Back in America

If you're tired of arguing with strangers on the internet, try talking with one of them in real life.

Welcome to Back in America, the podcast.

Hello, I'm Stan Bertolow and this is Back in America. Today, I'm with Cassandra Schuck, who is joining me via Skype from her office in Huntersville, North Carolina. I met you, Cassandra, at a press event in New York last October, and your story immediately struck me as amazing. You had a very tough, abusing childhood, you struggled with your first husband, yet you managed to move on to become the incredible woman you are today. After a successful corporate career, you now head a global marketing agency, which is quite unique in that all of your clients are women business owners. Cassandra, thanks for accepting to share your story with Back in America. Yes, thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here. So let's jump in. Do you want to briefly maybe add something to this introduction?

Yeah, so I am in lovely North Carolina. I have a two-year-old daughter who's with me most days of the week. I'm also married and then I run Tola Marketing and Creative, which is a marketing agency based for female entrepreneurs. And we have an entirely female staff. And I run a couple other businesses on the side, lactation cookie companies, writing a book, a little bit of everything. So I like to get my hands in all the pots. Wow, amazing. So yeah, a lot of business there. But before we talk about what you are today, I would like for you to tell me, you know, what was your childhood like? Yeah, so that's where the craziness really started. So really from age five to 15, I remember being physically and mentally abused with us. Like I like to call it a side order of sexual abuse. So it was primarily physical and mental.

Five is my earliest age. I do remember some things when I was even younger at age three, like that would happen between my mom and dad that I then could identify as an adult that just wasn't right, just wasn't normal. So I grew up in this really kind of crazy abusive household where like things that I would have perceived as normal as a child are not normal. So like parents fighting, dishes being thrown, holes in the walls, you know, bats being threatened out on one another. And then for me, from like a receiving end, I was kind of the punching bag, so to speak. From a fairly young age, I've always been fairly fiery. I've always been fairly headstrong and more of a leader type environment, like a type of person. So I would actually see a lot of this abuse that was going on and I would be the one who would step in to try to let it not go towards my brothers. I have two younger brothers who I no longer talk to, but I have two younger brothers and I would kind of step in to be like the one who's like, no, look at me and avoid them and keep them safe. So I had this weird childhood of where I didn't get to actually be a child.

I feel like at age five, I kind of became this adult and I became this almost mother figure to two younger brothers, which is a super strange place to grow up in. Absolutely. And who were the abusers? Yeah, so these the abusers were two. So it was funny because it was primarily my dad as I was looking at it in action. But when I kind of look back at like my life and my childhood, I realized that a lot of this abuse actually came from my mom not doing anything and just kind of witnessing it and experiencing it and letting it happen to me so it didn't happen to her. So now, honestly, when I look back, it's both it was both of my parents. And then it spiraled a little bit out of, you know, additional father's friends that would come over and he kind of let them kind of do some things that they wanted to do to me. Sexuality. Yep. Yes.

So sexually and physically like I was called. I mean, every name in the book, I was degraded constantly. I was told, you know, women should be seen and not heard. You should be pregnant, barefoot in the kitchen, useless, worthless and expletives that I'm not sure I can say on this podcast. But like those were my normal like nicknames growing up as a child that I didn't know that like that wasn't everyone's nicknames. I just thought and then it started it started to come back to me too. I thought I was just a bad person. I thought I was just a bad kid. Like maybe like it's something wrong with me. Sure. Yeah. And and how did you manage to go through school at the time?

So not very well. I've always been fairly intelligent. But if school was a place for me to escape from my family and just get away from things and not necessarily excel academically. So I kind of ebbed and flowed between people that I liked and didn't like for classes as a child where I would get, you know, straight A's in some classes and then basically fail like with a D minus like scoot by in other classes just because I didn't care. And I had all of this stuff coming on and like stuff going like out at home that like it just wasn't my focus and wasn't my priority. So kind of skated through school, found a couple really good like soul connections, people who stepped into my life who like, you know, who like really sometimes haven't left. I excelled in music and I had a band director who when we kind of get to that part of the story came played a pivotal role in getting me out of my situation because she knew what some of the stuff that was going on. Why don't you talk about that? Yeah, totally. So I played my grandfather was a professional jazz trumpet player. I always thought music was kind of an escape for me. And that's one of the things that I like to say from my dad. I got I got a love of really awesome like rock and roll like classic rock music. That's like one of the only good things he like passed down to me. But kind of excelled in music was a band president was middle school and high school and kind of confined in this one band director. Her name's Miss B. So still in still relationship with her but she kind of knew what was going on and kind of knew my whole story knew like tried to try to get me out of the house a couple times worked with Department of Child Services wasn't we weren't able to be successful but like she knew what was going on.

