Mimi Kwa (00:03):
People say life is a journey, not a destination, but how do you know you’re on the right path?
Jo Stanley (00:10):
If only we could see the signs when they appear.
Mimi Kwa (00:13):
Well, I’m Mimi Kwa.
Jo Stanley (00:14):
I’m Jo Stanley.
Mimi Kwa (00:16):
On A to Be, we speak to fascinating people about how they navigated their way to be here now, having profound impact on the world.
Jo Stanley (00:25):
We hope our conversations will help you reflect on everything you’ve been through to get here, the triumphs, challenges and bumps along the road.
Mimi Kwa (00:35):
If you haven’t already, find your own map to what matters.
Darcy Donavan (00:40):
When you have nothing to lose, when you come from nothing… I worked with A-list actors, A-list directors. I’m like, “You’re no better than me.” You have to believe in yourself. If you don’t, you’re going to have people tell you you’re too fat, you’re not talented, you’re too young, you’re too old. Somebody’s always going to have chatter.
Jo Stanley (00:59):
I am so excited about this guest. What a woman. I mean, how do we even describe her, Mimi?
Mimi Kwa (01:06):
Jo, I’m just going to say no wallflower.
Jo Stanley (01:09):
Definitely not. Our guest today is Darcy Donovan. You might know her from the movie Anchorman and a whole lot of other TV that she’s done.
Mimi Kwa (01:19):
She is a super accomplished actress, and we do dip into the bright lights of Hollywood, which let’s admit it, it’s always fun. But the fascinating thing that Darcy is doing now is demystifying Web3, if you haven’t heard about it, you’re about to, blockchain, and the one that I really want to understand, cryptocurrency.
Jo Stanley (01:40):
Yeah. She’s known as the Crypto Queen to millions of people around the world.
Mimi Kwa (01:45):
Millions.
Jo Stanley (01:46):
Millions. She’s really focused on helping women develop their skills in this area to achieve financial independence. I love it.
Mimi Kwa (01:53):
Here’s Darcy Donovan, veritable powerhouse.
Jo Stanley (01:58):
Oh, Darcy, it is such a delight to have you join us on A to Be.
Darcy Donavan (02:02):
I am so glad to be here. I’m really excited. I’m really looking forward to talking to you, ladies.
Jo Stanley (02:08):
Well, A to Be is about the journey from where a person begins on their path to sitting here today, so the A to B, right? It’s definitely not a straight line for you though, right? You have just had so many stop hops along the way. It’s like your path would look like a very squiggly line. What is the most surprising or most unexpected thing that you’ve done in your journey?
Darcy Donavan (02:32):
Well, I mean, making it to where I’m at. I would also have to say not having rich parents, not having parents that were in the entertainment industry or really had their own business. I mean, my mom was businesswoman of the year in Nashville, Tennessee several years ago. I mean, my mom always had a business sense about her, but at the same time, it’s like at a young age, when I was doing pageants, if there was something I wanted to do, I went out there and got the money. I went out there and hustled. I would go from place to place to business to business to get money that I needed. So to me, I earned it at my way from the ground up. I was self-made, and I’m definitely the opposite of Paris Hilton.
(03:25):
I think it’s like that underdog story, and people need to hear that. Yeah, I am much like a military coach. When I have business and stuff like that, I’m definitely an alpha female. I want to teach other women to be that way because a lot of women feel stifled with their voice, and they don’t speak out. Hey, listen. This was over years. It’s not like overnight, so I tell people with age comes wisdom, so don’t be scared of age. The thing is that I have people that come to me, and they’re in their 70s, they’re in their 80s. I help them with their businesses, and they’re thriving and doing great, better than they ever did in their 20s, 30s, or even their 40s.
Mimi Kwa (04:17):
Darcy, let’s stay with your childhood for a minute because we are just fascinated to know what that was like growing up in the environment that you did and having to be so self-sufficient. What is it or who was it who supported you or encouraged you? Where did you get that spark from to actually go out and do it on your own to an extent?
