Title:Alumni Spotlight: Shelby Renee Giles (SCS’16), Founder of WorthyWell

Meet Shelby Renee Giles (SCS’16), Founder of WorthyWell!

Please introduce yourself.

I’m Shelby Renee Giles. I received my Master’s of Public Relations and Corporate Communications from the School of Continuing Studies (SCS) in 2016, which was one of the best decisions I ever made. I’m also an astrologer, a professor and public relations strategist, and the founder of WorthyWell — a multi-platform media company devoted to storytelling that inspires spiritual well-being — which I recently sunset to build something new.

Was there any specific aspect of your time at Georgetown that influenced you to pursue entrepreneurship?

Two specific classes and professors had a meaningful influence on my entrepreneurial journey — Cause Consulting, taught by the Executive Director of Georgetown’s Center for Social Impact Communication John Trybus, and Personal Branding, taught by the Faculty Director of the SCS Public Relations and Corporate Communications program Carol Blymire. In Cause Consulting, John grouped students by interest, and we got to work with a cause-oriented organization, business, or other entity that aligned with those interests. John helped me to understand what it means to balance, as he put it, the head and the heart. He taught that it’s often the heart that drives us to this work, but you also have to use your head. You have to make it sustainable and manage the work in a way that serves you as the practitioner, the client, and the broader world. That class really helped to shape how I think about the true purpose of entrepreneurship — to improve the world — and affirmed that it is not this naive, pie-in-the-sky idea to build a life and business around that intention. Thankfully, I’ve been able to spend the last 15 years doing work that is in service of humanity in some way.

In her Personal Branding class, Carol Blymire guided students through this incredible process that involved writing a professional mission statement to inform our decision-making throughout our careers. Some days I look back to that statement, and it still rings true today. I’m in awe of how she so thoughtfully unearthed each student’s core mission — a mission that, in my case, had staying power.

What inspired you to create WorthyWell?

People often create the thing that they need themselves. When I started WorthyWell back in 2021, we were just coming out of the pandemic and, like many others, I had a lot of time to do some soul-searching. I found myself in this space where I desired meaningful conversations with others about my evolving spiritual journey, and the spiritual journey of others. What I found was this: there were plenty of self-care options out there, but very few spaces to actually have conversations about what it means to evolve spiritually, including the things we wrestle with individually. I wanted to not only create a space where those conversations were happening, but a space where those conversations were happening between people from all walks of life. Before I started WorthyWell, I found myself organically having these conversations with everyday people. I would be in a rideshare, and suddenly find myself in a beautiful conversation with my driver about spirituality and how their perspective has evolved. Once I was at a hardware store shopping for plants and had this incredible conversation with a gentleman who worked there about how his concept of spirituality had changed over the years. What struck me about these conversations was the common threads. I became really passionate about surfacing this idea that we truly do have more in common than we realize. That led to my first production through WorthyWell — a podcast called My Spiritual Friends. I took those organic conversations happening in my everyday life and brought them onto a platform for broader consumption. I found that honoring the perspective of people from different backgrounds affirmed that there are far more common threads than meet the eye. That became the cornerstone of WorthyWell — helping people to see themselves in each other — and it continues to drive my work today.

What does a day in your life look like?

The most important part of my day is the morning. I think that’s true for a lot of people, and it became clear to me roughly 10 years ago how important it is to start my day with intention. One aspect of my work that I’m really passionate about is making sure that I show up in a way that is conducive to holding space for sharing and storytelling, and meditation is something that helps me to do that. So my day starts with meditation and prayer along with some intention setting based on what I have planned for that day. Then I have what I call a creative hour — sometimes called a creative sprint — in the mornings. This is just an hour for me to work on the thing that I’m most excited about at the moment. I find that to be really energizing, and a great way to get my juices flowing for the rest of the day. From there, it’s meetings and creating. As someone who’s building something new alongside being a professor and marketing and communications leader at a justice-focused nonprofit, I have my hand in a lot of things. Because of that, my mornings really are my sweet spot.

What is the hardest part of your job?

