See It To Be It

This month we have Erin Quick- CEO & Co-Founder of PairTree. She is the face of the adoption industry with her mission to disrupt the adoption system.

*I would love for you to go way back and tell us, what was your big dream when you were growing up? What did you think you were going to be? *

“I was convinced I was going to be an interior designer”, Erin replies. Erin says that she has always been left and right-brained. She loves the patterns, colors, and space, putting all of those elements together, and getting creative. She says when she got to college she learned that there were so many options that she didn’t even know existed.

Tell us about your career trajectory and how you ended up founding a company that's main focus is adoption.

Erin says she went to college and ended up dropping out her sophomore year and starting work in Seattle. She says, by luck, she ended up working in a marketing department and filling in for a co-worker while she was on maternity leave and ended up falling in love with marketing.

With intentions of going back to school, she got recruited into an ad agency and then got advice that she needed to go into brand strategy. She then got a job in brand strategy in San Francisco and later on moved to New York. She was there for about seven to eight years and then decided to move back to Seattle. There, no one was doing brand strategy the way she had been taught.

She then found a guy who knew everything about brand strategy and they founded a brand strategy firm in Seattle together and ran it all the way through 2019 when she then sold it to focus on PairTree.

What is the whole concept of PairTree? What is it and how did you get into it?

“The reason I got into it was because I went through it twice”, Erin says. She says one out of eight adults today are diagnosed with infertility and she tried everything to get pregnant. After spending three years trying and spending a fortune trying, and after her third miscarriage she and her husband decided to try the adoption route.

They thought that this route was going to be easier but then they realized it was three times as expensive, and took two years. They were in a lucky position and heard that you don’t have to use the conventional method to adopt and you can do it on your own. Expenses went down and so did the timeline.

They took full control and hired a social worker, a lawyer, and started to look for an expecting mom. Within weeks they met with a woman from Michigan and sooner or later her son was born and they flew back and picked him up. Three years later they did it again.

After going through it twice and having such great experiences, people started reaching out to them. They started helping other families in their spare time to teach them how to do what they did. She started looking into the industry and the market. With her brand background, she knew there was an opportunity for technology to make this industry more efficient and enjoyable. That was the seed for PairTree and the launching the first platform that has all the services a family would need for domestic private adoption.

What are the milestones in the adoption process and the services that PairTree offers?

What is happening in the world right now such as Rode v.s. Wade, going to change the adoption industry?

Erin says, “It will for sure change the adoption industry”. She says if women now have three choices and it gets narrowed down to just two then the adoption industry is going to expect a big change. She says they are doing everything they can to make sure that the adoption process is easy for those women who are going to have limited choices now.

In your ideal world, what would this whole adoption process be like and some of the key aspects would you change?

Erin says, “well we are changing them!”. She also says mainly access, because the cost is so high not everyone has the option to adopt, some families go into debt trying to afford adoption. Also, the adoption system is primarily faith-based, so families can pick and choose who they want, and sadly a lot of LGBTQ+ families, single-parent families, and older families, arent allowed to participate in the process. Erin and PairTree and trying to overcome these challenges.

May is here and we have another very special guest, who is actually a dear friend of Melinda’s, Jan Goss Jan is the founder of Civility Consulting, which is a consulting agency that focuses on corporate soul development and serves leaders through speaking, training and executive coaching to help create a profitable company culture. She is also the author of “Sex and Money!”, which is about speaking to your partner the way you would speak to your most important client.

Melinda starts off by asking Jan, “What was your big dream growing up, what did you think you would be when you were a little girl?” Jan responds that there were two things that she was torn between, one being a rockstar and the other being a nun.

People are always asking themselves if they are on the right path and thinking about what their life is going to be like, so Melinda really wanted to talk about Jan’s winding paths because she has done so much in her career. Jan says that she was a “late bloomer”, she has created four successful companies after the age of forty, and she is still blooming as she goes along. Jan says she was always fascinated with business, she has loved making money ever since she was a little girl, from sweeping sidewalks to doing any little work. Then, she would go to church and donate everything she had made. Having gone to college when she was young, and then going back later on in life, Jan studied International Business and then went to The Protocol School of Washington D.C. and graduated from there. Jan came back to Austin and had the vision to speak into the lives of professionals and teach them some best business practices. So, she started the Austin School of Protocol which then turned into Civility Consulting in 2012.