Darcy Donavan (04:41):
I don’t know. I just had a defiant attitude. I don’t know. I was always… If somebody told me I couldn’t do something, I would be like, “Oh, I’m going to show you.” My mom’s kind of the opposite. I love my mother, don’t get me wrong, but my grandmother was a full-blooded German, very straightforward to the point, did not filter anything, and she would just say it like it is. I’d be like, “Grandma, I’m going to do a beauty pageant. I’m going to do it.” “You ain’t doing no beauty pageant.” She’d just say it like that like [inaudible 00:05:14]. My grandfather was just an Italian. He was super smart, super sweet, but very quiet. My grandfather was always there, and it’s like it’s the type of person, he never had one enemy. You never heard him speak an ill word about anybody. He says, “If you don’t have anything nice to say about anybody, just don’t say it.” I mean, he served in the military, so he was really somebody that I looked up to.
(05:38):
But my parents divorced when I was two, and my dad was going to go pro baseball. So my dad’s a coach. My dad is very alpha, and they divorced when I was two. My mom moved to Nashville, and my dad moved back to a town that’s like an hour away from Nashville. So he moved back to his hometown, and my mom was a single mom raising me pretty much. I mean, I did have three brothers with my dad, and I feel like they’re my brothers. I mean, I did grow up with them, but I’ve always been around boys. It was like nobody ever felt sorry for me. It’s like if I fell down and broke my jaw while I was playing, my dad would be like, “Fix your jaw.” I’d be like, “Okay. Like this?” My dad, he’d be like, “Oh, you’re fine. Here. Let’s just try to get you back and play. Oh, just walk it off.” He didn’t care.
Jo Stanley (06:43):
Darcy, I love that I read you said, or maybe I heard it in a podcast with you where you said, “I can hold my own in any room.” I just was like, “That’s something I aspire to.” I’m learning still. I think there are rooms where I am intimidated, and I hate that about myself.
Darcy Donavan (07:02):
No.
Jo Stanley (07:02):
So what is it about you? I mean, you say that you’re naturally defiant, but have you had to learn to silence that imposter syndrome, that voice in your head that says you’re not worthy?
Darcy Donavan (07:12):
No. I think, okay, the way that you… If you have nothing to lose, like I’ve came from nothing. There have been times where like when you have nothing to lose, when you come from nothing, and it’s like money doesn’t matter. You know what I mean? Does that make sense? Then, you’re just kind of like, you walk in and you just don’t care. You don’t let them see you sweat. But it’s like I worked with A-list actors, A-list directors. I’m like, “You’re no better than me. We get up the same way. We rise and shine. We go to the restaurant. I mean, you’re no better than me.” That’s the way I feel.
Mimi Kwa (07:45):
What we are so interested in in our conversations that Jo and I have on A to Be is those moments when you had your own sliding door moment. In your case, what was it or when was it that you kind of had that moment where somebody said, “You are a star. I’m recognizing you now, Darcy Donovan, as being the star that you already knew that you were.” What was that moment for you?
Darcy Donavan (08:14):
I’ve had it since I was a kid. I told people that I was going to do it, and they said, “No, you’re not going to do it.” I said, “Yeah. Yeah, I am.” I made my own way. You have to believe in yourself. If you don’t, you’re going to have people tell you, you’re too fat, you’re too this, you’re not talented, you can’t do this, you’re a woman, you’re too young, you’re too old. Somebody’s always going to have chatter is what I call.
Mimi Kwa (08:41):
But was there something in there that was your biggest break? Was it breaking into Hollywood, getting the role in an international movie? What was the time when you thought, “That’s my big break”?
Darcy Donavan (08:54):
Well, it was interesting. I won a pageant. I won a Miss Nashville, Tennessee pageant, so that was a big deal. Won that. They always give you prizes. “Hey, you won this.” So one of the prizes was to go to a acting coach. Now, I had been in drama. I was in theater through college and then high school and stuff. I’ve done stuff, and then I beat out kids for a commercial when I was a kid. But it was like I liked it and stuff and I enjoyed it, but I didn’t see it as, “Oh, this is what I’m going to do.” It was always music, music, music. I was following my music career.
