Yourself Image Builds Your Confidence

Sandy Grigsby - Sandy is a multi-talented individual who has had a diverse career journey, starting as a commercial print model, and transitioning into a personal brand web designer, brand photographer, and confidence catalyst. Throughout her life, she has struggled with self-image and confidence, but she has managed to overcome these obstacles through decades of hard work and self-discovery.

Growing up, Sandy faced bullying, racial discrimination, and control from an overbearing father. She also experienced sexual harassment from both male and female colleagues. Despite these challenges, she continued to push forward and develop her skills and talents. She learned to speak four languages, cook, sew, dance, install hardwood floors, race cars, snowboard, build websites, and groom dogs. She competed in beauty pageants, won scholarships, studied abroad, mentored youth, volunteered, and worked as a model, graphic designer, online retailer, and artist.

Sandy's passion for photography led her to discover a talent for capturing stunning portraits of people who initially felt uncomfortable in front of the camera. Through her work, she helped these individuals see their own beauty and achievements, and she realized that she could do the same for herself. Now, Sandy is proud of her personal brand, and she helps others to do the same, she is an expert in self-image and confidence.

https://www.sandyinfocus.com/
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LinkedIn: Sandy Grigsby
Twitter: @sandyinfocus

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Episode Transcript

(00:03):
Are you good evening? Welcome toWSBI, your resource for success podcast program
where you get to meet inspiring womenowned businesses from across the country. And
now for your host, Kimberly macklemore. All right, good evening and welcome

(00:40):
to WSBI, your resource for successpodcast program where you get to meet inspiring
entrepreneurs and women own businesses from acrossthe country. I am your host,
Kimberly McLamore, the President and CEOof the Women's Small Business Initiative LLC and
award winning author. Tonight' show ispartnered with ADP, the go to place
to better build and men your business. And of course we want to welcome

(01:02):
to everyone to another night of sharingwith us. We have a special guest,
Sandy Griggsby. Sandy is a multitalented individual who has a diverse career
journey, starting as a commercial printmodel and transitioning into a personal brand web
designer, brand photographer, and confidencecatalyst. Throughout her life, she has

(01:23):
struggled with self image and confidence,but she has managed to overcome these obstacles
through decades of hard and hard workand self discovery. Growing up, Sandy
face bullying, racial discrimination, andcontrol from an overbearing father. She also
experienced sexual harassment from both male andfemale colleagues. Despite these challenges, she
continued to push forward and developed herskills and talents. She learned to speak

(01:44):
four languages, cook, sow dance, install hardwood floors, race cars,
snowboard, build websites, and groomdogs. She competed in beauty pageants when
scholarships, studied abroad, mentored youth, volunteered and worked as a model,
graphic designer, online retailer, anartist. So, as you can see,
Sandy is proud of her personal brandand she helps others to do the

(02:06):
same. She's an expert in selfimage and confidence. So, without further
ado, please help me. Welcometo my platform, Miss Sandy Grisby.
Hey, Sandy, how are you? I'm wonderful. Thank you so much
for having me. Well, itis my pleasure and I'm excited. Like
we talked just a few minutes agobefore we got started, you have got
a full background and I cannot waitto hear about your journey. But before

(02:30):
we truly dive into this interview,please tell everybody a little bit more about
who Sandy is, who she reallyis besides what I've already read. What
other things would you like us toknow? I don't know. You kind
of stilled the beans on everything.I was like, dang, no,
you know who am I? Iam someone who is a little bit goofy,

(02:57):
like a little bit silly. Ican make up songs on the fly.
If I know the song, Ican change the words and make it
creative and funky. And I'm someonewho loves to laugh. But you know,
I have my I have my moodyside too, the hight it's there.
But you know, overall, Ijust I love what I do.
I love helping people really see thebest parts of themselves and be able to

(03:23):
show it to others. And uh, yeah, I'm you know, I
like to say I'm pretty funny.I think I'm funny threat to them.
Well, let's see. I thinkI agree because we've been laughing since we
talked. We you know, we'vetalked a few bus before we got this
started. And I'm excited though,and to learn truly more about your journey.
I mean, to read what Ijust read is pretty deep. And

(03:47):
I'm going to take this assumption thateverything you have been through has made you,
of course the person that you aretoday and the reason why you're such
a light and you want to helppeople understand and be comfortable about who they
are. So talk a little bitabout we're going to go backwards. I
want to understand what you face asa child and how all this bursted you

(04:10):
into the mantitown the person you aretoday. Oh wow, that's a big
This is thirty minutes. We're goingto be here like five. Okay,
Well, let's let's start from thevery beginning. I was born in Switzerland.
My mother is Swiss and my fatheris black American okay, and he

(04:30):
was an American living abroad, metmy mom, they fell in love,
they got married, and in Switzerlandat the time, she's kind of an
anomaly like that didn't really exist,and a white woman like my mom.
She had like the toehead, platinumblonde hair and hazel eyes and very pale
skin. And then there's my dad, right kind of kind of looked like
JJ from Good Times, you know, like seriously, I'm not kidding.

