A New Dawn: Claiming Lives Back with Kat Dawn, Nicole Stauffer, Rikki Lee, Jaci Lynn, and Nicki Dinehart Part 2
A New Dawn came about stemming from Kat Dawn’s real-life experiences when going through addiction recovery. Kat is the President and Founder of New Dawn. She understands how vital it was to receive simple acts of kindness from others in that time period. After five years in recovery, she decided the time was right to make it official as more and more people wanted to get involved. In 2017, she established A New Dawn to bring like-minded people together to help those who are deserving of help. Kat is joined by colleagues Nicole Stauffer, Jaci Lynn, Rikki Lee, and Nicki Dinehart to talk about how they got involved with the foundation and address hard subjects like domestic violence and substance abuse.
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A New Dawn: Claiming Lives Back with Kat Dawn, Nicole Stauffer, Rikki Lee, Jaci Lynn, and Nicki Dinehart Part 2
A New Dawn Talks Domestic Violence And Substance Abuse
We started to introduce Nicki and her position and how she came into A New Dawn because now we’re going to get into the impact and the outcome and the structure and the future and what we’re trying to do. I want to introduce Nicki. The first time that I had any exposure to Nicki was we were getting interviewed by Channel 4. Kat was being interviewed for A New Dawn. I came in as a board member and then also they brought in Nicki. Nicki, they put under the dark lights. This is before you were out in public. You were still in a very dangerous situation. You probably still are, but we got you.
I got my soldiers now.
You see those interviews on TV where they completely blackout the person and the camera was zoning in on her shoes. This is how messed up it is. I looked at Kat and I said, “Does her abuser know that she owns those boots?” That’s how messed up it is because I know my adopted father, the abuse that he put my mom through and me and her and the torture that we went through. He knew every pair of shoes. He knew every blouse. He was so controlling and freakish about it that I was worried about even your boots being out there. We live in a world where even when you’re trying to do good and you’re trying to step out of that position, somebody can be that controlling and that crazy.
Unfortunately, it’s a masculine thing, this abuse and this bullshit. It’s the opposite of masculine. I want to be very crystal clear that the opposite of masculinity is somebody that has to take advantage of somebody that’s weaker than them. We call them cowards. I’ve had situations in my life, people that I’ve helped, and I talk about one of them in the first episode where he abused his wife massively and then came out and then started to attack everybody else. What I think the Misfit Nation is here for and we’re all part of the Misfit Nation, people that have messed up. We’re not causing pain anymore and we’re doing our best to ease suffering in the world and that’s the simple definition of what Misfit Nation is. We’ve got to be here. The men that are in the Misfit Nation need to step up for the women. We need to step in front of them, make it okay for them to talk to us, and make other men understand that there are guys out there that think you have a very tiny penis if you have to hit a woman. I don’t know what else to say. It doesn’t matter. If you have to get to that position, then get some help. Find some brothers, find some people that you can that you can have a conversation with. If you feel like beating your children or beating your woman or physically abusing somebody that is of weaker stature to you, get some help.
It’s misogynistic.
There are all kinds of names. The problem is that all men these days are getting painted with the same words. We’re not all the same. I think of my adopted father. The only reason why I have never raised my hand or been abusive in my life is that I hated the man who did it to my mom and I stood in front of her and I took her beatings. I don’t know what I would have turned out like. I don’t know if I would have gone down another path. I had to learn a lot of things as an adult male because I didn’t have a good upbringing. I didn’t have those right and wrong conversations because I didn’t have the leadership or guidance in my family. I can tell you one thing that he created in trying to steal my soul, steal my light is that he created a beast that was going to always step in front of. The reason why I’m here is, “The Shield exists because of A New Dawn.” That was Kat and them getting together and nicknaming me The Shield.
I feel like we all as men, the really masculine men are the guys that just shut the fuck up and stand in front of those that need us to stand in front of them. When I think of meeting Nicki, that was just the second nature right because I’d seen it and I lived it. I’ve watched my adopted father do that shit to my mom and get radically controlling around the situation. Then listening to her story and watching you blossom. It’s the intoxication but it’s the thing that A New Dawn exists for. It’s the thing why all of us are flawed and messed-up human beings. What I love about it is that we’re all fucked up and to see you bloom and to see you stand up and to bring your message Nicki in a brave way and to just lay it out there at the ball. For you to say the things and to have that bravery is exactly why A New Dawn exists and needs everybody’s support and to come around it. At the end of this, I want to talk about bullshit charities because there’s a lot of them and there’s a lot of people who say they’re out there for doing good and they’re just lining their own pockets. This is one of the good ones.
