Raising Her Voice Against Racism with Michelle Saahene

Michelle Saahene’s life took a major turn in 2018, when she was one of the women responsible for the viral video of two Black men arrested in a Philadelphia Starbucks for not buying coffee. The incident inspired her to co-found From Privilege to Progress—a growing national movement to amplify Black voices, desegregate the public conversation about race, and inspire others to #showup against racism.

More than 500,000 people now follow From Privilege to Progress on Instagram, and along with co-founder Melissa DePino, Michelle has spoken on Jada Pinkett Smith’s Red Table Talk, The Today Show, and NPR’s Radio Times among many other media outlets, major corporations, and universities.

In this inspiring and intimate episode, Michelle reveals her secrets for creating a life driven by purpose and passion, and how she continues to rock it as a leading voice for racial justice.

Listen on Apple Podcast

Listen on Spotify

In this episode, you’ll hear:

[2:26] Why Michelle believes she manifested her life as an activist
[3:17] How she overcame overwhelming terror to raise her voice while witnessing racial discrimination in a Philadelphia Starbucks
[6:50] Michelle’s family legacy of leadership in Ghana
[7:36] Her experience as the only Black girl in her central Pennsylvania school
[11:23] Why the explosive growth of From Privilege to Progress gives her hope
[13:43] Her fateful “divine collaboration” with co-founder Melissa DePino
[16:10] How she and Melissa bring uniquely feminine energy to the anti-racism conversation—and why she doesn’t shy away from crying onstage
[20:57] What it was like sitting next to Jada Pinkett Smith onstage
[26:20] Michelle’s one tip to ROCK IT

Links from the episode:

Michelle’s website: https://michellesaahene.com
Michelle on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/michellesaahene
From Privilege to Progress website: https://fromprivilegetoprogress.org
From Privilege to Progress on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/privtoprog

—

She Rocked It is a media and mentorship platform where creative, courageous women rock it together. We are eager to learn from, listen to, and lift one another up — driven by the belief that women’s voices are essential. On our podcast and Instagram Live interview series, She Rocked It host/founder and creative entrepreneur Karen Gross gets trailblazing women leaders, creatives, and entrepreneurs to reveal how they rock it – and their insights may surprise you. Their behind-the-scenes stories, best-kept secrets to success, and actionable tips are sure to inspire the rockstar in all of us!

Please subscribe and leave a review!

Michelle Saahene Interview Transcript

SHE ROCKED IT / KAREN GROSS:
Hey Rockstars, thanks so much for tuning in to the SHE ROCKED IT podcast, so excited you’re here for this conversation with Michelle Saahene who’s a speaker, an activist, and a coach who is powerfully raised her voice against racism. She’s the co-founder of From Privilege To Progress, a national movement that’s dedicated to desegregating the public conversation about race and amplifying Black voices. Michelle’s life changed on April 12th of 2018 when she was one of two women responsible for a viral video of two Black men arrested in a Philadelphia Starbucks for not buying coffee. (01:17) This video traveled internationally, and a few years before the tragic events of 2020, really sparked a major public conversation around race. Since then from Privilege To Progress has garnered a major following on social media where Michelle and her co-founder Melissa DePino regularly share their voices and share important resources about anti-racism. The organization has over 500,000 followers on Instagram and Melissa and Michelle have spoken at universities, major corporations, and other communities around the world. They’ve been featured on Red Table Talk, on The Today Show, and other media outlets. And I could not be more excited to feature Michelle and to hear her voice here on, SHE ROCKED IT. Let’s hear now how Michelle rocks it.

SHE ROCKED IT:
Michelle, I’ll just come out and say it- we met in the club, dancing our a**es off. And I just thought you were so incredible. Then we realized we both lived in Philly. But your life took an unbelievable pivot since that moment when we met years ago. And do you want to just tell us, um, what happened? I think most people will know, but share how your life changed in Philadelphia in 2018.

