EAP 190: Let Your Dreams Fly - Archery, Empowerment & Hidden Gems with Natasha Green
In this energizing episode of the Early Accountability Podcast, host Kimi Walker sits down with Natasha Green, CEO and founder of Hidden Gems Archery. What began as a teacher’s dream to give her Bronx students a sense of purpose has evolved into a mobile archery business transforming lives across New York City. Natasha shares her journey from writing a grant with no archery experience to running an empowering, community-focused venture that helps both youth and adults realize their hidden potential.
Through powerful stories and real-life examples, Natasha talks about the immediate joy archery brings, the confidence it builds, and how it creates a unique bond within teams and groups. Whether it’s helping someone hit their first target or guiding corporate teams through collaborative challenges, Natasha’s work is all about showing people what’s possible when they believe in themselves. If you’ve ever felt called to do something unexpected—this one’s for you.
Topics Covered in This Episode:
- Using archery as a tool for empowerment and self-discovery
- How Natasha started her business with a grant and zero experience
- The unique benefits of archery in group and team settings
- Building confidence and joy through physical movement and mindset
- Encouraging underrepresented communities to try Olympic sports
- Turning personal passion into a purpose-driven career
About Natasha:
Natasha Green is an educator, entrepreneur, and community builder with over a decade of experience making a lasting impact in education and youth development. As the founder of Hidden Gems Archery, Natasha introduces students and communities to the empowering sport of archery, creating unique opportunities for growth, discipline, and leadership.
Natasha's journey into archery began during her tenure as a math teacher and Dean of Discipline at Clinton High School, where she sought to expose Black and Brown students to diverse opportunities, sparking what has become a flourishing initiative across NYC schools and beyond.
With over 10 years of collaboration with the NYC Department of Education and partnerships with organizations like the UFT School Counselors Chapter, Natasha has built innovative programs that bridge education, sports, and leadership. She also leads Hidden Gem Solutions, an edtech consultancy, and manages community-driven initiatives under her nonprofit, Hidden Gems Inc.
Natasha's expertise extends beyond archery; she is a passionate advocate for equity in education and is committed to helping individuals and organizations align their service and leadership goals. She is currently focused on expanding her leadership programming, empowering young people to set and achieve meaningful goals, and supporting schools and companies in creating impactful activations through archery.
CONNECT WITH NATASHA:
Website: hiddengemsarchery.com
Instagram: Hidden Gems Archery
Facebook: Hidden Gems Archery
CONNECT WITH KIMI:
Visit: earlyaccountability.com
LinkedIn: Kimi Walker
Facebook: Kimi Walker
Instagram: Kimi Walker
YouTube: Kimi Walker
Transcript
Welcome to the Early Accountability Podcast hosted by Kimmy Walker.
Speaker:Kimmy has a track record of serving as a behavior change and
Speaker:improvement catalyst for individuals, groups, and organizations.
Speaker:Get ready to make the best version of yourself a priority.
Speaker:Now welcome Kimmy Walker,
Speaker:Kimmy Walker here and welcome back to the next episode of the
Speaker:Early Accountability Podcast.
Speaker:I am so excited to be here and showcase my guest for this evening.
Speaker:We have Natasha here from Hidden Gyms Archery, so she's gonna first introduce
Speaker:herself and talk about her company and what they do and the ways that they
Speaker:are changing individuals and teams.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Hi.
Speaker:Thanks for having me.
Speaker:I'm so excited.
Speaker:This is amazing.
Speaker:Okay, welcome folks.
Speaker:So who am I?
Speaker:I am Natasha Green, CEO, and founder of Hidden Gems Archery.
Speaker:We're a travel archery business in the New York City metro area.
Speaker:That means that we bring the amazing spark of archery to youth and
Speaker:adults, and we teach them not to be aimless, get it not to be aimless.
Speaker:And we do this through activities with archery.
Speaker:We do this through curriculum and all things that make sure that they enjoy
Speaker:themselves when they're doing our program.
Speaker:And so one of the things with archery and how I got into it was because I was
Speaker:that teacher in the Bronx, New York, and I looked at some of her kids in the
Speaker:school deal with Clinton High School.
Speaker:I was like, there's some really bright talented kids in this school,
Speaker:and not all of them could play basketball on the basketball team.
Speaker:It's 15 people on a team.
Speaker:I was like, oh, hold up, hold up, hold up, hold up.
Speaker:There's too much talent here in this school.
