The Black Girl Business Bar

In this episode, I look back at 2021 and all of the challenges and accomplishments I've had.

Show Notes

In this episode, I look back at 2021 and all of the challenges and accomplishments I've had.

Spoiler alert: I get really vulnerable.

I also go through my 2022 goals and share a challenge for the Black Girl Business Bar community. 

 Resources mentioned in this episode
More on Khalida
 Khalida DuBose is a business mentor specializing in sales strategy. As a previous crowdfunding coach, she supported more than a thousand crowdfunding campaigns and project creators in their quest to bring their dreams, passions, and ideas to the world. Now, she focuses on helping women of color who are early-stage online business owners as they navigate the entrepreneurial journey. For more information on Khalida, visit khalidadubose.com. Follow Khalida on Instagram @khalida.dubose. You can email her at khalida@blackgirlbusinessbar.com.

The Black Girl Business Bar is produced by Zuri Berry (@ZMCPodcasts). Music by Vincent Tone and Die Hard Productions.

Creators & Guests

Host
Khalida DuBose
Business + Mindset Coach
Producer
Zuri Berry
Principal Producer at ZMC Podcasts

What is The Black Girl Business Bar?

The Black Girl Business Bar Podcast is for Black entrepreneurial women who crave practical information to implement in their businesses and careers. They want tips and tactics that work and they want on-the-go mentorship that will make a difference in their businesses, projects, and lives.

Hosted by business coach and crowdfunding expert Khalida DuBose, the Black Girl Business Bar is all about letting Black women know what's possible for them in their entrepreneurial journey.

Hey friends in 2021, I learned that my brain and yours will take time to accept new concepts, to see new paths, to start believing what you're telling it, to start accepting a new way of doing things and feeling safe while all of that growth is happening. So essentially I learned to give myself a lot of grace and it paid off.

Welcome to the Black Girl Business Bar podcast. I'm your Host Khalida DuBose. This podcast is all about helping you as a woman of color, increase yourselves, overcome your mindset blocks and giving you the practical information that you need to thrive in your business in your life.

Today, I'm chatting with you about my 2021 in review and what is on the horizon for 2022. I'm also going to have a little challenge for you at the end, so make sure you stay tuned.

All right. So if you're listening to this in real time than it is the end of January 2022. I'm sharing with you what happened in 2021 in just a quick review. And so I picked 10 items that I want to share with you that I am especially proud of, that I was able to accomplish. And I'm going to give you a little bit of thought process, and just like share with you a little bit of the details as I share these items.

None of them are in any particular order, but they're the things that I'm proud of. And as I said at the top of this, really what made the difference for me, in 2021 was just really learning how to give myself so much grace and realize that I am in a very, like, I'm just in a place of learning. Right.

So, I'm so excited. So as you guys know, I like to write all of my wins down in my business journal. I like to even journal about what's going on in my business, how I feel things are going. I have multiple journals and I'm usually journaling several times a week. If it's not every day, it's probably about four to five times a week.

And sometimes it's in my business journal. Sometimes I'm doing thought stuff sometimes I'm self-coaching. I'll talk to you guys a little bit about more about that next week on next week's podcast. And so it was not hard for me to figure out like, you know, okay.

What were all the things that I did, right. So that's my cue to tell you that if you want to be able to review your year and really look back and see what's going on, or at any point each quarter, make sure you're writing it down, make sure you are kind of capturing things as they happen in the moment.

What are your feelings about them? What was hard to get over them? You know, what the end result was? What were the steps you took? I think that that information is so crucial because it really helps us to not only be able to see how far we've come, but also really, be able to like retrace our steps. Sometimes we're teaching the people, the things that we've done.

And it's really nice when you have it all there laid out and you can just say, okay, let me put this into a plan, right. Or you can go back and refresh your own memory of like, how did I do that hard thing last time. And, you know, really go back and make a plan for yourself. All right. So these again are in no particular order, but let's dive in.

I, number one, I invested heavily in my business. So you guys have heard me say this on the podcast, in my content on Instagram that I believe in investing. I always have, I always will. I invested in a business coach, as you all know. Yep, as a business coach, I also have a business coach and I love, love, love having a business coach.

I invested in admin support as well. And what that looked like for me was my virtual assistant Karen, my podcast manager Zuri, and my bookkeeper, who is my sister. Yep, she is a big four accountant turned to business owner. So that's been awesome for me. I also invested personally in a trauma coach for a few months because I was working on some old unresolved trauma that was really getting in my way. And really what it meant for me to have this kind of support in my business was I just felt nourished all year long. I really felt nourished. And it was, you know, we always say like, you have to learn to do these things. You have to learn how to trust.

