Episode 1 Audio

The speaker discusses the challenges and hardships she faced during the past year, including layoffs and personal losses. She emphasizes the importance of perseverance and consistency in achieving success. She also talks about the need to prioritize and say no to opportunities that are not in alignment with one's goals and values. The speaker reflects on her personal growth and learning to focus on herself instead of trying to please everyone. so I everybody was sending me jobs because they were just they were so mad at the chamber I can't believe they had to lay off anyone they could have they didn't have to lay you off and I was like and at the time I think I cried one time because I was like I'm gonna pay my damn bills I've never been unemployed yeah welcome to the dirty bag podcast we got Dallas oakland royalty in the building in the building black girl magic personified she's a vp vp dallas wings professional women's basketball team we cut up here i'm so sorry you had to experience we're gonna have to lock that in what's going on girl what up cookie i'm so excited to be here girl i am so glad to have you here miss keynote miss 40 under 40 you just god it's good 2023 did it man he ran a block for me okay the block that was a tough year but it came back at the end double down can we talk about the fact we just don't get right into it that like when black women have these historic years these milestones what folks folks see all the wins yeah they don't see the how behind the what yeah so when you automatically say it was one of your hardest years i'm looking like girl you're getting all these accolades hold up see that social media though right oh come on people see what we post okay so i'm really transparent i see this is the thing i do a lot of stories i don't do a lot of posting but when people follow me like my stories i'd be like else today shit anyone need i'm telling the truth truth because on social media now shit i gotta make sure my awards say it out okay i'm gonna need them to see that if you don't see you know right but i'll be talking about my horror days i'd be like because people see that and they'd be like oh my gosh it's amazing you did this you did this i like this shit yesterday i couldn't get out the bed like i did not shower i was in this motherfucker like bring me a bottle talk about it so yeah this year so for people that know me know about literally every struggle hardship challenge and i'll be running it down and it'd be deep and this past year was deep here's what i find so interesting about that i had a guest once say that and she said it and i didn't realize i was going to go through what she said she all she noticed that with all her accomplishments her highest highs were parallel with some of her lowest yeah i'm gonna say is that what it would you just you know i'm a spiritual person now i'm not you know not to pass his wife on that but i believe this guy i really do i you know when people say double for your trouble i'm like because i was like bro this year ain't it's worth 24 20 matter of fact i don't even want 24 worth 25 like i was trying to run through trying to sprint through this shit bro i was like 23 showed his ass so 24 gonna come in acting a fool so let's go on and get like i was just over it and then it was just like i feel like it was a reminder of real reassuring my faith that like okay you can go through all this and that doesn't mean it's the end because it literally was like the third quarter really going into the fourth quarter of the year and then i was getting all these notifications about awards and i was like i really ain't did much yeah y'all it looked like the last quarter of the year you just it was for my mom passed in february so like i was chilling this year i was like working and i was working hard but a lot of times again people see these awards and accolades and they think it's like a overnight sensation i don't know people have been working working to get the accolades and awards that they have so really this year just because of grief and just hardships and just this year one shit it just wasn't and so people still bouncing back from the pandemic i really didn't do as much as i have done in my full career but this was just me reaping the benefits of all the seeds that i've sown that's how i tell people just keep working hard keep doing what you do because it's going to come if you remain consistent because this year i was really like chilling like i was like no i was saying no to a lot of stuff this year just because i could not like i was being real people i was like i can't i don't want to like i don't have the mental capacity like i'm over here trying to make sure i'm saying because i gotta work because if i don't work i don't eat like no one's paying my bills so i have to go to you know nine to five which is not a nine to five it's like you know 24 seven she don't rest he don't think all right i gotta do that so i i did i put a lot of my personal goals and things i used to do i mean i used to be everywhere on any panel speaking here doing this talk about that it when people see it people see that as a necessity to move up oh yeah okay because when are you learning if all you're doing is talking oh park it you know park it you just park it seriously because everybody likes to be the voice bruh i you know we talked a little bit about this earlier before we started like i like older people and there are some old fools let me be clear there's some clowns but clowns out there and they elderly clowns however however comma i typically will i like to be around people that are smarter than me i don't want to be the smartest person in the room i don't want to be the richest person in the room i don't want to be the most known person in the room because then how am i going to grow so we so used to wanting to be heard wanting to be the keynote wanting to be the panelist want to be the moderator want to be the photographer want to be the dance sit down don't you want to breathe because from that then i learned well where are my growth opportunities and so this year was my year to grow like i was like i had to like again for my own sanity you were forced to i can't like you can't pour from an empty cup and i have done that a lot like ain't nothing in there i'm just still up here like ain't nothing in there so this year i had to in in that i learned a lot about myself i learned about what i wasn't doing right what i what opportunities i have ahead of me and then when opportunities continue to come when i feel comfortable then i'll say yes okay right how do you decide what's right because i mean we are out here where everybody wants to and i'm not going to say everybody let me not generalize i'll even know i'm right most of y'all yeah tell it to people want to people want to be the voice they want to be in front of the camera so how would you want to get somebody taking on too many opportunities or rushing to be a part of too many things without doing as you said yeah growing sitting down making sure it's an alignment know what's important to you know what you're about most of us i'm say this about myself because at first i said yes to everything because and i didn't even have and still don't technically have a personal brand that i was trying to grow but i think i just people would ask me and i would say yes like i'm just like oh they think i have something to say i'll do it or sometimes it was because okay that's gonna add more notoriety i don't know like i would just say yes and then i was like this isn't even aligned with what i care about this isn't like so then i start saying well i can't do it but i know someone that can or i used to be that person i'm gonna help you like i would never tell people just know this year i'm a damn no person no period so you can't you just said you would mention so if it's not if you feel like it's not in alignment with you you don't have to say you pass it on yeah that's important yeah that's important everything it's not for you but people you gotta understand and it's okay because when you let that pass by then what's for you can come but you busy doing everything you're probably gonna miss some opportunities that actually align with what's important because you you've been booked and busy so how could the right thing come along so you know there's been opportunities that i'm just like yeah no but i know someone or but this year i was i ain't know nobody i was like that's not my job let's work there because we definitely talked about trying to be the savior for everybody being that person trying to build everybody else up so where is that line you draw between i'm going to help this person out and i'm doing too damn much i'm still learning okay again i think in this year and i've had a lot of losses that again for people that know me know this like my mom passed this year my brother was murdered in 2019 my oh well let me go back in in 2020 my stepdad passed from covid my brother was murdered in 2019 my father passed away unexpectedly it's been nine years now but that was like i felt like the the domino that just went like it was just death so all of my immediate family except for my sister is deceased and i was the person responsible for their burials for their like i'm the baby oh but i was the one that took care of the grown baby i was first person to go to college like all this shit but you know then i think you know everything on that first generation college yeah i mean i got more than one degree but i don't know everything and i ain't got all the money man money it's so crazy how people assume that money is attached to a degree that is not how this works not so like there's a lot going on so again i was everything to everyone and nothing to myself and so that's why a lot of my growth frankly was stunted because i was just doing everything for so when people see me now and they're like wow you're doing all these things right frankly could have been a lot further if i stopped doing everything earlier so this last year was just like a it used to be no comma let me still help now it's no period man that period that's the difference between the period and the comma and it's empowering that comma will have you working harder now i'm over here trying to find the person for you because i really don't know them like that you're an agent negotiate so now i still should have just said yes but again so that's growth so now i'm at a again i had to be set down unfortunately through just life uh but now it's kind of a no and it's period and i'm okay with that but i just had this conversation my best friend today i still feel guilty i have learned to say no again because i'm learning i have learned i've given myself boundaries that was this year 2024 where it was boundaries 2023 where i'm sorry with boundaries yeah and so it was a no period but then i'll still have guilt i'll be like but the guilt that comes with boundaries but how did life change for you when you finally said okay this is how it's going to be moving forward i will not say yes to everything i'm not doing xyz how did things change around you yeah well first the right thing started coming to me okay come on i've never uh frankly pursued any of the things outside of my careers that i aggressively pursued because i aggressively took my ass to school and paid a lot of money but other family but what happened i still owe them but the fact is nothing going off the glory look that's jesus that ain't got nothing to do with me that's between them at the cross that ain't gonna do me cross but i you know my career are things that i pursue and that i continue to pour into and to grow and to look for those opportunities but everything else it has come to me and this i'm not trying to sound cocky and i probably will when i start a personal brand have to go chase things and find opportunities and hopefully i can afford somebody to help me go fine but i just don't think that things that are intentionally for you are hard oh wait that might be a word yeah i did not say that it's going to come necessarily easy but i'm just saying like i just think if it's for me it's for me but you also talked about working hard prior to 2023 so there's something to be said for putting in the work because we are in an era where people are seeing you say like you say social media people seeing folks with all the success so they want it yeah so they're watching everybody else play trying to figure out how to get their food to warm up just as fast right but you gotta lay the foundation so so things change when again i stop saying yes to everything and start saying is this aligned with my values is it worth my time because i've i feel like it's about