"Her Wine, Her Story": A Conversation with Nicole Anderson
Welcome to Episode 13 of She's Free2Fly. I'm your host, De'Shonda Lucas, and today, we have the inspiring Nicole Anderson joining us. In a riveting conversation, Nicole shares her journey through her personal health challenges, finding joy and purpose through her wine business, and the impact of supportive relationships in her life. With Atlanta Voice featuring her, big wins for her wine brand in Atlanta, and a Speaking slot at Kentucky Derby, Nicole reflects on how her circumstances don't dictate her future. Get ready to delve into this deep, personal discussion about the values of entrepreneurship, embracing positivity, overcoming adversity, and living unapologetically to the fullest extent. We'll also cover the importance of intentional happiness, setting positive morning routines, and celebrating everyday moments. Let's raise a glass to life with Nicole and HER Wine "A Toast to Me". Get ready for an enlightening episode as we tackle life, wine, and everything in between. So let's get this conversation started.
Transcript
Hello, ladies. Let's perch. It is the Shonda Lucas. And welcome to the she's. Free to fly, podcast. I have my first guest here in the new studio, nicole Anderson of Her Wine. Let's give her a round of applause.
Nicole Anderson [:Nicole, thank you. Thank you.
De'Shonda Lucas [:So happy that you came today.
Nicole Anderson [:I'm happy to be here.
De'Shonda Lucas [:And this is just answer to a prayer. God's divine meetups as usual. Yes. Because he connects us divinely every time. So welcome. We're going to learn so much about you today, so much about your story, about your journey, about her wine and what set you free to fly to launch her wine. So, my dear, where do you want to begin?
Nicole Anderson [:We got to start with drinking some wine first.
De'Shonda Lucas [:Okay.
Nicole Anderson [:Yeah.
De'Shonda Lucas [:We got to start off right. That is definitely the best start.
Nicole Anderson [:So this wine, this is the most recent wine that I have created.
De'Shonda Lucas [:Okay.
Nicole Anderson [:It's called a toast to me.
De'Shonda Lucas [:Yes.
Nicole Anderson [:And it's a bubbly rose. We're going to talk about why this is special, but you'll notice that this label has the breast cancer ribbon on it, so we'll talk about that in a little bit. But this one's my baby. Yeah. This one's one of my babies.
De'Shonda Lucas [:So let's start off having a toast to you. Yes, a toast to me. A toast to she's free to fly, ladies. Oh, yes.
Nicole Anderson [:It makes me good.
De'Shonda Lucas [:Yeah, it makes me dance.
Nicole Anderson [:You know it's good when you move it. Hold on. One more sip.
De'Shonda Lucas [:I was one more sip. That's going to be a few sips, few pores. I get the bubbly.
Nicole Anderson [:Yes.
De'Shonda Lucas [:I get the rose. I get the sweetness, but not too sweet.
Nicole Anderson [:Thank you.
De'Shonda Lucas [:I get the balance. I get the flow. Hold on. Let me tell you what else I get. Wait a minute. Like, I'm not a wine connoisseur. I'm going to learn about wine today.
Nicole Anderson [:You're doing amazing.
De'Shonda Lucas [:I get the love. I get the love.
Nicole Anderson [:You do.
De'Shonda Lucas [:I get the love.
Nicole Anderson [:That's the secret ingredient. That's the secret ingredient, baby.
De'Shonda Lucas [:Okay.
Nicole Anderson [:That makes my heart happy. Okay.
De'Shonda Lucas [:I'll pause on the sipping.
Nicole Anderson [:Oh, no, we have to continue. That makes me so happy, though, because I call my wine the goldilocks wine. Okay. Because it's not too sweet, but it's not extremely dry. It's easy to drink. It's well balanced. It's just good flavor wine that just makes you want to keep sipping. Yes.
De'Shonda Lucas [:So tell me about it.
Nicole Anderson [:Oh, man. Okay, so her is actually an acronym.
De'Shonda Lucas [:Okay.
Nicole Anderson [:And it stands for having evolved repeatedly.
De'Shonda Lucas [:Okay.
Nicole Anderson [:Yes. So I wanted to create a wine that really embodies those moments where we need to practice intentionality in, creating a pause. A lot of times when we're going through the motions, we're evolving in multiple areas of our lives continuously in multiple times. And in that journey, sometimes we get stuck. We get too focused on that, and we don't take a moment to just be present and be aware and so I wanted to create a wine that gave us permission to have those moments. So each of the wines represent those me time moments, as I like to call them.
De'Shonda Lucas [:Those me time moments.
Nicole Anderson [:Yes.
De'Shonda Lucas [:What's your most recent me time moment?
Nicole Anderson [:Oh, my goodness. So I have them every day intentionally. I plan my me time.
De'Shonda Lucas [:Okay.
Nicole Anderson [:Yes. As soon as I wake up in the morning, after me and God have our time, I'm already thinking about what's the thing that's going to make me happy for the day? Yesterday. What did I do yesterday? Yesterday? Oh, I went to a black owned restaurant yesterday. Yes. I need to remember the name. But it was so good.
De'Shonda Lucas [:Okay.
Nicole Anderson [:It was so good. And I treated myself. I was like, you know what? You deserve to eat a little good. Go outside. Yeah.
De'Shonda Lucas [:Area where you in.
Nicole Anderson [:I was in the city. I was in the city. I was in the city. I'm going to look it up, and I'm going to share it with you when I leave here. But what I will say is that there is a and I just have to give a slight shout out. There's a lot of amazing black owned restaurants in Atlanta, one of which just became a Michelin star. Yes. So just a slight plug for them.
Nicole Anderson [:Twisted Soul. Yes.
De'Shonda Lucas [:Okay.
Nicole Anderson [:They're now Michelin. They're in the beautiful, not only black owned, but woman owned, too.
De'Shonda Lucas [:She is free to Michelin.
Nicole Anderson [:Yes. Say it. Yes.
De'Shonda Lucas [:So let's get a hand clap for Twisted soul. I believe in celebrating women. I believe in celebrating culture and celebrating brown skin, every other kind of skin. But, baby, I love this brown skin. I'm in. Yes. And I believe in celebrating her wine.
Nicole Anderson [:And that's what this is all about. So funny enough, the name of this wine. Speaking of those me time moments, this one is called a toast to me. So this one's a bubbly rose, but I also have a pear. It's a bubbly riesling.
De'Shonda Lucas [:Okay.
Nicole Anderson [:So I created these because I want us to reframe how we choose to celebrate. A lot of times we wait for these big milestone moments, that big birthday that I'm going to hold it for something special. But any day that you get to go after your goals and pursue your passion is worthy of a toad.
De'Shonda Lucas [:It's worthy of a toad.
Nicole Anderson [:Yes.
De'Shonda Lucas [:It's worthy of eating on that good china that you have. Today is Friday. Pull out the china.
