Erin Braxton (00:00)

One of the most prominent things that came out of the research is that especially women said that they code-switched so much they don't even know what is the real them. You're there constantly thinking, can I say this? If I speak up, am I safe? We're constantly monitoring ourselves day in, day out.

Natasha Williams (00:21)

Being able to be excited about the work you do and get up and be excited and looking forward to how to do this and how to make it better and bring it all together and make it make sense. Those are powerful feelings. Because black people are such soulful, feeling, dynamic, innovative, creative people, we all should feel like that. We all should be able to find

some form of that, you know, in this lifetime.

Hey, everyone. Welcome to the Coffee No Cream podcast. My name is Erin Braxton and I'm the host of Coffee No Cream. Here on Coffee No Cream, we are unapologetically dedicated to black women and we share what I like to call coffee no cream moments. Those things that happen to us black women in business and in life just because we are black women. Today, I have brought back guest Natasha Williams. She is the founder of the Cost of Black Excellence research study that is examining

the pressures of black people across the African diaspora in corporate America and the cost that it takes on us, the tolls that they take. In really interesting conversation, Natasha has gotten very far in her research since she last came onto the podcast and she's gonna share her research findings with us. She's gonna take us through the 15 taxes. These are the taxes.

that are truly the costs of Black excellence. Very, very interesting conversation. you know, Natasha and I can talk and go on and on and on. And the conversation just kind of went on. We talked about ⁓ what it really means to be in business as Black people and just a community conversation on what we really need to do. Some of the suggestions, how we might find ourselves able to get there, how we need to...

rely less on white people and everyone else to help our communities grow and flow and thrive. And you know, just a conversation. So it was good, it was good. ⁓ hopefully you guys will stick around to the end to listen to that conversation. Before you do, I wanna just ask that you please like, please share, please subscribe. Hit that ⁓ subscribe bell, hype the video up if you feel like this is one that you wanna share.

with others, ⁓ yeah, I think that's it. So, ⁓ we have the Facebook group. We have the resources, coffeenewcream.com forward slash free. The Facebook group link is below. And that is it. So let's just get into the episode with Natasha Williams. Welcome back, Natasha. How are you today?

Erin Braxton (03:23)

I'm so good, Erin. Thank you for having me back. Thank you.

Natasha Williams (03:25)

for

Oh

my god, this is the third time you've been on the podcast, you know that? In less than a year. So much to say, oh my gosh. So guys, we're so excited to have Natasha Williams back with us today because when Natasha first came on, I don't know what episode number it is, I probably should have checked. I'll throw it up here. Natasha came to us.

Erin Braxton (03:34)

So much to say.

Natasha Williams (03:53)

to talk to us and share with us her research, the cost of black excellence that she has been doing across the diaspora. And she promised us when she came back, she was, well, when she got through, when she came back, she was going to share her research results with us, which is what we're gonna do today. But before we get started, for those of you who don't know Natasha, Natasha, I'm just gonna let you do a quick introduction of yourself and we're gonna get into the research findings and just kind of talk about what it means.

Let everyone know who you are, what you're about.

Erin Braxton (04:26)

Yeah, I'm Natasha Williams from the UK.

and I'm studying the cost of black excellence. The research is still ongoing. ⁓ I decided to get into this research because I burnt out so badly in my last career. I was a building surveyor for over 14 years and I experienced so much racism within the industry. I decided when I recovered, on my route to recovery anyway, after getting stuck in Jamaica for one year,

I decided to ask the question, what is black excellence costing us? So that's why I started my research.

Natasha Williams (05:09)

Well, we're gonna find out, because I've heard some of this research already, guys, and it's costing us a lot. I mean, we know, we, I think we know that, but to have it substantiated with numbers and facts and then the way that like Natasha's like broken it down, it's so intelligent. It's so intelligent. It's like,

You know, she's going to talk about the taxes. Like, I don't think like this. just call it. I see it. I call it. I don't think to, you know, so this is like a treat. So I'm just going to let you get started. I'm probably going to interject with questions or something as you keep going. you want to roll? Do you want to share your screen first? What do you want to do?

Erin Braxton (05:55)

Okay I'll share my screen so that we can have a look at these taxes and what have you. The data. Can you see that?

Natasha Williams (06:10)

Yes, we can.

Erin Braxton (06:11)

So

what I did, I built a specific page with all the data. At this point, the data set was at 1,039 active participants, but I think we're up to about 1,300 now. So like I said, I'm still collecting the data and

What I found is that 91 % of people are thinking of leaving their jobs, which is a big tax on us ⁓ as people anyway. ⁓ As you go up within the organization, the taxes do not get better. And I call them taxes because they're burdens that we experience within ⁓ these predominantly white organizations. A lot of people are... ⁓

experiencing emotional suppression within their organisations. A lot of people talk to their friends, 81 % of people cope by talking to their friends.

Natasha Williams (07:24)

What's emotional suppression? Tell us what that

Erin Braxton (07:27)

So basically it's just ⁓

When someone is talking to you, microaggressions and you just suppress that. Or the thing is that we hide our, we do something with our hair, we fix our hair where they're thinking, can I say this at work? Can I not say this at work? Do I answer in this sort of way? Do I not answer in that sort of way? It's just all the time we have to regulate our emotions throughout the day. Can I respond?

Do I feel psychological safety? Can I speak up? Do I not speak up? So a lot of people did say that they ⁓ do not feel safe expressing themselves at work. So we've got the results here on the website. Why did I put them in ⁓ different categories? ⁓

So there are 15 taxes. I call them foundation taxes, survival taxes, systemic taxes, leadership taxes, and resistance taxes. Resistance taxes is when you're thinking of leaving the workplace. So the thing is that we have a lot of intergenerational trauma that has happened, the programming that happens before we get to this certain point. And I'm still building on this at the

moment, but this is where I'm up to at the moment. And as I say, I'm still collecting data. So ⁓ what you're able to do is to get a tax score, because I've created a site where you can actually go. I'll just quickly go to that actually. Where you can actually measure your, calculate your excellence tax.

and you just ⁓ answer these questions and it gives you a score at the end. I'll just quickly do this for you here. ⁓ And then you get...

an email series that comes to you.

Natasha Williams (09:37)

Hold on, you got a lot going on in your house,

Erin Braxton (09:41)

Sorry.

Yeah, that's the... wait there, just a moment.

Natasha Williams (09:52)

That looks good though.

Erin Braxton (09:54)

Yeah, so I created this. Oh, let me just quickly fill this in. I forgot I did it this way.

Natasha Williams (10:03)

I'm gonna collect the info.

Erin Braxton (10:08)

and it will tell you what your percentage is, what you need to work on, what your foundation taxes are, survival taxes.

systemic taxes, leadership taxes and resistance taxes. So I help people within my community to reduce their taxes if necessary, if you do have a severe burden also. So you can always save the link to that. But yeah, that's it. So we can talk about it in detail.

Natasha Williams (10:40)

So

you've got the foundational taxes. Tell me, tell me the tax categories again, because this is the brilliance that I think that I find fascinating, probably because I'm not a researcher, but.

Erin Braxton (10:53)

Yeah. So you've got your foundation taxes. Those taxes exist so that you could be just seen as competent at work.

Then you've got your survival taxes. Those are those sort of taxes that help you to survive in the workplace. Then you've got the systemic taxes. That's how the organisation operates. And then you've got leadership taxes. This is what happens when you are in a leadership position or in management or things like that. And then you've got the resistance taxes. That's when you start to...

think to yourself, do I really want to put up with this? Should I leave? Do I want to go higher? Do I just want to change careers? Do I want to start my own business basically? Because those taxes become too much.

Natasha Williams (11:50)

So, how did you, you you did, you decided to do the research, had you identified those tax categories when you started or are those categories what you got as a result of the research?

Erin Braxton (12:07)

Well, I've got that because of the research that I did. So I asked a couple of questions. I had the terminology, loose terminology, when I got to about 500 respondents. So I started calling it the excellence tax because what is the cost of black excellence? Black excellence is that we're just taxed in all these sorts of ways. So once I started to code the data, the two...

