We had the good fortune of connecting with Alvin Lee Sealy and we’ve shared our conversation below.
Hi Alvin Lee, what habits do you feel helped you succeed?
My success thus far has definitely required some habits, a couple of those habits are meta-thinking, which is monitoring my thoughts independent of the thoughts themselves; our thoughts have direct influence on our emotions, so getting ahead of possible emotional reactions makes for more rational decisions. Another habit is meditating everyday. Meditation helps me from an intuitive place in analyzing & moving strategically, not to mention an overall increase in my calmness. One more habit I enacted was, engaging in self help material everyday, creating the habit of studying successful habits only makes sense for business.
Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
I am most proud of my dedication & focus on my growth in mind, body & soul; my ability to persevere because of my circumstances vs using the excuse that my circumstances hindered me from persevering was like my theme for the last 10 years. My experience in business is definitely not the traditional route where I had a passion for business and I went to college for it, I’m actually an Automotive Technician by trade, but a car accident threw me off course with my goal at that time, which was to own my own shop, the story gets pretty deep, but I’m going to give the short version for now. I knew I wanted to own my own business but it was really only from the aspect of being my own boss, I honestly never really liked being bossed around. My real business experience began in about Feb. 2009, I met a couple guys who wanted to make some “noise” in the finance industry; we wanted to start a minority owned & focused bank along with a couple other moving arms, something like what Greenwood is doing; we wanted to be an influential force in financial literacy. Whilst pursuing that goal, we created a holdings company to oversee companies we wanted to acquire in different areas of the market, through the Mergers & Acquisitions Route, we acquired our first set of companies in 2012, an advertising newspaper and a delivery service in Antioch, IL. And that’s where I really learned how to run and operate a business. We acquired a couple other companies after that, but unfortunately the “ship” ended up sinking in 2016, and I lost everything, had to start over, and reinvent myself, which led me to my current plant-based food passion journey with a side of serial entrepreneur. Would I say my path has been easy, hell no! But there were moments & phases where the gravy train was running. Overcoming my challenges came into play when I began to question everything; in 2012 I also began a path of enlightenment intertwined with a fascination with highly successful people, some other aspects of my life that were changing as well that led me to stop drinking alcohol, and also become plant-based which the two don’t really have anything to do with each other on a surface level. Nonetheless, my pursuit in becoming my greatest version is what ultimately gave me the power to overcome the challenges. The lessons along the way are way too many to list here but some of the most important ones to me are, creating a mindset of continuous victory even it appears to be a “loss”. There will always be potholes in the road but when there’s no doubt in getting to the destination, you’ll always get there. Lesson # 2 is, keep track of every penny by learning basic accounting practices. Lesson # 3, a significant increase in money will bring out some sides of you that have the ability to take control, so be extremely mindful of the associated behavior. And lesson # 4, be humble. My brand and story can be used a flash light to navigate through the darkness some of us seek to crawl out of. Not all of us are meant to lead but we can all lead by example by doing what works vs what doesn’t work for ourselves and humanity. I seek to help those by being the example I wish to see in the world; give a helping hand because you never know when you’ll need help.
Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
If we’re speaking of LA, I’ve only been once despite owning a couple companies there. But, while I was there, I stayed by the Clippers arena, just that area alone was pretty lit with how live it was. Now if we’re talking about where I’m from on the east coast and hypothetically, my best friend wasn’t from there, I’d probably take them on an adrenaline filled adventure, like go carting, in-door skydiving, rollerskating, or something to get the body moving, but I also like people watching and being around music, especially live music; one of my favorite areas in DC is the waterfront in Georgetown.
Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
If I could, I would mention every person who had any influence along the way of my success, but as of most recently, there have been a couple individuals & entities that have been a major influence in my life, such as Jennifer Underwood, Michelle Synegal, Alex Escudero/Centers for Spiritual Living DC,
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