Latest / Daily Influence / 536. Building Confidence, Collaboration & Courage: Empowering Young Women Through Entrepreneurship

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536. Building Confidence, Collaboration & Courage: Empowering Young Women Through Entrepreneurship · Daily Influence

• 0:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to the daily influence where our mission is to deliver a daily dose of positive influence that can uplift you personally or be shared within your sphere of influence.
• 0:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: While not every episode may directly apply to your unique circumstances, we strive to provide insights and inspiration relevant to most people's daily, weekly, and monthly lives.
• 0:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: Whether you are tuning in during the morning, noon or night, the daily influence is here for you.
• 0:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: Listen, share, and embrace the power of influence in your life.
• 0:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: Welcome to Daily Influence.
• 0:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm Greg Clino.
• 0:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: Today, we're joined by Sarah Sleepy, Program Director and Young Entrepreneurs Academy instructor at FEMA Strong.
• 0:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: Over the past four years, Sarah has passionately supported young women in developing their entrepreneurial confidence and skills.
• 1:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: Her journey includes service with the JVC Jesuit volunteer court, which she provides housing support in Syracuse, New York,
• 1:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: and taught at a primary school in Tanzania.
• 1:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: Today, through female strongs programs, she measures hundreds of young women helping them tap into their creativity, grit, and leadership potential.
• 1:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: Sarah's work is a shining example of responsible influence, and I'm excited to dive into her story and insights.
• 1:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: Sarah, welcome to Daily Influence.
• 1:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you so much, Greg.
• 1:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: What a lovely introduction.
• 1:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: That was perfect.
• 1:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
• 1:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: You're making me feel all warm and fuzzy inside already.
• 1:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: I know you make a lot of young ladies and people feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
• 1:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I'm excited to dive in.
• 1:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: Can you share a bit about your background and what led you to where you are today with our listeners?
• 1:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's been a really fun ride so far.
• 1:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: So as you mentioned, I've been with female strong for four years now, which is crazy.
• 1:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: It feels like it's been
• 1:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: of a month and a decade at this point because so much growth has happened since I've been here.
• 2:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: But before I moved to Chicago and started working with this organization, I really started in high school developing a love for social justice and service, direct service especially.
• 2:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I would do all kinds of various volunteer activities and look into amazing community organizations.
• 2:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that really just made me fall in love with
• 2:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: like how you can plug into your local community and impact your neighbors, your friends, your peers.
• 2:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so when I went to college, I went to a really small Jesuit university in West Virginia and there was a wonderful service program there.
• 2:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I was able to, and I had a scholarship for volunteering as well.
• 2:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I had probably twenty hours a week.
• 2:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: I was volunteering with different community organizations.
• 2:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: After school programs for kids, mentoring programs, soup kitchens, day shelters,
• 2:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I even lived for a couple of years in kind of a co-op called the Mother Jones House off campus where I was in the local community hosting weekly dinners for, you know, fifty to a hundred people in the community.
• 3:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: Anyone who wanted to come could come on Friday night.
• 3:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: We cook a huge meal, play games, and our doors were always open.
• 3:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I really had an amazing experience in college kind of exploring what service can look like and how you can serve your community and your neighbors.
• 3:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so that was a really wonderful experience.
• 3:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think that kind of
• 3:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: really sparked something in me and they'd be more aware of what my particular skills and gifts are with having these really powerful interpersonal relationships and working with youth and empowering kids to dive into their own ideas and spark their own passions and things like that.
• 3:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: So in college, I really kind of fell in love with all of those opportunities that are out there and
• 3:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: got to know some of the amazing people behind the scenes who are starting these community organizations, urban farming initiatives, and after school programming, really great mentoring opportunities for high school students, et cetera.
• 4:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so through that, I was realizing it wasn't really ready to just go right into graduate school or right into the workforce.
• 4:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: I knew I really wanted to do some kind of postgraduate service program.
• 4:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I looked into the Peace Corps, which seems like a really wonderful option.
• 4:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: But the thing with the Peace Corps is that you're usually stationed alone.
• 4:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: So you're not really, you're working with a community of people, but you're not necessarily living in community.
• 4:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I had really fallen in love with
• 4:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: living in intentional community with other like-minded individuals.
• 4:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I ended up joining the Jesuit Volunteer Corps and I'm kind of crazy.
• 4:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: Most people do one year either in the States or two years abroad.
• 4:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: I decided to do both.
• 4:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I did one year in Upstate New York.
