A Courageous Female Founder Finds Light in the Darkest Days as a Mompreneur

When I was a teenager I had a picture of how my family would be. A tall, dark, and  handsome husband, 5 kids, a dog and a white picket fence. Really! That was my ideal family. I never planned for things to be quite as interesting as they are today.

Thirteen years ago I found myself a single mother of a baby boy, I dropped out of college, in between freelance jobs and alone. After a rough breakup, financial hardship, failures and many disappointments I still chose joy.

No more pity parties. No more shame in being single, no shame in not graduating college, and no more excuses. I had decided to own my situation and live my life.

I looked at my son and said to myself “How can I make the best of this?”

I knew that I had to learn to enjoy the here and now and teach him to do the same. So I began to not focus so much my “issues” and find happiness in the little moments.

I can remember laughing when we had to use the one bathroom we had in our tiny apartment, because I was just happy we had a safe place to call our own.

I found humor in the awkward conversations with my ex because I was just thankful to be happily single, instead of miserably married to one bad decision.

I let every late notice and past due bill fuel my faith and increase the hope I had for a better future.

In all the celebrating I found that I focused less on the  drama and more on the things I was getting right. I focused more on the productive situations and less on the counterproductive ones i.e. complaining, worrying, and doubting.

You will see your confidence beginning to increase thus making you happier.

Once I realized how content and happy I actually was, I wondered what would happen if I pursued something greater.

So I challenged myself to pursue the possibilities.

Once things got stable for me I did not want to get complacent. I wanted to keep growing and continue to elevate my life.

I made the choice to be grateful and content but I knew I still wanted more.

I wasn’t sure what I could reasonably at the moment, given my current situation but I knew I could do something. So even if you have to take baby steps toward your goals you should still be working on them.

I decided to think back to my younger self. What dreams did she have? What did she want to accomplish in life?

And surprisingly a lot of those things I still wanted, even in my single journey. I had just suppressed those desires because I felt I needed to put being a mother before my personal desires.

We seem to do that a lot as moms.

But, I realized I was letting my younger self down.

So I decided to pursue the possibilities and get back into writing. I already owned several journals that I would write in whenever I had something to say and nobody to say it to.

I began writing more often and it was a way for me to express myself and do something I genuinely enjoyed doing.

If you don’t already know, it’s not all rainbows and sunshine when you take the leap into entrepreneurship and pursue your mompreneur business ideas.

In fact, it’s probably safe to say that for most of us, starting an online business involves a few bumps, bruises, and “WTF” moments along the way.

Of course, we all want to hear the success stories of our favorite bloggers, authors, and online entrepreneurs who are running successful creative businesses.

We want to know exactly what makes them successful, how long it took to get that success, how much money they made, and any other positive details that will inspire us along our own journey.

But what about their failed business ideas? What about what DIDN’T work?

What about the times they fell flat on their faces with their business ideas? You know, the ones that completely, and utterly flopped?

I’m always fascinated with this side of the story.

This is probably because I have my own unique failure stories which have shaped who I am as a mom entrepreneur and how I approach my digital marketing business today.

With more and more women running successful businesses, the rise of the mompreneur is real!

What makes moms such great entrepreneurs? My guess is it has something to do with years of practicing patience, persistence, multi-tasking, and knowing how to make the most of every spare minute!

A few months after starting I was reading a very intriguing book, Think and Grow Rich which was Napoleon Hill’s personal copy of the first edition where Hills draws on stories of Andrew Carnegie, Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, and other millionaires of his generation that illustrate the principles of success. Teaching me the secrets that brought me fortune. My whole mindset shifted in an instance realizing this was the secret sauce to my thriving business of female entrepreneurs sharing their secrets to their success.

It intrigued me, so I began researching women of power who can share their tips and tricks to their success stories, how to run a successful startup and business. I researched for a while before I actually started my full service media company, ZavoMedia serving female entrepreneurs, specializing in public relations and marketing strategy.

In the time I created my team of experts, editors and writers we came across numerous rejections from investors to partners who didn’t believe in our business model. That didn’t stop us from achieving the next level…

These C-level executives on our show serve as mentors, they coach girls from high schools, first year of college and orphanages. Giving back was always an important factor for me. I have established a leadership program for women where they feel empowered. I call it the home of empowerment for every female who wants to take her life to the next level in business and personal life. We host courses on personal branding, brand awareness and content marketing.

I have implemented all the success stories on one platform my successful podcast, What Makes A Woman probably too long but here I am.

It was slow going at first but I am starting to find my groove.

But the important thing is I have something of my own, that I can be proud of. That makes me happier and more fulfilled than ever.

Having something outside of motherhood that’s yours is beneficial and necessary.

Then after doing those things I was able to really fall in love with my life. Decide how you can fall in love with yours.

Here’s the thing. We all have had a vision for our lives that may not reflect what it looks like now but listen…

Life is not perfect. It will never be perfectly orchestrated the way you imagined it. There will be mountaintop moments and valley moments, and then there will be times of perfect contentment.

I had to learn to be happy no matter what state I was in. I finally understood that the things I were going through were just temporary and would eventually change.

So when things are going the way I want, I’m grateful and I celebrate that.

But when things are not going as planned, I’m still grateful and celebrate the triumphs to come.

It’s about finding a new way to look at the situation.

Can you do something different to make the circumstance better? Can you learn from it? Can you prevent someone else from going through it?

When I decided to fall in love with my life that meant becoming unconditionally grateful for life itself. That meant being grateful for the small things we often take for granted and making a choice to be happy in whatever state I’m in.

When you decide to be happy with where you are, what you have and who you’re doing it with, even it means being single, you’ll find that joy just comes as a byproduct of that contentment.