We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jessica Devlin a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Jessica, we’re thrilled to have you sharing your thoughts and lessons with our community. So, for folks who are at a stage in their life or career where they are trying to be more resilient, can you share where you get your resilience from?
My resilience stems from a need. I grew up as the eldest child in a family of 4 in what initially appeared early in my life as a typical middle-class family. Behind the scenes I lived with a very abusive mother, a father who was a notorious womanizer, and ultimately parents who caught themselves in the grasp of drug addictions, ultimately losing it all.
I learned from these experiences that knowledge sets you free and I never wanted to be like my parents. I wanted to accumulate success and surround myself with stability. After my parent’s ugly divorce, I saw little of them. My father was too busy chasing skirts, and my mother was still caught in her drug addiction and looking for a man to take care of her, I was sent away to live with my Father’s sister in Western Massachusetts.
I learned from my father’s work ethic. I watched him struggle to put food on the table and pay the bills after my parent’s divorce and had to stand in line in soup kitchens and Catholic food charity lines to get groceries.
I didn’t come from white privilege, I came from the bottom of the barrel and had to scratch my way up to the surface. Even my Extended relatives didn’t think that myself and siblings would amount to much, yet we all ended up extremely successful.
My early experiences taught me that to make it, you have to work towards it, you have to shatter every window, and glass ceiling and then make doors where there are walls. There is zero time to wallow in self-pity of victim mentality. You accept what happened, find the window, or make the door and move on. In my world, there is no such thing as can’t. You have to realize that everything that is happening around you, is a result of a choice you made. So change the choice, change the thought, you change your life.
I had my first child at 19, there is no option of failure when your family can’t help you and you have to protect this beautiful little life. It was my job, my choice. So I did what I had to do.
Resilience came from every part of my life that was bad. It taught me what not to do, what I should do, and what I didn’t want to experience ever again. Everything happens for a reason, it’s a gift to teach you something to help your soul evolve. Not everyone understands that and in some cases is hard to understand at first.
Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
I started in the automotive sector when I was in my early 20’s. I learned every aspect of the retail automotive business. My desire was to be the best in the country at what I did, and I achieved that goal in under a year. It was always my desire to be the best at my career and I did everything in my power to continue to learn and grow as a professional. While in this role I learned about how to run a business, what is was like when a person had to juggle multiple roles and expectations, and how to really connect with people. I also learned about marketing and was in a prime position to learn as the market and industry evolved. I got into the business at a great time.
When I met my husband I got out of the business and moved to the NYC area. I was contacted by an organization that heard about me from a colleague in Boston and they asked me if I’d like to become a consultant to dealerships. I jumped on that and have been doing if for 11 years. That’s my specialty but during those 11 years, the owners of dealerships had other businesses they also needed help with so I started helping them out with some of their digital. Then I had friends open businesses and they didn’t know anything about digital from their elbows, this is where I offered to help them out and from there I realized how badly taken advantage of small businesses are.
I’ve always been a stickler for doing the right thing and it fired me up to help small business owners. So that’s what I do, help small businesses, large businesses, and anyone that needs assistance. I love educating people as I work with them. I also love seeing the growth that comes from my partnerships and watching the results from my training the businesses on how to convert leads into sales.
My business is like a Unicorn because other marketing agencies or consultants can’t do both. I can. I can convert the leads and get the leads to the business. I know how to improve failing businesses and get them back in the green. I’ve done it many times over in my career.
I’m super excited about the next step, I’ve been looking at partnering with an investor to invest in tech to take some of my proprietary reporting and other ideas to create on-demand training for different businesses. I’ve seen similar things on the market, but none combine what I can do.
Additionally, I’ve taken some energy teachings, leadership development, and training, and combined them in a modern way that speaks to those who are not into energy work. It’s a great way to get those teaching out to those who wouldn’t have heard about it otherwise.
I also have in the works a wellness center which is absolutely another passion piece of mine.
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?
I belive my passion for knowing what I didn’t want drove me to success. I knew what I didn’t want, had an idea of what I wanted pretty early on, yes it evolved as I aged and grew, but ultimately I knew what I wanted.
The number one thing I did, was follow my intuition and gut. It literally saved my life once. This is something many people ignore, but the more you listen to it, the easier it becomes to have confidence in what you are being told or shown.
Advice would be to stay focused by keeping the bigger picture in mind. Don’t let the hurdles stop you from achieving your goals.
Review your goals daily and do what you need to that day to accomplish them. Bit by bit you will get there but don’t beat yourself up if you don’t get there when you believed you should have. Essentially, be realistic about what you can do.
One of our goals is to help like-minded folks with similar goals connect and so before we go we want to ask if you are looking to partner or collab with others – and if so, what would make the ideal collaborator or partner?
As a side note, I believe that a couple of the most life-changing books I’ve read is “How to Get to Yes” and really believe that everyone should read “Start with Why” by Simon Sinek.
I am always looking to collaborate with people! I am looking for anyone who needs help with their digital, wants to talk about spiritual stuff and those generally just looking for a great partnership. I’m open. They can reach me at jessica@ferociti.net
Contact Info:
- Website: www.ferociti.net
