Turning Moments into Movements

Speaker 1: [Music] once you're able to get around people who can push you to the levels that you want to go to or even the levels you don't know exist you're then able to be more and more successful yourself as well and that's what our community aims to do we are more focused on how do we support each other individually to grow ourselves collectively I'm Melanie bar welcome back to the Sheil it podcast your go-to place to empower you to live the life and business that you crave I'm here to talk about everything from Having the courage to make life and career leaps to the details of how to lead effectively create successful teams Implement strategies for growth and Infuse Tech Innovation I'm here to celebrate your wins and navigate through your challenges I live in the city now but I grew up in a town of a thousand people I've navigated major life leaps a senior level corporate career worked in professional sports and now as a successful entrepreneur who loves business technology family and making meaningful connections with you and the Sheil it Community I also love a good workout and dose of self-care magic happens when we focus on the part of ourselves and our business that brings us joy so turn up the audio open your favorite Notes app grab your favorite drink and here we go welcome back to the Sheil to podcast thank you for joining us Jana share with us what inspired you to start dear diary and the group chat and how your platforms aim to eradicate poverty I actually started deer diary first so I started deer diary in 2019 I wrote deer diary when I was in college my freshman year of college I was navigating the Waters of college and I'm a first generation college student and I had no idea what I was doing no idea at all and while I was there as I was learning things I'm like man if only I had known this while I was in high school or if only I had prepped better for this while I was in high school but didn't know anybody who could have given me that and I remember saying I wish that the things I wrote in my diary that I had questions about or that I wasn't sure of I could talk to somebody about it out loud and that's really where dear diary came from so I wrote it as a program I was like it'll be a mentoring organization girls will be matched with other women who either have gone in the direction that they wanted to go in to like career maybe College Community Etc they would be paired together and these women would help them with getting there themselves and when I wrote it this was really early when Google Drive was like barely becoming a thing I saved it on a Google Drive and I was like one day I'll pick it up one day and I was on a board in Wisconsin I was their grant writer and I was writing grants for different programs that they had there was a grant that came out that was for mentoring organizations in the community it was a Federal grant that got handed down to the city level to help with some violence that was going on in the community and a piece of it was mentoring and IID asked the board if I could apply on behalf of dear diary I had shared with them this little two-pager of this big program that I had and they're like yeah sure go for it and ended up getting $60,000 to start so that was amazing that we were able to come out of the gate with some substantial funding we started that in January of 2019 we were serving 15 girls in the community in Wisconsin then covid hit which I always say it was the best thing that could have happened to us because we had the opportunity and we were new enough to be flexible in how we served our girls so because of that when Co hit we didn't have to to close a building we didn't have a ton of Staff we it was me and one other person and we were contract for the organization so at that time we were able to think about what's an Innovative way we can still serve our girls while we're trying to figure out what life is and so we started back with our work in May once our shelter and place orders were lifted and we were serving 320 girls that year because school was out they needed the support I'm like if nothing else we could be homework support and just a place for them to come that's not at their house and it accelerated our growth over time and we were able to get more funding do more programming meet the needs of more girls which brings us to now our digital platforms and so again the tech just sped up so fast we had been getting asked about doing our work in different spaces nationally and I just don't have the bandwidth and Staffing capacity to grow an organization in different states physically but the digital allows us an opportunity to do that without needing all of that funding and it's right on their phones so we're apps on their phones they're part of communities through their phones and then we offer all of our internship support apprenticeship support helping them get into college completing FAFSA documents we do pitch contests for them to help them get the funding that they need the economic power that they need to live whatever life they want we're all about live the life of your dreams but that costs money so true it's so great that you were a place for them to go especially during Co cuz that was such a lonely time for so many and then also there are things we want to do but sometimes especially as a youth in school you don't know where to go you don't know who to talk to to ask about those things and also sometimes you can be afraid to truly share what's going on inside I just had a podcast recording with a woman who kept telling me what she thought she was bad at and I thought even me I'm not the best at just saying I'm not good at this sometimes we have things in side that we want or need to work through but we don't really know where to go to do that or where to start or am I going the right direction you don't know what you don't know and so having perspective from outside helps you so much and even for me it was like my family could only help me with what they knew and navigating the college scene my family was like Hey you teach us and tell us how it goes I have a brother who's 10 years younger and my parents were like like you go and do it and then help us with your brother when it's his time there are so many different things that we're still learning even as a community I think that the black community is really learning so much and access to information now has been amazing but it's so much information now and so I think before you didn't have access to all of the information now you have access to so much information that you're trying to sort what's good information what's bad information do I buy this course or do I need to go to college or you just don't know it's so much noise now so true tell us about the importance of community support in achieving personal