(04:54):
And so when they were married,you know, the whole entire village came
to their wedding like it's insane.And when they had me, the nurses
were so excited to see a littleblack baby, and then I came out
and they were like, well,what is this because I was not what
they'd expected. Oh, I waslike the white, brown, almost white

(05:18):
little baby with black hair, jetblack, bullheaded, jet black hair,
and they were like what. Sofrom the beginning in Switzerland things were good,
but they would always say to mymom, oh, you must be
the nanny, so she started gettingit. Then they decided to move back
to the United States and we movedto California because my parents felt like in

(05:38):
the United States at that time,San Francisco Baria would be the most like
ethnically free play because there was abig melting pot of people, so they
felt safer to move there. Andthe reason for that is they were highly
discriminated against for being a biracial couple. They actually were almost killed. Someone

(05:59):
ran them off the road were drivingfrom Georgia to Texas and tried to kill
them, and they actually woke upin different hospitals. Like it's a crazy
story, But that said, Igrew up in San Francisco, in the
south part of San Francisco, andeventually we moved across the Bay to a
little town called Fremont, and Iwas the only kid on the block who
had biracial parents. Everyone else inmy neighborhood was either a white family,

(06:24):
or a Persian family, or aJapanese family or an Indian family. Like
they were all pure of what theywere, and I was a different one.
So going to school it was thesame thing. I was the only
one that was different. Everyone waseither white, Asian, or that's it.
We had hardly any black kids either, and I got discriminated against just
because of that. So growing up, I was always trying to fit in.

(06:47):
I was trying to fit in withthe neighbors. You know. I
would go to the Indian house andI would try to speak their language and
hang out with them and eat theirfoods and blend in and it was NonStop.
Even at school, I never reallyfit in. So as I got
older, one of the things withmy family was I really was obsessed about

(07:09):
being a perfectionist because my dad washighly controlling and he was in the military.
He was incredibly intelligent. He wasone of the actually one of the
first blacks to go to when theyhad computer school and they were training them
to be engineers and stuff. Hewas one of the first, so he
was highly educated. But he hedealt with a lot of discrimination, so

(07:31):
he didn't know how to deal withit when it came to working in his
career, so he kind of tookit out on his family. So he
was harsher to me than he shouldhave been. He wasn't so bad with
my mom because she was that docile, domesticated Swiss who would like look for
him and clean for him and doeverything right. But he was really hard
for on us, and growing upit was not an easy environment, and

(07:53):
I picked up on his perfectionism andbecause he was also a perfectionist, and
I was just striving him to likeme more and to get other people to
like me, and it really affectedmy confidence and it just impacted me from
that point for twenty years moving forward. Yeah, I mean, it's the
sad part and I hate to evenhave to say this is that it's not

(08:16):
shocking, right, It's sad,but it's not shocking because till this day
we have to hear the same typeof stories. And it's not even just
from the one side. It's alsodealing with on our own communities as well.
You know, you're not black enough, you're not this, you're not
that, And I always trying toask the question, what is that supposed
to mean? What does black enoughsupposed to mean? How are we supposed

(08:39):
to act, what are we supposedto look like? Why am I not,
you know, considered good enough foryou? It's one thing, you
know, we're dealing with with oneside, and now I got to deal
with it on the other side.So I definitely understand your journey. Go
ahead, Kimberly, you hit iton the head, and you know,
this is actually one thing I feelto mention. My mom's side of the
family. She was an only childand she just had her parents, so

(09:01):
when they passed away, I wasvery young, so it's not like I
had the white side of the familyto hang out with. It was just
my mom and my dad, andmy dad's side of the family they had,
you know, he had there werea total of eight children, so
he had a lot of sisters andbrothers. And I started getting discriminated against
by my cousins, so I'll neverforget. I went to Texas to visit

(09:26):
my aunt and my grandma, andone of my cousins had spread rumors that
I didn't like black people, whichwas not even fathomable to me. I'm
like what, I didn't see color. I just was. You know,
everybody in my neighborhood was mixed,so I was mixed to right. And
I was like what. And thefunniest part is her reasoning was this.

(09:46):
She said, because I dyed myhair red, which I don't know if
you remember the Feria hair color fromlike the late nineties everyone used and everyone
had that horrible red hair. Doyou remember that phone really bad? Anyway,
I had done that, and soshe went and told my family,
Oh, Sandy doesn't like black peopleand she doesn't want to be black because

(10:07):
she dyed her hair red. Andthe craziest part is, at that time,
I think I was like nineteen ortwenty, My boyfriend was blacker than
any of them. I had thedarkest boyfriend ever, and I lived in
my family. I was so confusedwhen they were confronting me with this,
and we were in Texas and theywere confronting me. I was like,
shopped, what are you talking about? And then I just pulled out my

(10:28):
phone and I showed the picture andthey all got quiet wow. And then
you know it's that left. AndI think the sadder part about it,
this portion of the conversation is thatit's that constant assumption and attitude that well,
all white women want black men,right, so you know, so
when they assumed that you weren't blackand thought, oh, well, you

(10:50):
know, she's just another white girl. And you know, I'm going to
use this expression because we hear thisall the time and it's the sadder part
of what people don't understan or don'tcare to realize that you are still a
human being at the end of theday. Whatever choice you make is your
choice. But but for them tosit there and just assume it's okay,
well I'm gonna beat her down becausem she's just not black enough for us.