MICHELLE SAAHENE:
Yeah, it was… I mean, my life is, is flipped upside down. Um, but I think I manifested that because I was looking for a dramatic shift in my life. I was, you know, it was interesting before the Starbucks incident happened I had Googled, “how to be an activist” two months prior. And I just want to emphasize to people that when you think about something repeatedly enough times in your mind, and you believe that it will happen for you and you believe that it’s already written for you, it will happen. Manifesting is a thousand percent real. I have manifested things in the last three years that, um, have been incredible. So I was in a Starbucks. I was studying life coaching because I wanted to exit corporate America. I wanted to help people do what I was doing by being aligned with their values and getting back to who they really are before we were conditioned to be something else in this world. (03:17) And I saw blatant racial discrimination happening right in front of my eyes. And, um, what was really frustrating to me that day is that no one was doing anything. No one was saying anything. No one was moving. Actually, I do remember, um, watching the young man next to these two Black men who were getting arrested for not buying a coffee, actually get up and walk to the other side of the Starbucks.

SHE ROCKED IT:
Unbelievable. Wow.

MICHELLE SAAHENE:
Yeah. And I, I sometimes think about him and wonder, I wonder if he thinks about that moment. I wonder, you know, if he regrets that moment, um, and it’s just so important that we show, um, then we find that courage and find that bravery to stand up. And when, when, when no one else is, is it scary? Yes. Was I shaking that day? Did I literally sweat through my shirt? (04:04) Yes. I remember actually looking through my, looking at my shirt- probably TMI- but I sweat through my shirt. I remember looking down at my hands and um, I remember shaking so badly that I looked at my hands to watch myself shake.

SHE ROCKED IT:
Wow.

MICHELLE SAAHENE:
But it didn’t matter to me. I had to say something anyways because no one else was. And so, um, the person that I partnered with to do this national movement, this national campaign, she tweeted the video. So she amplified my voice. She tweeted the video, it went viral, and then the world, literally the world started talking about what racism looks like today and what privilege looks like today, and people wanted to do something about it. So we thought that we would help them through that path, would help them understand their racial identity, help them uncover their biases, see their blind spots so they could move from, um, you know, just theoretical to action and actually be a part of the solution.

SHE ROCKED IT:
(05:02) Yes. From Privilege To Progress. And Melissa DePino, your partner in that, um, have from that moment spoken around the world to major corporations, universities you’ve been on Red Table Talk, you’ve been on The Today Show, with Soledad O’Brien on her show. Um, did you ever envision that that moment from like literally shaking and sweating–which actually I think is an important detail it may sound like TMI, but actually you, instead of kind of withering in that moment or letting that prevent you from moving forward, you still stood forward and you still didn’t let your fear, I mean, that manifested in your body like that stop you from taking action. So I actually think that’s really an important detail. Cause there’s two choices that could have been made in that moment. One was the choice that the, the man took in that moment, which was to walk away. You made the moment to, despite your fear, despite your like physically manifesting terror, um, to raise your voice.

MICHELLE SAAHENE:
(05:56) Yeah. So I think it’s also to note, you know, that, you know, because, you know, we do talk about race that, that man that walked away, it was a white male who had all the privilege to stay and stand and say something and his life wouldn’t have been threatened in the least. And my life would have been the second most threatened from standing up and speaking up. And I knew that. Um, I was just hoping that the police wouldn’t turn their excessive force on me, which they did not, which was fortunate for me. But, um, that’s one of the reasons I was shaking because I didn’t know what, what was gonna happen.

SHE ROCKED IT:
Yes. And you know, our goal with SHE ROCKED IT is to, um, honor women who’ve raised their voices in courageous ways and kind of also get to the bottom of that courage, you know? And I’m curious for you, what do you think has given you the courage- in that moment, since then, to raise your voice in such powerful ways? Where’s the seed there for you?

