The Visionary Woman Podcast
The Visionary Woman Podcast
Visionary Convos Part 2 (Freedom Sessions CHICAGO)
Welcome to another exciting episode of the Visionary Woman Podcast! In our previous episode, I introduced you to Part 1 of a captivating Visionary Conversation that took place in March during one of my unforgettable Freedom Sessions held in the vibrant city of Chicago.
And now, the moment you've been waiting for has arrived—it's time for Part 2 of this incredible dialogue. Get ready to dive deeper into this epic conversation that will leave you inspired and empowered.
Freedom Sessions are meticulously curated events designed to foster intimate connections among attendees and the local community. They serve as a wellspring of inspiration, featuring engaging workshops, captivating storytelling, soul-stirring live music, vibrant local vendors, and thought-provoking conversations.
During this remarkable gathering, I had the privilege of participating in a visionary panel discussion alongside exceptional women who are not only professionals but also a boundless source of inspiration. Together, we explored the essence of being a visionary woman, overcoming obstacles, and fearlessly pursuing our dreams. The energy and joy that filled the room were palpable, and I am confident that you'll be equally captivated and uplifted as you listen to Part 2 of this incredible discussion.
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Don't put your dreams to bed. You've done that enough. Now it's time to stir them up. This is your friend and host, Kirstie Fleur, with the Visionary Woman podcast, and I love resourcing the Visionary Woman, the creative, the artist, the business owner, the risk taker, and on this show we will talk about what it means to get out of your own way and take your dreams to the next level. Join the conversation.
Speaker 2:What was the biggest struggle or obstacle you faced during your entrepreneurship journey, and then how did you overcome it or what steps did you take?
Speaker 3:Well, I feel like I'm a baby in this entrepreneurship game, but I would say that I'm in the like, I'm in it. I'm not like overcome, but I'm in it right now and overcoming it as I'm in it. But I think for me is and I've actually learned this from Renita is being a working mom with a young child, is figuring out the myth that there's not letting go of the expectation that there always needs to be balance. And I'm going to say that because I remember having a conversation with Renita and I was like I don't know how people have a perfectly clean instagram house, have everything together at work and all these things. I'm like balance, balance. You know, I was having this conversation with Renita about balance and she's like there's seasons where there's not going to be balance and that's okay and you need to let go of that, that perfectionism in you. That's like it has to always be okay at all moments.
Speaker 3:And I, especially as women, we constantly have like I will be working all day, I'll be working all night, I'll get home and then there's my daughter, Zae, incorporated, and we're, you know, I'm working with her, you know, you know, until she goes to bed and you, you're constantly on. There's never a downtime as a mom, as a woman, like it's, it's all 24, seven. As you sleep, you're waking up. Oh, did I get socks? Did I get this? Is there diapers? Is there this? It's constant. And so I think um letting go of perfectionism and your own self-criticism criticism that isn't healthy and being okay with the ebbs and flows of life. Sometimes my laundry is going to sit there for a week, and that's okay, you know. Or two weeks, or a month, like let's be real, yeah, yeah, like you know. And it's like sometimes I'm thriving in this area and sometimes this area needs more help, and that's okay.
Speaker 4:You know, and I just want to add on to that, I'm many, many years away from where you are now, but my daughter is here tonight or this afternoon. She flew in from Atlanta and so you know what we went through. We made it through that those seasons. We made it through the season and we're really tight right now and I'm happy that she's here. So I just wanted to add that.
Speaker 2:I have a follow-up question. I couldn't ask questions all day, so y'all are going to have to stop me at some point, but I want to know when is the risk too high for the reward? How do you know your vision is worth it?
