When you first start your business, it can be challenging for anyone. Still, for Black women who are also trying to navigate a world where they’re underrepresented in leadership roles and where they face discrimination at the intersection of their gender and race, well, it can be downright demoralizing.

There can be many obstacles to overcome when starting or running your own business. And those obstacles are even more significant when you’re doing it as a Black woman. But if we work together and support one another as women of color in business, we can make change happen. In this episode, I share the “how’s it going” to episode one’s “how it started” of my story on how I got to where I am today. Tune in to learn more!

[00:55] The story of how I got here today

[02:40] Working with a Black woman principal

[07:40] Journey into school leadership

[11:20] Consulting in education

[13:03] Working with the second Black woman principal

[17:16] Fear of betting into myself

[20:00] Launching my consulting business

[22:00] Going back to class

[22:40] Making $60,000 while teaching and consulting part-time in a pandemic

[23:55] Proving to myself that I could bet on myself

[24:58] The power of email marketing

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Hey sis, welcome back or welcome to the Leveled Up with LaTrice. I am so happy that you are here. I want to continue telling you my story about how I got to where I am today. Just think of these first couple of episodes as how it started versus how it was going. So after my first two years teaching in Miami, having the experience of women of color leaders again, not sharing seats at the table essentially, largely because of what I felt was non-traditional. I did not come into education through the traditional go to college, you know, study education and become a teacher. Even though I had passed all the certification tests. I was not only certified, but I was also a highly qualified educator. Because of how I performed on the assessments, we’re not going to even going there. So after those first two years, shout out to Miami. I decided to move back to Atlanta, I loved Miami, but Atlanta was home and I wanted to be closer to my family and friends. So I moved back and once I moved back to Atlanta, I continue to teach because as I shared in the last episode, I grew up wanting to be a teacher. That’s what I wanted to do and even though I didn’t study education, and in college, the experience I had in my internship the summer before my senior year, just pushed me to take the leap of faith.

So back in Atlanta, teaching full time in grad school, pursuing my master’s in education, and I am working at a school that is a charter school. What I will quickly learn was the no excuses charter school. I was working with a Black woman principal. Now, this is the first time I had worked under the leadership of a Black woman principal. I was admittedly wearing some rose-colored glasses when I went in for my interview and my sample teach a lesson even the first few summers. In the first few weeks of school, I had on some really rose-colored glasses. These glasses were quickly knocked off of my face when, again, as I shared in the last video, I was the rookie teacher of the year in my very first year semester of teaching. It was about the second month of school and we had this, I had never felt comfortable with it but it was it’s a terrible practice.

We had this thing called Academic Excellence, where classes will compete against each other to have the highest assessment scores at the end of the week. Why did I think competition is a healthy thing? I did find it when the classes weren’t balanced. We were teaching students to be extrinsically motivated by things like prizes, so that they would learn and even with all that in the first month of school, three out of those four weeks, my students had one academic excellence. I remember the fourth week. They won in a row the Black woman principal, as well as the Black woman assistant principal, as well as the blue-Black woman academic, that curriculum specialist, I forget her exact name, walked into my room in front of all of my students. They pulled our assessment records. We had to keep every weekly assessment. We had to keep those assessments and a student folder, took them, and audit them to see if I was cheating or not grading with integrity. And that was a slap in the face because I had never been so humiliated in my life. But I also didn’t appreciate how it diminished that my students were just learning.

They were reaching mastery of academic standards, isn’t that the goal of teaching that students acquire academic and social skills? Well, obviously not, they didn’t find anything. But I quickly became a target. I couldn’t do anything. My kids want academic excellence. Oh, we’re going to audit your grades, again. A student had an outburst in class or eloped from class. Now, we’re not going to look at the fact that they are not in their least restrictive environment, that we’re not serving them based on a legal document. Instead, it got to be hard. So that experience with Black leadership constantly, not pulling a seat up to the table, not acknowledging my genius when it came to teaching instead of villainizing me for it, jaded me.

I decided to not trust nobody in this teaching game. It also broke me because I couldn’t imagine treating another Black woman that way. So I decided to leave that school, and go to another school, fast forward a couple of years after being at that school for two years, and it was great. I decided that I wanted to journey into school leadership. So I applied and was accepted to the school leadership program at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and went full time for that program in person. So moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts, and went all like in that program, because I had a belief that I wanted to create a space in the place where Black excellence was celebrated and was also innovative and not the models of teaching and learning that I had seen, but leveraged a project-based learning instructional model.

So I did my program. I graduated, and I applied to a charter school in the state of Georgia. The thing they told me without exactly telling me is, “this is a great idea for a school. However, you are too young.” There are schools that are open in this state of Georgia, which have been founded with much less intention. But because I was young, and also one in front of the X, a Black girl from the east side of Atlanta, I wasn’t trusted. I had the receipts. I mean, if I’m anybody to tell people to waive their receipts, I’m going to waive mine. I was a Harvard graduate. Not only was Harvard graduate, but I also graduated at the top of my class. I was selected to be the marshal for the school leadership program to lead us to graduation and through graduation. That didn’t matter to them. Because the world does not bet on Black women even though we built this place.

