Excellence By Design Academy
Welcome to the Blog
“Growth stops when you lose the tension between where you are and where you want to be.”
-John C. Maxwell
"The greatest courageous act that we must all do is to have the courage to step out of our history and past so that we can live our dreams." ~ Oprah Winfrey
Do you ever feel like you are doing all the ‘right’ things and not seeing the results?
Og Mandino says that “It is those who concentrate on the one thing at a time who advance in the world.”
What are you concentrating on?
We need focus and we need to focus on the right things.
There is no magic formula, however there is a formula.
It's taken alot of trying to get things right, I finally got it...
The gift lies in the journey.
The best gift that a business owner can give their business is the best version of themselves.
And I want to share what I am learning with you.
We talk about all thing's leadership, business, and personal development. We may even throw in a lil’ tech tool help here and there too!
~ Coach Dezi
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From The Blog...
You Are Not Late To Entrepreneurship. You Are Right On Time.
There is a quiet belief many people carry when they step into entrepreneurship later in life. The belief goes something like, “I should have started sooner.”
But the data says the opposite.
According to Gusto’s 2025 New Business Report, nearly 49 percent of all new U.S. businesses launched in 2024 were founded by women. In 2019 that number was just 29 percent. That is a 69 percent increase in the share of new businesses started by women in only a few years.
This shift is not being driven by fresh college grads or early-career workers experimenting with side gigs. It is being led by people who spent years holding teams together, managing households, navigating corporate restructuring, and carrying responsibilities that did not always match the compensation or recognition they received.
When Gusto asked founders why they started a business, the most common answers were:
Control over time
Freedom to choose the work
Alignment with personal values and the life they want to build
These are not beginner motivations.
They are seasoned ones.
The Federal Reserve’s 2024 Small Business Credit Survey added another layer. It found that women founders are more likely to rely on personal savings, credit cards, or family support to start their businesses, and less likely to receive formal financing. That increases risk, which explains why people entering entrepreneurship later in life feel both clarity and caution.
But here is the truth.
Your caution is not insecurity.
It is strategy.
When you have lived enough life to know the cost of misalignment, you make different decisions. You recognize the signs earlier. You no longer tolerate work that drains your health or threatens your peace. You stop chasing titles. You start claiming authorship.
Entrepreneurship at this season is less about reinvention and more about reclamation.
Reclaiming your time.
Reclaiming your values.
Reclaiming the kind of work that honors who you are now, not who you had to be before.
You are not late.
You are informed.
And that makes you powerful.
Coming January:
January will explore deeper what leadership looks like when you already know how to work, but you are finally choosing to work in a way that fits.
About Coach Dezi
Desiree Foster-Collins is the Founder of EBD
Collective Coaching & Consulting. She is a Maxwell Leadership Executive Program Team Member and a Certified Human Behavioral Consultant.
"You can have it all. Just not all at once." - Oprah Winfrey
This is the space where I share my thoughts, my wins, my learns and all things in-between on leading and growing my business.
I also share the parts that others won't - the hard parts of being the woman I desire to be and living out my purpose of helping you to grow your business and change lives. It starts and stops with you!
I'm a Mom to two amazing creative human beings. I love all things leadership, creativity, techy, travel and really good food.
I am a woman of faith and I will share about that too!
Thanks for being here!
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