The Passionistas Project Podcast

LIVE EVENT: Chef Susan Feniger and Filmmaker Liz Lachman

A live chat with Emmy-Winning composer and filmmaker

Liz Lachman (Pin-Up) and Chef Susan Feniger (Socalo, Border Grill, Two Hot Tamales) to discuss their upcoming documentary FORKED.

 

Find out more about Forked here and donate to help get the film finished and get cool prizes including cooking classes with Susan!

 

Amy Honey Teaches Personal Growth Through Sales

Amy Honey is a pull, no punches, powerhouse, speaker and trainer in the areas of customer engagement, body language, behavior modification, sales and habit transformation. She has extensive background in high ticket sales and is known by her peers as a powerful closer, Amy is also passionate about helping girls and women find their courage just as she had to do starting at the age of 16, when she found herself alone and independent through her own resourcefulness, she still managed to graduate from high school. Her passion for personal growth, travel and transforming lives has taken Amy all over the world, helping people transform their lives through behavior, observation and habit change.  

Learn more about Amy.

Learn more about The Passionistas Project.

Full Transcript:

Passionistas: Hi, and welcome to The Passionistas Project Podcast, where we talk with women who are following their passions to inspire you to do the same.

We're Amy and Nancy Harrington. And today we're talking with Amy Honey, a pull, no punches, powerhouse, speaker and trainer in the areas of customer engagement, body language, behavior modification, sales, and habit transformation. She has extensive background in high ticket sales and is known by her peers. As a powerful closer, Amy is also passionate about helping girls and women find their courage just as she had to do starting at the age of 16, when she found herself alone and independent through her own resourcefulness, she still managed to graduate from high school.

At age 20. She became a single mom and chose to put her family's welfare first while overcoming numerous obstacles in an unreceptive marketplace. It was during these life challenges and her entrepreneurial journey that she crossed paths with personal development and discovered her love for speaking and training her passion for personal growth travel and transforming lives has taken Amy all over the world, helping people transform their lives through behavior, observation, and habit change. So please welcome to the show Amy Honey.

Amy: I'm so happy to be here.

Passionistas: Oh, we're so happy to have you. What are you most passionate about?

Amy: Personal growth. My path through that is sales. Do you ever watch any of chef Ramsey, Gordon Ramsey stuff? He does this show called Kitchen Nightmares and he goes in and what that shows really about is about personal growth, but his, his avenues through cooking, you know, so that's his version of it. So I think everybody has their version of personal growth.

Passionistas: Talk about your journey through life, where you started out your experiences, that we talked about a bit in the intro at the age of 16, becoming independent, and why personal growth has become such an important concept to you through your journey?

Amy: I probably started in sales at two years old. I was just like, I was just in, I was just, I loved the idea of being able to create something and then, and then make money for my time or my creation. And so even as a little kid, I made like pet rocks and sold them to my family, or like we would travel through Germany were my dad was a military. So we traveled and I was, I was adopted. So it's my, I'm a single, an only child. Oh, come into play later. So we were traveling through Germany and we had this like VW bus and it had this rack in between. So my parents was very difficult for my parents to get to the back of the, of the VW bus, you know, camper and the frigerators right there. So they would ask me for food and I would just charge them.

So it was like, it'd be like a nickel, like, okay. Yeah. And I would like walk up with my little, you know, you know, I'm like eight years old and I'd walk up with my little paper and say, you know, okay, I'll take your order, you know? Okay. That'll be five cents, you know, whatever, but they paid it because they didn't want to get it into the back of the bus. Little did I realize supply and demand, but I learned it very early on, I guess. And and so then from there, uh, later on, I actually started out. So, so it was a dance instructor. So I'm really into dance. I'm really into moving energy. So I became a dance instructor at age 13. So very young, my dad, since the time I was three taught jazz, tap, ballet, gymnastics. I taught everything. I started assistant teaching at 13.

And then by the age of 16, I was teaching my own classes. And then at the same time I was working two jobs, so, and going to high school. So I was working on the phones for Kirby vacuum cleaner. So I sold Kirby vacuum cleaners on the phone from the age of 14. And then at the age of 16, I was allowed to go door to door. So I wasn't allowed to do door to door sales until I turned 16. So this is back in the eighties, dating myself here. So at that point, I just was good at talking to people because for me, it was about connecting. And then at age 16, I'm out on my own. And I moved out on my mom and dad's house. I just they're great people. We just had large differences in opinions. It's very interesting DNA to me is very interesting because my parents are really good people, but I got the opportunity to meet my birth family about five years ago.

And now I'm really, really close with my brothers. I've got four brothers that never knew I existed. And so what I found so interesting is that I'm so much like them in the way that I think about the world and my sense of humor and all that stuff it's naturally in your DNA. Right. And so there was just a difference of opinion. And so when I moved out at 16, I always felt like it, like I did something wrong. This is my fault. I'm a bad kid. I'm horrible person. But in the meantime, I am putting myself through high school. Like I still worked. I still graduated high school on time. So, you know, it was, I was just had a really, I always had a really strong work ethic anyway, but I also had an ethic of like, okay, I just, whatever it takes to get it done, like whatever it takes to get it done at the same time, I started really seeking at that point.

Because I really thought something was wrong with me. Like I was, something was wrong with me. So I started seeking and I sought out counseling and I sought out, you know, which was also kind of like wrong. Like if you went to counseling, like by my parents' standard, you know, you were wrong or you needed to be fixed or something goes wrong with you. But I don't think that we put enough emphasis on the importance of mental health. So I just started seeking and I, I started finding books and I remember one of the very first books I read way back, when is a book called peeling, the sweet onion. And it was always all about the layers of who we are and how we're going to forget it kind of over and over and over again, and how to really become more of, of the center of who we are, like getting the layers of the, kind of the crap off, you know?

And so that was one of the very first and it's, it's an old book and it's not really popular these days, but it's still super relevant, like really super relevant. So, and then I just, you know, went on to Tony Robbins and you know, all of these other people. And then I started working in the seminar industry, doing sales, like doing sales, but doing coaching because for me, sales is not just like getting the number, like it's funny. Cause like I get on, like I talk to my family all the time. I was just talking to them last night and you know, all sale. I had a good day or I had a bad day, you know? Uh, and, and my daughter was asking me, well, what, what makes it good is like, if you just get a sale and I said, no, no, it's the conversation.

