When nationally ranked gymnast Endya Perry found out she was pregnant, the fan mail she used to get turned ugly. But she refused to let detractors stand in her way of chasing her dreams. Now it’s Dr. Endya Perry, and she encourages, “You can close that window and you can close every door in this place, but it’s not going to stop me because my dreams are too big to be contained in one building. You didn’t create me. So you can’t confine me. You didn’t design me. So you can’t deny me.”
Transcript
Dr. Endya Perry: You’re still here. You’re still standing. Yeah, you went through this. Someone abused you, someone molested you, it didn’t break you. You’re still here. You are the most powerful being in this room right now. And so like those experiences to me, That’s what life’s about,
Dana Kadwell: Welcome to Hustle and Gather, a podcast about inspiring the everyday entrepreneur to take the leap. I’m Dana
Courtney Hopper: and I’m Courtney.
Dana: And we are two sisters who have started multiple businesses together. And yes, it is as messy as you think. Because we know that starting a business isn’t easy.
Courtney: We’ve done it four times. And on this show, we talk about the ups and downs of the hustle and the reward at the end of the journey.
Dana: And we love helping small businesses succeed. Whether it’s through our venue consulting, speaking, or team training, we love to motivate others to take that really big leap.
Courtney: Or you could just use our misadventures to normalize the crazy that is being an entrepreneur, because every entrepreneur makes mistakes.
Dana: And we like to call those unsuccessful attempts around here.
Courtney: And we know it’s just a part of the process. And today we’re learning from Dr. Endya Perry. She is a segment chief financial officer for government markets at Blue Cross, North Carolina. Under her leadership, her team provides financial strategy, guidance and support for the government market segments. She earned her bachelor’s degree from NC State University in accounting, her MBA with a concentration in business law from Campbell University, and recently earned her doctorate specializing in organizational leadership from North Central University out of California.
She is a proven leader with a strong passion for inspiring and transforming people and teams. Her background is rich and finance, business analysis, digital tools and leadership. Welcome.
Dana: Quite the bio.
Endya: I know, it was a lot to say, honestly.
Dana: Oh, we are so excited to have you. We actually heard you at the woman’s leadership conference. I don’t even know when that was. It was sometime in 2021, I think it was the fall.
Endya: It was a fall. 2021 was like a blur.
Dana: But we absolutely loved you. Got to have her on the show. So we’re so excited to have you here today.
Endya: That’s amazing. I appreciate. Very excited to be here.
Courtney: Yeah, like some of your words were just so inspiring. So were like, all right, we’ve got to have her on this podcast. Obviously your bio is quite impressive and it sounds like you’ve kind of taken like a long approach, like your bachelor’s here and your master’s there and your doctorate at this point. So tell us a little bit about like your journey, like how you decided to do what you’re doing and take all those steps and get all those degrees.
Endya: Yeah, my journey has been interesting. Definitely have taken the scenic route. When I was in college with my undergrad, I had no idea what I wanted to do. I knew I needed to make money and I want it to make money. So even in college I was kind of following the scholarship money. So I started out in my major was education.
I was a physics major at one point. I was a math major at one point. Wherever the most scholarship money was just like, cool. I’m still taking like my basic classes. So it worked out, but then I took an accounting class as an elective and I loved it. I loved it. And I love math. I’ve always loved math. So it was just, I loved it.
And I stuck with accounting and jumped into the accounting. And I actually had my own business, E Danielle Financials and Statistical Analysis, and I would actually work with small businesses and just help them with bookkeeping and even process improvements, things like that. And so I did that for a while, but in my regular day job of accounting as a staff accountant, and I was a financial analyst for a while, accounting was always separate and siloed.
And for me, I could see the change that needed to happen, but I couldn’t be a part of the change. It was really just do your journal entries, do your reports and pass it on. That wasn’t what I wanted. And that wasn’t what I realized I needed. I’m, one that I’m a change agent. I’m all about transformation, so for me to not be able to be at the table when transformation was happening and helping to make it happen, it was frustrating for me internally because it wasn’t aligning with who I knew I was.
So I stepped out of accounting, and I got my MBA because I was kind of teetering on masters of accounting or an MBA. But because I knew I wanted to kind of branch out and really help to transform businesses as a whole, I knew I had to broadened my reach.