relationships i feel like it's about work i feel just in general we only get 24 hours a day so why am i wasting my time so it's just you know if it doesn't make sense i can't i just i won't even that i can't i won't yeah i can't because like oh i have all these other things now it's like no i i just i won't and that's okay i think that black women are expected because i mean we already we're always fighting for something for every little thing so it's like how dare you turn down an opportunity but with everything that you've had going on in your personal life that's the thing we never take time to like we're kind of in the same boat i lost a lot of my immediate early in life yeah so it taught me to be hyper independent yeah but also i detached from folks too because i'm so used to the important people leave and it's like well you might not even be here in the long term so i'm just yeah i ain't saying nothing wrong i'm not saying it's okay y'all i'm just saying you're acknowledging what's going on with you that's just what it is it is what it is that's your experience that's your truth yeah so when you get forced into you know survival mode mentally you ain't got time but you just gotta work work work did you see yourself with the career that you have now about 10 years ago no no so i'm a post worker by trade and childhood you know we already talked about i'm from south oak cliff childhood was actually i had a very colorful great childhood but my parents were functioning drug addicts i have to say their r.i.p everybody mom and daddy but yeah you know they they was out there but but they you know they had me older in life so they had slowed down uh but i either i was a real smart kid or nosy kid i don't know but i already knew they was on some shit i was like oh but they had me like in every activity they had me i had a really good childhood i can't really complain about that i didn't like i tell people i didn't know we were poor so i probably went to college that's good we sound familiar so we was poor because you know we they made sure we had i had what i needed i mean but again i i can't say i had a really good childhood but my mom had a stroke when i was in sixth grade and my mom and dad had just divorced and so my mom was in a coma for almost three months and they told her she would be in a vegetative state to unplug her like that's it and again i believe in god miraculously she didn't she came out of her coma came out of her coma while my brother was cussing the doctors out matter of fact because they were like she just she just sitting up her basically running up a bill what y'all gonna do and so my brother was literally cussing the doctors out my mom came out of her coma and was telling my brother like bro you gotta keep him very much yeah you know damn well i don't raise you like that i was like 10 and stuff i really didn't know what the i was like she's into something like that so but at that point like you said i had to become hyper independent really quickly like my mom had to learn how to walk talk write she was in the nursing home for a while but i became essentially almost like another woman of the house like my we moved in with my grandmother who was also disabled and so it was the three of us for forever and then my brother when he would get out of jail sometimes he would come back home but anyway it was just like i had to grow up very quickly uh and so yeah life be like so i just really for me i you know i experienced a a lot at a young age but when i got ready to go to college when i just i'm gonna be honest like it wasn't really a choice which isn't that crazy your parents be having all these expectations and they really didn't do shit then you gotta go to college i was like okay i was like but we y'all didn't go but anyway so they did that's what they were told they never got to experience what had to be the best option for us yeah so i went really because i was like i'm gonna stay at home everyone else was going to school i was really smart so like why not but i didn't have again all of the knowledge of like don't take it all them damn long don't do this don't do that so i went out there i i went out for success robbed i robbed out my whole career like i learned yeah i learned um learn how to survive like just by hands-on experience frankly um you know when my again my mom i was in the sixth grade so like had to learn how to cook by myself like she would tell me what to do but she couldn't show me it was just i had to learn a lot on my own and so with my career wanting to be a social worker it really frankly was like i was like oh there's a career where you can literally help people make better decisions with their life or if if they have an unfortunate part of life dealt to them you can help them navigate that even though the social work was like a real career i was just like oh that's dope so that's how i uh majored in social work and then afterwards i've like worked in probably every sector mostly with homelessness like that's a real jigsaw puzzle ass career like none of it really made sense but i really just went into it because i wanted to help intentional you really want you went into a field where you actually wanted to help and it wasn't just convenient yeah and people said you ain't gonna make no money as a social worker and they weren't lying by the way you know what i'm saying but i for me i was like i have a hustle spirit i'm gonna figure out how to get in like i'm again i wanted to do something that i wanted to do and that i was passionate about i was like okay i'm gonna get in then i'm gonna figure out like what's the hustle in this like what else is is it to do how can i be my own social work like i didn't know what it was but i just figured i would work my way up to the top right i didn't want to be discouraged by the income uh because again i've seen families our family make it off very little now i didn't want to be no struggle but but you know it could be done but i was like well with a degree and with like you know i knew my mindset i knew i wasn't going to be over there struggling and i got a whole degree so i was like i'm gonna do it and so i went into social work and then i did a lot of non-profit work and i just felt like okay they right making no money so i need to figure out like what else was the other potential then i started i worked in a lot of non-profits and then i was like okay be honest i need to probably get into corporate america or into working for for profit and figure out like where the bag at and so i ended up changing my career well in complete transparency uh because i probably would have been one of those social workers that just had two or three four jobs just because i did what i did and i know a few of those yeah but what really happened is that this is so crazy too after my dad passed the organization i worked for i worked for an organization that had a housing program came back from vacation and one of my clients had committed suicide and i found her she had hung herself what yeah and i was like okay i'm gonna exit stage love because that i mean i couldn't imagine yeah i don't even know how to explain it but it's just like that's not and it was a black young woman she wasn't that much older than me and i just folks think that black women don't commit suicide it f my head up and so of course i had to take a leave of absence and then it was it was just a lot and i was like you know what it's time for a change because again i really love helping people but i had been going back and forth with like i need to do something that's more lucrative but maybe i'll just do something on the side or you know i was trying to justify like because i really did love what i did uh and then that was when it was like yeah ain't no way but i knew i couldn't go back there and where i was at i was making decent money for where i was at in my career it was a lot of other different opportunities so i was like i and i had just finished my master's i wasn't going back to school so i was like i gotta figure something else out and so thankfully i mean i got a little math piece on me so i i remember i started working at the dallas regional chamber and i had gone through a lot of leadership programs because usually i was like the only black girl or the youngest person i worked for a predominantly white organization and in grapevine and i'll be in these leadership uh groups and be the youngest or you know only black and i was like oh the chamber has a leadership program uh opening to manage the programs and i was like hell i've done a few of these let me why not they're gonna train me i'm telling them i know what i'm doing they're gonna train me but anyway i mean i told them the truth but i had never managed leadership programs that wasn't even my degree and so but i was like i've gone through several programs i'm from dallas and then you just started calling people i'm like i don't see any people of color when you say that they gotta stop and think about it because if you if you say no are you are you really for diversity and inclusion if you turn me down yes i was real smart real early i just started looking at the situation and i was like you know your leadership programs are predominantly white it's probably because you don't have any people of color leading but i guess was just being honest and i didn't even know what i was talking about back then but the thing is a lot of i'm gonna just say this y'all a lot of them don't be knowing what they're talking about they just have the language so i just like i've gone through leadership programs i listen but they hired me and so i started so that changed my career to leadership development so then i just started telling people what they needed to do to advance in their careers and to be a leader and i was like shit i've been leading my whole life honestly and i mean that that i was like i'm a dallas native you know the dallas regional chamber is responsible for helping grow the economy and uh you know making dallas the best place to work live and play that was like a little baby bitch i still remember um but uh you know so i bought in you know tapped into all of the language that they were you drank the kool-aid you know and i was like yeah you don't have at the time when i started i was managing the young professionals program so these are individuals under 40 that are high achieving in their organization and their companies are investing in them to go through this leadership program to advance their career or to develop more leadership skills and so yeah i was like you know you don't have anyone young running the program and they need someone relatable yeah also there's not a lot of people of color and hi i'm colored woman okay so you know then you know had my little silk press back then so they were like oh look they love a smart black woman with a silk press they love a black woman a smart black woman with a silk press yeah you love oak cliff yeah you don't care about oak cliff yeah i do not because it's so many negative stigmas it really is not as bad as people don't be like y'all i love king and i'm from like 75216 i come from and people haven't i said it's not from like the real oak cliff because some people be in the corner okay so i've heard people say that before like there's two different oak cliffs so so transplants that move here and i hear folks saying that like what's the difference well i have to explain my because i i won't discount anyone else because she maybe people for shooting up in here they'll find where we get but uh i'm just gonna qualify my area of oak cliff and say i'm from south oak cliff uh seven five two one six langston keys so you know we're literally around the corner from sock so that's central oak cliff okay some people get further out and they just like using the language and still claim it so it's bougie it's not almost suburban it's not but you know you do have some because what people don't know is that oak cliff was it had been predominantly white and so you know oh a lot of places that are now uh gentrified and now black communities were were white at first like there were a lot of black people in the north in north dallas and ain't like that so if i and i say this all the time and i grew up in the hood hood like i'd never feared for my life back then because one we all knew each other like our grandmothers owned their homes and so you weren't gonna be disrespected like at least not on my block and i lived around the corner from like where shit would go down but like we could leave our doors and like it's always personal and be typically personal we wasn't you know and that's why when people try to paint this whole narrative of like even as i was like