Speaker 1: This episode includes mention of sexual assault and rape. Please
Speaker 1: take care while listening.
Speaker 2: Hello Sunshine, Hey fam Today on the bright Side, we're
Speaker 2: joined by doctor Nikola Mitchell. She's an award winning entrepreneur
Speaker 2: and founder of Girls Who Brunch Tour, a nonprofit that's
Speaker 2: inspiring and empowering young women. They're going above and beyond
Speaker 2: to make sure the next generation knows their voices are valued.
Speaker 3: It's Susey, February eighteenth.
Speaker 2: I'm Simone Boyce, I'm Danielle Robe and this is the
Speaker 2: bright Side from Hello Sunshine. This episode is brought to
Speaker 2: you by Lareel Paris. We have a truly inspiring guest
Speaker 2: on the show today. We're talking to doctor Nikola Mitchell.
Speaker 2: She's the founder of Girls Who Brunch Tour, which is
Speaker 2: an incredible nonprofit making a real difference in low income
Speaker 2: communities by sponsoring girls in foster care, sponsoring teen mothers
Speaker 2: and women who have survived the sex trade. Doctor Mitchell
Speaker 2: is also an executive producer, publisher, and writer. Her life
Speaker 2: is a really powerful testament to perseverance, and she believes
Speaker 2: that by exposing girls to diverse perspectives and empowering them
Speaker 2: with different ways of thinking, they can all achieve success.
Speaker 3: And if that weren't impressive enough.
Speaker 1: She is a two time Presidential Lifetime Achievement Award winner.
Speaker 1: She's earned the title of Forbes Change Maker, plus recognition
Speaker 1: from several cities including Atlanta, Charleston, and Houston for the
Speaker 1: incredible work that she's doing. We are so excited to
Speaker 1: talk with her today, So let's bring.
Speaker 2: Her in, doctor Mitchell. Welcome to the bright Side. Hey, hey,
Speaker 2: with the hay girl.
Speaker 3: Hey, I'm gonna have to.
Speaker 4: Call you Nikola me come on, baby.
Speaker 2: Well you founded Girls Who Brunch to her nearly a
Speaker 2: decade ago. Yeah, Simone, and I really want to hear
Speaker 2: more about the program and the work you're doing.
Speaker 1: So.
Speaker 4: Girls Who Brunch is an organization that focuses on girls
Speaker 4: ages minned through seventeen e bringing girls rest from the
Speaker 4: sex trade, girls in group homes, girls of foster care,
Speaker 4: and I've put them with girls from a better circumstance.
Speaker 4: I use the format of like sororities, that they all
Speaker 4: become sisters as soon as they walk in no matter
Speaker 4: what city, what country, that's now their new sister. And
Speaker 4: as of date, we've service forty eight thousand girls worldwide.
Speaker 4: We focus on stem training, human trafficking awareness. I'm adding
Speaker 4: on Healthy Body and Hearts initiative this year come and
Speaker 4: going forward, and I just try to like, let them
Speaker 4: have fun. I bring in DJs, celebrities, performers, Let them
Speaker 4: have fun. They're dancing the whole time and we're sublimely
Speaker 4: teaching them.
Speaker 1: I love what you have on your Instagram, Nikola. You
Speaker 1: say this is in your bio. On Igu say I
Speaker 1: help young girls with a painful past find their purpose
Speaker 1: and superpowers to change the world. Yes, ma'am, I know
Speaker 1: that you come from a painful past too. How did
Speaker 1: you turn that into purpose?
Speaker 4: For a long time, I was super embarrassed of everything
Speaker 4: that happened to me, and a secret that I just
Speaker 4: start telling people a few years ago that I used
Speaker 4: to hate being called pretty. I was raped the first
Speaker 4: time at church when I was fourteen. I was raped
Speaker 4: multiple times after that by people that were supposed to
Speaker 4: protect me, and they told me that the reason why
Speaker 4: this was happening to me was because I was pretty. Right,
Speaker 4: So for a long time I hated for anybody to
Speaker 4: call me that. But after therapy forgiving myself or because
Speaker 4: I felt that I was the problem, and forgiving them.
Speaker 4: I learned that me sharing my story and me putting
Speaker 4: it out there and letting people see that I've been bruised,
Speaker 4: but I'm not broken. It has helped so many people.
