Female Disruptors: Ariél Saint White of Saint Studio On The Three Things You Need To Shake Up Your…

Female Disruptors: Ariél Saint White of Saint Studio On The Three Things You Need To Shake Up Your Industry

An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

“Give where received.” — We might bang against closed doors rather than pouring our energy into people and places that are eager and grateful to receive what we have to give. Don’t waste your time on people, places, or projects that aren’t readily grateful for what you uniquely have to give. Giving or trying to give when someone can’t receive isn’t giving at all, it’s draining for you and can even feel oppressive to the other.

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

Ariél Saint White is a multidisciplinary artist, author and CEO of Saint Studio. Known for her collaborative art series, Love Saints, Ariél’s work has been featured on OWN and commissioned by global luminaries.

Ariél’s passion for breaking down taboos led her to found sex-education organization ‘My Little Yoni’. Partnering with top OBGYNs, she authored a 10-book series giving parents & kids medically accurate, body-positive education that is lauded by parents for making ‘the talk’ easier and fun. With an eclectic background spanning everything from somatic practices to theater production, photography, creative direction, entrepreneurship, investing and song writing, Ariél delights in tackling projects that forge daring new intersections between technology and the natural world.

Ariél has been featured in several publications including Entrepreneur, OWN, Brit+CO, International Business Times, and Latina. She currently resides between Miami and Montana with her family.

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?

I have always been an artist. I grew up playing classical music and writing songs. I didn’t watch TV as a kid and spent a ton of time alone, in nature. Throughout high school, I was a performing artist focused mainly on theater. I was in a touring Shakespeare theater company, and everyone assumed I would pursue theater professionally. I finished high school early and landed a position at the Z Space theater and performing arts company in San Francisco. Here, I had the honor of working with some incredible directors and the legendary monologist, Josh Kornbluth.

Then, out of left field, I pivoted to study healing arts. This was thanks to my godmother taking me to the Esalen Institute and training with Ilana Rubenfeld, a Juilliard educated symphonic conductor, who developed her own method integrating talk therapy and touch. Finding Eslaen felt like discovering Hogwarts; I kept thinking, “You mean magic is real?!” I trained at the institute as often as possible and within two years, began assisting workshops there. Instead of San Francisco, I settled in San Diego with the goal of learning to surf. Within days of arriving, I was part of an underground, vintage longboard surf gang, paddling past exhaustion at the Sunset Cliffs, just trying to keep up with the guys. The ocean proved to be one of my greatest teachers; it’s probably the most powerful symbol for the unconscious — vast, full of things that may cause irrational terror– but if you can breathe and stay present, you might get lucky enough to catch a wave…

As I got deeper into energy healing, I realized that theater had prepared me well — because great performance is ultimately a ritual — an opportunity to step out of ordinary reality and to create a space of presence. A similar skill is required to facilitate healing. In Ancient Greece, theater was used to enact ritual rites, not merely for entertainment but in order to access wisdom that lay beyond ordinary realms of consciousness. In theater, the more you can get out of the way and be a conduit for a particular energy or character or idea to come through you, the more powerful the performance.

For a couple years starting at 18, I got in the ocean every day. It didn’t matter if I only had 20 mins between my two jobs, I would run down to the cove and jump in. Around this same time, I started writing poetry in a frenzy.

I remember calling up my mother and saying, “Mom! I think I’m a poet!” She laughed and said, “Well, sure. You remember what you said you wanted to be when you grew up?” The earliest memory I had of vocational visions was the desire to be a chef, around age six, which morphed to marine biology at 10, and then neuroscience by 12. She said, “No… earlier than that. When you were three years old, you turned to me and said, “When I grow up, I shall be a poet!’”

My first business started out as a healing practice. I’d been giving a teacher of mine energy work and she encouraged me to start doing it professionally. I quickly noticed that many people had a lot of trauma around sexuality. So, I began focusing on sex education and helping women have a more whole, healed relationship with their bodies and getting connected to their own pleasure.

This led to creating My Little Yoni, the world’s first vulva superhero. My Little Yoni provides parents with tools to make early, comprehensive sex ed for kids easier and shame-free. As an organization that’s built around a character, it’s also an example of how art and symbolism can be used as a catalyst for change. Even though My Little Yoni is educational, it’s based on an artistic vision that came to me.

When my husband, Warwick Saint and I got together 10 years ago, it inspired another pivot. We started making art that disrupts outdated mythology around romantic relationships and eros. I moved to LA and began art directing on photo sets and modeling for independent art projects. While I’d been a writer, poet, singer and performer, working with Saint challenged me to develop as a visual artist.

Today, it all comes full circle. Whether I’m in front of the lens or directing, singing or writing songs for another artist, all the projects I work on hint at eros and forming a deeper connection to our bodies and nature.

I’ve had an eclectic background that has been both caused based as an activist, business based as a founder, and intuitive as a healer. Yet the whole time, I have always been an artist in every project I’ve worked on.

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

Even without meaning to, I gravitate to traditionally taboo subjects. I joke that the ‘holy trinity’ is sex, death, and money. Cause it doesn’t matter how spiritual or secular you are — these are three areas that all humans must deal with, or they will deal with you.

With My Little Yoni, we are addressing sexual shame and misinformation from a disruptive angle by making a friendly, relatable, child-appropriate character to break the cycle of silence. People who usually wouldn’t want to pay attention to this subject matter are now able to, because we’ve made it safer and more fun. Early sex education as a long-term approach is one of the best solutions when it comes to preventing sexual violence and healing sexual shame, and we’re doing it in a disruptive, creative manner.

It’s the same thing with the art I make. I like taking things that are all around us, right in our faces, or living inside us — such as love, romance, sex, shame, desire, death — but for whatever reason, not easily discussed or deeply considered.

The collaborative Love Saints series translates eros into the visual medium, typically by working with real couples. We create large scale artworks blending original photography and paint. You would think artwork like this is common, but it isn’t. Typically, in our culture, we either see pornography with actors or we have cheesy engagement photos of real couples. It’s rare to see art that communicates a deeper perspective on romantic love — the power, the vulnerability, the wild and holy domain of eros.

I describe a ‘New Math of Relationships;’ 1+1 = 3. It’s two whole individuals coming together in the name of creating a third entity, called ‘Great Love’. What makes it Great is our ability to choose it, daily. It’s a choice, not a given, to create love that heals, love that transforms, love that is worth risking comfort for and that stimulates growth. In this way, relationships can become a crucible for liberation. It’s rare to see art that elevates and transmits the powerful energy of love expressed by real people.

I’m currently writing a theater show, including original songs, that digs into questions such as: why do we believe great pain is necessary to create great art? Is there truth to this or is it just more puritanical programming? Why does pain typically get celebrated more than pleasure? I’d like to believe I’m motivated from a deeper core than my pain, and can hopefully help others discover more of that for themselves through this show.

We all get to be artists — in some way — if we choose to be. All this means is aligning with intuition over fear, contribution over greed, and deciding to come out of the closet and declare that you have a creative soul that desires to express itself.

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 have a lesson that is probably not that funny but important.

One of my superpowers is connecting people. I have a knack for knowing who needs to meet each other, how to create partnerships in businesses, creating ‘right place, right time’ opportunities for people. The mistake I made early on was not realizing how important and valuable this skill is. For example, I recall setting up a coffee where a 7-figure check got written in the first 20 minutes… and I didn’t even receive a thank you.

That helped me see that I needed to focus on people who appreciate my contribution and to be very clear up front with anything business related. The lesson learned is kind of obvious: no one will value you if you don’t value yourself. This lesson is true for everyone, but especially for women. Get clear on your contribution. Learn to ask for what you need. Rejection is protection, reminding you to ‘give where received.’ Don’t be shy or passive and certainly don’t try to be ‘nice.’ My motto is to always be kind and honest but remember that honesty and being ‘nice’ often don’t go together. Sometimes the kindest thing you can do for yourself and someone else is to be honest and clear about what you can and can’t do. It might not feel all that ‘nice’ in the moment, but you’ll both be better for it in the end.

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?

The biggest mentor for me in my life has been nature — I have spent a lot of time alone in the wilderness. As a kid, that sometimes felt isolating, however as I grew older, nature became an amazing sanctuary to help self-realize.

As an artist, no one has been a bigger teacher to me than trees. They are rooted, integrated in both light and shadow (roots in the earth, branches in the sunlight.) They provide so much: fruit, shade, fresh oxygen… and they look out for each other! Did you know when a tree is sick, other trees in the same forest will send extra nutrients through the root system to the sick tree to help it recover? Trees are alchemists, converting Co2 into fresh oxygen. I believe this is the role of the artist, to take pain and sickness in the world and turn it into art that provides fresh inspiration (fresh ‘breath,’) for our times.

In business, I am lucky to be surrounded by some of the most brilliant entrepreneurial minds of our time, investors and founders that are creating substantial impact.

However, what I would like to highlight is that in my experience, the best mentors are actually ‘co-mentors.’ I have friends who help me get clear in one area and I help them get clear in another. There is a lot of synergy available through co-mentorship, and when we receive and reciprocate, dreams can flourish.

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?

As an artist, I think it’s important to focus on expressing what you are inspired to express, not trying to be disruptive just for disruption’s sake.

If what you know in your heart of hearts you need to express happens to be disruptive, awesome. The most important thing is to be honest and to share what is uniquely your perspective to share, because if you are true to that, the work is bound to touch people.

Sometimes people become too calculated in trying to be disruptive and it starts to feel like a gimmick. The projects I’ve created or participated in that are the most disruptive were focused on creating a solution or expressing an idea that was burning with passion and they just so happened to be disruptive. Disruption is a byproduct of passionate work. If you are wildly passionate about solving a real problem in the world or expressing something true and unique to you, then your work, by definition, will be disruptive. The level of scale is variable of course, but if you help a single person think about something differently, that is still disruption.

Disrupting beliefs is probably the most interesting thing to me, people often treat beliefs like empirical truths, but they aren’t. They are structures that can be deconstructed just as easily as they are constructed if we are willing to step across the chasm of ‘knowing’ into a place of openness and mystery.

Disrupting beliefs compels me most because beliefs are the basis of actions, which create the fabric of our realities. Change a belief, change a life, change the world.

An example of negative disruption would be social media. A plethora of arguments can be made for how it connects society, helps information and movements form and propagate… but from my assessment, life is not better with social media. It’s become a necessary evil that’s not going away any time soon, but that doesn’t make it positive.

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 . “Give where received.” — We might bang against closed doors rather than pouring our energy into people and places that are eager and grateful to receive what we have to give. Don’t waste your time on people, places, or projects that aren’t readily grateful for what you uniquely have to give. Giving or trying to give when someone can’t receive isn’t giving at all, it’s draining for you and can even feel oppressive to the other.

At age six my godmother gave me a hack for decision making. She told me to ask myself three questions:

On a scale of 1–10 is this an eight or better? — It’s pretty great to play in zones above eight.

2. Does this have my name on it? — It might be a cool opportunity, but may not be for YOU, specifically.

3. Is it NOW? — It might be an eight or better and have your name on it, but it’s for the future, not now.

If you can answer YES to all three of these questions then you’re good to proceed with moving forward.

“You’re either mourning or manifesting.” My friend Mellissa Seaman said this to me, and it really landed. Sometimes hard things happen, and we need to grieve. However, it’s hard to bring in new things if we are stuck in the past or ‘mourning.’ Especially when it comes to making ‘mistakes,’ the faster we can mourn, forgive, (ourselves and others) and move on, the faster we can get back to creating.

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

I’m releasing an EP of original songs beginning next year accompanied by a short musical film that consists of four chapters. I’m also developing a solo theater show that I mentioned earlier. This is all on top of my commissioned art projects, an upcoming exhibition, and the creative studio, Saint Studio, we run in Miami. I also support non-profit initiatives like My Little Yoni and Big Green that are moving the dial on social change.

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

Women are scrutinized for all kinds of crazy stuff. We’re expected to fit beauty standards that can waste hours of our lives EVERY week, or in some cases, every day. Personally, I perform femininity (wear makeup, etc.) a couple times a month, but other than that I’m pretty much a dude.

Women are also often expected to be nice and pleasing, while traits of passion and ambition can sometimes be seen as ‘opportunism’ rather than just ‘making your dreams happen.’ Women tend to be over prepared rather than just winging it. I’ve gone through this myself and mentored other women to overcome waiting for everything to be ‘perfect.’ It’s easy to miss out on opportunities, rather than having the gall to seize the moment in front of you.

Finding a business community and mentorship can also be harder for women. I hate making things about gender, but I’ve often seen myself get placed in the ‘hot woman’ category in groups of entrepreneurial men versus if I was a man, I’d be invited into mentorship circles. The reality is I’m just as smart and ambitious as the men, so when that happens, it’s their loss.

I’m grateful for the men and colleagues in my life who are developed enough to not base business off looks. I’m not complaining about being an attractive woman, but it’s a weird dynamic that doesn’t get talked about much. Personally, I relate to men just as easily as women, so while there’s a time and place for ‘men’s groups’ or ‘women’s groups,’ my preference for business and investing are spaces that are based on common interests and synergistic abilities, not things like gender.

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

‘The Devil at Large’ by Erica Jong. It’s a biography on Henry Miller, it discusses the crazy and almost constant switch between ‘sexomania’ vs ‘sexphobia’ in America.

American culture is either obsessed or in denial of sex, but rarely do you meet people who are just comfortable and at ease in their sexuality. That’s why sex can be a powerful manipulating force and is conveniently baked into the majority of marketing and media.

I do believe sex affects every aspect of life and learning to feel fulfilled and at ease in this domain is freeing across all areas: work, creativity, health, spirituality — you name it. It’s hard to control or enslave people who know the beauty and confidence of feeling free and satisfied in their own bodies. It becomes much harder to sell unnecessary stuff or the myth of ‘not being enough’ to people who feel genuine pleasure on a regular basis.

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. 🙂

Getting free, accurate early sex education to kids everywhere is a movement I’m passionate about. That’s why I created My Little Yoni, our 10-book series, and continue to reach audiences ranging from preschool educators to parents.

Most people don’t realize that in the USA only 7 states require consent education and only 23 states require medically accurate sex education. Waiting on states or schools to make improvements could take a very long time but educating ourselves and using direct pathways for healthy learning and communication with our kids, creates immediate positive change.

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

“If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.” — Marcus Aurelius

This quote gets me every time. It’s so empowering. It shows that our internal state is what holds the power, not external circumstances. It indicates that nothing and no one can control you.

We see this in great leaders. Nelson Mandela wrote some of his greatest work from prison. If he had participated in the ‘reality’ of being a prisoner versus taking charge of his own mind and creativity, an entire nation might have stayed oppressed!

It’s easy to slip into victim consciousness and expect someone or something to solve your problems, or to believe someone or something stands between you and creating what you want to create. However, I would venture to say that all creators and leaders have some basic understanding of what this Marcus Aurelius quote is getting at.

For me it’s a lifelong practice, sometimes I forget that I control my own perceptions and experience, but that makes it all the more satisfying when I remember to come back to center.

How can our readers follow you online?

Instagram: instagram.com/arielsaintwhite

Personal Website: bit.ly/ariel-saint-white-newsletter

Love Saints Series: lovesaints.com

Saint Studio: thesaintstudio.com

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


Female Disruptors: Ariél Saint White of Saint Studio 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 Founders: Charlie Day On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a Woman Founder

An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

It’s not how many times you fall down, it’s how quickly you get back up again. Prepare to fail. If you are going to be a business owner, you will fail, it is as simple as that. I don’t know a single business owner who hasn’t failed, and I would argue that if you are not failing, you’re not taking enough risks. I have failed lots, sometimes epically, sometimes on a small scale. I know I will fail again, but what is important for me is how quickly I get back up again.

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

Charlie Day is a multi award winning entrepreneur who has built three multi six figure businesses from the ground up. Charlie is passionate about helping business owners create more sales in their businesses and proclaims that ‘selling is easy if you just know how.’ Charlie wants to change the face of sales and help people create a sales strategy that works time and time again.

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?

I first started my business aged just 21.It was a theater school to teach children after leaving drama school. It was a huge leap, I didn’t know what I was doing and I needed some money, so I borrowed £1000 from my sister to get some flyers and posters. I told my sister that I would pay her straight back, but, to my surprise, I actually ended up running at a loss that summer-so she had to wait a while ! I was determined to keep going so then developed a phonics class for young children with my sister Alex (a primary school teacher).

I realized the key to growing a business was making more sales and following up. I wanted to change direction so started my second business: The Entrepreneur’s Growth Club to teach business owners exactly this. This evolved from a free facebook group to now having 7000 members. I have since published my book ‘Sales is Easy If You Just Know How, ‘which was a bestseller in six categories, and The Entrepreneur Growth Club podcast, which is a top 25 business podcast globally in the podbean charts.

