Pearlette Ramos

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All right, well, I am so excited for our next guest here today. This guest is the youngest of five children growing up in the Midwest, specifically Youngstown, Ohio. As a child and young teen, her environment was riddled with domestic violence and child abuse. She left home at the age of 15 and ultimately dropped out of high school. These early experiences as an advocate, even in her own home, led her to a journey of becoming a lawyer and then earning her doctorate in psychology. She is an active advocate, philanthropist, leader and adventurist. She has been to more than 70 countries and is producing a documentary film. I fear we've only scratched the surface and I can't wait for the conversation ahead. Please welcome Perletta Ramos.

Hey, hey, hey, hey.

Welcome to the show.

I'm happy to be here.

Thank you for being here.

And there's that voice.

There's the magic. Yep. Okay, let's start with what we call rapid fire.

You go first. Sarah.

Would you rather sing in public or dance in public?

Sing in public.

You could do both.

You know, I was gonna say dance in public. Okay. Sing and dance in public.

All right, how about phone call or text message?

Phone call.

Favorite snack food?

Popcorn.

Saturday or Sunday?

Saturday.

What makes you hopeful?

Creativity.

What is the best room? Like, the best room in your house?

My bedroom.

Would you ever skydive?

I have. Sky died.

I thought you might say that.

Okay. In your teen years, what was your favorite hangout?

I didn't really have a favorite hangout as a teen. I was married by the time I was 15.

Okay. Where was your favorite date house? Hangout.

Date house.

I don't know. I just made that up.

I think maybe I'll ask this. Would you rather travel to the past or to the future?

Oh, my gosh, the future. All day long.

Okay.

Okay, Last one. Glass half full or half empty?

It's half full.

Awesome.

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Well, I know we have some heavy content to cover, but I think it ultimately leads to a pretty amazing story of work that you're doing today. So let's start at the beginning and cover a little bit of your childhood and some of the challenges that you faced and who was there along the way and what that looked like for you.

It's unpacking time. Here we go. What's it going to be?

What do you mean, what's it going to be?

How's it going to go? Tell me the story.

Oh, you want me to tell you? Okay. Well, I'm going to start with my dream. So when I was a little girl, I used to. I had lots of dreams. I wanted to be a doctor. I wanted to be like Jacques Cousteau. For those of you who may not remember, Jacques Cousteau is a French explorer, and he used to do all sorts of exciting things. And I would picture myself as Jacques Cousteau exploring in the world. And it's one of the reasons why I've been to all of those countries, because I was Jack Cousteau when I was a little girl. And I have always had a fierce desire to make things right, like fairness, justice was in my heart. And probably because as a little girl, I saw so many things that seemed unjust and unfair. And because of that, I became a lawyer. And so it's been an interesting journey. I am 54 years old, and that amazes me like this time flies by so quickly. And When I was 15, I left home because of the domestic violence in our household, and that turned to child abuse. And I used to lie about my age because I was ashamed because I dropped out of high school and ended up getting married and having a baby by the time I was 16. And my daughter died when she was 4 months old. And so I'd had quite a bit of trauma as a young person, but didn't know the language for trauma because it was just how life was. And so at 54, it's like, oh, my God, where has this time gone? It's flown by.

Yeah, yeah. There's a lot going on in your childhood, and I'm curious. So through high School. You drop out of high school. What does life look like after you drop out and where? I guess I'm curious how you eventually, like, find your way out of this. Like, find, find your way out of probably a really hard, challenging place in your life. What does that look like for you? And are there people along the way that help you through that journey?

Well, I'm going to start with my mother. My mother was a Christian, very devout Baptist. But she dibbled, dabbled, dibbled and dabbled in a number of different religions. And because of. Of her faith and dibbling and dabbling, I dibbled and dabbled because I am the youngest of five children and her only daughter. But because of her passion for Christ, I went to church a lot, and I sang in the church choir. And I remember singing the song this Little Light of Mine. I love that song. Still, I sang that song with heart as a child. And a part of what helped guide my life was my connection, I'm going to say, to God. But as I've evolved over the years, it was my connection to myself. I've always had a sense of my inner direction in God. Even when I appear to be going off path, I felt a centering within myself to be able to. I was going to be okay. Like, I always felt like I was going to be okay even during those times. So I think it was a combination of faith and hope and a deep desire to fulfill what felt like. And what still feels like is mine to fulfill. And so that's what helped get me through those times. I maintained faith, and it's actually what gets me through life now.

