Michigan Female Business Owner Supports 1800 Women Owned Businesses in Africa During the Global Pandemic with Mana Boxes - Michelle Klassen Merrigan

So I'm so happy to have her on and share some stories and laughs with you today.
So with no further do, Hey Michelle, thank you so much for joining me. Thank you
So much, Katie. I'm so glad to be here. Thanks for having me.
Definitely, definitely. So you've been living in Michigan for Fort R for 15 years, right?
15 years.
And I'm originally from Michigan. So I mean you are the first person I've had on from my home state. So I am really excited to know you and to hear about all the cool things you're doing for our state. So thank you so much, first and foremost, for being you showing up, making an impact and all the choices you've made in your life so far. And you know, this podcast is all about inspiring people being a part of the ripple effect so we can get those wheels turning. So whatever, whatever, you know, the person listening is into, they can apply this principle to whatever moves them. So I definitely know this is an episode you're going to want to share with other people and you're about to get in spirit inspired with Michelle.
So thank you. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Definitely. Well, I'm going to jump right ahead here because right now I'm wearing these, these amazing earrings and this necklace that was gifted to me. Can you explain where they stem from and what they mean?
Yeah, absolutely. Those are beautiful on you by the way. And those listeners and whoever's watching is getting a sneak peek because that actually is the very last box that comes in the quarterly subscription. So we're doing four boxes in a year and I'll talk about that later, but that's one of the last gifts in the boxes for a reason, that's really had a huge impact on me. So Nelson Mandela is very well known, not only in South Africa, but around the world for trying to promote peace in his country. And he was as many people know in prison for many years on a place called Robin island right off the coast of South Africa, off of Cape town. I actually, for the first time ever visited Robin island when I was 18 and it changed my life.
And at that point I had seen these, this pile of rocks in the middle of Robin island. And I asked, you know, this was before I knew anyone in South Africa. I personally, after the decades of relationships I'd built since then. But at 18 I asked, what are those rocks and why are they all piled up? And they said, oh, those are, that was from the forgiveness ceremony. Madiba Nelson Mandela came back to this island and looked at the fence surrounding the place where he was imprisoned. And he said, no matter if you were a prisoner or you were a prison guard abusing, the prisoners were all the same and here it stops now. And we all got, everybody grabbed a stone and threw it in the pound.
You know, the, the mess of stones as a way of saying we're all the same, whether you did it, or whether you received it, let's forgive and move on. And that impacted me at 18. And now fast forward, 20 years later, I'm dealing with these beautiful suppliers in South Africa. And one of them offered to us to go take the fencing that surrounded my divas prison cell and turn it into forgiveness stones, turn it into necklaces that carry the MANA. And that's why I'm so excited that you have it because it's, it's really the most powerful gift out of everything that we have included.
Wow. Wow. That's such a beautiful story. I feel honored. Thank you so much. Yeah. Thank you. And it's wild. Cause like when I met you and you gifted me everything, I went, everything. We all go through all that, but it's like, this is the one that like called to me first and I'm so happy I have it on. And we're sharing that with everyone. That's so cool. What a beautiful story I've been to South Africa. I didn't go to the island where he was in prison, unfortunately, but I've been on the land and I know how sacred that land is. And it's just so amazing that you had that experience when you were in your teens and then everything's going to be full circle just like on this podcast today. She's all over the place. Like everything's going to come full circle.
So last, so let's let's journey back to you being a teenager, you traveled the world. So tell us more about your story.
I have to say one thing before I get into this story. So just to go to the full circle, Annie who's my partner in South Africa was there at the forgiveness ceremony that my diva did with the stones. And I didn't know her until, you know, 10 years later. So there is a lot of this full circle thing that makes you feel like there's some author threading these things together and really incredible ways. So that's just one side note story. So to kind of give you some background, I, I'm not, I wasn't raised privilege. I am a military brat. I lived in nine states. I went to, you know, a dozen schools during traveling from one state to the next.
And I grew up from a father who was in Vietnam, a stepfather who was in Vietnam, who had a lot of trauma in his life. And thus that transferred on to us as his family. So I left home at 16. I basically left and said, I'm, I'm on my own. I'm going to take care of myself. I got emancipated, which meant that before I was 18, I was considered a legal. So in some ways I have experienced a flavor of suffering that has found some residue with others, meaning that my suffering may not be the same suffering of anyone else. Right. And we all suffer differently. But because of the access to the trauma that I had access to, I built a lot of empathy for people that maybe I wouldn't have otherwise.
And a sense of urgency for me, there was a sense of urgency that if someone didn't save me or I didn't save myself, there was no future. And I saw that in South Africa, I've seen that around the world. That's the reason that I got involved originally in humanitarian aid work was to try to bring Western money and Western tools to people who were striving to thrive. And so that's actually what started my access into the energy world was because everywhere I traveled in humanitarian aid, there were, you know, women giving birth in dark cuts with no water and no power, no light. There were, you know, abuses happening because the dead of night on a street with no light right in these communities, a lot of things can happen.
And it just didn't make sense to me that we had the tools to apply there and we weren't applying them yet. And so maybe there's some of that trauma residue that stuck with me and a way that fuels me to pay attention to those who are going through hard suffering and to figure out ways to provide solutions for those. And maybe in a way that I wish somebody would have done for me as a child, right? I mean, a lot of things come out of that, but there is that desire to bring the future into now instead of waiting for the good things to happen, to create them now. And that was the opportunity that was given to us in COVID it was an unfortunate opportunity, but that's where Mana Boxes was born from.
It was born from people who have had trauma, seen other women living through trauma and trying to apply whatever tools we had access to to alleviate that suffering.
Yeah. I mean, you're amazing. Oh my God, thank you so much. And wow, you're so eloquent and, and brave and gorgeous and so brave. And so, so brave, but I understand like the depths of your soul and being able to go into those territories and think so uniquely than the masses, because you weren't sheltered, you were exposed, you were like raw, like your soul and your spirit and your human being was just like out there. And you were just like going to all these different places exposed. So then you were able to take that and then wow. Do everything that you've done so far. I'm so excited to talk more about your journey
Hives built into wine. So thank you. What'd you say? I said it's a lot of lives built into one, so thank you.
