Operating as often the only women of color in the room for the past ten years has been an exhausting trip. One where I’ve had to tone down who I was so that I could exist in a space that was not created for me to succeed in. Where diversity and inclusion meant I was the one called for the photo op. Where expressing my feelings of inequality deemed as being too angry not being a team player. This experience has ultimately led to a trickle-down effect, where other areas in my life were being impacted by my pulling back, my questioning of my greatness, and my constant thoughts of “you have to be beyond excellent because they’re judging you.” On Friday, May 3rd, 2019 I walked into a space that challenged and changed my entire way of thinking about myself and who I was allowing myself to become. It was the My Taught You Retreat hosted by Myleik Teele.
This retreat was the second installment of the My Taught You Retreat. I found myself humbled to be one of the one hundred and thirty plus woman invited. The My Taught You Retreat was four days of being constantly reminded that you had a purpose, that you were made to light someone else’s candle, that you had to be comfortable being the elephant in the room. My life has undergone several severe shifts over the past two years. I graduated from my Ph.D. program on top of the world, I landed a corporate job making over six figures, I suffered my first depressive episode, I walked away from the said job due to the depression, pivoted careers, and we sold our home and moved back to South Carolina. This load is the baggage I carried me with into the Retreat. The experience permitted me to leave it all there. It permitted me to see myself the way other people saw me, to bet on myself, to lean on my sisters, and to allow myself to be vulnerable because without vulnerability there is no growth.
Upon returning home from the retreat, I immediately felt a shift in my life. I vowed to myself that I would show up for myself and others even on days when I didn’t want to because complacency and idleness is an attack of the enemy and I no longer want to go in cycles. I’ve started an accountability journal for myself to keep track of my dreams, inspirations, accelerated collisions, and the steps I was taking to make things happen. Learning from the experiences of others only enhances our own. While masterclasses held during the retreat, I took each conversation I had with another attendee as a master class for life.
My prayer is that from this experience I honor God by giving the world excellence in everything that I do. That I light candles, that through my actions I walk in faith and through my words I share my story so that it may inspire others. I pray that I empower woman the same way Myleik and all the women at the retreat have empowered me and that I create a space to promote the accelerated collisions of others.
As someone who is an avid reader one of my favorite things about the My Taught You Retreat was the My Taught You Library. We were each tasked to bring a book that spoke to us or changed our lives to pass on to another attendee. Let’s just say I could sit all day (at the resort of course), immersing myself in the books that were brought. I choose Slight Edge by Jeff Olson to take home with me.
Photo courtesy of Mecca Gamble – My Taught You Retreat
While I know you followed along with the retreat from photos on my IG Stories of IG page here is a brief recap to give you what the pictures could not capture.
Day One started with us arriving at a space of overwhelming luxury. You could tell that every single detail was curated to make us feel like the most important person in the room. Imagine walking into dinner and finding a hand-drawn photo of yourself on the wall with your menu on the back. The theme for the Friday Night Dinner was a Mexican flare. There was no sparing of details, and even the chairs were decked out in proper attire! When I think back to the dinner the one thing that sticks out with me, the most is that we all had a seat at the table. There were no feelings of wishing for an invite. You were welcome, and you belonged. Following dinner, we danced like no one was watching and celebrated each other. Shout out to all the ladies with the good knees! I envy you!
Photo courtesy of Mecca Gamble – My Taught You Retreat
Dress: Forever 21
Photo courtesy of Mecca Gamble – My Taught You Retreat
Day two began with a sunrise prayer on the beach with Pastor Sarah Jakes Roberts. Her prayer challenged us to seize every bit of this opportunity to make sure what we left in the world after the Retreat was over left positive ripples in the earth.
“The seeds that have been planted here that will never be taken from you. Your daughters, your sisters and your cousins will reap the harvest from an idea that started with one woman (Myleik), so the question is what are you going to do with your seed. What are you going to do with what God has called you to do?”
The day continued with a yacht party followed by evening conversations with Yvonne Orji. My sister is a huge fan of Yvonne’s, and she begged me to get an autograph. As we left the yacht party, I jokingly told Yvonne about my sister’s request, and she was kind enough to make her a video shout out instead. Yvonne’s act of kindness not only meant the world to my sister and me, but it also reiterated the point that this experience wasn’t about status, it was about being in a space where we could love, give, and grow. I took so many gems away from the discussion with Yvonne and the more she spoke, the more I felt like her message was for me. Here are a few gems that will remain in my heart.
When asked about dealing with rejection: “You get better each time you show up.”
When questioned about how she left a promising career in public health to pursue acting: “I hate regret more than I hate fear.”
Myleik added gems to the conversation like the idea of Accelerated Collisions. Accelerated Collisions is where through an experience people can connect and expedite a relationship so that both parties can benefit or receive immediate value from one another. The My Taught You Retreat was precisely that. In this room I found women that I didn’t know I even needed who could add value to my life and in turn, I could add value to theirs.
Photo courtesy of Mecca Gamble – My Taught You Retreat
Photo courtesy of Mecca Gamble – My Taught You Retreat
Photo courtesy of Mecca Gamble – My Taught You Retreat
Photo courtesy of Mecca Gamble – My Taught You Retreat
Photo courtesy of Mecca Gamble – My Taught You Retreat
On the third day, we had a series of Master Classes with Devi Brown, Morgan Debaun of Blavity and Q&A with past guest (Luvvie, Necole Kane, Kahlanna Barfield. As I share with you, my take away’s let me also apologize for what may seem to be a limited amount of information. This event was an amazing experience, and I was caught between trying to take good notes and just being in the moment (something we often fail to do).
Devi Brown
“WE ARE ONLY US TO OURSELVES”
You are the only person who knows the fullness of that truth, and what this gives you is freedom from the comparison. Don’t let your mind be clouded by the perception that you think others may have of you.
-The entire point of being alive is your Purpose and purpose is your unique ability to be of service to other people
-Your purpose is always evolving and changing and to keep up, and you have to be willing to do Self-Work. You must be methodical, deliberate, and be willing to have difficult conversations.
Morgan Debaun
In Morgan’s masterclass, she focused on teaching us how to work smart
Morgan challenged us to:
– Proudly share our accolades. We are trained to be humble and not to receive the success of others. We must reverse this.
-Start thinking today about how we can work towards achieving our revenue goals for 2020. She reminded us that we were the biggest independent factor of our money and we have to be willing to scale outside of ourselves.
-Determine how we were running our businesses. We were functioning at a level where we could focus on CEO task, a task that only you as the owner could do, or were we focusing more on Operating Task which is the day to day task to keep the business running. Knowing this is key to achieving your 2020 revenue goals.
-Determine your delegation rate. You should be willing to pay someone 80% of your hourly rate to make your life easier so that you can focus on more important things? Again, this goes back to CEO task vs. Operational Task.
Total Income/280 = hourly income.
More Gems from Group Conversations
“Live the kind of life where if someone can’t directly help you they can point you to someone who can.” -Myleik Teele
“Be okay being the elephant in the room.” -Karleenah Roy
“I choose to chase joy” – Luvvie
“Pray to God that the help that you’re looking for is in the room you’re about to enter.” -Luvvie
The best way to describe this retreat is with the word “overflow”. The My Taught You Retreat was and overflowing of joy, sisterhood, learning, growth, empowerment, vulnerability, letting go, and soul seeking. I hope that everyone at some point in their lives gets to experience something of this magnitude. Please feel free to ask any questions related to the retreat or if you attended share something that stuck out with you as well.
