作者:Anna Stolley Persky
2018年7月2日
妮可可贝尔懂得成功.
作为科伯约翰逊澳门赌场官网事务所的主要管理合伙人 & Romney, 可贝尔 provides consulting legal and strategic services to nonprofit and business clients. 可贝尔还写了一本书, My Soul首席执行官, and serves as a regular on-air legal and business analyst for Fox 5 DC and WJLA-TV’s 澳门赌场官网Channel 8.
“这是我人生中美好的一章，”科伯说.
但科伯也知道失败. For eight years, she owned and operated a much-lauded Washington, D.C.总部位于美国的沙龙和水疗连锁店. 但当它在2010年倒闭时，她破产了. 与此同时，她的婚姻破裂了.
“这是毁灭性的。. The hard times make me cringe a little, but they also have value,科伯说. “I have found that it’s important to be open to your pain, 致你的错误, 然后向他们学习. Don’t pretend that you haven’t had pain or haven’t made mistakes. 相反，给你的痛苦和错误赋予意义.”
可贝尔, 谁有两个儿子?, says her book chronicles her journey as the owner of Soul Day Spa and Salon, and offers professional and personal advice to small business owners and entrepreneurs.
“It’s a book about harnessing the resiliency all human beings possess,科伯说.
科伯在奥克兰出生和长大, 加州, where her father owned a liquor and convenience store. 她的母亲是一名法律秘书. 可贝尔说 she remembers that, even as a small child, she wanted to be a “shopkeeper and a mom.”
“I think I always wanted to be a business owner, like my father,科伯说. “这是一颗很早就埋下的大种子.”
可贝尔说 that from her perspective, owning a store was “a blast.”
“My father was always able to come to our school events, and he would help me out at the store when I had to sell things for school like chocolate,科伯说. “我总是占上风.”
But as she grew older, she began to study areas other than business. 科伯曾就读于加州大学, 加州大学伯克利分校, 她在那里主修传播学和社会学. She thought about going into journalism for a while, but then decided to go to law school.
“I didn’t have lofty ideals of being the next Thurgood Marshall,科伯说. “但我喜欢成为一名倡导者的想法. 从本质上讲，我仍然是一个倡导者.”
可贝尔 attended Howard University School of Law, graduating in 1996. 之后，她成为了前D.C. 上诉法院首席法官Annice M. 瓦格纳. 在那之后, she joined the now defunct law firm Dickstein Shapiro LLP as a litigator specializing in insurance coverage.
“我很痛苦，”科伯说. “I was the low man on the totem pole, writing footnotes in long briefs. It wasn’t a good fit, and they told me it wasn’t a good fit.”
可贝尔 can now easily talk about one of the worst moments in her life — getting fired — a “critical chapter” in the novel of her life.
“It turns out that getting fired was one of my life’s biggest blessings,科伯说. “It forced me to be authentic and stop playing like what I was doing was meaningful to me. I couldn’t have gotten where I am had I not been fired from my first law firm job.”
可贝尔说 the thought of going to another firm made her stomach turn.
“Someone asked me, ‘Why are you trying so hard at something you are mediocre at doing?’”科伯说.
所以，她回到了她的根. As a child, she had wanted to follow in her father’s footsteps, and so she did.
“For better or worse, I have been an entrepreneur ever since,科伯说.
可贝尔 started her salon chain in a developing area of D.C. She received credit for helping to revitalize the community. 她的水疗中心, 可贝尔说, 有一个funky, 复杂的, 职业氛围，迎合有色人种女性, 而是覆盖了所有人群.”
She also used the spa to help the community in other ways, partnering with a women’s shelter to provide complimentary services to women in need.
When she was forced to shutter her business, it was a terrible time, 可贝尔说.
“我破产了。. 这是毁灭性的，”科伯说. “It was a dark and sad time because I had put a whole lot of my life into creating this vision.”
After mourning her losses, 可贝尔 took a long look at herself and her mistakes. 她开始痊愈了. And then she regrouped and “started to think about my next dream, my next chapter.”
She thought about how before the salon went under, she ran it successfully for many years. And she decided her next mission would be to help other entrepreneurs navigate the business and marketing world. 可贝尔 started her firm with Norman Romney and Harold W. Johnson II, whom she married a little more than a year ago.
One of the firm’s clients is the Redevelopment Authority of Prince George’s County, which is developing a multi-use project called Town Square at Suitland Federal Center.
“We’ve been able to help businesses and municipalities with their land development and branding needs,科伯说. “It’s a nice quirky business that makes so much sense for me to do. 这一切都很好地结合在一起.”
