We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Chasidy and Sydney Brooks a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Chasidy and Sydney, thank you so much for joining us and offering your lessons and wisdom for our readers. One of the things we most admire about you is your generosity and so we’d love if you could talk to us about where you think your generosity comes from.
I have seen situations that look so bleak that no one could possibly make them better. What I have learned is that maybe I won’t be able to fix them, but I can help make them better, even if just marginally. My goal in everything I do is to be a light in someone’s darkness.
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?
The most recent exciting thing I have done is collaborate with my oldest daughter, Sydney, to write an illustrated children’s book called Kandi’s Ice Cream Shop. I wrote the book, and Sydney completely illustrated it.
Sydney’s vision focused on inclusion- incorporated a Black woman as the main character, who was a beautiful entrepreneur. She also included a little boy who had a hearing difference (evidenced by his hearing aid), who readers will learn so much more about in our next book. Neither of these were parts of the storyline, but it allows kids to see characters that look like them!
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?
Our project requires a desire to encourage others to be themselves no matter what, huge creative drive (all credit to Sydney here), and the grit to keep going when things got hard or too busy to finish a project that wasn’t something we’d actually planned on doing. Our advice to someone with a story swirling in their mind is don’t give up and get that story written down! Having someone to work with who shares your vision is also such a help.
What do you do when you feel overwhelmed? Any advice or strategies?
The only way we finished this project and got it all the way to being published was to break it into small pieces and do a little at a time. If we had thought about all of the steps at the beginning, there’s no way we would’ve taken that first step.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0C1N12JH3/
- Instagram: the.brooks.crew.6
- Other: Our book is available as a paperback on Amazon and free for Kindle Unlimited Readers. We hope you’ll check it out!
