Episode 155: How To Take A Sabbatical And Not Feel Guilty About It w/Jereshia Hawk
If you want a refreshing conversation about re-defining success and giving yourself permission to take a break, this episode is for you. We are constantly told in the entrepreneur world to grow at all costs, which can lead to unhealthy and unrealistic expectations of what success looks like. I'm joined by business strategist Jereshia Hawk as she shares her journey of building her business from zero to 1 million+ a year in revenue and why she decided to take a step back by taking a 7 month sabbatical at the height of her business growth.
Here’s What We Cover and More:
Jereshia’s decision to take a planned sabbatical at the height of her career
Key themes like internalized capitalism, burnout, and redefining success
Jereshia’s business journey and how she planned her seven-month sabbatical
The role of money mindset and discovering the concept of “enough”
Shifts in business priorities and how personal growth played a role
Value of agency, defining success, and healing through business
Tips for managing stress, personal boundaries, and self-care as a business owner
Taking a sabbatical isn’t stepping away from success; it’s recharging your superpowers. Remember, burnout doesn’t make you a hero— balance does. So ditch the guilt and embrace the break; your best work is waiting on the other side of rest!
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Resources Mentioned:
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Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/victoriagiardina/?hl=en
Follow Jereshia Hawk on: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jereshiahawk/
Visit her website: https://www.jereshiahawk.com/
Connect with her on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jereshiahawk
Listen to her podcast: https://www.jereshiahawk.com/podcast/
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Transcript
00:00:00 Gloria: What's up, small business heroes? Welcome back to Small Business PR, where we make marketing and PR super accessible for the everyday small business hero. Today, we're going to do something different and I'm so excited for today. Now, usually on this podcast, I talk about SEO, PR, marketing, we have journalists come on. But today, I wanted to have my friend, Jereshia Hawk, come in.
00:00:18 Gloria: Maybe you've seen her. She's all over Instagram. She's a brilliant individual. She's built a successful business. But she actually decided to do something pretty radical in our world, which is when she was at the height of her career. And I mean, making millions of dollars, she decided to take a planned sabbatical. So if you've ever wondered what is the definition of enough or what's on the other side of you, maybe making millions of dollars and then someone choosing to actually take a step back, this episode is for you.
00:00:44 Gloria: We're going to be talking about a lot of themes that I resonate with, such as internalized capitalism, our money mindset, burnout. And so for all of that, I'm so excited to dive into it. Thank you for coming and welcome to the show.
00:00:56 Jereshia: Yeah, I'm so pumped to be here and to be able to chat more about this with you and your audience as well. So thank you for having me.
00:01:03 Gloria: I know this is probably a little bit different than the usual requests you get, right?
00:01:08 Jereshia: Well, I mean, I think since coming back from sabbatical, people are like, say more and like, let's dig into it. And I think that, you know, just I think post pandemic, a lot of people have been taking breaks, but for different reasons. And I think it's been really cool to explore and hear more people's stories about what that's been like. And it's been really fun too, to share what my experience has been as well. So I'm excited to keep talking about it too, because taking breaks and success and defining success on our own terms, I think is like stuff that needs to become more normalized and more conversation around as well.
00:01:41 Gloria: Yeah, and I think that there's a lot of fluff around that. I think there's like, oh, like treat yourself, but it's still like more and more and more, and there's no stop. So can you… Just let's take a step back and paint a picture of where your business was, where it was at when you decided to take a sabbatical. Now, you told me that it wasn't this burnout health thing that happened, but you actually planned it. It could be intuition or something. Take us back to where your business was at, when you planned the seven-month long sabbatical.
00:02:06 Jereshia: Yeah. So I mean, there's been moments and seeds over the past eight years that led to me taking the break and like, one started maybe two years into my business. I was in Bali traveling and met this really incredible couple who was on a year-long sabbatical from their traditional job. They were like boarding school educators. Part of their benefits was that after every seven years, you get a paid year off to take a sabbatical. That's what their family was doing.
