Day: December 21, 2021

Female Founders: Ilsa Manning of Ilsa Fragrances On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed…

Female Founders: Ilsa Manning of Ilsa Fragrances On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a Woman Founder

An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

Create a tribe. From mentors to friends to family to social media relationships to networking acquaintances — find the people whom you can have community. The people in this tribe will be ones you can seek advice or solace from, laugh or cry with, despair with, elate with, grow with. These people will give you the strength to keep going when you lose steam and energy, because it will happen. My tribe is what has gotten me to this point today and I could never express my gratitude enough to each of these fabulous ladies who has supported me mentally, emotionally, and physically along the way.

As a part of our series about “Why We Need More Women Founders”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Ilsa Manning.

Founder and mother Ilsa Manning, who honed her perfume prowess previously working at Givaudan and Coty, started Ilsa Fragrances in 2016 with a dream: wanting to be the best person she could be for herself and her daughters, while also lifting up other women. Born, raised and currently residing in Phoenix, Arizona, Manning also believes in giving back, donating 5% of all net profits to Girls On The Run, a nonprofit empowering young women.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?

Thank you for having me! Honestly, I fell into it by accident! I was living in England and had just finished my MA in history. I had wanted to continue on to do a PhD, but the reality was that I needed to start paying off my student loans, which meant I needed to get a job. I put in my resume with a job agency down the road from where I was living, they sent me for an interview with the UK sales office of the largest fragrance and flavor manufacturer in the world and that was it! I got the job, and it was this role that introduced me to the world of fragrance and I fell in love!

It was about 8 years later that I decided to take my passion to the next level and start my own company. After a year of product development, I launched Ilsa Fragrances, my own fine fragrance brand.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading your company?

It’s not quite a story, but it is something that I’ve found interesting and amazing at the same time, and that is the support I’ve been given since the founding of Ilsa Fragrances. Whether it be a random passerby, friends, family, work colleagues, networking acquaintances or new contacts, each person in their own way has been a cheerleader and guided me along this journey. I think it’s a great example of how people want to see others succeed in their dream. I cannot express my gratitude enough!

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

Gosh! I don’t know if it was the funniest mistake, but it was a SMH mistake for sure! On my first run, I decided to have the name and logo screen printed on the bottle. This was done first, and then the bottles were filled with the juice. When I received the finished product there had been some damage on transport, which caused some bottles to leak a bit. When the juice leaked, it removed or smudged the screen printing, and I was left with unsellable product. Needless to say, I went with labels on the second run!

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

Goodness! So, so, so many people have helped me — it’s really all about having your tribe around you! I have only been able to do what I have done because of the people around me — from their support to their love, to their guidance and advice, to their sharing of knowledge. One person that I should give a shout out to, whom I am forever grateful to, is my long-time, childhood friend Jessica. She has helped foster and grow the business as our freelance PR guru, but more than that, at the launch of Infinite No 1 in 2016 I found myself in the hospital due to life threatening pregnancy complications. She rushed in from Los Angeles, came to the hospital where we made a game plan, took the reins and lead the successful launch of the first fragrance in The Infinite Collection.

Ok, thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the primary focus of our interview. According to this EY report, only about 20 percent of funded companies have women founders. This reflects great historical progress, but it also shows that more work still has to be done to empower women to create companies. In your opinion and experience what is currently holding back women from founding companies?

In my opinion and experience, what I believe is holding back women from founding companies is the lack of mentorship, from childhood onwards, in entrepreneurship. When I was growing up and all throughout school, there was never a conversation about owning or creating my own company. It was always about fitting into careers that already existed.

I believe this is changing — an example I can give is that my daughters, who are 5 and 7 and who were my inspiration for the brand, are learning all about founding a company and entrepreneurship from me. I also saw recently that a fellow female business owner (and friend) made her 5-year-old daughter (who was the inspiration for her retail shop) co-owner of the business.

With proper mentorship and guidance from friends, family members and school counselors, girls can grow up knowing that founding their own company is an option, and thus not be held back by the boxes society has created around women and careers.

Can you help articulate a few things that can be done as individuals, as a society, or by the government, to help overcome those obstacles?

The main obstacle I see for women to found companies is lack of mentorship, but also seeing women in the role of entrepreneurship and leadership in business. As individuals, we can help overcome this obstacle by providing our time and guidance as mentors.

Our mission at Ilsa Fragrances is to empower women to believe in themselves and all they can do. I do believe that part of being able to start your own company comes from an inner belief that this is something that you can and are able to do. So, it’s an important part of our mission as a brand to encourage women to seek out their dreams and as we can, we provide access to mentors who can help. One way we did this pre-pandemic was through a Facebook Live event called Coffee and Conversation where I sat down with women from a variety of backgrounds (artists, entrepreneurs, etc.) and asked them questions about how they got to be doing what they were doing and what advice they had for other women who may be watching. My hope with these sessions was that whoever was watching got the inspiration and information they needed to start pursuing their goals and dreams.

We don’t stop there, though, because we also want to empower our girls to become empowered women. We want them to know they can do and be anything they dream. My hope is that my daughters, who gave (and give) me my purpose and inspired me to create Ilsa Fragrances, are seeing and learning from my example and learning from their participation in the brand, that, should they choose, they themselves can found a company.

We also donate to the non-profit Girls on the Run so that girls everywhere can learn they have the power to do and be whatever it is they dream.

This might be intuitive to you as a woman founder, but I think it will be helpful to spell this out. Can you share a few reasons why more women should become founders?

The simplest reason is because women can. Women 100 percent have the capability to be founders. If a woman has a passion, a dream, an idea, or a vision, she should become a founder. Every woman out there can achieve the dream of owning her own company, the first step to the dream is first believing that she can do that, and that comes from within. My goal with Ilsa Fragrances is to engage that inner self-belief and push it out, so each woman knows and engages her own power.

To that point, women are powerful and tenacious. Once they have their vision and once they believe in themselves there is no stopping their force to achieve.

What are the “myths” that you would like to dispel about being a founder? Can you explain what you mean?

I’m not sure there are any myths I feel need dispelling, though I’d like to squash the idea or “myth,” if you will, that being a founder or entrepreneur, or business owner is easy. It is not. It takes drive, determination, vision, tenacity, but more than that it also takes humility, the ability to ask for help, the ability to seek advice, and the ability listen to that advice and to take the help.

Is everyone cut out to be a founder? In your opinion, which specific traits increase the likelihood that a person will be a successful founder and what type of person should perhaps seek a “regular job” as an employee? Can you explain what you mean?

I believe anyone can do anything they set their mind to — anyone can be a founder and any one can be an employee. The question is, what do you want? Do you want to be a founder? Do you want to be an employee? You’ve got to seek that answer from within and then your ability and drive to be one or the other will come forth.

Ok super. Here is the main question of our interview. What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why? (Please share a story or example for each.)

Believe in yourself. A lot of people will believe in you and your vision, but a lot of people won’t. The ultimate foundation to moving forward and taking on challenges is believe in yourself, your capabilities, and your vision.
Ask questions and listen. Most founders begin their journey as an expert in one area, then out of necessity become a jack-of-all-trades and a master of none. We are just individuals and by seeking out those that are experts in their field (that you trust), you will have valuable insight and information for making decisions without all the weight of figuring it out yourself.
Seek and embrace feedback. The only way to know if you are on the right track is by asking those that are purchasing or consuming your product or service. Requesting feedback and analyzing it allows you to pivot when you need to pivot or stay the course when you need to stay the course.
Be brave and say No. This goes back to number 1 — believe in yourself, believe in your vision, know what you stand for. When you ask questions and listen, when you seek and embrace feedback, always do it through the lens of your vision and what you stand for. Doing this will keep you true to yourself, your vision, your goals. I’m not going to lie — this could mean potentially saying No to an opportunity or the “right way” of doing things. This is why you must be brave. It takes courage to believe in yourself, to say no to what doesn’t align with your vision, yes to what does and to do it your way… truth is, there is no “right way” anyway.
Create a tribe. From mentors to friends to family to social media relationships to networking acquaintances — find the people whom you can have community. The people in this tribe will be ones you can seek advice or solace from, laugh or cry with, despair with, elate with, grow with. These people will give you the strength to keep going when you lose steam and energy, because it will happen. My tribe is what has gotten me to this point today and I could never express my gratitude enough to each of these fabulous ladies who has supported me mentally, emotionally, and physically along the way.

How have you used your success to make the world a better place?

I want women to believe in themselves and all they can do and so from the start of Ilsa Fragrances we have aimed to make the world a better place — we want to see positive change in the life of women and girls, which is why we donate to the non-profit Girls on the Run with each sale and have also been a sponsor of their annual 5K since 2017. The 5K is the culmination of their program which teaches girls they can do and be anything they dream.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good for the greatest number of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.

I want to create a world where every woman and every girl believes in themselves and everything they can do. We are incredible forces of nature, but often we forget this. We get bogged down in life and can’t and shouldn’t all over ourselves. I want every woman and girl to know they have an immense inner beauty, inner confidence, inner strength — when they believe and know this, watch out world!

We are very blessed that some very prominent names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them.

There is someone I would love to reconnect with and that is the magnificent beauty entrepreneur Cristina Carlino. I was fortunate to work with her briefly before the birth of my first daughter seven years ago. We’ve lost track of each other, but I would love to reconnect. She is such a visionary — with philosophy skin care she created a brand that not only made you look good, but made you feel good. Truly inspirational!

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this

Female Founders: Ilsa Manning of Ilsa Fragrances On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Female Founders: Dr Yusra Al-Mukhtar On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a Woman…

Female Founders: Dr Yusra Al-Mukhtar On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a Woman Founder

An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

It’s going to take time to find your people. When you do start out and you start to grow the team, you will find people who understand your mission statement and those who are best suited elsewhere. Hire slow, fire fast is a mantra that I have come to understand though still find challenging to put into practice.

As a part of our series about “Why We Need More Women Founders”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Dr Yusra Al-Mukhtar.

Dr Yusra Al-Mukhtar is a skincare, aesthetics and wellness expert with premium clinics in Harley Street, Harrow-on-the-Hill and Blundellsands. She has recently published Beautified Britain Index: The Skin Report, a comprehensive analysis of Britain’s post pandemic beautification landscape. Her areas of expertise include skincare, aesthetics, tweakments, non-surgical treatments, skin and mental health issues and skin diversity.

My story started back when I was eight years old. My mother had just bought me the video “Jungle book” and told me I could watch it if I brushed my teeth first. I eagerly ran upstairs and climbed on top of my bathtub trying to reach my toothbrush in a rush, ended up slipping and slicing my lip open on a broken tile. I needed several stitches in my gums and lower lip, and, when I went to school the next day my teachers and classmates were horrified. They asked me to sit at the back of the class so no one would get scared or ask me too many questions. “Baby Horror” became a nickname that stuck at school. The scar bothered me for many years and I would be asked what was “wrong with my lip”. Naturally that had an impact on my self-esteem, but it also led to a life-long passion for facial surgery and aesthetics and really made me understand the impact of physical trauma on appearance and wellbeing. I went onto study Dental surgery and during my university years, I took a year out to take on an extra degree called Medical Science and Healthcare Management, at Imperial College London, qualifying with a First Class Honours degree. I then qualified as a dental surgeon with Honours and Distinction at Kings College London. After my vocational dental training I spent several years working in oral and maxillofacial head and neck surgery at various trauma hospitals in London.