So, what draws Jan to work with women? She believes that all success comes from connecting. Whether that be connecting with yourself or a higher power or connecting with others but, she says, all success in life comes from some sort of connection and every connection begins with a first impression. She says the premise of Civility Consulting is that if we can focus on the first five seconds of that introduction then, you will make a really great impression and make a mark. She says “if we can, especially as women, pay attention to how we show up…and show up as who we really are, that's the key.”

Melinda asks if Jan could give three quick tips, what would they be? Jan says one of the skills she learned at The Protocol School of Washington that changed her life was, “act as if you belong.” She says the worst feeling is feeling like you don’t belong and the premise of this protocol is that when you go somewhere in life it is because on some level you were invited so, you can show up as if you belong. Jan says, “It’s an attitude, a thought process, a way we can prepare in advance to walk in and be like, you know what, I belong here”.

Jan has gone through some hardships and traumatic experiences in her personal life, so Melinda asks Jan how she dealt with those experiences and pushed through? Jan says one of the things she will forever be grateful for is the tools she has in her emotional and spiritual toolbox. Since she's been teaching people how to show up for themselves for years, it has now become a part of her. This is when she realized that all these tools and what she has been teaching, actually work. Jan says whether you are going through a divorce, mourning a death, or having financial problems, these tools work and that is what Civility Consulting teaches people. It is not just for professional reasons but also, can help you in your personal life.

Jan’s book, “Sex and Money!” which is about bedroom etiquette, was inspired by her career and how she would often be exposed to these women who would build multimillion-dollar businesses, but then their home life was falling apart. That is when Jan had the idea for her book. She says, “what if you spoke to your significant other the same way you would talk to your most important client?” She then began experimenting with her husband and bringing best practices into her marriage and “beautiful things happened.” That is when she put it into a book. Now moving on to the money part, Jan says that there is so much fear of money, most of her life was spent in financial pain. She says it wasn’t until her fifties, when she was in the middle of a divorce and in desperate need of money, that she had that light bulb moment. Jan went to see an expert for money advice and the woman made Jan write a letter to money. Now Jan uses this in her practices and it “healed her relationship with money.”

To get in touch with Jan, you can go to https://civilityconsulting.com. They have so many exciting events coming up and love to hear everyone’s stories.

For this month’s episode, Melinda is bringing another incredible role model to the stage, Janet Phan. Janet is a TED speaker, author, and most importantly the founder of Thriving Elements- a non-profit for underserved girls in STEM.

Growing up, Janet’s mother worked as a cashier in dollar stores and goodwills and she remembers dreaming of being a cashier just like her mom. As she grew up, she realized there were other options for her. Janet’s parents were refugees from Vietnam so it was very difficult for them to navigate Janet through the American education system. This affected how Janet viewed the world, including who she could trust, who she would allow in her network, and who she saw as her role models. Janet says through her parents she learned to, "do good work and the people around you will see you and want to help you". She did so by going above and beyond, helping her school and her community. She says, "That has been a key part in how I've been successful, doing more than asked."

Meldina asks, "What was your breakout moment?", the time that Janet saw a whole other path and wanted to take charge. Janet says she remembers the moment very vividly. Leaving her family's house her senior year of high school due to conflict, she started working at KFC and Hollywood Video, trying to get in as many hours as possible. She said one night after work she went to go get gas and didn't have the money to pay for it. She says this was the turning point in her life. She realized then that she did not want to live paycheck to paycheck and this kicked her motivation into high gear. Janet then wrote a book about this experience called, "Boldly You". After holding her story in for so long she realized she needed to share and inspire others.

So what inspired Janet to start Thriving Elements and help underserved girls in STEM? Janet says it came from when she started traveling globally for a previous technology company she used to work for. She says through them she had the opportunity to enroll in business classes, something she was very grateful for. She says she wouldn't have gotten to where she is now if it wasn't for the mentors in her life that put time into her and took those risks for her. She says Thriving Elements started because when she was working and doing technology consulting around the globe she realized that she was often the only woman at the table and the only woman of color. This is why she wanted to help those girls that come from underserved backgrounds and put them on the playing field, like some of her mentors did for her, by providing opportunities and mentoring them.

But how does Thriving Elements overcome the hurdles and challenges of mentorship and how do they build long-lasting relationships with their clients? Janet says the problem with formal mentoring today is that it lacks that one on one connection so, they are not as impactful as they would like to be. The mentoring model Thriving Elements uses is built off the mentoring model that Janet built for herself. The way Thriving Elements works is as a mentee, you get matched with your mentor in High School, and the mentors stay with their mentee throughout college. In the early parts of your career, your mentor makes sure you get into the field you have been striving for. Janet says, there are three concepts to mentoring with Thriving Elements and the key concept is, "always follow up with your mentor". Sharing and following up with your mentor is important because they invest a lot of their time in you, so it is rewarding for them to hear all that you have accomplished with their help and guidance.