Lucky you lucky you. Yeah. You're on a mission and I'm so happy to be a part of your mission. It's so cool. Yeah. Yeah. So let's talk about some of the attributes you've done in Michigan. Like how cool, like you represent 29,000 small businesses in Michigan right now.
Yeah. So they're called the small business administration of Michigan. And I was honored to ask to serve on their leadership council, which just basically means that we listened to the small businesses in Michigan. And we have a podcast as well with that group that I'll have you link to as well. We basically hear the needs of the small businesses and translate that into action, including policy action, right at the state level, I work a lot at the federal level. I typically would bridge the gap between what the state needs and what the federal government can do. And so I've been working in that role just behind the scenes helping and a lot of different task forces over time. But the reason I came back to Michigan to do that work was because I've lived here for 15 years, but I was, you know, in the economic downturn from 2008 to really 2012 in Detroit was where it was hardest hit.
We hired a bunch of engineers from Southeast Michigan who needed employment. And the automotive industry was, is really getting hit hard. It just so happened that at that time in my industry and energy and that energy came out, energy products came out of my experience in humanitarian aid, as a result of our us working there, we were on the precipice of something changing in the department of defense. And they were looking at renewable energy and sustainable energy as something that would be a long-term value for operational readiness, operational continuity in peacekeeping operations and in defense and offense operations. And so in that work, I realized all of the supply chain that was in Michigan.
And we pulled on that supply chain as well as the engineers. So I'd been doing work with Michiganders for years, but we weren't really making products to sit in the state of Michigan. Now we have worked on getting the F 35 program to the Selfridge air force base in Michigan. I worked very closely with the national guard in the state to make sure that they have a resilient architecture so that if they need to bring in specific operations into the state for defense or for power projection, which is like leaving from here and going over there, that we have all the power infrastructure and energy infrastructure we need. So I've been doing that for years in, in Michigan, but kind of behind the scenes.
You're amazing. You are so amazing. Like this language for me is just so unique and it's just more language that I want to know about and honor and speak about like this young, bright, beautiful soul. Not in Michigan comes in and like saves the day in Michigan out. So many people in Michigan, like go Michelle. That's so cool. That's so cool. Like, like where did this come from? Where did you come from? You're this angel of Michigan. Like, I mean, we need to have,
I love this
State. Yeah. Gorgeous.
That's right. Yeah. Well, having lived in nine states and by the way, I lived in Hawaii for years and when I was young, so I have a really good reference point of great places to live. The people of Michigan are some of the most incredible humans I've ever met. And so not only I'm on the small business administration in Michigan, I work with the women in defense and the state of Michigan, which is the largest chapter of women in the defense industry, out of all 50 states. And, you know, Michigan does a lot of work. We, we pulled down a lot of measures in the federal government, the pieces people don't know about. And oftentimes it's people like me and people like women in Defense, the women who sit around that table who are going and making things happen in DC, that wouldn't otherwise happen.
If we didn't have the voice and we didn't have the language like you mentioned, and we didn't have the experience. So I've just been the beneficiary of sitting around many tables with a lot of people who have much better education than me. I didn't go to college till I was in my twenties. Right. I went to an online school because I couldn't go to a physical school with two children. People like me who have these voices and are coming to the table with various toolkits that maybe they wouldn't get at Harvard. But when you get, when you're in the field and Haiti or South Sudan, you can apply in different ways. I think that's been my biggest gift is just spending time in places with people, learning how they live and learning how those tools could be applied to us.
And now in the state of Michigan, we're learning how to apply that here.
Love that. I love that. I definitely relate. I've been, you know, a big fan of, that's why it's called she's all over the place because I've traveled the world twice. Like I've been all around the world and I love people. I love culture. I come from a big Greek family. So sometimes I'd be in the south of France, you know, where all the famous painters came from, all those beautiful colors and with Vietnamese families. And you know, when with the friend from Vietnam who was living in Michigan and Ann Arbor, we went and like, we were with some of his family and I didn't know what they were saying. They fed me, I listened to Shaw day for the first time. Like, they're there, they have those like, you know, in New York, how they have those carts and the south of France, they have these carts, but they're egg rolls.
So there's all these Vietnamese people just like giving all these egg rolls. And it's like, I didn't speak the language, but because of the food and the love and how they were speaking the energy, the vibes, like the tone, like, you know, when, and, and I, and like, you know, I, I grew up hearing another language and speaking another language. So I could tell like, you know what they're talking about. You, you know, if they're not talking about you, you know, if there's like a heated room going on, just by the sensibilities of like the, the, the feeling of the room, the energy, the tone, the people, you know, the culture,
That's a very feminine characteristic. And that, and I don't mean that that is only the trove, the females, but that is a very feminine care sick characteristic to see the unseen and here the unset. And honestly, that is where we, how we got here, but be in those environments where you're learning from others who don't speak the same, don't understand the same conceptual backgrounds as you may have, or contextual backgrounds that actually makes us grow as humans, not only in empathy, but also in perspective. And so that's, it's that perspective that hearkens us action. When we have tools that people that we've connected with around the world absolutely need. And by the way, vice versa, I mean, there's so much to learn for instance, from South Africa and from a diva and the things that happened over apartheid, we as the U S there's a huge bridge of learning that goes both ways.
But until we start to look beyond ourselves and see other people's stories and find the resonance in those stories that attracts us to people and says the same way you feel like I feel connected to you at my belly. That's a Polynesian term. It, the connection at the belly is MANA. So the reason we called this Mana Boxes was because we wanted the people to feel the energy of the women, the 1800 plus women who are putting their MANA their energy into these items. Because as you know, energy can go to your memories because you were there and you can experience that. You can smell the smells, right, but MANA can also go to a thing that you got while you were on that trip that changed your life and you've held onto because it reminds you that's MANA
Mental, sentimental value and human beings. It gets so emotionally attached to something. Is that always the materialistic thing? It's a sentimental thing. It's the emotion that moved you behind it. So that's the MANA.
