On Working with Women of Color as a White Woman

Do you read Cup of Jo? I’ve been obsessed for 10 years. Joanna does this fantastic style series “A Week of Outfits.” One of them featured April Kae and I loved her approachable, effortlessly cool, layered style so I headed over to her instagram and clicked the follow button. I'm so glad I did as I have been inspired by not just her style but her activist voice and powerful presence. ⁣
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Last year, in August, she posted this:⁣

Confession: When people hire me to model, they're almost always white. Why? Because the people who have the resources to do so are almost all white. Of course, there's not a lot I can do about that. But what I can do is make an effort to work with more women of color, and make it cost-free and easy for them to work with me. In the first of what I hope are many such collaborations, I shot an entire look made BY US, FOR US. . The shirt was hand-made and designed by queer Black couple @the.gold.ones for their line @mindedcollection_. They were one of the first big accounts to follow me, and have inspired me to be loud and proud about who I am and what I believe in. . The pants were sourced by queer Black woman @KeikoEl, founder of @KnooksVintage. She's one of my newest friends, and is taking a unique and long-overdue Black-centric approach to vintage retailing. (Also, she's now selling her clothing at @jinxedstore in Philadelphia!) . The ring I'm wearing is by the most amazing Isabella Santos, creator of @little.rituals. All of her pieces are handmade and full of joy, and she donates a portion of each sale to international women's development organization @iwdaorg. . And, of course my hair was cut by @themonacut, a non-Black woman of color who cares so much about us and our curls. She doesn't see nappy hair as a challenge, but rather an opportunity. She loves how every head is different and beautiful its own way. . If you're interested in collaborating email me at april@imanigold.com (please don't DM). I'd love to hear about your project. . Photo by @heykatekelly ❤️

It inspired me and I wanted to reach out to her, but I was nervous, not really knowing if I would say something wrong, or maybe the whole point of her post was to collaborate with women of color and not white people, and was I missing the point? ⁣
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I decided to email anyway. I told her how I worked with women businesses and that I wanted to work with more women of color and asked if she knew anyone that needed help. ⁣
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I’m so glad I did.⁣
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She responded enthusiastically which sparked ongoing conversations that stretched, challenged, and made me cry - in the best way possible. ⁣We talked about how I could help more women of color, what that could look like, how to talk about it, what to say, what not to say, I read a lot, reached out to people, and joined FB groups. ⁣
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I know there are plenty of women of color that can afford my services, money is not really the point. The point is that POC have been systematically held back and continue to be, and I want to do my part in acknowledging that, creating a safe place, helping people feel seen, and giving a boost of encouragement.⁣ I’m also not trying to be a white savior or charitable, but be an advocate for justice. ⁣

This isn’t a pretty conversation, I know I don’t have the right words. But if you are a woman of color or someone you know is and needs help, please reach out. Let’s chat, and see what we can make work. ⁣

Email me - hey@feminest.com

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Sources I read:

The Case for Reparations by Ta-Nehisi Coates (if you don’t read any of these, read this one)

Your Dictionary Definition of Racism Is Outdated Trash by OnlyBlackGirl

Racial Equality Tools

Racial Equality Tools Glossary

7 reasons why reverse racism doesn’t exist by S.E. Smith

Here's why 'reverse racism' doesn't actually exist in the US by Phillip Lewis, Mic

My Blackness Is Not the Problem, America’s Rampant White Supremacy Is by Toni Bell

On The Code Switch Podcast: 'I'm Not Black, I'm O.J.!' by Gene Demby

Dear White Feminists, We Can Do Better by Britni de la Cretaz

Reparations: Requests & Offerings FB Group

Entrepreneur Money Transparency: Photographer in Columbus, OHio

Name: Grace E. Jones

Age: 25

Location: Columbus, Ohio

Type of business: Service

Industry: Wedding/Photography

Number of years in business full-time? 8

Are you in a relationship that's financially supportive of you? Yes

If so, partner's annual income? $25,000

Home Rent: $700

List all of the years you've been in business and your revenue (this is money in before expenses are taken out):

2010 - $5,000
2011 - $5,000
2012 - $10,000 (I was still in high school for these years, so I couldn’t do full time work)
2013 - $10,000 (in school in another state)
2014 - $20,000
2015 - $25,000
2016 - $40,000 (year I got married)
2017 - $70,000
2018 - $70,000

You had a huge jump from 2016 to 2017, what do you attribute that to?

The huge jump was due to me raising my prices + booking more weddings! I went from 5 weddings in 2016 to 15 in 2017 + each year it keeps growing. And I got my butt in gear and started to blog more and make my website more SEO friendly!

Average monthly revenue?? $5,000

On average, what percentage of your revenue goes to expenses yearly? 15%

Average monthly expenses breakdown:

Photoshop/Lightroom - $10
PPA membership - $50
Gear insurance - $80
Cell phone - $90
Car insurance - $100
Apps - $5
Website - $10
Narrative - $9

Total: $354, 7% of average monthly revenue

What's been the best investment in your business? Learning about SEO

What's been the worst investment? Getting online guides from an Instagram famous photographer. Learned nothing and spent $200.

What percentage of your profit do you keep? 30% Avg. of $21,000

Money is so emotional. Scale of 10 being really positive, how you feel about your money overall? And why?
8 for sure. I feel really good about it! From a young age my mom taught me how to care for money and not to see it as an overwhelming thing (she’s also a small business owner) So since the age of 10 I have always had a savings account and have not put a big emphasis on money itself, I know that I am capable to bring in what I need when I need it, and fretting over it is only going to take up brain power that I can use to do my work. 

What are your money goals for 2019? In 2019 I would like to get to $85,000-$90,000 

How much longer do you see yourself being a photographer? Do you picture (pun intended) yourself pivoting? I want to keep doing it until it doesn’t bring me joy and becomes just another task to cross off the list. When that happens, I would love to go to school to become a Naturopathic Doctor. 

Thank you so much Grace for shedding some light on the money trajectory of a photographer!

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Graphic illustrated by the amazing Elloise Mae Foster of Budget Bae, a talented muralist that has a passion for female financial literacy and we’re channelling our raging feminism in this series, just for you.

Want to join the money transparency revolution? Fill out this form and/or contact me - hey@feminest.co

Currently seeking tech and product based businesses. If you’re service, would still love to hear from you! And if you’re a 9-5 but have a side hustle? Would love to have you too!

