More Than Just a Box — with VP Wright (she/they)

Season two continues to sizzle! Today’s episode is full of goodness and inspiration thanks to our guest, VP Wright (she/they).

VP is an author, dancer, diversity and inclusion consultant, multi-passionate creative, mother, and all-around outstanding human being. Together, we discuss the winding path that life and business takes us on, and how defining it in neat narratives isn’t always for the best.

We also discuss:

• The fallacy of a linear path through business and life
• Disappointing encounters with performative anti-racism
• Living a balanced life with time for more than going to work and coming home
• The value of having incredible friends
• Doing the things that really align with you, even if they’re painfully unplanned

Links:

• Visit VP’s Website
• Follow VP on Instagram
• Read VP’s Book You Are Enough
• Follow Mel on Instagram @mel_mcsherry
• Follow the podcast on Instagram @morethanjustpodcast

👏 This episode is sponsored by Softer Sounds, a feminist podcast studio for entrepreneurs & creatives. If you want to launch a podcast, they’re the team you need to sound good and feel great! Head to softersounds.studio to learn more.

🙌 This podcast is supported by listeners like you! If you enjoyed this episode, we'd appreciate it if you could make a donation of any amount at this link. You rock!

Transcript

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Hey MTJ listener, has listening to this podcast make you want to start a podcast of your own? Well, let me tell you about Softer Sounds, the amazing folks behind the editing and production of More Than Just. Softer Sounds is a feminist podcast studio that helps entrepreneurs and creatives make purposeful, powerful podcasts. Amelia and her team bring technical skills and and tender support to the podcasting process. They are systems enthusiasts, audio experts, and most importantly, great listeners. Everything they do makes podcasting easy, accessible, and fun, and I am obsessed working with them. I love that since day one, I have felt seen, heard, and recognized. Not only that, but fully supported in how I wanted to bring and want to continue to bring More Than Just to life. You can learn more about Softer Sounds services on their website at softersounds.studio. And don't forget to head over to the show notes for links to their many free phenomenal resources for podcast beginners and pros. All right, let's get to it. Welcome to More Than Just. I'm your host, Mel McSherry. On this podcast, we share how we are more than just descriptors and titles that identify us in our lives, our businesses, and our communities. In this safe common room space, you'll hear stories of success and lessons learned, from myself and other misfits, entrepreneurs, and change makers. My intention is to inform, connect, and expand our knowledge so we can be mentally, emotionally, and financially profitable as we create the change we desire. My promise is that from each episode, you'll take away not only inspiration and a connection to someone you never knew before, but also the encouragement, the action steps, and the support so you can create what you want. Music. So let's get started. Hello, everyone. Welcome back to season two of More Than Just. I am your host, Mel McSherry, and as always, so excited to be in this space with yet another phenomenal human. Today, we have the pleasure of having a conversation with the amazing VP Wright. Now, VP and I met. I don't even know how I think we're still trying to figure it out. Somehow I found her on Instagram and I think the you mentioned something about Harry Potter and either a story or it was to make a lady. It was to make any money. That's right. That's right. And I was like, Oh, let's do that. I was like, Yeah, it's Megan. This is my person and started respectfully stalking them on social media and got to know know her better through some of the amazing spaces that she has hosted. I also was a participant in one of the amazing courses that she had created called the Inclusive Entrepreneur. And she just has so many passions, so much knowledge, so much yumminess. But I'm so, so, so excited to have her here and just get to know more about her. So first and foremost, V, thank you so much for joining me today. Hi. So I love to start off these episodes with the following question, which is the, what would you say is your main title or identifier or descriptor? And how are you more than just? I feel like over the years it's kind of shifted, but right now I'm definitely in like creative life curator. And you knowing me, it's definitely like, it's definitely shifted. But yeah, I am a creative life curator, and I am more than just a box. I find this interesting when I talk to creatives. When you initially think of creatives as these free-flowing, very organic kind of people, and yet I find one of the biggest obstacles creatives have is either trying to find their box so it's easier to talk about themselves, or even understanding. What their space is about. Does that kind of resonate with you and your journey? Yeah. And even with my journey, and I'm sure I'm probably going to talk about all of its entirety, right? But I'm so point on here, but like, I think there's so much stifled in, nicheness, like especially for creative entrepreneurs who are multifaceted. You can't just niche yourself to one place or one aspect of your life for too long because then you get bored and you don't get any creative energy and. There's so much that is outside in the world besides just the one thing we do so, I definitely agree like there's, so many ways that you can like go from one end of the creative area or a spectrum of your life to the other and the journey to get from point A to point B. Is not linear. It's a roller coaster. And I feel like my life has just been that. It's been like a roller coaster of ebbs and flows that is just very fluid in how I live and how people I care about operate in and out of life as well. It's so weird. Someone told me to listen to this thinking, what am I listening to? Who is this human? Are they on drugs? No, I'm not. sober y'all very much so. But honestly, V, I swear to God, there's going to be so many more listeners that are like, oh my god, she makes so much sense right now. Because it is that like, I don't even know how I want to say this, but you have your way that you talk and describe things. And this is something that I talk about a lot with my clients of social media, sharing your story, yada, yada, yada, how you communicate. And. We try so hard to, I like to call it coding. Some people like to call it concise, whatever. But basically coding yourself to rooms that you are in and not really honoring just the flow of how you think, how you talk, how you process things. And honestly, that right there is such a beautiful example of that is how you talk, that is how you process. It made total sense to me. And that's how you find your people, right? It's just by having that really. And authentic is such an overused word now, but that's the closest one we have so far, authentic way to build a community, to have conversations. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, for me, it's the only way. I'm not going to like put a filter over what I say and how I say it and show up in a specific way because that's BS. But I think as we continue to become more ourselves, the filter just goes away and you don't really care like how challenging it might be to process who you are for someone who isn't out of their own box yet. That's not your problem, that's their own. And we have to remember that people's reactions to how you are as a human being is their own projection of what they cannot handle for themselves. So, you know, the moment you get there, it's a whole lot easier to just show up as you are and continue to grow and shift and change and then be open to that change because that's the only consistent thing in life really. Right? Yeah. Oh, a hundred percent. So have you always been aware? And I want to say sturdy for some reason, but like what? Bitch, no! Music. And this is where the life story comes into play, right? So, hi friends. Welcome to our story hour. Welcome to story time with VP Wright and Fel. Welcome to our story hour. Yeah, welcome to Story Time with VP Wright and Sal. Storytime of VP Ryan Melmott Sherry sounds like a podcast. Seriously, did we just launch something? We might have. So, hi friends. Yeah, the actual introduction of who I am in order to answer that question. No, I have not been sturdy. So I have been a creative my entire life. I was born into a family that on one side had my father, who is a very well-known jazz musician involved and has toured with so many incredible humans like E.B. King and Whitney Houston and Natalie Cole and all of these people, right? Wow. And then my mom danced for Alvin Ailey and- Oh my God, I didn't know that. Holy crap. Okay. It is insane to think about where I come from and how incredible my parents are and they made me and my brother. And from a very young age, I was very aware of where I come from and learned more about the identity pieces as I grew older, which I'll go into a little later. But my parents' influence informed my gifts. And so I'm very much into music and audio production, video production. I've been dancing since I was two. I'm classically trained. I danced for a salsa company for 10 years. Well, I performed in a salsa band for 10 years and I danced for a company for two, but all of it is kind of intertwined. Ran a dance company while I was in college, knew I had to go to college and knew I had to get good grades to get to college because if I didn't, I wasn't going to go because broke because my parents are creatives. So it was like, you go to school and you got to figure out a way to pay for it or you ain't going. I'm like, you right. So I knew from then and all the training I got creatively, which again was in dance, video production, audio engineering, etc. Right into school, which I then fell in love with diversity, equity, inclusion, anti-racism work through my degree, which why would I go into that after going into all the creative work? We don't know, but I was just, I was on my own path trying to figure it out, right? Even though I knew I wanted to be in the music business. And what's funny is that when I graduated, I ended up getting married to my childhood sweetheart and we had our son and I was pregnant with our son my senior year of college. Graduate in the top 10% of my class, massive resume, honors, all this stuff, right? Can't get hired because I'm pregnant. And I feel like that was like... Me thinking sturdy, sturdy, sturdy, have to get together, follow a path, you'll go to school, you'll go to college, you graduate, you get married, you have kids. All the boxes. Yeah. Yeah. Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. That was my story. Yes. When that happened, holy shit. It was like someone slid a whole box up from beneath me. Like if you don't know, the best way I can explain it is, it's like when you have a rope around your neck and you're trying as hard as you can to survive, and then the box is holding you sturdy. Get from you and you're just there and you're strangling, right? You're a little bit hanged. That's how I felt at that moment. And this was also doing a lot of personal work for myself to get ready to go out into the real world and do what I was trained to do, like if we're going to be honest. So instead of going into a corporate job, like the rest of my friends were, and working for the big companies initially, I worked for a small business. And I worked for a small business by the name of Cafeza here in Houston, Texas in the arts district. I started as a live audio engineer on a contract job and my boss who is now my daughter's godfather liked the work that I did so much he hired me on as the venue manager. So I was booking all of the artists and I was also scheduling all of the art that hung up on the wall. I was planning five events a week. We did I think that's something like 250 events a year. And that was for three years up until the pandemic. And that last year, him and I were noticing a massive issue with artists that we were trying to book and them being incredibly talented, especially artists of color, especially Black artists and musicians, were having issues marketing themselves, but they were incredibly, incredibly talented. So my DEI brain goes off. And I started like thinking about all the systemic things that could be contributing to that. And I realized talking with him, there's a serious lack of education on how. These folks can market themselves. They don't have the resources and they didn't have the resources. They didn't have the education. They're just out here trying to make it. And my boss, I'll never forget this. He was like, you know what you should do? You should start a consulting agency that would quite literally help artists get themselves ready to work with venues. And I was like, I mean, I can't do that. I'm a venue manager. I work here. And then I was like, oh, wait a minute. I'm a venue manager. I know all the systems. I work here. He's literally telling me to do this. So he's literally telling me to do this. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no. Here. Yeah. He's like, no, like you've really, you really should. And it's crazy because like, I learned everything about small business by helping them run that business, which rest in peace because the pandemic killed it. Oh, the city misses that place so much. But if it wasn't for that experience and all of that training and everything learned on the back end, I never would have been prepared for the transition that came with me going full time from that to my business when the pandemic hit, because it hit and everything was dead. Yeah. Especially for the arts community, it was not going to come back. It still hasn't really recovered here in Houston like it was prior to. And things are still shaky at this point, right? I'm still trying to figure it out, starting the business, navigating it, rolling through and everything. Started it the first time it failed. This was before the pandemic. Started the second time, six months before the pandemic started, it kicked off very well. And then three months since the pandemic, George Floyd died. And unfortunately, because my content, I say unfortunately, for a reason because my content was already aligned with what people were looking for when it came to trying to cover their ass. Someone shared one of my posts. And it was like an absolute overwhelm of humans on my profile in a matter of 24 hours. Wow. And so it was already hard because I'm from Houston. I'm from third ward. George, Big Floyd was a pillar in our community. So like when he passed in the way that he passed and how we saw it, I'm watching it. And simultaneously after watching it, my feet is going off and my emos are getting blown up and everything is happening. And I'm still working for myself. I don't have a team yet. How do you manage a team? Still unstable, clearly. Still unstable, still trying to fit into the box. So I pivoted my entire business strategy instead of incorporating more diversity, equity, inclusion, anti-racism work on the external feed because that was how I'm doing that internally with all of my clients, but we weren't. There wasn't like a program for it. Right. And so I'm getting booked and booked and booked for trainings and Facebook groups and all this stuff, yada, yada, yada. And I do the training like 60 times in 30 days. It was insane. And I got to a point where I was like, I can't do this anymore. I'm writing a book. And so I wrote a book, Inclusive Strategies for Your Coaching Business. And I think to date that's now sold like 3000 times and it's just a digital copy. So like, that's really cool. Yeah. That ended up leading to the program that you were in, you were in the first round of that. And so before time since then, that's insane to you. That's insane. Like, is this right? You don't even realize how fast it goes. And my business blew up in a matter of 11 months. It went from $12,000 my first quarter, which I guess was like the end of like 2019 to six figures in 11 months. Like before the first year was over, I'd already made my first six figures. And that and it was very overwhelming. And I don't think enough people talk about the overwhelm and the instability that comes with going from a space where you're used to getting a certain amount per week and you manage that to having an overabundance and not knowing what to do. Yeah. While also taking care of children and managing a marriage and my marriage at that point was already like. Awful. And like managing the mental side of things. And so the following year, a lot of stuff went down in my marriage and I ended up leaving. And in the process of leaving, my mental was already just like, just coming apart. All the burnout that came from the summer before I died, really took me in. And I spent like 2021 like kind of easing down and I realized I was like, I have to turn my brain off and get to a point to where I can go back to just creating and writing and creating and writing. And I didn't even mention this, but I'm also a publish author because what kicked off my business and my boss's idea was me writing and helping people in marketing and selling my book. Sorry, y'all. I'm so scattered. You're good. You're doing what we're here for. We're following right along. Yeah. So getting back to what inspired things in the first place. And so I took this last year, 2022, I took a hiatus from one-on-one coaching. I took a hiatus from the program. I took a hiatus from everything except for support coaching. I just worked a full-time job for, I work for a really large corporation now in tech. I'm learning a lot there. I think what this entire space of transition for me has taught has been, one, you do not have to put yourself in a box. Like I mentioned earlier, this is the most me I have been in. Ever. And I say that every time I'm in a new space, most me I've ever been. Yeah, this is going to be the most me I've ever been. And it looks nothing like I want for myself. And I think what it's done has humbled me to a point where I'm thinking about, okay, what do I really want and how do I create that for myself? And how do I take all the experiences that I've learned and then go back and start over? And it's not easy to start over. I'm like rebuilding after being on such a high and then like you go from like a high to like a rock bottom in such a quick amount of time because life can change so fast. Like it's overwhelming, but I think it's great because I'm going back to the things that make me who I am and all that is so like multifaceted and intersectional and there's so