Speaker:Mm. To not allow them to do something, especially an Olympic sport.
Speaker:And so I started my journey with that.
Speaker:But we believe in bringing archery to communities that will not have it.
Speaker:We believe in making sure that if you believe that this is something
Speaker:that you want to do, that wanna give you that opportunity to do it.
Speaker:How did you learn archery?
Speaker:I learned it when I got the grant to do it.
Speaker:Oh, are you serious?
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:I received a grant, so my vision in life was to be a principal of a school and
Speaker:have my ideas on changing school culture and having kids love coming to school.
Speaker:And so that was my vision.
Speaker:I never thought I was gonna have a business.
Speaker:And so that being said, when I was looking at my kids, I've always
Speaker:wanted to build things for my students that will make them have experiences
Speaker:that they remember for a lifetime.
Speaker:When I came to archery, I was like, oh, what if I wrote a
Speaker:grant to do this archery thing?
Speaker:And when I received the grant was when I was like, oh shoot,
Speaker:I have to learn archery.
Speaker:And so I only learned because I received a grant to teach them archery.
Speaker:How long have you been doing this?
Speaker:Been doing it for 10 years, but the past three to four years after Covid.
Speaker:You have seen more of a dedication to it, but 10 years is when
Speaker:I've just been around doing it.
Speaker:I had an archery location, a space, and we didn't have a space no more,
Speaker:decided to be mobile, but the past couple of years have been really intense.
Speaker:A lot more clients and things like that.
Speaker:So what are some of the transformations you see when you go to help
Speaker:small groups, schools, teams?
Speaker:What are some of the things you've seen that archery like instills
Speaker:in people or teaches them?
Speaker:First is the immediate joy.
Speaker:I don't know how to explain it to anyone.
Speaker:When someone first is nervous about, oh, can I really do
Speaker:this and how should I do this?
Speaker:But then they go immediately from being nervous to when they hit the target.
Speaker:I. And no matter we're on the target, they just hit the target.
Speaker:They're like, oh, I did that.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:Like I pulled it back and I did it.
Speaker:And so it's immediately realizing, wow, that I could do something that
Speaker:I never thought I could do, right?
Speaker:And that itself give people a power of I am capable.
Speaker:I could do this right?
Speaker:And so we see that automatically from the first time they do it.
Speaker:Then after they do some more of it and practice some more, then they
Speaker:start realizing like, wow, how I am connected to this target and
Speaker:how I move my body or my stance.
Speaker:Then it also relates into how and where I hit the target, right?
Speaker:So they come into this level of oneness, of realizing, wow, this process that I'm
Speaker:doing, this thing that I'm doing, and my body and myself relates to the arrow,
Speaker:relates to how the arrow hits the target.
Speaker:What have you seen people get from archery, like doing
Speaker:it in the group setting?
Speaker:So whether it's like you're at a school, like in a classroom, or you're doing it
Speaker:like corporately for like a small group or like a division in a corporate office.
Speaker:What are some of the things you see people get from a group, even
Speaker:though I guess I would assume archery's more like individual based?
Speaker:Like, I mean, when you come to actually do it, what do you see that do for teams?
Speaker:Yeah, they baseline.
Speaker:It baseline's an experience that you could be tall, a different age group.
Speaker:I could be short, a different age group, but it cuts across all things because
Speaker:the experience is the experience.
Speaker:And with archery, you have adaptive archery, right?
Speaker:Some people are taller, they'll have longer bows.
Speaker:Some people are shorter.
Speaker:They're shorter both, and with teams, it's a conversation
Speaker:I can now talk to you about.
Speaker:Oh wow, you just hit, how did you do?
Speaker:How did you feel?
Speaker:And so you start seeing teams able to communicate on something that
Speaker:gives us a commonality, right?
Speaker:This thing that we just did, no matter what background
Speaker:we're in, that's number one.
Speaker:Number two, we as a team, you could look at me and you could say, Hey,
Speaker:Tasha, that last time you didn't follow through on your shot, and now
Speaker:you're able to give each other feedback in a way that is not intrusive.
Speaker:It's like, oh, this is what we're doing together.
Speaker:Oh, look at my form.
Speaker:Oh, what do you see that I did?
Speaker:Oh, you put your hip out a little bit too much.
Speaker:So with teams, it builds this level of communicating in a area that we're both
Speaker:not sure about, but together we learning.