If I can get on the phone and help somebody and have a great conversation and they don't buy anything from me, I had a great day because I impacted somebody's life in a way. So to me, sales is about service and connecting the right people with the right products and figuring out the right flow of energy with the sale. So maybe that right flow of energy might be a no, but when you come to the highest point of service with that person, and you're not just looking at them as a transaction or a number, when they are ready, they will come back to you and maybe they never will be ready and that's okay too. But if you push them into a sale, you're going to it's, it's just, it's horrible, bad karma on you. I think bad energy on you. You're, that's where you're going to get higher cancellations. You're going to get people complaining about your company. You're going to get all these things, right. So to me, it's just not worth it to push a person into a sale.

Passionistas: And then when did you start public speaking?

Amy: I've been a teacher since a young age. So I was in front of groups of people with no problem and teaching dance. And I teach zoom by owned. I owned a gym. So, you know, just I've always been in front of people, not a problem. I was also a stuntwoman. And so I'm don't have any problems being in front of cameras. That's my husband and I are both stunned, Exxon actors. So I just never had a problem being in front of people. But when I started working in the seminar industry, I was forced to get in, you know, we would have to intro the speaker. So it was like all of a sudden I had to introduce a Les Brown or somebody and I'm just, Whoa. Okay. Okay. So it was just kind of run into it. And then I just started speaking. And for me, I just think when you can speak to a group of people, it's a lot easier than trying to one-on-one because there's always things like a, every single, every single business.

I believe that we have to educate our clients because an educated client is a good client and when they understand it and they're educated enough. And so I feel that there's things that every single business repeats over and over and over again. So if we can take those things that we repeat over and over again, and I end make a video or, or get them as together as a group and say it, you're not exhausting yourself saying it over and over and over again to each client.

Passionistas: Tell us a little bit about being a stunt woman. What attracted you to that world?

Amy: I was always into fitness. I wanted to do martial arts from non-time. I was a real little kid, but I was, I had to do, you know, I had to dance. So dancing was the thing or piano, piano, piano for a while. It was not ladylike to do martial arts. So it wasn't allowed to do martial arts. So as soon as I turned eight, well, as soon as I turned 16, I moved out. But by the time I was 18, I had my feet underneath me and I'd graduated high school and stuff. And so at that point I was like, Oh, I can take martial arts. No, one's stopping me. I can pierce anything. I want, I can get tattoos. So yeah. So I did, I went and started taking martial arts. And at that same time I was body doubling as an actress. So I was living in Oregon at the time and I was on this movie set and I met a stunt coordinator on the movie set, Steve, his name was Steve, really super nice guy.

And I was like, huh, that's interesting. And so I was, I was an extra on the set. So as I was body doubling and I met this I met the stunt coordinator and he said to me, and I started just digging and asking questions. And he said, look, if you're really interested, why don't you fly out to LA and meet with our stunt guys and see what you think? And I said, Oh, okay. And so I booked a flight to LA and it was so funny. Cause I'm like, I'm 51 years old. Now I think I was 22 or 23. At that time I weigh a lot more now than I did then. So I was probably like 105 pounds, like soaking wet, five foot tall, I'm little. And so I get on this plane, I get on the plane. This is 1994. It's like, get on the plane and no one's on the plane.

And I'm like, this is really bizarre. Right? Well, come to find out, that was the 1994 earthquake in Northridge that had just happened that morning. So everybody canceled their flight, right? So like I'm on the flight by myself and I'm heading to LA and they've got this guy, his name was big. Wayne picking me up at the airport. This is a guy I've never met before. Right now, big Wayne is like a massive dude. He kind of looks like the rock and is probably about as big. And I walk up and he's holding the sign and I'm like, this is how every horror movie war starts like, Oh my God, what? I'm like, I'm just like, I'm walking into this thing. I don't know this guy. I'm getting in the car with a stranger. I'm in a strange town. I was just like, what was I thinking?

Like I'm freaking out at this point, like inside my heart is like, but I'm like, no, no, I trust my gut. I trust my gut. So he took me out to eat with a couple of the other stunt actors. And it was very interesting because they wanted to know my philosophy on life. Like they wanted to know if I believed in fate, they wanted to know if I believed in circumstance. They wanted to know if I believed if I created my own reality at that point, like I was really young, but they wanted to know these things because they weren't going to trust me with teaching me some of these things. If I didn't believe that things happen for a reason that you're in the right place at the right time that you trust yourself. Because it's very important when you're doing choreography with another stunt actor, you have to trust that when they're supposed to Zig, they're going to Zig.

And when they're supposed to zag, they're going to zag. Otherwise you're going to collide and people get hurt. So that's how I learned. And so the kinds of stunts that I do were our high falls and lighting myself on fire and fight scenes.

Passionistas: What projects did you do?

Amy: Oh gosh. Like I did a lot of a lot of TV and I did quite a few like Showtime, HBO movies. And I couldn't even tell you some of the titles because they have what's called a working title. And then, and then, and then it goes to print crime strike was one of them like any like cops reenactments. I played in a battered woman a lot because I get beat up really well. So I can really, I can really sell, I can really sell a punch. There's a really cool chase credit card commercial.

And it's actually a friend of mine. Her name is Melissa Barker and she's gets hit by a car and she comes off and she's like, yeah, you know, like you can't, I can't predict everything what's going on, but I can predict what's in my wallet kind of thing. And um, so she's actually a really big stunt woman. And she, she was one of the girls I trained with early on and with her and her husband, Eric, Betsy's another big stunt guy. So yeah, she's still going strong. I'm 51. I don't bounce. Like I used to. And um, and I got out at a point when, you know, I realized that most stunt people have broken their back at some point. So I was like, yeah, I think I'm going to cash it in quit while you're ahead.

Passionistas: Your husband was also a stunt person. Did you meet him in that industry?

Amy: The funny thing is we did not. We actually met, do you know who, uh, Joey Dispenza, Dr. Joe Dispenza. He's written a book called breaking the habit of being yourself. He's a, he's a speaker. And again, it's personal growth. So we met doing personal growth. That was really funny. Cause we were at this thing where he was talking and I think we were like the youngest people in the crowd. So like, we were both like 36 at the time. And so we were like the youngest people there and everybody else was like, well, over 60. And so we were just like, Hi, a young person. And so, and it was like, he was like, Oh yeah, I'm a star. I'm like, Oh my God, I'm gonna stop a woman. So that was interesting. But he did, he is from Australia and he did stunts for a live action shows. He did some movies, but he mostly did live action. So he did, he was a Warner brothers movie world. He opened up the universal Japan. He went to Indonesia. So he was a stent, a livestock action performer for years where he did shows daily after it, that you eventually opened your first business together.