These women that you’re listening to and the stories that you’re hearing, they all support each other. They all love each other and they’re here to do good. I would put this group of women up against pretty much any other charity. I know they’re new, but we’ll get into the business side of this because there are four things I want to address with everybody with the goals and stuff. Nicki, I want you to tell a very short version of what you went through, being abducted and locked into a garage. I want you to tell that story a little bit. I’ve nicknamed you Chainsaw. The reason why is that I don’t know anybody around the table short of our light, Rikki, that hasn’t contemplated suicide at one point in time. Have you?
No.
I love that you haven’t. I have, and I think everybody else that’s here.
[bctt tweet=”The best drug out there is service.” via=”no”]
I did it. I did a good job of it too.
Tell us about that.
I was fifteen and I decided that I was going to show my mom. That’s pretty much what it came to be. I had this idea of grandeur. She’s going to be standing here looking at me in the casket feeling so terrible for how she treated me. I had collected a series of pills and I took them fifteen minutes apart. The reason I got caught was that I started to hallucinate and my dad found me. Thank God for that, but my heart stopped twice. When I woke up, there was a priest standing there. I wasn’t sure if that was heaven or what. I saw my parents and then I knew what had happened. I looked at them and I said to them, “Don’t you dare leave me alone with them. They’re going to kill me.” That was my moment of, “What was I thinking?” I call my parents. I do every year. I spend some time on the suicide hotline and I talk to everybody that I can. It’s a permanent solution to a temporary problem. At fifteen, everything’s a big deal.
Everything’s a big deal when you’re fifteen. Everything’s a big deal when the life that you thought you were going to live, no longer exists in mind. We’re joining another organization, we’re going to be helping another organization. We’re going to announce it. It’s around anti-suicide and that kind of work. It’s interesting. That draws us together. You tried to commit suicide and you failed. Chainsaw over here contemplated the idea of cutting her own head off with a chainsaw because that is permanent. There are a couple times that I contemplated it. I was on a cliff and I had a gun and I was going to fall into the ocean. I don’t want my kids to have to do a viewing or anything like that. This badass over here who I have fallen deeply in love with and respect is somebody that I am extraordinarily proud of. We’re continuing to watch you evolve but tell us a little bit about your story, what brought you here, and then what you see for your own future.
I’ve been in and another abusive relationship right before the abusive relationship where I was kidnapped and held captive, but it was abusive. We live together since we started dating and it was about four months that we were together it was crazy abusive about three weeks. I kept telling myself that I could love him enough to see that he didn’t need to do that or change him or whatever. You tell yourself throughout all that and dealing with it. I realized that it was becoming something that was going to cost me my life if I didn’t leave. I got up the nerve to leave and he basically talked to me into coming back saying that he was going to help me move my stuff because I left everything there and that he was sorry. He would be more than happy to help me move my things into my trailer and move in my parents’ house if I would contemplate giving him the chance to work it out not living together.
Let’s talk about that because I think that there are women in the audience that may be in this situation or may find themselves in this situation. One of the things that I always noticed about my adopted father was that he got the sweetest after he’d been the worst. There were flowers. There were apologies. There were all kinds of ass-kissing that went on. One of the things that happens is when you’ve made up your mind and you decide you’re leaving, go away. No matter what they say, leave and never go back because once you verbalized it, these pieces of crap will then go to such a level like what you’re about to hear with her story. The most dangerous time of the relationship is when you have said, “I’m leaving,” and they see it. They see it in your eyes and they feel in their heart that they are losing that situation and then they’re like, “If I can’t have you, nobody else will.” There are so many times you hear that story.
That became a whole new thing to me, hearing that, “If I can’t have you, nobody can,” after that.
One thing I do want to interject on is this is a perfect opportunity because there are going to be women that want to read this. We will be posting the cycles of abuse. If you are curious as to whether you are in it or not, you can go to our Facebook page or our webpage and you will be very clear. I remember seeing that. I call it the honeymoon. When you read this, then you think, “Maybe I am or maybe I’m not,” go to our page and look for it.
I had no intention of working it out with them. In my mind, “I got him where I want him. He feels bad. He’s not going to do anything, and I’ll be able to recover some of my stuff.” He comes and gets me. We pull up the house and his truck doesn’t fit in the garage. We don’t go to the garage but we went to the garage which I remember just thinking it was weird. We went inside and I start noticing there are nails in the doors. There are no windows. Everything is nailed completely shut. There are lots of nails. It’s not that you or I could pull them out or bend them out trying to get out. He ended up unplugging the garage door, putting metal rods in between the garage door and the railing that went up and down on to keep it shut so nobody could open it. I ended up being held captive in the garage and beaten, tortured and he was going to kill me.
