We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Elease Dillard. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Elease below.
Elease, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Can you tell us a bit about who your hero is and the influence they’ve had on you?
I am so grateful to have so many heroes in my life.
First, I would say God is my ultimate hero. I could write a book about how much He means to me! Recently, I reached a point where I felt like I was “existing” versus truly living in life. For years, I had gotten into a deep “grind mode” during my entrepreneurship journey where I unintentionally neglected myself in the process. I desperately cried out to God one night at 1:00am in the morning saying, “Jesus I need your help”. I wanted to get out of that heavy place of feeling like I was simply “existing” in life. From that moment forward, God began to bring me back to life again. Now I have this joy, this unexplainable peace, and most of all a new sense of purpose that I have never felt before!
Next, I would say my family. My parents made many sacrifices to help provide the best life for me and my sister. For example, they sacrificed when my mother exchanged her career making six-figures to be a stay-at-home mom. As I get older, I recognize what a huge sacrifice that was. My sister has also always been there for me. Our parents instilled the family motto “together we can, with God”. Now that my sister and I are adults, I am so proud of my parents for not giving up on their dreams and using their decades of knowledge and leadership experience to serve the community. My mother is a Life Coach and my Dad is in the process of creating an online course. I am grateful that with my sister’s photography skills and my knowledge from my entrepreneurship journey, that we both have been able to help them logistically start their business and support them the way they have supported us.
Lastly, I would say my extended family. My Uncles, Aunts, and cousins inspire me in unique ways and have supported me throughout my life. The generations before them—my grandparents, great-grandparents, and beyond—truly broke the odds and paved the way. I am grateful for their legacy.
Overall, my family has instilled the value of keeping God first, to be in the mindset of servant leadership, having a giving heart, and making a positive difference in the community with your God-given gifts. That definitely has shaped me into who I am today.
Elease, 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?
Absolutely! My name is Elease Dillard. I am an award-winning entrepreneur, author, speaker, and host.
At 22 years old, I founded The Student Navigator—an education brand with the mission to teach students/families how to fund college debt-free. When I founded The Student Navigator, I had just graduated college debt-free without taking any loans along the way. Back when I was a student, I naturally shared my strategies with family/friends and they saw results too—whether it was funding their housing debt-free or even their entire year debt-free! After going through that college funding journey first-hand (through much trial and error), I recognized that the dialogue about college mainly focused on getting accepted into college; however, the cost and how to pay for it debt-free was often missing from that dialogue. In addition, I recognized that there was not a well-known resource (to my knowledge) that taught students how to fund college debt-free on a micro-level. So I decided to change that and launched The Student Navigator soon after I graduated to teach students how to fund college debt-free and to serve as that “go-to” resource.
Since launching The Student Navigator 6+ years ago, I have written my book Funding College Debt-Free which was ranked the #1 New Release on Amazon for Academic Development Counseling. In addition, as a brand we have created programs and resources, developed a curriculum, and partnered with schools/organizations to serve the community through our resources and public speaking. But most of all, I am most grateful for the stories of students who have funded their education debt-free though the guidance shared.
To eliminate any geographical barriers, we serve students/families online where they can access our resources. We also have a Facebook group called Funding College Debt-Free so students/families do not have to go through this journey alone. Inside the Facebook group we share tips and host free workshops.
In addition, I am the host of Break The Odds podcast—the place to help you break the odds and walk confidently into your God-given purpose. Think of this podcast as your regular coffee chat where we talk about life, career, and legacy. On the show, enjoy hearing from industry leaders, professionals, and individuals as they share their stories of breaking the odds to help you reach the next level in your life, family, career, and communities.
God has been (and continues to be) so faithful. Last year, I was the winner of a GYP 35 Under 35 Award which recognizes top young professionals under the age of 35 within the Metro-Atlanta area. I am so grateful for all that God has done in my life and that I have the honor of serving the community in this capacity.
Any fun sales or marketing stories?
In 2020 when the world shut down, all of my speaking engagements were either cancelled or postponed to an indefinite date. At that time, speaking engagements were the primary source of brand exposure. I did not know what to do. I cried out to God in desperation on my knees and fully surrendered my business into His hands. After that moment, God began to lead me. He began to open my eyes to how celebrities were going on virtual tours to promote their new book, for example, since studios were not doing in-person interviews. They would hop on Zoom and stream onto different shows/platforms as a guest. God then gave me the idea to do a virtual speaking tour.
I had never hosted a speaking tour before and the only people I saw go on tour were primarily celebrities with big budgets. However, once I believed God for it, it was like all of these opportunities started coming my way. Before I even started marketing it—I was asked to be a virtual guest speaker, which led to a referral, which led to 10 more speaking engagements through that one contact! It truly was a miracle.
