What lights you up each day? What do you believe you were born to do? What have you spent over 10,000 hours of time focused on in your life? Once you have an answer for each of these questions, you will begin to see how your power of passion, purpose, and expertise are essential contributions to creating business built on your unique gifts and talents.
Do you have a hobby or a business?
This is a question that many creative entrepreneurs are asked, especially in the beginning of a new venture. I was a second-grade teacher when I wrote my first book and founded my business, Creative Minds Publications, to market and distribute the book. Early on, many people said that my book was “cute”, but I knew that Amy’s Travels, the first children’s picture book to teach all seven continents would help fellow elementary school teachers around the world enhance their geography lessons. When the title was published in 2005, it was placed on recommended multicultural book lists around the world because the main character, based on a true story, was a young Latina girl. This was before there was a push and awareness of diverse children’s books. Today, our award-winning children’s books for and educational resources for teachers and parents are used in home libraries and classrooms in over 26 countries on 6 continents.
What did your younger self want to be when you grew up?
I wanted to be an elementary school teacher from the time I was an elementary school student. When I was nine years old, I started my own tutoring company in my neighborhood to teach rising kindergarten children early literacy skills. It was only when I was speaking about Amy’s Travels to fellow teachers about how I use the title in the classroom that I realized how I could help teachers in reading education. I turned my expertise as an inner-city elementary school teacher and reading specialist into being a national literacy consultant.
The consulting aspect of our company helps teachers feel confident and competent in teaching reading and writing while helping schools achieve literacy success and teaching the world to read. My educational publishing and literacy consulting company is primarily a referral-based business, which means I get to choose to work with both dedicated educators and enthusiastic future authors passionate about literacy education, which is certainly a power of passion.
Is your business sustainable?
This is a question that I was asked by individuals outside of my industry. I was both shocked and offended before I realized that people outside of your field have no real knowledge of your profession. There are 34 million elementary school students in about 93,000 public elementary schools in America. This does not even include private schools or the homeschool community.
According to the 2023 “nation’s report card,” post-pandemic data shows a drop in literacy rates for students across the United States. Children around the world enter school every single year and are learning to read. The data shows that my business is needed and sustainable.
In addition to supporting children, parents, teachers, and educators, we have also collaborated with businesses and corporations around the country to help improve education. This year, we kicked off the 7th annual Tackle Reading event with the National Football League. The yearly philanthropic event creates an opportunity for NFL teams and former athletes to read to elementary school students around the country. We received sponsorship from Dr. Seuss Enterprises that allowed us to give a book, school supplies, and Dr. Seuss gifts to every student and school who participated. The power of passion is also found in philanthropy.
Do you give back?
Charitable giving and investment are common factors in making a company sustainable. At Creative Minds Publications, we are investing our time and expertise in providing literacy consulting, training, and the best instructional practices for students and teachers in schools around the country. Our model of charitable giving through our book titles. We either raise awareness of a specific cause, donate funds, or give books to a variety of organizations that match the theme of our books.
For example, Amy’s Travels has been donated to the Latin Ballet of Virginia and Latinx organizations. Our Two Mice children’s travel series has already supported the Hunts Point Alliance for Children in the Bronx, Lenox Hill Hospital, and the Childrens Hospital of Richmond. Our football themed reading resources, Tackle Reading, and A Touchdown in Reading: An Educator’s Guide to Literacy Instruction, are part of the annual philanthropic Tackle Reading event to give children the gift of literacy with a passion for football. We also strategically partner with corporations to increase our literacy impact across the globe.
Are you innovative?
Creative Minds Publications continues to thrive thanks to initiative, creativity, and innovation. Teachers didn’t know they needed a diverse fictional title to teach all seven continents before Amy’s Travels. Professional sports and reading were never mentioned in the same conversation before the Tackle Reading program was born. For the past five years, our company has been researching children’s voice recognition and artificial intelligence to use educational technology that gets real results and makes a difference in a child’s reading journey away from a screen. For me, my company is essentially a larger classroom, and I can reach a greater number of students and teachers around the globe while we teach the world to read, truly the power of passion.
