We recently connected with Ashonta Clarke and have shared our conversation below.

Ashonta, appreciate you joining us today. What did your parents do right and how has that impacted you in your life and career?

There were several things I felt my parents did right. There were very critical things and perspectives though, I felt that they mastered. The greatest of those things being the fact that they never closed me in. They never made me feel like the sky was the limit. It was very normal and expected to push further, think deeper, and ultimately dream. They allowed us to learn and fail. They forced us to believe in ourselves and really find our passions. We were given the space and tools to figure it out. We were always in different sports, camps, activities attempting to find what we liked and what we were good at. I was a teen mom and when others looked at it as an ending, my parents made it a beginning, another chapter. I truly feel like the biggest motivating force in my success is the fact that my parents never limited or made me feel crazy or that the impossible was truly impossible. So we didn’t know the boundaries of nothing more than the physical. Everything to me was a matter of figuring it out and making it happen. It would not be until well into adulthood that I would even be exposed to restriction. Now being older, with children I can’t see parenting any other way. This is not to say we didn’t have rules or structure because my parents were officers in the military, but in regards to our dreams there was no limit.

Ashonta, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I am Ashonta Clarke. I am 29 years old. I am a mother of 4 and I am a serial entrepreneur. I am a manufacturer and vendor of collegiate greek Home decor and apparel. I own a warehouse and full service factory. I also have a logistics/ trucking company. I do business consulting and company rebranding . My 501c(3) nonprofit is called Strategic Outreach. We focus on solving food scarcity, community outreach, and repairing the family unit. Lastly, I am also a heir to 78 acres of land that is currently being overhauled back into a functioning farm. My businesses solve several  different problems and needs. We sell luxury products on one hand and we provide 3 meals a day for free in the summer on the other. All of these different ventures have taught me so much and have made me into the woman I am today. I am most proud of being able to not only do this full time, but also offer jobs and support to other families through the work we do. There is so much more I want to get into and bring to the world, but I would be satisfied if this was all God gave me . I want people to know that there’s nothing prayer, ambition, and determination can’t get you. Lastly, go confidently in the way of your dreams and live the life you’ve always imagined.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

The biggest lesson I had to unlearn was that the market is oversaturated. On every turn you see every idea you ever had, but then on the other turn you see so many people not more creative than you, not smarter than you, not more ambitious than you make money off these same said ideas that have been done several times. So what was the reason they made it in an ocean filled with fish ? It was the you factor. I had to silence my own voice in telling me what I offered had been done hundreds of times and the world doesn’t need another. So what I did was I studied the greats, I became a master in this space, and I leaned heavily on knowing that my gift would make room for me. I remembered talking to my mentors and asking them “what would be a realistic first year goal”. Many of them told me between breaking even and $50,000 would be a good first year for me. We launched 16 days into Jan and made $12,000 the first month. We did it in a pandemic , no marketing, in a market I believed was oversaturated and exploited. I say that to say, no matter what you do, give it everything you have and leave it all on the floor because the market has everything, but you.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

My journey has been one of struggle, resilience, and triumph. I was born into responsibility , by being the oldest. So the structure and people relying on me wasn’t new. I thrived on my parents’ nod of approval and it really pushed me. At 18 I was given a gift that saved my life , a son. This changed my entire perspective and gave me the ambition to paint the world a new color. I needed to put my son in a position where a stereotype wouldn’t be attached to his name. I was a single mother, we were African American, I was young and so many other identifiers. So I went to college, then went on to get a Masters. Soon after these accomplishments I bought a $240,000 home by 27 and it was filled with the feet of three other children. With every child it fed the hunger to do more and push further. I became a full time entrepreneur to buy my time back. I wanted to walk my kids to school and be there when they came home. I wanted to give them all the luxuries I thought they deserved. As I built my portfolio I made a business for every one of them and created a legacy that they’ll eat from forever.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://linktr.ee/lenitanovea
• Instagram: lenita_novea