A New Dawn: Getting high on substances does not compare to the intoxication of helping somebody else.
I remember that moment that I got that feeling in my stomach that I was going to die. It was the most sickening feeling in the world. I knew I couldn’t fight my way out. I’m a fighter. I’m a scrapper. To know in my head that, “No, don’t fight. You just have to be smarter than him to find a way out,” was one of the hardest things, especially while you’re being tortured and hurt. You want to survive it and knowing that you’re going to die, it’s terrifying going through that and I knew there was no way I was getting out of there.
What’s your advice? Part of the reason why we go through the crap that we go through is to learn something. You’ve survived it. You’re on the other side of it. What’s your advice to somebody if they find themselves in that scenario? I call it going pilot. Pilots are trained that the more stressful the situation, the calmer you get because if they’re up there, imagine being in an airplane and that thing hits a little bit of turbulence and you hear from the front, “What was that?” It’s not going to instill much confidence in the ride that you’re on. I would love for this scenario to never happen to anyone. This is the awareness and hopefully, we’re going to elevate out of some of this crap. At some point in time, we have to go to another level. You outsmarted him. That’s why you’re alive now. You outsmarted him by allowing this stuff to happen, by thinking about, “I need to find my moment where I can escape.”
What I ended up doing was every time he went back to the house to get a drink of water or use the bathroom, I would quickly get up and pull one rod quietly out of the garage door. I would go lay back down and hide it, one at a time, very quietly and very patiently. I knew if I got caught doing more than one, it was over. Keeping calm and trying to think about it, going through all of that was probably the smartest thing that I did because if I would have panicked, if I would have tried to fight back, I think I would have been dead. I know I would have been if I would have tried to fight back. It would have got worse and he would have caught me if I would have got overanxious and tried to pull more out that would have happened.
It’s more of your instincts. It’s the fight or flight. You reserve your energy in the rods rather than lashing out at him. If you lash out at him, you would have had no energy to pull those rods. You probably would have died.
My advice would be when you’re in that situation, be never alone with him ever again. When you leave, you’ve got to stay gone. You bring someone with you. You never put yourself in that situation again.
If you get away from an abusive situation, don’t ever go back. That is the stupidest thing to ever try and convince yourself that it could be any different than what it has been. It’s not going to be. It is what it is.
If you do, there are authorities and other people, somebody who knows what they’re doing. That’s a great piece of advice.
I was lucky that once that final rod was out, I still wouldn’t back down and the next time he went in, I unlatched the garage door, laid on the ground, pushed it up and I was underneath it. I was so lucky that there was a neighbor standing in the street talking to somebody in a car right in front of where I rolled out and saw me and came to help me.
I can imagine your heart beating knowing that rod was out, and you could go and you’re waiting for your moment.
This is the shit that people see in movies and we think it’s not happening. In psychology, it’s like normalcy bias. This is an actual thing. There’s a great book called The Survivors Club that I highly suggest to a lot of people. It talks about these life and death scenarios and what it says is if normalcy bias tells you when you’re in a plane wreck, many more could be survived if people understood the basic principles of survival. The normalcy bias tells us the train wreck is happening or the bus is flipping over or the plane is crashing, and we sit in that seat. We’re overcome by smoke and we’re overcome by the elements because we’re sitting in that scenario going, “This isn’t happening.” That’s normalcy bias. The faster we can realize that in a survival scenario, “This is happening. I’ve got to get out of this place, one bar at a time if I have to. I’ll observe another two hours or another six hours or whatever it is. One bar at a time, I’ve got to get out of here.” It’s one of those things. It’s not normal to be put in those situations but as fast as you can admit that and realize, “I’ve got to move into action.” You got out of there. What happened after that?
[bctt tweet=”Part of the reason why we go through the crap that we go through is to learn something. ” via=”no”]
That guy called the police. They came, and it was like what you’re saying. I went through this stage. He was arrested, and I went through a stage where I almost didn’t believe it happened to myself because that only happens in movies. That was so hard for me to wrap my head around the fact that I went through that and that was something that happened. He had brought me down so much that when he got bailed out, I was talking to him. I needed that explanation. I needed that closure. I needed to understand why he did that to me, what I did so wrong. I can almost guarantee you I probably would have gone back to get that closure and to try and understand because he had beat me down so bad mentally and emotionally.
