
International Relations Specialist Jennifer Richmond is the founder of Truth in Between, Host of the Hold My Drink Podcast: Navigating the news with a chaser of civility and a revered TEDx + Keynote Speaker.
She demonstrated history of working in geopolitics and global intelligence, education, and culture, international business development, marketing, communications, and public relations, and strategy.
After leaving academia, she has been responsible for managing international business development and networks for groups such as Stratfor and Waveland Ventures.
Richmond started American Culture Consultants, helping international visitors and residents connect, advance, and succeed in America. In this role, she has been invited as a keynote speaker by the government of Vietnam and by the U.S.-China Innovation Summit to present on navigating different business cultures. Jennifer Richmond also partnered with Allen Hilton of the House United Movement to create the non-profit, House United Academy.
Richmond also founded Truth In Between, an initiative to connect people across distances and differences to correspond over letters. She was invited to present her letters’ mission at a TEDx event in Austin, Texas. She is working on a book of letters with her co-author, W.F. Twyman, Jr. Also, she is the host of the Hold My Drink Podcast: Navigating the news with a chaser of civility.
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The Entrepreneurial Adventure of Jennifer Richmond
Pamela Bardhi
Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of the underdog. How are you feeling today?
Jennifer Richmond
This is awesome. I’m feeling great. An awesome, feeling awesome. Yeah, I’m on a Monday, on a Monday and I’m feeling up optimistic, even though the world feels like it’s falling apart a little bit. You know, I just there’s been so many opportunities this year that I’m trying to focus on. So yeah, I’m trying to hold on to that. And staying in love with the optimism and the good stuff of the year.
Pamela Bardhi
We’ve got to, 2020 it’s been like five years long. We’re celebrating its fifth annual anniversary. And it’s kind of flying by, but that it’s not like I don’t get it, right.
Jennifer Richmond
Yeah. Some days, it’s like, if you feel like it was just yesterday, and other days, you’re like, what? Yeah, as you said, the fifth year, I’m like, gosh. But we’re towards the end, I think there’s a lot of stuff to be hopeful for. So, man, no, we’re still not out of the woods. But I’ve seen us coming together in unique ways, sometimes painful ways. I still see a coming together that we haven’t seen before. I’ve also seen, you know, some places where we’ve torn apart in ways that we haven’t seen before, but I feel like we’re gonna come out of this better than ever. And so I’m holding on to that. It’ll be better than ever when we get it when we get some sort of a vaccine.
Pamela Bardhi
And that’s well underway, which is so good. Thank God. Yeah. So we’re almost here. We’re almost here.
Jennifer Richmond
We’re almost there. I know. And in the meantime, you can buy cute masks for Christmas, you know, new Christmas holiday gifts, right? I mean, there’s that.
Pamela Bardhi
That’s right? It’s one accessory that you can exactly like, not look like a weirdo out there. Yeah, that’s a good thing.
Jennifer Richmond
It’s kind of sad because I don’t want to get used to it. Right? I don’t want to get used to where I’m buying, like the cutest and like, you know, where we’re now gonna have like, fashion designer masks. But at the same time, if you’re gonna do it, rocket, right,
Pamela Bardhi
That’s right. Totally. It’s so awesome to have you here today. I’m so excited to hear your story and sort of where you’re at how you got there and sort of where you’re going. So I guess the opening question for you will be what has, Where are you right now in life? And how do you kind of get there?
Jennifer Richmond
Okay,
Pamela Bardhi
Long question.
Jennifer Richmond
That’s a long question. So stop me if I go off the rails here. But here’s where this year has been good for me and where I’m going. About two years ago, I started my company called Truth in Between. And that was my writing venture. As I saw what I thought was, this is well before COVID, of course. What I saw is our country frayed. And it became an opportunity for me to connect with people and to connect people across ideological differences. When COVID hit, I pivoted that really quickly and I’ve now connecting students, often with seniors, or even with each other.
