Q and A with Dr. Naieema, Charlotte, North Carolina
“Homelessness was one of the most impactful experiences of my life.”
Q: What are you passionate about?
A:I’m passionate about female empowerment, my family, and travel. My inspiration comes from seeing different parts of the world, my family, and wanting to teach my daughters that they can do anything that they put their minds to. My favorite trip was to Jamaica, right before the pandemic hit. I finished my PhD and am currently using research-based methods to improve The Determined FemPreneur™, my sales and business strategy program for service-based female entrepreneurs.
Q: What were your younger years like?
A: I was born and raised in New York City and grew up with three siblings. There was a period where my mother, my older sister, and I were homeless. We lived on the cold, dirty NYC subway; followed by a slew of homeless shelters. That was until we landed in Ravenswood Public Housing Development in Long Island City, Queens, NYC. Homelessness was one of the most impactful experiences of my life. I watched my mother work really hard, but she didn’t have much to show for it. I now use this fuel and those lessons to teach women how to earn more, work less, and make an even bigger impact.
Q: What is something valuable you’d like others to know?
A: I want others to know that it’s okay to normalize rest and luxury. As women, we often start our businesses wanting to make an impact. All while sacrificing time with our families, our sleep, and our mental and physical health. It’s OK to build a business where you’re not overworking yourself and that equally serves you and your clients/customers.
Q:What does feminism mean to you?
A: Feminism means equality, but it can’t exist if racism exists because there are women who are of marginalized communities.
“One thing I’ve learned is this: You cannot control what happens in your life, but you can control how you react to it. I think if I continued to sulk and think negatively, nothing significantly positive would’ve happened in my life. Changing my perspective and immersing myself in hope and positive thinking only resulted in positive changes in my life.”
Q: What are you passionate about?
A: It would be exceptionally hard to pinpoint one thing I am passionate about because I am passionate about everything I do. I currently work as a communications coordinator for a company that promotes financial stability in underdeveloped countries.
Luckily, I found this position by accident, and I am proud to say that I am a part of a project that helps those in need in someway somehow. One of my passions is definitely helping others.
Aside from my full-time job, I am the founder of the subscription box business “Petite Princess Box,” and I have to say building, creating, and executing my own ideas and seeing it all come to life is one thing I will always be passionate about. I think I have always been an entrepreneur at heart.
Pictured: One of Kelly’s customers enjoying her Petite Princess Box!
Q: What is something valuable you’ve learned that you’d like others to know?
A: A year ago, I lost my dad suddenly from a heart attack. I had such a stable life and everything was going great for me. I just got into my master’s program, had a growing business, and my family was happy and healthy, and then my world just changed dramatically with his death.
You can say I had to grow up quick. I had my hands fully immersed in everything after his death. I guess you can say I became the “new man” in the house. After his death, I lost a lot of motivation. He passed away two weeks before my master’s program would begin, and I could barely focus.
I felt like the quality in my work was slowly diminishing. I also stopped focusing on my subscription box business, and I could see it literally sinking. I ended up picking myself up and telling myself that I have to really immerse myself in positive thinking and to focus on finishing the goals my father wanted me to complete. And so I did that, and a year later, my whole life has changed (for the better).
I graduated with my degree, found a close and loyal tribe of friends and loved ones, got my very first “big girl” job, and rebranded my entire subscription box business, and it is growing very quickly.
One thing I’ve learned is this: You cannot control what happens in your life, but you can control how you react to it. I think if I continued to sulk and think negatively, nothing significantly positive would’ve happened in my life. Changing my perspective and immersing myself in hope and positive thinking only resulted in positive changes in my life.
Q: What were your younger years like?
A: My childhood was nothing but great! We lived a pretty modest life in the suburbs. I grew up with my parents who immigrated from Palestine and my younger sister. My parents have always been supportive and always pushed us to be our best.
Growing up, I struggled in school—all the way up to my high school years. I was never able to maintain exceptionally good grades and as many tutors as I had to assist me in my studies, there was still this struggle I had in obtaining a single “A” on my report card. Before starting my last year of high school, I told my guidance counselor that I wanted to get into university after I graduate. She told me that based on my grades from my previous years, attending a university would not be a realistic goal unless I managed to maintain an 80% average in my final year.
I remember going home to tell my parents how angry I was at the lack of encouragement my guidance counselor had for me, and I promised myself and my parents that I would work hard enough to get accepted into a university program. In my last year of high school, I ended up maintaining an 87% average and got accepted into the highest ranked university in Canada.
