Kind of a Big Deal

What If Your Best Work Honors What Came Before?

• Kristin Belden • Season 1 • Episode 6

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Join me as I sit down with Dani Bergstrom, founder of Fresnoland, to discuss her journey from urban planner to nonprofit journalism leader. Our conversation explores breaking barriers in male-dominated spaces, balancing motherhood with career ambitions, and the power of local journalism in empowering communities.

Dani's story is deeply personal - her mother gave up a journalism career under pressure from a strict religious community, but her eventual return to school helped shape Dani's belief in journalism as a tool for justice. Now, as a pioneer in the nonprofit news space, Dani is honoring that legacy while setting an example for her own children.


You'll Learn:

⭐ The importance of self-trust and personal autonomy in leadership

⭐ The role of journalism in fostering civic engagement and community awareness

⭐ How leading with vulnerability is more nuanced than it might seem

⭐ The generational impact of building a legacy through career choices


Key Insights:

  • Breaking Barriers: Navigating male-dominated spaces requires both resilience and strategic boundary-setting, while maintaining authenticity and integrity.
  • Motherhood and Ambition: Holding the demands of launching a business while raising children requires honest conversations about priorities and redefining what "having it all" means.
  • Trust Your Gut: Leadership evolution often begins with learning to trust yourself and your decisions, even when facing external pressure or doubt.
  • Local Journalism Matters: Community-centered journalism serves as a vital tool for civic engagement, justice, and empowering underrepresented voices.
  • Generational Legacy: Personal experiences and family history profoundly shape professional missions - honoring past sacrifices while inspiring future generations creates meaningful impact.


Timestamps:

[00:00:23] - Introduction: Dani's journey from policy director to nonprofit newsroom founder

[00:03:50] - Dani's background as an urban planner and transition to journalism

[00:07:57] - The founding story of Fresnoland and pivoting during the pandemic

[00:14:42] - Balancing motherhood and career while launching a business

[00:21:39] - Dani's leadership evolution and learning to trust herself

[00:28:27] - Navigating gender dynamics in male-dominated workplaces

[00:38:54] - How Dani's mother's unrealized journalism dreams influenced her path


Resources and Links:

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave a review! And if you're interested in more stories and tools for women leaders, sign up for my newsletter at Beldenstrategies.com/newsletter. Let's continue to empower each other in our journeys!

Dani podcast
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Speaker 2: [00:00:00] Hi all. Welcome back to kind of a big deal. There's a moment in every founder's journey where logic says, stop, but something deeper says, go for Donny Bergstrom. That moment came when she walked into the Fresno Bees offices, seven months pregnant, pitching an idea that would become Fresno Land, a newsroom serving California's Central Valley with a master's in urban planning and a background in policy.

She saw a disconnect. People didn't understand how power actually worked in their community. Her solution stopped writing white papers and start doing journalism. Today she's building something. Her mother forced to leave journalism when she became pregnant, never got to finish. This is a story about legacy, justice and what happens when you trust yourself enough to create the thing your community needs.

Donnie's journey has been amazing, and I can't wait to share it with you. Let's dive in.

Speaker 3: Hi, Don. [00:01:00] Hi Kristen. Good to see you. It, I have to say, it looks like you are hanging out in an amazing nightclub right now. There's like the brick with like milk Club. Thanks. A warehouse. Um, well welcome. Thank you for hanging out with me today. Thank you for agreeing to chat. Um, as you know, I've been on this kind of like listening tour of women I respect and admire that have had these really interesting leadership journeys and.

Of course you were one of the first folks that popped into my mind just given everything that you've done, um, both in your personal life and in your career. So I'm just really excited to have you here. I'm glad to be here. It's been fun to know you through the journey. I was gonna say journey. I was gonna say how many, so I was trying to think about this.

Um, 'cause I usually will just share a little bit of kind of how I know the person that I'm chatting with. Um, and I could not remember how many years it's been, but it's been a [00:02:00] lot of years and I think maybe a decade that we've known each other maybe more even. I think a decade. Sounds about right. Yeah.

Yeah. Mm-hmm. Okay. Which I get in the scheme of life doesn't seem like a lot, but when you have been through some kind of like professional evolution for sure. One, it feels like a very long time. Um, so I met Donnie when she was the policy director for the Central Valley Community Foundation and for those unfamiliar that is.

Based in Fresno, California, which is in the heart of California, that we like to say the San Joaquin Valley. It's a beautiful, beautiful region with tons of energy being poured into it. Lots of evolution as a city itself, um, that Donny has kind of been at the forefront of in one way or another. And a former colleague of mine and I were working on a series of events.

