• Tonya
  • @waterprairie
  • @waterprairie
  • @waterprairie
  • Water Prairie Chronicles
  • waterprairie.com
  • @water.prairie
  • Support Water Prairie

In this interview, Tonya Wollum, the host of the Water Prairie Chronicles, chats with Latisha Anderson about the challenges and triumphs of raising a child with a disability. Latisha shares her perspective on how parents can empower their children to overcome limitations and setbacks. Latisha shares some of the setbacks she has faced in her own life in addition to having a learning disability, and she speaks of her role today as the parent of a child with special needs. Here are the key takeaways: -- Don't perpetuate limitations: Instead of focusing on what a child cannot do, emphasize what they can do. -- View setbacks as learning experiences: When a child encounters a challenge, reframe it as an opportunity to learn and grow. -- Be your child's advocate: Don't hesitate to question or challenge professionals if you disagree with their recommendations. -- Collaborate with professionals: Work together with professionals to create the best possible environment for your child's success. -- Foster a strong and independent mindset: Encourage your child to be their own advocate and to believe in themselves. IMPORTANT NOTE: This conversation does touch on some mature themes, so please use your discretion if you have little ones listening along. Connect with Latisha: Website: https://accf.coach/ Order Latisha's book, Embrace Your UGLY: https://amzn.to/4dwLGJe (** As an Amazon Associate, I may earn from qualifying purchases. **) Are you getting our newsletter? If not, subscribe at https://waterprairie.com/newsletter Support our podcast and help us share more incredible stories by making a donation at Buy Me A Coffee. Your contribution makes a significant impact in bringing these stories to light. Thank you for your support! https://BuyMeACoffee.com/waterprairie Music Used: “LazyDay” by Audionautix is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Artist: http://audionautix.com/ Latisha’s Bio: Latisha Anderson is an experienced Master Mindset Coach who has helped countless individuals, corporations, and groups transform their lives. Her expertise lies in providing her clients with the necessary tools and resources to evolve and achieve their goals. With her guidance, clients can develop a positive mindset and gain the confidence to overcome any obstacle. Latisha was diagnosed in Kindergarten with a Learning Disability, and she was in SLD until she graduated high school.

“They Said My Child Couldn’t…”:

Show Notes:

Watch How This Mom is Advocating for a Child With Special Needs.

In this interview, Tonya Wollum, the host of the Water Prairie Chronicles, chats with Latisha Anderson about the challenges and triumphs of raising a child with a disability. Latisha shares her perspective on how parents can empower their children to overcome limitations and setbacks. Latisha shares some of the setbacks she has faced in her own life in addition to having a learning disability, and she speaks of her role today as the parent of a child with special needs. Here are the key takeaways:

• Don’t perpetuate limitations: Instead of focusing on what a child cannot do, emphasize what they can do.
• View setbacks as learning experiences: When a child encounters a challenge, reframe it as an opportunity to learn and grow.
• Be your child’s advocate: Don’t hesitate to question or challenge professionals if you disagree with their recommendations.
• Collaborate with professionals: Work together with professionals to create the best possible environment for your child’s success.
• Foster a strong and independent mindset: Encourage your child to be their own advocate and to believe in themselves.

IMPORTANT NOTE: This conversation does touch on some mature themes, so please use your discretion if you have little ones listening along.

Connect with Latisha:

• Website: https://accf.coach/

Order Latisha’s book, Embrace Your UGLY:

• https://amzn.to/4dwLGJe
• (** As an Amazon Associate, I may earn from qualifying purchases. **)

Are you getting our newsletter? If not, subscribe at https://waterprairie.com/newsletter

Support our podcast and help us share more incredible stories by making a donation at Buy Me A Coffee. Your contribution makes a significant impact in bringing these stories to light. Thank you for your support!

• https://BuyMeACoffee.com/waterprairie

Music Used:

“LazyDay” by Audionautix is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Artist: http://audionautix.com/

---

---

Episode #96: Is Your Child’s Potential Being Limited? How Advocating for a Child With Special Needs Makes a Difference!

“They Said My Child Couldn’t…”: Watch How This Mom is Advocating for a Child With Special Needs.