Courtney: You’re working and getting her MBA at the same time then?
Endya: Oh yeah.
Courtney: Nice little college side hustle.
Endya: And it was, so I ended up working. I was working time, got my MBA and I was in law school at the same time.
So I was in school. Yeah, not sure how I did that, but I so I was in my, in grad school getting my MBA from Campbell, Law school at North Carolina Central University, taking law school courses there. Because at that time, I was like, I can do a JD, MBA together? Okay. Sounded great, right, but then I realized,
Dana: it sounds like a lot.
Endya: It did. And it was, it was, it was, believe me. I found out from my counselor at Campbell that I could just concentrate in business law. And so I was like, okay, that sounds great. Less classes I have to take, one school I have to worry about. So I did that, and again, at the time I was in grad school, law school, had my own business, working full time, had my daughter at that time, like, it was a lot. But I knew I was going after something.
And for me, I really wanted for my daughter, it was so important to me that she looked at me and didn’t see, oh, Mom didn’t achieve her goals. I had my daughter young. I was 18 when I had her. And so I never wanted her to feel that she was an excuse. She was not an excuse, she was really a catalyst for and what drive drove me because more than anything, I wanted her to look at me and say, if mom can do it, it’s possible. So that was something that was important to me.
Courtney: You were in your undergrad; you had your daughter?
Endya: Yeah.
Courtney: So the whole, your whole journey is with a partner?
Endya: Absolutely. Absolutely. She has been with me and she, we kind of joke about it. I was like, you’ve been with me through every graduation, high school graduation. Didn’t know you were there. I was pregnant, but right, but you’ve been there through it all. and with that, if you can imagine when you have a baby, it’s responsibility, right.
So, you know, I’m a freshman in college and the kids are, you know, hey, we’re going to this party and. Nope, going home got to, you know? Yeah. But I think it really kept me focused, and really helped me to drive to where I need it to be. I’ll say before I had my daughter, I was in gymnastics. I was a gymnast, and really headed down a path with gymnastics.
That’s who I was, and I attach my identity to my function. It was Endya, the gymnast. That’s who I was, and I hurt my knee in a competition, so I was out of gymnastics for a while. And then as I was trying to recover, I had tendonitis in both knees, I had strained my MCL. It just really wasn’t going to happen.
And then later I found out I was pregnant. So it was like yeah, pregnancy, gymnastics don’t really go together, really going to work out. And at the time I, and I remembered this moment because this was a turning moment for me. I was sitting on my bed and I had a stack of scholarship letters, gymnastics scholarship letters, and I had a stack of mail from fans, so to speak, people who have watched me compete and they would send me letters. So all the competition, it was amazing, whatever, whatever. So I had those two stacks, and then I had a positive pregnancy test.
And that was a, that was a defining moment for me, right, because again, all I knew, I’m Endya, the gymnast, right. And here’s Endya the mom that’s sitting here too, and I’m 18, and what does that mean? but I, I chose my daughter in that moment that, that was a decision for me. That was the right decision for me, and that was a heck of a journey.
It was a heck of a journey, because it’s amazing how quickly fan mail turns to hate mail. When you define yourself by your role, people also define you by your function. And when that function no longer exist, now you don’t serve that function for them anymore. That can turn really quickly.
Dana: How did you handle that; I mean at 18 too and it’s just.
Endya: It was hard. It was hard. It was devastating. Those were some really difficult years. And for me, I think that’s why I drove so hard to make sure I could prove everyone wrong.
Dana: That you made the, I mean, obviously you made the right choice. You would never second guessed that choice, but it’s like, you have to prove to them that you made the right choice.
Endya: I had to.
Courtney: Did you raise your daughter yourself?
Endya: No, my husband. We, and he and I we’ve been together for over half my life. so we, we were together at the time we weren’t married, but we were together. So yeah, I definitely had help. My parents are amazing. so I’ve had help all along the way, but it was hard cause it was, I wanted to make sure I was carrying the weight of it. It’s my baby, and,
Dana: I think too, like being a parent is so transformative to who you are like to the core of who you are. And I think as an 18-year-old, who didn’t necessarily make that choice, right, and the choice was made for them, to really come to terms with that and to embrace it and to say, I’m going to be the best at this.