I’ll never forget, I texted him something about owing me an apology for how badly he hurt me and what he did to me as if it was something small. He was asleep and the next morning he texts me back. I still have the text, I have screenshots of it. He said, “I got your message about apologies and you’re absolutely right. I hope one day you can find it in your heart to give me the apology you owe me for putting me in jail.” For me, I was like, “Screw you.” He had been abusive to other women. I am in contact with some of them. One of them committed suicide. None of them had dared stand up to him. He’s a scary guy. For those other women and his daughters, I wasn’t going to let it go. I made sure to file charges and take it to court and see it through.
I’m grateful she was able to do that. That said, him stirring her life up, we have to recognize it’s a cycle. I’m glad that her response was to fight back and file charges and everything, but I can tell you when I was in that, it would have worked on me. That would have reeled me back in.
Let’s talk some real stuff here because every time I bring up domestic violence, there is a group of human beings that say, “These women like it. These women go back. This is a direct quote from somebody who I was having a conversation about this very subject. “Why am I going to donate my hard-earned money when it’s a waste of time?” A lot of times you hear about it. I watched my mom for seventeen years of her life stayed in this scenario, this relationship and went back. I know because I was there that there were reasons. She would try to take us, and he would hold her family members at gunpoint until we came back. If he felt like she was about ready to run away he would kidnap me or kidnap my little brother and leave until she would promise not to leave. There’s no easy answer to it. What do you say to those people that when they’re looking at A New Dawn and you look at what you do, why is it different than any other domestic violence program than that where people just go in, they get a little bit of free housing and then they go back to their scenario?
We stick with our women. Once we help them, they become family.
Most of the audience doesn’t know that one of the reasons why I got heavily involved was because I and my mom would get put into short-term protective custody, 24 to 48 hours. They take you out of the environment because a lot of times it is drug-fueled, it’s drunk-fueled, it’s drug or alcohol induced and then they pull you out and they put you back in after the danger is gone. They’re not understanding that the danger is long-stemmed. What is the difference as to what does exist and why this is necessary either as an augmentation or something that needs to be funded at a higher level?
The thing that broke my cycle was a program called Transitional Housing. There are a lot of women’s shelters out there. We need women’s shelters. There is a time and place for both. They need to be working hand-in-hand, shelters and transitional housing. They need to be on different sites as well, for a lot of other reasons too. Most shelters only take women and children for seven to fourteen days. After that, then they’re expected to find their own place. That’s unrealistic. That’s one reason I kept going back. I didn’t have a work history. I didn’t have money. I didn’t have a first month’s rent plus a deposit.
Which is why a lot of women go back. It’s for the roof over their head, the roof over their kids’ head and the meal.
The first time I was offered a place to live on my own with my children, I never went back for a long period of time and I stayed there for two years.
How many beds are there in Davis County that allow that?
A New Dawn: If you get away from an abusive situation, don’t ever go back. The stupidest thing to ever try and convince yourself is that it could be any different than what it has been.
Two.
In Davis County, Utah?
That’s like the lottery.
Not only that but the program that I was in that was in Davis County, we weren’t supposed to have our children there. We were only supposed to be women. We had a fierce group of therapists and stuff that fought for us. They recognized that it was me and one other mom. It was both of us and our two kids. There were six of us living in this two-bedroom tiny apartment and they advocated for us and brushed it under the rug that we had our kids there. Both of us are in long-term recovery. Both of us never went back. We both agree that it was the biggest thing.
It threw a wrench in our cycle. That doesn’t mean that we don’t make mistakes along the way. It doesn’t mean that we still don’t make mistakes. It still doesn’t mean that we didn’t relapse. That’s a big part too. When you make mistakes, some people think that you make mistakes, that you spent so much money. “No, I relapsed.” Once I got my kids back, I relapsed. That doesn’t mean you’ve got to go back to where you started. That means you just got to fix it and you’ve got to keep moving forward. In A New Dawn, we are breaking ground on our own housing in Davis County. That will be a long transition housing. We will not be a crisis shelter. We will be working hand-in-hand with other organizations that will feed our housing.
I want to bang through some things here. I love that you guys have told the story. The Bald Avenger Show is here for the solutions and what draws us together and what we’re looking for into the future. I’m just going to go through them because we cover philanthropy, business, politics and health, how you take care of yourself. This is the combination and we make fun of everything. That’s the point. We have a great time and that’s what I love about this group of human beings is that there are some things we’ve all been through. We talk about the fact that Nicki, her nickname is Chainsaw. The fact that you went through the transitional housing, the fact that you had somebody here. Kat, specifically, you want to come in and tell her your sob story. She’ll listen and hug you the first time and then the next time you try to tell it, it’s like, “Do you want to move ahead or you want to stick with your story right?”