(Recorded April 8, 2024)

Full Transcript of Interview:

Latisha: That’s where the strength comes from because people realize that they’re not by their self. That’s a good feeling to know that it’s not just me. I wasn’t the only person out there struggling. That’s why we got to stop being so secretive. You don’t have to tell everybody everything, but there are times when you release your words.

Tonya: In today’s video, we’re diving into the world of advocating for a child with special needs. I recently met with Latisha Anderson, a special needs advocate, mindset coach, and author who shared her insights and tips on empowering your child and becoming their strongest voice. Whether you’re new to the journey or looking to refine your advocacy skills, this interview is packed with valuable information.

Today’s episode is a little different format from my usual interviews. We’re jumping in during the conversation and as a word of caution, there are some mature themes that are discussed today, so, please use discretion if you have little ones listening along. All right, let’s join the conversation with Latisha Anderson.

And so you can’t, you can’t always jump to a conclusion that you think it is, you know, and, and this is something that I talk a lot about when I talk, talk on other platforms is you have to ask questions. You can’t just assume that the child that’s in front of you or even the adult that’s in front of you is being offensive, is trying to do something, is being insolent or is trying to not comply with you.

Sometimes there’s something. Totally different going on and you’re just misreading the situation and that comes to us. We have to communicate with each other. We have to ask, you know, I started telling my son’s teachers through the years. Um, did you ask him why? You know, you, you have my permission to say in a pleasant tone, what were you thinking?

Because there’s really more to this story than, than, than you’re assuming.

That, no, really, because you would think as educators they would know to do that, but they don’t, they get, they get so defensive, you know, like my son, he told the teacher that sharing was not caring, and they had the audacity to call me to the school, and they, that was an issue, because he said sharing wasn’t caring.

And I asked him, I said, “why, why is sharing not caring Isaiah?” He said, “because if I give her all of my toys then I don’t have anything left, how is that caring?” I said, “you’re absolutely right. Let’s go home.”

Like, and I stopped saying that because sharing doesn’t mean I have to give you something because you want it, that doesn’t entitle you to anything. And so I had to stop like, and I, and I’ve always been an advocate for my kids. So, when I have meetings, when I would have meetings with the staff in the school, and I’m literally called the regional director over the ESC department. And I said, I think it’s in your best interest to be here because then, you know, back in the day, they used to send notes, like the little progress reports home that was just, Oh, this, this, this, and this, they’re going to find that that ain’t even about his grading because he was struggling in his grades.

I said, so, how stupid is this to send me about his behavior? But you’re not telling me that my son is not passing. I have a problem with that I say and then on top of that I have a problem With the teacher because she started talking to me and she started moving her neck like this And I said ma’am, this is not that kind of family.

I said my son does not come from a dysfunctional household That’s not how we talk. This is a two-parent household because his dad was right there, too I said I’m his advocate. I’m not coming against your teaching methods I said, I’m coming against the system that is designed to keep my son from getting where he need to be.

Now, if you’re a part of the problem, then that’s your business. But I’m telling you, don’t take this personal. When I came in here, I wasn’t going to believe nothing any of you said, because I’m going to believe my son first. And then so like the regional director lady that was there, she was like, and she asked me, Latisha, what do you mean?

I said, because I know him and I know he’s going to tell me his truth. So, you can tell me yours, but in my mind, you’re not telling me the truth. I’m going to always advocate for my son. Now, if he done something wrong, I won’t correct him in front of you. I’ll correct him when we get home because then teachers, adults, they get that mmm and they can be petty like kids sometimes and you know, they want to just say, “Oh, your mom already said this and you know, she said that and don’t keep being bad and all this other kind of stuff.” I said, we’re not going to have that. And I’m not going to give you the weapon to use against my son. So, let’s talk about something else.

Let’s talk about these grades and why you worried about me signing this notebook and this ain’t got nothing to do with his grades. I said, this is dumb. I’m saying I told y’all in the beginning to put him in ESC. Y’all the ones that said, well, no, he’s going to the first grade. So, we’re just going to try it.

