Female millennial entrepreneurs by Kayla McCullough
Image courtesy of Farissa Knox
The life of a millennial entrepreneur can feel like the wildest of roller coaster rides; bravery mixed with extreme fear, shaking tracks, and downward loops and spirals. “Entrepreneur” sometimes seems like shorthand for hard struggles and disappointment with the faint glow of achievement hovering above the horizon like a mirage. The truth is that business and entrepreneurship isn’t always sexy, even if it is usually wild and unruly.
Founding a company is full of hard decisions that change your inner self as much as your career. Emotions run hot and betrayal, broken hearts and shattered dreams are sometimes the only products you produce. Esteemed and empowering author, Farissa Knox spent her 20’s navigating through these difficulties and has produced a conversational storytelling approach on how to diagnosis the struggles that come with building an entrepreneur empire and navigating through the most difficult times in life.
MEMOIRS TO READ:
Love, Sex and Friendship is a coming-of-age memoir in which Knox—a successful Serial Entrepreneur, Producer, Wife, mother, and mentor—chronicles her journey of navigating an early career in advertising, falling in love, making grown-up decisions and the support of friendships that helped her during her 20’s. Knox bares the decisions, opportunities, and experiences that contributed to the confident woman she is today.
Farissa’s inspiration behind her creation came from years of gifting advice to friends and storytelling many of her own experiences. “I didn’t know I had it in me to write a book, but I was telling enough of my friends' stories about things that have either happened to me or someone else that finally a majority of them all agreed that I should document everything in a book. I shrugged them off and finally, a time came where I had a lot of free time and the book was born.”
Aside from being an author, Farissa also created two other pillars in her entrepreneur empire. She is the founder and CEO of RLM Media, a holding and advertising agency, the founder and creator of WhatRUWearing Productions, which gave birth to the Amazon Series PRGIRL, which follows the lives and careers of three women in the fashion, beauty and Public Relations industry. “This was my calling. This was my path. It was like someone was saying this is yours, and I took it and my life has been amazing ever since.”
As much as society likes to paint a different picture, many people will attest to the fact that millennial entrepreneurs have amazing intuition and instincts. All that’s missing is experience and context to know how to apply them. Just pay attention to the process and remember that you will never know everything.
Ultimately, what matters most is learning something from every experience. The serial entrepreneur advises, “Breaking things down has the upside of letting you rebuild better and stronger. You can ask yourself what you really want. Creating those goals helps you hold yourself responsible for your own growth. And learning a lesson every time you stumble is a real success.”
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It might seem like an easy thing for the 39-year-old to preach, but entrepreneurs have had to start over so often that their resumes may look like the second novel in Farissa’s collection. With starting over so often, many entrepreneurs may hear that they would be a round peg in a square hole in any other larger corporate career. Farissa is no exception to this misconception. She has spent time working for a typical 9-5 corporation, but she has always known that her soul was being called for more.
“The thought of working for oneself would scare someone who is not entrepreneurial-minded, but that thought enlightened me. To me it sounded like a good idea. It wasn’t something that I thought I should run away from. It honestly felt like home.” And with that seedling planted in her mind, the birth of her empire came.
Love, Sex, and Friendship is not only a memoir of an esteemed woman, but it is a gift that will help many on their journey to finding their purpose and navigate through dry spells of self-love. If you are needing help diagnosing a sequence of unrelenting self-doubt, you are not alone.
Farissa has had times where she has fallen prey to doubt and needed to rely on self-love to get her through a difficult situation. “Your entire 20’s is an opportunity for you to rely on self-love and get to know who you are. Whether it’s in a relationship or your career.
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This is your time to learn, because if you don’t spend time with yourself and understand who you are, then you don’t know how to navigate in this world, and you will get taken advantage of.” As the author grows reminiscent of her past, she reminds us all that as you age you rely on self-love more consciously, because it is in those times of need where we need the support from within.