Entrepreneurship is a challenging and daunting journey for anyone who embarks on it, but for women of color, fear can often be an ever-present companion. The harsh reality is that systemic oppression and discrimination can make entrepreneurship an uphill battle for women of color. Fear can manifest in many ways, from imposter syndrome to the fear of failure, and can hinder their success.

In this episode, I share how the oppression of women of color has increased fear and reduced women’s confidence in entrepreneurship. I talk about individualism in America and how it affects women of color, how Black exceptionalism has grown fear in women, and pushing in the state of hope by reframing failure. Tune in to learn more about this and other exciting topics!

[01:47] Individualism in America

[05:08] The incredible women in media

[06:33] How Black exceptionalism grows fear in women of color

[09:00] The letter from the teenage Black girl of the South

[12:20] Ways that individualism and Black exceptionalism impacts the psychology of women of color

[21:22] The state of fight or flight

[24:01] Pushing ourselves into a state of hope

[24:24] The power of reframing failure

[28:40] The scripture that helped me to face my fears and be me

Hey sis, welcome to the third episode of the Leveled Up with LaTrice podcast. This week, we are going to be talking about the way that fear shows up for specifically as badass Black and brown girls in entrepreneurship, but also taking a look at the way that oppression and the way that Black women are specifically treated within our society has taken this idea of fear to a level where it’ll have us sabotaging and getting in our own ways before we even try or launch or decide to pursue something or even our business at all. So with that, let’s dive in. I want to start with a conversation around a tenet of white supremacy culture. If you’re not familiar with the tenets of white supremacy culture, give it a quick Google search. You’ll find, I believe, there are 14 now. But the one I want to talk about that is, for me, an extension of fear, specifically for Black and brown women, is this idea of individualism.

We all have probably heard the phrase “rugged individualism,” and how it is an American, and specifically a white male American thing, you got to get down in the trenches and do it by yourself. You don’t count on anybody but yourself. But the reality is our ancestors. And arguably, all people have sustained not because of the ways they do not work together but because of the ways they do work together. Still, I want to focus on Black women and brown women and just people of color in this conversation because our experiences of being marginalized minoritized people in this country have forced us to work together even more than maybe in traditional cultures. We may have to depend on each other more than we have even considered or even realized we’ve had to depend on each other. And the idea of you can do it all by yourself is one a lot. It is a lie, and it helps keep us fearful because when we think that we have to do something by ourselves, and then we look at the scope of the thing that we’re trying to accomplish. It’s like this big mountain. In our minds, we’re like, how am I going to do that all by myself, an example for me is, and you’ll hear me talk about this season, this podcast, I am not doing it by myself. I have people who have inspired me to start a podcast. I have had people who helped me put together the tracks and the audio, and the social media posts you see. There is a team, there is a collective, behind the Leveled Up with LaTrice podcast.

This is not something that I am doing by myself. I never want that to be the narrative. I know that specifically for me as a Black woman, one thing that I bought into because it is so prevalent, like before I bought into this idea of Black exceptionalism, and we see this narrative play out all the time, even in 2023 right now. There are folks and media, people who play sports, people who are politicians, people that we love, but we see them promoted and operating on this, you know, the global stage, and we are told a single story. Often not a story of the collective that got them there but this story of struggle and trauma and just all they had to overcome to get to this point where now they are the exception.

They are the Black person that made it a media. A perfect example of this is Oprah. I believe Oprah is an incredible woman and there are other women in the media. But it’s very interesting that when we talk about women in media, before someone can name Robin Roberts, they can name Oprah Winfrey. There are other Black women who may not be familiar with, I’m from Atlanta, and you might not be familiar with Monica Kaufman or the late Jovita Moore. So I want to just elevate that, and an extension of the individualism is this story that is told to us, and every day the messages we received, that you have to have some sort of just exceptional story and road. You have to overcome everything and some of which we know that that’s just the lived experience of being Black in America.

