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Beyond The Brand is the podcast for purpose-driven entrepreneurs, creatives, and professionals who know their brand is about more than just business—it’s personal. Hosted by Brand Strategist Rod Brinson, this show dives deep into the mindset, habits, identity, and emotional intelligence that shape the way you show up in the world. From solo episodes to powerful conversations, Beyond The Brand explores what it really takes to build something meaningful—starting with the person behind the brand. Because if you’re not growing, your brand won’t either.
How you doing Carmen?
Carmen Jones:Hello, hello. How are you?
Rod Brinson:I am simply amazing. Even though I ordered some food at Chick fil A today and it didn't go quite how I wanted. Really? Know, it was their pleasure, but it wasn't my pleasure. That
Carmen Jones:is very unlike them. That's unlike them.
Rod Brinson:Yeah. I mean, typically, standardly, when you go to Chick fil A, you're going to get what you want especially if you order it in a mobile app beforehand.
Carmen Jones:Yes.
Rod Brinson:But I was missing condiments. Yeah, I'm not even going to go there.
Carmen Jones:They were having a bad day. I'm going say they were having a bad day because Chick fil A delivered.
Rod Brinson:They're on point. They deliver with the service. They deliver with the product. They deliver with smiles and everything but not today.
Carmen Jones:Oh, man. I'm sorry for you. Maybe next time.
Rod Brinson:It's all good. It's all good. How are you doing today?
Carmen Jones:I'm good. Busy day. I went and did some things for the business today for the organization, scouting out locations for our upcoming event. Hope y'all join us. We're doing a plant and sip.
Carmen Jones:So we have a lot in the work. So I'm excited. But I'm here. I'm happy to be here with you. This is the last thing on my calendar for the day.
Carmen Jones:I'm ending my day in a great way.
Rod Brinson:I love it. I love it. Real quick. Just for the people who don't quite know what it is you do, tell us a little bit more about your business and the sip and paint that you guys are planning.
Carmen Jones:Hey, y'all. So, my name is Carmen. I'm the founder and CEO of the Black Girl Social Club. It is a social club for women here. Started here in Atlanta but we're worldwide now.
Carmen Jones:Okay. Uh-huh. Yes. And so we have several thousand members around the globe, black women coming together to do our thing, be amongst each other, let our hair down. So check us out at the Black Girl Social Club.
Carmen Jones:Yeah, that's a little bit about what I do.
Rod Brinson:Nice. I love it. And for those of you who haven't had the pleasure of meeting me, my name is Rod Brinson. I'm a brand strategist. I have twenty plus years in marketing and helping businesses develop and grow their brand.
Rod Brinson:And now I'm full time into it, people establish themselves even further and find out who they truly are so that they can shine a little bit more in their personal brand. So Carmen, I was saying at the beginning how connecting with people in person or online a lot of times nowadays, you know, they want to do business, you want to network, you want to connect and develop a relationship, but it all kind of ends the night that you have the event or where you meet the person on a virtual call or whatever. You know, why do you think that is amongst entrepreneurs nowadays where you have all of this good energy going on and you make connections, exchange information and then it just fizzles out?
Carmen Jones:People are tired. People are exhausted. It it takes a lot of effort to stay in community and connecting with people, right? And so, you know, to your point, it's really something that you have to be intentional about in this day and age. It's not like the old days where you meet people and the community is so close knit and you don't have the social media.
Carmen Jones:Right. The the you know, the ease of hitting somebody up via DM. You know, back in the day, you had to, if you wanted to maintain connections, you had to go see about that person. Right? And so now we don't have to do that.
Carmen Jones:And I really think it's doing, it's convenient, but I think that we're doing ourselves a disservice by being so disconnected. We have to make time to touch base with the people that we want to be in community.
Rod Brinson:And I brought that up for a specific reason to get into our conversation, right? The title of this is The Cost of Entrepreneurship. And I think so often people just see the glitz and the glamour. Oh, I get to set my own schedule. I'm going on vacation.
Rod Brinson:You can't tell me nothing. I'm the boss. Right? But they're not thinking about all of the different layers that come along with that. Right?
