318: Wendy Diamond: Animal Rescue, Women's Entrepreneurship and Disruptive Technology • Leaders of Transformation

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What does animal rescue, women entrepreneurship and disruptive technology have in common?

Wendy and Happy Diamond

Internationally Renowned Social Entrepreneur, Impact Investor, Humanitarian, Best Selling Author, TV Personality and Do Gooder – Wendy Diamond is the CEO and Founder of Women’s Entrepreneurship Day Organization (WEDO).

WEDO is a non-governmental volunteer organization and a global initiative celebrated in 144 countries, and universities and colleges worldwide with the mission to empower women in business and alleviate poverty.

Wendy Diamond is also an investor and advisor in social impact disruptive technologies and women led businesses in Health Sciences, Renewable Energy, Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain Technology, Fintech and Virtual Reality, including : Producers Market, RISE Wealth Technologies, LOOK Lateral Art, IPWE, Blocktower Investments, Infinigon Group, SAFE Health App, Farma Trust, Breathometer, IGP METHANOL and SNAKT.

Wendy has authored ten books, garnered three Guinness World Records, and has appeared in media outlets including Oprah, NBC’s Today Show, The New York Times and Forbes. She has also been a featured keynote speaker at the United Nations, Davos and Harvard University.

Wendy Diamond sits on the Advisory Boards of Ellis Island Honors Society, Global Women in Blockchain, Social Innovation Summit, the Humane Society of New York and Grey Muzzle Foundation.

Prior to WEDO, Wendy founded Animal Fair Media, Inc. the premiere pet lifestyle media platform bridging celebrity and pop culture to support animal rescue and welfare after she learned that 12 million animals were euthanized annually. Today that number has been reduced to 2 million.

What We Discuss With Wendy Diamond

How the animal rescue and pet lifestyle movement began
The importance of collaboration, persistence and positivity
Finding social causes that you are passionate about
How humble beginnings can lead to global social impact
Why investing in women’s entrepreneurship makes good sense
A few new technology platforms that are set to disrupt their industries

Episode Transcript Highlights

You have accomplished a lot Wendy. Tell us a little more about yourself and what you’re doing. (1:45)

I grew up in Ohio in a little town of 2,500 people. I’ve always been in love with animals. I had rabbits growing up, horses, dogs, cats, everything. When I moved to New York City, I really wanted to have a dog. So I went to the city shelter and when I got there, and this was around 1998-99, there were all these amazing breeds. There was a pure bred Maltese that I adopted named Lucky, and I also adopted a really handsome Russian blue cat that I named Pasha.

When I went to do some research, I realized that nobody was doing anything about animal rescue. Nobody’s talking about how there’s 12 million animals euthanized a year. This was in 1999 right? You saw a lot of dog breeders and a lot of dog shows, but you never really saw any information out there about rescue.

I’ve been an entrepreneur my whole life. After college I sent out 300 resumes. Nobody called me back or gave me a job. So I’ve always done my own thing, always had to figure things out and be creative on how to make things happen. I’ve been like that since I was very young. So I came back home and people said, “Oh my gosh, where’d you get this dog? Can I get one?”

I’m like, “the shelter!” No, you can’t get that kind of breed in the shelter. So it hit me. You could adopt any breed, any size, any age, any color (from the shelter). I knew if we brought that to the forefront of the media, we could change people’s mindsets to adopt versus buy.

Animal Fair Media, Rescue and Adoption

Being from Ohio, I loved TV, celebrities and pop culture. So I decided to create the very first premier media company called Animal Fair. A little play on Vanity Fair, it was really more so animal welfare and bringing awareness to the importance of animal welfare and pets in our lives.

So I coined the term pet lifestyle. I went and rallied everyone I knew.

Eventually I learned how to raise money and raised a little bit of money to create this media company, and I decided that we’re going to bring celebrities and pop culture to the animal rescue world. Because in 1999, not one advertiser had pets in their ads. Nobody had celebrities and pets.

Renee Zellweger was our first cover with her dog Dylan. And we launched Animal Fair, the first media company to ever promote animal rescue and pet lifestyle, bringing celebrities and pop culture to the animal rescue world.

We launched the very first pet fashion show in history in 1999. We had Hillary Swank in our fashion show, and famous fashion designers – because I knew if we brought famous fashion designers, we could get press and people would talk about it.

Who else did we get? Angie Harmon and her husband who was the quarterback for the New York Giants. We had this big event called Paws For Style and it was getting rescue dogs walked down a runway by celebrities or famous people. We had everyone from Gucci, Burberry and Kate Spade, etc. Kate Spade actually came to our events while she was alive.

