We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Emilie Hernandez a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Emilie, thanks for joining us today. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?
I was exposed to indoor rock climbing and outdoor recreation during summer camp in the 90s, but it wasn’t until I was in my senior year at Texas State University [in 2010] did it really became a part of my life. It was very intimidating at first despite finding community at our student recreation center. At the time, I was dating an impatient and abrasive scientist who had little patience with teaching me about rock climbing and outdoor recreation in general. After climbing on and off for all those years, I started to notice a trend among women in climbing. I heard many of the same stories of impatience, pressure and a lack of understanding when it came to the interpersonal dynamics between them and their cis, het, male partners. My theory was confirmed In the fall of 2017 after I was invited to co-lead a women’s rock climbing meet-up for a California-based organization. A local female climber had reached out to me because she knew I was dependable, and believed in climbing as safely and responsibility as possible. After that event, I reflected on my early years of climbing and the trauma that ex-boyfriend left me with. It became clear that not only did Texas need its own rock climbing organization for women, it needed community and education for them too. In January of 2018, after debating whether or not anyone would be interested in my dream, I started a Facebook group and named it Texas Lady Crushers. Little by little, more women joined and then I opened up membership to non-binary and trans-identities as well.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
I’m a Jewish Chicana from San Antonio, Texas and have always been athletic and social. I played baseball and basketball from the age of 5-14 and then transitioned to wrestling when i was a junior in high school. I went to summer camp for seven summers in a row during middle and high school, and that’s where I discovered my love for Mother Nature, exploration and outdoor recreation. In 2005, I attended Texas State University while on an orchestra scholarship. I was racing competitive motocross at the time and unfortunately suffered a broken back and ankle the weekend before finals my first semester at school. After taking a year off to recover, I re-enrolled and ended up graduating with a degree in Broadcast Journalism with a minor in Communication Studies.
I ended up getting into the culinary field after college due to my years of experience in the restaurant industry. I started as a hostess and busser at the age of 16 and always had a passion for cooking. I studied under decorated Chefs and eventually became a Personal Chef in 2015. Rock climbing interweaved itself in and out of my life throughout those years but San Antonio isn’t exactly the mecca for outdoor recreation. I met some local climbers in Austin and eventually started Texas Lady Crushers as a hobby. Since I was working full-time as a Chef in San Antonio, a hobby is how I treated “TxLC”. I wasn’t a certified climbing guide and didn’t think it was right to charge money for my events. For the first two years we were in existence, I hosted free indoor and outdoor rock climbing meet-ups, volunteer opportunities and social events for our members.
I moved to Austin in October 2019, met my husband six weeks later and quickly realized I wanted to make TxLC my full-time job. My last day as a Personal Chef was March 2, 2020 and I hosted a bouldering retreat in El Paso, Texas March 5-8 of that year. (Bouldering is rock climbing on shorter rock formations where you place a foam pad below you as a “landing area”. You do not wear a harness or use a rope because once you get to the top you either jump down on the pad, walk down the other side of the formation.) I hired a professional female climbing guide who led us at Hueco Tanks State Park and the package also included guided meditation, three-course meals, water and lodging. Unsurprisingly, it was very successful and those who were in attendance really enjoyed the experience. After that trip, I decided to pursue my rock climbing guide certification but COVID had other plans for me and the rest of the world. I got sick with the virus at the end of March and had to reassess what my plans were for Texas Lady Crushers. Our free meet-ups had gotten so popular, there was no way I could responsibly host those anymore. In the fall of 2020, I started hiring local guiding companies to teach small clinics for paying attendees. Those were successful as well but they still weren’t serving the needs of our community since all of the companies are owned and run by white men. Regardless of COVID, I started studying for my rock climbing guide certification and will be starting my own guiding company as soon as possible. Texas needs a female owned and operated outdoor recreation company that is sensitive to the needs of underrepresented humans and marginalized communities. I support all of the options currently in existence, but I have a bigger dream for Texas Lady Crushers and beyond.
Have you ever had to pivot?
If anyone has worked in the restaurant industry, they most likely will agree that it can be a very toxic environment. Addiction is a very common theme among industry employees, especially those in the culinary field.
My father was an addict and while I was warned in my youth of the dangers of alcoholism, I didn’t understand its power until I was in the thick of it.
