Woman Wednesday: Natasha


Q and A with Natasha from Washington, USA

“You can be incredibly skilled or invest in learning the best strategies, but without the right mindset, you still won’t get the result.”


Q: What are you passionate about? 

A: I’m passionate about finding ways to play and making the most of my time every day. I love spending time being a mom to my three-year-old son, cooking, SCUBA diving, and my work supporting other entrepreneurs.

I help entrepreneurs tap into playfulness in their business to elevate what they sell and how they sell it, so they can create massive visibility, make consistent sales, and have a whole lot more fun! Some things I’m currently working on in my business that I’m excited about are launching a networking container that will include a retreat to a fabulous location. I’m also building out a new program for people who want to work with me in a group or short-term capacity. It’s amazing because it allows me to support more people by having an impact at multiple price points.

In my personal life, I’ve started taking harp lessons. It’s so much fun! This is my first time playing a musical instrument, it’s never too late to learn. Also, I love to travel! I’ve visited over 40 countries. My new ones this year were Costa Rica, Senegal, The Gambia, Cape Verde, Montenegro, Bosnia, and Herzegovina. My favorite things to do when I’m traveling are to wander the streets and make new friends, take food tours, and watch my son take in the world.

Q: What were your younger years like?

A: As a kid, I always wanted to be a writer and a performer. I loved to sing, act and tell stories. So, it’s really perfect that now I get to do all of those things in my business, and teach other people how to grow their impact by telling their own stories. I really loved and excelled in school. And in my childhood, I always received the message that the path to success was to go to school and get a good job. So I did exactly that, went to a great school, and got a great job, but it didn’t make me feel successful or fulfilled. 

I knew I needed to do something different, but I didn’t grow up with many examples of entrepreneurship, especially successful black female entrepreneurs. That’s why supporting and guiding that community is so, so important to me. I want to share the knowledge I didn’t have and inspire more women to build something of their own.

Q: What is something valuable you’d like others to know?

A: Mindset is greater than skill set. When it comes to growth and success, winning the inner game is crucial. I experienced this when I was transitioning from being an employee to an entrepreneur. I brought my employee mindset to building a business and it held me back for the longest time. But once I hired a mentor, he helped me rewire how I was thinking. Within six weeks, I made $20k in sales. And within a year, I had a six-figure business. 

You can be incredibly skilled or invest in learning the best strategies, but without the right mindset, you still won’t get the result. Those limiting beliefs will still hold you back, and you’ll get stuck at the same point, the same level of success, over and over again. If you want to have a breakthrough, you have to have a mindset shift first. I’ve seen it for myself and my clients, it always works this way. 

Q: What does feminism mean to you?
A:
Feminism, to me, means having choice and opportunity. For women to have the ability to choose what feels aligned and right for them in every area of their life, without barriers to their happiness, success, or fulfillment. The choice to be a mom or not be a mother. The choice to work or not to work. The choice to be feminine or not feminine. The choice to follow a faith or not follow it.

And for those women to have every opportunity that’s afforded to men. The opportunity to grow, to be a leader, to flop and make mistakes, and to see themselves represented in their media. That’s what feminism looks like to me. 

MORE ABOUT NATASHA:

I’d love to share the mantra I live by, it’s been the mindset that’s made everything possible…

Be bold. Play first. Live Free.

Thank you for reading!

Woman Wednesday: Sarah W.

 


 

 

 

 

Sarah Wolfer (1)

 

 

Sarah Wolfer Headshot

 

 

 

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Sarah 3
 
 
 

Sarah and Adriel

 

 

 

 

Sarah Wolfer:

 

 

 

Woman Wednesday: Authors, Dee J. Stone


Q and A with Authors, Dee J. Stone 

“Don’t be afraid to put your work out there. It’s very daunting at first, but it’s so rewarding when people read your book and tell you how much they love it. What makes us feel good is when we get a message from a reader telling us how she had a pretty hard day and our book made her feel better.”

Q: Who are you?

A: We are Dee J. Stone, a pseudonym for two sisters who write and publish young adult and adult novels on Amazon. We’ve been doing this for over five years. Here is our Amazon author page.

Q: What got you interested in writing?

A: We were always creating stories since we were little kids, although we didn’t know that at the time. As young kids, we would sit with our dolls and play for hours, creating a story and running with it. When we were a little older, around middle school, we would draw comics and create stories that way. But we didn’t actually start writing until high school. We started off writing plays before moving onto novels.