(11:11):
And then you know, and tosome people, they don't even care
if you do have a black parent, you know, or regardless. But
there's so much of this that goeson in our community that, like I
said, one, you know,we're fighting from one side and you're fighting
on the other, and then you'retrying to you're in the middle, on
that middle ground and in that middlespace trying to understand who am I really.

(11:31):
So I want to talk a littlebit more here about the journey of
your dad, because you said,you just said a few minutes ago that
he was a perfectionist, and youpicked up on that, and I'm assuming
that is the reason why you doall the things that you did. I
mean, you had a slew ofthings that you you know, from race,
car driving and all these other things. So talk about the importance of

(11:54):
being a peron. I'm going totell you something. I'm going to tell
you something I've actually never talked abouton the park cast and get the special
like on a radio show podcast.I never discussed this, but yes,
I had become a perfectionist because Iwas constantly striving to please him. And
you know, he never told mehe loves me. I never I don't
ever remember hearing it growing up,and so I was constantly striving to get

(12:18):
him to accept me and to likeme for what I was, because everything
I did wasn't good enough. Mygrades weren't good enough. I was,
I had gained too much weight,stop being I even won a scholarship,
moved to Germany for a year ona full expense government paid scholarship, And
as soon as I got home fromthat year abroad, the first thing he

(12:39):
says to me when I walked inthe door was who you got fat.
Oh oh okay, And I waslike, what, I didn't even know.
I hadn't even recognized that I puton way. I think I gained
like ten pounds, but to himthat was too much. And so it's,
you know, it's things like that. So where I'm going with this
is that it took me on thisconstant thing that I was doing to be

(13:07):
perfect, which is why I learnedhow to do all of those things,
which is why when I got intouniversity, I was I graduated number two,
top of my class, and I'vecome loudy because I was constantly pushing.
I was obsessing over my studies andeverything because I wanted to be perfect.
And what ended up happening was yearslater, and I'm talking like in

(13:30):
my early forties, you know,I think I was like thirty nine,
forty years old. I ended upgoing on a journey and discovering that everything
that I had done to be soperfect, and when I mean perfect,
it was like to attract the perfectpartners and make have friends love me,
to have people love me, audiences, whatever. It was everything I had

(13:50):
done because I was comparing myself subconsciouslyto my dad, and I didn't want
to end up like him. Andeven though he was also a perfectionist,
I mean he was. I saidhe was a brilliant He was a brilliant
man. He actually worked for ahuge corporations, Apple, Computer, IBM.
I mean the companies he worked foras as engineer and a tech were

(14:13):
insane. But he and he startedhis own businesses, and he'd done all
these things that is always like,never good enough, and he had to
be perfect at everything. And whatI was subconsciously doing was mimicking. You
know, they said you grew upto be like one of your parents,
right, I absolutely had, minusthe abuse that we went through with him.
I was the obsessive perfectionist because Iwas striving to be like him without

(14:35):
realizing it. And after I hadgone on this journey, I realized that
my biggest fear in life was beinga failure like what I had considered my
father to be because he died whenhe was fifty six years old. Wow,
he had pancreatic cancer. I keptchanging jobs constantly, he had started

(14:56):
multiple companies, nothing seemed to work, and I considered himself subconsciously as a
failure when the reality was he wasnever a failure. He was always trying
and shape shifting and changing to see, Okay, this isn't working. I
need to shift. This isn't working, I need to shift. Okay,
now this and I hadn't recognized itas a young person, and it took

(15:20):
me into in my forties to havethat realization and go, oh my gosh,
I'm exactly like my dad in everyway because I keep shifting to get
to the right, perfect thing.And that's when I had my AHA moment.
And that's when I found my confidence. I found myself worse, my
self love, and my life completelychanged. That was five years ago.

(15:45):
Wow wow, I mean that's right, there is astonishing five just five years
ago you had that epiphany. Yeap. The thing is that I'm sitting here
listening to you. You know,like say, as kids, we all
strive to be like one of parents, Right, there's always something that stands
out more from one than the other. But when you talked about the word
failure, and we all know we'veheard this word a million times. Oh

(16:08):
you know, you're a failure forthis and that, failure for that.
But there's the reality, like Isaid, it's not even about failing because
you're not failing anytime you can standup and start something new, you can
recognize that you have a certain skillset. I'm sitting here, you know,
kind of looking at your bio again, and I'm thinking about you speak
four languages. You know, youcook, cook, you can sell,
you can. The thing that reallygot was installed the hardwood floor. It's

(16:30):
a girl. I need to haveyou come on over here, do something.
I know, it's Kyle, tilework. I'm great at it, gardening,
you name it. But you know, here's the thing. All of
that stems from this constant need tobe accepted and approved and loved right Because
I didn't have it for myself,right, I was triving to get it
from my father. I didn't getit from him. My mother was submissive

