Today we’d like to introduce you to Keisha Tower.

Hi Keisha, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.

I know I’m not special. I know my story is like so many other’s. I grew up without a parent(s) or maybe the parent was there, but not actually “there”. Because of that, it led to over performing and overachieving to try and gain attention. I wanted to be the best at everything. I wanted to be the first at everything. I wanted them to see that I was worthy and deserving of their love. I spent the large majority of my life trying to make myself small. Don’t make a peep. Don’t allow my emotions to be too big. But also, do very big things to make the people I love see me.

My dad was an alcoholic that was never present in my life. My mom was a single mom that worked day in and day out to make ends meet for us. My dad was physically, emotionally, and mentally not present. My mom was very emotionally not present. I spent the majority of childhood with my grandparents who, in turn, were also not emotionally available.

I think that’s what a lot of my generation is dealing with now. We have emotions; big, valid, emotions, and we did not have a safe space to express them when we were younger. We grew up. We did therapy. We learned how to deal with our emotions. Our parents and grandparents are so stuck in their ways and not willing to do any type of deep diving out of fear of what they will uncover if they actually feel things. So, they choose to stay stuck and emotionally unavailable. I just want to state, this is okay. I have accepted my parents and grandparents for who they are. I don’t wish they would change. I don’t wish they would deep dive. But, what I ultimately get to do is decide is how much time and effort I’m willing to invest in them. And I can assure you, that is very well carried out on my end. I will not invest energy and effort into someone when it’s not reciprocated. I don’t care if we are family or not. You do not get access to me just because we share the same bloodline.

I liked school in elementary school. I was in the gifted and talented program and I enjoyed it. I enjoyed the challenge. I started cheering and doing gymnastics and it was the first time I felt like I was a part of something that made sense. I felt like I had real, true friends. In middle school, things started to get dicey. My cheerleading coach that I had for a long time decided she wasn’t going to coach anymore and I decided I wasn’t going to cheer anymore. Cheering and gymnastics took up a lot of my time and all of a sudden, I had time that I wasn’t sure what to do with. Paired with some undiagnosed anxiety, I turned to drugs and alcohol at 13. I was drinking and smoking weed and taking pills to fill the void of not being seen or heard my whole life, and then no longer being a part of something. I, very easily, too easily, had access to alcohol and when I would pull up to parties and I had the handle of Heaven Hill Vodka for the night, I felt like I was a part of something again. I felt like my life made sense again.

I spent the next couple of years of my life in a haze of drugs and alcohol. Until I met my ex husband. I knew he wouldn’t put up with my extracurricular activities because he didn’t do them, so I stopped. He never asked me to stop, but there was just this unspoken sentiment between us that I knew he wouldn’t be with me if I didn’t stop drugs and alcohol

So, just like that, I quit, and I instantly turned into a girlfriend and life made sense again. I felt like I belonged. I felt seen. I felt heard. I felt safe.

Finally, someone chose me. And I didn’t have to do anything big. I just had to be. It was one of the first times in my life where I felt like I could breathe.

I think that feeling of safety is so underrated and ultimately what we are all seeking in life. I also think that chasing the feeling of safety instead of finding it within ourselves is one of the most dangerous things we can do.

Fast forward many years and life happened right before my ex husband and my eyes and I blinked and we were different people seeking different things in life. I no longer felt safe to share my emotions or my true self with him. My walls were sky high with him and there was no knocking them down. By the time we got a third party to help, I was already too far checked out and there was no returning. We were both playing it safe, trying to keep our family together. When we finally separated from each other, I think he was able to dive into his emotions and see that I was also not what he wanted. It just took him a little longer to realize it.

Twenty years together and all of a sudden we were at a table signing divorce papers. It made perfect sense, but also made no sense.

I have spent so much time seeking safety and happiness outside of myself. Not in an externally validating way, but in a tangible, physical way of what can I actually see and feel that is making me safe and happy.

The past two years of my life have been an absolute upheaval. I got a divorce, I lost my very secure job. It’s the definition of not feeling safe. But, I have myself and three beautiful girls to care for, so I will never let anything permanently keep me down. I think it’s the universes way of testing me and asking me, do I really want what I say I want..??

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?

My whole life has been a struggle, but I wouldn’t change it. I am glad I didn’t have it easy, because it makes me appreciate all things in life a lot more. That’s not to say that someone that has had an easy life doesn’t appreciate it. It just really makes me take a step back and appreciate how far I’ve come.

It was just my mom and I growing up until I was about 10 years old. We were poor as fuck. There were some days we didn’t eat. I always wondered why we could never go do things. We were in the house a lot. We didn’t vacation. We weren’t doing what my friends were doing. I didn’t necessarily question it. I just knew we were a little different.

In conjunction with being extremely poor, I found myself rooted in some very deep abandonment issues. I would call my dad because I was told it was my job to reach out to him when I was 7, 8, 9 years old, and then when I did, I was met with, “He’s at the bar, which is where he would rather be than with you…”

As I previously said, I turned to alcohol and drugs at a very early age to feel normal. I was searching for this feeling of normal or belonging. The drugs and alcohol made me feel not so anxious. They made me feel like I didn’t need to prove myself. They made me feel like I could breathe. They made me chill out and not overthink every single situation.

