Kera Sanchez, Letters Legacy Journal and Get Griefy Magazine

00:00:55] Sanjay Parekh: Today's guest is Kera Sanchez, the founder of Letters Legacy Journal and Get Griefy Magazine. Kera created these resources after prematurely losing her mother and dealing with the grief that came along with that loss. Kera, welcome to the show. 

[00:01:10] Kera Sanchez: Thank you so much. Thank you for having me. 

[00:01:13] Sanjay Parekh: So I'm excited to have you on because, you are actually the first half of what this podcast is about as a side hustler. You're doing this on the side, but before we get into that, give us a little bit about your background and what got you to where you are today. 

[00:01:27] Kera Sanchez: Sure. Yeah. So by trade, I'm a high school Spanish teacher. I've been doing this for about 12 years, and my journey started in 2022 after my mom unexpectedly passed away while she was on vacation in Italy.

And this occurred just several days after my youngest daughter was born, and it was definitely a journey, a very rough and ragged journey. And I ruminated a lot on all of the different conversations that my mom and I never really got to have and things that were left unsaid. And I think because I was in this postpartum brain, I just kept thinking about, "Oh my gosh, I could never leave my children like this, the way that I feel today."

And so that's essentially where my first product came to be, my legacy journal. I originally just jotted down all of the different things that I wish I could still talk to my mom about, or just important life events that it's so important for a parent to be there for and it just evolved from there to all different types of prompts.

But, yeah, I guess using my skillset from education, I was able to pretty easily build it and put the journal together. And, I just published it myself. And from there it turned into a little bit of a brand for me. I started an Instagram, started doing Instagram lives with other people who were grieving and just creating a sense of community around this concept of loss that I think sometimes people don't touch on quite enough. From there it just slowly evolved. I've since then launched a second journal and I've translated the first into Spanish. And as of February 1st, I am now a editor in chief and founder of a magazine that I created, all about the grief journey and the grief experience.

So it's been a full circle moment of grief being pretty much the worst thing that's ever happened to me to, I'm allowing it to give me and fuel me and make me powerful. And so that's what I want to inspire other people to do as well, with the things that I'm doing, for sure. 

[00:03:48] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. Hey, it's one of those things that I think as people, we don't want to think about it because it's going to happen to all of us.

And we basically have no control over when it's happening. But it feels like thinking about it and talking about it, it makes it more real that it's going to happen. Whereas you can just push it off in your head. So, how do you think about that for yourself? Like how has this process of thinking about mortality helped you in thinking about these businesses as well as kind of everything else you do?

[00:04:28] Kera Sanchez: Yeah, no, I think it just, it helps you put the most important things at your forefront. And also, it aligns you to what makes your soul happy. And if you are spending a lot of your days and your time doing things that doesn't put a smile on your face, because you realize how finite our time is here. You quickly learn to analyze and reassess and pivot where you're at.

And so that's currently where I'm at now. Not saying that I've fully made the pivot yet, but I do realize how much talking about these things and how much diving into this work has given me some purpose and it just feels good to do. And it also helps me maintain that connection that I have with my mom. So, I don't know. I just think it puts things into perspective, for sure. 

[00:05:22] Sanjay Parekh: So, is this the first time you've had an entrepreneurial venture like this? Do you have any entrepreneurs in the family? 

[00:05:29] Kera Sanchez: No, I come from a family of educators, so we are super like, "keep it safe, let's not take any risks."

And so this is definitely the first time that someone has done something where I'm creating the ship as I am sailing it through the ocean, and I'm picking up as I go and I'm learning a lot of things. And I think that's part of it is just embracing the messiness of it from time to time because, as a teacher myself, that's what I try to instill in my students, is that it's okay to make mistakes. That's how you learn. And so I'm just trying to remind myself of that, for sure. 

[00:06:10] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah, the part of your example that you left out is bailing water out of the ship as you're building it and trying to sail. 