Fast forward to my last year of university—I had maintained a substantial GPA and ended up getting accepted into a very competitive program for a master’s degree in communications. You can say that these experiences in school really impacted my life to where I am today. If you were to ask me if I’m still upset that my guidance counsellor for discouraging me, I would say no. If she didn’t discourage me, I wouldn’t have pushed myself as hard as I did to prove her wrong and prove myself right.
A: I am a clarity and success coach and mindfulness consultant. I am passionate about people finding their happiness, purpose, and fulfillment in this world by creating conscious businesses. Being an intuitive empath, it is natural for me to feel into what is required to support people while shining a light on the areas of growth and service required with ease and support to bring comfort and kindness.
I have a background in corporate and government strategic leadership and management in the UK and New Zealand and, although it was fulfilling for a time, I was always outgrowing the projects and teams and organizations. My values and boundaries were always getting stretched and compromised, and I never felt comfortable in these environments for long. As you can imagine, it was in direct conflict with my empathic nature. Yet, my business brain loved the strategic improvement aspects.
The catalyst to quit the corporate world to launch my own coaching business came following the birth of my first child. When I announced that I was pregnant, I was met with negativity and views which contradicted how I envisioned my motherhood journey would be. Eventually, I chose to ignore these opinions and lived mindfully during my first year as a new mum. It was exactly how I envisioned it would be.
I wanted to take what I had learned about mindfulness during my maternity leave and turn it into a fulfilling business to help others. Combining all my coaching, business, and strategic experience, supporting other intuitive empaths not cut out for organizations that didn’t fit their ideals.
I am currently working on so much. I always have projects on the go. However, I am most excited about the recent launch of my newest group coaching program which follows on from my Conscious Creation Business Accelerator, a 12-week Business Building group program, which leads into The Accelerator MasterCircle, my 6-month advanced and exclusive program for my Accelerator graduates.
Q: What is something valuable you’ve learned that you’d like others to know?
A: There is immense power in owning your story and being able to accept your pathway and being vulnerable to others. Through this process, you will regain all the control and personal power, respect, and admiration you seek. Although none of that matters if you do not first truly honor, respect, know, like and trust yourself.
So, if you want to make it anywhere in this world with happiness and contentment, you need to be your own best friend and get to a level of self-awareness that supports your lifestyle and personal expectations.
Quality of life is born from within initially, as success is a feeling, it does not come from outside in the initial instances.
Q: What were your younger years like?
A. I grew up in the UK in Hertfordshire, and in the main, I had a great life. However, my personal journey to success wasn’t straightforward, when I reflect upon it now. I had chosen to leave university before I received my degree as I didn’t really know who I was or what I wanted to do and I wasn’t invested enough in the formal education system at the time. I had a lot of life to experience and a lot of growing to do.
Soon after starting my chosen career, I fell quite ill and was, not long after, diagnosed with viral chronic fatigue syndrome. A debilitating illness which meant that my immune system was so weak I was bed-ridden for months. This took its toll on my journey to finding my purpose; however, looking back this became a big part of who I am because even then, I refused to be limited by the limits of my physical form and I did as much work on my mindset and emotions as possible to manage my rehabilitation. As a result, I managed to make a full recovery—even though it took the best part of five years of my life.
While working as a business manager in the UK, I experienced work-related stress after government restructures saw my entire team’s roles at risk, which in part, began my drive for authentic, conscious living after disagreeing with the fundamentals of the change. It was a really challenging time, trying to stand up for what I believed in, while consciously role modeling the behaviors that I believed would protect and support our people adequately. Looking back, I can see how this also shaped my pathway to my ‘Purpose’ and made me the person I am today, able to stand strong for what I believe in and actively guide others to find their same personal power within to build their own authentic lives, consciously create, and believe in what they want from life.
Without any of these experiences, and a whole heap of others, I would not be where I am today, so no matter how turbulent or challenging, I am grateful for those lessons and experiences because today I am living the life I only ever once dreamed of.
Q: What does feminism mean to you?
A: Honoring our unique abilities as women and appreciating what we bring to the table. I am not an anti-male or only pro-women. I believe we are equal and each has skill sets that are needed and required. Working as teams we will succeed in more ways.
The same with women working together in more ways—we will succeed more than when we compete. So, feminism is support, connection, and collaboration. Rising as one.
Thank you for reading!
Alison Callan is a Global Clarity & Success Coach, a mindfulness consultant, speaker and Co-Author of the #1 best-selling book ‘You Are Meant For More.’
Q and A with Jaycel from Papua New Guinea, living in England, UK
“I remember one of my uncles discouraged me to take up law as he believed it was a male’s profession. I did not let that crush my spirit and dream of becoming a lawyer. I proved him wrong.”