Thriving Elements started in 2016, and her roadmap has always been to expand globally. With people from all over the world asking Janet to bring Thriving Elements into their communities, she had built a network. Getting meets set up with people from all over the world was difficult due to a bad internet connection, and this was frustrating for Janet. This created a digital divide. She has been wanting to work with an organization to bridge the digital divide. As of today, Janet is starting her career at Amazon's Project Kuiper, where they will be launching satellites to get reliable broadband to underserved communities. This is helping to bridge together Janet's knowledge in technology and her passion to help these underserved communities together.

Thriving Elements is always looking for more STEM mentors, if you want to be a part of this organization you can go to www.thrivingelements.org. You can also pre-order Janet's book, Boldly You at boldly-you.com. You can also find Janet on Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

Happy International Women's Month!

For this special episode, we chatted with Carolyn Childers, who is all about championing women. Carolyn is the founder and CEO of Chief, whose mission is to build a strong community of connection and support for executive women.

Carolyn didn't always know that her passion was to help women in the workforce, she says that she was on a completely different path at the beginning of her career. Her family owned a business and growing up, she had a front-row seat to the challenges that come with owning your own business. She said it felt way too hard for her and decided to go the corporate route. She found herself in a corporate job, and soon left and got into the startup world in New York City, she knew instantly she would never go back to traditional corporate. She loved the pace, energy, and ability to truly make a difference in the startup culture. The more she spent time in that space the more she realized that she could do it herself. She wanted to be an entrepreneur and not just the Senior Executive at other people's companies. She says, "I saw it, and I can be it."That is what ultimately led her on this journey to be the entrepreneur she is today.

As for how her career put her on the path to specifically empower women in the workplace, Carolyn says that she was working in finance and banking, both very male-dominated industries. During this time, she was only at a junior level and it was very telling for her to see just a few women executives in her company. As she became more senior and was included in the rooms where decisions were made, she saw how men were getting more opportunities than women. That is what fueled her to start her mission.

We all know that women are still overcoming challenges in the workplace and still trying to change the mindset of holding your cards tight because you might only have one shot to truly be heard before you get written off. However, Carolyn has an optimistic mindset about this. She says that in her experience, women have moved past this and are now in a mindset of abundance. Over the last ten years, there has been a shift in that mindset and that is partly why Chef is so successful. Chief is all about the collective, women coming together and supporting each other at a personal level with individual challenges but also as a whole to drive change.

Carolyn's inspiration for the mission of Chief came from a very personal place when she was trying to reach the Senior level in her career. She was tackling challenges, and was expected to know all the answers. She said the ugly truth in leadership is that sometimes, you don't know all the answers. She asked herself, how do I continue to invest in myself as a leader and find the resources in her community to overcome these challenges.? That is when she had the idea for Chief. Chief is a professional network focused on senior executive women, VP level and above. She says the number one thing that Chief provides is, the core groups. These are groups of ten women that come together monthly with an executive coach in the room. She says it has been phenomenal to see the impact that it has had on so many of their members. Chief started in New York and as of January 2022, they are officially international. With ten thousand members across the US and a waiting list of close to fifty thousand to join the community, they are constantly growing. This time has been the most challenging for women so seeing the community coming together is remarkable and rewarding.

Melinda asks Carolyn, how do people work their way up in a company without those connections? She says that one of the things that is important in the way that she created Chief was that it is truly meant to be a confidential place where women can come and open up about their challenges. She says even if you are building a community within your organization, you are still talking to coworkers. It is difficult to get that same authenticity and confidentiality with a co-worker rather than people outside your work. This helps her members drive advancement and to become invested in themselves as leaders.

Carolyn adds that in this new hybrid world of remote working, the biggest challenge is loneliness. She says working from home is efficient, but you are still missing the social aspect. You miss out on building relationships and connections. Chief helps in this way because it not only opens up doors, but it allows women to fill that very human void of loneliness that occurred during the pandemic, and continues to occur today with everyone now working from home.

So, where is Chief going to be in 5-10 years? Carolyn says, with being only three years old she is just so proud of where they are now. They have some of the most powerful women in the country as a part of this network. She is just always focusing on building the best experience possible for their members.

If you want to learn more about Chief’s memberships, or even apply for membership check out their website at https://chief.com.

Listen to Chief's new podcast here!

