Dre and I created what we call the 4 F’s (fitness, family, finances, and faith). It’s the 4 things that we focus on in order to establish balance in our lives and in our relationships. 

Let’s talk about each one in detail:

1. Fitness: this refers to physical health and wellness

Whether you are a CEO or just a go-getter at work, it's easy to let things like exercise and diet go by the wayside once things get busy in the office. But your body is the only one you get and you have to take of it.

2. Family: this also includes friends and your spouse

How balanced do you feel with your family & friend time? What's your relationship like with your spouse? Your kids? How about your parents and extended family members? Your relationships should be important no matter how busy things get at work.

3. Finances: this refers to whatever you do to make an income and how you budget your money.

Even though making money is important, it is not everything. Creating boundaries for how much time you spend working or making money is such as important as managing the money you’re making.

4. Faith: Your spirituality

The final aspect of living a balanced life is your spiritual side. This could be anything from taking a walk in the woods to making a trip to church on Sunday-whatever fills up your spiritual cup.

If you focus on these 4 F’s you will be able to start organizing the different areas in your life in efforts to begin to find balance!

I wanted to share some other random tips that come to mind when I think of balance:

1. Quit Trying to Multi-Task

If you want “balance” why are you trying to do multiple things at once? Stop that right now! Multi-tasking realistically limits our production and reduces our capabilities.

2. Shut it Down

When your workday is over, let it be over; shut it down and leave or if you work from home like me, shut it down and leave the laptop in the other room haha! If you are working crazy hours every day, you will never establish a work-life balance. Become more intentional during your normal work hours to accomplish your “must-do tasks,” and if you don’t get to the other items on your to-do list, they can wait until tomorrow. If something absolutely cannot wait, make arrangements to stay late to complete it; however, this should never turn into the “norm.”

3. Give Your Best at Home
Plenty of people desire a healthy work-life balance, yet as soon as they get home, they crash. If you are giving your family or spouse your “leftovers” at the end of each day, eventually, that’s exactly what you’ll get in return. Instead, do whatever you need to do to “recharge your battery,” then give them your absolute best; they deserve it, and so do you!

And if you don’t have a family or spouse, this applies to friends as well.

4. Be Absolutely Present!

Whatever you are doing, or whoever you are doing it with, be absolutely present. All too often, our lives are out of balance because we get preoccupied with so many distractions; we lose focus on what’s right in front of us. If you really want a better balance in your life, start being absolutely, totally present wherever you are.

5. Set Boundaries

For many people, it can be difficult to know how to set boundaries or say "no" to others. Of course, there are many times when saying "yes" is a great thing! But learning how to set boundaries and how to say "no" is the key to sustaining a healthy relationship with yourself and others.

So overall, determine what things in your life are a priority, schedule out the necessary time to each of those things and set boundaries so that your plate is never too full. The moment you overwhelm yourself with things, you become a disservice to the people around you and most importantly,

For many people, it can be difficult to know how to set boundaries or say "no" to others. This can be especially challenging for those who self-identify as people-pleasers. There are tons of articles, books, and talks on the power of "yes." Of course, there are many times when saying "yes" is a great thing! But learning how to set boundaries and how to say "no" is the key to sustaining a healthy relationship with yourself and others.

When we say "yes" to everything and do not set boundaries with people, we often feel stressed, overwhelmed, and burned out. Most of us want to be well-liked and to please other people. It can be difficult to turn down opportunities or requests that others have made of us.

“No” – it’s a small word that packs a lot of power. We’re often taught that saying “no” is a negative thing, that it hurts those around us and causes us to miss out on new, exciting opportunities. It’s no wonder so many people are uncomfortable saying it.

When you say no to someone else, you’re really saying yes to yourself! Finding the strength to say no to things is something I struggled with for a long time and I had to learn the hard way that saying yes to everything is not the way to go.

If you are unsure about whether or not you want to say no to something, here are four questions to ask yourself before you decide:

1. Do I truly want to do this?
2. What do I gain out of doing this task or attending this function?
3. What has this person done for me lately?
4. What else will I do with my time if I don’t do this?

Now that you know what you’re willing to say “yes” to and what things you will say “no” to, it’s best to come up with HOW you will say no.

