Bonus: Sisterhood in Business

Published Feb 14, 2020, 8:00 AM
In this bonus episode brought to you with the support of Pfizer, Dr. Key Hallmon and I chatted about what sisterhood can look like in business, her definition of the modern village, practical ways we can create community with other sisters, how to truly embrace a spirit of collaboration over competition, and she shares how she tends to her mental health while also tending to her business.

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M Hey y'all, this is Dr Joy from the Therapy for Black Girls podcast and this is a booster session. As a reminder, the information included is meant to be educational and entertaining, but is not a substitute for relationship with a licensed mental health professional. Hey, y'all, surprise, I'm here with a special bonus episode of Therapy for Black Girls. That is the first part of an incredible series featuring a few amazing black women in business. This series is being brought to you with the support of Visor. At Viser, they apply science in their global resources to bring therapies to people that extend and significantly improve their lives. For more than one hundred and fifty years, they have worked to make a difference for all who rely on them. They are committed to providing breakthroughs that change patients lives. Find out more on fiser dot com. That's p f i z Er dot com. I'm thrilled to be partnering with Fiser on this series. As we count down to this year's Black Enterprise Women of Power Summit, which will be held March fifth through the eighth in Las Vegas, I'll be speaking in the Visor booth during the summit about how our mental health is impacted by our experiences in the workplace, in entrepreneurship, in leadership roles, and in relationships with others. And I wanted to kick off these conversations right here on the podcast talking to a few women about their experiences. In part one of the series, you'll hear my conversation with Dr Key Hallman. Dr Key is the visionary behind the Village Market, a t L and one of the dopest sisters I've ever met. She's a Mississippi native and has dedicated her life to serveing, educating, and empowering her community. A social entrepreneur, curator, speaker, and passionate educator, Dr Hallman is committed to revitalizing and unifying her community by curating community led events that celebrate the arts, changemakers, entrepreneurs, plant based advocates, and educators. A guiding principle for her is the idea that each of us must dedicate ourselves to serving the good of our people. We are community, Our fate and futures are interconnected. If we act in oneness and in the spirit of togetherness, not only can we survive, we can thrive. Dr Key and I chatted about what sisterhood can look like in business, her definition of the modern village, practical ways we can create community with other sisters, us, how to truly embrace a spirit of collaboration over competition, and she shares how she tends to her mental health while also tending to her business. If you hear something that resonates with you while listening, please share it with us on social media using the hashtag tv G in session. Here's our conversation. Thank you so much for joining us today, Dr Key. I'm so appreciative for you sharing with us today. I am so excited to be talking to you, Dr Joy and to be a part of this incredible platform that you've created for all of us. Oh, thank you, thank you. So I should let y'all know that Dr Key and I are friends offline, right, so if if we get way too into the girlfriend Chad, that is why. So Dr Key, I just want to start by hearing your thoughts. So you are, of course the creator and founder and visionary behind the Village market a t L and I just want to hear from you where this came from. Why did you feel the need to create something like the Village you know, every time I'm asked this question, I try to always remember what did I feel when I first had the vision. I felt that it was something I could do. Number One, I just didn't know exactly what they could do with manifest into. So when I'm at how did you create the village market? How did you get this marketplace to grow and stretch across the country and out of the country, my next question is God is so good because I don't know how that happened. It happened really really quickly put the vision to create the marketplace, to create experience for small business owners and people who love consumers. Black consumers are really all consumers who love authentic, beautiful, handmade products that are created by the magicianship of black people. I was going through several events here in the city of Atlanta. I love sesscal, I love markets, That's my thing. And I would go to these events and I felt that they were void of us, of black people, and I just started to do a deep dive or why was that? So? I loved dog with Cecil, I go every year. I'd be going this year, but I wonder, why were we board of black artisans in that space? And I realized that the responsibility to create space it's not for people who are not black. It would be great if they were considerate of us in that way, but I don't sign that joy to be their responsibility. It's our responsibility to create excellence for us. And so I didn't want to wait anymore. I knew at that time I met some really gifted small business owners or people who had