We were lucky to catch up with Jessica Boone recently and have shared our conversation below.

Jessica, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear how you think where to draw the line in terms of asking friends and family to support your business – what’s okay and what’s over the line?

One of the first things we do when we start our businesses is run to our friends and family. We create this fantasy in our minds that we’re going to get rich and be surrounded and supported by everyone that we love while making sure everybody eats. The reality is your friends and family aren’t the people who are going to take you to the top and the sooner you realize that the sooner you can find your tribe.

When I initially started my health and wellness business I created a list of all the friends and family I could think of reaching out to and sent my “Hey I just started a business can I count on you for your support?” and I barely got any responses the few I did get were soft declines. Of course, I was upset and took it personally because I just KNEW they would be the first clients but my business was just as new to them as it was to me. Once everyone saw that my business wasn’t just something random I was trying out they took me and what I had to offer seriously.

Your friends and family have to see you being consistent, confident, and comfortable with your brand. They’ve viewed you based on your experiences together and now have to figure out how to view you as an entrepreneur. Another reality may be that they don’t need your goods or services. All you can do is continue to grow professionally, promote your brand, and align yourself with the strangers whose lives you are going to impact and you will flourish.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Jessica Boone, a Mompreneur, Self-Love Enthusiast, Writer, and Graphic Designer, is a North Carolina native born and raised in the small town of Roanoke Rapids. Throughout her childhood, she used writing as a form of self-expression and communication.

She graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where she majored in Communications with a concentration in Interpersonal and Organizational Communications as well as Performance Studies with a minor in African-American Studies. It was there that she discovered her love and passion for writing scripts and storytelling as another form of self-expression. There she had professors like Renee Alexander Craft, Eric Sorenson, Mike Wiley, and Paul Furgeson who helped her find her voice.

She also created a community for women who looked like her, Natural Girls Discuss Natural Curls, an organization that focused on redefining beauty ideologies for women of color. The organization is still positively impacting the lives of many other young women years later but now operates as Carolina Curls.

Jess’ career started as a temp for health insurance and eventually, she was invited to teach 7th-grade history at her middle school alma mater. There she taught a mission-aligned curriculum, and pushed her students to fight for social justice, and advocate for themselves. But decided to leave teaching because she felt like her impact was limited due to the abusive environment and oppressive practices of the school system.

While teaching, Boone got her start as an entrepreneur in Network Marketing. She joined a health and wellness company dedicated to improving your health and wealth for a few extra dollars a month to make ends meet for her and her daughter but got more than she ever expected.

Since joining the company she reached the 5th rank out of 8 and also learned how to run, own and operate her own business. Boone was also able to learn how to graphic design, create content and use her gift of writing to share her experiences with others about her battles with depression, anxiety, self-love, motherhood, and her abusive relationship.

Everything that has happened in her life led her to her life’s mission of helping others find purpose in their passions, healing wholly, and living unapologetically. Boone uses her story to help empower others on their journey to healing with her journals like Breathe, Boo! and her services like Visionary Exchanges where she helps you flesh out your ideas, target audience, niche, and actionable steps to start your brand, as well as the fuel for her brands like Unapolojess, Heal Here, Journaling with Jess, and her latest Hey It’s Me, Jess B.

Her love for women empowerment, journals, digital content, teaching others, and her health and wellness business has allowed her to truly impact lives in more ways than she could imagine.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

I started growing my audience on social media by being transparent and being myself. One of the things that used to intimidate me was that my life was a mess and I that initially discouraged me from posting. Once I made up my mind to share who I was the support and my audience started to grow. I share my lows and what I’ve learned from my experiences in ways that help others see that they are not alone but I’m sure to share my highs as well to give hope. I also create content that makes me feel good not just what I think will get likes. We are in an era where you can be yourself and align yourself with your people, so give them YOU!

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

A lesson I had to unlearn was thinking I had to have met certain milestones based on people’s expectations of me and the lives of others in my life. I felt that by 25 I had to have a big house, husband, kids, and fancy job to go with it. At 25 I had just left an abusive relationship, was stuck in an abusive work environment, barely could handle being a mother, and was sharing a room with my daughter back at my parent’s house. I felt like a failure and even worse when I had to move back home a second time to get my life together while it seemed like people who had hurt me were winning.

I felt like life was unfair and it reflected in everything I did. It affected my parenting and even my businesses. Because I wasn’t where I thought I should be I equated that to me being inadequate and undeserving. It wasn’t until I started looking at life through the lens of “why is this happening for me” instead of “why is this happening to me” that I was able to begin unpacking past traumas, getting to the root of my issues and instilling new beliefs in myself. I was able to teach myself that I was plenty and the perfect person to be my daughter’s Life Guide and help my customers and clients on their journey as well.

Now, here I am at 30 with a new mindset and outlook on what success is for me.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.heyitsmejessb.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/heyitsme_jessb
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jlboone92/
• Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/jessicaboone
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeVVJPDB0UzUO5ryF8SYMaA
• Other: https://open.spotify.com/show/6qQqpp9Ksu2pPCfA9TQNHV?si=f3daba131d4441ea