[00:06:18] Kera Sanchez: And catching the sail, fighting off pirates, like all the things.

[00:06:25] Sanjay Parekh: If there's ever been an analogy for entrepreneurship, that's it right there. So interestingly, now that you're going through this entrepreneurial journey, is this something that you're bringing into the classroom and talking with your students about to help inspire them to do entrepreneurial things?

[00:06:42] Kera Sanchez: Yes and no. I do have some students that they've also experienced loss and I feel like we can connect on just a completely another level, right? I think it's really hard for me as an educator sometimes to break from the curriculum or what I'm supposed to do, and I know that's something that a lot of teachers struggle with because you don't want to get too personal about your life or you don't want to make it all about you. But at the same time, I do know that the things that I'm doing could benefit them.

So I don't know. I guess to be continued. I don't know where to go from that. I think that's something that I'm also learning how to navigate as I’m evolving because, some of them have started to find my Instagram and videos and things like that. And I don't think that they truly understand what it's all about. So, I think it's definitely an interesting situation to be in. 

[00:07:42] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah, I know, I don't know if you ever experienced this, but I know it's weird. Like when you see your teachers out in the real world, like at the grocery store, it's like, wait, you're a real human and you don't just exist in the classroom.

So, there's that kind of cognitive dissonance that ends up happening about how you view this person. So, I can see that definitely being a challenge. So, let's talk about the business. So you wrote this journal for yourself. 

[00:08:09] Kera Sanchez: Yeah. 

[00:08:09] Sanjay Parekh: And then you're like, "Okay, well, I want to do this for other people."

You've never done this before. How did you figure that out? Did you just self-publish it? Or did you start making copies at the school copier and stapling them? What was the process?

[00:08:24] Kera Sanchez: So actually, interestingly enough, I have a former student. He's in his 20s now, but we've maintained our connection and he had gone into self-publishing and published a lot of things. And then later he did get picked up by a publishing house to publish some of his work. But I just connected with him and networked with him and I said, "This is something I'm interested in doing. And what do I do?" And he gave me the first couple of steps and it's actually a lot more intuitive than one would think.

If you work with the type of software that you would work with in education, in terms of design and things like that, like I use Canva, it's pretty easy to just create whatever it is that you want to create, upload it onto, I did it on Amazon and, hit publish. So, there's definitely a few little snags along the way, but I would say overall it was a pretty easy journey to go ahead and just, if I have something I want to publish, anyone can do it, truly.

[00:09:27] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. So when you were starting this, was there anything that, it sounds pretty straightforward, but was there anything that made you nervous? And if so, how did you overcome that? 

[00:09:36] Kera Sanchez: Yes. So, at the very beginning, I was very, I would say, delicate about the way I was sharing my message and I really wanted to make it strictly about the journals, but as time went on, when I would take a chance and show a little bit more about my personality and the way that I deal with loss, which for me, I deal with it through humor, dark humor.

For me, when I started to do that, I realized how authentic it was and people really caught on to that. And I realized that, as much as this is a brand, it's also people are buying into your story. And that's also something that's very important, I personally believe, when it comes to creating a product is people want to relate to you and they want to relate to whatever it is that you're selling.

And so, I think at first, that was nerve wracking to put myself out there like that because I didn't know how people would take it, but it was a risk that definitely was rewarding. 

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[00:11:02] Sanjay Parekh: Okay, let's change gears a little bit. So, you've got a full-time job as a Spanish teacher in high school, which that's probably a double time job because you're dealing with high school students. How do you manage the stress of that and balancing that with doing the business on the side, a side hustle?

[00:11:22] Kera Sanchez: That's also a work in progress. I just started to incorporate yoga into my life and even that has been a little bit uncomfortable for me because I'm sitting in silence and that's hard. I've noticed that as a teacher, you constantly are facing a million questions a day from kids and there's so many choices that you have to make.