This month, our See It To Be It podcast guest is another inspiring female leader, Tonita Webb, who is the CEO of Verity Credit Union. She tells us about her journey to becoming CEO in a male-dominated industry and the struggles she faced along the way being a BIPOC woman. But how did she get to be CEO of a credit union? Well, Tonita grew up in a single-parent household and her mom was sick with Lupus, so her responsibilities were to take care of her mom and her siblings at the same time. She has always dreamt of living in a different place while she was growing up, due to the trauma she experienced in her hometown along with the limited opportunities. She didn’t know where that place was but she knew it was not in her hometown. She always kept that possibility in front of her and when she got older and started school she found a liking for science and math. She said in her high school there was a big push for African Americans to become engineers. She joined an engineering group in Highschool and then it led to her going to college to study engineering. Looking back though, she does not think she was built to be an engineer. She says she is a people person and LOVES to help people achieve their goals and that is how she got into management, although being able to think like an engineer did help her to get into the business world.

When she got into college she did not want to be in a lot of debt, and the thought of debt just stressed her out. She asked herself, how could you finish school and not be in a ton of debt? The Air Force answered her question. She had the opportunity to go into the Air Force and come right back to Hampton University in Virginia to finish school, which she had every intention of doing. She said four months later she was stationed in Berlin, Germany, and was a police officer, laughingly she said, “and that was not in the plan”. She did that the whole time she was in the military. She ended up finishing school but not in the way she thought.

Fast forward four years, Tonita got married and had children. When she was in the Air Force, her heart would ache from missing her children, so she decided to get out of the military and got a night shift job at a bank. She then became interested in the training which is what introduced her to Human Resources. She loves working with people and that is what started her HR career. She then went to Florida and started working for the Department of Health with their HR department. Tonita says, “this is what helped me awaken a desire to help people''. Fast forward another year or two, she had another kid and her husband then decided to resign from the military after ten years. They went back to Seattle and had two more kids. With four kids now, she wanted to go back to work. She had three options of work: a bakery, credit union, and Seattle's supersonics. She said the credit union job just spoke to her because she could have a better opportunity to help people.

Tonita says that one of the things that drive her as a BIPOC woman is that she gets to change the system and be part of making that system more inclusive. She says the one thing she wants people to know, especially people in the BIPOC community, is that people make mistakes. No one is perfect, and you do not need to be. She says, “I learned what I know today by trial and error.” Tonita didn’t have great examples of how to plot a great financial future and she has made a lot of mistakes along the way, but she wants to be that example for the future generation. She saw firsthand her mom struggle with debt because of her illness, it was hard for her to work. She just knew that that was not the life she wanted for herself. She says that her mistakes are her greatest education because you just learn as you go. You can take ten steps forwards and five steps backward but all that matters is that you are moving forward.

Melinda then talks about how Tonita is a black woman in a male-dominated industry and asks her what struggles or challenges she had on the way coming up in this world. She said it wasn’t easy and the world of management, leadership, and business was designed by white males. Because of this, she did not feel comfortable in her own skin because she did not grow up with a white male figure in her life, and cannot relate to them easily. She said what she learned was that she had to discover herself first before she could navigate her career journey. She would talk to a therapist as a BIPOC woman about the hardships she had to face with navigating her career in this industry. Once she discovered herself in this way, it allowed her to help more people.

Melinda asks Tonita what is her favorite piece of advice. Tonita says that she has learned that women have to balance and accept their humanity, take space for themselves and step aside from the expectations that society has on women. We have to stop labeling and putting expectations on women. Women have to balance workspace issues along with balancing relationships and motherhood. You need to allow yourself to have space.

Eleanor Beaton, an incredible role model from Canada that is on a mission to empower female entrepreneurs. When Eleanor was a little girl, she had big dreams to become either a supermodel or an investment banker. This is because she grew up in the age of the biggest supermodels and always looked up to these glamorous, empowered, feminine women such as Naomi Campbell and Cindy Crawford. As for why she wanted to be an investment banker, she had an Aunt who was a really successful investment banker in London that was such an inspiration to her. These were her role models growing up and looking up to these women has paved the way to where she is now. After eventually eliminating the supermodel and investment banker career, she went into journalism and then translated that into a communications consulting business. In 2015, she created a new business that focuses on women leadership development.

Eleanor says she remembers when a news report came out one day that said, Naomi Campbell, a role model of Elenor since she was a young girl, wouldn’t get out of bed for less than ten thousand dollars a day. She said at that time she was “flabbergasted” to heat this because that seemed like an enormous amount of money, but then she realized that Naomi was owning her worth and recognizing her own value. Eleanor says when women share their stories, lead the way and inspire, it can make a difference to other women in the world. When that news report came out she said it was the best guidepost of how valuable it was to recognize your worth. She takes this advice into her business, Safimedia, whose mission is to double the number of female founders who sustainably scale past a million dollars in annual revenue.

