(upbeat music) >> Coming up, we have the go-to sources for hope.

>> There's this feeling of this is not just about me, this is about not only my family, it's about all of the employees at the business and this extended community that was really feeling the same pain.

>> Narrator: The Whitney Reynolds Show is supported by Sciton because results matter, Leigh Marcus with @properties, sold on helping our community and closing homes.

O'Connor Law Firm, when it comes to your injuries, we take it personally.

Children's Learning Place, excellence in early childhood education since 1998.

Happy To Meat You, prime, fresh fast.

Theraderm Clinical Skin Care, committed to developing skincare products designed to restore skin health and promote natural beauty.

Special thanks to Kevin Kelly with Jamison Sotheby's International Realty, My Buddy's, Chicago, Love Your Melon, Brendon Studzinski at State Farm, Fresh Dental, Ella's Bubbles, UFC Wrigleyville, The CryoBar, Bark Busters, Leah Chavie Skincare, Deluxe Cleaning Service, STI Moving & Storage and by other sponsors.

(upbeat music) >> The hopefuls, people who've decided to push on despite their circumstances.

They've had valley and mountain moments but ultimately decide hope as their destination.

You're watching the Whitney Reynolds Show.

Jodi Levoy is a woman who found her life's calling in the midst of loss.

Her husband was shot and killed and overnight she became the decision-maker of their large company.

In the midst of grief and this new role, she uncovered a need.

A need that could bring hope to the next generation and that's where we begin.

Welcome to the show.

>> Thanks.

I'm happy to be here, Whitney.

Thanks for inviting me.

>> Well, we just saw your story play out and parts of your story are extremely hard.

Can you take us back to being in that zone of where you discovered, "I'm leading a company."

>> I can, and I can remember the specific day vividly when this happened, July 31st, 2014, beautiful day outside.

Sunny got a knock on the door from a policeman, from my local suburban policeman who told me that my husband had been gravely injured and that was it.

That's the only words he told me.

And he said, "Here's a piece of paper.

I want you to call the Chicago police officer."

And I'm like, "Well, can you tell me what happened with my husband?"

And no, they wouldn't.

I jumped in a car with my dad who took me downtown to the hospital and media was all out front.

And that was so hard, lack of privacy.

So I walk in my husband's in surgery 'cause he was shot both in his head and in his abdomen.

And so I never saw him, he never regained consciousness.

And that first day, really the first few hours at the hospital I was thinking about his parents, my children, our friends and then the next morning is when I thought, "Oh, wow I'm in charge of a company too."

And so it was crazy (laughs).

>> Yeah, that that experience has to be hard to relive on many levels and going back so the viewers understand more, he was shot by a coworker?

>> Shot by a coworker that had been employed with us for 10 plus years.

We'd been to their home, their personal home.

And he had been demoted four days prior to this incident and continued to meet with my husband throughout these four days.

And the day before this happened my husband came home and he said, "You know what?

I think this is gonna work.

I think he's going to take this new role and be okay with it."

And then the next day he showed up at work with a gun.

>> Showed up at work with a gun.

So your husband, he ended up passing away and... >> He did.

>> You were stuck running a company.

What was that like having not done that?

>> Yeah, as I mentioned earlier, 24 hours into this, I realized, "Oh my, I'm in charge of this business as well."

And fortunately early on the company was founded in 2000.

It was a little bit hands on deck back then, I was doing a little bit of everything as was everyone else.

And then I took eight years off to raise our three daughters.

However, Steve would come home every day and talk about what was going on at work, what the issues were, what the strategy was, the employees, the customers.

So I felt really in tune with what was going on.

I knew many of the employees and the customers.

So that part wasn't that hard.

And I remember looking at, I promoted from within a gentleman who was our operating officer to be in the CEO day to day role.

And I was in the chairmanship role, but a very active chairmanship since we were the largest shareholders.

And we had friends and family that were shareholders as well.

So there's this feeling of, "This is not just about me.

This is about not only my family, it's about all of the employees at the business and this extended community that was really feeling the same pain."

>> And in the midst of that you realized, "Maybe I don't know everything I need to know."

Tell us what that was like is saying like, "Okay, I see a gap here."

>> Right, and absolutely.

So I didn't have a network of people to go to.

And so immediately I found a network and that to me is so important for either your professional growth and your personal growth.

So I reached out to a couple of professional organizations, National Association of Women Business Owners, because I was in an industry that was technology and supply chain based.

There aren't a lot of women in that industry at all.

>> Which is shocking, being in the year we are now.

I mean, I'm shocked to hear that 'cause always I'm like, "Women can do anything," but you're right, there are some gaps.

