Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey in personal and business development but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Akeisha Johnson, founder of An Inspired Story Coaching, located in San Francisco, CA, USA.

What's your business, and who are your customers?

I empower leaders to become the boss other people want to work for. As a coach, I support my clients, from small business owners to organizational leaders, to create and develop their teams towards accomplishing extraordinary results together and experience themselves as the leaders they aspire to be. I also created A Safe Space to Talk About Race (SafeSTTAR™) Workshop, where I lead people in practicing frank discussions around race and racism to cultivate facilities and solutions for social and workplace issues around race and racism.

Tell us about yourself

My leadership coaching skills came directly from creating The Oshun Project - a self-generated, non-profit program with a mission to bring green technology to the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Out of this work, over 10,000 people in Camp-Perrin, Haiti, have had access to potable water since 2014. Developing this project illuminated for me the power of coaching, which was how I accomplished delivering the program with no experience executing such an endeavor, and demonstrated for me how transformative a focus on service and a focus on actualizing one's vision of the world can be on a person. I really coach people because I am out to transform the world into what people dream it could be. People deserve to live out their dreams, I believe.

What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?

The answer I want to give is my client's results: increasing their business revenue by 55 percent during the pandemic, doubling their income within a year of working together, launching to the market a new product which a client was sitting on for over a decade, confidence in managing a team of over 60 people for the first time... What I really want to do as a business owner is demonstrate for my nieces and nephews that they can also successfully run a business of their own and do not need to aspire to work for someone else, especially people who don't understand who they are. Having young black children in my life see me out here as a business owner is another notable accomplishment in my book.

What's one of the hardest things that come with being a business owner?

Managing oneself, especially the mindset and emotional aspects of running a business. The rest is really just execution. Allowing myself time to plan and strategize what is next for my business and then looking at what kinds of connections are necessary to accomplish my plan and then DOING IT is a practice that can be a real challenge. Also, asking for help when necessary can feel hard. It's a humbling experience as a business owner due to the lessons learned that come with failure and setbacks - mostly self-imposed, I find. On the other end, there is richness in what is learned about oneself via these hardships. As Glennon Doyle is well-known for writing, "We CAN do hard things."

What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?

  1. Get a coach - really, it is a game-changer!
  2. Take time to slow down and look at what is working and is not working in your business and your industry. Growth requires seasons of harvest and then rest.
  3. Just try sh*it! Nothing happens until you get out there and do stuff. Life is to be lived outside, not all in your head. Children learn from playing
    the same goes for business owners. I like to think of being in a business like adult play - it's more enjoyable that way.

Is there anything else you'd like to share?

As a business owner, you have to believe in yourself and surround yourself with other's who believe in you. Many people do not understand what you are doing, and that doesn't matter. What does matter is that you understand you and are about the business of learning more about yourself by trying out things that scare you, challenge you, and allow you to become the person you want to be. Being in business is all about the relationship one has with themselves and with their communities/environments, in my opinion.

Where can people find you and your business?

Website: https://aninspiredstory.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/an_inspired_story/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/akeisha-johnson/

If you like what you've read here and have your own story as a solopreneur that you'd like to share, then email community@subkit.com; we'd love to feature your journey on these pages.

Feel inspired to start, run or grow your own subscription business? Check out subkit.com and learn how you can turn "one day" into day one.