Across the state all those years ago, and the two people we were told we had to meet were Donnie and Gretchen Moore with the Community Foundation. Um, but I got to know [00:03:00] her as just being that really interesting mix of crazy smart, passionate, and super fun to be around, which. Those things don't always come together in that way.

So I've just had the privilege of knowing her and just had this really great partnership over the years that has had its ebb and flows. But over that time, she went from being this incredibly wicked smart, you know, into the policy. All the wonky staff that most people don't understand. Donnie gets, um, and she went on to launch one of Fresno.

I don't know if it's one of, or Fresno's very first nonprofit. Yeah, there. I mean, valley Public Radio is an excellent nonprofit newsroom here in Fresno. And then we also have our home to Ready, which is a Spanish language public radio. Okay. Okay. And you were, um, you were amongst one of the first to really be thinking about what it means to bring some of these policy conversations to the nonprofit journalism space, which I think, [00:04:00] you know, that is building anything takes a certain amount of grit and determination.

Building a newsroom is an entirely different animal. Um, and I come from the media and journalism space from many moons ago and just acknowledge that it's a tricky landscape. We don't, so much has changed over the last 20 years as it relates to how we consume information, the platforms we get our information on.

So. For you to insert yourself and know that there was a need, um, at that moment, and to see what you've built since then has been really incredible. So I think the jump from, you know, policy wonk at a community foundation to launching a newsroom, maybe not the through line that everybody would expect. So, um, give us a little background and kind of what got you going.

Speaker 4: Yeah. So, um, it's so good to be here and to talk about this and, and since you, you and your colleagues have been part of a lot of my origin story for Fresno, and it's kind of fun to come full circle and talk [00:05:00] about it with you. So, my background is as an urban planner, and that's, I have a master's degree in regional planning.

I've worked in a lot of different contexts as a planner and anything from, you know, think tank work. State and federal policy around housing and climate change and transportation. I worked in the mayor's office here in Fresno as a policy advisor to one of the former mayors around housing climate issues.

I worked, like you said, at our community foundation, I ran a local ballot measure in Fresno for local parks. I. Ran a participatory budgeting process here at Process, so I had a lot of different experiences across the sort of policy spectrum from local all the way up to federal. That just every time always got me thinking about this disconnect between how people experience their city and community and, and how they think about how they can shape what they wanna see in local government and how those [00:06:00] conversations actually happen.

Mm-hmm. Inside, inside the buildings of power. And, um, always felt like if people actually understood what was happening behind closed doors. Decision makers and other influential people, they would just have a really different perspective and think differently about the process. Mm-hmm. And, and so, you know, initially, because when you're an urban planner, you see urban plannery things to do.

I was like, I'll build a think tank, you know? And I had lived in the Bay Area for a while. It's in Oakland and the Bay Area has. Spur and Spur is like a local think tank and they do white papers on, you know, how do we build more affordable housing or how do we make more parks accessible to people and things like that.

And, and that works for the Bay Area and that works for San Francisco, Oakland. But that sort of format of research via white paper was, if not Fresno, like Fresno, a super diverse young working class, predominantly working [00:07:00] class place that. Just it's, it just needed a different sort of platform to do that work.

And so I had kind of started to write a business plan for what I felt like Fresno and should be. And I remember bringing it to you and, and your colleague, Joaquin, and sort of like tossing it around and you guys were like. Oh, this is public service journalism. And I'm like, no, it's what? No. Uh, and at the time, like the B the Fresno Bee, which is like our major metro paper was kind of in free fall.

Oh. I guess not free fall isn't the right word. But it had hemorrhaged a lot of long time staffers, not anything specific to the Be more just like the general trending. Yeah. For every single legacy BDL in the us. Right. And so I was, you know. What I wanted to see wasn't reflected necessarily in what the B was putting out at that time.

And you know, there's also been a trend just in political journalism in [00:08:00] particular, to be really horse racey. And when, when elections are covered, it's like, how much money are people raising and what are the polls saying? But nothing about like the substance of what. Politicians are actually proposing.

And that just always annoys me to no end. And so, um, but anyways, you guys had kind of encouraged me, like, Hey, you should just talk to the bm, see what they think about this. Maybe they'll wanna publish what you guys produce. And I was in that time period, I was pregnant with my second kid, with my daughter.

And I remember waddling. Literally waddling us probably like, you know, five or six, maybe seven months pregnant into the Fresno B and talking to the executive editor at the time and kind of like, Hey, they said I should talk to you about this thing that you might wanna publish. And I, I kind of like fully expected to get shut down and that didn't happen.