So for me, I just love to see that news, new ways where people are actually slowing down to write. So a lot of it is actual writing some of its writing via email, but their actual letters, and some of his actual handwriting, and this year, I took it up a notch just recently, just in early October, and I started a podcast that kind of goes along the same lines. And it’s called, Hold My Drink, navigating the news and politics with a chaser of civility. The idea was, it’s kind of like PBS with a beer, right? We wanted everyone to feel comfortable, where it wasn’t something that was speaking over most people’s heads. But we feel like or I feel like a lot of people are feeling confused and alone and divided.
So, it was an opportunity for me to connect people in just yet another way to come together and find community. And so through both Truth in Between and Hold My Drink podcasts, I have found new ways this year that we’ve taken to slow down, and to actually connect. And for me personally to hear those stories, other people’s stories, but then to also share with them my thinking in a civil way is been amazing. It’s been absolutely amazing. So that’s where I’m at right now. I’m grateful for this year for allowing me that time to get here.
Pamela Bardhi
Mm-hmm. I love that. Love that. So what inspired you to get into this realm and start Truth in Between?
Jennifer Richmond
My whole background is international relations. Since I was a kid, I grew up in countries, it’s now called Myanmar was called Burma when I lived there. And I just grew up loving to connect with people who had completely different life experiences from me. So my whole life, I went on to study international relations. I’ve been an international relations expert. And I was always looking at the US from the outside in. So I lived in China, I lived in Thailand, I lived in Indonesia. I just, I love this country. I mean, I think there’s just there’s so much awesomeness here, and particularly our multiculturalism. It’s great
And also living in countries like China, where I have seen firsthand, we talk a lot about authoritarian this, authoritarian that, but to really see what that means in real life. I’ve actually had my own brushes with true authoritarianism. I really came to appreciate what this country had to offer. And when I saw us turning on each other, and fraying from the inside out, I said, I wonder if my skills connecting with people outside can help us here in the United States. So I took all that skill set of connecting across differences and started to turn it inside.
It really does start Pamela with my son. About two years ago, when this all started, he came home. He was sounding like a Twitter feed. So he was making these pronouncements without a lot of critical thought or backing behind it. And, you know, this voice in my head said, stop, you need to stop, and you need to work with him on critical thinking. I brought him in, and he and I started writing together. And of course, he’s young. He’s in high school. So that lasted for a couple of months. You didn’t have the stamina.
Although on my last podcast, he was my host. Yeah, that was really fun. So it really was an instinct that I think I developed very young to connect. But there was also a motherly instinct to where it was just like, you know we have to teach our kids. I mean, it starts with them. It starts with them if what we’re modeling, is this lack of communication, this division, this Twitter, like animosity, how are we going to expect it to get better? So it really the impetus started with my son, and then with the skills that I felt that I had developed, you know, just by my own life experiences since I was young, right?
Pamela Bardhi
Oh, my gosh, so it just started with him. And then it just sort of how did you grow it?
Jennifer Richmond
So I started writing have I have a blog, a website. But then, I also started writing on a website called medium, medium.com. So it’s like where a lot of writers are, and where a lot of writers connect. And that I, I ended up just following people who also were interested in policy and politics and whatnot. Also, other things like race and the other things that are the thorny issues seemed to be the most divisive. And I literally just reached out to a lot of these writers and said, Hey, this is what I’m doing. Do you want to connect? Then it just kind of steamrolled from there, so I would be the one writing them.
I usually tried to find someone who thought differently than me. So I consider myself a classical liberal, pull it in the political sphere, which means this day and age, I really don’t like labels, but for the sake of having to find some way to compartmentalize that makes me fit a little bit more in a conservative mindset. So I found people who didn’t think like me. And I was like, hey, let’s write letters, let’s figure out how this came to be. Then people started saying, hey, I want to write a letter, I want to do this. And then I started connecting, I became like, a connector. I would find people of different races, different genders, or whatever, and say, hey, a pen pal for you. You guys have to, but it has to be published on my site.
And so people started to come out to me and say, hey, I want to get involved. How do I get involved? It really just started like that. And now, the same kind of thing with the podcast. I’ve just developed such a network through doing that, and I’m just reaching back out to these really fabulous people who followed me along in this journey and said, time for you know, round two.
