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We've all had dreams of taking a romantic vacation with a significant other to a cool place and you know having a fabulous time, meeting a guy who likes to travel. And a lot of us are waiting to meet that guy before we decide to go on that trip. And I'm not

say that I was waiting on somebody to do that because I I've done so many things by myself. But a few years ago I was dating a guy, I met a guy, not my usual guy, but he was super cool. He wanted to travel more. I wanted to travel more. So we decided that we were gonna go to Italy. And he bought his ticket. I bought my ticket. It wasn't like he bought my ticket. Okay, this is important to the story.

And right after we bought the tickets, he calls me with this new idea that just popped in his head.

Said, hey, what if I bring my kids, his 10 and 13-year-old kids? Since it's gonna be such a good price, what if I bring my kids? Now I'm like, whoa, first of all, I've never met your kids. Second of all, we talked about having like a romantic getaway kind of thing where we were gonna get to know each other more and you want to bring your kids.

Long story short, the trip didn't happen. Him and I were no longer, and that was that. I was disappointed. I was upset about it, but did I wait on him? Because we were gonna go to Italy. I think we booked into Rome to go. So, needless to say, later that year, not only did I make it to Milan and then I ended up in the

Italian Riviera, I was in Portofino and this town called Camogli and great trip. Amazing trip. I went to Paris. Later that summer, I went to Medellin, Colombia. Later that year, I went to Toronto just to go to a Christmas party, you know, and I did not wait to travel. So many of us are waiting on.

The right situation to travel, the man, the money, just the right situation. A lot of people, a lot of us, not me, but women, they already have husbands who don't want to travel with them. But they're waiting, hoping maybe they can convince them, or not going because their man doesn't want to travel, or maybe you want to wait on your girlfriends to go on a trip and

They don't necessarily want to go where you want to go, or they don't travel the way you want to travel. It's really hard to find travel partners. Let me just be clear about that. Finding travel partners is not easy. So maybe, maybe you're not gonna get to go with who you envisioned you should go with, but does that mean that you wait? A lot of us are waiting for shit to just drop in our lap, right?

The right opportunity, the money, like, some windfall of money that's gonna come through. And when that happens, and I'm gonna become this person, I'm gonna do this thing. And you're waiting on a rescue situation. And that's just not the way that goes. Are you waiting on somebody to save you from your life? Are you waiting on someone to do something you wanna do, to go somewhere you wanna go, to live the life that you wanna have? We're gonna talk about it today, but.

Before we get into it guys, welcome to the

Welcome to the Coffee No Cream Podcast. My name is Erin Braxton and I am 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. Please like, please subscribe. It helps the channel so much. And as you know, I love the comment section. I love to read them and engage them. I promise you guys, I

Read every comment. Leave me a comment. The comments help me figure out what you guys are thinking about what the the episode was about. It helps guide me into what's next coming on the podcast. The comments section is the reason for this podcast. And

We've had so many good comments over the last few weeks, but I'm seeing a common thread through the comments. I'm seeing comments that are making me be like, okay, guys, okay, are we waiting on a savior? Are we waiting on a rescue? Are we waiting on solutions and not living? Are we just waiting?

Not a good place to be. Be honest with yourself. We're gonna talk about it today. And I started the conversation by talking about travel because yeah, I know that so many of us want to travel. We see the Instagram posts, the TikTok posts, we see people traveling and we want to have those experiences and we're waiting on you know the perfect opportunity. I have been on solo trips.

I I have I have been all over the place and I've gone with friends, but my travel people aren't necessarily the people I would have thought I would have traveled to. Hell, when I turned 40, my best friend and I were supposed to go on a a trip because that was our 30 year anniversary. We never we never made it on that trip. We're over fifty. We haven't made it on a forty fortieth anniversary trip because I'm in a different

time of my life. Like I have different shit going on. She's married with a teenager, which for some is not a reason to not travel, but she's just not into it like that. I have other friends that are into travel. I've made travel friends and we travel well together. Sometimes you have to do things on your own. I went on a trip I'll I'll put a picture. I went on a cycling tour through

Tuscany. Hardest shit I've ever done. I was 49 when I went on that trip. I was the youngest person on that trip. It was a great experience. I didn't know anybody on that trip. One girl who invited me I had met, but I didn't know anybody on that trip. Most people were coupled up. And there were a couple people who were single on that trip, but they still were married, but they were just there by themselves. So if there's something you want to do, you can't always wait.

