Announcer: 0:00

The following programming is sponsored by Marc J Bernstein. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of this station, its management or Beasley Media Group. Entrepreneur, author and financial consultant, Marc Bernstein helps high-performing entrepreneurial business owners create a vision for the future and follow through on their goals and intentions. Ang O Honorato is a business growth strategist who blends psychology and business together to create conscious leaders and business owners who impact the world. Founders Forum is a radio show podcast sharing the real stories behind entrepreneurship as founders discover more about themselves, while providing valuable lessons and some fun and entertainment for you. Now here's Marc and Ang.

Marc Bernstein: 0:42

Good morning America. How are you? Good morning Atlanta, georgia, where we have our guest today. Good morning Ang O Honorato in beautiful downtown Ballackinwood, pennsylvania. Always sunny in Bala Always sunny in Ballackinwood, or at least on Wednesdays, or at least some Wednesdays, at least occasional Wednesdays. Early summer Anyway here we are this morning, so good to see you all. This is our second show we're recording of the day and our theme today, which we're going to continue, is changes, because things are changing around us so much quicker. So there it is, there's our cue. There we go. Thank you, david Bowie, and I got that cue. e I've got to give credit again to my friend, ray Lowe, of the luckiest guy in the world Brand and his former podcast called Changing the Rules. His current one is called Breaking the Rules. You can hear it on most podcast streaming services, as you can hear Founders form and anyway. So we're going to talk about changes and I know, for me, I just feel like every day I wake up and it seems like there's more changes in the air, whether it's technology, whether it's politics, whether it's, you know, world socialization issues, whatever it is, changes are happening more rapidly than ever, and the last show we talked about the effects of AI, and I just want to get impressions from Ang and from Freda, who's our guest today, who I'll introduce in a minute, about how you're experiencing change right now and what it will have you do.

Ang Onorato: 2:24

Yeah, you know, different from the show this morning. When I think about change, you know, I read something a year or so ago that said, you know, in the Industrial Revolution took 100 years for massive change to happen, and then we got that down to, you know, about 32 years, and now it's down to seven days. And so when I think about that, it's reminding me the change in our work and our lives, but it's also just in our humanness, right? It's almost like, oh my gosh, how did we even get to where we are all of a sudden, right, and how do we adapt to that? And how do we catch up to the rate of change? I think is the big thing for me right now. How do we absorb it? How do we catch our breath? I think is a big area where I'm at right now.

Marc Bernstein: 3:03

So you've got more questions than answers. Exactly Got it, I guess my perceptions are questions.

Ang Onorato: 3:08

Yeah, and I get that.

Marc Bernstein: 3:10

I get that, because I feel like the same way, it's kind of like scraping and clawing, to kind of keep up with it a little bit. Freda, what are your thoughts on change and changes?

Freda Thomas, MBA, CPC, ACC, CPRW, ELI-MP: 3:18

And just share kind of lays the foundation in terms of how I think. Because with change, there's such great opportunity to explore the new right, because change just leaves the door open for opportunity, new thought, engagement in a different type of way. Because there's just this influx of things that are unknown, unparalleled, and what it's causing me to do is ask the questions about where do I want to be when I see this thing take its full circle, its 360, and where I'd like to be is on the positive end of change.

Marc Bernstein: 4:10

Knowing what I know of you, Freda, you will be on the positive end of change. Thank you, Marc. So Freda and I have gotten to know each other over the last few months and I will say, from LinkedIn. So all of us met on LinkedIn and many of our guests come from people we meet on LinkedIn, which is kind of an indication of change. You know, it's um, it was this thing that's out there for years and it's um. You know, I've been on it for many, many years, but only recently have I figured out how to connect with people in a positive way and for good, and one of the good that comes out of this is I have a manufacturer's group and I connect with a lot of people on that on LinkedIn. But Founders Forum radio show is really an outgrowth of connections from LinkedIn and a lot of great relationships have been made as a result. So I just wanted to say that. So let me introduce you to Freda Thomas, who's MBA, cpc, acc, cprw and Elimp, or Elimp what is that one?

Freda Thomas, MBA, CPC, ACC, CPRW, ELI-MP: 5:13

Elimp.

Marc Bernstein: 5:15

MP.