Here are my tips:

Always start by thanking the person for thinking of you and reaching out.
This allows them to feel like you at least appreciate the offer.

Lead the next sentence with an “unfortunately, due to other obligations, I am unable to accept”.
This makes it seem like you’re genuinely sad you can’t accept but isn’t going into too much detail as to why you have to pass up the offer.

Suggest an alternative
Name another person who might be able to take your place or accept the opportunity. End it with, “please keep me in mind in the future”. Shows interest in future opportunities. Now, if you’re absolutely not interested in what they are offering, don’t say that lol because chances are they will listen to you.

What you will start to notice as you get more comfortable with saying no, is that you are honing in on your purpose and making sure that you’re putting your needs before others in order to reach your full potential and not overfill your plate with things that make you “busy” instead of focused and intentional.
 
One of the most difficult things about saying no is getting FOMO (fear of missing out). But let's really think about the benefits of saying no.

Here are five things you get by saying no:

1. Time to do whatever you’ve put on the back burner.
2. Power to be more in control of your life.
3. Confidence to say no more often. The first time is the hardest.
4. Safety from overextending yourself.
5. Opportunities you didn’t even know were out there. Since you are more available, you'll find them!

We are faced with choices that we have to say yes or no to every day. So you have to ask yourself, do you have the power to say “no”?

It makes me so sad when I meet women who are unhappy with their lives who are too afraid, ashamed or defeated to believe that they can turn things around and be and do whatever they put their mind to.

We always have a choice and we always have other options. Don’t let your past failures scare you from trying. Don’t allow your friends or families limited believes to persuade you. And don’t allow your own lack of confidence to hold you back.

Instead, evaluate the things that are holding you back and find a way to get around them.

I am going to break down my 5 steps to creating the life you want but as I go through them, understand this is a process and it’s up to you to commit to it.

1. Learn yourself
Who are you? - Do you actually know who you are in this world? Like what is the true purpose of your existence and what makes you feel like you’re living? What makes you happy? - Not what makes you LOOK like you’re happy, what actually brings you joy? What does success look like to you?

2. Evaluate your current situation
Are there things you need to work on? Once you know what you want, it’s time to start putting in the work. Be honest about what things you may need to change in order to get to that life that you want for yourself. What is in your life that doesn’t align with what you say you want? What are you doing to reach your goals?

3. Create a plan
Prioritize the things that matter the most (your health, your career, family, friends, self-care, whatever is most important to you.) Create a plan to focus on those things first. Get your priorities in order before you start setting huge goals and expectations from yourself. Once you have the big goals figured out, create smaller realistic checklists and deadlines for each one. This is major because if you’re not realistic with yourself, you will set these high expectations and be let down and discouraged when you don’t reach them.

4. Commit to the plan
Believe in yourself! If you don’t believe you can do it, you won’t. So before committing to the plan, do research about the things you’re wanting to do, gain a clear understanding of what you’re trying to do and this will ultimately increase your confidence. The more you know about what you’re wanting to do, the easier it will become to get it done.

5. Stop making excuses
Now that you’re moving in the right direction, let go of the excuses. This doesn’t mean you won’t have days where you fall short, it just means that you are choosing to always continue moving forward and refuse to let anything permanently get in the way of you succeeding. Stop waiting for “the right time” to start changing your life. There is no such thing, you will be waiting for the rest of your life if you choose to. There will always be challenges in your way, you have to be able to move forward and make progress even in the midst of adversity.

I want to encourage you to focus on changing your mindset and overall building your self-esteem to believe in yourself.

Once I had the confidence that I could do what I wanted to do and have the life I wanted to have, it was easy to put in the work and commit to my plan. So if you’re listening to this and you know what you ultimately what to do or change about your life, I’m telling you that NOW is the time to do it. 

If you need some accountability, download my free guide “5 steps to: creating the life you want”. 

I was 19 years old, attending Cleveland State University as an Early Childhood Education Major. I remember having so many moments in class where I just thought to myself….where will you be in 10 years? I never really knew the answer I just knew for certain I didn’t see myself being a school teacher.

You’re probably wondering why I chose an education major… ever since I was younger I was the teacher's pet. I would help grade papers, clean the room, be in charge when the teacher left, I did it all. I’ve always loved school and as I got older, I loved younger children. I did a lot of volunteering, coaching a mini-me cheer team, babysat a lot. I just loved kids. 

