Redefining Success: A Woman Entrepreneur's Perspective

Ever find yourself overwhelmed by clutter, not only in your physical space but also in your life aspirations?

Journey with us and our esteemed guest, Zeenat, as we uncover the transformative power of a simplified life and a well-defined vision. We tackle the significant topic of supporting women's causes, highlighting the phenomenal work of the Women's Fund of Miami-Dade and their efforts in promoting women’s leadership, health equity, freedom from violence, and elevated economic stability for women and their families. Discover how I, as a woman entrepreneur, learned to stay true to my values while building a successful business.

Zeenat Siman

• Website: https://fireflybridge.com/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zeenatsiman/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fireflybridgeorganizing

We then leap into an engaging discussion about the magic of organizing strategies for not just our homes, but our lives too. Zeenat shares profound insights on how to manage sentimental attachments, and the role of vision boards and personality profiles in creating an orderly, efficient life. We also chat about keeping the balance between self-care, family and business, emphasizing the importance of finding joy in the journey. As we wrap things up, we'll guide you on how to link up with us online - connecting with our tribe in the wild and wonderful digital space. This episode promises to inspire, challenge, and offer practical tips and strategies to empower you to embrace a richer, wilder life.

Women's Fund of Miami-Dade

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Transcript

Voiceover: 0:03

Tales from the Wild, stories from the Heart. A journey into the mind and soul of fired-up business professionals, where they share their vision for the future and hear from a different non-profit organization every month as they create awareness of their goals and their needs. Dive into a world of untamed passion as we join our host, Shireen Both a, for this month's episode of Friends from Wild Places.

Tanya Scotece: 0:39

Excellent.

Shireen Botha: 0:40

Yeah, and so, seeing us here at Friends from Wild Places, we do like to take the time every month to support a non-profit, and the non-profit can be, you know, anything really where it is giving a help line to someone or giving back to the community along any of those lines. You know we are so for that. You know it's all about serving, and giving back is what we believe here, and so I know you mentioned a non-profit, which is a non-profit that we've chosen to support for the month, and it is called the Women's Fund and Zeenat. Would you mind just speaking a little bit about the organization? And then, how can we support that organization?

Zeenat Siman: 1:37

Sure Well, the Women's Fund, specifically Women's Fund of Miami-Dade. They function under four pillars. Their goal is to create freedom from violence for women in our communities, to advocate for leadership by these women and girls in our community again to lift them up, increase access and equity in healthcare and well-being for women and girls in our community, and to raise economic security for women and their families in our community. And those are the four pillars that they function under. And so for me, as a mom, as a woman, I see this as, basically, the structure of our community is to help these women to build up from where we all are now and where they are now.

Zeenat Siman: 2:40

And I like to support the Women's Fund because I think they're doing really good work in this area and they're raising really good money and it's very focused to helping the women in our own community in these four areas. So you can just go to womenfundmiamiorg, you can take a look at what they're doing and you can help in many ways. Of course, you can donate to them, but you can also engage in the conversation. Every month, they have an online conversation about something that's happening in the community currently, and just by increasing your awareness, you're able to then disseminate that information in your community and to others and so everyone can understand what's impacting the women in our community right now.

Shireen Botha: 3:28

Nice, nice. I think that's important, Really, really really is important. I am part of a minority in the side of the world as a woman in my country, and so the violence on women here is quite a big deal, and I really, really we've spoken about it twice here In the nonprofit, where we support women in general and then especially domestic violence is one of them amongst others. But the other thing that we mentioned now in this episode is supporting other business women owned business. Goodness me, Shireen can't talk today. So yes, and a lot of my clients are all women they own their own businesses.

Shireen Botha: 4:26

I have a softer place for them in my heart, for obvious reasons, so I'm so glad that we spoke about that in different ways to support our women owned businesses as well as supporting the women in our neighborhoods and in our communities. So I really like that. I have another question, and that is probably what I like to ask most of my guests is what is one of the biggest achievements you've had thus far?

