Show Notes
Hello and welcome to Leveled Up With LaTrice, the podcast that aims to equip Black women in entrepreneurship with the knowledge and tools they need to succeed in their businesses. I am your host, LaTrice, and I’m thrilled to have you tuning in, sis.
I started this podcast to help other Black women entrepreneurs overcome the unique challenges and barriers we face in the business world. As a successful entrepreneur, I know firsthand how difficult it can be to navigate entrepreneurship as a Black woman. That’s why I’m passionate about sharing tips and strategies for email marketing and creating solid sales funnels, which are essential for any entrepreneur looking to take their business to the next level. In this episode, I share my story on how I got into both entrepreneurship and podcasting. Tune in to learn more!
Timestamps
[00:51] The purpose of the podcast
[02:30] The story that got me to where I am today
[03:30] The college experience that built my character
[05:20] The internship at JP Morgan bank
[11:56] How I turned down the $90,000 monthly salary to follow my dreams
[15:58] My experience with Teach for America
[19:38] How I got into entrepreneurship
[20:51] The motivation behind my podcast
Notable quotes:
“We can support each other and create a community where there isn’t one.”
Transcript
00:02
Hey sis! This is the LaTrice from Leveled Up with LaTrice and you’re listening to the Leveled Up with LaTrice Podcast.
00:10
On this show, I share the valleys and peaks of Black women entrepreneurs, with the help of my business besties and tips for leveraging email marketing, and a solid sales funnel so that you can invite entrepreneurship with ease into your badass business and your life. Hold on to your edges sis, this is going to be good.
00:32
Hey, sis! And welcome to the very first episode of the Leveled Up with LaTrice Podcast. So sis! Quick story. And you know, when Black people say quick story, it may not be that quick, but just flow with me here. I was gifted this podcast mic for my birthday in March 2021. Last time I checked, we’re pulling up on March 2023. And it’s time that I do what I said I was going to do two years ago and share my journey – what got me to entrepreneurship, what got me to my first six figures as a badass Black girl who happens to also be a badass business owner.
01:18
Because I know firsthand the challenges as well as the moments where you celebrate, and you just know that entrepreneurship is that girl and that girl for you. But I had a lot of challenges along the way. And my hope is that as I share my story, the Brown and Black girls who are listening, who are just starting their foray into entrepreneurship, maybe you’re getting discouraged. Or maybe you’re just looking for community, I hope that you all can just glean knowledge from this podcast. And also a sense of you’re not alone. And know that there were so many Black and Brown women entrepreneurs that have come before me. And while I may have started my journey before, or be further in my journey than you are, know that we can support each other and we can create community where a lot of times we may see that there isn’t one.
02:27
So with that, let’s get into Episode-1…
Okay, so, boom, here’s my story. And the word that I’m going to use to anchor this story is nontraditional. And the reason for that is, in so many spaces and places in my life, not just in my professional career, I have been seen as being the non-traditional person, right? The person that maybe shouldn’t be here, the person that isn’t like the other folks in the room. And it has truly shaped every decision that I’ve made in every decision that got me to where I am today.
03:17
Well, with that, let’s start. I’m not going to take it all the way all the way back. But let’s take it back to college. When I was in college, or when I was enrolling in college, I had two things going on in my head:
- The first thing was I really wanted to be a teacher when I grew up. And now, I’m at that point, I’m grown up, and now I get to decide what I’m going to study in college and the career that I’m going to pursue.
- And then the second competing thought I was having teachers don’t make no money.
03:59
And growing up in a family where I didn’t realize we were poor, until getting a college and living in a dorm. I went to the University of Georgia for undergrad, and it was a real eye-opener because I was driving my beat-up Ford Taurus to campus, you know, it was my first car and I see girls my age, not my skin tone. Not my skin folk, right? But I see girls who are driving Mercedes Benzs. And not that that is the only symbol of status or power, but I was at school and I was trying to figure out how was going to buy $600 worth of books my first semester and that’s when that competing thought of maybe I should do something that I’m good at. I may not be in love with it. But I wanted to shift this thing called generational wealth, for my family, and for the generations to come.
05:11
So I decided, I’m good at math, I’m going to pursue finance. So working on that throughout college and the summer between my junior and senior year, I had the opportunity to intern at one of the top four banks in the country, really the world… JP Morgan and I had the opportunity to intern in their private wealth bank and really work with families so I thought, to make decisions about their wealth.