Finding a survey form that has an upload file feature for squarespace

Squarespace Forms vs. Wufoo vs. Typeform vs. Google Forms

Squarespace

I’m launching a platform called Sunday Founders, it’s a tech founder matching site with a gender lens. My co-founder Gretchen Scott and I, were needing to do some simple information gathering about our users through a form and for whatever reason something that seemed really easy turned into 4 weeks of road blocks and research! I wanted to share my discoveries with others in case

We’re currently hosting the site on Squarespace but we really valued having the image upload feature and logic jump so that immediately eliminated using Squarespace.

Squarespace form

Wufoo

When you google “image upload form field on squarespace” Squarespace articles suggest using Wufoo. But as we started investigating, design wise, it looks pretty terrible, which cause us to continue searching.

Wufoo in AUD

Typeform

I really love Typeform and it covered all of the bases we were needing but at $500 AUD it was a hard pill to swallow for just testing a basic MVP. I actually had my credit card out ready to pay $350/yr for it and then the exchange rate changed it to $500 and I just couldn’t do it. Even though Wufoo is significantly cheaper than Typeform, the design is so terrible it's really hard to consider Wufoo a serious option.

Typeform pricing in USD

Google Forms

So the search continued. I have created a lot of surveys with Google Forms but I didn’t realize that it allowed an upload file field. However, upon further research I discovered you sacrifice being able to embed it on your site. Google Forms is also not as visually appealing as Squarespace and Typeform and but wasn’t as bad as Wufoo.

Google forms

In Conclusion

We ultimately ended up going with Google Forms because of the functionality was there that we needed (logic jumps and file upload) and price point was right (free) but if money wasn’t an issue, hands down I would go with Typeform.

Book review: 6 Books in 3 months

Quick reviews of the 6 books on my night stand in the last 3 months. In order of the highest rating first to lowest rating last:

Women & Power: A Manifesto, Mary Beard - goes back 3000 years into recorded history of men telling women to shut-up. I love her incredible knowledge around feminist history and applying it to today's Hilary Clinton and Teresa May's. It's a quick read. And as a woman trying to have a voice in today's world, will validate you that, no, you're not a crazy person. 5/5

The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo, Amy Schumer - I don’t know why I didn’t pick this up immediately when it was published in 2016. Maybe it’s because so many of the female comedians I love came out with books and I was still catching up, Tina (2011), Poehler (2014), Mindy (2015)… who knows. In any case, there was something so comforting reading it. Schumer covers sexual and physical abuse, complicated family dynamics, being poor, being rich, and all the grit it takes to work your way up as a comedian. I highly recommend it, with the caveat that it doesn’t read like a memoir or coming of age, more like short stories which is great, but surveying my friends is the reason it hasn’t received the traction that say, Bossy Pants has. 4.5/5

Fight Like a Girl, Clementine Ford - is an Aussie born feminist. She’s smart and funny but honestly the repeated rehashing of twitter/social media controversies left me not finishing the book. 4/5

Says Who?: The Struggle for Authority in a Market-Based Society, Paul Verhaeghe - I really liked this book initially, the topic is fascinating to me, but I just couldn't get into it. A tad too academic perhaps? 3/5

Women Food and God: An Unexpected Path to Almost Everything, Genee Roth - Roth is a great story-teller (a bit indulgent at times) but maybe I have too many issues with food to make me continue to read it. The woo felt dated, even though I fully believe that all of these topics can overlap. 2.5/5

Radical Candor, Kim Scott - I'm into radical and candor, but this felt like it's more for corporate teams than, well, me. I don't really have an issue with being direct, nor do I think it's that radical. But I the title peaked my interest. I'm sure it's great for people at places like PwC/KPMG, or any large corporation. 2/5

#FEMINESTCHATS INTERVIEW WITH AMANDA JANE JONES

Here's the eighth interview in the #feminestchats series with the talented and kind Amanda Jane Jones, graphic designer and the founding art director of Kinfolk. Amanda and I knew one another from Chicago where I reached out to her when she was producing Define Magazine and got to work a bit with her on it. Which was delightful.

How are you feeling right now, 10 being the most incredible?

A 10! Playing the glad game a lot lately and it really helps you feel your best.

Glad game? I need more info….

Oh! It's from Pollyanna the movie. Just looking on the bright side of things, finding things to be glad for. Basically counting your blessings. Once you start thinking about all the things that make you glad, it's pretty hard to be unhappy about things.

Of course, Pollyanna! Oh man, flashbacks. I need the glad game in my life.

What's the fam doing right now? Is cree hiding out with them in the back?

Cree is picking up Jane from school with Miles! I think they are going to get some hot chocolate so I can have an extra 30 minutes of work time. ;)

I would love to know what it was like to be a part of Kinfolk as it grew and scaled massively Scary, exciting? All of it?

It felt like a big scramble, but it taught me that you don't have to know how to do something to try it. We were just making it up as we went!

Did you find yourself designing differently when you were getting bigger? if so, how?

No and yes - I've always been a simple designer, but I've toned down a bit. Right out of college I was very into letterpress and vintage style design and my work has become more modern - more classic. I also think that's just part of the changing styles.

I have a friend who likes to eat desserts alone and for whatever reason I get it, what's your "I'm alone I'm going to have THIS dessert"

Oh man - a stan's donuts just was built close enough for post-mates to deliver! If I order by 7pm, they get to me before 8 - right after the kids go to bed. Ha!

Dangerous.

You do so many amazing collabs! How do you decide when to do one and when not to? 

I've felt so lucky! It's been SO much fun. I tend to say yes to companies that have similar styles and companies that are open to letting me be me while designing.

Your insta following is cult-level, what's your criteria for what to post? 

I guess the insta-stories are more casual and "instant" - my actual feed is more curated and polished. 

You seem like you curate everything in your life - have you always been this way? I'm just really curious to know what the AJJ teen room was like. I know you're a Hanson fan but I'm assuming no Hanson posters on the wall?

Haha, I did actually have a complete hanson wall - floor to ceiling! But then my mom said she would pay 50% of a room make-over and I painted my walls lime green and bought inflatable furniture. I LOVED it.

Um, this sounds like Delias/Alloy catalogue, AKA drool worthy for a teen in the late 90's, right?

Oh! I'd forgotten about Delias - I devoured that magazine - couldn't wait until it came. I never purchased anything from there, but my mom found fabric that matched a dress I liked and asked a friend to help make it for me.

