There’s No Such Thing As Unbreakable Glass

You can’t make this up… “When I founded the Sinfonietta, I was, to put it politely, fed up with the underrepresentation of women of color musicians I was seeing on Broadway. I’m sure I’m not the only one who realizes that my biggest credits at the highest level have been consistently on “ethnic” musicals. When did we decide that women of color can’t make big, lush, traditionally “white” Broadway music a la the Barbra Streisand era??

I expected my uphill climb launching this initiative to culminate with an outpouring of support from the community — the same community posting Black squares on their Instagrams and flooding their social media feeds with promises to the BIPOC community to “do better.” And it’s not that we didn’t receive that support — quite the contrary, our premiere music video was picked up by CBS and we received press features from dozens of global outlets. But some of Broadway’s “elite” were far less welcoming. Those golden doors that I expected to swing open to us remained firmly closed. I could feel the cool glass at the top of Broadway’s ceiling, but why wouldn’t it break??

I was crushed. Why were the people who hold the golden keys to my little corner of the industry investing so much energy in keeping me, and by proxy dozens of BIPOC women musicians, out of it??

It’s only now that I understand that my thinking was too small. That “glass ceiling” we’re supposed to crack is sometimes made of shatterproof glass — and the only path to success is constructing your own open-air skyscraper a few blocks away. This is in no way a diss to Broadway — it’s my first love, and the industry where I make my living. But I realize now that one small corner of the entertainment industry was too limiting to be our ceiling.?

Just one year later, the Sinfonietta has been invited to collaborate with global beauty, fashion, and news brands such as Bloomingdale’s, MAC Cosmetics, and The Atlantic Magazine. Next, we’ve been offered a record deal by a major record label to create a debut album, and invited to headline one of the world's most renowned orchestral concert halls.

My key takeaway here? Stop expecting someone to pull up a chair for you at their table. Build your own.” -Macy Schmidt, Sinfonietta

The thing about glass ceilings is that unbreakable glass doesn’t exist. There is not a glass ceiling in the world that cannot be broken, as Macy so bravely makes clear. When you change your energy about potential opportunities and refuse to accept barriers, the people holding those barriers and glass ceilings in place won’t be strong enough to stop you from breaking them.?

What if you could turn your worst personal moment into the highlight of your career, or the foundation of a new business? This week, we hear from Macy Schmidt and Natasha Pearl Hansen as they examine their darkest moments, biggest disappointments, and the inevitable wins that rose from the ashes.?

I'm Natasha Pearl Hansen, a comedian and entrepreneur in both the business and entertainment worlds.

After a decade of touring the world as a standup comic, and with many other business endeavors along the way, I shot my first comedy special on my canceled wedding day in 2019. The special is called "I Was Supposed to Get Married Today," and it launched on Amazon in April of 2021.

In January of 2020, my fiance and I split for good after 14 years in each other's lives. When we broke up, I jokingly sent my wedding registry out to my friends and family as "Natasha's marrying Natasha" and registered for all the items I was losing in my breakup. People found the idea hilarious and brilliant, and I got to work. Over the pandemic and as a solo founder, I built My Break-Up Registry (www.mybreakupregistry.com), a crowd-funding and gift registry platform for people breaking up. The story inspired many people in my sizeable social media following, and I'm launching into sectors next of providing health, mental health, wellness, healing and new experiences post-breakup.

It's been a true journey getting this new concept off the ground, but the excitement and levity behind this hard time in so many women's lives has inspired me through the hard times. I've bootstrapped the entire build, and am aiming to grow a massive global community of people looking for support and to support others in their healing through relationship traumas.

Oh... and I just found out 3 days ago that my ex fiance married my ex best friend and they have a baby on the way... isn't life a trip.

Anyways, I love getting to turn lemons into lemonade and heal people through my humor on stage, and through my company off stage. -Natasha Pearl Hansen, My Break-Up Registry

When the driving force behind your actions is emotions, there’s not a person or obstacle in the world that can keep you from achieving your goals. Natasha used her post-breakup sadness to not only connect with others going through the same thing, but to help women around the world experiencing heartbreak. I encourage all founders and aspiring founders to take that rock bottom moment, and turn it into something beautiful.?