I'm doing researcher speak now, qualitative questions where people are just free to put in whatever they want to so they weren't standardized questions. So from that I started to see a pattern with what everyone was saying within the research. Hence I started to put them into categories and then that's how I came up with the different taxes or burdens.

Natasha Williams (13:03)

Okay, so give me some examples of the foundation, foundational taxes.

Erin Braxton (13:11)

So basically, ⁓ the performance tax where you're just constantly working harder, ⁓ 86 % of the respondents said that they need to work harder just to be seen as competent. ⁓ Then you've got the proof tax where you're constantly proving your qualifications. I remember when I was as a surveyor, most people asked me,

Natasha Williams (13:26)

Okay.

Erin Braxton (13:37)

Well, not most people, quite a lot people ask me, can you just prove that you're a surveyor? They'd call me up, I need a copy of your credentials and what have you, that got exhausting. ⁓ And then the perfection tax, that you always have to cross the T's and dot the I's, that you cannot make mistakes even with your emails. I had one lady say that she has to put, well, she feels that she has to put everything through AI. ⁓

to make sure that everything is perfect, that her grammar's perfect, that her email is perfect, even the tone of what she's saying to people is perfect. So you've got quite a lot of stories within the research about that as well.

Natasha Williams (14:25)

Wow, and you know, as you're talking about, you know, like the perfection thing, I think, you know, our audience here on Coffee No Cream is obviously ⁓ for black women, but this need to be perfect, even before we can make a move out of the taxing job environments is just like, I've suffered from this myself. So, ⁓

Okay, let's talk about the survival taxes and then we're going to get more into what all this really means.

Erin Braxton (15:01)

Yeah, so within the survival taxes you have code switching tax and I'm sure every black person knows that one. We have to adjust our voice, our tone, the way we... ⁓ Just for other people's safety basically. And it's to conform with white professional norms. So we tend to lose ourselves when we're doing...

all these sorts of things. Although some people do say, it's good that you can code switch, but sometimes people have said in one of the most prominent things that came out of the research is that especially women said that they code switch so much they don't even know what is the real them. So it is causing issues, you know, all this survival mode that we're in.

⁓ And then you've got the voice suppression tags where... ⁓

you're there constantly thinking, I say this? If I speak up, am I safe? They withhold their perspectives. They avoid advocacy because speaking carries a disproportionate professional consequences. Many people said that when they did speak up, then they had to, they noticed how their colleagues changed towards them. They then decided that that wasn't a good idea anymore to speak up.

in order to speak they had to go to other jobs. And the emotional regulation tax is where we're constantly monitoring ourselves day in day out.

Natasha Williams (16:47)

Yeah, I was asked, ⁓ it didn't happen, but I was asked to speak to one of these ⁓ employee resource groups and one of the questions they asked me was, did I think, it was for the black employee resource group at this organization, did I think that they should invite white people to come into the conversation where I would be? And I'm like,

I don't have a problem with talking in front of white people, but I don't work here. Right? I think it was decided, even though we didn't, we haven't, we haven't done it yet. We haven't worked together yet, but it was decided that, and they told me when they did invite non-black people in that everybody just sort of clammed up. It just wasn't as productive. So, Okay. ⁓

Erin Braxton (17:41)

We find

that a lot of people within the research said that they did not want to speak up to especially white women. were blocking, white women were actually blocking their progress at work. Sometimes they felt that white men were more productive for, with their career. A lady actually said to me that she built a team.

of people and when the company started thriving she said, her boss said to her, when we look at this team it just looks as though you don't fit into this team so she was the only black person and I felt like saying to her why didn't you recruit some black people?

You know, just to keep yourself safe. But now she recruited quite a lot of white people, the team looked different. They told her that she needed to go. She just didn't fit into the team anymore.

Natasha Williams (18:49)

Yeah. Yeah. my God. Okay. Let's let's go on systemic taxes.

Erin Braxton (18:56)

systemic taxes, the bias navigation taxes, the biases that people hold against us, which they are constantly going on about. Like someone wrote to me recently and said to me, gosh, Natasha, I saw something that you wrote, you're so articulate. Okay, for a black woman, is it?

Natasha Williams (19:21)

Don't you love that one?

Did they

say that in England too?

Erin Braxton (19:28)

They

say that to me all the time! I remember I went on a survey and a guy said to me, oh my god Natasha your voice makes you sound so professional. Oh I said is that because I'm black or is it because I'm a rasta?

It just went bright red. But I do that to them all the time because I just feel that we shouldn't just sit there and take it. You know, but they have all these biases against us. ⁓ I wasn't expecting that. ⁓ it could have... I didn't think you could do this. Was that really your work?

Natasha Williams (20:14)

Yeah.

Erin Braxton (20:15)

Yeah.

And that leads me on to microaggression absorb the absorption tax economy say that word where we absorb these microaggressions and a person said it's death by a thousand cuts She she said that she was just she's just so exhausted She goes home each day and she has to talk to her husband about it. The children is a black family The children are talking about it and they're

discussing whether they should absorb these microaggressions, sometimes macroaggressions, and people are constantly questioning you, doubting you, asking you...

⁓ I thought you were the cleaner. I put something on the LinkedIn ⁓ a few weeks ago, actually. And I did the picture on AI of myself where I went to this lady's house. It's a true story. I went to a lady's house and she said to me, get away from my door, get away from my door. So I said, OK, I'm sorry, you don't want the survey done today.

sorry, I didn't realise you were the surveyor, I thought you were the cleaner. So I said to her, ⁓

Okay, have you seen cleaners carrying ladders lately? Yeah. So ⁓ I decided that I just don't want to go into your house. It was even far from here. Very racist area. So I said to her, do you know what? I'm going to cancel the survey. Make sure you say to your the buyer that they need to find someone else to do the survey. So I just got my secretary to cancel the survey on both ends.

went home and I just thought I'm not putting up with this yeah yeah they expect us to absorb all those macro microaggressions and what have you it's just it's just absolutely ridiculous and then the other systemic tax is representational tax so you're there representing your whole race so everybody thinks that you

because they've met you, every black person is like you, or you cannot be an individual at work.

Natasha Williams (22:42)

Yeah, definitely have dealt with that. when they, ⁓ they strategically use you or yeah, I had that happen a lot in advertising and actually Abby, the attorney when she was on, she talked about being used by the law firm that she worked for against black claimants. yeah, but yeah, I, I definitely was paraded and

Minia presentation just so they could say we have black people. understand. We understand urban advertising at the time or whatever. It's like what? Yeah. OK. Leadership. Let's talk about that.

Erin Braxton (23:23)

Yeah, the first one, tax number 10, threshold fatigue tax. So when you go into leadership, there's no relief. It continues, it compounds. And that's when I found within the research, most people started to get extremely tired and they started thinking, when is this going to ease up?

you see. So you're constantly proving yourself again. White peers, well, they would go into work and they would say, yes, I'm qualified to do this. In actual fact, most people said within the research, you would find that they're not.

they're on track to become ⁓ leaders within five years. One lady, it took her 15 years to get into a leadership position because she was constantly proving herself over and over again. The other one I've got is unresourced sponsorship tax. It's where the thing is that you have to go outside the organization to find your own sponsors, mentors, other black senior professionals where

they can help you advance. And I had an interview with a lady as part of the research where she was always asking for help, trying to go up in, it was in the construction industry. And they were like, well, there's nothing we can do here for you. And they had a racist boss that was keeping quite a lot of the black people down, she said. But she said, I was there for 14 years,

no advancement or anything. It wore me down so much but then I had to sort of find my support system outside the workplace. When she did that she started getting the energy then she applied for jobs outside London in these smaller places so that she could just get in.

Yeah, and exposure without protection. So you're the only one in the ⁓ organisation or usually in that leadership position and you've got no one to support you.

