We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Eboni Littlejohn. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Eboni below.

Eboni, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What do you think matters most in terms of achieving success?

That’s a loaded question for me. Especially because I’ve personally struggled with “feeling successful” at times. That’s not because I wasn’t successful, rather than I was defining success by the standards, expectations, and actions of society.

Society teaches us that we need to graduate from high school, get a degree, get married, have a family, and climb the corporate ladder to be successful. But what if that’s not what YOU want to do? What if you know there’s more to life than that? If you choose another route outside of society’s expectations, are you not successful?

You can very well be successful without following society’s guidelines. Success isn’t linear and doesn’t follow a rule book! Success SHOULD look different for everyone since we GET TO decide what being successful means to us.

Once I really understood this, I’ve been able to implement the following actions to ensure MY success:

1. Unlearn the toxic behavior of being a doer. No matter how much “stuff” I do, it doesn’t define my success or make me happy.
2. Define what success looks like for ME based on where I am in life. By doing this, I’m sure to write my own ticket to the life I want – more peace, fulfillment, and less anxiety.
3. Create S.M.A.R.T. goals to help keep me on track to achieve MY definition of success.
4. Always acknowledge and celebrate my wins, both big and small. This is a great motivator to keep pushing forward.
5. Be okay with pivoting as life does change. I’ve learned that having the ability of flexibility will create opportunities you never even imagined!
6. Never give up and keep pushing even when it gets hard.
7. Revisit your definition of success often and see if the passion is still there

So I say all of this to say, if you want to be successful…..make sure YOU are the one defining what success is for YOU and don’t let society influence it. You’ll be a happier more successful person for it!

Eboni, 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?

Hi everyone! I’m Eboni Littlejohn and I’m an Operations and Systems Consultant. I reside outside of Charlotte, NC with my husband and two kids! I’ve always been an entrepreneur at heart but followed the traditional route for many years. After graduating college and working various positions in Corporate America, something was missing. In 2019, I had my son and was a stay-at-home mom for about a year when the feeling of “I’m more than a mom” set in. That’s when Powerhouse Virtual Business Support was born!

Powerhouse started out as a virtual assistant business for service providers. Being involved in my clients’ day-to-day business, I realized most of them had one thing in common – lacking efficient systems. They had great services to offer, but their client experiences left something to be desired. That’s when I pivoted to designing amazing client experiences and setting up the systems to accomplish it. Now, my clients are charging top dollar because they are confident in their client experience and the services they provide! Currently, I work with clients doing complete system setups, or two-hour working sessions.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

I pivoted in my business very early on. Starting out as a virtual assistant, I prided myself on making my clients’ businesses my own. They would get onboarded and I would learn their business while looking at it from two perspectives – the client experience and the service execution. From the client’s lens, I loved the service they could provide but the experience was lack luster. There were various gaps leaving clients frustrated because they were doing the follow-up as opposed to the business owner being proactive with their business processes. As business owners, there were too many inefficiencies in delivering their services. Neither client experience, nor service execution, was streamlined. This caused me to pivot and focus on the need to create and implement efficient client experiences!

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

My life story is a journey, one of resilience and becoming. From being raised by an amazing single mom who is the epitome of determination and grit; To traveling between two schools in two different cities due to state budget cuts – all while working three jobs to graduate college on time; To choosing to create the life I wanted for myself and my family by stepping away from Corporate America; To becoming an entrepreneur.

Every phase of my life has brought its fair share of challenges. Ones that could have easily broken me, changing the trajectory of my life. However, I’m proud to say that none broke me, and I’m still standing, becoming the best version of myself daily. Every day, I’m reminded of just how strong and resilient I really am!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://msha.ke/powerhousevirtual
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/powerhousevirtual
• Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/eboni-littlejohn-mba-49b08224/

Image Credits
Jodie Brim Creative