Michelle Jewsbury - CEO at Unsilenced Voices

Welcome to another CEOism podcast. We have Michelle Jusbury with us today. She's a CEO, speaker, and author. Uh, she's a domestic violence survivor. We're gonna talk about that today, uh, down in Tampa, Florida. So Michelle, welcome to the podcast. Tell us a bit more about yourself.

Thank you. Yeah, awesome. Thank you so much for having me. Hello everybody on Facebook land and wherever else you are watching this live streamed. Uh, my name is Michelle Jusbury. Excited to be here. Uh, I am the founder and CEO of a nonprofit organization called silenced voices. And I am also a visibility expert. So I help clients get booked on stages, create courses and content, publish books, and get media amplification for what it is that they do.

Right. And your main thing, I guess, is like being a voice for domestic violence survivors. What's your story?

Yeah, so it's crazy that oftentimes what we do with our lives come from personal experience. So I myself ended up going through something really horrific. So I grew up in a small town in Idaho with loving parents. My mom and my dad were the love story of the town. I still remember when my mom passed away, people came up to me and told me stories of their wonderful romance. Fast forward, I wanted that romance in my life. So I was seeking that for quite some time and ended up falling victim to a man who I thought was going to be my Prince Charming. I moved to Hollywood, California to pursue an acting career. While I was there, starring in plays and films and doing all the things that was going to take me to stardom. And lo and behold, I ended up meeting somebody, and the first 4 months in that relationship, he had pushed me so hard against a wall that my head went through it. I didn't understand this was domestic violence, as most people do not, especially when you don't experience it growing up. I stayed for over 4 years, and when I finally escaped, I started to document my story. And when that story came out, it came out in a play format. So with my theater arts background, I wrote and performed a 65-minute solo play about my experience called But I Love Him. And memorizing 65 minutes of dialogue, Charles, was very challenging. However, what happened next was what was kind of miraculous. People came up to me and started telling me their stories. And this is when I looked up at God and I said, okay, this is far larger than me. What do you want me to do now? 2017, I founded a nonprofit organization called Unsilenced Voices. We began in West Africa, and the bulk of our programming Still to this day, at the time of this recording, which is October 1st, 2026, our bulk is in Sierra Leone, West Africa. 2019, I began speaking and coaching, published my first book called But I Love Him. And then it was on that journey of speaking that I discovered it's not about me anymore, but about helping other people share their journeys and use their voices to make a difference, whether it's a mission, nonprofit movement, or business of some sort. So developed a team of people. I also run a for-profit where I am able to help people publish their stories through book collaborations or their own books, speak on stages, create courses and content for monetization, and then get exposure. So that's just a little bit of my story.

So I have a daughter, right? Like, uh, can I, uh, educate her and shape her brain so that she doesn't fall under the hands of a man that is abusive?

You know what's very interesting is I grew up with a loving father. I grew up with somebody who I never witnessed domestic violence. My daddy never raised his hand to my mom, let alone like he didn't even yell at her. So when I got myself trapped, I was looking for love and I felt like I was one of the only people that could actually help him. And this is a symptom, I would say, of domestic violence. It's definitely something that happens on a regular basis. A lot of victim stories start out the same way. The perpetrator, the man in my case, was somebody who told me how much he loved me, told me how beautiful I was, and then those praises then turned to insults, told me horrible things that I probably shouldn't repeat on this podcast. And this bipolar Jekyll and Hyde personality made me second-guess myself. In so many different ways. And he started gaslighting. And once that happened, I started to lose a part of who I am. Now, Charles, you asked specifically about your daughter. So if you are out there and you have a daughter and you're like, I do not want her or him to get trapped in something so severe, you know, my mom and my dad raised me right. And once I noticed and realized what I was experiencing, then I started to make plans to escape and to get out. And once that happened, then of course my parents were very loving. I lost my daddy shortly after that, but very loving and supportive. And then the people around me were supportive, and I was able to take action.

Right, right. No, that's interesting, right? But, uh, it's like the savior, uh, complex is like, right, thinking you can save someone also is like, is a trap, right? Like, I've, uh, I've been there, done that many times to many employees of mine, right? Like, I've managed over Thousands of employees, and sometimes like, yeah, I can help them, they're gonna improve, but never really happens, right? Gotta be careful with that. Is there like, uh, signs that you can spot like at the dating stage before you move in with that? Because I guess it's when you move in with that person that becomes a trap, right? A physical trap. Am I right saying that?

