Written By: Lauren Marinigh, Social Media & Content Strategist, Futurpreneur Canada

Entrepreneur Kiera Fogg, was born in Thunder Bay, Ontario and raised in Winnipeg, Manitoba, however, with family ties back in Thunder Bay, she often spent summers camping and exploring the wilderness of Northern Ontario. This is where Kiera’s love for rocks began. “I would find clusters of amethyst and pyrite in the wild and bring them home to my collection thinking they were so magical,” she shared.

As Kiera grew up, she became a more serious crystal collector, learning the different meanings and metaphysical properties which sparked the idea to start Little Box of Rocks. Little Box of Rocks is essentially like a flower shop, but with crystals. You can buy the bouquets in a variety of themes like birthday, success, and friendship that comes in a hand wrapped wooden box. Each box comes with four semi-precious crystals, a personalized letter and a keepsake note card explaining the meaning of the stones.

But before pursuing her entrepreneurship dream, Kiera tried her hand at many different things. In her late teens and early twenties she was an international fashion model and singer, with a music video that was released in 17 countries. However, she discovered the entertainment industry wasn’t for her, so she went to school to study Creative Communications. “Initially I thought I wanted to be a news broadcaster, but found that it was just too nerve wracking for me,” she explained. She then worked briefly in public relations before giving birth to her first son and deciding to stay at home with the kids for the next few years, and eventually starting her own business.

Little Box of Rocks gift set including four crystals.

Juggling a family of now three young boys, all under the age of six, along with a start-up can be challenging and Kiera explains that some days she handles it with more ease and grace than others. “Finding the balance between work and parenting isn’t easy, but what I’ve come to accept is that a perfect balance doesn’t have to be achieved,” she says. Kiera admits that some days she has to forget about work because the kids need more of her attention, and other days she relies on her husband to fill in the gaps. “It’s always a give and take and I never feel like I’ve fully mastered it, but I’ve come to learn that’s okay.”

Kiera’s background in public relations however, really helped with her business launch. Little Box of Rocks has been seen in Vogue, Oprah Magazine and Chatelaine, to name a few. She used her PR knowledge to craft her own pitches to media and sent hundreds of pitches to media outlets without hearing back from any. However, her persistence ended up paying off when she heard Little Box of Rocks was going to be featured in Goop, a gift guide by Gwyneth Paltrow only two months after launching. This placement sparked a wave of media interest across North America. However, one thing that Kiera wants people to understand is that all this celebrity and media attention she received didn’t happen overnight, even if it may appear that way. “What they don’t see is all the hard work that goes on behind the scenes,” she shares.

Kiera explains that many people have the “fairy god mother syndrome” where people believe that our success or happiness is going to come when an outside source such as an influential person or pinnacle event happens. “As a society, we tend to gravitate to that fairytale story, but it’s a disease because it keeps us stuck hoping, waiting and not taking matters into our own hands. The truth we need to hold as entrepreneurs, is that there are no outside forces that can shape our destinies as much as we ourselves can. So my advice would be to own your destiny and never hand off the power of your fate to anyone. It’s yours and yours alone.”

The Futurpreneur team looks forward to continue to watch Kiera’s business grow.

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