In her business, Eleanor says that the one thing she sees over and over again is how do you scale a service business. She explains that most service businesses get to the first quarter million by hyper customization. She says that these types of businesses start to become like a prison because they are making money but they can’t get out of it. That is the most common issue she sees that people come to her for.

Melinda goes into the next topic by talking about how the scale of businesses today are skyrocketing. A million-dollar business seems like nothing today because businesses are growing so fast. She asks Eleanor how she frames that and what is the mindset she has and is it challenging to her? Eleanor responds with, “Absolutely”. She says running a bigger business is easier than a smaller business because you have a bigger team and Melinda agrees! Melinda says with running a small business she always gets trapped with thinking the bigger business is better just by their revenue but she then realizes that it is harder to run a smaller business. Eleanor says that when the business was small it was much harder and she even missed her kids growing up, but now the business is much bigger and she has more time. It is much simpler because they sell two things rather than a hundred. She says that you have to be okay with letting go of certain things and just focusing on a couple of things, and allow that to be enough. Eleanor says with men still being in the center of the business world and women being kind of off-centered that it can take a women’s mindset off track, thinking you are not enough and thinking you have to hustle to become successful and valuable. She says there's so much hustle for worthiness. She says that you just have to allow what you do to be enough and you don’t have to give people everything they want, choose a lane and stay in it and create a business that will provide by just doing a couple of things that you really excel at. She says that is a mindset shift that she had to go through and thinks that other women need to also.

Next, Melinda asks Eleanor if a million is still the number? If by 2030 will a million still be the barometer or is it going to keep getting higher and reach 3 million especially in today's economy? She says, according to the research she and her business have done, their goal is to double the number of women-owned companies that scale past a million dollars in annual revenue by 2030. She says if they inspire, support, and educate an additional 200,000 female founders that their goals can be accomplished.

Eleanor thought about what was important to her and the female founders she works with and she says it really comes down to cash, influence, autonomy, and creating a model that drives those three things. She created a model called the Jule business model, which is a company that grows at 30% or more a year until the founder wants to decelerate or accelerate their business growth. The founder has 30% profitability and has 30% open-time. She says the 30-30-30 concept is a great rule of thumb and there are so many benefits from doing it this way.

Learn more about Eleanor and SafiMedia by visiting her website, or by checking out her podcast Power Presence Position. The show delivers practical insight for female founders.

In this month's episode, we talk with Shelly Dominquez Lieder who is the VP of Accounts at TEN35 ad agency. To start the episode, Melinda first asks Shelly what her big dream was growing up and Shelly says that it was to be an Avon lady. She thought it was the coolest thing to walk around, ring people's doorbells, and make women feel their best selves. Her family always likes to bring this dream of hers up and embarrass her about it because they always thought that she would go to school and do much bigger things than that, which she did. Shelly says now that she is in marketing and advertising, she is still showing up and helping people think about what they need to do to be the best version of themselves. So, in some ways, she is doing what she dreamt of but in a bigger way. Shelly then talks about her growing up in a Latina family and how the women are supposed to cook, clean, take care of the house and they don’t look beyond that. She is grateful that she could talk about her dreams with her mom and grandmother and they were always encouraging. They would say to her, you are going to do that and so much more. She says growing up, she always had that pressure on her shoulders because the women in her family would tell her that she will become the best version of herself and succeed in ways she didn’t know were possible.

