.jpg)
Raised By Her Podcast
Raised By Her is a mother–daughter podcast exploring the lessons, love, and lived experiences passed down through generations. Hosts Ro Nita and Donnica share honest, intergenerational conversations about womanhood, identity, family, and leadership - and the wisdom we inherit (and sometimes challenge).
Part humor and all heart, Raised By Her is a reminder that every generation has something to teach—and that the stories that raise us continue to shape who we become.
Raised By Her Podcast
How to Build From Nothing | Raised By Her
#raisedbyher
How do you build something from nothing - and find the courage to keep going?
In this episode, Ro Nita Hawes-Saunders (broadcasting/arts executive) and Donnica Hawes-Saunders (public affairs CEO) unpack creativity, courage, risk-taking, and intergenerational wisdom - from throwing legendary theme parties and producing campus theater during the civil rights era to building a radio station from the ground up and navigating corporate change with conviction.
You’ll hear practical ways to start small, build momentum, set vision, recruit allies, fund ideas, document playbooks, and pass the lessons forward - so the next generation doesn’t have to fight the same battles alone.
Time Stamps:
0:00 Welcome & The Spa Question That Sparked It All
1:21 Where Building Begins: Creativity, Curiosity & Risk
2:22 The Party Queen: Themes, Purpose & Fun "Guest Labor"
4:04 Design with Intention: "The Party Starts at the Invitation"
5:59 Why We Hated Group Projects (And What It Taught Us About Leadership)
8:05 Left Brain vs. Right Brain: A Mother-Daughter Difference
9:44 Building Out of Necessity: Producing a Play During the Civil Rights Movement
12:22 How to Get the Money: Funding Your Vision by Asking for Help
13:58 Why Your Courage Unlocks Courage in Others
15:14 The Real Meaning of Courage & Navigating Risk
16:25 The Power of a Safety Net: Why Support Systems Are Everything
17:21 Life Lesson: The Debutante Story & Why You Have to Do the Work
19:46 Taking Risks at Work: Pushback, Finding Allies & Writing the Playbook
23:07 Passing It Down: Oral History, Documentation & Intergenerational Legacy
24:02 A Tough Question: Why Didn't Your Generation Do a Better Job?
26:42 Strategy Debate: Is Integration the Only Answer?
27:01 Social Media vs. Depth: Keeping History (and Hope) Alive
29:42 The Power of Mentorship & Sponsorship
30:50 Fighting the Same Fights & How to Measure Progress
32:04 History as Fuel for Hope
33:04 The Mission Behind the "Raised By Her" Podcast
35:03 From the Ground Up: The 10-Year Journey to Build a Radio Station
36:21 The Pre-Internet Hustle: How Research Got Done
37:34 "Do It Afraid": Using Small Steps to Build Your Courage Muscle
38:32 The General Schwarzkopf Moment: If Not You, Who?
41:48 Career Reinvention: How Every Risk Teaches a Lesson
43:12 The Biggest Leadership Lesson: It's Not About You
44:03 Call to Courage & Final Thoughts
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Start where you are: break big visions into small, repeatable steps.
Design with intention: invitations, details, and roles create buy-in.
Recruit & resource: ask for help, fund the vision, and share credit.
Document the playbook: pass knowledge so others can build faster.
Legacy lives in action: your courage gives someone else permission to try.
Speaking, partnerships, or press: raisedbyherpodcast@gmail.com
🎤 New episodes every week. Honest conversations between mother and daughter on family, womanhood, and navigating life across generations.
👍 Like, 💬 comment, and 🔔 subscribe to be part of the conversation.
📱 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/raisedbyherpodcast
📱 TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@raisedbyherpodcast
📘 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RaisedByHerPodcast
𝕏 X/Twitter: https://x.com/RaisedByHerPod
Welcome back to Raise by Her. How about that? How are you? I'm doing really well. How are you doing this week? I'm I'm good.
SPEAKER_00:You're good? Yeah. Hanging in there? I'm hanging in there. Okay.
SPEAKER_01:That's all we can do sometimes. Hey. That's all we can do.
SPEAKER_00:In a positive way. And positive. And not by the neck.
SPEAKER_01:That's true. Yes. Yes. None of that. None of that. Are we all? Um, okay, so we had an experience earlier this week. We go to the same spa. Yes. And we have our chosen practitioner who is fantastic. Yes, she is. Great. And so she's always talking to us about our lives and what it is we're doing. I mean, we just love her. And as we were answering these questions, she's like, what? Like, how do you all do all these different types of things? And we thought it was a really good question. And so it's something that we wanted to talk about here. How do we build things? How do we come up with the different things that we do on an ongoing basis? And it's something that I think has been certainly consistent throughout your life. And it's something that I learned early, and it's shown up in all different interesting ways in my life as well. So I will start with asking you that same question that was asked of us earlier this week. How do you go about building things?
