Writing Their Story.

It has come to my attention that writing my own story has been the easiest writing task and that writing someone else's story is like attempting to enter another world. So I ask myself, what is the best way to tell someone's story? Should they write it themselves, should I enter their shoes, or should it be from my perspective? Our perspective? I wouldn't necessarily want my advocates to turn storytelling into a job though, therefore I'd love to keep this as enjoyable and therapeutic as possible. That means we continue to do the writing. But the question remains, what perspective do we tell it?

So I've decided that the best way to write someone else's story is in such a way that we honor them for who they are. It would be from the listener's perspective, lest we give inaccurate feelings with the latter. It's a way to put a spotlight on their life whilst they can remain in their humble spirit. This sets a completely new tone on the idea of sharing life stories. When I think about someone else sharing me to the world, it seems foreign and unthinkable. But yet if we were only responsible to share ourselves, no one would be quite interested at all times because naturally we're most interested in hearing about ourselves. Ask someone their favorite memory and they'll easily engage in conversation; ask someone to listen to you about your favorite memories and depending on their personality, they may hesitate.

Mind you, I do understand that there is a quite vast mixture of personalities in the sea of humankind and it's incredibly impossible to please all types. But no matter how shy someone may be about talking about themselves, I am convinced that there is still a human nature piece in all of us that is genuinely pleased to know someone else is interested in our existence. That being said, I have it in me to promote the act of listening to others and sharing others. I do not believe--and refuse to believe--that we were put on this earth to only care about ourselves, to only take care of ourselves, and to only lift our own spirits up. What good is that going to do? 

Welcome to this journey if you choose to join along. We'll be like a family of people who listen to the cries of others, the victories after difficulties, and the struggles many of us still face. And we will care to lift each other up like we're all celebrities to each other without the negative pride. There will be moments when we fail, moments when we succeed, and moments when nothing makes sense. But we'll have each other and what more do you need? Empathy is a powerful asset to have and if you have it, don't waste it. 

In conclusion, I am excited to be leading such an incredible group of people. We may still be growing and we're definitely not where we hope to be. But we're not giving up and I'm thankful for my co-founders. On another note, I've questioned whether I should start a blog post via our website host or via Blogger. I'm eager to share these stories, so I suppose whichever platform works effectively is fine by me.

May you find comfort in the stories of our advocates and be inspired by the art of expression. You are valuable, you are significant, and you are worth listening to. Someone out there needs to hear your story and we're here to tell it.

Yours Truly,

Stephanie Ann

Nicole Peurifoy | "Walking by Faith"

Nicole Peurifoy shares her story about how walking by faith means trusting God even when things look hopeless. View her video interview here or her photo shoot on our website.

Preparing for Launch Date.

You Matter Stories, founded August 2016 with the original name You Matter Clothing, has made subtle but substantial progress in the past few months. As we approach our launch date sometime in May 2017, we have quite a few things happening behind the scenes during our startup process. Although the process has been slow, due to the founders unable to give full-time attention at the moment, the hope remains by our CEO that YMS will have a successful launch!

To get a better background of the progress so far, allow us to explain the growth the startup has made thus far. Originally explained as a fashion company, You Matter Stories had its name change due to a shift in focus. We now plan to focus on the artistic side of storytelling. To put it simple, invisible lives go unnoticed daily, even in models, and we want to find these people and share their story in a creative format while simultaneously selling our products to support this solution. Essentially, our products include the art. For example, there could be an image of a woman who recently had a miscarriage and in order to support her, we shed light on the issue at hand. In this case, miscarriage is real, and real mothers and fathers of unborn children grieve the loss around the world. Our goal is to have fashion designs that were inspired by people like this and to clothe our models with confidence and love, photograph them to further tell their story, and emotionally support the people we feature.

Yes, it may take a while to build up this image and tell these stories, but it is worth it because everyone deserves to be known and everyone deserves to be understood. This is our way of saying, "You Matter." You matter enough to be heard, and to be shared. 99% of people are capable of feeling empathy, some more than others. We are human, we are created for storytelling and we best understand in stories. Facts only do so much until we find ourselves walking away, unattached. But to read about something real, that's what engages us in.

We want our customers to know that every product we release was somehow inspired by someone's story. You can choose to support any matter that means the most to you as we develop different stories and buy from those products because of it, or you can simply shop to your liking and support all. Although not a non-profit organization, we will work quite like one in the sense that we focus on people over business. But we truly believe that a successful business is one that pays attention to its people, both workers and customers.

