Tag: Journey to Entrepreneurship

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Journey to Entrepreneurship

Journey to Entrepreneurship: Update

I planned on doing an update to this series a month or two ago.  And while I had it written, I didn’t get around to publishing it.  But it is July, and we currently have half a year left, and I realized that a lot of my goals fell away thanks to some things going on in my life.  But I want to share with you why that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

What’s Been Going On?

COVID…Civil Unrest…Medical Issues…Schedule Changes.  What isn’t going on at the moment?  While I won’t spend a ton of time talking about the current pandemic or how a majority of the country somehow is just figuring out that racism still exists, I will say it has impacted our household a ton.  I have an autoimmune disorder and have no clue if my body could handle the virus, so I am 100% onboard with staying in my house 24/7.  My husband is military and is considered essential, so he has no choice but to go to work.  He has also had a vast schedule change that impacts how we manage our household.  And we are Black, so racism is an everyday thing for us.  We live in the south and in a fairly whitewashed area where, unfortunately, we always have to be aware of those around us.  And whether it is the stress of all of that or completely random, I have been dealing with some medical issues that have wreaked havoc on my routines, sleep, and appetite.  To say I have been struggling is an understatement.

BUT…I recognized all of this and knew that meant that I had to make adjustments.  My health is obviously a priority to me, so that means I needed to focus on fixing those issues first.  My marriage is a priority, so with my husband’s schedule change, we had to work really hard to ensure we stayed on the same page and connected.  That meant that some things became less of a priority to me.  You may have noticed a lot of social media breaks from me.  My page tends to focus on my faith and my life as a housewife and how I manage all the things.  I give you a glimpse into how I plan, cleaning and cooking, my bible study and sermon notes, budgeting, and creating a business.  All I have had time for has been my Bible study, so I continue to post that.  There are some things that because I have built automated routines in place, I didn’t have to worry about like our budgeting.  Others, like cooking and the business, just haven’t been happening because those are things that I have the ability to put down for the moment.

Business Update

So while some of my goals for the business had to be pushed off, I was able to do some things that either took a quick moment or set me up for future projects.  For example, I established our LLC.  Before my focus shifted, I worked with a Career Manager, Business Coach, and Business Consultant who were very helpful in helping me streamline my thoughts.  I wrote a bit about them and will be sharing those resources on the blog.  I decided to continue my education by getting a certificate that I feel will further help me in my journey to become an entrepreneur.  I also decided to start the process of gaining an accreditation for an area that I have been interested in since I was a teenager.  Both start this year, and I will be sharing what I can from them.

What’s Next?

When I started this journey, I set a plan for myself.  2020 was going to be all about learning.  Taking courses, learn how to create and do new things, and get better at things I have current experience with.  2021 was going to be the year that I focused on launching and building our business(es).  And 2022 and beyond would be all about growing our business(es) and legacy.  With half the year left, I am still sticking to that plan.  The certificate and accreditation fit nicely into those plans as I will be taking classes and courses this year.  Next year, I will continue to gain experience using our actual business.  I’ve set a goal to do at least one thing a month for the rest of the year to move the business forward.  I’m hoping I will do more, but I wanted to make sure I started with an attainable goal.  The plan is also to write at least one JTE update a month.  I promised to bring you along on the journey, and I want to make sure I continue to do that.

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Rhenáe's Recap

Return of Rhenáe’s Recap: 4/5/20 – 4/12/20

Y’all, it’s been a while since I’ve done a Rhenáe’s Recap, but when I was trying to decide the best way to share the resources that I learn from every week with you, I figured this was it.  It will still be a recap of posts from the blog for the week, including any reviews that I’ve done.  And I was previously also including resources that I am taking in like books and shows (very heavy on the books).  Since I am still taking in both plus doing courses and on the journey to entrepreneurship, I want to document and share what I am taking in each week.  Plus, I am seeing that I am using YouTube and Pinterest more and more for my research (including for my Year of Healthy focuses).  I have so much commentary on these things that I would love to talk with yall about!  So…this is going to be a recap of what I have ingested this past week during my digital detox.

Posts

I kicked off last week, letting you know that I needed a break.  I was getting so many notifications and having so many conversations about this darn virus, and for my mental health, I needed to cut it all off.  Check out the Rhenáe’s Randoms post that talks all about it.  It also has my notes from that Sunday’s sermon from my church.

To further prove my point that I needed to step away, I looked at my Screen Time stats on my phone, and for 3/29-4/5, here is what my top 4 notifications look like: Gmail – 708, Instagram – 304, GroupMe – 206, Messages – 166.

For the week of my break 4/6-4/11: Gmail – 600, GroupMe – 270, Instagram – 218, News App – 98.

Today is the last day of my break, and I will NOT be catching up on those notifications.  And I will be turning some of them off, as well as going back to using my downtime throughout the day.

I wrote Part 2 of my Hope Writers recap last week.  I am still looking at ways to bring the suggestions given into my writing here on the blog and into future endeavors.  Make sure you read Part 1 also.

