Female Founders: Ali Grant of Be Social On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a Woman Founder
An Interview With Candice Georgiadice
… Have an exit strategy. Whether that’s to sell, to partner, or maybe it’s to keep owning the company yourself… just have a plan of where you want to take your business and what that next level looks like. It will help you prioritize goals and maximize your efforts.
As a part of our series about “Why We Need More Women Founders”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Ali Grant.
Ali Grant launched Be Social in 2012 as one of the first agencies with a hyper focus on executing influencer outreach and collaboration. Ali recognized the power of digital creators and built a business harnessing their influence. Today, Be Social is a leading digital communications agency specializing in influencer, media and experiences for brands and digital creators. With a dedicated focus on all things influencer, the company’s expertise spans across influencer marketing, media placements and experiences.
To further build on the mission to build brand awareness, Be Social has launched BrandEdit, a brand discovery platform. Be Social and Ali power the content creator app Createur alongside Tribe Dynamics. Ali is also a co-owner of organic craft hard seltzer, Ashland. The firm supports and is partnered with the Freedom & Fashion non-profit, which uses the arts of fashion and beauty to empower youth overcoming trafficking, homelessness, and other injustices.
Be Social was acquired by Dolphin Entertainment in 2020, putting the company alongside some of entertainment’s greatest, such as 42West and The Door.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?
I originally thought I’d take a career in journalism, specifically broadcast journalism. I dreamt of being an entertainment reporter! After taking courses in public relations and social media in college, I quickly changed directions. The idea of helping amplify the voices of creatives through traditional and new media was exciting. From there, I did a few internships in the industry and really finally found my focus in the world of social media and influencer marketing.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading your company?
Entrepreneurship with little to no experience is always an interesting ride. From mistakes to learnings and the ups and downs…I could name quite a few stories. To date, the most unique and interesting experience has been the acquisition of the company. It’s certainly a feat not every entrepreneur gets to experience, and the ride of that experience was truly unforgettable.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
In the beginning stages of starting my company, I quite literally did everything… from QuickBooks to payroll and janitorial services. I was juggling way too much with too little time. There were quite a few experiences where missing the fine details lead to some funny outcomes, such as mislabeling invoices or ordering vehicles for an on-site activation that were stick shift when no one knew how to drive them! These experiences, though inconvenient at the time, helped me grow as a leader. Understanding that everyone makes mistakes and that at the end of the day, we can learn and laugh about it is something that I carry with me as I run my business and guide my team. Giving people the agency to make mistakes is essential, and even better when it leads to a funny story.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
My late grandmother, Patricia. While she didn’t directly help me with my business affairs day to day, it was the invaluable lessons she taught me around being confident, savvy, and powerful.
Ok, thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the primary focus of our interview. According to this EY report, only about 20 percent of funded companies have women founders. This reflects great historical progress, but it also shows that more work still has to be done to empower women to create companies. In your opinion and experience what is currently holding back women from founding companies?
I think one of the major issues holding women back from becoming founders is a lack of resources. Luckily, there has been such a movement in female entrepreneurship and resources to support that growth! Even just 10 years ago when I started my company, there were far less tools and resources to empower my decisions. Of the many events, podcasts, books and newsletters on the topic, the one I find most valuable is Create & Cultivate, a media company we work with often that provides content, community, and curated events for ambitious women.
Can you help articulate a few things that can be done as individuals, as a society, or by the government, to help overcome those obstacles?
Seek out and buy from female owned brands! While you’re at it, support female-operated companies. If you own or operate a company, hire women in executive leadership positions — and give them the training and support to succeed. As far as the government goes, it is critical to support women by increasing paid leave.
This might be intuitive to you as a woman founder but I think it will be helpful to spell this out. Can you share a few reasons why more women should become founders?
We are savvy, powerful, smart, quick, understanding, helpful, and devoted — all important hugely important qualities in a founder!
What are the “myths” that you would like to dispel about being a founder? Can you explain what you mean?
Entrepreneurship will always be more than a 9 to 5. A founder never turns off and their business becomes quite all-encompassing.
Is everyone cut out to be a founder? In your opinion, which specific traits increase the likelihood that a person will be a successful founder and what type of person should perhaps seek a “regular job” as an employee? Can you explain what you mean?
No. And some people can make a lot more money and have far more satisfaction having a “regular job.” Entrepreneurship does not always equate to success, and oftentimes there are more failures than wins. You have to have a thick skin and be “always on” — it’s much harder to shut off when your name is on the door and your employees are counting on you.
Ok super. Here is the main question of our interview. What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why? (Please share a story or example for each.)
Get a mentor. I didn’t, and I regret it. Many people are too afraid to ask someone to be their mentor, but I think more often than not, experts want to share their personal experiences with others, and women especially
Learn the fundamentals of operating a business, including HR and accounting. It’s key you have an understanding, even from a high level, of what it takes to operate a business and employ staff.
Hire experts. When it comes to legalities, business formation, accounting process, and employment practices, hire experts who know what they’re doing so they can set you up for success.
Separate business and pleasure. Lines can get blurred, especially when you work in an industry that intersects with your personal life, but when your business consumes everything, you will eventually burn out.
Have an exit strategy. Whether that’s to sell, to partner, or maybe it’s to keep owning the company yourself… just have a plan of where you want to take your business and what that next level looks like. It will help you prioritize goals and maximize your efforts.
How have you used your success to make the world a better place?
We’ve had such great success as a team and for our clients, so we’ve decided to give back by taking on a pro-bono client and non-profit partner, Freedom & Fashion. F&F is dedicated to using the arts of fashion and beauty to empower youth overcoming trafficking, homelessness, and other injustices.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good for the greatest number of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.
Mental health advocacy has been an area in which I’d like to dedicate more time and resources. Our emotional well-being is everything and we often lose sight of that in the hustle of life. Leaning into a movement that provides resources that support positive behavior, thinking and feelings would be rewarding.
We are very blessed that some very prominent names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them.
I’ve recently started following Adam Grant… not related. He’s an organizational psychologist at Wharton and I find his posts and content extremely helpful for anyone in a leadership position, or quite frankly, trying to navigate life!
Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this
Women In Wellness: Juliette Karaman On The Five Lifestyle Tweaks That Will Help Support People’s Journey Towards Better Wellbeing
An Interview With Candice Georgiadice
No phone in the morning. Instead of reaching for your phone first thing in the morning, reach for a journal and do a 5-minute brain dump. Automatic writing, getting all your thoughts and perhaps dreams out on paper helps you clear the clutter from your mind and looping in vindictive thoughts or limiting beliefs.
As a part of my series about the women in wellness, I had the pleasure of interviewing Juliette Karaman.
Juliette Karaman is a coach, teacher, mentor, and writer on relationships, trauma, healing, sex, and intimacy. She specializes in how to move on from sexual trauma to rebuild an intimate relationship again, guiding her clients through carefully curated processes that restore trust and communication.
Merging her decade of conscious sexuality with the ability to hold deep space has her clients regain confidence in their bodies, psyche, and relationship to themselves. She also is a mother of 4, which, I believe adds a whole extra layer to her wisdom.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Our readers would love to “get to know you” better. Can you share your “backstory” with us?
I’m a mentor, coach, and writer on relationships, trauma, healing, sex, and intimacy. I specialize in the reinvention of the most intimate relationship in life, the one you have with yourself.
It took hitting rock bottom
for me to start building this relationship to myself. I spent 9 months in and out of the hospital, doctors did not know what was wrong with me. Only when I got out of a toxic relationship did the healing journey back to self-love start. All the things the psyche had kept hidden and buried for over 20 years started to bubble up again to be processed. After delving deep into the psyche I turned to conscious sexuality to understand what was happening inside my body, where trauma was stuck and kept me repeating destructive behavior.
Today I am a sexual trauma and incest survivor helping others who’ve gone through it. I help people to move on from sexual trauma to rebuild an intimate relationship again, regaining confidence in themselves and their bodies again. Through years of therapy, personal development, and a massive toolkit, I have created carefully curated processes that restore trust and communication and ultimately unlock the door to pleasure.
Alongside helping couples regain intimate relationships again, I trained and mentored hundreds of other coaches and therapists over the past decade to up-level their skills. I’ve founded Feel Fully You and the Embodied Leadership Academy which leads entrepreneurs, therapists, and coaches through their trauma helps to realign their nervous systems and re-ignite their sensuality so they can lead their teams and clients.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career? What were the main lessons or takeaways from that story?
I remember teaching a coaching program the week after my sister had passed away. I was nervous that I would not be able to get any words out when I got on stage. Of course, that is exactly what happened. I looked at the 120 coaches in training or so, and was silent, looking each of them in the eye as tears ran down my face, after having stated that my biggest fear was that I would not be able to relate to them. About 3 minutes passed, in which you could hear a pin drop. I received so much silent love from them all. The lesson I was meant to teach changed and it became about connection and how important it is to show authenticity and emotions as a leader.
Even now, 4 years on, I still have coaches tell me that this was one of the most impactful lessons they learned from that 6-month coaching program.
Can you share a story about the biggest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
At the start of my career, I compared myself to so many other relationship therapists and coaches out there. Comparasitis I call it. All it does is highlight how different everyone is and that there is no ONE way of doing it the RIGHT way. I wanted to be authentic and learn everything there is to know about healing and helping people. The lesson is you don’t have to be the master in the room to help people. You will attract people who are going through what you have already gone through and you can help them with it. I do not regret getting a lot of different qualifications, because every client I work with is different and I have a lot of different tools to help her get the best results for her. There is NO ONE WAY of helping, be your authentic self and it will be the medicine that someone needs!
Let’s jump to our main focus. When it comes to health and wellness, how is the work you are doing helping to make a bigger impact in the world?
I help women and couples become emotionally intelligent, recognise their triggers and learn to respond to them, instead of following destructive reaction patterns. We bring dialogue and communication back to the table instead of allowing disconnect to create a rift between partner. Education about pleasure is the key. Trauma and how our nervous system “goes offline” is a massive piece of the puzzle. We often push emotions away instead of fully feeling them, for the fear of too much pain or emotional overwhelm. We hold on so tightly, to appear a certain way, we get stuck. Yet when we allow ourselves to FEEL (even if only for 90 seconds), the emotions, thoughts and body sensations move through. In Somatic Experiencing therapy they call this pendulation.
Can you share your top five “lifestyle tweaks” that you believe will help support people’s journey towards better wellbeing? Please give an example or story for each.
1. Slow down!
Life is for living! Schedule in conscious time for yourself. This may include the below exercise to set a timer 3 times a day and check-in with yourself.
2. No phone in the morning.
Instead of reaching for your phone first thing in the morning, reach for a journal and do a 5-minute brain dump. Automatic writing, getting all your thoughts and perhaps dreams out on paper helps you clear the clutter from your mind and looping in vindictive thoughts or limiting beliefs.
3. Schedule conscious time with your partner.
Agree on the time and date, organize child care, put your phone away and really connect. Agree not to speak about the kids, jobs or whatever stresses that are going on in your life. Do something out of the ordinary: i.e. if you usually go out to dinner, perhaps go kite flying or go-karting together. A good way to find out what you both might like is to write lists about the things you loved to do as kids and then share them with each other on your conscious together time. Schedule this at least once or twice a month!
4. Make a live list.
What are 20 achievable things that you want to experience over the next 12 months.
For example:
1- Girls dinner out
2-Buy myself flowers
3-Take a luscious bath with candlelight and bath salt
4-Go for a walk in nature by myself
5-Moonlight picnic in nature
6-Coffee in bed
7- Sky diving
8-Dance naked in the living room
9-Take a burlesque class
10- Learn a new language
11-Adult PJ dinner party
12-Book a weekend abroad with only your partner
The world is your oyster and just have fun with these. Every time you have done one, celebrate and tick them off the list. You are creating new neural pathways, and training your psyche to receive more!
5. Make gratitude a habit
At the dinner table, have everyone say 3 things they are grateful for that the day has brought them. Followed by 2 qualities they love about themselves. Yes, every day these need to be new ones!
If you have no family, this is a good one to do before bed at night and to write them in a journal, each day reading the list of gratitudes and qualities that have been written down before. Again this retrains the mind to see all the positive things in our lives and attract more of the same!
For example:
I am grateful for the storm yesterday and the electricity cut because it gave me time to take a bath and meditate.
I am grateful for the way you look at me first thing in the morning and reach out to stroke my shoulder, it has me feel loved and cherished.
I am grateful for the man in the blue BMW for cutting me off, it gave me a chance to work with being annoyed and had me slow down enough to see the beautiful buds on the trees that were starting to flower.
I love that I am kind.
I love that I am a good listener and people feel they can share their feelings with me and feel safe to open up.
I love that I love so deeply and let those around me know in no uncertain way that I love them.
If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of wellness to the most amount of people, what would that be?
All our experiences can be broken down into 4 elements:
Images, thoughts, emotions and body sensations.
I wish everyone took a moment to set a timer 3 times a day for 90 seconds only and to FEEL: Notice your breath, without trying to change it or move it. Notice what thoughts are coming up and feel them. Notice if there are any images that come to mind. Feel them. Notice any emotions and body sensations that come up. Feel them. More content will come up and again feel the 4 elements: Image, Thought, Emotion, and Sensation. After doing this for 30 days, you will notice you have fewer looping thoughts and are so much more in touch with your body.
What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why?
1. Stop trying to please everyone, and take care of yourself first.
2. No is a full sentence! You don’t have to explain why you don’t want to do something.
3. Setting boundaries is important in ALL relationships, including your kids! It helps guide them to how to be with you and helps you be the best version of yourself.
4. Stay curious. You never know what is going on for others, judging others is so easy, yet showing empathy is so healing.