Speaker 5:When I tell you I mean there is nobody that works in investments and works in exponential increase that does not take big risks. I have always been a big risk taker when it came to things that I believed in. The only time that I ever felt like the risk wasn't worth the reward was when I had a personal trauma trigger, and you'll know what.. So I would never take big financial risk because I grew up in poverty. I would never take big relationship risk because my heart had been broken. And so you have to again self-reflect. And what are the things that you're telling yourself and what's the story that you're telling yourself about the opportunity that's in front of you? Because the weight of the reward might not be as valuable to you because you're still operating from a place of fear. So risk and reward is all on the fear scale. So I used to tell my team so it's different kinds of people. There's safe people, there's risk takers, and then there's me. I'm jumping off the cliff. I actually got a video of it. If you go search my Tik Tok. I showed up for, sorry, I've been going in stories all the time. I'm in Nepal. My kids, my fellows come and pick me up from my hotel and I had on a nice sun dress and flip flops. My hair is in these big giant crochet lock braids and so we're going up the mountain. Now Nepal is at the foot of the Himalayas. Just in case y'all don't know where this is, yeah, the Himalayan Mountains, Martin was like lay up from the Himalayas. That's where I was and I went from. I went there from Kathmandu. Black people always made jokes about. We all here all the way in Kathmandu. So I literally went from Kathmandu to Himalayas and we're driving up the Himalayan Mountains and I'm just like this is nice. And I see people paragliding off the top of the mountain. I mean, they jumping off, they jumping off, and I'm like, oh, I can't wait to do that while I'm here. They's like now you want to go? Now I'm like, why not I get up there? We go to the top of the mountain and this is like a 40 minute drive up a mountain to jump off the mountain. Y'all ain't understanding what I'm saying. The reward for me was taking that flight. The risk is that I could die. I increased my chances of dying by not being prepared because she had on flip flops. I told y'all what I had on Flip flops, a sun dress and big hair. So I get up there, all of these people that really are safe. They got on jeans, gym shoes. They put on helmets. Helmets are required. You have to sign a waiver. If you die, it's not our fault, you're bad. I'm signing a waiver.
Speaker 5:The guy's like strapping me up. He's like your shoes, they're going to come off. I'm like just put them in your backpack. He's like well, how you have what you're feet. So the girls that's with me, they Asian.
Speaker 5:I'm black, from West Side. I'm in a strong nine. How you going to let me borrow your shoe? She literally takes off her shell toe adidas. I'm in there like that boy, like Cinderella trying to.
Speaker 5:I'm like, fam, I'm going to barefoot. They all look at it. This is the mountain, this is a tourist attraction. Everybody over there. No shoes, fam. How you going to land On the ground? Everything look green, you know.
Speaker 5:He's like well, you can't wear the helmet, it's not going to fit. I told you it wasn't going to fit. He strapped me up. Y'all can go on my TikTok, y'all can go on my social media and see it. Strapped me up. He got on the back of me. No helmet, sundress hiked up to here because the straps go between your legs. So I just made shorts out of the dress, I pulled the front up through the back.
Speaker 5:We out there, jump off the cliff and you can hear me saying let's go the most incredible experience of my life. Now, when we landed we did a little tuck and roll situation, but I'm telling you, when it is something, flying and soaring is my jam, being in the sky is my jam. If you're not ready to take those kind of risks, I'm like if I could die getting hit downtown in the car, you think I'm going to come all the way to Nepal and go. I'm going to let me die jumping off a cliff because I have no gym shoes. It's not going to happen. And even if it did, I'm like I did it. Y'all saw the video. I'm dead and definitely make that PDF with my wings on my back.
Speaker 5:Y'all have to be ready to risk it all for the reward that you value, and if you're not ready to take that risk, then you don't want the reward. It's an equation. If you're not ready to take that risk, you don't want the reward, because some stuff not that hard. I said when I woke up that morning and saw them jumping off the cliff. I want to do that. They came pick me up today. Now let's go. I ain't going back to the hotel, we'll drive back down the mountain to put on some gym shoes. Y'all know where I'm from. I'm from Maywood. What's a mountain? Hey, these are all true stories, y'all. You're not making sense of it.
Speaker 2:How did you deal with self-doubt during your entrepreneurship journey?
Speaker 3:Go to therapy, go to coaching, don't be too proud. Ok, we're going to. I'm coming back to Vanita. I always say it's because Vanita's like my life coach. But I think everything comes back to self-awareness. So many things come back to self-awareness. If you are not honest enough with yourself, to be true enough with yourself, to realize the root of things and deal with those things, like I don't think anything else matters if you can't deal with it the root of those things. Yeah, if you cannot deal with the root and if you cannot be honest with yourself, then I don't feel like anything else matters. Okay, true story, this this past couple weeks it's been a lot of work to put on this conference. It's been long hours. We've been working around the clock trying to get this all together for you all to make it amazing.
Speaker 3:And I remember it like my husband and I had a conversation and he cut. We were kind of you know, you know getting into it, scrapping a little bit, and he was like are you being honest with yourself? Like are you being honest with yourself about where you're at? And I kept being like yeah, yeah, yeah, making all these excuses. And then he's like I'm gonna ask you again are you being honest with yourself? Are you being honest with yourself?