And that’s a maturity that a lot of 18-year-old can’t like, don’t have, I mean, I was a parent at 20, I don’t know, 25. And even then I struggled with how much I changed and I made the choice right, I was like, we decided to do this. You don’t, it just, it radically changes even who you are not even on the physical level. Spiritually, emotionally everything.
Endya: And I think, I think having children though, that’s one of those things that you can never fully prepare yourself for, right? Because I have a son now as well, and even, and he was, you know, it was okay, we’re going to have a baby and we’re working through that, but still there’s so much change that because this is a new life that’s being brought into the world. That’s change, and you can’t always anticipate the changes that you face, but when they’re present, now is how do you respond and react and make the most of this. And just so happened, children are beautiful and amazing and all of that, but it was still a lot of work.
Oh my goodness. But yeah, it was really, that was really a very hard time for me. And I think there were some of the, and it’s interesting because some of the letters that I got that I would refer to as hate mail, were really difficult to receive. I mean, and there was this one woman in particular that would send me letters, her letters first were really beautiful, cause I was her daughter’s favorite gymnast. She had posters of me on the wall. And so then she was sending me.
Courtney: So are you like, like Olympic level?
Endya: I was nationally ranked. So she was sending me letters with like statistic on teenage pregnancies and all of these things, and I was like, okay, really? I’m one of those numbers now. Right, I appreciate it. But what was amazing to me, and this was maybe about six, seven years ago, I was speaking at an event and I came off the stage and this woman came up to me and she said, you don’t remember me, do you? I said no. And she, she was like crying. And she said, she said her name. And then I was like, oh yeah, I’ve gotten a few letters from you.
And she said, I, I want to apologize, but I know I’m sorry is not enough. And she said I need to tell you my story, and what’s happened and why I started sending you these letters. And she was the one that was sending me the hate mail. And so it was a really interesting conversation. What I ended up telling her though, that I think was a very freeing moment for me, is I told her thank you.
Cause I said you were the fuel that really propelled me forward. However, now I’ve recognized just from this conversation, I don’t have to prove anything to you. And I recognize that a lot of my I’m going to prove you wrong. I’m going to prove you wrong. I don’t owe you that. You don’t deserve that. And so I’m letting you go, I’m letting this go so that I can move in where I need to be, right, and that was a freeing moment for me, but it was definitely a full circle.
Dana: Yeah. That’s so, I think that it’s so intense because I do think there, there’s this fine line, because I feel like when you are faced with adversity or you’re faced with someone, and you’re just, like you said, you’re trying to prove them wrong.
That is that fuel. It is what motivates you a lot of times, but at the same time, that same motivation, that same intense drive can destroy you, because when you finally, maybe you never feel like you got there. Maybe you’re still fighting this ghost of this person who obviously at this point in life, it was more about her than I was ever about you.
And since it’s such a mature and like amazing growth moment to say, I can let this go. I can appreciate it for what it was, even though it was really hard, but I can also let it go and know that I am better than fighting the invisible fight that I’m trying to fight, you know?
Endya: Exactly. And I think it was also eye-opening for me because I recognize I never want to be that. I never want to be someone that takes my own situation, whatever that may be and project that on someone else. And at the time I’m 18 years old, right? Like, why am I the target for your frustration, what you’re going through? Right. So it was really eye opening for me to like, let me make sure I’m not doing this to anybody.
Like, you know, of course I’m not sending hate mail. But yeah, just like really thinking, like making sure that I’m working through my mess right, and resolving my mess and not projecting it on others to cause these things for other people. But yeah, so. Long story to answer your question.
Courtney: I love that. I know so much, this gives so much scope for where you’re at now, and there’s so much understanding for your drive and like who you are as a person and, and your husband, your partner, like that’s, sure he was going through a very similar situation, right?
you got to, you know, have weathered all of that and several degrees and kids later, like that is a testament to your commitment level and who you are.
Endya: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it’s definitely not easy going through life period for anyone. so I think it’s important to have someone to go through life with whoever that may be.