Q: What are you passionate about?
A: I love helping people in whatever ways I possibly can and reading and watching inspirational or motivational quotes or videos, gardening, cooking and baking. Family time is important to me. I love spending time with my husband and my three-year-old son, my family, my extended families. I like discovering new adventures and traveling! I am an outdoorsy person, so I just love nature because it makes me feel refreshed and helps me think clearly. I have a career in law, but I was always passionate about venturing into the entrepreneurial world. I guess my profession aligns with my interest of helping people. I wanted something that I could do from the comfort of my own home, which is what I’m currently working on. I mentor and teach people to work online.
Q: What were your younger years like?
A: I was the second born of six children. Since my elder brother was adopted, I was seen as the older one and looked out for my other four siblings. Our parents were average hard-working people who sacrificed a lot. They did not have so much money, but they had enough to make sure there was food on the table, enough to buy our necessities, and enough to put us all to school. What they really wanted was for us to get a better education and excel in life. Seeing how much my parents had sacrificed really pushed me to study hard and do well in my primary school days to high school and eventually to university. I was fortunate to be selected to university amongst the top students around the country and completed my bachelor of law degree (LLB). Coming from a society where women were seen as inferior due to cultural and ethnic beliefs, I really wanted be the voice of the voiceless and prove that women can take up any role in the society. I remember one of my uncles discouraged me to take up law as he believed it was a male’s profession. I did not let that crush my spirit and dream of becoming a lawyer. I proved him wrong. My parents, especially my mum, had the greatest impact on my life. She pushed forward in life no matter what obstacle she encountered. She always believed in me even when sometimes I did not believe in myself.
Q: What is something valuable you’d like others to know?
A: The most valuable thing I’ve learned is to never trust anyone but yourself. I’ve watched people go from being someone I loved, trusted, and looked up to…to being people I never speak to or even want to talk to ever again. I’ve experienced so much deceit, lies, manipulation, and disgusting behavior from people I thought I knew and cared about; it broke my heart. I had experienced the worst relationship in the past to being conned and deceived by my own friends whom I trusted. That’s why I’ve learned not to ever trust anyone but myself. I’ve faced so many challenges in life. I’ve learned that life can be messy and painful sometimes, but always learn to be focus on what you can learn from these moments and become stronger and smarter. That’s the only way to keep forward. Do not let other people’s negativity or opinions discourage you from what you truly want in life. You can conquer anything! You just have to have that self-confidence to deal with whatever life throws at you. You are responsible for yourself and no one else is. Always be yourself. If you want to be happy, you go to work for it.
Q:What does feminism mean to you?
A: To me, feminism means standing up for yourself and for the voiceless. It’s about empowering other women about anything really. It’s about women being accepted and recognized in leadership roles and given the same or equal treatment and respect.
MORE FROM JAYCEL: I’ve paused my career for a while to concentrate on my online business. I mentor and teach people especially moms to set up their own online business.
Q and A with Fabi from Caracas, Venezuela, living in Miami, Florida
“I believe that the most impactful thing a business can do is get massive clarity on their brand message.”
Q: What are you passionate about?
A: The things I am most passionate about are my business and my family. I am a mom of 3 little girls (6, 2, and 4 months), and I love spending time with them and my family. In terms of my business, I am EXTREMELY passionate about what I do. I love my clients and showing up, giving value each and every day.
Q: What were your younger years like?
A: I actually had quite a unique childhood. I am from Venezuela, but I spent my childhood travelling all over the world. My dad worked in a multi-national company and they moved us around every 2 years. I lived in Brazil, Venezuela, Spain, the US, and India and traveled extensively through each of the different continents. This DEFINITELY was super impactful for me because it allowed me to learn to adapt to different cultures, which is something I believe I do every day when I work with my clients. I believe I’m adapting to their cultures and personalities as well. It has also given me a truly broad perspective on the world.
Q: What is something valuable you’d like others to know?
A: I have tried all the marketing tactics and strategies you could ever imagine. I believe that the most impactful thing a business can do is get massive clarity on their brand message. What this means is understanding who they are, who their audience is, and the outcome they deliver for them. When you know this in your gut, it allows you to show up with magnetism to all that you do. You attract people in a different way because it means you are able to make deep connections with your audience.
Q:What does feminism mean to you?
A: I have always believed deeply in equality and it’s one thing I have always stood for. I don’t live in a traditional household. I am the primary breadwinner for my family, I have 3 daughters, and my husband works for me. I want my daughters to see that anything is possible for them as well.
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