Adam Torres and Dr. Nancy O’Reilly discuss Women Connect4Good.
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Show Notes:
In this episode, Adam Torres and Dr. Nancy O’Reilly, Founder of Women Connect4Good, explore the upcoming book that Dr. Nancy and Women Connect4Good will be launching with Mission Matters.
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About Dr. Nancy O’Reilly
International philanthropist, skilled horsewoman, and trailblazer for women’s empowerment, Nancy D. O’Reilly, PsyD, believes women who support each other in abundance and joy are the key to equality. A successful author and educator, she recently completed a new book, In This Together: How Successful Women Support Each Other in Business and Life (Adams Media/Simon & Schuster, January 2019).
Dr. Nancy founded Women Connect4Good, Inc., a social-profit [501(c)3] foundation that has provided support for many national and international charities. Her podcasts feature interviews with smart, amazing women, and her timely articles appear on popular national blogs. She previously authored Leading Women: 20 Influential Women Share Their Secrets to Leadership, Business, and Life and two other books. Dr. Nancy occasionally speaks to selected groups on women empowerment, self-confidence and the importance of women supporting other women.
Full Unedited Transcript
Hey, I’d like to welcome you to another episode of Mission Matters. Today we are on site at the Southern California Equestrian Center and we are visiting Dr. Nancy from Women Connect for Good. As many of you have been watching on the show recently, we’re going to be doing a book with Dr. Nancy. We’re bringing together top leaders from many different industries and it’s all about women helping women.
So stay tuned. All right. So we caught up with Dr. I’m excited. I’ve been looking. I’ve been coming. I’ve been trying to come out to the equestrian center for how long now we’ve been trying to do this? A couple months. I think it’s been maybe three or four months. So the rain got us a couple of times but now we’re finally here.
And as you can see in my background, these are the real stars. today, but we got a lot to talk about. So we’re going to get into the equestrian center. We’re going to sit down in a moment or two, and we’re going to talk about the book as well, that we’re doing with Women Connect for Good. But just to kick us off here, Dr.
Nancy, tell us a little bit more about the equestrian center. Well, this is a, as you said, Southern California equestrian center. I bought this, this place probably about five years ago. I, I bought my first horse in 2012. And from there on I became all in and then I brought my own preference in. I know, I hear you.
I hear you. So they’re talking to us right now. The barn right now is full of the indoor and the outdoor horses. There are Arabians, half Arabians. There’s a saddlebred here. There’s also a warm blood here. And we also have some goats that come in and say we’re united too. So, no, it’s a beautiful place.
We are a destination in Southern California. Yeah. We do corporate events, we do films here, we’ve done some filming, we’ve also had some weddings, and birthday parties, and we’re open for all types of events right now. But the horses are my passion, and one of the things that I’ve become involved with is how horses can heal people.
And these horses have healed me over and over again. Yeah, they’re, they’re beautiful. And I, I mean, I follow you on social media, so I see, I see all the pictures and everything else. What’s your vision for this place? Like what’s your vision? The vision is, is that, well, the, my, the logo for Southern California, the equestrian centers.
Southern California. A place for people who love horses. Mm-Hmm. And typically, if you love horses, I’m gonna love you. Mm-Hmm, . Well, I wanna, I wanna take a look. Can we, can we look at some horses? Let’s take a look. Let’s go take, let’s see. Lola’s gonna come out. See you. Let’s see if somebody’s gonna, Lola, Lola.
Hey, Lola. I’m, oh, she’s, I’m drinking right now. , what are you doing? What are you doing? Big girl. Hi. Oh, let’s go down. Let’s go down here. Go look at some water. Say, hey, she’s busy. Say, hey, come here. Come here, baby. Wow. Come here, sweet boy. Come over here. We were feeding you earlier, remember? Are they camera shy?
Look at those cameras. Come here. Come over here. Well, Hennessy will come out. They’re all being very shy here. Oh, how do they know? They know. Come here, Hennessy. Come here, baby. Come here. Come over here. This is Hennessy. He is a purebred Arab. He is 19 years old. So he’s won everything and more so he’s now retired.
He doesn’t have to go to shows He loves petting. I ride him just on just riding every day And he’s just a sweet boy. And next to him is Thor. Thor and Hennessy are actually related. They have the same daddy. Different mamas, but same daddies. Come here, sweet boy. You come here, sweet boy. So this is mighty Thor.
And he’s as sweet as he can be. Just as sweet. Oh, somebody’s wants some attention. That is Fast Eddie. Oh fast that he was talking about we’ve separated. Yeah. Coco’s here and he’s over there, but this is not so girl. Come here, sweet girl Come here over here. Come here Come on, sweet girl. I know sweet girl And and that’s one of the things about horses if they don’t come to you There’s something going on with them, but they come to you that’s a good thing That’s a very good thing.