great concept. But I mean, if they had the right audience, it could really blossom and bloom into this amazing thing. And I created the Village Market. I never been a vendor, I never booked the event space, I've never done any of these things, but now has become a career for me. Like I had to learn every single thing that people experienced at the Village Market everything. But I knew that I had this thing that I could see in my mind, and I just kept going towards the thing that I saw. So I hope I answered that yes, yes, And you bring up a great point. And you and I talked about this all the time, right, just this idea that if we really don't always know what we're doing. Most of the time, we don't know what we're doing, right, But it really is a process of like just continuing to move forward. Absolutely, I had no idea, and I think for most visionaries who pair vision with work ethics understand that if we keep chipping away, we can do almost anything. It takes a level of humility to know what you don't know, and we're with's all and a trust and fortitude to keep digging deeper to get the knowledge that you need the resources that you need to create. Because I've learned a couple of years ago figuring out how to code things that looked like hieroglyphics to me way back when, and just understanding event management. When I say I didn't know any of these things, but I knew what I wanted small businesses to experience, and I knew what I wanted patrons to experience. And those are the two people on my white board that was in my house. How can I create an amazing experience for a small business owner? And how can I create an unforgettable experience for the patrons who calm and I would just chip every day and every morning on how to create this and how to make it amazing. And here we are with your amazing experiences that are just continuing to expand So one of the things I love so much about what you do, Dr Key, is that you know, yes, the village market like started as a mark you please, but it has become so much more than that, I mean, And so I really think about you in terms of recreating what a modern village looks like for us, And so I want to hear what your thoughts are about, like what do the modern villages look like? And like how do you think we can continue to grow those in our own communities. A martyr village looks like what you and I are doing right now. We are friends off in the world, but we have a great deal of respect for our professional careers and pathways, and any time that you and I can work together, we choose to do so. And if we're looking for resources to help us build our individual babies, we look within each other, which means we look inside of the village. And when people think, well, how do you create community, you create community by the people who occupy the space with you to share the same level of vision and heart and passion. They don't have to share the same level of expertise, because the village is a pless well of excellence. Everybody's bringing the best of the best of the best in the level of humility, choosing to I just post space to make it better for me. The village market had to be beyond a marketplace, because that was just the first step. In order to really build a just the saming, ever growing community. We have to move beyond isolated island like countpt The marketplace is one place that people can commune and gather for small businesses. You and I've done the will to be well with women together who had a sincere desire inside of them in twenty eighteen to feel better in their souls. But what I do know, if I didn't create the marketplace, if I didn't honor the first thing that I was called to do, I wonder if you and I would have even met if you didn't create there for black girls and be obedient with the first thing that you have created to do, all the people if you work with, and all the great things you've been able to do in the world. I wonder if people will know who you are. All you create a Martin village is honestly answering to the first call that you've been given and doing so well. So when you shine so bright and you become a lighthouse to other people who are leaders and who are trying to be a community. And everybody started working together. And you said, how did this echo to some even manifest it manifested because everybody decided to shine light and so bright in their calling. And it goes without questions that we can see each other because we can see every time I talk to you, you always want to try to leave me in tears. Your poetic side comes out. But but I think, you know, I think that this just speaks so clearly to like who you are, key and like from our first meeting, like you are just one of those people who like the love of community and the authentic engagement with other sisters is like just so real that it does nothing but create space for people to kind of join on you in that. And so that's what I really want to see if you can share for people, like, how can you really get into a space of like a true idea of collaboration over competition? The truth the space of collaboration, sisterhood over competition is to know there's a level of self awareness that you must have within yourself if you do all the work inside of you to show up fully, do you know and I know that my job is not to compete with you. My job is to share space with you. And