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

I was so excited in January 2020 for the start of a new year and what a year it was going to be. 2019 had seen us franchise our business Phonics with Robot Reg internationally, and our plans for 2020 were even bigger. We were going to have international growth to take us to being the biggest international franchise in the children’s activities space-or so I thought!

Of course in March 2020 we were locked down and it meant that doing anything internationally became a huge challenge. I was gutted that it wasn’t going to be the year I thought it would be, but as I always do I tried to put a positive spin on the situation, so I wasn’t going to be able to achieve some of my goals I set out to achieve.

What could I do? I set some new goals, I called them ‘my covid goals.’ Weeks earlier I had launched a facebook group just for fun called ‘The Entrepreneurs Growth Club’ and it had really taken off, so some of my goals were around this.

The Entrepreneurs Growth Club actually turned out to be my main focus for 2020 and I managed to grow it to a six figure business in less than 12 months (my fastest growing business so far). I launched a membership called The Entrepreneurs Sales Lounge alongside it to help fellow business owners create more sales, I started ‘The Entrepreneurs Growth Club Podcast’ which shot straight to the top 10 in business podcasts and I had created an amazing online community that helped me get through a difficult time too. 2020 taught me so much, when you get thrown a curveball: go in a different direction, it might be the best thing you ever do!

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 started my first business when I was 21, I had dabbled in the world of acting for 5 months and I realized very quickly it wasn’t the life for me, after years of training, family and friends were asking me ‘what are you going to do if you’re not going to be a performer?’ Now that was a good question, what was I going to do? So I decided I would set up my own business, I would launch a theater school, I had worked for a few other theater schools, but it made more sense to open my own, and how hard could it be?

I don’t know if I was just naive or it was my 21 year old arrogance but the answer was hard, very, very, hard! I had calculated how many children were in my area who could potentially go to my theater school, there were hundreds of thousands of children, I would have more customers than I knew what to do with, I was scared I wouldn’t be able to fulfill the demand! I decided I would have to cap the numbers at 30 children for the first one and then add more as I went.

So I set to work booking a venue, hiring customers and distributing leaflets. I worked so hard to spread the word about my new theater school, I had 12 weeks to advertise the first workshop. As the date approached I had 7 people booked in. 7 children! I couldn’t believe it, I was working at a loss. I had hired costumes for 30 children and had a massive venue with a stage, all for 7 people. I decided that I would run the one workshop, and then brush it under the carpet and pretend it never happened. I ran a couple of competitions to get the numbers to 10, and I went about running the workshop.

It was actually a really good five day workshop, and we ended with the children doing a show for the parents. I threw myself all in and I really enjoyed it. At the end of the week all the parents said how much the children loved it and they wanted to do more, and wondered if I would be doing classes on a weekly basis. In that split second as they asked me the question I said ‘yes’ because I had worked so hard to get these 7 paying customers here I wasn’t going to let them go now! I promised myself at that moment I would get really really good at sales and that my theater school would be sold out.

I learnt that running a business is hard work, if you want an easy ride — don’t start your own business! But it is so rewarding and that you will learn so much along the way. I couldn’t imagine not running a business now, it lights me up, it’s in my blood and I just love it, but if I look back on those early days, I don’t know if I ever believed it would be a real success.

I started in July 2011 and in January 2013 my theater school ‘Little Stars Theatre Workshops’ was fully booked. I stepped down as director in 2017, but the theater school still exists today and teaches over 300 children on a weekly basis.

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?

In April 2020 as I was growing The Entrepreneurs Growth Club I came across Lisa Johnson, Lisa is an expert in passive and semi-passive income and I took her signature course One To Many and it changed everything for me, it taught me how to run an online business and I really wouldn’t have got to where I am today without her.

In 2021 Lisa announced that she was going to be using partners for her courses and this really jumped out to me because I had enjoyed her course so much and wanted to tell everyone in The Entrepreneurs Growth Club about it. I went onto become a partner in her 2021 launch of the course and I sold over £120,000 worth of products for her and went onto become the number 1 partner in the biggest affiliate launch that the UK had seen that year. I also got the opportunity to do Lisa’s mastermind ‘Destination Inspiration’ and through this I have met a whole host of amazing inspirational entrepreneurs who have taught me that anything is possible.

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?

The number one thing holding women back from founding companies is definitely the belief that they can! In my experience, women question their ability to run a business much more than men, I have found this to be true in sales too, women are so concerned about ‘being pushy’ ‘being too much’ whereas men are far more likely to dive in head first and see what happens! I believe that this comes from growing up in a world where girls needed to be ‘good’ well I can tell you first hand that ‘good girls’ will not get far in business, you need to be relentless, you need to be resilient and you need to have tenacity, so for us to really succeed we have to ditch that ‘good girl’ persona and take the risk and shake this industry up. I went to an event only last week. It was a three day event and I sat down on day 1 and looked at the lineup of speakers for the day, it was 100% male! I couldn’t believe it, there are so many amazingly inspirational female leaders out there, but we were not being represented on the stage and it makes me so angry. I will continue to speak about this until we see a change: I believe that we need female speakers on the stages to encourage more female founders.

Also throw into the mix that as a female founder who has had a baby during her career as a business owner, it definitely throws more obstacles in our way. When I had my little boy at the end of 2016, I thought I would be back to work after 6 weeks maternity leave. Running my own business was all I had ever known and I couldn’t imagine something coming along that was more important than that, but when he arrived I had no idea how the two could co exist. From the moment he was born, I had questions about if I was going to go back to work, did I feel guilty about leaving him and even to this day I still get asked if he minds me going away.

My husband, who has a corporate sales job, went back to work after 2 weeks as that was all the paternity leave he was granted, and I can confirm he has never had a single question about how he felt about that or if our son worries about him working too much or being away from home! Until we change this narrative I think we’ll always have less female founders than male founders as they have so much more to contend with. And I am constantly going out there and telling my story so females can see that you can do both, you can be a great mum and a great business owner and actually my son is being raised by someone who is passionate and goes after what she wants, and in turn he will become someone who realizes that anything is possible.The more that we can teach the next generation that the more chance we have of changing the conversation.

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 think we should be making it easier for women to work after having children, there should be more support, more flexibility and cheaper childcare, and we need to change the narrative so women feel empowered to go back to work after having children, instead of being made to feel guilty.

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?

As a female founder, I actually have more flexibility when it comes to being a mum, so it is easy for me to schedule in school shows, sports days and class assemblies as I am in control of my own diary. I don’t have to ask permission. I also take off the whole of August and most of December, and I like to take my son away on every holiday he has from school, and as I am my own boss, I can do that!

The world is my oyster, nobody is telling me what to do;. I get to decide how much I earn, or how many hours I work, or if I take a random day off- it’s all up to me.

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

One of the myths I would like to dispel is that it is glamorous. People could easily look at my life and think it’s glamorous, and I’m not saying it isn’t I have had some ridiculously amazing opportunities such as flying my little boy to australia business class to launch my business, flying on a private jet to get on a yacht around Nice, and staying in one of the best suites on the world’s biggest cruise. I have had some amazing experiences, but for any business owner you see doing amazing things, know that there have been blood sweat and tears, know that they have failed more times than you can imagine, it is hard running a business, and I would hate for anyone to think it wasn’t. The road to success is a long and hard one, and I don’t think there are enough people talking about that, on social media people want you to believe they’ve just clicked their fingers and become an overnight success. In my experience that is not the case, certainly not with any business owners I have met so far.

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 don’t think everyone has what it takes to be a founder, I think the three main things you need are: resilience, tenacity and the ability to never give up. But you also need to be a risk taker, not everyone is comfortable with taking risks but as a founder if you don’t take risks you’ll never grow. I don’t think I could have a ‘regular job’ as I think outside the box too much. If somebody tells me to do something a certain way, I can’t help but think of a different way to do it. But just as I think I have what it takes to be a great founder, there are other people out there who make perfect employees, and we need different people and different personalities to get all the jobs done and create amazing teams.

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.)

  • Sales is the most important thing

Sales is the heartbeat of any business, without sales you don’t have a business and yet a lot of business owners aren’t spending their time cracking the sales in their business. I launched Phonics with Robot Reg in 2016 along with my sister. This was my third business. By this time I felt like I was a seasoned business owner and the thought of setting up another business alongside my others didn’t phase me. My sister was a primary school teacher passionate about teaching phonics and developing the early years, and I was the sales force that was going to drive this business forward. My main goal was to figure out a sales strategy that worked time and time again so I could grow and scale the business, and that’s exactly what we did. Within a year we franchised the business and within three years we had gone from zero to fifty franchisees and we launched as an international brand. People asked us how we had done it, yes we had an amazing product, but even more than that, we had a sales strategy that worked and we rinsed and repeated it and rinsed and repeated and we will continue to do that. If you are not spending 80% of your efforts on your business, why not? Nail your sales strategy and things will get so much easier.

  • It’s not how many times you fall down, it’s how quickly you get back up again

Prepare to fail. If you are going to be a business owner, you will fail, it is as simple as that. I don’t know a single business owner who hasn’t failed, and I would argue that if you are not failing, you’re not taking enough risks. I have failed lots, sometimes epically, sometimes on a small scale. I know I will fail again, but what is important for me is how quickly I get back up again.

In December 2019 we got a cease and desist letter from a company which we weren’t aware of trading under the same name as us, we both had the trademark, but they had been trading for longer than us, it didn’t take long for our legal team to realize that we didn’t have a case!

We had to respond to the letter by christmas eve 2019 and I remember just sitting in my car crying, we had 50 franchisees, we were an international brand and we were going to have to change our name and go through a full rebranding process, how were we going to survive this? I was gutted, I felt embarrassed, not only was it going to be a real process to have to tell all our franchisees, it was also going to cost us a lot of money and take a lot of time, shortly after this we had a franchisee take us through legal proceedings and just when we thought things couldn’t get any worse covid hit and we had to take all our in person classes online. There were times when I didn’t know if we would make it through, shutting our classes down after the £20,000 rebrand we had just had was less than ideal, at times we felt like giving up, but we didn’t, we fought through, we kept going, even when we thought we had nothing left to give, and here we are to tell the tale, stronger and more determined than ever before. I never thought I would have the courage to tell these stories, but I have realized in doing so it shows other people that they can get through the tough times too.

  • Just do one thing every day to move yourself forward

When I had my little boy it was the most challenging time in the whole of my business journey, I did not see how my business and my baby could co-exist. When I spent time with one I felt guilty about not being with the other, and vice versa. I had a huge vision and big goals as to where I wanted to get to, but I felt like this baby was stopping me from getting there, and that’s when I came up with this idea of just doing one thing every day to move my business forward. Sometimes I might only get half an hour to think or work on my business, but I knew that each day I could just do one thing to move it forward, and if I did that then in a year’s time I would be 365 steps ahead of where I was. Sometimes the bigger vision can seem overwhelming and get the better of us, but if we break it down into smaller more manageable chunks it seems much easier. I wrote my first ever book this year and this is a great example, at first I felt so overwhelmed. How could I possibly write a book, where would I start? That overwhelmed me, but writing one chapter I could do, making a plan for a book, coming up with ten chapter headings, I broke it down and it became a lot easier and before you knew it, I had written an amazon bestseller!

  • Goals will change your life

At the end of 2018, I went to a goal setting workshop that changed my life. I had no idea at the time how life changing this would be for me. Since 1st January 2019, I have been writing ten goals down that I am working towards every single day, and then I write one main goal that I am focusing on out of that list again. This process has focused my mind on one goal at a time. The first goal that I achieved was learning how to run, I am not sporty, I never have been, I’m just not that sort of girl! However, when I started goal setting in 2019 if I was going to see if this was going to work or not I needed to start with a goal that was impossible, and so running was that goal.

On 1st January 2019 I went on my first ever run, I came back after two and a half minutes and I was a hot sweaty mess and on the 2nd January same thing. When I came back from my two and a half minute run on the third of January, my husband, who is an ex professional ice hockey player said to me ‘do you really think this is for you Charlie?’ Yet, I was determined, it was my goal, and at the end of 7 days something magical happened, I went out on my run and after 2 and a half minutes I was no longer a hot sweaty mess. That morning I managed to run for five minutes! I couldn’t believe it, I had doubled my time in just a week! Imagine what could happen in a month, 3 months, six months, a year?

I stuck with it and after 6 weeks I could run 5k and I joined the parkrun and did my first group run, I then signed up to a 10k and after I had just been running for 9 months I did my first half marathon, and then in 2021 I ran The London Marathon which is probably my biggest achievement yet, I went from not owning a pair of trainers to running The London Marathon. Goal setting has seen me achieve a whole host of goals that I truly believe I wouldn’t have achieved if it wasn’t for this goal setting technique I use. I have; written a book, launched a podcast, built a side hustle to multi six figures, learnt to juggle, flown on a private jet, launched products, learnt to run, flown business class, sold 50 franchises, earnt £10k in 10 days. I have become an international speaker, gone on more holidays than I could have dreamed of, set up a new business. Set goals, write them down every single day, and watch them happen.

  • ‘If you think you can or you think you can’t, either way you’re right’

Your attitude is everything, if you think you can make your business a success you will, and if you don’t you won’t, it’s as simple as that. Get behind your product or service with unwavering faith as the more you believe in what you’re selling, the more you’ll be able to sell it. We are a product of the five people we spend our time with, so make sure you are also surrounding yourself with people who believe that you can do, people who are cheering you on from the sidelines, who lift you up and give you strength when you need it, this is not an easy ride. Also check in with your thoughts on a daily basis as we are the most common thoughts that we have on a daily basis, so swap ‘can I do this?’ ‘have I got what it takes?’ for ‘My business is amazingly successful’ ‘I am a magnet for sales’ or whatever you want to become. What we tell ourselves becomes our reality, so lets fill our mind with positive thoughts.

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

I really hope that I will change the world. I am on a mission to change the face of sales for female business owners, and I won’t stop until I have done just that. I have witnessed so many female founders hide their light under a bushel for fear of showing off or being too much, but as business owners we all need to be shouting about our amazing businesses from the rooftops, be too much, dare to be different and sell the right way. We don’t need to be pushy or sleazy or any of those negative things people talk about when it comes to sales, but we do need to be showing up, speaking up and rising up to the challenge of fearless selling.

I continue to speak up about my journey, the good, the bad and the ugly and how we can all do anything we want. I have used my platform to encourage young females into entrepreneurship and will continue to do so.

I want to show anyone that anything is possible, if I can do it, then so can you.

I have also used my profile to raise thousands of pounds for charity including over £4,000 for Mcmillan when I ran The London Marathon in 2021 and as a team £52,000 when I ran The London Parks Half Marathon for Great Ormond Street Hospital in 2019.

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.

If you look at the skills you need to be a great salesperson, they are great listener, great problem solver and great at building relationships, and if we look at it on face value women have these skills available to them, so if we just have the confidence to step up as the sales people we know we can be, we could become the leaders in sales. That is the change I would like to see in the world, women leading the sales force across the globe!

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.

I would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with Sara Blakely, founder of Spanx who has always been a huge inspiration to me.

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


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

Female Disruptors: Barbara Blasso of International Meetings and Science (IMsci) On the Three Things…

Female Disruptors: Barbara Blasso of International Meetings and Science (IMsci) On the Three Things You Need to Shake Up Your Industry

An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

Take time to know yourself. Or as Aristotle said, “Know thyself.” When you know who you are, you can be wise about your goals, your dreams, your standards, your convictions. Knowing who you are allows you to live your life with purpose and meaning.

As a part of our series about women who are shaking things up in their industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing Barbara Blasso, president of International Meetings and Science (IMsci), a full service scientific communications agency that helps life sciences brands achieve their potential.

Barbara Blasso is the executive officer for IMsci and Phase Five with more than 30 years of experience in the field of healthcare marketing and communications. The founder of WTH’s medical educational unit, International Meetings and Science, Inc. (IMsci), Barbara has created and executed medical communications programs supporting the successful launch and uptake of some of the world’s best-known global brands. As president of this division, Barbara strives to create professional communications strategies that support brands and promote positive health outcomes while ensuring our diverse talents are aligned around clinical medicine and healthcare delivery.

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?

