How a Professor Built a Global Movement for Women

It touched my heart so much, and I started typing like a maniac on my laptop. She's telling me the story, tears have come down my face. And I was like, oh my god, I need to have this story. And I said, you know, are there other people out there that have stories like you have?

“She said, yes, and you should be the one to tell them.”

Dr. Shelley Hipsky is a visionary, empowering, and purpose-driven CEO, award-winning author, and the founder of Inspiring Lives International, where she leads a global movement dedicated to uplifting women through media, education, and coaching. Through her works, she equips women to discover their purpose, build confidence, and create meaningful lives, leaving a legacy of leadership and empowerment around the world.

You have to be able to see what the possibilities are. I just needed to look at these three words and figure out what the hack was going on there. And I was like, is the trilogy? Where was the pivot that came into all of these different branching businesses that you have? The air was a moment.

It spams the goal, like a super high school, internet Elvis. Today, Apple is going to reinvent the phone. It's not over, I'll tell how we're... The living your legacy podcast, for those who live to leave a legacy. All right, and we are back with another episode of The Living Your Legacy Podcast.

I am joined today by Dr. Shelley Hipsky, of many different businesses. All right, and you're actually in two separate episodes on Apple. I'm so excited about that. You're in the next level CEO, I believe, and women in power. Yes.

A powerful CEO, a powerful woman, is joining us here in the studio.

So give me a little bit of background on how do I get from the point A of a young Shelley to point B the shock, the doctor Shelley Hipsky that's sitting with me today. That's a loaded big old question, isn't it? Feel free to feel free to give me your story at length. At length, and not Sam, okay, I can give you being little Shelley.

I'm not going to take it all the way back there, but I am going to take it to being the teacher Shelley because I was a tenured professor of education for a decade. And I absolutely adored that. While I was a teacher as as a professor, I had my undergraduate, some master degree students for future teachers, my PhD students were all going on to lead businesses or school districts.

So while doing that, I was meeting incredible people, I was meeting interesting people.

And I was writing because it was like publisher perishing that they the professor world. Meeting these people, going on media, starting to talk to people, starting to collect their stories, and there was a moment where I did a radio show, okay. I did this radio show before the land of podcast was a thing we used to do radio, all right? Exactly, so I was doing a radio show and they came back to me and they said, you know,

“Dr. Shelley, you need to retake this because it didn't go well the first time.”

Apparently there was a glitch in the tack. He said to me, he said, you know what? I want you to meet somebody before we did that. The person when I called her on the phone, I called her up. She had a business called mind your business and he'd good name.

Yeah, it is a good name isn't that.

So she would she had this incredible story and it really touched my heart.

It touched my heart so much that I, you know, I'm talking on the foot cell phone. And I was like, hold on, I put her on hold. I put it per on speaker and I started just typing like a maniac on my laptop. So I'm like, I'm getting her story. She's telling me the story tears to come down my face and I was like, oh my god, I need to have this story.

I need to and I said, you know, are there other people out there that have stories like you have Claral?

“And she said, yes, and you should be the one to tell them.”

And I said, okay, so we go back. I go back to record this interview with us on this radio show in Michigan. And they're doing the count on there. Three, two, one and before they got to one, I said, you're interviewing all these cool people with amazing stories, aren't you? Inspiring stories and he said, yes, and I said, has anybody written a book about it?

And he said, no. And I said, well, then I should be the author and we're on. And then a week later, I get in my email. I get this little link and it's a YouTube link. This is back in a day when you didn't even care if you clicked on some random YouTube link.

Now you guys do really careful with that. Yeah.

And here's this radio guy out of Michigan on National Television saying, looking into the camera and saying,

“Dr. Shelley Hipsky of Robert Morris University is going to write the book or a Nary”

People Extraordinary Planet. And I was like, well, I've got to get to work because then I knew that there were these stories. I was going to take these. I was going to take the transcriptions and I was going to take the stories and I was going to take those to the next level. And that's where in those stories started coming my way.

And from there, it went from that to the book series. So I've got 15 books out to the television show inspired by Dr. Shelley. And we filmed in the NBC studios for that. And it went out all over.

Amazing things happened with those connections.

And then I went through a divorce with a three year old in the five year old kiddo at home. And I was a, you know, a tender professor. And I was doing this incredible TV show. And it was picking up steam and momentum. But I had to juggle these two things.

