We recently connected with Dr. Alexa Johansen and have shared our conversation below.
Dr. Alexa, 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?
I think the roots of my resilience stem from my own inner strength, as well as my parents. I have been through many circumstances, both personal and professional, that have required me to tap into and rely on my own inner strength. Each time I make it through a significant hardship, I intentionally defrost from the endurance, and then soften back into a place of reflection. I must make sure that I do not miss any opportunity to learn from this life, season by season. Each time I reflect, I realize that, no matter the circumstances, I always have within me exactly what I need to survive and persist. No matter if I have what I need in material or relational ways, I have proven to myself again and again that my own will and resilience can be enough. Of course, I don’t want to have to navigate hardship solely on my own resilience — hardships are much easier to endure with support systems and resources! However, it has been a beautiful thing to discover that I am enough, and I can trust myself to be enough. My parents also modeled resilience; they’re both incredibly hard-working. My mom is second-generation Mexican-American. She has made her way as a successful entrepreneur in real estate. My dad left home after graduating high school. At the age of 18, he found a job, bought a house, and quickly worked his way up to General Manager of the company. He’s now in a Vice President role with his current company. I watched my parents work hard and choose resilience year by year. I saw their goal was not only to advance their own careers, but to pour their time, earnings, and strengths into providing a comfortable and opportunistic life for me.
Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about business?
I founded GoldScriptCo in 2021 and have been intentionally pursuing its growth and branding ever since! Today, GoldScriptCo offers writing coaching, professional editing, and publishing services. For coaching and editing, I get to work one-on-one with authors, students, and professionals. It’s the most rewarding work to partner with them and show them, step by step, that their dreams are attainable. I also offer publishing services, as my company functions as a small press. Being able to turn authors’ written manuscripts into something tangible and beautiful for the worldwide audience is a privilege I will always hold close. Shoutout to our GoldScriptCo book designer, Sandra Curitore, who also plays an immense role in our publishing services!
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
I think the three most impactful qualities are confidence, compassion, and creativity. My deep sense of self (knowing who I am, what I’ve overcome, and how I want to keep growing) fuels my confidence. I am and will always be a work in progress. I will never be perfect; I will always have healing and goals to work towards. However, I am also worthy of grace and support in the process. I am worthy of celebrating the “wins” when they happen along the way. This balance of knowing myself, honoring my efforts, giving myself permission to rest, and offering myself grace is my personal recipe for confidence. I also believe that compassion is incredibly important. Working with other people can be absolutely beautiful, and also really tricky! We all have our own strengths, weaknesses, expectations, and ways of working. However, no matter what, compassion is what eases every single encounter I have with others. Compassion allows me to see the best in someone else, even when they feel as though they’re not able to offer their best. When I offer compassion coupled with encouragement, I have seen others leave our time together completely uplifted. That’s how I want others to feel when they work with me and my company, GoldScriptCo: empowered, equipped, and uplifted. Lastly, creativity is a quality that always proves impactful. I apply creativity to my business model, as well as my one-on-one partnership with clients. I harnessed my sense of creativity when branding my company and drawing up my services, as well as finding ways to be accessible and affordable to all types of writers with all types of projects and goals. Creativity also allows me to support each of my clients in a way that is individualized, strategic, and supportive. I don’t use templates or a “one size fits all” approach for any of my clients — even if I have multiple authors writing in the same genre. Every single partnership is completely individualized because I have the capacity to listen well, and then activate my knowledge and creativity in supporting and equipping them for their unique goals.
What would you advise – going all in on your strengths or investing on areas where you aren’t as strong to be more well-rounded?
I think it’s a balance! In my own journey of leaving my previous field (higher education) to start a business, I had to learn, stretch, and grow in major new ways. Ironically, I used to say that I never wanted to own a business. I didn’t think I had the entrepreneurial spirit or skill sets within me. However, when the opportunity came, I did find myself pressed to invest effort into growing new skill sets and expanding my field of knowledge in order to become a more well-rounded business owner. Of course, with the growth came some growing pains. You see, my bachelor’s and master’s degrees are in literature; my doctorate degree is in higher education. But then, when I shifted into leading a new business, I encountered immense learning curves; I suddenly found myself wishing I was more knowledgeable in business, economics, sales, and marketing. Yet, I persisted. I invested so much time and effort to better equip myself. I learned (a lot). BUT, there came many moments when I had to stop myself from trying to become an expert in all of it. I have personally benefited from drawing a line between my strengths and endless potential, and the strengths and already-established skill sets of others. For example, as a publishing company, I had to learn how to design a book for print, which dips into graphic design work… work that I was not at all familiar with. I did design and publish multiple books in my earliest years as a business owner; however, I finally reached a point where I decided to stop forcing myself to be decent at a certain skill when I could hire and partner with someone who was already exceptional in that skill. Now, with a hired book designer (another shoutout to Sandra Curitore!) I have greater capacity to pour my own strengths into so many other aspects of my business while Sandra effortlessly elevates the aesthetic and design of our books. Teamwork is the answer! We can all work to our own strengths and get so much more done (and done well)!
Contact Info:
- Website: goldscriptco.com
- Instagram: @goldscriptco
Image Credits
Saon Kashem Bailey Yettaw Luigi
