The multimillionaire entrepreneur and philanthropist Dr. Trisha Bailey, who was born in Jamaica, chose to hold her book signing at the University of the Commonwealth Caribbean (UCC) instead of physically attending to receive her honorary doctorate from the university in July.
The book Unbroken: The Triumphant Story of a Woman’s Journey, written by Bailey, has inspired many women and girls, including House Speaker Juliet Holness, who attended the luncheon.
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Holness made a commitment during the ceremony to buy 100 copies of the earlier-published book to give to females who needed motivation.
Bailey had to look back at her healed scars to convey the story of her history, so the hour-long conversation she had before the books were signed was traumatic for her.
Shortly after beginning her speech, Bailey stated, “It brings me so much joy to be here with you. As a young girl in Woodlands, St Elizabeth, we walked three and a half miles to school. Sometimes we had shoes, sometimes we had none.”
“A place [Woodlands] where there were not many resources. We had no television, no electricity, [and] no running water. The only thing that we had were our dreams. ‘Dream so big that not even you could believe that those dreams could come true,’ my grandmother told us, “Stated the lady, whose estimated net worth of US$700 million makes her possibly the richest self-made Jamaican in history.
At age 14, Bailey felt lucky to be migrating to the United States but started to face hardships, which pushed her into evolving into the entrepreneur she is today.
“Every storm will eventually run out of rain, and at that time you can see your true light like mine has,” Bailey noted.
She added that after spending eight days in a coma in California and then moving to Florida, she realized her mission and made the decision to publish Unbroken in 2008. Her difficult divorce served as further motivation for her writing.
“My larynx was clipped, so I could not speak. I could not walk, so I was wheelchair-bound, and during my transition from California, I had a layover in Atlanta. The attendant escorted me from the aircraft and placed me in a corner, and I waited, and I cried for two and a half hours for someone to help me, and at that point, I realized that the disabled were invisible to the world, and that’s when I started my medical equipment business because I never wanted a single person to ever feel the way that I did,” Bailey noted.
“As I went through my journeys, my trials, and tribulations, and I knew that my calling that God wanted me to be greater and grander than my current circumstance, I decided to share my story through my book, Unbroken,” she added.
She said to the people in attendance that she chose to be so honest in her book so that others going through comparable experiences might relate to it and find inspiration in it. She further stated that women should pick the proper men for them, which she acknowledged she frequently failed to do, even after her divorce.
She encouraged her supporters present in the auditorium to give it their best.
“I gave it my all. Every trial I encountered, I tried to overcome. I experienced the pain, but I did not live in the pain. I knew from I was a very young child that my excellence lies within me,” she said.
