Erika Warner

Number one, discipline. I am a very disciplined person, and I always finish what I start. And number two, community. I have always looked for help in all the areas that I didn't know. I never try to do everything alone. Instead, I seek out support and expertise in areas where I need guidance, which has been crucial to building my platform and growing my business to serve over 1,000 students.

When I started my platform, I was always complaining about certain things, like my students not reading the emails or not paying attention to me. My mentor told me, well, it's not their fault, it's your fault! It is your responsibility to follow up and to make sure that you educate them so they do what you want them to do. If they're not reading your full emails, you have to make a note that says 'Read this email to the very end.' He told me that the responsibility was on me, that complaining about it was not a way to solve it. I will say that that really helped me a lot, because it shifted my mindset from blaming my students to taking ownership of how I communicate and teach them.

Start today. Don't start when the conditions are right, or when the content, the book, or the program is perfect. Just start with what you have, and then you can edit and perfect as you go, because I waited a long time because I wanted everything to be perfect, and it only became perfect, or rather, nothing is perfect, but it became good while I did it. It's never a good time to start, it's just better to start now. I learned this from my own experience of waiting too long for everything to be just right, when in reality, you improve and refine through the actual doing.

The biggest challenge is convincing people that education is worth the investment. That's really the main hurdle I face in my work. On the opportunity side, my niche, the people I want to serve, are the number one minority group in the United States, so my market is huge. There's enormous potential for growth because the population I'm targeting is so large and underserved when it comes to English language education.

Being a curious person who is always learning is extremely important to me. I value never saying that I know it all or that I'm done with learning, both in my company and in my personal life. Empathy is also extremely important because of the group that we work with. Having empathy for the journey that all these people are going through, acquiring a new language as immigrants, is essential to what I do. And finally, quality. I believe in giving good services that actually deliver results and follow through on what we promise.