Happy Motivational Mondays:  STOP the crap in your life!

Hey blog family. I recently read an article by Jim Collins, where he studied companies that went from good to great. He shared that instead of creating a to-do list, companies that went from good to great started to prepare a STOP doing list.  I found this quite insightful being that I’m the Queen of endless to do lists!! (I’m sure some of you can relate!)  So I sat down Sunday morning and thought of the top 5 things that I will now stop doing, personally, emotionally and also in business.

My Five-STOP Doing:   ** I cheated and did six!

     

     1.     I will STOP making my health and well being a low priority.

     2.     I will STOP adding new projects to 2013-14 without really considering if I have the time to 

          complete them.

     3.     I will STOP comparing myself to other womyn, be it dress size, beauty, success, hairstyle etc.      

          Instead I will affirm my own beauty and my own success.

     4.     I will STOP ignoring my gut feeling about things in my life, new opportunities, folks that I    

          meet, etc. I will listen to my gut instincts on things and trust that I’m right.

     5.     I will STOP “leading a busy life, and instead lead a disciplined life!”  I read this quote 

          somewhere and it really resonated with me.

     6.     I will STOP being judgmental of my loved ones, friends, and family and be more forgiving.

What 5 things would be on your STOP doing list? Please comment and share to inspire others.

Our new ~ trey anthony Modern Day Blog family!!! Welcome!

One of the things I love most in the work that I do is being able to give a platform to fun, quirky, talented women to share their stories. Thus, I'm excited to be welcoming, Ajike Akande who will be blogging every Wednesday for my blog! Ajike is a wonderful, black queer mom of five kids, all under the age of six! Which include two sets of twins! And she raises these wonderful little kiddies with her amazing wife Lisa Silverman. They are a funny and exciting bunch and I know you will fall in love with this family as much as I have!

Please see below Ajike's first blog!

"Kids mommy has a new job!"

I haven’t had a non-parent related deadline in years.  Seriously.  I think my last deadline was in 2010.  Given my vacation from non-parent related deadlines, you can imagine the panic that I felt when Trey asked me if I wanted to contribute to her blog.  I allowed myself 60 seconds of “Wow, this is so cool!  Yay, somebody (like a real funny, creative somebody) thinks I’m funny.  This funny thing is big for me, because growing up my sister was the funny one and I was the cute one and while I’m totally still adorable, I’m pretty sure cute just doesn’t carry the same weight at 38 years old.  Anyway, so after 60 celebratory seconds, I returned to my default setting – panic.  Now what?  You don’t say no when Trey Anthony asks if you will write something for her blog.  I HAVE to do this.  Up until this point I was riding on the fact that the only two things I HAVE to do, is stay black, and die.  Now I have to stay black, die and write something for Trey Anthony’s blog.  So from my dining room, wearing leggings and wool socks (Yes, leggings are legitimate pants for a grown woman and no, I’m not quite done with dressing like a 14 year old), I am writing my first blog post. 

My name is Ajike Akande and I am mother.  That’s not all I am.   Don’t forget, I am adorable and a whole host of other good and less good things.  But mostly, right now, I am a mother.  Whenever I speak formally as a Mom (like once every few months at a course for lesbian and queer women wanting to raise children), I introduce myself as a bereaved mom, an adoptive mom, and a multiples mom. 

The day I became a mom for the first time, I held our baby until she died.  The second time I became a mom, our baby was delivered to us from a rural community two hours from our home in the city.  The third and fourth time I became a mom I held my breath until I was wheeled into the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit to meet our twin girls.  The fifth and sixth time I became a mom, our boy / girl twins were handed to me (not to my partner who had not just had two lives torn from her abdomen) as I was wheeled out of the operating room.  If you are good at counting, you now realize that I am a mom of 6 children – five, who I hold in my arms every day and one, who I believe, is watching out for her brothers and sisters from a special place. 

I didn’t include any timelines but I’m talking about a 6.5 year old boy, 4.5 year old twin girls and 2 year old boy/girl twins.  That’s five kids, six and under.  Not nearly as scary as the five under five we had when the littles were born which, of course, also meant that we he had four under three! 

I hang with this cast of characters full-time and am so grateful when my partner Lisa returns home from work so I can glare directly at her with resentment in my eyes for having left me in charge of these small people all day! 