For someone to give you permission to do it. And and and that's what I want to talk about. So this happens in relationships, it happens in your personal life, it happens in your professional life. And in the comments section, when Beverly Dines was on a few weeks ago is when I really noticed it. And it just caused me to pause and think, we need to, we need to talk about this.

She was dropping gems. I'm gonna link to the episode up here. If you guys haven't seen it, go check it out. Beverly is a COO. She has experience with jobs in this marketplace. Beverly predicts or she she she estimates that a million women have been laid off. That's her estimation. A million black women, right? So

Black women are looking for solutions. What can we do? What what is available to us, right? And obviously, because we're black women, a lot of us think, yeah, yeah, I'm gonna go and get my PhD, I'm gonna go get another master's or whatever. Kudos to you if that's what you want to do. Just make sure you have a plan for it. What are you gonna do with it instead of getting further into debt? What are you gonna do with it? But Beverly suggests that.

Black women look into what she called unsexy industries. So she's talking about AI governance, compliance, not just in AI, but maybe in insurance. This is what Beverly mentioned. And the comments section just had my jaw dropped, not so much on YouTube, but on TikTok. And I'm gonna read a few of the comments and then we're going to talk about it because I couldn't understand.

The questions. So at Venus says, if they train me, I'll take it. Almost 1200 people liked that comment. Okay. Talking about AI compliance and government governance. Chasing after Christ 86 says, I just need training. I wish I had someone to show me because I'm a hands-on learner. Another one, I cannot pronounce this username. I'm not going to botch it up, but

They've said, I would like to move from education to compliance if someone can help. So when at Venus says if they train me, I'll take it.

Who is they? Who who who was they? Someone said when chasing after Christ said, I just need training. I wish I had someone to show me someone like who?

Beverly dropped the information. She gave you a jump on that. She's telling you, look, this is an area where they're paying well. Get into it. Learn about it. Know it. This is an area where you might need to pivot into. And what do you do? Not necessarily you, but a lot of comments. This is just like a few comments. There were ton comments on that video. Are asking.

For more. So you want somebody to just drop it in your hand. It's just gonna the information is just gonna fall from the sky into your lap. You already scrolled and saw she gave you the gem. So what are you gonna do with that information? Ask, okay, what now? What do I do? How do I do it? But you've got this, but you've got this phone, you've got AI, you've got Google. If you wanna know something.

Why wouldn't you ask Google AI to tell you or to help you brainstorm how you can get into it? Right? I don't want to sound like a bitch when I say this, but I just really didn't get it. I didn't understand. It's like, what do you want somebody to do? Spoon feed you the information? And I'm not saying that's you. But for me, when she said that, I was like, how can

How can this be beneficial to me in my digital business systems that I build for clients? And I did some brainstorming. I looked into it, and there is a very clear direct path in how governance training can help me make myself more marketable. Is it a direct correlation?

With what Beverly was saying, no, but she said this is an industry that you need to get into and you need to look into. AI is here, it's not going anywhere, it's here to stay. All right. I'm not saying I'm trying to be an AI governance professional, but what I can say is that I looked into it, I see how having that expertise can pair up with the expertise that I have and it can make me more marketable.

It can extend my expertise. And I didn't need anybody to hand feed me that information. The tools on how to get that information is there. What I'm seeing is do you really want the information or do you want somebody to just spoon feed it to you and show you everything that you need to do in order to be successful? And if they did, would you do it anyway? It's frustrating to me because I feel.

Like

When I see stuff like that, I'm just kind of like, What more do you want? What more do you want that you're willing to work for? I am not an expert in everything, but

I have learned that I have a lot of experience and a lot of things. And that experience has helped me to have a profitable business. I have been building systems for 13, 14 years. All right. 14 years, I guess, at this point. Just hit my anniversary. 14 years. And when I started, I started because I knew WordPress. For those of you

who don't not do not know, WordPress is a web platform. It's a popular web platform. There's many different platforms like Wix and Shopify. Well, anyway, I've garnered a lot of experience building on that platform for many, many years. And it's led me to more elaborate custom builds, custom systems building.

