PP 593: Be a Social Purpose Entrepreneur with D.J. Chang

“Embrace your mistakes… Use them as an opportunity for learning.  You’ll always find that you’re exactly where you’re meant to be.” –D.J. Chang

 

Mistakes are always seen in a negative light with shadows of regrets and cloud of unchangeable pasts. However, with a different perception and approach, our mistakes can lead us to our purpose. We are living beings yearning to do something meaningful for ourselves and for the world. There’s a way to follow through your mission- Be a Social Purpose Entrepreneur.

 

HIGHLIGHTS

01:21 40 Years of Realizing a Memoir
08:25 Trying to Save Loved Ones
14:06 The Grab-Er Done™
19:05 Green Business- Conceptualizing and Capitalizing
24:44 Respecting Our Resources
27:50 90 Days and Beyond
31:34 Embrace Your Mistakes

Add meaning to your endeavor as a Social Purpose Entrepreneur. Join @thekimsutton and @author_djchang as they relive her journey of defying the odds. #firstmistake #graberdone #greenbusiness #humanity #smartinvestmentsClick To Tweet

About DJ Chang:

 

It all started with a memoir. Going back 20 years ago, DJ Chang had a booming career in the biopharma industry. But she knew she could be doing something different, so she made her memoir come to life. Forward some 20 years later, she is now the President and CEO of Equity Incites. Of course, her life story is not all roses. The death of their caregiver haunted her for years. All the ‘ifs’ flooded feelings of responsibility, sadness and regret, which gave birth to her book, First Mistake. From all the struggles she faced, which others call a ‘mistake’, she rises as a Social Purpose Entrepreneur.

Website:  https://www.equityincites.com/
Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/AuthorDJChang/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/author_djchang/status/1155169566797885440

Resources:

Books

First Mistake: Facing Death, Finding Life by D.J Chang

 

Inspirational Quotes:

“And while we want to do good and help everybody, there comes that point where we have to realize that first we need to start helping ourselves.” –Kim Sutton

“You have to realize that sometimes you’re not able to save everyone or everything, as much as you may want to. And sometimes it’s enough just to make an effort. But, realize that you may not have control over everything.” –D.J. Chang

“I think the politicians have taken sides, but … there is a benefit to their communities by supporting smart investment in technologies or industries that can actually grow.” –D.J. Chang

“We’re looking at all these other planets. And there will be that time when we find resources that will be beneficial for us here on Earth. But what respect do we have for the beings… already on that planet?” –Kim Sutton

“Embrace your mistakes. I think people have always told me what to do and that you know some of the decisions I’ve made are mistakes in life. I’ve actually found that if you embrace them and use them as an opportunity for learning, you’ll always find that you’re exactly where you’re meant to be.” –D.J. Chang

EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION

 

“For me, I think, it really is, to embrace your mistakes. I think, people have always told me what to do, and that you know, some of the decisions I’ve made are mistakes in life. I’ve actually found that if you embrace them, and use them as an opportunity for learning, you’ll always find that you’re exactly where you’re meant to be.”

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Kim Sutton: Welcome back to another episode of positive productivity. This is your host, Kim Sutton, and today I am thrilled to introduce you to DJ Chang. DJ is the president and CEO of Equity Incites, and also the author of First Mistake. Oh, my gosh, DJ, I can’t believe I just got that all out without tongue twisting at all, but thank you so much for joining me today. I know you’ve had quite a journey, and I’m excited for you to share with the listeners, but for those who haven’t heard of you before, would you mind taking them down a little journey of, you know, memory lane, and let them know how you got to where you are today?

D.J. Chang: Sure. Thanks again for having me. I had been working in the Biopharmaceutical industry for the past 20 years, in a successful career as a middle manager doing very well, but I had this nagging sense that I was meant to be doing something else, and I had started a memoir 20 years before, actually before I even got my career in the Biopharma industry, and I just kept feeling like I needed to finish it. And so, I ended up leaving that career, trying my hand as a social purpose entrepreneur, but especially finishing my memoir, and it’s really a story that spans 40 years, but it’s mainly about my experience with my life partner who was diagnosed with AIDS in 1986.

