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[saw buzzes]

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- Tonda Thompson: You will
always have memories of it,

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which is kind of weird,

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and you always remember
the smell

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or where you were in that space,
like how the wood smell,

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and it just, it gives you
so much peace and joy.

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My name is Tonda Nicole Thompson

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and I am the founder
of She Slangs Wood company.

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This was at the heart
of the pandemic,

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where I was just put in a place
where we all had to sit down

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and rest and think about
our lives.

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We didn't know if we were gonna
live or die,

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so I was really big
on having a coffee table.

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So, I went to YouTube and
learned how to make a table.

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And sure enough, by,
within days, I had a table.

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I posted the item online
and it went viral.

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And I had about ten orders
later that week. [chuckles]

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And it went from just, "Oh,
my God, this is a cool thing,"

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to "Okay, is this
a real business?"

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[saw buzzes]

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This was a hobby that just,
whoo, it just took off.

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I have, you know, other people
that are, you know,

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that I paved the way for
basically

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who are making their own name
in the industry now, you know,

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with the work that they're doing
themselves.

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It turned from a small hobby
to this organization

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that is traveling
across the world right now.

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So, this small hobby
of building a cute table

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just for my living room
turned into this.

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I call it a dynasty because
there's so many components

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of what She Slangs Wood is and
what it does for the community.

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So, I went on this voyage
of trying to get a team

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and trying to get a location,
and this is where we are now.

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[drill whirrs]

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I am teaching people
lucrative skills

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so they can create lucrative
jobs, whether it's with me

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or within themselves,

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or they wanna go start
their own business.

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We're eliminating poverty,
we're eliminating joblessness,

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we're eliminating homelessness,
we're eliminating food deserts,

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we're teaching people, hey,
let me build you a raised garden

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so you can grow your own foods.

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So, this is changing
the whole dynamic

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and the aspect of who do we wait
for to come save us.

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We got to save ourselves.

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We got to teach ourselves and we
got to do whatever we need to do

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to eliminate that issue
ourselves.

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I always tell my team, like,
don't overthink it.

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Like, just do it.

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Like, literally, like,
I'm a risk taker

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and I think that's a good thing
with my teaching skills,

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like, I might just do it.

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It's, if whatever happens,

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we gonna figure out if it worked
or if it didn't work. [laughs]

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So, I think that's my way
of teaching people

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on how to just be yourself

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and how to learn
from your mistakes

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and just being a calm
in their ear

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and saying "Hey, you can do it."

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I thought, I'm building
the table in my head,

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and I could have waited
for my dad

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or a significant other to do it,
right,

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but it was so liberating
just doing it myself.

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But when you do it, it's like,

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"I could do anything
in this world,"

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and it really changes
your whole perspective of life

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and it gives you confidence
in many other areas,

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other than just woodworking,
pretty much.

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[drill buzzes]