy podcast equipment as a birthday gifts. So when the equipment he came, he's like, I got you this great birthday gift. And I opened it. I'm like, what is this? He's like his podcast equipment. So you can start a podcast. And then I thought, okay, what would I do a podcast about it? And then I thought, huh, wait a minute. I definitely can do a podcast. Yeah. And it just, and I know for me, when I travel, for instance, one of the things that I love is connecting with people. And I have met some amazing, especially women who are not necessarily on Instagram with millions of followers, but in their life, they have some amazing stories and they have faced fear and they have like most of us have faced fear here and there kind of push through those discomfort feelings and gone and achieved some of the things that we love or have maybe failed terribly and have learned great lessons from it. And I wanted to create and bring stories of these every day in some, you know, I have some great women that have come on board that have large platforms too, but I wanted to gave the stories of voice and Casa and the confidence, our house, my mom, DeLucca-Collins. My husband has Collins and we have always joked that our houses, Casa, the Collins. So when it came to, it came to, um, naming the podcast cast, the confidence just seemed like it was a natural transition. My coaching practice is called Go Confidently Coaching because the Henry David Thoreau quote, has been my life code forever as a quote that my dad told me early on in my life. And I have driven, I have every time that I think I needed some bravery, I go back and I use that as a mantra in my life. So Casa, the confidence was an, uh, AC transition. And again, I aim to bring these stories and I've had friends who are doing amazing things. I have also, you know, for instance, and Huntington, who we talked about, who I saw as a young girl in blossom into now the president of a multi-million dollar national company on. So it's great to have them. I just had also someone who I, uh, I was a colleague as well. She was running for school board and she has grown into someone who at first sort of questioned where she was going. And, you know, she was sort of growing into her own and now is a COO of a, of a company that works with people with disabilities and she is running for school board. She's a great mom. And then she talked about juggling her, her life. Right. And, and what it was like to deal with infertility as well. So yeah, I try to mix it up and have people of all walks of life. The podcast is Dan and I, my husband and I, we do the intro and we chat up a little bit and the Altro and people people know is, you know, they, they tend to give us a lot of feedback on how funny we are. And I said, well, we're not trying to be funny. We're just being us. So that's, that's also one of my favorite parts of the podcast is having him be my co-host. One of the biggest things that I learned about myself, and I don't know if anybody is familiar with a disc personality profile, but, uh, there there's two tendencies in the disc profilers for, but I am, uh, to most, and, and most people tend to have one, uh, very high in another one second, but mine are tie one. So the disc is dominant in, um, the eye is influential and those are my two personalities. And I, I have learned that the dominant person in me, the bossy lady in me is also the extrovert friend, fun girl in me in those two sides tend to fight a lot as to who's in charge. And that, that definitely, I am great at seeing a big picture and just, uh, saying, okay, this is the big picture. And now the, the extrovert in me is like, Ooh, shiny, let me move on to the next thing. So what I've learned is that the other two personalities, which are the supportive and, and, and the, really the, the other part is the C, which is really just compliant, but also very detail oriented. I realized that we may have parts of our personalities are prone to certain things, but we also take need to take a look at our less dominant parts and work on those because all of these parts work together to make us a better person. So that's one of the biggest things that I've learned. And, you know, it's interesting because I, I tend to have my clients take disc, but in our initial conversation, I'm pretty good about figuring out where their personality lies. And we really use some of the tendencies. You know, for instance, I have a client who is very shy, but she's also a very, um, a very, a people person too. So she has to fight her tendencies to be friendly, but also push past the fear of, you know, out of her comfort zone to talk about her business or talk about, or stand up for herself or really create some boundaries. So it, it's interesting. Passionistas: Tell us about your new book. Julie: I wrote this book a long time ago, and it's about my grandparents. It's a story of my grandparents and I, I don't know how it had happened, but I started speaking to somebody about my love for writing. And they said, Oh, what do you, do you ever think of doing a book? And I said, well, I know someday. I always said I was going to write a book. And I said, I wrote one, but I never really, you know, it's not something that I've ever focused on. Then we got into a different conversation about me traveling to Spain and doing the Camino de Santiago. And I said, you can read my experiences. I'll send you that blog. Cause I kept the blog. So I sent him that and then he came back and he said, you're an amazing writer. You really should talk to my friend who is literary agent and so on and so forth. I'm like, what? Anyhow. So long story short, the literary agent and this person helped me put together a book proposal. And then I met someone who has a small publishing firm and is helping me put together this book. And I've been working to what I wrote originally was a story of my grandparents and a story of their life and how they have influenced me. But it's sort of evolved into something more of, especially with a podcast. I get to meet so many amazing women. And I think that there is an overarching theme, right? I may not have grown up in, in, in new England like you did, right. I may not live in California now, but there are some universal themes that we all have when it comes to confidence. When it comes to managing our fears and in the book talks about law, these lessons, and how to be able to one, you cannot have confidence if you don't have that peaceful, if you are not a peaceful person, if you are not in connection and being aware of what you're feeling and thinking in, in how you're reacting, right? And the second thing is that once you begin to have more peace, then you can become more of a purposeful person and really be able to connect to where am I going and why am I here? And how am I doing that? And once you begin to focus on what your purpose is, then you become a stronger person and you begin to, um, and I think that strength comes not only from intellect or what, you know, but also from physicality and being able to be in the best shape, whether you're feeding your body, the right foods or whether, and sometimes as women, we are so lacking in confidence when it comes to our self image and loving our bodies and loving what we see in the mirror that is very important to gain that power for ourselves, through what we are eating and how we nourish and what we, how we move our bodies as well. And once we have all of that kind of put together, then my next pillar to, to that confidence is, is something that you guys probably relate to and that's passion, right? So begin to really live in your passion and begin to really go after the things that you love, knowing that you have the strength to do it, knowing that you have direction through your purpose and that you have the ability to really center yourself. And last night lists, at least as we find the prosperity that we want for our lives, and it's not necessarily money, but is being grateful and being filled with the right things. Then, you know, at the end of the day, when you're sitting at home and you're getting ready to close your eyes at night, you just feel like my life is good. And that's what prosperity is. And knowing that you may not be living in a million dollar house, or maybe you are, but it is not the house or the material, things that make you, but it's really what's on the inside. Passionistas: What advice would you give to a woman who wants to follow her passion? Julie: Find someone who is going to be your advocate, your cheerleader, your partner, who is going to laugh with you, who is going to cry with you and who is going to also give you the tough love and, and remind you how great you are and show you in the mirror and say, listen, stop putting yourself down. And you can do this. And even if, if you can't believe in yourself, find the person that can believe in you. And one of my guests and friends, Valerie, she has a one woman show. She is in LA and she talked about believing mirrors. And I think that we need to be believing mirrors for each other. And for the woman who can believe that she can find someone that will reflect the greatness in you. Passionistas: Thanks for listening to The Passionistas Project Podcast and our interview with Julie DeLucca-Collins To learn more about her one-on-one coaching, the Casa De-Confidence podcast and her new book, “Confident You” visit GoConfidentlyCoaching.com. Now here's more of our interview with Julie. Please visit the ThePassionistasProjectPodcast.com to learn more about our podcast and subscription box filled with products made by women-owned businesses and female artisans to inspire you to follow your passion. Sign up for our mailing list, to get 10% off your first purchase. And be sure to subscribe to the passionate justice project podcast. So you don't miss any of our upcoming inspiring guests until next time stay well and stay passionate.

Some people know Madam Nselaa Ward as the former notorious attorney during Black Lives Matter who defied the system, or one of the top female Slam Poets in the world, or the professional troublemaker for the National Organization for Women. But people that have heard her speak in person know that this wasn't always her story. Before she became Nselaa Ward, Juris Doctor she was Caramel, the sex worker. When you hear her speak live she tells an addictive story of resilience and how you can be your own superhero, even when the world thinks you're a villain. People have seen her on TLCs reality TV show “She's in Charge,” CNN, CSPAN, BET and on the stage of the March for Women's Lives. Learn more about Madam Nselaa Ward. Learn more about The Passionistas Project. Full Transcript: Passionistas: Hi, and welcome to the Passionistas Project Podcast, where we talk with women who are following their passions to inspire you to do the same. We're Amy and Nancy Harrington. And today we're talking with Madam Nselaa Ward. Some people know her as the former notorious attorney during Black Lives Matter who defied the system or one of the top female slam poets in the world, or the professional troublemaker for the National Organization for Women, the largest women's organization in the world. But people that have heard her speak in person know that this wasn't always her story. Before she became Nselaa Ward Juris Doctor, she was Caramel, the sex worker. When you hear her speak live, she tells an addictive story of resilience and how you can be your own superhero even when the world thinks you're a villain. People have seen her on TLC's reality TV show "She's in Charge" and on CNN, C-SPAN, BET and the stage of the March for Women's Lives, the largest march in the history of the U S at its time. So please welcome to the show. Madam Nselaa Ward. We're so happy to have you here. Nselaa: I'm so excited to be here also. Like this is awesome. I'm glad you guys have me. Passionistas: What's the one thing you're most passionate about? Nselaa: Oh, the one thing that I'm most passionate about, um, is, you know, helping disenfranchised communities, um, get economic justice, economic justice is something that I'm, I'm really, really, really passionate about. Um, I've always believed that the revolution was financial. Um, I think that, um, race, gender, um, and class, it comes in a little bit later, but I think that the bottom line is really making sure that all communities have economic justice. Passionistas: So how do you do that? What, what kind of organizations are you involved with? Nselaa: I started out with the National Organization for Women. I've been active with the National Organization for Women for a few decades, uh, right now, um, they actually was a really, really big resource to me when I was transitioning over into my divine purpose. Um, like you guys said earlier, I, I wasn't always an attorney or a business architect. My story started off really as a, as a sex worker and in a, what I thought was a dark place at the time. But now I realized that it was a blessing in my life, uh, because it taught me so many lessons about resilience. Um, but they really helped me to transition between that life and my, you know, and the divine purpose that I was trying to walk into. So I was involved with the National Organization for Women as the national field director for women of color. So we went around organizing protests and demonstrations and educating people about women's rights and how they can make a difference, um, and impact. Uh, we actually organized the 2004 March for Women's Lives, um, which was the largest March, um, uh, Washington for its time. Um, and then since then after that, I became an attorney. Um, I did a lot of legal work, um, in criminal business and bankruptcy law. So, um, on the criminal aspect, I did a lot of work for our clients were involved in the Black Lives Matter movement and that work come through police brutality. Um, and during that time I was able to free over 300 years of black lives from the criminal industrial complex. So yay. Excited about that. Um, so I, in to, I mean, it definitely wasn't easy. There was a lot of, um, pushback that we got from, um, district attorneys, judges, attorney regulation, um, about some of the works that we were doing, the work that we were doing, I was in Colorado at the time. So there wasn't that many black attorneys and there definitely wasn't weren't that many black attorneys that were helping, um, black people. Uh, so there was definitely a lot of, a lot of pushback, a lot of contents of court, a lot of complaints, you know, disciplinary actions and things of that sort of. So, you know, we, we went through that journey, um, together. Um, during that time I also worked in business and bankruptcy law. So one of the things that I was able to really really, um, see in business and make whimsy laws, I was able to see some of the correlating factors that happen between small and mid-sized businesses before they got to the point of being the 80 to 90% that failed within three to five years. Um, and boom, being able to see those correlations, I was able to kind of figure out what the, the patents were in the defining factors, but unfortunately at the time, you know, law is really based on being reactive. It's not very proactive. And when you're in a reactive industry, you have to kind of wait until something bad happens. So I want it to be able to kind of step in early, before something bad happened and preventing them from getting to that place. So in 2015, I moved to Atlanta, Georgia and opened up my business architect firm, which actually works in that proactive stage and helping, um, businesses, entrepreneurs, small business owners to be able to have success in the business so that they don't get to that 80 to 90% of the businesses that fail. Um, and then now I'm also working with the international black business agenda. Um, so one of the main things that we work on is holding, uh, businesses in our community that have, um, historically contributed to the question of, of black people, holding them accountable, um, allowing them to make amends for the role that they've done in the past, as well as making sure that black people are getting the economic justice and, um, their share of the banking system in the United States. That is amazing, such incredible, powerful, impactful work. And we want to touch on every single one of those things that you just talked about. Let's start by going back a little bit, talking about your childhood, how you grew up and how that sort of influenced the choices you made later. Like I said, you know, I, I didn't really grow up as you know, on this pathway to being an attorney or being a business architect. In fact, um, I, you know, I, even though I knew that I wanted to be attorney ever since I was eight years old, I'm in bed. I wanted to be an attorney. I was in a third grade play. And, um, my teacher at the time, you know, they had different roles. And the role that I chosen was times that I wanted to be an attorney, but I didn't even know what an attorney was. And the time could tell that my teacher was trying to encourage me to do other things you outright say, you know, you can't be an attorney, but she was like, Oh, well, you can be the paralegal. You can be the secretary. How about me? This role over here? And you can be the mom and can be like, no, I want to be the attorney. I'm about to be the attorney. Uh, and, and, and this play right here. Right. So I wouldn't let her, you know, encourage me to do anything otherwise. And even though I didn't even know what it was at that point, because at that point, I just thought it was arguing. And I was like, I'm good at arguing. I can do that. You know? Um, but the fact that, you know, somebody didn't believe that I could do it gave me like this fire to prove to everybody that I will do it. Um, so I knew that I wanted to be an attorney ever since I was eight years old. Um, so it was always in the back of my mind. And what it did is it provided me a vision, you know, when I was going through some of the other aspects of my life. So when I was 11 years old, um, my mom actually, she got shot in a crack cocaine deal. Um, that went bad. She, um, it was around the Christmas holidays. And what I remember, you know, is that I was home with my brothers. I had, at that point, I only had two siblings. I had a brother that was about four years old at the time. And then I had a brother that was like a new born baby, just a few months old. Um, and you know, my mom was used to disappearing sometimes. Um, when, you know, when you have, if you've ever dealt with anybody in, in a crack cocaine community, you know, we, we called the missions, right. Admissions were when, you know, basically like they would disappear for a few days and just get high and they would come back like nothing happened, you know? And you'd be like, she'd been gone for like three days. You want to tell me where you man, what's going on. You know? So I was used to my mom going on these missions and disappearing. So that had been normalized. Um, but this particular time, it was around the Christmas holidays. And she had been gone for almost a couple of weeks at that time. And I remember my grandmother called me and she, um, she was like, you know, well, what did you guys get for Christmas? And I was like, we didn't get anything for Christmas. And she was like, what do you mean you didn't get anything for Christmas? Um, and I was like, we didn't get anything for Christmas. Mom didn't come home. And that was kind of a red flag to her. Cause she was like, wait a minute. Okay. She's not coming home. She always gets you something for Christmas. Something is wrong. And at the time all of my family members, I was in Charlotte, North Carolina at the time, but all my family members, um, they were in another part of the state. So my grandparents traveled up to Charlotte, um, to figure out what was going on. And they found that she was in a hospital and that's when we found out that she was shot. Um, and, uh, she ended up being paralyzed for a couple of years. She was bedridden. Um, fortunately she survived. They never told me, you know, um, that she got shot in the beginning. I just remember my cousins coming to the house. And they was like, I heard your mom got shot. I heard, you know, that she's in the hospital. And that was so scary to me. Cause I was like, what does that mean to get shot in the face? Is she dead? Like, is she like disfigured what's going on? You know? And I just remember being so afraid that she wouldn't come back, but eventually she did come back. Um, and when she did come back, she, like I said, she couldn't, she couldn't walk. She was bedridden for a couple of years. And that sent her into a depression where she fell really, really deep into her crack cocaine addiction. Um, and this kind of left me, you know, out, you know, in the world on my own. I moved with my grandmother, but she was really old at the time. And she really, um, she really couldn't control what was happening to the kids and what was happening in the neighborhood. In addition to having to take on this mom role, all of a sudden, um, and, and dealing with all my own personal self-esteem issues, self-esteem issues that come with being a black female, um, substantive issues that come with the world constantly telling you that you're not good enough, you know, and that, um, you know, that my value and my worth was less than other people in the world. Um, and one to be able to find that value, you know, I was introduced to a lot of people that were in the drug community that was like, Hey, I know how you can find value. Um, and that's kind of how I was introduced into the, the sex work industry, you know? Um, and it was a slow transition. Like initially it was just, you know, making sure that when I was with people that they show me that they weren't just using me by buying something right behind me, something, or taking me somewhere, or, you know, doing something nice that had some type of monetary value. And then when you're in this industry, you meet a lot of people that are trying to hustle you, you know, so over time, but what happened is that, you know, some, you know, when I would just trust them, okay, you have to buy this for me afterwards. You've got to take to this place. So you're going to have to get me this outfit or whatever the case may be. And then they would try to hustle you and they would, you know, sleep with you or have sex with you and then not do these things afterwards. So then I started having to learn how to require some form of payment upfront, you know, and then that transitioned to, okay, look, this is what it is. This is how much it costs. You know, I'm valuable and you're going to have to pay me to prove that I'm valuable. Um, and that kind of lasted on and off between, um, the ages of 12 and 19, you know? Um, and then eventually I was able to, um, walk into my divine purpose and I found the national organization for women and started working for, um, several other activist organizations. Passionistas: So what was that defining moment at 19 that helped you make that transition? Nselaa: Like I said, I always knew that I wanted to be an attorney, but it was certain points in my, um, in my career or in my life at that young age. Cause I wouldn't say I had a career, um, where I felt like it was, you know, there was no hope for it. I was like, man, you know, a lot of people know that, you know, I'm a sex worker, we didn't call it sex workers back then we just like holds prostitutes, you know, tricks, things of that sort. You know, I call it sex worker today just to be, you know, politically correct, you know, but um, people knew about it. You know, I had a lot of police contact at that point and I just thought that it was, I thought it was hot. I was like, there's no way I can, I can be an attorney at this point in my life. And, um, it was a series of things. One thing is that, you know, in, in the act of having a lot of, um, a lot of police contact, uh, at one point ahead, this public defender, you know, and, um, he was, he was a prop, it was a private attorney in the system at that point. Um, the state, instead of having a public defender's office, they just contracted private attorneys at reduced rates. So I was able to get quality legal care. Um, and, and, and not really having, you know, somebody that was overwhelmed and I was going through a case and he was able to get, um, me, uh, like a deferred prosecution. What people told me at the time, they was like, I was always very smart. I was able to go to the school of science and math, uh, when I was very young and at, when I was in 10th grade. And what that is is they take the top 2% out of each county and they take them to this school where they do, um, college courses. So, uh, he knew that I, you know, I was a little bit different, but he was like, you know, what, what is it that you want to do with your life? You know, why are you out here doing this? What's going on with you? You know? And I was like, well, I always wanted to be a lawyer, you know, but you know, that's just not going to happen now. You know, but that's what I wanted to do. And he's just like, sly he's, let me tell you something. He's like, I know people that have murdered people and become attorneys, you know, um, he was like, it's really about what your power is. He's like, when you go in and you want to be a lawyer and he said, you go, and you tell those law school committees that they can't tell you no. And he was like, you go in, you tell the attorney regulation board that they can't tell you. And he's like, don't let nobody tell you. No, just because you have a history, he was like, get that. That was the thing that sparked me like, Oh, is it really, is it still possible? Can I still be an attorney? Is he right? You know? Um, but then you just deal with my family members and the friends that was in my communities, we call them rock stars. Right. Um, because you know, my mom she'd get off with ever called anybody crack head or crack. She felt like that was an insult. She wouldn't let us do it. Right. So we called, um, people that were surviving, crack cocaine addiction. We call them rock stars. And they had this resilience where, you know, they wanted something to happen. They just would not take no for an answer. You know, my uncles and friends and family, they would come and ask me for like $5 every day. And I would tell them no a hundred times and I would see other people tell them, no, I, 100 times over and over and over again. And they would just come back the next day. But you never just told them no, I could just, they just kind of brushed it off their shoulder, you know? And I was like, okay, you know, if they could do it, you know, why am I so afraid of people telling me no, you know, they would just come back over and over again to finally be like, look, here's $5. Get out my face and be alone. Don't ask me again. Right. And I knew that they were affected by no, if I saw so many people that were already rejected from society. Right. And they weren't a favor afraid of failure. They were just like me. Right. Because I felt like some degree I was rejected from society because of the industry that I was in. I felt like if they weren't scared of no, then why would I be the worst thing they could do? And he goes, no, you know? So I started, you know, just, just going after life with this indifference of not being afraid of no. So going to law school, I did have to explain my history a hundred times. So a lot of different law schools, I ended up getting accepted to over 25 different undergrad schools, over 25 different law schools. When I, you know, having to explain to them like, okay, this happened, I was a sex worker. I have a criminal history. I came up in the crack cocaine community. That's okay. Cause I'm gonna be the best lawyer there is help there. And they told me no, several times they told me no so many times. And I just had to suck it up and keep going back. I know you told me no, but let me explain to you what I was offering again, because obviously you don't understand, you know? Um, so I just, I just had to get past that. No, I had to get past the fear of no. And you know, even though it gets harder, as you get older to get past that fear of no, because we have so much more to lose. There's so many more consequences as you get older. I still have to constantly remember that. You know, there's so many people that are depending on me to show the world that just because you come from this past, just because you, because you come from this background doesn't mean that nothing's possible. Something's not possible. You know, so I have to get past the no and not be afraid and you know, not stress out, you know, and just keep going, just keep pushing forward. Passionistas: So when you decided on this path to become an attorney, why did you, um, focus on the business and bankruptcy side of it? Nselaa: It was a happenstance, it was a happenstance because I knew in the beginning that I really wanted to do criminal law. That's what I always thought I wanted to do. Because first of all, that's what we see on TV. We see criminal attorneys, you know, we see all these like Johnny Cochran type individuals that are just slaying the system. But the other thing is that my family and my friends were always, um, they were always having police contact. I literally remember like the police coming into my house. I had to be maybe seven or eight years old and like wrestling with my mother. I'm not gonna say they beat her up because it wasn't like an outright beat up, but it was wrestling with my mother and they drug her out of the house and arrested her, took her to jail while I was there, had to be set. And they left me there by myself. And I always had this feeling like, man, I just, you know, if I could defend them, I would get all of my family members out and I would protect the neighborhood and I would protect the hood. I'm going to do this. Like, I always had bet that like, you know, desire to want to do that. Um, and I remember another time when my mom was going through a case, you know, later on down, because she had a lot of police contact as well. And she had the hardest time finding an attorney. And I remember like one of my school friends, um, in school, their father was an attorney. And I remember running to him court begging him, like, can you please represent my mom? You know, we can't get an attorney, you know? And, um, and he was like, I can't, you know, if she doesn't have the money, I there's nothing I can do. And I was like, I'm not going to be that person. I'm going to do this. I'm gonna do that. You know, so I knew I wanted to be a criminal attorney, but then when I got into criminal law, I realized that a lot of the reasons that they were even in these predicaments had to do with their, you know, their economic situation, you know, and dealing with the criminal aspect of it was just putting a bandaid on it because if they couldn't feed their families, if they were unnaturally secure, if they weren't financially illiterate, if they were able to take care of their businesses, then they were going to end back up there again, you know, because it made survival of the fittest. So I realized that this was just putting a bandaid on things. Um, at the time I ended up getting offered a job as a business slash you know, we did business in bankruptcy was just really kind of a corporate law firm, which I hated at the time, but it was a huge corporate law firm. And I was just kind of like this paper pusher, you know, and, you know, I was just doing all the background work, um, for the business and the bankruptcies that the cases that they had, but I was able to look at their files and then see some patterns. And I was like, okay, I want to do this on my own. Like, this is the missing, this is the missing key to these other criminal cases over here. I was like, Oh my God, I did not know that. Like, why is that just, you know, just hitting me right now. Right. So when I was able to work at that firm, you know, I was able to see those connections. And then, um, and I wanted to start my own firm because the problems that, you know, at that firm, they were charging 400, $500 an hour. And the people that I wanted to work with at the time couldn't afford to charge to pay four and $500 an hour for business or bankruptcy work. So I started my own law firm at the time, and I wanted it to be able to provide that financial security, that economic justice to the people that reminded me of home, you know, so that, that, that's how I ended up getting in it. What did think that was important to me, you know, um, is that I was able to work with people that were just like me, you know, to be able to find a different way. And one thing that I realized early on about, um, people that I grew up with is that the, you know, people that were traditionally sex workers, drug dealers, um, things of that sort, they had a very, very keen sense for business and they didn't even know it, you know, um, they, you know, the world had constantly told them, you know, that they were bad people, that they were not smart, that they were ignorant that they were criminals. So they go through life feeling like, okay, you know, I'm worthless. This is the only option that I have, but the same tools that we learned in sex work, you know, the same tools of being able to build a team, being able to build safety systems, um, being able to build systems, you know, within the business, how do you connect with customers? How do you connect with people? How do you handle supply and demand? How do you make sure that there's adequate distribution? All of these things were very similar things that we learned in the sex work industry, things that we learned, learned, you know, in, in the drug community. Um, but they were always constantly taught that, um, that they were bad and that they weren't worthy of anything. Um, so one of the things that I was able to do afterwards is to build programs. One is called, um, from Corner Blocks to Corner Offices, which primarily focuses on former sex workers and then help them to build, um, legitimate, legal businesses under the same principles that they used under sex work, you know, and make more money from it. Um, and then I have another program called from, um, Prison to President, which deals with former drug dealers, you know, that, um, and using the same principles that they had been. Um, so a lot of things is, you know, is that we've been conditioned to believe that this is all that we can do. And it's so ironic because, you know, we we're, we're seeing States right now, legalize, cocaine, heroin, things of that. So in addition to marijuana, um, you know, all of these things that we've been told was bad, and that was worthless, you know, and has limited us from being able to reach our highest potential. They're trying to make legal now. Um, but using those same principles to help people, um, to be able to really build something, an empire, a legacy that they can be proud of, but they're not gonna have to look over their shoulder, you know, about all the time and that they can use to take care of themselves and their families. So that, that was the, that was the work that I got the most joy in because it was like, I felt like I was working with my aunts and uncles and brothers and sisters, like it was like, you know, family oriented again. Um, you know, those, those, those are the ones, those are my favorite, you know, types of cases, um, in business architecture. And even when I was practicing law, they had their, their journeys with it as well. Let me tell you, you know, cause it's, uh, there's a mindset that you have to work through. Um, that's constantly, you know, at play because they've been told one thing all of their lives and you're, you're working against that. Um, so there are some challenges that come with it, but it's still, uh, still very rewarding and very exciting for me because it makes me feel like I'm building a legacy for my family. You know, one of the things, um, that I realized that I have been battling with for a very long time is, um, building family, you know, building rebuilding my family when I was younger, when I was, you know, between, you know, at the age of 11 or so, it felt like when my mom, um, was she was shot and when I had to move away, it felt like all of a sudden my family was torn apart. You know, like I had lost my family. Like I was separated from my mom. And then on top of that, you know, I was separated from my siblings at that point as well. Um, in addition to the fact that because my mom was going through her depression, she became very emotionally distant with me, you know? So, I had to learn over time that, you know, that that really affected my inner child very early on, you know, to always feeling like I had to rebuild my family some way. And I've noticed like through life, through the last few decades and different segments of my life, I've been trying to constantly rebuild my family. So that's one of my ways that I, I get my satisfaction is through, um, working through my, um, from Corner Blocks to Corner Offices and from Prison to President Passionistas: We're Amy and Nancy Harrington. And you're listening to the Passionistas Project Podcast and our interview with Madam Nselaa Ward. To learn more about Madam Ward and how she helps small business owners to thrive visit NiNavaFirm.com. That's N-I-N-A-V-A-F-I-R-M.com. Now here's more of our interview with Madam Ward. So let's shift gears a little, tell us how you got involved in the Black Lives Matter movement and what your work has involved. Nselaa: Well, you know, like I feel like I've been involved in Black Lives Matter movement of my life. In all actuality. It just became a hashtag in 2012. Um, but I, I definitely remember, like I told you earlier, I remember the police coming in and both housing, my mom, um, you know, when I was younger, when I was like, you know, seven or eight years old, um, so it's been always something that has been really, really important to me, um, to, to make sure that I stood up for, there was one particular time in the latter part of my teenage years where, um, I remember, um, my mother had this police encounter in a car where she was stopped. And I remember like growing up with my mom, like I was, you know, when I was younger, you know, when she would go on her mission, sometimes she would take me with her. Um, and, um, I would be in the backseat and she was like, okay, you have to make sure that you're looking out for the police in case anything happened because you know, they might try to hurt me if something happens. And I never believed that when I was really, really young in the beginning, I was like, why was the police shot hurt you? Right. But I would just, you know, be a lookout, you know, looking around, see police would come up behind us. But there was one time when I became a teenager that we were actually stopped by police. And, um, I remember the police dragged her out of the car and he was like, you know, crack cocaine has this very distinct smell to smell to it. And I I'm assuming that he could smell like the crack cocaine that was in the air, even though he couldn't see it, you know? Um, and he was like, he kept saying, I know you have it in the car. I know you have it in the car. And she was like, Oh, you're talking about, I don't know what you're talking about. And he ended up dragging her out the car and what happened is she, she ended up, she swallowed it so that he couldn't find it, but he ended up, he was choking her to try to get her to spit the crack cocaine up so that he could have it as evidence, you know? And, um, I would be like, that's something that re replays in my head, even as an adult, you know, when I handle, um, when I started handling my cases, you know, in law, you know, like I remember like how he treated my mother and, you know, one of the, um, the analogies that I heard is that, um, you know, this situation that's going on with the black lives matter movement and America finally waking up to everything that's happening is like, you know, telling your mother your whole life that your father was abusing you, like constantly telling your mother, Hey, you know, your father is a daddy is hurting me. You know, I don't want to be left by myself. And your mom is constantly like, daddy's not, what are you talking about? You must've did something for him to work. You, you must've did something, you know, um, for me, for him to treat you like that. Um, and you know, so it's like constantly telling your mom that your dad is hurting you and he never believed you all your life. And then all of a sudden, your mom one day comes to you and says, you know what, I'm sorry, I see what dad has been doing to you now. And, you know, I'm so sad that I didn't step in early, what can I do to fix it? So when I was dealing with a lot of my black lives matter cases, the world judges, prosecutors everywhere, constantly feeling like you were making up stuff, you know, they were constantly implying that there was something that we were lying about, you know, that we weren't telling them that created the incident that happened. But I remember I saw visions of what was happening to my mother. So even if I even, even if the stories were really way out there, like I still had this, you know, natural been like, you know what? This probably did happen because I've seen it happen before. You know? So I always, I always believed them, you know, because I felt like, you know, if we just keep pushing one day, mom was going to realize that we're totally truth. And she's going to tell daddy to stop, you know? So that, that's, that's what, what got me into it. Passionistas: What do you want people who don't understand it to know about Black Lives Matter. Nselaa: Things, you know, that I want people to, to really keep in, in their hearts, is that a lot of times, the biggest question that we see is that people are asking, does protests really work? Does protests, um, really get the results that we're looking for? And one of the things you said earlier, as part of my head, he was like, you know, I'm sorry that there's not more movement. I'm sorry that we're not completely there, but we're getting there the biggest benefit, um, to protesting and demonstrations, people feel like it has to be the most immediate thing. What we see like within the first year, you know, they're looking for some type of reactions, some type of response within that first 12 months. And I would say probably about 25% of the benefits of protesting and demonstrations and civil disobedience may happen within that first 12 months or so, like, for example, you know, previously prior to these, this Black Lives Matter, but even prior to 2020, um, the majority of America didn't feel like police brutality. When I say majority, at least 51%, didn't feel like party's police brutality was issue. Now 76% of America believes that police brutality is an issue. They believe that, um, people that racism is a problem. Um, the majority of America didn't, you know, didn't have a problem with all the Confederate statutes that were around. It was like, Oh, that's history. That's just showing that we're from where we come from right now, over 51% and saying that, you know what, these Confederate statues need to be removed. Right. Um, so you know, that that's the immediate benefit that we see that first, you know, that first, that what happens in that first 12 months, but the largest benefit that we get about protests and demonstrations is that it slowly changes the mindset of people over time, right? So we might not the results of it happening immediately within that first 12 months. But we see it in generations to come. What it does is that it challenges the infrastructure of power when we protest, right? When people see that there are people in the masses that are saying that something is wrong. The thing that it does is it all of a sudden tells the public, okay, this power that we have been recognizing for so long is losing legitimacy, because power is based on legitimate. People have to believe the power is legitimate in order to follow the laws and the rules. But when you see that the majority of the people, all of a sudden, you know, are, are saying that something is wrong. It challenges that legitimacy and it slowly changes people's mindset. And that they're the way that they think over time. So that the people that traditionally thought that nothing was wrong. Eventually they're coming over to your side. The people that knew something was wrong, but just felt like nobody was ever going to do it. Do anything about it. All of a sudden they're saying, you know what, well, maybe I should stand up, right? Like that. Sometimes oppression and discrimination is normalized so much. And I can say this, even in my own personal experience, sometimes it gets normalized so much that you all of a sudden, starting to think, you know, well, there's nothing we can do about that. So I'm not going to complain about it anymore. You know? Um, um, you know, it is what it is. So people, even the people that are being abused, stop working to change it. Right. But when they start to see other people setting up and saying, no, this has happened to me and I'm going to be counted, and this is wrong. All of a sudden it clicks, wait a minute. There is something that we can do about it. So it's changing the people that experienced it. It changes the people that don't experience it. And it changes the political officials because they see, you know what, I gotta do something about this, or I might lose my legitimacy moving forward. So there is change that's happening with protesting demonstrations and civil disobedience. And just because we don't see it tomorrow or today doesn't mean that it's not happening. So just keep pushing, keep moving forward, keep going at it. Um, even if it's not changing for us, change it for the people that's coming up. Passionistas: What do you think as allies is the most important thing for us to be doing? Nselaa: The, the biggest thing I would say is listen, learn and leap. That's something that's really, really big, listen, learn and leap. Um, Liz, because the conversation is going to constantly change. Um, one thing that I see happening in media a lot is that, you know, people are going to get mad at people that did something, you know, 60 years ago, 50 years ago, you know, that wasn't racist back then, but it might be racist today. Um, I don't necessarily always think that's fair to, to try to say that they're a bad person today because things are going to change over time. Um, so the first thing is, listen, listening to the change in conversation because it's going to change within the months, within the weeks, within the years, um, and be willing to adapt to whatever those changes are, you know, uh, because we're all learning together. So listening to the changes, learning from it, you know, which, which is where the adaptation comes. And we've been like being okay. Sometimes we're going to make mistakes. We're all going to make some mistakes, you know, even, you know, as a black female, I'm going to make mistakes. You know? Um, I, we have a conversation that we do regularly, um, with different States around the country, um, called white women. Can we talk right? Um, one of the biggest things that I learned, um, just in this process, like, for example, I used to always constantly, like I was always like when I see a white man come into the room, it historically has brought me a lot of anxiety. Like I would start to feel fear, especially if you see like a white man in a truck, you know, you start to feel, feel like something is bad is going to happen. And a lot of it originally happened just because I didn't really have a lot of exposure. I didn't have a lot of experiences in relationship with white men, especially like white, Southern men. I didn't have a lot of experiences with them. And I realized as I started to practice law, and when I became, um, started working in business architecture, I have more exposure to white men. So over time I didn't see them as a threat as much anymore, but that was just based on my experience and exposure and over the conversations of, of white women that can we talk? I realized that a lot of times, you know, a lot of the people we're having conversations with, they don't have experiences and exposure to different communities and different cultures. So when you don't have that experience or exposure, all you have is the stories that we see on the media, the stories that we see on TV, the stories that we see, you know, her neighbors talk about. And sometimes those are stories that are based on fear, but if we start building relationships and conversations and experience new relationships, conversations, and experience, then we can change that narrative together. So we have, um, a, uh, a series that we do called white women. Can we talk, well, we just ask each other, all the questions that we always wanted to know, like in an open form, without judgment, just being able to get to know each other and creating new experiences so that we don't have to base our views on old experiences anymore. Um, so I'm gonna say, listen, learn, and then leap have experienced leap into it. You know, if you see somebody that doesn't look like you, or, you know, it doesn't have the same experience, be willing to leap and create a new experience with them and make mistakes. And then just try again, you know, like, Hey, I made a mistake. Let me, let me get ready to try again. Passionistas: You took a big leap into the news in September when you went to an event for your local us Senator, can you talk a little bit about that? What you were there for and what happened? Nselaa: Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness. So, um, myself and, um, my, my, my sister in the movement, Triana Arnold James, we went, uh, to a campaign rally for Senator Kelly Loeffler. And literally when we went to the campaign rally, we really just went to ask questions about, you know, what she was going to do to protect people. I didn't initially know a lot of her stances on the black lives matter movement when we first came, like that was still relatively, um, unfamiliar to me. Right. So we went, um, to ask her some questions. And of course we were the only black people there. So that was my first light, you know, especially because there's a lot black people in Georgia. Right. So we're all black people that, we're the only ones here. I'm confused. Yeah. That was the first kind of signal that, you know, that this might be a foreign territory to me, especially coming from like, you know, social media world. And we made quarantine, like social media kind of puts us in this echo chamber chamber where every, like we only hear things that we agree with constantly. So I didn't realize it was so many people that did not agree. So we went there to ask her questions and it was, you know, during her, her campaign rally. Um, and all of a sudden, you know, she started talking about, um, the black lives matter movement, but when she was, I thought prior, I was like, well, okay, I'm pretty sure there's some people, you know, that don't support black lives matter, but justice people like the KKK and stuff like that, you know, like, you know, I didn't realize that there was a whole lot of people that didn't like it. Um, and they were just normal people too, you know, but they would, so they, you know, they were saying on me, they was like, you know, um, initially, you know, we asked her, you know, well, what are you in? Cause this was around, you know, opera had happened in Georgia. So we asked her, what are you going to do to protect the black and Brown people that are being abused and murdered, you know, in your state, how are you going to protect those constituents? And then all of a sudden she started talking about how black people that supported the black lives matter movement, where Marxists, we were communists that we were in. I didn't know. I didn't even know what Antifa was when I went there until she called me MTV. I was saying, what is Antifa let me look that up. Um, so, you know, so she said that we were part of Antifa that we were communists, that we was Marxists, that we was entire nuclear family. And I was like, I was just really shocked that she would even say this, like, this is my us Senator. And I was like, okay, at the very least, at the very least, like, I suppose, like I can imagine some people might be low key racist, but I never thought that anybody would, you know, as a Senator, as a political official, just be so like outspoken without like, they at least gotta be politically correct. She wasn't even politically correct. She was just like going for it, which is why I'm so surprised that there's a runoff with her right now. I'm like, that's a run. They like, I was shocked about that. So, um, you know, so she was telling everybody that, you know, this is what I'm talking about. You know, she was like their fastest they're Marxists, they're communists, they're all just that they're trying to change your way of life. So then all of a sudden, the crowd like start like getting mad at us and started surrounding us. Right. And then they started yelling at it. But initially they were trying to lock arms, you know, and surround us in a circle so that we couldn't get out of the room. And then they started yelling at us all lives matter, like all lives matter, all lives matter, you know? So I was like, is this for real? Like I was, I was literally like, this is like a movie, you know? Like I felt like I wasn't us like the movie, you know, I was like, wow. You know? So they started trying to surround us. Um, and, um, you know, then they started telling, was yelling all lives matter. So the only thing that we can do, because there was like two of us and like a hundred of them, you know, like, so we were like, okay, we're going to say Black Lives Matter. You know, it response. So we start saying black lives matter, you know? And then they started like spitting at us, like throwing stuff in a feat, you know, they, I mean, they were going and a lot of them were like older white people also like, Oh, like people that were in walkers and wheelchairs, you know? So I was just like, I've never seen like, Oh, people get this rowdy before. Like it was like, you know, and then afterwards, like while they was like locking us in the room, right. Mind you there's cops there also. So, you know, there's, the cops were kind of like, you know, some of the cops were telling us, like, even though there was two of us in like a hundred of them, like there was a few of the male cops. It was like, you better not touch any of them or I'm taking you to jail. I'm like, we've been, not touched them. There's two of us in, you know, there was this one female cop who was amazing, you know, she was amazing. She was like, look, she's like, you guys are not doing anything wrong. She was like, they better not touch you guys. She was like, don't worry about it. She's like, you know, you guys have a right to be here. She was like, I got you. Like, that was kind of like our, okay. You know, like it's, you know, thank you. You know, but some of the other cops was like, you better not touch him or we're taking you to jail. And they were trying to find a reason to arrest us. And we're like, really? Right. So while they were surrounding us, they went outside a key to our car. Right. Like Triana, she had a BMW. Right. Um, and of course, you know, she has a stickers up there. So they keyed her car outside when they was like holding us in. So it was definitely a crazy, interesting experience that happened that really awakened my, you know, my eyes to what, you know, that there are communities out there that didn't necessarily agree with some of the work that we were doing. The hard part about it is that after the event happened, Senator Loffler, um, tried to use it as, you know, a campaign strategy to rally up the masses to be like, this is why, you know, black lives matter, like is trying to destroy your lives. Like, look what they're doing. You know, they're trying to take away, you know, your, your, your way of living. They're trying to take away your money, your communities they're trying to do, like she was telling them that we were doing all of this stuff, you know, that we were like, we were just asking you questions. Like, all we did was ask questions as our Senator, you know? Um, so, and then she went on this media campaign and talked to basically like a hundred different outlets about how, you know, this was an example of how black lives matter, like is a facet like Antifa communist organization. And that we were violent, even though they were the ones that keyed our car to us, you know? Um, so like, it was, it gave me the experience of seeing, um, really how, um, how somebody can create a narrative to create hate within communities. Because I didn't go in there, like having any opinion about any of the people there when I first came there. And I'm assuming that before we came, I'm assuming that they didn't really have very much opinions about us or about black people, you know, but when you have somebody created this narrative that they're coming after you and she repeated it multiple times on social media and then the media, she was like, these people are coming after you, Black Lives Matter is coming up. And she said, make no carpet, hold at words was, make no mistakes. When they come from me, they're coming after you, they're coming after your way of life. You know? Um, she, when people are creating this narrative, it creates hate and it creates all of this division. And it was really the first time I saw it up close and personal know, we see it on TV where we see Trump's a standby stand down, you know? And it almost still seems like a movie when we see it on TV and stuff like, Oh, that's not real. You know, that's just movie. That's just, you know, but it really is. Will people have to really understand that this is real, there are people out here creating this narrative. Trump is real Senator to, of Israel, right. And seeing it's so close and seeing how people responded in our presence. So up close and how dangerous it could have turned. It really raised wait, raise my awareness. And it, and it really, um, made me realize that we really have to get this message out here and to stop this division. Right. And make sure that we continue to have this conversation with each other so that people that don't look like us, they know that that's not what we mean. That's that, that's not what I said. And when she said that I was coming out of the out, that ain't true. When she said that I was anti-family, that's not true. That's not what I said. This is what I meant, like getting in front of each other, having these conversations, even if it's by zoom so that we can understand one-on-one what our agendas are and stop having these other people try to tell it for us. Passionistas: Thanks for listening to the Passionistas Project Podcast and our interview with Madam Nselaa Ward. To learn more about Madam Ward and how she helps small business owners to thrive visit NiNavaFirm.com. That's N-I-N-A-V-A-F-I-R-M.com. Please visit thePassionististasProject.com to learn more about our podcast and subscription box filled with products made by women owned businesses and female artisans to inspire you to follow your passions. There are still a few winter boxes left with the theme. Passionistas Pamper. Sign up for our mailing list to get 10% off your first purchase. And be sure to subscribe to the Passionistas Project Podcast, so you don't miss any of our upcoming inspiring guests. Until next time stay well and stay passionate.