5. Use conscious communication to understand the other person. So often we listen, ready to interject with our answer or our opinion, not really understanding what has been communicated.
Even if you do not like or agree with the communication, a simple “thank you” will suffice and show that you have understood.
Sustainability, veganism, mental health and environmental changes are big topics at the moment. Which one of these causes is dearest to you, and why?
Although I think all are very important, mental health is massively important to me. Some of my family members have suffered from depression and I have had friends commit suicide because they saw no other way out. Suicide and depression is on the uptake in teenagers and young adults for the past 5 years. One of the students of the organization committed suicide and this had such an impact on me that I re-trained and became very trauma aware. I work with both the parents of suicide victims and young adults who have attempted to commit suicide. The pain I see is so real and by using different processes and techniques, so much of this can be alleviated and they can start living a somewhat normal life again. I think it is imperative for coaches and therapists to be able to spot when someone is depressed and possibly suicidal and to get the extra help needed to help them.
Thank you so much for joining us. This was very inspirational.
Modern Fashion: David Abissidan of Lola Jeans On The 5 Things You Need To Lead a Successful Fashion Brand Today
An Interview With Candice Georgiadice
A Growth Mindset — There is always room for growth and improvement for any brand. Recognizing that is an important first step in seeing success within your organization. Never getting complacent or too comfortable is important, not only for you as a leader, but for your team as well.
Many in the fashion industry have been making huge pivots in their business models. Many have turned away from the fast fashion trend. Many have been focusing on fashion that also makes a social impact. Many have turned to sustainable and ethical sourcing. Many have turned to hi tech manufacturing. Many have turned to subscription models. What are the other trends that we will see in the fashion industry? What does it take to lead a successful fashion brand today?
In our series called, “5 Things You Need To Lead a Successful Fashion Brand Today” we are talking to successful leaders of fashion brands who can talk about the Future of Fashion and the 5 things it takes to lead a successful fashion brand in our “new normal.”
As a part of this series I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing David Abissidan.
David Abissidan began his journey in the fashion industry when he was just 14 years old. His father operated denim stores and David worked his way up from cleaning the floors and working customer service to later buying and merchandising. David began manufacturing his own designs in Canada, marketing the product himself to local stores. As Lola Jeans grew from Montreal and Toronto to Western Canada, David hired a sales team and focused on growing the business.
In recent years, David and the Lola Jeans team have made a commitment to create eco-friendly denim. Manufacturing has moved from China to Mexico in an effort to use recyclable materials in more innovative factories.
David is a firm believer that in entrepreneurship, there are no shortcuts. You have to do the groundwork yourself. Nobody will do it for you. Whether you’re in 1982, or 2022, it’s about relationships, calling people, getting in front of people. Making mistakes, building grit, and making it happen.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your childhood “backstory”?
After a tumultuous journey in high school, I dropped out of school and started working full time at my Dad’s jeans store, Prestige Jeans. My Dad taught me the ropes of the trade but more importantly, I became versed in business ethics and strong moral principles, which continue to guide me every day.
Can you tell us the story about what led you to this particular career path?
I found my passion in fashion through my 10 + years working retail and decided to pursue my studies in fashion marketing at LaSalle College, in Montreal. In 2004, fresh out of fashion school and with barely any manufacturing know-how, I set up shop on top of my dad’s jeans store in Montreal and set out to craft women’s jeans. I didn’t know exactly what my creations would look like, but I had a good idea of what I hoped to create, a perfect pair of jeans for women of all shapes and sizes. In 2006, my brother Sam and I joined forces, and Lola Jeans was born.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?
When I started Lola Jeans back in 2006, I wasn’t really thinking about my impact on the environment. I was running around with a duffle bag full of samples, trying to follow my dream and build a fashion brand from the ground up. Ignoring (or trying to ignore) just how polluting our industry is.
We live in and love our jeans, but denim is a dirty business. A pair of jeans uses the same amount of water that one person drinks in 13 years, approximately 8000 liters. And it also contaminates it! So, how do we break this cycle and begin to repair the damage done?
In 2020, we acted! We brought back most of our production to North America. We built an ethical supply chain that creates Sustainable Denim for All Bodies. From responsibly sourced fabrics to ozone washing, and laser finishing, we have reduced our water consumption by 80%.
You are a successful business leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?
Passion and Enthusiasm — If you want people to follow you, then you must lead with enthusiasm. As a leader, it’s your job not to tell, but to show those around you what enthusiasm and a true commitment to greatness look like daily. The best way to do this is to lead by example.
Don’t outsource the groundwork, grab a duffle bag, hit the road, and knock at doors. No one will do it like you do it. Once you’ve built distribution and once your customers are enthusiastic about the product and the company, then you can assign people to take over with the same passion and enthusiasm as you.
Endurance and Determination — You’ll have your wins, and you’ll have your losses, but through it all, you can’t lose your sense of confidence. You must believe in yourself and your business and persevere even when shit hits the fan. Moving swiftly and confidently, even if you’re not entirely certain of the direction because any direction is better than no direction.
Lola Jeans was greatly impacted by Covid, and to stay afloat, we had to make incredibly hard decisions. We chose to look at the current situation as an opportunity to press reset and reinvent ourselves. That was the silver lining of the pandemic.
Integrity and Fairness — Too many leaders lean on their titles as a crutch and don’t treat others with equity. They excuse their own behavior by saying, “I’m the founder. I’m the CEO. I’m the manager,” instead of earning people’s respect by acting and behaving appropriately. Integrity and fairness are about more than just doing the right thing. It’s about standing for something bigger than yourself and setting a precedent within your business.
My teammates know not to call me “The Boss”. I hate this title and don’t think I deserve this title. Without my colleagues’ know-how, without my teammates’ contribution, I would not be here today, Lola would not be here today.
What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?
Lola Jeans offers something truly unique and that is denim that is sustainably made and affordable. Not only that, but we are committed to providing a selection of quality basics for women of all sizes. It is our goal to make high-quality denim accessible for everyone. Ethically-made brands often come with a high price point and limited sizes. We are committed to changing that.
Internally, we have a very close-knit team. Everyone has their hands in everything, making for a great work environment.
Do you have a favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share a story of how that was relevant to you in your life?
“The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.” -Walt Disney
When I first started Lola Jeans, I was on my own in a sense. I had my experience working in the denim and fashion industry, but no one was going to sell these jeans, except me. There are certain crossroads that all entrepreneurs face when they put their business model or idea to the test. For me, that came when I filled my car with denim samples and hit the road. I began knocking on the doors of businesses, showing them the product, and doing everything I could to gain a wholesale following. That is how Lola Jeans was built, with hard work, grit, and determination.
Ok, thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the primary focus of our interview. Do you see any fascinating developments emerging over the next few years in the fashion industry that you are excited about? Can you tell us about that?
As a whole, the fashion industry is becoming more and more interested in sustainability, for good reason. We are encouraged to see so many brands prioritize the environment. It is no secret that the fashion industry is a large contributor to global pollution. From the dyes used to unethical labor practices, it is time for a change; a change that many are actively making.
Clean manufacturing is becoming more accessible. It is by no means easy, and there is still much room for growth, but there are factories that are committed to helping brands create products that don’t pollute the environment. That is why we moved our production to Mexico.
Laser finishing is a technique that we use on our products that is sustainable in practice, creating less toxic waste. It is used to get that authentic finishing effect that we all crave from our vintage denim. The process allows the designer’s sketch to be directly transferred onto the jean using a laser. The dated alternative involves using chemicals like bleach and potassium permanganate, which is not only harmful to the environment when discharged as wastewater, but to the factory workers who handle these chemicals.
As the push to create a more sustainable industry continues full speed ahead, we are seeing better technology become available to help brands accomplish their sustainability goals.
Can you share how your brand is helping to bring goodness to the world?
Environmental responsibility is at the forefront of Lola’s creative vision. We know there is still a lot to learn and for us to accomplish, but the important thing is getting started. We are building an ethical supply chain that creates high-quality, low-impact, long-lasting, affordable denim. We have started at the source and aim to be as transparent as possible. From raw materials to innovative washing techniques, to the finished product — we have managed to cut our water consumption by 80% in the first year.
We are combining ethics and quality to revolt against the trends of fast fashion and irresponsible production. We are devoted to producing the highest quality denim with minimal environmental impact. As we grow, we continue to focus on progress and champion sustainability one step at a time. The denim we create is a testament to a higher standard you can expect from Lola Jeans.
Can you share with our readers about the ethical standards you use when you choose where to source materials?
Our signature stretch denim contains 80% recycled cotton, made from post-consumer waste and denim floor scraps. 18% Tencel, derived from sustainable wood sources and sustainably managed forests. Additionally, our Sustainable Denim fabric is Global Denim® certified, ensuring quality control that meets environmental standards. It’s eco-responsible and has a low carbon footprint.
Fast fashion has an advantage, that it is affordable for most people, but it also has the drawback that it does not last very long and is therefore not very sustainable. What are your thoughts about this? How does your company address this question?
Fast fashion has become the norm for our generation. We have become accustomed to having new styles readily available each season. Simply throwing out clothes that don’t last has become normalized. It doesn’t take an environmentalist to know that this is problematic. At Lola Jeans, we don’t make disposable jeans. We make jeans that last and that can be passed on to your sister, cousin, friend, or even donated, but never discarded like fast fashion shmattas.
We use sustainable, recycled materials and manufacturing practices, but more than that, we create jeans that are going to carry you from season to season. Moving away from fast fashion requires that brands be committed to creating incredibly high-quality products that consumers aren’t going to want to put in the trash at any point in the product lifecycle. It’s about creating quality apparel to last a lifetime.
Thank you for all that. Here is the main question of our interview. What are your “5 Things You Need To Lead a Successful Fashion Brand”. Please share a story or example for each.
Passion — If you aren’t passionate about what you are selling, there really is no point in selling it. Pursue your passion and results will follow. When you are truly exploring your passion and working hard to bring it to life, the result will be something you are truly proud to have grown.
Lola Jeans was built from humble beginnings and has grown to a great brand today. This could not have been achieved without the passion and dedication of my team and myself.
Grit — Whether we are talking about entrepreneurship or leading a successful fashion brand, hard work and grit are at the top of the list. The people in leadership have to put in the work. Good leaders can’t outsource everything. Leaders that inspire growth in an organization are constantly working hard alongside their team to see results.
Hard work has always been something I valued. From initially learning the fashion industry while working with my dad, nothing was handed to me aside from the opportunity to learn. I was constantly learning, growing, and developing a passion of my own. From a leadership perspective, your team will respect you that much more when you are setting a precedent for hard work and actually working hard alongside your team.
Willingness to Learn — A talking head is worthless. If you want to remain a leader of your market, and within your own company, it’s crucial that you keep a finger on the pulse of what’s happening, and stay on top of relevant facts, trends, and best practices. You must stay relevant and be innovative to propel your business forward. Often, what’s required is not “more hard work,” but a different approach altogether.
Many leaders at some point in their career will think that they know all there is to know. Good leaders who continue to see success are always learning new things and keeping tabs on how the industry changes because every industry does. In 2020, when we were faced with the pandemic, we really had to listen to what the industry was demanding of brands that wanted to stay relevant. More than that, we had to read what consumers really wanted. With an open mind and a commitment to doing what was right, we began moving our manufacturing to North America and sustainably manufacturing our product. That came from a willingness to learn and grow.
A Growth Mindset — There is always room for growth and improvement for any brand. Recognizing that is an important first step in seeing success within your organization. Never getting complacent or too comfortable is important, not only for you as a leader, but for your team as well.
When it comes to fashion, innovation is critical. At Lola, we never sit on our laurels. To remain relevant and to continue growing, we continuously put forth new styles, new ways of doing and continuously invest in new technologies.
We are combining ethics and quality to revolt against the trends of fast fashion and irresponsible production. We are devoted to producing the highest quality denim with minimal environmental impact. As we grow, we continue to focus on progress and champion sustainability one step at a time. The denim we create is a testament to a higher standard you can expect from Lola Jeans.
Integrity — Quality brands place a high value on ethics and integrity. Both in how they develop and design their products, but also in how they conduct business internally.
Every industry constantly evolves and seeks improvement. How do you think the fashion industry can improve itself? Can you give an example?
I think most of us were aware of the shortcomings of the apparel industry, but we often felt powerless to do anything about it. Lately, it has not been the case. Customers are asking about our environmental footprint and our manufacturing practices. This will force manufacturers such as ourselves to bring about change to remain relevant.
This trend has reached well beyond the small niche of those who traditionally positioned themselves as “green.” A large and growing number of manufacturers are realizing substantial financial and environmental benefits from sustainable business practices.
Today, sustainability is an important objective in our strategy and operations to increase growth, and these efforts are having a significant impact on our company’s competitiveness.
You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.
I am against government handouts or parents’ handouts. It does not motivate nor incentivize people to contribute to society or to better their lives. On the opposite, it makes people dependent on their government. or their parents. The satisfaction of making it happen on your own is priceless. The gratification of feeding your family without relying on food stamps is invaluable.
If I could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, I’d try to rehabilitate, reintegrate the disadvantaged or the people that were deprived of a parent or a role model at home or at school. I would not teach them how to use a compass or to calculate fractions of Pi. I would instead train them to do something they love, something they would be proud to exhibit. The money will follow.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
I’m too vocal to be on social media. You can find me every night at my local shitty bar by the beach. Come chill with me 🙂
You can find our jeans and shop our product at lola-jeans.com.
Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.
Female Disruptors: Angelique Schouten of CLEVR On The Three Things You Need To Shake Up Your Industry
An Interview With Candice Georgiadice
Follow your values — if you know what is really important to you, it can be your compass. Everyone’s northstar is different, and your compass can ensure that you guide towards it. Sometimes the decisions you have to make will be hard but remember ‘you only need 30 seconds of bravery throughout your life’ to get through the decision, as my mother always says.