Natasha Williams (25:49)

Yeah. It's interesting, because I think about how long I stayed in positions. It's like, why are you still here? You know what I'm saying? And I don't know if you got to the root of any of that ⁓ with some of your research, but let's come back to that. Let's go on through the resistance taxes and then we'll talk more.

Erin Braxton (26:14)

Yeah, so you've got the evidence stewardship tax where you're always tracking your patterns, building cases, preserving records, basically just recording what's happening all the time, just in case, you know. So this is an extra burden on people because they have to go all this constant proving where you've always got to

understand what is actually going on, do I have evidence to back up myself and I found that a lot of people within the NHS and I think it was about

90 % of the people that worked within the NHS or the healthcare sector felt that they had to document absolutely everything in order to protect themselves on a regular basis. ⁓ And this is where, with these resistance taxes, this is where people get extremely burnt out, tired, and start thinking, do I really want to do this anymore? There's the infrastructure building tax.

where you've got to create those mentorship networks, peer support systems, navigation resources outside or sometimes inside the organisation just to protect yourself. And then it's the intergenerational load tax which is my final taxes where you're trying to help your junior colleagues to progress so that there's something there for the next generation.

Natasha Williams (27:56)

Okay, wow. mean, do see what I mean? No, right guys. This is like, wow, you know, it's like very, it's like, wow, like, I feel, you know, when I look at this, I'm like, yup. I mean, all of them, like all of them, like, and, and, and, and, as I have people in my life, we've talked about this, I think, who?

experienced I don't I don't know what you mean like for coffee no cream no never had never had a coffee no cream moment I don't can't think of anything right however I'm over here and I think I got them all all of them all of them mmm so is that what you're seeing you know that every last one of them girl

Erin Braxton (28:53)

Yeah.

Everyone and something that came out in the research that I've not put down as a tax actually I talk about this thing called imposed syndrome because the thing is I don't feel that many of us in the black community have imposter syndrome and It's these things these taxes that their burdens that have been imposed on us and We were always doubting ourselves. Can I do this? Can I do that? Have I got enough qualifications? That's why you find that

people are just constantly going and getting extra qualifications because are you qualified? Of course I'm qualified you know the thing is that

Natasha Williams (29:28)

Yeah.

Erin Braxton (29:36)

Erin, I've got qualifications coming out of my ears. We could talk all day about the qualifications that I've got. It's just so ridiculous. And when I thought about it, I just thought, what am I doing? Why do I need another course in order to prove myself to these people?

Natasha Williams (29:54)

You

know, to that point, though, like that. I mean, for those of you watching, I've talked to this woman for God knows how many times before I was like, you have a PhD. Remember, I had her on the panel with the other PhDs and it was like, doctor, this doctor that and then Natasha Williams never once said anything doesn't even which is crazy to me. Yeah.

You know, I'm not one for over-educating and all that, you know, because I think I agree. We've talked about it with several guests and how we over-educate, we OD on degrees and all of the things. But, ⁓ you know, you work hard for that PhD. But anyway, yes, I think you're definitely right. But even still, in talking to my... ⁓

I feel like a lot of the life skills that we have or the qualifications that we have, what actually propels us forward has very little to do with the degree, depending on what you do. It has to do with ⁓ the fearlessness and personality type and all of these things that make you want to just...

I have very educated people who call me, have this one little bachelor's degree, this it, you know, with no desire to have more. And there's other things ⁓ that I think make us successful, but we do do that. do, we do, ⁓ we do do a lot of that, but yeah, ⁓ I'm, seeing all this and I guess my question to you, Natasha is, okay, so you go to the website,

You take the quiz. don't even know why. Did you tell me that was out there? feel like where did this happen? just went over there. Anyway, because it looks so nice. Like it looks, as a web person, I think it looks very nice. It looks very well designed. I love it. ⁓ What is your goal when people take this and they find out their scores? What do you?

What is gonna happen with that? Like what do we do with that? Like we utilize it to do what? To decide?

Erin Braxton (32:17)

Yes, so the thing is that

Yeah, a lot of us have these high tax burdens. So what I've done, I've created a community where you can release those taxes and get support in order to either leave the workplace, stabilise your nervous system, because I'm actually a trauma informed coach. So I've set something up. So on a Tuesday, you can come into the community

anonymously if you so wish, it's never recorded where you can talk about what is actually going on and we give you practical steps as to move forward. We also have within the community a lot of therapists and people that you can connect with.

practical things like for instance someone contacted me the other day to say that I need a employment solicitor because I've got a case going on. So the aim is for everyone to black people to come within this community and get what they need in order to progress because for me it was a long

recovery process. The doctor said to me when I burnt out it was going to take me about five years to recover. That's how badly I had burnt out and every time I tried to get back into doing things ⁓ I just couldn't and it was a good thing that actually I had ⁓ money. I saved money all this all the time I was working I saved money in it. I know everyone talks about the exit plan. It's so important to get that

exit plan together because I could just rest for a year in Jamaica and I didn't have to worry about anything and when I came back to the UK I used to wake up at 5 a.m. every morning and my children were like, mum's in bed and it's seven o'clock. Damn right I'm in bed!

I rested, I could rest and I didn't work for, I think it was about two years. Yeah.

Natasha Williams (34:36)

That's major. That's major. was when I was talking to Dr. Kamani last night and we were talking about how not to exit, which is, hello, I've done. And it wasn't, you know, I was trying to do something like I give myself grace because I was in motion on things, but, know, I just did not do it properly. ⁓

But the effects that it has on you psychologically when you leave, you're saying five years to like get over. But, you know, just the way you feel about yourself as a professional and how that gets into your head as a professional. Right. And, you know, now I can be like, yeah, I'm the shit. Like, I can do this. No, no, I'm really good at that. Like, I can say that. Right. know, mediocre white man can say that from the very beginning has

no skills, no experience, just nothing to back it up. But we have all of that. And it's so hard for us to sometimes feel worthy. Maybe not for everybody. I'm just being honest and talking about the way I feel. So when I go through and I'm looking at all these taxes and the way you've laid it all out, it's just like validating, you know? ⁓ So we come in, we get our score.

we find out, you know, we have a very high whatever score, because the score is based on category.

Erin Braxton (36:07)

Yeah, it's based on categories. So the thing is that it depends on what categories you're in. I'm actually working to develop a tool so that I don't want to say what it is at the moment, but the thing is that it would just basically...

let you just work on that category where your taxes are extremely high because the thing is that one thing I've noticed is that ⁓ a lot of this is stored in the body and a lot of the 63 % of people that answered the survey said that they were affected by severe health conditions, burnout, depression,

Some people were developing autoimmune issues ⁓ and in terms of coping they were talking to friends and family.

and ⁓ only a few people were talking to therapists. So that's why I've created this community where you can go and look for a therapist if that's what you need, look for a coach if that's what you need, look for any practical solutions. So once the community grows, all those people will be there and you will be able to work to reduce the burden. And sometimes it...

There's no doubt about it that you've got to just exit. One thing I did find because I looked at America, Canada, Australia and the UK. America has the highest burden out of every country there. It's just absolutely relentless. Almost. I think it's like ninety eight point five.

percent of people of American women felt that they were carrying each and every one of these burdens compared to 85 % in the UK compared to 63 % in Australia compared to 52 % in Canada

Natasha Williams (38:23)

I told you what I said, you heard me. Every one of them. And is anybody surprised when you say that? I mean, anybody American? We're not.

Erin Braxton (38:33)

No, Americans are not surprised. Americans have actually been praising me on the research. I the UK market's actually coming around to it at the moment. But I've had to say a lot of men have been quite resistant, especially black men have been quite resistant in terms of the research because they just don't feel it's happening.

Natasha Williams (38:58)

UK

or

Erin Braxton (39:00)

Okay, I'm just exaggerating. This is no need for me to do this type of research. So I've had quite a bit of resistance. Anyway, 81 % of the respondents are women.

Natasha Williams (39:13)

Well, I was just going to ask you, like, it down. And our black men responding to you doing this research like this across all of these Eurocentric countries.