It’s what most of us want. The weak side of human psychology is for us to blame other people and to give our power away by pointing fingers at other people. Instead of the hard part, which is the thing that makes us the happiest is facing down those hard things. It’s making hard decisions. It’s deciding not to commit suicide when you have the option and nobody’s stopping you. It’s to go to bat and to put those people away that need to be put away. That’s what we get into. One of the things that I’ve come across and one of the things that how Kat and I met in the first place was a philanthropic support system that was supposed to be out there for the purposes of supporting other charities. If you don’t know by now, Kat’s a hustler. If you don’t know by now, I’m a hustler. Everybody around the table are hustlers and I still feel like we got hustled. You probably didn’t. You saw it coming a mile away.
The point is that we’re all very positive especially now that we’re on the other side. We have a lot of positivity. We want to believe other people’s stories. Not only do we want to believe other people’s stories, but the underdogs are the ones we want to seed into the most. Usually, when we seed into the underdogs that haven’t gone through their transition, A New Dawn is all about transitional housing. It’s more than that. It’s transitional psychology. It’s transitional relationship learning. It’s the reprogramming of everything and yet we get out there and there’s a lot of people. There are wolves in sheep’s clothing in the philanthropic world that we have to be careful of. You go through and it’s like, “We’re supporting all of these things,” and that draws me in because that’s where I’m going to put my energy. That’s where I’m going to put my time and we can do multiples at a time and then you find out, “The charities aren’t getting much money at all. Most of the self-aggrandizing stuff and the money is going to the people that are running these, ‘I’m supporting charity’ ideals,’” but it brought you an idea.
Another thing too is being exposed to that and other events as well. Being a wolf. I identify as a wolf. I am not a sheep. I clearly take my track history have the potential to be a predator. I’ve been a predator. That’s happened. That’s a thing. I like to call myself a recovering hustler. I recognize other wolves. I’m like, “I see you.” Having gone through the transition of hurting and having to feel all of that is the people that I hurt and myself, it does feel like a responsibility to look out for other people who have gone through similar things that I got myself through.
We’ve got to move through these four subjects. What do they look out for? What is somebody that behind, you hear a story and the biggest portion of humanity, if they’re being anonymous, they answer the question to, “Why don’t you give money or time to a charity?” The biggest answer is, “I don’t give a fuck.” That’s the most honest answer. When you do, there’s something that triggers you or hooks you to bring you into supporting a charity. What are the things that people should look for? There’s no judgment of people who don’t give a crap. The reason why they don’t give a crap is that they’ve got a family and they’ve got a house payment. They’ve got their own shit going on or they may have somebody under addiction in their own life. Once you realize that there are charities that are out there that gather like-minded people so that you can solve larger problems because a team of one can only solve problems this big. A team of two, you put right next to each other, it’s a much bigger output than either one of them could have done together.
[bctt tweet=”Relapsing doesn’t mean you’ve got to go back to where you started. That means you just got to fix it and keep moving forward.” via=”no”]
It’s not a multiply times two, it’s a multiply times 100 because you put two horses together. You’ve got five horses at the table. You put you all together, let’s see who can outdo each other. You play off of it. What are people who are supporting you in your organization look for? I’ll tell you about you and why I donate time and treasure to you and to this organization is because there’s a genuine dedication to an outcome. You have committed to growing as an organization. Putting a structure in place, putting measurables in place. When I very first met you, you have a five-year goal for this housing. It’s going to happen in under eighteen months because you took what I taught on the business side and you applied that. That’s what I admire about you. The use of funds is a big deal. You give 93% of every dollar that comes in goes to check into their money, their solicitation license and then check in with some people. Nicki’s a student. She is an outcome of this program. Check in with the people that your organization is supposed to be helping. Are they doing it? Check in with other donors. Do they feel like their money has been used at a super high level?
Going back to the percentage that goes back to the nonprofit and your mission, what is the percentage that by law nonprofits have to go with? It’s impressive, our numbers.
By law, it’s 30%. The national average is between 50% and 60%.
It’s way overachieving. Everybody understands clearly that means that if you give a dollar, by law, that charity has to do $0.30 of it towards whatever their out their mission statement is.
Every single non-profit has to write a mission statement.
For me, it’s always about a measurable thing. What is it that we’re trying to alleviate? You say there are two beds in Davis County. We’re going to add to this facility how many?
Roughly about 70 beds that include women and children.
