{ PREMIER ISSUE 2018 } KHARISMA MAGAZINE
37
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 .
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 .
BE ICONIC
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