Mean girls. They exist at every age.
I remember them in elementary, middle, and high school.
They were also in college and at work after college, but did a better job of disguising their intentions, which in my opinion, made it even worse.
There is a reason the movie Mean Girls is such a hit. It’s relatable to almost every female.
For Adriana Carrig, it was no different. Instead of being bothered by it or ignoring it like most of us do, she decided to rise above it… in a meaningful and stylish way.
“While I was in college, I created a bracelet to be passed around my college sorority. The girls were so obsessed with the idea of “sharing kindness” that it really took off,” Carrig remembered. “I kept thinking about that concept, and knew I was on to something.”
What started as an exercise in positivity and self-love, become a movement… and a multi-million dollar business.
Today, Little Words Project is a shareable, trackable bracelet. On it, is one little word that inspires, motivates, and reminds the wearer that kindness is important.
With words like “strength”, “grateful”, and “be you”, the idea is to wear the original one-word bracelet for as long as you need that inspiration, then one day pass it onto a woman who needs it more than you do.
Each bracelet comes with a unique code on the back of the tag. You use that code to register your bracelet where you put in your story, why you chose that word, and how it’s helped you so far. When you’re ready to pass it along, you can use that code to see how it’s being used as it moves from wrist to wrist.
“From my first month in business, there was a demand for these bracelets, because women needed the reminder, the motivation, or the inspiration,” Carrig said. “Not a day goes by where I don’t hear about or experience firsthand a woman talking badly about another – which demonstrates just how important kindness amongst females really is. It’s so important to empower one another as women and yet it’s shocking how infrequently that happens!”
That is exactly what drives Carrig, a 29-year-old with a staff of seven full-time women in Caldwell, New Jersey.
For Carrig, it’s not just about business. Remember, this is a movement.
In August, she launched a non-profit called The Block Organization that is focused on building communities of kind and self-confident female leaders across college campuses.
According to Havard Business Review, women “benefit from an inner circle of close female contacts that can share private information about things like an organization’s attitudes toward female leaders, which helps strengthen women’s job search, interviewing, and negotiation strategies”.
Through monthly meetings, curriculum development, speaker series, mentor programs and more, The Block Organization plans to impact 500,000 girls by increasing the number of collegiate women in on-campus leadership positions.
Today, more women are owning their own businesses. Between 1997 and 2014, the total number of women-owned businesses in the United States increased by 68 percent. (As a woman-owned business, I love this stat.)
Carrig says her sole purpose in life is to bring kindness and positivity back into the female world.
With Little Words Project and The Block Organization, it’s such an incredible way to see how your kindness acts people down the line.
“At the end of the day, when women support women, we all win,” Carrig believes. “Be nice… and be nice to yourself.”