Entrepreneur Sherrina Akilah Mayasa

This week FB Diva Friday Chronicles welcomes Entrepreneur and Math Prodigy Sherrina Alikah Mayasa.

Chronicles:  Hello Sherrina, in this week of the celebration of the "Mathematical Constant" (Pi), how fitting is it that you're scheduled for this week's FB Diva Friday Chronicles interview.  Now do you prefer Sherrina or Akilah and please share a little bit about your background? 

Akilah:  S. Akilah or Akilah; Actually, Akilah is cleaner for me...I am an Energy Alignment Expert, a self-esteem and self-development coach, speaker, a certified Reiki Master Healer and Teacher, and instructional designer. I teach people how to love and connect with themselves and as a result, heal themselves physically, spiritually, and emotionally. Thereby allowing them to break through their personal barriers and find happiness. 


I love to travel and I am a voracious reader. I have a passion for helping people understand their worth and their value. I have developed many transformational programs for women and girls, and have worked with several initiatives for their holistic advancement. Including creating conference and retreat experiences, providing personal development workshops, presenting self-healing and meditation classes.Of all the things that I have accomplished, the thing that brings me the most joy is my amazing two year old daughter. She is literally me 2.0!  


Chronicles: It's not every day that we get to meet a math prodigy. Please tell us about this special gift and how it came to be recognized?

Akilah:  Like most of the children in my neighborhood on Chicago’s west side, I attended my neighborhood public school. Always considered to be ‘advanced’ by family members, because I walked and talked at an early age, and I could read and write by the time I was in kindergarten. My kindergarten teacher recommended me for testing, and discovered that I was gifted. I was bused to a gifted school where very few of the children looked like me or came from where I was from. Even though I love to read and I love languages (I was once fluent in Spanish and can still read and write it, studied Latin for 8 years, learned a little French, took 3 yrs of Swahili in college, and basic Japanese), numbers have always just kind of been ‘my thing’. Math is a language all in itself. It has its own letters and symbols to interpret and ascribe meaning. When teachers approach the math curriculum as a foreign language and teach it from the same perspective a Spanish teacher may teach a foreign language, students respond better.  Figuring out relationships between numbers has always been fascinating to me. Understanding math allows you to understand so many dimensions of how the world works. Once you understand mathematical patterns, you can apply that same mathematical logic and reasoning to human behavior. Math is also really cool because it teaches you how to be observant. It teaches patience and perseverance as well. You have to make mistakes in order to learn. It is something that you get better at by doing. It is the one subject that requires participation, you actually have to do the work to fully understand what’s going on.  

Chronicles:  Recently, you've come out of the classroom. What was teaching like for you and do you see yourself in the classroom again?


Akilah: I’ve been working with young people in virtually every capacity since 1994. I have been a Sunday School teacher, a Cheerleading Coach, a Summer Reading Instructor, an after school program counselor, a mentor, a tutor, a drama program instructor, an enrichment program facilitator, and I have designed and coordinated after-school programs, in-school pull out programs, Saturday school programs, church based youth programs, summer programs, community based programs, and self-esteem programs. If it involves working with youth, I’ve probably done it, in academic, religious, and social settings. After 15 years of working with young people of various ages (12 and 13 year olds are by far my favorite), nothing prepared me for what I would experience as a classroom teacher.  I have always had a passion for creating equitable learning experiences for urban minority children, and being a teacher allowed me to do that. In my work as a classroom teacher, I simply empowered my students to believe in themselves and in their capacity to learn. That energy shift was all they needed to begin to be successful. My students taught me so much year after year. Being a teacher was the greatest feeling for me. I love seeing so many of them doing well and pursuing their goals and dreams.The classroom however, can be a very limiting space. I feel like many teachers are being forced to teach robotically and are losing a lot of the autonomy that is necessary to be creative and facilitate student growth. I think stifling the creativity of teachers, directly effects the performance of students. I love teaching, but I feel like it is not the place where I can make the biggest impact. I see my role in the future being more of a consultant on social change within the schools, working with teachers, administrators, and students when applicable, to build the self-esteem of students. Being a mom makes me think about the educational experience that I want my daughter to have, and I just may have to create it.
 