Zeenat Siman: 5:00

My goodness. I think for me it's just the fact that I've been able to sustain this business for as long as I have. My first priority is my family, and they will always come first, and so I've had to let some opportunities go by. You know, I focus on keeping my business relatively small so that I can manage it without needing to have a huge team that I'm managing because I wanna be able to focus on my family first and I've made that choice very consciously and I will continue to make that choice very consciously. So to me, that's my achievement is understanding myself and understanding what I want this company to be and how I want to impact other women, while staying true the word is I'm losing the words here but true to myself, true to having fidelity in myself that this is what I wanna do and not allow myself to see they call it the shiny object syndrome to see what everyone else is doing. You know how I can be this, how I can be that. Do I need to write a book? Do I need to do this? I can really be focused because I know what my end goal is.

Zeenat Siman: 6:23

To me, that's been the huge accomplishment, because when I started this company I didn't really know.

Zeenat Siman: 6:28

I thought, okay, I'm gonna start this business, it's gonna be a hobby, it's gonna be great. Then, when I realized that this is going to be, this is very fulfilling and I want to do something more and I wanna reach more people, I thought, well, the only way I can do that is by having a huge team and attacking every home in Miami and making it. Everybody's home in Miami is gonna be fully organized and streamlined and my team is gonna be the one to do it. And I realized, no, there's something else that I wanna do first, and that's take care of me and my family. And then the business is going to expand, naturally, in the way that it needs to expand. And then COVID hit and I realized virtual organizing was a thing that I could do and I was able to do it, and now, transitioning into an online program that's been successful that, I think, is the next, the next wave of changes that are going to happen for my company and that, to me, is manageable.

Shireen Botha: 7:24

Love that.

Tanya Scotece: 7:26

Do you know, is there a personality profile that you use? I'm familiar with, for example, Myers-Briggs and the disc and all like their caliper. There's many, many tons of them.

Tanya Scotece: 7:37

There are ones to see what type of style someone is starting point for organizing. I'm hearing like everyone has a different. Not everyone wants things in bins with labels, right, and not everyone wants things you know, like put in drawers of the certain way. So is there something you could create is like an personality profile test to see how people want to be organized? That's a great idea.

Zeenat Siman: 8:05

That's a great idea, and there are things out there If you search them. There are other organizers that have little self-assessments and they name you something depending on how you like to organize. Those are clearly a way to begin. I think that's a smart way to do it, and the way that we approach it in my program Streamline and Simplify is what I call it, because we want to streamline home and I want to help you simplify. In order to do it is we look at your vision board and the vision board for your home. It's a little different than the vision board for your life, because we're really focused about how you want to live in your home first in this 90-day program. So 90 days is not a long time to organize an entire home, organize your calendar and start thinking differently about the stuff that you own.

Zeenat Siman: 8:51

We're all very sentimentally attached to everything that we own, including this, you know, like anything it could. You know, no matter how utilitarian, we think that it is a pair of scissors. If you ask someone to, you have three pairs of scissors, get rid of two, you just need one. You know it's so hard to get rid of those extra pairs of scissors. I'm just making that up, you might want to keep all three. I'm just saying that. You know, at the time when it comes to remove things from your house, everybody. So we're sentimentally, we're really attached to things. So rather than looking at how you want to organize, I look at very holistically, what's your vision for how you want to live in your home, how you want to function in each area of your home. One of the exercises that we do is we think about kind of an ideal day in the future. Think six months from now your home is organized. You know you're in your ideal life within your own home. I'm not talking about let's move to a mansion and and have a butler.

Zeenat Siman: 9:54

No in your own home, living your own life with your own family. How do you want to function in that space? And you look at that day in fast forward, like you live through that day and fast forward. You kind of see and hear snippets of conversation. You know how you're driving your kids, how are you getting ready in the morning, what's happening in the evenings?

