Q and A with Terri from Korea, raised in Virginia, and living in Los Angeles, CA
“They’re just thoughts, yet we often let them define us, hold us back, shape our reality, etc.”
Q: What are you passionate about?
A: I love marketing. Marketing and entrepreneurship is so fascinating to me. I love psychology and how it plays into marketing and sales. I love connecting brands with their customers and watching lives change because of it. I love helping people tell their story through marketing. It is definitely my gift. I also love to help people realize their potential. I love to help them see a new perspective that assists in their elevation. I’m always going to work with entrepreneurs and businesses, but I do have a new project I’m working on that’s for kids and I am beyond excited. I cannot wait to share more of it!
Q: What were your younger years like?
A: My younger years definitely shaped who I am today. My mom is Korean and my dad is black, so I grew up navigating two cultures. For me growing up biracial was the best thing ever. I was always proud of both sides of me, and I could fit in anywhere and get along with everyone. I believe it also help me understand others more because I was exposed to so many different cultures very young. I am the first in my immediate family to go to college and become a business owner. I think the best thing about my childhood is I always marched to the beat of my own drum, and I had the will inside me to never give up. There’s always a way. I see how that helps me now as an adult and I’m grateful for that.
Q: What is something valuable you’d like others to know?
A: Learn to think your thoughts. We don’t realize how many thoughts we think that don’t serve us. They’re just thoughts, yet we often let them define us, hold us back, shape our reality, etc. Mental health and strength must be learned, as well as emotional intelligence. When you learn to think your thoughts and move with only what serves your highest good, you will feel a peace inside that compares to nothing else in the world. When you find that true connection within, you feel whole and loved! It takes practice, but it is is so worth it!
Q:What does feminism mean to you?
A: To be bold and brave and be whoever it is you want to be, unapologetically.
“We get to determine what our success looks like because we have control of our life.”
Q: What are you passionate about?
A: I’m most passionate about being a mama and wife while creating a better life for my family. I’ve always known that I wanted to be a mom, but I also knew that I didn’t want to have to send our kiddos to day care or live off a single income. That’s when I started a virtual assistant business so that I could be a work-from-home mom and have time and financial freedom. But I soon realized that I was still trading time for money and providing this type of service would never help my family reach the time and financial freedom I so wanted. So, I shifted my business into freelance writing and earned 20x my income within the first two months while working fewer hours (for real, I’ve done the math on this a dozen times). Finally, I was able to start building the life of my dreams because I finally had control over my own life. After creating success in freelance writing, I became passionate about helping others ditch the overworked and underpaid lifestyle by building their own freelance writing businesses. It’s my mission to guide people along the exact roadmap to becoming a freelance writer. I’ve held nothing back in my course Freelance Writing with Hanah Harvey.
Q: What were your younger years like?
A: I grew up in the suburbs of Indianapolis and went to a small school where I met my husband during sophomore year. He had somehow moved all the way from England and landed in our class with only 15 people. Talk about meant to be. We grew up together and rode the roller coaster of life, both settling into the mentality that hard work equals success. Working overtime and having money in the bank means you are successful…even if you don’t have enough time to do anything with that money.
That’s when my husband said the sort-of-blunt mantra we now live by: “If you don’t like it, change it.” And all of a sudden, we realized that working 60-70 hours a week wasn’t what we wanted out of life, so we changed it. September 2021 marks 11 years of togetherness and learning to do life on our own terms because we now understand that we get to determine what our success looks like because we have control of our life.
Q: What is something valuable you’d like others to know?
A: This might sound harsh, but it’s a game changer: If you don’t like it, change it. If you are unhappy with where you are at in life, whether that be work, location, finances, or how you’re spending your time…then change it. You can have control over your life, you just have to choose it. I’ve been there, stuck in the rat race trying to find my place in this world. It’s when I truly understood that I get to define what success looks like for me and I get to control my life that I was really able to make the changes, and becoming a freelance writer was exactly what I needed.
Q:What does feminism mean to you?
A: To me, feminism is not only a movement, but a right for women to be able to live life how they want to live. To leave behind what society says they have to do and create a life on their own terms. Whether they go into politics, medicine, construction, or being a stay-at-home mom, women get to choose that for themselves. I’ve spent a lot of my life proving so that I can keep up with the guys, and I’m not less than just because I’m a woman. It means so much more to me now that I have a daughter. I will fight tooth and nail to make sure she has equal opportunities and isn’t boxed into a corner just because she was born a she.
So, how did I actually create time, location, and financial freedom for my family? I created a stable and profitable freelance writing business, and I’m giving away all my secrets. Freelance Writing with Hanah Harvey is my signature program that is the exact process I used to build a freelance writing business that let’s me go to the zoo on a random Wednesday, never again have to request time off to spend with my family, and allows my family to have financial freedom. Learn more at: hanahharvey.com
Wondering if Freelance Writing is for you? I’ve created a free, four-part training series that will walk you through how freelance writing can change your life, if freelance writing is for you, what you do and don’t need, and how to create stability and wealth. Go to hanahharvey.com/free to get this free gift.