Nicole Anderson [:Pull out the china. Why not?
De'Shonda Lucas [:I love it. How did you get into wine?
Nicole Anderson [:Okay, so this is a funny story. I just really like drinking it. And I was the person in college that everyone's taking shots of tequila and vodka, and I'm like wine coolers. That was always my thing. So I got to a point, however, when I was going through a transformation. So it was like the weirdest storm of events. I was recently married, but also, we were not in a great space. And so at that point in time, we were going through a divorce.
Nicole Anderson [:At the same time, I got a promotion and got my dream position that I wanted. And so I was in this real influx of super highs and super lows, and I don't know. I always drink wine as, like, my thing, but I was bored with it. I got so bored with it. I remember being in the store, and I'm like, nothing resonates with me. I don't know who Stella Rosa is. I don't know where, you know, I'm like, Why are we barefoot? I had no idea. I could not connect.
De'Shonda Lucas [:She said, Why are we like, I.
Nicole Anderson [:Couldn'T connect to the stories. They didn't represent me as a black woman. And so I decided to start looking for other black brands. That's how it started.
De'Shonda Lucas [:Okay?
Nicole Anderson [:But in that search, I didn't see any everyday person. I saw celebrities. I saw maybe retired people who had they did it as, like, a passion project, but not like I just really like drinking wine, and I want to create it. And so I just said, you know what? I wonder if I could YouTube university. Google. I found that there are these things called wine kits, all right? And so I get excited. Now, I'm a big proponent, and when God drops a message in you, sometimes you got to just act on it. Okay? So I see these wine kits online, and, like any millennial, I'm like, I can't wait.
Nicole Anderson [:They're, like, two to four weeks shipping. No, I need it now. I need it. So right. I'm like, I want to start it. And so I found this facility in Decatur.
De'Shonda Lucas [:Okay?
Nicole Anderson [:Yes. And so I went there. Decatur, Georgia.
De'Shonda Lucas [:Okay.
Nicole Anderson [:Yes. And so this lady, she actually sold wine kits, but she helped people do home brewing for beer. And so I went into the store, and I'm looking for the wine kit. I'm talking to her, find out she's the owner, and she offers to let me use her space and teach me how to create the wine. And that's where it starts. Yeah.
De'Shonda Lucas [:Just reaching out.
Nicole Anderson [:Just reaching out.
De'Shonda Lucas [:I want more. Yes, I can do this.
Nicole Anderson [:I can do this.
De'Shonda Lucas [:I want something that resonates with me. I want a reflection of me. I want to see me in everything I put in me. And I like, what you said. You said something that stuck with me. You said everyday people. I was at a conference this past weekend, the Thrive Conference put on by Darius Daniels. And I was at the conference, and in the midst of the conference, I'm just hearing this everyday conversations with everyday women.
De'Shonda Lucas [:And we don't have to be these huge celebrities to do anything. We don't have to have a truckload of money to do anything. It just takes an idea and one step forward, and one step leads to another step. So I can definitely appreciate that. Even like, my steps on how I met you just going to invest. Fest put on by Eyl walking down y'all, she was just as beautiful. Come on in. And I'm like, no, I'm not doing too much.
De'Shonda Lucas [:I'm not buying anything. And she's like, on in, I have some I want to share. But I could tell she was sharing from her heart because I didn't stop at everybody's everything. I didn't. I really didn't. And the conversation just started and she let me taste the wine and she says, I have this black owned wine. I made it. And I really enjoy getting into black owned stores.
De'Shonda Lucas [:So tell me about that.
Nicole Anderson [:Oh, my goodness. So it's funny because so you started with this idea, right? And it's like, I want to create my wine, but it didn't start as a business.
De'Shonda Lucas [:Okay.
Nicole Anderson [:So we fast forward. I'm very fortunate. I have a family full of entrepreneurs on my mom's side. We're actually the descendants of the first African American slave recorded Born in America. Yeah.
De'Shonda Lucas [:So you opening up.
Nicole Anderson [:I know. I'm sorry. That's a hard something when it comes.
De'Shonda Lucas [:From knowing your history, baby. I am such a proponent of that. I've done my African ancestry and everything.
Nicole Anderson [:Yes.
De'Shonda Lucas [:We're going to stay with your story.
Nicole Anderson [:We're going to come back to that. Tell me yes about this man. It takes us in a whole other story because I got the opportunity last year to go to Angola. The Angolan government hosted our family and we went to Angola and we spent a week out there and got to see the entire country. When I say it was life changing and there were reasons why I wasn't supposed to go, but God was like and I said, I want to go. And God said, if you want to go, we're going to make you go. That's what you want. That's what you're going to do.
Nicole Anderson [:And he made a way for me to go. But we got to talk about that.
De'Shonda Lucas [:Okay. We have to have Nicole back.
Nicole Anderson [:We got to talk again.
De'Shonda Lucas [: Nicole Anderson,: Nicole Anderson [:So I say that because my family, we have a great sense of pride. We are extremely fortunate. We know the power of being able to trace our lineage back to the beginning. And so because of that, we're celebrating one of my great uncle's 50th anniversary at that time. So they've been married for now 55 years. You all beautiful and we're there. I have my wine. I'm so excited.
Nicole Anderson [:I'm like, look what I made. And they're like, oh, this is great. So when's it in stores and I was like, oh, well, okay. And they dropped that seed. And it's not that entrepreneurship was that far off my scope. My parents always instilled in me and my brother at a young age that entrepreneurship leads to freedom and whatever that meant to us, but they always instilled that want I just never knew what I wanted to build and create. And so wine just was a natural flow. And I create my first bottle, and now it's like, oh.
Nicole Anderson [:Like, light bulbs go off, and the names of the wines, honestly, they just started flowing. I was like, finally, after five. I'm thinking, like, why am I whining what's the reason behind why I'm in this store? It's because I need a break. Mama needs a break. It's because it's finally after five, and it means these heels are coming off. I'm pop a bottle, time to sit back. It's because it's girls night in, and I'm bringing the bottle.
De'Shonda Lucas [:We have some girls night in.
Nicole Anderson [:Yes. We all those names. A toast to me, right? It's the celebration piece in my feelings, because we need to embrace being emotional creatures and not try to numb ourselves from our feelings. So I created all these because I wanted to intentionally think of when you're in the store and you see this bottle and you're taking your cart, and you're like, oh, it is finally after five. Oh, Mama does need a break. Like, I want you to see yourself in those bottles. Yeah. So that's what created her.
De'Shonda Lucas [:I see me. I see you. We should see.
Nicole Anderson [:Yes.
De'Shonda Lucas [:Yes. All right, Nicole, so tell me what.
