Episode 171: Turning Graffiti into Opportunity | Amy Peterson | Social Entrepreneur & Co-Founder of Rebel Nell
You can change the world with your business, or at the very least, change your community. Amy Peterson is living proof. She’s the co-founder and CEO of Rebel Nell, a Detroit-based social enterprise that employs and empowers women with barriers to employment, including women coming out of shelters, rebuilding after incarceration, surviving domestic violence, or navigating life as refugees. Rebel Nell turns repurposed graffiti into one-of-a-kind jewelry, creating jobs, building confidence, and offering wraparound support that changes lives. Before founding Rebel Nell in 2013, Amy spent over a decade in Major League Baseball as Associate Counsel for the Detroit Tigers, chasing her dream of becoming the first female GM. But the challenges she faced as a woman in sports, along with friendships formed with women living at a local shelter, sparked a bigger mission: to create a sustainable, triple bottom line business that puts people, profit, and purpose at its core.
“There’s very little difference between me and the women in the shelter. If you don’t have a support network, one tiny choice can derail your life.”
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Co-founder Rebel Nell
Employment, economic & wrap around support mostly to women
Law school
Business school
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Follow along using the Transcript
Chapters
00:00 Meet Amy Peterson, Co-Founder & CEO of Rebel Nell
02:15 From Detroit Tigers to conscious entrepreneurship
05:10 How friendships at a women’s shelter sparked a social enterprise
08:45 Turning repurposed graffiti into one-of-a-kind jewelry
12:00 Creating jobs for women facing homelessness, incarceration, and abuse
16:30 Building confidence and breaking cycles of poverty
20:50 The realities of running a triple bottom line business
25:00 Lessons from women in sports and leadership resilience
29:15 Community support and the turning point for Rebel Nell
34:20 The hustle, risk, and rewards of small business ownership
38:00 The ripple effect: housing, cars, and career breakthroughs for team members
42:15 How to support Rebel Nell and women-owned social enterprises
And sure enough, the woman comes back an hour later I can't stop thinking about this piece. I need this piece. We told her, okay, even cooler, this is what it's made from. This is when we made it. This is what Revelle's about. And she's oh my God, this is the coolest thing ever. She asked Patricia to autograph the back of the card and I turned around and Tricia was like on the ground, literally crying.
That's Amy Peterson and this is The Powerful Ladies Podcast.
Hey guys. I'm Kara Duffy, a business coach and entrepreneur on a mission to help you live your most extraordinary life. By showing you anything is possible. People who have mastered freedom, ease, and success, who are living their best and most ridiculous lives, and who are changing the world are often people you've never heard of until now.
I'm saying this now and I will say it again. You can change the world with your business. And if change your world sounds too big and dramatic, then you can change your community with your business. Today's guest, Amy Peterson, is proof that can happen. She's the founder of Rebel Nell, a jewelry company that provides employment and creative opportunities for women with barriers to employment.
Think living in a shelter, coming outta jail, working hard to get their life back on track. Amy never expected to have a career in jewelry, be an entrepreneur, or even be a social entrepreneur. So get excited to listen to her story and be inspired.
I love having this podcast because I get to meet and talk to women like you who are in doing incredible things. Before we dive into what you're doing, let's just tell everyone listening, who you are, where you are, and what you're up to in the world.
My name is Amy Peterson. I'm the co-founder and CEO of Rebel Nell rebel.
Nell is a social enterprise based in the heart of Detroit. We exist to provide employment, equitable opportunity and wraparound support for women, primarily women with barriers to employment. And we make really unique, one of a kind jewelry and accessories out of repurpose material such as falling graffiti.
Yeah,
we've been around since 2013. Very cool. So there's so much in that to unpack, first, before you started this company, were you already in the jewelry and accessory space as a career? I couldn't be farther
away from where I thought I would be in life. I am I'm not even in the same. Book, book I started out, I wanted to be the first female general manager of a major league baseball team.
And Awesome. Pretty much starting, I know I, it's but pretty much starting out at the age of 14. That was really my ambition. I loved baseball. It was a really happy memory for me with my dad and my grandpa, and was very close with my grandpa and, i, it's just one of those things that I know no girl had done it.
