29: 12 years Working with Human Trafficking Survivors // The Story of Jessica Minhas

I had two friends who then it happened to them and they were hesitant to go to the police and that's when I found out about child sex trafficking. So those are some ways that anybody can support ending this horrible business.

Welcome to From Rock Bottom to Rockin It. I'm your host, Eric Gilbert Williams, and this is the podcast where we explore personal stories of people who hit absolute record rock bottom, then got back up, wiped off the dust, kicked failure to the curb, and now they're rocking it like you'd never believe if you didn't hear it. Live right here, we cover subjects in business, sports, and life in general. If you like this podcast, please share it. These interviews are intended to inspire, to motivate, to give hope and vision. So please share this episode with someone who needs it. Use your Instagram account, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Hannah, hand signals. Trained pigeon sent smoke signals up in the air. Use Morse code, whatever you like. Just share the love and share this episode. Also, email me anytime. Podcastericilbertwilliams.com Send me questions you would like to have asked of future guests and I will incorporate them. Or just send me some suggestions on how to run a better podcast. Or just say hello, I'd love to hear from you. That's podcastricilbertwilliams.com I know you're gonna love today's interview, so let's get started here with us today on From Rock Bottom. The Rockin it is human rights advocate, social entrepreneur, media commenter, and in my opinion, a true spirit of positive change, Jessica Menas. Jessica is best known for making complex human rights issues relevant, understandable, and actionable for everyone. You may have heard her speak to the United nations or on our TEDx talk on YouTube. Check it out if you haven't seen it already, or at any number of other Eng engagements where she focuses on difficult and important, imperatively important subjects like helping human trafficker survivors, abuse survivors, and numerous other social justice causes around the globe. She's the founder and CEO of I'll Go First, a nonprofit which she'll tell us all about in a moment. And she's also working on her first book, which I'm curious about. So, Jessica, without further ado, welcome to the show. How you doing?

Wow, I haven't heard my bio from somebody else in so long that I'm like, oh my gosh, I need to like record this.

I need to record this for when.

I'm feeling, like, insecure or having a rough day. I'm like, that person sounds really interesting. Oh, that's My bio. Interesting.

And this really plays into. I think what I'm assuming you're probably going to talk about a lot is this external enforcement. You know, when a group of people from the outside of your immediate circle, even inside your immediate circle, when a group of people says something, it must be true. You know, I'm quote unquote, right. If a group of people says that you're bad, then the majority overwhelms and it like internalizes. And when a group of people come around and all of a sudden out of nowhere say that you're really good, and I'm simplifying here on purpose, then all of a sudden, well, that becomes believable as well. It's a mind fuck, basically.

It totally is.

Yeah. I think that's. I mean, to your point about my bio, one thing that I find a lot of people struggle with is the internal narrative that we've gotten as kids and that, you know, when you're a kid and the adult says whatever that is, the end all, be all. So I think over time, in my own journey, it's just taken. I mean, it's just taken a lifetime to try and figure out how to override those narratives that are so even physiologically ingrained in who we are.

Yeah. And this is going really deep and I'm probably not qualified to go this far, but what is an identity? Right. An identity is just a sense of self. And how do we define our sense of self? Well, if we're at a point of maturity and perhaps self confidence to decide our own identity, well, that's a great thing. But until then, and that might happen at an early age or a late age or never until then, then identity just becomes what people say it is.

Yeah. Yeah. And then how. Because I was having this conversation with my therapist. I say this a lot.

My.

My therapist and I have been talking about what happens when you don't believe your own self talk.

Right.

Yeah.

So. Okay, wait, what kind of self talk? I mean, I've had plenty of times where I have a horrible negative self talk and other times where it's a very positive one and whichever one I believe starts to become true, it's fascinating and terrifying at the same time.

Yeah, yeah. The ones that are positive, like, you can do this, you're smart, you're capable. You know, those kind of positive outlooks, I think, are hard to shift when it's all been so negative and that feels so right. It's like the ploy of hope and trust and faith that feels more scary sometimes than Feeling like very negative feelings are kind of concrete in their own way. They're easy to conceptualize, they're just a fact. But then these hopeful narratives are ambiguous and it takes a lot of spiritual risk, I think, to be able to.

Believe that they're a powerful force. What do you think? There's this in the sales world, and I've spent a lot of time in that world for better or worse. But one of the teachings you hear a lot is motorcycle motivating by fear and fear motivations and scarcity. Right. So the simplistic form would be like the sleazy car salesman saying that if you don't buy it right now, you're going to miss out. And if you miss out, you're not going to have XYZ and it's going to be bad for you. Right. So using that emotion of fear to motivate, whereas on the flip side, you know, maybe we're talking to, well, I'm talking with you. A positive influence in the world coming from a positive place, what do you think holds more weight? This is kind of a question for my own curiosity. The power of fear or the power of good, of positive? Which one in a conversation will have more of an impact?

I think it depends on the person you're talking to. If they have a history of trauma, the fear part will just feel so natural, like, oh, yes, of course, that makes sense. This is going to ultimately turn out negatively. This is going to be a terrible idea. Yeah, that makes sense. The opposite, like, oh, wow, I could really succeed in that. That sounds terrifying. So I'm just going to self sabotage that so I don't have to worry about it.

Well, maybe that's a good little segue into talking a little bit about your story. I just start rambling. I can't help it sometimes. So maybe if you could share with me and everyone listening what exactly happened. I've seen your TED Talk, right.

So thank you.

I know a little bit more than yeah, it was great. I really appreciated it. So I know maybe a little bit more than some people listening right now, but maybe if you can bring people up to speed and share your story in a nutshell here.

Gosh, sharing our stories in a nutshell, that is a challenge.

Can you make it more specific? This show is called From Rock Bottom. The rockin it for a reason. Right. And on one side, what I would ask if you're comfort comfortable is to share what that rock bottom was. What was the absolute lowest point in this story that's continuing forever? And once we come back from the break. I'm going to ask you the opposite, monsieur. When was the moment that you knew that. That rock bottom was gone forever? That you'd finally, forever overcome this traumatic past? And now you're rocking it. You're doing all sorts of amazing things. And so to whatever degree you're comfortable, if you could share with us, starting with, what was the rock bottom? What did that look like? What was that?

