Tedi and Sonya Serge | Girl Powerful

Age || 34 and 32

Company Name || Girl Powerful®

Job Title || Founders

Years Living In LA || 10 years

Social Handles || @girlpowerfulproject

Company Website || Girl Powerful®

What did you want to be while growing up?

Sonya: A vet. Growing up with 3 dogs and 1 cat, I have always felt connected to animals.

Tedi: A dolphin trainer, a teacher, and the first female president of the United States. I have accomplished 1 out of 3. Let’s see what happens.

What’s the best piece of advice you were given when you were starting Girl Powerful?

Sonya: To not care what other people think. My co-creation at Girl Powerful was made because I had such a strong desire inside of me to create the program not to impress anyone else.

Tedi: “Move quietly.” You don’t have to be posting about how busy you are and that you have a big reveal coming up. Just show people what you have accomplished by doing it and not just talking about it.

How do you define success?

Sonya: Success is contentment — a feeling of freedom and happiness.

Tedi: Success is a feeling. Success is living in gratitude and taking action and responsibility for the opportunities that show up for you everyday. When you are present and grateful for what you have, you feel successful because if you zoom out you have accomplished a lot!

What is the most important thing you’ve learned since starting your company and working with so many women?

Sonya: I learned how to communicate better and practice what I preach. Working in the female empowerment space, a lot of eyes are on us and I feel like we are expected to always have the answer for other people. Building Girl Powerful has had stressful moments and I’ve learned that I have to take care of myself first.

Tedi: Take everyone and everything for face value. Never talk yourself into something or let someone talk you into something. You know yourself and as women we have a very, very powerful intuition. The more we access and acknowledge our intuition the deeper and stronger it is. You have a built-in guide in business…that guide is YOU!

What is your go-to motivational quote?

Sonya: “Day one, not one day.”

Tedi: “You are only as strong as the weakest link.” As Sonya and I grow Girl Powerful with our team it is very important for us to align with the women we pull in to teach the girls. We are very picky and have high standards for volunteers, donors, and teachers. The girls deserve the best and that is what Girl Powerful will give them.

What made you interested in starting Girl Powerful?

Tedi: There was a huge need for a strong program for girls after school. As a teacher, I saw how the girls needed social and emotional support during any “free time” such as lunch/recess and after school. This free time wasn’t free at all. It was a breeding ground for bullying, vandalism, unhealthy behavior, and fighting. We wanted to work with girls at a young age to prevent this from happening. We wanted to share healthy social and emotional tools for girls to succeed when a teacher, parent or adult isn’t around. Girls are powerful and they know how to maneuver this world with grit and grace but they need to be taught.

Do you have a personal motto?

Sonya: “Visualize your best self. Start showing up as her.” It’s my phone screen saver.

Tedi: “I’d rather have four quarters than one hundred pennies.” I truly believe in quality over quantity in every aspect of my life.

Which women inspire you?

Sonya: A lot of women in my personal life inspire me. They are successful women who have made a beautiful life for themselves by working hard and honestly. I love having those women as mentors.

Tedi: Does anyone ever have the guts to say themselves? Because I inspire myself. I decide every day how I am going to act, feel, generate, love, help, create and explore. I look up to myself for putting in the work to live this life and making healthy choices day after day because trust me. I have done the work. I have been very vulnerable and open in sharing my past and healing it. There comes a day when you get to decide the past is the past and it belongs there. The present is magnetic and the future is bright…and obviously female.

Are there or were there moments of self-doubt when you were starting Girl Powerful?

Tedi: Look out for scammers when you start a company. Like I mentioned before intuition plays a huge role. I literally went against my gut reaction once and said, “Is this even real?” to a sales woman. I knew she was lying but I wanted to believe her because I needed what she was selling. I went along with her scam for a few months. I wasted my time. Time I will never get back. Those are part of the growing pains. They exist.

How do you balance your schedule?

Sonya: During COVID, my schedule has looked a lot different than in 2019. I like to crank out all of my work in the morning and then make sure I get out of the house with my dog so the walls don’t start caving in on me.