Passionistas: So what was the first business you started together?

Amy: It was the gym that we started together before that we were kind of doing our own things, but then I'm an entrepreneur and a big risk taker. And it's funny, he's a stunt man, but he's not risky. So I'm more of a rule breaker and a risk taker. And he's more by the book by the rules. So jumping off a building is not risky to him. As much as like purchasing a brand new business is scary, scary to him. So, uh, so he always worked for the people kind of thing, but now he's learned to be an entrepreneur. So the gym was the first business that we opened together.

Passionistas: Tell us about running your own gym, what was that like? Did you like doing that?

Amy: Oh, I'm so glad we're not doing that. I loved helping the people. It was great, but God, it w like what a babysitting project that was because our gym was a little different. We were like our more high-end studio. So you didn't just come to the gym and work out when you wanted everything was classes. So I taught Zumba, I taught spin. I taught, I created my own classes like riding row, which was like a, like a spin and row class combined. And then I had employees and stuff, but Oh man, what a headache? What a headache and a brick and mortar. And I'm so happy that we do not have that during, like when the pandemic started, all I kept saying was like, I'm so glad we don't have the gym. I'm so glad we don't have the gym. We never would have survived it.

Passionistas: Now while you had the gym, you developed the Five Elements of Health. So tell us about that and why each one is important?

Amy: What Jamie says is you've got five elements of health, exercise, sleep, hydration, nutrition, and emotional environment. And when you get all five, you've got a grip on your health. That's what he says. You got a grip on it. Um, so they're all important, but the most

Important one of course is emotional, uh, environment. And what emotional environment contains is the energy around you. Emotion, emotion is energy in motion, and it's the people around you. And it's your, it's your health space. And it's your, it's everything that has to do with your mindset. And the emotional environment is the most important one because you, it's almost like if you think of a triangle and you think of like, the emotional body is like at the top of the triangle and the physical bodies at the bottom. If you change the physical body, but you don't change the mind up here, you're just going to come back to that physical body that you were at before. So you could lose all the way you could do it. This is why people lose weight. And then they come right back to here. This is why people win the lottery and then spend all the money and don't have the money because they got the physical level, but they didn't do the mind level up here.

So what I realized in that is that the mindset was the most important piece. So, so for me to really help people would be to focus on the mindset. So that's what we kind of shifted to, is focusing on the mindset. I worked with people that needed to lose hundreds of pounds. That is, it can be a slow moving boat. You got to kind of give them a wide berth and let them be able to, you know, come around to this new lifestyle. And it takes patience and it takes, but it's really takes shifting that mindset. And so this has changed. Nothing's going to change in the body and if it does change, it's just going to go right back to where it was at. If the mindset doesn't get changed along with it. And so,

Passionistas: So is that what inspired you to create Improv for Impact?

Amy: Improv for impact is more my husband's business, but it's a tool that I use in sales, Tai Chi. So improper impact. He's, he's always done improv, but when people think of improv, they think of comedy or they think of like, whose line it in any way, or they think of like comedians. Oh, that's funny. What I realized when I was recognizing it and watching what he was doing was I was like, Oh my gosh, what a brilliant way to, and a fun way to figure out what people's habits are that are holding them back from success. Because as he's playing the games, I'm watching the patterns. And what happens is when you play a game, there's always rules on the game, right? So anytime you add rules, it adds stress. But even though it's fun, stress, anytime we're in a moment of stress, like it, like if you think of like, like fun games where you're like, ah, and you're like, you're like kind of get a little stress.

We always revert back to our habit in times of stress. So then I could identify, I easily identify what the habits were. So there's certain games where we can watch it or say, Oh, that's interesting that person doesn't like to take responsibility for things, or, Oh, that's interesting. This person always wants to push their idea, but they're not willing to listen to other's ideas or, Oh, that's interesting. This person always says no before they hear it out because in their head and this is, this really can help teams. It can help innovation with business. Because what we see, a lot of people do is like, say I'm an employee. And I come to the boss with an idea and the boss goes, well, we can't, no, that's not. We can't do that because in the boss's head, he's thinking, what's going to cost this. It's going to cost this.

What are we going to do? Right. But if the boss had just said, yes, okay, well, let's figure out how that can happen. Maybe another idea is going to come out that maybe it's not that idea, but if he was open to it, instead of just immediately blocking that idea, he would be able to innovate and be able to come up with something completely new. I love Apple. What Apple did. Steve jobs came back. When he came back after he had been gone from his company for a while, they spent, I think, a few days on this. And they said, well, what business are we in? And they said, well, we're in the computer business. And he said, no, no, no, no. What business are we really in? We're what are we really in? What are we really doing here?

And they took days to figure this out. And they spent time just minds, you know, brainstorming what they ended up coming up with was no, we connect people to their passions. And that's how they came up with the iPod. That was when they first came up with the iPod because, Oh, well, their passions are what their passions are, music, their passions or photos, their passions, or family emails, their passions are, you know, these kinds of things. So that's was, became their motto. And it was like, it was a different, innovative way of thinking about things. So if we can stop blocking that, then we can, then we can, then we can identify who in the companies doing these things.

Passionistas: We're Amy and Nancy Harrington. And you're listening to The Passionistas Project Podcast and our interview with Amy Honey. To learn more about Amy, visit her website amyjohoney.com. Now more of her interview with Amy.

How can people transform their habits to, to connect better with their clients and communicate their values better?

Amy: We teach about the energy of sales. So we teach about looking at the energy and then we also teach really active listening, truly active listening to somebody, and we teach them how to stop blocking them. So for instance, if I come to you and I say, Hey, Nancy, I got this great health product. Are you open to taking a look at it? And you're just like, no, I'm like, Oh, okay, cool. What, what interests you the most? Right. So like trying to connect on a different level, right? When somebody tells you no or blocks it, you have to accept it. So what I see a lot of salespeople do is they keep pushing. Yeah. But this is really good for you, but this is really… no, Nancy, this could really benefit you. Like really? You need to look at this, right? No, she already said no. Right, stop it. And just stop. Like sometimes it's better just not to sell.

