Abi­an­ka Alexan­der Dick, bet­ter known as Ab­by, was born and raised in Gold­en Lane, Mt Thomas, To­ba­go, to an awe­some and lov­ing ex­tend­ed fam­i­ly. Her moth­er left her when she was just two-years-old to pur­sue Nurs­ing in Trinidad. Ab­by al­ways want­ed to fol­low in her moth­er’s foot­steps to be­come a nurse but felt like she want­ed to be more than just that. Twen­ty-six years lat­er, she is now an Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Health Nurse, Su­per­vi­sor and wor­ship leader who is hap­pi­ly mar­ried.

In 2012, for her wed­ding, she had dif­fi­cul­ty ac­quir­ing a cup­cake tow­er for the 250 cup­cakes, how­ev­er, she couldn’t source it lo­cal­ly and had to or­der it on­line. This meant that there was a need for these types of ac­ces­sories in the lo­cal in­dus­try. To­day, as the own­er of Tours Bénies Rental Ser­vices, Ab­by of­fers cus­tom-made, one of a kind, hand­craft­ed dis­play tow­ers for desserts, cup­cakes, cakes and more. Tours Bénies means ‘Blessed Tow­ers’ in French, hence she aims to have her rentals and ser­vices al­ways be a bless­ing to her clients. We in­ter­viewed Ab­by on her jour­ney and she had a lot to share with us. Check out what she had to say be­low:

What was the biggest chal­lenge you had to over­come and how did you deal with it?

The biggest chal­lenge I had to over­come was my own doubt­ful mind­set when it came to want­i­ng more, dream­ing of a dif­fer­ent and bet­ter life, yet feel­ing pow­er­less to af­fect that need­ed change. Se­cret­ly, I al­ways want­ed to take a chance and ven­ture in­to the very scary and un­pre­dictable jour­ney of en­tre­pre­neur­ship. Life took me on a de­layed path. Af­ter hav­ing to deal with three mis­car­riages, God in his wis­dom gave me three pre­cious lives to over­see. A year and sev­en months af­ter my wed­ding, with­out prepa­ra­tion or pre­dic­tion, I be­came an in­stant moth­er to my three step chil­dren ages 10, eight and six. In Sep­tem­ber 2016, af­ter get­ting the right push and ad­vice from loved ones who saw the po­ten­tial of my busi­ness idea, I fi­nal­ly took the step of faith and courage and launched. It took work­ing with a busi­ness coach and net­work­ing with oth­er like-mind­ed en­tre­pre­neurs to help me get my foot in and to even­tu­al­ly find my groove. Al­though I was still pet­ri­fied, I didn’t al­low fear or lack of re­sources to stop me.

What are you work­ing on at present, what is keep­ing you ex­cit­ed?

I’m cur­rent­ly work­ing on re­brand­ing my busi­ness and re-launch­ing my web­site www.tours­be­nies.com in De­cem­ber 2019. The pos­si­bil­i­ty of cre­at­ing new rentals and meet­ing new peo­ple keeps me ex­cit­ed all the time. My pur­pose is to spread joy and to pos­i­tive­ly im­pact lives. Whether as a nurse, moth­er, wife, friend, host or to a per­fect stranger, when I leave your pres­ence, I will be re­mem­bered for putting a smile on your face. The same can be said for our cus­tom rentals. I’m a suck­er for games and fun ac­tiv­i­ties that are en­gag­ing to my au­di­ence; hav­ing them eat­ing out of the palm of my hand. With no for­mal train­ing, it has al­ways been a nat­ur­al fit for me. It’s one of the traits I in­her­it­ed from my fa­ther (dad­dy Al­lan as I grew up call­ing him). He al­ways knew how to com­mand at­ten­tion in a room and I ob­served his host­ing style over the years and made it in­to my own style. I’m cur­rent­ly gear­ing up to have a sweet con­test via so­cial me­dia this Christ­mas. A con­test with a dif­fer­ence, my per­son­al touch.

What is your ul­ti­mate goal or biggest dream for your fu­ture?

The ul­ti­mate goal is to con­tin­ue to dis­cov­er un­tapped re­sources and gifts with­in my­self and to help bring them out in my chil­dren, so that they can make an im­pact on their gen­er­a­tion and the next. I want them to know, by my ex­am­ple, that noth­ing is im­pos­si­ble and that hard work nev­er feels like work when you’re hav­ing fun and ac­com­plish­ing your pur­pose. I want to share my sto­ry and hope that oth­ers will know that fear and the ob­sta­cles faced in life shouldn’t stop one from pur­su­ing one’s dreams. Work to­wards mak­ing it a re­al­i­ty. The lessons learned in life help fu­el my pas­sion to achieve ex­cel­lence no mat­ter what. Do it scared if you have to, but just do it! The biggest dream for the fu­ture is for com­plete fi­nan­cial in­de­pen­dence via en­tre­pre­neur­ship to aid in build­ing my dream home back in To­ba­go. My heart nev­er left and that is my re­tire­ment plan.

Naalri's Photoplanet Ltd

Tell us some­thing about you that peo­ple may not know?

When­ev­er there is a big change in my life, I al­ways cut off my hair. I think it’s some­thing Co­co Chanel once said but it is so true of me. There has been so many in­car­na­tions of my hair. Cur­rent­ly, I’m sport­ing it short and 100% nat­ur­al. The start of my busi­ness in­spired it this time and I’m lov­ing every minute of it. While many may think I’m just keep­ing up with trends, it runs deep­er, hence, I am usu­al­ly bold in my phys­i­cal ex­pres­sion. I love to sup­port fel­low lo­cal en­tre­pre­neurs with fash­ion and ac­ces­sories. I al­ways had an ap­pre­ci­a­tion for all things unique and at­tempt to present my­self and my brand in the best pos­si­ble light to al­ways keep stuck in your brain.

Do you have any ad­vice for oth­er women who may want to do what you do?

As my pas­tor Apos­tle CK Chankers­ingh al­ways says, “Out of your great­est pain, will come your great­est gain.” When you think that life is hap­pen­ing to you, it’s hap­pen­ing for you. Do it scared. Be an in­spi­ra­tion. Starve your doubts to death. Even if you got off to a rocky start, you have the pow­er to have a strong fin­ish. Cre­ate your own lane, walk in it and look good do­ing it too.