Rod Brinson:So like I know for me specifically, I had a lot of growth during COVID having a virtual, you know, digital based business and I had to scale. I started hiring people, you know, I got into the rhythm of, you know, expanding my customer base and doing a lot more than I had ever done in my life and that came with headaches. Like for those of you who are not entrepreneurs or looking to get into starting a business or maybe you are a business owner but you don't have employees, making payroll? Good Jesus. I need to put a sermon on or something.
Rod Brinson:What's some gospel music? That is a whole trip. Like, and it's every time too. It doesn't go away.
Carmen Jones:It's your biggest expense. You are sweating every time the first and the fifteenth comes around hoping that you're able to make payroll, right? Hope that you're able to pay your employees on time, your contractors on time. And it's not just what a lot of people don't know is you're not, or don't, I don't think realize is you're not just paying your staff monthly. You're paying, like we said, experts and contractors.
Carmen Jones:So you might be paying up, you might have a lawyer on payroll. Oh, gosh. You might have an accountant on payroll. You might have a tech person on standby. You might have, you know, there's so many, you might have an advisor, you know, there's things that unseen hidden costs associated with business ownership, right?
Carmen Jones:Something else that's on regular pay is your Zoom account, your email account, your Slack account. You know, these things are
Rod Brinson:Software subscriptions.
Carmen Jones:Software subscriptions. These are your cost to do business, to function. And so yeah, every month you kind of get on edge and you know, depending on what's going on and you know, you think God or whoever it is that you believe in and you say, Okay, we made it through this month.
Rod Brinson:You know what's crazy is like, that's every level. A lot of people think it's just, Oh, it's when you're starting out or when you don't have millions of dollars or whatever. I know bosses who are on every level and they're all facing similar things. This is the reason why a conglomerate like Bank of America or DocuSign or Facebook will lay off 16,000 people in a year. They're trying to balance the books.
Carmen Jones:They're trying to balance them, right? Exactly. No matter how big or small, this is, you know, I think a lot of black owned businesses, small businesses, but black owned businesses get a bad rap of like, oh, they don't want to pay or they don't want to, you know, whatever. This is something and I've talked to people like you said at all levels that exist. Money is always a discussion when you're running a business or an organization
Rod Brinson:Yeah, period. It has to be. Otherwise, what are you doing? The whole purpose of having a business is to generate revenue. And as you generate that revenue, you have expenses that come along with that.
Rod Brinson:I think we could probably spend forty five minutes just listing them out because it's never ended, right? But I want the people that are listening in live to put any questions that you have in the chat because I guarantee you, there are some other people out here who are going through whatever you're experiencing as it relates to the stresses of trying to run a business and some of the things that you run into, right? You talk about lead gen, you talk about marketing. I mean, it's so many varying levels of what you have to do just to be a business owner. That's why I said in the graphic, like we scratched out the hustle piece because we've to get out of this hustle mentality.
Rod Brinson:I think that a lot of people focus on working in the business instead of working on the business and vice versa.
Carmen Jones:Yeah, And that's easy to do. I mean, I'm being real. That's very easy to do because well, one, if you don't have the right team, you can get sucked into being in the business, in the business, in the mess, in the minutiae of what's happening because you might not have the right team. So things that they should be handling, you now as the boss, the CEO, the owner, the founder, whoever, have to put your hands on things that you really shouldn't be putting your hands on. So to your point, the role of the person at the top is to push the mission forward, push the organization forward, Find partnerships, create brand awareness, help the mission and the product or whatever grow.
Carmen Jones:Right? Yeah. And when you have to be deep in the weeds, you will find that your organization won't grow the the way that you want it to. So, my recommendation is definitely get a solid team of people who know what they're doing. You know, and not just people that just want to help.
Carmen Jones:Yeah. Because.
Rod Brinson:Yeah. Well, not just your cousin who said, I can help you out with social media but they don't know anything about it.
Carmen Jones:Yeah. You know, and I have wasted money doing that, right? You know, hiring somebody, hey, okay, she said she could do it. But you know, really be serious and intentional about who you make a part of your team because in the long run, it's going to make a huge difference.