Speaker 4: Right Because I'll come in, I'll make sure I'm dressed up,
Speaker 4: makeup done, I'm dancing with the girls. They'll read off
Speaker 4: this long bio everything that I've done, and then after that,
Speaker 4: I'll say that was raped the first time at church.
Speaker 4: I've had my first daughter at fifteen, and it opens
Speaker 4: up even the women in the world. There's even speakers
Speaker 4: and whoever that was there that came up to me
Speaker 4: and start crying or gone the mic and said what
Speaker 4: they've been through. So I think it's healing and I
Speaker 4: think it's a superpower. Right, once you figure out how
Speaker 4: to turn your pain into purpose, nothing can hurt you.
Speaker 2: You know, the work you're doing gives young women opportunity
Speaker 2: to build business development and financial literacy skills. I thought
Speaker 2: it was interesting that those were two of the ones
Speaker 2: that you highlighted. What about those skills in particular do
Speaker 2: you think makes them so crucial for young women?
Speaker 4: A lot of times, girls, we're the forgotten ones. Right,
Speaker 4: People put us in a little circle of what we're
Speaker 4: expected to be able to do, and especially girls who
Speaker 4: are from low income and disadvantage and situations. There are
Speaker 4: sometimes a first generation people, girls who don't even have
Speaker 4: parents who can tell them, you know, how to save
Speaker 4: a dollar, how to start a business. Even myself, when
Speaker 4: I first started my business, I had nobody I could
Speaker 4: go to because I'm the actual, the first one who
Speaker 4: started anything in this magnitude. So I felt that it
Speaker 4: was important if I can give this to the girls
Speaker 4: now right by the time they're my age, and I
Speaker 4: always tell them, you're gonna be better than me because you're
Speaker 4: getting all this great stuff. Now, by the time they're
Speaker 4: my age, they'll be rock stars. And I have so
Speaker 4: many girls who have businesses. On one of my babies
Speaker 4: a Zobe. She has a doll line and Macy's and
Speaker 4: Target Beautiful Curly Me. I have some girls who are actresses.
Speaker 4: I have babies who are just cook chiefs. These are
Speaker 4: some amazing rock star girls, and it's beautiful when some
Speaker 4: of them started their business through girls who brunch. So
Speaker 4: I think I'm just paying it forward and doing something
Speaker 4: I think my mom wish she could have done for
Speaker 4: me and some of their parents say it to me,
Speaker 4: I didn't even know that they were good at this.
Speaker 4: I think if we just expose them to these things,
Speaker 4: they're become unstoppable.
Speaker 1: I'm so glad that you told me about Beautiful Curly
Speaker 1: Me because I need to get a birthday from my
Speaker 1: friend's daughter.
Speaker 3: And this is so perfect. I can't wait.
Speaker 4: Yeah, she just started thirteen. She started with you as nine.
Speaker 3: That is wild.
Speaker 1: I don't even want to think about the things that
Speaker 1: I was doing at nine, because it was not creating
Speaker 1: a business. That is so impressive. I know that being
Speaker 1: teenager is just hard wherever you come from. When you
Speaker 1: think about connecting with these teenagers.
Speaker 3: What do they need?
Speaker 4: Comebody, just to listen to them. A lot of times
Speaker 4: they're just so angry, and because it could have been
Speaker 4: a physical abuse, it could have been mental abuse, it
Speaker 4: could be some type of bullying that's going on. But
Speaker 4: moms and parents in this society are so busy, right,
Speaker 4: they're working, they're going to school, they're doing all these things.
Speaker 4: And a lot of times girls, especially teenagers, are more
Speaker 4: bussed that to help with the house right and help
Speaker 4: with the family, help watch your sisters and brothers. A
Speaker 4: lot of times I just sit down with them. I
Speaker 4: picked the quietest one of them, or the meaning is
Speaker 4: looking one in the room, and I just sit down
Speaker 4: with them and I asked them, hey, what's going on?
Speaker 4: How do you feel? And I'll get on their nerves
Speaker 4: a little bit, and I'm like, hey, I'm the boss.