I have a, I have a little clock watch. My grandfather had from Meridian, Mississippi, Lachy, Mississippi in the country. He had this for 80 years. It was given to him. Then he passed. It was given to me, you know, when there's times where we need to, especially during COVID draw on the sensibilities of our ancestors, of who we are and of what we can become sometimes holding onto something that has the energy and at the MANA. And it is good. And that really is the reason it's empowering. That's the reason that we created this, this MANA box system. Great.
So let's just deep dive into MANA since we know what it means, like the energy and like where it stems from. So how was it birth in 2020 for you and your partner?
Yeah. So this is a really crazy story. So I invested in a company called MANA Pacific. Recently we founded it and it was to create energy, power, physical energy, because I'm an energy and power specialist, right? I'm a battery specialist, a microgrid specialist. So energy in a physical form is my specialty. So we invested in that company, we named it MANA Pacific for the reason of MANA being this empowerment, this power field that you can feel between people sometimes between nations sometimes, you know, between complete strangers, right. And an object. So we named that company MANA Pacific. We started researching what that meant, and I had this kind of idea tucked away on one of my mini notepads that I have sitting around of sketches and drawings and things that I'm earthing in my mind, at least.
And Mana Boxes was one of them. I, I had it sitting around because I had this idea that we do put energy into things when I'm traveling. I hate buying anything that comes off an assembly line that doesn't have anyone's hands touching it really. I love the handmade items. And as you know, Katie obviously traveling as much as you have, there's something beautiful in that handmade nature, right. And thinking more in terms of the Pacific cause I, you know, having spent some time in Hawaii as a child, I knew MANA as a Polynesian term, as a connection at the belly and, and in this energy that's unseen. But you know, when you're connected as, as someone, cause you can feel it. And that being true, obviously of a transference of material goods, often my friend, Annie in South Africa had, this is a long story, but I'll summarize, it had asked me to do a session with some of the women in her group called the women presidents organization, these women that I was supposed to present to originally in person in Montreal before COVID hit, were account for about a hundred million dollars us in economic transfer from South Africa and beyond with their businesses.
These are women, small business owners. And so I was trying to figure out what to do now, since COVID made it required to be a virtual event, right. So we couldn't do it in person. So now we're going to do it virtually. How do I connect with these women virtually? And I was meditating cause I meditate. Some people pray, I meditate slash pray. And I had this premonition of, well, first I was asking the question, what can we do? First of all, what, what do these women need? What's the tool that they need now? And then what do we do with it? And originally when thinking about what they needed to know or what I needed to tell them, the message was around seeing the unseen, seeing beyond the surface.
And I didn't realize how valuable that message would be kind of emphasizing the incredible intensity of feminine intuition. And, And so telling these women that you just need to pull down into these depths of your feminine intuition and pull this vision up and you can create anything, but I'm telling them this during the worst of COVID right in South Africa where some of their family members were in ICU and it was terrifying. And so after the
Fight and flight mode, the rational cortex has shut down and they're in survival mode and especially being an Africa,
You know, and mama's right. Mamas who have businesses with many, many employees and babies who are not home because they can't be at school. So now full-time mom, full-time business woman full-time encourage her full-time therapist. I mean, they were dealing with the hardest hit and I wasn't feeling it yet as a business owner in Michigan really yet. And, but seeing it through their eyes, I realized this was coming and I kind of took on the pain of what they were feeling because at the end of this three hour virtual event, they expressed where they were and how this gave them hope, but really the trauma that they were dealing with with COVID. And so my friend, Annie and I sat down and started talking over a WhatsApp video and trying to figure out what it is we could do.
And she being a mentor of many of these businesses and an incubated, many of these women owned businesses over the years was feeling the weight of everything. And so I told her, I'm going to do the only thing I know to do. I'm going to go meditate and see what I can come up with. I have no idea what the tool is. And I had my eyes closed. I was meditating and I was really asking, what is it that we need to do? How can we, and where's the money gonna come from? Where do we find the money to keep these women surviving? And we didn't know at that point I was 1800 women. This was a few hundred women that we really knew about. And in that meditation, I felt almost like a shove in my chest. I thought my dog had walked in the room and you know, kicked me or something.
And I opened my eyes and it was a very clear this it's you, if you don't do it, who will? And if you don't do it now, when, and it was such a clear message that it was like, okay, I'm going to go back to my notepads and figure out which solution, which idea and vision I have that I could apply to this market. And it just happened to be Mana Boxes. And honestly, I know more about inverters and solar panels and batteries systems than I do about fashion, but we learned really quick when 1800 lives thrown on the line for it. Wow.
Wow. I have chills. I have, I have such deep chills. That's such a beautiful story. Thank you so much. And then where this one right here, this MANA box that we have, and there's, there's hundreds of stories in here. So it is, it all is 1800, is it all 1800 or how many are in the box?
So if you can imagine during lockdown, during quarantine, first of all, how hard is it to make items at scale? And we were making a thousand of each particular item. We have 33,000 items that were handmade. Those cards were also made in someone's business with COVID quarantine protections. And because of the timing, we could only get about 300 stories and pictures on just because we had to ship everything, to get it to market as quickly as possible to get that revenue in their hands. So that's a sampling. They're not even all of the incredible stories, not even close, but we couldn't get everything. We decided eventually we want to create like a quilt of their stories and kind of thread them all together.
But right now, yeah, when you go through those and people who donated to the Kickstarter campaign, which we tripled our goal, thanks to the donors are going to get that full box of all the stories. So they can see the women that they've impacted while people who have subscribed to the quarterly are going to get several stories in each box totally. And the whole box. But you were given the advanced pre-shot of, of all the women that
I want to go in so many different directions. But first I just want to say viewers listening and they want to be involved and know more. So where can they go? And how can they get involved? How can they contribute and help?