The other things I enjoyed and had skill or potential in was fashion design and interior decorating. But I felt like if I wanted to, I could do both of those things without formal education or degree, so I took the route of education.

Now, looking back at it, I wish I never would of went to college. Instead, I wish I would have taken a year to just work, save and get to know who I was and the type of life I wanted to have before putting myself in debt for something that I wasn’t even sure about.

So before I talk about why I dropped out, let’s talk about why I decided to go.

I remember my whole senior year, how excited I was for college. It was so much fun to visit schools and picture myself being there. I honestly watched too many movies and was picturing some love and basketball type of love story where I would be the cheerleader who falls in love and marries the college athlete haha. I honestly don’t know why college excited me so much. I guess it was my first real step towards being an adult but I later found out it’s way overrated. 

I worked really hard my whole high school career to be able to get scholarships and get into a good college. I think a big reason why I wanted to go so bad was that I was the first person in my family to go. My mom always wanted me to be the best and she made college a priority at a young age. She wanted to make sure that I would be in a position to take care of myself and one day, a family.

On top of all of this, all my friends were going to college. It never even crossed my mind NOT to go to college, it just seemed like the right thing to do.

So my senior year, I worked really hard and was able to get multiple scholarships. Feeling super grateful, this was another thing that reassured me that I was doing the right thing.

My first 2 years of college seem like such a blur. I never really fit in with anything or anyone, I didn’t participate in a lot of school festivities and I lived off-campus which made getting the “college experience” a little hard.

By the time I transferred to Cleveland State I was dancing for the Cleveland Cavaliers NBA dance team and unfortunately, I didn’t really fit in there either. I felt like the problem child because I was always getting in trouble, being told to lose more weight, and was having a hard time juggling all my jobs, the dance team and school. 

I had no idea where my life was going or where I’d up by I knew for sure that I wasn’t on the right path and something needed to change. I didn’t mind school, I was always a good student, practically had straight A’s my whole life so I knew that school its self wasn’t the problem.

I just knew that when I pictured my life in the future, I was never a teacher in a classroom. The feelings I was experiencing were really weird and honestly, pretty scary. I had no intentions of dropping out of school when I did, the plan was to get the degree and then figure things out from there.

Questions asked on this episode: 

1. How do you manage your energy?
2. Should Christians listen to ratchet music? I’m a Christian but I love Cardi B.
3. When is the wedding and will you be recording it and putting it on youtube?
4. How do you stay consistent with planning and creating content when you don’t feel like it?
5. What does waiting for marriage look like when you live together?
6. What have you done that has made you the proudest?
7. If you could tell your younger self anything, what would it be?
8. How do you handle personal insecurities and not make your mate feel overwhelmed?
9. Being a curvy woman, what advice do you have for embracing body confidence
10. How did you become an influencer?

Later.com
allaboutituniversity.com

At this point, I have been celibate for over 4 years. I’m going to be completely open and honest and share the details of how I got here, how I manage and my tips if you’re also trying to wait. 

I explain in detail our individual journeys of waiting in the last episode so if you haven’t already heard episode 10, I suggest listening to that first so you have the full scoop. 

When I agreed to wait until marriage with him, I had no clue how long I would actually be waiting. I figured it wouldn’t be too long because hey, he is a man and I’m sure it doesn’t want to wait any longer than he has to haha. 

We got engaged a year and 3 months after dating. Because we wanted to a destination wedding, we knew we were going to have to set the date far out in order to give people enough notice. We knew our location of choice was the Dominican Republic and May is the best month of the year weather-wise. We got engaged August of 2018 and we new May of 2019 would be too soon so we decided on doing May of 2020. 

If you don’t already know this, Dre and I have been living together basically our whole relationship. 2 months into dating I moved in due to unfortunate circumstances and we always get the question of how do we wait while living together. 

It’s honestly no different from waiting and not living with someone. You don’t have to live with someone to have sex with them. Sex can happen anywhere, anytime. 

We are able to wait because we both know our “why”. The reason why we wait is so much greater than any momentary pleasure. Waiting has allowed us to prioritize and focus on reaching our goals and growing as individuals so that we can make sure we start our marriage in a place that is healthy and filled with love.

