Monique Rodriguez—who has needed to embrace turning ache into goal and the sweetness in turning into—now needs to assist others discover the glory of their tales.
On Tuesday, April 15, the Mielle Organics founder made her debut as an creator with the discharge of “The Glory in Your Story: Activating a Fearless Religion to Change Your Life, Your Profession, and the World.” The e book, which is a component memoir and half self-help, chronicles her life, profession, journey with religion, and the way she’s turned tragedy into a sworn statement and continues to search out the sweetness in her personal story.
“I believe when folks have a look at me, and so they have a look at the story, it appears to be like like an in a single day success,” Rodriguez instructed theGrio throughout an interview forward of the e book’s launch. “You see the glory, however you don’t know the story.”
“It was a number of onerous work, a number of sweat and tears, a number of religion, a number of damage, a number of ache. And that’s why I say, like, don’t ever, you realize, be jealous of another person’s story since you in all probability wouldn’t have needed to undergo what they went by way of to get to the place they’re right now,” she stated.
Rodriguez based the now iconic haircare model Mielle Organics in 2014, rising the enterprise to such heights that it culminated in a historic acquisition by Procter & Gamble in 2023. Nonetheless, your complete model happened after she embraced a pivot from nursing and remodeled a ardour challenge developed to deal with private tragedy right into a goal. In her e book, the spouse and mom of two takes readers again to the fateful evening in 2013 when she unexpectedly misplaced her child son at eight months pregnant.
Her story, arriving in the course of Black Maternal Well being Week, stands as one other instance of a lady residing on the opposite facet of a tragic and, sadly, widespread expertise for Black girls.
“As a Black girl, the fact of race-based maternal well being disparities is private and heartbreaking,” she writes in her e book. “Too many people aren’t heard after we communicate up about ache or problems throughout being pregnant, or we’re dismissed by healthcare professionals who overlook our voices and considerations due to biases and stereotypes supported by their textbooks. This erasure prices lives — each of moms and infants.”
Whereas talking to theGrio, Rodriguez, who now lives in South Florida together with her husband and two daughters, stated, “The Glory in Your Story” brings readers in shut. From the tragic passing of her son that propelled her to launch Mielle Organics to rising up in Chicago and falling in love together with her childhood sweetheart to being the daughter of a father who struggled with dependency, readers are let in on all of it. Sure, she even addresses the controversy her model has confronted. She stated writing the e book was “cathartic.”
“It was like a remedy for me as a result of I instructed tales that I’ve by no means talked about earlier than, tales that my husband didn’t even know,” she famous.
Her perfect reader is anybody who needs to really feel empowered to take the following step in realizing their desires.
“Somebody that’s looking for hope, somebody that’s looking for knowledge,” she stated, including that it’s for individuals who wish to “take their dream, their imaginative and prescient, their thought, out of their head, and truly carry that concept to fruition.”
Her e book can also be for these trying to find a “deeper understanding and connection” of their relationship with God.
“You have got the religion sector, however you even have the enterprise entrepreneurial sector,” she defined.
Her e book can also be for her youthful self. “The Glory in Your Story” kicks off with Rodriguez addressing her youthful self in a heat and alluring method. She stated she began there as a result of, in a way, her e book is recommendation for that youthful self.
“We at all times look again, and we glance over our life and we predict again to some recommendation that you’d give somebody [who] was you 20 years in the past,” she stated.
“Should you’re studying this and also you’re 20 years previous, or, you realize, in case you’re 15 years previous, that is what I’d have instructed myself,” she continued. “So I believe that beginning there, the e book is all about serving to folks additionally be taught from my errors and recommendation that I want I’d have identified after I was youthful.”
Ever the entrepreneur, Rodriguez is trying ahead to seeing the place this e book takes her, whether or not that’s one other e book challenge, a film, or perhaps a sequence. By telling her story and serving to others establish the glory in their very own, “The e book was the primary milestone,” she stated.
