[00:00:00] Walter: The Hearts of Gold podcast is brought to you by the Grow and Share Network, produced by Off The Walter Media.
[00:00:10] Sheryl: Welcome to Hearts of Gold. Today we have Erika with us. Hi, Erika.
[00:00:15] Erika: Hi, so glad to be here.
[00:00:17] Sheryl: Can you tell us about your Girl Scout Gold Award project?
[00:00:20] Erika: Absolutely. It was a while ago, but I did what one of my amazing troop leaders suggested, and I followed my passion.
[00:00:31] So I’ve always been a dancer. It’s been one of my outlets creatively that has connected me to kind of my bigger purpose and I’ve been dancing since I was three. So by the time it was gold award project time, I tapped directly into that. I said, I love dancing, but I also love working with children. And so as a child myself, as a high school teenager I had been like, kind of thinking about, okay, maybe I want to work with eight year olds or nine year olds, well, even seven year olds.
[00:01:05] And the idea of merging, working with children with dancing to me was like, Oh, just, just magical. So I put the two of those together and I said, okay, I think I want to teach underserved underprivileged kids. Girls and boys, anyone who’s interested in dancing, I think I want to teach them dancing. So a little bit of backstory on my dance career up until being a teenager.
[00:01:34] I started when I was three, like I said, but then I also kind of had my foot in every kind of dance genre there was. So I had studied. Ballet, tap, jazz, African dance and even gymnastics and hip hop. So I was kind of like a dancing nerd, if you want to say that, because I like would wear that crown happily because that was definitely me.
[00:02:01] And I wanted to make sure that young kids who didn’t have access to the arts had an opportunity to learn. I mean, just as much as I had learned up to that point. And it was an ambitious goal because I was interested in working with kids who’ve not danced before professionally, like been taught by professional teachers.
[00:02:24] And so I was like, I can do this. Like dancing is, is something that we love to do. So we’re all going to get it. Okay. But I was wrong, but that’s not the point. The point is we had a ton of fun doing it. So. The project ended up being centered around, I’m from Chicago. So kids on the near West side of Chicago who were part of a group of social service agencies.
[00:02:49] And a lot of the kids I ended up working with were in this afterschool, this pre afterschool program. And the kids were phenomenal. I like to say they taught me more about dance and about life than I taught them because they really opened my heart. And they made me believe in unconditional love again.
[00:03:09] And as a teenage, as a teenager, well, let’s just say I’d had my little heart broken by my first little boyfriend. And a couple of my girlfriends weren’t like my girlfriends anymore. We’d had the falling out. And so I was a little bit bitter just about love. But they taught me that love comes in all shapes and sizes and keeping your heart open is what moves the needle.
[00:03:33] And so as far as the project is concerned, I ended up doing dance classes with them for about a year and then we did a big concert series, like a big recital slash concert series for the social service agencies, and then we opened it up to the community at large, and it was. Phenomenal. We had ensemble dance pieces.
[00:03:57] We had solo pieces. There was even toward the end, I got up there. There was a a dance number where I got up and I performed with them in the background, but I was up there on stage with them and that was probably my favorite. Yeah, and it was, it was incredible. I ended up also writing about it.
[00:04:15] For a class project, because it, it kind of changed me. Well, not kind of, it definitely changed me. And I stayed in touch with some of those kiddos and I’m even friends with them on Facebook, a couple of them now. So I was often reminded of the impact that I had on them. So many of them went on to continue dancing in high school and some of them in college.
[00:04:38] And that was my original goal. Was to open them to the arts, but the long term goal that I didn’t really expect is for them to become ambassadors, to become conduits of the arts not just dancing. And that was, that was kind of like, wow, this had a tremendous impact, one much bigger than I anticipated.
[00:04:57] And then the little final bow on top of that was that. I stayed around at the social service agency and I offered dance classes for like, I don’t know, maybe a few more years until I think I became too overwhelmed with what I was working on when I came home from college. So I, I definitely loved it enough that I stayed on.