So crafty!

Who should I be following on insta?

Anna Kovaces! She is so good! I have her year in the life print on my mantle which shows the stages of pregnancy and postpartum - I bought it for myself for mothers day. ha!

What's your biggest takeaway from the Define Magazine project?

I loved so much about it! but it took so much time away from my family. In the end, it made me grateful for my current job and it's flexibility. 

I know Lake Michigan is a huge source of inspiration for you, any others?

I love books! I have a book wall at home that is a wonderful source of inspiration. I also love going to concerts and movies and listening to jazz. 

Do you have a system for how to handle mean comments?

Haha, I've learned the hard way just not to engage - or just kill them with kindness. It's not really worth it to engage. 

Smart.

I know you got a lot of push back on your McDonald's sponsored post. It's been a couple of years now since that happened, any retrospective thoughts?

Oh man, well - it was a mistake to take on that job in the first place. It was the first actual "sponsored" post I'd ever done and I was like, "WHAT? I can make this much money by posting one photo of my daughter with a clementine??!" Cree had a crazy stressful schedule with school and I was a new mom in a new city trying to support my husband and family financially on top of it all - so I was really excited to make some quick cash. It was a great learning experience though because, some brands just aren't a good fit and not worth the grief no matter how hight the price or how much you need the money. 

Yes to all of that. I can’t even imagine the grief. I think that was when McDonald’s was pushing a campaign to help their reputation with Moms and I’ve never spent more time in a comments section as I did when DesignMom had a McDonalds sponsored post, and started with, “I felt hypocritical — I felt like I was pretending I’m never a McDonald’s customer, when actually, from time-to-time, I am.” I guess there are people who never eat at McDonalds’s, I’m not one of them, and I don’t think you either. So I guess what I’m trying to say is, don’t be so hard on yourself.

You're so nice - I loved McDonalds growing up. It was such a treat! And when they had those mini-beanie babies in the happy meals?! THE BEST. Usually it's one of the few options when you're on a road trip, and we road trip a lot - so in my mind it was a great step in the right direction that they were adding healthier options to their meals. I think McDonalds is just fine in moderation - just like most things in life. I forget all the crazy comments people made - but one woman compared me to the devil or something random like that which was just ridiculous.

THE DEVIL. HAHA.

Let's say you have all the flexibility, time with family and balance in the world, what are your career goals?

I'd really love to start up Define Magazine again when my kids are older and I can afford more hands on deck. It was received so well and was growing so fast, but I just didn't have the manpower. We also have our first children's book coming out next fall and I'd love to do some more  in the series. I've also been working on some other book concepts that I'm keeping my fingers crossed too!

That’s incredible! Congrats on the children’s book and do you have a link to pre-order or should we just follow you on Insta to know how we can buy it and all your other books coming out? :)

Thank you! We're so excited. It's a dream of mine and it's even more exciting to get to do it with my BFF, Cree. We don't have pre-order links yet, but I'll post the minute they are up!

Amanda you’re a dream. Thanks for sharing and being a source of inspiration for so many people!

Past #feminestchats interview:

1. Jamie Nugent, all about money mindset?? Check it out! 

2. Or the second with graphic designer Lidia Varesco Racoma? Here it is!

3. Or maybe the one on closing a yoga practice and starting podcasts with Andrea Klunder? Go watch!

4. Or brand therapist Leisse Wilcox - have a watch.

5. Domini of Her Words! Click here.

6. Elle Steele on giving yourself permission to do what you want. One step away.

7. Whitney Lundeen who recently got a deal on Shark Tank! Here.

Know of anyone that I should interview? I’m looking for strong feminist business owners that have a story to share!

A Year Recap Through Instagram INSIGHTS - 2018

THE INSIGHTS

Last year I did my first blog post on Instagram Business year in review. Although I’ve taken a break from Instagram the last two months it’s still kind of fun no? The backend has changed dramatically. See last years post to compare the insane amount of options and navigation there are now!

Impressions - The total number of times all of your posts have been seen. (One person can view it multiple times.)

• Let's Camp 2017 content was the winner last year and is the winner again this year in 2018.

• 3 quotes made the cut.

• Also feel flattered that my creative business cards got a lot of impressions

• That “Thinking of You” illustration by Mari Andrew on Mother’s Day was timely, I said I would try to do more of that after the popularity of the glossier post but I didn’t. Honestly it feels too hard.

Reach - The number of unique accounts that have seen any of your posts (only counting the account, not the views).

• Again, the winning post was from the retreat weekend (read posts on that here and here).

• Pretty much the same as above except for 4 quotes instead of 3 and a shakeface video :).

Engagement - The number of times your post was linked, saved, and commented on.

• The day we moved from Chicago makes sense that it has the most engagement.

• I love that “Fight the patriarchy. Start a business.” is ranked so high. It resonates with me on a high level. I think the caption brought the most engagement though

  • I believe the fastest way we're going to take down the patriarchy is by empowering ourselves through entrepreneurship. Let's reclaim how we spend our time, our growth potential, our pay. For now and the foreseeable future, we live in a society where "money is power" and "money talks" and it's the only voice the patriarchy listens to. #IMHO So start your business, grow your business, and let's take down the patriarchy together.

• That “women” pie is amazing.

Likes (You know this.)

• One new quote here and that hat!

Comments (You know this, too.)

• New one here - post about my dad’s death (it’s weird to “like” sad posts), feminest movies recommendations, video from 2008 (because it’s hilarious)

Saved - The number of unique accounts that saved your posts.

• This was the first full year that they had the saved function. I rarely ever use it and even if I do I rarely go back to it, but apparently other people use it all the time. Especially for quotes!

• I find it fascinating that people will save a post but not like it or comment on it. This function almost feels like the most “telling” to me on what people value and want to remember from your content.

New Categories! Profile Visits, Follows, Website Clicks

• This is really interesting information but I don’t quite know what to make of it yet.

• Profile Visits vs Website Clicks are really interesting. All those website clicks are when I had a very clear CTA to sign up for something or read a blog post.

• Follows I don’t quite know what to make of. What’s the path? They got to my page from my post somehow and then followed me? Or they scrolled through my page clicked on some posts and then followed me and whatever post they were on that they hit “followed” was how the insight was calculated? Unsure.

