She Built Success

Sometimes the pieces of your career don't make sense until years later.

In this episode, I sit down with Brittany Coleman, content studio owner, communications strategist and photographer, to talk about career changes, motherhood, entrepreneurship and what happens when skills you thought you'd left behind suddenly become useful again.

Brittany originally thought she was headed toward politics and law.

Then came communications and more than 15 years working across PR, branding and digital communications.

Eventually, the pace and demands of PR stopped fitting the life she wanted. She had become a mom. She didn't want the same travel schedule, late hours and constant pressure of asking, “What's next?”

So another version of her career started taking shape.

Photography. Digital content. Branding.

And then a skill from college resurfaced.

Brittany had minored in radio, television and film at Howard University, largely because changing her major would have delayed graduation. Years later, those lessons about video, lighting and production became directly relevant to the business she was building.

That's when we get into one of my favorite ideas from this conversation: the puzzle pieces.

Something you're doing today may not make sense yet.

It may simply be a piece you haven't had to place.

We also talk about Brittany's year-long process of opening her content studio, including going after the same space multiple times, losing it to another applicant and eventually getting the call that it was hers.

Then we get into raising a family without local family support, allowing different seasons of your life to require different things from you and Brittany's evolving definition of success.

For her, success stopped being primarily about what she could buy.

It became about owning more of her time.

In this episode:

00:00 Intro

00:35 Meet Brittany Coleman

01:47 Being a woman with multiple roles and interests

04:24 How PR burnout led Brittany in a different direction

06:21 Moving from traditional PR into digital content

07:27 The college minor that became useful years later

08:38 The long road to opening her content studio

11:16 When the space finally became hers

12:51 Raising a family without family nearby

16:01 Why time became Brittany's definition of success

18:31 Bringing the pieces of her business together

20:12 What to do when you can't see how your own puzzle pieces fit

21:51 Closing thoughts

What's a skill, job or experience from your past that makes more sense now than it did when you were going through it?

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She Built Success explores the stories behind what we build through conversations about business, leadership and personal growth.

You are allowed to be more than one thing.

A mom. A partner. A CEO. A friend. A founder. A woman figuring something out. A woman who's really good at something else.

All of it can belong to you.

In this episode, I’m talking about what being multifaceted means to me and why I don't believe we have to shrink ourselves into one title just because it makes us easier for other people to understand.

And naturally, I start with a story about middle-school Claudia falling in front of an entire school bus while dressed like Dionne from Clueless.

I can still picture the outfit.

I can also still picture the fall.

But what I remember most is getting up and laughing.

That story may seem completely unrelated to business, motherhood or leadership, but there's something about that version of me that I've carried into every other part of my life.

I bring my personality with me.

That's part of being multifaceted.

I talk about how that shows up in motherhood, in my relationship, as a CEO, as a nonprofit founder and as someone who was learning to fly. I also talk about why being a CEO isn't only about strategy, systems and numbers. The relationships I have with the people on my team matter too.

Then we get into vision.

My goals have never existed in only one category. I think about business, family, relationships, faith, health, personal interests and the other pieces that make up my life.

That doesn't mean everything gets equal attention at the same time.

There is always give and take.

The goal isn't to have every part of my life operating at full capacity simultaneously. It's to understand what matters in the season I'm in without pretending the other parts of me stopped existing.

And there's a line from this episode that still captures it for me:

I am not defined by my life's circumstances. They only contribute to who I am.

We're a tapestry, not a single thread.

In this episode:

00:00 Intro

00:27 What being a multifaceted woman means to me

00:44 The middle-school story I still remember

03:07 Why we don't have to fit into one title

03:47 Motherhood, relationships and bringing all of yourself

05:47 What being multifaceted looks like in leadership

07:47 Building a vision for your whole life

09:16 Being vulnerable and allowing yourself to be a work in progress

12:00 Why I chose entrepreneurship

13:15 The life circumstances that contribute to who we become

14:17 Showing up fully as yourself

Finish this sentence in the comments: I'm more than a ________.

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She Built Success explores the stories behind what we build through conversations about business, leadership and personal growth.

Getting people into tech is one thing. Creating an environment where they can actually succeed is another.

In this episode, I sit down with Jasmine Waring, CEO and co-founder of WinBridge Consulting, to talk about the tech talent gap, leadership, representation and what companies need to think about beyond simply hiring more people.

Jasmine didn't start her career in tech. After ten years in the medical device and pharmaceutical industry, she entered the tech industry during the pandemic and quickly noticed something.

There weren't many Black people around her, and even fewer Black women.

But representation wasn't the only issue.

She saw people from different backgrounds entering tech without necessarily having the support, development and infrastructure they needed to succeed once they got there.

That experience eventually became part of the reason she built WinBridge Consulting.

