We recently connected with Soufully STEMulated and have shared our conversation below.
Soufully , we’re so excited for our community to get to know you and learn from your journey and the wisdom you’ve acquired over time. Let’s kick things off with a discussion on self-confidence and self-esteem. How did you develop yours?
Joy Green: I attribute my confidence and self esteem to both parents and my best friend Norah.
My mother, to this very day is still the most confident person I know. As a child, I would admire how she would doll herself up, styling her hair in various ways, putting on her moisturizer, applying a deep red lipstick and brushing each cheek with a touch of blush. I would also witness her stopping at any mirror she’d see, whether in the house or out at a department store, staring back at her reflection and professing out loud, “God sure made a beautiful black woman when He made me.”
That always stuck with me as I began growing into my own. But sadly, I didn’t feel as pretty as my mom always had. You see, being dark skinned growing up in the late 80s, early 90s was not a badge of honor in my experience. Kids were so cruel and my complexion would always become the butt of every joke. No matter how often my mother affirmed me, showering me with compliments and pouring into me daily, those jokes about my skin tone truly ate away at my self esteem. I can remember telling my mother that if I was a lighter complexion, I wouldn’t get teased anymore.
And then I met Norah. We were two strangers in the lunch line, both relatively new to the school after starting mid semester for different reasons. I made a comment that hit home for her quite literally (it’s our little inside joke) which sparked our initial conversation. That then led to a discussion about complexions as we both exchanged compliments and stories about how the color of our skin always made us a target! This came as a complete shock to me because I thought only dark skinned people got made fun of. Norah is lightskinned and stunningly beautiful, so hearing her share almost identical experiences of being teased for her complexion and wanting to be darker was a true turning point for me. As we became closer, the negative views I had about myself began to fade and eventually disappear.
Finally, there’s my dad, who never misses an opportunity to tell me how beautiful I am. His token phrase goes something like “daughter, I will never begin to figure out how you’re able to get even prettier every time I see you”. Meanwhile, complimenting me is like complimenting himself since I look exactly like him! Sometimes, I even catch him staring at me and in that gaze, I can always tell how proud of me he truly is.
All in all, it truly took a lot of support for me to become as sure of myself as I am today. And NOW, oh baby YOU CANT TELL ME NOTHING!! I have enough confidence for the world and my cup continues to runneth over! This shows up in how I interact with my spouse, my family, my friends, and my clients! Thus, I am forever grateful for my tribe!
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Crystal Carter:
I grew up a high achieving, passive aggressive, people pleasing little black girl in the late 80s and 90s. I was not always confident and did not always have high self esteem, but I’ve always been an extrovert and was generally well liked. I remember being confident in my academic and social abilities – in essence – confident where I was competent. I liked being good at things and I liked how people viewed me because of my accomplishments. By high school, I learned that this posture was extrinsic confidence and not true confidence. After that realization something switched in my mind and movements. I realized confidence was more of ‘a feeling’ before ‘a doing’ and that you kind of have to fake it ‘til you make it; you have to constantly retrain your mind! I started believing that it meant more to just BE, independent from any praise, opinions and other external factors.
For me, that looked like not being afraid to adopt values or beliefs that were different than those enforced by family, friends or society as a whole and reinforcing my own ideas. It meant deciding who I was deep down inside, not solely based on the things I could DO. Honestly, experiencing loss in my young adult years significantly helped with this process. I had a sharp realization that this life is short, that there is only one you and began to deeply consider whether I wanted to spend so much time worried about (and doing) what others thought was right. I regularly reminded myself that people were having their own life experiences and decided to be less concerned with any of their opinions and more in tune with how I wanted to feel. Being confident and having high self esteem is an ongoing journey, it’s shaped and reshaped by various experiences as we move through life. You have to constantly reaffirm what you know to be true about yourself and make an effort to show up in the world – with family, friends, coworkers and clients – as your authentic self. You definitely get stronger in the process as you age, you get much more unapologetic in your being and I’m always grateful for that growth.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
Created by two black women, plant enthusiasts & Best Buds since 1996, Soulfully STEMulated focuses on indoor plant care, interior design and wellness. Our motto is “Mental health care via Plant Care, where Nature meets Nurture.” We provide high quality services to commercial and residential clients that positively contribute to your mental wellness via plant ownership and continued care. We regularly host wellness workshops with an emphasis on plant care as a form of therapeutic recreation to improve your physical and mental health.
We thoroughly enjoy meeting new clients from all walks of life and educating them on the similarities between plants and people and the ways plants positively impact our mental health. As Washington, DC natives, we feel an obligation to give back to the city that raised us via different creative outlets than some of the usual offerings. We are passionate about community outreach and offer workshops tailored to the underserved, often high risks and vulnerable, youth and elderly populations in the DC area.
This year, we are excited to link with other DC area business owners to expand our Wellness Workshop series and acquire new commercial clients. We also have plans to expand our merchandise and plant care supply offerings, so stay tuned. If you would like to shop with us or book a consultation for plant & wellness services please reach out via our website at www.soulfullystemulated.com
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
The most impactful skill on our journey has definitely been being able to connect and relate to people from various backgrounds. As a service based business, you have to be both knowledgeable and personable to be able to successfully solve the clients problems. There’s also a level of transparency and flexibility required to be able to accommodate clients, build trust and provide top tier service. Being resourceful and creative are also necessary skills in our business. We recognize that our business may be a new type of offering that people have not encountered before and so we take pride in tackling plant care in an unconventional way while educating clients on the mental health benefits of plant ownership and care.
We are still early in our own entrepreneurship journey but some of the best advice we have is to genuinely love what you do! It seems simple but it makes going to work feel less like work and makes it much easier to continuously show up! Some of the best advice we received early on was to have certain business systems (accounting, customer relationship management platform, etc) in place as soon as you make the jump. Don’t be afraid to network with the people around you and other established entrepreneurs to inquire about processes and systems that have worked best for them and any other insights they wish to share.
How would you describe your ideal client?
We are always excited to forge connections and collaborate with other business types. For this new year we would love to expand our business community as well as our commercial clientele. We are interested in collaborating with new clients to host plant themed wellness workshops focused on various topics from ‘Grief & Loss’ to ‘Intentional Healing’ and everything in between. Our ideal collaboration would be with fellow entrepreneurs who focus on topics such as therapy and healing, provide services to the youth or elderly populations or someone who deeply resonates with our motto: Mental healthcare through Plant Care.
We would also love to provide our monthly plant maintenance services on a larger scale. Our ideal clients are regular people, from all walks of life, who can benefit from self care, improved health and mental wellness. We enjoy clients that genuinely love the idea of owning plants, long term plant owners who prefer to outsource the manual labor to trustworthy experts, and commercial property owners who wish to bring plants into their spaces in an aesthetically pleasing way.
If you are eager to learn more about plant ownership, after school or summer camp programming, nursing home activities, employee-employer team building or need assistance along your green thumb journey, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us via our website, social platforms or send us an email at: soulfullystemulated@gmail.com.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.soulfullystemulated.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/soulfullystemulated
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/soulfullystemulated
Image Credits
First Image by: Erin Martin
