Archives for December 2022

21st Century Black Women Millionaires Manifesto

If I am the only millionaire in my family, I am broke.
  
If I am the only millionaire in my community, I am poor.
 

If I am the only millionaire at “The Table” I am powerless to affect change.

My solution: Make. More. Black. Women, Millionaires.
 
We will NEVER be free as a People
until we heal and have our own money.
 
To fund our own dreams. 
  
Our OWN institutions.
Our OWN political super PACs.
  
I’m on a mission from God.
  
Dr. King organized every dimension of his life for equality for all—
Like Yahweh organized every aspect of his existence to fulfill the Law—
  
I give my life to this Call:
  
The emotional freedom
and economic affluence of Black People
worldwide.
 
Starting at home.
 
With my Sister Entrepreneurs.
 
Why?
 
Because we MOVE things.
 
We walk in our OWN authority as the embodiment of God.
  
We’re tired of waiting for justice, fair shots, support, and/or access.
  
We are DONE with hope, social niceties, and the illusion of “equality.”
  
We are not afraid to bet on ourselves.
We invest in ourselves, gladly.
We put our money “in” us not “on” us.
  
As an act of rebellion.
  
We put in the internal work
to stop slaving and start soaring
in ALL areas of our lives.
  
We heal to transform the historical and economic trajectory of our bloodline.
  
To all the condescending gatekeepers—
Toxic masculinity narcissists
White privileged connoisseurs—
Oppression masquerading as “inclusion,”
  
hear us loud and clear:
 
We. Don’t. Need. You.
 
We are DONE playing your “validation”
“hurry up and wait,” and
“let’s work together” games—
  
Only to turn Us into your emotional and economic workhorse.
  
No.
Not anymore.
Playtime is over.
 
WALK WITH ME FOR A MOMENT AND IMAGINE…
 
OUR CHILDREN
Black girls knowing they are worth more than what’s in between their legs…
 
Black boys railroaded into STEM instead of the prison pipeline by the 3rd grade.
 
 
OUR RELATIONSHIPS
The broken trust between Black Women and Men healed so our families stop being a bed of violence and become our safe haven…
  
Black Men monetizing their ingenuity instead acting out the historical violence that was acted out on them…
  
Black Women being so safe we relax into our femininity without giving up our power, which we gracious move effortlessly between the two.
 
OUR MONEY
We lend instead of borrow…
 
We monetize our “knowledge” instead of our “time or skilled labor”…
 
We no longer living for instant gratification
 
but bask in the fulfillment of delayed satisfaction.
 
 
OUR CULTURE
We no longer need to fight through gatekeepers, glass ceilings, or brick walls of invisible social roadblocks because we have OUR OWN…
 
We stop being the “cars” of culture and
 
start OWNING the “highways” that our cultural currency moves on.
 
 
OUR LEGACY
We ENSURE effortless wealth for the next 10 generations created in the next 3-5 years, with ease…
 
We live our legacy now…
  
We cultivate and relish empowering empathetic relationships where love, accountability, and grace are our norm…
 
OUR wholeness heals the human race.
  
The Dalai Lama said it will be the Western woman who saves the world.
 
I say it will be the:
 
Healed
Whole &
Financially Free Black Woman who transforms it.
  
Sis, that woman, is You.
 

Surviving the Season

Two years ago, today, my brother Tory died from COVID.

Surprise is an understatement.

Here is a short video about how I’m coping with all the holiday cheer when it feels so hollow to me: https://fb.watch/hD9fYM48WX/?mibextid=qC1gEa

Holidays have always been a bit challenging. Now I just watch them pass with very little enthusiasm. Be clear: I love all the positivity, and I’m not trying to rain on ANYONE’S parade. I’m learning how to honor my needs as much as make room for others to do what brings the peace and joy.

Simply put: I’ve learned to let me grieve instead of trying to feel “merry.”

Here are three strategies I use to survive the holiday season:

1. I let myself grieve. Grief comes in waves and when it wants to. I allow myself to feel and don’t invalidate my process.

2. I tell the truth about what I have emotional capacity for. I let a friend know that I’m grieving and will not have the emotional capacity to engage up until the new year. By so doing I’m honoring our friendship instead of going ghost and having people worry about me.

3. I focus on the future. I’m still alive so I get to do what God has called me to do. I can grieve and grow and create. Yes, I may take some cry breaks. That lets me know I am healing in a healthy way instead of stuffing it and pressing through.

I hope these three strategies help you cope with the inherit stress of the holiday season, especially if you have lost a loved one.

Please know you are not alone in this.

I’m right there with you.

In my mind all of our loved ones are looking down from heaven cheering us on!
And I am grateful.

I love you,

Dr. Venus

Nanna’s Love Kept Me Alive

If I tell the truth, I have considered death instead of life.

For many years I related to being alive as Hell and death as Heaven.

