March 20, 2025 • 31 mins
Have you ever wondered how a single act of compassion can spark a global movement? In this episode of Easy Style with Sami, we dive into the inspiring journey of Nancy Economou, founder of Watts of Love, a nonprofit organization bringing light and hope to communities living in darkness.
Nancy shares her remarkable story of how a chance encounter with a burned child in the Philippines ignited her passion to make a difference. From high-end jewelry sales to serving the world’s most vulnerable, Nancy’s path is a testament to the power of purpose and perseverance.
In this episode we discuss
- How a mother’s compassion led to a global nonprofit initiative
- The unexpected impact of providing solar lights to communities in need
- Overcoming challenges and setbacks when starting a nonprofit
- The importance of listening and adapting to truly serve communities
- How simple solutions can create lasting change and end generational poverty
Nancy’s approach to philanthropy is refreshingly simple yet profoundly impactful. By providing solar lights and financial education, Watts of Love is empowering families to break the cycle of poverty one home at a time.
Discover How Watts of Love:
- Transforms lives through sustainable lighting solutions
- Educates communities on savings and entrepreneurship
- Creates opportunities for choice and financial independence
- Scales their impact to reach more communities in need
Whether you’re an aspiring changemaker or simply curious about innovative approaches to global challenges, this episode offers valuable insights into the power of compassion, creativity, and perseverance in making a difference.
Join us for an illuminating conversation that will inspire you to find your own way to light up the world.
Want to skip ahead?
7:35 The Power of Passion and Purpose in Entrepreneurship
13:33 The Impact of Simple Solutions: Watts of Love’s Approach
23:28 Listening and Adapting: Keys to Effective Social Impact
27:09 Overcoming Challenges and Staying Motivated
Nancy Economou
https://www.wattsoflove.org/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/nancy-economou-40477b63/
https://www.instagram.com/wattsoflove/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/watts-of-love/
Grab more resources at https://easystylewithsami.com
Follow us on Facebook at https://facebook.com/ssmulhern
Follow us on Instagram at https://instagram.com/ssmulhern
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (00:00):
Welcome to Easy Style with Sami. I'm your
(00:02):
host. Sami Bedell-Mulhern, eachepisode, I invite a friend,
family member, colleague or justsomeone I've met on this journey
called life, to come and sharetheir personal style and
approach to business, parenting,life and everything in between.
You'll hear motivational andinspirational stories that will
help you refine and build yourown personal style. Remember,
(00:25):
style is easy when it comes fromwithin.
Hey friends, welcome to anotherepisode of Easy Style with Sami.
Today my guest is NancyEconomou, thank you for being
here, Nancy.
Nancy Economou (00:35):
Thank you, Sami. I'm happy to be here.
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (00:38):
So we were introduced by a mutual friend,
Erin Marcus, who I justrealized, as I was kind of
preparing for this episode Ihave not had on the podcast, and
I definitely need to reach outto her and have her on, but she
connected us, and we had a greatconversation. And I'm really
excited to have you here as partof the podcast, but also just as
(00:59):
part of the podcast, a thonskind of marathon of the of
podcasts featuring nonprofits.So thank you for being here and
being my guest on this specialweek. Absolutely.
Nancy Economou (01:12):
Yeah, I was very excited that Erin's amazing and
super grateful that sheintroduced us.
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (01:17):
Yeah. Well, I have a nonprofit heart. I
obviously, in my marketing sideof my life, work with nonprofits
on a regular basis. Youobviously have a nonprofit heart
because you started your own.But before we kind of get into
that story, why don't you tellus a little bit about who Nancy
is and kind of where yourpassions lie?
Nancy Economou (01:36):
Yeah, absolutely. So starting a not
for profit was never on myradar. My background is in high
end jewelry sales. So in my 20s,I worked for Cartier here in
Chicago. So I said, worked withthe top 1% of the world, and now
(01:56):
I'm serving the bottom 1% of theworld, and I truly believe in
order to have global impact, wehave to have a bridge between
those two, and there has to be ashared, common goal for the 1%
here and the bottom 1% so workedat Cartier, got married, started
(02:18):
having children. I decided atthat time to be a stay at home
mom. It was something that Ifelt called to do, and decided
to stay home raise my children.I had five boys, and in 2009 I
had the opportunity. I wasmarried at the time, and with my
(02:40):
ex husband, I went to thePhilippines on a business trip,
and he went to go work on somethings, and I stayed back at a
hotel, you know, and we had beenwined and dined, and it was
lovely. But I really was curiouson how the local people were
living. So I asked, you know,Can Can I go to a school a
(03:02):
feeding program? And they tookme to a feeding program, and
when I was there, there was ayoung girl whose face was all
burnt and it was red and andinflamed. And the teachers, I
said, You know what happened tothis young girl? And they're
like, oh, this happens all thetime. Children are burnt because
they don't have lighting. AndI'm like, what like, as an
(03:25):
American, like, I'd always kindof heard people didn't live, you
didn't have electricity, and Inever really took steps beyond
that. And when I saw the burnson this little girl's face, and
the teachers were puttingtoothpaste on the burns because
they didn't have any burnmedicine. I thought, What's it
(03:45):
like for a mother who's livingin darkness and has no other
options besides putting herchild in front of a kerosene
lamp? And I couldn't imaginethat repeated trauma every
single night after her face hadbeen lit.
So I can't explain it. I camehome and, you know, just felt
(04:08):
like I was supposed to bringsolar lights to people. I'm
like, This shouldn't happen. Andit was really out of a mother's
heart and compassion for thisproblem that I started talking
about. You know, I have thisdream, and it's called watts of
love that we're going to bringsolar lights to people. And now
in 2009 there was no unsustainability, or at least I
was unaware of it, or LEDlighting. It was just coming on
(04:32):
the market. Solar was kind of athing, but not really. And as a
mom, you know, you have a lot oflaundry to do. Life gets in the
way. And I just, I thought aboutit for years, and I actually met
(04:53):
a woman, and I kind of sharedthe vision that I had. He turned
and she looked at me. It, andshe was leaving my house, and
she looked and she said, youknow, you've been given that
dream for a reason. Don't giveup on it. And I can tell you, it
was like she slapped me in theface. And I'm like, You know
(05:16):
what? I think this is a crazyidea. I don't have the money to,
like, go out and buy solarlights. Like, I just wasn't sure
how I was going to do it. ButI'm like, You know what? I'm
going to believe that this dreamwas given to me for a reason.
