How To Succeed In Business By Really Trying: Motivation, Inspiration. Life Lessons

Joshua with his family

Some of us have been lucky. But there are those in the world who may not have had  luck to begin with, but took action to help nurture it. How does this happen?

In Part I of his interview, Joshua Anton tells his story. Anyone who reads his words and is not moved and inspired, better go in and get both heart and head checked.

*************************************************************************************

Can you tell us about where you are from and where you grew up?

Joshua, 4 yrs old, with sister

I was born in New York City and lived there until age 12; after that, I moved to Northern Virginia where I attended middle and high school.  In 2009, after graduating from South Lakes High School High School, in Fairfax County, Virginia (one of the strongest public school systems in the US) I attended Northern Virginia Community College, NVCC, for 3 years, majoring in Business Administration. After this, I applied to and was accepted to the McIntire School of Commerce, one of the top 5 undergraduate business programs in the US in 2012.  I am majoring in Marketing and IT with a track in Entrepreneurship. I will graduate this May. I am an ethnic mix of Korean, Russian, and Polish heritages.

You have some things that happened in your life that are not typical. Do you want to share some of the challenges you had to overcome to pursue your education?

Joshua and Daquan

I was kicked out of my house on February 10, 2009 one day after I turned 18 years old.  For 3 years prior to that I worked at Giant Food pushing carts and bagging groceries due to the threat of being kicked out of my house hanging over my head.  I had managed to save approximately $10,000 to help pay for school.

I was very fortunate that my best friend, Daquan Page, asked his mother to take me in.  Josephine Wiles whom I consider a Mother, took me into her home.  As of today, I have lived there for over 5 years. I now have a family who takes care of me, does my laundry, and cooks for me; they treat me like one of their own.  This turned out to a blessing in disguise; Josephine is like an angel in my life who helped me come to terms with my family situation. She certainly helped to recover from many painful emotional  wounds.         

Because I was asked to leave my home before I had graduated from high school was declared an unaccompanied youth by Fairfax County.  Nevertheless, I still had difficulties in receiving financial aid for college due to lack of support from my parents.  I was unable to obtain their tax papers to complete my application ad this put me in an independent status. 

Senior year of high school I found out that George Mason University, GMU, accepted me. I soon realized GMU’s financial aid only covered 40 percent of my education and living expenses while NVCC’s financial aid package covered 100 percent.  Also due to my challenges with ADHD and having an IEP, I won a $4,000 scholarship per year over the course of 4 years.  (I was diagnosed with ADHD in 6^th grade).  Additionally, I won numerous other scholarships at NVCC to help supplement my education expenses.

Fortunately my high school counselors, Marie Assir and Mary Jo Connors, advised me to go to NVCC then transfer to a 4-year university.  This enabled me to have more choices of universities and to save money.  They also reminded me to work hard to enable me the opportunity to transfer to a great 4-year university.

During my three years at NVCC, I worked very hard.  I worked 60 hours a week with my 3 jobs, and, at the same time, went to school full time during the school year, and part time during the summer.  In addition, I was involved in leadership and entrepreneurial activities during my second and third years at NVCC.  But after three years, I discovered that my counselors were absolutely right.  I did have to work hard to earn the opportunity to be able to transfer to either Uva’s McIntire School of Commerce or to Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business.

NOVA graduation

I graduated from NVCC with a 4.0 grade point average and thanks to the financial aid program that was in place (it has since changed), I was blessed to receive a full ride for my final 2 years of study.  For the first time in 5 years, I am not working 35-60 hours a week to pay for bills.  I have had a 2 year reprieve from the rat race I was running to change my life.

One part of my experience that I hope will help others is this: I could not afford school financially nor did I have parents or wealthy individuals that could help me. However, there were, and still are, many resources out there for students; they just have to know where and how to look for them. I am extremely grateful that I had advisers who showed me where to look.

You started your college education at Northern Virginia Community College. Can you say why you decided to do this? Once there you became a leader at the school. Can you describe some of your activities and how you have stayed involved with the school since you left?

Originally, NVCC was the financial alternative for me. However, what I realized stepping upon the graduation stage 3 years later was that it was much more than just a financial alternative. When I started at NVCC, I had zero confidence in myself, and I had no idea what I wanted to do with my career.

It was not until I took part in my leadership position at the end of my first year as an Orientation Assistant that I began to slowly find my groove. (Through each subsequent leadership position I gained valuable lessons.  These lessons helped make me a better person and prepared me for my future career. I had no idea at that time that I would pursue a career in entrepreneurship.) As an Orientation Assistant, I gained confidence in myself to take risks. I also made some of my first true friends at NVCC through this position. In my next position, as the Vice President of Marketing for Phi Theta Kappa (the honor fraternity for 2 years colleges), I discovered that I loved marketing and communications. I grew more confident as an outspoken student leader in organizing students in leadership roles. Also, I worked together with other student leaders to create the first campus wide club events, which are now a full part of the college calendar.