Laura Beck is an activist and the founder of LottoLove, the first ever scratch off card with a social mission. LottoLove brings charitable giving to everyday gifting. It's been featured on The Today Show and Ellen DeGeneres and included in national publications, such as Women's Day, Real Simple and Redbook. Through her work with LottoLove, Laura is making a positive impact on people's lives by providing a better way to gift that empowers people in need and inspires communities to do good in a fun and exciting way. Learn more about LottoLove. Learn more about The Passionistas Project. Full Transcript: Passionistas: Hi, and welcome to The Passionistas Project Podcast, where we tell the stories of empowered women who are following their passions to inspire you to do the same. We're Amy and Nancy Harrington and today we're talking with Laura Beck and activists and the founder of LottoLove, the first ever scratch off card with a social mission. LottoLove brings charitable giving to everyday gifting. It's been featured on The Today Show and Ellen DeGeneres and included in national publications, such as Women's Day, Real Simple and Redbook. Through her work with LottoLove, Laura is making a positive impact on people's lives by providing a better way to gift that empowers people in need and inspires communities to do good in a fun and exciting way.  So please welcome to the show, Laura Beck. Laura Beck: Hello, thank you for having me on here. Passionistas: Thanks for joining us today. So what's the one thing you're most passionate about. Laura Beck: I always get a little hung up on like picking the one thing, but I really, I mean, I'm passionate about the environment and cooking, but I think the most, the thing I'm most passionate about would be relationships and connecting with people. My dad always said something along the lines of, if you have relationships, you'll be rich in life. And that's something that really stuck with me. And so I've really spent a lot of time investing in friendships, which have had a lot of them for over 20 years, you know, with family, coworkers, mentors. And I think, you know, really having a variety of all these different relationships in your life allows you to connect with people on a lot of different levels, which I think is important. And with a lot of love, you know, I don't get to meet everyone that we're helping, but I do feel a connection to them with what I'm doing. And I value that relationship too, even though it's, you know, more distant, Passionistas: You mentioned your father and your parents really showed you firsthand about giving back when you were a kid. So can you talk about that experience and how it's informed your life? Laura: So my dad for, I want to say, like, I don't know, for 14 years he was going to Guatemala on mission trips. And then when I was in high school, he wanted to bring the whole family. And I think at that point it was like, my little brother's older, not old enough, I'm one of four. So we all went as a family to small town in Guatemala and he had been working on building an orphanage or every year that he would go to that orphanage was built. And there were like three families in there that had, you know, maybe five kids each. And we went down probably for like 10 days and did a lot of like mission work within the orphanage. But then we would venture out and go up into the, like the most remote villages in the mountains where we were giving, you know, some medical relief. There was a CR you know, a little religious component to it and just Christianity, which, you know, is the main religion of Guatemala. And so there were, you know, a lot of different ways of helping and connecting with these people that, you know, most of the time never come down from their villages. They never get to see a doctor, you know, they're suffering from arthritis and to fakes and, you know, a lot of different ailments. So they were very grateful when we would come up there and help with, you know, help them just ease pain and play with the kids and, you know, just interact and kind of give them this, give them some hope. And so I did that trip a couple times. And then at right after I graduated from college, I raised money to go to Honduras with my sister and we did something similar there. So those were, you know, were big experiences. And then just like on a daily basis, my dad had been on the board of directors at the homeless shelter in the home, in the town where I grew up. So, you know, I just grew up with him, always giving his time and not, you know, not just time and money and resources, but so that was always kind of ingrained in our upbringing was, you know, helping those less fortunate and really just taking the emphasis out of material things and putting it more on, you know, these relationships and connections with people.  Passionistas: So you mentioned college, where did you go to college and what did you study?  Laura: I went to University of Michigan. I'm originally from a small town in Northern Michigan, like four hours North of Detroit. And then I studied art history with a minor in Spanish. So I was using a lot of, well. I mean, when I went in high school, I took Spanish as well. So I was able to speak Spanish and these in Guatemala and Honduras when we were there. But then after I graduated, I moved to Chicago and I went back to school for art direction and design. And there's this type of, I guess, school, which is called a portfolio school. And that is where you go specifically to get a job in an advertising agency afterwards. So you can study copywriting design or art direction. And the whole it's a really intensive program. And some of them are two years, but the one I took was just one year. So it was pretty much for an entire year, no breaks taking the courses. So that's where I got my art direction background. Passionistas: What were some of your early jobs after you got that degree? Laura: I had set my sights on New York. I always wanted, when I was younger, I wanted to go to a big city. I think it was partially of like, I want to rebel against the small town and, you know, live somewhere where the closest mall is not an hour and a half away. So I always wanted to go to a big city and I liked Chicago, but I felt like I wanted something more. So I started applying to some jobs in New York and I got an internship at a small midsize agency. And so I moved to New York for that job. After the internship, I worked there as an art director, and then I started working for this woman who is a lifestyle brand and I was hired to basically kind of just overhaul her branding and, um, design and, you know, head there, like the lead of her website development. So I did that. And then at that point I was like, I think I want to do something on my own work for myself. And then that's when I started my own design shop on my own. Passionistas: Tell us about that. That's Tiny Rebels. Right? Tell us about that. And some of the socially good companies you work for there. Laura: I really enjoy working with brands that needed that I really liked working with them from the ground up, you know, being part of their initial, I guess, the initial phase. And so one of the companies I worked for was called OneGridCandle, and their mission was, you know, to help provide clean energy to people in Africa and sell their candles. And so that one was a company that I was able to, I got in touch with right away, you know, from helped them from logo design, to packaging design, to their website and know pretty much all marketing touch points as well. And that was like, okay, I see them able to, um, giving back in a way, you know, by helping this company get off the ground, I really enjoy doing this and that at that point I was like, I think I want to, you know, try doing this a little more direct and be the one that's, you know, has the company that's giving back. So I kind of, I slowly just start kind of as like not accepting new clients and was just letting the phase, not the phase out naturally happen. And then that's when I took a leap with LottoLove. Passionistas: So what inspired you to create lot of love cards? Laura: I wanted a career change and I had a desire to do something that did more good in the world. And I, you know, I felt I could do that, you know, helping client or, you know, the companies I was working with, get off the ground and do that. But I wanted to do that in a little more direct way. And, you know, if you ask yourself the question, why do I do what I do? It really forces you to reflect on what gets you out of bed in the morning? And I knew I had, you know, interesting background and experiences and, you know, different talents that I had, um, honed in on with my past jobs. And I wanted to figure out how I could put all that together and figure out a way to positively impact other people's lives. And if I thought back to a time where I felt like empowered, it was when I went on those mission trips with my family.   And then with my sister that I mentioned earlier, at that point, I saw extreme poverty and seeing it firsthand is very different than, you know, seeing it on the news or reading about it. So I knew that there was a lot of people out there that needed help, but if I can't be there physically, you know, helping them, what can I do based on everything I know, and I've done to create something. And so I, I was ready to make that career change. And I think having my branding company gave me the confidence to do that because could brand LottoLove all on my own, you know, I didn't need to outsource that. So I was able to really kind of take everything in my own hands. And I enjoyed the client aspect of, you know, or the service aspect of Tiny Rebels, but I wanted to try out something a little different by creating a product.   And so my inspiration for LottoLove actually was my grandma because she loved scratch off cards. And that was something that we would always gift her for holidays, you know, especially, you know, what do you give an 80 year old grandma, you know, and they love the scratchers, but that whole idea is about winning for yourself and, you know, winning money. And, you know, I think I saw a way to flip that concept on its head a little bit and add a twist to it. So instead of winning for yourself, you're able to win for other people. And it was actually during a road trip with my now husband, he would love to scratch off tickets too. So he would, every time we'd stop and get gas, he would, you know, buy a couple and he bought two, which actually happened to be winners. They were both like $5 winners, but that's kind of where the whole idea started coming about was on that road trip. So   Passionistas: Explain what the LottoLove card is, how it works and what happens when   Laura: Get one, like you mentioned, we're a social good scratch off cards. So instead of winning money, you want a charitable prize. That's donated to someone in need and we have four charitable partners and each one's tied to what I call the charitable prizes. So you can either win clean water, solar energy, literacy tools, or meals. And it will always be one of those four. And I like to say that we're the only lottery where everyone wins, because we really are. When people ask me that question a lot. So I like to say it right off the bat, every card is a winner. It's one of the four charitable prizes. So, you know, we sell most of on our website and the buyer would then buy a LottoLove card. They could mail it directly to the recipient and then the recipient would get to play the game, scratch off all the circles to figure out basically what was donated in their honor. So it's a gifting item and they come with a greeting card. So it can just be an easy, all-in-one like gifting experience and it's a matching game. So are you familiar with scratch off cards or have you done a lot in your days?  Passionistas: It's been awhile, but yeah, we've definitely done them… for sure. Laura: Yeah, so it's like a matching game. So we've designed icons that represent each charitable prize and then you have to match one of those icons. And then that tells you flip it over and explains a little bit more about the causes that we're supporting. And then we direct everyone to our website where they can learn more about our charities and the efforts that we're supporting. Passionistas: So tell us about those charities who are they and why did you choose them? Laura: We have four Austin charities. Solar aid is our solar non-profit and their mission is to eradicate the use of kerosene, which is harmful to health and to the environment. And why really like about their mission is they're working to employ people to sell the lights, which creates jobs and a sustainable markets. So, you know, they're creating sustainability in a lot of different ways, as opposed to just providing a clean energy source. And so they're able to combat poverty and climate change. And they work specifically within Africa, lit world is our literacy partner, lit worlds based in New York. And they work within the U S and also globally. They're putting emphasis on not just learning how to read and write, but to learn how to teach kids, how to tell their story and how to communicate, which helps them build a sustainable life because, you know, communications foundation of a lot of things.   So they put a lot of emphasis on, you know, talking about feelings and being able to communicate water is life is our word, water, charity. And they, we specifically are supporting their water filtration efforts. They've created this straw that kids can wear around their neck, and they can basically go to any water source and purify the water from that straw, which is pretty awesome. And it can filter two to three liters a day. I think it's really impressive. I mean, when you look at it, you're like, you know, you're like, how can this actually do what it does, but the insides of it, it's, it's an amazing invention. So yeah, that's really cool. And then our hunger non-profit is rise against hunger and they are working to end hunger by 2030. And they do a lot of natural, like natural disaster relief as well. But they've created the most nutritious packaged meals all in like one where it's basically like add water and you get all these vitamins and nutrients that you need in a day.   Passionistas: Tell us specifically what each card gives to these charities Laura Are a limited amount of like gifting options, but you can either give one week of clean water or four weeks of clean water. So when you go onto our website, you're not going to be able to, as of right now, but we might change this. You can't choose. If you are getting a water winning card or a meal, it's a surprise, but you can either win one meal or three meals, one month of solar light, or four months of solar light, and then one set of literacy tools or three sets of literacy tools. Passionistas: We're Amy and Nancy Harrington. And you're listening to The Passionistas Project Podcast and our interview with Laura Beck. To learn more about her scratch cards with a social mission visit, GiveLottoLove.com.  Now here's more of our interview with Laura.  Have you personally had any interactions with people that have benefited from the work you're doing and are there any that stand out? Laura: Yes, actually I think it was two years ago now I was able to go to Kenya and I met with one of the partners of our literacy charity. They work in Kibera, which is like one of the chorus slums in the world. So we spend a day with the Red Rose School and it was all girls and, you know, got to see everything firsthand. They call them lit clubs. So how they run their lit club. So it started with a story and then that story had an underlying message about feelings and like bravery. And so then, you know, we all sat in a circle when it was great, because I got to like sit in a circle with them and I was participating, you know, just like a student with them. And everyone went around the room, talking about the story, you know, talking about moments in their life, where they had to be brave and courageous.   And then there was activity, which they call a heart map and it's basically drawing a heart on a piece of paper and then filling that heart with everything that represents you or that you love in your life. And then we all went around the room and explained our heart maps to everyone. And I was just, you know, I was really blown away by them and their ability to, you know, talk about their lives. And, you know, their upbringing was a lot more difficult than mine. And they were just, you know, full of life and love and, you know, just proud to be a sister and a daughter and a friend. And it was really amazing to actually see how our who we're supporting and the benefits of it.  Passionistas: We were reading about that story. And one of the things that struck us was you told, said you played a game with them and did an exercise with them called a rose, a bud or a thorn, which we loved the concept of that. Tell us about that. Laura: That it wasn't the first time I heard it when I went to Kibera. That was something that actually my parents did with us growing up too. Like, especially around like Thanksgiving, it was like, you know, we'd all be home from college or something and they'd be like, tell us, you know, something good that happened. And you know, and so the rows, the button, the thorn really kind of puts a metaphor to that. I think, you know, arose is something that you're really happy and excited about. The bud is something, you know, you're anticipating, you know, that's going to happen and you're excited. And then a thorn is, you know, something was difficult. Something was a little prickly, a challenge that you faced. And yeah, we went all went around the room and did the Rose about a thorn. It's actually something really fun to do with, you know, friends and family too. And it's just another way to connect with people. And if, you know, for lack of a better word forces, but allows people to open up, you know, cause everyone's doing it. You know, we all have hardships, but you know, we all have something that we can find that we're excited for or something good that happened in our lives.  Passionistas: You've also added wedding favors to your store. So talk about those. Laura: I would say it's a little bit of a work in progress, but something that excites me about a lot, all of is all the different ways that you can gift it. You know, we really want people to rethink what they gift and how they, and there's so many occasions why when we need to buy people, things. And so weddings, and I think it kinda came about like when I was planning mine, now people buy wedding favors and they're cute and they're fun. And I it's a fun thing to do, but I really had a hard time wrapping my head around that because one, it feels a little wasteful to me and it's just not where I really wanted to spend the money. And I, you know, I felt like I could gift something to someone outside of a trinket, you know, the header initials on it or something or something that might get thrown away.   So I use my wedding as like a test case for that. And, you know, it's a slightly different design. Our typical cards are like really bright and punchy, but our wedding line called Lucky in Love. It's, you know, we're stripping it of all the color and, you know, keeping it white and clean, you know, everyone has different themes for their wedding. And white just felt like it would fit. Um, a lot of people's decor. So the game is the same, but we allow this like top portion to be customized. So if people have, you know, like a logo they created for their wedding or a monogram, or they want to have write a little message to all their guests, they can do that. And the way we kind of tell people to gift it is to put it at their placement settings at dinner, but it's also good dependent, like gift bags.   If you're doing that, or people can grab them as they're leaving the wedding, but really easy way. It's just, everyone's sitting down. It's a great way to like get people, talking, bring awareness to the causes. And we included a little penny on each place setting. Um, so people can scratch off and play and you know, their response from people that have included it as part of their wedding has been great. And I love seeing all the photos and, you know, even seen like the little, the little kids participating and playing the game. So it's another way to spread love and your wedding day, Passionistas: What would you like to see as the future for a LottoLove? Laura: Sometimes I feel like it changes a little bit, but you know, near term, I want to expand our product line, you know, which means adding new charities and increasing the causes that we can support. You know, right now we have four and it's what we call our basic needs line. And I'm really happy with the four that we chose, but I know there are so many more causes out there that mean a lot to people. You know, I want to expand and do like a health card, you know, support breast cancer and Alzheimer's, and I mean, there's so many, you know, maybe an animal card. I know a lot of, you know, people want to support animals and help them. So expanding our product line is something I want to do near term. I want to get into more into corporate gifting because I think that is a way to really reach a lot of people and obviously increase our impact.   Like I mentioned before, a lot of creative ways to gift a LottoLove. And I think, you know, just what we have now is kind of the tip. And I think we can really expand a little bit and, you know, bigger picture. I want to continue to figure out how I can help people to rethink about traditional gifting. And I think LottoLove does that for a lot of people, but I think we can do that a little bit more because we are solving a few problems. You know, simply gifting is stressful. A lot of people get stressed out around the holidays because it's expensive and they don't know what to get people in. There's so many people that don't need anything and people that are hard to buy for. So LottoLove solves that problem. Obviously our social mission, you know, we're helping people just live and also thrive, but I think there's more than we can do and want to tap into, you know, traditional gifting and how we can uproot that a little bit. Passionistas: So where can people go to get the cards and find out more about what you do Laura: Our website, which is GiveLottoLove.com. So G I V E L O T T O L O V E dot com. That's where we do pretty much all of our sales through our website and we ship all over. I pretty much ship across the world. We just sent an order out today to Australia. So wherever you are listening, you're not too far.  Passionistas: You do corporate gifts as well. Talk about that. Laura: It's been a really fun aspect of the business, which it wasn't something I was thinking about when I first started, but usually mostly around the holidays. That's when everyone's, you know, figuring out how they can gift people, something, but we did something for the Cleveland Cavaliers. They had a yearly summit and they wanted to include LottoLove at this meeting. So anything from meetings like that to including them and gift baskets that get sent to clients or customers, we can do a lot of the fulfillment ourselves. So if you know, we're mailing these out to 500 people, we've done it. And, you know, we try to be as flexible as possible because everyone's gifting needs are different and unique. And you know, some people want a greeting card and some people just want the scratch off. And we create these little custom informational cards, which are a great, like co-branding option where we can put their logo on it and custom messaging. Or if these corporate companies are ordering a lot more, you know, we have like a 500 unit minimum order quantity, but we can customize the scratch off cards, which is a fun way to, to do a little like co-branding where we can add a logo and some messaging. There's not as much flexibility with that, but we try our best. Passionistas: Is there a lesson that you've learned during your journey that sticks with you? Laura: I would say one of the biggest lessons is to not give up because they're just in startup life. There are so many roadblocks and times where you feel like, okay, this is too hard. I can't do this, but to just not, not give up and to put yourself in uncomfortable situations, because I think those uncomfortable situations is where you really see growth and to not shy away from those because you're afraid. So, you know, there are a lot of twists and turns and disappointment comes with that. But the one thing we can control is to just keep going, regardless of people's response or lack of response and validation, and then saying yes, because I think fear can creep in and we can shy away from doing things, but I've gotten in this habit of just agreeing to things, knowing even if sometimes my guts like, Oh, I can't do this. I'm not good enough for this or something, but, you know, say yes and I'll figure it out and I'll figure out how to do it. But I think that's where I've seen a lot of like my personal and career growth by putting myself in these situations and just not giving up. Passionistas: So as the mother of the new baby girl, what's your dream for women? Laura: My dream is well for my daughter. I want to instill like instill in her the belief that she can do anything and that we're stronger than we know, especially, you know, just giving birth as a woman and being able to give birth, I think is a beautiful and wonderful thing, but it was also one of the scariest things that I've ever done. But after that, I was like, you know what? We can do anything. Like we're so much stronger than we know. And I want women to feel empowered in all aspects of their life because they should, because we're strong and you know, we need to, you know, rise above the fear or whatever's like keeping us down. What's your definition of success? You know, since I had violet, I think that changed a little bit, but you know, I think it's really enjoying what you do and, you know, success, I think looks different. Day-to-day especially now, you know, I think success is okay, my daughter's happy and she's alive. And that is success. Like every day right now is successful for me. If I do that. And if I get a little bit of work done, it's a bonus. But I think success is feeling nourished at the end of the day. You know, whether that's working, whether that's not working, but as you know, feeling that fulfillment and nourishment at the end of the day, I think is success. Passionistas: What's your secret to a rewarding life? Laura: Well, can I still be figuring it out a little bit, but I think one now being a new mom is having really good time management. I have learned I work better under pressure, but I don't have that luxury. Like if I get a minute, I need to use that minute wisely. But, and I think having good time management, it can really either make you feel fulfilled or it can deplete you if you're not doing it in the right way and being an entrepreneur, you know, weekends and weekdays blend together. And they can all the days all feel the same sometimes, but you have to really allow yourself to have the fun, the self-care and do the work. And I think that's keeps your mind and body in check. But then at the end of the day, I think it's, you know, doing something that one thing that brings you joy every day, if you can fit in one thing, you know, whether it's a workout or reading a book or meditating, you know, really, I think gives you that energizes you to keep going. Because there, I mean, a lot of things that we have to get done just to live and to not, you know, to pay our bills and do things, but finding ways to sneak enjoy is really important.   Passionistas: Thanks for listening to The Passionistas Project Podcast and our interview with Lara Beck. To learn more about her scratch cards with a social mission visit, GiveLottoLove.com.  Please visit ThePassionistasProject.com to learn more about our podcast and subscription box filled with products made by women owned businesses and female artisans to inspire you to follow your passions. Our winter box with the theme Passionistas Pamper is on sale now and will ship just in time for the holidays. Sign up for our mailing list to get 10% off your first purchase. And be sure to subscribe to The Passionistas Project Podcast, so you don't miss any of our upcoming inspiring guests.

Sara Ku is the founder of Kaya Essentials, a skincare and lifestyle company based in Koreatown, Los Angeles. The seeds of the company were planted when Sara was a young girl and would make coconut hair masks with her mother. Her research on fair trade coconut oil inspired her to turn those early experiences into a company, which not only creates amazing products but gives back to the Filipino community. She recently expanded the company by partnering with female Filipino artisans to bring their one-of-a-kind pieces to a global market. More about Kaya Essentials. Learn more about The Passionistas Project. Full Transcript: Passionistas: Hi, and welcome to the Passionista Project Podcast, where we tell the stories of empowered women who are following their passions to inspire you to do the same. We're Amy and Nancy Harrington. And today we're talking with Sara Ku. Sara is the founder of Kaya Essentials, a skincare and lifestyle company based in Koreatown, Los Angeles. The seeds of her company were planted when Sara was a young girl and would make coconut hair masks with her mother, her research on fair trade coconut oil inspired her to turn those early experiences into a company which not only creates amazing products, but gives back to the Filipino community. She recently expanded the company by partnering with female Filipino artisans to bring their one-of-a-kind pieces to the global market. So please welcome to the show, Sarah Ku. Sara: Hi guys. Thank you so much for having me. Passionistas: What's the one thing you're most passionate about? Sara: I'm most passionate about making a social impact, you know, focusing on how on the individual level each and every person can make a difference and the importance of small steps, small acts of kindness that together have a big impact when you bring community together. And that brought me to create my business Kaya Essentials. Passionistas: So, tell us about that. Sara: Kaya Essentials is a clean organic coconut skincare line, and we recently expanded to a lifestyle, um, with artisan goods, but it really started, you know, um, about five years ago when I was first introduced to the concept of a social business. And that was when I was in college, I was studying history. Um, it's something that I wasn't really passionate about doing, but I was so nervous as to what my career was going to be. So instead of going to art school, which was always my passion growing up, it's really funny how, when you look back and look at your most memorable, enjoyable times, um, you know, it's really the things that you know, that you're passionate about, but you never really realized that, you know, that's going to bring you the most purpose in life. Um, so I ended up studying history and I really knew that I wasn't in the right space. I was trying so hard to, you know, succeed in, in my studies and, and you know, it wasn't something that came naturally to me, but at the same time, I was studying Asian history, which I was really passionate about because I'm half Filipino, half English. I was born in Hong Kong. So I have a very international background, kind of a third culture kid to the max. Um, so I was born in Hong Kong, lived there for 10 years, lived in India for two years, um, Istanbul in Turkey for three years, and then finally moved to the UK and, and lived there for five years before moving to LA. So yeah, I was really passionate about studying Asian history, getting to know my culture in more in depth, and I saw on our career bulletin board that there was a talk on a Filipino nonprofit called Gawad Kalinga, and the founder was going to talk about entrepreneurship and social business. And I had, had never heard of the word entrepreneurship or social purpose, social impact, um, but being a Filipino nonprofit, I was really interested. And so that's when I attended that talk and he really, you know, spoke about the communities that are most in poverty and their lack of access to diversify crops, for example, in the Philippines, because we have very fertile land. And so for example, we've had Cocao farms for centuries yet there was no Filipino bean to bar, um, Filipino chocolate company. And he was saying, you know, there's really a missed opportunity here. And it dawned on me that Philippines has a very big import culture. And so they had an internship opening and I immediately applied and I was a research assistant at first. And then, um, after college I continued my work with them. And I specifically helped with in facilitating European business students to help with their social businesses that they created at their farm. And that was everything from, like I said, the chocolate company to using our local dairy, which is from a Carabao, which is our local cow and using their milk to make ice cream. Um, and also from mushrooms, for example, because mushroom, wasn't a big staple in Filipino cuisine, but with the rise of international restaurants, you know, restaurants in the, in the main city was needing it more. And so they worked with farmers from different local communities to diversify their crops and add more value. So I was helping with that. And then at the same time, as you mentioned, I was my mom. She was a very big DIY or like she would make her own cleaning products. She would use ketchup, vinegar, vinegar. We always had so much vinegar in the house. And also with, um, her skincare, she would always make her own lotions, deodorant and everything. And so one thing that we did religiously was, um, make a coconut oil hair mask. And in the summers, when we were in the Philippines, we would scrape the coconut meat from the, from the actual coconut and then boil it into an oil and then apply that into our skull, you know, to, to promote like growth and get rid of dandruff to our, to the ends of our hair. And at the same time, I also learned that 60% of coconut farmers in the Philippines lived below the poverty line and the particular jar that I was using, I, um, was a French brand called Latuda Anjell. And then when I turned it over in small letters, it had said made in the Philippines. And then that's when it really sh… you know, struck me that this was going to be my lifetime passion. This is when I say my coconut dream came to life when I really wanted to create a clean coconut skincare brand that, you know, really promoted the Filipino coconut oil as a point of pride for Filipinos and for the rest of the world. And I knew that coconut oil, um, especially from the Philippines dominated the beauty and skincare market, and even, you know, with coconut food products, you know, we have it in everything and coconut sugar, coconut flour yet, you know, I really wanted to break that disparity and promote fair trade farming. Um, and so through, um, the nonprofit that I was working for Gawad Kalinga I connected with their fair trade coconut farm, and really that's where it all started, that I had the first jar of coconut oil. And the first idea that came to mind was to make lip balm actually. And the reason why was because lip balm was something small, it was something that everybody needed. I wasn't even thinking from a business mindset so much at that point, I was thinking it's for men, it's for women. It's for all ages, it's for kids, I can sell it to everybody. And with each one, we would donate a school meal back to the local community. And that part was really important to me, going back to what I'm most passionate about. I think that with change that we want to make, it can seem very overwhelming. So I really wanted to show that small acts of change, small acts of kindness can really make a big impact and to have something in your everyday life that you would use that, you know, contributed into making that change. So I started with lip balms. I had two flavors at the very beginning. One was lemon grass, and the other was calamansi. And calamansi is a Filipino lemon that only exists in the Philippines. It's a very light citrus. And that was the second moment where I knew this was meant to be because I had found a family business in the Philippines that made this into an essential oil, because, you know, you need thousands of calamansi to make any essential oil. And when I first made that lip balm, I thought I loved it because I was Filipino. So of course I'm going to love it. But, you know, after sharing it with friends and family, you know, people were very excited to also try something different and, you know, try the taste of the Philippines in a very unique way. So those were the two first lip balms that I had. Passionistas: What are some of the other products that you offer now, as time has gone by? Sara: My first pop-up market, I actually only was selling lip balms. And so before I even had a website, I started looking at craft markets, farmer's markets, and I had my lip balms there. And for the lip balm tester jars, I had them into small jars and several customers that were trying the testers were saying, can I buy this jar? Can I, can I, because I use body balms, I use this all over my body. I use it for my cuticles and for my elbows. And I didn't even think about expanding into different products first. And so really that's where the idea came first to get into body balms. And it was also really the idea to have a very minimalistic approach to your skincare so that, you know, you can, you can have something clean and organic and something that was really affordable as well that was really important to me because what I realized in the beauty world is, you know, I would kind of steal some jars from my mom, you know, in her skincare when I was growing up, because, you know, it was, it was for like, it was very luxurious and I would only use like a little pea sized amount and only use it on the weekend and, and only use it when I really needed it. And really skincare is your life is supposed to be part of your lifestyle. Something that you, you, you can use every single day without feeling bad about the price tag that's attached to it Passionistas: Talk a little bit about the working conditions and the financial situation of a lot of the farmers in the Philippines. Why was it so important for you to work with those people specifically? Sara: So, it was really important for me to work with fair trade farming, because I think that in the last decade, there's been a strong focus on organic ingredients, which is really great, and we're moving towards the right way because we know that what we put on our skin absorbs into our bloodstream. But the way that I like to explain it is that how these organic ingredients are grown, isn't necessarily grown in a very organic way with the people that they employ. And so that's where fair trade really comes in. Is that it really ensures that the working conditions are safe and that they know their rights. And also that they're not overworked. That was a very big thing that I had learned from the nonprofit that I worked with, that, you know, especially a father who was a farmer and had two or three children and had to, you know, pay for bills and schools and everything would end up working, you know, 12 hour days, 16 hour days, not knowing when their breaks could be not having, you know, sick days, you know, sick pay days. And, um, so that's where the fair trade, you know, really comp like adds onto the organic. And I really love connecting with different customers that really care about this advocacy in supporting fair trade ingredients as well. Passionistas: What does Kaya mean? Why did you choose that as the name of the company? Sara: That's the first question I get a lot, um, in pop-ups is, is your name Kaya. Hi Kaya. And I love the Kaya, but my name is Sara, but Kaya in Filipino means we can do it. So, um, Kaya koa in Tagalog means I can do it. And it's really a personal affirmation back to, you know, what I'm most passionate about is, you know, focusing on the individual level that each person can make a difference. And so it's that affirmation and really that when you come together as a community Kaya, nothin, which means we can do it, you really see that's where changes made. That's where the biggest impact is and the power of the people as well. You see in that. So I knew I wanted it to also have a Filipino name because in the Philippines, there's this strong notion that anything that is high quality has a very Western name. And I really wanted to bring that point of pride to Filipinos that, you know, a love for our culture and our ingredients and our language as well. Passionistas: You use a lot of Filipino phrases in your branding. Why did you want to do that? Sara: It was really important for me to honor where the, where we're rooted out, which is in the Philippines. And, you know, that is where we source our coconut oil from. And something that we launched this year in 2020 is our artists and goods collection. And really that was my connection to the nonprofit. I've been connected to all these artisan communities that was upcycling fabrics, creating, you know, beautiful jewelry, beautiful home pieces. And going back to my mission, which with Kaya Essentials, it's a lifelong business, it's a lifelong passion. It's not, I'm not here to have an exit strategy and really looking at how, where can I make more of an impact? And so that's where we launched our lifestyle line. And that was really difficult for me too, because I had introduced Kaya Essentials for the last three years as a skincare brand. And I kind of, you know, was scared to kind of go out of my comfort zone or, or, or be put into a different box. And I realized I was limiting myself. And then I realized, wait a second, I'm the founder, I'm a solo entrepreneur as well. I own a hundred percent of the business. Why can't I do this? And so that's where, um, I began, you know, really connecting with the artistsan communities and figuring out the best pieces to first introduce the collection. Passionistas: We're Amy and Nancy Harrington and you're listening to the Passionistas Project Podcast and our interview with Sarah Ku. To learn more about Kaya Essentials, visit Kaya Essentials.com. Now here's more of our interview with Sara. So, what are some of the challenges you face starting your own business? Sara: So, as I mentioned, I'm a solo entrepreneur, so that it's really difficult when you have to be your own cheerleader and your biggest critic at the same time. And there's not really, you know, strong markers of success because you don't have a template to follow. You don't have goals that you've set with a team. And so really you have to have a lot of discipline. Um, and especially at the start, when you're doing everything, you're like every single part of building your business is a whole new template for you to learn. And so there was a lot of Googling. Luckily I'm very autodidactic and would connect with any expert in one particular field, but it really got to me because a lot of days it felt very slow. And I realized I had to lean into those slow days and realize that, you know, slow progress is the best progress because I really wanted to focus on getting this right, and really having an organic growth that would last for decades to come. But, you know, it's hard. It was hard to, especially at the start, have that motivation had that belief in myself. And so, yeah, that was the biggest challenge. And also, you know, imposter syndrome is very real. And for me, I don't have a business background. I lean towards more of the creative side. So in building the product in, in coming up with my marketing materials or anything that never came from the point of view of, okay, what's the trend right now in skincare? What, what are consumers, you know, gravitating towards? And it really just came from an artistic approach. And so that was really difficult when for example, I would share it with different communities, different people and not having the strength to really believe, um, to, to hold that up. And I really, um, really loved when I heard Sara Blakely. Uh, so she she's, uh, she pronounces her name, Sara, um, the founder of Spanx, the first self-made female billionaire in America. And she said, when she had the idea for Spanx, she didn't share it for the first year. She didn't even share it with her own boyfriend or her family. And she said, when something is an idea, so close to you so that your, so that's your little baby it's that you're so passionate about. You have to really take care of it. That really made an impression on me. And so I learned the hard way to be careful in, you know, what I would share, how I would grow and, you know, really finding the confidence in myself and carrying that through, even in the very slow days, Passionistas: What are the challenges of working internationally? Sara: Luckily, I have a business partner here in LA and we source our coconut the fair trade coconut oil together, which, um, you know, when you find, I really believe in the law of attraction and we were both connected to the Filipino nonprofit Gawad Kalinga. And when that happened to be, it, it was just, it laid it all out. Um, but you know, there's a lot of planning ahead. And for someone who, I'm a type of person who wants instant gratification, and also I have a huge attention to detail, which I really think that your best qualities can also be your worst qualities. And so it is really great, especially as a solo entrepreneur, because, you know, getting your website, ready, doing packaging, doing customer service, everything it's, you know, it's good that, you know, I have my lists and everything, but at the same time, especially with international, um, orders, for example, in sourcing the ingredients, you know, there is that, you know, that over time where you have the waiting period and also that period of uncertainty sometimes, and not only from the international side of things, but just in the business side of things that I personally find really difficult. Um, and so again, it's just, you know, going with the flow, going with the ride and realizing and accepting that, you know, every single day something's going to come up, there's going to be things that are short-term focuses for the next month. And then, you know, some things that are long-term, but, um, you know, carrying that through is, is a challenge, but it's also really exciting and really, really, um, gratifying as well to challenge yourself, um, and see what you can do. Passionistas: How has the COVID-19 crisis affected your business and maybe in particular working international? Sara: Yeah. So with this COVID-19, I mean, for everyone, you know, especially small business owners that have a face-to-face, um, element, you know, we've been put out of stock and for key essentials, that was mainly our pop-ups our farmer's markets, our, um, you know, craft markets and everything that is where a lot of our businesses from as well. And also with distribution too, you know, we're in over 20 boutiques all over the US um, you know, unfortunately they've had to close as well. And so, um, what we've been doing is kind of, you know, putting our focus into our online community and recognizing that, you know, social distancing doesn't mean that it's a time, you know, to shut off and really finding ways to connect with one another. Um, so that's been our main focus during this time. And we, um, launched a program this week where for every single body bomb we sell, we are donating a body bomb to the front lines and seeing how we can best, you know, make an impact again, during this time. Where, where possible Passionistas: Tell us a bit about your production process? Do you make everything yourself? Sara: Yes. So, uh, everything is handmade by me in my studio. So everything is made in small batches and really where I started, which was in the lip balm that took me over a year to formulate. And even though it's three simple organic ingredients, it's [inaudiable], mango, butter, coconut oil, um, all the different levels of the texture of butter and how that works in, um, you know, in the heat when you have in your bag to when it's cold and the coconut oil and how that blends in. So that took me a really long time to perfect, but from there, it gave me a base to create our body balms. And also our body balms are all infused with essential oils. And that was really important for me too, because one of the biggest chemicals in skincare is fragrances and fragrances is basically a chemical construct to smell like a certain things. So for example, anything that smells like a banana isn't from a banana, it's impossible to get it from a banana. Um, so it's all chemically formulated. And so that's where essential oils are really great because they come from the actual herb or flower. And yeah, so everything is made in small batches. And that's really important too, because we don't use any silicones. So that's where the formula, um, you know, to get a very smooth formula silicones provides that gel consistency. But for us, we make it in small batches so that we don't have to use any silicones. Passionistas: You talk about the cold centrifuge, virgin coconut oil? So tell us what that is and what are the benefits of it? Sara: Cold centrifuge, coconut oil is a spinning process that spins the coconut meat out from the coconut oil. And as it's the spinning process, it doesn't use any heat to boil the coconut oil out. And really that gives a more refined coconut oil that has that retains more of its antioxidants, vitamins, nutrients, and really is coconut oil for your skincare that goes directly onto your skin or your hair, which is different to coconut oil that you cook with, where they boil it, because you're going to heat it up anyway. And it's much faster for production, um, to heat it up and really in the Philippines they've been using this type of process, um, for coconut oil for decades. And, you know, that's something that, that differentiation, not a lot of people know about. And so I really wanted to share, you know, their specialty and how they take care in processing this coconut oil that takes over three days to process from the coconut meat to the oil. Passionistas: What's your dream for the future of Kaya Essentials? Sara: My dream for Kaya Essentials is really to focus on how more we can make an impact. So something that we also launched last year was our Conscious Coconut Club. And really that came from the idea of bringing community together to give back where I recognized that there was a space for galas and, you know, those, these big events, but usually the, the cost for, you know, a meal ticket. Wasn't a, and I really felt that there was a lot of people that wanted to be part of giving back part of this initiative. And, you know, they weren't able to take part in something like that. And so we hosted a dinner where each person, you know, came together. We had a meal and we provided a meal back to the Philippines and something that we've also introduced is providing school meals back to our local communities in the US and that's our partnership with no kid hungry. And that really came from our community as well. That really wanted to take part in giving back locally to, you know, now with this new lifestyle line that we have, um, it's also just looking, you know, expanding our brand, um, but always focusing on where we can more make an impact. Passionistas: What's the biggest risk you ever took and how did it pay off? Sara: I think the biggest risk I ever took was really focusing on what success meant to me and canceling out the noise and not comparing myself to others. And I say that because, because when you don't have that business background, when you are every single day, not knowing where the template is, and, you know, even just being an entrepreneur is a risk in itself. It, it, you know, um, it's not the easy path. It's not comfortable. You have to find the comfort in the uncomfortable situations, and that's a big risk. Um, but like any risk, you know, it's very satisfying. It's very, um, it's great to put yourself out of your comfort zone and after having lived all over the world and also, you know, having parents that are, you know, that take a lot of risks. My dad left England when, you know, he was in his twenties and lived in and is a civil engineer and worked in Africa, worked all over Asia. I think that just from a young age, kind of just going over the cliff and just going for it is, is, is the way that I've operated. Um, but I would say that's the biggest risk. Passionistas: You just mentioned finding out what success means to you. So what is your definition of success? Sara: Definition of success is really in a business sense, looking at what is my mission, where I want to make, where I can make the most impact and how that all fits with the rest of my life. I think balance is so important and I know balance gets thrown around a lot, but really crafting recognizing that you are the one that crafts and cultivates your life. And so you are in full charge of that. And, you know, really living the life where, you know, you don't want to look back and have regrets. And really trying, you know, as the most, you know, trying, despite having any fears, um, you know, to me, is living a very successful life. Passionistas: Is there any particular trait that you have that you feel has helped your success? Sara: I would say the particular trait that's really helped me succeed with Kaya Essentials is being very frugal and scrappy and not afraid to get into everything. I think that first had the idea for Kaya Essentials. I was in my early twenties. I didn't have a lot of savings or any savings actually. Um, and it was an idea that I had that I said, okay, that's going to, I'm going to do that. Maybe in my early retirement. That's how far ahead I was thinking, because I didn't know, you know, what you, like, I thought you needed so much investment and, you know, capital to really start a business. And also not trusting myself that I would be able to learn all the different areas. And so, as I mentioned before, being autodidactic, and just not afraid to learn everything from building a website on Shopify, to researching all the different packaging. That's something that I underestimated as well in building a business is how much thought and care has to go into packaging and how, you know, that really depends on, on so many things. And, um, I, my friends will always say that I am the most frugal person that they've ever met. Um, and it's just something that always came naturally to me. My mom was a domestic helper. Um, when she was 17, she moved from the Philippines to Hong Kong. And, you know, she, she grew up in poverty in the Philippines. And she worked, um, you know, under the table with, with her mom, with my grandma, um, in the factory because my grandma was paid on the quantity of snacks that they were producing, that they were packaging, you know, without an hourly wage. And so she brought her daughters, um, you know, to help out. And my mom always taught me, you know, to have a really strong work ethic and, and not being afraid to, you know, do the tasks that are, you know, um, that are very time consuming as well. Because I think that when you start a business, um, you really have to do every single part. And so, for example, like I mentioned, I, um, crafting all of our products and also packaging as well. And with each package, I write a personalized note to our customer. And that's something that I never want to let go of because for me, someone who's joined our community and given me their hard working dollars to, you know, part of this, you know, it really means a lot. And so, um, you know, I really love connecting with my customers in that way. And so that's something that I'm never going to stop doing, but yeah, not being afraid to be scrappy. And when I talk to other female entrepreneurs that have an idea that are starting out, um, you know, I really say that there are so many different ways to grow a business and, you know, do what feels right to you. It's really good to know every single pathway and whether that's going down the investment route, route, you know, having angel investors or, you know, um, whatever it is and knowing your strategy as well. So is that going to be wholesale? So do you need a manufacturer? How much quantity do you need? Do you want to be able to produce and breaking that down as well? Because you know, your profit in the end is different for all of those outcomes. And really focusing on what makes sense for you not being afraid to start small either. I always share that, you know, the lip balm formula took me over a year to perfect. I was selling it, you know, first with just friends and family. And then with, you know, in pop-up markets, farmer's markets before I even had a website, because I couldn't even, you know, put that on my plate to begin to think how it would look like to have a Kaya Essentials website, you know, and I, and I still cringe at the first iteration of the website, you know, and I love sharing that because I say, you know, taking your time organically going through it, um, you know, is the best way because I learned so much that I couldn't rush. Um, so not being afraid, you know, be frugal scrappy and take your time and define your own success as well and how you want to build your passion. Passionistas: Thanks for listening to the Passionistas Project Podcast, and our interview with Saraj Ku. To learn more about Kaya Essentials, visit KayaEssentials.com. And visit ThePassionistasProject.com to learn more about our podcast and subscription box filled with products made by women owned businesses and female artisans to inspire you to follow your passions. The winter box — with the theme Passionistas Pamper — is on sale now, and will ship just-in-time for the holidays. Sign up for our mailing list to get 10% off your first purchase. And be sure to subscribe to the Passionistas Project Podcast so you don't miss any of our upcoming inspiring guests. Until next time stay well and stay passionate.

