Rae La Soul

Everyone who truly knows me, knows how much I fan girl over Luvvie Ajayi. I have been following her since her early blogging days and it has truly been a pleasure watching her handle her Glo-Up with so much style and grace. Last weekend, I had the opportunity to meet Luvvie while at BlogHer AND get my book signed. I also had the chance to be in the presence while she delivered amazing keynote where her words are still resonating with me. Here are the 3 lessons I learned from Luvvie’s Lunch Keynote.

“If you don’t promote yourself, no one else will.”

When it comes to promoting my personal projects, I do not do a good job of it. And when I say I don’t do a good job, I mean that I just don’t do it at all. It isn’t that I’m too fearful to do so, but more so pride. I realized that I’ll have to make some drastic changes promotion-wise, especially since I’m working on pushing past the soft launch of my business.

“Your brand is what other people think about you — not what you think about you.”

How many of us think like this? I can honestly say that I’ve never thought about my brand being what other people thought about it, but more so what I thought about it. During Luvvie’s speech, she advised that we make a strong effort to view our brand from a different perspective. She emphasized the importance of understanding how people view our work. And it was an interesting point. Going forward, we should often assess what people say about our brand when we are not in the room. Another interesting point made was making sure that our brand had a clear message. If 10 different people have 10 different things to say about what your brand is, it’s time to return to the drawing board.

“You are a trailblazer whether you want to be or not.”

Luvvie talked about her experience with writing her book: the stress, the good things, and the pressure that she felt to make sure that her book was good enough for her potential readers. She expanded on feeling the pressure as a black woman and making sure that women who came behind her that wanted to write a book, wouldn’t have to explain her failures if the book wasn’t a success. So she put in the work — day in and day out — to make sure that she could open as many doors as possible for other women.

This one attached itself to my whole, entire soul. I’ve been going back and forth with the idea of pursuing new employment because I feel overworked and a bit undervalued. And I’ve been going back and forth with how that would look. I do not want to be perceived as a quitter because my workload is heavy. But after hearing Luuvie speak, I thought about how that applied to me and my situation. God has me right where I am for a reason. Perhaps it’s more than just attaining the experiences and skills that I prayed for and more so to change the view of Black, Corporate, Millennial Moms in addition. Maybe it’s to change the narrative and remove the limitations that have been placed on black women in the workforce. So God, if that is the reason, I. AM. HERE. FOR. IT.