In a previous video, I talked about the video about starting the podcast at age 50. I talked about not wanting to be a beginner. A lot of people don't want to be a beginner. And there's always pushback to pivoting because there's that fear of being a beginner. But if you even have five years of experience,

you have experience that you can merge with other things to make you more marketable. When I lost my client in 2024, it led to me having a really shitty 2025 year. Okay. And I have been working with my developer for many, many years, but I needed to be able to work in 2025 and

in a new way where I didn't rely on him so much. He is just like a master at what he does. Okay. And I utilize him when I need him, but I needed to be able to retain more of the revenue instead of giving, you know, a huge fraction of that revenue to him. When I went out and found projects and work and we received work in. Because of AI

I don't need him the way that I used to. But what I realized in this whole thing is the brain of what I did, the way I architect systems, build systems, that's the marketable, that's the marketable service. So I've had a few people came to me. I've been able to make thousands of dollars in the last few months because of not necessarily the technical skill.

But because of my expertise that I bring with all of the years of work that I've been doing, basically since I graduated from college up until now, somebody asked me to build a very elaborate Shopify website, 4,000 products. Most people have not built a 4,000 products site. It's massive, it's huge. There's many things to consider taxes, shipping, privacy, right?

Accessibility, all of the things, you know, you've got to get images on every product, and you've got to get it's just a lot, right? Have I ever built a 4,000 product website? Absolutely not. And it was on a platform that wasn't as familiar with to me as WordPress. But did I say no? I couldn't do it. What makes me a valuable asset to this client is everything that I've done that comes before.

The fact that I used to manufacture my own clothing line, the fact that I know how to ship, the fact that I know about taxes, the fact that I know about accessibility and policies and and and and privacy and all of the things, customer support, things that they don't know from running a brick and mortar business. That's what made me an asset on this particular job. Is there somebody else that probably can build a Shopify quicker than I can or different

Then I can, yes, but my expertise in all of these other business areas is what made me valuable on this particular project. He's very happy with it. The site is gorgeous. We're launching in the next couple of weeks. So my point is Beverly gave you the jump. She gave you the information. You can take that.

You can marry it with what you already have to extend your expertise and make you more marketable. That's how you do that, guys. You don't just wait for somebody to say, well, how do I do that? Well, show me the way, right? You figure that shit out. Me on this 4,000 product website, I learned a lot on this website. I had a lot in my head, but in my industry, people will be like, no, you've never done a it's for a vitamin supplement store.

You've never done a a a supplement website. You can't do it. People will say that to you. They will act like, you've never built a a store where people sell supplements so you don't have the expertise. That's not where the expertise matters, right? I have another client

Building a custom system for this guy. He is a coffee roaster. He has like a hundred clients and he needs a very customized system. It includes this is like built from scratch. This is like it doesn't exist. he needs people to be able to place orders for their custom blends and and reorder what they ordered the week before. And, you know,

Pick bags and calculate prices per bag and all the things and schedule it on his roasting machines and all of the things, right? It's tied into QuickBooks, it's tied into scheduling. Didn't exist. And he thought he lost me because it was so complicated. Have I ever built a website for a roast coffee roaster? Hell no. No. Why would I have done that?

But my expertise in building very complicated systems and figuring out how to get people to the finish line is where is where I jam. All right. And my expertise, so I was able to marry that with his needs so I can get him to the finish line. I'm gonna be through that project in about two, two and a half weeks or so. Okay. So I'm saying I wasn't gonna say no, I can't do that because

Somebody just didn't slap the solution in my hand. I I am the solution. All right. So you take the jump, the gems, the information, and you use it with the information that you have to create a value for yourself that is marketable that can get you to where you're trying to go. This is how you do that in business. I I I don't understand.

People asking, how do I learn about that? Nobody's gonna train you to do AI compliance or AI governance if if if and maybe they will. But just say you're trying to get into that. Use Google, chat, Claude to to figure out how to train yourself, right? Say, you know what? My my I need to get into something else.

