Crafting a Legacy of Growth and Community with Dr. Sarah Nuñez

Have you ever woven art into your entrepreneurial tapestry? Dr. Sarah Nuñez joins us to share her vibrant journey from jewelry maker to transformative leader, illustrating the rich blend of culture, creativity, and commerce that defines her life. Born from Colombian heritage and raised in North Carolina, Sarah's narrative is a fascinating exploration of the depths of personal growth, showcasing her ability to harmonize traditional healing with professionalism. As we unpack her evolution through roles as diverse as community organizer, professor, nonprofit executive, and personal coach, you'll be inspired by her unwavering commitment to fostering change and empowering communities.

Venture with us as Sarah unveils her enriching experiences, reflecting on the pivotal moments that have shaped her story, such as embracing a full-time position at United Way while nurturing her consulting practice. Her insights into balancing life's ever-shifting landscape with grace and tenacity will resonate with any listener seeking to navigate similar transitions. Sarah's dedication to providing tools for resilience, through herbal workshops and remedies, threads a narrative of healing and nurturing that is both poignant and practical. As we celebrate her recent accomplishments, including her dynamic website launch and new role at United Way, we're reminded of the power of community support and the shared wisdom that propels us forward. Join us for an episode that not only honors leaders like Sarah but also ignites the entrepreneurial spirit within each of us.

Website: http://www.sarahnunezconsulting.com/
Facebook: Sarah Nuñez
Instagram: Sarita_enye
LinkedIn: Sarah, Nunez, Ph.D

This program is brought to you by:
Balanced Virtually

Be sure to visit BizRadio.US to discover hundreds more engaging conversations, local events and more.

Transcript

Veronica: 0:39

Welcome to the Veronica Edwards Show where we have fun financial conversations that everyone listening can apply to their personal and professional life. I'm your host, veronica Edwards, and so excited to be back here. Season 3 on bizradious I can't believe we're already halfway through season 3. So we're kind of on that last mile of it before we take a little bit of a summer break and come back strong for season 4. So we're really trying to push to get to 4,000 downloads. We're about 500 downloads away.

Veronica: 1:15

I definitely encourage you guys to listen to prior shows, but especially today's show. So today's guest has a PhD in education, with over 20 years as a community organizer and experience as a professor, a nonprofit executive and a personal coach with a passion for bringing traditional healing practices to groups, people and organizations seeking transformative and liberatory change. Without further ado with all that yes, tongue twister, but good stuff I would like to introduce Dr Sarah Nunes. Welcome back, sarah. Hey Veronica, good to be here. Yes, I'm saying welcome back because we had some technical difficulties our first recording. So thank you so much for coming back to do a part 2, but a part 1 for everybody listening. So, as always, I always like to ask my guests to tell the listeners about yourself, where you're from and your story that led you to entrepreneurship, because I think a lot of times people think that they can't do it or they don't have the resources, and I get inspired every time I have someone on the show and I know that your story will inspire somebody as well.

Dr. Nuñez: 2:29

Awesome. Yeah, thank you so much. What an honor it is to be here. You know I'm from Bogota, colombia. I was born there and raised in Raleigh, north Carolina. So I'm like North Carolinian. You know pretty much up and down.

Dr. Nuñez: 2:46

Except you know I spent almost a decade well, not really, I've spent almost a decade back and forth between Asheville and Louisville Kentucky. I lived in Louisville Kentucky for seven years. So I actually call Louisville Kentucky home too. So it's a beautiful thing to have three places I call home, but yeah right. So, raised in Raleigh until about the age of 18, I moved to Asheville in 1997. And you know, I came to entrepreneurship at a pretty young age. I used to make jewelry, hemp jewelry and clothing and sold them in concert venues as early as the age of 16.

Veronica: 3:25

And a lot of that was around say what. I was like no way, you know, like wow.