During this time, I worked with victims of domestic violence and road traffic accidents and provided joint clinics with the dermatology team performing skin lesion biopsies, surgical excisions and reconstructive surgical treatments for patients who suffered from skin cancer and oral cancer. As a result, I developed a keen interest in facial reconstruction and aesthetics and is now what I dedicate my working life to..

I was also involved in research looking at orthognathic surgery for patients with congenital skeletal discrepancies and the psychological impact it had on them. This led to an interest in perfecting an aesthetic finish that would protect, restore, and maintain both my patients’ physical and psychological wellbeing. I am now a Level 7 Trainer in medical aesthetics in line with the Ofqual guidelines for medical aesthetic training pathways and have been practicing since 2013 and opened my Harley Street practice in 2019 and my latest clinic in Blundellsands in 2020.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading your company?

Last year I launched a new state-of-the art centre of aesthetics excellence in Blundellsands, a beautiful village in Merseyside. I had wanted to find somewhere warm and inviting, where I could offer patients a holistic experience. I spotted a Victorian house that had been on the market for a long time — it was falling apart and needed a lot of work. I put an offer instantly and completed in December 2019. I applied for a licence from the council and planning permission to change the use of the building and we didn’t get it until the end of February. The building work started then had to stop because we went into lockdown. It was so frustrating for months to not be able to progress the works, so I decided to paint the place myself. I did the walls and thought “at least I have utilised lockdown usefully”. Then I got an electrician and plumber in, and they said, “oh we’ve got to break all the walls and rewire the whole building.” It was my first building project, so I had no idea what order I had to do things in. I just remember standing there watching as they broke all of the walls that I had just painted by hand and cringing with every drill. It was an expensive lesson!

Once we came out of lockdown in July, I had to race through many hurdles; designing a car park and ramp, interior design, insulation, sound proofing, building regulations and controls and becoming licensed with the care quality commission. It has been an adventure and a labour of love. In short, I invested half a million pounds in a new building, only for it to close within weeks of launching due to Covid lockdowns across the UK. The new clinic is in the north west, which has been one of the most hard-hit areas in the country. This has been a real test of resilience, but also an opportunity to rethink the way we work: we created one of the UKs first Virtual Clinics, offering patients access to our support and care worldwide. With adversity comes opportunity, with challenges comes growth.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

On my first day as a senior house officer in the oral and maxillofacial surgical department at the Royal London Hospital, I had to go and take bloods from one of the patients. I took three or four vials and I was about to throw them down the chute when I noticed that the content of one of the test tubes had coagulated. I thought “what’s happened here? I must have done something wrong”, so I went back to the patient, apologised and took more blood from her other arm. I was about to throw the vial down the chute, and the blood coagulated again. When it happened a third time, and I had to go back, I could sense the patient was trying not to panic. I was thinking “either I’m doing something wrong, or there’s something seriously wrong with her blood.” I had taken blood from both arms now, so I took it again from her feet with a forced smile thinking please let this work. When the blood coagulated yet again, I texted my husband “this patient’s blood keeps coagulating, I think something is wrong,” and he replied “honey, what colour is the test tube?” and I said “it’s yellow” and he replied “yes it’s meant to do that, it checks biochemistry.” That was quite the start to my first day in the hospital and I realised I had a steep learning curve! I did learn a lot and come out the other side with a few good stories.

My dad is a surgeon, and my mum is a dental surgeon, and I learned a huge amount from them about healthcare. Both of my parents always pushed me to do my best and be the best version of myself. They taught me grit, tenacity, hard work, and the principles of being a healthcare professional. My mother taught me to never turn a patient away in dental pain, and my father showed me about resilience and trauma management. Both my parents would always stay late to ensure that all of their patients received the right care. My mother was a catalyst in my career as a young aspiring dental student. When I was newly qualified, she was a very well-known implant surgeon, and the only British female diplomat in the International Congress of Oral Implantologists. I went to the USA with her to collect her award and I remember looking at her thinking “wow, she’s a warrior, she’s amazing.” I pulled her aside and I said “mum, I want to learn how to do implants, can you teach me?” and she said, “no shortcuts here, you need to go and learn how to do surgery properly first, then come back and I’ll teach you.” I really respected and valued that- and that’s why I went into surgery.

Is that great progress?! In my field, aesthetic medicine, you will find that although most of the practitioners are female, the board members of faculties and professional bodies tend to be heavily male skewed. This is something I’ve challenged in the past and the tide is changing, but it is still swayed, especially against working mothers. This is something I feel really strongly about. Even today there is societal judgement that your success as a career woman signifies your failure as a mother. And naturally- that hurts! In my opinion, it’s societal prejudice and a fear of judgement that is holding women back. Women who are successful are often perceived of as ruthless or assertive, and they hold back because they don’t want to be judged in that way. I think there’s a constant concern about perception. Ambition in a woman is not a dirty word. We should empower women to believe in themselves, and to capitalise on their innate gifts to lead gracefully. If and when they choose to become mothers, that it does not have to mark the end of growth in their careers. Being a mother makes me a better leader, a better clinician. It’s with my innate skills of nurturing that I can understand my team be compassionate with my patients. I have learnt to silence the noise and be unapologetically me — a mother, a wife, a clinician, a business owner and a boss.

Can you help articulate a few things that can be done as individuals, as a society, or by the government, to help overcome those obstacles?

I would love to see more female leaders championed in their local council to share their stories and the challenges they’ve overcome.

For me, as a woman who has also chosen to be a mother, it’s taken a real understanding that I can continue my art, my passion, my joy, my identity as a clinician and choose working hours that allow me to be a mother at the same time. It’s taken self-acknowledgement, commitment and understanding that I can be both and I can be a leader at the same time. You can nurture and lead gracefully; you don’t have to take on masculine traits in order to succeed. Women have incredible emotional intelligence and that means they can read people. I can read my team and I can read my patients and that’s a hugely powerful tool in my profession. Believing in yourself is a huge first step. Secondly, it’s really important to find a mentor and surround yourself with people who empower you and respect your vision. Empowered women empower.

In terms of what the government can do to help, teaching empowerment and entrepreneurship as part of the education syllabus would be a great first step.

This might be intuitive to you as a woman founder but I think it will be helpful to spell this out. Can you share a few reasons why more women should become founders?

To change the tide! To create an equal level playing field for generations to come. I want for both my children to know there is no glass ceiling. I want my daughter to know that she can be anything she wants to be, and a mother if she wants to be. That it doesn’t have to be this or that. I want her to know that being a mother is the most incredible role in the world, but this role does not define everything that she is and should not be where she starts and stops.

There are other reasons to be a founder, of course, such as having the ability to build flexibility into your life, being able to choose how and where you work and define your own heroes. But it’s about more than that, it’s about knowing that you can achieve anything — there are no limitations — and that your voice is important, relevant, and valued.

I don’t think being a founder is the necessary end goal I would advocate to everyone. I would ultimately advise everyone to find their passion, fulfil it and excel at it. If you enjoy what you do, you never have to work a day in your life! Being a founder for me was a by-product of being in an area at a time where I couldn’t find a company that provided what I wanted to provide. The end goal wasn’t money or success or being my own boss. The end goal was about empowering change, about providing a service in a way it wasn’t done before. There has to be a reason or a just cause for founding a service.

What are the “myths” that you would like to dispel about being a founder. Can you explain what you mean?

That it’s easy! It all looks glamorous on the outside but what happens behind closed doors is sleepless nights, hard work, relentless gruelling training (especially in healthcare) and lifelong learning. Being a female founder can be a magical place, but it’s not all roses. It can also be a really lonely place because there aren’t that many people to talk to and figure out how to deal with the varying challenges you’re faced with on a day-to-day basis. I started a clinic from scratch and had many difficult decisions to make with little to no guidance, and I made many mistakes along the way. I had to learn everything, from business and accounting to project managing building works and navigating local government. People talk a lot about women suffering from ‘imposter syndrome’ but I believe that everyone suffers from it — men and women and experts in their field. It is normal, to some degree. For me, that’s why it’s so important to have a network of individuals to support you and create a team of like-minded individuals rowing the boat in the same direction. Your team needs to have a common goal and it can be really hard to curate a good team. I’ve not always been a good leader; I’ve learnt how to be. I’ve learnt how to communicate my why and how to empower and support my team and ultimately, we are all working towards the same vision, and we all have good and bad days. The team is important because we all lift each other up when we fall and help each other get back on our feet.

Anyone that wants to become a founder can be, it comes back to self-belief, mindset and having a clear purpose. Not everybody wants to be a founder and not everybody should be. The world needs employees, they are very valuable, and they make the world go round. Employees are very much part of the team and without them we wouldn’t be able to achieve anything. In terms of traits that increase the likelihood of success, I would say:

Resilience — you will be knocked down, be accepting that this is part of the journey, and you will need to get back up again.
Hard work — there is no nine to five, being a founder is 24/7.
Focus — you need to know what you want to achieve. Trying to conquer everything will result in nothing being done. Start with small steps and focus on one thing. Ace it, then move on.
Humility — accept that you will make mistakes and be willing to learn. Adopt a growth mindset and be kind to others and yourself. Know that arrogance gets you nowhere
Team spirit — working as part of a team is essential. Alone you can do a little, together you can do a lot.
Adaptability — you will need to be a quick thinker and a problem solver. Circumstance and environment changes. Knowing how to adapt quickly is important.
Working well under pressure — being able to keep going, and handle a wide range of different challenges, personalities and demands without “crumbling” or “freezing” in fear is important. Being able to calm your mind in the midst of a storm is a trait of leaders and doers.

Ok super. Here is the main question of our interview. What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why? (Please share a story or example for each.)

That you’re allowed to rest. Rome wasn’t built in a day and self and rest and self-care is important to your productivity.
You’re going to have highs and lows and make mistakes and that’s OK. Sometimes you win, sometimes you learn.
It’s going to take time to find your people. When you do start out and you start to grow the team, you will find people who understand your mission statement and those who are best suited elsewhere. Hire slow, fire fast is a mantra that I have come to understand though still find challenging to put into practice
You can do anything you put your mind to.
Nothing is handed to you on a plate. It takes hard work, tenacity, and grit.

How have you used your success to make the world a better place

I’m a passionate advocate for the connection between outer and inner wellbeing and my practice philosophy is rooted in empowering transformations. To me this means providing treatments that deliver both radiance on the outside and, wellness on the inside. I have a deep desire to help my patients to improve their wellbeing and their treatment forms part of a wellness journey that is about much more than just a tweakment. Many come for aesthetics treatments as a result of low self-esteem or to improve a feature that they are not comfortable with or have even been bullied about. This is why my new clinic is the first in the UK to offer patients a complimentary session with a clinical psychologist, alongside their treatment.

I’m a member of the Safety in Beauty campaign and actively support the profession in providing safe aesthetic treatments for all patients. I am also a lead lecturer and trainer to doctors and dentists at the Royal College of General Practitioners in London with Acquisition Aesthetics- a female led training academy that has just won training academy of the year in the UK and together we have recently launched my rhinoplasty masterclass focusing on how to deliver safe effective treatments.

