Q and A with Amore from Bedfordview, Johannesburg, South Africa
“…women should be celebrated not tolerated.”
Q: What are you passionate about?
A: I’m passionate about fashion, especially bridal and evening wear.
In 2011, the Lord gave me a word to start my own business, and fast forward to 2026, I make matric dance [similar to prom] and wedding dresses for woman all over the world through my business Scarlett Red Boutique.
Q: What were your younger years like?
A: I was an au pair in USA after school, and I studied fashion design while I worked as an au pair [a young adult from a foreign country who lives with a host family]. Then I went to LISOF in South Africa and worked for Browns the Diamond Store, where I designed high end jewellery pieces and sold it to the South African market.
I am an only child.
I believe I am where I am today because of God.
Q: What is something valuable you’d like others to know?
A: Consistency is key, and never give up on your dreams.
If you can dream it, you can do it.
The world is your oyster.
Q: What does feminism mean to you?
A: I was a single mom for 12 years, and I gave up on love and then God stepped in, and I met my husband after all those years.
And now I get to do what I absolutely love.
It’s the rights of women that is important and valuable, and women should be celebrated not tolerated.
MORE ABOUT AMORE: I’m a mom. I have a 15 year old, and a 10 month old baby. And I also have my own online business called Life With Amore, which is an extra flow of income for my business.
“…life is ALWAYS teaching us. Even in the hard times.”
Q: What are you passionate about?
A: I’m passionate about helping women in midlife.
This [midlife] is a time of major transition that isn’t talked about enough.
I love helping women to work through it [midlife], coming out the other side, surpassing surviving it, instead thriving in it. Midlife crisis to midlife magic!
Q: What were your younger years like?
A: My younger years were hard when I was little.
My dad was alcoholic, my mom was co-dependant. Both did their best, given their circumstances.
I repeated those paterns in my life.
And I was very successful with my work.
I started as a waitress, working my way up to restaurant management.
I switched careers into the mortgage business where I went from loan officer to Vice President. Then I owned my own mortgage-related company for 15 years, which I sold for $2.5 million.
The more important piece was finding my own joy in peace in the process.
Q: What is something valuable you’d like others to know?
A: Something valuable I learned is that life is ALWAYS teaching us. Even in the hard times.
It’s all about perspective and how we view it.
Acceptance of what is happening is key.
Self awareness, really accepting that I had made decisions that brought me to where I was, was really impactful. Once you realize this, you also realize you have the power to change it.
Q: What does feminism mean to you?
A: Feminism, to me, is the reclamation of a woman’s power without abandoning her softness.
It’s not about competing with men or hardening ourselves to success.
It’s about remembering that our intuition, emotional intelligence, sensuality, creativity, and nurturing spirit are not weaknesses; they are our strengths.
MORE ABOUT DIANNA: I am a successful business woman. I understand firsthand what it feels like to “have it all” on the outside, yet feel numb and unfulfilled on the inside.
And I’m so excited to help other women do the same.
My sister died by suicide at age 51. She thought she had Alzheimers. If you’ve been there, you know, we feel like we are losing our minds.
This IS the process of transformation. Like a caterpillar turning into a butterfly. It’s a messy process!
“…your health is something you should always prioritize because you only get one life to live.”
Q: What are you passionate about?
A: My family, work, helping others and fitness.
I have always had a very close family, so they have and will always be my number one priority.
I am a Realtor with RE/MAX Advantage, small business owner (with my husband) Brads Hauling Services, and social selling with Beneve.
I’ve always loved fitness and grew up playing softball. Now, I enjoy outside walks/hikes and strength training.
Being a Realtor, I get to help people make the most important decision in their lives and celebrate with them.
[Through Beneve] I get to help men and women take their health back and become the best version of themselves.
Q: What were your younger years like?
A: I grew up in the Orthodox Church, so I have always had a strong faith.
My parents owned restaurants growing up, so I grew up in the business atmosphere and basically my own boss (since I worked for them). That helped create the hustle of my own businesses and the drive to always work hard and never give up.
Q: What is something valuable you’d like others to know?
A: It is never too late to follow your dreams or start over. And your health is something you should always prioritize because you only get one life to live.
Q: What does feminism mean to you?
