S2E7: How Not to Run Scared in The Midst of Chaos
Today we have the honor to dive deep with Sharifah Hardie to learn about her golden pearls of wisdom around working through chaos. She tells us her story, how she fought through her own turmoil and came out way ahead of her time. Sharifah will share with us what success looks like to her professionally and personally and offers ways you can move forward in your own life. The raw emotion and honesty she shares about growth in the midst of a pandemic you won’t want to miss.
Guest Bio
Sharifah Hardie is a business consultant, talk show host and influencer. Sharifah was a Long Beach City Council Candidate in the 2020 March 3rd Primary Election and is a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Expert. With over twenty five years of business experience, Sharifah Hardie has positioned herself to become one of the top executives in entertainment, business, politics and a person on the rise.
She is Host of Ask Sharifah Videocast and Podcast, as well as “Round Table Talk Show with Sharifah Hardie and Face to Face Talk Show.” Sharifah is also the author of “Signs You Might Be An Entrepreneur – How to Discover the Entrepreneur in You” and the ebook, “Everything You Need to Know About Social Media Marketing.”
This powerhouse woman built her first website in 1994, and has had an online presence ever since. She launched her first radio show in 2009 and is passionate about business. Sharifah was laid off over 8 times, yet didn’t quit. She used the experience and knowledge she gained working for these companies to benefit the businesses she now consults.
Social media links for Sharifah Hardie:
Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/ilikesharifah/
Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/sharifahhardie/
Twitter – https://twitter.com/sharifahhardie
LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/sharifah-hardie/
Website – https://www.asksharifah.com/
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Transcripts
Dr. Allen Lycka
I’m Dr. Allen Lycka, and I’ve got a phenomenal guest with us today. Her name is Sharifah Hardie, and she’s a business consultant, talk show host and influencer. And I had the privilege of being on her show not too long ago. Now she hails from Long Beach, and she was a Long Beach city council candidate in 2020 March 3 primary election, and is a diversity, equity, and inclusion expert. With over 25 years of business experience. Sharifah Hardie has positioned yourself to become one of the top executives in entertainment, business, politics, and a person on the rise. Sharifah is host of Ask Sharifah videocast and podcast, as well as Round Table Talk Show with Sharifah. And face to face talk show. Sharifah is also author of signs you might be an entrepreneur, how to discover the entrepreneur in you and the eBook, Everything You Need To Know About Social Marketing. Sharifah built her birth first website in 1994 that was an online presence ever since she launched her first radio show in 2009. And is passionate about business. Sharifah was laid off over eight times but didn’t quit. She used the experience and knowledge she gained working for these companies to benefit the businesses she now consults in. Sharifah thank you for coming on board today. We had our hiccups getting you here. But you’re here now. So, thank you very much for putting up with those hiccups and getting us here today.
Sharifah Hardie
You are so welcome. Like I told you a little earlier I’m traveling right now, anytime I’m traveling, anytime anything is going on, I tend to expect hiccups, because I’m a little bit more grounded in Long Beach. But I’m in Seattle, Washington came out here for a peace rally. So, I just appreciate the opportunity to sit down and speak with you whether it’s a hiccup or not. We’re here together now and I think that’s beautiful.
Dr. Allen Lycka
Well, you know, we’re brothers and sisters in cause. Because I was on your show, and I just know how passionate you are on things and how amazing you are. You know, the world since March of 2020 has changed. And I don’t know if it’s changed for the better or for the worst. What is your take on that?
Sharifah Hardie
You know what, I’m so glad I decided to come on this show because you just hit me with the hard questions right off the bat. We’ve didn’t even tried to ease into this conversation.
Dr. Allen Lycka
We are just starting, we’re just starting out.