As a part of our series about women who are shaking things up in their industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing Angelique Schouten.
Angelique Schouten has over a decade of experience in retail banking, insurance, asset management, and FinTech. She was responsible for running the first robo-investor in the Netherlands, and was part of the team that built the first bank in the cloud in the world, Ohpen, where the team created a SaaS Cloud Core Banking Engine. Besides that she is the cofounder of two start-ups, Cloudtract and Sportz Guru and has co-authored two bestselling books: the WealthTECH Book and Monkey Money Mind. Angelique currently serves as CEO of low-code and no-code Software-with-a-Service provider CLEVR.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?
Angelique was born and raised in the south of the Netherlands and her parents always ran their own businesses. From importing Persian carpets from the middle east during the 70’s and 80’s to a cat & dog supply wholesale company. She was taught that if you want to have something, you have to work for it, quitting is never an option, and you learn by falling forward.
From a young age onwards, Angelique has been driven by strong beliefs: Belief in being able to achieve things if you work hard, belief that you can drive change and belief in proving it can be done. She has always been quite determined varying from making a decision at 10 years old to become a vegetarian to working her way to pay for university. She never believed in an impossible mission, and when she graduated, she saw a lot of her fellow students go to traineeships at FMCG companies like Ahold or Heineken. But Angelique was determined to make a difference within the one industry that requires the most change — financial services. Mission impossibles are possible for Angelique, such as helping one of the worst performing insurance companies in terms of customer centricity win the national customer contact center award, turning a stuffy paper-based private bank into a hip digital investment proposition, launching the first robo-investor completely online and in the cloud, building the first multi-tenant core banking platform in the cloud in the world and growing a startup from 0 to 6,000 B2B customers in no time with no marketing budget. She jumped in headfirst.
One of her most recent endeavors was her journey at the first bank in the cloud in the world; Ohpen. From the 80’s onwards, banks have been powered by billions of dollars of infrastructures and semi-failed IT projects delivered by numerous software vendors. Each bank has millions of USD invested in hardware, their own databases, and proprietary legacy software running on top of it. And that for every product setup– savings accounts, mortgages, investment, and current accounts… It was slow performing, lots of outages, hardly any innovation and changes took forever. Everybody just accepted that it was like this, and customers and regulators were very unhappy… The only happy people were the software vendors who were reselling implementations and bespoke software for each and every single product line and bank every single time.
The team of Ohpen, headed by Chris Zadeh, thought this should be undone. And in 2009, Ohpen was founded. Ohpen set out to build the first bank in the cloud in the world. Everything was in the AWS cloud: one core banking engine and one version of the platform supporting all banks, asset managers, insurance companies. It took us 9 months just to get the approval from the regulator. The software was delivered as a product, in a SaaS-model 10 years later. Some largest Financial Services companies operate on this platform with close to $1 billion assets under management.
Since then, cloud technology and SaaS have disrupted the financial services industry with new entrants while existing software vendors are turning their business models upside down. This was the start of a revolution. But most importantly: better products and services for customers.
Ohpen was built using high-code, or software developers writing individual lines of code. From scratch. The result: a high-quality software solution that could outperform any system and never went down (we had an SLA of 100%).
The world’s transition to sustainable digital success where IT becomes the enabler of business owners. By doing so, they placed the power back into the hands of pioneers where the motto is, ‘If you can imagine it, we can make it real’.
Can you tell our readers what it is about the work you’re doing that’s disruptive?
There is another silent revolution, happening in plain sight. The revolution of low-code and no-code (LCNC). LCNC is like using Lego blocks to build your software applications. It is not about writing individual lines of code, but a visual way of building software using a low code platform. We use Mendix, for example, a Dutch company that was acquired by Siemens for over 600 million euros. Just like with cloud computing, Analysts predict an enormous growth in LCNC. Let me give you a real-life example of what I mean.
One of CLEVR’s customers is the City of Rotterdam, with one of the finest skylines of the Netherlands. When the pandemic hit, city officials had many challenges. One these challenges was that they it was difficult during the pandemic to fulfill their council activities anymore where citizens would go to City Hall to register a newborn or marriage. They approached CLEVR for help and together, we created the Digital Desk, an application where citizens use their mobile phone, tablet or desktop to connect to a city worker. It handles government identification, document exchange both ways, payments, chat, FAQ and integrations with other systems. The launching proposition was created in only 8 weeks (where traditional software coding would require months, if not a full year) Over 12.000 video calls, 80 teams with over 400 city workers use it with a customer satisfaction of 8 out of 10.
But let’s say we have 200 consultants working1,500 hours per year. That is 300.000 hours per year. But there are over 350 municipalities in the Netherlands. And a whole lot more in our other target markets. And there are only 15.000 Mendix developers worldwide, of which 7.500 are certified. We cannot run a similar project at even 5% of these towns with 200 developers. So, we asked ourselves, is there a smart, savvy, social and sustainable way? Just imagine the potential if we offered the Digital Desk as a standard product to other municipalities which is driven by fast, reliable and secure LCNC.
At CLEVR we have over 400 customers in 18 countries. Within every single project, we have created standard components: templates, workflows, connectors, app services and full solutions. But as you can see there are plenty of opportunities to create standard components which we help bring to the market in order to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable digital success. Our expert services help with solutions, tooling, support and with the academy we ensure companies can DIY afterwards. All driven by LCNC and Mendix.
A silent revolution happening in plain sight. Just like Cloud did over the past 10 years, LCNC is next. And at CLEVR we shape the LCNC world with our standard components, delivered as a Software with a Service.
Low-code as a concept is taking over, especially during the pandemic and tech talent shortage, when a great need for digital transformation occurred without the means to support it. However, many low code platforms are selling a false promise — that is, citizen developers alone cannot fully digitize their business. This idea that LCNC is not the end-all be-all alone for enterprises that need it disrupts the hype surrounding citizen developers, the idea that most of these platforms promote.
CLEVR’s focus on Software WITH a Service (as opposed to SaaS) supports the idea that experts are needed to supply the knowledge, experience and creative thinking required to take full advantage of the benefits and value of low-code/no-code tools. I believe in building a business based on a strong foundation of values where sustainability and social are at the core.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
I have to admit that I was a little nervous when the moment came for me to interview the godfather of the Modern Portfolio Theory, Professor Dr. Harry Markowitz. He had been so kind to agree that I would interview him for the book that my colleague Chris Zadeh and I wrote about the psychology behind our irrational behavior when it comes to money matters (Monkey Money Mind). We had to make sure we could capture some of his insights and convert it into a valuable contribution to our book.
It was not just me in the interview, but also several colleagues. Carla Martinez (who set up the interview) and Sicco Brakema (who introduced us to Dr. Markowitz), shared the same hint of nervousness for this interview. It is not every day that you get to talk to someone with impressive credentials:
Economist
Recipient of the John van Neumann Theory Prize
Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences
Professor of Finance at the Rady School of Management
Pioneer in Modern Portfolio Theory
And the list goes on…
Dr. Markowitz must have noticed this as he started by casually talking about a previous trip to the Netherlands and before we knew it, he uttered, several perfectly pronounced Dutch words such as “rijsttafel” came our way which made us a bit more at ease.
In the movie, “Mary Poppins Returns,” which stars Emily Blunt as the title character (which she nails), taking care as a nanny of the new generation Banks children, Meryl Streep plays Mary’s eccentric cousin Topsy “a woman who can fix anything”. When Mary visits her cousin with the Banks children, she realizes that it is the second Wednesday of the month. A day dreaded by Topsy as her world literally turns upside down and she is not able to fix anything.
The legendary Mary Poppins stresses that if you change your perspective everything looks better.
Of course, Mary is correct and as the Banks children, Mary and Topsy stand on their head, the world looks much better from that angle. Something that is upside down, is fixed. Turning the second Wednesday of the month into the favourite day for cousin Topsy.
It’s all about changing your perspective.
During the first 45 minutes of the interview, I struggled to ensure that I could convert the experience and knowledge of the brilliant mind of Dr. Markowitz into advice and stories that non-Nobel prize winners could relate to. Giving it my all to keep up with his 91 years of (life) experience and him debating numerous topics he is passionate about:
Critical line algorithm, portfolio theory, sparse matrix methods, simulation language programming (SIMSCRIPT including the Buddy memory allocation method), capital asset pricing model, etc.
As time was ticking, I dreaded more and more that I would fail to take this unique opportunity and convert it into something that I could use for the book which has a more practical and personal approach combined with a touch of research. My excitement about this interview was slowly turning into fear that I would screw it up by not being able to capture a practical lesson learned or piece of advice from Dr. Markowitz who brilliantly debates the most complicated economic theories and models.
So, I was frantically thinking about how I could change my approach to one of the smartest economists in the world so that he would share a piece of advice that would relate to the general public and was in line with the practical direction of our book. But I realized during the interview that this is not something he might generally talk about a lot as everybody probably also assumes he talks about his research and really wants to hear the insights from the godfather of Modern Portfolio Theory in real life (as did I).
Then it hit me: I have to change my own perspective. I should not be discussing his achievements as an economist.
I was talking to a highly intelligent man, and I was trying to get something highly intelligent from this interview. But I realized that I had to adjust my perspective and ask a far simpler question that did not relate to what he would typically talk about:
“What advice would you give a 12-year-old when he or she first received pocket money or money for chores like washing a car or mowing a lawn?
Super simple.
That was it, and I felt the interview turning…Like Aunt Topsy. Dr. Markowitz turned from sharing brilliant, yet very complicated economic explanations, to sharing a deeply personal story with an exceptional piece of advice. A story everyone could relate to and could potentially be inspired by as it did me at that moment. It triggered me, challenged me and made me decide to change certain assumptions I had made for a part of our book, hopefully making it better (I’ll let you be the judge of that when it is published). By changing my perspective, it turned the interview for the better.
Mary Poppins did it again: she came to the rescue and put a smile on my face.
What can the financial services industry and FinTech community learn from Mary Poppins?
After this interview, I realised that I should project this experience more on my daily business, the industry I work in and the people around me. I feel that we have to change our perspective more often.
But the question is: how do we keep making it better?
The answer to me is simple: keep changing our perspectives. You and me, not our professional sides but us as consumers and customers. We are all customers. And a customer is only helped if he grasps what we’re talking about and experiences the benefits (make ’em happy).
My lesson from this unique experience was that when we translate brilliance into simplicity, so all the knowledge, inventions, strategies, theories, jargon we have and change our perspective, we can achieve what we were looking for. For me, it resulted in a valuable piece of information that we can share and hopefully make a difference. So, drop the jargon and think benefits if you want to relate to your customer. Not once, but continuously.
We all need a little help along the journey. Who have been some of your mentors? Can you share a story about how they made an impact?
I believe everyone can be a role model in their own way and have an impact. So, I’ve learned a lot from the people around me. From Chris Zadeh at Ohpen for his relentless focus. From Conny Dorrestijn how she makes a true connection with people around her. From my mom’s incredible drive to learn and work, who actually came up with the name of our company, CLEVR, and from Esther Vis with whom I work. She has shown tremendous leadership in the diversity and sustainability discussions we have had with our team. I also tend to learn a lot from people who embrace what makes them unique.
One example is Manon van der Lely, who coached me during my early career when I was climbing the career ladder at a large international financial institution. She challenged me to really look at who I was in my core and what drives me. What are your core values? Your compass that guides you and the decisions you make? During a 6-month period we had extensive conversations and I ended up writing down what my 3 core values were: ambitious, caring and brave-hearted. II felt liberated speaking these values out loud. In fact, they became my compass.
When I was at a crossroad at the company, about to be promoted to an amazing role — I quit. In the elevator. I had been thinking about it for a long time but mapping my decision on my core values allowed me to find a company where I was closer to the fire and have a direct impact. The HR department warned me that I was throwing away my career, that I did not see the opportunity before me. However, it was one of the key decisions in my life, driven by my core values, so I felt I could trust my instinct. Manon guided me towards my own core, and these values still guide me today.
In today’s parlance, being disruptive is usually a positive adjective. But is disrupting always good? When do we say the converse, that a system or structure has ‘withstood the test of time’? Can you articulate to our readers when disrupting an industry is positive, and when disrupting an industry is ‘not so positive’? Can you share some examples of what you mean?
To be honest the word, “disruption” has become a bit of a hype word and I prefer to focus more on having an impact as every person, every business, every organization can have an impact. Whether it is a big or small impact, all incremental changes combined will create a movement.
Can you share 2 of the best words of advice you’ve gotten along your journey? Please give a story or example for each.
Do more with less –
When I worked at Ohpen, the world’s first core banking platform completely in the cloud — I went to the UK to set up the company there. For this we needed to obtain our license from the UK regulator. That lasted just over 6 months; a record for British standards. We approached this not as techies, but really as bankers, with a super-tight business plan and by showing what control mechanisms we had. Thorough, but fast — that builds trust, because you see fintech startups popping up everywhere and storming the market without getting everything in order. Banks outsource to us, so we are subject to the same strict requirements. At the same time, we needed to sign new customers, but it was hard to convince Brits that outsourcing to a Dutch company is the way to go. We have therefore done something unusual. After we received the permit in January, we were in a state of jubilation. But London is quite a gray city in the winter. People prefer to go home as soon as possible. What is good Dutch, I wondered. I decided to send the bosses of our top 50 prospects a bunch of tulips, with a handwritten note saying: we are ready, and we are going to give more color to this industry and the country. Our second multi-million customer in England came from a bouquet of tulips of 13.50 pounds.’ This shows that you do not always need big sales teams or marketing budgets, something that is unique, distinct and to the point will get you a long way.