Speaker 4: You know this is dictatorship here. Once you came through
Speaker 4: the door and not a democracy, You're going to do
Speaker 4: these things. And the meanest baby by the end of
Speaker 4: the day is hanging on me. Girl. I have so
Speaker 4: many pictures of me carrying kids, a teenmate, you just
Speaker 4: holding on me throughout the event. And it's just because
Speaker 4: I'm just giving them some attention, the right attention and
Speaker 4: a healthy attention. And parents don't even know because I
Speaker 4: knew that's what I was lacking. I just need somebody
Speaker 4: to listen to me. So I just try to think
Speaker 4: about what did I need when I was a girl
Speaker 4: and give it to these babies.
Speaker 1: It feels like we overcomplicate things so often it can
Speaker 1: be as simple as listening to someone and how do
Speaker 1: you think, how do you think these girls are misunderstood
Speaker 1: either by their parents, by their classmates, or by the
Speaker 1: world at large.
Speaker 4: A lot of the girls at ten girls who branch
Speaker 4: your girls of color, And the sadness of it is
Speaker 4: that African American girls, a girl of color period are
Speaker 4: usually over sexualized and over criminalized. So their first expectation
Speaker 4: of people when they see them is that they're bad.
Speaker 4: They're not gonna listen like they're going to fight. And
Speaker 4: so if you're being told that's who you are, right,
Speaker 4: You're going to start acting out as such. I just
Speaker 4: started this movement called Protect Black Girls. I protect all girls,
Speaker 4: but I protect Black girls first because I'm a Black
Speaker 4: girl and I'm always kicking indoors and doing things trying
Speaker 4: to save these girls. And I think if people seeing
Speaker 4: what they're the girls everyday life this, then they'll have
Speaker 4: some form of empathy. I wrote a book called What
Speaker 4: Was I Supposed to Do? And it was in the
Speaker 4: day of a life of some of the girls, the
Speaker 4: fictional story of some of the girls who I have helped,
Speaker 4: and people cry when book club readings, They're like, this
Speaker 4: is this is so harsh. I'm like, this is this
Speaker 4: is their reality?
Speaker 3: This is the truth.
Speaker 4: Yeah, this is their reality. What were they supposed to do? Now?
Speaker 4: And that's just why God brought me here is to
Speaker 4: be the voice of the voicelive.
Speaker 2: We need to take a quick break, but we'll be
Speaker 2: right back. Stay with us and we're back. You mentioned
Speaker 2: forty eight thousand girls that you felt like the ripple
Speaker 2: effects of that, you're changing generations and families, and I
Speaker 2: know we don't have the opportunity right at this moment
Speaker 2: to talk about all of the success stories. I'm wondering
Speaker 2: if there's one in particular that you can share, just
Speaker 2: to kind of exemplify what the organization truly does.
Speaker 4: I have one. She is eighteen now. I got her
Speaker 4: when she was eleven, and her and her mother had
Speaker 4: a very tumultuous relationship. I was speaking in you, Indianapolis
Speaker 4: at a library, and her mother brought her to this event.
Speaker 4: It was a whole bunch of girls there, and she
Speaker 4: stated that she didn't want her. So we fussed at her,
Speaker 4: was like, what's wrong? You know? She was so hard
Speaker 4: But that's all she needed again, that attention. So the
Speaker 4: next time I was in Indianapolis a couple of weeks
Speaker 4: after for an adult literary event, She's in the front
Speaker 4: row and she had by the time we came back
Speaker 4: again a month later, for girls to run. She was
Speaker 4: there and she had a gift for me, and she
Speaker 4: just attached herself to me. She calls me mom, y'all.
Speaker 4: She even do TikTok saying I'm a real parent. And
Speaker 4: I gave her a fad and she has been through
Speaker 4: hell okay and again exposure showing her the right way
Speaker 4: of how she's supposed to care for herself, why it
Speaker 4: is important to go to school. And when she does
Speaker 4: mess up, I was like, okay, because I'm so important
Speaker 4: to you, right, I have to use me as weapon.
Speaker 4: Oh are you safe? You're good? Okay, did you change
Speaker 4: your attitude? Are you still doing the same thing? Okay?
Speaker 4: All right, bye, hang up. She'll she talks about this
Speaker 4: to this day. She's like, oh call it. She just
Speaker 4: hang up over me, Like, okay, we'll get it together. Man,
Speaker 4: it is a privilege to talk to me. But now
Speaker 4: at eighteen, she's modeling full time. She graduated from school early.
Speaker 4: She is the epitome of my success story because she
Speaker 4: has been through hell and back and that baby is
Speaker 4: still here and I am trying to teach her how
Speaker 4: to now same thing as myself. Turn with the devil
Speaker 4: memory bad and making it good because she has survived
Speaker 4: so many things. She is my success story. She's amazing.