[00:05:20] But there was demand for it, which for me was just like a chef’s kiss. So, yeah, so I did that in college instead of doing. Kind of the standard internships, I did that during the summers and I don’t think I would do anything differently except if I were doing a gold award project today, I would definitely do something that centered around mental health.
[00:05:44] But what I’ve learned is that having an outlet creatively has been able to sustain tons of kiddos. With their own wellness or their own mental health, whether it be writing, journaling, dancing, singing, performing it’s a tremendous outlet for you know, folks who are dealing with anxiety or with depression or other mental health challenges.
[00:06:06] And so in the back of my mind, I like to say I still had some sort of foot or toe in the mental health space with my goal to work project, but I loved it. I loved it. I think that I got probably more out of it than the kiddos did.
[00:06:19] Sheryl: Do you remember any of the challenges that you had during your project and how did you overcome them?
[00:06:24] Erika: There was so many challenges, primarily because a program like this didn’t exist at the social service agency prior to me saying, Hey, I want to I want to do this thing and I have this, this vision. So there were a myriad of challenges. First was budget. The first was money, which is a big challenge that a lot of folks have when they’re trying to launch something new.
[00:06:45] And so I ended up spending a lot of money out of my own pocket, which I didn’t regret at the end of it all, because we needed things like costumes and we needed like stage props and we needed someone to, to run the music for us during the actual performance and, and I also ended up. Doing a lot of fundraising, which was great because it strengthened my understanding of crowdfunding is, you know, what we would call it today, but to really understand how to tap into a target demographic around this specific niche area.
[00:07:22] Folks who would be willing to say, Oh, my gosh, I definitely believe in that. Or I’ve had experience with dance or I grew up dancing. Let me contribute to you accessing making it accessible for these particular kids. So most of the challenges revolve around money. A lot of the challenges revolve around commitment, because these were kids who were not used to seeing something through for an extended amount of time because of other things they had going on in their lives not necessarily because they didn’t want to show up and, and.
[00:07:53] Be available for the amount of time that I needed, but because they had other commitments, they had oftentimes help out at home or they were needed to babysit, or I think that I had not necessarily taken into account when I started the program. So I had to learn how to be flexible, and I had to learn how to be empathetic and compassionate in a way that I hadn’t prior to working on this project.
[00:08:21] Like I told you, they. They helped me grow probably much more than I was able to help them, especially as a teenage girl. So yeah, those were the, the two biggest challenges that we faced.
[00:08:33] Sheryl: Sometimes working with social service agencies while serving a population that is in such need can have its own challenges.
[00:08:42] How did you Connect with the social service agencies and get them on board with what you wanted to do with your project?
[00:08:50] Erika: I am a big proponent of tapping into your network. So this was a social service agency, the primary one, where my dad was the executive director. So that made it, that made the initial hurdle of getting in the door easier.
[00:09:05] So I suggest to anyone who is contemplating what kind of project they want. To think about what do you already have access to if I would have gone blindly into a social service agency, finding the right person to have this conversation with would have been a challenge and then getting them to buy into my project and then getting.
[00:09:26] Some of the resources necessary, like space and days of the week where we could practice would have been additional hurdles. But because he was the executive director, I knew a lot of the staff members already and they knew that I was an avid dancer and that I was, I was schooled enough in this area where it would be, you know, viable for me to then turn around as an expert and teach their kids.
[00:09:51] So literally think about who you already have access to, that could be your teacher, that could be your principal, that could be a family member, it could even be next door neighbors you utilize the network that already exists. And stretch your mind and think about what you want to be doing for your gold award project and then develop those relationships.
[00:10:13] Now, if you don’t have them already, and then nurture them so that when it’s time for you to knock on the door for you, it may be as as. Far away as a simple email or even a phone call. So that’s how I got in and that made it easier, but I will say that it also put another level of pressure on me because they’re all watching me very closely, like, we know you say you can do this, we know you, so we’re going to.
