Business Blasphemy
Sarah Khan, Business Advisor and Leadership Consultant, is calling B.S. on the hustle-focused status quo of business and entrepreneurship, and getting real about what it takes to grow a business or career and NOT become a statistic. In each episode, Sarah helps navigate the rampant B.S. that permeates business strategy, marketing, operations, and mindset that has business owners hustling and pivoting themselves into burnout. She cuts through the noise and gives you guidance on how to view the status quo with a more discerning eye. If you're ready for success without the B.S., buckle up for hard truths, fun rants, terrible puns and (more than) the occasional curse word.
Business Blasphemy
EP91: How Strong Black Women Can Find True Resilience with Dr Rhonda Alexander
What if we've been measuring strength all wrong? Dr. Rhonda Alexander challenges the conventional yardstick of strength, particularly for women in entrepreneurship. We unpack the burden of societal expectations, which equate strength with enduring adversity, and how this leads women to impose relentless standards upon themselves. Drawing from Dr. Rhonda's book "Seven Dirty Secrets of a Strong Black Woman," we question whether true strength lies not in flawless performance but in acknowledging and addressing one's own needs.
It's time to reconsider the concept of strength through the lens of self-awareness and boundary-setting. We highlight the pitfalls of overcommitment, especially for those who naturally extend themselves too far in corporate and entrepreneurial settings. By setting clear boundaries and recognizing personal limits, women and minorities can rise above burnout. This empowers them to positively impact their environments, nurturing from a place of fullness rather than exhaustion.
We also look at the intricate dance between trauma and leadership, emphasizing the importance of moving beyond mere acknowledgment to genuine healing. Dr. Rhonda shares personal anecdotes, illustrating the transformative power of therapy and sustained effort in overcoming deep-seated traumas. If you've ever identified as an ambitious or high achieving woman, this is an episode you won't want to miss.
Guest Bio:
Meet Dr. Rhonda Alexander— a force of nature in the world of entrepreneurship, strategy, and leadership. She’s the brains behind IUVO Consulting, E-Squared Coaching, and SoulScribe, helping experts turn their knowledge into business gold. Dr. Rhonda doesn’t just teach success—she lives it. With three powerhouse books under her belt, including EntrHERpreneur and Your Life’s Calling, she’s a master at turning ambition into action.
Her memoir, 7 Dirty Secrets of a Strong Black Woman, hits bookshelves this January 2025. It’s a raw and powerful story that will shift the conversation around what it means to be “strong.”
With a background that includes degrees in Molecular Biology, Clinical Chemistry, Public Administration, and a Doctorate in Strategic Leadership, Dr. Rhonda has the expertise to get results. With nearly 30 years of experience leading teams and growing businesses, Dr. Rhonda’s the one to call when it’s time to level up.
Connect with Dr. Rhonda:
www.meetwithdrrhonda.net
https://www.soulscribe.net
https://www.linkedin.com/in/thedrrhonda
Preorder 7 Dirty Secrets of a Strong Black Woman here: www.7dirtysecrets.net
Want to hear the episode on mental health challenges for entrepreneurs I reference this week? Check it out here:
Love what you heard? Let’s stay connected!
Subscribe to my newsletter for bold insights on leadership, strategy, and building your legacy — straight to your inbox every week.
Follow me on LinkedIn for more no-nonsense advice on leading with power and purpose.
And if you’re ready to dive even deeper, grab a copy of my book Bite-Sized Blasphemy and ignite your inner fire to do life and business your way.
The Business Blasphemy Podcast is sponsored by Corporate Rehab® Strategic Consulting.
Welcome to the Business Blasphemy Podcast, where we question the sacred truths of the online business space and the reverence with which they're held. I'm your host, sarah Khan speaker, strategic consultant and BS busting badass. Join me each week as we challenge the norms, trends and overall bullshit status quo of entrepreneurship to uncover what it really takes to build the business that you want to build in a way that honors you, your life and your vision for what's possible, and maybe piss off a few gurus along the way. So if you're ready to commit business blasphemy, let's do it. Hello, hello, blasphemers we have. Okay, I gotta be honest with you.
