In ninth grade, when Alicia was just 15 years old, she found herself homeless, sharing an air mattress with her mom in a relative’s roach-infested home , and yearning to end the financial scarcity she’d grown up in.
As Alicia shared with Babson Magazine, “We had nothing.”
But it wasn’t just material things that Alicia was lacking. She also felt like her life––or the life that was thrust upon her––was spiraling out of control.
“I couldn’t control where I was living. I couldn’t control my mom’s emotional state or mental health. I couldn’t control my parents divorce. Or my brother's decision to drop out of college,” Alicia shared during an interview with STEP. “I felt like everything was crumbling down around me. And that was on top of the regular stressors associated with high school.”
No one would have blamed Alicia for letting her situation weigh her down––for feeling anxious or depressed. But she decided she didn’t want that for herself. Instead, she grasped onto the three things she did have control of: her time, her energy, and her entrepreneurial spirit.
In order to “get out of the day-to-day craziness,” Alicia threw herself into building a business she started when she was just 12-years old.
“[Alicia’s Life Tips] was kind of always an innate thing. I was always really different from my peers. I loved organization. My backpack was always neatly packed. My class notes and homework were color coded with different pens. In middle school, I started to focus not only on physical organization––the way I set up the physical world around me––but also how I organized my time. I always knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur. So, I started Alicia’s Life Tips.”
What started as selling pencil boxes with stationery to her friends grew into a company with a purpose to help students learn time management and stress reduction schools. Alicia started blogging, hosting workshops in her community, selling customized planners, and conducting one-on-one mentoring and organizational consulting.
The instability of Alicia’s personal life continued to influence her choices, “Homelessness made me realize that I had to get out of the kind of financial scarcity situation that I was in... I want to get the most out of life, and I want to help others do the same.”
To do that, Alicia knew she couldn’t just build an impressive resume (she participated in a number of extracurricular activities, include Mock Trial Club, German Club, student council, and The Perspective, her school’s online newspaper), she also had to cultivate a personal lifestyle that could help sustain her future ambitions. So, she turned to yoga.
“It helped me tune into my emotional state. I realized that emotions come and go, so there’s no real reason to get too attached to them or identify with a singular emotion… It was amazing for me to be present in the moment; to focus only on my breath.” And then she started to meditate.
“Just being able to find space to be quiet and calm, whilst the world around spun into chaos, was just… I don’t know how to express it. It was the sweetest, most amazing escape. I was able to find myself.”
Just one year later, when Alicia was a sophomore, she saw a flier promoting the STEP College-Prep Program, and attending college started to feel like more of a possibility than a pipe dream.
“I had zero idea how to go to college. I just knew I needed to…”
Upon being accepted to the STEP program, Alicia not only found the college application help she needed––”Tracy and Eileen were always really great. I could go to them for anything; any stupid question that my parents didn’t know and nobody could help me figure out. I pretty much went from knowing nothing, to knowing pretty much everything I needed to…”––but also a community she didn’t know she needed.
“Meeting people who were like me––not the same, but from similar backgrounds––was incredible. I learned that everyone has their own stories of hardship and difficulties. And in the end, we’re never really alone.”
Fast forward two years, Alicia was accepted into Babson College on a full-ride, prestigious scholarship that’s only awarded to four or five students each year, and was ready to wrap up her high school experience by attending the STEP Expedition––where students spend multiple weeks in the wilderness of Alaska to cultivate self-confidence, leadership skills and personal responsibility.
For Alicia, the Expedition was “life-changing”.
“When it was over, I felt like, ‘All right, if I could survive two weeks in Alaska, I can do anything and navigate my way through any unfamiliar situation. I’ve got this.’ It gave me the confidence I needed for college and beyond.”
So, what else is Alicia up to now?
From a college perspective, Alicia plans to graduate from Babson College in 2023 with a concentration in entrepreneurship and strategic management.
Alicia’s Life Tips––albeit mostly just a passion project now–– turns ten years old in 2023, and is still going strong. But it’s changed. Throughout the pandemic, Alicia pivoted the company’s focus to help visionary entrepreneurs and startup companies implement organizational systems or individual projects on a consulting basis. This work led to a six figure job offer during the pandemic: one that would require her to drop out of college and work full-time.
But Alicia said, “I’m sorry, I’ve got to go back,” because earning a college degree was more important to her than taking any single job offer.
Through it all––the family turmoil, the homelessness, the self-exploration, and the courage to STEP outside her comfort zone (if you will)––Alicia became wise to some things that take others a lifetime to realize.
“Being homeless gave me humility and a first-hand understanding of what it’s like to have so little. Now as I continue to create a more stable life for myself and my loved ones, I don't take anything for granted. I'm extremely grateful for all I've been given and earned. It’s motivated me to make sure I never put myself or my family in that kind of dire situation, ever again.”
To learn more about Alicia and her work, visit www.aliciaslifetips.com.