Transcript
WEBVTT
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Their pain.
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They lost their memories and it was at that moment that I realized someone's pain was greater than mine.
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I mean, we were all in the same boat, but I realized I was single, like who cares.
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Yeah.
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And that's when I started to kind of look around and say I think that's when we get our best inspirations, is when we think of we're putting others first.
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Yes.
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And that is when I said okay, I'm going to do something to help, but I don't know what it is yet.
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I didn't have the demolition.
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What is going on?
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L&m family.
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We are back with a super inspirational story.
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Well, I'm inspired.
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At least, for sure, I'm going to get to know, with you listening, miss Simone.
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She is the founder and president of Demo Diva.
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Y'all got to check out her website because it's like fire, and there's no doubt in my mind that this is going to be a heartfelt, meaningful conversation, because the little that I've gathered is that she turned the devastation of Hurricane Katrina into the source of inspiration to help people restart their life, and specifically the name of her website, demo Diva.
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She's transformed the idea of demolition into a source of hope, progress and rebirth, and that don't happen by accident.
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I'm already getting chills just thinking about what she's going to bring to us and, with that, folks.
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If you're new, this is the Learnings and Missteps podcast.
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You're about to get to know Miss Simone and the lessons that she learned along the way on her path to success.
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So, ms Simone, how are you doing?
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Well, I'm doing good, I'm doing great.
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It's the 19th anniversary month of Hurricane Katrina and I can't believe I have weathered it so years yeah.
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My goodness, well heck, so let's just dive into it.
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I pulled out some stuff from your website and what I gather is Hurricane Katrina was kind of the epicenter of where you're at today.
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Yeah, yeah, that was where it all started after Hurricane Katrina, but when you look back over 19 years, there's a lot of failures, a lot of failures.
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So there's many successes along the way.
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The Hurricane Katrina story was just really the way where it started.
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But I like how you said something at the beginning to measure success, like what is success, what is the pinnacle we're all going for, and so those are the questions I'd like to explore with you today.
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My goodness.
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Good, because that's my favorite subject, that's what I love to dive into.
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And so this because you're a human being, right, you were a human being.
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Before Katrina hit, that was like a turning point for you, or maybe it could be more like of an anchoring point, right.
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But before Hurricane Katrina, what were you?
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Did?
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You always know you were going to start Demo Diva?
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What was the pre-Katrina Simone doing?
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Okay, that's a great question.
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So I'll tell you where I was wired as a young person and I was in my very early 30s when Katrina struck but I really always thought that I was going to be a missionary.
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I grew up I know I grew up with.
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My faith is huge.
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It was a huge part of my life and I always had visions that I would be like serving Jesus in Brazil, where I was born.
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My dad is Brazilian, my mom is from New Orleans Her serving him in an African nation.
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I love Africa and so that was sort of like the tape that was playing in my head in my formative years.
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And so after college I went to go work for an inner city ministry here in New Orleans.
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It was in the Desire Housing Project, and so I worked there serving with education through tutoring programs and to more challenged community where they didn't have access.
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So Tulane and Loyola college students would come in and tutor.
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So I worked in that capacity in college and after college.
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So I worked in that capacity in college and after college and unfortunately I just realized I was really like tied to my parents.
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I did not want to leave home.
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I think that the storyline of being a foreign missionary was more exotic than the actual doing it.
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I would like dabble and talk to people, but to people.
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But I just didn't want to leave home.
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I was very close to my family.
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So I felt like God said no problem, I'll bring the mission field to you.
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And so that's really kind of like my heart was there.
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My heart was to serve my community and so after doing those few years in the ministry locally, I said it's time to go make some money.
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I got to move out of my parents' house.
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I mean, I lived at home through college.
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It was like it's time to grow up.
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So, I went into the hospitality industry.
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I worked as a corporate event planner for 10 years.
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I did conventions, inbound, selling Southeast Louisiana, our beautiful culture, our bayous, our music, our food.
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I mean we have a very distinct culture here in Louisiana which is an amalgamation of African, creole, caribbean, french, spanish, american.
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So American was a culture that came from the Northeast Canadian I mean, we were two Canadian brothers who really founded us.
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So all of this was like I was so excited about my faith and my culture and I just embrace it all and life can.
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Sometimes there's pivots in life that just like allow you to go pivot and then there's the things that just take you down.
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Oh yeah.
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Katrina was a take me down.
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It took us all down and in a matter of a day, life changed.
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We were not expecting Hurricane Katrina it was.
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That trajectory was going to the panhandle of Florida.
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The night of August 26th was the first time any of us heard about Hurricane Katrina.
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It was a Friday.
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We were all going around our business.
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Everybody was, you know saints game.
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Oh yeah, there's a hurricane in the Gulf.
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Yeah, yeah, We'll cook some gumbo.
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We'll be out of, maybe be out of electricity.
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Right.
