Your Public Health Degree Is Not Enough Anymore with Dr. Samia Hussein DrPH

💕Connect with Dr. Samia Hussein💕
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National Association for Doctors of Public Health

Are public health careers over? With public health layoffs, funding cuts, hiring freezes, and increasing uncertainty across the field, many professionals are asking what comes next.

In this episode of Public Health Careers, Dr. Marissa Robinson sits down with Dr. Samia Hussein, public health entrepreneur, consultant, and founder of Heyya Consulting, to discuss the future of public health careers, health equity, entrepreneurship, and community engagement.

Dr. Samia shares her journey from traditional public health roles to entrepreneurship, revealing how professionals can leverage their lived experiences, cultural identity, and expertise to create meaningful impact beyond traditional career paths. Together, they explore the evolving landscape of DEI and health equity work, the importance of authentic community engagement, and practical advice for students, early-career professionals, and anyone navigating a career transition.

If you're interested in public health careers, public health consulting, health equity, entrepreneurship, community health, advocacy, DEI, career development, or building a personal brand in public health, this conversation is packed with valuable insights.

In this episode:
• The future of public health careers
• Public health entrepreneurship and consulting
• Health equity and DEI in today's landscape
• Community engagement strategies that drive impact
• And much more!

Chapters
@0:00 Introduction
@2:34 What drove you to launch Heyya Consulting? 
@13:07 Trends you’ve noticed in your consulting work
@15:05 What does public health work get wrong and right about DEI? 
@21:05 Tips for early professionals entering the public health workforce
@34:43 Where does public health show up in your work, even behind the scenes?

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Recognizing that um maternal health is equity work, language acts is equity work, clean water is equity work, right? When we looked at the crisis in Flint, Michigan as public health provider, do we say, well, I'm gonna put all my resources right now in New York City in in water sanitation? No, the crisis was in Flint, Michigan, right? It was a geography, geographical crisis. So we needed to be able to pour into federal resources in the Flint Michigan crisis because that's where the issues were happening.

SPEAKER_00 0:29

Hey guys, welcome to the Real Talk Real Impact Podcast. This is the podcast where we center the voices and lived experiences and bold ideas shaping the future of public health. I'm your host, Dr. Marissa Robinson, and I'm joined here by Dr. Samia Hussain. Hi, hi y'all. Hey, so we're gonna get right on into it. How are you doing today?

SPEAKER_02 0:52

I'm doing good. I'm doing good. How about yourself? Happy to be here.

SPEAKER_00 0:55

Yes, I'm happy to be here. I'm so happy to have you on the show. And I want to get the folks acquainted with who you are. So let me tell them a little bit about you because they might not know that you're that girl, but let me just remind them of who we have on the air today. Yes, all right. So Dr. Samia Hussain is on a mission to eliminate health disparities by supporting the community both locally and internationally. Period. She has over 15 years of experience in public health, nonprofit, and community organizing, working with various populations of all ages and dimensions of diversity. As the director of the Office of Multicultural Health Equity at the Connecticut Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services, Dr. Hussein leads statewide equity initiatives, designs and facilitates DI training programs, and provides strategic consultation to executive leaders, policymakers, and multidisciplinary teams. She is also the CEO, principal consultant of Haya Consulting, CEO and founder of African Adornments, and is in the process of founding a tourism company rooted on learning about the Egyptian culture while curating experiences for black and brown people. Dr. Hussein was born in Cairo, Egypt, and raised between Egypt and the Bronx, New York. So everybody, please give my girl, my homie, a warm virtual round of applause. Thank you all. Thank you. Yes. So thank you so much for coming on the show, sis. We have a lot to talk about.

SPEAKER_02 2:30

Yes, we do. Let's unpack it.

SPEAKER_00 2:32

Yes, let's unpack it. So the first thing I want to tell the people about, I want you to walk us through your path to public health entrepreneurship because the girls want to know. And what drove you to launch Hay Out Consulting and what does Haya mean to you?