if you're sharing space at your fullness, you're not taking anything from me. I believe when we differ from that plan how we were created, it's because we've adopted the way it thinks as extern our DNA at times they were not good enough that if somehow Dr Joy does well, it counsels the area of the black therapists in the world from doing well. If Dr Key does well in the Black business community engagement space and somehow she's knocked out, the opportunity for me authentic sisterhood is being able to identify other people's gifts and seeing how we can better put our gifts together to do a greater good. It can be intimidating goal when you are striving to build, hoping to be seen, and you feel that people in your space have shine so brightly said, there is no space for you. I have a lot of grace and empathy when I see women, since we're talking about black women, hesitate to work together, or when we have an opportunity to leverage where we are in the room to put another Black woman on we choose not to. I think that comes from a place of sincere brokenness and a place where it it hasn't been modeled well enough to let you know that there is enough when we say in the village market, there's enough for all of us. For me, I deeply believe that, Like I know that everything on us occupying the world, I'm going to occupy fully. But I also know everything that you're going to occupy the world, you're gonna occupy fully. But the best thing that we can do is joining that together. And I just think it's not an absolute answer on how to authentically build sisterhood if we don't first take that step back and build all the stuff love within ourselves. That's what takes away the competition, because then you know that you're the only person that you compete with is the woman you were yesterday or the woman you were this morning. M Yeah, And you know, I think it really is important to make sure we highlight the fact that like some of this brokenness is not of our community, right, Like this was placed onto our community because of history of oppression and racism, and like some of this is inherited within our community, and we continue to operate out of it. But I don't think we have to write like I think we can have intentional conversations like this one and show ourselves grace and compassion, and thereby and show other sisters grace and compassion. Absolutely, But I think when you do the self examination that I hope that we all do, when we can be so honest when we look in the mirror and we want to lie to ourselves. If there's anything that comes up inside of your spirit but you feel a sense of envy for the success of another person, I think then you have to start doing like the root cause analysis, why do I feel this way? And I think if we can start uncovering those answers, we can go to a deeper truth. And that's what you said. A lot of things are already and graining us through our passage and enforced arrival here in the conditions of trauma that we went through. We can't change our history. But choosing to decide to do the work, to be in a space of healing, to be in a place of love, it just takes a commitment. I'm not saying that it's easy, because it's not. But I know if we always should fling back on what our ancestors went through and even the trauma that still goes through the vibrations of our body, we would not move forward. And if we want something better, we just have to decide to move forward and they healthier space. Yeah, and to know that we won't be perfect in that right, I mean, you know there will be mistakes. We're not perfect. Nobody else is perfect. But like you said, like the commitment to want to have better relationships with one another and to support one another in different kinds of ways, even in an imperfect way, healthy discord. M hmm. Yeah, And to learn when situations have not been the best, because as much as we say black girl magic, we know that at times it can be dangerous to share space with another black woman if we don't sit together and learn how to go through those traumatic moments and get to a place of healing. I can't imagine if that black girl Magic, the Sisterhood collective could be personified in a way that it comes as easiest breathing. It takes a different level of work and also takes a different level of honesty. And then we as people and as women, when do we stop, When do we stop saying listen she's just choosing not to do the work. I'm gonna have to let her build over there because it's dangerous for my spirit to keep occupying space. So what you're talking about is like healthy boundary setting, right, like a willingness to do the work with somebody, but when they have shown you that they are unwilling to do the work, that you then also have to set a healthy boundary for yourself. Absolutely boundary setting. And I guess as women, when we wonder as black women, is it okay to set boundaries with other black women? Is it okay in colloquialism to cut another black woman off, to not work with another black woman? I think if it's dangerous to your state of being, my answer is yes, M yeah, I mean, but I think that that is difficult to wrestle with, right because you know, especially when you are in the business of like wanting all of us to win. But you know, we often talk about like you can't want something more for somebody than they wanted for themselves, and so