Speaker 1:I'm fangirling a little bit because I met Dr Rhonda at a summit earlier this year and actually, no, to be fair, I met her prior to that, in a group that I'm in, but she's all things awesome and she knows more than a thing or two, and so I think you're going to love the conversation we're going to have today, because we're going to get a little bit controversial, you know, just a little bit. Just a little bit, and we're going to talk about things that I think we need to talk about, especially given how prevalent they are in the business space today. But before we begin. I'm going to let her introduce herself. Take it away, dr Rhonda.
Speaker 2:Hey, hey, thank you, Sarah. First of all, I'm standing like I'm so excited to be here. First of all, I'm standing like I'm so excited to be here. So thank you for inviting me. You're very welcome. Blasphemers, I am Dr Rhonda Alexander. I'm the founder of SoulScribe, and I have other businesses as well, but my newest venture is SoulScribe, and I work with industry leaders that want to write a book that they can use to make more money in their business as speakers, coaches and consultants. I also am a three-time author. I have a fourth book coming out called Seven Dirty Secrets of a Strong Black Woman. That's coming out in January, and I also run a consulting firm that helps companies all over the world comply with food and drug administration requirements here in the US. So I help people get drugs and medical devices approved too. So I do lots and lots of things, but I'm super excited that today my title is podcast host or co-host. Yes, I get to be on your podcast. That's what I mean.
Speaker 1:Blasphemer extraordinaire with me here. So and this is great because I think a lot of this is going to sort of tie together but I want to jump right right in, cause I was reading the question, like the topics that you, you were like, yeah, let's, let's talk about a few things, and there's one that I really want to talk about, given your book that's coming out, which I've pre-ordered, by the way, we're gonna put the link in the show notes and the concept of being strong and, as the universe tends to do, as God tends to do, it's a very timely topic because I just spent three or four days with childhood friends. You know we were celebrating 45 years of friendship out in the Bahamas.
Speaker 2:It's very nice If you're going to have a conversation, have it in the Bahamas.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 1:Drink in your hand, Mojitos in hand, Sunshine in our face and as it does, because we're all moms, we're all working women. You know we did talk about the sacrifices that we make as women, as moms, as spouses, as sisters, as friends. And this idea that you know you have, in order to be considered strong, like strong as a sliding scale. You know that you are not considered strong and there's various levels to this, so I'll talk about as many as you're willing to talk about, but this idea that, unless you've gone through a lot right like, your strength is equivalent to the amount of shit you've gone through, a lot right Like your strength is equivalent to the amount of shit you've been through Bingo.
Speaker 2:How much crap can you take in your life and drag along with you and still show up and excel? It's like I'm not strong, unless I enter every workspace or every space that I'm in beat up and bruised and scarred, but I still look beautiful, I still perform. I outperform everyone. You know I can take whatever you dish out. I can, you know, walk around like it didn't affect me. And if I show any inkling that I'm affected, then you think less of me, you think that I'm angry, you think that I'm overly emotional, and not just that.
Speaker 2:I've got a crap ton of stuff that I'm sorting through and processing and really trying to survive, and really trying to survive. And the other side to that is we put that standard on ourselves. Then right, because that's everybody's expectation that no matter what's going on in my life, I'm gonna show up for them 100%, whatever they need, I'm gonna give them all of what they need and I don't have to worry about me. And so then there turns this cycle that becomes my standard I don't have to worry about me because I can still excel, even though I'm helping you and you and you and you and I have nothing refilling me, but I can.
Speaker 1:I can just operate on empty, I'll be fine I kind of feel like when I so, when I was in corporate and even when I was growing up busy, was the badge of honor right, like I'm very busy, I do all the things. And I kind of feel like it's shifted a little bit to how much can I carry? You know that like the more I can carry, the the bigger my badge of honor. So it's kind of shifted from just being busy to being fully traumatized and overwhelmed and exhausted and mentally like beat down and busted and it's like I can't I can't show up in a content, calm version of myself unless I want to be considered like and be taken seriously. I guess is what you're saying.
Speaker 2:Well, content and calm is fine. The issue is we don't let ourselves get there because we're so neglectful of ourselves and many times we don't even realize that's what we do. We think we're generous, we think we're giving, we think we are supportive, we are everybody's rock, we're everybody's solution, but there's no one there for we're not that for ourselves. But there's no one there for we're not that for ourselves. So we can't show up calm and regulated because we're not able to attend to ourselves, to get ourselves in this calm, regulated space.