Nicole Anderson [:Sets you free to so I don't know if there's, like, one defining moment, because I truly believe that life's experiences, they kind of compound over time, and you're always being faced with opportunities to evolve or repeat the cycle and learn the lesson over again. And so I can't say there's one moment that set me free, per se, but what I can say is that going from when I say everyday woman, I say that in true strength of I experienced so much. I've been married, I've been engaged, I've been divorced. I have climbed corporate career ladder. I've hit the opportunities to manage teams and have multiple people underneath me. I have started from the bottom, though, and grinded. I dealt with sexual abuse. I've dealt with sexual harassment in the workplace.
Nicole Anderson [:A lot of the things that define us as everyday woman that we say from a challenges and growth perspective, I've experienced it. And so I can't say there's that one defining moment. But what I know is that the moment where I truly had a very definitive you have two directions, Nicole. You can either do this or this, and it is a life or death was when I was diagnosed with breast cancer. And I think that's the moment where God said, all right, here we are. I'm putting all the cars on the table, and now it's time for you to choose your destiny and your fate. And I think that was my most kind of powerful defining moment, where all roads lead to this moment, and I had to make a choice.
De'Shonda Lucas [:And what is the choice that you chose?
Nicole Anderson [:To live. To live differently.
De'Shonda Lucas [:Okay. Tell me what that means. What does it mean? So many women need to know what it means to live.
Nicole Anderson [:Yes. Living means pursuing your happiness to the fullest extent. Unapologetically. Unapologetically.
De'Shonda Lucas [:I choose to be happy. I choose to live in joy. I choose to live in love. I choose to live in kindness. And everything I do needs to support that decision and that choice.
Nicole Anderson [:Absolutely.
De'Shonda Lucas [:I choose to be fulfilled. I choose to connect with women. I choose that in this bright sky, we can all shine. That's my choice.
Nicole Anderson [:Yes. Every day. When we really think about it, a lot of times, and this is something that I had to learn. I had to start owning my life. I had to start owning everything that happened in my life. I think previously, I would account a lot of my circumstances to external factors. Okay, let's say that I was headed to work and someone cuts me off on the highway. Oh, really? So that's what we doing.
Nicole Anderson [:Okay, I might have been on the phone, like, Girl, I can't believe this person cut me. Now my whole vibe is off, right? I get into the office, and maybe someone doesn't say hello, or I say Good morning, and they don't say anything back. Now, little did I know, maybe they didn't hear me, but in my head, oh, now here she go being rude, whatever, all of these things compounded. And it was because I chose negativity. I chose to look at everything as a hit and a negative to me, and that only attracted more negative things.
De'Shonda Lucas [:That is all it does.
Nicole Anderson [:What you focus on is your reality.
De'Shonda Lucas [:It gets bigger and bigger and bigger.
Nicole Anderson [:Snowballs.
De'Shonda Lucas [:My daily, I tell this in any group of me, anybody I'm talking to, I call the highest possibility of every moment.
Nicole Anderson [:Yes.
De'Shonda Lucas [:So I don't care if the moment is right, left, whatever. I call the highest possibility, because in calling that, it's going to come to me.
Nicole Anderson [:Yes.
De'Shonda Lucas [:So let's toast.
Nicole Anderson [:We're going toast a lot, y'all, the decision to live.
De'Shonda Lucas [:I toast to you.
Nicole Anderson [:Thank you. I think for me, I tell people today, I have no bad days. Every day is amazing. There is nothing that happens in my day that is meant for negative in my life. And I think my decision to change that direction was really when I got hit with breast cancer, because it was either do you look at this as a death sentence? Like, this is the end? I did. I started because my brain was so conditioned. I was so used to the comfortable thing was to start leaning into the negative.
De'Shonda Lucas [:And the media, that tells you like.
Nicole Anderson [:Oh, something the media this is a real story, too. Right before I got diagnosed, chadwick Boseman passed away. And I remember thinking, when I got diagnosed, if Chadwick Boseman died of cancer, and he, from what the media shows, seemed like this real positive uplifting stand up guy has died, what's going to happen to me? I was scared. I was terrified. And honestly, when you get hit with that type of news, you're not really sure where to go. And so I didn't know what to search for. And so, like I said, when got to this point, when I started my treatments, it sound like I started off happy. I started off positive.
Nicole Anderson [:Like, I'm a beat this thing. I'm going to beat this thing. You got your family and your friends, and they're rallying behind you like, we got this, right? And you're like, okay, it's not just me. I got an army behind me. Cool, okay. And then you go through your first treatment, and it's a bulldozer. I went into it with, oh, you're young, you're vibrant, you positive. You're going to get through that's.
Nicole Anderson [:Old people, those women, they're older. Their bodies can't handle it. But you're young, you can.
De'Shonda Lucas [:Okay.
Nicole Anderson [:And it's not to say that those thoughts were wrong because we need to speak life into ourselves. But I was speaking it through the lenses of fear. I wasn't speaking it through the lenses of love. I was saying it like trying to psych myself. Like, you can do it, you can do it, you can do it. But I didn't really believe it.
De'Shonda Lucas [:Okay.
Nicole Anderson [:And then what happens? I do my first round of chemo. It completely wipes me out. I push myself too hard in that same belief of trying to do too much, being superwoman, trying to carry the weight of everything, and everybody still with cancer. Because the narrative in my head is like, if I did it, then I'm strong. What's another rock? This wasn't a rock. This was a boulder.
De'Shonda Lucas [:A boulder dropped straight on top of your whole everything.
Nicole Anderson [:It stops you, and it really makes you have to reevaluate things. So here I am. I've gone through my first round of chemo. I am done. I have found out that I'm allergic to the medicine that they're giving me. But there's no alternative. You got to take it.
De'Shonda Lucas [:What was your reaction for listeners who may be going through the exact same thing?
Nicole Anderson [:Yeah, so when I got diagnosed with chemo, I was diagnosed with stage two triple positive. So what that means is the reason they diagnosed it, stage two is because it spread. So it started in my left breast, and it spread to my right and into my lymph nodes. Lymph nodes, for those who don't know, are these little nodules that are underneath our armpits, and they're like filters in our body. Okay, so it spread to my filter. So that means that this cancer has now found its way. It's found a backdoor into my body. And it gets scary because once it's found its way to one area, the likelihood of it being able to spread.
De'Shonda Lucas [:Increases because the lymphatic system goes throughout the body. It is the body's true filtration system.
Nicole Anderson [:Correct.
De'Shonda Lucas [:Okay.
Nicole Anderson [:Correct.
De'Shonda Lucas [:So if it filters everything out, it can also filter things in.
Nicole Anderson [:Yes. So they diagnosed me with triple positive, and what that means is that this cancer was feeding off of proestrogen estrogen and ironically, a protein in our bodies called her too. I know. No, it's just to clarify, I started my business before diagnosis. Oh, thank God. Wow. You have a sense of humor. Yeah.