SPEAKER_02 2:46

Yeah, sure. That's a lot. But I'll I'll try to unpack it in a bit ten minutes. So, really, my path to public health is deeply personal. You know, I started off wanting to be a pediatrician, going the medical route as a lot of folks in public health have started. Yes. And I quickly learned that once I got my job out of um uh college, my very first job was working at a nonprofit where I was doing a lot of direct work in the heart disease and stroke prevention space, working out in the field, really helping provide health education to folks in the communities, underserved, marginalized communities in the Hartford, Connecticut region. So as a result, I quickly realized that I want to be able to impact as many people as I can quickly. So that's what really got me interested in public health. And I didn't know that back then what I was doing was a public health-related work, right? And it took me some time to really start putting a label to it, to be able to connect with other public health folks and to get interested in the public health space. So it really was personal for me. As a person that is of Middle Eastern, North African descent, I identify as an African individual and as a daughter of immigrants, I grew up really looking at the intersectionality between culture, language access, and systems that impact the communities that I serve, right? And oftentimes, folks that are from the Middle East and North African region, or MENA for short, are often overlooked. We are a huge, I think, population in the United States, about 3.8 million of us in the United States, in the diaspora, and we're impacted in so many different fields, whether it be in the entertainment space, in the medical space, and the public health space, right? There's just so many of us out there that is already interwoven. We're your neighbors, we're we're people around you that um have a lot to do in the field that we're living, that we're in right now. So I naturally evolved my career focusing on health equity because of my identity. I saw a lot of individuals from my community that were being underserved, whether it be individuals that were Arabic speakers, people that were Muslim, right, people that were Middle East North African. And as a result, those around me, um, including those that identify outside of the amena space or identities, um, were not getting the health that they needed. They were often overlooked, they were underdiagnosed, there were their health um outcomes were a lot more, uh, as you know, as a lot of folks know, um, impacted and a lot of disease burden. So I wanted to make that change. And for me to do so, I have to be in the space that I need to be. I need to be a part of the conversation, I need to be at the table. I needed to remind people that there are people of Middle Eastern North African descent that are not white because we were often being encompassed in the white category for a long time, and there's a history around that, and I'll I'll share a quick, quick history on that. Um, initially, a lot of the immigrants in this country over um about a hundred years ago or so the very first immigrants were folks from Syria. So folks from Syria, Lebanon, and this country did um were only providing entrepreneurs, right, resources if they identified as white. And back then, everybody that was not from a European background was non-white, right? So a lot of Syrian immigrants they wanted to make a living from themselves. They wanted to be entrepreneurs and they were constantly being denied that because they were not white, right? So as a result, they actually took it to Supreme Court, they fought for their rights, and they wanted to actually be identified as white. So little by little, a lot of people from the Middle East started identifying as white because the white people were the ones getting a lot of the entrepreneurial resources, right? They were being designated business owners. And people wanted to get ahead, just like everybody else. So over time, as you can imagine, that has evolved. Over time, there was a shift now between, okay, now that you're white, now you're being underdiagnosed, now you're being overlooked. Now we're not looking at um, we're looking at data disparity, right? As a result of the Middle East North African populations being categorized as white. We're not able to see what is the true health disease burden as a result of that. So over time, we started now identifying or wanting to identify as Middle Eastern North African. So over the span of my 15 years working in this space, I've worked at in hospitals, higher education, and nonprofit. I