[00:10:43] We’re, we’re going to expect something great and I did the best that well, I’ll just say I put my heart into it and so that made it that made it better than I could have ever anticipated.
[00:10:53] Sheryl: You mentioned the kiddos have changed you. How else did the Gold Award impact you after the project was over? And how has it continued to impact you where you are now?
[00:11:06] Erika: It definitely changed me in ways that I didn’t expect emotionally. I, I thought I understood challenges and obstacles that people experience every day. And this is me as a teenager thinking, oh, I understand. I get it. I totally, I totally however. Once I fell in love with them, everything changed for me.
[00:11:32] I became less of, we got to learn these routines. We have to learn these dance numbers because we have this big concert recital coming up. It became less about that and more about what do you need from me? How can I support you? How can I be an advocate for you? How can I share with you what I know or what I’ve learned in my, I don’t know, 16 years of life and ensure that.
[00:11:58] You have the capacity to get up and present to the world in such a way that makes you positioned to win, but not to win at dancing or to win at this recital that we’re doing, but to win at the game of life. And I had not expected that they would stretch me emotionally that way. I went home thinking about their stories, thinking about their challenges, thinking about the world within which they existed, which was very different than the way I had been experiencing the world up to that point.
[00:12:36] So when I say it gave me another layer of compassion
[00:12:39] and empathy and understanding I was definitely changed after that. I understood very clearly why my dad did the work that he did his entire career. And it also gave me another level of respect for him, as well as the rest of the staff who I saw as worker bees who kept this machine going, I now saw, saw them as teacher leaders because I understood the ways in which the kiddos looked up to them.
[00:13:07] That being said, it also changed me and strengthened my leadership skills being in charge of little ones for an hour. However, many times a week we were meeting you know, essentially made me a leader and. Whether I liked it or not, that came with a ton of responsibility or something as simple as the tone of voice I use when I spoke to them to giving them hugs, telling them I believe in them, really seeing them and not just looking at them, understanding on a cerebral, but also at emotional level what they bring into the space after the days that they’ve had, since I’ve seen them last.
[00:13:49] All of this attributed to the teacher leader that I became. It made me at that level of, of life want to be an entrepreneur. And I did not anticipate years later. That that specific experience would have been the catalyst for me to say, Hey, I want to be a boss because I want to create culture and I want to assist in the experience that the people around me have in this thing that we’re doing, no matter what that thing is in that scenario, it was dancing and creating a concert together.
[00:14:28] In my life today, it is very much impacting people as young as eight years old all the way to seniors in their 70s and 80s around mental health and mental fitness and wellness.
[00:14:43] Sheryl: And what has your journey been since your gold award to where you are today?
[00:14:49] Erika: It’s been quite a journey, Sheryl, it’s been quite a journey.
[00:14:56] So you’ve heard me mention that mental health is really important to me a couple of times already. Primarily because I was and am still challenged with clinical depression, bipolar disorder, and generalized and social anxiety. As a result, I’m also a suicide survivor. Many moons ago, I was crippled by depression and had no hope for tomorrow.
[00:15:23] And I had to learn the hard way that it was okay to not be okay. And once I got to that place then the the dominoes started to fall into place, and then we could not Every hurdle down one by one by one a little bit of backstory about me is that when I was in college, well, in high school, but in college, I was diagnosed as a sophomore with clinical acute depression, but I can look back as far as being eight years old, struggling with depression and anxiety.
[00:15:57] I was in sister Joyce’s 3rd grade class and she had a 2nd story classroom and I jumped out of the window and I did it because the little voice in my head told me to, I was restless and anxious and I was overwhelmed with the desire to. Not only to listen to this voice, but to escape. And when we talk about being a Girl Scout in high school and thinking about things like the Silver Award or the Gold Award or the Merion Award I was in the midst of severe depression.
[00:16:31] For me in high school, I was that kid that had to have an A with the plus sign behind the letter A. Pretty much all four years of high school, and when I was a freshman, the staff and faculty voted me freshman of the year, and as a senior, I was voted senior class president. I was national honor society.