oh my gosh i forgot like yeah but like i now i can't say i ain't seen no shit but like i feel like i'm very safe like i love where you know where i'm from if i could afford the half of the market right now i move right on back to oak cliff but the way the market's set up yeah but yeah but yeah so anyway they just love this whole narrative of this young black girl from the hood making a check she speaks well and that is articulate i hate that you're so articulate you think well when you're suppressed it's what how did you expect me to and people still do that and i'll be like actually i really don't speak that well like i still don't know how to put so much right like they mean you ain't got that strong twang yeah but i'll be like i still can't speak some stuff correctly like my language really still ain't up there but we can put you in front of people yeah and and so i got hired so that's how that was my second career so my first career was a traditional social worker literally have done everything from domestic violence to at-risk youth to mental health and most of it was working with a unsheltered population uh until again i found someone that and i don't know that a lot of people know that part i think when it happened i shared but yeah that was and that's been in like 10 years now but that was probably what really did on top of like i did know that i needed i think the way i usually explain my career changes that i did know a lot about non-profits and i wanted to learn more about for-profit in corporate america and that changed my career but it really was because i found that woman up in her day and she wrote me a note oh she wrote you a note yeah not her family no girl she wrote me a note she wrote for y'all i mean no she wrote a few okay i wasn't the only one but the note that she wrote to me was thanking me for everything i had done and you know i'm supposed to be sharing all this but it was 10 years it got to be statute of limitations somewhere but um she was also my sorority sister didn't know that when she joined the organ you know joined the program obviously not that that would have changed anything but like on paper so thinking about us like college degrees you know looking like we've made it this she had more degrees than me uh she had worked and i mean had made way more money than me and i just had a mental illness and could not keep a job and i mean again the type of jobs that she had had she was already making six figures and back then i probably make it thirty forty thousand dollars like for real and she and but could and i don't know what she was diagnosed with but because of her mental illness couldn't keep a job so she had entered our housing program and then she was good for what i never i didn't even know she had a mental illness i thought she was literally there because she had just fell on hard time and didn't have the funds to finance and keep staying in stable housing so we were she was there short term for her to get on her feet that's what i thought so anyway the letter was just like thank you for everything that you've done you you know were really instrumental in helping me grow and then but then it went on to say i'm sorry that i couldn't be everything that you and the organization felt like the potential that i had that i never met those expectations i was like that so i started i had a lot of guilt i was like damn did i pressure her too much because like in the program you would have to meet with your case manager to talk about your goals and like you know like they had three months to be there so we would you know talk about you know so i had a lot of guilt initially i was like i pressure this woman too much did i make this one but she was very complimentary in her letter to me and thank and said that i always like helped her but that it was one line in there where she just said i'm sorry that i wasn't able to be everything that i think i still had this letter that you and the organization wanted me to be i couldn't reach that potential or something like that and it was very you know generalized but i took that personally because you just described what everybody assumes to be the black girl magic american dream if i would have seen her on paper i'm like aka high performing multiple degrees that's that's in our community that's considered the cream of the crop yeah she should be happy yeah she that you know that's black excellence yeah struggling yeah so i i mean i had a lot of guilt i was like okay did i pressure her too much or did i like was i not you know did i how did i not see these signs i just i like i questioned my whole career i was like i had worked in mental health before that wasn't what my role was there so i wasn't over there diagnosing people she had a counselor she had been going to counseling so i just thought she was good and she put on a really good face which a lot of us do so i had no idea and i was on vacation when she did it so i didn't know didn't see any signs so you know because i wasn't there a few days before she had done it but i talked to the people that was there and they were like yeah her car was in the shop i dropped her off the uh i took her drop her car off at the shop she was in good spirit she was so i'm like which they usually are if i learned before because they made up their mind girl i had not so the notes took me out and i had a lot of guilt i for a while blamed myself or thought i could have done more so yeah the career change was necessary but in essence it was because i did need to find a way to advance my career and not become stagnant and then that was definitely like okay but yeah i guess that's something a lot of people probably don't know unless they knew me then that that happened and that was really like the you got to change so that was my first career social worker second career was being a director of leadership programs um and then insert the pandemic no one was investing in leadership development y'all i got laid off on my day off not friday i think that's if i got fired on my day off so now i change and say i got laid off on my day off but yeah they technically they fired me but uh man but i had been there for four years i've been promoted now with work i started working with young professionals by the time i left i was working with executive women so the top women in dallas that are you would have to be the top ranked woman at your company and the company had to make x amount of money usually i don't remember i think it was 15 million uh and then for non-profits it's less than that not the person but the company had to have that much revenue so these are top executive women i think i saw one black woman in this program while i was there i think it's a lot more now i think i don't know uh but so i love i started working with young professionals all the way to these high achieving women and i'll be it they were not they didn't look like me right i think that's when i was like okay man i gotta i gotta figure out how to go even further because i'm like this ain't right like why ain't none of us up in here but uh in that that's where my network grew as far as working with uh high-powered people and growing a network and honestly learning the game of how it works moving and shaking i networked a lot you know i've had a lot of backlash in my own community because you know they call it the white chamber oh wait a minute people call it what people call the regional chamber the white chamber around here okay so i got a lot of i mean a lot of black organizations i'll just be honest in dallas that uh that a lot of young professionals will be a part of you know how like you have all these networking groups and professional and i would attend a lot of them but because my job was to host most of those similar type events for my job i couldn't be in everybody's black right and uh i mean i've heard people say i'm not black enough i'm like i'm like the blackest person oh here we go it's normal when people can't put you in the box if they want you to and they can't use you for whatever their purposes are they gotta label you something to make themselves feel good about the fact that they can't have access to you in the way that they feel entitled to that is crazy to me for me it wasn't even about access because i'm like the most down-to-earth person it's just that i mean i again sometimes you know people our people or i mean they just be on one i'll be like how you mad at me for doing my job this is my job like so anyway how you mad for me keeping my lights up like so that was my second career and then like i said i was laid off because no one was investing in professional development i'll never forget like um like i i we were working remotely because we working from home they called in sick and they gotta do that calling black sick whatever it's all same and they were like uh yeah we just need one quick call with you and i'm like okay i know i ain't done anything wrong like i said i had been promoted while i've been there i was kind of like one of the token negros so i wasn't really gotta love being a token yeah i wasn't like i was like i ain't done nothing so what up uh but i do think that and it's funny because i don't know that anyone would ever admit at the organization but i do think that i challenged a lot of the things that were in place you said the c word you know what happens you your job is to be grateful for the opportunity what do you mean challenge this is the perfect environment for you to blossom like we're giving you an opportunity to be a part of our family but you know this was after george floyd was murdered so oh well get the fuck out of here no y'all getting called to the carpet you know so yeah i think when it was time for layoffs you know again it did make sense because people weren't um investing in professional development but i don't think i think it became an easier decision because i was the black girl i was no longer the young black girl that was like oh this is great i'm so happy to be here palatable the palatable negro yeah now i'm up there at the table like so what we doing and they like oh they don't like that so you know and no one to this day will ever admit that because i sit on boards at the chamber on one board at the chamber now and our uh the president and ceo we have a meeting with him and my new job um at the top of the year whenever his assistant get back to me but the point is i ain't no beef but uh you know looking back at it i'm like they probably laid my ass off because you was up in their ass and all these questions which is fine by me like at that point in my career i was fine with like nah we ain't finna just turn a blonde eye at certain stuff because i was never that girl that's why when people on the outside would look and be like oh she worked for the white chamber or she's not black enough i'm like you don't know what i'm asking or doing when tables you are shaking yeah shook my ass up out of a job shook my ass up out of direct deposit oh you know i'm not foolish enough to be all up on social media doing acting a damn fool but right there were i in my to this day i feel like you know that was probably why i was no longer there again no one would ever admit that i've had opportunities with the chamber since i've loved uh so no beef and for me it was probably the yeah it probably was the best thing that could have happened because i was at the chamber i had advanced uh it wasn't i mean it probably i probably got another promotion but it wasn't really a lot of room to navigate to do something that i felt like i still wanted to be i'm a people's person i love people i love helping the communities right especially they look like me and from where i'm from and in that role where i was at it just wasn't it was you know we do a little community service day here or there it just wasn't enough and so you know outside of my sorority and anything else i could do to volunteer to feel fulfilled i was running myself to death on like i was that was back then when i was saying yes to everything right so i'm i'm working hard for man then i'm over here trying to be in the black community more because y'all over here talking about i ain't black enough so i'm over here trying to do that not not the tug of war so it was a lot so i was like i really want a career that i feel like every day i go i may not make a difference every day but that's the goal that's the intention of the role right and if i can get paid to make a difference that's what i want to do and i didn't know what that looked like i never said i wanted to be a vice president i never i never thought i'd be working for sports hill i was gonna say you do you how much did you keep up with women's basketball