Well, today I have some new friends with me.

Usually I talk to Cindy and these days.

But we are talking about the Women's Entrepreneurial Summit, and this is a really, wonderful event that is put on here in Michiana.

Thank you, ladies so much for joining me today.

This is the eighth annual one.

Is that correct?

Yes it is.

Oh my God is it.

He has just done amazing things with this organization and what she does and gives back.

You guys have each been a part of this for a handful of years too, right?

Tell me a little bit more about your role, Janice.

Well, I actually met Cindy almost three years back, and I was invited to the Women's summit.

And, as a beginning entrepreneur, I. One of the challenges that I had is I didn't know anyone.

And, with after meeting with Cindy, I went with my business was a communicating joy.

All of a sudden, I knew everybody that the need is a great connector, right?

Right.

But so much of what it is part of, you know, the entrepreneurial spirit is really all about networking.

Yes.

It is.

You know, it's connecting with others.

And have you felt the same way?

Absolutely.

Yeah.

I am not from South Bend originally.

Okay.

And when I started my business out of my home, I felt very like restricted, almost like I was in a prison.

I didn't know anybody and I wanted to get out in the community.

I wanted to offer what I do to people locally and really make an impact locally.

But I didn't know people locally.

So Cindy had actually posted on Facebook that she was looking for help with getting an event together, and I was like, okay, let me show up.

I'm in Cindy, I guess Inner Circle ever since.

I love that.

Okay, so for those who haven't been a part of the of the summit before, I know you guys usually have about 100 people come.

Is that right?

Or women, I should say?

Yes.

I mean this is all for women.

Yes.

And by women, yes.

Yeah it is.

And I'll say it's for women, but men are not excluded.

Okay.

That's so you know, men have come up to Cindy and asked her, what can you do for me?

And she men are invited.

Men have spoken in the past.

They think we may have a male speaker this year, if I'm not mistaken.

And so men are included.

But Cindy really wanted to focus her efforts on women, because historically, it's the women who are not getting the support with entrepreneurship.

Yes, exactly.

And I know when I talked to her about it last year, she had some wonderful stats to share too.

So if you haven't caught that, make sure you go back and look last year too.

But for the event itself, we have ladies going to be coming in for the whole day.

This is happening.

And just like a week or so, when is it happening?

November.

November 18th.

Yeah, 18th.

Perfect.

And it's an all day thing.

You guys have a lot of fun during the week and a lot of learning opportunities.

Excellent learning opportunities okay.

Let's talk about what it looks like.

Day of wow.

The day of is really super exciting.

We have registration.

We have, breakfast for our, our ladies who come.

Yeah.

So we're actually having breakfast catered this year by South Bend Social catering guys.

And so it's breakfast from 9 to 10, and then the event starts at ten.

And that's all included with their ticket.

Right.

That's all included.

Yeah.

Okay.

Good to know what you're in fact $65 event sales right now.

We're not going to have any ticket sales on the, on the day.

Oh okay.

That's good to know.

So you want to make sure that you are getting your ticket now and ahead of time, right?

Oh yes.

Yes, yes.

And the other cool thing is our lunch will be catered by we have a chefs competition from local women chefs okay.

And they will be bringing the somewhat delightful treats for us to taste for our lunch.

And we will have opportunity to vote on that specific chef.

Okay.

The cool thing about that is, is that these are also women entrepreneurs.

I love that.

And, one of the things that we both appreciate about Cindy is, is that those, chefs that that come in, the one that wins, we will continue visiting them and supporting them throughout the year.

It's not just a one time stop and going back to that network.

Right.

And how do we utilize that?

And let's talk about some of the presenting I guess you guys have a present.

I presented last year.

I'm not presenting this year.

Okay, okay.

Because there's a number of presenting folks that are going to be making presentations.

Yes.

Throughout the day.

Yes it is, it is.

So, but we will have our main speaker, our keynote speaker.

She's from North West Bank.

What she actually banks at this time, her name is Heather Lear she's a regional vice president, and she'll be our keynote speaker somewhere.

I said, I'm also one of these speakers.

The cool thing about that is, is that not only did I get the chance to speak last year, but, what Cindy does, she puts a poll out.

