Adam Torres and Dr. Sheila Robinson discuss Diversity Woman Media.
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Show Notes:
The Diversity Woman Media ecosystem is helping corporations deliver business results through their DEI initiatives. In this episode, Adam Torres interviews Dr. Sheila Robinson, Publisher & CEO at Diversity Woman Media. Explore the Diversity Woman Media story along with the upcoming book Sheila will be launching with Women Connect4Good and Mission Matters.
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About Dr. Sheila Robinson
Dr. Sheila Robinson is a celebrated publisher, author on leadership, inspiring speaker and talent innovation specialist. Her company Diversity Woman Media is recognized nationally as a leading multi- platform enterprise with program offerings that advances all dimensions of diversity and inclusion (D&I).
An expert in diversity and inclusion Dr. Robinson helps leading companies transform their culture to reach gender parity, equity and belonging by combining her first- hand experience climbing the corporate ladder with the highest academic degrees, best practices from her leading magazines, and a deep passion for evidence-based workplace learnings.
During her 14-year career at a Fortune 100 company, Dr. Robinson rose from working on the factory floor to the executive office, ultimately directing communications for a $6 billion division of a global chemical company. Her experiences, including the obstacles she faced as an African-American businesswoman in the South, led her to want to help other business leaders achieve leadership success in their career journey. Over the past two decades Diversity Woman Media has grown to become a multi- faceted company that helps customers drive and deliver business results through diversity, inclusion, and talent development initiatives.
Dr. Robinson is the author of two books: Lead by Example: An Insider’s Look at How to Successfully Lead in Corporate America and Entrepreneurship (2014) and Your Tool Kit for Success: The Professional Woman’s Guide for Advancing to the C-Suite (2017)
She serves with the most influential organizations that are working to foster equity, equality and inclusive workplaces, including: Paradigm for Parity (Advisory Board Member), Catalyst (Strategic Business Partner), Executive Leadership Council (Media Partner), Women’s Business Collaborative (WBC – Chair of Diversity), Twitter (Member, Inclusion Diversity Council), and Simmons College Institute for Inclusive Leadership (Board of Advisors).
Dr. Robinson earned both a Master of Education and a Doctor of Education from the University of Pennsylvania.
About Diversity Woman Media
Diversity Woman Media is recognized as a leading, multi-platform professional and executive leadership development enterprise that advocates for diversity, equity and inclusion.
Diversity Women’s business womens’ network and membership directory provide a forum for established and aspiring women in leadership roles, including mobility of all women and marginalized professionals.
Full Unedited Transcript
Hey, I’d like to welcome you to another episode of mission matters. My name is Adam Torres. And if you’d like to apply to be a guest in the show, just head on over to mission matters. com and click on, be our guest to apply. All right. So I’ve been waiting for this one for a long time. We have Dr. Sheila Robinson on the line.
She’s a publisher and also a. So CEO over at diversity women media, and I’m proud to announce she’ll be an author in our upcoming book that we’ve been putting together for, Oh, about the last year, maybe year and a half with women connect for good. And Dr. Nancy O’Reilly. So first off, Sheila, I just want to say welcome to the show.
Thank you so much. It is a pleasure and honor to be here with you. I am just very, very excited about the Women Helping Women book with Dr. Nancy. Can’t wait till it comes out. And I appreciate you having me on as a guest today. Well, well, great to have a fellow member of the media in the house. As well.
So we’re definitely going to talk about diversified women, media your vision, where you’ve been, where you’re at, where you’re going with the company, of course. And really developing talent to create equitable opportunities for women. I mean, we got, we got a lot to talk about here today but we’ll start this episode, the way that we start them all with what we like to call our mission matters minute.
So Sheila, we at Mission Matters, we amplify stories for entrepreneurs, executives and experts. That’s our mission. Sheila, what mission matters to you? Well, I would say the mission that matters to me is how diversity women media is committed to elevating women of all races, cultures and backgrounds to new heights of leadership.