A woman has done it since and congratulations came in. She did it last year and it was amazing. But at the time, no one had done it. And I I set out to do that. I college, I went to law school, went to business school, constantly interning, applied to work for free for any team that would take me.
And ultimately that's what brought me to Detroit. I worked for the Tigers for 11 years and made my way to being an associate counsel for them. Despite how grateful I am, I and I truly am for the experience and for giving me the opportunity to come to Detroit. There were a lot of challenges being a woman in the industry, particularly with my ambitions too.
Crossover to the no girls allowed side of baseball is what I had always lovingly referred to it as. So no, I ma making jewelry isn't, wasn't even on it wasn't even on the whole horizon. Nowhere near let alone being an
entrepreneur.
Yeah.
So what baseball teams did you grew up rooting for? I grew up a fan of the
Pittsburgh Pirates.
Okay. Nineties was a good, that was a good time for that. Yeah. Yeah. Hasn't been one since, but oh I grew up outside Buffalo, New York, in a town called Jamestown, New York, and we were like centrally located between Cleveland and Pittsburgh. And so Pittsburgh was my grandpa's favorite team. So that's how it works.
I
exactly I just think it's so interesting, I was a college athlete and I think that sports are so under-discussed in creating female leaders and the impact it has. I feel really lucky that I grew up being told I could do anything, even if I didn't see people doing it. Was that, did you have a similar experience of you can do it even though there's no one doing it like you yet?
Yeah, I, I was just talking
to my sister about this the other night too. I think sports is really important to just development is a human, teaches you so much in an early age, i'm not a fan of the, everybody wins sports. I actually think it's been more damaging and helpful. I understand the intention behind it, but I think the lasting impact of it has caused more damage than good.
Because I think it's not life works. No. Somebody loses. Somebody wins, you gotta fall down and you gotta get back up. You've got to, have a hard day and go back out and compete again. And it teaches you to work with a team and I did a lot of individual sports, but even still there's a camaraderie there.
So I do think it's. And I'm not saying everybody needs to play sports in any stretch of the imagination, but there's something really impactful about sports that you learn at a really early age that can carry you through life. Like I was a figure skater and that was, there's nothing more humbling than, training for an year to go compete in a major competition and you fall down in a crowd of a thousand people.
Get back up and put a smile on your face Exactly. And continue on. That's to me how life is.
And I also think when you don't have the opportunity to lose or fall down, it's really hard to figure out where you belong. If everything's soft, you don't know if this is for you or not for you.
Like it's we need the. The clear black and white contrast to really know, oh, like I don't like this. Maybe I'm good over here. There is a place for everybody and you can do more than one thing. But if everything was easy and worked, it would be, I can't even imagine what that would feel like in life.
You wouldn't appreciate it as much. No. That's just the fact of the matter.
We always say, gosh, I wish life was easier, but. It's just way for a reason.
Yeah. And I have clients or people come to me and say, how can I be more confident? I'm like, go do something that scares you. Good. And nobody likes that answer because we get sucked.
We get lulled into this, not wanting to say comfortable space, but maybe I'm a psychopath, but I really much more enjoy. Being uncomfortable and having to figure it out and having to problem solve and who wants to get dirty and in this hole with me and let's go. I know. And
maybe it is a sickness can go figure it out together. But I appreciate that. Like I love solving problems. I love there's something rewarding about it and just like taking control of the situation and seeing. What can come from it from, I like that. I really like that though, that you challenge people to go do something that makes them incredibly uncomfortable.
That's a great response.
Thank you. And it ties in, I think the kind of quote I've been talking about this week in my Thrive membership is a quote I pulled from a book that says your bravery is someone else's breakthrough. And I think that actually circles right back to what you've created.
Yeah. 'cause and I'd love to hear this story now, like how did you go from baseball to rebel now? Because obviously it wasn't a space you had experience in and you did it anyway, and because you did it anyway, you've created this ripple effect that I don't, did you ever think that this would be the impact you would be making?