(09:32):
So the interesting thing was won this certificate, went to him, one-on-one coach with this big Hollywood acting coach. So I go and he’s like, “Hey, I’m going to put you on camera.” So he puts me on camera. Yeah, I gave him my CD because I was more proud of my music, and he looks at it. He’s like, “Okay, listen. I’m going to sit you down.” After we did two or three scenes, and he taped it, he goes, “Listen, I listened to your music. You got a great voice. I love your music.” He says, “But you’re a phenomenal actress.” He goes, “You really need to go to Hollywood.” I go, “What?” Yeah, I’m like, “Really?” He was like, “Yeah.” He had me cry on cue, and there were scenes that I had to do because I found out my father had cancer. There was all these emotional scenes that he had me do, and he’s like, “I haven’t seen anybody with your level that I’ve had in my classes.” He says, “You need to go.” Coming from somebody like that, I was like… Yeah, then you’re kind of like, “What?”
(10:34):
So I just was like, “Okay.” So the real critics were… I’m like, okay. My fiance at the time, very direct. He was very nice to me, but he would tell me, “Darcy, that doesn’t look good on you. I don’t think it’s a good idea.” He’d tell me certain things like, “Oh, I like you with less makeup,” or “I like this on you.” I mean, he was just very straightforward. “You did a horrible job. I hate the way you sang that.” He would just tell me, so-
PART 1 OF 4 ENDS [00:11:04]
Darcy Donavan (11:03):
… a horrible job. I hate the way you sang that. He would just tell me. So I thought, “Okay, they’re going to…”… and he was with his buddies watching football. So they had the break, the halftime. So I said, can I show you this tape? And you all just lay it out. Now I’m thinking they’re going to tell me, yeah, “This guy’s just full of crap. He just wanted your money,” which I didn’t have to pay him. I’m like, “I won the thing, so it was free.” I was just like, “They’re going to tell me.” All four of them looked at it and they’re watching it, and I’m just biting my fingernails going, “Oh god.” And my ex-fiancee looked at me and he says, “We got to go to Hollywood.” And I went “What?” And he goes, “We got to go to Los Angeles.” And I was like, “Really?” And so he goes, “Yeah.”
(11:46):
I will say that he was very, very… the catalyst for a lot of things, because he had a friend that… his best friend ended up moving to California, which was just so… it was just crazy how it happened. So then we went and stayed at his place and got kind of… That’s what California does. People come here and they fall in love with the town. It’s insane. You come and then you don’t want to leave. And that’s how it happened. It just started from there. I got out of soap opera, and boom, boom, boom, boom.
Jo Stanley (12:17):
Wow. I think we have to acknowledge, and it can’t be overstated, or even underestimated, how that’s a big thing to come from Nashville, to just suddenly go to LA. And as you say, self-made, not rich parents. That actually is a harder thing than probably people realize.
Darcy Donavan (12:38):
Yeah. There’s a lot of people that don’t want to leave their small towns. There’s people that don’t want to leave the comfort, but it’s like, I was out at 17 years of age, I was out on my own. So I feel like when you’re kind of in the survival mode and then you kind of grow up at a younger age, I feel like that kind of makes you more in tune with the world and what’s going on. I loved my family and everything, but it’s like my career, that was my thing. I always put that first. It was God first, and then career.
(13:14):
That’s what I always wanted to be. I always wanted to be successful. Even at a young age, I said, “This is what I’m going to do.” The acting and my music career and all the businesses that I work with, I wouldn’t have it any other way. Diamonds are made under pressure. I was always under pressure, so I was very rough around the edges. And then it’s just, I tell you, wisdom, as you get older, you start to get the ethic factor is what I call it. You start to just be like, “Eh.” You don’t care. It’s like, “Eh.”
Mimi Kwa (13:47):
Yeah. And I really believe when you detach from the outcome, things just fall into place so much more beautifully than when you are obsessed with how things are going to turn out, don’t you find?
Darcy Donavan (14:03):
Oh yeah. And here’s the deal. I don’t care what anybody… I don’t care if somebody doesn’t like me. I don’t care what people… I always will be Southern and respectful. If you don’t respect me, then I’m not going to respect you. But at the same time, I mean, my kryptonite is my mother. I’ll say that. And so a lot of times when I had stuff to do or visit me, I will not talk to her, because I’m like, “She’s not going to ruin this meeting.” But anybody else could say stuff. It’s just really me. It’s just my mother.
Mimi Kwa (14:34):
I think that’s how mothers or fathers for most of us.