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Pictured: Dee J. Stone’s most popular novel, Merman’s Kiss. Available for Kindle or paperback, click here. 

Q: Why did you choose self-publishing, and can you explain it?

A: Self-publishing is when you write and publish a book all on your own, without reaching out to an agent and/or publisher. A self-published author has to handle every aspect of the publishing process including providing a good cover that would catch readers’ attention, editing, proofreading, and marketing. Many authors hire other people to take care of the cover and editing, though marketing is usually on their shoulders. The reason we chose the self-publishing route was that we like the freedom to make our own choices when it comes to our books.

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Pictured: Dee J. Stone’s novel, Cruiser. Available for Kindle or paperback, click here. 

Q: Can you tell us about some of the books you have published? 

A: Sure! Our most popular books are a part of a paranormal romance series called Merman’s Kiss. Here is the link to the series. It follows the story of Cassie Price, who stumbles across a merman that has washed up on shore. The two of them become close and eventually fall in love.

Another series we have is a superhero series called Keepers of Justice. It’s about a school for kids with powers. Here is the link to the series. We also have a fairy-tale retelling series. We write in many genres, such as paranormal, fantasy, contemporary, and romance.

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Pictured: Book one of the series, Keepers of Justice. Available for Kindle or paperback, click here. 

Q: What advice would you give to aspiring writers? 

A: Don’t be afraid to put your work out there. It’s very daunting at first, but it’s so rewarding when people read your book and tell you how much they love it. What makes us feel good is when we get a message from a reader telling us how she had a pretty hard day and our book made her feel better. Another piece of advice would be to make sure you give your book to someone to read before publishing it. Someone who is not a family member or friend and can give you honest feedback. A writer constantly needs to learn from her mistakes. And another piece of advice? Try not to take bad reviews too seriously. Every book gets them, and they hurt really badly, but try to focus on the good reviews and continue writing.

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Pictured: Dee J. Stone’s Falling for the Genie, available via Kindle or paperback, click here. 

Q: Is there anything valuable you have learned throughout the writing/publishing process?

A: Stay true to who you are and what you believe in. Many writers feel like they need to change themselves in order to fit in and sell more books. If you want to sell, you may need to make some changes to your writing, but you shouldn’t have to compromise your beliefs. Readers will love your story if you write it well and touch their hearts.

Q: What would you like others to learn from your stories?

A: We believe in writing characters who respect one another. When we write romance novels, we try to portray sweet and kind guys/men who treat women with the utmost respect. There are so many books out there that have male characters who don’t treat their women very kindly, and that is not something we believe in. Hopefully, readers will walk away from our stories with a better understanding of how people should treat one another.

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Pictured: Chasing Sam, written by Dee J. Stone, available via Kindle or paperback, click here. 

Q: What does feminism mean to you?

A: Expanding on the previous question, we believe that feminism is about people respecting one another. No two people are created the same, and there will always be a difference of opinion or arguments. It’s how a person treats other people that matters. Feminism is not only about women feeling equal to men, but showing men how to treat women, and how women should treat one another as well. As the golden rule goes, “Treat others the way you want to be treated.”

Check out our books, available on Amazon here.

Click here for our best selling book! 

 

Woman Wednesday: Valeria


Q and A with Valeria, born in Budapest, Hungary, living in Costa de Sol, Spain

“I will spend the rest of my life with myself, so self-care and wellness for “my time” both physically and mentally have become a focal point.”


Q: What are you passionate about? 

A: Awe my passions! My passions embody different paths: First, about my and your health, functional fitness, and how we can all age gracefully…I know it is a huge challenge for all of us to stay fit, flexible, and healthy.

I am an avid hiker with my puppers, and I love my CrossFit classes (both of which tighten and shorten my muscles and ligaments). My yoga really helps to balance it out and reverse the harmful effects of aging, but with that said, I am more interested in taking ownership of the health and aging of my body and mind (than nailing the perfect headstand or arm balance).

I have been doing yoga for the past 25 years and teaching for the last 15 years and have been fortunate to have studied under Baron Baptiste, Ana Forest, John Friend, and my beloved teacher, Shiva Rea.

Teaching yoga led me to study to become an Ayurvedic practitioner. I owned a yoga studio in Vancouver, Canada (I lived there for 30 years), and after classes, I had students come up and talk about their health concerns.

As a yoga teacher, I could only help so much, so I decided to embark on the journey to become an Ayurvedic practitioner. Ayurveda can be traced back some 3,000 years and is the sister science of Yoga.

