Jalila Frazier
Appearances
Habits and Hustle
Episode 400: Bonus: When defeat becomes a blessing in disguise
So we made sure that we did like quality. So beforehand we do model lessons. So every new illuminator has to do a model lesson with my manager of curriculum and training. And then they had practice time. Then we came back, we did dress rehearsals so that now they can show us what they did. We get feedback, lows and grows. We have forums to provide the feedback. We record and things like that.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 400: Bonus: When defeat becomes a blessing in disguise
And then when they go to deliver the workshop, depending on if we feel like they're ready, they may be the lead illuminator. And I might just be there as an observer and providing feedback and so forth. Or, you know, my manager of curriculum and training will be there to provide that feedback.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 400: Bonus: When defeat becomes a blessing in disguise
So there's a lot of touch points in there because we wanted to make sure that, you know, the client gets get what they what they asked for.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 400: Bonus: When defeat becomes a blessing in disguise
We give them glows, things that they did well, and we give them grows, things that we would want them to work on. And we implement that throughout a lot of different systems, like even in interviews. I did an interview today for a third round interview for a new role in marketing. I gave them glows and grows whether or not we're going to, you know, invite them to the role or not.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 400: Bonus: When defeat becomes a blessing in disguise
I think it's important for people to get real tangible feedback. And that's just an educator piece.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 400: Bonus: When defeat becomes a blessing in disguise
Hi, thank you for having me, Sanjay.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 400: Bonus: When defeat becomes a blessing in disguise
I mean, when you center people, right? So when, think about a student and they're taking a test, they get their test and it's just a grade on the test. Okay, good. That's a great, but they need real feedback so that they can know like what it is to improve. Everyone wants to improve. There's no one that never not wants to improve, right? There might be different levels of how they enact that.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 400: Bonus: When defeat becomes a blessing in disguise
And so as adults, if you're really, you made it to the third round. That's your time. It's not just my time being sent. It's your time. We want to send you too. And this is the first model of what to expect that if you are in our ecosystem, we do hire you, that you are providing that same quality time and service to our staff. As well as the clients.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 400: Bonus: When defeat becomes a blessing in disguise
So don't say you've never been, it's never been modeled. Yeah.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 400: Bonus: When defeat becomes a blessing in disguise
Yeah. A side hustle and turning it into an actual business that's having profit. Managing the stress, you have to love what you do. I don't care what anyone says, right? It will be stressful whether you love it or don't. But the perseverance of it and you deciding whether or not you're going to quit versus you're just going to take a little time to recollect yourself, you'll always keep going.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 400: Bonus: When defeat becomes a blessing in disguise
So how did I manage it? I think for me, I was always very, very clear about systems. So even when I was a district math supervisor, I realized that because the wheel is so large, right? The circumference of your influence has to be reached to every teacher in various schools? How do you optimize? How do you make something a systematic process? How do you teach people to make things systematic?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 400: Bonus: When defeat becomes a blessing in disguise
Absolutely. So again, thank you for having me on. I'm so happy to talk about math today in a very positive, affirming light, because that's extremely important if we are going to educate the next generation of leaders. We need them to have mathematical mindsets and be very powerful with it. So we have to start very, very and be intentional about how we talk about mathematics.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 400: Bonus: When defeat becomes a blessing in disguise
And so I took that into this company. Building the foundation was extremely important and making sure that I'm legally compliant with things is important as well. So those are my first two things. Legal and systems. But now I think managing is everything to do with how do you replace yourself?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 400: Bonus: When defeat becomes a blessing in disguise
How do I replace myself so someone else can be the leader in that role so that I can work on another part of the business? And so that in and itself is a lot. So making sure you have standard operating procedures, even for the smallest things like them as an educator. Right. There are educators that are very high functioning. they get the information and they know exactly what you want.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 400: Bonus: When defeat becomes a blessing in disguise
And there are educators that need it spelled out for you. And so I learned that very early, that if I don't clearly explain things and have it written down in more than one touch point, then we won't be able to be successful. So I use that even here. We make everything very granular level. We make it step one, step two, step three, and very tasky, but it shows the larger picture.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 400: Bonus: When defeat becomes a blessing in disguise