(16:52):
and docile, so she didn't giveit to me in the way that I
felt I needed. She actually said, oh, your dad gave you enough
love because he used to pin usdown and kill us, which by the
way, was torture of kids.So I didn't receive it as love.
I received it as a punishment.And she didn't see it as that.
She saw it as well, heloved you so much, he can't stop
kidding you, And so she didn'tgive me the affection, and I felt

(17:12):
that I needed at that young,tender point in your life. But when
I had that epiphany that I wasstriving to be like him subconsciously, need
to understand. This wasn't like,oh, I'm going to be like my
dad. Verbally I would say topeople, I want to be nothing like
him. I like him, I'mcompletely opposite of him. But I was
trying to be a kid right right, Yes, exactly because you said you

(17:34):
having him to be perfect, andhe was perfect in his mind. That
was his goal. So, likeI said, yeah, once you stood
back and really looked at the realitythat oh my god, I am him,
you are truly him. And themore you tried to push not to
be him, the more you becamehim. So I want to talk a
little bit exactly forward on how didthis work in work environments around others.

(17:57):
You know, you talked a littlebit about the harassment in the bio about
from the male and female colleagues.How did that stem pack Because I know
everything that you went through, itdefinitely had to roll over into something else.
Talk a little bit about that journey, yes, So what happened was
because of the things that I facedis trying to be a perfectionist. And

(18:17):
then you know, my dad wasa combination. He was abusive in a
combination of ways. He was verballyabusive, like you are too fat,
you aren't smart enough, You're anidiot, what's wrong with you? And
then he was physically abusive, sohe would slap us. He would,
but he would always hit us inplaces that it would never leave a mark,
so like the back of the head. He would pinch us really hard.
He would punish us with like sittingon the knees with your nose in

(18:40):
the corner and holding your ears foran hour and a half. You know,
it's just torture, physical torture,things like it was bad spanking,
leather belts, the whole thing.Okay. And when I started working,
I was working in Hollywood and Iwas actually working for one of the top
black photographers in Los Angeles. Hewas amazing, and I was super excited

(19:00):
to work from his talent. Imean, he was working with these clients
that were some of the biggest celebritiesin Hollywood at the time. And I
had become so submissive, similar tomy mom, I had become weak.
I only wanted to please, SoI was overly you know, yes,
yes, I was pretty much ayes, ma'am, yes I'll do it,
yes, yes, yes, yesyes. I didn't speak up because

(19:22):
I didn't have any value in myselfor self worth. So whatever I was
told to do or asked to do, or even if it was uncomfortable,
I either said nothing or accepted it. And that's where the problem arose because
I have no confidence. So whenthe sexual harassment began at that job,
I never said no because I wasafraid to say no because if I said

(19:45):
no to my father, for example, I would get hit or I would
get yelled at or verbally attacked.So in this situation, even though I
wasn't being physically like beaten or yelledat, he was always very kind to
me. The discomfort that I feltI had accept and then it took quite
a bit for me to actually stepup and say something. And I stepped
up and said something to his COOand her response was, you know,

(20:08):
I'm going to have a talk withhim, which she did, and he
ended up laying off for a while. And he flipped from being overly like
touchy feely discomfort like putting me inawkward situations like he would straddle me at
my desk and make me feel reallyawkward to very mean. Then he became
verbally abusive and he'd be like,you're stupid and why can't you do this?

(20:30):
And you're not fast enough, andit was like a switch. So
then I went to the CEO againand I said, listen, he's now
verbally abusive to me, and it'slike I can't win either way. And
she said, well, sweetie,you know, maybe you just need to
try a different team. And chehit on me. So it was all
because I didn't have the confidence tospeak up and say, listen, I'm
not tolerating this. I should havegone to the police. I should have

(20:52):
gone an attorney. I should havedone all of these things. But I
didn't hold value enough for myself toactually take action and do that. And
this was all in the early twothousands, like two thousand and one,
two thousand and two, wow.And I ended up leaving that job,
getting into another job with another photographerwho was a very very well known famous
photographer in Los Angeles. Again,and he hit on me, and the

(21:12):
only way I could make myself feelsafe was I quit. But again I
didn't say anything did. I didn'tstand up for myself. I didn't go
to any professional help. I justbottled it up, stayed quiet, and
went to the next thing. Andit ended up ruining relationships for me because
then I would get into romantic relationshipswhere I would tolerate things that I should

(21:34):
never have tolerated for the exact samereasons of the fear of the outcome.
Well, if I say something,you know it might be awkward or uncomfortable.
And I just kept doing that upuntil a point where I couldn't tolerate
it anymore. And once you hitthat level of not being able to tolerate
something is when you can finally pivotand pull confidence and courage because you need

(21:59):
both of them out and speak up. And I started doing that in my
early thirty but I still wasn't fullyconfident. It was like I was still
taking abuse in other forms. Maybeit wasn't relationships with romantic partners, but
like I would, I would allowwomen that I was friends with to dominate
me and you know, control thesituation and be verbally abusive to me.

