From Learning Disabilities To Business Owner | Live Life Your Way

What were you doing at 17?

Join Noreen and find out what 17-year-old Joshua Conrad is doing. Owner of JCSURGE Marketing, Joshua was diagnosed with a learning disability and was failing in school, not because he couldn’t learn. He learns differently.

Joshua said, “Fuck it! I’ll learn my way.” He graduated in the summer 2019 and is now full-time in his SEO business.

Segment 1:

Noreen starts the show talking about her wonderful weekend spending time in one of her friend’s apartment. Then Noreen introduces her guest, Joshua Conrad and talks about how they met. Joshua then talks about his background and childhood. Joshua’s family has a different culture. Joshua then talks about how he found himself having difficulty learning when he was a child. Joshua then talks about how he started to know what he wanted to do when he was in his junior year in high school.

Segment 2: 

Noreen came back asking Joshua how he gets motivated. Joshua talks about how he started exercising and wake up early in the morning and take a cold shower to get more motivated. Joshua then talks about how he first started his business. Joshua then talks about how his learning disability affected him but he still overcame and started talking with others and looking for business opportunities.

Segment 3:

Joshua came back to talking about his SEO business. Then Noreen asks Joshua what he imagines himself after 5 years. Joshua talks about how he liked to learn different languages and in the future, he wants to integrate technology to help people to learn the language better. Joshua then talks about he wants to move out soon and start exploring. Joshua then talks about he is living his life differently from the teenagers that are the same age as him.

Segment 4:

Noreen came back talking about how she thinks Joshua lives his life the way he wants to at this young age. Joshua talks about his family supported what he does makes him thankful. Joshua then gives advice for people that is the same age as him today to go for it and do what they want to do to live their way.

 

Black Girl Magic | Live Life Your Way

 

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Join Noreen as she mashes it up with one of the most gracious and smartest woman she knows.

Maisha Walker was the Past President and power behind NAWBO NYC. She rocked NAWBO, bringing her black girl magic to the table. She structured, organized, and put NAWBO on the map in NYC.

Maisha is also the Owner and Founder of Message Medium, a digital marketing company. If you have ever sat in one of her classes, you would know that it is an honor to have her on my show, Beyond Potential: Live Life Your Way.

Segment 1

Noreen talks about why today was the best she’s had (so far). She talks about how today she launched “Lunch Lady” and why she’s so excited about it. Noreen introduces her guest Maisha, who talks about her background and her current role in digital marketing. Maisha talks about how one of the first things she created as a young coder was study guides for school and budgets for her family.

Segment 2

Noreen comes back in to talk more about Maisha’s background, and about how she went to a private school in a different town and how that led her to Princeton. Maisha and Noreen talk about their first jobs, and how Maisha was first a secretary. After working as a secretary Maisha talking about working for a magazine publisher and how she used to use multiple spreadsheets to get simple tasks done. Noreen also trades stories of how she got fired from a store when she was young. Maisha also talks about her story of being fired and how it helped her find out what she actually liked. She ended up temping for a couple of different companies, and eventually got a job as an analyst at Morgan Stanley.

Segment 3

Noreen came back asking Maisha how she got eventually got into digital marketing. Maisha talks about how she looks for what she wants to work as. She started coding again and started doing Internet marketing. She became a freelance full-time programmer and she also does digital consulting. When she first started managing her own business she thinks about the way she wants to be managed.  She then talks about leadership, Noreen added that its all about working together as a team. Maisha teaching digital marketing for 15 years and started her online teaching course recently.

Segment 4

Noreen throws the question to Maisha about what she’s looking to create in her life. She talks about how she thinks about how she wants her retirement to look like. She said it is not about retirement it’s about being financially independent. She wants to invest her money by double it every eight years. Then Noreen asks Maisha about how she pictured herself in the future. Maisha talks about she wants to be financially independent and have a family.

The Killer Pitch Master | Live Life Your Way

 

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Precious, the #Killerpitchmaster, is a world-class master communicator. She has had a life, and like a huge ball, she bounces back. She is generous authentic and committed.

Join Noreen as she mashes it up with Precious, and she shares her journey thorough life.

Segment 1

Noreen kicks off the show by talking about how grateful she was for an event that happened over her weekend. She continues to talk about another she has coming up where the main topics will be surrounding women and money. Noreen then introduces her guest Precious, the Killer Pitch Master, who does her own pitch on air. Precious talks about her personal and professional life, and how she went from Missouri to New York. Precious talks about her reasons to come to New York, and how her family background influenced her decisions growing up. Precious tells an emotional story about how she wanted to, and eventually how she got to her dream college.