Speaker 1: You're not afraid to show them tough love. It sounds like,
Speaker 1: oh no, ma'am, she says with a smile.
Speaker 2: It sounds like the more that they've been through, the
Speaker 2: more help you want to give them. I know a
Speaker 2: lot of organizations do the opposite because they're like, oh,
Speaker 2: this person's just too far gone.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that was me. I was too far gone. I
Speaker 4: was too angry. I was everything. I had two kids
Speaker 4: at nineteen, I first started at fifteen. I was far gone.
Speaker 4: And my mentor didn't give up on me. So because
Speaker 4: he never gave up on me, I never gonna give
Speaker 4: up on any of these girls. Did you ever ask
Speaker 4: him why? I always did because I know I was
Speaker 4: a mess. I was Oh my goodness. He used to
Speaker 4: fuss at me, cuss at me everything right, and I'm like,
Speaker 4: why are you leave me alone? Sir? But he's seeing
Speaker 4: something in me. He put me an oratory classes at
Speaker 4: a young age. So now I'm being paid to speak
Speaker 4: full time now right. He invested in me in so
Speaker 4: many ways I did not know was going to still
Speaker 4: unpack me at my big age. So I feel like
Speaker 4: every time one of these jokers do something, I'm like, okay,
Speaker 4: II Lord, what is the lesson I'm supposed to get
Speaker 4: out of this? And again, they just need some attention,
Speaker 4: They need somebody to hear them and then also help
Speaker 4: them get through it. On just because this happened to
Speaker 4: you, you can't stay in it. So we got to go
Speaker 4: to therapy and we got to do all these things.
Speaker 4: We're going to get it so you could be a
Speaker 4: functional adult.
Speaker 1: How do you talk to these girls about anger? Because
Speaker 1: you have every right to be angry over what happened
Speaker 1: to you, And I believe that anger can serve a purpose,
Speaker 1: and I believe that anger can be righteous. So how
Speaker 1: do you talk to them about that emotion?
Speaker 4: So everybody calls me mother Teresa because I have like
Speaker 4: a soothing voice, I guess, and I'm always so nice
Speaker 4: and so quiet, and even when I'm angry, this is
Speaker 4: my tone. And I just show them a different way
Speaker 4: to display your anger. I show them that it is
Speaker 4: easy for people to tune you out if you're yelling,
Speaker 4: if you're aggressive, right, But they can't tune you out
Speaker 4: if you're matching them with the same energy, right, or
Speaker 4: even if they're if they're in a high angry situation.
Speaker 4: Some of these parents are cussing, yelling, whatever now is
Speaker 4: the first thing you want to fight back? Right, No,
Speaker 4: you gonna mess them up if you stay calm. And
Speaker 4: I show them through myself how being calm have changed situations.
Speaker 4: And I think sometimes leading by example is the best teacher,
Speaker 4: because I show them all the time I'm angry. I'm
Speaker 4: still angry my mother. I was angry at her for
Speaker 4: a long time, but I had to learn how to
Speaker 4: forgive her. And when you learn how to forgive people,
Speaker 4: then the anger goes away and you'll have a sense
Speaker 4: of peace. I teach them that allowing somebody to keep
Speaker 4: you angry allows them to have the power over you.
Speaker 4: So showing them that you are peaceful and that you
Speaker 4: are amazing, Like I the what's the song called He's
Speaker 4: a fan. He's a fan. They're not like us. I
Speaker 4: go into the jails to girls who are sentence as
Speaker 4: adults and there's a video of me krip walking right,
Speaker 4: and I'm like, Okay, the people who got you here,
Speaker 4: they're a fan. They're a fan. They want you to
Speaker 4: stay here. They're watching you. So what's the best way
Speaker 4: to revenge, showing them that you are better than they
Speaker 4: show them. When you get out of here, what you do,
Speaker 4: You're gonna get your GD you're gonna graduate, You're gonna
Speaker 4: go to college, You're gonna do all these things right
Speaker 4: because they're a fan. And so I have the girls
Speaker 4: screaming at the top of their lungs. They're a fan.
Speaker 4: They're a fan. All your hairs are fans, right, But
Speaker 4: you just have to show them a different way how
Speaker 4: to display the anger.