i didn't no lies it's like i just wasn't falling to that career oh and that's not something i am proud of everybody don't support them damn women i'm looking at you don't support them women but i don't really need to support women's basketball yeah i but again i frankly like i would buy tickets and donate them i just i wasn't you know after i was being an obnoxious cowboy saying like i like sports but i wasn't like i love sports enough to be but it doesn't matter you still should go support you must choose to definitely support but i wasn't i i was not i had not i wasn't but i met the dallas or the dallas wings executive team when i worked at the regional chamber one year prior to me being laid off at their offices because they were uh members of the chamber and we were trying to convince them to renew their membership which they didn't so they didn't read they didn't renew but they didn't renew but one year later so i think that what happened just i still it's crazy because my job was never posted it wasn't a job my role didn't exist before me so they created a role for you not for me they created a role and they know they knew what type of person that they wanted and so girl same difference they created a role for you so they uh the president had someone in mind i believe again because i didn't even know that's how naive i was like i'm like i know i wanted to do something where i'm helping people i i said i knew so i know i wanted to do something where i was helping uh people i knew i wanted to increase my income because i didn't want to have to go get two or three jobs or go go volunteer every day to feel you know what i'm saying so i knew i wanted more a better salary so i had a salary uh range in mind i knew i wanted to help people every day and i knew i wanted like i wanted to be a decision maker those were like the three things i was like i want to go to work intentionally helping people to make an impact is what i said i think i wrote this down i want to make an impact i want a salary increased salary range and i had like a range in mind and i want to be a decision maker and that was all i knew i didn't know what industry i didn't know i thought it would be corporate social responsibility like i go work for one of these major corporations because all of them yeah they do they do uh so i didn't want to but i feel like that probably made the most sense because i never thought about sports and that they would have a role at an executive level of a person making decisions every day to help make an impact and that just never crossed my mind so uh because i got laid off everybody all the black people and some of my white friends i got a lot of white friends i don't care y'all diversify y'all friends because my best my closest is a mexican in wichita kansas and a a white country but she ain't like trying to be you know culture vulture white girl she's a country corn fed backwood in joplin missouri but diversify your friends yeah as long as they um they get it yeah period they get it so i everybody was sending me jobs because they were just they were so mad at the chamber i can't believe they had to lay off anyone they could they didn't have to lay you off and i was like and at the time i think i tried one time because i was like i'm gonna pay my damn bills i've never been unemployed yeah i wasn't because i knew that i what i did like my job i love the connections that i made i love going to the little fancy ass dinners and stuff i ain't gonna lie i i love meeting high-powered people i damn i love the struggles um we was having happy hours we was having banquets and shit i love that i ain't gonna lie i did so i probably was very content i was meeting you was comfortable with me people and shit i never forget emin smith walked into our board room and he is the best speaker girl i was conducting facilitating i mean i hadn't even been there that long but everyone at the job knew i loved the cowboys he was on our um board of directors but like td jakes is on our board of it was a lot of big people on our board directors that i'm like they don't ever come to the board meetings i may not ever meet them so he was in the next room and my boss knew how much i liked him so i'm facilitating the meeting and then i was like and i was like i'm gonna lose my job today because i'm gonna take this because they'd be like you know you gotta be cool you can't you know be like a fan i'm about to go practice and so i had a lot of great experiences at the chamber that i otherwise would not have had and so i think i was content but so when i got laid off i wasn't sad about being laid off i was sad about where i'm gonna get my next check from i had never been unemployed so i didn't know you keep unemployment when they lay you off i i because i thought i didn't know how it works shit i didn't know i am currently i'm just learning about all this job we will talk about them season three it's my first time being but i'm gonna tell you it was also during the pandemic and they was paying double or whatever yeah so my unemployment checks was more than my regular checks so i wasn't mad oh jesus i wasn't mad i wasn't sad beautiful time i wasn't sad or mad it's me walking away from my career during a pandemic i'm gonna move to dallas i wasn't i wasn't but again i also wasn't because i felt like once again thankfully in a better way this time i was kind of being forced to figure out well what is it you really want to do because you're over here content and saying you want to do more but you ain't doing nothing you ain't doing nothing so i wasn't i was good so people were sending me jobs they were just so concerned about me they were like you're such a high achiever you're so great anyone will be blessed to have you that's my white friends were saying my black friends was like bitch you need a job so it was like you know it was just so people were sending me jobs some i was overqualified for some i was like girl i can't get that job but they was like i know somebody people were wanting me to work i had a lot of great networks which was again because of where i worked um and i was turning stuff down i was turning down your spirit new this if i get into this i'm gonna get comfortable yeah i was like and it was funny because i was like you can't be unemployed too long now this unemployment check is good but i didn't know like when they gonna cut it but i that's the only time that i was like they don't they don't see it right this is and i had those three things again didn't have industry didn't have i wasn't trying to be too picky the the salary range was real it was big because i was like i don't even know if i can get to here so let me start here it wasn't unreasonable but i was just like yeah no but you were turning down opportunities to make the main thing the main thing i love that so that's so one day one of my friends would have been sending me all these jobs i was like girl i love you but but she was she's very connected so i was every time she would say i'm gonna thank you so much and she was a black girl but way more connected in the other people's life she was very very very connected so she was sending me good stuff so she sent me this one she was it was a word document i'll never forget she texted me or a pdf or maybe something but it didn't have the company on it it just was a job description and i'm reading it and it was like a vp level i was like i've never been an executive before and it just had all these different things that i was like wow this person would really have the opportunity to make a difference they're vice presidents so obviously they're making decisions it didn't have the salary on it but i was like well i'm interested she was like if you're interested in learning more i can connect you with someone i was like okay and i was like do you know what company she was like i don't know girl girl i just know there is some shit out here there's some money and like you said you wanted to make a change this looks like change so what are we about to do so i told her to give the person my number so what what it was is that the uh ceo of the the president ceo of the wings he knew someone that he thought would be a good fit she did live in dallas but she had relocated to washington which is where they are from okay he was like well do you know anybody in dfw metroplex that you know fit what this would fit and so she had just put it in her uh leadership another leadership program she had went through and their group chat or group me or whatever mass communication and then that's how my friend found it so she didn't even know me personally the other girl she didn't just so the other girl and i got on the phone and she's not really interviewing me but telling me about the role yeah and i'm telling her my experience and she was like all right i feel comfortable in recommending you she was like because two people gave me your name actually and i was like oh okay well your name good in these streets and i'm like okay and so finally i said what organization is this because there was nothing i feel like oh it's the dallas wings the women's basketball team not you saying it like this because i'm like this i don't play that i was like maybe so i was like well listen now listen here now i don't know nothing about that i was like i you know i support black women and that's gold i support black women i say girl i don't be going to their games or nothing and she was like girl and i was cookie i tell you no lie i was literally talking myself out of the job i was like it sounded like you was trying i was like i don't know nothing about basketball i don't and then i started going back through the stuff we had already talked about and i was like then they're gonna be leading d.i like i i ain't never let and she was like listen she said i'm gonna tell you this it's a lot of stuff that people don't know when they start on these jobs she's like one this role has never existed so they don't know what you don't know so you're making it your own eventually yeah yeah so she said she said you're coming in to start this department i was like yeah then she started saying it's scary i was like oh she said just talk to him and so she was talking me putting you in the taking a job and i'm like so she was like just i'm just going to refer you you got to do the rest she was like so if it don't work it don't work maybe you go through the interview process and you really do feel like you can't do it or don't want to do it or or maybe they feel like you're not the one she was like but just you know and i'm like okay that's so funny and so uh went through the screening process with hr that was like i think that was like two different rounds and then i didn't know but they were playing in the bubble which we called the wubble they were in florida so she was like well if you're selected then the president will be in touch with you directly or himself and i'm like okay i didn't realize because they were playing in florida in the bubble at that time that he was occupied so i didn't hear her back for like weeks and i was like well you know i just went on to the next thing and his first account so we went we did two virtual interviews then he asked me can i come to because this is the i started in september 2020 but this is like let's just say july because it took forever for me to i went through a lot to get the job so i'm like we in the thick of the pandemic he was like can i meet at a coffee shop too and i was like no they probably really want to see if you're a really refined negro or not so he's been trying to see if he wanted to see me in person street negro she a boardroom negro he brought another vice president there and i'm like bruh what so what more you need so no so we do that and then come back and they asked me to do a presentation because i'm starting this department essentially i wasn't going to be responsible for starting a foundation like all this stuff so they were like well we want to know what would be your game plan uh-uh because i've learned this shit before one time i did not get a job and they told me that i was like the best candidate this this this this and this but they needed someone with more experience they were just you know what i presented to them sounded great but they weren't sure if i could actually do it because i had never done that this was a while back it was one of my first work roles and what i felt like i did because what i ended up seeing as i continued to follow their organization the person that they hired was implementing some of the ideas that i had shared during the presentation that i was required to do during my interview process hold on yeah so what i had learned from that experience is