However, for many of us, we are told this story that even if you do all of that, even if you get the Ivy League degree, even if you create this incredible thing, there is still no space for you on this global stage. So with that, I want to point out how this idea and how Black exceptionalism, from my perspective, works as a continuation of individualism and fear, makes us believe that we have to be twice as good to get just as far or even, we’re talking about this global stage, like 10 times as good to get just as far. And then it’s by some kind of stroke of luck, which we know is not true.

Barack Obama did not become the president of the United States with a stroke of luck. He and his family, his wife, Michelle Obama, and his children worked hard. There was a collective of people working behind the machine that propelled Barack Obama to the presidency, and he had to deal with some really shitty things. So with that, I want to just remind us that Black exceptionalism is beautiful to see our people on a global stage, is beautiful for them to get the recognition, and the love that they deserve. The other side of that narrative, a lot of times that we internalize. We may not internalize it consciously, but subconsciously, is that we can’t do that. There’s already a Barack Obama. So for many people, especially my generation, the Black politician, but that’s not true. You can literally do anything you want. You are exceptional by your birthright.

I was reading “The Light we Carry” by Michelle Obama, and she was talking about a letter that she received a letter from a young Black girl from the south, I want to say, Alabama, or Mississippi, but this beautiful Black girl dreamed of being bigger than Beyonce. And a lot of people are like, how dare you? And that’s how we create that space of Black exceptionalism where nobody else can be Beyonce. The reality is Beyonce has her own name, this girl, what she’s saying is she wants to be just as influential, just as big, and just as transformational as Beyonce. But she’s not, you know, looking to be Beyonce to Beyonce junior. But what we do when we hear things like that is we start to immediately count ourselves out, or immediately count for many people who heard that was like that girl and got the talent of Beyonce. You don’t know that. And that talent may not be in singing and dancing. What she’s saying is she wants to be bigger, better, and more influential. And I think that it is so brave that a teenage Black girl from the South has not internalized the messages that the world sends her about being a Black girl.

I want to point out that another like a further piece of evidence of this is how many of us probably all of us listening to this podcast. We’re like I know who Madam C. J. Walker is but there’s a reason that you don’t know who Annie Turnbo Pope Malone is. There is a reason that you don’t know who Dr. Traci Lynn is. And Dr. Traci Lynn is still alive and well and thriving with her own direct sales business, jewelry business, billion dollar business. A Black woman who, outside of I think, when she started, the only other direct sales businesses that were owned by Black people were deadly hair care. If you know, and even women-owned business, I think it was Mary Kay Ash so she pioneered her way in the direct sales industry. But there’s a reason you don’t hear about her as much as you hear about Madam C. J. Walker because one Black woman stuck to claim carved out her piece of history in the aspects of being an entrepreneur. The dominant narrative decided. We’re not going to talk about Annie Turnbo Pope Malone, okay. We’re not talking about Dr. Traci Lynn.

We’re not putting that image out there because it disrupts the belief that society wants us to have, which is we have to work twice as hard to get half as far or just as far, and the dominant narrative, does it want us Black and brown girls to see other badass Black and brown women achieving and succeeding at this entrepreneurship thing, because then we, God forbid, we start to internalize the belief that we can do it too.

Alright, so with that, I want us to move into just talking about some of the ways that this idea of individualism, how fear and the narrative of Black exceptionalism really impact the psyche of Black and brown women. So I know I am not talking to a stranger. I know; I’m not talking to someone who has not had an experience with the idea of the Black superwoman. I can do it all, just the mentality, or mindset that a lot of Black women have. Because that’s what the world tells us, we should be able to take all the hate, and we should be able to do all the work, and we should be okay with it. And because we live in a world where Malcolm X said it best, the Black woman is the most disrespected person.

We have also normalized Black women’s hyper response to fear. The constant exposure to living in the state of fight or flight is normal, and it is not, and living in entrepreneurship and living constantly in this state of fight or flight has so many impacts. In my earlier days of entrepreneurship, I vividly remember having so much anxiety around something as simple as choosing a name for my business. I would have so much anxiety around sending an email to my email list of people who want to be in contact with me like I would have so much anxiety. I will always have these thoughts of what if everything else in the world that could possibly go wrong goes wrong. Another way this has shown up for me in the past is what if no one buys, what if no one cares about this solution to the problem I’ve identified, and they don’t want to hear what I have to say?