So we are, we are currently, we moved on from the Kickstarter campaign, which was successful. We had 30 days to meet our goal. We tripled that goal things to the supporters. Now we've transitioned to Mana Boxes dot com, M a N a B O X E s.com. That's our website, people who are interested in buying either one box or buying a quarterly subscription, which is where they get four boxes over the year. There's another bonus box to what you can see on our website. They can do that there. We don't have a donation set up yet for people who want to give underneath the 254 single box, which has seven to 10 goods in it, in that box that are handmade.
We're we're thinking about setting up a MANA foundation. That's where we're thinking to go next to cause we have some very interested parties looking at us, supporting us. And, and we're thinking about launching a school right now in South Africa to support these mamas. Who've been making these items. So there's some things yet to come and you will know more about that. If you follow us on Mana Boxes dot com and
Then also your Instagram too, right? Yeah.
So our Instagram, I'm pretty sure I have to double check it. I think it's a, the Mana Boxes is probably the Instagram as well, but we'll post everything and get the links to you so that you have it. But yeah, we're on Instagram or on Facebook. We're
Mana Boxes. M a N a Boxes. Yeah. Cool, cool. I'm gonna, I'm just gonna like pull a card. I don't know which one. I have no idea. I'm just going to because I did it with my mom last night and I just like, and I thought, oh my God. And I was just thinking of different things. Like, I don't know. I don't, I don't, I'm not, I'm just taking it all in. Cause it's, it's a lot to process. Oh, I read Robin's card yesterday. It's such a beautiful one. I'll I'll read Robbins actually. But I was thinking, wow, look at all these cards. Cause I'm so like in heart and soul and spirit inspired like you, I was like, and I was like, I love stationary. I love writing. And I love, I love these. And I'm going to, I was like, you know, sometimes you get not Shiva.
Nanda is this Shiva Nanda with the temples around and there's, there's one in LA. And then, and then you, you read one a day and they go and alphabet. So I was thinking maybe my mantra to myself is like maybe reading one a day and keeping them for myself and keep them like, you know, to have them to hold and to cherish. And I was also thinking like, oh, wouldn't it be sweet if I like, when I saw a girlfriend who like touched my heart and soul, that I love that I said here, and I'm like, oh, if they're in my home or something, I'm like here just select one. And they select and they read it and then they take in, I pass it on the feminine, divine energy and give it as a gift. So these things came to me. It's so new. It's so sentimental. So I'm going to take my time, but let's read the one with the Robin and it says a Kiwi net.
So what's Keeley net does that a
One of the 33 suppliers. And I think it's in the second or the third box, but these are surprises, but you'll get, but that's, that's the group that made it. Okay.
Got it. An act of kindness for me is when someone does something kind out of the ordinary unexpectedly and unprompted to assist others, this is what the ladies behind the MANA project had done for us, by going out of their way to assist women in business. During this challenging time, I wanted to assist women to be financially independent. So they should want to, they have the freedom to make changes in their personal life so they can achieve their dreams.
Wow. It's so inspirational. And you know, to your point, I think one of the things I didn't even consider until you said that is, you know, there is a, there's a truth and you mentioned physics earlier. I'm a very big quantum physics fan. I read everything I can about it. And actually I taught about this at that event, I told you about for the women presidents' organization in April. Part of it was teaching on quantum physics, quantum entanglement, and the fact that really all information is available to us if we need it, if we want it. And it's just knowing that all that information is available. And so part of that kind of hearkens back to prayer, having meditation, having this power, one of the things I'd love to see happen is if women who receive those cards every day, maybe taking one card out and saying a blessing over that woman and knowing that just the laws of the universe, that everything that you give out comes back to you twice fold, right?
So don't hold back. Let's pull, it's pour the blessings out, not to get them back for ourselves, but because we believe in these things and we know that this is true, these women can be blessed beyond measure. We just need to know each other's stories. And the more we know about each other, the more you hold each other up. And the more we promote that shared prosperity that I think women have done historically for other women in communities all over the world.
Yeah, definitely. What came up for me right before we jumped on today was it was just came to me. It says you reap what you sow. Right? So planning, planning the seeds and all the seeds that have been planted and for the viewers and everyone listening, it's like the actionable steps that you take. So, I mean, I'm mind blown with all this military talk and all this energy talk and representing 29,000 small businesses in Michigan. Like I need to like do something with my life. I'm hoping like, what have I done? What have I done with my life? Yeah. And then it's like, you know, we have to remember to remember, it's just like one step at a time. And so I met Pamela, this M Greek she's Greek by another woman named Michelle, who is a part of green Fairall van Jones is non-profit said, oh, you're Greek.
You have to meet Pamela. You have to be Kelly. So she's like, we're at the, Emma's the inviter, the environmental media associations awards. And we met. And then, and then I've been wanting to like connect more and more. And I just had this like raw calling just to like connect more. And then she reached out to me, she's like, oh, Kyriaki, I'm working on this wonderful project. And she's just like so passionate and I'm like, send it over. Then it was the end of 2020. And it's like, it's going to be a busy, busy time, you know, the holidays and stuff right before the holidays, they were going to approach, you know, it's a busy time. And with everything going on, it's like in my heart of hearts, it's like, it's I connected to that divine, feminine spirit. It's like, this is an opportunity for me to pay it forward, to be involved in something.
I said, I want to be involved in that. I'm a part of that. I want to take actionable steps on and, and grow my connectivity with the divine feminine. Right? Yeah. So I looked at it, I looked it over and I went through it all. And then, you know, we did a beautiful article on thrive and then one thing just led to another and it just keeps on folding. So, but it took, it took one step. You know, I showed up at the EMAs. I met Michelle. She introduced me to Pamela and Kelly and, and three years later, it's like, boom. Now she introduces you to me. And you're on my new podcast. That was just manifesting. That didn't, that, that I wanted to start six years ago, but it's here now. And it's one of the fastest growing popular podcasts.