Nicole Anderson [:Okay. So they tell me that it is aggressive. And the thing about it is, 30 years prior, and at the time I was 31, 30 years prior, this would have been considered deadly because they didn't have treatments that could target her too. So that was an issue. If you can't get it, if you can't target just that one thing, you can't treat it. So now, luckily, they have a treatment for it's. Just an extra thing I got to do. So I'm doing my first infusion.
Nicole Anderson [:Right. And we'll go back to the fact that at the time, also, I don't have children yet. And so they told me that I needed to also go through fertility treatments and that if it took longer than a month, I couldn't do it because I would jump from stage two to stage four in just that short amount of time.
De'Shonda Lucas [:In a month?
Nicole Anderson [:In a month.
De'Shonda Lucas [:Hold on.
Nicole Anderson [:With the medication without because of the aggressiveness and how much it had grown, that's how they could yeah. So in that time, I had to act quickly. I went through an extreme IVF process. For those who have never gone through IVF before. It's intense. It really gives me a lot of empathy to women who do that and have gone through that process to conceive. For me, I was doing it to preserve eggs. And so you're having to inject your body with all of these hormones every day.
Nicole Anderson [:At a certain point, you have to go to the doctor, and they have to get in there and check your egg size. You feel swollen and bloated. It's as if you're on your period consistently with all of those side effects the bloat, the emotions, the pain, the period pain, the cramps, like the bleeding, everything.
De'Shonda Lucas [:You go through that during IVF. Yes.
Nicole Anderson [:Because of the state they have to get your body in in order to preserve your eggs. In order to preserve them, they have to kind of make your eggs a little bit larger so that they can go in there, and it's a surgery for them to go into your uterus and pull those eggs out.
De'Shonda Lucas [:Okay.
Nicole Anderson [:So I did an expedited version of that.
De'Shonda Lucas [:Okay.
Nicole Anderson [:And I had to do that in three weeks. So I went through all of that prior to starting my career.
De'Shonda Lucas [:What was your support system like during this process?
Nicole Anderson [:It was good. I had my parents naturally. That was amazing. My mother is my rock. Without her, I wouldn't be here. I know that with certainty. Say it certainty. She nursed me through it all.
De'Shonda Lucas [:Oh, my God.
Nicole Anderson [:Through every moment. When I got to my lowest point, and I was done with it all, because I did hit that point. I did hit rock bottom. I planned my funeral. I thought about it, like, who's getting what and how do I need to divide these assets? I was preparing for that because I was tired, but she pulled me through that.
De'Shonda Lucas [:So I remember when I had open heart surgery, and I remember, like, while you have faith for life and faith for living and faith for longevity, there's still a responsibility of, if A doesn't happen, let me make sure B is in order.
Nicole Anderson [:Yes.
De'Shonda Lucas [:And so I definitely resonate with, let me get these things planned out, because I remember having the conversations with family on where my daughter would go and what she needed and making sure certain things were in place. Like, even on a few episodes, I talked about getting my house in order. It's getting your house in order no matter what happens.
Nicole Anderson [:No matter what happens, yeah.
De'Shonda Lucas [:And you had to do that. No matter what happens. I believe I have faith. I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing. I'm staying connected to God, but I'm going to get this in order. So no matter what happens, the people I loved are cared for, and I can minimize the stress and strain on their lives.
Nicole Anderson [:Correct.
De'Shonda Lucas [:That is real.
Nicole Anderson [:Yeah, that is real. It's the hard things that we have to think about. It's hard to even share those thoughts, because people think that you're thinking about your mortality, and you are. The reality is hit. And I think when the sooner that you can embrace that, the sooner that you can create a plan, I think, again, it comes from a place of where you come from. So you asked me earlier, how do you define wanting to live? For me, I remember I had gotten to this place where I looked in the mirror and I had lost so much weight, my hair was gone. Like, people wouldn't see it. I wore wigs all the time, but when I took that wig off and I would see the baldness, I saw the breakouts, so the allergic reactions, I would break out.
Nicole Anderson [:I look like 13, but it was just a big rash all over my face, all over my body. They tell you I remember I had a crazy panic attack, because they tell you if you have any shortness of breath, you know that that is a sign that you might need to go to the hospital. And if you break out and get any swelling and so, for some reason, that particular day, my feet were swollen to the size of grapefruit. Like, my ankles were swollen. You're not they were huge. My legs were huge. And they were like the discoloration because of the rashes. And I remember sitting there, and I was having a shortness of breath, and I've never had an anxiety attack before.
Nicole Anderson [:But all of a sudden, I go in the mirror, I see this rash. I see my skin shrunken in. I don't see me. I see death. That's what I saw. And so in that moment, I was like, what are you living for? Why are you fighting? Because I've already begged my parents to not let me do this anymore. I beg plead it with them. Please do not.
Nicole Anderson [:I can't do it. I'll drink the teas. I'll do the herbs, whatever you need. I don't want to do chemo anymore.
De'Shonda Lucas [:And so many people go through that. So many people go through that when you just, God, just take me. I can't do it anymore. Oh, my gosh.
Nicole Anderson [:You get to that. And I think God has to allow you to get to that space so that you can be your most vulnerable and you can seek out life. Okay? You can seek out him. For me, he appeared in the form of joy. So I said, what makes you happy? What brings you excitement? And the saddest thing was like, I was like, I don't really know. I'm starting to just trying to think, what makes you excited? What gets you? And so I said, wine. Okay, there's wines. My wine business makes me happy, and it gave me purpose through my treatments.
Nicole Anderson [:In between, I was taking meetings and had some of my biggest wine wins during that time. But at the same time, I was like, it's got to be more. And I said, you know what? If you can't think of anything, give yourself a week. Challenge yourself every day. Do something intentionally that's going to make you happy. And so it started out with I was able to go for a walk. So me and my brother would walk up the street. It was literally one block up and one block back because I would get so exhausted.
Nicole Anderson [:But it brought me so much happiness to be outside in fresh air. And then it was like, okay, now I can drive this week. So I would go and I would drive for an hour. Just drive, no destination in sight. And it would bring me so much peace. And I said, okay, so now you're finding the things that bring you happiness. And doing that, it started to give me something to look forward to. I was excited, like, what are we going to explore today? That was the first thought.
De'Shonda Lucas [:Versus exploration is everything.
Nicole Anderson [:Exploration.
De'Shonda Lucas [:Exploration is everything. What do you enjoy doing? Exploring.
Nicole Anderson [:Finding new things. Yes.
De'Shonda Lucas [:So the question I was asking is, is your brother older or younger?
Nicole Anderson [:He's younger. They're the best.
De'Shonda Lucas [:Just said, man, nobody get me together like my little brother. Nobody can put me back together. Who else knows your every wholeness of your heart like your brother?