Kim Sutton: Wow. Well, first off, I wanna go back to what you just said about social purpose entrepreneur. I’ve never heard that expression before, and I had to borrow it because I absolutely love it.–

D.J. Chang: Yeah.

Kim Sutton: –That’s fabulous. I’ve been using so preneur, or purpose preneur, but I love social purpose.

D.J. Chang: Yeah. I found it actually working with the lawyer who helped me set up my new company in my LLC, and he had been using that term, and it seemed to really, to make sense for me, because I didn’t, I wanted to start a new business, but I wanted to do it in a way that was gonna make a difference in the world, and feed my soul, I guess. Uh, as you were saying. So, the business that I’ve been working on, is to try to, really try to create economic opportunity in rural America through innovation and entrepreneurship, looking at green technologies and helping the environment, but also serving underserved populations like the disabled, like my wife, and we invented what was trademarked as the grabber done, which is a cane and grabber in one. She actually had a stroke back in 1986, where she walks with a cane, but then, like it was about nine years ago now. She had a hip replacement on her actual good side, the side that wasn’t paralyzed. And so, she wasn’t able to bend down for several months. And while she was in Rehab, she needed to have a grabber, as well as the cane. And you know, she only has use of one hand. So, I kept looking at what they gave her, which was a velcroed grabber onto her cane and said: “You know, I think I could do better.” (laughs) And so, we came up with a grabber done. So that’s something that we’re, we’re hoping to mass produce, and get up to the public. But I’m also looking at, you know, trying to find alternatives to plastic waste, and plastic single use products, and looking at agricultural waste like a rice husks, or seaweed, or other things that are biodegradable, and won’t harm the environmental mold, fill up our landfills, and our oceans.

Kim Sutton: Oh my gosh. DJ, you need to come visit me here in Ohio. I am in the middle of, a lot of farm country. My 13 year old, a couple of months ago asked me to drive him to a roller skating rink, one town north. I got to be totally honest, I didn’t even realize the rink was there, but on the way home, and this town, one town north has a lot of struggles. It’s very blue collar–

D.J. Chang: Ehmm.

Kim Sutton: –people just doing whatever they have to do to get by, a lot of drug and alcohol issues. And what amazed me on my way home was that, the route that Google maps, or my iPhone took me on was right past where a new solar farm was going up. And maybe this is judging on very unfairly, but I was surprised that the town, the people of the town had actually passed it, because it’s a ton of struggle

D.J. Chang: –Ehmm.

Kim Sutton: –and two, it has to be funded in some way, and I’m sure it is being paid for by tax dollars. And it just really surprised me. But at the same time gave me a lot of hope. In my town could use the same thing. We have this huge recycle plant, but I, just looking at my street on Fridays, when we have to put our garbage and recycling cans out. I’m always surprised at how many of the homes only put out the garbage can.

D.J. Chang: –Yeah.

Kim Sutton: –that’s provided. But I want to circle back, before we jump into that. I wanna thank you for what you’re doing to help people who are disabled, and I love the cane idea. My husband was in the US air force and he, he was an air force structural maintenance man, and he was working on a jet for 10 hours one day. And when he sat up he just felt this shooting pain and he passed out.

D.J. Chang: –Mmm.

Kim Sutton: –And what he found out was that he had ruptured one disc and he needed another, and that was over a decade ago. It’d been just gotten to the point now, I mean we have four year old twins, and a five year old who loves to climb all over the Dan, and he wants to pick them up. But that’s just too much pain. And then when he drops something, I mean, he’s not even 40, but it pains him, and it’s so hard for him to bend over to pick it up without experiencing, you know, just breathtaking pain. So, you gotta let me know where I can get one of your canes, because

D.J. Chang: –Sure.