And they were like, he was like, sure, I'll entertain this. And so I spent like the next year fundraising and talking [00:09:00] to philanthropy about it. And was able to get some, about around $200,000 in seed funding. And so it gave us enough of a, of a runway sort of to launch in 2020. Of course, our launch party was, I think two weeks before the pandemic shut down.

I just gonna say it was like right around that time, right? Yeah, it was. Mm-hmm. And so like we had this party downtown and it was all fancy, and then the pandemic happened and quickly it was like. Everyone in journalism in the pandemic wanted to be useful. Mm-hmm. Uh, because there was just so much misinformation or, um, just like panic.

And so we kind of quickly pivoted into being very service oriented in the early days. Like, here's how to get access to employment resources. Here's how to get access to resources that can prevent you from getting evicted. Here's how the new laws around evictions work right [00:10:00] now. So we just ended up doing a ton of explainers, a ton of service guides, and then eventually kind of once the pandemic kind of settled into what it was and its ultimate Peter out, we got to finally get back into an investigative space, which is where I think my.

My personal passions lie and I learned really quickly, you know, I learned how to be a journalist on the job running this little team, and which is a whole journey. Thank you Fresno B for letting me experiment in your four walls. But uh, but journalism and research are really similar. Yeah. And the way I talk about it is.

Journalism is just research in the public interest and with like a public audience. And when you're a researcher as an urban planner, like in think tank, your client at the end of the day still is the funder, right? Yeah. You're still kind of saying like, Hey, I got this grant to do this. Study on where we might build affordable housing, but your client is still top of mind in terms of like what they wanna see out of the report.

[00:11:00] Where in journalism, you know, we'll still do very research heavy projects. We have a story coming out, uh, this week that's like an explainer in how the fire zone designations have changed a lot in Fresno, Madera County recently, which is a great research project. There's a lot of hours of time to analyze the maps and how they've changed.

But our, our client is the public. It's like, what does this mean for you in a practical way? What can you do about the changes? What do they mean in terms of like building code changes or, you know, and so I just, I really appreciate that purity of, of, uh. I don't even know how to say it. Purity of like cause and purpose, where at the end of the day, I'm only accountable to the public and that's who really matters.

Speaker 3: Mm-hmm. Oh my gosh. I love that so much because I think the plot has been lost a little bit unfortunately with journalism and what we think of it, how we think of it in our lives and what the importance of it is in our lives. And regardless of whether or not. You subscribe or read your [00:12:00] local paper, which, come on, y'all get back on the We do.

You know, but they, they show just how, I mean, statistically speaking, when you are lacking in these investigative projects or the deep research that you all are doing, or what local papers are doing, you know, corruption goes up, there is all kinds of things that happen within your city because there are no watchdogs making sure.

That people are acting in your best interest because they're not going to be always, unfortunately, we've, we've lost a lot of that. So it's incredible to see the work you all are still doing because it's so important, especially as we see what's happening on a political landscape, and not to make it political, but truly when we think about people are operating from literally different sets of truths.

And so how do you get into civic discourse when. We're not even coming from the same place, you know, so. Totally. It's such a critical service. Yeah. Also, I have my own parenting story from the Fresno Bee, which [00:13:00] was, I had just had my second child and was coming into the Bee to work. I was doing some work with McClatchy, which is the publishing arm that owns, you know, the, um, the bees at the time, and I had to.

I had to breastfeed and or I had to pump because I was breastfeeding and it was like the saddest like, oh yes, we'll take you up to like the, I don't know, like 10th floor where it's been abandoned for 20 years and there's like no door and it's like vacant and like a ghost is a hundred percent coming to get me in this moment.

And it was 1000%. It's before the wearables came out. So you were like hooking a bra up. To like the thing, and it was, I mean, oh my God, the things we do. I know, I, that's like a whole thing. Like the weirdest places you've pumped your breasted. I know. Yes. I do think that that is such an important, you know, not every [00:14:00] working woman as a mom, but there is always something outside of the workplace that they're carrying.

Whether it's caretaking for a parent or it's. Building in their community or being in partnership. And so, you know, how have you found I don't say balance anymore because I, I think that that's a misnomer for me. I think of it more as harmony. Like how do I think about how all of these elements try to be in service of each other or support of each other instead of like, for sure fight against each other constantly.