And she is actually the one who signed I dropped out of high school when I was 15. And she is the one who signed my student loan documents to get me into college because I tested into college. She's the one who literally came to the bank with me and put her name on that line so I could have some way to escape some way to get out and something to start and cultivate for myself. Well, She's a remarkable remarkable human being. And this was a really interesting point because I told my parents I was leaving. I said I'm dropping out I'm going to figure it out and they really didn't do much to say yes or no to it. They're like oh okay cool like where you're going. Like it wasn't like a big huge ordeal which sounds super strange. But on the day a couple days before I was meant to leave or said to leave my mom actually decided that that would be the day she asked me to drive her to go get a divorce paper and a restraining order from my father. So this was a whole giant you know 10 years of abuse 10 years of witnessing and watching and not doing anything. And a couple days literally before I was set to leave that's the day that she decided to to do something to change the situation. That brings me to you know the big question mark how can someone survive what you went through. So I really think so it's interesting because I've been asked this question multiple times and multiple people and I feel like you're kind of predestined predetermined to have a set path of what what's going to happen in your life. So my brothers are both high school dropouts no college educated in and out of jobs in and out of homelessness. I could have easily fell into that path. But from a young age I didn't realize that there was something else out there and I realized that this was just temporary.

It sounds like a very innate wisdom thing for a child to like to go back and say but I would always say I would always go in my room kind of be silent go in the corner and say this is temporary this is temporary and I don't know where that came from. I think it was honestly my protection layer of my body shutting down and just really focusing on that like I'm I'm like I used to always constantly say when I was a kid I was like I'm only here for 18 years anyway little did I know it was going to be 16. But I said I'm always here I'm only here for 18 years and that was kind of my mentality going into it as I'm like I know that there's something else out there and I feel like the couple core people one of them being that band director that said hey we're going to get you out of this like this situation. Those were key pivotal people in my life that I wouldn't have probably been able to do what I did had it not been for them. So who were the people that knew of this situation beside that that Mrs. B? Yeah so I mean honestly quite a bit of them. I played soccer in high school. My soccer coach knew. I had the high school vice principal knew the band director knew. I was trying to call for help. I was trying to use the education system. I was asking teachers. I worked with someone at D. I think it's Department of Child Services. So DCS up in Connecticut where I was. There was people that I was reaching out to. My grandparents they knew. I mean that blows my mind right. Your grandparents knew. Your coach knew. The education system as a whole knew and nothing happens.

I think the Department of Child Services knew. So the thing with my parents and the thing with especially with my dad is my dad is genius. My dad is very very smart and knows how to cover his tracks. He worked for a lot of fairly large tech companies that if I say their names like people would know. And that was part of my upbringing too was him bouncing around from job to job when he would get a job and he would get drug tested a couple months later they would let him go and he would find another high paying tech job. He's a layout engineer. So like it was an interesting world where like we didn't grow up poor but we grew up in a like vital situation that wasn't stable. It wasn't like safe. So you said drug tested. He was taking drugs. Oh yeah. So that was a huge piece of this is he was a full drug addict. I'm not sure the extent of drugs. So pot was his one of his go tos. My room constantly smelled like marijuana. It was right above the garage and that was like his sanctuary and his safe place. I know he did a lot of cocaine. I know he didn't play it. They played in around with some heroin things of that nature but I don't know the full extent of the amount of drugs and things that they've done. I know there was some narcotic usage. I know that there was some methamphetamine but I don't know the I was a child. I don't know the extent of all that it entails. And the guys that came to see him that abused you were also consuming drugs with him. Yeah. So some of them were his dealers and other than of the people he I believe he dealt to. So it wasn't that's that was part of their relationship. That was that was how they really how they knew each other.