Chandra Beckman is a retired US Air Force fighter pilot who knows a bit about working in and managing difficult situations. Maneuvering through the many challenges in being an extreme minority as a female fighter pilot with children, Chandra continually found ways to overcome. The willpower, grit and determination that saw her through tough times in military and parenting situations was exactly what she needed when she faced the largest challenge of her life: her own health crisis. Undiagnosed multi-systemic issues for over a decade left her in long periods of house bound (and occasional bed-bound) states, discarded by the conventional medical realm. Based on her journey she is now creating a life in which she can use her “battle scars” to assist others who find themselves stuck in places where it seems no one can help. More about Chandra. Learn more about The Passionistas Project. Full Transcript: Passionistas: Hi, and welcome to The Passionistas Project Podcast, where we tell stories of empowered women who are following their passions to inspire you to do the same. We're Amy and Nancy Harrington and today we're talking with Chandra Beckman, a retired us Air Force fighter pilot, who knows a bit about working in and managing difficult situations. Maneuvering through the many challenges in being an extreme minority as a female fighter pilot with children, Chandra continually found ways to overcome. The willpower, grit and determination that saw her through tough times in military and parenting situations was exactly what she needed when she faced the largest challenge of her life — her own health crisis. Undiagnosed multi-systematic issues for over a decade, left her in long periods of housebound and occasional bedbound states discarded by the conventional medical realm based on her journey. She is now creating a life in which she can use her battle scars to assist others who find themselves stuck in places where it seems no one can help. So please welcome to the show. Chandra, Beckman. Chandra, what's the one thing you're most passionate about. Chandra Beckman: The one thing I'm most passionate about now is inclusive, inclusive healthcare options for all Americans. My journey was on laborious and costly, and I realized that if I was not in the financial position, that I was very fortunate to be in, I would not have been able to obtain the care that I did. And so I think it's very, very important for all of these health care options to be available to all Americans. Passionistas: We totally agree. So let's start at the beginning of your journey. Why don't you tell everybody what you were doing for a career when your journey began? Chandra: I was flying fighter jets for the United States Air Force, and I was 10 years into my career when my health started to fail. And it was very, very odd symptoms ranging from abdominal pain to GI issues, to headaches, to sinus issues, to things like mood changes, where I had previously been really optimistic and, you know, I loved challenges. I wanted to tackle anything that that could be done. And I started just getting snippy and short and angry. And my physical strength just started going away. Like literally I'm going to the gym working out more than I had been in the previous two years. And the number of sit-ups I could do was going backwards. And my physical strength just got zapped Passionistas: Before we get into your journey to discover what that was all about. Tell us a little bit about being a fighter pilot. What inspired you to become a fighter pilot? And what was that like? Chandra: So I was inspired to be a fighter pilot by the movie top gun. And I think I saw that way back in 1986 and I was sixth grade or so, but I loved the energy. I love the passion, the speed pushing yourself to the limit. And I just decided that's what I wanted to do. I had no idea how to get there. I had help along the way, very, very fortunate to link up with an Air Force recruiter who steered me down the path that I needed to take in order to achieve that goal. Passionistas: It's not a very female dominated industry. So what was that experience like for you as a woman? Chandra: For me personally, it was difficult. Although I don't think at the time I realized how difficult it was. I was so focused on doing the best I could. Every single day I was focused on completing the requirements I needed to complete. I was focused on flying to the best of my ability. And then when I went home, I was taking care of my kids with my husband. And so I didn't have time to step back and really take a look at how difficult is this position really to be in. Passionistas: I can't even imagine how stressful that type of work must be. Chandra: Yeah, I think for anyone, it is a very stressful job. I am pretty petite. So you know, about 5' 4”, 115 pounds. And so every single day when I was flying, I was reaching my limits and beyond in order to perform and in order to fly the airplanes, you know, the seats are fixed. So they're really made for a range of sizes, but that range is not for the really small people or the really big people. And so you accommodate you adjust, you, figure out how can I make this situation work for me? And I can't reach the rudder pedals if they're not all the way up or I can't reach the stick in the airplane. When I'm looking over my shoulder, checking behind the airplane, flying the airplane upside down, you know, at 315 knots. And if I don't put my seat at just the right place, I can't do this physically because of that. So every single day I was operating at the edge of my limits and then not to mention being the lone female in the all-male environment, it definitely had its challenges. Passionistas: How did the men react to you? Chandra: I didn't really pay attention to that. I know when I first entered that there were men that did not want me or any woman there, others didn't care either way, some were welcoming, but honestly, I really never paid attention to that aspect because I was doing everything I could to survive. And I think you have to, in that case focus, because if you open yourself to the negativity that may be existing around you, you easily drown. Passionistas: And was there camaraderie among the women or was it competitive? Chandra: I had a, a female in my pilot training class with me and we actually had discussions on that and we commented on that very aspect because her and I got along very well and we would pass other women in the hallway who wouldn't even say hello to us. And so we would just kind of ponder that, well, why is this? There's very few of us? Why would we not even just acknowledge that they're there? And I think there is there at least then 20 years ago, there was some of that, you know, you have to be tough and climb your own way up because there's only so many people that will get to where you want to go. Later on. As I moved into the, my career, my first assignment, I was the only female. So there wasn't any anyone to fight with. Right? I do remember my, what would you call the unit commander? The squadron commander came to me at one point though, because they were ha they were getting another female to the larger organization and they were wondering, where do we put her? Do we bring her into our squadron with you? Do we put her in the other squadron? What do we do? And I actually really appreciated the fact that he came to talk to me about it. I didn't know the individual. And, and I did tell him, honestly, listen, sometimes these situations work out great. We have new issues, we're a team player. We're just trying to do the best job we can. But other times there's a lot of hostility and I unfortunately don't know the individual, so I could not give him, you know, a definite answer either way. But I did answer it as honestly, as I could, based on the situation and scenarios I had seen. Passionistas: Where did you fly? Chandra: Yeah, my first assignment operational flying was actually stationed at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida. And there I was flying the F 15 C. We did have a few deployments for different things. And after that assignment, I actually went and flew the F one 17 out of Holloman Air Force base in New Mexico. My only official overseas assignment was to the Republic of Korea. And in that assignment I wasn't flying. Passionistas: So you are in this very intense career and you start to have these health issues and these symptoms talk about going to a doctor for the first time. What diagnosis were you given? Chandra: The first time I actually went to a doctor because of all of these random, strange, unusual symptoms. I was actually in the Republic of Korea and I had been kind of observing what was going on for the past four months. And I had been to the doctor for just acute things, you know, like a sinus infection, but I had never gone into this whole conglomeration of symptoms that were occurring. And at the time I was weak to the point where, when I tried to climb up the two flights of stairs to get to my dorm room after work, I had to stop because I did not have enough oxygen to continue walking up the flight of stairs. And, you know, for someone who had been doing a very physically demanding job, the fact that I can't go up two flights of stairs without running out of oxygen, the fact that I'm working out and getting weaker, the fact that I'm having significant digestive issues and that my mood is changing and that I'm starting to have a lot of pain. You know, these are all really, really big concerns. So I finally take them to the doctor and this was my introduction to conventional medicine. And I call it really the opening bookend. I explained to her everything that was going on and her response was you miss your kids. You'll be fine when you get back to the States. And honestly, I was like shocked, like my jaw kind of, you know, if it could, or if it did, I don't know that it did in front of her. I'm not sure I would have shown her, my reactions. I usually keep them hidden, but my jaw dropped at the same time. I'm like, I can't walk up two flights of stairs and you're telling me, this is because I miss my kids. Can I punch you in the face? You know, what's what, how, how is this even? Okay. So that was the opening. Along with that, I had my right. I had some blurriness to it that was passing. And honestly the only thing that came out of that appointment, it was that she got me to the optometrist to, to try to see if we could get some lenses to help with the blurriness in my eyes. But other than that, there was nothing. And yeah, like I said, that was the kind of the opening bookend to my experience with conventional medicine that lasted over 10 years. Passionistas: So then what's the next step? Your health continues to deteriorate. And do you go to a different doctor? How do you move forward? Chandra: Yeah, over the next several years, I was seen by, I, I, to be honest, I don't have the actual count. I never did count the probably hundreds of doctors because I was transferred back to the United States back into a flying position. And I became so weak that I could not fly. You know, another interesting factor here is, as this is occurring, the flight medicine doctors, who, some of them were very helpful. Some of them were understanding. They actually were, you know, told me to my face. I believe you. And I do honestly think something seriously is going wrong. And they were helping me get to the next step. On the other hand, you have the flight docs who told my boss she's scared to fly. And I get this. My boss happens to tell me this one day. And I said, really I'm scared to fly. Well, how am I still flying my own airplane at home, which has no objection, seat and still wanting to do it still wanting to fly Air Force aircraft. Yet my physical strength is so weak that I can't do it. And eventually my physical strength got so weak. I couldn't even fly our own airplane at home. So, you know, individuals and it used to be just women, but it's getting to be more and more men are facing this kind of behavior, this kind of mindset from the doctors who are there to help us supposedly. And so it became very, very difficult for me to navigate that system. And I had to continue going and continue fighting for the next doctor who was going to be able to help me. I was sent through the Air Force's medical center at the time. At the time it was called the Wilford hall. They did the full workup. They did find some minor things. And eventually I got to the Mayo clinic. They also did a full workup, some very minor things that, you know, of course, if we found, we took action on throughout this process, I went through two necessary surgeries. Had we known what we do now, the Jews went to the unnecessary and finally in the fall of 2015, early 2016, my health crashed so much again, that I was begging the doctors to help. Meanwhile, during this, you know, almost 10 year period, I'm working a full-time job in the Air Force, not flying. It was, you know, doing various what you would call desk, desk jobs. And I'm trying to navigate the medical system while performing at work to the best of my ability. Passionistas: And you're raising children. Chandra: Yes. Yeah. At the time began having the serious symptoms. I was dating my now husband, but I have two grown boys and he had three girls and so five kids together while this is going on. And you know, you're like here I am someone who is used to performing and getting things done and doing whatever it takes to make things happen. And, you know, not understanding what is it that these doctors can't help me. And as we roll back to the 2015, 2016 timeframe, when I'm bed bound several days a month, like literally do not have the strength to lift my arm off the bed. I can't work more than half a day. Most days, if that, and the doctor who I'm begging to help me tells me, you have fibromyalgia, no further workup puts it in my record. And so within the military system, you're only allowed to go to these doctors and I fought and fought and used every Avenue I could within that system and find the, I said, I'm not going to sit in the system to die. And I made up my mind to do my own research and find the doctors that could help. Passionistas: How did you do that? And what did you eventually find out? Chandra: Yeah, I did that by significant self-research and really it began, it, it became reading books by doctors, doctors who were in the trenches, helping patients, doctors who are specialists in areas based on symptoms I had based on the lack of energy, the energy was the biggest thing for me. And so I started researching that and eventually it brought me to the fact that I needed a functional medicine doctor and I had done the research. We had one in Las Vegas. I had spent three to four months trying to get the insurance company to pay for that because she did accept a version of my insurance. It wasn't the one I had, but if I had been my children or my spouse, I could have walked into her and made an appointment and gone to see her. And finally, I said, you know what? This is ridiculous. I'm not going to live like this for the rest of my life. And I paid cash first appointment. She took down all the symptoms. They were the same things. I had been telling people the, for the last almost 10 years, and based on all of the intake paperwork I had filled out for her, which was over 15 pages worth. She says, you have Lyme disease and why is no one seeing this? She followed it up with,ulab tests, which were confirmed. And for anyone out there who's not familiar with Lyme disease. Not only is Lyme disease prevalent or present, but usually there's any number of co-infections present with the Lyme disease and other viruses, things like mold toxicity, things like heavy metal toxicity. Your, your, your body is basically a toxic heap of trash inside. And especially when you've been living like this for 10 years. And that day she told me, listen, it's going to take you two to five years to recover from this. You have been sick for so long. I was one of the worst patients she had. She had one of the most complex and worst patients, as far as the kind of shape I was in at that point began a new journey. Little do you know that when you get a diagnosis such as Lyme disease and, a complex chronic illnesses, the treatment often puts you into worse spaces and places than you have been through just living with it. And that journey was to me, the worst part, the most difficult part, but it also brought about the most learning experiences that I would have never had. I see the world in such a different place, in a different space, and then in just a different way than I did before. I'm very, very grateful for this journey and to be this far along in it, to where I can actually talk to people now, because the, the self-care that comes along with this is never ending. So, you know, one day you may be able to work for an hour and the next day you're in bed for all day, because you don't know how your body's going to perform, and you do the best you can to get the max performance out of it. Passionistas: You're listening to The Passionistas Project Podcast, and our interview Chandra Beckman to learn more about Shondra and her business Soul Central Coaching and Consulting, visit Chandra beckman.com., visit Chandra, beckman.com. Now here's more of our interview with Chandra. You said that this has made you look at the world differently. How did you look at it before? And how do you look at it now? Chandra: Before? I don't think I was as accepting of people, accepting of others. The perspectives that I see now are so much more interesting and enriching to me. This has really allowed me to really expand that view. Passionistas: But at what point did you leave the Air Force and why did you make that decision? Chandra: I actually ended up retiring at the time that I became so sick. I couldn't function normally in the military, you go through what's called a medical evaluation board so that they can take a look at your case, determine whether or not you're capable of remaining on active duty to serve. And at the time when I should have went through one of those, I had already had an approved retirement date. I was getting CA better care than what that the military could provide. And so if we had pursued the medical evaluation board, it would have just extended my time on active duty a lot longer at that point I was allowed to retire. So I actually did 20 years. Passionistas: So you have had intimate experience with our health care system. What have you taken away from those experiences and how has it made you look at the system that exists in the United States? Chandra: While I was in it, it was atrocious at that point though, I did not realize how handcuffed, how not blind, but there are blinders on our medical system and how entrenched they are in one way of medicine. And it is not the individual medical care providers faults. It is the system that has been created through the insurance companies, through the pharmaceutical companies and the system that our nation has bought into, if you will, and there's history behind. If anyone wants to go look into it, I think it started back in about the 20 1920s when we kind of discarded the other medical care options. And now I feel so sorry, I guess, for people that are stuck in that system, I feel empathy for the people having to work within it and having to go to work day in and day out and not have answers for people or not be allowed to take the time, to really sit down and understand people, understand why things are happening. And that's, what's required in order for wellness to thrive in order for healthcare to be healthcare instead of sick care. And when you get out into the integrative and functional health medicine options and natural pathic, there is a, a plethora of options available to people yet we're not even educated on them. And I think that was a big thing for me is these options are available. These options were out there. They're legal, they're in the United States yet. None of my conventional medicine doctors even knew about them. So, you know, it's one thing if they could tell me about them so I could go pursue them, even if I had to do it at my own cost, but they aren't even educated on them. Passionistas: And you would have to do them at your own cost, which as you said earlier, is prohibitive to people who don't have those means. Chandra: Absolutely. And I'll tell you, that's one of the big things that I had to let go of, you know, the first six, eight, maybe even 12 months of recovery, once I was accurately diagnosed, I would hurt. I would feel for the thousands, if not millions of people in the United States that are suffering and you know, what we would consider S you know, the, the most well off nation on earth. And we have these people who are suffering because they can't afford this kind of care that is available and would help them get better so that they can be more productive in the future. How is this right? How is this even happening? Yeah. So I had to add that point, you know, I had to take a step back and say, okay, you've got to focus on using your financial resources to recover, to take care of yourself, to get stronger, to heal so that you can help those who maybe aren't aware of it, or maybe can't financially afford it. Passionistas: So how are you helping people at this point? Chandra: I am very fortunate to be at the point where I am able to be a resource for others. I was able to start my own coaching business so that I can be a source of education, a source of resources, a source of accountability for those that are going down this path. And I won't even limit it to healthcare because the clients that I work with really don't come from the same path that I walked, but really about transformation and digging deep into yourself and finding ways that you can affect your own life in much more positive ways. And that has been very rewarding that I am now to the point where I, I do have time and I do have energy to help others. Passionistas:  So what are some of the services you offer? Chandra: I offer personalized one-on-one coaching and my role as a coach is to help people with whatever goal they have. It can be a personal goal, it could be professional, it can be transformational, it can be a health goal. And we walk together down that path options and the resources that are available for them and allowing the individual to really dig deep inside themselves and figure out what is going to work best for them. And my role is to be a partner. It's not to tell them what to do. It's really to be a partner in walking that path of discovery. Passionistas: What advice would you give to someone who's in a similar situation to what you went through and not getting the information they need to get better? Chandra: The first thing is don't give up. That was one of the beliefs that I had from the beginning when I started doing my own research. And really, you know, as you're age 40 and you're in bed saying, this is not the way I want to live the rest of my life. And there's answers out there. I know there is, and I'm going to find them. And so for anyone that finds myself there, don't give up because the answers do exist. They are out there. And when you start exploring, you will find that the next step will become available. It will appear before you, as you start researching and having to dig in and do that work. And then the other thing I would say with that as well, is that nutrition, nutrition is foundational for healing. And so I went through a number of dieticians and nutritional consultants, and it wasn't until we figured out what nutrition was best for me, and really strengthened my body and helped my body heal, that I could really start moving forward. And that's different for every single person. And so it takes a lot of time to relate to figure that out. Passionistas: And how are you feeling today? Chandra: Today? I'm feeling pretty good. I, you know, when you're dealing with people with invisible illnesses, it's easy to show up and have other people look at you and say, Hey, you look great, but they don't know everything that goes into you just showing up for that 10 or 15 minutes or showing up and sounding happy for that 10 or 15 minutes, or the fact that your body inside right now, it feels like 65 years old, but your face looks like you're 30. And so I am doing so much better today than I was six months ago and six months prior to that. Now in six months prior to that, the journey is very slow. And as a former fighter pilot, I just want to take the actions, do the steps that are required to fix it and go on. And that's been one of the biggest learning points of this journey is like, okay, the body heals at the speed, the body heals, and you have to have patience for it. Passionistas:  Now that you're helping other people, what's the most rewarding part of this journey? Chandra: I think the most rewarding part of the journey is that I now have an even bigger toolbox, if you will, to be able to help and empower others to grow prior to this, I had never experienced getting close to suicide. I didn't even understand it, but it was never something that I would consider going through this journey and hitting the, and hitting that black wall of, I now have a decision to make, I can choose to keep fighting and keep living, or I can choose to end this. Now I now understand how people can get to that position. I would not have understood that before. I now understand why when people say I couldn't get out of bed, no, you physically can't get out of bed. It's not like you're making this up, you know? And it happens. Passionistas: What do you think is the biggest lesson you've learned about yourself on this journey. Chandra: Self-Love kindness really becoming okay with the fact that you can love yourself and you can love yourself first, because if you don't do that, eventually there won't be anything left of you. I think that's really important. I know it's really important for women. I don't know how much this can apply to men or to, to anyone else who from an early age, we're taught that at least I was taking care of yourself and giving yourself that self-love was not okay. It wasn't appropriate. There was something wrong with it. And I think that that is probably the most important factor. Passionistas: What's your dream for women? Chandra: To feel free, to feel free, to be who they are, and to understand that other women can be who they are and it's okay. And we can all be who we are without condemnation without having to judge. And there's beauty in that. Passionistas: Thanks for listening to The Passionistas Project Podcast  and our interview with Chandra Beckman. To learn more about Chandra and her business Soul Central Coaching and Consulting, visit ChandraBeckman.com. Please visit ThePassionistasProject.com to learn more about our podcast and subscription box filled with products made by women owned businesses and female artisans to inspire you to follow your passions. Our winter box with the theme, Passionistas Pamper will be on sale soon. Sign up for our mailing list to get 10% off your first purchase. And be sure to subscribe to The Passionistas Project Podcast so you don't miss any of our upcoming inspiring guests. Until next time stay well and stay passionate.

Selene Luna is best known as the voice of Tia Rosita in Disney Pixar's Coco. She is an established presence in Hollywood with multiple roles in movies and TV shows, including Margaret Cho's "The Cho Show. " The Mexican American actress, who lives with a physical disability, has also broken ground as a featured burlesque dancer in five national tours of the undisputed queen of burlesque Deeta Von Teese. She is also an advocate for people living with disabilities including a 2019 trip to DC to meet with legislators and speak at a rally on Capitol Hill. More about Selene. Learn more about The Passionistas Project.   Full Transcript: Passionistas: Hi, and welcome to the Passionistas Project Podcast. We're Amy and Nancy Harrington. Today's episode is Part 2 of a two-part interview with Selene Luna, best known as the voice of Tia Rosita in Disney Pixar's Coco. Selene is an established presence in Hollywood with multiple roles in movies and TV shows, including Margaret Cho's "The Cho Show. " The Mexican American actress, who lives with a physical disability, has also broken ground as a featured burlesque dancer in five national tours of the undisputed queen of burlesque Deeta Von Teese. In 2019, Selena went to Washington DC to meet with legislators like US Representative Maxine Waters at the 2019 Conference on Independent Living to advocate for disability rights and spoke at a rally on Capitol Hill alongside US Senator Chuck Schumer. And it's not too late to get your tickets for tonight's event. Chronically Funny: A Comedy Revolution Featuring an All-Disabled Lineup of Women. This virtual comedy show will be followed by a round table discussion with the performers. So please welcome to the show Selene Luna. In 2017, you voiced the character of Tia Rosita in the Academy Award and Golden Globe winning film "Coco." So talk about that experience and how did that come about and how did you feel about doing that movie? Selene: It was such an unbelievable experience for me personally. It was validating not only am I a disabled woman working under the Pixar brand, but I'm a Brown person, you know, a Mexican doing, you know, Disney Pixar. So that was, I couldn't believe it was happening in my lifetime. And that had everything to do with the team at Pixar and Disney. They went through great, great measures to make sure this film was not whitewashed. And so what was very special about it is that it's the very first film in major studio history to have an all Latino cast. And so I feel like I'm part of history and that film means the world to me. And also because they told the story in such a beautiful way, that absolutely honored my Mexican culture. And so for the first time in my life, I had family relatives who were in like so deeply engaged and proud and just having my family and extended family proud that I was in something that finally represented our people in a positive, beautiful light. Passionistas: I love that it explained to other people beyond the Mexican culture, what the day of the dead symbolizes. Selene: I even know my friend's kid, you know, they're white and, but the little kid, an altar, you know, he has a little day of the dead altar and it just those little things that, like, it means a lot to reach someone from a different culture and to be embraced for the beauty that your culture brings. Yeah. It's been really giving film in so many ways, like on so many levels. Passionistas: What kind of doors has that movie opened up for you professionally and as an advocate? Selene: It really has opened doors for me. As far as advocacy goes. Right around the same time that the film came out, that's when I started to have a real awakening about disability justice. The timing kind of just really sinked up. And the reason was that I didn't become involved with disability justice until that movie came out. It's only been a few years. And I'll be brutally honest is because up until that point, I was really riddled with self-loathing ableism. Like I was, I, I was not okay with who I was, even though throughout, you know, my entertainment career. It may appear, it may have appeared that I was great. I was totally fine. I embraced who I was, it was all fake. It's not true. I hated myself. It didn't I didn't feel accepted by, you know, most communities ,by anybody really. And it was very painful for me, but I just happened to believe, well, it's not a belief what actually happens. It's just my level of maturity and finding myself as a complete woman. It all just kind of happened at that time in my life. And it all just kind of came together. So "Coco" had a lot to do with it because at the time I was attending a lot of events you know, you do a big film suddenly everybody's interested. So I kept getting invited to various events. I was receiving recognitions and awards from various Latino communities and organizations. And through there I was connected with with the wonderful organization, which I, which has mentioned in my intro. It's SCRS-IL, a big long acronym for Southern California Resource for Independent Living. It is a disability advocacy group that serves the state of California and mainly Los Angeles County. They're the largest disability rights organization in Southern California. I became involved with them mainly because they serve the population that I grew in the the Latino population. And through them, I began to learn about what's wrong with this world and how, and what we need to do. And the more I learned the angrier I became and decided I need to do something. And I took advantage of having this platform of the media attention I was getting because of "Coco." So I thought I better take advantage of this opportunity because in showbiz, I mean, you're hot one minute cold the next, and that's real for everybody. So I married the two. Passionistas: Tell us about the trip you took in 2019 to Washington. Selene: Well, the trip I took out was to Washington was specifically with SCRS. I became, I, I became involved by being on their board of directors. So as a member of the board of directors, I was invited to travel with them to Washington DC for the Nickel Conference, which is the National Council of Independent Living, which is the, the disability rights movement that started just over 30 years ago. So every year in June, they have a conference on Capitol Hill, along with a week-long of activism. There's a huge March a parade we take over DC. And so with them, with SCRS, I had the privilege of participating and it was life-changing for me. It was the first time in my life that I was in an environment where it was all disabled people, as far as I could see of all variations, all different conditions. And it was the most powerful feeling of like, wow, this is the first time in my life where I'm not the only one. And it was so... Talk about Passionista and everybody there was like so much fire in their belly, such a, I felt so much passion and pride for who I am and, and really, really, it resonated for the first time in my life. Like we deserve as much as anyone else. And so that was an incredible experience for me. So as part of the week long events, I gave a talk on Capitol Hill about education discrimination against individuals with disability. I focused on education because of my personal experience. Throughout my entire childhood. Growing up in the Los Angeles public school system, I was cheated from getting the equal education that other kids got simply because of my condition ha it had nothing to do with my IQ or my mental ability. So, I spoke about that and then throughout the week we had meetings, individual meetings with various legislators to talk about what SCRS does as far as they advocate for STEM education for children with disabilities. And so we went to go and meet with legislators to secure funding. Passionistas: So what can people do that did not have a disability? How can we be better allies? Selene: To be a better ally... Here's a great example. You, you and not you guys, but you weren't one enabled bodied or just an abled person is not an ally by simply posting something on Instagram, like a guy in a wheelchair, lifting weight, lifting weights, and claiming to be inspired by this individual. We don't care for you to be inspired. The true definition of being inspired means that you were moved to take action. So if you're actually inspired, if you actually want to help, we need you to take real action. And that starts at the ground level. That starts at your local community, make sure that every building in your town and every sidewalk is accessible. For example, a huge issue in big cities right now is we have a homeless epidemic in this country and which is heartbreaking and horrific. And as a result, a lot of the sidewalks in major metropolitan areas are packed with homeless encampments. So I don't know what the solution is because I don't know where the homeless are supposed to go. I don't have that answer, but just imagine being an individual with a physical disability that has to get to the bus stop in a wheelchair, but there's nowhere on the sidewalk to wheel up to the bus stop. How are you going to get to work? So it's those simple everyday things, you know, talk to your local government, get involved in trying to figure out what the solution is, provide a path. Simple things, daily things help provide paths and accessibility for disabled people who need to get on that sidewalk that are packed with homeless encampments. So it's that kind of thing. Really just take action in your own local community. Passionistas: Is there a question that we should be asking that we're not asking? Selene: Yes. The question is for me, and I think for a lot of people in my shoes, why is it legal in 38 States to pay disabled people less than minimum wage for the same work executed by abled individuals? I have a lot of there aren't many laws in place set up against individuals with disability. It's overwhelming to try to list all the problems, but here's another example that people don't realize and it's in our faces. It connects to Black Lives Matter more than 50% of Black individuals who are murdered by police are disabled. So not only are they Black, they're disabled on top of it, nobody addresses that the Sable population being murdered under the Black Lives movement. And why isn't anyone talking about this? Not only are they black, they're disabled, and these kinds of things need to come to light. I'm guessing it's probably attributed to individuals with mental illness because they're not able to communicate with the police. Also, if you're a deaf Black man, you are a dead immediately, dead. Police officers are not trained to deal with anyone who's deaf or has a hearing impairment. So if a deaf individual is at gunpoint, how are they going to sign? How are they going to motion? How are they going to communicate? Hold on. I can't hear you. And then they get shot. People really need to realize the social injustices against disabled people. It's something relevant to all of us. Passionistas: We're Amy and Nancy Harrington. And you're listening to the Passionistas Project Podcast and our interview with Selene Luna. To learn more about Selene visit her website, SeleneLuna.com. Now here's more of our interview with Selene. I know you've had a podcast, but have you ever considered doing a podcast about these issues? Selene: I did start to do one, but I put it on the side. The podcast that I started was called "Little Woman, Big Crimes." And I was going to focus on crimes against individuals with disabilities. Here's another statistic. God, I can't remember the specific numbers, but it's something like a disabled individual is murdered every hour, every day by a caretaker usually. And the media does not report on this because sympathy is directed towards the person who murdered the disabled individual because disabled individuals by society are considered a burden and they, a journalist will always find the angle where, well, you kind of can't blame the murderer. The murderer tends to be the caretaker. There, a wonderful website, that is a Memorial to all individuals throughout the entire. It's an international list of individuals who have been murdered by their caretakers. And the stories are devastating, brutal, gut wrenching. They're not covered by anybody. And I went as far as recording four episodes, but the stories are so horrific. I didn't have the stomach to continue. And so I kind of shelved that project. I just, I couldn't do it. It made me sick inside. I was having nightmares and these stories are horrific. I mean, for example, I don't know if you want to hear it now, but one of the stories that covered was a woman in Russia who was a paraplegic, was boiled alive by her daughter-in-law her daughter-in-law was her caretaker and boiled her alive just cause she was sick of taking care of her. There was a, a father who, and this is a very tragic example. There was a father here in America, the father had mental illness. He was schizophrenic and he was off his medications. He had an eight year old son who used a wheelchair. The father was having an episode where he thought his son in the wheelchair was not human and decapitated him too, because he thought the son was a robot and he wanted to rewire him. So and this isn't like 20 years ago, this story was like, you know kind of I think maybe 10 years ago. So there was a lot of horrific violence against individuals with disabilities. The numbers are staggering and it's something, no one addresses media won't cover it rarely, rarely is a caregiver ever prosecuted at all. Everybody just feels sorry for them cause they were burdened with the caretaking task. Passionistas: What about coming to terms with your own feelings about yourself and what a struggle that seemed to be for you for such a long time? What advice do you have for someone who maybe hasn't come to that place yet? Selene: That's a really good question because growing up, I always wished that there was somebody like that in my life. It would have made all the difference in the world. It would have changed me as an individual. But I think at this point, the wisdom I can offer to anyone struggling to live, not so much live in their body, but to navigate through the blatant discrimination we experience on a daily basis is to just do not let all these messages develop the opinion of yourself. That sounds hypocritical because that's what I did. I was told that I was, I was not told directly, I was taught that I was not worth. I was not a complete human, barely human, and that I should remain invisible. So when I started to vocalize who I am and pride in myself, that really changed my paradigm. So all I can say is use your voice. Don't back down. Don't allow yourself to be denied anything just because society says so. Do what you have to do is fight, scream, be angry. Let people know you are a complete person and you have, you are entitled to access, to equal access that everyone else in society has. It is your entitlement. You are not invisible. Don't stay quiet, speak up for yourself. Passionistas: And you said that when you got into the entertainment business, your hope was that you could change the story being told. So do you think that the story has changed and do you feel like you've had a part in that? Selene: I don't know that I had a part in it on a grand scale, but I know, I, I believe that I have had a part in changing people's perspectives towards someone like me simply because I've had the privilege of performing to thousands of people live and they saw me, they heard me, so I know I've made an impact. And but I think Hollywood is starting to change. Things are going in the right direction, but it's, I think we have a long way to go. And until images of individuals with disability are changed in the media, then culture will not follow anything. The media sets the sets, the stage sets the tone for our culture. And so until that happens, we won't see it, but it is happening. I mean, look at us, we're talking about it five years ago. I wasn't talking about it with anybody. Nobody cared two years ago, nobody cared, but I think that's kind of the silver lining about this COVID situation, where now forced to take inventory and reflect all of us. Everybody able, not abled everybody. We are all now sitting at home taking inventory on what matters, what does it matter? You know, everything we've taken for granted, we are now confronted with. So I really see this as the silver lining in the disability movement. So because for the first time in my life, I'm talking about it. People are want to hear people want to learn. So I'm very excited about that. I never imagined, never in a million years than I imagined anybody would care about disability and disabled justice in my lifetime. And I have to add, I gotta, I gotta cut Hollywood some Slack this year alone through COVID I'm now getting auditions for like real human beings. You know, I'm getting like legitimate human auditions. In fact, I just had one yesterday for HBO, you know, that never happened in my life ever. So that's very exciting. Passionistas: And do you attribute that to COVID or do you think there's a bigger movement? Selene: I attribute it to the Black Lives Matter movement that has opened and I'm grateful. Black Lives Matter has opened the flood Gates to the injustices in this world. And now people are starting to speak up. People are now saying, Hey, you know what, me too. I understand. I, I, you know, my people w we, we get the short end of the stick too. And also because of social media being on lockdown, there's so much information now being thrown at us. And so it's kind of been a great opportunity. People are now listening. Passionistas: Looking at back on your journey, what do you think was the most courageous decision that you made that changed your path? Selene: The most courageous, just decision I made, I think, and I still benefit from it is to stop caring about what people think and just commit to creating my own narrative, no matter how painful it is, no matter how difficult. And I'm actually a very shy individual. I really am. I, I don't like unnecessary attention because of how I grew up. I was always, I never went a day without being laughed at, stared at, it was really brutal. And then people ask, well, then why did you go into show business? You're going to get nothing but attention, but it's on my terms. When I say I'm doing it when I want, you're going to look at me and you're going to laugh when I say it's okay. But outside of being on stage on camera, I'm a complete introvert. And I just like being quiet and alone. It's a protection thing. And so, but building up the courage to just stop caring and just be free to live, to just be myself and just, pardon my French. Just a case of the fuck-its. Passionistas: Do you have a mantra that you live by? Selene: It's really silly and a little bit vulgar, but I stole it from Judy Garland. You know, there was a, an, which I thought for many years was an urban legend, but it turns out it was confirmed. Before getting on stage, Judy Garland would stand behind the curtain and just say to herself, "fuck 'em, fuck 'em, fuck 'em, fuck 'em, fuck 'em." And that would give her the courage to go on. And I w I heard that throughout my life, and I just thought it was urban legend. And but I started doing it myself before going on stage. And it's really empowering. It shakes off the nerves. It shakes off the anxiety. And later in my career, I became friends was this great producer. And she wants, worked on the Bob Hope show and confirmed that she saw Judy Garland do that. So it's true. And I don't know, you know, and, and I implemented it into my life. And even my internal dialogue, I still have triggers, you know, go to the store. It's like, Oh God, here's a mob of people staring at me. You know, just things like that. And I just go in my head, what would Judt do? "Fuck 'em, Fuck 'em, fuck 'em." It gets me through the day. It gets me through some tough times. It's so simple, but it feels so good. Passionistas: What's your definition of success? Selene: My definition of success is having the love and respect of my family and friends. Passionistas: What's your secret to a rewarding life? Selene: My secret to a rewarding life is to be kind, I have found because I was very angry, very resentful, very resentful. And so in aging and just growing up as a woman, I realized that kindness goes a long way because anytime you're kind to someone you're really being kind to yourself, it cuts the edge. I know it's really simple, but I have found that it has helped me to heal in many ways. And so the more kindness and generosity that comes from out of me that I share with people, and that has also developed in my advocacy for disability, for disabled justice. The ability to speak for others who are not able to speak up for themselves and to have compassion, to do it compassionately, not angrily, although I can't help it, sometimes I'm very angry a lot, but when I have an element of kindness to anything that I'm doing, I find it very comforting and very personal personally rewarding. And that's all really, it goes a long way. Passionistas: Thanks for listening to the Passionistas Project Podcast and our interview with Selene Luna. To learn more about Selene, visit her website, SeleneLuna.com. And find out more about Chronically Funny: A Comedy Revolution, Featuring an All-Disabled Lineup of Women on October 28th at 8:00 PM Eastern | 5:00 PM Pacific at thepassionistasproject.com. While you're there, you can learn more about our podcast and subscription box filled with products made by women owned businesses and female artisans to inspire you to follow your passions. Sign up for our mailing list, to get 10% off your first purchase and be sure to subscribe to the passion needs just project podcast. So you don't miss any of our upcoming inspiring guests until next time stay well and stay passionate

