zenaida lorenzo

An interesting name, derived from Zenobia, queen of the wealthy city of Palmyra in the Arabian desert, and in Latin, a feminine form of “Zeus.” A powerful name indeed, but quite an appropriate one for an incredibly self-taught woman, quite aptly described by the words “motivation” and “prosperity.” Zenaida was the #1 earner in her home-based business in 2005, although she didn’t start out with a silver spoon, she didn’t have the best education and, in general, she had a hard time living as she grew. grew.

Zenaida began her life in an ethnic neighborhood, mainly Puerto Rican like Zenaida herself, in Dover, New Jersey. The family was so poor that she sometimes went hungry and she had to wear the same clothes to school more than once. It didn’t seem to matter then, as many of the families at her school had similar problems. Poverty was a way of life.

“Well-being was much better then,” recalls Zenaida. But she can still remember coming home to an empty closet sometimes. School excursions were out of the question, because there was no money for them. There was simply no money for anything, and often not enough for food.

But when he was around seven years old, he moved with his single mother and four siblings (later another child would be added) to another neighborhood, bordering on the Anglo part of town. The hardest part of that was that she would have to attend a fully Anglo-Saxon school, a place where it would be extremely difficult for her to fit in. She went from a school where the student body was 70-80% minority to a school where 95% of the kids were Caucasian. In the early 1970s, this was as different as night and day.

The school administrators had no experience with Hispanic children, for one thing, and to make matters worse, Zenaida was severely dyslexic, although no one seemed to notice. Her teachers told her mother: “Something is wrong with Zenaida”, which implies that the girl had a mental problem. The fact that her mother did not speak English and that there was no father in the house only exacerbated the problem.

Zenaida failed her first year at the new school, which was second grade. She continued to repeat the pattern in third, fourth, and fifth grade as well, with no one understanding what Zenaida’s problem really was. The girl was not only alienated from her classmates because of her race, but because she simply had no way to get help with her problems. Her mother kept pushing her forward because her mother just didn’t want her to fail. Zenaida’s mother was uneducated and did not understand the consequences of her decision.

However, dyslexia was not Zenaida’s only problem. She also suffered from ADHD: she suffered from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, a condition that she didn’t even recognize when she was growing up. ADHD sends thoughts through the brain at high speeds, often compared to a game of ping-pong balls taking place inside a person’s head. What ADHD meant for Zenaida was that she was easily distracted and bored. Her hyperactivity only added to those problems, making it very difficult for her to sit still for any length of time.

At the age of 13, Zenaida not only went to school; she was working and paying rent for her mother. When she got to high school, she worked two jobs to help support the family.

But in high school, Zenaida began to blossom. Her artistic abilities came to the fore and she began designing her own clothes. She even won second place in the school arts competition. Then, in her senior year, Zenaida wanted to work in the area where she had found her only success: fashion design, and she tried to get into college. However, her grades were not good enough to go to the schools of her choice. She was functionally illiterate.

At that point, Zenaida left home for New York City and found a videotape of a very old book, one that inspired millions and continues to do so today: “Think and Grow Rich” by Napoleon Hill. Zenaida threw herself into the book, working very hard to understand her forceful principles of focus and persistence in the face of resistance. And at 21, she went back to college.

His first move was to run to the local Barnes & Noble and pick up a fifth grade reader because he intended to get a college degree. He began to notice how words were jumping on the page in front of him and it wasn’t until he shared his problem with his friends that he knew that his problem all along had been dyslexia. Zenaida persisted in learning from her, until she learned to read by herself.

At the age of 25, she got a job in sales for a bank card system and earned the most money two months in a row. Her self-esteem soared. In fact, she moved up high enough to get a job at a newspaper. She lied on her application and said that she had a liberal arts degree from the University of Puerto Rico, where she had moved and lived for a short time.

And her boyfriend kept helping her. Unbeknownst to her employer, her boyfriend at the time was writing all of her sales correspondence, then her boss began doing it for her as well. By the time she realized everything, Zenaida was important in the company and she was earning a lot of money for them.

But that was not the end of Zenaida’s career. She decided that she wanted to work for the world-renowned publisher Conde Nast and asked her boyfriend to help her get a job with the company. However, he told her, “I can’t keep writing to her clients.” In fact, he told her that she couldn’t get another job until she learned to read and write.

So, she went to work. She was determined to learn to read, no matter what. First she bought two books on how to get higher SAT scores: Princeton Review Word Smart, Volumes 1 and 2. Her friend and her boss taught her how to speak properly without ghetto slang, and after work every night, Zenaida drank an index card and choose a word from each of the two Princeton books, beginning with the letter “A”. On the front of the card, she would spell the word, write its phonetic pronunciation, and on the back, its meaning.

Zenaida played with cards. She read a New York Times article every day, which took her about forty minutes. If she didn’t know a word included in the article, she would look it up in the dictionary and then add a card to it.

He got to the letter “P” before stopping his routine.

I finally had a functional literacy by the time I was 29 years old.

Zenaida reinforced her knowledge of history by going to the Museum of Modern Art every weekend. She bought audiotaped biographies of the artists, which like all good biographies, were based on the history of that person’s time, culture, politics, etc. She clung to every word.

And she thrived. Her accomplishments led her to do a commercial for then New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani for the local center for disabilities. She also received a proclamation from Mayor Newman of Dover, New Jersey for teaching herself to read and speaking to local high school students about dyslexia, using the theme “Anything Is Possible.”

Zenaida also came to excel in business. She was earning 6 figures a year, and at 34, she decided to go back to college and continue until she got an MBA. When she was sold her company in 2003, Zenaida was forced to take a 30% pay cut because there were no other jobs. Soon, she wasn’t living up to her obligations and she decided there had to be a better way. She started a home business. In 2005, after less than a year with her home business company, Zenaida was the top earner, with close to $1 million in sales.

Although Zenaida is an incredible inspiration and someone worthy of the people who follow her, she says, “When I was twenty years old, I was very angry. I looked at successful people and I always thought that if only I could read and if only I had an education, I could to have the opportunity to be as successful as them. Today I realize that the reason I am so successful is because of all the handicaps and disabilities I had to overcome. They made me strong, persistent, and gave me the courage to pursue business alternatives.There are so many people today who have all the advantages, but still work for others and earn a fraction of what is actually available.Today, I have full time and financial freedom.My goal is to empower others to see what that is available to them and help them overcome their self-imposed limits.

If I had to follow someone to success in business or in life, Zenaida is without a doubt a woman to follow. She has helped many people succeed at the same level as herself. Today, she is eager to help more people live the life of financial freedom and become the best person she can be.