Geralda Larkins
While I'm an Author, Pastor and Life Coach, I'm known as a "Visionary Strategist". I plan everything. I have been a planner my whole life. All through school, my planner was my lifeline. In college, I loved getting the syllabus and mapping out exactly what it was going to take to do well in a class. My whole life was based on a series of goals and objectives to reach my personal definition of success. Every year, as long as I can remember, I would make lists for my lists, and it felt so good to put a check or a line through a task completed. Graduate high school – check. Graduate college – check. Land a great job – check. Own a home – check. Get married – check. Have a baby – check. On the outside, I was measuring up pretty well to my own standard for success. On the outside, I was accomplishing more than the statistics said I would ever achieve. On the outside, I was the poster child for the American dream. On the inside, however, was a whole other ugly reality.
Buried in between all my accomplishments were things that I never planned for. I never planned for my father to disappear from my life when I was three years old and become a figment of my imagination. I never planned to be a victim of sexual abuse at six years old. I never planned for my mother to be murdered when I was sixteen years old and leave me and my siblings orphaned. I never planned to be homeless at nineteen years old. I never planned to be divorced at twenty-three years old. I never planned to remarry, only to get divorced again at twenty-eight years old. I never planned to be a single mother. I never planned for my only son to have special needs. None of these things were in my plans. I dealt with these unplanned things the only way I knew how I made another plan. But, I grew tired of planning. That's because I had no vision for my life. Not having a vision of my identity or my purpose only amplified the many setbacks I experienced in my life resulting in years of frustration, sadness, anger and fear that overwhelmed me to a place of depression. The lack of vision clouded my judgment and impacted my ability to effectively develop grow personally and professionally.
In 2010, starting with a foundation of faith, I began a journey of understanding who I am, embracing my unique gifts, and building the life of my dream. I had to define my "why" in order to develop the right strategies to successfully navigate the ups and downs of life and attain to the greatness my heart desired. Today, my life's mission is to honor God in the service of people who desire to leave a legacy of His love in the world. This focus revolutionized my perspective of my 16-year career of government service to one of servant leadership. It also led me to launch a consulting firm, Geralda Larkins Consulting, to help steer visions to reality through my gift of strategic planning, coaching, and consulting. In 2015, I answered the call to pastoral ministry and founded Impart Kingdom Ministries to merge faith and the marketplace by offering unique Bible-based programs, seminars, and events to empower entrepreneurs and leaders. Over the years, I am honored to have amassed a sizable portfolio of successful businesses, ministries and social programs across South Florida that have either launched or expanded with my support.
I'm also passionate about building future leaders, serving as Founder of the Broward Etiquette Academy which teaches character development, leadership skills, and etiquette to youth and young adults. I have mentored hundreds of teen girls serving as past-Director of the Girls Encouragement Ministry which hosted the largest girls empowerment conference in South Florida for 5 consecutive years.
My highest achievement is my service as a wife and mother. I have the honor to be married to my junior high sweetheart and best friend Christopher. We have a blended family. We love to make memories with our four children, Chris Jr., Curtis, Cierra and Oliver.
Oftentimes, my biggest obstacle was, well, myself. Before I understood the power of vision, I was blinded to my purpose and made decisions from a place of fear. I can remember the many mornings, waking up doubting myself, the countless times I told myself "no" before someone else did or the times I let others form an opinion about my abilities rather than believing in myself. If you're ever going to grow personally or professionally, you're going to face failure. When I launched a Prom Dress Drive for at-risk teens, we received tremendous support from local formal wear sponsors. We worked tirelessly for weeks to make the day special for what we hoped were about 40 high school girls. However, on the day of the event, only 2 girls showed up. It was devastating. I spent weeks going over the plans to assess where we could've gone wrong. The only thing that pushed me back on track to continue the work was the overall vision of girls reaching their fullest potential; even if one event made a positive impact on just two.
Geralda Larkins Consulting provides personal and professional development services to small to mid-sized organizations and their people. Services include strategic planning, administrative support, business consulting, career and workforce preparedness, leadership development, professional workshops, seminars and networking events. Proceeds from signature networking events like, Beyond the Boardroom, help us to bring our high-value programs to at-risk communities at low-to-no cost. Impart Kingdom Ministries (IKM), our non-profit division, offers faith-based professional development programs, including the Strategic Society membership group, Legacy-Vision Incubator co-working space, and LegacyGlobal.TV broadcast network. We're known for revelatory bible studies, spirit-filled seminars, and our annual Strategic Planning Summit, to empower leaders with a spiritual mandate to impact the world. Vision is our competitive advantage. We're most proud of seeing our client's visions become reality and in turn, they transform personally right before our eyes into a more confident, dynamic servant leader.
My favorite memory from childhood was meeting my husband in middle school. He was thirteen and I was twelve. He was the new kid in school and everyone wanted to hang out with him. I was considered an obscure nerdy girl with not many friends. I was brave enough to introduce myself and he smiled at me. I'll never forget how good it felt to be acknowledged. We became very good friends, lost contact, but reconnected 17 years later and became husband and wife.