Darcy Donavan (14:35):
She calls me baby girl. I’ll never forget, when she was working in human resources one time, she’s like, “I want you all to meet my baby girl.” And I walk in, they’re thinking a toddler or something, and I walk in and I’m all deck out and stuff. They’re like, “Baby girl?”
Mimi Kwa (14:53):
You’re so grown up, baby girl.
Darcy Donavan (14:58):
Yeah, exactly. I’m like, “Ugh.”
Jo Stanley (15:00):
Oh, Darcy, you make me laugh.
Jo Stanley (15:01):
You bring so much wisdom and you wrote a book, Darcy’s Daily Dose of Inspiration, and I know that your work on your social media is so much about inspiring. There it is. Oh my God. It’s literally a daily, not just one little quote, but really intense kind of lessons in there. I just love it, because it doesn’t pull any punches. You really hold us to account. You really kind of challenge people to step into your own power and not be passengers in your life, right?
Darcy Donavan (15:34):
Well, thank you. Here’s the deal. Okay, listen, everybody has their own gift. Like Mimi, she’s gifted in certain ways that I’m not. Joe, you’re gifted in certain ways that I’m not. And everybody needs to understand that they have their gifts and to bring them out, and to nourish that. But not everybody’s a great singer, and they think they’re a great singer, and they’re not. And then there’s people that think they’re great actors and they’re not. I’m like, “Okay, go behind the scenes.” Listen, I would love to be able to draw. I have friends that make the beautifulest paintings. I cannot draw a stick man to save my life. When we’re playing Pictionary, the game where you draw, I’m the last one to get on a team, but I’m a good picker. I’m like, “Pick me. We’ll win, because I’ll figure it out.” But I can’t draw.
Mimi Kwa (16:24):
You’re like “Play to your strengths.” You’re very much a play-to-your-strengths woman. I just want to segue into what you are doing now in the business world, which is so many things, but one of them is the cryptocurrency, and a whole galaxy of things that I certainly do not fully understand. So I’m hoping that you are going to be able to illuminate us a little bit around what you are doing in this crypto, NFT, Web 3 world.
Darcy Donavan (16:56):
The one thing I want to say is that we got to think about in 1992, about computer and the internet and how it came out. It was not huge. And then it was like, people don’t realize that to use it, it eventually, if you wanted to buy something, you had to call an 800 number, talk to a person, then punch your credit card in. And people were like, “Oh my God.” I don’t know if they had that in Australia or anything, but in the US, it was like Y2K is what they called it. Everybody was going to die in year 2000. I had neighbors that literally were bringing bunches of water in their garage because they were like, “This is the end.” And people were like-
Mimi Kwa (17:39):
Yes, a bomb shelter situation.
Darcy Donavan (17:42):
Yeah. And people were like, “the internet is evil. It’s of the devil. It’s so bad.” We didn’t even have this. What we’re doing right now, this wasn’t even ever thought of. It was just like, just to watch how everything happened. So I tried to do things. Okay, we know I love men. Men, I love you. I’m just saying, some guys like to hear their own voice and they like to talk these big words. I try to do things relatable so that people can understand. And that’s what a lot of the media was saying. You make things relatable so that there is mass adoption and people can understand.
(18:17):
What we’ve got to understand is throughout history, there has been numerous shifts in the way that we pay for things. Like let’s go back to when you would trade a pig for a chicken. Then it was jewels, gold and silver. Then banking started to evolve, and you would see lines of credit and paper money. So then when we moved to paper money and credit cards, then online payment processing began. So crypto is just the next evolution to that, where everything is tracked instead of online banking servers are tracked, it’s like hundreds and thousands of computers all around the world.
(18:58):
So if you think about it’s much safer than traditional banking, because bank servers can get hacked, and while someone may be able to hack a few computers, they’re not going to be able to hack hundreds of computers. You know what I mean? They’re not going to be able to do that. So that’s the one thing that I was looking at. I was like, “This is a big deal.” Then I always tell people, “You don’t want to be the smartest person in the room, and if there is the smartest person in the room, go out there and hang out with them. See what they know. Ask them, “How did you make it? What did you do?”
