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

Jasmin, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?

As a single mother of 2, over the years I’ve learned that working a standard 9-5 (in the office or remote) isn’t conducive for single parents. In my experience, I’ve had to call off, come in late, leave early, and often times rely on my support system to assist with my children to be able to keep my job in good standing. This caused stress and anxiety, never feeling secure in my position for fear of a write up or termination. I longed to release the burden of choosing my job over my children. I began to do research for ways to use my skills in a flexible environment. I discovered virtual assistance. After working with my first client I realized if I desired to work with additional clients I would need a team as my first client had multiple businesses and I knew I had more tasks than time.

I soon realized that this is a struggle for most entrepreneurs single parent or otherwise. Without a team you are sure to experience burnout and it becomes downright impossible to operate efficiently. I’ve spent the past four years enhancing my skills and making strategic partnerships to be able to assist clients who are ready to delegate and scale their business. According to Investopedia “The most common reasons small businesses fail include a lack of capital or funding, retaining an inadequate management team, a faulty infrastructure or business model, and unsuccessful marketing initiatives.” My mission is to assure 1000 entrepreneurs are supported and able to achieve success with their business. The solopreneur who may still be working 9-5 and needs a virtual assistant to handle social media or admin tasks, the business owner who is ready to hire a full time team but doesn’t have time to source resumes and set interviews, and the CEO who is ready to scale and create departments and need a project manager so they can focus on primary business functions.

Jasmin, 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?

My name is Jasmin Swinton I am a mother, healer, student of life, multipreneur, health and wellness enthusiast and mentor. Born in Queens, NY I was always an active and outgoing person, looking to explore and enjoy the adventures of life.

Growing up, I was afforded the opportunity to move around and experience different people and locations. I didn’t always see this as a positive thing. Actually, I still have a little residue of the belief that moving frequently contributed to my personal lack of fully connecting to people and places. Now, I’m able to see that the relationships built over the years have overall turned into lifelong bonds and community. My parents, married 38 years, were always hard workers and community contributors whether in church or any other organization they may have been a part of. Seeing them in action taught me how to serve and have a heart for people. They also explored entrepreneurship, this allowed me to see success and failures as well as perseverance and knowing when to walk away.

At the age of 9 I was molested. This experience changed a lot for me. Once fun, always outgoing, and trusting, turned into fearful, sad, and angry. The trauma of molestation affected so many areas of my life most of which I didn’t address or begin to heal until I was in my 30’s. At the age of 11, my family and I learned that I have Crohn’s disease. Again, once extremely active, running track, and dancing, now spending time in the hospital, experiencing pain, and prescribed medication which I thought I’d take for life. As a teen I was pretty rebellious, my family wanted me in Sunday school and I wanted to be at the party and with my friends. I had a dream to travel the world, create choreography, and dance in concerts. My mother wasn’t having it, however, she became the leader of a dance ministry at church. We traveled as a team and I personally was hired and “flewed out” to create choreography and dance at many events, conventions, and services. However, I was still unfulfilled. My goto to cope became promiscuity. Sex became my favorite distraction, my favorite pastime.

After one year of college, I left school and relocated with my family to Delaware. While in Delaware I became the choreographer and a leader within the dance ministry at church. Being the baby of the family I didn’t often take on leadership roles I was very comfortable being led. This position required me to become a leader. We were a team ranging from the age of about 4-40, I loved the opportunity to work in this capacity. After a few years of serving I became pregnant and was sat down from ministry. During my 5th month of pregnancy my water broke and I had an emergency c-section and experienced my first pregnancy loss. 13 years later I have experienced 9 pregnancies, 5 pregnancy losses, 2 abortions, and 2 live births. The first loss was literally the hardest, I took 10 years to mourn.

In 2019, I was experiencing anxiety and depression while in a toxic relationship cycle. I had just experienced a horrible miscarriage and I was honestly an emotional wreck. I began looking for ways to pick myself up and I found Pearl School of Modeling, now ALNP Leadership Academy. While enrolled, I was an apprentice and I was a part of the first adult class. The course focused on modeling, leadership, and entrepreneurship. At the end of the class we had an entrepreneurship project that required us to start a business. I spent hours and days researching ways to utilize my current skills and make it a business and I came up with Essential Associates Virtual Assistant and Staffing Solutions. While presenting my entrepreneurship project I literally had an anxiety attack, I could barely get through the presentation. I was so broken and terrified to use my voice, share my thoughts, and business concepts, however I walked away with 2 prospective clients, one becoming my first paying client. In 2023, we are now Essential Associates offering Virtual Assistant, Staffing, and Project Management Solutions and it is our business to help our clients manage and scale their business and we’re in the trademarking process.

With all that I’ve been through I’ve learned that I am a healer, I was able to transmute all of the negativity and create Essential Associates and Msjazzifit LLC which is my passion project to help women who are also on a healing, health and wellness journey. I believe by sharing my story I will inspire someone to heal past traumas, recommit to self, self love, self care and self esteem so that they can become their best version for themselves and their community.

What else should we know about how you took your side hustle and scaled it up into what it is today?

When I began my journey building Essential Associates I was a stay at home mom overcoming some pretty tough life experiences. Essential Associates started out as a project for a class that I was taking and my goal was to utilize my skills and ultimately be able to work from home however I wasn’t sure that I had enough skills to make it happen. I acquired clients by word of mouth and I spent most my time learning and enhancing my skills in 2019. In 2020, I began offering recruiting and project management solutions and began working full time in my business. Working on my confidence, enhancing my skills, and aligning with the right people have been key to my success thus far.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

In high school the students were separated into categories let’s call it Team A and Team B. Team A were the overachievers they were studious, working hard in honors and advanced placement classes. Team B was everyone else. I was in the Team B category, a friend I was walking with in the hallway was Team A. My friend and I stopped her teacher in the hall and asked how I could be apart of Team A. When the teacher reviewed my grades they simply stated because Jasmin’s grades are average. It was true. I was only trying to pass, there was no interest in overachieving, no enthusiasm to be the best me I could be (except when it came to dancing at church). I often hear Coach Stormy Wellington say “how you do anything is how you do everything”. It took me years to acknowledge the fact that my own lackadaisical attitude was holding me back. I had to decide that I wanted better for myself and release bad habits as well persevere beyond the comfort zone of average.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.essentialassociates.org
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/EssentialAssociates/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EssentialAssociates/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/essentialassociates/

Image Credits
Third Eye Media Derrick Barnhill DSI Photography LLC Deidra Ivery