picture of everything. So I can take a vacation now and I know that a standard operating procedure is happening and they have all the tools that they need.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 400: Bonus: When defeat becomes a blessing in disguise
So I'm very happy and proud to say that as of May of this year, my company became an S Corp. And what that means is now I'm an employee of my business. So that also means that I get a regular paycheck.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 400: Bonus: When defeat becomes a blessing in disguise
LLC. So it's always an LLC, but I was taxed as a pass-through soul. Right, okay. Pass-through kind of piece. So now... With me being NesCorp and me being able to take a regular paycheck means that the business in some capacity is sustainable, right? Right. So, but I had to get there. So I can tell you prior to that, boundaries, I didn't even know what that meant.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 400: Bonus: When defeat becomes a blessing in disguise
I didn't know what boundaries meant. Like, I knew what it meant, but I knew I couldn't even afford it.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 400: Bonus: When defeat becomes a blessing in disguise
Because I had to show up in so many different areas so that I can have this structure. And so... Before, it was very much sleepless nights. I was also balancing another consulting gig. I was writing a, I was an editor for a math textbook that's coming out next year. And so that was my first time doing that. So that provided me with additional income that I needed to support myself because
Habits and Hustle
Episode 400: Bonus: When defeat becomes a blessing in disguise
So what got me started is I was born in Trinidad and I came up here when I was a baby. I came to New Jersey when I was a baby and I was very like always ensuring that I was at the front and center that I was always learning something that I needed to learn. I was very pushy, according to my mom. And it would be times that she would give me help with something like walking up and down the stairs.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 400: Bonus: When defeat becomes a blessing in disguise
I wasn't ready to take money from the business, from my business yet. We weren't there yet. So I was literally working 9 to 5, 5 to 9, and whatever time during the weekends. Wasn't seeing my family as often. Wasn't available as often.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 400: Bonus: When defeat becomes a blessing in disguise
returning phone calls two, three days later, just not taking care of myself, making sure that my hair is done every, you know, periodically, like all those things I wasn't able to do because I was sucked into building this business. But I knew that that wasn't where I wanted to be. And so I decided that in January of this year, I implemented something called clarity breaks.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 400: Bonus: When defeat becomes a blessing in disguise
So I listened to podcasts and, you know, things like, how do you, like, I always try to do professional development because, you know, I never took a business class, right? It was always education. So I instituted clarity breaks every quarter and my clarity break is next week. So one week, every quarter, I take a clarity break for a week. Notifications off.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 400: Bonus: When defeat becomes a blessing in disguise
My team knows this is not even a vacation. This is a clarity break where Jalila is taking time to herself to be able to think bigger ideas for the business or to be able to think bigger ideas for herself personally. And they know not to bother me for anything. And that's very helpful. It's something I look forward to. Didn't realize I would look forward to it.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 400: Bonus: When defeat becomes a blessing in disguise
But I'm just counting down these next two days. So there's that. And then finally, now I'm able to spend more time with my my nephews and my mom and so forth before it was nonexistent. But now on my calendar tomorrow, it's ladies night with my mom and my sister. And we're excited because for two years, that wasn't the case.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 400: Bonus: When defeat becomes a blessing in disguise
It wasn't the case.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 400: Bonus: When defeat becomes a blessing in disguise
I go somewhere else. So it depends. So like, and I'm still figuring it out because this is the first year. So March, the end of March is my first clarity break. And it was, Not as successful as I thought it was going to be because although I set boundaries, I still had to figure some things out with the business because there were things that still required my attention.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 400: Bonus: When defeat becomes a blessing in disguise
So I almost made it through the end of it. And then I get a phone call from a team member. And I'm like, dang. So I had to handle that. Right. But you keep working at it. Right. You figure out, OK, what do you do next time to make sure that this doesn't happen? Because it's still the same way.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 400: Bonus: When defeat becomes a blessing in disguise
So then my next clarity break was in June and it went really, really well.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 400: Bonus: When defeat becomes a blessing in disguise
And I went to New Orleans with my boyfriend. And we just enjoyed like all the festivities and ate and so forth. But there was one piece that didn't happen. So I kind of had to reset it. So August. was a, is a redo for the clarity. And my project manager told me, she said, I really want you to have a really, you know, successful clarity break. So we're going to make sure that you do.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 400: Bonus: When defeat becomes a blessing in disguise
And I appreciated that. So we're on board and they know next week is over.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 400: Bonus: When defeat becomes a blessing in disguise