Yeah. When did you recognize that you were an advocate?

When I was the only one in my household willing to speak up against my stepfather and his madness.

Do you feel like, I mean, did you truly, at that time, realize what it was you were doing?

Right. No. All I know is there was a lot of peer pressure by my mother and my brother to be quiet. To be quiet. I was actually thinking about this the other day, and that is, I used to play the xylophone. I don't know what it was like in your elementary schools, but, you know, we used to have a prize of being able to play instruments. And the xylophone was taken away from me because I talk too much. And so.

Which is not even a fair accusation anymore, but okay.

Every time I go and I see a musician who plays really well, I think that teacher who took the xylophone away from me, that could have been me.

And they changed the course of your Life.

I love that instrument.

It's not too late.

It is not too late. You know what? I actually bought a guitar and my intention was to learn how to play the guitar and to sing because that's one of the practices that I use for my mental health and well being. I love singing and I love music. However, you know, you gotta practice, you gotta practice.

There's a lot of.

Yes, 18 minutes a day. Supposedly you can be an expert in anything.

My guitar teacher fired me because he came to the house. I couldn't have made it any more convenient for myself. He came to my house for my lessons and he would say, you know, you're not practicing, I can tell. And I'm like, no, but I'm getting better. Because when you come, I practice like 15 minutes before you get here. And he's like, I'm not going to take your money. Anyway, he stopped. He fired me, my guitar teacher, because I wasn't practicing. But it's on my heart to do.

Yeah, yeah.

And I plan on doing it at some point.

Yeah, okay. So I am curious how you go from your teenage years and your young adulthood to finding your transition into law school and how you even. I would, I would even wonder how you convince yourself that that's something that you can accomplish. Right. Like coming from the circumstances. And I'm sure you probably didn't have a ton of encouraging words in your life and yet nothing stood in your way. And I'm curious, what does that look like?

Well, I made the decision to go to law school after I was working three jobs in North Carolina. So I had a number of things happen between, you know, my leaving home and going to law school. A number of things happened. One of those was I had gone to college and I was the first person in my family to graduate from college. And I thought the pearly gates of heaven would open when I went to college. I would get, you know, the best job and make tons of money.

It all depends on what college you went to. Where'd you go?

I went to Methodist College. It's now Methodist University in North Carolina. And there were no pearly gates.

And.

I, I'm going to say I struggle, which is why I ended up working three jobs. But one of those jobs was for the Raleigh Housing Authority. So I was in Raleigh, North Carolina, and I was working in a program at the time that was focused on helping women become self sufficient. So I knew that I wanted to do work around women's rights and advocacy. I didn't want to be a lawyer and I didn't even conceive of being a lawyer at that time. And so I was volunteering partly at homeless shelters and domestic violence shelters. I was a rape crisis counselor at the time, but my full time job was as a program specialist. And I was responsible for going into public housing developments, helping to remove barriers that mostly women, although there could have been men who were the head of households there, helping them become self sufficient. So removing barriers, providing life skill classes, offering childcare, offering support. And I encountered mostly women who really didn't have hope that their lives could be better. And I grew up in public housing as well, in the projects, as we called it in Youngstown. And I, a part of my advocacy was, you know, hey, I relate to your experience. I grew up here too and I made it out and so can you. And the women would look at me and say, no, I actually, I cannot make it out. And that was astonishing because you heard me say, I have always had a sense of faith and hope in my life. And I think I projected that out onto others. I thought they had it too. And this was the first time I encountered adults, women who were like, no, this is my life, this is it, this is my lot. And it angered me. I was like, what the is that? And then, you know, like any person who's self righteous, I tried to convince them that they were wrong and I was right and they really could. And that didn't work out really well. And so there was a combination of those experiences along with my working three jobs that I. And by that point I was a single mother, so I had gotten married, gotten divorced, and I had my daughter who at the time was about 2 years old. And I came to the conclusion that how I was living was not sustainable. And I took an interest inventory test and that test said I had similar interests as judges and lawyers. And once I took the test, I was like, how much do they make?

