Ep.392 ~ The First African-American Woman to Found a Billion Dollar Company, The 39th Richest Self-Made Woman ~ Janice Bryant Howroyd

Janice Bryant Howroyd ~ Founder of ActOne Group

~ Current Series ~ 100 Interviews with 100 Major Influencers

 

I love incredibly successful people that still have the down-to-earth human touch. It is incredibly enjoyable to talk with them and understand why they are who they are.  Today’s guest is one of those people and yet so much more. Janice Bryant Howroyd is the founder The ActOne Group and she is the very first African-American female to found a billion dollar company, and yes you heard me right, a billion dollar company.  

What is even more impressive about Janice is that speaking with her was like talking with an old friend. She is incredibly relatable and really a caring and authentic human being.

During the interview I noticed this and really wanted to get behind her story and what made her the amazing individual and entrepreneur she is today. We chat about her upbringing as an African-American in a extremely racial environment with a family with 11 children. We chat about he life philosophy, her habits and what she vales. We chat about how she maintains personal relationships while running a billion dollar company, the challenges of being a female entrepreneur, how us humans like to operate in tribes and some of her favorite books she recommends even though she has a 6000+ book library.  

At the end of the podcast, we ask Janice about her philosophy on influence in today’s world and how she handles it responsibility.  

 

“Success is the progressive realization of a worthy ideal!” JBH

 

04:11: Who is Janice Bryant Howroyd?

08:22: Growing Up in a Harsh Environment w/ a Rich Family Culture

16:02: Janice’s Definition of Success

16:55: Maintaining Personal Relationships While Running a Business

25:55: Janice’s Advice for Entrepreneurs and the Sexes

29:05: Equality Opportunity Progress

33:30: Humans Operating in Tribes

35:55: Janice’s Recommended Books

43:45: Janice on Influence and the ‘If’ poem

 

If you can keep your head when all about you   

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,   

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too;   

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,

And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise: 

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;   

If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;   

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two impostors just the same;   

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn long after they are gone,   

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,   

Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,   

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,   

And—which is more—you’ll be a Man/Woman, my son/daughter!

 

Contact Info:

http://askjbh.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jbryanthowroyd/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/janicebryanthowroyd/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JaniceBryantHowroyd/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/jbryanthowroyd