Story & Lesson Highlights with Jamila Graham of Phoenix

We recently had the chance to connect with Jamila Graham and have shared our conversation below.

Good morning Jamila, we’re so happy to have you here with us and we’d love to explore your story and how you think about life and legacy and so much more. So let’s start with a question we often ask: What is a normal day like for you right now?
A normal day for me starts at 6 a.m. or 6:20 a.m. if I hit the snooze button. I start my day with making breakfast for my son before getting him ready and off to school. After morning drop-off, I spend time either on a walk or prepping for a launch or a new product release. Currently, on Tuesday and Thursdays, I have a business accelerator program that I am a part of for the next few weeks from 10 a.m. – 11 a.m. I then get myself ready to head to my full-time job that, between drive time and working, I’m away from home for 11 hours before I return home. Once I get home, I spend quality time with my family, and we decide what we want for dinner. After moments of great debate, we finally all align on what we want for dinner. After dinner, we get the kids to bed, and my husband and I will wind down our night watching one of our favorite shows. Depending on what needs to get done for the business, it might be a late night, but for the most part, it’s lights out at 11 p.m.

Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
Hello, my name is Jamila Graham and I am the owner and founder of ndur Athletics. ndur is pronounced like endure; it’s a play on words. ndur stands for “never doubt yourself”. I am a mother of two athletes. My son plays basketball, and my daughter played volleyball in high school. And I am a wife of 25 years to a very loving and supporting husband that supports me in living out my wildest dreams. I am someone who has always fluctuated with my weight, and I love activewear and athleisure wear, but I didn’t always like what other brands had to offer or their cost sometimes. As I worked through my personal fitness goals, I wanted to feel comfortable and confident in what I was wearing and how I showed up at my kids’ sporting events. I got tired of wearing overpriced activewear that was see-through, cut too small in all the wrong areas, and had seams in all the wrong areas. So I created ndur in 2020, but we didn’t launch until 2023 because there was a lot of work going on behind the scenes to get to where we wanted to be. There were times when I just wanted to stop and be done with the whole idea of starting a brand, but I had to remind myself to ndur and not doubt myself.

I stuck to it, and we are still going strong, stronger than ever. We’ve been able to expand into men’s activewear, and we now have our products in a local boutique in Scottsdale, Arizona.

Great, so let’s dive into your journey a bit more. Who taught you the most about work?
I think with growing up in a single-parent household and seeing all that my mom did to take care of my sister and me, I learned a lot about work and work ethic at an early age. There were times when growing up my mom wasn’t able to get me everything that I wanted, and I realized that if I wanted something badly enough, I had to work for it. I got my very first job at the age of 16, but I had always found little ways to find side hustles. At an early age, I was a little serial entrepreneur and didn’t even know it. I would start a “business”, make the money I wanted or needed, and was on to the next thing.

As I got older in life, I was a big-time job hopper. I never stayed at a job longer than a year until I applied to work at Express. The hiring manager noticed on my resume that I never stayed long, and she asked me, “If I hire you, will you stay for longer than a year?“ I am a woman of my word, and I had a decision to make: do I want the job or did I want to keep bouncing around? I took the job. I started off as a sales associate, became one of the top sales associates in the store and in the company, was promoted to a lead, and eventually got promoted to a manager of my own store.

It was a combination of what my mom instilled in me and the hiring manager at Express calling me out that really helped shape and teach me how to be the worker that I am today.

When did you last change your mind about something important?
The struggle is real…when I first launched, I wanted to launch with my very own designs and styles. It took years getting the fit just perfect and the fabrics just right, and not to mention the time and money. I finally felt like I cracked the code and was ready to go ALL in. I told my manufacturer these are the sizes, colors, and quantities that I wanted and gave me the quote and a date that we could start production.

I got the quote for what I wanted, and my eyes about popped out of my head like I was in a cartoon. Mind you, I am 100% self-funded, and I was saving my bonuses from my day job, thinking I was ready to make some money moves. I had to pump the brakes and reevaluate my next move.

In that moment, I was done. I was devastated. I had done all that planning and saving to drop my designs that I worked so hard on. I didn’t know what to do, and I was heartbroken. I had to call my sister, who is my go-to person of reason. She was the one that reminded me of why I started and what the brand name represents.

I went back to the drawing board to figure out my next move and how I was going to move forward instead of just giving up on it all. I had to pivot and adjust, but when I did, it was a tough decision, but I am proud that I kept at it and didn’t just give up when things didn’t go as planned. Having to completely change everything that I had planned for taught me that in business, you need to have a plan A, B, C, and D at times and be ready to pivot.

Sure, so let’s go deeper into your values and how you think. Is the public version of you the real you?
Is the public version of you the real you, is a great question that I just recently had a debate about if I was being my authentic self if my public version is not who I really am.

In transparency, my public version versus my private version of self are completely different, but I am still authentically me. In private, I am quiet and reserved, and I really don’t talk a lot or talk at all. I am good with silence. But living with three other people, I can’t exactly be silent. My husband and daughter are talkers and loud talkers at that, whereas my son and I are quiet and reserved. I say we sit back and observe and take note of things. But the public version of me runs a company, manages people, directs work, and engages with hundreds of people on a daily basis. In either situation, I am authentically me, but in public, I am more animated because that’s what the role calls for. At home in my safe place, I don’t need to do all of that, so I keep to the reserved part of me.

Okay, so before we go, let’s tackle one more area. What are you doing today that won’t pay off for 7–10 years?
I would say the time I spend on social media today is not going to benefit me in any way in the next 7-10 years. The minutes that add up scrolling could be invested in more important work that I do or want to do. As I think through this answer, I one don’t even want to know how much time I’ve lost, and two I am going to start cutting back on my time spent on social media. My future self will thank me for it.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://ndurathletics.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/ndur_athletics
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ndur-athletics/
• Facebook: https://Facebook.com/ndurathletics
• Other: https://youtu.be/lt7lKJtTXvs?si=l5QCdS1AAQpaExo2