Selene Luna is best known as the voice of Tia Rosita in Disney Pixar's Coco. She is an established presence in Hollywood with multiple roles in movies and TV shows, including Margaret Cho's "The Cho Show. " The Mexican American actress, who lives with a physical disability, has also broken ground as a featured burlesque dancer in five national tours of the undisputed queen of burlesque Deeta Von Teese. She is also an advocate for people living with disabilities including a 2019 trip to DC to meet with legislators and speak at a rally on Capitol Hill. More about Selene. Learn more about The Passionistas Project.   Full Transcript: Passionistas: Hi, and welcome to the Passionistas Project Podcast. We're Amy and Nancy Harrington. Before we start our show this week, we wanted to tell you about a podcast. We just discovered through the OSSA collective, the show was called Brunch and Slay, where they remember that "if she can, I can, we all can." Host Ameerah Saine is the founder of the lifestyle brand Brunch and Slay which she created to inspire women to live their best lives every day. We think you'll really enjoy the show. So be sure to check it out wherever you get your podcasts. Now for today's episode, which is Part 1 of a two-part interview with Selene Luna, best known as the voice of Tia Rosita in Disney Pixar's Coco. Selene is an established presence in Hollywood with multiple roles in movies and TV shows, including Margaret Cho's "The Cho Show. " The Mexican American actress, who lives with a physical disability, has also broken ground as a featured burlesque dancer in five national tours of the undisputed queen of burlesque Deeta Von Teese. In 2019, Selena went to Washington DC to meet with legislators like US Representative Maxine Waters at the 2019 Conference on Independent Living to advocate for disability rights and spoke at a rally on Capitol Hill alongside US Senator Chuck Schumer. And this October 28th, we're collaborating with Selene to produce Chronically Funny: A Comedy Revolution Featuring an All-Disabled Lineup of Women. This virtual comedy show will be followed by a round table discussion with the performers. So please welcome to the show Selene Luna. Selene: Hi ladies. Thank you so much for having me Passionistas: We're happy to have you here. We're really excited to talk to you about all of these amazing things that you've been doing. What are you most passionate about? Selene: What I am most passionate about is disability justice. And I guess you could call me an advocate for disabled justice. And it's not necessarily a fire in my belly that II must do this. It's a necessity that I have to do with, I have better things to do with my time. Uh, being an advocate for social injustice is really exhausting. And it's an absolute shame to me that we have to go to such measures just to be heard. Um, and so that is why I am, uh, I guess you would say an advocate for disability justice because it impacts my life personally and those and those around me, uh, people in my life and I, as, as early as I could remember, as a little child, nothing got under my skin, then things that were not fair unfairness drove me nuts and it still does. And so, so I guess you could say I'm very passionate about injustice when it comes to, uh, individuals with, and it's driven by my own personal challenges in a society that openly discriminates against people with disabilities. So, um, it's not a joyful passion. It's just a necessity in my life. Passionistas: Why do you think, I think it is still this way. Why do you think that we've come such a small distance to tackle this issue? It feels like we should be further along. Selene: I agree with you and I have the same question. It absolutely blows my mind, but then the same question could be like, why is this country still racist? Um, you know, so many questions. Why do women not, uh, have income equality in the work force? So these are all great questions I have too. It's like, what planet are we on? I guess, to have some sort of an answer. I think, um, I can't understand exactly why, but we are in a society for generations, hundreds of years. I mean, as early as time going back to the early days of Egypt, uh, people with disabilities were, uh, mutilated discriminated against, um, violently tortured simply because they were born in a body that they can't help. They, as a disabled person. The most frustrating thing is my response to society is how do you think I feel? I didn't choose this body. You know? So then you're punished on top of something. You had no choice over. So it blows my mind. And I can say simply put, that the biggest struggle as a person with a disability is not my actual disability. It's society's perception of disability. Because like many disabled people I know myself included, uh, we are fine in our bodies and our different bodies with different abilities. And I, I have to give a disclaimer, I hate the term differently abled. And I think I just kind of used it. So bad on me, but, um, we're totally fine. We just need equal access to what everyone else has. And for those watching who weren't familiar with me, you can't tell on camera, but I'm a little person I'm only three feet, 10 inches tall. And, uh, and it's not easy. I do have a lot of, um, physical things. I mean, I have, I suffer from chronic pain, intense, debilitating, chronic pain due to the structure of my skeleton. So, so the right things I I'm, I have to get through, but it's the least of my troubles. My greater troubles are society's open discrimination. Passionistas: So take us back to when you were a young girl and what your childhood was like, and when you first knew you were funny and why you think you sort of became funny. Selene: My childhood was I'm riddled with adversity. Uh, I'm a Mexican immigrant. So my parents brought our family to the, uh, to the United States from Mexico when I was three years old. So I don't really have a memory of that, but, uh, but the challenges we faced were like a lot of racism and bigotry because we were Mexican, we were new to the country. Um, and I'm, there was no, I was the only person who with a disability in my family. Actually correction. My father is actually disabled as well, but he wasn't born with a disability. Like the majority of statistics, uh, say the majority of people with disabilities were not born disabled. And so that's why it blows my mind that people are so dismissive of it because you never know who's next. I mean, you could be hit by a car and in one second, your life changes. So that's what happened to my father before I was born, he was in a horrific accident when he was 18 and he lost his entire right arm. Uh, he's an amputee. So, um, but I forget honestly, because the way we grew up was, um, never really talking too much about it. You know, we were, I grew up in the seventies, my parents are old school. You just suck it up and you get on with life. So that was great for me in many ways, but it also was not good for me because then I felt very isolated. None of, no one in my family was a little person and nobody really had a disability that was addressed, um, directly, uh, everyone's needs were met, but there wasn't a conversation about disability at all. And my dad was busy working two jobs, you know, it wasn't, we just don't even talk about feelings. And, um, so what I'm getting at is that's a little bit of my background. So my upbringing upbringing as a disabled little girl, it was very isolating. I, it was very dark. I felt very alone. I was never immersed in any type of support network. I was never exposed to a disabled community. And my only point of references were, uh, disabled people being ridiculed on television. And like, you, you know, I grew up watching, um, like Billy Barty, the Buggaloos , uh, you know, things like where the creatures on television were, little people in costumes. It was very dehumanizing. And the irony is, and I grew up to do that myself, but as a child that had a lot of internalized shame, enablism, it's the only images I identified with, were the d humanizing images of little people on television and movies, including the Wizard of Oz that brought up a lot of anxiety for me. Uh, and I didn't feel human. I didn't, I felt like I'm not a human being like my siblings or my parents, like I'm something different and it must be really shameful cause we don't talk about it. So it was really awful, no gentle way to say this. Uh, but grew up old school, you just bare and grin it and you chug along and you don't complain. And so that's where the funny comes in at a very young age, I think around the age of five. I think that's about when you start having a little self awareness, maybe five, six. I remember in kindergarten, I remember really in first grade that's when it really hit me that I was not like the others. And when I started to have this self-awareness as a defense mechanism, I was really joking all the time and never serious. And it was really a distraction. It was really to help me survive. And I think a lot of kids or dealing with a heavy things at home use humor to protect themselves. I mean, I'm always concerned now as an adult, I look back if there was a class clown in the room in the classroom, that's a pro... There was a problem at home. And so I was a clown. I was always, uh, using humor as I just figured if I can make them laugh, they'll forget about what I look like. And so I think anyway, long story short, I think that was my childhood. Passionistas: You had these experiences seeing these images on television and in movies, and yet you chose to go into the entertainment industry. So what drew you to that in as a career? Selene: What drew me to it is while I was having this realization of, you know, when I was very young realizing what I was, I didn't understand what I was, but I knew I was different and in a shameful way, not like cute different. Um, so I, and I grew up in Los Angeles. So Hollywood was very much on the radar, uh, socially. And, uh, so as a little kid, I thought, well, if I can make them laugh and I figured I can go into showbiz because I thought I could be the one who changes the images that make me feel ashamed. And also it would be an opportunity to be in control of the dialogue. I figured if people were gonna laugh and point at me, it would be on my terms. And so that's how I saw that platform. On top of having no real education, I thought, and I'm not implying that you don't need an education to get into entertainment, but I just thought my talent would be to entertain people and make them see me the way I want to be seen and heard. And, uh, but you know, once I did it, it was a very different reality. Passionistas: So, tell us about that reality. Tell us about how you broke into the business. What, what were your first gigs? What were auditions like? Selene: Well, the reality was a pretty harsh in the sense where, um, I, you know, I had my mind made up that it's going to be up to me to create a new image for people like me, but I didn't really realize that I wouldn't have the actual platform to execute my plan. Uh, I, you know, I'm 20 years into this career to this day. I can tell you easily, maybe 98% of my auditions or opportunities are to play a creature or a monster of faceless character to this day. And, uh, but I mean, things are actually literally just changing now. I mean this year, uh, there are new roles now, but, um, that we never had. Uh, so that was sobering for me. So what I did was I, and this is like the mid-nineties, early- to mid-nineties. I am, I was five years old, kidding. Um, this is around the mid-nineties. I took a workshop class, summer workshop of how to write, stand up comedy at the, uh, at the world, famous Hollywood Improv. And so I took like a summer kind of workshop and I fell in love with it. I was like, this is it. I have a microphone. And people just have to sit and listen ‘til I'm done. And, um, and it went really well. I really excelled and so much so that, um, one of my greatest regrets in life was a failed opportunity on my part, Bud Friedman who's a legend in the comedy world. He started the Improv. Uh, he saw one of my workshop like showcases and he came over and he pulled me aside. I mean, this man created careers for people like Roseanne Barr and he's major. And he pulled me aside and says, it was really old school.And he's like, "You got it kid, you know?" And he invited me to perform at regular shows. And so I started performing at the Improv, but I was riddled with so much shame and self- loathing and so insecure and not fully developed as a person. Then I was easily intimidated. Uh, even in the nineties, it was still very much a man's world, the comedy club. And, um, I, I just felt really scared and intimidated being around all these funny men. And they weren't welcoming to me at all or warm. Um, but that's not their job. You know, my friend and I, one of my dearest friends in the business Murray Hill, he's a comic in New York, uh, we have an ongoing joke. It's called showbiz, not show therapy. So you can expect to be coddled if you're feeling nervous or anxious, you either gonna do it or you're not. So I wasn't ready. I didn't have the skin. And after a year of Bud Friedman, you know, bringing me under his wing, I quit. I quit like an idiot. I throw in the towel. It was so scary. It was never fun for me. I practically wanted to cry after every show. And just the guys, the men were so tough and I just, um, I was invisible to them. And, um, anyway, so that's how that all started. But flash forward, about 10 years after that, I went back into it, ready to go. Uh, I was much saltier. Passionistas: What experience did you have in that 10 year period that made you so salty? Selene: I had a very interesting experience that really helped me to develop as a performer. And it was one of those things that it was something I needed that I didn't know I needed. Literally two weeks after quitting the Improv, I found myself at a party. And at this party I met some women who are still great friends of mine. Some of my closest closest friends is this grow a group of girlfriends and they were all doing, um, a dance troupe called the Velvet Hammer Burlesque. And at the time, uh, there was no one else doing it. I mean, I know burlesque is very popular now it's had a huge resurgence, but this was the very early days of the Neo Burlesque Movement at the time, the only people doing it were the stupa girls that I befriended the Velvet Hammer, Deeta Von Teese, who is now world famous and Catherine Delish and also a handful of gals in New York. And when I was introduced to this, I didn't even, uh, couldn't wrap my head around what they were doing. I didn't totally get it, you know, other than having seen maybe some burlesque and like old timey movies, but I didn't quite understand what they were doing. And it was very punk rock. And, uh, so they invited me to perform with them. And next thing I know, I ended up performing and developing as a burlesque dancer for about 11 years. And I got to tour the country a little bit of Europe. And that's where I really found my footing as a stage performer. And, and it's not that I was like excited about stripping in front of anybody. To this day, I mean, I get dressed in the dark, but I had a, I have a very confrontational attitude about what I do because my entire life I've been told what I cannot do because of what I look like. One of those things was, and every disabled person relates to this. You weren't neutered. If you're disabled, you are neutered. You are never seen as a sexual person with adult desires in any way, shape or form. Uh, it's almost angelic you're on this like, sorry, pedestal. Like you can't be a full human with full human desires. So that is what drove me to do it. I agreed to perform with these women because I just thought, you know, this will be an opportunity to show the world that I am as feminine as any other woman in the show. And, um, my first time performing, it was to over a thousand people and I was just luck here goes nothing. And I really thought I would get laughed off stage, you know, for being the freaky looking one. And the audience was amazing. They loved me and I kept doing it for another 11 years. Passionistas: We're Amy and Nancy Harrington and you're listening to the Passionistas Project Podcast and our interview with Selene Luna. To learn more about Selene, visit her website, SeleneLuna.com. And find out more about Chronically Funny: A Comedy Revolution Featuring All-Disabled Lineup of Women on October 28th at 8:00 PM Eastern | 5:00 PM Pacific at ThePassionistasProject.com. Now here's more of our interview with Selene. You were talking about how the world of comedy was so male dominated and that contributed to you not being ready to be in that world at that time. Do you think the fact that this was women who were supporting each other and surrounding each other with positive energy, do you think that helped you overcome that? Not liking to be undressed in front of people? Selene: 100%? Absolutely. It was like a different planet compared to the comedy clubs. There was no male energy. Uh, not that I don't enjoy male energy, but, um, and also there were men involved in the show, but they, they were like feminist guys, you, they were like really cool creative dudes. And still great friends with them to this day. I mean, we were like a family. And we're all still in touch and love these, this group of people madly. And they helped me grow up as an artist. I felt like raised by them. And, um, they were, a lot of them were experienced artists and been doing it much longer than I had. And I learned a lot from them. And the, the women in the show made me feel like I was part of a sisterhood. They were very nurturing about it. They embraced me, everyone supported each other. But I also want to clarify that this wasn't some feminist group. It wasn't like a feminist movement. It wasn't like I'm woman hear me roar. That's why I'm stripping it. It wasn't that these were just rock and roll chicks who were really wrapped up in the vintage lifestyle. And we had a lot of fun getting dolled up and glamorous. And, you know, we, it, it was a real bonding thing. It was kind of like almost like a quilting circle. We would make our costumes, we would, you know, get together and have a costume making circle, you know, it was bonding like that. And it was very like glitzy and glamorous. And so it wasn't like some feminist thing. We were trying to be pretty, you know, we're trying to be cute, but it was a bunch of bad-ass girls. Passionistas: What do you think was the most important thing you learned about yourself from that time in the burlesque show? Selene: That's a great question. I think what I learned about myself is that I am in fact, a complete woman and, um, and I deserve and have the right to be as feminine as I want to be and claim my sexuality. It made me feel like essential individual. And it gave me the permission to do that. Passionistas: So then how did you transition from that back into the world of standup? Selene: Well, during that period of time, uh, that's when I met my now very dear friend, Margaret Cho, um, world famous comic. At the time, her husband, Al, he was involved with our troop. Actually it, he was, uh, he had his own kind of performance art group, either really cool artists. And, um, what we would do back then is, um, our show's producer, well, our show's creator got him on board and, uh, him and his, um, performance art friends would do a fake picket in front of our show. Cause we were a bunch of ladies stripping. And so, um, so he and his buddies, uh, they would dress up like priests and have big signs and, uh, and they would picket in front of the theater and that's how we would sell out because it would draw attention. It's like old school marketing. And, and, um, so it was just, we always had a real sense of humor about what we were doing. We didn't take it seriously. And, um, so, so he was involved with us at that capacity. And, uh, and then that's how I met Margaret Cho, uh, at the time, they're no longer together, but at the time, uh, she would come and watch the show. Cause you know, her husband was kind of part of our marketing gag and it was really funny. And um, and then eventually she and I had a lot of friends in common. We became friends. She actually started doing burlesque performing. She's actually a dancer herself. She's a belly, uh, trained belly dancer. And she started doing burlesque and then she started producing a burlesque comedy show. She asked me if I wanted to be in it. And so that was really the start of our relationship. So we were starting to share the stage. She would do comedy. And I was one of the featured burlesque dancers. And over the years doing the show, we did the show for years and over time, she and I got to know each other more and more, and we became friends and she began to encourage me to do stand up. And, uh, she w I'll never forget, you know, one day she pulled me aside and she said, you know, in stand up comedy, nobody cares what you look like and you have full control of your dialogue. So, uh, so she really encouraged me to go back and do it. And that's how I went back. But, you know, it's a craft that it takes many, many years to develop. And so my little stint for a year, you know, at the Improv was barely scratching the surface. I felt like it was as if I'd never done it, you know, compared to where you need to be. And, uh, so yeah, and Margaret became my mentor in stand up and was my greatest support and encourager. Passionistas: What unique challenges do you face doing standup as a woman with disability? Selene: I'm very fortunate, uh, to say, I don't think I've really encountered many. I really haven't. I'm now, uh, uh, pretty bold. I'm, I'm, I'm now pretty bold and aggressive and I'm not shy about getting what I need. And I think that energy just comes off of me and I get what I need. Um, I really honestly have not had many challenges, but I'm very fortunate in that way. There are other performers with disabilities, you know, I know personal friends of mine who are also disabled comics and they face challenges that I don't face. For example, being in a wheelchair, uh, there aren't any stages with ramps. It just doesn't exist. I mean, that's been my experience. And so they face challenges like that. And then, so, um, individually, for example, somebody in a wheelchair has to be put up onto the stage, uh, by my staff. That's not accessibility, you know, it's invasive and, uh, but that's a comedy clubs idea of accessibility. So those are the kinds of challenges I see from my peers face. But I'm fortunate that I haven't really, I mean, other than, you know, as a dancer, I did tour tremendously and, uh, in many old, old, old theater houses and they're not accessible. I mean, like there's crazy flights of stairs. You gotta go like, you know, five flights of stairs to get to your number. And then I gotta run back up. There's no elevator went back up, do a costume change, you get three minutes and you gotta be back. Well, I don't have that physical ability to fly up and down stairs. You know, I gotta take my time. I gotta hang on. I could barely walk in heels. So it's those kinds of things. Passionistas: And how, how has the world of standup changed for you during COVID? Is it all virtual? Are you doing virtual shows and everything? Selene: Yeah, it's all virtual and it's strange. It's weird. It's absolutely not the ideal for a performing artist, a live performer, because especially with comedy, the audience is equally as important as the comics material. It's, it's a bad way we're doing together. If I don't, you can't feel the same kind of human energy that like invisible energy, you can feel in a room like a room that's alive or dead. And you just don't feel that I'm doing, you know, shows on Zoom. So it's been a learning experience. I'm still stumbling through it. I'm still trying to, uh... It takes real finesse. Because with Zoom, as we addressed earlier, you know, there was a delay. So you deliver a joke. There was a two second delay, uh, for the audience to get the G to receive the joke. And then there's another two second delay for the comic to hear them laugh if they're laughing. So then we're looking at a four second delay. So you just delivered your punchline and you're just sitting there quiet for four minutes and you have no idea if what you said even works. It's very uncomfortable. Passionistas: What kind of topics do you cover in your, your act? And are you ever concerned about the reaction you're going to get to it from the audience? Selene: For the most part I mean like 99% of the time. I mean, I should just say all the time, uh, I just cover my own life, experience, my own observation. Uh, I try to make my life experience relatable. I work hard to make it universal because if people are, if people are laughing about my experience as a disabled person, you know, they're laughing with me and if they're relating at the same time, uh, that's huge for me. I feel heard. And so many times people have come up to me after a show. And they'll just say, now I understand, like now I get it. You know? So being able to craft something where just about anyone can walk in your shoes and just the humor of it, people relate to that. You know, humor is very disarming. It's, it's a real unifier and that's why I gravitate to it. It's not something that's easy for me to execute. I struggle. I am not like this. I'm not like this talented joke writer. I don't write like amazing punchlines. I have to work really, really hard, but that's because it's important for me to be heard. I'm never concerned with anyone's reaction. I haven't been embraced. I'm not embraced all the time. I bomb all the time. And that's just part of the process. I don't care. I mean, offending somebody, Oh, gee, that's the worst that could happen to me. That's child's play. I don't, I don't care. You know, and I, but I think that's a general kind of comic attitude and look, I'm not looking to offend anyone. And I know I have, and I've learned from it. I don't enjoy that. That's not at all what I'm driven to do, but it happens sometimes with, you know, I, I haven't quite figured out my footing on a concept and I have offended people and I feel horrible because I never want an audience to have a bad experience or to walk away, you know, feeling bad about something. But, um, but there were, so it's a balance of feeling free to speak your mind, but also being inclusive. Passionistas: Is there a show or a performance that you've had that really stands out to you as like your best night in comedy? Selene: One show that stands out in my mind is, um, I was lucky enough to open for Margaret show at the Wiltern, which is, um, a very well respected, huge theater here in Los Angeles. And, uh, so I, I was really nervous leading up to it and to speak. There was a lot of pressure. I mean, you know, doing a show in LA is very tough. Uh, it's like everybody's in the business. You know, the first front row is like folding their arms. They're all industry people. It's like, make me laugh, come on. And, uh, you know, I had friends and families, I, everybody came out. And so I was really nervous, but, um, I killed it that night. And so I felt very proud of that. Passionistas: What's the most rewarding part of your career? Selene: The most rewarding part of my career, I would have to say, and I hate to keep beating a dead horse, but is, uh, people respecting my narrative. I created a certain image. I've done certain works and have been, uh, respected by my fellow artists and also audiences. And that's been incredibly validating and it's made me feel like a, a whole, a complete person. Passionistas: Thanks for listening to the Passionistas Project Podcast and Part 1 of our interview with Selene Luna. Check back next week for Part 2. To learn more about Selene, visit her website, SeleneLuna.com. And find out more about Chronically Funny: A Comedy Revolution, Featuring an All-Disabled Lineup of Women on October 28th at 8:00 PM Eastern | 5:00 PM Pacific at ThePassionistasProject.com. While you're there, you can learn more about our podcast and subscription box filled with products made by women owned businesses and female artisans to inspire you to follow your passions. Sign up for our mailing list, to get 10% off your first purchase and be sure to subscribe to the passion needs just project podcast. So you don't miss any of our upcoming inspiring guests until next time stay well and stay passionate.

Heike Yates is a fitness and nutrition expert with over 30 years of experience. She is empowering women over 50 to take back their health and strength by designing balanced and straightforward fitness, nutrition, and mindset programs. Heike is the creator of Pursue Your Spark and host of the Pursue Your Spark Podcast. She has developed a reputation for creating real-life solutions and lasting results. More about Heike. Learn more about The Passionistas Project.   Full Transcript: Passionistas: Hi, and welcome to the Passionistas Project Podcast. We're Amy and Nancy Harrington and today we're talking with Heike Yates, a fitness and nutrition expert. With over 30 years of experience, she is empowering women over 50 to take back their health and strength by designing, balanced, and straightforward fitness, nutrition, and mindset programs. Heike is the creator of Pursue Your Spark and the host of the Pursue Your Spark Podcast. And she's developed a reputation for creating real life solutions and lasting results. So please welcome to the show. Heike Yates. Heike: Hey ladies. So happy to be with you. Thank you for having me on the show. Passionistas: Oh, it's our pleasure. So Heike, what's the one thing you're most passionate about? Heike: Well, that's a tough one because if you have to just pick one thing I would say is empowering other people. And in this case, empowering women, that's the most, what I'm most passionate about. I know that's a broad term empowerment, but if you're giving somebody the tools to do something, whatever it is, it's mindset, body, or nutrition or exercise, whatever it is, you've given them the tool to do something, to get better at where they're at. Passionistas: How does that translate into what you do for a living? Heike: I don't just say here's a diet, here's an exercise program. Now go do it. It's more like, what do you want to do? Where are you in your journey? What have you experienced already that worked and didn't work? What would you like to do in the ideal world? If you go all crazy, all out, well, what would it look like for you? And then rebuilding around those things and putting them all together with the spark system to, to first figure out what somebody wants and their background, how they can put this in a plan for them that works for them and not for me or anyone of you. Um, but that it works for them personally, and that they also can continue to build on the baby steps. As I like to call them, to grow with the system, to grow with what they're learning and they're not stuck. And once let's assume the program is over, you're like, okay, now what? That there is something afterwards that you can take the tools learned and go, okay, this is great. Now I know how to put a meal together. What, what does a meal involve? And I don't have to go and say, Oh, now I have to find a recipe. And now I have to, Oh, can I eat this? Can I not eat this? No, this meal will have all components and you just make out of them what it is you would like to make out of them. Passionistas: So let's take a step backwards for a second. You grew up in Germany and then you moved to DC. So what brought you to the States? What was that journey? Heike: I love to travel. This is my, one of my other passions. I love to explore new things and this passion for empowerment travels into everything that I do. And I wanted to literally just travel the world, the world, and a job at the foreign service here in Washington, D C and well, that's where my travel ended. I met my first husband. We had two amazing kids and my kids are now all over the world. And I'm still here in Washington, DC and people wonder why I'm still here. I'm like, I just love it. I mean, you can say about what you wanted about, do you see, and it's a government city and so forth, but it has everything that I need and want. And I can do my little travels to the beach from here. It's three hours to the beach and I can go hiking within an hour. So it has that sense of freedom and independence that I'm looking for when I initially started out in Germany. Passionistas: So then why did you leave that nine to five corporate life that you had come to have here? Heike: It's so boring. I'm so sorry. It's just really boring to sit on your butt ski. As I like to call it for such a long period of time and there's, to me, there was no adventure. It was sitting from nine to five in the same office, on the same chair, on the same desk, doing the same work. And he just kept doing the same things over and over. And I didn't feel like it in besides I had two amazing kids and I draw, they wanted to spend my time with them and sitting somewhere, doing boring work. And my husband at that point, he was working. So we had an income, even though it was small, I still was able to stay home with the kids at least one at first and, um, hang out with him at this point. And I said, you know, let's just go. I mean, I gotta bite the bullet and let go of the money. But staying home as a mom, wasn't that easy. Why not? Because you're home alone suddenly with a toddler and you don't have any conversations. You don't go anywhere. You have a couple of friends who basically on the same boat and we're all like, okay, so our careers are left behind and now you're here with the kids. Now what, where is us? Where's the person that I was before I became a office worker before I became a mom. What happened to Heike at that point? Where does she? So that was a little tough. Passionistas: So how did that lead to a career in fitness and nutrition? Heike: It goes with empowerment and my freedom of independence, my seeking independence. Well, I got really big when I was pregnant. I had, before that I had quit smoking. Cause I guess I was smoking back in the days everybody smoked. And, uh, you know, if you stop smoking, you eat more clearly. So I was ginormous ended at month eight. I looked like a pink elephant. And I remember the day when I wore this pink outfit with golden glitter on and I was, I thought I was looking so cute. My husband said, you're look fantastic. And I look at the picture and I said, Oh, I look like a pink elephant. And having children, sometimes the weight just doesn't come off. Many women say, Oh, you just go nurse the baby. And the pounds will fall off. And you look like before, well, none of that happened. I had still 30 pounds to lose. And my girlfriend said there is a class at the church from the local YMCA, a, uh, community service based, uh, exercise programs and just, I did music. It's like dancing, let's go. And so we took the class and I could bring my son, which ended up screaming for the entire time in the nursery. But I didn't know that. So I was fine and I loved the class, but I would have not thought that I was going to teach this class, but they were looking for teachers and they said, Hey, you moved a well in class. Why don't you start teaching for us? And they actually teach, you're trained me for the program. And so I had training, I had my son in daycare who kept screaming. I don't know. He kept screaming and screaming, but at some point I think things went better, but, and that's how I started out. And that gave me just a little bit of money and a little bit of away from home, away from the kid and gave me my own identity. Back to that, I hike. It can create now something brand new that has nothing to do with office work and government and all this kind of stuff. It's something that I would have never, ever thought I would ever do. Teaching aerobics classes, me, but that's how my fitness journey third. And then when did you bring the nutrition element into it? Once I started teaching classes, people ask you all kinds of things. And, well, I didn't know that much about nutrition, but I knew how to eat healthy and cook healthy meals. And that was always part of how we grew up at home. But then I became also certified as a personal trainer along the way. So as I kept teaching classes, I was just interested in more things. It's like, Oh, if I can teach glasses, what else can I do? Oh, I can become a personal trainer. I can teach somebody how to lift weights. Oh, this is cool. But most people want to get in shape and want to maybe lose a couple of pounds. Well, how do they have to eat? Oh, okay. They have to eat this way. They have to exercise that way. And then it translated actually into what I was starting to do personally, you know, growing up in Germany, you exercise automatically. You don't, uh, oftentimes at least back in the days gyms were there, but people would bike and walk everywhere and we'd walk to the grocery store and you take public transportation. It's not like in the States where everything is in the car, in the Metro and people move very little. And so being exposed, this new fitness environment, I was like, this is really cool. How can I help somebody that I'm not training with weights and bands and all this stuff to get in shape? How can I help them eat better, get more energy. And like I said, maybe lose a few pounds or answer questions about, should I eat more protein? Should I have a high carb diet or what, what is Keto and all these things. And so I took what I've learned through certifications and educational classes, um, for my own training. And the first thing I did, I became a bodybuilder. So a bodybuilder needs to know how to eat correctly or not eat or hydrate or build big muscles. I mean, guys, I never got huge. I was much more muscular than I am now and much more cut, but this is another whole different learning process of how can you eat this way in order to get bulk? How do you eat this way in order to lean out? Um, and that was another perfect learning environment. And that then translated, you know, the story goes on and on. I became a runner as a runner, you eat completely different than you eat for building mass. So I started marathon running. So now I had to learn about endurance training and endurance nutrition. And what should you eat when you're out for a 20 mile run? Or how should you, as everybody loves to do the cart loading before a big race. Uh, and so all these steps then going into becoming an ultra marathon runner. So that's over 26 miles. So I ran the JFK 50 miler and again, another completely different way of eating. Cause when you think as a marathoner, you eat your goos or your liquid gels, that is all sugar. And you're done in a relatively short period of time. When you train for longer, Oh my God, you eat chips and M&Ms and salt and cookies. You would not believe [inaudible] told me about that a long time ago. Good stuff is out there on a trail race that is offered. But you, again, you're out there for 15, 20 hours or even longer for longer races. So you need a whole different type of nutrition. And so then I was like, okay, this is great. And I want to do something different. So I got into triathlons. Well, here we go. Another completely different system. You're swimming, you're biking and you're running. So I had this running nutrition under control. I didn't know anything about the bike nutrition or what do you do when you swim two miles, you clearly don't stop and have a sandwich or, you know, and so it was a learning process of the different sports that I chose, uh, that taught me a lot about nutrition. But along the way, I've always believed you need solid education and or certification or a really good ground where you can grow from. So I became a precision nutrition certified coach for, um, sports performance. And that really helps a lot explaining why something is and why your body metabolizes this way and how you can get the best nutrition for different sports. And it's the same works for anybody. If you come to me, it's a hike. I walk, well, I can tell you the same thing because it's all about biomechanics kinesiology and, and metabolizing foods and so forth. Passionistas: So now how did all of this lead to working with women over 50? Heike: I am almost 60. So I experienced what a lot of women around me experience slower metabolism, no energy, belly fat, um, here, not shiny, uh, lack luster. And you know, when I look at how I have trained, I got to a point, despite all my training, I'm changing hard, I'm doing everything right. I kept gaining weight. I nothing really works. So I, once again had to switch gears and going, okay, so everything that's worked until my mid forties, early fifties doesn't work now anymore. My thyroid is not the way it should be. I had changes in, I don't have a thyroid at all, but it's still I'm affected by different hormone changes in my body. As funny as it sounds right? So I'm past menopause, but I'm still going through the hot flashes or I can tell in your listeners probably can hold their ears, but I can tell if I were to get my period, my stomach gets rounder. I get these bloated feelings that if you ask somebody, they're like, Oh, you're just making this up. This is really not happening. And, and you way past this, but it's not true. And my endocrinologist choose these as your body will continue to go through hormone changes. And so we have to adapt your thyroid levels based on where you are. Every six months, we need to test so many women around me have said the same things. And they're like, man, nothing's working. What can I do if I exercise my butt off and still nothing happens. So we need to do things differently than we've done them before. And with the 30 years in the experience in the field, I think I have a lot to offer when it comes to over 50 and how to do things better. Now that we're older and that we're not the spring chicken, we're not with the same metabolism and also not the same needs. I mean, I am not particularly crazy about a high intensity interval, crack class. I don't know about you, but my knees are not. I mean, yes, I run, but I can take care of my knees, but jumping around and doing some super hard stuff is just, and that's what I hear from many women. They, they feel the same way. And so that's, I'm here to help. And you also fitness nutrition, and then mindset is kind of the third component. So why is that an important element in all of this? I would almost go the backwards it's mindset, exercise nutrition, or you can the change the last two pieces. But I think the mindset is really where it starts with self care. It starts with, how do we feel about ourselves? How do we empower ourselves? What do we think about ourselves? The self value that we have, the old stories, the old beliefs that we, we keep telling ourselves that we are not good enough, not smart enough. We don't know these things. And they translate into a fitness and nutrition package. Let's put it that way as well. Because if you start out not taking care of yourself, you don't know how to exercise, right? You don't know how to eat, right? You do everything maybe for somebody else or you as I call it, you dim your light and you just stay under your little light and never shine for what your true potential could be. And that's why I think the mindset component is really the key to the success in overcoming these obstacles that we come along in over 50 lifestyles. And then yes, we can't help our skin gets saggy. I mean, it's just the whole hormone changes again, but we definitely can do about something about how we think about ourselves and how we treat ourselves, how we treat ourselves, right? Passionistas: We're Amy and Nancy Harrington and you're listening to the Passioistas Project Podcast in our interview with Heike Yates. To learn more about her, Pursue Your Spark Podcast, visit HeikeYates.com. Now here's more of our interview with Heike. Talk about Pursue Your Spark and what spark stands for. Heike: Pursue Your Spark! Pursue Your Spark is in simple terms, the cook, the opposite of sim your lights So pursue your spark came out of a whole bunch of reinventions of this brand. It had different names before, and none of them really grabbed me and, and expressed what I wanted to be it's that any woman can pursue any spark in their lives. Does it mean, uh, you want to get a new haircut? That's a spark. You want to try new lipstick. That's a spark. You want to empower yourself to eat better. That's igniting a spark. It's the catalyst. And they become the catalyst, something bigger. There's this gateway that they can open up with, pursue your spark, to become something bigger than themselves. Something more than they thought they could reach and something that empowers them to do better than they did before. Passionistas: And what is the SPARK method? Heike: Oh, this is my top secret. No, I'm just kidding. Secret SPARK method. And it is built very similar to what I just mentioned is you first, you evaluate where you are. So you start, you look at where you are, you see where, uh, where you need help with and, and, uh, where you can grow where your basis is basically, then you take your basis and then you start a plan, a thing, things like I'm a Walker. I know I can walk two miles, but I would love to do a 10 K race. That'd be like, I always dreamed about this. Okay. So you currently work walking two miles. So how this is your base. What will be the next step is to create a plan that is sensible and doable for you to get to the 10 K that we'll be planning phase number two. And then you go into also the dream and this, in this case, it will be the dream thing. Okay. The 10 key is my stepping stone to the next thing to maybe something bigger, but it doesn't have to be. And then you're looking at what's possible and what's not possible. And that's where the roadblocks come in. The mindset like my feet hurt after three miles, this sucks. It's hot, it's raining. Um, I don't know if I can do this or I don't have good shoes. So what do I do now? And these roadblocks that sometimes are just imagined roadblocks, but they're there. And then as I say, in the end, we kick ass and we're going to follow up on the plan that we had from the get go. And so you keep evaluating each phase and you're like, okay. So here's my dream. Here's my goal. Here's the first plan that I had. Okay. This works great. So we keep going, Oh, we'll tweak it. If it's not working great, let's get the roadblocks out of the way. So we're not thinking of things that are maybe not there, or if it's a new pair of shoes, we'd get a new pair of shoes. And then we'll pursue that goal. That spark till you get to the finish line and you go like, I'm over the finish line, whether I want it rented or anyway, but you did it. And that's a spark method. Talk about what your clients sign up for with your services and maybe how that's changing right now. So I have a brick and mortar business, which I've had for a long time. And I've pivoted these people that I've known for many, many years into an online program. And that online program is, is an, I offer this to anybody, even if you haven't been my client before one-on-one is like, I work with you over zoom or any other channel that's convenient to you. So I can see you in person. And we're doing basically the SPARK methods to start with and determining what you need, what your goals are. And based on that, I'll train you over the internet virtually for one hour. So that's one part. I have small group training programs where you're in a small group of up to 10 people and everybody is in the small group together, and everybody does the same program. And this group also will meet online through a Facebook group. So you have connections and contacts. And I offer larger programs for individuals that are three months or 12 week programs that are geared exactly to who you are, where you are, where you want to go in a three months span. So these are those programs. I am about to start the 4-Week Lean program. And that is a 28 day program for women over 50. They want to boost their metabolism, learn about intermittent fasting. And now I'm a huge fan of intermittent fasting, and they want to take their life now and say, okay, I want to learn how to exercise and includes exercises for the whole 28 days, strategies, habit, building strategies, and help somebody to kickstart or tune up their fitness lifestyle. So if you, if you're the person who knows everything about intermittent fasting, that's not the program for you. If you're the person who wants really hard, tough busting exercises, this is not the program for you. And so these are the programs that I offer. And then I have a couple of free guides that I offer the five, four 50 lifestyle, again, a tuneup guide that you can get for free on my website and the kick quick start to intermittent fasting. That's also a free guide for anybody that wants it. So I'm thinking, keeping busy over the Corona virus, building programs, and, and finally, in a good sense, I had time to sit down and create this content, shoot the videos for the programs, write out everything and put it together. And you know, everything that goes with it, the behind the scenes stuff that nobody sees. And they're like, Whoa, look at this. And you're like, yeah, this took me a year to do. And I mean, I can't complain. I'm sorry about the situation. And I do miss my friends. Then I do miss seeing my in-person clients. But on the other hand, I'm meeting some amazing women online that I can connect through this way and can offer services that I know make a difference. Passionistas: And you also have a podcast which is called Pursue Your Spark. So tell everybody about that and what you hope women take away from that podcast. Heike: My podcast started out solely me and, uh, I'm talking about fitness, nutrition, mindset strategies for the woman in midlife and specifically the women over 50. And I coach everything through my podcasts that you may get in block form, or you can, um, get on my posts on social media. But my, my podcast is really a free source for you to learn more about intermittent fasting, more how to exercise, um, how to deal with mindset strategies when it comes to overeating or whatever the components are that we're talking about. But since I'm a very social person, I'm inviting guests as well. And my guests come from all walks of life. What they all have in common is that they overcome or overcame an obstacle. You find anybody. And this week's guest is, um, somebody who's battled breast cancer for a long time with a double mastectomy. So she will be on this week's podcast Or you can find somebody that is a much more crazy runner than I am, who ran into Infinitus is a 888 mile, 888 kilometer race self-supported. So you can find her, or you can find somebody like my friend, John Dre, who is a, what used to be a jet fighter pilot, who had to battle the health system too, which is where she is now alive, because she said, if I didn't fight the healthcare system, I would be dead today. So what do these women have in common? They overcame obstacles. They empower you the listener to take action. And you may find yourself in those stories and saying, man, yeah, I know about this one that had Lyme disease. Oh, I can talk to her and ask her questions or the bladder. I have problems with my bladder. Oh, I can reach out to hike this podcast and talk to the person that she had as a guest. And these stories help us not only be empowered and learn about each other, but also know that we're not alone, that you're not alone in your struggles that somebody else somewhere in the world has probably the same or a similar problem. And we'd love to connect with you, or we'd love to love for you to listen to their story and to help you out with what they experienced and what they've learned along the way. And that's my goal of the podcast. I love my podcast. Passionistas: What do you think is your best habit? Heike: Best habit is I'm very disciplined. I am extremely disciplined. If I set a goal, I'm going to go and do it. And, or oftentimes get myself in situations where I said, this sounds like a great idea, like becoming a bodybuilder and I'm at it. And I'm learning everything. And I'm very disciplined when it comes to the practice, to the, doing it, to the executing it. And just a little side note for the bodybuilding story, my girlfriend who got me into all of this, she did not compete she's I just couldn't get it together. I come and cheer for you. And I was like, Oh, I thought we were doing it together. I think that's my I'm very disciplined. Passionistas: What's the most rewarding part of your career? Heike: I get to kick everybody's buttski. I wouldn't say that. Um, but, well, it's true though. No, I get to help people be healthier. You know, my clients in my career have ranged from kids age eight to now my oldest client is 94 94. And when you look at the range of needs, these different people in different age groups in brackets have, it's just you, you I'm like your cheerleader by the side. Oh, you get to stand up from the toilet. Yes. Winner. Or you can run a race. Me and yes, I want to see the metal. It's just helping people to move forward with their health and not get stuck in what is so prevalent in the U S is heart disease overweight. I'm like, I'm here for you and you don't have to be definitely not perfect. And you don't, I will always cheer you on not no matter how little your accomplishments are. Cause it doesn't matter to me what Susie down the road does or how wonderful she did, whatever it matters to me, what you do and what you can accomplish every day. And when somebody comes in and says, hi guys, I've been really bad. I'm like, what do you mean by that? Well, I didn't eat a clean diet. I may have had a muffin or whatever this week. And I didn't stick to the plan that I was thought I was going to do. And I'm like, well, if you only had one muffin, that's a win right there. You didn't need the whole box. Passionistas: Do you have a dream for women? And what is it? Heike: Not really a dream. But I would say, I like to think of it as a more of a reality that we need to step up to the plate without fear too much. And right now in the past, in the past with the me too movement is like, we're sitting there hoping that somebody will do something for us to fix something or to make it better. And instead we need to step up to the plate with a clear message of what we want and how we want things to be and what we're not standing for. That's what I, my, my vision is. Um, and I hope I raised my daughter this cause she doesn't stand for any of that. She is like, Nope, she's after it. But I think instead I like rather than a dream, it's, it's really a reality cause we're right in the midst of it. And there's no better time for women to step up to the plate then right now to speak their mind. But clearly and succinctly. And um, one of my podcast guests has actually helped me through her book to do that in a, in a part of my life that, um, and it was about asking for something and not instead of saying yes, I wish could you potentially, and maybe wouldn't it be nice if to say, no, I deserve this because I do this and this, and here is why I deserve this thing or this raise or whatever it may be that we really step up and not be afraid of the consequences that the reaction is from the other person, which I think a lot of women still, and I'm not excluding myself. They're either grapple with that. I'd rather sometimes not say something because I'm thinking, Hmm, what are they going to come back with? And this is something we need to move forward. Passionistas: What do you think is your secret to a rewarding life? Heike: Happiness. It's all there is to it. If you're not happy from the inside out, then your life could be as beautiful as shiny inexpensive and whatever. But if you're not happy, happiness to me is everything. And it's like, what I tell my kids is like, are you healthy? Are you fine? Yes. But then my next question is, are you happy? Because if you're not happy, then to me, at least nothing really matters. Passionistas: Thanks for listening to the Passionistas Project Podcast and our interview with Heike Yates. To learn more about pursue your spark visit HeikeYatescom. We're currently taking orders for the fall Passionistas Project Pack, subscription box. Our theme this quarter is Passionistas Persist and the box is full of products from women owned businesses. We hope these items inspire you to stand in your power, roar at the top of your lungs, take care of yourself and remember to laugh because without joy, what's it all for. If we all support one another and stay persistent, great things will happen. You can find out how to subscribe to the box at ThePassionistasProject.com and while you're there, don't forget to sign up for our newsletter to find out about our upcoming Passionistas Project to quality exchange, monthly events and subscribe to the passion to project podcast. So you don't miss any of our upcoming inspiring guests. Until next time stay well and stay passionate