Erin Braxton (39:29)

No, men are harder to get involved. I've reached out to men's networks, not interested. I did get quite a few people answering from the IT sector, but they were mostly women.

Natasha Williams (39:52)

Yeah, yeah, I had a guy contact me who wanted to get into IT. Sorry, went away from the mic. And he was hesitant to move into corporate. I mean, I get so many emails and not often from men, but, know, he was like a young guy and I was like, you know, God help you, know, go, go, you know, go in there like what you said when you were on my podcast, the one the first time

Which your father-in-law told you. Go in.

Erin Braxton (40:25)

Go in, find out what's going on and get out. That's it. That's all you need to do. And I feel that I got this lesson quite early anyway, because I was in my late teens and I got that lesson. ⁓ And I worked, my first job was with a bunch of solicitors and they were the first people that told me how brilliant I was ⁓ at 16. I was running a whole department ⁓ of solicitors. I was actually being paid more than

than all the solicitors because yeah they just thought they just thought I was just absolutely brilliant nobody'd ever told me that I was brilliant before but they just said to me that we have not they had their degrees they were all from Malaysia so they all had their degrees had not worked for anybody and decided to set up ⁓ a solicitors firm

Natasha Williams (40:57)

Yeah.

Erin Braxton (41:24)

for themselves. Said I'm not working for anyone, there's no need for us to do that. You know? So, yeah.

Natasha Williams (41:31)

I think once we get past the taxes, we work on ourselves internally. And, you know, this is part of the work that I see in my future, you know, again, with the whole, you know, cohort of women that I had to pause on because I'm in Goldman and I can't do it right now, but of helping us figure out how to get our own thing. It's one thing to say it, you know what I'm saying?

And people are out there and I cannot tell you because I have kind of flailed around in business and you're trying to figure things out and I've managed to be successful and I'm still learning more and more and more every day. I think though that we need to get back to a time where, and people are talking about this and I don't know how I completely feel about should we still be segregated.

when we were segregated, we were more successful. We had more businesses. We were doing our own thing. It was such a different time. And then we try so hard to integrate and we lose the culture. lose parts of our culture, truly, because we're so busy trying to integrate and assimilate into white culture.

And the entrepreneurial spirit and the innovation and the creativity is being, I don't want to say it's being lost, but we have such a fear because these paths have so-called been opened up to us that we can take to get into these other positions. And even like when I talk about just driving around here in St. Louis with my father,

And you know, he's 82, right? So you're talking about, you know, 30 years apart and he's talking about, you know, the time when black folks couldn't cross this barrier. They didn't go west of this one road and how all this stuff used to be black owned businesses now. And now we're just like, oh my God, where are the black owned businesses? I want to support black owned businesses. Oh my gosh, this is the coolest thing.

We had that, you know, maybe not the way that, you know, it's like the grass is always greener kind of thing, right? So I really want us to have a way, not just to, okay, we know they fucked us up, all right, or we got this messed up and we've got to correct this, but how do we really support each other so we can be more self-sufficient as ⁓ a community, you know? And yes.

It takes all types to make the world go around and I and I and I'm not going to say that we're not going to be in corporate spaces and we shouldn't be in corporate spaces, but I think there's a certain group of people who truly can emotionally handle it. You know, it's just not great for us and we can do our own thing, but we've been so. I think we've been conditioned out of knowing that, you know.

Erin Braxton (44:55)

Yeah,

I think the, well, I think it's the same in America as well. The lack of funding that we have in terms of access to getting our own things up and running. I remember a few years ago, I was talking to a black lady where she said,

I work with micro black businesses and I said something which really upset her. said this is the problem with a lot of black businesses. Well, all micro businesses were not medium sized businesses were always these tiny little businesses, a business of one or something. We need to learn how to hire. We need to learn how to fire. I mean, I used to get called the firing queen because I used to just, if you weren't doing your job properly,

I would just get rid of you, you know, give you your notice and you would be gone. But the thing is that we're so busy hiring incompetent members of family. Not to do, get these businesses off the ground and whatever. And we haven't got that support system in terms of if you fail this year, then the thing is that we've still got some money in the pot, you know, to keep the business going until we actually

get it going you know because I know in my first year of business I did not make one P not one penny and this lady said to me so how long is this gonna take for you to realize Natasha that you need to give this up I said why would I give it up what am I

Natasha Williams (46:36)

Never.

Erin Braxton (46:39)

Why would I want to go back and work for somebody? I know myself that, I know you were talking about this on the podcast with Dr. Kumani, is that you just could not keep a job. I'm that type of person. After about six months, I'm thinking to myself, what am I doing here? I just can't take these people.

Natasha Williams (47:03)

I don't play the game well enough at all. I can't hide it on my face. I can't stand to work with people who are like I have no tolerance for stupidity like zero, you know, and there's a lot of that going around, you know what mean? Yeah, in those organizations.

Erin Braxton (47:23)

And you know, the thing is that it is so difficult when we do get into our own businesses. And I found that a lot of people didn't want to work with me because it was a black owned business. ⁓ I had a white guy working for me who was ⁓ a lot older than I was. And so everyone thought he was in charge of the surveying firm.

And we used to do a lot of lettings.

We used to do a lot of property investment and things like that. So they'd come in and they'd start talking to him. this one time this Asian guy came in and started talking to him and said that he would like to work with him and all this sort of business. So my daughter went ballistic. I told them that my mom's the boss. So anyway, he told the guy that I was the boss. said, the guy said to him, look,

I would like to work with you but I don't want to work with black people so the guy Bruce said to me and my assistant to leave the room and to to sort of just go out.

Because the guy was coming so he doesn't want to work with black people. you just leave you and the secretary if you just leave so that he doesn't he just thinks it's just a white owned organization. And I got up and I was about to leave and I sat down and I said well actually no I'm not going anywhere. I didn't get into business for people to tell me that I needed to get out of my own business so that somebody else

take over. So he said to me, he's got over 40 properties. I said I don't care. He could have a thousand properties, I don't care. I don't want him. I don't want him here. But if I was in a different financial position, because I've coached a lot of people within the property industry, and they said I would have just left. would have just...

made sure I've got all that money coming in. No, not me, not doing it.

Natasha Williams (49:46)

You know, and here's the thing. Here's the thing. They treat us like shit. They don't want to work with us. We don't want to work with us. And I have been guilty of this because I've had some horrific experiences working with other black people, right? Not who are really successful. This is before I was working with more successful black people. ⁓

The way we handle our business, the way we deal with each other, know? Truly, like, you know, I was just talking to you and I've mentioned this before, so I have some rental property. I had a tenant I recently had to get rid of. Absolutely insane that the bullshit that they were putting, and this is business, this is why I'm bringing this up. I'm getting ⁓ messages about punishing them.

Erin Braxton (50:27)

Mmm.

Natasha Williams (50:44)

I'm getting messages cussing me, calling me everything but a child of God. ⁓ You know, I'm completely professional with these people. Like I am handling it. But once I realized they could not stay in my home, I had to cut it. Right. The way that they talked and dealt with me. Was.

Erin Braxton (51:10)

Mmm.

Natasha Williams (51:11)

Not at all, and you know good and damn well they would not be dealing with a white man like this. They would not even come to me and talk to me. I don't wanna hear your problems. I don't care. You left the house, you broke this, you broke that, you did this, you did that, you did all that. You wouldn't treat a white person this way. So we have to do some work on our own if you truly want to be in business.

You need to be in business, right? And there's certain levels of business that you can have or be a part of or participate in, you know? And we need to learn how to respect other black people in business. We want to have our own things. We want to deal with each other. But when we deal with them, you can't you can't always try to hustle them down. You have to pay them what they're worth. You wouldn't do this to white people, right?