currently work in state government, and I wanted to improve the equity outcomes for my people, for my community. And I mainly noticed that a lot of organizations didn't know how to make that happen. You know, equity is such a buzzword, and as a result, people are they're just on board with it. They want to be a part of it. Organizations have that good intention of wanting to do something about it. But oftentimes they stop at, I don't know how to do it. I don't know how to operationalize equity, I don't even know where to start, right? I don't know how to be able to level up the equity work in a space that is meaningful for the communities that were often overlooked, right? So that's what pushed me to wanting to start Haia consulting. So heia means she or her in Arabic, right? I'm bilingual, I speak Arabic and English. And for me, I wanted something that encompassed my identity. I wanted something that empowered other people. I wanted it to also be a constant reminder because I knew going into the consulting space was going to be challenging. And as a result, not only did I want to share the work that I've done and being able to be at the table in these spaces that were predominantly white dominated spaces, but I also wanted to make sure that my identity was represented. I wanted to remind myself that with those challenges, go back to the why. Why did you start this? And it was about her. It was about me. It was about people like my mother and my aunt, people, loved ones that have often not been able to navigate the public health equity space or um the medical space, rather, right? So I thought entrepreneurship was a way for me to be a little bit more in control to help organizations operate operationalize equity. What I love about consulting is they could pay me a dime, right? They could pay me some money and I could tell them what to do. Yeah, I could tell them what to do and not be worried about the repercussion of that because they're paying me a good chunk of money to, you know, they don't want it to go to waste. They're not looking for an employee mentality, they were looking for a subject matter expert, someone could that could come and being able to identify what the problem is, give them a solution, but give them a blueprint on how to develop that solution. So I've worked with a lot of local organizations and I'm constantly looking at organizations that are in need, so how to market myself as well, and being able to um look at adding the people behind the story behind why we're doing this, why is it important, right? Who are the people behind the data? Why is it that individuals like me or or just an average person who have historically been marginalized in our in society? How can we be able to include them and be able to put a picture of face to the data? And I think that's why I wanted to um look at HEA consulting in a way that would help be uh that would help strategize or organizations to strategize around operationalizing equity. So I do have an equity start guide. It's a free resource for organizations that are looking at how to just quickly be able to develop a quick guide on equity, the steps that they could take, but I could certainly walk them through it and be able to actually develop a plan, a framework for them, and be able to help them and provide technical assistance and support as they're operationalizing equity in the organization. So they could find that information on my website, heiaconsulting.com. I have a great, fabulous small team as well that has helped me over the years in terms of developing. We all have wonderful skill sets and strengths. So we're able to leverage that as well. And I have a whole network of public health professionals across the US that I could also tap into, colleagues of mine that I've developed over the years, and I could be able to say, hey, you have a um uh a background in maternal health, right? Maternal child health. And I want that or I need that in this next project. So I'm always able to have the right people at the table at my fingertips as a part of um being uh CEO and principal consultant of Hay Consulting. And I think the main thing for me is being intentional. It's important for us to be intentional, important for us to be intentional around developing programs that is really gonna help the communities are often overlooked to be able to get through and be able to empower them to make the the choices that they need. But also another part of that is our workspace, right? Our colleagues, our our staff, like burnout is real in the public health space. Yes, it is. That could be a whole other podcast, right?

