Have you asked yourself what success looks like for you? Have you pondered on the many ways you can go about achieving that “said success”? Everyone talks about success or developing their empire, but which method is the right one. Better yet, which method is the right one FOR YOU? Back in 2017, I decided to create my own structure/philosophy while working on wall street and building my brand at night time. You can check it out here and I plan to dive deeper into where it originated from within this post.

Before I begin I consider myself to be in the bucket of philosophers or thought leaders who create structures or visions for people to follow. That does not mean I think I am better than anyone. I have spent a lot of time learning myself and I know where my gifts lie and how I can make a remarkable contribution to society. I even do it in my role as a Product Manager by having a vision and following through with philosophy or strategy for execution. One of my greatest ideas started in college while I was studying in the computer lab. I started my brand as “Jas - The Pretty Plug” in 2015, but before I got there it came from the desire to want to help people get internships and job opportunities after they completed college.

Let me take you down memory lane on how it all started.

I started interning as a freshman in college. I studied Electrical Engineering and my first engineering internship paid me $19/Hr working at General Electrical Power & Water. Now let me tell you… back in 2013 and even now that was some good money. I wanted everyone to experience it even my hometown Pine Bluff. I just knew I was on to something, lol.

I did it again in 2014, I interned for a second summer at General Electric Oil & Gas. Now this time, I was starting to figure out that yes I liked the problem-solving of engineering but not necessarily the day-to-day. I would drive in Houston traffic to a building and would be there for 9 Hours. Luckily, they had a flexible schedule that allowed you to work ten hours a day for four days - which allowed me to have every other Friday off. I figured that I was already doing 10 hours a day because the traffic was so bad. I would often wait an additional hour so my commute would be 45 min or less.

Now in 2022 with these gas prices, I pray for every commuter reading this because as of right now when you commute daily it is about to be the same as a flight just to get groceries. I pray that this blog or my business takes off so I can get a Tesla that runs off of electricity. If my boyfriend is reading this I pray that God touches your heart and your wallet mightily to see fit that I get this Tesla as well lol.

Let me get off this gas rant and my love/hate relationship with driving in Texas. I completed two summers with General Electric and I just knew that this wasn’t really the place for me for various reasons. I was praying that God would grant me another opportunity somewhere else.

I highlighted “Praying” because in my business that was the first Concept I wanted every entrepreneur or business professional to do. I wanted you to “Pray” for your business and your goals so that you could head to the holy spirit for discernment on the next steps. The entire business philosophy that I coined was the #PPCCMethod for Success. I will be diving into each of them as I break down my journey. We got the first “P” Down right… I need you to pray, Periodt.

While I was waiting in 2015, for my next internship I started getting these ideas of being The Pretty Plug. I finally crossed the Illustrious Zeta Gamma Chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Incorporated at the Prestigious Prairie View A&M University so your girl knew she was already Pretty, but she was really Pretty lol. I studied electrical engineering, have high energy, and in NSBE (National Society of Black Engineers) I helped everyone get jobs so I was indeed the PLUG. I was like let me start a blog called “Success With Stith”. I came to that conclusion because people in my hometown Pine Bluff, AR needed this information just as much as I did. The only way I knew to do this at scale was this thing called the internet and boy do I love the world of the internet lol. At the time I used Google Blogspot, I didn’t really know what the heck I was doing but I wanted people to be successful. I want to refer to this BLOG in my #PPCC Method for Success that I will explain later as “Content”. Right now every word that I’m typing is being defined as content for you to read and enjoy, by the way, have you been enjoying this series so far? Do let me know so I’m not out here thinking I’m talking to myself lol.

God then confirmed I was on the right track. I don’t even know if anyone read my blog. But God did…
Let me tell you he knows what to do to get my attention. Out of nowhere, I don’t even think I was being “CoNsIsTenT” with my blog before I received recognition for just trying.

Oh yea, and I was able by God’s grace to secure my THIRD internship with Goldman Sachs & Co. in New York City. I had to focus on money or what I call “Profit” in my #PPCC Method for Success to get to NYC. In business, we would call this money you receive after you exchange your goods or services. My boyfriend at the time decided he would help me fry chicken to get a profit. Fun fact, I have always had a love for chicken. I had my sweet 16 at Wingstop. I don’t believe anyone loves chicken more than me and if they do we will be on a Netflix show confessing, professing, and eating chicken together. By frying chicken, we raised a whopping $4211 in 20 Days on social media with the help of my community online and on campus. My final “C” in the beloved #PPCC Method for Success. You can’t be successful by yourself alone. You need other people, I don’t care how introverted you are.

If anyone from PVAMU, Pine Bluff or my community is reading this and you helped me or you sowed into me getting to NYC thank you. I pray that you have not seen your investment go to waste. I really plan on being a Successful human being and without NYC I would not have been able to get to where I am today. Because of NYC I now have a perspective of the world that people only dream about. It made me who I am today and I felt the most at home there, I just didn’t have a man, and the men there weren’t really into black women so I had to make some life choices. More on that later.

So the title of this blog is “Did My Success Business Theory Work”? I would like to say that it actually did. I was able to reach my very first milestone of locking down a Wall Street Internship from Pine Bluff, AR by Praying, focusing on Profit, Creating Content, and engaging with my community. I then duplicated this method for my business ideas like “Launch Your Gold Academy”, “The Walk By Faith Conference”, “The Walk By Faith Podcast” and now just coming back from a social media hiatus I’m working on a few things now. I truly believe that you can build anything in the twenty-first century with the #PPCCMethod for Success.

I wrote a blog on the actual business philosophy here. (True GOATs will read that medium article.)

I do plan to dive in later on how this led me to #WALKBYFAITH on social media while now reaching over 9,000 people on Instagram and probably more through my content. People often talk about success: How to get it, how to keep it, how to grow it, whatever the case may be but you never get to see the imperfections. You don’t get to see the struggle. You don’t get to see the pain. Although today I shared how the PrettyPlug got started. It came with pain, a lot of it actually.

Here’s a Little Bit of My Pain:

I failed a ton of exams in college.

I actually failed a class called Thermodynamics while pledging. That caused me to finish college in five years, not four as I originally hoped for.
There were tons of companies that told me no.
I didn’t finalize my third internship until almost March of 2015 while needing $4211 to stay somewhere for a summer without having the money upfront.
The guy that helped me get to NYC ultimately decided I was not the person he wanted to be with anymore while I was still there in NYC. That broke my heart.
I lost a lot of friends from Pine Bluff chasing my dreams one of which is my high school classmate Ariel. She really meant a lot to me and I hate that I didn’t maintain that friendship properly.

Overall, the #MyFaithFailedMe series is about the things you don’t see people talking about while they strive for their goals. I plan to keep it real over here. If you made it this far, please do leave me some indication that this helped you by liking, sharing, and subscribing. I’ll be back next Monday for another blog post.

Did My Success Business Theory Work? (Part 3 of the #MyFaithFailedMeSeries)