Freda Thomas, MBA, CPC, ACC, CPRW, ELI-MP: 5:15

Dash MP Elimp.

Marc Bernstein: 5:18

So Freda is a consultant, and she's here, I should say, though, because she has a distinguished entrepreneurial career.

Marc Bernstein: 5:26

So she's a coach who has been an entrepreneur and decided to use what she learned in her entrepreneurial affairs, and she holds two distinct coaching credentials, certified by both the International Coaching Federation and the Institution for Professional Excellence in Coaching. Additionally, she holds titles as a New York State Certified Business Advisor, certified Professional Resume Writer, energy Leadership Index Master Practitioner, and she's recognized as LinkedIn. There he goes again top voice in career path planning. Freda excels as a corporate trainer in HR-related disciplines, offering expertise in career and professional development and, beyond training, she provides personalized one-on-one coaching for career professionals and strategic counsel to high-growth enterprises, facilitating their scalability and success. Notably and this is to me one of the most impressive things Freda has proudly served as a business advisor for the Goldman Sachs One Million Black Women Black in Business program, showcasing her commitment to fostering success in the business community, and Freda is someone who stands out as a true winner, making impactful contributions to individual and corporate growth. That was a lot.

Ang Onorato: 6:42

Take a drink of water here, Marc, Boy. This woman's career is something.

Marc Bernstein: 6:48

Wow, and she's only 30 years old and she's done all that, or something like that Changing a lot. Anyway. So I am very interested. I want to hear about your growing up, because one of the things that you grew up in a very interesting church in Atlanta and you grew up with a very interesting set of parents and that influenced your earlier career choices, and so let's start with that, let's talk about that.

Freda Thomas, MBA, CPC, ACC, CPRW, ELI-MP: 7:12

Sure, sure. And I want to just say that, while Atlanta is where I grew up, I reside in New York.

Marc Bernstein: 7:19

City. I know that was my mistake. I know my mistake. Thank you for that.

Freda Thomas, MBA, CPC, ACC, CPRW, ELI-MP: 7:23

Yeah, yeah, yeah, so New.

Marc Bernstein: 7:24

York claims. Well, with your background on Zoom, I can't tell where you are. It doesn't look like New York City to me, so anyway, but you're right. I realized that as soon as I said it. Sorry, Freda.

Freda Thomas, MBA, CPC, ACC, CPRW, ELI-MP: 7:35

Yeah, no worries, no worries. And why didn't you come down to Philly? You're so close should have come to philly. I'm coming, oh you're coming.

Marc Bernstein: 7:47

I know not today, but yeah, you're coming, all right. Good, I want to meet you all in person. Need to do that. We will do it.

Freda Thomas, MBA, CPC, ACC, CPRW, ELI-MP: 7:50

Yeah, yeah, go ahead yeah, so growing up in atl and I was baptized in that church. So when Dr King took over the civil rights movement he was spearheading a church in Selma. However, it made sense for him to be in Atlanta to have that be the headquarters for the civil rights movement, and his father was getting on in age, so Dr King Jr took onus of being the pastor and I had the privilege of sitting there in those pews Sunday after Sunday, listening to this orator speech, pontificate, teach, educate and impact my life in ways that I can't even measure.

Marc Bernstein: 9:04

Yeah, we could stop there, and it would really be pretty profound at this point, yeah, so okay. So then there was your dad and his influence on you as an entrepreneur, right?

Freda Thomas, MBA, CPC, ACC, CPRW, ELI-MP: 9:19

So my father was an entrepreneur, imagining a Black man in the South owning and operating his own business and what was so unique about it? I would almost say novel. But in Atlanta at that time it was not novel for Black people to own their own businesses. It was actually quite common.

Freda Thomas, MBA, CPC, ACC, CPRW, ELI-MP: 9:47

My father was a man of trade. He ran a candy store for a Caucasian man on Auburn Avenue where Dr King's church was. He went back to school and learned how to tailor clothing and one of my favorite stories I think I share with you, Marc, was going with him to a fine women's store. He actually made a meat coat from pellets and I went with him to this fine women's store to fit this Caucasian woman with her meat coat. And I was about six or seven years old and I remember going up the side of the store, the steep stairs to the back of the store, because we couldn't go in the front. But I'm a little kid. All I know is I'm on an adventure with my dad and he and I are literally in the back of the store in the dressing room. I'm sitting on the floor playing with scraps of mink while my father is fitting this woman with a mink coat.