I started my career in the exciting world of consumer advertising and public relations prior to taking on a role at the healthcare agency Gross Townsend Frank Hoffman (GTFH). While there, I had great mentors in Alan Gross and Jane Townsend, two industry innovators and legends. A co-worker there, Lynn Vos, had been hired to run the Merck account but then transitioned to starting Phase Five Communications, a medical education agency (Lynn eventually went on to become CEO of ghg | greyhealth group). I became fascinated by the medical education business. There were incredible opportunities that I hadn’t even known existed. Medical education is where brands have the opportunity to influence a marketplace by market conditioning. Educating healthcare practitioners (HCPs) on the unmet needs and limitations of current therapies is where it starts. Once you understand these limitations, providing mechanism of action stories, visualization and clinical trial data takes the HCP to the opportunity the new therapy offers.

As our Phase Five business grew, we began experiencing client conflicts. We also realized that we were doing a large number of continuing medical education (CME) programs that were accredited by other companies. We recognized that this could present a growth opportunity for our own business. At that time, I was living in Connecticut and commuting into New York City. Due to the needs of my growing family, that no longer worked for me. Lynn knew of office space that was available in Stamford, asked me to pull together a business plan, and IMsci was created in February 1998. We differentiated ourselves by becoming an Accreditation Council Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) provider, which enabled us to expand our medical education business. (IMsci is no longer accredited by ACCME since now CME providers are required to be nonprofits). IMsci also made it possible for us to overcome the challenges of client conflicts. I’m proud to say that IMsci will celebrate our 25th anniversary February 2023.

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

Influencer marketing is maturing as a business for many marketers and brands in in the direct-to-consumer world. And many experts say there was perhaps more pushback early on about whether social media influencers were a reliable investment. Influencer marketing is becoming a more common marketing tactic, as HubSpot’s 2023 marketing strategy and trends report notes. According to HubSpot’s survey of more than 1,200 global marketers, 89% of marketers currently using influencer marketing will maintain or increase their investment in 2023. We are building influencer strategies to incorporate smaller creators and develop large-scale campaigns. While influencers might be known for large followings, smaller creators, (KOLs) who perhaps have thousands to tens of thousands in followers, can be a gateway to more niche audiences and generate better engagement. In HCP education we are just starting to experiment with new tools from using artificial virtual influencers to micro influencers and smaller creators on social media. We have the benefit of learning from direct-to-consumer brands including partnering with Village Marketing, our sister agency.

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 can tell you about an oversight that was made at a time when experience trial kits were popular. We would identify physicians who we knew would be willing to try a new (FDA-approved) medication, create an experience kit and attach it to a Phase 4 clinical trial. The kits were always packaged very nicely. In the case of one such kit containing a medication for asthma, the bottle with the pills came through with an old image, which was a stick figure of someone running. In error, we had never updated the image. The FDA interpreted our use of that image as though we were promoting exercise-induced asthma. This required us to discard 30,000 kits. The client was not only someone with whom I did a great deal of business but also a personal friend, and I was mortified. Once we corrected everything, she told me “You get one mistake. This is it.” We got through it and are still friends today. I never spoke to that designer again, and we never made that mistake again.

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?

My mentor would definitely be Lynn Vos, former CEO of ghg | greyhealth group and my former boss. Lynn’s confidence in my abilities made it possible for me to succeed in running a division and creating a major medical communications agency. I remember one time that IMsci won a big piece of business and Lynn called to tell me how thrilled she was. Although I wanted to bask in her praise, I felt the better response was to thank her for giving me the opportunity and for having the confidence in me to allow me to succeed. Lynn was a constant source of support and good advice. If I was every in doubt of something I would ask for her help, but because she had so much confidence in me, I made it a point to try and figure things out for myself first. It made me a better executive to think through problems on my own, explore various solutions and make decisions I could feel good about. Lynn was also known to come up with novel solutions to problems. For instance, at one point we realized that our account people were spending a great deal of time on estimating, budgeting, reconciliations, etc. Lynn said, “What if we just have someone dedicated to the financial side of business?” We now have an SVP who has been overseeing the business for 25 years and 6 business managers, and I attribute much of IMsci’s profitability to having a separate staff to manage the finances.

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?

Sometimes disruption is caused by an outside force, like the COVID pandemic. Our tried-and-true systems and structures would no longer work in a world where in-person meetings could not take place. We were forced to pivot to virtual — a disruption that required us to change the ways in which we did business. Today, those new approaches are a part of our ongoing skill set. Not only that, but our work on the Covid-19 vaccine put us at the forefront of the scientific and global health crisis of our generation. We were challenged with creating a communications platform focused on renewing trust in science, dispelling misinformation, educating on the mRNA platform and moving target audiences from awareness to action. Strategy and tactics needed to be developed in a fraction of the usual time, and real-world data was constantly changing. To meet this need we developed PAACE: the Paediatric, Adolescent and Adult COVID-19 Education Programme, an educational training platform with globally recognized KOLs providing scientific data and knowledge with the goal of preparing potential speakers for engagements in local markets.

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

  • Invest in yourself. (This one is self-explanatory)
  • Take time to know yourself. Or as Aristotle said, “Know thyself.” When you know who you are, you can be wise about your goals, your dreams, your standards, your convictions. Knowing who you are allows you to live your life with purpose and meaning.
  • Show up fully. Don’t dwell on the past, and don’t daydream about the future, but concentrate on showing up fully in the present moment.

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

The future is streaming. This means that more opportunities are about to present themselves to marketers on connected TV services. There is a tremendous amount of enthusiasm for marketing programs that tap into streaming audiences, although this will only make the competitive landscape more challenging.

A core strategy to compete in the streaming era will be creating a more personalized message across targeted platforms. We are in the process of using Artificial Intelligence to identify some of the video treatments our target audience prefer, so when we stream an educational format, it will be available based on learning style. This will revolutionize our ability to source and process data.

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

Throughout most of my career I have been lucky enough to work for supportive and encouraging women leaders who had impeccable skills and knowledge. The organizations they worked for expected nothing less. Women who haven’t been as lucky tell me that many of the men they work for have not been subject to the same expectations. Men may have the confidence, but they may not always have the skill set and experience to back it up. I believe women go the extra mile to safeguard how they are perceived.

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

Be Fearless, by Jean Case

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. 🙂

I would inspire a movement to nurture, support, and educate our employees. The better your people are, the better your work is. Employees are a company’s biggest asset, and they should be treated that way. That has always been my mantra.

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

My favorite” life lesson quote” was inspired by Lynn, my mentor. Her father would say, “You can’t park up front unless you drive there.” Like Lynn, I interpret that as “nothing ventured, nothing gained.” We have to be open to trying new and revolutionary ways of doing things, and we can’t be stopped by the fear that we may fail. I didn’t let fear keep me from opening up a new medical communications agency in Stamford, and now here we are on the cusp of celebrating our 25th year. We have been successful beyond all initial predictions. If I hadn’t tried, I wouldn’t have succeeded.

How can our readers follow you online?

https://www.linkedin.com/in/barbarablasso/

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


Female Disruptors: Barbara Blasso of International Meetings and Science (IMsci) On the Three Things… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Wisdom From The Women Leading The Cannabis Industry, With Debi L Madaio of NJWeedman’s Joint

An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

Be consistent. Success doesn’t come overnight or over months or sometimes years. Be true to what you believe you want to create and create it. I use an evidenced based system. I create something, implement it, evaluate it and determine whether it is working or needs to be adjusted. Lol, I was always accused of being a habitual planner by my former partner and I guess I am because that’s what works for me.

As a part of my series about strong women leaders in the cannabis industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing Deborah L Madaio.

Debi L. Madaio is recognized by many as Trenton New Jersey’s “First Lady of Weed.” As the former majority owner of NJWeedman’s Joint, the once popular marijuana-themed eatery located in the state’s capital city, Madaio has defiantly honed her legacy as a heroic cannabis mompreneur. A registered nurse, cannabis activist, mother to two daughters and an adopted special needs son, Madaio was an influential force behind the scenes of the business. Now celebrating several cannabis ‘wins’, including the opening of her new shop, The Weed Stalk in Somerset, NJ; the awarding of a New Jersey conditional cannabis license; and inclusion on the Insider NJ 100: Cannabis Power List, Madaio believes her biggest triumph is as a domestic violence survivor.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us the “backstory” about what brought you to the cannabis industry?

I have always been an advocate for the safe accessibility of cannabis for all. No one should have to be afraid of arrest and or incarceration for taking advantage of the healing aspects of this natural herb. I have been using cannabis off and on for the last 42 years, recreationally as well as medicinally. The government has had its own agenda when it comes to cannabis, and that agenda has never been one based on facts. As a cannabis consumer and registered nurse, it only made sense for me to step up and educate people about the true benefits of cannabis. In 2015, my former partner and I opened New Jersey’s only cannabis themed restaurant and lounge, allowing cannabis consumers to medicate in a safe environment with like-minded people. The rest is history.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading your company? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

The Weed Stalk LLC is my current company located in Somerset, NJ. I received a conditional license October 2022 and I am currently working on securing my conversion license as a Micro Recreational Dispensary. I have learned so many life lessons on this cannabis journey, not all pleasant, but lessons all the same. The most valuable lesson I have learned is to keep business just that, business. Make a business plan with signed contracts, agreements, and designated division of duties. Unfortunately, I learned this the hard way after being physically forced from my previous business. As a woman, I tend to be a nurturer and let my feelings and emotions dictate some of the decisions I make, and there is not much room for that in the business world. Partners are for dancing and dancing only, that is one of the life lessons I live by every day.

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?

When I first came to Somerset and obtained my space for The Weed Stalk, I was so excited that I hired a graffiti artist to paint a beautiful mural on the side of my building with the Weed Stalk name in four-foot lettering. It could be seen for blocks. Everyone loved it, or at least I thought everyone loved it until I got a notice from the town instructing me to remove it immediately or I would be fined for every day it remained. Come to find out I needed a variance and a permit! Who knew? That was a costly mistake, but it got the people in the town talking about The Weed Stalk and how it was there and now how it was gone. I learned to check with zoning before I did anything to the building. The entire ordeal did get me an invite to join the town’s FB page and I consider it my bridge to the community. LOL — not at all what I set out to do, but money well spent.

Do you have a funny story about how someone you knew reacted when they first heard you were getting into the cannabis industry?

The funniest reaction I have gotten to being in the cannabis industry recently came from my 88-year-old mother. My mother always knew I was a cannabis user, but she has always looked at it as something negative. She was a product of the “War on Drugs” era and the “Just Say No” propaganda wars. When I obtained my conditional micro license, she was one of the fist people I called. I laughed and said, “Bet you never thought you would live to see the day where you would be able to say out loud that ‘my daughter sells weed,’ lol.”

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?

There are many people that have helped me be successful along the way, and that I will be eternally grateful towards. One of them is my IT/ social media person, ReAnna Ruiz. She encouraged and believed in me when I didn’t believe in myself. She certainly went above and beyond and did things for my business that I was not capable of doing, and of course there is my legal team, but the person/people who truly helped me were my children. As I briefly stated I had been physically forced from my previous business by my ex-business partner, NJWeedman. He took everything I had worked so hard for. The thought of losing everything and leaving my children with nothing, without a future was the driving force behind my success, I had to do it for them. I started my previous business to ensure I would be able to care for my disabled son as he got older, so I have no choice but to be successful with my new business, The Weed Stalk.

Are you working on any new or exciting projects now? How do you think that will help people?

I am always working on a new project when it comes to The Weed Stalk. Along with working on my conversion license, I am working on the business décor, software, and focus. It’s an old hippie chick head shop, catering to the wants and needs of the cannabis consuming woman.

Ok. Thank you for all that. Let’s now jump to the main core of our interview. Despite great progress that has been made we still have a lot more work to do to achieve gender parity in this industry. According to this report in Entrepreneur, less than 25 percent of cannabis businesses are run by women. In your opinion or experience, what 3 things can be done by a) individuals b) companies and/or c) society to support greater gender parity moving forward?

Cannabis has historically been a male dominated industry and unfortunately the toxic masculinity and misogyny are still rampant. When a woman stands up for herself and is a driving force in business she is referred to as a “b*tch.” This antiquated thinking needs to change, and stereotypes need to be abolished when it comes to women who consume cannabis. First and foremost, individuals need to acknowledge the misogynistic ideations within the industry and call out those who are perpetuating them.

Men get away with what they get away with until they don’t get away with it any longer. Exploitation of women should never be tolerated. Women are not just accessories or playthings. Just google women and weed and see what image pops up.

Companies need to stop doing business with known abusers. Misogynistic men should not be celebrated and again should be exposed. The best way to change these behaviors is to cut off any-and-all profits relating to them. Young women need to know that they don’t need to perform sexual favors for a disgusting old man to be working in the industry.

Moving forward, women need to stand firm and support other women instead of bashing them. It is unfortunate that women do not support women and blame and chastise them when they speak out about abuses they have suffered as a direct result of whispered about misogynistic so-called norms. As a DV survivor myself I have experienced this firsthand. As women we need to stand tall and be proud of the knowledge and passion we bring to the industry.

You are a “Cannabis Insider”. If you had to advise someone about 5 non intuitive things one should know to succeed in the cannabis industry, what would you say? Can you please give a story or an example for each.

As a Cannabis Insider my advice to being successful in the cannabis industry would be as follows:

Know what your passion is. In other words, know your niche. My company, The Weed Stalk, is woman owned and focuses on the needs of the cannabis consuming woman. Women have different wants and needs when it comes to cannabis. Something as “silly” as calories, carbs, bio-degradable, environmentally friendly packaging, and sustainably sourced cultivation are things I have been laughed at for mentioning when talking to my male counterparts. Buying cannabis should not be an anxiety producing experience, it should be a pleasant one. Our mothers, grandmothers, sisters, and aunts should be able to walk into a dispensary and be met by knowledgeable budtenders who help them make the best selections based on their needs and wants.

Be consistent. Success doesn’t come overnight or over months or sometimes years. Be true to what you believe you want to create and create it. I use an evidenced based system. I create something, implement it, evaluate it and determine whether it is working or needs to be adjusted. Lol, I was always accused of being a habitual planner by my former partner and I guess I am because that’s what works for me.

Do NOT expect anyone to believe in you or support your ideas. People will criticize you and tell you what you should have, could have, would have done differently if they were you. Listen to their ideas and take it with a grain of salt. Don’t internalize everything, maybe they have a point, use everything to your advantage.

DO NOT LET PEOPLE SEE YOU CRY. I mean this literally. Never let anyone see you have self-doubts, they will not believe in you either. You want people to want to come to your place of business and if you are there crying saying how horrible things are, why would they want to even check the place out. Now not to say I don’t cry; I cry a lot. I cry when I get up in the morning and in the shower if I feel like I need to, but once I put my makeup on, it is all smiles and positivity while I am in the public eye. If I need to cry again, I wait until I am in my car and let the waterworks go.

JUST SHOW UP. I mean that, even if you don’t want to do something just go thru the motions, it will get you from point A to point B. When I started my journey with The Weed Stalk there were times when I was so depressed and didn’t think I could do it, so I just went thru the motions and half-heartedly did paperwork or cleaned. Sometimes the overall picture and magnitude of what I was attempting was so overwhelming, I would wonder why I was attempting it at all. So, I kind of went on autopilot and just showed up and went thru the motions and well here I am, getting ready to apply for my conversion license, something in fact I never thought I was capable of doing.

LASTLY and this is a big one, block people on social media that are not supportive of you. You don’t need to make a big production out of this, and nobody even needs to know you have done this. You don’t need to know what they are doing; it will not help you and will only upset you. When my former business partner physically forced me from our business, I was destroyed. I went off on my own and created The Weed Stalk not believing I would be able to start over by myself. Watching his exploits and the exploits of my former employees created a lot of pain and anxiety for me. I didn’t need to know what he was doing, I only needed to know what I was about to do. At this point all of that is irrelevant to me. My ex-partner took what he took from me, and I am never getting it back, and even though it hurt a great deal, I needed to cut it all out of my life to be able to move forward and be successful. And the people that sit on the fence and follow both sides and report back to you about what is happening, block and delete them too.

Can you share 3 things that most excite you about the cannabis industry?

What I find most exciting about the emerging cannabis Industry in New Jersey is being included in it from the beginning. It is far from perfect, but I am so thankful for this opportunity to do something I am passionate about. I am also excited to help bring about needed change and abolish stereotypes when it comes to women who consume cannabis. What I find the most exciting is to be able to stand up and finally speak the truth about cannabis and its limitless benefits as an educated consumer and entrepreneur.

Can you share 3 things that most concern you about the industry? If you had the ability to implement 3 ways to reform or improve the industry, what would you suggest?

MISOGYNY. There is no room for misogynistic practices in the cannabis industry any longer. The days of this market being a good ole boys club are coming to an end. Toxic masculinity needs to be exposed and no longer tolerated and BOYCOTTED. I refuse to buy any products from any company that keeps these ideations alive.