No, like all of the above is a no, because I never expected this. This is I sometimes wake up and I'm like, how fuck did I get here? This is so crazy. But so much of it was my journey and I have a lot to think because of the challenges I face being a woman in sports and oh my gosh.
I could do a whole podcast about that, about. What was said to me, they, oh, it would blow your mind that you would think I'd be talking about an experience that I had in the 1940s, and this was just 10 years ago. Guys telling me my best bet was to marry a player. I, I would have fans come up and just, I would be in a suit.
I just had a badge and I would've fans come up and say you must have slept your way to the top. I'm just walking the ballpark. What? Oh my God, you wouldn't, those are just like, a few examples of some of the challenges and then just internally it was really hard. There were lots of times that I was just getting passed over for someone fresh outta college, and here I had all this.
Degrees. Anyway, long story short, I at the time was living next to a well-known shelter in Detroit called cots that service women and families. And I would come home from the games and I would walk the dog and I would get to know these women, incredible women, and they just became my friends.
And while we chat with and. I got to learn their stories about how they left difficult situations in search, a better opportunity not only for themselves, but for their family members and I was inspired by this and so I think in parallel of what was just happening, I didn't know it at the time, but outta my frustration of being a woman in sports and not feeling empowered, I was like, what if, screw the man.
What if I could just create a company that was solely dedicated to empower women? What would that look like? And it was just gonna be a passion project. It really was. It wasn't. You also have to put perspective too. I was living right downtown Detroit in 20 11, 20 12, 20 13. We were in the midst of the biggest bankruptcy municipal bankruptcy the country's ever seen. And, you could visibly see the resources going away. And stuff that would come on a regular basis even to the shelter wouldn't just was no longer. And so I, that, that was the rationale and of starting it and then we had to come up with something to support it.
Long story short, it was just a common denominator was making jewelry. My business partner had one class, I had made jewelry when I was in law school. To pay for books. Self-taught, like by no means are we jewelers. I wanna stress that hardcore, like we're not, it would be offensive to actual jewelry makers, but it was just something that we could sell, we could train the women on and it would provide the wraparound support.
I love the concept of this holistic idea. I'd never heard of a social enterprise, but that was how it started. It was just put one foot in front of the other. I like to think that we've hired 34 people outta the shelter now is pretty amazing. I'm very proud of that. But did I ever think I'd get to where we are now?
I don't know. I don't know if I did.
What was the turning point when you realized, oh wait, this is actually a business?
So we had, we did a very small pitch competition, which was incredibly helpful. My business partner, we had spent all of our money just like for trying things out, but we won $1,800 at a pitch competition, which was such a cool, it's called soup Detroit Soup.
And you pay $5 and it's, you get a soup, a salad, and a vote, your participant, and they pick four community organizations. And what I love is they remove technology. So you can't have a present presentation. You can't do a big fancy thing. It's just your passion and you get four minutes and then everyone breaks bread and they decide it's a very democratic process.
And we won by a pretty good margin. And for us, yes, the $1,800. Cash that you're carrying around in a brown bag was wonderful, but it was more like the validation from our neighbors, from our community that were like, we, this is cool. And again, mind, we never heard of a social enterprise, had no idea what we were doing.
Just like the concept of it. And so that was like the turning point is having the community believe in us. Second was then we made, turned the $1,800 and we made a bunch of jewelry sold at our first art fair. And it was great like we sold out, but primarily the first one where I knew that the impact of what we were doing, we had a popup.
It was very cold. Like we, I think we paid $20 for the booth because we couldn't afford like prime time. We were right by the exit door. You could feel the wind coming in. It was like negative 10 in Detroit. It was like basically by the coat closet. And our team members, they're encouraged to learn how to sell the product because I firmly believe you can sell your product, you can sell, you can pitch yourself.
And one of our ladies was there and she had her kids with her, which is pretty common. Childcare is forever a challenge for us, but we're very supportive and loving workplace. And she, it was one of our first times selling to the public, and I'll never forget that a woman came up and she's oh, that is so cool.