Jennifer Reitman is the founder and publisher of DAME Magazine, a digital news site covering the issues of our time through the lens of women. DAME provides critical context around the political, cultural and societal issues of our time. Independent, women-owned and women edited, DAME breaks through conventional narratives to deliver the insight readers need to understand today's complex cultural landscape. More about DAME Magazine. Learn more about The Passionistas Project.   FULL TRANSCRIPT: Passionistas: Hi and welcome to The Passionistas Project Podcast. We're Amy and Nancy Harrington. And today we're talking with Jennifer Reitman, the founder and publisher of DAME magazine. DAME provides critical context around the political, cultural and societal issues of our time. Independent women-owned and women-edited DAME breaks through conventional narratives to deliver the insight readers need to understand today's complex cultural landscape. So please welcome to the show. Jennifer Reitman. Jennifer Reitman: So happy to be here. Thank you Passionistas: Really looking forward to talking to you. What's the one thing you're most passionate about? Jennifer: It's clearly about driving equality in the media landscape. We live in a world where women are just over 51% of the population, but we own only 11% of all media. And this is coupled with holding only 37% of all media and journalism jobs. And I always say that that when you look at those statistics, what that tells us is that the stories that are being told the framing of the news is an, is an incomplete picture because those voices aren't equally reflected. Passionistas: How do you make sure those voices are reflected through the magazine? Jennifer: First and foremost, of course, is that we're a hundred percent women edited. And our stories themselves, the news we cover is bylined, I would say 99.9, 9% by women. Occasionally we'll publish a story by a man, but nearly everything is bylined by women. And that, that matters. And it matters because the language we use, the framing, the context and the analysis, when you're looking to create equality in media, you have to have that reflected in the stories and in the coverage. Passionistas: Tell us your journey from before you started DAME. What happened leading up to that? Jennifer: I've worked in the publishing industry for very long time, the reason I came out to California in fact, was to work for a small, independent print publishing company. And one of those titles happened to be what at the time was called a laddy book at guys magazine, sort of in the Maxim, FHM, Esquire category. And what I, what I found working there was here was this, this magazine that was targeting young men and it was humorous and irreverent, but it had great long form reporting. And it didn't talk about men's bodies. It didn't talk about how to be a better lover. It didn't talk about rooming tips. Maybe it did a little bit, but it, but it wasn't front and central and, and sort of the, the germ of, uh, of the idea for DAME really started then that I thought, gosh, women's publishing just doesn't really look like me or my friends or the, or really reflect the kinds of conversations that I was having. And so the idea primarily started then, and this was a, you know, the nineties, but I had always been influenced by magazines because my father, funny enough work to publishers clearing house when I was a young girl. And so we had stacks and stacks and stacks of magazines in the house all the time. And I realized sort of the power of the written word, probably as young as, you know, seven, six or seven. And so it's always been in my bones, but I think that the idea that there was a place in the market for women's media, that wasn't about fashion beauty or sex tips really started the nineties. And, and as we got into the, you know, the two thousands, I started to sit down and really write down the business plan for the brand. Passionistas: Having worked at magazines, how did you figure out how to actually launch your own? Jennifer: Um, gosh, I don't even know if I figured it out yet today when I first came up with the idea for DAME, the plan was to be in print, frankly, because it was 2008 when the original idea came to me. And so I, I just took years of having worked in the business in terms of what does the right advertising model look like? What is the right circulation model look like? And who are the people that I know can carry forward from an editorial standpoint, the vision that I have for the brand, but that's evolved, you know, like any smart business. And I, I hope that we're a smart business. We change we've pivoted many times because people change culture changes, society changes it's happening right now, as we're on this call. So the original vision was, I think cheekier more irreverent, more in the vein of Jessica Bell perhaps, or even Jane the original vision was not something so focused on social justice, but, but we had to evolve over the years. And that that pivot really came, I would say in 2012 backstory, we had to close down for a little while when I originally launched because of the great recession, like so many media outlets. And so Dame really came back in, in full effect in 2014, but, but we started testing a new model in 2012. So the business evolved over the years, but, but the original concept, you know, was really just best practices in terms of publishing publishing and reaching an audience. And that's, that's grown over the years. Passionistas: Talk a little bit about the current state of media and how it's changed and some of the challenges that you're facing. Jennifer: Is this the part of the interview where I start to cry? Well, the current and the, you know, the current state of our union, as we say, the current state of, of, of media is dire it's frankly dire, but it's not, it's not as a result of, of this administration necessarily. That's been amplified with his enemy of the people language. My beloved industry has been suffering for a very long, long time. And so I worry tremendously about it because there are lots of sayings about journalism, right? The first drafted history, but really you don't have democracy without a free and fair press. And while on the business side of things, there's been a erosion for years and years in terms of what works from a business model and how to survive financially, what brings me great, great concern is the erosion in trust of, of the institution of press today. And so on the business side, I think you'll see things, you know, things will change and models will pivot and tech, new technologies will come out and, and those who survive, and those who don't. But so I'm a little less concerned about that and tremendously concerned around how do we, as an industry, how do we encourage people and get them to understand the role of, of our business in their daily lives? And this is particularly important at the local level. DAME is obviously not a local news outlet. Many of our stories are pegged to local news issues, but, but we don't, we're not a beat outlet and say, you know, Bennis, California, we are the guard rails in so many ways. You know, we, we are the ones who, who, it's not about the big stories that you read in the New York times or Washington post, as important as those are. We're the ones who talk about embezzlement at your city council level, right? Or, you know, school, board issues, pothole fixes, and, and those that's important as essential as, as anything else that goes on at the federal level. And so when you see such a distrust of the media and such disdain for the reporters who are in large part, not all of them, but in large part, the majority are here to help you. The citizen. It really is heartbreaking as someone who works in this business, we're here to protect you from bad people and bad things through information, through context and through analysis. And, and so my, my short, but very long answer is that is what worries me the most. Passionistas: So how do you combat that? Jennifer: Transparency. The very quick and dirty answer is you change administrations first and you get a government in place that actually believes in the first amendment believes in freedom of the press and, and does things to, to support it. But, but we all know that already at the, at the business level, at the, at the platform, at the outlet level, it's about transparency in so many ways. It's about, it's about putting faces to your writers and editors. It's about showing your work. There's a little inside baseball thing. When you're editing a story. A lot of times you'll send a note back to a writer saying, show, don't tell meaning, where are the sources on this? Explain, you know, explain this in detail. Don't just tell us what, what you see, give, give examples to demonstrate why this is such, you know, such and such. And, and I think we have to, we have to do a better job as a, as an industry at large at showing what is fact checking me, right? What does, when we call sources, what's the process of that? Why did this story get picked and not another story? There's lots of work around that in terms of, of, you know, solutions, journalism as well, not just sort of hyperbolic headlines, but actually really tying in what's happening in certain communities. And who's actually doing the work to either fix or solve or change that brings about transparency as well because it's public interest reporting in large part. And so I think there are solutions that technology can support right there, little things that sites can do many sites already do it. Dame is small. So we don't often have the opportunity to do some of those things on the fly. But I also think that there, there are some bad habits that the Beltway press has, right? And we know them. We can, we complain about them. Both side is forced neutrality and objectivity. And we live in an era with those things that may be 50 years ago worked. They don't so much anymore in the absence of a fairness doctrine. And the reality is that journalism is not AI. There is a person who writes every story and to one, you know, assume or demand that there is not some kind of biases to fool ourselves in some part, all of us readers and, and outlets. And so I think there's a little bit of growing up that the established sort of benchmark media needs to do in terms of the way that they handle headlines, the way that they tap dance around certain words like why you know, we've spent three and a half years watching the biggest newspapers in the country avoid the word lie. When, when everyone knows that it's a law, and these are, these are habits that wall, they may have served a purpose in the past. I think it's time to dispense with some of this stuff, but, but that's, you know, that's me small publisher who could make change quickly. Right? I don't have a board of directors. I don't have shareholders. I don't have stock. I'm not on the, we're not a publicly traded company. And so we have a lot of control and we also don't position as a breaking news outlet, right. We're, we're for all intents and purposes and editorial site with long form reporting. So we can take a position, we can take a saw and we don't shy away from it. And I think that's, you know, in part our special sauce, Passionistas: And there's no umbrella organization saying these are the rules of being a journalist of being a media outlet. Right? So how does that change? Jennifer:  And we don't really want that, right? Passionstas: Right. Jennifer:  You know, there's lots of discussion that goes on, you know, should, should, should all media be publicly funded, right? You hear these conversations should the government funded. So when you don't have, uh, you know, uh, uh, there are plenty of bodies that, that work to unify standards of course. Right. And there are tons of nonprofit organizations that are supportive of, of different, of different media outlets. Uh, but you're right. There is no overarching, this is the way this industry is supposed to, you know, that's why I brought up the fairness doctrine. And so, yeah, and it's also democratized. I mean, I'm not young, right? And so I came up a Vinny long before there was the internet and long before, you know, publishing was print or a newspaper or union magazines and newspaper. And so, you know, anybody can say anything now on the internet and lots of people who are not media or journalists, or refer to themselves as that. And, and you run into a slippery slope because who gets to say what you can't, you can't tell people they can't publish what they want to publish. Of course they can. The issue becomes who do you platform for me, that's the issue, right? For established media, whose voices are you platforming? So anybody can say anything on their own. I, I fully stand behind that. What I, what I don't stand behind is for those, you know, benchmark outlets to give voice and platform to everybody because not everybody deserves to be heard. They deserve to write what they want, but they don't deserve necessarily to be heard. And that can be controversial. I don't know, but that's my personal opinion. Passionistas: You're listening to The Passionistas Project Podcast and our interview with Jennifer Reitman to subscribe to DAME visit DAMEmagazine.com. And while you're there, be sure to check out their comprehensive guide, to voting in all 50 States and the District of Columbia. You can see the voter registration deadlines for vote by mail and in person options, get details on early voting and requesting an absentee ballot, learn about your voting rights and get your polling location. Now here's more of our interview with Jennifer. Passionistas: You mentioned that 99.9% of the by-lines are by women and that women speak differently. So to you, what's the voice of a DAME journalist and how has it, Jennifer: There's actually a few things that are really consistent across the board without all of our contributors and writers. The first thing is they're unabashed, right? They are confirmed in their thoughts and not in, not in an obstinate way and not in a, a sort of defiantly ignorant way, but they are subject matter experts. Most of our writers are coming from a place of lived experience. And so the voice, one aspect of their voice is just this, this core authenticity. They know what they speak of, and that, and that really does come through. I think the other thing that's been that I notice in all of our features, whether it's reported, whether it's a first person, op ed, is the thoughtfulness and the care in the voice and the approach to the topic that they're writing on, we inherently are so blessed that the people who write for us and agreed to write for us, or are just good, decent kind people. And that, that part of them comes through in their voice. Without question. I think that the, the other thing that's consistent for us is there is, you know, a bit of provocative tour in, in almost everything we write. And I think in some ways you could attribute that to the subject matter, but I think it's also, you know, I think it's also who, who feels that we're the right platform for us consistently. Some of the feedback we get from writers is their appreciation of the freedom we give them to be themselves. And, and, you know, I look at that again is the authenticity, but it's also, we allow them to push their own personal boundaries in their writing, which in turn, our hope is that pushes the boundaries for anybody reading those features, because that's what we want to do. We want to, you know, we want to stimulate dialogue and in turn, hopefully change an action Passionistas: In the last few years there have been several key turning points. It seems like in the women's movement on the, you know, the me too movement, the time's up movement, and even the women's March that started in 2017, have those things changed what you guys have been writing about as well? Jennifer: I don't think it's changed. I think it's funny you point that out. I was going through for our newsletter today. I was pulling a selection of links of some of the most read pieces we've done on race. And it's interesting when it comes to sort of feminism, some of the stuff we've done on, on feminism, I see an evolution around that. Not necessarily on the site, but just out there, right. This sort of, you know, I think the acknowledgement that, that feminism for me, but not for me, has really impacted women of color and black women and, and the commodification of, of white feminism in so many ways and sort of the discounting of the true issues. But what I found slightly disheartening, frankly, is as I went through the archives, the same issues that we're talking about today in terms of, of equality and racial justice, we've been publishing forever and, and amongst many other outlets, right? We're, we're certainly not, you know, exclusive in that category, but, but, you know, I was particularly struck reading some of them that I, there were several pieces that I realized that we could have published yesterday, literally. And they would have been as timely and as, as newsy as they were in 2014. And I think that that speaks volumes and not in a, not in a great way. And so I think that that what has changed is, you know, on the positive side is no shortage of things to talk about. Whereas we've been covering these topics for a long time, because this is what we do, but I look at it in context of some, you know, newer entrance into the, into the industry, or perhaps some outlets that have been around for a long time, I'm heartened by the fact that their pages include these topics. Well, as well, because they're nobody shouldn't be considering publishing on all of this. Right? So the, you know, everyone needs to have social justice and center on their site, racial justice, front and center on their site or in their pages, paper pages. But I don't, I don't think we've evolved. I, I think we've done this for so long that that it's simply we've gone where the narrative goes. Right. And so if the, if the debate in 2015 was about, you know, is it finally time for a woman president the question today? You know, maybe why wasn't it. So it's, it's just, it's more about, um, how the, how our culture changes. And I think our editorial reflects that more than anything else. Passionistas: What is DAME's plan moving into this intensified election period? How do you guys handle election coverage? Jennifer: It's interesting. There's a few things that we'll be launching that are, will be a little different for us. In fact, we're going to be launching a lot more coverage of disinformation and that's because I personally have such an incredible fear of the impact, you know, with the hindsight of 2016, I feel a responsibility to do a lot more coverage on what just info ops are out there to debunk it as much as possible, because that really is a service to the electorate, right? We, we have to inform, we've always done a ton of election coverage, right? We, we, you know, we did ongoing series leading up to 2060, obviously in 2016, we did a ton, but, but leading up to the 2018, we covered all of the congressional women candidates running, leading up to the presidential primary. We had a series running on all of the, a weekly series on all the women candidates running for president. And so we'll, we'll stay there in terms of Senate races. Now we've moved onto the Senate races. So I don't think we'll change much of our election coverage in terms of actual races. That is not our core expertise. We're not DC beltway reporters in that way. We'll probably stick with what we're best at, which are the issues that are relevant to any race. So we've got a lot more disinfect work to do, and we'll probably do far more explainers around the core issues that will be on the ballot, basically what we're voting for when we vote in 2016, not so much about the candidacy, but, but more about, you know, all of the things that go into the federal government. We did a piece that was sort of overarching, right? What we're voting for in that way, but we'll drill down into each of those issues like the judiciary or, or the, you know, federal agencies. So I think those will be two, two big things that we'll focus on is leading it Passionistas: As we are recording this. Now the country is seeing an uprising like we haven't seen in decades, and there's a lot of protesting around the horrible death of George Floyd. And in fact, DAME magazine sent out an email this morning about elevating the Black voice. So what kind of steps are you taking in that regard? Jennifer: Well, we've always taken that step. I have to say that, that we're very conscious as a white owned, uh, I'm white and I endeavor whenever possible to be publishing black women, but we need to do more, you know, we need to do more and I need to spend some time making sure that there's parody within our own digital pages. I think one of the things that I've consciously tried to make an effort around is to not relegate our black journalists, to just writing about race, right. That, you know, I want black women to be writing on the economy and on, you know, technology and cultural issues. To me that that's one of the best things I can do to continue to expand outside of, of sort of saying, well, the only thing you can write about, and we do that in all of our categories, frankly, but, but I think it's essential for me to, to every single day be conscious about that. That for every story we assign that I really am not just talking the talk and making sure that that if there is, is a black writer who, who is an expert in tech or an expert in, in economic issues or the law that, that we're publishing that voice, it's essential, but, but we've published, you know, so much over the years. And I think I'm, I'm proud of the work we done. I just know that we can do better because everybody can do better. I don't care what business you're in beyond amazing diverse voices. Passionistas: What's your overall vision for DAME in the years ahead? Jennifer: Stay in business in a, in a crazy media world. You know, it's funny, people always ask me, like, they asked me this question and consistently, and as much as I joke, stay in business, it really is stay in business. And I don't mean that from a sort of like, Oh, you know, the industry is, is, is embattled. And it's so hard to keep publishing. I made it in the context of women only own 11% of all media. And as I see many outlets that are either owned or run by women fall by the wayside and go out of business. I, I worry about that. I feel, I feel a deep responsibility to keep going every single day. And, and so my vision is to, you know, is to keep doing what we do to try to do it better every day than we did the day before, to always ensure that if our mission is to elevate and amplify marginalized voices, that I, that I remind myself to do that. And that as stories come in, that the language we use is careful and considered for, for all groups. But I don't have ambitions to be, you know, some trillion dollar media company. That's not my goal. My goal is to, is for us to, you know, survive and thrive, but in a meaningful way, big isn't always better. And, you know, being a little bit ears to the ground and, and, and boots on the ground, I think affords us a, an intimacy with our readers that a lot of other outlets don't have. So, so my vision is to, is to keep us going, to keep us going in a direction that improves the work that we do every day and in turn, hopefully improves our reader's lives. Passionistas: Thanks for listening to The Passionistas Project Podcast and our interview with Jennifer Reitman. To subscribe to DAME magazine and get lots of voting information for your state visit DAMEmagazine.com. We're currently taking orders for the fall Passionistas Project Pack subscription box. Our theme, this quarter is Passionistas Persist, and the box is full of products from women-­owned businesses. We hope these items inspire you to stand in your power verse at the top of your lungs, take care of yourself and remember to laugh because without joy, what's it all for. If we support one another and stay persistent, great things will happen. You can find out how to subscribe to the box at the ThePassionistasProject.com. And while you're there, don't forget to sign up for our newsletter to find out more about our upcoming Passionate Project Women's Equality monthly events, and subscribe to The Passionistas Project Podcast so you don't miss any of our upcoming inspiring guests. Until next time stay well and stay passionate.

Kat Calvin is the Founder and Executive Director of Spread The Vote and the Co-Founder and CEO of Project ID. A lawyer, activist and social entrepreneur, Kat has built a national organization that helps Americans obtain the ID they need for jobs, housing and life, and that also allows them to go to the polls. Kat is also the co-host, along with Andrea Hailey of Vote! The Podcast.   More info about The Passionistas Project. Full Transcript: Passionistas: Hi, and welcome to the Passionistas Project Podcast. We're Amy and Nancy Harrington. And before we start our interview today, we wanted to tell you about our upcoming event from Friday, August 21st through Sunday, August 23rd, we'll be hosting the Passionistas Project Women's Equality Summit. The three-day virtual event will feature live panel discussions, prerecorded presentations, daily workshops. The Passionistas Portraits storyteller event. The LUNAFEST® short film festival, a virtual marketplace and a Pay It Forward Portal. We'll also be presenting the first annual Passionistas Persist Humanitarian Award to a very special honoree. The weekend is centered around the theme of women's equality and intersectional feminism from a range of perspectives, including racial equality, LGBTQ plus rights, financial equity, voter suppression, ageism, physical and mental health issues, religious persecution, and so much more. And best of all, it's free for the weekend. Go to ThePassionistasProject.com to register. And now for today's interview, we're talking with Kat Calvin, the Founder and Executive Director of Spread the Vote and the Co-Founder and CEO of Project ID. A lawyer activist and social entrepreneur, Kat has built a national organization that helps Americans obtain the ID they need for jobs, housing and life. And that also allows them to go to the polls. Kat is an advisor to Ragtag and DemCast and sits on the boards of the California Women's List. Kat is one of the Time magazines 16 people in groups fighting for a more equal America, 2018 Fast Company 100 most creative people in business and has been a Business Insider 30 under 30, Grios 100 and more. So please welcome to the show. Kat Calvin. Kat: Thanks so much for having me. Passionistas: Thanks for joining us today. What's the one thing you're most passionate about? Kat: That's an incredibly difficult question, probably movies. I love movies more than anything. That's probably my greatest passion in life. What is it about movies that mean so much to you? I came up in theater and I love storytelling and I love accessible storytelling. And so I sort of studied a lot of theater and sort of the difference between the way theater was during the times of Eschalas and Shakespeare, what it was for the commons. And now it's less successful, but TV and film and took lately. Now that we have streaming, et cetera, it's accessible for everyone. And I think that great storytelling that everyone can see is really amazing. And I come from a big movie loving family. So it's most of my early memories have to do with like Butch and Sundance or Hitchcock or something. It's pretty much what I talk about all the time. If I'm not talking about IDs or voting, most people like you are the wrong business. If I had to choose one great passion, I'm sure the answers should be something related to what I do for a living, but it's actually movies, which is no secret to anybody. Passionistas: So let's talk a little bit about what you do for a living. So talk about Spread the Vote. What inspired you to start it. Kat: At Spread the Vote we help people get government issued photo ID, which they use for jobs, housing, to get food at many food banks to sleep in many shelters, etc, everything you need an ID for in life. And then in many States across the country, they also use them to vote. So we help folks get all of the documents required. Birth certificates, proofs of residency insurance, not insurance identity, etc. We pay for everything. We provide transportation advocacy at the DMV and government offices and do whatever it takes to get an ID of their hands. This is all pre apocalypse, of course. And then when an election comes around, we make sure they're all registered to vote. And then we do a lot of voter education. 77% of our clients have never voted before. So we do a lot of helping just walk folks through the process and what's going to be on the ballot and how to vote, et cetera. And then we take them to the polls. So that's sort of the process A to Z. I started it after the 2016 elections. Actually we're about to have our third birthday. I started December of 16, but we count our official birthday is May 6, which is when we launched our first chapter. And so now we're in 12 States. We're working hard, getting ideas everyday until like a month ago. And now we're all just like waiting for the zombies to come. Passionistas: Don't watch any more zombie movies. That's not going to help you right now. It's just going to make it harder. That is an incredible mission to be on. Was there an inciting incident that inspired you to do this, or was it just kind of something that had been on your mind? Kat: I would say the election in November of 2016 was the inciting incident. I had studied voting rights in law school and some done a lot of work around it and sort of the voting rights act, but we still had one at that time. I didn't really feel that it was a really pressing me to like go into voting rights work. And I went into some other spaces. And then when the VRA was declined in 2013, we started to see a lot of things change about voting in America, particularly voter ID laws were being passed pretty quickly. And then the '16 elections were the first national elections where we didn't have the protections of the voting rights act and where we saw the effects of a lot of these new laws and rules. I'm including the effects of voter ID laws I'm and I had run some other organizations and I had some health issues. I had sort of decided to retire that lasted a year, then the election happened. And so then I knew I had to sort of get started again. And there were a lot of really fantastic organizations trying to fight voter ID laws through judicial or legislative remedies, which have been less successful than would be desired, but there weren't any organizations, national organizations just getting IDs. So that sort of made sense to me as a good place to start. Passionistas: Talk about the nuts and bolts of it. How do you go about finding the people who need these ideas and how do you help them? Kat: Well, there are over 21 million people in the country over the age of 18 who do not have government issued photo ID. So finding people who need help getting ideas, not a challenge. We partner with a ton of organizations, uh, any type of organization that works with the same 11% of the population that we work with. Um, if you don't have an ID, then you can't get a job. I get housing, et cetera. So it's a large percentage of people who are experiencing homelessness, a lot of returning citizens, um, a lot of seniors and students with low or no incomes. Um, so we partner with shelters and food banks and prisons and jails and public defenders and schools and senior centers and just all of those types of organizations. And we either go to them or they refer people to us, depending on the situation. You know, we work with a lot of, uh, domestic violence. I'm the shelters. And so, you know, there, we have to be specially trained and they refer people to us versus if we're going to a food bank once a week. So we really work with each community based on what works best for them. I am. And then we have our mostly volunteers. We have over 600 trained volunteers, but then we also have a few field staff who go into these spaces, um, and, and connect with the clients. Uh, we also get, you know, at this point, a lot of people who call us or email us, or fill out a form online that we have, but they all get connected with someone who then walks them through that process of helping them get those documents, paying for everything, helping them get to final records and the DMV and wherever they need to go and making sure they get the idea in their hand. Passionistas: Why is this so important right now? Kat: Now it's important because there are over 21 million people in this country who don't have the ID. They need to see a doctor, right? Like there are really immediate needs. You can't do anything really without an ID. And so when you think about, you know, people who need to get employed, one of the first things that happens almost every time we get someone IDs, they say, I can apply for jobs now, or we have a lot of people who get jobs. I can't start them because they don't have ID. And so, you know, you cannot escape poverty without an ID. Um, you can't get off the streets independently without an ID. And so being able to help someone get that means that they are able to, you know, pursue employment opportunities. Um, you know, a lot of cities and, and shelters have place housing placement services, but you can't get one without 90. And I'm the reason we work with a lot of government agencies and shelters, et cetera, is because they don't have the capacity and knowledge to get ideas. So, you know, we've got people lining up around multiple city blocks to go to food banks right now, most food banks require ID. So they're necessary for life. They are, they can literally be life and death. And we've seen that more than once, but they are also a requirement to be able to change one circumstance. And then on top of that in a quite few States, you need an ID to be able to vote. And so if you don't have that identification, then you don't have the ability to exercise a basic fundamental rights. Passionistas: This is also for us an obvious question. I mean, we need to get an ID. We need to know the real ID that's coming out. So we have to gather together our social security card and a electric bill and go to the DMV, but someone who's homeless and living on the streets, doesn't have an electric bill and doesn't maybe have access to the social security card. So how do you help them actually qualify to even get an ID? Kat: So every state has very long lists of the types of documents that you can bring to the DMV. For most people, it's a mortgage or, or a, you know, uh, electric bill or whatever. And so those are sort of the top things on the list that most people go and get. However, there are a lot of other types of documents. And so it depends on the state and it depends on the person's situation. Um, but you know, we can frequently use a church or a shelter address, uh, to get, uh, to use for the DMV. One great thing about voter registration is that a voter registration card counts as a proof of identity in most States. So we can use that. We have frequently had to chase down. We're constantly having to chase down records from the Department of Corrections or military records because we have a lot of veterans get IDs and they can't get the VA VA benefits without IDs, but they're veterans don't just get IDs. And so I'm depending sort of on that their background, or we, you know, track down sort of medical records or old school records or sort of whatever. So it, depending on the state and on the person situation, we go through the very long list of what documents are accepted by the DMV. And then we compare that with what the person has or what their history is. And so we figure out what it is we think we can get for them. Passionistas: The amount of people on your team must have to be enormous. Can you talk about your team and how you've built that over the course of the last few years? Kat: Yeah. I mean, we certainly need a ginormous team. I mean, we're lucky we have, we have a lot of really incredible volunteers and we have an online training program that they go through to get certified. I mean, I invented this certification, but I can't say, but they get trained to be able to work with our clients and get ideas. We have some field staff members in the, in some of our States who are incredible and sort of just get ideas full time, that's their job. And they do a really amazing job at that. And then we have a, you know, sort of small national team that helps with yeah, you know, our general counsel who is just constantly busy. I am, you know, and, and helping organize things. And our volunteer director, who's one person who's managing a risk, et cetera, volunteers. We are mostly working with volunteers and mostly just working really hard to recruit and train and support our volunteers and, you know, 12 States with as many people as there are, there's always some adventure every day. There's a phone call with a new situation. Um, and so sort of dealing with all of that while also having, um, you know, we're lucky enough to have some field staff who are able to just everyday do this. We have some volunteers who've been with us since actually, since they helped us get our, the volunteers that helped us get our very first IDs in Virginia years ago are still with us and are now up to hundreds and are now probably the world's leading experts in getting ideas. And then, you know, we have a field staff who I've gotten hundreds of ideas and I do it every day, um, et cetera. And so for the first year or a little under, if the first year I was our only employee, I sort of did everything. And then I'm just, you know, it's a nonprofit. So it's just all fundraising all the time. I was able to fundraise enough to start hiring staff and was able to bring in some great people. And then we sort of grew and built it out and sort of tried to figure out an experiment, like what makes the most sense as far as staffing and sort of just a lot of this sort of basic startup stuff of you, throw it out there, you figure it out. And I just ended up with this really great team. Passionistas: Obviously the current state of voting rights issues is a little crazy. There's a lot going on. There's a big election coming up. So why is this issue important and why should people care about what's going on with voting rights right now? Kat: Life is interesting right now. So there's a couple of things happening. The first is we have zero idea what life is going to look like in November. You know, hopefully I will be allowed to leave my house soon, or I might burn it down. I am, but you know, we don't know what the world is going to look like. And so a lot of us, I think most of us in this space are really trying to build out like 12 contingency plans. Everyone saw the disaster in Wisconsin, uh, forcing people to vote, uh, forcing them to vote in fewer polling places where now we, you know, they've had multiple, I think the last I saw was 19, but it's so highly contagious at that number will go up of COVID cases that are coming out of that situation. And so everyone, I think, recognizes that regardless of what the world looks like in November and whether we're allowed back out, it's not going to be anything close to normal. We're still going to have to avoid gathering in large groups. And it's going to be very, very important to keep as many people away from the polling places as possible so that people who have to vote in person are able to. So there is a big movement right now towards vote by mail, which is fantastic. I vote by mail is by no means a panacea. It should not be the only option in any state. However, it should be part of a really great comprehensive voting package. And so the goal is to get all of the States that don't have vote by mail or easy vote by mail. A lot of States, you can do it if you are absentee with certain excuses, things like that, to open that up so that, um, anyone can vote by mail, which would significantly reduce the number of people that go to polling places and we'll have some increase on, on voter turnout as well. So I think that's one thing that's really moving forward. The irony is that no state, well, there's a possible Kentucky exception, which I'll talk about, but the idea's not required when you vote by mail, which is ironic because the only type of voter fraud that exists in a very, very, very small percentage is by mail. However, fraud is used as the excuse to pass the ID laws of it's not. So, you know, that is one benefit to it. Kentucky just took time out of a pandemic to pass an even stricter voter ID law that they already had. And they are trying something new. They are trying to make people have to make a photocopy of their ID to send in with their vote by mail ballot, which I can't imagine standing in courts for one thing who owns a printer, nobody owns a printer. I like the idea that this is a thing that could happen. I think it's bonkers. I might, but it is something that they're trying. So we'll see. But that is, I think that's a new thing in pretty much every other state, you don't have to show ID to vote by mail. There are other problems with vote by mail studies have shown over and over again, that people of color have their ballots thrown out at a much higher percentage than white voters. And so that is something that, you know, that's why a lot of people of color choose to vote in person, because there is no guarantee that if you vote, your ballot is ever actually going to be counted. I think that there are a lot of things that we can do to try to make that process more secure, but we're also in a global pandemic. And so for a lot of us, the choice will be vote by mail don't. I vote by mail every election because I don't believe in wearing pants when I'm voting. Like where my PJ's, I have a glass of wine. I can vote like vote pantsless. It's just, it's the only way to go. So I think that's one big thing we're seeing. Another big thing we're seeing is trying to get young people to be poll workers, poll workers are traditionally heavily elderly ladies. My mother is always a poll worker. My mother is always one of the youngest people there and there, there are these wonderful, amazing, dedicated women who do this. And, and you know, a lot of men, there's a lot of older ladies and it is poor work hard. It's a miserable job. I always have to help my mother clean up and set up. And it's a very difficult thing that I think they go very under appreciated. But right now the exact population who we really need to stay inside and be protected is the population that usually works the polls. And so there are now some efforts being made to really try to get younger people, to be trained, to work the polls. In many States, you get paid some amount of money in order to do it. You know, it's an important service and we really need a different demographic to come out and choose to do that. So there's an effort to recruit folks to do more of that. So I think that, that everyone is sort of trying to figure out there's also, this has really changed the way we do geo TV. I mean, normally, you know, normally my organization would be out getting IDs right now as I speak and we're not, I am. And so we're having to change the way we work and do work virtually and, you know, do more things if state agencies, you know, a jail that we're working with got 27 IDs last week because they can still do that. And so we're trying to do as much work as we can in the ways that we can. This is right now at the time when voting rights organizations would be out talking to communities of color, low income communities and starting to, you know, not even starting, really being in the middle of the process of talking to people about voting because the get out the vote process is a very long process. It's not something you can just do an October. Um, and there are a lot of communities that don't have access to the internet or to phone. And so we, there's, it's a difficult thing to do right now. So everyone's trying to adapt and trying to figure out, okay, if we can all leave our houses in August, then that gives us, you know, two and a half months maybe to be able to like, get back on the streets and work. And what does that look like? So there are some efforts being made. There's also just a lot of contingency planning and there's some just sort of like, okay, well, we're going to do what we can now have been, wait and see what happens because we don't know what the world's going to look like in November, Passionistas: We're Amy and Nancy Harrington and you're listening to the Passionistas Project Podcast and our interview with Kat Calvin. We're excited to announce the Kat will be moderating the panel "How far have we come in a 100 years? Making sure all women can vote" on Saturday, August 22nd during the Passionistas Project Women's Equality Summit. To register for free for the online event visit ThePassionistasProject.com. Visit, SpreadTheVote.org and ProjectID.org to learn more about the work Kat is doing. And be sure to tune in, to Vote! The Podcast with her cohost, Andrea Hayley, available wherever you get your podcasts. Now here's more of our interview with Kat. So during these crazy times, what can the average person do to help you and your organization? And also just in terms of keeping focused on the election I had, what can we do do to help? Kat: So you can go to SpreadTheVote.org/volunteer. Luckily all of our training is already online. So you can I'm if you live in one of our 12 States, which you can find on our website, you can get trained. We're going to have, we also already do all of our volunteer summits virtually, and we had one planned for this summer. So I, we are working very hard to build an even bigger volunteer army so that the day that we can get back on the streets, we can go out in full force and try to make up for some lost time. I also recommend, you know, I, I am, I am always going to, uh, preach in favor of local elections and say, stop paying attention to the iron throne. It really doesn't matter all that much local elections matter and state elections matter. And Congress matters and candidates are working very hard to make sure that there are virtual conflicts come up with virtual ways to campaign. And, you know, we had some already text making and phone banking and things like that. They're coming up with creative ways, find some local candidates who you care about, like, who is your Senator? Who is your con your representative in Congress? Who are your state legislative representatives and work on supporting them and helping to get out the vote and particularly looking at and press them on, how are they working to reach communities of color and low income communities that they traditionally would either be reaching out to in person or frankly, most don't really pay attention to even when they should be, because they really need to be thinking about what that looks like, and they really need support. And I think there are a lot of people who think that they can't support candidates right now because they can't like go knock on doors or they can't have a texting party and you still can't. So that's really critical. And then, you know, I always point people towards Indivisible, which is a fantastic organization, which has a lot of local. I think they have at least two chapters in every district in the country. It doesn't say please, working on finding really innovative and great ways for people to get involved, whether it's virtual, I now, or in person later. Everyone right now is trying very hard to figure out what to do and, and, you know, sort of switch methods as much as possible. And we really need people to help get involved, whether it's doing a lot right now, or whether it's prepping right now to be able to do a lot, the second we can get back on the ground. Passionistas: Is there a particular trait that you think has helped you succeed? Kat: Well, I mean, I guess, I mean, I could say perseverance is such a cliche, but it's true. I don't think you can't be a successful entrepreneur without it are probably successful. Anything else, but I've only ever been a successful entrepreneur, perseverance, like just knowing, all right, I'm doing this thing. It's important. I'm going to figure it out. I'm going to fail like 8,000 times and yeah, but that's fine. Like I'm gonna make it work, I think is really important. And so whether that's perseverance or a little bit of grit or both I think is, is really key because you will hit so many roadblocks and have so many tragedies and you know, like I, if I could burn just all of last year to the ground, I would, I am. And like, you just have to really just keep getting up every day, “Frozen 2,” first of all, if you haven't watched Frozen 2,” turn this off, watch “Frozen 2” come back and finish this. It's incredible. It's not Disney+, which is the greatest thing to happen to 2020, which is a low bar, but still, but the best song in “Frozen 2,” it's "Into the Unknown." Sorry, I'll say it's actually "The Next Right Thing." And it is a sign. As soon as I heard it, I was like, “Oh my God, this is my life.” Because it's all about how, when everything is terrible, you just have to take one more step. If you just have to think, what is the next thing I'm supposed to do? And sometimes that's just like, get out of bed can be really hard. And that's when you are an entrepreneur, when you're trying to do something new or something no one's ever done before, it's going to be really difficult. And you're going to have a lot of people tell you all of the reasons that you are an idiot and a failure, and this will never work. And you're a terrible person and you're wasting time or whatever. And, you know, things will get really hard. And if you can just do next right thing, just take the next steps. Send the next email. Send the next, you know, fundraising letter or whatever like that actually does get you through. Cause then you look back, if you did 10 things and now you're, you're at a better place. Um, and that, that I think is probably the biggest key to my like still being alive and still running this thing. Passionistas: Is there a lesson that you've learned on your journey that really sticks with you? Kat: And I think it's the other side of that. I was very afraid to go into this year because last year was so terrible. And then I was talking to someone and they were like, yeah, but you survived last year and you're here. And I was like, Oh, actually, that's true. If I survived that, I stupidly that I could survive anything, not knowing the apocalypse. I may not survive being stuck in my house for the rest of my life. But I'm, you know, I think that it's the constant lesson and this has been a big lesson just of my entire life. And like the older I get, the more that I learned this is like, things seem so terrible when you're on one side of it, particularly when you're young, like when I was in my teens and twenties, like one bad thing would happen and I thought it was the end of the world. But then the older you get, you realize, Oh, actually I survived that. And I forgot about it. That thing that I thought was going to kill me six months ago, I don't even remember anymore. I am another thing I was obsessing about for weeks can't even remember that person's name. And so I think that, you know, and then the older you get and the more you do and the bigger risks you take and the more successful you are, the crashes are harder and they're still very frequent, but you get through them more quickly and more easily because you know, I'm going to get through this. I survived that last thing I can survive this. It's okay if I'm super obsessing about this today, because in three days, I know I won't be, you just have that perspective, which you can only get through just living and just failing and just trying things failing again. It's like, you know, I, I love to run and workout and every run, well, not everyone is easier, but like six months, you know, I can do a run and, you know, like the 10 miles is way easier than I can think back, like, Oh my God, six months ago, like eight was really hard, you know? And it's the same thing with life experience. And I think that that makes you more willing to try big things. I'm and it also, it makes the inevitable failures a little easier because you know, you're going to get through it. You have before. Passionistas: So what's the most rewarding part of your career? Kat: Oh, the people who, uh, who we have good IDs and, you know, we get just every day, there's, you know, there's so many stories that come in of peoples whose lives have changed and people who didn't have IDs for sometimes six months sometimes, you know, I think the person who we helped get an ID who didn't have one the longest was 40 years and everything in between. And just knowing that every single day we're able to help someone get the thing that they need to change their lives, that they couldn't get on their own. And that was the big barrier between them living the lives that they, they want to live, that they hope to live, um, and stuck in the same place. So just getting to do that every day and getting to do that with a really amazing group of people, uh, is, is completely rewarding. Passionistas: What's the biggest risk you have taken and how did it pay off? Kat: Oh, definitely this, I quit my job and drove my car across the country with some money we raised on, uh, like me have some volunteers raised with a little crowdfunding campaign and was like, I'll just start a nonprofit if it works out. And I'll put all of this on my Amex and figure out how to pay it off later. Um, like that was, was, you know, I've taken a little risks, I've started other things, but this was by far the biggest risk. And I mean, I'm gonna knock on all the words so far has paid off. Like even, even if disaster strikes and we entered the greatest depression and you know, I have to shut all the doors and move under a bridge. I, you know, there are thousands and thousands of people who have IDs now whose lives were changed because of the work we did. And so that will always stand. So no matter what happens in the future, it is 100% worth everything had to go through because, you know, there's that person whose life was changed because of this. Passionistas: What advice would you give to a young woman who wants to be an entrepreneur? Kat: Don't go to law school. I could go back. I don't go to law school. Don't do anything that would have you acquire student loans. I, you don't need to go to that incredibly expensive school, go to the great, fantastic state school, state school that will either be less expensive or give you a full ride. So that's my first thing. Like student loans will kill you and it makes it much more difficult to be an entrepreneur. Sure. Also, I know there's a big trend towards trend. I mean, at this point, it's as old as I am, but you know, like being very young and starting a thing, but then there's a reason that we so often see those companies either have horrifically bad managers who torture their staffs or they're running Ponzi schemes, or they're feeling an ethic ways or, you know, going to prison. Sometimes I, you know, there is real value in learning from people who've been there before you, I learned, well, I have had some horrible jobs at places that people think are really great and are actually like insidious hell holes. And I learned a lot there. And a lot of what I do is like things that I learned not to do and those corporations or those large nonprofits or whatever, but you just, you get so much experience everything that I am using that I used to build, Spread the Vote are lessons that I learned and things I learned how to do, or at least learned the basics of from previous jobs. And I think it's so important. And also, you know, I try to listen and learn from people who are older than me, as much as possible if I'm talking to an older person and they start a story with "during the war," like my whole day is canceled. I am staying there. I will keep buying these during the war. That is literally, I live for that. I've heard great stories from old men at bars about like stuff Vietnam. And I'm sure 80% of it is a total lie and I don't care. You know, it's, it's so important, you know, um, we know always have people who are older than me, you know, working at the organization or as mentors or whatever. And you can just learn so much from people who've been there before you. And it even feels weird to me to say that, but there's this like such derision against anyone who's not like a 21 year old genius and there are no 21 year old geniuses. And so I think that really being sure you're learning and that you're giving yourself plenty of opportunities to figure out who you really are and what you really want to do. Um, and then that you're studying that space. I get so many young people who want to talk to me about their businesses and, you know, say I spoke to a young woman, wants to, she wanted to start a business in fashion. And I mentioned something about Women's Wear Daily and she didn't know what it was. And it's like, well, you can't, you can't run an organization, a business and fashion. If you don't know, Women's Wear Daily, it's the like cornerstone fashion magazine. Right? And like, you have to do your research. You have to know the basics. If you're going into voting rights, read every book about voting rights, know the text of the voting rights act, know who came before you and what they've done. You know, we, I think we interviewed everybody that we could find for me, but Brendan center, it's a local organizations, as we were trying to figure out, what do people tried before? What has worked? Why has it worked? You know? And then we would come up with ideas and we'd call back, you know, some of the same people and say, what do you think about this? And they'd say this is going to work. And that's a terrible idea. And this is why this has failed 85 times. And that's what help is get to a solution that worked. You have to do your homework and you have to be knowledgeable. Um, there's nothing cute or fun or interesting about being an entrepreneur who doesn't know their space and Google is free. So really you ha you have to know what you're doing are know the business you're getting into in order to be able to know what you're doing. And don't go to law school for the love of God. Passionistas: Thanks for listening to the Passionistas Project Podcast and our interview with Kat Calvin. Visit SpreadTheVote.org and ProjectID.org to learn more about the work Kat is doing. And be sure to tune in, to Vote! The Podcast with her cohost, Andrea Hayley, available wherever you get your podcasts. Don't forget to register for the Passionistas Project Women's Equality Summit to hear Kat's live panel "How far have we come in a 100 years? Making sure all women can vote" on Saturday, August 22nd. The summit is sponsored by Annette Kahler innovation and intellectual property attorney, LA Pride/Christopher Street West, Luna whole nutrition bars, the premium beverage company Tea Drops, TrizCom Public Relations and public speaking coaching company, ubu skills. To register for free for the online event visit ThePassionistasProject.com and be sure to subscribe to the Passionistas Project Podcast so you don't miss any of our upcoming inspiring guests.