We talk about identifying skill gaps before someone is expected to perform, why talent development needs involvement from business leaders and how succession planning becomes increasingly important when experienced employees are leaving without a strong pipeline behind them.

And we clear up something I think is still worth saying:

Working in tech does not automatically mean coding.

Jasmine didn't come from a technical background. We talk about the importance of communication, collaboration, leadership and other transferable skills alongside learning the technology required for a particular role.

Then we take the conversation beyond business.

Jasmine shares what entrepreneurship looks like while raising teenagers, what she hopes her children learn from watching her make bold decisions and why her definition of success includes making an impact, solving meaningful problems and getting paid for the value you create.

In this episode:

00:00 Intro

00:35 How Jasmine and I reconnected after more than a decade

01:19 The experiences that led her to build WinBridge Consulting

03:03 The skills gap she saw inside tech

04:34 Why talent development isn't only an HR responsibility

06:28 Representation, leadership and bringing different perspectives into tech

08:12 Succession planning and building the next talent pipeline

10:12 Why working in tech doesn't necessarily mean coding

12:06 How Jasmine defines success

15:20 Entrepreneurship, motherhood and letting your children see the journey

20:21 What Jasmine wants the next generation to understand about tech

22:13 Closing thoughts

What skill or experience do you already have that could transfer into an industry you've never considered?

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She Built Success explores the stories behind what we build through conversations about business, leadership and personal growth.

Apparently, I have an operations brain.

I didn't know that was a thing.

I've always loved frameworks, systems, processes, data and knowing what happens next.

To me, structure has always felt like a natural part of getting things done.

Then I started talking to friends who work in operations and realized that the way my brain works isn't necessarily how every CEO's brain works.

So in this episode, I’m taking you behind the scenes of mine.

I share some of the systems I use to run my business, manage my team, track goals, capture ideas and create enough structure that everything doesn't have to live inside my head.

And yes, we need to talk about Airtable because I use it for almost everything.

Podcast management. Team information. Time entry. Company purchases. Goals. Content. Brain dumps. Workflows.

But this episode isn't really about convincing you to use Airtable.

It's about understanding what a good system is supposed to do for you.

For me, systems create visibility. They help my team know what's happening without needing me to repeat the same information. They help us track progress, move work through different stages and create a consistent experience for the people we serve.

I also talk about my data background and why I naturally look for patterns, trends and information that can help me make decisions.

And the systems don't stop at business.

I use structure in my personal life too. From family routines to grocery lists and household communication, there are small systems that reduce the number of things everyone has to remember.

That's really the point.

You don't need to systematize your entire existence.

But there may be one thing you're constantly remembering, repeating, chasing or rebuilding that could use a little more structure.

In this episode:

00:00 Why I wanted to talk about systems and frameworks

00:38 Discovering that I have an operations brain

01:45 What operations means to me

02:07 Why Airtable became one of my primary tools

03:53 How my data background shapes the way I build systems

05:12 How I track goals and ideas

07:34 Using systems to manage work across a team

09:00 Turning ideas into repeatable processes

10:45 Why writing things down matters to me

12:00 How systems create more flexibility, not less

16:01 The systems and routines I use at home

21:01 One place to start

What's one thing in your business or personal life that you're tired of having to remember, repeat or recreate? That's probably a good place to start building a system.

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She Built Success explores the stories behind what we build through conversations about business, leadership and personal growth.

Tax planning shouldn't start when it's time to file your return.

In this episode, I sit down with my tax strategist, Erica Whatley, to talk about how business owners can think more strategically about taxes as their companies grow.

We start with newer businesses and the importance of understanding the foundation you've created. Why did you choose your business structure? What actually qualifies as a business expense for your company? Do you understand what came in, what went out and what the numbers are telling you?

Then we move into what changes as revenue grows.

Erica explains why tax planning becomes more involved as the business gets larger, why forecasting matters and why there isn't one magic revenue number that determines the right strategy for every entrepreneur.

A million-dollar company with two employees can look very different from a million-dollar company with nine.

And the business owner's personal circumstances and goals matter too.

We also talk about LLCs, S corporations and C corporations, what business owners should understand before making structural decisions and why educating yourself matters even when you have professionals helping you.

This conversation connects directly to the money-team discussion from the previous episode because having experts around you doesn't mean handing over responsibility for understanding your own business.

You still need to know enough to ask good questions.

In this episode:

00:00 Intro

00:24 Meet my tax strategist, Erica Whatley

01:02 Tax planning at different stages of business

03:33 How tax planning changes as your company grows

06:07 Planning for revenue increases and decreases

07:17 Why forecasting matters

09:08 Product-based versus service-based businesses

10:44 Understanding different business structures

13:42 How Erica defines success

20:12 Building the right financial team around your business

25:28 Preparing for changes and continuing to educate yourself

What part of your business finances do you know you need to understand better instead of simply handing it off to someone else?