Marc Bernstein: 11:05

That's, I'm sure, a very impactful, very memorable experience is fitting this woman with a mink coat.

Ang Onorato: 11:10

That's, I'm sure, a very impactful, very memorable experience.

Marc Bernstein: 11:14

Talk about an imprint on your upbringing. So from there you went to school and you started some entrepreneurs. So tell us about, from that point on, what happened.

Freda Thomas, MBA, CPC, ACC, CPRW, ELI-MP: 11:24

Yeah, well, I mean, being around someone like that, who just built things from his hands, really informed me of the possibilities of life. And another favorite story is that because he had that kind of life that was very fluid and nontraditional. He picked me up from grade school where my mom had a nine to five and when I got home my favorite snacks were on the dining room table and if they weren't, my dad would say baby, what do you want for your snack?

Freda Thomas, MBA, CPC, ACC, CPRW, ELI-MP: 12:00

Right? And in my young mind I thought whatever you have to do to have the kind of life where you can have your snacks whenever you want, sign me up for that. So, having that influence and that picture embedded in my life of possibilities, abilities, right. I came here to study at the Fashion Institute of Technology and I was fortunate enough to meet people working in theater and film. I built costumes for shows like Savion Glovers, bring in the Noise, bring in the funk. I worked on Broadway as a wardrobe person. I worked with the Negro Ensemble Theater, samuel L Jackson before anybody knew him in the Soldiers' Play Denzel had just left the Soldiers' Play to go be a movie star and many other people I had the pleasure of working with. From that I started.

Marc Bernstein: 13:13

Alvin Ailey, I believe. Yes, dance company, yeah, yeah.

Freda Thomas, MBA, CPC, ACC, CPRW, ELI-MP: 13:17

And I also so crazy, I was going on the road to work with the production to be the wardrobe supervisor, gave up my apartment because I was going to be on the road to work with the production to be the wardrobe supervisor, gave up my apartment because I was going to be on the road for six months, went to stay with a friend and that production just did not come to fruition. I'm out of work, I'm staying with my girlfriend and her two little boys, with my girlfriend and her two little boys. And this is the advent of having an answering service. Someone left a voicemail saying XYZ person recommended you. I have an opening for wardrobe stylist for the Avenelli Rep Company. I interviewed with the stage manager. She happened to be from Atlanta. She was like if you want the job, we just hit it off. And I toured with Ali all over the US, the French, caribbean, and I did that for six months.

Marc Bernstein: 14:26

Fascinating Caribbean and I did that for six months. Fascinating.

Freda Thomas, MBA, CPC, ACC, CPRW, ELI-MP: 14:31

And now that led into.

Marc Bernstein: 14:32

I think your next thing, greeting cards. Greeting cards which you know I'm very interested in because that's a business I grew up in and we've talked about that. Yeah, and because I just mentioned it. I may have mentioned this to you, but my father serviced all the stores around Philadelphia little corner stores and drug stores and things like that.

Marc Bernstein: 14:48

And, depending on the neighborhood, he had to be heavy. He was one of the first distributors, I think, at least in this region, into cards for African-Americans, because that was there were the neighborhoods that he worked a lot in. So it was, uh, yeah, so and I I know, similar to some similar but different path to where you went with it.

Freda Thomas, MBA, CPC, ACC, CPRW, ELI-MP: 15:07

So tell us about that. Yeah, yeah. So as a result of being with the Alvin Ailey dancers, I would just do illustrations. I would take the scraps from the costumes, put some glue on it and they were like you need to take these to stores. On it and they were like you need to take these to stores. So the first place I went was a place called Mart 125 on 125th Street in Harlem, and I knew nothing about starting a business. I just took them up there and showed them to people and they were like how much are they? And I was like which are they? And I was like, uh, $2., and so I started this wholesale business which I ran for 10 years, did high six figures, had 12 employees, sold to Target, tj Maxx, nordstrom's, marshall's, macy's, had distributors in Japan and London selling my product.