I'm so excited about that. Like a natural fit. So like circling all of this. So everyone listening, it's just, it just, doesn't like, it's like work hard, be nice. You know, Michelle has that. It's like, it's just one step at a time. And it manifests and it all comes together. It's like the, she went and spoke to like a couple hundred women. Wow. That's a lot. But then she, she didn't even know it was 1800, but it's like, we don't know what, we don't know that we don't know that we don't know that we don't know. We just don't know, like there's a plan it's designed. So, you know, being inspired, having forgiveness, having kindness, like taking these actionable steps, to just make an impact and like follow your heart's desire, whatever it may be and whatever comes up for you.
So it's important to journal write meditate. And so you were saying, Michelle, I meditate as well. So what's one of your forms of meditation. So honestly
I don't have a big fantastical ceremony for myself because I'm usually in between, like the kids are running up the house in the morning, I've got South Africa, which is seven hours ahead of our time zone a business there. And then I have the Pacific, which is five hours behind us. So I'm awake and like weird hours. I take naps basically throughout the day and night. So my meditation is my dog is in the room. She's trying to get my attention and I'm trying to focus. And so I have a mantra that I say, this is really going from the last few months in 2020, where the weight of, and the pressure of making sure that Mana Boxes was successful, not only for these 1800 women, but for all the investment that we've put on and all the women like you in the U S who have not only put their eggs in this basket, but supported us for endless hours.
You know, my question was, how, how do we pay for this? How do we, how do we support this over time? And, you know, during my meditation, I really just spend a few minutes focusing on peace of mind. So I'm trying to create coherence, right? So peace of mind, love of heart because that's in my mind where I suppose our heart's supposed to be full of love, and then God of grace. So peace of mind, if my mind is at peace, I can't, I won't get lost in the thoughts. Right. I can see the vision and move toward it. If I have love of heart, then my actions will show up in love and wrapped in love. And then if I have a God of grace, I'm going to have grace, not only for myself and my failures, right.
But success, grace for the success and the failures of others and understanding how they get there. So that's been my coherence, peace of mind, heart of love, God of grace. And I say that several times until I can believe it.
Okay. How long do you meditate? Do you set a timer? Do you have a discipline? Like I'm going in? Does everyone know? Like not to bother you, you hold space for yourself. Like, you're like, oh, mom's going to do her thing. Or like, I'll be down in 20 or like three hours. Like, what's your process? Cause a lot of people listening, they're totally into, you know, spiritual evolvement.
I do a lot of research when I'm working out, when I'm doing the elliptical, when I'm just doing nothing, I always have research going on in the background. And then often what I do in meditation, I think other people often feel like they need to shut out thought and idea, but I am. So I closed down thoughts and ideas when I'm starting to think in a business sense during the day. Cause I have to think in black and white right in business. So for me, meditation is really about opening up rather than closing down. So I don't say no, no thoughts, no ideas. I don't do that. I, I opened myself up and whatever thoughts and ideas come to me, I'll write them down. I draw pictures. I've created various power solutions out of these meditations and various technologies just because I can go in a different space in my mind.
I think they talk about feta and beta gamma and where you create right in your brain. I can create the best in those places. So I don't close things out. Whereas some meditators do I use that space to open up and then to use that, to write down what that creative force is trying to tell me. Right.
Cool. Cool. And then do you do that and with silence or do you put like Tibetan meditation bowls on or,
And yeah, it just depends. Yeah. I do a lot of bunny Euro beats. I have something that I'm playing with right now that sort of quantum acoustics. And so the idea of the beats, not only coming through your ears, I have something called the brain tap that has lights that go through your ears and your eyes. And then now I have a quantum device I'm playing with and testing and researching that supposedly puts it into your yourselves. And so there's an idea behind acoustics and light that we are just now seeing that creates a lot of healing are use light for people with PTSD, for instance, that creates a lot of healing. So I'm a researcher as well. I'm a senior researcher at the oldest private military college in the U S so I do a lot of digging into those things.
So I look at that from a data perspective and we're really on to something. I think women are the ones who are finding the truth more frequently and more quickly.
Cool. Very cool. Yeah. I definitely need to introduce you to my sister, Anna she's into light therapy and everything she's taught me so much. It's so cool. And then where's the oldest military school in the United States.
Norwich university is in Vermont. And so I've been with them for about two years. And now I have a partnership with Arizona state university. So even though I'm somebody who went to an online school for years with two babies in arm, right now, I'm, I'm teaching and educating and propagating ideas that some of the most respected universities in the world. So that is to go back to your earlier point. If you have a desire and you have a passion and you can get there with educating yourself, even if nobody else can educate you, I didn't have that opportunity for a good education, right? If you can use whatever tools you have, you can create anything.
My life is an example of that. And you know, the most recent example is a net effect of 1800 women. But the reality is that we're just getting started and we just need more women like us to rally around and how many more thousands or millions could we affect?
Yeah. Maybe I'm more females and people will see more podcasts like this one because a lot of people are struggling like you did online school. A lot of people are doing homeschool. So it's difficult for a lot of people, you know, but they're, everyone's shifting and finding new patterns. The online, online school it's so well, cause you said you were doing online school, but that's what everyone's doing now. Online school, my niece and nephew, they're doing the online school right now. It's difficult. You need that connection. You need to connect with.
Well, you need to, we have to retrain ourselves to connect with people outside of physical contact. And I think unfortunately some of the side effects of being someone with physical and mental abuse means that I didn't have as much physical contact over the years, right. Growing up. And so you really become independent in that scenario. And I think a lot of people listening to this podcast understand what that means, but in that independence, you can also empower yourself to teach yourself what maybe nobody else could and maybe nobody else would. But for me, I, as a side note, I started a non-profit for at-risk youth in Chicago in 2002, 2003, I think it was 2003 and side note.