Speaker 3:And it was like took the third time for me to be like let me swallow my pride and realize no, this is what I've been doing. This is the unhealthy behaviors that I've been having, this is the triggers that I've been, you know, allowing to overtake me and I haven't been stopping in that moment and knowing that I can take control, that I've been just giving into it and it was like. It was like he kept saying that, but I wasn't. I was too proud to just release and be honest with the fact. I was like no, I'm this, I'm this and this.
Speaker 3:And it was like and and he was like live, I'm not saying this for you to, to intimidate you and make you feel weak, but he's like unless you're speaking this out I'm being honest you cannot grow, you cannot be strengthened, you know, and that was like it took, just like those three times of him looking in the face to be like are you being honest with yourself? So self-awareness, you know, being honest with yourself, getting the help that you need, not pushing that off. If you're like, you know I'm dealing with anxiety again, or this is resurfacing, or this is coming up. Okay, what are you doing? Are you going to therapy? Are you talking to somebody about it? Are you in the gym? Are you getting your mind right like what? What's happening? How are we fixing this?
Speaker 1:that's really good. What was the question? Self-doubt how do I deal with self-doubt? Okay, so, I think we all have this internal voice, whether good or bad, and probably we have both. But for me, dealing with self-doubt it's. You know, it comes up in moments where I have things coming up like this event, or when I have to get ready to go sing or perform or do something like that. Or just on a regular day, when I got to go sit and talk with an investor who I know could care less about a black woman in business, and he's looking at all the things I'm doing and he's saying, wow, it looks like you're building an empire. But he's saying, in a way, like who do you think you are to be building an empire? Meanwhile, if a man was sitting in this seat, you know, white man, or whoever else, it's impressive. Let's get some. You know, let's get some money behind this.
Speaker 1:I leave from those situations like no, you know, because immediately I'm thinking gosh, like okay, maybe what I'm doing is not, is not it? And I have to, I have to center myself. I really do, because that is a lot of energy, that's a lot of negative energy, that's a lot of somebody else is pushing something on you. That's not true, and so I have to sit there. Sometimes I've sat in the car outside of me investor meetings and I'm just like, no, this is my vision, this is my dream. I'm not going anywhere until whatever I need for this vision comes to pass, have to keep believing in it. And if I'm in my office or wherever I'm at, if I'm near a notepad, honestly sometimes I cannot move forward if those negative thoughts are there. So if that self-doubt is there, it's like you know, can you really do this? Are you gonna? I can't move forward because that's the thought process is like you know, that battlefield of the mind. You got to break it. It's got to be broken. So I'll sit there. I'll write everything down. Okay, these are the thoughts that are coming up. I put it on a piece of paper and I put it there. It's there. I'm not interested in trying to solve them.
Speaker 1:Every time something comes up, we don't have to solve the problem. I think that's the thing. We think we got to fix everything. We got a lot of stuff. Sometimes we don't need to fix anything. Sometimes we need to put the paper right there, write it down and finish going.
Speaker 1:That's the easy way for your day to get hijacked if you feel like man, I got to be in this problem right now. Now I have a business to run. I got to run my business right now. I got to take care of my family right now I got to be the doll or the cat or whatever you got to do. But getting hijacked all day because of your own self-doubt, because of everybody else's energy that they're pushing, because maybe they're insecure or whatever the things are. But that's huge for me and I do that. I mean weekly, daily. Sometimes when things come up because I'm in a male dominated space, when you're trying to raise funds and capital and all that stuff is it's just me and they get it easy, you know so with the idea no web, baby, no website, nothing, just the idea showing up with some confidence.
Speaker 4:Right, that's, that's what that is I? I remember the time when my very last job in the military, I was kind of like the city manager for the sixth largest city in South Dakota, but at the time when I was up for it, I was a, I was a the mission support group commander, and so I couldn't think of a person, a black woman, who'd had that position. And so I remembered Brigadier General Teresa Steele and I was like, okay, but now, when I have those moments where I'm exposing myself to something new or I'm feeling a little self-doubt, I remember what I've done. I remind myself what I've done, what I've overcome, what I have been exposed to, what I did that was different and new and that I was scared of, and that I did anyway. So me. Thank you.