Let's do this.

Okay. Got one job. Okay. And actually my whole law school experience was wonderful because I was coming off of the traumatic childhood, but also working three jobs. And even though I was a single mother, I was like, oh, only one thing to do. This is awesome. I loved my law school experience and I've actually loved being a lawyer.

Yeah, I'm just going to go back to the conversations you had with some of those women during that time. If we could, as a community or as a society, learn something from that and change that, change those conversations a little bit and give those women hope, how would we do that? What would we Do.

I'm glad that you asked that question, because I ended up learning about a term called learned helplessness. During that time, I was trying to make sense of what I was experiencing. And the term was coined by a psychologist by the name of Martin Seligman. And I saw it at play because they had, in my mind, learned to become helpless and not believe in themselves. And I'm going to couple that with the social political structure around giving benefits to people and this idea that folks are lazy, you know, when they need help, which I don't agree with. Most people, I think, really have a desire to flourish in life, but circumstances oftentimes prevent that. And then there's structural racism and other issues that exacerbate the problem. And I wanted to go to law school to actually change the system. It wasn't necessarily a practice law. It was to become a congressperson, because my research at the time indicated that many of the people who were in Congress were lawyers. So in response to your question. It's complicated, right? It's a mixture of, you know, the mindset that we gain as a culture as a whole of, you know, what success looks like. It's the family dynamics and how one is raised. It's the choices that we make, obviously, as well. But so often, and I find this even today, one of the dynamics that women oftentimes struggle with is feeling like we're not enough. You know, the whole imposter syndrome thing. And so it's one of the questions I still ponder, because the women in the projects, from my perspective, are no different than the women in the C suite we're all struggling with. Who am I, and how do I take what my talents are and the opportunities or the privilege or the lack thereof and create from it and feel like I'm enough wherever I am? It's a part of the human struggle.

I think, or even as simple as overcoming the notion that decisions must define us and moments in life define us forever. And carrying that forever, I think the.

Sense of self, efficacy, the idea that I have it within me to create my life, regardless of where I started or the choices that I made that have may have resulted in my having, you know, challenging circumstances. It's a complicated. I mean, it's simple and yet it's complicated.

And if it were simple, it would be different circumstances.

Well, simple in the sense that it's a belief system. But we so identify with the beliefs that we have that we don't think that we're creating them. We think we're at the effect of Them. It's simple and yet it's complex.

Well, we need to get back to your journey because we've lost Ben.

Oh, no.

I'm over here hanging out. Listen to how simple it is. All right, I'm gonna keep it simple. Okay.

Yeah, we know you are. So back to law school.

Yes, yes.

Let's talk about what that looks like for you. And so what is the experience? What are lessons learned? And where does that take you?

Well, I mentioned I love law school. A, I love learning, so it helped me. B, I was. I mean, it was. It was difficult. I mean, I say I struggled in my first year only because we went to the wailing wall. So in law school, traditionally, at least when I went from 92 to 95, you have one exam each semester for each of your classes. And that one exam determines how well or not so well you're going to do. And I had always done well in school, although I quit school when I was 15. And it was the first time that in comparison to my peers, I did not. I wasn't at the top. And I was devastated. Like, I was crying at that wall. Like, I can't believe it. I mean, I literally. And then I went into, as I oftentimes still do, trying to figure out why, where is this gap? What is the difference between me and these other people? And I learned that I was from a socioeconomically disadvantaged background and. And that impacted the quality of the education that I received. I never thought that, but I experienced it. And there were some gaps I had to fill, which means I got tutoring in my second year. I lost my scholarship for a semester until I figured it out. But I figured it out and obviously I graduated. But it was wonderful for me. It was challenging for my daughter, who was 4, 5, and 6. And although I wasn't working, I was intense because it's an intense experience with wanting to succeed and wanting to do well and being focused and not being as available as a mother.

And that was going to be. One of my questions is, how did you, looking back, how did you make your way through it? Balancing, obviously, the demands of a family and the commitment to yourself to follow through on this. If you could tell yourself something during that time, going back from today with the perspective you have now, what would you tell yourself?