and financial success and how your platforms create the opportunity I don't think we talk enough about the power of community and the need for Community as people and this is not race or gender or any of those things it is just we need people we need each other again post pandemic it's just shift what that looks like and people are starting to realize that we do need those connections more than we thought and because of that one of the things that our community seeks to do is provide that space where it's low stakes you can ask the questions you can find out what you're great at you can find out what you're not so great at what type of supports you need who in our community can provide those supports I know one of the things that I've always wondered is like where is everybody right I just moved to a new state where do people hang out where do the business owners hang out where do the other female entrepreneurs hang out I have no idea like I have no idea where to plug in here and I think that with things being more digital people are so much more spread out than they used to be so again on one hand you have no information and then too much information it's like we had connection and now social media has allowed us to connect with people everywhere but then the right in your backyard you're like where's everybody and our platforms allow people to do that to find their people to find their community and I think that once you're able to get around people who can push you to the levels that you want to go to or even the levels you don't know exist you're then able to be more and more successful yourself as well and that's what our community aims to do we are more focused on how do we support each other individually to grow ourselves collectively mentorship as you just mentioned is a critical component of your platforms share share a success story where mentorship through your program significantly impacted someone's life oh where do I start there's been so many one of our girls we still are in connection with her and it's why the group chat exists because our girls started to age out of deer diary programming and we needed the next level for them but one of our girls she had been a part of deer diary since 2020 loved everything about it was going on some of our trips we take our girls on College visits she had gone on one of those and she had always wanted to go to a historically black institution but didn't know where to start she had gone on a trip with us and we were able to connect her with some Representatives at NH HBCU and she is now at that institution and her dad even emailed us and said thank you all so much she had no idea where to start I had no idea where to start he's a single father he had no idea where to start with helping her to get into the school and we were able to help her get in we were able to help her get some scholarship money and now she's one of our ambassadors for deer diary that's one small one that I know is right in the back of my mind but we also have another girl who was part of our program at that time she's one of our board members so we have youth board members as well she's graduating soon and we'll be going off to college and she just won Youth of the year for our state we're just watching our girls flourish and grow when we met them they were 14 year year olds 15 year olds that were like just trying to figure it out in the midst of a pandemic and now we're watching them transition into all of the things that we had hoped that they would transition to so amazing and I love that you have youth board members too because that's an amazing skill to learn as well yeah we do and our youth members are voting members our youth members are paid so our adult board members are volunteer our youth members are paid because we also want to pay them for their time but their expertise their advice their direction is so powerful in the work that we do because they're in it they know what they need and it's not a bunch of adults telling the kids what they need it is what are you all talking about what are you watching what are you seeing what types of things are you needing from us and those are the things that we provide for them and it's great that you pay them too because that's another skill to start to learn to get paid for your knowledge and the work that you're doing exactly when we're talking about conversations around wealth how do we start to move the needle in that our mission is huge to eradicate poverty that's huge and it's not something that we're going to see overnight but what are the smaller wins that let us know that we're moving in the right direction and it's those types of things where our girls start to understand I should be paid for my expertise I should be paid to offer this type of advice and direction to an organization because because it's our bread and butter when you're telling us what type of programs you need and we are then facilitating those programs and meeting the needs of you as our target audience that's how we run the business you should be paid for that and you should be paid well for that and helping them to understand that early has been really powerful for us as an organization so great you also managed spillet beans I love the name blog and podcast how do your platforms complement your broader Mission and what kind of content can your audience expect all of my businesses come together I have this focus in everything that I do to help people live the life of their dreams I truly believe that we get to decide what life is like for us and as a kid I will never forget my aunt told me you were born with two disadvantages you are black and you're a woman and you are going to have some limitations you're going to have some barriers and you're going to have to decide what that means for you and I know that she was warning me on what society would see me as and how I would have to navigate the world for me I'm like I can't change being a woman or being black so those cannot be my two disadvantages I'm GNA have to have some other disadvantages because I can't fix that so I am going to use those two things and make them an advantage and I am then going to make sure that no other black girl has to hear that being a black girl is a disadvantage and so for me I'm like I'm going to live the life of my dreams as a black woman period and that has been the work that I've done my degrees are in animal science and dairy science so I don't even my education is not even in this work at all it's totally I have chills from what you just said I just love that you are changing the narrative and going for it thank you and that's been my focus like we're going to create our own artive nobody's going to tell us what type of life we can have that has been throughout all of my businesses throughout everything that I've done my degree