Speaker 2:Self-sacrifice has been over-glorified. It's been passed down to us from our maternal ancestors because that's what they had to do and they taught us to do the same thing and we took that and ran with it. And in this 2024 version of it, it's not just taking care of the kids, the husband and the home. Now it is that and your business and your community and your church and all the other things that everybody else has for you. And you think that you're doing what's expected of you, because women are taught to self-sacrifice and what nobody talks about is the fact that sacrifices die in their service. Oh ouch. You cannot sacrifice anything without it dying first, and so we don't think about that. When we say, you know, I'm selfless, I self-sacrifice oh, she's so self-sacrificing, I'm killing myself is what I'm really doing. Yeah Right, I'm creating this environment where I'm really doing. Yeah Right, I'm creating this environment where I've become toxic to myself.
Speaker 2:And that is what we have been told is strong If I can self-sacrifice and not look out for me and make sure that I look out for everybody else and not only look out for them, carry their junk too. So I'm worried about you. So now I'm carrying that. This isn't going well at work. I'm carrying that. I still have the trauma and the betrayal and the hurt from my past that I haven't fully recovered from and healed from and released. I'm carrying that. So you're carrying all of this stuff, all of the weight of your past, all of the weight of the present, and think that you're going to have this amazing future. Meanwhile, you're on the breaking point, you're on your last leg, you're dying and we don't realize that until we have the nervous breakdown. Right, that's what it was back in the day the nervous breakdown when your body just goes. We're not doing this anymore. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I had, I guess, clinical burnout, Very, I mean, I'd say, middle of my career. I was going through a lot. I had been, you know, my mom had passed, I'd been late. There's lots of different things going on. I was sick the year before and I remember feeling very guilty about it. I'm in the hospital strapped to a bed with IV fluids and all the different. Well, I wasn't strapped to a bed. That's dramatic, but I remember Might as well have been, Might as well have been right. But I remember very clearly like I have to go to work. I have to go to work and feeling that sense of guilt, of feeling like I'm letting people down.
Speaker 1:It is so ingrained in us and I would say the older generation. I see it kind of like from the millennials, later millennials onward. We have kind of switched a little bit from an us mentality to a me first mentality, but in a very selfish way, right. So where do you see the balance like? Where do you see putting yourself first but not giving up entirely on other people? And what I want to?
Speaker 1:The example I want to give is there was a meme that went around years ago and I was a big fan of it, and it said stop watering dead plants, yes, and I was like, yes, absolutely Stop. And as I matured, as I matured I I started to think, well, wait a second. Because I was a dead plant for a lot of people and it wasn't because I didn't want to give back to the relationship, I just didn't have the capacity. And what I found was the people who still watered me, the people who still gave to, you know, gave me the time, attention, the grace. We still have a relationship. So where do you kind of see the balance or the line between I'm putting myself first and I'm also able to give people grace around their needs, Right?
Speaker 2:So I kind of see there's this fallacy that there is balance. There's not. There are things that you will some days decide you will fail at. There are days when I am a great mom and I decidedly fail at being a great business owner because I need to be fully present in that moment. There are other days, as I'm sure you well know, that I have to decidedly fail at being a parent. You guys are having Cheerios for dinner because I and I'm not. You know, I'm going to kiss you guys Good night, good night, right, and but I've got to stay up until midnight because I've got a deadline or I've got something I've got to do, right.
Speaker 2:So there's not, there doesn't have to be this sense of balance. There has to be an awareness where you know this. There has to be an awareness where you know this isn't something I have to carry. I can have compassion for you, right. I can recognize that you're having a tough time. I can acknowledge that you need help. I can acknowledge that ordinarily I might even be inclined and willing and able to help you, but maybe right now I'm not and all I can say for you is I'm so sorry. I love you and everything is going to be okay, because I can't afford emotionally to take on your burden, right? So it's understanding what belongs to me to carry and what does not.
Speaker 2:And so when something does not belong to me to carry, then I have to have an alternate response and that just means being compassionate, demonstrating that I understand, I see you, I hear you, I love you, but I cannot stay up worrying about whether or not you're going to have the situation work out for you. I can't carry that. I have to. I have to be able to release it out for you. I can't carry that, I have to be able to release it.
