Meet Justine Alexander

We were lucky to catch up with Justine Alexander recently and have shared our conversation below.

Justine, so great to have you on the platform and excited to have you share your wisdom with our community today. Communication skills often play a powerful role in our ability to be effective and so we’d love to hear about how you developed your communication skills.
I remember hearing at some point that the most effective communication is usually the simplest. The way to make it simple is to be present. Being in the moment with the person and really listening and giving someone your time is going to generate the best results for effective communication. I was a loquacious child that could easily make friends, talk my mom’s ear off from morning to night, or as they used to say, talk the bark off a tree. My ability to connect with people easily is a gift. The sense of curiosity I have about people and where they’re coming from helps me want to communicate with them. Being employed in a variety of work environments with people from all around the world and with different backgrounds has been a trial by fire experience that has helped me hone my communication style. Effective communication includes tone, body language, and relationship, so I keep this in mind when working to communicate with others.
It takes listening, patience, and grace for both yourself, and the person you are trying to communicate with. This ability has been developed by being not only a leader in recent years, but remembering and improving upon how I felt when I was being led. This ability has taken me about 10 years to refine and I’m not done yet. The way the world communicates changes on a daily basis, so I have a lot more life and talking to do, to perfect this gift.

Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?
I am the chef and owner of My Sista’s Place. I’ve loved to cook since I was a child; from doing show-and-tells with PB and J sandwiches for my classmates, to just having friends over and making something fun together. At my company, I do private events, catering, pop-up shops, intimate dinners and more. I’ve recently been more involved in making specialty herb and spice blends for at-home cooks who want to elevate their cooking. That part of my brand is My Sista’s Spice. My spice brand just made its one-year mark and I’m getting great feedback and some good traction. I plan on doing more pop-up shops and entering stores in the coming year. Personally, I am lively, ambitious, and hopeful. I love hard and bring laughter everywhere I go.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
Persistence, determination, and decisiveness have been extremely important in my journey. If you are focused on your goal and have your mind set to get it accomplished, you will be successful. It takes that unrelenting focus every day to truly develop these skills.

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 believe that it’s better to be well-rounded. If you are well-rounded you can be helpful in more than just your strengths. When you’re good only at one thing, you can do only that one thing well. I believe you should delegate what you can do well while you’re working on your areas of opportunity. If you have to pick up the slack with something you’re strong with, it’s not as difficult as trying to help where you’re underdeveloped. About 2 years ago, I started working in a new kitchen where I had to do more menu development for a restaurant. My strength at the time was organization and computer skills, which I thought that was all I could really do. I was weak in menu development, so the chef at the time challenged me daily until we got that menu out. It was the hardest, but most rewarding experience I’ve encountered because where I once was weak, I became strong. Now I can do all the things that is required to successfully run a kitchen operation.

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