[00:16:52] I was in the drama and the theater club. I was a cheerleader and a dancer. But I also missed more days of school than any student enrolled for all 4 years and that’s a big. Sign slash symptom that something is not is not. Okay. Something happening needs to be addressed. There needs to be some sort of intervention, serious sit down conversation because my, my freshman, sophomore, junior and senior year, I had more absences and I’d wake up in the morning.
[00:17:22] My mom would say, instead of it’s time to get up and go to school today. She’d say. Hey kiddo, are we going to school today? Because it had become that common in my household that I just can’t do it. I can’t, I felt empty and helpless and hopeless. I felt like a loser and a failure. Well, there was this tape on a rewind in my mind told me that I wasn’t enough.
[00:17:43] And no matter what I did, I’d never be good enough. I wasn’t short enough, tall enough, skinny enough, fat enough, black enough, purple enough, white enough, yellow enough. I wasn’t enough. I wasn’t, I wasn’t enough. And, I didn’t tell anyone most of that time because I was afraid of what folks would say about me.
[00:18:01] How they judge me, what they think about me, and I think more than anything, I was afraid that they called me the C word. Crazy. I know that girl is crazy. I knew she was crazy. I’ve always known she was the C word. And I kept my head down today. We know that word to be stigma, but the stigma around what I was experiencing, my relationship with my mental health and the world around me was crippled.
[00:18:24] And I did not say anything. So there were no steps, tools, or resources with which I could utilize to improve that relationship with my mental health, but I was a great student. So I kept my head down and I did the work all the way to Stanford university, where my freshman year. I thrive very much like my freshman year in high school, but my sophomore year the voices in my head kicked in again and told me that it was better for me to sabotage.
[00:18:51] And as a result, I ended up trying to take my life. And it wasn’t for my mom flying across the country to Stanford to pack me up and bring me home and admit me to the hospital where I was diagnosed with severe acute clinical depression. I don’t know what would have happened to me. I always say she’s my number one cheerleader.
[00:19:10] I do my best now at this stage in my life to take care of her every need because she literally saved my life. But even at 19, I wasn’t ready to accept that there was something wrong with my brain, that this brain pain I was experiencing. Was real because that would mean that I really was the C word in my mind.
[00:19:32] And so I did a lot of self medicating. I drank a lot of beer and instead of being on the trials of medication to help me with my brain pain the side effects were really heavy for me. And so we got to the point where I said, no more minutes. And so I self medicated, which sent me down an even deeper spiral.
[00:19:55] It was a nurse. I was in outpatient therapy one day. After another attempt on my life and the nurse stopped me and asked me what I love to do. And I told her I love to dance and she’s let’s think about how we can incorporate that into your life today. And I’m like, okay, let’s think about it. And I came back to her and I was like, I figured it out.
[00:20:15] I’m going to be an NBA Chicago Bulls cheerleader. And she kind of looked at me like, what? Like she, she thought that maybe I was having a manic episode and having delusions of grandeur and. Spoiler alert, I became a Chicago Bulls NBA cheerleader after months and months of training and conditioning and getting back to my roots of dancing.
[00:20:37] And that experience saved my life also, because I was thinking of another plan to hurt myself, but all the conditioning and the training. It gave me a goal while also helping to increase the feel good chemicals in my brain. And as a result, I couldn’t think about hurting myself because I was too busy thinking about achieving this big goal that I’d kind of had since I was eight years old.
[00:21:06] And my dad would take me to the Chicago Bulls games and we’d sit in nosebleed and I’d have the binoculars looking at the cheerleaders and he’d be fighting me for them to watch Michael Jordan. It was a dream come true. I will say many years later, I was able to tackle my mental health challenges and really figure out how to fit the square of me into the circle of life.
[00:21:30] I, I got to the point after about 10 years of denial where I. Decided to understand what I needed to be anchored in wellness to be anchored in what I call my happy and a lot of the things I learned while I was training to become an NBA cheerleader. Were essential and so I have these 10 things that I have to do and a lot of them revolve around holistic things like exercising and eating well and listening to uplifting music and having a dynamic support squad around me where my mom is the VIP member of my support squad, even today.