00:02:32 Jereshia: They were traveling the world, hitting different continents every quarter. I just was like, wow. I think that that's a really cool benefit that employees are getting access to. And I had a girlfriend in HR at the time too, who was like, yeah, a lot of progressive companies are doing more of these like sabbatical offers to their employees as part of their benefit package. And around that time too, I used to read just about successful entrepreneurs. My partner at the time was, like, in private equity and hedge fund.
00:03:01 Jereshia: And he was like, you guys in this online space are just like, you guys have no exit strategy. You guys are just like building with no really end goal in mind which is like so contrary to, what traditional private equity, buy a company, you build it, you sell it, how that typically works in that space. And that was the other seed that I got is, you need to have an exit strategy. And that real life experience coupled with my partner's financial expertise and him really introducing that concept to me is really where the idea came from, of like, there's seasons to business.
00:03:40 Jereshia: I'll probably be in business for the rest of my life, but how I run my business, what my business looks like, what I'm willing to sacrifice, what I'm not willing to sacrifice is going to shift based off the season that I'm in. And I was like, okay, let's look at like a seven-year season. I got that number from reading, I think, Millionaire Next Door, like how long does it take the average millionaire to become a millionaire? And just like looking at, you know, just some of the Google statistics around like what people do when they buy a company and build it. It's like they buy it, they build it for five to seven years. They take a break for two to three years and then go do it again.
00:04:14 Jereshia: So I'm like, there's like this pattern of like, you know, and even I think athletes typically last NFL wise, like maybe four to seven years. So it's like, there's like this seven year cycle is kind of what I was looking at. I was okay after my seventh year, I'd love to be able… to be in a position of choice where if I wanted to take a break, I could, and that's where the seed started.
00:04:34 Jereshia: 18 months before I removed all clients, offloaded all team, took a full cognitive load, I was like, okay, what type of sabbatical do I want to take? At that time, my business was doing over a million dollars a year. I just had my first million dollar cash collected profit year. I think the business did maybe around 1.4 million in revenue. I profited a million dollars that year. That was like, holy shit.
00:05:02 Jereshia: Like that was massive in a calendar year, but that was where I was like, okay, you're like 18 months out from being seven years in business full time. How do you want the sabbatical to look? Do you want, you know, then I was like, there's three options. You're going to either offload every single person, offload every client, offload every team member, have no cognitive load on, like truly be off. Do like a mixture where you're going to just maintain the clients that you currently have, but have other people fulfilling those roles. You’re not actively selling.
00:05:33 Jereshia: So it's like half the departments of the business are shut down. Or everything is still operational. You're still Legion, you're still selling, you're still enrolling, you're still delivering, but you're not physically there. And I spent 18 months like, testing every cat… each one of those like the main two options in regards to, are we going to keep selling and delivering or just delivering and roll people off. I tested every department at scale to see what is the breaking point of effectiveness with the least amount of owner dependency and how can I test that over the next 18 months?
00:06:09 Jereshia: So that was like where the business was at during that time period, like where the seed got planted for wanting to take a break in addition to like what the 18 months prior to my seven months fully time off looked like.
00:06:22 Gloria: I love how, it's so contrarian because it's always like this moving goalpost, right? As you said, there is no extra strategy for us. There's no one telling us, okay, you did a good job. Good night. Have some ice cream. And so it's just, there's always like more, more, more. And it's this myth that, like the more I do, the more I create, because it really is, we determine our destiny, if you will.
00:06:44 Gloria: And even though that's creative freedom and autonomy, but I think a lot of what we're seeing is, well, there is no end to that. And it's never going to be enough. And so for a lot of founders, when they hit a mill, they're immediately going to the next mill. How do I scale this even more? And so I think it's so interesting that you're like, I'm actually good. And I know, you know, for the people who don't know, like you don't come from a lot of wealth, like we both come from distant friends.
00:07:06 Gloria: So like, I think that mindset to reject that, like I'm just gonna keep scaling is like, wow, wow. Can you talk to me a little bit more about that? Like your relationship with money and like, why did you decide to be like, I'm actually good? And not just like a sabbatical, like air quotes, I'm gonna be working in a coffee shop. Like you are fully not working. Right?
