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Meet Sarena Hess of Women For Greatness in Bakersfield

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Today we’d like to introduce you to Sarena Hess.

Sarena, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
When I was younger, I was so frustrated because I felt like I had no tangible skills. I wasn’t good at math, or sports, and I didn’t have any artistic ability. I was lost and felt like I didn’t really know what I should be doing. It wasn’t until I realized that God gave me a voice. A voice to use to motivate, teach, and empower women to chase after their own unique greatness. My gift was speaking. And what that looks like today is different than what I ever thought I would be doing with my life, but that’s okay. Life doesn’t all have to go according to plan. Sometimes God has better things in store.

Today, my work is centered around teaching women to live a bold life. To live a life chasing Greatness. I believe that every woman was Made for Greatness and it is their responsibility to kindle that fire in their life. It is their responsibility to carve out the time, to get better at the skills, and to believe in themselves enough to be brave and chase after their “thing.”

Through my Podcast, my online e-course, and my Instagram community I teach and empower women to chase after greatness in their own unique way with their own unique life. It’s the most fulfilling thing I ever could have done or chosen to do with my life.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
At 19, I had just gotten married, all my close friends had moved away to college, and I felt lost in life. That season felt rough for me personally. I remember though I wanted to help women but I didn’t know how. I wanted to share my stories that were so embarrassing that it made my stomach tie up in knots because I really believe in the power of vulnerability. So I tried multiple different things and failed.

I tried started a Fitness based youtube channel which totally flopped. I tried opening up a bath bomb business because I loved bath bombs myself. I tried writing a book. I thought about opening up a coffee shop. Eventually the common thread kept floating back to me. It’s like the universe was holding up a sign to me that said:
“Sarena, you’re good at speaking.
Stop trying to do or be everything else.
Just do what you were meant to do.”

So within a year of realizing that I launched my podcast Women For Greatness where I began sharing hard stories of women who climb into entrepreneurship, women who overcome hard life traumas like sexual abuse, alcohol abuse, sex trafficking, and women who struggle with imposter syndrome and body image. Basically Women who are chasing greatness in their own unique way and unique life.

Women For Greatness – what should we know? What do you do best? What sets you apart from others?
So my work is my voice. The way that I communicate into the world is what I do and I communicate a variety of ways, but here are the three main ways.
1. Through my podcast called The Women For Greatness Podcast.
2. With my online E-course called The Confidence Course.
3. By “microblogging” or writing really long and intentional captions on Instagram.

My work is centered around teaching women how to be confident within life and within their creative business dreams. My goal with everything that I do is to teach and show women that they are powerful and capable of pursuing scary things in their life. I created my podcast to provide a safe community to hear real stories. To hear real struggles. There have been hard conversations on the podcast and I wanted to make the show real and vulnerability so that whoever is listening can know that they are not alone. And someone that is just like them has overcome a hardship similar to theirs and came out on top.

The Confidence Course was created as a result of microblogging on Instagram and releasing podcast episodes I felt like women wanted more. They wanted more tangible skills and ways to dealing with negative thoughts. They needed help dealing with toxic friends. And they needed help tacking those big goals that they had for their life. They needed help believing in themselves and having the confidence to do hard and scary things. So I created The Confidence Course as a way to teach and empower women to grab life by the “you know what” and fully go for it. The Confidence Course is the thing that I am most proud of so far in my career because it is a real and tangible way for women to grow and fully live into the Greatness is inside of them.

And how that looks in what I create is: I have a Podcast, Women For Greatness, I have an online e-course “The Confidence Course”, I have a mental wellness column in the Bakersfield Life Magazine, and I do a lot of micro-blogging on Instagram to try and give a burst of encouragement or hope to meet women where they are at.

And as I shared more and more of these amazing stories I started to hear back from my little online community. They started to say “Sarena, I want to chase after my business idea or live this type of lifestyle but I’m afraid. I’m afraid I will fail, or that people will make fun or me, or that I can’t do it. And I realized that my little community, my friends were struggling with confidence. So I created a course to teach.

What is “success” or “successful” for you?
Success to me is impact. And impact looks like someone I’ve never met Dm’ing me on Instagram saying that this podcast episode changed her life. Or it’s someone telling me that taking my Course changed their life and empowered them to make major shifts in their life. Success to me is about reaching into the life of one person and seeing them made better because of something I worked hard to create. Success is not found in a specific dollar amount or the brand of clothes you wear. It’s how you are making other people feel around you and how you are living your life.

Other things that mark success to me are the quality of my life. Am I happy? Am I nourishing and taking care of this one body that I have? Am I spending time to take breaks and brainstorm and get excited about how amazing life is? Do I actually have time to relax and spend time with family and friends? Or am I working myself to the ground 24/7?

Success isn’t just the money. It’s not just the house. Success is being well rounded and an individual and making sure always that you are creating a contribution to others around you.

Contact Info:

Image Credit:
Photos were taken by Jennifer Varner Photography, Joy Kamel, and Ben Hess Photography

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