Speaker 5:I also want to just share really quickly that self-doubt is another form of fear and it's rooted in past experiences. And so what was the name of the song that I played? Fear is not your. So anytime that you're trying to get to the future, you can't depend on stuff that has kept you from it in the past. Fear is your past. Fear is everything that you have, you know, that has hurt you, attacked you, you know, made you feel of some kind of way, and then you have to be able to move past that so that self-doubt, doubt, should be fleeting. Doubt should be fleeting. It's a temporary emotion.
Speaker 5:Fear is false evidence appearing real. So until you can counteract your reality with something that goes against what has been a past practice, you're not going to be able to move forward. Fear is paralyzing. It's not real but it looks real, but it's tied to a memory, like if you say you know, I'm scared to go through there because the last time I went through there I slipped and fell down the stairs. Well, the last time you went down there was ice. It's no ice. Why are you scared to go that way? Because the last time you went that way, xyz happened. The situation, the circumstances are completely different. I call with fear the brakes, the brakes.
Speaker 2:The brakes. We have two more questions. Hopefully we can squeeze them both in for Kirstie. We have, where was God in your process of finding what your internal soul needed?
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, well, one. I want to say that I write these courses and when I do freedom sessions and different things like that, I do it in a way that it is not super religious. And I grew up first of all. My pastor's kid grew up in the church. My dad's pastor, that was a pastor. I grew up seeing a strong woman pastor. That was my socialization. That's what I saw. I'm an ordained minister. I went to school at Wheaton, all the things. I feel like Paul, Jew or Jews, all the things.
Speaker 1:But it doesn't matter is the point. The point is, when I come into these spaces, I want it to be where anybody can walk in the room. I don't care what your religion is, I don't care what perspective you have. I want people to be able to get freedom and people to be able to feel like they can be in this room and be connected regardless. And so God was all through the process. That's the biggest thing for me. Like from the beginning, my whole walk has been there.
Speaker 1:But the whole process for entrepreneurship, not even entrepreneurship, just life in general, has literally been God saying I want you to find your voice. This is about you. It's not what other people have put on you. It's not. You're going to be a preacher, you're going to be a worship leader. You're going to be this, you're going to be all these things, but what do you? He cared about the internal things for me, my soul, what I wanted to do, how he wired me, and that was a journey. That was that's really what this whole thing was about for me the journey of finding my voice, finding myself. Not who my mom is. She's such a bold I mean, she's y'all. She's a bold, phenomenal speaker.
Speaker 1:She's traveled the world preaching and doing all the things and I'm more reserved, I'm more soft spoken and I'm the way that I am. And growing up that way was intimidating. Because you're like, oh, I got to try to be how my mom was or my dad's a traveling evangelist doing. I've got to try to be like them. And then it hit me one day I can't be like them. I'm not interested in measuring up to them. Who am I? What is my voice?
Speaker 1:And so I dealt with all the things like oh, you singing that devil music you know, like all the weird things, like you know R&B and Soul and Jazz. I'm like this is the like. This is black people's soul. You know what I'm saying, where this music comes from. That's new in your history and who you are and all the things or whatever. But he's been y'all. It's the whole journey. It literally is the whole thing soul health, the whole, my whole perspective on soul. Health is what God says about our soul. If you read the Bible he talks about I have value for the soul, how important the soul is, and so when I'm in Christian spaces it's the proclivity to like put a scripture behind everything. Do all the things you know to make it feel centered to the scripture, but you should be able to feel the spirit on the thing and know where it's coming from, you know? So yeah, he's been all up and through all of this y'all.
Speaker 2:The last question is what was your most significant failure and what did they teach you? And I would like to add to that what is the difference between a failure and a setback?
Speaker 4:Okay, significant failure. Well, I would say it's a personal one. I'm divorced, and so you know that was something that was really disappointing, that I could not see that through. But you know, it opened up just so much more for me because it was not a healthy marriage, it was not a healthy relationship. And I would just say, with regard to failure, every failure is just an opportunity to learn what didn't work right. So there's no such thing as if you are open to learning, if you're open to learning, to seeing the lessons of you know what happened or what you didn't do, or what you know what was what was wrong, you know. But it's just another way to find out what doesn't work. And so I was a part of a nonprofit called the social leadership academy, and one of the things we talked about was fail fast, find out what doesn't work fast so that you can eliminate that as a path, as a journey, and move on to the next thing.