And we do this by supporting their career development. We really aim to break down some of those barriers that women face in the workplace. We challenge stereotypes and we create more opportunities for women to thrive professionally through their careers. Especially helping them navigate through some of the barriers and giving them ideas, solutions and resources to soar.
It’s great. Love having mission based individuals on here to share why they do what they do. And so kind of going back in time here, like, how did you know that you would be specifically creating a platform to boost the stories and create opportunities for women? I mean, a lot, a lot of different routes you could have went in terms of creating media and Creating content and opportunities.
Like why this one? Like when, when were you drawn to this? Well, Adam, I would have never in a million years thought that I would end up doing this. I think in college I majored in political science thinking I was a lawyer professor. Here, by the way, I know you don’t know that same here. I thought I was going to be a lawyer too.
Thankfully we didn’t know no offense to the lawyers out there. Go ahead. You must love what you do. You must love what you do. And I remember having an internship doing one summer and, and a law firm, and I was like, this is not it, not for me. Still not knowing what I wanted to do, but my mother was a teacher and my father worked in manufacturing and he made more money than my mother as a teacher.
And so I always felt like I wanted to work in corporate. I didn’t know what role I wanted. I think I wanted to be a supervisor, a manager, but I was drawn. To wanting to be a leader in corporate America. And right after college I ended up with two great, amazing careers in corporate America, but was displaced from both the organizations and the organization one was tobacco.
Cause I’m from North Carolina. If you can’t tell, and the other one was textiles. Both from North Carolina, I work for a global chemical giant that made you know, cool mecs in your socks, Lycra in your hosiery and in your clothing. And what happened, these industries declined for various reasons. And after being laid off, And this place from the second wonderful corporate career where I was making tons of money.
I love my hours. I love just the environment. I started reading business publications to try to understand more about business and to try to identify industries that were thriving because I did not want to walk into Another industry that was declining. And I noticed that there were not any publications for women in business.
You know, I wanted to know what were the best industries to get in? What were the best opportunities for women? And I saw nothing as still, it just hit me because I was still working at this organization. The last organization that I was displaced from, but we knew it was coming. And I was like I should start a magazine for women, you know, how you think stuff.
Hold on. Do you remember where, like, was that like a, one of those things that just popped in your head or was it a profession? Where were you at? Do you remember? I’m just curious. I was sitting at my desk. I could tell you the office I was in right now is flipping through these business magazines and I was like, I’m so excited.
Star magazine for women. And I was actually on my I asked that cause that’s from God. That’s like divine inspiration. When you get that flash, that’s different. And I literally, because I worked in marketing, I had you know, software to do all of these fun things. I actually designed a magazine cover right there on, on mine.
I had a woman, she was on a nice skirt. And the first cover line was. How to ask my boss for a raise. And it was like, I’m not, you know, I’m doing things my way. It was all those literally that happened. And fast forward after that, it was probably. A year or longer before I actually went for, because I started interviewing for jobs.
You know, I had my package, I had my great inner I had my boss to actually refer me positions with other corporations and I could not get a job. The last interview I had no kidding was with, I had three vice presidents. A CHRO and the, the director of HR, they all love me. And I just knew I was going to become a vice president of marketing for this phenomenal company.
And they say, you have one more interview with the CEO. I walked in the CEO. He’s young, he’s dynamic, he’s sharp. And I was like, Oh, I got this. Cause he’s forward thinking about, you know, he’s about the work. He’s about recognizing talent that can help take his organization to new heights. And he told me that I wasn’t the right fit for his organization because he was afraid with all the, he said, you have all the branding and marketing that we could ever need, but he was afraid.
That I didn’t have enough managerial experience and about 30 men would have had to report to me. And it was immediately after that day, I went home and I started exploring my idea, that vision to start my own publication. Wow. What, what would, what was your, like, whenever an entrepreneur has a like has an idea and you’re like, this is a year later.