SPEAKER_00:Well, and one of the things that I said to um to our friends and practitioners, you know, I said, I've always been highly creative. I mean, I like being creative. That's a part of just who I am. So even from a youngster um all the way through um kind of high school and college, I like to take a nothing and build a something. I can even think about parties.
SPEAKER_01:Um my gosh, you love throwing parties. I do. You're the party queen. And you're good at it. Well, think we want to go to your party.
SPEAKER_00:Well, you know, people have said that. In fact, people will call me up and say, you know what? We were talking, uh, a group of friends, and we thought we would get together and have a party and we want you to plan it.
SPEAKER_01:And I thought, well, wait a minute.
SPEAKER_00:But I long before it was popular, I would come up with theme parties. And long before it was popular, I would come up with ideas to to do new and different kinds of things.
SPEAKER_01:And I'll And it's different when you enjoy doing it. Well, that's true. Yeah, it's not like an extra task. It's like, oh, okay. Yeah, yeah. Um because it can be hard being that friend.
SPEAKER_00:It can be. It can be, yeah. It can be if you don't like doing it. Um so one of the earlier uh parties as an adult, um, I used to throw uh parties, Christmas tree decorating parties.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, your parties sometimes have labor and balls. Yeah, so I feel like there's a dual purpose.
SPEAKER_00:Well, the idea, they wanted to do a holiday party and they wanted to do something different. And you had some other things that you needed to get done. Well, that's true. So I said, if you all called me up and you wanted me to do the party, then why don't we do that? And actually, folks had a really good time. I mean, it was and the idea of coming together and having the decorations. I had all the decorations, I had the food, they had just had to come and they had to do the work. And then it continued uh that particular theme and that particular party was was really cool. One year I said, you know what we're gonna do? We're gonna learn about holidays around the world, speaking of throwing a party and people having to do work. So I gave each of the individuals coming a different country and culture that they had to research and then come and share uh at the party.
SPEAKER_01:One has to be very clear, I guess, when they are your when they are your guest, that um I'm coming as a guest, not as a laborer.
SPEAKER_00:Uh well, that year they didn't have to labor, they just had to come up with a big thing.
SPEAKER_01:They just had to do their research and then come with a presentation. And folks learned things, they had a good time.
SPEAKER_00:Feeling they benefited. Yes, yes, they did. So uh, but I think, yeah, in in terms of just beginning to think about how you create uh something when there is nothing there ahead of time, takes some creativity. It also takes some research. It I think takes a bit of ingenuity and a bit of risk.
SPEAKER_01:Uh before we dive into all of that, I also want to say on the party front that you taught me that the the party begins at the invitation. That's absolutely right. Yeah. And so that's what I thought about. The largest party I think I've thrown thus far is my wedding. And I remember just like the importance of the invitation. So folks open, they are like, oh, we've got to go to this. Absolutely. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And then all the details that follow. So yeah, I mean, you want to make sure that there are very specific details. It's intentional. And then the extra touches, people really like it. Yeah, the stuff. I mean, they do they people have a special touch. You know that you you throw great parties now, you and wonder where I got it from.
SPEAKER_01:Well, your husband likes to cook, so that he's a good thing. He does, he does.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, the food's always yeah, so it's it's it's special. But I I think it's just really being very intentional about what you want to do, and then you want to make sure your guests have a good time. And um how do you know if a guest has a good time? It's past the time if the party is over and they're still there and they will not leave. And and so yeah, there have been some times when I said, folks, you know, I I love you and I appreciate you. You and home. I didn't say that. I didn't say that, but um, so yeah, it's it's been fun. So throughout my all these different years and years and years, of we've we've had a good time. Yeah, we've had a good time. But to to the point of um our friend who asked the question, I I begin there because that's when I realized that not everybody wants to either take something and build it from nothing, yeah, or not everybody really has the that skill set. And it's one of the plus factors that I had when I was in college. Um, I realized that some of the college folks uh didn't want to spend the extra time, energy, and work. You know how you have to do those group projects? Oh, Lord, I know you didn't like group projects either. You didn't you didn't like them in high school. Why didn't you like why didn't you like the group project?
