I had the fortune of meeting with someone last weekend who encouraged me to write about the real challenges of starting a business in the media/entertainment industry. Let me rephrase that, starting a game changing, impactful, and global business that will bridge and connect the African diaspora around content that is relatable. No small feat to say the least. So for this post, I would like to share some of my personal travel stories and real challenges that may shed light on what entrepreneurship is really like. Let me warn you, these stories are mine, personal, and I am putting them out to encourage all entrepreneurs and to give them a clear picture of what this is really like. My journey is extremely real, tough, and sometimes humbling; not uncommon when you think of other CEOs and what they had to endure to push through to the next phase. A couple of them come to mind. Charles King from Macro Ventures was one of the first to do what he is doing in Hollywood and now he’s in Time Magazine and is frequently featured in the New York Times. I can only imagine what he sacrificed when he started about 25 years ago - a black man in Hollywood being innovative. Three words that were not typically used next to each other: black, Hollywood, and innovative. I respect, admire, and look up to him. Or my girl, Morgan DeBaun, Co-founder and CEO of Blavity. She has shared some of her experiences, such as living out of her office space when she had no place to live until she got things off the ground. She is now one of the country’s most powerful black female CEOs under the age of 30. Yup, she is doing her thing and for all of her #reallyreal challenges, I respect her as well.

Charles King - Macro Ventures

Morgan DeBaun - Blavity

How many times have I had to sleep at the airport and jump on a flight in the morning to get to a meeting early and kill it? Quite often. Here is one for the record books.

In November of 2017, I got stuck in LGA because I missed my connecting flight and if you know much about LGA during the holidays, or anytime really, it is like landing at “Thunderdome”; no one really cares and you have to fend for yourself. They just wanna go home after their shift is over. Well, as luck would have it, my ticket did not warrant an overnight at a hotel, and I did not have enough money to do everything I needed to do and pay NYC rates for a hotel room for five hours, so I had no choice but to stay at the airport. No problem; I’ve stayed at airports before but this time I had no jacket and it was freezing outside and inside. I don’t know why they keep it so cold inside of an airport. 6’3” me with a light jacket trying to find a place to crash was not a good look, but who really cared since I had to catch the first flight out of LGA to Miami early in the morning. It reminded me of another cold place I stayed for a couple of nights in Minneapolis in 2013 (If you haven’t already read about that, you can do so here).

I found a little corner to sleep in next to the half baked fluorescent lights. I’ve learned how to sleep anywhere and can do it at anytime so that was not the main issue. Come 1:00 am I feel a security guard tapping me on the shoulder and he said that they were closing that terminal and that I needed to go to another terminal or go outside. The other terminal was not an option because that was also closed (I KNOW BECAUSE I WALKED THERE). I walked back to Terminal D and had to find a place in the baggage area for two hours where the construction crew was working since they were remodeling the terminal.

Me and my good mood, swollen throat, and red eyes had to get on the flight where I crashed for 2.5 hours, walked off the flight, got in an Uber, and raced to my meeting with a potential investor. I killed that meeting, as expected. There is no room for feeling sorry, crying, or being weak. By early in the afternoon, I felt the infamous headache coming on along with the space in my throat getting smaller and smaller, which means that I was either going to get pneumonia or a seriously aggressive cold. I think I got both, cuz I was sick for about a month, and if you know me you know that I really don’t get sick. The good news was they wanted to invest much needed funds into AfroLife.TV which meant we could keep going. The bad news was that they were our infamous “fake investor” who promised us the sky and couldn’t perform (More to come on this one).

I often hear, “Oh, it must be nice, you traveling all around the world, flying first class, staying at the best places”. In reality it is quite different. It’s more like racing to the airport to catch a flight on a low cost ticket which means, if I am not flying American Airlines, I will probably be in the middle seat and that’s not a good look for me or the two people next to me. Then, I have to look forward to getting that infamous bag of pretzels from the flight attendant that instantly starts to expand in your stomach as soon as you eat them and then trying to wash it down with OJ or with apple juice. Don’t even think about trying to work because when you are over 5’8” and you try to use a laptop on a flight, well you get the idea - not happening. Yet, I keep pushing forward because once in a while you hear something like, “Wow, you guys are this close to doing what”?!?!?! Those types of comments and making my family proud keeps me going. I am forever grateful to all of the men and women in my life, past and current, who coach, encourage, support, and sometimes give me tough love because I’ve been training for this all my life.

My favorite quote of all time goes like this: “If I have seen further than others, it is by standing on the shoulder of Giants” - Isaac Newton.

I am built for this.