you don't give them too much so when i told them i said i'm happy to do a presentation and i said this is how it's gonna go i was like you better learn from your mind well i'm gonna say mistakes you know but every interview you gotta start looking at interviews that way like what are you getting out of me if you don't select me i was like this is my intellectual property so i will not be able to share anything in writing talk about the intellectual property let folks know in these kind of interviews this is important i will because they got to know that you know what you're talking about or act like you know what you're talking about until you know what you're talking about google some shit i don't care find some keynotes make yourself self-aware but that was something again that i had experienced so i was like i would do a presentation i cannot provide you with the information from said presentation so i would encourage you to take notes and that's what it was it wasn't no emailing you this presentation afterwards so you ladies and gentlemen a boss that ain't about to be played what friends say somebody that tries to play me plays himself you know that doesn't copy and paste my shit so we did the presentation i kept it very high level still i talked through what i was going to do versus having all this shit on the slides and i did not send a presentation afterwards there's nothing to review if you have questions call me wait i love this i think you might be helping some people here because when most people go into these kind of higher level interviews they ask a whole lot of specific questions how would you handle what's your experience not realizing they might just get that information and go on to somebody else and they're just collecting enough data they want presentations and stuff they don't use if they like it they may not like you or they may like other candidates better maybe it's not you but maybe you're just not the person but if they like something you said oh they don't get it information to the person they hired trust me that is a wicked i mean i want to call it wicked but it's the game out here people need to know so i was like so if there's additional questions you can contact me via email or phone and i was very thorough in said presentation so if they was smart they could have wrote it down but i did say we're not recording this how do you start how do you do you kick it off saying like yo this is my intellectual property like how do you bring that when they asked for the presentation i asked what are you expecting and they pretty much left it up to me to craft this presentation however i wanted to yeah and so that's when i knew they don't know what they're doing they want me to figure all this out baby you want me like you really want me to figure all this out so you know i just said i'd feel more comfortable with me sharing uh because i think what they wanted me to do is to uh to prepare a presentation and send it to them not present it to them we're not doing because they can easily take it and say you know thank you we appreciate you taking the time out to apply for the position we decided to go with another candidate so what i said is that no i am happy to present my ideas it is my intellectual property and i think that i can speak to it better than you reading it and so i would like the opportunity to present it to you and then and then so when they agreed to that when we started i said i'm unable to send this to you afterwards so if you have any questions i said so i would you know it would be i would suggest taking notes and then if you have any questions i'm happy to follow up you're such a boss response i'm not giving you my shit basically i'm not gonna see my stuff 10 years down the road yeah it just it's not because we didn't because that wasn't even an interview uh planned and we doing our list so i'm like so y'all just coming up with stuff at this point so so after that process then and this is something over sharing i don't care but the last process and i was like i guess it's what executives do i had uh drinks with uh my boss and his wife and so i guess oh they wanted to see how you vibe they want to see if you get along with the wife and it's home so yeah so we're getting a sneak peek into what goes on at the high level yeah little people don't see how they can get invited to nobody's house and so another vp came with me and she lived in dallas and so we we carpooled she picked me up and we went out there together and i think she was just trying to gauge and she was like i think they really like you and i'm letting her talk i ain't doing i'm talking but i ain't telling her nothing i don't want repeated because i'm like i don't know they ain't asked to try to figure out what's going you really be thinking like somebody that's on the streets this is why you have to have you have to have a combination of booking street for it don't mean nothing if you don't know how to move and shake he was like x lives near you you guys both live in dallas and uh how about you both come out here and she said she pick you up and i'm like great well i want to drop all the way out my way little 40 minutes for me so um shit so so i'm not sure and all the way there she was like i they really i've heard nothing but great comments about you i think you're a shoe in and she was just real comfortable and to this day actually i learned she's just very chatty and oversharing because she don't know she ain't even there no more but um i feel i wasn't gonna reciprocate that i wasn't gonna be like well yeah i want to be here and but you know i was just like you you got so you've learned a certain level of the importance of having a poker face and then we over here drinking wine i'm gonna drink two glasses because you can't not drink because then they find it but we're not gonna be you ain't gonna have me trying to see if i can hold my liquor because number one i drink you down but number two that's not the place at a time so many careers have ended over drinking with their superiors and getting sloppy and just over sharing they want to know the information the person that told me that she was just i mean she probably had a better bottle than had by herself and i was like baby you're gonna drive me back home what is going on where's the water until and to this day we know her as a person in sports entertainment is different it is a lot of entertainment going on so it's technically probably not it's in my opinion it's still inappropriate especially when you're trying to get the job but um you're not gonna never find me out on another like one i know how to hold my day but we're not doing that so but it was it was really funny because like at the end i mean it was just supposed to be a casual conversation i could tell they were i it was a social interview that's it was social social interview those are what those are i had never experienced it though i was like interesting i don't think they would invite me i knew at that point that they were i was likely going to get the job or it was between likely me and another person and this was probably like the last thing i was like you ain't inviting no nigga to your house like this no you're definitely not i mean i just and so at the end you know because we were just really talking to get to know each other better you know again i think a special interview and then at the end you know he was just like well thank you for coming out here and he was like you know it's you know between you and another candidate he was like but what i can uh guarantee you is that i am going to make a decision i think he gave me a date by the end of the following week or something like that and um his wife said well no one else has been to our home in other words like i like her just you know the wife plays a major role in a lot of these decisions just for y'all you do they do at that level when you're working as much as we work with their husbands because look because you don't have my man yeah more than i am so i like you and that's i mean that's my perspective but i'm right so from there i was like we good i'm good and so i started working on my negotiation skills i had never negotiated before so but this is my third career so cookie i told people it's a jigsaw puzzle of a career but i had to first let go of what wasn't for me because that's why i wasn't getting where i needed to go you got to keep saying i don't think folks get that yeah you have to because how do you it's too much baggage bag lady but fear you talk about that whole how i'ma pay these bills so how do you get past the how i'ma pay these bills to i'm not accepting anything less than what is in alignment with my goal yeah i'm going to be completely honest if had i not been laid off and still had some level of income enough to take care of myself i probably would still be struggling to just let go and let god i probably would but i do think it's you know and everyone is not a person of faith i'm not over here trying to convert nobody although faith has taken me audiences listen faith has taken me where i am so that for me that's it but it's just like you got to trust the process and for me it's faith is but again i was not i did not have that much faith because i was like i believe but i gotta look as long as i'm in this safety zone and you don't grow in a safety zone okay the getting uncomfortable i hate it the getting uncomfortable because we don't want to discuss that everybody's just clinging on to whatever they can i hate it but being miserable every day yeah i had to say to myself like you you've been in sales for x amount of time you've never been happy in that it was a safe space to go where there's always going to be money yes but even with the world we live in you still ain't making the money you need right and then you stress out talk down so when you get to your next grade you can't even perform like you need to because you didn't gave all these other jobs and all of it all of you because we would be working you know when you're done yeah you know so yeah so this that's how that came it wasn't anything that i looked for it was a referral actually a couple referrals and but what also had happened though what to go back to uh when we had met with the executive team with of the wings one year prior uh you know so in that first interview with the president i didn't know if you remember me but i made sure i told him and i went back and i used to keep cards and different stuff and i went back to my old notebook and one year prior the notes from that meeting and i written down i usually write down who i'm in meetings with and and sometimes if i have cars and people don't really keep cars that much anymore but i write down who was in that meeting i do that all the time and so when i was in that interview in case he did not remember me or associated me with the chamber i was just like yeah i remember meeting with you greg and i started calling out all the other people who the first name yep that first name gonna do it yep and so because of my role with the chamber they knew that i had a robust probably book of business and network and uh i had met with them previously so there was some level of comfort but ultimately someone had referred me and frankly had she not uh kind of talked me into me talking myself out of a job that's why i tell people stop telling these jobs what you can't do that's not what they asking you that's not what they asked you because i was over there like oh girl i can't do that and i don't know if i would have done that with the people that were interviewing me but i was overly honest with her and she was like girl don't say that that's my problem i've been saying stuff that i'm not gonna be in the same thing so you know you go into i tell people go into these interviews interviewing them as much as they're interviewing you and so i was i was very and at that point too because i didn't have a job and i didn't really know if it was the job for me at the time i was a little cocky with it too but this is something that i'm learning you have to be because i you know again george floyd had been murdered a lot of these organizations were making uh diversity hires and uh you know i was just like you know is this a result of you all wanting to diversify your executive team i noticed that there's no black women on your executive team so i was the first black woman to ever be hired on their executive team and so i brought that to their attention and that that was concerning to me and if they could share why it's so crazy when we're in a state now where black women are taking their power back and asking the questions because it's not this is not what we were taught to do a lot