This is an extension of constantly living in the fight or flight state of being and just spiraling a lot of times as Black women. We don’t even get to that spiraling because the fight or flight response is so real. We immediately, before we can even spiral or even start to assess what could be or what couldn’t be, fight or we immediately fly away from the opportunity. Like, I don’t know who here can relate to this, but if you’re listening to this, or you can relate to this, just give me a guess, like let me know, as you’re listening. If an idea has come to your mind for your business or even the idea of the business you now have, or you want to have this come to your mind, you’ve immediately just shut it now.

I have EDquity Consulting my first six-figure business, I got the idea in 2019. Edquity stayed a secret for over 365 days, y’all, because the first time it came to my mind, I immediately was like, Nope. Why? Because the world has told me, has conditioned me, and has socialized me to believe that entrepreneurship is not a space for Black and brown women. Entrepreneurship, having my own thing, I don’t have the qualifications or the experience. I didn’t know who to talk to and who not to talk to all of the things that kept me saying no, for a year. Now, I know there are things that you just learn. You don’t know who to talk to, you just start talking to people who you think have this problem, and you learn. I don’t know how to stay in contact with people. And then I quickly realized, oh, it’s not as difficult as I think. But that response to that fight or flight response was so strong that when I even had the inclination to try something new, I immediately told myself, no.

And then on the other side, I’ve experienced the fight, too. The fight looks like making things harder, creating battles out of simple decisions. One of those simple decisions I created an 18-month battle out of, and I’m here because I just want to be completely transparent with you, is hiring. I now have an incredible virtual assistant, but I created a battle out of hiring a virtual assistant because I didn’t trust myself. And then the first few virtual assistants I had, yes, a few. I’ll be honest with you, I went through three virtual assistants, and I didn’t trust myself enough to allow them to operate in their expertise in their genius. I was so afraid that I fought off help because I was afraid to let go of control. I was afraid to just take a step back and allow someone to help me, to let go of that individualism that I talked about earlier in the episode. I was afraid, and constantly being in this fight or flight state of being has so many impacts, not just on the businesses we want to create.

But there is a study that was done called Superwoman Schema by Dr. Cheryl Elwood. I will link it in the show notes for you all to have access to, but essentially this report, the research done, illustrated that there are health disparities, such as birth outcomes, obesity, and untreated depression, and all of those are linked to constantly existing in this fight or flight state of being all of those things are connected to our mal adaption to coping with our stress, y’all. I believe that our businesses should not be triggers or extensions of the real current relationship that Black and brown women have with depression and anxiety and the crisis around birthing and being a Black woman and obesity. Our businesses should not be an extension of those things, but I just like in our lives because of oppression, because of our lived experiences as Black and brown women, the reality is, we are so used and conditioned to existing in fight or flight that we have to consciously do the work of undoing that state in our personal lives, but also in our businesses. So just some way that I know, I have had to explicitly address fight or flight for myself is getting out of my own way. I shared about the hiring.

Another example of it’s even now that I have a virtual assistant who is incredible. I still struggle, and I’m having an active conversation with myself about taking tasks off my own plate. I don’t need to have my hands in the pot. My assistant is competent. My assistant is incredibly talented. They don’t need to be micromanaged, just like I felt. I knew I didn’t need to be micromanaged when I was in a classroom, and I am not creating a business that reproduces the toxicity that I experienced when I was working within the structure of someone else’s business, whether education is a business. I’m not creating a business that reproduces that toxicity. So another way it looks is like, when we are constantly living in a state of fight or flight, we create barriers. We create barriers, so we can fight them.

