By Leo Adam Biga

THE WHO

Certified family life educator Kara Warner is on fire with the idea of living her own best life and helping others do the same. The owner of the family life education and coaching business Manifested Purpose LLC may be a new entrepreneur – she formally launched her business in 2020 – but she’s prepared herself for this work since the start of the new millennium.

She works one-on-one with parents on building stronger families and engages school-aged children in learning through her Black Studies Bootcamp For Youth and Beauty is Skin Deep Camp for Girls. Warner’s own personal journey of self-discovery, actualization and healing informs the curriculum she develops and the instruction she offers. As a child she endured her parents’ divorce and a move from Hammond, Ind. to her mother’s hometown of Omaha. She grew up as a protective big sister to her brother, who has cerebral palsy. She dealt with overt racism at school. Then, as a young woman, she suffered the sudden loss of her mother in 2009.

The late Lila Warner was a Douglas County probation officer before transitioning into secretarial work in the student placement office at Omaha Public Schools. She was also the primary caregiver for her special needs son. Lila died of a stroke at age 53.

The late Lila Warner with Kara and her brother. Photo credit: Kara Warner

“I saw my mom as the strong Black woman we all hear about,” said Warner. “That phrase has been tagged onto a lot of women, but I interpret that having-to-be-strong-all-the-time stress as the cause of her death. I want to be very careful using that term ‘strong Black woman’ because I feel that strength Black women are expected to exude does cause some health issues. It weighs heavily on our mental health and our physical health.”

In the decade following her mother’s death, Warner became a single mom and worked human service positions at area nonprofit agencies. Then came a brief relocation to Atlanta that prompted her to return to Omaha.

The onset of the pandemic represented a restart for Warner, who took everything she’d learned to that point and poured it into Manifested Purpose. From the time schools closed in spring 2020, she’s home-schooled her son, Zaccai, and delivered virtual programming to clients. She said her son is thriving as a home-schooled student and she’s seeing strong interest in her community programs. “Classes fill up fast,” she said.

Empowering Others

Long before starting Manifested Purpose, Warner shared insights and tips via social media, where she’s developed a following. She still posts life lessons and affirmations on her Facebook page.

Photo credit: Kara Warner’s public Facebook profile

Warner attributes her passion for empowering others to the discrimination she witnessed against her wheelchair-confined brother and Section 8 family. “It definitely made me want to advocate for the underdog,” she said. Pivotal childhood experiences “compelled” her to learn more about Black history and her own African American identity. One was seeing a Ku Klux Klan hood displayed at the Great Plains Black History Museum and learning about the terror it symbolized. Another was the bullying, taunting, racial slurs and slights she experienced as a middle school student in District 66 after her family moved just west of 72nd Street. She was concurrently shunned by Black youth she grew up with who felt she’d abandoned her Black heritage.

At Omaha Central High School, where she was a cheerleader and a French Club member, she took her first Black Studies course. It stoked her interest in knowing more about that history. She received scholarships to attend the University of Nebraska at Omaha, where she pursued dual majors in psychology and Black Studies.

“In college I found the true passion to do more research on who we are as a people, where we come from,” said Warner, who today pays forward the knowledge she’s gained in the bootcamps she designs and teaches.

At UNO, professor Cynthia Robinson, now the Black Studies department chair, became a mentor. “I learned so much from her in regards to Black Studies, Black women, women of color. She definitely instilled in me the importance of academia, scholastics, and how I could apply all that I was learning to my everyday life.”

“Living out your purpose will undoubtedly rub certain people the wrong way. They will say that ‘you've changed’ … become ‘distant”’… In this season, I'm not into chasing, begging, proving or convincing anyone of my value … purposeful living exposes the kindred spirits as well as the foul ones … the kindred spirits are the only spirits I care to entertain.”
–Kara Warner on Facebook

*“I was tired of investing in other people's dreams, and spending less time cultivating my own…”*

- Kara Warner Facebook post

Warner found more purpose as an All Our Kids mentee. Her mentor, attorney Harriette Washington, was a major influence. “We established this extremely profound relationship,” Warner said. “She was very involved in my life throughout high school and college. She’s definitely a significant part of who I am today. She used to talk to me about finding purpose right away by getting a feel for what your passion is and then working that passion and purpose to the best of your ability.”

For Warner, that meaning comes from being an advocate. “I always kind of set myself up and put myself in areas and spaces where I could educate youth, the underserved and those who felt they had no voice.” She was a teen facilitator at Girls Inc. where she first developed-implemented her Beauty is Skin Deep curriculum to promote healthy, positive self-esteem among young women of color. As a program coordinator at Partnership4Kids (formerly All Our Kids,) her life came full circle. “It was very rewarding working with the students and essentially giving them what program mentors gave me.” She worked as a truancy specialist for Urban League of Nebraska. By 2019 she headed Heartland Family Service’s Generation Center.

