Meet Jossie Hicks

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jossie Hicks a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Jossie, thanks so much for taking the time to share your insights and lessons with us today. We’re particularly interested in hearing about how you became such a resilient person. Where do you get your resilience from?

Love this question. I think resilience has been something I both had instinctual and through watching my mom growing up. But the learned behavior didn’t really ignite until long after I was an adult. I first thought it was all me but as I matured as a human being I realized just how much mom’s actions influenced mine.

She was a single mom in 1970, just 21 years old with a new born, which as you know, was not socially acceptable. She partnered in business with a man in a man’s world and managed to hold her own, and eventually gained respect and was sought out for her knowledge by the others in the industry.

Throughout my childhood, I watched her get knocked down dozens of times. But not once did she never get back up.

As I grew up, those knock downs bled over to me. The hardest at that time was being put in foster care at age 13. I was forced to spend “waiting for placement” time in detention centers with the kids that had been arrested for various crimes. Throughout all the being moved from one foster care to another every few months I still managed to keep an above average GPA in school and eventually graduated high school with honors. Not high enough across the board for scholarships though. So, I became a race horse training jockey. Then I was involved in a vehicle crash that broke my femur and well, there is no income for a jockey with a broken femur doing almost a year of recovery in 1991.

I went on to spend more than a decade in law enforcement as a dispatcher. After a divorce, I needed to move away from him so I changed careers to selling horse trailers. Success in sales came easy. When I received a no, I already had excellent muscle memory of “brush it off, that’s one more no closer to your yes Jossie.”

Eventually, I did hit my breaking point line. 2011. I lost my soul mate after just over a year and completely bottomed out. As much as I never could wrap my head around suicide, I went there with a full blown attempt at it. Ended up not succeeding, being diagnosed with c-pts and social anxiety. That took about 5 years to get out of. Eventually, I decided it was something that happened to me and not who I am.

In March of this year, with a beautiful loving supportive man by my side, I quit a toxic job and after a month decided it was time to find my brave in business. As well as honor my mom who passed away unexpectedly in 2017 by naming the business with our first initials, JW Naturals. Jossie, Wendy.

I believe resilience can be both inherited and learned. But it can not be accomplished without tragedies to triumph over, a willingness to seek out the lessons to be learned by them and the ability to be fearless when all you can see is the solid door without a window. You have to grab that handle, twist and pull to walk through.

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?

JW Naturals officially launched in May 2024 out of Stephenville, Texas where I now live. It was supposed to be something mom and I did together after she retired which would have been in 2022, but she passed unexpectedly in 2017. We tossed around several ideas her last few years when we talked. But what I settled on was the foundation product I started with, Mountain Joy.

While I was cleaning her house, I came across several journals of hers. There were lots of recipes, all based in the medicinal properties of essential oils. I started trying them out and when I made what is now called Mountain Joy the aroma triggered memories from childhood and her putting it on every animal and me when we had any kind of skin issues. It was her first line defense for nearly everything and it worked. That’s when I decided this is the direction I needed to pursue. I could honor her memory and though not how I envisioned us doing a business together, it was a way for us to still do it together.

From day one, I’ve only purchased from the same suppliers she did. I did however, add my own hand to the Mountain Joy recipe and that was adding hemp seed oil.

I launched with just a folding table and one product at the local town farmers market. By the end of summer I had purchased a branded 10×10 tent and wall panel. I turned more of her recipes into products as well as developed my own line of people body butters made from tallow that’s locally sourced and in a temperature stable formula. I secured 2 stores for a retail outlet and joined Go Texan for Texas made products. Three weekends a month are set for same location markets to be dependable and easily found. The fourth weekend is for going to seasonal events to introduce my products and networking with other vendors. Only once has JW Naturals had a red ink weekend. I have 3 additional retail stores to meet with after the first of the year, one of which contacted me for the meeting. I have a growing list of loyal and supportive repeat customers and Facebook followers. Currently, I sell online at Poshmark, closet name; JWNaturalstx. I’ve secured a website name with plans to build and go live by spring 2025. I’ll be revamping the Mountain Joy labels and adding a box for the glass jars, giving it an even more professional look. I support other small businesses by purchasing the majority of ingredients from them. While not every essential oil can be certified organic, those that aren’t are wild crafted.