So this thing was like nagging at you, nagging at you, nagging at you. It’s almost like you were you know, I won’t say forced, but kind of like the markets like. Pushing you to do this idea. How did you know, or did you know, like this was going to be the one, like all of a sudden, like, was it like, how did you know it was really weird because I needed a job, I needed money and I wasn’t even thinking about this idea.
And I was having coffee with one of my friends and I was like, I’ve hired coaches, I’ve had great. References, you know, all of my stuff is stellar and I, I, I’m baffled. I was beat down. I don’t know how celebrities do it to continue to continue to go out and audition for these roles. And the rejection after rejection, it started beating me down.
And she said, I, I think you should try explore that idea. You had to start that magazine. She said it was a really great idea. And I thought, I don’t have any money to start a magazine. Like I need a job. And she said, I didn’t tell you to start it. I told you to explore it at that time. I was Adam. I was so beat down that I needed something creative and exciting and something.
And so I just said. Okay. I’m going to take a month or two off, maybe two or three months. And I’m gonna go ahead on it, explore this vision. And I hired a graphic designer and created a dummy magazine. And I went out and this was roughly 20, almost 20 years ago in the. So that’s not easy just to put us in context in terms of technology.
Like that’s like that took some thinking, like that’s not easy back then. And the first week that I started showing it to people to ask them what they invest in it. The first publication was called career network, because that’s what I was about. You know, we have got to figure out how, how, you know, what our career is going to be like.
And I had had received 16, 000. In a week and people saying, I will invest in you. If you bring this magazine to print well at that time, I was like, I don’t even have a magazine. I’m just thinking about it in one week. I have 16, 000 in commitment and it was snowball effect after that. Wow. That’s a, I mean, sometimes when you think about like you being pushed towards a destiny and like push towards a industry, whether you thought it was going to happen or not, that’s amazing.
So now you, I want to continue this narrative. So now you’re thinking about this reminds some part of this reminds me of the first book. First book that we launched here at mission matters. So, which is one of the things we’re going to be working on together for the book, as we mentioned. But I remember thinking about like some of the people in the beginning that were like, Oh no, we want to be in that book or we’ll invest or we’ll, we’ll participate.
And I’m like, but I don’t even know how to do a book. All I had, just so you know, was a deck. I had a deck and an idea. I was. So I had done a book myself prior, but we’re talking going way back to the beginning in terms of anthologies or putting out anything like this. All I had was a deck that basically said, Hey, we’re going to get together a group of entrepreneurs.
We’re all going to write a chapter. We’re going to put out the book. That’s all I had a deck. And it was like, not a good one. And and that was it. And then the people, it was almost like. By them committing, that gave me the, like, like the belief in, okay, let’s do this. There, there’s some people that I’m going to be helping by doing this.
So I know where I went next and it was a painful process of learning how to publish a book. Where did you go next? Well, I, you know, I had learned so much from my previous role. You know, one of my bosses told me always differentiate yourself from anything else in the market. Another boss told me. You had actual marketing knowledge.
I had no finance. I was a financial advisor. Just, so just for context, I knew nothing about marketing. Go ahead. I knew nothing about money and sales. So there we go. We should have matched up. There you go. Yeah. But I, I, I knew marketing and I knew consumer purchasing behavior. I, I had. sit on the side where people had come to me to ask me to, as I handle advertising in my corporation, I handle advertising, I handle events.
So I knew that if I could create an offering that And find out who’s buying what I’m selling, then I will be onto something, but it didn’t happen that easily. Our first thing I did, and this is what I share with anyone, rather you are exploring a new role in your job or starting your own business or whatever to get out and research, research, research, join networks.
I joined a network called visions where entrepreneurs would come and I just stood up and said, Hey, I’m trying to start a magazine and I’m looking for a writer. Hey, I’m trying to start a magazine and I’m looking for somebody to tell me this. I actually went looking at magazines because somebody had told me this Find something that you want Your product to look like yeah And then and and emulate it or reach out to that team And and ask them can they help you and I knew that I couldn’t help anyone I couldn’t go to anyone that was I was competing with, but I found this natural health magazine and I ended up meeting the young lady that owned the magazine and they didn’t know how to do events.