Jessica Craven is a community organizer, activist and newly elected member of the California Democratic party's County Central Committee. Jessica is the author of "Chop Wood, Carry Water," a daily actions e-mail that's been published five days a week since November of 2016. Her emails provide detailed text and scripts for the everyday person to reach out to their Congress people and Senators to take action on the important issues of the day. She's made it her mission to get regular people more involved with politics on both a federal and local level.   More info about Jess.   Learn more about The Passionistas Project.   Full Transcript:   PASSIONISTAS: Hi, and welcome to The Passionistas Project Podcast. We're Amy and Nancy Harrington.   Before we start our interview today, we wanted to tell you about our upcoming event from Friday, August 21st through Sunday, August 23rd, we'll be hosting the passion project women's equality summit. The three-day event will feature live panel discussions, prerecorded presentations, daily workshops, The Passionistas Portraits storyteller event. The LUNAFEST® short film festival, a virtual marketplace, and a pay it forward portal. The weekend is centered around the theme of women's equality and intersectional feminism from a range of perspectives, including racial equality, LGBTQ+ rights, financial equity, voter suppression, ageism, physical and mental health issues, religious persecution, and so much more. And best of all, it's free for the weekend. Go to ThePassionistasProject.com to register.   And now for today's interview, we're talking with Jessica Craven, community organizer, activist, and newly elected member of the California Democratic Party's County Central Committee. Jessica is the author of Chop Wood, Carry Water, a daily actions email that's been published five days a week since November of 2016. Her emails provide detailed text and scripts for the everyday person to reach out to their Congress people and senators to take action on the important issues of the day. She's made it her mission to get regular people more involved with politics on both a federal and local level. Please welcome to the show, Jessica Craven.   JESSICA CRAVEN: Yay. Hi, how are you?   PASSIONISTAS: We're so excited to have you.   JESSICA: Not as excited as I am. I am very, this is a great honor. Thank you very much.   PASSIONISTAS: It's an honor for us to. What's the one thing you're most passionate about?   JESSICA: I am an action advocate. Uh, I find that action is the antidote to despair. Um, and that it is the one thing that I need to be doing if I want to see change. So I guess action, and also getting others to act I'm very, very passionate about sort of, uh, encouraging others to do this work because I think it's important not just for our country, but for our own personal well-being.   PASSIONISTAS: To that end, talk about Chop Wood, Carry Water and what it is. Explain it to people who might not know.   JESSICA: What I try to do with Chop Wood, Carry Water, and I started doing this right after Trump was elected because everybody was so shell shocked and so upset. And I guess I tend to be the kind of person who, when something like that happens, I want to find a solution or something to do. I'm someone who needs to do something. So in the very, very beginning, I started, you know, sort of realizing like we should make, there's some calls that we should make. And I started making calls and, and, and also sort of researching around to see what calls needed to be made and what groups were talking about it. And I would then turn around and sort of send a quick email to a handful of family and friends and, and they seem to find it useful and they seem to want to make the calls.   And, and then I, I started including a little, a little bit of like a pep talk, you know, just a little bit of like been through some stuff as we all haven't and I've found some tools for dealing with difficulties. And I, I just would share those as part of the email. Like, you know, when I went through my horrible divorce, my father said to me, I mean, this is where Chop Wood, Carry Water comes from is, is, is that my dad told me that phrase when I was going through a divorce, I don't know, 15, 15, 20 years ago at this point, but I said, “How am I going to get through this? This is, I feel like I'm never going to get through this.” And he said, “You're just going to chop wood, carry water. And one day it'll be over.” So that's why the newsletter is called Chop Wood, Carry Water.   And, and I, and I told people that story, a number of times in the beginning, and it sort of turned into this thing where every day people would ask to be added to the list, or someone would say, I have a friend who wants to be added to your list. And I became really obsessed with following politics. Yeah. Following everything that was happening, uh, subscribing to every single newsletter that had actions for people to take. And in the beginning, there were a ton of them. And then sort of what I wanted to do, try to do was, was to distill that all down into five minutes for the average person, because I will take action all day long. Like that is who I am, but most people want to do something and then go back to their lives. They don't want to think about this all the time, but I do want to feel like they're doing something.   So what I decided to do it was sort of provide the service where I would read all the stuff and subscribe to all the things and then just distill it down into five minutes. So my idea was that you would just make just a couple of calls every day. You would call both of your senators. You would call your congressional rep. And then there would be like an extra credit thing to call some other, whoever it was. It used to be Scott Pruitt a lot in the beginning, cause I I'm an environmentalist at heart. And then eventually I added a resist bot text because people love resist bot so much. And I thought that was a good place to sort of add an action. That was a little bit or a script that was a bit longer that people could just send as a resist bot text.   And that's what Chop Wood, Carry Water is to this day. It's a, it's a little short pep-talk, it's a call to your members of Congress. It's like one or two extra things. I started including a lot of election related links in one of the sections. Just so if people wanted to find me or text bank or write postcards, I I've, I add those in. And then it's a resist bot text. And the idea is you can do it all in, in five minutes, which I think actually you genuinely, can't what I try to do tell people is just those five minutes can make such a huge difference. And if enough of us make those calls, you know, it really, I mean, we learned it with the, the attacks on the ACA and, and with so many other things I made, eventually Scott Pruitt did go away and, uh, you know, so many victories we have had have just been, because people have kind of hammered on the doors every single day, you know, using their voices and it does make a difference.   And I think that one of the big enemies in this situation has been despair, which leads to hopelessness, which leads to apathy. And then we really are in trouble. So my whole thing has been that when I make those five minutes of calls, I actually feel better. I feel more empowered. I feel more hopeful. And that's why I always say hope is an action because I don't become hopeful from just sitting around trying to like gin up hope in myself. I become hopeful when I actually make those calls or, or take any action, which bear in mind. I usually don't want to do. I almost never want to make my calls and I don't want to show up for protests. I don't want to show up at any of this stuff I do. But when I do it, I feel better. So there's very selfish, motives behind all of this.   It's really to help me not go into a tailspin, but it also turns out to help our democracy a lot.   PASSIONISTAS: With so much going on in the world, how do you determine each day? What issues to spotlight?   JESSICA: I'm on this all day? So all day I am taking emails from tons of people who are wanting to send me actions. I'm reading, uh, the, the few other action emails that are still out there. I'm a very active indivisible member. So I'm on a bunch of channels with other indivisible members and, and other action leaders. And there's a Facebook page for people who have action, you know, platforms. So we're all working on this together. So almost any action you see and Chop Wood, Carry Water, you know, is probably also being amplified by several other amazing individuals or groups. But, you know, I also read the news all day.   I also listened to a lot of podcasts and do really deep dives on policies. And I just am immersed in this all day. Every day. My husband always says, I don't know how you spend so much time. Like I would go crazy reading the news as much as you do, but I really am trying to absorb all this stuff. So that again, when I get to Chop Wood, Carry Water, I can distill it in a really simple way so that you guys don't have to spend your entire days doing this. So, and I'm an information junkie. I like to, you know, I like to learn, but in the morning I will generally go through all my emails and scan through my sort of typical sources and pull things from various places and, and, you know, work on the actual writing of the email, which takes about an hour, hour and a half in the morning.   But it's also been sort of cooking for the previous 24 hours before that. And then sometimes it's something will come up. I mean, this morning we have yet another news item talking about the sort of appalling, lack of personal protective equipment for our medical personnel. So then that becomes something that I sort of make sure is the focus of my newsletter. So, so part of it is trying to be nimble with events that are unfolding very quickly. And some of it is returning over and over and over again to things that we've been working on for sometimes weeks or months or even longer.   PASSIONISTAS: What are some of the big issues that you have been tackling, trying to tackle for a while and that are really on the forefront for you right now?   JESSICA: Well, that's a really good question. I mean, election security is a huge one that we're just returning to every week.   I make sure to put something in about it because especially now with the COVID-19 our elections in November, we sort of have to get those to a vote by mail status. They just, they just are going to have to be. And so far the funding for that is just not there. So while we want the States to, you know, step up and they probably will have to, we're pushing very hard for the federal government to fund it. And that's just an enormous push. That is it's hard. I mean, Mitch McConnell doesn't want it. So we're just working very hard because otherwise we're going to find ourselves in August, September, and just, it's going to be bad because we're not going to be able to go to the polls the way we have been used to so that, you know, climate change is an ongoing issue that I returned to constantly gun violence prevention.   I think you guys know I'm a pretty active member of moms demand action. So we return to that cyclically judges, you know, when, when Congress is in session and voting, we will always call on judges. And that tends to be something that gets less attention, but obviously we all know is, is so unbelievably important. And fortunately there are groups like indivisible San Francisco, which, which has a whole little chapter of their group that does nothing, but watch those judicial races. So I go there for a lot of information. I mean, I could literally go on there, there isn't any sector of our democracy that is not under attack right now. And, and the, you know, the fires are everywhere. So we throw water here and we throw water there and we throw water all around and then we come back and throw it again. But, you know, eventually we do see victories.   I mean the whole first year of Chop Wood, Carry Water. I had a section where we wrote to Scott Pruitt. It was just called the Scott Pruitt section. And we wrote about this pesticide chlorpyrifos, which I was really determined to help get banned because it's a neurotoxin that we were spraying on our, on our crops, by the millions of tons. I mean, it's a Dow chemical product. It's disgusting. And we call him that forever. And, uh, and then I kinda got distracted. And after about a year or a year and a half of, of those calls, we moved on to other things, well, chlorpyrifos has, it's abandoned California. Now it's banned in several other States. And some of it's the, the main production is actually being cut. So even though we haven't succeeded in an overarching federal ban, we have succeeded in largely gutting it to use.   And so, you know, these things have taken years, some of them, and we don't stop all the judges, but we have stopped some of the worst and we haven't prevented every horrible climate, you know, attack, but we have prevented some. And, and it's, you know, I really encourage people to focus on the victories, not the defeats because whatever we focus on grows, I really believe that.   PASSIONISTAS:  What did you do before November, November, 2016?   JESSICA: I've always been very interested in politics, but I actually did not work in politics full time. I worked in sales for a very long time. Ironically, for Tiffany and company, I worked there for about eight years. So in high end luxury sales, which, you know, was never really something. I was talking about passion. I was not passionate about it, but it was a, a paycheck. And it was a, you know, it was a respectable one.   And, and that was what I did for money. And before that I was a singer. So I performed for most of my young adult life. I was in a band called the Chapin Sisters for a long time with my, my two sisters who are still in that band. I come from a family of folk singers on one side, and my father made horror movies. I have a kind of weird background that would not necessarily, you would think lend itself to this. But the funny thing I have found is that my training in sales, which, which Tiffany provides excellent training, and also my training and performance have all come in very handy. As I have moved into this, this phase of my life. I mean, it turns out that I am very comfortable getting up and talking in front of people. I'm very good at encouraging people and I'm good at selling things so I can sell activism.   I can sell involvement and I'm comfortable talking to people, which is really what most of this is about. So for example, people are very afraid to call their reps. Like that's something that never occurred to me, but it turns out that folks are, are really intimidated and they don't know how to do it. They don't know what it even sounds like. People are afraid they're going to be challenged by the people they talk to on the other end. So at one point, my stepfather overheard me calling my reps one day when I was visiting my family in New York. And he said, you know, you should just make a little video of yourself doing that because you think it's easy, but most people really don't even know what that looks like. And so I did that. I posted a video of myself just calling my reps and people really responded to it.   And again, because I come from sort of a performance background and, you know, I'm not uncomfortable talking in front of other people in it. I can sorta, I'm good at showing people how to do things. And so that's been something that I did. One of those videos actually just today, just to sort of show people what it looks like to call and say a given thing, because we read these scripts and sometimes they're very clunky and stilted, and it's hard to know how to turn that into an actual phone call. So I guess all of those funny backgrounds that, you know, they don't make a lot of sense when you put them on a resume, but I also did screenwriting for three years. So like the writing skills, you know, it's all sort of come into play in what I do now. So I don't do much singing anymore, but I, I do a lot of bird-dogging and, uh, I don't know a lot of the skills translate for some reason.   PASSIONISTAS: We're Amy and Nancy Harrington and you're listening to The Passionistas Project Podcast and our interview with Jessica Craven. We're excited to announce that Jessica will be conducting her workshop Activism 101 on Saturday, August 22nd. During The Passionistas Project Women's Equality Summit. To register for free for the online event visit thepassionistasproject.com.   To get a membership to Jessica's daily newsletter, Chop Wood, Carry Water, and support her activism, go to patreon.com/chopwoodcarrywater. Now here's more of our interview with Jessica.   PASSIONISTAS: What advice would you have for some of those maybe a little bit apprehensive about getting involved or that thinks that their voice doesn't matter?   JESSICA: Well, for one thing, I mean, just a couple of practical issues about calling your reps that people don't always realize. And this is, sounds like the most obvious thing in the world, but I think there are people who don't necessarily know that when you call your reps, you're not going to get your rep on the phone. So that seems really obvious, but that is possibly not obvious to everybody. So you're going to get an aide or more likely you're going to get a voicemail. People worry a lot that they're going to get challenged like that. They're going to have to defend what they say, that they have to be super educated on something, but you absolutely don't. No one will ever challenge you. When you get an eight on the phone. They're generally very nice. They will take the comment. They will say, I will pass that along to the Senator or the Congress member.   And that's it. I don't know of anybody who's ever been challenged by an aid. It maybe has happened somewhere, but that's not ever been my experience. There are several different numbers you can call. You don't have to just call the number that they generally give you. The, the DC office. There are usually about four senators, about five other field offices. You can call any of them. So I find it really useful to have all five phone numbers for my senators and, and to the two phone numbers, my Congress member, I think all Congress members have a DCN and a field office. I have them all in my phone. So I just say, Hey, Siri, call Diane Feinstein. And, and you know, I, I call one of the field offices. So all of those are our basic points. And then why do it? I've been asked this a million times.   I have people who live in Kentucky who say, I just don't see the point of calling, you know, Mitch McConnell. He doesn't care. Or in a lot of States, I have people say like, my rep just doesn't care. They're hopeless. And what I always say, or you have people say, well, my rep is good. They're always going to do the right thing. Okay. So either way, I sort of compare it to, to having a, to being a boss and having an employee who works remotely. So if we sort of give that employee the job and then walk away and never check in with them, even the most honest employee after a while is going to start to just Slack at their job, because why wouldn't they, if they're having no oversight and, and no, no one checking in. So we are our representatives boss. Like they work for us.   So my job every day is to call and tell them what I want them focusing on. If they don't hear that from me, they're just going to do what they want. And even the most ethical is going to maybe miss something that is actually very important to their constituents. Also, it is really important to know that. So I go meetings with the staff of Diane Feinstein and Kamala Harris. Cause I, I go with a group of indivisible leaders and they always tell us, we need your calls. We need your calls. First of all, it helps the Senator to know where to focus her attention. And secondly, when she goes into a hearing she, or, or, or to a vote, she might say, you know, I got 150 calls on this yesterday. And the day before that I got 500 calls on this. So she's armed with evidence that her constituents care we can think, well, she must know that I care about this, but if she's not hearing it, then does she know maybe, but you'd be surprised how out of touch these offices can be with what their constituents are actually thinking.   I can't tell you how many times we've been meeting with one of those senators staffs, and we've brought up an issue that they had no idea about an issue. That to me was like very, very obvious, and that we'd been talking about a lot. They had not heard anything about it. So I just tell people, never assume, never assume that they don't need to hear from you. They do. And it's also an exercise for, for yourself. It's a, it's a way to say like, Hey, this is my country. This is my democracy. And you are going to listen to me every day. I am going to call you every day. And even if I called you about something yesterday, I'm going to call you about it again today because I'm your boss. And I want you to hear that this matters to me. I can't overemphasize the importance of it, honestly.   PASSIONISTAS: Now you're newly elected to the California Democratic Party's County Central Committee. So what does that organization do and what's your role?   JESSICA: I ran for it because I had run for something even smaller called aid Dems, which I won last year. And these are all sort of California State Party roles. So a Dems was an election that it wasn't even on the main federal ballot. It was a kind of a smaller election that people had to actually show up physically to vote for. And that enabled me to sort of have a very small voice in the California democratic party. So County central committee is basically a step up in that chain. I was on the same ballot as like the presidential candidates this time, which was really exciting. And I basically will have a seat at the table to vote on how the California democratic party spends its money, who we endorse, especially on sort of a state level. I'll get to vote on endorsements for like district attorney and city council and things that don't sound super sexy, but that are so important in the running of our state.   And it just gives me a tiny bit more clout and weight. Uh, California elected officials will take me a little bit more seriously. My senators will take me a little bit more seriously. And honestly, for me, it's all about bringing a progressive voice to the state party itself, which can be surprisingly, still sort of centrist and has had some corruption, quite frankly. So a bunch of us who are grassroots have been running for these seats just to get people into them who are actually sort of in touch with the grassroots community. And it's honestly the same reason that I'm serving as a PTA president at my daughter's public school. It's just, you know, we've heard these words like run for something, if you want to help run for something. And, and I've been like, all right, well, what can I run for? And these have been the things that have presented themselves to me.   So whether it's sort of bringing more progressive politics to, you know, fighting to get an electric leaf blower at my daughter's school, because it's better for the environment or advocating to endorse a more progressive city council candidate on the California, you know, the County central committee, it's, it's just bringing more of what I'm already doing to places where more people can hear. I mean, I guess it's all about sort of building a bigger platform, but I'm just going to keep fighting for better, you know, stronger action on climate, strong direction, on guns, stronger action on, you know, uh, election security and criminal justice reform, the same stuff, you know, basically I already do.   PASSIONISTAS: Why is local government as important really as federal government?   JESSICA: Over the last three years, we've watched as our federal government and Congress have basically grown to a halt. I mean, they have passed some things, but even having flipped the house, we just can't get anything through the Senate and it's discouraging.   And you just start to feel like there's so little we're able to do right now on a federal level. And in general, on a federal level, even when Obama was president, it's just hard to get things through, unless you have like a super majority everywhere, which is rare now on the state level, it turns out we can just get a lot more done and on a city level, we can get a lot of stuff done. And I guess the more, the longer I've paid attention to this, the more I've realized that while the federal government is incredibly frustrating and sort of just jammed up state governments are passing amazing climate bills, or they're not, they're passing great, you know, pro-choice bills or they're passing horrible pro-life bills, they're passing gun bills, or they're not. Cities are getting really, really active on helping our unhoused populations or they're sitting on their hands and doing nothing.   They're passing, you know, climate bills or they're not. And, and these are places where we actually can really affect change by working to elect great state legislators, uh, by working to elect city council members. I actually, in this past, the primaries that just passed in California were the election I was running in. There were also several, uh, city council seats. And there were all of these amazing challengers to incumbent city council members. And I spent all of my time canvasing for like three different city council candidates, because I've come to realize that the city council, as unglamorous as it is, is actually a place where if you want to make change, say to fight climate change, that's a really good place to do it. And Los Angeles has a notoriously sort of corrupt and awful, sorry, but pretty terrible city council right now, very ineffective.   And frankly, as I said, a lot of them are really corrupt. And so working to flip some of those seats, I worked on, on the, on the race of this woman, Nythia Roman, who was challenging one of our city council members and, and she, she made it to a runoff with a hugely funded incumbent. And that was just done by people power and her being a great candidate. I helped flip a seat, a city council seat in Glendale by canvassing for, for a guy named Dan Brotman, who was a climate champion and had stopped a huge power plant expansion in Glendale. And so I decided to put a lot of time into his race and he won. So meanwhile, you know, my presidential candidate of choice did not win and probably wouldn't have won if I had knocked doors for her, every single one of those days, unfortunately, just because of the nature of, you know, systemic sexism or whatever.   But the people I canvas for city council, why did, and, and their races are really exciting because if they win, they can make a huge difference in my day to day life. And that's the thing I would love people to remember is that the people that you have working in your state legislature and in your city council, in your school boards, those people are going to be affecting your life. They're going to be affecting the air, your kids breathe, or that you breathe. They will be affecting whether or not there are, you know, tons and tons of people housed who need it or not. And so many other things they'll affect how your state is spending money in so many different ways. Moms demand action is so great because they do a tremendous amount of advocacy on a state level. And they have sort of recognized that the federal level is, you know, we do do a work there, but on a state level, we can get so much more done.   And so I've actually gotten very into pushing calls on to state legislators as well. And I have a whole list of people who I will text and say, Hey, call your legislator today on this California bill, because we have a lot of power there. And we've seen California just passed phenomenal bills in the last few years. And we have a lot further to go on that, but this is a great place to put your energy. And if you don't know what you know what to do as the next set of elections, roll around, look for a small election in your area and work on it. You can make a really big difference and you can help somebody. When Dan brought me in one by, I don't know, I think it was a thousand or 2000 votes, and I canvas for him about eight times. So I feel like I had a real part in that race and it feels really good.   So I can't encourage that enough. Check out your state level races or check out a great organization like sister district. There were these amazing organizations doing great work on a state level and a future now is the other one, check those out. They're doing great work. And that's all they focus on our state elections and, and those are critical. And plus we have redistricting coming up in, in 2021. And if we don't win these States back, we're looking at bad representation there on a federal level for another 10 years. So it really matters.   PASSIONISTAS: What's your secret to a rewarding life?   JESSICA: Look for ways to help other people. I mean, that's, that's it in a nutshell, you know, and I I'm in 12 step programs. So, so I got this there that if I want to be happy myself, I need to look for ways to make other people happy.   And if I want to feel less anxious, I need to find a way to help other people feel less anxious. I mean, that's Chop Wood, Carry Water was born out of that. Basically, you know, the night Trump was elected. One of my girlfriends called me hysterically crying, and I was also crying. But in that moment, she needed me to comfort her. And as I comforted her, trying to find the words of comfort that I could pull out of wherever, I realized that in comforting her, I felt a modicum of comfort myself. And, and to this day, that is what keeps me going. Is that when I feel despair, when I feel hopeless, when I feel like I just don't see how we're going to get out of this, I turn around and try to find somebody else who's feeling that way and give them hope.   And that's why I do the pep talks in Chop Wood, Carry Water, because I need to hear them. And the, and as I do them, I feel better and I feel stronger. So I guess that the secret to joy for me is trying to help other people find joy themselves.   PASSIONISTAS: Is there a mantra that you live by?   JESSICA: A couple. “Chop Wood, Carry Water” is one. And again, just that idea of just what is the next thing in front of me to do what is in front of me right here? Is it, do I need to get my email out? Do I need to call my reps? Do I need to feed myself and my family to what is the thing right in front of me to do not, how am I going to be in 10 years or what's going to happen next year? But like, what is right here and trust in God and call your reps.   I mean, you know, I guess that would be my other mantra and on a spiritual plane. What I use when I meditate a lot is breathe in faith and breathe out fear, which helps a lot for me, just to sort of on a physical level, be breathing in the idea that it's all going to be okay, and be breathing out that anxiety. Cause again, the anxiety will make me ineffective and cripple me. And also it's the anxiety is so fed by our social media and media world that, that it becomes in and of itself an enemy that I have to fight. And I can do that by caring for the physical plant, feeding myself and meditating, exercising, those, those little things, making sure I spend, you know, engaged time with my family, all of that, to make sure that I can fill the well.   PASSIONISTAS: What advice would you give to a young woman who wants to get more involved and become an activist?   JESSICA: Find a local campaign and volunteer, pick your passion.   If it's climate change, find somebody who's running for any office where they can have some impact on that and, and help them. If you're young, join the sunrise movement. They're amazing. They're so great. I can't recommend them highly enough. If climate change is your, is your big thing. If criminal justice reform is your thing, look for it. Look for someone running for district attorney who wants to change things up there. We have a great race in Los Angeles that I'm going to be volunteering for. If education is your thing, work on a school board race. There is no campaign that will not jump up and down for joy. When they get a phone call from someone saying, I want to volunteer, there's no campaign that has so many volunteers that they will turn them away. They all need you desperately. So sign up to do what you can.   If you are not willing to go canvas, make phone calls. If you don't think you can do that, offer to go and stuff on envelopes for them or answer phones or bring them food. But again, get involved in it in a local race. I mean the presidential race obviously will matter so much, but to get started, if you start on a small race, you will then get to know those people. And the next time they're working on a campaign, you'll be like, Hey, I know. So and so they were, you know, a field rep in, in, in, so, and so's campaign, I'm going to call them up and see if I can get in, you know, uh, here as maybe like a paid, maybe I can get a paid job and suddenly you're sort of working your way up, but everybody who works in politics starts as a volunteer. I worked for a great organization called open progress for almost two years, uh, doing their social media. And I started out as a volunteer. I worked for them for probably four months as a volunteer and that turned into a job. So you just never know, but, but volunteering is where it's at. Just, just, just raise your hand and ask where you can help and you'll be off. Your journey will begin.   PASSIONISTAS: Thanks for listening to The Passionistas Project Podcast and our interview with Jessica Craven.   To get a membership to Jessica's daily newsletter, Chop Wood, Carry Water, and support her activism, go to patreon.com/chopwoodcarrywater.   Don't forget to register for the Passionistas Project Women's Equality Summit to take part in Jessica's workshop Activism 101 on Saturday, August 22. The summit is sponsored by LUNA, whole nutrition bars, the premium beverage company, Tea Drops and public speaking coaching company, ubu skills. A portion of the proceeds from the summit will go to Girls Inc. and Black Girls Code. To register for free for the online event visit thepassionistasproject.com.   And be sure to subscribe to The Passionistas Project Podcast, so you don't miss any of our upcoming inspiring guests.