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Well, in a matter of hours, and I mean from like 5 pm to midnight in that window we were blessed, unlike people who suffered tornadoes and fires.
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We were given a window to prepare and that was it.
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It was like pack your birth certificate and your jewelry and your dogs and children and roll out.
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Go yeah.
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It was like that and so it was surreal.
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I did exactly that.
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I literally put all of my paperwork, the title to my house and all of that stuff in a rolling ice chest.
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And I'm like 30 years, 32 years old at the time and I'm like all right, cat, dog comforter, a change of clothes for three days, and let's put it all in a rolling ice chest and I got in my car and life would never be the same ever.
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New Orleans and every region, every parish touching Orleans, parish, was affected, affected.
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No electricity.
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I mean, we were down for the count for 18 months, there was no conventions, I was laid off, I was flooded, my parents were flooded, my brother was flooded, and there's the story.
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Yeah, my goodness, that's pretty darn dramatic and I think I love the way you framed it.
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There's some things that help us pivot and some just take us down, but clearly this was not, this did not take you down.
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The fact that you have a heart of service, that was maybe the rock you stood on to lay a new path and start experiencing success.
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Yeah, Absolutely, absolutely.
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It was already ingrained in me.
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I was wired with a heart and a compassion for community.
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Community, just the word.
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Community has many onion layers to that Layers and layers.
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It does and it's the people who you do life with.
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That's community and it's doing life.
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It's not an agenda of doctrine.
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It's who is your neighbor next door who cares what his politics is, who cares the car he drives.
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It's not religion and it can be.
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I mean, it's not only that.
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It's really like who do you love and who makes your world more vibrant?
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Just a little parentheses here across the street from my house where I'm sitting right now, there's a man and he's the only person in this entire neighborhood that pretty much is like sort of a hoarder and he's colorful, and I went through a crisis here in my house.
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I was alone, it was COVID and everybody in the neighborhood for years and years we all would fuss because he had cars in the driveway and his grass would get 10 feet high.
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Yeah, but, but before we get to learn more about Miss Simone, I want to give the L&M family member shout out to.
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Ms Megan Shapiro dropped this comment earlier this week.
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She says this was some of the most action-oriented, impactful five and a half hours I've spent.
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Thanks to you and Jennifer for creating such an amazing opportunity for shared learning.
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Megan is a baller and what she's talking about is the cultivation crew and it wasn'ter.
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And what she's talking about is the cultivation crew and it wasn't.
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Five and a half hours all in one sitting.
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It was over three separate calls.
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We had a ton of fun, Megan.
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I appreciate you taking the time and hanging out with us.
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When we found ourselves alone.
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We were the only two people here during COVID.
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Everybody seemed to stay away.
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We started to exchange food and he's an older man by himself and I was single by myself.
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I found a friendship in him and you've got to look beyond the prejudices and the preconceived ideas to quickly jump when a crisis hits.
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Whether it's COVID and you got these judgments on a neighbor Because, guess what he came to my rescue and I think that was the mentality that I was in.
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I think when you are trying to get to a place of success, you're really looking at other people's pains.
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What's a pain point for someone?
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In my community?
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And I'll jump into my story right here we were hit by Hurricane Rita.
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17 days later, we had more water.
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It eventually started draining out faster, but it took that long for us to get going and then it was the chaos of where do we go?
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Katrina was not a natural disaster, Just to remind your listeners.
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Katrina was the failure of walls built by the government.
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Our levee system collapsed.
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The sheet tiles were not driven into the clay bed far enough and the walls laid down.
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This was not like a tornado in other cities.
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We're a fishbowl.
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We're 10 feet below sea level in parts of our city, so that's what happened.
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Then, when the water was gone, everybody was paralyzed for months, not weeks.
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Months and months Do we rebuild?
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And where's the assurance of the government and all the so?
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There was paralysis time, so we all had to drag our trash to the street, we had to empty out our house and we had to bring everything to the street side.
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Yeah.
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So the government could come by and scoop it up.
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So everybody, over a period of time it took months.
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Everybody would come in at their pace.
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They were evacuated in other cities to come in and bring their personal belongings out to the exposure of everyone rotten clothes and photo albums and all that.
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Well, my neighbors brought their stuff out.
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So I was dumpster diving before I even owned dumpsters and I was looking in their trash pile and I noticed that they had a baby album in their wedding album.
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And as I was looking I was kind of they weren't around.
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I was rooting through their trash pile to see what goodies can I find and when I saw their wedding and baby album it really really spoke to me and I said I didn't lose a wedding album.
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And I said they're paying, they lost their memories and it was at that moment that I realized someone's pain was greater than mine.
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I mean, we were all in the same boat but I realized I was single, like who cares, like I do, to help someone else.
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Yeah.
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And that's when I started to kind of look around and say I think that's when we get our best inspirations, is when we think of we're putting others first.
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Yes.