• 4:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: I was working with the Catholic Charity Center doing emergency services.
• 4:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: We're helping folks coming out of our shelters find
• 4:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: living, living situations and apartments across the city and working with different grants to try to help subsidize their rent every month.
• 5:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that was really, really impactful and taught me a lot about, you know.
• 5:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: what it takes to really be a social worker or work with underserved communities.
• 5:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I discovered that I don't think I have the stomach for a whole career of doing that work.
• 5:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's just so taxing and I'm so impressed with anyone that can can do that for decades.
• 5:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: But I realized I think I was maybe creating a little bit more of that.
• 5:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: That opportunity to work with youth and kind of empower youth and hopefully preempt some of the inequities that it adults face.
• 5:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so from there, I ended up doing two more years in East Africa in Daria, Selam Tanzania teaching at a primary school, which was.
• 5:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: incredible.
• 5:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I don't know if anything in my life will ever be able to top those two years learning Swahili engaging with all of my students and then teaching me the language, the culture and me teaching them in the classroom.
• 6:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: It was a really wonderful kind of back and forth that I had there and I was able to live with other volunteers from the United States.
• 6:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: So we were all in and together, super amazing, really bonding experience and really just very educational for me.
• 6:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: That was an incredible experience and that's really where I fell in love with all things entrepreneurship because all of my local friends and neighbors were, you know, teachers by day and then they would be seamstresses in the evening or they would have a small shop, a grocery shop on the street that they would operate as well for supplemental income and they were always looking for additional kind of side hustles to operate and they just had like this endless energy for entrepreneurship and
• 6:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: wanting to have their own small business and it was really contagious.
• 6:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: It was really cool to witness that and then also as I got to know these people more and they became my friends.
• 6:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: I would see some of the complications that came at that as well from the lack of support they had as business owners from kind of this informal setup that they were operating and I noticed that
• 7:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: Some of the most successful people were the ones who banded together instead of being seeing each other as competitors, especially the seamstresses I would go to when I would need you know, outfits made out of the local fabric for school functions or other events and things.
• 7:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: I noticed that they would
• 7:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: collaborate more than compete with each other.
• 7:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that was really wonderful.
• 7:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: It allowed them to actually serve their clients and customers better to have their own niche with the work that they were doing.
• 7:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so that was really cool.
• 7:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I was able to see the power of real collaboration.
• 7:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then when I came back from Tanzania, I decided to pursue an MBA.
• 7:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: I really wanted to learn about social entrepreneurship and what kinds of
• 7:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: resources we can be providing to aspiring entrepreneurs of any age.
• 7:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: I was at the time of a son adult education, but then I found females strong as I was in the middle of my graduate program.
• 8:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I discovered that the world of youth entrepreneurship is even more exciting.
• 8:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so I joined up with female strong and I was a perfect blend of all the things that I love working with youth.
• 8:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, now I work with girls as young as
• 8:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: seven years old all the way up through college and even we have some adult programming now as well.
• 8:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I'm getting to be, you know, feeling my cup with that side of things that I love so much and also be exploring this whole entrepreneurship, social impact arena that I really enjoy as well.
• 8:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: So it's the perfect hybrid of really everything that I enjoy and that I think I'm good at.
• 8:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: So it's a perfect, perfect blend of experiences to date, I would say.
• 8:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I love that for all the sinners who are not familiar with female strong.
• 8:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: Can you give about a thirty thousand foot view of what female strong is?
• 8:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yes, so female strong is a wonderful Chicago based nonprofit.
• 8:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: We are small but super mighty and we host confidence building and entrepreneurship programming for girls as young as
• 9:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: seven or eight years old on the step through college.
• 9:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: So we have two main program initiatives that we offer.
• 9:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: One is a day camp called female strong camp and we host a dozen or more hopefully at some point we'll be hosting you know, fifty of these one day camps a year for girls ages eight to twelve years old and we do those in partnership with our corporate sponsors.
• 9:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: So we're able to bring the girls to a new corporate location every time and they get to
• 9:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: have this amazing exposure to different career opportunities and industries that they may know nothing about like food science, animal science, interior design, architecture, all these really cool things that when I was eight years old, I did not really have exposure to.
• 9:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: female strong camp is one side of our programming and then the other side is our six month long entrepreneurship academy, which we call a young entrepreneurs academy.
• 9:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: And we host that from October through April of every year and on the instructor for that program.
• 10:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: So it's
• 10:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: super fun for the students who are really excited to dive into a rigorous curriculum where they have a lot of homework every week.