“I always find myself coaching and connecting with truly exceptional people–people who have challenged society’s expectations of them, have risen to the call they hear deep within, and are committed to creating their own story.”
Q: What are you passionate about?
A:I’m passionate about self confidence and self trust…that each woman can have a safe and supportive space inside her own head. A big part of my work is helping my clients discover and release the expectations that were placed on them by society that no longer serves their dreams and goals. I believe very strongly that this foundation must be laid first, before goal setting and accountability come into play. That’s why my coaching offer starts with self talk before going on to clarity, accountability, and self-coaching, which are the other pillars of my program. By the end of my 12-week program, my clients get to experience that supportive space in their heads, know what they actually want out of life, and are moving toward that next big goal, and finally have the self-coaching skills to independently get themselves through the places that they get stuck mentally or emotionally. It all has to start with changing the inner dialogue to create the internal confidence and framework for success. To find out more about my coaching offer, or to connect with a community on your growth journey join my Facebook group here: facebook.com/groups/createyourpower. This is the only way to to experience a coaching call for free as well.
Q: What were your younger years like?
A: I had a very interesting childhood to say the least. Until I was nine, I grew up on a farm, homeschooled. I spent my days frolicking in the fields with the goats and making mud pies. Suddenly, our family moved to Tbilisi, Georgia, half way across the world, to a city of 2 million people. That was hard, but reentry to the United States was equally hard, as we didn’t move back “home,” but instead moved to a small village in Alaska. This left me with the experience of being an ‘outsider’ in multiple different life circumstances. It was messy, but I became an observer of the cultural framework that many people see as ‘the only way,’ and I stood apart from it, noticing the beauty as well as the pain that the particular framework brings with it. At the same time, I had to learn to see my own biases for what they were and continually grow to a more expansive understanding of the world around me. These experiences laid the foundation for the coaching work I do today–standing outside a person’s experience, observing it, but also empathizing with it.
Q: What is something valuable you’d like others to know?
A: If there was one thing I’d love for people to learn from my story, it would be to notice that the assumptions you have that might sound like fact may actually be just one way of seeing the world. For example, maybe you learned that if a person is late, it’s because they don’t respect your time. Ask yourself, “What if I actually had something really beautiful to learn about time from someone who is perpetually late? What if they are honoring me in a way I never even considered?” Before I began my career in life coaching, I was a Salvation Army Officer, which gave me the opportunity to manage a local service for social services and spiritual development. This included leading the teams that provided weekly community meals, funding assistance, youth and women’s programs, day camps, and assistance for the unhoused. What I loved about being in leadership was the one-on-one connections and the opportunity to hear people’s stories and walk with them in their journeys. In the same day, I might find myself walking alongside an unhoused single mother, as well as the CEO of a company or a representative of local government. Every person’s story is sacred, and I always find myself coaching and connecting with truly exceptional people–people who have challenged society’s expectations of them, have risen to the call they hear deep within, and are committed to creating their own story. If this is you, I’d LOVE to hear your story. Email me at stephanigalindocoaching@gmail.com.
Q:What does feminism mean to you?
A: For me, pragmatic feminism can be seen in how I raise my boys–to recognize injustice, to embrace the nurturing side of themselves, and to understand consent. As they get older, I will continue to learn new ways to teach equity, so that they can be part of the solution, rather than part of the problem.
Also, I’m a boy mama, and my boys are currently seven and four years old. I have raised them with a deep acceptance of emotions and a value for gentleness.
A: I am passionate about helping aspiring service-based entrepreneurs who are stuck and confused to stop going round in circles, gain clarity, formulate a strategy whilst leveraging digital marketing to continuously generate leads, and create a wildly successful business while they live the life they choose. Over the years, I have always been interested in marketing, and at the time, I didn’t know much about digital marketing. I started my job as a waitress in Dubai in 2012, whilst learning online about marketing. It took a lot of hustle, tears, hard work, rejections, training, and a huge mindset shift for me to finally land my first job in a marketing department in one of the fastest-growing cities (Dubai) and grow to become a marketing manager. Once I started, there was no stopping me; I read many books, learned everything I could, attended so many webinars. I worked successfully in the marketing field up to when the Covid-19 pandemic hit and we had to stay at home. At this point, I realized there was a lot digitally that I had already accomplished and a lot more that I needed to learn. So, once again, I decided to use quarantine time to study. That is how my journey with digital marketing started. It was quite easy because I had already had the basics, so it was more of just advancing my knowledge and thinking bigger.
Q: What were your younger years like?