And then same as running a household and being a mom. And I think I need to learn a little bit more how to sit in the silence and become comfortable with that, because I'm so used to being on the go and having the voices and the chatter and having to answer a million questions and pivoting.

So, I think that's something that anyone can benefit from is just learning how to slow down from time to time, because if you continue to go, you will burn out. So, yeah. 

[00:12:23] Sanjay Parekh: Right. Yeah. How are you thinking about, also then in respect to that, balancing with kind of the demands on family life and personal life and the fun things that you want to do?

[00:12:35] Kera Sanchez: Yeah. 

[00:12:35] Sanjay Parekh: And the side hustle and the full time. Fortunately as a teacher, you've got summer vacation, but now you've got a side hustle that's probably going to eat into that as well. 

[00:12:46] Kera Sanchez: Yeah, I think I need to learn to, one, delegate because especially with my newest project, I have launched a grief magazine and I need to remember that although I created it and I founded it and I'm the editor in chief, I cannot be in charge of every single aspect of that magazine. And so, I think relinquishing a little bit of that control to people who have come to me multiple times and said, I want to help. You don't even have to pay me, I just want to write something and get my name out there. I need to allow them to do that because again, I can't do it all. And I also just need to be better. And this is something that, I was just talking with my husband about is, sometimes I need to learn to say no, or just slow down a little bit and not everything needs to get tackled this very second. I can put some things off till a little bit later. 

I think trying to find that balance is very important because again, if you continue to just go and say yes to every little thing, one, you'll burn out and two, yeah you are pushing aside the thing that you claim to be the most important and that's your family and that's your values.

So, for anyone out there that's starting something, it is a struggle, right? And it is. You learn how to balance it as you go. So that's definitely something I need to get better at. But I'm trying to put that in my forefront and being more intentional about that. 

[00:14:24] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. So, the topic, the area that you work in, grief, is it's a heavy topic. How do you deal with that? This could become overwhelming. Because you're just thinking about it all the time then, right? There's not really a break. Maybe the break is when you're teaching Spanish in high school to the students, thinking about when you're working on the side hustle, that's what all you're thinking about, how do you manage that for yourself?

[00:14:53] Kera Sanchez: So I would say that my personal view on grief, and I think the brand behind the magazine specifically, is more of an unconventional view on what grief is. We're really trying to spin it to be something positive. And I know that people are going to be like, "Well, that's like toxic positivity."

And that's not necessarily what we're trying to do. It's more that when you go through something very difficult and something very hard, there's bound to be growth that comes from that. So, we're trying to spin and emphasize the growth and trying to emphasize all of the positives that can still come from something so terrible.

And I know that's hard for some people to wrap their head around, but I can acknowledge that in myself that I've gone through a lot, but I've also grown a lot. And so that's our goal is to inspire people to continue and search for joy after something very terrible.

[00:16:00] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah, yeah. And like you said it's hard to do but obviously something hopefully, that all of us can strive to do as well. Okay, so first time entrepreneur in the family, doing this. There was obviously a learning process you've not really had. Have you had anybody to lean on? Is there anybody you talked to about being an entrepreneur and some of the struggles? 

[00:16:30] Kera Sanchez: I would say I have a lot of people that are like in my support system or like cheerleaders. When it comes to a full-on mentor, not as much, but my aunt had helped me get enrolled into a female woman's like entrepreneurial program through Cornell University, and so that's been very helpful because I feel like It just caught me up to speed with some of the lingo and some of the verbiage that's used. It just gives me a more broad understanding of what it means to own a business and gave me some insights, but I feel like I still have so much to learn.

But yeah, I am working and I'm networking. I've met a lot of founders, probably since the magazine started, I've met a lot more founders, which has been great. And so, I think just relying on other people that have also navigated and forged that path is important because once you make those relationships, I might have a piece of information that they need and you can share and spread the wealth, because that's what it's all about.