Overall, lessons learned:

• Retreat was a hit again

• Post timing, like the Glossier #bodyhero campaign and Mother’s Day is great, but I can’t promise myself I’ll actually be good at doing anything about it.

• Keep doing the quotes!

• Ultimately I want people going to my website, so even if a post doesn’t have high engagement, if it has a high website click, that’s all I care about.

What's working for you in your insights? Anything that surprises you? Would love to hear!

MONEY MONEY MONEY: TRANSPARENCY IN ENTREPRENEURSHIP

One of the biggest black boxes in entrepreneurship is money. How do you make it? What are realistic milestones? What should you be charging? Are there different profit margins depending on the industry? How do you predict the future with financial projections which can feel ridiculous (and a lot of times are).

In my 1:1 consulting a financial audit is high priority - in fact, it’s the second session. If I’ve learned anything from my business so far is that you never know what people are making from the outside. Some people look like they’re rolling in the dough and then when I’ve taken a peak behind the curtain, they’re in the red. Some people look like they have fairly modest businesses and again, when you lift the hood - they’re making 7 figures. It never ceases to amaze me.

When I talked to Whitney of Sonnet James last month and she shared her revenue (!) and that the industry standard in fashion is a 10% profit margin (10%!) it got me thinking that we all need this. We need this so bad.

Everlane has been a leader in transparency pricing for their products but this pricing doesn’t include internal operations, marketing, office costs etc. Speaking of transparency, Glassdoor has an interesting review of the company, "Company business growing, but lack of transparency, and growth in leadership and maturity." Wouldn’t it be great to see how much revenue they’re making? If they’re in the red? How much people are getting paid?

And then there was Buffer. Who is really just taking this whole thing to another level, it publishes their equity, revenue, salaries and more! It’s insane and fascinating. (I’m shocked the founder is only making $225k).

Someone asked me to share my revenue the last 3 years on instagram and I did (the horror!). I asked if others would too and had 34 people message me saying they would like to participate. I was thrilled and pleasantly surprised. I feel like there’s so much to learn from all of these different businesses that I need to create a platform to allow all of these people to share.

And because Instagram can be magical sometimes I was introduced to Elloise Mae Foster of Budget Bae, a talented muralist that has a passion for female financial literacy. She’s also Melbourne based and we’ve teamed up. She’s going to be producing the fab graphics and I’ll be handling the copy and we’re channelling our raging feminism in this series, just for you.

Want to join the money transparency revolution? Fill out this form and/or contact me - hey@feminest.co

Currently seeking tech and product based businesses. If you’re service, would still love to hear from you! And if you’re a 9-5 but have a side hustle? Would love to hear from you too!

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Here are some money references that people have been sending to me with all the money talk. Maybe they’ll help you!

The Owler - A “glassdoor” for the start-up world. I found this incredibly helpful. You can see their revenue, investment money, competitors, even a CEO score! I’m spreading the word on it like crazy because I think it’s an amazing tool to see the potential of a business idea and what’s currently happening in the market.

Suze Orman at the Apollo on Oprah’s Super Soul Conversation - Gives me life. Suze is incredibly charismatic, has the american dream coming of age story. Financial advice? Long story short - pay off your debts, max out your retirement savings, live beneath your means.

Money Diaries by Refinery 29 - I spent a good 2 hours on this site after it was sent to me. Loved looking at the $315k/year New York entry. There’s a ton of 5 figure and entry level salaries which are great for your mid to late 20’s but it would be nice to see more 6 figures! Also, these are mostly corporate 9-5’s so that’s where I come in on wanting to see a more entrepreneurial spin.

ZigZag - a podcast exploring capitalism, journalism and women. Affiliated with Civil.co but I can’t quite figure out the relationship yet (and don’t have time to research it for this post).

The Financial Diet - has an amazing following on instagram to just be talking about money to women had their highest youtube video has 1.6 M views - 11 Things I Cut from My Budget and Don't Miss at All. Great for women in their early to mid 20’s.

The Broke Generation - Melbourne based - she and I are trying to figure out a time to collaborate!

The 18 Books I Read in 2018

In 2017, instead of publishing a book club review in December, I decided to wrap up the year with quick and dirty reviews for each book I read (including the top three books I refer to clients), I’ll be doing it again for 2018. I won't be fully explaining what each book is about — you can click the hyperlinks to find that out for yourself — instead, I'm giving you my biggest takeaways.

Top Referred Books of 2018

These three books came up time and time again with my clients this past year, and I highly recommend reading each of them:

The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life by Mark Manson - This was probably my top referred book of the year. Mansons “tell it like it is” approach obviously has a mass appeal. He brings a modern voice to self help that isn’t ultra masculine (coughDarren Hardycough) but also not new age glamour either (ahem, Gabrielle Bernstein). When fear has you crippled from moving forward, starting with not giving a f*ck will break down some serious mental barriers.

The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan - I was sitting on the tram finishing the last chapter, a 60 something year old woman sat next to me and I found myself restraining to tap her shoulder and ask “have you read this? how are you? what do you think? do you feel like we’ve progressed? do you have daughters? do you work? have you wanted to work?….” This book is life changing. Important. Essential for every living woman. Unless you grew up with a mother who had an egalitarian marriage, a fulfilling career, zero mental health issues, and the ability to communicate all of her thoughts and feelings in a culture context, it’s essential for life.

How to Change Your Mind by Michael Pollan - Maybe not my most referred, but the one that I’ve probably brought up the most to people. If you want to bring up the topic of psychedelics with someone and not feel like you’re going to come off as a total weirdo, How to Change Your Mind is a great place to start.

And all the other books

I've listed the rest of the books I read in 2018 in order of most liked to least liked (left to right, top to bottom). You're obviously welcome to read through each one, OR you can go to the top of the post, look at the book covers, and ⌘F the titles you're interested in reading my quick thoughts on.

*How to Change Your Mind by Michael Pollan - ^

The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan - ^

Educated by Tara Westover - It’s not just because I grew up Mormon, went to Brigham Young University (the same years as Westover), and my bff went on study abroad with her that I think this may be the best memoir I’ve ever read. It’s because her story is out of a wild west film and she has suffered and redeemed herself in every way possible, physically, spiritually, emotionally, psychologically and intellectually. And well, maybe it is personal because while jogging my memory to write this paragraph I watched this video and bawled when she sang at the end.

