We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Mollyana Ward a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Mollyana, appreciate you sitting with us today to share your wisdom with our readers. So, let’s start with resilience – where do you get your resilience from?
Resilience comes from an innate sense of “survival of the fittest”. We all have traumas. We have seen both good and bad examples. We have to choose the type of person we want to be. I choose to be an “overcomer”. I have been this way from an early age. However, after having children and now grandchildren, I feel as though I am passing this on to them, therefore I want to be even more resilient.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
Mollyana’s life journey is marked by a diverse set of experiences and achievements. She homeschooled her three sons for a decade while pursuing her own education at Hillsborough Community College, where she was inducted into the prestigious Phi Theta Kappa International Honor Society. Her strong commitment to community service is evident from her service as President of the Central Florida Family Child Care Association at 21, continuing through her work with children and youth in her local church, where she served in the Children and Youth ministry and as the Director of Community Outreach. Furthermore, Mollyana has a rich background in the entertainment industry, having appeared in various commercials, TV/film, and interviews with local business leaders. Her talent led to her being recognized as the Best Actress of Tampa Bay by Creative Loafing in 2015.
In her professional life, Mollyana transitioned to a successful real estate career, becoming a licensed Realtor in 2013 and subsequently achieving Broker status in 2016. During this time her and her family had the privilege of fostering a four year old little boy with hopes of a lasting positive impact. She also made significant contributions to her community by chairing the Women of Wesley Chapel program for the North Tampa Bay Chamber. Despite facing personal adversity, including her husband’s battle with Glioblastoma brain cancer and his passing in 2019 after 25 years of marriage, she demonstrated remarkable strength and resilience by establishing her own Real Estate brokerage, Innovation Realty Group. Additionally, and during the Covid-19 pandemic, she created RAW Space Collaborative, the first coworking space in Wesley Chapel, in 2020, which quickly became a hub for local businesses and entrepreneurs. Mollyana’s commitment to networking and community engagement continues as she serves as the incoming Chair on the board of directors for CPRO, of the Pinellas Realtor Organization and currently partners with LPT Realty, where she leads her team of agents in both residential and commercial at the Innovation Group, contributing to her promising real estate career.
Lastly, in 2021, Mollyana helped create and launch Icemann Development, a Building Contractor and Land Development company based in the Tampa area, whose mission is to build sports-centric community projects that improve both quality of life and economic growth. She works alongside her husband and CEO Gordie Zimmermann as the Chief Operations Officer. She also enjoys being an empty-nester and spending time with their three grandchildren.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
Avoid Self-Pity: Why me?” often reflects a sense of victimhood and self-pity. It can lead to feelings of resentment and bitterness. Shifting to “Why not me?” encourages you to accept that difficult situations are a part of life, and no one is exempt from facing challenges.
Marie Curie says it this way:
Life is not easy for any of us.
But what of that?
We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves.
We must believe that we are gifted for something and that this thing must be attained.
Have Empathy:
“Why not me?” acknowledges that tragedy and adversity are not exclusive to any one person. Others may have faced or are currently dealing with similar hardships. This shift in thinking can foster empathy and a sense of shared humanity. It gives our tragedy purpose.
Be Resilient:
When you accept that adversity is a part of life, you can focus on building resilience and coping strategies to deal with it effectively. Instead of dwelling on the question of fairness, you can concentrate on finding solutions and moving forward.
Grow: Embracing adversity as a part of life’s journey can lead to personal growth and development. You can learn from challenging experiences and emerge stronger, wiser, and more compassionate. God uses this to validate the tragedy and connect with others in a shared experience.
Before we go, maybe you can tell us a bit about your parents and what you feel was the most impactful thing they did for you?
At the age of nine, my mother married a man who over time, began to show signs of narcissistic, bipolar, and abusive behaviors. At the age of 13, after watching my mother experience an abusive mental and physical assault, she sat with me on the edge of her bed, the memory is vivid in my mind, and with tears in her eyes said, “I wanted to be able to provide more for you. We can stay, or we can go.”
And my response to her was, “Mom, we’re not meant to live this way, we can make it on our own, we’ve done it before. We will be OK.”
Very soon after we left the home and she left the marriage.
Probably somewhat unintentionally, this moment gave me more power in my life than anything else she could’ve ever said. It was this action, this reaction, to unfavorable circumstances, that taught me that we can change our situation if we want to and more importantly, to never be a victim.
Contact Info:
- Website: mollyanaward.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/missmollyana
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mollysellsproperty
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mollysellsproperty
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/missmollyana
- Other: https://linktr.ee/mollyanaward
Image Credits
Daydream Fotografia for the professional photos.