And I said, okay, I'm going to turn this into a radio show slash podcast. So then that went to empowering women radio. So that from there, all went in and there's a magic. There's a, there's a thread here that I don't want to, I don't want this to be lost on the audience.

“But there's a thread here of taking inspiration and turning it into action, right?”

That has like that inspiration, no moment of hearing that story. And like, I have to, I have to act on this. And definitely like a main lesson that we talk about a lot on this podcast is just for anybody out there. The more you can compress the time between inspiration and action, the more successful you will be. Like I promise you that is the story of so many people that come through the show.

But I, I just, I, I noticed that in your story, and I was like, I have to absolutely. After just stick a pin here. And you sent two things that like, it hit my heart because when I was writing the book based on these all all these incredible people that that I was connecting with. I ended up calling it the common threads trilogy. So the threads.

And then my sign off on all the television shows that I've done a television and radio podcast has always been inspiration is just a story away.

So you like, we're, we're here, we're up here. We're up here, we're up here. Absolutely, absolutely. So all right, walk me through now you're an accomplished entrepreneur, right? Yes.

Got several businesses under your belt. Yes. What got you from becoming this author going through this, you know, these different books series. Obviously, becoming an author is an entrepreneurship journey in and of itself. Yes.

But where was the pivot that came into all of these different branching businesses that you have? Great question. There was a moment where the media started to become so important to what I was and the lives that I was able to touch. One of my radio shows, empowering women radio was being picked up, you know, by 120 radio stations around the world. And a woman contacted me from Pakistan.

She had listened to one of the interviews I had done with a woman in South Africa. And she talked to me through, we'll say zoom. So she, she was a good person. Before zoom, it was AOL Instant Messageary, ladies and gentlemen. Yes, I just dated myself.

So she contacted me and she looked at me through the screen and she said, I need help. I need someone to tell my story. And I know that you are the one that should tell my story.

“And you should be the journalist to do that.”

And I didn't think of myself as a journalist then. So I was like, okay. And then I started taking those stories and connecting up. You didn't think of yourself as a journalist. I didn't think of myself.

In reality. In reality. But you know what? That's the thing. You can switch it up.

You don't have to just think of yourself as a teacher or a mother or a professor or a journalist. And then now, you know, I'm holding a hype in it. See, that's super big on titles. Because your title is whatever you contextualize your skillset. Absolutely.

Because you can have skills in all of these different areas. And just my title is whatever I'm doing in the moment. Absolutely. Some days I'm a director. Some days I'm a producer.

Some days I am bedriding. Yeah. So it just depends. It just depends. I don't like just slapping one title on a person and say, like my dad.

He worked up to get his PhD and he's, you know, an IOC representative for Jamaica. So he's like the sports psychologist for the Jamaican Olympic Association. Okay. Very proud of that title. He refuses to let anyone forget it.

I'm a doctor. Make sure you say the doctor before you say my name is. Yes.

That's just how my dad has always been.

And I guess because obviously, you know, growing up with his psychologist, I just tend to stray away from that.

But I want to get your take on your storyteller.

Right. I'm a filmmaker. I'm a storyteller as well. Awesome. It's the best way to communicate.

“What are some of those common threads that you see in the stories that you're able to, you know, tell for people?”

What are some common threads that you see in either a story of struggle to success? Like in filmmaking, we say, you know, you have, you only have, you only make like five different films. There's heroes journey. There's a tragedy. There's, there's only these few different ways to tell a story.

And then you just add your tweaks.

But what are some common threads that you see between those stories? I have to go back to it becoming a trilogy. And it was because there was a night when I, I was wrestling with what is this going to be? What, how am I going to take all of these common threads? All these common themes and put it together.

And I actually took, I had this like moment. And I took a sheet, a sheet from a bed. And I took my daughters because she's a little girl then took her paints. And I, in three different like scrolling fonts, you know, with my hand, where I painted on it. I did inspiration, empowerment, and balance.

And I took that. And I put it up on a curtain rod in my room. So it's got, I was just thinking, Mom, that's a nobody cared about. Let's go. We don't care about the decor.

We don't care about the decor. I just needed to, to look at these three words and figure out what the hack was going on there. And I was like, is a trilogy. You need all the three of these things. And all of them were hitting those different points.

