How has your upbringing shaped where you are today?

• “That is a loaded question. My adolescent years were good until my life took a turn when I was about 14 or 15 and life just went wild. I found myself living in shelters and being in and out of houses. My parents washed their hands with me for reasons I still do not understand. I do not want to put anything on them, I just do not know. From age 14 I had to learn what it meant to be an adult. I had to figure out where I was going to stay,  how I was going to get to school. How I was going to keep my grades up even though I was living in shelters and bouncing from house to house. When I turned 16 going on 17 my grandmother took custody of me and I lived in Dayton Ohio and that is where I have been ever since.”
• “Growing up, having good adolescent years, being enrolled in private school to experiencing the other side of tracks attending public schools, having no parents, and living on my own for a couple of years diversified how I see the world and how I relate to people. I used to be angry at how my childhood turned out but now I am actually grateful for it because I have such empathy for a lot of diverse groups. I can talk to the girl that is privileged and wealthy, those who are down on their luck, and the girl in the hood. My upbringing shaped me to push through adversity. “

As an adolescence, we usually dream about the direction we would like our life to go, within our career paths. What was your dream during this time?

• “My father is a photojournalist. My favorite show is Gilmore Girls and still is. I love that show and I thought I was Lori. I basically based my whole life off that show. I was supposed to go to Harvard or Yale. That’s what I wanted to do and it was reinforced because it was in the news field and my dad worked for the newspaper. I did not want to do anything else, in my head I was going to be a journalist.”

Can you talk to me about specific instances that influenced you to diverge from the route that you were on? How did these instances lead you to your current situation?

• “Not only back then was becoming a journalist was well respected and sacred, it was also hard. To get a job at a newspaper you had to have article clippings of work and needed to have been an editor in high school. By the time I  got to college I started my first website. It was a mommy blog from a single mom point of view. My goal was to be a writer and write about what I wanted to write about and I was doing to that without graduating. So, I started to look up how much money I would make getting out of school and the return of investment on my degree and I realized that because journalism was shifting I was going to make out of college what I was making now and I was already doing in college what I wanted to do. Additionally, I would go to my communications class and they would be boring and non challenging. I went to my counselor and had to sit and decide my next plan. My goal for writing is to educate and help, so I decided to go into social work.”

Are you currently in the grey area?

• “No, the grey area is not a place where I could stay. I think a lot of time we get into these grey areas and it cripples us and we stay put.  I was working at a call center and I had co workers with master’s degrees who could not find a job in their fields. I started hearing them and felt motivated to be a vehicle to get them to their places. I started my company and the more I got in to social work,  I knew I was supposed to be here and in a spot where I could help people figure out how to push forward.”

What are some emotions or struggles you faced in the grey area?

• “Depression and anxiety. At a certain point I just gave up. I gained a whole bunch of weight, stopped taking care of myself, and stopped wearing make up. I was just done, I just gave up.”

What does your post-graduation timeline look like?

• “I’m going to be in college forever, I like school. I am finishing up my associate’s and my bachelor’s and then I will be headed for my master’s and doctorates. I plan on opening up my own practice in between masters and doctorates. Then, I’ll continue to grow my consulting firm, it is doing really well.”