of us were not we were taught to be grateful for the opportunity i know i was always told it ain't that many of us in there so if you get in here like don't fuck it up you are you're trained to not fuck it up yeah and but my thing at that point i had nothing to lose i didn't got nothing so it wasn't mine so i was just like come on down shit they're gonna hire me they're not and so you know we were had some very honest difficult conversations uh just you know the good news though although i wasn't just being completely honest i i didn't really follow uh women's basketball i was very familiar with the wnba because particularly when everything started happening around race riots and just everything that's being televised that hadn't been in prior years and and now i can say it because i work for the organization and i know it now and i have all the stats or whatever but the wnba were doing protests and boycotting playing way before the nba definitely nfl no the women kind of black women especially always i need y'all to go ahead and just so when i realized that it was 80 80 percent of the players are black they look like me they're young they're younger than me and so they need someone that looks like them that authentically cares about them they can speak to issues that they have been through or will go through and so it just made sense for me so once i learned about the role i was actually excited about or the organization i was excited about it but i but i was very honest i was like yeah i don't know what y'all what y'all got going on so tell me what what you need me what what's the goal here and you know that's kind of how and you know so what would your expectations be what what what you know that e-word what's you know so i was very i was interviewing them as much as they interviewed me i knew in this role it would be a lot of work and a lot of expectations i knew they weren't gonna play with my ass and they don't play with us we don't get chance after chance that so i i had to go in with knowing what i was getting myself into i was saying how's the how was the pressure of being in this world this is a big deal i'm just saying no it's challenging again that was the first time i had uh thoughts and negotiate for myself and uh the first time i was telling people what i wasn't going except and i was just like so i did walk into that like man it's a big girl you kicked the doors down for whoever comes after you though yeah and so that's how i look at i look at it there are a lot of expectations and so i think i said this in my keynote i always initially the younger me you know it was like a badge of honor like i'm the first i'm the youngest i'm the only and then i'm like this is bullshit it is wow the first really ain't all it's cracked up to be most people most people don't know that yeah it's that's definitely not i honestly i knew that that would be hard but then i was just like i don't want to be excited about being the first or the only so i was more i was less concerned about i knew being the first was going to be hard but even if i wasn't the first black woman just being the first person in that role was going to be hard but being the only bothered me like this she made my hs i was like why one because i like i need to be in the office and see somebody that look like me right and not play basketball you know what i'm saying i know it's going to be a lot of black women on the court but there were no other black women in the boardroom and it bothered me it impacts how you show up your comfort level but i'm tired of them looking at me looking at them going off on them because see that was another thing that i learned the topic of conversation yeah from from you know matriculating through these career paths uh i have learned not to be silent but that's why i want to be a decision maker because now i'm able to not just be in here complaining i'm complaining because this impacts the decisions that i need to make to be effective in my role yeah so what we gonna do about it it's a fact i'm gonna tell you what we're gonna do about it so what we gonna do i got it yeah and then i have in this role the authority to make those changes so that and so that i just never wanted to be but it's hard because you can't make everyone happy and it's exhausting because you still feel like you're fighting a damn battle all the time how do you deal with not making the not making everybody happy you're used to being somebody that looks out for everybody that fixes everything that overextends yourself so how do you deal with that in this space yeah it's hard it's hard because people have so many expectations of you i mean we're not saying expectations of yourself because i know what i'm doing and what i have done and what i intend to continue to do um well what you're doing because you don't have to be a vp you don't have to work in this role to make a difference or to advocate for others or to care so much for our people so i think i'm starting to learn i haven't learned this or mastered this yet but take a little bit of pressure off of me because most of the time when you're not making people happy the people that are unhappy are the people they're not doing shit so i'd be like crazy why are you so concerned about because i was that bothered me for a long time of honestly not always feeling accepted by our people i just feel like ain't that so crazy you knock down all these doors and you try to get in this position to give us opportunities and it's us that's like okay and it's stuff that i probably could have done differently navigated differently and i tell people all the time like i could i see some people that are my age even younger that are really black advocates that are doing the dang thing and maybe that's their role that's not that's not because what i have to and it's no excuse but like i didn't have parents that went to school i didn't like some of these people when they were two months when i i didn't even know what hbc used before i got in college i was like damn i would have loved to go to a black house and i probably wouldn't have graduated because i would have been at their party because i wasn't focused enough i didn't have parents that went to school that said my mama my first semester i bet i don't even know why them people let me come back the second semester so my mama was like what's your grades looking like she didn't know so i thought i said oh you don't get grades at the end of the semester they give it to me at the end of the year because i can show him because they don't they've never experienced it so what they're gonna do argue with you so like i you know when i see some young black people that i feel like are so woke when we used to say that all the time i'm like damn why i didn't know why i wasn't advocating and why i wasn't you know pro-black all of my life and i was like well for me one i grew up around all black people so i was always it was you know what i'm saying but like some people are so so again i used to be compared to like oh you do a lot with like it used to be frowned upon that i worked at the white chamber and i'd be like baby let me tell you who's paying me right i think of who keeping these lights on and it's like you know so again i think i have learned to not put as much pressure on me and or compare myself to what other people are doing i was going to say what does accountability to community look like for you for the culture when people have these expectations at what point do you go okay i could have did better with xyz and oh no y'all just y'all playing right now so i just don't worry about what other people are doing anymore and do what i know i'm doing i just had it's so funny my best friend not talking we were talking about parenting i'm not just a parent but you know without sharing what what her concerns were about her but what i was sharing with her is that like i'm not a parent i have 18 million thousand nieces and nephews and great nieces and nephews and just have been around a lot of different parents in you know close uh peripheral where i can see how they parent and decisions that they make and i'm like you know you never know we have it's so easy to judge other people and what they're doing uh and how they make decisions so the best thing to do is ask yourself have i done the best that i can with what i know to do because if you don't know you can't do what you don't know uh am i doing things that are in the best interest of in this case it was the kids but in my case the community um and that's all i can do like if i know i'm doing the best that i can do i'm doing things that are in the best interest of the community that i love and serve then why am i trying to compare myself to jane doe may want to be the president of naacp that don't mean you want that people try to select what you should be doing every role ain't for everybody people want me to get here people want me to i'm like that ain't for me that ain't for me that ain't for me i'm you know i do there's a lot of things that i'm good at and and people think that i can do or want that for me i'm like no that ain't same for me sis it's not for me so i just have to i do a lot of self reflection and then sometimes i'm like you can do more and then sometimes it's like you're doing the best you can but you said it are you doing that i think the thing is some people don't want to do it so it's better to push somebody else like well you should be doing this you should be doing that and they ain't doing a inch of everything and that's good that's your calling that's good focus on your call don't make your calling my calling i'm happy for you we need somebody like you i wish you all the best sis like we're not doing this so i i have i've as i mature i've given a damn about what people think as much let's say my question is what would folks seeing you in all these leadership roles what would they be surprised to know about you oh man that's really that's a good one um well people that know me or get to know me like i'm really so down to earth they probably are surprised that i'm in the role that i'm in like put up with that all the time every day because i don't cold switch i have i have you know in in younger years when i wasn't making decisions no bp's that don't cold switch yeah no i'll be there i wear this to work i wear the rest of the police the kia brianna taylor shorts where i wear every i'd be in the i said i'm pro black i'm black black black black black and i love all things black now in that i still have to do things that are in the best interest of other marginalized communities that's the thing with me i mean that's what it is and that's what i think sometimes some people in our community when they see me like i'm going to advocate and go i'm going to say go as far but for me i'm going to always i can speak more authentically about being black being a black woman like there are just certain things like i can speak about having drug addicted parents whereas you may not be able to so you may not be as adamant about it so why are you mad at me because i'm not as advocate i'm not adamant about something you are adamant about but you know for me especially in my role i am just really about equity now again i can speak to the black community more and so even in my role and in the boardroom and in in front of my board members he'll in interviews i'm always going to talk about where i'm from you really do but i'm saying there's got to be the pride of oakcliff right here that's never going to slide through i'll be bringing a mouse to work this is oakcliff and this is oakcliff uh so you know some i have a lot of pride and where i'm from and who i am and what i represent but i'm always about equity and so we sometimes think we can't be for everyone and still for us and that's untrue that's not true and that's okay for people that disagree with that that's fine if we understood how a lot of folks liberations are tied to ours exactly there are so many things that are intertwined i think the sooner we you know realize that that's how we strengthen yeah any fight to be honest with you i think the biggest thing is just knowing i can't be everything to all people it's real simple and that takes you know but when you when you're younger you do want kind of that validation that was one of my flaws is wanting to be validation everybody like you girl listen if everybody like you you know first of all i'm a if everybody like you you ain't doing something right right there's no way right somebody lying right you ain't walking in your office all the time you somebody else when you get around deep so you're the villain of somebody yeah i don't care how nice you are how much you try to represent