I knew how to do events and I didn’t know how to do publishing. So they trained me for a while. And then I, I knew that I, I just networking, going to events and talking to people who had budgets for this. Like I used to go to Bennett college for women. I used to go to all of their events and they have all these corporations coming in and I would talk to them and tell them what I was doing.
And they said, well, you, you know, You need to be national for me to invest in you. And so I went out looking for I joined women in periodical publishing out of San Francisco, California had never been there before, but I joined this network networking groups to, again, to help me develop and educate and teach me about publishing.
And I ended up winning a scholarship to Stanford university’s publishing a program at that time. It was held during the summer and it was the number one publishing certification you can get in the world. Amazing. And at that time, Everything was awesome. I mean, I opened, I met Cindy Leaver, Levy, the editor in chief of glam glamor, Keaton, who had started, um, by magazine you know, for he’d worked with so many amazing people.
I met editors and writers from all kinds of magazines and created that network. And to this day. I was introduced to my editorial team that are still based in San Francisco that have been with me for practically 18 years. That’s an amazing story. And where, where did the so I, I got the original magazine when the shift, like when did the banner shift?
Like when did everything shift to the current focus? Like how, how did that take place? Well, that took place, like really year three mm-Hmm. Because year one I was developing, you know, started my LLC. Yep. Year two I had this regional magazine and Borders and Barnes and Nobles. Mm-Hmm. I, I wasn’t making any money.
And the advertising dollars I was getting was breaking even, but it was enough to let me know. That’s an accomplishment in media. Hold on. That’s, that’s a big accomplishment. I was breaking even and amazing. And then when. I was told, look, you gotta become national. So around year three, I changed my brand to a national brand because the regional pub would not have made it nationally.
And so year three you know, the name changed and we It just, it just took off. I would say the first 10 years of the business I was I really didn’t have large profits and was barely pay myself, but, and, you know, they say, when you start a business in about the three to four year period, you could expect not to make money until three or four years.
And so if you say the three, the two years as a regional, and then give myself Three two plus, I would say eight in 10 years. It was like my, my, my income. It blew up. Yeah. We have so, we have so many similarities on the timeline. So our first, so our first brand was money matters, money matters, top tips.
And around that year three, year four, like our aim was that that was, it was too niche and that we would never be a global brand with that, like that’s too, too niche. So we were thinking like, what’s going to be the global, like. footprint just in terms. And so that’s where we moved from money matters, top tips, which was super niche to mission matters, which actually matched our content more actually.
So it was more aligned with both mine and the other co founder Shiroxigar, our vision ultimately. But it did take that first three to four years to really like. Get that messaging down. I feel like it’s kind of unless you I mean, maybe if you’re from the media space and all that, but I was coming from a different space.
Maybe you have it all right in the first place, but I don’t think I could have sat in a room and brainstormed mission matters or even the potential of that. That vision long term to be able to help people and create that platform for others to tell their story. So I love your story. Cause it’s so, it parallels when I’m, and it’s just so interesting.
Even the time period just parallel so much. So I’m like it’s amazing. It’s a great story. Well, love mission matters too. So how did, and maybe at what point did it I know you mentioned doing events, you knew how to do that early on as well, but at what point did your, like your vision for the whole just the whole Ecosystem of it all word.
When did that take place for it to be like this multidimensional platform? Cause, and I don’t know, maybe it was always there, but now, okay. So I say we’re at, to the point to where was the timeline is you have a magazine. Now you have a national magazine, but what I know you for as well is. The events, the platform, the community, like all those things.
Where did that part of the vision come in? Well, we’re missing a very important time period that took place. And I know that you’re going to remember it coming from the finance industry. 2008, 2008. Okay. The level setter of who, like, who’s the last woman or standing or man or whatever. Yeah. When I started the business, I started out doing what.