A: For me, feminism isn’t about competing with men. It’s about women standing next to other women instead of against them.
It’s cheering for her when she wins.
It’s sharing the opportunities I see, sending the referral.
And fixing her crown without telling the world.
It is never a competition in my eyes. It is helping others build beside me.
MORE ABOUT JOANNA: Turning 40 was a new chapter for me. Although I have always been into fitness, I never really shared that love in an open space like the internet. When I turned 41, I joined Beneve. This company truly changed my life. I gained over 20 pounds from perimenopause and stress.
I found these natural products that actually worked for me and gave me my confidence back. I never thought I would join the company to sell, but these products have helped me lose over 30 pounds, regain my confidence, become a whole new person, and helps me survive perimenopause.
I love tattoos and my dogs, especially my Frenchie, Bruce. 🙂
“Define yourself, because the world is definitely trying to do it for you.”
Q: What are you passionate about?
A: I’m actually in this beautiful, shifting phase where I’m leaning into the fact that my passion doesn’t have to be just one thing.
Priority one is building a beautiful life as a wife and mother, but that domestic passion is actually the fuel for my entrepreneurial spirit.
What I’m truly passionate about is ultimate flexibility and freedom for my family.
That drive for freedom is why my husband and I run a diverse portfolio of businesses.
We co-own Access Your Place (rental arbitrage) and Penny Works (AI website generation) on the corporate side.
On the lifestyle side, I channel my “mommy-loving heart” into Reign & James Co. (baby gear rental/sleep coaching) and The Bad Bitch Club, a community for women who refuse to choose between building an empire and raising phenomenal humans.
Q: What were your younger years like?
A: It was the best of times and the absolute worst of times, all rolled into one.
I grew up in Arlington, Texas. The defining factor was being born with Peter’s anomaly, a rare form of glaucoma.
I lost my right eye super early, around age three, but I don’t actually remember that.
What I do remember is just being a normal kid: beating my older brother at video games, riding my bike, and obsessing over Dragon Tales.
Having one eye just meant I had to cozy up a little closer to the TV.
The real shift happened right before my tenth birthday when the glaucoma traumatically spread to my left eye.
I went from seeing to not seeing in less than 24 hours.
That kind of abruptness shatters everything.
I spent years in a really dark place, hating it.
But what I know now is that my blindness isn’t a flaw—it’s my flavor. It’s my superpower, and I had to hate it fiercely before I figured out how to use it.
Q: What is something valuable you’d like others to know?
A: My biggest takeaway is that strength is not the absence of bad days.
You can be utterly confident and still need a minute to cry in the shower.
I used to think resilience meant bouncing back fast, but it really means choosing to stand back up, even if it takes a week.
Also, for the moms out there: You are not failing your kids because you are blind (or busy, or tired). At the end of the day, you are literally only who you say you are. Define yourself, because the world is definitely trying to do it for you.
Q: What does feminism mean to you?
A: It’s simple: your gender is not a pre-written contract for your life. That’s the baseline.
Whether you’re building an empire or raising phenomenal humans—or both—it’s your choice. It’s about autonomy and options. F*ck a glass ceiling. Shatter that sh*t for good.
MORE ABOUT REL: Entering 2026, my main focus is health and happiness. I’m on a journey to heal my body and prioritize myself, because you can’t run a business or a family if you aren’t taking care of the vessel that does the work.
“When we regulate our inner world, we change how we parent, partner, work, and lead.”
Q: What are you passionate about?
A: I’m passionate about empowering busy, overwhelmed professional parents, who feel stressed and disconnected with their families, friends, and possibly even business/coworkers.
My fire comes from my own lived experience of breakthrough and now deeply committed to guiding others to find that same calm, clarity, and personal power from the inside out.
I don’t just talk about transformation, I have lived it and continue to do so.
The only way the world becomes a better place is one person at a time who wants to build genuine connection with themselves, and among their partners, kids, families, friends etc.
[This is done] through practical tools that interrupt patterns of stress and overwhelm. Reset their nervous systems (energy) first so they are not just surviving, but shift to thriving in all areas of life, including the area that matters most…relationships.
This one area can change all other areas of life, professional, spiritual, financial, and so much more.
I focus on those who are feeling like they are losing control of their emotions, their outer world, providing them a calm, clear path to claim their personal power to create a peaceful, vibrant life we all crave.