>> There are gaps and women can do anything which is awesome.

So I sought out that organization and Young Presidents Organization, YPO and I joined what they call the forum, a group of eight business owners of varying entities.

And we would get together on a regular basis and try to help solve each other's problems.

So they were really my sounding board.

When I first came on board with Aero-Stream efficiently I looked at him, I thought, "Oh, I don't even have a LinkedIn," I didn't have a resume, I didn't have a bio.

And I called a friend and she really put me in touch and help set that up.

>> And then you actually took it a step further.

You went ahead and stepped into another CEO role after realizing where these gaps were and how you could fill that for the next generation.

>> Absolutely.

So all of my stars aligned.

What I'm doing today is just a combination of everything I love and what I've learned throughout my career this far.

I joined an organization called Female Strong and I love the name and itself.

And it's all about empowering our next generation of female leaders.

We work with middle school and high school girls to help build confidence 'cause confidence is what it's all about and the decrease that girls have in confidence from when they're eight years old they feel about 80% confident they could do the job of the person next to them.

By the time they're in their teens, that's down in the 30 percentile.

>> Really?

>> Which is terrifying.

And so that's what we wanna do.

We wanna stop that loss of confidence and we do that.

We have a program that's an entrepreneurship program just for girls.

And it's called the Young Entrepreneurs Academy.

We work with about 20 girls a year in one class, but we're growing, which is awesome.

And they build a business start to finish from idea generation, business plan, putting that together, all the way to pitching Shark Tank like style to an investor panel at the end and these girls are rock stars.

They come in, they're shy, they don't even look you in the eye many of them, they don't shake hands and at the end, they're just up there in front of 120 adults.

There was a sixth grader last year that you would have no idea she was in sixth grade.

She was just this powerhouse.

So it's amazing to see this growth.

And then they take it forward.

It goes beyond yes, they created a business, but now they have all these great skills.

They have amazing public speaking skills.

They can understand financials, they know a little bit about sales and marketing.

So they've learned all these skills that are just gonna help them later in life.

>> It's amazing.

Just hearing you talk, it's the show of the hopefuls and you're like have me on the edge of the seat.

You're full of hope, not only through the pain that you've lived through in your life and your story, you found hope even in those moments to keep going.

And then what you discovered is like, "Okay.

Now I can generate hope for the next gen." >> Absolutely.

>> So tell us with the girls that you've seen, what is one of the most amazing stories that has come out of Female Strong?

>> Oh, there's so many, but I'll just tell the most recent one.

So the girls, as they pitched to the investor panel we pick one winner, if you will, that goes on to a national competition.

So this girl from the suburbs amazing, came from the foster care system and she herself was African-American but was frequently paired in homes with non African-American parents who didn't know what to do with her hair.

And so she talked about the story of she grew up with not great hair.

And so she wanted to change that for girls in her situation so she put together not only a book to help parents of fostering girls that are African-American, help them learn how to do their hair, but she's taken on investigating hair care products as well.

>> Oh my goodness.

>> And just the glow in her eye and the passion she has, she's a senior in high school.

She's got a GoFundMe.

She's wanting to take this book public come the end of the year.

So she's just full steam ahead.

And to see the relationship that she also had with her foster mother who helped her a little bit as well, the pictures they're just glowing.

I love it.

>> I love that.

What would you have for people watching that are trying to find hope?

What would you tell them how to dig deep and find hope?

>> Well, in me it was something frankly that my mother instilled in me from day one that you can do anything you set your mind to.

And for me, there was no looking backwards.

(upbeat music) There was no feeling sorry.

It was just, "I have to make this work.

And how am I going to make this work?"

Not only how am I going to make the business work but how am I going to help my three daughters who are 15, 12 and nine at the time find hope and a future and get out of the darkness 'cause there was some darkness for awhile.

But I love seeing them now.

They're all in a good place.

It took work.

>> It takes work.

>> There was a lot of work, but it's all worked out.

>> Well, thank you so much for coming on.

>> Oh, thanks for having me.

>> Next up we have a movie that reminds us the struggle is real, but so is hope.

>> Narrator: The Secret: Dare to Dream is a movie that spreads the message, hope is never lost.

It sometimes just needs to be restored.

>> Mum.

>> I'm expecting a call from the bank.

>> In the beginning of the movie.

I mean, it seems like all of us had lost hope at that point.

We're all just...

I remember Missy saying a line like, "Not for our family, good things don't happen to us."

So at the beginning of the movie, we're just down and just lost all hope and then Bray just comes along and he just fills our whole family with help and just gives us life and spirit.

And just this way of thinking positively.

And it just fills our whole family with hope and joy and more of a positive outlook on life.