I think the rock bottom for me was. So I grew up with my. My maternal grandfather, and he was a World War II veteran. My grandmother was the daughter of a German general. So they just came together, they collided with their trauma. And then when they had my mom, she wasn't capable of taking care of my identical twin sister and I. And so my grandparents stepped in. So it was a benevolent stepping in. But because of their trauma, they just coped with drinking. Drinking so much. Sorry, I'm gonna. I'm so sorry. This is rookie mistake.

Don't worry. It's all good. Yeah, it's all good.

So they collided with their trauma and their ptsd, and they coped with alcoholism. So they. Once they took care of my twin and I, they were retired. So they had been used to traveling the world, and Suddenly now, at 60, they have two infants to take care of. And I think that process was adjustment for them. So unfortunately, they drank a lot. And my sister was killed in an entirely preventable accident while they were having a party one evening. And I think that just, like, spun them into even darker place. My grandmother, a few years after that, passed from alcohol, alcohol poisoning. And then it was just my grandfather and I, and he was all alone. He was. He had been a manager. You know, he had taken. He was a boss of hundreds of people. And so now he's without a wife. He has no family. He's taking care of a young girl. So that just kept blossoming into this, I don't know, like a volcano. And then when I was 15, he had a stroke. And I remember the first time, like, when he went to the hospital, I was like, oh, wow, okay. So now he's not going to be able to beat down my door and hit me anymore. And I remember in that moment thinking, oh, that's not like a usual thing that a child thinks of when they have a parent who. Or a caretaker who's gotten quite ill. He came back home, and then when I was 16, he got drunk again, fell down and broke his hip. And I think that is when everything started to tumble into the spiral.

It was just About a year and.

A half later and he passed. But there was so much abuse wrapped into trying to take care of him that it. The only image that I can think of is a curdled milk sort of. And once he passed, I didn't have any family left. So I think that was the rock bottom for me is waking up just having turned 18, 20.

So September 11th had happened, and then I got sexually assaulted a few times after that. And when I went to the police officers, they said, well, you don't have any family, so we recommend that you don't go through the criminal justice system because you're gonna have to stand trial as a victim and not have any support behind you. So I think that was a moment where I realized again, like it was another level of realizing, oh, wow, I'm really alone in the world.

Yeah, I can't relate to that. Of course there was a time though, I had this. An employee that had stolen a whole bunch of money and I thought that I had enough evidence, so I went to the police and they said, no, no, you're on your own. The system isn't as straightforward as that. And that was a really harsh lesson that I had to learn, is that I do believe police officers mean well and the system means well. I mean, the system that we have is like, what is it? It's simply the collection of positive intentions of an entire country trying to figure out how to live together. And the system can only be as perfect as the creators. And I think humans are inherently imperfect. We try, most of us try really hard to do well, but sometimes it doesn't always work out and the system ends up as flawed. It's fucked up sometimes. I remember we had a guest on the show, Samra Zafar. If you don't know her, I would definitely gonna introduce you to. And she was forced into a child marriage very, very young. And she enlightened me to the reality that it's legal. It is legal for a child to enter into a marriage in Canada, but it's illegal for a child to exit one. Right. What kind of a system is that? You need to have parental sign off in order to. You don't need the parental sign off to enter, but you do need it in order to leave in some weird twisted way. And it's a lesson. Like what you're saying is that the system sometimes has holes. So what did you do? What did you do next? I mean, you're by yourself and you've just found out that the system you believed in for 18 years doesn't have your back anymore. How do you cope with that? Like a lot of people would cope with that in perhaps self destructive ways, but you didn't.

I had two friends who then it happened to them and they were hesitant to go to the police. But I think because I had my own experience, I could advocate for them, whereas I didn't have anyone to advocate for me. It's like I went first my community of friends because, you know, sexual assaults are so prevalent. And I think that because I felt so alone, that's when I decided to go search for my biological family. Because at that point it was like, like, well, I mean, what else do I have to lose? I literally have nothing else to lose.

Yeah. How does that saying go? There is wartime saying something about the only enemy to fear is the one that has nothing left to lose.

Yeah, that's so true.

However that goes.

Yeah.

Because why not, Right?

Absolutely.

Yeah. And for me, like some of my personal rock bottom moments have always been the birthing place for my really closely following rock' n It moment. It's a strange thing. It's like universe has this balancing point and the further off of equilibrium you get, it tries to like correct and bring it to a place of harmony. Like you get too successful and maybe become a victim of hubris and boom, universe brings you right back down. Right. Or if you're completely falling apart and everything's getting destroyed in your life, the universe is like, no, no, no, you're too far low. Boom, it brings you back up. And again it's just back to this mindfuck thing. It's crazy how the world works.

Absolutely.

So you were the first to stand up in your community and that led to you essentially sharing and giving strength to the courage, giving spirit to that courage to speak up. And other people started to speak up as well. You said that you were able to help some of your other friends by standing in for them. What about you though? I mean, what ended up happening? Did anyone stand up for you and were you able to revisit these or was it just so far in the past at that point and it didn't seem worthwhile to keep going? How does your story end there with the sexual assault that you didn't have support for?

That's a really good question. I think when I started searching for my biological family, that's when I, I went to India to look for them, but I didn't really have a last name. So I just landed in India, was kind of looking around. It was the first time I Saw people who looked like me because I grew up in a very white community.

And then Deep south, right?

Yes, yes.

Anyone in the states, that's all you got to say, deep South. You grew up not exactly white and deep South. I think that creates a very clear picture.

Absolutely, absolutely. With a white family, no less.

Yeah.