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She Built Success explores the stories behind what we build through conversations about business, leadership and personal growth.

My money team didn't appear overnight.

I built it over time as my life, family and business changed.

In this episode, I’m breaking down the three people I have on my money team, what each person helps me think through and why I wanted my financial conversations to connect my business decisions with what I was building personally.

My money team includes a tax strategist, CFO and wealth manager.

But the story of building that team goes back much further.

After my husband passed, I knew I needed to think differently about finances, estate planning and what I wanted to build for my daughters. I met with a wealth manager, but I eventually realized I wanted something more cohesive than conversations about individual accounts or goals.

I wanted to be able to look at the full picture.

Years later, as I was rebuilding Capital Consulting Group, I started researching the people I knew I would eventually need around me.

One of those people was a CFO.

At the time, I wasn't ready to hire the person I wanted. So I literally put her name and role on a Post-it as part of the team I was working toward building.

Then I told her I’d be back.

A year later, I was.

In this episode, I explain how I think about the different roles on my money team, the kinds of conversations we have and why those conversations extend beyond simply looking at what came in and what went out.

We talk about projections, new business opportunities, taxes, personal goals, retirement, family planning and whether a potential opportunity actually makes financial sense for the Company.

I also share why my money team meets together quarterly.

Because I don't want three financial professionals giving me advice from three completely separate perspectives. I want us to be able to look at where we're going together, compare that against what we planned and adjust when something changes.

And if you're nowhere near having all three of these people yet, that's okay.

I didn't start there either.

In this episode:

00:00 Intro

01:09 The three people on my money team

01:49 Why I started thinking differently about financial planning

03:19 How I chose my CFO before I could afford to hire her

05:00 What my CFO helps me think through

06:38 The role of my tax strategist

08:32 Finding the right wealth management relationship

11:00 Connecting personal and business financial decisions

13:59 Why my money team meets together quarterly

15:30 The relationships behind the numbers

17:15 Starting with the team you actually need

18:00 Closing thoughts

Who is already on your money team, and what financial perspective might still be Missing?

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She Built Success explores the stories behind what we build through conversations about business, leadership and personal growth.

What happens when the business you never planned to start grows into something much bigger than you?

In this episode, I sit down with Ava Williams for a conversation about entrepreneurship, leadership, fear and what it takes to keep evolving as the business changes.

Ava didn't set out to become an entrepreneur.

She was questioning whether the work she was doing was what she wanted to be remembered for. She eventually took a sabbatical, went to flight school and started trying to figure out what was next.

Then former clients started asking if they could continue working with her.

The business essentially happened to her.

What started as a way to do meaningful work on her own eventually became a company with a team, multiple offers and a very different level of responsibility.

We talk about the shift from solopreneur to CEO, including learning how to manage people when you've never managed employees before, dealing with imposter syndrome and recognizing that growing a team also means knowing other families now depend on the company you're building.

Ava also shares something I think a lot of entrepreneurs need permission to consider: you get to decide what kind of entrepreneur you actually want to be.

A larger team isn't automatically the goal. Neither is staying solo. The question is what you're trying to build and what you want your life to look like alongside it.

And after years of pushing for more, Ava talks about entering a season where going slower started to feel like progress too.

In this episode:

00:00 Meet Ava Williams

00:33 How Ava found aviation

01:52 Moving through fear after a life-changing experience

02:29 Ava's connection to the beginning of Black Girls Fly

03:33 Bringing an engineering lens to organizational strategy

04:05 How Ava accidentally became an entrepreneur

08:52 Going beyond surface-level organizational change

12:22 Redefining success as the company grew

15:30 Why entrepreneurship exposes your weak areas

15:54 Going from solopreneur to leading a team

18:20 When flexibility becomes part of success

19:58 How relocating affected Ava's business

23:17 Entering a season of going slower

27:24 What Ava wants other entrepreneurs to remember

28:44 Closing thoughts

Has the business you have today become different from the one you originally thought you were building?

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She Built Success explores the stories behind what we build through conversations about business, leadership and personal growth.

Black Girls Fly started with a dream.

Literally.

About ten years before I founded the nonprofit, I had a dream that involved two things that probably won't surprise anyone who knows me: a purse and travel.

But the part I couldn't forget was being driven across a tarmac toward a private jet.

Years later, I was sitting around the dinner table with my family when my daughters could easily name my partner's hobbies but couldn't name mine.

That conversation eventually led me back to aviation.

At first, this was personal. I wanted something that was mine, and learning to fly became that thing. But while researching aviation and becoming a student pilot, I started looking more closely at representation in the industry.

That's when the idea became bigger than me.

In this episode, I’m sharing the story behind founding Black Girls Fly, Inc., why I wanted to focus on women who may have put aviation on hold for family, career, finances or life and the vision I had for creating more than a one-time scholarship.

