We were lucky to catch up with Samantha D. Liberal recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Samantha D., thanks for joining us today. Alright, so you had your idea and then what happened? Can you walk us through the story of how you went from just an idea to executing on the idea

Friend, here’s the thing…we are ALWAYS executing and launching! The idea is almost never fully curated because we only see and know things partially. What we think is the big picture, today, is actually an even bigger picture tomorrow. So these little ideas stirred up my spirit when I realized that my life was changing spiritually and socially and I was afforded the support of friends, to make changes to evolve my ministry and business. As I was changing, I realized how important it is to either have friends that understand or friends that are going through similar changes both personally and professionally. It’s no secret as to why we are placed in classes with other students that are either the same age or have the same test scores. There are levels to this right? lol. So I found myself in a new grade or space and fortunately, I was able to see my purpose and take a leap of faith into the unknown. Friendship isn’t new, but the way that I decided to present it, is. I’m still getting started honestly. I started with the spiritual aspect of friendship which entails your personal relationship with God and yourself, then I found myself helping others with everyday coaching, which has now turned into me helping organizations and corporate companies build harmony and morale in the workplace.

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?

As a highly prolific and knowledgeable Friendship Coach, Samantha D. Liberal is passionate about helping organizations and businesses achieve greatness by incorporating and building professional friendships in the workplace as a strategy. With a professional background in internal investigations, speaking, social consultant, and author, she runs Friendly Hills Academy, a training/teaching business. Samantha works closely with decision makers such as leaders, managers, HR, recruiters, and business owners towards improving relationships in the business world, boosting job satisfaction and productivity amongst their peers in corporate and institutional settings.

Samantha helps companies set their relationship goals, understand their current collaborations, and project on their subsequent levels of engagement. She leverages her internal investigation experience better to understand the relationships and team issues in businesses and help build teams that get along and appreciate each other. Samantha helps organizations boost employee engagement and retention and understand their people by cultivating meaningful conversations and incredible connections. She works with businesses and organizations on leadership, mentorship development, and corporate wellness programs.

Before finding the need for corporate friendship training, Samantha Liberal was said to have always had a heart for friendships and it has always been her desire to bring the masses together. Through her years of growing her faith, Samantha Liberal discovered that her purpose is rooted in friendships and she quickly made all the challenging changes to birth “Pure Friendships”, a non-profit that focuses on pushing millennials into pursuing purpose, understanding their uniqueness, succeeding scholastically, and achieving honors. Through the process, she has been able to define what a pure friendship is in a practical and applicable way also that people can maintain it! Her entire life roots back to friendships and the impact it has had on her growth and personality.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

One of the biggest lessons I learned was that if you hear something in your heart about where you are meant to go, listen. When I founded Pure Friendships, there was some great feedback, and there still is to this day, however, I knew that God was calling me to even more. I remember looking at my life and trying to put all the pieces together and then “BOOM!” one day it hit me, corporate friendships are important too! We spend the majority of our time in our offices or at work; it’s practically our 2nd home. Whether we are working for a company or building our own businesses, building professional friendships are important and have shown via studies to be a rising topic for company sustainability.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?