Kim Sutton: –I mean, i’m sure it probably already looks cool, but he’s a little gangster, and he will probably want to do something cool to it. But yeah, that would be so great for him because, I mean the hairbands, my little girls have long hair, help you put in the hairband on, the hairband will fly, and yeah, he’s too proud to ask other people to help them. But just seeing the wink on his face, you know, when he has to bend over and get it himself, I don’t want to see it, I don’t want to see it. I want him to feel like he can still do it.

D.J. Chang: Yeah. That’s why my wife, actually, she was the one who named the cane as the grabber done because, she actually comes from her kin as she calls it, came from Appalachia, in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains in Alabama. And they used to say, you know: “Get her done all the time.” And that’s why, you know, when she wanted to name the cane, she was like, I want to have some independence. I want to, not have to ask people to help me all the time, until I want to get her done, and grab her done. So that’s why we named the cane that.

Kim Sutton: Oh my gosh, I’m laughing over here. The town that she is from, is, okay. I might get some haters off of this, but I’m just gonna put it out there. It’s Springfield, Ohio, but we actually call it spring turkey.–

D.J. Chang: Aha.

Kim Sutton: –I totally get it. I mean we have a little bit of ghetto, and a lot of the hick, so put the two together, and yeah, get her done, is TOTALLY part of our house. Just get her done. Well, you just like talking to her kids about the chores. He’s like, get her done.

D.J. Chang: –Yeah.

Kim Sutton: Just get her done. Yeah, totally get it. So, you were in Biopharma, and you were doing that for decades, but then you had a realization that you also needed to take care of yourself now, but, was that really just following your soul’s purpose, and that nagging feeling in your heart that you needed to do something else, or was there like a struggle with self care? And really, and I’m not saying that there’s a difference because, sometimes following your heart’s purpose is a form of self care, but was there more going on?

D.J. Chang: Yeah, I mean there absolutely was more going on. And you know, even though I started the book more than, at now, it’s a quarter century ago, it actually starts with a death, with the death of my caregiver when I was nine years old. And he was actual servant of my grandfather, who took care of my father’s family. And, in his old age came to live with my family in his retirement, and he would babysit for us occasionally. And One night, he was babysitting for my brother and I, and he had a heart attack and died. And it was something, it affected me. And that’s, you know, I start the book with that, and he actually becomes sort of my life spirit guide as I struggled through life and make choices, you know, he was the one whose spirit I would talk to, to help me, you know, make the decisions, and live with the choices I’d made.And, at this time when I was kind of near the end of my career, and you know, really a great, great company, I was struggling, and I didn’t even know it was going on. I was working with an executive coach who was helping me figure out, you know, how to get to the next level in my career if that’s, you know, what I wanted, and all I would do when I would meet with her, would cry. And she actually helped me see that I was probably struggling with PTSD. And so this feeling like I was letting down my, I had a staff of, I think about 10, or 12 people at that time. And I felt like I was potentially gonna have to let some of them go, and that, I wasn’t gonna be able to save them. It was just eating on me. And I think she helped me realize that the fact that I, you know, even in my kind of naive nine year old self thought, that I could’ve saved my caregiver. That’s the feeling that was coming up when I was thinking about not being able to save my team. And it just, it made me realize that I needed to deal with that, and I wanted to address that issue with myself. And I also wanted to understand, you know, how that influenced my life. You know, one of the things I think I, I realized is that, as much as my determination to save, my wife was successful, you know, some of that came out of a feeling like I hadn’t been able to save the person who was so important to me at nine.

Kim Sutton: I can’t even tell you how powerful, what you just shared is, and from both my personal standpoint, and also from my husband started now, my husband is my second husband too. There was a lot that happened before we got together, but he is a self-professed savor. Every relationship that he got into before me, was an effort to save people from themselves. I mean, there was a line of, like drug addicts who he thought he could save–

D.J. Chang: Hmm.

Kim Sutton: –But what it did was send him down his own bad paths, and that he was not a drug addict, but there were definitely not good decisions made during that time. And, I have personally been on a path in my entrepreneurial journey since 2012, of trying to save my clients, taking on their financial hardship, as my financial hardship, working for less than they should’ve been working for, and then making their financial hardship. And while we want, I mean, you know, the soul, the social purpose entrepreneur, what we want to do good, and help everybody. There comes that point where we have to realize that, first we need to start helping ourselves.