Well, I mean, it's not when you move in. There's definitely red flags prior to that, but isolation is part of it. So once you move in with that perpetrator, once you move to that, that perpetrator's location, then they start to isolate you. And they start to tell you who you can and cannot hang out with, associations, what you can and cannot wear, all kinds of different things. And the red flags in the very beginning were very clear, but I didn't see them because I didn't recognize what they looked like. And he was very controlling. He would order for me. And at first, I thought that that was kind of nice. But then he started to control everything. Oh, you don't need to take your credit card. I'll make sure to take care of everything. Leave your purse at home. Let me always drive. Let me always tell you what to do, right? And at first, it's like, okay, I'm being taken care of. And then unfortunately, those wonderful things turned into tactics where he was able to say, well, I've done this for you. So now you have to do this for me. I remember one time in particular where I was living with him at this point, and he had made me quit my job, so I was completely reliant on him financially as well. And he had cleaners that— to come in the house. He was doing very well financially, and where we were living, um, he wanted the house cleaned better. Well, he told me how to manage them, and because he thought I didn't manage them correctly, he came home one day, dragged his hands on the bottom of the baseboards, and had me scrubbing baseboards for the next 3 hours. So it's very malicious. There is a personality trait in abusers where you really think that they're going to change, where you really love them, where you care for them. And unfortunately, it comes out in emotional, physical, sexual violence.

And how did you get out of that? I guess you realized early that you had to get out, but you started formulating a plan because you knew you were Dealing with an enemy of, uh, disproportionate measures, right?

Yeah, disproportionate measures is actually very, very true, Charles. That's interesting you say that. Um, you know, when I started to realize at first, um, it wasn't until October of 2012 that I really kind of understood that I was getting myself trapped in something really horrific. So the first time that he pushed me against a wall and my head went through it, I remember just looking behind me and thinking, I need to patch this whole. I didn't think I need to run away. And, you know, he apologized. I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to push you that hard. So I believed the apologies, as most victims do. Well, then unfortunately, the insults continued and the physical violence started to grow. And in October of 2012, I received a beating longer than 4 hours. And I remember waking up the next morning and I was black and blue, covered in blood, and thinking to myself, holy crap, I've got to figure out how to escape. Now you have to remember, I started moving in with him April, May of 2012-ish, and then this severe beating happened in October. At that point, I was completely reliant on him financially. I was living with him. He had isolated me from my friends, my family, my association, my congregation from church. So I felt like, what do I do now? And unfortunately, when Women or abusers, or the abused, excuse me, reach the point of recollection and understanding that they have to get out. This is the most unsafe in the relationship. So this is where a lot of women are murdered. This is where a lot of homicide happens. So I had to plan accordingly. And if you are out there and you're listening and you're experiencing some form of domestic violence, you have to plan and you have to do it it very intelligently. So tell people that you trust, don't tell everybody. I used to take money from his pockets when I used to clean up the next morning and hide it away, so then I had some funds when I finally escaped. I paid my car payment double every month for a full year before I was able to break free. And once I was able to break free, I went back 6, 7, 8 different times, which is normal as well. And when I finally broke that chain was when he had actually hurt another woman, which is really interesting.

So another woman he was dating or what?

So, um, I found out that he was having affairs on me about 3 years into that relationship, and I just was like, I could not take it, you know. Subconsciously, I allowed the physical violence, the sexual abuse, the emotional manipulation, but when I found out about the adultery, I I dove myself into a bottle, and then he said, "Go back to Los Angeles and get back on your feet," blaming me for not being emotionally stable enough to handle the situation. Well, I went back and I started to document my story, and when I documented, I read that back to myself, and that was when I was like, "Oh my gosh! How is this me that I'm reading about?" And during that time, he continued dating a woman. And she had contacted me in, um, later in 2015, and she said, my head just went through the window in the bathroom, and I can't believe that you stayed for so long. I can't imagine what you experienced. I'm gonna take criminal charges against him. And that's when I felt like, oh, all right, now it's time for me to move forward as well.

Wow, what a crazy story.

So, um, it is a crazy story. I know, I know.

But there's hope.

So if you guys are listening, there's definitely Definitely hope on the back end. So we'll get to that in a second, I'm sure.

No doubt. I'm not, I'm not isolating you saying you have a crazy— I have a crazy story as well, obviously, uh, not, uh, as rough, right? But looking back at yourself in, in, in at this time, were you like, how the fuck did I get there? Did you have that moment?

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. It's like you were on the right trajectory, right? Like nice education, nice parents, and then Like me meeting this psychopath and this craziness, right? Like, did that shock you, or were you sort of numbed into the experience?

