Lisa Yancey: Hi, everyone.

Lynnette Kaid: Hello everyone

June Wilson: Welcome to this episode of Getting Unstuck.

Lisa Yancey: Getting Unstuck is a conversational series that the founders of The Wes Match launched to open and deepen dialogue between Black women entrepreneurs and investors.

Lynnette Kaid:  This is a conversational space of truth telling about where investors and entrepreneurs get unstuck

Lisa Yancey: when it comes to scaling Black women businesses.

June Wilson: Black women are high performing, bad ass

Lisa Yancey: Bad ass

Lynnette Kaid: Bad ass business innovators who are not reaching revenue potential in the marketplace because of under-investment

June Wilson: and limited places to get trusted advice about what to do to scale.

Lisa Yancey: Our role at The Wes Match is to create an online and offline community that is 100% dedicated to the business growth and personal wellbeing of Black women entrepreneurs, full stop.

June Wilson: Full stop.

Lynnette Kaid: Full stop.

June Wilson: Through this Getting Unstuck series, we aim to have some  real talk

Lisa Yancey:  that leads to more investments and revenues. With that said, let’s get started.

June Wilson: Let’s get started.

Lynnette Kaid: Let’s get started.

Lisa Yancey: [00:01:09] I’d like to go right in, because we’re talking about history, systems, powers, sheroes. Shall we?

June Wilson: [00:01:16] We shall. Let’s do it.

Lisa Yancey: [00:01:18] Okay, cool. So, in preparing for the history part, last February we featured a WeMaker — and WeMakers, for those of you who are unfamiliar with our vernacular, WeMakers are Black women entrepreneurs, because We Make — we featured a WeMaker every day for Black History Month.

Thank you, Danai Pointer, founder of TruNude (mytrunude.com) and a WeMaker, for organizing that. And I loved it. And just to be clear, it didn’t amaze me that there were extraordinary Black women entrepreneurs, because I see our ingenuity and inventiveness and engineering every day. So when I hear that a Black woman was a computer brain that gave America the moon — Catherine Johnson, who lived to 101, as the NASA mathematician — it’s not her brilliance that intrigues me. It’s when she did it. It’s when these entrepreneurs did it, and how they defied  inequities of their time, many inequities that persist today. So I want to call out a few, and I had to pull them up just to make sure I didn’t forget.

So we have Christiana Carteaux Bannister, who lived from 1819 to 1902 in new England. And she was a business entrepreneur, hairdresser, and abolitionist. She was a first, if not the first, but certainly a first madam in the hair beauty business, known as Madam Carteaux.

We have Maggie L. Walker, who was born in 1864, died in 1934, who was a teacher and the first Black female bank president to charter a bank in the United States. Her restoration and investments in homes in the Jackson Ward  neighborhood of Richmond, Virginia, made it a national historical site.

In 1903, Hannah Elias was the richest Black woman in America with her real estate empire straight up here in Harlem. Her holdings then were valued at over a million dollars, including four midtown properties and a Central Park West mansion.

And I can go on and on about these amazing successful women, but I’ll stop there because the industries across, just across the board, in fashion and media and finance and real estate and entertainment and bio-sciences and digital technology.

But it’s something for me, for our conversation today, about knowing that these Black women excelled in spite of, right? Like in defiance, that makes me proud, that makes me feel kindred, and that makes me want to step up my game. What does it do for you?

June Wilson: [00:03:59] Yeah, it’s exactly the same. I mean, it is — when we think, certainly when I think, when I think to the time, I think it was way more difficult then, than it is now. And, you know, and then I sort of catch myself, like, what do we mean sort of, more difficult then, less difficult now? We all still, even now, as then, are challenged, and have to keep sort of holding what’s at the core of who we are in order to keep driving forward.

And so to have the kind of historical context to buoy me, to elevate me, to remind me when it gets hard, that I’m not alone. That there are others, even though I can’t always see them right in front of me, there are others who charted this course. And if I hold strong and true, I will make it through.

Now I need my posse with me, you know, Lisa and Lynnete, we need to hold each other up. But that is the beauty of sort of the challenge. And I’m going to pass it on to Lynnete and I’ll come back to some other thoughts about systems. I don’t want to veer off too soon. Lynnette?

