LITMIR.BIZ

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about how I can help within reason.

      I felt that I was missing a lot of support. My father passed away when I was about 9, and then my mother passed away when I was 21, four days before Christmas. She had an aggressive form of cancer and within 3 months time she was no longer here. I was in grad school at the time and during her initial chemotherapy I drove the 50-minute trip every day to be with her at night. There is something about watching the person you love most wither away like she did that changes you forever.

The next year, after my mother passed, I went on to start Solid Ground Innovations. I was definitely in this space like okay, you know, can I do this? I've always been a person who believed in execution. I'd always been the person my friends could depend on and call on for anything. But could I start a business? From scratch?

      Even though I had been “that person” in general, for me it really became about, what the next part of my life would look like. I had always been a pretty good student, an even better networker and student of people. And I'd always had plans for a better life, but many of those plans were aligned with wanting to create a better life for my mother, the life I felt she deserved.

      When my mother passed away, I felt like that was taken from me. I wanted to give her the opportunity to really live, as she had worked so hard so much of her life as a single mother, as a loving sister and daughter, and I wanted her to be able to reap the rewards of what she had invested in me. With that opportunity gone, I had to really think about what I was doing all of this for. You'll have to ask yourself at some point the same question: What are you doing all of this for?

      Not too soon after that, I felt I had refound my “why.” I wanted to build a company to help other people solve their problems. I wanted to build a legacy. I wanted to create opportunities via economic mobility offered to people in the form of a well-paying career that they loved and a company they could grow in.

      I wanted my community to understand that just when they thought they couldn't make it another year, another day that things could still work out for them—that they could still lead a life they had imagined and a life they could be the architect of. I was also talking to myself, and I'm also saying this to you.

      I wanted to help people, and not just those who were in my household. I wanted to go beyond that, and have a bigger impact on people's lives.

      I wanted to create generational wealth.

      That was the impact that my parents’ deaths had on me.

Yet, I know that losing someone close to you, whether that is in death or through some other form of separation, can be devastating. It can have a different effect, and many find it hard to recover. For me, my parents dying at a young age in my life made me work harder.

      Also, in my subconscious, I realized I didn't really have anyone to turn to. I didn't have the normal home to retreat to, especially when you hear these stories of successful founders working out of their parents, basements or homes to get their businesses off the ground.

      When I think about founders from communities of color and otherwise, supporting our families rises to the top of our reasons of why we do what we do.

      I never was able to realize buying my mother the home of her dreams, or retiring her so she didn't have to work until she couldn't physically do so anymore. Now I'd pour my days and time into building—building a company that seeks to enrich communities so that those with less have more.

      Because of this new vision, my first company was heavily geared toward helping community figures, nonprofits, and those aligned with social good, to get their programs and ideas off the ground. We wanted to ensure that they were effectively operating and able to serve the communities that needed them the most.

      It took some time, but you have to think of yourself as an entrepreneur, a business owner, a builder; otherwise you'll spend a lot of time downplaying what you do and what you are seeking to accomplish. Yes, you could fail and the odds are you'll fail at a lot of things along the way, perhaps even that thing you created and wanted most. I know I did and still do. Yet, I've learned my strengths and my weaknesses and seek out the strengths in others to create balance. I don't desire to be a jack of all trades. I desire to do what I do, best.

A lot of times we are waiting for the perfect moment or the perfect feeling. Lisa Nichols, an author and motivational speaker who often talks about overcoming doubt and fear, said it best: “do it afraid.” You really have to sit in that for a second, because you can wait for years or never get started at all waiting to feel something different. Something that doesn't feel like anxiety or fear or doesn't give off nervous energy.

      I am often asked if I get nervous. Sometimes I can speak on a large stage and feel no anxiety, and other times I can speak in front of a group of teenagers and feel the pressure of wanting to leave an impression that could potentially alter their future, the way that some speakers have done for me.

      Either way, you have to find what motivates you—what's going to push you after a long day when you don't want to go anymore, or you are feeling the weight of success or failure.

      I talk about my upbringing because it's important for people to understand my journey, especially those who come from a similar background as I do. I want everyone to know that if I did it with so few resources, then you can do it too, and most likely even better.

      People often ask me what my favorite part is about the work that I do. For me, it's about building a company that is mission-driven, one that I feel, as my mentor told me, I can make money and do good too with. But most importantly, I want the people who work with me to feel empowered to utilize their own capabilities and their own skill sets.

      I want them, as well as digging deep to make great products, to sell great products, and to be a part of a team that markets great products, to know that they're part of something that's really helping the world and helping the community we are fostering do their work better.

      I want them to make a lasting impact and really create something that is beyond what they had imagined. Building SGI and now Resilia is something that I feel really embodies our mission of powering the people changing the world.

When I think about my favorite part of the work that I do, it would be building a company and employing people to be able to do this work. It's not about necessarily building this huge hundred-million-dollar annual recurring revenue company, it's about whether we can build products that move the needle and raise the bar.

      You'll have to remind yourself often of the reason that got you started.

      I often have to remind myself of why I started because I think that's important, too. As much as they try to tell you otherwise, business is personal. I think about how I spend my time, where my mind goes to, and where my thoughts lead me to so I can recenter when I need to, reinforcing what really matters.

      As an entrepreneur you have to keep positivity in your life. If you wake up in the morning and you're like, oh, you know, this is going to be a dreadful day, or if it's Wednesday, and you're telling yourself it's the middle of the week and I just have to keep pushing to Friday until it's over, that mindset takes over your entire aura and embodies who you become.

      Instead, you want to wake up and realize you have another day to get it right. Another day to get what is in front of you done. If you need to rest for a day or a week, then do it. What matters is that you're doing things that align with your whole self, right? You're doing things that make you feel good and you have to reaffirm yourself. That's so important because not everyone will. I had to learn over time how to live in a healthy state of mind. I'm a sponge when it comes to learning. I want to learn as much as possible, and in business you are constantly learning, but what are you absorbing? I listen to what people are dishing out and I soak up what I need and I release the rest. I have to, because we're in the age of over information.

      Yet, in order for me to become a really good entrepreneur and business owner, I had to learn what I didn't know. When I first started out, I began to reach out to people who were in business who had ascended to greater heights, to where I wanted to go.

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