I said, you threw my son out the water. You ain’t even prep him. You just threw him out the water and said, okay, let’s see what happens. I said, so, clearly y’all didn’t want him to pass. And so the, like it was on a Friday, we had this meeting by Monday. My son was in the ESC class. They called me on a Sunday, the principal and was like, Ms. Anderson, we just want you to know that we’ve already switched his class home. He’s already, it was like, it was nothing. I said, “No.” Because again, somebody else’s understanding and interpretation because people want to be so offended by everything instead of learning how this person may possibly communicate and we’re not going to do that.

So, we as parents have to be our children’s biggest advocates whether they have a disability or not. You still have to be in the corner for your kid because the system the teachers are not the same anymore and I get it like teachers can get abused you know what I’m saying like physically mentally emotionally But at the end of the day, you can’t take it out on the kids.

That’s not that’s not the issue. You know what I’m saying? What are you doing? You treat everybody the same? No

So, I graduated from college in ’87 with an education degree, supposedly ready to go out there and, and run my classroom. I knew about classroom management. You know, I could, I could flash the lights. I could, I could whisper in and get them to clap after me to get them to, to, to follow what I was doing.

But I didn’t know anything about disabilities, about differences in learning. We were just, in ’87, we were just really uncovering some of that as an educational system, but. I wonder sometimes, and I have through the years as my kids had different teachers, are they just as unprepared as I was coming out of school now?

And I think, I think until they have an experience with someone, it’s really hard. So, a lot of times we as parents are their first experience with having a rational conversation about why we might need to ask our kids something differently, or, or why they may need to have a little extra help. Just sitting in the front row of the, of the room doesn’t always solve the problem.

Sometimes that’s not the solution at all. They need to be on the back row so they can move around a little bit.

Absolutely.

So, I think a lot of times it’s just, it’s a matter of education. My, um, my daughter had a situation in middle school where it was, it was her first major bully situation. She told me about it.

It was just some boys just being, being nasty. So, I asked her, I said, you know, well, what would you like for me to do? You know, do you want me to call the school? Do you want, do you want us to try to have a meeting? And she said, no, they’re just uneducated and they need to, to learn a few things. And she walked away and it was like, wow, I wish I could have done that.

Right. Because they’re more mature than we give them credit for.

Yeah, but, but she was right. You know, as a seventh grader, she already recognized that a lot of these behaviors, whether it’s adults or kids, it’s because a lack of education. They don’t, they, they haven’t met us yet. They don’t know what a lot of these kids have been through in they’re seven, eight, nine years of life. They’ve had a lot of hardships already. They’ve learned to overcome a lot of things. They don’t need to deal with you now on top of all that, you know.

I want to make sure that we talk about what you’re doing too. So, tell me a little bit about your coaching that you’re doing.

So, I do Master Mindset coaching and that is being intentional, like learning how to be intentional, not allowing life to consume the way you operate, right? Because based off what life gave me, I had a learning disability. I was violated, molested, raped as a child. I grew up in an abusive household. My mom and me are only 14 years apart.

So, life was throwing stuff at me. You know what I’m saying? Like, boom, boom, just hitting me with stuff. And that started to condition the way I reacted, responded, and replied. So, I was the mean girl. I was the bully. I was the rude grandchild. I was the mouthy teenager. I was the fast in the behind. You know, girl nobody couldn’t tell me nothing.

But life, was giving me adult situations and adults were reacting to me as if I was an adult. You get what I’m saying? I was not. And so, if you don’t get out of that mindset, right? That life has been doing what it does. And life was tearing me up. Like it was just fighting me like this. Then you never actually grow.

You allow life to shape you. You allow circumstances to shape you. And it wasn’t until I got older and I started to realize that I didn’t want to be the mean girl. I didn’t want to be the one that when I walked in the room somebody assumed a thing. I didn’t want to always when I had a conversation or a disagreement that I automatically started yelling, right.

Because that’s the only way I knew how to communicate. Because for so many years I was crying out for help, but nobody knew that that’s what it was. That I was just angry. Well, who would not be angry if your father is being abusive to your mother and you’re seeing this, right? Who would not be angry if you’re going to your aunt’s house because that’s supposed to be the safe place and that’s where you’re being raped, violated, and molested.

Like, who would not be angry and then you don’t know who to tell because the violator has told you if you say anything, your dad’s going to go to jail and it’s going to be your fault, right? So, life is still conditioning me. Life is still bullying me, life. You get what I’m saying? And it’s just kind of like how do I shift that mindset?

