Today we’d like to introduce you to Sandy Grigsby.
Sandy, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I was born in Switzerland to a Swiss mother and a Black American father. We relocated to California when I was one year old, where I grew up.
My mother was a traditional Swiss woman, she cooked, cleaned, worked, and was very submissive to her husband. My father was retired from the Air Force, worked in technology as an engineer, and was incredibly intelligent yet unbelievably strict.
Growing up, he controlled much of what I did, the extracurricular the activities I participated in, who my friends were, what I watched. Life was so controlled that by the time I was 16, I searched for an escape. I ended up winning a scholarship to study a year abroad in Germany, an escape from my life only permitted by the exclusivity of what I had accomplished winning the prestigious scholarship.
That’s when I finally experienced freedom. Life was incredible and I dreaded returning home to the totalitarian environment. Upon return home, my dad was even more domineering, so I planned another escape and was accepted into another program to study abroad in Argentina.
Again I felt free, and there I studied art, language, and television broadcasting, rather than international relations and economics as demanded by my father.
Once my time in Argentina ended, I went back home and felt an even greater wrath of my controlling father, he meddled in my dating life labeling me as “the weird girl with the mean dad.” I was miserable so again, I fled my home in search of a life of freedom.
Then after graduating from University, my father developed pancreatic cancer and died. I was distraught, not because he was gone, but because before he died he had apologized for being so harsh and controlling of me. I mourned the father I could have had and I did nothing to repair my pain.
This lead to a plethora of bad relationships where I was controlled, taken advantage of, and demoralized by others. Bosses sexually assaulted me, boyfriends took advantage of me both financially and physically. I was even in situations where women tried to sexually assault, financially destroy, or physically harm me.
I found myself revisiting these difficult relationships over and over again, and I felt like I was in a never ending wheelhouse of drama, misery, and loneliness. My confidence was low, I had no dreams of any future, and I felt so far behind my friends and others that I wallowed in sadness and what was wrong with me.
It wasn’t until decades later when I realized that it wasn’t the world happening to me, rather I was the problem and I had to fix myself. For so long, I had felt like I was doing everything for everyone else, always putting them first, always going above and beyond and receiving nothing in return. That’s when I started focusing on me. I spent over one hundred thousand dollars on self-help programs, coaches, gurus, books, mentoring, shaman, spiritual healers, and access to the right people to “fix” me.
The problem was, I focused on what was wrong with me and how to fix it when the reality was I was wonderful all along and never needed to be “fixed”. I had overlooked my own awesomeness because of my obsession with being better and loved by others.
The only thing I needed to do was love myself first. That’s when Confidence Jam was born and my life changed forever.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
The road was far from smooth. When I was only 19, I had three bosses in a row sexually assault and harass me on the job. One grabbed my face and slammed me against a wall while he groped me and stuck his tongue down my throat. Another would straddle me at work, pinning me to my desk while sliding his hand up and down my arm. When I complained to the COO of this boss she told me she would “talk” to him, then she told me I might just need to try the “other” team, being her.
All of the interactions I had with others who dominated, harassed, and controlled me, it beat on my confidence more and more until I was weak, meek, and unable to say no or stand up for myself. I found myself escaping situations and avoiding any and all conflict while simultaneously blaming myself for everything that had happened to me in my life.
By the time I was in my mid-thirties, the thing I questioned most was “What is wrong with me that I’m so far behind everyone else?” I wasn’t married, I had no kids, I wasn’t hugely successful, I didn’t own property or have the things I wanted in life. I felt like I was hanging on by a thread and just barely making ends meet. I was living in the negative and feeling lonely and in despair.
We’d love to hear more about your business.
During all the struggles and feeling of less than, I had managed to break away from working for others who sexually harassed me. As a University trained graphic designer, I started my own design company in 2005 and named it Briofive. There I built websites, created logos, and designed packaging for small businesses. Eventually, I transitioned into photography because I was tired of building beautiful websites for my clients only to receive a terrible image of them for the about section that didn’t match the quality of my work.
I used my former experience as a model and actor to help guide them in front of the camera. Then I used my incredible retouching skills to make their images pop and show the beauty I saw in them.
After photographing people more and more, I realized my photography had its own style, my clients always looked fresh, natural, and most importantly, confident. Over time I had developed a way to really get to know my clients and bring out their authentic selves.
In 2018, I did a TEDx Talk titled ‘Photographs Of The Invisible’ where I discussed how we don’t even see our own magic inside, the thing that lights us up and makes us beautiful. https://youtu.be/LUv0IpTSQfw
While working with my incredible clients, all of whom were kind, brilliant, fascinating, successful people. I realized the majority of them all had one thing in common, they didn’t see how beautiful and incredible they actually were.
At this time, I had begun doing some serious self-development work, and over time I realized that I, like my clients, hadn’t seen my own beauty or what was truly incredible about me. Once I discovered it, I began creating my program Confidence Jam to really help others battling with the same confidence and self-love issues I had.
Confidence Jam bloomed into Personal Branding Mentoring an online video program combined with group coaching. Through this, I help people fully own their confidence, how they want to show up in the world, and how they visually represent themselves.
My clients now fully own their confidence, power and have a stylish and powerful look or their personal brand that boosts their confidence and sets them apart from others.
Today, even during this pandemic, I speak on stages all over the world discussing personal branding and how to be a more confident and powerful you!
What were you like growing up?
Growing up, I was fascinated with flowers, plants, animals, crystals, and dresses. My mom teased me for years about how I would only wear a dress until I was about eight. If she even tried to put me in pants, I would throw a fit and kick and scream until she put me back in a dress. I even had matching dresses for my dolls, and I would obsess over little girls at school who would have fancier dresses than I had. According to my mom, the only thing that switched me to pants was being cold while waiting for the school bus. I was happy then and loved my mom and dad, life was great until I turned five.
My dad was great to me until the birth of my brother. That same year my family had moved to a more expensive home, finances were tight, and my dad was facing discrimination issues in the workplace which began to take a toll on him as the years progressed. Eventually, he took his anger and frustration out on my brother and myself.
At school, I never felt like I fit in. There were few black children and although I was only 1/2 the kids made fun of my frizzy hair, braces in the 5th grade (no one else had them that early). My dad made me take up the trumpet (I was the only girl), and instead of cheerleading or soccer I was forced to take up karate, a sport I was made fun of for because everyone said it wasn’t a real sport. I hated elementary through high school and I lived each day with hopes that my parents would divorce or that I could move to another school.
I floated from clique to clique, even hung with kids in different grades. I never had my own group and when I did, they would outcast me because they said I acted better than them always trying to fix their hair or the way they dressed. What I didn’t know then was that I just saw the best in them and tried to make it a reality. Funny that is exactly what I do now in my job!
Our home became a ticking time bomb, my mother, brother and myself felt as if we were constantly walking on eggshells. Anything could set my dad off. Yelling progressed to spanking, which escalated to choking, and other physical punishments. I became less interested in animals and plants and more interested in escaping my home life. By 16, I had applied to multiple programs to escape to a foreign country. God blessed me with a full-ride scholarship to Germany.
In the end, I made that happen on my own.
Pricing:
- Confidence Jam online program is $297
- Personal Branding Mentoring starts at $997
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.sandyinfocus.com
- Email: sandyinfocus@briofive.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sandyinfocus
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sandyinfocus
- Other: https://briofive.com
Image Credit:
Briofive
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