Unlocking Investment Secrets and Mastering Entrepreneurship: A Journey of Resilience and Mentorship

Unlock the secrets of securing investment and mastering entrepreneurship with our esteemed guest, Jennifer Dyer. As a five-time CEO and seasoned mentor, Jennifer brings a treasure trove of insights from her experience in raising over $13 million, particularly for women and minority entrepreneurs. This episode is a candid exploration into the world of alternative funding, where we unravel the nuances of securing capital from high net worth individuals—quite a different ballgame from the traditional venture capitalist approach.

The journey to entrepreneurial success is fraught with challenges, yet it's rich with opportunities for growth and learning. Jennifer shares her professional evolution, from leading businesses to fostering the next generation of entrepreneurs through her innovative online education platform, E100 Clubs. Discover the pivotal criteria for entrepreneurs looking to scale their ventures and how the E100 Clubs provide the crucial knowledge and community support to propel businesses forward. If you're seeking to enhance your entrepreneurial acumen, this episode is your gateway to actionable education tailored to the dynamic world of business.

We also delve into Jennifer's personal odyssey, a testament to resilience and the power of mentorship. Her transition from an aspirant TV presenter facing a non-diverse UK media landscape to a flourishing entrepreneur is not just inspiring—it's a masterclass in pivoting and perseverance. Hear how encounters with influential mentors like Matthew Knowles helped shape her resolve to carve out a place at the table for herself and others. This episode is more than just a conversation; it's a rallying cry for all who dare to persevere in the face of adversity on their entrepreneurial path.

Transcript

Kutloano Skosana: 0:05

Hello and welcome to Shades and Layers. I'm your host, kutvan Nuskosa Narechi. This week on Shades and Layers, we look at alternative funding and further education for entrepreneurs. Jennifer Dyer is my guest today and she's going to help us unpack how to do things differently when raising capital or keeping your business skills set up to date.

Kutloano Skosana: 0:27

Jennifer is a five time CEO and currently on a journey of supporting entrepreneurs by tapping into her global business network and teaching all that she has learned during her two decade long international business career. Some of the companies she has founded in the US and the UK include Celebrity Fast Card, jh2 Media Group, 2v Livestreaming Way Before Title and Spotify, as well as YAPPA and Audio and Video Only Commenting Widget that you can add to your website or social pages. Jennifer Dyer is an innovator. Therefore, it's not surprising that she's focusing her efforts on teaching you how to find alternative sources of capital and the knowledge you need to be a success as an entrepreneur. This month, jennifer is introducing her online education platform called E100 Clubs. Let's find out all about that, as well as its predecessor, the unsophisticated bag, here's Jennifer.

Jennifer Dyer: 1:25

I describe my work as being a black female entrepreneur in the industry that's striving for change and in the process of wanting because we do wanting to attain a level of success or a level of accomplishment.

Jennifer Dyer: 1:45

At the same time, I describe my work as also wanting to be able to connect with other female entrepreneurs or business owners or visionaries, become a part of a community of women that are striving to attain whatever their dreams and passions are. I describe my work as full on every day, but I think the deeper part for me is to make a mark. I think, kitilano, I really want to leave more than just what the processes are of running a business. I don't want just to be okay, so I've attained a level of success, I've done this, I've done that, this is gone, I've social media, etc. Etc. All the things that suggest that you're doing really well are, for me, the aesthetics. The deeper value for me and need is to be able to make a difference, even in one person's life even to be able to encourage another, even to be able to inspire another.

Jennifer Dyer: 3:02

Bring somebody else into the fold, who may not have the same level of experience as me, to make a mark, to touch someone and be touched myself in that process. I think that's my answer to that.

Kutloano Skosana: 3:17

So what does that look like in reality? What is your business and how do you work with these women whose lives you want to touch?

Jennifer Dyer: 3:27

I've been a five-time CEO. I'm really honoured and privileged to say that I've led companies that are across entertainment and technology.

Jennifer Dyer: 3:35

The last of these companies was a company called YAKA, where I created an audio and video commenting tool. So in the comment sections that you guys see online, we developed a tool that was audio and video only and it was a way in the trolling just the fact that you can have these nimble fingers when you're hiding behind a screen because it's just text and we wanted to address this idea of allowing organisations and companies who, some of them had actually deleted their comment sections to have a comment section where you could build a community.