I don’t want to be having a conversation and now all of a sudden I’m yelling. Like we’re screaming and yelling at each other and it wasn’t, it literally, I got older, I realized like me and my cousins could be having a conversation, but you would think we were straight arguing and fussing with each other, right?

Because It’s like why all of us that’s how we talk because that’s how we communicate, you know in the house and being told young you know, um for my grandmother. I love her now. I love her. She passed away Um, and I love her but she’s the one who literally told me God ain’t hear nothing I had to say He didn’t want to hear me and you know, and then I’m 10 and my auntie walks in and at 10 years old, and it’s like, I love these people now.

Like we’ve all matured and grown, but then, but then, um, when I was like in fifth grade and she walked in the room and me and my cousins were playing and she said, don’t play with that —. And I was like, I’m 10 and so I walked out and I was crying. But my grandma, again, because I’m the mouthy one, I don’t want to listen, you know, nobody can’t tell me anything, but I’m being abused on every level, emotionally, physically, you know, even spiritually because now you’re telling me God don’t even hear me. So, it’s like, what did I do that was so wrong that your words are attacking me? To physically now we physically being attacked because my aunt and me had it like we went blow for blow and I’ve been tall Since I can remember so she literally said she wanted to fight me for a long time and I was like, okay I was in fifth grade.

I was 10 and Not even understanding any of that. And I just remember at like 16 is when I gave my life to God. Like, that’s when I got saved, right? But that didn’t stop the emotional issues and the mental issues that had already started to compact my life. So, then I caught myself every service. Like, I’m going to the altar.

You know, I’m repenting every service. I’m trying, but nothing’s really changing. And it wasn’t that I did not want it to change, it’s just that I wasn’t in the place to understand that I had to intentionally target what I wanted to change. I wasn’t sure how to articulate that, right? I didn’t know how I was going to be able to do it because nobody had shown me how to do it.

Nobody who was in my bloodline knew how to do it because they still operating in the trauma of their life. My mother again had me when she was 14. My grandmother got married at 13, was in a very abusive relationship. The husband kidnapped my auntie, so, life. Was conditioning them, right? She was born in, my grandmother was born in 1945.

So, you know, and they were an interracial family. So, they couldn’t even go into town together. Like it was one of those things. And all they kept doing was passing down the trauma, the hurt and the pain from generation to generation. You know, a lot of people like to say generational curses. I like to say generational silence.

If you break the silence, you break the curse. If my grandmother had told her daughters, don’t let grown men touch you that should not be touching you, then my aunties and my mom then would not have necessarily been violated. And if they had said Tisha, you know, and the rest of my cousins, they had been clear about what that was, right?

Then again, almost every woman in my family had been violated. Like literally again, nobody’s saying nothing. So, the auntie who called me, you know, a harlot, she didn’t say harlot, but the one who told me that she had been violated and raped and was told it was her fault and had gotten in trouble. So, she took that trauma and passed it to us.

I’m her niece and her daughter. So, she talks so harsh to us, right? Because that’s what was done to her. And so, again, going and realizing that dang, I got the ability to do these things like I wanted to own my own business, but I got a learning disability. So, I struggle with reading, I struggle with understanding certain things and my patience is not that long when it comes to certain things.

And it’s just like, wait a minute, like, I don’t want to be this way. So, it wasn’t until I had my third son and I had to learn how to be intentional about stuff. Stop letting life just knock me, you know what I’m saying? And it’s like, I had to get strong and be steadfast. Like the Word says, be steadfast, unmovable, always abounding.

Like you gotta be clenched in it. And you’ve got to be so sturdy in your truth that you are willing to embrace. Like, I had came out, I wrote a book and everything called Embrace Your UGLY because that’s how God gave it to me. I had to embrace those things, those ugly things. Ugly means displeasing to look at.

I say ugly is displeasing to look at, displeasing to hear, displeasing to think about, displeasing to know. Because sometimes those ugly things are what torments you. the most, right? And I had to embrace it. And again, God gave it to me. “U” is for unique, “G” is for genuine, “L” is for love, and “Y” is for you. You got to embrace your UGLY.

