We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Genista Nolan a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Genista, so great to have you with us and thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts with the community. So, let’s jump into something that stops so many people from going after their dreams – haters, nay-sayers, etc. We’d love to hear about how you dealt with that and persisted on your path.
My goal is to always out do myself. So if someone tells me I am not able to accomplish my task, I make sure to accomplish the task at hand and go above and beyond what is required. An example of this would be when I was in a supervisory role and I had two new employees with different roles. My job was to train these two employees and continue to supervise the other 15. At the time we had no written procedures, so as I trained I created written procedures for the trainees.
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
I am a mother a beautiful daughter! My story begins for me when I was 12. This is when I truly stepped into the person I am. At the time I was in the 7th grade and I was a shy child, who stayed to herself. When I was 12 I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. My whole world changed. I had to learn how to give my self injections, how to prick my finger to check my blood sugar and how to eat. I was in the 7th grade and I was out of school for about a month while I learned my new life. When I returned to school EVERYONE knew my name and what happened to me. The day I came back to school I was asked so many times if my name was Genista. Turns out my Spanish teach told my whole class why I was out. This event did not allow me to be in the shadows, I had to face this diagnosis and do it with an audience. I was being watched by many and the health room nurse would recommend any person recently diagnosed to talk to me. I’ve tried to hide but God pushes me to the front to be seen. So I gave decided to follow Gods lead and I am in the process of writing my first book! It is about this experience and how I have learned to live with diabetes for almost 30 yrs and how God has been by my side the entire time. I would like to self publish in 2026!
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
The three qualities that were the most impactful for me in my journey are integrity, resilience and empathy.
Always be true to yourself, always do what is right when no one is looking. Take into account how your actions or words could affect someone else. Think of the other persons perspective in any given situation – try to put yourself in their shoes. And never give up, keep going, keep trying until you succeed!
We’ve all got limited resources, time, energy, focus etc – so if you had to choose between going all in on your strengths or working on areas where you aren’t as strong, what would you choose?
I feel it is best to be well rounded by investing effort on improving areas you aren’t as strong in. I feel if I only focus on my strengths I’m not growing as a well rounded person. Focusing on my strengths is the easy way, I need to work on the areas that make me feel uncomfortable so I can grow and add to my strengths. I am a shy person who does not like the spotlight or attention. I was offered a leadership role because I was knowledgeable in that field and I’m easy going. I knew this would be an easy job when it came to the work and the knowledge I held, however my fear was my weakness – attention. I knew I had to lead meetings and that was frightening. I prayed to God for the strength and guidance. It wasn’t easy for the attention to be on me but as time went by it became less awkward and not comfortable but … ok I can do this. Stepping out and taking this role was a major growth for me. A valuable skill that I will continue to be able to use. I’m still not ok with the attention but now it does frighten me.
Contact Info:
so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
