#IamMissJessies: Bernice L. McFadden and Dr. Shirley Pierre Robertson’s Ah-Ha Moments

As we continue our celebration of the release of Miko Branch’s latest memoir and business guide, Miss Jessie’s: Creating a Successful Business from Scratch, Naturally, the #IAmMissJessies campaign marches onward, illuminating the Ah-Ha epiphany moments, in the lives of successful career women. We are thrilled to share two more of these Ah-Ha! moments with you, courtesy of two amazing women; Bernice L. McFadden, National Best Selling Author of the novels Sugar, The Warmest December, and Nowhere Is a Place, and Dr. Shirley Pierre Robertson Ed.D, MS, BScN, BA, RN. Bernice and Dr. Shirley’s stories about their paths to personal fulfillment through their professional accomplishments, are sure to inspire you and raise your spirits! So, get motivated Curly Queens! Know that with enough focus, determination, and a little bit of hope, you are capable of making all your dreams come true.

Bernice L. McFadden:

National Best Selling Author of the novels Sugar, The Warmest December,  Nowhere Is a Place, and many more great reads.

Source: facebook.com/missjessiesfans

“I thought the worst day of my life was the day I put my home up for sale. You see, that house had been a symbol of my success. It represented the culmination of years or handwork. I called it the house that SUGAR bought. So in early 2012, when it became clear that I could no longer afford to keep it, I felt like a failure. I sold the house that SUGAR bought in December of 2012, placed my possessions into storage and promptly set about exploring the world. While I looked perfectly happy and content in all of the photos I shared on social media – deep down inside, I was hurting and sad.

My AH-HA moment came in November of 2013, during my month long stay at Kalani Retreat Center on the Big Island of Hawaii. Kalani is a commune of sorts, peopled with folk from all walks of life. People who have abandoned their traditional lives for the simplistic, back to the land existence of Kalani. They were some of the happiest people I’d been around in years and it was through them that I learned to stop telling people that I was homeless and replaced that word with HOME FREE. Little by little, I realized that happiness is truly a state of mind that had nothing at all to do with a house or a car. I have so much less than I had 3 years ago, but I’m 100 times happier.”

Dr. Shirley Pierre Robertson Ed.D, MS, BScN, BA, RN:

Source: facebook.com/missjessiesfans

“Ever had anyone to laugh at your tragedies, your misfortunes, and the barriers on which you bruised your heel, at the filling stations where you stopped along the way as the gas gage of your soul pointed to empty? Well I have. Oh how my adversaries laughed! They laughed me to scorn, as the prophecies came forth that I would never make it to my preordained destination. They called me everything but a child of promise as I hung my head in this atmosphere of apparent defeat and shame, too embarrassed and lacking the confidence and strength to look up and trust the immutable promises of my Abba. As these feelings began to encapsulate me, they became the tools that I would then use to intentionally distance myself from places where I knew my scoffers would be. They were palpable; they were frightening as I secretly wished for the demise of my tormentors. I wished that they would suffer the same pain I felt. But the more I cried, the more they seemed to prosper and the deeper I sunk in despair. In my mind, and coupled with their relentless pursuit, I felt that they wanted me to become an obscure figure, one at which they could point fingers and gloat at my apparent nothingness. Educated but lacking substance.

Then, one day my Abba sent me this challenge: Why sit ye here and die? Get up, for if you do, you may yet find out that the will power to become a world changer is birth in the midst of some of your most painful experiences. Armed and dangerous with this life changing information I came to the realization of “Who I am, Who’s I am, and My purpose for being Who I am. Being enlightened and empowered by His truth for my existence, I made a conscious decision to get up, shake and dust myself, remove the grave clothes, stand flat footed and make a declaration for the universe to hear that come hell or high waters I was going to live and not die with purpose still hidden within me. I therefore set my face as a flint toward He who determined my course, and promised myself that age would not be a deterrent to the fulfillment of my purpose. Therefore, I decided to transform my thinking in order to be and become the best darn seventy one year old that I was created to be. Henceforth, I move forward with a firm resolve that it is not by might, nor by power, but it is through Him whose wind is beneath my wings that I rise, once more to plunder the camp of the enemy of my soul and take back everything that was stolen from me. Now watch me do it.”

Dr Shirley Pierre Robertson
Ed.D MS BScN BA RN
NGRP, Inc.
President & CEO “Repairing the Breach…Restoring the Promise”

So Curly Queens, don’t let personal hardships hold you back. Allow your failures to help fuel your own tenacity and be the catalyst to your own success!