Well, it's interesting that you say psychopath. Well, unfortunately, 1 in 3 women worldwide experience domestic violence, and 1 in 7 to 11 men. So it depends what statistic that you look at. So if you look at those stats, there are a number of individuals out there, and, you know, my perpetrator was a man, so I'm going to say it like that, who have hurt people. And unfortunately, I say the cliché phrase, hurt people hurt people. He wasn't a psychopath. He was also hurt himself. And unfortunately, because he didn't know how to deal with his own pain, he then retaliated by hurting the people that he loved. And he hurt them very bad, you know, emotionally, physically, sexually, financially, you name it. And he has paid consequences for his actions, as I believe most abusers need to pay consequences in order for them to make change. I have definitely forgiven him for what he's done. I just hope that he is getting the help that he needs now, and if he's not, then that's on him. And, you know, I really think that there is recovery for people like this, and it's just hard to say sometimes when you're in the midst of it. So when I was there, Yeah, I was saying, how the F did I get myself trapped? You, you used the word, so I'm going to use the, the, the first letter. Um, but now looking back, I've understood a little bit more.

Right. I, I view this from an economical perspective. Like, the guy could have spent a couple of thousands on therapy, but instead he goes to waste his time beating people up, having multiple partners, uh, and I don't know, being obsessive about a business that would make him lots of money and it's all waste. It all goes to waste. It's not energy efficient because down the line he's probably not happy, which is what he's seeking ultimately, right? Seeking happiness and seeking control. I mean, and as a CEO, as a founder myself, I'm seeking control, but I also let go, right? And I also know that I'll get metaphorically slapped across the face a couple of times and I'll need to relent control, right? Like I don't, I won't always have control. Right? Like that's that doesn't exist. And when you start trying to exert power over another human, that's also not possible. You can't control a human in no you can't twenty twenty six especially right? Like humans want to to have their own freedom. They they want to have their own ideas. They want to be able to say things right? Like freedom of speech is big nowadays.

So anyway, especially in the United States.

But yeah, yeah, yeah, I see it as like an unscalable system, right? Like a broken system. Now, I don't like the, you know, victim mentality, right? Like, I don't ever want to call myself a victim. For example, I did— I signed up for a 125K race about 3 weeks ago. I didn't finish it, right? I did only 94K, which is disappointing. But I want my— I won't call myself a victim, right? Like, I'm back to the planning board and taking action, which is also what you did. How did you get out of that situation, right? Like, you found— when did you finally broke free, and when did you finally realize also that other women were going through this?

Yeah, no, I took legal action against my abuser. So I was able to find an attorney who we were able to go after him civilly. My statute of limitations for a criminal case had ran out. I was living in the state of California. I think since then they have changed some policy measures, uh, but it was only 2 years up to that point. Well, my attorney found a clause where we could go after him civilly, and when I did, he retaliated by countersuing me and wanting to sue me for defamation and a number of different things. Uh, well, there was one point where he went up to my attorney and he's like, is She trying to ruin my life? And this is when I was able to take my power back. I felt very confident in what I was doing, and because of that, it then propelled me forward. So when I started to document that story, that was extremely healing and therapeutic. I guide people to write things. I think that it's so important. I don't deal so heavily in the trauma aspect any longer, but I definitely want people to write their stories because it makes a difference. Once you write, once you act things out, once you say things over and over and over again, you start to feel comfortable in what it is that you've gone through, and you start to recover from those ailments. Well, once that happened, I then could take that story and help other people and recognize that it's not about me anymore, but it's about helping those other individuals on this planet to speak up so that we can make some changes, whether it's policy changes, human changes, societal changes, but we need to make changes on this planet. If somebody, if everybody would stand for something out there, whether it's anti-gender-based violence or climate change or animals or you name it, stand for something, do something, speak about something that you're passionate about, we would not be in the predicament that we are worldwide. So this is my mission. This is why I choose to continue moving forward. Using my story, yes, but it's helping other people to use theirs.

It's intriguing because most of the time when we bring someone to court, it tends to reopen the wound. But in your case, you said it was healing, so it felt good, uh, to some degree. Was it like this sense of justice? Uh, because like, these events constantly could also like be damaging. What would you have to say about that?