Jennifer Dyer: 4:20

So you're now building your own sort of social network on your own website, and so that was the last business that I headed up actually going through a process of being acquired at the moment. I took a step back and inside of that whole process, I had the opportunity to be a part of a number of different panels and speaking engagements, be a part of different communities, speaking with women and being available to women, and I think, in reality, for me, what that looks like now is that I've taken a step back from my role as a CEO and I've dived into more mentorship and coaching, and I'm really really happy after all these years, rather than where I've had to do it a bit here, a little bit there, a little bit here, a little bit there but could never fully commit Right. I made a decision at the beginning of 2023 to totally commit. I have enough experience and tools.

Jennifer Dyer: 5:16

The good times, the bad times, the tough times, the tough times, the separation times right To be able to really offer something that's authentic, that's true, that's real, that could make a difference. So right now, it is that's what I do full time. I'm fully into coaching and I'm fully into mentoring, and I think we'll talk about it later on. I've set up a couple of other projects that embrace that and allows that flow to happen, so I'm excited about it, yeah.

Kutloano Skosana: 5:49

So what kind of mentoring are you offering? Are you one-on-one group? How does it work?

Jennifer Dyer: 5:57

So, keelani, one of the key I think one of the key challenges of a business owner and an entrepreneur as a starter is raising capital as a woman, no matter how hard as a black woman, even harder and so when I landed, I wanted to find an area of that really needed to be addressed, and raising capital has always been a challenge, and so, for me and my journey, I wasn't able to raise capital with ordinary commercial VCs, just because of the way it's set up, their cookie cutter type of structure.

Jennifer Dyer: 6:36

You know the sand fran kind of way in which they look at women, particularly black women. Listen, 2%, less than 2% of women get VC money. And so I had to find another route across the last 15 years of my journey and I kind of got into and found high net worth individuals. And these are people that could be, you know, whether they're celebrities or they could be your doctor, they could be a friend that was in real estate and exited really well. They could be a business person that's exited really well, but they're just ordinary people really looking back and support ordinary people that have come to the table with a cookie cutter. And I raised over $13 million, captain Lalo, in the last 15 years.

Kutloano Skosana: 7:18

Wow, that's substantial.

Jennifer Dyer: 7:21

So when I took that step back and I went into mentoring, the first thing that I wanted to do then that there is another route to raise capital that doesn't have to have you going into these rooms, which are predominantly led by white men, guys from Princeton or Harvard. It's a close knit who you know. You know it's a very stringent structure. But there is another route to raise capital. So I created this course called the unsophisticated bag, where I teach not just women whoever wants to join, but particularly women. I invite how to raise capital with everything.

Jennifer Dyer: 7:56

But more importantly and I'm really excited about this, because there are so many accelerator programs out there and workshops and after race capital and you go into these moments you spend thousands of dollars. They give you a lot of the presentation documentation. Then you come out of it and you probably met maybe two BCs Like what do you do after you've ended those courses? So I was really, really determined to be able to give my clients a list of an email list of high net worth individuals that after the course, they can level deeper and we literally match your business with the right high net worth individuals. So if you're in.

Jennifer Dyer: 8:42

AI, if you're in the subscription business, if you're in entertainment, if you're in like, whatever you're doing, if you're in healthcare.

Jennifer Dyer: 8:53

I give you a list of over 100 high net worth individuals that are pointed and committed to that particular vertical, whether with philanthropy, whether charitable, whether they're still working in the industry and so it's a real match made in heaven and it's just been such a great resource for so many people because they get to have great lists and they go on and when they have these first forward conversations, everybody's already connected. Everyone already has something in common.

Kutloano Skosana: 9:27

Yeah.

Jennifer Dyer: 9:28

So that's what I've kind of done so far.

Kutloano Skosana: 9:31

Yeah, that's fantastic because I was. You know that was one of my next questions, like how is it different from charitable donations?

Jennifer Dyer: 9:38

When I said philanthropy or charitable, what I was trying to get across there is that they have an affinity to your vertical. It doesn't matter what area it is, whether it's a commercial investment or whether it's a charitable investment, but the high net worth individual has an interest in your radical. Just for clarity. And so the wonderful thing about high net worth individuals it comes with the same kind of collateral in terms of expectation. If they're going to invest $25,000 or $100,000, yes, there's equity that they want to be able to be given. There's an exchange.