you're the villain to some some people do not like you you challenge people they're just they're their discomfort level is just it it raises around you and they don't rock with you now what i have learned to do and i've had to just because of different roles not even particularly the one i'm in now because this is i've been able to be really myself because again the players that i represent the wnba is super progressive and pro-black and pro pro women so i really haven't had to do that in this role but you know it's it's really weird though because when i in other places i have had to just say like listen this is what it is this is what i'm about and you have to take it or leave it i don't know how that makes you feel right but um but yeah i think you know there are other groups that i have to advocate for which is harder because i don't know all of their issues and i don't pretend to know everybody's issues right uh but i do think that you know some people can find it challenging and hard to believe that you can advocate for other groups and still be authentically who you are and what you do because again especially in my role that's my job and it doesn't make me any less black like i go to the lgbtq parade in my dashiki like i mean there's black people forget that black people are in different marginalized groups there are black people that are in multiple marginalized groups because for me it's about i know how i or my marginalized group feel and for us to have allies or to have people to support us allyship important i can appreciate that so who am i to not do that for others but you know how the black community is about the lgbtq if there's anybody y'all are against and it's crazy because you don't even know how you hurting your own people yeah yeah how can y'all be gay you just be in the closet that's how you really be mad because it's getting a little it's getting one step closer to home we ain't gonna do that today that's what you really be mad about and i just need you to just be yourself are you about a feeling y'all be mad because they be knowing y'all secrets might be too mad but you do that first of all you gay because one of them told me now you're gonna keep playing this game or you're gonna just play nice we know what this is really about oh jesus live in your truth please it will set you free it will well what does okay well all this i mean you gotta you'll play like overflows oh we're trying to how do you find this where does the balance come in and what does that even look like for you yeah you know we've talked about this in the professional world a lot when i'm on a lot of podcasts the favorite question to ask is like this work-life balance one of the questions i'll be like i know this one for the comments but and and this is my perspective it's not true for everyone some people really do but believe in practice a good balance and boundaries i'm not there yet i've just been honest i'm not uh and again that was because at one point i was trying to be everything to everyone i didn't say no a lot so i'm getting out of that but especially the type of work that i do but there are so many different uh careers that are way busier than mine but ours is all it's ongoing all the time i always say i don't really have professionally i mean i have balance in other areas but professionally i don't have like a work-life balance because my world's professionally and personally mesh a lot but um i prioritize so like i'm gonna prioritize me as much as i prioritize my job and again there hasn't always been that but yeah work-life balance and i'm not i guess i'm just not good in that area so i'm not gonna disqualify people i'm not gonna qualify people to say that but what i'm saying is like when you talk about work like i look at this i just prioritize things in the categories in the order that they should be and that's how i balance it so that's not yeah it's not really like a good i don't i don't know how people and it can be done but just shut off certain like i'm not doing this today i'm just gonna that's great i don't know how to i don't know how to do it it's the phone like if you can just take the phone and throw this bitch yeah yeah so mine is just about prioritizing like okay your ass is on them now e so we need to prioritize that and work needs to go a little bit lower like right now working on lower yeah or your relationships like okay you haven't been a good friend or i could you know so let me put a little bit more energy into this so i just try to stay i really do try and again this is one of those things you gotta try to work on you can't be everything everybody but i just try to just check in on like all the areas of my life and am i putting enough energy into each of those areas that are important to me but your friends get it though right like somebody having a friend like you they don't take things too personal well they don't have to tell me if they did i mean i girl when i say this meet my first time because i just understand how you damn mad that i'm doing me so i first yes and i don't have friends behind that bullshit like girl we're not doing this i'm gonna sit you in this corner now my friends are usually like trying to check on me and make sure i'm not overworking myself especially like this year so they get it yeah yeah yeah because girl i'm not gonna explain nobody especially not nobody that ain't take care of me that i'm busy it's such another side one thing i learned this year is that when you start prioritizing yourself it makes people uncomfortable that are used to you being in the role of cheerleader it's a very uncomfortable space for them they're like now what the hell you mean you ain't gonna drop what you doing and be here and just come hang out and xy they don't know what to do with the shit it's also about who and what type of people you hang around okay because none of my friends have that much time to be worried about that much idle time to be worried about why we ain't being out shooting the shit because guess what they're out reaching goals or taking care of their families i'm probably one of i do have some other single friends but like most of them have families and have but they're literally out bossing too so that's okay so you stick into the fact that it was good to be around a circle of bosses what's understood i ain't got nothing to do with all the time i guess none of my friends none of them i did see that you had like kind of shouted out your invisible husband i don't know where he at he lost i don't have the tracking number i don't know what happened y'all said y'all was sending a new batch and they lost where they go i mean it's the holiday you know them packages get lost they you know might have been t-moved the package killed me a while you said safe girl i don't know is it hard for you in this i gotta i don't give a damn is it hard for you in this role to date like how do you how does a man i'm like man she's a vp well it's not that most uh men assume that i'm already engaged in some type of relationship i can see that assuming um and or they just simply said they married they already maybe the daddy's got dookie in it because the married folks won't stay out of it i can you go mind your married business how are you this comfortable disrespectful how are you this comfortable you're not worried about getting caught this is a lifestyle and writing not the receipts but the receipts and the tags still long it's real disrespectful they're disrespectful since so the target tag i've noticed why aren't you trying to hide her or you ain't hiding at all no so yeah either the assumption is um you know they think i'm in a relationship they're likely surprised if i'm not or again like i have no problem attracting people or like starting something but it's the quality the quality shit you get the sheen dudes not even nick because sometimes you yeah it's true so no it'd be it don't it'd be the recycle bin the dirty one you know the ones that be in those parking lots where it's on the corner like somebody you could just dump and you just gotta so you know you ain't gotta get in there because ain't nobody even checking your boo got dookie stains on it yeah it'd be the shit that you can't even drop off at salvation or because they don't take it and one would think people typically think that women especially black women at higher levels have a a bigger pool to choose from because of what you know because of what you have access to no no they're married and disgusting yeah no i i get i again have no problem with attracting uh but this is also what happens it is the story of my life if i hear it again i'm shooting this right in front oh my gosh you're just such a perfect woman like i mean they just have they pull it all out still yeah and then it's just like the timing isn't right or i don't want to play with you or i don't please don't please don't play here because please don't because don't do that because some girls respond to it like well what do you mean yeah some people will fight no please don't play with me please don't do that don't do that but um just stop talking stop the show but it's like what you know what i've learned is that men like to because girl oh i actually i can't figure it out so this is really a good conversation but what i've found it's like people at least what i found like guys i think when they realize like oh she ain't with the shit and she gonna really hold me accountable my feet to the fire this and that then they start backpedaling so like i tell guys when we start doing whatever like i just need consistency communication consideration let's start with those come on triple c let's start with those come on ebook and so come on workbook but um then when he starts when he realized he can't keep up with what he started the consistency that first c that'd be gone man consistency is so important that's important to me don't start something that you can't continue so i get when i say it ain't even a trial period see if i ain't got 30 days it's that three days it'd be like the first the flag ain't even red yet it'd be like a little orange with the tint and it don't even be red all the way i see a flag it's just because i what i don't have this time to waste no i don't i do not uh but it's it's actually sad though because one of my tolerances is the lord so i don't have the patience for it um but people like to play with your time they do yeah so yeah i'll date and then it'll just be like you know i don't want to waste your time you did you did you and you knew you did and now you want me to change you she did um or my old relationships you know now they'd be like damn you know they want to you know they're trying to spin the block all the time so girl and what i can't won't will not but yeah the block the block is hot it's the block is hot but it's no it's you know just no real potential i've been out here i've seen it it's no real it's just it's disturbing you know but the funny thing is the more disturbing it is it does help you one thing i notice is that when i do away with the bullshit i'm able to focus more on my goals so it's like okay there's beauty in this ain't nobody clap my cheeks in a minute i've not had my kidneys flipped in some time unfortunately i might as well be a virgin but ain't nobody stressing me out i ain't on live looking crazy my wig sliding that that part so i mean they'll take you out of yourself i really you know i desire companionship relationship love all the things what i will not do is compromise again even in like with words same thing i gotta be up in here doing this i'm definitely not about to play with you you ain't even paying me like at least my job i know i'm going to get a direct deposit you bullshit you know what i'm saying you might ask me to split the bill so it's girl it's discouraging though it is it is but yeah a lot of times a lot of men think that i'm in a relationship and or they're in a relationship and or you know just still care about me so much that they want me to indulge in the relationship with them it should have been you yeah it's real so yeah my husband invisible he out here he is he is out here come on king come on claim your shit because truth is i'm tired truth is she time options is few no options options yeah that's the whole thing i'll speak him up he coming he's somewhere he maybe he's not in dallas that's what my let me go fly through here it was a long distance relationship and it was really great it's my it's my best relationship see yeah so you're gonna be on him that's gonna be somebody so what girl what do you feel like the way you've been so intentional about your life and career what do you see for yourself in the future like do you see this