Um, those early days, I mean, to build a business with a toddler and a newborn, um. Give us some highlights. Oh, wow. I mean, I, I'm pretty honest about the fact that I probably, if I would've known in hindsight what it was gonna be like, I wouldn't have done it again. Yeah. Um, you know, it was just insanity during a pandemic, like my sons.

Speaker 4: Preschool closed. My daughter [00:15:00] was one when the pandemic happened. I'm leading this new team in this organization that is very male dominated. No women in leadership except for myself and, um, the editor that I had hired, we were the only women in leadership. And so it's not exactly like a super mom or woman friendly environment and.

And I'm also new in the industry, so that was deeply intimidating. I remember. Being, um, just like very gently chastised one day for being slow. Um, in what way? Like slow moving or slow talk? Like slow slow and turning around stories on deadlines. Ah, because I would, I still, I report and that's something I will always do because I think it's important for, at least for me personally, that I'm still doing the work that my team does to keep myself.

Fresh and I, I enjoy it. I enjoy [00:16:00] reporting and I just wanted to scream when this person kind of chastise me for being slow to be like, I have two children under the age of five at home because can't have caretakers. Mm-hmm. Um, I am also raising money for this thing because you guys aren't paying for it.

I am also running a team of three. Yeah. So like, could you. Could you respectfully back off, um, were you able to share that in some way? Because I think it's interesting when you're saying, you know, you're a lone female in this space. How did that feel trying to kind of like advocate for yourself in that way?

I really struggled in the beginning to know how to advocate for myself again. 'cause it's such a new industry. Yeah. And, and journalism, as you know, prides itself on not being very boundaried. Mm-hmm. And yeah, people pride themselves on burnout. People pride themselves on, we work harder than everyone else.

And I think what helped me [00:17:00] was to be like, guess what? Everyone. I come from working for Fresno's highest ranking elected official, who is kind of known for being one of the hardest working grinder people in town. I know what it's like to work hard. I can do it. I've done it before, and she works. She would run circles around most of you, so you don't really get to tell me what working hard looks like.

I know how to do it. Yeah. Um, so that gave me some confidence, but how it's different to like, have that internal confidence to be like they just don't know what they're saying and then to vocalize in a respectful tone, like, no, thank you. Yeah. I mean, I guess at the end of the day, they weren't paying my salary.

I had raised all of my own salary and my team's salary, so like they could tell me stuff, but at the end of the day I'm like, you're not signing my text. I don't give. Yeah. Yeah. Can we, can we give an actual shout out? Can we name this grinder right now? [00:18:00] Or Ashley swear? Yeah, she is, she's queen of the grinds in Fresno.

Um, she's amazing. Yeah. So that was, you know, that was definitely interesting to, to navigate those dynamics in a, in a very male dominated environment. But I think over time I've just. And like during the pandemic, like so many of us, we just had to be super boundaried, right? 'cause we didn't have childcare.

So my husband and I would do shifts and I would do like I work eight to one, and then you work one to six. And that really taught me super fast how to be hyper efficient. Yeah. And 'cause I wasn't getting eight hour days, like that was just not happening. Right. And, and I, and my kids did not let me work while being in the same room.

Like that was just not, I mean, my colleagues from that era could tell you all the times that they could overhear my kids talking about like, wipe my butt or you know, you know, that was just like not a thing. So I just [00:19:00] learned how to be really boundaried and. And I still am to a certain extent today, like I have.

I don't work for the most part after I'm home with my kids. Mm-hmm. I am not one of those people who does a second shift. I used to be, and I am a person that needs a lot of sleep, like eight and a half to nine hours a night. So every once in a while, like this morning I got up early 'cause I had some work to do and so I was in, you know, in the office early.

I said hello to one of my kids before I left. So like, I'll do that sometimes, but I'm not it, it's not what you created as your. I think no, it's so easy to fall into that trap because it, especially if you're building something or you're, you are growing something that you care deeply about, it can be difficult, I think, at times.

Speaker 3: Right. Because even sometimes it doesn't feel like work. You're like, well, I'm just, it's exciting and I wanna do this thing right. But so to put it down and to make space for all these other things we care about, right. And I think my [00:20:00] husband and I had to have really hard conversations about. You know, I give him a lot of credit for being the person that's like, the work that you're doing is really important, and I get that you're, you know, working towards world peace, whatever it is.

Speaker 4: And he, he's my biggest defender, champion, whatever, and he's like. You need to be a present parent. Full staff. Yeah. I love that though. We need that. Right? I think sometimes that counter or the reminder, the foundation Yeah. To come back to, um, do you feel like, I'm curious about this because I think this has rung true for me, but.