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And that is when I said okay, I'm going to do something to help, but I don't know what it is yet.
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I didn't have the demolition.
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Like you, had a calling.
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I need to do something, and it's connected to this.
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Correct, correct.
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And because I speak Portuguese, I had access to labor.
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There was a huge amount of Brazilians from Boston, so Boston is a huge Brazilian community, and they all came down to New Orleans.
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I mean like massive amounts of Brazilians.
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To come help.
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Carpenters, floor installers, granite guys to come help.
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Yeah.
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I never thought this one teeny, weeny skill that I had to speak Portuguese of all languages would lend itself in this atmosphere.
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Yeah.
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So these two Brazilian brothers start helping me.
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I'm the first one on my block to start gutting my house.
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I'm like I can't afford to demolish my house.
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Let's just gut the house, empty the house.
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I'm going to sit there and look at my studs and figure out what do I do next.
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Yeah.
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Well, everything is contagious, being positive contagious, being negative is contagious.
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And so I was positive.
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I said I'm coming home, I can't afford to go anywhere else.
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This is my home, these are my people, and I'm here.
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I was the first one to gut, and that got us going.
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Those two Brazilian brothers.
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I love to share this story it's part of my dialogue everywhere I go, that I learned the American dream from two Brazilian brothers, those two Brazilian brothers.
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I was sitting on a five gallon paint can and I'm holding my head and I'm like, oh my God, what am I going to do?
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What am I going to do Like I don't have a husband?
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I don't have a husband, I don't have a family, I don't have a job, I don't have a community.
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And they said what is your problem?
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What's your problem?
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He said you are an American.
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You have every right to own your own business.
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He said, simone, we came here and everything we own is out in our van.
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We bought it with our own two hands.
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He said, with the work of our hands.
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And on Friday nights we drink our beer and eat our steak.
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And do you know how happy we are?
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Man, jessi, fire in the belly, exactly.
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Wake up, girl.
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I'm going to tell you I have a college education.
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Okay, my dad was a doctor in Brazil.
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Okay.
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And he grew up on a very modestly, and I grew up a very nice middle class income life.
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Sure, but I think that there are things that get lost in the American education system.
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Oh yeah.
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And I think that there is a new mantra out there, and that new mantra is technical community colleges.
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I think the new mantra is success does not have to be only through a four-year education.
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It can be with the work of your hands, and those two brothers showed me the way and they ignited a fire in my belly that I didn't know was there and I am so immensely grateful for them.
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So, before I move on from those two brothers, one of those brothers married a Harvard medical doctor, nice, and he went on to be the very successful lead carpenter on a museum here, very successful lead carpenter on a museum here.
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So it was a museum dedicated to slavery in the South.
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And so I just I'm so proud of him.
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His name is Jim and he's very successful and happy.
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But from that point on, that's when I said, I looked around and they said help other women who were scared like you.
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And that's when I said, okay, I'm going to come up with a name for demolition targeting women.
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And, to my pleasant surprise, I started Demo Diva with $250, a $30 box of business cards, a $50 pair of magnets to go on my car, make me look legit as I drove on down the road, and yard signs.
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And I put the yard signs out on properties that I didn't demolish, Like other men and like semi.
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They weren't even construction companies, demolition companies.
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They were like guys like that pulled their excavators in from their farms and they were all over the city but they did not know how to capture the marketing.
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And in my business in hospitality.
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All I knew was brand brand, brand, get your name on that brand, the party brand, whatever it is.
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So I knew brandy pretty well, and so I looked around.
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I saw these nice sandy lots, and in one week I put out a hundred yard signs yeah, and it looked like I did a hundred demolitions.
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So your phone started ringing.
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Phone started ringing.
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So that is the background on the how we got going.
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Yeah, you made some phenomenal points, simone, that I want to make sure the L&M family doesn't miss.
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You talked about community.
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Community is the people we do life with.
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Like that's a t-shirt, sister, or a neck tattoo.
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I'm kind of every now and then I think about my neck tattoo.
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I like that.
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It's so powerful, right, like cause, yes, that's exactly what it is, we don't need to complicate it.
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The other thing you pointed out is the two brothers straight up said girl, what's wrong with you?
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You're an American, you have.
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I think we take for granted how much autonomy we have as an individual.
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Like yes, there are things right, we all have friction, we all have things that we have to overcome and dynamics and da da, but we can make things happen with our bare hands, which is what you did.
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And then you talked about oh man.
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Wait, let me jump in right there.
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It's not about working necessarily with your hands, because I think that there is a way to work smarter, not harder, but there was a stigma that seeped in somewhere along the way that to be a welder, be a pipe fitter, was less than.
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Yes.
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And now the way that we work remotely or contractually or subbing things out is that you can be a king of your kingdom and yet still be an Indian in someone else's.
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For sure.
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And just even in the last oh my goodness, the last 10 years, how things have changed in that regard.