Melinda then asks Shelly how growing up with a Hispanic background shaped her journey and what kind of hurdles did she have along the way? Shelly responds with, growing up with a Mexican family they had aspirations for her but also, very strong opinions. She says when she first selected her major at college her family would question her and ask “what are you going to do with that?". She says at first, she thought she was going to go to law school because she wanted to argue, fight and bring social justice to all. Her family would say to her things like, “there is no way you're going to make money right away” or, “that is ridiculous, try again”. She says when she finally told them that she was going to major in marketing they were very supportive and could see the picture. She says she always planned on graduating, then working at an ad agency. However, when she graduated in San Antonio, Texas, there were not a lot of ad agencies around her. She had to think fast about what she could do and where she could go. Very luckily, she received a job with a beer company in her early twenties. She says that the beer industry is very male-dominated but her company was Mexican-owned, so it felt familiar. She says that every day she felt like she was just trying to be heard, seen, and feel important. She knew at that point she wanted to go do other things and finally find the ad agency she has been dreaming about. Through her connections, she was able to get her next job at a Hispanic-owned ad agency in Dallas, Texas. She said she still didn’t feel right at this one because they never took her ideas seriously, so she moved on to another Hispanic-owned agency. She said it was the same thing again, she was constantly fighting for a promotion and staying quiet about how women weren't being treated equally in the workplace there. She says at the same time she happened to meet her current partner at TEN35. She would notice when their teams were pitching how much she loved how he led their team, he would empower everyone in the room to speak and be heard. She knew that they were her connection and she wanted a future with TEN35. Later on, he was opening up an agency in Houston, Texas, and asked Shelly if she wanted to be a part of it. She said, “YES!”. She says ever since then she has been a part of TEN35 and that they empower women in a way she never knew was possible. Shelly says it's phenomenal that close to 70% of their team members are women, and almost 90% are in a leadership role. She felt very excited that finally after being put down at her previous companies, she found a home and a place to truly utilize her skills and to also empower and bring other people along so they don’t have to go through the same struggles that she had to go through.

Next, Melinda asks Shelly if she thinks this happens to other Hispanic, Latina, young women that are recruited into companies but in reality, are held back and restricted at their job. Shelly responds with yes. She says when you find that tribe, like the one she has at TEN35, they make it a point to get together. Whenever they pull out a junior from their team and hear that they are struggling, Shelly and her tribe always want to help them find their voice. Shelly’s tribe being filled with other Latina women has helped shape the leader she has become.

Melinda then asks since Shelly is in a leadership position, how does she lead differently to make sure she is bringing other women of color into the mix? She answers with, “I lead with purpose and grace”. She says if she is going to be involved in a leadership role, it needs to be purposeful and actionable. She doesn't want to be there just to look pretty and check a box. She wants to have an actual purpose in what role she plays. She says with grace, everyone stumbles and falls and you recover. She says, “how do you extract that out for it to not happen again and how to rise stronger.” For her, whether it be personally or professionally is done with purpose and grace.

So how does TEN35 make companies more culturally conscious? She says it comes to them in different ways. A lot of companies were ones they previously worked with before they were asked to take a harder look at themselves and to make sure that they were doing what was right. Current partners often ask them for advice and make them double-check videos, ads, casting, music and more, to make sure they looked right. A part of what they do is to make sure brands are being culturally conscious and relevant.

The next question Melinda asks Shelly is if she has a role model that has stuck with her and how did she come about finding this role model? Shelly says that there is one woman who sticks out in her memory and she is so fortunate she met her. This woman is the one who started telling Shelly that she can do it and taught Shelly how to find her confidence in the workplace. She would always remind Shelly of who she was and how other women outside of her bubble are were overcoming the same hurdles she had.

They tie the podcast together by explaining the importance of networking for women and how far it can take an individual. Melinda also shines a light on how important it is to push your team and how it is incredible that Shelly always does so, even when someone is uncomfortable, and that is what makes her a great leader. Shelly says that she wants to continue to grow with TEN35 and help other women grow within her organization.

Learn more about TEN35 and Shelly by visiting their website.

On this episode of the See It To Be It podcast, we talk to Shayla Varnado, who is a fashion stylist turned entrepreneur and wine connoisseur. She is passionate about inspiring women to live the life of their dreams and is the founder of Black Girl’s Wine, which is an international organization for black women who share a passion and love for wine, while being committed to celebrating Black Girl Magic.

Shayla’s background consists of her growing up wanting to be a fashion stylist. She says she has always had a passion for fashion and she even studied fashion in college at Old Dominion University. She later in life started a fashion business, that specialized in helping the everyday women show up better in their lives, by piecing together a wardrobe that was suited for a woman going to work, having a date night, a girls night out, or even just attending a soccer game. She would make sure that her customers would have an outfit ready for wherever life may take them. She said that she would have key pieces in their closet to always make them feel fabulous.