Passionistas: You really are passionate about helping girls and women find their courage. So how do you do that?

Amy: And especially single moms because I was a single mom. So especially single moms. I met my husband when my daughter was 18. So how do I do that? How do I help women? I, I think that women are really powerful in who they are. And I love, I specifically love helping women and teaching women how to sell because we are, we are nurturers. We are naturally a nurture and we naturally create through pleasure. So men push, push, push hard, hard, hard, buy, buy, buy women don't function that way. So I like to teach women sales by just using their own nature of who they are. You know, don't try to be me. Don't try to be the other best salesperson in the world. You've got to be you to do it. And you are valid and you are valuable in who you are. And so that, so I, I, I, I, especially just, I mean, I work with companies and corporations, but I really am super passionate. Like when I see a woman, especially a single mom, I'm kind of like hone in on her. And I'm just like inner ear, like really amazing. You can do it.

Passionistas: What's the philosophy of Sales Tai Chi. How does it work?

Amy: So Sales Tai Chi right now, the main thing that we're training teams to do, we're training them how to recreate their live events to online, because it's just necessary right now. So how do you recreate that live event experience and do it online? Sales Tai Chi is all about the energy of the sale and the flow of energy and how to take whatever comes at you and move it into the energy that you want it to be moved into. So rather than blocking the energy of a no accepting the energy, turning the energy into what you want. And when, when you do get to know what I train our teams to do is to accept that no, you know, when you get objections, that's different than a no. When you get objections, you want to turn that objection and vet and validate their objection. Because if somebody says to you, Oh, I just, I just don't have the time right now.

Well, that's just, that's an ex an objection in reality. It's an excuse because they just told me they really wanted this, but now they're telling you they don't have time. Right. So you never want to say, Oh, but you've got plenty of time. Or you got, because you're just invalidating their excuse and their excuse in their own head is really valid. So it's more about asking questions, you know? So when they, when they say, Oh, I don't have time. Oh, I know. Yeah. Time can be. That can be tough. Do you want more time? You know what I mean? So it's like, it's like accepting, accepting it. And if it's a no, except the no sales is like kissing, the other person has to be leaning in, or you can't kiss them.

Passionistas: You talk about how I shouldn't try and sell the way you try and sell. So how does somebody tap into their, their personal strengths to figure out what their best approaches?

Amy: So I would just ask you, like, when you're like, do you, do you sell anything right now?

Passionistas: We sell a subscription box.

Amy: Okay. Oh, cool. What's in it?

Passionistas: It's all products from women owned businesses and female artists.

Amy: I love that. That's great. Okay. So what is your favorite thing about the products? Like what are you most excited about that excites you about that product?

Passionistas: To me, the most exciting thing about the subscription box is that we're supporting other women. Like it's just, you know, we, we beyond selling the products, we, uh, interview every woman in the box and we share their stories so that people are, aren't just buying the product. They're supporting the woman behind the product. And to me, that's what I love about doing the subscriber.

Amy: What do you absolutely hate about selling?

Passionistas: Asking people for money.

Amy: Okay. Yeah. So then what I would do with you is I would shift your mindset around about that because are these products gonna serve that person?

Passionistas: Yes.   

Amy: So if you're not selling, you're not serving. So I would just help you shift that mindset around asking people for money because it is value. It is valuable, right?

Passionistas: Oh, yeah.

Amy: And then how do you sell as yourself is you just find the things that you like. So if you really love connecting with women, then just connect with them. You don't have to sell them anything. Right. Just connect with them. If that's your favorite part about it, and you hate asking money, but you love connecting, then just connect and then it's, it doesn't even feel like you're asking for my needs similar to like, you know, would you tell your best friend about a great movie that you just watched?

Passionistas: Sure.

Amy: So why wouldn't you tell them about the subscription box? So you're going to just tell your friends as if you were telling them about a great movie.

I'll leave you with a little story. This was a kind of a big lesson for me. So when I did own the gym, I had a, I would help people lose hundreds of pounds. And I had a program that was $5,000. I'd be with you for a year. I guaranteed at least a hundred pounds of weight loss. So during that, I thought, you know what? I want to really help everybody. I really just want to help everybody and not everybody can afford me. So maybe I should just run like a free, almost weight Watchers type of a class on the weekends. So on Saturday I did an, a full hour. I had about 18 as a smaller town side, about 18 people that came during that entire year that I did that.

I was there every week. Not one person lost one pound. And the worst part about it was there was a guy and he passed away at age 36, at 450 pounds. I feel like if I had sold him that package, that he would probably be here today because when people put, put money in the game, they're invested, they're, they're gonna do it. They're gonna, you know, and, and just think about the women that do buy your box and that why, like how excited are they when they get this box? I mean, who doesn't love to get a box of stuff where you're just like, I don't know what's coming and I can't wait. It's like opening. Right? Like, so tap into that excitement that the women feel that buy your box. And then that makes it a little bit easier to ask for the money because you know, they're going to be excited to get it.

Passionistas: What advice would you give to a young woman that wants to be an entrepreneur?

Amy: Go for it. Jump in with both feet. Don't hesitate. It's like stunts. Once you go to jump off that building, if you stop yourself in the middle of it, you're going to get hurt. Once you commit, commit and do it, don't hesitate that hesitation. That's like, there's, there is a lot of dead squirrels on the road to indecision, right? So don't hesitate when we hesitate. That's when we know, are we going to make the right decisions all the time? Probably not. That's okay. Stop beating yourself up about it. Take a little risk. It's okay. Get out there and do it.

Passionistas: Thanks for listening to The Passionistas Project Podcast and our interview with Amy Honey. To learn more about Amy, visit her website, amyjohoney.com.

Please visit ThePassionistasProject.com to learn more about our podcast and subscription box filled with products made by women owned businesses and female artisans — to inspire you to follow your passions. Sign up for our mailing list, to get 10% off your first purchase.

And be sure to subscribe The Passionistas Project Podcast, so you don't miss any of our upcoming inspiring guests.

Until next time stay well and stay passionate.