Marc Bernstein: 16:09

How many people did you have ultimately making the cards? You obviously weren't making them yourself at that point.

Freda Thomas, MBA, CPC, ACC, CPRW, ELI-MP: 16:14

Yeah, so I hired art students from Pratt Parsons. My office was on the Brooklyn Navy Yard, so those schools were close enough that they could just walk over right. Perfect, yeah. And people yeah. And also, fortuitously, the cards had fabric applique to them. Initially I was doing everything by hand, but there was a die cutter on the Brooklyn Navy Yard. He made the shapes for us so we could start manufacturing. We used spray adhesive and my student workers would come in. We'd have our little assembly line. One person would spray the cards, the next person would take tweezers and lay the fabric down on the card. So probably Marc a total of seven part-time students. I had four full-time students and the remaining eight were sales reps from throughout the country.

Marc Bernstein: 17:14

And, by the way, if you translated the dollars and revenues you did to today's dollars, that's several million dollars of revenues a year from that little idea, right, I mean that's pretty impressive. It's something and, by the way, I think that's a really good chance for us to take a quick break. So we'll be right back with Freda Thomas.

Announcer: 17:34

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Announcer: 18:09

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Marc Bernstein: 18:43

Remember, consultfltcom, remember consultfltcom and we're back on Founders Forum. As usual, our time is going by quickly and we have maybe 10 minutes or more to talk to Freda Thomas, so we're going to get right into it. Freda, obviously you learned a lot. We've been having this conversation lately. That being an entrepreneur is not a small. It's not a smooth ride. You know things. Things happen along the way and there's struggles and challenges. What happened, what challenges did you, did you have and what did you learn from being an entrepreneur?

Freda Thomas, MBA, CPC, ACC, CPRW, ELI-MP: 19:20

sure so um the challenges I had in the greeting card business um people stopped buying greeting cards.

Marc Bernstein: 19:30

I know that one.

Freda Thomas, MBA, CPC, ACC, CPRW, ELI-MP: 19:30

They started making greeting cards Right, and with that being my first real and true business, I should have given up a lot sooner than I did and, quite frankly and openly, I stayed in it much too long because my identity was so tied to it and, as a result of it, not only did the business fail, but I failed to the point, Marc and Ang, at one point I was living in my office Now, mind you, they turn the heat off in the winter at four o'clock because this is an industrial complex that they turned into an office space. So what I learned from that is it is so essential to be able to recognize when you need to let it go and figure out how you can reinvent yourself and or pivot.

Marc Bernstein: 20:31

So recognize change that's what we're talking about. See it coming and react to it and do what you need to do. Yeah.

Ang Onorato: 20:38

It's not just about recognizing the change.

Ang Onorato: 20:41

You know, Freda, and thank you for sharing that Cause I don't think that we I don't think even entrepreneurs of the world does enough of that and say, well, I learned a couple lessons, but to be very vulnerable and say, you know, it was an amazing thing that you started and then not recognizing when to get out of it.

Ang Onorato: 20:58

And we talked earlier today about this idea of having the vision right, being able to we don't know what the future will hold, but just being a leader, an entrepreneur that has a mechanism in the way that you might see what might be affecting me, my work, my business, what's needed in the market. You know all of that. So what I'd like you to talk a little bit about and you and I obviously have a very similar background, different journeys, but the same kind of work, right. So very diverse backgrounds and what we do today and how you work with leaders and things of that nature so tell us a little bit about, in that mindset of how do you be visionary, how do you help people get out in front of their careers, their businesses, what's the approach that you take that helps people understand that?

Freda Thomas, MBA, CPC, ACC, CPRW, ELI-MP: 21:42

So one of the things that I'm thank you for the question, Ang, because I think this is so important within the context of the kind of work you and I do One of the things that I am imploring my clients to do is to figure out where they fit within the context of artificial intelligence, make yourself know where your industry is going, start thinking ahead, not just in this moment, but anticipate where this technology can take you, and figure out what will be your niche, what is your unique differentiator? Where can you have a competitive edge as an employee? Where can you resolve the critical searing needs of the organizations, the type of organizations that need someone who has your skills and expertise?