Rod Brinson:Yeah and and for those people out here who are like, I'm nowhere near that level where I can hire somebody or I don't have a team. It's just me. I'm doing this on my own solopreneur. There will come a time where you've made enough, where you have to find somebody that can help you to continue to grow. Just don't be afraid to delegate.
Rod Brinson:And I understand that some people have to have trust with certain things and you want it done a certain way. Eventually you're going to have to learn to let certain things go. Otherwise your company will never be able to thrive in a way it's supposed to. So on that note, just curious about like some of your history in growing your company and your I mean, I'm pretty sure you've had companies before that and you've experienced what it's like to be an entrepreneur. What would you say to somebody who's just now getting started and they're like still figuring out their brand and their logo and all of that?
Rod Brinson:They don't really know how to get to a level where they can even hire somebody because they're at the beginning. What are your thought processes on like tips that they should have or maybe like pitfalls to avoid in the process of starting up a business?
Carmen Jones:Oh, that's a good one. And so I'll just say that when I started this organization, for me, money wasn't the foundation of why I started the business. But for I think most entrepreneurs, money is the is the motive, right? Because to your point, why start a business if you're not looking to make some income, right? So, for me, the way that my, this current business started was I was feeling a need and a void.
Carmen Jones:And I think that's how all this good
Rod Brinson:news Anyway,
Carmen Jones:but for me, there was a need for community. I wanted community. So I started a business or an organization that I wanted to be a part of. And it just so happened that the demand grew so much that I had to make it my sole job so to speak. Right?
Carmen Jones:Because if I didn't spend all day doing it, then it wouldn't have functioned the way that it's functioning now. So I had to like literally quit my job. Yeah. Come do this because of the growth and I didn't want to see it fail.
Rod Brinson:You bring up a good point, not to cut you off. I'm curious on that because I think that's where a lot of people get stuck. You know, they want the growth of being able to see their business explode but they're still tied to a nine to five. They're still trying to figure out if this is what they really want to do. They have their hands in so many pots, they can't really put the focus and the energy on this one pot to make it what it's supposed to be.
Rod Brinson:Right? And I know that, you know, we all wear a lot of hats especially as a business owner. Sometimes you have to be the only person doing marketing even though that's not your strength. Sometimes you have to be your accountant before you can afford a CPA. You know, sometimes you have to do your own legal work.
Rod Brinson:Listen, everything
Carmen Jones:that happens at this organization, I did first. I did it. And that's what I like to tell my team. I was like, there's nothing here that's being done that I haven't done already. Right.
Carmen Jones:And I want that to be very clear because I think that a lot of times when you do hire people, they think, you know, the boss don't know anything. They not feet on the ground. I guarantee you, the bosses had their feet on the ground in the Yeah.
Rod Brinson:Right. Everywhere.
Carmen Jones:Before you got Right? And so, I think when we finally do get to a point where you can kind of loosen the reins a little bit and have people that come in and support you, that's a huge blessing. But it takes, for some people it takes longer to get there. And that's okay. Yeah.
Carmen Jones:Yeah.
Rod Brinson:I was just going say it's absolutely okay and and I think too often in this microwave society, you know, we want instantaneous glory and you know, I just read a report the other day about the CEO, the founder of FedEx and how they got started and where they were. They were a million dollar company. They raised all kind of money and they were still struggling as as a business to, you know, be in the black or be in the green so to speak. And so I read a report that they were down to their last $5,000 at one point, like cash flow. And the guy who's running the company is just like at his wits ends, he takes a trip to Vegas with that $5,000 plays blackjack, spends $27,000 on some change and use that to fuel the company to keep it going.
Carmen Jones:What story. What a story.
Rod Brinson:He could have quit and we would not know about FedEx right now. Would be a failed company.
Carmen Jones:See, is the kind of grit that's required for someone who has a vision, right?
Rod Brinson:Right.
Carmen Jones:The kind of grit that, know, people will talk about for years to come, decades to come, you know, because to your point, a lot of people, they get a little bit of hardship and they ready to throw in the towel. Yeah. So there's many times I think the average person, some of the things that I've experienced in this role, think the average person would have just straight up quit.