One example of this is, you know, building on the hiring piece, or the delegation piece, adding in all of these checkpoints where I have to go back and look over things. I realize now I’m taking those out. That’s an extra barrier that’s causing me to fight, that’s causing me to actually not lean into the ease that I have ventured into entrepreneurship to create for myself. And here, I just want to offer that the reality is our fight or flight response isn’t going anywhere. The fact that Black women live in a hyper state of fight or flight or fear is something that we didn’t choose. But because we have been socialized into this constant state, we have a choice. We can choose if we want to continue to create these false barriers or even the ones that exist. We can choose how the real ones that we exist. We can choose if we are going to allow them to cause us just grief and hardship or we can decide if we are going to look those barriers in the face, and not create made-up months. But the ones that do exist, like access to capital, even basic business knowledge that a lot of times is passed down in just familial knowledge because somebody else in the family was an entrepreneur or a parent was when we don’t have access to that.

We have to decide that instead of it pushing us into a state of fear, we can push ourselves into a state of hope, into a state of inspiration, into a state of can-do because badass Black girls, badass brown girls, we can do anything. So with that, I want to offer the power of the reframe. I realized that reframing has been something I have done in many places in my life over the years, but specifically reframing failure and it’s this quote, “What if I fail”, but in this is my take on the quote, beautiful, badass Black and brown girls, what if we fly? What if we take the stumbles on the roads, the learnings, not the failures, because it’s the power of the reframe, what if we take those lessons and we turn them into a just community, a lightning strike in this space of entrepreneurship, have badass Black and brown girls saying I’m gonna fly.

And a part of flying is being able to reframe the things that get in our way instead of a barrier. It is a lesson, and instead of a failure, it is experimentation. So when we become who we believe we are. We tap to become who we believe we are. We have to tap into the power of self. Just competence and a source of love that is within ourselves, and I am a God, girl, I might cuss a little God is not done with me. But I know that when we tap into a source of power and a source of love that is within us, that is our birth. That is the reason God gave His Only Son for us. I know that we can start moving away from the fear we experience with just the thought of creating a business that can transform the world and that can build generational wealth for our families or whatever you want to do within your business.

One way I do this is by starting to use our words or use my words to affirm that I can be I will be the person that God has allowed me to dream up in my head. And one thing you will hear me is I’m that girl, and it’s not from a place of being cocky or arrogant. It’s from a place of affirming that I have everything in me. I have everything I need, I don’t need any additional certifications. I don’t need any additional degrees. I don’t need the affirmation or the confirmation from a capitalistic society that is hinged on people like me not succeeding. I don’t need validation from anyone but the source of love and power that I have in myself. And that source of love and power starts with believing and knowing that what God has for me is for me. He created me with a purpose, just as he created you.

And with that, I want to just give you all a scripture that really helps me and reminds me of what it looks like to become who I believe I am. And that Scripture is 2 Corinthians 3:18, which says, and we all with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. And what I take from this scripture is we become what we behold. When we center God’s love and belief in ourselves and the seed that he planted in our minds and has called us to sow into the world when we believe in that we become that thing. Our steps are going to be guided. Will there be obstacles and challenges along the way? Of course, but when we stay steadfast in doing the work, and holding the belief and remembering the belief and the promise that God has made to us, we can literally do everything and fear becomes a non-factor.

So I am going to wrap up episode 3 of Leveled Up with LaTrice, the very first season of my podcast. I want to offer this to you. Breaking up with fear and pursuing a lifelong relationship with faith is what I have taken away to be the truest explanation of entrepreneurship. You have to break up with the idea that you are going to have more fear, you’re going to allow fear to run you to control you more than the faith that you have in your ability and God’s promise to you to be and become the entrepreneur that you envision. And also, the reminder says faith without work is work is dead, right like that asks us to have faith the size of a mustard seed and with that, we can move mountains. But we also have to do the work of moving the mountain, we just can’t have faith that the thing can that this business, this entrepreneurial journey will be successful. We’ve got to do the work and we have to invest in our skill set, invest in our development and just invest in ourselves, invest in the help we need, invest in the tools we need.