Episode Summary:
The seeds were planted in high school—the thought of starting a fashion brand. Who knew that would stick with me. A thought that seemed so far fetched for a young girl from Texas City is starting to shape up as I mold this fashion brand, Pamoja, into something great.
Topics Covered:
- My daily affirmation
- One thing leads to another, the journey
- Thoughts being the pre-requisite to manifestation
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Sponsors:
Thanks to Pamoja for supporting Diaries of a Modern Trailblazer
Episode Transcript
I am Stephanie Evans, and this is Diaries of a Modern
Trailblazer.
Take note of the journey and beinspired to forge your own
amazing path.
It is already April and I cannotbelieve how time is flying.
(00:23):
As I think about the lastconversation I had on this
podcast with Joanna Maiden, thefounder of Soko Kenya and the
Kujuwa Initiative, my biggesttakeaway was to take the time to
pause and say my affirmationsdaily, and I was doing that, but
I stopped.
(00:43):
And then after thatconversation, I was motivated to
pick that back up, and so Iwanted to kick off this episode
and share what I read out loudevery day as far as my daily
affirmations.
So here it goes.
I will remain focused on mygoals, even if I have a moment
(01:07):
of difficulty, I will not give.
I know success comes withconsistency.
I know that I will make it.
Things will get better.
No problem, no challenge willstop me.
Everything I deserve is comingmy way.
(01:32):
If I told a younger version ofmyself, I would be doing this
today, I would be very proud ofmyself.
The fact that I'm sitting hereand doing this podcast is it's,
it's still a challenge to get onhere and speak, even if I'm
(01:55):
interviewing someone, andespecially when I'm solely on
here sharing my story and whatI'm going through, but I'm out
here doing it.
And I'm continuously workingtowards challenging myself and
learning and growing.
(02:16):
But it was back in high schoolwhere the thought of creating a
fashion brand was first broughtto my attention.
It was like the first time Iactually started thinking about
it, and it really came from aclassmate.
(02:37):
And it stuck with me.
It was in my Algebra II class,um, my sophomore year.
I don't know, we would alwaysfind some interesting fashion,
some fashion finds at CharlotteRusse or something like that.
And it just popped up.Like shesaid something like"One day
(03:03):
you'll be creating your ownbrand," and I was like, oh,
okay, cool.
Like sure, I can see thathappening and it just always
stuck with me.
Just to give you some context, Iwas raised in Texas City, Texas,
which is located in the GulfCoast, part of Galveston County
(03:27):
and near Houston.
It's known as an oil refinerytown, and now there's a Tanger
Outlet mall.
But it's a place I call home andI wouldn't change that for
anything.
It's funny because when I leftfor college, I told a classmate
(03:48):
where I was from and he did notbelieve me, like he had to look
it up to see if I waslegitimately telling the truth.
It has small town vibes with afew claims to fame.
Like I found out from somefriends in LA that a movie was
(04:09):
filmed there not too long agocalled Red Rocket.
And then Drake mentioned ourlittle city in Certified
Loverboy album.
But just going back to my highschool times in the early 2000s.
When the thought of me creatinga fashion brand came up.
(04:32):
The name was 2020 because itwould be something that was
forward thinking, and sovisionary, but for me, at that
time, it just felt sofarfetched, because I didn't see
anybody around me doing anythinglike that.
(04:54):
You know, entrepreneurship inthe sense of creating a product,
a physical product to sell wasnot visible to me.
But still it was in the back ofmy mind.
It was, you know, something whenI applied even in undergrad,
(05:19):
when I applied to college, Ialluded to entrepreneurship as
an area of interest, which iswhy I decided to do business in
undergrad.
Um, and when it came time tolook for a job in college, I was
(05:40):
very interested in a fashion.
Even though I was in school inupstate New York, I was like,
Hmm, I could live in New YorkCity and work in the fashion
industry.
It just seemed like an amazingthing to do, and when I was
looking for jobs, it was shortlyafter the financial crisis and
(06:03):
retail companies were notrecruiting on campus.
I did the whole on campusrecruiting thing, and I got no
offer.
And so I was back to the drawingboard, still looking, and I knew
I didn't wanna move back homeand live with my mom after
(06:24):
college.
I had to start living my ownindependent life as a young
adult in the city of mychoosing.
And I was pretty open about it.
I was open-minded in terms ofwhere I would be geographic
wise, but I didn't know how itwas going to happen.
(06:45):
I didn't know where I was gonnabe, and I applied for multiple
jobs and no movement was reallyhappening at all.
I was even entertaining thethought of going to culinary
school in California becausethat was something of interest
for me as well.
But I was very fortunate.
(07:08):
I was fortunate.