Oh, and we present what we'd like to speak one, and then the whole community, they'll vote on which speakers they would like to hear.

So we will have a variety of speakers there, panelists there that our community collectively have voted on to hear from.

So it's not just one person.

So it really is dialing in to what you guys want.

And what are some of the examples of people who have presented in topics you guys have discussed in the past?

What's one that maybe stood out to you?

Oh, well, yeah, it's mostly stood out to me.

I think that just because I was giving it one last year, I spoke about like health and stress and how stress can really impact our, our health and our day to day and ways to relieve it.

Because when we're more relaxed, less stressed out, we're actually able to be a lot more productive.

But I also remember, this year there's someone who's going to be speaking about AI, which I think is fantastic because we can all, you know, learn from, you know, different ways to save time with our businesses.

I know personally for my business, I could spend 20 hours going over test results or I could plug some information into ChatGPT and see what it feeds back to me.

And then I always verify, right?

But, you know, it could save me, you know, anywhere from 15 hours or more.

So I know that, you know, having those resources that, you know, people maybe are a little bit more afraid to try, you know, different things.

We've had we have Heather this year talking about banking, but we've had people in the banking industry previously talking to us about, you know, getting our finances in order for our businesses stronger.

Yeah.

You're you're having legal representation because I know this is always like end of the year kind of thing.

So people are going to start to think about, you know, as an entrepreneur, what do I do with my tax situation?

What does that look like?

How do I prepare for next year.

So that's a great topic.

Yeah.

Funding.

And I think some of the other key things is will there be someone speaking about, domestic violence.

For the community and mentoring.

One of the challenges is, is that we as women, sometimes we don't know where to go, who to get help from, and that's going to be one of the biggest things that Cindy always talks about, how she helps mentor us to be more efficient.

Yeah, yeah.

And Cindy, is that connecting for yes yes yes yes.

Like once you get connected, like you are amazing.

Yeah I love that.

You guys.

Just tell us a little bit about your businesses each if you would, for just a moment.

Okay.

Well my business is called communicating Joy.

I'm an artist.

I, I paint canvas painting portraits.

I do face painting in the community.

Quilting.

One of my exhibits is just recently up at the library, and it's a unique quilt.

It's not the quilt that everybody thinks about.

And, also, I'm working on, editing books, that, that I'll be having out pretty soon, so.

Yes.

Yeah, I love it.

Let's tell me a little bit more about your business.

All right.

Vibrant soul coaching.

I'm a functional diagnostic nutrition practitioner and health and mental mastery coach.

I run functional assessments that are non diagnostic in nature, but they help my clients identify their most direct route to healing.

So there's a lot of education.

What do these mean and what can I do about it.

And then I coach my clients through making those lifestyle changes that really help them get past their symptoms and get onto the healing route.

It's really fascinating and exciting, and you guys have been a part of this for a couple of years.

Tell us why somebody might want to participate in the Women's Inntrepreneur summit?

Definitely for networking.

Sometimes we don't know where to go with doing that.

You don't have to be by yourself.

There's no reason why you had to be by yourself.

But the networking, the mentoring, the connections that we have, most importantly, as business owners, we always need somebody to support us, okay?

And outside of our family and friends.

And by being a part of this summit, you will get an opportunity to be more people that can help support your businesses.

I absolutely love it.

And tickets are on sale right now.

Yes, people can get their tickets.

Do you know the website where they can?

Yes, it is at Women Entrepreneurs summit.org.

Perfect.

And we also send out the notion donations and we will there are scholarships available as well.

That's really good to know too.

I know you guys are all about supporting women in the community.

So thank you guys so much.

I hope this is another successful event.

Yes, eight years going now, is so exciting.

And if you have that entrepreneurial spirit, I hope that you coming out and experience the summit.

And even if you're just curious and don't have the entrepreneurial spirit, you definitely want come out.

Or even if you just want to meet new people and feel, you know, like you're part of a community, that's, I think, what we offer more than anything, it's been the biggest life changing experience for me was just to feel like I'm part of something bigger than myself.

I love it, so important.

Thank you ladies so much.

Thank you for having us.

Yes, thank you very much.