• 10:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: And there's a lot required of them.
• 10:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's a great program, but I'll pay off because at the end, they get to participate in a Shark Tank event.
• 10:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: And when seed funding, summer programs, scholarships, product orders, et cetera, and it's just an amazing experience of really great things to put on a resume.
• 10:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: When you're a middle or high school student.
• 10:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: There's something for everyone at female strong.
• 10:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's wonderful.
• 10:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, Sarah, you worked with diverse communities.
• 10:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: How did these experiences shape your understanding of the responsibility that comes with influence, especially as it relates to empowering young women?
• 10:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think I learned a lot about that, even when I was working with
• 10:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: housing insecure folks in New York state.
• 10:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: I was realizing how important it is to really listen to people and understand what they want for themselves before you tried to tell them what they should do or what the right answers are.
• 11:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I feel that that's really applicable working with young women as well because there's never any one size fits all answer or path for someone and in our young entrepreneurs academy will have
• 11:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: Fifteen students in each class and every single one of them needs a different method of instruction or they have a completely different idea completely different challenges that they're running into different levels of confidence around the, you know, various elements of business development.
• 11:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so being able to differentiate is really important, but also being able to fully listen first and understand what
• 11:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: a young person or what any person really wants for themselves and then what they need support with is super important and then trying to hold back from immediately providing all of those solutions or what I think are the right solutions and that's been a challenge for me but a really great learning lesson because I think with young women especially and the students who go through our programs
• 12:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: allowing them to build agency and autonomy and self-reliance is one of the main goals of all of our programming.
• 12:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: So allowing them the space to seek answers for themselves and maybe to even fail but fail in a safe environment where they can have learning lessons instead of drive their confidence down even further.
• 12:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's really awesome that we're able to provide a space where girls can fail and thrive and experiment and test out different things.
• 12:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: and really build that self-reliance in that self-confidence.
• 12:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: You've murdered hundreds of women through the female strong programs.
• 12:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: Your experience, what helped young entrepreneurs develop the confidence, grid, and responsibility to pursue their bold ambitions?
• 12:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, I think it always starts with a really strong foundation.
• 13:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I've noticed that the students who perform the best, especially in our longer six-month program, where I really get to see the impact from day one today,
• 13:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: you know to to the six month end mark there is a foundation of like parental support of real world experience and you know confidence that is kind of required right up front before we ever step foot into these girls lives and so when a student has a really strong
• 13:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: family support network whether it's a parent who's checked even if it's just a parent checking in with them between classes, maybe not providing you know tons of hands on support but being there if support is needed that has done such a long way for some of our students who are really nervous at the beginning of the program, maybe there are terrified of public speaking and they know that at
• 13:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: At the end of this program, they're going to have to get on stage and give a five minute presentation to a hundred adults and request hundreds of dollars of funding from these executives.
• 14:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's a really scary thing.
• 14:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, that's maybe even intimidating for adults to do.
• 14:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: So when students come into the program and they're very nervous, they're very shy.
• 14:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: It really helps when there is a parent checking in on them at home or making sure that they have
• 14:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: This is the poor thing need in between classes and then in the classroom, it's really my job to make sure that they are building the confidence and the competence to believe in themselves and be able to pursue their ideas to understand that, you know, there are no wrong answers necessarily and we always start from a place of
• 14:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: Blue sky thinking where the sky is the limit no idea is too crazy.
• 14:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: You bring in like your wackiest most unrealistic ideas and then together we hone them down into something that's more feasible and more realistic that we can actually build in a six month program.
• 14:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: So it's really helpful to give them.
• 14:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: challenges each week in class where they can have that time to experiment and to fail and give them a mix of the structure, support, and the space to do all of those things.
• 15:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think that's really important.
• 15:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so the foundation is essential, but then how we build on that foundation.
• 15:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think it's really critical because a student can have an amazing support network at home and still not thrive in school or in their career.
• 15:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think it's really what you do with that.
• 15:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: foundation of support that really matters.
• 15:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, I would say structure, support, and space.
• 15:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: Those are the three things I think are really important when we're trying to develop grit and responsibility and resilience in young people.
• 15:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's great.
• 15:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: I love those.
• 15:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: What lessons about leadership, influence, and responsibility do you hope your students carry what them as they move forward in life?
• 15:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, man, well, I always hope that they first of all come out of any of our programs with a deeper understanding or even just more of a willingness to explore the nuance of leadership of entrepreneurship of, you know, for example, being your own boss.
