Watch Me Grow was founded by Russell E. Ivory III, a storyteller, publisher, educator coach, and entrepreneur whose life's work is helping people transform lived experiences into books, businesses, and lasting impact.

His story: I grew up in Southeast San Diego during a time when drugs, gangs, violence, and limited opportunities shaped the lives of many young people around me. I was also a gifted athlete. In 1997, after graduating from high school, I was drafted by the Los Angeles Dodgers. That same year, I lost my mother to cancer.

My life eventually took a different direction, and I experienced incarceration as a result of drug trafficking. Those experiences showed me how quickly talent can be separated from opportunity when a young person does not have the right guidance, resources, and support.

But my story did not end there. I rebuilt my life through discipline, work, leadership, education, storytelling, and entrepreneurship. I became a journeyman pipefitter, a supervisor responsible for leading teams in a highly regulated industrial environment, an author, a publisher, and the founder of an educational media and technology platform.

Today, I use both my lived experience and professional leadership experience to build what I wish had been available to me earlier: culturally relevant tools that help young people develop literacy, financial awareness, emotional resilience, career exposure, creative confidence, and ownership of their stories.

Watch Me Grow is more than a book series. It is an educational ecosystem designed to turn personal growth into practical action—and ultimately help young people become authors, builders, creators, and leaders.