(22:22):
And it just continued for a longtime. And then when I finally had
that AHA, and I did tochange, and I went through that journey
and I recognized that it was allbecause I didn't love myself, I didn't
value myself. Everything changed, right, right, Yeah, And you're right.
It's like you, like I said, that epiphany, and it sounds

(22:44):
like you actually had it more thanonce, but when it really hit it
dominated you. You finally said,you know what, I'm just not doing
this shit anymore. I mean that'sjust the bottom line exactly, you know.
And that's where that all the growththat you had. So you were
having that growth in your thirties andthen it hit into your forties because you
were starting to realize that this stuffjust isn't right. You knew it was

(23:07):
wrong, but you know, likeyou said, being able to build yourself
up to know that, I've gotto be able to speak about this.
I got to be able to dothis for myself. And because if you
were going to different people, orif you even mentioned or didn't mention it,
you didn't feel anybody had your backanyway. So you know, you
had to grow into this. Sowhat you your steps you took were necessary.
But now you know you've been thereyour pastor you know you're in your

(23:32):
forties, You're you've blossomed. YouAlso, you've been talking a lot about
photographers. I want to hear aboutthe journey of the photography, but also
why that photography is what has capturedyou and why it's so important for people
to understand, you know, howyou how you can relieve yourself, you
know, and what you see whenyou're looking at those portraits of people that

(23:52):
you may take. Yeah, ofcourse, so the photography came about,
it didn't happen right away because whenI was working for the photog in Los
Angeles, I was actually a webdeveloper because I got a degree in visual
communications, so a fine arts degree, and I was building websites for celebrities,
like famous people like you know,Carl Lewis and you were Carbon Electra
and people like that. And whenI started on my own I began to

(24:17):
freelance with my own company. Istarted my own company as a freelance artist,
and I was working with small businesseslike parapractic offices and you know,
jewelry store owners and things like that, and I would build these beautiful websites
and it would give me these horriblephotos. So since my degree of Fine
Arts had photography as a part ofit. It wasn't the focus, but

(24:38):
it was a little bit of it. I felt like I could figure out
how to take pictures. So oneof the things I did have in my
back pocket was I started commercial printmodel and when I was eighteen, so
I knew what it was like tobe a model. I was constantly for
big ads, like I was onT Mobile. You probably if you remember
the T Mobile sidekickphone. I wasT Mobile the T mobiles lead person for

(25:02):
that. I was on the billboards, all the posters, everything wow.
And I was nicknamed at Sidekick Sandy, So I was t Bubble Sidekick phone
model. But things like that.But since I had so much experience being
a model and working with these photographers, I had exceptional experience of retouching photos.
I told my clients, Hey,let me just take your picture and

(25:23):
if you know, I can makeit look good. And that's what I
did. I retouched them and madethem look incredible. And this is before
you know, all the AI toolsto make meet people look different. We
didn't have filters. You know,it wasn't like you wouldee the filter make
yourself look better. Had to beretouched, and so I ended up getting
more and more into photography because firstI was doing such a great job retouching

(25:45):
would makes them look good. Andthen I figured out that the photography that
I was doing wasn't that great.I had to do too much retouching.
So I started to improve my photographyjust with subtle things that I didn't want
to retouch. And then eventually Istarted working with a matchmaking company and it
was one of the number one matchmaking companies in the whole entire world,
and I was helping them capture betterphotos of their clients so they could eat

(26:07):
more easily match their clients. Andwhat I hadn't realized when I got that
job with almost all of their clientswere executives from major corporations. So I
was working with executives at working withexecutives a Compass Realty and you know huge
Apple Computer, I mean huge companies. And I was taking these executives and
having them, you know, poseand be in a way, and I

(26:30):
was using my modeling background to posethem and direct them so that they could
attract their ideal partner. The onething I realized though, was everyone was
like, oh, I need tomake you know, you need to make
this person sexy. They need tobe desirable and only thing, and I
go, yeah, I can dothat. But when the person hello,

(26:56):
I think we've lost her for asecond. There. We'll see if we
can get it. Our guests backup and running. So I hope we
can get Sandy back on because she'sgot such a fabulous story here to finish
telling Sandy, if you can hearme, let's try to get this going
again. I see that she'll haveto pop back on. So we're going
to continue to talk this out becauseher story is just to just way too

(27:19):
fantastic. We're going to bring herback in. Sandy, are you there
so sorry? I don't know whathappened. It wasn't you remember, well,
you got to remember your way back. You were in a whole other
part of the world, So it'sokay, not a problem. So you

(27:41):
were talking to me about the factthat that, you know, when you
were touching up everybody's you know,pictures and then you know exapt people were
saying, oh, we need tobe more sexy, they need to be
able to match. But then youwere say, the fact is that when
the real people come out, what'sgoing to happen So here's what happens when
they google them. They were findinghorrible pictures that they were using for their