Jerusalem: A Cookbook by Sami Tamimi and Yotam Ottolenghi - I realize you may think it’s not appropriate to list a cookbook but this isn’t just any cookbook. Before every recipe Tamimi and Ottolenghi write their personal experience and why it’s included. It’s so intimate it makes you feel like you know them and you know more about Jerusalem culture. I visited Jerusalem in 2010 and it was a powerful experience. While we were there we ate fattoush for breakfast and it was surprisingly refreshing and delicious. It really made me question the American full-carb offering I had my entire life.

Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy by Sheryl Sandberg - I know people have a lot of mixed feelings about Sandberg, but I just have one single feeling, love. Option B navigates her experience and emotions after the death of her partner, Dave Goldberg. She spellsour ability to deal with setbacks is largely determined by three P’s: personalization, pervasiveness, and permanence. My dad passed 2 years ago and a lot of this resonated with me and helped me feel more compassion for those suffering around me.

*White Hot Truth: Clarity for Keeping It by Danielle LaPorte - New age wisdom. Refreshing and fun. She’s like your cool aunt on a hot summer day giving you life advice and telling you stories.

*We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - Important.

*Braving the Wilderness: The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone by Brené Brown - So relevant in sorting through or divisive harmful political climate. Ahem, liberals need to learn here too.

*The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life by Mark Manson - ^

*The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy - Although Hardy has a very masculine take on self-help it helped kick start my 21 day challenge series.

Shamanism : awaken and develop the shamanic force within by Christa Mackinnon - Very woo - but motivated me to finally create a meditation space to wake up to everyday.

*Start with Why by Simon Sinek - Don’t read the book. Just watch the TEDtalk (with 41 million views). He goes on and on about how important it is to have a “why” but doesn’t explain how to actually find one for your company.

*Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman - Boring to me but people love it.

50 capitalism ideas you really need to know by Jonathan Portes - I think capitalism is fascinating, but this book was more of a reference book and hard to cozy up to.

The 1‑Page Marketing Plan by Allan Dib - Dib’s assistant emailed me and asked if they could send me a copy. I thought it was okay but nothing revolutionary here.

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini - It’s fiction, I read half of it and stopped. People who like to read fiction love this book, but I don’t like fiction don’t ask me why I don’t know.

*The Universe Has Your Back: Transform Fear to Faith by Gabrielle Bernstein - New Age Glam to the max. Bernstein’s voice drives me nuts.

12 Rules for Life by Jordan Peterson - I kept seeing this cover at book stores, and then a young girl I met recently referenced a video in which he “takes down two feminists”. I was so confused by it all. I checked the book out from the library but then read this Vox article. I read the first chapter and because of the context I had, I couldn’t get myself to read the rest of book. Also, this title “dismantles feminism” cracks me up, as if t’s like “dismantles the patriarchy”! I’m still scratching my head.

*I reviewed this book, the hyperlink will take you to my book club post as oppose to Amazon.

What are some of your most recommended books of 2018? I'd love to know which books you have on your must-read list for 2019, I’m currently reading Sapiens!

FEMINEST BOOK CLUB: How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence by Michael Pollan

Wanna join the Feminest book club? Of course you do. ;) See this post to learn more on how to join and check the events page on when the next book club is going to be!

The first Tuesday of every month, I'm selecting a feminist, business, or self-help book to review for that month. And, rest assured — if I'm featuring it — there’s something you oughta know! 

Last month I covered We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. I gave it a 4/5 and I think everyone should read it for some quick insights into feminism.

This month I'm covering How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence by Michael Pollan (USA + AUS). I was nervous to choose this book because well, it’s about psychedelics, and to promote it publicly may feel, unprofessional? I also feel like there’s such a stigma around psychedelics, but it’s a topic that has interested my partner and I (more on that in the future maybe) for a while so I wanted to give it a go.

Another reason why I chose it was due to reading this quote from the book Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson (in 2011) “Taking LSD was a profound experience, one of the most important things in my life. LSD shows you that there’s another side to the coin, and you can’t remember it when it wears off, but you know it. It reinforced my sense of what was important—creating great things instead of making money, putting things back into the stream of history and of human consciousness as much as I could.”

Here’s my review in 3 takeaways:

Takeaway #1 - Psychedelics have a profound effect on mental health

Study after study showed the amazing anecdotal effects that psychedelics had on mental health. You can read the book obviously to learn about the specifics more but here’s his New Yorker article that started him on the journey, specifically a study to help ease anxiety for patients at the end of their lives.

Takeaway #2 - Drugs are not all the same

As a millennial I was raised with the D.A.R.E. program screaming “NO” as loud as I could for the police officer that came around every so often giving away small t-shirt wearing teddy bears. The program, needless to say didn’t educate (if it did, I can’t remember) on the differences in drugs and effects. Essentially from marijuana to crack cocaine they just all fried your brain:

I was also raised Mormon and lived the teaching very closely - down to not drinking coffee, so alcohol? No way. Weed? Never! LSD? Absolutely not.

I think from a public perspective there’s not a lot of education either. For example, even though LSD is a “schedule 1 drug” along with heroin! It’s not even listed on the #1 google ranked site searching “different drugs and their effects.” It’s impossible to get addicted to LSD btw, if you were to consume it the effect wears off and stops working, so all of this is a mystery.

But not really, Pollan takes the reader through the fascinating history of the different drugs and how it all got really political really fast.

Takeaway #3 - I wanted less and more

Pollan is a talented writer. I group him with Michal Lewis where they’re able to take a lot of seemingly boring information and turn it into a captivating story.

The end started to get repetitive with the clinical trials and I found myself skimming the last 40 pages. But his experience with Paul Stamets (see his TedTalk 6 Ways Mushrooms Can Save The World), the shamans, and all the conversations he had, I ate up. I wanted more about his personal experiences and how he processed them. So fascinating reading an atheist grappling with any existence of a “god”. Ultimately I wanted more about the betterment of well people as I think it can be amazing for creativity and entrepreneurship and less about the mental health benefits.

Rating: 4.5/5

Recommendation:

The reason this would be a 5 is subject matter alone, but it’s a 4.5 because of length!

Next month:

The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan (AUS + USA)

“If you’ve never read it, read it now.”―Arianna Huffington

Read it with me! And sign up to come to the Book Club!

Have a book suggestion? Let us know in the comments below!