We did work all over the world doing humanitarian aid work. But during that time we were approached by university Arizona state university asking us in 2003, if we would pilot the first online school program that they had ever had turned out, it was not only their first online. It was the first for many schools, if not all of them. And I think that they came to us because we, our kids were all at risk, right? So they thought, well, if they fail, they fail, right. It's not going to be a ding against us, but they all pass. And not only did many of them get GED and then go on to this, you know, advanced degree or undergraduate degree with ASU, but then 20 something years later now I represent ASU and
The circle once again, all over the place. It literally that's what ha that's life, man. It's like all over the place. Like you think you're just going in a linear direction, but not, that's not happening.
The more you show up the more you see. Huh?
That's it. That's it also though, the, what you just said, the more you show it, the more you see and being in the independent state, you were a seeker, you were a, self-motivator like, you're like, oh yeah, I'm working out. But I have research going on in the background. A lot of people, they don't have what you, it's your gift. It's, it's your gift. So maybe people can learn. Hopefully people can learn from you, you know, about being a self-starter. I remember when I was a teenager, I read a quote by Socrates. It's probably going to be fragmented, but his definition of, of a philosopher was a person who's a lover of wisdom. And I'm like, that's me, I'm a lover of wisdom. I'm a lover of wisdom. So I'm gonna, I'm a philosopher, you know?
So like a seeker, you know? And so, you know, you're a seeker. And so people listening, hopefully, you know, we can inspire them to be secretive as well. And maybe, maybe you were a seeker, maybe you, you are a seeker and you're on the journey and that's, that's awesome. But maybe you fell off it. Maybe you can, you know, get back to you. Right. So sometimes it's the, it's the search of,
You know, how, you know, you're a seeker, you know, your secret when you were in a room or an environment with people who are much older than you. And all you want to do is hear what they have to say, for instance, because there's truth and wisdom in that older perspective that we didn't live through. So what the generation that, you know, my, my kids are of this, this generation is the wisdom that you can get from an online snapshot, right? But there's so much wisdom and history and experience and individual's experience. So that's the thing that I've sought after. Because to me, if I had wisdom, I had protection and coming from someone who had an abusive background, you need protection, right? So after wisdom to give me that protection and through that wisdom found out that while everybody else in the world also needs it.
And so if we have tools to provide it to other young girls and other women who are providing safe havens for other young girls, why wouldn't we do it? If we don't do it now, why? And if we don't do it with our own hands, who, who who's going to do it, I mean, to me, this is why we live. This is what makes COVID worth living through. Cause honestly, several of us did not want to make it through COVID. It was so difficult, right? It was a hard time to want to stay alive. But the human spirit of survival is the strongest thing I've ever felt and experienced in any emotion to survive, to live. And now we need to translate that to thriving. And I think that that's that's the female spirit is translating survival and to thriving
And Arianna Huffington coin. That one, I think, I think this April will be four years that she launched thrive global. So I love that. Yeah. It's all about thriving. You mentioned earlier a podcast that you have w here in Michigan, which Podcast is that
There's a, a podcast that was done from the Michigan entrepreneur group. I'm not exactly sure the perfect name of it, but I'll send it to you. And then there's also other podcasts we're doing earth shot. And some others that are talking about different facets of our work, obviously Mana Boxes being a huge portion of it. But in some cases we're talking about the climate and trying to risk mitigate, you know, carbon changes over time and how our technology and our approach to technology will affect that. So we have a few of those different ones. We'll definitely share with you after this podcast.
And I'll put him in the show notes, like you mentioned anything else you want to share about the Mana Boxes,
Basically this, I mean, a lot of people are when they see, you know, what is Mana Boxes. I understand the spirit. I understand the energy behind it and the love behind it, but why would I get involved? And the number one thing that I want people to understand stand about Mana Boxes is that it's not gifts just for you. I mean, that Mana is about giving the MANA. So any of you who've been to Hawaii, you know, you get off the plane and they give you a leg. They don't just give you a lay. They're giving you their energy. They're giving you their spirit of Hawaii of Aloha. And so each of the four boxes that come in the quarterly subscription, and those of you who decide to get the quarterly plus the bonus box, we'll get a fifth box. Each of those items, each of those boxes have between five and 10 individual handmade items in them.
There are some of the highest end goods that you can get. Honestly, I've traveled South Africa for years. And every time I go, I buy my work wardrobe for the year because your money goes a lot further there, but the quality is so incredible. And so we have all kinds of different items that are not just for you, but they're packaged for you to give them a way. The whole idea is to pass the MANA. And when you passed the MANA, we also want you to pass the stories. So that's why the currents are inserted in each of the boxes, right? So that you can pass the stories of these women. We can pass the blessings and we can also pass the physical goods. So that's what I wanted everybody to know. It's not only for you, but it's so intentionally you can send them out to other people where you want to pass them on throughout the year.
Beautiful. Beautiful. Yeah. I love, love all that. So I guess what came up through my spirit yesterday about like gifting it to certain girlfriends and it doesn't have to just be girlfriends, but I initially just thought girlfriends, but whoever, you know, I'd be like, oh, here, like pick one. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. And hopefully they'll think of you when, you know, when they're looking at it, when you know, it's in their drawer somewhere on their alter and they're looking at it and it deepens the kinship you have with the relationship with that person too, you know? So you can, we can make a choice to give a certain one by after reading them to certain individuals like this, I read this and it made me think of you.
And this is for you, you know? Cause that story's going to be a different story.
Yeah. The resonance. And that's really what we want to promote. And there will be a point at which after we send the first quarter Boxes, the end of January, that we will ask people to give us their stories, to show us who they're passing them to and reveal the energy of the reveal, the MANA and the connection between the tribe. Because the, in my mind, there's a connection between all of us women. I mean, we have a connection to every human, but women have this intuitive nature to kind of click into each other. And it really comes through from sharing that takes all the political bias away, all the religious bias away, all the boundaries and the borders, all of that is gone. When you read someone's story and say, yeah, I totally understand. Even though I may not have lived in those shoes, I want to pray for those shoes.
I want to hope good things for those shoes. And I know that doing that is going to reach hundreds, if not thousands of other people, that's the real benefit and the beauty behind this project.
