In May, Herd Strategies is celebrating National Small Business Month by highlighting small business owners who exemplify the #entrepreneurialspirit. This week, we interviewed the always-inspiring Joslyn Kelly, founder and owner of J’s Breakfast Club in Gary, Indiana. Recently named the Northwest Indiana Small Business Development Center’s 2023 Community Impact Small Business of the Year, her restaurant serves as a gathering place that is revitalizing her community. Joslyn is also the founder of the This is Gary Foundation and The Love for Jalyn, Inc.

In May, Herd Strategies is celebrating National Small Business Month by highlighting small business owners who exemplify the #entrepreneurialspirit. This week, we had the privilege of interviewing Travis Brown, founder and CEO of Mojo Up Marketing + Media. He leads a Black-owned and minority-operated full-service brand marketing agency that works with other business owners to help them share their stories. As a highly sought-after brand marketing strategist and speaker, Travis has spent over 20 years teaching people how to produce results for their companies and achieve great things.

For as long as I have been a business owner, I have never made the correlation that National Small Business Month and Mental Health Awareness Month occur in May.  I don’t know how or even why I put it together this year, but I did. Being a business owner has placed so much stress on my mental health that at times I thought, “Denise, you may not make it out of this one.” The constant worries about staffing, payroll, business development, our reputation, competition – the list goes on and on. Yet through it all, like Elton John said, “I’m still standing – looking like a true survivor, feeling like a little kid.”