Lynnette Kaid: [00:05:29] It brought a couple of things to mind. One thing I’d say right now is we’re in strange times, but the same times, um, and same, same, but different.

Right. And a lot of what you said reminded me of the recent conversation with Nikki Giovanni and Angela Davis. And Angela said, People ask me about being fearless, and she said, I was scared as shit. I was scared. I was afraid all the time, but it was through community that she could persevere or, you know, keep going.

And so I think it is, is the community build. When I think about, um, I didn’t know about the women that you referenced. And so in my mind, I’m like, wow, that’s dope. So many, it spans across industries. And I didn’t have a lot of, I didn’t know what mentors were when I grew up because I didn’t have those things in front of me, but, I love we’re standing on the shoulders of giants. And in the process of that we’re also building our shoulder muscles, right? The WeMakers, The Wes Match is building shoulder muscles to hold up the next few generations. So I love that they give me pieces to pull from, to patch myself together when it’s difficult, when it’s hard, and when I’m afraid.

Lisa Yancey: [00:07:23] Yeah. You know what’s so dope about that. So shout out to GirlTrek (www.girltrek.org) and their #DaughtersOf campaign, who did the Nikki Giovanni and Dr. Angela Davis conversation, so shout out to that. But you know what both of you are saying, you know, because I was naming them and I was looking at this time, 1864, 1903. And I’m thinking about 2020. Here we are right now, for some of these women over a century later, which is really, what, four generations, right? Four, at the tops five, depending on how you’re looking at generations. But when you talked about community, it made me think about, they had a posse. Like, it’s not just them, like, Oh yeah, Madam Carteaux had a posse. Hannah Elias — she had, she was having some issues with some passing, we all do, we all have some issues — but they had a posse and it was them and their posse and we call the names, but they were one of a we, like we are one of a we, and it’s that posse and building the community, which I hadn’t really thought about because even in thinking about Katherine Johnson, she had a posse.

LIke we not only stand on the shoulders, we stand locked in arms, we are together, and it’s through us saying, um, in defiance, unapologetically and irrelevant, like, you’re irrelevant. Let me move on my vision. That is kind of the history that I loving. So one of the things that we wanted to talk about today, given this history grounding, and this notion that like here as Black women entrepreneurs and us being 100% dedicated, I mean, I was thinking about the fact that we are  building an online, offline community that’s a hundred percent dedicated to Black women entrepreneurs thriving, and that it’s revolutionary. But then I was like, why is that revolutionary? Like, that should not be revolutionary! That there’s something dedicated to Black women entrepreneurs as an entrepreneurial innovator class thriving, not just getting capital, not just getting by, but all of it, like, thriving, and that we’re still revolutionary.

So we’re going to hold the revolution of it, but make it not just revolutionary for the future, because this should not be revolutionary in 2020. But there are reasons. There are reasons why. And so in our planning for today’s conversation around history systems and power, uh, June, wanna talk about some systems that’s making this– even a claim of being revolutionary? We’ll hold our dopeness in that, but it shouldn’t be.

June Wilson: [00:10:02] Right. We, I mean, we all live in systems, every sort of– every part of how we exist is inside of a system. And it’s often these systems that exist when they’re invisible to us, because, you know, we know family systems, we know work systems, but there’s a range of systems that interact all the time and we’re not seeing them. And they’re invisible.

So there are laws, there’s policies. I mean, as we look at just the entrepreneurial ecosystem, there’s banking, there’s finance, there’s investors, there are entrepreneurs, there’s all of these structures and systems that we have to interact with that are either for us, or not for us.

And how are we being intentional to ensure that when a system isn’t for us, we stand up and we say, this isn’t, this isn’t working for us. So we need to change the system.

Lisa Yancey: [00:11:04] What’s a system?

June Wilson: [00:11:06] What is a system? It’s interlocking, interacting players. So sometimes those players are people. Sometimes those players are institutions. Sometimes those players are infrastructure pieces.

All of those, all of those things are always at play. And we often just see the people-to-people system interaction and not sometimes the institutional interactions.

