The Way Up - The LJ Way

EXCERPT FROM THE PROLOGUE

I was featured among Atlanta’s Most Influential Women in the Atlanta Business Chronicle, twice. In bold caption under my picture was my name —“LaSonjia Jack.” This particular media channel was celebrating women who had climbed the corporate ladder, made civic contributions, as well as those who had even achieved success through other business ventures. And there I was, sitting among a group of powerfully elite businesswomen. You’d think I was on cloud nine. Not so, however. That’s because the person staring back at me in the image was not what everyone else saw; the person staring back at me was that little nine-year-old girl ... the girl who would often drown out the noise from her surroundings and immerse herself in the synchronized beats of her favorite R&B songs. She was the teenager who walked into the Florsheim Shoe Company at age fourteen and filled out an application for employment, not because she wanted to but because she had to do so. She was the same person who worked her way up at several other companies as a young adult. She was also the woman who learned a tough lesson about love—that you can give your all and it still not be enough. She was the same woman who lived without electricity in her apartment for nearly thirty days. At the time, she wasn’t just financially depleted; she was emotionally broken. Yet, she was the same woman who had to decide whether she was going to free herself from the bondage of toxicity and learn to love herself ... her whole self—failures and flaws as well as her celebratory accomplishments. This was the woman who gave me permission to thrive without guilt or restraint because I deserved it ... all of it.