Today we’d like to introduce you to Ariassa Wilson.
Hi Ariassa, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I first started coaching and taking my leadership ability seriously at the age of 15. By that time, I had already been captain on all of my basketball teams, but now I had a chance to lead someone other than my peers. I had my first coaching job, and I remember the joy I experienced by teaching, leading, and helping someone else get better at something I also loved. That is when I knew I wanted to lead and coach for the rest of my life.
Fast forward, I began to research all I could about leadership, how to make others better, and how to help people grow in confidence, execution, and habits. I became obsessed with pouring into other people to help them live out their dreams.
After high school, I played college basketball and earned a degree in Youth ministry and psychology, and started my first youth academy, TCSA (True Christian Student Athletes), it was sports specific academic and life skills academy. Through this program, I coached youth AAU basketball, ran skills training, and taught lessons on academic and life skills development.
Post college, I played professional basketball in Brazil and earned my Master’s in Coaching and Athletic Administration. After retirement, I spent the next eight years teaching in the K-20 system, coaching college basketball, building my real estate portfolio, and working on my craft.
At the age of 31, I retired from the traditional 8-5 to pursue my dreams of building my coaching firm while earning my doctorate in Organizational Leadership. Everything up to this point has trained me for the moments I thrive in today.
Today I am the CEO of YOU-ISH coaching and Taskletes. These two companies are very dear to my heart because of the impact they will have on others people’s lives. Both companies are dedicated to empowering, uplifting, and equipping others with expertise and experiential capital to live out their dreams. As a CEO, I am also a content creator, producer, admin, leader, curriculum developer, coach, and the list goes on. I would not trade this world for any other.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
My journey has been filled with numerous challenges like many others who are working to build their dream life. A lot of my challenges are surrounded by grief. Learning to grieve and proceed has been the biggest challenge for me. In the last ten years, my litter sister was murdered, my mom passed in her sleep, and my grandma died within six days of being diagnosed with ovarian cancer. Losing significant staples from my village has been the hardest thing to endure. However, I understand that I am a living legacy and am living for more than just me.
Outside of grief, building a brand and a dream from the ground up by yourself is not an easy task, especially with the amount of self-promotion that is needed via social media. The task of ensuring time is well spent and energy is allocated to the right place at the right time is a task in and of itself. Though, I work hard now at doing my best to execute admin tasks, creative projects, curriculum development, and coaching all in one day, knowing that one day I will have a team around me that will allow me to just operate within my expertise.
I understand that challenges are all part of the process and I gain energy from being able to tackle them one at a time.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
YOU-ISH Coaching is a confidence coaching firm dedicated to helping others live out their purpose with confidence. YOU-ISH stands for “Centering you to intentionally seek healing, to internally secure your health”.
We provide coaching, workshops, training, and keynotes around how to help people discover their life’s mission, vision, and purpose, how to grow their emotional intelligence, and leverage their authentic capital.
Through proactive coaching, our MVPs go through an intentional growth cycle to help them gain the habits they need to execute their life vision.
As a confidence coach, my role is to help you grow psychologically to increase your performance in your life and your career.
Our focus is to help people grow in their relationship with themselves to live their best lives authentically. Our approach is unique as it is research-based with a cultural vibe. All sessions are personalized to the growth each individual seeks to obtain and uses data to help track the growth of our MVPs.
Confidence is a psychological mindset that can only be developed through intentional practice. Therefore, those seeking to cultivate intrapersonal change, YOU-ISH is for you.
Can you talk to us about how you think about risk?
Attempting to live out your purpose with confidence every day is a risk. You are risking being humiliated, you are risking failure, you are risking losing friends, you are risking money, you are risking everything. But the greatest risk, if not taking this risk and wishing you did. I believe risk-taking is necessary for us to grow and achieve anything we wish to achieve. When we set out to do something new, it challenges us internally and we have to ask ourselves if we are willing to be courageous enough to take the next step regardless of the pain it may cause us. When you are confident in yourself and your abilities, you see risk as an opportunity for growth regardless of the failure that may occur. If someone is struggling with taking risks, I would encourage them to heal their relationship with fear, failure, and risk-taking, then empower them to remember they are worthy of what’s on the other side of the risks. My whole life is a risk because I no longer see myself as an entrepreneur but as an investor, someone that invests in people, places, and things, by investing my time, money, and gifting into helping others be their best and investing in anything is a risk because there are no guarantees the ROI will be worth it, but I’d rather leave this life on empty than on full because I was afraid to risk it all.
Contact Info:
- Website: You-ish.com
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/youishcoaching?igshid=MDE2OWE1N2Q=
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuoZ-kYuEJSYVnRA9zeyM7w
- Other: https://linktr.ee/Youishcoaching
