Opportunity Knocks by EmpowHer Purpose Michelle Valenzuela Wolf

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Do you seek balance in your day to day life? ⚖️ Do you struggle to stay organized and on track? 💁‍♀️ Well, this is the interview for you!

I’m super excited for this week's Opportunity Knocks podcast featuring Michelle Beyo, CEO and founder of FINAVATOR, an award-winning Payments and Future of Finance consultancy. 💰💵 Michelle and I became fast friends at Women’s Entrepreneurship Day in NY at the United Nations this past November. She was one of the featured speakers and is a leader in the Fintech industry. I love to continue to learn and found myself truly engrossed in the Fintech space, clearly an area that’s more than expanding.💲

Michelle Beyo has won multiple awards including the “Top 30 Best CEOs in 2021” by the Silicon Valley Review, “Women in Fintech Global Powerlist” 2021, and “Most Influential Leader in FinTech Consulting 2020 - Canada” by Corporate Vision. With over 20 years of extensive industry experience, Michelle started FINAVATOR as she is passionate about payments and financial inclusion. She has helped to drive innovation across the retail payments space, and supported the growth industry leaders across North America. 🛍️📈

In this interview, we discuss -
💰Criteria for success 🏅
💰Giving back to the world 🌎 
💰Striving for balance ⚖️
💰Commitment to yourself  💪
💰Setting boundaries 🚧
💰Life lessons as an entrepreneur & CEO 👩‍💼

Michelle, I’m grateful for you! 💖 Your calm approach to life shines through on this podcast and I know our guests will learn from your positivity. 😌 I love to celebrate entrepreneurs like you on Opportunity Knocks and thank you for sharing your expertise. Can't wait to host you in LA in the future!🤞Check out Michelle’s story and follow her on LinkedIn. www.michellebeyo.com or www.finavator.com 

The Opportunity Knocks podcast is back this week with an incredibly delicious guest, Tara Bench! 🙂 Tara has created thousands of original recipes that inspire people to spend more time in the kitchen, and enjoy food with friends and family. She has over 20 years of experience working as a Food Editor at Martha Stewart Living and Ladies’ Home Journal magazines. Tara is the author of Live Life Deliciously: Recipes For Busy Weeknights And Leisurely Weekends, and Delicious Gatherings: Recipes To Celebrate Together. She creates recipes and beautiful food styling for magazines, books, television, and food brands and has appeared on the Today Show, the Martha Stewart show, Fox and Friends, KSL Studio 5, the Food Network, and other video series, and shares recipes and cooking tips with others on her blog - TaraTeaspoon.com. 

Tara is a genuinely good person and it comes across in the many secrets to success she shares with us including:
🍰 why starting from the bottom is the best path to success
🍰 why kindness was a key ingredient to her rise to the top
🍰 why she emphasizes continuous learning if you want to achieve great things
🍰 why staying on top of trends is important and can set you apart from competition
🍰 the difference between being open to opportunity and seeking it out

And some delicious stuff like,
🍰 who is her favorite chef or one she really looks up to
🍰 how to keep your own recipes new and exciting
🍪 and of course, her favorite recipe she ever created! 

Tara, the world needs more people like you. You light up every room just as you did this podcast and I know my guests are happy just listening to you, excited to practice your tips for success, and checking out tarateaspoon.com for all of your delicious recipes. You're exactly the type of entrepreneur we celebrate on Opportunity Knocks and I want to thank you for sharing your expertise with us. Can't wait to gather with you in the near future!

Follow Tara's journey and get access to some amazing recipes and so much more at @tarateaspoon on Instagram!

Happy Thursday! And welcome back to a truly fun and enlightening episode of the Opportunity Knocks podcast. 🤗 My guest this week is the renowned actress, Sally Pressman, best known for her roles in Army Wives, Younger, Grey's Anatomy, and Good Girls (amongst many other incredible roles - too many to list them all). 🎬 Believe it or not, Sally is the first actress on the Opportunity Knocks podcast and as the first, she's made it really hard to top! 🍿

Our discussion was both fascinating and enlightening both in terms of her work in Hollywood and also regarding her views on life, family, success, and especially control - a topic that I released a blog on yesterday (good timing) and one that we dug into deeply during our chat. 🙌 She will open your eyes to so much and this episode will truly have you living a more fulfilling life.

Big shoutout to Lauran Parrish Walker, the Founder of ParrishLA & Chief Product Officer of Rachel Zoe, Inc., who introduced me to this INCREDIBLE woman. Sally, you are such a beautiful soul and light in my life, and someone I am so grateful to now call my friend. I could have spent forever talking to you and probably will in the future. 🙂

Don't forget to like and subscribe to the podcast so you never miss one of my amazing guests! 💝

Can you believe it's already February?! We're starting off the 2nd month of the year with a POWERHOUSE female entrepreneur, a good friend of mine, and someone who has an endless amount of advice and inspiring stories for my fellow entrepreneurs! This week on the Opportunity Knocks podcast, I sat down with Heather Turner, the CEO and Co-founder of Tamarack Capital Partners. Heather is a self-made rockstar who has taken a non-linear path to the success she's achieved which is one of the reasons her story is so valuable.