And so I started watts of love,you know? And I think you're
just to all the people who arehave a passion to do something,
(05:38):
you can have the biggest visionyou can come up with, but it
takes all of those very small,practical steps to start to get
there, and it's slow and it'spainful, and sometimes it's not
perfect, or your logo doesn'tlook like the way you want it to
look. But you just have to getbeyond that and keep taking
(06:01):
steps, and you can always goback and redo things, but, you
know, started lots of love, andI decided to go back to the
Philippines, where I felt likemy heart was changed. And I had
met a local pastor there, and Icalled him, and I said, Hey, you
(06:21):
know, I have this idea. What doyou think? And he said, Nancy,
I'm on this remote island in thePhilippines, in the South China
Sea. No one has electricity.There's never been a doctor.
It's so primitive. It's likeliving 300 years ago. I mean,
literally starving to death,like it was horrific. And
(06:42):
thought, I thought, okay, great.Like, I've got 25,000 customers
on this island. Like, you know,here it was all kind of laid out
for me. So I found a solar lightthat I thought could really be
used. And of course, I was naiveenough to think that I could do
global shipping and logistics,you know, getting it into the
(07:05):
port of Manila and then gettingit to some remote island in the
South China Sea, like I justdidn't think of all of those
little steps. Um, so I got tothe Philippines, and all 1000
lights got stuck in customs.But, you know, when I got there,
(07:26):
I had three lights in mysuitcase, and those became the
pillar of watts of love, and itall began with those three
lights. Yeah,
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (07:36):
I Okay. So there's just so many thoughts
that are swirling in my head, ifyou kind of share the story
because it's so amazing, and Iwant to get more into kind of
the beauty behind yourorganization. But before we get
there, um, there's a couplethings that stand out to me
often in communication, andconversations that I have with
entrepreneurs and people thatstart businesses and people that
(07:59):
become successful in that it'salmost that personality type or
just feeling of I'm gonna pushthrough, I don't know, I think
this is a good idea, so I'm justgonna do it almost that like ego
slash ignorance is bliss slashpassion slash, like alignment,
(08:20):
like all of those things kind ofcoming together, and I say ego
in the best way possible, um,but it's, it's, it's that thing
of, I'm not going to let everylittle thing hurt me, because I
know what I'm doing. I don'tknow what it's going to look
like yet, but I know that it'sgoing to be great, and so I'm
going to push through all theselittle things. Because you said,
(08:40):
you know, it doesn't have to beperfect, and things were hard,
and it wasn't easy, and it wasslower than you wanted, whereas
a lot of people would let thatstop them. For you, it was,
well, I see this thing at theend of the tunnel, and I know
that it's going to be great,even though I don't know exactly
what that's going to be justyet. So has that always been
kind of a part of yourpersonality as you like, were
(09:03):
growing up like, you know, thatkind of entrepreneurial spirit,
or was this something that, thisexperience in the Philippines
just kind of ignited somethingin you that maybe you didn't
know was there, or a combinationof all of that, but I'd
Nancy Economou (09:17):
say yes to all of it, because there's, there's
so many parts of creatingsomething. I never considered
myself a creative because mybrother was an artist, a
photographer, and I thought thatwas creativity, right? I am like
an innovator, which is creative,but I never saw myself that way.
(09:42):
I also had a tremendous fear ofpublic speaking, like, yeah, who
a fault. I also reallydiscounted myself on so many
things because I did not do wellin school. I'm dyslexic, so. So
I think having dyslexia is nowmy superpower because it made me
(10:07):
navigate traditional systems andfind other paths and see
problems and come up withdifferent types of solutions.
Yeah, but starting lots of lovewhen you combine purpose with
passion, you can be unstoppable,and it's the self talk that will
(10:30):
slow you down. And I canremember meeting very early on,
meeting with some people andsharing the vision and what we
were doing. And you know, they'dsay, Thank you, but no thanks,
and I would walk away and belike, You know what? It's no
right now. And that was likeshifting the narrative, like
(10:54):
they don't understand today theimpact that we're gonna have.
And what I can tell you isoffense stops so many people
like, What do you mean? Youdon't think that this is a good
fit, like, you know, and thatthat offense and so many
relationships have gone fullcircle and have come back to
(11:18):
lots of love, or, you know,we've created. And so I think
not having offense or trying towork on having opportunities to
work on being offended and usethe self talk, yeah, and that
that's going to stop you or slowyou down? Well,
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (11:35):
I think there's two things to that that
are really important. Number oneis the psychology of giving in
that there's people that want tobe and it's the same with a
commercial product. There'searly adopters, the ones that
want to be the first in line,that want to have that like we
were here first. We were thefounders. You know, there's
those that want to see validity,proof of concept, that they know
(11:58):
that their dollars are workingtowards something that's already
working. And then there's thosethat want to be the heroes, to
come in and close the gap andsay, hey, you know, we helped
you cross the threshold, crossthe finish line, right? So I
love that reframe, because yourno right now is perfect, because
you might not have been at theright place for that donor in
their level of comfortability.And then secondly, that you
(12:19):
didn't let it dissuade you fromyour idea, because I think a lot
of times when we hear no's, orpeople don't jump on board right
away, or people don'timmediately say, oh my gosh,
it's a brilliant idea, we startto second guess ourselves, and
we start to let that weigh usdown and slow us down from what
we're doing. So I love that youbrought those two things up. But
(12:41):
I want to jump into kind of yousaw a problem, and anybody can
look at that problem and come upwith 100 different ways to solve
it. And I think what you did wassuper unique, because, and I
want you to share a little bitmore about kind of the whole
picture of kind of what you donow. But I love how simple it is
(13:05):
and how impactful it is, becausewe tend to over complicate and
want to make things moredifficult than they need to be.
So kind of as you were goingthrough this process, if you got
to the Philippines, you hadthose three lamps in your your
backpack or your suitcase, andyou were able to see the impact,
like, how did that kind of helpshape the way that you continue
(13:27):
to step forward in improving thelives of people now all over the
world?
