Entrepreneur Trisha Bailey signs on to inspiring women, girls
Published:Monday | November 13, 2023 | 12:09 AMAinsworth Morris/Staff Reporter
After missing out on being there in person to collect her honorary doctorate from the University of the Commonwealth Caribbean (UCC) in July, Jamaica-born multimillionaire entrepreneur and philanthropist Dr Trisha Bailey opted to make the institution the venue for her book signing last Thursday.
Numerous women and girls, including House Speaker Juliet Holness, who say they have been inspired by Bailey’s book, Unbroken: The Triumphant Story of a Woman’s Journey, were in attendance for the lunchtime affair.
During the event, Holness committed to purchasing 100 copies of the book, which was released earlier this year, for donation to girls in need of inspiration.
The one-hour talk session before the books were signed was emotional for Bailey, given that she had to peer back at her healed scars to tell the tale of her past.
“It brings me so much joy to be here with you. As a young girl in Woodlands, St Elizabeth, we walked three and a half miles to school. Sometimes we had shoes, sometimes we had none,” Bailey said seconds after starting her address.
“A place [Woodlands] where there were not many resources. We had no television, no electricity, [and] no running water. The only thing that we had were our dreams. ‘Dream so big that not even you could believe that those dreams could come true,’ my grandmother told us,” said the woman who is now arguably the wealthiest selfmade Jamaican in history with a reported net worth of US$700 million.
‘Trials and tribulations’
At age 14, Bailey felt lucky to be migrating to the United States but started to face hardships, which pushed her into evolving into the entrepreneur she is today.
“Every storm will eventually run out of rain, and at that time you can see your true light like mine has,” Bailey said.
She said she decided to write Unbroken in 2008 when she discovered her purpose while in a coma for eight days in California and transitioning to Florida. Her painful divorce also added more inspiration to write her book.
“My larynx was clipped, so I could not speak. I could not walk, so I was wheelchair-bound, and during my transition from California, I had a layover in Atlanta. The attendant escorted me from the aircraft and placed me in a corner, and I waited, and I cried for two and a half hours for someone to help me, and at that point, I realised that the disabled were invisible to the world, and that’s when I started my medical equipment business because I never wanted a single person to ever feel the way that I did,” Bailey said.
“As I went through my journeys, my trials and tribulations, and I knew that my calling that God wanted me to be greater and grander than my current circumstance, I decided to share my story through my book, Unbroken,” he said.
She told the persons gathered that the reason she decided to be so raw in her book was so that persons going through similar trials could understand and be inspired. Also, for women to choose the right men for them, which she admitted to failing at many times, even after her divorce.
Her words of inspiration to her followers gathered at the auditorium were to give it their all.
“I gave it my all. Every trial I encountered, I tried to overcome. I experienced the pain, but I did not live in the pain. I knew from I was a very young child that my excellence lies within me,” she said.