Pamela Bardhi
Love it. That’s so amazing. Oh, growing up, you talked about you that lived in different countries and things like that. What who’s your source of motivation? You know, a girl growing up? If you had? Well, I mean, if it’s your answer, if it’s some sort of figure all that, because it’s just like, I feel like when you’re in a multicultural environment, there could be so many different spheres of influence, you know?
Jennifer Richmond
Yeah, there’s a couple of ways to answer that, I will say, my parents, are very blessed. That way, they always just, love new experiences. So I grew up, not being afraid to try something new or to take new experiences. And what was nice, though, too, was because I had such a strong family background that gave kind of support, for me to go ahead and take some risks in my life. And so I really look up to my parents for providing me with that mentality, and that attitude very, and just the experiences. But you know, it’s just that the people I met, I’ll go back to when I lived in Burma.
So I grew up in a Christian household. I grew up in Middle America, where that was the norm. And all of a sudden, I’m in Burma now called Myanmar at the time, and I still believe Myanmar is one of the few countries that is the government is Buddhist, I think Thailand is the other. I might not have that right. But and for sure, at the time, it was a Buddhist government. So to that was, I mean, you can you imagine I was, I don’t know, I was in fifth grade, I believe it was. And so to be pulled from Middle America to a country that no one had really even heard about, that celebrated its religious holidays in completely different ways.
And so, I just was fascinated. Not only that, but Burma, even though Buddhism is the primary religion, has a huge group of Hindus, as well as Muslims. And so working alongside my family, we had a Hindu, we had a Muslim, and we had, you know, Christians, and so I got to be a part of these holidays and these festivals and to see how people love and how they lived. So I’m not answering your question directly on like, what was, was there a role model, but I mean, all these people were role models for me and to see.
You know, from there, I came back and while I still, you know, maintain my, my personal beliefs and whatnot. I just saw how people loved and they lived and how they practice that. And that type of tolerance, particularly with religion, because that was just a is a big way when you’re young of how you celebrate life. Right? I mean that underlines a lot of how we celebrate in our life views and perspectives and attitudes and whatnot. And so there wasn’t one person in particular outside of my family, but I saw that modeled in so many ways.
Pamela Bardhi
Yep, yeah. That’s why I asked him, What are the spheres of influence? He likes it when you get exposed to a multicultural experience? Like every single place that I went to, I was inspired by something different. So it’s like, there’s, man, it’s so cool that you got those experiences. And you know, what’s really awesome is when you’re in those places, and you’re celebrating and you know, it’s people from all different backgrounds, you start to realize that we really are one. Yeah. You know, we’re all connected. That doesn’t matter Hindu Muslim Buddhists. Like, at that moment, nobody cared, right? Everyone was just celebrating together.
Jennifer Richmond
Right? Yeah. It was truly beautiful. It was an experience, I think I really touched on their religious experience because it was an experience that I would never have had in my middle American, upbringing. And I would think that probably impressed upon me. And you know, just not that if you grew up in Middle America, you’re close-minded, not at all, but not seeing how other people celebrate in love.
Then seeing it, I think, did a lot for who I am and who I became again, the respect and the tolerance for other ways of being in this world. And then as you just said, something Pamela You’re so right. And to see that you still, I mean, you love your children, too, you know, I mean, there’s so much commonality. We’re all just trying to I think it was Ramdas, who has a great quote that says we’re all just here to walk each other home.
Pamela Bardhi
Yep.
Jennifer Richmond
So you know,
Pamela Bardhi
Beautiful quote.
Jennifer Richmond
And that brings us back to here that brings us back to America. What I’m trying to do now when I saw how I connect with people who are so incredibly different, and now I’m seeing, a similar opportunity in the United States. We’re all of a sudden, we see each other more and more like the other as the foreigner. I wanted to I want to bring that experience back home. I really do believe we’re all here to walk each other home, red, blue, black white. I’m gonna focus on politics as the main dividing line. There’s a lot that goes into that to unpack by focus on that because I see that is the foundation of a lot of where we’re becoming disunited, recently, so and it’s been a political scientist, kind of have me. My background is in that. So that’s where I gravitate.