[00:17:41] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah, here's the one secret about entrepreneurship is, if you're not learning something every single day, then you're missing something. Because there are so many questions out there and there are so many unknowns that you're always learning things. And personally for me, that's part of the fun of being an entrepreneur is that you get to learn things all the time every single day.

[00:18:03] Kera Sanchez: Yeah. 

[00:18:04] Sanjay Parekh: So, thinking about that, you've probably learned quite a bit now at this point, and so given that, if you could go back, knowing what you know now, and do something differently, is there something that you'd do differently and what? 

[00:18:20] Kera Sanchez: I think, I would maybe just start showing up authentically a little bit earlier.

That was probably a four-month span where I was just pushing out content that was strictly like, this is a journal, check it out. And I didn't really share my story as much. And so, I think that's something I probably would change. Other than that, I don't know if I would really change anything just because all of those pieces taught me something so it's nothing like devastating or something destructive. It was just like "Oh, okay. I needed to go through that hump so that I could figure some things out." 

[00:19:02] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. Yeah. Were you just thinking that sharing your story wasn't going to be relevant for people? Because to me that's like the real why of why this person is doing this and why it matters. So what was your like hesitation for those four months?

[00:19:20] Kera Sanchez: I think one, I was still processing. So, it was really hard for me to talk about from time to time and also, I think it's like the vulnerability piece. Like you have to show some of the darkest parts of your life and that's hard to do. And just with the way I handle things, I was afraid that people would take it the wrong way. "Oh, because I'm making a joke or because I'm trying to be humorous" in the way that I process that people would think like, "Oh, like that's so disrespectful." But I have learned that there's a lot of people that process that way.

And just because you have a smile on your face, doesn't negate the fact that you have a lot of pain on the inside too. So, I think it's just learning about the duality of life because that's been like the biggest lesson is that with every negative, there's a positive, life is yin and yang. Like literally that, that symbol is like life in a nutshell. That's been a big lesson for me as well. 

[00:20:28] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. Okay. Last question for you. if you were talking to somebody else that was thinking about taking that leap and launching a side hustle like you did, what advice would you give them? 

[00:20:41] Kera Sanchez: Just do it.

I feel like there's been so many people I've connected with as well that they've said this has been something on their heart for a long time. I have someone in particular that just because of our interactions and constantly talking, they said, "Okay, fine, like I'm ready to start a podcast."

And they mentioned to me that this is something that they've been thinking about doing for over two years. And I just think of all of that time that like was potentially wasted. And so, you're never going to be ready. You're never going to have all of the information that you need to have.

At some point, you just have to believe in your mission enough and believe in yourself enough to know that you'll get yourself through any obstacle that you face. And so, I think that is the biggest takeaway is, if you have an idea and it gives you passion and it gives you, if it lights you up, you just have to pursue it.

And you just think of, you just do it one step at a time. What's the next step? What's the next step? And just keep going. Chip away. 

[00:21:47] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah, I love it. I love it. Great advice. Kera, this has been fantastic. How can our listeners find and connect with you online? 

[00:21:55] Kera Sanchez: Sure. So, I technically have two accounts one for my journals and that one's more personal and then one for the magazine that just launched on February 1st.

So, the journals can be found @LegacyLettersJournal on Instagram, and then the magazine can be found @GetGriefyMagazine. And then for both of those, they do have a website, legacylettersjournal.com and getgriefymagazine.com. 

[00:22:25] Sanjay Parekh: Awesome. Thanks so much for being on the show today. 

[00:22:28] Kera Sanchez: Thank you.

[00:22:29] Sanjay Parekh: Thanks for listening to this week's episode of the Side Hustle to Small Business podcast powered by Hiscox. To learn more about how Hiscox can help protect your small business through intelligent insurance solutions, visit Hiscox.com. And to hear more Side Hustle to Small Business stories, or share your own story, please visit Hiscox.com/Side-Hustle-to-Small-Business. I'm your host, Sanjay Parekh. You can find out more about me at my website, SanjayParekh.com.