00:07:23 Jereshia: Yeah. I mean, like I want to say that the level of articulation I'm giving now is like, in height, like a lot of it is hindsight looking back. The first year I hit my first million, that was always my goal. I thought that, like I had to make a million. I wanted my personal net worth to hit seven figures. And I thought that was what I needed to be safe. And you know, similar background is, you know, my grandmother raised me like she did the best she could. My grandmother and aunt did the best they could provide.
00:07:51 Jereshia: And given the circumstance, I think they did a good job. But like I grew up with, you know, parents abandoned and left and like, you know, didn't come from an environment where, like money was always talked about is there's never enough. What I saw on my environment around me where people were, I mean, killing themselves, literally like they had early graves because of how hard they worked to make enough money. And there was like, it was never enough.
00:08:19 Jereshia: So being in a position of financial abundance, having more than what my means required was always an objective of mine and how I really always, what my pursuit, what I was trying to prove, the survival mentality was from. But when, maybe the fifth year in business, I had my first million dollar revenue year. And it was a really interesting thing because it's like this big goal, I think I've always been an ambitious person. I wanted to hit it because I'm like, only like less than 2% of women of color ever even do it. I, like I wanna be an example for what's possible. And I wanted to show myself that I could do it.
00:08:56 Jereshia: And I think like, one thing I think that needs to be, I wish is more normalized or talked about is like I was in my twenties, I had no kids. Like my only real responsibility was to myself. And then at the time I had got married, it's like, okay, it's me and my partner. Like I don't have a lot of other obligations. I actively chose to say I'm sacrificing my 20s to build my personal net worth so that my 30s and my 40s will come with more ease and more comfort. And when kids do come into the equation, it's not, like life is already hard from what my friends with kids tell me. They're like, girl, parenting is ghetto. I'm like, what can I do to set myself up for success in the long term?
00:09:36 Jereshia: I think that I was… The hustle and the grind of my 20s, my late 20s into my, going into my 30s, that was an intentional choice. That was like a season of sacrifice, but that was also very much wrapped in a mindset of like, survival and lack of safety and security. So those two things were coupled together for sure. And I think that as I started making more money, it was like, Jay, having more, you know, I think after the million dollar a year and then after the million dollar profit year, I was like, you still don't feel safe.
00:10:08 Jereshia: And it's like, does money create happiness or solve problems? To some degree, yes. Because, some of the problems that I had, money could fix them. But it's like, once my problems that were solved, that could be solved with money, I was just left with the root cause issues that was really like an internal healing dynamic that like, can you throw money at it? Sure, in the sense of like, therapist, somatic work, getting, like some of that mindset support, but at the end of the day, it's like that's still my stuff to deal with and to heal.
00:10:42 Jereshia: So, I mean, like that was more of my journey. It's like when that wake up call happened, I think too growing up where like the biggest problems that we had in our life were money related. Like that's part of the reason my mom, she had two kids before she graduated high school. Part of the reason why she left is because of the… she couldn't handle it. She was too young. They didn't have the resources. Like that's part of the reason, that was part of her choice.
00:11:08 Jereshia: So it's like in my mind, up until this point, it's like, you know, money has been the biggest culprit of the biggest challenges that my socio-economic, like my environment was facing. So that was like kind of my journey of like, I mean, back then, I didn't know what enough was, you know, I didn't really have a definition of like, enoughness because like the money, the more I was making, there was still a level of safety that I was longing for, regardless of what my external circumstances and environment looked like.
00:11:41 Jereshia: And I think too, that was like, you know, so yeah, I feel like, that's like the culmination of how that mindset has really worked and shifted and like working with my therapist, she's like, girl, you, there's more underneath here than just the business and the success of the business. But it took me hitting that number. And like doing it more than once for me to have the internal self-awareness to be like, okay, all this energy you're directing at continuing to grow this, maybe if you need to direct it internally and direct it in a different direction to get to the safety, the security, the peace that you're ultimately looking for.