So you managed to go through college. You got married the first time and fall into an abusive relationship once again. I did. So I went to what was the definition of safety for me and I married a law enforcement officer because I was like what is more safe than a law enforcement officer. Like there couldn't like in my mind I'm like I was 19. I'm like there couldn't be anything like it'll be like you know if anyone if anything happens to me if anyone comes for me it's like I don't know the full connection of my parents. I have someone to keep me safe. And for the first year it was it was a good marriage. He was actually in charge of the narcotics team for the department that he worked out. So I was like oh perfect. Like again safety security like this is what I'm looking for. And about a year in things started to shift and things started to change quite a bit. I had graduated college when I was 20. So things started shifting in there when I got my first you know decent job and when like the dynamic of the relationship changed. And then by the second year I was actually pregnant. So I would have a 10 year old little boy. This was about 10 years ago but I actually had a stillborn. I'm sorry. So as that was happening my marriage was falling apart and he started becoming physically abusive to me.

And then come to find out really what set it all off is he was dating some other woman who he had arrested for intention to sell. Oh it's a whole scandal. And he got her pregnant. So as I was literally losing our child he was actually I we got we ended up getting divorced in October. They had their baby in August. Wow. And he had a baby. I mean even before we were technically legally divorced. So kind of fell into that pattern again not knowing not willing not my plan. But it just it happened. And you knew it was wrong right. I knew it was wrong probably the after the first year. The first year I think it was fine because I was more in the submissive role. I was more into the more I was more in the feminine like I'm just going to school. I need you piece. And then it was really when I got that first job that was I mean higher than a salary of a police officer.

That's when things really started to shift and change the dynamic between us I think. Oh and you think that that salary thing made the difference with him. I think it was a piece of it. I think he still had pieces of him that he was he had yet to heal from his upbringing and things of that nature too. But I think that was a nice little catalyst jab for him that was that was almost emasculating and he didn't know what to do except kind of that lack that piece. Was he also from an abusive family.

So he had a yes and no. It was a different form of abuse. A lot of things with between them they were still all talk they still all communicated. But a lot of things were just kind of brushed underneath the rug and you could feel like the tension going into to relation that family. Dynamic at least I could. And at the time where did you find your support. So I had a close group of friends at that time. Actually one of my first jobs was at Hampton University in Virginia Beach. And I actually worked for the chaplain of the university and that was really where I got my introduction to religion introduction to spirituality introduction to self help introduction to actually like working with a therapist. So like I had a decent support team because I was also trying to now that I have a tendency in my life or when I was younger to go go go and suppress the things that I knew I needed to work on. So it was really easy for me to get you know a bachelor's degree in three years and master's in an additional one year and like kind of plug along and not think about any of the past.

And then when I graduated and got that first job I was like oh like everything is still like what's going on and I really had to go back and do the a lot of the self work a lot of the work to figure out like kind of the past situations. So you managed to get a divorce. I did. You move on.

And what happened after that. So after that honestly I kind of focused on my career. I had a kind of side little agency that I was running started a couple little entrepreneurial endeavors and then worked kind of my way up the corporate ladder just because and it's going to sound funny I worked for the company that would have been my parents dream company to work for. Which was. I was in. I don't want to say it. It was in the automotive industry and it was literally the type of car that I came in home from the hospital. So like a lot of interconnections and I'm like well and I didn't realize it until honestly a couple years ago I was like I totally did that and excelled in that job looking for love looking for affirmation and looking for something from my parents. There was no other reason why I would ever consider like working there.

I liked cars but like it like why that particular brand why that particular niche why doing that job is something I kind of dug up and excavated out of it and I was like it was love and approval. I was looking for that affirmation of you've done a really good job despite your upbringing. And that did that happen. Did you get that. No of course not. No I hadn't I haven't had contact with my father except once in the past 17 years and I was really waiting for it for my mother and she never. She's like I don't even know what you do there like that was always her response. I don't even I can't even understand what you do. So there was I never got that you're doing a good job great job good salary like love that you're traveling around the world like nothing. How much did you make at the time. At the time when I first entered the company it was two hundred and thirty thousand and when I left it was six hundred.

Wow. Yes. And so you leave that job. I did. To do what. I. That's when I really kind of started pouring my heart and soul into Tola which is the marketing agency that I run. And I realized that I loved the work that I did. I loved the marketing. I love the strategy. I love the planning but I didn't love who I was doing it for. I kind of went back to my entrepreneurial roots of like OK I've kind of played in that space and I was like what would really serve them from a marketing front and that's how kind of Tola was birthed. It started out really with heart conscious female entrepreneurs super niche so like working in like the safe place again yoga Reiki naturopathic doctor things like med spa like anything health and wellness because that was really the focus of my life. And then now it's spiraled into working with female powered law firms female tech companies female and like product innovators like you name it but female and then a couple of smart men.

