 Happy Thursday, everyone. Welcome back to Geeks are Sexy. I'm Jason Leduc from Evil Genius Leadership Consultants It's the fourth Friday of the month where we take over from Michelle Davis and we take care of all things about how to teach You how to be successful here in Las Vegas and beyond whether that's your business your personal life and your family We're talking about all things about leadership and being successful. We got a couple great guests today We actually have three great guests today We're gonna have Ashley Jordan from my education connections is gonna join us a little bit and Cynthia Nutter from CJ Nutter accounting But first we have Diana Collins who is the founder of Collins Media Productions and also the founding president of the Always With Me foundation How are you today Diana? Thank you for being here. Absolutely. Thank you so much for inviting me. It's a pleasure. I am good Good. Did you have a good holiday? Do you celebrate Christmas? Do you? I did. I saw my two little girls All of our family are here in town. So we do a lot of traveling within state, you know in the city And you grew up here in Las Vegas. Yeah, I've been here since 97. So so pretty much So yeah, this was the first year in a long time that I didn't travel most of my family's back east and for various reasons None of us we just made sense with everybody's schedule. So not travel We're gonna catch up and probably the February time frame, but yeah, so Christmas was good I went to a friend's house for Christmas Eve for Christmas Eve dinner had a really relaxing Christmas day and then my mom's birthday is tomorrow. So happy birthday mom and I will call you tomorrow. Don't worry about it But you are the founder of Collins Media Productions But also and I think more importantly and more interestingly the founding president of the Always With Me foundation Which helps young mothers with all kinds of support, but mostly focused on helping them have good mental health and motherhood Welcome to the show first tell us about Collins Media Productions and what you do there But also your story is you started this company as a result of the foundation and your personal story with mental health and motherhood So let's talk about that. Yeah. So first off Collins Media Production is I basically I'm a podcast producer Manager and I do sometimes I do video production on the side as well mainly most of my clients are You know podcasters and they bring me the audio and I basically do everything for them I bring it wrap it up in a box and there's their podcast but two years ago I started out with my own podcast after my best friend had taken her life due to postpartum depression and I was seven months pregnant. In fact, I was eight months pregnant at her funeral I just hit rock bottom. I couldn't recover after that You know a month after the funeral I was in labor with my second daughter and all I wanted was just my best friend to be there And that was all I could think about not even the birth of my child, which don't get me wrong I love her so much, you know, she's my baby peanut little peanut and But I couldn't get that out of my head and so I went on maternity leave came back after a month going into labor not a good idea and I was expected to come back and be a working woman again. I couldn't do it I just couldn't recover back People walk back like you walk down my cubicle and I'm just crying So You know eight months go by and I hit rock bottom. I was mentally unstable could not Get back into a right mindset at work Getting mindset of motherhood and I had almost taken my life I was in the ER for a suicide attempt and that was when I sat there in the hospital Feeling like a prisoner really that's really what you know, it feels like being in a psych ward and I said, that's it You quit my job. I am put in my two weeks. I don't care I'm crazy for leaving an income, but I had to Take care of myself And I started my own podcast called the always with me podcast, which is still up today and I talked about I interviewed moms and other mental health advocates to help bring their story out and Let know moms know that they're not alone in the struggles like if they suffer from depression that they're not a bad mom And if they suffer from OCD or anxiety or anything like that that they're not alone So after doing that for six months, I was I said I asked my group of my friends I was like I want to do something more physical You know, I'm helping them in a vocal way But what is a way I can prevent post-partum depression and suicide? Happening again, you know, and my friend was like you could be a post-partum doula which So is there anyone who don't know what a post-partum is? Because I kind of know and you and I have talked before but I don't think I know well enough to be able to explain it to Yeah, so what we are so a lot of us understand what a doula are is a birth doula Which is she sits there with you when you're in labor and Guides you and is your coach during labor and what a post-partum doula is is that we show up After the birth of your child we come to your home. We take care of You know all the little tasks that you do in your home like laundry dishes meal prep Because after you give birth if you eat especially after you had a C-section you're kind of not you're not a hundred percent Yeah, and so we help you with that Having questions with and she's sleeping right is she you know doing all the things correctly like we're there to coach you for the first six to twelve weeks and And so the and that's how the nonprofit was created. They always with me foundation was created because You know this is viewed as a luxury although it should be a necessity and And I wanted to help everyone out there who maybe are unable to afford it themselves out of their own pocket and So we've connected with you know, for example, we're a week here in Las Vegas One of them said and if they went to mom and she's selling showing signs of depression or she's saying things Like I'm just so tired. I'm so overwhelmed like these are triggering words They come to me it send me a referral and give me her information and I reach out to her So those are the words that if someone at wick hears those now People watching this they may not be involved with that. They may know somebody. What are some of those words again? Like tell our audience if they hear somebody saying these words What that they should what should if they hear this one of the things they if they hear them They should point them over to you. Yeah, so a short example. I had one who just says I am so Overwhelmed. I'm not sleeping. I can't sleep You know, they say sleep with these leaps and when she said I'm just overwhelmed I have this fear that the babies get to die or have this fear of me dying, you know These are triggering words kind of like, you know, and and it's not just wick who can referral that we're sending referral out Any of you any of you if you've heard a young woman who is just given birth or is maybe even about to give birth Who's already feeling this way if you hear somebody saying these young woman who's just given birth or the family's talking about this Way, please connect them up with Diana. Yeah So And this is all you provide this free to the cert to the to the young women to the families who need this Which is as you said, it's considered a luxury, but it's really something that's very necessary for every new mom. Absolutely So and that's why that's where our donations come in, right? So you know a postpartum do like can range between like 20 to 30 dollars an hour for let's say they usually do about six the first six to 12 weeks For a few hours either twice, you know twice a week, maybe even four times a week You know it depends on how often it's neat and and so that's where the donations go to not only pay for our fees All kinds of licensing But to pay for that do love. Yeah, and and how can how can our audience? Donate to you or who can they connect you with it'd be a great donor for you? Absolutely, so if you go to always with me org everything is on there including our podcast how to donate There'll be a short clip on my full story and how I've recovered from past two and a half years So just go to that website and you'll find anything everything about the always with me foundation That's great And one last thing I want to talk about it's not just the in-home service that you provide You have an online support group that you do for women as well Can you tell us a little about that how people if they're not ready to come ask for that kind of help? But maybe get involved in the online support. How can they find that? Yeah, so it's also on the website But if you it's on Facebook, so you search Facebook groups and it's called mommy tribe with always with me And if you can't find it that way you can always go to the website But there's a lot of there's some therapists on there There are even you know my vice president is a postpartum doula who has you know years beyond experience more experience And I do and if anyone comes in there and ask questions Comfortably and not have to be physically somewhere. She's still comfortable in her home. She gets that support That's great It's a fair to say that if someone's a doula out there a postpartum doula out there You could you'd be happy to learn to meet them. Yes, please Great, we're just about out of time tell our audience how they can reach you and the foundation again And if they're interested in you packaging up their podcast how they can find a Collins media as well Absolutely, so you can find us again always with me at org or on the on Facebook The always with me foundation and if you have a podcast as well and you need help and overwhelmed with all the things Go to Collins media production.com. All right. Well, thank you so much Diana We're gonna have you back a little bit for our panel discussion next. We're gonna have Ashley Jordan from my education connections I'm Jason Ladoux. This is Deeks are stuck sexy stick around. We'll be right back