My mentor, Zawadi Bryant, whowas the first guest on this
podcast, her cousin was workingat macys.com at the time, and
through her I landed my dreamjob working at macys.com which
is amazing.
(07:29):
You know, I got the referral,um, when I submitted my
application and my interviewprocess was, it went really
well.
It was great.
It was awesome, and it was coolto go to New York City and
(07:50):
interview in person and just bein that space.
And then I hit the groundrunning and I loved every bit of
that experience working atmacys.com.
But I knew I wanted to go backto business school after four
years.
And when I applied to businessschool, I wrote down on my
(08:14):
applications that my goal was tocreate my own fashion brand.
And that still felt far-fetchedbecause I didn't know how that
was gonna happen.
But I knew that was an industryI wanted to be in.
And in those type of programs,there's so much opportunity for
(08:40):
career exploration in so manydifferent industries.
I remember going to an event, arecruiting event early on in
business school, and Google wasinterested in having
conversations with me and it wasnice.
I was like, oh, wow.
(09:03):
Okay, so I'll have theconversation and things were
going great, and then I had tostop and pause and reflect, you
know, and I said, like I had tosay to myself, wait a minute,
(09:25):
this is not what I came herefor.
This isn't going to fulfill theneed to help me move forward in
the way that I want to move.
And so I had to stop thoseconversations.
And for me it was just like, Idon't want to be one of many
(09:48):
employees.
I don't wanna be one of 200,000.
I wanna create my own at the endof the day.
I spent the time in businessschool just gaining broad
experiences in the industry thatwould help me figure out how I
(10:10):
was going to pivot career-wisestill within the same industry,
and also try to learn as much asI could about entrepreneurship
and the inner workings of what Ineed to do to launch this brand.
And also just have those initialconversations with the right
(10:33):
people, with manufacturers forinstance, to understand and
learn like what are the propernext steps, because it was all
new territory for me.
And I was just getting startedin terms of conceptualizing the
(10:57):
brand and figuring it out.
And because I knew that I wantedto do something in fashion, I
knew I was narrowing down thecategory.
I ultimately landed on leathergoods and.
I, I still felt like, you know,I wasn't really ready to take
(11:23):
that step, um, fully, and Iended up working for America's
House of Leather, which isCoach, and for me it's been,
it's been about getting paid tolearn how to build.
(11:45):
That's how I've been looking atit in terms of working for
someone else while building.
At this point.
Shortly after I started workingafter business school, I decided
to take the next plunge andcreate my LLC, and I did that in
(12:07):
2017.
And you know, it was kind ofscary.
It was like, all right, this isme.
This is me making a commitmentto make that next step.
And I told myself, this is afull circle moment.
I told myself that I was gonnalaunch this brand in 2020, which
(12:37):
is the exact name that I talkedabout in high school, but that
definitely wasn't the name ofthe brand that I ultimately
landed on.
And three years later I didthat.
I launched Pamoja in August of2020.
(13:00):
And when I created that LLC acouple of years, I didn't know
what I was doing.
I didn't know how I was going tocreate this product.
I actually had in mind a bagthat I wanted to launch with and
I didn't launch with that bag.
(13:20):
Still haven't launched it.
I didn't launch with the namethat I thought I was going to
name this brand.
Ended up being Pamoja.
And so, you know, it's been,it's really been about being
persistent, persistent with thegoal in mind, and just not
(13:45):
letting those barriers andhurdles defeat me.
So as I sit back and reflect onthose times and where I'm at
right now, one of the biggestlife lessons for me thus far is
the greatest power I have is thepower of my thoughts.
(14:11):
My thoughts are essentially theprerequisites to the actions
that I'm going to manifest, andso I'm sharing tidbits of my
venture as an entrepreneur inbuilding Pamoja, because I
believe in myself and I'm happywith the progress made thus far.
(14:35):
There's certainly been strugglesand I face challenges in
building this brand up quitefrequently, but I don't see
myself giving up because Ibelieve God wouldn't put me in
this position if he didn't havesomething great for me to
execute with solid purpose.
(14:57):
And oftentimes I, I sit and Ireflect and I'm like, wow, how
am I doing all of this?
Like, how am I doing all of thisindependently?
And I honestly don't know, but Ihave the wherewithal and I'm
(15:21):
remaining focused on my goals.
You know that daily affirmation,it's powerful and it keeps me
going.
And I also know that there's ahigher being that is greater
than me guiding me in the rightdirection.
(15:42):
I feel like I'm entering a newphase, both personally and
professionally with a lot moreintent, and so, there's most
definitely a lot more to come.
And that's a wrap.
So own it and make moves.
One day, I wanna share yourjourney on this podcast.
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