You know, if you’re not a banker and you’re not working in banking, you think the system is fair. And so you don’t second guess whether it’s really working for you because of course you look around and it seems like it’s working for everyone, so it must be working for you. So therefore you then think, Oh, there’s something wrong with me.

And this is why the work of The Wes is so important. For us to think about and to be clear, and to let our entrepreneurs know, this isn’t about YOU. This is understanding the systems that are at play and where can we be levers to shift when they need to be shifted? And where can we stand up when any one mechanism can’t easily be shifted? But we build power together to say, we’re not standing for this. Because not only am I better than that, we are all better, and we deserve it. Not even just for Black women entrepreneurs, everyone deserves it. We all deserve the system that works for us.

And so, because you know, we also live in a racialized society and that racialized society has driven outcomes for some that are positive and outcomes for others that are negative.

And so we are in a moment in time, particularly that it’s, you know, and as we think about The Wes, it’s time to say, No more. We are successful. We are powerful. We are successful. Let’s create this system that works for us.

And if that means we gotta tear a system down to build up a new one, let’s talk about what that looks like. How do we get there? This is the question.

Lisa Yancey: [00:13:24] Yeah. Earlier, when you said, you know, it’s not about you, to the entrepreneurs and to be clear, cause I know exactly what you meant. You were talking about that system not working, those nos you get, the naysayers you get. It’s not about your performance. We about you for sure, a hundred percent, but it’s not about your performance.

And kind of connecting  it back and imagining these women, I mean, we named those in business, they’re investors, um, around the globe, they’re in banking and investment who’ve done  amazing things– probably with a tribe, probably  with a band, probably with a posse–but done amazing things despite the systems, despite the redlining, despite the nos, despite the prejudice, despite the discrimination.

And I think that one of the things that I love about when we talk to each other, that’s driving what we’re doing. I don’t even want to say seeking to do, cause we’re doing it. What we’re doing is that we are tapping into it and connecting to that part that’s already in our bloodline, that ingenuity is already in our blood, that resilience, that innovation, that unapologeticness, that’s already in our blood? Tapping into it, and being intentional about it being about us.

And I’m loving it.

Lynnette Kaid: [00:14:56] My mind went to, um, you said, if it’s not working for us, do we tear it down? And I’m always like, how about we just fully ignore it? It’s like a little kid throwing a tantrum in the corner, you know, let’s just ignore it and go ahead and do our own thing, because ultimately they come along, right? They start to show up anyway.

So I started thinking about what’s the reframing of that? That makes sense in, you know, in my body for me? Because for a lot of– When I think  about systems, I’m always like, hmm. I just never agreed to one, you know? So I feel like mostly for myself, you know, mostly when most go left I go right. Or, you know, vice versa. And so I just never really agreed to the systems and I’m like, yeah, let’s just ignore it, because clearly we’re– we’ve been doing the thing. You started your, your history lesson, what year?

Lisa Yancey: [00:16:13] Madam Carteaux, she was born in 1819. She lived from 1819 to 1902. And then I talked about Maggie Walker who was born in 1864. So certainly the 19th century.

Lynnette Kaid: [00:16:30] So we’ve started that history lesson from the early 1800s. So we’ve clearly been building the thing, building the thing. And so I think we can just ignore these systems, you know. And even some way through that we take away its power and remind us of our own.

Cause it’s not like we didn’t have it. Right. So, yeah.

Lisa Yancey: [00:17:06] You know, as we are building an ecosystem, right, to catalyze  power, right, we’re building an ecosystem. I like to break down, well, what are we talking about? We’re talking about systems, and systems can propel and restrict, and it has done that.

And part of where we’re like, yeah, the underrepresented where it hasn’t propelled, we’re filling in that gap. Right? And so in thinking about us as we are building this online and offline platform and community and ecosystem, which is like ecology and systems to catalyze power, it makes me, um, I’d love for us to talk about how we’re holding our intentions around, cause we’re still building a system, right? A system, an ecology of people, mixed people. So, so centered on Black women entrepreneurs, but not exclusive to Black women. So we have investors, we have sponsors, we have mentors. We have what we call WeAmplifiers, those of you who have expertise and skills who are like, yo, I want to share all of that to support Black women entrepreneurs thriving.

