The Passionistas Project Podcast | Passionate Women Empowerment Hosts

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.

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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.

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Helen Torres on her dream for women.

Learn more about Helen and HOPE.

Learn more about The Passionistas Project.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.  

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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