05:44
Now, not even little old me didn’t realize just how different the people worried that I was going to be supporting the families. I’m talking about folks who had multi-millions of dollars, and they weren’t interested in having someone support them. They wanted us to do the work for them. They wanted us to make sure their portfolios were together, they wanted us to make sure that everything down to a penny was accounted for. And they were not connected with reality, or at least not as I saw it. And I was constantly reminded, even if it wasn’t outright of my other news might have different– How I was nontraditional in this role, in this bank, but also on this team. And when I say that I was the only Black person as an intern now, on the entire team that I worked with, we worked with no Black people. And, you know, Black people have wealth. There are Black people, people who have money. But we didn’t work with them. And outside of that, I was this Southern girl from Georgia. And the culture just constantly reminded me that I was just so different, and non-traditional in that space.
07:39
So what really took the cake for me was I had gotten to the end of the summer, I had created this mortgage calculator that would support the staff with predicting just how much of a mortgage based on client data points that we could quickly plug in and determine how much of a mortgage we could essentially get for them to finance you know, their umpteenth property right there third beach house again, I just wasn’t connecting right like a beach house?! Me and my family like we barely have one house. However, the full-time analyst that I was paired with for this summer, completely took over my review meeting and claimed to have created this thing. And she hadn’t. She was a woman, but she was not a Black woman. She was a woman of color, though. And even though I still got the full-time job, and this full time job was a $90,000 a year job fresh out of college, plus bonuses, I got the job, and I thought about it, and I contemplated what I should do so I talked to my mom and dad.
09:07
However, I ultimately decided not to take the job. And the reason I didn’t take the job was I realized that I could not work in a place where I felt bothered so much, like literally every day, to the point where I felt that I was being tokenized. And I downright had my brilliance, right my intellectual property stolen from me. And even though our manager, who knew the analyst didn’t create this thing, saw how many hours I was logging. I was logging like 17 hours, some days, no less than 12 for a full 10-week summer internship, and this person had been in the Hamptons, living her best life, because that was the culture, when the summer interns come, the analysts play, and they didn’t do anything about it. And here was my gut check for two things, one.
10:22
Black people are not going to be protected. I was not protected in that moment, even though they knew that this was a complete lie, you know, it was a lie. Black people, Black women are not going to be protected. And I valued humanity. I valued real people-to-people connection. And just realness. And I wasn’t going to get that in this space. It was literally a space where people would knock out drag out. I’m talking like dragging folks, they will literally be dragging folks by their weave ponytails- dragging folks down. Just so they could get ahead. And I was like, nah, like, that’s not me. I don’t work like that. I believe in honoring people and their genius. I also want to work with clients, and people, I want to serve people that actually need it. So this will probably shock some of y’all. But I decided that I was going to forego this $90,000 a year salary.
11:35
I grew up in a household that lived check to check. And I had never even seen- I couldn’t even really wrap my head around $90,000. But I said no. Because something deep down in my gut told me that that was not the place for me.
11:53
So I come back to my senior year. And I decided, you know what, I said, I always wanted to be a teacher, I’m going to be a teacher. At this point, I had two options:
- One, I could choose to extend my time in undergrad, which I couldn’t financially do that. Because again, I didn’t have parents paying for my tuition. They helped me in the ways that they could when they could, but I was on a scholarship, the Georgia Hope Scholarship, and there was a limit to the number of credit hours that they were going to essentially pay for me to go to school. In addition to like a few other scholarships I had, it just wasn’t enough to do that. Also, I struggled with the fact that I’ve been in college for four years, it says it’s a four-year university, right? After four years, if I’m still here, I must you know be doing something wrong.
- So my second option was to go into a nontraditional certification program. And I decided to go with that. So I joined Teach for America. And, again, being a part of Teach for America. And I still have connections and do work with Teach for America. It was, again a time where I realized how nontraditional I was… there weren’t a lot of folks coming into the corps who wanted to become a teacher, not because it was their childhood dream. Most of the folks coming in, they were looking for something to do and a couple of gap years between college and what a lot of people referred to as their real job. Even though we were all in this nontraditional teaching track, I was one of the few people who really just wanted to be a teacher. And the second thing was our summer training was in Tulsa, Oklahoma. And y’all, I’m sure you are familiar with the Tulsa massacre that happened in the early 20th century. But Tulsa in 2013 was not much different. And we were constantly the folks of color who were a part of this particular year’s cohort or corps were constantly reminded of how nontraditional we were in this city.
14:46
And for me, being from Atlanta, growing up in a community that, you know, despite most of its folks living paycheck to paycheck, we were pretty young, the generational wealth may not have been there. But it was a very interesting situation because the kids didn’t know it right. And now I’m in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where I was denied access and entry to bars, clubs and different establishments like that, simply because I was Black and with a group of Black folks. So in joining Teach For America, I only actually did my summer program in Tulsa, Oklahoma. But I did the corps, my two full years, and my first two years of teaching in Miami, Florida. And, again, I’m welcomed to the school and quickly reminded how not nontraditional I was most teachers in this school had taken the traditional route to education or becoming an educator. There were a total of four Teach for America teachers in this school that had about 50 educators on staff and two of the educators had come to the school th year before I did, and then I came in with one other person.