(19:30):
I’m always very inquisitive, and people love to talk about themselves. So you’re basically going to school for free. Especially men. Men love it, ladies. They love it. I mean, you ask a guy about a car, and he’ll be like, “Oh, you put the shift on the [inaudible 00:19:46] and then you go like that.” And my mom’s telling me, my stepdad, he will build cars. He is so talented, but he’ll sit there for an hour and just tell her about stuff and she’s just like, “Do-do-do-do-do, oh yeah, that’s great.” She has no idea what he’s saying. No clue. But afterwards, he’s so excited because she told him a bunch of stuff. But you can learn a lot of things by going to meetings, meeting other successful women, because everybody always gives their own tidbit of great information and business information.
(20:22):
I’m very excited, because the A-list actor told me to diversify. He was like, “Use what you’re doing with the entertainment industry, he goes, and what he said he does, and if you see it’s like The Rock. He’s doing beer or something, vodka. A lot of other actors are doing perfumes or they’re doing vegan stuff, like “Hey, I want to do a vegan…”
(20:48):
Gwyneth Paltrow has Goop. So that’s the one thing I always tell people, especially women. Diversify, diversify, diversify. And always have a plan B. I cannot stress this enough. It’s good to love a man, it’s good to be in a relationship, but you always have that plan B. It’s kind of if a fire is in your house, what’s going to happen if it’s in your bedroom? Do you have a way to get out of it? Do you have a way to pivot? Because us as women… it is a male-dominated industry.
Mimi Kwa (21:24):
I just love that you’ve said that about diversification, having a plan B, because I’ve done so many things in my career and so many people have said to me, “Oh, why don’t you just stick to one thing?”, and you just hit the nail on the head? It is about having-
Darcy Donavan (21:38):
See? Yeah. Beat the noise. Everybody thinks they know everything.
Mimi Kwa (21:49):
Web 3. I’ve been looking it up, I’ve been trying to educate myself around Web 3, but I still don’t quite get it.
Darcy Donavan (21:55):
Well, Web 3 encompasses crypto, NFTs, the Metaverse, and anything-
PART 2 OF 4 ENDS [00:22:04]
Darcy Donavan (22:03):
… Ts. The metaverse and anything using blockchain technology. That’s the next evolution in technology, finance, and social engagement.
Mimi Kwa (22:11):
So, how will I use it, though?
Darcy Donavan (22:14):
Well, the blockchain is decentralized. It’s like a digital ledger. Does that make sense? That allows for secure and transparent transactions. So, you see what other people are doing. If you’re investing in a company or you’re a holder of an NFT, you can actually see, hey, is that money going to what they said it’s going to be going? Me, as an investor, am I going to get that? Just think of it as a digital version of a jewelry box. It keeps your valuables safe, and it keeps them organized.
Jo Stanley (22:50):
But can we access Web3 now? How do we access that?
Darcy Donavan (22:54):
Oh, yeah. Yeah. There’s several ways to access it. It depends on what you want to do. Do you want to get an NFT? Do you want to get into crypto? Do you want to get into the metaverse? I’m a co-owner of a metaverse, so it’s like you got to get a crypto wallet first. The one thing I will tell for everybody watching, I tell everybody, so everybody listening, get involved with Twitter spaces. You can go to my Twitter space every Saturday at 3:00 PM PST. It’s called StarDawg Saturdays. And we talk about… We let people come up, any questions that they want to ask. And we have people ask, “I don’t know what to do. I’ve started my own… I’ve started training or I’ve looked on television and the internet, and I don’t understand.” I tell people it’s good to do your research.
(23:53):
It’s good to go on YouTube. YouTube has a lot of tutorials, a lot of things that can benefit them to help with Web3. I suggest watching videos on YouTube. I’m telling you a lot of amazing information, and don’t believe everything that you hear. Always do your research and investigate. I’m very well-known in the space. I work with some of the biggest companies in the space. But here’s the deal. Right here, you two right now, where you’re at and you don’t know anything, you could be billionaires. And let me tell you why. Because we’re only in 5% of Web3. It’s like being at the bottom of Amazon or Google, okay? And the NFT space that I’m in is less than that. It’s 4%.
Mimi Kwa (24:36):
Let’s go, billionaires.
