Born and raised in the Canadian town of Claremont (small town north of Pickering), Ontario, Alisha Armstrong is a successful businesswoman focused on changing lives for the better. According to Alisha, a true leader is someone who is driven not only by their desire for success, but a passion for bringing success to everyone around them. Alisha embodies this quality as she dedicates her time to educating, uplifting and encouraging the masses to seize the opportunities provided through her business to help attain financial fitness. Today, Alisha is here with us to share her journey, as well as some insight into her business and her best advice for any aspiring entrepreneurs.
Alisha, let’s start at the beginning of your journey. What first inspired you to become an entrepreneur?
I wanted to become an entrepreneur to attain freedom. Now that might also be my naivety because when I started my first business, I was about 20 ish years old and I thought, “yeah, I’ll be my own boss, I’ll come and go as I please, I’ll go on a lot of vacations; but that is not what happened. I ended up working two years straight every day, but it showed me what it took. Yes, you can do all those things, but you still have to put in the work. For me it’s not just about financial freedom but more so time freedom. Having your finances in order, that’s the vehicle to get to the final destination which for me, is time freedom.
In addition to that, the thought of working for somebody else’s dreams doesn’t sit well with me.
You can either work hard for somebody else or you can work harder for yourself. So I decided that I’ll work for my own dreams, thank you.
It’s amazing how you followed through on your goal of being a business owner no matter how hard it got along the way! Tell us about the business that you’re a part of today. What is the concept and how are you helping people?
The business is essentially about financial fitness through investing and trading. We are showing and teaching people how to become financially fit, which is especially crucial in today’s unstable world. I’m in the business of changing lives. The information that I share with people can literally mean the difference between living a life of mediocrity on somebody else’s terms, and living a life you only dreamed of, while being your own boss. I’m trying to open doors that people didn’t even know existed. Most people don’t know that they have these options. They don’t know that there are these kinds of opportunities. It was the same for me when I first joined this platform; I had no idea that some of the systems and services that we offer actually exist. So it was just as simple as passing this knowledge along and giving somebody that information. At the end of the day, I’m not here to persuade anybody and I’m not here to try and talk somebody into something. I’m simply offering people an opportunity to change their life. And if they want to take it, they can take it. If not, my door’s always open.
Your dedication to presenting others with new information and opportunities is so inspiring! What are some of your goals that you have for yourself personally and for your business?
Whether it comes to my business or my personal life, I want to 10X both areas in every aspect possible. By that I just mean stepping into my highest self by believing that I am already that person that I envision myself to be. When you actually believe that you are that person, that’s who you start to show up as and when I start to show up as that person, greater and bigger things come for me. Personally, some of my goals are to retire my parents. I want to read 5,000 books. I want to see at least a quarter of the world; I believe that when you experience other places, you really truly understand life. It humbles you and gives you a greater appreciation & perspective of your own life when you expose yourself to other cultures. I want to master my emotions. I want to get healthier in my mind, body, soul, everything.
When it comes to the business, first and foremost my main goal is impact; I want to impact as many lives as I possibly can because it’s one thing to create success for myself, and it’s a whole other level to help somebody else create their own success story. That’s what a true leader is. So I want to impact others.
I can go to the top, no problem. But I want to take the people around me to the top with me. It’s not just about me, it’s about other people. With every business that I’ve ever gotten into, the bottom line behind it was always trying to help others. I want to speak on stage alongside great leaders and great people in the forefront ahead of me in this industry. I want to increase market shares and I want to bring the masses into this. My online positioning and presence on social media is so important; social media runs everything right now. So I want to really hone into the network marketing aspect of the business. This entire field is a copycat industry; you don’t have to be innovative and come up with your own ideas. So I just needed to find successful people that are already winning, already doing the things that I envision for myself and literally study them and mimic everything they do. And that’s what I want my presence and my social media to be to someone else; something they want to follow and replicate for success; I want them to duplicate what I’ve done. And that’s how I want my social presence to be. The bottom line is I want growth overall, in all aspects
Getting to this point as a successful leader in your industry must have had some challenges along the way. Alisha, tell us about the adversity you faced growing up and growing your business.
I think that it all boils down to me versus me, whether it was growing up or growing my business. All the outside noise, from your environment, the naysayers, the doubters…that’s just cute. It’s really all about what’s going on up here in your mind. That is the only thing truly holding you back. So whether it was growing up with a need to prove myself for whatever reason; that need ultimately came from within my own mind. If I was confident in myself, then I wouldn’t feel the need to prove myself to anyone. In this business it’s the same thing. Jumping into things that I had no previous knowledge or background in created these limiting beliefs and self doubt like, what if I suck at it? What if I can’t do it? Regardless of whether it’s within my business or personal life, my greatest adversity has always been myself and overcoming myself. I’ve never really had a lot of pushback, people know me and they know what I’m about so when I say I’m doing something, I don’t really have people in my ear doubting me. I don’t really have distractions because I’ve already cut all those things out. I already know how to deal with these things. So it’s just me versus me at the end of the day with anything that I do.
Thank you for sharing your entrepreneurial journey with us, Alisha. Your story will definitely serve as motivation for any aspiring entrepreneur. In closing, please give your best advice for anyone looking to get started as their own boss.
Some advice that has always worked for me throughout my ups and downs in business is as follows:
- First and foremost, consistency. Consistency over anything because even the best business plans can crumble without dedication. Consistency equals reliability. It’s far more important in your business than people even imagine. Just the simple act of being consistent allows you to establish awareness and reliability, which builds trust. You deliver your service efficiently because you speak about it on a daily basis. If you don’t have consistency, you’re much more likely to fail. Consistency brings forth good habits that form a solid foundation for anything you do in life, business especially.
- Model and mimic. As I was saying earlier, in this business it’s not about reinventing the wheel; this is a copycat business through and through and imitation is so underappreciated. If you see people winning in your lane and being successful, why wouldn’t you study what they’re doing? Why wouldn’t you want to speak the way they speak, move the way they move, act the way they act. They’re winning doing this so chances are, if you do the same while staying true to yourself, you’ll create those habits that will bring the same level of success. I do want to clarify that imitation isn’t just mindless repetition. It’s an intelligent way of creating cause and effect. You’re working smarter not harder. That’s why we have quotes because somebody else said it better, it’s the same concept.
- Do not let rejection discourage you. Instead, look at it as a stepping stone because when you do, you’ll realize that all those difficult experiences of rejection are going to lead you to your successes in life. The more rejection you have, the closer you get to being successful. Every time you’re told no, you learn what you lacked in the conversation or what you could have said differently in order to get that yes. I always tell my team, I want you to get rejected. I want you to go out and get 50 rejections a day. Because if you get 50 rejections a day, those rejections are going to start turning into yesses because you’re going to learn from each one of those rejections. So don’t let the rejections discourage you because that is exactly what you need to propel you to success as you learn from each no.
For more info you can contact Alisha through her Instagram @miss_alishalouisa