Like, we all ugly. Everybody. No, life can throw you some hard punches. What are you going to do with it? And I had to learn how to embrace it. And when I embraced my truth, the violation, The rapes the abuse when I embraced all of that and I didn’t embrace it all at the same time Because I couldn’t have done it I had to acknowledge the pain that came with it and then you know Like when you embrace something you break it in clothes, but when you do that that gives you the authority to release it And then I had to release it and I released it one by one and some of the stuff came back Because you get again I’m in my 30s when I’m getting these revelations, right?

Um, so, it was coming back to me, but I didn’t hold on to them as long as I was holding on to them And then so my disability the way I processed information Had equipped me to hear what people was really saying even when they were not saying so I knew how to break it down You And say, okay, so, this is what you’re saying, and they’re literally staring at me like, how did you, you know, how did you put that?

Wait a minute, you know, the very ugly thing that made me embarrassed and ashamed is the very thing that God used to uplift somebody else. But I had to go through it to tell you how to intentionally shift your mindset and I’m adamant about that, you know, and so it’s just like it evolved over the years because just mindset matters And then last year I went through this dramatic transformation, right and in 2020 I found out that I had a brain tumor that was benign and then Um, it’s like they say don’t worry about it.

We’ll see you in 40 years. So, I’m going by what they say in two years You My hearing and my right ear gone. I started getting bad headaches, my dizziness, I couldn’t turn my head, none of that stuff. And I go back in May of 2022, and I get an MRI, and the MRI say that the same tumor that was slow growing, that they not going to see me for 40 years, had doubled in size.

It explained why I was getting the headaches while I was getting didn’t. Like turning my head, you know, again, now my mindset and my faith, they got to come together because a lot of times that’s what keep us from achieving our truth. And because our mindset is horribly stricken and our faith, it’s just saying, but we ain’t really live, right?

We just stand. And so sometimes we’ll have our faith in something, but our mindset is so stuck on what life threw at us. That we’re accepting and because again, fear and faith, neither one of these need proof. You don’t need proof to have fear, and you don’t need proof to have faith. Neither one of them.

You just see the evidence and the manifestations of whatever one you are connected to. Right? So, if it’s fear, you’re going to see all the fearful things manifest. If it’s faith, you’re going to see all the faithful things manifest. But, before that, there’s no proof. Right. So, again, I wrote a book, Embrace Your Ugliness, everything.

And then they telling me this tumor that I’ve been believing God gonna dissolve. I done changed my eating habits. I went vegan. I’ve been praying, you know, just, oh, touching my head and all that kind of stuff. And God’s gonna do it and speak in positive and walk it in. I wasn’t just talking, I was walking in.

Heh heh. Before 2023, I got one of the worst headaches I ever got in my life that I just stayed in the bed. I was still encouraging people talking on the phone and everything, not knowing what was really happening. February the 27th of 2023, I go to the ER because the headache won’t go away, and I had a conversation with my family, like I was about to die.

It was just weird, like I knew something wasn’t right, but I wasn’t quite sure what it was. And then. I go to the ER in Tallahassee, and they come back in and they basically say, Uh, Latisha, we’re glad you came in here today, and they showed me the x rays, and my brain was swelling. Which is why I kept saying it felt like my brain was coming out my skull.

Then March 1st, I had to have the first emergency surgery. And then I had to wait until the 28th of March to have the second surgery. And that was 16 hours long because the tumor had been so big that there was no more room. And so the tumor had already took the hearing, right, and the nerves, and I couldn’t really close my eye and my smile was not the same.

It was already doing those things. And I was, I’m not going to lie, I was very disappointed. With myself and with God because I was like now wait a minute You said we ask and it shall be given. If you knock the door gonna be open if we seek you we gonna find you now wait and He had a whole conversation with me and he was like, but that’s not faith That’s you wanting to get what you want and I was like, but ain’t that what that’s what the people say you said now That’s what they they told me you said If I ask it shall be given and the example he gave me Was the one with his son, Jesus, not his own son, his only begotten son, right?

And he was in the garden of Gethsemane. And then when he was praying so much, he was sweating blood. And he was saying, please let this cup pass from me, right? But he said, not my will, but your will be done. That’s the faith. The faith, cause see, Jesus was like, do you really want me to go through all this stuff?

