Inspirational tales of down-on-their-luck people turning their lives around and attaining success are easy to find in movies and on TV, but not so much in everyday life. It can be hard to find a relatable role model in those idealized, often entirely fictional, plotlines.
But locally, you can look to Hazel Owens. The Indianapolis resident currently spends her workdays at a nonprofit that empowers young girls, where she serves as volunteer partnership coordinator. Beyond her day job, Owens runs a blog called Coco’s Couch, which wears the tagline “embracing and empowering perfectly imperfect women.” The success of her blog has led to opportunities to speak at churches, women’s conferences, workshops for teens and more.
Owens admits that, though she considers herself a success and a role model now, she didn’t have a straight path to her current status.
“You look at your life and you think about the mistakes you’ve made and the challenges you’ve faced and the things you didn’t quite do right, and you’re like, ‘Gosh, I don’t want anybody to model after that.’”
Owens’ list of mistakes and challenges isn’t short. Getting her bachelor’s degree, for one, was a 10-year journey that began in 2001 when she enrolled at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) as a pre-dental major. She was eventually kicked out for poor grades.
“There were other things happening with me that I didn’t even realize were happening, from an emotional and spiritual standpoint,” she said. “But you’re young, you don’t think about these things. I was just partying and loving college too much.”
Owens resigned herself to joining the workforce without a college degree, though she eventually tried going back to IUPUI, first studying social work, then education. But balancing her full-time job with classes wasn’t working because, she said, IUPUI didn’t have many adult learning options at the time.
“It didn’t work out. I ended up leaving school and didn’t return.”
She settled into the corporate world working in student loans as a call center representative.
Six years after first enrolling in college — in the time it takes many people to earn both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree — Owens decided it was time to try college again. By that point, there wasn’t any pressure to finish, because her family and friends had just accepted that she was done trying.
“I wanted to prove to everybody else I could actually do it,” she said, “and I needed to prove to myself that I could do it.”
Owens had a supervisor and a friend who were each attending Indiana Wesleyan University and recommended the school to her, but she had her doubts.
“I was hesitant at first, because it’s a faith-based school, and although I’m a Christian, and I’ve been a Christian for most of my life, I wasn’t sold on the Christian school,” she said.
Though she still had her reservations, Owens said she decided to give the school a try, and she enrolled in a business management program.
“It was a little weird at first, because you pray in class and do devotion and all that,” she said.
Finding that she could immediately apply her classroom knowledge at her job boosted her motivation, which carried her to earning a bachelor’s degree in 2011.
“Next thing I know, I end up getting my master’s in human resource management (in 2013),” she said.
Thinking back over her journey, Owens recalls how difficult it was. In addition to the typical stresses of work and school, she dealt with a bout of depression and had family matters to address.
“I worked full-time, I went to school full-time, but I also took care of my father, who lived three hours away. There were some challenges with that,” she said. “Not only was I taking care of a sick parent, I was taking care of a parent who was not in my life … I had to overcome some anger and some bitterness and really seek forgiveness in my relationship with him.”
On top of everything else, Owens dealt with issues related to being a young woman of color in a white, middle-aged male-dominated corporate position. She had to be aware of how she presented herself and how that might reflect on her race.
“There are some things that, as a woman of color, I have to be very careful of, because I’m going to feed into the perception of another angry Black woman,” she said. “African-Americans, especially African-American women, we’re very passionate, but our caucasian counterparts see it as anger. One of my biggest struggles was how I speak, and this happens even in my role today. I have to be careful with the tone of my voice, because I don’t want people to perceive me as angry when really I’m just passionate about what I’m talking about.”
She also said in addition to knowing her job like the back of her hand, she had to work hard to exude confidence.
Owens said people’s doubts used to make her doubt herself, but that’s no longer the case.
“Eventually, I just got to a point where I was like, I know what I’m doing. I know I’m doing fine,” Owens said. “As women, we strive for perfection in so many areas of our lives, and when we don’t get it right, we tend to feel defeated and give up.”
Owens admits there were times she wanted to quit, and she acknowledges she was afraid, but she said her faith helped guide her. In addition to her spiritual beliefs, Owens said surrounding oneself with positive people can make a world of difference.
“You have to have the right people around you, the right people who are going to support what you’re doing and encourage you and push you along,” she said. “But whether those individuals are there or not, you have to push yourself.
“You have to find that fire within you, whatever it is that keeps you going. You have to dig deep.”
