The Power of Storytelling - Episode 34
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Welcome back to The Power of Storytelling!
Maghan, Mayuko and Victoria - thank you for sharing your stories, your words, and your journey with all of us.
This week’s episode reminded me that we arrive at our work, businesses we build, creations we create, through following our joy, passions and inspiration. That journey isn’t always easy, and it’s often in the moments of difficulty, sickness, confusion, and setbacks that we find our true purpose, our true joy, and our true mission to share with the world. Trust the timing of your setbacks, trust the timing of your growth, and trust the timing of your joy.
It’s truly my honor to share the stories and provide the space here to share a little bit more about the women behind these words. I encourage you to check out Maghan, Mayuko and Victoria after you listen to this week’s new episode.
*Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this episode are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of Seek The Joy Podcast.
Founded by Maghan Morin and Jeanine Suah, Thynk Global invites minority women and their allies, both male and female entrepreneurs of all ethnicities, to network, get organized, collaborate and grow their business, all for a fraction of the cost of most coworking spaces. Currently they are offering free space to displaced workers for two months. This will continue even after we are out of quarantine.
In addition to empowering young entrepreneurs, founders Morin and Suah hope to combat gentrification in the neighborhoods in which they open their coworking spaces. Through Thynk Global, they aim to help these communities by creating high-quality hubs that promote socio-economic inclusion. By offering monthly memberships as low as $87, they provide affordable options to young entrepreneurs and up-and-coming professionals.
With Thynk Global, Morin and Suah set out to create a welcoming space where makers, creators and innovators can “thynk” beyond limits and produce their best work, and they’ve done just that. The 3,000-square-foot warehouse, featuring sleek modern furniture and pops of color throughout, sparks creativity immediately upon entering. The space has been designed with their members’ (who are aptly named “thynkers”) needs in mind, packed with amenities including an in-house kitchen, concierge service, a meeting room, mail delivery service, an outdoor garden and more. To further support its thynkers, Thynk Global is the first coworking space in Miami to feature a Pop-Up Retail Shop to showcase thynker’s products and brands, which the public is invited to shop from.
However, at Thynk Global, thynkers get more than just a space; they inherit new professional connections and friends who challenge them to do better and be better. Thynk Global also hosts free, year round workshops led by experts for thynkers, including classes on financial literacy, business marketing, branding and more. Additionally, community-building events like Painting with a Twist, allow thynkers to further build interpersonal relationships.
“Jeanine and I call ourselves servant leaders, as entrepreneurs we’re all servant leaders, and what brings us the most joy is when success stories come out of our spaces. When we see someone leave their 9-to-5 and open up their business, and is able to sustain themselves, that’s what brings us the most joy.”
Mayuko Okai is an Intuitive Eating coach with over ten years of experience as a Registered Dietitian. In her past life, she was a clinical dietitian, seeing over a dozen patients a day in the hospital.
Telling sick or injured patients the foods that they couldn't have in their restrictive diets and encouraging them to down supplemental shakes 3 times a day was not my idea of helping people become healthy.
Growing up, Mayuko always sensed that her purpose was to help others find good health and happiness. Hearing about people becoming terminally ill, she felt a calling to help prevent such tragic stories. In 2009 she started her career as a Clinical Dietitian at one of the largest public hospitals in the country. But Mayuko hopes quickly crumbled as she spent her days reciting nutrition spiels to patients at their bedside. Her role didn't feel valuable or reflective of my calling.
She knew there was much more out there for her. One day, she found that listening to patients and connecting to them on an emotional level was much more appreciated than nutrition education. This stuck with her for the years to come as she stayed in healthcare, still lost in her path. She struggled feeling out of place for many years, until she found yoga. When she decided to deepen her yoga practice and took up teacher training, everything shifted. Through yoga philosophy, she faced her higher truth and decided to take her path into her own hands. In 2017 she left healthcare to pursue her passion and allowed her intuition to guide her. She then studied intuitive eating, which aligned perfectly with her beliefs on the mind-body-spirit approach to wellness.
“One day I was feeling unsettled and I rolled out my yoga mat. Standing in mountain pose, closed my eyes, and breathed. I felt instant relief and at that moment I knew that this was something I needed to study. Yoga teacher training was a magical experience, and the biggest realization I had was so simple: truth. It was loud and clear that I was not living my truth and that I needed to do something about it. ”
Victoria Albina is a Certified Life Coach and Certified Breathwork Meditation Facilitator with a passion for helping women with their most important relationship: the one with themselves. She’s also a nurse practitioner and functional medicine expert with a Master’s degree in Public Health as well as a certified breathwork facilitator, an herbalist, a life coach, and the host of the Feminist Wellness podcast.
She is UCSF-trained Family Nurse Practitioner, has a Masters degree in Public Health from Boston University School of Public Health and a BA in Latin American Studies from Oberlin College. She has been working in health & wellness for over 20 years and has a passion for helping women to heal mind, body and spirit.
In today’s episode, Victoria shares her journey coming to this work after a lifetime of being sick, and her realization that her mindset, thoughts, and sense of self were all at the core of her health issues. After a lifetime of co-dependent and perfectionist thinking, she decided it was time to make a change. Keeping others happy with her, and approving of her, was more important than her joy. She kept coming up short, because she wasn’t in alignment with her own authentic self. She was living for other people, and it showed in her physical and mental health. It wasn’t until she learned to listen deeply to her body, to feel her feelings, which she had been expertly avoiding for decades, how to understand and give love to her nervous system responses, and that her thoughts create her feelings, that everything began to shift.
“I came to realize just how much my patient’s mindset, their sense of self, their stories about themselves and their health, their identity as sick people, as broken, as people in need of healing, was holding them back. What they really needed was to know in their bones that they are their own medicine, that each of us has the power to heal ourselves from the inside out. There is no physical health without mental health, and if you’re not your number one priority, you’re no one’s number one priority.”
To connect with Maghan and Thynk Global visit their website www.thynkglobal.com and on Instagram @thynkglobal Facebook @thynkglobal and Twitter @thynkglobal
To connect with Mayuko and learn more about her 90 Day Intuitive Eating Coaching Program visit her website www.mayukookai.com and on Instagram @mayukookai.rd and you can find her Facebook support group here
To learn more about Victoria, her free meditations, and her work visit her website https://victoriaalbina.com and on Instagram @victoriaalbinawellness and on Facebook @VictoriaAlbinaWellness
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