If I tell the truth…

…as my head was being bashed into a wall or stomped senseless
or made to swallow…

I prayed God would end the pain by ending my life.

I have, in socially acceptable ways, tried to kill myself, without raising alarm.

—Starving myself.
—Putting my finger down my throat to puke.
—Red wine in a brown paper bag.
—Unprotected sex.
—Hot tubs of water.

Self-harm is the precursor to suicide.

When I was in graduate school for my first master’s degree, I became depressed. I was isolated in Ohio among covert racist white people. Peers and faculty.

I felt alone.
Sabotaged.
Defeated.

I starved myself down to 99 lbs.

When Nanna saw me she started to cry.

Nanna is not a crier.
I told her I was fine.
She took me home.

She loved me back to life.

She cared for me.
She listened.
She let me know I was not alone.

Truth be told, Nanna has saved my life more than once.

She is the only reason I haven’t ended it.

I just couldn’t stand the idea of her crying over me.

Nanna has been saving my life ever since I was sixteen. She has loved me into wellness. I couldn’t decimate her love by taking my life.

She made it safe to tell her how I was truly feeling.

She bought me Freedom from Anxiety and Depression tapes when I couldn’t get out of bed for six months.

She never judged me for all the bad things I did to stay alive during my childhood and on the streets.

She took away the condemnation.
She gave me personal development books.
She took me to transformational seminars.

She let her lights be cut off so she could send me money while I was in college.

She LOVED me.

Nanna’s love saved my life.
From the streets and from myself.

You never know whose life you are going to save.

You don’t know what people are carrying.

Here’s the truth: checking on a person, listening with a compassionate heart and a kind word can be the difference between ending it all or trying again tomorrow.

In the wake of ‘tWitch Boss’ suicide, (husband, father of three, celebrity) I’m reflecting on why I’m still alive.

And the answer is not my will power, success, accomplishments, degrees. or millions.

The answer is love.

Nanna cared enough to be kind.
Nanna, my 9th grade math teacher, cared enough about a smelly, dirty teen who only came to school to get the free lunch was kind.

I was too beaten down by life to ask for help. All I could do was pray.

Nanna was the answer to that prayer.

She was and will always be the truest express of God made manifest in a human body in my life.

I am so very grateful.
And I am alive.

But God

If I tell the truth, the REAL truth…
 
I feel like I am drowning in the bigness God has for my life. 
 
I believe God kept me alive for a purpose bigger than me.
 
And right now, I feel like I am SOOOOOOOOO ill-equipped for the Call.
 
I’m starting to deal with the notion that the Enemy attacks on ALL sides right when one is on the precipice of fulfilling that which one’s life is for.
 
I listened to an online pastor who said the Enemy has more faith in me than I do. 🤯
 
That broke my brain. But I get it now.
 
I know I can make a tangible difference in the emotional and economic freedom of Black Women, world-wide, by teaching us how to monetize our knowledge instead of our time, skill, or labor.
 
Due to my expertise (and my well-being), I am choosing to focus my business brain on successful, established, experienced but truly exhausted Black Women entrepreneurs.
 
It used to take me three years to position Black Women Entrepreneurs to break their first million. Now, I can get established sister entrepreneurs to the million-dollar make in one year or less.
 
When a Black Woman heals, she heals a nation.
 
When a Black Woman has her own money, she liberates the world.
 
Generational wealth is not a function of money; it’s a function of trust.
Trusting yourself.
Trusting others who are trustworthy.
Trusting God.
Trusting the process.
 
You have to heal to trust.
 
ALL levels of trust require integrity in order to be valid.
 
All levels of integrity have to be verified in order to be trustworthy.
My ability to receive all the abundance, affluence, and love that is my divine birthright is dependent upon this one question: do I trust myself? Can I count on me to finish what God speared my life for—even when it’s hard and even heart-breaking?
 
If I tell the truth, I feel like God has been trying to kill me.
In preparation to manifest this new enterprise, I have had to and continue to die my dependencies on others, hope for help, ease, as well as certainty.
 
Said another way: God is growing me up.
Breakdown, after disappointment, after problem, after thwarted intention, after breakdown feels like death.
 
I’m discerning it’s refinement.
 
Fires purify.
 
And on the other side of the fire, is pure gold.
 
“Thou he slay me, yet will I trust him.”
 
When I ground in God, I move from healing to being whole.
 
In that wholeness, I find rest in the sweet arms of trust.
 
This new enterprise, offer, brand—EVERYTHING—is born in trusting God with all of me.
If I am being honest, I don’t know how it will be received.
 
I trust God.
I trust myself to implement until I manifest destiny.
I trust the process that is revealing itself as I walk in faith and not by sight.
 
Regardless of how it looks or feels…
 
…I know God would never given me a dream that’s wasn’t already manifested in the mind of God.
I count it good.
 
THIS IS HAPPENING!
 
And I am grateful…