16:23
And in my very first, not even year of teaching y’all. I won Rookie Teacher of the Year. This was an award that was given to educators voted on by the teachers in their building, who were in their first seven years of teaching. Here I was in my first semester of teaching, and I won this award. And again, being in this nontraditional space, I excelled just like I excelled in college, I graduated with honors and excelled in my internship at JP Morgan.
17:00
Now I’m in Teach for America, and I’m in a classroom in Miami, Florida. Here I am, excelling again, but always reminded how nontraditional I was. And in this instance, it wasn’t by necessarily the other educators and the teachers in the building. It was leadership and it was specifically the women of color who were leaders that made me feel this way.
17:34
Even though I had gotten my certification, even though I had enrolled in a full-time grad program while I was teaching full time, because I was so dedicated to being a teacher, I was still reminded that or treated as if I was not enough, even though my colleagues saw it. I was a finalist in the district for Rookie Teacher of the Year. And the district saw it, but for some reason, the women of color in that in that building refused to see it or even, nothey saw it. They refused to accept it and honor it. And that is what really, it really opened my eyes to just how Black and brown women, so many of us, me and I’m sure you listening sis, like you are a woman of color who has decided that you are going to uplift And you are going to support Black and brown women.
18:49
However, there are people who literally embody Zora Neale Hurston’s famous quote;
“All skinfolk ain’t kinfolk.”
And I am going to share more of my journey because right now we’re still at the very early part of my my journey. But I’m gonna say that for episode two, because I want to share with you all, just how important creating Leveled Up With LaTrice, as a business as well as a podcast has been for me.
19:32
So I started fast forward some years and I started my first business, which I celebrated my first six-figure year last year. I launched my that business in 2020. And went full-time in that business in 2021. And then, in 2022 had my first six-figure year. In that time, I learned that there were actually Black women who were willing to stand arm and arm with me, and share their knowledge with me, whether it was through a paid or not paid opportunity, whether I paid them or not, they were willing to stand arm and arm with me, and pour into me in a way that I had never experienced. And that is what has kept me. And that and a whole bunch of prayer y’all, is what has kept me in entrepreneurship. And I want to give that experience to other Black and brown women entrepreneurs because that isn’t the norm.
20:51
Always that isn’t the case for everyone. So with that, and American Express released the report, it came out in 2019. But I discovered it last year, that essentially, I’m summarizing a portion of the report here said that, while Black women are starting businesses at a higher rate than any other demographic of women, any other demographic, really not just women. But Black And brown, or Black women-owned businesses are not growing or being sustained at the same rate. And as I talk to my friends who have, you know, journeyed into entrepreneurship, as I’ve met more women who have taken the journey into entrepreneurship, the greatest challenge that they face is– Yeah, there’s some technical things, but it’s community. And they don’t see other Black women reaching six-figure years. And I had to choose to put myself in rooms with women who were doing those things. But I wanted to bring that experience because you may not know what rooms to get in, right? You may not have yet the financial means or maybe you’re struggling with what do I invest my money and as I start my business, so I wanted to bring that feeling of community to Black and brown women who may be in a similar boat I was, when I was first getting started. And because I’ll be damned if my Black my badass Black girl business is one of the statistics that not only are we opening business businesses at a higher rate, our best buy businesses are not growing or even sustaining. I’m not closing my doors.
23:00
Until I decide I want to maybe sell my business. But I’m not closing my doors. I’m not going to be a statistic, a part of this statistic about the failure of Black and Black girl businesses. And I don’t want that for you either sis, so I’m going to wrap us up here.
23:24
Thank you for listening to the first episode of the Leveled Up With LaTrice Podcast, and I’ll be back with Episode-2 shortly. And I cannot wait to tell you the second half of my story. If you’re hearing this message, you listen to the entire episode. And for that, I truly appreciate you sis, like for real for real.
23:52
I hope you enjoyed this episode. And if you did, please subscribe and leave me a five-star review on whatever platform you’re listening to me from. And please share this episode with another Black woman or brown woman entrepreneur who may be interested in taking her business to the next level.
24:08
Also, feel free to let me know what topics you’d like to see covered in future episodes. Drop your suggestions in the comment or slide in my DMs on Instagram @leveledupwithlatrice. See you soon for a new episode!