So we created this whole big thing and all the news picked it up. That’s where the New York Times and Vanity, Forbes and Fox – everyone covered our launch.

This is the reason why, we believe, Howard Stern and Beth Stern invested in animal rescue. They started coming to our fashion shows and they bought their dogs. So we were like kind of the pioneers and it was really just from the love and passion I had to bring awareness towards the 12 million animals euthanized a year.

During that time I just had fun with life, right? I created Canine Comedy where we got all these famous comedians. If you Google my name with Tina Fey and Rachel Trach and all the Saturday Night Live people at the time, they all showed up and helped raise money for animal rescue.

We created all these fun different events that we knew people could emulate around the world and in their different communities to help their local animal rescue. Because the key to the game is to support your local rescue animal shelter because they don’t have all the money that these big groups have to promote themselves.

So that was the idea behind what we were doing – including pet travel. At the time we launched, there were only a few people in the pet fashion world. Now there’s many, right?

I have 10 books out, including How To Understand Men Through Their Dogs, How To Train Your Boss To Roll Over, How To Understand Women Through Their Cats. So I created all these books and ideas and I was on the Today Show twice a month and I had a prime time show on CBS called the Greatest American Dog and all this stuff, just to bring awareness towards the importance of rescue.

The Most Expensive Pet Wedding In History (8:11)

I have three Guinness World Records. One was with my dog that inspired my whole life in animal rescue, Lucky, who was diagnosed with spleen cancer. My dog didn’t have a long time to live. We were doing chemo and the whole thing was a disaster. So I decided to do a celebration of my dog’s life.

So we created the most expensive pet wedding in history where my dog got the Guinness World Record, but then who is my dog going marry? Because the Cake Boss wanted to film an episode, and the dog that was going to marry my dog was going to be a rescue that I would adopt.

In the meantime, a friend of mine had a dog she was fostering. She said, “Hey, would you take care of this dog? She was leaving town, and had some family issues. The next thing I know I’m fostering this dog dealing with my dog Lucky who was having a really tough time. Then my dog died before the wedding, so I ended up just adopting the dog that I was fostering named Baby and that’s how we created the most expensive pet wedding in history.

We got all these people around town who wanted to support my dog because my dog was in New York City where I live now. We are huge supporters of the humane society of New York. We have raised millions and millions of dollars for animal rescue. So the Essex house, which is a really fancy hotel, was like, “Oh, we’ll donate our ballroom.”

The next thing I know, this really incredible woman who’s the number one party planner in New York, Harriet Rose Katz, called me crying after she heard my dog was dying. “Let me do your wedding. Let me do the whole party for you.”

The next thing we know, we have a 21-piece orchestra. We had a Florialia Flowers from Waldorf, $50,000 worth of flowers and everybody donated. So the most expensive wedding was actually donations. So we had a really big celebration of my dog’s life.

Bullies and New Beginnings (10:30)

At the time, I was blessed with a stalker – a bully – a woman who created 50 anonymous email addresses to defame and slander me. My whole life was falling apart and I found 10 other victims of this woman, but we couldn’t do anything.

I became friends with the police commissioner, I did everything to try to solve this and she would go to Starbucks and the library to send the emails so we could never track the IP.

So my whole life in the animal world fell apart after spending literally a lifetime trying to help animal rescue. A year later, after all that, no one was calling me anymore and my life fell apart. This woman totally ruined my life in the animal world, literally.

Also, at that time my father passed away. I made a commitment to myself that I would go to two new countries a year for the rest of my life because I loved the world. I’m a Virgo, so I’m the most passionate sign in the Zodiac. I get really into my projects and really love it. So I ended up in Honduras on vacation, not realizing at the time when I booked it, it was the murder capital of the world.

Honduras and Micro-Loans (11:41)

When I got there, I was at this boutique hotel in the jungle and all these people who were there were obsessed with birds. They were willing to risk their lives to visit Honduras. After two days of watching birds, I thought I was going to go cuckoo myself. The hotel is like, “There’s an organization that gives micro loans to poor women. Why don’t you go check it out?”

This is in 2013. So I ended up going to this little community where the people were impoverished. They had no electricity. One woman was 72 years old, she had two little kids. She said, “My daughter passed away and her husband ran off. I have these little kids and I got $100 micro loan from Adelante, which was this organization that I was visiting. She opened up her window in her one room home with a dirt floor and was selling Cokes and toothpaste, and was able to pay a dollar a month for those kids to go to school.

I was supposed to spend only a couple of hours there. I spent a couple of days and I just fell in love with this whole community and what this organization was doing for these women and I started thinking about and learning about all the statistics about women in businesses.