MICHELLE SAAHENE:
Um, I’ll be honest with you I think part of it is genetics to be completely honest with you. I was just in Ghana and I’ve learned so much more about my family than I ever knew before. And, um, my cousin and I were sitting there and we were crying because we found out that our great-grandfather was like, like literal royalty. Like he like descended from like royal families. Um, and he was a political activist himself. He went to jail for seven years for standing up for what he believed in. When he came out of jail, he just started right back up again and just continued forward. And the party that he started, um, is one of the two-party systems that are in Ghana today. So I think that it’s just part of who I am.

SHE ROCKED IT:
Um, I was reading on your website, you have this amazing ancestry of leadership in Ghana.

MICHELLE SAAHENE:
Yeah. So I, I knew it was interesting. I, I, I didn’t even know all the story. I mean, it’s, it’s been years later and I’m still just finding out, you know, part of that. And I just think, you know, when you grow up… I mean, I was the only Black girl in my school, my entire life. So,

SHE ROCKED IT:
In like central Pennsylvania, right?

MICHELLE SAAHENE:
(07:55) Yeah. Like Palmyra, Pennsylvania, people don’t even know. People, when you say “Palmyra,” they think “New Jersey”. And Pennsylvania, that’s probably much smaller than New Jersey. And, you know, I just, um, I really found it difficult to find where I fit in. Yeah. A lot of people who were my friends back then are surprised when I say that, they said they had, they had no idea. Um, I seemed like I fit in. I remember I had a, um, an English teacher that told me that she felt that I manhandled my classmates. Little did she know, I did not really feel that included at all. Um, but that courage came from, um, feeling like I, feeling like I know what it feels like. I know what it feels to be singled out. I know what it feels to experience that discrimination. I know what it feels like to, to, um, be profiled by the police (08:50) and no one say anything, that’s happened to me before. When I was about 22 in Harrisburg, outside a club- I used to club a lot- the police came in and tried to arrest me for something that I didn’t do. They had the completely wrong person and no one around me said anything or did anything. And I just remember how alone I felt. Um, and then the year before that happened, uh, in Starbucks, I had been back to Ghana. I went to a slave dungeon and, um, I stood where, you know, my long-lost brothers, sisters, you know, possibly family, neighbors stood and I heard what they went through. And I remember going to the top of the slave castle-which by the way at the dungeon is where they murdered and tortured people- at the top of their chapel. Um, yeah. So, and I remember standing up there and looking across the ocean and just trying to imagine what it would have been like to be in that boat or to watch your family members just being shipped away. (09:51) And you never saw them again. So when I came back to America, it was impossible for me, for like the first year I was back, I couldn’t look at a Black American and not think to myself, “you could be my neighbor in Ghana. You could end up being my family. You could have been my friend”. So when I saw these two young men getting arrested, I didn’t think these were just two guys that were like- these are my brothers. These are these-these could literally be my brothers. And they weren’t even, they were just so Zen even being arrested, like they were just like, “this is happening” because it’s, that’s the reality. I don’t even think that they were shocked by it whatsoever. So there’s a lot of factors as to why I spoke up. Um, but, but ultimately it was, “these are my brothers and no one else is saying anything. So if I don’t say anything, I am just as responsible as everybody else in this room”.

SHE ROCKED IT:
It’s amazing to hear this from you. Thank you so much for sharing your recollections of that pivotal moment. So, how has that been for you to see the conversation kind of grow and you leading it, um, through, From Privilege To Progress, how has that been that your voice, really, I think helped us spark this conversation? And then of course there was some catalytic events, tragic events that further, you know, brought the conversation out into the public and you, I think you and Melissa have a really interesting sort of angle in that you’re desegregating the conversation. You’re a white woman, Black woman together on stage, you know, sharing your voices, having that conversation together, which I think is really powerful. So how has that been for you just to see the conversation evolve over those years?

