Dvance p raise for minding Their Own Business

particular project.” This, Nadine disclosed, was going to be a monthly 
presentation. She said that “It may go quicker than that but a month 
will give me enough time to make sure each segment of this is well 
rehearsed, well presented and researched so that once it hits the read-
ers and listeners and so on, it stays in their mind and becomes part of 
an archive, part of a story down the road so everybody can refer to the 
previous episode or piece of it.”
Another book was also on her mind since she wanted to reach the 
same level of production that another colleague had already achieved 
with her seven books published. The book that was percolating in 
Nadine’s mind would demand that she “sit down and come up with 
the characters for my plot.” It would take time and planning since “this 
is going to be quasi-fictional [and] a year from now I would like to see 
that manuscript on its way” so that she could share it with her audi-
ence. As she leans toward theatrical productions, she is also dreaming 

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about pulling together a team of people who can support her work. She 
stated that a Caribbean author who she has admired for many years, 
and has referred to in her writing, is one of the people who she plans to 
enlist as an illustrator for an upcoming book.
To take Personal Publisher to the next level of success, Nadine 
imagines that “in order for [the company] to be what I envision it to 
be, it has to continually change. I cannot be doing the same thing since 
I started simply because life’s not like that. You cannot be the same 
person you were last year.” Stagnation is not part of the plan for the 
company or for Nadine’s life. She understands that she needs “new 
color. I need ideas. I need new. I need to be in the front of the line rather 
than the back of the line.” She wants to ensure that “when I’ve done it, 
then others can do it.” With this in mind she is committed to “pushing 
the envelope … finding my strengths and the more I meet people and 
they react to me and I see what it is they’re reacting to, then I real-
ize what my path should be.” Nadine is convinced that her work will 
always revolve around the goal that is influenced by her one desire for 
her publications. She expressed her goal in this way: “I want people 
to react with ‘Oh, yea! That’s what that was about. This is the way it 
should have been done. This is the truth of it. This is what’s behind the 
scenes. This is the other side of the coin.’”
As far as projecting into the future and what it might hold for his 
mother, Samuel said that he was simply guessing that Nadine would 
be successful. Describing her as “one of those creative types” he hoped 
that “Hollywood gives us a call and you know, things go in that direc-
tion.” He could make this image of success since he had witnessed his 
mother’s organizing ability and the fans she attracted to a sold-out pre-
sentation at a restaurant in a country where she didn’t even live. He 
left the event feeling that the evening was “rather impressive” from an 
artist’s point of view and as an audience member. Samuel said that his 
mother lived “hundreds of miles away from any of these people and 
manage[d] to get them collected into a city that isn’t even her home 
city where she’s pushing this media from.” The fact that his mother 
“adapted to using social networks as a method of branding for her-
self” allowed him to learn a lesson about following through on a plan. 

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This, to the author’s son, was a sign of even bigger things to expect for 
Nadine and her publishing career.
Denise, the publisher’s editor, believes that the next novel from 
Nadine should lead to “her expanding her marketing efforts and sort 
of reaching out through a blog.” She even recommends that Nadine 
start using “some digital advertising” in order to expand the market 
for her work. It was remarkable to her that Nadine “relies on her own 
(internet) profile to generate that buzz which is again a different way of 
using social media” and that the author encourages people who have 
read the book “to leave reviews or comments about it” and that feed-
back leads to “pushing the book” on other sites. Denise is “excited for 
the third [book]” which Nadine is “supposed to start maybe at the end 
of this year or the beginning of next year.”
Jona, the young entrepreneur who has come under Nadine’s wings, 
feels “humble that I have gotten to work with a person of her nature” 
and predicts that his mentor will be like a “hummingbird” and that she 
will go “where the wind takes her.” He also states that it is not Nadine’s 
nature to go after material success, and this is why he is “proud to work 
with her.” The young artist honestly believes that “because she doesn’t 
keep her eye on things in a level of … materialism, that I think she’ll 
exceed past her expectations because of that.”

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Chapter 6
Fona’s Community Book Club
I am at that time where I know I am in my last three to five years in my own 
business. But it will always be mine, I can walk away, and it will always, still 
be mine. I don’t have to be there and it will always be mine. It’s nice that you 
can accomplish that before you are fifty. (Fona, 2005)
One of the strongest characteristics that Fona’s two close associates 
described in their account of this business leader was her ability to be 
direct with others. Her friend, Alyssa the teacher, said that if a stranger 
walked into a room and had to find Fona on their own, they should 
look for someone who was “up front” and got “straight to the point” 
when she addressed others. Besides the fact that Alyssa found Fona 
“quiet” she knew that if someone approached her they would find that 
her friend had “no airs.” Frank, a former employee at Fona’s book-
shop, talked about the fact that “her ability to analyze situations” 
made his employer able to “communicate with anybody up the spec-
trum or down the spectrum” and her excellent facility with relation-
ships. According to Frank, this talent with interpersonal relations was 

