I’m always humbled when a person or cause that I admire wants to take time out to document me. I’m just out here trying to hold it down, tell stories that help, and stay grounded…even while the Earth shakes…amidst this epic time that we’ve been thriving through. (The Social Studies teacher in me often wonders what textbooks will say about this era.) Telling stories, even and especially your own, can be particularly freeing, which is why I hold these chats in such high regard. Professionally, I get geeked to summarize my pedagogical storytelling brand for new audiences. Personally, I thank God for my friends as sounding boards on my healing journey in overcoming trauma and stress. However, the opportunity to do both in one conversation—unabashedly unpack the professional and personal—is quite rare.
Enter Joseline Jean-Louis Hardrick.
“We go back like PAs and wearin’ PJs.” Indeed, Joseline and I met in Mr. Wolinsky’s sixth grade homeroom at the dawn of the nineties. Now she does all of the things as a law professor, author, documentarian (more soon), partner and mother, while lifting as she climbs with Let Your Light Shine. She is impassioned to help busy, entrepreneurial women tap into our inner glow fueled by the belief that “I shine, you shine” and the world becomes a better place for us all. She created such a safe space to discuss how my work and life holistically combine and are reflected in the restorative stories I tell.
Part 1 is about how I found my way into this space and came to establish Guishard Films as a creative that also consults in helping organizations campaign, create, and change through powerful narratives. I detail how mental health and wellness themes interconnect my current fiction and nonfiction projects, Brainwash and Forget-Me-Not. Part 2 delves into how I S.H.I.N.E.: Sleep, Hydrate, Intuit, Nourish and Engage, to keep my head on straight, my body ticking and my soul at peace. Mind you, I could be doing better in all of these areas, but it is so encouraging to know that people like Joseline are in my corner with words of affirmation and advice. I implore you to cop Joseline’s book and keep your ears peeled for what’s next from this sage living by our middle school motto: to whom much is given, much is required.