Corporate Cannabis. Cannabis is a culture, and that culture needs to be kept alive. I refuse to buy cannabis from big out of state corporations and will always support my local business owners.

FEDERAL LEGALIZATION. Even though some states have legalized cannabis, we need to continue the fight for federal legalization. Now is not the time to sit back and forget, we still have a lot of work to do to FREE THE PLANT!

What are your thoughts about federal legalization of cannabis? If you could speak to your Senator, what would be your most persuasive argument regarding why they should or should not pursue federal legalization?

Cannabis has been proven to have many beneficial uses, so the federal government needs to acknowledge those benefits and uses and conduct further studies to collect and evaluate those facts when it comes to the rescheduling of the plant. Let us not forget all the people who are still in prison for this plant. The wrongs need to be righted, but they will not be unless we continue to push for needed change.

Today, cigarettes are legal, but they are heavily regulated, highly taxed, and they are somewhat socially marginalized. Would you like cannabis to have a similar status to cigarettes or different? Can you explain?

Cigarettes have been proven to be highly addictive and cause a multitude of physical ailments and should not be legal, regulated or not. I do not believe that cannabis should be placed in the same category as cigarettes since it has proven health benefits. I do believe that cannabis should be regulated and taxed to ensure consumers are receiving high-quality products and its sale, thru tax dollars, go to benefit the communities and people who live in them.

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

A life lesson quote for me is, “Always do the right things, because it is the right thing to do.” I try to live my life like this, because I believe that is how life should be lived.

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

The movement I am inspiring is changing the stigma related to “Cannabis Consuming Women.” There is a great deal of negativity that surrounds women who consume cannabis. We as women need to stand up and let the world know that we are responsible individuals who enjoy using cannabis. Just as woman can have a socially acceptable glass of wine, we should be able to consume cannabis at the appropriate time and place and not be subjected to outdated negative stereotypes. I am an educated woman with two undergraduate degrees RN BSN and BSCJA. I work full time, have raised children and pay taxes. We as women need to be celebrated.

Thank you so much for the time you spent with this. We wish you only continued success!


Wisdom From The Women Leading The Cannabis Industry, With Debi L Madaio of NJWeedman’s Joint was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Female Founders: Tanya Dmitrieva of Deep On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a…

Female Founders: Tanya Dmitrieva of Deep On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a Woman Founder

An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

First, you need to learn how to delegate tasks and manage people. I didn’t understand this right away. I really like to handle the organizational details of parties, but if I want to develop and grow then I need to transfer these tasks to other people, learn how to manage them, and work with a team. It was a painful realization because I wanted to do what I love and not be in charge of running a company. But I have adjusted. Having your own business is always about managing people.

As a part of our series about “Female Founders: Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a Woman Founder”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Tanya Dmitrieva — sex educator, and founder of wellness platform Deep, Kinky Company, and Sexprosvet 18+ agency. For the last 7 years, Tanya has been actively developing the culture of sex and mindfulness worldwide. During these times she has initiated 573 educational and sensual events in CIS countries aimed at sex education and development. She is a TedX Speaker and community leader: 30,000+ sex-positive people all over the world. Since 2020, Tanya has been developing Deep. It is a digital platform for deep changes regarding mindfulness and sensual experience development.

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?

I was born in Moscow and grew up in an atmosphere of creativity and multiculturalism. My parents had their own business — they opened their own music label and released records, and also created a cultural Center and a fund to support new music that appeared after the USSR collapsed. We constantly went to various music concerts and art festivals. American saxophonists, Japanese dancers, and British artists often spent the night at our house. As I was growing up, I was always surrounded by a supportive environment of creativity and cultural exchange. I was inspired by my parents’ initiatives and the influence they had on the creative community in Russia. So even when I was just a child, I was already very excited about the idea of opening my own business which would likewise unite people.

I have launched many different businesses over the course of my life, and the ideas for them came to me from problems I encountered in my everyday life. For example, my very first business was a clothing store from Korea. Then I decided to launch a pet-sitting service. But the idea didn’t turn out to be a successful business because at some point I got tired of doing something that I wasn’t totally into. After this experience, I understood that I had to have a burning passion for my work if I wanted it to really take off, so in all of my following projects my interest in the type of work was a top priority when deciding on an idea for a business.

I have tried many professions in my lifetime: I worked at a school for seven years, then in commercial real estate. I have also worked as a PR manager, an assistant and a translator. I also have experience working on cultural and educational projects.

There have been a lot of business ventures in my life. I always come up with something that aims to improve the world, and I try to create services that can really help people. During the pandemic, it became clear to me that it was time to create something online since almost all offline businesses were severely affected by the crisis, and that’s how the idea to create Deep came about. My knowledge of teaching methods and extensive research of the sex industry helped me in creating a sex education platform. The experience of creating a business, as well as the communication skills that I developed while working at a school and in real estate, the experience of creating cultural and educational projects — all these things led me to what I am doing now.

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?

When my business partner and I decided to organize kinky parties, we honestly thought that at the parties we would just kick back and hang out. But for the first three or four years, we could not mentally relax at any of our parties because there were so many organizational difficulties to deal with. And now it’s still impossible to take it easy even though we have a large team that handles all issues and we have over 100 parties under our belt. The responsibility for how the event goes is still on our shoulders and makes it difficult to take it easy and just have fun. Our previous wishful thinking of just “kicking back and hanging out” now seems ridiculously funny.

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?

There have been so many people that have contributed to my business, they are all pieces of a big puzzle. Even if I had a negative experience with someone, without them I wouldn’t be where I am today. All my bosses and colleagues at all my previous works, and later advisors, mentors, employees and guests of Kinky Party are important people who taught me a lot — I am very grateful to them for all the knowledge, advice and support they gave me.

I have been earnestly trying to find myself. I tried out a lot of things and at the time it seemed to me that I was just wasting time, but now I understand that it wasn’t for nothing. I acquired a variety of crucially important skills from all of my different experiences. For instance, PR is the main marketing tool for our business since conventional ways don’t work in our case. We can’t advertise on Facebook and Instagram because social media blocks ads related to sex. And the fact that I have experience in PR is one of the elements contributing to our success.

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, the main reason for this is the way our society is structured. And there are few women not only in business, but also in science and other “traditionally” male-dominated fields. This is directly related to stereotypes and myths that women have their own special life path. Although now there already is an understanding in many countries that women are full-fledged members of society, the old stereotypes about gender differences have not gone anywhere. People still say that women are impulsive, hysterical, and that it isn’t interesting to negotiate with them. And this also applies to perceptions of men, although we are gradually transforming our view of masculinity and coming to the conclusion that men can also choose a different image for themselves, and have options for lifestyle choices and self-realization. But the echoes of stereotypes are still firm in people’s minds, and they prevent women from choosing an “unconventional” path, including entrepreneurship.

The system does not yet work in such a way that if any woman or a girl at the age of seven that decides that she wants to be a businesswoman and works towards this goal, will find support all along the way. Women still have to break through the glass ceiling, endure biases and prejudice, and deal with condescending and dismissive attitudes. Not everyone can handle it. And that’s why many believe that they can’t become a successful businesswoman. “Some other women are special, but I’m just ordinary, I can’t do it. This is all too complicated, this is man’s territory”. It will take decades to put an end to this way of thinking while new generations are growing up with a fresh, more open outlook.

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?

As individuals, we can work on our way of thinking by getting rid of stereotypes and opening our consciousness to see the world on a wider, deeper level. Men can try to help the women around them develop and move up the career ladder, if he has such an opportunity to do so.

As a society we can support feminism and spread its ideas in our public organizations and movements. Here is an important point: feminism is not about someone being worse or better, or that it is necessary to drastically change all principles. It is about the fact that all people are different and the particularities of work and interactions don’t depend on gender. Men and women have the same rights and capabilities to live the kind of life they want.

And the government can pass laws, conduct relevant campaigns, and provide sexual and gender education. And the last one is the most important.

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?

I don’t like the “women should become entrepreneurs” call to action. An ideal picture of the world revolves around freedom. Women should not be called on to do something, the result will just be an inversion of patriarchy where the woman is the breadwinner and the man takes care of the house. We should not assign roles because we cannot know what will be better for this or that person. I felt emotionally strained working as an employee, while someone else will have a hard time in the role of an entrepreneur.

Women should listen to themselves and do the kind of work they want to further develop in, work that brings them pleasure, energy, and happiness. And I would encourage men to do the same. That is what is important, and not for everyone across the board to become an entrepreneur. The only benefit from women becoming the heads of businesses more often is that there will be more examples for children in order to change the stereotype and bring a balance to society. But this can’t be done under compulsion.

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

A common myth is that there are two polar views about founders. The first one is that if you are a founder, then you must strictly manage all your employees, reprimand and penalize them. The second is that in startups there are only friendships and a flexible approach, horizontal management, and so on.

But everyone is very different. For some the hierarchical system works better, for others the teal horizontal organization form is more fitting. I believe that the ideal founder is flexible and should know how to choose a management style for each specific person. And I try to be such a founder.

Another myth is that founders simply earn ridiculous amounts of money and do nothing. That’s what employees think sometimes. However it is the founder that is responsible for bringing in investments. And in difficult times, the founder has to invest earned money back into the company, or loses it all together.

Many people also think that all founders are supposed to be endlessly at work from morning to night and sleep with a laptop in their arms. This is partly true: I know some people who go to the beach with a laptop and make calls at night. I would like to be one of these kind people but at some point after a burnout I understood that for me it is very important to maintain a balance. So I don’t work on weekends, I try to relax in the evenings and at night and set aside time to spend with my family and loved ones. This way in the long run I will accomplish more and my work will be better.

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 don’t think everyone is cut out to be a founder. Based on my personal observations, to become a successful entrepreneur the person must want to prove to the world that they can do anything, that they are the best. Then they will have the desire to work non-stop. This can be from some innate traits that they have, or from their upbringing — the latter is my story, I always had to prove that I can do something. Now I’m working a lot with a psychologist to get rid of this tendency, and to accept myself as I am. But perhaps without this, I wouldn’t have pursued entrepreneurship.

In addition, I heard that an entrepreneurial mindset is not inherent in everyone. For example, I analyzed many of my closest friends and concluded that startups and running a business would be a huge stress for them. They need a different kind of life. So I don’t think that just anyone can be a founder. And there are certain traits that an entrepreneur needs to have.

First, they must have the ability to take responsibility: for every decision that is made, for every hired employee, and the chosen strategy. Second, they must have a high tolerance for stress to cope with such responsibility, deal with tasks in a calm manner, and find solutions with a cool head. And third, flexibility, the ability to set a goal and work towards it, and a love for decision-making are all needed. As an employee what bothered me was the fact that someone was making universal decisions for me, but I wanted complete freedom. You have it as an entrepreneur. While for other people, on the contrary, it is better when decisions are made by another person in a more senior position.

Here is the main question of our interview. What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why?

I’ve selected five things that people have told me, though it was not quite at the beginning but rather as I progressed as an entrepreneur. If absolutely all advice had been given to me at the start, it’s possible that I would not have gone forward simply out of fear of facing it all.

First, you need to learn how to delegate tasks and manage people. I didn’t understand this right away. I really like to handle the organizational details of parties, but if I want to develop and grow then I need to transfer these tasks to other people, learn how to manage them, and work with a team. It was a painful realization because I wanted to do what I love and not be in charge of running a company. But I have adjusted. Having your own business is always about managing people.

Second, there are no boundaries or ceilings. As I continued to develop as an entrepreneur, I found more and more evidence of this. In 2017 for our first project as I joke I called our administration Kinky Corporation, although at the time we only had two employees. But I like to create intentions. Five years later, I see that we have a small corporation with 30 full-time employees and numerous subcontractors. When you are just starting out, it seems that at most you can dream of a party for 500 people. After two years, you realize that you have already organized a party for 1,000 people. Then after another two years, you see that you are doing several parties every month. Your large team works like a well-oiled machine, and you think about making parties all around the world. Infinite growth potential is hard to see at the very beginning.

Third, it’s difficult to come to agreements with partners, but this is important. I’m the only founder at Deep, and at Kinky there are two of us. And despite the fact that at the start we quickly agreed on everything, we have good relations, we are honest and open, a lot of things came up in the process. We are different in the way we do our work, in management, in goals and objectives, and we have different visions. A lot of money and time was invested in order to ensure cooperation in our partnership. We had mentors, coaches, and courses with psychologists. There were several times when we wanted to part ways. When the project was not even a year old, we had a huge fight. But then it became clear: it is precisely the fact that we are so different that makes us a dream team. The qualities that I lack, my partner has, and vice versa. We just needed to learn how to work together: then each of us uses their strengths, and we effectively complement one another.

Fourth, you should not mix work and relationships. Do not date business partners or colleagues. One will affect the other and not always positively. I knew this before I got into a relationship with a colleague. But we thought we were mindful that everything would turn out well, but it did not: at some point work began to influence our relationship, and our personal relationship affected our work. This led to a lot of unpleasant consequences. An exception to this rule is probably only a family business, in which everything is transparent, clear and to advantage.

Fifth, always set aside money. This basic advice applies to any person, but it is especially important in business. We have faced a pandemic, a war, and other difficulties with sales turnover and the inflow of money. Savings always came to the rescue. I can’t imagine how we could have stayed afloat if we didn’t have any savings.

Another important thing: the trajectory of a business is a series of interesting events and developments, and we do not know how we will reach the final goal. I never would have thought that the pandemic would be a chance to implement a project that had been conceived long before. When the quarantine began, everyone abruptly went into self-isolation and our growing offline party business came to an abrupt halt. We held the first online kinky party. This was a virtual experiment with 360 cameras in some of the rooms, the ability to “walk around” and see what is happening and where. We had a show program, music, a Shibari area, a dark BDSM area, and a dance and chill area. I am proud of this project. It was very labor intensive, but cool. We hosted Zoom parties and launched online lectures. But all of this did not bring us a lot of money, and we steadily went into the red. I suddenly found myself in a situation where I had too much free time.

At that moment, an investment fund approached me. They saw potential in sex tech and wellness projects, took a look at everything that is currently in Russia and it seemed to be not enough, and they asked me if I had any ideas that needed funding. We negotiated the terms over the course of several months, and that’s how Deep was born. It was thanks to a series of events beyond our control that an amazing platform has been launched, and now I’m developing it with great pleasure and I’m very proud of it. If I wasn’t constantly online at that moment I might have missed the message and not have had the strength or desire to invest in a new project, because before the pandemic there was a lot of work developing our offline business.

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

I have always supported my friends with money or with other resources, and as my success grew, I began to help other people: now I make donations to charitable foundations, for example I contribute to a fund that fights against violence. Also, as a company we often launch promotions with different funds and use our resources to help people. One example of this are free stations where anyone can anonymously get tested for STDs because this is not cheap and it’s not covered by compulsory health insurance. Once per season we hold free festivals where experts give lectures on the topic of sex education.

And I believe that our work in general makes the world a better place. We are undertaking an educational function, explaining how sexuality works, how to deal with it, how to take care of yourself and others, and how to maintain your physical and mental health. During the kinky parties we create a safe space of freedom and self-expression where people can try out everything like in a simulator. This is bearing fruit: visitors say that this experience helps them in their real life by opening up boundaries and opportunities, and it empowers them to believe in themselves.

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’m already doing this. I’m trying to show people another world where there is healthy, eco-friendly sexual interaction. For the past seven years, I have been working with the topic of sexuality, helping people explore it in many ways, build relationships with themselves, find something not experienced before and use it for their own benefit.

Now I am exploring a new idea: sexuality is one of the manifestations of our physicality, and our body can behave in different ways. It can express sexuality and eroticism, and it can be strong and resourceful. And I think it’s important to develop not only sexuality but also the body as a whole, so that it is flexible, mobile, resourceful, and energetic. This is what the Deep platform is aimed at ― on bodily awareness. I want to inspire people to seek a new meaningful relationship with their body, to take care of it, love it, and to be able to find energy and resources within it.

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.

Elon Musk. I think we have a lot in common in our work. He explores space and new opportunities for humanity, while I am working in the inverted direction, though in a likewise unidentified direction, into the body. And I see this as the personal space of each person.

Gwyneth Paltrow. She’s doing amazing work in her Goop lab and we’re moving in a similar direction: she’s also doing sex education, body education, and feminist education. We would have something to talk about.

Wes Anderson. I love everything he does, all his work. It’s my personal dream to meet him, shake his hand, and say “thank you” for everything he creates.

