Angela Trusty is a young professional living outside DC. She’s a success coach, advice columnist, and she started the self-love campaign Love Your Selfie (@loveyourselfie_xo) back in 2016. Her passion is helping people discover their potential and triumph over their fears and self-doubt. We were lucky enough to interview her for our first ever issue of The Curated Notebook.
Welcome, Angela! And thank you so much for sharing your story with The Curated Kids.
Thank you! I’m so excited about this feature! I have always appreciated beautiful things but have never been able to actualize what’s in my mind, so learning simple tricks from The Curated Kids this past year has been so rewarding.
Well, you helped get it started so thank you. It’s been great following Ask Angela and Love Your Selfie over the years. For those who don’t know you or haven’t seen your work, tell a little bit about yourself.
Well, I am from a large family of 6 girls and 1 boy and I’m right smack in the middle! I’m from the East Coast but spent 5 years living in Salt Lake City, UT and immersing myself in the acting community out there. During this time, I developed a deep appreciation of people and their unique stories. This was during my early 20s which, for me, was a time filled with questions. What should I do with my life? How do I mend this relationship? Should I mend it? How do I become the best version of myself?
Turns out, lots of people had these same questions. My column, Ask Angela, grew out of my actual life experiences. Sharing advice with friends, receiving advice from mentors- I wanted to capture this moment in time for myself but most importantly, to help others. So Ask Angela was born.
It must be difficult to write sincerely to strangers. What’s your process for responding to their questions?
Well as an advice columnist, and now as a coach, I’ve learned that a large part of motivating someone is simply listening to them. People rarely get to the heart of their issue the first time they try to articulate it but if you listen closely you can usually start to figure out the real source of the problem. Fear, self-esteem, worry, frustration, even a deep desire to succeed can all be hidden in the simplest questions. Once you’ve heard someone, truly heard them, the actual act of “giving advice” is pretty easy. People have the answers within themselves and I just have the deeply rewarding job of helping them discover it.
Helping people help themselves seems really important to you. Is that what inspired you to start Love Your Selfie?
Yes, partly. I started Love Your Selfie because I realized as an advice columnist that the root of so many struggles is how we feel about ourselves. I saw that in my own life and letters from my readers. We accept less when we feel badly about ourselves. We treat ourselves worse. We can’t live as deeply when so much of our emotional energy is spent beating ourselves up. I wanted to become a part of the solution so I started this movement to feature the self-love journeys that I saw happening around me. It’s turned into a wonderful community and a safe space for growth.
You said that your life experiences have influenced the work you’ve done. What are some things you wish you could tell your younger self?
- Angela. Go get your eyebrows done.
- Learn your talents and nurture them- don’t waste time trying to become other people.
- Stick with it.
- Break up with him.
- The winning lottery numbers for any future Powerballs
- You’re doing a great job!
Those are amazing answers! Any amazing inspirational quotations you want to share?
My favorite is one by Arthur Ashe: “Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.”
I love the simplicity of this statement. You don’t need a million dollars (though winning the Powerball would be nice) and the fancy equipment and all the degrees to be and do that thing that you feel burning inside of you. It sounds too simple, but just go for it! A second favorite quotation that pretty much makes the same point is, “Ain’t nothin’ to it but to do it!” I’ll credit my oldest sister Lauren for that one.
That’s great advice. Finally, do you have any advice for people struggling with self-love?
Just know that there are so many different aspects of how we feel about ourselves. What type of trauma have we been through? How are we healing? How can I accept that this is a process? What can empower me to be patient? Resilient? Brave? It’s such an internal thing. I also think it’s important to connect with other people experiencing similar struggles, which is why the @LoveYourSelfie_xo community is so wonderful. Self-love is a long path and I really encourage people to begin their journey with us.
We do, too.
I want to thank Angela again for giving her time to The Curated Kids and sharing her uplifting message of self-love and empowerment. If there’s an idea you’re considering or a business you want to launch, schedule your own consultation with Angela by messaging her at askangela.dn@gmail.com or @loveyourselfie_xo.
Would you like your business to be our next feature? Let us know at thecuratedkids@gmail.com