The Kharisma Magazine The Kharisma Magazine (Full) Premiere Issue | Page 36

3 6 { P R E M I E R I S S U E 2 0 1 8 } K H A R I S M A M A G A Z I N E CHANGEMAKER Kharisma: Meet Jessica Nazarali, a business strategist and certified master coach for women who want to build th riving coaching businesses and become the It Girl in the industry. HOW TO BE THE CHANGE you want to see Jessica: Thank you. Thank you so much for inviting me to take part in this interview. Kharisma: Awesome. I’m so excited today to just have this conversation with you, and I feel like we’re just sitting together having a sip of tea – I don’t know if you’re into tea. I’m a big tea drinker. Jessica: I do have a tea. Kharisma: Okay, good. I do have mine here as well. We’re just going to talk about your journey as an entrepreneur who is having an amazing impact in the world. You are changing lives, and you are really making a difference, and this is what really excites me about you and your organization, your company, and what you do is how you are also impacting the lives of other emerging entrepreneurs, and we’re going to get to that in a little bit. I really want to start at the beginning, who Jessica is and where she started out in this journey of entrepreneurship and what led her to take the leaps and bounds into this journey that we’re both in. We both know it has its rewards. It has its ups and downs. Share a little bit with us about your journey. Where did you start and why you took the leap? Jessica: Well, I always knew I wanted to be in control of my life and be in control of how I spent my time on a day to day basis. I remember when I was in Year 11 (Grade 11), I believe, and I think I was about 17 years old, and it was a career counselling session at school and somebody asked me what I wanted to do when I grew up, and I said I wanted to be a manager because I wanted to be the boss and have control over what I was doing on a day to day basis. I didn’t grow up around entrepreneurs. My parents aren’t entrepreneurs. I’m trying to even think right now — I don’t think any of even my parents’ friends were entrepreneurs or any of my friends growing up had parents who were entrepreneurs, but I definitely really valued freedom, and I knew that for sure. I was always very resourceful when it came to money. Growing up, my family didn’t have a lot of money. There was actually a time when I was in high school for a couple of years when we were on government assistance, or as it’s called in the U.S., welfare. Things weren’t bad enough that we were living on the street or we’re going to lose our house, but definitely, money was tight. Throughout those times, I was always very resourceful. I got a job when I was 13 years old. I actually lied about how old I was so I could get a job, and I grew up in a very small country town. So the fact I could even get a job as a waitress was – that in itself was a bit of a miracle. Then throughout my teens, I started buying second hand clothes in charity stores or thrift stores and then selling them on E-bay to make money. Kharisma: Wow. Jessica: Yeah, I started doing this when I was about 16 and really did it throughout university as well. I always had that entrepreneurial spirit. I didn’t necessarily associate myself as an entrepreneur because I didn’t really know what that term meant, and I had nobody who was really modeling that for me, but I definitely always valued freedom and independence and wanted to have my own money so I could have control over if I could go to the movies or not or if I could buy a certain clothing item. It was obvious from a young age that I needed to do that just because of the situation my parents were in. interview with Jessica Nazarali D A R E T O B E I C O N I C That was definitely my first taste of entrepreneurship, and then how I got into what I’m doing today was a little bit of a, I guess, a backwards way of doing it in a certain sense that I started coaching by a bit of a fluke, if I’m honest. My first step into the online world was through starting a blog on health, wellness, and positivity. I started that blog when I was 24 years old on the back of going through, the term which 3 7