[00:22:14] And there are other things, but I decided to spend my time touring the country, ensuring that everyone has the tools and resources necessary to stay anchored in their happy and their wellness. And so I put a tour together. And it’s called who moves my happy and today I’ve been doing it about 1011 years now and today I traveled the country talking to audiences of all sizes.
[00:22:40] Some of my bigger clients are the U. S. military, the army and the air force. Colleges and universities too many to name from Stanford University to historically black colleges and universities and everybody in between. Kraft Heinz has been one of my clients along with my favorite client, the Girl Scouts of America.
[00:23:06] And I talked to audiences of all ages and all sizes about. What it means to have a very strong mental fitness game plan and the overachiever in me decided to put a little pamphlet together with those 10 things that I have to do to stay well, because so many folks would say, hey, how are you a Stanford graduate with an MBA and you are.
[00:23:32] A Chicago Bulls cheerleader, and yet you are challenged with severe depression and bipolar disorder and anxiety, and you’re a suicide survivor. And I’d say, well, I have these 10 things that I do, and I would say it so many times that I would make a pamphlet. And that overachiever in me ended up with this big old workbook that goes everywhere with me.
[00:23:54] It’s called home of my happy and every event where I speak, it sells out because it’s just the coolest little gift to ourselves and our loved ones. And so I take a lot of the things that I learned as a teacher leader working on my gold award project with my kiddos that I fell deeply in love with. And I share those things with my audiences today as.
[00:24:18] A leader in the mental health, the mental fitness or the wellness space.
[00:24:23] Sheryl: In addition to the workbook you just shared, you’ve written some other books, including middle school books. Can you tell us about your other books?
[00:24:32] Erika: Take you back a little bit. I had a two book deal with Random House and I was writing women’s contemporary fiction and I loved it, but I often felt like I wanted to write for a younger audience.
[00:24:46] And I thought that if I could have a mental health thread. Sewn into this fabulous, hilarious, funny adventure and do that for middle grade kiddos. How incredibly exciting would that be? And so they’d get this great fun story, but they’d also get tools and resources around how to micromanage their own mental health, their own wellness, or be an ambassador for their friend circles or their support squads or their families.
[00:25:20] And I decided that I was going to go for it. So I had to get a new agent who represented middle grade books and I have the best agent. And she thought it was just a phenomenal idea. And she fell in love with my first book, which is called squad goals. And this book is set in the world of, you guessed it.
[00:25:40] Cheerleading and dancing, so I was able to merge all of my passions into one. And this story is fantastic. This is a bestseller. It was an Amazon bestseller in its category. And it’s about Magic Olive Poindexter, who comes from a family of great dancers. Her mom was an NBA cheerleader for the LA Lakers and her big sister is one now.
[00:26:03] And she’s in the seventh grade or she’s about to start and she wants to be a cheerleader and she’s got to go to cheerleading camp. And she meets this group of fabulous misfit friends. And together, I won’t say if they all make the team or not, but they have this incredible adventure. And one of the girls.
[00:26:23] It’s dealing with it will helps magic deal with some situational depression and gives her tools and resources. Now my second book is called Cookie Monsters, Cookie Monsters. And we are in the middle of Girl Scout cookie season right now. So that tells you kind of the backstory for the second book, Cookie Monsters.
[00:26:46] This is set in the world of Scally. As you can see, they’ve got their sashes with all their Q badges. And this is about a cookie war. The main character, Brooklyn, goes up against the new transfer student, Piper Parker. And Piper is determined to take the cookie crown right off of Brooklyn’s head. And I won’t say if our girl Brooklyn becomes the cookie queen of her district or not, but I will say that Brooklyn deals with grief, having lost her mom to cancer about a year before the story takes place, and also generalized anxiety.
