Not too long ago, Angelina Musik fled from a dangerous domestic situation to a welfare-to-work program in Washington State. She's recently been recognized by the Small Business Administration and Texas State Governor Rick Perry as both the District and Regional Woman in Business Champion of the Year. Ms. Musik was also nominated for the "Women who Change the World" Award by Essence Magazine

Looking Back
Angelina was transplanted from Germany to San Antonio in 1978 at the age of 13. She attended a private Providence High School where she excelled in Drama, Creative Writing, Math and Voice. She graduated in 1983. Her first business was a babysitting service she started at 14 years old to earn money for clothes to help her 'Americanize'.

She attended San Antonio College's Business Program part-time while modeling and doing commercial work. Her passion to write a script and to produce a film began with her early efforts overcoming challenges of not fitting in.

"I loved slipping into characters so I could be anyone else but me. Performing was an escape that brought me joy."

I also saw the power that celebrity's held in their hand to use for good to help others. As a young girl I wanted to be able to do the same, one day

Dreams on Hold
In the Fall of 1986, she won the principal role in a film, married a photographer and had two children, now 15 and 17 years old. An emotional downhill spiral started that year as she was ordered, by her threatened husband, to drop her roll in the film - one of many sacrifices to come.

Her marriage, she says, "exploded after 13 years due to the domestic violence caused by the mental illness her husband battled with."

Working around life
Despite her marital problems, Ms. Musik loved being a mother. She started a licensed home childcare, 'Angelina's House', so she could be financially productive while raising her own children. She lived as an "obedient wife" and held onto her dream that would one day be realized.

 

Baby Scotiana

Baby Christian

A job change for her husband relocated them to Houston in 1992, and soon after, with her children in Elementary School, she started 'Heavenly Help', a personal and business organizing company.

As a creative outlet, she recorded her first contemporary Christian album in 1995 and started a band to play at local Houston Coffee Houses.

Ms. Musik was also a Church Worship Leader for four years at two churches and frequently took her children with her to retirement homes to encourage the elderly.

Life's not fair
During the Summer of 1997, Angelina filed for divorce because her husband's dangerous behavior (he was diagnosed with a chemical balance) was increasing because he kept getting off his medicine. Church friends and neighbors helped her move to a small apartment. She hoped this would waken her husband to the reality that he needed to be responsible for the family they had created and to stop having her be the target of his anger.

"He got back on his medicine and we tried to reconcile through counseling again", said Ms. Musik. They had been in domestic violence counseling off and on for 11 years by them.

"Two months later, his body shut down and I became the sole supporter for the family for almost a year". Once her husband's health was returning, he got a job and moved to San Antonio with a promise to remain on his medication.

After a six month separation, she agreed to join him and moved back to San Antonio to work on the marriage.

Book Angelina - 210-557-4780

Not Again!
After just three days together as a family again, her husband had lost his job (again) and refused to take his medication (again).

Ms. Musik knew she had to launch a business to support their family. And she did.

In just two weeks she had taped, nailed, and pinned about a hundred signs on poles where car traffic was consistent in her neighborhood.

'Heavenly Help' was up and running again, with a waiting list within two weeks.

The end of a weary journey. Not!
Her husband disappeared for over six weeks. Angelina got advice from her close friends who had supported her through the 'tough stuff' and finally made a decision to end the marriage thinking "this was finally the end of a weary journey".

It gets worse
Leaving a "not well" husband proved to be a challenge. It included getting death threats with the knowledge that Protective Orders offer no protection.

May of 1999 Angelina hits the road with her two kids to head towards an 'underground shelter' in Washington State after being homeless and in hiding for two weeks in San Antonio, Texas.

Starting over with her children and what she describes as “droplets” of money, she became Washington’s first woman on WorkFirst's program to create software and an entrepreneurial program that would be used to help entrepreneurs, some in similar situations.

The next three years was chaotic and test her faith. Her husband fabricated stories, hired detectives and threatened to have her in jail for taking the kids. She was manipulated into returning the kids back to Texas under threats from her husband's attorney where they would be abused and neglected for the next couple of years. She would have to move back to Texas once it was safe enough to do so.

Book Angelina - 210-497-2372

Moving back to fight for the kids
She moved back to San Antonio, lived with her dad and was met with the challenge of not finding an attorney who knew how to handle a bi-polar divorce case, much less preventing her kids from being put in hiding every time she attempted to legally visit with them.

The Pizza set-up that backfired and got the kids back to mom.

After being separated from her children for a year and a half, with a growing folder of visitation violation police reports, as her husband hid the kids every time she had visitation, things would finally change for the better.

One Friday evening her son called via their secret phone (as their dad had disconnected all the phones so they couldn't communicate with the outside world, he just forgot to disable the test jack in the laundry room) sharing how hungry he was and that there was no food in the apartment except for a frozen pizza. Ms. Musik walked him through how to make the pizza and reminded him to position the frozen empty pizza box back in the freezer like it was before he took it out so his dad would not notice it being moved.

Oddly enough two hours later she would receive another phone call with her son asking if she had ordered Domino's pizza that was being delivered at the door as it had her name on the box. She hadn't but encouraged the kids to enjoy the pizza anyhow. 

The Pizza set-up that backfired and got the kids back to mom, continued . . .