SPEAKER_00 11:35

That's a whole nother episode.

SPEAKER_02 11:36

Yeah, yeah. But I think you know, the the great thing about my organization is that it's a two-prong parallel approach. We look at the workforce, we look at how do we help train the workforce, how do we help reduce burnout in the workforce, how do we help build systems and processes in place to help that, and also how do we look at the people that we're serving and how to best be able to provide them with their needs. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:03

So that was a lot, that was a lot, but you you really broke it down for our audience because for many of the folks who may listen in have never thought about wow, look at all the intersections of my identity and how you can be somewhat of a change agent for individuals who come from your similar backgrounds, but also for folks who come from different backgrounds and to bring them up to speed on ways to bring equity and be equitable. It's not something that is just you turn on a switch and it happens, right? There's strategies, there's frameworks that you have to do, and it's not a one-size-fits-all issue. You can't just have one equitable thing and think it's gonna solve all the problems, or you can't just say, Oh, I center equity in your work, and then when you look to, okay, can you give me some examples? You're stumbling and fumbling. Okay. No, but hey, at consulting can help you get that together, right? Yes. So I would love for you to share with our audience maybe some trends that you've noticed in your consulting work. And can public health meet that moment?

SPEAKER_02 13:17

Oh, yeah. Listen, there is so many opportunity right now. There is just so much. Um, uh, as much as the public health space have been hit really hard with this federal administration and the politics and all that, um, there are still organizations out there that have the flexibility to have a little bit of funds on the side to be able to make work happen. So the public health consulting field has um gotten a little bit saturated. There's a lot of folks right now out there that are really hurting a lot of programs that have been cut, people that have been riffed, right? And as a result, a lot of folks are looking at how can I pivot? You know, how can I pivot into a space right now that is difficult to tap into when a lot of the resources are being taken away, right? So consulting has been around for a long time. And as long as you have a decent number of years of experience under your belt, there's a lot that you could leverage. But I would say that you really have to be intentional around what is it that people need? What do organizations need, and what are your strengths and what is the strengths of your consulting company to be able to bring that to them, right? So um one of the major trends I've noticed is that a lot of organizations are moving from performative conversations about equity towards accountability, right? And I think a lot of folks know what equity is, but they don't, you know, there's two types of people people that know what equity is, and it's just the oversaturated word, and we're starting to get in a way desensitized as a society around the word equity, right? And then you have folks that are just um let's just say brainwashed about equity, and they think, yeah, and they think that, you know, they think that equity is only for certain types of people.

SPEAKER_00 15:04

But when I talk about are you talking about DEI, perhaps? Or can you can you can you tell our audience a little bit more about yeah and what you're talking about?

SPEAKER_02 15:14

So I went, you know, as as director of the Office of Multicultural Health Equity, I do a lot of DEI work, right? Diversity, equity, inclusion. And over the years, the conversation has evolved. You know, we went we went from wanting to um be nice and act nice as organizations, right? To wanting to do something about it. Then we went to, you know, adding and being intentional around um consciously including people, right? And when things like this happen, when there's administration changes, that's just a distraction. It really is. It's a distraction to the work that has been happening for decades, right? As as this country was founded, you know, it founded on people wanting opportunity. Opportunity is equity, right? Opportunity is is looking at how can I make sure that you as a person have access to the resources and um we're able to fulfill your needs so you could thrive as an individual, right? It has nothing to do necessarily with a specific type of people, right? Because if I were to tell you, do you want to be able to get access to language, language resources? Do you want to be able to have access to the best quality health care possible? Do you want to be able to have lunch at schools for your kids? Do you want to be able to have opportunities to go on field trip for your kids? Like we're looking at access and opportunity. We're not looking at, you know, certain types of people, but in terms of access and opportunity, we do have to look at some data. Data doesn't lie. And if over time we're seeing, yes, certain types of people have not been doing that well because they don't have the resources that they need, that's an equity issue. That's an equity crisis, right? So recognizing that um maternal health is equity work, language access is equity work, clean water is equity work, right? When we looked at the crisis in Flint, Michigan as public health provider, do we say, well, I'm gonna put all my resources right now in New York City in water sanitization? No, the crisis was in Flint, Michigan, right? It was a geography, geographical crisis. So we needed to be able to pour into federal resources in the Flint, Michigan crisis because that's where the the the um um uh the issues was happening, other than other uh geographical opportunities, right? So I think it's important to keep in mind these things. It's important to look at who has been historically marginalized. It's not just about race and ethnicity, it could be other dimensions of diversity, right? But being open to saying, like, if you want that for yourself, why wouldn't you want it for others, right? And I think that's where individuals really really are challenged by that.

SPEAKER_00 18:07

Yeah, they are. And what we're trying to challenge the status quo and and make a difference, sometimes it can be really daunting to look at our current circumstances and be like, oh my gosh, this is gonna be impossible to do. But when we think back historically from a historical context, it has never been easy. It has never been easy to do behavior change, it has never been easy to move a people with science or medicine. It has it has taken a lot of work, a lot of advocacy, some policy, some folks to get knocked upside the head with okay, what are we doing here? Because things that are literal things that you wouldn't second guess now, maybe a hundred years ago, they wouldn't even exist, let alone some of the social and societal norms have definitely changed. So yeah, I think that's super important. Context for uh the audience to remember is even right now we're dealing with some things that can feel impossible, or the circumstances or the odds stacked against us can feel so outnumbered or that we're not equipped. But it was never easy, number one. And number two, if we're really being honest, we may have needed to do away with some of the old systems because they were never built for us in the first place. Yeah. So with that may come some rebuilding, but also thinking about innovation differently, thinking about how we can turn things around to benefit all instead of just some. And then when we come from an equity lens, figuring out what is not going to be a one size fits all. There's gonna be different interventions and different levels of care that we have to really take into consideration. But even talking about it is a part of acknowledging that these inequities exist, and that I think it makes some people very uncomfortable. Oh, yeah. But it's okay to be a problem.

