The beginning of this year was interesting. Typically, I start the new year off slowly with my business year starting after the long Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend observation. If I get a chance I go to the Black rodeo. This year I just chilled out at home. Myself, Corey and Angela-my two comrades-in-arms who I host a weekly livestream with also had a pretty big project that we’d planned on implementing for February. And I continued tinkering with the back-end of Creators Getting Paid. Today I’m sharing what worked and what didn’t Q1. By the way, Q1 is from January through the end of March. We’re a month into Q2 as I record this episode and it has taken me this long to kind of wrap my head around what I envision for the rest of year.
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Timing is Everything
At the end of last year, myself, Corey and Angela came up with a wonderful idea to host an online summit. We had the idea of having a conversation around the power of story and inviting different creator entrepreneurs to be a part of that experience. We had the best of intentions but we learned that we need a hell of a lot more time to work on this project. Why on earth did I agree to such a tight turnaround knowing that I historically ease into each business year at the end of January. Given that the online summit we wanted to host was scheduled to be held on February it made no sense for me not to say, “Hey, we need more time.” Eventually, we discussed this and pushed it back to April because we realized that we needed more time. We ended up cancelling the event and rethinking how we could work with our wonderful guests.
During this time I recorded a conversation with Kaitlyn Arford the founder of Freelance Opportunities a newsletter where she curates freelance leads for paying subscribers. During that conversation she said something that I’d been thinking about but didn’t have the language to really articulate the feeling that I was having around what I was working on and the long-term view of the communities and resources that I’m building. She said (and, I’m paraphrasing this) “That she’s building a media brand and business and has a long-term view of her work” Think 5-10 years from now. My previous project “Your American Money” I started in 2012 and I have plans to work on it again.
What happens when you have a longer-term view of the work that you’re doing? For the projects that I’m currently building I can see myself still working on them for the next 3-5 years. That timeframe changes pacing, expectations and the amount of pressure that I’m placing on myself to achieve goals attached to this work. Don’t get me wrong-my goals to serve my community and earn a good income haven’t changed. But other goals such as winning awards, writing a book, hosting a cool experience can be shifted in a way to give me enough time to do these things well.
This one conversation had me trusting both my vision and respecting my natural work rhythms and timing. As a result of this conversation, it was a confirmation of what my gut was telling me-I needed more time.
I’ve shifted timing on the following:
- My upcoming book that I’ve chosen to self-publish
- The romance books that I’m writing again (I write these pretty fast)
- Outcomes for my Colorado website
- When I will host my upcoming online summit
I feel great about this. I think it’s important to bring up how the overall atmosphere in the United States also is impacting my productivity and focus. I’m moving faster than last year, but slower than I normally have in the past because I’m having to aggressively focus on self-care to manage all of the things going on right now.
It’s Ok To Make Money
(Right Now)
Hundreds of thousands of Black women lost their jobs in 2025. In fact, the trend of job loss continues and is also impacting Americans everywhere. I will be candid and say that in 2025, I was very unsure about what monetizing my work would look like and what the response to having products to sell would be. I realized that I was thinking about monetization, running an ethical business and just everything around money and Creator Entrepreneurship in the wrong way.
- Lesson #1-Try your best-The fact that I spend a lot of time focusing on monetizing ethically means that I’m trying my best to be a good steward of the wisdom, spaces and experiences that I’m sharing with the people that I’m serving.
- Lesson #2-Don’t assume that everyone is broke-The economy is not doing well, but there are many people who have worked hard to prepare for tough economic times. They’re making thoughtful financial decisions but that doesn’t mean that what you’re selling isn’t a part of what they budgeting for.
- Lesson #3-Stay out of other people’s wallets and their business-I think many thoughtful Creator Entrepreneurs mean well but forget that they can only control the variety and positioning of their products. You can’t tell the people that you serve how to manage their income. There’s a reason why I have tiered offerings.
- Lesson #4-You have to believe in your products and pricing-If you don’t you will come across disingineous.
- Lesson #5-People are still buying-Yep, they are from thoughtful creators who serve communities that are underserved in a number of different ways. Here are some examples of creators who’ve crafted cool things that people are buying.
- Karen Attiah’s Resistence Studies Series-She is curating classes such as The World Cup and Politics 101 and other topics that are likely not going to be taught at universities during this moment in history.
- Anela Malik’s incredible hosted overseas travel events. She’s also the author of “American Soul: The Black History of Food in the United States”
- There’s an incredible list of musicians currently touring or about to tour the United States. Folks are still buying concert tickets.
Why was this on my mind? Because I absolutely held back from some of the monetization activities that I was focused on previously. I didn’t want to come across as some shady person on the internet selling bullshit (or a Grifter-I can hear Corey’s voice as I say that ) vs. a person who has spent a lot of time and energy learning about whatever I’ve decided to sell.
Protect Your Momentum
(And Paying Attention to Timing)
One of the hardest lessons that I learned in Q1 is the impact of accidentally slowing down momentum. Sometimes great ideas come to you at the wrong time to implement them. This was definitely the case with the online summit that Corey, Angela and I wanted to host. I take a pretty significant end of year break because I’m tired. I don’t want to work hard or be available to anyone other than family during the holiday season and it was a hard holiday season without my grandma.
During Q1 I’m typically getting back into the flow of things. Especially considering that I start working on front facing activities close to the end of January. I shouldn’t be launching anything in January that I haven’t spent MONTHS working on prior to my winter holiday break. However, by not paying attention to this I’ve accidentally slowed down the momentum on a number of projects that I would have like to launch in Q2.
Why am I bringing up this point? I want for both you and I to implement the big projects and initiatives that we’re working on and do them well. I don’t want to postpone launches, book releases, etc. or having to rush to get something done because we didn’t spend enough time thinking through timing and implementation.
There’s still 8 months left in 2026 and it’s not lost on me that my most productive quarters historically are Q2, Q3 and Q4. In the next episode of Creators Getting Paid I plan on sharing what I’m working on during Q2 and Q3. Ultimately, I think this is a lesson in respecting and paying attention to my natural rhythms related to work, rest and reflection. I didn’t achieve the results that I was hoping for in Q1 but that’s hardly surprising when I didn’t have things set up at the end of the year to actually achieve those goals.
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