Yeah, she’s a good girl. Oh, you’re very good girl Very sweet girl. And then here’s, here’s one that just came back from training. Come here. Come here. Come here, Coco. Come here, Coco. But every horse is completely different. They have different personalities. They have different temperaments. And they have different go tos.
But this is a very sweet girl. Look at this sweet girl. She eventually will be white. Right now she’s in her coat is changing to gray, which will soon become more gray. And then when she’s older, she’ll be all white, just like say, Hey, but she’s a very sweet girl. Yes, you’re very sweet. And I know one of the things that you’ve been involved with is is really protecting horses too.
And I’ve been working with Ashley Avis to protect wild horses, but you know, if, if, if. If I started rescuing horses, I’d have a call every day. There are people do not understand. These horses need a lot of care. They need medical treatment and they, they’re expensive. You don’t buy a horse unless you’re able to pay for it.
Have good healthcare, good management and good training. And so a lot of people just, they run out of money and they basically just abandoned horses. We can’t have that. We can’t have that. We’ve got to take care of these people. Beautiful animals. They’ve been in our history from the very beginning of time.
We’d had this is what this was our transportation Yeah, this is how we got around. Yeah, isn’t that right? Yes, it’s out They’re wonderful animals and if you’re around them, they actually have done a study about magnetism the heart rate of the heart Your heart and our heart starts to sink the sinking of the hearts So that’s where a lot of the healing comes into and that’s how the matching and the connection comes from So this is a pretty sweet little girl right here.
Yes, you are. She just came home. She just came home from training. Now she’s, she’s under saddle. We’re going to make her a trail horse. Yes, you’re going to be a good girl. And then let’s see a little Fast Eddie over here. Oh yeah, Fast Eddie’s been making some noise today. What’s going on with you? Huh?
What’s going on? She’s right across from you. She didn’t go anywhere. Aww. She didn’t go anywhere. She’s okay. So Fast Eddie just came home from training also. Now he is under saddle. And he’s gonna go to, he’s gonna go to Arizona for the big time show. I think these, I think these horses travel more than me.
I’m just saying. Well. They do go to shows, and we do trailer them, but mostly, mostly we just have them, we love them and we train them here. We love them and we train them here. The horse’s life, I’m into this, treats and you know. This is, this is how sweet they are. They are. And there’s so many people that are afraid of horses.
But horses are more afraid of you, typically, than, than the reverse. Look at that, look at that boy, look at that boy. Yeah, just so sweet. So, those are just, these are all show, most of these are show horses. The other end of the barn is full of my broodmares. And they’re the ones that produce these wonderful, wonderful babies.
His mama is Angelica. She’s down there. Her mama is Jade, and she’s down there. So, they’ve done their jobs, they’ve done a wonderful job reproducing the next generation. This is the next generation of show horse right here. Yes, I know. And you have some, some horse shows coming up, right? Yeah. One in, one in Arizona at the end of the month.
Yes. And here at the equestrian center, you have horses. Ah, we have dressage shows here. We’ve got five scheduled for this year. Hmm. It’s pretty busy. Yeah. Well, it, it can. Yeah. But again, we’re very selective what we do here. Hmm. Well, I say we go sit down and let’s talk a little bit about the book. Let’s talk a little bit more about Women Connect for Good.
Okay. Let’s do it. Okay. All right. All right. Dr. Nancy, first off, this is beautiful. Thank you. Thank you for having us out here. I like it here. I like it here a lot. It’s one of my favorite places. I’d rather be here than just about anywhere. Hey, I’m, I’m getting that feeling too, actually. I know. Are you, are you ever going to leave?
I don’t know. You showed me the casitas in the back. You saw your little bungalow back there. You only, you only saw part of it here. Well, I want to get into this book that we’re doing together. So maybe just to get us kicked off, tell us for the, for the new listeners and new viewers that maybe haven’t seen the program together when you’ve been on the show before, maybe just start, but tell us a little bit more about Women Connect for Good.
Okay. Well, Women Connect for Good actually was a foundation created in 2011. And really it started off with me doing podcasts as well. That one day I was talking to a woman named Mary. And I said, and I said to Mary, I said, Mary, how can I help you? And this voice kind of disappeared the call. I thought it dropped.
And this little voice came back and said, you mean you want to help me? And that’s, I said, that’s exactly what I want to do. And it, it, it, it almost was an aha moment because I realized by just asking her how, how I could help her. Made all the difference in the world. So women connect for good was founded one basic premise, women helping other women to fill their dreams, their aspirations, and their goals.