Follow your values — if you know what is really important to you, it can be your compass. Everyone’s northstar is different, and your compass can ensure that you guide towards it. Sometimes the decisions you have to make will be hard but remember ‘you only need 30 seconds of bravery throughout your life’ to get through the decision, as my mother always says.
We are sure you aren’t done. How are you going to shake things up next?
Scaling our LCNC business internationally driven by an infinite goal to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable digital success. To truly make an impact, we need to work together as an ecosystem. Be smart, savvy, social and sustainable to create a lasting impact. Low-code and no-code platforms like Mendix, help us accelerate organizations transformation into more long-term, future-proof and impactful organizations. The entire ecosystem can contribute, from platforms, to customers, their customers, tech companies, educators.
In your opinion, what are the biggest challenges faced by ‘women disruptors’ that aren’t typically faced by their male counterparts?
Handling bias, especially if you have a vision and are focused on achieving this.
Do you have a book/podcast/talk that’s had a deep impact on your thinking? Can you share a story with us?
Besides paddle boarding with my dog, kickboxing or Yin Yoga, reading helps me become better. Books ranging from sports, to special forces or business books. I could not pick just one book, but some of my favourite are: “Losing My Virginity” by Richard Branson, Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg, Seal Team Six by Howard (see below), I am Zlatan by Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Legacy by James Kerr.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
Consider sustainability an investment in ourselves and the world. Consider it the new real estate investment and as a business you should look into it and determine what you can do (everyone can contribute and hopefully will).
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
“Life is not about fitting in, it is about standing out.”
Sometimes in the beginning of your career, you are walking the path you’re expected to walk. I have always been an outlier: very tall, loved playing outdoors and climbing trees. I did not feel at home within one group of friends, instead, I was comfortable in multiple groups. I liked computers and making things. When I started working both IT and commercial topics appealed equally to me and I found out that I sometimes perceived the world around me differently. When my career progressed, I embraced that I was an outlier. I became comfortable that being an outlier is a strength.
21 years ago, at the age of 21, I moved to the south of Egypt for my first managerial role. On day 1, one of the men in my team said, ‘I do not take orders from women’. He made a conscious decision to not be inclusive. It shocked me. But I made an effort to understand what it was to be inclusive of his point of view. And he did as well, after that first day. When I left Egypt, he was one of my most valued colleagues.
Without debating his standpoint or mine, I would like to quote Commander Spock from Star Trek (including a creative add on from yours truly):
“Infinite diversity in infinite combinations, symbolizing the elements that create truth, beauty, creativity and tangible results.”
Diversity and inclusion is important for me as a person and for the growth of this company. A diverse mix of voices leads to better discussions, decisions and outcomes for everyone.
It is important to have different perspectives in our company. To truly be a representation of the outside world. To challenge one’s own perspective. To learn, to grow and to exceed expectations. Of each other, of our clients, of their customers. It is all about having the right mentality. More diverse opinions, standing out and challenging, can create movements.
How can our readers follow you online?
LinkedIn / angeliqueschouten
Instagram / angelique4real
Twitter / angelique4real
CLEVR.com
This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!
Female Founders: Tanya York of MicroArt On the Five Things You Need to Thrive and Succeed as a Woman Founder
An Interview With Candice Georgiadice
It’s ok to start over, change careers and reinvent yourself — you can have more than one passion and start multiple successful businesses. Having a mentor is more valuable than you can ever imagine.
As a part of our series about women who are shaking things up in their industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing Tanya York.
Entrepreneur Tanya York started her career as a special effects makeup artist in the Hollywood movie industry over 20 years ago. She is the founder and sole owner of MicroArt Inc. She has over 30 years of experience as a CEO. She has been a successful Hollywood Producering veteran, was named one of Hollywood’s most influential women by The Hollywood Reporter. In her 30’s she graced the cover of Entrepreneur magazine in the Young Millionaires issue. She has completed numerous executive management programs including MIT’s Sloan Business School’s “Birthing of Giants” and Young Presidents Organization affiliated executive management program at Stanford University. She founded and developed MicroArt in 2009 to be the leading semi-permanent makeup studio. Located in Beverly Hills, she worked with highly trained lab techs to design a semi-permanent technique and inks that would always look natural.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?
Born in the Caribbean and living in Europe for 8 years, I moved to Los Angeles at age 17. By 19 I discovered her love for the film industry and produced my first feature film. By age 21, I had raised money and started her first movie production company which produced 7 movies in the first 2 years. I have produced and financed over 30 movies- all of which I am proud to say have been profitable. After the blockbuster success I had achieved in the Home Entertainment/DVD boom, the industry had changed and I wanted to reinvent myself and to start a business that was different and very special. The idea for MicroArt started with me having issues with my eyebrow makeup smudging all the time, and my early experience in special-effects makeup. I invested a sum of money to create the technology, working with electronic engineers and cosmetic chemists all over the world to develop a signature technique for MicroArt Semi-Permanent Makeup that previously didn’t exist.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading your company?
Each day is an interesting story. Our clients are celebrities, athletes, homemakers, retired seniors, cancer survivors, professionals with busy and active lifestyles. Today there was a male politician that we performed MicroArt on. He is a returning client, but he is getting ready for the upcoming elections.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
As MicroArt is my second major business, I was able to apply my experience from over 33 years as an entrepreneur to this new business and fortunately, I was apple to apply the lessons I had learned.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
At 19 years old, one of my first business mentors was someone who was also an investor in my first company who ran a major film studio. His films had won Oscars and he was in the Guinness book of records for multiple accomplishments he had. He mentored me for the first 3 years from startup most of my operations. He forced me to become a better version of myself and paved the way for me to build a company that had over 300 employees by the time I was in my mid 20’s.
Ok, thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the primary focus of our interview. According to this EY report, only about 20 percent of funded companies have women founders. This reflects great historical progress, but it also shows that more work still has to be done to empower women to create companies. In your opinion and experience, what is currently holding back women from founding companies?
I feel that sometimes what holds women back is themselves, their lack of belief in themselves, and their ability to be able to step up to the plate to accomplish their goals.
This might be intuitive to you as a woman founder, but I think it will be helpful to spell this out. Can you share a few reasons why more women should become founders?
I think any woman can be a successful entrepreneur and become a founder of their own brand. They need to believe they have what it takes to do it and are willing to put in the work needed without allowing being a woman to stand in their way.
Is everyone cut out to be a founder? In your opinion, which specific traits increase the likelihood that a person will be a successful founder and what type of person should perhaps seek a “regular job” as an employee? Can you explain what you mean?
The traits needed can be a long list, but it starts with having the will, commitment, and perseverance to create a business and work hard at it. In my opinion, sadly, a large percentage of the current population is not even cut out to keep a job much less have a career.
Ok super. Here is the main question of our interview. What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why? (Please share a story or example for each.)
It’s ok to start over, change careers and reinvent yourself — you can have more than one passion and start multiple successful businesses. Having a mentor is more valuable than you can ever imagine.
How have you used your success to make the world a better place?
My company changes lives by fixing problems for clients that are life-changing for them. In addition, I value that small business owners are a major part of the economy.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good for the greatest number of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.
Having entrepreneurial education for young adults, especially women will help build the foundation for future founders. Programs that make finding business mentorship easy to access for both the mentor to volunteer their time and a place where young women can find them.
We are very blessed that some very prominent names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them.
People like Richard Branson and others that are bold and have no limits to what they can achieve.
Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this!
Female Founders: Fauzia Khanani of Studio For On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a Woman Founder
An Interview With Candice Georgiadice
I believe in every industry and especially architecture, women have the potential to approach projects and processes in a different way than male counterparts. The end result may or may not end up being similar but the way in which the goal was reached is likely achieved with more care and consideration from where I stand. In some ways, the process is often more people-focused versus product-focused.
As a part of our series about “Why We Need More Women Founders”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Fauzia Khanani.
Fauzia is the founder of Studio For, an architecture and interior design firm based in New York City. The firm’s work includes a range of custom residential, commercial office, and public spaces spanning from New York to Hong Kong. Fauzia received her Master of Architecture degree from the University of California Berkeley. Her previous career in social science research and public health continue to have a strong influence on the practice and has shaped how we approach design. She has been regularly published not only for the firm’s projects and innovative process but also for her passion in the promotion of diversity for minorities and women within the field of architecture and design.
Outside of practice, Fauzia is a founding member of the AIANY Social Science and Architecture Committee and was nominated to Co-Chair in early 2020. She is also a founding Board.
Member of Design Advocates, a non-profit organization established in March of this year for architects and designers to share resources and collaborate on efforts to serve the public good through pro bono projects, research, and advocacy.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?
Because my parents are immigrants to the US, we traveled a lot when I was young to see our extended family which also led to us visiting monumental places if the locations coincided with our family trips. I was exposed to pretty amazing architecture on those trips and by my mid-teens, I wanted to be an architect. After high school, I ended up attending a university that didn’t have an architecture program but I found myself engaged in sociological and public health studies and went that route for my degree and ultimately my career until my late 20’s. A few years into my public health career when I knew that food and health care should be basic rights for people, I also came to the conclusion that shelter is also a basic need. This translated to a career shift to architecture as it seemed like the next step in an evolution where design, namely architecture, can be a tool to improve quality of life for all.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading your company?
There have been so many along the way but the freshest one just happened a few days ago when I was meeting some potential new clients. We spent about 3 hours together and by chance at the end it somehow came up that the wife in the couple and I lived in the same very small town in New Hampshire when we were children. We went on to chat about it and actually went to the same nursery school and elementary school before my family moved to North Carolina. This story is interesting to me not because of our shared history but mostly because being a business owner has given me the opportunity to meet people from all walks of life and from all over the world and I’ve always found that in the end, we always seem to have some connection to each other and that our paths were meant to cross for some reason or another.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
When I started my first project in upstate NY, I was still living outside of New York State and would fly in for preliminary site visits and meetings with consultants. One of my first trips out was in the middle of winter and having lived in California for 8 years, I was definitely not prepared for the elements and I had never made a site visit to a non-urban environment. So I showed up in a big puffy coat (which I had bought to attend the Obama Inauguration) which was great but my shoe situation wasn’t as tight. Within about 15 minutes of being on this snow covered, wet and freezing property, my measly desert boots were soaked all the way through and my feet were frozen. After a full day of meetings, I made my way back to Albany airport without sensation in my feet. On the plane ride back, I got on wifi and immediately bought a pair of REAL winter boots for rugged sites. While quite hilarious, I learned a huge lesson on that trip: always be prepared for any kind of weather at site visits. I now keep a stash of all kinds of gear in the back of my car including a raincoat, rain pants, waterproof boots, extra gloves, hats for various weather conditions because I also learned that site visits always go on (like a show!) no matter the weather.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
When I think about how my career has progressed and the ability to start my own studio, I can’t talk about it without mentioning my very first clients, Susan and Rico Viray, who are very close friends. I saw them for the first time in over 10 years at their niece’s wedding when I was still living in California and at the rehearsal dinner, Susan mentioned they were property shopping to build a weekend house in upstate NY. Rico then asked “Aren’t you an architect?” I confirmed and he said, “Great, you’re going to design the house for us.” 11 years later with 3 projects under our belt together, I feel I owe so much to them for having faith in me to do something I never even considered. Susan and Rico founded their own company and Susan has also been an invaluable female mentor, resource, and sounding board for me as I have built the studio over the years.
Can you help articulate a few things that can be done as individuals, as a society, or by the government, to help overcome those obstacles?
I think one of the major obstacles for women founders is establishing support for a start up- whether it’s financial or mentorship. As you say, only 20 percent of funded companies are founded by women so the number of female mentors one can turn to for advice and experience is exponentially smaller for women than for men right off the bat. In the world of architecture, women-owned firms/studios are an even smaller percentage compared to the norm. Professional organizations should provide mentoring programs specific to women starting offices. While the government at various levels provides MBE certifications, these institutions should provide seed money for women entrepreneurs to start their own shops and specifically for women of color.
This might be intuitive to you as a woman founder but I think it will be helpful to spell this out. Can you share a few reasons why more women should become founders?
I believe in every industry and especially architecture, women have the potential to approach projects and processes in a different way than male counterparts. The end result may or may not end up being similar but the way in which the goal was reached is likely achieved with more care and consideration from where I stand. In some ways, the process is often more people-focused versus product-focused.
Is everyone cut out to be a founder? In your opinion, which specific traits increase the likelihood that a person will be a successful founder and what type of person should perhaps seek a “regular job” as an employee? Can you explain what you mean?
One thing I always hear from people is “It’s your company so you should be doing whatever you want and come and go as you please.” I usually just chuckle under my breath when I hear something along the lines of those statements. If anything, it more often than not, feels the exact opposite. Having a company to me is akin to putting a piece of yourself out there or giving birth to something from inside of you (not quite a child but akin) so in fact, it often feels like the exact opposite of what people think or say about the freedom of owning a business. You are so committed to the success of your venture and the team you have brought together that it takes priority over most things in your life. I’ve been trying to find a happy medium and at times there are regressions but overall I’m moving towards a place where there is more of a balance. Having a supportive and capable team is fundamental to making this shift.
How have you used your success to make the world a better place?
That is a hefty statement and very subjective! I don’t know that I’ve “made the world a better place” but I’ve certainly tried to leverage my professional path as a means to improve the quality of life for others. Within Studio For, I’ve tried to create an environment where everyone, especially designers of color, feel included and can receive mentorship in a safe environment. We also try to make as many decisions as possible collectively in our office which also supports this idea of equity and inclusion. This is also supported outside of the studio by the work I’ve been doing as a member of the Design As Protest Collective, which strives to dismantle the privilege and power structures that use architecture and design as tools of oppression.