Jennifer Dyer: 10:16

It's just that you get to those conversations and that goes negotiations a lot easier and a lot more, I believe, in a humanistic form, as opposed to this real kind of robotic pattern. That happens, so it's the usual standard. You know they like your project, they want to invest $100,000, they want to know what they're going to get as a part of that. Oftentimes they like to be offered an invitation to become an advisor or a consultant or maybe on the board, as well as being able to get some level of exchange of shares, and that's kind of normal. It's just that it's just truly fair play. But the actual exchange or the actual transaction is similar. They're not doing it for nothing, but they're just more sensitive. There's, you know, acknowledgement of what it's taken for that particular individual to get to where they go. So, yeah, it's a real opportunity and it's certainly another option.

Kutloano Skosana: 11:20

Yeah, and you know, who would you take into this program? At what stage of growth should they? Be, when they come to you. Good question.

Jennifer Dyer: 11:30

Good question. I've said to most of the potential clients that come to me that they should at least have what I call show and tell, which means please have a website already, please have the idea, a website. Maybe you may not have an MVP, but you have a website. You have some assembly of a team, maybe you have a CTO, even if it's just you and your CTR, that's very valuable as a team, so that's a two-man band. There is also a requirement for you to have at least done some level of research and testing this product with the users, just to be given some type of feedback on what the possibilities of it and doing what you're suggesting you're going to do. Better still, if you want to go up a level, that you have some sort of presentation deck that you can send out, something that sort of describes the opportunity, something that also describes the financial opportunity.

Jennifer Dyer: 12:44

Yes, and whilst it doesn't have to be this five-year thing, even if it's like, okay, this is our first year, but it just shows commitment, it shows organization, it shows your written value, that you have something that you can share. It's alive, you're just showing that it has breath. And this is how I look at it Kutulane, it's like a baby. The baby's alive, right Breathing, crying, searching, doing all these beautiful things, but it's a baby and it's not less than a human, fully grown woman like me. Like that little tiny baby that's just been born, it's still valued.

Kutloano Skosana: 13:30

Yeah.

Jennifer Dyer: 13:31

Everybody loves the baby and just like gravitates and just like, oh my God, this baby now needs nurturing. So I look at it like that just have the baby.

Kutloano Skosana: 13:40

Right.

Jennifer Dyer: 13:41

That's all you need with high net worth individuals Just at least have the baby and you go forward, whereas with a lot of VCs they want more than a baby. They want to see real numbers. They want to see real financial month-on-month returns. They want to see customers. They want to see all of those numbers and retention which is so hard because everybody starts at that baby, point it doesn't matter what you're doing, you're going to have to start out as a baby.

Jennifer Dyer: 14:13

Nobody starts out as an adult, and that's one of the reasons that it's really been frustrating. Like you know, you have to save concept. Guys Like you ask all these questions, you have all these expectations, but they've got one business that's ever started as a grown adult.

Kutloano Skosana: 14:30

The layers, and today our focus is on raising capital and real-time education for entrepreneurs. Five-time CEO Jennifer Dyer is the guest unpacking the ticks and trips through the story of her global entrepreneurial journey. Up next, she'll be talking about her latest venture community and expert-driven online learning platform, E100 Clubs.

Jennifer Dyer: 14:54

This was birth out of the fact that I love that I was reaching and touching, because in the unsophisticated bad course I would only take maybe maximum I would take with six people, because I really wanted to be hands on. And another part of my experience of learning as a CEO of a startup was when we're in that space, one in our businesses. Oftentimes, more often times, we have to reach out to third-party vendors, whether it's a branding company, to help us with our branding or a media company or a marketing company.

Jennifer Dyer: 15:34

And one of the things to tell her that I really felt I fell down was I did not have enough knowledge, because I'm one in the process of my business and the key essentials. What I didn't have was enough knowledge to really be able to understand what these third-party vendors were doing, so I ended up spending so much more money as they come into me saying, oh you need this, you need to do this, you need to do that.