is in Dairy science I'm like I'm going to be a black woman in Dairy science you don't see us often trust me I've gone to the conferences I've gone to the National meetings and you can find me quickly and for me it was like this is something I'm interested in I loved it it was something I was passionate about and I went after it regardless of all the other things and so with the work that I do and with spillet beans it's really focused on how did I create this life how did I go after it how did I make sure that fear didn't stop me what happened when doors were closed in my face or people told me no how did I push back how did I learn things that I didn't know how did I build an organization from the groundup with employees to over a million dollars how did I do this and a big part of that is deciding that I was going to a huge part of it was deciding that I was going to do it and that stemmed from from that conversation my aunt had with me when I was 6 years old it was I am not going to allow anybody to stop me from being a force I am going to be a force and then I'm GNA make sure that I can help other people be a force because how amazing would it be if we all unlocked our fullest potential I'm going to figure that out and so with the work that I do there's a through line of I am empowering people to just be themselves unlock that potential that you have live the life that you want to live make the money that you want to make everybody doesn't want to be billionaires everybody doesn't want to be millionaires and that's fine what is it that you need to have the life that you want with no limitations because I think the only limitations are the ones we put on ourselves and my businesses show that all the way through and that carries through with everything that's so true and when you were saying everything you just said I was thinking yeah so often we get in our own ways let say out of our own ways and I love your determination and being who you are and you're right not everyone wants to have a million dollars you don't have to with social media and everything we see these things we're supposed to want maybe we don't want that yeah and I think that one of the things I was reading it was like real estate is the fastest way to make money and I'm like I don't really want to be in real estate I don't want to do that I don't want tenants I don't want to have to be like making sure people pay their rents and making sure that my bu buildings are up to cold I'm not interested so I'm going to have to find another way to be wealthy because that's not it for me absolutely and that's fine sometimes it just becomes another thing that you have to take care of too yes and I'm not interested and for me it is what are the things that I really want and my husband and I have conversations all the time and I'm like this is the life that I want for myself these are the things I want to be able to do and I find the resources to be able to do that before we had our son I was like I always wanted a nanny I always thought that was the coolest thing undivided attention for our kids I wanted our kids to be bilingual and so I wanted someone who spoke Spanish and as we were thinking about and planning for our son I'm like don't forget I want that Nanny and my husband's okay that's going to be expensive but I'm like how much money do we need to make we can make more money there's more money you just make more money so this is a mindset that I have too where I'm like I want this it costs this much all right I need to make this much more money so that I can get this thing yeah and believing in abundance because it's there you know whatever we're believing if we believe in limitations there's limitations and you're so right if we believe in abundance we figure out a way to find it yeah once you realize that you just unlock a whole different world there are no blocks and not that things don't happen I'm Still Human it's still life things happen all the time but the way that you look at those things and the perspective that you have towards those things shifts drastically when you realize that that closed door is not the end all be all right and then you start to think maybe I didn't want that job anyway or maybe I didn't want that business partner exactly um because I've had that too where I'm like oh I'm glad you said now what future projects or expansions are you excited about and how do you see your platforms evolving in the next few years oh man I am always doing something I struggle to just do one thing forever I'm always like I want to do this and I want to do this and I want to do this I don't know why I can't have a 100 lives so that I can do all of these things at one time because that's how my brain works I think I share that with you my brain works that way too like a million ideas a mile a minute I get it and I think that's what makes good entrepreneurs yeah people like us are needed in this world yeah yeah so dear diary and the group chat our goal with both of those platforms is to help women achieve six figures minimum six figures and then they would move into another platform that we're building out for our executive women and entrepreneurs who have grown to a minimum of six figures our goal there is to continue to build and to create this ecosystem where one feeds to the other so as our women are having children it feeds back in as we think about eradicating poverty and truly our focus is on Building Wealth right our way to eradicate poverty is building we as we think about that it is something that's going to take time and we need to be able to support generation after generation so what we're wanting to create is this ecosystem throughout our platforms where one feeds into the other we also are in talks about creating something for boys and what that looks like we've been getting those ass even from our girls so our high school girls have said it is great that you pour into us but we also need you to pour into the boys because we're in relation with each other to whatever capacity so ensuring that we're building up our boys while we're also building up our girls so we're also in talks to do that and then another big Venture for me is I want a co-working space for health and wellness professionals and then one for creatives we need to be around people who are doing similar work to us and not in that competitive way but truly in that collaborative way so that we can help and pour into each other and build each other businesses we create this barrier when we're thinking like it's me versus you when we can come together and if you're building a sixf figure business and I'm building a sixf figureure business how do we come together and build a seven or eight or nine fig business with both of our skill sets and so what I'm hoping is that our co-working spaces for creatives and health and