Nancy Economou (13:33):
Yeah, absolutely. Um, it's, you know,
for me, obviously, I don't comefrom a background of so I don't
sound like most of the people innon for profit or looking at
monitoring and evaluation, howthey talk about it. I'm very
(13:56):
much about the person. I alsobecause it started probably a
little bit closer to me, wherethere were people donating that
I had some connection to, I felta tremendous sense of
responsibility. Okay, so thatsense of responsibility and
(14:20):
making sure. So let me go backto how those played in like when
I went to the Philippines thattime, and I get there and all
1000 lights are stuck incustoms. I had three lights, and
those three lights, I had to bevery intentional, because I
thought, okay, every singleperson on this island wants a
solar light. But who needs thesolar light? The first woman we
(14:44):
went to is nine eye, which is aname for an older woman. Kind of
my grandmother, your nine eye.We're here to give you this
light. She said, burst outcrying, and she said, I cannot
accept this from you. I'm toopoor for you to love me. I've
been cursed by God. Godabandoned by my family and my
government doesn't know I exist.We said, No, Nye, you're loved,
(15:05):
you're seen, and you'revaluable. Never did I imagine
that giving somebody a tool likea solar light would have a heart
connection. So when wedistribute the lights, even to
this day, at scale and rapidgrowth. We call up that person's
(15:25):
name, lots of love is more abouta feeling, an education and then
the tool, which is the light andgenerational poverty. So that's
part of our training, is everyperson needs to be seen, heard
and loved. The second light thatI gave out was to a mother,
(15:46):
Emily. She had, I think, five orsix children at the time, and
gave her the light. And I wasthinking that night, like, what
would it be like to live indarkness, really, since the
beginning of time, never haveseen light. What would it be
like? So the next morning, I randown to Emily's house. I said,
Hey, how was your night? Shesaid, Well, it was amazing. I
(16:07):
put my children in bread in bedthat but that light was so
bright they had a hard timefalling asleep. And she said,
But I stayed up and I made 1000bamboo barbecue sticks, and so
they were educating me on theopportunity that light has. So
I'm like, Oh my gosh. And eventhough we'll never understand
(16:31):
what it's like to live likethat, we're still all human. As
a mother, we want to dosomething to help. And she
stayed up all night and was,became an entrepreneur. I was
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (16:43):
gonna say, Were those bamboo sticks
something that she then sold soshe was able to generate income,
okay,
Nancy Economou (16:49):
like, tripled her family income that night.
And so again, I'm like, This isamazing. Like, I I was shocked
what she was able to do. Thelast light I gave out was to a
woman a family. When I arrivedthere, the husband said, do not
speak to my wife. Only speak tomy to me. She has no education.
(17:11):
She won't understand how tooperate the light. So show them
how to operate the light. Now,let me fast forward 30 days,
because my 1000 lights came outof customs, the people in the
Philippines called me and said,You need to come back, back. And
(17:31):
what was amazing is thatuneducated woman that I was
forbidden to speak to came downfrom the mountaintop, and they
had shared with me the nightthat I gave them that light,
they said, for dinner, we lickedour fingers, dipped our fingers
in salt, and rub salt on ourtongues to trick our bodies into
the fact that we had no food. Soit was a level of poverty that I
(17:55):
had never seen or heard of in mylife and here in Chicago, but
when I went back 30 days later,she said to me, Nancy, I want
you to know that when we receivethat light, we've never gone
hungry one day, I said, I don'tunderstand, how has this light
been able to feed your family?And she said, Well, every day, I
(18:16):
hide a little bit of my kerosenemoney from my husband, so when
we need rice, I can buy it.Look, oh my gosh, I hide money
from my husband too. Like, youknow, like, and again, not that
I'm same circumstance, butbehavior. Yeah, right. I want to
have a little bit of moneyscrolled away so I can help the
kids or, you know, and so when Ihad the opportunity to design
(18:39):
our light, I made sure that ourbox became a bank and stewarding
our donations, I wanted to makesure that we did it with
excellence. It would be a wasteof time and money if we gave a
product that broke after weleft, because when we give the
(19:00):
light out. There's a bigteaching before that, because
people don't understandopportunity to become an
entrepreneur like Emily did. Andthen we teach savings, and
nobody has ever saved orinvested in anything in their
life.
So we have pictures and banners,and I think that's where my
(19:22):
dyslexia came in. Like, okay,how would I teach myself? Right?
There's people who can't read,they don't have any formal
education. They've never they'venever even heard savings, yeah.
Okay, so they so it's, again, avery simple every day, instead
of buying a battery or kerosene,you're going to put your money
(19:43):
in the box. And every day you'regoing to do that, and then in
seven days, you open your boxand you go buy a small chicken.
And when we're teaching theentire community this, they're
like, I bought chicken. I. And Iknow that seems so simple here
in America, and but I want theAmerican people to understand if
(20:11):
a woman or man can buy a smallchicken, what happens? It starts
to multiply. And they can dothat literally. Every week your
daughter needs school fees.Well, guess what? You sell a few
eggs. Your child's sick, youneed to go to the hospital. You
can sell a chicken. You'rehungry, you can eat like it
(20:33):
becomes this system forhealthcare, education, all of
these things. And so we teachthat step by step. Right, first
you buy a chicken, then you getto 10 chickens. You take 10
chickens, trade it in for gold,and it's this whole simplistic
but complicated, right, multiplyyour money, right? Get something
(20:55):
where it's returning. Don't justbuy chickens, buy ducks, guinea
fowl, rabbits, something that'squickly multiplying. Then you
trade it in for this and andthen, so that's the old money
that you used to spend onbatteries. And then there's new
money, which isentrepreneurship. What can you
do now that you have a wholenight of light? You know, the
(21:18):
women are making jewelry, beads,bamboo, barbecue sticks,
whatever, whatever they want.There's freedom and choice.