When we first started dating I was kind of a mess. I had a lot of emotional and past baggage that I hadn’t sorted through and being in a relationship really tested me. I realized things that I didn’t like about myself and I knew I had to be better. In normal relationships, you fight, have sex and makeup. But the issue is that core problems are swept under the rug. They are hidden for the moment but they are still there. Because we are always in a sober state of mind, it makes us accountable for our actions and we support each other through them. 

I know for certain if we were having sex, our business would not be where it is today because of the amount of commitment and energy it took. Yall know how you are after sex. You wanna lay up, snuggle, chill, watch movies. We literally do not have time for that in this season of our life. 

Most people are shocked when they find out we have never had sex together and I don’t blame them. I get it, it’s not the norm. But that’s what makes it so beautiful. Most people jump into sexual relationships and become attached to people that they have no business being with. Waisting years of their life on someone who should of never been in it. So if you’re thinking of making this commitment, listen to me! It’s worth it!

Waiting as a couple will never work if both parties don’t actually want to wait and believe in their “why”. So if you struggle with waiting, you don’t really believe you’re why or you’re being pressured by the other person and out of fear for losing them or moments of weakness, you give in. You have to got find someone who is on the page as you otherwise it won’t work. 

Here is 4 simple rules that we stick by and they haven’t let us down yet:

1. We don’t french kiss
2. We don’t touch each other’s private areas 
3. We don’t shower together 
4. We don’t get drunk 

Here are my tips for you:
1. Know your "why"
2. Be with someone who supports your choice
3. Stay Busy  

What If It Ain't No Good - Why We Wait For Marriage

So…. The year was 2016. I’m going to paint the picture by first telling you what was going on in Bre’s life and what was going on in Dre’s life before we were introduced. 

I was running my Shameless business in Cleveland and was in an off and on again relationship with a man who I was with for a little over a year. At 1 point, I saw myself being with him long term. He had 3 children from a past marriage and I was willing to be a whole stepmama. I loved his kids, it seemed like we were really serious but I kept seeing red flags of cheating, lying and just plain disrespect. 

Meanwhile, Dre is in DC working as a property manager and casually dating. At this time he was interested in another woman who he had been on a few dates with. Nothing serious but he definitely saw potential in her. His cousin hit him up and invited him to a bar to meet this couple who he had met earlier in the day. The couple was my friends Jordynn & Will. Jordynn and I met freshman year of college at North Carolina A&T and Will had been her boyfriend since Sophmore year. They are originally from North Carolina and were living in DC temporarily. 

I get a phone call from Jordynn saying that she thinks she met the one for me. She instantly tries to hook us up, telling him great things about me and telling me great things about him. I was saying how I have a boyfriend and I live all the way in Cleveland so there’s no way it workout. 

Keep in mind, at this time we were both sexually active and waiting for marriage wasn’t even a thought. 

A couple of weeks later, I ended up visiting Jordynn in DC. My boyfriend at the time was supposed to be coming with me but I found out that he was cheating on me right before the trip. I was so devastated. So I make the trip alone and as you could guess, Jordynn had arranged for me to meet Dre while I was there. 

I was actually kind of excited to go on a date with a random person and just forget about what was going on back home. Dre was such a gentleman. I mean opening all my doors, very respectful, a great listener and he even played the piano for me on our first date. He took me to what’s now my favorite place to eat, Earls in Tysons Corner for dinner. I had the dynamite sushi roll for an appetizer, the salmon dinner for my entree and the toffee cake for dessert. It was so yummy!

I think we were both surprised at how much of a good time we were having. He honestly only took me out because Jordynn wouldn’t let up, he was still interested in someone else and just like I had said, we lived states apart, it wouldn’t work. 

That next night, him, his cousin, me, Jordynn and Will all went out to this bar and this is where things got crazy. It was an open bar from 10-11 and we got there around 10:45. We all grabbed 6 rounds of drinks and within in 30 minutes we were pretty turned up. I remember crying a lot about my ex at the time and basically doing everything I could to mess up the potential of Dre taking me seriously. It was pretty bad. I was even willing to sleep with him just to make myself feel better about being cheated on. That night we fooled around and slept in the same bed, we hung out Sunday for a little bit and then I went back to Cleveland like nothing ever happened.