And my grandfather, he was very kind when he was sober, but when he was drunk, he was just a real piece of work. And he. He wasn't racist when he was not drunk, but he was when he was drunk, which is the irony. And so he really didn't like brown people when he was under the influence. And so that added to this, like, dynamic of who am I? So when I went to India, that was a part of the narrative, trying to meet people who look like me. And that's when I found out about child sex trafficking. And I think, again, that was another moment. I was like, okay, I'm going to stand up for these people because they don't have the same resources that I ironically had access to. They have really no resources, so how can I support them? And they're right.

So there's two points there. I want to touch on it, and I got to make a mental note not to miss it. The first one, talking about alcoholism and the polarized experience, the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde experience of that alcohol can have. And I remember an old co worker of mine, when he would finish half of his first beer, I would no longer recognize who he is. He's just obnoxious, angry, violent, aggressive, destructive both self and externally. And it was terrifying for me to see that my co worker and friend at the time is no longer someone I recognize. And it leads me to this question. I don't believe that a single person with a whole spirit can both not see color and be racist at the same time. I believe that either it's one or the other. So either my friend is a destructive, angry person in his core or he isn't. And alcohol really affected him and made him not be himself. But I don't believe that they can say both that he can say that he's both a happy person and be a destructive person at the same time. And maybe I'm wrong. Maybe a person, maybe this is that old Asian adage and that philosophy of that two battling dragons inside of our spirit. Maybe it's a representative of the inner struggle that maybe all of us are going through. And it comes out in different ways. What is your opinion with your granddad? Do you believe that he is really a Kind person in essence and that alcohol really affected him, or do you think that he was struggling with stuff and was able to keep it at bay while sober, but when alcohol hit, he wasn't able to keep the demons back anymore? I'm just curious, what do you think about that?

I think maybe it's maybe somewhere in the middle of those. It's frustrating because as I've started to do my own work and this journey of finding my family. So my father is Indian and my mother obviously is from my grandfather's side. But my grandfather, the kind of language he would use when he was derogatory towards me was very specific to Middle Eastern culture. And that was confusing because I didn't understand. I never met Indians until I went to India. So I didn't quite. I couldn't place where every everything was. But I would hear that he was very kind when he was not drunk, but because I was at school and then I come home at 5 from like cross country practice. He'd already had started drinking by then because he would start at noon and on the weekends he'd start earlier. So the people who got to meet him and were this isolated group of people who then were like, I don't know why you think he's so mean.

Because when we get to meet him, he's so great.

And then the racism part is really complex because fast forward to just a few years ago. I found out that I had a brain disease. And so I did DNA health test to see like what was going on. And I found out that yes, I'm half Indian, but I'm, I'm half Moroccan. And so that means that my grandfather was not biologically related to me. And so it unearthed this family secret of them having somehow obtained my mother from Morocco at some point. And that then makes me think about the derogatory terms. And I'm like, oh, interesting. It's almost like he was giving me clues that I was actually Casablanca. But it is kind of then unraveling the shame part. Okay, am I inherently bad? Because he was very specific about it. So to answer your question about racism, I'm honestly not sure I want to believe. And I think we always want to do that, believe the best in our parents. But I have to acknowledge that he came from a different time in life. You know, he went through World War II and that trauma, I think makes it so much worse. He had very rudimentary understandings of how we are different from each other. So for him it was a thing to be proud of that he Hired.

A black person to trim our trees.

That was very. He was very progressive to himself then.

So I'm not.

I'm not sure. But the fights that we would get in were always about race and people being different, like the Chinese and like the black people or those Middle Eastern people. And it was like, oh, I'm these people. So I don't know, maybe it was a mix of ignorance, but I also think it was a mix of them versus me. And I think the war didn't really help that at all.

Yeah. Who really wins in a war?

Yeah.

Yeah. Even the winner. Is that really a win?

Right.

Yeah. So that's fascinating.

And then what are you fighting for? Because we hear from veterans now who are like, oh, I went to Iraq and I went to Afghanistan, and now I'm realizing now that I'm out of the service that what was I fighting for? I actually don't even know.

Yeah. And that comes back to this. How do we live on a planet with this many people? And how can we solve our issues in a peaceful way? These are huge questions, and it connects in to me with something you said in your TED Talk. You talked about you believe that in this generation, in our lifetime, at least, we can solve this problem, this terrible problem of sex slavery and whether it's child trafficking or if it's specifically on gender and degradation of women. And you believe that we can solve this. I mean, this has been around for tens of thousands, thousands of years. And you believe that it can happen in this generation. And there's going to be some people that absolutely agree, and I'm one of them. And there's also going to be people that say that's a really big hurdle that needs to be jumped. And I'm also one of those people, too, that thinks that. What do you think needs to happen? I went to Thailand last year, before, of course, the pandemic and all this stuff. And I think anyone who spent a fair bit of time in Thailand, I was there for about two months. Anyone who's been there a long enough time starts to question what the sex trade is, because it's not the same in, say, Canada, where I'm from, or even the United States, when I'm out there and going out to some sort of pub or whatever. There came a point where I realized I don't know who I'm looking at, if they're male or female or if they're paid to be there or if they're a slave. And by the time I left, I had this uncomfortable realization That I have no idea how many people I met in Thailand who are part of the sex trade. And of course I didn't participate in any of that. I'm just saying, you know, just generally out and about, going to a place in pool or go to listen to a band or go to a little party at nighttime and there's people drinking and having a big party. Like, there's a lot of people. And the bottom line is there's an enormous amount of. Of people that are in the sex trade over there. If you can help me understand, and people listening to understand. How could that be corrected? I think that's the right word because that's a problem and that shouldn't be there. How could that be corrected in a lifetime? Like, what does that look like?