Zeenat Siman: 10:13

For me, one vision, one scene that stuck in my mind when I did this for myself years ago was oh my goodness, the ideal for me would be in the evening. My husband and I are relaxed, cooking together a dinner, each with a glass of wine. We're listening to music, the kids are here hanging out, playing, doing their thing. You know, the house is relatively in order, but we're having fun, cooking and relaxing. And then we also did the table together and we have this, this lovely meal, and that was my ideal, that was kind of my vision, my goal, that was one of the big visions that I had. And so then we start thinking, once you have kind of some of these visions and we pull inspiration, photos from the internet, from magazines, whatever, and we've created this vision board for different areas of your home, and once you have that we talk about.

Zeenat Siman: 11:05

Well, so if this was my, my vision for my kitchen, is everything in my kitchen serving that vision? Do I need eight pots because my eight pots have to be nested? Realistically, I know I don't have space to line up eight pots in in a cabinet. I have this cabinet space and so they have to be nested. So I do I need eight pots or am I better served by having only three? That, I know, is which makes it easier for me to take out three and cook anytime I want to, rather than deal with the friction that I was feeling about. Okay, in order to cook, I have to take out these pots, to take out that one, and then I have to find the lid and then I need this pan and then I need this and that's what cooking had become for me and I didn't like it and I wanted to enjoy that cooking time. That was one thing. That. So that's the process that we go through and streamline, simplify, if that makes sense.

Shireen Botha: 11:59

That was so good.

Zeenat Siman: 12:01

And that's how you come to understand. Well, how much structure do I really need? Do I need little containers for every knife and every pair of scissors and every pen, or do I need? This is my drawer where I keep the pens, the scissors and the whatever. Whatever is in there. But I have an invisible barrier on top of that drawer so no random stuff gets thrown in there. And once you have that in place, you see how easy it is to keep it organized. Once you've got the stuff in there, you know my scissors will always be in there. I can label the drawer. If I want to have little kids, I can label the drawer or if I have a husband, I can label the drawer, so everyone knows that the scissors go in here.

Zeenat Siman: 12:46

But do I need the little containers or am I okay with just a drawer divider and you know all the utility stuff going here little tools, whatever, and on this side I've got paper and pens. Is that enough for me? What really needs to be in here? What's the function of this drawer for me? So those are the questions that we ask when we start, and that's how you start to understand. How much structure do I really need to get things done in my home? By knowing what your vision is, by having this vision board done.

Shireen Botha: 13:13

I like that. I like that. Thank you, Zina. Thank you so much for actually joining us today. We have come close to the end of the podcast, where we're going to make it a little bit more lighthearted. Now I'm going to ask, since I don't know if you are watching from YouTube, but you'll notice that some of us have some Christmas decorations horrible seasonal Christmas jerseys on and in the other Zoom boxes we've got beautiful little Christmas penguins and a Christmas tree. So, yes, it's Christmas time and so it's Christmas time. There are things that we love to do with our families, so let's go around and just chat about what's our favorite thing to do at Christmas time with our families. Zina, up to you can go.

Zeenat Siman: 14:01

So every Christmas, barring COVID, we travel to my husband's parents place and all of his siblings and all of the cousins. We all get together and one of the things that's become a bit of a tradition is to do a kid's scavenger hunt. I'll tell you that some adults get into it as well, but scavenger hunts at Christmas time has been a thing because it allows everyone from the two-year-old to the 26-year-old and beyond to be involved, and so we like that. It gets everyone together. It's a little something a little different and we send them all around to find random things. But that's been our fun tradition at Christmas that beyond the, we stay up until midnight at Christmas. We wish everyone Merry Christmas, and so dinner isn't served until 10 pm and then we're trying to keep the kids awake or they want to be woken up so they can do the Merry Christmas at midnight. Those have been our fun traditions.

Shireen Botha: 15:03

My gosh, my family is sleeping at 7 pm at night. That's not even possible.