Tom Waits. He is my favorite singer from my childhood. When I was 10 years old, my dad gave me my own music system and 15 Tom Waits albums on CDs. I learned the songs on them by heart, and I adored his voice. Now as an adult, I don’t admire him so much anymore, but I feel that the little ten-year-old Tanya inside of me would be absolutely delighted with him. I always dreamed of going to America or any other country to go to one of his concerts because he categorically declared that he would never go to Russia.

Thank you so much for the time you spent with this. We wish you only continued success!


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

Modern Fashion: Jason & Jenifer Storey of Unknown Union On The 5 Things You Need To Lead a…

Modern Fashion: Jason & Jenifer Storey of Unknown Union On The 5 Things You Need To Lead a Successful Fashion Brand Today

An Interview With Candice Georgiadice

Celebrate humanity. Some fashion brands are built around selling beauty or the perception of success; in contrast we are celebrating humanity and all of its accomplishments. Instead of a focusing on exclusivity, we are trying to deliver confidence, build character, and create space for self-realization. Using the brand to promote growth, human connection and broader perspectives, is a much more interesting endeavor for us personally.

Many in the fashion industry have been making huge pivots in their business models. Many have turned away from the fast fashion trend. Many have been focusing on fashion that also makes a social impact. Many have turned to sustainable and ethical sourcing. Many have turned to hi tech manufacturing. Many have turned to subscription models. What are the other trends that we will see in the fashion industry? What does it take to lead a successful fashion brand today?

In our series called, “5 Things You Need To Lead a Successful Fashion Brand Today” we are talking to successful leaders of fashion brands who can talk about the Future of Fashion and the 5 things it takes to lead a successful fashion brand in our “new normal.”

As a part of this series I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Jason & Jenifer Storey of Unknown Union.

Founded by Jason & Jenifer Storey, Unknown Union is a fashion house that bridges the worlds of art, culture and history to celebrate the diverse perspectives of humankind. We sell clothing and accessories that helps you tell a story behind everything you wear.

Jason is the co-founder and creative director of Unknown Union. Prior to UU, Jason was Associate General Counsel of The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Jenifer is the co-founder and lead designer of Unknown Union. Prior to establishing Unknown Union, Jenifer was Assistant General Counsel of GoDaddy. Her experience in textiles includes 10+ years managing Unknown Union’s design studio, working hand-in-hand with its pattern makers, cutters, seamstresses and tailors, and overseeing third- party CMTs, including sourcing, production and quality control.

What makes Unknown Union unique:

As a cross-generational group of visionaries united in our purpose, we embrace the vastness of our combined inheritance. Through storytelling, we unlock this potential and form intimate bonds with one another that transcend culture, geography, language and even time. Diversity of perspectives and sources of knowledge allow for a more robust understanding of the world, they destroy preconceived notions, shift our viewpoint from myopic to panoramic, and compel us to evolve into fuller and more complete versions of ourselves.

We who answer the call to amplify this bond are unidentifiable by age, ethnicity, language or appearance. We are the seekers. We are the journeyers. We are the Unknown Union.

Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your childhood “backstory”?

Ah the epic backstory of the struggling artist; can’t say we were subjected to the typical narrative that hones most creatives … but we wouldn’t trade our upbringing. Most of our formative years were spent in Scottsdale, Arizona. Our father was an art dealer and our mother an attorney. But these descriptions are broad brushes at best, struggling to render anything about who they really were or how they impacted our lives. Our attorney-mother was also a sculptor and award-winning documentary filmmaker; our father a historian, orator and student of the human condition. But more importantly to this story, they were individuals that were both intensely community-minded, critical thinkers who taught us how to view the world through the lens of narrative and ideology. These ideals were engrained in our every-day life. We spent summers combing through books in the basement libraries of museums around the country; our dinner conversations often involved world issues and the impact we as individuals can have on the world if/when we choose to act; we spent time with family friends from all different places, ethnicities and socio-economic backgrounds; our bedtime stories as children ranged from A Tale of Two Cities to Treasure Island. Where some kids received cars on their 16th birthdays, we got our first opportunity to visit Europe as a family and explore numerous historical sights and galleries. All these experiences shaped our world view and in turn the trajectory of our journey.

Jason finished his high school career as a violinist, thespian, singer, Student Body President and state champion in track. Jenifer, similarly, a poet, captain of the track team, Class President and community organizer. From there we followed very similar paths: college, law school, and careers as corporate attorneys.

Can you tell us the story about what led you to this particular career path?

Our currently career path is fashion, a chosen and deliberate career. To be candid, although we greatly valued the opportunity to have trained and practiced as attorneys (each of us successfully for over a decade), we wanted to pursue work that gave us meaning and purpose in life. For some, that’s law. For us, it was not. Although we each held envious positions in the legal field — Jason, Associate General Counsel of The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., and Jenifer, Associate General Counsel of GoDaddy — we wanted to pursue a different kind of wealth.

We believed then, as we do now, that knowledge is humanity’s most precious and underappreciated resource. And that our tendency to rely upon contemporary sources of knowledge (to the exclusion of ancient and indigenous sources) mistakenly limits our perspective to far too narrow a point of view. After all, as intimated by Bernard of Chartres, “.. in comparison to the ancients, we stand like dwarves on the shoulders of giants.”

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

That’s tough. We’ve been blessed with the opportunity to collaborate with so many amazing artists, institutions, writers and the like, it would be hard to pinpoint which story or connection impacted us the most. A few moments tend to stand out, however. We started the brand as a proof of concept in Cape Town, South Africa. After growing from a small design studio to our first flagship store, we were given the opportunity to participate in a fashion show. This presented a challenge for a brand centered around storytelling and celebrating the human experience. We had to ask ourselves, how can we amplify these messages within the constructs of a traditional runway show? So we asked the organization operating the runway show: 1) do we have to use traditional models?; and 2) can we integrate experiences which have nothing to do with fashion? Having received approval to do whatever we wanted, our first runway show was born. Instead of fashion models, we entitled our show “Role Models” and asked members of the community who were doing amazing work in their relative field from ages 18–60 to walk the runway and represent the work they were doing within the community. We had live poets and musicians also share their stories on the stage through their own respective mediums. To watch the audience light up as they saw people of all ages, colors, genders, body types walking the runway and learn about the good work they were doing was fulfilling to say the least.

Another moment that stands out is our first panel discussion about the philosophies that drive the brand. This took place at one of the largest lifestyle festivals in the UAE: SOLE DXB. The room, which sat about 75 people, was relatively full at the beginning, most likely to see and hear from one of our panelists and brand ambassadors at the time, Yasiin Bey. Over the course of our panel discussion, in which Dr. Barbaro Martinez-Ruiz discussed certain intrinsically African themes evoked by our current collection, it became clear that the messages, perspectives and value-systems contained therein were of universal import. People crowded the doorways, the windows, and every available space. Our talk ran 45 minutes longer than planned, and the feedback was incredible — not the least of which was that we were having an open conversation about ideas that were often whispered within the private confines of friends, families or inner-circles. To see how perspectives of one culture so quickly resonate with another, and to witness how this connection transforms and impacts the individual, we knew that our work could make an impact.

You are a successful business leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?

Success seems like one of those ever-moving goal posts. As the brand’s founders, we are always striving to be good leaders, to create a company culture that reflects the work we are trying to do, and to grow as individuals in a way that reflects positively on all the team members and brand partners who put their trust in us. What we’ve learned so far on this journey is that it takes grit, perseverance, discipline, and patience to venture out on your own, to rise above the white noise, or just to lead others in general. Grit because it takes a bit courage to step out of your comfort zone into new or unknown paths (be it career or life). In Joseph Campbell’s words, the most monumental shifts, the ones that really take you on a journey, aren’t fully clear at the onset. Perseverance, because once you answer that call, once you make a decision to travel down a new path, you will inevitably face obstacles. Your perspectives may be challenged, you may encounter new or different problems, your effort may sometimes feel in vain. To push through these obstacles requires perseverance. Discipline, because it’s easy to lose focus or direction, especially when a particular path begins to feel long or the problems you face seem insurmountable. It takes daily discipline to stay on track and to keep both yourself and your team focused on the end goal or mission at hand. Patience, because like most things in life, the outcomes you seek may not always be the ones you achieve and the people you meet may not always share your vision. Therefore, we must exercise patience as leaders. We need to have faith that we will eventually reach our goals even if we take some turns along the way. We must have patience with people and meet them where they are at in their own respective journeys; we must find ways to understand their views or their visions. Such understanding often can lead to mutually beneficial solutions or to a realization that you may be on different journeys altogether, and that’s okay. Lastly, we’ve learned that the best way to lead is by example. We don’t ask any thing of our team that we aren’t doing, haven’t done or wouldn’t do ourselves. Whether that’s scrubbing floors before an event, staying up all night prepping for an exhibit, spending time learning about each of the factories we work with, or standing up to speak at an event. The best way to lead is from the frontline.

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

We live by the motto, “do good work with good people”, with the understanding that the journey is more important than the destination. This ethos holds us accountable both in the value systems we encourage within our own organization as well as the value systems we seek in our partners. That being said, there are many companies and organizations that do the same. What makes us intrinsically different from other companies, particularly with respect to those companies engaged in the production of fashion, is that the preservation and dissemination of knowledge is our primary purpose for creating fashion, and that art and culture are the reference points we use to give each source of knowledge context. For example, we have a capsule collection called Original Royals, which focuses on value systems originating from Lesotho, a small mountainous country that sits within the borders of broader South Africa. This country has an important blanket-wearing tradition — if you saw the movie, Black Panther, many of the blankets worn in that movie were Basotho Blankets from Lesotho. In 2014 and 2015, we were invited by Aranda Textile Mills (the exclusive manufacturer of the Basotho blankets) to participate in the Royal Fashion Affair for the royal family of Lesotho. Our show intended to do two things: first, to repurpose these blankets into modern fashion in a way that respected the culture and the people who carry this heritage; and second, to share the stories and ideas literally interwoven into each blanket’s design. After the showcase of both the fashion and the stories they contain, we were given permission to carry-on this important work and, to our knowledge, the only company in the world without ethnic roots in Lesotho to do so. A portion of proceeds from this range will be donated to Sentebale.org, a not-for-profit founded by members of the Lesotho and British royal families — a bond that has existed since Queen Victoria of England gifted to the founder of Lesotho, King Moshoeshoe, the first blanket in the mid-nineteenth century.

Do you have a favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share a story of how that was relevant to you in your life?

“Do good work with good people”. That’s the answer but the question itself came from a different source. A Greek philosopher once posed the following analysis, paraphrased as something like, “..in order to figure out what you must do in life, first contemplate it from the position of death.” We undertook this analysis by reviewing our own lives — where we spent our time and how, who we were around and why, and what we were doing with this incredibly fleeting and awesome gift of consciousness. Sitting from the vantage point of corporate professionals at the time, the outcome of the analysis was jolting. The “dead” versions of ourselves would have kicked our “alive” asses for wasting this gift on the pursuit of things that didn’t truly make the most of our limited time on earth. This realization caused us to leave our corporate gigs and pursue a “different kind of wealth”, and the roadmap to achieve it was straightforward: to do good work with good people. No matter your calling, no matter your goals, no matter the obstacles that you will face in achieving them, doing good work while surrounded by good people will be the most enjoyable and rewarding manner in which to journey.

Do you see any fascinating developments emerging over the next few years in the fashion industry that you are excited about? Can you tell us about that?

Fashion is an extraordinary industry because it touches upon an essential human need. We have three primary needs: food, shelter and clothing. Out of the three, fashion is also, from a cultural perspective, one of the needs most closely tied to our identity — it provides us an opportunity to make a statement about who we are, where we come from, what we identify with and where we see ourselves going. It is constantly speaking on our behalf. While there are exceptions to the rule, it seems to us that many luxury fashion houses have used these same factors to highlight superficial qualities, such as status or material wealth. “I wear [x] brand because it signifies that I have the means to spend lavishly.” Where we use the same materials and quality of workmanship, and where our focus is similarly directed at design and silhouette, in contrast we use these tools to elevate the contributions of art, culture and tradition to our collective human experience. “I wear Unknown Union because it speaks to who I am and what I believe in.” That’s our aim.

Can you share how your brand is helping to bring goodness to the world?

All we can say is that we hope we are bringing goodness to the world in some respect. Until we reach the end (should there be one in our lifetime) of this journey, we can’t say what impact we will ultimately have on this world. However, all of the work we do is rooted in the mission of “doing good work”. Our mission centers around the preservation and dissemination of knowledge; the process and effect thereof becoming a catalyst for broadening perspectives and amplifying human connection. That is the general flow and nature of learning about art, people, culture, history and the like. We hope that such work, the work we have devoted our lives to, culminates in adding something positive to society.

Can you share with our readers about the ethical standards you use when you choose where to source materials?

Our focus as a brand lies more in the cultural space with respect to where we feel we add the most utility. But as an internal guidepost, we like to support other independent or family businesses, as well as companies which are doing great work in their respective fields (whether through sustainability efforts or investing in the communities in which they do business). For example, one of our top fabric suppliers is a California based family-owned mill, LaFayette Textiles. On top of being a family-owned business, we chose to work with them because of their personal commitment to sustainability. From reusing packaging and spools, to integrating all electric vehicles/lifts, to low carbon emission production. I guess that all ties back to “doing good work with good people.”

When it comes to the actual materials we integrate into our design, and while we are not limited to natural fabrics (cottons, wools, mohair, etc.), natural fabrics compose the bulk of our production materials. We love the way that natural fabrics breath and the fact that using natural fibers tend to have a lower climate impact and avoid increasing the amount of microplastics in the environment.

Fast fashion has an advantage, that it is affordable for most people, but it also has the drawback that it does not last very long and is therefore not very sustainable. What are your thoughts about this? How does your company address this question?

Our pursuit is knowledge-sharing and fashion is our vehicle for doing so; accordingly, competing with fast fashion isn’t even part of the equation. We are on another tip entirely. When it comes to construction and design, the biggest consideration for us is whether each piece properly conveys the stories we are trying to tell to the best of our ability. Do the colors we’ve chosen carry the desired meanings within the context of the story; Does the fabric and the construction provide the proper context to exemplify the beauty, complexity, utility and so on of such rich human histories. If our goal is to preserve and spread knowledge, then time, attention and focus needs to be placed on creating pieces that last; pieces which can be passed down to future generations.

What are your “5 Things You Need To Lead a Successful Fashion Brand”. Please share a story or example for each.

That’s an interesting question. We cannot speak for what makes other brands successful. There’s probably a formula out there or certain commonalities between successful brands, but we set out to pave our own path. We aim to cultivate a company culture which is driven by the following principals:

  1. Create a community of collaboration. When we state that our primary goal is knowledge-sharing and fashion is just the medium, we mean it. If we want to tell those stories responsibly it’s important for us to also partner, wherever possible, with the institutions, educators, artists, historians, communities and people who spend their lives sharing, archiving, developing or communicating these immense bodies of work. Furthermore, while fashion is our medium for storytelling, many people connect with ideas better through other media. So we constantly reach across to the aisle to other creatives and provide platforms for them to respond to or share these stories through their respective medium — be it art, music, poetry, photography, film, or dance.
  2. Passion should drive purpose. We aim to create a working environment (both inside our brand and with the partners we collaborate with) where people are encouraged to pursue what they are actually passionate about. We want people to find and do work they enjoy and to work on projects that spark their interest, their excitement and their drive.
  3. Dance to the beat of our own drum. We didn’t set out on this journey to live a life defined by others’ ideas of success or of what a fashion brand should be. We can’t say where we will end up. But if we stay true to ourselves and, by extension remain true to our brand ethos, the journey will be a fulfilling one.
  4. Celebrate humanity. Some fashion brands are built around selling beauty or the perception of success; in contrast we are celebrating humanity and all of its accomplishments. Instead of a focusing on exclusivity, we are trying to deliver confidence, build character, and create space for self-realization. Using the brand to promote growth, human connection and broader perspectives, is a much more interesting endeavor for us personally.

Every industry constantly evolves and seeks improvement. How do you think the fashion industry can improve itself? Can you give an example?

Fashion as an industry is starting to slowly shift in some respects, but we would love to see more industries (not just fashion) shift towards: i) cultivating authentic connections and creativity; and ii) promoting quality over fast profit. If more industries took this approach, think of the impact it would have globally.

You are a person of great influence. If you could start 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’s what we are doing. Unknown Union strives to be part of that movement.


Modern Fashion: Jason & Jenifer Storey of Unknown Union On The 5 Things You Need To Lead a… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Women Of The C-Suite: Jessica Vann of Maven Recruiting Group On The Five Things You Need To Succeed…

Women Of The C-Suite: Jessica Vann of Maven Recruiting Group On The Five Things You Need To Succeed As A Senior Executive

An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

Pace yourself. It’s a long haul for CEOs, especially if you’re a founder, as well. Give yourself the courtesy of kindness, breaks, proper vacations, and unplugging. After all, if you sacrifice yourself until all your energy is depleted, the jig is up.

