Meet Holly Marshall, a Confident Woman Campaign participant
“The CONFIDENT WOMAN campaign” is a photography project aimed to boost confidence through self-acceptance and self-love, to create a platform to inspire and support women in achieving the life they want. It is limited to 25 participants. Reserve your spot now:
“Follow your gut even though it's really scary and sometimes you don’t know how its gonna work out financially. Just as long as you follow your gut and your passion, it seems to work out!”
Meet Holly Marshall, a Confident Woman campaign participant.
Holly is a founder of STEAMrising (www.steam-rising.org) - a non profit organization that brings STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Mathematics) education for kids in schools that don’t have it.
In her interview Holly shares her view on confidence, her experience of transitioning from being a school teacher to becoming a business owner and much more!
Video interview recap is available below:
Can you please introduce yourself?
I am Holly Marshall. I am North Carolina native, as you can probably tell by my Southern accent. I've been teaching for 19 - 20 years. I come from a really big, big family. There are eight kids (six girls, two boys). I'm one of eight.
Why did you choose to participate in a Confident Woman campaign?
I love the name of it - “Confident woman campaign” and all things women empowerment. I was attracted to it and I was like: “This sounds like something I would really want to do!” To experience to be part of a photo shoot where I feel comfortable being photographed. And just the idea of getting to meet a lot of other confident women and hearing each other's stories. I get a lot of purpose from hearing other people's stories, especially women.
What is a confident woman for you?
A confident woman is a woman that feels okay making mistakes and taking risks and going for what she feels most passionately in her gut and her soul. And she goes for it despite whatever happens.
Do you feel like it's something you're born with or is it something acquired?
That's a good question. I feel like it's probably a little bit of both: nature and nurture. I grew up with a huge family, six girls, so surrounded by five sisters. And then, of course, I make my own friends out in the world. Just being surrounded by a bunch of strong women and learning from them and watching how they went through life.
Being young we all don't really know exactly what we're going to do or what our purpose is in the world. Watching people that I love, how they chose what careers and what path they want to do and then just kind of knowing to look within myself about what I would do. So watching other people trust their intuition and then learning to do it myself, which, you know, as I've gotten older, I've learned to trust my intuition a lot more and follow what makes me really happy.
Can you give any example of experience that boosted your self-confidence?
Maybe this past year that I paused my teaching career and went out into the schools and worked as a sub and also brought my company STEAMrising out and worked with different people. Not always in the same school, different schools. I talked to different people and then went out into the community, in the Charlotte Chamber of Commerce events - all that stuff that just talking with people about what I'm passionate about, bringing STEAM education to the kids and watching other people get excited. Talking about education and bringing more quality into the education helped boost my confidence because I know that I'm passionate about things that people are also invested in.
Can you tell more about your company?
it's a nonprofit, STEAMrising, and our focus is bringing STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Mathematics) based education into our schools that don't have those lessons.
When I was living in Concord, I taught at Austin school. We had all the training, all the materials, all the money, all the support. And then when I moved to Charlotte, the school that I started working with, it was not a STEAM school.
I felt passionate that I wanted to bring my students the excitement of project based learning. So that's kind of where it started.
What was the major learning for you since you started doing your business and going out there? What was the most difficult thing to overcome?
Most learning and most difficult probably is how much time you had to invest in getting people to be aware of what you're doing. Because I found once I've started talking with people and sharing my excitement about it, people are like, That's great idea. You know, all communities deserve this kind of stuff. So just getting out there and making the time to connect with people and talking with them and sharing what I'm doing now. This past summer we worked with the YMCA summer program. So I met a lot of amazing counselors and people there, and I'm actually continuing working with them and bringing STEAM education to one of their locations.
Is there any advice you would love to share with other women?
Remember to spend quiet time with yourself and think about what you are passionate about. Do I really want to continue down this path? You know, we all had those forks in the road. Where should I continue? To do something that's very comfortable or brand new and very scary, but I'm very excited and very passionate about it? I would say follow your gut even though it's really scary and sometimes you don’t know how its gonna work out financially. Just as long as you follow your gut and your passion, it seems to work out!
What was your photo shoot experience like?
You know, being a mom, I'm in my forties, starting a new career - all kinds of new things as we age, sometimes it's a little hard to adjust to the changes. But with the photo shoot experience I felt very comfortable. You and the makeup artist helped me feel at ease and beautiful, made me all fabulous. It was very fun. I would love to see you do this experience again and bring it to more.
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