MICHELLE SAAHENE:
(11:23) It has been, it’s given me a lot of hope, a lot, a lot of hope that I, than I felt before. I mean, in March we probably had 10,000 followers and now we have 500 and, um, 14 or something in, in a year. So when I saw that burst, um, we were so happy. We were so grateful. We were just so- we were so hopeful and, and just, um, so appreciative that we could even be a part of this conversation and help people because people probably think that we’re academics and historians. We’re none of these things. We are just two regular people who saw something happen, spoke up, and were committed ourselves in our personal lives to educate ourselves. And it was like, “You know what? Let’s help other people do the same thing”. Cause we were lost. We didn’t know what we were doing. (12:15) Like we had so many meetings in the beginning— our name changed. We didn’t know what angle we wanted to take. We were all over the place. Because her and I, we were complete strangers. I didn’t know her. She didn’t know me. We came together and we were talking about race and we realized there’s so much for us to learn. And people are lost. There’s so much information out there and people didn’t know what to believe. They didn’t know where to start. So we said, “you know what? Let’s, let’s make this easier for people and give them, you know, bite sizes to be able to digest”. And it has been, um, I mean this year—she has another company that she runs. She’s actually transition, transitioning out of that right now to do this full time. She is like everything to me, she’s like one of the most phenomenal people I’ve ever met, um, to be doing this. She’s 53 years old and she’s like, “I’m done with my company.” (13:00) She’s had a company for 20 years and she’s like, “I can see this, um, blossoming into something huge”. I mean, we have so many plans coming up in the next three years. We are so, so, so, so excited. And um, we’re just going with it. We’re just going to see where it goes. I just, I remember just the other day we were talking, I’m like, “wow, what’s going to happen when we’re older, we’re retired and we have to give this to somebody else? This is our baby!” So it’s been, um, we’re really grateful for all of our followers because I, you know, we can’t, we couldn’t do this if people weren’t resonating with us, if we weren’t able to connect with people. So we are really thankful and grateful that we can connect with people and talk to people and just grateful that people can see themselves in us. (13:43) You know, you don’t have to be some, you don’t have to understand these things at a scholarly level to speak up and say something and be a part of the, the, the, the progress. And, um, yeah, even in just these three years, her and I have grown so so much. We were at very similar places in our racial identity, uh, awareness. So we had a lot of growing to do. And I think that really helped that we were in similar places because we helped each other grow. We asked each other questions, we challenged each other. We call each other out when we’re wrong or when we do something problematic. And it’s, it’s not just like a, uh, a partnership in business, but she’s one of my closest friends. We just, you know, we want to keep doing, speaking all over the world. It’s, it’s been, I don’t even, I I’m just, I don’t even have words for like ourselves because we are, um, even though we are shocked at the same time, we’re not shocked because I said, listen, don’t be shocked. We’ve manifested this. We wanted to make a difference in the world. The universe put us together. The universe had us go to that Starbucks to gather on the same day, at the same time for us to meet. This, this collaboration I believe is divine. I absolutely believe it. There’s no one can tell me otherwise I hear that.

SHE ROCKED IT:
Yep.

MICHELLE SAAHENE:
Yeah. I believe we were, we were absolutely sent there to meet each other.

SHE ROCKED IT:
(15:04) We’re thinking about, um, how women can inspire one another, especially, and how we, when we create a network together- the case of you and Melissa as a duo, there’s something very powerful about two women. And just hearing how you are, I mean, you’re almost like family, it sounds like now you’re really so deeply connect, right? So what is it about women’s collaboration or the way women specifically can inspire one another? Maybe there was no accident that it was two women who sat next to each other at Starbucks that day, you know. And what is it about you, I would say also women speakers and leaders that kind of also maybe creates a different, I don’t know, angle on the work you’re doing or a different kind of healing, perhaps? Because I think what you’re doing is very healing. I, how would you say that your, um, identity as women kind of impacts this collaboration and the work that you’re doing?

MICHELLE SAAHENE:
Um, well of course I think women are special. And so I feel like-

SHE ROCKED IT:
I agree!

MICHELLE SAAHENE:
You know, we are, and you know, people don’t see women in this space a lot. They don’t often see women in this space, you know? Um, and they especially don’t see a Black woman and a white woman together (16:10) doing this work.