Dr. Nuñez: 3:30

Right, right, yeah. So a lot of that was around. You know, kind of like I needed money and not just, like you know I worked. But you know, I think I worked Mostly in like pizza shops, like you know, papa John's and places like that, because I was a high school dropout and so I found entrepreneurship. I think through, like you know, this ability to like, yeah, I can work and have a job, and there's this other like passion in me, right, that's creative and artful and wanted to, you know, try out what it was like to make money off of that. And you know, in the concert venues, you know, in the 90s people would sell things, like you know, food and grilled cheese or whatever. You know like see people sell things on the parking lots, and so I kind of took that up and did pretty good. It would allow me to get from like concert to concert.

Veronica: 4:28

Well, sarah, you might still have a stream of income because all the kids are wearing like friends and all the 90s shirts. So that's so funny that you say that. But it's all coming back.

Dr. Nuñez: 4:36

Oh look, I don't need. I didn't keep anything from those days but yeah, yeah. So you know, it was like, I think, also having like artisans and creatives in my life. So when I moved to Asheville, my first job was at Ryan's steakhouse on Patton Avenue and you know that it's gone now, right, it doesn't exist anymore and I found like my way to art, to, I mean, pretty. I actually met like a potter who was throwing ran this place called throwing clay pottery on also on downtown Patton Avenue, and I met seal who made, oh, these like beautiful fountains and she toured like the Renaissance fairs across the country and her art is actually in several places.

Dr. Nuñez: 5:21

And so it's like, even at that age, like after moving to Asheville, yes, I had this job right and I was working in the restaurant industry for years, but I always had this side, you know, passion for like how do I bring like art and creative pieces like into the work that I do, yeah, and so I think I just inspired at a really young age to be able to do that, and I think a lot of that comes from my grandmother, my abuelita from Colombia, who was a dressmaker and wedding maker or wedding dressmaker and formal gown maker, and so was my aunt, who my aunt now lives in Norma, she now lives in Charlotte, north Carolina. I think that entrepreneurial, new, real spirit like is in me and I mean I don't know a ton about, I'm not. I think I think, like my great, my paternal and maternal sides, right, had both, like you know, lots of entrepreneurs in my lineage beer makers and dress makers, and I love that.

Veronica: 6:22

So, yeah, it's in your DNA, sarah. It's in your DNA. You can't run from it, right? So I would love if you could tell us about Sarah Nunes Consulting, because I've met you through that lane from working with WNC pathways, with cohorts of color, I have the privilege of coaching with Sarah now being friends with her. But I would love for you to share about your consulting business because I feel like you're providing some cool, natural healing that a lot of people I feel like can really utilize.

Dr. Nuñez: 6:56

Thank you, veronica, and I just have to say like you really helped me get my life together on a financial level, like I had some like experience in running my books and looking at budgets and looking at trend data to kind of like understand gosh, you know what's next you're going to look like and you really helped me a lot. And it wasn't so much that like you like told me how to do it or lectured me on whatever, it was more just like walking beside me as I was like asking you know myself questions and you kind of you know, just kind of holding my hand to say like you got this.

Veronica: 7:29

Absolutely. But I appreciate you actually listening and following through that. I mean, I think sometimes people take that for granted, that I coach people all the time and it goes in one ear and out the other and they mean well, but I was excited every time we would meet because you were excited and you were doing things and you were feeling empowered. So I'm just so excited for you and thank you for allowing me to be a part of that experience.

Dr. Nuñez: 7:52

Yes, thank you. Thank you. We can't do it alone. You know, I mean all of us working together and I just am thankful that you know another woman of color and a black woman that's, like you know, out here doing this work and can be, you know, not only helpful to me but helpful to the next generation, which is part of, like you know, I think, the consulting services that I'm doing are shifting and changing and the exciting news is that I'm taking a new full-time job. I'm going to be working with United Way.

Veronica: 8:23

We love United Way.

Dr. Nuñez: 8:24

Starting March 11th, I'm going to be the senior director for United for Youth, and so my, you know, consulting practice is taking a bit of a shift and moving more from the consulting to the education services, and so, yeah, and so, like you mentioned, you know, my work is about. It's about healing, it's about nature and it's about nurturing, and I think these veins run through all the things I do. So, be it my business and or be it the way I show up in the world for the organizations that I work with, volunteering with and or being employed by, but yeah, I'll stop there and see if you've got anything you want to ask.

