An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Define your mission. — Knowing your why will keep you going way longer than doing a trivial task. It will keep you focused and will help you evaluate how much sacrifice you should make for a particular project.

As a part of my series about “Grit: The Most Overlooked Ingredient of Success,” I had the pleasure of interviewing Arelious Cooper.

Arelious Cooper is the Executive Director of Art in the Paint, an Atlanta-based nonprofit organization that creates community centers without walls. Through Art in the Paint, Arelious and his team renovate public outdoor basketball courts and install murals to strengthen communities, promote safety, inspire creativity, and encourage play.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a story about what events have drawn you to this specific career path?

I was jogging at Stone Mountain in Georgia and came across the monument tribute to three Confederate generals etched on the side of the mountain. The site made me nauseous, and I honestly wanted it removed immediately. In that moment I felt helpless, ashamed, and hopeless. When I got home that night, I began to write the plans to start Art in the Paint. I needed to find an outlet that would help me make murals that did the exact opposite of what seeing that monument did to me. So now we install murals on courts to help neighborhoods feel hopeful, proud and inspired.

Can you share your story about “Grit and Success”? First can you tell us a story about the hard times that you faced when you first started your journey?

It was the day before we were set to paint our very first court. Using social media, we invited members of the community to come and join us in our efforts and learn more about Art in the Paint. While the response from the community was mostly positive, we were met with push back from some local residents who were concerned about outsiders coming into their neighborhood and ‘making changes.’ This is when I realized that earning trust from local residents would be critical to the success of Art in the Paint, and ultimately, the impact our efforts will have on the communities.

Where did you get the drive to continue even though things were so hard?

Travelling the world, I noticed how people treated children of different socio-economic status. It broke my heart to see a child being shown they had less value based on how little or how much their parents made. So, when times get hard, I keep going for every child from areas like southwest Atlanta, Santiago, Dominican Republic or Minna, Nigeria who has been told that they might die before 21, can’t get a degree or make something of their life. I want them to see that someone who was just like them did it so they know they can too.

So how did Grit lead to your eventual success? How did Grit turn things around?

Refusing to use cheap materials, being committed to finding community programming, and finding the best artists are not the paths of least resistance for a small nonprofit. We knew we had to do those things no matter what the costs were to show the community that they were respected and valued. Seeking outside help from companies that have a shared mission for helping local communities has also helped us to succeed. We recently applied for, and received, the Quest Rookie grant, which is a $20,000 grant to help people and local organizations who are making an impactful difference in their local communities.

Based on your experience, can you share your “5 Things You Need To Know To Develop More Grit”?

  1. No one else is in charge of making your dreams happen. — You have to get out there and make it happen everyday and be an example for why people should support you.
  2. You cannot do it alone no matter how tough you are. — Once you show people what you are about, you need to be able to recruit a team that can fill in the gaps and blind spots that you have as an individual. This way you can accomplish more and get closer to your goals.
  3. Leaders eat last. — Once you have your team, you must make sure that you take care of them, support them and show that you’re grateful to have support behind you to help accomplish your goals.
  4. Create a daily checklist. — Sometimes our ambitions will tell us that we need to do grand-scale things in order to change the world, and that can be a daunting task. By breaking down day to day efforts that ladder up to a bigger goal, the task to achieve the goal becomes more realistic, and you become more productive working towards a seemingly impossible goal.
  5. Define your mission. — Knowing your why will keep you going way longer than doing a trivial task. It will keep you focused and will help you evaluate how much sacrifice you should make for a particular project.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped you when things were tough? Can you share a story about that?

I hit rock bottom and had been successful in getting courts painted, but I had no clue on how to run an organization. I went to a co-working space named Plywood People and met a gentleman named Jeff Shinabarger and asked for help. He and his assistant Kayla taught me through their programs what my role was as an executive director and what my responsibilities were to the community that I serve. Thank you, Jeff and Kayla! I’ll never forget you.

How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?

Last year, because of something as simple as painting basketball courts, we were able to install $700,000 worth of artwork into 8 cities and 4 countries around the world. Specifically, in southwest Atlanta, where I’m from, we were able to install $2.3 million worth of resources around our courts.

Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?

Because of the good people at Quest and being a recipient of the first ever Quest Rookie Challenge this year, this summer will be huge for us! The Quest Rookie Challenge was created to help champion people who are making an impact in local communities. Quest awarded Art in the Paint $20,000 to help further our positive impact in the community. With the Quest Rookie grant, we’re painting in four cities and hosting health fairs, basketball leagues and an art festival.

What advice would you give to other executives or founders to help their employees to thrive?

I would tell every founder or executive to make sure all employees are aware of the company’s mission statement so they always know the goal of the day.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂

To be honest, I think we are already doing that. We transfer neglected neighborhood basketball courts into community centers without walls. By installing full scale murals on basketball courts, we create safe spaces, connect collaborators, and inspire play.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

My grandmother told me that it’s not important how people feel about you when you walk away, but it’s more important how they feel about themselves when you walk away. This always sticks out to me when I do community work because we realize that people aren’t always looking for a savior, they’re just looking for help. So, in our interactions and when we tell our stories about our interactions, we want to make sure we give dignity to the people in the communities that we serve.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

You can follow us on Instagram at @artinthepaintorg and follow our journey at @QuestNutrition.

Thank you so much for joining us. This was very inspirational.


Arelious Cooper Of Art in the Paint: Five Ways To Develop More ‘Grit’ was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

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