You’re taking a problem that existed in a county and you’re saying from 2 to 70. That’s a measurable result. That’s a measurable outcome. That means that there can be 70 of Nicki and we can have that many more people supported. That’s multiple and we can check in and we can see that there’s a specific outcome. We’re driving towards it. The money is being used for it. There’s also administrative which you can check into how much people were paying themselves. You can check into what are they doing with their administrative? I know every penny that you guys utilize, it’s being double checked and triple checked. There are a lot of things you decide not to do because you’re being responsible, and your fiduciary responsibility is super high level with this organization. What are some things besides that that people can do to make sure that the philanthropic thing that they want to support is doing the right thing?
You basically said them all. The only thing I wanted to add to it was philanthropic work, for me, it’s fun. It can be a good time and I suggest that whatever you do get involved in it. It lights a fire in you. I know a lot of people like to give here and give here. If I could offer any advice, find a cause that lights you on fire and true to my family because that’s what A New Dawn is. We’re a family. Most of our donors are family and they’re avid and passionate. They’re networking, advocating, all of it and the impact that has on us by being loyal to us enables us to have consistency and set goals and hit those goals.
Name some of them. Who are some of the people that support you locally?
A New Dawn: Philanthropic work is fun. It can be a good time and it lights a fire in you.
Trevor Lloyd, Michael Dash, Lindy Bass, Jayson Medell.
Subaru. You’ve got guys who got a car from Share the Love.
We get $250 from every car sold from November to January 1st.
I have people come up to me in my store bringing me money and saying, “Go spend $60 from UJC for a secret Santa.” It blows me away. A Hallmark lady comes in. She has donated.
We’ll move onto the business subject because these are good suggestions for people in philanthropy. On the business side of things, one of the things that we do and, Kat, you and I have this in common is a lot of people will reach out to us and say, “How did you do what you’re doing? How did you get where you’re at?” There are two sides of this equation which is one of the posts that I put up was, “Every couple of years, I have amnesia about giving people help for free.” On the charity side, helping and supporting and giving that were in a measurable way is the responsible thing for me to do. I love it. I’m passionate about it.
On the business side, I’ll be just very honest with you. If I were to come in and I would have said, “You need to do these meetings. Here’s what you need to do for your objectives. You need to fall in love with the outcome of your donors. You need to fall in love with the outcome of the people that you’re trying to support.” All of these things and you would have taken that and not done anything with it, I would have exited like I did the other thing that put us together. I don’t have to make a big stink about the fact that Jason is not there. When I leave, there’s a big gap and people notice, “Where did Jason go?”
I was trying to figure it out in my head. I’m like, “How do you keep the thing running?” You and I had this conversation like it was nothing. We’re talking about how to bake cookies. I’m like, “How do you keep the chainsaw running? What are you thinking?” You’re like, “I’ll throw myself back onto it.” I’m like, “Who’s holding the button down?” She’s like, “I couldn’t afford the one that has the lock on it, so I bought a bungee cord so that it would keep it running.” It’s hilarious now. This is part of it. It’s real but it’s all about innovation.
What if you apply it yourself at a higher level? The business side of this, talk a little bit about why it’s so difficult for people in philanthropy? You and I get asked a lot of questions. I want to go back to this point. What I did was I said, “I’m going to have a session the last Friday of every month for any charity that wants to come in. I’m going to give them my best business advice.” It’d because people ask all the time, “I need your help. I want your help. What about this? What about that?” For self-preservation, I said, “I’m going to put everybody in a session.” It’s on Facebook still on the Jason Sisneros charity page, which is highly innovative name-wise. We did it so that we could bring people there and then we start giving this coaching and it’s hundreds of thousands of dollars what we get paid at my company, Anton Jae, who sponsors this show, hundreds of thousands of dollars in the millions of dollars to teach and to help companies succeed. We do it. We have 100 people that signed up for it and guess how many people show up?
I’ve been noticing, it’s between eight and eleven.
We’re teaching some of the highest-level stuff there is for the live but about eight to ten people that come back and watch the stuff that we do. In business and in charity and in life, most people want people to do things for them. We’re teaching the solutions. We’re like, “Here’s the answer of how you do it. Here are all of the millions of dollars of debt I went into, all the mess I have, all the crap that you’ve learned over five years of doing this charity thing and it’s all there for you,” and people don’t show up. Are you kidding me?
[bctt tweet=”Find a cause that lights you on fire.” via=”no”]
I have two things to say about that. Number one, my team watches that video religiously. I remind them, “The video is on. It’s Friday. We’re going to watch it.” That’s number one. The reason is accountability. It sucks but you have to have accountability.
Everything you want is on the other side. This is important for everybody to understand. Everything that you want is on the other side of the crap that you don’t want to do.