SPEAKER_01:Well, so I okay, I'll answer that question and then I'll I'll say something else. But I didn't like group projects because I felt like only one or two of the people uh were doing actual work. And so not everybody was contributing in the way that I thought that um they should be contributing. And it was also sometimes hard to gain alignment now. Um as you matriculate and go through your career, you learn leadership strategies and how to get folks into alignment. But certainly in middle school and in high school and all those things, I was just like, oh no, oh no. It's just it's more, it's not just easier, but I know the quality of work if I just do it myself.
SPEAKER_00:And you also learn to be able to do what it is that you sort of want to do with the project. You can move it in the direction that you would like to if you are the one who says, I'll do this, I'll do this, I'll do this.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. But if I'm doing this and I'm doing this and I'm doing this, then it should be my project, you know, not the group project, which is why um I struggled.
SPEAKER_00:You did. You did. You know, it's you got an A anyway. The first time, second time, third. You just okay. Yeah, but you just complained.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, really. I I I complained. But I mean, I think that you, again, over the course of your careers, if leadership is a track that you choose to go on, you do learn the skills about how to truly bring folks together and to bring folks under your vision and and to align them to uh achieve a bigger, a bigger goal. Which is what you did. Okay, I don't again, I don't I don't remember from high school or the younger, you can't remember all your younger years. I remember you're like, what and what happened last week? Right. And what happened last month? Yeah um, but I do think that to your point, some of these things start early. Now you said that your um desire and interest in building things came from your creativity. Yes. I wouldn't describe myself as a highly creative person. I think I take after my father more so being left-brained. My father was an aeronautical engineer. I think I'm more um I'm what's the opposite of creativity? The more black and white with it, kind of more logic-driven versus the creative, not that the two are mutually exclusive. Um, but my what I enjoy is not just building something, but achieving a goal. I'm just, it's when I think of myself and like my how I've gone about building things, I get a vision or a goal in mind, and then I do what it takes to get there.
SPEAKER_00:It's a combination, I really believe, of your left brain and right brain coming together with the goal in mind. I didn't always have the absolute vision of how it was going to end up. It would be necessary in the way that you were thinking, in the way you've expressed it, that you wanted to get to a certain place. I just knew that it was really fun being very imaginative and being able to try this and being able to put a little touch of that on it and making sure that we were moving from point A to point B to point C. You probably would have been looking at, okay, how are we going to get to point to get to Z? You know, we want to get there to the end. Um, and I didn't always have that that in mind. But because of my interest in creative arts, I love, love culture. Um, and because I really loved being in theater, um, so I would write plays. And uh in college, I had an opportunity to then produce them so I could put it on paper and then go and what play did you did you write?
SPEAKER_01:Can you remember like the theme? Not necessarily the title or anything. You probably do remember all the details.
SPEAKER_00:I don't remember I don't remember the title, but I remember that um two aspects to to this particular play that that I'm I'm thinking about. Um, there were only two African Americans um at my college. Uh I went to a predominantly white school that were in the theater department. And so the head of the theater department um would allow those of us who would not produce were not having an opportunity to be in the plays that the school was uh presenting all the time. So you build out of necessity. I did, I did. That happened sometimes too. But I had to recruit the other African American students uh around campus to want to participate in certain plays that I was um actually not as hard as it well not as hard as it started out to be. Okay. Because it wasn't something they wanted to do. But I wrote a play about a setting in a bar. Um and the the bar was a place where people would gather. And you in in a bar, um, you would have all different kinds of personalities. And so what I allowed my um my classmates to do was to decide what personality they wanted to be. So I I didn't write the character for the person. Okay. I wrote the fact that there were three characters like this and four characters like this. I like your crewman strategy. And and so you have ownership of the role. That's exactly right. Ownership of the role, and you could decide what your attire would be. And then we we had the the big the goal of being able to build community, which is something we were trying to do on campus uh at that particular time, because I went to school in uh in the end of the 60s, uh early 70s. And so um we were going through um the um civil rights movement at that time. And so the idea was to build community and then to be able to come together to be able to solve a problem. And so the students really really liked that idea.
SPEAKER_01:It's a really key learning for today and kind of some of the things that we're going through today, just yeah, finding creative ways to build community and to build spheres of influence and to build power.
SPEAKER_00:That's absolutely right. And so that was really the first time that I remembered being able to say, you know, I can do that. And then um the head of the theater department loved the idea, and then the head of black studies loved the idea because I did have to get a little bit more money than they were willing to give me on campus to produce this. Sure. And then to build the set and all those different things. Uh and uh so it was it was pretty successful. How'd you go about getting the extra money? Um, I went to the different departments and I talked about the vision. Again, this was during the civil rights movement at that particular time. And so um the other departments then decided to uh to give us some money to be able to produce it.
unknown:Okay.