Sharifah Hardie
You know what, I see everything for the better. I’m a believer, I believe that all things work together for the good for those that love the Lord, I live by that I stand by that I believe that. And that’s all things, not some things. So just speaking with different guests, one of the things that I’ve seen is that people have become so much more successful, so much more happy, so much more wealthy during this time, and more millionaires are made during a recession than any other time. When you need to figure it out that’s when you’re forced to come up with creative ideas. And so, I get to sit sitting down and talk with business owners who have went from only having brick and mortar stores to now they’re making money online opening doors they never would have dreamed of and actually doors that they might have scoffed at before said you know what? I don’t I don’t need that website. I don’t need that online presence. You know, everybody comes to my store. Everybody comes to my restaurant. Everybody knows me. Why should I have a website? and then you see people pivot and go other ways, but it forced them to be creative. Now the hard part is that just like giving birth, you know as mothers know and dads watching the birth it’s not easy new life always comes at a price. And that’s what I believe we’re doing as the people that we lost some people, we lost some things, and we lost the old ways, but it’s going to give birth to a new life that we could have never imagined or dreamed of.
Dr. Allen Lycka
Well, Sharifah that’s what I really felt and that’s why I asked you this question, because art lovers do not believe this is a good time. There are people out there right now, even in Long Beach that think, Oh, my God, what has befallen on us? And they’re the victims of all of this. They’re the ones that have that victim mentality, in their brains, and they can’t get out of it.
Sharifah Hardie
Yes. But you know what they can do, they can tune into The Round Table Talk Show.
Dr. Allen Lycka
Or they can tune in here because we’re not going to get any negativity here. You know, we’re not going to get any of that. I call it the BS quotient. Because I don’t really put that sort of stuff in my world. Yes, stuff happens. I mean, today, we had some internet problems, we had some issues but really that befalls on me, everything befalls us. And so, when something goes wrong, I have to fix it. And I think that’s what everybody has to do here in this world is okay, you have a coffee shop Sharifah. And you had to lock your doors for three months, because the government said, sorry, you can’t have people in it. Well, you have to find a way around it. And you have to find, you know, if you have good enough coffee, I really don’t care if you have a shop or not. I want your coffee. So, you’re going to delivered to my door every day. Or you’re going to find a way to get it to me so I can drive by and pick up that coffee at my window. Or while I’m in rush hour traffic, somehow, you’re going to materialize with a tray full of coffee while I’m sitting there. And you’re going to give me one of those coffees and charge me for it right there. You know, that sounds stupid. But guess what? I was in Egypt once. And I was in a traffic jam. And a person came up with a tray of tea and serve me a tea in my traffic jam, and said, okay, sir, that’s a buck 20 and I said what? He said, yeah, this is a special delivery to you. And I delivered it specially for you. So, guess what? It’s a buck 20. And so, guess what? There’s ways to make this happen, even in situations that you can’t believe, isn’t that right Sharifah?
Sharifah Hardie
Absolutely. And that’s what I was saying a little bit earlier, they could tune in to The Round Table Talk Show, and they can listen to people like yourself, because just listening to your ideas I was like, wait a minute, I would have never thought of that. I would have never thought of that. That’s why I love The Round Table Talk Show. That is my passion. I really believe that great minds coming together having a roundtable discussion, we can figure it out. So, people who tune in and they watch the show, they already know what their problem is, but they don’t know how to fix it. They don’t have those great ideas like you, they would have never thought of those things. But guess what, if you’re a guest on the show, and you’re sharing your wisdom, and you’re sharing your expertise, they can take notes, and they can learn from you. So that little tidbit those ideas because the ideas are what they really need. They need ways to pivot Everyone knows that we have to pivot. That’s that’s not a secret. The secret is what what can we do. And so, they’re looking for the ideas?
