Meet Stephanie Kessl, MPH MS | Community Builder-Connector-Friend | Promoter of Lived Wisdom, Science, & Curiosity

We had the good fortune of connecting with Stephanie Kessl, MPH MS and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Stephanie, can you tell us more about your background and the role it’s played in shaping who you are today?
To begin-thank you and the readers for sharing your time in advance.

I am a human development specialist, so the question of, “how early life experiences influences our adult life” has been central to my professional career and naturally where I always begin.

Being raised in Chicago as the oldest female of 7 siblings with immigrant and multiracial parents, provided me with a unique childhood. My family make-up seamlessly stitched in all sorts of gender, societal, and cultural factors that I continue to tease out to this day. Layering into the fray, is the fact that I am a fraternal twin with a bi-polar mother. These more intimate circumstances further weaves in threads of complexities that forever bind my understanding of self, others, and the importance of community.

Advocating, teaching, and lifting up people has always brought me so much joy. It is why I began my career working as a classroom teacher then moved to community level policy and education and most recently worked at UCSD in family focused research.

Though I found the work to be super rewarding, I often felt trapped in the institutional bureaucracy, the rigid “status quo” systems, and the tendency of siloed thinking so narrowly focused on only one perspective of education to be uncomfortably limiting.

I alway enjoyed working with the public-particularly I love the process of building relationships, listening to other people’s stories, and exchanging ideas. These organic conversations provided me insight to notice a theme I continued to hear over the years. The theme was of frustration from the 100’s of high achieving professionals, parents, and peers who grudgingly looked to outside resources like WebMD, YouTube, or algorithm heavy social media platforms like Facebook for guidance.

Mentoring my many siblings, advocating for my mom’s health, and educating people across the lifespan provided me insight on the unspoken but obvious need to create a different type of learning and sharing environment-an intentional community where everyday curious and critical thinkers could connect, learn, and uplift together without bureaucracy, ads, or algorithms.

So I set about creating Best Vibes Village, a space where science-backed resources and lived wisdom are valued, where practicing a growth mindset and leaning into curiosity is encouraged, and meeting new people based on deeper interests is more meaningful and fun.

Best Vibes Village, is a new non-profit that leverages the ancient wisdom of “it takes a village” to support our basic human need for belonging in a modern yet natural way.

What should our readers know about your business?
Best Vibes Village is a new nonprofit that I dreamed up over years of working with 100’s of people that shared in the daily challenges and feelings of frustration, disconnect, and a sense of personal restlessness just like me. So I set about creating this type of community for all the curious adults-ready to be part of a modern day village.

AND speaking of challenges…I had originally envisioned the Village to be a brick and mortar-after work and 3rd space-specifically for parents and children. Well then Covid. So we shifted from a physical space to a virtual one-this was personally very challenging for me as I have always been resistant, my twin would say painfully slow, to embracing digital media and screens.

Anyway, as we were pivoting from a physical space into our current virtual community, the flood of virtual parent facing programming quickly created a new epidemic of “Zoom fatigue” on parents. Our original family focused programs began to steadily decrease as the pandemic and remote learning became established as the new norm and more parents were finding virtual support directly from their schools.

This shift created new challenges but by listening to our members during this time, we were able to continue to stay dialed in on our vision of providing a space to connect, learn and uplift each other while exploring more creative ideas programming.

As a human developmental specialist, I know learning and growing happens across the lifespan. Innovative and research backed programming has always been exciting and challenging me. I learned a long ago that to be most effective as an educator,  I had to release my ego-thinking I know what’s best and replace this assuming mindset with more open mindedness in observing, listening, and meeting the kids, adults and communities where they are at. The fun part is for me to challenge myself to leverage my strengths and stay flexible in the content creation, program iteration, and enrollment processes based on this insight.

I adore parent education so I do not ever see myself or Best Vibes Village stepping fully away from parents but the reality is…”us grown ups are just kids grown up”…so with this in mind-the direction of my current guided programming is focused on inspiring adults to be curious, confident, and celebrate THEIR OWN INNER CHILD.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?

I have the best pals a gal could wish for! I feel like I lived an entire rich lifetime on Panorama Dr. in University Heights when Kadan, Bourbon Street, Lei Lounge, and Red Fox Room were our haunts. I always say…you know it’s a REAL community when there are multiple coffee shops but not one is a Starbucks.

These are dusty yet sweet old memories and the walkability of the University Heights neighborhood still brings us skipping back.

So I’d personally recommend to start off with happy hour at Cantina Mayahuel, walk down to Muzita for great hospitality and family style dining and still stop at Cheers for the last drink of the night.

For hangover food it would depend on if we really did limit ourselves to just 1 night cap at Cheers. If so, then we might wake up bright eyed and collect our eggs from our hens (Tilly and Big Red) and make something super fresh and healthy, or if we ended up in our cups late night then we’d likely approach the day with a hair of the dog (likely a bloody cerveza) and impatiently wait for Ono Grinds to open for nearly ANYTHING on their menu.

We also always head down to Tj for at least one excellent meal-ps Rachel often says TJ is her favorite neighborhood in SD. Inevitably I’d be fostering a dog for The Animal Pad (an AMAZING LOCAL 501c3 pet rescue-shameless plug) and Alicia will have Diego, Chels with Vega, and Chris with Dingus so we’d squeeze in as many trips to Fiesta Island and Coronado Dog Beach as possible!

Before Covid we would have gone to U Spa for a day of relaxing, gotten oysters at Ironside, and Sushi at Azuki. Oh and because most of my truest bluest have not been able to visit recently, in my dream week of tour guiding-we would go to the Radys Shell to catch the sunset and symphony. It is really magical!

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
What a lovely way to start and certainly the easiest answer of this piece! My strong-willed and sharp-as-a-tack 94 year old Nanay>> who is from an real Village>>who never misses her favorite telenovelas>> who still fluently speaks 6 languages>>who has over 100 grand, great, and great-great grand children yet somehow still remembers to call me on my birthday>>who’s favorite color is leopard print>>who knows all the supreme judges, openly talks politics and knows her local council person>>who is unapologetically tired of Filipino food>>who is open to falling in love again.

Needless to say-she is WILDLY fierce and tender and my inspiration.

I inherited her love of being of service, learning, giving, and her unshakable sense of hope.

I am so blessed, inspired, and proud to have had such a badass female matriarch to look up to and will forever cherish the ways she continues to support my personal and professional growth!

Website: www.bestvibesvillage.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/best_vibes_village/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephanie-kessl/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bestvibesvillage

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtCLrp57S7afY79clJ5IBqg/search

Other: https://bestvibesvillage.mn.co

Image Credits
Nope, Screen shot from our Best Vibes Village youtube https://youtu.be/xTbAQgq5IlA