Meet Aaleah Oliver

 

We were lucky to catch up with Aaleah Oliver recently and have shared our conversation below.

Aaleah, looking forward to learning from your journey. You’ve got an amazing story and before we dive into that, let’s start with an important building block. Where do you get your work ethic from?

Before I started pre-school life was pretty chill and very grand. I would spend my days meandering between my grandmothers’ rooms, play with my s sister when she got home from school and accompany the adults in my life on errands. Everything changed once I started pre-school. My Dad enrolled my sister and I in Language classes at a school called Language Wizards a few towns over. Twice a week after school, instead of watching Mickey’s Mouse Clubhouse or a movie on VHS, I was learning language Spanish, French or Japanese. Eventually Language Lessons stopped, but my love for language continued to grow. As I got older my Dad began to become more strict with the time that I take with mys studies. One year he enforced a 2 hour post-school homework session. I was not to come out of my room for two hours after school and not to let anyone disturb my studies. And he didn’t want to hear any tv on either. I was miserable. Homework only took 15 minutes back then. I became used to work being easy. When I got to Highschool, everything changed. I began to struggle in math class and excel in every other subject. I had no habit around practice and struggled to consistently ask for help when I struggled. I managed to pass algebra but it became an uphill battle. That and I would procrastinate on assignments and study the day before tests. I began to take homework as my practice for exams but continued to procrastinate on the big assignments that gave my anxiety just thinking about. This lead to 10+ hour focused sessions and all nighters, caffeine pills and coffees to tie me over into the next day. Bottom line: I finished what I said I would. By college, I was holding on by a thread between 100s of pages in reading per week and essay projects, waiting until the last minute was no longer serving me. I was burning out, late on assignments and struggled to stay focused. It wasn’t really until after graduation when I began working for an art organization that my work discipline began to show. I was so excited to be there helping artists do what they want to do, helping African descendant communities achieve equity and learn about the histories and culture of people in the diaspora that everything I learned about timeliness, windows of opportunities and follow-through began to come together. I had positive experiences collaborating with co-workers and it was cool to grow in new areas because of the trust of this ethic afforded me. When I started working with a friend on a start-up venture the impetus felt heavier, weightier and I would sacrifice my human needs for deadlines using basic human care as carrot sticks to encourage me to finish. It was backwards. I was burning out harder and more often, emotionally unstable and I felt like I couldn’t progress. Being here, and working alongside humans like Eszquire Harris, Ishara Henry, Melody Capote and Regina Bultron, and Nefertiti Arthur over the span of my career thus far reminded me that my longest project will be me and that I need to learn how to take care of myself, if I wanted any sort of real success in life. So that what I began to do starting with breakfast in the morning, and hydrating during the day and taking my full lunch breaks and making plans for dinner, then returning to walks and caring for my physical body and my spirit, then only thinking about work while I’m working and reserving my mental space for what is presently at hand, now making sure my yeses are yes.

That last one is close to my heart because my grandmother used to tell me “in anything you do, do it from your heart.” That to her, was the most rewarding feeling to do something in full commitment and full recognition of the power of your choice . That is my current work: where my yeses are full bodied yeses and my choices reflect that.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?

I am the Chief Operating Officer and Sr. Creative at a multimedia production research company and community organization called The BlackteaBrownsuga Network in Sto-Rox PA. We use music, media and mental health to connect with our community. I love music and making music with people and I facilitate music and storytelling programs for creatives at all ages and co-own a cafe and lounge that encourages creatives to be themselves.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

Where there is a will there is a way
Made famous by my mother. She was packing a bulky textile into a bag that looked way too small and i told her that. She looked at me with a glint of crazy in her eye and said where there is a will there is a way. She packed that thing into the bag and we delivered it.
I took that saying with me to remind me that I make things possible by my choice and decison to makr them so. That is power. From that lesson I learned about power and intention. Your intention, your aim can open roads and they can also close them.

Start small make a choice and stick to it
How does it feel to make something possible?
Keep keeping those promises you make with yourself and keep dreaming.

Hope/Faith
Hope tells me that no matter how I feel, or how things look or seem on the present moment they will get better if I hold on and continue to believe.

Faith grants me peace when I accept that things will turn out as they must for my good.

I start with gratitude in the mornings for everything waking up, clean water, hot food and then i get into the things that ny heart yearns for in the morning movement, dance music i do those things and thsn I talk to God as if they are seated right next to me and we’re just catching up on life. I always end with asking for guidance and courage to love abundantly.

When anything good happens throughout the day i give praise, when im challenge im learning to give praise too.

Growth gives me hope

Computer // research skills
Growing up I was blessed to have a desktop computer at home that everybody used! my parents decided to put it in the room that I shared with my sister, so I saw that computer get used for everything.
Grandma Joyce used it for Solitaire, My older brother used it to code and trouble shoot whenever it wasn’t working, my oldest sister used it to write essays and my 2nd oldest sister used it to post on MySpace and chat with friends. The computer was a world of possibility and information. I loved playing games on it and checking in with my neopets and I’d do some homework on it but I preferred to write on paper at the time. I started playing MMORPGs and got really good at budgeting and saving resources. Having the access and being in an environment where computers were used so frequently for so many different things taught me how to use them problem solve and research. These days research is even more simplified with Wolfram Alpha and Chat GPT but every now and again I feel the need to continue preparing myself to be able to access information and navigate the world without these things. I’m still working on these survival skills
A lot of it is place based but people and libraries are great resources.

What’s been one of your main areas of growth this year?

Over the last year my biggest area of growth has been my ability to assert myself and apply myself to the dreams that seem most out of reach. The ones that are big and complex in my head like organizing my archive and creating an EP and exploring music therapy.

Contact Info:

Image Credits

Visuals by Ishara ltd.
Aaleah Oliver
Caden Huffman

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