SPEAKER_02 20:05

It's my job to make it uncomfortable. Right. It's our job, right? In the training space, I always do that when I work with people and I do a lot of equity and diversity trainings and all of that. You know, I said I would be out of a job if it was easy, right? Right. I I would be out of a job even in the public health space if it was easy. It's not meant to be easy. We're meant to advocate, we're meant to, you know, um really um advocate for the communities that we're serving in the public health space. We're meant to advocate for just better systems and care. And I think when there's a population that has inherently been thinking a certain way, you have groupthink, right? It it's hard to be able to break into that. But I think the best thing to do is to personalize it. The best thing to do is to have to find common ground. Where is it that we could be able to meet at so that you could start opening up your mind and really understanding the the complexity of equity work and why it's important.

SPEAKER_00 21:04

So, can you tell the audience a little bit more about the career coaching you offer, the advising, and some of maybe the things that early career professionals should know about entering the public health workforce right now, especially for those who just graduated. Shout out to all our graduates. Woo! Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:30

Yes, um, kudos to them because I remember what it was like, right, to be drenched in in deadlines and paperwork and you know, courses and exams. It it's a lot. And and in my master's and my doctorate programs, I was working full time, having all of these entrepreneurial hustling side businesses, right? And also going to school full time. So, you know, shout out to all of the the parents out there, the single mothers, the the you know, people out there. That are going through a lot of personal challenges, but they still show up for themselves for sure. So over the years, I think as I'm I'm getting out there more, as I'm doing more talks, as I'm um, I've built a brand for myself, I've built a brand for Hayek Consulting. Um, I've had people reach out to me and I'm always open to having a conversation. I will never turn anyone away. You know, if I'm a little bit busy, I'll say I'm busy maybe the sweep, but I'll definitely reach back out and be like, let's have a conversation. Because that's a way for me to kind of give back to um stewardship and to students. Uh because I remember what it was like, right? And I remember hustling. Yes. Listen, I'm still hustling right now. Right, right.

SPEAKER_00 22:43

It never stops.

SPEAKER_02 22:44

Yes, it never stops. But I think the key here is that we need to be able to have relatable individuals in the spaces of public health where we could reach out to mentors that we could trust, um, people that are relatable. And I think, you know, I'm a very social person. I relate with people and I'm always willing to help people in return. So I usually tell those early professionals when they reach out to me that health careers, public health field are no longer lenient. It's not a one size fits all, right? You need to make a path for yourself and you need to be able to really think about and internalize what is it that you could bring to the table? Because there's a lot of people in the public health space. So when I did my master's program a little over 10 years ago, there, you know, public health was still kind of starting. And even though public health has been around, I think the first school I don't remember if it was like the 80s or the 90s that the first public health school was. But the the key is that it wasn't really a buzz like it is now. A lot of folks go into the public health space, but you need to, I think, as an early professional, look inward and ask yourself, how can I tap into my divine power and my identities and be able to bring that, right? Because how how are you different than anybody else? What makes you stand out? And I think that's the key. Um, when I was in uh starting off as a student, I would always hear people say, you know, you need to find a niche, you need to find a niche, you need to be able to pick a lane and stay in your lane. And I'm like, no, I've, you know, the reason why I enter public health is because they told me, you know, when I was starting off, and when I was asking what is public health, it was because they said you could do anything. You could go into this career, you could be in sanitation, you could be in administration, you could be a health education specialist. There's so much, and when you get bored, I'm the type of person that gets bored pretty quickly. But I can always pivot and go into something else. Otherwise, I would have been a pediatrician and stayed in my lane and just did that, right?