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (21:26):
Well, I think here's the biggest lesson
for me when I hear you talkabout this, because it's
incredible, but what I love somuch is you saw, and I've said
this already, but I just reallywant to drive this home, because
I think for all of us that seesomething we want to do, and we
get overwhelmed by the problemthat we're trying to solve, or
whether it's in our own personallife or for for somebody else,
(21:49):
that something we care about.You, you went over to the
Philippines initially andcorrect me if I'm wrong, not
knowing what exactly this wasgoing to turn into. So you
brought the lights, you broughtthe lights, you were going to
bring the lights, and you knewthat that was going to make
impact. And maybe with themotivation of, I'm going to save
lives, because now we won't havemore fires, the kerosene like
(22:11):
that was the pain point that youwere seeing initially, and that
I almost feel like, had yourlights been released when you
got there, you might not haveeven come to where you got
because you would have beentrying to onboard 1000 people,
versus having to hear thestories of the people that you
(22:33):
were interacting with and reallylearning from them. And I think
what's really beautiful aboutthe way you've approached this
is you listened and you adapted,and you continued to hear about
what they needed from theirpoint of view and how you could
support them long term withoutcompletely changing what you
were doing in the first place.And I think that that's a really
(22:54):
beautiful lesson for us all toto learn is that we come in with
our own biases, no matter whatgood, bad or otherwise, but that
listening piece and the factthat years later, you can recall
their stories and their nameslike I think that's a beautiful
thing and and something we needto do in general, to slow down
and just say, I see thisproblem, but I don't intimately
(23:19):
know every detail about it, Andso I want to come in with a
solution and also learn fromyou, so we can make this better
and work together as a team.
Nancy Economou (23:28):
Yes, and I think, you know, it's just
listening to what they're sayingand asking and not, yeah, it's
just sitting, it's literallysitting in the dirt with them
asking some questions. When I goback, I don't always, but a lot
(23:48):
of times I go back to acommunity go and visit one or
two people so they they hearthat we're back. Our program now
is not about the Americansgoing, it's about the local
people. But yeah, it's justlistening. And I feel like
people want opportunity, peoplewant choice. They know what they
(24:13):
can do to make money, right? Sowe're saying or and if they
don't, in our teaching, we havebanners like, here's Emily. She
made bamboo barbecue sticks. Sothere's a lot of things that we
do to give them ideas in ourteaching, but I think it comes
down to freedom of choice. Somany times people come in and be
like, Alright, we're gonna teachthem how to farm. We're gonna do
(24:34):
this. Yeah, and that's great ifyou want to be a farmer, but I
truly believe, if you are goingto change a community or a
nation, it starts inside of thehome. If a home, no matter how
nice your school is, if you if amother cannot feed her children,
(24:58):
she's not going to send thechildren. To school, right? If a
mother and a family cannot, theydon't have money, they can't
participate in the well thatyou've put in when it breaks.
That's
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (25:08):
like Maslow's hierarchy of needs,
right? We need to fill our basicneeds first.
Nancy Economou (25:15):
The most critical basic need is lighting,
and so through the lighting andthe education releases the
finances. So if they don't havea well and their drink the well
the water, they literally canbuy filters like it releases
(25:36):
options and education. And I'mgoing to just going to repeat
it, because we are endinggenerational poverty one home at
a time, at scale, and that's howyou're going to start
transforming entire communities.And ultimately, what I believe
is nations. I love this,
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (25:54):
and I've heard you say a lot of this
before in our previousconversation, and hearing it
again is just like so much moreamazing and exciting, because I
just truly love what you'redoing. I you know, as we kind of
wrap this up before, we kind oflet people know how they can
connect with you. Kind of, whatwould you say? Because I think
when we hear people tell story,I know you still have a long way
(26:17):
to go. I know you have a lot ofdreams and things that you want
for lots of love. So I know yourwork is not even close to done
yet, but when we're kind of atthe beginning stages, or we're
at the point where maybe youhave an organization that you're
ready to scale, or you just arefeeling kind of stuck in the mud
right now, it sounds great tolisten to this episode and be
like, Okay, well, that's great.She did all this stuff. She's
(26:38):
amazing, but, like, I couldnever do that, or I can't get to
that point, or I can't be thatsuccessful. Kind of, what might
you say to people, or what didyou say to yourself in the
moments when you felt like,like, when you heard, okay,
well, all of my lights are stuckin customs, and I can't do the
work that I was here to do, orI'm ready to go into this new
(26:58):
country, and there's all ofthese different types of red
tape and situation like, how doyou kind of continue to talk to
yourself through some of thosetough situations and keep going?
Yeah, well,
Nancy Economou (27:11):
I'll share a story a little bit more on the
personal side, it is so easy todo, I think, as an entrepreneur,
and especially doing somethingthat may not have been done
before, and it just looksdifferent, and and then you just
feel very vulnerable, like, ohmy, what am I like? It's just,
and I was on this island, the1000 lights were stuck.
(27:35):
Everybody on the island knewthat they were supposed to be
getting lights. I had raisedmoney, like so many levels of
failure I knew I couldn't do it,like all of those things were
going through my head, and I'mlike, this is horrible. And
(27:57):
somebody looks at me, the pastorthat I knew he looks at me goes,
don't you think God has a betteridea than you put me in my
place? And I'm like, huh, maybehe does. And whatever it is for
you, you know, things happen fora reason. You can believe it's
(28:25):
God, you can believe it's auniverse, whatever. But for me,
like things have, things aregonna happen. I'm like, All
right, this is gonna be used forgood. I does it look like the
way if I was gonna write thisscript, this was not it, yeah,
but trust the process and, youknow, and just keep moving
(28:50):
forward. Like, okay, that didn'tbut what can I learn? And I
think it's being teachable. Whenthings, especially
international, work, they'renot, it's not on time. It's not
on schedule, the road scale. Imean, just like, okay, so yeah,
(29:10):
that's it. Listen, so remainteachable and flexible. Yep,
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (29:16):
I love that. I love that so much. Well,
Nancy, thank you so much forbeing here on this episode.
Truly inspirational. Love thework that you're doing and the
way that you're doing it. Ifpeople want to learn more about
you and watts of love, how canthey do that? Absolutely So
Nancy Economou (29:34):
our website is www.wattsoflove.org, there's a
couple videos on there. But Ialso just want to say to anybody
who's listening, if this isinspiring, you come and travel
with us. We do take globaltravel teams and it's, you know,
great be part of watts of love.But also, I think what happens
(29:56):
is just see what we do, and youcan come home. Be and it be
inspired in your own way, orcontinue doing with lots of love
like it's not. But I thinksometimes, when you take your
invest in yourself, removeyourself and be inspired by
another movement can help youpropel forward. So check us out
(30:18):
on the website, LinkedIn, NancyEconomou and Instagram. We have
full Instagram and Facebook aswell. Love
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (30:27):
that, and we'll have all of that linked up
in the show notes ateasystylewithsami.com/39 Nancy,
thank you so much for being apart of this on this special
week with the podcast. A THON.So thank you so much for
Nancy Economou (30:41):
being here. Great. Thank you so much,
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (30:45):
so grateful to Nancy for being here today.