many layers. And getting comfortable with the fact that I can be a lot and I know loving me can be a challenge, but I also know the ease that comes from being able to be around me once people can be around me right and so that's a whole other conversation that comes to like friendships and. And dating and all of that but like once I accepted that it was easy to start recognizing and who I want it in my life and who I want it out and what I want it for myself and my kids. So that was so much. I am so sorry. No, do not apologize. Cause now what we're going to do is we're just going to kind of step to the side and go back to different spaces. So first of all, thank you for sharing all that. Because the reason why I love having this platform is to show people that it can be a run on sentence. Like our journey can be a run on sentence. It can be messy. It can be stops and starts. It can be, you know, so many different ways. And the more that we show that and have space to show that instead of the cliff notes or instead of just the like bullet points, I think the more we're all gonna feel seen and heard because especially those of us who are multifaceted but also thought by, and I'm definitely relaying this, by checking those traditional boxes, I should get XYZ. And when it just turned into XY, then it's like, but I did all the things. Why, why, why? And having that moment, and I remember that moment for me as well, of just going, wait a minute, this isn't happening. then. What really have I been planning? Who am I? Your book, dude. Your book was one of the reasons why I left. Your book was one of the reasons why I left. At the beginning of the year when everything was going down and you sent me your book and I read it. And there was a section that I have highlighted in pink that talks about. Yeah, this is nice, but I want more. I read that and I was like, but mine's not even nice. If Mel can leave and it's nice, I can leave if it's shade. I don't need it. You know what I mean? I mean, I find it funny, but this is one of my favorite stats of my book is I have gotten so many messages of people who have left relationships, whether that's divorced or just left long time relationships or relationships they've been oscillating on, whether that is business or professional, it's one of my favorite highlights, honestly, because that is so important to me of that question, what do I want? That wasn't always important to me and my journey and formalizing that question and getting comfortable with that question and now utilizing that question 50 million times a day to make sure that I'm staying in alignment. Same as you, I didn't wake up that way. Like, no, none of us I don't think do. We need to have these shifting moments. I think this is where this gets interesting because we tend to have those at different times, at different levels, in different pieces. globally we have all experienced a huge breakup. Yeah. And you can enter in whatever that breakup was here, but we all had to break up with something and at the same time, sit with ourselves for a really long period. And for some of us surrounded by children all the time. That was me. Lost my mind. Yeah. Yeah. But. Oh man, remote learning with an autistic child. I now know I was never meant to be a diverse teacher or just a teacher in general. God bless my family who did. But I want to come back to these feelings, right? Because I think, not that I think, I know the emotional side of things aren't talked about as much and how they can be such beautiful indicators to the action steps that we can take or what action steps we can take. And this question came up, I'm kind of circling back to, to you now being thrusted into this spotlight. Because of the environment that's happening with George Floyd, with BLM. And I had a conversation with him, I'm sure you heard it because we're both huge fans of him. Rodney Perry on season one. Oh my God, I love him. We talked about this a little bit too, of his perspective of a corporate environment, right? And how he all of a sudden was thrust into the spotlight. But I wanted to get to just the emotional side with you. What were your feelings as you were seeing your feed blow up these kind of, I'm just gonna rightfully say assumptions because of one post of what. You should do, you know, all of that. But how were you feeling as you were kind of being called into or thrusted into this space? So I know I mentioned overwhelmed, but then also very frustrated. I don't know if it's like even a way to explain this. So I'm going to try to do the best I can. Yeah. Because honestly, y'all like there was three months of like insane intense action and, and words being said and policies being changed. And there was so much all at one time. And it took me all of those three months to actually process what was happening. And then by the time I had processed what happened, we were going into the fall and I had a program running. And at that point I felt kind of not necessarily resolved and not as angry anymore, because I could see people taking action quite literally in front of my face and really making significant change in a way that I know is being retained, right? However, when I think about that time, I think about how inconsiderate people actually were. I remember getting hit up for, it was almost like a live stream event of just one really influential human who I actually love to death. So I actually like, I don't even think, I think about it now and it's like, she really didn't mean harm. And I think that's the important thing. None of these folks mean harm, right? Right. But there was one event that I went to and it was like a lineup of black creators in different areas for the week. And I was on that list. And like, it was a cool experience. People had questions, but simultaneously it was also like, Why did it take this to happen in order for us, who are very well knowledgeable what we do to even get the platform, Yeah. On top of that... Is it going to happen again? Like, are you going to continue this repetitively? Is this going to become a habit? Are you going to incorporate this into your brands and your businesses? The answer is no. A majority of the folks did not do it again. And I think that was the frustrating part. Or even like