Segment 2

Noreen came back asking Precious how her time in college was. Noreen then asks Precious why she wants to be the “Pitch Master”. Precious talks about the time she went on the Shark Tank TV show, where she showed off her pitching skills and got praise from Mark Cuban. Precious then talks about her lowest point in life and how she became an alcoholic. She also talks about the man that she dated back in 2010 who inspired her to create the Curvy Girlz Lingerie.

Segment 3

Precious talks about when she hit rock bottom. It got so bad that she stopped taking showers and taking care of herself. She talks about being a people pleaser due to the fact her parents never gave her approval as a child. When she woke up in the hospital after her suicide attempt her father was there and told her he loved her and that he messed up as a father. After her suicide attempt, she was in a psych ward in St. Louis and then went back to New York. She had lost everything and was homeless but had support from The Bowery Mission, where she stayed for a year and a half. She left the mission a year ago and her life has completely changed for the better and she now has a beautiful home in Brooklyn. Precious talks about how her life experiences have affected her work with her clients.

Segment 4

Precious says that “she’s here to live” and that she feels many woman are dead inside and aren’t living to their fullest potential. She always makes sure that her clients know that they have value and no matter how far you’ve gone down in life, you are somebody. Precious’s dream is to be a nationally syndicated talk show host and be able to send five kids to college. Precious has a book coming out about branding and pitches and how to win at the game of life and build a business career. Precious spends a lot of time talking with God and being grateful for being alive.

Surf Your Mind | Live Life Your Way

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Join Noreen Sumpter as she mashes it up with the Founder and Creative Director of Seymour Projects, Melissa Unger.

The SEYMOUR+ space. Melissa leverages her experience and one of her many goals is to nurture human consciousness in a world increasingly dominated by technology. Melissa’s years of collaborating with artists, forward-thinkers, and leading minds from a wide range of creative fields coupled with a decade of research have afforded Melissa unique insights that she strives to communicate in an innovative and impactful manner.

Via Seymour Projects and all of her work, she endeavors to leverage creative ideas and concepts to effect positive social change, promote social cohesion, empower and inspire.

Click the replay and check out the show notes below:

Segment #1:

Noreen starts the show by introducing her guest Melissa Unger, Founder and Creative Director of Seymour Projects. They talk about the first time they met at a coffee shop in Brooklyn and the instant connection they had. Melissa goes into her diverse resume and the different creative projects she’s been involved with, including production management of music videos for heavy metal bands. Both Noreen and Melissa talk about having careers that haven’t gone in a straight line.

Segment #2:

Melissa fights back against the negative stigma of being an english major and how her studies helped her going forward in her life. Melissa talks about goofing off in school and that she felt she was too young to be going to college at the time. Noreen discusses her own experience in college in the U.S. They relate their college experiences to how they both think outside the box and felt restricted by testing; Melissa describes it as 360-degree thinking. Noreen feels that school was a form of domestication and that they were treated like robots. They both agree that the creation of the internet has combated this problem and allowed people to think more freely.

Segment #3:

Melissa talks about how she started the Seymour Projects after working on movie sets and after working for an animation company. She explains how during this time she came into contact with Harvard University’s Project Zero and how this sparked her desire to use creativity to enact change. She chronicles how she decided to go to school to pursue her Masters, but ultimately left to start work and how in her mid-40s she decided she was tired of working for others and decided to create the Seymour Projects, which is named after her father. Melissa talks about the influence her father had on her and how his personality has influenced the core elements of the project. She talks about the different jobs she had, her work in Paris and how going to France was the first time she took control of her own destiny.

Segment #4:

Melissa talks about knowing from very early on that money does not create happiness and how she wanted more freedom with non-profits. She talks about it being important for people finding their path to realize that who they are and their priorities change from decade to decade and to take stock with each decade.  She talks about how when she came back from Paris she wanted to lean back and let things come to her rather than lean in and want it right away. Noreen and Melissa talk about women discussing their ages and the taboo that surrounds it and at what ages they feel like they became their person.

The Ups and Downs of Being an Entrepreneur | Live Life Your Way

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Fill your cup up with what you love. Join Noreen as she will be talking about being an entrepreneur.

The highlights, the ups and downs of it. Why is it important to love what one does when it come to their work? Join Noreen and mash it up as she shares about her life as a business person.

Find out why business is not for the squeamish and tell her about your world as an entrepreneur.