you know, it does feel like, Okay, I want to give you space for us to kind of disagree and for us to struggle with this and for us to be imperfect, but at some point there has to be a line by which I also have to protect myself and make sure that I can continue to show up absolutely. Yeah, and it's what you said healthy boundaries. M hmmm. Yeah, And that doesn't mean that you know people can't ever get it together and like then apologize and say, okay, can we rejoin this space? Right, But at some point there may need to be uh, okay, we're not gonna be able to do this right now, right, I totally agree. I think it's it's detrimental to our well beings the way we show up in the world. This is how I set boundaries. How did you make me feel when I'm around here? Am I comfortable with shining brightly? Or do I feel like I have to somehow put a put something over me to in me so you can be comfortable? Or do I share things with you and I know not to share a list coolness because somehow you're gonna poke hose in my joy and a word there. Yeah, And I think we just have to be honest because we can't love and being community to our own detriment. Yeah. So I'm wondering Dr Keith, if you notice that happening with yourself. Does that then invite a conversation with the person or is it more of your own reflection Like, huh, I'm noticing, like when I'm in community with this person, I have a tendency to do X y Z. Let me think about what that means for me, Like do you have a conversation or is it more like a reflection thing for you? It depends on the situation. It's a gift and curse. What I feel I feel deeply. And the other side of that is, if there's something I feel that has to be said, it hurts me not to say it. Mm. I always do self reflection first and name with this. Maybe because I'm thirty eight years but I've learned to sit with my own emotions to make sure that I'm not projecting, that I'm not holding space for my own insecurities and trying to find an escapegoat within another person. So I do that, I do the homework and make sure like, Hey, did this situation make you feel this way? Or is this a past situation that you keep bringing it to the table. But if it always comes back to when I sit with whomever I feel depleted, I feel that I have to shrink. I'll feel like there's something that's over my beard and body. Then I know that I can't occupy space anymore. And I have just learned to tell the truth. I don't feel good when I'm around you. I don't feel that you are the happiest to me. But what I also extend an invitation. Have I been the type of friend that you can be happy for? Meaning when you have had moments that I sew up for you? Because sometimes women and as people, not just women, we all hoard deeply what people didn't do, and if they never know what they've done, when it's time for you to show up for them, you hold back because you feel like they didn't do the same thing. And so I always just try to ask the question. And then that question is also an olive branch, the same olive branch that I need, the same grace that I need. But it hurts me not to say, especially to someone I love, what I feel. M. Yeah, So it sounds like it can be a both end there for you, not in either or Yeah, it's totally a both end. But I sit with myself first. M. Yeah. Like, like you mentioned doing the self work before you go to somebody else. Yeah, yes, I have to make sure I'm not projecting. So I know. We talked about this a little bit at the Will to Be Well, and you asked me in the conversation, like about struggles with imposter syndrome, right, and like continuing to kind of do the work that we're doing where there is no blueprint. You know, you don't always even know who to ask. I'm curious to hear from you. How you have been able to kind of overcome in the struggles with like imposter syndrome or like not knowing what to do next. That's a good question. I think I have just learned to just radically be who I am and know that who I am is constantly involving. I've just made the state of I don't know cool. Yeah, I just had to make it cool, because if we make it cool, then we become comfortable. And I just remember sitting at table, especially before I even started the village, and I was an educator, and I grew in the world of education really sad. I start teaching when I was twenty two, and I was in a leadership role by twenty three, and I would have to sit in meetings and lead teachers who here is my senior, and I would try to stand up a little taller and hope that if I still a certain way, they would have a respect for what I knew. But I would be in those rooms and I felt that their eyes were antagonizing me, and I wondered was it their eyes or was that I also feel that at twenty three I shouldn't be leading teachers two years my senior. And I just remember that feeling, and I write about everything. That's the feeling that I tried to remember because when I'm sitting in room with sometimes tears, sometimes future colleagues who've been building businesses, who raised tons of money, and I boost that mine and my sitting with my shoulders up because I'm confident in what I create. Or am I sitting with my shoulders and hoping that they don't see that there's a part of me hoping that they don't know that they don't realize what I don't know. And I couldn't care that anymore. Dr Joy. So now we're going meetings and say this is