Speaker 3: One of the silver linings of the pandemic as a working parent has been some of the, like veneer of professionalism got rubbed right off. It was like, listen, y'all, we all have lives. You can see my life. You can see my dog. You can see all of this chaos behind me. I'm trying to keep my nine month old entertain with a salad spinner that he decided to bang instead of spin.

And so you're like witnessing all of this and [00:21:00] you know, I do. I do feel like it. Shifted something for people where we are more open about the fact that we have full lives. I, I, I know this cannot be true for every industry, obviously, but those that I've been a part of and those that I've seen, it feels like there was a ease a little bit around what it means to come to work as our whole selves.

Speaker 4: Yeah. I mean. Definitely. But I also tend to be a person, for better or for worse, that really wears my emotions on my sleeve. And I think that the pandemic just really wore so many of us raw, right? Yeah. Like we were just barely holding on by a thread. So many of us. And I think that while the human exposure was super helpful in breaking down a lot of walls and like seeing people.

In their more full space. My reaction to it has kind of been like, Ooh. I mean, yeah, that was good, but also [00:22:00] I don't really need everyone to see my whole, whole thing, personal life either. Totally. So I've actually closed up a little bit more it since then. I think that's really interesting. Is that something, because I was gonna ask you on your leadership journey and your career, um, path.

Speaker 3: Have there been elements of yourself and the way you want to lead that have either been surprising to you or that you've learned about yourself? That you're like, oh, maybe that was always there, but it's showing up in this way. Or I wanna double down on this thing 'cause it actually feels more important to me than I would've expected.

Speaker 4: Yeah, I, a couple of things. I grew up in a house that really valued. Or equated truth to saying everything on your mind. Mm. And you weren't being truthful or honest. And honesty and truthfulness was a big value in the house I grew up in. Mm-hmm. But you weren't being honest or truthful if you didn't say everything.

And I think [00:23:00] that as a leader initially, I really leaned into that and I would just say everything. Mm-hmm. And I saw it as. I'm building honest communication because I'm sharing everything that I'm thinking and I'm sharing both maybe sometimes critical things, sometimes positive things that have been also sharing my own vulnerabilities.

And if I do enough of that, people will see me as not like a dictator or like a authoritarian leader, but very much as like of a leader of empathy and connection. I actually don't think that that served me well in many ways. Interest because it ignored the power dynamic that is just there. Mm-hmm. And I think I really was fearful of being perceived as this like top down.

Authority figure. It was a very, very uncomfortable thing for me to kind of step into my leadership, be partially, 'cause I was new to the industry and [00:24:00] so I had a lot of imposter syndrome around that. Partially just because, you know, I, like many people in the journalism industry have my own issues with authority and so I'm like, I can't be the very thing that I hate myself.

Yeah. Um, and so it took me a while to realize like. It's, and I'm still fine tuning this, obviously, but people want clarity, but they don't need to know everything. Yeah, yeah. Uh, what's the balance, right? Yeah. Yeah. People want empathy, but they don't need to always hear your 10 minute rationalization of why you made a decision.

Yeah. Like sometimes you can just be like, this is why we're doing this. This is why I think it's the right decision. Give them a space to push back and then you don't, even if they push back, you listen and sometimes you say, okay, I heard you, I'm gonna make on modification. And sometimes you say, I hear you, and also I'm not gonna take your suggestions and this is why, and maybe we can revisit this in six months.

Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah. Um, and I've just [00:25:00] got more comfortable with that, but I've had a lot of internal work to step into my own power and to be like, mm-hmm. I may not have been in the journalism industry for 20 years, but I know Fresno, I love my community. I care about the values of journalism deeply, and for all of those reasons, I am the right person to be leading this right now.

Speaker 3: I love that. I feel like we can sometimes conflate vulnerability with. Being a fully open book or like a, and I think there's a way to be vulnerable without having to like strip away every piece of us and share every raw moment. And you know, it does require strength in your own kind of vision and your kind of like inner knowing, I guess, so to speak, to be able to make decisions and say like, this is still coming from a vulnerable place because I care deeply about what I'm doing.

But you don't necessarily need to know every, if and or why to every single thing. And I [00:26:00] think leaders really just across the board industry, non-specific struggle with that at times. Because you do want folks to be excited about the work they do bought into the work that they do. And so I don't know that there is right.

Like that. Perfect. Tone and it's a constant, probably like tightrope that you're navigating around how much is enough, but how much is too much. And I do think as women in particular, we want to make everybody feel part of it. We're we're conditioned to constantly read every single room intuitively. Yeah.