#FEMINESTCHATS VIDEO INTERVIEW WITH WHITNEY LUNDEEN OF SONNET JAMES

Here's the 7th interview in the #feminestchats video series with the lovely Whitney Lundeen of Sonnet James, who is a delightful human being that makes dresses for moms to play in with their kids. She some how she feels like everyone’s bff where you can share all the reasons why you love being a mom and hate it simultaneously.

0:00 - Where did you grow up?

0:04 - What’s your favorite thing to do with your free time?

0:07 - What’s your favorite show right now?

0:20 - Do you ever eat your favorite, ben and jerry's half baked, in bed while watching shows?

0:33 - Where's your favorite place in the world to visit?

0:40 - What’s the best thing about your new collection?

1:07 - What’s one thing you’re confident you’re better than me at?

1:42 - Fill in the blank, “I’m a feminist but________.”

2:38 - What’s one thing you really love about what you do?

3:30 - What do you want to tell people about your work but you don’t because it may be weird to say?

5:15 - Whitney talks about money transparency, fashion healthy profit + loss, margins

7:29 - What do you think of when you think of money?

Whitney Lundeen of Sonnet James on Shark Tank! Photo: Mitch Haaseth, ABC

7:45 - You told me you were going to be on Shark Tank???

8:36 - Favorite thing to play with your kids?

8:41 - Favorite book for business? The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses (AUS + US)

8:44 - Book that’s changed you the most? The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth (AUS + US)

8:46 - Favorite podcast? Freakonomics

8:55 - What Instagram account should I be following? Yara Shahidi or Russell Dickerson

9:41 - What business inspires you?

9:51 - Best piece of advice for a new business owner?

10:10 - Who is your icon?

10:20 - Who should I interview next? Yan

Thank you Whitney! Move to Melbourne already.

Whitney is a brave soul! Thank you for opening the money conversation and it spurred some of the most activity I’ve ever had on Insta Stories about transparency. Who wants to be a part of the conversation? Take this survey here if you’re interested in being contact about your money, honey!

Past interviews:

Futures trader, Jamie Nugent 

Graphic designer Lidia Varesco Racoma

Former yoga studio owner and podcast producer, Andrea Klunder 

Brand therapist, Leisse Wilcox

Videographer, feminist storyteller Domini Marshall of Her Words

Intuitive business coach, Elle Steele

Know of anyone that I should interview? I’m looking for strong feminist business owners that have a story to share!

21 Day Challenge - #2: Instagram Detox

After reading The Compound Effect - it really motivated me to take a look at practices that I wanted to start implementing as well as get rid of in my life. So I’ve decided that I’m going to make this a series! You can see the first challenge on meditation here.

The challenge

Get more Instagram discipline, set some intentions, and get some overall strategy… Essentially have more control over my use as oppose to it having control over me!

Why that challenge

I love Instagram. I’ve connected with so many amazing people because of it. Some of my dearest friends and some of my most successful partnerships were through the platform. I’m not wanting to get rid of it, but I found that I would spend a lot of time on it that I didn’t plan on. One night I found myself scrolling through 45-minutes of nature videos - and although that’s probably more uplifting than drooling over lifestyle influencers which inevitably leaves me feeling “less than” for how dingy my rental kitchen is, I didn’t plan on spending my evening that way. And that’s how they get you. The incessant scrolling and the algorithm giving you more and more and more without you even clicking, swiping and asking for it!

Not to mention all the studies around mental health. Instagram is apparently the worst app for your mental health, and should they pay a levy for damages? Ultimately, I just don’t want to go to rehab.

Just kidding, kind of.

What I was currently doing

Checking it first thing in the morning and on and off during the day. Typically when I was bored, there was a lull between tasks, traveling or really any time of day.

I was already deleting the app off my phone on Friday night and downloading it again Monday morning to prevent me from checking it while I was with my family on the weekends. Which was great.

What I did

1. Not check it in the mornings.

2. Go into instagram with a task

3. Have a time limit

4. Stop posting on Friday’s and delete it Thursday night

Benefits I started seeing

So many, but here are a few:

• My mornings are a lot more calm and productive

That’s also due to my meditation practice which I did at the same time as this one.

• I’ve developed a more thoughtful strategy

I’m really trying to make Instagram work for me more. I implement the “3 gives and 1 ask” in my stories and in my posts. It’s really helpful.

I also wanted to set some time limits so I’ve given myself 25 minutes and broke it down like this:

DAILY

10 min - posting: post + stories

10 min - responding, DM’s, notifications

5 min - thoughtful comments + interaction (look for people who aren’t necessarily popping up in the algorithm but that I want to check up on, ex. past and current clients)

• More time in my day, week, year!

I decided to not post on Friday’s anymore and delete the app off my phone Thursday night and re-upload it Monday. When I realized that gave me at least 1-hour a week back (between planning, scheduling, posting and interacting on the platform) which equaled 52 hours a year, I felt like a real boss.

Have I continued

Yes! It’s a daily challenge and I’ve been trying to download the new software that allows you to set time limits on the app and not be able to access it (my phone is being weird with the new software and not letting me download it) which is so awesome. I think that would help me even more.

I unintentionally went on a 10 day detox and actually got people emailing me and asking if I was okay (which is so nice). But not having my thumb click that icon was a refreshing recalibration of my brain.

Conclusion

Social media relationships are a complicated one. I love all the friends I have on there and I truly feel like they are friends, but man oh man - it can really consume me if I’m not careful, that dopamine hit is real. But continuing to suss out what’s working, what’s effective and what’s not. I’ve found that interaction on my DM’s feels the most meaningful and beneficial, right now at least!

I’ll probably do a social media detox once a year and see how I can better improve my relationship/interaction!

Would love to hear your thoughts on social media! What’s working for you, what’s not. Do you detox? Do you feel you have control over it? Give it to me.

First impressions of Klaviyo

I was talking with Meredith from Canary Lane about what she uses for her email marketing. She mentioned that she swears by Klaviyo, I had never heard of it!

 "I chose Klaviyo because I loved the behavior driven triggers and the way you can see how active a subscriber has been on the site. Also the segmentation capabilities of Klaviyo blew me away. I felt like it was the best choice for me since I have an ecomm site (shopify)."

She went on and on about Klaviyo email marketing I decided to give it a go. I’ve been a long time fan of MailChimp and all of it’s free glory (I don’t understand how it can give so much capability away for free) and have heard of ConvertKit but decided that I should only look into after I had 2k emails.

