Engaging Young Leaders in 2021 and Beyond
Interview with Dr. Eve Hudson, Founder of Evingerlean Worldwide and Host of The First-Gen Lounge
Finding success as a First Generation College Student and Business Owner
First Gen Lounge Podcast Host Eve Hudson, PHD
In this interview, we discuss:
How to engage young people to actively participate in personal and professional development
And what's next for The First-Gen Lounge and a new program especially made for first-generation college graduates who are business owners.
How Covid-19 is impacting Higher Education
Before I introduce you all to Dr. Evingerlean D. B. Hudson, I have to say that I knew this lady when we were both in high school at Harding University High School in Charlotte NC and even there, she was a force to be reckoned with and definitely an inspiring figure I always looked up to. I am so honored to be sharing her growth journey with the Amplify audience. There are a few things you must know about Dr. Eve: 1) everything she built for her audience was in direct response to who she needed to see on her journey and 2) she is one of the kindest most relatable people I have ever interviewed.
Storytelling Start
Dr. Eve got her start in storytelling and decided to create The First-Gen Lounge and became a recognizable speaker, mostly speaking on stages about being a first-generation college student and graduate after completing her Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in Higher Education/Administration from The University of Southern Mississippi in 2015, Dr. Eve realized that though this was her dream job, she could tell she was not in space where she felt things were going well. She felt as though it was because she was the first to have this experience. This was a new environment for her and not something she had seen before or had the background context to relate with. Earning her degree was life altering, and through that experience of being the first in her family, she began to develop her story and created content around what go her through those moments where she had to sort of figure things out on her own.
Dr. Eve took a personal sabbatical from her Higher Ed role to reflect and think. During this time, she tried out motivational speaking. This resonated with her and figured it resonated with others. She wanted to test out the theory that what she was experiencing was something that others were also experiencing.
Everything she built was about being who she needed to see on her journey.
Who did she need? She offered that to her audience.
For Dr. Eve, there was never a thought of jumping into entrepreneurship at any level. None of it made sense to her, to begin with, and she never thought she was going to get into consulting. But in May of this year, she will celebrate 5 years of full time entrepreneurship!
Dr. Eve says her business took a big hit prior to Covid; when challenges hit that caused her to rebuild and rebrand. In spite of the pandemic, her business is thriving. It's bittersweet and most days, she reflects: “what we are going through globally, is actually the spiritual shift that the world needed. It took something like this for the air in California to clear up”.
We're at home and connecting with people. If not for the pandemic, we would not have had the extra push to make changes in the political system. We know the negativity is there but there is lots of opportunity.
Listen to the Podcast >>> https://www.evehudsonphd.com/lounge
More than 150 sessions of the podcast have been released and are nearing 100k downloads. The podcast really took off after she started to get requests to talk about first-generation achievements. Now, Dr. Eve is launching a membership-based accelerator program where she will be helping first-generation college graduates to start and grow their businesses.
Helping the next generation of entrepreneurs
An undergraduate at Shaw University, she marks that being a Black first-generation college student became an important spotlight. She thought she could only help first-gens in education, but now she sees an opportunity to help first-generation business owners obtain the tools they need to make entrepreneurship work. The first time she made 5 figures in a week in her business, she knew she had figured it out. What she was experiencing was all becoming very evident and started to overcome that first-gen imposter syndrome.
She felt worthy and sought-after but she was working in spaces that were not ideal. On the other side, being a business owner was very affirming for her; and she says, “Finding success as a first-generation business owner is even more affirming when you don't have parents that are quick to invest. The business has given me joy, growth, and freedom” For those that may want to go down an unbeaten path for a greater gain, thanks to Dr. Eve, there will be clues along the way. See The Trailblazer Society
How is Covid impacting higher education?
“I currently teach in a graduate program. For most first-gen students, however, it's a different atmosphere and from a first-gen perspective, they don't have computers and internet at home and they have family commitments. There are some students who live in abusive situations and some students are homeless. Higher ed is trying to figure out how to protect students and protect themselves. We are now seeing the true challenge of inequality in higher education”.
Perhaps Dr. Eve will build the tools she needs to overcome the strains of this new normal so that her students and online audience can learn from it themselves. For those on a journey as “the first”, there will be footsteps to follow along the way.
Listen to the First Gen Lounge Podcast here: https://www.evehudsonphd.com/lounge/