We were lucky to catch up with Dr. Calvina Ellerbe recently and have shared our conversation below.
Dr. Calvina , appreciate you joining us today. Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?
Dr. Calvina Ellerbe is an award-winning college Professor and the founder of Ellerbe Essentials. She has earned two Bachelor’s Degrees in Sociology and Psychology, her Master’s and Ph.D. degrees in Sociology and a Ph.D. minor in Counseling Psychology. While studying family academically, she recognized an overwhelming lack of support for families that she felt driven to fill. The desire to fill this need was the catalyst for Ellerbe Essentials. This business helps people develop and maintain their family relationships which are Essential to our peace in life. Dr. Ellerbe is a certified birth educator, postpartum doula and parenting coach as well as a happily married, mother of five exceptional children. She has been able to not only teach others but live out the family success she wants others to enjoy. She serves clients through courses and individual coaching services. Dr. Ellerbe’s work to heal and preserve families is getting attention as she has a TEDx on parenting Feb. 2023. Ellerbe Essentials is excited to continue to serve families. Strong families are the key to healing individuals.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
I grew up in an environment where I had never seen highly educated individuals and little to no instruction on how to become successful in my career or my personal life. Early in this my life, I felt driven to know more. I began asking others throughout my development about how to achieve the family and professional success that I desired. I left every encounter utterly dissatisfied with the answers I received. This set me on a mission to build something I had never seen. This path was met with confusion and frustration by those around me as I was walking an unfamiliar path to them. I got focused and decided that I needed to strengthen my mind before building my family. During 10 years of education, I earned two Bachelor’s Degrees one in Sociology and the other Psychology, a Master’s and a Ph.D. degree in Sociology and a Ph.D. minor in Counseling Psychology. My focus all these years of education was studying trends in family behavior. I married my now husband less than two years before completing my Ph.D. I used my education and personal commitment to building a strong marriage. I also wanted to master parenting and set out to do so. Thankfully, I was able to build exactly the thing I had never seen before. I became a highly successful college professor for over 10 years now and my family could not be stronger. My children and my marriage are thriving.
There has been an explosion of content creators, self-help gurus and “thought leaders” who focus on family relationships. One glaring issue that is becoming increasingly common are those providing advice on topics they have not been able to master in their own lives. I set up my business to fill this gap in the industry. I get to serve families with over 17 years of family research and over 20 years building the family of my dreams. I am most proud of being able to accomplish both of those things under 40 years of age. I recognized the need to extend my support for individuals outside of the classroom and Ellerbe Essentials was born.
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
I have learned a lot about the need for all of us to feel connected. Unfortunately, our need to feel connected often looks like fighting to get others to comply to the familiar instead of supporting others in being who they want to be. Working to be successful in my career came with many difficulties and lots of pushback but nothing compared to the amount of discouragement I have received building my family. As a researcher, I used the best research to develop the strongest family I could imagine. I decided not to live with my husband before marriage, we chose to be brutally honest with each other. We practiced long distance courting for just over eight years at married at 25 and 26 years of age. Everybody that could tried to convince us it wouldn’t work. This required almost supernatural focus to ignore and it was plentiful. Our marriage was of great concern to people. I do understand that people had simply not seen people do things the way we had and succeed so we just continued to focus on us. With regard to my children, I wanted my children to be highly intelligent, healthy, confident, and resilient. I made choices that seemed to bring the worst out of people. I chose to birth all five of my children at home and I loved those experiences, but had to constantly address the hardwired beliefs of others. I also chose to long-term breastfeed, all of my children breastfed and are still breastfeeding until four years of age or later. I chose to avoid fast food, candy, and soda for me and my family. My children are extremely intelligent, all of my school aged children have perfect grades, they have won speech competitions starting at 6 years old and one who won a spelling bee at 5 years old, a competitive gymnast and a 6 year old in second grade. My two and four year old are just perfect. They have no health issues including allergies, asthma or have ever had ear infections.
This was a very lonely path, full of tears, confusion and exhaustion and I wouldn’t change one moment of it. I am stronger than I would ever have been without it.
How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?
The main aspect of my business that has allowed my reputation in the market to flourish is the simple fact that I am offering to help others master the very things that I actually have mastered. From my social media, speaking engagements and/or in person events with me, people recognize quickly that this is a lifestyle for me. Living my message is my greatest tool for success.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: @drellerbe
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/calvina.ellerbe https://www.facebook.com/ellerbeessentials
Image Credits
Telless Photography LLC