Darcy Donavan (24:40):
Exactly. And I’m talking about the whole world. I’m talking about out of the entire universe. Only a minute… There’s only five to 4% that know about all this. So, you’ve got to think of how it was in 1992. If somebody said, “Hey, I got a thing called the internet. Do you want to invest in it? Do you want to want to be part of it?” So, Jo and Mimi, how rich do you think you’d be right now?
Jo Stanley (25:02):
I don’t really understand it.
Mimi Kwa (25:09):
Darcy, I have to say that in terms of like a woman, Darcy, in terms of a woman who is impacting the world across generations, I’ve got four children, and I’ve interviewed a lot of well-known people. And whenever I mentioned to my kids who I’m interviewing, they’re like, “Who?” But when I said your name, my 17-year-old son was like, “I know exactly who she is.” He trades in crypto. And I was like, “Oh my gosh, hallelujah. Finally, someone my kids know as well.” It’s like you are reaching so many different generations with the work that you’re doing.
Darcy Donavan (25:45):
And you tell them, I’ll give them a hug. And give me your address, and I’ll send them something.
Mimi Kwa (25:49):
We would love that.
Darcy Donavan (25:52):
I’ll send him some set photos of film set stuff that we’ve done. But the thing is that this is really like we’re, again, at the bottom of everything. And it’s very exciting because I’m telling you nine-year-olds are in this. We had a 15-year-old, well, he was at the time I met him, he was 14. I was a keynote speaker at a convention. And this little boy, I’m like, “Man, I want to invest into him. He is smart.” Just so intelligent. And he was only like 14.
Jo Stanley (26:29):
Let me ask because I’m not nine. My feeble mind. I know that you’re working on an NFT Web3 film project, right? So, where will we see that?
Darcy Donavan (26:41):
Okay, we’re working on it right now. What we are doing right now is we are basically the NFTs are, you all know, non-fungible tokens. The project was inspired by my rescue dog, Max. So, he’s like my guiding star, hence StarDawgs. The project is really cutting about through the red tape in Hollywood because it takes people years, and some people, decades, decades. And they don’t even ever make it at all. And they spend hundreds and thousands of dollars on classes, headshots, acting coaches, whatever. But StarDawgs is changing all that. So, I’m giving opportunities for people in Web3 as well as people that want to be on the crew or want to be having a speaking role in a movie. StarDawgs is what we call the golden ticket to Hollywood. And that’s what we’re doing because I want to give more people the opportunity that would’ve never had the chance. God, I wish I had this chance when I was a kid.
Mimi Kwa (27:49):
Now, it was a really great segue when you’re talking about kids and how kids just get it. They get it so much more quickly than grownups do. This brings us to our section of the show where we bring an origin story that may have some relevance to the conversation, and it may, and I hope, surprise and delight you and Jo.
Jo Stanley (28:13):
I love it, Mimi.
Mimi Kwa (28:15):
This story is about how a little boy, a nine-year-old boy, in fact, influenced the name and is responsible indirectly for the name of a very well-known household name. And I won’t reveal what it is because the reveal will come at the end. The story begins in 1920 when a nine-year-old boy, called Milton, was reading a comic book, and he loved the main character of that comic book so much that he inspired his mathematician uncle to name a previously unrecognized number with the name of the comic book character.
(28:55):
Now, the number was 10 to the power of a hundred. That’s 10 with a hundred zeros after it. If we fast-forward to 1995 at Stanford University, where two friends came up with a computer search engine, they called it BackRub. Now, luckily, they changed the name of the search engine-
Jo Stanley (29:23):
BackRub’s terrible.
Mimi Kwa (29:23):
Because they got some feedback from people.
Jo Stanley (29:24):
It’s a terrible name.
Mimi Kwa (29:24):
BackRub. It’s a bad name for a search engine. So, instead, they were inspired by this idea of the expression of one followed by… Or 10 followed by a hundred zeros to reflect their mission of organizing the world’s information to make it universally accessible and useful.
Jo Stanley (29:43):
Got it.
Mimi Kwa (29:43):
And Google was born.
Jo Stanley (29:43):
Mimi Kwa (29:46):
I know. So, a nine-year-old boy came up with Google in 1920.
Jo Stanley (29:55):
It was a cartoon or a comic that used this word, Google.