As a part of our interview series called “Women Of The C-Suite”, we had the pleasure of interviewing Jessica Vann.

Jessica Vann has founded and grown Maven Recruiting Group to a renowned, nationally recognized recruiting firm and brand. Specializing in connecting high-leverage executive and personal assistants to the nation’s most prominent companies and individuals, Vann and her team assert that strong support staff are the bedrock of Silicon Valley and have spent the last decade evangelizing the value of executive assistants and teaching executives how to work with them effectively. An active thought leader in the administrative support community, Vann hosts REACH — A Podcast for Executive Assistants, with over 180,000 active listeners and has created an e-course and executive assistant coaching program as well. Once a brick-and-mortar company, Vann’s COVID pivot was to transition her team to a remote organization that also spends time together at a horse ranch in the Sonoran Desert of Arizona. Maven has since been recognized by California Best Startup as one of the most innovative corporate training companies, which may have something to do with its balance of remote and ranch work. Since its inception in 2010, Vann and Maven Recruiting have been recognized in Business Insider, Inc Best Workplaces, Inc 5000 Fastest Growing Companies and San Francisco Business Times Top 100 Woman Owned-Businesses.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! 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?

For as long as I can remember, I’ve had an entrepreneurial spirit. I’ve always aspired to have some level of agency and influence in my life.

When I was 15 or 16, I noticed that all of the open houses advertised by real estate agents were always on the weekend. I remember thinking the agents must hate sitting in empty houses for hours and hours during time they could be spending with family. So, I dressed up, walked into a real estate brokerage, and asked if they would hire me. I told them I would put up and take down signage and welcome visitors. It was a perfect arrangement. At the time, I was taking summer classes, and was able to study when no one was there. When a home buyer stopped in, I showed them around and answered questions. The realtors thought it was a clever idea and agreed to pay me. They even told me if any of the houses happened to sell, they would give me a small commission. When one of my homes did sell before the end of the summer, they mysteriously forgot all about that little arrangement. On the bright side, that taught me the very valuable lesson to get everything in writing.

Looking back on my childhood, I’m not surprised to find myself in this position. I’ve always wanted to define my own path. In most traditional jobs, your promotions, salary, and progress all hinge on how others perceive you. I’ve never been comfortable with letting others make those decisions. I was inspired to create a company that would be best in class. I had a clear vision for approaching things with candor, authenticity, and integrity, and was excited to build the company I wanted to work at. That challenge has been a part of my entrepreneurial journey for years.

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

I’ve always believed if you do something from your heart, and do it with integrity and authenticity, the purity of that message resonates with people in a way that it doesn’t when it’s contrived or forced. Recently, my team and I were creating a media page on our website, and I Googled Maven Recruiting. The first hit was a Business Insider piece featuring us along with Sara Blakely, the founder and former CEO of Spanx. I didn’t know anything about this piece, so I dug further. I discovered the article was based on a podcast I’d done with Sara Blakely’s former executive assistant and personal assistant. Somehow, our podcast, REACH, fell into the lap of Business Insider, and they decided to write an article about it for their 118 million monthly viewers. When things happen organically and synergistically in that way, it’s pretty cool. We happened to do that Google search on the exact day the story broke.

That foray into the podcasting world was catalyzed by a desire to build support resources and community for Executive Assistants and because we saw that there was a dearth of resources for Executive Assistants’ professional development. It was a delightful episode. I had the chance to talk with two incredible women. They were at the top of their craft and had an incredible synergy together that spanned over 10 years. Our connection was evident in the episode. We had fun with it. When you do things from that place, you never know where they will take you.

It has been said that our mistakes can be our greatest teachers. 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?

Most of my mistakes feel more tragic than humorous, but one does come to mind. At Maven Recruiting, we match executives with executive assistants. Once in my career, we crossed wires and scheduled the wrong candidate to meet with our client.

The client looked at our options and said, “Great, I want to meet Janine.” But instead of scheduling Janine to meet with her, we scheduled Mary. So, that day, our client met Mary all the time thinking she was Janine. When Mary called to report that the meeting went extremely well, you can imagine my surprise. I never intended to send Mary because she had zero relevant experience.

Ultimately, the fact that our client loved Mary as much as Mary loved our client goes to show the power of the intangibles and authentic connection. We’ve always said the kind of hiring we do is less about a finite skill set and more about interpersonal connection, resonance, and chemistry between people. Mary didn’t have any of the experience the client said she wanted. We sent plenty of people with that experience, but our client chose Mary. It’s a powerful experiment in psychology. If you think about it, the client met her without preconceived notions or judgments because she didn’t know what her experience was. She took her at face value. They had a fantastic conversation and clicked. All the people with perfect qualifications on paper fell flat.

It turned out well, but I apologized profusely. The client laughed about it and thanked me for introducing her to Mary. As a leader, I’m okay with being wrong. People who admit to mistakes get to grow. It takes a level of vulnerability to be wrong, so I’m very happy to stand corrected.

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?

So many people have had a part in helping me become who I am today. My team here at Maven was the driving force behind positioning me as a thought leader. During the first years of running the business, I was internally focused. I wasn’t in a place to think about putting my voice out there. They encouraged me to step into a public-facing role and come out from behind the curtain.

Another time, our team went to a spiritual retreat. The facilitator asked us to circle up for a drumming session. The point was to express ourselves by tapping out the beat of our own voices. After the session, he took me aside and said, “You have a voice and a message that wants to be heard. I don’t know if you’re a writer or a public speaker, but something inside you needs to come out and be shared with the world.” I heard that right before we launched our podcast series. The timing affirmed we were on the right path.

On another occasion, Lyle Fong, the founder and CEO of Lithium Technologies, shared something very impactful with me. He told me, “If you’re going to be known for Executive Assistant recruiting, then be the absolute best Executive Assistant recruiting firm in the universe. Don’t do a little of this and a little of that. Be the recruiting authority. Aspire to be the recruiting expert in the Bay Area, then California, then the United States, then the universe.” I took his advice to heart. It came at a pivotal moment when we were making strategic decisions about shifting to a narrower focus.

I’ve had the privilege of knowing so many supportive, encouraging people over the years. It’s difficult to single out any one person because they’ve all influenced who I am today.

Leadership often entails making difficult decisions or hard choices between two apparently good paths. Can you share a story with us about a hard decision or choice you had to make as a leader?

Emerging from the pandemic was the single hardest thing I’ve had to do as a business owner. To endure that time, we encountered the agonizing necessity of paring back and cutting jobs. Sacrificing several roles to preserve the larger company is any leader’s worst nightmare.

Even after that moment, Maven wasn’t out of the woods. By the time San Francisco allowed us to come back to the office, most of my employees had moved. It necessitated a period of reflection and change. I spent weeks wondering whether to pull people back or to move forward as a remote organization. There were a million changes to navigate, but it all started when we took the plunge to pull up our roots as an in-person company and go remote. After that, decisions all cascaded in line like dominos.

Okay, thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the primary focus of our interview. Most of our readers — in fact, most people — think they have a pretty good idea of what a CEO or executive does. But in just a few words can you explain what an executive does that is different from the responsibilities of the other leaders?

When you’re a CEO, you’re in the hot seat 24/7. Every decision, deliberation, and consideration rests on your shoulders. You take all the input you can get, but at the end of the day, you are the one who has to make the decisions.

The decisions you make span an extremely broad purview. As CEO, you’re expected to be a generalist and have a general understanding of all of the elements that comprise a healthy business. You need to know enough to weigh input from every expert on your team. You’re not the CFO, but you need to understand enough about corporate finance, governance, best practices, forecasting, and projections to be involved with decisions. You’re not a CMO, but you need to have enough of an understanding of how marketing impacts your company to contribute to its strategic direction. Your team provides input, recommendations, and suggestions, but the buck stops with you. Ultimately, the decision is yours, and the consequences are yours to bear.

When you’re the Founder who’s started the company, you don’t see your role as temporary. The stakes are higher because you have skin in the game. You weigh every decision pertaining to financial and strategic direction, market specialization, brand, culture, team synergy, team incentive, and team rewards, and you’re there to stomach the consequences. There’s no bail out for a small business owner. The choices you make impact you, your business, your family, everyone who works for you, and their families. You have nowhere to run or hide.

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

Many people have the idea that being a CEO is glamorous, but the role actually comes with an incredible amount of sacrifice. People overlook the intensity, emotional drain, and fatigue that comes with 24/7 responsibility. The level of pressure and risk is ever present. To me, that’s not glamorous or sexy — it’s just hard.

People think that being a CEO means you are your own boss. Yes, you have discretion in terms of how you spend your time, but that doesn’t mean you have full autonomy. In reality, you’re fettered by responsibility. A CEO is not completely free. Even though we may not have a person overseeing our role, we are still responsible for everything we and our teams do, and we have to be accountable for the results our businesses do or don’t produce.

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

If women decide to have a family, there is a very clear distinction. Of course, men are also parents, but female executives who choose to become mothers encounter a level of complexity and responsibility we would be remiss not to discuss. Pregnancy entails the physical burden of carrying a child and the logistical burden of dozens of doctor’s appointments. After delivery, there is healing and sometimes postpartum depression that women balance in addition to work. Every woman’s experience is different; some rebound quickly, and some navigate postpartum depression for years. Negotiating those realities in combination with your responsibilities and duties as an executive is challenging, to say the least.

The other piece of the equation I experience is subtle sexism. I imagine, male leaders obtain a level of assumed respect that women don’t. I’ve had people approach me in an entitled or demanding way, or expect me to succumb or be less formidable in negotiations. For example, a former employee once referred to me as his “colleague.” That was staggering because it showed me how much harder I had to work to achieve the same level of acknowledgment and respect for my accomplishments. I doubt that men have to correct employees by saying, “I’m not your colleague. I’m actually the CEO and founder of this company.” That subtle disrespect is something that female CEOs may have to confront.

What is the most striking difference between your actual job and how you thought the job would be?

To be honest, I started with no preconceptions about what this job would be like. Before this role, I had only been responsible for myself. Suddenly, I found myself responsible for building, growing, and sustaining an entire company. I had absolutely no idea what was involved. It’s been a non-stop education.

Just when I think I’ve come to grips with the role, legislation shifts, the market changes, economic trends create new factors to negotiate, or team morale dips. I never stop learning because the challenges never stop coming. For example, to deal with Covid’s curve ball, I facilitated a full transition to remote work. Now, we have employees who want to work internationally, and five million regulations are associated with that. You never reach a static state, but that makes being a business owner, an executive, and a leader interesting.

Is everyone cut out to be an executive? In your opinion, which specific traits increase the likelihood that a person will be a successful executive and what type of person should avoid aspiring to be an executive? Can you explain what you mean?

It seems to me that this world functions most harmoniously and we achieve the most interesting outcomes and results when we allow people to play to their strengths. If you had a kitchen full of head chefs but nobody willing to be sous chefs, purchasing managers, line cooks, or runners, meals would never get cooked.

Being a CEO requires a few specific traits, and the first is comfort with risk. If you’re not comfortable putting it all out there, you shouldn’t aspire to leadership. However, if constant risk motivates you to show up with a better version of yourself, you may have what it takes.

Comfort with risk goes hand-in-hand with another vital trait. You have to assess whether or not you are prone to overthink things. Successful entrepreneurs have a level of conviction behind their ideas that compels them to action. Overthinking, over-critiquing, and overanalyzing your idea or your vision can lead you to sabotage your own dreams. It’s the folly that prevents so many ideas from getting airborne. At the end of the day, it’s a choice. You’ve made good calculations. You feel reasonably good about your direction. You can’t stay on the precipice. There comes a moment when you have to jump. That crucial willingness to jump is what sets CEOs apart.

Finally, you have to be your own locomotive train. Every CEO has an inner hustle or drive that propels them forward like a steam engine.

What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why? (Please share a story or example for each.)

1. Pace yourself. It’s a long haul for CEOs, especially if you’re a founder, as well. Give yourself the courtesy of kindness, breaks, proper vacations, and unplugging. After all, if you sacrifice yourself until all your energy is depleted, the jig is up.

2. You won’t ever be able to expect the unexpected, but you can anticipate it. Nobody expected a worldwide pandemic. However, part of running a company well means anticipating downturns and planning for hard times. You hope for the good times, but you have to prepare for the worst.

3. Be wary of cancerous people. Culture killers and culture assassins are an unfortunate element of every business. It never pays to keep someone like that around because they are a good performer, produce great results, or are the best at what they do. As leaders, we often rationalize keeping them on because of their talent or brilliance, but leadership is also about the broader picture. You have to see the whole thing, including the destruction those people leave in their path. I’ve learned that lesson the hard way.

4. Don’t accept or tolerate people who minimize you. You need to be around people who respect, encourage, appreciate, and believe in you. I’m not saying to surround yourself with people who never challenge you, but they should be people who at the end of the day make you feel encouraged and capable.

5. Never attempt something if you’re only going to do it halfway — give it your all. Think about athletes like Serena Williams, Michael Jordan, and all of the greats. They don’t go into their profession lightly. Running a company is similar. If you’re going to make something happen, you’ve got to give it your all. If you don’t, you’re wasting everybody’s time.

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.

As an employer, I think a lot about demonstrating decency, respect, and kindness toward employees. If people worked for companies that treated them with transparency and humanity, the world would be a very different place. If we based decisions on the best interest of employees rather than on profit, we would see better outcomes as leaders.

When you read the recent headlines about Meta and Twitter, you have to wonder what’s governing these decisions. Apply a simple rubric to your decisions by asking, “Would I want this done to me?” “Is this the honorable thing to do?”

How we treat people at work has massive repercussions in all parts of life. The way our employees feel about their work influences how they show up in their lives and for others.

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

I would jump at the chance to have lunch with Marianne Williamson. Her platform centers on understanding yourself and seeing the goodness in the people around you. It’s influenced the way I lead, and I’d love to share that with her. Her book, “A Return to Love,” is about meeting people in a place of positive regard. I think that we lead better if we tap into our self-awareness and seek that out in other people, too.

At the end of the day, leadership is fundamentally about people. It’s not about how useful a person is but how you activate the people around you. The more you know about yourself, the more empathetic, kind, and ready to lead you will be.

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

It was a pleasure!


Women Of The C-Suite: Jessica Vann of Maven Recruiting Group On The Five Things You Need To Succeed… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Power Women: Egypt Sherrod of Egypt Sherrod Real Estate Group On How To Successfully Navigate Work…

Power Women: Egypt Sherrod of Egypt Sherrod Real Estate Group On How To Successfully Navigate Work, Love and Life As A Powerful Woman

An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

Balance: Accomplishing success and sustaining success are two different things. To SUSTAIN, you have to have pace and balance. We’ve heard of burnout, and I am here to tell you it is a real thing because I’ve experienced it. That is why I have adopted pacing and discipline that allows me to accomplish all of my life goals while still actually ENJOYING ALL THAT LIFE HAS TO OFFER!

How does a successful, strong, and powerful woman navigate work, employee relationships, love, and life in a world that still feels uncomfortable with strong women? In this interview series, called “Power Women” we are talking to accomplished women leaders who share their stories and experiences navigating work, love and life as a powerful woman.

As a part of this series I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing financial legacy builder Egypt Sherrod.

Television and radio host, author, real estate broker, designer, life coach and coveted speaker, Egypt is a POWERHOUSE! “Tough love with a hug,” is what HGTV & OWN fans and her personal clients have come to affectionately expect from Egypt Sherrod. She is best known as host and co-executive producer of “Married To Real Estate,” “Flipping Virgins,” “Property Virgins” and has been seen hosting OWN’s reunion specials for “Love & Marriage Huntsville,” “Put A Ring On It,” & “The Haves and The Have Nots.”

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 childhood “backstory”?

I am the eldest of 4 children, but my parents split early on. I was raised by my stepfather, who was very present in my life, and I refer to him as my dad. My mother was a force of nature. She was a powerhouse in her own right as an advertising executive for Strawbrigdes and Woodward & Lothrop. She was the first woman to show me how to balance being a strong leader, a queen, and a wife. Because of her example, I learned how to empower other women to succeed. Today, I teach women how to be strong leaders but still be the quintessential woman.

My father was an ad executive as well, but he went on to commercial real estate, and now he is a general manager for Simon and Co. So, as you can see, advertising, marketing, media, and real estate is in my blood. But moreover, I learned from my parents the importance of building a financial legacy and empowering women and families to make sound financial choices. As a result, I was raised with an emphasis on financial literacy and strong business ethics, and today I share those principles with people worldwide.