Yeah. Because I majored in math, I thought I was able to command my finances easily. And while I could understand it easily, there was just so many other things that I didn't realize impacted my bottom line. And so I didn't pay attention to it as often as I could.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 400: Bonus: When defeat becomes a blessing in disguise
And it all came to a head, I want to say last year, because in my business, because we work with school districts, government contracts, our pay cycle changed. or how we get paid is sometimes net 30, a lot of times net 60. So we would have rendered services and we don't get that check until cash flow became an issue. It still is an issue for my business access to cash.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 400: Bonus: When defeat becomes a blessing in disguise
And I would be so upset because she's holding my hand and I would let her hand go walk all the way down the stairs and walk back up by myself. And to this day, this is the things that I know that I do in this space of math education. I'm very pushy and I don't take no for an answer. So when a student can't get access to information, I'm that person. I am that this company is made for that.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 400: Bonus: When defeat becomes a blessing in disguise
Now we get the contracts, but we also have to make sure that we pay our staff on a timely basis so that they stay with us. So there's always this gap in time. And so it all came to a head last year where we had tons of contracts out and it's the summertime. School boards don't meet in the summer. So I was strapped for cash. I didn't know what to do to get this cash to make payroll at least.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 400: Bonus: When defeat becomes a blessing in disguise
And I had to like tap into my personal cash fund so many times. But this one was large as well as reach out to my family. And at that time, my friend, she was she worked in the business. She even loaned me money for the business. And she said, hey, don't worry about paying me this payroll. Just put it in the next payroll. That was such a humbling experience. Right.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 400: Bonus: When defeat becomes a blessing in disguise
I'm in this business. We have all these contracts. We're doing all these things. And I don't have the money to pay my staff. Like, but it was at that moment where if I could be transparent with this in this moment, that means I could be transparent with anything because everything is temporary. And literally when that happened, I was, I was depressed. So that happened.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 400: Bonus: When defeat becomes a blessing in disguise
Um, you know, the next phase cycle, I was able to pay everyone back and then I've never been short of payroll since then. Um, so we have to change a lot of things. So I would say finances, I would be very much more, um, forward thinking about things and structuring how people get paid. We even changed how we pay our consultants. Now, we used to pay them immediately.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 400: Bonus: When defeat becomes a blessing in disguise
Now, we pay them net 30 because we don't have the cash flow until we get it.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 400: Bonus: When defeat becomes a blessing in disguise
If you're taking the leap and making a side hustle, be very clear that you want to do it. And you have to start like just follow the breadcrumbs. OK, one, make a decision that you want to do it. And once you do it, follow the breadcrumbs. What do I mean by that? You won't know your capacity until you start something.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 400: Bonus: When defeat becomes a blessing in disguise
And the minute you start something, you're going to see so many different breadcrumbs just laying in front of you like, oh, OK, I can do it like this. Oh, they're helping me with this. Oh, this is where I get this resource. Oh, this is how I turn this person into a possible staff member or someone that can be aligned with my vision. I say you have to start and follow the breadcrumbs.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 400: Bonus: When defeat becomes a blessing in disguise
Do not be afraid to ask for help. Do not go in there with an ego because the experiences that you have, you know, you don't want to turn people off because you cannot build a business on your own. You cannot. You cannot. Now, if you're already in the side hustle and you are trying to make this your main thing, your main hustle, then you need to level up and grow your thinking, your mindset.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 400: Bonus: When defeat becomes a blessing in disguise
How do you create systems so that you can be on the beach somewhere while your business is still running so that you can ensure that payroll still happens on a timely basis? Like, what are you doing in that? Who is your employment lawyer? Yeah. OK, to help you with that. Who's writing all of your contracts? How do you ensure, you know, an illegal piece like that you are protected?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 400: Bonus: When defeat becomes a blessing in disguise
So sorry, I kind of went back, but I came here when I was a baby. I was very smart in school. I graduated valedictorian sixth grade, my middle school year, as well as my high school year. But when I got into college, Seton Hall Prep, I experienced my first failures. And those failures were in math classes. I got C's and then even I got F's. And I felt very small.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 400: Bonus: When defeat becomes a blessing in disguise
Do you have business insurance? Are you paying your taxes quarterly or are you paying them yearly for the business? Are you setting aside money for your quarterly taxes? Are you offering a 401k plan annually? to your employees some type of benefit so that you're able to attract top candidates. Like you have to think way far in advance if you want this to become one of those sustainable companies.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 400: Bonus: When defeat becomes a blessing in disguise