Knew nothing about our company. Just loved the piece. And mind you, it's all made from falling graffiti. So they're really cool and got psychedelic, look to 'em. And it was one of, it was the most expensive piece. And we didn't get an opportunity to tell her the story. She just said, okay, I'm gonna think about it and I'll be back.
And I remember turning to Trish, who was working with me and saying, Hey, this is retail. People constantly say they're gonna come back and we never see it again. So let's just set the tone there. I don't want you to be heartbroken because she had made that piece. And sure enough, the woman comes back an hour later, like literally sweating, and she didn't have any clothes.
I, she's I can't stop thinking about this piece. I need this piece. And we told her, okay, even cooler, this is what it's made from. This is when we made it. This is what Revel about. And she's oh my God, this is the coolest thing ever. She asked Patricia to autograph the back of the card, got a picture with her, and then she left without a jacket, which is so ingrained in my mind because she was just.
So excited about the piece, and it was so cold. And I turned around and Tricia was like on the ground, literally crying, and her kids were there, consoling her and I was like, are you okay? She's I made that piece, Amy. That was me. I made it. And I was like, you did? And look how much that woman loved it.
Like she's believing in you just like we are. And that was my aha moment. Trish was like I gotta get back to the shop. I gotta make. I said, Sunday, you're good. Like you have more time. But for me, that was so early on and it really shed a light on a lot of things that we were doing, that we were just doing primarily from gut and primarily from talking to our community.
But to see it was very impactful for me
to give people perspective. What is the realities or what are the realities of. Women, especially single mothers who have to go through these shelters and have to make these hard choices. Yeah, it's,
I always say this, like I knew the system was broken, but I had new idea how broken it is until I started Rebel now.
And also recognizing every privilege in the world that I have been given is, it's so dramatic. I it's just crazy how these women who are many times stuck in challenging situations just based on. Just based on situation. That's the other thing too that was very clarifying, is like there's also very little difference between me and the women living maybe one choice in life.
Yeah. Or maybe not even that. Maybe it was just I had a support network around me my whole life. And if they, and if you don't have that one little tiny setback. You can fall so far. Yeah. We've had, and it's been all over just to, to pinpoint some have just, lost their house as a result of fire.
And that was enough to keep them stuck in the system and not be able to rebuild because maybe they didn't have insurance, couldn't afford it, whatever the case may be. Some have left really abusive relationships and to do that is so challenging. And I don't think I even understood because it's so easy as an outsider to be like why don't you just leave?
And it's it's not as simple as that. It's really not. And even so that's how brave they are. They do leave even knowing the best alternative is gonna be shot. Do you get any braver than that? Nope. We've had other women that have been previously incarcerated refugees people who had to flee their country because of their sexual orientation.
So it's really across the board. We've seen a bunch of different challenges and I think that's where we do a great job, is we meet people where they are and start the process of building. We started, the conversation earlier about confidence building. I think really at the core of what we do, there's all these other things that are tangible.
The intangibles to me are more important. They're hard to report on. You don't have KPIs around how did you build someone confidence. But that's where I think it really happens. Because and then I also say this too, is yes, the impact we're having on the women and people that we're serving right now.
It is tremendously helpful for sure, but the real impact isn't gonna be seen until it's actually the generation that's not born yet. That's where it's gonna come.
My head went immediately to, we can measure that. We need to do surveys,
Good idea. And it'd be so great to see their before and afters, right?
Yeah. And we see it. We see it with our kids. We see like in. Just even like when they make a piece, and I love that about, and to full transparency, we didn't realize how important the jewelry was to the transformation of them.
When we started the company, for us it was like, this is actually before the whole sustainability wave. Like all this stuff. We didn't, I picked up this piece of graffiti because I thought it was cool. I didn't honestly think about. Oh, this is picking up because we're reclaiming something that would, you know, like really thinking about the triple bottom line business.
It didn't, turns out we have one, but I really, that wasn't where my head was at all. It was the idea of turning this cool chunk of graffiti and telling the story, the history of the piece, because in my mind this was something that was discarded at the time. Detroit was being so discarded in the media everywhere.