There's a certain level of education that needs to happen because, you know, this is why a lot of times we don't want to do business with each other. But on the flip side of that, one of my best clients ever, Black guy, pays my hourly rate. I could send him a five figure invoice and he will pay it immediately. You know what I'm saying? Like I

I, you know, so I'm not saying that to rag on us, but we do have a way about ourselves. We want to be in business. A lot of times we, but it's a known, it's known. Like, it's like, I cannot rely on black people if I want to stay in business. And that's a shame, right?

Erin Braxton (53:01)

Can

I just... What the thing is that I think... I remember I was working with this black guy, he's Nigerian. And I used to have a different attitude towards people like he did. Now Nigerians, a lot of Nigerians, most of my friends are Nigerians, I'll just put it out there.

What are your credentials? They're always going on about credentials. So this guy said to me, because he was, I had him as a manager, very, very disciplined, very strict. He was brilliant at his job. So I said, I wanted to hire this lady. She was recommended by someone. He said to me, has she got a degree? I'm just saying.

Who cares if she's got a degree? It's the secretarial sort of job. He said, look, in this professional business, you cannot hire people that haven't got the right credentials, that haven't got degrees or whatever. I said, it's the secretarial job. You know, she's a brilliant salesperson. What do need her to have a degree for? She...

black, well mixed race woman because we went somewhere and she said to me that.

God, Natasha, she said it was so bad, but it was so bad for Natasha because she's really black. ⁓ A mixed-race person said that to and I just laughed it off. But she was such a brilliant salesperson, but her personal life was all over the place. And I remember this was just at the start of my business and I said to her,

Well, she was working two days a week and I said to her, is it okay for her to just do the two days a week without all the drama that was coming? It was just ridiculous. And she said to me,

when we really started making some money now, I think it was only about, it was just about £3,000 a week. That was it. It was just a small amount of money in my view anyway. And she said to me, you're making...

so much money and I'm just getting pennies and she was going and I said to her look don't come with your 50 cent routine to me you know because it was almost like a rap that she was doing I was so shocked but the way she spoke to me because I was a black person and I said to her did you behave like this when you were working in the insurance industry when your offers were white

It was just so ridiculous. And what that guy was trying to say to me is that you have to be very careful with uneducated ⁓ black people because they are very unprofessional with you. But he didn't say it like that. And I take things literally. Like, if he had said that to me, I probably wouldn't have hired her.

Natasha Williams (56:25)

I don't

necessarily think it's always uneducated because there's a lot of uneducated people who are very successful with their businesses. You know, I just think it's the mentality of certain people. You know what I'm saying? Because like, it's like, I think

Erin Braxton (56:43)

I think Erin, let me just clarify it for you though, because it makes me sound as though I'm a bit uppity or whatever.

No, but the thing is that you've got people that come from a certain background. And that's what he was trying to say to me with this sort of attitude. I guess he could see it. I'm not very good at reading for people or whatever. And he could see the sort of attitude that she had and how familiar she got. Because, I mean, he worked for me for two years. He had a military background. He had a degree.

as most Nigerians do anyway. The thing is that he recognized that certain people he said, it didn't mean like always with qualifications but you know certain people you just cannot work with them because they don't see that you've got the bills to pay. You have, I've got HMRC on my back

I don't know, it's the IRS for you guys. ⁓ You have to pay your taxes in order. It's not just your wages, the taxes on top of it, you know, and it's like you're trying to explain how businesses run to these types of people. And I'm just thinking, just, I just, I just don't, I just don't do it anymore.

Natasha Williams (57:50)

Okay, yes.

No, and it's true and even like what I said with my tenant it's just like All this stuff you guys left amiss To who did you think was gonna pay for that? thought I wasn't gonna pay for that? You thought I was gonna pay for that? so, you know people yes you there are But I feel like there needs to be

Because I think so many of us want to go into business. A lot of us can go into business, but we get discouraged and put off and turned off by it before we can even really get started. there just needs to be the proper business school. You know what I'm saying? ⁓

And I would say for anybody, but I would love for black people that have their own business school. As I'm saying this, I'm thinking of this in my head, you know, like maybe that's a thing, you know, who knows what will develop as we, as we go, but they're definitely, cause we miss some things, you know what I'm saying? And we just, can't, we can't treat each other like this and have the success that we.

We can't treat each other like this, have the success that we want to have. Do you know what I'm saying? Like, because what I can tell you is after having done this podcast now for almost a year, about a month, five a year, we are at 11 months, I have met the most extraordinary black women and

We're out here, you know, who are doing amazing things, who are business-minded, who have what it takes. And that's just because of the nature of what I'm doing and I'm able to engage and interact with these types of women. ⁓ But, you know, what about the rest of us? mean, everybody's not going to have a podcast like that, you know, but we still want to support and do business.

and all of the things. I think also, and we have to be honest, you know, and I'm not saying we shouldn't hold each other at a certain level, but we are, we're so busy comparing ourselves to white businesses and how white people do things. We are definitely different. I'm not saying that means we need to be unprofessional. ⁓ I'm not saying that we need to mistreat people.

or we need to necessarily discount on any of that stuff that the stereotypes that come along with what we think it means to do business with other black businesses. But we are definitely different. We have a different culture. And the level of support that we need to show each other, how we talk about each other, how we speak about each other in public, when eyes are watching, ⁓ the way we...

critique ourselves and measure ourselves is different. It should be different because we are not starting off on the same level. It is not a level playing field. the way we begin is a lot of times often different. And I think a lot of times we're judging each other in our businesses and how we do things based on how they do things. And that's just not.

That's not fair. I don't know the answer, right? I don't know the answer, but I do know what I see, right? So.

Erin Braxton (1:01:47)

I do think that I remember when I starting my first business. I started my first business when I was 17 and I went to a youth business scheme. That's it was at the time because I was only 17 and they taught us everything about business, how to ⁓

manage our finances. I got that at school anywhere because I went to a very good school. But the thing is that they taught us how to manage our business finance, how to buy property through our businesses, how to manage the cash flow and things like that. And even when I started my surveying firm, I went for a refresher with the banks and the banks were offering all sorts of business courses.

for free and I was usually the only black person there and ⁓ they they were I remember I went to one with Barclays and they were quite shocked that I put this ⁓ financial forecast together and all the rest of it and ⁓

The guy was like, my God, where did you learn this? Because there was like 25 people in the class and I was the only one that did it. was a diligent student. ⁓ But it was all taught. But the thing is that I would go to all these business courses because I don't know everything. I don't know a lot of things. Marketing courses, through the bank you can get all these sorts of courses. Every...

Every region has a business hub here. So you have like your...

Chambers of Commerce, I don't know if you've got it in America as well. I think that as black people, we need to take advantage of what is there. They even show you how to apply for grants, apply for loans, how to get your credit in order, how to do all these things. Like you've gone on to the Goldman Sachs program, which is proven to be quite a good foundational program. If you had that 10 years ago, where would your business be? know, so we need to take

advantage of what is there instead of listening to people who are not business owners who have never been in business. I mean the only reason why I was attracted to business is because my auntie, I worked with her from the age of 10, she had a shop and ⁓ I quite like this lifestyle that she had where she didn't go to work and my auntie was sitting

from home in the 80s and I'm just like this is the

You know, but she's a seamstress. She's a seamstress. Yeah. And she's working from home. And then I had another auntie who had her own cafe and she had five cafes by the time she sold up and went to Jamaica. And I just thought, I saw, my mum comes from a very big family. Mum's youngest of 15. My mum.

didn't have a business or anything, but she always believed in working for somebody else. But all my brothers and sisters work for other people, but they think I'm crazy because I don't like working for other people. They think there's something wrong with me because I just want my own thing. But I've been able to surpass them.

quite quickly by just having my own business. It gives you a level of freedom, but I think we need to learn it. We need to learn business properly, how business works a lot better than we do.

Natasha Williams (1:05:51)

Yeah, you know, it just seems like a huge project for the community and it seems like something that we really need to take.

And really do something with you know, there's a lot of people, you know, I did this I made you know six figures in a month I did a lot of this stuff and I and I'm not hating on them if you did that that's fine and and you know Maybe you know more than I do most things aren't that easy. Most things aren't sustainable like that You know, and you just got to get the fundamentals down These maybe they're your gurus I don't

I don't know, there's so many gurus right now.