I am a strong advocate for children and as a clinic we support the NSPCC- raising money for our local charity that supports children who have undergone child abuse. I believe every child deserves a happy and safe childhood and will continue to raise funds to safeguard these children.

Me and my husband feel very passionate about mental health and believe that we can empower one another through telling authentic relatable stories of our challenges and struggles and successes. In this way, we can break down barriers and understand each other. One day we would love to realise this dream and create a platform for global mind health, to empower people to take ownership of their mental health, by understanding themselves, and others, better and in doing so bring people together.

Simon Sinek. He’s incredibly motivational and he has incredible insight. He has been a huge influence on me in how I’m communicating my vision, my passion, my reason for existence and understanding my ‘why’ — my reason for being in business which goes far beyond existing to make a profit. I’d love to sit with him and pick his brains about how to be a phenomenal leader. I love his books, his philosophy and if I’m honest I wish he could be my mentor because I have so much to learn and so much I struggle with. I think I’d learn a huge amount from him!

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.

Female Founders: Dr Yusra Al-Mukhtar On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a Woman… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Female Founders: Junea Rocha of Better-for-you On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as…

Female Founders: Junea Rocha of Better-for-you On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a Woman Founder

Being a founder is a tough job but also very fulfilling. It’s certainly not for everyone and that is okay. To be a successful founder you have to be resilient and have an incredible level of determination. You have to have a vision for what you want to achieve and confidently and tirelessly work to get closer to that goal. As a founder you also have to be willing to take risks — it’s not for those who are risk averse or need security to feel fulfilled. Embracing change is also critical. Accept the things you cannot change and use every opportunity to learn and improve your business.

As a part of our series about “Why We Need More Women Founders”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Junea Rocha.

Junea Rocha is the Co-Founder and CMO of better-for-you, Latin-inspired food brand, Brazi Bites. In 2010, along with her husband and Co-Founder, Cameron MacMullin, Junea decided to bring a cherished household staple that was native to her Brazilian roots, “Pão de Queijo,” AKA cheese bread, to the U.S. market without any experience in the food industry. In a few short years after taking a giant leap and perfecting the family recipe, Brazi Bites grew into a nationally distributed brand with a cult-like following after appearing on ABC’s Shark Tank and being included twice on the Inc. 5000 list of “America’s Fastest-Growing Private Companies.”

I grew up in Brazil where my memories are filled with family and delicious homemade food. Growing up in Brazil in the 90s, there were cultural career expectations that you must either become a lawyer, doctor, or engineer, so, I went with engineering. After going to college, moving to the US and working in engineering for over seven years, I realized I did not see a future for myself in that industry. Having always had an entrepreneurial spirit, I decided to take a leap of faith and do something that would bring me the fulfilment and passion I craved. I missed my family’s Cheese Bread recipe (“Pão de queijo”) which is a staple in South America, and I wanted to share these tasty bites with Americans. After my American friends traveled to Brazil for my wedding and gushed about the cheese bread more than any of the other wonderful things they experienced, I was convinced there was something to the idea. That’s when the lightbulb turned on and I decided to pursue bringing authentic Brazilian cheese bread to Americans.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading your company?

There are so many great stories in the journey of starting and growing Brazi Bites over the last decade. If I had to choose one single important moment, I would say it was appearing on ABC’s Shark Tank in 2015. Everything about it was challenging and amazing and pushed me way out of my comfort zone. It was incredibly competitive to be selected, the preparation for the pitch took weeks and the actual airing day changed the trajectory of our business and my career.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

One mistake that always comes to mind that I can laugh at now, was when we were starting off, we bought an old food truck in hopes that it would create awareness and drive sales in our local market. We spent a crazy amount of time renovating it with plans to start sampling Brazi Bites at events throughout Portland. We hoped the food truck would drive people to the store, however, consumers struggled to connect that the cheese bread from the food truck was available in the freezer section of their local grocery stores, despite all our efforts to bridge that gap. We eventually sold the food truck and shifted focus to in-store sampling. Although it was challenging, I’m thankful for that experience as it taught me a lot about shopping behaviors and ultimately made us stronger as a company.

I’m very grateful to our peer founders. They have been our greatest mentors and have always had our back. When we were preparing to go on Shark Tank, we leaned on a few of our founder friends who had previously been on the show and their help was invaluable. The natural foods industry is incredibly open and supportive. We are always lifting each other up.

I believe one of the biggest challenges many women face in starting their own businesses is a lack of stable and affordable childcare. It is such a significant issue in American society today. I believe more women would be founders or in leadership roles if there was more support. These roles require high focus and time commitment and unfortunately it is very challenging to do when childcare is not stable. Funding is also a big challenge for female founders. In 2020, women-led startups received only 2.3% of venture capital funding, according to crunchbase figures.

Can you help articulate a few things that can be done as individuals, as a society, or by the government, to help overcome those obstacles?

Federal paid family leave and federal childcare support are good starting points. I’m hopeful those pieces of the Build Back Better bill will go through and that will be a good step forward. There is a lot of criticism and noise around the length of the paid family leave but anything at this point is better than nothing and you have to start somewhere. The funding issue is systematically rooted — having more women in leadership roles of VC Firms and Company Boards would be a good step forward as well.

This might be intuitive to you as a woman founder but I think it will be helpful to spell this out. Can you share a few reasons why more women should become founders?

It is so important to have representation — especially in the food industry, women are doing most of the shopping and should be represented at the leadership level by the brands that serve them. We as women are also natural problem solvers. Starting a business is fraught with roadblocks and challenges and having problem-solving skills and the ability to think on our feet is crucial as a founder.
We bring communication skills to the table, and it is no secret that women tend to be great listeners and are master communicators and networkers. Communication is essential for growing a business, building a strong team and developing talent as you grow.
Women are also talented multi-taskers, and it is key for entrepreneurs to wear many hats and women do this their whole lives.

What are the “myths” that you would like to dispel about being a founder? Can you explain what you mean?

There’s an idea out there that founders operate alone and make all of the decisions. However, most successful companies have more than one founder with different strengths. Another “myth” is that the work is glamorous. Being a founder is like being a small business owner. There is a tremendous amount of work, and you have to do whatever it takes to keep things moving. Founders wear all the hats and need to roll with all the punches. Work-life balance doesn’t really exist. Lastly, there’s this misconception that founders are crazy risk takers. While that is true to a degree (you have to be comfortable taking risks) more often than not, big decisions are usually calculated and thought through.

Being a founder is a tough job but also very fulfilling. It’s certainly not for everyone and that is okay. To be a successful founder you have to be resilient and have an incredible level of determination. You have to have a vision for what you want to achieve and confidently and tirelessly work to get closer to that goal. As a founder you also have to be willing to take risks — it’s not for those who are risk averse or need security to feel fulfilled. Embracing change is also critical. Accept the things you cannot change and use every opportunity to learn and improve your business.

Ok super. Here is the main question of our interview. What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why? (Please share a story or example for each.)

Expect to hear a lot of ‘no’s’ — don’t let them stop you from moving forward.
The amount of work and time that it’ll take to get the business off the ground will be way more than you imagined.
You can do hard things. Keep pushing through the challenges and the path will unfold in front of you.
Understand your target consumer and listen to them carefully.
Be strategic and thoughtful about your retail launch strategy.

How have you used your success to make the world a better place?

What makes a life fulfilling is being of service to others and making the world a better place through what you do. I believe making foods that are better-for-you and replacing the junk people buy in the freezer has been one of our greatest achievements in growing the company. I also want to help aspiring entrepreneurs so I mentor and advise a number of entrepreneurs and hope that sharing my lessons learned will help them achieve their own goals.

I would like to inspire more women to go after their dreams and break the glass ceiling. More women need to be in boardrooms and leadership positions, and we need to start by giving them the opportunity and addressing the structural problem our society has around childcare.

I would love to have a private breakfast with Sara Blakely, founder of Spanx. She is successful, humble, authentic and a great role model. She spent two years doing tireless research to establish a brand and all without having any fashion or business leadership experience. She has changed women’s undergarments forever and it’s so inspiring to see what you can do with little experience but relentless determination.

I would also love to chat with Greta Thunberg. She is absolutely inspiring because she is fearless. She is courageous and speaks her truth with conviction. She embodies qualities of a leader and is a powerful and inspiring young woman.

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.

Female Founders: Junea Rocha of Better-for-you On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Female Disruptors: Rachel Fiori of Masters of Self University On The Three Things You Need To Shake…

Female Disruptors: Rachel Fiori of Masters of Self University On The Three Things You Need To Shake Up Your Industry

An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

Stop staying small by spewing your truth all over everyone, and open yourself up to higher levels of consciousness that invite universal truths to flow through all aspects of your life.

As a part of our series about women who are shaking things up in their industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing Rachel Fiori.

Rachel Fiori MSOT, CEO of Masters of Self University, is a Mystical Therapist & Elite Coach for High Profile People & Couples. She is the lead Mystical Professor teaching the Mystical Life Coach Certification program.

With a Masters of Science in Occupational Therapy, (specializing in mental, emotional, & behavioral health), a BA in Business/Corporate Communications, a Psychic-Intuitive-Empath, and as an HSP (Highly Sensitive Person), Rachel has spent the past 23 years empowering individuals, coaches, and high profile people across the world to heal their lives and relationships at the soul level.

Rachel masterfully utilizes the principles of Spiritual Psychology, as well as her gift of Divine Sight with her clients. She has the ability to perceive the unperceivable, and can see the deep truth of any situation which makes her the best in her field at doing “shadow work”. Her genius is the ability to “See” the root causes of all of your struggles. What she has the ability to see and show within a person or their relationship can change the consciousness of that person and elevate them to the status of fully healed, whole, and free.

Rachel’s wisdom of transformational-healing, her methods, and her reputation are unprecedented. She is a Radical Spiritual Teacher here to lead us into the New Golden Age of Harmony, and someone the world desperately needs right now.

My first shift into spiritual awakening was at thirteen years old when I was standing in my living room with my mentally ill, abusive stepfather as he was about to unload on me for earning an A- on my report card. Since the ‘minus’ was so close to getting a B, “it didn’t even count as an A”. As the verbal abuse began to spew from his mouth, I had an out-of-body experience. I was suddenly slightly above and behind both of us watching this scene play out in front of me. And I had this incredible epiphany. “Oh my god. This has nothing to do with me. His abuse isn’t about me at all. It’s about him.” And it’s almost like I heard this very stern voice firmly tell me to “stop taking his abuse so personally!”. My soul had the epiphany. My guardian angel “yelled” at me for being so ridiculous in my attempts to seek approval from this broken man who was doing nothing but projecting his own brokenness and unhealed inner child wounds onto me. I never gave a shit about his opinion of me from that day forward. I never sought his approval ever again. I was completely detached from his negative opinion of me, and from the rare times that he praised me because I knew it wasn’t authentic. I experienced a degree of emotional freedom from that experience.