What Was Jennifer “AHA” Moment
Pamela Bardhi
That’s awesome. So what was your tipping point that you, like, you realize that international relations were your thing? Because I know that was part of your journey. And now, of course, Truth in Between is a little bit further down. But how did you get into that in sort of the first place? What was the “aha” moment tipping point?
Jennifer Richmond
Well, that’s a little bit of a funny story. Again, when I after my experience of being young, when I went to college, I knew I was going to study international relations. So my tipping point was that, you know, early life experience. But what’s so funny is I went to a small liberal arts school for undergrad. And so international relations, you’ve got to take a language. And I was taking French, and I knew I wanted to go to Asia, but I was taking French and I said, Well, I don’t know Vietnamese to speak French. That’s how I kind of justified it, right? I don’t speak French or Vietnamese. You know, it’s I’m really old people. It’s not, you know, it’s not an official language or anything like that.
My small liberal arts school only had two Asian languages. I thought, well, I really wanted to live in Southeast Asia. That was what I was familiar within Thailand. But in order to have to graduate, you had to have a certain amount of language. So since they didn’t offer Thai, I was like, Well, what do I do? My advisor was like, you got to stop taking French if you’re going to go to Asia like that’s so stupid. And I’m like, Oh, yeah, I guess you got a point there, right. My choices were Chinese or Japanese. When I was younger, when we were traveling across the world, we had a quick stop in Tokyo, and I had a slightly unpleasant run-in with a stranger in Japan. And I’ve also had been to China.
And so I literally made a decision to learn Chinese was just based almost on a whim. It was like, I guess I’ll take Chinese instead. So that part of my life, somewhat accidental, and it was one of the best decisions that ever made. China is becoming my specialty within international relations. But you know, speak Chinese, you have worked in China for over a decade now. It really when China was just started to come upon the world stage, so I kind of caught a wave, I didn’t even realize I was catching. And that really shaped pretty much the rest of my professional trajectory. So most, everything I did, I worked at a geopolitical intelligence firm strat for and I ran their China programs and moved up through there.
And then I worked with some venture capitalists on some of their China projects that they’re working on. And then, as I said, once things started to feel like they were being torn apart in the United States. I’ve still focused often on international relations. I just love overseas and traveling overseas so much, and I love Asia so much. It’s so different from anything in the United States. But yeah, I’ve started to take all that and turn it inwards.
Pamela Bardhi
Interesting. So what was it like living and working in China? as a foreigner basically, right?
Jennifer Richmond
Yeah, I’ve got a great story, actually, from that. And that’s, that really goes back to the whole idea. You know, I said, I know what it’s like to live in an authoritarian country. And what’s kind of funny as a foreigner, I almost you almost feel free. Like there’s no drinking age. You know, as you know, in China, it’s really funny too because you’re already living in China, you’re already seen as kind of an outsider. So I remember a lot of mornings I just walked to Starbucks in my pajamas, and no one looked at me any differently than if I was in a three-piece suit. Because I was already, you know, kind of set apart. So you got about, I’ll go to Starbucks in my pajamas. I don’t care, you know. But there was a time it was well, after Tiananmen.
You know, in Tiananmen Square back in 1989. A lot of dissidents came to the United States. And I was there for a big UN meeting and I forgot what year it was, but one of the dissidents from 10 men had come back to visit his mother, at the same time as this huge UN meeting. Somehow I became friends with this guy. I don’t really remember how I was working with Duke University at the time in Beijing. And already China was on high alert because there were a lot of huge UN delegations. I believe Hillary Clinton came over It was a big women’s meeting. So it was already a very kind of highly politically charged event.
But I remember having dinner with this guy, we all were staying in the same apartment, and myself, another American friend, and then this Chinese dissident, who’d come back to visit his mom and he was allowed back for the first time because his mother was sick from since Tiananmen, and that was probably on the sixth floor of a walk-up apartment complex. We were literally followed two-four-seven, by the government. The thing is, it wasn’t even it, they wanted you to know that you were being followed so that you didn’t ever go out of line. And I mean, literally, you’d walk up this you know, humid, summer stairwell, you know, concrete stairwells, six stories high. And literally like a wreck, I mean, you could turn around, and like, reach out to them.