Suz Carpenter created a virtual nutrition education company called CarpenterOne80 whose mission is to provide affordable and simple programs that can clear up food confusion so that people can win at losing weight. She is a Certified Nutritional Consultant and the CEO and Founder of CarpenterOne80, as well as the creator of Babysit My Plate, The Food Peace University and S.O.S. (Suz on your shoulder). These three different virtual bite-sized nutrition courses were designed to teach you what you need to know to create sustainable results. More info about Suz. Learn more about The Passionistas Project. Full Transcript: Passionistas: Hi, and welcome to the Passionistas Project Podcast. We're Amy and Nancy Harrington. Before we start our interview today, we wanted to tell you about our upcoming event. From Friday, August 21st through Sunday, August 23rd, we'll be hosting the Passionistas Project Women's Equality Virtual Summit. The three-day event will feature live panel discussions, prerecorded presentations, daily workshops. The Passionistas Portraits storyteller event, the LUNAFEST® short film festival, a Virtual Marketplace and a Pay It Forward Portal. The weekend is centered around the theme of women's equality and intersectional feminism from a range of perspectives, including racial equality, LGBTQ+ rights, financial equity, voter suppression, ageism, physical and mental health issues, religious persecution and so much more. And best of all, it's free for the weekend. Go to ThePassionistasProject.com to register. And now for today's interview, we're talking with Suz Carpenter an approachable, sincere, fun, loving and passionate leader who loves to see personal improvement and transformation in those she teaches. Through her successful ten-year nutrition career Suz saw a gap in the industry, and a trend in society. Americans are more confused and overwhelmed than ever when it comes to actually losing weight and keeping it off. She created a virtual nutrition education company called CarpenterOne80, whose mission is to provide affordable and simple programs that can clear up food confusion so that people can win at losing weight. Suz is a certified nutritional consultant, the CEO and founder of CarpenterOne80 as well as the creator of BabysitMyPlate, the FoodPeaceUniversity and SOS (Suz On Your Shoulder). These three different virtual bite-size nutrition courses were designed to teach you what you need to know to create sustainable results. So please welcome to the show, Suz Carpenter. Suz: I'm so glad to be here. Thank you for having me on with you today. Passionistas: What's the one thing you're most passionate about? Suz: Without a doubt, food peace. And I'm going to tease that out for you a little bit more. Once upon a time, I was asked this question where somebody said, you know, "you say you would die for your kids, but would you change for them?" And that question kept me up at night and hit me square between the eyes because I didn't have food peace. In fact, I had an eating disorder that I had struggled with since I was a teenager. So that question meant that I was going to need to get help and face what was really my greatest shame. And in walking that out, what I discovered was food peace and it's changed my life. And it's the thing that I'm passionate about spreading to others, because I know it's what people are suffering with. Passionistas: So how does that translate into what you do for a living? Suz: I seek to educate people on what foods to eat and why, so that they are not, influenced, but so they understand because from there I can empower somebody to do this on their own, to lose the weight and maintain the weight, and then be inspired to share it with their families and beyond. Because what I've been able to do my whole life and is when I understand science, I can explain it in a way that a first grader can get it. And I did used to teach first grade once upon a time. So when I stumbled into the beginning of my healing, I started to see patterns in nutrition. And I kept thinking, why was I not taught this? When I was in high school? How come these basic things were so covered up and made so confusing that I couldn't find the answers that I was looking for because I was struggling for so many years. So my life's work now is really just to educate on what all of us should have been taught when we were a lot younger, because it's not so complicated, it just needs to be spelled out. Passionistas: Tell us what CarpenterOne80 is, what inspired you to create it? Suz: So it came from me getting the help with my eating disorder and tackling that ugly voice in my head and understanding the basics of protein, fat and fiber, every meal to make maintaining or losing weight, no big deal. And the exercise was a part of the healthy living equation, but not necessarily part of the weight loss equation. And so with working with people, I started to notice that we wanted things fast, more like a microwave than an oven. And my clients were struggling with wanting to work and get results, but not having the time or the finances to invest in a one-on-one program. They also felt very, very overwhelmed by all the information available. Like I think about the days when we had to study for our final exams or board tests, and we had all the books on our desk and we were so overwhelmed by all the material that you, you kind of felt that pressure going into the test, that you don't know that you studied the right thing. And then when you walk out of the test, you could feel the information leaking out of your ears. That's how people feel about pursuing a healthy lifestyle. They don't know really what to listen to. It feels very overwhelming. And a lot of times they stop before they ever make traction. Okay. So what started out as me just getting help for myself with no intention of building out CarpenterOne80 suddenly became this mission to pay forward. It's almost like I'm talking to myself, my younger 20 to 37 year old self. So CarpenterOne80 means — Carpenter's my last name, but carpenters build things. 180 is a direction, 180 degree turn, but you have to make one intentional decision for 80 days in a row because it takes about 66 days to make a habit so that we can make a lifestyle no longer a fad diet, but it's going to take time of failing forward and doing it bad perfect. So that was kind of how I birthed out the idea of the company name. But with working with people, I saw that I absolutely still want the one on one platform so that my heart stays attached to people and I stay relevant and connected and sharp. But I know that there's a lot of people who are more interested in self-learning meaning that's where you insert the video courses and they want to learn from somebody that's not scary. That's a teacher. That's a little bit fun. That's based in science and is like a girlfriend that's approachable. So that's why I'm going to do I teach the video courses. And then the one that I'm the most excited about is the one that I just custom catered to all the concerns that I heard from people. I don't have enough time. I'm overwhelmed. I don't have enough money. So SOS stands for Susan on your Shoulder. And it's like that angel on your shoulder whispering in your ear because I made them into three and four minute soundbites that come right to somebody's text message. So they don't even have to go find it. It comes right to them. It's every day. And it's teaching people what they need to know in the right sequence to begin to learn and apply and get results and feel better and create a lifestyle. But as they start to get results out of those initial first soundbites, those first couple of weeks of me teaching, then the learning starts to happen where instead of following safe food rules, which we don't want to do instead, because you understand what protein, fat and fiber can do for turning off hungry hormones and balancing cravings and turning your body where it'll burn fat for fuel, rather than store fat, it begins to make so much sense that eating any other way becomes illogical. And you learn how to incorporate in the foods you love rather than take them out. And in doing that, in that consistency, in that repetition learning happens. Because you begin to attach cues or words to things that mean something in a way that you can apply it to make lifelong change. So this is my way of really giving back in an inexpensive way so that people can find, like I said, the food peace that mattered so much to me, Passionistas: I think people sometimes look at weight loss as just changing their diet. But you also focus on overcoming shame and inferiority and low self-esteem. So why is that important? And what are the keys to helping people change their attitudes about those issues, too? Suz: So losing weight is really intimate and it's really vulnerable, and anybody can get a food plan offline or have a trainer, who's wonderful, give you a list of foods to eat, and maybe you're going to stick with it for four or five days, but you took out your favorite foods. Most women can stick with something that's a diet and restrictive for about four weeks, men about six weeks. And then we blow it. So how come like how can we do something in a way that we can have real results? So that means we have to do two things. One, we have to figure out how to pull in the foods that matter. But two, we have to address the emotional component because food brings us pleasure. Food makes us feel happy. Food fills in the gaps for people. So we have to get to where the beginning part is practical and boring. Like we're talking, we have to learn about bringing in the groceries and the right foods to put for meals. But really quick, really quick, after that, You've got to dig into the emotional side of this and understand the difference between emotional eating or emotional hunger and physical hunger. Because we have this as humans, we are wired that we want to feel happy and we want to feel good. And in life, you're guaranteed to struggle. It's not, if it's when. And so we have these things, it's called the feeling spectrum. If you look at your left hand and say, put it on the table and pretend like that table is a hot stove, it is so painful. You can't keep your hand there and you have to pick it up. Now on the right, You put your hand down and that's such joy. It's also not sustainable, like say Christmas morning or endorphins for a run. Now, when we are feeling pain, which is over by the left hand, our body is wired to do things, to move us towards happiness. So there are certain things that we could do that could give us endorphins, that society frowns on that we don't turn to as much — gambling, stealing, driving, too fast, overshopping drugs, uh, whatever, something in that category, smoking. Now you can also turn to food to make yourself feel better. And society does not frown on that. So it's easy to turn to that with out having a social ramification. So here's what happens. We have some form of pain. It could be somebody died, a relationship stress, financial stress, job stress, uh, could be pace of life. It could be kids running around and fighting could be an email. You don't want to write or a hard conversation. Anything that's causing you pain is over on the left hand, by your left hand. So let's say you start to think, gosh, I really want some Ben and Jerry's or some pretzels really what's happening is you're eating the food for comfort to make that pain go away. So while you're eating the Ben and Jerry's or the pretzels or whatever, it's as though somebody put a blanket over that pain and numbed it out and made it go away. And that feels really good. But as soon as you're at the bottom of the ice cream or at the end of the chip bag, what happens is the blanket comes off the pain you're left with the problem. And now you have a feeling of blood sugar going up and down, which feels bad. Your belly might hurt, which feels bad. And then if you're looking to lose weight or you're struggling with body image, that's going to add to shame or regret. And that is a bad feeling. So if we can identify that it's normal to want to eat, to make yourself feel better. That is a first step to empowering. The second thing is starting to think, okay, so what am I emotionally hungry for when I'm going for the Ben and Jerry's am I wanting to feel comfort? Am I wanting to be food? Am I bored? Am I looking to feel like I accomplished something? Am I avoiding an email? Like we need to look at what the trigger is that caused the emotional need to go for the food. And then to recognize this is the one that I love is a lot of times the foods we're going for or what we call comfort foods and the reason we're going for the comfort food. If you think about this, I bet if you're thinking in your head right now, what are your top five favorite comfort foods? One or two of them would probably be things you ate when you were a child. So we're going for foods, probably, they were something we ate in our childhood because that reminds us of a time where we were secure and safe and comfortable. And it makes more sense when you begin to understand the why you're doing something, and then it makes the, how, which is the practical a lot easier. And the reason I want to address those types of things about why we emotionally eat, why the comfort food is wanting to make people feel better to realize that it's normal. Two, because then you can begin to get a handle on what's going on and begin to potentially reverse the situation you don't want to be in. Because what I can't stand is the idea that when somebody is getting dressed in the morning and their hair's wet, cause they just got out of the shower and you put the skirt on or the pair of pants and you buckle in and you feel that sense of inferiority or the tight pants remind you that you're, you just don't feel like you're enough. And you're talking ugly to yourself. That position of disempowerment is a big mountain to have to climb over in order to start your day off in your powerful, authentic, bold, confident self that needs to show up in this world to do something amazing. So I'm really the unfancy part of somebody's life shoring up the health, helping them to really begin to get the success with the weight, because what I'm really looking to do is get their feet back underneath them so they feel competent and bold and go add value into all areas of their life. Passionistas: So you said that, you know, everybody has the same excuses of I'm too busy. I don't have time. It's, you know, I'm too broke. So how does what you do help with all of those excuses? Suz: That's what I tried to navigate with SOS. If somebody says, I don't have time, I'm like you have three or four minutes a day and you can listen to these while you're driving to the gas station. Or I'm broke. Okay. So I started SOS so everybody can try seven days free to see if it's even a fit for them. But in those first seven days, I'm equipping with what you need to really get off to a strong start to make a change. But then it's $15 a month. That's not so bad. People spend that with a drive through at Chick-fil-A. And then with the, you know, like I don't have time or I don't know enough, or I have an event coming up. The biggest obstacles I heard you guys for years were things like I have a trip coming, so I don't want to start now or we have Christmas coming, so I don't want to do that and then have to stop and start. Where here now, even in this COVID time, we don't have those obstacles yet. It's still difficult to begin to create a lifestyle. So I found that the hurdles really are uncertainty. They are, I've tried things before. And I don't know if this will work for me worse yet. I've tried something. I lost 10 pounds. It was really, really hard. And when I stopped, I gained 12 and I feel so discouraged. I don't know if I can dig in again. And that trust fall into when you don't know what you don't know, you don't know what you know. So teaching somebody, if I get you eating protein, fat and fiber, and you feel full and have weight loss without hunger, and you're not craving foods like crazy, and you're seeing results, it's going to be a lot easier to show up to this meal and show up to these foods and yourself. And you will begin to feel encouraged. But I mean, I think we all can identify with, I did something before it was so impossibly hard. I'm scared to try again because I don't know if I have it in me. And that's where you need somebody who is a role model, who is an encourager, who is showing the way, who's making it not seem so scary and restricted, but rather she eats food that looks really good. And she's food has chocolate in it. I think I could get behind this. And so I try to navigate some of the obstacles, but a lot of them have to come back to just fear and uncertainty. Passionistas: You had me at chocolate. Suz: I'm like everybody. I go to Starbucks and see the big fancy copies and the scones and chocolates. And I want them like, I very much want them, but I don't want to be constantly battling with having to gain and lose 10 pounds because I understand if I go after the scone and the chocolate, it's like, you have to use compromise and discipline in every area of your life. You have to with business was showing up to an appointment on time. You have to use compromise and discipline with weight loss and weight management in your health. So I can look at a scone and go, it looks so good, but it's actually not one of my top five favorite foods of all time. So maybe I'm gonna pass on this so that I can have what I really want a little bit later. And so that's why I've worked hard to create recipes that are just kind of healthier swaps of foods that we love, like cookies, but they're not quite as expensive to our bodies in terms of calories and, um, slowing weight loss. Passionistas: And do you provide recipes to people as well? Suz: I do. I always call them kid approved because I run it all by my family. And, and so, you know, they're, they're just things like I'll, I'll trade out, say regular flour for cooking with almond flour, but I'll add in unflavored fiber because fiber negates carbohydrate and in the absence of net carbs, the body will burn fat for fuel. So in a lot of my recipes, if I can significantly up the fiber count, I lower the net carb amount, which means, Hmm, we're going to actually be losing weight or maintaining weight. And this is not going to be such an expensive dessert. So definitely provide these recipes for people because it's one thing to hear eating a certain way. It's entirely different to know what actually to go get at the grocery store and what to put on your plate. That's practical because we need tactical hands on things that we can do and eat to get the results. Especially in the beginning, Passionistas: We're Amy and Nancy Harrington. And you're listening to the Passionistas Project Podcast and our interview with Suz Carpenter. To learn more about her business, visit CarpenterOne80.com. Now here's more of our interview with Suz. As we're recording this we're right in the middle of the Corona virus. What advice do you have for people who want to get started with this now? But it's hard to keep focus for everyone right now. Suz: It's true. And first off is don't underestimate getting enough sleep and getting enough water. Those are really important fundamentals that we're in a health crisis. So you do need to take care of yourself. And those are two simple things that have been taken off the plate for a lot of people. So here's what I would love for everybody to do is to start looking to find fiber and incorporate this into breakfast, lunch and bridge snack and dinner. So fiber versus zero calorie, part of a carbohydrate it's found in fruits and vegetables, whole grains legumes. Fiber is something that as Americans, we're not getting enough of in our diet. Now before the industrial revolution, we were probably getting a hundred to 200 grams, but when we started manufacturing food, they started stripping fiber, started going for more simplified carbohydrates. And then what happened is the waistlines got bigger, right? During the industrial revolution, you can see it. So studies show that if an American who gets about nine to 15 grams of fiber right now, ups their fiber to around 24 grams a day you'll malabsorbe about 90 calories a day. So over the course of a year, that can lead to a 10 pound weight loss by addition, by adding in fiber. So it's the zero calorie part to a carbohydrate. Your body cannot break it down. It cannot digest it, but it is going to burn calories called thermogenesis, trying to break down the fiber. So fiber acts like a broom in a sponge, it'll soak up extra calories that send toxins and usher them into the toilet bowl. It has a lot of bulk. And so since you're drinking your water, your stomach will stretch and that will help you to feel full. But these foods that are high in fiber are very low in calories. So that's why I say you can have weight loss without hunger. The other part of fiber, it's just a super unsexy nutrient, but the health benefits are, what's so amazing. It'll reduce risk for blood pressure, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, l reduce the risk for estrogen dominance or colon cancer helps to reduce inflammation in the body leading to a healthier GI track. The health benefits are, what's so amazing, and this is stuff we're buying from the grocery store. And the side effect of getting healthy is actually that you're going to have weight loss and weight loss without hunger. So if your listeners can right away, you know, through this COVID time, especially, but moving forward the first week shoot for 24 grams, you're going to feel full. You'll be more regular. And then the next week, I would say, try to shoot up to 35 grams that way we're above what the recommended daily allowance is, but we're definitely getting to take advantage of feeling nice and full while I'm revving our metabolism and getting healthier. Passionistas: This is also kind of an emotional time with the shutdown. So are there any tips that you have specifically for people and kind of just their mental state right now? Suz: First off, we can not be continuing to think that we have to take out our favorite foods in order to maintain or lose weight. Because we're looking to create a pattern of eating that you can do right now that you can do when you're 70. And if, if, if that's not the case, we haven't found the right pattern of eating. So when I'm working with people, one of the exercises we do is figuring out their top five favorite foods. And this is a little harder than you think to really dial in what are my top five favorite? So that doesn't mean Italian. It means, um, very specific type of Italian. Is it chicken piccata or is it Fettuccine Alfredo. Get really specific about what your top five favorite foods are and write them down. This, this is the activity is doing that because then what happens is during this time, if you come across your top five favorite food, all right, we're in there. That's something that you're going to go for. But if you're in front of a food that you don't necessarily love, like, say for me, I don't love Oreos. I'll buy them for the family, but I won't touch them because I don't love them. So if you're around something like, say Oreos, I'm not going to splurge on something like that. That is a total waste. However, I love chocolate chips. And if those are around, I'd be more likely to splurge on that. But now let me frame splurge. Instead of the old way, which was eat it all until it's gone, which that's what I used to do in my eating disorder days. Instead I have a thoughtful indulgence and that is having three bites. And I get it. I get hearing right now, even the person that said three bites, I don't want to listen to this anymore. I really understand it because that right there requires you to show up and use compromise and discipline. But if you can, if you can just try to lean into this idea, the first bite's the one that tastes the best, that's the one where it explodes in your mouth and you get endorphin rush. The second best bite is the last one. It's that one that lingers. And then the only difference is, do you have one bite in the middle or do you have a thousand, which is gluttony? Do you have one bite that lets you have a thoughtful indulgence where you feel empowered and you enjoyed it and you still feel in control or do you have 200 and you ate the whole thing and you wake up with regret and shame and sore belly and feeling bad about yourself. So have it, especially if it's a top five, but begin to practice having three bites and a thoughtful indulgence. But I promise you're going to do it bad. You're going to goof up and have 20 bites. It's normal. This is practice. That's why it's CarpenterOne80. 80 days to make a new habit. You've going to have to fail forward iand do it bad perfect. And just keep showing up. And if you have your favorite food and you stick to and you don't stick to three bites, you blow it. You just think to yourself, okay, I'm going to do this bad perfect. I'm going to fail forward and think about when you were a kid and you're in line at school. And if you fell out of line, you just got back in line and that's all we're going to do because we're just beginning to make new habits that are better, that will serve you and your intentions. If you are basically filling your plate with protein, fat and fiber, and that's the foundation, because like I said, that's going to turn off eight hungry hormones so that when you get in front of your favorite food, if you've already set that solid foundation, you're much more likely to approach it in control, but it's not until you set that foundation that you can really feel the truth of what I'm saying. Right now it's more like I can anticipate you're trying to put yourself in that place, but it's nowhere you've been before. So it's difficult to understand, not having to exercise so much willpower. Eventually it'll get a lot easier, but I also want to honor people and that it's work. Like it does work, but it is working. It does require you being awake and showing them to your life and pursuing the best version of yourself and being willing to have to be disciplined, to just wait to not have the blueberry cake, to have the chocolate cake and a couple of days, because you'd rather have. I absolutely agree, understand that feeling of, but I want everything, but that gets us in trouble. 70% of Americans are overweight. We cannot get away with eating, whatever we want whenever we want. That's a lie. So if we can start to instead hear these messages of, I just have to use compromise and discipline. I can have what I really, really want, but it doesn't mean I can have everything. It just, it looks like there are so many people that can eat whatever they want without ever gaining weight. I mean, my thighs are not made of Teflon. I have to, I have to take my own advice. Passionistas: What's the biggest risk you ever took and how did it pay off? Suz: Biggest risk I ever took? To me, it feels selfish to say this, but it was admitting that I had the eating disorder and, and this is why I wrote that secret is such a big shame. I was so ashamed of it that I thought if I spoke it out loud, that I was going to lose all the relationships that I loved, I thought I was going to be an impostor or not authentic. So I was terrified. And I remember the first time I said it out loud, I felt like my bones were going to fall out of my body. I remember the heat coming up, my neck. I still remember my hair sweating. I was so scared, but I was met with love and compassion. And I have been met with that with everybody that I've shared my story with to find out I'm not so alone. So it was such a shame that it was so terrifying and risky for me to say it out loud. But the outcome has me here talking to you and has me been in this space for 10 years where I get to change lives one at a time. Passionistas: Do you mind if I ask why you finally were able to make that decision to share your story? Suz: Well, it was definitely the question that I was asked. It was when they said, you know, "You would die for your kids, but would you change for them?" Because what I realized is I was the ugliest voice in my head and I had this fractured relationship with food where I'd starve myself all day and then I would binge, and then I would exercise as an eraser. And then I got into abusing laxatives. And that question made me recognize that my girls were probably going to do the same thing that I did if I didn't get help for me. And I couldn't see in the idea of them talking to themselves that way in the mirror or them struggling with food like I had. So that made me stir the feelings up that I was going to have to do something, but I still wasn't quite ready because I was giving life 110%. And I believe that's what a lot of people are doing. I was doing everything that I knew to do, and I was looking for answers and I'm still falling short. So it was very difficult for me to believe that talking with someone else, a dietician and a counselor and a therapist that I could ever really release this eating disorder, because I didn't know that there was a different way that I could eat and live. So I had to be brave and accept that I was going to have to be willing to walk it out and continue to just keep trying. And I didn't know if I would succeed or not. And that was what was so terrifying. So for me, what I had to do as I need steps, like I need to know how somebody actually did it. I had to talk to myself first. Then I had to journal and practice journaling and putting words behind it in a book rather than to a person. And then the first person I told was actually my counselor, not my husband. I was paying somebody. So I didn't have as close of a relationship, but I was still so scared. And it was her that helped me reframe and expect what my husband would say and what others would say. And you know, of course my husband is just, was terribly, just terribly upset that I kept the secret and this burden and was hurting. And he was, she had helped or been able to help Passionistas: What's the first thing you do in the morning. And what's the last thing you do at night? Suz: First thing I do in the morning is I turn on a couple of lights to set the tone. And I sit down with my journal, with my copy and I write out 10 things that I am ridiculously grateful for. And a lot of times I start with batteries and light bulbs just to remind me of the blessings we have. And then I write out my 10 goals and some of them are goals to accomplish in the near future. Others are long-term. For instance, I'm an extraordinary wife and I am close with all of my children. Those are long-term goals that I always keep my eye on. And then I write down 10 mantras that, and that's kind of like putting my brain on for the day. Every single morning I wake up and I almost forget every single one of those parts of my morning routine. And it gets me ready for the day. And then the last thing that I do before I go to bed is I review those 10 goals again, of what I want to be and what I want to accomplish. And then that way kind of think that during the nighttime, while I'm sleeping, my brain is looking for ways to solve those problems. Passionistas: Is there a lesson you've learned on your journey so far that really sticks with you? Suz: Yes. My lesson would be, it was a statement, decide what it is that you need most in this world and go do that. And that statement's very empowering to me. And the lesson within that statement is there's room for you. You have a voice. There is somebody that needs your message. Be brave and show up. But there is a space for you. Passionistas: Thanks for listening to the Passionistas Project Podcast and our interview with Suz Carpenter. To learn more about her business, visit CarpenterOne80.com. Please visit ThePassionistasProject.com to learn more about our podcast, our subscription box filled with products made by women-owned businesses and female artisans and our upcoming Passionistas Project Women's Equality Virtual Summit. And be sure to subscribe to The Passionistas Project Podcast, so you don't miss any of our upcoming inspiring guests.

Katy Dolan is a Harvard-trained sociologist with years of experience in marketing and research. Katy leveraged her expertise in the varied fields of tech, venture capital, politics, and non-profits to launch Katy Dolan Consulting, strategizing and executing marketing campaigns and research projects to serve growing clients. Just 23-years-old, Katy admits that becoming self-employed this soon out of college was not part of her master plan. But she's on a mission to shine a light on the darker sides of life as a young professional. More info about Katy. Learn more about The Passionistas Project. Full Transcript: Passionistas: Hi, and welcome to The Passionistas Project Podcast. We're Amy and Nancy Harrington. And today we're talking with Katy Dolan, a Harvard trained psychologist with years of experience in marketing and research. Katy leveraged her expertise in the varied fields of tech, venture capital, politics and nonprofits to launch Katy Dolan consulting, strategizing and executing marketing campaigns and research projects to serve growing clients. Just 23 years old, Katy admits that becoming self-employed this soon out of college was not part of our master plan, but she's on a mission to shine a light on the darker side of life as a young professional. So please welcome to the show, Katy Dolan. Katy Dolan: Thank you all for having me. Passionistas: What is the one thing you're most passionate about? Katy: As you alluded to in my bio there, I became very passionate about work life balance and how to navigate your career as a young professional. After I graduated from college and found that, you know, I wasn't having the most fun time navigating the professional world myself as a 22 and early 23 year old. And so as I began to have those issues, I of course talks about them with my peers and my friends and discovered that those issues were actually very, very common. And we didn't feel like enough folks were talking about how difficult it can be to graduate college and enter the professional world and not really know the best decision to make or know whether the things that are making you unhappy are your fault or someone else's fault, or, you know, all sorts of things like that. And so I've become really passionate about talking about those first years out of college and your profession and what you can do to make that experience a little bit better for you both in terms of your professional success, but also more importantly, your mental health and your kind of sanity. Passionistas: If you will talk about how your passion relates to what you do for a living. Katy: To be honest, I'm still exploring the best way for my passion to relate to what I do for a living on the one hand, my passion relates to what I'm doing for a living, because what I'm doing for a living with my solution out of the problem that my passion relates to, if that makes sense. So I was very dissatisfied in my career in the first couple of years out of college. And so ultimately the best decision that I could make was to become self-employed and launched my consultancy and worked for myself. And, you know, that was my solution to the problem that I'm passionate about. But that solution has helped me to kind of enjoy professional satisfaction at this point, but it's not helping the many, many, many other young people who were in the same boat. And so I'm still working on that solution. It's maybe a book it's maybe a company it's maybe a blog series. I'm not quite sure, but I know that there is something there from all these conversations I've had with young people who are feeling the same things that I did right out of college. Passionistas: So what are the common threads? What are you hearing from these young people? Katy: On the one hand, there are issues with your manager or your boss, your supervisor at your workplace. So I think a lot of folks are trying to navigate in many for the first time working full time with a manager, with whom they do not necessarily get along on a day to day basis. And it's very difficult. I think to tell when you are shortly out of college, whether the challenges that you have with people in the workplace, particularly your manager, but also, you know, colleagues or other folks, whether those challenges are related to your attitude in the workplace to your contributions, or whether in some cases you are working in more of a dysfunctional workplace and your manager isn't really well equipped to manage folks. And so really where to put the blame is the question that I think haunts a lot of young people that I've spoken to. And I certainly felt that myself, right, when you come home after having a hard day where you had a bad interaction with your manager, it's very difficult to get in your head and wonder if that was your fault. And in some cases, it almost certainly is because you're a young professional and you don't know how to navigate that situation, but in other cases, it is your manager's fault, or it is your workplace's fault for not setting you up to be better prepared in that situation or whatever the issue may have been. And I think that anxiety about, you know, whether it's you all the time, whether it's other people, whether it's some blend of both can really cause you to spiral into wondering what's going on in your workplace and why it's affecting you so badly. So one thread is kind of managers. I think another big thread of course, is just satisfaction and feeling fulfilled with what you're doing. So, you know, so many people get their first job out of college. And I think it's a very common cultural trope that your first job is just supposed to suck and supposed to be bad. Even when you talk to family members or friends or people you meet at a cocktail party or whoever it might be. And you describe that, well, this is my first job out of college. The instant response is this sympathetic like, Oh yeah, first job out of college. Tough. Right? And I think so many people recognize that that first job is so often not particularly fulfilling. It's not really what you want to be doing. You haven't yet found what it is that you want to be doing. And so you're toiling every day doing often kind of menial junior level work sometimes in industries and fields that you're just not passionate about. You're not interested in, you've maybe realized through working there for the last one to two years, that it's not what you want to do for the rest of your life. And so that meaning is really not there in your day to day experience. And that is only worsened by working 10, 12 hour days, which a lot of people are doing in these junior level positions. And so particularly when you combine that kind of the trifecta of those bad experiences, you maybe have a bad boss or a bad manager. You're not doing work. That's fulfilling to you. And you're working 10, 12 hour days with very little time for a personal life that can be really oppressive as a 22 and 23 year old. And you're not sure where to go in terms of your career to make it feel less oppressive than it is. Passionistas: Talk about your personal experiences after you went to college and your first job. Katy: I think in my first job and really couple of jobs out of college, I struggled with a lot of the same issues that I described previously. There were certain interactions with people that I wasn't sure why they kept happening and why they were so unpleasant, why I was having such a hard time proving my value in the workplace, why I was having such a hard time, even kind of fulfilling requests and, and meeting the expectations of my colleagues and my managers. I think I certainly struggled some though, not as much as some of my peers with hours and balance. I think it's, it's difficult to come from college and then suddenly have an email, a professional email inbox that needs to be responded to at all hours of the day. And, you know, receiving emails late at night that you feel pressured to respond to. And those things are difficult. And I certainly dealt with that. And then also I would say just as a, as a broader point was just struggling with what I was supposed to be doing and whether this was what I'm supposed to be doing, whether this is fulfilling enough to sustain a 30, 40, 50 year career from this point. And it got to the point where most, every day I was sitting there wondering if I really could, if I could stomach doing this for even six more months, much less, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years. And that was in some ways the industry I was in, but in other ways, just the day to day work that I was doing and the culture of the places I was working, wasn't sure it was sustainable. And so just a lot of questioning I would say is what I was doing in those first couple of years, wondering what was wrong, whether it was me that was wrong, whether it was my fault and what to do about it, if there was anything to do about it. Passionistas: Let's go back a little bit. How did you get your start in marketing and tell us about the charity you founded in high school? Katy: In high school, I was a very, very enthusiastic member of the band and I had played piano for a long time, but I played flute in the school band and our band program at my high school was pretty serious and pretty elite and pretty competitive, particularly when it came to marching band. And so we had a marching band. I ultimately became the drum major of the marching band, which is the student conductor. And we traveled in competitions around the Pacific Northwest where I grew up and were pretty successful in competitions and things like that. So band was really a huge, huge portion of what I was spending my time on and music and student leadership within the band. And one of the issues that became apparent to me being involved in the band is that at least where I grew up in this is not the same everywhere across the country, thankfully, but at least where I grew up, you had to provide your own musical instrument in order to participate in the band or also the orchestra. And obviously for many students that poses a financial barrier instruments are very expensive. Obviously purchasing an instrument can be several thousand dollars, but even just renting an instrument from, you know, the local music shop can be anywhere from, you know, $50 a month to several hundred, depending on the quality of the instrument. And so for many families that additional expense is not feasible and it caused many families where I was from to, you know, lean away from choosing band or orchestra in favor of other activities when band or orchestra has significant scientifically proven positive impacts on adolescent development. And so my best friend and I in high school kind of came together and realized this problem. And at the same time that we realized the problem also kind of realized a potential solution, which is that many people keep musical instruments in the top of their closet gathering dust from when their child played it 30 years ago. And so they have these trumpets, these clarinets, these violins, all these instruments that really aren't doing any good for anyone and don't have a ton of value but would have a ton of value if they were in the hands of the student learning how to play. And so we created a nonprofit organization that kind of matched those two sides of the market, if you will. So we tried to collect musical instrument donations from those who had them laying around the house and then put those instruments into the hands of kids who wanted to participate in band or orchestra. That was our core programming. In addition to that, we also did some kind of music instruction clinics with community centers and youth groups and other kind of young people around the area. And then we also gave some scholarships, some monetary scholarships to participate in band or orchestra to cover some of the, you know, more monetary fees that are separate of instruments. And so we'd started that organization and really kind of started a business if you will, when we were 15 years old and ran it for several years. And at that point, the most exciting part of running that little business, which was a nonprofit, was the marketing and the getting the word out about what we were doing. And that was everything from designing the first logo, which looked absolutely horrific. And I believe I designed in Microsoft paint, which I do not recommend all the way from this really janky looking logo up to actually, you know, putting that logo on a website and on social media and developing content for social media that could get the word out because a study and more followers get more people to understand that they could donate instruments and all of those sorts of things. And so my starting marketing was really that when I was 15, it was marketing the organization that my best friend and I had started together and trying to make as much of an impact as we could, by getting more and more folks in our community to realize what we were up to. So that was really the start in marketing and have obviously kind of expressed it now in many, many more ways in the eight plus years, since we started that nonprofit. Passionistas: Where did you go to college and what did you study? Katy: I went to Harvard for college. Harvard does not have any kind of quote unquote practical majors in the way that most colleges do. So it's a, it's a liberal arts school. And Harvard is very laser focused on maintaining that liberal arts focus. And so that means that all of the majors at Harvard are disciplines like sociology, which was my major, but, you know, even a business major at Harvard is the closest thing is an economics degree, which is, you know, much more theoretical than a typical business degree from other schools. And so there was not a way to study marketing specifically at Harvard, but I studied marketing if you will, through internships and extracurricular experiences that often put me close to marketing, whether directly or indirectly. And so for many of my kind of extracurricular commitments at Harvard, I found myself doing a lot of the same things that I had done for my nonprofit, whether it was brand strategy and kind of creating a visual aesthetic and expressing it on a website and on social media, whether it was developing content that could, you know, get more eyes to our programming and whatever, you know, toward whatever objective that we needed to.  And then in internships also worked on various marketing initiatives. I worked at the Make-A-Wish foundation and my first summer in college and helped them with things like press releases and kind of packaging all these really inspirational, wonderful wish stories into content for social media and beyond. And in my senior summer, I worked at a public relations firm that assists democratic campaigns and progressive causes with advertising public relations and communications. And so kind of furthered the informal study of marketing there, if you will. Passionistas: And did you also intern at the White House? Katy: Yes. I also interned at the white house. That one was not so much marketing focused, but in my sophomore summer, I interned at the white house. This was my politics will show through here. This was the last golden summer of the Obama administration, the summer of 2016. And I worked as an advanced intern at the white house, which means that whenever the president and this is true in any administration, not just the Obama administration, whenever the president makes any sort of public appearance, that's outside the white house, whether it's a speech in DC or whether it's a big international trip to France or Japan or wherever here, ultimately she might be headed.  The administration sends an advanced team out to prepare for that event. And so I worked as an advanced intern. We were helping to prepare all of these appearances and speeches on behalf of the president. And so that was everything from booking travel and managing the receipts of that travel booking, which obviously it was a scintillating job all the way up to actually getting to staff the president at those appearances in DC. And then ultimately, I also took a trip to California with him in August of 2016 for a speech on climate change. And so that was a really wonderful, wonderful summer, obviously, to be so close to an area of politics that I was very passionate about. But really if you do want to kind of project a thread onto it in the past, there is some marketing involved in advance. You're dealing with members of the press. That's actually a big component of advanced work is wrangling press that obviously show up to presidential appearances. And you're also trying to, you know, in your setup of the event, help to craft the narrative that the press and the public can interpret from the president's appearance. So that's everything from who sits behind him or her when they're making a speech all the way to the experience that those, that those attendees have when they first walk in the room. And so there was a little bit of marketing involved, but that was definitely not one of my more marketing focused summers, but it was still a very fun summer. Nonetheless. Passionistas: We're Amy and Nancy Harrington, and you're listening to The Passionistas Project Podcast and our interview with Katy Dolan to learn more about her business, visit KatyDolan.com. Now here's more of her interview with Katy. In 2019, you founded Katy Dolan consulting. So talk about what inspired that and why you wanted to focus on startup companies. Katy: Specifically, as I have described, I was having some professional difficulties, I would say in my first year and a half or so out of school and realizing that I was perhaps not cut out for the kind of typical nine to five job. I desired a really high level of work life balance. So meaning that it mattered greatly to me to take the nights and weekends off and to have a reasonable amount of vacation and that I wanted to learn a bit more than I was really able to learn. And then in the roles that I happen to have, I wanted to be more exposed to different kinds of projects, and also get back to some of the work that I have really loved from the beginning, which did happen to be marketing and branding. And so I was beginning to realize that there was maybe an opportunity to act on some of these wishes and hopes. And I began taking on a bit of freelance work here or there while I was still employed full time. So I began kind of leveraging my network to get back in touch with a couple of startup founders that I had met in VR through various ways prior to that point and asking if I could do just little projects here or there for them, these were not major moneymaking projects. These were not projects that were really core to the business in most cases, but anything to help me kind of build my independent portfolio as a freelancer or as a consultant. And ultimately I kept doing that work to kind of prove to myself that there was product market fit. If you will, to use a startup term to prove to myself that I could basically generate enough income from freelancing and consulting to replace a full time job income. And so ultimately I did, you know, kind of demonstrate that fit and prove to myself that it was possible. And from then made a pretty hasty decision to quit my job and launch my consultancy full time and become self-employed. And in doing so, I had been exposed obviously to many inspiring people who also are freelancers or consultants. The vast majority of the ones I know and am inspired by do happen to be women. And many of these women had showed me or told me directly that one of the most important things to do if you're launching a consultancy or freelance career is to have a bit of a brand or a bit of a niche for yourself. And as I began to think about what I wanted that brand or that niche to be startups really made the most sense because when I looked back at my experience thus far, whether it was starting my own nonprofit, whether it was working for other organizations through college. And then when I worked in venture capital post-college and it was obviously working with startups, the common thread was really organizations that were just starting organizations that were really young. Didn't have big budgets, didn't have 50 staff members had a really lean and scrappy team and a lean and scrappy budget, but we're still trying to get the word out about themselves as much as possible. That was true with my nonprofit and it's true with most every startup company. And so I decided that my niche and my focus within my consulting business would be startup organizations. And so I call myself a startup consultant. And when I say that, I really don't just mean startups as our culture typically interprets that word. I E like venture capital backed tech companies, startups. I also mean small businesses and nonprofits and political movements and campaigns, really any type of organization that is small growing and looking to get the word out, which is pretty standard, you know, the, the motivations and kind of the tactics that you use are actually pretty standard, whether you're for profit, nonprofit, political, whatever it might be. And so that was the reasoning behind both launching the consultancy and then ultimately focusing on specifically startup clients. Passionistas: And you also mainly focused on marketing and research when you work with clients. Why those two areas specifically? Katy: As we've kind of spoken about marketing had been a big thread of mine throughout much of the work I've done, whether it was my own nonprofit many years ago, all the way through several of these organizations that I've worked with since. And it's really the most exciting work of startups, in my opinion, it is, as I said before, that process of using all of the resources you have available, which is often very few to actually teach people and get the word out about what you're doing, which is at least as a, as a founder, in my experience, one of the most exciting things that you can recognize when people, when you realize that people actually know what you're doing, and you didn't actually tell them they found out organically, or maybe by a paid advertising or whatever it might be, but they found out by some other method than you telling them. It's very exciting to learn that someone actually knows about your company, your knows about your organization, that they just came across on the internet somehow. And so I think marketing is very exciting work, not only as a marketer and myself, but also to work with founders who get really excited and realizing that, you know, we've done something that actually allowed them to have greater reach and their messages resonating with more people. And so marketing was kind of a natural fit. It's something that I knew a lot of the tactics about a new, a lot of the strategy to accomplish. And then the research angle was perhaps a bit less intuitive but was something that mattered a lot to me. So we haven't really spoken about it yet, but in college at Harvard, I studied sociology, which I'm also very passionate about and the discipline of sociology, which is, which is the study of really how people relate to each other. So there's psychology, which is kind of how you relate to your own mind. But then we move into sociology. When we start to talk about how more than one person relates to each other, whether it's in a pair or a small group, or even, you know, whole societies at large. So I studied sociology and a big component of the field of sociology is in depth interviewing and trying to get people's stories from them directly and use people as primary sources. And I had done a lot of interview based studies, including my senior honors thesis, which had been entirely interview based. And I knew, and I know to this day that there is so much power in talking to people about their experience. And it's not an area that a lot of startup founders are really thinking about when they start their company or their organization or whatever it might be, but it's really critically important toward understanding your consumer, understanding your target audience, or even understanding your own employees or your own folks within the organization. There's many ways to use it. And so I really wanted to kind of share that gospel if you will, with my clients, that it's really important to take the time to do these in depth interviews and to actually get the stories of people who you're impacting and use those stories to impact both your marketing efforts, but also your product development or whatever it is, whatever else it might be. And so, in addition to marketing, which is kind of my core service at this point today, I also do research studies with certain clients. And that typically takes the form of user research where in advance of launching a product or launching a new feature of a product, we go out and speak to a whole bunch of members of the target audience of that product or software in order to see how the products will impact their lived experience in this, in this certain field or industry that we're working in, and then translate all of those insights into kind of actionable tips and things as a company or organization can do in their product development, in their marketing, in whatever it might be to make sure that what they're doing really resonates with that end user. So that's the, both the marketing and the research components of my consultancy. Passionistas: What do you think is the most important marketing tool in the modern world? Katy: I think it depends on whether we're talking tool and kind of an abstract sense, the most important voice or content we can share, or whether we're talking tool in a tactical way, whether it's like email or social. So on the ladder, if it's the tactics, obviously social media is very ubiquitous in today's day and age. And I think when we were, you know, back eight to 10 years ago, social was seen as kind of the next area that any company needed to get up to speed on and their marketing program, obviously, because many of these social media platforms had only even started at that point. And so we were still learning how to do social, in my opinion. And I think this is not necessarily the opinion shared by every marketer. Social is at this point. So ubiquitous that as long as you accomplish kind of a base level competence in it, I think you're kind of all set and people will always go to your Twitter and expect you to have tweets there for them to read, but honestly, the kind of margin of improvement that you can have on all those tweets over any other brand's tweets is it's fairly small, I think at this point, because social is so ubiquitous. And so for me, I think the real area of opportunity for many brands is, is more content marketing. And it's actually having more in depth content, whether that's written content in the form of like a blog or audio content in the form of a podcast or video content, obviously in the form of video, all of those things are kind of the next level that I think many brands can get to, to really take them from zero to one. And so I work with a lot of companies and encourage many other prospective clients or folks that I just talked to really think about how they can begin telling some stories via content. Once I, once again, whether it's in writing or by audio, because I think that's really the thing that takes consumers now from just this base level appreciation of, okay, this brand has an Instagram page. Cool, got it. But, Oh, this brand has all this cool stuff that I like to read and watch and listen to. And this makes me feel much more close to the people that are running this company and makes me much more likely to buy or endorse or promote within my own network. And so I think content marketing is, is kind of the next thing to be unlocked by a lot of companies and organizations out there. Passionistas: So what type of clients have you worked with, and what's been your biggest success story? Katy: So far, I have worked with a wide range of clients at this point, and that's very intentional at this pretty early point in my career. I don't really want to be a really niche down specific strategist. I want to be more of a generalist. I want to be exposed to all sorts of different companies across all sorts of different industries. And so unlike many other freelancers or consultants, I try not to work too much within say e-commerce consumer package goods or within B2B software as a service or, or any of those niche disciplines. I try to work with a lot of clients and that has been my focus in the last year or so of running. This consultancy has been a diverse client set, which I do have, but I think one client that I've worked with a, for a long time and pretty extensively, and B has been really successful in that time that we've worked together is tiny hood, which is a company made by parents for parents, the founders of tiny hood or two moms themselves. And they in their own parenting experience decided that there had to be some way to make parenting a bit easier and more information out there. So you didn't have to feel so lost and uncertain when it came time to breastfeed your baby or introduce solids to your baby for the first time, or make sure you were up to date on CPR, infant CPR. And so Becky and Suzanne, these two moms created a company called tiny hood that is trying to help parents feel more confident in their parenting. And in the previous history of the company that was really expressed as forming communities of parents and connecting parents to each other, which is obviously vitally helpful for a lot of moms and dads out there who don't necessarily know a lot of parents, or just need more input from a network that is a bit more expert than they are in parenting. And so the company was pretty successful with those communities, but in the last year or so, what we've been working on more together is the launch of really a new class of product for tiny hood, which is online parenting classes. The challenge has been, how can we communicate this expert led content? So these classes are all taught by certified experts in their field. How can we use these experts to speak directly to new moms and dads about how to take care of their babies and children? And so in late 2019, and I believe December of last year, we really went ahead with like a launch of the online parents class product. But that product launch had been proceeded by a lot of user research that I had assisted with on talking to a lot of new moms, a lot of pregnant women and a lot of new moms about what they needed to know about parenting, what they weren't getting from the current parenting market and how a new company could really come into and significantly assist on their parenting journey. And so what the result has been is a suite of online parenting classes that I think, and I think the company agrees are really well tailored to what we heard from parents throughout that user research process and have been really, really successful in the several months that they've been online thus far. And I've also been proud. This was not at all my decision in any way in March, but I've been proud of the decision that the company made to offer some of their breastfeeding classes for free in light of the coronavirus pandemic. Obviously a lot of pregnant women and new moms were planning to go to the hospitals to take certain classes specifically on breastfeeding. And now the hospital has canceled their classes. Even if the classes aren't canceled, a lot of pregnant women don't want to go to the hospital and risk infection in their sensitive state. And so tiny had made the decision to offer a lot of these breastfeeding classes for free, and there's been really enormous demand that has been demonstrated. And so once again, we've gotten reassurance that these products really do meet the needs of a lot of moms. So that's a great client case study if you will, and has been a company that I've really, really enjoyed working with over the last six plus months, Passionistas: What's your definition of success? Katy: My definition of success is, is balance is just true balance both personally and professionally. And obviously I think that different people have a different balance that works for them. I am in no way saying that, you know, for every single person, it should be 50% and 50% professional in terms of the way you spend your time. But having a balance is the definition of success and is crucially important. And I think there are a lot of folks, particularly in my generation who have not yet achieved that balance because we are not told that that is the most important thing. We are told that professional success that, you know, the amount of money you make, the prestigious of your job title, you know, working at a McKinsey, working at a Goldman Sachs is success. That's the best thing you can do for yourself. But really success is actually not feeling incredibly overwhelmed with work all the time. It's feeling like you do have very solid friendships and relationships with your family and romantic relationships. If you so choose, and that you have hobbies that you're genuinely interested in and dedicated to that you're able to travel and see the world and broaden your mindset. That balance that comes from not being such a devotee to the hustle-porn culture. That balance is for me, at least the definition of success and was a big motivation towards me launching my consultancy because I could then better control that balance for myself. Passionistas: What advice would you give to a young woman who wants to be an entrepreneur? Katy: Fake it till you make it really, even when you do not think that you are prepared, you are probably prepared somehow, you know, and you're pro you're probably not considering doing something that you are wholly unprepared for because you probably wouldn't be considering it if you're wholly unprepared for it. Like, obviously if you studied, like I did say you studied sociology, you're more of a marketing and businessperson. Then you're probably wholly unprepared to take on like a medical tele-health startup that requires a lot of medicinal knowledge that you don't have, but you probably wouldn't be considering doing that if you were in this position. So anything that you are reasonably considering doing, you're probably prepared to do because the idea came to your head as something that you could do. And so faking it till you make it and taking those ideas and running with them and seeking the opportunity always saying yes is really the best thing you can do. I think early in your career to learn as much as possible to get a wide and diverse range of experiences that you can then help to triangulate what exactly you really want to do when you grow up, which is probably not what you're doing in many cases when you're 23 and 24 and 25, but having a lot of diverse experiences and, and faking it until you make it specifically in terms of entrepreneurship helps you to be better prepared to make those crucial decisions when they come a bit later in your life and career, that help you actually find that core central place where you'll land Passionistas: Thanks for listening to The Passionistas Project Podcast and our interview with Katy Dolan to learn more about her business, visit KatyDolan.com. Go to thepassionistasproject.com to get more information about our podcast, subscription box, and the first annual Passionistas Project Women's Equality Virtual Summit this August 21st through 23rd, featuring panels, presentations, workshops and more — all with the mission of empowering women. And be sure to subscribe to The Passionistas Project Podcast. So you don't miss any of our upcoming inspiring guests.  