What I'm doing isn't working. I need to figure out a solution. I did it for myself, for my own business, for my own products that I'm selling for the Rebel Geek. I did it. I figured out where does AI governance fit into what I'm doing? And there is a very clear path. So figure out what it is you're trying to do. Research and and brainstorm and think tank how you can marry it with what.

else you've got going on as far as the resources of of your your experience.

And find a pathway forward for yourself. You're not waiting. Nobody's gonna give you nobody's gonna nobody's gonna just tell you what to do. I I saw a comment under my video with Nicole Murphy. I'll put it up here. She's the one who started Barter Black. We were talking about using developers. And somebody wrote, Can you guys please share your developers?

First of all, nobody's gonna do that with you. Nobody's gonna do that with you. And I'm not even trying to be mean. People don't give away that information. We had a conversation about how she found her developer. She went onto a website to look for developers. Google, technical service. Are you trying to build an app? Are you trying to build a website? What are you trying to build? Are you trying to build a SaaS product?

What kind of developer do you need? Do you need somebody who knows PHP? Do you need someone who knows Ruby? Do you need someone who knows Java? Like, what do you need? So to ask somebody, I need your developer. Nobody does that, right? I mean, I'm glad we're getting you motivated, but some of this shit you guys have gotta take on in and just

Go for it. Nobody's just gonna give you their information. When I had my own clothing line.

Nobody gave information. You'd be like, God, I need a factory that sews this, or I need a f a a vendor that does that. That was like trade secret. So I would recommend go on upwork. There's several websites that you can look at. Just Google it. Say, I need a developer. I'm trying to do this. And then you can build your own stuff. You can use Replit. What is that? Lovable. You can

But nobody's just gonna hand you a solution. Nobody's gonna rescue you into finding your your your next million dollars, a salary. Like and I don't mean to be fr I don't mean to be like that, like cavalier about it, because I know a lot of you guys are wanting to get started, but

People are giving you information for free all the time. Use it to jumpstart you, right? When you're trying to do something, you're gonna need time, you're gonna need resources, and you're gonna need money. A lot of the time, you don't have all three. If you've got the time, most likely you might not have the money. Or maybe you have education and know-how, but you don't have the time to do something.

Right. So you've got to figure out which one of them you don't have and fill in the gaps. Give you an example. You guys know that I spoke about doing woodworking classes, right? I want a certain type of kitchen that I I I I'm gonna say I can't afford it because I can't right now. Like the type of

cabinets that I want and my kitchen is so tiny, right? So I watch people, I've watched women build kitchen cabinets and build their dream kitchen. And I'm thinking I can do that. So I took a woodworking class. I told you guys I was starting that a couple weeks ago. I'm gonna show a picture on the screen. This is a table that I made in my woodworking class. So proud of it. Did all of it had a little assistance but I did that.

So I did my fundamentals of woodworking class, right? That's my first class. I'm going to take another class in the next few weeks. so I'm learning and paying to get the tools. I had to figure out who the hell could help me learn how to build these cabinets. I found out with the help of AI, I think chat was the one I used at that time. There were some different classes around the St. Louis area. Found a place where,

People come from all over the country to become master carpenters. Not trying to be a master carpenter. Just want to learn how to build my kitchen cabinets. So there are resources around me that I can use that are gonna save me money. I have the time to go to class because it was three eight-hour days to go to class. So I utilize my time to learn how to do something.

I mentioned to you guys that I wanted a finished home. I didn't want to be one of those people looking around in 15 years, 20 years, looking around my house talking about I'm gonna do this and I'm gonna do that. I want a finished home. One of the first steps in me finishing my home is well, I've done several several things already, but I realize if I want my home to look like I need it to look and just kind of get it done in order.

I'm gonna have to refinish the floors. I already booked the floor guy. He was booked until January. He's booked for January. But when I was at that woodworking class, this guy was like, you can do your own floors. And I had looked into doing my own floors. Believe me. I was like, yeah, I'm just gonna pay the guy. I'm gonna pay somebody to come and do it. But you start researching these floor guys and you're asking them different questions. And the more you get into it, you're like,

You know, I think I can do it. And I've watched people do it. And I'm I'm such a hands-on girl. You know, I told you guys I've done different projects with my father. And procrastination is sometimes fear. So I was afraid to start. I done all the research. I even bought a course on how to refinish my floors, right?

