What I Learned About Business From Being In Organizations

The #1 one thing that you keep in mind as you read this article: people don’t care about your problems, they want you to solve theirs..

#1 People don’t care about your problems, they want you to solve theirs..

Not too long ago, I remember being in my organizations, trying to take on leadership positions. One of the reasons why I wanted to get involved? Because there’s areas that I wanted to tweak in myself. Basically to have a chance to make mistakes and learn from them. I created my first business at the age of 12. I knew I would be going into entrepreneurship in my twenties and beyond.

Problem with the above plan? I got cut out of clubs like crazy. Rejected like hell. This happened to me in both high school and college. Damn. It seemed easier for my friends to get into clubs, but for me it took a few tries. Especially in college.

So when I got into clubs, I was grateful.

The mistakes I own so if someone tries to bring it up in my future I can say whatev.

• As a Pledge Trainer I didn’t order t-shirts. I really didn’t talk that often either.
• I ran 5 to 10 minutes late.
• Didn’t speak up on retreats as a leader.
• During an class, my mind went blank (this happened a lot).
• I found out later that I wasn’t elected President because rumor has it I didn’t follow through. Well.

I never told any of my clubs about the fact that friends passing away semester after semester hurt like hell and it changed me more than I care to realize. How would you feel if you lose friends to suicide before joining an organization, then the same thing kept happening to you throughout? Or that I was sick semesters prior to joining and medical issues kept a lot of money out of my pockets. Or that the school kept sending me not so nice notes because I missed a lot of school over family funerals. Or if you drop out for a semester to take a break (which was needed for real), we will take your scholarship away from you. Or being in STEM, I felt the unwelcome culture of being a female in a male dominated major, and the racism we won’t talk about here (unless you want to sit here and read for three hours). Try dealing with this all at once (or back to back semesters of each other). It’s not pleasant, I’m here to tell you from experiencing it. While I had good times with the people I care about, I remember how hard it was for me to relax and enjoy the moments. They say that college is the best time of your life, for me it’s the most stressed I’ve ever been. I remember a guy from my organization saying that I will miss these experiences in 20 years. For my sake, I really hope he was kidding. Many of my experiences were not and never will be normal. I won’t miss losing friends to suicide. Or professors saying that I suck and calling me all sorts of names. Or picking between a family emergency or funeral or keeping your scholarship. Or going to a family emergency and family funeral in the same day, and then hearing from people from your college talk about how bad you are at this or that.

My organizations wanted me to solve the problem of a) being a leader of the rush program B) recruiting a huge sized class. C) leading the retreat team. D) following through on ideas, no matter how stupid or costly some of them were lol. My issues had nothing to do with them.

And f*** I didn’t do it up to top par. I’m the shitty irresponsible person here, justified or not. In their eyes, I’m a failure, not following through muther cluckerrrr! (Notice the chicken reference, I love saying clucker instead of the other word lol).

So lets fast forward today.

Lets pretend that I’m on the phone with the client.

Brrringgggg

Me: Hello.

Client: Hello.

Me: I know I’m calling you about your app inquiry, but I wanted to tell you that I had an family emergency last night, my friend passed away recently. A few nights ago I was in the emergency room because I couldn’t move and I felt like I was being stabbed in the chest.

Client: Um?!?!?!?! (In their mind secretly thinking WTF!?!?!?!?!?!?!?)

That’s similar to telling your boss that you’re hungry and don’t have any money to buy food. I’m here to tell you they don’t care about that shit. They just want you to show up to work and get your tasks done. You are adding to their problems by putting your stress on them. Remember what I said above, you are supposed to solve problems, not add to them! Just for the record, I would never get on the phone with a client and tell them all that.

In business you learn to leave the problems you are experiencing at the door and put on your game face. The client wants me and my company to get their app or website done. They don’t want to hear about a family emergency or death.

I’m not trying to sound cold or heartless (I really do have a heart beating in my chest, I promise). I’ve had too many personal examples in my life where I didn’t get a project finished or I messed up. Oh boy I paid for it. It made me more aware that people want what they want. After I left, I got the word that some people were angry because I didn’t order t-shirts. Not getting the t-shirts wasn’t intentional lol. I just ran out of dough.

I did hear of a family member mention that someone they knew tried to work right after their child passed away. And the stories of how she messed up scheduling. (I will admit it was taboo to let go of a position in any of my organizations. It was an unspoken rule that if you dropped a position after being elected to it, the chances of getting in it again goes down. Publicly, you are a hero for knowing that your plate is too full and letting it go. In private, you are looked down on. I don’t know what it would have been like for me letting Pledge Trainer or something of that nature go, but I do know what it was like piling your plate. Some folks might disagree with what I’m saying here, but I watched how people were treated when they let something go. And watched how quick they forgot about your ass when you left to deal with a personal issue.) It doesn’t make you weak to say that you a breather to process things or grieve. Or something is too much for you to handle and you need to let it go indefinitely.