Then when we, you know, get into the apartment, hang out, have dinner, do whatever, and we’d leave and they’d literally be standing outside the door. So, and this went on for days, we’d go to a restaurant, and they’d go in around the restaurant. And so some of them would be in the actual kitchen of the restaurant in case any of us tried to go out like the back door, and then someone is in the front. Back up for a second. I love China, I love Chinese history and I love Chinese people.
I mean, the history is just fascinating to me. But you know, the government is very, very, very different from ours. And so experiences like the one I shared, there are the experiences that I took back home, you know, to America where so now when I hear a lot of people speaking often off the cuff, oh, authoritarian, this authoritarian that I’m like, Oh, I got an authoritarian story for you. And I think it’s my mission because I think that we have so much to offer that I don’t want us to slide into authoritarianism.
I think the most important thing is for us to work together. In order not to do so. So I mean, experiences like that are exactly why it became more imperative for me when I saw us talking across each other and not really hearing other sides that we found solutions so we don’t backslide or what, I guess not backslide, but slide into something that none of us want.
Pamela Bardhi
Right. Interesting. One thing that a question for you was also like because you’ve been exposed to so many diverse cultures and seeing so many different things all around the world. What has been like your mantra, since you were younger? Has it shifted? I don’t know, maybe when it changed a little bit, as you sort of grew older. But I’m always interested to see like, what’s the mantra behind you going through these experiences?
Jennifer Richmond
Woo, that’s a good question. I think maybe I would just go back to kind of the Ramdas quote that I gave where we’re all here to walk into the room. And I also believe having someone who studied Chinese, I really love Taoism. And one of the things that the Tao teaches you, the Tao the way is that everyone is a teacher, you know, from someone as quote, lowly. T.hat’s all a matter, you know, of how we grade people, so CEO, and it says your spiderweb, so, quote, lowly, I say, a janitor, to someone as high as a king. I think that everyone has something to teach us.
So that’s where I just even those people who rubbed you the wrong way, or who you just want to take him by his shoulders and shake them, which I want to do often as everyone else does. But I try to go back and at least be thankful for those experiences because we choose how we are shaped by all of these experiences. So I would say a lot of my outlook has been shaped by Asian philosophies that I grew up with.
Again, just you know, repeating myself, I really love Taoism, one of the biggest things in Taoism is that water is the strongest force, right? So water being as malleable as it is, it’s I mean, we have the Grand Canyon, because of water. It’s also like the strongest force and so being like water and being able to kind of shift around your environment. And yet still being strong is something that I buy into. I think that’s one of my own personal… I tried to be like water
Pamela Bardhi
Adapt and shift in all of that perfect sense.
Jennifer Richmond
Mm-hmm.
Pamela Bardhi
Makes perfect sense.
Jennifer Richmond
And adapting doesn’t mean that you are, don’t have a backbone or spine, or that you don’t have anything that you kind of ground yourself in or your foundation. But it just means that you are capable of you those twists and turns while still, yourself shaping, you know, those twists and turns in that that trajectory of your life.
Pamela Bardhi
That’s amazing. And to me, it seems like any challenges that you’ve really overcome, feel like you’re just like, float just like water.
Jennifer Richmond
I try. I say that that’s what I aspire to Pamela, every day I go, holy crap, you failed there. But I try. That’s I try to keep that in mind as I move through life.
Pamela Bardhi
Yeah. So with that, what has been your most important lesson throughout the years? As one of your biggest challenges, you know, what was the lesson there? I don’t like to say failures, I like to say lessons.
Jennifer Richmond
Lessons
Pamela Bardhi
Lessons.
Jennifer Richmond
I think sometimes I take too long to let go. I don’t like to let go. Again, I feel like there, you, particularly with people. Yeah, I feel like there’s always a lesson to learn. Like I said, but that doesn’t mean that you have to relive that lesson over and over and over again, right. So you can love people from a distance. And a lot of times, I have been part of a friendship or relationship where I keep on thinking, Oh, you know, things just flow and things are gonna change. Honestly, you’ve got to be responsible for yourself. And so I think I’ve, as I’ve grown older, I’ve gotten better at letting go.