D.J. Chang: Yeah, I think for me, it was almost debilitating. I felt like I was letting my team down, I was letting myself down, and it wasn’t, it was definitely not healthy, and I needed to take that time to see how to help myself at that point. And, and to realize that, you know, there comes a point when you have to realize that, you know, sometimes you’re not able to save everyone, or everything as much as you may, or may want to. And sometimes, it’s enough just to, to make an effort, but realize that you may not have control over everything.

Kim Sutton: Absolutely, that is such a hard thing to let go of though, so good. And I still struggled with that on a daily basis.–

D.J. Chang: Yeah.

Kim Sutton: –And I think a lot of entrepreneurs too, I build funnels, and do marketing automation for my clients, and I, I have a struggle with clients. Sometimes you think when I build it, they will come. But it’s more than that. Yes, the funnels build, but you still need to drive traffic.

D.J. Chang: –Right.

Kim Sutton: –There’s just a lot more. What did your journey out of corporate, and into your business look like? Was it immediate? Were there years in between? Would you mind sharing a little bit of that?

D.J. Chang: Yeah, I mean, as soon as I left my company, I knew that I wanted to, you know, finish my book, and I wanted to start this business. I wasn’t sure how it would look, or what exactly was gonna happen. I knew that I wanted to create the grabber done. I knew that that was something I had the idea, I had about five years earlier, but I’d never prototyped it. So, I went through that process of prototyping it, and getting a trademark for it.–

Kim Sutton: Would you mind sharing a little bit before we keep on going, what does that look like? Because, I know you have listeners eyebrows raise like, huh, I wonder if I could actually make my product, you know, a real thing. How grueling is that?

D.J. Chang: Yeah, so prototyping it was not that hard. I actually, I went to my cousin whose tinker’s in his garage. He actually has, you know, invented a lot of different products related to bicycling, and so I just asked him if he could help me with this idea. I hadn’t, so we just spent a couple of hours in his garage, and you know, I had a cane, I had the grabber, and I told him my ideas, and it took a couple iterations. You know, we had one where, the string didn’t go through the cane itself, and then we updated it, so that we could actually run the strength through the cane. And so, I mean it was kind of a fun process, and then, you know how to improve it, how to maybe put a lock on it, so that the grabber device doesn’t get caught on things. And so, I did actually file a patent, or an exploratory patent for use, but I realized that there are some other products that are actually similar, or that perform a similar function. So, I went the route of, of actually doing a trademark. So, that’s where the name became so important to it.

Kim Sutton: Thank you so much for sharing. I have never been down that path before, and I don’t know that I will, but I love, I love hearing about things that other people are doing, so thank you.

D.J. Chang: Yeah, I mean it was kind of a fun process. And so I actually, you know, I created the company, kind of this umbrella company for myself, which is Equity Incites, and that’s spelled equity, like has dual purposes, like kind of talking about equality and justice, and then insights, which is spelled I-N-C-I-T-E-S, which is more, actually also fighting for justice, and fighting for qualities. So that was sort of the idea of the social purpose entrepreneurship, and company that I created for the grabber done itself, is located in Appalachia, where we actually have a property in West Virginia. And so, that kind of fits in with that story of the grabber done, and trying to, to help people in West Virginia with new industries, and new innovation, and kind of new different types of manufacturing products that, maybe not related to coal, or things that are not as positive for the environment.

Kim Sutton: So, I was an interior architect, and I know a lot of the carpet mills that we went to, like when we were invited to go on tours, and the carpet factories would pay for us. A lot of those were even in West Virginia, and being in Ohio, West Virginia is a hop, skip, and a jump away from me, and my ex-husband actually had family in Virginia and just outside of DC, so we would drive over there too. It’s only a five hour drive, so not bad at all, but it was just always so amazing to me to see the same country, but just how things change. I love what you’re doing because, I mean even though the Dayton area is very blue collar, I had no idea until our first trip over to Virginia, through West Virginia, how some people in the states are still living.–

D.J. Chang: Ehmm.