(28:03):
branding for their business websites and otherthings, and they were so bad.
So I convinced my clients stopped focusingon sexy pictures. Focus on branding yourself
so you look great if you getgoogled and they go, h, this
is interesting. And it worked.The pictures that I took that people made
them look more confident. It madethem look more approachable and even looked gorgeous

(28:26):
because they had their natural confidence andradiance come out. And what I was
doing was I was drawing their confidenceout by reminding them of what they were
really great at, their superpower.And once I had done that, I
was able to demonstrate how amazing theywere. The problem was, at that
point in time, I was notdoing it for myself because I hadn't discovered

(28:48):
my own self love. And thatis where my business went. Why it
became photography, and it became sogreat at it because I was able to
draw these people out. But onceI recognized it for myself, it just
shifted it to a whole other level. So now I work with my clients
on really helping them understand themselves,fall deeper in love with themselves, own

(29:10):
their value and their self worth,and then convey that to other people through
images, video and other content thatthey're putting out to the world. So
when you understand yourself, you loveyourself and you feel really confident about Okay,
I know I'm good at this isthis is my job, this is
who I am. I feel great. You are a light, a beacon,

(29:30):
and people see that and they gravitatetowards it and they want it,
and you can pretty much persuade anyoneinto anything. When you're true yourself.
You're absolutely and I love what youjust said. How about you know the
fact that people had to start realizingwho they really were, and like you
said, having a picture that it'slike, oh, you know, you
look so great, But then whenthey the person does see them, it's

(29:52):
like, this's the person. Andwe see a lot of that today.
You know, you're talking about theyou know, people get online, you
know with the new tech. Nowboy's using technology and they get on Instagram
or whatever, and they're putting onthis this face and then when they take
the face off, you don't evenrecognize who you're dealing with because and in
my opinion, just what you saidis that people don't value who they are.

(30:14):
They don't love themselves enough to saythis is who I am. And
you know, if I got toput ten layers of paint on my face
for you to see me as beautiful, there's a problem there, you know.
And that's exactly right. But thekey is is that it happens continuously.
And you know, we all striveto want to have people see the
beauty that we see. But thekey is is that the beauty is in

(30:37):
the eye of the beholder. They'renot going to see what we see.
Yes, So that's exactly right.And you know, when it comes to
your image online, I tell myclients, if you're putting filters, or
you're over photoshopping your nage, oryou're showing up in a way that really
isn't you. Your friends are likethat doesn't look right here, like you

(31:00):
really a player? Really, youknow serious? Then you're not. You're
so funny, you're so warm,then you're actually doing yourself a disservice,
because, yes, someone, iflet's say you're funny, you have a
great piece of humor, you makepeople laugh, you're really kind, but
you're also at a bit serious.If that comes out in the images and
someone does not want to work withyou, that's good because you didn't want

(31:22):
to work with them either. Butthe person who's looking for that funny,
kind, warm, friendly, buta little bit serious person, it's going
to look at your picture and go, oh my gosh, this is this.
This feel like the person I wantto work with. I feel a
connection to them. I'm looking forsomeone who is like this person. I
sure hope that they are how they'recoming across. And if you can meet

(31:45):
that expectation, you have guaranteed yourselfa diehard, raving fan and a loyal
customer, a loyal fan, friend, follower for life. You're absolutely right,
absolutely right, because when you,like you said, when you become
who you are and people can seethat you are authentic, that's all it

(32:06):
takes, is being just you andwe. But we live in a world
that still is fake to some degree. You know, everybody has to have
this certain look or style or youknow, I mean, and it's really
kind of no difficult what we've beentalking about throughout this whole conversation about how
people see us. You know,just like we're talking earlier. You're not
black enough, you're not this,You're not that. There's nobody in this

(32:30):
world that's supposed to look alike.There's nobody that's supposed to have Everybody has
to have dark skin and ever beconsidered blacker. Everybody has to be completely
pale because they're right. I mean, there's all these crazy idealistic ideas because
it's been put out for years.You know, we've been labeled all our
lives, and so people don't knowhow to walk away from a label.

(32:50):
You know, that's how they defineyou are and how you know and then
we remember, but that what youjust said is exactly right. We've been
labeled and people don't want how todefinitely But there's a piece, there's an
anspect to that. It's even deeper. If you can create friction and you
can get people to see something ina way that's going to upset them and

(33:15):
it's going to be visceral for them, you have control. So when I
see because I grew up in amelting pot of people, I've lived in
so many countries now I actually kindof lost track. I want to say,
like love and country, like itlived, not vacation but lived.
And I've been to so many countries. I've experienced cultures that are unbelievable all

(33:37):
over the world. And so I'mfrom the Middle East to Asia, to
Europe to South America. I havelived in all of those places and the
United Course, and I can tellyou that I see a division happening,
and it's being fueled by pain.And some people get confused to go,

(33:59):
well, no, there it's seeor fear causes people to do is no.
Fear comes from not wanting to experiencepain. But people are so afraid
of experiencing pain that they champion thingsand they lead with their pain. So
if you're leading with your pain,you are fueling the division. If you're