And that’s very simple. What women connect for good does. I, so first off name your podcast conversations with amazing. Yeah. Amazing people. Yeah. It’s people now. It’s everybody. We’re all in it together. Yeah. Conversation with amazing people. What do you like about the podcast? I’m just such a fan about podcasting.
My audience knows I’m, I’m always talking about podcasting, so I like to hear from other podcasters. What do you like about it? Storytelling. Because one of the things that I always ask at the beginning is tell me who you are. Tell me your story. Tell me how you, what I would, I’ve done more to you. I said, tell me where you came from.
How did you get to be you? How did Adam become Adam? And there’s always a good story, and there’s always a good connection. So that women connect for good becomes even stronger and stronger in my mind. Because when we connect with each other, we develop relationships. And with relationships, we can do anything.
Yeah. And so what, and being a podcaster, what’s one of the has anything surprised you so far, whether it was stories, whether it was otherwise, like episodes, like, has anything surprised you where you’re like, huh? No, I think it’s the genuine relationship that, that unfolds in that podcast, because I always say, well, we’ve met.
Yeah. I’m asking them to become a part of the community. Yeah. And so we’re always growing and becoming like minded people. Mm hmm. Now, I don’t know if that’s a surprise. That’s, that’s the pluses. Those are pluses. I like the plus approach, but for me, I’m, I’m surprised. Like, I think about it, I’m like, okay.
It’s just such a blessing for me to be able to think that, okay, we, we met originally on a podcast. We were, I was either I, I was on, oh, you were on my show first and then you invited me on your show. And then now we look maybe a year later, time flies. We’re working on a book. We’re collaborating, which we’re going to talk about that in a moment as well.
And here I am sitting like in this beautiful area at the equestrian center. With all the people that you, that you talk with, you know, and I’d say 99 percent of the people that I’ve done a podcast with, I’ve developed something with, so, yeah, and that’s where this community continues to grow and becomes even more exciting because we need each other now.
We need each other more now than ever. Let’s get into the book a little bit. So the, the vision for the book, the idea, so for everybody that’s watching or hasn’t been following this story the, the idea and the premise was that we bring together a, a series of leaders, multiple in an anthology. So there’s.
Each, each author has a chapter and brings their best to the book. And Dr. Nancy has been instrumental in helping us curate who the correct leaders were for this particular project. Tell us a little bit more maybe about the vision and the, and the reason and the thought process behind what. Went together, who you brought together.
It goes back to the mission. You know, you’re, you’re, you call your mission matters. The mission matters to us. We, we focus, we focus on those people that are doing something amazing in the world for the betterment of the community, the betterment of the world and better for each and every one of us.
And everyone in that book is a representative of those people. And I’m proud to be with them. I’m proud to, to know them. And I know each and every one of them is making a difference every day in their lives. So one of the big topics right now and that, that we’ve been doing that if anybody that’s been watching for sure the ERA coalition, you’ve been in Washington a lot.
Let’s maybe educate the audience a little bit more about what’s going on. Equal Rights Amendment. Well, you know, it was interesting. I was talking to someone, a woman actually at a horse show. And. She, she didn’t know what the ERA was and, you know, and I think that’s the, the saddest part is here’s something.
It’s a hundred years since it was first initiated. 24 all the states it’s been ratified by. It’s been sitting in the and now it’s sitting in the Congress. It’s, it’s time it’s passed. Equal rights means very something. Equal pay, equal education, equal, equal medical, but equal safety and security, especially for women.
But equality is something that we all deserve, and it’s something that people don’t understand. But once the ERA is passed as a 28th amendment and published in the U. S. Constitution, then we’re going to actually have to put it in operation. Because a lot of people will have to be educated about that.
Yeah, you know, I’m going to say this maybe with a little tongue in cheek, but the United States Constitution was Written and developed by old white men. There were no women involved in the, in the production of the U. S. Constitution. So, so what we’ve got to do is start to educate everyone how that works.
And everyone deserves to be equal. Everybody, everybody in this country. People come to this country from all over the world because they want to have the right to To do their very best for themselves and for their families. And that’s what we all want. So I’ve I’ve interviewed Zakiya who came on the show and she’s working with specifically with the coalition.
And I one of the things that she said is that she was, that surprised her as she kind of got further and further in the role and she’s on this mission, like day in and day out, was that most people just don’t know, like a lot of times the response to it is that really, that’s not like, that’s A lot of people, it’s just a given that’s been taken care of, you know, and of course it hasn’t.
