Embracing Imperfect Courage with Jessica Honegger, Founder and Co-CEO of Noonday Collection
Love Intently Podcast Episode 54
“I believe that our comfort zone is where dreams go to die.” -Jessica Honegger
Jessica Honegger always had an entrepreneurial spirit. As a child, she remembers picking flowers from her neighbor's yard and then going home and tying cute little bows on the flowers and then going back to the neighbors and knocking on the door and selling them those flowers. Now, she is the Founder and Co-CEO of Noonday Collection, a socially responsible accessories brand that uses fashion to create meaningful opportunities around the world.
“I was always creating and coming up with ideas, and it was all about making money, but not because I necessarily was trying to save for something or really cared about money, it was more this idea of putting an idea into action that could be profitable, and that could generate opportunity.”
Jessica’s entrepreneurial journey, like so many others, has not been a straight line, but as she looks back on her journey she realizes that no experience was a waste of time. Each new job was a stepping stone, gaining new skills, making new connections, to ultimately get her to where she is today, and she’s still learning!
“I remember during that journey, every little job I had in my twenties I felt like, where's this even leading to? I felt very purposeless. I felt kind of like someone who didn't have it together. And I can look back now and see how nothing I did was wasted.”
Jessica had done many things such as working with at-risk youth in Latin America, working at a jewelry store, working as a real estate agent, and flipping houses. Jessica and her husband had been planning on using the money they were saving by flipping houses to pay to adopt a Rwandan child. They had already identified the child and begun the process when the recession hit and suddenly, they were using that house flipping money to live on. Jessica was not going to give up on this child and knew she needed to start a side hustle.
She had some friends in Uganda who had asked her in the past if she could sell their hand-crafted jewelry. At first, she laughed them off, but then one night, she opened up her home, gathered a bunch of friends, asked them to bring their friends, and everything sold out!
“I realized that night there's something really powerful about gathering. There's something powerful about physically gathering together for good and giving the opportunity for people to use their purchasing power for good.”
Fast forward to today and now Noonday Collection has 60 employees in Austin and thousands of entrepreneurs around the country, just from that one night of Jessica saying yes.
“So I knew that there were other women like me, other women who needed a side hustle, who needed income, who needed flexibility, and you also wanted to change the world.”
In this episode of the Love Intently podcast, you’ll learn:
How Jessica set up the Noonday ambassador program and now supports thousands of women to have fulfilling businesses
How after 10 years of business she decides what she wants to focus on doing and where to put her time among all the opportunities
How she discerns between fearlessness and recklessness when making decisions
How she learned what her unique strengths were and if they evolved over the years
What helped her realize she was aiming towards this mythical point of “arriving” in terms of success and happiness
How she met her husband, knew he was the one, and their biggest challenges in marriage
Key Takeaways from this Episode
Don’t focus on trying to make your weaknesses stronger. Focus on figuring out what your strengths are and putting all your time and energy to those.
“Wisdom to me is partnering with other people that have the strengths that I don't have.”
Come up with your own personal mission statement and then filter your time through that
“I'm 10 years into being an entrepreneur and I'm just now starting to own my passion and my enthusiasm and that I DO inspire others.”
Shed the story of the the mythical point of arrival. It perpetually keeps you waiting for the future and not living in the present and appreciating things as they are
Stop WANTING and just appreciate what is
“We need to let go of what we think is going to make us happy and really learn how to live from a place of gratitude and loving the journey of life and the path that life is taking us down.”
Find the joy in the journey, not the outcomes. We can’t control outcomes. We can control our mindset and how we spend our time
What we focus on becomes important to us
Embrace every day that we’re not going to get it right, we’re going to fail
“Embracing imperfection is knowing that…as much as I'll put my heart into it, I might get it wrong. And to give myself grace in that. And then the courage piece is just being able to be scared, but to go ahead and just do it anyway.”
It is a false narrative that it’s emasculating to be a stay at home dad and that you’re gonna ruin your kids if you’re a mom that works
Create a space for your partner to feel seen and heard which can dissipate a fight, in marriage and at work
Success is a function of not quitting
Love Intently Podcast Guest Jessica Honegger
Jessica Honegger is an award-winning social entrepreneur with a passion for catalyzing others to step outside of their comfort zones and live lives of purpose. She's a founder and Co-CEO of Noonday Collection, a fast-growing social impact fashion brand that is dedicated to designing and selling an inspired collection of jewelry and accessories made by artisans in vulnerable communities, by harnessing a passionate community of social entrepreneurs called ambassadors who sell Noonday accessories at trunk shows and in their communities.
Noonday has been able to create dignified jobs for over 4,400 artisans. A unique collection was featured in INC Magazine in the 2015 list of 5,000 fastest growing companies in America at number 45. She was also Earnest and Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year in Texas in 2017. She’s also the host of the Going Scared Podcast. It's a multifaceted show for multi-passionate people with a focus on courage and social impact. Last but not least, she’s the author of the best-selling book Imperfect Courage which was released in August of 2018.
Connect with Jessica and Noonday Collection
Imperfect Courage: Live a Life of Purpose by Leaving Comfort and Going Scared by Jessica Honneger
Instagram: @jessicahonegger and @noondaycollection
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