Speaker 4: And I mean, I. It's, I'm always like, the vibes are off on that person. I know what's actually going on. You know, I'm always, always doing that, like too distracted by people's faces. So distracted. And it is on the one hand a superpower for a lot of reasons, but sometimes you just have to be like, I'm gonna be okay with the fact that that person is in a bad mood for things that are out of my [00:27:00] control.

Speaker 3: Totally. And that's okay. Totally, totally. I know sometimes I used to get so irritated with myself, I'm like. Who am I? I think that it's even about me. It's likely not. Right. Like what are, like what kind of narcissist? Yeah. And like, right. And similarly, I've had a hard time expressing like accountability has been a hard thing for me to learn both.

Speaker 4: I mean, holding myself accountable is one thing, and then holding other people accountable has been hard too, because people need clarity. Yeah. And sometimes people just don't always know what the line is on, Hey, I need to move on this. And it's not, I mean, Brene Brown in one of her books said like, clear is kind.

Yeah. And I really believe that people need to know what, where the bar is so that they can reach it. And I personally always wanna know if I'm not meeting expectations. And most people wanna feel the same way. Yeah. And we're not doing anyone any favors if we're just trying to dance around their feelings and not hurt them.

If we say, Hey, you didn't meet the mark on this. Yeah. Yeah. It's not personal. [00:28:00] Totally. Totally. And I always try to preface comments like that with my team by saying, I know you guys work hard. I'm not sitting here worrying about whether you're working hard enough, whether you care about the work. So once I get that out of the way, then they don't feel like it's a personal attack on their effort or their work ethic.

It's like I assume you have a good work ethic and that you just didn't know that that's a big deal. Totally. Well, and I think most driven people. Actually want ways to improve, right? They're actually looking for ways to be better or set a different standard or a higher bar. And so I do think it's not just accountability, but it is also like developing people and giving them the opportunity to rise up because otherwise what's the point?

Speaker 3: Absolutely. Has there been anything that you have found gets. Misinterpreted when you've seen other women in leadership. I was having another chat with a woman who was high up at Amazon, and she heard through the grapevine that one of her [00:29:00] reviewers called her shrill because she spoke up too much about the potential, um, backlash in some of the.

Work they were doing legally, and she's like, this is literally my job is to make sure that I'm voicing into things that might be a problem. Have you seen that happen in spaces where you're like, that's not what that is. It's actually this other thing, but because she is a female leader, it's showing up as something else.

Speaker 4: 1000%. It's my job as a journalist to be direct to, um. To ask direct questions, ask sometimes pointed questions, and to not let people bullshit. And I carry that ethos from my journalism into the work I do on the business side as well. And many times women are taught to use hedging language. Uh, please, would you consider, have you ever thought of.

Could you, you know, could you suggest this? [00:30:00] And to also be very deferential to men around us for a variety of reasons. And I mean, you know this about me, Kristen, like. Don't do super well with authority. I'm like, once I find, like I wanna get things done, I'm a very, activator is one of my strengths. I'm not very patient.

When I see what needs to get done and I find out the path, I'm gonna go find the shortest path to get there. I don't have time to deal with using niceties because someone needs it to like make their ego work. Mm-hmm. I'm like, if this is possible, let's do it. And if it isn't possible, tell me why. Right.

Speaker 5: It's not possible. And then I'll figure out if I can change the way I'm doing something or not based on your response. So I just don't have a lot of patience for the dance and that has been misinterpreted as. I don't like people or [00:31:00] I'm a power driven person, or I want to be in control if people, people who know me actually know I don't like to be in control of things.

Speaker 4: That's so like in my per, this is the funny thing. In my personal life, people know me as probably one of the most laid back type B people of all time. It's funny to talk to my family and they're like, it's hard for us to imagine you like being in charge of things. Mm. That's so funny. Wow. That is wild. I'm very laid back and so I am very offended when people are like, oh, you're just power hungry.

Oh, you just wanna control things. And I'm like, if you only do like, it's, no. That is the farthest thing. I respect competence. I want things to get done, and everything I do is in service of. This vision, right, of the way that we can bring better information, more factual information, helping empower people to get more involved in their city.

That's what I'm trying to [00:32:00] do. Yeah. I'm just trying to find the most effective ways to do it. Totally, totally. I think it's interesting because so much of my reflection in the last year and the work I wanna do and who I wanna serve, it always comes down to. Women leaders that have a very clear, true north, I don't care.

