Life is what happens to you when you are busy making other plans, so goes the popular saying. But what if life happened to you because you were busy planning for it? Diouldé Barry, known as Barry Empire to the world of nutrition and motivation, took the latter route and found himself in the center of a life of his own making. Barry's journey of overcoming the odds, rising from the marginal borders of society to the pinnacle of success, is inspiring and motivating.
Before he founded his e-commerce business Health Nutrition and became a millionaire, Barry was living on the margins of life. He was on welfare and had little gone one for him outside his own aspiration to overcome his condition. "I was not going to give up on myself," he says, "I was going to do all it takes to pull myself back up and not give into hopeless despair as most people around me had succumbed to." He recalls the difficulties he faced to keep himself motivated when there were "no certainties and no guarantees if tomorrow will be a better day. But I held on because I had faith in myself. I knew I had a purpose and reminding myself that every day strengthened my internal balance and prepared me for all the odds that life was capable of throwing at me."
This was in 2016. Fast-forward two years and Barry is a self-made millionaire, founder of fitness brand Heath Nutrition, and an employer to 30 employees. What happened? "For me, it was a goal achieved and not a dream-realized. My determination to improve the quality of my life made me think, well, if the opportunity isn't coming to my door, I'll go and knock on every door I can find. So, I made connections, informed myself about health, observed the effect the status of the body has on the status of the mind. Starting Health Nutrition was the next organic step."
Barry is now an entrepreneur-motivator. This perhaps is the next organic step for someone who has emerged from the grim realities of life to its bright side.
