“The secret to getting ahead is getting started.”
This quote has been attributed to Mark Twain, Agatha Christie, Sally Berger, and others. No one knows for certain who coined it. But while speakers, coaches, and teachers regularly use it to motivate their audiences, few have actually lived it – and then committed their lives to helping others do the same.
Dr. Karen L. Semien-McBride is one of those few. Her enthusiastic, inclusive, and perpetually positive energy is infectious whether she’s speaking to a group, teaching a class, or coaching a C-Suite executive. But there’s far more to Semien-McBride than just passion and positivity.
The born entrepreneur was already making tidy profits at the age of 11, selling candy to her grammar school classmates. While her parents had provided a safe and encouraging home environment in the midst of LA’s tough Compton neighborhood, neither one of them had taught her to start her own business.
Her innately mathematical mind gave her a love for accounting, which she did for friends and associates during high school. For fun, she started making beautiful floral creations for weddings. And at age 17, she sold her now-booming florist business – and used the proceeds to pay for college, where she earned a BA in Business Administration.