what I come with, this is what I've been able to build a lot due to vision and others by unwavering work ethic and belief in myself. This part of scale I don't know how to reach. But if you give me a level of blueprints, this unwavering work ethics that I have, I know that I can as needed. I've just divorced the need to pretend. M Yeah, because you know, I mean so much of imposter syndrome you can bring with it, like symptoms of anxiety and depression, and like you can really just exhaust yourself, like beating yourself up about what you don't know, or feeling like you don't deserve to be in certain rooms, right, And so the idea that you could say, you know what, I don't know? Like I'm here and there is a part of me that deserves to be here, but there's also part of me that has no clue what y'all are talking about. Can somebody help me? Right? Right? Right? And I think the other part of that, I think when that an imposter syndrome comes up, I think it's okay to have a level of confidence in yourself pair with a humility MMM. Is that you do deserve to be in a room. And so many other people who built things had no idea as well, and we asked them how they started and we blueprint. They were like, man, I just believe in myself, right, yeah, but it's like the worst that we say to ourselves. I honestly feel dog, whatever room I'm in, I'm going to make it shine brighter. M h that you're there, absolutely, and I walk in at every day because I know that there are no accident and if there is any level of fear, I'm grateful because I'm still existing in a level of humility, which means let me go and make sure I got myself together right, right, So I'm appreciative for all the emotions that come with it. Yeah. Yeah, speaking of all of these emotions, and again, you and I have had plenty of these conversations just about how you manage and you know, continue to take care of yourself in your mental health while continuing to build a business. So what kinds of things have been really helpful for you? Then? I'm consistent, key word consistent. When I am consistent, What does everything for me is getting up early in the morning, praying, first hydrating and going from my walk round and then going to lift weight. This is what I need. I need still this in the morning. I need to be able to feel my entire being and check in with myself and check in with God, and then go outside of being immersed in nature. All of my creativity is found there. My refuge is there. We all were hit with the sudden loss of Kobe Bryant, and after my body had the willingness to move, I just had to go outside it. And that's how any emotional day or stressful day, I have to immerse myself in nature so I could be recharged. If somebody looks at your Instagram, they will see all of the nature pictures I often teach you. Then yes, and I commune with good friends, and that is a level of self care and stuff love for myself. I look at how well I love myself and my choice of my chosen family and friends. I am fortunate to have just good people in my ecosystem, and so to me that self care. And I like being in spaces of learning as well. So if I can go to a guest lecture, and I'm sure like this the most nerdy thing ever, but I love it. If emory has something going on, I'm sitting in the back. I love to learn and it feels me up and it keeps me inspired to always learn, But I have to go back that when I'm consistent, I am good. But there are times, and have been times when I forget the things that work, not just the hard parts of entrepreneurship, but the hard parts of being a woman. A Black woman in this space can be exhausting and difficult to carry. So I forget what I know to be true with the things that I need, and my whole being suffers. It's hard for me to get motivated. It's hard for me to b from where I rely on, and that's my vision. My body hurt, and now I've started to see if there is a block I didn't block off enough time to take care of myself. If my body is hurting, not do the listing weights, but just hurting, that means there's things stuck inside of me, and that I didn't even give a chance and got up and move enough. And so I'm well when I'm consistent, And as I have any advice to share with anyone, the best thing that we can do to ourselves, for ourselves is to be consistent with our self care, even when we don't want to right, even when it seems we're too busy and too much going on like that is what allows you to continue to do all the other things, right. Yeah, So what challenges and you kind of touched on this a little bit just now, what challenges would you say have been the most important for you to work through for your growth both as a woman and an entrepreneur. Um One of the present challenges that I experience is being in a social impact world and building a business in this model that does a social good and then sitting in rooms with people who do not see value in that. It's very black and white. Doesn't make money, does it not? Will this make me more money? Okay, it won't. It makes me feel good about myself. That's hard and it's also hard sometimes to build in a city like Atlanta that illuminates black excellence so brightly that it outside the areas that need work, it doesn't show the crack in the ecosystem. So you would think that if you come to Atlanta start a business, it's going to be successful and you're gonna have all these