Speaker:And through this learning, then we realize, wow, when we learn, we could
Speaker:still talk to each other in this way.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:What is something you notice or seen or like some actualization you've had when
Speaker:it comes to teaching something like this that is unfamiliar to probably a lot of
Speaker:people, like something that's very new, something that may not have, especially,
Speaker:I know you talked about being in like underserved populations in schools.
Speaker:What are some of the things you have gained from that?
Speaker:Seeing people trying something that's foreign unknown.
Speaker:I know when I think of archery, I think of like the ax throwing and things like that.
Speaker:I'm like, oh my gosh, that's so like.
Speaker:It seems so dangerous.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:So what are some things you've kind of come from and seen
Speaker:from a facilitator standpoint?
Speaker:Yeah, so I bring in other things people might know.
Speaker:A lot of people know yoga and meditation.
Speaker:So I have to bring in this idea of I want you to breathe.
Speaker:Take a deep breath.
Speaker:I. Relax.
Speaker:This is new.
Speaker:You're not sure about it, but if you go through these steps, right,
Speaker:and this goes to across anything in all things we do in life.
Speaker:If you follow certain steps and procedures, then you're okay.
Speaker:Just check it off.
Speaker:Take a breath.
Speaker:And so what I see is when I related to things that they know about, like you know
Speaker:about breathing in yoga with meditation, you know about calming your heartbeat
Speaker:down, de-stressing yourself a little bit, and then I could pull that into archery.
Speaker:As in, as you stand on this line, you are standing on a line center yourself, right?
Speaker:Balance yourself, feel good to your core, and then you add the other
Speaker:parts of three fingers on the string.
Speaker:Raise up your arm.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:So it's just connecting on the things that people already know, but
Speaker:pulling it and saying, this is how it works in the world of archery.
Speaker:So how long do you suggest people do it who are trying to get more like mindful
Speaker:about it, to learn it to kind of perfect it or get even just better than it?
Speaker:Than say, let's say like a two hour class, right?
Speaker:Like, oh, this is fun experience.
Speaker:No, I think I wanna kind of like get better at this.
Speaker:Like people might do with tennis or racquetball or what have you.
Speaker:Yeah, it's a lifelong sport.
Speaker:You could do as young as seven all the way up to your nineties, as
Speaker:long as you go hold up a bow, right?
Speaker:And then you don't always have to hold it up.
Speaker:'cause you could also have adaptive archery where someone holds it for you.
Speaker:But that's a whole nother area.
Speaker:But what I really want people to know, it's like any sport, it's
Speaker:like anything that you learn, you put in hours, you put in time.
Speaker:And so in the beginning, yes, you go in and you're like, wow, I hit the target.
Speaker:That's what I did.
Speaker:But then like any sport, then you have certain levels of
Speaker:proficiency that you wanna reach.
Speaker:And in Archer in particular, you wanna get to where you
Speaker:are able to group your arrows.
Speaker:You're able to see that, hey, I'm centering on in my goal.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:And that takes time, right?
Speaker:Because what you realize when you shoot at the target, you'll get like a group,
Speaker:and then there's that one arrow that's off to the right or off to the left.
Speaker:You're like, uh.
Speaker:But that's where you're always working on this perfection of
Speaker:getting it centered into the target.
Speaker:So, okay, so I don't, you know, from New York, right?
Speaker:And I'm Indiana, right?
Speaker:So we have winters, right?
Speaker:We have snow.
Speaker:We know snow.
Speaker:Does it have to be outside?
Speaker:Is it something I could do like in my house in the winter?
Speaker:Or like is there a safe way to do that if I wanted to teach like my kids or family?
Speaker:How can you adapt this to different settings or environments?
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:We are travel archery, so we do indoor and outdoor.
Speaker:We set up indoors a lot of times in the schools and with
Speaker:companies and all of that.
Speaker:But if you as an individual have maybe 10 feet, 12 feet, I really
Speaker:do want people to be careful over there shooting inside their house.
Speaker:But you know, everyone have different spaces.
Speaker:But you wanna make sure that you have the proper target to make sure
Speaker:that when you are shooting right, there's different poundage of bow,
Speaker:like you're not piercing a wall.
Speaker:And so yeah, there's different ways that you could set up the archery experience.
Speaker:I am definitely a proponent for those who could find archery range in the
Speaker:area that you really enjoy, find the community, connect with them.
Speaker:'cause they also help you along your journey of becoming a better archer.