My second passion would be about animals, by way of example my pets serve as a comforting escape like they do for so many of us…almost meditative at times. Lots of work, but also immense fun!

And a third passion would be as simply articulated as “my time.” I will spend the rest of my life with myself, so self-care and wellness for “my time” both physically and mentally have become a focal point as does continuing forward with a work-life integration (more realistic than a work-life balance in my mind).

As far as what I’m working on, my focus has been to create affordable, accessible, and easy-to-follow yoga classes and Ayurveda recommendations that we can all do in the coziness of our own spaces.

As the on-demand membership continues to grow on my website, I now continue “spreading the word” about my on-demand yoga classes (yin–restorative–flow) and Ayurveda articles to help you and me with a work-life integration; after all, “We are all in this together, stay strong, healthy and flexible.”

Also, as I get quite a few questions about how to begin yoga as a counter-balance for training from runners, swimmers, cyclists, bodybuilders, CrossFit participants, physique contestants, I have started to bring together a six-part, three-video yoga series aimed at beginners, those coming off an injury, in rehab, or those who just want to revisit some of the fundamentals.


Q: What were your younger years like?

A: Growing up in communist Hungary meant we could not travel at all, but my dad was a diplomat and so, we were stationed in different countries (Russia and Iraq).

We were privileged to see different parts of the world. I really think that was such an advantage compared to many of my friends living in Hungary. For this, I feel I had a very lucky childhood.

I was privileged to meet and have fun with other children of different races and nationalities–a formative time of innocence to shape a young mind that has embodied my life to this date. That really opened my eyes and framed, I am sure, some of my passions and formed the yogic idea of acceptance in varied forms at a young age. My dad, now 91 and still plays tennis every day, is very open-minded and loving like my mother.


Q: What is something valuable you’d like others to know?

A: I got quite sick at the age of 45; that’s when I discovered Ayurveda. Ayurveda is preventative medicine.

The great thing about Ayurveda is that its treatments always yield “side benefits, not side effects.”

What I would like others to learn from my story is to stay fit, flexible, and healthy, and find for yourself your own work-life integration toward your own self-care and wellness in whatever form it takes shape–and remember to enjoy the journey despite the ebbs and flows.


Q: What does feminism mean to you? 

A: To me, feminism is that we all need to find our own individuality. We can accomplish and enjoy a lot on our own, but of course, it is beautiful to be in a relationship to share your life with somebody.


Thank you for reading!

Namaste,

Valeria

Woman Wednesday: Keke


Q and A with Keke from Queens, NY

“There is one skill I value the most and that is asking for help.”


Q: What are you passionate about? 

A: I am passionate about helping others by providing motivation, inspiration, and emotional support. I’ve always said that my purpose found me when I was a sophomore in college in 2012 when my grandmother was killed by a car.

My line of work involves helping individuals by providing direct care services and providing counseling.

I am currently working on planning my Self-Love Tour and building up a Sisterhood Community dedicated to self-love and self-care resources. I help women on a self-love and healing journey by providing coaching services, self-love brunches, retreats, and training sessions.

Q: What were your younger years like?

A:  I have been through a lot growing up. I’ve always felt feelings of abandonment and rejection due to not having an active father in my life.

I’ve always been self-driven to accomplish my goals. I have been able to complete undergrad at Mercy College in 2015 with a psychology degree and grad school at St. John’s University in 2017 with a master’s degree in clinical mental health counseling.

After my grandmother was killed in a car accident, I went through anxiety issues, times of hyperventilating, and felt guilty for not seeing her as much as I could’ve.

I had to learn how to regulate my emotions, and I learned early on to ask for support. I felt like I was always viewed as being the strong one and to finally allow myself to lean on support helped me through it all. Also, I felt led to go into the social science field after a few months after the accident. I finally made the decision even though I wasn’t sure, and now here I am ten years later operating with my gifts.

Q: What is something valuable you’d like others to know?

A: I want others to know that it’s okay to not be okay. It’s important to process emotions and thoughts and learn the necessary skills to overcome them. Also, I would encourage others to stay encouraged and make use of asking for help. There is one skill I value the most and that is asking for help.

Q: What does feminism mean to you?
A:
Great question. It means being able to be empowered and overcome the challenges society places on women.

MORE ABOUT KEKE: My favorite color is purple, and I love to sing.

Thank you for reading!

Let’s connect! Here: Linktr.ee/sisterhoodofhealing