I got a chance to speak after Samantha Powers at the United nations, and she went before me and she was talking, we were talking to the United Nations Internet, excuse me, International school. And she said to the students that if you want to change the world, you need to go and see. So you have to go into the community and really be a part of that. Which means the opposite. Then if you're here in your own community, how can you be looking for this? A friend of mine, Raleigh Sadler, he wrote a book called Vulnerability, and it's about human trafficking. Because ultimately, when we talk about trafficking survivors or victims when they're still being victimized, what we're really talking about is vulnerability to socioeconomic dynamics. We're talking about vulnerability to family dynamics, to abuse, to trauma that happens prior to them being perpetrated against. So when I think about how can we solve this issue, it's actually not like we're not thinking about, like, running over and saving people from being kidnapping, kidnapped, because you're really touching on a very specific point. It's so nuanced and it's so gray, and how can we really know what's happening? So the elixir, I really think is, at least in the States, it's mentoring and really being involved in being a deep part of each other's lives. That is what will prevent something from being perpetrated against. And when it comes to being abroad, it's actually, it's education and it's jobs and it's housing. So rather than like breaking down doors, these are things that everybody can participate in and support.

Is it fair to say that there's less sex trafficking and less sex slave in the United States than there is poking at India for any specific reason? I'm just that words come Up a few times. So where is there more sex trafficking right now in the world?

Well, we're thinking about population. So population in India, actually northern India, has the highest amount of trafficked victims. Ironically, when we think about trafficking, sex trafficking is very popular. It's very sexy to talk about sex trafficking because it's so beyond our understanding. But the highest percentage of trafficking is actually labor trafficking. And that's all the goods we wear, that's what we eat, and that's what we consume. And that's a harder thing to wrestle down because, of course, I like my cell phone. And if there's consequences for me having my cell phone that include child labor or unpaid labor, then, oh, my gosh, like, I have this cell phone and someone has been trafficked because of it.

Right. Okay, I got a question for you here on that. Specifically, I read the book Shoe Dog by Phil Knight, I believe his name was the founder and owner of Nike. Right. Have you read that book, by the way?

No, I'm just. No, I'm just like a fan. Fan girl of Nike.

Yeah. So in that book, Phil talks about there was a time when Nike was under attack for having factories in poor countries of the world. And there was a lot of attack about child slavery and forced labor. And it was very bad for sales, it was very bad for the company. And maybe most importantly, it was very bad for the mentality of essentially everyone working at Nike. Because essentially, if anyone had a job, no matter how important or small or big or consequential or inconsequential, if you're a janitor or a secretary or a project manager or sales associate at Nike, and your friends are coming to you saying that you're supporting child labor, that's psychologically damaging. So it was a big effect that everyone in Nike. And the net result, of course, was all those factories were shut down, essentially, to my understanding. And life went on. Right. Now in the book, Phil goes on to explain that those factories, yes, there were kids there that were significantly underage from what we would see in Canada or the Western world. And yes, those kids were sometimes paid just a menial, tiny bit that didn't go to them. It went to their parents or their guardian or whatever it was. And so essentially, they didn't get anything. And those are the controversial points that are true. But on the flip side, the perspective that was presented in the book. So it's not my perspective, it's just a discussion point, is that these parents that are trying to work in these factories couldn't afford a babysitter or couldn't go to work as long as they were. They were. If they didn't have someone taking care of the kid, and if the kid came to work, not only can the parents make more money and the kids earn a little bit more too, but the net result was that in such a poor environment to have those factories, there actually decreased unemployment, increased average wage. And it's difficult for us to understand when someone's wage goes from $12 a month to $12.50 a month. It's difficult for us to understand what kind of an impact that makes. But, well, let's say it's from $10 to $12 a month raise. So people at this factory are making 12, people at this factory are making 10. Well, $2. What does that do? Well, to them, that's actually a 20% increase in quality of life. And it takes a long time to build up the national averages to the point where we have it. There was a time where in the United States or Canada, the average life expectancy was significantly lower and the quality of life was significantly lower. And it took generations and generations to finally get to a point where we're at. And so from us looking at, say, these factories in China, we could say, well, no, any kid under 18 or 16 shouldn't be allowed to work and everyone should be making at least minimum wage of X amount. But this is not taking into effect the time that it took to get there. So by shutting down all these factories, the bottom line was that the average quality of life went down, people lost their jobs, the money stopped going into the countries, and now instead of working in a factory, these kids are dying. Where's the line, though? Because there are factories that are clearly unarguably taking advantage of foster children. You know, when I was in Thailand, there was kids that were getting taken in to training camps to fight Muay Thai because they had nowhere else to go. So they're forced to fight now for their lives. If they don't fight and win, they're not going to get paid anyways. I'm rambling now.

No, you're bringing up, you're bringing up all the points that we struggle with.

Absolutely.

For those of us who work in human rights, it is just so nuanced. So it's really hard. It's been personally really hard for me because right now conspiracy theories are flying around about trafficking and it hurts our space because they're rooted on incorrect data. And there is such a desire for it to be black and white. It is such a traumatizing thing to talk about. So I think naturally we want it to be black and white. This is good or bad, but it just simply is not. And even to the numbers, it's impossible for us to get access to those numbers because it's a black market crime. So there's no way for anyone really to have access. But with regards to businesses, we can do some things, like you can buy fair trade, you could do the research on the corporation and make sure that they're treating their employees well and they're giving them, like, safe working environment and all of that. But it is really hard. And one example that I have, I got invited to go speak at the Global Mental Health Conference in Mumbai a few years back, and I got an Airbnb. I mean, I was there because I work in human rights. And there was a young boy that lived with his family who I think was like 13 or 14. And he slept on the couch in the living room. And anytime I came home, they were like, would you like some chai? He'll make it for you. Over time, I was like, this makes me feel so uncomfortable. So I asked them, what's going on? Does he go to school? What's the situation? So I can only take what they said for their word, and who knows? But they said, well, we know his family back in the village and they don't have any food for him. So they asked us if we would take care of him. So he lives with us. We've said we would pay for his school, but he's never been in school before. So he's too intimidated and scared to go to school. So that brings up all these ethical questions. Is he does.

Yeah.

Trafficked? Well, technically, under trafficking terminology, I mean, there's a massive umbrella under trafficking, but technically he's not getting paid money, and he. And he's working without getting paid, but he has a roof over his head and hopefully he would have the option to go to school. But then we're talking about, like, all the unschooled kids, which goes into this larger narrative. If you're intervening for trafficking survivors and to prevent them from being trafficked, we can put them in school. But they're maybe 14, 18, and they've never been in school. So putting them in a school means we have to start all the way back at the bottom at kindergarten and work them all the way up. So there are. You're hitting it right on the head. There are so many dynamics that just make it so gray and so hard to make it black and white.