Okay, I gotta just back up a little bit. And I don't mean to offend anyone, but I think the whole balancing question is a luxury. Like, that's a first world problem for people who are in a conversation about being balanced when you're in survival mode. You're not thinking about, oh, I'm balancing my, you know, my career with my family. You're thinking, what do I need to do in order to make it? That's what you're thinking. And so that's what I was thinking. I wasn't thinking about balancing. I was thinking about I need to do A, B, C, and D. That was my sole focus until I was done.

And actually, I'm gonna. I'm gonna say something because you're right. And I actually feel like that's a question we only ask women. And I broke my own rule, so I'm sorry for that.

I would have never asked you that.

Just so you know, he's not worried, so. No, you're right. We do. We just make it. We make it through the way we need to make it through. And.

And what I will say is I discovered my resilience because I. You know, sometimes you can. You can believe in your ability, but it's not until you make it to the other side that you can look back and go, okay, not only did I do okay, but I've. I thrived in what I did and how I did it. And it wasn't easy at the time. I wasn't thinking about how easy or difficult it was. I was thinking, okay, I got to do what I need to do.

Next up. Yep.

And once it was over, I was like, oh, thank God that's over. What's the next thing? Because, you know, there's always.

Yeah, there's always something that's coming around the corner.

It's always the next thing.

Yeah. Okay, so we have a lot of travel in your journey as well, Jack Coustell. So let's go there. Tell us about some of the most unique adventures you've been on and how.

Did you make it all happen?

Okay, I'm going to start by saying I love this planet. It is alive, and I feel the presence of my own peace in the great outdoors. That was an evolutionary process because I grew up in Youngstown, Ohio, where it was flat and not necessarily beautiful. And it was my desire to explore that started me on the journey. And then once I got started, you know, it was. It was a wrap. And I am still very much excited and passionate about the next place. So what are some places? Well, I want to say every place, but I'll start with the most beautiful. I absolutely love mountain ranges, and so I'll say Norway. I have a thing for fjords and the reality that, you know, glaciers carved in these Inlets. It's just strikingly beautiful. I love Patagonia, both the Chilean and the Argentinean side, for the similar reasons. Very beautiful with glaciers and mountain ranges and water and it's amazing. I did go to Antarctica for my 50th birthday. I was 49. And that closed out all of the, all of the continents for me, which was a life goal. And it. I was scared to go because I don't like to be cold. And I was also concerned about the Drake Passage because it's very rocky and people, you know, have trouble crossing the Drake Passage. But it was an unnecessary fear. I was fine. I mean, I got sick, but everybody gets sick. That's a part of it. I shouldn't say everybody, but many people get sick. And it was the best trip, I think, of my life.

Was there a trip that totally exceeded your expectations?

Well, I hate to say, like every trip exceeds my expectations because that's probably not true. But I tend to be open. So my desire when I design, because I design all of my journeys, is to have both an inner and an outer experience. I am using the trips now. I didn't always. I used to go and be a sightseer and. But now I use them as an opportunity to explore myself and the world. And so because that is my intention, a lot is open to, you know, serendipity and what shows up in the, in the journey.

So dig a little deeper on that and tell me, how do you do that? What is it you do? What do you, what tactics do you employ to dig in?