Erin Braxton (1:06:35)

Yeah, my thing is that I will go out to proven businesses that have been operating for very long time. Say I wanted, like for instance, when I wanted to get into surveying, I went out to a surveying firm to work with them for a little bit to see how it worked. And then I was just asking questions, like I was some sort of apprentice. Started contacting people within the industry, talking about it.

to see whether I really wanted to go down that route basically. So I did that for about two years. I used to travel, I think it was nearly 300 miles to go and get mentored by somebody and shadow them. And everyone in my family was like, why are you doing this? Why would you travel all that way? I'm not volunteering for anything. But sometimes you just have to volunteer, get those skills.

in order to get to where you want to go.

Natasha Williams (1:07:39)

Absolutely. ⁓ think about, because I was talking about this last night, the questions about how I built a business from like not knowing how to do anything and it's just like, my god I can't do it, it's too much, it's I can't, I can't. I'm like okay well then don't. You know what I'm saying? But then you look at a person like years later and you're like so in awe of what they did and all they did

was do what they needed to do to make that happen. It's just, you know, it's not that sexy. It never is, you know, all the stuff that a lot of people are seeing right now, especially with, you know, TikTok and Instagram and all these entrepreneurs. ⁓ It appears sexy, but it's not, you know, ⁓ and a lot of the success comes like people tell you in the boring day to day stuff that you're doing that it just doesn't.

It doesn't really look like anything. It's a pain in the absolute ass. It's not easy. ⁓

Erin Braxton (1:08:46)

I'm good.

Sorry, I've put a lot of people off business because I'll tell you as it is, God, it's been really difficult this month and I'll go into the detail of how difficult it was, it was difficult. And but then I think a few years into surveying, I could actually track each month and I could tell what was going to happen because in surveying, people don't really know this, but you have to follow politics in order to read what the people are going to do.

this month. Like for instance now that we have the war I know people are not buying so it's not good to be surveying right now but I used to study the industry, study everything about the industry for years until I actually got it you know so yeah it is it's hard work.

Natasha Williams (1:09:38)

But is it harder than those 15 taxes you just laid down? I mean, let's be honest.

Erin Braxton (1:09:45)

No, it's not. You know what makes business so hard? Well, what made business hard for me was going to places and being dismissed all the time, always having to prove my credentials to everyone. It was so exhausting, mentally exhausting, doing the ⁓ work of...

everyone in the organisation. had 10 staff, well 10 surveyors and support staff, but I felt I always needed to work harder than everybody else within that firm. didn't want to be called up to say, my god, Natasha did a survey wrong. It was Natasha that did the survey and I you know, I just, couldn't have that. And I found myself doing 10 surveys a week while everybody else was doing, I've

six or seven.

Natasha Williams (1:10:42)

But to me, it's just like, is that harder than doing your own thing?

Erin Braxton (1:10:49)

If.

Natasha Williams (1:10:52)

I think it's just like- No, no.

Erin Braxton (1:10:53)

In work, in work, it's so much harder to be in work and to have these slights every single day. I found it difficult. I was working in a place, I was the only surveyor there. There were 400 members of staff. I was being paid the least.

I had more credentials, I think I was working on my PhD at the time. I was the lowest paid in that team. And then someone said, there's a black girl in the office. And they all came to look at me in my cubicle.

like what kind of people are these? know? And it was like that every single day you just constantly, I'd go onto the building sites, I was the only black person on a professional career track. Being called all sorts of names.

For me, it was hard. It was hard to be in work. I mean, at least when I had my own business, I could just say, you know what, you can just piss off, love. I'm not even taking you on as a client. I could just walk away from certain jobs because I just didn't feel like it. Some days when they wore me down, I just didn't feel like getting up. I'm going on a holiday, you know. ⁓

Natasha Williams (1:12:25)

Yeah. Yeah.

Erin Braxton (1:12:28)

Yeah, it was hard for me at work, especially when you're in. A lot of people have written to me in the law firm, like in law firms, engineering. A 29 year old wrote to me and said that she would never go back to a Eurocentric workplace again because she's just completely done. 29 years old.

Natasha Williams (1:12:56)

But that has to happen. I think it has to happen. Like, whatever we're going through right now, like all this knowledge and awareness, your research, you know, what's going on here in America, everything that's going on. If it doesn't happen, we won't we won't move. You know what I'm saying? It's unfortunate. ⁓ But that's the that's the spin I have to put on it just to make it so because if.

If it's too comfortable, what's the, what's, what are we, you're just going to stay there, right?

Erin Braxton (1:13:28)

Yeah, but my thing is that you cannot wait until you burn out and have an action plan in place. I was coaching someone last year and she said, they're so racist at work and this is happening and they've promoted this guy. He's just come in the other day. But I said, I don't understand what the problem is because...

your training to be a self-employed counsellor. You know like what your dad said, if I had a plan they couldn't make me mad, you know, and she wrote to me she's a qualified counsellor now and it's like what was I moaning about? Because she had, she was on track with her plan. Have something going on in the background that they don't know about.

Natasha Williams (1:14:20)

If you don't,

you will become utterly consumed with all of the bullshit going on and it will take, it will, will, it will, your focus will be there. You know, it's just like, you know, you're talking to your friends and they're just telling you the same old stupid stuff at the job and you're just like.

Okay, so what else is going on? What else you got? You know, and they don't have a thing other than to tell me for the umpteenth time about their boss, about the job, about the, you know, do you want to complain or do you really want to do something, right? So it's just like you have to have a plan. You have to have a plan. if you, know, whatever that is in your plan could be a five year plan. doesn't have to be a plan for like the next month, six months year. You can have a plan.

Like, okay, listen, I'm gonna work here because my pension or my retirement is locked in at this point and then I'm gonna go for it. Or you might have some financial goals. Again, you're trying to get your money up to a certain point so you can be peaceful while you're in innovation, while you're in creation, ⁓ which...

Erin Braxton (1:15:35)

Thanks

Natasha Williams (1:15:36)

I did

not do, like I said, I wasn't, you because I'm constantly stressed out and have angst and anxiety and all of the things, right? But, you know, maybe there's no rush for you, right? But, you know, get a plan of some sort together.

Erin Braxton (1:15:51)

Yeah, the thing is that to be honest I didn't plan on leaving, surveying because I am like...

I know it sounds terrible, well doesn't sound terrible but I am an absolutely fantastic surveyor, I really am. And I can spot damn problems anywhere, can sort of, know how to tell people how to invest their money, I invest my money in property as well and whatever. So the thing is that I was a really, really good surveyor. But I just didn't have a plan on leaving. And when I...

I was basically was forced out of it because I was just so exhausted and tired and I couldn't do anything. I used to love writing. I couldn't write anything. There was no creativity coming. I just couldn't get out of bed. I spent three days. What happened is that I...

I was talking to my mum in the kitchen and all of a sudden I just felt a bit weak and then next minute I was in hospital for three days, woke up three days later.

and I felt so rested but then I went back to work and then I was exhausted again and I just couldn't get over it so I took a trip I said let me go on a holiday by myself to Tunisia so I spent two weeks there slept for the two weeks all inclusive

Natasha Williams (1:17:37)

Didn't say anything?

Erin Braxton (1:17:41)

I don't know what Tenecia looks like. I was just in the hotel sleeping. remember they came to my room to see if I was alive and they said to me, Natasha, I think a massage would help you. ⁓ I came, they had to wake me up for the massage. went down to get the massage and I just felt.

I just felt as if I was drifting away and the lady had to wake me up to say the massage is over now. I fell asleep on the table. Just ridiculous, yeah.