Speaker 5:So for me it was not getting my private pilot's license, of course getting that flight at 16 years old, deciding I was going to go to school and make aviation flight. I got down to the aviation program and it was racist, it was sexist. I was one of only two black girls in that program in four years. I was an honor student coming into the university. I got these my first aviation classes, not because I didn't know the stuff, it was because I was a target and the target was on my back. But you can't make excuses. I could have, I could have done it, but the fact that I didn't get my pilot's license, God turned my biggest failure into an incredible empire that's building pipelines of pilots for the world. Like, not just pilots, mechanics, flight attendants, engineers, architects, technologists, I'm like so. So when you think about what you, when you think about your biggest, when you think about your biggest failure, go back. I gotta even go back to scripture, because this, this blew my mind.
Speaker 5:When David slept with that man's wife, Uriah's wife, and while Uriah was, he sent Uriah out to the battlefield to to so that he would be killed on the front lines because he had got his wife pregnant while he was gone. Y'all got on. The Bible is is so crazy. It's crazy. This man was the king, had any woman in the kingdom that he could want, went outside on his balcony, saw a girl taking a bath, butt naked across the street. He like go get up, bring her back. He sleep with sis. She get pregnant. He sent her husband to the front line. Do y'all know that the baby that David conceived with that mistress became the lineage that Jesus came through? Y'all don't understand.
Speaker 5:Your mistake is not a mistake. Your failure is not a failure. The Bible say all things work for the good of those that love Him and are called according to His purpose. See, I'm so tired of people saying parts of scripture and not saying the whole thing. Everything don't work for the good of everybody all the time. No, all things work for the good of those who are called according to his purpose. God's purpose for me wasn't to get my private policy. If I had got my pilot's license, I would have been an incredible pilot and it would have been me and my pilot and my pilot kids and my pilot family. But because I didn't get my pilot's license, hundreds of kids are getting careers in aviation industry all over the United States and now internationally. Yes, you have to understand that your failures is not a mistake and everything can be redeemed. Everything that you do that don't turn out right can be redeemed.
Speaker 5:And when, sometimes when you read the Bible, it don't make sense and they say in such and such and be got such and such and such and such and such, and you go and you all of those be got, be got, be got, and it go back to to tell girl that was naked on the roof that that, that that David smash. This is how I read the Bible, I'm sorry, this is how me and God, he know he, he know me, god know me. That is crazy, but he is not going to all make sense until it do. And so you have to. You have to have that area of view. You have to leave from an aerial perspective because what you see in that mistake is so devastating in that moment. But in a relationship and in the marriage that's killing you.
Speaker 5:Is a failed marriage a mistake? Absolutely not. It may feel like a personal failure at the time, but you weren't on the nine o'clock news because your husband went crazy and you were no snapper than jail because you had an idea in the middle of the night to go get that thing and put this all to, listen. Y'all have to I'm always be real. Y'all have to understand that a mistake and a failure and a setback they all work for your good when you move it in the space and operator under the power that you supposed to be operating in. I don't believe in mistakes and failures. And it ain't even a setback, because if it delayed something, just like you running the traffic and next thing you know it's a huge accident Then what? Thank you for the setback or for the salvation and saving grace, whatever you want to call it. But we put in our mind that we know the whole story and we don't. And so we take these moments in time and we write the book about it, and then we put the pen down, like the book is done.
Speaker 5:You write in your memoir at 17 years old, kind of sense to that make I'm all right. My documentary, this is all. I didn't fail. I'm 35. I ain't got my business, I ain't got my car, I ain't got my house. The end. That's crazy. Y'all. We can't. We can't let this. We cannot let these small things that terror us and distract us from the initial vision and drive that we have inside us to accomplish what. Everybody in this room already know what that thing is. Everybody in the room already know people. I haven't found my passion. Yes, you have. You have it's in there. Go get it, dust it off and get to work.
Speaker 2:Thank you all so much.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening and joining the conversation today here on the Visionary Woman Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode and would like to join our growing community, the FF Social Club, please comment, like and subscribe so that you can be updated on our upcoming episodes and more happening over at FreedomFleur. com. To catch the latest from me and to access amazing resources for visionaries just like yourself, please visit me on the web at www. KirstieFleur. com Thanks again for hanging out with me and I'll see you next time. Until then, don't forget to be visionary.