If something is aching at me that much today, I’ll tell my team(s) at my companies that I don’t think I can handle the project. During my medical issues in 2016 that landed me in the hospital, I didn’t do anything for months (and still have to slow down sometimes). Nowadays, I have no issue with speaking up saying “hey this is way over my head.” I recently did this when my grandma passed away and I had a cousin pass away around the same time (I went to a funeral on March 17th 2017, and March 18th 2017). Maybe I should have done this more in school while dealing with things, but at least I can look back and know I tried the best I could with the situations I was given. And it wasn’t good enough. I fell right on my face, got embarrassed, insulted, disrespected, and looked down upon. I might be COO/CEO/president today of several startups, but do you know not too long ago, people in organizations had no faith in me to be their leader? That I had to run two or three times just to get once chance? I talk about it in more detail here and here. Reading discretion advised. The bi*ch but truthful Alesha is there.

I wish I could sit here and say we are on happy terms, but we are not. I will be respectful towards my friends and family that love that college. But it personally aggravates the hell out of me when some one says:

“Oh your a grad, did they help you get that right?” No. They did tell me how much I sucked at projects. Or how much of a victim I am because of my skin color (just for the record I’m a human being not some worthless person because of my skin color, I addressed that several times with professors. I’m not their opinion or skewed perceptions of me). Or how many times I wasn’t taken seriously when I told them that a friend’s suicide was affecting me. Or the times I was labeled and stereotyped. I never felt like I was apart of that campus, so I never was and never will be “one of them.” My so called school don’t deserve any credit for what I’ve done and I’m not giving it to them. So you won’t ever hear me mention a name. The reality is I at the same time I’m trying really hard to be respectful of my college friends, my mom and my grandma (rip black and gold angel ❤)

People might look at what I’m doing today and think I got it going on. I notice more and more people from my past creeping on my LinkedIn (I don’t get on there every single day but I do get notifications when someone creeps haha and no damn y'all people in private mode ain’t private). But did you know not too long ago I received my mental ass whipping? It didn’t feel good either! It’s crazy when you experience a little success, people think it was smooth sailing to get there (and ask questions like what can I do to get that?). Because I don’t complain, post stupid food photos on Instagram, make long love letters to pizza and joke about basically anything people think I’ve had it easy. But it’s definitely not true, those waters were stormy! And no not all days are smooth sailing! And sure, it might appear that I achieved things quickly (in a year, year and a half) but that doesn’t mean I always have things figured out. Guess what? I work on it every single day.

If I could have done something different? Maybe opened up to people who gave a damn. There were a few, and I remember them to this day. I still love you and know who you are haha! (Just off the record, I’m not an asshole, I just don’t like to burden people with problems that arise).

If you find yourself dealing with tough times, people not giving you a chance, or you don’t win a position because your not seen as someone that can do it? This too shall pass. It’s apart of your journey and it will get you where you meant to be. I f*cked up plenty and ended up just fine. Will mess up plenty and it will be fine. Probably made a few grammatical mistakes in this post because I like writing late at night. And just because I’m president of several gigs now, that doesn’t mean I know everything lol! I mention that because people think that when you have a big title you know a lot. Well. I suppose? I know the basics of all the areas, but there’s some days when I don’t know shit. This is why you delegate and hire people!

Moral of the story:

#1 People don’t care about your problems, they want you to solve theirs..

#2 Don’t underestimate anyone. Everybody has problems and issues to work out and work on. The same person you underestimate can turn out to be more successful than you can imagine.

Let’s be honest here.

No matter what you do, there’s always people that will only see you a certain way. I’m pretty sure if I told people in my past organizations that

• I’m doing things that I won’t discuss publicly.
• I had a list of my accomplishments here, but I decided to cut them out because law-suit happy people are watching and I came to my senses. If you want to know send me a private tweet.

They would have said bullshit. You’re not up to par here or doing what we think you should be doing. What in the hell makes you think you will do all that?

If you knew me back then, don’t lie. Most of you wouldn’t have believed in me then (meaning as recent as 2014 & 2015). For anyone reading this remember that action speaks louder than words and success is the best revenge. Anyone that knows me know I’m a low-profile person. When I got on the Huffington Post, I didn’t post it on Facebook. Only a small group of people knew and I didn’t try overly hard to tell people. The word about me being on there spread naturally (yes I did put it on LinkedIn, but most of my friends is not on there!). There’s people that still don’t know I’m on Huff Huff, and I don’t try all that hard to tell them either. Most of the time I try to shift conversation off myself. Anyways, people love to talk about themselves. Kudos to those that always believed despite me f’cking up and making mistakes. If you know me, I’m not afraid to try, even if the ends up me falling flat on my face. They say it’s best to try and fail than to never try at all.

