I posted today on social media that I have taken in so much information regarding business already that I am just ready to practice now. That it's time to just start and just see and just learn and grow as I go. And that realization circled back around to me again a moment ago as I was multitasking in figuring out how many bedrooms I need as I plan my next apartment move, and that shifted into okay what is my business, what are my products that I need or don't need this certain amount of space for? I pondered as I simultaneously watched an replay of a David Shands Morning Meetup.
I haven't always loved learning. Or maybe I didn't know I loved learning? 🤔 School was easy for me (besides math and spanish) so it's not like I had a reason to dislike it or to dislike "learning". It was always just okay. I had to do it so I did it. But over these last couple years I have noticed that I have really gotten super into watching interviews and listening to podcasts. Anything where people are talking and I can relate or I can learn I am in!
I love learning in the form of verbal conversation, story telling, and oral history. I remember as undergrad in college I first got into watching celebrity interviews mainly centered around musicians through Hot 97, Sway in The Morning, and my ultimate favorite The Breakfast Club. Even then as I enjoyed these interviews and conversations and may have learned from them in the meantime it was still just something to do. That was around 2013 - 2014.
Around that same time I also fell in love with this site called From A Wild Flower where various women would write in and share their stories from different categories of life. And that site combined with social media allowed me to get even more interested in just hearing people's stories overall. I don't know what it was but I was looking to learn. I don't know what I was looking to learn but I was looking for something undefined in that space.
Over time my interest in YouTube interviews and sites where women told their stories just grew and grew and in 2021 I was frantically and intentionally looking for answers within podcasts. And so podcasts grew for me and as social media started to change and I started to change I just started looking for different things, different stories, different inspiration that I needed desperately. Since I have found amazing women on social media that I am extremely in awe of and then I go on YouTube and hear there stories or vice versa I hear an amazing story on YouTube and then I want to know this person. I have found so many black women to be inspired by and I think that's what I was looking for. Something different from my every day life but a reflection of the life I wanted to have for myself but I ain't even know it was possible until I saw it. Or I didn't realize how to verbalize and dream of what I wanted until I saw it. I didn't know how practical my dreams and desires really were.
Since these sources that I turn to for information, knowledge, and inspiration have been heavily business focused. But the thing is I used to write as a coping mechanism as a kid until I did this English class assistant where I had to rewrite the ending to a book and it felt so good that I started writing my own stories until ultimately I wanted to be an author in middle school. When it comes to business I mean I took business courses as electives in high school and I don't know what inspired that at all but then I was interested in learning more. And I used to talk about being an author and starting a business loosely until life happened and things started to fade off.
From the moment it was recommended, for years I would always go to Goodwill Career Center to look for a job and attend job fairs that never seemed to reach the things that I desired to do. Home health care, fast food, working at warehouses, working in law enforcement, etc. never seemed to reach me as far as yeah let's do this. In fact no career or title did for years even after I graduated college with a 3.5 GPA and Psychology degree. These jobs still weren't reaching what I felt in my heart and I didn't even know what that was I just knew they weren't it. Then one day there was magically a flyer for a business class that I seen in the career center and I was interested. However it took years after seeing the business class first being offered, but long story short I thankfully took the class and officially registered my LLC with the state in 2024.
That was now 9 months ago I registered my business and a year ago WOW. I just realized it's been a year since I started my business classes. Something that I went into with no clue but a faint memory that this is something I used to think about, and an openness to just explore it and see how it goes after the I don't know what number failure on the traditional career side. So I technically have a business that I do want to pursue and give my all to but as usual life has gotten in the way of having an actual operating business. I have greatly learned there is a difference though and an LLC. is the first step but not the last. And I'm so close. I just need one more step.
But in the time that I've wanted to get this business up and running and been completing all the steps with complete dedication only to still be set back I have learned a lot. As much as I want to be a full time entrepreneur already making all the money, owning my time, owning my space, and what I want to do this delay has allowed me to do so much research and really develop the literal idea of maybe I could/should start a business mindset that I went into it with. All I had was a name, a dream, a hope, and a prayer. I had nothing to lose. At that point I had tried everything except starting a business so I was really grateful for the opportunity to once again try something that might work.
And I want it to work. With the delay I now have a better idea of what the structure of my business is, what's it's purpose is, who my customer's are, what my zone of genius is, and very importantly what my products or services are, what am I offering? And I have always wanted this in some aspects. I have always desired to be an author and entrepreneur and create the life that I want to live but it's took a lot to really figure out what everything is. Where everything fits, who I am, what I need, what I want. And I'm thirty years old now so it's taken a while to just figure it out alone and not even put it together yet because that's a whole other journey and process I pray to be starting soon. But I just realized I love learning and I have learned so much. And I am looking forward to taking every lesson I've experienced personally from every life event that I have gone through, along with every message or gem from the journeys I have seen second hand to truly build my own and create the life I want. With true knowledge that could only come with time.