After college and before becoming a Personal Chef, I was a leasing agent for luxury apartments. I was able to afford a decent lifestyle for a 25-year-old in San Antonio, Texas and with that, my drinking became more prevalent. Once I left the apartment industry and pursued culinary full-time, it got even worse due to socializing in and around local bars and restaurants. When I became a Personal Chef, things hit an all-time low. I was often alone and started drinking early due to the solitary nature of my job. Working without co-workers can be boring and if you have addictive tendencies like I did, it’s easy to make excuses for drinking wine at 2pm on a Tuesday.
Despite being very active in the yoga community, drinking guided just about everything I did once I left my clients’ home. I found it becoming normal to drink wine in the afternoon during work, then going to yoga in the early evening, only to finish my night with a bike-ride down to the local bars to complete my evening. I was proud of myself for not drinking and driving, but neglected to realize how much risk I was taking on by riding my bicycle home drunk at night.
After a bicycle accident downtown, fights with my friends and family, and embarrassing moments among colleagues that left me wondering what I said to piss them off, I realized I needed to make a change. I told myself as I came up on the new year in 2017, “Em, it’d be a good idea if you took a break from drinking, and an even better idea if you never picked it back up again.”. I decided to commit to the Whole30 Paleo Diet Program on January 9, 2017 (the book tells you to pick a date so you can get your kitchen, friends, and family ready for your commitment). I knew if I was on a strict diet, I wouldn’t have to explain why I wasn’t drinking to anyone, I could just say “Oh, I’m on the Whole30.” and no one would have a follow-up question or concern. Well, it ended up that I started the program on January 7, 2017 because I got so wasted during my mom’s 60th birthday celebration on January 6th. I literally woke up the morning of the 7th and knew that was the day. I couldn’t wait until the 9th because I couldn’t imagine taking another sip of alcohol.
My plan worked exactly how I theorized, but the caveat was I didn’t tell anyone I wasn’t planning on drinking again once I was done. I prefer to avoid unsolicited opinions and after consulting with friends of mine who had battled addiction, they recommended I keep my plans to myself. So, everyday after those 30 days in January and into February, I just focused on continuing down my new path. It was super challenging and while I thought it was going to make my life a lot easier, the decision to stop drinking actually made it more challenging. No longer did I have the patience for negativity, unintelligent conversations with disrespectful humans, or the dangerous lifestyle I’d been living for the past 15 years. Mediation, yoga, and learning how to communicate better became pillars in my life from then on. My evenings were spent going to yoga but not finishing my night at the bars. My weekends always involved rock climbing and sometimes camping with people who supported my healthy lifestyle choice. In less than a year, I grew closer to the Texas climbing community and felt inspired and empowered to become a leader. I guess it’s no surprise Texas Lady Crushers came about almost one year to the day I decided to stop drinking alcohol.
We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?
Texas Lady Crushers literally began on Facebook back in 2018. Instagram was popular, but I’m 35 years old and had been a loyal Facebook user since 2005. It was naturally set up to communicate and reach large audiences, so that’s what I did. I was able to join similar rock climbing and outdoor recreation groups that would often allow me to advertise my free events. TxLC is a private group, so once I would promote it on other similar groups, it’d naturally create awareness and drive traffic to our events.
Instagram was a little more challenging to figure out but what I realized was it was even more important to be active on. It could reach international audiences without needing to “join the group” or “DM me for info”.
Personally, I know that consistency with whatever social media platform you’re on is key. Consistency with your branding, your message, and especially interacting with your followers. Don’t get me wrong, just because I know this doesn’t mean I do a great job myself. It’s just me who runs TxLC and I’ve never created anything like this before. YouTube taught me a lot about social media and I highly recommend using it as your teacher as well. Just keep in mind, ANYONE can create a YouTube video and that means there’s a lot of unhelpful videos out there you can easily get caught up in. My advice for learning about social media without spending a dime while doing so is this: find your niche and study those in it whose success you want to emulate. Pay attention to the video view count, rating, date it was made/posted, and what other resources that person has available (website, Instagram, Facebook, etc). Do not get bogged down with learning – it’s the action that counts. You MUST be consistent with your content and not get distracted with mindless scrolling. If you’re on social media to work, you work! Lastly, once you’ve gotten your social media strategy dialed in, outsource it unless your business IS social media. Spend your time doing the thing that only YOU can do (your niche). Your time is extremely valuable and social media is one of the best ways to waste it if you’re not careful.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.texasladycrushers.com
- Instagram: http://instagram.com/texasladycrushers/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/texasladycrushers/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9u2K6pL_-I
Image Credits
Savannah Cummins Brian Deitch Juan Diego-Reyes Eliza Earle Eddie Negrete Glenda Reyes-Ortiz Morgan Sessions