Even though she’d already accomplished much in her career, she sensed something missing.

“I felt like my purpose is deeper. I needed to find what my personal mission is. I remember writing down a list of things that make me happy, that make me smile, and when I got to number 26 I wrote. ‘I want to help people live out their purpose,’ and I started crying. It really touched my heart.”

“The work had always been my passion, but then when I got to my purpose – helping other people find their purpose – I just was overwhelmed with emotion. That’s when I realized helping people find their purpose is my first mission.” Finding that clarity moved her so, she said, because “I remember being at a place where I didn’t know what I was here on Earth to do and for me that was a very scary place to be in. I felt stuck, I felt stagnant, I felt defeated, I felt devalued and all of those things can make someone feel as if they have no place or purpose.”
“While we’re here on Earth we want to make sure we see the best out of our experience. I was just tired of going to work and investing in another person’s vision and mission for $15-$20 an hour, then coming back home and being so tired and feeling so depleted and not having much to give to my son. It was a really dark place for me.”

Remaking Herself

Once she embraced advocacy as her life’s work, she earned a master’s in family life education from Concordia University (Seward, Neb.) in 2017,.” I loved that program,” she said. “It made so much sense to me helping families transition from crisis and life changes. I was able to interconnect that with my degree in psychology. It just worked.”

Still, it took losing her 9 to 5 job, floundering in Atlanta (2019) and then the pandemic (2020) before she made a full commitment to Manifested Purpose.

“I did not want to come back. I was ashamed, I was embarrassed. But I came back and I think I made the best of it. I’m glad now I came back to pursue these new opportunities.”

It wasn’t easy. “I rebuilt my life from the ground up.” Then, when the world went virtual she saw the time was right to enter the nontraditional education space she’d long eyed. “It seemed like a great opportunity to embark on some of the things I’d been wanting to do. There was no better time to be one hundred percent self-employed and to do this full-time.”

She marked her first year anniversary in June. Clients keep seeking her out and parents keep registering kids for camps. “It’s been working, so I’m glad I did it. It’s been the best decision. I think my network is so strong because of my community involvement and the relationships I’ve been able to establish.”

She partners with Tiffany Gamble’s Emerging Ladies Academy on the Beauty is Skin Deep camp, and with Black Agenda Alliance on the Black Studies bootcamps. She’s also provided programs to Boys and Girls Club, the Learning Community, Parent University and Mount View Elementary. She teaches resume building to Urban League career bootcampers. She has a project in the works with Girls Inc. Through it all, she focuses on repairing the Black family unit with tools, resources and lessons that promote effective, healthy communication and self-image. A resolution introduced earlier this year by Nebraska state Sen. Terrell McKinney recognized Warner and her work to strengthen Black youth and families.

Healthy families, she preaches, start with healthy individuals who practice self-love and positive interpersonal relationships. Part of her holistic approach focuses on women, who often bear the brunt of family-relationship responsibilities. To that end, she’s offered virtual courses for caregivers and for survivors of rape and molestation.

“… the things we find repulsive about others are often the traits we haven't acknowledged about ourselves … Next time your triggers flare up, take a moment before reacting. Pay attention to what your body does … Tension areas are normally where you will find the most blockage and where you need the most healing. Get to the root of your triggers … Balance is key.”
–Kara Warner on Facebook

Along the way to realizing her purpose, she’s learned a few things:

-Stay true to what your purpose is and what you’ve been called to do
•Don’t allow anyone to persuade you to go in a different direction that does not fit with your experience
Photo credit: Kara Warner

Manifested Purpose aligns closely with the Black Agenda Alliance that she chairs. “We’ve pivoted our mission to provide youth programming that helps develop their self-image, self-worth and self-efficacy,” she said of BAA. The Black Studies bootcamps are perfect examples. “It’s one of the best things I have ever embarked on. I find a lot of gratification educating students on the true fundamentals of Black history. We don’t just talk about slavery and post-slavery. We talk about pre-slavery and what took place in West African societies and cultures that helped enhance the world economy. We talk about our impact as melanated people in the development of the world. We talk about Mali emperor Mansa Musa – the wealthiest man ever. These are things not traditionally taught in the classroom setting. Students are very engaged with and intrigued by the information. Their parents participate, too.”

“I really had to self-examine, self-reflect and take time to do the work. Sometimes that meant isolating myself. It’s difficult. You have to stay on your square and find ways to continuously motivate yourself.”

— Kara Warner

Today, she’s able to confidently offer self-improvement programs because after doing much work on herself she has a healthy sense of her own well-being. As she recently shared via Facebook, that wasn’t always the case, especially when she first started Beauty is Skin Deep in 2010. “I took a step back as I was struggling with my own self-worth at the time, feeling as if I would have been operating in hypocrisy had I continued offering these young ladies life lessons that I hadn't even mastered yet myself.” She’s unafraid to reinvent herself and programs as needed over time. She still takes time to reset and recharge, she said, “because sometimes you do lose that drive.”