That’s not to say that I didn’t have a shit ton of inner child wounds to heal as I grew into adulthood. And I tried everything under the sun to heal myself at the deepest level, and never got the results that I was working so hard for. I had many painful inner child wounds that I couldn’t seem to heal at the core level no matter what I did. This was confusing to me considering the shift I had had at thirteen. It took me many years to unlock the energetics of “programs” and how they run in our psyches. The process of how they’re created and how to transform them at the root level . . . permanently. How to even see the programs that are there in the first place. Most programs love to hide in our blindspots making it nearly impossible to uncover them and heal them. But I discovered how to shine the Light on all of them so they can be transcended into a higher vibrational frequency. I gained the keys that end suffering, and I now share those keys with anyone who is willing and devoted to learning what they are.

Can you tell our readers what it is about the work you’re doing that’s disruptive?

I disrupt every single aspect of a person, a society, and of the collective that is a reflection of darkness. People love to pretend that they don’t carry darkness inside of themselves. To pretend that they are the Light and only Light. That the planet is dying and in the poor state that it’s in because of other people… not because of “me”. That their relationship is crappy because of their partner, not because of “me”. Even though you are the common denominator in every relationship you’ve ever been in. That their job sucks because of their boss or poor management. Never because all we do as humans is reenact our childhoods over and over again, being completely oblivious to this of course, and therefore many often create parent-child relationships at their places of employment. But no, we want to focus on productivity levels, price cuts, overworking employees in every attempt to increase profit. Humans have all but erased what it means to take responsibility for how they show up in this world. And they’ve mastered blaming everyone else for how bad things are.

I show people how they are actually showing up in the world, at their jobs, and in their relationships, versus how they like to think they’re showing up. I teach people to shift into what integrity actually means. I teach radical responsibility and radical self-awareness. No one heals without these fundamentals. Sooo many people claim to want to end their suffering. “They’ll do anything” they tell you. But many are really just asking for you to hand them the magical key that, once placed in the palm of their hand, will miraculously remove all of their pain. Their delusional egos tell them that healing is this sweet, tender process of just being told over and over again that they’re perfect as they are, that they’re loved, and that they don’t need to change. That everyone else is the problem. What bullshit. If you’re not ready to awaken to the programs that you run and project onto others in this world that cause others pain and harm, then you are not ready to heal. You still need suffering to be your guru. Weak people don’t heal. Only warriors heal. Weak people hate, project, deny, avoid, and drown in their own selfishness and victim consciousness. Weak people spiritually bypass and try to cancel everything in our culture that makes them feel uncomfortable, all while blaming everyone else for their suffering, for their failures, for their triggers.

I am a disruptor of the darkness. For those that refuse to see their own darkness, are people that are far from being filled with Light. In fact, they are the people that darkness works through. And this planet desperately needs more beings of the Light, now more than ever before.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

I think the funniest mistake I made was believing that healing myself (or others) was something I could do simply by applying some healing technique or working on myself for a brief period of time. I ignorantly believed that because my healing abilities were very powerful, that I could heal anyone. Many years ago I had an elderly patient that was mostly bedridden after she had a hip replacement. With tremendous help from her daughter and her walker, she could get out of bed and make it to the bathroom once per day. It was a painful and time consuming process, as she could barely walk at all. It had been approximately six months since she left the bedroom and could travel to any other part of the house. When I met her she was lying in bed. I placed my hands on her, and after several minutes her eyes got really wide, and she started to repeat, “no pain. No pain.” Louder and louder, “no pain!” She barely spoke english, so when she was yelling this I thought at first that I was somehow hurting her. But no, she suddenly swung her legs out of bed, stood up by herself, grabbed her walker and began to walk out of the room. Her daughter asked her, “Mom! Where are you going?” And her mom responded, “Into the living room! I haven’t been out of this room for six months!”. And she just walked out of the room. Her daughter translated what she said for me, and we both laughed hysterically.

When I came back a couple of days later, this woman was back in bed “unable to walk”. I was so confused. We all witnessed the miracle. This elderly woman experienced a miracle. And here she was. Bedridden again. So I did the same thing again. I placed my hands on her, and the exact same thing took place. She was almost startled as she began to yell “no pain!” because her excruciating pain simply vanished. She moved her stiff, almost frozen leg like she was warming up for a gymnastics meet. And then she stood up and walked out of the room, with her walker, just like two days before.

I came back for a session the following week, and I almost fell backwards when I saw this woman back in bed, “unable to walk” and get out of bed. Her daughter translated for me so that I could speak to her to try to understand why she was in bed after being able to get up and walk around the entire house without pain, all by herself. . . not once. . . but twice the previous week! She shook her head and said that when she went to bed that night, she woke up the next morning believing it was all a dream. She believed that her hip wouldn’t allow her to walk anymore. And her belief in that was more powerful than her belief in the miracle that she herself had experienced.

Now, you may be thinking that this is a horribly sad story and not at all funny. Well it is horribly sad and nothing about it is funny. What is funny was my ignorance. I learned an incredibly valuable lesson that day. One that shaped the way I coached and “healed” others. A lesson that is infused in everything that I offer as a healer, a spiritual teacher, and a coach. One that I teach my clients and my Mystical Life Coach Certification students. And the lesson is this: If someone at their core doesn’t want to heal, then there is nothing you can do to heal them. You can’t force them to love themselves enough to accept a miracle. If they believe more strongly in victim consciousness, or in a lack of deservedness, then that’s what they will continue to experience, no matter how powerful your healing abilities are. That experience placed me on the trajectory to teach my clients how to heal themselves instead of remaining in their powerlessness to either depend on me for their healing, or to reject my healing because of their lack of self-love. I now teach and heal from a place of empowering others. That is the core of everything that is offered at Masters of Self University. Every single type of coaching, every master class is to teach people how to connect to their own, inner, divine, power and to grow that power so they can be the miracle workers in their own lives. And it’s easily the most rewarding work that I do.

We all need a little help along the journey. Who have been some of your mentors? Can you share a story about how they made an impact?

I wish I could tell you some fantastic story about an incredible mentor that guided me into healing, growing, and becoming what I am today. But there really were none. The ironic thing is that I hoped, I searched, I prayed, I BEGGED the universe to send me some enlightened being that was more psychic and more awakened than I was so I could learn from them. I desperately wanted a guru. But . . . nothing. Blackness. Absolutely no one. The funny thing is, my intuitive guidance told me all along that I was on this journey alone. Well except for my spiritual guides of course. And although, as a general rule of thumb, we all need teachers and guides that are way more advanced than us in order to guide us higher, it is also true that for some of us we’re not meant to have a person like that. This is one example of an intense spiritual test of initiation to go within. And that’s what I was forced to do. To go so deeply within myself until I could hear my higher soul speak to me clearly, precisely, and directly. I had to master my self. I never would’ve transformed into the radical spiritual teacher that I am today if I had followed another. I had to learn to connect directly to Source. I had to learn to raise my vibrational frequency to the highest level so that my level of consciousness could channel the consciousness of universal Wisdom. So my mentor is the Wisdom of the universe. That cosmic Wisdom is my teacher. My mentor. My guide. My support. My comfort.

There is a reason for that, by the way. The reason is that we’ve turned into a society that absorbs a gluttonous level of information and knowledge. And we love to tell ourselves that we know so much because we can quote a thousand teachers or authors, or regurgitate tons of information to others to show how smart we all are. And the truth is, that all comes from the programs of low self worth and inferiority. It comes from this incessant need to prove to others how special we are. And you only ever need to prove that to others you’re special because you lack the self-love and validation from within. You don’t believe you’re special which is why you need others to think that you are. Because of this, many seek out teachers and join “tribes” that will validate them, uplift them, and tell them how loved and supported they are. These are wounded inner children searching for the mommy and daddy replacement of unconditional love that they didn’t have while growing up. They seek out “mentors” that will pat them on the back and hold their hand so they don’t have to face their shadow-selves. So they don’t have to do the real healing work on themselves and finally grow up. They seek out countless people or coaches that will give them the next “hacks” so they can bypass doing the real work to face their darkness and heal their own pain, and that will tell them what they want to hear. They want the quick fix and they expend an exuberant amount of energy avoiding or filling their time with the latest technique, certification, or healing modality in hopes of magically eliminating their own pain. By not having my own teacher, I learned to go into my own pain and develop a very different relationship with every aspect of it. I learned how to actually heal it, and heal it permanently. This led me to the creation of the coaching programs that I offer to clients and the Mystical Life Coach Certification program that I now offer at Masters of Self University. Those that are enrolled in this program are devoting themselves to the deepest level of transformational-healing work that humans have access to in this lifetime. These coaches-in-training are not only healing themselves, but are becoming masters at guiding others through authentic healing, transformation, and self-actualization.

Outside of that, my dog, Mason, has been my biggest guru to date. He demonstrated to me in a million and one ways what unconditional love was. And as a highly sensitive being, he mirrored to me my own sensitivities. My having to show up for him with such gentleness, allowed me to learn how to be gentle with myself. My Mason passed away at fourteen years old in April 2021. I felt like my soul died on that day. The level of love, gentleness, and nurturing that I had to give to myself to heal the grief of losing him, was his final gift to me.

In today’s parlance, being disruptive is usually a positive adjective. But is disrupting always good? When do we say the converse, that a system or structure has ‘withstood the test of time’? Can you articulate to our readers when disrupting an industry is positive, and when disrupting an industry is ‘not so positive’? Can you share some examples of what you mean?

Disrupting an industry is ALWAYS positive when it promotes the qualities and aspects of Oneness. When you’re dismantling and bringing down the programs of inequality, such as sexism that still plague our society in order for people to raise their level of consciousness to the way of Equality, that’s positive. When you disrupt to uplift and to promote the ways of Truth, harmlessness and gentleness . . . to promote the creation of a harmonious society or world, to promote sovereignty and human rights when they are the very things being taken away from us, that type of disruption is essential and is desperately needed across the globe right now.

Being disruptive is never positive when you carry your own selfish agendas, or agendas that cause harm to others as a byproduct of your disruption. Are you disrupting because you’re angry? Hateful? Unhealed? Because you feel inferior or powerless? Then you have no business doing anything but sitting down, shutting your mouth, and seeking out the healing that you, yourself so desperately need. People who come from hate or anger are doing nothing but spewing more hate and anger out into the world. That’s a reflection of weakness, not power. That’s how the darkness of evil moves through people. But you’ll justify your hate because someone else has hated you. Grow up. That makes you just as bad as them. That shows the low level of consciousness that you actually function in. You are only qualified to “disrupt” when you’ve healed yourself enough to express your own power of divinity through your words, your teachings, your actions. When you can come from love not hate. When you can speak universal truth in every one of your words. When you can show the emotional and spiritual level of maturity to be a disruptor, not for fame, or so you can call yourself an influencer, but so that you can elevate humanity to a higher level of consciousness. That can only happen after you’ve raised your own level of consciousness. Being a disruptor requires the ability for a person to accept the radical level of responsibility that comes with changing people’s lives. If you’re not strong enough yet to change people’s lives for the better, then you have no business being in the arena of disruption.

Can you share 3 of the best words of advice you’ve gotten along your journey? Please give a story or example for each.

