Reinvent Yourself

#99: Bonnie Chan Woo (A more purposeful way of shopping)

Bonnie Chan Woo, Founder of WomanBoss, grew up in Hong Kong and the UK, moving into banking because “it sounds successful, like what a high achiever would do.” After segueing into the marketing and branding area of the bank and working with “the biggest brands in the world”,  Woo found herself frustrated when a client would reject her ideas. She left to create her own space where she could “feel creative, feel I was building something”.  It’s called  WomanBoss.com, a platform "for women seeking the goodlife who are looking for merchandise from mission led female-owned businesses.” Currently highlighting 26  brands from around the world, WomanBoss also tells the stories of the entrepreneurs who create the product and engages customers in the designer's journey.  “Now a days it’s all about being authentic,” Woo says.  “Our Zoom calls are revealing what our houses look like. We are no longer dressing up. We have to bring our real self.”

#98: Cherie Buziak (Reinventing for motherhood)

Cherie Buziak had a cosmetology and aesthetician license plus a BA from Fashion Institute of Technology, and managed global product development for Avon. Then she lost both her parents when she was 36, “which left a legacy for me and my siblings,” she says.  For 14 years she  “struggl[ed] with infertility” and found herself in “a great position to become pregnant.” She went to her supervisor and HR and told them she “wanted the company to know, I don’t need another position. I’d be happy to leave with a package.” After the birth of her son at 44, she “took the leap and became a consultant”, eventually opening BeautyEdge, LLC “to help brands launch from concept to product.” Now she had both a new company and an infant. “I had no mom to ask, what do I do,” she says. “My girlfriends pulled me through." 

#97: Diane Bruno (From speech writing to funeral directing)

“I was not feeling the fulfillment [in the writing business],” says Diane Bruno.  Her mother had died — suddenly and traumatically — and Bruno was impressed with the “eloquent and kind” funeral director, speaking with him at length, learning that he felt he was performing an important service that made him feel needed. Bruno decided that “Death is part of life. I became comfortable with it. [And] I’m not squeamish.” So she enrolled in an online Mortuary school. Three years later she was working as a funeral director in Cape Cod. Even though an accident forced her to boomerang back into communications, Bruno learned a lot that made her kinder, more empathetic, “more at peace". “I lived this journey,” Bruno says. “Having been on the side of darkness and death, I can deal with anything."

#96: Shai Littlejohn (From lawyer, to musician, and back)

Her father was a lawyer; her mother went to law school when Shai was 6. “I didn’t make a conscious choice,” Littlejohn says about why she picked law as a profession. “My selection process was: the job was high-paying and there were lots of women [at the firm]!”  After 14 years, however, it was time to pursue her “nagging bucket list thing.” She didn’t like her boss, her mother had brain cancer, and she felt, “this is the time….I don’t want regrets about not spending time with music.”  Though Littlejohn had only played piano as a child and sung in a quartet, she knew music made her super happy. So she booked an unconventional summer vacation with The Berklee College of Music and eventually packed up for Nashville. “I was back to being a beginner,” she says. “I was writing songs and recording in the studio with top people. But I felt like I was the weakest link.” After a year spent touring as a musician, however, Littlejohn explains to CoveyClub founder, Lesley Jane Seymour, how she found her way back to balancing both professions plus a family.

#95: Marla Ginsburg (Reinventing after losing everything)

“In 2008 I got hit hard. I lost my derriere,” says Marla Ginsburg, CEO of The MarlaWynne Collection (https://www.marlawynne.com/). “So I bought a sewing machine and started Googling ‘How do you thread a sewing machine.'” Ginsburg had spent her previous career on the production side of television, but taught herself how to create the kinds of clothes she wanted to wear, eventually selling them into Nordstrom, QVC and even Chicos. “I’m an accidental success,” she says, noting that the collection which she owns “has no debt” and will make $60 million in retail, even during the pandemic turmoil. “It takes passion to fuel change,” she advises.  “But you’ve gotta do your homework….And the most important thing is to ask questions and ask for help.” 