And knowing when a friendship or a relationship has come to its natural conclusion. Hmm. But a lot of times, it’s okay, it’s okay too, you know, even in this day and age where we’re dealing with divisions and friending and unfriending, and whatnot, it’s okay to walk away. I just think it shouldn’t be your first solution. Right? I think that I think that you need to try to find that common ground and show different people to respect as humans and try to, kind of connect with our common humanity. That said, you still have to take care of yourself and learn when you’re you aren’t being served. But that doesn’t have to be nasty, you know, it doesn’t have to end up in a big quitter or mob scene, it’s just, a quiet walking away.
Pamela Bardhi
I think that’s brilliant, too. I mean, that, in my own experience, I’ve had relationships where it’s like, I just tried to fix it and fix it. And like, you just, you can’t. It’s a two-sided thing, right?
Jennifer Richmond
Yeah,
Pamela Bardhi
It’s a decided thing. And it’s like, at one point, you got to know your own boundaries to protect your own energies. Because when it’s time for something to be let go, the more that you hang on to it, the more pain it might cause you.
Jennifer Richmond
Mm-hmm.
Pamela Bardhi
You know, that’s so important. Letting go because it also affects you at a certain point in time, right? Not just right, the other person.
Jennifer Richmond
Right. And, you know, you use that as a little bit of a trite phrase, but you got to fill your own cup, right? First, and I like to share my cup. But at the same time, if you’re not taking care of yourself, then you can’t really there’s not much of you to take care of anyone else. So learning when to walk away and where my boundaries are, I’m still working on that. But I would say that’s probably a lesson that I’m still trying to learn. And because I am trying to embrace so much, yeah, to learn when not to embrace and to take care of myself. Yeah,
Pamela Bardhi
I struggle with lessons that I like, knowing that I’m supposed to know them already. But it’s still a process, right? Like, when to say no, like that. Probably my hardest thing in the world. I’m like, you know, mentors, like Pam, take on something else. Again take it easy. And I’m just like, Ah, it is so hard. It’s a process, but I totally I totally get it. You know, it’s work. It’s a work in progress.
Jennifer Richmond
What’s funny to someone, a good friend of mine, who knows me even perhaps better than me. So he said to me, one day I came in and I was like, and then I’m doing this and then I’m doing that and then there’s… He goes, Okay, first of all, have you ever looked into adult ADHD? No, and then he started describing it to me, I go, holy crap. I am a functioning adult, ADHD person, so that but what I realized through that conversation is, I think ADHD has served me well because I’m allowed. It gives me more energy to take on more things. But I also don’t like what you said, I don’t know how to say no.
Pamela Bardhi
Right? Right. It’s so hard.
Jennifer Richmond
I find myself and my family will even stop me and be like, you’ve got like, not only you’re not taking care of yourself like you’re putting other things in front of your family. For me, family is like that, that is my foundation. That is my everything. That’s my tribe. You know, that’s, it’s me, it’s where I pull my strength from. And so when I see not, it’s one thing, it’s hard for us sometimes to see that we’re not taking care of ourselves, right? And maybe even more so for women than men.
But when your family says, not only not taking care of yourself, but you’re not taking care of us when those most important people in your life tell you that. You’re like, Oh, crap, you’re right. Right. And it’s taken those going back to the question of lessons. I mean, I think the lessons they’ve had to become to me from other people. And that makes me sad. It makes me sad that I had to wait until my son, or my husband was like, hey, right, remember me?
Pamela Bardhi
Right? Now, that’s happened to me recently, too, and it’s just like, they’re like, Hey, you know, you’re so caught up in this, this and this like “Hi.” And I’m just like, or you have an experience that reminds you how short life is and you’re like, what am I doing? Like, it’s like, I can’t be working all the time. I got up, you know, you just don’t know. So I, I totally get it. But we’re working progress. Right.