[00:27:20] And she’s not excited about going to therapy until she goes to therapy and the therapist gives her incredible tools, resources, and all kinds of wellness things she can use to combat her anxiety. And our little Brooklyn becomes an ambassador for wellness, for mental fitness. And then she teaches her girlfriend some of the things that she’s learned.
[00:27:43] So any reader. Anywhere can get access to anti anxiety tools to combat generalized anxiety, a little social anxiety, or even just feeling overwhelmed or stressed. They can learn exactly what Brooklyn learned and take it into their worlds immediately after reading it on the page. My favorite thing about Cookie Monsters is that there are actual therapy sessions on the pages.
[00:28:08] So my goal is to normalize therapy and de stigmatize it because I believe personally that everyone breathing should be in some sort of therapy because life gets sticky and knowing how to navigate that can set us up to win at the game of life. Then lastly, I have a new book, Insta Famous. And this book comes out in October, and I’m super excited about it because our characters from Squad Goals pop up here and there, and our characters from Cookie Monsters pop up here and there, so all the gang is in Insta Famous.
[00:28:46] This takes place, not in the world of cheerleading or cookie scales, cookie sales, this takes place in musical theater. So our girl Lyric, Whitney Houston Daugherty is an aspiring singer and she’s incredible. And she wants to audition for a reality singing competition on television. But in order to do that, she’s got to have industry experience.
[00:29:13] And so she’s got to do the play at school, which is The Wiz. And of course, she just has to be Dorothy. I’ll just say that she gets an opportunity to audition for the TV show, which we see throughout the story. And she’s simultaneously preparing to be Dorothy for the big opening night. And let’s just say she’s got some big choices to make in the end of that all, but she’s got her squad, her theater squad, just like Brooklyn had her cookie squad, just like magic had her cheerleading squad.
[00:29:48] And the universe is for me, like phenomenal because they all go to the same school, Valentine middle school. And I suggest that anyone between the ages of 7 and 13 who wants to dive into a super fun, hilarious story that also gives you tools and resources to pick up one of the books Lyric deals with.
[00:30:13] Situational depression and then her best friend, Georgia has undiagnosed ADHD. So for all the kiddos out there who are struggling, you get actual therapy sessions on the pages in this book also to help you deal with being focused more and also organized more. And also some additional tools for anxiety when that pops up because you’re not able to concentrate or you’re easily distracted.
[00:30:39] As well as tools to deal with situational depression or feeling abandoned or rejected or just like you don’t fit in.
[00:30:47] Sheryl: What motivated you to focus on writing those amazing middle school books?
[00:30:52] Erika: After touring the country and speaking in high schools and middle schools and Lehman Colleges. That if I could tackle mental health, wellness, mental fitness at a younger age, that by the time they got to 8th grade, 9th grade, 10th grade, or even college, they’d already have access to wellness.
[00:31:16] They’d already be more inclined to say, hey, I’m not doing okay today. They’d be more apt to say. I need help while also being a strong proponent for creating language so that kiddos can have life saving conversations. That was really imperative to me. And so there’s language in all the books that kids lean into like mental fitness.
[00:31:44] They love that versus mental health. Then it’s kind of like, well, and if I say mental illness, they’re like, oh, no, no, no, no, that’s definitely not me. So giving them access to language that will assist them with articulating their own experiences with their mental health was one of the bigger reasons why I decided to write for this demographic, for this age group.
[00:32:06] And then lastly for me personally, when I would tour and I talked to adults when I was writing for Random House, I’d have my own anxiety. So dealing with that was a struggle sometimes, a big challenge. And when I talked to younger kids or kids, period. I’m on top of the world. I’m beyond excited. I feel right at home, right in my element.
[00:32:30] And like, this is my, this is my audience. And so it was just kind of a natural progression to make the leap to right middle grade. My agent and I are doing the final edit for the same kind of book, but for an even younger audience for 6 to 8 year olds. So it’s a, their first chapter book and it’s an awesome story with a very strong mental health.