Beautiful. Beautiful. Thank you so much for being here and sharing stories with us. So you have M K advisers, right? And so how long have you had that? Has that, has that been 15 years as well?
No, we had, after the last company I had where we were doing rapid prototyping of energy solutions, so power equipment for a military intelligence community, remote villages, et cetera. I got really good at making solutions. And so I left in 2015 and started to MK advisors to teach others how to make these solutions because I realized that to get energy and water, you know, clean, sustainable energy and water to scale in the communities that we need it to go to the first and the fastest, right. We needed a lot more people who knew the things that we knew. And so for the past six years, that's what we've been focused on 5, 5, 6 years focused on teaching others.
Now going into 2021, we're really focused on micro grids, creating power solutions around the world for communities who can not only monetize those systems, but can also create a sustainable community and a sustainable economy. One of those projects is called MANA Pacific and MANA is out of Hawaii. Actually we moved during COVID three of our staff to Maui to run that company and to really build it off the ground. So MANA pacific.com, M a N a Pacific dot com is a huge, incredible piece of work that we're, we're doing MK advisors incubated it and invested in that group.
And now they're running, I'm the Chairwoman of that company, but it's a triple bottom line company with benefits for not only the people, so education, knowledge transfer, but the planet using the right technology that sustainable and profit triple bottom line people, planet and profit profit, being something that is shared prosperity for all. That's the same energy and same nature behind an ethos behind Mana Boxes as well. But MK advisors is in the business of incubating these advanced energy technologies, advanced water technologies, as well as companies and businesses apparently like Mana Boxes that can sustain entire communities and thousands of women in their families.
So beautiful. The sustainability part. And when I was birthing and originally learning about, you know, your actionable steps of, you know, bridging the connection of Michigan of the United States and Africa. So yeah,
Huge one. I mean, do you, I don't know if you know, six toe Rodriguez, but there's a big story behind six toe Rodriguez and a documentary that was done on him called finding sugar, man, there is a deep connection between Detroit specifically and South Africa in a way that South Africa, when you ask them about sugar man, and about Detroit and the music that affected them during apartheid, many south Africans will just cry because it was that impactful. So there is a huge bridge. And that's why I mentioned earlier, a bi-directional bridge of learning and sharing between us and them. I think that there is something here that a lot of Detroiters would love to see if they knew just how connected we are to south Africans.
And
I have just chills running because when you said the name, I haven't heard, heard his name in a while, but yes, I saw the film. I saw the documentary. I had no idea. I had no idea I had. And most people don't. I mean, I thought he was African-American when I heard about it, when everyone was raving about it. Oh, you have to see it. You're from Michigan. You have to see it. And then finally think goodness, I saw it, but I'm so happy that he was because normally you hear a story in the person's passed on, right? Fine. He still,
When the south Africans, when they brought them in for this concerts, it was packed. It was like Michael Jackson had just shown up. I mean, he became a cultural icon and he didn't even know it. And he changed the way that African south Africans thought specifically white south Africans in a way that he didn't even know. And this is, this is the MANA, right? What you do when you put it into something has a life of its own. Even if you're not mentoring and monitoring and managing that life, he was gone. And his life, his MANA lived on, even though he was still physically alive, he was gone from them for years. And his motto lived on in his story and in their story.
So there, there's some beauty to that, that I think that we're trying to talk on. And the more that the more women like you in your community who see this and understand it, the more they're going to understand why exactly. We think that there's a, there's something to be learned here on both sides of the coin. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Very cool. Very cool. You're so beautiful. Tactful. I'm just like, I'm in awe. I'm just like,
You're so sweet. You know, I say that the COVID-19 is a real thing, but I don't know that the COVID 19 pounds or not, but I definitely, we put on some pounds this year sitting at our desk, focusing on trying to figure out solutions. So I appreciate the comment, but we all feel ragged and tired, but I know,
I mean, for anyone who's not on the video right now. I mean, she's like a baby doll, like so young and she's accomplished all these beautiful things and she shared some of her stories. So normally you hear that normally, but sometimes you hear like people in they're like, oh, they're like so much older or they're older. You know what I mean? Like they've had some withering lives, like, yeah, you mentioned you have two children. Like how young your child,
So they're teenagers and that people, I, my daughter's taller than me and my son just passed me up and I'm five, nine. So I go into stores with my daughter and they think that she's my best friend. So what are you going to do?
And you're probably like, you're probably like looking like her, her sister. I'm sure. I'm sure. I'm definitely sure on that one, but you know, you know, you, we are in Michigan and Michigan has 70% of the great lakes. So we have that, that great oxygen
We do. And I live on a private lake that was glacier cut in Michigan. Right. So I live on this private lake and there's something to be said about the ions in the air. I mean, it's yeah. It, it, there's something beautiful about it without the salt, with the salt doesn't really matter. But this, this lake gives me life when I'm feeling like I'm drowning. So there's definitely some,
And then, so just like rounding up here. Do you have, when you were like younger, did you have a book or mentor someone that you looked up to being so independent and feeling? So, you know, I don't want to say alone because there's a difference between like alone and loneliness, right? Like being independent and traveling around, what was your source of energy or a mentor?
This is a tricky one. Cause I think most of the time people would love to say that they had someone to walk them through. And I definitely had people show up in chapters of my life. And so I don't want to discount that at all. There were definitely people who were there in moments that I needed them the most, but, and I think that this is something that hearkens back to the south African women, at least that I have connected with over the past several years, that there's an internal connection to something that's deeper than even someone out here. And so, and, and one section of my life that may have meant God, right? The God, the God, the gods, whatever you want to interpret it.
As I, I felt connected to the source. And then in a different time of my life, I felt connected to nothing but my own pain. And in those places, as when I built some of the places, some of the things that I needed to fortify myself over time, people with a lot trauma often can't figure out how to make it unless they have someone holding their hand. And I almost created a, you know, a list of like guides almost who were in my life, guiding me, even though they weren't there. And I'm writing a book right now about those guides, giving them personalities as a fiction. Right. But I think that there are people in this life who feel very strong connection to family here. And that's a beautiful, brilliant thing.