Speaker 2:So I think kind of the self-first thing isn't let me consume and take and receive first, it's let me self-evaluate, let me check in with me. Can I take this on? Maybe just a little bit. It doesn't mean I don't care, but I have to be able to to say I don't have the capacity and that's hard because I've had people throw that back at me. You know I was hurting and you told me you didn't have it in you that day. I didn't, and it doesn't change the fact that I love you, but I didn't have it to give you, because I needed some. I needed refilling in that moment myself. Can I come back to you tomorrow if I need rest or I need a good book, I need some meditation. Give me a moment to refill capacity and then I have. I'm able to serve you from a place of overflow rather than trying to pour from this empty vessel.
Speaker 1:So many things I want to, so many threads, so many threads I want to pull here. So I'm making notes. As we're talking, I know people who have the most generous spirit and the most generous heart and still decidedly lack the self-awareness to know when they're overgiving. How do you cultivate that self-awareness, like, do you have to get to the point of burnout? Do you have to get to the point of resentment? Do you have to get to the point of falling over? What are some of the signs? I guess that you need to do that self-evaluation to see whether you are being reactionary or whether you are, like I intentionally need to fill my cup first reactionary, or whether you are intent, like I intentionally need to fill my cup first.
Speaker 2:I think it requires us to start being honest with ourselves. It's a practice I think no-transcript we don't have I can't give 100% everywhere and I think if we took a step back and started being honest about our own capacity, our own abilities, then I feel like that practice of self-honesty leads to self-awareness, where then it just becomes normal for you to check in with how you really feel and what you can really do. You know, what can I realistically accomplish? And that it takes self-honesty. And I think a lot of times we do lie to ourselves and think, think I can squeeze that in, I can do that.
Speaker 2:You know you've got a full day, you've got back-to-back meetings. Someone calls and they, you know, I need, I need, I need and you're like well, I've got. You know, 15 minutes between here and here. I was going to go to the bathroom, but nevermind, I'll help you. And in reality you really need to take that bio break. Honey, you deserve to be able to get up from your desk and pee. You deserve to be able't draw these appropriate boundaries right and these are the boundaries that say I'd love to help you, but that 15 minutes is my break, that I built into my day just to grab a couple of moments for my own sanity. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's interesting because you see this a lot in the corporate spaces right, this kind of unspoken rule that you're going to eat at your desk, you're going to work through your breaks. Because I remember like I had colleagues who would take smoke breaks, for example, and they would intentionally take their smoke break during their allotted break time so they could have that full 15 minutes or whatever it was. And the number of complaints they would get because somebody else was not taking a break, somebody else was not doing a full lunch away from their desk.
Speaker 2:How dare you care for your actual physical needs?
Speaker 1:Right, but it's so ingrained in our culture it is. So how do we start? I mean, you know, honesty, self-honesty, I love that concept. I guess the first question is where do you see it? Because we see it very clearly in corporate and traditional workplaces, when you are accountable to other people. Where do we see this in the business space? Where are you seeing it in the entrepreneurial space?
Speaker 2:Oh gosh, as entrepreneurs, we're everything, right. I mean, especially if you're a solopreneur and you're really just getting your business off the ground maybe you don't have a fully functional team yet, right, and you're doing until you start to delegate. You know your marketing and your financing, your finances, and you know the actual operations of the business and your strategic direction and the actual stuff of doing the business. That in itself is this little microcosm of burnout and overwhelm, just there. And then add to the fact that many entrepreneurs are women, black women, right that you know one of the fastest growing demographics in entrepreneurship. So we look at that, we look at where they are in their lives. Many of them are anywhere between 35 and 55. Most of those people have children, if not husbands and children or significant others and children, right. And at that age now we're dealing with sandwich kids, right. We've got aging parents, we've got children that have all kinds of demands. So you've got this business that is, at that stage, 24-7. Then you've got this home life. That in itself is 24-7. And you've got the constant needs of all the other things friendships, parental responsibilities, your own needs.
Speaker 2:I just want to go and get my nails done. I just want to go and get my nails done. I just want, I just want to go. Can I scroll Shein for five minutes without you interrupting? Can I please? Can I just stand in the shower for three more minutes without you knocking on the door? Stop knocking on the damn door. I need to pee, please like, and God help you if you've got a needy dog like on top of all of that. I need my loving and I'm coming in. I don't care, right.