I talked to the manufacturer of the drum sanding machine. I've talked to you know, the guy at the rental place. So next week I was gonna do it this coming weekend, but I had a a previous engagement. So I said, you know what, screw it. I'm gonna do it this past weekend. Show you the before picture and I'm gonna show you the after picture. I did a test.

Before I decided I'm gonna cancel the floor guy that I've booked and do it myself. I have the time, plus, I need a way to deal with my stress and my anxiety. So this woodworking, doing stuff around the house is my way of doing it. People are gonna say things to you, like, you know what? I wouldn't do that. I just do this and I would hire somebody, and that sounds hard.

They're gonna say that about everything you do. None of my friends would build cabinets. None of my friends would refinish floors. I would. It's what I would do. Somebody told me today, I just, I don't ever do my yard. He said this to me. I just pay somebody to do my yard. For me, I used to have a lawn guy. I used to have these lawn guys come and then they piss me off. It's very therapeutic for me to work in my lawn. Last night I had to mow the lawn. This morning.

I had to edge the lawn and weed and feed it. It's very relaxing for me to go out there and do that. So I'm so busy on the computer all day. That's what's good for me. What's good for you? You know, what do you want to do that you're not doing out of fear? You know, people can tell you not to do something and it can get in your head and it can halt you for years. It could stop you for years.

So you can't listen to that. If it's something that you want to do or you feel like you should do, whether it's travel, whether it's do your own DIY projects, whether it's start a company, whether it's pivot, do a different career, whatever it is, you have to do what feels right for you because what they would do doesn't matter. What do you want to do? It makes me feel good to to do things, to build things with my hands. To I feel so good after I did those floors and

Trust me, it is long from over. because I essentially have to move out of my house and and sand and sand and sand. But I feel so good. I feel like I'm moving towards something that I've wanted. I'm not procrastinating on it. I'm not waiting on somebody. I I question the guys who've given me quotes. I question the products that they're gonna use. I question it. So you know what? I can do it myself.

What are you gonna do? What are you waiting on that you're not doing? What are you fearful of that is halting you from doing the things? I am not a fearless person. I have so much fear about so many things. I I I'm I was never fearful to start a company, but when I did start a company, I had fear about putting myself out there and saying, look at me, I'm amazing at this. I've always had fear of self-promotion.

I I was not strong. I had fear about putting my prices to the level of the quality of work that I was providing. I had fear of that. I had fear to come on this internet on YouTube and put this podcast out. I had fear of that. I still worry about it. I still have fear. Like, my God, what are they gonna think? Are they gonna like it? Are they not? You know. So again.

I have fear. We all have fear. But don't let anybody else else's fear stop you from doing what it is that you want to do, right? People people will fuck you up every time on that. yeah, I think that's really it. You know, I I just wanted to talk about the comments because it was very

I was I was it was kind of upsetting because I feel like you know you you do your best you give these people this great information and it's like you just try to do one thing like figure it out and somebody said that the other day I think it was Talia, the one who does the list over on TikTok and she was just like the laziness and unresourcefulness of people keep people like content creators

busy because people just I'm not gonna call you lazy but you could you could do a little bit more if it's what you really really want and that's what I believe are you waiting on somebody to save you to to show you how to live your life or are you living it? Are you in there? Are you doing it? And that's my message today. So guys that's it. I hope this was helpful. Let me know in the comments what you

Have stopped waiting on, you know? Are you are you gonna travel whether your friends go or not, whether your man goes or not, whether you find a man or not? Are you going to live the life that you want? Are you gonna start jumping on top of what you need to do to get the career that you want, the financial freedom that you you yearn for?

Are you gonna do some DIY projects? I mean, what are you gonna do? It's kind of fun once you get over that waiting on a savior thing. Like it's such that's such a trap. It's such, it's so freeing to like, my god, I cannot tell you. The floors make me so happy. But anyway, that's it. That's all I got. That's all I got for today.

So leave me a comment, guys. Let me know what it is you're not waiting for any longer. And I'll be in the comments section to talk with you. And I'll see you in the next video.