Speaker 1: I think what you said about showing them a different
Speaker 1: way to fight is such a good lesson. There is
Speaker 1: a twenty twenty three Lifetime movie that is based on
Speaker 1: your life. Yes, it is called Giving Hope, The Nikola
Speaker 1: Mitchell Story. Tatiana Lee plays you in the film. How
Speaker 1: surreal was it to see this film come together? Child?
Speaker 4: Is still surreal because I'm alive. I'm young enough to
Speaker 4: understand it, to see it, and I'm still living it.
Speaker 4: It came from Laurel Paris, Woman of Worth. They did
Speaker 4: media for us, right, and one of the outlets was
Speaker 4: Reader's Digests, And as I was telling the story, like
Speaker 4: I'm telling you guys, they stuck to the story of
Speaker 4: my mentor so they did another interview about me and
Speaker 4: my mentor, and so like any outlet, they'll take it
Speaker 4: down and they'll refresh it. So when they refreshed it,
Speaker 4: the producer from Lifetime found it like it was brand new,
Speaker 4: and she loved the article. So she found me on
Speaker 4: social media and stop me with no icon, y'all. So
Speaker 4: if somebody reaches out to you with no icon, it's okay,
Speaker 4: just you know, check it out. And she asked me,
Speaker 4: can she make a movie about my life? And I
Speaker 4: didn't believe it. I was so in shock. I did
Speaker 4: not believe it. So one of my literary mentors, because
Speaker 4: I'm a writer in real life, it's so funny when
Speaker 4: I have to say that, Zane, she verified that production
Speaker 4: company was Rial, and she was like no. So she
Speaker 4: walked me through everything and obtaining my entertainment lawyer everything
Speaker 4: to get the movie go to go to production.
Speaker 1: What was the aspect of your story that you were like, man,
Speaker 1: they got to get this right.
Speaker 4: The brunch the premises of the story is why I
Speaker 4: started Girls Wrough Branch and so we had nine scripts
Speaker 4: that I vetoed that I was like, no, I don't
Speaker 4: like this version. I don't like this version. But when
Speaker 4: we finally agreed, and I'm also the executive producer on
Speaker 4: the film, the only time thing I cared about to
Speaker 4: be in Canada when they were filming was the brunch scenes.
Speaker 4: And that's it because I wanted when any of my
Speaker 4: girls from any country watched the movie, I wanted them
Speaker 4: to say, that's a girl blatch and so they flew
Speaker 4: my signs in that's all my signage. Everything rent was
Speaker 4: authentic girls who brunch and they recreated the feel and
Speaker 4: even the girls that they had as the extras who
Speaker 4: attended the brunch, we made them feel like it was
Speaker 4: a real girls who brunch because they didn't know who
Speaker 4: I was at first. So when they were in their
Speaker 4: dressing room, I went back there and I was like, hey, y'all,
Speaker 4: I'm like, listen, we need to have energy. Da da
Speaker 4: da da da. I was like period baby. When I
Speaker 4: said it came out, it felt like a real brunch.
Speaker 4: Tatana was dancing, and that was one thing I cared about.
Speaker 4: After that, I can go home, So that's one thing
Speaker 4: I cared about.
Speaker 2: It must have really been a wild experience to see
Speaker 2: your life portrayed on screen. Was there a part of
Speaker 2: the film that was particularly exciting to see.
Speaker 4: Oh all of it was particularly exciting, but it was
Speaker 4: sad watching it. Oh wow, I really felt bad at
Speaker 4: some points for her. Tatiana did such a good job
Speaker 4: for trained me. We would be on zoone talking. We
Speaker 4: actually look alike. We saw us sound alike. We have
Speaker 4: the same family background. And seeing her become Nikola was beautiful.
Speaker 4: And even Kiera the little girl played me as a
Speaker 4: little girl. They did such an amazing job being me.