On another note, I co-founded a non-profit during the early months of the pandemic called Design Advocates. The organization is a place where architects and designers can share resources and collaborate on efforts to serve the greater public through pro bono design, research and advocacy work with a focus on serving people, organizations, institutions and businesses within marginalized communities. Our initial focus was on helping them to adapt to COVID-19 but it’s grown beyond that focus with projects spanning from NYC to across the country. I’m excited to see where this endeavor goes especially as we get further involved in local planning and policy related to the creation of the built environment.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good for the greatest number of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.
My response to this goes back to the reason why I rerouted my career path to architecture- housing should be a human right. Every single person on this planet should be provided with shelter and if I could inspire a global movement towards that end, I would be elated.
Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this!
Female Founders: Shaina Kerrigan of Molly J On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a Woman Founder
An Interview With Candice Georgiadice
It’s a marathon, not a sprint. I started Molly J. in 2019 by simply hosting parties at my house to share what I was learning about cannabis. I had no idea that 3 years later we’d have a full operation of chefs and thousands of customers. Every day includes its own element of heavy lifting or meaningful decisions, and our revenue helps pay the bills for everyone on our team. In those early days, if I had realized what this business could become, I may have conserved energy, realizing that some of those early decisions I fretted over wouldn’t matter in the long run.
As a part of our series about “Why We Need More Women Founders”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Shaina Kerrigan.
Shaina Kerrigan is a mother of two and the founder of Molly J., a CBD-infused, small batch confection company based in Marin, California. Ensuring quality and authenticity by creating small-batch, handcrafted CBD gumdrops, Molly J. offers a cutting-edge wellness experience that is equally delicious as it is beautifully packaged. With Molly J., Shaina hopes to “spread the chill” while educating the public about the benefits of CBD edibles.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?
I worked in the tech industry at Yelp for about 9 years, and climbed the ladder to eventually run my own global organization within the company. It was thrilling, exciting, and engaging…until it wasn’t. In my last few years there, I got married and started a family — two very big competing priorities that slowly chiseled away at the energy I had for my career in a large-scale company. Suddenly, I was finding myself stressed out and overwhelmed with no end in sight. I burned out spectacularly, calling my boss at 2am to quit the day I was supposed to come back from maternity leave. However, I then spent the next few months building myself back up, laser focused on all things health and wellness. I realized the main culprit for my imbalance was the fact that I wasn’t sleeping well, which led me on a mission to find help; including visiting my local dispensary. There, I found an industry that mostly spoke to men or folks who were already very familiar with the cannabis plant, and yet, I found the cannabis plant to be such a huge help for so many of the ailments that affect women and moms. After this experience, I could see a gap in the market and set out to spread the news by organizing secret Tupperware-style parties with fellow moms to give them the lowdown on what, when, and how to use cannabis in their lives. It was from these parties that I learned what moms, and women in general, were looking for — high quality, effective CBD gumdrops that felt just as luxurious as opening a bottle of wine at the end of a long day.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading your company?
In those early days, cannabis was still stigmatized (some argue it still is!) so women, especially moms, kept their curiosity close to the vest. I hosted the first party at my house with 10 of my closest mom friends, and four of them reached out the next day asking if I’d come to their house to do the same for their friends. This kept happening after each party and I quickly built up a wait list of 40+ moms anxious to get into our next event. Soon, moms started affectionately calling it a “Book Club,” and one morning while getting coffee at the local coffee shop, a woman slowed down next to me to whisper in my ear “Are you Shaina from the Book Club?” That was the moment I knew we were onto something.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
Way back in the beginning, when I didn’t know if I had a sustainable business yet, but needed a space to fulfill orders and store packing materials, I found a surprisingly inexpensive office space on the Sausalito waterfront that would allow me to rent month to month; while I kept my options open in case the business didn’t thrive how I wanted it to. There were a few red flags — the landlord wanted to “stay off the record” and be paid in all cash, the space was freezing cold because it sat right over the water, the wifi was spotty, and the walls were paper thin so we could hear our neighbor welding jewelry all day long. The funniest part of that space was that the bathroom facilities and dock were shared with the folks that lived on the houseboats right in front of us. They were a cast of characters that we got to know — the guy who’d sit in front of our office to smoke a joint everyday at 12pm on the dot, the woman who’d get off her boat with 3 large huskies in tow, and even the older gentleman who’d pass in the afternoon in full pirate gear. We lasted in the freezing cold for about 3 months before we found our new, beautiful Molly J. branded cottage in the industrial, warmer part of Sausalito. I look back at those three months and smile — you do what you have to do to save a buck for your business in those early days!
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
I’d never started a business before Molly J., so to say I went in blindly is an understatement. I doubted myself every step of the way and have a very distinct memory of setting up plans to throw in the towel early on, planning instead to go work for another small business I admired. I happened to have a happy hour set up that day with my friend (and hair stylist) Brooke and vented my plans to her, saying I was sad to let it all go but excited for my next chapter ahead. She politely interrupted and dug in further, ultimately reminding me that I have what it takes, I’m onto something worthwhile, and I can succeed. Turns out that was just what I needed — it inspired enough curiosity within me to come back to my work at Molly J. the very next day, and I haven’t missed a day ever since.
Ok, thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the primary focus of our interview. According to this EY report, only about 20 percent of funded companies have women founders. This reflects great historical progress, but it also shows that more work still has to be done to empower women to create companies. In your opinion and experience what is currently holding back women from founding companies?
A key factor that holds women back from founding companies is the limited access to resources — specifically, time, connections, and money. More often than not, women (especially moms) take on more of the household duties, and when they struggle to balance that with founding a business, the latter takes a back seat. Already struggling for time, female founders often don’t have the capacity or foundation to seek out and cultivate a strong network of connections — advisors, fellow entrepreneurs, investors — which is paramount to a business’ success, especially in the early days. All this feeds into the final resource: money. It takes money to start a business, and the combination of competing time plus a smaller network of connections makes it very difficult for female founders to get off the ground. This crisis ballooned over the COVID-19 pandemic, and Bloomberg recently reported female founders secured only 2% of venture capital in the US in 2021.
Can you help articulate a few things that can be done as individuals, as a society, or by the government, to help overcome those obstacles?
To give women (especially moms) more time to devote to their businesses, I’d encourage our government to make childcare more accessible, safe, and reliable. As a society, we can normalize men taking over more of the household duties and sharing the load (if not more!). When it comes to building out a network, I’d love to see successful businesses, especially those run by men, offer mentorship connections to female-founded companies in their respective fields. Ideally the teams would advise and strategize, sharing lessons learned and pitfalls to steer clear of. They’d also make connections to build out their network of potential investors for capital down the road. Finally, pushing venture capitalists and investors to prioritize funding in female-founded businesses would be a huge and impactful step in the right direction.
This might be intuitive to you as a woman founder but I think it will be helpful to spell this out. Can you share a few reasons why more women should become founders?
Research has shown that women tend to make better investors, CEOs, and founders because they make calm, level decisions and are less likely to take riskier bets. I’d go even further to say women tend to have higher EQs (Emotional Intelligence), which allows them to read people better (great for negotiations), connect with consumers, and lead enthusiastic, engaged teams.
What are the “myths” that you would like to dispel about being a founder? Can you explain what you mean?
Starting your own business isn’t glamorous, it’s gritty. In the beginning, you don’t make much money (if at all) and you’re carrying the whole business on your shoulders — if you’re not working on it, no one else is. Forward momentum solely depends on you, and the stress of revenue, logistics, customer service, etc., can be heavy. You become invested mentally and financially, and yet, for most businesses, you won’t know if you have a viable, scalable company until you have enough time under your belt. More often than not, the success of a company takes a long, grueling period of years, as opposed to the myth that you can hit it big quick.
Is everyone cut out to be a founder? In your opinion, which specific traits increase the likelihood that a person will be a successful founder and what type of person should perhaps seek a “regular job” as an employee? Can you explain what you mean?
Obviously, a founder must have a dedicated, motivated work ethic but the key differentiator is that they need to be able to apply that work ethic every single day, enduring extreme stress (with only occasional wins), for years without any guarantee of true success. They’re intrinsically and authentically bought into their mission and blindly optimistic (bordering on too hopeful!) that they will succeed.
Ok super. Here is the main question of our interview. What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why? (Please share a story or example for each.)
It’s a marathon, not a sprint. I started Molly J. in 2019 by simply hosting parties at my house to share what I was learning about cannabis. I had no idea that 3 years later we’d have a full operation of chefs and thousands of customers. Every day includes its own element of heavy lifting or meaningful decisions, and our revenue helps pay the bills for everyone on our team. In those early days, if I had realized what this business could become, I may have conserved energy, realizing that some of those early decisions I fretted over wouldn’t matter in the long run.
Ask for help. Early on, I met with a fellow female founder to pick her brain, and ended up asking for connections and opportunities to get Molly J. off the ground. I hate asking for help so it was an uncomfortable place to be, and I was so surprised when she readily agreed. Fast forward 3 years, and we’re still close female founder friends, helping each other wherever we can to see each other succeed.
Raise capital. I built Molly J. with a little bit of my own money and a whole lot of my own blood, sweat, and tears. I did it the hard, time-consuming way, but now I realize that I could have covered more ground faster if I had the courage to find investors at start.
Start with logistics that aren’t scalable. Molly J. makes high-end, handcrafted CBD confections for common ailments like stress and sleep, and we knew from the start that building a loyal community of supporters was integral to our success. Without recognizing it, we started out doing things that weren’t scalable but would help build that community, like including a handwritten note in every order and slipping extra gifts into the shipments of our club members. Some of those extra touches have been retired for the sake of efficiency, but that loyal community remains (and continues to grow) because we keep what really matters: quality, customer service, and authenticity.
Hire the right people. Recruiting feels like its own job, and often founders simply don’t have the time. So we’ll resort to the easy option — using a freelancer from the internet, hiring the first person who comes along, or offering up a temporary job that should actually be a long term role. It’s a quick win, but a long term headache because when that temporary situation falls through, you’re left with another round of hiring and training, losing everything you invested in the first person. Put the effort in on the front end by hiring the best person for the job who can stick with you for the long haul.
How have you used your success to make the world a better place?
That’s what we aim to do everyday! The regular and consistent feedback we hear from consumers about how our gumdrops finally helped them get a good night of sleep or tamed their stress, is what keeps us going. Also, we see an opportunity to help right the wrongs of how the War on Drugs disproportionately affects people of color, and dedicate a portion of proceeds to two organizations that help legalize the cannabis plant (NORML) and free those previously incarcerated because of it (Last Prisoner Project).
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good for the greatest number of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.
I’d try to spread the benefits of Intuitive Sleeping (i.e. the ability to wake up when your body decides, not the alarm clock). I’m a big believer in letting your body and mind recharge, and if our businesses, schools, and general public sentiment allowed us to get our day started when our bodies decided (as opposed to arbitrarily set timeframes), I believe we’d be more effective, present, and even creative, in every facet of our lives.
We are very blessed that some very prominent names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them.
As a founder trying to grow and scale an authentic, meaningful business that genuinely helps the world, there’s no one better to get one-on-one time with than the queen of entrepreneurship, Oprah. She’s innovative, curious, and isn’t afraid to go against the grain to do it her way; which is what I believe we need more of from founders of all genders.
Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this!
Women In Wellness: Julie Elledge of Mentor Agility On The Five Lifestyle Tweaks That Will Help Support People’s Journey Towards Better Wellbeing
An Interview With Candice Georgiadice
Invest in yourself — One of the best ways to manage risk is to invest in a coach. As experts in the change process, coaches know the adventure ahead and how to tap into your creativity. Working in partnership, you will seek out guiding resources and activities that prepare you in advance for the coming challenges.
As a part of my series about the women in wellness, I had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Julie Elledge.
Founder and CEO of Mentor Agility and creator of the Hero’s Journey® Change Model, Dr. Elledge is a highly experienced coach and renowned educator specializing in the use of storytelling in coaching. She is a licensed family therapist and professional coach in national practice with numerous credentials including the prestigious International Coaching Federation (ICF), the National Board Certification for Health and Wellness Coaching (NBC-HWC), and Board Certified Coach (BCC). Dr. Elledge is recognized as an expert in creativity and organizational dynamics and has created education and training programs for Apple Education, Twentieth Century Fox, NOAA, BP and INEEL. Using her gift for storytelling she has pioneered the areas of creativity, financial well-being, and nature in coaching.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Our readers would love to “get to know you” better. Can you share your “backstory” with us?
I learned a very important lesson about health through my meditation training. “Trust the diagnosis, not the prognosis.”
I became a Board Certified Health and Wellness Coach (NBC-HWC) because of an incident that changed my life. I did not ask my doctor enough questions when she recommended surgery. I later found out there were less invasive ways to treat my diagnosis and the outcome of the surgery would have taken a heavy toll on my quality of life. The trade off was not worth it.
Through that experience, I learned how important it is to advocate for myself with my own research and asking the right questions. As a consequence I vowed to myself that I would become a Board Certified Health and Wellness Coach (NBC-HWC). NBC-HWCs are not medical experts; however, we do guide clients through a transformational change with guiding resources and expertise that best fit their individual needs. What I love about my work is that I empower my clients to advocate for and trust themselves as problem solvers. By doing so, they improve the quality of their lives. That’s enormously rewarding.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career? What were the main lessons or takeaways from that story?
When I look back at my career, I recognize an interesting storytelling thread. Many of the therapy and coaching approaches I am trained in and practice help clients to express their story — narrative therapy/coaching, art therapy, guided imagery, and nature therapy. Clients often benefit from a combination of these methods to help them process their experiences. I took this expertise into education and coaching.
