Day 1 It takes a Village
On my personal social media, I use the hashtag #IttakesAVillageToRaiseASingleMother. While this personal passionate professional project of W.e. Are Planning is most certainly a touchstone in my career, it isn’t the first time I’ve propped up my own business. The LLC was opened over a year ago but it just wasn’t the right time. More to come on that, but this post is a first of many thank you’s.
I’ve been fortunate enough in my life to have a lot of support with family, professional friends and even members of the community I don’t know, that kept the flame going for nearly 2 decades. As W.e. Are Planning officially launches here in 2023, I wanted to take a minute and appreciate someone who believed in me enough, and made me feel confident enough, to leave a very unhealthy business environment, so I could get where I’m at today.
There’s an old blog I held for road safety advocacy in 2015 titled with a post titled “If you want something done, you have to do it yourself, but not all by yourself”, and that fact remains true today. I’m not by myself, or going on my own, not even close. In the rat race of building businesses, branding, and so on, rarely are reported the thank you’s to the helpers and recognition of genuine appreciation on a personal level that assisted us professionally. We are all self preservationists but the important role gratitude plays can not be understated. Perhaps it's because growth is hard, and messy. But moving forward is about taking the good and learning from what wasn’t so great, and during that reflection, finding those pivotal moments of humanity.
Make it stand out
Matching outfits promoting automation in South Florida.
Uyen Dang and I met during the pandemic and hit it off immediately. Not in the way that two friends might but in the way professionals with common goals can and have immediate success. It’s not often that you find someone that you can really work well together with and have arguments that result in products that come out on the other side better for it. She believed in me and I believed in her and we worked together to build up her new company, DDEC, at a time when I wasn’t ready as a single mother with minimal capital and all the bills.
Over the next 12 months I supported her organization, lended my entrepreneurial knowledge, systems, and skills. For a year I also built my skills, expanded my network, and traveled this state with less worry because I was supported.
I'm excited to see what the future holds for both of us. I’ve been an independent contractor and started businesses since 2004 and this time it feels like I’m at the beginning of a new adventure with what feels like all the tools I’m going to need to take on the challenges that will come. As humans we evolve hopefully learning from our experiences and I’m excited to take all that I’ve learned and move out on my own again. I had an epiphany and shared with one of my mentors a few weeks ago “do you ever feel like you are exactly where you are meant to be?”
I’m forever grateful to Uyen and her family for the support shown, for the current clients and projects we are working on together across Florida, and what the future holds as we go together, using the best of our skills in combination to continue to solve complex challenges for public and private clients alike. And have a lot of fun doing it.
W.e. has a corporate mission of bettering the future by bringing women along and building their skill set and confidence in a tangible way, so that we can build better communities, businesses, and individuals for our world. It may seem like a lofty goal, but w.e. made a plan, w.e. have a village, and w.e.’re gonna stick to it.