00:12:19 Jereshia: But there was other real problems that existed that I don't think I could have had that level of awareness, at least for my dynamic and my lived experiences. Until being in that position, it opened up, new perspective.
00:12:32 Gloria: Yeah, I always say, you know, like, it's not for the faint of heart. Our business is, it's the biggest lesson in therapy because if you have money issues, you're going to feel it. If you have abandonment issues, you're going to see that. If you have trust issues, you're going to see that. And in this, by the same token, not only does it act as a mirror of what we need to work on, I truly believe that we can use our business as a vehicle to heal ourselves too.
00:12:54 Gloria: So like, I wonder what that moment was for you. I know you didn't have a burnout. I'll give you an example of what happened with me. So I came into the online space more recent than you, like during COVID, kind of the gold rush, if you will, of online courses. No idea what a funnel was, webinar was. I was working in the US government. You were an engineer, so completely different.
00:13:12 Gloria: And you know, scaled very quickly. I remember after my first six-figure launch, because that was like, oh, I wanted to do that. The only thing I did after we hit the number was berating my team. Who are these refunds? Who are these people? And I became such an awful leader because here I was reaching that goal and I was just completely tearing down everything that we've built.
00:13:33 Gloria: And so I look back and I'm not proud of that person. I'm not proud of the way that I'm married. And I still have a lot of tendencies, but I am trying to work on it. I did actually suffer burnout. I had a fibroid surgery where they removed a 13-centimeter fibroid. I will never forget, I did a launch. I did that first six-figure launch, like three weeks later wearing bandages. And I look at videos of myself and I feel sad for her that she felt like she had to do it.
00:14:00 Gloria: So what, in what ways did you realize that, like maybe you needed to examine your relationship with enoughness? Was it a moment? Was it how it impacted your relationship? Was it your team?
00:14:12 Jereshia: I mean, like I've, I don't know if like, the enoughness kind of is just like, I think that after multiple years of like, hitting seven figures back to back. And like, you know, one thing I, you know, my lifestyle being whatever it was, I'm just like, there was this, like emptiness in it though. And I think that when, you know, I wanna say this like contextually and mindfully, because it's not like money was the issue. It was just like, I think when you're coming from a place of survival and safety, living in America, capitalist society, money absolutely matters.
00:14:49 Jereshia: But I was just losing touch with the meaning, I guess, really behind it. I'm like, Jay, you keep making... My ambition for more just started to dwindle as the years went on, which is out of character for me. So I was like, I think that was the... Before you were doing all this for yourself and that season has come and it's come to pass, I think age played a role into it because I was in my… I'm, early 30s and I'm like, okay, I think that just like my priorities of life are changing.
00:15:25 Jereshia: I'm like, do I want kids? Do I not want kids? Do I want to start family planning? What does that look like if kids are in the mix? What type of mom do I want to be? What type of partner do I want to be? What type of parent do I want to be? And I think like just with age, growing up, I think too, when you're, for me, I mean, I started the business in 2017. I think at the time I was like 26, 27 years old.
00:15:48 Jereshia: I think age also plays a huge factor in it for me. I've just like, my, and it goes back to what I had mentioned earlier, like sacrifice your 20s, you know, build a foundation and a family in your 30s and really like enjoy the fruits of your labor fully in your 40s. So it was like, it was kind of on time with that. And me and my ex husband at the time were having those conversations. And it was just like looking at the dynamics of what I want now, what I want the next five to 10 years to look like.
00:16:16 Jereshia: And also, I think that I had sacrificed, I mean, the only priority during that time, the biggest priority was the business. That was the biggest priority of my life. Because of my family dynamic being broken in the way that it was, I mean, I'm really close to my grandmother and I'm close to my little cousins, but it's like that, there was still a level of isolation in the sense of that feeling of communal family ties and that's something I really wanted to start proactively recreating for myself.
00:16:47 Jereshia: And then I also moved from Michigan to Southern California. So it's like I uprooted myself. I'm in a new environment. I don't know any of these people. I'm like, you need to start building community here if you want that. You need to be intentional with that. And all you're doing right now is just working. I just think the level of focus and priority for how I view my business was just shifting because my priorities were shifting.