So you can find me on Instagram at F underscore M underscore solutions. On LinkedIn, Frazier's Mathematics Solutions. Same name on Facebook, Frazier's Mathematics Solutions. You can go to our website, www.fmssolutions.site. And yeah, those are the places that you can find us.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 400: Bonus: When defeat becomes a blessing in disguise
Thank you so much for having me.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 400: Bonus: When defeat becomes a blessing in disguise
One, because I was the only Black student in my math classes. I went to school for applied mathematics. So I was the only Black girl. And with that being said, I wasn't able to create some type of community and be able to create study partners and so forth. And so I also felt small because the professor made me feel like I wasn't smart because I wasn't getting good grades.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 400: Bonus: When defeat becomes a blessing in disguise
I lost a lot of my academic scholarships because I failed classes and I had to start over. But yeah, I lost those scholarships. I couldn't afford the school. And so I had to transfer to Temple University. And it was there that I began to flourish and began to kind of declare, no, I am smart. I knew I'm smart. I know I have the aptitude.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 400: Bonus: When defeat becomes a blessing in disguise
So I redeclared my major to math education, no longer applied mathematics, because it was important for me to make sure that no other student felt the way that I felt, felt small and show students that although, you know, something may be challenging, they can do it if they believe in themselves and know that they have the aptitude for it.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 400: Bonus: When defeat becomes a blessing in disguise
Then I finally got my master's at Columbia in math education, and I went back home full circle to East Orange so that I can educate the next generation of leaders. And that's my journey on the education side.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 400: Bonus: When defeat becomes a blessing in disguise
No, the most I did was I did people's hair, but it wasn't anything that I like. I didn't really accept too much payment for it. It was, hey, can you do my hair? No problem. And then some someone decided that they wanted to pay me one time.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 400: Bonus: When defeat becomes a blessing in disguise
Entrepreneurship, I had no idea. I didn't even know I could do it.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 400: Bonus: When defeat becomes a blessing in disguise
So my dad, he was an owner-operator for a trucking company. Before a very long time, he worked for the trucking company. But even when he decided to become an owner-operator, I didn't really understand that that was entrepreneurship. I didn't understand that that's what that was, you know, until I got into that space and started reflecting like, oh, my dad was an entrepreneur.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 400: Bonus: When defeat becomes a blessing in disguise
So we were able to like have a lot of conversations after that about both of our journeys.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 400: Bonus: When defeat becomes a blessing in disguise
I said I was going to be the superintendent of a school district. I wanted to be the superintendent and, you know, create policies and things like that. When I started teaching. Oh, my gosh. I love teaching. I love my students. Like I was 23 teaching 10th graders. So already there was like a close age gap. So we were able to build relationships.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 400: Bonus: When defeat becomes a blessing in disguise
I taught for four years, anywhere from geometry, algebra two, pre-calculus, you know, all those high school subjects. I taught physics as well. And then I came out of the classroom to be like a data coordinator.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 400: Bonus: When defeat becomes a blessing in disguise
um it's just a school level kind of um support and then i was promoted to be a district math supervisor so um at the age of 28 i was supporting at least 100 teachers at any given time making sure that they know how to teach mathematics well making sure that the curriculum is aligned ensuring that we are treating students properly and centering them and so forth.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 400: Bonus: When defeat becomes a blessing in disguise
And it was a lot, you know, but yeah, that's kind of what I did in that role in that capacity.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 400: Bonus: When defeat becomes a blessing in disguise
When I came out of the classroom, I was no longer directly connected to students. And although it was fun in a new role, it wasn't fun not being around kids. And I had to really make a decision. Is this what I want to do? Because kids bring something out of me. And just helping them or them helping me like it. You can't you can't compare. You can't describe.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 400: Bonus: When defeat becomes a blessing in disguise
So it started becoming a little lonely. And by the time I was maybe in my fourth year at the district, my supervisor, my wheel started turning and I said, I need to find a way to still be in front of students more often. but still be able to be in a leadership position so that I can support teachers. And so I decided to let me make a STEAM summer program. So I made a summer camp.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 400: Bonus: When defeat becomes a blessing in disguise