I donated almost $3000 in product for 2024 to a couple dog rescues. And as prizes for local barrel races weekly to win in the crying hole slot. For those that don’t know what the crying hole is, it’s the first spot out of winning money. When you race against the clock and still fall one hundredth of a second short of the money, I believe you should be appreciated and awarded for your hard work as an athletic team. As much as I hope no one ever “needs” Mountain Joy, I also think it’s better to have and not need it than to need and not have it. JWN equine and canine aroma therapies also make great awards.

Over the winter I’ll be creating more aroma therapies, skin balms for specific skin and allergy needs, shampoos for various skin improvement properties, all based in the most organic natural top quality format I can. I believe your animals should feel amazing in their skin and love life even when your not home. And I believe if I can help you help them get through the unpreventable incidences that just happen sometimes, it’s my honor and privilege to be there for you.

I’ve also taken the next step in my life and legacy journey recently by purchasing a new filly. I call her Aliki which means fierce warrior in battle with class and style. After spending a number of years rebuilding my mental confidence it’s now time to rebuild my physical strengths. Training horses again will get my mind and body back into synergy. I’m excited to see what the future has in store.

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?

Three qualities skills or areas of knowledge, great question!

I would have to loop back to question number one, resilience. And add to that humility and surrounding yourself with positivity. The ability to have self confidence while balancing humility with it. What do I mean by that in example? I know I have 30 years experience and started at a very young age with a natural ability to connect on a deep trusting level with horses. I personally consider it a God gift, call it what you want, for me it’s God. But on the other side of the same token, the older I get, the more I know I don’t know it all. Being humble is continuing to seek out and surround myself with people smarter than me. Be a sponge when I get the privilege to be in their presence and as my grandmother used to say. You have two ears and one mouth so you should listen twice as much as you speak. Accept my weaknesses and as soon as I can afford it, find people gifted in those areas and add them to my team. Seek constructive criticisms and pivot according to my gut with the new information. The icing over this cake is keeping a can do, will do mindset. Plan and execute as scary as it may be.

Before we go, any advice you can share with people who are feeling overwhelmed?

I chose this question because it expounds upon the previous shared experiences. And I hope it can help at least one of your readers struggling with the same “freeze up”

Not only was I a police dispatcher for a career, I was also a volunteer firefighter/ first responder. I learned how to detach emotionally and triage the scene. I use this in JWN business as well. I survey the scene, identify the highest, middle and lowest priority. Decide what tools are needed to accomplish the job then take action. Step back and evaluate those results in the big picture. If I like the results, keep that wisdom to repeat in the future. If I don’t like the results, re- evaluate, redo with another set of tools and check out the new results.

I’m not immune to getting stuck though. The way through it is to recognize and reset. How do you reset? For the little freezes I step back and take a deep breath (and use one of my aroma therapies). Stop thinking for 5 minutes which is what us Gen X’ers call walking it off. Then I return and start over. This is not while with a customer by the way, lol.

For the big freezes like big goal deadlines that I’ve been working on behind the scenes and can’t seem to find a solution a bigger reset is required. Or getting stuck in prep but not executing due to brain block. I literally pick a new start date a week or so out then stop thinking about it. I’ll usually end up having an epiphany as soon as I wake up in a day or two and the tune starts writing itself. When the fear of failure get smaller than the solution, the solution tends to present itself.

Whatever song you need to sing to yourself that inspires your brave, find that tune. Sing it loud. Sing it often. You will have your brave and fear of failure will be nothing more than memories as a challenge you overcame, and your story to share. You’ll be particularly proud of your success because it took more grit to get you there.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @jwnaturalstx
• Facebook: https://Www.facebook.com/jwnaturals?mibextid=ZbWKwL
• Other: Poshmark

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