Meet Cara Walker: Founder of PrettiPassionate, Elevation Strategist, & Speaker

We had the good fortune of connecting with Cara Walker and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Cara, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
The reason I started my own business was to fill a gap and provide a solution to an area that I thought was a huge problem in our world and in my community. From the moment I entered the workforce right after college my perspective changed. I no longer believed that you only work to survive, something I saw my mom and generations prior do….but that in fact you can work to serve a higher purpose and be fulfilled while doing it. So, I began my own personal quest of fulfillment, purpose, & impact and on that journey I thought, “what if a whole community of women had access to these same tools, resources, and experiences to help them transform into the person they were created to be.” My brand PrettiPassionate is a personal development company. Simply put…we help women tap into their highest potential to at the base level …start businesses, but we do it in a very unique way. We work with them to tap into their unique purpose & calling, & then use that to create income, impact, & generate wealth by doing it God’s way. Our unique advantage is we reflect the needs of the current & next generation, their wants, concerns, and hunger for living in a more significant way. Using a complete 360-degree approach to life, we are your one stop shop…providing the inspiration, tools, resources, community, experts, and coaches to help women in their self-discovery journey. We like to say…Never do life & business alone, again because we are your partners on that road to your next level.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
I spent the last decade of my life working with major media companies such as The Source, Seventeen Magazine, Complex Magazine, iHeartRadio, & ESSENCE, helping them work with advertising partners to create marketing campaigns. So, I spent 10 years working with brands like CoverGirl, StateFarm, McDonalds, & etc to create a brand vision, strategy, and then roll-up my sleeves to execute. Now as an entrepreneur & owner of PrettiPassionate, I do the same thing I did for major companies for women. I help them to cultivate their personal brand vision, develop their own strategy, and take inspired action to confidently leap into their purpose to design a life they love & profitable business. My area of expertise specifically with my brand PrettiPassionate is helping purpose – driven women who are aspiring entrepreneurs (or new entrepreneurs) overcome their fear, gain more clarity, momentum & push pass self-doubt so they can take action creating a profitable business from their passion. I do this with 2 main things….the PrettiPassionate Insider Network & The L.E.A.P. Program. What lead me here to doing this work is because I was once that woman looking for her passion & purpose, wanting to one day have my own business, wanting to one day work full-time in my business, wanting to overcome the fear, the lack of confidence, get unstuck & understand what is my next step. And most importantly feeling all alone. Thinking am I the only one feeling this way? Where is my tribe? But choosing this route, taking this step, and diving this deep was not an easy task. All my life I always wanted to work in the media industry. I saw myself stomping up and down 5th Ave in NY city with the highest heels I could find…being this badass marketing powerhouse lol. And that’s exactly what I did. I spent 10 years living the dream, I dreamt as a little girl…in my pink bedroom in the middle of the hood in Irvington, NJ. Being a young black girl, in a single parent household…I was able to dream that dream and make it happen. I found myself smack dab in the middle of my dreams for a 10 year span….traveling, meeting celebrities, making an impact, a 6-figure salary…& doing what I love. Until one day…I heard God’s voice telling me He needed MORE. When I first heard it, I ignored it because, let’s be honest I was living my dream in the industry. And honestly I was scared. How am I going to pull off this big vision I see? And then I heard God so clearly say..this is your dream, but not My WILL. So as my current circumstances at work began to get uncomfortable, I knew this was the time. I made a declaration on Oct 2018 that I would put a plan in place to take the leap on my own – full of fear, uncertainty, confusion, doubt, and everything else under the sun. Then in September 2019 just a little short of 1 year, I took my Leap, but this time I was full of courage, absolute peace, unwavering faith, boldness, strength, passionate, purposeful, undeniable confidence, power, and determined to move mountains. So you may be wondering, how does a person go from full of fear…..to full of faith. My answer to that is, you begin to do the inner work. You start by healing old traumas, sit with yourself and uncover what is the vision I have for my life & business. What do I really want? Then you put a strategy in place and you take action making it your reality. The major key to this is to do it with God. Give Him a permanent place in your life as you create it. After all He did create you, so why not go back to the manufacturer for details on how to operate this thing called life? (lol) This is what the PrettiPassionate brand is rooted in, building a life and business of purpose with God. We are here to shake up the industry and create a new wave of women on a mission to live fearlessly in their authentic God-given purpose. We believe that everyone has limitless potential, and our mission is to accelerate that potential by sparking and revolutionizing how women approach personal development and business.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
Oh yes, Atlanta is southern hospitality at its finest… once you get out of traffic lol. I will start by saying I am not a native ATL girl, so I am still learning the hots spots myself. Most of my friends coming into town would probably want to do a mix of the touristy things and some fun local stuff. I would do a mix of fun eating & shopping at Ponce City Market. During the week hit up the Georgia Aquarium, King Historic District Tour, and High Museum of Art for a few days of history & culture. Then finish the week with some fun in the sun at Atlanta Beltline and exploring Little Five Points.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I want to give a huge shoutout to all of the amazing women I’ve met along this journey who in some way or form served as “the example” for me. They nurtured me, poured into me, but more importantly they believed in me. It’s so powerful what representation can do for you, what a kind word, or belief in your value can do. Those things can completely change the course of your life. So shoutout to all of those women! In particular, I want to shout out Jen Lee (Hayes), Natalia Velez, and Cassandre Charles who all played a very vital role in my life as I grew into the woman you see today. I also want to shoutout my dad, Aaron Walker who is an entrepreneur and was my first example of what sacrifice, courage, determination, and faith looks like on the road to chasing your dreams.

Website: http://www.prettipassionate.com/

Instagram: personal: https://www.instagram.com/carasherice/. Business: https://www.instagram.com/liveprettipassionate/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cara-walker-4a471917/

Facebook: personal brand page: https://www.facebook.com/CaraSherice business page: https://www.facebook.com/liveprettipassionate

Image Credits
Captured by Shantel Shot by Nu