In the moment I didn’t realize it, but I was just searching for things or multiple things to make me feel seen and heard. Something to validate the emotions that I was feeling that I couldn’t even name at that time. I just knew I felt off, or different. I looked at my friends who didn’t need the drugs or alcohol and wondered how they coped. I remember telling people what I was doing and they were shocked. I definitely started rebelling and acting out as a new way to seek attention.

Looking back now, I can see my mom was probably so exhausted with me. Single momming it, no breaks because my dad didn’t come get me, trying to balance her work schedule and and also trying to deal with me who was acting a damn fool all the time.

I gave zero fucks. I pushed the limit as much as I could.

Until I didn’t. I just decided I was done being a fool for the sake of having a relationship at the age of 15. That relationship saved me in a lot of ways while also equally breaking me in a lot of ways. The breaking came down the road when I started to level up and do therapy and workout and my ex husband and I could no longer relate on our day to day. It was amazing how that happened, almost overnight it felt like.

I struggled for YEARS, I mean, YEARS with our marriage after we had kids. I knew it wasn’t for me. But, I didn’t know how to get out. I was so hard headed and determined to make it work and to not end up like my parents. And for what? For us to become strangers? For us to continue to grow in complete opposite directions to the point that we didn’t even know each other?

I woke up one day and asked for a separation. It wasn’t planned or rehearsed. I was on the couch working and the conversation just evolved. A week later we were living separately. Three months after that I asked for a divorce. Seven months after that our divorce was final. It was a complete upheaval of my life. He was everything I had ever known. I had been with him more than I hadn’t at that point in my life. And it was gone. Like I said before, it made absolutely perfect sense, while also making absolute zero sense.

Nine months after my divorce was final, I lost my very secure, very well paying job. In the past two years, my life has been completely reformulated. It’s been everything I wanted, everything I’ve been asking for. And I’m finding myself in brand new territory of new emotions and new situations and new love that I’ve never had to deal with before. Three years ago, I was so sure what my future looked like, now, I have no idea, but I’m learning to go with the flow. Learning to release control. Learning to let good things happen to me, for me.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?

I have been a business professional my whole life. I was told that I needed to do better, be better, go to college, make all the money, and I would have the world in my hands. And I did all of that. I graduated high school, I graduated college with four degrees in four and half years, one associate, two bachelors, and a masters degree. I graduated top of my class with honors. For the past 18 years I worked my up the corporate ladder, almost doubling my salary with every new job opportunity that was given to me. And I hated it. I hated what Corporate America looked like. I hated the games and politics that you had to play. It went against everything in my soul. But I was making money. Really, really good money, and I thought I should be happy. And I wasn’t.

Four months ago, I lost my job and it was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. It was my ticket to get out of Corporate America and stay out. I already had one business, a CrossFit gym, and now I have another business, a mobile coffee truck. And I’m embarking on another one very soon. By the end of 2025, I will have three business, meaning three different revenue streams. I will more than likely be making way less money, but the FREEDOM and HAPPINESS that I have now is unmatched and enough to make me never go back to the professional world.

Can you talk to us about how you think about risk?

I feel like my life has been molded by taking risks. I am a calculated risk taker. I take risks as long as they make sense. I use my fear as a barometer that I am on the right track. If I am comfortable, I am doing something wrong. I 100% realize that not everyone is like me when it comes to this. I mean, sure, I like comfort, who doesn’t. But it’s not something I’m willing to sit in.

I remember the first time I stood up for myself and I consider a risk at the age of 10. My dad was very in and out of my life at this point. He actually wanted to come get me and my mom and step dad and better plans and I wanted to go with them. My mom gave me the choice, which I super appreciate so much now, and I chose to be with them. When I tell you that my step mom let me have it the next time I saw them. Talked about how terrible and stupid I was and how I made everyone worry. This was before cell phones… I took a risk at standing up for myself and then was met with a lot of resistance.

I think it goes without saying that drugs and alcohol were a huge risk….

I bought a house when I was 19 years old with my ex husband. And we absolutely killed it.

I left a very secure job at 24 to go into the corporate world to fulfill someone else’s dream. I hated it. I started a bookkeeping business while I was at my new job.

I liked the business, but hated the clients I was attracting. Whenever I had my first child, I stopped my bookkeeping business and went back into safe corporate america.

When my youngest was one, I got my new job, and hopefully my last Corporate America job.

When my youngest was 6 months to 1 year old – I struggled severely with postpartum mood disorders to the point that I was suicidal.

Because of my postpartum mood disorders, I started a blog. I started a podcast. I was seeking connection and validation from people going through the same thing as me.

In 2021, I started my second business, my thriving CrossFit gym. I dreamt it up in January 2021, and the doors were open in May 2021.

I divorced my ex husband after 20 years of being together.

Instead of going back to Corporate America after I lost my job in September 2024, I took some time off and started my second business, my mobile coffee shop.

I have been put in so many positions where I really have to decide what is best for me and my family and the safe option is never it for me. Along the way, some things have failed, but I truly do not see them as failures. They are redirections for something better. And something better always comes. I need that reminder a lot, even to this day.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: keishanicolet