“Get out of your head and drop into your heart. Thinking ruins everything”. ~Rachel Fiori

Thinking comes from the egoic mind that is run by sabotaging subconscious programs. People are SO trapped in their minds. This is where they make all of their decisions from; from their measly, little human pea brains. When you stop living in mind and anchor yourself into your heart center, you exponentially expand. You open yourself up to the wisdom of the universe. This is how mystical wisdom, guidance, and healing comes to you. Get out of your arrogant, limited minds that can only learn so much knowledge, and drop into your hearts so you can expand and become synchronistic with the unconditional love that the universe offers.

“Weak people don’t heal. Only warriors do.” ~Rachel Fiori

I say this to people because it’s true. It takes strength and courage to face your wounds and feel your pain. But that’s what power is. Power is the ability to refrain from running from pain, and dive all the way into the depths of it so you can shine your Light on the roots of darkness.

“Fuck your truth.” ~Rachel Fiori

People have become so arrogant and self-absorbed and now justify their ugly behaviors by claiming, “this is my truth!”. “My truth” comes from nothing but programs, wounds, and ego. Your truth is a delusional perspective that comes from ego that reflects victim consciousness, self-righteousness, and separation. So quite frankly, you can go fuck your truth. I’m sick to death of people attacking others and showing up as non-compassionate assholes and justifying it by stating “I’m just speaking my truth.” What a way to take absolutely NO responsibility for how you show up in the world! Your truth is plagued by the delusions of your ego. You want to know what isn’t? Universal truth. Divine truth. You see, once you can get past your small, unhealed, personality self, you begin to see what the universal truth is in all situations. Instead of viewing life experiences from the selfish belief that you are the center of the universe, you begin to see every experience as a divine experience; the positive ones as well as the negative ones. The truth in every life experience is that that experience holds a valuable lesson of growth. And if you discover the lesson, no matter how painful or challenging that experience was, you gain the gift of that experience that is always hidden within it. If no one was there to support you or to help you heal yourself, “your truth” would be to claim how lonely, ugly and isolating the world is. The real truth. . . the universal truth, is that you had to learn to tap into your own divine powers to achieve your soul’s mission in this lifetime. That could only happen by being forced to move through painful life experiences with no one supporting you. If you’ve been walked all over, taken advantage of, or used in relationships, your truth might be to claim that there are no “good ones” out there, or to blame the opposite sex. Universal truth will tell you that you’ve experienced these things in relationships to show you what your inner child wounds are and the programs of powerlessness that you run. Those painful relationships were there to give you the opportunity to step into your power and learn to love yourself enough to master how to set healthy boundaries.

Stop staying small by spewing your truth all over everyone, and open yourself up to higher levels of consciousness that invite universal truths to flow through all aspects of your life.

We are sure you aren’t done. How are you going to shake things up next?

Where do I even start?! There’s so much! One small way is through the No BS Relationship Master Class that is being offered in 2022 by Masters of Self University. You can learn more about that here. This class wakes people up to the fact that they’ve been brainwashed to show up as disempowered, codependent children in their relationships by expecting their partners to meet their needs for them. It’s time people stepped into their full potential and show up in a relationship as a divinely powerful being. This course teaches step by step how to create a sacred relationship and how to put an end to the old paradigm where relationships were based on inequality and survival.

On a larger scale, Masters of Self University is a role model for a new way to function as an enlightened corporation. Everyone rises together. Unity is the core focus so eventually Oneness can be achieved. The old paradigm of how corporations function meant that your mental and emotional health had nothing to do with work. Work was work. This is insane considering people’s work lives tend to be the leading cause of stress in one’s life, since it’s their source of financial survival . So Masters of Self University offers a very special program for corporations and organizations called Corporate Harmony Coaching. It’s the only one of its kind to date. What is this disrupting? The ignorant belief that you can’t go to work to heal yourself. Your place of work should be a place of healing! No matter what your product or service industry is! This corporate coaching program focuses on healing and creating harmony on an individual, organizational, and global level. It’s dismantling the belief that many have capitalized on that learning how to meditate for twenty minutes a day while at work, with your meditation coach that your company has invested in, is going to make profound impacts on the company’s bottom line. This is ridiculous. Most corporate coaching programs fall short because they make the same mistakes that most make when it comes to healing: what they offer doesn’t heal shit. They’re offering surface level techniques that might make someone feel a little better temporarily, but never heals the root causes of stress, overwhelm, burnout, or conflicts on an individual or an organizational level. Some positive impact may be seen temporarily, but long term gains fall by the wayside because people’s programs that get triggered at work don’t get healed via meditation or surface level coaching strategies. We believe that going to work cannot only be fulfilling, but it can be truly healing. And that’s how we’re making a global impact in a more profound and groundbreaking way. When healing yourself and your organization becomes a part of your every workday, every employee that participates begins to elevate and thrive. When they thrive, the company thrives. When activating an abundance of mental and emotional health at work, this thrusts the organization into a higher level of abundance in all forms. Productivity, sales, satisfied customers. . . the benefits are unlimited. Work transforms into a feel-good win-win, even when you have deadlines and periods of working extra hard. The Corporate Harmony Coaching program is probably the most exciting disruptor to the old ways that corporations have been run that we are currently offering at Masters of Self University.

In your opinion, what are the biggest challenges faced by ‘women disruptors’ that aren’t typically faced by their male counterparts?

Women are immediately labeled as angry, over-emotional, or too much. Men can show up as sexist, racist, arrogant pricks and they’re applauded for being “leaders”. Like these are characteristics of a leader. But if a woman so much as changes the tone of her voice, ever so slightly, she’s treated like she’s out of control and often interrupted with gestures and comments telling her to “calm down”. The irony of this is that anyone who gets triggered by the emotions of another is the person who is emotionally weak. Their emotional IQ is so low, that they need the person or people in front of them to act like an emotionless robot so that they’ll never be challenged to expand their own level of emotional resilience. A powerful person doesn’t need everyone else to remain calm and peaceful at all times in order to remain calm and peaceful themselves.

One way that darkness expresses itself through sneaky forms of sexism, is to expect women to be soft and nurturing all the time. Like this is the definition of the divine feminine. Like women have to walk on eggshells and suppress their voices and disapproval of the way unconscious men show up in this world. Divine feminine energy is pure raw power. It’s the only energy that pierces into the depths of all forms of darkness to transform the darkness into Light. That’s not masculine energy. It’s feminine energy that does that. Transforming darkness into Light IS nurturing. To say “no”, or to speak out against injustice, IS nurturing. It’s nurturing to yourself if you’re being mistreated, and it’s nurturing to others who are being treated like you are. Women don’t have to be soft spoken to be in their feminine energy. That’s just another way to oppress feminine power and allow victimizers to get away with what they’re doing.

Men don’t have to face any of these challenges because they’re born with a mic in their hands. They are automatically listened to and taken seriously, even if they’re clueless and unqualified for the job. Women are dismissed as leaders even though they are the natural born leaders. Women are the leaders and men are meant to follow from the front. Women are the beings that I call the golden compass because they innately have the gift of divine sight. Awakened women see the truth and the wisdom in everything and therefore make the most qualified leaders. Men follow from the front in order to protect and guard against anything that would interfere with her divine wisdom and guidance that stems from her natural connection to the One Power. When a divine and awakened woman leads, her plan includes what’s best for all involved. She never leads from selfishness. Her agenda is never about me, myself, and I. She provides the plan and direction to go in, and then masculine energy steps up and takes that plan to completion, protecting it until it comes to fruition. This is a reflection of unity and how divine feminine and divine masculine work together.

Do you have a book/podcast/talk that’s had a deep impact on your thinking? Can you share a story with us?

Yes! The book that has had the most profound impact on me is the book that I just finished channeling. I just wrote it so I can’t say much about it yet. But it has elevated my consciousness in a multitude of ways. This will be the next level of teachings that I will be offering to the world in the not so distant future. These teachings will guide those that are ready into the New Golden Age of Harmony. The challenges that humanity is facing in our current times are a reflection of a global dark night of the soul. The teachings in my book will elevate people out of their darkness so they can learn to live in the Light experientially. Not just as a mental concept or a cute social media meme that’s posted to gain followers.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂

That current movement is being offered with our Corporate Harmony Coaching program. With this movement, we are healing and creating harmony on an individual level, an organizational level, which butterflies into a global level. I really feel that this will spark a ripple effect globally to elevate humanity faster than any other method.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

“Weak people don’t heal. Only warriors do.”

I know, I know. I’m tooting my own horn, here! But I believe passionately in this saying. I learned like everyone else has, to avoid my pain. . to achieve success. . . to accomplish. . . to earn financial abundance. . . and then I’d feel happy and free. This is brainwashing bullshit that keeps people weak and functioning with a low emotional IQ. This is what keeps people in depression and anxiety disorder and dependent on meds that never heal these conditions. This is a never ending cycle of codependency on seeking things outside of yourself to feel a sense of happiness and joy. It’s time for people to learn the true definition of what it means to be a Warrior of the Light. Warriors dive full force into their own darkness and transmute their ugly, unloving programs, unhealed traumas and pain, with the unconditional love that they learn to become. Warriors embrace their pain and transform it with their Light. Weak people avoid their darkness, thereby giving permission for the darkness to set up shop within themselves and on this planet untouched, unchallenged, and unscathed.

How can our readers follow you online?

Website: www.MastersofSelfUniversity.com

IG: rachel_fiori

YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3U9tlcGLwx9wwt-1vJbwvQ)

FB: rachelfiori.msu

This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!

Female Disruptors: Rachel Fiori of Masters of Self University On The Three Things You Need To Shake… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Inspirational Women in STEM and Tech: Joysy John of 01Founders On The 5 Leadership Lessons She…

Inspirational Women in STEM and Tech: Joysy John of 01Founders On The 5 Leadership Lessons She Learned From Her Experience

An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

Know your strengths and ask for what you want. For example, negotiating the consulting fee for a project and getting the client to pay market rate (I got a project fee that was five times higher than what was initially advertised).

As a part of my series about “Lessons From Inspirational Women in STEM and Tech”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Joysy John.

Joysy John is the CEO of 01Founders, tuition-free coding schools with a job-guarantee to improve diversity in tech and tackle the digital skills gap.

Joysy is an entrepreneur, Edtech advisor and global speaker. She is the former Director of Education at Nesta, an innovation foundation in the UK. She was responsible for practical programmes, research and investments that better prepare learners to thrive in the future.

Previously Joysy was the Chief Industry Officer of Ada, the National College for Digital Skills where she led the College’s industry engagement and online learning website. She has worked across different sectors spanning education technology, banking and entrepreneurship. She headed up international strategic development for EF Learning Labs, led business development for Emerge Education, Europe’s first education technology accelerator and advised Level 39, technology incubator based in Canary Wharf.

Joysy is passionate about education, entrepreneurship and women’s empowerment. She helped launch three non-profits focused on education. She founded Founders Fit to help startup leaders find the right cofounders. She is the founder of the London chapter of the Startup Leadership Program, a global initiative (across 19 cities, with over 3,500 Fellows who have raised $700M+). Joysy has over a decade of experience in technology, business management, strategy and sales roles with JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley in Singapore, US and UK. She was the youngest person selected into the Future Leader Development Programme at JP Morgan Chase.