I adore my kids and have all the appropriate Mama Bear instincts when it comes to keeping them safe and happy, but life with 5 small children is eventful.  Things happen when we’re trying to get from 7 am to 7 pm in one piece.   Things like being late.  I could actually write a whole book about why we are always late for everything.  When we’re trying to be on time (‘cuz we have goals like regular sized families) things go wrong.  Terribly, terribly wrong.  The little ones discover the consistency of Vaseline.  The middles find their individual and collective voice – vacillating between their whiny voice and their demanding voice.  Both, equally perfected.  Both,  equally good at holding us up.  And the big, who feels left out because he doesn’t have a twin, takes it upon himself to have the energy of at least two six year olds and chooses to pirouette rather than walk through the house.   I write about these adventures in lateness and life in general with a lot of kids because on the same day that I call my partner to tell her that I can’t stand the kids and she needs to come home immediately, I sheepishly confess that I can’t believe how fortunate I am to have been there the moment each of my five kids discovered their shadow or heard their echo.

I can’t keep these stories about my mommy life to myself.  If I did, thinking about them would scare me and keep me in bed for days!  When the stories are more stressful than funny, keeping them to myself would make me feel alone and defeated.   I share the stories of our wacky family, from my crooked perspective, because they’re funny and frustrating. And because being a stay at home mom is the most intense, boring, wonderful, isolating thing I have ever done.  I write because I care about connecting with others who may be in their own personal trench – parent or otherwise, because it makes me feel less alone and because when I’m writing, my wife feels guilty interrupting so I actually get a few moments of peace – until she has a burning question about how to manage the inmates, I mean children.   

So if you want to read my stories, I’ll be sharing them here.  I hope you will check back and read about my life as downtown, queer, black mommy who loves leggings.  I’m a looking forward to returning to the world of non-parent related deadlines. 

Thank you, Trey for making it impossible for me to say no and introducing me to your blogging family.   

   

Andrea Lewis Debuts ‘Black Actress’ Web Series with Issa Rae

I always admire womyn who just do it! I love artists who don’t groan about the lack of work opportunities for us, but put on their big girl panties and just make it happen! That’s why I’m so excited about Andrea Lewis’s new web series, ‘Black Actress’. It’s produced by Issa Rae from the web series ‘Awkward Black Girl’.  I look forward to the debut of ‘Black Actress’ and to standing behind it 100%. Us sista’s have to support one another! Community is important. The only way we make our stories stay relevant, is if we make them relevant by showing our support! 

Black Actress is also co-produced by Actress Tatyana Ali who has been a strong advocate for cultural empowerment in the industry. It features appearances by Jenifer Lewis, Essence Atkins, “Da Kink In My Hair” star Melanie Fiona and many more cameos.

The project was created, written by, and stars Andrea Lewis. As an Actress and Entertainer herself, she understands the issues and difficulties black actresses face in Hollywood.  Andrea used the crowd funding website IndieGoGo to launch the web series and successfully reached her starting goal. Kudos to her! The word is out and the trailer is quickly going viral.

The aim and purpose of ‘Black Actress’ the web series is to show black women as more than stereotypes.  “The message I want people to take from Black Actress is that the journey is the same for all of us. No matter what your color or gender is, we all just want to live our dreams. But the opportunities are not always there for women of color and it can affect you in more ways than one.” "We're in a great time as an artist or creative person, because you don't have to wait for anyone to give you the 'ok' to do something you want," Andrea said in an interview.  

Black Actress the web series debuts on November 5th 2013 and airs on Issa Rae’s YouTube channel. Here is the first official trailer. Support, Support, Support! Please share the link as well. Let’s stand behind our sistas doing big tings!

Check out the trailer below:

20 year-old Creates His Own Lane By Becoming the Second African American Driver to Win NASCAR

 

While black media is still buzzing and outraged over racial profiling in national department stores and the offensive use of black face for Halloween, recently NASCAR driver Darrell Wallace Jr. made significant history as the First African American to win a race in 50 years. He became the second black driver to win on NASCAR's national level. Wendell Scott first won in Jacksonville, Florida., in December 1963.  Wallace, 20-years-old, stated "This Means Everything!" and that it was an "emotional win for him". He said he "had confidence coming into the race and he capitalized on it". 

Kudos to him for his win and having the "Drive" to accomplish his goals! (pun intended.) It's honorable that Wallace chose to follow his passion despite whatever odds were against him. How many of us sometimes allow negative thoughts or circumstances to make us reconsider our dreams? When you have a calling on your life, refuse for negativity to shut you down. Worry can sometimes make us depressed and stagnant, whatever can shut us up, can shut us down. It's up to us to go for our authentic voice and be empowered to take action. Being driven by our passion gets our heart racing, and adrenaline pumping for the better... It makes us alive. Darrell Wallace Jr. is paving the race way as a great inspiration to us all. 

Check it out in the video below: 

Should Jay-Z Cut Ties With Barneys Amidst Racial Profiling Headlines?