Like I mentioned, this episodeis part of a podcast, a THON.
There are over 1000 podcasthosts that are featuring a
nonprofit this whole month so,or this whole month, this whole
week. So I will link that up inthe show notes, so you can go
check out the other podcaststhat are featuring incredible
(31:06):
nonprofits. And don't forget tocheck out my other podcast,
digital marketing therapy, whereI am interviewing this week, one
of the co founders of finallyhome, which supports foster,
adoptive and kinship families.She has been a part of the
organization Kristen orphan forover 20 years, and so we're
talking about longevity andcreativity and how you stay in
(31:28):
it when the work is so heavy andgood and hard all at the same
time. So you can check that outat thefirstclick.net/podcast,
but again, make sure yousubscribe wherever you listen
for more incredible episodes.And if you know of somebody that
should be featured and has anamazing story to tell, please
share them with me,Sami@easystylewithsami.com S, A,
(31:50):
M, I thank you so much forlistening or watching us on
YouTube, and I will see you inthe next one.
Welcome to Easy Style with Sami. I'm your
(00:02):
host. Sami Bedell-Mulhern, eachepisode, I invite a friend,
family member, colleague or justsomeone I've met on this journey
called life, to come and sharetheir personal style and
approach to business, parenting,life and everything in between.
You'll hear motivational andinspirational stories that will
help you refine and build yourown personal style. Remember,
(00:25):
style is easy when it comes fromwithin.
Hey friends, welcome to anotherepisode of Easy Style with Sami.
Today my guest is NancyEconomou, thank you for being
here, Nancy.
Nancy Economou (00:35):
Thank you, Sami. I'm happy to be here.
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (00:38):
So we were introduced by a mutual friend,
Erin Marcus, who I justrealized, as I was kind of
preparing for this episode Ihave not had on the podcast, and
I definitely need to reach outto her and have her on, but she
connected us, and we had a greatconversation. And I'm really
excited to have you here as partof the podcast, but also just as
(00:59):
part of the podcast, a thonskind of marathon of the of
podcasts featuring nonprofits.So thank you for being here and
being my guest on this specialweek. Absolutely.
Nancy Economou (01:12):
Yeah, I was very excited that Erin's amazing and
super grateful that sheintroduced us.
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (01:17):
Yeah. Well, I have a nonprofit heart. I
obviously, in my marketing sideof my life, work with nonprofits
on a regular basis. Youobviously have a nonprofit heart
because you started your own.But before we kind of get into
that story, why don't you tellus a little bit about who Nancy
is and kind of where yourpassions lie?
Nancy Economou (01:36):
Yeah, absolutely. So starting a not
for profit was never on myradar. My background is in high
end jewelry sales. So in my 20s,I worked for Cartier here in
Chicago. So I said, worked withthe top 1% of the world, and now
(01:56):
I'm serving the bottom 1% of theworld, and I truly believe in
order to have global impact, wehave to have a bridge between
those two, and there has to be ashared, common goal for the 1%
here and the bottom 1% so workedat Cartier, got married, started
(02:18):
having children. I decided atthat time to be a stay at home
mom. It was something that Ifelt called to do, and decided
to stay home raise my children.I had five boys, and in 2009 I
had the opportunity. I wasmarried at the time, and with my
(02:40):
ex husband, I went to thePhilippines on a business trip,
and he went to go work on somethings, and I stayed back at a
hotel, you know, and we had beenwined and dined, and it was
lovely. But I really was curiouson how the local people were
living. So I asked, you know,Can Can I go to a school a
(03:02):
feeding program? And they tookme to a feeding program, and
when I was there, there was ayoung girl whose face was all
burnt and it was red and andinflamed. And the teachers, I
said, You know what happened tothis young girl? And they're
like, oh, this happens all thetime. Children are burnt because
they don't have lighting. AndI'm like, what like, as an
(03:25):
American, like, I'd always kindof heard people didn't live, you
didn't have electricity, and Inever really took steps beyond
that. And when I saw the burnson this little girl's face, and
the teachers were puttingtoothpaste on the burns because
they didn't have any burnmedicine. I thought, What's it
(03:45):
like for a mother who's livingin darkness and has no other
options besides putting herchild in front of a kerosene
lamp? And I couldn't imaginethat repeated trauma every
single night after her face hadbeen lit.
So I can't explain it. I camehome and, you know, just felt
(04:08):
like I was supposed to bringsolar lights to people. I'm
like, This shouldn't happen. Andit was really out of a mother's
heart and compassion for thisproblem that I started talking
about. You know, I have thisdream, and it's called watts of
love that we're going to bringsolar lights to people. And now
in 2009 there was no unsustainability, or at least I
was unaware of it, or LEDlighting. It was just coming on
(04:32):
the market. Solar was kind of athing, but not really. And as a
mom, you know, you have a lot oflaundry to do. Life gets in the
way. And I just, I thought aboutit for years, and I actually met
(04:53):
a woman, and I kind of sharedthe vision that I had. He turned
and she looked at me. It, andshe was leaving my house, and
she looked and she said, youknow, you've been given that
dream for a reason. Don't giveup on it. And I can tell you, it
was like she slapped me in theface. And I'm like, You know
(05:16):
what? I think this is a crazyidea. I don't have the money to,
like, go out and buy solarlights. Like, I just wasn't sure
how I was going to do it. ButI'm like, You know what? I'm
going to believe that this dreamwas given to me for a reason.
And so I started watts of love,you know? And I think you're
just to all the people who arehave a passion to do something,
(05:38):
you can have the biggest visionyou can come up with, but it
takes all of those very small,practical steps to start to get
there, and it's slow and it'spainful, and sometimes it's not
perfect, or your logo doesn'tlook like the way you want it to
look. But you just have to getbeyond that and keep taking
(06:01):
steps, and you can always goback and redo things, but, you
know, started lots of love, andI decided to go back to the
Philippines, where I felt likemy heart was changed. And I had
met a local pastor there, and Icalled him, and I said, Hey, you
(06:21):
know, I have this idea. What doyou think? And he said, Nancy,
I'm on this remote island in thePhilippines, in the South China
Sea. No one has electricity.There's never been a doctor.