Now Shayla runs an international organization called Black Girl’s Wine. She says that it is for black women who love wine. Running this organization, along with the sisterhood full of amazing women she has created, brings her immense amounts of joy. As for what inspired Shayla, she said she looked around the wine industry and noticed a huge lack of diversity and inclusion. She noticed that there was never a black person on a wine advertisement in the media or even in stores. She then realized there was a whole market being ignored, a market that loves wine, having a good time and hanging out and trying new things. Shayla knew that she had to step in. That is mainly where her inspiration came from for her society. The wine industry is very white-male dominated and it's amazing that black women are becoming a part of this industry with the help of Shayla. Shayla talks about how she runs a partner program to include other black and women owned wine companies in her society. This partner program refers her members to black winemakers and women winemakers. They host events together and offer discounts to their members in exchange. She says to drive memberships, they just started a live partner show which is a live event in their private Facebook group that introduces wine makers to over a thousand wine lovers. This offers exposure to women winemakers and winemakers of color. She also says that the partner program is not just about exposure, but gives a chance for the winemakers themselves to build a relationship with their audience. Shalya loves helping out other black and women owned winemakers, while also sharing her love for wine with her society.

Shayla also recently co-authored the book, 44 Prayers for the Christian Entrepreneur, which was inspired by her faith. Shayla said she is just the copilot and her captain is God. She co-wrote the book with her God sister who is an entrepreneur as well. She wanted to share some of the prayers that have got her through all of life’s challenges. These prayers have helped navigate and guide her through the entrepreneurship lifestyle and hardships that come along the way.

Want to become a member of Black Girl’s Wine? Memberships open quarterly and you can go to https://www.blackgirlswine.com to find all the information needed to take the first steps to join the sisterhood!

Sheri West is a former corporate executive who has transitioned into a phenomenal advocate for young women by founding her own nonprofit organization, Live Girl, which mission is to prepare the next generation of diverse, brave female leaders with skills, community and connections so that all girls can thrive and make a positive impace on the world.

As for Sheri West's background, she grew up on a farm in Michigan and later on went to Michigan State University where she got her undergrad and Masters. She later on found her way into corporate America and worked with fortune 500 companies such as Pepsi. This experience allowed her to live out her dreams and travel the world. While traveling, she had to make hard sacrifices such as losing precious time with her family and friends, which definitley effected her wanting to start a family. During her career, and similar to many other women, she faced an array of obstacles in corporate America. These obstacles highlighted the importance for women to have a network of mentors and sponsors. Sheri belives that female mentors are of the utmost importance for a women's professinal success. When she left corporate America in 2014, she founded Live Girl with a mission to provide that network of not only mentors, but other resources for young professional women. She wanted to create this organization to pay it forward to the next generation of female leaders and make a real difference to women in the workspace. Live Girl works with girls from 5th grade all the way into college, offering career readiness and internship programs to young girls who might not otherwise be given such oppurtuinities. Being given these resources from such a young age really benefit young women's mental health in the long term, and this is something Sheri really believes we should be proactive about as a society, instead of reactive. She emphasizses how it is so important to be a good example to these young women and to constantly make sure she is leaving a positive impact on them. We love a woman who dedicates her career to lifting other women up!!

About LiveGirl: Founded in 2014, LiveGirl, Inc. is a Connecticut-based nonprofit girls leadership organization that builds confident, inclusive leaders. Our mission is to prepare the next generation of diverse, brave female leaders with the skills, community, and connections so that ALL girls may thrive and make a positive impact on the world. LiveGirl serves thousands of girls in grade 5 through college annually through its free-of-charge, innovative leadership development and mentoring programs. To date, LiveGirl has reached over 10,000 young women. Learn more: https://golivegirl.org/

About Confident Podcast with Sheri & Olivia West: A mother - daughter podcast featuring conversations with fierce, unapologetically ambitious women about what it means to be an inclusive leader. Learn more: https://golivegirl.org/podcast

This month on the See It To Be It podcast Melinda talks with Dr. Shirley Davis, who is the CEO of SDS Enterprises, a woman and minority-owned C-Corporation that provides strategic development solutions that enable organizational leaders to build high performing and inclusive cultures that thrive in a competitive and changing environment. When Dr. Davis was a child, she had a very vivid imagination. She had no fears or limitations, and dreamed of being either an allstar athlete, lawyer, fashion model or actress. She talks about how as children, we don't have any of those experiences that cause hurt, rejection or pain which causes us to have fears and limitations. She explains however that once she went to college and got out in the real world, she did start to have those experiences that brought about feelings of self-doubt and caused her to "shrink". Now, her doubts and fears have been minimized almost completley, but like anyone still seep through from time to time. For example, when she was asked to be on a national board, she thought "they want me?" and almost talked herself out of the oppurtunity. She then reminded herself of how wonderful, educated and deserving of this oppurtunity she was. This prompted her book, "Living Beyond Your What Ifs", which tells the story that we can all relate to of having those fears and overcoming them to be the best version of yourself. Her inspiration for the book was to inspire other people to live beyond their what ifs, she says "we have an obligation, responsibility and even an oppurtunity to help other people who may be facing the same things too". In the book, she shares personal stories as well as stories of other people, who she mentored and were also stuck in their what ifs and overcame them. The book is full of tips and tricks to feel your best self and live in confidence and peace, sounds like a must-read to us!