One of the things that to me is encouraging is the age of Internet. We're doing this podcast, we're recording it as well. So it's going to go out on YouTube at some point. We're going to have, you're on your TED Talk. You know, everyone has access to information, and I can't remember where I saw that, but information doesn't make people worse. Information makes people better on a general scale. It's an interesting perspective, but I do tend to believe that when the average level of education and intellect increases, that the positive nature of a human has more opportunity to come out. It's the uneducated, it's the ignorant, the naive that potentially pose a greater threat. And by having this conversation right now, and everyone who's listening to it and thinking and going away thinking about these subjects and then having those conversations with their friends and their family, and then they go online and start looking at some YouTube videos to further their education and further their perspective and their knowledge. That's where I see positive change being supported, for lack of a better word. What would you say if there was a magic silver bullet? What would it be to, boom, all of a sudden we have now solved sex trafficking? Like, what does that look like is in this utopian theoretical world? How do we do this? No pressure, by the way.

I think education is really spot on. A lot of what drives trafficking is lack of education, even basic stuff. Lack of sex education is a really big part of this because families have kids and then they just, they can't take care of them. And so when somebody comes along and they're like, oh, we can give your child education and a job in the big desperate. So they're like, okay, I don't want this, my kid to starve to death. Sure. So what would it look like if we didn't have those kinds of problems? I think it would look like a lot of people like the work that you're doing. A lot of people being able to pursue their dreams, and who knows what those dreams could be. It could be to get the plastic out of the ocean or make sure that the cancer cure happens for all these different types of cancers. That's what I think. I think it'd be. I think it'd make opportunity. It'd clear the way for opportunity.

Well, right after we come back from this short little break, I want to ask you about your rockin it moments when you finally knew that your difficult past, you had moved beyond it. And also I want to ask about what you're doing right now, what does it mean to work in social rights? What does it mean to be a day in your shoes in helping to educate the world and solve these big humanitarian issues? Those two questions when we come back from this short break here at From Rock Bottom to Rockin It. You know that I love to support people, causes and nonprofit organizations that are having a positive change and positive impact on the world. So please remember to share this episode with your friends. Give us a five star review, please. And remember to subscribe to the channel as well. And right now I'm just going to talk briefly about an organization called RAINN that's R A I N N for free confidential support 247 about sexual assault, visit RAINN.org because sexual assault is never your fault. It's never your fault at any point, under any circumstance. And if you need to talk, then reach out to the national sexual assault hotline at any time at 1800-656-4673. That's 1-800-656-4673 or visit rainn.org double n r a I-N-N.org and again, that's for free confidential support 247 every single week because you're not alone out there. Every 73 seconds, someone in America is sexually assaulted. So if you need to talk, then reach out to the national sexual assault hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE or visit rainn.org for free. It's confidential. It's free. You can talk to people. You can sort this out. You can find a way to move forward in a positive direction regardless of this painful experience that you've either experienced or witnessed. And now back to the show in our powerful interview. Okay, we're back. Now here on From Rock Bottom to Rockin It. Jessica, thank you very much for coming on the show. I really appreciate your time and the conversation. If you could tell me and share with everyone listening. When did you know that you had finally crossed that tipping point and your challenges of the past were gonna be just a memory because you have a new life now? Like, when did you know that you overcame those obstacles and now you're rocking it?

Well, I think I'm still working through all of that in therapy. I think it's like a, for me, it's like a rolling process. You go up and then you come down a little bit and go up and eventually one of my mentors says that it's like you're going around a mountain and you see the same thing over and over, but you get a higher Perspective as you heal and do and do the work. So I think one moment that comes to mind. This happened a few years back when I first started. I'll go first. I had been invited to speak at a conference. This is actually one of my TED talks, but it's still so visceral for me. I'd been invited to speak at a conference, and I didn't want to go. And they asked me to speak about my own personal story for the first time. And I was really not excited about it, but I thought my best friend had really pushed me and stretched me with it. So I went on stage, and I was so nervous, I couldn't even prepare anything. So I just had word vomit on stage. And I ended up talking about how I feel really guilty with the dynamic with my grandfather because he refused care from everyone else. And then he passed. And so I struggle with a lot of guilt and shame, like it was my fault that he had died the way he did because he suffered so much and trying to understand that that wasn't my fault. And so I talked about that on stage. And then I also talked about how in those moments, I felt so alone that I fantasized about suicidality a lot. I never acted on that, thankfully, or attempted, but it just was something that consumed my mind a lot. And when I. As soon as it came out of my mouth, I instantly regretted it. There was actually a guy in the audience that had asked me on a date, and I was like, oh, gosh, this is, like the first time that he's meeting me and he's just getting all my dirt. So afterwards, another young man approached me as I was, like, having word vomit and vulnerability hangover, as Brene Brown says, and just trying to literally run out of the auditorium. And he was like, can I talk to you for a second? And in my head, I was like, please, no, I do not want to have a conversation right now. This is so embarrassing. And he's like, well, I came today because this morning I woke up and I decided that I was going to kill myself. And so I came to this speech today on a whim, and I had no idea that it would be about suicide. And I was like, I had no idea either. Like, I started laughing and crying at the same time. And then I was like, this is the worst thing to say right now. And he was like, I just want to say, if you can do it, then I can do it, too. And I was like, wow, that's the power of going first. That's the part of the Important work that you do, sharing these people's stories. You never know who you're going to be able to support, even when you feel like it's your worst moment.

And that's why you've named your charity. I'll go first.

Yep.