Creating transmedia storytelling curriculums distributed by Apple Education, we learned the art of matching the storytelling method to the communication platform. As the central operating system, the mind consumes story in different ways. For example, movies, books, and oral storytelling are completely different ways to tell a story but they all have the potential to evoke a “storytelling trance” or completely absorb our attention. The Marvel universe, for example, is told through comic books, feature films, and television series. Each of these platforms takes advantage of matching the storytelling platform with a different aspect of the story.
I apply these lessons learned to our coach training. We train coaches to tap into clients’ natural curiosity and creativity through a variety of storytelling methods such as oral storytelling, myth, cinema coaching, creative expression, and personal narrative depending on the setting and clients’ preferences. Just as transmedia storytelling takes advantage of the best practices based upon the media platform, our coaches apply storytelling to the coaching environment whether that is in-person individual or group meetings, online video platforms like zoom, Microsoft Teams, or Google Meet, or working outdoors in urban or natural environments.
Can you share a story about the biggest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
Before my coaching career, working for corporate headquarters for Caesars World, I thought I was living the American Dream! As a road warrior, I barely noticed the toll my lifestyle was taking on me. I managed my sleep deprivation with diet caffeinated drinks, sat in planes and cars all day, and ate fast food to save time. Even though my enthusiasm for my career never waned, my energy drained along with my sense of joy. I had not yet made the connection between the dulling impact of stress and neglecting a healthy lifestyle.
I left the job I loved to pursue a career as a therapist. Busy therapists sit all day unless they move with their clients. A sedentary job does nothing for health, stress, or creativity. The full impact of my physical symptoms related to stress and sitting would not show up until later in my life.
A healthy lifestyle improves physical, emotional, and cognitive performance. I learned that passion and purpose cannot replace the basic needs of the body and mind. The mind needs as much exercise and healthy nutrition as the body. Getting outside and moving with clients not only improves their ability to disrupt their stress and adopt a healthier lifestyle, I benefit as well.
Let’s jump to our main focus. When it comes to health and wellness, how is the work you are doing helping to make a bigger impact in the world?
Transformational change begins with a call to action that we often ignore. A worldwide pandemic, global economic shutdown, social unrest, and war are prompting our values to shuffle and reprioritize physical and mental health, financial well-being, and our relationship to ourselves, each other, and the planet. I firmly believe that coaches are going to lead us out of our current slew of crises. It is time to answer the call to action with a new story. A fresh story begins with an adventure — a Hero’s Journey!
I know the heart of transformational change rests in the hands of storytellers. Seeking out the best storytellers and coaches, we brought them together to form a dynamic training practice at Mentor Agility. Our students tell us that the subject matter, and the way that it is taught, is transforming the way they coach. That is enormously rewarding.
Can you share your top five “lifestyle tweaks” that you believe will help support people’s journey towards better wellbeing? Please give an example or story for each.
Eat a plant for a snack
You are biologically wired to enjoy plants! A habit of snacking on plants is an easy way to satisfy your hunger and restore your energy. When you add more plants to your diet, your hunger is satiated.
Processed foods and sugar have a dulling effect on your taste buds. The more you eat, the less you can taste the vibrancy in natural food. To slide the balance towards plants, consume your snack mindfully paying attention to the vibrant flavors and textures inherent in nature’s bounty. Watch your tastebuds wake up to the pleasure inherent in natural foods. Finding pleasure in food sourced close to nature is your birthright.
2. Take a nature walk everyday
Sometimes we lose sight of the simple things. Getting outdoors and walking has well-documented benefits for your physical, mental, social well-being. A nature walk can happen anywhere, even in an urban environment. The key is how you use your attention. Focus on the birds, clouds, or the trees.
Walking is a low task activity that has the potential to suppress stress and the analytic part of your brain. In the absence of perceived threat and fact finding, the brain follows its curiosities. All manner of positive emotions can sneak in under these conditions such as gratitude, serenity, awe, joy, and hope. The positive emotions evoked, opens up the subconscious mind to work on your challenges and find more innovative solutions.
3. Feast on a daily dose of wonder
With unending access to news, social media and entertainment, becoming a passive consumer is easy. All these distractions cause our senses to dull and shut down, to protect ourselves from chronic stress, anxiety, and despair.
The secret weapon against stress, anxiety, and despair are neurologically wired inside of us. We’re naturally curious creatures searching out and digesting information like hungry carnivores. The meal we seek is a sense of wonder. Charles Dickens describes it this way, “All of us have wonders hidden in our breasts, only needing circumstances to evoke them.” Our most powerful stimulation is nature itself. We’re biologically attracted to feast on nature’s beauty.
To release your sense of wonder, take the time for a bit of mystery and the space for silence to process a single nature experience. In the process of perceiving beauty, a desire to know more awakens motivation inside of us that spills into other parts of our lives.
4. “Follow your bliss and doors will open where there were no doors before.”
A productive life is not the same thing as a meaningful life. A fast paced society lives and breathes on its citizens living a productive life; however, Joseph Campbell suggests that you can’t find your path if you are living out what others tell you to do. “We’re so engaged in doing things to achieve purposes of outer value that we forget the inner value, the rapture that is associated with being alive, is what it is all about.”
Dulling taste buds, emotions, and motivation are indicators stress is slowly and incrementally muting every aspect of your life.
Joseph Campbell suggests, “Life is not a problem to resolve but a mystery to be lived.” By shifting your internal energy into being present with yourself, you unlock your center of motivation living with intent, creativity, and meaning.
To follow your bliss, do something every day that is meaningful to you. Check your path. If the road is already paved then ask yourself if you are following the crowd or are you listening to your own inner value. The mystery you seek to unravel is the mystery of who you are. How do your actions line up with your inner values?
5. Creatively express yourself
Creativity is the quintessential quality that companies seek. They pay good money for a creative star and yet, we are all capable and genetically wired to be creative. Creativity is how you use your imagination to solve problems. Too often our creative impulse is stifled because we are stopped by the fact there is a problem.
The art of problem solving is to trust yourself. Believe in your experience, your voice, and your skill. Seek out your own everyday agency. Seek creative ways to describe your sorrows and desires, passing thoughts and encounters with beauty. Let your imagination soar and dream. You will find your art form in the crosshairs of your strengths, skill, and pleasure.
To creatively express yourself, use your skill as your voice into the world. If you’re a mountain climber, climb. If you’re a writer, write. If you are a strategist, strategize. When you use your ability in the service of others, you effect change in the world. Your internal energy shifts from threat management towards meaning and purpose.
If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of wellness to the most amount of people, what would that be?
I would empower a fresh perspective in the human story with language that unites mind-body-spirit-environment. While it is useful to describe and study them separately, the division does not adequately explain the power of their unity. This error in thinking causes energy waves of misjudgment. An unhealthy lifestyle not only breaks down just physical health, it suppresses creativity, motivation, and mental health. Too often we would rather take recreational or prescription drugs to feel better than take a walk, eat healthier, reduce our stress, or genuinely connect with others. I have experienced this error of judgment myself and learned hard won lessons. The human body, mind, and emotions are made to take a hit. Just as the human body heals an abrasion, our lifestyle heals and nurtures the human body-mind-spirit-enviornment, if given a chance.
A healthy lifestyle as a solution to personal and professional success would use the same energetic waves for positive change in our professional, emotional, and social wellness. The transformation begins in the heart with storytelling.
What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why?
Challenge yourself — Expect problems to arise. Embrace the struggle as building your knowledge, skill, and confidence. Let your challenges evolve who you are.
Invest in yourself — One of the best ways to manage risk is to invest in a coach. As experts in the change process, coaches know the adventure ahead and how to tap into your creativity. Working in partnership, you will seek out guiding resources and activities that prepare you in advance for the coming challenges.
Believe in yourself — Too often we treat self-doubt as truth. Move your attention away from thoughts that you are not enough and into trusting in your ability to solve problems. Treat self-doubt as a stimulus to pause and engage in self-inquiry. This shift in mindset will propel yourself forward into positive action.
Value yourself — Comparison is the death of your creativity. Resist the temptation to measure yourself against others. This will lead you back to self-doubt. No one will ever approach a solution just like you. Hold in esteem what you contribute to the world.
Seek the mystery of knowing yourself — According to Joseph Campbell, the Hero’s Journey® combines two distant ideas: 1. the ancient spiritual quest and 2. the modern search for identity. In the pursuit to actualize your own potentiality, you bring into the world a new force of change. In having the courage to challenge yourself, you will learn about who you are. This is the heart of changing the world, challenge yourself and the world will respond.
Sustainability, veganism, mental health and environmental changes are big topics at the moment. Which one of these causes is dearest to you, and why?
Personally, I chose for myself to eat a primarily vegetarian diet; however, I understand that eating is a very personal choice. What nourishes one body may not be the same for another. As an NBC-HWC, I advocate for my clients’ agency to make informed healthy diet choices.
In terms of sustainability, mental health, and environmental changes, they are all dear to my heart because they lead to the same destination. The standard of the air we breathe, the food we eat, and the water we drink determines the quality and longevity of our lives. Sustainability and environmental changes are a question of self-preservation. The human story unfolds within the setting of the natural world. We let the environment deteriorate at our own peril. Our physical, emotional, cognitive, and spiritual well-being is but a mirror of the natural world.
Thank you for these excellent insights, and we greatly appreciate the time you spent. We wish you continued success.
Female Disruptors: Dorothy Siminovitch of Gestalt Coaching Works On The Three Things You Need To Shake Up Your Industry
An Interview With Candice Georgiadice
“Many roads lead to Rome.” Whatever we do, whatever choice we make, whether in the moment or for the long term, we should do so with aware intention and appreciation for the possibilities. We don’t know if any encounter with another person might be life-changing. But I’ve discovered that when we meet others with our best intentions, and with appreciation for the moment, we could be opening doors to untold richness. Appreciation for the complexity and possibilities of life is the nourishment we need to grow and change.
As a part of our series about women who are shaking things up in their industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing Dorothy Siminovitch.
Dorothy Siminovitch is a world-renowned ICF Master Credential Coach who specializes in personal, executive, and team coaching. Her focus is on cultivating the power of presence and supporting people by using oneself as an instrument. With a PhD in organizational behavior, Dorothy is able to translate complex theories into working wisdom where she creates a safe environment for clients to consider new options or retire outdated habits. In her workshops and coaching sessions, clients find greater self-awareness and are able to dig deeper into issues which can be transformed. Dorothy uses the environment of psychological safety to promote more creativity enabling her clients to feel like “instruments of possibility”. Her clients report being able to harness more creativity and appreciation for themselves and others. Techniques for mindfulness, resilience, and adaptability are used so that clients can learn to view disruption as an opportunity towards positive change.
Dorothy partners with clients in a collaborative manner and her message is simply this, “You know more than you think you know, and you can do more than you think that you can,” which ignites mobilization through innovation and intervention. As a pioneer of Gestalt coaching, Dorothy authored A Gestalt Coaching Primer: The Path Toward Awareness IQ, a book used in many coaching schools and business schools looking to teach the process for greater self-mastery and transformative human development. As an expert in the coaching field for over twenty-five years, Dorothy has been featured on numerous radio shows and asked to speak at conferences including ICF conferences, The Coaching Conclave, The OD Network, and The Embodiment Conference. She is the founder of the ICF accredited Gestalt Coaching Program in Toronto, Canada and Istanbul, Turkey. She is passionate about facilitating conversation, creativity, and authenticity that results in pushing the boundaries of perspective and possibility. She is a fitness devotee and uses mindful practices for well-being, joy, and innovation. She loves cultural differences, communication excellence and creative story-telling and sees all leadership as an evolutionary response of possibility.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?
Frederick Buechner, a wonderful theologian, defined vocation, or what I call, “a calling” as the place where “your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”
I’ve always had a sense of “a calling” by my interest in understanding individuals and supporting a sense of moving forward to new possibilities. In fact, I began my academic career with a degree in psychology, always looking to cultivate the deep skills for understanding people and inspiring desired development. The fascination in studying people started in early life where I grew up in the beautiful multi-cultural city of Montreal, which was also a troubled city. The cultural differences between the French-speaking and English-speaking inhabitants led to various everyday tensions that had to be considered and managed. I was both fascinated with and personally inspired to understand the management of differences between people. I chose to get my PhD in Organizational Behavior in the U.S. and became an organizational consultant. But I came to feel that organizational development work couldn’t allow for the kinds of conversations and meaningful change I was most drawn to. I eventually realized and recognized that the relatively new field of executive and team coaching was where I felt most energized and most useful. Coaching encounters are powerful because they invite profound conversations that can be transformational. They can bring clients to a new awareness, often obscured or suppressed about themselves, others, or their situation that enables them to take confident action leading to satisfaction. There’s an intimacy to coaching work that allows clients to voice their values and challenges safely to the coach as a trusted confidant. For the coach, that’s both a deep ethical responsibility and an extraordinary privilege. Taking both dimensions seriously, we have the opportunity to facilitate and witness remarkable outcomes. I think of coaching as a transformative intervention designed to support people in their dreams and untold possibilities.
Can you tell our readers what it is about the work you’re doing that’s disruptive?