Yeah, it definitely can be damaging if you're not in a place, if you're not seeking therapy. I've been through 8, 9, 10 years of therapy— talk therapy, movement therapy, whatever that type of therapy works for you. Uh, you know, there's psychedelic treatments, there's EMDR, there's all kinds of different things that you can use. You have to seek healing for yourself in order for you then to be able to share that story in a way that empowers and educates and uplifts other people instead of you just tearing down what it is or who it is that hurts you. So, it wasn't necessarily immediately for me. I went through a lot of healing. I went through a lot of writing, a lot of therapy, talk therapy primarily. And then, once I reached the point where I felt more comfortable speaking my story and sharing it from stage, that's when things really began to change. So, if you're out there and you're like, I know I want to use my story to make a difference, work on you first. So that you can use your voice to take action. And then now I get to help people publish. We've got a book collaboration that we just completed called Breaking the Silence: Voices of Survivors. We had finished 5 publications of that with up to 20 authors in each one of those books telling their story of overcoming all kinds of adversity. And now we're starting a new collaboration called Becoming Known. Becoming Known is all about leaders and experts in their field, how they've been able to get there, Nobody gets through this life unscathed. This is a journey. It's an up and down experience. So how did you become successful? So Charles, for you, it's the same question, right? You would publish the adversities that you went through, but then you would educate people on how you got to where you are today. And let me tell you something about Charles here. I receive more emails from Charles than I receive from anybody on this entire planet, and I get a ton of emails. But I'm giving this as a compliment to you because Your marketing is absolutely amazing. And if, you know, people don't jump on, then you move on. And that is how business sometimes is, right? You do well in what it is that you are doing. So same thing with you out there. You use your voice, you make a difference, and you keep going. There's a movie that I love to quote called Finding Nemo. Have you seen Finding Nemo, Charles? Yeah, right.

So good.

Yeah. So, so there's a, there's a fish in that movie Her name is Dory, and Dory, you know, swims around and she's kind of an airhead and she doesn't remember anything. And, you know, the one thing that she does remember is a song that she sings, and it's Just Keep Swimming. So just keep swimming, just keep swimming, just keep swimming. And that's what I encourage everybody out there to do. And this is why it's so important to publish. Oh, Charles, you are muted.

Yeah, very important. I believe that the domestic violence cases have surged up since COVID as well. Can you talk about that?

Yeah, actually during COVID domestic violence increased when people were isolated at their homes. Um, sometimes the perpetrator is a woman as well, guys, so it's not just men. My experience was a man, but when you are trapped at home with somebody who is a narcissistic abuser or just a regular abuser of some sort then they go kind of cuckoo up in the head. You know, you're stuck at home, they don't know what to do, and then they retaliate, um, towards the people that they love. So yes, there was definitely an insurgent of domestic violence cases. Um, there was an insurgent of phone calls to the domestic violence hotline. I don't remember the statistic because this was 6 years ago, but I do remember that it was a very high statistic where calls would come in and say, you know, he won't stop. And unfortunately, the other end of this— suicide calls went up as well. Not only homicide calls, suicide calls, domestic violence, all of that. When we're isolated, when we're not healing, uh, when we're not doing things that are, are good for our mind and our body, then it comes out in ailments.

Just one weird thing for men out there— don't you feel that, like, doing very Tough, strenuous physical activity can prevent them from lashing out that extra energy on their women. Like, you know, I feel that's a pretty good one. Like, did your guy do like very tough physical, uh, activity?

Uh, he did not actually.

He—

yeah, right, he did not. Um, however, the one that I'm in love with now— yeah, right, so Uh, I think that martial arts is actually very important because you learn the skill set to hurt others, but you don't want to hurt others. And, um, it's, it's really like controlling your mind and your body. Now, I am not an expert at all in martial arts, but my, my guy, he is a black belt in karate. So it's, it's really amazing to witness somebody so powerful, be so calm and so in control of themselves. Yeah. So, so do I think that that helps? 100%, Charles, I do.

One thing you learn early in martial arts— I did Muay Thai for quite some time, still do boxing a lot— when you do sparring, right, when you fight others, you learn that you can get your ass handled pretty quickly, right? And that teaches you respect towards others. And To only use physical violence as a last recourse, right? And to not use— it's like, it's the analogy that you have a gun but you never pull it, right? You don't use it. Um, and I, I guess when you, you have your ass physically handled a couple of times, you learn that using violence against others is not cool, right?

Yeah.

It doesn't feel good. Um, no.

And we can use our words, right? Adults, especially adults, we need to use our words. And we want our kids to use words instead of physical violence, right? So use your words to solve problems. We don't need to yell, we don't need to scream. We can calmly communicate and talk about an issue and use our words as adults to solve issues. And this could, you know, be any type of issues— problems at work, problems at home, you name it, right?

Yes, uh, solving problems, the name of the game, right? And, uh, it's— yeah, teaching someone to use violence is like, it's pretty bad in society, doesn't scale. If anything, how you want to use your body when someone gets agitated is to use your legs and walk. You know, it's like and walk.

Yes.

Yeah. Just like walk it out. Go somewhere. You know, take a break before systems break. Right? Like that's pretty much how I said. But yeah, love what you're up to. Where can people find out more about you, Michelle?

Yeah, definitely. So if you are in the United States, you can text the word legacy to two six. Again, if you're in the U.S. and Canada, actually, you can text legacy to 26786. If you are not, or if you just want to visit the website, you can go to michellejewsbury.com. M-I-C-H-E-L-L-E J-E-W-S-B-U-R-Y dot com.