But each of the stories, you could definitely see that there were those specific themes, because especially with women that inspiration, empowerment, and balance. Those are things that we're all seeking inside. And then the common threads.

“There's, there's these invisible threads that I believe connect us all.”

Yes. No matter what, when you're getting to know a new part, like any time you get to know a new person, you'll find commonality with them on something. Yes. I don't care what it is. We could disagree on a thousand.

I promise you, there's one thing that we agree on. Absolutely. Somewhere in there, the more we get to know each other.

I want to just take a second here, because you're a very rare case for us here at Inside Success.

You're not on one show, but you're on two. Yes. The next level CEO, and you're going to be on women in power. And for those of you who are watching this podcast episode, I want to just make sure you guys tune into both of those episodes.

“Because they're both going to tell her story into unique ways, right?”

Absolutely. We want to talk about Dr. Shelley, the entrepreneur, but we also want to talk about Dr. Shelley, the woman in power. Yes. You mentioned earlier that empowerment was a very important key thread there. How important to you is women's empowerment?

It's everything to me as a mother, as a leader, as someone who has traveled the world, helping women to find their voice, helping women to rise above the obstacles that have happened to them. I'm the executive director and founder of the Global Sisterhood, and we've helped millions of women around the world. It's like a stand, Africa. I mean, my story is from Africa, just like warm my heart. We were there last year, and we were in the orphanages. And we were going and speaking to young women that have been through horrific scenarios and situations to be able to look inside yourself and see what gifts you bring to the world.

In a home shelter, at one point, helping out the home shelter, and there was a woman that was, we had just done a transformational makeover. We go when we do this in home shelters, we just did it in Apocalypse, Florida, with a tentative encampment. So these people have lived in intense for years and years, but we give them back so they can reclaim who they could be. Everything from, you know, the makeup or the hair, you know, getting their hair caused it to get it for the guys that, you know, put it on a suit.

The outside reflect. Yes, yes, and I remember very specifically that I was in a home shelter, and I was sitting with this woman, she had her makeup all done, she had her hair all done. She had a big pregnant belly though, and she had a little toddler running around her, and you know, we're in a home shelter. There was this moment where I looked at her, and I said, you know, honey, you look so beautiful. You look beautiful, and when she said to me, with tears wailing up in her beautiful eyes was, but I'm damaged.

And it, like, my heart, like, I was like, oh my gosh. I fell through. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Like, I still get like the chills when I, when I tell that story because I, I was able to then talk her through that.

But it was that moment when she could actually see herself and we took a photograph over or two.

We did, we do family photographs of them in, in the shelters and things of them dressed up of their babies feeling good and running around and getting these new toys and just feeling a joy and a live and not those labels, not like, oh, she's homeless or oh, she's a victim of domestic violence. They're a beautiful soul or human being before any of them. Absolutely for any of that. Absolutely, but she, she ended up becoming a great success story. She, she went on to have a lovely apartment and she got a manager job and she, she lived her, her best life after that. But you have to be able to see what the possibilities are.

“You got to be able to see past those labels, right? You got to be able to see down at the core of who a person is. Absolutely.”

You're just a human being that might have been hurt, but at the end of the year, you're a person just like anybody else.

That thing. As we're kind of wrapping up here, I want to give an opportunity here.

“If you could look directly to this camera here and give a message to all of our viewers, one message that every single one of our viewers is going to hear what would that message be?”

Vision that figure out how you can see what that big dream can and should be. You can be whoever you want to be. You can do whatever you want to do. You are enough. You are worthy. You have everything inside you, all the gifts to bring to the world.

“Now it's just up to you to bring that vision to the world and you can do it. You got this. I'm proud of you.”

That's that's an incredibly poignant lesson. And guys, if you're still here at this point in the podcast, I want to make sure that you guys go ahead and follow Dr. Shelley where can people find you out on the wide wide web. ShelleyHipski.com would be a place, but my Instagram's been blown up lately, so I'd love to love to see you there at Dr. Shelley.

Dr. Shelley, and you guys heard it here first, make sure that you guys stay tuned for her episodes of Not Only Women in Power, but also next time we'll see you.

Those episodes will be dropping shortly after this podcast, airs, so make sure you guys check those out. This has been another episode of the Living Your Legacy Podcast. I will catch you guys in the next one. [Music]