Other platforms do they survive on advertising? They, they survive on advertising. They survive on how many people get your publication. And so the first three years I did that it was, It was horrendous. You know, it was easy to get in Barnes and Nobles and borders bookstores, but it was not the distribution.
It was not large enough for me to justify the advertising span. And, and so then I started, someone else told me, well, you do Mellers, you do Mellers to everyone’s house. And at that, and at one time I did that and, and I had a brick and mortar office and someone. We started getting calls. Do not send this magazine to my house.
I didn’t ask for this. And so it was at that time where I said, I’m never going to provide anyone anything unless they ask for it. So I learned early on that the traditional way of periodical publishing was not going to work for me. Yeah. And and then 2008 hit. And everybody was telling me, you need to go digital.
Sheila, print is dead. That was it. I remember watching people walk out. I was in a an entrepreneur building where small businesses were. And I still have the vision of people walking out with computers and, you know, everybody shutting down their offices and everything. And I’ll never forget that I was like, I’ll At that time I hated digital and I knew that I was not going to become a digital publication.
I was in love with print and the pages and the smell of the paper and the pictures jumping off the magazine pages. That was my passion and my love. Yeah. And I knew that what I was going to do is I was going to close it down. I was going to, I too, was going to be walking out with my computer. I was going to close it down.
And I was sharing with the receptionist and a young lady walked by me and I’ll never forget. I don’t know who she was, but she said, you can’t shut diversity woman down. What about us? And we turned around and she said, finally, a publication that don’t tell, that does not tell me what color lipstick that I can, that I have to wear.
One that inspires me and motivates me about my career. She said, this publication is not about you. It’s about us. She was a little sassy something as I got to know her. That hits, that hits. That just hit. It hit a spot, not to mention, unfortunately, I still didn’t, I didn’t think I heard her. I still wasn’t listening because I got to pay.
Mommy got to pay bills. But I did hear her. So, and then at the same time, unfortunately I was going through a divorce. I had found out the exact same time that my marriage was ending. And so for some reason, I did not in the business after I got situated in my new place of separation. I remembered my years at DuPont.
Oh, one other quick thing. I had gone to an event. All of this is the same period. And I start to hear Mark Cuban speak in Atlanta, Georgia. Okay. And I, and it was, Hundreds of people there and I knew I was not going to get near this man, but I somehow was walking where I knew he was walking and I was looking for the opportunity and he went, got on the elevator and I jumped on the elevator with him and I said, Mr.
Cuban, I just have a very quick question for you. I was like, I have a magazine that it’s amazing. I know it is. And I said that everybody’s telling me print is dead and they’re telling me I should go digital. What do you think? I’ll never forget his words. He said, what do you think? I said, I don’t think print is dead.
He said, well, that is what you should focus on. You should focus on what you think, what you believe, and you figure out a strategy to make it happen. And so, no, come on, give him a, you better watch, you better watch saying this out loud, that shark might ask for a check between, if he would have said to me, I don’t even know.
If he would have said to me, young lady, you, you, you need to find another business. I’m not even sure I would still be here. Wow. But he said to me, you need to figure out a way to make what you believe in work. And then the other young lady telling me, this is not you about you. This is about me. And I feel that my work is purpose driven, you know, my, my, cause I used to say, Why couldn’t I have invented Twitter, you know, why did I have to think of one of the hardest businesses to run that, you know, it didn’t make me a multimillionaire.
Okay. But it has, it’s purpose driven because guess what? I, I know this for a fact, my work has made many women millionaires. And I, I know women that because of my work, they have created businesses and sold for millions because of my work, they have advanced in their career and they, they are making millions.
So purpose driven and I look around and year 19, I’ve been blessed with everything I ever dreamed of. Yeah. I wish I could retire, but I can’t. So my work is purpose driven and as it’s not time for me to hang it up yet. I love it. And I, and I think about going kind of a level deeper to, so now originally obviously your, your, it was, it was 2008, which crushed, I mean, I, many people, like many people, you got, you got this personal consulting from Mark Cuban in the elevator.