getting hit up, I remember there was one point, like I was getting a hundred DMs a day. It was so loud. And a lot of people wanting me to work for free. And I'm like, huh? Like, I just keep saying, do not pay my rent. Right. Like your exposure doesn't pay my bills. It doesn't pay my rent. On top of that, you're asking to work for free and it's a pandemic. None of us are outside. Like, yeah, there is so much frustration and it made me really sit with, like, okay, like if this is happening and it's going to happen again, and are people going to be as angry as they were when this happened? And the answer was no. And I think like now with what happened to Tyree a couple weeks ago, like it's the exact same thing. And I think that's the frustrating part. Yeah. During that time, you're getting pulled, you're getting pulled, and you know you're making a change in at least one person's life. And I think that's something I had to keep very consistent in my brain was that there was at least one person who's going to hear this and they're going to take it and they're are going to make a change in their lives and their business. Be an ally to someone who needs it in a really radical way. And I had to keep that very center, right? And there was and there is like, you are one of those humans. But like, 100% Yeah, 100% right? Radically to like, y'all do not give a damn and I love it. Like it is so cool. And I had to keep that very center and present myself because I know, I knew that the process, there are some folks who are just being very superficial, and very, what's the word? Performative. performative with the way that they showed up. And then that was it. And they kept going. And then, but the way that they were in their business was still contributing to the systemic issue in the first place, right? It's all going to contribute to it. And that's how I felt. And even to this day, I still feel a lot of that because we're still seeing it. And it's why I had to take a break for a year. But I think one of the cool things about coming back to this work and coming back to this space is that so much has changed since then. And I would hope that people do not have to continue to die in order for change to happen, like in a really radical way. But we also have to look at the impact of what we're doing too. This probably isn't going to be, this is not even going to be an overnight fix. It's now 400 years deep in this, you know what I mean? Yeah. But the more we're able to put ourselves in places where we we can make that change and really be influential in that, the better it'll be. So So that's what I kept center in it. I'm really curious to know what Rodney said because you know how I feel about him. It's one of our most downloaded episodes and I'm so- Oh, it should be. It should be. And it's actually, I mean, I love all of my conversations. It's like, I love all my children for different reasons. But for season one, my entire vision for this podcast can be encapsulated in the conversation that Rodney and I had. and having a space for us to have a conversation. Again, from a space that does not come with any social and emotional labor, really is just a conversation that hopefully, and I know has because of the DMs that I've been getting and the conversations that he's been having, have sparked more of a conversation, more self-education, all of those things. Even just, and I found this interesting, which I shouldn't, but coming from my side of, no, I don't even want to say it, not my side of the coin, but coming from my people. All the... The conversations that my family and my people have been coming to me with after listening to the episodes from season one. Has been exciting and sad because it's sad what they don't really know. Yeah. And to be fair, I mean, that was me five, six years ago, and especially in the community that I grew up in with the very Seventh-day Adventist Christian community. So I love that my podcast is becoming that kind of broader bubble for them, but also just in what they didn't know was happening in their own companies and communities. And by simply listening in on an open conversation between, you know, me, a white person and Rodney and a black man. It is so cool to see to your point that that one drop is creating a ripple. Is it an overnight ripple? No. Will we see it in our lifetime? No. But we have children and hopefully in theirs, it'll be a lot, but it has to start somewhere. Hey friends, liking the episode? Pretty epic, isn't it? Well, guess what? This episode and all others have been made possible by financial support and contributions from listeners like you. So if you would like to continuously hear how these epic humans are more than just go, ahead and head over to our GoFundMe and make a contribution. Cool. All right, let's get back to the magic. You talk about your break and I want to talk about that. And what's coming up is I would love to talk about kind of breaking boundaries. I know because I mean I have like I said respectfully stalked you. I always like to say respectfully because when I say stalk people are like what? No really they know. It's okay. It's really okay. I'm not there with my goggle visions but most guess Texas is too far but I know that you know was because when I was introduced to you, you were in that fully visible to us as an outside audience space where you were sharing a lot on social media, you were very active, you know, you had all of these amazing things going on. And then I also know with this transition, you know, when you left your husband, or and, you know, and now creating this beautiful new life for yourself. You took a break and have shown up differently, but have stepped in fully into your space, I feel like. So let's first start with boundaries. Now that hindsight's, now I hate this term now, hindsight is 2020, but looking back on that. Oh yeah. Fuck that term. I'm removing it from my vocabulary. Hindsight is not 2020. There's not a bunch of fuckery in my I highlight. So looking back on, you know, when you became a full-time entrepreneur and, you know, again, being kind of thrusted into this spotlight, what did you learn from that experience and how have you moved that forward in, in your boundaries? Okay. What I've learned, nothing is worth staying up all night ever. Never, ever go to sleep, go to sleep. Your mind will benefit from the sleep. Sleep at least six hours, at least. Get a few REM cycles in. Nothing will ever benefit from you staying up all night. I have ADHD, so time management has always been very difficult for me, so being able to schedule time in, so that way I don't procrastinate. Are you a manny gen too? Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So like, so like me, the manny gen with ADHD, I'm like, I'm gonna get my shit with all the ideas. And I don't just generate them all, they're gonna happen. Yeah, yeah. Oh yeah. And so don't stay up all night. That's like the first lesson. Second, get enough sleep. Third, eat your meals, drink enough water. I love how everything is tied to wellbeing, right? Because if you don't, I mean, yeah, like if you don't do that at the beginning, and if you don't give yourself the boundaries of honoring that for yourself, you're going to lose your mind and you also might kill yourself in the process because you're gonna be stressed out. Because I was doing that. Like I was up all night, working, working, working in front of my computer. Meanwhile, if I would have been more away from my computer and spent time just looking at what myself and my family needed versus trying to kind of took it away during that time, I feel like I would have seen some things a whole lot sooner and could have addressed them in a way that was more productive versus having it blow up in my face later. Like yes, you're going to hustle in your business, absolutely. But you can hustle in sprints. You can hustle in chunks. You don't have to hustle in like go, go, go, go, go. It's already a marathon. Building a business is not going to be overnight. What happened to me does not happen to most people. Oh my God. Like that also is something that I want to be very clear on. If anyone's telling you you can do six figures in 12 months or six figures in six months. 10 out of 10 would not recommend. Like, where's the asterisk with like the, this could also cause like, yeah, like where's the disclaimer at the bottom of what you could also create for yourself. Yeah, yeah, like it's not easy. And if you're doing it as a parent, and a solopreneur also would not recommend, like there is so many other ways to really build things out in a way that supports you and your family without chilling yourself. 100%. You do not have to do it, because I was doing it. It's not sustainable. I think knowing what I know now, like what I learned then, like I absolutely do love the business structure that I had, But it wasn't made for. Like me. My business structure was made for someone who is single and young and time on their hands. Maybe you're working a part time job and you go to that job to pay like your bills and then you come home and you work in your business. That's what my business structure is for, right? What I'm leaning more into now is what can I do passively and how can I show up in a way that feels very good to me that can be scheduled ahead of time. And I only have to be live as minimal as possible. And I don't mean minimal as in like, I don't show up because you know me, I do. I'm gonna show up, like it's not, come on now. But I think like doing a live program, for example, every single month, mm-mm, can't do that no more. Live launching every single month, mm-mm, don't recommend that either. And again, this is something for me, right? I think also, and this is a phrase that I've loved, like the thinking I'm sitting with, when you're not living your life as fully as possible, when you're creating what you want, you're not going to get what you want. So for example, I'm a professional dancer. I didn't dance for like four years. So I started dancing again July of 2021. So that was almost two years ago. Prior to that, I didn't dance for four years, right? Dance, as y'all heard in earlier in the episode, is my life. Why was I not dancing? I didn't go to the gym at all prior to that either. Prior to that, prior to getting married and having kids, I was at the gym twice a day. Why was I like, if this is what's important to me and I want to build out my life in a way that helps me out, why am I not doing the things that make me happy? Of course I'm gonna be depressed. I'm not doing the things that make me happy. If I want to spend my life and I want to have a life that is full, then I got to create the fullest for myself. And then whatever, whoever I want in it will come to me when I do that. It's not going to happen if I'm not, what? Like, it's just, you have to, I'm talking to my younger self because I know it now. And I'm like, yo, go to dance class. Go out, go outside, go meet new friends. Like go meet new friends. You don't have any friends, bitch. All your friends are online. Three dimensional friends. We need three dimensional friends. Because like when I left my husband, I lost all my friends. I only had like three, which there's nothing wrong with having a small amount of friends, but I had no one like around me. Right. Who actually loved me for me. They loved me because I was with him. You don't want that in your life. No. That's not fun. Like really work on building a full life. And I feel like it's split into sections because the way that I explain this, work on your wellbeing, boundaries, right? Always make time for your well-being. Make time for yourself and your family. If you don't have a family or if you have family members that are nearby, make time for them too if you speak to them. Like your family is there, they love you, right? And then make time for the things you love to do. Yeah. If you're just waking up, going to work and coming home. Yeah. Get somebody else to do it. It's not going to... I can delay it for you. Yeah. Please hire somebody. Because it's so true because we, you and I, I mean, it's not shocking at all. Our journeys are so similar in that respect of. I also, when I had this break, and I love that you touched on the basics because that's where I'm at right now, is what I'm calling going back to the basics of me first. And actually a quote that I read, and I don't remember which book it was from, the way that they put this in a different way just made so much more sense to me. So people always say, you