Speaker 2:And so in entrepreneurship, I think I see it even more than corporate, because in corporate, you can sometimes fall back on the laws that require you have a lunch break, the laws that require you be able to take time off or that you be able to take breaks, and there are certain things that protect the employee. When you are the employer and the employee, it's a little bit different, because your mindset, as you well know, is this has got to be. If this business is going to be successful, if it's going to grow, this is what's got to be done, period, point blank. Nobody else is going to do it. So I have to do it.
Speaker 2:And so we see that in entrepreneurship all the time. I mean I can speak from my own experience that I don't want my business to be the only thing I do. Right, I still have to care for my family. I still have, even though my daughter is an adult. I still I'm still a mom, you know, and I want to have a life outside of this office. So you know, you find yourself sacrificing the things that would make you happy, right?
Speaker 1:Often the thing we we left our jobs and started businesses to do in the first place.
Speaker 2:Right, we're the only people that quit a nine to five to work 24 seven.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:You and me, both Right, but I mean, I guess it's you can do it in your pajamas that makes the difference. I don't know. You know, but it is the same mindset, just on steroids, because we are more driven, we have more at stake when you're a full-time entrepreneur. Now you're dealing with even more responsibility, because if you're not working, then your business may not be functioning properly, which means you miss out on the success that you ultimately want to have. So that keeps us in the game, that keeps us going and keeps us ignoring.
Speaker 2:How many times as an entrepreneur have you been working at your desk? You started at eight or nine in the morning and you looked up and it's nine at night and you might've gotten up to go to the bathroom, but you didn't stop to eat, you didn't stop to really care for yourself. And then everybody's at home like mom, are you coming upstairs, mom, are you going to? Mom, are you going to? And so you know you have all of those things. If we are better able to take assessment of ourselves honestly, then there are some days when you'll be more likely to say I need to take a step back and I need to care about me and not their deadline. I need to care about me and not what they think of me, and that is hard because those are usually trigger areas for many of us.
Speaker 1:Okay, still lots of threads. There's a couple of things. So I want to talk about your book, because I've been curious about where that comes from. There's one more question I want to ask, because we've talked about this briefly before we started recording, and it's this the idea of trauma, particularly nowadays in the online business space, becoming such. It is almost like a badge of honor, right, like. I'm glad that we're having those conversations, I'm glad that we're talking about trauma and its impact on literally every facet of your life. And again, understanding life. And again understanding the need for being more trauma informed in spaces. And yet I see so many of these communities coming together where trauma bonding is happening and people are dumping their trauma all over the place as a means of connecting with people or showing that you know they're real people. It just, it, just it just becomes really, really messy. How does that? And again, we're not, you know, professional mental health professionals or anything like that.
Speaker 1:Full on disclaimer. Yeah, we're just having the conversation, two friends having a conversation. What do you? What do you think when it comes to, like, martyring yourself and sacrificing yourself, like, where does that play a role?
Speaker 2:So I don't want to sound insensitive, but I don't want the idea of victimhood to be glorified. Be glorified I talk about this actually in the book that one of the things we do is we carry around this trauma kind of like the badge of honor, the survival of the trauma as a sort of badge of honor, not the victory over the trauma, ooh yeah, the fact that I went through it and I've done, I've been there, and so what I think happens is we're still carrying the trauma. We haven't gotten to a place where we can release it, and that's why we're able to bond over it, right, because if I had released it, I wouldn't be able to bond with you over it. I'd bond with you if you were victorious over yours and I could say we are survivors. You know, this is where you know I'm talking to you from a place of victory right, from a place of triumph and accomplishment, not from this is the low that I was at at one point, and, girl, I know how that is to be.
Speaker 2:You know, down and out, be down and out and down and out and down and out, and we can commiserate down here, right, and this sort of victimhood is glorified and perpetuated and I think I'm sure there's a therapist out here who will tell me I'm wrong. But I think that's why it's so easy to trigger us, because that's where we're hanging out. And we're hanging out, we're saying, hey, we got past it, because it's not happening anymore. I'm able to acknowledge it without breaking down into tears. So I must be healed from it, I must be better. But if something comes along that hints at that thing in one way or another, I'm triggered from the cage of the effects, the emotional residues of the trauma of it. Then where I meet others is in that same place, in a higher place, and when I meet people who were where I was, I help them to get to where I am, rather than us all hanging out down in this low place and really just kind of commiserating over what they did to us, what happened to us and how bad it was, not invalidating any of that and understanding that it is all real and it is all reality.
