We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Tori Hope Petersen. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Tori Hope below.
Hi Tori Hope, thanks for joining us today. Can you tell us about a time where you or your team really helped a customer get an amazing result?
At the Survivors Thriving & Writing Retreats we create spaces for survivors to start writing their books in community. The women come from backgrounds of foster care, human trafficking, and abuse. One young woman was living in a group home for emancipated youth, with no family to call her own. She now has a community that she calls family through the retreat, and another woman who attended the retreat actually offered her a place to stay. The young woman is no longer living in the group home, and has a family to call her own. Writing a book and sharing a story is so powerful, and gathering people who welcome one another in radically is truly life changing
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers
I grew up on foster care system, but had a track coach who welcomed me into his family. He showed me that you don’t have any special certification or any grand title to love people and welcome outsiders in. Hospitality and advocacy are very important to me.
People say that they want to be a voice for the voiceless but those we deem voiceless usually have a voice. When we speak up for them we are taking it away. I’ve founded a nonprofit that hosts retreats and gives survivors of foster care, human trafficking, and abuse space to process their trauma through writing and in community. We equip the women to write their stories and books while also giving them the support to do so.
Welcoming people in and hosting others is my greatest joy. It is how I came to understand that I was loved, and I hope to be an encouragement for others to let people in.
Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?
Literary agents and publishers told me if I wanted to write a book I should start sharing on social media. In the beginning I absolutely dreaded it. But as I continued sharing I felt that the process of writing and sharing was very healing. I could see how the worst parts of life could be used for good when people would message me and say they got involved in foster care because of me. One woman reached out said she was thinking of ending her life and then she came across one of my posts. If you’re wanting to grow your social media, just ask yourself how you can be honest and serve others looking at your posts. Then if you have a post that flops or you don’t get a lot of likes it doesn’t even matter, because you don’t do it for that reason. You do it for the people, and the truth is you’ll never know who is on the other side of the screen impacted by your love and kindness in a post!
Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?
Being authentic and sharing when things are really hard, as well as when things are really good has helped me building reputation. When I am meeting my audience in person at speaking engagements or a book signing I try my very best to be the same person I am on social media as I am in person. I try my very best to show up and be very present by remembering that people come long ways just to meet me. And I never want to be that person in which someone says I wasn’t as great in person as I am on social media.
Contact Info:
- Website: Torihopepetersen.com
- Instagram: Instagram.com/torihopepetersen
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tori-hope-petersen-6359aa215
Image Credits
Reagan Williams