The women we were working with. Or just discarded by society in general. But if you take this piece that's discarded and you give it a lot of love, and you give that piece the ability to shine and show its colors and be vibrant, how beautiful it looks, and then when you give like the women the opportunity to create whatever speaks to them, that's the coolest thing to see personalities come through the pieces is my, that's my favorite part of the job, my favorite part.
It doesn't surprise me that so many women are starting triple bottom line businesses and you like, I'd love to hear your perspective on that. But for anyone who doesn't know of triple bottom line business is profit people and a social cause you sometimes the environment, sometimes something else. And the fact that.
It's a lie that we can't change the world through commerce. It's a complete lie. I even switched from coaching nonprofits to coaching for-profits because I honestly think we can make a bigger impact with a for-profit business than a nonprofit. It's just how do we set it up? There's almost like this, it's, people think it's easier to ask for donations. It's actually 10 times harder.
It's
way harder.
And I also just love the ability the idea of sustainability as a business. I think for me, and we did form a nonprofit to help with our supportive resources. But from a social enterprise perspective, from what we're doing, I also appreciate the value of being sustainable.
That we're like, I'm also trying to encourage and teach the women that we work with that like hard work determination, you can break through. You can. And so I wanted to show that as a business we could do the same where we're putting our people and we're hustling for them, we're hustling for our product, but we can be profitable.
So I still have a I have a, we'll get there. We're not there yet. But I truly believe it and I have a tip on my shoulder that I really wanna prove. You can do this.
Yeah, I know. You, it's, I get, I am so motivated by people saying, you can't, I'm like, oh, really? Oh, I know. What is that? We really need to hang out more.
I'm the same way. Same way. I. Yeah, I rem I remember when I worked at a company and they made me do the whole presentation and the interview process, and I did the presentation like, you're hired, your presentation was great, but please know most of what's in that presentation you won't be able to achieve here.
And I was like, oh, you just told the wrong person that I literally spent my career at that company just checking those things off the list. And not in a showy way. Not in a loud way. Just slowly but surely being like, oh, that's done. That's done. And I wasn't telling anyone else at the company.
It was done. It was totally for me. But no, telling. And I don't know if it is, I don't think it's a gender specific thing though. I do have a lot of women in my circle who are like, oh, really? Yeah. Thank you for giving me the fire that I needed because you said I couldn't. Exactly.
Exactly. And that's a good thing. And maybe that does post stem back to our, like competitiveness. Maybe that does come from sports or who knows where. You wanna win, you want to, you wanna show people that you can. And I think it's, I think it's awesome. I always say that all the rejection letters that I got when I was first applying to working sports and I have a box and, or the comments people made that just would light a fire under my ass.
I wanted to prove them wrong. Yeah. Hopefully there's like a healthy balance to it.
I think that's honestly a good segue into the, what I ask a lot of our guests, which is when you see the words powerful and ladies separately, what do they mean to you? And does their definition change when they're combined?
Powerful to me really is like tenacity and confidence. That to me is powerful.
I see a lot of people who think they're powerful, but they're not. And just because they have a certain status or a certain title but to me, powerful is really I just, I think persistence. Yeah. The ability to push forward, like I, that, that's to me is that's what it is. Power like an.
Reaction when I think about it. I also went to a college where that was our mascot, the ladies. That's funny. Yeah. We were the Lords and ladies. Where did you go? Kenyon College. Where is that? Middle of nowhere, Ohio. And like literally in the middle of cornfield. And it's this amazing place and you pop up and it's like Hogwarts.
And actually it. Side topic, but maybe it's relevant, is that they're making a push to change it too. Oh. Because they feel that it, in some ways may not be appropriate. I don't know if it's like because they think it's disparaging or what the case may be. I'm not sure. But I just heard that last week was by Southwest from another Kenyan alum.
But anyway, side sidetrack. I don't think so. I don't think stretch the imagination. I think it's, I think it is a powerful, I'm proud to be a lady and, but I hear 'em together. It's that's a cool club I wanna be a part of.