(13:18) These loans that these women get, they are paying those loans back at a 98% rate. When women earn money, 98% of it also goes back to funding the community, their family, and educating their children, which uplifts the entire community. At the time, 1% of venture dollars were going to women owned businesses. All the statistics about gender equality – nobody was really talking about it in 2013.

So I came back to New York and I was so inspired. I can never get that one older woman off my mind. How she was 72 and got back on that horse and started her own little business, educating those children, paying a dollar a month to go to school. I thought, if she can do it, I can do something new.

Women’s Entrepreneurship Day

I was inspired to do what I did in the animal world when I learned that 12 million animals were euthanized the year. Now that number in the animal rescue world is down as 2 million. And when you look at history why that happened, it’s clearly because animals are now part of our families. It’s part of pop culture. You can’t watch five minutes on any TV show or any website or anything without seeing a pet. Because that’s one of the greatest things you can ever have in your life, right?

I could never live life without a animal. They are seriously the cutest, funniest, sweetest things. They’re good for high blood pressure, stress, they help in every manner – everything.

Anyway, so I came back, and decided that I would create a Women’s Day in the world because why not? I guess I just believe you can do anything in life. I’ve always had to figure out my own way as an entrepreneur. And so I decided that I would create Women’s Entrepreneurship Day because no one at the time, in 2013 was speaking about women entrepreneurs or speaking about the statistics of why it’s so important to empower women in business. Because when women are empowered in business, they have self confidence and dignity. They don’t allow human rights violations.

We’re a capitalist society. Give a hand up, not a hand out. So I decided to create a day in the world and I went to governor Cuomo, Mayor de Blasio of New York. I said, “Would you proclaim Women’s Entrepreneurship Day?” And so they did.

(16:00) The first year we launched, in 2014, I went to everyone I knew around the world and said, “Who in your state are the greatest women to bring government, business leaders, and civil society together, to collaborate and find solutions to uplift women in business?”

That’s how I started as a grassroots way. Remember I didn’t really have money and I had to get people that would be able to do it who we’re already pretty much successful, that wanted to give back to their own communities.

So it took a lot of time and it took a few crazy things, like people appropriating our day and appropriating me and trying to throw me under the bus again. But you know what, when you don’t care about money, fame, or power, you can do anything. So I kept going.

We now are in 144 countries. Mayor Garcetti in Los Angeles dedicated money in the budget to fund women entrepreneurs. He celebrates every year women’s entrepreneurship, and he proclaimed the day. This year, the governor of Oklahoma proclaimed the day. This year, the president of Mexico proclaimed the day. So all around the world we’re celebrated. Think Ted talks. So instead of people talking about themselves and ideas, we bring governments, business leaders, and civil society together to collaborate, to find solutions to uplift women in their own community.

Choose Women (17:31)

One of our social impact initiatives is called “Choose Women”. We ask everyone in the world, the Wednesday after Thanksgiving to choose women. This year we partnered with Publicis, the ad agency and the award winning creative agency Bartle Bogle, Hegarty. For this year, we launched this huge campaign called “Choose Women”, and that took five years.

What I want people to realize, nothing’s easy. Number one, I make it look like easy but it’s not. I just have a good attitude. It’s about being peppy and positive. It’s about having persistence and perseverance. If you really want to do something, you can do it; it just really takes hard work.

How does a girl from Ohio get so connected with all these celebrities? How did you attract them? I think we think too small. We say, “Who am I to ask so-and-so to get involved in my thing?” But what I see with you, there’s this big expectation and why wouldn’t they, because this is such a super awesome idea? So talk about that process. (20:50)

Real change is from the ground up. When you look at a lot of these movements, it’s the top supporting the top. But at the end of the day, if you want to create change, it’s from the ground up. It’s simplifying it enough because everyone in the world wants to help you. Just make it really easy for them.

I just have no fear. I’ve never had a job, so I’ve always had to figure it out. And what’s the worst that people can say? No. I have this funny saying that not everyone’s meant to get married together, not everyone is meant to be friends together, and not everyone’s meant to work together. So once you find the right people, it flows and it’s fun and it’s exciting.

Sure, I have bullies. I have stalkers. I have so many people against me, it’s crazy. I just think, wow, if they spent all that time on more positive things, think about how much better the world would be. And I realize you can’t explain mentally ill people. In life you just have to surround yourself with people who believe in you, that are positive. Don’t let people get you down.

When I had my stalker and bully for a year, I was like, “Oh my God, I see why people commit suicide.” But none of the stuff she was saying was true. And the people that stopped talking to me, those are enablers. Those are people who enabled that bully to win. And I have to say, I feel like the luckiest person on earth.

