While many college students are caught between the struggles of balancing their school load, social life and Instagram followers, Phazhon Nash is slowing down to embrace the challenges. A Roanoke native, Nash, 20, and a George Mason University sophomore, is the founder of his brand and website, Millennial Motivation. The site consolidates his services as a youth life coach, mentor and motivational speaker.

Nash says he initially entered GMU planning to study to become a physician, but found his science courses lacked a focus on the personal aspects of health. While he still hopes to become a doctor – a choice he says depends on his undergrad school debt – Nash wants to bring his personal brand of care and attention to the medical field.

His switch to the community health major typifies his belief of “giving yourself to a greater purpose.” It seems that community and global health – the focus of Nash’s major – is at the core of all he hopes to accomplish. From a young age, Nash says his biological and church families instilled the tenets of service and discipline in him. Nash cites his single mother, his Army veteran grandfather and his late aunt, as important influences on how he carries himself and views the world around him. Nash goes a step further and hails his grandfather as his hero. “He really enforced in me service and duty,” Nash says.

His mother, a social worker who has dealt with all manner of community issues, exemplified the need for a positive influence in the youth and in the community at large. “Someone needs to reach out,” Nash says to himself as a sort of inner call to action. He believes both his skin color and a child of a single-parent household have given him a unique way to reach the overlooked youth in his community. “I’m from the same community as you,” Nash often finds himself demonstrating to the people he mentors.

Although Nash has seen his share of success with a burgeoning business, a confident voice and a DIY website, he also has faced a few challenges.

While being a young black man with his circumstances has helped him reach other black youth, Nash says he’s noticed the challenges or preconceived notions that come with the racial territory. He jokes that his “unorthodox” first name, Phazhon, generally clues people in that he is black before they meet him. As an Eagle Scout — a title shared by 2.25 million others since 191 –  including Willie Banks, Neil Armstrong and Bill Gates according to the Boy Scouts of America — Nash says he would often receive seemingly harmless, but racially charged comments while pursuing that goal. The comments included,  “I didn’t know people like you could do things like this,” whenever he demonstrated a capability to read a map or build a fire. Nash recalls that these comments were more eye opening than they were offensive.

Nash agree that there were areas of society that young blacks were not able to had not been able to impact.  “That’s what motivates me to do the extra work to break the barriers,” Nash says. Another challenge Nash says he faces is the idea that he lacks the life experience to have a positive effect on others. “It’s the way you carry yourself. If you act like a child, they will treat you like a child. If you act like a young adult, I believe they will treat you like a young adult. It’s about what you command.”

While he agrees that his youth can be limiting, Nash maintains that his proximity in age to the people he is speaking to, helps him to better relate, thus giving him a more influential voice. Put more succinctly, Nash simply responds to his older critics saying, “I know how to use Facebook. I know how to use Instagram. You don’t!”

Despite the challenges Nash faces, he appears to remain resolute in his mission. His brand is simply “a new future for the youth.”

While Nash’s business is still relatively new – starting in January 2019 – he already has ambitions aimed at breaking down institutions of racism and making sure that no idea of his remains an idea.