Speaker 3: Your industry, I don't care the specific impact you're looking to have, but you being driven by this thing. It allows for that quick decision making. It allows for finding strength, it allows for speaking into things where maybe folks don't expect you to. And for so many years, I remember sitting in meetings when I worked at City Hall and.

Speaker 4: I'm an interrupter, try not to be. I would literally feel my body blurting things out in meetings with like the most powerful people and literally go like this covering my mouth because my impulse to just like not follow the rules [00:33:00] of deference. Yeah. Had and I have not made friends because I'm not always deferential to the right people.

Mm. Cool. Yeah. And it makes me somewhat good at being a journalist too. Well that's, yeah, right. There's, I mean, there's so much to unpack there. You don't have to always be molding yourself to be in service of other people's comfort. That could be a whole other podcast. Yeah. Right. Um, if you could share any bit of wisdom with.

Speaker 3: Other women that might be navigating their own kind of, I look at it more as not leadership journey, but an evolution, right? Like you have faced multiple evolutions in your career, and if you can think on those moments, is there something that you would share for somebody that might be navigating an evolution of their own?

Speaker 4: Yeah. Ooh. I know it's easier said than done, but building some self-trust [00:34:00] has been absolutely critical. And I used to be a person that needed so many ex external validation and, and I still do to a certain extent and I don't, I'm not always very proud of that. But finding those moments that you can go back to and just say, this was hard and I did this.

Speaker 5: Mm-hmm. So that means that when I faced this other hard thing, I know I can do it again. Yeah. I think that has been really helpful for me because there's, I think the other thing is like. No one is gonna save you except for you. Mm-hmm. And not to be hyper independent like I believe in community. And I also just really believe that we have to build our own trust in ourself.

Speaker 4: And for so many of us, I mean, I certainly did not grow up in a household in which. Any of that was put in me. It was very much follow the rules, follow the patriarchal community that you're in. Mm-hmm. Don't question [00:35:00] authority ever. Mm-hmm. And my whole journey has been just unlearning a lot of that. Yeah.

Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, and now I can see why you have, uh, a bit of a challenge with authority. Yeah. When you grow up, when you grow up in like a fundamentalist. Christian community, you are just, yeah, gonna naturally have some issues with authority. I mean, I honestly, the self knowing and the self, um, trust, those are I think, constant themes in our lives.

And that is one thing I will say that with age. It just gets better when you start to tap into that. Once the genie's outta the bottle, I feel like it's real hard to put it back in. You're like, wait a second. I'm gonna start to actually listen to that little whisper and I'm gonna actually start to like almost test out.

Like, okay, I'm gonna go with this and let's see what happens. And I think most people will be surprised if they haven't tapped into that yet to see. Just how well it [00:36:00] does for them. It is not there to lead you astray. It's not there to like lead you off the cliff. Typically, that knowing is there to support of something greater or something you're meant to move into.

But I do think we tend to be, not just as women, but as a society, very disconnected from. That because it is, you know, we're constantly on the move. We're, you know, overloaded with information. Our attention spans are crazy, right? Like demand, demand, demand, and to sit and quiet feels like. A giant luxury and deeply uncomfortable at times at first if you're not used to being in that practice.

But mm-hmm. To build on that and to start to see over time how those little moments where you do listen to yourself never usually turns out terribly wrong. It actually does it. And I feel like for people who are skeptical, like my mom is so deeply skeptical of self-trust as a concept, and it's like, it's not that self-trust means my way is the right [00:37:00] way.

No, it's, it's a, it's a, it's an intuition. It's a listening. It's like, where do I need to open space to hear this thing? Or, you know, sometimes it's guidance on like, this is the direction you need to go. But sometimes it's like my inner self-trust is like, you need to listen to your colleague who is telling you this concern because.

Speaker 4: Yes. They have wisdom on this topic and self-trust is like it's okay to accept their wisdom. Yes. And to lean into that too. Yes, yes. I love that. It does not have to always be that. You're right. Yes. It is literally the opposite of that, I think it is. Mm-hmm. That is being aware to know, but it's, it takes time.

Speaker 3: Right. I remember when somebody asked me how I felt about turning 40. With this kind of like, how do you, how do you feel like it was like a bad thing and I was like, I feel fucking awesome. I feel better than ever. Like I feel like Totally. I was like weight less shits to give. I see things for what they are and building community that [00:38:00] feels authentic.

Those things come with time, you know, typically. So I look forward to just. More of that, frankly, as I get older. Totally. Yeah. And I feel like as I get older, my desire to want to have all of my life planned understood. Under the reins, it's just I keep loosening my grip every year. Mm. And it feels so good to like, I honestly don't know what's gonna happen in two years from now.