Well, I'll go further into Antarctica because it was a pivotal time turning 50 and a part of the journey for me, the journey into myself was what do I want to create in the second half of my life? I mean, probably the second half of my life passed five to 10 years ago, but for me, the inner conversation about that was at 49, turning 50, and I was in a dialogue about like the first 50 years. I was striving, striving to become something, striving to achieve things, striving to realize my dreams, to make peace with myself, to raise my kids, to be engaged in the community. And it was very much goal driven. And I felt a calling within myself to really shift that in the second half of my life and to focus more on responding to the call of life and being in tune and in touch with myself, to both hear, to be open enough to hear the call with this idea that life was living me as opposed to my living life. Or maybe it's a combined journey. And so because that was my intention, I crafted the trip around that I did glamping, I journaled, and I don't typically journal, so I, I engaged in journaling. I did a lot of yoga on the way, and my intention was not to exercise the way that I normally do. Like, I'm a type A person. I get up at 4 in the morning, I do blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And my focus on that trip was actually indulgence. Like, I rested and relaxed, I slept a lot. I, you know, stared outside and just watched the ship go by. And in that, all sorts of things opened up for me. For example, when I left home, initially, I left to go live with my brother Lee, because I was tired of the abuse and it was starting to become more combative as I started fighting back and I was afraid what was going to happen and in that dynamic. So I reached out to my brother and asked him if I could come live with him. And he said yes. And I don't know why it came up for me on this trip, but I had never thanked him. And so I wrote an email to him. I was crying like, you helped save me. I never thanked you. I'm so grateful. And everything I've done in my life, it's because you gave me the olive branch to, to be free from that. And then he wrote me back. And so all sorts of things like that happened in that journey where it was like I was releasing things from the past. I also jumped in the Antarctic a. Because I wanted to feel, I mean, never go back that way again. I wanted to feel what it felt like, but be a part of the ceremony I gave myself was as a cleansing. To jump in and to emerge in this next half. Willing to submit my will to the service of my higher self, whatever that meant. And for me to practice the discernment. So I left a part of me intentionally in the Antarctic, the part of me that was striving. And I claimed that I have arrived and there's some things I'm here to do. And so whenever I have moments today where I'm like, oh, I don't know, it's like, ah, ah, ah. You left that part in the deep blue sea.

The cold, deep blue sea the cold, deep blue sea.

I love even the basic intention of just asking the question and not just going through the motions. So even in a simple family vacation, like maybe it's about, around, around a question, even as a family of what are we seeking? How are we looking to connect? I just, I Think that there's something really special about that, especially in a world when it is a lot about going through the motions and you find yourself another year gone and you don't know you haven't tapped into yourself or others the way you probably should.

I see a lot of people doing that in the remembrance of a trip. Like, you'll see a lot of photo albums and that type of thing where they think back on what they did.

Right.

Not so much in the forward side like you were talking about. So it is.

I love that. Okay, so I would love to learn a little bit more. I know you're working on a documentary. What is this documentary all about? And what can we look forward to?

Well, the film is called Three Extraordinary Women or Three Extraordinary Women. And it tells the story of three women who experienced childhood violence and who made meaning of it in a way that focused on their resilience as children or as little girls. And it became fuel for them, for the women they would become. And they tell their individual stories as they climb Mount Kilimanjaro, which they did. And I'm one of those three women in 2021. And it's a film, but it's also a social impact documentary. The goal of it is to a. To normalize the conversation about trauma, because so often people have fear and shame and guilt maybe around the things that happen to them, and it can inhibit them in their lives. So I want to normalize that, because successful, quote, unquote, people have had struggles, too.

It's honestly even our theme through this podcast. Some of the greatest leaders have overcome some pretty incredible trauma and loss in their life.

It's.

Yeah, absolutely. Okay, keep going.

Well, so there you go. You're right. And so often I think that there's this narrative around, like, success all the time. You see, oh, the obsession with success, and what does it look like? Which is fine. I have no problem with success. However, that's not normal. Like, things aren't great all the time.

Yeah. Most people failed a lot before they had that success.

And so the purpose of the film is to normalize a conversation about trauma. It is to help focus people on the great outdoors. It's a combination of engaging in sisterhood because we're obviously three women, and it's telling our individual stories, but the intention of it is to connect with self, to connect with other, and to connect with land or the planet.

Awesome. What inspired you to take on this project?

Beginner's mind. Over the years, as I've traveled, I developed a love for photography. And capturing the, you know, the essence of the place that I had been. So when I'm a little old lady, I can look back at those albums and go, oh, my goodness, wasn't that nice? And then that evolved into a. An appreciation for videography. And so then I started making videos of my experiences. And then that then naturally, I think morphed and a part of this passion right now, because I'm nearly complete. We're at. We're nearly at the. Or I should say we're at the master cut. We're working on the master cut right now. It's so much bigger than what I had dreamed in the beginning, which was to tell the stories and to. I won't say put it on YouTube, but I had a vision, but I didn't think that I was enough for the vision that has. Actually, that's still in the process of being manifest, which is kind of ties back to my. My comment about my goal in going into my 50s, which was to allow life to live through me. And that's exactly what's happening with the film. And so that's. I had this initial vision around it and it's continued to morph and something else is being birthed, which is actually quite beautiful.