How did you build that that network that support network of women successful women business entrepreneur. So a lot of times in the women's space what I found is people feel alone. There's kind of like this boys club there's these boys groups or even for me I go to a marketing agency dinner on occasion and I'm always the only female owner. So like there's always been these clicks and there hasn't been anything that has that feminine rise of of energy of life force to it so I was like you know what I can do this let me play in this niche and see how it works and what I realized is my upbringing was a hundred percent strategic in how I can survive and how I can see ten steps ahead of a lot of other people. Because I had to I had to into my house when I was a child after school and judge the situation if plates were going to be thrown if dad was going to be in a good mood if dad was already passed out drunk. So I basically what I've done in the agency is we've taken a lot of that strategy and planning pieces and applied it to women in business who a lot of times don't see that like the next five steps or the next 10 steps or you know a lot of different options coming at them. They're very in the moment a lot of my women very in flow which is great and beautiful but they don't see that that wave of what ifs coming at them which is I can't shut off the what ifs now.

Yeah that's that's interesting and what you said about men being connected having networks having support group. It's true obviously for centuries you know men have had their boys clubs and and women have had to build that. And I've always felt in that group especially being in the automotive industry that was male dominated I've always felt like that infiltrator and I was like we don't have like granted we had a female staff a female a lot decent number of female on the marketing team. But like in the top level executive lines I was like the infiltrator like I would be asked on a regular basis if I was a secretary. No I run the digital platforms for like four different car companies like I don't get it. What were some of the other biased that you found you had to fight against. Yeah so I feel like it's the not as competent not as organized and you feel like you I feel like as a female in a in a company like that you get pigeonholed into you should be good at X. So like for instance I ran the digital strategies platform I shouldn't have been good at technology because I was female and I didn't have an eye like I one of the things that came out to is I have a marketing degree I didn't have an IT traditional IT degree.

So I thought I heard that quite often and it was really and it was really interesting kind of growing up in that because I had kind of the tech background and I've seen the tech worlds from from many different angles. So it was interesting being really like submerged into that industry and then just hearing like yes you work on the digital platform side but you're not tech like we have a tech team and I'm like it's still it's tied together. Right. So I feel like that was a big piece and I feel like I've always kind of been in a position that was a more male dominated position even as a marketing agency owner like even doing the exact work that I do today. Like the majority of agency owners are I think it last time I read the statistic was 86% of them are men 14% of them are women and I have yet to meet a single person who has a female focused team and the client base. And so how does your experience help you help other women? So I think for me we tie a lot into our experience where we'll work on strategy and get them more into the masculine energy side of planning of strategy of actually road mapping things of that nature. But we also being female by nature we understand when kids are sick we understand that things happen we understand when something when someone can't tell me why it doesn't feel right but they say it just doesn't feel right we understand that there's something that's blocking them.

So we have a tendency to kind of work on both sides of the spectrum and understand I think a little bit more than where the age where to where a lot of typically male dominated agencies are. We still are like super driven we still have run by everything by timelines but we still have a little bit more ease and flow than from some of the other agencies that I've kind of secret shopped and had a website developed by. Right and so how do your clients come to you? Is it word of mouth? Do they come to you because they know that you are very focused on the business woman entrepreneur or do they just happen to discover that as they knock on your door? So all of the above so word of mouth is huge for us almost every one of the clients we've ever worked with has referred an additional two plus people. We have some that have referred 20 people and literally will shout it from the rooftops. One of the law firms that we worked with literally went to his former fraternity that was all lawyers from law school and told each one of them that they needed to hire me. And I'm like oh and he loved he had nothing but praise working and they still work with us nothing but praise for working with a female marketing agency and again another super male dominated industry. So that's interesting so that's male clients referring other male clients.

And then the next piece that we found is we work with a lot of other female companies so we have a couple of female law firms that we work with. We have a couple of female accounting teams that we work with a couple female bookkeepers that we work with so there's just a lot of cross pollination between female dominated industries and then a lot of it is word of mouth. So you do support business woman entrepreneur who is supporting you today? So my husband is definitely a huge support in my life. He's actually coming and taking a larger role in the business and personal. So he's retiring April 30th and he's kind of come spearhead the agencies and a couple of our other businesses. I have a small circle close knit of friends that I have been friends for 15 plus years. We still stay in contact and still have kind of a text message chain going at all times.