Yeah. Yeah. When you look at your trajectory in life. Who have been powerful ladies or powerful humans that have really been part of your support circle or mentorship circle along the way?
I feel so lucky 'cause I have so many mentors and most don't have any idea. They're my mentors. I, an amazing mom who was a badass and did a lot of really cool things. In her career. I love my small business community here in Detroit. I'm a big advocate for everybody, and I know they are for me, and it, that to me is that's who I look up to because I also know how hard this, and I have so much.
Especially after these past shit show of what are we on year three? Who knows anymore? Yeah. And so I, it's like to pinpoint one specific person. Yes. This woman, Cindy Pasky, who I just think the world of, she's the CEO and founder of Strategic Staffing Solutions. And to me, she is the epitome of a successful business woman, not only because her business is badass.
She's incredible for doing it in a space that very few women do it, but her commitment to the community is unreal. And she does it in such a silent way that I just have so much respect for her. So I wanna be her someday.
Love that. I was so inspired by the book you put out. Of all the other women's small businesses.
Ah, thank you. And 'cause we've done that with powerful ladies 'cause it's connected to the business coaching that I do and it reminded me that exactly what I just said sent to someone. And I find this so fascinating that so often the coaching I give someone, I actually need to hear back myself because I was like, no.
Like it can be so overwhelming at times as an entrepreneur. And I've been joking lately that sometimes I curse myself for calling this powerful ladies because then I have to be powerful more often than I sometimes want to be. And it can be overwhelming because I'm, I get overwhelmed when I forget that there are other women standing next to me on the same mission.
Yes. And seeing your book re reminded me like, oh no, if every city does this, it's so much easier to put together this network. And if everyone's talking about this, we just need to talk to each other. Duh. H how, what has surprised you about going from the corporate sports world into the small business space?
What surprised you and what's delighted you?
I think how much you work on it, and I would, I'm a work. I love working. I really do, and I work insane hours sports, I think that pales in comparison to what you work as an entrepreneur. I always tell people I almost find it laughable when people say they're gonna start their own business because they want more free time.
I'm like, stick, stay. Stay where you are. Ask your boss for a few more days off if I were you. That is not why you go. You do not don't even try. We, if that's why you're doing it, you'll be crushed. But I think the amount of time probably. And what was the other part of that question?
Forgive me. What's delighted you? I love running a company. I really love it. I love. I love seeing my team members succeed. Even the ones that leave us, like for better jobs. There's, I have such a pride about it because they're going onto something that, we were part of that step. I love that I get to be creative and make big decisions and take the risks.
I don't have to check
with anybody like that. I love that. We ask everyone on the podcast where they put themselves on the Powerful Ladies scale. Zero being average everyday human, and 10 being the most powerful lady you can imagine. Where would you put yourself on that scale today and on average?
I think I'd probably put myself on
at a five. I'm pretty good there. Today's a good day. It's such a rollercoaster ride as my business partner and I were talking yesterday because, we, when one of us is down the other, like we have a good. We're very supportive of each other.
But it is, you can go, yesterday was a perfect example. It's I, all right, it was a good run. Let's shut her down. Lock up the doors. Turn up the lights. Like I think I had that process, that thought process legitimately twice yesterday. And then you end the day 'cause something great happened.
You're like, we're back in it. And that's just how it's every single day. So I'd say five. And I think over time now doing this nine years that you learned to take the ebbs and flows a little bit better. Yeah. But it's still my fuck.
Yeah. No, I, the, I think one of my favorite responses to this question, and we've asked literally everyone who's been on the show, someone said I think I'm all the numbers in yes.
Accurate.
Accurate a hundred percent. And so I'm like, a five is a solid place to land because it's evening out. Just yeah. Where you are. If zero what? You put that as the average? You go way below average.
I was just saying average everyday human, assuming powerful ladies can't even get into that zone.
But where you go in your head, like you go to what,
Who let me do this?
So yeah, I think that person's right.
And clients will apologize all the time when we're having a private session about crying, and I'm like, no. Like business is no different than any part of our lives. It's better to cry with me in a private session about what you're going through than to bring it somewhere else.