Jennifer Dyer: 15:59

And lack of knowledge, lack of knowledge had me playing to that tune and, out of the fact that I wanted to touch more people, I created the E100 Club, which is like a business or school for entrepreneurship, where we have 10 different clubs, whether you want to join the business to business club, the e-commerce club, the social media club, it is a marketplace where you can just find everything you need to sharpen your skills, to be educated, to be trained into whatever it is that you need for yourself and for your business. It's not just for business owners. It could be that you just want to sharpen yourself on your career.

Kutloano Skosana: 16:44

Right. The other thing is that we go off, and we do these courses for maybe 12 months, six months spend quite a bit of money on them and by the time you're finished.

Jennifer Dyer: 16:55

The industry's changed Exactly Because everything's moving so far Exactly and changing so quickly. With the E100 Club, we are just on trend. We are relevant and right on point. We update every single month, so I'm really excited that I get to speak into number one, touching more people. Whether you are just career driven, if you want to sharpen up your skills, whether you're an employer who wants to invest in your employees, whether you are a business owner that wants to be able to have a little bit more control and knowledge of your business, the E100 Club gives you all of that. So we have three membership tiers where you can join one club, you can join three clubs or you can have all access. And the main thing I'm super excited about is that for every club you join, you have a community.

Kutloano Skosana: 17:45

You have the.

Jennifer Dyer: 17:46

E-Club community so you get to connect with like-minded people. That's doing the business to business club. There are courses, there are audio courses, there are templates. It's just loaded and beautiful and the price point is amazing.

Kutloano Skosana: 18:05

I wanted to gain to do something like that. What you charge.

Jennifer Dyer: 18:08

Yeah, I wanted to do something with this Again. Like the unsophisticated bag, it's quite expensive.

Jennifer Dyer: 18:15

I say that myself but, that's because it's that personal, one-to-one mentionment and coaching and you get this whole list right. Fine, if you could invest. But when I say expensive, we are still so much more reasonable than your usual accelerator program. The E100 Club. For one club that gives you the club, that gives you a course, that gives you unlimited access to so many different things, whether it's the e-books and the community it's $39.99. If you want to join three clubs, maybe you want to sort of like do you know what? I want to change it all I want to kind of do marketing, branding and business $69.99. And for $99.99, you have a lot of success. I want not just business owners but individuals to be able to invest in themselves at a place and at a price that they can afford. And one of the great things I'm really excited about is I'm gearing up to launch it in countries and territories that don't have it, don't have access to this type of material.

Kutloano Skosana: 19:19

Oh, tell me more, yeah.

Jennifer Dyer: 19:21

Yes, so we're going into the Africans Right, I'm just gearing up. We're looking at that in Tanzania, nigeria, in Rwanda, bidding the Caribbean in Jamaica, like we're online. So this information, which is so valuable, is just not available in certain territories. And one of the things I'm really excited about the U100 Club is that not only do I get to encourage and touch my community in the US and my community in the UK, I get to touch communities that ordinarily just wouldn't have access to this type of information and support.

Kutloano Skosana: 20:04

You could argue that LinkedIn also has courses and all of that, but it feels like you've got. You know the personal touch. Do you have people who are leading clubs and you know how does it become personable and different from just going to? You know, on demand.

Jennifer Dyer: 20:19

You've got the vision. You're asking some really great cool questions. I'm very grateful for that. So, yes, the vision is that once a month, I will have an industry expert leader to do whether it's a live Q&A or some type of presentation in the e-commerce club, the brand new club, the marketing club. Again, I'm thankful for my journey because I can call on some great, awesome people Qtulano, that has great experience and great information to share. So every month, all of the clubs will have those industry experts and those the ability to just just get that information and some of the testimonials and experiences. I think we're different from anybody, like LinkedIn, because we're really being inclusive and we're really kind of creating this community that allows you to connect, not with the entire community, but you just connect with. If you're doing e-commerce and branding and you really need just to connect with that, with those are the people that you can absolutely connect with. One of the key things that the E100 Club has is that we have it all in one marketplace, one place.

Jennifer Dyer: 21:39

Because that was another thing that was really hard and a part of my experience. If I wanted to do, get some information on social media or e-commerce, or branding or marketing, or. I wanted to find all of this information in just one place.

Kutloano Skosana: 21:56

Right, yeah, because it's wild out there.

Jennifer Dyer: 22:00

One place where I can just ask what we offer.