Can you tell us the story about what led you to this particular career path?

I went to college for broadcasting, where I started to harness the power of my voice. I wanted people to not only hear me as much as they would listen to me. I landed my first job at 19 years old at WRTI Jazz FM in Philadelphia, where I hosted the Quiet Storm segment called Turn on the Quiet. At 21, I became a program assistant at a new Radio One station, where I quickly went up the ladder as the youngest music director in the country by age 22.

I was completely dedicated to my craft, and I spent countless hours at the station catching a nap on the radio station sofa. I worked at Philly 103.9 as the music director by day while going to school at night at Temple University.

After that, I moved on to 92Q in Baltimore as a full-time radio personality. I loved Baltimore, but unfortunately, two friends were murdered, and I needed to change, so I moved to New York City. I joined WBLS, which was a powerhouse station, and my show came on before radio legend Wendy Williams.

I had no idea that all these experiences would bring me to a place where I am helping women and families navigate pitfalls and learn how to provide a solid financial future. Every job opportunity helped me realize that I needed income that was not subject to the whims of sometimes fickle management — so I pulled on my family background and launched into real estate. Now I teach thousands how to maintain a lucrative side hustle and grow that business into a secure financial future for their families.

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

I was hitting my stride in New York City, and I started getting paid. NYC is also where I got bit by the real estate bug. I purchased a multi-unit home in Newark, NJ, and began flipping properties. I made well more than my radio salary in my first year. After that, I got my real estate license so that I could flip properties and list them as well.

My dream job at WBLS went up in smoke when they started downsizing. Soon I found myself on the unemployment line, and one day a cab rolled by with a billboard of me on it!

I learned that you need to have a strong plan B, and during that time, I decided I would never have to stand on the unemployment line again. If you’ve ever had your finances upended because your job downsizes or gives you a pink slip, then you know what I mean. Hunger is birthed during those periods, and this became one of my WHYs. It was a terrible time, but I was able to reach into my toolkit to pull out a solid plan to buy and sell real estate. I have a secure future, and I do not worry about being unemployed or whether the boss likes me or not. I stay focused on building a better future for my family, and it drives me to help other women do the same.

You are a successful business leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?

Tenacity. I fall down, but I never stay down. So many people feel that when they fall, it is the end of their story. Growing up, I lived in North Philly, and my sister and I ran home from school every day because kids wanted to beat us up. We were little Black girls, but we looked very different because we were fair-skinned with hair down to our butts, and we didn’t look like everyone in the neighborhood.

One day my mother caught us running home from school, and she said, “At some point, you have to stop running, and you have to stand up for something! No more backing down. No more laying down and No more playing victim.” So she made me fight every last one of those girls, and from that day, I learned that every time I fall, I have an opportunity to get up stronger.

Ability to Pivot: I forecast and work backward. I look at where I want to be in 5 -10 years. I work as if the goal has already occurred. I create a plan and benchmarks for where I can make certain moves; thats’ why I have successfully moved from radio to real estate. I believe anyone can do the same thing if they take the time to become financially literate. For me, the best way forward was being educated in the real estate industry.

Faith and Purpose: Being a faith-filled woman, I realize that every success is because of grace. I have been provided opportunities and prepared to take advantage of them. In everything I do, I inject my faith in God. We are all searching for a path and for motivation, and I believe my courage to speak my truth about God and my personal testimony has connected me to people of all races and backgrounds.

The premise of this series assumes that our society still feels uncomfortable with strong women. Why do you think this is so?

I don’t know if society’s or some people’s views of what a strong woman should be makes people uncomfortable. Some people are invigorated by strong women. My husband and my father are not intimidated by strong women. It’s fear that causes people to be leery of female leaders. It is a challenging position, but over the years, I learned how to lead with an open mind and a fierce focus.

There were once African queens who also were kings. Think about Queen Elizabeth; she ruled effectively. Women can rule without emotion, but ultimately we have a position of duality where there is a feminine and masculine balance. We can lead and have the ability to follow. Women want the option of surrendering.

In my courses, I show women how to be free and embrace self-love by overcoming issues with their image. Unfortunately, there is so much body and mommy shaming on social media. My goal is to help women live a healthy lifestyle that includes financial, emotional, and spiritual wellness.

Without saying any names, can you share a story from your own experience that illustrates this idea?

As a broker dealing with contractors — they will test you, but you have to show you know your stuff. At home, being married to an Alpha man has to be balanced, or it will never work. Both spouses should be honest about being happy, whole, and joyful. In truth, he wants to lead our family, and I want a husband who is not afraid to lead our family. It doesn’t mean I am a passive wife, but it does mean that I can put my armor down to be soft, to be a mom and the cuddle bug of the house. It allows me to put down the masculine side.

There are several types of strengths. Sometimes you can lead more effectively through humility than by being out front. I teach women to be flexible enough to move in both realms and be sensitive to timing. When you can sense or gauge the temperature in the room, you can decide which hat to wear. One moment you may be a wife; the next, you are the CEO, and before the day is through, you are a mother, but at every point, you are a QUEEN.

What should a powerful woman do in a context where she feels that people are uneasy around her?

During my town hall-style talks, this issue comes up a lot. Women, especially women of color, often have to walk a tightrope in society. This burden can be heavy, but I would take my queue from Queen Elizabeth. I am sure that men were uncomfortable with her power many times over her 75-year reign, but she continued to shine. She never wavered from her duty and purpose and did it with grace.

Being a powerful woman often means moving between strength and grace at a moment’s notice. My courses and talks show women leaders how to wield both with ease.

What do we need to do as a society to change the unease around powerful women?

I am not sure we can change this, although we are making strides with more women CEOs in Fortune 500 companies, technology, and even healthcare. The best thing to do is to unmask the fear of having a woman leader.

Often, women have to endure ridiculous or uncomfortable situations to achieve the success that men don’t have to take. Do you have a story like this from your own experience? Can you share it with us?

I started my career in radio when you didn’t see female personalities in the coveted morning or afternoon slots unless you were a sidekick. Early on, a mentor told me if I wanted to get ahead in the game as a woman, it is best to follow this golden rule: “Never have an intimate dating relationship with people you work with.”

I had made it to the #1 morning show, but the morning show host would turn my microphone off if he felt I was shining too much. He wanted me to be the “giggling woman” In fact, they often talked about my body on a regular basis and even went so far as to make a song about my body without my permission that ran on air for months.

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

Women are often objectified even in today’s world. There are unwritten rules that the old boy’s club still runs. I shared the story about the shape of my body being used as morning fodder by my male colleagues. I had to swallow the insults, smile, and still perform at the top of my game to succeed in radio.

Was it difficult to fit your personal and family life into your business and career? For the benefit of our readers, can you articulate precisely what the struggle was?

First things first. My ministry and my family are my focus. I put my children and my marriage above anything else. This is required to achieve a harmonious and well-balanced life.

As for my work life, I knew there was an expiry date on my radio career. Men last well into their 60s, but women who got married and had children, you’re not the young, hot chick anymore. I was so glad to have a second career lined up. In real estate, my business depends on me, and I make the best schedule for my family. I’m literally on the beach in a bikini with my laptop on my lap.

What was a tipping point that helped you achieve a greater balance or greater equilibrium between your work life and personal life? What did you do to reach this equilibrium?

Becoming a mom changes your perspective and priorities. I needed flexibility and freedom, so I was glad I had Plan B. Real estate and flipping homes give me a manageable schedule for a harmonious work and family life.

In your role as a powerful woman and leader, how much of an emphasis do you place on your appearance? Do you see beauty as something that is superficial, or is it something that has inherent value for a leader in a public context? Can you explain what you mean?

I believe in bringing the full package, so I show up with beauty and brains. You are your brand. How you present yourself is half the battle. Truly, you get folks’ attention with your physical presentation and polish. However, the WORK and results are what solidify the brand.

I also think that inner beauty is the key. I am an advocate for daily devotions and spending time with God. I need this time to get centered so I can be the best version of myself for my husband, my kids, and my clients.

How is this similar or different for men?

It is the same for men. I train agents all over the country, and I tell them that presentation is key. In some regions, agents show up in flip-flops and t-shirts, whereas the less experienced agent who shows up in professional attire will get the business.

Based on your opinion and experience, what are the “Five Things You Need to Thrive and Succeed as a Powerful Woman?” (Please share a story or example for each)

Purpose: Having a reason for “WHY” for everything we do is vital. That is what gives our careers; our lives more profound significance and helps us stay laser focused. So I ask myself “why” before I do anything. What is your reason? What greater purpose will it serve? A purpose-driven woman is like a freight train coming at you at full speed.

Balance: Accomplishing success and sustaining success are two different things. To SUSTAIN, you have to have pace and balance. We’ve heard of burnout, and I am here to tell you it is a real thing because I’ve experienced it. That is why I have adopted pacing and discipline that allows me to accomplish all of my life goals while still actually ENJOYING ALL THAT LIFE HAS TO OFFER!

Village: Rome wasn’t built in a day, and it certainly wasn’t built by one person. That holds the same for any business empire. We have to build community, duplicate our efforts and move in unison to make an impact. Look at those around you and figure out how you can build together. That way, when you get to the top, you won’t be alone. You’ll have an entire village to celebrate with you.

Humility: I remain a student in everything. Although some consider me an expert in my field, I view myself as a student and stay a sponge. The minute you think you know it all and can’t be touched is the minute you fall behind. So I remain humble and grateful, which allows me space to continue to grow.

Courage: Everything is scary the first time. But the more you take action in the face of fear and self-doubt, the more it will dissipate. Every single time I stretched myself, I experienced some level of self-doubt. Of course, no one wants to fail, so that is natural. But to hype myself up to act in the face of fear, I decided to change the definition of failure. When I say “failure,” I state my intent after it: “a practice run, a chance to learn, and another chance to grow.” When I look at it that way, failure is no longer a thing to fear. This logic allows me space to go for it!

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?

Michelle Obama is definitely at the top of my list. I would love to connect with her to ask how she effortlessly balances her roles and moves in her duality as mom, wife, attorney, and icon.

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


Power Women: Egypt Sherrod of Egypt Sherrod Real Estate Group On How To Successfully Navigate Work… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Sam Kabert of Soul Seekr: 5 Things Anyone Can Do To Optimize Their Mental Wellness

An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

Remembering to Play! It doesn’t always have to be so serious! Oftentimes, when one is dedicating themselves to their mental health they may use the phrase “doing the work”. Doing the work implies that you are committed to working on yourself to improve and be a more compassionate human being through a vast array of modalities.

As a part of my series about the “5 Things Anyone Can Do To Optimize Their Mental Wellness”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Sam Kabert.

Sam Kabert is a successful serial entrepreneur turned spiritual seeker. Despite all of Sam’s ventures and business success and being recognized as one of Silicon Valley’s “40 Under 40” at just age 31 years old he soon recognized that something was missing. Sam realized that despite his success, he was unhappy. This understanding catapulted him on his most recent exploration of his life’s purpose. He is on a mission to bridge the gap between the way we conduct ourselves in business, mindful practices, and how we communicate with everyone, especially ourselves, all through prioritizing psychological safety and mental health first.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you share with us the backstory about what brought you to your specific career path?

I started my first business in college back in 2011 and by 2017 my business was scaling. I had designed it so that it ran itself without needing me to be involved in the day-to-day projects and tasks. As a result, I found myself getting into content creation. First, through podcasting, and second through writing. In 2018 I wrote my first 3 books in less than 12 months and my original podcast and transformed into a media agency known as “WhatUp! Silicon Valley”. The short version is that all of these creative outlets culminated in me being named to Silicon Valley’s 40 Under 40 List at just 31 years old.

I had achieved so much that I had set out to accomplish, yet I found myself empty inside. How could this be?

Through a series of synchronistic events, I found myself being called to a plant medicine known as Ayahuasca. Ayahuasca is said to be like 10+ years of therapy jam-packed into a single night … and I wholeheartedly agree with this opinion! That said after that experience in April of 2019; I shifted my focus from obtaining Work/Life Balance to practicing what I call SOUL/Life Balance. Ever since that experience, I’ve been on a mission to go within and learn what I’ve experienced firsthand and take the practical nuggets to help bridge the gap between mindfulness and workplace culture. My most book, SOUL/Life Balance, became a #1 bestseller and my passion is to bring this message to the masses through keynote speaking.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?

The most interesting that that happened to me since the start of my career is my spiritual evolution. I had always felt a spiritual connection to this human experience, yet I grew up Jewish and didn’t realize “Spirituality” was a choice. I was naïve, I knew of the various religions out there and the one of my culture, and I had thought there’s got to be more to this, but I never put conscious awareness into questioning the nature of existence.

My business success led me to intentionally find out for myself “why are we here?”. I don’t claim to know the answers to questions like these, but I can tell you that I have 100% more alignment in the way I’m living my life as a result of going down the path of “inner work” — spirituality if you will.

Can you share a story with us about the most humorous mistake you made when you were first starting? What lesson or take-away did you learn from that?

I started my first podcast, with my good friend Sergio Oliveri, and when we finally decided to just jump in and do it; it felt like a scene out of the hit movie “Zoolander”. Now, for those of you that have seen the movie you may remember the classic scene towards the end when two of the characters were trying to retrieve files from a computer. Now, these specific characters in the film weren’t familiar with how computers work (to say it lightly). So, as they tried to get the files out of the computer, they started to bang the computer as if they physically needed to break the computer to get the files …

Well, my co-host Sergio, and I weren’t much different when recording our first podcast back in 2017. We had no idea what we were doing, we didn’t even have microphones and we looked at each other as if confused about how to do it and were like “I guess we just hit record”. We started laughing because immediately we both were reminded of this scene from Zoolander.

Well, fast forward just a couple of months later and I had become a student of how to podcast and we got out sh* together. Within this same timeframe, we were partners with 3 legit corporations in Silicon Valley and we interviewed a Super Bowl Champion inside the San Francisco 49ers studio at the stadium where they play football. Within 2 years of launching that first podcast I was named to Silicon Valley’s 40 Under 40 and I can ensure you that I was not even on their radar before launching the pod.

Morale of the story? Just get started, and don’t let paralysis by analysis delay you from living your dreams.

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?

Wow, there are so many people! First and foremost, my parents. My Mother & Father own a business together and even to this day they are going 42 years strong in that business called Value Business Products! I never thought of myself as a kid as one day being an Entrepreneur. But in truth, I was constantly learning the lifestyle, trials, and tribulations of being a business owner by watching my parents ever since I was a kid.

My parents also provided me with the framework to launch my first business and have been there as mentors every step of the way. I wouldn’t be here without them!

I remember when I was about 24 years old and having a conversation with my Dad about trying a different career path other than Entrepreneurship. I was still so green to the business world and Entrepreneurship, and I thought I would be better off working at a big corporation, learning some things then coming back to Entrepreneurship. One day my Dad took me out to lunch, which wasn’t something we did often, and we had a real raw and honest conversation about what I wanted and how my life would be if I chose to work for someone else. Thank you, Dad, for not pushing me and being able to guide me to come to my own decision to continue the path of being a business owner!

What advice would you suggest to your colleagues in your industry to thrive and avoid burnout?

I speak on the practice of SOUL/Life Balance rather than Work/Life Balance for several reasons. First and foremost, we must understand the archetypal energies of Yin and Yang. Yang represents how we show up in the world, obligations, structure, and doing. Whereas Yin energy is about softening, listening, being fluid, and going within. The pressures of work from projects, deadlines, and meetings are Yang’s energy. Well, most of our life requires that we have Yang energy as well (responsibilities, obligations, etc).

Where is the time for Yin? To soften … to listen to what your Soul is asking for…
Yin energy is connected to your Soul and in the practice of SOUL/Life Balance, you are allowing yourself to put yourself first and give your Soul what it is craving while simultaneously reframing work as a part of the living experience.

By practicing SOUL/Life Balance you are doing just that … it’s a practice. It’s not something to chase or achieve. It’s about coming back to yourself throughout the day to ask yourself “How can I feed my Soul”?

What advice would you give to other leaders about how to create a fantastic work culture?

Creating a fantastic work culture isn’t about snacks and games; it’s about listening. We need conscious and compassionate leaders who can communicate openly and honestly. People, especially in these times, want to be fully seen and recognized.

69% of employees say they’d work harder if they were better appreciated, as recorded in a recent Forbes study. Furthermore, 37% of employees consider recognition most important to be successful, and 91% of employees think that their leaders lack communication skills.

Creating a fantastic work culture starts with effective communication. The only question is, how will leaders invest in their personal development to communicate in a more open-hearted type of way?