Mimi Kwa (29:58):
It was a comic book. And the comic book character was called Barney Googol, G-O-O-G-O-L. And so, that just morphed into Google as we know it with an L-E on the end. And so, little did nine-year-old Milton know in the 1920s, that his favorite comic book character Barney Googol, would one day become the multinational juggernaut that it is now. And obviously, Google, as Darcy would know all too well, is a very centralized place where we get our information, and what you are promoting is the decentralization of currency and a whole lot of other things.
Darcy Donavan (30:35):
Well, we’re giving power to the people. That’s what we’re doing. And we need it. I think that it’s the same thing with Hollywood. I don’t really don’t think, there’s not even any women’s studio heads really. There’s some, but not very many. You don’t hear it. We have some directors, lady directors that are coming out, but it’s not like it’s a common thing. The thing is that we need more alpha females leading the space, and especially in a technology where it’s male-dominated, it’s good to see that. But something that Jo said earlier kind of still stuck with me. I have people on my team, and they look at me, and they’re like, “Darcy, I don’t know how you do it. I can’t get up at four in the morning and talk to the media and then have three other… I don’t know how you do it.”
(31:27):
They would literally have hives if they were talking to you right now. But they’re amazing women. These women, it’s hilarious. They could do laps around a pool when it comes to graphics, computer stuff. They’re right up there, but this is not their wheelhouse. So, what I tell everybody is, “Get with the team.” What I see is that some people, it’s like everybody sometimes wants to be the leader, or this, or that, but you can’t. There’s a thing that I did in this space, and I talked about it. You all know the Rolling Stones, right? They’re a huge band, and they’ve stood the test of time, but not everybody’s a Mick Jagger, but you also had everybody else in that band that was an integral part of the Rolling Stones to make it the huge band that it is today.
(32:23):
And so, everybody on my team, we’re like a SEAL team, and it’s a lot of women. There’s a lot of women that work for me. But my thing is that I empower them to be better. I want women to be better, but I also hold them to a high standard. I don’t let women feel sorry for themselves. I don’t sit there, and I’m like, “No, no, no, no, you’re going to get up. We’re going to fix this.” I don’t care what anybody says. There’s always an answer, always. I don’t care who you are. There always is an answer. And for people that sit there and tell you they know everything, or this, or that, no. There’s all…
PART 3 OF 4 ENDS [00:33:04]
Darcy Donavan (33:03):
… sit there and tell you they know everything or this or that. No. You should be learning every single day. The person who you are right now, next year we talk again, we should be completely different. We should say, “This happened and this happened and this happened.” And my hair might be up to here. Who knows? I may have a Mohawk. I don’t know. But the thing is we should always be excelling. If you told me I was going to do a book, I’d have told you you’re crazy. But the thing is, then I did a book. I would’ve never. When I was 19, 20 or in my early twenties, I would’ve never thought about doing that. And so it’s just, you kind of got to go with what life is calling you.
(33:42):
And the main thing is that women need to understand that it’s a known fact that men outnumber women four to one in tech jobs. That’s just the way it is. But you got to hold your own. I do feel like that translates to Web3 as well, with men outnumbering women approximately two to one. It’s pretty crazy. Or six to one.
Jo Stanley (34:10):
But you know what I love? What I love Darcy and I see now actually that Web3 and the decentralization of it is kind of a metaphor for exactly what you have done, which is taking back the power from the people who own the centralized service, right? Web3 allows us to do that. And you have done that in your entire life. You have just gone, “You know what? I’m going to go in and take it. I’m not waiting for the people that own it to give it to me.” I think that’s a really beautiful metaphor.
Darcy Donavan (34:40):
I love you, Jo. I love that. Yeah, and that’s exactly it. If somebody’s like, “Hey, you can’t do …,” I’m like, “Yeah.” “Oh, you can’t get … No, there’s a fire. We’re all going to die.” I’m like, “Oh, hell no we’re not. Get out that tool over there. We’re going to cut right through the wall.” And that’s how you have to look at it.
Jo Stanley (34:56):
Yeah. And look everything Darcy that you said is so inspiring and motivating, but we always love to ask our guests, what is it that you would say to describe what it is to be Darcy Donovan? What is your being? What is the beingness of you? Setting aside all of the achievements and the accomplishments and all of the work that you’ve done, all of the adventures that you’ve had, what is it to just be in this place now within you?