In addition, at that time, I had recently become a user on the app Clubhouse—an audio-only app where you can network with people from around the world and have discussions in virtual rooms together on different topics in real-time. I noticed that within the app there were professional rooms on topics such as “networking” and “pitching”. Since in-person networking events were not fully back yet, I started attending those virtual rooms on Clubhouse to network and pitch what I do. As I began to network, pitch, and add value to those discussions—I was able to connect with like-minded individuals who asked me to come speak to their audiences as a virtual guest speaker! Connections were also made that led to brand collaborations and clients.
Because the speaking tour was virtual, I was able to speak to audiences from the East coast of the United States all the way to the West coast! I am truly grateful for the connections that were made and that lives were impacted. It was definitely an amazing experience, and I still do virtual speaking engagements for audiences that would like for me to come speak.
You could say that the odds were stacked against me in the sense that when launching the virtual tour I did not have a “celebrity” status, an agent to pitch for me, nor connections with “big-name” people. But with God, all things are possible. With Him, I truly broke the odds with that! If you have a dream that God has put in your heart and it feels “crazy” or “too big” or “impossible”…step into it. You never know what opportunities and blessings are on the other side!
How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?
After the first season of Break The Odds podcast wrapped-up, I wanted to make sure that we still had consistent content to provide for our audience on social media while we prepared for season two. So I started casually making motivational videos, and in the captions I would write a message of encouragement plus tell people to tune-in to the podcast for more. Honestly, I was making them for our existing community to continue to provide content to serve them in-between seasons. However, the most amazing thing happened—my videos started to go viral! In addition, my podcast was ranked in multiple genres internationally!
Prior to making those motivational videos, our podcast community on social media consisted of less than 500 people across all social media platforms. Now our community has grown to over 30,000 people from around the world. And now, Let’s Break The Odds is an official brand!
Making this pivot career-wise with another brand is definitely a leap of faith because I have spent so many years (the majority of my 20s) with The Student Navigator teaching how to fund college debt-free and creating resources, such as my book, to help students and families. However, what a lot of people did not know is that The Student Navigator was struggling to scale to the next level. We exhausted all options and had done everything we knew to do with the means that we had in efforts to scale. Although as a brand we received high-level recognition over the years, collaborated with amazing schools/organizations/
With the massive growth of the Let’s Break The Odds community, more people are now aware of The Student Navigator as a resource (if needed) to help them break the odds with their educational journey. Both brands definitely add value to each other’s audiences, and I am so grateful!
As I conclude answering this question, I wanted to share a quick message of encouragement for anyone out there who is in a season of waiting for a breakthrough:
Keep going. Do not quit. I have been creating content on social media for professional purposes since 2016. Months before my content started going viral, I had felt discouraged because for years I put so much effort into posting regularly, being creative, having an “aesthetic” feed, and keeping up with the strategies to best grow a community on social media. People around me who started creating content after me, were growing their audiences faster than me. I did not understand why it was not happening for me because I felt like I was doing all the right things.
If I could encourage you with five pieces of advice from my entrepreneurship journey thus far and from being in a season of pivoting it would be:
1. Let go. Let go of your plan and trust God’s plan. You will have peace in the process and find your purpose there.
2. You are an influencer. Your audience does not need to be a certain size to have that “title”. I have strongly felt this way, even before my content went viral. If three people like your content, that means that three people were positively influenced—that is amazing and something to celebrate! As I often say, “Changing the world starts by changing someone’s world.”
3. Take your platform seriously. When someone chooses to “follow” you on social media or purchase your product/service, that means that they are choosing to have you be a part of their world. You are a servant leader first. Be careful not to let your desire to grow your audience or your business distract you from serving those who already joined your community (and serve with an attitude of excellence)!
4. Be innovative. Think outside the box—even if you do not see others doing it. When I started creating the motivational videos, I did it with a format/design that I had never seen before. It was purely God-given. If I had stuck to what was within my comfort zone, I would have missed the breakthrough.
5. If you are in a season where you are waiting for a breakthrough and/or you feel like a door is being shut—what you are going through in your season of waiting today, is preparing you for a breakthrough tomorrow. Keep going. Your breakthrough will happen at the proper time if you do not give up.
Cheering you on, friend!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://
letsbreaktheodds.com - Instagram: @lets.breaktheodds | @iameleasedillard
- Facebook: @lets.breaktheodds | @iameleasedillard
- Linkedin: https://www.
linkedin.com/in/eleasedillard - Youtube: https://www.youtube.
com/channel/ UC04jzT94FPvq9jF8Z1xmI3w - Other: TikTok: @lets.breaktheodds | Facebook Group “Funding College Debt-Free”: https://www.
facebook.com/groups/ fundingcollegedebtfree | Email: info@ thestudentnavigator.com
Image Credits
Gladys Dillard India Dillard