wellness professionals will be able to really push those Industries forward for the people who are working in them as those are things that are just bigger now than they used to be we weren't talking about creatives 15 years ago we weren't talking about health and wellness professionals are both you're absolutely right and with tech we need that more if I don't do my time in the morning I feel being on the computer and on apps and platforms all day long like it's just our minds are working differently than they used to and then the creative we need that creative side for almost any business that exists exactly exactly and so just being able to create those spaces for us to build again these ecosystems where we can start to push our economy in the direction that we're wanting to push it in we can't negate that economics is important it's so important to everything that we do and so how can we cultivate the financial side of things so that we can also cultivate the personal side of things and start to move the needle for people so I have a lot of Ventures that at least are in my mind they're going but it'll happen you have an incredible Vision it all ties into to each other and how they're all necessary yeah I try to keep things that fold into the other and to a fault sometimes because I'm like is this a different business than that last one that I started or do these all go together and this is just step two magic happens when we focus on the part of our business and our s that brings us joy what is one thing that you do for you to find and live your joy I invest the time and energy into myself just like what you were talking about in the mornings that's my me time that is my opportunity to go to the gym every day Monday through Friday I start my day with me I'm able to think and get out whatever thoughts are fresh in the morning that's where I'm most creative I'm usually listening to a podcast or book or a YouTube interview and I'm learning at that time I don't know if you're familiar with strength finders but my top one is learner I love to learn things I don't care how it turns out but give me more knowledge yeah I understand when I'm making the snacks in the morning for my kids that's my time to to listen yeah 30 minutes of I'm just making food yeah at 6:30 and so I start with that yeah I start with that and I think that I have unintentionally become the story that I'm living out my businesses are living out the life that I wanted for myself I was like I want to be able to live the life of my dreams and what I didn't realize was in living the life of my dreams I could help other people live the life of their dreams and so a big part of that is actually living the life so doing the things that I enjoy doing traveling spending time with my family I'm very intentional about spending time with my family I love that that really brings me joy so doing the things that I like to do listening to the books reading the books going to the gym making sure that every day when I get off of work it's my family time and it is really my family time traveling and being off when I'm traveling learning more about my business and the audience that we serve those things that I enjoy allow me to be a better business owner allow me to do better in serving other people and so investing in myself guilt-free like I've learned how to invest in myself guilt free and it makes you better mom too when you take the time for yourself you can feel bad about it but it's really the best it is and we have a little journal for our son and we're able to write him letters as he grows up so my husband and I will will write to him at different points and things that are going on and we talk to him about that Mommy and Daddy go to the gym every morning and that's our time and we think that time is very important for us or mommy's really busy right now this week for work and sometimes I have to make sacrifices in family time for work but they're temporary and it's to create the life for us that we want and all the things we've imagined we'd have for you we have to work so that we can get those things and so it's also helped me to give myself Grace but teach my children and my husband and my family how to also give me that Grace or give me that time or give me that space without me feeling like I always have to be everything for everybody and I can't and that is then where I start to feel like I failed when I set these unrealistic expectations for myself and so I've just been very real with myself in some kind of way my son's going to think that I didn't do a good job at something I've accepted that already because I know that I'm gonna do my best for all it's inevitable all kids it is but you're also teaching him that we go through tough times and we go through good times and then we also have to take care of ourselves what a valuable lesson that you're doing for him that's amazing and he's getting to know you too exactly in such an intimate way yeah and I think I'm getting to know myself in a different space because now I have somebody else who's watching me as they're learning and as they're growing the therapist that my husband and I see she talked to us about everything you do he'll learn something from it how you treat each other how you talk to each other your work ethic he'll always learn something from it as he's growing up think about those things and what you're showing him because he doesn't know anything it's a blank canvas and he's learning from you first now that he's here and realizing it truly is a blank canvas wow they just soak up so much so fast and going from knowing nothing and how are you ensuring that the things you're teaching your kids is what you want them to learn and a big part of that has been me learning myself me truly learning myself figuring out what works what doesn't because now I know he's watching me and before it was just me I'm just out here doing whatever and nobody could be accountable to you have such incredible vision thank you for sharing it with the world and for helping others become more of who they are please share with us how and all the places we can find you yes I am on social media on Instagram at yab beans that's the spillet beans my best friend calls me Yana beans and has been for 20 years Yana beans with an s y a n n a b a NS at dear di org on Instagram at the group chat soci Club on Instagram same for Facebook and Linkedin and meana Williams on Facebook LinkedIn Instagram I'm on Spotify and apple podcast I post an episode every Friday I'm sharing my journey thank you for joining us today I'd love to hear from you reach out to me at hello Sheil it.com on our Sheil it website or at Sheil it on social thank you to my editor Rich stalino who always makes us sound good until next time let nothing stop you from experiencing the life and business that you crave