00:17:11 Jereshia: I think too because, my age I'm getting older and there was a lot of other things going on too, personally with me learning how not to self-abandon. And I think returning home to myself is what helped me start to become more aware of the things that I said I didn't want. I'm like, you were saying that out of fear, not because you don't actually desire to experience it in regards to the wealth and the richness of your friendships and your romantic life and potentially becoming a parent. So I think that it was a culmination of things. It wasn't this one thing, happened.
00:17:47 Jereshia: And I think too, I've been a person that learns. I don't need to make the mistake to learn the lesson. I've been very intentional with building my own personal board of directors, connecting with peers, listening to other people's stories, and it's like you can... I heard, over and over and over and over again, especially like, somewhat around the similar time period of, like what happens when you abandon yourself to the point where it causes, like legit health harm to your body.
00:18:14 Jereshia: Like I had multiple friends of mine in similar situations like you, like the burnout was so bad, they were hospitalized. And, or like just dynamics of that. So I'm like, Jereshia, you can see the trajectory. Like there's multiple examples of people you personally know who are going through this stuff. And I started getting my blood work done too with my naturopath doctor. And she's like, I mean, you're okay right now, but it's like, nothing changes about how you're managing stress in your life. You probably have another six to 12 months before this becomes, like, a real problem.
00:18:45 Jereshia: And I'm like, okay, you ain't got to tell me twice. Like, I mean, I, there's enough lessons I've learned through the path of most resistance. I'm like, there was enough examples there. So it was kind of like a culmination of things. And it's just like, Jay, you were already planning… This was always a goal of yours on your vision board to take this break, honor that. Give that as a gift to yourself. And I think that was where I really grappled with giving myself permission to take the break.
00:19:10 Jereshia: Because when you are growing, my business grew fast, my business doubled or tripled every year since I was in business. It's terrifying. For me, it was terrifying of like if I slow down, it's all going to go away. It's all going to crumble. Everything's going to come apart. And in some cases it did, but not in the way that I thought. Like not in a way that was going to cause me harm, but a lot of things kind of got uprooted in a beautiful way that contributed to my healing versus like, you know, things slowing down and stopping and things like falling apart in a bad way.
00:19:44 Gloria: Ooh, that was just, sorry, I have to like take a pause because everything you said just resonates so deeply with me. You said coming home to myself. That is a word that I use all the time too. I think people… It's obviously more than we can talk about on this podcast. But when I think about coming home to myself and think about all the things that you said, I want to ask you, what was the feeling?
00:20:03 Gloria: Because I've been there, not at that level, but as I was doing those six figure launches, I remember thinking, holy shit, like I built this machine that I just have to keep feeding and I don't know how to get off. It's like a dog that has changed to like a treadmill. And at first you want to get exercise, you want to get fit, you want to run races. But then you're like, how the hell do I get off of it? It was like that feeling.
00:20:25 Gloria: So I want to ask you, what was a feeling, because I really do believe everything is embodied, what was a feeling when you were in that kind of building phase? And how do you feel now, now that you've been on the other side of it and that you've had the sabbatical and you're building a life that's more aligned for you?
00:20:39 Jereshia: Yeah, I mean, it was like pressure. And I think that as a woman of color, a lot of the pressure that I felt prior to was placed on me versus the pressure that I was feeling at this moment was self-induced. And it's like, Jereshia, a lot of this pressure, I mean, you're choosing this at this point. And I think too that I agree with what you said earlier, business for me has really been the vehicle that I really do believe God has used to orchestrate my lessons of self-healing and all this stuff.
00:21:11 Jereshia: I really do believe it is a vehicle to allow us to return home to ourselves, to have agency, self-trust, like choice, decision making. But I think a lot of it was like self induced pressure is what I felt versus kind of like where I'm at now, there's much more just like surrender and ease and flow and peace versus before it was like, but clinched, I have to control in order to remain safe versus like, you know, it just, it doesn't need to be like that tense.