She holds a Computer Engineering (Honours) degree from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore and an MBA with Distinction from London Business School where she was the President of the Women in Business Club and a Forte Scholar.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

My career in technology had a very traditional beginning, by studying computer engineering at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. What makes it remarkable by today’s standards is that my higher education was fully funded by the Singapore government and businesses like Singapore Airlines and Neptune Orient Lines. I am testament to the life-changing opportunities offered by education, free at the point of delivery — something that is nowadays out of reach for most adults, including school-leavers.

My career path has spanned banking, education and the not-for-profit sectors across Singapore, US and UK. After a decade in technology and banking, I joined the world of startups and innovation. I have set up a number of startups myself, funded startups, and I have mentored and supported tech startups throughout my career. I launched Sift (while at university), Flow, Stir Education, Startup Leadership Programme, Founders Fit, Ada National College for Digital Skills — and now, 01 Founders.

The story of startups is the story of a passion for solving problems in a scalable and sustainable way. 01 Founders is designed to solve the problem of access to free higher level education for adults, at scale. We focus not only on developing software engineering skills but also collaborative problem solving, creativity and communication skills sought after by employers. This gives us an economic model that enables us to offer the two-year campus-based education completely free for those who demonstrate they have the cognitive skills, resilience and mindset needed to thrive in a tech career.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began at your company?

When we set out our vision, we decided to tackle two fundamental and related problems in the tech sector: the digital skills gap and recruiting diverse talent.

There is a shortage of software engineers. In fact, people with the right fundamental talent are often kept out of the sector by misconceptions about the skills needed, lack of role models and inherent bias to “hire people like me”. The result of this slightly toxic combination is a sector characterised by homogeneity: we are based in London and in the UK, only one in six of the tech workforce are women, and a similar proportion are from an ethnic minority background.

Our mission is to hire from diverse backgrounds. We actively seek radical career changers from minority backgrounds. We want half our fellows to be women. We want to give opportunities to people coming from backgrounds without many of the advantages that characterise today’s tech sector workforce. So one of the most fulfilling moments in our journey so far was to find that our first cohort — those who had successfully passed our rigorous three-week selection pool — was incredibly diverse.

Among our new starts were a chef, two bus drivers, a musician and an interior designer. We had a female fellow studying brick-laying with absolutely no knowledge of computer programming languages, the secretary in a family business who dedicated most of her spare time to judging swim meets on a voluntary basis. You could never have imagined the sheer range of people who immediately proved they had what it takes to work in software engineering or a related job in tech. It’s deeply exciting that we are giving a life changing opportunity to those who need it the most!

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

I tried to be a banker by day and entrepreneur by night and weekends. I was doing side hustles to figure out what I wanted to do next. It was very clear that I had to focus full time if I wanted to become an entrepreneur. That’s an important lesson that I learnt early on about the need to focus my energy and attention on the things I care about.

What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?

The first thing that makes us stand out from our competitors is that we offer a free education plus a job guarantee to people who’ve probably never been offered such a chance before.

We go to remarkable lengths to identify people with the right talent but the wrong CV. We are able to offer people a truly life-changing opportunity because we go outside of the traditional channels to find fresh talent. The trouble is, finding the people with the right talent for a career in tech, with the right cognitive skills and mindset, has proven to be difficult. The signals most recruiters look for — studied the right subject at the right university, worked in the right job at the right tech company — are insufficient to meet the country’s tech talent needs. We have developed ways to generate different signals, meaning we find different talent.

The second thing that makes us stand out is our commitment to nurturing talent over a relatively long time period. Two years full-time, for 48 weeks of the year, is roughly the time it takes to get a university degree. Yet unlike a degree in computer science, we are focusing purely on the skills, knowledge and network needed to secure a job in tech. It is not theoretical but applied learning, where our learners (we call them our fellows) are solving real world problems and learning from their peers. We don’t get sidetracked by the history of computing or outdated curriculum. That is a reason our fellows chose us: because every day they are here on campus learning, they are developing work-ready skills for a well-paid, and often highly-paid, career.

The third thing that makes us stand out is our pedagogy, or our approach to delivering learning. This was pioneered by Nicolas Sadirac, cofounder of 01 Talent. Our fellows are in charge of their learning. We have a small team of technical staff who can facilitate peer-to-peer learning, and provide pastoral support. This pedagogy has been implemented in over 40 countries. We have a project-based and gamified curriculum, which is shaped by the companies who will ultimately employ our fellows. There is no traditional lecture model. Instead, learning happens through solving challenges and quests. That really works for our fellows, because it is one aspect of making them ready for a career in tech, where motivation, agency and problem solving are a core part of their skillset.

Are you currently satisfied with the status quo regarding women in STEM? What specific changes do you think are needed to change the status quo?

Definitely not satisfied with the status quo! We need to increase the number of role models to inspire more women to study STEM. We also need organisations to be more inclusive so that they can attract, retain and grow more women in STEM. We are directly challenging the status quo by our commitment to gender parity among our fellows.

In your opinion, what are the biggest challenges faced by women in STEM or Tech that aren’t typically faced by their male counterparts? What would you suggest to address this?

One of the biggest challenges faced by women in STEM or tech that is not typically faced by male counterparts is the gender pay gap. Businesses need to address the income inequality and women need to be more assertive about knowing their strengths and asking for fair pay.

What are the “myths” that you would like to dispel about being a woman in STEM or Tech. Can you explain what you mean?

The myth that we need to dispel about being a woman in tech is that you need to fit into a certain mould or certain stereotype to work in tech. We need to help women overcome imposter syndrome and build confidence. It is common for women to say that they are not good at maths or science. Everything can be learnt if you have the right mindset.

What are your “5 Leadership Lessons I Learned From My Experience as a Woman in STEM or Tech” and why. (Please share a story or example for each.)

Know your strengths and ask for what you want. For example, negotiating the consulting fee for a project and getting the client to pay market rate (I got a project fee that was five times higher than what was initially advertised)
Find a sponsor, mentor and coach. Throughout my career I have had many mentors and coaches who have guided me personally and professionally. Finding a sponsor who saw potential in me accelerated my career opportunities very early in my career at JPMorgan and gave me opportunities to do projects in the US, UK and Singapore.
Learn new things across disciplines. I realise that being a computer engineer I didn’t have the business, strategy and financial skills I needed to be successful as a leader. So I did an MBA at London Business School after working for six years in technology.
Go beyond your comfort zone. Saying yes to projects and being open to learning helped me work in Fintech, Edtech and innovation across industries.
Volunteer to serve those less privileged. I think it is our duty to raise others up the ladder as we are climbing up. I feel extremely privileged to have got the scholarships to study abroad in Singapore and the UK. So I volunteered at Big Brothers, Big Sisters and the Financial Women’s Association while I was in the US. In the UK, I sit on the Royal Society’s education committee and advisory board of Karanga, Ark Curriculum Plus and Foundation for Education Development.

What advice would you give to other women leaders to help their team to thrive?

Build trust and develop relationships with your team. Understand what motivates them and give them opportunities for growth.

What advice would you give to other women leaders about the best way to manage a large team?

Irrespective of whether it is a large team or small team, it is about building a culture of trust and open communication.

Many mentors, coaches and sponsors have helped me along my career across technology, banking and entrepreneurship. I am most grateful for my mother who instilled a growth mindset in me and my computer science teacher who told me about software engineering as a career. I never saw myself as ‘nerdy’ or as an ‘engineer’ but I loved programming. My teacher told me that if you are good at programming then you can build a well-paid job as a software engineer. That early support and advice in my life helped me know what I wanted to do in my career. They saw potential in me and helped me dream big.

How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?

I am pouring everything I have learned over the years in tech startups back into 01 Founders. When we achieve our mission of training 50,000 women for quality careers in tech this decade, that will bring something exceptionally valuable not only to the women themselves but to the tech industry, which is constantly criticised for its lack of diversity. This is an obvious moral issue and as tech takes over the economy at large, it is one we should all grapple with. But it is also a very practical problem — it does our society a disservice if all the tech answers to societal problems are designed by teams five sixths of whom are men.

You are a person of enormous influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.

I would love to see more businesses contribute a percentage of their revenue to help those less fortunate. At 01 Founders we contribute 25% of our revenue from corporate memberships towards scholarships to fund living expenses for learners from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

“Climb High, Climb Far, Your Goal the Sky, Your Aim the Start.”

This was the message that my parish priest gave me as I was starting at university. Coming from a background where my parents couldn’t afford to send me to university, it felt like a miracle that I had got a fully-funded education opportunity to study computer engineering in Singapore. I have always believed when you really want something then you’ll find a way to access resources to make it happen.

We are very blessed that very prominent leaders read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them

I would love to have lunch with Melinda French Gates as she is an American philanthropist and former computer scientist and general manager at Microsoft. She is also the co-founder of Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation with a focus on expanding educational opportunities and access to information technology. It would be amazing to have her as a role model for our learners who are looking to build their career in technology.

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.

Inspirational Women in STEM and Tech: Joysy John of 01Founders On The 5 Leadership Lessons She… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Female Disruptors: Nicole Gregory of ‘Urban You’ On The Three Things You Need To Shake Up Your…

Female Disruptors: Nicole Gregory of ‘Urban You’ On The Three Things You Need To Shake Up Your Industry

An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

Magic happens in doing nothing — people ask where I get my vision. It’s mostly from doing nothing. If you know me, I’m always doing something. It’s in my travel, reading, observations, just sitting and doing nothing that most of my dot connecting happens.

As a part of our series about women who are shaking things up in their industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing Nicole Gregory.

Nicole Gregory is the CEO of Urban You, a modern beauty and wellness medical spa for those who want to be curious, confident, carefree, and connected to the ever-evolving beauty and wellness industry through bespoke consultations, personalized product recommendations and customized treatment plans. Several years ago, while traveling, Nicole Gregory found that finding a place to go to get all of her beauty needs met was nearly impossible unless you personally knew of local beauty experts: hair, brows, make-up, nails and medical spa services. She found that many others had the same frustration. Urban You was born from that gap in the industry — Nicole teamed up with COO Barbra Homier and set out to find talented beauty artisans, the newest trends in the beauty and medical spa industry, state of the art technology, and a designer for a bespoke brand to make her dream become a reality.

I grew up in an environment where entrepreneurialism was highly encouraged — this was back before it was more common. Both sides of my family were business owners in a small Michigan town, and because an entrepreneurial mindset was ingrained in me growing up, my thinking was always focused on finding gaps in markets. That’s how I eventually came to start Urban You for Me, a med spa and modern beauty & wellness haven with a twist. In an industry that is often associated with overdone aesthetics, and rife with misinformation, Urban You delivers personalized beauty and wellness services for those seeking to look and feel their best, via a one-stop resource they can trust. Our company prioritizes patient education and natural-looking results; combining best-in-class services, with vibes and prices that are welcoming and down-to-earth.

Over the years, before founding Urban You, I visited medical spas and used medical aesthetic services while I lived in California for 15 years; but I knew that medical aesthetic treatments were not something everyone felt comfortable doing (or at least, not something they felt comfortable talking about) — which became even more clear once I moved from Southern California to Grand Rapids, MI. Because I had 20+ years of experience with a marketing and technology focus by that time, I felt comfortable with helping to shape change in the industry. Re-inventing the modern beauty and wellness industry was my focus.