Speaker 2:But I think, you know, being trauma-informed and understanding, being sensitive to other people's trauma absolutely is important, because not everybody is going to get to the mindset where they look at their trauma from a place of victory and what we have now is a generation or a time period where people are learning how to become aware of their trauma trauma and they're being more open about the trauma.
Speaker 2:But the journey to being whole and healed and healthy is much longer than I think we're being led to believe.
Speaker 2:And so now we have a bunch of people who are hyper aware of trauma hyper and so we take that everywhere, we take that into our businesses, and a lot of times that shows up as not just being super sensitive, but being walled off, makes it hard to make collaborations and connections and partnerships and to network and friends. Because there's a part of you you're afraid they might trigger me here, right, or it makes it more difficult for you to have really good customer service yeah, because you are skeptical of the lies people will tell or that they'll take advantage of you, or that because you're, you're working from this trauma based kind of place Right, trauma-based kind of place. And so I'm really encouraging women in this book to go past it happened to me and I can talk about it and not break down but to really pursue I don't want to carry this thing around anymore. I don't want to carry this trauma and this badge around anymore and to really let it go.
Speaker 1:I love all of that. That is such a wonderful assessment of it and thank you for that. If you're listening, I will say don't do it alone. Like go and find a professional to help you and this is not a blanket statement by any stretch of the imagination but the six week program by some random coach is not going to help you heal your trauma. I just I'm going to say oh, no, no no, go and see a professional.
Speaker 2:There are lots of us who have been in therapy for years. Yeah, really trying, because, you know, I had some childhood trauma I talk about it in the book and I repressed it so much so that I got through the entire writing, the entire book, and then I remembered it. That's how far I had repressed it, because I would not allow myself to be labeled a victim of this trauma, right, but I, as I went back and started talking to my therapist about it and we realized, hey, this thing that we were talking about before, do you realize? That's where this came from your inability to say no, or your inability to stand up for yourself, or your feeling like you don't have a voice. You think you've dealt with it and it, and you know it may have happened to you at, you know, 12 or 13. You dealt with it, you talked about it, you went to therapy, for you know your six-week program or whatever. You know your parents gave you a stern talking to, however, but you don't realize that these traumatic things impact everything about your life, how you interact with people, how you see the world, how you protect yourself.
Speaker 2:You know how do you? You know, for me, I found it hard to stand up to people. And so then you find yourself in these relationships and you're like I wish I could say everybody else in the world would be able to say, oh, and I just can't bring myself to do it. Why, why, why? And so when you start looking at that you've got to. There are these layers that get peeled back that when you really look at, you know the long-term effects of it. You got to work on it for a long term and it is healing, is a process and it is something that a knowledgeable, experienced professional should be helping us through. I am a firm believer that if you are a leader, everybody needs a therapist period, point blank. If you are a leader, an entrepreneur, you need one that you see every week period. Right, you really you know now that the stigma behind seeking help for mental wellness, you know, has been decreased. You know I'm, I think you know it's. It's not a bad thing anymore to say yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm getting help with that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and if you're listening, there's an episode that I recorded last year with Shula, who's a mental health professional, and she talks about just the toll entrepreneurs it takes on entrepreneurs right, we have, like, some of the worst mental health challenges of any group for a variety of reasons that we've talked about today and other ones. So go back, I'll link that episode in the show notes as well. What was your inspiration for writing this book? The Seven Dirty Secrets of a Strong Black Woman?
Speaker 2:So I started. I had this idea kind of tinkering around in the back of my head back in 2019. And I kept putting it off and putting it off and putting it off because I didn't know what I wanted to write and I didn't have the title at the time. But I had been talking to my coach at the time about just how I was feeling and some of the things I was thinking about writing. And we came up with this topic with this title, and I was like, oh, that's cool. So I kind of tucked that away in a notebook and we were talking about that. So 2020, we were still talking about this book in the 20s. And she says to me Rhonda, you just write the damn book. And I was like, okay, and then I didn't. But in that she said, okay, you know, I want you to at least write the seven secrets. And so I pulled out some stickies and I wrote the seven secrets and I put those secrets on my whiteboard that's here in my office and there they stayed. And every once in a while, when I would have an idea, I'd grab a sticky and jot that idea and kind of file it under one of those stickies, whatever those, whatever the topic was.