Rod Brinson:Oh my gosh. Tell them about it.
Carmen Jones:And I'm the kind of person where I take a little challenge as a dare. I'm like, okay. So, you thought I couldn't universe, devil, who.
Rod Brinson:Right, right. What's happening?
Carmen Jones:Hater, you thought we couldn't keep it going? Oh, we're going to keep this going because the mission and the purpose is is greater than all of that.
Rod Brinson:That's so big. Oh, I'm so glad you said that. Like, that's the thing that keeps you going when tough times come because they will come. Notice I didn't say if tough time come like when tough times come and at the end of the day, your why, your your the thing that's driving you, the thing that's basically putting you in this position to hopefully try to influence and impact some people because there's no point in having a business if you're not trying to impact and you know, like basically influence people to be better and inspire people. And I'm not saying that to sound all Robin Hood ish and all of that.
Rod Brinson:The bottom line is this, whether you create a product or whether you have a service that you're selling, whether it's an experience that you're selling, etcetera within your business, it has to be doing something for somebody It has
Carmen Jones:to be people centered. Yeah. Everything that you do is a service. Everything that you do is a service and that is what keeps me going and I told my COO today, I said, when we wake up in the morning, we have to pray that god gives us the centers that god centers us and reminds us of our purpose. Yes.
Carmen Jones:Because it's easy to get sidetracked and you get annoyed and oh my god, this inconvenience and this challenge But why did you start this thing in the first place?
Rod Brinson:Yeah.
Carmen Jones:That is what should continue to keep you moving and pushing. For me, when I wake up, I say, okay, I got some black women.
Rod Brinson:Okay.
Carmen Jones:We need to get together. They need to get together and have a good time. We need, we have some black women that need to let their hair down. We have some black women that we want to teach whether it be professional development, mental, emotional wellness. We have a mission.
Rod Brinson:Right.
Carmen Jones:And especially during this time where black people need to be coming together more than ever. Right. Right. Our mission is doubly, triply, quadruply important. Yeah.
Carmen Jones:And so I'm in my bag this year because I have always loved black people. I've always been pro black. I have a special place in my heart for black women because we have a very unique circumstance in this country and across the diaspora. Our position is to make sure that black women feel seen, heard, and valued. If they ain't seen, heard, and valued anywhere else,
Rod Brinson:there's not
Carmen Jones:black girl social media.
Rod Brinson:Period. Period. And that's in your veins, right? That's the part of what's driving you. So, you know, when that revenue gets a little low and you're wondering like how you're going to make payroll, not saying that you are there or have, you know, whatever, the bottom line is, you know, so okay.
Rod Brinson:So that's my point. When that happens Uh-huh. You pick up that grit, you find a way to push through and make it happen.
Carmen Jones:So Get it real. I have dug into my personal account more than I can count. Right. You know, to pay staff, to pay contractors. We had a conference in 2022 where our I can talk about it now and actually say the name of who is who.
Carmen Jones:You know, we had a guest and a a keynote speaker, Megan Good at the Who thirty days prior to the the conference that we had booked, paid, done all these things, cancelled. Oh. Okay? Oh my god. So, at this point, it's our first conference.
Carmen Jones:We're in a tizzy. We're like, oh my gosh and so, who can we find? So, I had to use my connections to your point of getting to know people, getting making sure you're out there, making sure that people trust you and that you are doing right by people. Yeah. Because I had to make a few phone calls, but we were able to get Tabitha Brown as our leader.
Rod Brinson:Nice.
Carmen Jones:Now Tabitha Brown is a lot more expensive than making good. Right. So I had to ask myself as the CEO and somebody who was doing their first conference because now my brand is on the line. Our brand is on the line. Our organization is on the line.
Carmen Jones:People don't want to do business with people who do bad business. Right. So
Rod Brinson:Not to add the fact that you're black on top of that and there's always this stigma and it's like, so you want to show up and show out.
Carmen Jones:Right. So I'm like, you gotta do this. This is going to happen by the hair of my chinny chin chin.
Rod Brinson:Right.