Right. You know, if it’s a marriage, if it’s a friend, if it’s a partner, whatever it may be, but having someone to share a journey with is so important. But yeah, it is. I mean, definitely each piece of my journey feeds into another and even my organizational leadership, my doctorate that I got at the end of 2020, for me, I’m really passionate about leadership.
I’m really passionate about growing and developing people, but it’s because of my journey, right. Because of that moment, when it was okay, I’m not Endya, the gymnast anymore. Who am I? What is my purpose? Why am I here? And understanding for me, it was my purpose is not tied to my skills, its tied to my story. And so recognizing that, then it was what is my story, right?
Because for the longest time people would ask me, so tell me your story. I would start from where I was comfortable, right? Oh, I graduated from NC State University and I’ve done this and this. It’s like there were two decades before that, and there’s really a lot of things that informed what happened later on.
And so you have a lot of people that’ll come in that just meet you. And immediately you’re like, this is who you are. You came in at the end of the movie. There were some things that happen here. That kind of add to that. So that was, for me, it is really, it’s really telling that each moment of your journey kind of leads to the next.
And I used to love and still do, I love stories. So I love watching people kind of recap their life. So whether it’s like with a football life or 30 for 30 or Unsung, and all of these shows that really have people unpacking their life, I love that. But it, for a long time, it was just, I liked seeing it, but that was like, I probably need to do that for my own life cause there was a lot there, but in doing that, I really learned a lot about myself.
Dana: Yeah. And it kind of led you to your next big thing with your sister, which is your E2 Enterprises. So talk a little bit about that. Like what the premise of that is, and you had a great story about your nephew that would love for you to share with people that explains a little bit more of what you guys do.
Endya: Absolutely. To me, I think this business is so meaningful to both me and my sister because of our journey as sisters.
Courtney: Does her name start with an E as well? what’s her name?
Endya: Her name is Ede. It’s interesting, in my family is two girls, two boys. And both boys have the same initials, both girls have the same initials. So ED is us and then WJ or my brothers, my dad’s name is WJ. So cool. So she’s seven years older than me. And so growing up, I always looked up to my sister, always looked up to her. But I was a baby sister, so she got me with a lot of the less place Cinderella, and that means you clean up and I watch. she got me with a lot of those.
And it’s interesting because as we’ve gotten older and I would say, especially over the past, probably 10 years, we’ve gotten extremely close. And what’s drawn us closer together is my mother, my mother’s health, honestly. Again, having someone to partner with on the journey. but she and I have just grown so close with that.
And what we realized is that a lot of the things that we’re passionate about it’s the same. And so the different things she was doing and I was doing. We’re kind of doing the same thing and people would reach out, because it started out with us doing event planning and it was, hey, Ede, Endya, where you guys come and, you know, and decorate for our wedding.
And it may be, she also speaks at different conferences and events. I do as well. So there’s been events where we’re decorating and speaking, right? We’re a one stop shop. And then in doing that enough, it was like, why don’t we just do our own events? Like, you know? But then we, we both have a very strong passion around growing and developing people. We have a strong passion about growing and developing women in particular. And so we’ve done women conferences. We’ve done all types of things together. But it’s so rewarding when. Your sister, right? Yeah. You guys can relate.
Courtney: Can we relate?
Dana: It’s rewarding and infuriating at the same time.
Endya: But I loved in your intro as you talked about, because there is a coming out to the other side, right? Yeah. That it is a grind. It’s not easy. It’s not all sweet and there’s, it’s hard. There’s still a lot of grind a lot. And I think it’s even more so because who you’re partnered with you, you are so invested in, right? Like that’s forever my sister, forever my sister, and never would. I want her to fall for anything.
So I’m working 10 times harder and, and she’s doing the same. It’s a lot of work, but in the end, it’s so rewarding to have that. With our business, there’s many different avenues that we’re taking because there’s a lot of things that we see we can do and that different gaps. And cause I believe that organizations and businesses are here to solve problems, right.
And there are a lot of problems in the world. There are a lot of gaps in the world that we can fill help to fill. When we were raised, we were raised about a spirit of excellence, having that spirit of excellence in everything you do. And so we really want everyone to be able to experience this elite living, right? Where you fit, you have that fail.