#94: Ariane Daguin (Reinventing because your brother got the family biz)

“I come from 7 generations of restaurateurs,” says Ariane Daguin, owner of D’Artagnan gourmet foods, which 35 years later has 260 employees and $132 million dollars in sales. “I grew up gathering mushrooms in the forest.  But it became clear that my brother would take over the business and the girl would leave home.” Daguin moved to the US which she believed was “the land of the cowboys,” where “the country was behind the leader and united and doing things.”  She says the name came from a similar belief in Gascony: “We have a one for all, all for one [attitude]. It’s the [principle] the Three Musketeers lived by. We think we are descendants of [D’Artagnan].” She says D’Artagnan products are sourced from heritage breeds which she says "have better taste and use no medication." 

#93: Tanya Ezekiel (From Wall Street to Uber coach)

She fell in love with the energy on the trading floor; it led her to Salomon Brothers as a Bond Options Trader and a Managing Director at Bank of America. When she left, she found her way into a coaching certification class.  “What made me a success at my [former] job was getting people to do what they needed to do,” Ezekiel says. “I saw an opportunity to help people.” Before she even had her certification, Ezekiel was working 80-100 hours per week coaching 30 clients. Not wanting to be limited by her physical capacity, she opened Conductive (https://www.conductivecoaching.com), which allowed her to scale coaching with staff. Post Covid, Ezekiel believes consumers will need more coaching than ever. “”It’s hard to embrace the unknown,” she says. “But that is where the magic is. It will unfold and …let the reveal of the reinvention happen."

#92: Suzanne Steinbaum (Rethinking the way doctors deliver medical care)

“It’s important to understand that you must go through life happy,” says Dr. Suzanne Steinbaum. “If you wake up every day and are miserable, it’s not right.” So says this unconventional cardiologist who just left big-hospital life to join an acupuncture and Ayurveda group to create a more “personalized” kind of care for her patients. "I believe no one needs to get heart disease,” she tells CoveyClub founder, Lesley Jane Seymour. “Using genetics, physiology, anatomy and data” she says she can figure out where her patients are on the spectrum toward heart disease and create a specialized prescription for diet and exercise that helps arrest, or even reverse, the progression. “People see me when they are ready to feel good and be the best they can be,” she’s says.  "When they really see changes they are motivated.”  

#91: Julie Foucht (My history was just programming)

Or so says Julie Foucht, owner of Biz Coaching for Female Entrepreneurs (https://juliefoucht.com/about/) who talks with CoveyClub founder Lesley Jane Seymour about how she pulled herself out of an abusive marriage by “leaning in” to her spirituality and deciding to change her beliefs about herself. “I finally took responsibility for getting married at 18, choosing to have four kids, choosing not to have a career. I asked myself how to take control and make it different.” And she did. Foucht divorced, moved back to California where she had been born, got certified as a coach and launched her business that teaches “wildly different women how to build heart-centered businesses."

#90: Meg Jordan (Everything is a learning opportunity)

“You look at the way the fates dangle tiny golden threads and you grab them!” That is how Meg Jordan, PhD, RN, CWP, NBC-HWC, Chair and professor of integrative Health Studies at the California Institute of Integral Studies explains why — as the acronyms after her name show — she just can’t stop reinventing. “My mindset says there is no such thing as failure,” she says. "Everything is a learning opportunity.” Jordan, who calls herself a “social activist at heart,” began by working as a waitress in the Black Panther pubs, did LSD, rode motorcycles, became a journalist, “wrote commercials for celebrities with sagging cue numbers,” and created documentaries that aired on PBS. Her ability to reinvent comes from "the gumption" she got as a kid from an uncle who believed she could do anything. “I had the gaze of an adult who says you’ve got that it takes.”