The thread of commonality is Black women entrepreneurs thriving and producing high revenue yielding businesses while taking care of her wellbeing. Not at the expense of her wellbeing, but inclusive of. And then what kind of system, what kind of interlocking procedures policies, regulations, understandings, shared agreements, right, that allows us to operate towards this outcome that we’re seeking of Black women entrepreneurs thriving.

What do we think — Let’s talk about our thoughts around the role that systems will play in catalyzing power and who needs to be a part of that ecosystem to further amplify power that clearly already exists, but we want it to convert to a greater yield where we’re not just talking about the one — the one Oprah, the one Beyonce, the one, right? Like dope. But there are many. What do you think June?

June Wilson: [00:19:15] Yeah. So, as we think about overall sort of the, the system structure, and partly why we think, oh, well, you know, there’s Oprah, so I can’t do this. There is a kind of mentality that we, uh, partly because of the way the system works, that lifts up and elevates the few versus the many.

And so as we think about and why we’ve designed interlocking, um, commitment to building an ecosystem that works for us and seeing the multiple players, because we know there isn’t just one. We know that it takes more than just one to do it.

Often because we’re working as solopreneurs as we’re getting started, or we, you know, are juggling a full-time job while trying to start a business.

We know that to be successful, it will require us to build community together. And in that building community, to also know at our core where our power is, that that power lies with us. The reason why we focus on wellness, because when you feel depleted, uh, it’s hard for you to see why you should continue when you feel like, you know, I’m seeing this person over here move, and therefore my ideas must not be good enough. We have to kind of break that apart and lift up. You got power and we got collective power and let’s bring that collective power together to benefit all of us and to create an exchange.

And really, um, not only– what I’m struggling with language-wise is sort of this idea of a system that is kind of closed versus an open system. And what we’re trying to do is we think about a platform model, is that we have an open system structure that allows us to see the multiple supports that can elevate us so that we can be successful. And I’ll pause there because lots of stories are jamming in my mind right now, but you know, we do have a time.

Lynnette, what about you, what do you think about power and systems?

Lynnette Kaid: [00:21:47] Um, I’m going to be short. I think it’s, you know, I think the, the greatest power we have is our power of choice. WIth every choice comes a set of consequences and rewards, right. And each one of those consequences and rewards leads to another set of choices.

So, what starts The Wes Match, what starts our ecosystem, is centering self. So the first choice has to be you. You have to choose you. So how you stand in your own skin, um, how you stand in your own body, how you wear your shoes. And then you choose. Your next choice is how you step out in those shoes.

And then that choice of– because the better we are for ourselves, the more we choose us, the more we choose our well-being, the better we are to be for our business, which then is the better we can be for our community. And as we are better people for ourselves and our businesses for our community, we are building bigger and better community.

Right. And then that just spans out and spreads out everywhere.

Lisa Yancey: [00:23:26] When you talk about, Lynnette, how we start with ourselves in our own individual choices. Right. The choices we make and how we build upon those choices. And I’m one hundred with you on that. But it also makes me want to just talk about how it’s not the same as like that whole bootstrapping, then you need to, if you don’t do it yourself, it’s your choice. You’re in your condition because of your choices. And we’re not going to fall into that piece.

So I, I hear what you’re saying, but I want to lift up that we make choices all the time, but that’s where those systems and those policies and practices that are prejudicial, that have been built in supremist culture.

That said, that’s why we started with the history, because that defiance, that owning our power, that knowing that we need to be in community that you’re talking about, that we’ve been talking about, is where we leverage and catalyze our assets, our communal assets, our social assets, our relationships, our ingenuity, our DNA, our bloodline, our dopeness, our badassness, our “I know you want to be like me”-ness, that we get to catalyze.

Um, but I want to be careful too, because I know there are plenty of times, and I know for myself, I’ll speak for me, where I’ll be like, I’m stepping up, I’m stepping up, I’m showing up, I’m showing up, I’m getting smacked down, but I’m showing up, I’m getting smacked down, I’m showing up… And I see somebody else over there who are figuring out just like me, but propelling in a different kind of way, not getting a, um, let’s use these PPP loans, not doing all this work for pennies that you gonna have to pay taxes on, where others are just easily like getting calls, “Let me help you get the millions and the billions of support from the taxpayers.”

