Today we’d like to introduce you to George LEWIS.
Hi George, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
I grew up in Harlem, New York, and that was my world until I was drafted in 1964. I served four years in the Air Force and, upon returning, I struggled with heroin addiction. My high school friends, whom I had left behind, had entered the drug distribution business, and I unfortunately became involved in the drug industry in Harlem.
As a veteran, I was able to attend school through the Urban League. I enrolled in a communications program and was recruited by a major advertising agency on Madison Avenue after graduation. It wasn’t long before I was selling cocaine to executives at the agency I worked at and eventually to executives at ad agencies throughout the city. For twenty years, I dealt drugs within the advertising industry, making and losing a fortune in the process.
In August of 1995, I moved to Minnesota. I began attending Narcotics Anonymous meetings and joined a men’s support group at an organization called African American Family Services (AAFS). After a few months of participation, I was asked to facilitate one of the support groups.
I volunteered at AAFS for about two years, leading the men’s support groups. AAFS also facilitated a program for women who were victims of domestic violence. The Executive Director, one of the most brilliant women I’ve ever met, recognized that to support these women effectively, there needed to be a program that simultaneously addressed the perpetrators of domestic violence, as many women would return to their abusers. She sought funding to develop a program to treat these perpetrators. Since I had experience writing from my communications training in the advertising industry, she asked me to help create it. We named it M.O.V.E., which stands for Male Oppression and Violence Elimination. After co-writing that program, I was promoted to Director of the M.O.V.E. program.
I utilized my marketing and advertising skills to help AAFS produce public service announcements for television, radio, and print. My content across multiple platforms helped AAFS use my skills to support other nonprofit organizations in the Twin Cities.
The assistant director of AAFS invited me to attend a lecture he was giving at a local treatment center. After attending a few of his lectures, he asked me to take over his contract with that center. I worked there, delivering lectures for almost twelve years. During this time, I met many young people who were interning to become Licensed Alcohol and Drug Counselors (LADCs). I helped many of them develop their group facilitation skills, and numerous interns went on to build careers in the field of substance use disorders, eventually becoming decision-makers at their treatment programs. They remembered the support I provided and offered me contracts to work at their programs.
Before long, I had more contracts than I could handle, so I began training others to replicate my work, allowing them to partner with me to fulfill them. In 2012, I founded Motivational Consulting Inc., which continues to serve the treatment industry today.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
My journey has been both smooth and rocky. I lived the street life for nearly forty years, enduring the losses that came with it. I moved to Minnesota to escape the consequences building up in New York. This decision was the most important I have ever made. The move let me discover the life I’d always wanted but didn’t know how to pursue. Initially, I intended to recreate my New York lifestyle by using and selling drugs, mistakenly believing I could do so without repeating my past mistakes. Fortunately, I found recovery in Minnesota before I found drugs again.
Even though I found recovery, I still made mistakes in life that led to consequences. Life also presented challenges beyond my control. I had hepatitis C and prostate cancer, I lost my dream home when I couldn’t pay the mortgage, and I lost two businesses that I couldn’t keep afloat. Despite all of this, I did not use any mood- or mind-altering chemicals. I finally began to realize that life is a series of events and situations, some of my own making and others just the way life unfolds.
Fourteen years ago, I started Motivational Consulting Inc. I have grown in my new life, and I see it every day in the type of people who are in my life, the type of activities I am asked to participate in, and most of all, the type of life that I live today is the life I always wanted but didn’t know how to achieve. I recognize that in my life, God often does for me what I can’t do for myself. What a revelation.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
Your Work
Employee / Professional
Please tell us more about your business or organization.
Motivational Consulting is a motivational lecture and group facilitation service provider offering training and informational products to help therapeutic professionals understand and assist people from diverse ethnic, cultural, and social groups.
What should we know?
Motivational Consulting has been a part of the recovery community in the Twin Cities and its suburbs for 14 years. The organization has developed a curriculum designed to help professionals in the helping fields enhance their communication skills. This initiative aims to improve the quality of service for Black and Brown communities seeking substance use disorder treatment in Minnesota.
What do you do, what do you specialize in / what are you known for?
Motivational Consulting specializes in providing motivational lectures to support further the treatment programs offered by our clients to their clients, promoting long-term recovery from substance use disorder.
I wrote Bami Soro, a culturally responsive training program designed to help professionals, including therapists, counselors, teachers, psychologists, and treatment center staff, develop culturally sensitive communication skills. The Minnesota Board of Behavioral Health and Therapy has approved Bami Soro as a training program that offers Continuing Education Units for professional licensing renewal.
Can you talk to us a bit about the role of luck?
I don’t know if I believe in luck as much as I believe in spirituality. In my belief system, I think of life as a series of events and situations, some caused by my decisions and others by how life unfolds. In either case, I have choices to make based on the information I have at the time. What happens once it happens, I can’t control. How I go through what happens dictates the quality of my life. Getting back to the question, luck, good or bad, doesn’t factor into my life. The principles and values I base my life decisions on determine the kind of man I am becoming.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.motivationalconsultinginc.com
- Facebook: Motivational Consulting Inc.