Natasha Williams (1:18:17)

Everything that you've got like I can say this like what you've gone through that level of exhaustion of burnout right like so that you're doing this research and you're so connected to it and you understand and you have Empathy for the the the the interviewees and all of the things so it's it's there for you to do It's a what my dad say about something. I was gonna pay somebody to do the other day. He's like

No, it's for you to do. I was like, I don't want to pay him daddy. It's for you to do. It's there for you to do. And I'm just like, OK. You know, this is there for you to do. Like, if you were still surveying and doing all the things, you wouldn't be doing this. So you have to think about, OK, you're at a lot of things, I'm sure. Sounds like it. Like, you've done all manner of.

Like what haven't you done? Like, yes, I did the da da da. And you're just like, God, this is this. You know? Well, that's how you are.

Erin Braxton (1:19:15)

But you know what, Erin, ⁓ I think one of the things ⁓ I think because of the way I am the way I am because I've never had anyone to rely on. So the thing is that you see, like I showed you my website, I coded all of that myself because I can code, I can do Python, I can do all these sorts of things. I trained as a researcher ⁓ that that was in

housing so I kind of hide it. So the thing is that I had an IT firm when I was 17 years old and it's because I wanted to leave London you know because I was being

I come from quite a terrible family so I needed to escape from my family. So I've been so self-reliant and I find that I've developed all these skills over the year out of self-reliance but sometimes it's just nice to just give it over to someone, delegate some of these things and let someone else take over.

Why do I to code everything myself? Why do I have to, you know, write everything myself? Why do I, you know, so I find there's a lot of black women that we are wearing ourselves down as well. Just, ⁓ just doing everything for ourselves.

Natasha Williams (1:20:44)

It's true. mean, I'm, know, I can do a lot of things, like a lot of things. If somebody calls me and be like, da, da, da, da, I'm like, yeah, I could do that. I know how to do a lot of things because of the circumstances made it so that I had to, I had to learn how to do those things that at a certain point you got to look at, you know, and at our age, it's just like, what is, what, what, where is your time better spent? Right.

Erin Braxton (1:21:13)

Luckily.

Natasha Williams (1:21:13)

No,

you can code your site because this is for the bigger purpose. I'm fine with yeah, you know, you're not not getting a lot of money for this yet. You know what I'm saying? You're not making so. Yes, of course. But just because you can doesn't mean you should. Yeah. And you need to. So but I'm saying all this stuff that you did, all this stuff that you went through, everything that you've gone through got you here.

And this is a bigger purpose like what you're doing like again, I think it's really brilliant. It's really smart. You have thought around it. You're trying to help black people Across the diaspora. I mean what's better than that? Of course, you can do a lot of other things like I know how to You know scrub a toilet. I know how to you know, yeah clean my house. I know how to fold a fitted sheet

You know what I'm saying? Like I can do all of these things. That doesn't mean that's what you need to be doing. You know, like this is for you to do, right?

Erin Braxton (1:22:19)

Yeah, well, I feel like it's the purpose for me.

Natasha Williams (1:22:24)

Yes.

Erin Braxton (1:22:25)

And I am so excited every day to get up and do more work on this because I'm finding out so many things and just reading around all the papers and what have you like, DeGruy and you know about the intergenerational trauma and the programming that we get from when we were young. It's different in the UK because we have this windrush generation.

even colorism comes into it. I'm reading everything and putting it all together and just sort of connecting the dots with everything as to why we behave in this sort of way. And there is hope for us that we do not have to continue like this. We can change the next generation of workers to say that we don't have to work so hard. We don't have to suppress ourselves. Why do we need to feel

that we need to hide who we are truly. If we have our own thing, why are we not getting our own thing? Why are we relying on other people for hair products, you know, who don't even have the same hair as us? I mean, that has made me angry for a very long time. ⁓

Yeah, and I feel like we need to get that proper training in business just to run those businesses properly. You know, instead of like just all this piecemeal listening to people that have never done it before and you know, my family comes in and criticises absolutely everything I do. I feel that you need to run it this way. mean...

Natasha Williams (1:24:11)

Well, you don't need to listen. mean, I can't with your family. Because, know, like we're just talking about that, friend of mine, I was just talking about like people say things and they criticize or they give you critiques and everything like that. ⁓ know, and I'll say this to kind of wind us up. But, ⁓

I feel very passionate. feel like this podcast, at least for this phase and stage of my life, is my purpose right now. This is what I should be doing. I'm getting a lot of fulfillment out of it. I feel like it's helping Black women. I've never had a profession that...

did that, right? It just, had, you know, I worked in advertising, I made clothes, you know, it was all silly, you know, I'm not saying it like, you know, was fine, but you know, you know, wanting to be able to give back and, and do something greater. And what you're doing is, is so huge and so along those lines, right? And

Being able to be excited about the work you do and get up and be excited and looking forward to how to do this and how to make it better and bring it all together and make it make sense. Those are powerful feelings. You know what I'm saying? And to be able to have found that in the work that you're doing every day, that is huge. And because black people are such soulful, feeling dynamic, innovative, creative,

People we all should feel like that. We all should be able to find Some form of that, you know in this lifetime so we can be happier and more centered and more grounded and and and And when we've subjected ourselves to what we've done because we did what we we thought we wanted to do what we fought to do And it's not so much working out for us, especially mentally emotionally

⁓ And our nervous systems are a mess. ⁓ You know, we need to be able to find that, you know. So I'm saying all this to say like, I'm finding it, you're finding it. I feel like our goal is the same and wanting us all to be able to find that within ourselves, within our own community. And I don't know the solution, you ⁓ know, you're doing your thing, I'm doing our thing. We're all.

trying to do our part to get us there. But I feel like that is the common goal. And that is what I think we all should be focused on. Because doing it their way isn't working for us. And it hasn't worked for us. And I just want everyone to be able to feel as excited and fulfilled in whatever it is they choose to do. Even if it's not like research.

across the diaspora or, you know, talking about uplifting black women, even if it is making clothes or if it is, you know, uplifting black ⁓ people in some other way, you know, all of the wonderful things that you see us doing, if it's doing hair, if it's doing nails, whatever it is, right? So that's what I'm hoping. That's where I'm hoping we're headed, you know, not black women, but black people in general. So.

Um, and I think we're making steps because you're seeing it more and more and more and more. Um, we're getting it. Um, and not in just these one-off videos on TikTok or Instagram, like really, um, maybe we're really getting there. Yeah. Yeah. Trying to do something big. So, um, so Natasha, go ahead. What are we going to say?

Erin Braxton (1:28:09)

I just feel that.

One thing I've really appreciated is that since I've been doing the research, I've found people like yourself where I could just reach out to tell everybody what I'm doing. And it's just so important for us as black people to just sort of come together, especially if we're like-minded people, to come together and start to help each other in any way possible, really. Because I think

we can all help each other. I find that some organisations are starting to reach out to me about this research that I'm doing, although I've not promoted it as much as I should have, but they are coming to say, yes, we want to do something about this and I'm really pleased that you're not focused on changing the person or whatever, they want to change organisations. But I wrote this blog post to say, look, listen,

not waiting for the organisations to do anything for us, we've got to do it for ourselves. And it's something that we've got to start to look at because we've got so many skills, we've got so much ⁓ intelligence that we're not using in the right way. And we're giving all that to those sorts of organisations for them to just wear us down. And if we can find a way to come together to get these things

I'm a person like I want to beg you for anything

I want you to come to me. That's it. And that's how I run everything. If I want something, I'm going to attract you. I'm not going to go and beg you for anything.

Natasha Williams (1:30:12)

That's what we need to be so tell people where they can find the community. And what you you said those courses are Tuesdays and then I there's a Friday thing tell.

Erin Braxton (1:30:25)

There's a First Class Friday, which I hope that you will come on to at some point.

Natasha Williams (1:30:31)

Yeah, have me on, come on. What time is it over there? What time do I have to be awake?