Ok thank you for all that. Now let’s move to the main focus of our interview. Mental health is often looked at in binary terms; those who are healthy and those who have mental illness. The truth, however, is that mental wellness is a huge spectrum. Even those who are “mentally healthy” can still improve their mental wellness. From your experience or research, what are five steps that each of us can take to improve or optimize our mental wellness. Can you please share a story or example for each.

The five steps to improve your mental health are as follows…

#1 SOUL/Life Balance: As discussed earlier this is the mindset shift from chasing Work/Life Balance to bringing yourself to presence by practicing SOUL/Life Balance moment to moment. The most effective (and simple) way to practice SOUL/Life Balance is to ask yourself “How can I feed my Soul”? Then wait … listen … and act on the answer.

#2 Connecting With Your Breath: Our breath is the gateway to feeling more energized, connecting to one’s own heart, and ultimately to more fulfillment and joy in life.

One simple tactic to connect with your breath is “Box Breathing”. Box breathing is an easy-to-use tactic that you can come back to throughout the day.

BOX BREATHING SIMPLIFIED

  1. INHALE for 4 seconds, from the bottom of your belly letting the belly expand like a balloon to the top of your chest.
  2. HOLD your breath for 4 seconds.
  3. EXHALE slowly to the count of 4 seconds while bringing your belly inward toward your spine while dropping your shoulders.
  4. HOLD your breath for 4 seconds and repeat steps 1–3 a couple of times until you feel “complete”.

WARNING: Please use this practice at your discretion and be mindful of when and how you deploy this tactic. For a visual demonstration of Box Breathing, click this video.

#3 Tracing Your Thoughts: Tracing thoughts is simply getting to the root of a certain belief, story, emotion, or really anything that comes through your conscious awareness. Neuroscience teaches us that 96% of our thoughts are unconscious and that our conscious mind (awareness) is just 4% of what makes up who we are. The practice of tracing thoughts is to access the subconscious for my awareness of how we are truly feeling at any given moment.

TRACING THOUGHTS SIMPLIFIED

  1. PAUSE: Notice a Thought, Story, Emotion, or Belief entering your awareness.
  2. SILENCE: Sit with what comes up. Hear it, allow it, and listen to it without judgment.
  3. NAMING: Give what arises a name. I know this may sound a bit odd, but stay with me here…
  4. LISTEN: Once again, listen. Hear what this voice in your head is asking for (oftentimes it’s simply to be heard/seen/recognized/witnessed).
  5. OWN YOUR QUEENDOM/KINGDOM: You have an inner world within you and by listening to the voices arise; you now become the Leader of your “inner landscape”.

This practice may sound a bit odd if you haven’t done it before, but trust me it works!

This is a useful tactic to employ in your everyday life to help bring more conscious awareness to what’s going on within you. This is similar to the practice of IFS (Internal Family Systems) AKA Parts Work. IFS is a fantastic tool leveraged in the field of psychology.

As a practice, tracing your thoughts is about being aware of the present moment’s inner world/landscape.

By bringing awareness to the present moment through connecting with what’s rising to the surface within you; you will be guided to not only “feeding your soul” daily.

#4 Conscious & Compassionate Communication: I wasn’t always a conscious and compassionate leader and the result of my downfalls was due to not being connected with how I felt within. I was letting my distorted worldly view be an influence on others and it’s for this reason, it’s imperative we do steps 1–3 before making it to conscious and compassionate communication.

We must have practices and tools to go within and know what is going on within us and how we are feeling from moment to moment. Arguments or any sort of “negative” communication always stems from at least one person involved not being clear on how they feel within. If we are clear on how we are feeling within, we can show up more with more compassion in our relationships through conscious communication. The book, Non-Violent Communication, is a great place to start to explore how you can be conscious of communication in as a part of your toolbelt.

#5 Remembering to Play! It doesn’t always have to be so serious! Oftentimes, when one is dedicating themselves to their mental health they may use the phrase “doing the work”. Doing the work implies that you are committed to working on yourself to improve and be a more compassionate human being through a vast array of modalities.

However, what I’ve seen time and time again in folks “doing the work” (including myself), is that we take it too seriously and forget about play!

Play can be as simple as viewing a child and watching the world through their eyes. How can you bring back the awe and wonder into your life?

Creative expression is typically the ticket to more play. Whether it’s through music, movement, art, or anything else that is calling to you … the invitation is to listen to how you want to play, and then go do that thing (safely of course).

How about teens and pre teens. Are there any specific new ideas you would suggest for teens and pre teens to optimize their mental wellness?

The breath. For me, it always comes back to the breath. Connecting with your breath through meditation can be a good practice for teens. I’m a proponent of teaching our youth mindful tactics if you can’t tell already! ☺

Is there a particular book that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story?

The book, Sacred Contracts by Caroline Myss is one of my favorite books. The book is about how as Souls we chose the other souls we incarnated with and these are known as Soul Contracts. I’ve found that understanding the concept of Soul Contracts helps to make sense of some of the tougher relationships in life. I highly recommend listening to this book on Audible!

You are a person of great influence. If you could start 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. 🙂

SOUL/Life Balance ☺

The practice of putting yourself first and foremost, always … while simultaneously reframing your view of work as part of the living experience.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Do you have a story about how that was relevant in your life?

“The symbol of infinity is a representation of the human experience. It has its highs and its lows, yet it always comes back to meet itself exactly where it’s at”. This was something that came through during my 200 yoga teacher training. Since this “download” came through, I’ve used this concept as a core philosophy in my book, SOUL/Life Balance, and my classes when teaching yoga.

What is the best way our readers can follow you on social media?

You can find me on Instagram @SamKabert.com (https://www.instagram.com/samkabert/), searching Sam Kabert on LinkedIn (,https://www.linkedin.com/in/kabert/) or my website SamKabert.com. You can get more similar resources on my blog https://samkabert.com/blog/☺

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We wish you only continued success in your great work!

Thank You for the opportunity to share the teachings of SOUL/Life Balance! I wholeheartedly believe this is a practice to optimize mental wellness.


Sam Kabert of Soul Seekr: 5 Things Anyone Can Do To Optimize Their Mental Wellness was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Power Women: Ronke Majekodumi of Promevo On How To Successfully Navigate Work, Love, and Life As A…

Power Women: Ronke Majekodumi of Promevo On How To Successfully Navigate Work, Love, and Life As A Powerful Woman

An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

…Embracing shortcomings and turning fears into excitement — Mistakes are unavoidable, and my flaws have made me more astute. Acknowledging and owning my failings will continue to help me be a better person and a great leader.

How does a successful, strong, and powerful woman navigate work, employee relationships, love, and life in a world that still feels uncomfortable with strong women? In this interview series, called “Power Women” we are talking to accomplished women leaders who share their stories and experiences navigating work, love and life as a powerful woman.

As a part of this series, I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Ronke Majekodunmi.

Product Management is at the epicenter of all company innovation. It’s what drives businesses forward, solidifies customer relationships, and changes lives. Don’t believe us? Just ask Ronke.

Ronke Majekodunmi is a powerhouse product manager who is passionate about crafting exceptional products and sharing her breadth of knowledge with up-and-coming product leaders, especially those with diverse backgrounds.

As the current Director of Product at Promevo, Ronke’s responsibilities include frequent collaboration with global stakeholders, leading strategy, and developing new products. She has experience creating product lifecycles and composing product visions, and she has achieved optimal performance levels for products across a variety of industries.

Outside of her 9-to-5, Ronke is a teacher at heart. She’s spoken publicly about product management at dozens of events, writes ardently about her career journey, and records “Product Magic,” a podcast dedicated to showcasing the people that make it happen.

If you’re working on any business pieces about major products, launches, or brand news, Ronke is available for comment or interview. She is also available for longer-form speaking opportunities and to write op-eds on a variety of business- and product-related topics, including mentorship, teamwork and innovation, and management best practices.

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 childhood “backstory”?

As a Nigerian American who arrived in the United States at age 11, I wanted to excel at whatever I decided to do. One of my earliest mentors was my grandmother. It was crucial to my grandmother that I not only finish high school but also graduate from college. As a result, I began setting goals beyond a college degree and into the career trajectory I’m on now.

Can you tell us the story about what led you to this particular career path?

After college, I took a job in tech support for a bankruptcy filing program at LexisNexis, where I supported bankruptcy filing attorneys. Over time, I became the subject matter expert for the engineering team, where they would ask me to represent the voice of the customer, help rank the customer problems, and duplicate bugs in the system. Then, when a content role became available, I applied for it and became the forms creator for the software working with a product manager. I learned a lot from her, and when she left, I was promoted to the PM role.

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

In my many years of experience in product management, regardless of the leadership roles that I have held and no matter what accolades I have garnered, feelings of being an imposter, excessive second-guessing, and insecurities sometimes interrupt my thoughts.

I have learned to trust my instincts and recognize my value as a leader, colleague, and mentor. Most of all, I understand the importance of stepping into my purpose, as generations of women have laid the foundations for me.

You are a successful business leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?

My general passion and curiosity are the attributes that allowed me to be a productive product leader. In addition, these qualities have helped me to galvanize my cross-functional teams and motivate my entire organization to rally around our product and its objectives.

Another characteristic of mine that has supported my success is exceptional communication. To bring our product strategy and vision to fruition, I must communicate it through storytelling. But, even more indispensably, the story needs to travel easily through my cross-functional team members. Engineering, design, technical support, customer success, marketing, and sales must be able to repeat the story and convey how our product will solve real-world, consequential problems for our customers.

Similarly, my other trait is collaboration. I want to bring out the best in my colleagues and magnify everyone‘s voices, ensuring they are heard and validated. I recognize that I don’t have all the answers, but I want to work with team members to find the best solutions so we can solve problems for our customers in a defining manner.

Ok, thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the primary focus of our interview. The premise of this series assumes that our society still feels uncomfortable with strong women. Why do you think this is so?

Women continue to make great strides in businesses. We’re seeing more women in C-suite roles, and they are leading in large, medium, and small organizations. Yet, despite these achievements, there still exists double standards regarding women in leadership roles.

As more women move into leadership, it’s unacceptable for people to communicate or voice their uneasiness with these changing roles, as there will be adverse responses. So instead, they bury their discontentedness and animosity. The problem is those inequalities and biases do not disappear. Instead, they become concealed in philosophy and worldviews that people do not even realize they carry with them, influencing their decisions about strong women.

Without saying any names, can you share a story from your own experience that illustrates this idea?

I wanted to be a product rockstar like Steve Jobs so much that I ran from my leadership role at an established organization to a start-up company. I dove head first and did not do the needed research regarding the organization’s culture. However, once I was in this role, I was cheated out of my total bonus, and when I asked to meet with my boss to discuss it, he told me to live with what they gave me.

During this meeting, my boss also gave me feedback that I dress like an executive, making me look like I am better than others and making them feel sad and inferior. He told me that I didn’t belong in his organization. He also suggested a store where I should buy my clothes from.

I went home and cried all night; I called my mentors, who tried to help me. The following day my best friend called me and told me to hold my head up high and go to work dressing even better than I did the day before and let chips fall where they may. I did precisely that for the next couple of months I was there and came to work dressed up in J. Crew outfits. I was not going to be intimidated or let anyone mute my voice.

What should a powerful woman do in a context where she feels that people are uneasy around her?

Powerful women need to call into question conventions, customs, characterization, and the perceived roles of women. We need more environments that foster the conception of powerful women as par for the course.

When faced with setbacks or hindrances in accomplishing your dream please do not give up. The generations of women who came before us always looked behind to see who was there and who needed help, and they pulled them up. When there was no opportunity, they created one to make our path much more accessible. They were only able to do that because they persevered. Therefore, we must continue to develop new opportunities for the next generation of women that will need our help to shatter the glass ceiling.

We must promote other women by passing on the extraordinary gift bestowed upon us. We must pay it back by ensuring that we listen and offer assistance and advice to young women coming into the workforce both inside and outside our organizations.

What do we need to do as a society to change the unease around powerful women?

Studies have shown that when leaders are adamant about supporting gender equity, equal opportunities, diversity, and inclusion in the workplace, powerful women feel more encouraged and have an increased sense of belonging in their teams and their organization.

Organizations that champion, develop, and facilitate this corporate viewpoint make it possible for women to trust, be respected, and stay more engaged. Likewise, they are more inclined to stay and grow their careers in companies where their roles are the norm. Seeing a powerful woman who looks like you on the leadership team can have profound psychological effects on diverse employees, allowing them to see who they can become in the future.

In my own experience, I have observed that often women have to endure ridiculous or uncomfortable situations to achieve the success that men don’t have to endure. Do you have a story like this from your own experience? Can you share it with us?

A couple of years ago, I was having a 1–1 discussion with my engineering counterpart about practices we could include to test our products better so our customers can have a better experience. I will never forget his response to me. He said, “You don‘t need to be emotional about it.”

I was taken aback. Expressing concern for my product was seen as emotional. He made that statement to me in the hallway of our office with people coming and going. He never apologized for that comment.

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

Egalitarianism in the workplace is still among the most significant challenges for women leaders. Another is imposter syndrome; my female colleagues and I sometimes still feel ineptitude, regardless of our honest and tangible accomplishments. Using our leadership voice to speak unequivocally and unconcerned about what others might say, we still fear being shunned or rejected for speaking our truths. Another challenge that many women leaders face is being compensated fairly. We are afraid to ask for promotions, negotiate our salaries, and get pay raises.

Let’s now shift our discussion in a slightly different direction. This is a question that nearly everyone with a job has to contend with. Was it difficult to fit your personal and family life into your business and career? For the benefit of our readers, can you articulate precisely what the struggle was?

Although my significant other supports me in accomplishing my goals and dreams and pushes me to work towards what I think may not be possible, my biggest challenge has been carving out time.

To mitigate this and ensure that we spend time together, we save weekends for date nights. Likewise, we book multiple trips early in the year, so we have something in which to look forward.

What was a tipping point that helped you achieve a greater balance or greater equilibrium between your work life and personal life? What did you do to reach this equilibrium?

The tipping point was when I realized I had gone a month without seeing my significant other. Although we lived together, we were both busy traveling for work. We missed each other, so we changed how we traveled and communicated. Now, we talk an average of eight times during the day while away from home.

I work in the beauty tech industry, so I am very interested to hear your philosophy or perspective about beauty. In your role as a powerful woman and leader, how much of an emphasis do you place on your appearance? Do you see beauty as something that is superficial, or is it something that has inherent value for a leader in a public context? Can you explain what you mean?

My philosophy or perspective about beauty is that everyone should make their own decisions on what makes them comfortable and happy. The pandemic has changed things; some of us have worked from home for over two years and have not bothered to wear makeup for virtual meetings.

I believe in dressing for the job I want and not for the job I have. I still look presentable and don’t wear makeup when I work from home. When I travel for work, I dress very well, wear heels, and wear makeup because it makes me feel like the powerful woman I am.

How is this similar or different for men?

My thoughts and experience based on the organizations I have worked at are that men and women often dress business casual or casually. In organizations of all sizes, some men and women dress nicely for work, and some wear hoodies and jeans. In my case, the roles I was in required seeing customers, and we had to look presentable.

Ok super. Here is the main question of our interview. Based on your opinion and experience, what are the “Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a Powerful Woman?” (Please share a story or example for each.)

  1. Embracing shortcomings and turning fears into excitement — Mistakes are unavoidable, and my flaws have made me more astute. Acknowledging and owning my failings will continue to help me be a better person and a great leader.
  2. Cease engaging in upward comparison — The enticement to compare myself to my female colleagues, who I perceive to be better than me, is hard to disregard. However, I have learned not to make impractical and unreasonable assessments because these actions reinforce my insecurities.
  3. Use my leadership voice — Because I once relied on the work of other leaders, I am deeply grateful for the opportunity to use my leadership voice to help shape the next generation of young women. I look forward to making the transition easier for them or even blazing the path ahead. After all, when we use our voices, we can create lasting change that impacts future generations.
  4. Be fearless — To become courageous, we must do things that scare us. We’re fortified as leaders by doing what was deemed impossible, allowing us to elicit change and making the journey much easier for others who want to walk the same path.
  5. Mentor young women — I get excited about supporting young girls in grade school, women starting their careers or even the women I work with daily and about how those actions can lead to more significant statistics of women reaching the C-Suite. This makes me extremely happy.

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.

Meghan Markle. We watched the exceptional, remarkable, formidable, and worthy moment she entered. The sheer amount of courage, bravery, and stalwart it took to be prepared for such a big moment, which she met with such rectitude, excellence, gracefulness, and gentleness, is impressive.

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


Power Women: Ronke Majekodumi of Promevo On How To Successfully Navigate Work, Love, and Life As A… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.