00:21:44 Jereshia: Like, and I think that that's something too, that's like, reflective of a lot of my clients is like their success came either quickly. And they're like, I don't know what exactly I did. I was just doing everything and like it worked. And I'm like, okay, so I just have to keep doing all the things that I was doing in order to keep it working because I don't exactly know how it worked or why it worked or like what those few things were that really actually mattered.
00:22:09 Jereshia: Or I think again, it's just, it's control and it's safety. And I think that for a lot of us, if you're, you know, if you're the breadwinner in your household, whether that was by choice or by accident, you know, whether if you're the primary caretaker of a loved one or for your children, like if, even though you maybe have a partner, but if you're like the main one responsible for those like day to day duties, or if you come from a place of like just survival and like your business was a necessity for you, you were creating your own safety net.
00:22:38 Jereshia: Like that control that with those, that grip that we maintain on it is what, you know, we think gives us our safety and our sense of security. But at a point, you realize your control is the thing that is at least for me was, like the more I control, the more I was actually holding myself back and keeping myself imprisoned to this self induced pressure. So I think that's like how it feels now. It was like, very tense, self induced pressure, like a lot of control.
00:23:08 Jereshia: You know, and that played out in multiple dynamics of my life, business and personal versus now there's just much more like feminine flow and just like ease and release and relief and just like surrender.
00:23:22 Gloria: Ooh, I feel like we're like twins in some way. The word surrender is so powerful. So I've talked to us before, so I've done a lot of psychedelic assisted therapy. And I think the one thing that I could say if someone's asking me like, well, what are psychedelics? How do you feel without actually doing it? And I say the one thing that it teaches you is really feeling how to surrender. Because I really think about life is we don't need to control. I think for me at least, one of the greatest lessons we are here to learn in an industrialized capitalist society is learning how to let go.
00:23:55 Jereshia: For sure.
00:23:56 Gloria: And you can rationalize it all you want with talk therapy, but to really... And where does that letting go from? Letting go of control means that you're giving yourself more love because you can't control and love something at the same time. You have to let go of that control to let that self-love in. So I love what you said about that. And I see that you're thriving in every area. And it's just such a beautiful reminder of how you don't necessarily need to always do more and you don't always need to keep going.
00:24:21 Gloria: So if, you know, a lot of people are listening, they're like, well, that's great, Jereshia, like you've made millions of dollars, right? How can you apply these lessons to someone who maybe hasn't made a million dollars and they're still somewhat struggling to get by, but like, they're not gonna be homeless on the street, but they do have this internal thing that's like, that money scarcity, how can we help them reframe and just give a little bit more back to themselves in terms of safety and security?
00:24:44 Jereshia: Yeah. I mean, like I think that all of us have probably, for me, it was always just like a number. Everybody has their own, but I think the work I've been really helping clients with now and myself is, Jereshia, like, what is your owner's intent? And in conjunction with that, like how much is enough? And I think that that is, you know, I think that and I think the third piece there is that, like you get to choose.
00:25:06 Jereshia: Like you get to decide what those numbers are, what that target is, and what your owner's intent is behind why you're choosing to build what you're building. Because I mean, if you're choosing to build a business, like a small business like we have, and if you're listening to this, you, probably in a similar boat, like you're doing it for a reason. For me, it was to provide myself with a different quality of life and to build my personal net worth.
00:25:29 Jereshia: Like you're probably doing it to have meaningful contributions to your household and to be able to maybe put your kid through, live in a different zip code, put them in a different school, have, be able to buy the organic grapes for $14. And I know, you know, we’d be eating through fruit like, like nothing, you know, it goes so fast. Like whatever it is, I think, is really, really important for you to get clear of like, if you are a business owner, what is the owner's intent behind that influences the decision making of how you choose to operate and run the business?
00:25:59 Jereshia: And that might change based off the season of business that you are in, what the intention is. And then from there, it's like defining how much is enough. I think that is something that's been giving me a lot of peace at this stage of my life. And it's something that I really wish I would have exercised on myself earlier on. It's something that I don't care if you're making 100 grand a year, 300 grand a year, like whatever it is, you need to know what your enough number is.