SPEAKER_01:No, because I th that's a piece of this too, in terms of being able to go out and get the funds or raise the funds or however you decide to move forward. You know, I just feel like that's it's not just about the thing, but it's also about building that foundation. Who did you have to work with? Who did you have to ask? How did you get them to become invested in this project as well?
SPEAKER_00:And that's where you have to have the clear vision. That's where you really absolutely need to know what it's going to take to be able to get it done. And of course, there's a time frame there in addition to recruiting the participants. Yeah. Um, and we needed other skill sets. So the other theater majors were willing to help out. Nothing like that had been done quite in that way on campus before. And so it was kind of cool.
SPEAKER_01:It I mean, it sounds very cool. Um, yeah, I mean, that's very cool. It's a it's a good memory. And yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Good memory. And uh it also taught me something. It was a good learning experience because then I realized, you know, I You can do anything. And I don't quite anything. Not at that point. No, no, no. It was a little bit later when I said it, when I thought that. But that the skills that I I learned were, I think, very important. And the support that I received from um the rest of the campus was very important.
SPEAKER_01:I think it's so important and powerful to remember that when you do step out and have the courage to take the different risks and to build something new, that people are always watching you. And so that also tends to unlock something in others and they see it as a green light to do the same.
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely. I that that is so well stated. And Donica, I can tell you that my college experience really set me up for life in a way that uh I think surprised some folks because of the challenges of being at a predominantly white school when the rest of the world is going through the civil rights movement. And we were uh right in the middle of the Vietnam War, so there was a lot of um drama and a lot of challenges with college students at that particular time. And yet, in spite of all of that, we were able to move through an environment that was not always welcoming, an environment that was not always really wanting us to be on that campus in general. And so, as difficult it was being an 18, 19, 20-year-old, but also the skill sets that we learned in order to navigate the real world that we had to finally grow up in, um, I think we're invaluable.
SPEAKER_01:So talk to me about this, because you mentioned a little earlier about risk and um and navigating risks and having the willingness to take risks. And um, some feedback that I received several months ago from a group of women who I who I trust a lot. And we we are going through life together, and they are amazing professionals from around the country. Um and we did this exercise where we were talking about each other and some of the traits that we see in each other. And the one word that came for me was courage. And I would have never described myself as somebody that's courageous. Um, I just see something that needs to be done or decide that I want to do something and I do it. Um, and so I guess there, I but then when I think back, I'm like, oh, I suppose that was a risk if you look at it that way, or I guess that did require me to have some extra courage when you if you look at it that way. I've just never looked at it that way because I think I was just so focused on whatever the goal or the or my vision was for a particular thing. How did you develop, um, or was it always there, your ability to to take on risk?
SPEAKER_00:I don't think it was always there. Um I think that the fact that you had a safety net, the fact that everything that's a safety net, I think that's what really made the difference. That's a good point. Because whenever I would step out, or whenever you would step out, we knew that there was going to be a backup system. Not everybody has that. So real. And when you don't have that, I'm not sure that you are as willing to be able to put yourself out there in a certain way. You were raised in an environment that said, you can do it, you have to put the work behind it, you have to go and you have to be and you have to do. And I'll I'll remind you of something that you said you wanted during the time of your senior year and you were a debutante, and you said, I really want to enter this contest, and I really want to win. And that doesn't sound like uh right. I said, Okay, but this is what you have to do, and you had to go through contacting people.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, no, it was a lot. After I feel like halfway through, remind me if my memory's accurate. I was like, never mind. This this is much. You knew what to do because you had been Miss Dutante. And so you could really give me the steps, but I don't think I realized all the work that was gonna go into it.
SPEAKER_00:It was a lesson, a life lesson that my mother taught me. She said, if you want this, then you're gonna have to put the work behind it. And mommy and daddy said, You raise this amount of money by yourself, then we will then help you to get to your finish line in terms of the goal. And so it was such a good life lesson for me. Two, two things happened. One, people didn't know that I was out raising the money. I mean, I'm walking from one end of the street, West Third Street, all the way on Saturday mornings for like six weeks. You put in that work. I I was. I was putting in the work, but I was determined to show them that I could. And then I wanted, I wanted to win. So then fast forward now to you and you saying that you want this, then I remembered that lesson. And so I wanted you to be able to experience the same thing, different time frame, but the same kind of life lesson. And so you said yes, yes. And then when you started having to do so much work, remember, I just said I had to get up those Saturday mornings and go, and I had to walk and walk and walk.
