Janovia Brooks

I would attribute my success to a combination of my mother and my upbringing. I grew up very poor - I can remember times as a kid using notebook paper for toilet paper because we didn't have any, or my mom borrowing water to flush the toilet. But one thing she never did was let me see her cry, and I never saw her be hopeless. Even when we were going through it, she would find a way to get me a coloring book or something to keep things light. I've been the same way in general - a lot of my friends say the world could literally be ending, and I would be like, well, at least we get a new one. That outlook is what keeps me moving forward, no matter what challenges I face.

I would say, and this is easy because I have daughters, always choose yourself first. It sounds very backwards, and the world would have us think that you should put everything and everybody else ahead of yourselves. But at my age, I'm realizing that really didn't work out. A lot of us are realizing I spent my life giving and doing for everyone else, and then we're left figuring out what's left for us. So my advice, even to my daughters now, is choose yourself first. Unless it's an emergency or a dire situation, pick you, and then everything else comes after that.

The biggest challenge is that companies think consulting is a luxury that they can't afford. A lot of businesses struggle because they don't get consulting, whether it's my type of consulting or someone else, and they end up doing it when they have to, and by that time, it usually costs way more than if they had just tried it earlier in their processes. I don't try to convince people, though. I like to be personable in general - I feel like that's just what humans are supposed to be all the time, even in business. When I come to people, I don't say, here's how much it costs for me to fix that. I come and I say, what's your problem? What's wrong? How can I fix it? Then we talk about how much it costs, because once people realize that they actually have problems, it makes it easier for companies to realize that investing early on the front end is going to cost a lot less than having to hire new people every week, because the cost of hiring is expensive.

Integrity is number one. That is literally my core value. Although I don't use my degree, I have a degree in leadership and ethics, and ethics is why it's in me. I have always been the kind of person who believes that if you just be honest and genuine, most situations will work out in your favor, or at least not horribly. When people get into losing integrity and lying and trying to get over, it always backfires. My thing is just do it right up front, and it'll work itself out. I can remember when I bought my first home, I had been living on Section 8, which is government-subsidized housing. When I bought my own home, I was still eligible for Section 8, and so many people said to me, why are you moving? Just stay in it and buy your house on the side. And I'm like, that's no. I'll move and I'll buy a house. A lot of people thought I was insane, and that's the kind of thing that I do - to me, integrity is everything.