Kutloano Skosana: 22:03

We offer whatever you need.

Jennifer Dyer: 22:05

We're aware of the economical changes that happens around business landscape on a daily basis. The E100 Club was there to arm you with the tools, the information and the skills and knowledge that you need to be able to stay abreast and stay forward with the ever so evolving moving times of what's going on in the business landscape right now.

Kutloano Skosana: 22:41

Shades and Layers is a global storytelling platform for black and other women of color in business. This episode features the story of five-time CEO Jennifer Dyer, who has so far outlined alternative sources of capital and how she plans on helping entrepreneurs to keep their skills up to date with her platform, e100 Clubs. Now it's time to find out how she ended up where she is today, and we will also get into the Shades and Layers rapid fire. So you are so passionate about all the things that you do, and it explains why you're an entrepreneur. But I'd like to get more into your personal journey, and I know you have. You had your beginnings in radio and television, so can you just do a summary of where you've come from and what led you to being an entrepreneur in the first place? Was it a stumble upon or something that that was more deliberate?

Jennifer Dyer: 23:42

So when I started, I wanted to be nothing else but a television presenter and a producer. That was my entire passion and I went into that journey at a very early age and I got so many doors shut. No, no, no, no, no.

Kutloano Skosana: 23:56

I was in the United.

Jennifer Dyer: 23:57

Kingdom. At the time there was only one black man on TV on the news. We weren't like America that had people that looked like me. Uh-uh, they had nobody that looked like me, like no one. I was going through this whole process that probably took me about, I would say, three and a half years to crack.

Jennifer Dyer: 24:21

And I never stopped every day sending show rules, making show rules, calling people going to the interview. It was a whole thing. I wanted it so badly and it reminded me as I look back on it now. It's the same as the VC. It was a very close knit, who you know? Type of cookie cutter industry.

Jennifer Dyer: 24:41

But I thought to myself, well, if I just give up, that's what I want to do. So if I just give up, then what is the meaning to my life? So then I thought to myself, okay, I'm going to have to find my own path. I'm going to have to find another option. Clearly I'm not going to be engaged. So I thought and I found another option in Christian music and just like the Christian world and I was going to the United States to become things around mega churches and pastors and all of the great music that was coming out, like you have Christian rapping and R&B, and it was just like not here in the UK. So I started to bring this footage back and started to expose it and license it and I became the expert.

Kutloano Skosana: 25:29

Oh, wow, and license it.

Jennifer Dyer: 25:30

All right, yeah, because you can tell me. I then started to go to cans and license. I'll do these beautiful packages that could be for news inserts or could be for you know, just different areas of the industry. And before you know it, doing all of that, I was an offer, a show on channel five on the main terrestrial networks in the UK.

Jennifer Dyer: 25:55

And it was always supposed to be a pilot, and I ended up staying there with them for seven years Fantastic, and that was absolutely awesome. But what that did Kutulanu was show me. So when I came into now, as I'm out of that, I set up my own production company. That was the but. That was my entry into my entrepreneurship. I wanted to be able to own things and be in control of things, and they had to hire me through my production company. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Jennifer Dyer: 26:28

And as I continued down that road and started to expand into technology and needed investment, I realized, okay, when I got my first note going down that traditional route, I just said I'm not going to do this again. I spent five years trying to get to this industry with no, and I had to go make my own seat at the table and find another option. So I'm going to do the same thing. At that point I had a beautiful, very grateful I am to this day. The network that I had around me at that time allowed me to explore another option and that's how I first got my investment from a high net worth individual.

Kutloano Skosana: 27:04

Oh, and I've just never stopped. Yeah, that's amazing. That's my story. Oh, that's really amazing.

Jennifer Dyer: 27:10

Girls and boys as we're out there listening to their jokes. Don't give up. There's always another option If that's your dream and your passion. You can't lay it down for anyone. You can't lay it down for the system. You can't lay it down for inequality. You can't lay it down for the unfair way that certain communities are tricked. No, you cannot. We've got to continue to push and fight forward, because that's the only way that we're going to make a mark and stay together.

Kutloano Skosana: 27:42

So how did you become this resilient?