SPEAKER_01:I mean, but yeah, I think a part of my mentality was like, you walked so I could rest. You know what I mean? But that that was not how I was raised at all. I was like, no, we we're walking together.
SPEAKER_00:And you had and and you won. I mean, but you had to put the um the work behind it. Yes, I did. So that's that's a part of it. But the risk of being able to try something new and different and to think you can is something anybody can do. It is something that we all have the opportunity and the blessing to do. Because the worst thing that can happen, okay, so you don't make it, but you have the experience and what you learned by doing that experience. That's what life is all about. That's true. Yes, you are courageous in terms of some of the things that you've tried, but you're also courageous because you're not afraid to just do it.
SPEAKER_01:Uh yes. Um, but I mean, the your point of a safety net, I think, is a really, a really good one because I remember now I'm fast-forwarding into my corporate career. And um, as so many of us do, I was entering into a corporation where I was one of very few black people. Um, and I was coming from Capitol Hill at that time, where you know, we had the Congressional Black Caucus. Now we know that Capitol Hill is not majority black, but we had some pure, pretty powerful um folks on um on the hill at that time and still do. But so I was coming into this new environment where I didn't see the voices represented that I thought should be represented. And so when I started doing some of what you you've talked about in terms of having those conversations and figuring out what vision am I going to build that brings community together for the betterment, not just of uh the employees, but also the company as a whole, um, I ran into some pushback from folks who were like, I I don't want to say anything, I can't say anything. What does it mean if I say anything? Um, and I I I got it. I understood. You know, I I could afford to to go out there and and take the risk, whatever that risk was going to be. But um that was my first time running into a situation where folks were like, no, I'm afraid. And I was like, I I get it. And then I was like, I will take on this burden for you.
SPEAKER_00:And what was the outcome of your deciding to take on that burden and to do something that had not been done before?
SPEAKER_01:I'm trying to remember that particular project. I mean, I think I think it worked out. We we got money, we got support, then employees ended up getting what they needed. Absolutely. Um, um, all the things. But it was a choice. It was a choice to take on somebody else's burden and make it a community group thing versus a me, me, me thing.
SPEAKER_00:And those individuals who benefited from it have no idea of what you all had to go through in order to get it done, but that's the way it is done. That's the way this country's been built, and that's truly the way that African Americans have had to move forward in order to be able to accomplish certain things.
SPEAKER_01:But to that point, though, if not that we're distributing fault here, but if nobody knows how I did it, I did also draft a playbook, by the way, so folks knew. But if nobody knows how it was done, that responsibility falls on me from my perspective. Because if I did it, then I need to demonstrate to others the future how it can how it can be done. That's right. And I think the same thing applies to what you were talking about in terms of the civil rights movement and the amazing strides that were made. Um, I don't know that it's been done well in terms of passing down that knowledge to the next generation.
SPEAKER_00:I think there have been some challenges there. In fact, I know that there have been some challenges there. I think there's been some challenges. And I think that um, and this is a lesson from um uh my mother, your grandmother, Rosa, who was very involved in the civil rights war. She and uh my father, and this Rose is represented by her because what mommy would say is it's worth the risk, and we are going to pass down those things that we've learned. You're here, you're participating, you are a part of whether it was a march or whether it was a movement or whether it was a strategy session, you are here. So I may not, it may not be written down in the way that you're talking about the playbook that you wrote for the program at the company that you were at, but the life lessons are there, and somebody has to continue pushing it forward. That's what we need today. We need people who not only share the life lessons, who not only share what the strategies are, but we also need individuals who are not afraid to push it forward and take the risk.
SPEAKER_01:So we are an oral people, African Americans. I I get that in terms of oral history and how and passing down our traditions through through various oral ways, song stories, story, storytelling, all the things. Uh but and you can push back on me if you think this is not accurate. Why didn't your generation do a better job of teaching the next generation?
SPEAKER_00:I believe that um there are two reasons, um, not excuses, reasoned. Um, one, our generation really worked towards having a better life for our kids and the next generation, and what we thought we were doing in terms of trying to integrate spaces and trying to uh have better jobs and trying to get more education, what we were doing was we were doing the work, and we weren't thinking about the fact that it needed to be, to your point, uh documented. That's the first reason, not an excuse, just a reason. The second reason is that you believe that uh the history uh is documented, whether it's through the uh black magazines um that we had, so Ebony and Jet magazine, or you believe that the black newspapers were writing the stories, and we do have some of those things written down, but in terms of documenting how we went about doing certain things, it was not there and it was not top-of-the-mind awareness. That's on us.
