Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to CarolLaine M Garcia. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

CarolLaine M, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Do you think your parents have had a meaningful impact on you and your journey?

I love exploring this question with starting my business. I’ll start with a reflection: What is the purpose of our parents in our lives? As someone whose father became an ancestor when I was 21, I think about the impact of our parents on us perhaps more than most people. Despite my father being in my life for less than 10 years of it as a consequence of my immigration to the US experience, he is one of the most influential people in my life. Likewise, my mother, who lived a totally different trajectory than he did but has been constantly in my life as my biggest fan, has exponentially changed me. How do two people with vastly different time investments and life stories impact someone so thoroughly?

I’ll start with some clarifying definitions on what it means to impact. While influence and impact are both about creating change, influence is about changes that are indirect while impact is about changes that are direct.

Despite my father not being in my life as an adult, the way he lived his life before and after I was born deeply shaped who I could become. As the first doctor in his lineage, he brought healing to the professional field and went on to produce multiple children with different partners that became physicians, attorneys, engineers, and me, a philosopher. Having lost both his own parents by the age of 37, he guided himself through life for another 40 years before transitioning from Earth. In that time, he poured deeply into his profession of medicine and broke many barriers within his family and his community. He loved his patients, giving back, and studying as a way of life. He believed that everything that happened was the best case scenario, even if it was a tragedy. By the way that he lived his life, he inspired me to center the pursuit of knowledge and allowed me to believe that I was capable of embodying my own brilliance.

My mother influenced me in a different way. She was a visionary, a young Dominican girl who reimagined herself living the American Dream, a vision that would propel our family unit (sans my father) to emigrate and persevere in the challenges we would face. My mother saw potential in me and worked tirelessly to help me see that potential, making sure I had access to any tutoring and additional support as I navigated surviving in between two cultures, two languages, two races. While my mother didn’t have the same opportunities as my father to get educated, she had more opportunities than him to be adventurous. The adventure of navigating the Americas with no English, limited education, limited funds, but a fiery vision and tenacity for persevering, is what allowed me to see myself as a courageous trailblazer.

It was the sacrifices that both made in following their dreams that led me to find the courage to chase my own. Despite the well-buttoned up experience of a PhD and the consulting experiences that it opened up for me, I never enjoyed my job nor felt like I was doing what I was being called to do. The pause of the pandemic and an epic soul searching journey eventually led me to discover and embrace my desire to be an artist of words. Through writing, speaking, and coaching, I vowed to use my own gifts as a way of moving people into their own dreams. If I had not so vividly seen the examples of what living your own dreams feels like, I may never have found the courage to figure out how to do this own my own.

CarolLaine M, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

The pandemic, like it was for many, was a high time for me to shift many parts of my life. It was an opportunity for me to take a look at different aspects of my life and being and evaluate whether I wanted to continue as things were. What I found in most areas of my life was a no. On the outside, I had a great (and mildly secure) job, had a cushy position to quarantine in (no family, kids, partner to co-share), and had plenty of distractions on the internet. But the day felt really empty and I struggled to feel connected to myself or the life I was leading. I didn’t know what I was going to do, but I had to make a pivot. The pivot was to explore whether there were other ways of living and being I wanted to explore. I started to go within and reflect on the aspects of my jobs that I did enjoy, and the parts I didn’t. And so it was for every part of my life, until I finally had a big picture take of what my life looked like. All that soul searching led me to realize what I wanted to do was different, and it was then I started planted seeds within myself reimagining a life where writing, speaking, and coaching were what I dedicated my life to do. I took the trainings, started sharing my story, and two years later, finally launched into figuring out how to do this thing.

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

I am a first generation everything, especially so as an entrepreneur. The fact that I am also using myself as a conduit for monetizing and my passion for the fuel are dangerous combinations – the audacity to chase my dreams. And yet, if there’s one thing I’ve learned from understanding and owning my own story, is that the chase of the dream is everything. I created the courage to figure out how to make this dream work because my parents both modeled what it looks like to chase a dream even when it proves difficult. That the chasing of the dream could be everything you spend your life doing and fighting to stay connected to. A lot of people spend their lives living in fear, shrinking, because they’re scared of what others may think of them. But they’re scared of what they may find within themselves if they explore the depths that lie within.

So for me my story of resilience comes from the fact that I am willing to try despite knowing the odds are stacked against me. I know the rates of failure in entrepreneurship, and how they are exacerbated for women, particularly for women of color — and I don’t care. Because if there’s one thing that I’ve learned from sitting down and writing all my life’s stories in a handwritten autobiography… is how to bet on yourself and ignore the stats against you. My entire life goes against expectation, there’s no reason to think this would be different. My continued existence as I am is the loudest illustration of my resilience and illustrates my intention to live my life as fully and happily as I can.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.drcarollainemgarcia.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drcarollainemgarcia
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carollainemgarcia/

Image Credits
Monika Normand Photography