That’s amazing. It’s an amazing story. And so now. Now, where do you go from here? Like, how do you start rethinking or re imagining just your business and how you’re going to make it happen? And I asked this by the way, cause you know, a lot of people watching or post pandemic, people are pivoting, adjusting, doing other things.
Like, like how, where do you go from there? Well, what did Mark Cuban tell me? He said, you need to figure out a strategy to do what you believe in. And I remembered by, by now I’m in my new place. I’m single again. I’m in my new place. And I took those little sticky yellow. What do you call it? Yeah. Yellow sticky notes.
Yep. When you walked into that apartment, it was yellow sticky notes everywhere. I created an entire different business model. I knew I was never going back to that old advertising business model. Smelling out saying I, I’ve got a 500, 000 distribution. I decided to use the business model that I had when I worked in corporate America where I could offer someone.
A bundle package, they can, they can sponsor an event and get registrations. They can sponsor an event and get an ad in a magazine. They get you know I, I had at that time, I, I have two masters and a doctorate of education, but at that time I’ve always done leadership training. They could get leadership training and and I’ve written three books since then.
So I just started bundling packages and going to. Areas that invested in talent management because all, all corporations have a talent management department, a chief human resource office, or even a diversity officer office where they want to invest in programs to help their organization of the talent in their organizations advance.
And so that was the beauty. That was the new strategy that I came up with to save my business in 2008. And it, it just took off. Wow. That’s that’s interesting because had you, I mean, that’s not too far ago from thinking about like making the decision of digital, not all the other components there, but also it’s like fold, maybe even folding up shop.
Like to go from there to reimagining to rethinking and then to creating something sustainable, like that’s the, I mean, that’s why I love doing this. It’s like hearing these entrepreneurs, it’s got me fired up. I’m like, what, what other problems can we solve and other things can we do? Like it makes it, it makes it to me, it makes it super interesting.
But then this is also how things progress. So if you think about even that first, when you were thinking about not doing it, all of the magazines and that was how many years roughly ago was that just roughly. Yeah. Like when it, so that’s, Oh, we’re talking 2008. I’m sorry. That’s 2008. So we’re talking about, so we’re talking about, you know, well over a decade ago.
And, and so 2010, I was, I was, yeah. So you, so you helped, Another generation already with your work. And that’s, I mean, that’s something to be said. You already have a whole nother generation being inspired by your work. What, what keeps you going? Like what keeps you motivated in this? Cause media is hard.
Publishing is hard. Anybody. People ask me sometimes, like, what, what, how do they advise that I get into the industry? I say, I don’t advise it, go get a job, go do something else. This is hard. So that’s what I normally say. That’s not your advice. That’s mine, by the way. I’m not putting those words into you or projecting onto you.
But but like, what keeps you going when things get tough? Yeah. And things got tough many, many times. And it was you know, I can remember one time I was like, you know what? Yeah. I am not going to be able to have a livelihood off of this. This is working. People are loving what I’m doing, but this breaking even every year, it’s just not going to work.
I need to make some money. And it was one day. I was certain I was going to hang it up and my phone rang and it was the famous poet and actress, Dr. Maya Angelou. Oh, come on. What are your stories? Who do you attract in your life? That energy you got, are you kidding me? Come on. Her office, I kid you not, saying that because somebody, one of her former students was one of my customers and he was trying to get her on the cover of my publication.
And, and it was her office saying that she had agreed. To be on the cover. Yeah. And that she was inviting me to her home, which I actually went to, had coffee and drank out of her China. And so Adam, at that time, I was like, okay, I might shut this business down, but it’s gonna have to be after this cover.
Okay. You’re right. It’s, and then, and then she told me. That she was going to send copies of the magazine to Oprah Winfrey, which everybody know, Dr. Maya Angelou was the godmother or play mom or whatever of Oprah Winfrey. They were very close. And I thought for sure, my business is really, really going to take off again.
