JUNETEENTH '25: “I didn’t quit work. I resurrected it.” | Edition 9 As I reflect...

A year later, I reflect on a day I was not prepared for. My Director called me and said, "The company was closing..." I realize now that was the best thing that could've happened to me. Writing this on Juneteenth and knowing I gained my freedom on the same day, liberates me. They didn't hire new staff, they closed the company. That's what is happening all around the world. Could a 400 year old curse TRULY be broken? As I type this EXXXXTRA BLACK TODAY... yay! I'm thankful for my ancestors prayers of freedom. I feel their soul a little closer today.

When your financial plan is scheduled for x years, yet life doesn't stop for you... you wisen up quickly. Having an abundant prayer life, I was led by a familiar voice to trust GOD. We are no stranger to heat in the kitchen, keep going, feel through your present emotions, don't wallow in them. I snapped out of it. I'm not sure whose voice that was, all I know is that it worked. I surrendered to The Most High and asked him to take the wheel because I was rockin' sunglasses and Advil by that time. You can take the wheel now AND the innanet is ghetto now too. Chile please! EXXXXTRA BLACK TODAY... yay! LIKE, when did we get here? There aren't enough gifs for the emotion at this point. <insert eye roll emoji> that's physically all I got left. HOWEVER, I quickly recognized that there was still MORE unhealed trauma to heal, once I started learning more about the family. As you come to age, you learn more information about your loved ones, in a version you can comprehend. BABY! It's like Jesus around the corner of Earth, peeking around the block because he's scared. Not a good feeling on this side of the tracks. I'm ready for the chariots to come. (this that moment when you say, "TO MAKE A LONG STORY SHORT" then I go on for 19 more minutes about the whole story.)

Realizing that your healing is never finished, is probably the most ghetto thing ever. Yes, everything is ghetto and you know it. I've learned this year that having the life I've always wanted to live was achieved "too early". Becoming a Director in my 30's was not something I wanted to do well into my 60's. Our parent's generation adored that. Since I was a kid, my dad would take us to Manhattan to go shopping, how to barter, and how to negotiate. I couldn't have learned those skills anywhere else at a perfect age. My parents still work their jobs full time and they love it. Shxt if you like it, I love it! <insert side eye emoji> EXXXXTRA BLACK TODAY... yay! Once I realized that I wasn't happy with that lifestyle, the life they wanted me to live, I quickly created my own. It was scary, yet empowering. I've asked clients how would their lives look if they removed all of the values their parents instilled in you, that you now use that within your home or abide by to this very day. That list is extensive. I simply wanted to free myself from their mindsets because they were our age too. The world is a completely different place, the resources are much more abundant than they have ever been. Their sacrifices allowed us to be Director's at 30 with HBCU and Ivy League educations.

That pause to recoup without my parent's assistance was a cycle I'd never forget. It allowed me to write a new book, to hone in on finalizing my business plan, GET SERIOUS about achieving my goals, and putting myself in rooms that could allow me to do so. Picking up 3 new certifications during a time when my place of rest was burglarized, coping with my mental health, doing my best to stay lighthearted, where all I needed in that moment was a space to cry. I'm so thankful for the lives that showed up for me.

That same year, I sponsored the Hamilton Tigers of Loch Raven in Maryland, USA. We went to Invest Fest (my best year ever), the Wealth Summit in Baltimore, and the 1st EVER Soul Food Festival in New York, where we were a vendor. Janelle Jones painted kids faces. She was my graphic artist from my very first book in 2013. It was my way of blessing those who blessed me, children, during this last year. Or adults in a child-like state. I'm thankful.

While I don't condone entrepreneurship for the weak, the one who will walk away anytime someone gets on your nerves, or causes you to question yourself, or writes a hateful comment under your posts, if you cannot do 897946562938109 jobs at once, like to travel or be at events. YOU ARE THE BRAND. You have to show up. I've met some of the most fascinating people at events I've gone to for 6 years. I literally traveled every weekend or every other weekend to make new clients, have a business lunch, visit a sneaky link, go to a beach because I was landlocked, show up to 6 zooms a day, phone calls, and text in-between. How can you work both corporate and your own brand at the same time? I was 100% self funded since 2013. That is not a small party. I had no idea I could've expanded within my first three years. I simply didn't have the education. I was too busy playing the best mortgage loan officer to pay for a wedding than expanding my career as an author. No shade, just EXXXXTRA BLACK TODAY... yay!

Since my dad helped us learn the wholesale business, I got into logistics because that made more sense. Later creating the J.U.M.S Army Logistics System for my high school AFJROTC NJ 20002 department at 15. I knew I had to be in the business. Fast forward, to wanting to start my own clothing brand, I immediately went to China because that was who we were buying goods from in New York City as single digit kids. Entrepreneurship became a way to travel the world with my friends, visit places I've only dreamed of, actually using my PTO because I had an entire income dedicated to a free lifestyle.

When I created #freeasf™ University, it was a blueprint of my life's healing journey during an awakening phase, it was 2019. Never did I think it would come to this, blogging to humans on the internet and loving it. This year of pause allowed me to find a deeper version of me that I needed. It forced me to choose entrepreneurship full time and believe in my dreams, they too can work. I'm thankful for a decade of logistics, it'll never leave my soul. Now, I start a new life and a new career for the next decade. I'm sure I can go on another 10 year run.

Stay abundant. EXXXXTRA BLACK TODAY...yay!

xo Queen Goddess Hope