From baton twirler to comp sci grad, then Department of Defense employee to TEDx speaker, Phylecia Jones’s nonlinear path is proof for us all that embracing all the parts of yourself—even the seemingly disparate ones—can lead to a business and life that’s authentically yours. Now, as the founder of iFind You Close®, she curates speaking opportunities to help others find stages to amplify their expertise.
There Is No Plan B
Jones's journey begins in Birmingham, Alabama, where she grew up as a baton twirler with dreams of becoming a majorette. Despite having a full academic scholarship to Alabama State University, she was drawn to Morris Brown College after seeing their dance team perform. "I was going to that school," Jones says, recalling her unwavering determination to join the Bubblin’ Brown Sugar Majorettes. “I was gonna get myself on this dance team."
After negotiating her way to an academic scholarship and an interview with the band director, Jones made her dreams come true at Morris Brown and went on to graduate with a BS in Computer Science.
Governing Multiple Skills & Interests
Like many college students, Jones didn't have a job lined up after graduation. So she put her hyper-focused determination back into gear and spent the summer sending pre-scheduled faxes of her resume to job listings she found online and in the newspaper. By August, she landed a position at Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center (SPAWAR) in San Diego, CA, working for the Department of the Navy.
Despite landing a pretty impressive sounding role utilizing her college major, Jones stayed open to her career going in a different direction. “I can't say I was the best computer scientist in the world, so I had to kind of maneuver how I wanted my career to go,” she says. During her nearly twelve years in government, Jones traveled to Europe often, developed her analytical skills, and moonlighted as a professional cheerleader for minor league teams. She even spent a summer in a circus—one of those "quiet things" she didn't typically share in her professional environment. “I did a lot of maneuvering.”
However, her career advancement hit a ceiling when a boss told her he’d never hire someone like her to be in management. “That was the hint that I needed. It was time to leave,” Jones shares, speaking of the catalyst that prompted her transition to entrepreneurship.
Paying Attention to the Signs
Jones's entrepreneurial journey began with money coaching and budgeting workshops, where she leveraged her analytical skills to help people save for travel. As an avid traveler herself, she built her first offer in response to the comments of people around her. “I just wanted to travel, and I would say ‘you could do this too,’” she recalls.
But something wasn't clicking. Jones loved working with clients and getting creative with her offers, but she had challenges early on selling. “The business side of it was hard,” she explains, “ especially being very analytical."
Meanwhile, speaking opportunities began presenting themselves as a marketing channel for her coaching business. Jones started live streaming daily for two and a half years, building consistency and an audience. "Some days it would be like one person, some days it would be thirty," she shares. These broadcasts led to unexpected opportunities—local news appearances, a TEDx talk, emceeing gigs, and eventually a national television show as a financial contributor.
During this time, Jones noticed something: fellow entrepreneurs kept asking how she was finding her speaking gigs. "Research and finding the speaking gigs was the easy part," she says, recounting how she created iFind You Close® in 2019 in response to the need people had for speaking leads. "And it all worked out very well."
Now It All Makes Sense
For Jones, creating iFind You Close® marked a turning point where she could finally integrate her seemingly disconnected skills and interests. "With the subscription business, I can finally bring all these pieces of me together," she says. Her background in computer science, research skills, and performance experience all found a home in this business model. Plus, it’s allowed Jones to create the lifestyle she wants. “We’ve been traveling around in an RV for the past two plus years, and we're about to go sailing,” she shares with pride.
Cracking The Code
If you’re navigating your own unique path to self-employment, consider taking these hacks from Jones.
1. Don't take no for an answer. From insisting on Morris Brown despite a full scholarship elsewhere to pre-scheduling faxes daily to land her first job, Jones persisted until she got the results she wanted. "When you know, you know,” she says of committing to her vision.
2. Follow through consistently. Jones went live online every day for over two years. "It built consistency, and that was the big thing," she notes. This commitment made room for big opportunities to find her, even without immediate results.
3. Research first, build second. Jones built her offers based on the needs of those around her. "I would never create a product before knowing if people wanted it," she explains. For iFind You Close®, she simply asked, "I'm thinking about this idea of posting a list of speaking opportunities. If anybody's interested, let me know." Only after confirming interest did she build the platform.
Jones describes her 11-year entrepreneurial journey as exactly that—a journey of discovery. “It really has been a journey of discovering where you actually want to be,” she reflects. “Every iteration, every failure point, success point always came back to ‘what kind of life did I want to have’?”
For entrepreneurs still finding their way, take Phylecia Jones’s journey as a model of what’s possible. From baton twirler to Navy scientist to minor league cheerleading, the circus, and now curating speaking opportunities for others—we see that our seemingly unrelated experiences can come together in unexpected ways to create something uniquely valuable, especially when you embrace every facet of who you are.
What hidden connections between your non-linear experiences might be the foundation of your next chapter?
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