Black women have always embodied the entrepreneurial spirit, to make something fire out of nothing scraps, and crumbs. But we have not traditionally been trusted in that experience, my school was denied. Honestly, I was deflated after graduating after this huge accomplishment because let’s be real. The privilege was harvested that have me as a badass Black girl on their campus in their presence. However, having that credential wasn’t enough. Here I was, I notice now I didn’t know this thing. I was searching for a space where I can let my brilliance shine and feel like I was enough and make a difference.

So now I’m back in Georgia, deflated after I just graduated. I am like what am I going to do? I thought about consulting, and I was like, “Oh, no new Black girls as consulting”. But that wasn’t true. Actually didn’t know someone who was consulting specifically in education. I had tapped her and learned from her, befriended her. I watched her moves. Now that I’m back in Atlanta, and I didn’t see any other Black woman doing that thing, consulting in education, I counted myself out. I didn’t bet on myself and it didn’t help that I was just denied the opportunity to start a school. Because for me, entrepreneurship, I’m not new to this. This is a part of who I am. Making something out of nothing. That’s a part of who I am. I’m a Black woman in America. However, I decided to play small and went back to the classroom. So it’s 2019. I’m back in the classroom. And again, rose-colored glasses, I said, that was a one-time thing, when I had a Black woman leader, who wasn’t willing to pull up a seat for me at the table instead operated out of fear, or felt threatened by my genius. So she made my life a living hell. I say that was a one-time thing. Because the Black woman, I know, the Black woman, I love the Black women who are closest to me, they’ll act like that.

So I gave it a second chance. Now the second principal, a Black woman leader. We had a lot of stuff in common. We had grown up in the same city. We had attended the same high school. We even were in the same sorority. When I interviewed for the position, she even told me that she was willing to support me and my goal to become a school leader. Because even though I had become deflated, by not being granted the opportunity to open the school, I hadn’t given up. And I said I’m too young. That must mean I don’t have enough experience. Because I haven’t been a school leader in the state of Georgia.

Let me humble myself, go back to the classroom, and get a school assistant principal position. Summer school started in less than three weeks and I just moved back. I didn’t have really the time to seek out that role. I also had not had a job since graduating college. Is that the year where I was at Harvard full time, and honestly, it was fear. Fear headset in and was dragging me by my baby hairs. I was afraid to try the consulting thing. I was how I going to have a steady income. I was afraid that I wasn’t going to have medical benefits. I really was afraid of betting on myself. Because when I tried that I was denied. Anyway, so I’m back in the school, she is happy to support me and help me grow and get into the rooms and spaces in the district so that I could, you know, within the next year, be positioned for an assistant principalship. So I’m like, sure, yes, this is the kind of Black woman leader that I want to work with to get there.

I had my second unfortunate experience of working with a Black or brown or a Black woman, specifically, who wanted to keep the table for herself instead of being willing to pull up a seat at that table for other Black women. So I started to internalize all of these lies, that it must be something wrong with me. I decided that one I wasn’t going to stay in that downplays too long. I decided I’m going to find a way. I’m going to find a way so that this isn’t my story. This isn’t where it ends. I am just being down and out under the thumb of someone who looks like me but isn’t willing to support me and honor my genius.

So I started applying for jobs. Let me tell you about that, got a funny way of letting you know that you are out of alignment. Let me tell you about me. I have a tendency to be stubborn and ignore all the signs that are right in front of my face. I should have never taken this job to go back into the classroom. Consulting was right there. I had more than enough to get started. I had the skill set and there were folks who needed the work that I did. I was afraid. So I get into this role. I started to see the whispers, the hints that were thrown at me but he had the all out. Not just to show me that this person wasn’t the person I needed to be working with but because he showed me that I wasn’t seeing it. I had to get sick as a dog. I’m talking about on my way up out of here, not even 30 years old. Because I was afraid. All I had to do was better myself and Tibet on the path that God wanted me on. But instead, I say what about financial security? What about retirement?

So then the pandemic hit. It didn’t stop. We were literally working from home first days of the pandemic. I was like maybe it’ll be better because then I’m at home, I don’t have to deal with that person, that leader. She still found a way to treat, not just me it was other Black women with a disability that had a similar experience or saw the experience. There’s just a girl, hold your head down, and don’t speak up. They’ll say I’m not built like that. When I see something that’s, you know, not in the best interest of the folks that I’m serving that I work with. So I didn’t stop in there. Remember, my friend who was consulting in education, decided to start formally helping other women and men launch their own education consulting businesses. So I said, I had got my little stimulus check and I’m going to launch my education consulting business. Yeah, launching my business had this overwhelming success.