00:26:23 Jereshia: And what I mean by enough is just like how much does… Do you need to take home for you to feel safe, to feel secure, for you to live the quality of life that is meaningful for you? Not keeping up with the Joneses, not trying to impress your mother-in-law, not trying to prove something to the father that you wish would tell you that is proud of you, but that is enough for you individually.
00:26:46 Jereshia: I think that whenever I invite my clients in to do that, it always uproots the deeper stuff of who are you afraid of seeing you fail? What are you trying to prove into whom? Where are these influences coming from? And then we can really start to talk about the real things that we're trying to, again, like trying to prove ourselves true or trying to live up to and be mindful of how those dynamics are impacting our decisions and where we grow the business, how we grow the business.
00:27:18 Jereshia: So those are like, I think two things there. And I think, to the other thing is, like learning how to exercise more agency. And that's something again, I do not learn that until much later on in my business of like, I do have agency, that it's safe for me to trust my intuition and to trust what my definition of success is, and to even give myself permission to decide what my definition of success is.
00:27:44 Jereshia: And I think that those things are a lot of what I've been doing now with private clients, but like, in regards of what season of business that you're in, because I think it can give you, regardless of what your aim is or what your goal is, I feel like being clear on those preferences becoming your internal policies for your personal life and for the business can give you so much more peace and fulfillment while you're on the journey versus just feeling like there's this never-ending hustle and strive, which really comes at a cost of you sacrificing yourself and abandoning yourself over and over again along the way. I think that's really what I'm trying to get to is just how can we be more conscious of our choices versus abandoning ourselves in our decision making?
00:28:31 Gloria: Oof, that's so beautiful. I have to replay that part. I think a lot of times in me, like I needed this reminder because it's Q4 and usually it's the period where I launch, right? Because I'm helping product owners get into gift guides. And so I've been reflecting a lot about why, is it that I'm dragging my feet and I'm not in this crazy launch mode. And what you just told me made me feel so much better because I realized it's not like there's something wrong with me. It's that I get to choose. I get to fucking choose. And so thank you for that.
00:29:01 Gloria: And you can have agency in every level of business, whether you're five, six or seven figures. That was a beautiful way to bring us home. Thank you so much. We're going to have to have you on the podcast again. I think your journey is so beautiful and I just so respect you. I mean, there's so much more that our listeners don't know. And I know they want to dive in deeper. So how can they find you?
00:29:19 Jereshia: Oh my gosh. Well, if you're listening and enjoy this, please tag us on Instagram. Like, I'm like, if you're listening, take a picture, post it on Instagram stories. I'm at Jereshia Hawk, but tag us and like so that we can continue the conversation. I love being able to have the DMs and like, have conversations, you know, after you listen to this type of episode. So that's probably like the easiest way to get access to me. Just over on Instagram and the DMs, tag me in your stories.
00:29:46 Jereshia: I also have a podcast, it's called Jereshia Said. I'm producing now in seasons versus it being like, two episodes a week like I was doing before, but lots of good nuggets there. And I just, the latest season that we did was really about, the title was called Homecoming and just talking about the, going through sabbatical, how I'm returning home to myself and kind of like what that process has looked like. So my podcast is called Jereshia Said. You can listen to it on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you listen to shows, but those are two really great places to stay connected.
00:30:18 Gloria: Oh, thank you so much. I'm so glad we made it through this. I thought I was going to start crying because there's some very deep, deep themes that we talk about, especially for women of color. I want to thank you for being a beacon of light, for just being fucking real. We need more of that. And also for being the messenger that we all needed to hear today. I know it's not just for me. I really do know that someone else listening to this is going to be like, this was exactly the message I needed to receive. So thank you so much for being here today.
00:30:41 Jereshia: Yeah, Gloria, thank you. You asked great questions. And I'm like, that being able to talk this through is still very cathartic for me. So just like, thank you for being such a great host and a great question asker. You're fantastic. So this was really a pure joy.
00:30:55 Gloria: Thank you.
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