SPEAKER_01:Okay. I mean that that's that's fair. Because I feel like this is an ongoing conversation um intergenerationally with African Americans and some of the frustration. By the way, we're talking about gender, you represent the boomers. I do. Um I am definitely. I am an I am a millennial. We do have Gin X in between us. Um, but I I do just very much feel that the older generation um d just didn't either prepare us for all of what's going on from a from a social, um, societal, political perspective. And I mean, I hear you in terms of the why, but also I'm just like it was so widespread though. Like I get not drafting things or documenting things, putting things down on paper because uh, you know, probably get destroyed anyway. But the but the storytelling of it all and making sure that your kids were educated and knew the value of education and um knew the history. I mean, you talked about integrating. Well, you know, it's it's you know, it is integrating, like having the broader conversations, is integrating even the right strategy? Are we going like the Booker T Washington of it all, or are we going to go Black Panther, um, you know, W.E.B. Du Bois of it all? You know, it's like squared.
SPEAKER_00:Right. And and good questions because it really takes all of the above. That is what what we found out, that it's not just one strategy, it is all of them together to push us forward. In today's environment, it's much more challenging because the uh the social media side of this uh makes the dialogue not as uh specific as it needs to be, and also knowing your history. You know your history because it was really embedded in you to know that. Oh, yeah, y'all made sure I knew. Well, it's true. It's it's important. And uh in Black Radio, we would always really emphasize knowing the history. Our company would not only celebrate during Black History Month, but we celebrate it all the time. We celebrate it all the time. Who we are, what we are, what we've accomplished. And then we were celebrating each other for the accomplishments that we were making as a people. African Americans have a rich history, and our children need to know that. You also need to know the struggles. I I think that your question about why we didn't do a better job. I don't know if we would say we didn't do a better job.
SPEAKER_01:No, y'all wouldn't say that. I can tell you for a fact. You're like, no. Matter of fact, we're still doing the same jobs that we've been doing for the past 70 years.
SPEAKER_00:That's another whole story. I know, I know, I know. Why why don't you all just move out the way and let and let us come, you know, come forward and do the job that needs to be done. I I get that. An intergenerational approach. Well, intergenerational is such an important uh approach because not only do you need the collaboration, but you need the learning experience. You need to learn from the past and you need to learn about what's going on in the present in order for us to have a future. I know, I know, I I get it. I I get it. Answer the questions, figure it all out. But but it's important. It's an important thing.
SPEAKER_01:Well, these are the types of dialogues we have that I think it's important that we have um, you know, more broadly, because uh it's true. It matters.
SPEAKER_00:It is very true. And it's one of the reasons why I I learned so much from not only talking to you, but hearing the experiences that you've gone through and then trying to help to strategize about some of the challenges that you're going to take and some of the risks that you're gonna take and some of the courage that it needs to be able to take those.
SPEAKER_01:You know, it's interesting you say that because everything, and it's probably not everything, but I feel this everything I go through, I can come to you and say it, and you're like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I went through that in, you know, 19, such and such. And but you can you can be really specific because you you've lived it. And I'm like, what an amazing resource to be able to talk to somebody who's already gone through it. And if women, if people but women had that, I just think it would be so much better off. We wouldn't be trying to navigate blind because we would have the older generation helping facilitate and mentor and sponsor us through our lives. I think it's the only way to elevate that way. I'm not fighting the same fights that you had to fight.
SPEAKER_00:Oh well, now you will be fighting some of them, not all of them. But it's a different world that you're fighting those fights in. You're fighting today for your voice to be heard, just like I was fighting for my voice to be heard, but it's in a different environment because as we move forward, we as African-American women, also the majority population is moving it forward too. So the fight goes on, and the fight is real. And what you learn is that you can get through it.
SPEAKER_01:So the fight goes on, but what I find frustrating is having to have the same fight over and over and over again. That's life. Is it though? Because from my perspective, you fight the fight. There's a broader war. You fight the fight, and then I can build on those fights, and we can move an overall agenda forward.