Veronica: 9:12

But yeah, I just feel like I also want to touch on your consulting business, but also the fact that you're starting a full-time job, because I feel like a lot of times people feel like I'm not a real entrepreneur or I have to do it 100% with my business and it's like no, I love that you said you're not putting your consulting business on the back burner, you're shifting, and I love that. So I would love for you to talk about how do you envision that balance. A lot of times on the show we ask for different tips and jewels. I'm going to skip to that and just ask you what advice would you give to listeners where you have a full-time job with flexibility, so it doesn't necessarily feel like a 40-hour-a-week job, but you're also having this passion and this business and this purpose that you still want to fulfill? How do you envision being able to be successful in doing that?

Dr. Nuñez: 10:04

Yeah, girl, I don't know yet. You know, I'm really in a process of just letting it unfold. I don't really know. I've spoken a lot.

Veronica: 10:14

I love that answer. By the way, I love that answer. You don't have to know.

Dr. Nuñez: 10:18

No, I'm not an expert really in anything. I am a steward of the land, I'm a vessel for the work and it's not. You know, I let the plants talk to me, I let myself get guided through things that are really bigger than me and I don't necessarily know how it's all going to work out. But I like what you mentioned before is that it's kind of like just this razor-sharp focus, like what the work that I want to bring into the world is about is about growing herbs for distribution to communities in need to use herbs.

Dr. Nuñez: 10:51

In the sessions and the workshops and the people that I serve, I serve up healing and tools that we all need to survive in these times, because it's not right now, and so it's about building altars and sacred spaces and using home remedies, and using art and creativity and herbal remedies in our work, right, and so that's the razor-sharp focus. Like I might not be the one that's necessarily going to lead your long strategic plan anymore.

Dr. Nuñez: 11:24

But, I will be the one that's going to come in and help serve up herbs and healing and support for your staff, your students. And so that's really it, and I think the advice is to just allow. I think, allow yourself to be, to dream, to think big, to morph and change, and that to know that when you found your calling, everything's going to align to get you to where you need to go. And so life is complicated.

Dr. Nuñez: 12:00

I care to take my two parents. I'm a solo preneur. I am running several different lines of things with whether it's the herb farm or a stone good line of products, or the herbal remedies or the workshops I lead. It's a lot of different layers and also as a caretaker. There's just. It's just. Life isn't and the society we live in today is changing so rapidly.

Veronica: 12:32

Yes, yeah, I totally get it. Like I said, life be life in, as the kids say, and I love how you said you just let things guide you and you're a vessel for the work. So if an opportunity comes across and you might be asked to be a W-2 for an organization that is still allowing you to do the work and the passion, I say go for it. I think sometimes people can find themselves where I have to be working this job at this office for 40 years every day. No, I like that. You're doing multiple things. If it's with the consulting, if it's with the herbal farm. I also would love for you to share about the sewing club, because I was sharing with Sarah offline, like it's still on my bucket list. I really want to learn how to sew and you were like girl, we got a club, come on out. Can you please share that with listeners that are in Western North Carolina, because I think that's cool.

Dr. Nuñez: 13:21

Yeah, you know there's. So it's a beautiful thing in North Carolina because there's this inter like this, like this beautiful galaxy that's helping to bring back the textile industry. And so I took a course through AB Tech called industrial sewing, and then took the next course to it, which is sewn goods is basically how to take your, you know, your, your sewn products to manufacturing and then, as just for fun, right, our friend, I have a friend named Jen who organizes a sewing club on Wednesdays and Sundays, so like one Wednesday of the month and one Sunday of the month, and we just hang out, you know, at the burger bar in West Asheville and there's they, there's sewing machines available, folks to help you, you know, kind of with your project, if you have a mending project or you just want to. You know, sometimes we'll have projects that we'll make together.

