When women support each other, incredible things can happen.
This could not be more true for Ariana Christie and Marissa Teeter, two Guelph women who decided to launch their own podcasts, together.
Christie says that the idea to partner up for a double launch held on June 4 at Spring Mill Distillery, was to show support for one another rather than compete.
“We did something unique together to showcase women supporting women,” Christie said.
“Sometimes, we talk about it, but when it comes time to actually supporting one another, women might see it as competition. It can be hard to take action. We really wanted to show that supporting each other can be so powerful.”
For Christie, the inspiration for a podcast came after she started her own Instagram page which now has over 60,000 followers.
“It’s a community of mostly moms. It started it following the birth of my twins and the community just grew. I was hearing from working parents, who are also woman, and also moms,” Christie said.
The next organic step, she says, was to start her own podcast.
“I want to be able to share who I find inspiring, and I want to have conversations that my audience wants to hear and learn from,” Christie said.
Christie’s podcast Your Cup of Joy represents a community of people coming together to learn more about self-care and the importance of doing things for yourself, as well as a space to inspire, learn, grow and challenge.
“It’s about promoting self care. If you take care of yourself, you will show up as a better version of yourself and in all areas of life,” she said.
Christie’s launch partner, Marissa Teeter, has worked in the corporate space for many years.
“I have spent almost the last 20 years in various senior executive roles, mostly in investment and financial services. I do a lot of mentoring and leadership coaching which I really love,” Teeter said.
In January, Teeter left a corporate role to launch her own executive coaching company in leadership consulting.
“I’ve always had the idea of a podcast in the back of my mind. It kind of sparked a few years ago in my previous role,” she said.
Teeter has engaged in some unique interview opportunities in the past.
“As part of sales conferences, I’ve interviewed Wayne Gretzky, former prime minister Jean Chretien, Hayley Wickenheiser, and Dan Levy. I kind of became the go to interviewer, host, and moderator for my organization,” Teeter said.
“I loved doing it and people would say, gosh Marissa, you are so good at that! I thought well, I really love interviewing people and hearing their stories. Sometimes that’s how we learn the best lessons.”
Her leadership focused podcast, Teeter Talks, is aimed to fuel the leader in everyone, to leave listeners inspired, empowered, and ready to take action.
“It’s a leadership-focused podcast but its not all about getting leadership advice. It’s really through the story telling of leaders, through all walks of life, who inspire and educate others to be better and do better. To me, that’s how make the world a better place,” Teeter said.
Christie and Teeter crossed paths for many years.
“We would support the same charities, we would show up to the same events, but we were never really friends. We knew who the other person was. A few months ago, we thought, its time. Let’s sit down and have coffee. And in that moment, we told each other that we were launching these pod casts,” Teeter said.
“It was exciting. I think it would have been really easy to get nervous and think, oh wow, this person is really amazing and is also launching a podcast. Surely, we could be competitive,” Teeter said.
But instead, the pair thought 'let’s just do this together'.
“We both had so much to learn. We knew nothing about launching podcasts,” Teeter said.
“We didn’t know what microphone we should buy, what tech we need to use. We went back and forth on names for our podcasts.”
The pair researched everything from which production company to work with, to how and when they should launch.
“The biggest lesson that I think has come out of this whole thing, is that collaboration is amazing. It’s about women supporting women. There’s lots of room for all of us,” Teeter said.
“And it has been a lot of fun. We pulled off this amazing launch and we were so aligned. We just work so well together."
The double launch was also held as a fundraiser in support of CAN Fund #150 Women.
The non-for-profit organization gives Canadian athletes the financial support they need to train and compete for Canada.
“They launched the 150 Women’s Initiative with the idea to get women out there supporting female athletes,” Teeter said.
“I said to Ariana, in the spirit of women supporting women, it would be so cool, especially with the timeliness of the Olympics this summer, let’s do some good for our athletes and show them some love.”
Local business owners helped to sponsor and support the event.
“We had food from Market Fresh, Bardot, NV Kitchen & Bar, and Milk and Co. Gourmet Cookies. You could see and feel the businesses who really supported us in the most tremendous way. And many of them are run by women. People walked in, saw the food and though, wow, this is amazing. It was wonderful how it all came together," Christie said.
After all was said and done, Christie and Teeter took a moment, stood back, and looked at all the people in the room.
“I think the greatest part for me was hearing from people that really inspire us, from our peers and community members," Teeter said.
On launch day, Christie received the most incredible lesson from her grandmother, something she says she will never forget.
“I was telling her about my podcast. She had never heard a podcast before. She listened to it and said how impactful it is, and how much it would have helped her as a parent,” Christie said.
“Even if one person takes something from it, and it benefits them, then that’s a blessing.”
