Originally from Saskatchewan, but now based in Edmonton, Geraldine Carriere is an author, speaker, movement coach, performer, and stylist. But before all of this, she worked within Indigenous organizations and gained experience working with Indigenous people. With this experience, she was able to identify gaps within the Indigenous communities as well as the Indigenous population.
Noticing a specific gap—identifying and working through the barriers on what is holding Indigenous women back—she chose to be a source of solution to this gap. Geraldine created Wild Woman, which umbrellas various services, but mainly to work with Indigenous women and help them push through those identified barriers. She describes her business as teaching from an Indigenous world view, teaching and empowering women in a matriarchal sense, and empowering them in all different elements: emotional, intellectual, physical, and mental. Whether it’s wealth, health or relationships, she helps to identify what’s keeping them blocked.
“Reminding women of their power and what it is they can do if they reined in and took that. Reminding women of the things they may have neglected or have forgotten about. Awakening the Wild Woman within.”
The book that she is writing complements her business and she also uses the book as a marketing tool. The book is called Wild Woman: Master the Art of Pride, Presence and Productivity and goes through a breakdown of those three elements to create pride in who you are as an Indigenous woman. It’s very in-depth psychologically and spiritually. Geraldine does one on one coaching, speaking, and workshops all while using her book as a juiced-up version of a brochure.
Recently, Geraldine was the recipient of an Esquao Award, saying, “it’s a different thing when your community and people recognize you.” This was an award from the organization that she had worked for when she first came to Edmonton. Seeing it come full circle was very special for her.
“Women going through the process with me and reaching their goals is the biggest reward for me. Even if it’s just a few people it’s the ripple effect that I feel is important.”
Geraldine came to Business Link with her initial idea and was looking for reassurance that it could be done. After receiving that reassurance, she completed secondary market research, and from that, she was able to identify that there really wasn’t anyone out there doing this her way, legitimizing the reason to do it even more. Business Link also provided knowledge of what kind of resources are out there that she was able to utilize. Alberta Women Entrepreneurs also helped her build her idea a bit more and she also has her own personal business coach who helped her learn firsthand what it would be like to work with clients.
Geraldine’s business is now self-sustaining and she can invest in her own self-improvement to better serve her clients, but it hasn’t been an easy road. Believing in the worth and the value of the work she was doing, while establishing she had something beneficial to give to people, was her biggest obstacle.
Her advice for new entrepreneurs:
“Your passion and purpose need to be aligned and you really need to know and feel a fire with whatever you want to do. Choose an industry that will never die out like my choice: mental health.”
While building her business and doing bigger scaled Wild Woman stuff, Geraldine is also working on her side hustle of being a performer with an album coming out soon. She also has her eyes set on a TV show and we’re excited to watch her level up on her journey!
Learn more about Ger from her website or connect with her on social media!