people who support you, because that's the narrative that it is told in Atlanta, and there are pockets of that. There are still a clear divide between the half and they have not the cool kids, the uncool kids. And I struggle because I told you, if something I feel needs to be said, it hurts my being not to say it. A current struggle is how the champion for the people who need an ecosystem that the narrative that the city produces that is here and so rich for all of us and it's just not true. So how to kind of leverage what you've created in a way to kind of again give to other people absolutely in the gifts of people, ways that their businesses can truly scale. Yeah, but if you make something look so good, there's no opportunity to evaluate it. And I think just the struggles of sometimes occupying this body that I occupy, it's that it's necessary to evaluate things that look so perfect and in its entrepreneurs space, we do a disadvantage for every business that opens after us if we don't start to take a deep look in the ecosystem that is supposed to war and to all of us. Yeah, that's why I appreciate you know, you've done several interviews on podcasts and on you know, TV and all kinds of things, But I appreciate that level of transparency about like, yes, this can be really great, but these are some very real struggles that I've had, right, and I want to I want to help you to recognize the whole picture. Right. Yeah. It's been my goal to in an opportunity that I get to speak, to tell the truth, the truth that I've lived it though, and to create my business in ways that if I create a thing that I know I needed, another business won't suffer the way I had to suffer. Now it's cool to be plant based, but a couple of years ago doc impossible. Burghers weren't out, and what the help. We hadn't seen it yet, and so people were not enthoods about a marketplace is going to feature hundreds of businesses and all the food is going to be plant based and all the products going to be organic. That wasn't cool yet. And the reason why I had to bet on myself with the support of my family and friends, it's because no one would, but I knew that it could be good. So I just bet on myself, and I kept my job and I saved my money. The people who loved me also bettered on me as well. And so now when I hear concepts that may be a little bit ahead of their time. I give people what I needed, an opportunity to be unplugged and present and listen to them and listen to what they've done in their past and see if I can help them based on what they've done all this other work they've done, can they create this thing that maybe a little bit ahead of the time because people didn't give me the decency of conversation anything else there. I didn't know if you were there. Oh yeah, that was a drop my oh got you got? You were so for Dr Key with any exciting news, the things you want to share with us about what's happening next, growth and we're grows and our growth, more businesses, more amazing villagers who come to support black owned businesses, more programming for beyond the marketplace. I'm already gonna put it out here, another great opportunity with the Dr Joy and all these amazing black women therapists who hold space for all of us. But we're just getting started, and I look forward to our spreen marketplace, March and her village mar But just be patient. We're just getting started in the village and we're going to continue growing and getting stronger in our purpose in our mission and building an ecosystem where sisterhood is real and tangible. And then if you need support, you can reach out and it's just given to you. I love that. So where can people find you online? What's your website? As well as any social media handles you want to share? You all please follow my amazing, amazing and village market at the Village Market a t L on all platforms. Our website is ww dot Village Market a t L dot com. You can learn about the Village Market. You can learn about our programs. Beyond the marketplace. You can sign up for meling List. If you're a small business, you can sign up to be a vendor. If you just love black owned businesses, you can sign up to be a patron. But everything is found there and every now and then, even on little unplucked from social media. I love to drop a gym on Dr Key Hallman on Instagram. I follow me on Twitter. I really just got on there to write my little stattus. Take a screenshot and put it on Instagram. Right I g is where you can see her gems as well as her nature pictures. Absolutely, thank you so much, Dr K. I really appreciate you sharing with us today. Absolutely, thank you, Doc, and I love you, love you back. She's amazing right, she is truly one of my favorite people. To check out more information about Dr Key and to keep up with all the great things happening with the Village market a t L, visit the show notes at Therapy for Black Girls dot com slash dr Key. Don't forget to share your takeaways with us on either Twitter or in your I G stories using the hashtag tv G in session. And if you'll be attending the Women of Power Summit, definitely let me know that as well. I'd love to see you there. Stay tuned for Part two of our series, dropping next Friday, where we'll chat with another amazing woman in business. Until then, take Geke care of yourself. M P.

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