We had the good fortune of connecting with SHANEE WILSON and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi SHANEE, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
The thought process behind starting my own business was simple, I knew I desired more in life than a job could offer me. My entire life I was taught to go to school, get good grades, graduate from college and get a good paying job because that is what the American Dream looks like for many. I bought into this dream and truly believed that finding the “dream job” would make me happy, especially once the money aligned with my effort. Long behold, I finally got to that place in life where I had an amazing job, a well respected position working for a black female CEO finally feeling what six figures felt like for the first time and in life and that is when I realized that the dream job and money was not what the world hyped it up to be. While I had exactly what I wanted in life, I knew that life was more significant for me than sitting behind a computer all day. I knew that my voice was louder than my role. I knew that I desired the freedom to live day to day life as I please vs. get told what to do daily. I had a feeling that my life was more than what my role was so I took a leap of faith and started the journey to finding myself.

What should our readers know about your business?
My business Fighting & Fabulous is my baby. It’s truly my passion project that helped me through some of the darkest days in my life. While fighting stage four cancer during the battle for my life, Fighting & Fabulous was born to help other cancer fighters make it through their hardest days. This business was born during a time of confusion, pain, wavering faith and many challenges and finding purpose within it helped me to continue to find purpose within my fight. Starting this business was emotionally challenging because the struggles hit too close to home so this company took a while to begin because I had to personally go through cancer, get past cancer and then attempt to mentally work past the post traumatic stress that came along with this fight. This business took everything that I had within me to start but I did so knowing that my cancer community needed our journey boxes to help them through their darkest days. I learned many lessons along the way from a professional stand point that brought about many growing pains however what I learned from a personal level was so much more significant to my life’s journey. This process has truly reminded me that everyone has a purpose and when the purpose has been found, you must fight with all that you have to see the purpose through. It may be hard, you may want to give up but there is someone in this world depending solely on you to simply live in your purpose.

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?
We are going EVERYWHERE!

Monday: Wineries & Things
Tuesday: Lets be tourists! – tourist attractions
Wednesday: Disneyland (of course)
Thursday: Foodies for life (hop around town tasting the faves)
Friday: Funday (go carts, helicopter ride)
Saturday: Spa Day (its time to chill)
Sunday: Sunday rest after church of course

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
I’d like to thank my parents for planting all of the proper seeds within me to make me who I am today. My parents taught me how to be humble, the value of unconditional love and my key motto in life, which is that you cannot beat effort and that statement within itself taught me the best work ethic I could have ever asked for. While I used to see our families disadvantages and financial hardships as a burden in life, I soon realized the foundation of drive that my exact upbringing has led me to. While life was not always exactly what I wanted, I discovered over time that my life was everything that I needed.

Website: www.fightingandfabulous.com

Instagram: @fightingandfabulous

Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/fightingandfabulous/photos/a.113589257022823/126970822351333/?type=3&_rdr

Image Credits
Michelle Dudley Photography Karissa Breann Photography

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