Carmen Jones:Okay. And so what I did was I said, somebody told me, my COO at the time, she said, well, we should just cancel. I said, we're not cancelling this conference. So, I pulled the money I had, the little money I had in my savings and I paid the balance for Tabitha Brown to come, man. Put me down almost zero.
Carmen Jones:But I didn't and I'm not and what I'm telling that story, because I'm recommending that people do What I'm saying is I was crazy enough to do it and it worked and I was able to pay myself back eventually.
Rod Brinson:But you took a hit, you took a hit so that the business could survive.
Carmen Jones:Yeah, didn't pay myself back for several years and there's been where I wasn't getting paid at all so I could pay my staff. So I'm saying all that to say that if I wanted to quit, I could have already quit, gone back to a nine to five where I was having a regular check with health insurance. Which
Rod Brinson:is another big thing. But
Carmen Jones:as people with vision and passion about things, we sacrifice those things so that we can make the vision come to life for the people that we're serving.
Rod Brinson:That's a great point. It's not for ourselves. And I think a lot of business owners get confused about what they're doing. Like they just want to see green, right? They want to gain momentum.
Rod Brinson:Maybe some people are shooting for the fame and the celebrity that comes with some of the influence that they might have. Primarily people say, Oh I just want to be comfortable. I don't need $4,000,000,000. Just give me and then they come up with a number because that number has their mindset on safety, relaxation, comfortability. I could take a vacation.
Rod Brinson:I could buy a car if I want to. But what are you willing to give up for that? What is the cost of getting to that comfortability state? And then it's not a plateau that you hit and just stake your tent and rest. No, there's still a mountain in front of you that you got to climb called, You got taxes to pay.
Rod Brinson:Called, Hey, that person canceled on you and now you got to pull out of your savings account to make it all happen. Or, Your number one person didn't show up so now you got to jump back into the fire. There's so many different elements that come along with that. Those are what we call the cost of entrepreneurship. So don't get it twisted.
Rod Brinson:It's not all pieces and cream to be able to roll out of the bed at 10:30AM and say, I guess I'll start my day.
Carmen Jones:Let's talk about the mental and emotional toll of
Rod Brinson:it too
Carmen Jones:because it's it's not just I don't want to, you know, it's not just the money, it's the emotional impact.
Rod Brinson:Yeah.
Carmen Jones:No, the depression. The anxiety. The worrying about, you know, if this person likes me and this is the one thing you have to just completely get rid of when you become a when you're a leader or you're an owner. You cannot be sitting around thinking about who don't like you and who don't.
Rod Brinson:I'm walking off.
Carmen Jones:You just can't. You just can't. You have to make you you can't.
Rod Brinson:Because it's going to happen anyway.
Carmen Jones:It's going to happen. So. Way and so, what I'm saying is, do business right. Treat people how you want to be treated but when you have, when when the choice is or the, I guess, what is the, what am I looking for? When the decision is between keeping your dream alive, keeping the mission alive, continuing to be able to serve your people versus somebody liking you.
Rod Brinson:Yeah.
Carmen Jones:You get to choose the thing that God put on your heart.
Rod Brinson:Okay.
Carmen Jones:The purpose that you're supposed to be walking in.
Rod Brinson:Period. Period. Because I'm telling you, don't if you get caught up in the lights and the comments and the metrics and who saw you, who didn't, what you're going to end up doing is making your decisions based off of what people are thinking. Or a matter of fact, half the time it's what you think they're thinking. It's not even what they actually think, right?
Rod Brinson:Or somebody misconstrues something you say and now they take it down a rabbit hole. Like it's so many elements. But to your point, going back to the mental health and the emotional wellness that's necessary, I think any strong person in those areas can come into entrepreneurship or owning a business and then find themselves on their knees, right, or find themselves in depression. The reality is you have to make time for self, make time for family, make time for vacation, make time like, I'm not going lie to you, Carmen, have fifteen minute breaks baked in throughout my day. I make sure I take an hour lunch.