The hardest part right now is pivoting, and I don’t think we talk about that enough as entrepreneurs. I recently sunset WorthyWell with so much gratitude for what I was able to create, share, and learn. It can feel daunting to move on from this meaningful thing you created to build something that feels more aligned with what’s needed now. As I build my new venture, I’m taking the lessons, and some wonderful encouragement from my WorthyWell audience with me. I’ve seen a couple of other entrepreneurs, specifically in the spiritual wellbeing, tech, and beauty space recently pivot, and it’s been nice to follow their journeys as a case study or a playbook while I’m in the midst of it myself.

What is the most fulfilling part of your job?

The most fulfilling part is hearing from people that the stories that you shared have had some kind of impact on their lives. It sounds pretty simple, but it’s incredibly validating to have someone reach out and say, “wow that thing changed how I looked at life, or gave me permission to go in a different direction.” After my Hoya talk at the Entrepreneurship Summit, someone came up to me and said, “what you said helped me to gain a new understanding of something that I had been working through for some time,” and that was really touching and validating. My intention is always to stay true to what feels most authentic to share, and trust that whoever needs to hear it will hear it when they need to hear it.

Is there anything you wish more people knew about your industry?

The first thing that comes to mind is a concept I’ve been hearing a lot lately, which is spiritual entrepreneurship. There’s this growing contingent of entrepreneurs who identify as spiritual entrepreneurs, and I include myself as one of them. Spiritual entrepreneurship really speaks to this idea that entrepreneurship requires both inner work and outer work. And when both are nurtured and in balance with each other, you’re able to serve the world in ways that go far beyond some of those more tangible, traditional rewards like profit and recognition. It’s a new way to think about how to move humanity forward through our work, and there’s actually a really great book about it called Spiritual Entrepreneurship by Sherry A. Smith. She’s the founder of the Indigo Project, and she shares her own journey in a powerful way. There’s also Rev. Richard Tafel. He’s the pastor of the Church of the Holy City in Washington, D.C. where he’s leading a lot of work around spiritual entrepreneurship, and creating community around it.

How does Georgetown continue to support you as an alumna?

Going to Georgetown was one of the best decisions I ever made and, for context, I’m not someone who was initially sold on going to grad school. I did a ton of research. Living in the Washington, D.C. area at the time, I had so many great choices. The thing that drew me to Georgetown was the fact that the public relations and corporate communications program had an orientation towards social impact work. That spoke to my heart. Every class I took was further confirmation that I was in the right place. I knew while in the program that I wanted to teach at some point. Now, as an adjunct professor at Loyola Marymount University, I get to bring with me into the classroom the inspiration I’ve gained from so many incredible professors at Georgetown.

Georgetown is also really great about creating opportunities for alumni to stay connected and the network is vast. Here in LA, there’s an alumni chapter. There’s one in every city, and in multiple countries around the world as well. I always feel at home whenever I engage with Georgetown in any way.

Finally, what is one piece of advice you would give to any Georgetown student who might be interested in entrepreneurship?

I think for a lot of people, entrepreneurship, depending on your life experiences and background, can feel like this big thing, but there’s so much proof that it’s possible for everyone. As someone who is passionate about people following their intuition, if there’s one thing you’re passionate about creating in the world, that means you’re meant to create that thing in the world. If you back that up with practical application and consistent progress towards your ideas, you will inevitably move your goals forward. That practical application includes gaining the right business knowledge and education, and learning from the right mentors. And it also includes taking good care of yourself spiritually, mentally, and physically. This doesn’t mean there won’t be obstacles. Progress, of course, isn’t linear. But if when you zoom out you see an upward trend, then you’re moving in the right direction. The other thing that drives a lot of my decision-making is approaching life through a lens of possibility. Earlier, I mentioned my mission statement from Carol Blymire’s Personal Branding class. It had a lot to do with orienting myself and others towards possibility, and it’s still at the core of who I am. So for students interested in entrepreneurship, try to orient yourself towards possibility, because you have to believe the solution exists in order to create it.

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