>> Narrator: That's Sarah Hofmeister who plays Katie Holmes's daughter in the movie.

This family went through trauma, experienced loss, tough times, monetarily but somehow through it all kept going.

>> Never would have thought of tophi if it weren't for him.

He just made everything lighter.

I mean, look at that skylight, it's totally good night moon in here.

>> You're quite a kid, you know that?

(laughs) >> It's important to look on the bright side.

I mean, my mom didn't always do that and she still got through it all.

But when she did look at the more positive things in life, her life was just so much better and she was so much happier when she was positive and she just felt a lot better about herself.

>> Narrator: And because they kept going, hope followed them.

Now, I'm sure you're thinking this is a movie.

However, we found some real life takeaways.

(strong winds blowing) >> Man: I'm open to the possibility that whatever happens... >> Oh my God.

>> Man: Even the bad stuff can lead to better things.

>> Message of the story has really helped, I think all of us get through these really hard times 'cause it was supposed to come out in April, big release and movie theaters.

You were supposed to go to New York for the premiere.

It was gonna be so much fun but then it just all got canceled.

And it's really easy to just be sad and depressed and upset that all of that happened but it's a lot harder to think about the good things that could come out of it.

And I think without this movie I wouldn't have thought of the good things, I would just go straight to the negative but because of The Secret and because of all the messages that it teaches, I was able to look on the more positive side of things of how this could actually be a good thing.

>> Narrator: Now that's a hopeful message.

>> Our next guest knows the numbers when it comes to violence, gangs, and drugs and still chooses to believe in more and that there's a better way.

Let's meet this next hopeful.

Welcome to the show.

>> Thank you for having me.

>> You are full of hope and you came from a place actually that was really tough and to find it as a young kid and now take long people with you is truly incredible.

So tell us about your childhood.

>> My childhood was really rough.

I grew up in a single parent household, no father.

My father was never part of my life.

I went to a school on the west side of Chicago, poverty drugs, just very dangerous neighborhood.

Unfortunately I got into the street life at an early age where I started selling drugs and just I wanted something.

I wanted something out of life and I went to the streets and I met a guy by the name of Chief and I met a guy by the name of Vess and Earl, just different guys that I looked up to who were super heroes to me.

They were father figures.

They showed me everything about the street life and protected me at the same time.

And I got into that life and I think I did it pretty well.

Unfortunately, I was out there pretty much destroying the neighborhood and didn't know I was doing that.

I was just trying to feed my family, have something, have some new clothes, something for my mother.

At an early age, I had my first child.

I was a teen at early teens, had my first child and that was my motivation to want something for her.

And I did it.

I did those things in the streets.

>> What eventually got you out of the street life and being that statistic to actually helping kids that were once you?

>> Well, having a child I wanted something better.

I didn't wanna end up dead or in jail, the saying dead or in jail and then I had Chief.

Chief Marshall, it was his real name.

He was a guy that just pushed me to do better and be better.

So he gave me three options to go back to school 'cause I'd gotten kicked out for staying up late at night out selling drugs, go back to school, get a job or pursue your music because I had a love for music and rapping and so I decided to get a job at the East Bay Club as a bus boy and I pursued my music.

So Chief was the one who said, "You can't do this anymore."

And when he said something that's what it was and the guy by the name of Vess.

These were guys that were like, "This is not for you."

>> What was the turning point for you getting to a place where you say, "Now I'm gonna sow into these kids that were once like me."

>> Well, when I got a job at the East Bay Club I was doing music and trying to find other legitimate ways to make money.

And I started dancing at bar and bar mitzvahs.

I was doing that while working at a recording studio.

So I was there getting coffee and trying to ease my way in there to learn more about the music business and I was waiting tables at the time, I was waiting tables at this point and I just wanted to give back.

I always had this thing where I wanted to give and I wanted to help other people.

I always had that in me, even when I was in the streets.

I know being a drug dealer could be a very taboo thing to look at, but I really cared about people and I loved that, I really did.

And fast forward, I got a job dancing and doing bar mitzvahs and I saw, "Men, I can make money doing this."

Then I did a couple commercials, made money doing that.

And then next thing you know, things started going.

And then next thing you know, I'm the owner of an entertainment company, Flow Entertainment and people are calling me king of the mitzvahs.

So I have that and I'm like, "How can I give back?

Okay, I'm making money, my life has changed, my family's doing good.

I gotta give back more.

I got to do more."

So I started going around speaking to different schools and organizations and kids and sharing my story, sharing the story of what I've been through and what I'd gone through and how I had to keep hope no matter the cards I was handed, no matter how many times I got the 500 nos, I had to keep pushing.

