WITI Spotlights Unique Women Who Deserve Your Attention

WITI Spotlight: Samantha Geraci-Yee is an opera singer and yoga teacher turned wellness-tech entrepreneur. Alongside her role as Chief Marketing Officer for App'd, a mobile app tool and community platform for small business owners, she is also an Account Director for WITI where she is helping organizations to thrive and grow through diversity.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/samanthageraciyee

Q: How do you balance your work life and home life?
A: I love to work. You might even call me a workaholic. I thrive on productivity and feeling accomplished. However, this passion can be easily overdone. So, I make sure to balance my many hours of work with designated moments for self-care and my "bubbles of joy" - a practice that was established after working with Manifestation Coach, Heidi Baker. I calendar time in for these daily activities and consider them non-negotiable.

A crucial part of my self-care routine is my mornings. They are sacred. I rise without an alarm - the trick to this is going to bed and rising around the same time every day. Then after a full glass of water, I sit on my meditation seat and check in with my mind and body. Sometimes I'll meditate, or simply sit and think, perhaps preparing mentally for my day or reflecting on the events of the day before. I'll also start moving my body on my yoga mat, allowing my breath to awaken after a night's rest. By the way, I love sleeping! It's one of my favorite things to do besides work and play softball - one of my bubbles of joy.

Once I feel ready, I'll head off to the gym for a cardio/weightlifting routine, to the pool for a lap swim workout, or a hot yoga class. Dedicating my morning hours to these practices helps set an excellent tone for the day where my mind is clear and ready for the work it's about to do.

My "bubbles of joy" are also sacred. In working with my manifestation coach, we identified activities that keep me in high vibrations of energy and gratitude. Of course, being a workaholic, I had to truly work to permit myself to enjoy myself. I can guiltlessly lean in on these "bubbles of joy" like playing softball, spending time with friends, eating well, and sometimes doing absolutely nothing! When it comes to thriving daily, balance is everything. Rest, enjoyment, and practicing gratitude are just as important, perhaps even more so than the work. It fuels the work and makes it worthwhile.

Q: What was the best advice you ever got?
A: Go to sleep and rise around the same time every day. Make it a habit, but also allow for the unique times when you are called to stay up late perhaps leaning into a bubble of joy or sleeping in because your body needs it. In other words, commit to the habit but allow for modifications when you are appropriately called on to do so.

Q: What do you read or listen to for fun and inspiration?
A: I love true crime! For fun, my "bubble of joy" podcast is "Crime Junkie" - a deep dive into unsolved cases. For inspiration, my sources for reading or listening have varied over the years but some of my favorites include guided meditations with Gabby Bernstein, Michael A. Singer's "The Surrender Experiment", John O'Leary's "On Fire", and Dan Martell's "Growth Stacking Show". Recently, I've been listening to the Juice's "Modern Day Marketer" podcast to grow my skills as a growth marketer and for inspiration for novel ideas for my startup.

Q: What was your biggest obstacle and how did you overcome it?
A: My biggest obstacle is one that I still and will face every day. It has also greatly defined my journey. A few years ago, I lost my mother to a 14-year battle with breast cancer. My mom was everything to me, and the grief I faced was tremendous. Her passing prompted a 2-year healing journey in which I made a personal promise to always seek joy.

I stepped away from a 14-year-long opera career that wasn't making me happy, let go of my beautiful apartment in Long Island City, NY, and embraced the lifestyle of a digital nomad, traveling throughout the states, Thailand, and Mexico. These adventures were true sources of healing and gave me the time to prepare for what was next. At the time, I had no idea what it would be. But I kept myself open to the possibilities and eventually found my way into the tech world, gratefully.

Often, my grief feels like a cavernous hole that I must climb out of every day. It's a daily process but by leaning into the obstacle, the exact thing standing in my way, I always find my mom's love, and thus my daily motivation to show up. My biggest obstacle continues to define my purpose and inspire my constant search for joy. For me, leaning in and going right through it to the other side to where I have found the light helps me to overcome my biggest and most profound obstacle thus far.

Q: How do you take your whole self to work?
A: Honestly, I consciously decide not to take my whole self to work. I only take the parts that serve me, my work, and those around me. As humans, especially as women, we ebb and flow constantly. Of course, this can also be our superpower when harnessed appropriately. On a day-to-day basis, we experience a range of emotions, some that serve well and some that simply don't.

That said, I don't ignore or bury the emotions that may not serve me well that day. I recognize and honor them, and sit with them in the morning. Most of the time, I can place these non-serving emotions on a mental bookshelf to be revisited later when I have more space to lean in. So it is not my whole self that I show up with for my work, but rather my best self on that particular day, absent of any judgment or comparison to any other day before.

Opinions expressed by the author are not necessarily those of WITI.