There was an event that, my sister was doing with the middle school and it was middle school girls. There’s about 700 of them and we decorate it, and we decorate it very beautifully, very elegant, very luxurious. But these middle school girls, a lot of them come from a very under-resourced area.
And I sat at a table with a group of girls and the girl was sitting beside me, was shaking. And she was like, I can’t believe you sat beside me. And I was like, what do you mean? Like what? And she was like, I heard you speak, and I just can’t believe you chose to sit beside me. And I was like, I’m excited to sit beside you.
Like, do you know who you are? Like, but she sat and she was, she was so inspirational to me, just hearing her story and all that she’s already overcome. She was in seventh grade, right? Just everything she had overcome. Unbelievable. And she was looking at it. I have gone through this, you know, I was abused. I was molested, I was this. And she was like, I’ve been through all this. So I’m worthless. Like, oh no. Oh no, you’re still here. You’re still standing. You went through this. Someone abused you, someone molested you, it didn’t break you. You’re still here. You are the most powerful being in this room right now.
I am honored to sit beside you today. And so like those experiences to me, That’s what life’s about, right? Yes. I’m segment CFO and Blue Cross, and I love it. I love it. And I love Excel, Microsoft Excel, can sit behind spreadsheets all day. That moment for me, and that was years ago, this stays with me. Yeah, and we sat there and she was, and it was funny because she was not wanting to put any food on her plate and she was like, I want to take this home so my family can have a plate to eat off. Cause we don’t really have plates at home. And I was like, amazon.com. What’s your address? Like, are you serious? Here’s my plate, and go get something to eat, but it’s just, it’s it.
There’s so many pockets of need. So many pockets of need, and so that’s where for us right now, we’re in a point in our business where it’s like, we see all these pockets and we want to feel any as you can. But as you guys know starting out a business, it’s better to kind of start very refined and build out. so we definitely still doing some event planning. Definitely leadership is a passion of both of ours, and we’re doing different conferences and seminars with leadership development.
But with my nephew is an example of where we’re investing in the community and in businesses, small businesses. No matter how young cause right now we’re really focused on some of the young entrepreneurs that really want to build their businesses. And he’s one that is an amazing story in and of itself. but being able to feed into him and help him along the journey of building his business, anything that my sister and I can do to help him grow and help him get connected with the right people.
That’s what we want to do. So my nephew was in a car accident a few years ago. And it was very serious accident and he almost lost his life. the accident happened, happened on my birthday. Oh, yeah, getting that call was very hard, but yes, he, he, I got the call that he had been in an accident. He was a senior and entering into his senior year in high school.
He was a football player, star football player. And so you get the call that he’s been an accident and of course you’re thinking, okay, right. You know, fender bender type of thing. And I was actually at lunch with my husband. He had taken off work to take me out to lunch and we were sitting there and I got the call now.
Daniels in an accident we got to. So we ended up going to a hospital and the whole way, my husband’s just trying to keep me calm. Like, you know, probably, maybe he broke his leg and you know, but he can get better and you can help him. Cause you’ve been injured. You were an athlete, you know, and, and my husband’s an athlete.
He was like, we can help them. Let me just keep motivated and stuff. And we get to the hospital, the lobby was packed with students. So the students basically left the school, walked across the street to the emergency room. It was packed. They brought me to the room where the family was doctor came in and in my mind, I’m still thinking maybe broken leg, something like that doctor was like, yeah, we’re trying to, right now, we’re breathing for him.
We want to make sure bloods get into his brain and I was not ready for that. So completely broke down. But long story short, he was in a medically induced coma for three weeks. He came out of it. He ended up playing football that season, but he was so determined and so motivated and that’s what drove him.
He is in college right now, and he has his own business. His business is called Me Motivated and Empowered, and he speaks at events and he is amazing. I, and I was talking to my sister other day and I was like, I have videos of him speaking before the accident. And he he’s always been a great speaker, but he was very shy and kind of, but to hear him now.
Oh my goodness. because it’s, he’s been through it, right. It’s a big difference. We, I used to talk to a group at church where I’m like we say, yea I walked through the valley of the shadow of death. He walked it right. He was there. And so for him now, when he says that it’s different, right?