Yeah, I didn't know that till right now, so that's really powerful. Wow. Incredible. And, like, what would have happened if you didn't have that talk, if you didn't have the courage to be absolutely vulnerable? I don't mean like a little bit vulnerable, but to have that absolute, here's everything openly, everyone can see it, heart on my sleeve, vulnerable. What would have happened? You know, where would that guy be? And where would all the other people that didn't come up, the people that were equally affected who didn't come up and vocalize it to you? Because you only know about that one in that room. You don't know about the others. Right. And where would they be? If none of us had the courage to share our story, where would we be? It's mind boggling to me. And what do you, like, as difficult as it is to share your story, you've obviously become much more comfortable with it. And when I asked you that question about how did you know you were rocking it, what was that moment? One of the things I'm learning by hearing other stories on the show and also by doing my own emotional healing from my own challenges is that there is no healed moment. There's a. No. I've just learned how to live with it. I've learned how to be good in spite of it. I've learned how to have an amazing life irregardless of anything that happened in the past. And do you think that there's a moment where healed, boom, I was smoking and now I'm not, and it's done. Or do you think that in your perspective, you dealing with your past, is this something that you just learned to live with? I mean, being kind of vague with my question, but this general subject of poof, magically healed versus no, no. I just learned how to live well in spite of my challenges. Which side of the fence are you on?

I think you're really hitting it on the head. I'm about building the toolbox. I think we get the toolbox for when something happens again that we're able to reference and say, okay, I have the tools now to understand how to operate.

Okay, and so what does a day in your shoes look like with I'll go first and other stuff you're doing?

I. A Day in the life. Okay, let me think. Well, I have been really lucky that I have an incredible team of survivor advocates that are advisors. So honestly, I just really help them do what they do best, which is inform other survivors and give them tools. I'm sort of like the corral person that gets them in the room and then says, you have the ideas for what you needed at that time. You know, what people need. Now you're talking to them on a daily basis. How can I make the work that you're doing amplify? So that's one part of it, and I think the other part is really staying in the field with people who are operating first as first responders and understanding how I can support them. If we can make sure they're not having burnout, then we're all benefiting from it. I realized kind of recently in my career, probably the last four years when I started, I'll go first. That I know in my strength. I'm not the person that does the direct services. I think that's important, figuring out what you're really good at in this one passion area that you have. And that is not my strength. And it took some time to humble myself because I wanted to be the person that can sit with them and help people heal. But I am better at serving others and helping them do the work that they do.

So, yeah, let's break that down. Let's unpack that. What does that look like? Imagine that I'm listening and I don't understand exactly how the structure is or how many people are involved. And I'll go first. And what kind of things are those people doing and where does your role come into play there?

So when I started. I'll go first. Originally it was just a website that said, would you like to share your story? And we didn't share the stories publicly. It was really for myself and my team to understand what people needed and how we could benefit them. And I realized that there are crisis platforms and there are long term care, but there is a gap in the middle where some people aren't ready to go to the crisis platform and some people aren't ready to go to therapy. They need a place in between where they can just kind of learn from other people and also figure out what their options are. That's a big part of this, is knowing what's happening and how to articulate it and then knowing how to find everything. So we're kind of. We're kind of like a lighthouse where we have the team behind us that's like, okay, whenever you're ready to, for example, pursue trauma healing, you grew up in an addictive household. When you're ready to pursue that, we have the resources for you. But also if you have been sexually assaulted and you want to pursue legal action and you also need housing and you also need mental health services, we don't provide those services, but we have the right team in place that can guide you and walk with you as you pursue those services. And if you decide like in the middle that you're not ready, then that's cool. We're just here again to like support you in that in between place. And then once you're ready again, we'll step in and support you.

So if I'm a person who is questioning some of my past and looking for help and trying to make sense of this, you know, whatever's going on in my life, that's difficult, what would I do? What's the website?

First of all, our website is www.I'll go first.com. just like, just like our young man in the auditorium. And so what you'll find on the website are other people's stories. And I really am so proud and honored to work with these survivors because they are so transparent with their journeys. We've had, we had a guy, Chris Anderson, come on and talk about his experience with child sexual abuse. And we had another girl, Jennifer Heron, come on talk and talk about incest. We have a girl coming on soon, Rebecca Dang. She's one of the lost girls. So she was one of 89 girls that came over from the Sudanese war. So we really try and cultivate a community of that, like a place for people to be able to talk about shame and the silence that comes along with that. So you'll find stories from other people then. We have an amazing partnership with Aunt Bertha. They are a social service platform that has 350,000 social services accessible over their search platform in any area that you are in the United States for whatever you need. And it's, it's split apart by cost, split apart by specificity. So we direct people to those services and we have an educational platform as well that can help you kind of articulate what happened and what's going on, what you need next.

And so if I went to the website, I'll go first.com and let's say this is probably a contact form, I could reach out and someone could call me back or contact me back. Is that how that works?

Yes. So we're not a crisis platform, but we do Direct to people who are crisis platforms. That's a very specific niche and those services need to be given immediately. So when you go to the website, you'll see a tag that says here other people stories. And you'll also see a tag that says find help. Under our research section, our resource section, we have a queue of definitions. So to help people figure out, okay, this is my experience. Where does that fall in the level of service definition? So is it trauma? Is it suicidality? Is that what I need? Because that's a big part of it. I know from my own story. I just didn't know what I needed. I didn't know how to define my experience. So that's, that's one silo. And then, yeah, we direct you to our find help queue, which then gives you the option to see all of these different resources in your community.

So I go to the website, I'll go first.com and I fill out the contact form. I start a dialogue with someone at the organization and what they're going to, we're going to talk a little bit and open up. And essentially, if I'm understanding correctly, your team is going to help direct me to the right, right resource or to the right place to go for the specific type of help that I need in my specific case. Is this the idea?

It's close. So one thing that was really important to me is to help people feel like they're in charge of their own healing journey. So we don't have someone answering direct services. We direct those people to direct services. Again, that's because if we're dealing with somebody with incest, for example, they need such specificity around their needs. So we direct them to organizations that have social workers on staff. We're really there to help guide you to whatever. Like, we're really there to guide you to your options so that you can make the decision on your own about what you need next.

