Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Jo Miller. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Jo, so good to have you with us today. We’ve always been impressed with folks who have a very clear sense of purpose and so maybe we can jump right in and talk about how you found your purpose?
It’s been a long circuitous journey trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life and how I was supposed to get there. My family moved to an Amish lifestyle when I was 9 years old, and I proceeded to then spend the next decade of life there, until the age of 20-which was not just a huge chunk of my life, but also such a formative time of life too. My parents were already homeschooling us before the move, but had planned on further education and college for us. Once the move into the community happened, what education we were receiving declined even further and stopped completely after 8th grade. While I still didn’t expect to do anything outside the life I was accustomed to at that point, I knew I didn’t want to just stop learning and be done with school, so I continued studying on my own the best I could. I borrowed books from the library, I used old college textbooks, & I asked people to teach me whatever they knew & were strong at. I left the Amish lifestyle at 20, and moved out of my parents’ home shortly after, but the lack of support I experienced made it difficult to attempt college (although I did attempt it several times). So, the independent learning skills I had gathered during my “high school experience” continued to be important as I began to navigate early adulthood in the outside world. While each job seemed to just be a holdover on my way to something else (just what, I wasn’t sure), and my lack of formal education played a part in that, they did all give me a foothold in the process of trying to figure out who I was and what I wanted to do. I went above & beyond in every job, no matter how small, to learn as much as I could and figure out how to leverage what I learned into the next job.
Throughout all of this, I began to recognize that fashion (which I had never had access to in the past) was a special interest of mine. I had been sewing and handcrafting from a fairly young age, and I really enjoyed the process of designing and creating a brand new garment. It wasn’t until about 7 years ago though that I realized that that could also be a career, but as soon as I did I began to research what I needed to, and looked for training and mentorship. My old experience of teaching myself came in handy yet again as I began reading & learning anything and everything I could my hands on. I was very intentional about networking both professionally and socially (which was whole other struggle on its own because I had little to no experience doing that), I looked for events to attend, I signed up for mentorships and classes and anything else I could find that was even tangentially related to the fashion industry. I went on to create a business, and begin to create a fashion brand of my own, but during that process and through some of the contacts I made while networking I began to realize that what I really enjoyed doing was sharing the knowledge & experience I myself had obtained. I especially found enjoyment and fulfillment when working with others who themselves had limited access to the industry and little to no education or experience themselves.
A little over three years ago, I was offered a job teaching at a public community college-despite still having no formal degree of my own-based on the overwhelming amount of experience & knowledge I had accumulated over the years. I continued to network where and how I could, continuing to build relationships with professionals and executives both inside and outside the fashion industry, and utilizing those connections to impact not just myself but now my own students as well-many of whom came from backgrounds that otherwise might not have given them the access and financial opportunity to pursue a fashion career.
During this time, I was also diagnosed with ADHD and autism, which explains some of job movements & difficulty finding my place, but also why I was so curious and hyper-focused. I began working with a therapist to understand myself better, explain why I loved this particular career path so much, and clarify how to continue and succeed at my goals.
As my own ambitions and career opportunities have expanded, so has the impact that I am able to make as a legitimate fashion professional. I had already been running an internship/training program for a few years even before beginning my position at the college, and I began researching how to create an outright workforce development program. I mentioned my thoughts and goals to the director of a local non-profit and, over the course of the 2 past years, slowly began to clarify my mission. That dream came to fruition recently with the launch of a fashion retail workforce development program through this organization where I will be the Program Coordinator and which has been approved by the city and county I am. The program aims to train, produce, and place highly skilled & certified retail workers who know their craft and move more easily into management positions and more. I also launched a consultancy that aims to assist fashion related organizations, brands, and individuals with access, accountability, training, and support; in addition, I began making myself more available for interviews and speaking engagements, something that I had previously somewhat avoided due to social anxiety and imposter syndrome.