Becoming aware of something important that we’ve overlooked, suppressed, or denied is disruptive to our sense of what we can and cannot do or say. I think of myself as “an awareness agent” — that is, my work is to help clients see habitual patterns of behavior or lost awareness that block or limit their ability to satisfy their needs or wants. These patterns become visible to me through their body language and/or word and their expression or evasion of either. Bringing these patterns to their attention is often surprising, and also often results in anxiety and a feeling of vulnerability. This is actually the optimal zone of learning, what my dear colleague, Marcia Reynolds, has called “the discomfort zone.” Clients may need to learn new ways to express themselves, to interact with others, to take action. New learning is always awkward. We have to start at the beginning, with small steps, and practice in order to gain confidence and fluidity. It takes commitment (even courage) to let go of what hasn’t been working and try different ways of something new. Even though it’s clear that what a client has been doing hasn’t worked, the worry of failure always looms. As coach, my role is to offer rationale, support, encouragement, and validation as clients take these learning steps toward meeting their wants and needs and their desired goals. I like to suggest that what I offer is intentional disruption in service of what learning offers — more satisfaction.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
A coach has to be skilled regarding the timing of feedback, and just how much can be tolerated by the client. But the coach also needs to be adept at turning a moment of perceived disaster into a learning experience, for both themself and others. I was giving a training program on group leadership, and our participants were practicing their skills with a volunteer client in-group of university students. I was part of the senior faculty, and the participants respectfully called me “Dr. Siminovitch.” I would watch the leaders facilitate their assigned group for 20 minutes then sound a bell to interrupt the learning session and give my feedback. After three rounds, as I stood to offer my observations, one member of the in-group interrupted with offensive statements devaluing the observations and teaching points I had been offering. These statements were so strongly-worded and disrespectful that my participants were taken aback, and feared the entire program was in jeopardy of being canceled. I, too, was shocked at being confronted in such a negative and combative manner. Yet, from somewhere within myself, a strange thought emerged: “Appreciate what he’s saying. Join him where he is.” That is, don’t fight against what he’s saying — try to make sense of it and use it. As I desperately considered this, I remember standing straight and tall. I then smiled at the participant who had spoken so rudely about me, and addressed the group: “Isn’t it great that this young man has questioned leadership? It’s healthy. It’s true that as senior faculty, I keep interrupting and no work seems to get done because of that. Isn’t this like what’s going on in this country? As leadership keeps changing, it’s hard to trust them and move forward. We need to make room to hear this kind of resistance. There is a message that we all need, so let’s thank him.” Then I called for a 10-minute break. For me, that was a turning point. I had met a personal challenge with creativity and self-assurance. That story always reminds me to have faith in myself in the moment, and then to allow for a “breather” to assess and try again. I’m grateful to that young man, whose anger and scorn gave me the opportunity to show my adaptive strength, my creativity, and my sense of humor. And, for me, it illustrated how a challenge is the opportunity to find one’s strength.
We all need a little help along the journey. Who have been some of your mentors? Can you share a story about how they made an impact?
We never forget the people who have brought us to a new place, opened a new door, or helped us resolve a difficult challenge. I was lucky enough to have met fascinating people throughout my journey of becoming, who offered knowledge, experiences, and guidance that I’ve used to influence others. Perhaps, my most powerful personal mentoring came from my mother, whose wisdom I came to value more deeply over time. My mother, an immigrant to Canada after a devastating life experience of loss, was a pioneer for all working women. Though her English skills were poor, she pushed herself to learn to be a real estate agent and was a trusted residential broker for almost fifty years. From my mother, I learned what endurance and the capacity to earn people’s trust “looked like.” Yet much of my “mentoring” comes from thinkers, poets, and philosophers whose excellence inspires me to learn from their brilliance and courage. I’ve always admired Albert Einstein, and I find that taking his theory of relativity as a metaphor for human relations is valuable. What is that person seeing or hearing from where she stands? Poets like Mary Oliver or William Stafford often offer depths of emotional intelligence more visceral and useful than any theoretical explanation. When clients are feeling shy or defensive, I like to quote famed psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott: “It is a joy to be hidden but a disaster not to be found.” I find they are willing to share more after pondering that masterful phrase. We can learn from anyone if we are paying attention even if it’s what not to do as well. I have also learned what not to do from those whose behavior was lacking in ethics. Earning people’s trust and delivering on that trust are critical lessons of personal integrity that I work to make part of my brand. Ask yourself, “What am I learning? What do I want to learn? What do I need to learn?” Then find your resources in whatever form it takes. Find the people who have the knowledge, experiences, and wisdom you seek to learn.
In today’s parlance, being disruptive is usually a positive adjective. But is disrupting always good? When do we say the converse, that a system or structure has ‘withstood the test of time’? Can you articulate to our readers when disrupting an industry is positive, and when disrupting an industry is ‘not so positive’? Can you share some examples of what you mean?
Disruptive innovation has been an organizational buzzword since Clayton Christensen introduced it in 1997. Essentially, it takes the form of a smaller start-up company beating out its bigger, well-established competition by offering a cheaper, more efficient product or service targeting those customers that the larger company is ignoring. Eventually, that product/service moves its way up-market, attracting more and more of the bigger company’s mainstream customers and finally luring them away. One example of this kind of successful disruptive innovation is Uber, which challenged the mainstream model of taxi service. The Uber model proved adaptive globally, and it suited drivers working in an expanding gig economy. Being disruptive can invite new thinking and new practices that answer emerging needs or wants. But not all disruptive innovation is either necessary or useful. I’d suggest that health care, for example, is one field where such endeavors might prove damaging, and simply exacerbate the ongoing challenge of delivering a quality of care that meets rigorous standards.
In 1996, when I first proposed that Gestalt thinking and practices were compatible with and complementary to the emergent field of professional coaching, many colleagues were skeptical. “Gestalt Coaching” was disruptive to traditional Gestalt fields of practice, but it occurred during the early days of the coaching boom and had the space and support it needed to prove its value to executives and organizational teams around the world. When there was a challenge to our program delivery, I decided to disrupt our delivery model by bringing the program to Istanbul and creating a new partnership and a new center. Our program is now in its thirteenth year of delivery, and we are known as a global coaching program. We are part of the professional coaching billion-dollar industry that is still growing. I also never saw myself as an author, but I wrote what became an instant classic, A Gestalt Coaching Primer: The Path towards Awareness Intelligence which was published in 2017 and will be re-issued as a second edition in the second quarter of 2022. To see myself become a trusted author, speaker, coach, and noted lecturer has been the realization of a dream that many say is inspirational. For all of that, I am deeply grateful.
Can you share 3 of the best words of advice you’ve gotten along your journey? Please give a story or example for each.
“You know more than you think you know.” That comes from Michael Polyani, who championed “tacit” forms of knowing (intuition, informed guesses, hunches). Whenever I find myself in an ambiguous situation, and I see that others are also unsure of what to do, I look for something from inside myself — a feeling, a memory, a phrase — that I can use to move us forward. The story I told earlier of the young man who challenged my authority is, again, an applicable example. I chose to turn the situation inside out, as it were, and to “join and appreciate him” rather than take offense or turn away. This ability is a demonstration of so-called “soft skills” or competencies that are often the key to re-framing and re-directing difficult situations. Under stress, people tend to be less inviting or validating of others. They “contract” in the very moments when they need to be more expansive and innovative. These are the moments I remind myself that I know more than I think I do and to trust my soft skills to help me connect with others and bring a new awareness into play.
“Wisdom begins in wonder.” — Socrates. We can trust that creative possibilities are hiding in the obvious. When I or others seem to be stuck, I take a moment to practice recentering, which involves breathing slowly and consciously until I feel a state of relaxed awareness. In this state, curiosity can emerge, leading to more creative thinking. Creativity is a form of playfulness. It’s allowing yourself to experiment with new ideas and to tolerate the chance of small failures in service of learning. When I feel I’ve reached an impasse and can’t go further, I sometimes find that by considering the situation without judgment, just being curious about it and appreciating all its dimensions, then a new awareness or possibility will occur to me.
“Many roads lead to Rome.” Whatever we do, whatever choice we make, whether in the moment or for the long term, we should do so with aware intention and appreciation for the possibilities. We don’t know if any encounter with another person might be life-changing. But I’ve discovered that when we meet others with our best intentions, and with appreciation for the moment, we could be opening doors to untold richness. Appreciation for the complexity and possibilities of life is the nourishment we need to grow and change.
We are sure you aren’t done. How are you going to shake things up next?
“To thine own self be true,” is an age-old mantra that few of us really understand. Brené Brown, a powerful thinker on leadership and self-discovery, speaks about the importance of being vulnerable enough to say one’s truth without shame. The act of self-ownership leads, in turn, to self-empowerment. I love her work. I’ve been working on these issues in my coaching and in my life, and I recognize how deeply challenging it is to be truthful not just to others, but to oneself. Self-discovery isn’t easy. But while we need to do our own exploring and find our way to self-ownership, we need to be in good company to succeed. We need to learn to invite feedback to know how others perceive us. If I’ve learned anything from this pandemic, it’s that the isolation from others is perhaps as devastating an illness to overcome. We’re “wired” to be in some form of relationship with others, for our physical and mental well-being, and for the more transcendent joys of life. We need to remember that. If we intend to “shake things up,” we also need a trusted group whom we can turn to for advice, guidance, and support. Anthropologist Margaret Mead said, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” We may have many wonderful individual strengths that bring us influence and success, but we do well to remember to nurture relationships with others as a way of moving our agenda and our lives forward.
In your opinion, what are the biggest challenges faced by ‘women disruptors’ that aren’t typically faced by their male counterparts?
Men have their own invisible cultural rules that limit them in some ways, e.g., in friendship, colleagueship, and emotional expressiveness. But they’re taught from an early age how to “play the game,” how to gain and manipulate dominance and power. Today, though, masculinity is undergoing shifts even as women’s traditional roles have also been changing particularly in America. It’s just a short 100 years since women got the legal right to vote, and we still see more men in leadership positions, continuing pay disparities, and even a resurgent debate over women’s right to control their own bodies. Women’s fight for self-ownership and self-authorship is ongoing and not always clear. No matter which ideological arguments we consider, what women will always need is more cultural and economic support for the right to choose for themselves, to counter the ego-annihilating dictates of what they should do or what they can and cannot do. We need greater institutional support to allow women to dream big and to choose with greater freedom, to define themselves for themselves under challenge. During the pandemic, it was the women who felt they needed to leave their careers and return to child care, elder care, or home care. We need to welcome women’s voices into senior decision-making processes in corporate, not-for-profit, and governmental organizations. We need women’s voices and wisdom to be heard in thinking about all humanitarian crises, whether the climate or the outbreak of war. Women constantly must prove themselves. How do we make space for their voices and experiences? How do we invite them into more critical decision-making? Let the proof come commensurate with the power and influence they are afforded.
Do you have a book/podcast/talk that’s had a deep impact on your thinking? Can you share a story with us?
There are so many that this question almost feels unfair! I’ll just say that I’m currently reading The Happiness Advantage: How a Positive Brain Fuels Success in Work and Life by Shawn Achor. I’m enjoying his wit and clarity in articulating principles for increasing our positivity and optimism, which in turn influences well-being, creativity, resilience, and success.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
I would love to inspire a movement of appreciation as an act of interpersonal creativity. A finding from the Gottman Institute, which studies marriage/couples relationships, intrigues me: “The difference between happy and unhappy couples is the balance between positive and negative interactions during conflict. There is a very specific ratio that makes love last. That ‘magic ratio’ is 5 to 1. This means that for every negative interaction during conflict, a stable and happy marriage has five (or more) positive interactions.” I’m often surprised by how uncomfortable being appreciative makes some people feel, as though they’re somehow being inauthentic or that “being nice” somehow makes them vulnerable. There’s a related saying, “If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.” But I think we can all find something positive to say, however small, and that we can find ways to say it in a manner that feels congruent with one’s self. Expressed appreciation invites a sense of security and joy, which opens possibilities for new ideas and for new learning.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
My life lesson learned over time and through long practice is: Trust Yourself. If you can’t trust yourself, it’s unlikely anyone else will trust you. We are our own oldest and best allies. I recommend taking time for reflective observation, particularly in stressful or charged situations, to check in with ourselves on what we are feeling and what we are thinking. What truths are waiting for you within? Often, a very small or brief idea has great value that emerges only when I stop and listen to myself. So listen to yourself. Trust that you know more than you think you know.
Communication: The greatest gift as a human is the ability to communicate on a profound cerebral level verbally and non-verbally. It is what separates us as a species from the rest of the Animal Kingdom. Communication with my wife is one of my most cherished connections to her. One of the loveliest sounds in the world is the sound of my wife’s voice. So, it is always a pleasure to hear her verbally communicate with me. She also communicates with her hands and arms, a super endearing quality.
As a part of our series about lessons from Thriving Power Couples, I had the pleasure of interviewing Drs. David and Alexis May Kimble.
Renowned board certified urogynecologists and surgeons, Drs. David and Alexis May Kimble, offer the women of Southern California expert care from the inside out, helping them look and feel their best. As co-founders of The Kimble Center for Intimate Cosmetic Surgery in Los Angeles, CA, and co-hosts of the Vagina Talk podcast, doctors Kimble have decades of experience and recognition in the field of vulvovaginal health. They’ve dedicated their careers and lives to treating women, improving their quality of life, and destigmatizing conversations around pelvic wellness.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you two to your respective career paths?
DAVID: Single handedly, it was one of my mentors during my residency who is regarded as a true grandfather of Urogynecology. He told me I “must” continue my career as a Urogynecologist since in his eyes I was one of the best surgeons he has encountered. Women are the most incredible of the genders always seeking health and wellness, rightfully, they are the gatekeepers of healthcare for their families. I have the utmost respect and admiration for women and have dedicated my life’s career to the care of all women.