Erin Braxton (1:30:38)

I do these things for the American and the UK audience, so don't worry about it. So it will be a suitable time and it's all recorded within the community as well. So I do ⁓ a ⁓ tax break Tuesday. So that's where you get relief from what's going on at work. You come into the community and I'm live. You'll see the details in the community. If you go to community.costofblackexcellence.com

⁓ You can get all the details and just register Yeah, so tax break ⁓ so you come in talk about what's going on at work and we Sit down and strategize with you about what you want to go where where you want to go next or what you want to do with your career with your life how to reduce the taxes Basically, and then I do a first-class Fridays where

I bring in an expert. So we've got on this Friday, we've got a coach coming in who is a leadership coach and she'll tell you how to get into leadership, how to navigate the taxes because my requirement is that people actually understand what we're actually going through so that we can work together to reduce all those taxes. And I think that's the main thing for us to do. Yeah, so it's community.costofblackexcellence.com.

www.dpd.com

Natasha Williams (1:32:09)

awesome guys so get over there and register for the community and Yeah, I mean it takes it takes time to build these things, but it's so important. You know we need our own community Trust me. They're watching they're watching They're watching right now, but we need our own thing and and are you what are you about that because you know I know How do you are you are you making sure that

your, your, your screening.

Erin Braxton (1:32:43)

Yeah, so you're required to have a there's a directory so you've got to put your picture up, you know

and list all your credentials and what have you so that you can network with other black people also. I've had a few white people ask if they can join and it's not your thing really, it's for black people that's what it's about. I don't think there's anything out there focused purely on us, you know, we always have to be BAME

I don't know what the other ones are. Yeah. So black Asian minority ethnic. yeah. No. the thing is that I want it to be about black people. We've got a specific set of issues that we need to address, that we need to focus on. We don't need other ethnic people because

Yeah, I mean other people have their own communities. We have an issue here in the UK where I live in an area called Birmingham. You've got one in America as well. And we've got every time there's a recession here it goes through this thing where we have the largest amount of unemployment in this region. And that's because there's so many

Asian people here and I know this sounds terrible but they do not employ us they do not employ outsiders they employ their own people we need to be in a position so that when we're in recession we are protected by that this is a recession now anyway yeah the war and everything

Natasha Williams (1:34:35)

Yeah,

yeah, no, ⁓ I can't remember what I was gonna say. I was just gonna say something, but I guess it left me, but we do, we just need to have our own thing, you know? ⁓

Yeah, I cannot remember. Well, anyway, it'll come to me one day, I'll say it. But no, that's really great. ⁓ I think, ⁓ yeah, it just takes time to build these communities and ⁓ you're doing great work. I am just super duper impressed with it. I, ⁓ no, no, it's super impressive. You know, like I just, I say, I just get up here and run my mouth, you know, like.

Erin Braxton (1:35:21)

No, I do think, I was explaining to someone about all the taxes and everything and one of my friends was like, do you know what, I knew you had more potential. I knew you had more potential than what you were doing.

Natasha Williams (1:35:36)

They said what?

It's

work, it's impactful work, right? You know, it's impactful work and ⁓ it's important work, it's important work, right? So yes, you can survey, you can find all the things wrong with the property, but great. You know what I'm saying?

Erin Braxton (1:36:02)

And I think that's how I felt with it as well. It's just, I remember when I was at school, they would say, well, my craft design and technology teacher used to say, Natasha, you would go so far if you'd just stop helping people.

Natasha Williams (1:36:22)

We need to help ourselves.

Erin Braxton (1:36:24)

Yeah, I needed to help myself a lot more, but then it's just been a trait of mine. I remember when I started this project, a lot of my cousins especially said to me, look, Natasha, I don't think you should be doing this. I think you should just go and get yourself another job. Don't do this. It's a waste of time. But I mean, I've been invited to so many talks this week.

Well, we on Monday today, know lots of people have been invited me to come and talk about this research and I know I just know deep down it's going to be so impactful.

Natasha Williams (1:37:07)

Yeah,

and you know just don't I mean are your cousins Really? Qualified to like I mean you think about your cousins. I mean, I'm not trying to dog your cousins. I don't know your cousins But honestly, you know what I'm saying? Like people can't ever and they they're probably lovely people but people ⁓

they can't see your vision because that wasn't for them to do. Remember I just said, this is for you do, right? Because it's for you to do. ⁓ My dad had never said that to me, it's for you to do. It's like it is because it's for you to do. It's yours. It's yours. You see the vision, you know where you're trying to take it, you know, and, somebody might come through and try to bite off of it and do it, you know, or just because, that seems like a great idea. I'm going to jump on that. And, but it's, it's yours.

Erin Braxton (1:37:43)

Yeah.

Natasha Williams (1:37:58)

You know what I'm saying? So your cousins couldn't know. They couldn't possibly know. And I don't know. You just seemed like so smart. Like I'm telling you, you tell me the stuff your family says to you. I'm just like, why did you even tell them you were doing it? Just do it.

Erin Braxton (1:38:15)

I

wanted to do like a little pilot study with the family really and I was like oh no but it's this age old thing really a lot of black people say it but you don't want to do anything with black people they don't want to spend any money they don't want to you know and we need to stop saying things like that negative things about ourselves because it's just not helpful because what's been proven to me over the time anyway that

There are so many smart, intelligent black people out there. We just need to connect with those ones.

Natasha Williams (1:38:51)

Exactly. And like I said, with this work that you're doing, not only are you connecting, you're connecting other people. I feel the same. I'm just like, my God, that girl is amazing. Or who is this? who is that? Like, you know, like I just told you about the woman I'm going to have on the podcast she's going to be on next week. And I'm just like so excited. Come share. Like, and you know.

Just so many amazing people. Maybe everybody's not going to have a billion dollar company that they're going to create or they're not going to, you know, do the thing that's just huge, but they're having an impact. They're doing important work. ⁓ You know, they're there available for you to connect with, to work with. So ⁓ we got it all. So.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well guys, ⁓ did you want to say anything else? Because I'm going to wrap us up because we've been recording now for an hour and 40 minutes.

Erin Braxton (1:39:54)

Right! I thought it was just an hour you know!

Natasha Williams (1:40:00)

The timer

at the top of the screen you see that

Erin Braxton (1:40:03)

I've

made it small you see so so I could read the website and everything yeah okay now I could talk to you forever

Natasha Williams (1:40:14)

I know,

that's what we, Natasha and I have calls and we're like, let's do accountability calls. Then we get on and that's like four hours later. It's like, I have to go. I'm not doing anything.

Erin Braxton (1:40:27)

Please,

something for my dad!

Natasha Williams (1:40:30)

help my dad's waiting on me or I gotta go try to make a dollar today at least yeah yeah so anything else you want to say on the the close-up community

Erin Braxton (1:40:44)

That's it. mean, just come to the community, find your people, get the support and help that you need. Because the first step is to measure your tax. You'll get the score dot.

costofblackexcellence.com, when you join the community, you'll see the link within the community, as the community links out to absolutely everything that I'm doing. So I'm developing psychometric tests and all sorts, specifically just for black people. So, yeah.

Natasha Williams (1:41:21)

Black people, got some stuff happening around here. This is amazing. Well, Natasha, thank you again for coming back. I'm sure we'll see you again sometime in 2026 or 20. Well, we're already almost in May or 2027. We'll see you again for sure. Maybe she'll come on. Yes, maybe so. You got good information and it's funny.

Erin Braxton (1:41:48)

I am updating the research all the time. My next target is 2,000 people. yeah. Anybody who wants to come and take the survey, take the survey because once we get to 2,000, then we can start to influence international policy, local policy and things like that. yeah.

Natasha Williams (1:42:10)

That's what I'm saying. This is smart stuff, people. Alright, this is, yeah, I mean, I'm telling you, like I said, I just run my mouth. I'm just up here. It's like, oh, that's pretty smart. Anyway.

Erin Braxton (1:42:20)

Yes!

Natasha Williams (1:42:26)

Well thank you, thank you, thank you so much Natasha for coming back and thank you guys for sticking through it with us for this long edition of Coffee No Cream. ⁓ Please like, share, leave me some comments, leave Natasha some comments, talk to us down below and we will see you in the next episode.