About Me ➖ Toni Greathouse
Living each day like it’s my last, yet planning to be here like I’ll live forever. Rewriting My Reality. Striving to leave a legacy that will outlive me.
Being cast in a national advertising campaign for International Women’s Day [circa 2022] was the exclamation point ending an unconventional artistic career that spanned 26 years.
Watch the commercial 👉🏾 Click Here 📌
In a life marked by milestones, I had no idea that the most memorable of all my entrepreneurial experiences would arrive in retirement. It felt like vindication for the stress endured as a Walmart supplier.
However, shepherding my daughter into adulthood is the accomplishment that evokes the most pride. Her name is Brittany, and she writes under the moniker BGREAT. She’s paving an unconventional path on a continent that’s an ocean away from where she was raised.
In a nutshell, I’m an idea-driven artist and independent thinker. Born in the year of the dragon, I’m a fiery Leo who loves to talk — hence the moniker “Toni the Talker.” I tend to speak a lot more often than listen. Long story short, writing curbs that tendency.
Click 👉🏾ABC’s Of Me to read the highlights📌
My take on Medium has mostly been positive. The opening lyrics to the song “Wake Me Up” by Avicii summarize my feelings about finding this site. Reading roused my muse. Words began pouring out of me in 2021.
As the old saying goes… “Iron Sharpens Iron.” Simply accessing the words of a diverse range of writers helped me improve my skills. All was going very well until I got caught in the platform purge of March 2024.
The result shifted my perspective. Starting December 29 [2023], I wrote daily, delivering quality and quantity. Simply being sidelined for a week shattered my addiction to the site.
Click 👉🏾 Medium Was My Matrix to read about it.
Psychologists posit that the average person’s brain cycles through 6,000 thoughts daily. This makes sense because my mind is a three-ring circus. Something’s always going on.
Writing my thoughts down helps me sort through the present and process the past to decide what to do next. Click HERE to read the plan.
Racing toward my sixth decade, I am focusing on rewriting my reality. It’s basically what I’ve done since leaping into the arms of entrepreneurship in 1996. The trigger that compels me forward is spelled out in the letters of my first name.
On the heels of 25 years of business ownership (circa 2021), the intent was to retire. When the sands of time ran out, I wasn’t ready to quit. I balked and took on a consulting gig that allowed me to stretch my creative legs.
The End Signaled a New Beginning
My consulting gig ended a year later. Medium was my refuge after I vacated the clients’ site on 1–31–2022. I followed the well-worn vacation path. That got old fast. Retirement made me restless.
Waking up in the morning without direction was disconcerting. That’s why writing here is cathartic. It countered the discomfort of retiring too soon. Early in 2023, it dawned on me that I wanted to go back to work. So I did.
A retired friend loves subbing. She’d done it for 12 years and suggested I try it. That led to certification in January of 2023. The following month, I was placed in the elementary school in my subdivision.
The real lesson was that I’m not smarter than a 5th grader.
The seed of an idea to teach adults was planted between those walls. The other big takeaway came from reading the jackets of children’s books. They were overwhelmingly written by women my age.
Hence, another seed of an idea took root. I wrote a short story to a prompt by the prolific fantasy fiction writer Christopher Paolini. The direction was straightforward. A dragon finds a toddler in the woods.” Read the result.
I posted it on Medium in August 2023. The book has now morphed into a graphic novel. My big audacious goal is to sell it to Penguin Publishing.
➡️ 🅸 💖 🅲🅰🆁🅸 🅲🅰🆃🆄🆁🅴 🅰🆁🆃 ➕ 🆆🆁🅸🆃🅸🅽🅶⬅️
Creative Contents Enclosed: Convey my affinity for custom-crafted caricature art. Illustrations share my entrepreneurial story from the day I started up on February 1st, 1996, until the hard stop on January 31st, 2022.
For the Record
I’m never going to retire. I’m going to work until the day I die. That’s the great thing about writing. My body can be on lockdown, but as long as my mind works, with electronic devices, I can write.
Plus, I have yet to fulfill my life’s mission. It’s spelled out in my first name. Took me 50 years to figure out each letter was encoded with instructions. TONI has a dual meaning. It’s an acronym for:
Take On Neighborhood Interaction - by -
Trying Out Novel Ideas
Way back in 1996 BC
BC denotes the time before computers transformed the business landscape, I leaped into the arms of entrepreneurship as a self-employed artist. The need to adapt to frequent changes molded me into a gritty, risk-taker.
I started “Taking On Neighborhood Interaction,” via a home-based business that compiled and published local info guides, punctuated with caricatured art. This was the way I “Tried Out Novel Ideas.”
Over the years, my business grew. From my basement to brick and mortar. Creating guides helped me carve out a niche in providing custom-crafted caricature maps in the municipal tourism industry.
That stepping stone led to a bigger pond. My teeny tiny company grew into a small creative communications agency. Then the recession hit with the force of a tornado. Long story short, I downsized to creative consulting.
Read on and see illustrations of my entrepreneurial backstory.