Jess Weiss Uses Trix to Make a Positive Impact on Women

Jess Weiss is the Publisher and Co-founder of Trix, where she looks after the magazine’s commercial, editorial and brand viability, strategic partnerships and overall business strategy. A full-time strategist for Google’s Executive Leadership Development team, she leverages her organizational psychology background to steep Trix’s editorial angle in research about media gender bias, stereotype threat and the positive impact of visible role models on young girls and women.

Learn more about Jess.

Learn more about The Passionistas Project.

 

Full Transcript:

 

Passionistas: Hi, and welcome to The Passionistsa Project Podcast, where we talk with women who are following their passions to inspire you to do the same. We're Amy and Nancy Harrington. And today we're talking with Jess Weiss, the publisher and co-founder of Trix, where she looks after the magazine's, commercial, editorial, and brand viability, strategic partnerships, and overall business strategy, a full-time strategist for Google's executive leadership development team. She leverages her organizational psychology background to steep Trix,' editorial angle in research about media, gender bias, stereotype threat and the positive impact of visible role models on young girls and women. So please welcome to the show, Jess Weiss.

Jess: Hi, thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.

Passionistas: Well, thanks for being here. What's the one thing you're most passionate about?

Jess: I would say in this day and age, it's really about giving women a platform to have a voice. And, you know, I think it's a really interesting time to be a woman today. We've seen these remarkable movements over the past few years, such as Me Too, the Women's March and then that has had global reverberations. Uh, so I think it's a, it's a really wonderful and interesting and challenging time to think about what it means to be a woman. Um, you know, we still have tremendous gaps of all kinds across the world, pay gaps, um, investing gaps, gender gaps in hiring, you know, positions of occupancy and executive, um, leadership roles.

But at the same time, I think more than ever women and girls and allies are really raising their hand to say, let's change the dialogue, let's change how we speak to think about and, um, project power into the hands of women. So I'm very passionate about doing what I can through Trix and my, my work at Google to really elevate voices of women and girls around the world in a way that's empowering and, uh, demonstrates their agency in a way that is not necessarily tied to their beauty or their looks, which I think has really been the traditional way that we've, um, portrayed women in power.

Passionistas: So talk about how that relates to the work you do at Trix.

Jess: So Trix, um, has been my passion project and now official side hustle, functioning, small business that I run with my two founding partners and about a hundred freelancers all across the world. But it started from an idea a couple of years ago. Um, so as many things in life start as, um, Trix started to sort of, as a happy accident, I had been thinking about getting more involved in journalism, but, you know, being really mid-career and quite advanced in my field, which is not directly tied to journalism, I didn't really know how to get in. Right. I thought, well, I can't really go back and get a master's degree and started as an intern in the mailroom of CNN. That doesn't sound appealing. So I wonder if there's another entry point.

So I had that in the back of my mind, then one day on vacation, just right after Christmas day, a couple of years ago, I happened to be sitting by a pool on vacation with my family and my phone died. So kind of being a busy minded, new Yorker, I not very good at sitting still and doing nothing. So I kind to scramble to pick up the nearest reading material, which happened to be a couple of magazines that I probably normally wouldn't have read. Um, but because I had time to kill, I picked up the first one and it was a typical women's fashion and beauty magazine. Um, but the title on the cover really caught my eye. It said "how to have your best year yet how to kill it in 2018." And I thought, Oh, okay. Maybe fashion and beauty magazines are creating more content for ambitious hustling women. Maybe there's something in here for me.

And I'll never forget when I opened up the magazine, the first article I saw on this section of how to have your best year yet was called "An ode to liquid eyeliner." And it was like 250 words, praising liquid eyeliners ability to disguise your hangovers. And so if you're running low on sleep or I'd been out all night party, that all you had to do was swipe on this magical liquid eyeliner and all would be well in the world. And I just remember laughing and thinking like, okay, well, first of all, no judgment. I wear liquid eyeliner and I've been hung over before. So that's not really like a problem per se, but the fact that it's packaged as how to have your best year yet to be just felt like an incredibly low bar, almost comical to think about.

So, you know, it really, that really stood out to me. Um, but I probably would have just set that aside and not thought twice about it because I'm so used to seeing women's magazines that really focus on this kind of shallow content, only talk about fashion and beauty and portray these really unrealistic standards of beauty through their models and their advertisements. But I happen to also pick up a men's magazine, a men's lifestyle magazine, which I had never read before. And I opened the pages and was immediately blown away by the variety and depth and intelligence behind the editorial. There were articles on activism and politics and extreme travel and leaders in their fields and the models were varied, you know, and didn't have these perfectly chiseled abs.

And I just thought, wow, I want a magazine like that, but for me, for women. And does that exist yet? So that became the start of what turned into six months of R&D um, talking with friends, family members, our network, and really trying to figure out like, does that kind of magazine exist for women? And what we found out was, no, it didn't, you know, there are sort of some more truly feminist magazines like Gloria Steinem's Ms. mag. And then, you know, teen Vogue and Marie Claire have started to introduce articles occasionally that are more kind of political by nature, but there was nothing really like what I had seen in the pages of that men's magazine. So that, um, became our idea to start one and make one. And here we are two years.

Passionistas: How did you come up with the name Trix?

Jess: It's a fun one too. Um, so a little trip through history to explain the origins of the name. Um, you know, my co-founder Carly, our editor and chief and I were for months batting around different names for the magazine. We had all kinds of names, but we really wanted to make it not feel so on the nose about empowering women. Like we didn't want to use words like fearless, boss babes or, um, you know, moxie or something that kind of was labeling the fact that women had power. We really want to take like a show, don't tell approach to demonstrating women with agency and power in our pages. And I can talk a little bit more about the psychology behind that and why that's very intentional. Um, but we were sort of doing research and I was Googling things like, you know, words that are aren't frequently used that refer to strong women.

And I stumbled upon a listicle of like 10 different words. And one that stood out was editrix. I thought I've never heard that before. And when I looked up the definition, uh, said that editrix was a female editor, and this took me then down a Wikipedia rabbit hole to figure out like, why have I never heard this before? And it turns out that any word in the English language that ends in T O R, which there are quite a few of like reporter litigator, administrator, doctor creator, editor aviator, those are all technically the masculine forms of the word. So, you know, if you speak Spanish or French or some of the romance languages, you you'll notice there's a feminine and a masculine, like an elle and a la version of the word and in the English language, we've actually simplified that, um, to exclude the Trix, which would be the feminine version of those words.