Tedi: I PLAY. It is the only way I feel comfortable being an adult. I like to go to the beach and surf, hike the Santa Monica Mountains with my sister and dog, make up silly dances to 90s music, and live each day as it comes. Every time I have a plan it all gets changed. Working with girls keeps me young, creative, silly, and motivated. I love when I get inspired to work. Those are my moments when I just crank it out. The girls deserve the best programming and the best version of me to show up to class, so I practice what I preach and immerse myself in self-care activities. Since we host workshops and after school programs from 3:00-6:00 pm, I use my mornings for me.

What would be a situation where you feel overwhelmed and how do you handle it?

Sonya: I’ve struggled with anxiety for the latter part of my adult life. Feeling unorganized causes stress which triggers anxiety. When this happens, I immediately meditate. There’s a simple “box meditation” that Megan Monahan taught me and a group of Girl Powerful girls where you close your eyes and breathe into four corners to make a box and repeat “I am here now.”

Tedi: Confrontation. Here is the deal: We are women working with girls and mostly their moms and teachers. WOMEN are 90% of our daily interactions. We love them. We also know and acknowledge that women are complicated creatures. I always tell the girls you do not have to like everyone you meet, but you have a duty in this Girl Powerful Army to coexist and do no harm. That goes for us too. Since we are adults and are an established company we have more tools to set boundaries and make sure we feel supported in every interaction with a school, community center, or parent group. Sonya and I get to decide when it doesn’t seem like a good fit. That is what is so amazing about having a company is you have the power to design what it looks like and who is allowed into your universe. In the past 6 years I can count on one hand negative experiences I have had doing the work we do. We are living our dream and this dream is purpose driven so it feels good a majority of the time.

What has been the most rewarding thing since starting Girl Powerful and mentoring these girls?

Sonya: Publishing our Girl Powerful Journal! Our mission for writing the GP Journal was to give girls across the country access to our work and message that you deserve to live a confident life and have all of the mental health tools in your pocket to self-regulate, communicate, and be proud of yourself. We’ve sold our journals to girls, parents, and teachers in over 25 states and knowing that our journal is shaping girls’ social and emotional development for the better is the most rewarding feeling.

Tedi: I have grown up a lot. I want to be the best version of myself daily to inspire girls and also my peers. If you know me personally I am a very honest person. I think our transparency, honesty, and integrity we have with Girl Powerful is second to none. We are community leaders. Even Chris Evans tweeted that about us saying just that, “they are community leaders in real life.” It made me very very happy to be acknowledged by him and his twitter followers. Now for a female celebrity to get involved with Girl Powerful is the next goal. Celebrities need to be using their platform for good. It should be a law.

What advice would you give to other women trying to create their own business or brand?

Tedi: You should start a business/brand if you feel like the world can not exist without you or your idea. Your business should mean something and make you happy trying to deliver the best for your consumer. If you aren’t passionate about the service or product you will probably quit because there are no shortcuts. Building and running a brand takes dedication, resilience and humility.

What do you look for in the women you bring on to help mentor these girls through your program?

Tedi: I look for a woman that is whole. She isn’t volunteering to fill her cup...she is volunteering to fill the cup of the adolescent girl. Obviously the woman will feel good for giving her time and expertise but trust me when I say that Gen Z girls are wise beyond their years and they trust me and Sonya. If we bring them a guest speaker that isn’t sincere in her intention then they will let me know. I screen the volunteers personally. It is my duty to protect our girls and serve them with the best women possible. A dream volunteer has an open heart, has overcome an obstacle in her life, is passionate about women empowerment, and has a sense of humor.

What is your favorite aspect of Girl Powerful in your day to day workload with running the company?

Sonya: Being creative. We get to create everything. From marketing materials to fundraising campaigns, we tap into our creative sides to make enriching programming and products for our girls.

Tedi: Working with my sister. We have the most unique relationship on this planet. We work together and live together and we are BFFs. I am lucky to be able to trust, work, play, learn, and grow with my sister on a daily basis.

What are some of your goals moving forward for Girl Powerful?

Sonya: Write a 2nd book! We work with girls every day and we hear their social and emotional needs. There’s a lot of ground to cover to help girls feel seen, valued and heard.

Tedi: Having our programs online was a game changer. I want to keep moving forward with that. I find it so beautiful seeing and experiencing one another in a virtual classroom. We are able to reach more girls across the nation…and soon the world.

This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.