Can you tell our readers what it is about the work you’re doing that’s disruptive?

The word “aggressive” has gotten a lot of negative connotations in the past, and the word “disruptive” is in the same category. But whether we’re called disruptive or aggressive, at its best, it means that we’re shaping change. Industries have always gone through many changes, from the time they start to build up, to when they become more acceptable — sometimes there are explosive moments that feel disruptive, but mostly it’s smaller moments or actions that gradually help to shape the industry for the greater good.

The medical spa industry is, in many ways, a wild west. There are 50,000 plus in the United States alone, and there’s not much real protection out there for the consumer, in terms of where they can go in the case of a botched event. One of our priorities at Urban You is on Consumer Protection, and providing consumers with industry standards. For example, Urban You is currently creating the first state-level Amspa chapter in Michigan, because we’re thinking holistically about the industry, and how to create safety and standards for patients and guests. One of our first goals with this chapter will be to pass legislation on a patient protection act specifically for the med spa industry. This will act like a code of conduct for the medical spa industry, and allow us as an industry to better put the patient first. It will also allow the patient to have a central place to go, in the case of a botched event.

At Urban You, we are also focused on reshaping the flexibility and mobility of the workforce for this industry, by using technology to allow for more women to stay in the workforce. To do this, we use Pinchgig — technology I created years ago — which is like Uber for Human Resources. For example, rather than just having four injectionists for allocation we might have ten; so if someone cancels (because their child is sick, for example) we are able to alert our network of injectionists that a shift is now open if they want to take it on. This all allows for a better work experience for our team members, and the ability to work more flexibly as much as they want or need.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

I remember I was so excited that we had two appointments the first day we opened. Being a new brand in a competitive market, I felt that was good — and that more would follow. That week, we had a meeting with our vendor reps, and I kept saying over and over how great it was to have these appointments. I could feel them rolling their eyes. I was really questioning myself, and started marketing harder. As opening day came, two appointments turned to twenty appointments. It’s funny because sometimes all we need is someone to not believe in us and we find ways to do better. These same reps and our team laugh at this all the time, as we are now listed as one of Allergen’s top 1% med spas in the nation.

We all need a little help along the journey. Who have been some of your mentors? Can you share a story about how they made an impact?

I’m a big observer of others — reading and reflecting on what they’ve done, taking cues on the good and bad, and learning from it. This has helped form a more holistic perspective on my career journey.

I believe that having both male and female mentors in many different industries has helped me develop a greater diversity of thinking. Having a large support group of local CEOs has also been very helpful. This group comes together monthly to share ideas, stories and struggles. It helps to know you’re not the only one who has certain issues or thoughts. I’ll be the first to admit I like things done right and leave little room for error. Through my network, I’ve come to realize that this is a characteristic of most CEOs. They want what is best for the business and people in the business, and with a little self-awareness, this can actually be one of our greatest strengths as leaders.

Industries typically start out by being disruptive, and that is usually a good thing. They are filling a gap in the market that was not being met. When I think of an example of industry disruption, I think of the internet: when it started to become mainstream, we all got these CDs in our physical mailboxes from AOL to download the software to our computer, which we needed in order to access the internet; but think of how expensive that was. Then along came Gmail — they knew most people have some type of internet access on their computer already, largely as a result of all the groundwork that had already been laid by other companies, so they didn’t need to send them anything but a link and maybe some advertising as to why they should choose Gmail over one of the original providers. Switching over was easy. They disrupted the market. It was positive for the consumer, maybe not so for some of the OG’s. However, this happens all the time. Cable is going through this right now, with all the On-Demand services; and then On-Demand will go through it soon when people start going to other platforms for entertainment — the Metaverse. The negative impact is to the businesses that are not thinking ahead and how they, their customers, their employees will be affected in these disruptive worlds.

Can you share 3 of the best words of advice you’ve gotten along your journey? Please give a story or example for each.

1. Stay Humble — how many times did I think I was all that and a bag of chips, and then the next thing I know I get knocked down. Stay humble, keep asking questions and learning.

2. Delegate — by empowering others to learn, you are helping them to elevate to their next position. This gets me out of bed each day, the idea of my teams being better when I’m not there.

3. Magic happens in doing nothing — people ask where I get my vision. It’s mostly from doing nothing. If you know me, I’m always doing something. It’s in my travel, reading, observations, just sitting and doing nothing that most of my dot connecting happens.

We are sure you aren’t done. How are you going to shake things up next?

There is a lot of work to be done in the medical spa industry. Most importantly, we are going to focus on amazing experiences, empowering a workforce, consumer protection and consolidation. This industry is very fragmented, which creates uncertainty. We want consumers to feel comfortable with the services they are getting now and in the future. Our role is to be the authority consumers can trust, and set the standard for modern beauty and wellness services.

In your opinion, what are the biggest challenges faced by ‘women disruptors’ that aren’t typically faced by their male counterparts?

I actually think men face a lot of challenges these days, but we’ll put that aside. The challenges women face sometimes revolve around a lack of support. They need to find good groups of women to support them. When we have to make tough calls that might make us seem less “likeable”, it’s easier to push through all kinds of tough moments when you have a strong network of supporters, saying it’s OK. Make sure to support your network. Helping others achieve what they want *will* help you in the long run. In my career, I’ve found this to be a common superpower of several women disruptors that I’ve worked with.

Do you have a book/podcast/talk that’s had a deep impact on your thinking? Can you share a story with us?

Win at Work and Succeed at Life, by Michael Hyatt and Megan Hyatt Miller. Apparently, they call me a high performer. I had never heard this word before, until I went to my doctor who has been trying to tell me to slow down, meditate, and take care of myself. Who has time? The more things got “busy,” the more I put myself into work. I would find myself working all the time — work was my go-to for socializing, relaxing, hobbies, comfort and motivation. Seeing that I needed to get out of this loop, this book was recommended to me. I listen to it on Audible, where I have all of my self-improvement books, so it’s convenient while traveling. It has allowed me to set boundaries on my workday and create non-negotiables on how I want to live my life, with my family first. I’ve listened to this book three times now and am still learning from it. I feel that this book is going to be a cornerstone of structure for my success. It’s funny how, the first time I listened to it, I really did think they were talking directly to me — like they had somehow seen my calendar and my bad loop of working. However, as we all know, there are plenty of workaholics out there. It’s a real thing that can disrupt families and lives. That is one area I don’t want to disrupt.

Find someone to take over your job. When we mentor people and pull them up we leave the world in a better place.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

“The work you do today is the work you’ll get tomorrow, so always do good work” I know this seems like basic advice, but when I first started out, there were a few times I said “good enough” and I’ve always been embarrassed by that work, and never got work from that work. Just take a little more time and put out your best work. It will pay off and pay forward.

How can our readers follow you online?

They can follow my podcast @thebeautystandard or on Instagram @theurbanyou @passportmoments Starting TikTok in 2022

This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!

Female Disruptors: Nicole Gregory of ‘Urban You’ On The Three Things You Need To Shake Up Your… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Female Disruptors: Emily Trampetti of Skin Property On The Three Things You Need To Shake Up Your…

Female Disruptors: Emily Trampetti of Skin Property On The Three Things You Need To Shake Up Your Industry

An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

If you’ve done the best you can, that is enough. — I’m a sensitive person and tend to take things personally. I am incredibly invested in each and every one of my clients and never want to fail them. However, it is inevitable that as a business owner you will have to experience a frustrated customer or two along the way. And most of the time, it has nothing to do with you or your business.

As a part of our series about women who are shaking things up in their industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing Emily Trampetti, LE.

Emily Trampetti is a multi-state licensed esthetician based out of Chicago, IL. After closing her successful brick and mortar skin spa in the heat of the 2020 pandemic, she founded Skin Property Virtual Esthetics, a completely virtual program that provides her clients with personalized skincare, education and clinical results, all from the comfort and safety of their own home. With her passion for helping clients navigate the confusing world of skincare and treatments, Emily is dedicated to providing empowerment and confidence to her growing clientele through targeted and unique education strategies, achievable skin goals and, most importantly, sustainable results.

I’ve been super intrigued about beauty and wellness since I could remember. I had two very glamorous grandmothers that watched my sister and I when we were younger, and they sort of instilled this “take care of yourself” mentality that always stuck with me. They taught us all about fashion, makeup, washing our face at night and the importance of self-love and preservation. They also taught us to be fiercely independent and self-sufficient, which is why I didn’t exactly get into skincare as a profession until a little later in life.

I was groomed to become a businesswoman. It checked all the boxes — seemingly glamorous, lucrative, a great way to be independent, and it, of course, was what my big sister did (which I was prone to follow as a young woman). Fast forward through college and my first few marketing jobs in my twenties, I climbed the ranks of the advertising industry and had achieved all my goals by 30. The thing was, I was good at it, but also so unhappy and unfulfilled with all of it (and I know many of you can relate!). I was making good money, but never truly felt like I was doing what I was called to do in this life. There was consistently an urgent feeling that I was meant to nurture, heal and help others in the realm of skin and wellness. And while I don’t regret my first career — for I believe that everything is meant for a purpose in God’s greater picture — I knew that I needed to answer my calling.

So, I started over! I quit my corporate job and went to the best esthetics academy I could find. I worked my butt off, was top of my class, and in the midst of it, knew I was on the right path. But please believe me when I say it was the scariest thing I have ever done. In fact, I don’t think you know anxiety until you quit a lucrative career to start over in a second career. Then that anxiety is exacerbated when you choose to open up your own spa and start a business. Nevertheless, I knew I had to continue following this calling. But then in 2020, COVID-19 forced me to close the skin spa and I was faced with another scary decision. Do I give up and go back to advertising or find a new solution to continue growing my esthetics brand? Will I let this defeat me or let it be part of my journey? The answer was easy, but it begged the question, “How can my clients achieve their skin goals without ever going in for a facial or spa treatment again?” This is what inspired the birth and development of my virtual skin coaching services, and inevitably what sparked my new brand vision that lives today. What makes Skin Property Virtual Esthetics so special is the combination of completely personalized routines, hand-picked ingredients, consistent support, and targeted education modules that I created to help my clients have a deeper understanding of their skin. And I can happily say that my clients are experiencing better results and more confidence with their skin than ever before! With that, I’m reminded that sometimes things happen to us so we can receive or do something greater instead.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

I don’t know how funny this is, but the biggest mistake I made in the beginning was thinking that I wouldn’t make any mistakes. Good Lord, how high and mighty is that? I spent so much time trying to perfect things before I did them that I hardly got anything actually done or started. I think the most ironic thing is that a successful business requires mistakes and usually a lot of them, especially when you’re pivoting or iterating on your business offering. I’ve learned in the last couple years that there will be mistakes, and that they are just part of the process. Progress over perfection is my new driving motto that I (try) to live by. We can’t be afraid of making mistakes.

We all need a little help along the journey. Who have been some of your mentors? Can you share a story about how they made an impact?

Although there are many top estheticians, dermatologists, and cosmetic chemists that have inspired me along my journey, my best mentor has always been my father.