Caricature art starting speaking to my soul from an early age. Proficiency came with practice. From junior high through high school graduation, it was rare to see me without a sketchpad. However, I put down the pencil (after college) to pursue a buying career. Cutting to the chase, I doubted the depth of my talent. That thought festered unaddressed for years, yet it continued to weigh heavily on the back of my mind.
In my early 30’s, depression descended from professional dissatisfaction. Therapy helped me address the elephant in the room. I assigned names to hidden frustrations. “F” words emerged. Feelings surfaced that spelled out my fear of failure, flaws and finances. They conspired and held me back.
What I truly loved was caricature art. I’d passed on a full ride scholarship in art (circa 1982) to pursue a degree that led to a stable career and steady pay.
A decade after choosing to follow the wrong path, I changed course. It took all the courage I could muster to cut the corporate ties that bound me.
In the mid 90’s, I launched a micro-business that specialized in caricature art. Embracing what I loved, nurtured my artistic spirit. Over the years, entrepreneurship grew into a supportive relationship.
Real Talk: Business ownership is the hardest thing I’ve ever done and the most gratifying. Why? Because the route unfolds on solitary terrain against a backdrop of hidden sink-holes spread across endless valleys sandwiched between the base of dangerously steep hills. The knowledge that these unrelenting challenges are recurring features of the business landscape do little to deter me from staying the course.
1996–2022
Who: Creative Communications Consultant.
What: Produced one-of-a-kind caricature maps & adult coloring books.
When: Best Small Business of 2015 by the Bolingbrook (IL) Chamber.
Where: America’s Heartland (off Rt 66) Bolingbrook/Romeoville & Joliet.
How: Custom content creation to bridge verbal and visual communication.
Why: Translating wordy dialog into easy-to-digest, visually enhanced messages.
Entrepreneurship: Cause & Effect
Years of grinding it out in the trenches, and working with difficult clients to create one-of-a-kind caricature maps, led to the development of uniquely valuable skills.
Sales skyrocketed after tweaking our tagline. “You Dream it. We Draw It.”
The original painting below (created in 2015) is a custom order. It was a request from the Director of Finance. It’s still displayed in the lobby of the Finance Department for the Village of Bolingbrook, Illinois, USA.
Staying the course was empowering. I started out begging for projects and ended in high demand. The result of numerous projects, helped me blaze a creative, albeit, extremely unconventional entrepreneurial trail.
2023 Ready to Rewrite My Reality
Throughout all the twists and turns, I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be.
Step-by-step, I paved a path that propelled me forward. None of it was easy. Many times it felt like I was going in circles. Looking back, every step of my entrepreneurial journey was worth it!
Entrepreneurship is a family tradition. My great grandfather fled the south (post emancipation) to set up a silversmithing shop. My grandmother was a serial entrepreneur. My father developed a baseball board game that sold in Sears and K-mart. I supplied adult coloring books to Walmart. My daughter is discovering ways to follow in our footsteps, as a side-hustler.
Like a board game, every form of business has its own rules. I’m a team player. I show up prepared to win. I usually get picked to play. When my team didn’t win… I learned lasting lessons.
Pivoting often, then tapping personal proactivity are my go to strategies to move out of a rut. A constant source of inspiration was gleaned from two choice quotes. The first by MLK, “Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.” The second by Teddy Roosevelt, “Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.”
An unexpected life loop routed me back to retail. Prior to self-employment, I worked as a furniture buyer for the Chicago based retailer Montgomery Ward. Twenty years later, I found myself on the opposite side of the desk, in Bentonville (Arkansas) pitching my self published adult coloring book to a Walmart buyer. They featured Classic Cars on Route 66.
The Lowdown: I rode the adult coloring book wave. My books were on Walmart store shelves nationwide for three years. They’re still at Walmart, and they are sold online.
UPDATE: A year later… it’s still being sold on the site.
I’d prefer you purchase the book direct from me on my website.
Click here BUY NOW
Takeaway:
Everything in life is either a blessing or a lesson. My hubby says a bought lesson is a taught lesson. Let me tell you, that Walmart education cost me big bucks. It slapped the rose-colored glasses off my face. I saw the glitter for what it really was… fool’s gold.
My grandmother swore that God protects fools and babies.
Translation: I’m hype aware of the category I fit in.
Conclusion:
When it came time to start my own business, I trusted God. Then, it took a leap of faith. Post-start-up, I prepared to succeed. I kept visualizing walking on a red carpet. As a hurdle appeared, I stopped walking, adopted the mindset of a track athlete, and straddled that sucker!
Gratitude, Enthusiasm, Creativity, Kindness, Optimism, Ideas, and Prayer combine to help me power through problems. All business concerns are forwarded directly to the source of universal love... God.
Channeling Oprah, “What I know for sure…” is that I’ve come this far by faith. I’ve always leaned on the Lord. Above all, I’ve only placed my trust in the word of God. More on this subject here: From the Vault.
“Choose a job you love, and never have to work a day.” Confucius