SHE ROCKED IT:
You mean in the anti-racism space, you’re saying?

MICHELLE SAAHENE:
(16:14) Yeah. Like, up until, you know, we started, a lot of the people that we found…I mean, we, we did see some women, but we saw so many men doing this work. Um, and it’s so interesting cause we’ve been called to do a lot of speaking engagements just specifically from women’s organizations that were like, “we need to see more women leaders”. And you know, to be honest, people still don’t expect women to be in the s- in the spaces that we’re in. Speaking up, getting loud in a Starbucks, getting loud in a public setting is still something that people don’t really, they don’t wanna admit it, but they still don’t really expect to see women do.

SHE ROCKED IT:
Yeah, I have goosebumps. Totally. Yeah.

MICHELLE SAAHENE:
You know, they’re like, “oh, who are these?” But we’re not scared of, we’re not scared of whatever people say about us. We are strong women. Not only are we strong, but soft enough to hold grace and space for people to do what they need to do. Right? Like when it comes to men, you know, I love men too. I have a boyfriend. I love him. But sometimes men can be a little bit impatient. Sometimes they can be a little bit, um, you know, men like to see things getting done when they want it to get done. But in this space of anti-racism and any type of personal development work, you have to be able to give people space. You have to be able to let your emotions show. You have to be, you have to be able to allow people to feel things. You have to be, um, comfortable with tears. (17:32) I don’t know, I can’t tell you how many times I have cried on speaking engagements. And I do not care. I will cry in front of a thousand people.

SHE ROCKED IT:
Yeah.

MICHELLE SAAHENE:
Because I want people to cry with me. I want people to get down deep and cry. I do sometimes like, when someone cries I’m like, “success!” I see someone crying because you know-

SHE ROCKED IT:
That’s the real stuff, that’s the real stuff,

MICHELLE SAAHENE:
And that’s that feminine, divine energy that you can bring to a space to allow people to be, to embrace all the parts of their humanity, the parts that typically we are conditioned to hide away.

SHE ROCKED IT:
Yeah. That’s Powerful. That’s really (18:11) powerful. And just to go back to your idea of the divine kind of intervention that brought you and Melissa together, or that you, that brought you on the path you’re on now— I find that really interesting as an entrepreneur. Because I think in our Western society, we are conditioned that we have to control everything. We have to force everything. Like, “I want to do this and I’m going to like be on this path”. But I think what you’re saying, which I’ve come to believe as an entrepreneur is there is almost a spiritual component to it where you let the universe kind of do its thing. You can’t always force everything. You have to listen within and follow that sort of inner compass. Or maybe there’s a— and I’m not even like a religious person, but I do think that there is a re— so I’m, I’m, I’m touched by what you said. That’s not lost on me. And I’ve read was reading on your stuff, how you really felt like it was a divine calling you, you spoke it into existence. So tell us a little more about how that maybe even serves as a compass for you now, as you’ve gotten big, and you’re really, you know, speaking on very big stages of very big organizations— are you still kind of following that intuitive or a spiritual compass to chart these ambitious goals that you have for your coming years? How, how does that work for you as an entrepreneur now?

MICHELLE SAAHENE:
(19:14) A thousand percent, even more so than before. Because, you just said something about how, um, you know, we’re trying to force things and we try to control things—and the more you try to force and control, that just causes resistance. And the universe doesn’t know what to do with that because you’re not, you’re not letting things flow. You’re not being open to opportunities that could be coming your way. You’re not open to potential relationships that you don’t know where they’re going to lead. I take it very seriously. I take manifesting very very seriously. I take, um, like I have affirmations on my phone that, on my screensaver. So every time I open up my phone there’s affirmations and I recite them. And it’s like, even if you don’t believe in yourself, just keep, just keep saying it until you believe it. And things are going to start happening in your life that you never ever, that you never dreamed of, at at the same time, somewhere deep down, you kind of knew. You kind of knew that you were meant for something, great, you have to believe that. I’m also not a religious person at all. But, um, there is a spiritual component to what we do a thousand percent. You have to be open to that kind of energy. You have to be open to that, that energy exchange because when you can control your energy, things will fall into your life that again, you, you may never have even imagined.