You have to learn how to take the next step forward. And I think that having a support system, having support people in my business helped me to learn how to trust. Whether that was delegating, not having to listen to every single episode of the podcast before it goes out. So just, you know, lots of delegation, you know, handing my financials over to somebody, who not only do I have a professional relationship with, but also a personal relationship with. I just felt very nourished.

I felt very supported and I never felt alone in this. Having a coach to talk things through, you know, keep me on track, look at the plan that we made for whatever goal we were trying to accomplish. And then having all these people who could support me in that I could tell them, like, this is what my goal is, you know, this is what I'm doing strategically, you know, for the next 90 days.

And they were very supportive, so, so wonderful.

Okay. Number two, I launched this podcast in July of 2021. Yes. You already know that because you're listening. But the cool thing that you may not know is, is that we launched the podcast two full months ahead of schedule.

So that's so significant because I was so afraid of my own voice, not the physical sound of my own voice, but really just speaking up for what I believed in sharing my insights, sharing, like how I felt about things, sharing what my experiences were, you know, and really getting vulnerable. And the podcast has really helped me come out of that shell a lot.

But I spent three years saying I'm gonna, you know, launch a podcast and it not happening. And so for it to happen two months ahead of schedule is just kind of mind blowing for me. As I said, my podcast manager Zuri was so instrumental in that whole process, we started developing the podcast in February of 2021. And we launched in July. I want it to launch in September because I was trying to procrastinate out of fear and he just gently just held my hand along the way. And it felt so seamless. I think it almost happened without me realizing the time was like even approaching to that point. I'm still learning as I go.

It's been a wild ride, but I love it. I love every single time I get a message from one of you saying how much you've learned from an episode, how much a guests really resonated with you, or how much, you know, you feel like there's hope for your business. So those things I live for those comments, and I just love that it's helping people.

That was a huge highlight for me in the 2021.

Number three is that I transitioned fully into business coaching and completely away from crowdfunding coaching. And not only. You know, transition into business coaching, but I kind of narrowed my focus to working with women who either have like a newer business or they want to be in business, but they're not profitable for some reason, whether that's, they're not making offers, you know, they're kind of an influencer stage and they don't know how to get to the next level, where they want to potentially start offering either done for you services or coaching.

And so I transitioned into working with business women. So I can use all of my prior experience and knowledge to help them as well. So it was, it's been the best decision for me because it's opened so much energy for me to focus on the people that I really feel called to support. Right. Which are primarily women of color or women in general.

But I really wanted to support women of color because I know the struggles we sometimes have and getting into business. I know, you know, sometimes the fears that pop up, et cetera, right. I've been through all of it. So I really felt called to work with these women. And I've just, I'm just so happy that I decided to, you know, really just release my crowdfunding coaching, which I just was not feeling so passionate about and step into what I wanted to really do.

So permission to, if that's you, if you're about to make a transition, if you're feeling like this is what I need to do, permission to just dive headfirst and, and just trust that things are gonna work out, they really will. And when you're much more aligned with what you want to do, you'll see that, you know, the content, the clients, they just all start to flow a little bit easier.

All right. So number four, I got very intentional about joining and building community. This is so important to me. I have listened to so many podcasts, coaches, you know, read so many books that talk about how much community you need in order to succeed. It doesn't matter if you're an online business, if you are offline with your business, or if you're, you know, a university student.

You need to have community around you. You need to have relationships. You need to be building relationships in order to be successful. So what does that mean for me? I was building the Black Girl Business Bar community over on Facebook. We're currently at just a little over a hundred members. I'm so proud of that.

I'm going to be actively like really trying to grow that group a lot more. And so the women who are there right now are just amazing. And so if you're not in there, make sure you come join us. I joined peer masterminds. So I'm in a peer mastermind. So that's just a group of women who were not paying each other, but it's just our peers.

And we sometimes come together a couple of times a month for support of one another. That's been really just so nice for me. Just listening to them sometimes I pick up on things and I learn things that, you know, my brain couldn't get me to on its own. Right. Um, and I also have a professional mastermind and professional groups also that are paid and yeah, it's been really helpful to me.

So I just, so you guys know why I added this to my list is because I really shied away from community. I think I had a lot of wounds when it came to other women of color. I had a lot of assumptions. I had a lot of judgment towards other women of color. And so I knew that those things were, like I said, old wounds.