Like it means it's real, it means you care. It's. Would I ever dare cry in a corporate environment? No, I would've been horrified. No. But in a one-on-one session, when you're really getting into all the things that are happening in your business, like it's okay because Yeah, that's, it's weird.
We need it. I cry all the time. Yeah. All
the time. Yeah, it's an outlet for me. I realize too but it's I think it's, there's something healing about it.
Yeah. I had a team call yesterday and I had to be responsible for an impact I made to a team member that I didn't realize I made, and they were sharing super authentically.
Then I was, and then literally within five minutes, everyone on the call was teary eyed, crying, being like, this is a great team. We love each other, and I'm like, like what? This is. This is the most ridiculous and awesome team call we've ever had. Thank you guys. Oh, that's beautiful. It really is. It's to your point of like how you run your business, you care.
You're a heart led entrepreneur and you mentioned like business is so much messier because there's no such thing as work-life balance. It's not a thing. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, but, and you, but you've talked, right? Like you sometimes kids are showing up with your employees.
Yeah, sometimes, things break and fall apart and everyone has to move and shift. And as much as we wanna plan for something I, I tell my team we're gonna plan as much as we are capable of planning now, knowing that Brianna need to leave at least 20%, if not more, for whatever actually shows up, no idea. Nope. But
guaranteed. Yeah. It's a guarantee. I was telling someone one of my favorite quotes is from an outcast song where it's you can plan a pretty picnic, but you can't predict the weather. That's just, yeah.
It's so true. It's totally true. So when you, so you've started this company, you're providing opportunities for these women.
What are these, what's the ripple effect that you've seen? What are these women doing that you're like, wow, like we created a space where that could be possible for them?
Buying homes, getting cars. I think where I'm most proud is getting, tackling a lot of barriers that have been prohibitive in the past just because they haven't had the time or mental space.
When you are raised in and grow up in and live in a. Survival everyday mentality. And again, you're in a system that does not support you whatsoever to give them the mental space to breathe and then to see that the good thing that happened and it's easy to highlight the, it's just like business life is a rollercoaster and it's tough.
And we've been, to hell and back with so many of our participants. But when you have those moments where someone signs and gets the keys or we get a driver's license cleared up so they can then work on their credit score and then we help them get car, or we place them in a job that has better pay, better benefits because we've been able to show that they can hold a job for longer than a year.
And that is something they were unable to do. But the work at Revel, they're, and now that adds to their employability. So it's been. There's been a lot really good moments and I think I appreciate that question because it's causing me to reflect and be grateful for them. 'cause you know that there's always, it's never enough for you're constantly thinking of, we brought on 34.
We've done 54, yeah. Someday, right? Someday. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for that.
You're welcome. I've been watching lately the on Apple tv. The the problem with John Stewart. Okay. And if you've heard this, I haven't seen it
yet, but
I really recommend it because he's peeking under the curtain at some structures we have.
The first one is about veterans and how we actually don't take care of our veterans, and it just kept going from there. Yeah. And. I, the more that I continue to learn and unlearn about what's actually going on for the people who I wanna make sure we're taken care of, and I would hope we would be taken care of as a society.
I become more and more alarmed. Especially a lot of people been watching the help on Netflix. Seeing like just the struggle of oh, you want daycare, you need a job, you need pay stubs. And you're like, but what, how? Like, how do you do this? It's it always makes me think of when you move abroad and they're like, okay, I want an apartment.
Great. Do you have a bank account? No, I'll go get one. You go to the bank, you're like, oh, you need an apartment? Do I have a bank account? And you're like, wait, what? How did I find the black hole that doesn't let anything connect? And I don't think we realized how many, people are struggling because of a structural black hole.
Yeah. And not because of anything else.
Nothing like, literally it has nothing to do with them. It's that situation that they're in. My biggest frustration when I talk about all the time is healthcare. Yeah. Oh my God. The challenges with. Especially with your, the goal, your mindset is to try and break through, get out of poverty.