My daughter is a huge support for me just for the fact that I didn't get that childhood so now I'm getting to relive some of the things that I think children should be able to do. They should be able to enjoy so that's kind of it's been life altering and life shifting and it's been a huge support that I didn't even know I needed. Okay well I think we are getting to the end of our discussion and because this is back in America I would love you to tell me what is an American to you? Yes so an American to me I kind of go back to the term American dream. I feel like that's something that both my grandparents were first generation so that's something that I heard them preach growing up as a young child was the American dream, the American dream. And I feel like it's taking that quote American dream and exploiting it onto whatever it is you so do choose. We have so many liberties and so many freedoms that we take for granted in this country and that I don't think we use to our fullest advantage. Like if I were to live in Saudi America I wouldn't be able to start a female based business that's you know an empire that I'm growing.

So I think that's something that I don't think of on a regular basis from a gratitude perspective but it's something that is like innately American. And it's innately something that we're gifted with and something that we're able to use and cultivate in this country that again in the female industry I wouldn't be able to do what I'm doing in a lot of other places. That's good thanks. We had that discussion about either a book or a movie or is there something that has been greatly inspirational for you? A movie I was thinking about something that kind of I watch on a regular basis and it's The Greatest Showman. I don't know if you've seen that. Not yet no. You have to watch it. It's amazing.

It's the story of P.T. Barnum who created the Barnum and Bailey Circus. Obviously not connected to any industry that I'm in but it's his story of how he came from poverty, how he came from being homeless, how he came from just been like literally being homeless. It's a really human struggle to create something that's still going up and on until like what last year I think it finally closed. But it's just a beautifully crafted movie of how he's also taken these misfits, these people who didn't fit in society and create something that was true to him and that really revolutionized and changed the world. So it's The Greatest Showman. It's with Hugh Jackman. It is an amazing movie. I have the soundtrack on way too often for my team to actually listen to. They're like oh we're listening to this again Cass? I'm like yes like go with it. Get his mood. Thanks.

And do you think you sort of identify to that story? I do identify to it. In the beginning of the movie like his father passes away but he is homeless. He's scrounging for food. He's trying to make ends meet. He gets laid off from the job. Like there's so much just turmoil and just shakiness on his upbringing that he's still able to create something and connect with something and connect with so many other human beings which I love. Great. It's that connection piece. Fantastic. So we went through a big part of your life right? What's next for you? So I'm so glad you asked. I'm in the process. I'm finishing up writing a book right now actually about my life which is a very healing and very crazy process to actually write. Especially when you've suppressed things down for so far for so long. So that's kind of one of the things that's next and honestly is taking my story and starting to speak more about it to help people who've had similar stories, similar past.

It was shocking to me and it's still shocking to me every time I say some part of my story to someone they have a connection to it. Someone physically abused them, someone mentally abused them, someone sexually abused them. Someone just told them that they weren't good enough, pretty enough, tall enough, whatever the case is enough. So it's really getting my story out there to help support and uplift other people. And where do you stand on that project? So the book is three quarters of the way written. I'm working with a literary agent right now to find a publisher. So I know that that's going to be a long process, probably two plus years, but I'm starting to speak and I'm actually speaking at a couple events coming in 2020. Congratulations! Yes, thank you. I figured I'd just take the leap and put them on the calendar and then figure it out. Where do you find the time to write it? Honestly, what I've been doing is as soon as I wake up, I've been writing pretty much consistently for I would say the past 18 months.

It's just going back and I actually had to make a timeline, which sounds so funny because I didn't know what happened at what age. So I was really, I've spent the last 18 months really going year by year and writing out the key pivotal points. What happened? What I remember? What I did from really age that five through 15. All right, cool. Well, Cassandra, thank you so much. One last thing, where would people go to find more about you? Yes, so Cassandraschuck.com is like my all things website homepage. It has links to the podcast that I host. It has links to my social media for Instagram and Facebook. It has a free community in there. And then it actually has links to Tola and a couple of my other businesses as well. Cassandraschuck.com, right? Yes. And that's S-H-U-C-K.

Yep, that's correct. Cassandra, thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me. You're very welcome.