Jennifer Dyer: 27:45

I think, just because of all the hardship and all of the nose and all of the pushback and all of the you can't do it and all of the negative and all of the lack of support to me, the only way I'm going to be able to overcome it is to be able to be strong enough to do it. That's the first thing. You can survive those waters you will find a way out and you're going to survive, because a lot of us don't survive those waters and I get it.

Jennifer Dyer: 28:07

I kind of really fell down just still, until I had to refocus, gain a new perspective and come back into the fight and continue forward. But yeah, I just think it's all the negatives and just what the journey, my journey, has been that should give me the resilience that I've had. It's just like no, no easy yes to me.

Kutloano Skosana: 28:29

I'm not doing that anymore. Do you mean not yet?

Jennifer Dyer: 28:33

Yes, Not now, but okay.

Kutloano Skosana: 28:38

So who are some of the people who have been supportive in your journey? I know you said you raised finance from a high net worth individual but you know those coaches, mentors and people giving you courage along your journey because, as we know, nobody does this alone, right? So yes. Yeah.

Jennifer Dyer: 28:58

Okay, so first of all, I guess there's two categories. This category is like the influential, the, those are a little bit more affluent and influential, so I had the opportunity. Matthew Knowles, beyonce's father right.

Jennifer Dyer: 29:13

Great, mental, great, awesome, mental, absolutely awesome, awesome, awesome. And I even I mean I don't want to sing this song, but I'm going to say it for Beyonce she's just the most beautiful, gorgeous person in the stages that she is. When I met her many years, many, many years ago and she could actually film in something, and she had to do this shot about 58 times literally, and she did it with such a smile, with such grace, with such beautiful patience or a whole crew that it just gave me a complete difference with perspective on her, just as a human in her craft, beautiful. So Matthew Knowles was a very, very influential family and then I come across just sort of like other, better name names that some of your audience would know Damon John again, just great and just awesome and just such a strong entrepreneur and so giving with his time and what he's done and it's been another great mentor to me. And then there are just just a number of beautiful people that may not be as commercially known right.

Jennifer Dyer: 30:30

What are just photos that have found a level of success and have just proven to be so impactful in their industries and their communities that I've been able to lean on and tap into. That has championed me and, you know, cautioned me where I needed to be cautioned and just pushed me when I need to be pushed and pick me up when I've fallen.

Jennifer Dyer: 30:57

There are so many people that have achieved a certain level of success because alone, and they're just like, still so unhappy, still so unfulfilled, like where is here, do I feel like I'm? No, here is just continuing to unfold and be a part of the world, be a part of the journey of people wanting to find purpose, and I don't think that ever stops. And that's not measured by money, I don't think it's measured by houses and cars and all of those other privileges. I really don't. I think it's just measured by peace, joy, heart and what you're prepared to still give and how available are you still going to be for the ordinary Joe. That, to me, defines success.

Kutloano Skosana: 31:44

That's lovely, yeah, so it sounds like you've lived a few lifetimes and still live, and still. There's still more to come. But if you had to summarize it in a memoir so far. What would you call it and why?

Jennifer Dyer: 32:07

Oh my, God, that's such a question. I love you. Future Lime would do it. Dear girl, you're not going to get me. I'm going to stay connected to you. I just love your flow and how you think.

Kutloano Skosana: 32:19

Oh, thank you.

Jennifer Dyer: 32:20

So awesome. Okay, so I've got to say this right, because I don't want it to sound crazy, but I don't want to make anything up. I want to be really authentic and really real, but at the same time, I want there to be clarity on what I mean by this, my memoir, if I had to write it. I've always had something that is called from the pit to the palace and it's the story and I got it from Joseph from the Bible.

Jennifer Dyer: 32:49

Joseph, yeah, who was a bandit by the family, who just went through so many different segments and aspects of accused, sold into slavery, then accused of wanting to sort of rape someone, ended up in prison. I mean, he just had a dream. He just had a dream and he told his brothers that he just had a dream and that dream was not reciprocated, it was not appreciated, it was not received and it caused his life for the first 30 or years of his life to be just horrible and unfair and he went through so much. But part of that dream was that he was one day going to be in a position where he was just going to be able to help his community and help that nation and provide it with anything about being in a palace because, like I'm a king or a queen it was about just being in an order and a position where you could really help and, of course, when we all know what happened with Joseph.

