Rebecca Cohen explained how Share My Journey “connects caring people to share knowledge and experience during challenging life circumstances.” She created a way for people who lived through a certain experience to give support to people currently living that experience. Whether the experience deals with family, career, or any of life’s endless enigmas, Share My Journey is filled with insights built from first-hand experience.

Rebecca recalled the countless times she had no one in her immediate circle to discuss a problem with. She wanted to speak with someone who navigated the problem before her, and could understand what it’s like to go through similar circumstances. After eight years of sitting on the idea, Rebecca decided to launch Share My Journey after participating in a 48 hour social venture launch camp called Seed Spot.

 A lot can be learned from Rebecca’s “just start” process. She would focus on diving into the next simple step, rather than overthinking the next five steps. When first starting, she sent a message out on a neighborhood app to find participants, and 12 strangers responded right away. She said in that moment, “I knew I was onto something.”

Needs for connection and conversation unmasked itself to Rebecca through Share My Journey. She expressed the realization of how much impact a meaningful conversation can have on the giver and receiver. Share My Journey received positive feedback not only from the surveys taken by participants, but Rebecca shared that she receives unsolicited emails complimenting the initiative.

“…an authentic connection or a conversation that's meaningful; it’s such powerful medicine, and this is a tool that's available to us now to add to our toolbox of things that can reduce our anxiety, or at least provide a way to acknowledge the anxiety that we feel with what's going on.”--Rebecca Cohen

For connection, Rebecca asked people about their memories of receiving help. She found that each person she interviewed mentioned a time when they were offered help without asking. She expressed the power behind offering help and explained the ways she integrates this principle into her own life.

Rebecca then talked about her pitching to mentors, and the feedback given to her ideas. The task of pushing her idea out for people to evaluate brought Rebecca lessons in pivoting the execution of her ideas. From this, Rebecca outlined general, simple steps in starting with what you have.

Social venture projects seem to start very naturally and internally for Rebecca. She gave the background story on how she became an author, and the real life events that led her to write specific topics that relate to her own experiences.

The growth of Rebecca’s projects also comes naturally. She explained what I like to think of as community support developing a project compared to the strings of investor funding. Then, she dove into what she envisions for Share My Journey as the initiative progresses.

If you would like to learn more, you can check out Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or the official website.