I’m on a mission: driving equality through successful partnership.
Every entrepreneur has a driving motivation for creating a business. It is a force of nature behind a passion that propels unparalleled vigor. For me, it was a lifelong dream to own a business and have the freedom to build the life which I desired. Through working with my own coach, I found clarity in my purpose and the path to build a business to fulfill it. With a dream and purpose, I had the ingredients to become an entrepreneur. My mission is part of a larger endeavor meant to better our communities. As I deliver my mission, my aspiration is that others will pay it forward to transform their communities to one of equality. Seabrook Talent is the birthchild of a dream that fulfills a purpose to create a better society.
Music to My Dreams
I suppose you could say that entrepreneurship is in my blood. My grandfather was a successful entrepreneur. My first foray as an entrepreneur was in the fifth grade at age 11.
At the end of my fifth grade school year, we had a celebration in one of the campus fields. Many of my friends brought their boomboxes to school that day for the party. For those of you who don’t recall or are unfamiliar with a boombox, it was a music box with large speakers, an audio cassette deck, a compact disc (CD) player, and it played AM/FM radio. I wanted one, and my mom told me that we didn’t have the money for it and that I would have to use my own money to buy it. I had an allowance, but at that rate it would be forever before I could afford it.
That summer, I created a business – a lawn mowing business. I went around my neighborhood asking people to pay me to mow their lawn. I mowed lawns all summer. I hated mowing lawns, but I loved the idea that I was making my own money to have the freedom to buy the things that I wanted. Looking back, it was the freedom that I loved. By the end of the summer, I saved enough to buy a SONY boombox. To this day, I still have the boombox. It no longer works. It serves as a reminder of my unrelenting energy, tenacity, and commitment when I want to do something.
While this was my first entrepreneurial endeavor, it certainly wasn’t my last. When I was in college, I had always talked with my friends about owning a business. I just wasn’t sure what it would be.
Clarity Through Coaching
My career has been a non-linear path of jobs and entrepreneurial endeavors. I’ve constantly reinvented myself as I’ve grown, evolved, and transformed throughout my career.
I tried my hand at entrepreneurship again as I wrapped up college. I was hired by New York Life Insurance Company for an internship and then stayed on with them after graduation. When you work on 100% commission, you’re an entrepreneur building a business selling someone else’s products. It was a hard job for a 23-year-old, yet I loved it. The part I loved most was when I worked with my clients and helped them create a plan to be successful in their financial future. After some time, I decided this wasn’t the right path and have spent my time between the corporate and nonprofit spaces.
My career has spanned across several companies and roles. I’ve constantly learned, grown, and reinvented myself. On more than one occasion, I’ve held leadership roles. My favorite parts of leadership were developing people, creating a strategy, and driving organizational change.
Yet, something was always missing. Work felt like an unfulfilling burden. I was accomplishing someone else’s vision rather than my own. To find fulfillment and achieve my career goals, I started working with a career coach and thought, “This is cool. I’d love to do this.”
By working with a coach, I found clarity in what I wanted to do for my career – become a coach and talent development consultant. It was the perfect career that allowed me to do all the things that I loved: partnering with people and businesses to achieve success through careers.
A Company With Purpose
I’ve had an amazing career, worked with great people and leaders, and have been very fortunate. I’ve also seen and experienced a lot of challenging situations in my career, especially as a gay man who has Crohn’s disease. What I’ve experienced in my career is an amplification of the inequalities and problems in our society.
When I was growing up, my father was a presbyterian pastor. His church was in a rough neighborhood. He formed a community leadership group, created a neighborhood watch, obtained grants and partnered with Habitat for Humanity to rebuild homes, and lobbied the city council for police support. He received an award from the city of Huntsville, AL, and the Alpha Phi Alpha Martin Luther King, Jr., award for his service to the city. I grew up watching my father partner with a community to make it better.
Today, I carry that spirit forward with my business as a social entrepreneur. Jeffery Pfeffer, Stanford University professor and author, has said, “If we want more instances of power being used for good, we need to ensure that more good people understand – and are willing and able to use – the principles of power.” Corporations and their leaders hold much of the power in our society. Through Seabrook Talent, I aspire to be a driving force for equality in our society by creating wealth among diverse communities through representation in high-salary leadership roles to influence progress towards this future. This is accomplished by partnering with people and businesses to transform workplaces and their leadership teams to look like our diverse and multi-cultural society through coaching and talent development, making it better for the next generation.