And I wish that everybody had that connection. I did not. And I do not. I've had this connection to a family beyond here. And I think that very many people can, can connect with that reality and have hope in the fact that even if the family isn't here physically in this world around us, that we can have that family in, in heavenly family, spiritual family, whatever you want to call it. I think that we can draw upon that. And over the years, that's really what I've been holding onto. That we're connected to something bigger. We have a family that we can maybe see or not see. And, and through that, we can all figure out what the right way is forward because otherwise this earth is really hard and we have to do it together to make it worthwhile.
Yeah.
Ah, totally beautifully said I've been nonstop, like, you know, reading inspirations and prayers in the, the Bible. You know, my mom gave me this Bible app. She's been, you know, reading the old Testament and I've just been reading it. And it says right in there, like about long suffering and how like, life is about long suffering. And it's just like, it's just kind of given not this blanket of permission, but just as just like openness to be like, oh, like it's a part of it. Cause I always put the public persona on. I'm like, everything's perfect. Everything's fine. The imposter syndrome, everything's good. Everything's gay, you know, but it's like, no, even when you have it all together, like, you know, it just came up again.
But I've been reading a lot, a lot of poetry and like collo Gobran, it's like, you know, the joyous of the joy because you know, the depths of your sorrow and you know, and when you're sitting in that sorrow right on the bed is the joy.
Yeah. I mean, honestly, if there's anything about Mana Boxes that people should know, we call it a labor of love because there were many days that we thought we have to give up completely. I mean, not just because our, the business itself was hard, but our physical lives, our family are this center that, and honestly, Annie and I would just go and meditate and pray and ask for whatever the solution was. And it doesn't mean that it makes us suffering any less, but there, we should not escape the pain. When we escape the pain. Sometimes we dilute the art that comes on the other side of it. And so I really am Kevin courage, myself and people that I care about over the years to when you feel that pain sit in it for a bit, just sit there.
You don't have to stay there. And it's, there's a power that you don't have to stay there, but sit in it. And if you sit in it, you may find something created on the other side that maybe your hands can do. Maybe somebody else's hands can do. But really what happened for Mana Boxes is sitting in that collected, shared pain that everybody was experiencing, created a business to sustain 1800 women. And so my biggest challenge to everyone is I left home at 16. I'm not rich. I, if I can do it, anyone can. And not only that, but far more.
So when you're rich in spirit, you're very rich. And when I look at rich, I think of like, like spirit, you know? Cause like wealthy is one thing, but like rich and spirit, you are very rich. Very, very, very rich. Yeah. Definitely. Your stories have been very, very rich. Yeah. I mean, I've gotten vulnerable a few times here. I've had to help hold myself back if you have one. Cool. But I could read another card.
Let's do it. I love it. I love these stories
Live and Sarah, you know, she's just, she's just right on the top here. I was just, there's so many I could dig through, but I mean, I, I literally have just read the Robin one. So let me just read this one right here. Oh my gosh. Okay. Here we go. One of each.
Yeah. Gorgeous. Right?
Gorgeous. So I don't have so many friends from Africa, but I have some friends from Africa. So right when I said yes and I was partaking with Mana Boxes, I sent the link. I'm like, Hey, do you know about this? And I like, let my friends, you know, in synagogue, they're there right now. And some of my friends know, okay, here we go. I was working in the events and promotions industry, which came to a standstill. Wow. A lot of United States members and people can relate to that. I was also selling Herbalife. Many of my customers had been retrenched and couldn't afford to buy my products anymore. This brought great financial hardship to myself and family. My dream is to one day, bring positive change in my community and to teach girls to be independent by teaching them the skills I learned from one of each
And that she is one of the artisans who handmade the journals. And so the, the picture of the colors that are on the front of her picture is actually the design of the journals. And they're beautiful. And there's some other corresponding things, but yeah, that there are so many stories of women who, I mean, there's some really heartbreaking ones who strove, you know, we're, we're trying to get to the other side of trauma and they were just getting there and then COVID hit. And so she's definitely one of them. And so the fact that we could create this bridge and, you know, we prepaid for all these items. We didn't, we had to cause they couldn't survive otherwise. So we prayed, paid for a million dollars worth of handmade items and that wow.
And otherwise
I gave him real hope then like, you know? Yeah. Cause they, how could they be? Exactly. Wow. Wow. Magnificent. Congratulations. Congratulations. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you for making this happen and for meditating in prayer. Yeah. Cool. So any last words of wisdom, anything else you want to share before we wrap this up?
Well, the bottom line is that everyone can do anything that they desire. I mean, that's my bottom line for my life. Seeing the unseen and going out and pursuing things that are beyond ourselves. If you doing that beyond yourself, you'll have a suite of people around you to help you. And that's really been the testimony to this project is all the beautiful women and men supporting us who have come around to build this project up. So Mana Boxes dot com. I hope you'll support us. I hope you stay tuned and very much looking forward to sharing more of the stories with you. Yeah.
Wonderful. I'm excited to hear more and I'm excited to meet your family and your kids. I'm so excited to hear about their journey in the near future and like watch them soar because I can only imagine what, what they're going to blossom into with having a beautiful mother, just like you. Wow. Hoops. So yeah. So cool. Cool. Okay, cool. So we're gonna wrap this up and I know we've inspired you. So drop a comment, let us know, leave a review, get in touch with Michelle on IgG Mana Boxes dot com support contribute, take action. Be inspired. I mean this whole episode has just been, you know, leveling up and inspiring and sharing and caring and, and you hear from, you know, just the two scriptures that I read, how, you know, wow, I've never met these women and it doesn't matter if you're a female or a male or, you know, but we, I can relate in that.
A lot of people can relate, you know? So we're all in interconnected as one. Yeah. This has just been an amazing episode. And thank you so much for being here. Yeah, yeah, definitely. Definitely. Yeah. Okay. We'll see you next time. Tuchow Thank you so much for joining us. We'll see you next time. Kyriaki, over and out.