Kim Sutton: –I mean, I’ve lived in big cities, I lived in Chicago, I lived in New York, but it’s just a whole different level. And I know I’m stereotyping here. I don’t mean to stereotype, but a whole different level of poverty that I hadn’t seen before.

D.J. Chang: Ehmm, yeah, and you mentioned recycling in your community, but in my part of West Virginia, we actually don’t even have recycling. I mean, you can recycle maybe at the Walmart, but most people just throw their recyclables in their trash and, and it just goes into a landfill.–

Kim Sutton: Wow.

D.J. Chang: –And probably, eventually ends up in the oceans. So that’s where, you know, my other products that I’m looking at where, we’re looking at, you know, plastic alternatives, and using things like rice husks, which are just agricultural waste, can actually make a difference, and they’re biodegradable, and won’t fill up our landfills and our oceans.

Kim Sutton: Okay. So, I will never profess to know everything on this podcast, or in life, because there is a whole, like 99.9% of the world that I am unaware of. So I’m surrounded by corn and soy fields. I cannot say that I have seen rice being grown in the US, does it get grown in the US, or where do you get rice husks from?

D.J. Chang: Yes. So actually, Arkansas is the largest rice producing state, and in California as well, the two rural communities that I’m looking at supporting with economic opportunity is, is Appalachia where we have a property in West Virginia. And then the other company is Sage Sierra, which is in the Sierra Nevada area in Nevada. And, so California up near Sacramento, there’s actually a lot of rice farms as well, and rice mills where they actually separate them, the husk from the rice.

Kim Sutton: Yeah, I had absolutely no idea. And I got to be totally honest, until I moved to Ohio in 2004, I mean I had lived in western New York, Suburbs. Yes, there were cow farms, but I really had little exposure to farming. Then I moved to Chicago, like downtown Chicago, no exposure, then to New York City again. And then out here to Ohio. I had no idea, the investment that farmers make into their equipment, into the land. And then just learning about all, you know, seeds, and all the, just the political stuff that goes on with, you know, where you buy your seeds from, and if you’re allowed to reuse, you know, it’s just been a total IOP. Like, I had no idea that they’re spending quarter million dollars plus on whatever drivable piece of equipment that I don’t, still don’t know the name, but I know, I better watch out for because, I don’t have money to pay for it if I should hit it on the street, you know (laughs). But, I had no idea I mean that’s–

D.J. Chang: Yeah, the husk themselves. I mean, because of their waste product, you know, not the part that are consumed. They’re actually a problem.

Kim Sutton: –Really?

D.J. Chang: –And, in the past they’ve been using it to create energy. So they burned the rice husks, and to create energy. But now, because they’re actually, the burning of them causes a lot of smoke. You want to avoid doing that with environmental concerns. So, the rice mills are actually looking to find something else to do with the husks. So, I know in Asia, they’re actually making products using the rice husks, as kind of a plastic alternative that’s biodegradable. That’s the other thing that I’m really looking to try to promote. So, I have these little coffee cups that have gotten, that were produced in China. But the idea is, once I can create a demand for them here in the United States, I really want to start working with the rice mills, to try to use that process, to create the plastic alternatives the bioplastics.

Kim Sutton: –Now, for listeners who are curious, and they have ideas like this, but different, obviously. What type, and this is a very nosy question, so please forgive me. Does this require a lot of capital to be even considering doing this, or how do you go about making this a reality?