A: I grew up in a small village in Kenya, Africa. I lost my mum when I was 5. Honestly, I don’t know much about my background as I didn’t get to know my father to date. I grew up with my loving grandparents. There isn’t much to say about my background, except that I also had this fire within me that made me feel like I wasn’t extraordinary. I tried to fit in; I always wondered why I was different. Most of my skills are self-taught as I didn’t get a chance to study anything I wanted in college. I have always had a huge affection for orphans, which led me to start my foundation called TOF(Talented Orphans Family), which is geared towards developing orphans’ talents to make them independent and also teaching them skills that can make them dependable in society. This was the most fulfilling thing I had ever done, but as I was the sole financier, it came to a stop as I had an accident that caused a fracture that disrupted my earning and functioning capabilities. This would just be a tip on the iceberg to what I have endured over the years and also achieved. Everything has led me to my destiny. I am strong now, unstoppable, and ready to conquer then change the world. My experience has taught me to overcome any situation, to understand people’s situations, and to relate easily to them. I believe that this is the right time for me to make an impact.
Q: What is something valuable you’d like others to know?
A: When you are at the saddest and lowest, most painful level you can be, that is where you get sharpened. That is the time you can become reborn. That pain is what, when used the right way, can turn you into someone very powerful. We all have this greatest strength buried deep inside each one of us; only a few people get the chance to fully experience this strength. The feeling of being unstoppable. When you have lost it all and there is nothing else to live for, you have a choice to give up or to dig deeper than ever before for your hidden strength. It’s more like a superpower. Digging and tapping into that inner strength will change you and make you as strong as steel. You will then be ready to become anything you set your mind to and there is nothing that can put you down because you already know how to get back up.
Q:What does feminism mean to you?
A: When I talk about feminism, this comes to me on a personal level, coming from a background where women are known to stay in the kitchen and learn to be wife material. I do not want to be put in a box of what I am supposed to become or who I am supposed to be as a woman. Being a woman is just my gender; I should be judged by my capabilities, my skills, and my intelligence. When I am talking to fellow entrepreneurs, I need them to understand that being a woman or a man has nothing to do with how intelligent one is. If I succeed in something, it’s because I am just that good, not because of favors or because I am a woman.
MORE FROM VALENTINE: Something I have learned and would like to share: You do not need to make it perfect; just start and keep learning, keep improving. If you keep going, you will keep getting better.
“To fail simply means, to me, first attempt in learning.”
Q: What are you passionate about?
A: I have found myself with a great passion for the beauty industry and making others feel more confident in themselves. Especially with semipermanent makeup for the ladies who have lost their eyebrows over time; some of the reactions after treatment truly are amazing and make it worth while. During the pandemic and my business being hit drastically, I then started a few other projects to keep myself busy, but to also connect with other women. I started a Facebook group for women wanting to grow in their careers or run their own business to connect and network. There are a few groups online already; however, I found them filled with a lot of spam and very hard to find value in most of the posts. So, I set out to fill the group with educational posts. My aim was to inspire, motivate, and educate. Around this same idea, I have also cowritten a book, which is due to release in May/June [soon!]. Me and my team want to release a series of books aimed toward women in business. This first one is to help women grow their leadership skills. I am so excited for its launch; I really can’t wait for others to read it.
Q: What were your younger years like?
A: Growing up, I was always fairly good at school; I tested well and I never failed any class, but I knew I lacked the motivation to continue with academic education. I always knew deep down I needed to work for myself, but the ’system’ always wanted the student to go to university/college and aim toward an academic education. I went back to education a little later in life, around 23 years old. I did open university, which is online based, to pursue a psychology degree; however, I again dropped out after the first year knowing it wasn’t for me. I couldn’t see a future in working for anyone else. Which then whilst working part-time in a job I hated, I stumbled into beauty treatments, which made me money fast, and I loved my clients. I’m lucky to call many of them friends now. I found a passion in making them feel great. Which makes me feel valued.
Q: What is something valuable you’d like others to know?
A: After speaking to many many women, one of the main topics was they are scared of failure. Which really upsets me! As children, we are always finding our way and never get it right the first time! Why is it we’re expected now as adults to be perfect [the] first time. We never stop learning, which means we will never stop making mistakes! Some of my biggest breakthroughs were learning from mistakes! We throw around the saying “learn from your mistakes,” but I don’t think people truly resonate with this. To fail simply means, to me, first attempt in learning.
Q:What does feminism mean to you?
A: I want equality for women in business. Only 7% of CEOs are women. Only 17% of the new businesses set up in 2019 were by women. Now, a lot of this can be reasoned to the inequality and subconscious biased that still exists against women, but it is also the consequences from the years of inequality women have had to face; most of us have lost the confidence. So, I want to bring back that confidence for women. I think the pandemic has been profound for women who work full-time office-based jobs, since they were able to prove they can work effectively from home. Which I think is incredible that now, finally, women are able to maybe manage that work/family life more and keep their careers instead of having to step down from their positions to start a family.
MORE FROM JEMMA: I love collaborating with other women and do believe that we need to work together if anyone resonates with this also, you can find me on: