Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
[Music] hey [Music] [Applause] [Music] he [Music] well good morning good afternoon good evening wherever you are in the world it’s Dr Jan Fortman with Relationship Matters TV. I hope everyone is having a beautifully blessed morning, afternoon, or evening. Well, the countdown is on to the holidays. Do you know they already, I mean Thanksgiving is not here yet, but there are so many Christmas decorations in these stores now. I thought, you know, just give us a just a little time, a little time. And not only that, one of the radio stations here in Chicago started playing 24 hours of Christmas music every day all day until Christmas. To me, they’re kind of rushing it, don’t you think? Well anyway, so today is a good day anyway. Ah, let me talk about my guest who I met through Women’s Prosperity Network. You know what, before I really say anything about it, let me show you. I can show you better than I can tell you. Hold on [Music] [Music] [Music] am I bet you can’t wait. So let me tell you about Rocka. She is an international speaker, a coach, a facilitator, and a philanthropist. She has worked in over 30 countries on mindset and entrepreneurship. She champions organic and regenerative living and works on several process projects in Latin America and Africa. If you have a small business, Rocka is the cheerleader that you want for your small business. She supports and she motivates individuals to create harmonious and abundant lives. Her vision is to create communities of global entrepreneurs Without Borders. Keynotes, seminars, gosh what’s wrong with my mouth, seminars and workshops she does and she does them. She talks about from Vision to reality and you know what, all of us have visions, things that we want to do but sometimes when we don’t know how to do is go from our vision to our reality. So I’m going to bring her on so you can see exactly who I am talking about. Hello Rocka.

Rocka
Hello Dr. Fortman, how are you?

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
I am just great, how are you?

Rocka
I’m doing fabulous today. It’s nice and cool in Florida.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Is it? So what’s the temperature there?

Rocka
We’re in the 87s.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Wait a minute, you said nice and cool. I thought you were gonna say like 60 or something like that. You know what, I wish it was 80 here, I really do. I think today we got up into the 40s but two days ago when I got up in the morning, 28 degrees.

Rocka
Oh wow.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
I know that you probably saying I wish, you know, I wish I was here in Chicago with you so that I could experience 28 degrees.

Rocka
I’ve been there, no, no.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Okay, so what part of Florida are you in?

Rocka
I’m in Miami.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Okay, you’re in Miami. All right, I’ve been at Miami. Yeah, I love Miami, very, very nice place to visit.

Rocka
It’s a beautiful place to be.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Yes, it is. So let’s get on to, okay, the question that I have, the first question I have is I know you’ve been to, you know, over 30 countries, you know, on mindset and entrepreneurs. What made you start doing something like this?

Rocka
Well, I was, I got lucky. I got asked to work with people in the nonprofit area in creating their business plans and their organizational charts and then one thing led to another and I got the opportunity to work on their projects and I couldn’t resist. It was calling.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Okay.

Rocka
And I’ve always been interested in organic farming and regenerative living so it was just like, oh let me find out a little bit more. Maybe I don’t like it as much as I think I do because all my experience was through books.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Oh.

Rocka
You know, so this was hands-on and it kind of grew on me.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Okay, so what did you do before you started doing this?

Rocka
Oh, I’m a city girl. I’m a totally corporate person, city person. If you asked any of my friends that this is what I do, they would probably look at you and say she doesn’t do stuff like that. I was in corporate for the longest time. I headed the litigation department for one of the biggest hospitality companies in the US and I’ve also worked with a major airline, their contracts and again in the litigation area. So that’s what my forte is and my background is a lot about contracts and things of that nature. But as I got more involved in these projects, my attention shifted to how I could apply that knowledge to what we were creating on this side. So now while I still do some business coaching and all of that, my focus is really on the families, their relationships, and how to connect, how to connect in communities because I don’t know, I feel that we’ve become a very isolated country, continent, you could say whatever, even the world, right? We don’t communicate as much as we used to but we travel more than ever. So I love that human aspect of it and I call it my Going Back to Basics.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Okay, alrighty. So now for people who are not familiar, tell us, including me, tell us what organic farming is.