So technically it's correct to say aviatrix or reportrix or doctrix. Um, and that refers to the female version. So we thought, huh, let's just call the name. And the magazine was called magazine Trix, which really is a nod to agency and action, you know, all of those words have some sort of doing or verb or action attached to it. Um, and yet there are so many different possibilities for what, uh, Trix can follow, um, in that word. So that's sort of the origin and we're certainly not trying to bring back, you know, people using words like aviatrix or reportrix, but it was a fun plan word and a fun sort of nod, um, to, you know, to language and history and how we think about, and talk about.

Passionistas: Talk about the path that you and your partners took to actually get the magazine off the ground.

Jess: When we thought of the idea, it actually started as a conversation on a Facebook group. So I was part of this private Facebook group of like 400 mutual female friends. And I had posted about my experience of the liquid eyeliner article and the men's magazine, and had posed a question to that group of, you know, does a women's magazine, like what I'm describing exist yet. And a bunch of people chimed in and said, you know, Oh, like the Atlantic or NatG"eo have some elements of that, but no one could point to a specific women's magazine that had the content we were envisioning. And my now co-founder at the time chimed in onto that thread and said, "let's start one side hustle?" But she always tells the story. Like she was very much kidding. She was a joke. I kind of took that and ran with it.

And what's funny about that currently in our history is we happen to share an ex-boyfriend. Um, so we knew each other sort of as the other woman for many years. And, um, now we sort of have a laugh about that because our now, you know, ex um, is a subscriber to Trix and he loves the fact that we started a magazine together. It's a very positive experience overall, but it was sort of a funny, um, you know, again, kind of repeat accident of her chiming in and sort of jokingly saying, let's create this magazine. And then a bunch of our other friends chiming in and saying, I think you should actually explore this. This is a really good idea. So once we have the momentum there, Carly and I started meeting regularly, um, she also happens to work at Google. So it was easy for us to meet up over lunch and have a bite and shoot around some ideas.

And what we decided to do to really test the concept was to do two things. We, one held a series of focus groups all over the world, including a few in London where we would get together kind of 10 to 15 women. Um, strangers usually that we would just sort of promote this over Facebook groups or Eventbrite, and we've got them together and we would pitch our liquid eyeliner story and our concept and said, you know, if you, if we were to create the perfect magazine for you, that felt relevant and interesting and engaging, and really spoke to you like you were intelligent, which you are, um, what kind of content would be in there. And that was really fun. Cause it got women really engaged in thinking about the possibility for content that would really resonate with them and speak to their more purpose-driven lines. And actually a few of our articles that we ended up publishing our first issue came from those focus groups. So that was kind of a fun way to really understand, you know, our readers before we had a product.

And then the second thing we did is we wanted to understand the competitive landscape. So we actually hired a consultant to do some competitive analysis for us. And what we found was just jaw dropping. Now he found that 95% of women's magazines on the market in the English language are fashion and beauty focused. And I was just shocked by that number. You know, I sort of had a hunch, but seeing the reality, um, contrast it, you know, the fact that there were so few magazines targeted towards the many different things that women are interested in outside of fashion and beauty contrast it with the excitement and the appetite we were seeing in these R&D focus groups, um, to, to us that felt like it was really clear that there was a need for this. There was space for this in the market.

And all of that really pointed us towards the realization that this was a need. And then the next part became figuring out, okay, well, how do you actually make a magazine? And neither of us had experienced doing that. So that's sort of a whole other chapter of the story as to how we sort of went about figuring out how do you find the writers? How do you create the layout? How do you get people on board, um, you know, to subscribe before you actually have a product? So that part of the journey took a little over a year, but once we had decided we had enough data and decided, yes, there's appetite for this, yes, there's a need in their space in the market. It was just a matter of finding the resources and finding space in our schedule, you know, to, to carve out for this on top of our full-time jobs. So the whole process, you know, from conception to launch, our first issue took about a year and a half. Um, and then of course when the pandemic hit, we completely changed our business model. So I see this year as of last March as being kind of the third chapter in Trix's journey,

Passionistas: Tell us how has the coronavirus shutdown affected your business and how have you pivoted during this time?

Jess: You know, it's been challenging. I think that we're seeing all over the world, some businesses not being able to adapt because their model, you know, like co-working spaces, you see organizations like the Wing or Albright, you know, these women focused co-working spaces and their model is so dependent on in-person gatherings. It's been really challenging for them to, to pivot with all of that overhead, um, for us, you know, because we are the perfect case example of a gig economy, you know, we, we don't have full-time staff. We actually just hire out, um, individual gigs to freelancers. And because we don't have a brick and mortar space, everything is done virtually anyway, we didn't have that high overhead sort of tr tying us down. And so what we really started thinking about when the pandemic hit is, okay, what are our readers going to need in this particular moment in time?

And after serving, you know, a few folks and kind of batting around a few ideas, we really landed on the fact that, you know, most readers would be looking for information that was either relevant to their lives in the coronavirus, um, and or distracting, but not too expensive. You know, we, when we first launched, we had a really premium print product. Our magazine was beautiful, thick coffee table style magazine, that was like $15. And we thought, Hm, with all the economic uncertainty, some people losing their jobs, you know, really trying to strip back, spending people probably aren't going to be eager to spend $15 on an individual magazine. So how do we actually make a pivot to make Trix content more accessible to a wider audience and also affordable? So what that meant for us is actually, um, going completely digital. So we no longer have a print product at least for now, but what that's enabled us to do is to produce content on a more frequent basis.

So rather than these quarterly issues, which we were at publishing prior to the pandemic, we're now releasing new articles every single week. And we're tapping into an international network of freelance journalists, people who write for, you know, the times in London or, um, report on the region of West Africa for the New York times or report on border issues in South America for the BBC. Now all of these journalists all over the world, um, now we can access and say, Hey, tell us what's going on in your part of the world. We can put that up on our website and actually move to an annual subscription plan. That's a lot more affordable than the individual magazine.

So I think in a way, you know, I hate to say, I hate to say that there's any sort of blessing from such a terrible global pandemic, but I do think in a way it was sort of the best thing that could have happened for our business in terms of what we're able to now produce in the readers that we're able to reach that happened very quickly, that happened over the course of maybe a month or two. Um, but I'm very, you know, grateful to my team for being willing to say, okay, this isn't what we had in mind when we started, but this is what the time is calling for, and this is what our readers need. So let's just make sure that we're meeting those needs in this moment and we'll continue to watch the market and see how things change, you know, if, and when that can come out. The other side of this thing.