Like a match. I got to be beat. All this, and these people not gonna even really be with me like this. You don’t see a life. My, my crew don’t feel asleep. Like you, you really want me to do this. But the faith is not believing that what you want is gonna happen. The faith is knowing that what God wants to happen is going to happen And the faith is that you don’t even got no proof about the outcome You just believing and knowing the outcome is going to be that he gets the glory Because a lot of times we want the glory.

We want the miracle. It’s our miracle I didn’t I didn’t I didn’t do nothing for this miracle. It was him He did this is his miracle. This is his doing I’m a manifestation Of his miracle and so going into that shifted my faith Going into this process shifted my mindset to where they had to become friends because now I’m being told After the surgery, I’m gonna need a trachea.

Now I’m being told after the surgery I’m gonna probably have to do a couple of months in a in house rehab That’s what I’m hearing. And so going into the surgery a very unusual peace You know what I’m saying? That peace that surpasses all understanding. This is when I had my true encounters with God.

This is when everything started to come together. This is when I kind of sort of started to understand His vision for my life. Not my own vision. I had already went through the bumps and bruises. In my mind, I had already been through enough. Why are you going to do this to me? You know, like, like God, I done been through molestation, rape, abuse, bullying, then being bullied, bullying people and being bullied.

I’ve been through all this stuff.

More than enough.

That’s what I’m thinking. I’m like, I’ve been through more than enough. I think I’m qualified to be, you know. What am I doing here? And he was like, that’s so cute. However, it’s something else. And so I had to shift because each process in your life requires a different level of faith. And we, the faith I use in 2023, it’s not going to get me through 2024.

You know how they say go from glory to glory to glory. That’s how faith shifts. Because the faith that got me through being violated, you know, molested, raped, all that stuff. It ain’t the same faith I needed to get through this brain surgery. It’s not the same faith I needed. You know what I’m saying? This is a whole different level of faith.

To where God had to literally shift my mind and say, He said, what you scared of? All you got to do is go to sleep. And I was like, wait a minute. Wait, wait, wait. Wait, you know how you just have a moment. He’s like, he said, Latisha, you’re not doing the surgery. You’re not the one that’s got to make sure that you do it accurately.

You know that you get it. All you have to do is go to sleep. You ain’t going to feel nothing. Just go to sleep. And I had to rest in that. So, the only thing I remember from that day is that when I seen my surgeon, cause he looked like Superman, he looked like Clark Kent. And I said, Hey, Superman, and he said, Hey, and that was it.

That’s all I remember. They said towards the 16th hour, I started waking up. Like my body was like, that’s it. I’m done. I’m over it. That’s what they said. I remember when I was back in the room, I opened my eyes and I just seen a guy standing beside me. I didn’t know he was the one that was coming to take, you know, how to put the thing in your mouth so you can breathe or whatever.

He was coming to take that out. So, I was like, no, I seen the dude, you know, like you in and out and stuff like that. And so my husband and them were prepared for me to sleep like the whole day. But evidently on the 29th by seven o’clock, I was awake and alert and just was like, Hey, you know, like talking and the staff started coming in and we were like,

So, no tracheotomy.

They had to bring, you know, they bring, they brought ice, water and crackers, graham crackers to see if I was gonna be able to swallow and stuff. But by the time she brought it, my mom had already brought me a sub, a veggie sub because again, I was vegan, so, and I up eating the sub and she was like, Leticia, she had the stuff in her hand.

She. Again, again, this is how His miracles unfold because then the conversation started like what was happening was getting to the doctors and I wasn’t like, I didn’t see their reactions or hear them, but I knew they were coming in because I had two surgical teams, you know, like I had, uh, One who was doing the brain and then the ear nose and throat person.

So, that was the one that had to guide him through making sure like everything was like it need to be that he ain’t cut Nothing. He wasn’t supposed to cut and it’s just like your mindset has to be prepared for the after Right? Like we go through stuff, but our mind isn’t necessarily prepared for the after.

In my mind, I was never going to have no surgery. Neither was I going through radiation. I wasn’t doing none of that. That’s how I saw my miracle. That’s not how God saw my miracle. You know what I’m saying? And that’s not how he saw his miracle, because it’s not mine, it’s his. And so through that process, I’ve seen myself elevate, even my own mindset.