ALEXIS: My path to medicine was very unexpected and untraditional. I grew up in a seemingly traditional household, being the third of four children to immigrant parents. Culturally, this meant that my birth order relegated me to a position in my own family that was minimizing, invisible really. Being born of female gender was also minimizing in the world I was surrounded by. My maternal grandmother, a matriarch, repeatedly declared that “1,000 girls aren’t worth one boy.” I never truly grasped her meaning, but it left me wondering, questioning and ultimately silent for most of my childhood. Being often the only family of color in my neighborhood surely did not help. I spent most of my time working to be more invisible. The most natural way to do so was to be of service. When I was old enough to choose, I spent most of my breaks and time after school working for charities like the local battered women’s shelters and crisis centers for survivors of domestic violence and assault. However, it was one summer in college where I spent time in Tijuana as a potential contemplative for the Missionaries of Charity, Mother Teresa’s order that led me to pursue a vocation in medicine. There, I helped the sisters feed and nurse the wounds of those who lacked, were without and housed in the charity’s quarters. I quickly learned the disparity among genders, race, class, and borders was expansive, but that health seemed a dignity all deserve. I set my mind to be a woman who advocates for other women to improve another’s life even if only at a most fundamental level. It has always been my belief that these women in these shelters who transiently were a part of my life helped inform who I have become by bolstering me with the courage I needed to believe in myself despite my own fears. Urogynecology, a subspecialty of women’s general health, attracted me because it focuses on optimizing life, health and wellness by improvement of pelvic floor conditions that can have a profound and diminishing impact on an individual’s quality of life. It’s about thriving, not mere surviving.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you two got married?
DAVID: I married a surgeon traditionally trained in Ob/Gyn. One week before the COVID pandemic shelter-in-place order, my daughter, Olympia, was born by an urgent Cesarean section due to potential antepartum concerns. I was in the operating room from the moment my wife entered, present for the spinal anesthetic. I was witness to one of the most courageous acts I have witnessed…an Ob/Gyn surgeon surrendering her body to the hands of some essential stranger to safely deliver our daughter. My wife was my hero, and I was humbled by her bravery and stealth in an emotionally taxing moment.
ALEXIS: When we were first together, I often recalled an old French saying that described relationships such that love in the beginning involves looking at each other. With time, love begins to take the form of looking out in the same direction. David and I have looked at endless sunsets together especially as it pertains to our work as co-surgeons, co-founders, and even sharing in the subspecialty of Urogynecology.
Can you share a story about a mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
DAVID: I never expressed my true feelings for her in the beginning. Alexis had a powerful spirit about her that I was drawn to, but my mind overpowered my heart and it took far too many months before I told her my true feelings. The lesson to learn is “Carpe Diem” — seize the day, seize the moment and never let time pass, be honest and true to your feelings.
ALEXIS: If I had a nickel for every mistake I’ve made, I would be sitting on a silver mountain overlooking great heights. I spent a lot of time away from my husband and children in pursuit of higher education, specialized surgical skills in rigorous and competitive surgical residency and fellowship post graduate medical educational programs. In my 20s and even in my 30s, my concept of time, ambition and mortality was unending. Today, I recognize that I can’t take back the time separated from my loved ones. So, I hold onto every moment now and work hard to create moments to be with them undivided.
What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?
DAVID: Most medical doctors only practice what they have been taught and stop their education and training once residency is completed. I continued my education adopting very new and innovative technology to provide the very best care for our patients.
The early phase of robotic surgery began in 1999 with a robot termed AESOP. This required hours of my time in “teaching” the robot voice commands and truncated terms so it can respond appropriately in the Operating Room. This proved not to enhance patient care. Fast forward to 2007 when daVinci robot came to the market, I was the earliest adopter and it has revolutionized my surgical care for my patients. However, several of my medical school classmates and colleagues have no interest in adopting new technology. Further, I have continued the pursuit of comprehensive care of women and we are embarking on a Beverly Hills office, opening this Spring, solely to provide intimate cosmetic surgery for individuals that identify as female. The specialized training and knowledge makes our company/practice stand out among all the others.
ALEXIS: Our center stands out because we understand and am grounded in very traditional understanding and approaches to treating a wide breadth of pelvic floor and vulvovaginal conditions. However, our specialty, Urogynecology, affords me to consider new therapies and technologies to provide more efficacious and technologically advanced solutions to age-old problems. I am proud to be a recognized leader in my field to consider new and innovative technologies that can help women improve conditions that prevent her from living her best life.
Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?
DAVID: Always is the answer. We are developing a new product line for intimate skin care. We tirelessly research sourcing the most natural ingredients to formulate the next amazing product that will prove invaluable for the intimate skin care for women, called Sonnet 79 (79 is the position on the Periodic Table for Gold). Clinical research is always on our radar to publish data to prove the efficacy of the aesthetic treatments in which we firmly believe.
ALEXIS: Echoing David’s sentiments, we are always working on new projects beyond managing the daily care of patients seen at our primary practice and center. We are expanding to a second location in Beverly Hills, in addition to our East side address in Pasadena. We are working to curate the best of what we believe will create beautiful, luxurious, and artistic space for our patients. I am very excited about our upcoming intimate skincare line, Sonnet 79, formulated to support, nourish and protect delicate vulvovaginal tissues and poised to launch this Spring. I am also in the process of writing a book aimed at girls, adolescents and teens as a resource for all things related to health, wellness, and beauty as they weather these various stages of becoming.
What advice would you give to other leaders or founders to help their employees to thrive?
DAVID: Know your employees, honestly study their habits and assess strengths and weaknesses/areas of improvement. Give them the tools to succeed both physically and psychologically. Respect is vital. Throughout most of my career, I have been known as the “Harmony Maker,” having the ability to transform most emotionally charged, adversarial situations into calmness and harmony. It is important to always create harmony in the work environment permitting open expression of ideas and feelings. This will invariably be the catalyst to promote your employees to excel and thrive.
ALEXIS: Aim to meet employees at their level. I can’t emphasize this enough. When I first started to be a boss, I believed that if I taught someone how to do something or showed them how to do something, it would get done. I quickly learned that not everyone hears and sees everything presented. Learners need to be ready to learn. It is important to understand every employee at their level and in their context before they can thrive and be supported in the ways they need in the organization’s work culture.
How do you define “Leadership”?
DAVID: By strict definition this means the ability to lead/command. However, leadership is quite broad in definition to encompass someone who guides by being an example, someone who sets the pace or tone, and someone who inspires diligence or good in others. Leadership is not an innate quality, but a learned skill requiring self confidence, self awareness, and the ability to critique oneself. No finite set of characteristics define leadership. A walk through history will prove leadership comes in many styles, shapes, and forms.
ALEXIS: Leadership is the unique ability to draw out the strengths in others and inspire them so that they can act and work to their strengths.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
DAVID: It is most challenging to single out one person only. Certain events happen in life that guide your journey in a defined direction, perhaps a course not yet plotted. In today’s world those who were previously called mentors are now called influencers. The most powerful influencer in my personal journey was my mother. It may sound contrite, however, she lead her life with resolve and the strength of an army. She marched with Martin Luther King and burned her bra in downtown Atlanta just to protest for women’s rights. Yes, she alone was my northern star guiding me, sometimes with a powerful nudge, to persevere against all odds and stay true to my course.
ALEXIS: I’ve had the privilege to be mentored by among the most talented surgeons and minds during my training years to whom I will always be grateful and hold in high esteem. Among one is my fellowship director and mentor, who believed in me when many did not, even against the grain of many others. She saw qualities in me that often were not traditional qualities in most candidates for surgical specialties.
How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?
DAVID: My success and recognition as a leader and pioneer in medicine has allowed me to care for tens of thousands of women in my career. The goodness is readily evident in the successful outcomes for these women both surgically and emotionally. In my possession are hundreds of cards, gifts, and awards attesting to the goodness I have given the world. Beyond surgical skills, my bedside manner is my best known attribute touted countless times in reviews and awards. To me, it is a simple honor and privilege to be the surgeon capable of dramatically improving the lives of women.
ALEXIS: I am privileged to spend my day applying all I’ve learned and acquired through 16 years of rigorous discipline and sacrifice to alleviate or correct a condition for a patient who presents to me with a problem. I’ve devoted my career to understanding and solving. I am working to expand the breadth of knowledge and skills by constantly seeking new and improved ways to address old problems. My approach to many of these conditions is to seek new avenues to prevent them. For example, I recognize that many things in women’s health have not changed since the 1940s. I am at the forefront of considering new technologies or new methods to improve how we treat common conditions like prolapse, vaginal laxity, vulvar disorders, and sexual dysfunction. In many respects, my life has emboldened me with the courage to blaze a path where there has not been one. I also find that helping to educate and inspire the next generation of females and girls as it relates to women’s wellness is so incredibly vital to everything I do everyday.
What are the “5 Things You Need To Thrive As A Couple”? Please share a story or example for each.
DAVID:
Mutual respect: My wife is a fellowship trained urogynecological surgeon. Even from the beginning of our relationship, I was the Chief of Urogynecology who hired her directly out of fellowship, I admired her talent and skill that much. We perform all our surgeries together and to this day I remain in awe of her amazing skills.
Time: Time is our most precious commodity, what we have the least of. Life did not allow me to meet my wife as early as I would wish. The moment I met her and the palpable spirit around her, it felt as if I had always known her. As the years click by and the sands of time forge rapidly forward, I forever wish I had the power to pause and enjoy my moments with her endlessly.
Common ground: Bonds are cemented with common ground, true in most all relationships. The bonds of our marriage are forever challenged by the demands of everyday life, be it the kids, busy OR schedule, or finances. We take time to enjoy our common interests such as enjoying the sunset, walking along the boardwalk, reading, enjoying music, etc. My wife has a beautiful command of the English language. I love reading her words anywhere…a published article, a book chapter, or as simple as an email or text. I love to write and read…a wonderful bonding common ground.
Love and Romance: This is the cornerstone of any marriage, be it heterosexual or otherwise. Without a desire to be with one another, without a passion for the other, and without loving romance, the relationship evolves into roommates which will never stand the test of time. Just remember the TV series The Odd Couple with Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon…this is not the relationship a loving couple desires to emulate. My wife is my endless sky, the prettiest sunset, my everything. Virtually every time she catches my eye, my heart skips a beat. I harness this passion in my romantic moments with her to completely and undeniably express my love. I try never to let those moments pass without a wink, smile, or perhaps a kiss.
Communication: The greatest gift as a human is the ability to communicate on a profound cerebral level verbally and non-verbally. It is what separates us as a species from the rest of the Animal Kingdom. Communication with my wife is one of my most cherished connections to her. One of the loveliest sounds in the world is the sound of my wife’s voice. So, it is always a pleasure to hear her verbally communicate with me. She also communicates with her hands and arms, a super endearing quality.
In sum, it is the profound love between a couple that transcends every aspect of their relationship making it grand and stalwart against all the stresses of the world.
ALEXIS:
The ability to choose each other every day. I think it is important to be reminded that being with each other is an active choice. To be able to stand on one’s own allows us to be positioned to choose to be with the other every day. I also find this makes things new, fresh and I am reminded how honored I am to be married to David.
Mutual respect. The most challenging part of a personal relationship is deciding who does the most and who does things to a capacity the other cannot. I find it is so critical to find things in the other one admires and to celebrate it and honor this in all interactions.
Innate attraction. It is important for me to be attracted to my partner in an instinctive way. This goes far especially during disagreements. David has the unfair advantage that I find him breathtaking!
Good hygiene. I can’t emphasize this enough. I absolutely require and believe that good hygiene demonstrates care of oneself and regard for one’s partner.
Rose champagne most days. Need I say more?
If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be?
DAVID: The use of the term vagina has been normal language to me for decades. However, the word is still considered taboo to most of society. Our new podcast Vagina Talk is designed to demystify the word vagina and openly discuss all that surrounds the vagina and vulva (the face of the vagina). My life’s mission is to be a vocal advocate for women, to enhance women’s lives by improving the function and appearance of the vulva and vagina itself. All women need to feel confident and beautiful, respected and admired. Consider the term hysterectomy, which literally means the removal of hysteria which dates back to the 16th century. Hysterectomy terminology has persisted through time even though it is demeaning to women. Removal of any other organ in the female body is called by its medical term. Women need to be empowered to demand their right to equality and respect and the Vagina Talk is designed to provide that platform. Beyond just equality and respect, strength comes from within which requires confidence, self esteem, and the ability to love oneself. Vagina Talk is the catalyst for women’s rights, discussing topics translatable to all who identify as a female.
ALEXIS: I think as women, we need to be the women we needed and didn’t have as a young girl. If we did that, perhaps, we could provide the nurturing, support, strength and modeling for the younger generation of females behind us so that we can have a future of capable, competent, beautifully strong women who are fearless, realized, empowered, and loved.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
DAVID: “Never Accept a Wooden Nickel” was a quote my maternal grandfather told me at every visit to their home. As a child, I thought he was just old and the quote had no meaning. As youth ascended into adulthood, I finally understood. It meant do not accept something less than what it is or could be or should be. Accept only the best in life and yourself. It made me strive to always be that shiny nickel, not a dull wooden nickel. This applies to me as a surgeon, as a husband, and as a father. I will never accept myself as a wooden nickel.
ALEXIS: “Everything is energy and that is all there is. Match the frequency of the reality you want and you cannot help but get that reality. IT can be no other way. This is not philosophy, this is physics.” — Albert Einstein
I think that life is delicate and our thoughts and intention hold the power to transform. I spent my life believing in the power of thinking to effect change in myself, in the world around me. This stands true today.
We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them 🙂
DAVID: Elon Musk, hands down. He is a visionary, an entrepreneur, a missionary, and a stand alone man. He created an emission free vehicle that has revolutionized the industry and will contribute tremendously to solving the climate crisis. He accomplished this in the face of constant adversity, disbelief, even outright defamation. Einstein was considered strange, eccentric, even weird. However, he contributed so many things that the world could not live without. This is the same trajectory for Elon Musk, the Einstein of the 21st century.
ALEXIS: Elie Weisel is someone who I have admired as a thinkinger, writer and activist. He was able to cultivate light when all he was given was a suffocating darkness. His story is something that inspired me throughout the years.