Passionistas: That's great. I do think there are going to be blessings like that on so many levels for people and the people who can adapt and change are the ones that are gonna survive and thrive at the end of this. You know, so it's, it's really great that you were able to do that.

Jess: I agree. You know, one thing just to build off of what you were saying there, we actually ran an interesting article on, uh, the common factor that surprised us when we did research into what businesses were actually thriving and able to adapt. Like, is there anything that they have in common? And what we found is really interesting, you know, most women owned businesses or small businesses are actually very, very few that have, you know, over 500 employees, um, which is a gap in and of itself. But so we really looked at surveying women, um, women, small business owners. And we found that the ones that are really thriving right now are meeting basic needs. So they're, you know, meeting people who are in a state of survival and they're doing things like, you know, whether it's food related or meditation, focus for health and wellness or connecting people in some way to online communities, those are the ones that, um, people really need products and services from. So to the extent that's helpful for any of our listeners out there, if you're thinking about pivoting your own endeavors, you don't really think about the fact that society is in survival mode right now. And how can you meet their most basic needs in this moment?

Passionistas: We're Amy and Nancy Harrington, and you're listening to the Passionistas Project Podcast and our interview with Jess Weiss. To learn more about Trix magazine, visit Trix-Magazine.com. Now here's more of our interview with Jess.

You mentioned the global network of journalists that you're working with. How do you find the journalists that write for Trix? And do you take contributions or pitches from women outside of that network that you have?

Jess: Yeah, we do. So we in fact started finding all of our writers by posting to different Facebook groups that are designed for freelance around the world. So there are a couple, um, Binders Full of Writers is one that has kind of a fun name and, uh, the other is Study Hall. So these are listservs and Facebook groups that anyone around the world can join and are known to be sort of the go-to for sourcing freelance writers. And then in some cases, you know, we had our eye on particular writers that had a voice that felt very aligned with Trix, you know, not just writing about women's issues, but also very solutions oriented and can write in a very sort of elevated substantive intellectual way. So in some cases we proactively reached out to writers and photographers whose work we admired. And in other cases, we would just post to these listservs and Facebook groups with an open call for submissions.

And so, uh, that has enabled us to basically fill out our editorial calendar, but we continue to accept pitches on a rolling basis. And, you know, while we look to really go to seasoned journalists to help build our brand credibility, and also just to make the editorial, um, part of the process lighter on, you know, our very small team, we tend to go first for those more established journalists, but because we so much believe in elevating women and lifting women up in mentoring, aspiring and emerging writers, we reserve about 25% of our stories for non-professional writers. You know, people who just do it for a hobby for guest author op ads, or for really the newer ones who are just trying to get their feet wet. And our editorial staff has a real passion for actually mentoring aspiring and new writers. So we do try to keep a little bit of room for those folks and coming, um, later this year, we'll be introducing storytelling workshops. So we actually can provide educational training for the newer journalists on the field while also producing that more kind of credible long form feature and investigative journalism.

Passionistas: So now is that mentoring in addition to the coaching and consulting kind of stuff you already do now? Tell us about those services.

Jess: We have not yet come out with our workshops. I'm, we're kind of right in the middle of a planning mode to expand our business model. And, um, since we've had to make this pivot, you know, away from in-person events, which we really heavily relied on, um, for, for income and also just to build community and have moved away from this print product, we have to think about diversifying our revenue streams. So the plans that we have for that involve what we call the three Cs. So content, which is the magazine, um, coaching and community. So our coaching and consulting services will be expanding to go beyond just one-on-one coaching with one of the founders of what, which is what we currently offer and is quite a popular, um, product that our readers really enjoy. Um, but what we're going to be doing is announcing plans to expand our network of coaches.

So folks can tap into people other than just the founding team and then also offer consulting services. So we would like to work with brands more in a B2B model who have an interest in speaking to their female customers and maybe a more elevated, empowering way. And so we're really eager to really help brands and other businesses, um, rethink, you know, how they approach their female customers and then the community aspect. Um, we are really moving towards sort of the court's model of building in member benefits. So anyone who subscribes to the magazine will also have access to online workshops for personal and professional development, um, group coaching. So, you know, coming together with maybe a group of 10 other women, if they can't quite afford the higher premium individual one-on-one coaching and then also access to speakers. So we've had some really great fireside chats with people like Sally Krawcheck, who is the CEO of Ellevest, the first woman focused investing firm.

We've also done great panels with senior editors from the New York times and vice and helping to post teaching women who have expertise in their field, how to turn that expertise into an op ed and actually get published. And I was so thrilled to learn that after our last workshop on that topic last year, um, three of those attendees actually had their op-eds published, uh, one in Newsweek, one in ProjectSsyndicate and one in Politico. So it's really exciting for us to see that this kind of training is working and helping writers and women to have their voice heard. So that will all be coming, um, probably this July, but we'll offer us a way to just reach different readers and really elevate women in a more direct skill building and development kind of way.

Passionistas: While you've been doing this, you have also been working full time at Google. Tell us about your work there and tell us about how you do both of these things at once.

Jess: So my background at Google is in organizational psychology. So I am trained in social organization, psycho organizational psychology, which is essentially the study of how groups interact. So group dynamics, group behavior, and my team at Google really looks after development for our leaders and managers, and thinks about how to apply best practices and organizational development to support them and being good stewards of culture in, um, really bringing out the highest potential in their reports in, um, getting into sustainable high-performance. So they're not burning out. And so I'm really interested in things like unconscious biases and stereotypes and how, you know, you can write an unbiased per for view, especially for minorities, um, women, women of color, marginalized groups, uh, that can be particularly impacted by these very invisible stereotypes that we tend to place on others. So a lot of my work is really focused on, you know, bringing down those invisible barriers that might be holding some back. And that links very nicely, I think, to our editorial for Trix.