They say that children of entrepreneurs often become entrepreneurs themselves. I am no exception. My father, right before turning 30, started his own haberdashery in my childhood town in Wisconsin. The business ran successfully for 30 years, which was crazy because this was a small men’s clothing store in the age of Walmart, department stores, and inexpensive mass-produced clothing. People could definitely find cheaper and more accessible clothing elsewhere, but boy did he have a loyal following. His store brought the community together, and he always showed his consistent appreciation and love for his customers. Throughout my childhood, I learned about the importance of making your customer the most important part of your business. And what do customers need? Appreciation, community, nurturing, love and inspiration. That remains at the heart of my business today.

I think one of the biggest issues we have in any industry is categorizing things as good or bad. Binary thinking usually gets us nowhere and this topic is no different. Industry disruption is essentially just change. And as we all know, change can be both good and bad and every color in between. We could also call it “progress.” Afterall, the car disrupted the travel industry, the internet disrupted the information industry, and streaming entertainment is currently disrupting cinema and television network industries. This is the way our world has turned from the very beginning — especially in a capitalist economy — through progress and innovation. But to your question, there are positives and negatives that come out of this. Obviously, disruption is necessary for innovation, without which we certainly wouldn’t be living the life we live today. But disruption inherently disrupts — or causes friction to the status quo. This, in human terms, can be very uncomfortable. This uncomfortableness is what sucks about disruption. Traditional businesses feel stress and require adjustment with change and progress. Expectation bars are raised and companies that want to succeed must meet or exceed them. Over time, this can be very exhausting, hard on businesses, and even hard on families and communities. But growth requires disruption, and sometimes that can be painful for all of us. But I’d much rather live in a world of growth than idleness.

For me, in particular, COVID-19 disrupted my skin spa brick and mortar. All facials and “close-to-the-face” skin treatments were completely prohibited in Chicago for the greater part of 2020, leaving me no choice but to find alternative ways to help my clients achieve their skin goals. This disruption gave me two options — I could innovate, pivot and find new solutions, or I could be defeated. This is how I see disruption.

Can you share 3 of the best words of advice you’ve gotten along your journey? Please give a story or example for each.

One. Don’t be afraid to be vulnerable.

As a (recovering) perfectionist, I have always believed that I need to know everything and anything about the skin to be successful. I need to read every book, get access to every medical journal, attend every conference, and try to learn something new every day (Yes, I was also a teacher’s pet all through grade school). I tend to fear that if I don’t know something, my credibility as a professional will be questioned. But here’s the thing, my clients have told me personally that what they value most about me and my business is my authenticity, warmth, honesty, and realness — not my infinite knowledge of skin physiology and histology. They work with me because I make them feel cared for and prioritized. These are the things that they write, unprompted, on my surveys. So while being knowledgeable is important, I need to remember that my overall value isn’t as pragmatic as that. This advice is also echoed and proven in much of Brené Brown’s work. If you want to understand the true power of vulnerability and living authentically — in your business and personal life — definitely start exploring her incredible work.

Two. Listening is the best way to grow.

As an entrepreneur, keeping a proper pulse on your customer value is paramount to your success as a business and brand. It’s easy to get swept up in operations, internal business affairs, and self-serving endeavors while forgetting about what keeps our business afloat, which is consistently providing unique value to our customers. Because of this, I think it’s sometimes hard to plan for the future of your business — we get distracted by shiny objects, trending innovations, and even let our ego be our guide. But when we remind ourselves that we have the best group of business advisors right in our pocket — ready to tell us what we need to do to be successful with them — it becomes easier to clear the runway. For me, I do this a few ways. One, I keep an open dialogue with my clients all year round. I work on my listening and communication skills to ensure I create a safe and nurturing environment for them to provide feedback and know that I strive to serve them better. Two, I do a major survey each year to measure various value metrics and gain an understanding of what my clients like, dislike, want, and need when it comes to my offerings. And three, I visually and mentally view my clients as my “boss,” which helps me to keep my own ego in check and make sure I listen more than I speak. Investing in “listening education” is always well spent — in your business and personal life alike.

Three. If you’ve done the best you can, that is enough.

I’m a sensitive person and tend to take things personally. I am incredibly invested in each and every one of my clients and never want to fail them. However, it is inevitable that as a business owner you will have to experience a frustrated customer or two along the way. And most of the time, it has nothing to do with you or your business. For me as an esthetician and skin health professional, my job is often connected to self-confidence, insecurity and body image, which can be very emotional for many people since our skin is the first thing people see. The majority of my clients come to me with unrealistic expectations when it comes to what their skin should look like, along with unrealistic expectations on how I should be able to “fix” their issues. Side note — this is also why I do what I do — so I can continue to bring truth to what normal, healthy skin looks like vs. continuing to lead customers to believe that pores, wrinkles and texture are curable conditions. And while I do the very best I can to set clear expectations up front, be as transparent as possible, and help each and every one of my clients understand what their skin is and is not capable of, it’s very hard for some clients to hear this — especially if their self-worth is tied to some of these unrealistic beauty ideals and expectations (Thanks social media filters!). Sometimes, clients just will never be willing to let go of those expectations, and will become frustrated with the reality of their situation. I have to remind myself that this has nothing to do with my worth, or expertise, or even skills. But it’s always hard, and sometimes I lose sleep over trying to help my clients love themselves more. But the only person that can do that is them.

We are sure you aren’t done. How are you going to shake things up next?

Here’s my radical dream — to help women (and men) focus on nourishing their skin for optimal health, not for living up to unrealistic beauty expectations. The Skin Property brand is about empowering clients to become more in love and confident in their skin, while becoming smarter and more discerning in their skincare strategies. The beauty industry still preys upon and makes its money off of the insecurities of women, which only continues to perpetuate a world that teaches each generation to never believe they’re good enough. I want to reach everyone I can and teach them that their skin is, in fact, normal, and that there are simple solutions to improving its health, which is directly connected to how it looks outwardly. I want people to know that they don’t have to spend thousands of dollars on injectables, medical treatments and more to have beautiful skin. I want them to have an intimate understanding of how their skin works, therefore also developing a more gentle relationship with its care. In the future, it’s my hope that I continue building a community of women and men who spend less time and energy stressing about their skin, and less money figuring out how to care for it. So far, my coaching business has been very successful with this dream of mine. In the future, I hope to add to the more macro movement of self-love, self-acceptance and prioritized self-care. If I can push that along, I know that our world will be a slightly better place.

In your opinion, what are the biggest challenges faced by ‘women disruptors’ that aren’t typically faced by their male counterparts?

I think we still live in a world of double standards. Aggressive, disruptive, confident, and progress-pushing men are still seen as inspiring leaders while women of the same nature are hardly seen in the same light. I think a lot of good work is still being done about this, but I have not seen the needle move too much from my view. Since my industry is pretty female forward, I luckily don’t have to deal with much of this double standard, but I am all too aware it exists from my previous life in corporate America. I do think, however, that women in the beauty industry tend to be a bit cutthroat. I think this says that many of us are scrappy, creative and driven, but potentially have a hard time supporting one another. And since this is a highly saturated and competitive industry, I can definitely understand why that has happened. I, luckily, have been fortunate enough to have had some pretty supportive peers and mentors around me my entire career. My goal is to be just as supportive as they were to me as the next generation of disruptors comes up the ranks.

Do you have a book/podcast/talk that’s had a deep impact on your thinking? Can you share a story with us?

There are a few resources that have made a definite impact on my thinking and my motivation to continue being an entrepreneur, esthetician and coach.

Everything by and from Brené Brown is good, but I found a lot of growth with The Gifts of imperfection. My perfectionism was the main hurdle in the way of me starting my own business and staying in a miserable corporate job. If I wasn’t able to be successful or “get it right,” then I didn’t know if I wanted to do it all. But really, it just required a lot of vulnerability and that is scary as hell. Through Brown’s work, I was able to realize that stepping out into vulnerability and the unknown is often the only path to growth and self-fulfillment. One of my favorite quotes from her book is, “Perfectionism is not the same thing as striving to be your best. Perfectionism is the belief that if we live perfect, look perfect, and act perfect, we can minimize or avoid the pain of blame, judgement, and shame. It’s a shield. It’s a twenty-ton shield that we lug around thinking it will protect us when, in fact, it’s the thing that’s really preventing us from flight.” (Brené Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection)

I’ve also had my mind blown from the theories of Marshall B. Rosenberg PhD, author of Nonviolent Communication — A Language of Life. Rosenberg teaches the foundational principles of creating and maintaining connection with others, which is amazing for anyone working in the people industry, or who want to enhance their relationships all around. The tools in this book are some of the most influential factors in my client satisfaction and trust today. I highly recommend reading, along with attending the group workshop. This goes back to the power of listening and proper communication — it can truly change the world.

My favorite podcast at the moment, which has impacted my skincare knowledge and thinking is The Eco Well Podcast. Jen Novakovich, founder of The Eco Well Podcast, is a cosmetic formulator that strives to bring scientific fact and reliable research to the cosmetics industry across the world. Her work allows estheticians like myself to have access to some of the most reputable scientists and experts in the world. It’s so important to stay close to what is going on in an industry that changes daily, so I appreciate the people that bring these resources to the forefront.

I want to shatter the idea that perfect skin exists. I think we are doing good work in the realm of body image these days (perfect bodies don’t exist either), but there is still a lot of work to be done. Skin is very far behind. The norm is to do anything possible to have skin that consistently looks like a smooth, porcelain doll, no matter what age you are. And the worst part about it is that we have companies telling us that it’s actually possible — which it’s not for the very large majority of people. Skin is dynamically human, which means that it is not perfect and always changing. Yet we are taught to spend our life savings on keeping it looking perfect and young and poreless forever. And might I add that many of the things we do to achieve this can actually set our skin health back. Because when we are focused on unrealistic and superficial looks, we are typically not focused on proper nourishment and health. My goal is to continue creating a community that flips this on its head. I dream of a day when 20 year-olds aren’t spending retirement savings on Botox, but rather caring for their skin with reliable, proven ingredients that promote graceful aging over time. Or when teenagers stop using filters to show up on social media, making others feel that perfect skin is obtainable. Or even when a bad skin day doesn’t keep you from enjoying a night out. I want to build a movement of skin health warriors, because healthy skin is the real beauty ideal.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

I’m a huge fan of C.S. Lewis and his writing. One of things I admire most about him is his aptitude for explaining complex and often spiritual ideas with undeniable logic and intelligence. Many of his books and writings have inspired me in many ways. One of the quotes I most love from him is this,

“It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad.” C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

I love this quote because it beautifully illustrates the truth of being human. How change and evolution will always be inevitable. We cannot remain unchanged, but we always have the choice and power to respond to that change. Sometimes we will hatch, and sometimes we will fight change and “go bad.” Every time I read this quote I am able to apply it to a new part of my life since it holds so much truth.

How can our readers follow you online?

I offer free skin tips and knowledge on my Instagram page @skinproperty

You can also learn more about my services at www.skinproperty.co

This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!

This was so much fun, thank you!

Female Disruptors: Emily Trampetti of Skin Property On The Three Things You Need To Shake Up Your… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.