Meet Sandra Wilson

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Sandra Wilson a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Sandra, thanks for sharing your insights with our community today. Part of your success, no doubt, is due to your work ethic and so we’d love if you could open up about where you got your work ethic from?
My dad and grandfather had me working from the time I could walk, helping them around the house and yard. I had my first paid job when I was 10. It was cutting grass at my grandparent’s house on the weekend. Then at 12, I used to work in my mom’s ceramic shop. I hated it…lol Also, when I was 12, I worked with my dad during the summer, and we traveled with the carnival. Madge, the carnival owner, asked my dad if I could run her food truck, so I went back and forth between my dad’s games and her food truck. I didn’t want to do any of it as a child. But now as an adult, I can’t thank them enough. So my work ethic came from two of the most demanding men I know my dad and my grandfather.

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?
My story is of a single mother of four children who witnessed our community being shot down in the streets by the police. I knew I wanted to do something for our community, so I started protesting on social media through my pro-black Instagram page. A gentleman named Mr. Dale Dowdie reached out to me and said he loved my passion for our community and wanted me to work on his social media pages. I started working for him in February 2018, managing his regular post of black facts. He saw how passionate I was about the black community, so he suggested I start my own business, influencing our community to support each other. Because of this, I decided to set up an Instagram page called Black Connections, which would support black businesses only. I wanted our community to have a platform just for us. I wanted us to have our platform because I felt that we needed a place just for black people, black business owners, black organizations, and black events to come together and support one another. This platform was designed solely for the black dollar to unite the community and support black-owned businesses to keep our money within our community. By building more black-owned businesses and investing in each other, we can turn our small businesses into major corporations, thus creating more employment opportunities for our community.

We are unstoppable when we support each other’s businesses; we can cut down on gun violence and poverty, buy lower-income housing, and renovate and create affordable housing for our community. We are the change our community needs, starting with the black dollar recycling with black-owned businesses. The time is now for us to support each other and level the playing field.

I advocate for the black community by any means necessary. We do a lot of networking in the Black Connections Family. We are global, so the world sees it when you work with us.

Things we do live on Instagram Virtual black business expo 3rd Sat of each month, virtual black author expo 4th Saturday of each month, we have a free global black business directory, we do mental health Monday, talk about it Tuesday, we do free product unboxing videos, we raffle the u8nboxing products on our Friday raffles, we have a CEO organic networking group of Facebook, we promote all across all of our platforms, we do live CEO interviews, we have a quarterly magazine, and we do face to face expos. Our magazine was excepted into the library of congress.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
Being the Black sheep of my family helped mold me into who I am today. I always danced to the beat of my drum. I spent a lot of time in the streets in my younger years. I had to grow up fast. My family said I have always been a leader, even as a small child. I have always been someone who wants to help and change the world.

If I could talk to my younger self today, I would tell her don’t think, just do. Sometimes we think so much we talk ourselves out of trying. We are not promised tomorrow, so live every day as if it’s your last. Speak the truth, even if your voice shakes don’t hold it in. It’s ok to say no if you don’t want to do something. Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take but by the moments that take our breath away, so make sure you make those moments. You got this. Even when you think you don’t, you do trust me on that. Most of all it’s ok to not be ok.

Alright, so before we go we want to ask you to take a moment to reflect and share what you think you would do if you somehow knew you only had a decade of life left?
My current challenge is getting back to work after dealing with health issues for the past eight months. I got sick in November 2021. I was working from my bed for two weeks. I was so exhausted from being sick, trying to get our magazine out, publishing my ex’s book, working on our returning citizen’s event, plus still doing my regular lives and promotions. I was spread thin. Went through a breakup in March 2022. My body was exhausted & stressed, and I was not listening. On May 18th, my children found me unresponsive on my bedroom floor ambulance had to rush me to the hospital. My body shut down. I wasn’t listening to my body, and because I didn’t, I couldn’t get an appointment to see my PCM until August 11th. I missed eight months of work out sick dealing with Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is a common disorder that affects the stomach and intestines, also called the gastrointestinal tract; Gastroparesis is a condition that affects the normal spontaneous movement of the muscles (motility) in your stomach, & Hypochlorhydria is a deficiency of stomach acid. I have seen a GYN, PCM, Gastrologist, and physical therapist since August 2022. On January 1st, I slowly started to come back to work. I’m only at 50%, but I’m going nuts not being able to run my business. Following the doctor’s orders had me take anything to do with work out of my bedroom. No work on Sunday is hard, but I’m working on it. Please listen to your body. Talk about your self-care days. I had to learn the hard way; it could have cost me my life.

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Image Credits
Black Connections Big Flexx Security The J Bar by Jenafa LLC A Touch Of Class 7 Romonta Samj Tep

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