Now, in terms of, um, balancing both, you know, I feel very lucky that our work is so distributed, know we have a small but mighty army of so many freelancers who contribute both to our editorial and also to the operations. So we have, um, uh, you know, business associates, digital marketing folks, partnerships leads, um, and then a whole slew of advisors who really help us to, uh, share the burden. So it doesn't all fall on one person. So that makes it a lot more manageable. And so the other thing, which I'm sure you can relate to is when you're really passionate about something, it doesn't feel like work. You know, I can happily spend my entire weekend and evening hours after I get done with my day job, you know, really diving into, you know, editing an article for Trix or, you know, sourcing new content because it's, it's just so rewarding. And so I think, you know, when, when you find something, it sounds very cliche, but I think it's true when you find something that you really love, you know, it doesn't feel like you're working, it just feels like what you naturally want to do. And the, the space that you naturally want to inhabit.

Passionistas: Is there something that you've learned while at Google that's helped you in building Trix?

Jess: The thing that's applied to tricks most, I think is how I've been managed by incredible leaders at Google, you know, I've had the privilege of working with some incredibly strong, intelligent, talented, mostly female managers who have really, you know, brought out the best in me, brought out the best kind of work in me, um, really set the bar high, but do so in a supportive way. So, um, the growth trajectory that I've been lucky enough to have in my career is really supported by really great leadership and a certain kind of way of speaking to and treating women. And I think we really try to leverage that in terms of how we speak to our readers.

Um, you know, I'll give an example. So I actually hate the word girl power, and that might be a controversial statement. And I, and I actually don't like to use the word empowerment very often. And the reason for that is because of this thing called Stereotype Threat. So the summary of that concept is, you know, there are certain stereotypes that are connected to aspects of our identity, and they're not obviously necessarily true in many of them are harmful, but they tend to impact the way that we behave and think. So, for example, psychologists studied this, for example, a stereotype that exists is Asians are good at math, or African-Americans are good at sports or women are bad at math. And there are many different versions of those stereotypes that relate to talents and abilities. And what researchers have found is that when you remind someone of their identity and then ask them to perform a task that has a stereotype related to that identity, they perform better or worse than those who aren't reminded of their identity. So, you know, if a woman takes a math test and is asked to mark her demographic before the math test and then is told, this is a test about your abilities, math, what happens is she thinks of herself as a woman is subconsciously reminded of that stereotype that women are bad at math. And that increases her performance anxiety, which causes her to do worse on the test than if she didn't think about the fact she was a woman at all before taking the test. And, um, research has shown that in those cases, those control groups, the women perform just as good if not better.

So all of that is a learning for me in not speaking to women, always in terms of them getting empowered, because it implies that they don't have power. And that they're always in the process of trying to find it. And while I think it's true that there are plenty of inequalities that we need to pay attention to and plenty of, you know, rights and progress towards women's rights that still need attention. I think we also have to start to speak to women. Like they already have power and to not constantly be reminding them that they can be fearless or they can have power that they can get empowered, but rather to assume that they have it. And I know that that's really worked for me in terms of how my managers and leaders have treated me as, as a woman, you know, at Google. And that's what we really try to convey in the pages of our articles.

Passionistas: Is there a word that you prefer to empowered or just no word at all?

Jess: We actually take a show, don't tell approach. So whenever we talk about or tell stories of these incredible women, you know, thought leaders or leaders in their fields, I'll give you an example. We have an article on this ultra-marathoner, um, Pamela Reed, who's in her fifties or sixties now, and has won several 135-mile ultra-marathoners, sometimes outpacing and beating male competition. It's just this incredible story. But, you know, I think a traditional media outlet would take an article and a person like that and talk about how fearless she was and how, you know, what a bad ass she is. And to me that is almost, it almost works backwards because it's, it's put it's, it's like naming the thing.

And just by comparison, like if you ever picked up a magazine about an ultra-marathon or man, or, you know, a really great businessman, you don't see words like fearless boss, bro. Yet we see things like fearless boss, babe boss babe, or girl boss, you know, all the time. And so I hope that makes sense, but for us, it's really important to just demonstrate how these women are remarkable and tell their whole story, including the challenges they faced, how they overcame adversity, how they overcame obstacles, um, rather than telling the readers that they're fearless or brave. Um, so it's, it's very subtle, but we think it makes a difference in terms of elevating the tone, um, and how we speak about, and to our female readers.

Passionistas: Is there a particular trait that you think has helped you succeed?

Jess: I always attribute, um, my career success to first of all, incredible opportunity and privilege. You know, I think it's important to name, um, those things, but I also really tried to adopt a growth mindset in everything I do. So Carol Dweck, who became very famous for this concept of growth mindset and this, this idea that most successful people don't think of themselves as ever really being done. You know, you never really sort of win or are best at something. Um, it's instead of mentality, that you can constantly improve and constantly grow and constantly learn. And that failure is actually a natural output of those things. So I really try to think about an approach, you know, a situation like with Trix. I had never made a magazine before I had no journalism background, but I didn't let that sort of get to be, even though like tons of well-meaning media veterans that I would have coffees with at those early days would really sort of subtly tried to dissuade me, you know, like, how are you going to get a journalism is dying. Print journalism is dying. You know, how are you going to make a magazine? You've never done this before.

And, you know, we said, okay, those things might be true, but we know that we're resilient. We know that we love to learn. We know that we're passionate about this and we think we can figure out how to do it and learn as we go. So I think it's that, um, not being afraid to fail. That's really allowed for us to learn as we go and then grow and pivot where we need to and not sort of being held back by this idea that we don't have experience or that we'll fail. You know, I see failure as, as a sign that we're onto something and that we're, we're learning as we go.

Passionistas: What's your definition of success?

Jess: I love this question because our magazine tagline for Trix is a magazine for women who define success on their terms. And we came up with that as a way to, again, nod to women, you know, for me have been so held back by standards of, you know, what others think they need to be to be successful. You know, whether that's being beautiful or thin or a mother or a, you know, a homemaker or someone's girlfriend, you know, there's, there's so many expectations placed on women, you know, really around the world. And for me, the most liberating thing I think we can do for ourselves is to define success on our own terms and to, you know, it doesn't mean becoming like a social reckless, but essentially saying like society and external validation. Isn't what I need to feel successful. You know, success for me is based off of my values and what I care about and where I want to place my energy and time. So my definition of success is of course more personal than that, but I thought I'd just nod to the fact that, you know, we really think that women should be defining success on their own terms, you know, whatever that looks like for them.

Passionistas: Thanks for listening to the Passionistas Project Podcast. In our interview with Jess Weiss to learn more about Trix magazine, visit Trix-Magazine.com.

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