Couple Goals, Leadership, and Service with Jessica and Joseph Chicas – 014

The Think Alpha Project - Empowering Minority Millennials to Break Barriers

Often times when we get into relationships, we fall in love with ideas, opinions and expectations that we put on them, rather than accepting them and learning about who they truly are. Do you agree?

In this episode, Jessica and Joseph Chicas break down the several reasons they have become the young power couple they are today and the things we may need to look out for in growing a relationship.

Jessica and Joseph Chicas are an inspiring, creative and busy couple who found a way to build success while also growing together as a couple. In Jessica’s work as a professor, she does research in how understand what gets people to be motivated, especially in STEM (Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics). She couples that with community work, running two nonprofits for middle school students. She also teaches on subjects such as understanding development, racial equity and bridging policy to get ahead as people of color or lower income families. Her brand is as a Diversity Equity Consultant.

Joseph is adaptable to the diverse and changing environment we live in and he gives back through his educational work. He teaches social workers, with a focus on policy and helping to build the next generation. Joseph helps veterans as an advisor, helping them to process their opportunities and build their business experience. He is also an entrepreneur with a couple of startups around VR Technology and other emerging technologies, along with building the consulting firm with Jessica.

Key Topics

The Challenges of Developing People

• Finding people who need mentorship and building a connection can be a challenge.
• Jessica would like to create a mentorship program app to help fill this gap.
• Mindset can also get in the way – when you try to break free of negative mindsets from school and peers, the business world can then put up barriers that you have to break through.
• People can become so much more than they think, but our communities need to hear this and see the success stories of what they can achieve.

How to Create Change

• We need to create more resources, support, and opportunities to serve our youth and people who need help.
• Remember that you can’t listen to the people who are trying to tell you you can’t do something.
• Everyone should uplift their communities, we all need help at some point in our lives and we all have an obligation to pay it forward and serve others.
• You don’t have to help through becoming a social worker or educator, come up with your own creative ways to connect with people.

Committing to Self-Care

• It’s okay to take care of yourself first, you can’t help others if you aren’t working on your own insecurities, emotions, and health.
• While focusing on your personal growth can take significant work, it also sets you up for success in all areas of your life.
• Joseph was able to find Jessica through working on his own life and coming to a point where he was confident in his path and ready to receive love.

Dating While Following Your Purpose

• Jessica and Joseph are both driven people, and they struggled with juggling their schooling, careers and relationship.
• At one point they broke up because Jessica didn’t want to hinder Joseph’s goals, but they ended up back together and were married two years later.
• Sometimes it’s okay to focus on one person chasing their dreams while the other holds back for a while, but you should support your partner’s dreams as much as your own.
• You can find the balance to make it work for you both to achieve your goals.

Key Quotes

Psychologically, we get these messages, and we internalize messages saying that we’re inferior, we’re less than, it’s hard to make it out of here, and that’s a mentality that’s really hard to break. ([10:56])

We’re often times trained to just be employees, and I think that we need to reshift that, and say that our value is infinite, our potential is infinite. ([11:59])

Whoever tells you you can’t, whoever tells you oh no, you should take this route, I think you can tell them to go to hell, and you figure out your own damn solution. ([17:08])

For anybody who is listening to this, and you know that you’re a leader, just know that you’re needed. ([20:32])

We’re given advice of if you want to help people, you have to go this direction … you can help people whatever profession you are, you don’t have to be placed into a box. ([32:31])

You modify your dream, but to forfeit it, I think we just gotta be really careful about our dreams, because we only get one life. ([37:11])

Rather than chasing this idea of this imaginary person, really just letting people in because of who they are as an individual, when you can do that, that’s when it will happen organically. ([42:55])

Until we figure that out-what’s going to fill my love tank, what’s going to fill his love tank-then we’re constantly going to think we’re giving love when we’re not giving love in the way that we need it. ([49:08])

Connect With Jessica and Joseph On

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