While I'm an Author, Pastor and Life Coach, I'm known as a "Visionary Strategist". I plan everything. I have been a planner my whole life. All through school, my planner was my lifeline. In college, I loved getting the syllabus and mapping out exactly what it was going to take to do well in a class. My whole life was based on a series of goals and objectives to reach my personal definition of success. Every year, as long as I can remember, I would make lists for my lists, and it felt so good to put a check or a line through a task completed. Graduate high school – check. Graduate college – check. Land a great job – check. Own a home – check. Get married – check. Have a baby – check. On the outside, I was measuring up pretty well to my own standard for success. On the outside, I was accomplishing more than the statistics said I would ever achieve. On the outside, I was the poster child for the American dream. On the inside, however, was a whole other ugly reality.
Buried in between all my accomplishments were things that I never planned for. I never planned for my father to disappear from my life when I was three years old and become a figment of my imagination. I never planned to be a victim of sexual abuse at six years old. I never planned for my mother to be murdered when I was sixteen years old and leave me and my siblings orphaned. I never planned to be homeless at nineteen years old. I never planned to be divorced at twenty-three years old. I never planned to remarry, only to get divorced again at twenty-eight years old. I never planned to be a single mother. I never planned for my only son to have special needs. None of these things were in my plans. I dealt with these unplanned things the only way I knew how I made another plan. But, I grew tired of planning. That's because I had no vision for my life. Not having a vision of my identity or my purpose only amplified the many setbacks I experienced in my life resulting in years of frustration, sadness, anger and fear that overwhelmed me to a place of depression. The lack of vision clouded my judgment and impacted my ability to effectively develop grow personally and professionally.
In 2010, starting with a foundation of faith, I began a journey of understanding who I am, embracing my unique gifts, and building the life of my dream. I had to define my "why" in order to develop the right strategies to successfully navigate the ups and downs of life and attain to the greatness my heart desired. Today, my life's mission is to honor God in the service of people who desire to leave a legacy of His love in the world. This focus revolutionized my perspective of my 16-year career of government service to one of servant leadership. It also led me to launch a consulting firm, Geralda Larkins Consulting, to help steer visions to reality through my gift of strategic planning, coaching, and consulting. In 2015, I answered the call to pastoral ministry and founded Impart Kingdom Ministries to merge faith and the marketplace by offering unique Bible-based programs, seminars, and events to empower entrepreneurs and leaders. Over the years, I am honored to have amassed a sizable portfolio of successful businesses, ministries and social programs across South Florida that have either launched or expanded with my support.
I'm also passionate about building future leaders, serving as Founder of the Broward Etiquette Academy which teaches character development, leadership skills, and etiquette to youth and young adults. I have mentored hundreds of teen girls serving as past-Director of the Girls Encouragement Ministry which hosted the largest girls empowerment conference in South Florida for 5 consecutive years.
My highest achievement is my service as a wife and mother. I have the honor to be married to my junior high sweetheart and best friend Christopher. We have a blended family. We love to make memories with our four children, Chris Jr., Curtis, Cierra and Oliver.
Oftentimes, my biggest obstacle was, well, myself. Before I understood the power of vision, I was blinded to my purpose and made decisions from a place of fear. I can remember the many mornings, waking up doubting myself, the countless times I told myself "no" before someone else did or the times I let others form an opinion about my abilities rather than believing in myself. If you're ever going to grow personally or professionally, you're going to face failure. When I launched a Prom Dress Drive for at-risk teens, we received tremendous support from local formal wear sponsors. We worked tirelessly for weeks to make the day special for what we hoped were about 40 high school girls. However, on the day of the event, only 2 girls showed up. It was devastating. I spent weeks going over the plans to assess where we could've gone wrong. The only thing that pushed me back on track to continue the work was the overall vision of girls reaching their fullest potential; even if one event made a positive impact on just two.
Geralda Larkins Consulting provides personal and professional development services to small to mid-sized organizations and their people. Services include strategic planning, administrative support, business consulting, career and workforce preparedness, leadership development, professional workshops, seminars and networking events. Proceeds from signature networking events like, Beyond the Boardroom, help us to bring our high-value programs to at-risk communities at low-to-no cost. Impart Kingdom Ministries (IKM), our non-profit division, offers faith-based professional development programs, including the Strategic Society membership group, Legacy-Vision Incubator co-working space, and LegacyGlobal.TV broadcast network. We're known for revelatory bible studies, spirit-filled seminars, and our annual Strategic Planning Summit, to empower leaders with a spiritual mandate to impact the world. Vision is our competitive advantage. We're most proud of seeing our client's visions become reality and in turn, they transform personally right before our eyes into a more confident, dynamic servant leader.
My favorite memory from childhood was meeting my husband in middle school. He was thirteen and I was twelve. He was the new kid in school and everyone wanted to hang out with him. I was considered an obscure nerdy girl with not many friends. I was brave enough to introduce myself and he smiled at me. I'll never forget how good it felt to be acknowledged. We became very good friends, lost contact, but reconnected 17 years later and became husband and wife.