Rod Brinson:You know what I mean? Sometimes I will just block my calendar off and do nothing. And when I say do nothing,
Carmen Jones:I'm
Rod Brinson:talking
Rod Brinson:about
Carmen Jones:was going to say, like two hours. But no, because, you know, I had gotten to the point where I was working, working, working, working, working. And I had to end up, I almost was close to a nervous breakdown. I was in therapy and my therapist literally prescribed, you have a set time that you have to close your laptop.
Rod Brinson:No. I
Carmen Jones:had to like close my laptop at a certain time throughout the week because if I was working from sunup to sundown, working out, I wasn't eating well, I was stressed, depressed, and you know, I had to realize like, you can't be no good to anybody else. You can't be even doing this service that you're talking about if you're not mentally, physically, emotionally well.
Rod Brinson:Yeah. Period. I liken it to like an airplane ride. You know, when you hit some turbulence and things are looking bad in your business, what do they tell you to do? Put your oxygen mask on first.
Rod Brinson:Don't try to put it on a child or elderly person next to you because if you can't breathe, then you, how can you help anybody? And
Carmen Jones:how is your team going to breathe? The thing is, now your team is in chaos because you're in chaos. Now your organization is in chaos or your business or whatever and it really does trickle down and you have to show up and that's another thing that puts the pressure on leaders is no matter what kind of day you're having.
Rod Brinson:Oh, man.
Carmen Jones:You're expected to show up a certain way. How can I help you? As the leader, it is your job to
Rod Brinson:do that.
Carmen Jones:Yeah. You don't complain to your staff. You don't get to, you know, have an excuse. Right. And that is a huge pressure because you might be having a bad day.
Carmen Jones:You might come off a little snippy but as the supervisor, the boss, or whoever, people don't want to see that. Right. You.
Rod Brinson:Right. And your clients don't either, right? So, for those people who don't have, employees and things of that nature, not only do your clients not want to get the distastefulness that can come out of your bitterness from being exhausted mentally, physically, and spiritually, but also your vendors, the people who serve you, your CPA, your lawyer, all of these people that can help you out, right? They don't want to hear what you have going on from a negative standpoint. So you've to be poised enough to figure out how to balance that out in the moment and keep that train moving.
Rod Brinson:And it's going to hit you. The train going to come through.
Carmen Jones:Listen, I had what I refer to as a crash out call with my team. And that's when I made the decision to hire someone to help support my team with me. Because what happened was I was so frustrated and bogged down and tired and exhausted. And I just felt like my team wasn't understanding. And it was a combination of things.
Carmen Jones:They were used to doing things a certain way. And when you try to bring change, as you know, sometimes it work out. You seem like, well wait, now we gotta clock our hours now.
Rod Brinson:Right, so I gotta prove that I'm making this money?
Carmen Jones:Right, and so then, you know, but I also realized that I didn't necessarily have all the systems and processes in place to set them up for success. So, I had a crash out call that I refer to now is where I was on this call going in on my team like, listen, we gotta do better. We got this. We got that. Like, you know, this we gotta, you know, and after the call, had to send an Email to the team and say, look, look y'all, I'm sorry.
Carmen Jones:I didn't handle that the best way. Going bring
Rod Brinson:somebody to
Carmen Jones:us and do better.
Rod Brinson:Yeah, and to that point, I guess I'm going label it that. I had a crash y'all call myself, but it was based off of something a little bit different. I had a meeting plan with a very important potential client and we went through all these strategies and all this stuff. And the day of the meeting, I'm running around like crazy. I finally get myself situated.
Rod Brinson:I'm on my laptop. The customer is already on the call. They got three people. It's just me. I have a team of six supposed to be joining.
Rod Brinson:I'm by myself for, like, ten minutes. I'm like, they'll be here in a minute, guys. I'm texting. I'm like, what's happening? Whatever.
Rod Brinson:Let me just keep this train moving because as the CEO, I've worn all these hats before. I can wear them right now on this call. Right?
Carmen Jones:Mhmm.
Rod Brinson:After that call, I was more red than this maroon shirt I got. I was filming. I mean, you would have thought that I was the the Harrison Ford version of the Hulk or something. Like I'm running around like trying to get people, I said emergency meeting now! Get everybody on this phone.