Nicole Anderson [:I think about it, and I'm going to get emotional about it, but my brother. I don't think he even realizes how important he is into my life. He is the wisest man I know. He has so much wisdom. He's so articulate. The way that he masterfully puts words together, it's like he's a natural poet. He's just so eloquent. But the beauty about my brother is he inspires me just by his essence.
Nicole Anderson [:Like, he looks up to me and knowing that someone sees you and views you with so much esteem, it holds you to a higher standard. It does. I can't act up because they think.
De'Shonda Lucas [:You are the absolute everything. The moon, the stars, and the mountain.
Nicole Anderson [:Yes.
De'Shonda Lucas [:There is nothing better than their big sister.
Nicole Anderson [:Yes.
De'Shonda Lucas [:Like nothing.
Nicole Anderson [:She can do no wrong. She can do no wrong.
De'Shonda Lucas [:Body better do anything wrong to her.
Nicole Anderson [:Now.
De'Shonda Lucas [:Let me get you together on my brother. Man will come. It so I get it.
Nicole Anderson [:Pull up.
De'Shonda Lucas [:I get it.
Nicole Anderson [:Listen, little brother. So I love him with my heart because I know it was hard for him to see me like that because he's always seen me so strong and he was just so caring, and it was those little moments just, hey, SIS, you good? He was just going to sit with me. We talk about his dating life like nothing about what was going on with me. And that was the normalcy that I needed.
De'Shonda Lucas [:Yes. They bring you back.
Nicole Anderson [:They do. Yes.
De'Shonda Lucas [:So I want to hear about some her wine win.
Nicole Anderson [:Oh, yes. There's a lot. I'm really excited. God is good. God is good. God is so good.
De'Shonda Lucas [:What are you sharing with she's free to fly.
Nicole Anderson [:Oh, my gosh. Okay, this just happened this morning.
De'Shonda Lucas [:Okay, you heard it here first. You heard it here first.
Nicole Anderson [:Exclusive.
De'Shonda Lucas [:All right, let's host before.
Nicole Anderson [:I got.
De'Shonda Lucas [:To get myself ready. I'm excited. My cheeks hurt.
Nicole Anderson [:I'm like, smiling hard, man. I'm excited about this because this is a testament to just being, like, two things. One, how your circumstances where you are right now does not dictate where you're going to go. Just know if you can dream it, it can. So I was just recently interviewed by The Atlanta Voice, and they featured me this morning as their highlight. And the Atlanta Voice for y'all who don't know, is a major publication here in Atlanta. And, I mean, the beautiful thing about, like, it was a full spread. They come and they have a photographer and a journalist, and it's like a whole production.
Nicole Anderson [:And I'm like, oh, I didn't even know that. I didn't know what it was going to be. I thought it was just like I was a part of a larger piece about just breast cancer, but they did a whole segment, man. I was the peace. Oh, my gosh.
De'Shonda Lucas [:You are more than enough. Nothing needed to be added. You are the piece.
Nicole Anderson [:Oh, my gosh.
De'Shonda Lucas [:All of it.
Nicole Anderson [:All of it. Oh, my gosh. I think the thing that has brought me know this full circle because on my way here so I do these things, I call them my car karaoke. And so on the way here, I was listening to this song called amazing by pastor mike jr. If y'all haven't heard that song, it's amazing. But I'm listening to this song and I'm like, I'm having a whole praise ceremony on the way. Pulling up into your driveway, I was like, wow. Three years ago, you were going to work every day on your nine to five.
Nicole Anderson [:You were living life unintentionally, letting life live for you, your stress. You were searching for love in all the wrong places. You weren't whole. And to see what god can do to somebody when you just are obedient, but not just obedient. When you actually say like, god, this is what I want and I'm willing to put in the work to get it.
De'Shonda Lucas [:Some people take obedience as a task, as a requirement. While it is a requirement, the desire. That is what I'm hearing, yes.
Nicole Anderson [:I think we have to start a lot of times, myself included. I didn't know where I wanted to go. I didn't know what I wanted to do. I remember having I won't call it a vision, but I saw myself like I imagined myself living in the city in a condo. And I always saw like, oh, it would be cool to be on a magazine one day. It would be cool. But I never thought it would happen. Never thought it would happen to be here and to have these publications.
Nicole Anderson [:We talk about wins. I was on the COVID of my very first magazine, last thought I remember starting. So this is the funny story. Three years, right? I am in corporate America. I'm sitting at lunch on my hour long lunch at a table. I'm one of the youngest people at this organization. So the only people who are around my age at the time are the interns.
De'Shonda Lucas [:Okay?
Nicole Anderson [:So I'm at the table with two interns, and the only ones that were of our color that were there, too, mind you. So the interns and then one of my very best friends, sanera, was there, too. She was one of the admins, the marketing admin. So we're sitting at the table, we're all talking know, what would you do? What if it was just a random question I thought of? And sanara was like, you know what? I would get into real estate and I would build homes. Like, she's an amazing interior. She's an amazing interior decorator, too. And she needs to follow that passion. Sanera, cheryl cousins, for your training, she teaches.
De'Shonda Lucas [:She has the whole she's free to fly podcast studio. Y'all can only see a little bit, but when I tell y'all she has it together, contact Cheryl cousins, reach out to me. I'll get y'all connected.
Nicole Anderson [:So scenario was talking about that passion and we all went around the table and I said my wine. And I remember thinking how cool it would be one day to just be able to go somewhere and buy my own bottle of wine or go somewhere and just have my own drink. And this past weekend or this past Wednesday, actually, I was at this lounge that I used to go to. They have live music here in the city, and it's a live band. It's beautiful. I used to go there all the time, and I got to go there this past Wednesday and drink my wine and order it at the bar. And I was like, wow, Nicole, you did that, SIS.
De'Shonda Lucas [:Wow, you did all of that, man.
Nicole Anderson [:That was god did all that. So I say this as a testimony that your circumstance where you are right now doesn't have to be where you are going. Don't let your dreams die in your head. We let them die. We lose the fun in just sitting back and imagining yourself somewhere. I used to just drive around and I would just imagine myself like, what would it feel like to talk on a talk show? What would it feel like to be interviewed? I get so honored for moments like this because, wow, you want to talk to me. Wow.
De'Shonda Lucas [:Big o you. Say little owe me big o you.
Nicole Anderson [:Big o you. I love that. Oh, I have to use that. Beautiful.
De'Shonda Lucas [:Ou.
Nicole Anderson [:Wow.
De'Shonda Lucas [:Yes, all of that. Okay, give me another win.
Nicole Anderson [:Oh, man. Okay, this is exciting. So since we've started, we have been placed in a lot of major places in Atlanta. We're in over 20 places now, and one of them was the hyatt regency, the polaris, which is a five star restaurant. Here they replaced one of the most popular champagne brands that you guys would know starts with it with her wine. Yes. So they replaced us with that, which was really cool. But more recently, we've been picked up by a major chain here in Atlanta.
