First Not Only Network

In the first First Not Only Network podcast episode, Director of Operations Asha Hunter interviews founder Janis Middleton about fear, career pivots, and building community for Black and brown women in professional spaces. Janis shares three early-career lessons: you don’t need a title to have a voice, career paths aren’t linear so stay flexible toward your purpose, and build a life outside work because fulfillment shifts by season.

She recounts finding her voice in her mid-30s after leaving a role that made her question her worth, embracing authenticity, and later creating a diversity leadership role at her agency guided by a purpose statement: “to create opportunities and spaces for all people to thrive.”

Janis explains how an initial gathering of 80 women grew into First Not Only Network, highlights intentional connection and “lifting while you climb,” reflects on two years of impact, and discusses becoming an entrepreneur after leaving her agency.

Learn more about Janis and the First, Not Only Network here https://www.firstnotonly.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/firstnotonlynetwork/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/first-not-only-network/home/

Director of Operations: Asha Hunter

Podcast Producer: Walter Gainer Ii @itsthegreatwalt

CHAPTERS

(00:00) Welcome To The First Not Only Network Podcast

(01:44) Mentorship in Hard Times

(02:27 Three Career Truths

(08:47) Finding Your Voice

(13:28) Owning Power and Identity

(17:39) Purpose Statement Breakthrough

(21:18) Building DEI Slow and Steady

(25:42) First Not Only Spark

(30:43) No More Icebreakers

(31:54) The Speech That Set It Off

(32:58) Lifting While You Climb

(36:32) Holding the Door Open

(40:30) Two Years of Network Wins

(42:20) Fox Theater Milestone

(46:23) From Corporate to Founder

(49:11) Rapid Fire

Growth doesn't happen in a straight line. It happens in seasons like a garden if you will. There's the season where everything's dormant, and it feels like nothing is happening at all. There's the season where you're all root, no bloom — doing the invisible work nobody claps for. And then, if you tended it right, there's the season where you're finally in full bloom.

This show is for all three. Every episode, we're sitting down with people who've done the growing — in public, in private, in boardrooms, in the middle of a total replant or pivot.

We're not just here for the bloom though. We want the whole root system: the failure that fed the soil, the pivot nobody saw coming, the season they almost gave up on the garden entirely. Because if you've ever been the first — or the only one — you already know something about growing in conditions you weren't necessarily planted for. You know that growth isn't optional. It's how you survive. And eventually, it's how you thrive.

So consider this your garden. A place you come back to, season after season, to see what's actually possible when something gets planted, tended, and given time.

I'm Janis Middleton, and this is The First, Not Only Network Podcast.

Learn more at https://www.firstnotonly.com/

Host: Janis Middleton, Founder of the First, Not Only Network

Asha Hunter, Director of Operations for the First, Not Only Network

Produced by Walter Gainer II