Mary Lent

I would say it's less about achieving rank or titles and more about the people I've impacted. I think teacher may be at my core being, because I love when old airmen or old students reach back out to me to get in touch. You know those moments when someone realizes their teacher really did know what they were talking about? People do that to me, and that's honestly what keeps me going. The fact that people reach out to me and tell me I made a difference is huge for me. That's what I consider my real success.

The best career advice I've ever received is to be authentic. You can't fake it. You could be a really good communicator, and there are some people who are, but people can see through it. If you aren't authentic, if you're just reading from a script or just saying the right buzzwords, people notice. Showing up authentically matters. It's about being genuine in every interaction and relationship you have.

Do it. Go for it. I think any industry, women sometimes face challenges, and I've come out of male-dominated career fields. I did aircraft maintenance in the Air Force, and I did that also in my role for Lockheed, so I'm used to being the one out of ten or one out of fifteen women in an organization. You can let that intimidate you, you can let that make you feel like you've got something to prove, or you can just show up authentically and say, I know what I'm doing, I've read the books, I've studied the craft, and I can do it, I'm capable. At the core fiber of your being, people recognize competence and they respond to it. So for women who want to get into small business ownership, or art, or whatever field, go for it. I know a lot of business advice is always about learning how to say no, but I guess I'm still in that phase of saying yes and figuring it out.

On the opportunity side, in my neck of the woods here in the North Fort Worth suburbs, there just aren't a ton of places that do fine arts education like I do, so that's definitely an opportunity in terms of market space. Another opportunity for me, though it's unfortunately a challenge for school districts, is that all the school districts here have dwindling budgets and a lot of budgetary constraints in the public schools. I actually had a public school district reach out to me and ask if my company can be their art department, and we're in those negotiations now. I feel bad for public education and the state that they are in, but that is an opportunity for me. Challenge-wise, I wish I could crack the code on marketing. I have two prongs: business-to-business relationships, which I've formed really well with rec centers, churches, schools, and daycares that host us since we're a mobile company without brick-and-mortar. But where I struggle is getting enrollment, reaching the parents who would bring their kids in. My classes might have three or four kids, and I would love to have fifteen or twenty. I'm trying to crack the code on marketing to get that reach. We're super affordable compared to places like Painting with a Twist, where an evening costs thirty to forty dollars. I can pull off the same thing for twenty to twenty-five dollars because I don't have the overhead of a brick-and-mortar establishment. I have rec centers that host us, but I just can't get butts in seats.

After 24 years of military service, integrity is really important to me in every relationship and in building trust in those spaces. I carry that forward from the military, where it's kind of understood, into civilian life and business ownership. I focus on being really truthful and transparent. If I can't do something, I tell people I can't do it. If I can do it but with some contingencies, I'm upfront about that. I try to be really transparent in those ways to make sure that people don't have a false impression of me, that I'm not over-promising and under-delivering. I just want people to know who I am, and I guess it goes back to the authenticity part as well.