SPEAKER_00 24:45

And just a clinician, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:48

Exactly. But you know, I I don't agree to a one size fits all or just putting me in a box. And yeah, I tell I tell that to the early professionals don't put yourself in the box. Get as much experience as you can. Talk to as many people as you can. Right now, skills matter just as much as titles, experience matters just as much as as titles. People who could communicate, facilitate, analyze data, build partnerships, right, are incredibly valuable in the public health space. What are your transferable skills? You know, do you have social media social media, health education, health communication is needed. So even if you're a good content creator, right, there's health education in the public health space. That's a transferable skill. So look at what is it that you could bring as a result of those multifaceted experiences that you have. And I also encourage people, especially professionals from immigrant, first generation, or underrepresented backgrounds, to recognize that their lived experience is an asset.

SPEAKER_01 25:49

Right?

SPEAKER_02 25:50

Your lived experience, Dr. Marissa Robinson, is your asset. That's what makes you who you are. And it is not a limitation. It never is. That's why I started HIA consulting, right? That's why I started African Adorman. I want to be able to share my culture and the multifaceted diverse cultures in Africa, right? To people here in the United States. So your ability to navigate cultures, languages, systems, and intersectional identities is leadership. And we're each a leader in our very own way. So honestly, networking, visibility matters, putting yourself out there. And I know it could be challenging. Me as a Middle Eastern North African, as a Muslim woman, I'm often challenged with that because I don't want to be like, oh, look at me, look at me, look at what I did, right? But I'm quickly learning that, you know, that was a weakness of mine. That was a struggle of mine. And I needed to work on that because if I don't tell people about myself, about my businesses in a room, who will?

SPEAKER_00 26:46

Who is?

SPEAKER_02 26:47

Right? Who is? Yeah, yeah. So I had to be intentional around talking and getting comfortable with talking to people and getting comfortable with sharing my my um social media, right? And going on on LinkedIn and starting to post every single thing that I do, the talks that I do, right? Putting that out there because you're building your brand, you're building your visibility. Yeah and public health is very much deeply relationship-driven, right? It's building those relationships, being able to add all of those um relationships that you've cultivated over the years and using that to your advantage. And I tell people not to underestimate entrepreneurial ship, right? It's never, you're never too young, never too old to be an entrepreneur if it's something a passion of yours. Yeah. I I my very first business, African Adorment, which is mostly retail. I sell, you know, handmade waste beads, um, shea butters. Um, I just got into Dubai Perfumes, all that is on my website, africanadorments.com. But the reason why I started that, it was a 10-year idea. For 10 years, Marissa, I was thinking about doing this. And I said to myself, what is stopping me? Why haven't I turned this idea into something? To reality, yeah. Into reality. Why what am I afraid about? So I had to have these internal conversations. I had to talk to my mentors, I had to pray about it, talk to people around me, and be able to tell myself, what's holding me back? What is holding you back, Samia? Like, why can't you do that? So one of the things I've realized was it's difficult for me to be a salesperson. I never wanted to be a salesperson. I never wanted to go and like convince you to buy a product, right? But when I started thinking about the people behind the product, the women that are in Africa, that are in Nigeria, that are in Ghana, that I am patronizing, I'm buying wholesale from them, right? I'm supporting them financially, and I'm buying, I'm selling a unique product here. It's not about the transaction anymore. There are people behind those stories. There are people behind the Egyptian bags that I sell every time I go to Egypt and I buy products from there, from people that handmake the work, right? There's a story around and a history around waste beads and shea butter, right? The pharaohs in Egypt. There's been pharaonic um hieroglyphics that showed a lot of the pharaohs, a lot of the women adorning themselves with waste beads, right? There's been a lot of history around shea butter and the benefits of shea butter with eczema and rash and the fact that it's 100% raw resource, right? So when I started looking at it in a different way, I started thinking about the people behind the story behind it, the benefit behind it. It wasn't any more a sales pitch. And and my products started speaking for themselves. And I started with only one product, Waste Beads. And now I have God, I probably over 50 products at this point on my website.