Jennifer Dyer: 34:00

He was that man of many dreams. He had dreamed of his first vision and when he was in prison he had other visions and dreams. And Pharaoh was going through what he wanted to go through and asked who could interpret the dream. And it was Joseph. And he ended up in that palace, second command to Pharaoh, in a position where he was able to provide the solution to nations dying yeah because he was able to say like, fall on your bonds with this.

Jennifer Dyer: 34:33

This is what we need to do here, this is what we need to do there to be able to keep ourselves healthy and safe and to continue to grow this generation. My memoir would be the picture to the palace, because I feel like my journey was I'll never align myself with the great Joseph. That's not what I'm saying.

Jennifer Dyer: 34:51

So guys, yeah, but it's just a journey of real struggle, real battle, real fight, real grit and what it takes to keep seeing your vision as you're going through that. You've seen it when he was being accused and abandoned and just set aside. Still see the vision. How do you do that? And then, when you come into that place, because you stood that test of time, you've applied that resilience and that faith and now you're in that place. Joseph could have done so many things. He could have just become so bold, he could have just become so negative, he could just become so full of ego, but no, he took the position and was really able to contribute save that nation. I'm not saving a nation if I do. My struggle or journey can just impact and save one person, which is my palace moment, thank you yeah it was just one person I talked, so that's what the memoir would be on the pitch?

Kutloano Skosana: 36:01

and if you took that memoir and turned it into a film, who?

Jennifer Dyer: 36:05

would you pick?

Kutloano Skosana: 36:06

who would you pick for the lead? I'll produce it for you you have to.

Jennifer Dyer: 36:24

Can I just say for a second I'm just so in awe, the damage by you. You're, you're just so quiet, but you're so powerful thank you.

Kutloano Skosana: 36:35

And if tonight you know while you're cooking all your many different dishes at the same time in your kitchen and yet you invite a famous black woman over for dinner, who would it be and why?

Jennifer Dyer: 36:49

I love you.

Kutloano Skosana: 36:50

Oh, my gosh living or dead here do you know who?

Jennifer Dyer: 36:55

I think okay, oh my gosh. Do I have to say. But this is just, can I just be honest and true? Yes, absolutely, I only my gosh. I think okay, okay, everyone's gonna say, oh my gosh, it'll be Michelle Obama.

Kutloano Skosana: 37:08

I'll let me tell you why, girl?

Jennifer Dyer: 37:12

how did you become the first black lady, the first black wife of the president of the biggest free world country in? How did you do that?

Jennifer Dyer: 37:26

with such place elegance, patience, love. How did you do that? You've never. You, there's not a handbook, no, that was ever gonna tell you how to be the president's wife. As a black woman, you shined for us. You shined for the United States of America, and that's resilience. That's a pit to the palace moment. That's a moment in time back. How did you do it? What did it take for you to do it? So that's why we invited in on, because when that happened like that, I mean you can always plan it, but being in it, man, and having to switch it on, what your life was then is no longer now. It's not something that you can put on your little sticky papers on your fridge saying, well, this is what there's no sequence of events there's no sequence of events.

Jennifer Dyer: 38:22

It was just I mean in it and you just you want it and I will forever be treated intrigued. I, I've always been intrigued and I've always been just honored and just so inspired by that. That was just amazing as a black woman, insane yeah she is amazing so that is.

Kutloano Skosana: 38:43

That is all from me in terms of the interview. Is there anything else that you'd like to touch on that maybe we haven't spoken about?

Jennifer Dyer: 38:51

awesome? Oh, my god, not at all. All I'd like to say to your audience is that if you are out there and you are interested in sharpening your skills, learning a new skill, wanting to just stay afraid and all planned with your business or your career, check out the e100 clubs and that's with an s on the end clubs and joc on. Have a look around and just see where you land there and all I want to say she's been on a privilege to tell on it. I want to stay in touch with you. You're really inspiring. I love what you're doing, making a difference, because, yes, you are, and I'm just very grateful and thankful and I'm grateful to you too, jennifer.

Kutloano Skosana: 39:35

Thank you for sharing your story. Thanks to you for listening and supporting shades and layers. If you want to learn more about Jennifer's work, then please go to the show notes and if you like this episode, please spread the love and share it with a friend. I'm good one is close on a richie and until next time. Please do take good care.