Meredith said she knew she had to start investing more into email marketing as soon as Instagram introduced the business profiles - as it would eventually become a pay to play game like Facebook - which it has. I’m sure so many of you have seen in your home feed “promote your post”. Oy.

I signed up for Klaviyo for myself and wrote the points below. But soon after I signed a new ecomm client and asked her if I could integrate Klaviyo with her site. It was night and day as far as the behavior driven triggers go. But I’ll get more into her results later

Initial impressions for me

• the name is not the greatest - it’s hard to hear when someone says it and hard to type - clayvio? Kayveo?

• I don’t love the design.

• I was hard to navigate and find help once in the backend

• I googled “klaviyo video tutorials” and it brought up “… for Shopify” I don’t have a Shopify account and so I googled “…for squarespace” it took me to this post from 2015 which I don’t know but for me the videos strangely weren’t showing up: https://www.klaviyo.com/blog/brand-new-video-tutorials-from-klaviyo

• So then I googled “klaviyo youtube” surely they would have something. The YouTube Channel is so limited it made me think the it’s not even owned by Klaviyo.

• Then in the dashboard I clicked on “support” - which brought up some videos that looked great - but what I found was that it was a slide deck that had no sound for 12 seconds and then clearly was a webinar that they hadn’t done any post editing to and just posted it. BTW it was an HOUR long. It made me feel defeated and frustrated.

 Initial impressions for the ecomm site

• The triggers were actually fun to fulfill. I felt like I was so productive and set up 6 flows in hours. INSANE

• The analytics and dashboard is still something I’m trying to get a handle on

• The revenue that it has generate is for sure paying for the service but it’s barely over 3 figures a month

Overall impressions

Mailchimp has been great for me and I’ll be sitting pretty with my free service for a while. It would have to take a pretty sophisticated (and free) service for me to transfer information and learn a new platform at this point, as a service based business.

But for an ecomm site? I highly recommend not bothering with MailChimp and use Klaviyo immediately. Even if you don’t have a lot of revenue coming in right now it’s great to grow into it and learn the effectiveness of it early on.

That’s just my first impression - after only using it for 2 months.

What do you use? Do you love it? Hate it? Want to convince me I need to dump MailChimp? :)

Want to up your email market game? Sign up for my ecourse! Or get all five of my ecourses in one and buy the bundle (which btw includes a 1:1 with yours truly)!

6 Articles I've Read Lately That You Should Too

6 articles I’ve read lately that I’ve really really loved. Here are snippets of them that I found compelling. (and The Cut is killing it apparently.)

Article #1

The Ford-Kavanaugh Hearing Will Be Remembered as a Grotesque Display of Patriarchal Resentment via The New Yorker

Why I liked it: “This is the nature of the conspiracy against white male power—the forces threatening it will always somehow be thwarted at the last minute.”

“What took place on Thursday confirms that male indignation will be coddled, and the gospel of male success elevated. It confirms that there is no fair arena for women’s speech. Mechanisms of accountability will be made irrelevant. Some people walked away from 1991 enraged. The next year was said to be the Year of the Woman. Our next year, like this one, will be the Year of the Man.”

Article #2

Serena Williams and the Game That Can’t Be Won (Yet) What rage costs a woman. via The Cut

Why I liked it: “It’s about the ways in which women’s — and especially nonwhite women’s — dress and bodies and behavior and expression and tone are still deemed unruly if they do not conform to the limited view of femininity established by men, especially if that unruliness suggests a direct threat to male authority.”

Article #3

The Ambition Collision via The Cut

Why I liked it: “Get a grip, I want to tell them, for I am old enough to be, if not their mother then their world-weary aunt. Who ever said that work should be the be-all? You work for money. The money you earn pays the rent. You are the very, very lucky few, in possession of the jobs and apartments that every tier-one college student wants. But the more I listen, the more I think I hear in these young women’s voices the echo of something familiar — the complaints of a long-ago generation but in reverse. The female dissatisfaction chronicled by Betty Friedan in The Feminine Mystique was prompted by a widespread awakening to the bullshit promises of domestic happiness, manufactured by culture to make female containment look good. Now another bullshit promise has taken its place, and another generation is waking up. The men in charge are still in charge. It is impossible for women to continue to have faith in a vision of their own empowerment, when that empowerment is, in fact, a pose.”

Article #4

Kids Don’t Damage Women’s Careers — Men Do Stop blaming motherhood for a problem created by fathers via Medium by Jessica Valenti

Why I liked it: “So let’s stop saying that it’s motherhood that holds up women’s careers; it’s not the institution of parenthood that makes advancing at work difficult. It’s not our kids. It’s that there’s no chance of equality at work while there’s inequality at home.”

Article #5

This Is the Age When Your Self-Esteem Peaks via The Cut

Why I liked it: “As with anything in life, there are multiple ways to view this curve. One is with impatience: It really takes that many years to reach the height of feeling good about yourself? Another is with foreboding, knowing that your last years are spent watching your self-esteem slowly deplete as you stare down the end of life.”

Article #6

My Twitter Thread on Abortion by Design Mom

Why I liked it: “If you want to stop abortion, you need to prevent unwanted pregnancies. And men are 100% responsible for unwanted pregnancies.”

Have you read anything great lately? Comment below!

FEMINEST BOOK CLUB: We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Wanna join the Feminest book club? Of course you do. ;) See this post to learn more on how to join and check the events page on when the next book club is going to be!

The first Tuesday of every month, I'm selecting a feminist, business, or self-help book to review for that month. And, rest assured — if I'm featuring it — there’s something you oughta know! 

Last month I covered The Compound Effect: Jumpstart Your Income, Your Life, Your Success by Darren Hardy. I gave it a 4/5. Two of the chapters I will keep on my phone to tune into as a pick me up and reading it inspired me to start this new 21-day challenge series.

This month I'm covering We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. I chose it because it was highly rated on Amazon - 4.6/5 stars out of 1,108 reviews. I downloaded it on my audible account and then listened to her TEDx Talk and it’s the same thing. I’m not sure what’s different actually. So that was a bit disappointing that I paid for content that I could get for free. She presented December 2012 and although some of her messaging is a bit dated in the current conversation (which is a good thing) some of it isn’t (which is frustrating).

Here's my review in 3 takeaways:

Takeaway #1 - Something that’s obvious to me isn’t obvious to others

I thought being a feminist was obvious. I mean, even McDonalds is getting behind it. But apparently we still have some work to do.

