About
the Author
The
College Years
In 1989, Phyllis Solis - Friederich graduated
with a BA in Speech Communications from Texas A&M University owing $2,300.
She was a twenty-three-year-old divorced single parent at that time. She worked,
went to school, volunteered and was active in extra-curricular activities while
raising her toddler son. She earned several scholarships, including a Presidential Scholarship. During her
years in college, she had to learn the scholarship, grant, and loan system on
her own and created a strategy – over 30 years ago.
Corporate
Career
After graduation, doors opened, and she
walked right through and had a wonderful corporate career. She climbed the
corporate ladder and won two Presidential Cups. These were the years of her
greatest mentoring. She was blessed with
amazing leaders that taught her all their secrets to success. Unfortunately, she
learned how to become silly rich, and forgot how to be smart poor (chapter 6).
Reality
Check
Then, all the financial success came to a
screeching halt with the birth of her youngest son. At five days old, her
youngest son had his first open heart surgery.
At nine months old, he had his second surgery. At three years old, he
endured his third surgery. Then, at age ten, he had his fourth surgery with a
clear expectation of having additional surgeries every ten years minimum.
Student
Becomes Mentor
In 2016, she was placed in the position of
mentor rather than student. Twenty-nine years had passed since college graduation,
and it was time to pass on the torch to her children. With two high school
children that were college-bound, she knew her children would be faced with
paying for college because of the family medical bills.
She read as many first-hand autobiography scholarship
books as possible, but they were side-tabled because she was not taught how to
search, organize and execute a plan. Essentially, all the books or videos would
show what, where, and why. She could not find a systematic way
to execute all the information. With determination, she was determined to find
a plan and learn THE HOW so she
could mentor her children..
A Research Project. A Workshop. A Book.
Phyllis Solis - Friederich wrote College
Survivor (the workbook) by
accident. Before she knew it, she wrote
a 150-page workbook. Her children’s friends began to ask if she could help
them, and she did. Then she had a small workshop for parents, and it was
amazing
The
Turning Point
In early fall of 2017, Phyllis Solis -
Friederich met two amazing women by happenstance. They both encouraged her to take the original work and publish
it as a book.
On one very bitter cold day in December 2017,
she quit her job, hired her IT guru and in twenty-four hours had a book cover design
and logo. In January 2018, with her heart racing, she called a publisher. And
here we are…