Another couple of hours went by and her eleven year old son calls again complaining he wants to be with 'mom'. Ms. Musik tries to encourage him to hang in there and that one day this chaos would be over and they would be together again. 

It's early in the morning and Ms. Musik gets a call from a policeman who tells her to come pick up her two kids. Evidently her son mustered enough courage to call the police to complain about being scared and wanting to be with his mom and hadn't seen his dad for over a day.

That would be the last time the kids would be in that apartment alone, unfed and abandoned. They left with the clothes on their backs and started over again but in the arms of their mother in spite of the failings of three attorneys. Being reunited with her children was glorious.

Their dad would vanish in spite of his attorney setting up a jury trial that didn't happen, nor would he be there at the final divorce hearing. The judge shared his familiarity with 'mental illness' in his own family and encouraged Ms. Musik that her decision to leave Texas and to return  to fight for her children, though difficult were the right ones. 

The judge also verbally reprimanded the attorneys that were present for not requesting for the medical records of her husband which documented his mental illness and would have enlightened them on the dangers the kids were in.

Her kids are now young adults with great persevering attitudes that have compassion to help others in stressful situations.

"As a mother you wonder how your kids emotionally survive or thrive after going through chaotic times. I had always projected the 'adventures in life' type of attitude throughout the chaos. 

It wasn't until my son saw the movie 'Pursuit of Happiness' that he recognized that we were homeless for awhile and asked me about it. He was actually proud of me for projecting the 'adventurous mindset' instead of a 'woe is me' mindset. He understood the impact that it made on him on how to deal with what was going on. That meant a lot to me.

Finally Moving Forward

Ms. Musik and her new business partner, Daniel, launched Intelligent Netware, a media, marketing and web technology company in San Antonio, Texas. The goal was to create ways to empower people and businesses to increase their success rate while blessing others through their products and serves.

Their list of clients grew to include hundreds of companies across America including developing the first version of the UPS tracking system, to helping Rite Aid Corporation with 72,000 employees at 3600 store locations, during the Enron era and online sustained software training users like Starbucks, the U.S. Air Force, Jack in the Box and Microsoft.

Two years later Angelina and Daniel launched the MOMtrepreneurs Network in San Antonio to help train, support, market and fund women in business.

MOMtrepreneurs
Angelina describes MOMtrepreneurs as a "uniquely fun family disguised as a women’s mentoring, networking and marketing organization.” In June 2004 MOMtrepreneurs was the first 2-time awarded woman in business organization by the Small Business Administration for the combined used of TV and radio media, offline print marketing and online web technology to help women in business succeed.

Book Angelina - 210-497-2372

To keep the momentum going Ms. Musik had put in place contracts for monthly expos at Crossroads mall during the filming of her TV show, alongside of the release and distribution of her long awaited MOMtrepreneurs Magazine.

"I've learn to plan in pencil".
One month after being awarded twice by the SBA in June 2004 and in the midst of qualifying for Donald Trump's Apprentice III on NBC during July 2004 Ms. Musik was in a car wreck.

"Sorry Donald"
In June Ms. Musik was called by Mark-Burnett Productions and encouraged to audition for NBC's Apprentice III Season. She did an email promotion to locals in San Antonio encouraging them to also participate. A month later, five days before the taping she was hit from behind while sitting in traffic.

"The of taping I left the room realizing for the first time how 'out of sorts' I really was. Finding out the next day that I had not only suffered a concussion but my neck was now bent was not a good thing. There is no way I could have played entrepreneurial chess that the Apprentice show requires to compete. Quick, dynamic thinking and following your gut is so important to be able to succeed on that caliber of a show."

Not all was lost, a year later she was contacted by Trump University to consult on how to grow their women in business sales of Trump University's products.

The Angelina TV Show
After the car wreck in July 2004 she put the launch of her magazine on hold, yet still decided to still moved forward with the filming and airing of The Angelina TV show, motivational entrepreneurial TV show, on the PAXTV Network, that aired Mondays at 9am starting the first week of October of 2004. 

The show only aired five episodes as Ms. Musik grew weary between medical appointments to deal with her  neck injury along with constant fatigue, focus and memory issues much less trying to work to earn an income to support the family and show's production costs.

Her network representative shared after the show was pulled, "Angelina's show was the first morning talk show where we not only saw an increase in viewers within the half hour but each week as well, more than double."

Ms. Musik's show captured and sustain its audience with good show content as well as being commercial free. Her heartfelt honesty radiated in spite of being a new show with limited resources and her recovering from the car wreck that she reminded new viewers about jokingly along the way. Her show was about being real and about what matters.

'The Angelina Show’ segment

Angelina Musik interviews Pro Snowboarder Carissa Comp

The show is about encouraging people to believe AND achieve their dreams. Viewers are edu-tained through a series of interviews, lessons and interactions between Angelina her guests.

Regaining Momentum
"I have had to change my way of living and working during this healing period. My biggest battle has been with the frustration of letting go of what could have been and dealing with the post traumatic stress. 

I am learning so much about all of this as I go through it. My passion is to encourage people while helping them overcome fear, discover and live their passion, and remain the role model through my life to do the same! It's hard at times! I am anxious to get back in front of the camera to touch people's lives through the art of heart, healing and communication! "