My stalker actually admitted to me that she did it and there was nothing I could do. She did it at the United Nations. She was crying and I’m like, “The only way I will accept your apology is if you admit it to the world and the people that you know.” She never did.

At the end of the day, I feel like, what’s the worst that can happen? Someone can say, no, that’s it. So go shoot for the stars and shoot for whatever you want to do. Do it. Keep your day job so you can pay your rent and eat, but find something that you’re passionate about in life. That’ll keep you going and it’ll give you the energy and the excitement to wake up in the morning and be like, yeah, I can do this.

We all can do whatever we want in life and it’s all in our minds – the way we see, think and feel is in our minds. So if we think we can do that, and remember you can change your mind in one second and feel this way – if we think we can do this, we can do it.

Your personality can be all over the place but you get things done. What’s your secret? (24:03)

I sleep eight hours a day. I barely drink, maybe once every six months. I’m healthy. I’ve been a vegetarian since seven years old. I’m just healthy. I do yoga, I meditate. Yeah, I do a lot. But the crazy I know is the crazy I’m fine with.

When you look at children’s today, “Oh, they can’t focus, they have ADD, let’s give them some drugs to calm them down.” No, no, no, no, no. What is ADD? “I’m not interested. If I was interested, I would focus.”

Look at what you’re really passionate about and then embrace that. The way school is set up is archaic. It’s been around for hundreds of years. I think experiential education is probably the best education one could get; to be able to find what you’re passionate about at a young age and nurture that with your children. So that they believe in themselves and build competence with themselves, that they do know something and that they can be something.

What I hear that you’re saying is that you also focused in on a particular thing and you didn’t necessarily box yourself in that, that’s what you were going to do with the rest of your life. (27:29)

Everything’s a positive in life. You might know it in a day, a week, 10 years, 20 years, whatever it is. As long as you know, whatever you’re going through, you’re learning something. And I just think that people need to realize that it’s all in your mind. You can really change your attitude and really realize that you have one life. Live it and do what you really love to do. Keep the day job – just do what you love to do because that’s going to keep you every day excited.

For our movement makers who are listening, you’ve given us a shot in the arm. I was going to ask you, “what is your super power?” and I think we just experienced it right here. That power of influence and enthusiasm. Enthusiasm is contagious and you have enrolled so many people into your movement and no, you can’t do it all alone. You’ve brought people around you. What else would you say other than what we’ve talked about here already? (29:13)

Well, I think we’ve gone through it and everybody says this, “Just do it.” Again it’s in your mind. You could wake up in the morning and decide you’re the happiest person in the world or I’m depressed, and you’re making that decision. So you need to change your mind to say I’m doing this and then you actually do it because it’s all about action.

Every day writing down, by the end of today I’m going to get this done. Start small and get your own little community together because you really just have to test it out. Does this work? Does that work?

What’s next for you? (30:31)

I thought I was going to become an impoverished woman myself about four and a half years ago, when my stalker was ruining my whole life. And so I started investing in impact and Bitcoin, I’m a big supporter. Now I’m advising some of the most disruptive technology companies in the world. So I’m using what I’ve learned my whole life and bringing it together and working with some of the most brilliant people I’ve ever met that are so high integrity and passionate about their different things.

So I’m involved in investing and advising and I love it. It’s such a dream to be able to do this. I’m bringing all my connections to help the world. So one company I’m in is called Producers Market. It’s the Ali Baba to empower farmers. I brought the government of India and the United Nations environmental program to a project where we’re putting 6 million impoverished farmers onto our platform.

In about a year from now when you scan the barcode, you’re going to be able to see that farmer in India – the real farmer and follow them, who has one hectare of land, who’s getting a dollar, and who’s now going to get $2. So we’re part of bringing traceability and transparency of the supply chain through this technology company that I told you about Producer’s Market.

Another project is called the IGP methanol. It’s the cleanest duel in the world and we have the technology to make any diesel engine 50 to 70% less carbon emissions. Now if you would’ve asked me about these companies and technologies about five years ago, I’d be like, “I don’t understand any of this,” but I am always learning and I go to meetups. I’m with 22 year olds learning about robotics.

I just want to learn and stimulate my mind and be open because the more open you are, the more open to everybody in your world you are. You never know what doors can open. And because of my background in all this stuff, it’s just this evolution of being able to understand that the more you collaborate and the more you’re open to collaboration, the bigger movements and the bigger the changes you can make in this world.

Episode Resources

Connect with Wendy Diamond

www.wendydiamond.com

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318: Wendy Diamond: Animal Rescue, Women’s Entrepreneurship and Disruptive Technology