It’s a different level of intensity when you’ve been through something like that and come out the other side. And so I love the fact that he’s using the most traumatic event in his life, using it to help others and to help others grow. He has a scholarship that he’s done for students, where students who have been through traumatic situations and are looking to use that as motivation.
And so it’s just looking at how the ripple effects work. And so for our business, that’s what we’re looking for, those ripples, where can we find those pockets of need, throw that stone, and sew the ripples.
Dana: I love that. And it probably honestly, like even, I wouldn’t say being pregnant 18 was traumatic, that was obviously very hard. And you talked about how you didn’t really tell that story for a long time and how you really embraced that drama and turned it immediately into something. And it makes you wonder, like what would have, what, what, how different your journey would have been if that was what you always, if that was always your story, it was always what you. That you embrace and that you claimed, you know?
Courtney: I think sometimes like when you, I don’t know the cause of the accident, if it was his fault, not his fault or whatever, or, you know, again, like being pregnant at 18, there’s some level of shame involved in that. And I think there’s a lot of people who hide those things and it’s a real detriment to their growth, both personally.
And for other people thinking about using that story and how it normalizes it, we all have our things, absolutely.
Endya: Absolutely, absolutely.
Courtney: It’s interesting. In 2019, I believe it was, I won working mother of the year at Blue Cross. And to me that meant the world because being pregnant at 18, You’re you know immediately, oh no, you are a statistic. You’re not going to be able to, you, you, this is what you’re going to be.
Courtney: I mean someone took the time to mail you that information, so…
Endya: Yes. And so for me, it was like, that meant so much to me, but it was also a realization that if people don’t know why, people don’t know those chapters of my life that I was truncating then they wouldn’t understand the meaning of that. And so that for me was also a place where it was like, no, I have to own my full story. I have to own the good and the bad. I have to own all of it, right. To say, this is who I am as a whole, and this is what I’ve done with what I have. And so that, to me, it means, it means the world to really be able to own your full story, because even, and I’ll also share even after getting my doctorate.
I had to realize you got to own the good too. Someone had to come to me and say, you never updated your email signature. And I’m like, I’m the same Endya. It’s okay. I don’t want to, you know, and I had a leader come to me and tell me don’t shrink, stop shrinking, own your space. And this leader has been so transformational for me, her name’s Fran Gary.
But she was telling me don’t shrink, do not do that. And she said, every time I introduce you, I’m introducing you as Doctor Endya Perry. And I was like, okay. And so I put it on my email signature and I kind of brace myself, because I would see different articles of where people would go through all types of things.
Women would go through all types of things when, oh, no, you’re not a real doctor. Dr. Biden, right? As if it’s not a lot of work, right. And so it, I put it on my email signature and the number of people that have reached out to just say, wow. You know, one didn’t know you were even in school. But for you to have done that and still be so cool and easy to talk to, like, can I talk to you and find out how you did it?
Like, you know, but it’s opened the door for me to help other people realize that it’s possible. And so for me, it’s owning the full story again, the good and the bad, cause that was I was like, I don’t know if I really need to, you know, but no, it is important that people realize that is possible. And I think that’s probably a theme within my family, not just with me, but even as I think about things with my mother, with my nephew, my sister with my brother, with my dad, with everyone it’s redefining what’s possible.
Dana: It’s so true. I mean, even now, like whenever someone comes out up and they’ll make, give us a compliment about something and you just, you can never accept it. You’re just like, oh, it’s no big deal. It’s fine. And there’s times I want to be like, you know what? I’m really proud that we did this and you’re right.
Like, I appreciate you recognizing the fact that that we’re kinging ass right now. Just it’s like you’re taught at such a young age to shrink yourself and to not be, you get to school or it’s labeled as being a narcissist or something. And you’re like, it’s not really being a narcissist, but being proud of who you are.
Courtney: No, because I think too, that it’s so important that especially when you’re talking about like, embracing that whole story and like seeing it kind of like as a linear, like a graph or whatnot, it gives other people power and empowers other people to say, wow, like I was in a similar situation and this doesn’t have to be what defines me.
It doesn’t have to be the end. Like it’s all possible. But when you, when you don’t show what’s possible, you’re like, oh, I mean, it wasn’t a big deal. Like I did that. I went through it. We all have our thing, blah, blah, blah. You know, Be, little’s not only you to yourself, but also it doesn’t impact the other person.