D.J. Chang: Yeah, so that’s where, where I am stuck a little bit. I’m, you know, been at it, trying to get all the pieces put together, it will take capital. My hope is that, I’m going to launch an Indiegogo campaign, so a crowdsourcing campaign for the capital in order to get enough, you know, to make it a mass produced product. I haven’t launched it yet because, I wanted to put all the pieces together, but I’m still hopeful that it’s gonna be successful. Right now, I just have, like, I have a thousand cups, think I have 500 bags that are made out of burlap that can also be reusable shopping bags. And then the other thing that I’m really looking to try, to someday produce is, plastic type bags that are made out of seaweed. I have all these ideas running through my mind, but I do need to be able to, you know, get the capital to actually produce them in the US, but that’s why, something like the, you know, the green new deal, or just any government and efforts to invest in green technology, or green products, uh, I think will be really helpful for entrepreneurs like me.

Kim Sutton: Now, along that line, and I’m not trained to start a political debate with the community who’s listening, but have you been experiencing any type of pushback as far as, or do you foresee any type of pushback? I mean, the political climate right now is pretty interesting, and I’m not gonna tell anybody what side i’m on because, I honestly don’t know. I vote for the one who I connect to the most, that’s where I’ll leave that. But–

D.J. Chang: Yeah.

Kim Sutton: –What gets under my skin sometimes, and I’m just going to put it out there, is irony may not be the right word. Perhaps, there’s a better word that you can help me with, of the FDA, where’s the Food and Drug Administration, Americans eat so much crap food, let’s just put it that way. But the drug part, you know, we’re being prescribed drugs to help after we eat the bad food.

D.J. Chang: –Ehmm.

Kim Sutton: –And it’s almost like, it’s just more money for the government. And then there’s the oil industry, and I feel like we’ve seen too much of, if it’s going to take tax money away from the government, why would we do, like, why would support it. Do you see any pushback, potentially from the government for taking the initiative that you are? Which by the way I think is amazing, and I don’t think that should even be a question. I don’t think that we should be polluting our land so much that, you know, we have to figure out how we can get to Mars, centuries earlier than we really should just because we’ve destroyed our planet. But, I can see where some people would be concerned, politicians specifically about the money that other industries will be losing because we have found sustainable products to use instead.

D.J. Chang: Yeah, no, I think, I mean I think the, the politicians have taken sides, but I think once they can see that there is a benefit to their communities by supporting, you know, smart investment in technologies, or our industries that can actually grow. Whereas some of the, you know, as much as we might want people who are, have coal mining jobs to be able to have their employment, if that’s just not gonna be coming back, and it isn’t, I mean, I think we can–

Kim Sutton: No, no, no, here we go.

D.J. Chang: –recognize that it’s not, you know, it’s just not gonna be an industry that’s going to grow significantly, and we need to find industries where there is that upside, that potential to create new jobs. I think there may be some reluctance, but even, you know, places like West Virginia, and places like Nevada really looking to, you know, create jobs, and good, you know, good paying jobs that can re-employ people who are losing their jobs, and industries that are leaving.

Kim Sutton: Yeah, and healthier jobs too, yeah. My husband and I, were actually just chatting a couple of days ago. We’re talking about Mars, because it’s always really fascinating to me to think about when it happens, that people start populating Mars. So, we were talking about the ozone that needs to be, you know, created, and now water needs to be created, or moved up there. And I was thinking about, you know, if the water is here on our planet, and taking it up there, what will that mean to Mars? And then also, cooling down the temperature. What does that gonna do when the chorus cooled down, and you know, now are there gonna be all these earthquakes? But, it took me into a whole another thought process, we see all these Hollywoodized, is that a word? If it’s not–

D.J. Chang: Ehmm.

Kim Sutton: –it just made it up, where aliens come to our planet to get our resources right. But what happens when we find that resource on another planet, and according to my husband, and I don’t know if I quite agree cause, I don’t know that all the research has been done yet, but there could be life on Mars, yeah. I don’t think that there’s enough done so far to prove there isn’t, but I don’t care who it is. Let’s just say Trump or Clinton, and I know Clinton probably isn’t running this time, but you know, neither of them would like an alien dropping in on their house, and taking whatever resources that they have. But, I wouldn’t put it past us, to go to another planet. And listeners, you know, i’ve never gotten this political before, so just bear with me for a second.

D.J. Chang: –(laughs).