SHE ROCKED IT:
(20:27) So I have to ask you, like, as you’ve been, you know, summoning this amazing courage and bringing these things into your life and all of a sudden you’re like on Red Table Talk or all of a sudden you’re on The Today Show. I mean, I mean, how do you, you gotta be, I mean, talk about nervousness. How do you get your voice up when you’re on these, you know, huge national platforms? Um, how does that feel? How did it feel for you to be there? Were you like, “wow, I’m pinching myself” or did it actually feel like “this is meant,” this is, um, you know— how did that feel, just in terms of raising your voice on such big stage?

MICHELLE SAAHENE:
(20:57) Um, a bit of both, it was like, “oh my God, I’m here”. But then at the, to be honest with you, like, I just kept telling myself like, “we’re supposed to be here. This is exactly where we’re supposed to be”. I mean, for a minute, I was like nervous. But then like, you know, like looking over next to you and seeing Jada Pinkett Smith, literally like five inches from you, um, you have to remind yourself that these people are regular people. They are regular people. They’re, I mean, they’re doing amazing things so like regular, but like not so regular. Um, but they’re just regular human beings that are just also trying to have conversations. I mean, like sitting down with like Jada and Willow and, um, Adrian, her mother, I felt comfortable within 30 seconds. Within 30 seconds, I was like, “oh, this is totally normal. These are normal people”. And like the way that they look into your eyes, they want to have a conversation. It’s weird. It’s like, I don’t get that nervous anymore because I’m like, “this is— I’m supposed to be here. And I’m regular.”

SHE ROCKED IT:
(21:50) Well, I think it’s really important that you mentioned earlier in the conversation that you and Melissa, like, weren’t like academics. You’re not professors of, you know, this area. It’s like you, um, raise your voices as human beings coming from your own experience. You educated yourselves. But because I think there’s so much imposter syndrome when it comes to like raising your voice in a big way of like, “oh, I’m not qualified. I’m not the right person to speak on these issues”. And I still, I personally feel like I’m still learning how to raise my voice on the issues I care about so passionately around race and anti-racism (22:24).

MICHELLE SAAHENE:
Yeah! That’s the thing. And that’s what I try to emphasize to people- like we are learning with you. Like when we post a resource, we’ve just read it. Like, I didn’t read it 10 years ago. I read it five minutes before I posted it. I read it. I digest it. If I think that it will be, um, a lot of people will be able to identify with it. Then we post that. So we are learning right along with people which does help to dispel some of that imposter syndrome because we’re not trying to be anything other than who we are. We are learning just as much as everybody else is. We really started our, our education, not that much longer than, than before Starbucks. And so, um, when we tell people that they’re like, “okay, if you can do it, I can do it too”.

SHE ROCKED IT:
(23:06) I’m sure in these different environments where you’ve spoken, every conversation probably has its own unique, I don’t know what kind of direction and people are coming from different places. Probably if you were in the South or if you’re in the Northwest or here in Pennsylvania, like I’m sure, you know, you gotta be open to where people meet people kind of where they are. I’d think.

MICHELLE SAAHENE:
(23:23) That’s it. You meet people where they are. There are definitely people who have not agreed with us and I’m like, “I’m okay with that”. You don’t have to agree with me, but you have to respect me and I have to respect you. Um, and that’s it. And, learn, like, learning how to be like a pleasant person to disagree with is something I even still struggle with because some people have some of us wanna like pop people who don’t, who like, right? But I have to remind myself that there was one point in time where I didn’t know anything either.