Nicole Anderson [:Okay. Yeah. So I'm really excited about that. We're going to be placed on the menu. I'm really excited. So coming soon, we're going to get this big release and everything, but I get chills thinking about how even that happened. I spoke at the Kentucky derby this year. We did the been it's been a journey.
Nicole Anderson [:It's been beautiful.
De'Shonda Lucas [:Let's talk about the stores that you're in. Sometimes you can begin a conversation with someone and then you find that place of commonality that really says, okay, we got to go deeper. Okay. I remember you saying, like, my goal is to get in black owned wine and alcohol stores and stuff like that. And I mentioned to like, hey, you know, I have a friend. His name is George. Yeah. Wine emporium.
De'Shonda Lucas [:He's like, wait, george? Yeah. So let's talk about that. Talk about George and the wine emporium.
Nicole Anderson [:Oh, my gosh. That was such a cool story.
De'Shonda Lucas [:That was cool.
Nicole Anderson [:That was really cool. So after you connected me with George. The funny part about that is that literally a week prior, one of my ambassadors was her name is Brittany. Brittany was like, hey, I just moved to Stonecrest area. She was like, my favorite liquor store. Moved here too. She was like, you got to get in there. You got to get in there.
Nicole Anderson [:His name is George. She told me this, and I was, okay, okay. Didn't think anything of know. I was like, we'll come back to that because it was invest fest was happening. I was like, all hands on deck. Yes. And then you tell me about, like and when you said it, I was like, that name sounds familiar. I did not connect it.
Nicole Anderson [:I did not connect it to I reach out to George, I get his number. I'm talking to him. He said, yeah, there was another person, third person who told him about me.
De'Shonda Lucas [:Okay.
Nicole Anderson [:And so he was like, I've already heard of you. The synergies there were amazing. George was like, hands down. And it shows you how empowerful relationships are because he just bought it off the strength of, oh, you know these people, and they told me about you. Oh, you gotta be good. So here done, no questions asked. He's been an amazing partner.
De'Shonda Lucas [:George. I have known George since I moved back to Atlanta, since his store was in the original location. He has been the same from beginning until now. He is one of the most loving people, one of the most giving people. And for a woman, it's not like a liquor store that you walk into. It is a wine emporium center right in the city of Stonecrest, right there near Stonecrest Mall. And you go in, and he will explain anything to you and want you to taste and experience and tell you he knows so much, where everything is coming from and will sit. He does wine tastings for people.
De'Shonda Lucas [:He's just good people. He really an avid watcher of the Sheen's Free to Fly podcast. Because when you just have an interest in people and an interest in people putting out positive information, like, that's what She's Free to Fly is about. And there are men, ladies, who support us 100%. So we just talked about your brother. Yes, let's talk about the men who support us 100%. George is one of those people who support She's Free To Fly, like my father support me in this journey. I have had male friends who support me in this journey.
De'Shonda Lucas [:My contractor, Keith Holloman of Dynamic Envisions, when I told him what I wanted, he was all hands on deck and supporting me in the production in the building of this studio. So, ladies, they're not all out to get us. There are some men who support us 100%, and I just say thank you. I really want to thank the men who support us on this journey.
Nicole Anderson [:Yes. They offer a different type of support too. So I'm a fellow daddy's girl, okay? I'm a daddy's girl through and through. My dad is like he's like this core, this rock, this unmoving kind of force in my life that I know is my safety net. I'm his pumpkin. I'm just the baby girl. Hey, I'll get on. But my dad, anytime I was sick growing up, I just needed my dad especially.
Nicole Anderson [:I remember when I used to get really bad menstrual cramps. My dad would come, he'd just rub my back and I would feel better. And that was all it took. He would just come around, he rubbed my back. He'd be like, it's okay. He'll just sit there with me until I fall asleep. And you just need those moments where you could just feel safe and just feel like a little girl. You feel that comfort.
Nicole Anderson [:And so I remember it was a really interesting night. I had just had chemo, and I was probably eleven days in. I used to count the days when for those that don't know with chemo treatments, the effects that we talk about, those side effects, a lot of times they don't happen in those first few days. It takes a certain amount of time for it to cycle through your system. It takes exactly three weeks, actually. And so as those days go by, the symptoms kind of start and then it's like, it comes and then it goes. But throughout that whole three week process, you're kind of in the wringer. So I gave myself like a week and a half before I try to do things because that first week would was it was up and down, just dependent.
Nicole Anderson [:So this particular time, I got invited to do a really cool thing. This was my first celebrity event. Dr. Heavenly of married to medicine. She was opening up a store in Atlanta. It's a beauty supply store, and they needed a wine sponsor. So her PR agency reached out to me. I'm thrilled.
Nicole Anderson [:Yes, I'll be there. Look at the date. I'm like, oh, this is going to be tight because it was early in my window of so, but I didn't want to turn it down because this is a great opportunity and this is a PR moment I need. So I go and I go with one of my best friends, Kima. Shout out to Kima. Kima is my business, babe. That girl held up her wine through with my cancer treatments. That was my right hand.
Nicole Anderson [:You got to have it. Got to have it. So anyway, I do the event. It was great. It was amazing. As I'm leaving, I overexerted myself. I have a panic attack. I can't drive.
Nicole Anderson [:I'm shaking, I'm crying. I call my dad. And my dad, I was maybe seven minutes from my house. It was a perfect opportunity for me to feel comfortable and my parents feel comfortable going. So my dad was like, do you want us to come and get you. I'm like, no, I can do it. I can do it. He stays on the phone with me.
Nicole Anderson [:He's talking to me. My dad has this deep baritone, like Barry white voice. So he's like just okay. But he's just guiding me through this whole time. I get home, my mom, they park my car and everything. I get out. My dad carries me up the stairs and the whole time he's just calm. No one's flustered.
Nicole Anderson [:My mom is like, is she okay? And my dad's like, she's good. He's calm the whole time. Stay like that and you need that because I felt protected. I felt like it was okay. And I knew he was going to make sure I got home. I knew I was going to be okay and I needed that. So my dad, he was amazing through this process. He really was.
Nicole Anderson [:But I had a lot of great male friends that were there. I think a piece of this that we don't talk about is I'm not married yet, so dating while having cancer is interesting. I went into the process dating somebody and in the midst of that we broke up and that was very hard. That was really tough because are you.
De'Shonda Lucas [:Questioning yourself about cancer or the dating? What is the question in that?
Nicole Anderson [:Everything. Your self esteem is already shot at this point. When I see my body, I see lopsided boobs. I see poop all over my body. I see pokes and holes and discoloration the radiation. The color of my breast turned the color of this microphone. You have a lot of insecurity in your body and in your physicality and that as a woman is hard for me. I was like, the thing that makes me a woman is trying to kill me.