Heather has been involved in several billion dollars of real estate transactions throughout her career and has worked for some of the most storied companies in the world including The Walt Disney Company, Goldman Sachs, and even the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In her current role as the head of Tamarack, she oversees the acquisition, development, and management of hospitality real estate assets. The firm is currently invested in and manages assets valued at approximately $1 billion. She serves on a number of boards, both professional and philanthropic, and is a guest lecturer on real estate investments. Simply put, she's very accomplished, so gracious with her knowledge, and loves to help others seek out the best versions of themselves.

During our chat, Heather provides a lot of actionable advice including:
🔸 how to negotiate successfully
🔸 how small acts are what really lead to large impact
🔸 how women can be successful in male-dominated industries
🔸 when to take on partners in business and how to choose them wisely
🔸 and even some thoughts on how to invest in real estate 🤑

And that's just a sample of this conversation and all the value Heather brought to our amazing audience. It's not often that we get this level of access to someone who has achieved so much in life so trust me when I say, save this episode and listen to it often as you go out and work on your own ventures.

Thank you again to Heather for being so open with us. Don't forget that you can find Heather on LinkedIn and share this episode with your friends so they too can tap into all of this knowledge!

Carpe diem! 

Happy Thursday! I'm back this week with a celebrity from California (even if you haven't heard of her yet) and a powerhouse on the national food scene. 🥪 Ellen Chen is the Co-founder of one of the most popular and successful restaurants in Los Angeles - Mendocino Farms, which has now expanded all over California and into Texas and Washington. 📈 She's living the American dream and her story will have you ready to live yours! 🙌

After graduating with a degree in economics from UCSD, Ellen became a consultant for Accenture Consulting firm where she facilitated the growth initiatives and improvements for top Fortune 100 companies. She then honed her business acumen at the marketing firm of Suissa Miller and a dot-com start-up called Target Marketing Interactive. After being part of the internet success of the 1990s, Ellen met Mario Del Pero and invested in his restaurant, Skew’s Teriyaki, which was one of the first fast-casual Asian concepts. Together, they grew Skew’s to three units in Los Angeles before selling the company in 2001.

Determined to lead through empowerment and build a thriving business, they created Mendocino Farms and opened their first unit on Bunker Hill in Downtown Los Angeles in 2005. Since then, Mendocino Farms has grown rapidly, taking its place as one of the most-loved and highest-grossing sales-per-square-foot restaurants in the neighborhoods they serve. Ellen and Mario set out to build a welcoming gathering place where happiness is always an order away with a focus on healthy and responsibly sourced ingredients - and they definitely accomplished their goal.

Ellen continues to offer the restaurant group a big business perspective with an entrepreneur’s passion. She's been named to Nation’s Restaurant News annual Power List, which recognizes the top 50 leaders who have changed the restaurant industry and she's a top advisor to various associations, boards, and charities, impacting the industry in a positive way.

Ellen covers a lot during this chat which you will definitely find helpful and inspiring. She touches on:

🔸 uncovering opportunities that may be hidden or overlooked
🔸 engraining her values into her business
🔸 how you can sell happy (you'll want to take notes on this)
🔸 the methodical steps needed to create repetitive success
🔸 the higher purpose of being able to change someone's day
🔸 aka some really powerful stuff!

If you're an entrepreneur or want to just make the world a better place, you need to listen to this episode and get to know Ellen better. She's definitely mastering both and has so much to teach us all. I'm so happy this interview finally happened! It more than lived up to expectations. Thank you Ellen for this time and for your incredible contributions to the hospitality industry and really, the world. Love you! 💖 Enjoy everyone!

How much do you know about mediums and psychics? Have you ever worked with one or witnessed one in action? Well, this week's guest on the Opportunity Knocks podcast is one of the most well-known, and for good reason.

Debbie Johnson is a Psychic/Medium with a special connection to the Angelic Realm and has been working with clients all over the world for 20+ years. She brings messages from your Angels to you. These messages include information about your future, your health, and any other subject where guidance is needed.

She began to see spirits as a small child, but when she spoke up about it, she was told to stop making up stories because no one saw what she saw. She re-discovered her gift in her 20s via music, which grew stronger when she studied Reiki. During Reiki sessions, Debbie not only saw and heard human spirits, but she also witnessed the magnificence of the Archangels and their abilities to help others. She would not have believed it, had she not seen it with her own eyes. 

Debbie not only delivers messages, but she is also able to see into the spirit and physical body if needed and channel powerful healing energy that clears blockages and entities that can sometimes be the cause of physical and mental illness.

In addition to the readings, Debbie is a Usui Reiki Master/Teacher who has been practicing Reiki for 20+ years. Combining her connection to the Angels along with her Reiki training, she can produce healing music and guided meditations to aid both the spirit and body in maintaining health and happiness.  

This conversation was SO POWERFUL. We cover topics including:
🔹 the difference between a psychic and a medium and how their gift works
🔹 how to address and overcome fear
🔹 how to protect your energy
🔹 what is angel time?
🔹 and so much more!

There's a reason Debbie and I connected and it was so special to have this chat and bring her to you. This topic may be new and interesting for many of you so message us with questions if you have any! Thank you so much, Debbie! It was truly an honor. 🙏

Want to work with Debbie? She's available for Readings via phone and Zoom, as well as in person. Get in touch via angelicmessages.com!