That form of rejection. It felt like I never heard from Oprah’s office, but I said, well, at least she knows I exist. At least I’m okay with that. I agree. I’m, you know, that’s been what almost what, 12, 15 years ago and never heard anything. And I literally almost thought. About closing my business, because I thought if she didn’t see any value in the work, then I was never going to make money off of it.
And something, you know, I guess my faith and I was like, you’re, you know, what, what value is it to Oprah to work with you? You’re not bringing her anything. And what I learned in business that. Even when you’re talking to your customers, it has to be a win win. And unless you are bringing something to her, that is going to be a benefit to her, then that doesn’t fit.
And I stopped thinking that I needed someone else. To make my business. And I started focusing on working with the people that were finding value in the work that I was doing. And it became so rewarding to hear about, you know customers calling me saying they’ve already given someone a promotion as a result, coming to one of my leadership conferences.
Yeah. Someone else telling me that. They were featured on the cover of my magazine and they’re now in a C suite position at a big time corporation. And, you know, doing the works became so rewarding. And it’s a funny thing that when I realized what my mission really was and what I was really selling. I started making money.
I realized I wasn’t selling magazines. Who was selling purpose. I was selling leadership. I was selling solutions. I was, I was helping organizations solve talent development programs. And when I started focusing on, and my platform just happened to be events and publications. And when I started focusing on the value that my customers were receiving.
That is when I started making money, man. There there’s so much in that and what you just said. And I want to, you know, where I want to take this next is I do want to talk a little bit about the conferences and the programming, just kind of the things you work on just to, cause I feel like we got, we got a lot into the magazine side of it.
I think we get it, but like, let’s go into the conferences and the events because who you’re bringing together and what you’re bringing together. I mean, it’s pretty remarkable. Thank you. Thank you so much, Adam. I love people. Somebody once told me, they say you’re fascinated meeting people. I love meeting people.
I love learning. You attract interesting people to you too. Like you just gave two names, but I know you got stories for days, but go ahead. Go ahead. I love, I’m fascinated with meeting people. People All races, cultures and backgrounds and men too. We love our men. We can’t do this work without you. We wouldn’t be here without you.
So we know you, we love you. And I have a section in a magazine called male allies. And sometimes I have a panel, you know, all men at work panel that are working to support us. So when my, when you come to my conferences there is a science behind learning. And that’s what I have learned. There is a science behind learning.
And so you could put someone in an environment and you can give them all the education in the world. And they’ll walk out and leave and forget what they just heard if the environment wasn’t right. And so I made sure that I create and develop Programs and events where transformation will take place.
And I’ll tell my team, the people that come can not leave the same way they came. And that’s my secret sauce is creating programming to make sure that that transformation takes place. And when, when they go back to their companies and the leaders call me and say, Hey. That’s the best, I’ve sent my women to 20 conferences this year and yours is number one.
That keeps me going. That’s huge because conferences are hard to do. A lot of moving pieces, a lot of people involved, a lot of like, it’s not like, it’s hard to host them. conferences in my opinion. So putting together the programming, everything else it’s, it’s amazing. And you also do webinars. Am I right?
So you do some webinars and you do some online connecting to, I feel like most people had to do that once we started getting into the pandemic. Is that still going on? You’re still doing webinars and creating other opportunities. Yes. So the webinar started during COVID when customers, and I thought it was over doing covert, you talking about 2008.
I was just going to say, we go back to 2008 and now we’re like, Oh my God, all the business owners, but I got to put it out there for them. The entrepreneurs out there, they know we, nobody saw that one coming. Yeah, because I do live events. I have a publication where Barnes and Nobles is closed now, you know, guys stop, stop.
It hurts marketing dollars. First to go. Who’s gonna put a gimme an ad? Yeah. So during Covid, I thought it’s over and you know, I always, I’m laughing just so I don’t cry. Sheila , I always recommend have a I, I tell, I tell, I tell people I have a, a plan, A, B, a C, and a D plan. So I’m like. It started, it’s time to kick the B plan in B plan was, you know, I’m surrounded by universities and become a college professor.