Nicole Anderson [:My estrogen, my breast, that's my whole femininity.
De'Shonda Lucas [:This is what makes me this is.
Nicole Anderson [:What makes me a woman. And now it's like so you question a lot of things and I think for me the hardest part with that was you kind of go into it with hoping that your partner is going to be that support system, the person that can hold you down. So I say this as a former superwoman, I think a lot of times superwoman, when we're dating, we are looking for our superman because at the end of the day, we don't desire to hold that weight of the world on our shoulders all the time. The healer still needs to be healed. The protector still needs to be protected. So I remember having a conversation with him and know my family's never seen me like this. I've always been the get it done person. Nicole's going to figure it out.
Nicole Anderson [:She's going to be like they never see because I'm always so strong. Internally I was stressed. Internally I was struggling, but I couldn't let on that. So I remember telling him like, hey, I know I'm going to need you because I need a place to not be strong, right. And I think it might be too heavy for me. And so when you have someone that you think you can kind of trust and be that partner with you on that journey, going through life will really show you who's a life partner and who's not.
De'Shonda Lucas [:Because a life partner has to be a load partner. You got to be able to carry the load, man.
Nicole Anderson [:You got to be able to carry the load. And you have to understand that sometimes it's going to be unequal. Yes, it's going to be unequal. Life is going to life. Your parents are going to pass one day. You want someone that's going to be there and carry that low because you're not going to be able to hold that. Yes, you want that. So I went into the seeking that.
Nicole Anderson [:But even though that situation didn't work out and it did make me question myself, it really broke me. I think that honestly was leading me towards a dark mindset that was taking me on a downward spiral with my treatments because I felt lonely. I felt so alone. That was probably the biggest feeling to have so many people around you, and you feel so alone because the person that you think you want isn't yes.
De'Shonda Lucas [:Yes.
Nicole Anderson [:And so I had to realize I was sitting there and I'm like, Nicole, you're sitting here talking about you're so alone. And if you look at your phone right now, you got so many people just sending you up and saying hello. Your mom has checked on you five times. Your dad came in. You have love around you, and you are stuck on this on the empty.
De'Shonda Lucas [:You're stuck on the empty.
Nicole Anderson [:Stuck on the empty. How many times has that happened? Where we're seeking something, God's throwing it at us. It's just not in the form that we think we want it in.
De'Shonda Lucas [:He's like, no, I'm giving you this. He's like, no, I want that. You don't have that, so you're going without. Yeah, but when we go here where God wants his best life, we will.
Nicole Anderson [:Starve ourselves with food in front of us.
De'Shonda Lucas [:We will starve ourselves with food because.
Nicole Anderson [:I don't want that.
De'Shonda Lucas [:Let's drink wine.
Nicole Anderson [:We got to drink for that. Got to drink wine, man.
De'Shonda Lucas [:There's wine in front of us.
Nicole Anderson [:Thank God for that. That was a big moment for me in shifting mindsets because it's like, what are you focusing on? You're focusing on death. You're focusing on what's not looking good on your body. So I looked in the mirror and I said, all right, Nicole, you need to find three things about yourself that you like and tell it to yourself right now. And I was like, you know what? Skin still looks good. The rash went, so you still got a nice complexion. And I was like, your body's still bodying and your booty is still bootying. So you know what? Those were my three.
Nicole Anderson [:And every day, I chose to create ways to look at myself instead of looking at myself. And this might sound silly, but instead of looking at myself in the morning with nothing on, I would put a scarf on right. And make sure when I looked in the mirror, I looked at myself with a sense of what I wanted to look like. You got to trick our brains. You got to see what you want to see. And then I started speaking love and life and beauty into myself. Girl, you are beautiful.
De'Shonda Lucas [:When you look in the mirror. I don't care what you look like. Be able to find something that puts a smile on your own face.
Nicole Anderson [:Yes.
De'Shonda Lucas [:I look in the mirror, and I put a smile on my own face.
Nicole Anderson [:Yes.
De'Shonda Lucas [:Because I see the beauty in me. I accept everything about me. Right, left is mine. I own it.
Nicole Anderson [:Okay.
De'Shonda Lucas [:But I see the beauty in me, and I'm in love with that person. I'm in love with that person. And this person is not perfect, but I'm in love with her flaws. I'm in love with her experience. I'm in love with her past. It just is what it is.
Nicole Anderson [:And that wholeness, that beauty that falling in love with yourself, it just attracts more of that to you. Yes. And I saw that, and I think that's the beautiful, the biggest lesson, the coolest thing to learn was, like, the moment that I shifted gears and started focusing on the positive things, the happy things, that more things started to happen that brought me joy. I got a distributor. I got into stores. The first store that I ever got into was my next door neighbor when I was the age of 13. He was a firefighter, and he opened up a liquor store with another firefighter in Conyers, Georgia. And he was the very first store that bought my wine and put it on the shelf.
Nicole Anderson [:Wow, how full. You can't make that up.
De'Shonda Lucas [:You can't make that up.
Nicole Anderson [:13 was definitely not thinking the whole time.
De'Shonda Lucas [:Everything that we need, we really already when we're looking in the right direction, we can see it shift. One degree, one degree left will take you to what you already have. One degree right, one degree up, one degree. It only takes one degree of change to make the impossible possible.
Nicole Anderson [:Oh, my gosh. That's beautiful. I just came back from Greece. Greece is beautiful.
De'Shonda Lucas [:I just my daughter was doing study abroad in Greece. Shout out to Mariah J, who got me out to Greece. So tell me about your Greek experience.
Nicole Anderson [:Greece was amazing. But the coolest thing to what you just said was I got to go through a lot of these archaeological digs, and so we got to see, like, Olympia and the first Olympic grounds. And you just seeing all this. History that's still there. Like these monuments that we read about.
De'Shonda Lucas [:In like she had Mount Acropolis right there out of my window where I stayed at. And I was a fifth grade kid all over. Oh, my gosh, I cannot believe.
Nicole Anderson [:Yes.
De'Shonda Lucas [:Never could imagine that.
Nicole Anderson [:Hercules. I saw all the scenes. I'm like, oh, my yes, yes. It's the coolest thing. But they tell you stories about how many times archaeologists or archaeologists I can't even say it know archaeologists. Archaeologists. Archaeologists. That's the wine archaeologist, right? Make it better.
Nicole Anderson [:Make it better. Archaeologists would dig in one spot, but they wouldn't see anything, and then someone else would come back around, and they just went a little bit over or dug a little bit deeper and found it. It'd be right in front of you.
De'Shonda Lucas [:One degree. I'm reading a book, Habits with the Dean. Habits for the Month of October, 1 degree. One degree of change. This book, one degree of change.
