Hyacinth Brown

“It doesn't matter how small it is, always save. It doesn't matter how much you earn, it's how much you save. If it's a dollar, save 10 cents.”

(Excerpt from an interview with Eleen Brown, Business Owner, Health & Wellness Coach)
Kingston, Jamaica

My mom grew up in Manchester, a rural part of Jamaica. She moved into town with her bigger sister. She had three children and worked initially as a domestic helper and also in hospitality. Then she got introduced to church life, and soon after met my dad. Mom and dad got married and that union produced three children. So all in all, she has six kids and my dad took on all kids like his own. My mom took care of getting kids ready for school, she did the cooking, and all the household chores AND she found time to hone her entrepreneurship skills along the way. She helped my dad financially by doing some buying and selling of goods, and as we got a little older, she worked more on her business to have her own money and help support the household. My mom has always been that kind of dynamic woman and she is very good at saving and making money.

My mom was excellent at what I call stretching/doing gymnastics with the funds. She would take care of all the regular bills with dad’s earnings but she took care of the extra things like vacations, trips overseas. She would always make sure that we as kids get exposed to the nice things in life. The things that she didn't get to have as a child, she wanted us to experience it. At age nine, we were traveling on vacations to family overseas, and she would give us our own spending money.

As a partner to my dad, she created opportunities to be supportive of each other even with housework. And especially in the kitchen, mom empowered my dad to prepare meals. She taught him how to cook and he was happy to participate. This started in the earlier days of their marriage and up to this day, my dad prepares Sunday dinners and he takes pride in being able to do that. My dynamic mom created that type of partnership between them. She was not afraid to make requests of her husband. Health and wellness was also very important to her. She made sure my dad, a pastor at our church, was healthy and well taken care of. And as his first lady, she fulfills her role wonderfully and looks the part as well.

Mom is like a rock star for me. I understand her principles and she always instilled valuable things to me. I remember her always saying “It doesn't matter how small it is, always save. It doesn't matter how much you earn, it's how much you save. If it's a dollar, save 10 cents.” I learned so much from this that today in my own shopfront, and it’s all done in cash and I set aside cash to put back in the business, cash for the rainy day funds, cash for personal development funds. This advice really paid off because I have been a thriving business owner for 19 years.

I remember early in my marriage, things got tough financially and I didn’t know what to do. And my mom shared with me that over the years since we were little girls in school, she opened and maintained a savings account for us as back up. I remember this was in elementary and we got a bank book to learn how to save, we put whatever money we had every Wednesday. My mom said, “I never stopped saving for each one of you in case you needed it in the future” and she handed me the bank book, and that was a life saver. It was a lesson I will never forget, and more importantly, I can see how my mom’s always got my back. My rockstar and my hero.

There are so many other stories to share about her and I want to highlight that she's a remarkable listener. When I share things with my mom, she listens patiently before making any suggestions or comments. She listens to find out where my mind is at, she wants to know where my heart is at. And then when she finally speaks, it's always addressing where my heart is. She’ll say something like,“I see that you're concerned about this, Eleen. I see that this where you want to go.” There’s very little lecture, if at all. She stays curiously engaged. She definitely wants to make sure I am clear where my heart is, and then she’ll ask me what I want her to pray about, or she’ll volunteer and say I'm going to pray about this for you. And that's another thing I love about my mom, she's always praying for us.

This faithfulness and the example she showed me about how to listen has helped me with my clients a lot. After all, I’m in the helping people business and I wouldn’t know how to if I didn’t listen. Just in the plaza where my shopfront is at, it’s always busy with people, every business owner around here supports my business and come by to have conversations and shop! I don’t think I would be as effective with people if I didn’t learn the value of listening from my mom.