And I thought for sure, if we survive this, if the, if the world doesn’t die I’ll just go out and get because I’m still educating, I’m still doing what I love and I’ll be another demographic of younger, a younger generation before they get to the workplace. And my phone started ringing off the hook.
My customers, what’s your contingency plan? And I’m like, I know what contingency means, Adam. And I’m like, what, like, what do you mean? I’m in shock that they are still finding value in this work during this time. And customers were saying to me, Your audience needs you more than ever. And that message right there, I pulled in my network, I believe in creating a network.
And I went out to find out what is the, one of the most innovative platforms that was out there for virtual learning. And I started hosting webinars just on getting psychologists, Harvard psychologists to be on the tail women. How do we. Go from my bed to our computer. How are we going to make it?
And all it started, the webinar was called moving forward that we can’t, we’ve come so far, you know, we can’t afford to go one step backwards. So how do we continue to move forward in the midst of this? And I remember. Doing getting someone to do a workshop on visibility. Like we, we, as women barely have a voice.
We got to fight for our seat at the table, right in the, in the corporate room. So we’re now on zoom cameras. How do we continue to have visibility? So I did workshops on creating visibility on zoom, like anything. And so that started and started. Still to this day, free of charge, we give out thriving Thursday webinars where we take a temperature check every month to make sure you’re thriving in your career and you’re just not surviving, you know, rather is self care idea, solutions and resources to do your job better.
And you can find out more about these free events on diversity, woman. com as well as our conferences and events. You can visit diversity, woman, network. com and become a member of our e learning portal. We actually now have a membership based e learning portal where you get free group coaching every month as a, as a member of that.
And so. I’ve had to innovate over time. I eventually had to go that digital route. If you’re interested we, I started getting people from all over the country. I mean the world, yeah. Me saying is your magazine in this region yet? Yeah. People zoom into our webinars from Asia from America. Yes. And at times, and it’s just unbelievable.
So we now have the publication on diversity woman. com. It’ll say, click here to view our latest magazine. Free of charge for those who are wanting to get this information globally. Yeah, I think it’s an amazing story. It’s one that I’m so happy to bring to my audience and just to see the evolution of what you’ve done in media, how, how you continue to get to, to really be a leader in the space and to, and to build more ways to add value.
I think it’s inspirational. I think obviously you’re, you happen to be doing it in media. There’s a lot of other people out there that have their way of giving back and following their mission. But that being said I mentioned before, we’re not going to talk about the book too much this time, but so everybody that watching, but we will be bringing Sheila back onto the show when the book is live and we’re going to do a deep dive then.
But for today, Sheila, you mentioned some websites and I want to kind of revisit that. If people want to connect, if they want to learn more about your platforms, how do they do that? Okay. Visit diversity woman. com to see a free copy of our publication. Click here to view our most recent magazine and get ideas, solutions, and resources monthly to help you in your career.
If you want to attend a live event, click on the event section and we’ll share with you all our events. If you want to just follow us on social media, follow And to get tidbits and we, we, you know, send out e blasts and announcements of what’s going on, follow us on LinkedIn. We have a huge LinkedIn following our group is called diversity, woman, leadership, and executive development.
And we’re also on Facebook and ex formerly Twitter. So look, follow us on social media and visit our website. Amazing. And for everybody watching, we’ll put that information in the show notes. So you can just click on the links and head right on over. And if you’re a first time viewer and you haven’t hit that subscribe button yet, this is your invitation.
Hit that subscribe button because we have many more mission based individuals coming up on the line. And we don’t want you to miss any of those episodes. And Sheila, again, thank you so much for coming on today. I look forward to continuing to work with you and continuing to build. So thank you again.
Adam, congratulations on your success at Mission Matters. It’s like I said, it’s a pleasure and an honor. This has been so much fun. I look forward to the book and I can’t wait to reconnect with you again.