And so we have to educate that population that it hasn’t been, you know, we’re talking about TikTok, put it on TikTok. We have to find the population that’s most important. It’s the next generation. We need that generation to take the baton up and take this, this, this mission full fold. That’s what we have to have to do.
And so we’ve got our work to do. And that’s why all these organizations are coming together because we all want the same thing. And that’s equality and gender equity, gender equality. How do people get involved? Well, they, they get on podcast because you and I, they, they buy the books. They, we educate them.
We, you know, your social media, my social media, we all continue to collaborate and partner with each other. We’re not going to get anywhere alone. Nobody gets anywhere. So we’d go out and find the organizations that truly are on the same page. Like Zakiya, PRA coalition, like take the lead with Gloria Felt.
Diversity women with Dr. Sheila Robinson you know, and even goes as far as even the horses, it’s all of us, we all can do something to make a difference in this world. And everybody has a, has a chance to do that. We want to just involve everybody. Because we all win. When we work together, we all win.
So I followed, of course, your social media and the more that I, all of the individuals that you just named, for everybody watching, I’ve done interviews with all of them and they’re all part of the series that we’re creating for the book. Absolutely. Amazing. And I’m always, I’m, I won’t say shocked, but every single time I do another one, I call I call Melissa and I’m like, Oh my gosh, Melissa, which Melissa works with Dr.
Nancy. And I’m like, Oh my gosh, another great one because it’ll be, it’s usually my first time talking with them and being introduced to their work. Don’t forget Tiffany Schlade. Oh yeah. Tiffany’s coming up, depending on when you watch this, I haven’t, I haven’t done the interview yet, but she’s coming up and she’s amazing.
Tiffany has created more documentaries that will have impacted our, our audience. Our world. Yeah, 50 women changed the world. She’s misrepresentation. The new ones that are coming out You’re going to enjoy her. Yeah, you thought they were good. They’re all fantastic. Yes. Yes I I agree with that So I want to get back to women connect for good for a little a little bit longer here like what’s some of your vision for this going for because as I see your body of work I see right now ERA coalition or ERA amendment.
And then like, how does this all build? Well, the, the two things that we’ve really been working on is the global. And so we’ve become involved with world pulse and organizations that are doing things for women, especially in the, in the entire world. So they’ve got probably 80 million women connecting all over the world with each other and.
So we’re looking for ways how we can not only create more education, but the global, the global experience as well. And I think a lot of times, and I think we’re, I think as a society, we’re getting more sophisticated on this, but I think that in the past, it was almost thought of as a like when we think about not just the equal rights, but when we think about women in the workplace, closing the gender equality gap in terms of pay and otherwise, and having a safe place for people to work.
Well, safety and security right now and reproductive rights is the biggest issue. It’s going to be one of the biggest issues for our upcoming campaigns. I mean, for our upcoming votes and you know, and I think, I think people are really getting behind it, human rights, women’s rights, body rights. I mean, we we’ve got to clear these things up.
Women are getting, we’re, we’re starting to go backwards. And so it’s important for our organizations, the ones that are totally involved. To do something about that. Yeah, I agree with that. Is there anything else that you want to say to the audience before I know, I know you’re, you got, you got a lot going on.
I don’t want to keep you too long, but I appreciate the time. Is there anything else that you want to say to the audience? Probably the most important thing is get involved. Find out what’s going on in your community. Find out what’s going on about women and things that are in your community where you can go out and help.
It doesn’t, it doesn’t take a lot. You can, it’s equal sacrifice, equal time, but get involved, find out, don’t put your head in the sand. Look around, see what you can do to help. But right now we need equality more than ever. We need hope more than ever. We need care. We need people to join together to work on this, all of this.
So I’d say get, get going, move forward. Get involved. Amazing. And then go on the website. Go on your website, my website. We’ve got books, we’ve got podcasts, we’ve got information for everyone. So drnancyoreilly. com or Dr. Women Connect for Good. You get on there and you get involved. Amazing. And then of course the Lift Women Up campaign, Lift campaign, join that.
Lift as you rise. When you’re lifting yourself, you rise with somebody else. Wouldn’t that be wonderful if everybody, when they’re doing something great, they bring somebody else along with them. What would the world be like? Hmm. Pretty nice. Love it. I think that, well, Dr. Nancy, thank you so much for inviting us out here today.
I think, thanks for letting Mission Matters come into your, your, your personal area and your equestrian center and to be a part of this. So we appreciate all you do. I’m glad you all came. The horses were just perfect for you. so much. so much. We’ve had a great day at the Southern California Equestrian Center, visiting Dr.
Nancy, talking about our book that we have coming out with, Women Connect for Good. Hey, thank you so much. Tune in next time.