know, you should fill your cup and then serve others from your cup. And it's this constant thing of like depleting and replenishing, depleting and replenishing. And they said pretty much, fuck that noise, keep your cup full and serve others from the saucer. Right. Oh my goodness. So they're like, which means you need to keep your cup full. Always. Period. Mm-hmm. And then what's left over, which there will always be, that is what... Which is enough, is more than enough. Yeah. And that for me was like, oh, because we are taught, especially those of us who... Unidentified humans with uteruses that have had children. We're taught that we need to like, we always say put our mask on first and for our child. None of us are going to fucking do that. We're going to put our mask on our child first. Like I hate that analogy. That one's stupid. However, this like full cup, empty cup, replenish your cup. You need, you know, you need to fill your cup first. No, you need to keep your cup full. So what do you need to do that? So that's what I've been doing as well is going back to these things that brought me so much joy and weren't, I think we get so caught up in as entrepreneurs and solopreneurs that we have to perform. Like our perform and our productivity is our profit. And that's why it's so important to me to remind ourselves that profitability is threefold. It's mentally, emotionally first and then financially. And understanding that, I think, is really going to help us unravel this very capitalistic, performative, productivity-pushed, hello alliteration, world that we're in and more into what can I do, what do I want to do today, how do I want to feel, who do I want to talk to, who What do I want to spend time with? What do I want to know? How much more we can get done when we come out of it from ourselves first. Yeah. So taking this break that you took, cause I know so many of us are called to take breaks and we just get so scared to take them. Yeah. Okay, so let's start with this. Was the break that you took planned? No. What inspired? Nope. How did that unfold? Well, divorce. Divorce. The ultimate break. This wasn't no Ross or Rachel break. No. No, no, no, no, no. Divorce. And it was not planned to get a divorce. I was actually planning on trying to work things out. And then an incident occurred that triggered me to say, fuck this. And I was like, no, I can't do it. And I thought I could continue like navigating the way that I was doing life prior to the divorce and like being able to go through it. But like my mental health again was like, it was trying to operate as if I still had a human who was assisting, but I did not. So I was looking at my bank account And I was looking at me and I was looking at my babies and I was looking at just everything. And I was also feeling crappy about being in the home that we were in because that was the last home I had with my ex. And I was like, no, we're going to, we got to like turn off for a moment. Who really just got a like. Off. So like I said, I got a corporate job and I was like, all right, I'm just going to create for the sake of creating. And at first it was just like, I was like really back into heavy dance and I was sharing like me practicing more, which I'm gonna get back to do it again. Y'all I just don't I don't know where I'm gonna dance yet. I'm trying to figure that. Out. I can't I can't record at the studio that I'm at there. And I was like trying to find a place to dance. Right. But I was studying was just dance and poetry and me processing like what leaving looks like and checking in and all of that right and then I got my job and I'm still doing that and I was still taking one-on-ones and I got to a point I was like I don't know if I want to do this anymore right now it just doesn't feel good I'm not showing up the best that I can for my one-on-one clients and I just had one at that point because I wasn't taking on any ones I was just still too hurt and so I told my client I was like we're gonna pause here she was totally fine with it, very understanding. If y'all ever feel like you need to stop and you have people, it's okay. They will understand. They will understand. And she was very understanding. I love her to death. And she knows that we're still friends. But I had to pause and stop. Same thing with my program because I was watching you the fourth round of it. And I was like, y'all for now, we're going to do this but I can't. We got to pause and stop whenever we open it up and back up, y'all be the first to know and all of that. And I haven't deleted anything, portal still there, it needs updates, but like, finally, I'm getting back to that year later, right? I was working and dancing. I ended up getting a promotion at work and so sort of there full time. And I was like, okay, cool. Like this is a learning experience that I know is probably going to be temporary, which is fine, but I want to be able to like see it through. And since then, it's just been like me continuing to figure out like what I want whenever I'm out of that. Mm-hmm. And if I hadn't stopped to take a break, like full stop. Yeah. Not opening up Kajabi. I think my emails are at 20,000 at this point. Because you were trying to email me and I wasn't responding because the email was lost. That's just how it was. Just in the jungle. It was in the jungle. Yeah. Yeah. That's what it was. And for me, I was like, this is okay. I have been in a space where I have been leading and creating for the sake of others for the last 26 years. I'm going to take 27 and have that year to myself and I'm going to stop. And when I did that, I was able to welcome in a whole new group of friends that are here in Houston that I'm obsessed with. I am so obsessed with my friends. It's ridiculous. They all come from various backgrounds. They all are so much fun to be around. I do girls nights here. I get to spend more time with my friends who are also musicians. We're all like plotting to take over the world here in Houston, trying to find new ways to do events. I'm actually volunteering for a friend of mine's event next Tuesday for Valentine's day which is a lot of fun because I don't have a valentine so I'm going to volunteer. Going out more and I'm dating Like I got to a point where I feel very comfortable