Meet Keisha Tower

We were lucky to catch up with Keisha Tower recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, so we’re so thrilled to have Keisha with us today – welcome and maybe we can jump right into it with a question about one of your qualities that we most admire. How did you develop your work ethic? Where do you think you get it from?

If I’m being 100% honest, I don’t think my work ethic came from a good place in my early years.

I wanted to be the best at everything. I wanted to be the first at everything. I wanted to be star that shined bright.

While all of that may sound good…it was originating from a lot of childhood trauma.

My biological father was an alcoholic. He and my mom got a divorce when I was 4. After that, he was very in and out of my life. My mom was a single mother with little to no breaks and worked to keep a roof over our head. The situations were completely different, but both of my parents were absent from my early childhood years. I faced a lot of abandonment wounds and anxious attachment issues because of this.

I over performed for attention. To be seen. To be heard. To be loved. I thought if I could just try to be the best at everything someone would see me. Love me.

I remember having a lot of anxious energy all the time. I always needed to be doing something.

I started working at 14 years old at a daycare, and since then, I’ve only ever been unemployed for 19 days. I’m now 37 years old. I’ve always worked. I’ve always loved the grind. I’ve always loved making my own money. I’m a Capricorn, if you know, you know.

I think I’ve always had this underlying drive to just DO something. But I think a large part of it, for a long time, was to not have to sit, and think, and feel, and decipher all of the emotions I was feeling as a child, as a teen, and even as an adult.

As I got older, as my life changed, I started to switch from wanting to DO something to just do it, to, I wanted to make impactful, meaningful change.

I climbed my way up the corporate ladder and loved every minute of it, until I didn’t. I had kids and I lied to myself for years that I wanted to do both, be a mom, and be a corporate leader. I struggled with both, immensely. I didn’t want to be a stay at home mom. But I no longer wanted to do the corporate grind either.

4 years ago, I opened CrossFit Golden Warrior, a gym geared towards empowering women, while also working a full time job, while also being a full time mom. I was married at the time. I had a great support system, but it was still a lot on my plate.

2 years ago, I got a divorce and it was the best decision for the both of us. 9 months after that, I lost my corporate job, unexpectedly.

I found my life completely flipped upside down. But, I stand on it, that it was the best thing to ever happen to me. I would have continued to stay in that job much longer than necessary due to the fact that it payed well and I could support my family on it.

I made a decision soon after that I would not be returning to Corporate America if I could help it. One year later, I now own Fuel and Flow Coffee Truck, and Her Profit Co. Bookkeeping and Consulting, along with CrossFit Golden Warrior.

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?

My mission with all three businesses is really just helping people, making people’s lives easier, making people’s lives better, solving problems for people.

My gym just moved into a bigger building because our class sizes were becoming too big for our space.

The coffee truck is expanding into new product lines at the end of this year or early next year and while I haven’t formally announced that yet, I am excited for it!

The bookkeeping and consulting business is brand new and I have just obtained my first client, so I’m excited for what the future hold!

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?

Two qualities that I’ve heavily relied on throughout my entrepreneur journey are discipline and integrity. An area of knowledge that I’m very grateful for while transitioning fully into entrepreneurship is my background in business management and accounting.

I’ve had to draw on discipline every single day of my life. Entrepreneurship is so lonely. I very much believe anyone can be their own business owner, but the reason so many fail is because they quit on the hard days. They let their emotions take over and run the business instead of the business plan running the business. I can assure you that I’ve wanted to quit my businesses no less than 50 times in the past year. It’s hard, it’s heavy…but, when it’s good, it’s great, and rewarding, and so worth it. It’s not perfect, or pretty, but incredibly worth it if you can stick out the hard days.

I’m a firm believer that if you lack in integrity in one area of your life, you will lack integrity in all areas of your life in some way. How do I know this? I’ve been there. For me, it was my personal relationships. When I was not doing the right thing for me, it bled into other areas of my life. I would get behind at work, or half ass something, and it would ALWAYS come back to bite me. Luckily, I learned very quick that I had to be so true, and so honest, and so authentic, even if it was painful because I knew the right people, the right opportunities would present themselves if I was always doing the right thing, even if no one was looking.

I am extremely thankful for my education and knowledge in business management and accounting world. I believe that is what a lot of small, aspiring business owners lack. You know, we have a dream, or a purpose, but we don’t know how to make it happen, or don’t know who to contact or who to reach out to and, while we are solving the worlds problems with our dream or purpose, we forget about the admin side, the accounting side, the tax side. It all becomes too much and we quit. It’s one of the reasons I started a bookkeeping and consulting business so I could help out people in that very situation.

What’s been one of your main areas of growth this year?

I’ve definitely grown from being an emotional decision maker, to sitting with the issue, and making a decision when I don’t have clouded judgement.

Emotions and business can be hard to navigate, especially coming from someone who has BIG emotions all the time, all day, non-stop. And I’m not upset about that, but it does tend to make my life a little harder at time.

If I made decisions while I was emotional, I wouldn’t have three businesses. That doesn’t mean that emotions don’t come up, it just means that I have to put a pin in the issue and revisit when I have a clear head.

There have been moments where the gym is not doing so great and it’s been difficult, and I’ve even had to put my own personal money in it at times, which is less than ideal, but it’s what I had to do. There have been times where I’ve had one person in class instead of 15, and I have to decide, is this right for me? If I had made the decisions on those days, the gym would be closed.

Being in the food truck industry is a completely different bear. I’ve had more problems than not with the coffee truck and I can assure you, it’s been one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I had zero experience in driving a trailer, zero experience with how to fix my busted water pump, zero experience with how to use an espresso machine, zero experience in how to diagnosis ANY issue for that matter with the coffee trailer, and I’ve cried more often than not with that one. I’ve wanted to quit this business way more than any of them. But, here we are, a year later, still kicking, and expanding, and also, still having problems that I can’t fix, but I figure it out on a good day, not a bad one.

Contact Info:

• Website: crossfitgoldenwarrior.com; fuelandflowcc.com
• Instagram: crossfitgoldenwarrior; fuelandflowcc, herprofitco, keishanicolet
• Facebook: crossfitgoldenwarrior; fuelandflowcc, herprofitco, Keisha Tower
• Youtube: The Keisha Tower Show