Obviously, because I was young and dumb and thought I was in love, I took my cheating ex-boyfriend back all for him to cheat on me again. Except this time it worst. I actually had someone show me pictures and videos of him with multiple young girls. I found out his “business trips” were actually trips to visit other women and I just felt so stupid.

I was at a point where I felt like it was something wrong with me. I couldn’t understand why he would do this to me, and why I wasn’t enough.

Tune in for more.....

As most of you already know, Dre and I’s YouTube channel is all about building and keeping healthy relationships. 

The key is communication. If 2 people cannot properly communicate, you’ve already lost the battle. It’s important to know how each of you communicates. It’s almost never going to be the same because we all are so different. We were raised differently, have different beliefs, mannerisms and we respond differently to things. So understanding the person and who they communicate is step 1. 

When it comes to Dre and I, he is the calm one who can be leveled headed in almost any conversation. I’m a fireball. I work really hard to stop my emotions from generating my reactions. 

Determine if you’re in a relationship with someone who responds differently than you. If so, you will have to figure out the best methods to communicate. They may be like me and need to take a moment before they can clearly express themself. Give them that! It makes such a difference. You may be with someone who always takes offense to everything you say. Get to the core issue of that. It’s probably an underlining issue and not actually what you’re saying to them. You might even be dealing with someone who is really disrespectful who uses foul language, calls you out of your name and does things physically that scares you. You can leave them! Haha no I’m kidding I’m trying to show you levels in which some people communicate. 

All of those things are actions of someone who has some core issues to deal with and until they do, it will be really hard to have a healthy relationship with them.

The foundation of the relationship is what matters. What is your foundation built off of? Is it God? Is it physical attraction? Is it so-called “chemistry”? Do you even know? Most relationships start off with no foundation at all. They are just 2 people casually dating until 1 person does something to end it. That’s no way to go about relationships. 

Your foundation is what holds the relationship together and gives it a purpose. If you’re currently in a relationship ask yourself what is our foundation built off of and what is our purpose. If you can’t answer that, you’re probably not in a healthy relationship. And if you’re single, what are you looking for in a man? What will the foundation of your relationship be? This is so important. Because when things start to fall apart, all you have is your foundation. 

Communicate all of your expectations, never assume a man knows what you want. Provide him with what you expect and if he can’t meet that there's 1 of 2 issues. He’s either not the man for you or you’re asking for too much and probably have an insecurity that you haven’t dealt with that either stemmed from a past relationship or trust issues in general. 

After you have your foundation, you have to set boundaries for communication. Some girls feel like they need to be able to text, call and facetime they man at any hour and he better answer. If that’s you, communicate that. Because if he isn’t okay with that, yall gonna have to work something out. It will not work if yall are not on the same page. 

Boundaries are so important! Because Dre and I are waiting for marriage, we had to set physical boundaries. No french kissing, no showering together and no touching private areas what’s so ever. Those are the physical boundaries we needed in our relationship to succeed. So what are yours? If you and your partner are sexually active you may need to communicate on a different level. Help him! He can’t read your mind girl. 

For more tips, tune in now. 

The 5 Love Languages

Honestly, I’m not sure that I believe we all have 1 soul mate in this world. I’m also not saying I don’t believe it. I just think that things in life happen and as you go through life, you can’t guarantee anything. Look at couples who were happily married for 10-20 years who get divorced and end up re-marrying later. For 10-20 years those people thought they found “the one”. And years later, they find another one. 

We can blame it on the fact that maybe they were never right for each other and did their best to hold it together until realizing they made a mistake. Or maybe they didn’t receive marriage counseling and weren’t equipped to deal with certain things in their marriage. Maybe they didn’t have a relationship with a Godly foundation and either person ended up stepping out or doing something unforgivable. You never really know. And so I’m not claiming that I know, I’m claiming that I 100% feel like I’ve found my one and I want to share the story of how it happened and how I know. 

Before even thinking about finding the one, you have to find yourself. If you don’t know who you really are, what you believe in, what you stand for and what you want out of life, how could you possibly recognize the right person for you? You can’t. You can take a guess and test the waters but without knowing yourself and what you want, you can’t determine who is right for you. 