Even my own shifting, even learning how to create a plan within the midst of a plan, right? Have you written it down? Have you written the vision? Have you made it plain? Like, have you done these things to prepare? Because again, faith, there is no proof. So, what is it that you want to do? This year, 2024, I’ve had the most speaking engagements.

An invitation to speak in podcast interviews that I’ve had since I started my business and I started my business 2010. And then in 2017, it shifted. So, 2010, I was doing mentorships and stuff like that within the community and I was doing dance through the arts like church music, I think they call it praise dancing.

And then it shifted in 2017 to this. And in 2024, I already have speaking engagements all the way until October.

Again, His will. But you have to shift your mindset. And it’s a daily, daily thing. And again, I could use a lot of excuses. I can say I have a learning disability I don’t read that well, I don’t talk that well, you know, and again the fact that I articulate as good as I do.

Very well.

Compared to the fact that I don’t these muscles over here these nerves they’re gone How do I explain what I do?

I am the example of shifting your mindset that is the miracle, right, that I’m talking to you. Clearly, there is no slur in my speech, you know, and I may not look like how I want to look, but I’ve gotten so used to it that when I see myself communicating with you, when it’s looking back at me, I no longer see the issue, you know, like how I can’t think of his name But he had a thorn in his flesh in his side And you have to get to the place where you don’t even see it no more Where it doesn’t even disturb you anymore because when you don’t see the issue other people don’t see the issue It’s when you keep seeing it that’s because that’s why they keep seeing it.

But when you no longer see it That’s when I realized my faith and my mindset, it was like doing this and I had to wear it every day. Faith, you got to put it on every day, put it on before you go to sleep and put it on when you wake up. It’s every day.

So, I have some questions for you just through hearing your whole story and I love that you share so openly about your experiences.

Any one of those issues that you faced growing up would be enough to put somebody aside? And God has protected you through all of this to bring you to where you are today. And, and, and I love that, that you’re so open about this, but I wanted to go back to when you were younger, you talked about how you were, you, you, you would yell back, you would push back and all this.

But that you didn’t want to be doing that. Did you recognize as a young teen, I’m thinking those are those, those tough years where you get all these tough girls out there, did you recognize that you really just wanted to be loved and to be accepted and not to have to deal with all that? So, with you inside, you, you, you, you saw that in yourself.

Yes. Cause I would cry instantly. I would say it as it came out of my mouth and it could be the most harsh, evil thing I could think of, I would feel so bad instantly, like it wasn’t even, it took, it didn’t take days and then tears was starting to fall down my face. Like as I’m seeing it, as I’m being the mean girl.

As I’m doing what’s been done to me, I’m crying. And then, so, you know, people think that’s a weakness. So, I started again because I think a little different and be like, you better be glad I’m crying because as long as I’m crying, you’re good. But when I’m not crying, it’s a problem. And that was true because when I was not crying, then the empathy or the sympathy that was behind what it was that I was about to say, you weren’t getting that.

But as long as I was crying, that was that connection I had that this is not right, you shouldn’t be doing this. You know when people would be like, she’s so mean, don’t play with her. And it’s like, oh man, you know, like your heart, that, that made me emotional right there. It just sink, because that’s not who I wanted to be.

That’s not who I woke up and said, I’ma be the mean girl. You know, and even in elementary school and in middle school is when I remember and it sticks out to me and I feel so bad. I can’t even remember the girl’s name. And she was, you know, she had the blonde hair. She was like pale and everything. And she was giggling and laughing with her friends.

She was not talking to me. She was not doing anything to me. I’ll, I’ll remember this day we were outside. And her teeth were kind of yellow, right? And I was like, man, I know my teeth are yellow, but yours look like gold caps. And from that day forward, I felt so horrible. She turned so red in the face because she had not done nothing to me.

That girl hadn’t done nothing to me. She hadn’t said nothing to me. I don’t even know who she was. Right. And it’s just like, how can you be so evil?

Well, cause you were hurting.

Yup. And because they picked on me, you know, like people picked on me. So, I’m going to pick on somebody who’s weaker than me, but I didn&