Linda Hollander, CEO of Sponsor Concierge and the founder of the Sponsor Secrets Seminar, has been featured by Inc magazine as the leading expert on corporate sponsorship. She has over 20 years of experience as a small business owner, and as the industry leader in teaching people how to tap into the awesome power of corporate sponsors. She's the author of the number one bestseller "Corporate Sponsorship in Three Easy Steps." She's also the CEO of Sponsor Concierge and the founder of the Sponsor Secrets Seminar. Her sponsors include Microsoft Epson, Wells Fargo, Dun and Bradstreet, FedEx, American Airlines, Staples, HealthNet, Marriott, IBM aandt Walmart. Al Lapin Jr. The founder of IHOP restaurants says, "If your goal is to be a success, Linda Hollander has paved the way for you." Learn more about Linda. Learn more about The Passionistas Project. Full Transcript: Passionistas: Hi, and welcome to the Passionistas Project Podcast. We're Amy and Nancy Harrington and today we're talking with Linda Hollander. Linda has been featured by Inc magazine as the leading expert on corporate sponsorship. She has over 20 years of experience as a small business owner, and as the industry leader in teaching people how to tap into the awesome power of corporate sponsors. She's the author of the number one bestseller "Corporate Sponsorship in Three Easy Steps." She's also the CEO of Sponsor Concierge and the founder of the Sponsor Secrets Seminar. Her sponsors include Microsoft Epson, Wells Fargo, Dun and Bradstreet, FedEx, American Airlines, Staples, HealthNet, Marriott, IBM aandt Walmart. Al Lapin Jr. The founder of IHOP restaurants says, "If your goal is to be a success, Linda Hollander has paved the way for you." So please welcome to the show Linda Hollander. Linda: Hey, great to be here, ladies. Passionistas: We're so excited to have you. Thank you, Linda. What's the one thing you're most passionate about? Linda: Oh wow. Just one thing. Uh, well I'm, I am actually a Sponsor Passionista and that's what I'm most excited about. I love empowering women financially, so they can make better choices in life, so they can live their passion as you teach them to do. Uh, so they can send their kids to better schools, uh, so they can have better lives. Uh, and I want everybody has a challenge and my goal in life is to have people discover and achieve their greatness. Passionistas: Tell us a little bit about your background and how that led to you getting into the world of corporate sponsorships. Linda: Okay. Well, remember when I told me that everybody has challenges and especially now where we're working with a lot of challenges, what I did is I started a company with my best friend, Cheryl. And that's why I love forums like this because I am all about women's empowerment. And I've been in that movement for over 20 years. So Cheryl and I though, we met when we were 13 years old at recess and we became bonded. We became, I guess, kind of closer than sisters. And I know you two have a lot of girl power going on. Uh, so we said, "Oh my God, when we grow up, if we do something together, it's going to be amazing and it's going to be absolutely phenomenal." So we started this company, uh, it was all about bags, uh, because I was an art major. I didn't study business at all in college. Uh, everything I took was art. I thought business was boring. She was a, a cinema major. Uh, but, uh, we got together and we started this company producing bags. And when I say bags, I don't mean ladies purses. I mean, promotional shopping bags, the ones that you see at trade shows and at shopping malls. And our clients were Disney and Mattel and Nissan. And, you know, we had all know, we turned this little silly, stupid idea of producing bags into a multi-million dollar business. Now that's all well and good. And Oh my God, working with your best friend is amazing. Uh, but it wasn't always that way for me, because before I started my business, I was in a dead end job. Uh, I wasn't making enough money at my job. So I borrowed on credit cards and then pretty quickly I saw that, Oh my God, when I went to the mailbox, my hand would literally shake when I opened that mailbox because there were bills there that I could never, ever afford to pay. And I wasn't living larger or anything. I was just kind of trying to make my rent every month. And sometimes it was, it was a struggle. A lot of times it was a struggle. I had to work with people that I didn't like. Uh, I had a very abrasive relationship with my boss and you know, my heart and my soul was absolutely crying out because I had the fire of an entrepreneur. And this kind of was a toxic situation to be in, in that business. Sometimes at lunch, I would go into my car and I would cry. And on my, uh, personal side, in my personal life, I was in a relationship with an abusive man. And I stayed in that relationship for many years because basically I thought that was what I deserved. And I couldn't see a way out of it. Fortunately, ladies, one day I had an epiphany and, uh, uh, I fired my boss. Uh, I dumped the abusive boyfriend and I called my friend Cheryl. And I said, do you want to take the biggest adventure ride of our lives together and start a business? And fortunately she said, yes. So that started me on a trajectory. I was able to move out of my little rent controlled apartment. I bought my first home as a single woman. I was able to travel the world. I was able to pay down that debt. That was absolutely choking me. But what I loved most was mentoring other people in business because they didn't just come to me to order bags. And by the way, we were one of the only female owned packaging companies. So we walk, we work with a lot of women business owners and they said, "Linda, how do I do sales? How do I do marketing?" So then I came up with the idea of creating a women's small business expo because I wanted to show other women how to empower themselves by learning entrepreneurship. And then I looked and I said, "Oh my God, to do this event the way I want to do it. Cause I wanted to do a really high class event. Uh, it's going to be a lot of money." So that's when I went on the internet and I said, what are these things called sponsors? And I found out that sponsors would underwrite — write this down. If you're near a piece of paper — your business, your event, uh, if you're a speaker, if you're an author, you can get sponsors. If you have a podcast, if you have a blog, if you're a social influencer, if you have a show, you could get a sponsor. And lastly, if you want to start a nonprofit charity, you can get sponsors. And I work with a lot of people who do projects like documentary filmmakers. And then what I'm going to tell you today about getting sponsors. You could apply to your child also. Because if your child is in an after-school group or a sports team, you can use these techniques for your child. So basically my first sponsors were bank of America, Walmart and IBM. And this was working from my home, uh, actually from my kitchen table with the cat as my only employee. Uh, and, uh, you know, I had no experience. I'd never done an event in my life. Here's what I did though. I sold them on the concept and I'm going to tell you how to get sponsors by selling them on the concept of what you do. And then people would come to the events and they'd say, "Linda, I love this, but how are you getting all these sponsors?" And so now we do events and I do consulting about how you can get corporate sponsors to fund your dreams. Passionistas: How can people identify their potential sponsors? Linda: The best way to identify your potential sponsors is by your demographics. Write this down. If you're near a paint pen and paper — demographics are destiny. So I'll give you my demographic. And it, at the time it was women's business owners. So women business owners, oh my God, there's such spending power. There there's such economic power. There. Women are starting businesses at twice. The rate of men, women make or influence over 85% of the purchasing decisions in America. Women in America spend more than five countries combined. So I researched this and that's what I, how I chose my sponsors. Another way to find your sponsors is to look at similar properties and who's sponsoring them. So what you have now, it's called a property. Whether it's your business or your event or your book or your speaking, or your show, it's called a property in the world of sponsors. So what I did was I looked at other women's business conferences and saw who the sponsors were. And they could be my sponsors too. And people say, "Oh my God, Linda on isn't their budget gone if they're sponsoring this and that?" No, absolutely not. And then you don't have to educate them on the value of what you're doing, because they're already in that particular space. Passionistas: What are sponsors looking for? Linda: Exactly the most important thing that you have to sell to your sponsors. And I'm going to repeat it again, is your audience, your audience. The definition sponsorship is connecting a company to people who buy things. So sponsors are looking for return on investment. So let's say you're in the parenting space and you teach parents, parents how to effectively raise their kids. Okay. The mom market, the parent market is a two point $4 trillion market, uh, in America. So that's why sponsors will pay you because you can connect them to people who can buy their stuff. It is basically a marketing play. Passionistas: What do you think is the biggest mistake people make when they're looking for sponsors? Linda: Uh, just one. Okay. We'll do a couple. Uh, the first is not charging enough money. Uh, if you don't ask for enough money from your sponsors, uh, basically it's going to hurt you in the sponsor world because you're telling your sponsors that you have nothing of value to offer and it's not worth their time. Uh, basically sponsorship is kind of a team sport. Uh, so what you do is you have one person in the company, that's your hero. And then they tell other people in the company about you. And eventually they decide to give you money and sponsor you. And by the way, stay tuned because I want to tell you how much you can make. So we'll talk about that a little bit later. Uh, but so not asking for enough money is one of the biggest mistakes that people make in the world of sponsorship because they don't take you seriously. And then they have to spend some time with you convince their colleagues about the value that you bring to the company. So that's one mistake, a and then a second mistake, I guess, is just not believing in yourself because when people are just getting started in the world of sponsorships, one of the things that holds them back is why would a sponsor give money to little old me? You know, who the heck am I? And that's what I thought too. I live in Los Angeles. So guess what? I was in a traffic jam and I'm cursing the traffic jam. I'm hot, I'm bothered, I'm tired. But I look up and I see a billboard for Bank of America. And that is another way that you could find sponsors is to monitor the media. If there's some company that's putting a lot of money into media campaigns, take note of that, cause they're more likely to sponsor you. So I see this billboard for bank of America and I said, "Oh my God, what if Bank of America could sponsor me?" Now at this point, it was just an idea in my head, um, that I didn't have any events under my belt. I didn't know if it had legs. I didn't know if people would come. Uh, so I went back to my office and basically what I did was I self-sabotaged. Because I said, "What am I crazy? You know, I'm just a little frizzy here, Jewish girl here in her kitchen. They're not going to take me seriously. Uh, and I'm going to get rejected and I really don't want that." So I buried it for about two, but my passion like yours to help women was so strong that after the two weeks I said, what have I got to lose? Let's let's make a couple of calls. And I did call Bank of America. One person led me to another and uh, I got a guy saying, yeah, come up, come on by. So when I came by to meet them, uh, I wore my one good suit. Uh, I had a car that was more rust than paint and it was embarrassing. So I parked it like two blocks down. So nobody would see that car. And I gave them my proposal. Now, when you meet with your perspective sponsor, don't just bring one proposal. I brought four proposals so he can share it with his colleagues. Thank God. There was a desk between us, cause my knees were knocking. And so he read over my proposal. He said, "Great. We'll we'll sponsor you." And it was a five figure sponsorship, my very first sponsorship. And I had to act like I did this all the time. And then he wanted to shake my hand and my hand was all sweaty. So I had to wipe it on the back of my one good suit, really shake his hand. Uh, and man, when I got back to my car, I did the happy dance and I waived all the Bank of America's on the way home. So I want to illustrate that even if you're just starting out, even if you have no experience, even if you have no following, I didn't even have a following or a fan base at the time I had my parents and my brother-in-law and that was it. If I could have put the cat on there, I would have, so I didn't have a following either, but you can do it because everybody has to start somewhere. Passionistas: What's your advice on the best way to approach prospective sponsors and to muster up that courage to do the big ask? Linda: I think asking for things is especially hard for women because in high school we waited for the cute guy to ask us to the dance. You know, we didn't go up and ask them. So it's kind of been programmed into us from the time where we're young, uh, not to ask for things. So you of kind of get over that the best way to approach a sponsor is by email. They want you to introduce yourself by email because a lot of sponsors have told me, uh, things off the record in the past 20 years. And one of them is that they don't want to be interrupted by a phone call, uh, because they're usually busy with something. They've usually got a boss breathing down their neck. Um, so they want you to introduce yourself by email, uh, and send a couple of emails and then you'll have a conversation with your sponsors. Uh, so that's really the best way Passionistas: We're Amy and Nancy Harrington. And you're listening to the Passionists Project Podcast and our interview with Linda Hollander. To learn more about Linda and how to get sponsors, go to SuccessWithSponsors.com. Now here's more of our interview with Linda. What should be in that sponsor package that you bring with you to the first meeting? Linda: Well, it goes into the sponsor package is a description of what you do and make it brief description. I've seen descriptions that go three, four pages. No, no, no. Remember that it should be easy to skim your sponsor proposal. You want to write the benefits of the sponsorship there. It needs to be benefit rich, or you will not get funded. Uh, and you want to write compelling benefits for the sponsors. Uh, some benefits for the sponsors are email marketing, social media, video marketing, award presentations, press releases, spokespersons work. You could be a spokesperson for a sponsor. You could do contests and all of these benefits that I'm giving you are very low costs. Some are they even no cost, but they have a high perceived value to your sponsor. You want testimonials. If people have given you testimonials, you want to put it there. You want a marketing plan in your sponsor proposal because marketing can make or break whatever you're doing. You don't want to be the best kept secret. So tell your sponsors how you're going to market yourself. How are people going to find out about you? How are people going to read your book or see you speak or come to your event or listen to your show or donate to your nonprofit. So you want that marketing plan in there. Uh, and then lastly, storytelling, the way that we do sponsor proposals that nobody else in the country does is with storytelling. You want your story or the story of somebody that you've helped in that proposal. And I'll tell you why, because a lot of people say, "Oh, well, I'm sending this proposal to a big company and I'm going to fill it with facts and figures" and it becomes dull. It becomes boring. And I want you to stand out from the crowd. So the storytelling creates an emotional connection and it shows the humanity of what you do. I have put in my sponsor proposals that I've been in the poverty trap, that I'd been in an abusive relationship. Uh, so you know, and that that's gotten me sponsors because it's not a faceless corporation. That's going to sponsor you. It is a human being. Who's going to make that decision and human beings make decisions emotionally. Passionistas: You also recommend that people partner with a nonprofit. So what value does that bring to your offering? Linda: It brings a lot of value. Um, most companies now have a social responsibility department because they've realized that cause marketing works and cause marketing CUSC use marketing is so hot that it is absolutely scorching, uh, take Target stores. When you buy from Target stores, they give money to Feeding America. So people feel better about buying at Target and especially the moms feel better about buying at Target. Um, most companies that you're going to see a Subaru has a Share the Love campaign, where if you buy a Subaru, you can choose what charity they're going to to either the Humane Society or Habitat for Humanity or Stand Up to Cancer. They have a few different ones. And people really feel good and really companies want to give back and let people know that they're giving back to the community. Because there's something called the Halo Effect there. Uh, so, uh, and people like to buy from companies that support good causes. Passionistas: You also recommend that people get media partners. So talk about how that works. Linda: You approach them the same as you approach your cash sponsors. So, uh, with a media partner, you're going to send the same proposal to them. Uh, but the media is a little bit different because they do, what's called an in kind sponsorship. Now with an in kind sponsorship. It's a trading of benefits and services. No money changes hands, but they give you a whole lot of value. And it is budget relieving. I had a radio station that was a partner of mine that gave me all kinds of stuff. They gave me 30 second and 60 second commercials and a sponsor spotlight. And, and I was up on their website and you know, it was great because I think they had like a listenership of 75,000 people. Uh, and it is budget relieving because it was probably a $25,000 program. Not a dime came out of my pocket. One day I was driving and I heard my own commercial. That was really surreal. I almost crashed the car, but it was okay. Um, but that's how you get media partners. And I want to talk a little bit about virtual events. Cause a lot of people have been asking me about that. So sponsors will fund a virtual event, but you have to offer them a bigger benefit package. Uh, you don't want to just show their logo, uh, at your virtual event, you want to offer them yearlong benefits, uh, for that event. Uh, and you know, you want to offer a virtual event bag. You want to offer like all of these goodies post-marketing okay. So for an event, there's three phases. There's, pre-marketing, there's a marketing during that event and then there's post event marketing. So the post event sponsorship is after the events over say, "Hey, thanks so much for being on our virtual event. And here's some goodies from our sponsors. We want you to check out." Uh, so you've got to make a pretty complete program for virtual. And the best combination is a virtual event followed by a live event. And I'll tell you why, because the virtual event, you can promote the live event. Uh, and you know, it's kind of a one, two punch. Because a lot of people are going strictly virtual. It's not as valuable to sponsors unless you have the virtual and the live. If you can only do virtual. Great, but tell them that some point in the future, you want to talk about a live event, you know, whether it happens or not. Passionistas: And how do people determine the other benefits that they, they have to offer a sponsor? Linda: It's a real simple answer. You want to ask your sponsor. So the first conversation that you have with your sponsor is a fact finding expedition. You want to make them open up to you. You want to say, Hey, what are your marketing goals? How can I help you achieve them? What are your demographics? What are your upcoming campaigns? When I got FedEx as a sponsor, that's what I did. I talked to him and I said, well, what are you looking for? And you know, he said, well, we don't want a trade show booth. We don't want banners. We don't want signage. And that's what people, most people think sponsorship is. He said, everybody knows FedEx. If we have a trade show booth, they just pick up the little freebies that we have at the booth. And signage does nothing. We want to tell women business owners that we're not the expensive white glove delivery service. And we're very comparable with ups is their, their major competition. Um, so they wanted a speaking opportunity. They wanted an untoward presentation. They wanted press releases. So if I had come to him and said, okay, we're going to offer you a trade show booth and some signage I never would have worked with FedEx. I delved in. And before I went into my presentation, I made sure that I wanted to find out what he wanted and then offer some brilliant solutions. And then the happy ending to that story is that they sponsored me for four years because we were so attentive to what they wanted. Passionistas: How do people use research to strengthen their offering to a sponsor? Linda: It is so much easier now than it ever was before you could do your research very, very quickly. Uh, Google is my best friend and it's probably yours. So you're going to Google the company that you want to be your sponsor. You're going to see their website on their website. You look at their press room. The press room is kind of an interesting thing because it shows how they message the company. It shows the articles about the company. It shows how they want you to perceive their brand. You're going to look at the about us section and then the, the investor relations section. But don't just stop at the website, go to their social media, too, and see what kind of posts they put out there and tweets and see, you know, what's going on on their social media, but I'm telling you, you could do this really, really quickly. Um, and that's the best way to do research about the company. And when you talk to the sponsors, they want to know, they want to know that you've done the research because that means that you are respecting their time. So if they've got a certain program out there, say, "Hey, I see you're promoting this particular program." And they love that. They love when you show that you've really done your homework. Passionistas: So now here's the big question. How do people know how much to ask for? Linda: Oh, this is my favorite. This is my favorite one. Because most people, like I said, no, tortuously undercharge. And then women have a hard time charging a lot of money. So, um, here's what most of our clients get from their sponsors. $10,000, $25,000, $50,000 and a $100,000. Now that is per year and renewable. So let me talk to you about renewals, because remember when I told you that FedEx, uh, you know, sponsored me for four years, that is your, your cash machine is the renewals. If a sponsor likes you, they can sponsor you this year and the next year and the next year. So that's renewables, which are absolutely delicious. And I had a multi-year contracts and renewals with Citibank too. And my clients have had renewals with the Verizon and Dole foods and Black and Decker, just to name a few. Uh, so those are, remember yearly benefits if you're doing an event, okay, don't go event by event because that's how I did it at first. And I realized I was being stupid because I could get a lot more money if I give them benefits for the whole year. Um, and if you do a few events a year bundle the events, even the virtual events, and by the way, semantics are important. So call it a virtual event. Don't call it a webinar. Don't call it Facebook live, you know, because people really expect those things are free. So call it a virtual event if that's what you're doing. Passionistas: What did your mother teach you about women's roles in society when you were growing up? Linda: Oh my God, my mom and I are so different. My mom, when she got married, uh, she worked for a while, but you know, she was a stay at home mom and, you know, she was really, really good at it. Um, and, uh, the only thing was that she was completely dependent on my father. And I saw that growing up and I said, you know what, it's good for their marriage, but it's not how I want my marriage to be. I don't want to be dependent on anybody. And I am. That's kind of what made me very fiercely independent, uh, was seeing my mom. Now, my mom influenced me in some really good ways. Uh, she's an artist and that's where I got my at my art from, and my love of art, my love of beauty, because she had that. And if I have any compassion, if I have any humanity, uh, it is from my mother. And I think the more creative you are, the more successful you are in business. So all of those things, creativity and compassion were gifts from my mother. Passionistas: What's your dream for women? Linda: My dream for women is that we can all respect each other's choices. I told you about my mom and how she chose to be a stay at home. Mom. I respect that. You know, I don't think, you know, people like that are any less than the woman who goes out and works every day and need to be even makes more than her husband and is the, the, the breadwinner for the family. So I think that's where we're moving as women is, you know, just to have good choices. And that's why I'm such a proponent of entrepreneurship because entrepreneurship helps you make good choices. Uh, Oprah Winfrey, you know, she doesn't have to worry about money. She doesn't have to worry about paying the bills so she can work on having schools in Africa and really affecting world change. And it's the same with Melinda Gates and Bill Gates. You know, they don't have to worry about paying their bills every month so they can work on things of a higher nature. And Sara Blakely, two of Spanx who I've talked to. Uh, so that's where I see women's the trajectory of women's success going. Passionistas: Do you think that there's a particular trait that has helped you be successful? Linda: Tenacity. Uh, because you know, um, this is your business. If you can't go through the front door, go through the side window, that's kinda been, uh, my definition of success, uh, you know, and do whatever you can to be successful because it's not just for you, it's for all the people that you're going to help. I mean, you have gifts to give to the world. And if you deny people those gifts, that's the ultimate act of selfishness. Cause I'm not even an outgoing person. I'm very introverted, very shy by nature. And that's what somebody told me. They said, you know, I see you go to a party or an event. You don't really talk to people and you're being selfish because you're denying them all the gifts that you have that can help them. So don't think of it as just for you. Think of it. As you know, for transforming the world. When I was doing the women's small business expo, women met their perfect business partners there, and women got the pieces of the puzzle that they needed to create their own multi-million dollar businesses. And on my deathbed, I will be so proud of the work that I did. And it was all because of sponsors. Passionistas: Linda, you mentioned to us that you wanted to make an offer to our listeners. Linda: I want to give a gift to the listeners. They can get the number one secret to getting sponsors. If they go to SuccessWithSponsors.com. So it's SuccessWithSponsors.com. Also, if you go to SuccessWithSponsors.com, you can make an appointment to talk with me personally, I do free sponsor strategy sessions. So I will look at what you're doing. We'll work on your winning proposal and we'll work on your success strategy for getting your sponsors. Passionistas: And seriously, ladies, if you are listening to this and you are even remotely considering whether to do this or not do it, we cannot recommend Linda strongly enough. She is amazing. She's absolutely amazing. Thanks for listening to the Passionistas Project Podcast and our interview with Linda Hollander. To learn more about Linda and to receive your free gift, go to SuccessWithSponsors.com. Please visit The Passionistas ProjectProject.com to learn more about our podcast and subscription box filled with products made by women owned businesses and female artisans to inspire you to follow your passions. Sign up for our mailing list, to get 10% off your first purchase and be sure to subscribe to the Passionistas Project Podcast. So you don't miss any of our upcoming inspiring guests.

Gina Fattore is a television writer and producer turned novelist who just released her debut book The Spinster Diaries. The story centers around a writer, obsessed with chick lit, who is overcoming her anxiety to become unfrozen and have enough hope to move forward. Gina's TV credits include Dare Me, Better Things, UnREAL, Masters of Sex, Parenthood, Californication, Gilmore Girls and Dawson's Creek. Learn more about Gina. Learn more about The Passionistas Project. Full Transcript: Passionistas: Hi and welcome to The Passionistas Project Podcast. We're Amy and Nancy Harrington, and today we're talking with Gina Fattore. Gina is a television writer whose credits include, Dare Me, Better Things, Unreal, Masters of Sex, Parenthood, Californication, Gilmore Girls and Dawson's Creek. Her Ted X talk become what you believe has more than 16,000 views in her essays, reviews and comedy pieces have appeared to the Chicago reader, entertainment weekly salon, the millions and Mick Sweeney's internet tendency, and she just published her debut novel, The Spinster Diaries, a semi-autobiographical story, but a TV writer obsessed with chick lit. So please welcome to the show. Gina Fattore. Gina Fattore: Thank you so much for having me here. It's an honor… to be considered a Passionista is a big honor. Thank you. Passionistas: And we're excited to have you. We love the book and you have written some of our favorite television shows, so we can't wait to talk to you. What's the one thing you're most passionate about? Gina Fattore: My gut said to say writing, but maybe I need to be more specific than that because I write so many things, but it's always been writing. I am one of those people who I was 11, 10 or 11 when I, you know, first got, I guess praised for my writing. I went to the young authors conference when I was in the fifth grade with my first book, which, you know, remains unpublished because everyone's fifth grade book should probably remain unpublished. Um, but, uh, yeah, and I just, I always knew it's, it's the weirdest thing. It, it, I had a friend once say to me, a college friend who just, she called it a calling and especially when we had just graduated from college, and I believe everybody should sort of wander in their twenties until they land on the thing that is right for them. But I always had in the back of my mind, this idea of the calling, and I knew it was about writing. Passionistas: Talk about that path from that fifth grade book to becoming a television writer. Gina Fattore: (LAUGHING) Yeah. That was kind of a long journey. There aren't a lot of 11 year old television writers. I grew up in Indiana in this town called Valparaiso, which is in the part of Indiana. That's, it's like the Northwest corner of Indiana that's actually closer to Chicago than Indianapolis, but still like a small town, uh, sort of Friday Night Lights kind of place where people go to the football game or the basketball game every Friday night. And I was always that, you know, high school journalist person, you know, I did the yearbook, I did the newspaper, I did it all and I had this scheme or this plan that involved going to Columbia, which uh, was a funny thing in Indiana because nobody in Indiana actually knows what Columbia is. I know it's like this impressive school. It's in the Ivy league, but there's a lot of confusion with the university of Missouri at Columbia. So it's, it costs a lot of money and it's difficult to impress people. But somehow I got it and my parents were on board with this and I moved to New York and at 18 as all Columbia freshmen do and I was an English major. I always knew I was going to be an English major. There wasn't a film studies or film major or anything like that available to undergraduates at Columbia. When I was there and I, I wouldn't have, I don't know that I would've wanted to do that anyway. It really did not occur to me that writing was screenwriting. I loved TV, I loved movies, but I really hadn't thought of it that way. It was all books and magazines and journalism to me. And then the accident that changed my life. When I graduated from Columbia, I was an English major, as I said, totally unqualified to really do anything in the world. And I started applying for jobs at different places. And the one that I ended up getting was at the New York public library in the fundraising office. And I worked in major gifts and planned giving. I answered the phone, you know, we did research on the various donors we were trying to get money from. We would hold parties and events and my boss was this lovely, lovely woman named Judy Daniels and her son is a television writer. His name is Greg Daniels, and he created The Office, the American version of The Office and Parks and Rec and King of the Hill. And Judy Daniels, I always say was my first agent. She essentially said to me, I think you should move to LA and work for my son and he should help you be a TV writer. And he did and I became a TV writer. I was his assistant for two years when he was starting King of the Hill with Mike Judge back in the mid-nineties and that was how I got my start. He assigned me a freelance episode in the second season, which is a very traditional way for TV writer to get a break as you get to write one episode of a show. And based on that I was able to get an agent and the agent helped me get my first real job as a staff writer. You know, when I didn't have to answer the phone anymore. That was the biggest victory of my professional life. Passionistas: That's a pretty impressive person to land without in LA. Did you learn anything specific from him that sticks with you? Gina Fattore: The thing that sticks with me the most is always about story. You know, Greg is a comedy writer and you know, even before King of the Hill, he had worked on the Simpsons and on Saturday night live, but he was incredibly rigorous about story. So maybe it's not an accident that you know, I ended up being a drama writer more than a comedy writer, but I can remember him saying to me, you know about my own spec scripts and I was trying to write at the time, you know, to just make a beat sheet and go through every scene and you know, just ask yourself very, what is this scene doing? And if you can't summarize it in, you know, one short sentence with a sort of active sounding verb in it, then there's probably a problem with that scene. And that's advice that he gave me that I think about 20 years later all the time. Passionistas: Your book, The Spinster Diaries, is a semi-autobiographical story about being a TV writer. And I think it paints a really good picture of the fact that even though people may think it's a really glamorous life, it's a lot of hard work and not only the work itself but going from show to show, getting jobs is hard work. So can you talk a little bit about your experiences in Hollywood, some of the shows you worked on and what that lifestyle is like? Gina Fattore: I would say to start that, that is one of the revelations that people have read my book and come back to me and said, this actually explains what it's like to be a TV writer. And that wasn't one of the reasons why I wrote the book, but it's just the world that I live in. So I was portraying it really accurately. And many TV writers have actually said this to me that like this is almost given them flashbacks and stuff in weird ways because the system of TV has changed a lot. The book has said it actually in 2006 which was a time when there were a lot more network TV shows and a lot more shows where we would make 22-23 episodes a year, which is the system that I started in. And nowadays we have these really short orders for shows, which has made it even more pronounced. This nature of the job is insecurity and you know, you move from one thing to the next. I've been on many shows. I had to run and vibing three shows in a row that got canceled within those first 12 you know, so sometimes you make all 12 and you get paid for all 12 but one show we got canceled. You know, we were actually shooting episode eight and I don't think we finished shooting the rest of those. You know, you just stop when you're canceled. Everything just stops. I mean we're living through this weird moment now with production shutdowns for the virus reasons, but being canceled. It's odd. Cause I mean the great part about it is that everybody's in it together. But that's also the horrible part is that, you know, 200 people have lost their jobs in one day. But the funny thing about being on a show is that it is sort of more like a real job than I think people anticipate because there's this idea about movie writers, which is true that they kind of like sit by their pool or they're like in a cafe somewhere writing and you know, TV writers. Honestly, I think in some ways we're more like journalists. Like we have a deadline, we're working together to put something out. And sometimes I think that because I worked at a newspaper in my twenties I worked at an alternative weekly newspaper. Maybe that's why I view it that way, but it is what it is. You know, if you're making 23 episodes of a show, everybody has to be on board with what are those episodes about? So a large part of what we're doing when we're writing a TV show is just making sure that there's one story that we're telling that all the characters are behaving consistently. And the writer's room, which back in the day when I started was standard. Not all shows are written that way anymore, but that was what allowed us to just stay on the same page and we had to be flexible. And of course the showrunner had ultimate control over what the story would be. And so your job as a writer is just to spend all day thinking of pitches that will support what the story is. And there was one year I remember on Dawson's Creek, I season five I only wrote like two episodes and normally I would write first drafts more than that and I missed it. And I realized when you're in the room coming up with ideas, 80% of what you do gets rejected and that's a really high rate to, you know, keep yourself going at where you have to just keep pitching ideas and they might not be accepted. It's heartbreaking. So you have to have a pretty thick skin for that. How do you develop that thick skin? How do you not take it personally? I think you just said the exact phrase, which is not taking it personally. And I think it did take me a really long time. I think season three when I was working on Dawson's Creek was my first real immersion in one hour drama writing. And again that was a 23 episode season, which I don't know that I had done one of those yet. And I would use all these little tricks. Sometimes I would tell myself, you know, you're writing the first draft for free. The first draft is what you want it to be. It's all this stuff. What they're paying you for is the 10 offer drafts that you're doing, where people are saying, do it my way, do it my way, do it my way. And early on in my career I had this great moment with a friend who, he's a graphic designer and at the time he was maybe working at the New York times or something like that, but his own work as a graphic designer was constantly being, you know, noted and all this stuff like do it again and do it again. Do it again. And you know, it just becomes not what the person wanted and you just have to tell yourself over and over again that mantra I think because it's just not what they wanted. And when you're writing something for money, that's what your job is, is to give the person what they wanted. And in TV it's always very clear that person is the showrunner. And then once they're happy with it, they got to go and deal with the network and the studio. There's a whole other level of people who might not be happy with it. Passionistas: As a writer that's not the showrunner, you're kind of shielded from having those conversations. But last season you developed and executive produced and wrote the TV series Dare Me. So talk about how you became the showrunner of and what it was like to be in that position versus on staff. Gina Fattore:  It was kind of amazing to get to this place where this pilot that I had written with Meghan Abbott, based on her novel Dare Me, we made a pilot in the summer of 2018 really it was when we made the pilot and then all of 2019 was when we were making the, the nine additional episodes. And here I was finally doing this job that we, for a long time I had basically resigned myself to the idea that none of my pilots would ever proceed forward and become serious cause I had written so many of them and I knew how hard the job was. I mean frankly I was the showrunners assistant. So who knows better than the showrunners assistant, how hard the job is. And so I think what happens in TV a lot of times is that the person who becomes the showrunner is perhaps a novelist or a playwright or a screenwriter. Especially if you win an Oscar, they will just basically give you a TV show. So essentially that person is really overwhelmed just by the sheer idea of what it means to be a showrunner, which is that you're not just a writer anymore, you're a producer and you're the boss who's hiring everyone and who's also responsible for making sure that everyone's working well together to actualize the vision that you have in your head. So in a funny way, I have to say, I knew it was going to be hard, so it was hard, but it wasn't as hard, I don't think, as it would have been for someone who hadn't been working on TV shows for essentially 20 years at that point. I mean, I like to joke, and this is terrible, but I was like, you know, like the American presidency running a television show, it is a job that sometimes goes to someone who's never done it before, but sometimes that person has actually been the secretary of state, or sometimes they've been the first lady, maybe they've been a Senator, so that person might have a better idea of how this whole thing works than someone who's never worked in government before. And that's how I felt. I felt like I was that person and I ended up being so proud of the work itself. The episodes I think are brilliant, but also just really proud of all the people who told me how much they enjoyed working on the show. I mean, honestly, the costume designer, the, you know, the cinematographer, like all of the directors, like just knowing that they felt like they were in an environment where they were being heard and appreciated even when their ideas were rejected meant so much to me. Because looking back, I can see there were many jobs where I didn't have that and that was the hard part to keep going. When you don't feel like you're being heard, it's one thing to be rejected, but it's another to be sort of ignored or dismissed. Passionistas: You're listening to The Passionistas Project Podcast and our interview with Gina Fattore. Visit GinaFattore.com to find out more about Gina and her book, The Spinster Diaries, now available at IndieBound, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and more. Now here's more of our interview with Gina. Talk about The Spinster Diaries and why did you decide with your busy television schedule, why did you decide to write a book? Gina Fattore: Well, you know, I realized, I think I already set this up because I talked a little about the frustrations of being a writer who is on staff on a show, but you're not the boss. And at the time I started writing the book, I really did start writing the book around the time that it set. So like 2006, 2007 and I had been working on shows at that point, well, you know, I guess about eight years. So I was at the point where I was doing this job that was a dream job to me. And you know, it, it, I had far exceeded any dreams that I had, you know, as a young person in Indiana, I was living in LA and I was going from job to job, but definitely, you know, uh, making money and working with interesting people and it was all great. But the one thing I didn't have was any kind of control over what story was being told. I mean you're always rewritten when you're a writer on staff. Like it's very, very rare. When I was working on Dawson's Creek, I was genuinely, I don't know, I had been there for so long that by the time we got to the end, those were my episodes. Those were my words. Like especially the last one that I wrote, I did all the rewriting on them. They're my work, but that's very unusual. The more usual way is to just write and contribute, but you never have any say over the final product. And so I think I just started writing pros because it was, first of all, it was what I originally wrote when I was a young person and I was a high school newspaper editor and all of that. But also just because I knew I could control it and I didn't even know at first what I was writing. I think I really was just writing, you know, on the weekends I'd just be like, well, I have something I need to say. And then I just kept writing and went on this journey and it really did take me a very long time to get someone to publish the book essentially because it is a little unconventional. I think they were fooled by the opening of the book and they thought that it would be more of a conventional Bridget Jones's diary type book and then suddenly they're reading about this woman from the 18th century, like it's about TV writing and they think, I think that there was some confusion about what the book was, but I really persevered because I knew at that point I was like, well, I have my other job, which I never quit, which is my day job writing and producing television and I know that I'm good at that. Um, especially it's no small part of it is the producing part. Like that's a completely separate skill from writing. And now that I've done Dare Me and been a showrunner, I've done that on every level. So I figured my book didn't have to be something that was going to be a bestseller or a big source of income for me. I could just make it whatever I wanted to be. Just be playful with it and have fun. Passionistas: You say that it's some I autobiographical. So how much of it is based on you? Obviously the TV writing part is. Gina Fattore: Yeah, I'm laughing because like I really wanted to be one of those fancy novelists who's all like, ah, I made it all up, or whatever. That's what fiction writers do. But it's all, it's all true. Basically. Like all of it. It's true. I was interested in the idea of biography and autobiography. So if the narrator of my book is sort of this exaggerated unreliable version of me, and she's telling you a story though about this other writer from the 18th century, so how reliable is she? But if you read the book, I should make a disclaimer that it is actually a biography of the writer from the 18th century whose name is Francis Barney, and she was a novelist who wrote at the end of the 18th century. She's really the person who inspired Jane Austin in many ways. Her books were read by Jane Austin and Jane Jane Austin makes reference to Francis. Bernie's novels at like six different places within her own work. Passionistas: Why are you fascinated with Frances Burney and why did she become such a central character in the book? Gina Fattore: I was just talking about this with someone who I know from college because I did read Frances Burney for the first time when I was in college. I was an English major at Columbia. There was, I think looking back, I've now researched this like in the, in the eighties the feminist scholars in the English departments all over the country were looking for female writers, you know, trying to resuscitate them. And at the end of the 18th century was a time in England when there were actually quite a number of female novelists. And so I read her work and then it, but it wasn't in college. It was like later in my twenties I learned about her diaries. She kept them her entire life. They've, they've finally finished editing all of them and they are 24 volumes long. So it was really like a blog. I mean, I think when I first read her diaries, I didn't even know what a blog was. It was probably like 95 but it was like you're hearing the unfiltered voice of this woman who lived, I mean, she actually lived from 1752 to 1840 but the time period in her life that would most fascinated me was sort of, you know, her coming of age and her first novel was written when she was 25 and I think when I, the more I learned about her story, it was something that captured my imagination when I was that age in my mid-twenties and I knew I wanted to be a writer, but I didn't know how I was going to get there. I mean, I think it was even before I started working for Greg Daniels, I was 27 when I actually moved to LA and started working for him and ultimately became a TV writer. But all those years of my twenties I knew I wanted to be a writer and I was writing. But you know, you don't, you have a day job, you know, it's hard. You don't know really what you should be writing and what's the right format for your voice. And all those things. And I just kept reading about her more and more. And I was always just so convinced that there was something very modern about her life. Also in that anytime we hear about women from that era, they're generally very wealthy women. And so the stories, while they're these sort of odd princess stories about like duchesses and ladies and all that stuff, or think of Downton Abbey, right? Those three sisters are incredibly wealthy and aristocratic. And for instance, Bernie, her father was a music teacher, so she was the equivalent of what we would think of as middle class. And for me growing up, you know, as I mentioned, I grew up in Indiana, so I am not from aristocrats, let's just say, um, my grandparents are all from Italy. So yeah, I think I, I love this idea of a role model who had, you know, been a writer from the time she was in her teens. And also looking back, I can see where I think like maybe a role model who isn't, you know, isn't Jane Austin or George Elliot or the Bronte sisters is a little better. At least for me it felt better. Like I feel like there's the people who you admire so much that it kind of stops you. You know, like I've had that feeling before where you watch your all-time favorite movie, are you, you know, read your all-time favorite book for the zillion with time and there's a part of you that thinks I could never achieve that or I could never do that. Whereas I don't know. There was something about Frances Burney as a role model that I guess made me think, you know, she just did her best and kept writing and that's what you need to hear. Especially when you're 25 and you're just starting on your journey. Passionistas: What do you hope readers take away from reading the book? Gina Fattore: I've already gotten some feedback from people from what they did take away and it's been surprising, I guess I would say in a big way. I realized that the book is about anxiety and so it's very odd that it's coming out at this time where everybody is, you know, really just swimming and anxiety because anxiety is different than fear, you know, fear. The idea is that fear is like there's a lion about to come and eat you and you know what that is and you need to respond to what the lion that's directly in front of you. But anxiety is that more free floating feeling. I at a certain point, I did realize that like years ago, like years, you know, years before it was published, I thought, Oh, the book is really about anxiety and that's a valuable lesson right now. And also the journey of the character she goes on is about like just getting out of a paralysis and the paralysis is sort of, you know, people always talk about fight or flight, right? That idea that if you're in this stressful situation, either you'll lash out and you'll fight or you're flee, but the other thing you do is you just freeze. And that's a very real reaction. I mean I, I don't think I'm making that up. I think there is actual psychology to base that on, but it's always been my personal experience that you get frozen and the character is frozen. So the journey of the book is really to become unfrozen and to have enough hope to move forward. And I think that is a really vital message at this time. Passionistas: Is there a lesson that you've learned on your journey that really sticks with you? Gina Fattore: I was just thinking about this, like the idea of this journey cause I was talking, the thing that's been so great to talk to old friends and this time, you know, like there's, there's just been a little more of that. Like people reaching out, like high school friends, college friends, like let's do a zoom. And it was making me think about my younger days and I had this sense when I was very young, that little things made an enormous difference. I mean that a little bit in terms of writing, you know, that like precision and detail and all that stuff. Um, but also just, I don't know, this idea that things could change in an instant or that everything was kind of on a Razor's edge. And I think just what I learned this past two years in being the boss and making a show is that idea that not everything has to be perfect. And you think I would have known that earlier in life because as anyone who a writer knows, there's always a rough draft. There's always a first draft and it's a process to make it better. But I think this is a particular problem for women, which is this idea of perfectionism and how it holds you back because you're not willing to do the sloppy version of something. And one of the coolest things I learned when I was making the show was I was like, I've been doing this for so long. TV is a process and the process is not, you start with the thing that the people see when it's on TV streaming. You know, you start so far back from that, you know, you start with some note cards on a board, you know, you turn that into an outline, you turn that into a script. There's so many steps of the process and being the boss and doing that really made me remember that, that like you have so many other chances to, to do that, that thing and to make it right. You know, not that it's not important to meet your deadlines and be conscientious and all that stuff, but I do wish I had felt that a little more when I was younger. Just let yourself be wrong. Passionistas: What's your definition of success? Gina Fattore:  I guess in some way I do think it's, it's liking what you do for work because we all, almost all of us have to work. And uh, even people who don't have to work for financial reasons, you know, I guess that's the famous Freud quote, write about love and work. And I mean, my had a next door neighbor who lived next door to me for 10 years. Ever since I bought my house, my neighbor next door, he was elderly. He was 79 when I moved in and he passed away at 89 and he worked like three or four days a week at this job up until he was like 87 and the minute he wasn't able to work anymore, he just shut down and you could see it so clearly. And he got so depressed and he, this is a person of like, you know, the world war II generation practically. He, well, Korean war I guess is the one he fought in and people like that don't use the word depressed lightly, you know? And, and I could see that in him and I feel like it makes me so happy. You know, when people talk to me about their job and you can see that they're suited to the job and they get some kind of reward back from it, I think that is just a huge part of being successful in life. Passionistas: What advice would you give to a young woman who wants to be a writer? Gina Fattore: Sadly, right? Is the only advice that, I mean, I know there's all this stuff about, you know, uh, I don't know, networking. And there's a lot of classes now you can take and stuff like that. But you learn, you do learn by doing and you know, I think you just need to keep writing and that everything you write, you learn something from that. And you know the feedback. Showing it to other people honestly is the hard part. That to me is, is harder than the writing. I know some people have a problem with that, but you know, that's where the introverts win because the part of the job where you are alone in the room with the piece of paper, that doesn't scare me. And I think that it's got the main benefit of you can control it. You can try things out, you know, I mean, Oh, this is terrible. But like when I started, I had a typewriter in college. Like you had to do the whiteout, you know, you had to do all that stuff. Like nowadays, whatever, just try something and if it doesn't work, you know, uh, I was going to say delete, but don't delete, just save it and another file. You might need it again someday. Passionistas: Thanks for listening to our interview with Gina Fattore. Visit GinaFattore.com to find out more about Gina and her book, The Spinster Diaries now available at IndieBound, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and more. Please visit ThePassionistasProject.com to learn more about our podcast and subscription box filled with products made by women-owned businesses and female artisans to inspire you to follow your passions. Sign up for our mailing list to get 10% off your first purchase. 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