Amazing.

So I should say it's a social impact film. So my desire is for people to see it and then focus on like, what's my personal Kilimanjaro? Because that's one of the taglines. Because we all have a personal Kilimanjaro. So to reflect on like, what is that? Or what has that been? Or what was that and what is it today? And then what's our collective Kilimanjaro? Because ultimately we still have quite a bit of oppression that in my opinion, systemically impacts detrimentally girls and women globally, which was a part of my vision. It was my. My dream still is this global conversation of girls and women around our own capacity to be at cause at changing the social and political dynamics that impact all of us.

Sounds like very important intentional messaging. I'm excited to see it. I hope I have the. The privilege of seeing that sooner than later. And I look forward to that coming out. Last question. Because I know that we've taken up a lot of your time, but I've loved the opportunity to visit with you. I know you are connected to several charities and organizations and community. You look for community impact and ways to give back. And so I just wanted to open the floor for you to share any of those that are near and dear to your heart. And how you engage in those activities.

Sure, I do commit my time where my passion lies currently, that is with One az, which is a credit union in Arizona. And credit unions were created to help bridge the financial divide for people. And because of structural barriers, they haven't always fulfilled on that promise. And I've been a member of a credit union for 30, 40 years. But about four years ago I decided to run for a seat on the board and have served as a member of 1Az. I'm currently actually the vice chairperson and the governance chair. And what that essentially means is we're responsible for our members dollars and we have a number of initiatives that we're working through to help bridge the financial gap for communities. One of the other organizations that I serve as the president of this year is the Arizona Black Bar. ABB was created really to help further justice across Arizona and to uplift the members who are a part of abb. You don't have to be an African American to be a member of abb, but most of our members are. And there are still systemic barriers that exist that negatively impact not just lawyers, although. Although those barriers do impact lawyers, but also those we serve. I have a number of other organizations that I'm a member of and volunteer with and have, but those are two of my primary passions right now.

Well, I'm grateful for our conversation, for the opportunity to learn more about you. As we close out the conversation, I'd love for you to, whether it's manifesting or forecasting, give me an idea of what you hope life looks like for you maybe five years from now.

Well, I have been working on my freedom for a long time. And when I say freedom, I mean I don't believe you're free in this country until you're financially free. Most of us are working. Not that you don't love your work because you may love it, but we're ultimately working to pay for our existence. And I've been working towards freeing myself. So from an income standpoint, and I'm really close so that I won't have to exchange my time for money. And then there's a couple of other things. So I'm building a home. It's a little home in the woods. I've had it, been dreaming about for about 20 years. It's an a frame that's. I won't say in the wilderness, but it's on an island that has a wilderness feel to it. And so it's a bit remote, which is a stretch for me. It's a stretch goal and in five years, what I want to be doing more of in terms of my time are leading journeys. I've done a couple of those. I enjoy doing them. You asked me a little earlier about what are some of the processes that I use. And so often we're bogged down in the day to day and women in particular are caretakers of families and careers and communities. There's. There's often a struggle with feeling selfish when you take time away. And I think unless you nurture a relationship with yourself, because that's the foundation for every relationship is really crucial. So one of my desires is to lead a couple journeys a year and to continue to do what I'm doing in the. In the community, except expanding that and of course, responding to the call when I receive it. I love it.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Fantastic. Well, thank you for sharing. Thank you for being on the show. I know that everybody listening has enjoyed this episode as we have. If you would like to get these in your inbox, please join our Tribe subscribe and they'll join your inbox every time we send them out. Thanks for listening. Guiding growth conversations with community leaders.

Ben, let me ask you a question. How do you see other community members being involved in this podcast?

This is going to be a great opportunity for so many people in the community to have a chance to be heard if they want to tell their story or if they just want to be part of this journey with us and help sponsor in a way that helps bring more people to the table with us. So I think there's many opportunities at hand. Whether you want to again be on the show, reach out to us, let us know what your story is and how you think you could be part of it. We'd love to hear from you. Reach out, let us know and we'll see if we can make that connection.