Speaker 4: So it was more sad saying it. Proud of her
Speaker 4: that she overcame a lot of things. And I was
Speaker 4: embarrassed at first, why because I didn't know how people
Speaker 4: were going to receive it. You know a lot of
Speaker 4: times they blame you for being raped, they blame you
Speaker 4: for things happening to you. You had a baby at
Speaker 4: a young age. I was nervous about it. There was
Speaker 4: one scene that I wasn't there for, but it was
Speaker 4: beautiful that Tatsiana called me on the phone because she
Speaker 4: did not like the way the producer that were still
Speaker 4: there was trying to the direction they wanted her to
Speaker 4: deliver it, and she didn't like the words that was
Speaker 4: that were on the paper. So she was like, if
Speaker 4: this happened, what would you say? And we were on
Speaker 4: the phone, I'm leaving my godfather's funeral, And she rewrote
Speaker 4: it and she delivered it the way that I would
Speaker 4: have said that well, And that was the beautiful thing
Speaker 4: about that movie, that whole experience. Everybody from the sound
Speaker 4: everybody took me to the side at some point and
Speaker 4: told me how the movie made them feel. But even
Speaker 4: meeting me in person and seeing that I'm really that
Speaker 4: person made them feel And it just made me feel
Speaker 4: comfortable to leave when it was time to go.
Speaker 2: I'm so glad you didn't feel betrayed by the story
Speaker 2: that was told, because that happens sometimes too.
Speaker 4: I think that's why you need to become an executive producer.
Speaker 4: I didn't know the power of it until I was
Speaker 4: put into that position, even to the point of Tatiana
Speaker 4: wearing braids for the first time in her life on TV.
Speaker 4: You know, the integrity of me and the integrity of
Speaker 4: the brunch was everybody's biggest focus, and I appreciate that experience.
Speaker 1: You're a loreal Women of Worth alumni, YESA and Danielle
Speaker 1: and I had the chance to attend the Women of
Speaker 1: Worth Awards last year, and it was an incredibly inspiring evening.
Speaker 1: We were blown away by all of the nominees and
Speaker 1: we also got to speak to the president of Lorel
Speaker 1: Paris USA, Ali Goldstein, about the power of this program.
Speaker 1: We want to hear about your experience. How did it
Speaker 1: becoming a Woman of Worth Honore in twenty nineteen impact
Speaker 1: your work.
Speaker 4: It was a beautiful experience when we got it, They
Speaker 4: flew us into New York, they did all these things
Speaker 4: we want to good more to America. It was just
Speaker 4: like so beautiful and Ali was there when I got it,
Speaker 4: and just everybody showed us so much love and care.
Speaker 4: And Loreel does such an amazing job sharing about our
Speaker 4: nah profits and they just always showed us so much love.
Speaker 4: And to this day they still give me products every
Speaker 4: event for girls who brunch, both sized products for these girls.
Speaker 4: So I just always say, look at this organization and
Speaker 4: see that there's people out there that love black girls too, right,
Speaker 4: and it's just allowing them to see it as a
Speaker 4: different light, like this isn't my swag ban. Lrel did
Speaker 4: the whole sponsor my movie premiere tour that they had
Speaker 4: us on with Black Girls Rock Las Vegas and Atlanta.
Speaker 4: They've just supported me from the beginning. And I think
Speaker 4: that love that I've gotten in a sense of family
Speaker 4: is more important than the grant that we obtained at
Speaker 4: that time, because they're still here in my life this
Speaker 4: many years later, and I just received the Karen Fonding
Speaker 4: Award and the Louveni Award, and which blew my mind
Speaker 4: when Mss Karen called my phone, and that was just
Speaker 4: another testament to me that LREL is really my family.
Speaker 4: I belong with so many organizations and cohorts, I've never
Speaker 4: experienced what I experienced with Loreel and anything else that
Speaker 4: I've done.
Speaker 1: Wow, it's beautiful considering that this program has been so
Speaker 1: beneficial for you, What would you say to someone who's
Speaker 1: thinking about nominating themselves or someone that they love you just.
Speaker 4: Know when you come in because I get people all
Speaker 4: the time they ask me to nominate them, but they're
Speaker 4: not doing the work. Because this is the best of
Speaker 4: the best, right the lineup of the women of this
Speaker 4: program we're going into twenty years is the best of
Speaker 4: the best. So just know whatever you're doing is not
Speaker 4: too small, because sometimes we feel like what we're doing
Speaker 4: is not big enough. But just know when you get
Speaker 4: in here and you're among the best of the best,
Speaker 4: that you're going to be challenged to amplify even more.
Speaker 2: How do you live out the idea of because I'm
Speaker 2: worth it in your day to day now?