In the business world, I always had business coaches along the way. And of course now I'm coaching other people, which is just how the world works. But in that realm of when I got my first coach, remember when people ask me, why are you going to a coach? You know, why can't you figure it on your own? It's like, no, no, no. Oh, look, there's a thousand resources out there. For example, a book. I could read a thousand different books on sales just as an example. But a coach helps me find the right one that I need at the specific moment that I'm at right now. I don't have to read all thousand to find the one that I need because they're not all relevant to my situation. It sounds like there's something similar here where there's so many resources. There's 15 different charities.

Oh, my. Yeah, it is.

It is. And you're helping to sort that out and filter it.

Yeah, got it. Yeah, got it. I like to say we're like the cheerleader on the sidelines while you're running your race. When you hand off the baton, we're like, you can do it. Here's the baton. You have to go do it. And that's a big part of our stuff, too, is it's called I'll go first. Because we want people to go first in their own healing. Like, even if we wanted to be with them 24 7, we just can't. So we want people to feel equipped and empowered to do that journey on their own.

Right. Well, when we come back from this short little break, we want to wrap up this amazing chat with practical things that we can do as a society or as an individual right now that helps towards positive change. Right. Everything happens in baby steps and we get there one day at a time. And today, right now, everyone has an opportunity to make a little decision that helps us get towards a positive change. So when we come back from this last short little break, I want to ask you about this subject of what we can all do today. Thank you for checking out my podcast, From Rock Bottom to Rockin It. I would love to ask you a question. I would love your feedback, please, on this book that I'm writing right now called the Standing Spot. It's about my own personal journey through some of my most difficult times as a kid. Dealing with peer pressure and bullying, gangs, violence, drugs, and being arrested and my recovery out of it before even figuring out what my real time business was going to be. This was. This is just a story of a child who struggled and survived. And it's my story and I'd love to get your feedback, please. I have the intro and prologue available for download right now on my website. Just check out standingspot.com just standingspot.com will direct you exactly to the free section that you can download the intro and the prologue. And please send me an email. Just let me know what you think. I'm trying to figure out if you think this is resonating with you or if there's some tips or suggestions you have in the writing or the storyline flow. You know, I'm a new author and of course I'm doing this show because I like it and I love it and I want to share and help people. And that's the concept of the book as well. So please check it out@standingspot.com and send me a little email. Tell me what you think. It's free and I'd really appreciate your help. So thank you for that. And now back to this powerful interview. Okay, we're back now here on From Rock Bottom to Rockin it with Jessica Menes. And please, if you're listening, remember to subscribe to the channel, give us a five star review and share this episode with people who need to hear. It doesn't matter who they are. Just don't even think about it. Just share it with them so that you can make some positive change out there and help people. This is all about. I don't make money on this show. Just to let you know. This is just about helping people. So help me help people by sharing the episode. Now, Jessica, I said earlier I went to Thailand and for me anyways, got my first hands on view. Like my lens changed. Someone took off my sunglasses of everything's rosy and great and put on this other lens of whoa, maybe it's not. What do we do? And maybe just focus on me just for the simplicity's sake so we're not talking about theoretical things. Tell me what I did wrong and what I could have done differently. Or word it however you want, right? Here I am out in Thailand by myself, celebrating. I had sold a company, I had some time. I was experiencing life. I wanted to go out there, you know, doing all these cool things. And I remember one time I was with a friend and I was actually on a date and we went to this section of Chiang Mai. I forget what it's called right now. It's on the east side and it's of the main downtown square. And it's party central, right? It's like 25 different nightclubs and bars and, you know, pool halls all in one little strip. And you just go there and everyone has a good time partying. I went there with this mindset of, oh, I'm just, I love to be here. I'm excited. Life is good. Yeah. And the longer I was there, the longer. Actually I went there twice now thinking about it. Another time I was with a guy, guy friend that we met at this Muay Thai. Anyways, he was getting swarmed by prostitutes. Swarmed, literally grabbing him and almost trying to drag him away. I kid you not, there was no exaggeration at all. There was at least seven Surrounding him at one point. And he's a married man, very happy guy. Absolutely no intentions of having sex or doing anything like that with any of these people. And he's the nicest, sweetest soul. And he's literally getting like his clothes are about to rip because these girls are tugging at him to draw him away. And he's panicking, right? And I went in and grabbed him. And I was very strong in my words. What's the word for that? Confident, I guess, is the word. Affirmative. And I said very loudly, you know, he is not participating in this. We're leaving now. And all the girls backed away, and I basically rescued him from this weird situation. And then we kept on having a good time that night. And later on, I was talking to a bartender guy, and I was telling him what happened, and he gave me perspective. He said, look, you're a white male. You're a strong white male. In this scene of where essentially most people here are part of the sex trade to some degree or another, if they don't make money and bring back a client, they're in big shit. And when I came in, because my friend was a Korean guy, and when I came in with a strong, confident tone and said what I wanted to say, what those girls saw was their owner. They saw that the essence of their owner that came in angry. And if their owner is angry, they're in big shit. And that's why, theoretically, all of them backed away really quickly, and I was able to bring my friend out. And it's also why they weren't approaching me in that same context, because I had a different aura. I had no interest in this at all. And it was very clear. Was I contributing to the sex slave that night when I was out spending money at these bars that are owned by. What's the. I guess pimp, I guess, is the word. Am I contributing to that environment by spending money at these establishments? Even if I didn't know it?

I mean, you could buy a cell phone. And we're contributing to trafficking, you know, like the clothes that we're wearing, the Nike shoes that I run in every morning, you know, where it's just. It's pervasive and it's so. Again, it's so nuanced. I think that what's interesting about the sex trade in Southeast Asia is that statistically, the majority of pimps are actually women. And.

Oh, okay.

Yeah.

And women tend to pimp out. You know, other women. They work them their way up in sort of the pecking order of everything. I Think. I think you stepping in with your friend and trying to navigate that situation is contributing to helping, like, the narrative around it. You know, there might have been other men who might have seen you do that. I think having a strong male perspective that is the opposite of what they're seeing is so helpful. And then just day to day things that people can do. Know where you're. Know where your shit comes from, like where you buy your stuff. Know where that comes from. Build community and build relationships with young people. Talk about toxic masculinity.