Should Jay-Z cut his ties with major fashion retailer Barneys is the question that has been asked around the internet since two stories broke of Barneys racially profiling two black customers who tried to purchase high end items. The first case was of a 19-year-old, Trayon Christian who was arrested after purchasing a Ferragamo belt with a credit card. Store clerks called police on him and he was arrested as NYPD accused the young man of using a fraudulent credit card to make the purchase. His identity and credit card was identified and he was later released but the sting of the racial profiling remains. The second incident happened with Kayla Phillips who attempted to purchase a Celine bag and was told that there were tons of undercover cops roaming the store to make sure that no theft or scamming occurred.

This situation is not new because people of color have been wrongly accused and profiled for years from high end stores to lower end convenience stores (hey, even Oprah has been profiled many times before!). What has become a new issue and discussion though is that we have many black public figures who now are partnering and have lucrative deals with these major brands and institutions that are known to racially profile. So the question is, is it on these black public figures to make a statement by cutting ties with these companies. Should Jay-Z cut ties with Barneys?  The thing is that after contracts are signed and promotion is done, it is difficult to make that kind of move right now. Cutting ties would mean millions lost and hours in court with lawyers.

The interesting part of this story is that if Jay-Z was just Shawn Carter from Brooklyn, wouldn’t he fit the “suspicious” look that Barneys has been keeping an eye out for?

What are your thoughts on this scenario – would you cut ties with Barneys if you were in his situation?

A Mid-Week Pep Talk From Kid President

I just love this kid! I don't know who thought of this or how he got to be so funny and brilliant but I really enjoy watching the confidence and enthusiasm from Kid President.

In his latest video, Kid President encourages people to get involved with Socktober (a charity that collects items and contributions for homeless people). His pep talk speaks about recognizing that even if we all feel small in this big world, we can still do our little part to make the world a better place and contribute to the things we care about. No one is too small to make a difference. I love this message because it's true.

Check it out in the video below:

MONDAY MOTIVATION: Finding Your Voice and Opportunity

I saw this post on my timeline of a fellow Canadian who is doing her thing and especially at such a young age. Priya Ramunjam is the co-founder of  Urbanology Magazine, an urban magazine created to highlight the Canadian voice in hip hop culture. She also does a lot of community work with youth in her Malvern, Scarborough community.

This TEDx talk is a great one to watch because it is another example of how tapping into exactly what is authentic to you and using it to create a unique voice not only opens up the path to success but also encourages others to share their voices as well. When you are able to hone in on what special voice you have to share, that's where true opportunity awaits.

What do you have to say to the world?

Happy Monday!

A Young Boy Asks Members of a Church Congregation to Adopt Him

I'm blown away by this young boy, Davion Only's courage. Inspired by the saying "God only helps those who help themselves", Only decided that in the face of growing up in a foster home for all of his young life that he would help himself. I'm sure he is tired of the system that is set up to help children like him yet has failed to find him a permanent home.

In helping himself, Only decided that he would go to a church in St. Petersberg, Florida to see if anyone was willing to adopt him. This breaks my heart for all of the young men and women who so desperately want a home to call their own. This is exactly why my heart is set on adopting a family because there are too many children out here who just want to be loved and have no one.

Two couples inquired at the church that Only went to, but he has yet to find a permanent home. With his level of courage and determination, I'm sure he will find someone soon. He is definitely an inspiration to us all.

MONDAY MOTIVATION: Why Oprah Had Trouble Writing Her Harvard Commencement Speech

I just saw this video from Super Soul Sunday, where Oprah discusses with author Steven Pressfield the reason why she had such difficulty writing her Harvard Commencement speech. She has spoken and done speeches many times before but this one she couldn't bring herself to write. Pressfield explains that this is an example of resistance, "the more important an activity is to your soul's evolution, the more resistance you will feel to it. The more fear you will feel."

Which is why Oprah was having difficulty, because speaking at Harvard clearly meant something to Oprah. She admitted that it's the name "Harvard" and all that it represents and means.

How many of us want something so deeply, but have not made any moves to make it happen in our lives. We say we want to lose weight but continue to stop at the drive-through every lunch break, or we say we want to write  a book but have yet to allow our pen to hit paper.

Pressfield says that the way to overcome resistance is to really realize that the pain of not doing what you really want to do is way worse than the pain of just doing it. So his advice is simple, just do it.

Happy Monday!

Issa Rae's "Black Twitter Party" Video

 Off the heels of that funny Jimmy Fallon and Justin Timberlake hashtag skit that made the internet rounds a week ago, Issa Rae created her own twist with the "Black Twitter Party". I thought this was a hilarious and very true representation of what goes on with black twitter: there's the conscious one, #teamlightskin, the athlete, the followback hound and so many more of the typical characters that you see in your twitter feed.

Check it out above.

Have a great weekend!