From 501(c) and philanthropic, accountability is the difference between being a big sale charity and an event. That is what makes you different. It is highly uncomfortable to grow on a business perspective and all that learning curves and ups and downs and expensive financial mistakes. That’s a real thing that you have to learn. The thing is that so many charities are started by social workers.
Social workers who are heart-centered and not business-minded.
Which is literally me. There are two things that I think that do make us different. We are so incredibly different, so we have different kinds of accountabilities on this team. Number two, I am a hustler. I’m just a service social worker.
Have we had a $20,000 day before?
Yes.
It pays better than high-end prostitution.
I never dreamt that I’d be getting a nice big huge grant from places and be qualified for that. That’s big. That’s changing.
Part of why we’re here is I wanted you guys to be exposed to a much bigger audience so that they understand. This is not going to just be a Utah organization. It’s going to be a nationwide organization. We’re working on systematizing so that it can be “franchisable” to other places. The other thing that I want people to understand because it’s important that they know that this thing happens and if you’re one of these people that are going read this and you go, “What about men that are abused?” Shut up. Here’s what it is. It’s about transitional housing. A specific gap and a hole in the world that desperately needs to be to be expanded upon. This happens all the time. I saw it on some of your Facebook posts. People come in and they are like, “What about men? What about this? What about that?” That’s not what this program is, so don’t come here.
A New Dawn: We’re starting to be okay with trolls. We’re starting to be okay with people saying bullshit. It’s not okay.
When people ask me why I don’t, it’s because I couldn’t serve them on a massive level.
It’s like asking why Apple doesn’t come and change the tire on your car. It’s because it’s a different business. That’s why. It’s the same exact thing. If you’re interested in helping in this world, there’s going to be links and chains. This is the stuff we’re working on. It’s bringing the different disciplines together that are good at what they do. This organization is building transitional housing. It’s creating that separation between having to deal with getting punched in the face as an alternative to leaving right and to feeding your children or whatever the case is. This is that alternative for you. If you’re interested in it, follow them. Don’t come here and put statements about the things that they’re not doing. Don’t do it. What are you doing? I always like to ask that question.
I can give you something to do.
For me, this is a transitional piece for all of us to understand is that when somebody is giving their negative crap, it’s like fuel in my tank. Bring it on. I’ll suck out your power and now I’m twice as big as you are in your weaker right. That’s what these talkers do. That’s what they do to us. That’s what they do for us and they don’t realize it. They’re giving away their power by being cowardice and by not stepping up and starting a 501(C)(3) and by not doing what Nicki has done and stepping up and taking new shit on in learning, reading, changing, growing, and supporting. They’re sitting there and they want to go, “We’ll take it.” Talk like crap because you look like douchebags to the rest of the world. Do you know those movies where they go in and they like to suck out the energy and that they become stronger? That’s how I feel. I feel like any of these douchebags that want to talk about this podcast or whatever it is it, when they have the full opportunity to go, “There are 7,000 other podcasts I could watch, but I’m going to stay here and be an asshole to this one.”
I don’t know if you’ve ever seen somebody leave a negative comment on one of our videos or something, but we are trying to tax pretty quick.
It’s brutal. What we need to do is thank them and say, “Thank you for identifying yourself as if you’re a male, a dick-less wonder. If you’re a female, somebody who is a coward. Thank you for identifying yourself because now we know who you are.”
I’m a badass in what I’ve gone through and where I’m at now and I wouldn’t have been able to do it without these people.
The person who is going to bitch about and put negative comments and all of it, we’ve just been okay. I’m not okay with it. Part of why I’m doing this is because I have messed up so much. I know how to be attacked left and right all over the place. Part of the reason why I’m doing this is that it’s not okay. We’re starting to be okay with trolls. We’re starting to be okay with people saying bullshit. It’s not okay. Let them, but we are changing the game. We’re changing the game and the game is that you’re making us stronger so bring that on. There are two things. Politics. Everybody around this table almost has a different political view. I am going there because it’s necessary for us. You don’t have to talk about where you’re from.
We all do something different.
My point is that this is the microcosm of the crap that has to start happening in this country. No matter if you’re for Obama or you’re for Trump or you’re for whoever it is, nobody gives a crap when somebody is in trouble. Nobody gives a crap because we were all on the same boat and this country is the most giving, most supportive, and most opportunistic place for us to be able to do things like step into Nicki’s life. To add value through something called 501(c)(3), surrounded by Republicans, Independents and Democrats without having to talk about it. That’s what I wanted to say about that. Give me a quick point from each of you. What do you do to keep your energy level high? What’s your formula?