Before meeting Dre, I worked A LOT on myself. I did journaling daily, lots of self-reflection, lots of self-discovery and self-growth. Once I felt like I knew myself and what I wanted out of life, I started to visualize the type of partner that I needed to accomplish those things and be happy. 

I pictured this man so vividly in my head. Not how he looked physically but who he was spiritually and as a person. I literally wrote a list of 100 things that described the perfect man for me. I also added physical things to the list cuz I thought God knew my heart so what’s the harm in putting it in writing haha. 

I started to fantasize about how we would meet, where he was at that moment, if he lived in Ohio or another state, how long it would take before we met…. I was excited. But I honestly thought that there was no way I was meeting a man like that anytime soon or a man who was close enough in age to make sense. Side note, Dre is a year younger than me. Crazy right!?

So I continued to focus on me. I stayed busy with my business, my health, friends, and family and really worked on becoming the woman who deserved a man like the man that I wanted. 

So in order to find your one, you have to have a clear understanding of what the requirements are. Love is a choice, you get to choose who you love. I hate when women say they can’t leave a man because they are “in love”. What does that even mean? Does he love you? Like really love you? Look at their actions. God says love is love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.  Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. So when women say that they are “in love” with someone I ask them these questions about their men: 

Is he patient? Is he kind? Does he refrain from getting jealous? Does he refrain from lying or cheating on you? Does he always show you respect? Does he refrain from blaming you? Does he trust you? 

If you answer no to any of those questions, that man does not really love you. Love is not a feeling it’s an action. Just because a man says he loves you doesn’t mean he means it. Finding “the one” means that you have to learn what love looks like before you can have it or recognize it. 

After you are in a place where you know exactly what you want out of a partner and out of life, you can&

Simply put, men can be dogs. We’ve all dealt with those guys who all they wanted from us was sex. But this isn’t a one-sided issue, we have to take a look in the mirror and hold ourselves accountable where necessary. Now I know this may not be what you want to hear, but I promise it will be game-changing! We will talk about the reasons for men only wanting sex, the signs that that’s all they want, and ways to properly deal with them!

When a man only wants sex it could be for a couple of reasons. They could simply not be ready to settle down and have a serious relationship which is usually the case. They could just be in the moment and take advantage of an opportunity that presents itself, because hey! At the end of the day, they are men. Or they are human and it’s in their nature to lust after women. I mean this isn’t rocket science. 

The thing we have to get to is how are we contributing to the issue and what can we do about it. 

As women, we really have all the power. So why do we do things and then blame the man like they made us do it? No one makes you do anything. In different seasons of our lives, we move differently but for most of us, we have all went through a little stage of being intimate with people we had no business being intimate with. I won’t use the other word for it haha. 

So how are men any different? We know what it feels like to have a personal agenda and be in a space where we enjoyed being single and was attracted to someone in the moment and ended up doing something for momentary pleasure. Unlike men, we usually regret it the next day but that’s the only difference. At least most of us anyway. So one of the ways we contribute to it is by entertaining the foolishness at some point in our life and then becoming tired of it so we blame it on men and forget the part that we play. 

We feel like once we are ready to settle down, men should be falling to their knees for us. But the truth is, if there are women out there who are entertaining them in that way, there’s nothing you can do to change that. All you can do is NOT give in to it, hold yourself to a certain standard and make it clear that you’re not about that without coming off as the crazy girl who thinks she’s too good. No one likes that girl. 

Signs that all men want is sex is if they use sexual language, make sexual jokes, touch you intimately while in public, try to get you in intimate settings, only hit you up at night time or when they have nothing to do or are short in their conversations as if they are doing the bare minimum to keep you around. 

If you’re experiencing any of these signs, deal with it head-on. Let his actions speak louder than his words. Don’t believe what he says if his actions don’t add up. Men will show you exactly who they are and unfortunately, we don’t always believe them. That’s what gets us in trouble. We see all the red flags but stay anyways. We keep thinking they will change or we are just so great that they don’t want to lose us and will get it together. 

Don’t waste your time with a man who clearly only wants sex or isn’t willing to commit to you. Here are tips for dealing with those types of men.

1. Communicate honestly
2. Don’t give second chances
3. Be intentional

YouTube Video "You Can't Change Him": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y89Tj4x_hvI