It's so primitive. It's likeliving 300 years ago. I mean,
literally starving to death,like it was horrific. And
(06:42):
thought, I thought, okay, great.Like, I've got 25,000 customers
on this island. Like, you know,here it was all kind of laid out
for me. So I found a solar lightthat I thought could really be
used. And of course, I was naiveenough to think that I could do
global shipping and logistics,you know, getting it into the
(07:05):
port of Manila and then gettingit to some remote island in the
South China Sea, like I justdidn't think of all of those
little steps. Um, so I got tothe Philippines, and all 1000
lights got stuck in customs.But, you know, when I got there,
(07:26):
I had three lights in mysuitcase, and those became the
pillar of watts of love, and itall began with those three
lights. Yeah,
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (07:36):
I Okay. So there's just so many thoughts
that are swirling in my head, ifyou kind of share the story
because it's so amazing, and Iwant to get more into kind of
the beauty behind yourorganization. But before we get
there, um, there's a couplethings that stand out to me
often in communication, andconversations that I have with
entrepreneurs and people thatstart businesses and people that
(07:59):
become successful in that it'salmost that personality type or
just feeling of I'm gonna pushthrough, I don't know, I think
this is a good idea, so I'm justgonna do it almost that like ego
slash ignorance is bliss slashpassion slash, like alignment,
(08:20):
like all of those things kind ofcoming together, and I say ego
in the best way possible, um,but it's, it's, it's that thing
of, I'm not going to let everylittle thing hurt me, because I
know what I'm doing. I don'tknow what it's going to look
like yet, but I know that it'sgoing to be great, and so I'm
going to push through all theselittle things. Because you said,
(08:40):
you know, it doesn't have to beperfect, and things were hard,
and it wasn't easy, and it wasslower than you wanted, whereas
a lot of people would let thatstop them. For you, it was,
well, I see this thing at theend of the tunnel, and I know
that it's going to be great,even though I don't know exactly
what that's going to be justyet. So has that always been
kind of a part of yourpersonality as you like, were
(09:03):
growing up like, you know, thatkind of entrepreneurial spirit,
or was this something that, thisexperience in the Philippines
just kind of ignited somethingin you that maybe you didn't
know was there, or a combinationof all of that, but I'd
Nancy Economou (09:17):
say yes to all of it, because there's, there's
so many parts of creatingsomething. I never considered
myself a creative because mybrother was an artist, a
photographer, and I thought thatwas creativity, right? I am like
an innovator, which is creative,but I never saw myself that way.
(09:42):
I also had a tremendous fear ofpublic speaking, like, yeah, who
a fault. I also reallydiscounted myself on so many
things because I did not do wellin school. I'm dyslexic, so. So
I think having dyslexia is nowmy superpower because it made me
(10:07):
navigate traditional systems andfind other paths and see
problems and come up withdifferent types of solutions.
Yeah, but starting lots of lovewhen you combine purpose with
passion, you can be unstoppable,and it's the self talk that will
(10:30):
slow you down. And I canremember meeting very early on,
meeting with some people andsharing the vision and what we
were doing. And you know, they'dsay, Thank you, but no thanks,
and I would walk away and belike, You know what? It's no
right now. And that was likeshifting the narrative, like
(10:54):
they don't understand today theimpact that we're gonna have.
And what I can tell you isoffense stops so many people
like, What do you mean? Youdon't think that this is a good
fit, like, you know, and thatthat offense and so many
relationships have gone fullcircle and have come back to
(11:18):
lots of love, or, you know,we've created. And so I think
not having offense or trying towork on having opportunities to
work on being offended and usethe self talk, yeah, and that
that's going to stop you or slowyou down? Well,
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (11:35):
I think there's two things to that that
are really important. Number oneis the psychology of giving in
that there's people that want tobe and it's the same with a
commercial product. There'searly adopters, the ones that
want to be the first in line,that want to have that like we
were here first. We were thefounders. You know, there's
those that want to see validity,proof of concept, that they know
(11:58):
that their dollars are workingtowards something that's already
working. And then there's thosethat want to be the heroes, to
come in and close the gap andsay, hey, you know, we helped
you cross the threshold, crossthe finish line, right? So I
love that reframe, because yourno right now is perfect, because
you might not have been at theright place for that donor in
their level of comfortability.And then secondly, that you
(12:19):
didn't let it dissuade you fromyour idea, because I think a lot
of times when we hear no's, orpeople don't jump on board right
away, or people don'timmediately say, oh my gosh,
it's a brilliant idea, we startto second guess ourselves, and
we start to let that weigh usdown and slow us down from what
we're doing. So I love that youbrought those two things up. But
(12:41):
I want to jump into kind of yousaw a problem, and anybody can
look at that problem and come upwith 100 different ways to solve
it. And I think what you did wassuper unique, because, and I
want you to share a little bitmore about kind of the whole
picture of kind of what you donow. But I love how simple it is
(13:05):
and how impactful it is, becausewe tend to over complicate and
want to make things moredifficult than they need to be.
So kind of as you were goingthrough this process, if you got
to the Philippines, you hadthose three lamps in your your
backpack or your suitcase, andyou were able to see the impact,
like, how did that kind of helpshape the way that you continue
(13:27):
to step forward in improving thelives of people now all over the
world?
Nancy Economou (13:33):
Yeah, absolutely. Um, it's, you know,
for me, obviously, I don't comefrom a background of so I don't
sound like most of the people innon for profit or looking at
monitoring and evaluation, howthey talk about it. I'm very
(13:56):
much about the person. I alsobecause it started probably a
little bit closer to me, wherethere were people donating that
I had some connection to, I felta tremendous sense of
responsibility. Okay, so thatsense of responsibility and
(14:20):
making sure. So let me go backto how those played in like when
I went to the Philippines thattime, and I get there and all
1000 lights are stuck incustoms. I had three lights, and
those three lights, I had to bevery intentional, because I
thought, okay, every singleperson on this island wants a
solar light. But who needs thesolar light? The first woman we
(14:44):
went to is nine eye, which is aname for an older woman. Kind of
my grandmother, your nine eye.We're here to give you this
light. She said, burst outcrying, and she said, I cannot
accept this from you. I'm toopoor for you to love me. I've
been cursed by God. Godabandoned by my family and my
government doesn't know I exist.We said, No, Nye, you're loved,
(15:05):
you're seen, and you'revaluable. Never did I imagine
that giving somebody a tool likea solar light would have a heart
connection. So when wedistribute the lights, even to
this day, at scale and rapidgrowth. We call up that person's
(15:25):
name, lots of love is more abouta feeling, an education and then
the tool, which is the light andgenerational poverty. So that's
part of our training, is everyperson needs to be seen, heard
and loved. The second light thatI gave out was to a mother,
(15:46):
Emily. She had, I think, five orsix children at the time, and
gave her the light. And I wasthinking that night, like, what
would it be like to live indarkness, really, since the
beginning of time, never haveseen light. What would it be
like? So the next morning, I randown to Emily's house. I said,
Hey, how was your night? Shesaid, Well, it was amazing. I
(16:07):
put my children in bread in bedthat but that light was so
bright they had a hard timefalling asleep. And she said,
But I stayed up and I made 1000bamboo barbecue sticks, and so
they were educating me on theopportunity that light has. So
I'm like, Oh my gosh. And eventhough we'll never understand
(16:31):
what it's like to live likethat, we're still all human. As
a mother, we want to dosomething to help. And she
stayed up all night and was,became an entrepreneur. I was
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (16:43):
gonna say, Were those bamboo sticks
something that she then sold soshe was able to generate income,
okay,
Nancy Economou (16:49):
like, tripled her family income that night.