With a Little Help from Her Friends

Kara Warner front, Kristina Avant left, Angel Martin back. Photo credit: Kara Warner

Helping her get through the doubts and down times is “a very small close circle of friends,” all fellow entrepreneurs, that she draws support from: Clarice Jackson, Angel Martin and Kristina Avant. “Those are the three women I’m really able to be open and transparent with about how I’m feeling, what I’m struggling with in my business or figuring out what the next step is. We’re able to talk about these things from a very honest perspective.”

Jackson, the founder of Voice Advocacy Center and a member on the newly formed state Commission on African American Affairs, has become a surrogate mother figure to Warner in addition to being a business coach.

“Trying to navigate through being a successful small business owner is sometimes fearful because you don’t know where you’re heading,” Warner said. “We give each other feedback and advice and encouragement. I can feel like I’m not alone in feeling the way I feel.”

Warner, who admires established business owners such as Candice Price (Home Team Auto Sales and Sapphire Grill), advises emerging women entrepreneurs to find a successful business bestie who can challenge, inspire or even mentor them.

Kara Warner left, Clarice Jackson right Photo credit: Kara Warner

“Other people can really help you transformationally get outside of your own box and way of thinking,” she said. “I consider my circle of friends my mentors as well. They mentor me in areas I’m weak in or I’m not as developed in. They help sharpen the person I am.”

For Warner and her cohort, the phenomenon of Black women evermore asserting themselves in business, in elected office, et cetera, is a process long in the making.

“Historically and socially Black women have been deemed as this superhero, where nothing hurts us, we don’t feel pain, we can take pretty much anything,” she said. “We’ve been molded to be the dominant figure in our households as the matriarch. At the same time we’re expected to take care of everybody else’s needs before ourselves. In this new climate there’s a big self-care movement of trying to find peace within our purpose. We’ve learned it’s okay to take time to invest in ourselves, whether pampering ourselves or working on our brand or creating a business. We’re coming into an age where Black women are finally stepping out and saying I am not a superhero, I am human, I have needs, I have feelings, I have dreams, I have goals, I have struggles.”

As she put in a recent Facebook post, “Let's normalize Black women as simply being resilient without expecting them to have obtained this hyper sense of strength … ”

There’s a dawning realization, too, she said, that it’s okay to acknowledge limitations and to ask for help. In her circle, she said, this new feminist Black consciousness is something “we talk about almost every day,” adding, “We encourage each other, we empower each other.”

Looking Ahead

While Warner’s all about maintaining balance and using her support circle, she sees bigger things for herself on the horizon. Not surprisingly, her larger goals involve promoting Black history and advancing educational autonomy.

Kara Warner teaching a class. Photo credit: Kara Warner

“It has been heavy on my heart to revitalize the Great Plains Black History Museum or develop my own Black museum,” she said.
Similarly, she envisions “developing a co-op or full- blown school focused on the interests of the child and getting other home-school parents to teach Black history.” She added, “I do believe school choice is extremely important. I don’t believe education is one size fits all. I feel parents should have the opportunity to choose what format works best for their child in terms of education. I believe a nontraditional setting works best for my child and many others.

She’s part of a new Black Agenda Alliance documentary project that, in the spirit of filmmaker Tariq Nasheed’s Hidden Colors series, will combine history, education and opinion in examining the systemic ways in which African Americans have been divided and exploring solutions to move forward together as a people.

Whatever she does in the future, Warner is sure to continue helping others find their best, truest path because she feels what she’s doing is ordained. When it landed on her heart to help others live out their purpose, this devout “believer in God” sought direction for what she took to be her ministry.

“As I was praying I asked God what should I do with this and that’s when Manifested Purpose came to me. I am so passionate about assisting others in finding their purpose and in helping them navigate through life so that they’re able to pinpoint their mission and what they can offer to their community or the world in general. It’s really important people understand that about themselves and find that for themselves.”

Another thing to count on is Warner continuing to share aspects of her life-career journey with followers on Facebook, where her posts not only serve to inspire and instruct but to cultivate new clients.

“Some people look at me crazy when they ask me what I do, and I reply, ‘I’m a self-employed, stay-at-home mom and homeschool teacher.’ They look as if it's impossible. But I am a true, living testimony that anything in this world is possible with prayer and a solid foundational relationship with God. Yes! I got hired. I got fired. I got hired. Quit a job. Hired myself. Started a business. Building a brand. And, finally, following my dreams ... to be continued.,” –Kara Warner on Facebook

Kara Warner on Manifesting her Destiny