SPEAKER_00 29:40

Yes, come on, bro. We love it.

SPEAKER_02 29:43

Yes, yes. So definitely, you know, there is a growing space for consultants, for educators, for content creators, for anybody, but you have to be able to say to yourself, how can I make it me? How can I make it individualized, right? And how can I share that with everybody?

SPEAKER_00 30:02

And I love that you said, what can you give that is unique to you? Because I do feel like some of the social media culture and just the culture in general can feel very highlight real, like everybody's just successful. It's microwave success overnight. You don't see the sleepless nights, you don't see the hard work that's going on, the relationship building, the failures. You know, a lot of people don't really publish their failures on and put it out on Front Street. Yeah, but they but they put all the wins, they put the dollar amounts, they put the amount of customers, the followers, the X, the Y, and Z. And the point here is that you just need to start. Whether it's it's fully baked or not, whether it's perfect, imperfect, it doesn't matter. But the fact that you're starting is a great thing, and there's nobody on this earth like you. Out of all the one million people on this earth, there's only one you. So what you can bring to cooking, what you can bring to healthcare, what you can bring to tourism, what you can bring to consulting, what you can bring with your brand, your niche, that is your story. And no one has a story just like you. And even in these places that can feel so overly saturated or just feel like, what, what's different about me? Well, maybe that's part of why you need to start. Because if you don't start, you can't find your audience. You'll never start. Right, you'll never start. If you have to have perfect things in alignment, you're never gonna know. But the thing is, when when you are an entrepreneur, one of the biggest things you gotta do is adjust. Adjusting, adjusting, adjusting. You put something out there, you peel it back, you work on it, and you put it back out there again. And that's all that's what happened to me. Yeah, trying to do that.

SPEAKER_02 32:00

That's exactly what happened to me. I said to myself, I can no longer just sit and keep going years and not know what would happen. What if, you know, there's a lot of people that think of, what if I fail? But what if it was uh what if I succeed? And I and I want to know that. I want to I I had no idea how to run a business. I hadn't, and I, you know, one of the things that I'm I'm the type of person that always felt I needed to have all my decks in a row, I need to have everything in a row, they have everything figured out, I need to have processes processes in place, and I had SOPs, right? I need to have all this stuff. Yeah. But unfortunately, if I keep relying on that, I would never start. Because you're reaching for perfection. Exactly. And I'm not perfect, I'm not perfect. None of us are. Yeah, yeah. So it was very key for me to realize that pretty quickly and to say to myself, you just need to get started. It's okay if you fail, it's okay if you make mistakes, it's okay if you learn as you go. You know, you're not perfect, but your your vision is perfect, you know. What you want and what you want to strive for and succeed is is the perfect. Why you're doing this is perfect. And I wanted to do it for myself and for my people, you know.

SPEAKER_00 33:12

There you go. There you go. And when you I think that's also where we can find continuity in our dissertation topics, the which is a uh episode for another podcast. But when thinking about your career, when thinking about starting a business, when thinking about some of the bodies of work and some of the reasons why we do what we do, a lot of times when you identify closely and you're passionate because someone has a lived experience that's close to you, or you've had a personal experience with an interface with something, and or you identify with something specifically, that will carry you for the rest of your life. And those are the things that I I find very grounding when thinking about public health or thinking about research areas or why I do what I do or the way in which I do it is because I'm like, I don't care if people like it. I don't care, I'm doing it for me. Whether people want to sign on or not, that's that's here nor there. But eventually you end up finding your community and your people and the people who you resonate with, the people that like your stuff, the people that understand where you're coming from, and or support your mission and what you're doing. So do it scared, do it undone, do it imperfect, because as you grow, you will learn how to figure out the ebbs and flows. But if you never start, how do you know what potential you have? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I love that. So as we get ready to close, I would love to ask you where does public health show up behind the scenes, especially in your work?