Veronica: 14:17

And I just walk in the door, I feel like I'll be naked, like I'm just coming with my hands.

Dr. Nuñez: 14:24

Yeah, we'll have something for you to do and can show you.

Veronica: 14:27

Yes, and this is going to air in Women's History Month, so I'm encouraging everybody to support your fellow women. Join a club. If it's working out, if it's sewing before we go there. I definitely will love for you to talk a little bit about the cohorts of color. That's how we met through Ms Nakanda Garcia, friend to the show. She'll also be on the show. She facilitates this program via WNC Pathways, which I coach with them and I consult with them, hence how I was able to meet Dr Nunes. But I would love for you to just share your experience so for those that are listening that they can reach out and also have another network of people that look and sound like them.

Dr. Nuñez: 15:08

Okay, yeah, so the consultants of color is through Pathways. They are a cohort model I guess. Annually that brings together different folks who want to offer consulting, coaching, supportive services to nonprofits, and so I think it was like a six month learning journey together and then we meet up once in a while and get different, you know, meet up to connect, support one another, and then they bring in folks like yourself and other you know, other teachers, other educators, to support us in the building up of our businesses. And so it's been super helpful to get, I think, from like sole proprietor right to like others right, or to like, like what are the legal standards?

Dr. Nuñez: 15:54

Like how do I want to run this, you know? All of these pieces has been helpful, yeah, and we need more of that, I think, so that younger generations can step right into the business work as well. Absolutely. You know, yeah, it feels like the, like the you know side side business you know, building gig work right has gotten so much bigger in the past decade or so.

Veronica: 16:20

Oh, absolutely. And the way inflation is. If I'm spending $10 on orange juice and $5 on eggs, I'm like, yeah, I'm going to need a couple of streams of income, and I definitely encourage the listeners. If you're just, you know, getting started entrepreneurship or if you're even thinking about it, there's so many groups that are available that you can meet online. You can meet in person. I also coach with Mountain BizWorks. They have a catalyst cohort program that is for minority and women owned businesses. They also meet, I think, either six months to 12 months out the year.

Veronica: 16:52

Same thing with cohorts of color. There's so many things, even Facebook groups, instagram. There's all these different groups, but I think it's important for you to be around other people that are doing the type of work that you're doing, just so you can ask questions that you think might be silly. Everybody has those same questions and I really want to dispel this belief that you know, people of color cannot be successful entrepreneurs. Everybody starts a business, but it is definitely hard to continue a business and you need to have that network and that community to uplift you and support you, you know, during the ups and downs. I just appreciate you, sarah, being a part of the program and just speaking a little bit on it. So before we go, sarah, I would love for you to plug your social media, your website. How can folks get in contact with you if they want to get some consulting?

Dr. Nuñez: 17:42

Awesome. Yes, so Best Way is just through my website, sarahnuneasconsultingcom. Through yeah, that's the best way through the sarahnuneasconsultingcom and I'd say on Instagram, I'm sadeeta underscore NYA and Nunez Sarah at gmailcom.

Veronica: 18:07

Wonderful and I have to plug the fact that you just finished up your website and it's gorgeous, darling. I love the pictures. It's vibrant. You did an amazing job. That's another big feat. Guys, listening, as an entrepreneur, it's so hard to brand yourself and then to get a website, and it's expensive, it's time consuming. So I'm very proud of you, dr Nunez, for making that happen, especially the start of the year, because it looks great.

Dr. Nuñez: 18:32

Thank you so much. Thank you, so much, it really doesn't take a time for people to make it happen, and I couldn't have done it without my crew.

Veronica: 18:40

Absolutely Well, just like that. We're to the end of the show again. Dr Nunez, I want to thank you so much for taking time out of your busy day and congratulations on your new position at United Way and all the great things I know you're going to do at Sarah Nunez Consulting and we'll continue to support you in the community. And I just want to thank the listeners for tuning in to bizradious for the Veronica Everett Show on Wednesdays across all platforms and if you missed the live airing, you can listen to all prior shows at Veronica Edwards at buzzsproutcom.