We recently connected with Widline Pierre and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Widline thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Let’s start with education – we’d love to hear your thoughts about how we can better prepare students for a more fulfilling life and career

I am so thrilled to have been chosen to be part of CanvaRebel/Voyage Feature. As a former School Counselor for over 9 years, that question stands out to me and a reform does need to take place inside our educational system.

Throughout my career in the school system, I wanted to do more but things aren’t always what it is. We teach children to memorize, to be robotic learners but we do not teach them to be survival or natural learners. Our students are unable to be self-learners, critical-thinkers and we fail them mentally, emotionally, socially and spiritually.

We do not teach them the foundational principles of life to empower them to be ready for adulthood. A 2 to four years college is not for everyone, college should be a personal goal if anything college can bring you more stressors (Student Loans). We should start exposing them to different trades, teach them on the importance of credits and etc.

I remembered going to one of my former Principals to ask permission as a school counselor to do financial literacy to our students then I was told to stick to the Guidance Department Curriculum.

We should not only prepare our students to be great test-takers, then they lack knowledge, skills and experiences they need for the future.

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 do not like to associate titles to who I am, I am Widline Pierre, a woman with big legacy not dreams. Dreams and goals can change but my legacy will always be ongoing.

I am not the only faces behind my career, I am a team player so I do not like taking all the credits for myself. Our company is called Living Soul LLC, we have two locations (Florida and New York), we are looking for employees for Texas and we do anticipate to have more locations.

Living Soul was founded in Florida, in 2019 by a mental health
counselor (Widline Pierre) and her colleague (Yaneque Malcolm) and we both wanted to improve the services being provided in the
community. Living Soul was founded as a solution to the problem of underserved
individuals. Living Soul prioritized mental health and behavioral therapy for children
and families in need. Since their beginning in 2019, Living Soul has expanded to
New York. The company has received positive feedback for their work and was
even featured on the evening news in Palm Springs, Florida. Living Soul continues to
target volunteer work and collaboration while providing excellent services for children
and families.

We are proud when we see our clients reaching their fully potential and living authentically, we are also proud when our employees are making progress with our clients and in their own personal life. We believe in the tradition and the new modern way of running Living Soul, LLC.

How’d you meet your business partner?

Last week, I saw a video of Gayle and Oprah sharing their friendship story, the same week I read about the owner of Subway how his friend gave him money to start a business and I thought of my friend (Yaneque M.)

I find myself to be blessed because people always say to not trust any co-workers, they are not your friends and I believe to some instances that statement is true. I was fresh out of grad school in 2011, I was looking for a mental health job, I went to many interviews they all said they did not hire new graduates as they served severely-ill mental clients. Then, a colleague of mine Antonique referred me to where she was working, I left the company after month due to personal reasons and I found my second mental health job at a residential facility for youths.

My journey with Yaneque began in 2011 at my second job, the director said to me, ” I am putting you with another therapist to share office with and she will match your personality then the other therapist.” I was nervous cause I do have a strong personality.

I can truly say our friendship has been a match made in heaven, you are blessed if you meet great co-workers who now become your best sister in this lifetime.

Lastly, I remembered after several months of praying to make sure I wanted to do this long business journey then I spoke to her and she did not say no nor think I was out of my mind. She embraced the idea, she started coaching me and said whatever you want from me to let her know. She does not like to take the credits of starting this hard journey with me and it is the same for another individual Shannon Carr who is the director for our New York location.

Do you have any insights you can share related to maintaining high team morale?

Two words, authenticity and transparency. Many employees not all feel like they are doing businesses a favor for working and now everyone wants to be entrepreneurs like it is a walk in the park.

Being a business owner can be the most isolating and lonely road, you do not know who to trust, people come to take advantages, they never satisfy and they do not care.

We must say it has been a blessing for our company to have the employees we have now.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.livingsoulllc.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/livingsoulllc/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Livingsoulllc/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/LivingSoulLLC1