is a long haul do you have other ideas and things you want to bring to fruition like what is ultimately at this point what's the goal for yourself what's the legacy you know and this is no shade to any organization or company because i do think some people have found their way in there whether it's corporate america whatever industry it is of just being able to work their way up and being happy with that and i'm a retiree and this is secured money and i love that for them um like i love my job i love it's very rewarding i never in a million years i work in sports um but i also feel like i have an obligation to pour into others that's just who i am that's how my career started right right and so ultimately and who knows maybe it can be done in conjunction with my current role and i continue to work my way up and because i do think it's important for those young black women that are playing basketball because their careers are so much shorter than men uh so they're really young i mean they're all of my players are so much younger than me i think the oldest one is like 31 and i was like girl you're a baby i mean she's considered a bit like right oh you know what i'm saying so i do find myself in in some form or fashion as an opportunity to mentor informally uh to them and whenever i have opportunity i'm always telling them the real and preaching to them of what their obligation is to use their platform for good and that's great and i really get a lot of fulfillment in that and so i do think that there's more for me to do um maybe even long term in my current role or in some form or fashion of it but i have spent a lot of my career uh unconsciously one helping build corporations and businesses making them better sounds about right would never own them bitches so nope you know so that that troubles my soul as it should you know when i was younger that was just like you just work and you just do good things uh but when i i think especially particularly in this role where i have built our film i've built this role in this department that was the other thing like i was able to create my own title i was able to say this is you know the roadmap of what we're doing being a decision maker i'm able to do that so now i'm just like this is great but this is all to ensure that the company is successful um you said it and so yeah that's probably not going to be me forever uh now again because it is rewarding but what i'm always trying not to do especially now what i've done before it's become too comfortable or content so it's like this is rewarding and this is good and i'm actually like right now i'm uncomfortable because i'm still growing and learning okay like this is um i just finished my third season so i'm going into my fourth season so i'm still learning a lot about sports every time i turn around like this emotion wait a minute like i didn't know we do this too because like this past year was the first time we went to the playoffs ever in our franchise so then i didn't know shit you could potentially still be playing two months after the regular season and i was like shit wait a minute i'm still playing the vacations so my point is like i'm still uncomfortable because i'm still learning a lot and then i'm i've built our uh foundation from the ground up and so that's like my baby and i really want to see that become more sustainable and grow and be my legacy work i want to be an old woman whether it's with my invisible husband keys and then we have grandkids and be like granny started that foundation and you know what i'm saying so i really want to see what i started with this organization the seeds that i'm sown and i want to reap the benefits of that and see that uh be really uh fruitful for our communities because what we do with the foundation all goes back to our community so there are some goals and and really a lot of work that i really think can still be done under my role and opportunities to grow but ultimately yeah i don't want to contribute just to the success of an individual or a company or a business anymore so if i can do that in addition to building my own uh personal brand that would be to help others navigate their careers because as you can see my ass didn't default it through success i just called it a jigsaw puzzle right you know people say experience is the best teacher but i don't think that everyone has to experience every failure every like there are ways to prevent uh going through hardships all the time now you don't have to get it how you live like some things are inevitable and that's okay but i really do think that i have a great opportunity specifically with women of color to educate them based off my skills experiences and failures but i like to say i feel forward a lot and so uh and helping them with their career navigation and leadership development because those are two things that i've not mastered but i have done uh well and and continue to learn and so i also like to say like continue to be a lifelong learner and so in that i think that that would help me to continue to grow and want to learn as i try to help others navigate their careers because what happens is either people are trying to figure out when they get out of college what to do with this degree that i paid all this money for and ain't nobody really trying to tell me how to get a job right so you have those then you have these mid-level or these kind of stunted growth like where i was there for a long time of not knowing how to get to the next level then you have some people that are like i know i have the potential to get to the next level like i knew but i don't know how to get there so you have that and then you have executives that are literally still trying to refine themselves and cope with especially if you're a black woman how to be the best you and version of you and true you uh and be still a boss and be an executive and so all of that to say ultimately i would like to do consulting and career navigation and leadership development helping everybody boss up now tell everybody first of all tell everybody how to find you i really need to pray about uh or not or not look you do what you want around here look i know somebody told me one day somebody said here said don't find me you can find me but it's just like am i gonna accept i mean you know what i mean she does come to the come support the game i was gonna say i really want to see y'all at dallas wins game my first game is may the 14th but no on i just changed my ig name because i was like you know i really need to start building this brand y'all you know y'all brand strategists and influencers and y'all be having brands and i haven't been again i haven't been intentional about that but i do think that uh there's an opportunity i'm not so much worried about building a brand or even monetizing however comma there's money to be made now here because i i promise you this and y'all can go to my linkedin my linkedin is really be really do be popping so for the professional bosses and the women that are really are men because i have also uh coached men i started this thing during the pandemic lds mentoring moments and i would just say hey if you're looking for career tips or you want some advice i've done a lot of different things in my career just hit me up and people would just hit my inbox up and so during the pandemic i started doing lds mentoring moments need to bring that back but i think you should bring that back but the reiteration of that once um a consulting company is alive and well kicking i'm glad i said that out loud today uh because i want to i've been telling people i'm gonna hold myself accountable to that in 24 but uh then you know people pay a lot of money for executive coaching for all kind of stuff there are people that don't have nearly your experience and background charging boo-coo money and i hate to say this you know what i someone told me and it's true and i'm gonna hold up until the bite of damn linkedin oh so i'm just skipping around i'm sorry linkedin is just ladandra wilson it's just ladandra okay on ig you can uh it's like can i give it all no linkedin is ladandra wilson uh ig is ld lees because that's what i'm going to be doing talking about leadership development he's gonna vet you though um but yeah you're gonna get that in the waiting room because i'll be forgetting this like request there shit like talk about uh keeping your space being intentional about your space more people should though because i gotta figure out if i want to be i'm still an open book so i don't have a separate life yeah but you know some things you just this is for my people you need something for yourself and you i think you should be protective of your space i'm evil out here i protect my space and my man they gotta have everybody following them you actually don't so let me request because some people are following you just to learn more about you to have negative things to say i was gonna say don't come over here so how do you deal with that come over here with your opinions you don't get paid for it you ain't even got to be here like you don't have to like you can exit at any time at any time but you don't have my pages and open because i just feel like for why that's rare now everybody wants to follow but then when you look through it's like you would not really hear from me you just hear for i don't know fuck you here i have so many requests but i'll be like i don't even know how i know them and then i'll be like damn no mutual how am i supposed to so again that's why i don't know if i am trying to build a brand per se i am really ultimately interested in building a business that will help people navigate this crazy world to be fulfilled in their careers so outside of making money because we all need you just want to be of service yeah and again i need to monetize it and so they may require uh having more i just i could probably move different with that because a lot of people want to be brand strategy they want the title social media thing but they don't be really helping motherfuckers yeah i'm sorry i didn't know i meant to say it you did y'all just be y'all get a bunch of followers and now it's like i'm gonna teach you how to do this but they don't yeah they ain't got no bones behind them yeah yeah okay so never mind but again ld support the league you can get on there but yes please support the wnba we started again may 14th the uta the women are dope they really are but dope on the court off the court i have the great privilege of working with them on all of their appearances outside of like media interviews and stuff like that but the real stuff that they do in the community and and things that are important to them and so that is very fulfilling an intentional boss it trickles down to the players yeah it's dope though it's they they they're most and that's what most people don't because these you have to think about these are players that are not making as much as their male counterparts i mean oh we could talk no they're not they're they're not they're not and so they're doing this because of their passion and love of the game and then many of them are again working directly with me uh to make an impact in this community with very little resources and so that's you know to be applauded because they don't have to because they don't they don't have it you know what i'm saying and so when they're doing this because they're passionate about it yeah and that's what my job is is to find out what all of our players are interested in what they're passionate about when they don't know because some of them so young they don't they're not thinking about that they're just focused on their craft and what i have to make sure they understand is that you know you may or may not be playing bouncing this ball for long uh there's only 144 players in the wmba and i don't know how many are in the nba but you know like a nfl rosters with like 50 some people we don't have 12 people on our roster so you don't you know you're competing to keep your spot every damn day essentially yeah uh and so i tell them basketball is important it just can't be your end all be all and what is your legacy and so i tell them that and so that's why i have to make sure i'm following and creating my own we love an intentional black woman that's intentional in her leadership with a game plan well lb thank you so much for coming on and giving me a story blessing the people but y'all you know how to find her and you know that she'll get that it but whatever we got going on right now because i still don't know it changes wear your mask wash your hands socially distance and when you get a free moment please remember to clean out your dirty bag till next time