We've experienced this so many times at Rebel now, where we go to give our employees a raise, and because of that, it is a small dollar amount raised. There's not enough to change anything significant in their life. We wanna give them as much money as we can afford. We value them, we value our employees.
However, when we do, they get completely eliminated from the government healthcare system. You, that is such a gap. Like why can't it be? Why isn't the system meant to incentivize you? And I think that's where the struggle is, where it's okay, you a good job. Maybe you get a little bit.
Go support should go down a little bit. So that there's, it's encouraging you to go up, not just like constantly keeping you in. For me, it's just, as we've seen time and time again it's whack-a-mole. Like just when they, yeah. Get an opportunity to breathe and start for something else comes in and we're constantly like trying to help and usher in the right ways that we can, but there's a lot of things that are out our control as well.
We had, we just had a on International Women's Day, we had a panel of women who all are fighting for different things to to support women. There's one woman who is really big in, in reproductive rights and she has a she's a doctor and she's has a male, sorry, birth control delivery business.
Where you know you can get what you need. And then there's the other women who are really fighting for environmental issues. Another woman's fighting for voter right issues. And again, it makes me sleep better at night knowing that there are women fighting in these different areas. Because I start having a panic attack about okay, I need to quit my job because I need to spend all of my time, even in my local city hall, being like, hello.
I even looked at like running for mayor. Did you really? Yeah. 'cause it was coming up. I'm like, let's just see, like who, I don't know who these people are that do it all the time. Town count. So who are they? No different than we are. I'm like, let's look. And oh my gosh. They're like, yeah, you can, sure if you wanna be mayor.
It's $950 a month. It's part-time work. I go, I'm sorry, $950 a month. What? Who can do that? Thank you. Unless you're independently wealthy who can only exactly get 20 hours a week. And it's more than that, it's more to, to do this. And I'm like, this is insanity. Like I there's no logic behind making it competitive or interesting, and I think that's the part that drives me crazy, being in the of like efficiency optimization space.
This is dumb. And that's my trigger. I'm like, this is dumb. We can fix this. Yeah. And I think it's, I keep being pulled towards helping more women directly who need it as you are, because I'm like I said this on an a live event we did. I'm like, if someone needs a place to stay tonight, just show up.
Show up if you know where I live. If you know someone who needs it, just show up because. As like one night somewhere can change everything. Yep. Like one person saying it's it doesn't, it takes so little to allow people to have their confidence of dignity and keep going on the path that they actually wanna be on.
And I'm just really mad at whomever started dialogue that is anything in contrast to that. So for everyone who is held yes to supporting you and Rebel Nell, where can they find you? Support you, follow you? How can they get involved and allow you guys to get to hiring 52 people?
Yay. Thank you. The best way is to visit rebel nell.com.
That's R-E-B-E-L-N-E-L-L do com or Instagram is at, Facebook is at. Spreading the word. That's like our best revenue generator is people sharing about our story, liking us, and telling their friends about us. I'm very grateful because with our customers, we don't have anything.
Yeah. Thank you so much for being proactive and reaching out to us and being a yes to me and this audience, and powerful ladies, and truly thank you for the work you're doing.
Like I hope you take a, take time out of your schedule to really acknowledge yourself and how much of an impact you are making. And yeah, just thank you for the hard work that you're doing, and thank you to the idiots in baseball who caused you to realize how powerful you could be somewhere else.
Thank you. It was an honor. Really. It was. Thank you. Thank you.
All the ways to connect with Amy and Rebel Yell are in our show notes@thepowerfulladies.com. Please subscribe to this podcast wherever you're listening, and leave us a rating and review. They're critical for podcast visibility and for our guests stories to be heard. Come join us on Instagram at Powerful Ladies, and if you're looking to connect directly with me, please visit kara duffy.com or Kara under Duffy on Instagram.
I'll be back next week with a brand new episode in a new amazing guest. Until then, I hope you're taking up and being powerful in your life. Go be awesome and up to something you love.
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Created and hosted by Kara Duffy
Audio Engineering & Editing by Jordan Duffy
Production by Amanda Kass
Graphic design by Anna Olinova
Music by Joakim Karud