Preparing for launch date includes gathering Advocates, the term we use for our models who will be real people like you and me, not professional models and no particular size requirement. These Advocates will sit with one of the writers on our team and tell an impactful moment or a brief life story of who they are. Once that is done, their story will be assigned to a photographer who will schedule a shoot day with that person. Every photo shoot will be a challenge, and every Advocate must agree in advance to openly share for our public website and be open to their own personalized shoot. Advocates will not be required to pay for this but are welcome to purchase a T-Shirt during startup for their photos. They can then use that shirt to help spread the word so that their friends and family can see their story. This is our number one marketing technique so far.

Lastly, we will send off our first collection to manufacturers after testing a few sample work and eventually launch our clothing line, which will contain various designers over time as opposed to one. We hope to go worldwide and start reaching out to other countries and more stories. Our writers and photographers will travel the world to continue meeting new people with new stories. The business' funds will continue to support this and support the workers so that we can continue to artistically tell stories and sell creative fashion for both everyday apparel and special occasion.

Some things to look forward to would be fashion shows with average people as models, partnering with organizations or companies, and introducing our video production team as we grow. Video stories will be directed by our CEO, who will be graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in Cinematic Arts Production degree as of May 2017. Because video and photography is her greatest passion in storytelling, she plans to continue this passion by adding it to her love for telling real life stories. Working with her fashion designers, she hopes to create the ultimate collaboration and grow a successful company. She is not only determined and diligent, but her personal life situations have pushed her to keep going because empathy has been one of the greatest gifts she possesses. Adding that to her top strength of strategic thinking, and you get the solution of You Matter Stories.

Stay tuned for our launch date by liking our facebook fan page, Instagram, or bookmarking our website with these links. If this interests you in any way and you feel compelled to write in about joining, granted you live in the LA area or sign up to be a remote writer, please email Stephanie at stephanie@youmatterstories.com for more info.


You Matter Stories
youmatterstories.com

Opportunities.

Hello, my name is Stephanie and I wanted to start a company that uses talent in the art and fashion industry to speak the truth about our existence. I wanted to reach out in any way possible to the people we might come across with every single day. You Matter Clothing company sheds light on individuals who have felt forgotten, broken, insignificant, or invisible. We believe that everyone is important and that we all deserve to be known and to be loved.

Although we will be selling clothing and accessories, we want to be a business that pays attention to the individuals that choose our brand. This is because there is a rapid growth in online purchases today, which means that more people are making less contact with another human being when purchasing. While others can use face-to-face interactions to reach out to in-person purchases at a physical store, how do you reach out to consumers online? We plan to do this by focusing on the artistic format of the photography to engage customers and become involved with personal matters.

According to The Wall Street Journal, shoppers today have now made "51% of their purchases on the web compared with 48% in 2015 and 47% in 2014, according to the survey by UPS and analytics firm comScore Inc. The survey polled shoppers who make at least two online purchases in a three-month period, excluding groceries." With the technology we have today, this percentage is most likely going to continuously rise. This is an increase in total customer outreach for businesses.The global apparel market is valued at 3 trillion dollars, 3,000 billion, and accounts for 2 percent of the world's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) (link).

That being said, it's a growing industry and there will always be millions of people seeking to purchase something new. I see these people as millions of new opportunities to spread truth, to encourage, to listen to, and to make a difference. My goal is to find ways to allow every customer to feel as though they matter as an individual and not as a "whole community" or "everyone matters" cop-out. It's easy to say we all matter, but it's harder to specifically go up to someone and speak one-on-one as if they specifically matter in this world. I think the entire world needs more of that and that's exactly what I want to do within my company.

Choosing to go e-commerce means the possibility of reaching out globally instead of locally, because my heart is for all the people of the world, not just the U.S. My passion in fashion photography and storytelling, therefore as an entrepreneur, I'd want to create compelling visuals and tell stories of the lives we may not know about until light is shed on them. I want to gather a team to allow the company to function smoothly and passionately. I want to overlook the company to make sure that we keep up our image and that our "why" is always answered first.

"Why?"
Because you matter too.

If this interests you to join this future company and you have skills that will be useful for us to grow, please do not hesitate to email youmatterstories@gmail.com and tell me about yourself. I am currently looking for someone to run the blog in the future and feature people that have forgotten their worth. This could be your way of giving back to the world, so don't skip this opportunity!

Sincerely,
Stephanie Ann McDowell
Founder and CEO
You Matter Stories (& Clothing)
youmatterstories.com