Between criminology courses, working as a substitute teacher, working on the Eboard of multiple student organizations and running her own online boutique, 20-year-old Martaz’Shia Gibbs says that keeping busy makes her who she is. As a full-time student and small business owner, she still manages to run her entire business.
“I do everything on my own,” she admits. “Every order that’s made, I ship them on that same day. I don’t have a team, I am the team.”
After the end of a toxic relationship of three years that kept her from doing much of anything that did not involve her partner, she decided that she needed to find herself again. Finding herself meant getting involved and keeping busy.
Photo courtesy of Creative Commons
“When I first got to USF, I was in a relationship,” she reveals. “I was in a relationship for 3 years. In that time, I didn’t join anything. I was very to myself. Once we broke up, I was kinda like, I need to get out of this funk,” she elaborates. “In high school, I was very very involved. I won homecoming court every year, I did student government, made a club and I just decided that I needed to get back to myself.”
A contributing factor that led up to both the end of her three year relationship and the launch of her boutique is when her first love cheated on her with a stripper that she felt like she could not compare to. Figuring out the best way to deal with that was a struggle for her.
“Instead of dealing with my problems, dealing with the relationship and just loving myself and helping myself, I distracted myself by joining orgs and staying busy. I got two jobs, I did a bunch of orgs… .”
Photo courtesy of Creative Commons
She used the way that experience made her feel as fuel to encourage herself to sacrifice anything she had to in order to launch a business that contributed to making people feel confident.
“When he cheated on me, it was with this girl that was older,” she confesses. “She was like 25 or 27, so she was older and she was also a stripper. That made me feel very insecure. I remember the first time I cried over it, he was comforting me and he was telling me that I am beautiful,” She continues. “Later that night I just wondered how many other females feel like me right now. Low, insecure, like you’re ugly, never been the first pick for guys, always the one they look at last. I look at stripper’s dance wear and I look at Victoria Secret models and they’re sexy, they’re cute. It’s everything that you desire and want to be. I told him, I want to make lingerie but I don’t want to be like Victoria Secret. Every girl should feel sexy.”
Photo courtesy of Mocha Boutique
She launched her online lingerie boutique on June 8, 2018. Since the launch of her boutique, she has not had any assistance managing her business in anyway. She admits that it does get hard but she needs it.
“The reason I have this motivation is because I see it as a distraction,” Gibbs shares. “It’s a distraction from how you really feel on the inside. The more distracted you are, the less you have to deal with your real problems.”
Just in case there was not enough on her plate, she also shared her idea of launching a non-profit organization, Youth of Tomorrow for students from Kindergarten to grade 12. Her plans for this program include helping students get jobs and internships through sponsors.
Martaz’Shia Gibbs, as young as she is, has a way of turning negative situations into encouragement to inspire others. She sacrifices her social life and even sleep to juggle all of her responsibilities. She even shared tips on how she manages her time with all that she takes on. From grade-school classrooms to her college campus, she continues to work hard and change lives.