Jennifer Richmond
We are. Well, and I think you know, Pamela, you and I are the same to where it’s just like, I just I’m like, I’m trying to change the world here. Y’all. Right? No, big No. But I mean, come on, we can eat dinner an hour later, seriously.
Pamela Bardhi
Like, just, you know, because you want to do it. All right. And you’re, especially when you’re passionate about you’re like, I just want to get I want to get it done. I’m sure this is such a powerful thing. Truth in Between is a very powerful thing. It’s very passionate, you know, so you want to spread that message in that love to the world, like as quickly as you possibly can so I totally get it. I’m pretty sure I have ADHD too. Because I just can’t stay still, I just yeah.
Jennifer Richmond
We’ve obviously as I said, it didn’t even dawn on me that maybe I do until my friend Mike started describing ticking off things. And I was like, Oh, yeah, I guess. But then I was like, well, yay, me, because that’s how I’ve been in like, I embraced it. I was like, well, that’s no wonder I’m doing this at the same time, it was a nice realization to go. Okay, that’s great that you’ve got the energy. But you sometimes take on too much. And so that Self Realisation that it’s kind of I’m hardwired that way with actual a really helpful Self Realisation for me to be able to pull back a little bit.
Pamela Bardhi
That leads me to sort of my, my final question to you is, what would your older self tell your younger self with all that you know now?
Jennifer Richmond
It would be to let go, it would be what we were just talking about, to know where my boundaries are earlier in my life, so that I could do that would have given me a different focus or would have allowed me to focus more. I also took the current political situation that we’re in right now, for me to really find and develop this passion, and I’m so glad that I did. But I love writing. And I was one of those people that you know, right? It’s hard. It’s hard for me, I love it, but it’s hard.
So, whenever I was, felt the need to write, I’d kind of push it off, I push it off, and I push it off. I wish that I had developed that skill a little earlier in my life or, dabbled in it a little bit more, but I was scared to write. it took a crisis for me to put myself out there. So I would tell myself, to like to let that go. And I would have started writing earlier, I would have started trying to connect in meaningful ways earlier, and try to hone that skill earlier. I love what I’m doing now. And I really feel like I say all that but I feel that everything comes in its own appointed time.
So while I say I wish I would have done it earlier, and I wish that I wouldn’t have been afraid earlier, I also think that the timing was what was meant to be so I don’t look back with any regret per se. But if I could tell my younger self to write that book earlier or to write that article, that’s what I would have. That’s what I do, and not to be so afraid.
Pamela Bardhi
I’m so glad that you’re living your passion out now too, but like you said everything the universe’s timing is perfect, right? Yeah, as much as we want to be. But like, here it is, you know. And now I know that it’s only going to magnify for you, which is so exciting. And now you’ve got to let everybody know where to find you.
Jennifer Richmond
Yeah, well, two places. The podcast is where you can find the podcast on Apple Podcasts. You can find it on Spotify, some places, but I do have a website for the podcast, it’s holdmydrinkpodcast.com I also have a website for truth in between and you can access both on either or but that’s truthinbetween.com. So yeah, come check it out. Let me know what you think I and, you know, I just love feedback. I love people giving me their views, even if it’s, you know, constructive criticism. That’s how I move forward. So check it out. Let me know what you think. Give me suggestions. Give me views. I’m all in.
Pamela Bardhi
Thank you so much, Jennifer. It’s been such an honor having you. You are so awesome. And I love your light and your passion. So what you do next and watch truth in-between sort of take-off and become an international pen pal program. That’d be cool.
Jennifer Richmond
Thank you, Pamela, you are so awesome, too. You’re such a light in this world and bringing people you’re just offering these new experiences for people. So I’m grateful to you.
Pamela Bardhi
Thank you so much. You’re awesome. It was truly an honor to have you you know, I always say there are never any coincidences in this life, right?
Jennifer Richmond
Nope, absolutely not.
Tune in to the episode to hear the rest of my incredible interview with Jennifer Richmond.
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The Underdog Podcast host is none other than Pamela Bardhi. She’s rocking the Real Estate Realm and has dedicated her life as a Life Coach. She is also Forbes Real Estate Council. To know more about Pam, check out the following: