Real You Leadership

I will always believe in therapy, coaching, community, and having external support to hold us through life.

These last two years have been vibrant and wonderful, and they’ve been filled with of grief, uncertainty, loneliness, expansion, and a lot of monumental changes.

Having three incredible therapists throughout my 20’s and 30’s, and countless coaches, I’ve learned that I personally need big integration period in-between “by myself” (I say that loosely, because I’m never alone with my friends and family).

Space to grow naturally, snail-like, based on intuition, and rooted in what I learned with external support, resources, and tools I had the privilege to invest in for years throughout my life.

I needed time to see who I was outside of everything I knew. To experience it fully. To hear myself clearly.

I needed space to see if I can consistently keep trying to do what I say I want to do:
- Be the fullest expression of myself
- Be relentlessly kinder to myself—even if my inner haters, anxieties, and fears get loud (as they always do), I’d do anything and everything in my power to make my love and trust for myself louder
- De-center productivity and my business being my primary source of fulfillment and value
- Create new possibilities and bring more dreams to life without self-abandoning ever again

I know this integration period, making these big values-aligned life changes, and creating a strong foundation as I root in my new home wouldn’t be as joyful and as sustainable without allll the investment and work I did with amazing therapists, coaches, and leaders who held me.

Every step, session, learning, unlearning, practice, shift matters and added up to this point.

Onward in my blooming.

Wanna be more confident? Get so fu***ng good at giving yourself the grace and tenderness you’d give everybody in your life.

You want to be a better negotiator to increase your earning potential and set healthy, solid boundaries? Be fluent in self-compassion to set aside the internal voices that have made your default to self-silence and disregard your needs and desires.

You want to be a better leader? Have more audacity to speak up in rooms that weren’t built for folx like you and me? To dare to be seen and create the career and life you really want? Learn to be honest with yourself and love yourself through all the hard, stretchy seasons ahead. Forgive yourself for the gaps that you’ll be filling with time, for not being someone else’s made up version of “perfect” — forgive yourself for falling into the illusion of perfect, and start focusing on what’s real.

How you treat yourself matters.

How you practice self-compassion regardless of any power dynamics, history, and situation you’re navigating matters.

Teach others how they can be more curious, patient, and compassionate with your by leading by example.

Take what serves you and leave the rest behind. I’ve been through multiple brutal, scarce, and uncertain seasons in my almost 9 years of business.

After my last post, a few business baddies reached out to me — how do you weather the hard times?

There are soooo many answers to that, but here are a few:

1. Prepare financially: just like personal savings, build an emergency/slow season fund to carry you through, budget as needed, and ALWAYS price your services and products to support you to thrive.

2. Lean on my community and biz homies: Although I’m a solopreneur, I’m not alone. My best biz friends and closest counsel always hold space for me, remind me who the f**k I am, affirm me that this isn’t the first hard part of the journey that I’ve gotten on the other side of, and that I am always going to do what I need to do to take care of myself.

3. Mindset work and nervous system regulation practices that are rooted in self-knowing, self-trust, and self-compassion like in this video.

It ain’t easy, but I try not to take a slow season personal and I question systems before I question myself. It’s structurally hard for small business, especially owned by BIPOC femmes and intentionally marginalized people to thrive—if you’re not playing the never ending capitalistic game of scaling by maximizing profits through way of exploiting others and cutting corners, it’s pretty damn hard to “make it” and maintain it. And I keep it real that money activations are at an all time high because of the negative impact global leaders are creating across all industries.

I ground proudly and lovingly in my choice to walk the hard, nonlinear, non traditional, creative path of entrepreneurship.

I have found my way to know the difference between fighting for my work and forcing results. I will fight for my business, but never force it. This discernment is critical to stay well and never ever lose myself to my business, to never define my sense of worth and success to the state of my biz at any given day.

I remind myself that in okay in this exact moment.

What comes up for you?

Tag and share this with a business owner you love who needs these affirmation

If you’re going to question yourself, at the very least ask questions that expand you and create movement inside and out.

Stop shaming yourself with:
What if they find out I’m not good enough?
Why am I not good enough?
How come I’m not further along by now?

That will continue to minimize you and contract you so much, you won’t have the space to see how brilliant you already are.

Practice curiosity over judgement—especially towards yourself.

Better questions:
What about my environment is making me feel like an imposter?

Who can help me get to where I want to be?

What can I learn, grow, or do to reclaim my confidence?

How can I give myself more grace in this moment?

Remember:
We’re not meant to be perfect or have all the answers.

Loving reminder: Affirmations aren’t just sweet words. They’re most powerful when we align our choices and actions with the energy and intention of them.

What May affirmation number will you try on?