Along the Way with Cynthia Godslaw, Founder of CynByCyn
This week, as part of my Along the Way Interview Series, I’m talking to Cynthia Godslaw. As the founder of CynByCyn, a career and lifestyle blog, Cynthia has found her passion in inspiring women to reach their potential.
Today, she shares her own inspiration, how she launched her site, and what makes it all possible.
The Along the Way Interview Series features kick-ass women who are putting their heart and soul into achieving their dreams. Rather than talking to those who have already “made it,” this series focuses on learning from those who are right next to us in the daily hustle.
If you want to follow Cynthia, you can find her here:
Facebook || Instagram || Twitter
Without further ado, let’s chat with Cynthia about how she pursues her vision.
Tell us about why you decided to start your blog, CynbyCyn, and how long it took you to go from idea → maybe → working on it → launch.
I understood what it was like to be a girl who once lacked direction so I created cynbycyn.com as a platform that provides young women with key techniques and philosophies to help upstart their career. I originally created this concept to deliver a specific goal in mind, and that is to inspire women to become a better version of themselves. I first came up with the idea March 2017, and I didn't know what I wanted it to be. I was brainstorming up until January 2018 which is when I figured out the concept, made a business plan, hired a web developer and launched the website March 2018.
Starting out, did you have more cheerleaders or naysayers? How has that changed over time?
In the beginning, people would always give me words of encouragement about a wide array of things from modeling to my talent as a speaker. After hearing the same words from so many people, I knew there was something worth exploring. Fast-forward a few months later, cynbycyn.com was born.
Your blog is all about inspiring women, who are your sources of inspiration?
I understood the power of having a hands-on mentor early on. I was initially introduced to entrepreneurship by watching my boyfriend relentlessly building his company despite all the obstacles he encounters. I learned the power of sacrifices, patience, and failure. Anybody that can constantly believe in something that isn't real yet and work hard towards that every day is inspirational. My other inspiration is my mother. She raised four kids all on her own and brought them from Nigeria to America. She did all this through the adversities and did it flawlessly, so she will always be my hero for that.
How do you measure your success? What does success look like now and in 5-10 years?
Success to me is being able to live life on your own terms, be happy, and being able to impact lives while doing it. Nothing makes me happier than receiving testimonials from women who feel encouraged by my journey. In 10 years, I hope to see a world where young women feel more confident and encouraged to go after their biggest dreams.
You work in sales, run the blog, and keep up with five social media platforms. HOW? Literally, how do you plan out your tasks, days, months, quarters? Does it ever feel overwhelming and how do you recharge?
My approach to life is - waking up every day with the “anything is possible” state of mind. People can adapt this mentality to achieve more by knocking out tasks one day at a time. Instead of looking at the task as a huge workload, focus on breaking things down into smaller daily tasks. I believe that multitasking is the ultimate killer. In order to increase productivity, try focusing on one task until completion at a time. It's important to keep yourself motivated. I usually do this by treating myself to something that makes me happy after completing a big task.
Be vulnerable with me for a minute, what mistakes, challenges, or distractions do you struggle with? Do you think these are common?
Honestly, Instagram is a tough one for me. Between all of the likes, comments, DM’s and my timeline it can easily get very distracting. One of the things I’m learning is delegation, I’m learning how to hire and grow a team to help manage and grow CynbyCyn’s community.
How do you push through your doubts?
Well, it never really gets easier. It’s helpful to always remind myself of why I created CynbyCyn in the first place.
How do you celebrate your wins? And what has been your most rewarding win?
I like to do things that make me happy like a trip - I love experiences. Everything changed after the launch of cynbycyn.com it was a huge victory for me.
What advice do you have for other entrepreneurs?
Dreams come true when you make sacrifices. Invest your time, money, energy in the things you deeply want to accomplish. Anything worth achieving takes a whole lot of time so if you want it that bad it will require a lot of patience. The last advice is that failing is not failing as long as you learned something from it. Don’t be discouraged if things don’t work out on the first try, just try again.