Rod Brinson:Everybody
Carmen Jones:on his own talk.
Rod Brinson:Right now!
Carmen Jones:Got a problem.
Rod Brinson:Man, I let them have it, right? Because I was frustrated. They told me they were gonna be there and they weren't. And I was very upset. But here's the point I'm getting to.
Rod Brinson:So your email was like my own internal self check. So I had to pause and I said, okay, what role did I have to play in this? Did I cash vision properly? Did I set them up for success? Did I make sure everybody had the calendar invite?
Rod Brinson:Because that was the issue. My company email had some calendar issue or whatever, so nobody had the invite. That was on me. I knew about that. I didn't fix it before that.
Rod Brinson:So sometimes as a business owner, got to take a back seat and be a little humble and you got to recognize that you can do stuff better.
Carmen Jones:Oh, first of all, I just want to be very clear that all being a business is all, like one of the top three principles I'd say is humility. That's all it
Rod Brinson:is. Yeah.
Carmen Jones:Because all day you have people telling you what you could do better. You have people some people might be coming at you in the wrong way but you have to humble yourself to be the quote unquote bigger person. Right? All business ownership, entrepreneurship, leadership is humility at its finest.
Rod Brinson:It's synonymous with it.
Carmen Jones:Yeah, because the things that you would typically want to say or do, you can't do. No. At your business, right?
Rod Brinson:Not at all.
Carmen Jones:It's a lot of biting your tongue. It's a lot of trying to see how you can make the situation right even if you didn't make the situation wrong. It's a lot getting feedback. So I would say if you are not a humble person or someone who can take that kind of feedback, then you definitely shouldn't be in leadership or entrepreneurship.
Rod Brinson:And to that point, I was listening to something on the way home today preparing for this call and they brought up some amazing points about what you just said. You know, the perseverance that's necessary as a boss, as a company owner, it only comes by dealing with adversity in that way. You know, the patience, the humility, all of those things are learned along the way. Even if you have some flavor of it to start with.
Carmen Jones:It's a
Rod Brinson:whole different beast. When it's your company, your baby, you put all this energy, time, and equity into it and all of a sudden you're dealing with things that have nothing to do with, you know, what you've
Carmen Jones:done so to I didn't have, I'm a be very honest because that's how I I didn't have any patience when I started.
Rod Brinson:Okay.
Carmen Jones:Six years ago.
Rod Brinson:She's like zero.
Carmen Jones:That is not a quality that a lot of people would describe me as having. They will say that I'm kind, I'm intelligent, you know, unique. There's a lot of things, you know, I'm social. There's a lot of ways to describe me. Patient isn't one of them.
Rod Brinson:Right.
Carmen Jones:Okay. So
Rod Brinson:You had to learn it. Yeah.
Carmen Jones:I had to learn it on the way, Along the way. And I will say that being an entrepreneur makes you a better person if you like. Period. It it it allows you to have a lot of self reflection. Mhmm.
Carmen Jones:It allows for you to see things from different perspectives. And you have to be, you have to be better to be an entrepreneurship to deal with people because you are dealing with people on a regular basis.
Rod Brinson:Period. I don't care if you're selling a hair product. You're gonna have to deal with a person at some point. And to that point, I will say this to business owners who are listening in. Stop being afraid to show your face.
Rod Brinson:Don't care how magical your service or product is. It cannot live on the breath of your logo alone.
Carmen Jones:You have
Rod Brinson:to be out here. You have to begin to voice your thoughts. You have to begin to illustrate who you are as a person because that is your brand actually. And that is what's going to propel everything behind you.
Carmen Jones:I have learned that.
Rod Brinson:Yeah, yeah. No, I mean, but that's the reason I brought it up. A lot of people don't know that. And they feel like, Oh, well I can just sell my service and do my thing from and stay back here. Yes, you can and guess what?
Rod Brinson:You might reach a certain level of success but at some point down the line, you're going to have to interact with a human being
Carmen Jones:and that was actually the hardest thing, one of the hardest things for me to do. Because I wanted to be in the background. I did not want to, I didn't want people to know I was the founder. I just wanted to do the work on the back end. Right.