I had 20 days of vacation. So as an administrator, you can get 20 days of vacation, right? And with those 20 days, I strategically planned my summer. So I still had to be at work because I couldn't take all 20 days during the summer. So I took the first two weeks off. And then after that, I would take half days because the summer program, it was a full day, but I had a teacher.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 400: Bonus: When defeat becomes a blessing in disguise
That rent helped me teach the course and so forth. So I would just come in at the back end, make sure everything is good. So I was strategically using my days. And let me tell you something. That was probably the best summer because I was in front of students and we were doing like we were going trips to New York. We would visit the MoMath.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 400: Bonus: When defeat becomes a blessing in disguise
We did a lot of STEM illumination labs is what we call them. They learned about STEM. They learned about mathematics. We had 24 competitions. We did a lot of arts infused pieces too. Like they learned about glass blowing and it was very much successful and backed by the community.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 400: Bonus: When defeat becomes a blessing in disguise
I'm just so grateful that I had so many people in my corner, just, you know, cheering for me asking about, Hey, can I get my child enrolled? And it was, it was, it was amazing. And from there I was like, Oh,
Habits and Hustle
Episode 400: Bonus: When defeat becomes a blessing in disguise
No, that didn't tip me over. As I was preparing the next year for the summer program, and it was going well, but I realized that there was a lot of work to this. that I knew wouldn't be sustainable. Like I didn't see it repeating itself in other communities. I didn't see how, you know, because there's a lot of legwork with it. So I still did the summer program, but I was like turning my wheels.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 400: Bonus: When defeat becomes a blessing in disguise
How do I impact more students and make it sustainable and make sure that there are ways to get to more without extending that amount of effort? So that was what I was trying to figure out. And then I said, you know what? Let me start like I love professional development. So let me start thinking about it. So that was 20. So 2018 was the first summer program. 2019 was the second.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 400: Bonus: When defeat becomes a blessing in disguise
And then as I'm planning for like next year, COVID hit. And COVID, you know, unfortunately, we lost so many different people, my uncle included, rest in peace. But it did allow me the opportunity to really sit back and design the company the way I saw fit. So we designed Frasier's Mathematic Solutions to be a top tier professional development company.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 400: Bonus: When defeat becomes a blessing in disguise
And the STEAM services were a math culture add-on. So we could still do STEAM programs and STEM programs, but we would do it infused into school climates.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 400: Bonus: When defeat becomes a blessing in disguise
So the company was launched in 20, well, I incorporated it in 2017. Right. But mainly for the summer programs, right? For the summer program, yep. So that was 2018. But launching that department or that service of professional development, we had our first district-wide contract in January 2021. Okay. Okay. So 2021 was our first contract. Shout out to Essex County Votek Schools.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 400: Bonus: When defeat becomes a blessing in disguise
Shout out to Carmen Morales. She was the principal at the time. And shout out to Janabo because they saw something in us and they wanted us to support them and their teachers. So, yeah.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 400: Bonus: When defeat becomes a blessing in disguise
My riskiversary is what I call it, was June 4th, 2021. June 4th, 2021, I resigned from my cushy six-figure job and said, it is time for me to take a chance on myself.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 400: Bonus: When defeat becomes a blessing in disguise
No, that's not actually what happened. I was planning on being able to support still work and do the contracts because I have professional development providers that support me. They're called math illuminators. But at my current job, you know, full transparency, there were a lot of things that was happening that I felt like I wasn't valued in my role.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 400: Bonus: When defeat becomes a blessing in disguise
And so it was important for me to write my own story. And writing my own story meant, hey, if this isn't serving you anymore, if you don't feel valued, then go somewhere where you do. So I resigned. from that role and things just started getting a lot better with the business.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 400: Bonus: When defeat becomes a blessing in disguise
Everything. Everything. I mean, I'm used to having my bills on auto pay because I know I was getting paid on the 15th and the 30th. Now I'm sitting here trying to figure out how do I move funds around? How do I invest in myself? How do I make sure that I keep... My, you know, certain things and everything made me nervous. What also made me nervous was, hey, do these people really trust me?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 400: Bonus: When defeat becomes a blessing in disguise
Do these clients trust what I'm saying? Am I going to provide quality service if I'm not the one that's given it? Because I know if I'm given the professional development. Oh, I know how to do that. But am I imparting enough knowledge and trust in my team so that I don't have to be there? And then when they provide the service, they feel like it's an extension of myself.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 400: Bonus: When defeat becomes a blessing in disguise
So there was... There were two people that were internal staff, so they were employees. And then there were about three professional development illuminators that would do the workshops.