Speaker 4: Yeah. Right. And that's okay. Yeah. I mean, it's there. The self-trust is, things have worked out in mysterious ways in your life, and you have to trust that whatever comes next is the thing that is supposed to happen next. Totally, totally. My dad wrote me a beautiful note recently that said something to that effect, which was.

Speaker 3: He continues to just believe that if you show up in service and you show up with positivity and you look for the joy, good things do happen. And absolutely not to be Pollyanna about it by any means, but I do think we get to [00:39:00] decide on a typical day, not we're going through something traumatic or challenging, but on your typical day to day, we do get to decide how we wanna show up.

And it's a choice and it's a, it's a conscious like and constant. I think at times. Yeah. Yeah. Very much so. Very much so. Um, last big question and then a little mini question at the end. When I think about working with women as they're navigating these evolutions. Either in leadership or whatever business that they're at the helm of.

Many times I talk about it as it being in service of whatever legacy they're building toward, because if we're not aligned to what that future vision is for ourselves, then you know, we can tend to go a little bit astray as we're building what we're building currently. So what does building a legacy mean for you?

Like personally or for my community? No. Either. You can take it any way you want. I mean, it's. So I come, like I [00:40:00] mentioned earlier, I come from a fundamentalist Christian background where women don't have autonomy and are not encouraged to think for themselves. And my mother wanted to be a journalist and actually was, and was working at a BBC 30 local TV station in Fresno when my, when she became pregnant with my oldest sister and when she became pregnant.

Speaker 4: Her church leaders told her to leave her job. And that it wasn't proper for a woman to be working while having children. Oh my. Yeah. And so my mom set aside her dream and then when I was about, you know, six or seven, she went back to school to get her master's degree and she got it in master communications and journalism.

Mm-hmm. And so I spent a lot of my childhood learning about the theory of journalism. Mm. And part of me feels this deep, like journalism serves this big community goal I have around. Everyone should have autonomy to make [00:41:00] their own decisions about their community and to be empowered to make good decisions.

And I'm not here to tell you what to do. I'm here to give you good information to make those choices. And that's something I feel deep in my bones. Mm. But there's also this personal tie of like avenging my mom. Yes. Who I didn't get that opportunity. And setting an example for my daughter. Who's six to do the same thing.

And I, you know, I have a strong bent towards justice and think that journalism is a tool for justice. And I talked to my daughter about that. I talked to my son about that, and I think that that's a really deep part of what drives me at the end of the day, oh my God, that I did not know that about your story.

Speaker 3: And that is such a beautiful, what an incredibly. Powerful moment for her to see what you are building. Not only have you chosen a path that has a deep connection to her. But you're building something in service [00:42:00] like that is really incredible. So much respect for the way you look at the world, and you bring so much of that unique passion to everything you do.

And I just, I think it's so, I. Cool to watch when women are leading from a place of like real, authentic knowing, even if we're feeling a little crazy about it sometimes, like it's not all rainbows and butterflies by any stretch, but like, no, having that though I think is what keeps you going, right? For being able to come back to that compass and that awareness.

Otherwise, it is crazy and hard and so to, to. To find that foundation is such a important driver, so I love it and I'm so excited about what you're doing and I'm so excited about what you're doing for your community. Where can people find you? Where can people read your great work? Where can people donate or become supporters of the work that you do?

Tell us everything. Yeah. Fresno land.org where you can sign up for our [00:43:00] newsletter. You can. Donate to the work that we do where you can read our stories. We're also on Instagram quite a bit. Those are the two main places. And then we also have a weekly podcast you can find on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. I feel like just a little plug for anybody that's not in the Central Valley.

Even if you're not in California, it's still really worth checking out their work because it really shows you what great journalism looks like. And I think if you've been craving access to incredible information and incredible stories, frankly, you don't have to be from the region to find these stories to be incredibly compelling.

So little plug, if you're not in the Central Valley or even in California, still check them out because they're doing awesome work. Thank you. Yes. Thank you so much. It's so good to see you. Thank you for doing this. Yeah, you too. Thanks for having me. Yeah. Appreciate you so much and I'm sure I'll see you soon.

Speaker: Thank you so much for listening and spending some of your time with me here. I hope our conversation sparked some new ideas for [00:44:00] you. If you enjoyed the episode, please make sure to hit subscribe so you don't miss what's next. And if you're ready for even more tools and stories, head on over to belden strategies.com.

I share fresh insights, stories, and tools every week. Until next time, keep building, keep evolving. And remember you. Are kind of a big deal.