We go from stuck to unstoppable, utilizing deep awareness, micro-momentum, and create lasting change.
Q: What were your younger years like?
A: My younger years shaped me in ways I didn’t fully understand until much later, navigating a lot of death and loss.
My mother programed me to stand on my own two feet and never tolerate abuse (as she was during her childhood and first marriage), then also losing her at the age of 23 (she was only 57).
I learned responsibility early. I became independent quickly. I learned how to adapt, stay strong, and keep moving—skills that served me well, but also kept me in a constant state of over‑functioning, overwhelm, and burnout cycles.
I was capable, observant, out-performing most in my presence and insensitive at times, because I didn’t feel safe slowing down, asking for help, or even in my own skin for that matter. My biochemistry was allergic to it.
That pattern followed me into adulthood, where productivity and competence became my default ways of feeling secure and feeling successful.
We all have addictions, this was mine: control.
Motherhood became a turning point. It exposed how deeply my nervous system was wired for vigilance and control.
By the time my child hit puberty, we started getting diagnosis for her (neurodivergent) and following in my mother’s footsteps in abusing my own physical vessel and becoming overweight with health challenges starting to creep in, I realized listening to Dr. Joe Dispenza, that if I didn’t get out of this high level of stressful functioning, it would bring about disease and I was not going to let that happen.
It pushed me to look inward—not to fix myself, but to learn how to regulate, soften, and lead from calm instead of fear. To get healthy mentally so my physical body could follow suit. This was my pivoting moment that changed it all, not in one swoop, but the path was shown, and over a few years, it became more and more clear and it brought me here.
Q: What is something valuable you’d like others to know?
A: [There are] so many, but some of the most valuable breakthroughs I have learned are:
“Your identity shapes every outcome in your life.”
See, we don’t do what we can; we live by what we believe, who we think we are.
When you shift this core belief (identity), everything else shifts with it.
You don’t need to try harder or have more willpower—you need to feel safer by consciously rewiring your inner story, your physiology and the language we use with ourselves first.
This is the power we need to shift to become our default.
It’s not about force; it’s the truth of being “stuck and overwhelmed” to “unstoppable and calm.”
I used to always say I was stuck and overwhelmed, now the second that creeps in, I have my new default habits and behaviors that stop and block it and reinforce who I really am.
I teach this very pattern interruption in my signature program “Ignite Your Personal Power.”
Because without anchoring your true identity, nothing on the outside will last.
Your results echo in your beliefs; master this and you master your life.
I work on this daily myself; it never ends, it’s a journey.
So, if you feel or say you’re a failure, it’s hard, its too much, I’m exhausted, etc. – [it’s] time to change those beliefs, the language, and physiology you carry around about any of that and shift it into your personal power.
I want people to know that it doesn’t matter where you’re from, your genetics, your history, what’s been done to you, around you, or what keeps happening to you, or even where you are right now…you are the only one that has the power to change it all in one small shift.
It starts with one decision with ABSOLUTION that YOU decide and define who you want to be and only YOU can make it happen.
It all starts with a decision and no turning back.
Then make small shifts “micro-momentums” so there is no going back – that [in] this current situation, you are the master of your life.
If you want to know where to start, come join me – there are so many resources out there; the only thing blocking you is you.
Say enough TODAY and mean it.
Q: What does feminism mean to you?
A: Feminism? It’s just another label we honestly don’t need.
I don’t buy into it, I don’t function by it, and it’s not part of my world or language—until now, because someone asked me.
Here’s the cold, hard truth: Every human being, man or woman, gets to define who they want to be, what limits they accept—or refuse—and how they become their best self.
Labels like feminism tend to muddy the waters. They build walls of expectations and entitlement that distract us from the real game: transformation, true freedom, and personal power.
I’m way more invested in deep, authentic empowerment for humanity—where connection isn’t confined by ideologies, where flow and love dissolve all boundaries.
We are one energy field, one vibration. Labels separate us. Authentic power unites us. That’s the truth I stand for.
MORE ABOUT ANN: I believe calm is an invitation—to ourselves and to others. When we regulate our inner world, we change how we parent, partner, work, and lead. The ripple effect is real, and it starts quietly, from the inside out.
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