Dr. Allen Lycka
Well, and one of the things they can do is, you know, I was fortunate to rate one of the bestselling books of the pandemic of 2020. It’s called The Secrets To Living A Fantastic Life available on Amazon.com and Amazon.ca. On Amazon.com, if you want a Kindle, you can get it for a buck. So, if you don’t have any money, a buck you should be able to get you know, it’s not anything. If you want to buy the real thing, get the real thing because paper is always better than just a Kindle any day. But I encourage everybody do that. And I’m not saying this for me. I’m saying this for you because really this little book has a lot of golden pearls. You know what forms a golden pearl Sharifah
Sharifah Hardie
I do not. Is it stress and pressure?
Dr. Allen Lycka
Well, let me let me explain. You know, golden pearls actually exist. They exist in only a couple of places, the Philippines and the Indonesian areas and they’re made special oysters. And those oysters when they get a little grain of sand inside their oyster cavity. They don’t like it, so they wall it off. And they put this wonderful material called luster and make this beautiful golden pearl. Now this golden pearl is so rare, it’s so exquisite. A single solitary perfect golden pearl costs about $10,000. So, it’s really miraculous but you know, Sharifah, you and I have golden pearls inside ourselves, and their golden pearls of wisdom. And they come out during stress, they come out during times when we need to produce them. And we can really dwell on them, even outside ourselves. If you don’t know your golden pearls, look at the book that we wrote there. Because Harriet and I, my coauthor put together this miraculous book that can help so many people. Also, you know, I loved your show, Sharifah, when you had me on it, there was five beautiful, empowered women on there, including, in addition to myself, and those women were so full of knowledge and life, that they will really have so much in them, that I think anybody just going to your show for one minute, would be able to find ways to overcome some of the hardships of their life.
Sharifah Hardie
I would definitely agree. And that’s why, you know, I kind of feel like, Oh, am I doing shameless self-promotion right now. And I’m like, you know what Sharifah, this is not about self-promotion because it’s not about me, it’s about getting the people the secrets, the information that they need to know. And I learned a long time ago, if you want to know how to do anything, you have to ask the people, you know, and that’s how I’ve been so successful. I’ve never been afraid, or, you know, I can’t talk to this person. I can’t, I want to know what you know, how did you become so successful? Dr. Allen, what did you do? So, I can create a path similar to yours to get to where I want to go. So, I asked the people who know,
Dr. Allen Lycka
well, let me tell you how I became so successful one is,
Sharifah Hardie
I want to learn,
Dr. Allen Lycka
I was very incompetent in what I did right at the beginning Sharifah. You know, when I became a doctor, first of all, I did not have the knowledge I do now, I did not have the benefits I do now. So, I went to others to learn them. And also, I wasn’t afraid to trying things. I wasn’t afraid of trying new things. And so, I bought my first laser. And the laser company said, you have to use it in this way on these things. And I found out that the laser company was 100% wrong in what they were teaching. So, I learned the right way by doing it, and then I taught others how to do. And then I bought another laser. And I found that laser company did not know anything either about lasers, and they didn’t know what to do. And I found that throughout my life that everything I had to do, and had to learn, I learned the hard way, the school of hard knocks. Have you ever gone to the school of hard knocks Sharifah?
Sharifah Hardie
I talked about it all the time, my alma mater, I talk about it all the time, because I give so much advice and talk to people. And I’ve done this, and I’ve done that. But then I say you know what, I have absolutely no degrees, I have no degrees in anything. I just, I haven’t gone to different universities, I haven’t finished, I actually went to college to be an accountant. People don’t understand that. But I didn’t complete it. But I went to the school of hard knocks I’ve been, I’ve built my first website in 1994, I was laid off eight times, I have raised millions of dollars, the last IPO idea, we raised $6 million. So, there are people with degrees who haven’t done half of the things that I have, and I’m not knocking it. But what I’m saying is that I have the experience to stand in it. And if I don’t know, I can go to expert and ask,
Dr. Allen Lycka
Well, you know, Sharifah you and I went to the same school and that school is the toughest school in the world. And you know why? It is?
Sharifah Hardie
Why?