SPEAKER_02 34:52

Yeah, I mean, that's a that's a load of question. And I would say public health shows up behind this the scenes by us showing up every single day, unapologetic, our our own authentic self, right? All of our intersectional identities, we embrace it. You never have to pick and choose what part you bring to work into the space, always speaking up, always advocating, you know, in in a of course a professional manner, right? Even though sometimes, girl, sometimes I I listen. Yep. Sometimes I I really want to wanna tell people what I really think. Right. But I'm like, okay, God, help me out here. Lead me, Lord, lead me. Yes. So I think, you know, there's there's one, we always have to think about who we are and what we represent and how to bring that in these spaces. And, you know, there was uh, and I'll give an example. There was at one point when I was working for a nonprofit, we had um uh a heart disease and stroke prevention program that we were funded through the CDC to to conduct. And we were going in a lot of different spaces to do that. We were going at libraries, at community centers, at farmers markets, we were providing health screenings, diabetes, um, blood pressure screenings, health education referrals, right? And um providing resources and and and tools for people to be able to monitor their health after they've they've seen us. And I sat with myself and I was thinking, where are we in the mosques? Like, why aren't we in mosques? Why are we, you know, we're focusing on churches, we're focusing on um certain spaces. But if if I wasn't there and bringing my own authentic self into space and looking at the people in the communities that I represent and being able to tell myself, who are we missing? Who is not at the table? Who is not having access to these resources? You know, we would never be able to bring that up. So I spoke to the team and I said, you know, we need to be able to look at beyond churches. Where are we tapping into? Where are we going? Are we going to synagogues? Are we going to mosques? Are we going to temples? Right? Are we going into spaces where people who don't believe in religion, you know, go to? So we have to be able to think about being the voice of the voiceless. And as a result, you need to think about what you represent and ask yourself, what are the communities, my communities, my identities, the people, the places that I go to that I could be able to bring that to. When I was working at a hospital and we had a mobile mamography unit, I started tapping into my network of people in my community, the Muslim Coalition of Connecticut, right? I I spoke with a lot of the mosques nearby in the area, a lot of the Arab cultural centers in the area. And I said, you know, how can we bring this resource? We're we're constantly bringing it to other places, but it's because people are only limited to where they think they should look. They should look right. But if you are, again, the only person, if you are of a MENA background, you identify as MENA, you identify as Muslim, you'll be, you'll, you'll start thinking about that. And I think that's why a lot of people, a lot of organizations need to look beyond um a diversity higher, right? Leading to look at please who can be who can be at my organization, the communities that we serve. Because they're gonna be, you know, you're gonna be tapping into some blind spots that they have, and you're bringing in these things as a result and being able to really help expand the resources and the services to people that have not have been often overlooked.

SPEAKER_00 38:39

Yeah, that's true. That's so true. And as we get ready to end, can you share some of the places that people can find you for our viewers and our listeners?

SPEAKER_02 38:52

Yeah, sure. So you could find me on LinkedIn, Sammy Hussein. You could give me a follow. Feel free to reach out on there. I do have my own personal website, drsamihussein.com, and it's D-R-S-A-M-I-A-H-U-S-S-E-I-N.com. And for my organization, you could look up heya, H E Y Y A Consulting.com as well, and learn a little bit about the services that we can offer. So I'll be happy to connect. I'm always up for some coffee or tea. We could hit up a Yemeni spot. Let's go to some to some Middle Eastern coffee shops alright in New Haven and be able to patronize uh people from the Middle East and North Africa and um spread the love and spread the diversity and and expand beyond conversations that were often overlooked. So happy to be here and thank you for having me and looking forward to continuing the real talk.

SPEAKER_00 39:44

Okay, yeah, because that's why we're here. And we want to say thank you for being a part of this conversation on real talk, real impact. Keep showing up, keep asking questions, and keep pushing for better. And until next time, guys, we'll listen and see ya later. Bye. Bye.