SHE ROCKED IT:
Hmm. That’s deep (23:56) empathy. Yeah. Deep compassion, empathy. I think as women too. Um, and I would think as a Black woman, the “getting angry” comes with a lot, too. We have almost…so I’m sure that’s a dance that on stage you’ve had to navigate. To put it mildly. (24:14)

MICHELLE SAAHENE:
Yeah. I mean, I would be lying to you if I said that there aren’t times where I tone police myself. Still. It’s still something that I have to, I have to undo that even within myself, because my whole life, I have been tone policed, my whole life, you know, I’ve had to deal with the Angry Black Woman stereotype. Um, and there are times where I do allow myself to get a little bit more angry, especially like on my Lives, if I’m not in like an actual speaking engagement, like I’ll, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll be myself. Um, and sometimes like at an engagement I’ll have Melissa say certain things that I don’t say, cause I’m like, “I want it to come from the white person. I want, I want people to hear from her and not me.” Um, I mean, we, we we’ve dealt with that. (24:56) I remember, you know, we’ve, we’ve had situations before where Melissa is right next to me and she’s just so much, obviously more angry than I than, than I am and I get called angry. Um, and so yeah, I-I- would like, pray for the day where it just, you know, we can just let out all of our emotions that are all valid by the way, because Black women have every right to be angry. There’s a lot for us to be angry about.

SHE ROCKED IT:
Amen.

MICHELLE SAAHENE:

And then, um, yeah, I, I, I hope to create that space where people, when they see Black women get angry, they say, “there is a justified, angry Black woman” instead of not just an “Angry Black Woman”.

SHE ROCKED IT:
(25:32) Amen, Michelle. And I just, I just have to say like when I see your Lives, when I see you speaking in any capacity, I’m just in awe. I mean, of your eloquence of just, I don’t know that-the power behind your words, so whatever you’re doing, whatever you’re channeling, um, I feel it, and I know so many people feel that we’ve got such beautiful comments happening in the chat about the lives you’ve touched. So I just want to say thank you and kudos for following this divine calling that you’re on. And um, let me finish this, sadly, finish this conversation with one final question for you, because this has been such an honor. Um, if you were to leave us with ONE TIP TO ROCK IT in our careers and our callings, as you have done, what’s ONE TIP TO ROCK IT you’d want to leave with us?

MICHELLE SAAHENE:
(26:20) One tip. I would– everything you do, everything you do, ask yourself, “is this is bringing you closer to who you are or taking you farther away from who you are?” Because I would not be in the position that I am if I was being anything other than who I, who I truly was at my core. I wouldn’t be sitting here talking to you. Um, my life was not that successful while I was pretending to be somebody else because I wasn’t asking myself that question. Every decision you make, “is this bringing me closer to who I am, or just taking me farther away from who I am?” Because the closer that you get to who you are, the more success, the more abundance, the more beautiful relationships, and more opportunities will come your way that are actually meant for you.

SHE ROCKED IT:
That is so powerfully said. And I feel like that moment in Starbucks, you took a big step toward who you are in seeing your brothers literally there, and the rest is history. And thank you for listening to your inner voice and sharing your voice outwardly with all of us. And it’s awesome to see you (27:28)

MICHELLE SAAHENE:
I know I hope I get to see you In person!

SHE ROCKED IT:
I know! Well, (27:30) I think getting closer to all of that too in the world. So grateful, and just thank you so much for your time for sharing your voice with me and with us.

MICHELLE SAAHENE:
(27:39) Thank you for having me on here. I appreciate it.

SHE ROCKED IT:
It’s been my joy.

Thanks so much for tuning into the SHE ROCKED IT Podcast. I’m your host, Karen Gross. This episode has been produced by Tori Marchiony and Jake Segelbaum with audio engineering by Teng Chen. The SHE ROCKED IT theme song is by Karen Gross and Tim Motzer. I invite you to join us on Instagram @sherockedit and join our ROCKSTAR NETWORK at sherockedit.com. We hope you’ll add your voice to the conversation because at SHE ROCKED IT, we are dedicated to raising the volume on women’s voices.