• 16:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: I always like to ask our students, what does it mean?
• 16:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: to be an entrepreneur.
• 16:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: And oftentimes, I'll say, means you're your own boss.
• 16:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: You don't work for anyone.
• 16:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I always tell them that could not be further from the truth, actually.
• 16:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: When you're in the boss, when you have employees, you have customers, you actually work for everyone.
• 16:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: So kind of trying to rewire the perceptions they have around leadership.
• 16:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: And instead of thinking of it as something where you are above other people, realizing that actually you are serving all of these other people, you are actually obligated.
• 16:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: responsible maybe for these other people.
• 16:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, trying to get them to explore what it really means to be a true leader beyond kind of the obvious talking points of maybe being the boss, being the one who's in charge, but thinking deeper about how quiet influence can be really important.
• 16:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes influence does not mean being the loudest one in the room.
• 17:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: It can look like supporting someone, mentoring someone younger than you or less experienced than you, trying to solve a problem that exists in the world.
• 17:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: You don't have to be super outspoken or bossy to be able to innovate and solve a problem that exists and turn that into a social enterprise or a business opportunity.
• 17:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so trying to get them to think about
• 17:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: what that really looks like in their lives, even if they're not currently entrepreneurs or even aspiring entrepreneurs, or maybe they don't have drinks to be in the sea suite at a business, but there are ways to be a leader in any room you find yourself in in life, even when you're eight years old.
• 17:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: So getting them to explore what that can look like and what it does look like in their lives is really important.
• 17:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: And also encouraging them to to consider that
• 17:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: All of their ideas are totally valid.
• 17:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: Their experiences are important and kind of reflecting on.
• 18:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: what their journey has been so far, even if they're only eight years old.
• 18:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's really awesome to see them thinking deeper about their confidence and where they feel confident in their lives, where they feel like they're a natural leader, how they can use their specific gifts to serve others or to solve a problem that exists in their community, even to notice problems that exist in their community.
• 18:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's just really fun to get them kind of thinking along all of these lines and see
• 18:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: where that takes them.
• 18:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's really fun.
• 18:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: You can see with the younger students the eight to twelve year old students at our camp like when their eyes are open to and they're starting to think about things they've never thought of before or not in that way at least.
• 18:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's really fun to see that change happen.
• 18:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: I love that and I love the way you're teaching them about leadership.
• 18:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I can send you after our episode today, but we've had some really great podcasts episodes on leadership and talking about leadership being versus a boss.
• 19:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'll share those with you afterwards.
• 19:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, please do.
• 19:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: Can you tell us about a moment or experience where you thought you made a positive impact on someone's life?
• 19:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
• 19:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I mean, everyone makes positive impacts on other people's lives without even knowing in, but I have the benefit of getting to really see some of that impact with our six month long program students because I'm with them every week.
• 19:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: I can really see the effects of
• 19:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, the program content itself and their whole journey taking place.
• 19:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so I really love that aspect of my job.
• 19:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's like awesome that I actually get to see the impact of the work that we do at female strong.
• 19:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: And there are, I mean, dozens and dozens of students that that that come to mind.
• 19:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: But one of the most recent that was really pointing for me was a student from last year's entrepreneurship program who was a sixth grader.
• 19:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: So she's as young as you can be to join that program.
• 19:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: and it's a really behemoth
• 20:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: project for a sixth grader at this program.
• 20:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: They write a business plan.
• 20:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: They come up with a slide show pitch presentation.
• 20:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: They give this five minute pitch.
• 20:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: They have to work with them.
• 20:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: And adult business mentor for six weeks of the program.
• 20:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: So they're asked of them.
• 20:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: And the sixth graders are sometimes the one who wants to struggle the most, or maybe need the most support for me and another times they knock it out of the park.
• 20:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: And this student happened to be one who came in very nervous, very excited about the program, but definitely a bit quiet.
• 20:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: And she was very upfront about the fact that she wanted to start an enterprise for young people who had experienced bullying, because she had experienced really significant bullying.
• 20:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: And it had taken a really, a really big tool on her.
• 20:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: So it was a very important thing for her to explore.
• 20:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: And she came up with an amazing platform for young people who've experienced bullying to come together.
• 20:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: They can share their art in this online
• 20:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: community that she was building out, they can come together, they can tell their stories, they can create friendships, share their art, et cetera, and it's all moderated, so hopefully there wouldn't be any additional, you know.
• 21:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: bullying going on on the site because the whole point of it was really to provide a safe haven for these students.