Important sidenote: I know when you have a successful business, many of us fall into the trap of wanting to brag to everybody and their momma about what we’ve done. For a long time, I hesitated. Depending on who I’m around plays a factor. Some people still don’t know I’m creating startups. And unfortunately, when people see you trying to do something, you become the target of lawsuits because people want a piece of the pie and they don’t want to see you successful. It’s best to not post those fancy cars on Instagram and Facebook all the time, lmfao. I worried about mentioning some of my bullet points above because I know Uncle Sam is watching. Don’t be surprised if you re-read this post and some of those bullet points are removed lol. (I wrote this in March 2017 and as of April 2o17 those bullet points are gone).

Anyways.

Think about it this way. If I would have stuck around trying to be president of organizations that rejected what I had to offer, I would have seriously missed out on opportunities to grow. I was not afraid to change the path that I was on and changing direction towards a better path. I was the sucky unhappy double major and it never felt right. (I looked at performance footage while in school, and I always noticed I wasn’t fully free. Like I was always worried about something college related). I wouldn’t be doing the things I’m doing today. Sometimes it best to cut your losses and grow elsewhere. After getting EYTech, Royalti Virtue, Huffington Post, I will tell you what I wanted for the first 18 years of my life became irrelevant. Be open towards better opportunities that lead you to a different path.

When a better opportunity comes along, the old ones become irrelevant.

For everyone that doesn’t give you a chance, there’s plenty of others who will. Remember that the next time when you wonder why you’re being rejected (if you’re having a hard time with being thrown away, trust me, I’ve been there). That’s the universe telling you your mission is elsewhere. Boss up and build your own lane, if they don’t let you play in their court, build your own.

The point I’m trying to make? No matter how bad you messed up, you can still be successful. It doesn’t matter what you did, what you’re doing now counts. I just recently posted a picture saying mistakes have the power to turn you something better than you were before. Also, I’m not doing it for them. I’m doing it for me. Like I said before, I created my first business venture at 12, by pet sitting pets. I knew I would be doing entrepreneurship. Part of being in entrepreneurship is doing things that appear risky to others. It’s not easy. But the payoff is huge.

#2. Don’t underestimate anyone. Everybody have problems and issues to work out and work on. The same person you underestimate can turn out to be more successful than you can imagine.

#3 Bonus.

And the scary thing I have noticed is that some people really feel uncomfortable around women who don’t hate themselves. So that’s why you need to be a little bit brave. -Mindy Kaling

Confidence can be perceived as “cocky.” Despite professors telling me that I suck, being rejected from a lot of different clubs and people, I would still consider my self a confident person with relentless self-belief. My major’s discouragement pushed me further into tech, not out of it. When my advisor told me I’ll be jobless, that motivated me to create my own jobs (reminder this is the reason why I’m co-founding/creating my own opportunities instead of looking for it in a normal job setting. When I audition for roles, this is when I fill out a W2). The fact that I’m confident in myself despite people saying I suck, and my abilities can come off negatively. It can come off as inspiring or arrogant. It depends on what you’re looking for. And just for the record, I don’t consider myself this “big” wall street venture capitalist person because I achieved certain things. When I’m around my college friends I keep most of what I’m doing under my hat. While I might consider it sharing what I’m up to, they might see it as bragging. So I’m careful lol.

Like I said above, these same people who think I “have it all” don’t consider what I’ve been through. Have my college friends considered the number of times they were successful in college and I was on the outside looking in? Probably not. Or how they have a lot of good memories and I don’t? Probably not. Do they know what it’s like to watch friends pass away from suicide and someone b*tch about how worthless you are? Probably not. Do they know what it’s like to have a scholarship taken away because you missed school over family funerals? Probably not. Do they know what it’s like for people to treat you like you don’t exist? Probably not. Do they know what it’s like to have medical issues and have people harass you to death about money when your doctors tell you won’t be in a working state for months? Probably not.

P.S. I am learning to open up sometimes. To keep try and keep personal life and business as separate as possible. No, not to everybody and their momma of course. P.S. Me and pizza are planning to get married again. I ate the other boxes so it’s time to order another box to say I do. I hope you liked my personal secret that I revealed down here.

Hello! I’m Alesha! I’m a musician, actress, entrepreneur and writer and foodie. Follow on Twitter. If you like what I’m writing, give me a heart and share! :) I like hearts. Let me know what you want me to write! Click here!