Zeenat Siman: 15:09

It's a lot of coffee that night for me. At 9 o'clock I'm in bed, normally.

Shireen Botha: 15:15

Let's go Tanya, what about yourself?

Tanya Scotece: 15:18

So I have one daughter, shayna, and we always do something special, whether it's a Christmas breakfast or a Christmas day or a day around Christmas, that we just do something really special. But I've actually learned not to have it just for the day. I like to celebrate the whole month, so from after Thanksgiving through the end of the year, whether I'm meeting friends for a coffee or breakfast or lunch, so the whole month becomes a celebration. So it's not a letdown the day after, because I'm good on that and I also love the music. So Christmas music is kind of played randomly throughout. So those are my things. Those are my things.

Shireen Botha: 15:57

I love that. I love it, tanya. That's so good. I'm so glad you mentioned that, tanya, because my birthday is on the 11th of November. Right, so we celebrate my birthday, okay, only because we have to. All right, the moment it turns the 12th of November, out comes the Christmas tree, the decorations, shereen goes absolutely fantastic.

Zeenat Siman: 16:24

I love it. I love it. I love that idea.

Shireen Botha: 16:27

Then Higher Christmas season to do something Love that it's activities, it's all sorts, and I'm very sad when we have to put it down and away in January. So that's just the extent. And also remember our Christmas is our summertime, your Christmas is our wintertime. So I am wearing this jersey and I am sweating on this side, yes, yes. So I am committed and I hope you acknowledge my commitment here.

Zeenat Siman: 17:01

Yeah, 100%. Here I'm applauding, you.

Shireen Botha: 17:06

That's awesome, ladies. This has been so much fun. Before we close down, I just want to take the acknowledgement right here in this little group. We are all part of the same B&I group called Miami Partners in the Miami-Dade area. We all work together. We are, as Nina said, each other's partners, business partners and including the very person that is editing this, amir. So we're all part of the same group people that you don't see here and behind the scenes. So we really believe in this and in what we do at B&I Miami Partners and we are a virtual team. So we meet every Tuesday at 7.30 EST time. So, listeners, you're more than welcome. If you're a business owner and want to come and visit and looking for a networking group, come and see what we're about. Zmats listeners. They are listening and if they are really touched by your story and will have any questions about what you do and would like to reach out to you, where can they find you?

Zeenat Siman: 18:26

Well, certainly you can check my website out. It's fireflybridgecom and there you'll find plenty of information. You can find my email there. You can find my phone number and give me a call, send me a text, whatever it is that you need. I'm also on Instagram and Facebook at Firefly Bridge Organizing and on LinkedIn. Connect with me on LinkedIn with my full name, znet Siman Nice.

Shireen Botha: 18:53

Thank you very much. And what about yourself? Tanya?

Tanya Scotece: 18:57

I can be found on LinkedIn, since I don't have a TV, so Tanya Scotisi, and that's spelled S is in. Sam C, charlie O, oscar T, tom E Edward C Charlie E Edward. That's the best place to connect with me doing a lot at Miami Dade College Sunshine Senior Placement Agency and I do serve as expert witness for funeral home and cemetery wrongdoing, so would welcome any opportunity to connect.

Shireen Botha: 19:22

That's awesome, that's right. You can find me as well on LinkedIn, shereen Bwether, but more importantly, you can find Brings from Wild Places on their website, bringsfromwildplacesbusbrowthcom. You can find us on YouTube if you want to see the video version, but you can find us on every single streaming platform out there there is. You can download us, listen to us, leave a review, Let us know what you think. We would really appreciate that. So, thanks so much for listening, everybody, and we'll see you next time. Remember you got this and stay wild. Bye guys, bye, bye.

Zeenat Siman: 20:01

Bye.

Voiceover: 20:03

You've been listening to Friends from Wild Places with Shereen Bwether. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast from the links to catch every episode and unleash your passion.