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supported by Fona’s ability to choose the right place and time to make 
decisions about how she should adjust her attitude to situations.
Both Alyssa and Frank once worked with Fona and her husband, 
Marcus, at their bookstore. Each of them pointed out the high regard 
with which Marcus held Fona, and Alyssa described a time when 
Marcus made a comment about some guy “trying to pick up his wife.” 
Fona’s husband stated that “that is what happens when you are a beau-
tiful woman!” Alyssa was amazed that Marcus could so openly share 
his appreciation for his wife and disclosed that she “hadn’t heard too 
many men” speak like that about their spouse. She also recalled that 
Marcus would usually be found “running the bookstore, taking care of 
customers” while Fona would be in the back room dealing with book 
orders. The bookseller had to pack boxes with books and get them 
ready to be picked up for mailing. It was clear to everyone who worked 
at the store, according to Alyssa, that Fona was good at those tasks and 
that the husband and wife had mutual respect for each other. Frank 
expressed enthusiasm for his former employees when he summed up 
his opinion of Fona’s contribution to his development as an individual. 
He stated that “she began to teach me the real world and how to read 
between the lines. How to critically analyze things. The lessons that
I began to learn became priceless.”
A long-time friend, and sometime employee, of Fona’s spoke 
about her caring and resourceful character. Andy, a visual artist, has 
always appreciated the way in which Fona and her husband helped 
him to do research on topics that he wanted to represent in his art. 
An owner of one of the largest galleries in a southern state, and a 
former corporate employee, Andy felt that Fona was able to think 
outside the box about marketing the bookstore and building the site 
as a “community center” that provided activities like book launches, 
gallery exhibits for local artists, awards dinners for community work-
ers, and even writing workshops that included famous people like 
Walter Mosley. Andy described Fona’s role at the bookshop, among 
other hats that she wore, as “always thinking of new things or dif-
ferent things that they could do” in order to “keep the whole thing 
going” as a profitable venture.

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The Early Years
Born and raised in Trinidad until she was seventeen years old, Fona 
came to the USA with her mother and two siblings and started uni-
versity. She went on to work at a department store for many years and 
eventually moved on to employment at a bank. The university grad-
uate was fortunate to be picked out of several employees to attend a 
training program for managers. As Fona remembered that time in her 
life, she described the context in which she learned the lessons about 
management that she took into her own business later on. The business 
leader pointed out that since she “was the only Black female, it was 
important for me to be in the top seven in the class. That means that you 
have to have your Master’s, so therefore they paid and sent me to do 
my Master’s [degree].” Earning and keeping her place in the business 
class was considered a great achievement back in the 1980s when she 
was involved in the banking business. This training was the road that 
took her to Wall Street where she learned a lot, was exposed to some 
very powerful people, and started to learn about herself as an analyti-
cal person. While she enjoyed the journey as a financial worker, deter-
mined to help support her mother and two siblings, there came a time 
when she decided that the kind of investments that she was involved 
in making every day was not making her happy. She explained that “I 
just got up one day and just realized that what I was doing was hurting 
more people than you could ever imagine.” This fact led her to the next 
step in her life. She was convinced that “once you come to that conclu-
sion … once you have come [to] your own understanding [that] you 
are doing something wrong, you’d be a fool to keep doing it. So I just 
walked away. Made VP and walked away.”
The Philosopher’s Stone
Fona was told by her father, at a very young age, “The minute that 
you get too contented and don’t want to do it anymore, it’s time to 
walk away, as opposed to being unhappy having to do it still.” This 
was the thinking that led her to leave her job on Wall Street when she 

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realized that she didn’t “want to go to work.” A decade after she began 
her own business, she is proud to say that she is at “the point whereby 
I have done myself such a great service, in the fact that I have served 
somebody else’s best interest” by owning and operating the store. She 
was certain that she had “in the last ten years” served her best interest 
and that she was now happy to be “looking at the end of my journey” 
in this role as entrepreneur and servant leader. Her main focus was on 
“training people” to become the kind of businesswoman that she had 
evolved into over her years from her days in banking and then buying 
and selling books.
Alyssa, the teacher who worked at the bookstore for many years, 
was a recipient of the training that Fona wanted to share with others. 
She believed that Fona and her husband showed her how to believe in 
herself. Alyssa described how she learned to project the attitude that 
said “Take me as I am. There is no need for me to conform to this group 
or that group, wear my hair this way or that way. Where ever I am com-
fortable is okay.” Working in the bookstore, “reading the books that 
they have suggested actually opened my eyes to a lot of things,” Alyssa 
explained. She also extrapolated on the point by stating that coming to 
understand “the African-American struggle with different aspects [led 
her to see a new perspective]. Not a ‘woe is me’ approach but ‘handle 
your situation’.” Fona and her husband, Marcus, were also instrumen-
tal in supporting Alyssa’s interest in helping the African-American 
community through the resources that they made available at their 
bookstore.
The business approach that Fona and Marcus wanted to instill in 
other workers was based on three principles that Fona explained in a 
user-friendly language. She described three important foundations on 
which to establish a business:
… credibility really equal credit. Which means somebody has something that 
you need to buy in order to sell. That is what business is really about …. It’s 
trade. If you can convince that person to give it to you on credit and you are 
going to pay them in forty-five days, that is credit …. So if you can give them 
your word and keep it, you really don’t need the money to buy the merchan-
dise that you are trying to trade. That is the second aspect of it. The third 
aspect of it, which is the most important one, is being able to keep records … 

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in such a fashion that it is easy for you to know whether you are [a] succeed-
ing or failing business … all the other stuff is the little peripheral stuff.
The “stuff” that Fona included in this list could be described as a 
marketing plan, which she said was “something that evolves in busi-
ness.” The overall strategy would include “the things that you put in 
this famous business plan,” and the things that “drive” the business, 
instead of having money. Fona insisted that “if you have credibility and 
you have the blood, sweat and tears, that’s money. That’s how we got 
started. My husband had all the credibility in the world!”
Fona and Marcus “provided [goods for] a community that was 
underserved” since they found that they “had always been under-
served in this environment.” The business couple served the commu-
nity “by providing literature and information to African-Americans” 
and reported that they found it “easy” to do. By aiding people who 
needed these resources the couple knew that there was “always going 
to be great demand” since the goods “are the little things that every-
body wants.” Fona explained that “if you are great with customer ser-
vice, it is easy to keep those people, once they come to you.” The next