And so again, I'm like, This isamazing. Like, I I was shocked
what she was able to do. Thelast light I gave out was to a
woman a family. When I arrivedthere, the husband said, do not
speak to my wife. Only speak tomy to me. She has no education.
(17:11):
She won't understand how tooperate the light. So show them
how to operate the light. Now,let me fast forward 30 days,
because my 1000 lights came outof customs, the people in the
Philippines called me and said,You need to come back, back. And
(17:31):
what was amazing is thatuneducated woman that I was
forbidden to speak to came downfrom the mountaintop, and they
had shared with me the nightthat I gave them that light,
they said, for dinner, we lickedour fingers, dipped our fingers
in salt, and rub salt on ourtongues to trick our bodies into
the fact that we had no food. Soit was a level of poverty that I
(17:55):
had never seen or heard of in mylife and here in Chicago, but
when I went back 30 days later,she said to me, Nancy, I want
you to know that when we receivethat light, we've never gone
hungry one day, I said, I don'tunderstand, how has this light
been able to feed your family?And she said, Well, every day, I
(18:16):
hide a little bit of my kerosenemoney from my husband, so when
we need rice, I can buy it.Look, oh my gosh, I hide money
from my husband too. Like, youknow, like, and again, not that
I'm same circumstance, butbehavior. Yeah, right. I want to
have a little bit of moneyscrolled away so I can help the
kids or, you know, and so when Ihad the opportunity to design
(18:39):
our light, I made sure that ourbox became a bank and stewarding
our donations, I wanted to makesure that we did it with
excellence. It would be a wasteof time and money if we gave a
product that broke after weleft, because when we give the
(19:00):
light out. There's a bigteaching before that, because
people don't understandopportunity to become an
entrepreneur like Emily did. Andthen we teach savings, and
nobody has ever saved orinvested in anything in their
life.
So we have pictures and banners,and I think that's where my
(19:22):
dyslexia came in. Like, okay,how would I teach myself? Right?
There's people who can't read,they don't have any formal
education. They've never they'venever even heard savings, yeah.
Okay, so they so it's, again, avery simple every day, instead
of buying a battery or kerosene,you're going to put your money
(19:43):
in the box. And every day you'regoing to do that, and then in
seven days, you open your boxand you go buy a small chicken.
And when we're teaching theentire community this, they're
like, I bought chicken. I. And Iknow that seems so simple here
in America, and but I want theAmerican people to understand if
(20:11):
a woman or man can buy a smallchicken, what happens? It starts
to multiply. And they can dothat literally. Every week your
daughter needs school fees.Well, guess what? You sell a few
eggs. Your child's sick, youneed to go to the hospital. You
can sell a chicken. You'rehungry, you can eat like it
(20:33):
becomes this system forhealthcare, education, all of
these things. And so we teachthat step by step. Right, first
you buy a chicken, then you getto 10 chickens. You take 10
chickens, trade it in for gold,and it's this whole simplistic
but complicated, right, multiplyyour money, right? Get something
(20:55):
where it's returning. Don't justbuy chickens, buy ducks, guinea
fowl, rabbits, something that'squickly multiplying. Then you
trade it in for this and andthen, so that's the old money
that you used to spend onbatteries. And then there's new
money, which isentrepreneurship. What can you
do now that you have a wholenight of light? You know, the
(21:18):
women are making jewelry, beads,bamboo, barbecue sticks,
whatever, whatever they want.There's freedom and choice.
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (21:26):
Well, I think here's the biggest lesson
for me when I hear you talkabout this, because it's
incredible, but what I love somuch is you saw, and I've said
this already, but I just reallywant to drive this home, because
I think for all of us that seesomething we want to do, and we
get overwhelmed by the problemthat we're trying to solve, or
whether it's in our own personallife or for for somebody else,
(21:49):
that something we care about.You, you went over to the
Philippines initially andcorrect me if I'm wrong, not
knowing what exactly this wasgoing to turn into. So you
brought the lights, you broughtthe lights, you were going to
bring the lights, and you knewthat that was going to make
impact. And maybe with themotivation of, I'm going to save
lives, because now we won't havemore fires, the kerosene like
(22:11):
that was the pain point that youwere seeing initially, and that
I almost feel like, had yourlights been released when you
got there, you might not haveeven come to where you got
because you would have beentrying to onboard 1000 people,
versus having to hear thestories of the people that you
(22:33):
were interacting with and reallylearning from them. And I think
what's really beautiful aboutthe way you've approached this
is you listened and you adapted,and you continued to hear about
what they needed from theirpoint of view and how you could
support them long term withoutcompletely changing what you
were doing in the first place.And I think that that's a really
(22:54):
beautiful lesson for us all toto learn is that we come in with
our own biases, no matter whatgood, bad or otherwise, but that
listening piece and the factthat years later, you can recall
their stories and their nameslike I think that's a beautiful
thing and and something we needto do in general, to slow down
and just say, I see thisproblem, but I don't intimately
(23:19):
know every detail about it, Andso I want to come in with a
solution and also learn fromyou, so we can make this better
and work together as a team.