Nicole Anderson [:One degree of change. It's intentionality, I think. Sometimes we want to talk about, like, how do you do it? It sounds good. I feel inspired. But how? It's asking yourself certain questions, starting with your why. We always jump to what's your purpose in life? Don't go that far deep yet, because a lot of times what we'll find is that your purpose is tied to your joy. The thing that makes you happy doesn't feel like work, because it feels good, but it's still something that can bring you monetary value, and it's still something that can fill you with fulfillment. But so start with the things that make you happy and see where it grows into, and that just gets you started.
Nicole Anderson [:So my thing is, right now, next year, I'm working on developing a happiness challenge, because my intention, what I learned from this whole journey and through this journey of breast cancer is my purpose is not wine. It's helping people to find their happiness. It's helping to guide people through the how. Yes, I'm joining the happiness. Come join. Yes, join it. I'm excited. So we're going to explore different ways daily on how to inject intentional happiness into your life.
De'Shonda Lucas [:Okay?
Nicole Anderson [:We don't have to go super crazy. You don't have to spend a whole bunch of money. It could be little intentional things. It doesn't have to just be you by yourself. Include people. Make it until you can create those individual times. Okay? So until you can create those individual times and then over time, my intention is that I want you to be able to see how, within just 30 days, you can go from feeling like you're at a happiness of, like, a four in your life to a happiness of an eight. Let's do it.
Nicole Anderson [:Let's do it. I'm a ten out of ten. Happy everything.
De'Shonda Lucas [:Say, shorty is a ten, shot is a ten. Yes. All right, so we're going to wind this up, and I want to thank you so much for coming. You have dropped so many nuggets we're about to wrap up. Is there any one thing that you want to share with our listeners?
Nicole Anderson [:I think the one thing that I would want to share is be more intentional with living your life. Okay. Don't allow external circumstances to dictate. Make a choice. Choose happiness. Choose positivity. And that means on the smaller level, even just the words that you speak and how you speak to yourself, tell yourself when you wake up, I'm going to have a great day today. Thank you, God, for this great day.
Nicole Anderson [:Don't start your day in such a rush either. I know for me, I had to switch something up. When I used to get up, my alarm would be, I know your iPhone. You all got the real bad ones, like, scare you out your skin. But I would wake up in that jolt awake. We're not meant to jolt awake. We're meant to wake up with ease. I change my alarm and sing songs to me.
Nicole Anderson [:I set, like, four of them because it sings songs. I don't want to miss it. But you got to create your own system. Know and be true to who you are. That's the real thing. Take what people tell you and apply it into your own life. Someone told me, Change my alarm. I said, okay, I'm going to change it.
Nicole Anderson [:But I know it might take me a little longer to get up because I'm so used to that jolt. So I set three. You know what I mean? It's okay. Create your own system. So now I wake up with ease, and I set my intention. And before I give anything, before I pour into anybody else, I pour into myself first. I can literally give myself at least ten minutes. I have a YouTube playlist with these guided meditations and prayers, and they're ten minutes long.
Nicole Anderson [:And I was like, if you can't give God ten minutes, that's a whole problem in itself. As soon as I wake up, I play one of them. It's calming. It gets me through the day. As soon as it's done, I'm like, oh, I feel good. And everybody's like, you're just so happy and pleasant. Because I woke up happy and pleasant. I started with God.
Nicole Anderson [:How do you start with it?
De'Shonda Lucas [:That's who you are. That is who you are. I definitely resonate with that. I tell people how you start is how you finish. If you wake up rushing, you will never be able to get back to a place of peace. You start with a place of peace, you can always get back there in the middle of the day.
Nicole Anderson [:Yes.
De'Shonda Lucas [: have done recently, I have a: Nicole Anderson [:Oh, my gosh, I love this.
De'Shonda Lucas [:Done well.
Nicole Anderson [:It's a toast.
De'Shonda Lucas [: You can rest now. Great job.: De'Shonda Lucas [:It goes off. Round of applause.
Nicole Anderson [:Oh, I'm doing this.
De'Shonda Lucas [:Game changer.
Nicole Anderson [:I'm doing that. You all better steal that too. I'm doing that. Wow. A friend of mine, he told me that he has three kids on each of their birthdays. When that time comes, he doesn't care what he's doing. He will pause and he'll send a prayer out to his kids, intentionally sending them love. 30 seconds.
Nicole Anderson [:He was literally speaking. I met him. He's a mentor of mine. Now shout out to country financial Jonathan. He was speaking and his timer goes off and he explains what he did and he paused in the speech. It's 250 people and he paused. This took that 30 seconds to pray over his kid and then went right back into it.
De'Shonda Lucas [:That's it.
Nicole Anderson [:The intentionality.
De'Shonda Lucas [:I'm telling you, they become freaking magic, man. They become magic when you do that. They become magic.
Nicole Anderson [:Testimonies of it right here.
De'Shonda Lucas [:Okay, we're going to have to let this one go.
Nicole Anderson [:So good.
De'Shonda Lucas [:I must say to our listeners, I must say to you, I pray you receive my love. I pray you feel God's grace and I pray that you share it with others. And I just mean it from the bottom of my heart. Thank you so much for tuning in to another episode of the She's Free to Fly podcast. You can find us on Apple spotify. You can even view the video on YouTube. It's on so many other podcasts and channels. Don't forget to like, share and subscribe.
De'Shonda Lucas [:Share it with your friends, share it with your family, share with women, share it with men. And I will let Nicole share with us where we can find her wine and what she wants us to look out for in the future.
Nicole Anderson [:Yes, definitely. You guys, you can follow me. First of all, I'll just say thank you. Thank you so much. This was an absolute honor. I thoroughly enjoyed this opportunity. And you have such a light. It was just natural.
Nicole Anderson [:When I felt your energy, when I saw you on that hallway, I'm like, wait, please. It's my wine. That's what I told her. I was like, it's my wine. She was like, well, if it's yours, that was it. But I just knew from there through our conversations and just that like spirit, you can just feel that energy and I just so appreciate you. This platform is so important. I told you off camera, I said I've been cyber stalking your YouTube, but I love the conversation.
Nicole Anderson [:The mission that you're doing, generationally, we have to give back. It's so important. So this is such an amazing mission and platform and I just wish you so much success, continued success on spreading your word. This is a great thing. For those of you guys that would like to follow me and follow her wine, you can find me at it's her wine on all social media platforms. I'm even on TikTok with the kids. We're Instagram, Facebook, all the things, even LinkedIn. Y'all you can find me.
Nicole Anderson [:And you can also go online to herwind.com and you'll be able to put in your zip code and see all of the different locations that we're going to be in. Super excited, because we are about to expand into the New York market. So you'll be seeing us in New York? Yes. My home state. Apple flavored peach. Oh, yeah. Somehow that's why it's good.