Dr. Davis spent 30 years in corporate america and mentions her career found her. As a child she never dreamed of being in HR or being a Chief Diversity Officer but she says "I do believe that in life your past will collide, you collide with destiny". She believes that the things she learned in early childhood were preparing her for her career. Companies would say to her that they needed someone for DEI, and she fit the bill being a woman of color. As for how business is doing post-COVID, Dr. Davis claims that ever since the murder of George Floyd last year her firm been overhwlemed and has not slowed down. They have been on the forefront as a full service firm, they did more listening sessions in the last year than in the past 20 years. Dr. Davis doesn't believe DEI is going anywhere, it has been a relevant hot topic for a number of years because of the pervasive demographic shift we are seeing today. When the new generation of talent comes into the workforce, they have expectations, and if companies don't accomodate them, they will miss out on top talent. She mentions that in 2020, some of the top words used were "pivot" and "you are muted" (LOL). When people pivoted last year, they not only reinvented themselves, they reinvented work places and relationships and looked at life saying "is this what I want to do?" 3.9 million people in June and July quit their jobs, and we're calling this "the great resignation", because people are choosing a different path in their lives. People now ask themselves "is this where I want to work? Is my boss toxic, is this workplace toxic?" and are choosing hapiness and quitting their jobs, so employers must get with the program or they will miss out.

As far as the mass resgination, women are a lot of the ones leaving the workforce. Currently, women make up nearly half of the workforce, says Dr. Davis, and companies need to do something to retain them. Women are overwhelmed with not only work responsibilites, but also child care and other home responsibilities. She calls out to companies to make their workplace cultures and policies more flexible, and to create the enviorment that allows women to excel. She belives women were leaving the workforce in higher droves this past year because not only were they many of them laid off, they made choices to leave because childcare centers were shut down and children were home from school. Her firm has been overwhelmed with a lot of calls about implicit bias training, because at the core of it, women still have biases that keep us from being payed fairly, hired in certain positions or being promoted as fast as men. She even brings up that out of the fortune 500 companies, only 41 of the heads of those corporations are women. We have work to do! It starts with equity, inclusion, bias training, but then it goes to accountability: change your policies, update your strategies and put programs in place that are much more flexibile and accomidating to bring women in.

But what about things like the new requirement by Wall Street about mandating women on boards, is it enough? Will it bring about enough change (since it only specifies women and not race or sexual orientation)? Dr. Davis thinks its a start for boards to diversify, but it needs to trickle down to not just women but people of color and those that have different experiences, thoughts, perspectives and ideas. Talent comes from a lot of places, and companies need to know to look for leaders that have transferable skills and recognize that talent comes from all different backgrounds, you HAVE to look outside your traditional network, cast your net broader. She brings up that when she is asked to be on a board, even if they are all white men, she knows that she may be the first and may even be the only, but she won't be the last.

As for Dr. Davis' mentors, she has a great network of other senior executive women. She also finds people who are five to ten years ahead of her in their careers, and emulates some of what they do, even if they are not formal mentors. A lot of our podcast guest bring up a network of other women, Melinda mentions the statistic that when women have a network of other women, they get further, and even more so when they have a mixed network of men and women. The most powerful thing we can do is to share our networks with other women. Dr. Davis says relationships are the new currency. A lot of her business comes from referrals and recomendations. People do business with people they like, trust and know.

To learn more about Dr. Shirley Davis, check out her YouTube channel or buy her book on Amazon "Living Beyond Your What Ifs", follow her on social media. Dr. Shirley Davis is the author of the new book Living Beyond “What If?” Release the Limits and Realize Your Dreams (Berrett-Koehler Publishers, August 10, 2021, Available for order at Amazon.com). She’s also the author of the books Reinvent Yourself: Strategies for Achieving Success in Every Area of Your Life and The Seat: How to Get Invited to the Table When You're Over-Performing but Undervalued. Additionally, she is a popular author for several LinkedIn Learning courses on Leadership and DEI.

Connect with Dr. Shirley Davis on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Clubhouse and LinkedIn, TikTok, or visit www.drshirleydavis.com.

"Challenges are brilliantly disguised as oppurtunities for us to take them on by the horn, not be afraid and make a difference"

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Special Guest: Dr. Shirley Davis.