Speaker 4: Being an abuse survivor, you always have to remind yourself
Speaker 4: that you're worth it. There are days I've wake and
Speaker 4: I feel like I'm not worthy. There's days that I
Speaker 4: wake up and I get a phone call or experience
Speaker 4: and I feel like I'm not good enough. I still
Speaker 4: suffer from anxiety and an aposter syndrome. So reminding myself
Speaker 4: that I'm worth it is the biggest thing for me
Speaker 4: to this day. And once I remind myself and I
Speaker 4: start showing it in the way that I walk and
Speaker 4: I speak, it's always therapeutic for other people because when
Speaker 4: they hear what I've been through, but they see the
Speaker 4: joy in me because I know that I'm worth it,
Speaker 4: even when that weight is on your shoulders to try
Speaker 4: to bring you back. It is the most beautiful thing.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, that's so well said.
Speaker 1: What would you say resonates with you most about Lorel's
Speaker 1: Women of Worth program?
Speaker 4: The sense of family is what resonates with me the
Speaker 4: most with this program. I have sisters on every class
Speaker 4: and just hugging off the new honorees, loving on them,
Speaker 4: but they have a question being able to answer the
Speaker 4: questions because somebody has done that for me. It is
Speaker 4: a real life sorority because everybody has your back. Everybody
Speaker 4: is rooting for you. If there's something that you may
Speaker 4: need and you they don't have access to it, one
Speaker 4: of them probably have done it and have figured it out.
Speaker 4: They'll give you that phone number, they'll give you that contact,
Speaker 4: they'll put you on a call, and so it's just
Speaker 4: the best sense of community with the women of the program.
Speaker 4: But then on the added bonus are the people that
Speaker 4: work for Laurel and it's just still family. So I
Speaker 4: think that's what resonates with me the most.
Speaker 2: It's so funny that it's like it's always about the
Speaker 2: people no matter what. It's never the money that accolades
Speaker 2: when it comes down to it, it's always.
Speaker 3: About the people.
Speaker 1: One question before you go, yes, ma'am, if some of
Speaker 1: our bright Side besties who listen to our show want
Speaker 1: to volunteer with Girls who Brunch, how can they get involved?
Speaker 4: If you go to Girls who Brunchtour dot com. You
Speaker 4: have to add the tour. At the end you can
Speaker 4: go to connect with us. On that page, you can
Speaker 4: click on being a volunteer, how to become a speaker
Speaker 4: if you want to donate items volunteering. That's the most
Speaker 4: important role the day of people that are helping, serving
Speaker 4: the food, helping check the girls in making sure they
Speaker 4: get to class, switching them from between the different sessions.
Speaker 4: Those roles are the most important because you have direct
Speaker 4: contact with those girls and that I think that's most
Speaker 4: important than any speaker thing like that, because that's their
Speaker 4: first sense of love when they walk in the road.
Speaker 2: Doctor Mitchell, thank you so much for joining us on
Speaker 2: the bright side.
Speaker 3: You really are so bright.
Speaker 4: Thank you, Thank you guys. You guys are beautiful. This
Speaker 4: was an amazing conversation. I am honor to be here.
Speaker 4: So sweet, Hi, I just love seeing women do what
Speaker 4: they want to do.
Speaker 3: Amazing. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1: Doctor Nikola Mitchell is an award winning entrepreneur, executive producer
Speaker 1: and founder of Girls Who Brunch Tour, a nonprofit that's
Speaker 1: helping young girls with painful past change the world. And hey,
Speaker 1: if you know someone in your life that's deserving of
Speaker 1: Lorel Paris's Women of Work program. Nominate them at loril
Speaker 1: Paris USA dot com slash Women of Worth nominations clothes
Speaker 1: on International Women's Day, MARCHI.
Speaker 3: That's it for today's show.
Speaker 2: Tomorrow it's well On this Wednesday, we're breaking down everything
Speaker 2: you need to know about microplastics with scientists and leading
Speaker 2: expert in microplastics, doctor Heather Leslie.
Speaker 3: You don't want to miss it.
Speaker 1: Join the conversation using hashtag the bright Side and connect
Speaker 1: with us on social media at Hello Sunshine on Instagram
Speaker 1: and at the bright Side Pod on TikTok Oh, and
Speaker 1: feel free to tag us at Simone Boyce and at
Speaker 1: Danielle Robe.
Speaker 2: Listen and follow The bright Side on the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 3: See you tomorrow, folks, Keep looking on the bright side.