Chronicles:  You're putting together a portfolio, what is in the works and where can readers go to support your efforts?

Akilah: Currently, I operate a boutique style firm, "Heart Work", which helps entrepreneurs and aspiring entrepreneurs heal their hearts in order to achieve astronomical financial success. Oftentimes, the road to becoming self-sufficient is rocky and filled with circumstances that can leave us broken. Most of the time there is a spiritual hold blocking the finances. People may know that they need to release bitterness, or anger, or fear, but don’t know exactly how to make that happen. Heart Work is about walking you through your emotional healing, using intuitive assessment tools, self-development coaching curriculum, and energy healing practices. Our upcoming projects include helping men recover from divorce, helping women heal from damaging friendships, and a suicide prevention curriculum that addresses the effects of bullying.   Learn more about Heart Work at www.AkilahMayasa.com   

I also operate a not-for-profit called the P.R.E.T.T.Y Ladies Project, which is a self-esteem and self-development program for minority girls ages 12 to 15. PRETTY teaches girls to be Proactive Responsible Educated Totally Together Young Ladies through performing arts, academic enrichment, social consciousness, fashion, self-awareness, and life skills. We will be accepting applications this summer for the fall session in Chicago, IL.    

Things to look out for:  May 2015: Heart Work, a book outlining the process of healing your heart and embracing your value     Fall 2015: College Transition Academy, which prepares college bound high school juniors and seniors for Math 101 and college placement exams.    Summer 2016: Summer Transition Academy, which prepares underperforming 8 grade girls both academically (math and reading) and socially for the rigors of high school. For more information about the PRETTY Ladies Project, go to www.prettyladiesproject.org, or to www.prettyladiesproject.weebly.com.  Connect with me on Facebook www.facebook.com\AkilahMayasa or email me at akilahm1@gmail.com


 Chronicles: As a close to this mini interview, explain in your own words what the two phrases “Divinely Inspired” and “Victoriously Ascending” mean to you? 

Akilah:

Divinely Inspired statement:    As long as you are connected and listening, you are divinely inspired. Everything thing that is inside of you, all of your dreams, and goals, and aspirations, are all in the seed that is the core of your being and your connection to God waters that seed. That’s why they call God the source. There is nothing that you have been allowed to conceive in your mind’s eye that is not possible for you. As divine beings (made in the image of the divine, filled with the spirit of the divine) we are created to be creators. I also think we have a responsibility to the collective consciousness to uplift one another, pouring our beauty out into the world. I am divinely inspired to give more than I am given, love more than I am loved, and inspire more than I am inspired. When you are moving with the flow of the divinity within, there is peace within. There is a surety, a calmness from within, where although you may be in the midst of chaos, there is an unexplained knowing from within that you are on the right path. Growing up my mother always said, “Your gifts will make room for you.” When you listen to the divine inspiration within, your talent makes a way for you.     

Victoriously Ascending statement:I believe that victoriously ascending is a state of constant motion. Ascending is a continuous climbing, but its more like flowing effortlessly higher and higher. As you ascend you are experiencing success just in the fact that you are still rising. No matter what has happened along the way, it may not have seemed like a victory at the time but it was a success in the fact that you are still rising and it did not destroy you. The perseverance is what makes you victorious. Staying on the path is what makes you successful. The thing to remember to keep you focused is that your story is not meant to break you or to test you, but to prepare you for the other things you will encounter on this journey and to propel you to greatness by allowing you to use your experiences to touch and connect to one another.

Chronicles:  I really like "perseverance is what makes you victorious. Staying on the path is what makes you successful." Those are certainly words of encouragement for anyone regardless of the situation. 

I'd like to thank Sherrina Akilah Mayasa for being this week's special guest here at FB Diva Friday Chronicles.  Be sure to stop by next week when we'll have another fantastic interview from a dynamic FB Diva. And remember, as always in parting:

Divinely Inspired; Victoriously Ascending...Diva!

Paul S. Jones FB Diva Chronicles (c) All Rights Reserved 2014-15