Ang Onorato: 22:45

Yeah, I think that's really important because I think it's not just about adding just more technical or functional skills, right, I think it's about how do you learn to be impactful, how to think, how to be strategic, how to get people on board with that way of thinking. Let AI do certain functions for you, while you can impact you know, make your impact in a very different way. So I think that's really important. And you know, I know we're kind of nearing the end of the show already, but when you are speaking with your, you know your clients and they come and tell stories from their companies and their business, their experience. What are you hearing today that might be different than, say, even five years ago? Back to the changes what changes are you hearing when you're talking to people around? What are they experiencing inside their workplaces right now?

Freda Thomas, MBA, CPC, ACC, CPRW, ELI-MP: 23:28

Burnout is huge, right, because companies are not replacing the staff that left during that great migration during COVID, right? So people are doing the job of six people, they're working around the clock, they're not getting any more money and they're experiencing burnout in a way that's impacting their emotional well-being.

Ang Onorato: 23:57

Yeah, yeah, yeah, 100%. I think that there's a whole bunch of other shows tapped into that part, right the effect of this. So, Freda, as you think about your business and the impact that you are making, bringing in all of what made you, you, your origin story, tell us about your three-year vision. Where is your business? Where do you see the impact that you're making in the world in three years from now?

Freda Thomas, MBA, CPC, ACC, CPRW, ELI-MP: 24:19

So I'm really leaning into what my clients are telling me their critical needs are, and I am now in the process of building out learning management systems so that, after the coaching, they can buy into subscription services. What I'd like to see is that those subscription services turn to intellectual properties that I can sell to other organizations. I want to position myself to be that sought after person to solve the internal problems that organizations are experiencing not understanding how to relate to this new workforce, because this new workforce is having demands that are quite different from the traditional workforce. And I also want to be able to allow the one-on-one coaching to be dynamic in a way that it influences people to be their own thought leaders, to chart their own paths, rather than allowing the corporations to dictate who they are and how they are going to show up in the marketplace.

Ang Onorato: 25:34

Yeah, I think that's really important because that's a whole other topic we don't have time to dive into today. I think that's really important because that's a whole other topic we don't have time to dive into today. But I think it's not just the employees, but how do the companies themselves, you know, how are they thinking and orienting? So I think there's a lot of potential over the next three, five, 10 years. For sure, Marc, you had a couple of closing round questions.

Marc Bernstein: 25:53

Yeah, time is going fast so we got to do this quickly. But, freed, I know you're a reader. What are you reading currently?

Freda Thomas, MBA, CPC, ACC, CPRW, ELI-MP: 26:02

I'm reading Dory Clark's and it's a bunch of X's and O's and of course the title isn't coming to me right now, but I'm a big fan of hers.

Marc Bernstein: 26:15

Oh, the Long Game's the name of the book and, um, what are your favorite books of all time?

Freda Thomas, MBA, CPC, ACC, CPRW, ELI-MP: 26:25

uh, why should white guys have all the fun? By reginald e lewis, that's one of my favorite I want to read that.

Marc Bernstein: 26:33

I want to find out what fun I'm missing. Anyway, go ahead.

Freda Thomas, MBA, CPC, ACC, CPRW, ELI-MP: 26:40

And he's my hero. I mean, he just reached such heights, you know, as a successful black man. And the other book is it's not a business book by Zora Neale Hurston. Their Eyes Were Watching God.

Marc Bernstein: 26:59

That sounds I don't. I've heard the name but and it sounds like a profound book, but I don't know. Well, I almost take those kind of books and think they are business books.

Ang Onorato: 27:07

Right, because that informs the individuals that make up the companies that you work with, right? I think that's the way that I see it. So if they can tap into that, inner wellness is just as important as the X's and O's.

Marc Bernstein: 27:20

Well, it's all connected. I'm actually listening on Audible to the meditations of Marcus Aurelius, that I saw something and that was referred by you don't believe this, but Jerry Seinfeld, who's gotten some profound perspectives on life from reading this, so I started listening to him, ryan Halliday too. There's a ton of great stuff in there. Anyway, that's it for today's Founders Forum. Freda, it was great to have you here today. We really appreciate you being here and I knew it was going to be a lot of fun, and we'll see you soon in Philly.