dating and it's so easy to say no when you know what you want. And everything's clouded and you're just trying to find a human to fill a void you're not gonna find a human just gonna find another mess so I like I've been saying no really hard and. Also being so open to saying yes Because I want to say yes to a human and I just want to be very patient in that process, right? I spend time with my kids. We go to the Children's Museum. Whenever I have a weekend day off, I'll spend it with them. There's things that I'm bringing back to center while also seeing my net worth climb because being at a corporate job that offers stock options, blessings, blessings, you know what I mean? So there's so many ways to reclaim yourself even when you're not doing what you thought you would do for the rest of your life. What you're doing right now, you are not going to do 10 years from now. You will not do it 20 years from now. The work you're doing now will pave the way for what you want to do later. I wanna retire by 40. I can't retire by 40 if I don't have a stock portfolio, period. So I'm taking five years, not five years at this job specifically, I don't know what that looks like, but I'm taking five years to really like, look at all the ways I can use the time resources I have to build for what I want later because I know 10 years from now, 12 years, excuse me, I don't want to have to work. Right? If I don't want to have to work, then I got to figure out how to make that happen. It wasn't going to happen the way that I was doing it though. So like it was kind of like the universe kind of meeting me and saying like if you don't get your shit together and move your circumstances and get all these people that are dragging you down out of your life or continuing to move like nothing is wrong because there's things very wrong you're not going to get what you want. You have to do the things that really align with you and that break like even though it was unplanned And, ciao. It's hard to get, that was good. That was hard to get out the break. Yeah. But I mean, I'm sitting here just like internally hallelujah. Cause yes, all of that. Yes. And I mean, I would be shocked as a motherfucker if somebody's like, I only got one takeaway from this episode. If there is for some weird reason only one, it's this culmination that you've so beautifully talked about this entire episode of re-evaluation and patience and consistency not in what you do but how you step into it. And I think I already said sustainability, so I'm saying it again. But that's it. That is really the pillars in my mind to, quote unquote, success, because it is yours. And having a goal is beautiful, but be open to the plan. Don't marry yourself to, well, if I'm going to be an entrepreneur, I could never get a corporate job because that's failure. I can't take a break because that's letting people down and failure. No, pronounce what you want. Know what you already have and how you already know you want it to come about where you are right now. And be open to these shifts because your energy is going to shift. You're gonna get older. I've had many conversations now over the past couple weeks, it's just not shocking on people getting frustrated by their quote-unquote lack of energy. It's not lack of energy, it's just different energy. And one, knowing your human design is helpful, but two, just giving yourself permission to shift with the energy and use that time in a way that is quote unquote profitable to you. Like there's just so, so much here and I could talk to you forever, but I won't now. Maybe we'll have to do this again. I mean, again, you've already dropped just so much knowledge and we could talk forever about so many things, but is there anything else that as we wrap up this conversation, for now. Anything else that you would like to share before we say goodbye? Just remember that everything about your existence is fluid. I mean, not everything. There are certain things about yourself that are pretty permanent, like. Your race, but that's about it. I like that one. Like when I think about it, I was like, I mean, that's the only permanent thing is your race and your ethnicity, but that's about it. Like everything else can change. Your environment can change. Your wealth can change. Your education can change. Your sexuality is fluid. Get out of the box. The box sucks. We're not a fan of the box. That's it. It is okay to get out of the things that you thought were going to be. You're an end-all be-all because it's not going to be. You're going to die at some point. Do you really want to die doing what you're doing right now? And if you do, bet. But if you don't, If you don't, then what do you want to die doing? I want to die a writer. I already am one. But like, I would much rather be traveling and writing and making music. That's what I would rather be doing and talking to people about being better, better humans globally, just like going around the globe and doing that. That's what that's what I would rather be doing. Right. So that's a great question that I am definitely going to be writing down and pondering. So listeners, if you would like to, again, respectively, stalk VP, we will have all of their handles, websites, everything that they'll share with us in the show notes. But once again, V, thank you so much for stepping into this space, for sharing time with us, for sharing who you are, what you do, all of your beautiful facets and how you are more than just. And listeners everything like I said you need will be in the show notes and we will see you next time. Music. All right folks once again thank you so much for listening to this epic episode. All of the resources and links connected to it will be in our show notes located on our website morethanjust.buzzsprout.com. If you liked this episode, which I would be shocked if you did not, go ahead and hit that like, subscribe, review, and share. Also remember that this episode and all others have been made possible by financial contributions and support from listeners like you. So if you would like to hear more stories of how Epic Humans are more than just, pop on over to are GoFundMe and make a contribution. Also don't forget to follow us on Instagram at more than just podcasts. Thanks again. Music.