The metaphor of an anchor is fitting for the way many of our clients feel as they begin the process of improving their lives with Operation HOPE’s help.
Before Operation HOPE entered the picture, Elizabeth, a New-York-based entrepreneur, had recently lost her job and felt “weighed down” by debt and an excessive spending habit. But she was also optimistic – she had an idea for a business and was looking for guidance on how to get it off the ground.
Through her involvement with a Small Business Development Center, Elizabeth was connected to Operation HOPE’s Small Business and Money Management Coach, Liz Joiner. Liz became a positive anchor in the sense that she was consistently there for Elizabeth with guidance and support as she grew and evolved, both in business and in life. On the business front: “I had a sort of rigidness, a plan about how things were going to be, the services that I was going to offer under my creative wellness brand. I initially wasn’t even thinking about offering workshop services because I didn’t see myself as a teacher. Working with Liz and working with Operation HOPE, I understood that I had more tools in my toolbox than I was giving myself credit for,” Elizabeth said. Adding, “Some things you don’t see until somebody opens your mind to it.”
Liz’s guidance also helped shift and expand this budding entrepreneur’s gaze in other ways.
From the very practical… “I was thinking that I just needed a business plan and that was it. But coming into Operation HOPE, I realized that I need all these things [business plan, model and pitch] in order to build that structure and have a roadmap for me to light the path of my way.”
…to a mindset shift, where letting go of expectations around when and how things were supposed to happen meant Elizabeth was open to new opportunities. “I learned not to rush and that was really hard. I was starting to feel a frustration when things didn’t happen—when spaces that I wanted to work in weren’t open or available to me at the time. And so I kind of started to see that as rejection or as doors slamming in my face. But then months later, I’m so thankful that those doors were closed to me because they redirected me into a better position…. learning how to pivot and be flexible helped me thrive,” she said.
This mindset of being open to new ways of doing things also extended to the way Elizabeth thought about managing her personal debt. “I started fresh and renegotiated the balances that I had. I looked at it from a place of new growth and not from a place of condemnation,” she said. With Liz’s guidance and after reading several financial literacy books, Elizabeth also evolved her spending habits to “treat money less as a hot potato [that needed to be spent], and more of a tool that I’m blessed with,” she said. “I wanted to honor what I had in my hand and start to make the dollars work for me.”
Just like the frank conversations they’d shared about starting a business, Liz continued to be an anchor of support and guidance on Elizabeth’s journey for financial independence. “[In the beginning] it was a lot of vulnerable moments, but it was necessary—so necessary—to see where I was and where I need to go,” said Elizabeth. She appreciated the way Liz and the Operation HOPE team approached these sensitive conversations.
Today, Elizabeth is excited about “new beginnings, new territory, new spheres of influence, new people to work with and learn from for myself and my business [Thou Doth Art],” she said.
Elizabeth’s evolution in both her personal and professional life is a testament to her resilience—buoyed by the support from Operation HOPE.
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