So I created a company called Flow Entertainment that did the DJ live, weddings, bar and bar mitzvahs, all of that stuff.

And then as I kept going with that, I'm realizing, "Yoh, I'm a recording artist.

I'm doing music."

And I'm like, "I got all these things, how do I make it all into one?"

So I created the KWOE group.

That's what's on my hat, the K-W-O-E.

It stands for KWOE it's acronym for know your genius, work to be unstoppable, own your actions and explore the world.

That is the most meaningful thing to me.

That's something that I'm the most passionate about.

And us giving back and building bridges and helping the black community, helping the people in the community rise up, giving ownership in jobs.

So I'm working that, I'm pushing hard to make sure that that happens.

That's at the forefront of everything I do.

>> When you work with the kids in the neighborhood that were in similar situations like you, what is the one thing that you tell them?

If you could resonate with them with one thing, what would it be?

(upbeat music) >> It's multiple things but I know what you mean, that one thing.

I would say three.

>> Okay.

>> I'll give you three.

>> (laughs) Give me three.

>> I gotta give you three.

I would say dream big, never give up and always give back.

>> That is so good and that's exactly what you're doing.

I have to give them hope.

>> Thank you.

>> I have to.

>> Yes.

Thank you so much for coming on.

>> Thank you so much for having me, I appreciate it.

Thank you.

>> Rhona Bennett, also known as Miss R&B weighs in on the topic and is using her voice to do more than sing, also bring hope.

(upbeat music) >> Narrator: Hopeful with her words through songs and coaching, activism and even real life.

>> There's all this stuff you've been gathering along the way and share it with somebody else in hopes that maybe it's gonna help them to awaken to their true nature.

Get rid of some of the conditioning that we have, would tell us then life has to be a certain way or that we have to look at each other a certain way or that we have to deal with each other a certain way.

All those things are being questioned and I'm hoping to bring a stretched perspective to that, to help us heal as a whole >> Narrator: Rhona Bennett who's known as Miss R&B, a member of En Vogue, actress on the Jamie Fox Show and former cast member of the Disney Channel's variety show, the all-new Mickey Mouse Club is digging deep to find the seeds of hope and spreading those because of her firm foundation.

>> I've picked up these great life tools along the way that have helped me to shift in perspective, stretch in perspective about what else things could mean, take responsibility for myself really early on in life and my choices, the results I was getting, maybe things happened outside of me that helped to contribute to the results.

But I realized that if I wanted to keep the power with me, not feel powerless in moving forward, I had to learn how to take responsibility for my results.

>> Narrator: And when it comes to the future, her past serves as a reminder that hope can be built in life's changes.

>> From the time that I hit this proverbial wall in my career and not knowing if I would continue as a professional entertainer, to having to reinvent myself when a lot of the people in my industry were falling away, quitting, getting laid off, not knowing how to adapt, my industry in particular, yours too, we have dealt with the digital boom on a whole other level than most industries.

And so it has taken a lot to believe beyond what you see.

>> Narrator: Her dreams have come true on stage and also brought her another microphone through activism.

This platform she believes can unite us and bring more hope.

>> A lot of us have an issue with what we see but it's like, "Well, what do you wanna see though moving forward?

What do you wanna move towards?

What does it look like?"

And I think that's a bit interesting for us to define right now, because what does it look like?

To me, it starts from within.

It's a personal journey first.

How are we seeing the world first to even contribute to the next frontier of how we can operate?

A lot of the old thinking has to be broken down, a lot of the separation that we believe in as far as race relations, we're human race but we have different ethnicities and different cultures that's different.

But I think that so much mind manipulation has happened to the public by the powers that be for whatever their reasoning is to keep us separated 'cause divided we're weaker.

Together we're stronger.

>> Today is a reminder that hope is still out there and can be waiting for you.

You just have to choose it.

Remember your story matters.

>> Narrator: The Whitney Reynolds Show is supported by Sciton, because results matter.

Leigh Marcus with @properties, sold on helping our community and closing homes.

O'Connor Law Firm, when it comes to your injuries, we take it personally.

Children's Learning Place, excellence in early childhood education since 1998.

Happy To Meat You, prime, fresh, fast.

Theraderm Clinical Skin Care, committed to developing skincare products designed to restore skin health and promote natural beauty.

Special thanks to Kevin Kelly with Jamison Sotheby's International Realty.

My Buddy's, Chicago, Love Your Melon, Brendon Studzinski at State Farm, Fresh Dental, Ella's Bubbles, UFC Wrigleyville, The CryoBar, Bark Busters, Leah Chavie Skincare, Deluxe Cleaning Service, STI Moving & Storage and by other sponsors.

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>> Our mummy.