I’m passionate about this. This whole movement for me, this whole charity for me, everything that we do has lit a fire in me a long time ago. I take all of my time. My free time, I go clean the office. I go to this. I do that. I hustle up. Whatever we need, that’s what I do.
Passion. Do you take care of yourself health-wise?
For the most part, I push. The sleepy Jaci still goes and makes the time. That’s how much I care about it.
Nicole?
My own personal emotional investment, my besties, Kat and Rikki, us doing it together. Nicki, women like her. People like Jason. It’s seeing the community of women who have been broken down and finding others who would never be in that situation or who have or just want help. I love being the middleman for that. I hate being the middle man except for this.
Kat?
When I get drained, I plug into my people and you are one of those people. These women are my people. I always say it like this because I really mean it. I know they can handle my ugly. They don’t judge me. They just love me, let me sit in it for a second and then we move on.
You run. You do marathons or half marathons. You take care of yourself. That’s a big part of it. Nicki, what do you do?
For me, going to that place where I wanted to cut my head off with a chainsaw to make sure I was done, to seeing where I’m at now and knowing that I faced my fears and continue to face them. It makes me feel better to take that pride. I did this. To now start sharing my story and see it helped other women and know that I can make a change has been huge for me.
Rikki?
I’m simple when it comes to answers like that. The reason I do things that I do is out of love.
I don’t wholeheartedly endorse very many things. ANewDawnFoundation.com, I highly endorse these ladies. I am on the board, so everybody understands. More than that, I’m their shield. It’s a name that they gave me that I hold in high regards. It’s something that means something to me and this is an invitation to listen to their stories and understand that at a table of five women, we’ve got three of them that were molested before they were of age and everybody has gone through challenges. There are a lot of people out there that need our support. Men, they need us to step up. Women, start giving men who are standing up for this crap the due that they deserve. There are a lot of good men in this world that stand up against this stuff and would never touch their women and would never put a hand on their kids. They don’t get enough attention because they’re lumped in with all the other douchebags. This show is as much for them and a call for them to join this battle with us in one shape, way, or form to stand up.
If this is a subject that touches your heart, if this is something that means something to you, if this is an organization that you can join, give up your time, give up your treasure, take stuff for the things and the toilet papers. If you’re in Utah and you happen to get a chance to go by the office and visit with them, reach out to them. Send them as much love as you possibly can. Even a note of thank you or recognition or supporting Chainsaw’s path. I know that she’s going to be doing much more than she is right now because she’s growing, learning and changing because of the environment that these women have put together. I want to end it by everybody who’s associated with it, your sponsors, the people who have donated time, the lives that you have touched, the women that you have touched. On behalf of them, I want to say thank you for the work that you do, for your hearts and the sacrifice at 2:00 AM when the phone rings and you have to go to the jail or you have to grab everybody. Thanks for being here. Are there any parting words, any parting shots that you think that you guys would like to say?
Thank you to you and your team. Ever since we’ve met, I feel we’re this extended family.
We want to thank our volunteers, our donors from before we were A New Dawn, after or during. You guys drove us through it.
Thanks for showing up.
Spread the love. Take this blog and spread it to everybody you know so we can get the word out there. Love each other, forgive each other, forgive yourself and understand that the power lies in the person staring at you back in the mirror.
Important Links:
- Facebook – A New Dawn Foundation Page
- ANewDawnFoundation.com
- The Survivors Club
- https://www.Facebook.com/ANewDawn501/videos/789733044713106/
- https://www.ANewDawnFoundation.com/about
About A New Dawn
A New Dawn came about stemming from real life experiences when going through addiction recovery. Every day, there would be that one good Samaritan that would want to help out, but didn’t know how. How do you ensure you are actually helping that person who is trying so hard to do better and make things right, when there is no clear way of making sure you are helping? That’s A New Dawn.
After privately serving themselves for 5 years, they decided the time was right to make it official as more and more people wanted to get involved. So, in 2017 they established A New Dawn.
A big driving force for the creation was that one of their own received a Secret Santa one year, when there was nothing to give to the family, and that sparked the idea to pay it forward. For the next few years, they did their own Secret Santa, just as us, to serve others in similar situations. Giving back to the women who are doing their best and working so hard, we wanted them to know they are doing well. It became such a big success, that the idea came back for A New Dawn. Bring more like-minded people together to help those, we know are deserving, of help. This allowed us to expand our favorite project into other projects and events to help continue to serve.
When our loved ones passed, from addiction, or the byproduct of addiction, enough was enough. It is time to step up, and create A New Dawn.