That’s not because we didn’t show up, we didn’t step up, we didn’t fill out the application and we didn’t follow back through, we didn’t do– It’s not because of that. It’s because of the systems that are in play and the biases that are in play.

So I just want to hold that reality as a part of our conversation, but also show that our own ancestral women have shown us that irrespective of that, that despite that, that in defiance of that, we excel. And what we are seeking to do is like, let’s make it mass. Let’s amplify it. Let’s make it so many that two generations from now, it ain’t a question of how many Black women businesses are leading industries.

There’s no, there’s no conversation. There’s no little data about it. We move the conversation beyond how much money we’ve been able to raise above a million. We talking about how, how our businesses are performing and thriving and the community that we’ve aggregated towards that end within two generations.

Lynnette Kaid: [00:26:30] I think that’s smart. And I think I want to, you know, do some clarity around the showing up for self, because this self I mean is in wellness. Is in, this is not, you got to strap the whole world on your back. Right. Which is sort of the way we’ve been told or taught. This is a new kind of revolutionary way of seeing self, which is we have to take care of what makes us whole. What makes YOU whole. What makes you whole for the business to thrive? Meaning the you or the one of the we. What’s going to make each of us stand in our own strength.

Because sometimes that’s as simple as, time to drink water, you know, stand up and stretch to the left, stretch to the right, you know, things that we just absolutely forget on this road to conquering whatever you’re trying to conquer, the world, the universe, the block. You know, we forget sometimes do very basic things that take care of self. And making you thrivable makes everything else around you thrivable.

Lisa Yancey: [00:28:04] Yeah. June, picking up where Lynnette was dropping down on making you thrivable?

June Wilson: [00:28:11] It’s so funny that, you know, sometimes we get our own way. As I was listening to both of you, and thinking about what does it mean to kind of show up for yourself and not let sort of, the perception of something that stops you.

And we do this, Lisa as you’re talking about, like, I see someone over there, sort of thriving and somehow the system isn’t working for me. And sometimes I even see somebody like me thriving and I’m like, uhhh. And so what I’ve been doing when that comes up– And really, I have to say, as we’ve been building this, there are times, because we work in a system, there are times others who are doing similar work, they seem like they’re getting elevated and we’re moving slower. And I just have to keep looking and saying to myself, You get to have it and they get to have it and we get to have it. It will take all of us to build it. And there are segments and parts that other people get to move and we get to learn from how they’re moving.

And then when we come in, we take our part that we really elevate them and it’s an exchange. And when we’re always grounded and rooted in exchange and not in “you’re doing better and so therefore I don’t get to have” — then when we’re like, oh, you get to have, and so do I. And let’s figure out how we do this together. And if you want to do it over here and you have your part, I’m going to do it over here. And we’re gonna figure out which works, and we’re going to elevate what works. Because you got to keep just testing until you know, particularly when you’re trying to shift a whole new system that works for the many and not just the few.

Lynnette Kaid: [00:30:04] Okay. And a reminder that doing it through care and love. That you got it. I got it. We all got it. And we’re gonna take what works, and examine what doesn’t, moving from the space of, we can do it together, and sort of breaking this whole, we’re not crabs in the barrel. There is no barrel.

Lisa Yancey: [00:30:40] We’re not sitting in no barrel.

Well, I mean, I think that that’s a great way to wrap up this conversation of Getting Unstuck, um, working through getting unstuck. We hope you join the conversation. We hope to see you at the next conversation. We have an incredible lineup of Black women entrepreneurs, WeMakers, as we call them, as well as WeCatalysts coming your way in the future.

We’re going to check among ourselves a couple more times before kicking off those conversations. But we want you to join us while we build this platform and community. Again, it’s a hundred percent dedicated to Black women entrepreneurs thriving, all can be a part of an ecosystem dedicated with that vision and objective.

But that’s it for now.

June Wilson: [00:31:24] And when you come in, tell us what you’re doing. Because we care about what you’re doing. We want to hear what you’re doing. We want to share and exchange with you. So, I’m jazzed. Thank you.

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