[00:32:56] thread. And so we’re hoping to start a series with that. Because like I said, I want to get them as young as possible. So that by the time they’re in middle school and they pick up Cookie Monsters, they’re reading it, basically telling Brooklyn what she needs to be doing. That would be ideal. And I’m not going to stop until we make all of that happen.
[00:33:16] Sheryl: How can people find you? How can they know where you’re going to be speaking? Maybe doing a book tour in the fall? Where can they, where can they get you at?
[00:33:26] Erika: I always suggest Facebook or Instagram, like I’m, I’m a social media girl when it comes to promoting the books to to folks who I wouldn’t ordinarily run into, like, I don’t know, at the target.
[00:33:39] So I say my Instagram is Erica J. Kendrick. It’s literally my name that’s down here in the corner box. And then on Facebook, it’s just my first and last name. So Erica Kendrick and follow me there, but I also have a website. I will be updating that with everything Insta Famous. There’s a page for squad goals, a separate page for cookie monsters.
[00:34:08] And so Insta will be next. And my website is xo erica.com. Or if you wanna just keep it simple. It’s my name again, Erica j kendrick.com.
[00:34:21] Sheryl: And we’ll have all those links in the show notes.
[00:34:24] Erika: Perfect. But I do want to say that if you want to reach me, you just need to reach me. Maybe you want me to speak at your school or you want me to come and talk to your Girl Scouts.
[00:34:35] You can always email me and I’m on Gmail. It’s just Erica Kendrick at Gmail. Feel free to just shoot me an email. about mental health or about any of the books or about the workbook. I’m super accessible and I respond within 24 to 48 hours. This is what I do. And I feel very privileged and honored to be able to be of service to you.
[00:34:56] Sheryl: Thank you so much. This was so inspiring. I did have the privilege of seeing you at Girl Scout Convention in Orlando last. summer. And you were my by far away, my favorite speaker of the whole week. And
[00:35:10] I am honored that you agreed to be on my show.
[00:35:13] So thank you.
[00:35:14] Erika: Oh, no, you’re more than welcome. I appreciate it.
[00:35:17] Like I said, it truly is my privilege and my honor. I’m glad we could make this happen.
[00:35:22] Sheryl: Absolutely. Is there anything else that you’d like to share with the audience?
[00:35:26] Erika: Yes, one more time, it’s just me reiterating what I’ve already said. No matter what you’re going through or no matter what someone you love is going through, you and they are worth it.
[00:35:39] You and they are worth it too. When I say worth it, worth what? Worth saying. I’m not okay today. Worth saying, I need help or worth reaching out and saying, it’s just not a good day. You and they are worth it too. And then lastly, just a reminder. And no matter who you are, no matter how successful you are, no matter how people perceive you in the world around you, it’s always perfectly okay to not be okay.
[00:36:11] Sheryl: How do you make your s’mores?
[00:36:14] Erika: Okay, first of all, they’re vegan. I have to start by saying that. So my chocolate is vegan chocolate because my body is like vegan is it as much as I love my cheese and my dairy. But I put my s’mores I put my graham crackers, which I love first, and then I put my marshmallow second, and then I put my chocolate third, and then I smoosh it down as much as I possibly can without breaking the graham crackers, and then this is the key, guys.
[00:36:49] I shoved the whole thing into my mouth at once. Best smores ever..
[00:36:55] Sheryl: Again, thank you so much for being here today.
[00:36:59] Erika: You’re welcome. It’s been amazing. It’s been amazing. And you know how to find me. I’m always here if you need me.
[00:37:04] Sheryl: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Make sure to click follow or subscribe so you always know when new episodes are released.
[00:37:11] Power your passion and conquer your challenges.
[00:37:16] Walter: Thank you for listening. If you’d like to be on the show to share your story of how you earned your gold award, reach out and send an email to growandshare@outlook.com. Be sure to catch up on our previous shows on any of your favorite podcasting platforms, as well as view the full video versions youtube.com/SherylMrobinson.
[00:37:38] Erika: Thanks again for listening and we’ll see you next time.