Between my professorial position at the college, the Workforce Development Coordinator position, and my continued personal research and education, I feel confident with where I’ve landed, and that my purpose and mission is to provide accessible and affordable educational opportunities to others like myself who didn’t know that working in the fashion industry could be an option for them as well. I’ll never stop educating myself as much as I can though, and look forward to what the future holds for me in these missions for myself. “It’s always something, to know you’ve done the most you could. But don’t leave off hoping, or it’s of no use doing anything. Hope, hope to the last.” — Charles Dickens
Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
As I mentioned when talking about finding my purpose, I have focused my attention on continuing to grow my own experience and education, as well as working in my mission to provide education/information about and access to the fashion industry. I recently returned to college after several failed attempts, and am now pursuing my own degree(s) while continuing to teach at one myself. It has been an interesting prospect, to juggle both lesson planning and lesson taking, but I’m so excited to finally have that option made available to me. I plan on focusing my formal education on aspects of the industry itself, but also on educational expertise as well as workforce development specialization. In addition to my college instructor position, I have begun accepting more speaking engagements and leadership opportunities, such as my board responsibilities with the fashion DEI focused organization Passport 2 Fashion. I have launched an eponymous consulting agency (Melissa Jochele) where I am on a personal mission to democratize the fashion industry, ensuring that individuals and brands who are often overlooked or encounter barriers find their rightful place within it. My own background, originating from an Amish community with limited educational and career opportunities, coupled with the additional challenges of dealing with ADHD and Autism, has given me profound insights into the struggles faced by creative entrepreneurs, particularly in the traditionally exclusive realm of fashion. My life journey has been marked by experiences of trauma, scarcity of resources, self-discovery, and the enduring challenges of chronic pain and medical issues. These encounters serve as the driving force behind my unwavering commitment to champion inclusive education, design, and ethical business practices within the fashion industry.
My ultimate aspiration is to bring about substantial change in the lives of individuals, both in my immediate community and on a broader scale. As I embark on this new role as a consultant, I am dedicated to advancing my personal mission, fully aware that the more resources I receive, the greater impact I can have by providing pro bono services to those who still need them.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
I’m not sure if yearning would be considered a “quality”, but I do credit much of where I am to my yearning for more: more education, more professional qualities, more opportunities. Despite all the setbacks I’ve experienced over the years, that has never changed even when I’ve felt incredibly discouraged. Layered on top of that yearning has been persistence. All the dreaming in the world can’t and won’t bring you the opportunities without the persistence to continue slogging through the mud to get there. I may not alway have know how to get where I wanted to go, but I continued on regardless. It wasn’t always at the same pace, and sometimes felt like it was actually the wrong direction, but I had at least a vague idea of what I ultimately wanted and tried my best to redirect myself as I could.
Thirdly, a willingness to acknowledge my weak areas and look for assistance has served me well. I want to know how to improve, I want to know what someone else did differently, I even want to know what opportunities a person received and then figure out if I can reverse engineer it to figure out what might work for me.
I think all three of these are important for anyone else feeling stuck in their journey. If you can take the time to sit down and take stock of what your yearning is for, what your weak areas are, who can help with them, and then what steps to take to move that direction (even if they’re baby steps right now), it will go such a long way in developing your own mission and career. Not everyone has the same opportunities in life, but everyone can cultivate these internal goals for themselves and they will only serve you in your personal and professional development.
Who has been most helpful in helping you overcome challenges or build and develop the essential skills, qualities or knowledge you needed to be successful?
I’ve been really lucky to have a few supportive people in my court, but I would say right now it’s all of my current bosses. Coral Wedel is a designer and fellow educator who runs the fashion program where I teach, and she has been so incredibly instrumental in both supporting me as a newbie educator but also as a student myself. She saw my potential and has done nothing but encourage and support it from day one in any way she could, even if it had the potential of disrupting or affecting my work at the college. The executive director of Columbus Fashion Alliance, Yohannan Terrell, is the other. He has been instrumental in helping me bring my workforce dream to life, being the person out sharing the vision and getting support I wouldn’t have had access to on my own, and speaking my name in rooms that I may not have otherwise been in.
The third person started out as a boss too, in a sense. She was in charge of the volunteer marketing team I was on during a stint with Fashion Week Columbus, and we became close friends-probably one of my closest ever, in fact. We routinely send each other opportunities, speak about each other where and when we can, and work together to build Passport 2 Fashion which was HER dream-a non-profit dedicated to celebrating diversity and empowering others through fashion.
All three of these individuals have personally invested in me, my dreams, and getting me closer to my goals, and I couldn’t have asked for a better support team.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.mellissajochele.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/mellissajochele
- Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/mellissa-jochele-miller
Image Credits
Aditi Bhatiya, Coral Wedel, Eric Gatchalian