I’m talking about podcasts, interviews, keynote, speaking all these conference workshops, and pay conference workshops, which is not always the norm, especially in education conferences in the summer of 2020. And then the fear because me, and fear we have since divorced, formally ended our relationship. But she pulled it up. She was like, nope. How dare you think that you can create not just the financial freedom, but the psychological security that you deserve as a Black woman by having your own business?

Since pulled it up and really was you know, this time she didn’t drag me by my way ponytail, she didn’t drag me by my baby hairs. She is now dragging me by my nose and my lashes. She’s like, Ah, no. What I didn’t know sis, was all this fear. That was no one but the devil, trying to convince me to not walk in my greatness. And again, fear succeeded. I went back into the classroom. I was like, well, I signed a contract. Okay, and the kids need me. Yes, kids need great educators, and you deserve psychological safety. You deserve to wake up and not be afraid of going to work. You deserve to go to the doctor when you need to, to use the bathroom when you need to take a day off when you need to, without being guilt-tripped. You deserve that haven that you’re creating in this classroom space in your professional space. They don’t exist for you in this space. I had to have that come to Jesus moment.

And when I did, I made $60,000 while teaching full-time, and consulting after school. Now, that was what I needed to prove to myself, that was worth my salary, that I proved to myself that I could make money. And in the number of hours that I was actually working to make that kind of money. Y’all, your girl was out. I was like at the end of the 2021 school year, and as I’m betting on myself, fear and fear, she pulled up sometimes she tried to get in my head, but she cannot have that grip on me that she used to have. I’m done with her. I’ll share more about like how I got to that mindset in a future episode. However, I wanted to share my story with you all, because it was in that 2020-2021 school year that I proved to myself, that I could bet on myself and create the space, the personal and financial, and professional freedom I desire without doing all the crazy hours, the disrespect from just every direction. I could learn or I could leverage the skills that got me to that point in my professional life and be incredibly positioned to leverage those skills in this entrepreneurial journey.

Now, there were some skills that just weren’t transferable. This is where I learned the power of E-mail marketing. This is where the seeds were being planted for leveled up with luxuries. There was the right storm of events, a pandemic, and everyone was at home. Digital marketing did they had a boom in 2020 because that was the only way to really reach people. And that was the primary way people were shopping and spending money and learning and spending time with each other. I mean, our digital footprint increased, like probably 1000-fold in 2020. I realized that through email, I could reach 1000s of just people in the community that I created. But also, I was reaching 1000s of my target audience, the ideal client, the person, the people that needed the services I provided my education consulting business.

And because I was showing up, and reaching out, consistently. I had a strategy because I had taken the time to really learn email marketing. I was seeing a return on that investment because all I had was time that summer. And even when we moved into, like Virtual Teaching, that was the time, it’s all many of us had. A lot of people pursue different things but I was hell-bent on making sure that this entrepreneurship thing got the shakes. So I realized that the skill I did not have was understanding marketing, but a skill I did have, was being able to connect authentically with people. So I took that, and I learned all about email marketing. I learned about how to build a sales funnel and last year, I didn’t take on any new clients for my education, consulting, business, and cue because Leveled Up with LaTrice became just something that got put on my heart to share this knowledge with Black and brown women. Even with only working for months last year, hit six figures with ease. And that doesn’t include some of the other contract work that I did last year, that’s just specifically in my Education consulting business.

So that milestone coupled with this narrative that I experienced over and over about Black women not belonging, not being their traditional face, not being the valued voice, and the experience of having Black and brown women make my professional life a living hell is what brought me to where I am today to creating Leveled Up with LaTrice, because deeply believe that entrepreneurship is the safest space for Black women. In this entrepreneurial space, you can find not only financial freedom, and professional freedom to monetize your gifts, solving real problems that folks have.

I also realized this is a space for healing, a space where you can be your whole authentic self like I can nerd out about E-mail marketing, which I’m going to do on this podcast but I can also really just stand up my whole self. I can just be my whole self in a way that I want to model for other Black and brown women who are taking that first journey into entrepreneurship or looking for community and for someone who has had similar experiences as them or who are, just looking for like, since I am starting a business, I don’t have a ton of money to invest in marketing. I don’t even know where to start with marketing. What’s the funnel? You’re talking about the thing in the kitchen mama used or used to put the grease back in a jar or maybe that was just me because we had different ones. We have one for chicken because you can’t fry chicken in the same groups that you frogfish that’s like a Black household rule, at least where I’m brown. You don’t mix the grease.

I just really wanted to create a space in a place where I could be my whole self and also, the educator in me can continue to pour relevant, necessary knowledge into Black and brown women who are looking to grow on their entrepreneurial journey. So with that, I’m going to rap episode two. This is crazy but thank you for listening, and I’ll be back with another episode soon.

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