Dr. Allen Lycka
Because it gives the test before it gives the lesson. And that test is right there, and you have to pass that test in order to get the lesson and that’s a tough one to do because, you know, that’s the hardest school in the world where it gives the test before you get the lesson.
Sharifah Hardie
Yes, yes – but you know what, let me just, I didn’t mean to cut you off. But let me just I just have to expand on that for a moment. Because I think one of the things that makes it so unique to get the test before the lesson is you have to be able to ask yourself in this situation, what is the right thing to do? And what is the best thing to do? And I think that’s when you start looking at people who have common sense. And you have people who have, you know, a lot of learning, let me just call it learning and more people with common sense and experience, not to knock education, in any form of fashion tend to go to the school of hard knocks. It’s like let me just kind of figure it out based like as a business consultant. One of the first things that I started doing was consulting people on just the internet. So, if someone back in the day wanted to install Yahoo Instant Messenger, you know who they call? Sharifah Hardie. Now on the phone, and I’m telling them, what do I do? And I say okay, what does it say this It says next. And so, I wind up sitting there, literally, not figuratively, literally saying, click Next. Click Next. Click Next. Click Next. And after we finish, they are like thank you Sharifah you’re just so wonderful. And I’m like, okay, you know all you need to do is click Next. But it’s a it’s a feeling you know that they need to feel because they have a fear of the unknown. And so that’s even when you go to my website, that’s what I stand by do not face the unknown alone, because I didn’t just read about it. I didn’t just study it. I’ve gone through it. I’ve done it. I’ve seen it. I’ve passed so many cycles of economic cycles in this time frame. Ooh, you wouldn’t believe it. Dr. Allen.
Dr. Allen Lycka
Well, I think I have because I’ve seen the same economic cycle. You know, every one of them was supposed to be the end of the world. You know, I think the last one was about five or six years ago, and CNN was telling us that the world was ending every 10 minutes, every five minutes every time they broadcast, the same show over and over and over again. And the world was ending, and I can’t remember what crisis it was, whether it was the.com crisis, or whether it was the mortgage crisis, or whether it was the previous crisis, or whether it was the oil crisis, or but you know, every crisis was meant to be the end of the world.
Sharifah Hardie
Yes. Yes.
Dr. Allen Lycka
And now we’re in the COVID crisis. And it is one of the toughest, I must admit, because it’s going so long. And it’s so hard to deal with, because, I mean, everything we knew six months ago, is 180 degrees from it right now. I mean, we’re not supposed to get together, we’re not supposed to touch each other. We’re not supposed to hug each other. We’re not supposed to speak to each other. We’re not supposed to do anything anymore, because it’s going to cause COVID to go around. And yes, to a certain extent is true. You know, you gotta be careful, because there’s a lot of ugliness with this one.
Sharifah Hardie
Yes, but you know what? I had to say it, I had to, I had to just say it again, there’s a blessing in every curse. I love absolutes. I want those people like, yeah, you shouldn’t have absolutes. It’s not always the never, but then I’m like, my favorite words are absolute. You know, there’s a blessing in every curse. And everything that you mentioned is true. But I saw this. In 1994. I didn’t know what I saw. And I didn’t know what I knew. I didn’t know how far ahead of my time I was, if I if I did, I’d have bought a whole bunch of one-word domains. I just bought them up. Because I’d be a trillionaire right now because I own everything. But I didn’t have that foresight to know where we were going. I just knew what I felt. I knew what my spirit told me. And I knew what made sense to me. So back in 1994, my drive was not to be successful my necessarily, or to build great companies and do raise millions. That was not my focus, though. One thing that I wanted to do was to be a stay-at-home mom. That’s it. That’s all that was the extent of my vision at that point. I wanted to hear my daughter’s first words, I want to see her take her first steps, you know. And so, I understood that the internet was the only way for me to have both to be able to survive, to earn a living, and to be a stay-at-home mom. And so now what has happened, because we have been in a society that has been just simply driven by finances, we were on the go, on the go, on the go. And we was always what? We were always out. Right. So, because of COVID it forced us to go in. So, I think although we can’t hug all of the people we want to hug, I know that there are more people at home that are getting those hugs that they need. They get to see mom more.