Speaker:Okay, so about the connection, I know we talked too about how it's like
Speaker:kind of individual, but can you talk more of what you've noticed too about
Speaker:connection and collaboration when it comes to learning a new task or trying
Speaker:something unknown, going like against your comfort zones and things like that.
Speaker:What have you found to see?
Speaker:'cause you do a lot with small groups, large groups.
Speaker:I'm sure you all might do individuals, but it seems like most
Speaker:of this is group work, correct?
Speaker:Yeah, that's correct.
Speaker:And so what we see is it's all how you frame the learning, right?
Speaker:So when we come in and we're teaching, especially adult, adult learning is a lot
Speaker:different sometimes than youth learning.
Speaker:We present the techniques and we're informed.
Speaker:We make sure that some people get able to read, okay, this is how stance goes.
Speaker:This is how knocking goes.
Speaker:This is how anchoring our reflection goes.
Speaker:And so we have it written.
Speaker:We also have verbal ways of stepping people through this.
Speaker:And so let's say we use the TheraBands, we use resistant bands, and we are partners.
Speaker:We put people together, so look at each other's form.
Speaker:If I'm like, Hey, raise up the TheraBand three fingers, pull to the
Speaker:anchor, the corner of your smile.
Speaker:Sometimes somebody's elbow might be down, right as I show you, my elbows
Speaker:down, but someone looking at my form, they'd be like, oh, raise your elbow up.
Speaker:That looks like a strong position.
Speaker:And so now you have peers helping peers, and we could teach them.
Speaker:Well, the view of you from position one right straight behind the elbow
Speaker:or their back is different than position two face, face in front.
Speaker:And so you could input this idea of how do you collaborate, how
Speaker:do you work with each other?
Speaker:How do you give each other insight?
Speaker:Because you don't always see how you are as a person physically, but also you
Speaker:don't always see how you're as a person when you're navigating situations, right?
Speaker:So that's why we get mentors.
Speaker:We get coaches, and the same thing happens at archery.
Speaker:You could connect that and say that, wow, like I'm looking at you physically,
Speaker:but then sometimes you might want more input on the mindset also.
Speaker:Okay,
Speaker:so how can people learn more if this is something they think that they would
Speaker:be interested in just learning more about whether it's bringing it to their
Speaker:organization, to their team, to a school.
Speaker:Where can they find out more about hidden gems or just support the mission or just
Speaker:stay in touch with what y'all are doing?
Speaker:So Hidden Gems, archery on social, Facebook, Instagram, x slash Twitter,
Speaker:LinkedIn, big LinkedIn person.
Speaker:You could follow us.
Speaker:Follow whole journey.
Speaker:And then definitely if you're in the New York City region, reach out because
Speaker:we wanna have ultimate archery days.
Speaker:We want working professionals to feel like this is something you could do.
Speaker:It's not something for just kids, it's something for adults
Speaker:to feel this joy of archery.
Speaker:So you all have to stay tuned.
Speaker:Natasha's gonna come back.
Speaker:You have to definitely follow on YouTube because we're gonna do a live and
Speaker:we're actually gonna get some video.
Speaker:We're gonna get some clips and show it so you can see this live.
Speaker:See what it looks like and dive into it Now, in the meantime though, can
Speaker:you share some words, what are some words, what's a mantra that you live by?
Speaker:What are some words that you feel like you kind of used to guide you?
Speaker:Let your dreams fly.
Speaker:That's something I believe in.
Speaker:Let your dreams fly.
Speaker:Believe that you're gonna hit the goals that you wanna hit.
Speaker:That's actually a tattoo I have on me.
Speaker:It's just something I live by.
Speaker:And then I hope more people do that because the world needs people who are
Speaker:dreamers, who believe in what they believe in, and I have a feeling like, Hey,
Speaker:I'm gonna go out air and just do this.
Speaker:We love it, so don't be aimless, right?
Speaker:And let your dreams fly.
Speaker:We love it.
Speaker:Natasha, thank you so much for being a guest on this show.
Speaker:Definitely check in when we go live on YouTube.
Speaker:Thank you for turning into the early accountability podcast.
Speaker:Until next time,
Speaker:it was a pleasure to have you join us on this episode of the Early
Speaker:Accountability Podcast with Kimmy Walker.
Speaker:Be sure to visit early accountability.com to sign up for
Speaker:the early accountability newsletter.
Speaker:We look forward to activating your greatness and helping
Speaker:you reach your goals.
