Welcome to another episode of Inspiring Women, the podcast that celebrates the stories of extraordinary women from all walks of life. I am your host, Betty Collins. Join us for an inspiring conversation that will leave you ready to take on the world.

Hi, and welcome back to the Inspiring Women podcast with Betty Collins. But today, you have me, Katie Humphries, also an inspiring woman. And I'm joined today by Jessica Kenimer. She is the events coordinator at the WSBA. She's also a mental health therapist, and she's Betty Collins' niece. So today, we are going to talk about Betty and how she inspires us and about her career journey. So if you haven't listened to the previous episode about Betty's career, you should go listen to that first and then come listen to us reflect on it. Hi, Jessica.

Thanks for joining me today.

Thanks for having me, Katie.

So today, we're gonna talk about Betty. Great. She's my mentor at work. She's your aunt Yep. As well as you work with her in a professional setting. So tell us about your relationship with Betty Collins.

Oh, so, namesake. My middle name is her middle name. So there's that part. We go with that.

Personal branding.

Right? Yeah. Yeah. So Betty to me has just always been aunt, and that has come with its own, personal brand of Betty. Right? The Betty Collins.

The f Betty Collins. Yes. Yes.

Yeah. So she she has always been that. She's always been getting into trouble and taking us along with her. So pretty sure my, my first bikini as

a Oh, wow.

Was her fault. Earrings, her faults. Like, everything.

Yeah. She gave you your first can of Pepsi. Probably. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. So she's

the cool aunt. Very much. Yeah.

So I know you because we work on the women's leadership conference together. Yes. So you work through the WSBA. I work through BradyWare, and we're kind of planning that together. When did you start working on the conference?

So I started with the WSBA in April of twenty nineteen. And one of the first things I did with WSBA was attending the conference meetings while they were planning. I really had no idea what was going on. Didn't know what we were getting into, but it was a great time. We had a lot of fun. So really, since the very beginning of working with the WSBA and in 2019, I've come

Love it. What year is it now?

Twenty twenty five. Wow. Yeah. So six years

Six years of being the backbone of the conference.

Supporting member

and the

maybe backbone. But if you ask them to

come beside you, they'll be like, she's the heart and soul of the conference. She's making all the decisions, really. The the lady behind Betty Collins. What do

you Yeah. I've I've had some people tell me I'm like the wizard in the of Oz, like, making the things happen behind the

curtain, and then you

find out it's just

me. It's just you. Okay. So we both listened to Betty's episode earlier this month. She talked all about her career, about seasons of life was a big theme in that episode. So she talked about how in her twenties, she felt like she was checking all the boxes of, like, what a stereotypical 20 woman should do. Yeah. So, like, getting married, graduating college, getting her job, like, having kids, that kind of stuff.

And then her thirties, she kind of alluded to everything, like, not going so great. Yeah. Like, going through a lot of stuff Yeah. Is what she is saying. I don't know.

A little bit rocky, maybe. I don't know if