Darcy Donavan (35:30):
I would say be tenacious. Don’t ever give up. That’s the thing. When you give up, it’s not how many times you get hit or get messed over or betrayed. It’s how many times you come back. And that’s the big thing. People look at me and they’re like, “Oh, you had it so easy.” They have no idea. Oh my God. People that know my backstory when I’ve sitting and told them, they go, “I am surprised you’ve not gone to drugs. I’m surprised that you’ve not tried to commit suicide.” Knowing my backstory. Because I really came from some rock … There was some hard stuff. My mom married someone who was a very horrible man and did horrible things to us and sexually abused me. And I was nine years of age. So it’s like then I’m having to take care of my mom after he beat her up and put her head together and take her to the hospital and at a young age.
(36:31):
And it just kind of made me grow up fast and go, “Okay, nobody is going to come here to save me. I got to sit here and figure this out.” And that’s how it’s always been with me. And you kind of go into survival mode. And what I tell parents, the worst thing you can do is let your kids … Sometimes you got to let them … When you’re teaching them to swim, sometimes they got to swallow some water. Okay? They got to go to [inaudible 00:36:57] to learn how to swim. And I think that when you coddle … I see that a lot when you coddle too much and people aren’t experiencing like … Listen, I have friends and I love them to death. I think they’re amazing, but they’ve lived what I call in a bubble. Okay? So then when they got out onto the real world, they didn’t have anything of … They didn’t have any idea of really how to hustle, I call it, navigate, deal with things.
(37:31):
And there’s two stories that everybody can have. Everybody here listening there’s two stories you can put in your head. There’s a story of a father who was a drunk and he was an alcoholic. He beat his kids. He was just terrible, would do horrible things to them. So when the two boys grew up … He had two sons. So when they grew up, the one son was like … He became an alcoholic. He became abusive to his wife and his kids. And his thing was, “Well, this is what I was taught. This is what I had … So this is how … This is all I know.” Now the other son became almost a billionaire and he says, “I don’t want to be anything like my father.” He’s like, “I don’t want to be anything like him.” He’s like, “I wanted to be successful and I want to sit here and I don’t ever want anybody to think that I can’t be the best I can be.”
(38:27):
So there’s two stories that … People become addicts. They get, “Oh, I had a horrible childhood. Now I’m drinking.” And people do that. They do. They mask their pain through drinking, through drugs, through all kinds of things. And it’s sad and I understand that. I really do. But at the same time, what people have also got to do is you got to sit here and go, “I got to take care of myself.” And I’m not saying it in a selfish way. I feel like you should be a good person and really sit here and always be respectful, be nice, but be an example.
Jo Stanley (39:04):
So Darcy, then, just to try and wrap this up, because it’s been very fascinating, and there’s so much in this conversation, I have to say. One last question for you. Darcy, what would you say then to that nine year old who is living the world of such extreme hardship, but also there was something in you that knew that you were going to work to be a success? What would you say to that nine year old now?
Darcy Donavan (39:30):
I would tell her. I was like, “Don’t give up. Be tenacious. Don’t ever give up.” It’s when you give up and you lose out on your dream, then that could have been the instant that everything came true. So that’s what I would say. Success is earned.
Jo Stanley (39:51):
I love it.
Darcy Donavan (39:51):
Don’t give up, Mimi.
Jo Stanley (39:51):
Don’t give up. We love you Darcy Donovan.
Darcy Donavan (39:52):
I love you too. You’re always so magnificent. I love you.
Jo Stanley (39:59):
Thank you for listening. We love you joining us for our A to Be chats.
Mimi Kwa (40:03):
Yes, we do. Please see our show notes for our acknowledgement of country and all the people who help us put this podcast together, as well as interesting links to our guest’s work and other references we’ve mentioned.
Jo Stanley (40:14):
Such as your frequently unverified quotes.
Mimi Kwa (40:18):
Yes, I may still need to check a few of those. Thank you.
Jo Stanley (40:21):
We’re Jo-
Mimi Kwa (40:22):
And Mimi from A to Be. Rate and follow and get in touch on our website.
Jo Stanley (40:28):
And let us know who’s A to Be you’d like to find out about.
Mimi Kwa (40:31):
We can’t wait for you to hear our next conversation.