In 2016, Sei-Ondra Williams threw a party to celebrate a decade as a Realtor. Dozens of guests gathered at a North Shore event space ahead of her arrival, enjoying refreshments and live music as they waited. Once the room had filled with people – and anticipation – the doors opened and she stepped in.
Like royalty being introduced at a ball, the moment belonged to Williams. Her dress shimmered like a pool of diamonds, her smile outshone even her outfit and her fiancé, Derrick Owens Sr., walked proudly beside her. The crowd held its breath for a moment – then erupted in cheers.
Nine years later, Williams steps into a different kind of room – Erlanger Lifestyle Center, where she’s undergoing cardiac rehab. “Hello,” she calls down a long corridor, her purple T-shirt proclaiming, “GOD has my heart.” Thick-soled tennis shoes steady each step.
Where the anniversary gala was a moment of glamour, this entrance tells a different story – one of survival.
A body in rebellion
It began with a tumble in 2018.
“I was getting keys out of a lockbox when I fell,” Williams recalls. “I thought I had just twisted my ankle, but three days later, my vision started doing something strange.”
Williams was referred to a retina specialist and began monthly injections in her left eye.
In 2021, she was diagnosed with Bell’s palsy, a condition that causes sudden weakness or paralysis on one side of the face. At the hospital, she received unexpected news: “Miss Sei-Ondra, your heart is weak.”
“I said, ‘Whose heart is weak? I’m walking, talking, jamming every day!’”
The news that a vital organ was underperforming shocked Williams, whose success was fueled more by constant motion than market trends. Then came a second blow: her doctors would be outfitting her with a LifeVest, a defibrillator worn outside the body.
Meanwhile, the pain in her eye had become unbearable. “My eye was sick,” she says. “It was interrupting my groove.” After being told her chances of regaining sight were slim, she had the eye surgically removed and received a prosthetic.
Williams pauses from recounting the details of her health challenges to show she can still find humor in her circumstances – or perhaps use laughter as a balm for the emotional weight she’s been carrying.
“I can take the eye out and scare people,” she laughs. “Last year, I was cleaning it and dropped it on the floor. My nephews screamed, ‘Auntie, your eye fell out!’”
Despite her medical setbacks, 2021 brought a joyful milestone: in April, she and Derrick were married. But even as Williams celebrated, wearing both an eye patch and a mandatory COVID mask left her feeling isolated from the world, she says. Yet that struggle was minor compared to a more difficult realization – she needed to either pause her real estate business or hand it off to someone else until her health improved.
Neither option thrilled her.
“The world was locked away,” she says, her expression tightening as if she’s reliving the distress she felt. “And I was going to have to turn my business over to someone else.”
Strength interrupted
From the early days of her real estate career, Williams felt the pride of ownership and the satisfaction that comes from building something from the ground up – not with her hands, but with her drive, sharp business sense and expressive personality.
Real estate first appeared on Williams’ radar in 2000, when she looked at the seller’s statement for a house she’d purchased and her jaw dropped at how much the listing agent had made.
“I said, ‘That’s the kind of money they made? That should be me,’” she recalls with a self-deprecating laugh.
At the time, Williams held a full-time job in accounts receivable and sold furniture part-time. With no time to pursue a license, she filed the thought under “Someday” and kept working.
Williams credits a higher power with nudging her toward the career she wanted. “God shut down both jobs. I had nowhere else to turn,” she says. “So I said, ‘Here I go.’”
In the years that followed, Williams built a real estate business that made her a household name in the community. Her slogan, ‘Sei Got Keys,’ represented more than the homes she helped clients unlock – it was a testament to how she’d unlocked a life of abundance for herself.
Had Williams seen the future laid out with all its triumphs and tragedies, she might have made different choices, she admits. But in the midst of her success, she chose to enjoy its rewards.
“I had a lifestyle, and the more I made, the more I spent. I bought a brand-new Mercedes-Benz off the lot for $150,000. I was like, ‘I made $400,000 last year. I’m Sei-Ondra. I’m good.’”
So, the idea of stepping away from work to address her health and handing over the operations of her one-woman business to someone else was unthinkable, Williams says. But she had no choice.
In 2021, as Williams sat in her office at Keller Williams Greater Chattanooga Realty on East Brainerd, still grappling with the idea of taking a leave from work, a young woman walked in and offered the one thing she hadn’t allowed herself to imagine: help.
“She said, ‘You don’t know me, but when can I step in?’”
The young Realtor’s name was Kidist Asay. Under Williams’ guiding hand, Asay took the reins and ran with the business. Despite Williams being sidelined by illness, her numbers grew in 2021. At year’s end, Keller Williams recognized her as the second-highest growing individual agent at her office, while Asay earned the brokerage’s Rookie of the Year award.
“My life and my business mean something,” Williams says. “I spent nearly a decade in coaching – paying $1,000 a month like it was chewing gum – because success is all about your mindset.”
But even as Williams celebrated a breakthrough in the midst of adversity, her troubles deepened.
In the valley
Williams has reached April 16, 2024 – her birthday and a pivotal moment in her story.
While walking into a restaurant with a friend, Williams began showing signs of a stroke. When her friend suggested calling off the evening, Williams insisted on going ahead with the celebration.
In a blink, she was unconscious – then in an ambulance, hearing a voice say, “It’s in her brain.” She asked where her husband was, then faded out again. When she came to, she was staring at Derrick’s face.
The stroke struck the right side of Williams’ brain, impairing the left side of her body. Even now, she can lift her left arm only briefly.
“It’s a little better today,” she says, demonstrating.
By this time, Williams was once again on her own at work, as Asay had moved on to grow her own business. Without a safety net to catch the volume of clients she was used to handling, Williams closed just six transactions by the end of 2024.
But before the year reached that low point, her crisis intensified.
“I was diagnosed with stage four congestive heart failure in June. My heart function was down to 9%. In September, they put in a [Medtronic] device that works as both a pacemaker and a defibrillator. That took me to a dark place.”
Doctors warned Williams not to overexert herself – but it didn’t take more than a couple of minutes for her to reach that limit. Soon, she stopped going out to eat. She was no longer the vibrant presence who filled rooms with laughter and conversation. Her thoughts scattered, her speech slowed and sometimes she stuttered. In the quiet that followed, she found herself wondering if God was trying to silence her.
And that’s when He said, “Trust me,” Williams remembers.
The fulfillment of what Williams believes was a divine promise came through the kindness of her colleagues and the unwavering support of the Keller Williams community. From the moment she returned home in June, she says, the company stepped in.
“If your company doesn’t treat you like family,” she says, “you’re in the wrong place.”
With her husband overwhelmed by the demands of caregiving, agents from her office began showing up at their house. They brought meals, sat with her until Derrick returned home from work, and helped in steady ways that made a difference. Even title company employees sent gifts.
“I never would’ve thought I’d need all these people,” she says. “But I had so many blessings in the valley.”
The support extended beyond her brokerage. Agents from other companies reached out, offering to handle clients on her behalf. “Just send us the person’s number,” they told her. “We’ll take care of it – and we’ll make sure you get your check.”
“I said, ‘God, I’m thankful I work in a community that actually cares.’”
The turnaround
In January 2025, a call from her son brought Williams further hope.
What started as a casual conversation turned into a moment of raw honesty. “I can’t tell you my heart is better,” Williams said. “Because it’s not. I’d like for you to understand that and get help.”
Moved to action, Williams’ son reached out to the VA in Atlanta, where he lives, and during a session with a counselor, the woman listening began to cry. Her own mother had faced the same condition, she explained, but she’d recovered. She then offered a suggestion that would prove to be life-changing.
“Tell your mama to get a Barostim,” she said.
Williams followed through. She underwent surgery to have the Barostim device implanted – a device designed to help regulate heart function – and the results were almost immediate.
“Everything turned around,” she says. “I can be here talking and I’m not wobbling and all that stuff. And my heart condition is improving.”
The progress has been extraordinary. “We’re now at 35%,” she says, referring to her heart’s ability to pump blood out to her body. “We went from stage four congestive heart failure to stage one in two weeks.”
For Williams, this wasn’t just a medical intervention, it was a turning point, and perhaps the clearest sign yet that her story isn’t finished.
“I’m like that inflated clown you punch and it pops back up because it has a strong foundation,” she says. “My foundation is God. So, go ahead and knock me over because I’m coming back.”
For Williams, her brand has taken on a new depth. “Now when you see ‘Sei Got Keys,’ you’re going to see an inspirational person – not just the real estate girl.”
That phrase, once a catchy slogan, now carries the weight of everything she’s endured and overcome.
“You’re going to see a miracle, too,” she continues. “You’re going to see that she kept going. She never stopped.”
Not long ago, after a rehab session, Williams and her husband stopped for a meal at Innside Restaurant on Chestnut Street downtown. As usual, he dropped her off at the door and went to park the car. When they finished eating and stepped outside, he offered to retrieve the car again.
But Williams had other plans.
“I said, ‘No, I’m going to walk, too,’” she recalls. “He said, ‘It’s way down there.’ I said, ‘OK,’ and I turned into the Bionic Woman.”
Williams says the moment stunned her husband, as he hadn’t seen her move that quickly in months.
“He said, ‘I’m taking you back [to the doctor] and tell them to turn this shit down,’” she says, laughing. “He hadn’t seen that in a year.”
She’s still got keys
Long before her health battles began, Williams built a real estate business that was both successful and meaningful. By 2018, she’d sold more than 825 homes and helped move over $60 million in property.
Her impact extended beyond sales. She served on Keller Williams’ local Diversity & Inclusion Council and played an active role in fostering a more inclusive and supportive real estate community.
Now, after weathering the toughest challenges of her life, Williams is back among the top performers – ranked in the top 15 individual agents at her office – proving that resilience and excellence can go hand in hand.
She’s also planning her next big milestone: a celebration of 20 years in real estate in 2026.
If her 10-year party was a grand entrance, this one promises to be a revival. And when the doors open, Sei-Ondra Williams will once again own the room.