Rocka
Okay, so organic farming starts with where your seeds are organically sourced so they have no GMO, there The Monto hasn’t gotten hold of them, there’s no pesticide used, no fertilizer, everything that they use is a natural product. Even their soil has been regenerated to where the chemicals have been taken out so that it can serve the plant and let it thrive. We’re now getting to a point where we’re able to save the seeds of those organic plants and then replant them or even supply them to other countries or other farmers to grow organic produce because our produce has been so watered down that even though we think it’s fresh, the nutrient level isn’t what it used to be.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Is that because of GMO, genetically modified?

Rocka
Pretty much, you know, they wanted to get more yields, they wanted to get larger fruits, larger crops, so that modification allowed us to achieve that but it stripped us of the nutrients that were in those items. So now we’re to a point where we’re trying to put them back in, like there’s this whole big movement about saving the soil because we put so many chemicals in there when we know that, well we don’t know, but there are very simple household items that we could use for pesticide purposes or even to kill weeds that don’t have to go into our water table and impact us to that level.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Oh, okay. So now you, I want to know what can we use?

Rocka
Oh, simple things like salt and water, chili peppers mixed, blended up with water and vinegar and sprayed on your fruits and vegetables to keep the pesticides away.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Oh, okay.

Rocka
Just simple household items like how to wash your vegetables and your fruits with baking soda.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Oh.

Rocka
You know, and thanks to COVID we learned that and we learned it very fast.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Yeah, you’re right because I know we were making a disinfectant or, you know, something to wash our hands with and I saw something where, what did we have, lemons, what was it, lemons and I think it was white vinegar or something like that.

Rocka
Yeah, regular distilled vinegar. It does so many things, you know, from cleaning the glass in our homes to creating air fresheners, polishes, that white vinegar goes a long way as does the baking soda because instead of getting things for scrubbing your bathrooms or your pots and pans with chemical-laden detergents, you can use that and it works equally well if not better.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Okay, okay. Yeah, I still have some of that and I use it and you’re right, it’s something that really should use rather than to go out and buy stuff that’s harmful to us. And when you were talking about food that isn’t, that is organic, I remember when they first started talking about GMO and I didn’t really understand what it was but then someone told me like the corn, corn on the cob that we buy from the store is really not real, you know, and so what I try to do is maybe go to a farmer’s market where, you know, it’s supposed to be, it is fresh and they bring it in. So now, okay, so you do this and now it’s, you say regenerative living, what is that?

Rocka
That is using everything that we have in our homes and instead of putting it in a garbage can to see where else in our lives can we use it, like just in the kitchen, right? You have your eggs, the shells of the eggs, your fresh fruits and vegetables, even if they’re going rotten, don’t throw them in the garbage, you know, take them outside, dig a hole and cover it up with that because guess what, it’s going to decompose and it’s going to put the nutrients back in the soil.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Oh.

Rocka
And that’s what compost and fertilizer is made of in the first place, so why go to some place and purchase it when you can do it in small steps at home?

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Oh, okay. I met someone, he was in my Toastmasters Club and that’s what they did, they talked about composting. So now you have these projects in Latin America and in Africa, so what was it like working in Africa?

Rocka
I would say life-changing.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Okay, all right.

Rocka
We take so many things for granted over here, all our luxuries are taken for granted while over there, just having one meal a day can sometimes be a luxury. And a lot of it is the fact that they’re rich in one sense of the word as far as like mineral deposits and metals and stuff is concerned, but when it comes to food, it has been a hard struggle for them because of all the red tape that they have to go through because they have to listen to what other organizations in the world have to say and it’s all controlled. They can’t just go anywhere and purchase whatever seeds they want, they have to go through a certain process, a protocol, and they’re only given certain crops that they can grow, but those crops are meant for export, not for internal use. Well, a lot of them, especially in the East Africa region, are rebelling to a point where they’ve refused to work with Monsanto, which is amazing because it takes something to step up and say no to Monsanto, they’re huge.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Yeah.

Rocka
They’ve also started doing what I call micro-farming, so they’re looking at what’s around them using that instead of, I mean, I don’t know if you know about the agricultural landscape of Africa, but it’s very fertile.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Yeah.

Rocka
So they have now started to grow their own fruits and vegetables, in some cases getting fined for doing that.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Really?

Rocka
But then it’s like the loophole is if you do it domestically, it’s allowed, if you do it commercially, it’s not.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Oh.

Rocka
So many of them are doing it domestically to feed themselves, but then they’re starting to create co-ops of where they trade off, like if somebody’s doing rabbit farming, they’ll share that with somebody that’s doing chicken farming or fish farming, even if it’s wheat or other vegetables or fruits, like they’re growing their fruit trees in forests because that land is not owned by anyone, so they’ll plant their trees in the forest and it doesn’t matter who gets the fruit, it’s about feeding themselves.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Oh wow, that’s wonderful. So what is your role in?

Rocka
My role is basically to look at the legal issues, how they can get around it, and then how they can create the co-ops to where they can sustain their own communities. Right now it’s about sustaining their own communities, the next stage will be to supply local grocery stores, and then the step after that will be because Africa is such a huge continent, it has, I believe, 54 countries, if they can create internal export and import so they don’t have to go through the regulations of if they were, say, exporting to Europe or the US or something. So now a lot of these countries are banding together and instead of buying it from outside sources, they’re looking for sources within the continent to see, okay, who can provide us with wheat, who can provide us with rice, who can provide us with fruit, which is a huge breakthrough, a huge breakthrough.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Wow. Do you ever run into, you personally run into any problems with the governments, you personally?

Rocka
You just stay under the radar.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Okay.

Rocka
You know, it’s grassroots, you don’t want to draw attention to yourself, so it’s just about staying right under the radar, doing what needs to be done, not draw attention to yourself. You never want to draw attention to yourself.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Okay.

Rocka
Because that can just open up a can of worms and that doesn’t work.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Yeah, yeah. So now most of these businesses, are they women-owned, most of them or some of them are?

Rocka
Okay, I have businesses in Kenya that are women-owned. Women in Kenya are more empowered than the women in Uganda.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Oh, okay.

Rocka
The economy is such that Uganda, even though at one time used to be called the Pearl of Africa, has been drained of its resources and the government that’s in place isn’t the most open.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Okay, all right.

Rocka
But Kenya, they really want to make a difference, they want to move away from colonialism, they want to move away from that control, as does Ghana and Rwanda. So it’s really, really a lot of watching where you’re walking.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Okay.

Rocka
Like I said, I teach entrepreneurship, I teach mindset work, and then I also teach them who can they connect with. So I’m always looking for connections of, like we have people in the Caribbean, in Barbados, in Jamaica, who are doing like organic farming and regenerative farming, and I’ll connect them with the people in Africa, and there’s a lot of stuff going on like that.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Okay.

Rocka
You know, so it’s a challenge, but it’s definitely worth it.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Yes, I know it’s so fulfilling, so rewarding.

Rocka
It is, emotionally it’s very rewarding, very rewarding.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Yes, so a question came in here, how is global warming affecting the food supply? I know that, and especially what you’re doing, I know we’ve seen, you know, on TV where it’s a drought on one part and then flooding on another part, is that affecting what you’re doing?

Rocka
Absolutely, absolutely, because right now what we are in the process of looking at are plants that will take the least amount of water and give us the high yield that it can possibly give us. We’re looking at crops that will have a high nutrient value, so like wheat takes a lot longer to grow than say breadfruit or millets. Millets will grow in a dry, arid country, while for rice and wheat we need a lot of water. One of the things that they’re also doing is creating natural wells of water when it does rain and they have that heavy flooding and stuff, the water gets stored underground so they can seep out of it over time.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Okay, so now, okay, so that’s what you were doing in Africa, now what about in Latin America, is this different or do you have the same challenges?

Rocka
Same challenges, but over there it’s not so much political as there it is gang war.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Really? So, okay, so I know when you say Latin America, so what countries in Latin America?

Rocka
Like Peru, Colombia, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico even.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Really?

Rocka
But over there things are not as bad as they are in Africa.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Yeah, yeah.

Rocka
And we have some nonprofits that are established over there that are working with the farmers to teach them how to export their stuff because they really can’t do it within each other, there’s just so much conflict. But a lot of their food and their vegetation and stuff gets exported to us here, to Europe, to Canada, so there it’s not so bad.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Okay, okay. Yeah, you’re really opening my eyes to, you know, you never, I know the problems and issues in Africa, but I didn’t know about what you’re doing and how important it is in Latin America.

Rocka
It’s actually, I would say, Dr. Fortman, that it’s equally important here as well in the United States.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Yeah.

Rocka
Because we forget to look at what’s right underneath our nose.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Yeah, right, right.

Rocka
I mean, it’s no secret that our food prices have risen dramatically.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Dramatically.

Rocka
And our farmers are seeing challenges as well. So sometimes I live in Miami, I mean, it’s a beautiful city and I see all these mango trees and coconut trees and orange trees and stuff and I’m like, they’re on the median, why are we not harvesting and giving it to the people that have no food?

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Yeah, you are right. And like you said, we complain about the cost of food. We were talking about that the other day and my friend and I went into this place and we had a cup of coffee, it was $3.45 for a cup, you know, that is cheap compared to other coffee houses.

Rocka
Oh my God.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
And you know, then you know where most of the coffee beans come from and who’s getting all this money. And the one thing, a comment came in here, I want to put, Rita Dixon says her cousin used to put the eggshells into her house plants and her plants were beautiful.

Rocka
Yes, so eggshells, and I found this out from one of my really good friends, eggshells are human quality calcium. If you ground it up and you put it in your food, you could actually consume it and it’s a wonderful high pure source of calcium.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Really? Do you have a book about, look, if you don’t have a book about all of this, what you’re telling me, you know what, you should.

Rocka
I don’t, but you’ll be surprised how many people have told me that you need to write something about this.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Yes.

Rocka
But eggs are like one of the biggest things, I mean, you put them in, you just crumble them up and you put them in your garden and even if you’re not a vegetable grower, your flowers will benefit from it and it’s something we’re putting in garbage cans.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
I am going to do this because I have a lot of plants and I didn’t know. Yes, you need to write a book.

Rocka
So one tip I give people over here is you don’t need a compost bin, you don’t even need a big yard where you can bury your kitchen waste. At the end of the day, put some water in a blender, blend it all up and pour it in your flower beds, pour it in your yard, in your house plants, that’s it. You don’t have to wait for it to compost, you don’t have to bury it and have flies and stuff, none of that thing will happen, but you’ll get the benefits of all the nutrients that are going down the drain and you’re going somewhere to buy plant food and fertilizer.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
True, true, you are right. So Rocka, I’m going to take a couple of commercials and then when we come back, I want to talk with you about how you can help us entrepreneurs here with your different workshops and what you can do for us here, and especially me. So everyone, don’t go away, we will be right [Music] [Music] back [Music] [Music] [Music] m [Music] m m m.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
All right Rocka, so tell us all about your program and how you help entrepreneurs here.

Rocka
So my focus working with entrepreneurs is all about staying connected for the reason why you became an entrepreneur. And one of the biggest reasons is because we want to provide better for our families, right? We risk everything, our life savings, sometimes even our retirement plans to create a business that will provide for our families. Sometimes what we forget to do is have a conversation with those people to say, hey, I’m going to do this, are you with me or am I going to have resistance? Because once they’re with you, there’s a whole different kind of energy in the kind of work you do, the kind of results you produce. So I always start with your core values, aligning with who you really are, really asking the question, why am I doing this? Is it just for the money or is there something else? Because if there’s something else, you are more likely to continue with it and want to prove something. If it’s for the money, you’ll find so many other things that will distract you, right? At least that’s my belief.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Okay.

Rocka
So in my program, and I’m starting that program end of January for eight weeks, it’s called Propel 24 and it’s all about grounding yourself, revisiting why you’re in business, is it going where it needs to go, do you need to pivot? And during that eight weeks, I am on that journey right with you. It’s not so much as do it yourself as do it with me so that I can have you by the end of those eight weeks have a strong muscle that will keep you on target. And then of course, I offer a maintenance program after that, but that is my flagship. Propel is my flagship. That’s what I want to do is help startups get started with a very strong foundation.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
So if I wanted to start, let’s say I’m just now starting my business and like you say, your why, which is the most important thing, you know, why are you doing it? How most of us when we start a business, we want to make money. I mean, you know, it’s not a hobby. So how do you really reach in and find your why?

Rocka
Really, it is your core values will tell you where to go if you listen to it, right? Like I’ll take myself as an example. I started because I was seeing so many entrepreneurs spend money to do everything that they’re told to do, but they forget to do the most fundamental foundational piece, which is creating a plan, which is knowing will their resources sustain them for the 18 months to three years that it will take for your business to return a profit and in the process lose everything, right? We’ve heard of those stories. Becoming an entrepreneur, it sounds glamorous, but you and I have been in the trenches, we know it’s not glamorous if it’s anything else but that, right? It’s not the Instagram posts or the Facebook posts of five-star resorts and private jet planes, but you want to get there, you want to get there, but you want to get there the right way. You can’t risk your entire life’s savings to get there.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Yeah.

Rocka
And it’s like they say, you first need to learn to crawl before you’re running and then you need to train for the marathon before you run a marathon because otherwise you’re gonna get sick in the first mile.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Yeah, yeah.

Rocka
Right? So I take the same principle and I tell my clients, just look around you, look at nature, right? Simple thing, look at how you put your clothes on, you put your pants on one leg at a time, so why do you think in business you can run right away out the door?

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Yeah, I’m with you with that. You know, it’s a difference in working a nine-to-five and being an entrepreneur.

Rocka
It is because when you’re an entrepreneur, all those hats you’ve got on your head start looking like the leaning tower of Pisa.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Yeah.

Rocka
And the hours that you put in, you have to put those hours in.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Yes.

Rocka
If you think you’re gonna work three days a week and you’re gonna be successful, even with the technology we have and the social media influences, it’s still, if you don’t know what you’re really doing, it’s going to be hard. So be prepared for a roller coaster. It’s not a straight road, it’s not from A to B, it’s going to take you from A to C to D to E back to A and then to I.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Very true, very true.

Rocka
Right? And people look at it as something glamorous, oh, you’re doing this, you’re doing that, but what they don’t see is that work behind it and the frustration sometimes, you know, just things that go wrong, things that you think are going right and then, you know, sometimes you take five steps forward and then you take six steps back, then you only take two steps forward, so it, you know, until you get there. Now, in order to become an entrepreneur, I know you talk about relationships.

Rocka
Yes.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
So tell us, tell us about, oh, here’s a question, wait a minute, before I ask my question, here is a question from Gwendolyn Dunbar. She says, what has been your most successful venture or one that you have helped others with?

Rocka
Oh, I would have to say it would definitely have to be the farm in Kenya. It is run by women, it was started by a woman who was a widow. She came to my mindset class and over there, if you’re a widow, it’s almost like you don’t have a right to live anymore, you know, nobody listens, nobody talks to you, nobody values you, you’re just part of the furniture. And when she came, she was like, you know, that’s all fine and good in the white person’s world, but it doesn’t work here for us. And she was a challenge, but she was also my big win because today she is teaching other people how to do rabbit farming, how to do chicken farming. She actually only had a quarter acre plot of land that her father had left her and she turned that into a farm. Today she owns five acres that are hers.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Wow.

Rocka
For a woman to own land in Africa is not easy.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Wow.

Rocka
But she owns five acres. Her goal is to buy more land as it becomes available in her neighborhood and she’s now teaching other women who are single mothers and who are widows how to start their own sustainability projects. So now they’re making soap, they’re making shampoo, they’re making, and I’ll say it but it’s not very pretty, they’re harvesting rabbit pee because apparently it is a very good pesticide.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Really?

Rocka
Yes, and they’re selling livestock rabbit in place of chicken because she can turn around the rabbit cycle in 90 days as opposed to how long it would take her to raise a chicken.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Really? Wow.

Rocka
So I would have to say that Hilda is my biggest success story. She’s amazing.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
That, that, that, that, wow, that is just wonderful. Well, I wanted to talk about a little bit about relationships. So as an entrepreneur and then with all the women that you were talking about in Africa and in Latin America, the relationships that you have to form and that you should form in order to be a successful entrepreneur, no matter what it is.

Rocka
Oh, that goes anywhere, Dr. Fortman.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Yeah.

Rocka
That is like anyone, you should never look at somebody as a ticket to something, right? You never know when that relationship will come in handy, so you always want to build relationships and actually nurture them. Nowadays, we don’t have to go to the post office to send a birthday card or a New Year’s greeting or any special occasion, right? It just takes a moment to send a text or an email and wish somebody a happy birthday. Oh my God, you know how you can build relationships like that?

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Yeah.

Rocka
Or genuinely ask somebody, how are you? Our automatic is to say, oh, everything’s good, but you know that everything is not good.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Yeah, right, right.

Rocka
It’s that kind word that you tell somebody that you never know how they can support you. And in building relationships, it’s not always asking for what they can do for you, sometimes it’s just offering to say, hey, I’m doing this, would you like something of that?

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Right, right.

Rocka
You’ll be surprised how many people open up.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
That’s very true.

Rocka
So I like to tell people that relationship and your network is really what your net worth is.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Okay.

Rocka
Because your clients are coming from them.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Very true.

Rocka
So if you have no relationship, you don’t have a net worth.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
I love that. So relationships are very important. I mean, you do what you do, right? Only thing is a good deed never goes unnoticed, any good deed, it never goes unnoticed. And sometimes just smiling at somebody might make their day.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
You know, that is the truth. You know, that is the truth. You know, you look at people sometimes and like you said, just smiling and just saying hello or you, yeah.

Rocka
And it’s okay if they don’t say hello to you, what’s the big deal?

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Right, right, right.

Rocka
But just you’re saying hello or acknowledging their presence there, you might be the only person that day that did that for them.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Very true, that’s very true because people have said that, I have said that, you know, like, you know, I was feeling so down in the dumps and I just looked at you and you smiled at me, you made my day, you know, and it does, it lifts you up.

Rocka
But we are so, we’re so trained socially, we are so trained to find the fault in everyone, right? But if we just start looking for that one good thing about them, one good thing that you can kind of authentically, don’t make it up because if you make it up, they’re going to know.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Right, right.

Rocka
But authentically, if you can tell somebody or give somebody a compliment about something they do or something you value about them, they might not even know that they do that that well.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Yeah, yeah.

Rocka
And you see the surprise and the delight or that you noticed that you.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Exactly, that you notice and that they matter.

Rocka
Because we’re such a microwave society that everything has to be instant and we’re so social, what do you say, while we are socially accessible, we have become the most isolated community in history.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
So do you mean when you say that, do you mean the United States or?

Rocka
I would think globally, a lot of people are that way because the system and the media tells us how we should be and if we are not that, we try to attain it at any cost, we will risk anything, right? Even committing criminal acts.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Yeah, and like you say, globally.

Rocka
Individually.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Individually, it’s an individual choice.

Rocka
Yeah, it’s not a, I don’t think it’s a cultural thing, I think it’s a personal choice of wanting to be somewhere.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Yeah, yeah.

Rocka
And I think the best way I can explain that is, you know, when I was growing up, there used to be this people trying to keep up with the Joneses.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

Rocka
Well, that hasn’t died, it’s just gone to a different level, right? Before it was the clothes, the car, the house, now it’s everything, the vacations, if we have nothing to discuss, we discuss our kids, our kids have to be better than that. And how much pressure are we putting on ourselves and our family?

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
That’s very true, you know.

Rocka
Yeah, we all need three meals, no matter if we have a 50-room house or a two-bedroom house, we can only sleep on one bed at a time, so why are we fighting over things instead of fighting for people?

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Yeah, yeah.

Rocka
I mean, look at the world right now, please. I think we’re looking for differences amongst us more now than we ever have in history, even though we had racism back then, even though we had class differences back then, education differences, restrictions, right? When you look around, even we as women, people are still trying to control us. We’re in the 21st century, why are you trying to control us?

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
I agree with you 100%.

Rocka
Our grandparents passed fighting the fight to give us equal rights, but we will let somebody sitting in an office tell us what’s right for and what’s not right for us.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Right, yeah, yeah.

Rocka
My dad used to say this story to me about, and it was more about racism than anything else, and he was like, you know what, don’t look at people from their color, look at them from who they are and what their character is.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Yes.

Rocka
Because if you were in an accident and you needed blood and you don’t know who gave it to you, are you going to give it back to them if it was somebody you didn’t like?

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Right, yeah.

Rocka
We all bleed red.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Thank you, we all bleed red. So Rocka, now this show is called Relationship Matters, so how can we build more meaningful relationships, especially with people on a global level?

Rocka
I think it’s talking, it’s exactly what you’re doing, bringing conversations to the table, exposing those people from global areas and different backgrounds, different cultures. One of the things that Dr. Fortman, that I would love to do and I haven’t figured out how to do this, is have five different women from different backgrounds, races, religion, talking about the differences because I strongly feel if anyone can bring things, communities together, it’s women.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Yeah, you know what, I would love it if we would have a female president because I think things would just be totally different, I really do.

Rocka
Things would be different, but it depends on who that is.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Well, yeah, very true.

Rocka
Right?

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Yeah.

Rocka
Women, I feel, when they’re in need of something, they don’t let their ego stand in between. They’ll say what’s needed and they’ll get it done. But in the past, I would say since the 40s, when women started going into the corporate world, we were forced to wear the pinstripe suit and stand up and be a man because that’s what we were compared to, were the men. And many of us from our generation got trained that way and we lost our ability to connect to women on a woman-to-woman level, which I’m so glad to see that the younger generation is breaking that barrier.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Yes.

Rocka
You know, especially after COVID, women standing up for what they’ll work for and what they won’t work for.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Yes.

Rocka
So as far as I’m concerned, relationships are hard to maintain, you know, it only takes a moment to break that relationship, take you a lifetime to build it, but when you build a web of relationships, you’ll never go alone.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
That’s very true. Now Rocka, we only got a couple of minutes, if people want to reach you, tell us how.

Rocka
They can call me, you have my phone number, I believe, on the screen, yes, the 305-842-3939. They can even text me on that number or send me an email at rocka@rockajoy.com and I will be more than glad to have a conversation with them.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
That’s wonderful, that’s wonderful because I’m really interested in the projects that you have with the women in Africa. So if you have one final word to leave with, but before then, wait a minute, it’s someone that made a comment here and I got to put it in here, it was about the eggs. Sandy Barney says, “My grandmother and mother did the egg thingy on their plants and now my daughter for her indoor plants and outdoor plants and gardens.”

Rocka
Guys, mothers and grandmothers have a lot of wisdom, so don’t write them off. I know genetically we were programmed that from our teenage years to our mid-20s, our parents know absolutely nothing, but that’s not the truth.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
No, it isn’t, no, no, it isn’t. If it’s one thing you want to leave the audience with, what is that?

Rocka
Always pick relationships, especially those with your family, over profits. Profits will come and go, families will always be there. Now, I’m not saying all families are going to be hunky-dory and it’s going to be, you know, the Brady Bunch, it’s not, but if there is authenticity and open communication where you stand your ground and have your boundaries, you’ll find that that power will take you forward in whatever venture, whether you choose to be a career person, whether you choose to be an entrepreneur, or whether you choose to be an influencer, it will take you a long way because your foundation is strong.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Well, thank you so much Rocka, your heart just comes all the way through.

Rocka
Thank you, Dr. Fortman.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
It just really does. I want to thank you so, you know, I see you on Women’s Prosperity Network and WPN, you know, WPN as we call it, you know, and but I’ve learned so much more about you, you are just a beautiful soul.

Rocka
Thank you.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
You really, really, really are and I want to thank you so much for being a guest on my show and audience members, okay, a lot of them midlife and senior women, it’s on the screen, write it down, 305-842-3939 or email her at rocka@rockajoy.com. Thank you so much Rocka and you have a beautiful blessed rest of your evening there in the 80 degrees in Miami, Florida.

Rocka
Oh well, I don’t want to hear that quite a weather for me.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
All right, thank you Dr. Fortman, it was amazing, thank you for bringing me in here and allowing me to speak to your community, it has been a pleasure and I hope to connect with you more and build a relationship.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Yes, yes, and thank you again, thank you so much. All right, wow, this has been amazing, I’ve learned so much, I know you have too and I’m really thinking about my eggs and how I’m going to use them for my plants, I’ve been throwing away eggshells. Sandy Barney, I do know you, you should have told me about these eggshells. But anyway, I want to thank all of you all for watching today, I know that you’ve learned a lot and Rocka brought you so much value. So I will see you again next week and my guest’s name is Matt Riman, R-I-M-A-N, and you know what, it’s kind of almost on the same level about organic foods and about helping you build your relationships with people. So I will see you again next week, someone I met in my, where was I, Palm Beach, and he’s from Australia and so he will be zooming in or coming in from Australia unless he has landed here in the United States. So I will see you again next time, have a beautiful blessed rest of your morning, afternoon, or evening. [Music]