Exploring Life & Business with Corissa Sutton of The Powherhouse Mom

Today we’d like to introduce you to Corissa Sutton.

Hi Corissa, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
My name is Corissa Sutton born and raised here in Minneapolis! I am a single mother of 4 beautiful children. I come from extensive 20+ year background in banking, finance and financial crimes within a Fortune 500 company. Within the last few years, I decided to follow my passion and transition away from the corporate world. In doing so, I decided to use my background, skills, passion and abilities to become an Entrepreneur, Advocate and REALTOR. My passion is to give back to my community, to support the underserved and advocate for single mothers (and their children). I use my real estate license not only to buy and sell real estate but I use it to encourage homeownership, create pathways to generational wealth/ownership & empower renters within the community!

I am the owner of The Powherhouse Mom which is an empowerment platform designed to provide solutions to single mothers with the ultimate goal of having those benefits trickle down to their children. Currently, PHM is highly focused on the “Homeownership track” and partnering with organizations/businesses to build, support and scale those efforts.

Within the community, I am an Advocate as well as a member of the Minneapolis NAACP. Most recently I served as their Housing Chair. I became a member during the George Floyd uprisings. I was outraged and activated by his death so much that I had to get involved with solution based efforts. During the uprisings, I helped organize events, collect & distribute resources, recruit volunteers, and make deliveries to families in need. I then went on to help with the GOTV efforts with the Political Action Committee. As the housing chair, I hosted Rent Help pop ups in North Minneapolis to assist renters with their Rent Help applications during the Eviction Moratorium phase-out. I have worked with many grassroots organizations, politicians, civil rights activists, advocates and many change-makers to make our communities better for everyone. I am also a mentor, volunteer and active participant within non-profit organizations founded in supporting the success of single mothers.

The journey to “how I got to where I am today” started with a lot of perseverance, consistency, heartbreak, grit, tears, trials and tribulations. I am a person who believes in constantly evolving, learning and growing as an individual constantly. I believe that anything worth having doesn’t come easy! So, despite it all, both the good and bad of life’s experiences both equally have taught me resilience, bravery, faith, courage and belief for the better days ahead of me. If I can make it through to today, then my life purpose is to pay it forward by holding the flashlight for others to make it through to better days as well.

I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
The road was definitely not smooth by any means. I strongly believe that the challenges, obstacles and mistakes I have made –paved the way for many learning experiences in a number of areas in my life, especially as an Entrepreneur. I finished real estate school in 2020 right as the pandemic hit. Suddenly- I was faced with homeschooling three children, single parenting all while trying to build a business for myself and balance my family. Every day there was a hill to climb. Honestly, I am still picking up the pieces of my life in that area.

I heard this saying, that “God gives his strongest battles to his toughest soldiers”. I am definitely one of his toughest soldiers.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about The Powherhouse Mom?
As briefly mentioned earlier, I am the owner of The Powherhouse Mom. I am also a licensed Real Estate agent in the state of Minnesota. PHM is where I get to marry two of my passions –selling homes and advocating for single mothers. We are a small start up business that aims to provide solutions to single mothers in the area of Self Empowerment and Homeownership.

As a single mother myself, I am a Powherhouse Mom! I looked at the statistics of children raised in single parent households — then add by race… I knew I wanted to create a business that would help change the trajectory of those disparities. I created PHM with the intent that some single mothers need a village to help provide the same benefits as most nuclear family structures. PHM is founded on individual support systems, relationship building and individual self empowerment sessions unique to each mom. Everyone’s path to homeownership is different, but creating a path to the GOAL is possible.

What sets PHM aside from others businesses is the fact that single mothers and their children will reap the benefits generationally. Every time someone chooses me as their Realtor, they are essentially helping a PHM mom grow. I am most of proud of my business because I have already helped my first single mom buy her first home. It makes me so proud to know that a single mom is a homeowner and that her children are living in their own home building equity! In addition, I was able to hire a Graphic Designer (contractor) who is also a single mother. Essentially right now PHM is owned by a single mom, who hired a single mom and serves single moms.

I look forward to scaling my business and creating more tools, supports and generating business partners to aid in the overall business growth.

What were you like growing up?
Growing up in middle school (11 -12 years old) I was best known as the girl who had “missing/messed up teeth”. With a title like that, it came along with bullying, teasing which as you can imagine caused a great deal of self worth and self esteem issues within myself. I had a gum/tooth condition where my baby teeth didn’t fall out when they were supposed to, so I had to get them surgically removed. As a result, my adult teeth were impacted and twisted. My parents couldn’t afford to get them fixed. So as a result I ended up going through middle and high school arguably the most pivotal times in my life, hiding my smile, pushing down my voice and not speaking up. As you can imagine, this affected me in every avenue of my life, love, relationships, friendships and even work… Anywhere that you are expected to show up confident and as your most authentic self, I was always hiding my mouth, my smile and my voice in a sense.

On the inside, I was always this friendly, funny, kind, caring, smart, book nerd, wise yet outgoing young woman but the way I saw myself was often through the eyes of others –which impacted me for many years to come.

It wasn’t until I was about 17 years old when I started working my first job at the bank after school. By 18 years old– I began working full time at the bank and I was able to afford to get my teeth fixed myself. I had surgeries and braces until my early 20s.

For years, I still operated in that space of what others thought of me. Until one day, I literally just woke up and quit caring what anyone’s opinion of me was!

I eventually went on to learn to accept my individuality, heal from my past and see all my experiences whether good or bad as wisdom, that’s when I became comfortable operating in my most authentic and genuine self.

In the recent past, I have often been called the “voice for the voiceless” because I tend to speak out for those who cant, won’t speak or don’t have the strength to do it themselves for whatever reason. There is this part of me, that can no longer be silent or quiet when something is just NOT right! Whether it’s ethically or morally – silent is not me anymore. I think it’s for all the years I was bullied, made fun of and tortured for things I could not control. I had the words within me, but my mouth would not let me speak them. Now, I stand firm in reason, I stand tall in wisdom and brave in understanding when it comes to using my voice on issues that greatly impact myself, my community or generations to come.

Contact Info:

• Email: [email protected]
• Website: CorissaSutton.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/iamcorissa/
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/corissa.m.sutton/

Image Credits
@Shoott