Success & Beauty is an Attitude
Program Titles
- Why Racism Should be Declared a Mental Illness
- Body Image, Affirmation
- Cultural Diversity
Cassandra George Sturges, MA, Psy.D.: How to maintain and unleash your unique inner beauty. She teaches psychology and she worked for thirteen years in the foster care child welfare system as a social worker and outreach psychologist helping to reunite families.
Dr. George Sturges has been published in several national magazines and newspapers.
She is an advice columnist: Black Woman Magazine and the author of 4 books.
Her motto is, “Success & Beauty is an Attitude.”
Dreaming Up Her Work: author Cassandra George Sturges’ road to artistic success As a troubled teen from Detroit, Cassandra George Sturges had not envisioned much for her future. School never interested her and she rendered it useless. Once she entered high school her time was spent less on academics and more on ditching, drinking and hanging with the wrong crowd. Never accumulating more than ninth grade credits she eventually left school. At that point the only thing she had going for her was a part-time job at Little Caesars. There, she would have a conversation that would change her outlook on life.
As Sturges worked alongside her 57-year-old co-worker Frank, they busied themselves and engaged in general conversation. Through that conversation she received a wake-up call.
“I did not want to be 57-years-old working at Little Caesars making $3.35 for the rest of my life,” she said.
Immediately she returned to school and received her GED. With the encouragement of the GED counselor she enrolled in a Community College.
After receiving her associates degree, she attended the University of Michigan-Dearborn. From that day forward she never ceased to advance her education.
“At some point school saved my life,” Sturges said. “Some people need drugs, [but] school became my drug.”
She also used school as a mechanism to overcome many psychological issues she dealt with at the time.
She is now a psychologist. “I love my job. I love my colleagues. I love my students,” she said. “Every morning when I wake up I feel super lucky and super blessed.”
Sturges had more free time and began to craft her latest artistic business venture: a doll line. She created her doll line by hand, and they are made of fabric and are anatomically correct. “I’ve chased everything, my degrees. I’ve chased my jobs. That’s the only thing that came to me.”
Sturges decided to write a science fiction novel titled Jungle Beauty Goddess’s Pretty Blue Ball. Sturges was never interested in science fiction other than Star Trek as a kid so her novel required a lot of research. The book is about seven black women who are sisters and superheroes. For their collective birthday they are given the gift of planet Earth and it is their responsibility to create a wholesome planet with laws and the perfect human beings. However, each sister has their own ideas for how they should run their planet.
Her book also inspired a beauty pageant. The pageant is centered on creativity, therefore there is no weight, gender or physical appearance requirements to enter. Contestants over the age of 18 can apply for a chance to WIN a $2,500 grand prize.
Participants must find an interesting way to express their favorite Jungle Beauty Goddess and scene from the book, Jungle Beauty Goddess’s Pretty Blue Ball.
Talents can be in the form of cooking, sewing, hair and make-up, nail design, writing a poem or speech about a favorite Goddess, an honorary song or rap, a painting or drawing that represents the Goddess. The purpose of the pageant is to bring people together again.
“People don’t get together anymore. [The pageant will] get people together to exchange ideas, bond and talk,” she said. She wants it to be both spectacular and memorable.
Books by Cassandra George Sturges, MA, Psy.D.
- A Woman’s Soul on Paper
- The Illusion of Beauty: Why Women Hate Themselves & Envy Other Women
- Men Interviewed Tell: 101 Things Women do to Turn Men Off
Book Cassandra George Sturges, MA, Psy.D. for your Event!