 

The book of 2nd Thessalonians was last week’s feature in the All 66 Books series.  Check that post out to see all of the different resources that I found that you can use after you read the quick book from Paul in the New Testament.  Both of the letters to the Thessalonians have been blessing me for the past couple of weeks.  If you haven’t taken the time to read them, I highly suggest it.  It will take you less than 20 minutes to get through both.

 

Books

This week I decided to reorganize my bookshelves.  I actually was trying to put up different piles that I had laying around.  I got it in my head that for my detox, I would try and finish up all the books that I’ve started.  Well, that didn’t work because when I pulled all of the physical books that I have begun at one point in time, I realized it was 28.  I am not even going to try this task with my ebooks because I took a look, and between Kindle and Apple Books, I have almost 5,000 books.  And since I tend to move on from those books quickly based on my mood (I don’t feel like reading a 300+ page book today, I hate the tone of the first page, I’m tired of the main character getting cheated on), I know I have started probably over half of those.  I decided that I am going to try and tackle the 28 books this year, so they are currently sitting on my desk with my current one on my nightstand.

If you have read my marriage post, you will know that Kingdom Marriage by Tony Evans is my current read. I was reading this kind of slow (a chapter a day), but then I honestly haven’t picked it up in a bit.  We are still
doing the accompanying devotional, which has been doing wonders for our communication and prayer life. I am going back to this book and making it a goal to finish before the end of the week.  I only have six chapters left so I can do this.

YouTube

This week on YouTube was a bit of research on my Year of Healthy April post, which comes out tomorrow.  So I will talk about those videos I liked later.  But some videos randomly caught my attention that I want to share with you.

I love Stove Top Kisses and her videos.  She is just so funny, southern to the core, and does some real soulful cooking.  If you know me, you know that Hennessey is my jam, so I cannot wait to try and make this baby!

Okay, so the title of this one pulled me in because I was like what?!?!?! $3,700! Well, she lives in a tiny town in NY where her closest big box store is about 1 1/2 hours away.  So to prep for winter, she tends to do one big grocery haul for the year.  She hit up Walmart, Sam’s Club, Costco, Trader Joe’s, BJ’s, and another grocery store I wasn’t familiar with.  But she got some fantastic deals on meat that she was able to stock up on.  And here is the thing…she has a reasonable household budget!  $40 a week per person.  She has six people in her family.  She then takes the yearly amount ($12,480), and that starts her budget for these trips.  So when you look at that amount compared to the $3,700 she spent, it’s not that bad.  She even mentioned she had some money leftover from last year’s budget and was able to carry it over to this year’s budget!  I am definitely taking notes while I work on building my kitchen staples.

Other Resources

While this resource was from the week before, I think it is still a great one to share.  Essence Studios hosted a Virtual Summit called Essence Wellness House with over a dozen sessions from Faith Hunter, Dr. Patrice A. Harris, Sarah Jakes Roberts, Dr. Sherry Blake, Rosalynn Daniels, Gina Neely, Iyanla Vanzant, Brukwine, Dr. Lauren Powell, Rev. Michael B. Beckwith, Tiffany “The Budgetnista” Aliche, LeVar Burton, Charlamagne The God, Dr. Joy Harden Bradford, and ShaNay Norvell.  I watched most of the sessions, and they are definitely filled with nuggets to help us during this COVID-19 season.

Here are some other summits from Dr. Shannon Irvine that I watched this week that were available (and should still be available).

RISE Together: Top Industry Leaders Speak Out – features panelists: Pat Flynn, Jennifer Allwood, Michelle Meyers, Ray Edwards, Rachel McMichael, Sara Anna Powers, Brian Dixon, Erin Sanderson, and Christina Jandali

Rise Together: Pivot, Uplevel and Rise Become Unstoppable even in Uncertainty – features panelists: Stu McLaren, James Wedmore, Scott Volker, Colin Boyd, Tiffany Lee Bymaster, Jennifer Berson, Michael Maidens, Rachel Perry, Dorie Howell, Natalie Jill, and Mel Abraham

Rise Together Part 3: Pivot, Uplevel and Rise Become Unstoppable even in Uncertainty features panelists: Allison Maslan, Jen Casey, Tyler McCall, Rachel Luna, Amy Yamada, Christie Miller, Jenna Soard, Gladys Diaz & Michelle Roza, Nicole Culver, and Tara Walsh

I plan on rewatching these as they were lives that I had playing in the background while doing other work.  I want to be able to take notes as well as look into some of the panelists to learn what I can from them.  This rabbit hole is usually how I find out about other entrepreneurs and their resources.

I’ll be honest and say that I still feel a bit all over the place when it comes to what I am taking in for my entrepreneurship journey.  I need to come up with a better plan and system.  That will be my overall goal for this week: for me to work on some type of resource action plan.  I did have a need early last week to better document somethings daily.  I felt like my planner wasn’t giving me all that I needed, so I worked on creating a planner page that I can just tip into my planner (or most likely my notebook) to help me track these items.  I want to try it out for another week or two to see if I need to make any tweaks.

I hope that you can get something out of all that I included in the recap this week.  I look forward to doing these recaps each weekend.  Leave me a comment down below and let me know what your favorite resource was.