(34:23):
leading with love, you are nowmuch more open minded and accepting and bringing
people together. Because if you leadwith love, you don't see color,
you don't see rape, you don'tsee religion, you don't see culture,
because everything is beautiful to you.Amen, lead with pain makes that division

(34:47):
mm hm. And that's what andthat's what a lot of people in the
United States in particular are missing.They are leading with pain. And one
of the examples I like to give, which people get mad about this one,
but I don't care what funy.But the best example is a vegan.
I used to be one, soI'm not smashing vegans. I respect
if they love animals. But whenyou lead with the pain, they have

(35:10):
this fear of what's going on withthe animals. They feel the suffering of
the animals. The don't want animalto be hurt, so they lead often
not even how it doesn't person,but many of them will lead with the
pain. And they are so venomousto people who eat meat. They're so
cruel the way they you know,talk to them and speak to them and
they say mean things that they're actuallyleading with pain and they're causing a division.

(35:36):
Well, if they switch their mentalityand lead with love and said,
listen, I understand that you wantan animals, but let's look at the
animal perspective and how can we makeit better for the animals and lead with
love, you would convince more peopleto eat less meat or completely get rid
of meat altogether. So the veganis just a simple example. But this

(35:58):
goes for any and every example.This goes for conservatives, this goes for
literal book for you know, peoplewho are you know, a certain race
or an ethnicity or culture. Itgoes in every single way because the moment
you lead with love, love andaccept everyone. And I know I sound
like a hittie right now, butit's just no, it's reality. It

(36:19):
is reality, and we all knowthat. You know, the little simplest
things can bring us together. Andyou can use a great example of music,
right, Music can bring everybody togetherbecause when they start to take away
all those things, like you said, or fear, you know, oh,
well you like this music and that'sjust rotten. You know, this
is so and so and so,and it's got you know, dirty language
and blah blah blah. You know, everybody has their time, you know,

(36:44):
and our through our throughout the years, and it's the same message over
and over about what you can andcannot do or this you shouldn't be listening
to this because of this or that. And you're right, they put the
fear in everybody, and that fear, like you said, that pain.
Oh if I listen to this andsomebody's gonna, you know, talk about
me, or they're going they're gonnastart coming up with a list of things
of why they cannot do what theywant to do because the fear of what

(37:07):
people are going to say. Andthat's painful, you know, because nobody
wants to say right they do,and they think it's the truth, but
the reality is it's not the truth. They know who they are. But
if you constantly are listening to somebodysaying this to you over and over and
over for a period of time,you literally start to believe that's really who

(37:27):
you are. And like you saidearlier, it takes that epiphany to make
you understand who you really are,what you really are, how are you
valuing yourself? How are you lovingyourself? We all struggle with this because
we live in a society that putsnothing but labels on every single individual.
From the time we're brought into thisworld, we're told how we're supposed to

(37:50):
talk, how we're supposed to walk, how we're supposed to act, how
we're supposed to look, how we'resupposed to dress. I mean, the
list just keeps going on and onand on, and as soon as somebody
stands out differently, you're a problem. You know, you're not conforming to
what society tells you you're supposed tobe, so, you know, I
mean, and the harder part aboutthis. I think we could have this

(38:12):
conversation for hours, because it's thereality every day, you know. I
mean it truly is the reality thatwe that we see and deal with every
day. This constant fear from thetime you turn the news on to the
time you go to bed, that'sall you hear. You know, the
world's gonna come to end because somebodydoesn't agree with somebody else. I mean,
that is that is something that itdrives me insane, you know.

(38:36):
And then they wonder why people haveno respect. They wonder why kids don't
want to hear and listen. Youknow, you're you're supposed to be following
yourself. You know, we're supposedto be looking up to certain people and
learning from people. But how canyou have that desire if they don't even
know who they are? Yes,you know, especially today with the stake
superficial modified world, people have forgotten. They forget who they are. And

(39:01):
I tell my clients, you knowyou are who you were before you were
influenced and impacted by life, whichmeans think about when you were like three
years old, two, three,four years old, very young. How
we were inocentt at that age andwe would see things with curiosity and awe.

(39:22):
And you know, you know whenyou see a little baby and someone
scares it and it goes off andthen all of a sudden it's quiet and
instead of crying, it laughs.Right, that's purity, that's amazing,
And we have lost right of that. Now everything we do is a collection
of experiences and traumas that we reactbased off of. Yes, so that

(39:45):
same somebody scares us, we getangry or we cry, or we get
upset. We no longer laugh likea baby would laugh, even though we
probably should, right, Yeah,yeah, I mean we've all of our
innocence has been truly taken in away, and so you're constantly trying to
rebuild that innocence that you had.Like you said, as a kid,
you know, you didn't think twiceabout it, you know, if it

(40:07):
was funny to you, you laughed, you know, not even truly even
possibly understanding what you're laughing at.But we didn't take it as serious until
you're being told that you shouldn't laughat that, or you shouldn't do this,
or you shouldn't you know, that'swrong, and blah blah blah,
because you know, there we gogott to be in conformity. You know,
gott to be told that this isn'tright, even though you are a

(40:30):
human being and you have every rightto think the way you think. Now,
I agree that if you're harming somebody, you're hurting somebody. Obviously that
is not the right thing to do. But we all understand the difference of
right and wrong. But there aregoing to be many people that live in
the world that will continue to dowrong because it's all about them, period.