• 21:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I was so impressed with the way that she turned something that was very painful for her into something that could help others who might be going through a similar situation.
• 21:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: And for me, the real moment that was so significant was when
• 21:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: she was giving her shark tank presentation or our version of shark tank at our investor panel in March and she created not a thirteen slide presentation which was a required of all students but in eighties lied of presentation and she got up there and gave the best Ted talk I've ever seen and she I mean she was really incredible wearing up a little suit to two piece suit and you've never know that she was a sixth grader if
• 21:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: If you couldn't tell from how short and petite she was, but she just really got up there and knocked it out of the park and everyone was blown away and it was just such a proud moment for me because the student was like really struggling at the beginning of the program to find her voice and even now she was building this platform for other students so that they could have a voice it was clear that she was still you know feeling the
• 22:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: impacts of the experience she'd had.
• 22:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then by the end of the program, she was able to get on that stage and tell her story in a really compelling, beautiful way.
• 22:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: Everyone was so impressed.
• 22:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: And a year later, she, this summer, decided to help be a camp counselor at one of our programs that we ran for younger students, like a boot camp entrepreneurship boot camp for a week in June.
• 22:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: And she came, and she wasn't just a volunteer, but she was willing to weed very,
• 22:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: various activities throughout the week so she just I mean really took that opportunity and ran with it and the way that she has continued to stay involved.
• 22:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: She's always giving back to our younger students.
• 22:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: She's always stepping up to come visit a female strong camp and speak to those girls as well.
• 23:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: It was just a really significant experience for me to see how much a program like this can really affect a young person and
• 23:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: It makes me wonder what the world would look like if every young girl had it may be not this specific opportunity but in opportunity where they could really find their voice and feel encouraged and have exposure to all these adult women who are successful and have so many insights and experiences to share.
• 23:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: So that was that's a really special one to me when I think about that young student Sarah what a beautiful story and that is
• 23:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's so wonderful.
• 23:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: It sounds like not only did you in the program have a positive influence on her, but she's had a positive influence on you and so many other young ones.
• 23:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then now she's just paying it forward.
• 23:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: That is such a ripple.
• 23:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: I love that.
• 24:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you for sharing that story.
• 24:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, yeah.
• 24:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: Happy to.
• 24:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: Sarah, what message are words of encouragement?
• 24:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: Would you like to share with our listeners who aspire to make a positive difference in the world?
• 24:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, let's say based on my experiences with these amazing young women in our programs that
• 24:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: you, anyone, any age, if an eight-year-old can do it, anyone can do it.
• 24:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: So you don't have to wait until you feel ready or you have all the resources you think you need or the infrastructure in place to make an impact, whether that's starting a business or even more informal direct plays of making an impact with your community with the people in your life.
• 24:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think you just have to decide to do it and then start acting, just like putting something into action.
• 24:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: Instead of waiting for all the stars to align and waiting for the resources to be available to you.
• 24:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: There are always things we can be doing in our lives interpersonally or in our community or for the world.
• 25:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I think just deciding to take action and then really following through is is what I would say don't wait just do it.
• 25:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's great advice, Sarah.
• 25:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you for sharing your incredible journey and wisdom with us today.
• 25:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: Your work exemplifies the true power of responsible influence and powering the next generation to lead with confidence, compassion and purpose.
• 25:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: Sarah, if our listeners want to get in touch with you, what is the best way to do so?
• 25:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, I would love that.
• 25:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, please email me if you have any interest in volunteering or participating in our programs, sponsoring an event.
• 25:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: We have so many ways to get involved at female strong.
• 25:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: And you can email me at Sarah, S-A-R-A-H at femalestrong.org.
• 25:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: You can go to our website, femalestrong.org, our social media pages.
• 25:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: There are tons of ways to get involved and we're always hosting programs and events.
• 25:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: So definitely reach out if you're interested.
• 25:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: I would love to connect.
• 25:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: Great, we'll put that information in the show notes.
• 25:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: Sarah, I'm so grateful you were able to join us today and share your story.
• 26:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you.
• 26:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you for having me.
• 26:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: To our listeners, thank you for tuning in to Daily Influenza.
• 26:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: I hope today's conversation brought you insight and inspiration.
• 26:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: If it's spoke to you, share it with someone who could use a little positivity today and remember every positive action no matter how small can create ripples of change.
• 26:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: Until next time, stay intentional, stay responsible and keep using your influence for good.
• 26:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: Bye-bye.