Speaker 2:And then I was being strong. I was working my business growing SoulScribe. So working my consulting business growing SoulScribe. I had taken on an. I was adjunct teaching at a university. I had taken on an advisory role that turned into a management role. That was never supposed to be. I was supposed to come in for a few hours a couple of times a week. Y'all okay, everybody's all right. See you, it turned into an everyday managing people thing, man. And then my daughter started going through some mental health issues. And then I had I had two significant breakups, one of a friend and a romantic partner, and I had the mother of all breakdowns the literal mother of all breakdowns.
Speaker 2:And in that recovery I really started thinking about how did I get here? I was bitter, I was angry, I was hurting, I was completely overwhelmed and in that it took me about a month, four to six weeks, to really get my brain back. I told my therapist I think I'm broken. I couldn't think I couldn't. I'd sit down to the computer and it was just gibberish. Nothing made sense. And so I started saying okay, how did I get here?
Speaker 2:Signs of symptoms, of secrets that I had been carrying, like not wanting to disappoint people, feeling like I didn't want to let people down, and some of the other secrets that I developed over my lifetime that if you saw me and you didn't know me, you'd have absolutely no idea that I struggled with these things. I could present altogether powerful Dr Rhonda absolutely not Back at the house. Rhonda was a mess. Rhonda was a crying on the floor mess, and when I finally talked to my parents about it my parents just live a little ways away my dad says I can't believe we live this close to you and I had no idea you were going through this. I had hidden it that well.
Speaker 2:And so, as I was kind of coming out of all of that and of course you know, very heavy in therapy. My mother said to me I think now is time to write this book. And I was like I don't want to. But I realized I stopped everything. I called the university, I can't, I'm not teaching anymore, I'm letting all of that go. I just let a bunch of stuff go. And then all of a sudden I had a bunch of free time. I just let a bunch of stuff go and then all of a sudden I had a bunch of free time, what's wonderful.
Speaker 2:And my mom said I think it's time, I think it's I think it's time for you to write this book, because those things that you've been carrying around almost got the best of you, and as I was writing, I started realizing.
Speaker 2:I wasn't alone, that there were other women who had these secret lives where they weren't strong or they didn't feel strong. And you and I happened to be in an environment where there was a lot of sharing about that very topic and our beloved friend Doug looked at me and went, because Doug and I had been talking. So he's like, oh my God. So he was like. You know, it just became real. It's not just me. This is just about every high performing woman, high achieving woman, who feels like I cannot afford to let one thing hit the ground. Every plate has to be spinning, everything has to be perfect. I'll cry in the shower, but when I come out, I am a fierce lion and nobody's going to know what I'm going through. And that's been a theme that's been really my driver for finishing the book, despite being, you know, you know how it is when you get down to the last of a project, but that's been the driver.
Speaker 2:This is not an isolated thing where I just felt like, oh, you know, I carry too much and I won't tell people that I'm still struggling with esteem issues or I'm still struggling with, you know, a loss, whatever that is.
Speaker 2:You know a loss of whether it's death or a breakup right, whatever that loss may be, we are told box it up, put on your big girl panties, move on, get over it. And whether or not someone is telling us that that's what we do, because that's what we're strong, we're supposed to be able to do, that that's what we do, because that's what we're strong, we're supposed to be able to do, that I should be able to have four people in my family die and show up to work the next day. Just fine, we don't have time, let's go, keep going, and eventually it catches up to us. So this book is the remedy to that. It is redefining strength. It is taking what we have traditionally deemed to be strong and realizing it's toxic, it's deadly, and being aware of I share my secrets, in hopes that others will be willing to look at their own and to say this is what I've got to change, and then to give you a way to change your definition of what strength is, so that you can put yourself first in a healthy way.
Speaker 1:Damn. I mean there is a reason why my, my soul animal is a dragon. Yes, right, because it's what got me through. You know, just breathing fire got me through a lot, and oh yeah and it's. It's hard to put down the mantle of strength sometimes and be vulnerable because and you know, it brings up things like resentment and like how come they get to be weak? And I've got there's a, there's so much here, I mean we're gonna have yeah, it's a whole, yeah, it's a whole book. Many chapters.