I knew that those things were inside of me and that wasn't necessarily what was representative of everybody else. And so I really leaned very heavily into overcoming my mindset around what it means to be around other women and how we treat each other and, you know, do we buy from each other?

Do we support one another? And I just have to say like in just such a short amount of time, it has been life-changing for me. So comforting. I can't describe it. I just have this inner comfort being around other professional women. Seeing other people accomplish goals, seeing other people work through their mindset.

Seeing other people take very bold steps while they're scared to do it. It's just been so amazing.

All right. So number five, I increased my reading. So this is a little bit less tangible, but, well, it's, it's pretty tangible, I guess. So I increased my reading. I have always been like a pretty strong reader, but for several years, and I don't know about any of you guys listening, but for several years I just really felt like I was away from books.

And so I definitely increased my reading and my reading of choice tends to be around mindset stuff, healing, business, not business directly, but things that are gonna affect my business. So I'm not a huge fiction reader, but if that's your thing, I think you should do it because it's a form of just like downtime play.

That can be really good for your business as well.

So for me, I read a lot of books that helped me to understand myself, my brain, my body, books that make it easier for me to connect. You know, how I can give myself grace, you know, how to, how do I do the work when everybody says, do the work? How do I do the work? So I read books like that.

I'm going to hold off, giving you any titles in this podcast, but, um, I will soon and I really just feel like this habit of just reading books and, you know, dedicating myself to reading just a little bit each day has really helped me to become a better coach, has helped me to become more aware and I'm sure these that's because the books that I choose to read, but it's also just that time for myself where I'm, I, again, feel like I'm nourishing myself, everything that I am doing is just like, is this nourishing? Is this nourishing? Right?

I think my reading habit has really helped me because I've learned so much. So it has helped me to give myself a lot of grace and it's helped me to give the people around me, a lot of grace and a bunch of like space for them to grow.

And I see people a lot more as like human rather than just like judging them. So reading has been really helpful for me. And I'm proud of myself about this, because like I said, I got, I got away from it so much and I was just in my own head. And so I feel like I have so much more balanced in that area.

Number six, I got super visible and was consistent the entire year. So I am so proud of this because I remember last January 2021, talking to my coach about how I had this idea that I could post all of these posts for one month straight.

And I remember creating the posts in Canva and thinking, oh my God, they look so awesome. They're so awesome. These are so nice. And by the time I was finished creating those like 21 posts that were going to go out in January. I hated all of them. They look disjointed. I couldn't tell if the content was good and I just felt silly.

Right. But I went ahead and I posted them every single day. And so, as you can imagine, not only did I post them on Instagram, but I post them on Facebook too. And so now you guys, I am getting all of these messages on Facebook showing me, you posted this a year ago, you posted this year ago. So I cannot get away from these icky posts.

I felt icky at all because all month long Facebook is going to remind me of just where I started and that's okay. It's just kind of given me a laugh and I even got one from two years ago when I went live for the first time. So it is just kind of funny and amazing, but I'm so proud of that version of myself that created those posts felt like crying cause she didn't think they were good enough, and still posted them. Right. So you guys can go check out my Facebook and see what it was all about if you're really interested.

So yeah, so I got, I got very, visible and just really feel very proud of that. I want you to know my messaging was not perfect.

As I just described, I felt like a mess most of the time. But I will tell you from January to April, there was so much clarity from April to July. There was so much clarity from July to October, there was so much clarity and so on, and I suspect is going to keep getting clearer and clearer. I'm I'm going to keep being able to produce content that's more and more helpful for the people that I'm trying to help.

It's going to be attracting people who want to work with me. And then there will be people who don't want to work with me. And so my content is going to separate those people. And that's great. So I decided to make this easier for me to just really start thinking in terms of your experimenting, you're learning, right?

So anytime I'm creating content and I'm starting to think, oh my God, this is not the right direction. What was I thinking? Why did I put this on the schedule for this month? I just tell myself, you know what go through with it. There was a reason when you thought this up and you know what you're experimenting and you're just seeing how it works.

Right? Some things are gonna hit some things aren't.

So number seven, I released codependency. I have a book that I really, really love, that my coach, recommended on Instagram once that I saw that I ordered and I have now recommended it to multiple people in my life who have ordered it and they love it so much. And it's called the language of letting go by Melody Beattie, we'll have that in the show notes. I love it so much. And it's just these daily entries, where she just basically walks you through letting go of your codependency.

And also on the chopping block in 2021 were imposter syndrome, a truckload of shame that I needed to get rid of, which helped when I went to trauma therapy and trauma, which helped, you know, I got rid of that in trauma therapy, and other people's expectations.