Carmen Jones:And what I, we continue to grow, people wanted to know who was behind this. Right? And so I was kind of forced in the spotlight where it was like, we want to interview you. We want you to show up to these events. We want you to sit on a panel.
Carmen Jones:Right? Like, I'm like, else is going to do it? Right? But to your point, what I found out and realized was as a business owner, entrepreneur, founder, whoever, you to shape your own narrative. You have to tell your own story.
Carmen Jones:If you don't, people would try to do it for you.
Rod Brinson:Oh no, they absolutely will. Period. And to that point, doing that makes you sharper and prepared for those lights and cameras and all of that stuff. Because I guarantee you, if Oprah's management team called you and say, hey, we need to pull you on the show because you started the Black Girl Social Club. Alright, let's go.
Carmen Jones:Now, I'm to see Oprah now.
Rod Brinson:Right. But but by already having your your feet moving in that direction, you're prepared for that call. And so that's pretty much what entrepreneurship is. It's preparing you for where you're going along the way. So don't look at those negative moments or those fires that you have to put out or a bad employee that you had to let go or a good employee you hired you to you hired that left you, right?
Rod Brinson:How about those situations? How
Carmen Jones:about the good employee that you had to let go? They don't talk about that. They don't talk about the decisions that you have to make that hurt
Rod Brinson:because you don't want to let them go. Yeah. But the numbers ain't numbering or
Carmen Jones:maybe they weren't a good employee but they're a good person and you to let them go. Right? And so those are things that people don't talk about. But I'm glad you said the thing about getting your feet wet, because I just made a post recently about, and this applies to entrepreneurship too, is confidence comes from doing. When you're a young entrepreneur just getting your feet wet, sometimes you're scared to make certain leaps and certain decisions.
Carmen Jones:The more you do it, the more confident you'll be. The more decisions you make, hard decisions you make, the more confident you'll be. The more speaking engagements you do, the more confident you'll be. And it'll be like you just doing it with your eyes closed at a certain point.
Rod Brinson:Oh my God, eyes closed. So I was just going to say, Steph Curry takes 500 shots per day, no matter if they play in the game or not. And so the 38 shots he takes in a game are nothing compared to what he does at practice, which is why he can take a shot. And for those of you who don't know basketball, he will literally shoot the ball and while it's in the air, he'll turn around and start running to play defense. And people are like, How do you know it's going go in?
Rod Brinson:It's because he's done it so much. The mechanics are second nature at this So to your point, you know, you build confidence by actually doing the thing. And the more you do it, the more confidence you're going to get. So listen, Carmen, we can talk about this all day and all night. Not only because we have the experience, because we actually have developed a little chemistry.
Rod Brinson:And the reality is I wanted to bless the people today. I'm glad you decided to jump on and bless them with me. Let the people know how they can find you if they're not currently aware and where you want them to be able to locate you to find out more information.
Carmen Jones:Okay. Yeah. So you can check out the Black Girl Social Club the Black Girl Social Club on Instagram and on threads. You can find me at Carmen dot Nicole dot Jones as you can see right here. This is me.
Carmen Jones:And then I want you to check out CEO Unplugged which is my new venture, my nonprofit for entrepreneur wellness. And we are looking to get our very first event sometime either next month. That's what we're looking at next month. And so that's been a long process for me, but I'm going to make sure that it happens very soon. So if you're looking for a safe space for, and you're an entrepreneur here in the Atlanta area, check us out.
Rod Brinson:Yeah. CEO Unplugged. I said that right, right?
Carmen Jones:Yes.
Rod Brinson:Yeah. I'm looking forward to that one. I know you mentioned it to me a while back, so I'm very excited about what that is going to become. Can't wait to be a part of it. But yeah, thank you so much.
Rod Brinson:I appreciate your time. For y'all who are watching it live or watching it on replay, my name is Rob Brinson. I'm the Brand Strategist, and I'm looking forward to continuing to serve you guys. Y'all have a great rest of your evening, and we will talk to you soon. Bye, y'all.
Rod Brinson:Alright.
Carmen Jones:Thanks, Rob.
Rod Brinson:No problem.