Dr. Allen Lycka
Sharifah today we can send them all a virtual hug How about that so that they can all be up to date and really be happier as a result of that. And I’m going to ask you for something and that is you have a seminar coming up on the internet coming up in a couple of weeks. Can you tell us a little more about that?
Sharifah Hardie
Oh my God, thank you for asking about that. I’m so excited about it. This this is my driving passion at the moment I go through spurts, but it is the Powered By Purpose Two Day Empowerment Teleconference. And it is amazing. The reason I wanted to put this together is I had met so many amazing people, and they were able to teach so many different things. So, I wanted to bring together all of these people to teach people how they do what they do or how to do like you for instance Dr. Allen, you are going to be there you are a presenter but guess what? You have a book and you’re teaching people secrets that will change their life
Dr. Allen Lycka
Well, I am going to teach them on two things if you don’t mind. One is I’m going to teach them on crisis management
Sharifah Hardie
Change their lives.
Dr. Allen Lycka
And I’m hoping that that people will overcome the crisis of solder in their lives right now. So, I’m going to encourage everybody to be there for that. And second one I’m going to teach him is The Secrets To Living A Fantastic Life, I’m going to teach them some secrets on that. And I’m going to teach them the secrets that I learned from almost dying. So, I hope everybody will be able to take that home and learn to deal with the adversity in their life, and take it home and really, really put those things and empower them to overcome these days that they’re facing right now.
Sharifah Hardie
Know what, Dr. Lycka I love the secrets. But I love the aspect of what to do during chaos. And that’s where I believe 99% of people go absolutely wrong. There’s, I’m telling you all my secrets, but there’s an expression that I live by. And it’s something that I heard Oprah Winfrey say, she said, most people when they don’t know what to do, they have to do something. She said, when I don’t know what to do, I don’t do anything. Until I know what to do. And in chaos, what we tend to do is either just kind of stumble around, or what do we do, we stick our heads in the sand like an ostrich and like and just kind of run scared. And that’s what a lot of people are doing right now. So, the fact that you can even, you’re even willing to offer them this information on what to do during chaos. But then Okay, here are the secrets to living this amazing, fantastic life. Because you can only through the challenges and the things that you’ve experienced Dr. Lycka, you know, and I’m sure you have some golden pearls that you are willing to share at this conference.
Dr. Allen Lycka
Oh yeah and I am going to share them with everybody. Now we’re just about at our end here Sharifah. So, if anybody wants to get in touch with you about this, or about this teleconference or anything else from you? How can they do so
Sharifah Hardie
What I would like to do is an I know we’re out of time. So just be brief is that I really would love for them to go ahead and schedule your sessions and focus on the individual sessions and developing those relationships. So, if they are watching this, I hope there’s some way somewhere on your website, maybe in your social media, where you have tickets available, but I want you to fill those sessions because this is information that they should not miss out on.
Dr. Allen Lycka
The easiest way to get in touch with me is either write me at Allen@DrAllenLycka.com or go to my website, DrAllenLycka.com. Simple, easy, you can get in touch with me there and I’d love to talk to you and be part of it. Come and join us. Now I got one last question. How do you have a fantastic life?
Sharifah Hardie
Talking to you talking to people like you every day. I mean what what could be bad? I love my life. I love the fact that I get to meet so many new people.
Dr. Allen Lycka
And this has truly made my day. It’s really picked me up from the doldrums and made me get through this difficult – those damn Gremlins that were facing us today.
Sharifah Hardie
Yes, but if anyone is interested in contacting me, please feel free you can visit the website at Ask Sharifah.com
Dr. Allen Lycka
Okay, love you Sharifah as always.