That's.

That's a big part of this. Build community with LGBTQ youth. You don't have to go to Thailand to support anti sex trafficking efforts. 1. One big thing for us that's really helpful is when we talk about prostitution, we say, these are people who have been commercially sexual exploited because, like we mentioned earlier in the podcast, language has such a big influence on us if we're trying to overcome. So those are some ways that anybody can support ending this. This horrible business.

Right? I have to open up another. Again, just being vulnerable here. I have to open up another personal example because I think it's very relevant. I can't remember how long it was now, and it was years and years ago. I dated this girl who was an exotic dancer. We met through plenty of fish at the time. That was the old, old dating app, right? Like one of the first ones. Anyway, so we met over wings and beer, and I had no idea, whatever. Just going out for wings and beer on a first date. It's great. We're talking and she says, look, there's something you need to know. And she was very open. She's like, look, this is a part of my life. I'm an exotic dancer. This is how I live my life. I only have an hour to meet with you because I have to go back on stage. And so I have to go and do my thing. And if you're not okay with that, then fuck off, because that's who I am, is what she said. And I was blown away by the confidence and the ownership and the complete, not just lack of shame, but pure I'm in control of my life attitude that I had to stay. I was like, okay, well, I have to at least be friends with this person. Next thing you know, we're dating. It's a year and a half later, you know, we have this blossoming relationship type thing. But you can imagine in my mind, I'm having a lot of, like, telling my mom that I'm dating an exotic dancer was Very difficult. Probably more in my mind than in reality. And telling my friends as well. So one day, in order to overcome all this, I just went to one of her shows. I don't really go to strip clubs, but I was like, look, somehow I have to explore this and figure out where my own personal issues are with all this. And clearly I like this person and they're not leaving this industry, so I might as well just go all in and see. Not all in, but I might as well submerse myself into it as well. And she had strict lines. There was definitely no prostitution, clearly. And there was no real substance abuse either. This was, and that's my point, is that this was a purely volitional act by a female to go into this industry to make a whole bunch of money really fast and better her life. Now, we could say that maybe there's something wrong with her. And there's a lot of people that would say that. We could say that the industry itself, it's not the player, the problem, it's the game. And that that's what the core is, is that the fact that the demand exists there for women to make a ton of money really quickly, that's the source of the problem. And we could say that it's degrading experience, and women shouldn't do that. And we could also say that women can do whatever they want with their bodies, but that's all in the volitional world. It doesn't touch on the, you know, I'm a slave aspect. That's a whole different ball game. But again, if you can poke at me and what could I have done differently if I were to see someone else in a similar position to me? What could I say to them that would help them maybe navigate that even better?

I think that you were in a loving relationship with someone that, you know, loved you back is so, so vital to those type of scenarios. When we see young people who are pulled in to commercial sexual exploitation, it really does come down to relationships. What they're looking for is a relationship. When we talk about young women here in New York City, for example, we call it the boyfriend effect, because some guy has come along to this young woman who may not have, like, a father and mom at home that can care for them, and he's, I love you. I will care for you. I'm in. You know, you're gonna give me food, you're gonna make clothes. I'm gonna feel pretty, 100%, I'm there. So I think that's what it really comes down to the fact that you were able to keep those lines in terms of being jealous, I think I would lose my mind. I don't think I could do it.

Well, I couldn't either. And one of the things I learned was that I was okay with it up until the point where love came in. And so once it hit that point, I said, look, this is where we're at now. I'm just not comfortable with this anymore on a personal level. And maybe that means I have issues that I have to sort out, but either way, I haven't sorted them out, so I can't go further. And so she said that she really cared about me and she quit. Actually, she quit dancing. And we tried to make a life together and it was too difficult for her. She went back to dancing, and as soon as she went back to dancing is when I said, I have to go. And it was difficult and we didn't talk for years. And now we're friends again, which is great. I'm really happy about that, that we can actually move past some of these issues. But, no, I couldn't do it. Just like you said, I could do it a degree. And then once love came into play, everything changes. Because, hey, I'm human. What can I say?

Yeah, yeah.

I think always providing services, that's going to be the answer. Like the majority of people that I've met in the States who have gotten involved with the commercial sexual industry, whether on their own in the beginning or when they were coerced into it, and then they stayed into it. The biggest thing, always that's the challenge, is getting to a place where they believe they can have love in their lives that doesn't cost them anything.

And it's the way that that ended that struck me. Struck a chord is all right. We moved on. She quit dancing. We were done. But the gravitational pull to go back was so strong, the money was so good and the time investment was so low that she would be brought back. And until we deal with the game, how do we deal with the individual? If I give you the floor here to talk about anything that's on your mind at all, to anyone listening or anything at all, what would you like to say to people before we wrap up here? Floor is yours.

I would like to say. I would like to say. I would like to say that I think healing is hard, but I think you should fight for it, because it is the fight of your life for your life.

Straight to the point?

Yeah, yeah, straight to the point.

I appreciate that.

No ice.

Just straight to the point, you know, less is more.

You know, the whole concept of wordsmithing is less is more. So I appreciate that you've honed your skill.

Yeah, healing's gonna be safe. There's no other way around it.

Thank you again for coming on the show, Jessica. I really appreciate what you're doing. Anyone who is listening, remember to check out her TED talk. Just go on YouTube, type in her name. You'll see it right away at the top. Check out. I'll go first.com and share this episode with people that you think could benefit with some of the words that were spoken here today. So thank you again, Jessica, for coming on From Rock Bottom to Rockin it. And let's stay in touch.

Yeah, I would love that.

And that's it, my friends, for this episode. We will see you next time. Please send me an email, say hello, give me some feedback. Let me know what you think. Give me some tips and suggestions. I'd love to hear from you. Also, please share this episode with whoever you think needs to hear it. Facebook, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, doesn't matter. Just get it out there. I really appreciate it. And we'll see you next time on From Rock Bottom to Rockin it. Have a rockin it.