I went to a lunch recently with some other women, when talking about female organizations to help support women entrepreneurship one of the women responded and said “yea, I just don’t like women focused stuff with the high heels and pink lipstick.” I wanted to respond with, “my sweet sister, what events are you going to?” and instead I just sat there confused.

It’s obvious to me that there needs to be more support for women in entrepreneurship but maybe it’s just not obvious to others even if those others are women. Maybe I need to say these stats before I talk about the need for female founder support.

Takeaway #2 - Men don’t even think about gender…

I was at a networking night once and naturally when people ask me what the name of my company is - feminism gets brought up. It’s kind of funny how some men act. I kind of feel bad for them… we’re in this whole new world of awareness - it’s going to be awkward for a bit. (but Joseph Gordon-Levitt gets it and apparently all these other celebrities dudes too… I love you Mark)

After introducing myself and my business a dude said “I don’t discriminate at all between men and women, it’s not an issue for me…”

I almost spit my drink out and wanted to be like, “yea, okay.” But I didn’t… cause, I was tired.

Because look, it’s still an issue for me and I’m a loud, proud, angry, bra-burning (actually I’ll keep my bra for my size G ladies for now, thanks) feminist.

Also, I can’t for the life of me remember if my very feminist girlfriend said this or if I read it in a book but the story is that she hopped on a plane and noticed there was a female pilot. She thought, “Wow, a female pilot! Amazing”. But when shit hit the fan and there was some worse-than-normal-turbulence she instantly thought, “oh no, it’s a female pilot.”

Tina Fey went on My Next Guest Needs No Introduction with David Letterman and they were talking about gender inequality in comedy. David then said something like “oh, I don’t think any women would want to work for me anyway.” To which Tina responded “oh no David, they do.” THIS IS THE PROBLEM.

It’s these moments that we’re not thinking that are important. The thing is, we all (men and women) have a bias (unconscious or conscious) against women and it’s not until we’re aware of it that we’ll achieve equality.

Takeaway #3 - Men suffer from the patriarchy too, just not as much as women

Adichie talks about how men are culturally still required to pay for everything in a partnership even if that man doesn’t have the money to do so. They need to do it, to “be a man”.

It makes me think about this hilarious Michelle Wolf bit:

She wants equal pay (and a chardonnay).#MichelleWolfNiceLady, @michelleisawolf’s first #HBO comedy special, is now streaming. pic.twitter.com/KxBLhtpEyl

— HBO (@HBO) November 29, 2017

So look, not all men are bad and a lot of them are aware of inequalities and don’t like it. My partner is incredible and I think we have a pretty egalitarian relationship but sometimes both of us play into patriarchal roles because that’s what we were raised with and that’s the society we live in. For example, after we had married (10 years ago) I was doing our laundry and I swear was folding thousands of his tube socks. I was getting all worked up because all of them were inside out and it was taking so long. When he came home I really laid into him about it - “can you just put your socks off right side out before you put them in the hamper?” To which he replied “sure, but you could also just not fold my laundry.” It was like the heavens opened and angels sang, don’t fold his laundry, of course!

We all have a long way to go but it’s not until we understand that we all need to be feminists that women (and men) won’t live under the patriarchy and that we’ll have all the rights that men do.

Rating: 4/5

Recommendation:

The main reason this gets a 4 and not a 5 is because I paid $15 on audible for content that was free.

Next month I'm featuring How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence by Michael Pollan (USA + AUS). Read it with me! And sign up to come to the Book Club!

Have a book suggestion? Let us know in the comments below!

#FEMINESTCHATS VIDEO INTERVIEW WITH ELLE STEELE

Here's the sixth interview in the #feminestchats video series with the lovely Elle Steele of I Am Elle Steel, who “makes women’s lives and businesses more magical through uncovering their intuitive strength.” Yes please!

0:40 - Scale from 1-10, 10 being the highest - how are you feeling right now?

0:50 - What do you do for work?

1:47 - When you’re not in the room - what do people say you do for work?

2:15 - Best thing about growing up in Brunswick?

2:39 - Tomorrow your only plan is to lay in the sun with a book - and you have all books available to you - what book do you grab? - A Thousand Splendid Suns (AUS + USA) and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

3:09 - You mentioned bread is your fav indulgence - can you get more specific? Are we talking sliced? Rolls? Loafs? Wheat? Rye? 7 grain? - Wild Life Bakery

4:02 - Kunzite (stone of unconditional love) is one of your desert island magic items. Does it just hang around your house currently? Do you put it to your heart? How does it work for you?

4:34 - One sentence - what does freedom oracle mean for you?

4:57 - You’re creating a freedom oracle tarot deck - and putting it on kickstarter! Amazing! Why should someone get that instead of the millions of other ones?

6:36 - Wow - I asked you - When do you feel like you put on an act? And you said “When people want me to be angry about living with a disability because I'm just not. I could not give two shits. I'm in a wheelchair. Whoopdedoo”. I really loved that. Do you find people are awkward about people with disabilities?

7:40 - Fill in the blank, “I’m a feminist but ________”

8:48 - Now fill in the blank - with whatever your guilty feminism is - like “I’m a feminist but I watch a little bachelor” - so yours is?

9:25 - You mentioned a highlight of your work is helping people to see the truth of who they are. What’s the main thing you’ve found holding someone back from doing that?

10:25 - It’s hard for a lot of people to charge. But why is it so hard for intuitives to charge for their work?

11:00 - What Instagram account should I be following? Our Satellite Hearts, Gregory Scott - daily and weekly tarot readings, and Lucy Sheridan - The Comparison Coach

11:28 - What business inspires you? Path Hunting

12:04 - Who is your icon?

13:06 - Who should I interview next? - Bec from Path Hunting / Nicole Rowan Holt of Australian Women’s Day

Thank you Elle! So lovely to have you!

How do you feel about this new format? I'm changing things up and aiming for a Vogue 73 questions vibe that's a bit faster paced.

Missed the first one with futures trader, Jamie Nugent, all about money mindset?? Check it out! Or the second with graphic designer Lidia Varesco Racoma? Here it is! Or maybe the one on closing a yoga practice and starting podcasts with Andrea Klunder? Go watch! Or brand therapist Leisse Wilcox - have a watch. Or Domini of Her Words! Click here.

Know of anyone that I should interview? I’m looking for strong feminist business owners that have a story to share!