I wanted to help create a path.

I also talk about something that nearly delayed the nonprofit longer than necessary: my own fear.

I had formed companies before, but establishing a nonprofit felt different. I got caught up worrying that one decision on the paperwork could limit what Black Girls Fly could eventually become.

The vision wasn't the problem.

I was afraid of getting the execution wrong.

Eventually I had to submit the application anyway.

This is the story of how something that began as a personal interest became a mission I knew needed to extend beyond me.

In this episode:

00:00 Reigniting dreams in aviation

00:56 The dream that eventually led me back to flying

02:20 How a family conversation changed something for me

03:36 When my aviation hobby became a bigger mission

05:26 The original vision for Black Girls Fly

06:00 Building the nonprofit and getting stuck in my own head

08:24 When fear delayed action

10:01 Why I wanted women to reconsider the dreams they'd paused

12:20 Building something that wasn't supposed to happen overnight

13:35 Representation and the impact of seeing someone who looks like you

15:00 Why your “why” matters

What dream or interest have you put down because life took you in another Direction?

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She Built Success explores the stories behind what we build through conversations about business, leadership and personal growth.

Sometimes the year after your best year doesn't go the way you thought it would.

In this episode, I sit down with Keshia M. White, founder of White House Branding Studios, for a transparent conversation about what building a creative business actually looked like behind the polished websites and branding.

Keshia started learning web design while she was still working in corporate. What began with creating a website for her own lifestyle blog eventually became a skill she developed, practiced and turned into a business.

But it wasn't an overnight transition.

She shares what those early years looked like, why she financially prepared before leaving corporate and how it took several years of full-time entrepreneurship before the business really started performing the way she wanted.

Then came a year that challenged the formula she'd built.

After a strong year, Keshia expected to keep doing what had been working. Instead, leads slowed down and she had to rethink how she was generating business. That meant adding cold outreach, taking on agency work, networking differently and finding new ways to create opportunities.

We also talk about the lessons that don't always make the entrepreneurial highlight reel: overspending on coaching, learning to manage business finances, understanding your numbers and realizing that good work, strong client experiences and relationships can matter more than constantly looking for the next strategy.

And because Keshia is a UX designer, we get practical too. She explains what user experience actually means and why a good website should make it easy for visitors to understand what to do next.

In this episode:

00:00 Meet Keshia White of White House Branding Studios

00:55 How Keshia defines success

02:12 Learning web design while working in corporate

04:39 Preparing financially to leave her job

06:02 When the business formula that worked stopped working

11:07 What UX design actually means for a website

14:10 Learning to manage the money behind the business

18:25 Thinking about what comes next for the agency

22:06 Keshia's advice for other small business owners

25:33 Closing thoughts

Have you ever reached a point where what used to work in your business suddenly stopped working? What did you change?

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She Built Success explores the stories behind what we build through conversations about business, leadership and personal growth.

I knew I wanted to own a company before I really knew what owning a company meant.

In this episode, I’m taking you back through the path that eventually led me to consulting, government contracting and building Capital Consulting Group.

And it definitely wasn't a straight line.

I talk about going from being the student who rarely had to study to struggling academically when I got to college. I share how someone took a chance on me for an internship even though my GPA didn't meet the stated requirement and why I reached back out years later to thank him for seeing something beyond the numbers.

That internship also became part of a much larger strategy for me.

I knew I eventually wanted my own company, so while I was working inside a Fortune 500 company, I was paying attention. I watched how they hired, onboarded people, built systems, managed projects, worked globally and structured teams.

I wasn't only doing my job. I was studying how companies worked.

Eventually that path took me into consulting and then government contracting, where I had another learning curve waiting for me.

I also talk about something I believed then and still think is important now: government contracting can be simple to understand without being easy to execute.

There is research, relationship building, strategy, patience and infrastructure behind the contracts people sometimes make look effortless online.

This episode is less about a formula for winning contracts and more about the experiences, decisions and lessons that shaped the business I ultimately built.

In this episode:

00:00 Why government contracting isn't as easy as it can look

00:33 Knowing I wanted a company from an early age

01:25 Why I chose corporate before entrepreneurship

02:39 The internship that changed my trajectory

05:48 What I learned inside a Fortune 500 company

08:00 My move from corporate into consulting

11:46 How I entered government contracting

14:29 The realities behind pursuing government contracts

17:41 How those experiences shaped Capital Consulting Group

24:51 What I'd tell someone considering this path today

25:33 Closing thoughts

What experience from an earlier part of your career are you still using in the way you build today?

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She Built Success explores the stories behind what we build through conversations about business, leadership and personal growth.

Note: This episode reflects my experience and perspective at the time it was recorded.

Government contracting requirements, programs and processes can change, so always verify current requirements with the appropriate government source.