Speaker 2:It's a whole book. It's a whole book and I really really hope, you know, as the book is coming out, I hope to have more conversations, because I love the idea of the dragon, I love the idea that you come out fire blazing, but the dragon has to rest too right. You know there comes a time when you know you can't burn every, you can't burn it all down. You know you've got to be strategic about how you use your strength, how you use your superpower, and are you using that to power through or are you really using it to be knowledgeable and to place it in areas of your life that propel you forward, that make you better, to make others better? So I think we looked. You know the ideas of strength that we had coming from our foremothers. They used it to survive. You know they used it, you know differently, but they used it to teach us to be strong, like them, not knowing we'd have this different kind of environment and that we would take their concept of being strong and apply it to 72 different things.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, Because you know, yeah, I mean, back then they had maybe two things to worry about.
Speaker 2:You know, Right, I mean you know right, I mean, but it just was what they had to worry about was not as complex as as what and and and I you know you simplify it, but I mean, if you've got kids that are school age, you've just got it's just not the same of. You know what they were raising when. When our parents were raising us mine especially, I mean from 10 years old I was staying at home after school by myself and my parents would get home about five o'clock, six o'clock, and they weren't really worried. I mean we had neighbors looking out and other families, you know, kind of this village. It just was different. And if you are a mother or you know you're a parent now you put you know a parent from the 70s, 80s, 90s to a parent in 2024. We have a whole different philosophy of parenting, of different environment. So now you've just got a whole different set of worries that you add to all the other stuff. Yeah, that you carry around.
Speaker 1:Really good example is devices, but we're not even going to go there because I've got a whole All right, Dr Rhonda, this has been so wonderful. Tell me a little bit about how you serve clients through SoulScribe and where we can find you so.
Speaker 2:SoulScribe is, as I said, it's my newest baby, and I founded SoulScribe based on my own experience with writing books and promoting those books. I started before Amazon Bestseller was a thing, and I learned how to leverage my books so that I didn't have to sell thousands of copies to make lots of money. I didn't have to sell thousands of copies to make lots of money, and I learned to do that through being strategic about how I launched the book and what I attached the book to and integrating that into my business, creating revenue streams in my businesses based on that book. And so when I and it's so funny I used to tell people I am not a book coach and I don't want to be, listen to your coaches, folks, because that's what I started as, and I was ready to drop it and came full circle. And so I realized that, with my superpower being strategy, being a person of wisdom who can kind of see the big picture and turn it into a plan that's actionable and scalable, I started helping people write books that coupled their passion, their life story, their expertise, and then taking that story and leveraging it to make more money in their business.
Speaker 2:As speakers, coaches and consultants I wanted them to be able to do more than just hit bestseller status. I wanted them to be able to get their book in the hands of the people who really would read it. If you're writing a book that will shake your industry, it does no good if it's sitting in somebody's conference tote bag and it's not in their hands. So I started working with my clients to help them achieve this additional revenue stream or to be able to create coaching programs, consulting programs around these books. And so I am actually. My calendar recently reopened for my 2025 coaching folks and the best way to get in touch with me is meetwithdrrondanet, getting on my calendar and having a talk with me. I prefer that as opposed to sending you to some random page where you get to read about me. I love for people to get on my calendar and let's talk about how I can help. What can I do to make to help you get that story out and into the world and generating revenue for you?
Speaker 1:I love that and Dr Rhonda is on my 2025 list, just so you know. And honestly, I mean, if this last hour has not been such a testament to just the depth and the breadth of conversation that you can have with Dr Rhonda, you haven't been listening, you haven't been paying attention. Thank you so much for this. This has been fabulous. I appreciate you. Thank you for inviting me.
Speaker 2:I appreciate you. Thank you for inviting me. I appreciate you for allowing me to step into your space.
Speaker 1:I love you very much. You're welcome anytime.
Speaker 2:And I thank you for your support. And you are also one of the people. You keep me going. You keep me going. I can't let you down.
Speaker 1:Thank you and on that note, my friends, like I say every week, you can have success without the BS. You've just got to know where the BS is hiding. I will talk to you next week. That's it for this week. Thanks for listening to the Business Blasphemy Podcast. We'll be back next week with a new episode, but in the meantime, help a sister out by subscribing and, if you're feeling extra sassy, rating this podcast, and don't forget to share the podcast with others. Head over to businessblasphemypodcastcom to connect with us and learn more. Thanks for listening and remember you can have success without the BS.