Kim Sutton: –But, it’s just such an interesting topic to me because, you know, we’re looking at all these other planets, and there will be that time when we find resources that will be beneficial for us here on earth. But what respect do we have for the beings? I can’t say people, but beings who are already on that planet, and I’ve already staked it because, I know, I don’t want a spaceship coming down into my backyard, and taking whatever, I don’t know that I have here, right? So, I don’t know where I was going with that, but I just wanted to share. What are you most excited about in the next 90 days?

D.J. Chang: So, I’m actually looking at exploring with the state of California, you know, ways to maybe change some of the regulations, to allow for a seaweed farming in California. I think in the past, the regulations that have been set up for ocean farming are really geared towards commercial fishing, our commercial shellfish farms. And, I think it’s behind the times. And you know, in the, on the east coast, I don’t know if anybody has seen the 60 minutes episode, where they, some of the fishermen who were not being able to sustain their incomes as commercial fishermen have actually started seaweed farms in Massachusetts. I believe, so it’s something, I think that’s got some real potential in California. Um, and so, I’m looking to, to explore that wit, some of the powers that be in California, to see if that’s a possibility. And actually there’s, I found other than the plastic bag alternatives as a use for seaweed. I’ve actually found that, I know that there’s concern about, uh, how cows produce a methane gas just from their burping (laughs).–

Kim Sutton: Yup.

D.J. Chang: –And I’ve actually found that there’s a type of seaweed, that they’ve been using in Australia, that can actually reduce the methane emissions from cattle by up to 90%, if you add it to their feed stock. That’s a really exciting idea for me, and project that I’m, I’m hoping to work on. I’m also excited about seeing where my book will lead. I’m working with a production company to adapt it into a screenplay for a feature film. And that’s something that’s, that’s really exciting to me as well.

Kim Sutton: Awesome, well congratulations on that. Now I wanna ask, you mentioned that you have a bunch cups, and what was the other thing that you said? Bags? As well out of hemp?–

D.J. Chang: Burlap bag, these were made out of burl leaf, but I was actually hoping to make amount of him.

Kim Sutton: –No, are these already available? That somebody, like any of the listeners could go and, I’m intrigued by your cups, I wanna, I wanna get one.

D.J. Chang: –Yeah, I’m gonna make some of them available on Amazon, because I already have them, but I’m hoping to use them as giveaways for my Indiegogo campaign as well.

Kim Sutton: Hmm, love it, great idea. Well DJ, where can listeners find you online, connect, and get to know more about you, and support you in all your awesome causes.

D.J. Chang: So, the website is Equity Incites. That’s E-Q-U-I-T-Y-I-N-C-I-T-E-S.com, so that’s my umbrella company. I also have the subsidiary companies of adaptive Appalachian, then Sage Sierra. Haven’t set up those websites yet, so I’m still working on that. And the book itself, the memoir about my spiritual journey with my spirit guide, and my life with my wife lived with an aids diagnosis since 1986, is available on Amazon it’s First Mistake: Facing Death, Finding Life.

Kim Sutton: Thank you so much. Listeners, if you are driving, if you are trying not to burn dinner, you can go to thekimsutton.com/PP593, and find all the links, show notes, transcription, and all the good stuff right there. DJ, I want to thank you so much for joining, you actually have me really excited. This is the work that you’re doing isn’t my zone of genius, but I’m so inspired by what you are doing, so I wanna thank you–

D.J. Chang: Oh, thanks.

Kim Sutton: –And, on behalf of my kids, my grandkids in any future generations to come. I just want to thank you.

D.J. Chang: Yeah, thank you so much.

Kim Sutton: You are so welcome . Do you have a piece of parting advice, or a golden nugget that you could share with listeners?

D.J. Chang: Yeah, I mean for me I think it is, really is to embrace your mistakes. I think people have always told me what to do, and that you know, some of the decisions I’ve made are mistakes in life. I’ve actually found that if you embrace them, and use them as an opportunity for learning, you’ll always find that you’re exactly where you’re meant to be.