SPEAKER_00:I think you are moving the overall agenda forward. I think that what you're asking for is to be able to see more evidence that not only is the fight worth it, but progress is going to be made. In 2025, there are some disappointments based on what's going on in our world and based upon some of the challenges that we are facing. What we say, what my generation says, is that we know we're going to get through this because we've been through it before. And when you study history, you know that you're going to be able to move it forward. Look at the slavery days. Look at how the slaves were able to communicate, how they were able to move forward, how they were able to fight for their freedom, and how they were able then to have not only owning some land eventually and the great migration coming from the south to the north and just being able to do what it is that we needed to do in a world that did not want them to be able to move and to be able to not only be educated. I mean, can you imagine people did not want African Americans, black folks to be educated? Yes. Like, yes, I can so that's why Wilberforce University was created, because you know, the first private black college in the nation. I mean, you you you look at all of this and you think, how does it make your life less if my life is better? How does that that makes no sense? And yet that's the way some people think.
SPEAKER_01:That's the way some people think. But I think to your point, um, your earlier point of maintaining hope, uh, it's not just about the the strategy. It's also because when you know your history, you do understand that there's there's an arc here and that you can and we can truly move through anything together. But if you don't know that this has all been done before in some capacity or in some different way, then I think it's easy to lose hope. And I I see that in some people, and I get it, because if you don't know, you don't know.
SPEAKER_00:But we do know, and we're gonna communicate to those individuals coming along. That's one of the reasons why we decided to do the podcast because we wanted to be able to have these discussions openly, not just among ourselves, to be able to share, to share ideas, to share thoughts, to share the successes and just share the challenges, and to be able to honestly have a dialogue about what it's like today and put the responsibility out there. So I know that it's important to be able to communicate, and you continue to remind me that it's important to be able to build the job. You know, I mean, we we do what we can, but I I will tell you that several of my play daughters ask the same kind of questions too in different ways. How do I do so and so and such and such? And then when I share it with them, they'll go, Whew, that's kind of hard. Well, yes, yeah, it is hard. And it's work. It doesn't get easier. I'm I'm not gonna sit here and say it gets easier. I don't think that's the ask.
SPEAKER_01:I don't think that the ask is for things to be easier. I just think it's um for progress to be made.
SPEAKER_00:Right.
SPEAKER_01:And we are gonna make progress. Yeah. And that's not an unreasonable ask.
SPEAKER_00:No. Yeah. No, it's not. But but to to the earlier point about starting from nothing and being able to build something, um, you really have to have the courage, which you were talking about, to be able to do that. And so how do you build courage? I I don't think that it's something that can be defined for every person in the same way. I think it's based upon life experience. I think it's based upon the circumstances that you have been, either had the opportunity to move through or the risk that you're willing to take. And I think what courage is, it is not only an emotion that you feel deep down inside, but it's also the plan of action that you need to take to move through whatever the circumstance is. So as you know, I I built uh the radio station um here at home from the ground up, one of just uh a few African American women throughout the United States that started from the very beginning and that's going to the FCC for a license. Started from the bottom, now we're here. How about that? How about it took me 10 years? It did. It took me 10 years. What do you remember about that experience?
SPEAKER_01:About you building the radio. Well, I don't remember any. I think I was six years old when the radio station opened, so I don't um I don't I remember what do I remember at the radio station? I remember um when you were just on one floor before you expanded to to multiple floors of the building you were on. I of course remember all the artists and the tours that would come into the city and the big festivals that you all would do. I of course remember the music because you all were the only um hip-hop and RB radio stations in this FM in this market. I remember the people.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. So the courage to start something that hadn't been started before. One of the things that um the uh practitioner uh in the spa asked, she said, How did you know how to do that? I didn't know how to do it. I researched, and this was before the internet, so this took a lot of research, going to the library, talking to people, uh making sure I went to conferences. Just I Chat GPT didn't help. No, we didn't have Chat GPT way uh clear. No, we didn't have we had never been none of it. None of it, none of that this way. I mean, starting from the ground up and uh and just kind of working through it. But my thought was if somebody else has done it, why can't I do it too? And I think that's the kind of of courage um that we had. Not why me, it's why not me. Exactly. And the fact that when I started this whole process, I didn't even know what the process was.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I had to um to ask for help. And that's one of the key skill sets that people really need to learn. If there's something you want to do deep down inside, if there's something that's really burning, is there a passion that you want, talk to people and find out how did they do it, how did they go through it and ask for help. I asked for a lot of help and God blessed me with putting people uh in the path, people I knew, people I didn't know, and then just kept working through. But it took 10 years.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, you got to be persistent. I mean, so I'm giving a speech next month on um doing it afraid, and how do you move your career forward when you um have some fear? And so that now I'm still working on drafting everything, so I don't have all the details that I can outline here now. But I will say one of the tactics that helps um folks gain some courage and start building up that courage muscle to move past whatever fear or whatever's holding them back is to start in small steps. Like we have these big ideas and these big visions. You don't have to have it all figured out at that particular moment. We can take small steps, break it down, um, break it down into daily habits and um, you know, work from there.