(40:50):
But you know what you just said, it's all about them. Think
about people who commit crime and doingbad things. They're doing it because they
are in pain, right, Sothey're leading with pain. They either don't
love themselves, they were abused,They have mental health issues, and generally
it stems from a form of pain, right, you know, I don't

(41:12):
believe that. You know, obviously, if you have something wrong with your
brains, that's different. But evenif you have something wrong with your brain,
you're in pain, hence the mentalhealth issue. But most mental health
issues stem from a trauma that someonehasn't been able to deal with, hence
the pain, and then it causesa certain behavior. It could also be
a nutritional deficiency there they're missing nutrientsor missing things in their pain. But

(41:34):
again it goes back to pain.If you're missing something, your brains won't
sumption properly, you're in pain andx y and zing. It might not
be physical pain, but it isa form of pain, and then that's
where they lead. So any kindof violence. They're crying on things like
that. You don't see someone whois living in bliss and lasting when they
get scared and having a wonderful timegoing and doing violent things, just trouble
people, cheating things. You know, it just doesn't exist right reaction to

(41:59):
pain. M M. Well,oh, like I said, we can
keep talking, but we were goingto shut this down. Look, I
know your bedtime is way past.Yeah, it's a castle. It's like
dark titters flying around like what's happeningexactly exactly. But you know, before

(42:21):
you you know, I have tolet you go. I mean, I
love love having this conversation with you, Sandy. It has been great.
But before you go, please telleverybody how they can reach out to you.
They would like to have some ofyour services, or just just to
have a conversation so people can getup off their their behinds and realize how
great and how beautiful they truly are. Tell us how we can reach out

(42:43):
to you. Yes, you canfind me on Instagram. I'm at Sandy
in Focus. My LinkedIn is myname Sandy Grigsby. If you connect with
me on LinkedIn and send me amessage, not follow me, there's a
difference in phony. Great, thankyou. But if you connect, you
find it. I hit it,find the connect button, connect with you

(43:04):
and send me a message of whereyou heard this, and then you would
like access to my course. Iwill send you my LinkedIn learning course,
which is how to create your onlineimage for free for twenty four hours.
Oh okay, love it. Youcan also find me at Sandyanfocus dot com.
So Sandy Andfocus dot com. Well, I would definitely make sure that

(43:28):
we have all the show no informationin so that people don't have to remember
this in their head. It'll bethere for you to visualize if you read
it, okay, because you know, so I didn't see that, well,
you didn't obviously read it, becausewe do make sure all this information
is there, So you know,Sandy, I just love continuing having this
conversation. We will have to getback together again to talk because there's so

(43:50):
much more that we can communicate onand share with people. And you know,
you have been a phenomenal guest.I really appreciate you taking time as
late as it is over there inItaly to talk to me tonight. I
love you for that. And againI thank you for coming on the show
with me. Thank you, Kimberly, and have a wonderful time in the
United States. Thank you much.I need to be out there where you're

(44:14):
at. Okay, yes you do, Yes, you do exactly, exactly,
But again, thank you so muchfor your time. And hey,
go lay down and we'll talk againsoon. I appreciate it. Yes,
thank you, talk to all right, goodbye? All right for everybody else.
Oh my goodness, Oh my goodness, is all I can say right

(44:39):
now. This has been a phenomenalconversation. I know we're so far over
our time, but I truly trulyhope that everyone has sat back and listened
and learned from this and understand howyour experiences can truly lift you up,
how you can use those experience asa part of your personal brand, whether

(45:01):
good or bad, are indifferent,there's opportunity everywhere. So of course this
is going to lead me to askyou listeners, are you ready to uplift
yourself in your business? Reach outto me at Kimberly at WSBILC at gmail
dot com and let's chat about yourdreams and turn those dreams into goals.

(45:21):
And of course, if you wantmore of your resource for success, monetary
donations to support the podcasts are notaccepted on cash app, PayPal, good
Pods, Tipjar or go to thewebsite at wwwwsbilc dot com. And of
course, if you want to learnmore on how to better leverage your business,
ADP has identified five primary challenges hiring, financing, access to growth resources,

(45:43):
employee experience and next and access topayroll and HR tools. And now,
as I say, educating yourself onwhat's best for your business is free,
so no more excuses. Contact ourADP rap, Miss Anthony Nuez Somonigo.
We will provide all the content information, of course in the show notes.
But of course again we would liketo thank you all for listening to
us tonight. We will be backnext week with more amazing guests. Be

(46:06):
sure to follow us on Ironheartradio orwherever you listen to your podcast. But
until then, goodnight, goodnight everyone. We will be back next Thursday evening
at seven pm. Follow us onspreaker www dot spreaker dot com, slash
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(46:31):
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