Right. So I released the other people's expectations. And I don't say that in a way that's meant to be like inflammatory of any way, but I really, I should say I released the expectations. Imagine people had of me, nobody ever told me that they had these expectations. Right. Very few people have ever come up to me in life and said statements that made me think that they had certain expectations, maybe family, but I think that's pretty normal.

Right. So I released the expectations that I was creating in my own mind that other people had of me and I think that I was able to do that. Number one, because I had so much support coaching support. Even my business coach helped me in a lot of these areas. I started doing things on a nourishing for myself, and I couldn't add everything to this list, but none of these things are on this list happened by accident.

Right? So number seven is a big one for me because being codependent, having shame, thinking that other people have expectations for me that I wasn't comfortable with, imposter syndrome, trauma, those, those things all affected how I was showing up in my business, how showing up in personal relationships into my life.

And so I feel like thousands of pounds have been lifting off, lifted off my shoulders as I worked through things and I started to release them this year. So I'm going to talk to you guys more about release next week, in next week's episode, I'm just dropping the little hints.

All right. So number eight, I increased self-trust in all areas of my life. Again, a little bit intangible.

But I really through all of my practices through all of my mindset work. Through all of the support that I've had, I've really started to learn how to understand my feelings and emotions and really appreciate them instead of stuffing them, avoiding them, being afraid of them. I don't second guess myself anywhere near as much as I used to.

And honestly, you know, I kind of coined this, this term for myself. I was watching one of my mentors talk about her dating life and how she started dating at the end of last year, and I told, you know, I really thought to myself, you know, I've been dating myself this year. I've really been taking the time to get to know myself, understand myself, accept myself, and really fall in love with a woman who I am today and who I'm trying to continue to become.

Right. So that has been, such a journey for me and such an unexpected joy that I just really never could have. Nobody could have told me how great it would feel to start to love yourself, to start to date yourself, if you will, to start to learn how to trust yourself, not second guess, and just really have like this real high level of respect for yourself.

Right. It has really spilled over into my other relationships. Again, I've mentioned this several times that I'm able to give people so much more space to be themselves. To be humans to do what people do. Right. And, it's just helped me also, the more I learned to love myself and trust myself has really helped me to open my heart to people around me.

Not only to supporting them, but from receiving from them, trusting them, et cetera.

All right. So number nine, I know I'm getting into the weeds here. I opened my heart to my desires and my dreams, and I can't get into all the ways guys, but I think that you can kind of hear like the common threads throughout what I'm saying, but those include partnerships, you know, potential partnerships that are coming, whether it's in business or my personal life. Family, money, you know, what, what am I desiring? I've allowed myself to start dreaming? What are the things that I want that I just have been holding back from myself, you know? I've been way more open with that and way more intentional about that and aware of it.

And then number 10 is that I streamlined my business processes and simplify it, sales and marketing and how I work with my clients. So that's very, very tangible for me. Again, it's a lot to get into, but it was very important for me at the beginning of last year to just stop feeling like such a hot mess all the time.

Like, I didn't know where everything was and I am extremely proud of myself. I have very simple processes behind the scenes, but I'm very proud of myself and what I really did there was essentially removed a lot of resistance, right? No more resistance means I make less excuses as to why I can't do something, why I can't achieve a goal. Right. So just really setting myself up for success. And it all did lead success. I'm purposely not putting monetary success in this review because I think that a lot of times our steps get overcrowded by, oh, I made this much money this year.

So I purposely did this because I've never done anything like this before. So I'm purposely not mentioning the money, even though you might be chomping at the bit to hear it.

All right. So now what I'm thinking about for 2022, are you wondering, okay, glad you asked.

I'm sure that more goals will spring forth for me as the year goes on. But for now, I'm going to share with you just a handful of the ones that I have immediately that come to mind.

Number one, I am going to be working with 22 ambitious, serious women in 2022.

Right? I'm just going to put it out there. I'm going to claim it. I am going to work with 22 women who are serious about their business, who are serious about their mindset, who are serious about creating the impact that they want. Who are serious about changing their situation and no longer, you know, putting their power in somebody else's hands and putting it out there to the world.

But instead calling it back to them and stepping up and doing what they need to do. I want to make, I want to work with women who, you know, want to build and refine their businesses who want that one-to-one coach, because they know how powerful it can be to have that support and who are coachable. Right.

So, number two, I am going to be focusing on growing the Black Girl Business Bar community, as well as this podcast. Okay. So if you're listening, make sure you share this, share this on Instagram. Share this with friends that you know. Make sure the women who I made this podcast for, if you have women like this in your personal circles, that you share this with them, I would really appreciate it.

