This is an IHeart podcast.

Conversations on life, style, beauty, and relationships.

It's the Velvet's Edge podcast with Kelly Henderson.

Jessica Zwagis here.

She is the founder and CEO of Simply B agency, which is an international award-winning

personal branding firm with offices in Chicago and

Nashville now. You're also the number one bestselling author of the book, Be, a No BS guide

to increasing your self-worth and net worth by simply being yourself. Hi, Jessica. Hi. It's so good

to be here with you, Kelly. Thank you for being here with us.

So I want to know what inspired you to start the Simply Be agency and to write this book?

Like what in your journey made you be like, we really need to learn how to be ourselves?

I love that question. Because I wasn't being myself for so long.

And it really caught up to me.

And my whole life fell apart from not being myself.

I had a rock bottom at 33 from living a lie for like six, seven years, just walking through

the world super unheeled and not really understanding how to take radical responsibility

for myself, not understanding how to discern toxic people, how to make empowered decisions around money,

how to really know my own worth and value at the end of the day.

You know, I had been running a pretty well-known magazine in Chicago for seven years.

And it's important to know part of my story.

I always talk about this.

But I was really on cool in high school and middle school. Like I was never the popular girl.

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