Her Story
About Christina
I am the co-founder and COO of Fahrenheit Real Life Mentoring, a nonprofit my husband and I started in 2014. Throughout our careers in nonprofit and faith communities, we've always partnered together. As a mom of three girls, I've been taking other women under my wing and unofficially mentoring and training others how to be a mentor for a really long time. When we made the big career move to start our nonprofit, we committed to equipping other organizations, communities, churches, and faith-based organizations on how to lead equipping mentoring programs that enrich adults' lives. My optimal day involves meeting with other women or business leaders to encourage them in a specific area as an active mentor, because I want to continually be a mentor as I work with and train leaders. I also handle administrative duties to help our organization function better by putting in systems and structures, and I get to work shoulder to shoulder with my husband, who's a great visionary. We dream about where we can take our training and develop the best content for our weekly podcasts. Every day is different, but my key responsibilities always include being an active mentor, developing content to train mentors, and creating content for our podcast.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Christina
01What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
What I wish somebody my age would have told me sooner is if you have a big dream, it's worth pursuing. A lot of times, our opposition in pursuing our dreams doesn't come from the outside, it comes from within ourselves. I think we tell ourselves it's impossible or we don't have what it takes. I would say, take an honest evaluation of your strengths and weaknesses and find other people who can be honest with you, but then just go for it. We limit ourselves. I know I did for too long, and I'm not gonna put limits on myself anymore. Yes, will we face opposition sometimes from other people? Maybe, but I think we limit ourselves. So I would really have a woman take a look at her self-talk and what she says and thinks about herself, ask others to come along the journey and say, hey, we see this about you, we see this as a strength, and that she would move forward with her dream. If it's in her head, it's worth pursuing.
02What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
I think I'm 51, and a value that perhaps I didn't intend to be intentional with, but being authentic. We live sometimes in worlds where, you know, social media presence or whatever, we don't always see what we get. I want to be truly authentic. If I say I want to take you to lunch, then I want to put the date on the calendar. I want to be a woman of my word, but that begins by being authentic, of maybe not always being the smartest woman in the room, being vulnerable about that, and honest about that. But not in a victim standpoint. This is who I am. I've got lots to offer. There's a lot that I don't, but just being authentic, not putting out a facade, or not trying to deceive in what information I don't know, just to be candid and honest. I just think that goes a long, long way.
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