And I'm sure they will too. If you have not joined us in the Black Girl Business Bar community over on Facebook, come join us. I know people get weird about Facebook groups and everything, but I do lots of trainings in that group. I teach you how you can make the group work for you. I encourage you to post in the group, share your ideas so that people can get to know you.

And, you know, that's where you might find your next biz bestie. That's where you might find your next paying client. It's a high likelihood you'll find paying clients. If you know what you're doing, if you're willing to come share with us, if you're willing to come be part of a community, so come join us.

It's the best thing that you can do for your business. I'm not. Being so honest, you heard me, I struggled with community, but it's the best thing that you can do. And it makes this whole business and entrepreneur thing not so lonely.

I am dedicating myself to creating the best content yet. Okay. You heard me about how cringey I felt like my content was a year ago. And I'm sure next year I'll be looking at me like, oh my God, did I really say that? And that's just the name of the game, right. We're always trying to get better. And so this year I'm want to really lean into making sure I teach you guys more through my content, through my free content, making it actionable thought provoking.

And making sure it's helpful in a way that you get clarity. Even if we don't speak.

Number four. I'm going to be sharing more behind the scenes with you so that you can get to know me more again, that goes back to building community. Part of that being one of my initiatives to build community to open up myself to those people who are in my community, those people who might come to work with me, so that they can see what's possible for them. To me, that is a form of mentorship to just open up a little bit, allow you to see a little bit into my life. And it's my process behind the scenes. That's a form of mentorship. It's a form of modeling so that other people can see what's possible for them. And I think that we desperately need that in communities of color so that we can all keep in mind throughout our ups and downs or highs and lows, that there are people out there who look like us, who are doing it.

So I'm committing myself to opening myself a little bit more, you know, stepping aside from my inner introvert and just sharing a little bit more.

And finally one that I am so proud to say is I. I am going to make the most money than that I've ever made in my business so far. I know that doesn't give you much because I didn't tell you what I made last year, but I'm just going to say it and I will definitely be willing to share it with you at the end of this year.

But again, like I said, I didn't want to overcloud this talk with just only money because business is about so much more than money and there's so much fulfillment that I have gotten out of my business other than just the money. And so, you know, I have the amount, you know, plastered on my monitor on a sticky note on the bathroom mirror and everywhere else that I have it.

Okay. So I know the number. It's in my journal. I journal about it. I do mindset work around it, but I'm going to make the most money that I've ever made in my business. God-willing in 2022. And so that's a little bit private for me so I'm not going to share that just yet, but I am working my way up to sharing a little bit more about finances with you guys.

And I'm sharing this with you in particular, because I know my audience is big time women. Meaning most of you guys are women, and I know how hard it is for many of you still to not only admit to yourselves that you want to make money, but to admit it out loud to somebody else. Okay. So I'm going to model that behavior first and say, I'm going to make the most money I can.

The most money my business has ever made in 2022. Right. I'm not going to push it. I'm not going to like create resistance, but I'm going to, I believe that I know what's going to happen and I'm just going to allow God to facilitate it for me. So, um, I just want to say that out loud. So that you feel, maybe you give yourself permission to also say it out loud, right?

So that is what I wanted to share with all of you now, for your challenge. I want you to, it's a simple challenge. I want you to do the same, right? I want you to make a promise to yourself that you will figure out a way to start tracking what is happening in your business, what steps you're taking.

I think it will help you get more consistent. I think it will help you to create evidence for yourself seamlessly. And I know that it will be just such a point of pride and celebration when you can look back every month, three months, six months, nine months every year and say, this is where I've come five years from now. And you can look back and say, this is where I've come, right?

So I want you to figure out a way to track it. Whether you track it on the notes on your phone, you go to the store and you buy yourself a journal, or you have a different way, right. Start tracking it. And while you're at it, since 2021's behind us, write down what you did in 2021. Even if it was, I just started thinking about my business, or I just started with my first client, right.

Write down what you did in 2021, and then start recording what you want for 2022 so that you can compare notes.

So I hope you guys enjoyed this. I hope this was helpful for you.

All right, friends. Thank you so much for hanging out and listening to the black girl business bar podcast. If you haven't already hit that follow or subscribe button, so you never miss an episode. And if you found today's episode helpful or had any aha moments, I would love to know, send me an email khalida@blackgirlbusinessbar.com or take a screenshot, share it on Instagram and tag me so that I can see it there.

As always friends we're dropping episodes every Tuesday. And we can't wait to see you back then.