SPEAKER_00:That's wonderful advice. And I know your speech will be great, so I'm looking forward to being able to hear it when you decide to to share it. Um this brings me to uh a memory, a thought that I had listening to you. I was at a radio convention um several months after I built the radio station and we went on the air. And uh General Norman Swarzkoff was the keynote speaker, and he had just returned from um to the United States from Desert Storm, which was one of the wars. And um he talked about courage, and he talked about being able to not only win the war that we were going through at that particular time, but he talked about the image that was uh taking place in terms of how people around the world were looking at the United States. So it was real important for us to move through that war and that conflict and to be able to come out as winners. And at that point, it was a short period of time. I don't remember now the exact time frame, but it was a short period of time. After his speech, we were able to ask questions. And so I'm in this room with 2,000 people, and I got up in front of the microphone, and I actually asked, as a general for the United States Army, how do you then have the courage to lead these young men into war and to be in an unknown area and to feel like we can win, which we did as the United States. What'd he say? He asked me why was I asking him that question? Because I want to know. Um, yes, yes. Um, but I explained to him that I had a new business, and I explained to him that um I was now responsible for the individuals that left their former jobs to come and to work in this brand new endeavor, and that I was also responsible for their kids who were going to college and the people who absolutely now were depending on this being a success. And so I wanted to know how to have the courage to not only do what it is I'm now responsible for doing, but how you get through the rough times. And two things that he that he said, um, that, and I just remember this because it was a moment, uh, a moment in time, a particular moment in time. He said, first, you don't know what the next step will be. You don't even know how you're going to be able to get necessarily all the way through whatever the circumstance is. What you do know is that you're in this place in the time and you have the responsibility. So you can't second guess yourself. So don't second guess yourself. Do what you know to do. That's why you have been given this opportunity, in my case, this blessing to be able to do it. The second lesson was the fact that somebody has to do it. If it's not, if it's not me, then who? Yeah. So if it wasn't him, the general, then somebody else. So I just remember that.
SPEAKER_01:You know, that's that's moving it forward. That that absolutely is moving it forward. It was and understanding your your sense of responsibility to not just yourself but to others.
SPEAKER_00:I think so. And when you think about some of the risks that you've taken, some of the jobs that you've had, is there a particular circumstance that really comes to mind that you think, I'm so glad that I did that?
SPEAKER_01:Uh so many. Um, I don't think that there's a risk that I've taken um professionally where it hasn't been worth it. And in part is because I have the mindset that you were talking about earlier, in that you always learn something. And even though I am so goal-oriented, you are constantly building skills whether or not you achieved that particular thing or not. And it sets you up for your future in ways that you don't even necessarily understand. I mean, one of the things that I say is that my life has looked professionally very different every five years-ish. Um, and I am in places and spaces where I never could have dreamed or imagined that I would be, but I was constantly doing the work to try to elevate and get there. But I didn't know where there was, but just being better and doing better. And I'm I'm a firm believer in what is for you is for you. And that you have to just do, continue to do what it is you know to do. That's do the best you can with what you have, where you are. And it's not just about you. I mean, that's probably been one of my biggest leadership lessons from my career thus far is that um, yeah, it's just literally not about me. It's about everybody else and like who are we impacting, who's growing, who's learning, what's the next, what's the next phase, what's the next generation, which is part of the reason why I was so spicy earlier, because you and I talk about this. I mean, I don't want to be running a company necessarily in 40, 50, 60 years. I want to be on a yacht. But then you have to build a pipeline, you know, and you have to build a succession plan, and you have to, you have to consider the impact and the inspiration in what the future truly looks like.
SPEAKER_00:It's excellent advice. And you will do that, and uh others will do that. A part of why we do this is to be empowered empowering women to be able to think about those things and then to take the risks, have the courage to just go out and do it.
SPEAKER_01:You can have the life you want.
SPEAKER_00:That's exactly right. I believe that. I we know it to be true. We do know it to be true. All right, yes, beautiful.
SPEAKER_01:Thank you, dear. Thank you for this conversation, and I'll talk to you again soon. As always. Bye. Thank you. Bye bye.