Nancy Economou (23:28):
Yes, and I think, you know, it's just
listening to what they're sayingand asking and not, yeah, it's
just sitting, it's literallysitting in the dirt with them
asking some questions. When I goback, I don't always, but a lot
(23:48):
of times I go back to acommunity go and visit one or
two people so they they hearthat we're back. Our program now
is not about the Americansgoing, it's about the local
people. But yeah, it's justlistening. And I feel like
people want opportunity, peoplewant choice. They know what they
(24:13):
can do to make money, right? Sowe're saying or and if they
don't, in our teaching, we havebanners like, here's Emily. She
made bamboo barbecue sticks. Sothere's a lot of things that we
do to give them ideas in ourteaching, but I think it comes
down to freedom of choice. Somany times people come in and be
like, Alright, we're gonna teachthem how to farm. We're gonna do
(24:34):
this. Yeah, and that's great ifyou want to be a farmer, but I
truly believe, if you are goingto change a community or a
nation, it starts inside of thehome. If a home, no matter how
nice your school is, if you if amother cannot feed her children,
(24:58):
she's not going to send thechildren. To school, right? If a
mother and a family cannot, theydon't have money, they can't
participate in the well thatyou've put in when it breaks.
That's
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (25:08):
like Maslow's hierarchy of needs,
right? We need to fill our basicneeds first.
Nancy Economou (25:15):
The most critical basic need is lighting,
and so through the lighting andthe education releases the
finances. So if they don't havea well and their drink the well
the water, they literally canbuy filters like it releases
(25:36):
options and education. And I'mgoing to just going to repeat
it, because we are endinggenerational poverty one home at
a time, at scale, and that's howyou're going to start
transforming entire communities.And ultimately, what I believe
is nations. I love this,
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (25:54):
and I've heard you say a lot of this
before in our previousconversation, and hearing it
again is just like so much moreamazing and exciting, because I
just truly love what you'redoing. I you know, as we kind of
wrap this up before, we kind oflet people know how they can
connect with you. Kind of, whatwould you say? Because I think
when we hear people tell story,I know you still have a long way
(26:17):
to go. I know you have a lot ofdreams and things that you want
for lots of love. So I know yourwork is not even close to done
yet, but when we're kind of atthe beginning stages, or we're
at the point where maybe youhave an organization that you're
ready to scale, or you just arefeeling kind of stuck in the mud
right now, it sounds great tolisten to this episode and be
like, Okay, well, that's great.She did all this stuff. She's
(26:38):
amazing, but, like, I couldnever do that, or I can't get to
that point, or I can't be thatsuccessful. Kind of, what might
you say to people, or what didyou say to yourself in the
moments when you felt like,like, when you heard, okay,
well, all of my lights are stuckin customs, and I can't do the
work that I was here to do, orI'm ready to go into this new
(26:58):
country, and there's all ofthese different types of red
tape and situation like, how doyou kind of continue to talk to
yourself through some of thosetough situations and keep going?
Yeah, well,
Nancy Economou (27:11):
I'll share a story a little bit more on the
personal side, it is so easy todo, I think, as an entrepreneur,
and especially doing somethingthat may not have been done
before, and it just looksdifferent, and and then you just
feel very vulnerable, like, ohmy, what am I like? It's just,
and I was on this island, the1000 lights were stuck.
(27:35):
Everybody on the island knewthat they were supposed to be
getting lights. I had raisedmoney, like so many levels of
failure I knew I couldn't do it,like all of those things were
going through my head, and I'mlike, this is horrible. And
(27:57):
somebody looks at me, the pastorthat I knew he looks at me goes,
don't you think God has a betteridea than you put me in my
place? And I'm like, huh, maybehe does. And whatever it is for
you, you know, things happen fora reason. You can believe it's
(28:25):
God, you can believe it's auniverse, whatever. But for me,
like things have, things aregonna happen. I'm like, All
right, this is gonna be used forgood. I does it look like the
way if I was gonna write thisscript, this was not it, yeah,
but trust the process and, youknow, and just keep moving
(28:50):
forward. Like, okay, that didn'tbut what can I learn? And I
think it's being teachable. Whenthings, especially
international, work, they'renot, it's not on time. It's not
on schedule, the road scale. Imean, just like, okay, so yeah,
(29:10):
that's it. Listen, so remainteachable and flexible. Yep,
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (29:16):
I love that. I love that so much. Well,
Nancy, thank you so much forbeing here on this episode.
Truly inspirational. Love thework that you're doing and the
way that you're doing it. Ifpeople want to learn more about
you and watts of love, how canthey do that? Absolutely So
Nancy Economou (29:34):
our website is www.wattsoflove.org, there's a
couple videos on there. But Ialso just want to say to anybody
who's listening, if this isinspiring, you come and travel
with us. We do take globaltravel teams and it's, you know,
great be part of watts of love.But also, I think what happens
(29:56):
is just see what we do, and youcan come home. Be and it be
inspired in your own way, orcontinue doing with lots of love
like it's not. But I thinksometimes, when you take your
invest in yourself, removeyourself and be inspired by
another movement can help youpropel forward. So check us out
(30:18):
on the website, LinkedIn, NancyEconomou and Instagram. We have
full Instagram and Facebook aswell. Love
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (30:27):
that, and we'll have all of that linked up
in the show notes ateasystylewithsami.com/39 Nancy,
thank you so much for being apart of this on this special
week with the podcast. A THON.So thank you so much for
Nancy Economou (30:41):
being here. Great. Thank you so much,
Sami Bedell-Mulhern (30:45):
so grateful to Nancy for being here today.
Like I mentioned, this episodeis part of a podcast, a THON.
There are over 1000 podcasthosts that are featuring a
nonprofit this whole month so,or this whole month, this whole
week. So I will link that up inthe show notes, so you can go
check out the other podcaststhat are featuring incredible
(31:06):
nonprofits. And don't forget tocheck out my other podcast,
digital marketing therapy, whereI am interviewing this week, one
of the co founders of finallyhome, which supports foster,
adoptive and kinship families.She has been a part of the
organization Kristen orphan forover 20 years, and so we're
talking about longevity andcreativity and how you stay in
(31:28):
it when the work is so heavy andgood and hard all at the same
time. So you can check that outat thefirstclick.net/podcast,
but again, make sure yousubscribe wherever you listen
for more incredible episodes.And if you know of somebody that
should be featured and has anamazing story to tell, please
share them with me,Sami@easystylewithsami.com S, A,
(31:50):
M, I thank you so much forlistening or watching us on
YouTube, and I will see you inthe next one.
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