Tag: womens stories

Woman Wednesday: Jemma

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Q and A with Jemma, Essex, UK

“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. 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.

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:

Facebook

Insta

Thank you for reading!

I’d love to connect with you! 🙂

Thoughts, questions, or comments?

Let us know! Comment below! 🙂

Woman Wednesday: Margarete

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Q and A with Margarete, Ulster County, New York

“The most valuable thing I’ve learned in life is to never lose the lesson life teaches.”

 

Q: What are you passionate about?

A: I am passionate about living my best life, which includes helping others overcome life challenges, find hope and purpose, and doing all I can to support the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. Whether I’m speaking to a specific group or at a national conference, my passion and determination is to inspire audiences to step beyond their limitations and guide them to discover the power within and redefine what personal success truly means in this adventure called: LIFE.

The harder question is how I got to this point.

Like most people, I have had some tragically sad challenges. The worst was in 2006, when my daughter Jena lost her battle with cystic fibrosis. It was then that my whole world changed. For a long time following that terrible day, it was hard to call up the strength to take action, to move forward, to take a chance at life. I had been taught to look for and find gratitude in each moment, but when my little girl “moved up” to heaven at the age of thirteen, there was nothing I could see or find other than my grief and pain. I felt I had no choice. But in time, I learned that every day, I get to choose how to live.

 

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I believe in hope, in embracing the beauty in the broken. Life always presents us gifts, yet sometimes those gifts are brutally disguised as pain and suffering. My daughter once told me that pain is not a valid reason for stopping, so I continued on. I’ve taken many steps to get to a place where I can take charge of my life to become an award-winning author of two books: Beyond Breathing and See You at Sunset, a professional speaker, and a national advocate for The Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. I’ve taken steps to stay happily married for twenty-eight years to my handsome husband Marc, and I’ve been blessed to watch my son marry the love of his life, which was the best day of mine.

Crisis, fear, and the anxiety of crumbling under life’s challenges have crossed my path so many times, I’ve learned that if I could change my attitude, my health, and my mental well-being, my life would ultimately change as well. Each challenge I faced in life taught me something more about myself and the world around me. Every decision I made, whether I was presented with a multitude of options, or no choices at all, changed who I am today.

 

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Here’s the thing, somewhere deep in my soul, every journey and every obstacle I faced helped bring me to a place where I can feel calm among the chaos. Every day, I give thanks for a grateful soul, a mind that’s confident, and an open heart that’s compassionate.

That’s what I’m passionate about and want to share that with as many people who want to hear it.

 
 
 

Q: What were your younger years like?

A: My childhood was like most everyone else, complicated with drama, trauma, and not easily summed up as good or bad. I was a chubby middle child, diagnosed with dyslexia in 2nd grade, and my parents divorced while I was in the 8th grade. I lived in Germany with my great aunt when I was fourteen for a ‘cultural experience.’ I graduated from high school a year early and that same year, at age 16, I permanently moved out of my childhood house after an argument with my mother. I was pregnant before I got married and had two children before I was twenty-five. Both my children were born with a fatal genetic disease, cystic fibrosis, which currently has no cure. I’ve dealt with abandonment issues, weight issues, depression, and anxiety. All of which made me who I am today.

All our lives, all our stories, make us who we are, it’s up to us how we decide that value.

 

 

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

The most valuable thing I’ve learned in life is to never lose the lesson life teaches.

For all of my life, I’ve had a love of learning, and I’m pretty sure that’s why God, with his or her infinite wisdom and sense of humor, decided to fill the first half of my life with one crisis after another. Through all the trials and many errors, I’ve come to see that life’s challenges, including reaching midlife, doesn’t have to be a crisis.

 

 

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Wouldn’t you agree that sometimes life can come at you fast and a sucker punch can land without any warning? I’ve been there. I get it. In a split second, you’re in the middle of life-changing choices, insurmountable obstacles, and heartbreaking hardships. It’s what you do with the lesson just presented to you that can change the path you’re on. Chances are, someone has been down that path before and can help guide you out, if you let them.

If by me sharing my painful and crazy life journey can reach out and touch your heart in even the smallest way possible, and help you deal with and let go of the crises and pain in your life, then I’ll feel my words and stories have a purpose beyond what they already hold for me.

My advice to you is to share your story, it could make all the difference in someone else’s life.

 

 

Q: What does feminism mean to you? 

A: Feminism, to me, is an emotionally charged word, placing a person as ‘a feminist’ if they are for feminism or they are ‘a non-feminist’ against feminism. To me, this is divisive, and I’m not about labels, division, or exclusion as much as I am for united, equal, and collective for the common good of all civilization.

It’s was such a powerful and resurfaced word that Feminism was Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Year for 2017.

Feminism, by definition, is equality of both sexes, but its common understanding is the passionate responsibility of the equality of women in the workforce, home, and political front. Its wave of enthusiastic ideology and emotion can cause more opposition than necessary.

For me, I’d instead focus on the constructive influence of women helping women. The underlying power that comes from a place of growth, humanity, and the ability to rise together while helping one another achieve each individual’s best possible life. The alliance of women reaching back and helping those who are struggling is where the real strength lies. Women being brave in adversity, sharing their story to help others, and using their voice against injustice is what I support. We, as women, can do so much to change the landscape of our future when we rise up, lean in, and stand tall without having to put down, degrade, or alienate any opposition that confronts the process of growth.

 

 

 

Let’s connect! 🙂

Contact page: https://margaretecassalina.com/contact/

 
 
Books:
 
 
 
Third book to come this fall! 🙂
 

 

Woman Wednesday: Hanah H.

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Q and A with Hanah H., Indianapolis, Indiana

“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.

Thank you for reading!

I’d love to connect with you! 🙂

http://www.hanahharvey.com

Woman Wednesday: Valentine

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Q and A with Valentine from Kenya, Africa

“Be the driver, but let passion be the drive.”


Q: What are you passionate about? 

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.





Thank you for reading!

I’d love to connect with you! 🙂

Thoughts, questions, or comments?

Let us know! Comment below! 🙂

Woman Wednesday: Jemma

Posted in inspiration, Uncategorized, womenTagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

Q and A with Jemma, Essex, UK

“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:

Facebook

Insta

Thank you for reading!

I’d love to connect with you! 🙂

Thoughts, questions, or comments?

Let us know! Comment below! 🙂