 I left Phi Theta Kappa with a set of lessons learned. I am known for co-founding some of the biggest events in the history of NVCC during my tenure as a Phi Theta Kappa Officer: “NOVA Cram Week” and “NOVA’s Got Talent.” I must admit that I failed 20-30 times before making these events become a reality. For example, pretty much every bake sale that I helped implement did not do very well.  Another time, I organized 80 of our club members to attend an event but only 2 people showed up; one of them was not even a member. Phi Theta Kappa showed me the need to learn effectively from failing, the need for humility, but most important, the need to persist through both the good and the bad. If Phi Theta Kappa events didn’t always go as planned I luckily had another chance with my leadership position as both the co-founder of Student Government and its first president.

Nova Cram Week Leadership

 All in all, I held many positions at NVCC, but they do not mean very much in terms of their names. As a student leader, the biggest lesson I learned was to leave a legacy. I was fortunate to get a reset button for Student Government, where I built the organization that defines the culture of the Loudoun campus of NVCC for the future. Our job was to set up Student Government with the mindset that if we were to disappear it would still exist. We did our jobs extremely well.Looking back, I realize the best feeling about student leadership was seeing how the next generation of leaders did even better than we did.  That feeling was the best feeling one can have as a student leader; where the legacy you left was never about you in the first place. It was about the next generation; the sustainable roots that lead to new innovations and new student leaders.

Since leaving NVCC, I still keep in touch with the new executive boards. I have implemented a prototype of a student leadership incubating conference called “Loudoun Leaders League.” This conference offers a business approach to developing and marketing events with a Shark Tank like session.  Towards the end of each conference student leaders pitch their ideas to us. Also, I developed the school website for Loudoun Student Life called www.LoudounStudentLife.com.  This enabled them to have a central location to see what is happening on campus, which was something we did not have when our generation was there.

Leadership Trip

 At one point you talked about 2 train stories that changed your life. Can you tell them here?

Joshua, Roya, Khalida

The first time, I missed the train was a trip to Charlottesville from NOVA on February 25^th – 26^th, 2012. I remember sitting in Alderman Library with two of my best friends, Monica and Roya, when an individual whom I thought at the time was a Professor started talking to us. He went up to Roya and asked her, “What are you majoring in?” He also went up to Monica and asked the same question. Finally, he came up to me, where I confessed that I was not yet a student at the university but that my dream was to be one of the 40 transfers accepted to McIntire School of Commerce, the 2^nd best business school in the country. He proceeded to give me the most important piece of advice that I truly believe helped me to get accepted into McIntire. He told me to talk to people in the McIntire school who had oversight of the admission process. He told me to make several visits showing interest so they could place a face with a name for my applications. This person who gave me this advice: Parke Muth.

I did what he suggested and ended up getting into a 30-minute conversation with the person in charge of organizing the admission process of the Commerce School. I told her about my entrepreneurial ambitions along with my dreams and how I took a partial gap year to get accepted into the program. I truly attribute this meeting to my success in getting accepted into McIntire. The first time I missed the train allowed me to be in the right place at the right time.

The second time I missed the train was with my best friend Taylor. I could not tell you how frustrated I was when we did not get to the train on time especially since it was too late to have Taylor drive me to Charlottesville and then back to NOVA. In addition, this occurred during my midterms my first semester at McIntire. Missing the train delayed the time I had to take my exam and took away valuable hours I needed to study. While I do not attribute doing horribly on my midterms to missing the train, I will state that it was the catalyst that led to a huge realization.

The next week, due to failing one of my midterms, I had a conversation with a Professor that left me very dismayed about my dream career. Over the course of the next few days, I began to realize that I could not do well in the often heavily quantitative courses that the typical finance concentration requires, while, at the same time, pursuing my interest in entrepreneurship. By doing both, I would ultimately not do well in either one of them. This was the moment I created my 2-year, secondary curriculum that would prepare me to do what I wanted to do after college and pursue my entrepreneurial dream. While I certainly didn’t have all the questions answered about how I was going to achieve my goal it still felt good and right to focus every bit of effort-- of heart, soul and head--, to make this dream career a reality.

If missing the first train showed me the importance of being at the right place at the right time then the second train demonstrated the importance of preparing to be at the right place at the right time Now I had the choice to catch the entrepreneurial ’train’ I wanted.

*************************************************************************************

Joshua, his mom, and Monica

Some great leaders in business, politics, and virtually every other area often talk about how overcoming challenges translates, given the right mindset, into great preparation for life. Josh’s story of working 3 jobs, finding a new home and family, and earning top grades while leading the school that he’s in should give anyone the motivation to try to go for the big dream.

But Josh has done more than dream big. He’s made things happen in the real world. By the time he graduates in just a little over a month he will have done more than mot people do in many years in the workforce. Colleges, businesses, radio stations seek him out to speak about how to be a successful entrepreneur and leader. He will share some of his secrets here.