Endya: You’re exactly right, exactly right. It robs them that opportunity, their possibility, people will be what they see and if they don’t see anything different, if you don’t show them something different than it’s, you can be speaking to an 18-year-old, who’s carrying a child and their thing. Hey, I got the data too.
This is what it is. And it’s like, no, it’s not you. Right? It’s like, no, that doesn’t have to be right. Define it. What do you want? Go after it, if you’re willing to work and you’re willing to make the sacrifices you need to make to get there, you’ll get there. You’ll get there.
And that’s where, you know, again, those are those pockets where I can actually reach out, grab your hand and help you on this journey, you know? And that’s really what it’s all about. That’s what it’s all about.
Dana: I love, I love this quote from executive women’s day you made, and it says you can close that window and you can close every door in this place, but it’s not going to stop me because my dreams are too big to be contained in one building. You didn’t create me. So you can’t confine me. He didn’t design me. So you can’t deny me.
Endya: Yeah, that is interesting that there is actually a children’s movie. And I don’t even know why my family watches movies with me. It doesn’t take much for me to get stirred it up and just go on a rant. But we were watching the movie and the little girl was singing a song.
And the song I think is called the square root of impossible or something like that, square root of possible. And so she was singing the song and those like her, the lyrics of this song was you can close the windows, you can lock the doors, then I’ll take off the roof. And then I will soar. And I was like, did y’all just hear, like, I was like pause a movie.
Did y’all just hear, I’m literally standing in front of the TV. And everyone’s like, please sit down, sit down. But it was just so inspirational to me because of the fact I have faced those closed windows and those locked doors. And in those moments, you’re thinking I’m not going to get in the room.
I’m not in get there. We always talk about this glass ceiling. There’s no way I can get through that glass ceiling. And if you don’t know it’s possible, then you will shrink and you’ll fall back from that moment. And just as we were just talking about, you’re robbing someone the opportunity to see that it is possible to break through the roof, take the roof off.
Why do we need a roof, it’s beautiful outside? Like, yeah. So it, it was just so powerful to me and I just I’ve, I still rely on that. There’s so many quotations that to me, I rely on in different times, but that’s one that really stays with me because it does defy what people say, what the boundaries and limitations that people try to put on you. No, I’m not accepting that you can have it, but I’m not accepting.
Dana: it’s just amazing. It’s so powerful.
Courtney: Oh, I love that. Well, is there anything that’s like coming down the pipeline that you want to share with our listeners or where they can reach out, like they want you to do coaching or mentoring with you or,
Endya: Absolutely. Definitely. Well, I say LinkedIn, just because that’s the one I’m probably on the most and I get a lot of messages through. Even more so than the way actually. But we are my sister and I, and I’ll keep you guys posted as well. We are looking to do an official launch this year of our business. so I’ll definitely keep you posted on that and just how to reach out to us there. But for now, LinkedIn, you can reach me is probably the best. That’s probably the one I’m keeping up with the most.
Dana: Awesome. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for coming today. It’s amazing, so many things.
We got in the car. We’re like, what direction is this going? I’m loving where it went.
Thanks everyone for gathering with us today to talk about the hustle. For our episode with Dr. Endya, we are drinking a dirty martini, our favorites. We hope you’ll get the chance to make it this week and cheers to working through your mess. To learn more and connect with Dr. Endya Perry, you can find her on LinkedIn or email her at endya.perry@bcbsnc.com
Courtney: To learn more about our hustles, you can check us out on the gram at canddevents at thebradfordnc and at hustleandgather. If you’re interested in our speaking training or consulting, please look us up at hustleandgather.com. And if you like the show, be sure to subscribe and leave us a rating and review.
Dana: This podcast is a production of Earfluence. I’m Dana
Courtney: and I’m Courtney.
Dana: And we’ll talk to you next time on Hustle and Gather.
Hustle and Gather is hosted by Courtney Hopper and Dana Kadwell, and is produced by Earfluence. Courtney and Dana’s hustles include C&D Events, Hustle and Gather, and The Bradford Wedding Venue.