The Best Moments from Summit 21
A few days ago the Flourish team traveled to Atlanta where we attended 21Ninety’s Summit21, a 2 day culminating experience for black women across the country. It still feels surreal that we got to partake in the BLACK GIRL MAGIC experience firsthand. The Summit 21 tracks in entrepreneurship and leadership brought together 3,000+ women from around the world to be inspired, join sessions on business, beauty and impact, and learn to thrive in all parts of their lives. I am confident in saying that we can enrich and elevate our life daily by taking action and implementing the skills we were taught during these 2 days of business bliss.
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The speakers were phenomenal and dropped the best gems! A few of the dynamic ladies were Alex Wolf, Rep. Maxine Waters, Tina Knowles-Lawson, Nichole Lynel, and Nicaila from Side Hustle Pro. This line up was BOMB AF and it had us sold from day one. The speakers provided a wide variety of topics directed to entrepreneurs, influencers, politicians, authors, and everything else across the creative spectrum. There wasn’t one person that could’ve left without their cup full.
A few of my favorite session were:
The Creative's Guide To Building A Loyal Audience by Alex Wolf.
Yes Alex, the dope author/artist in tech philosophy and digital anthropology. Author of Resonate Bossbabe. She dropped a handful of helpful gems.
“People will treat you as who you are 18 months ago”
“Bracing authenticity. Post images that can help the brand. Word of mouth is the best way to connect.”
“The market is not designed for pure talent. The package matters. That’s the language that our society speaks.”
You do not have to look a certain way, but you are literally a walking brand. Your lifestyle will reflect in your business. Your entire “package” will. Give a reason for people to use your brand, plant your presence.
She said “ATTENTION vs PRESENCE connections are made when we lean into presence. That’s why you can see work becoming “cheap”.
Masterclass: Build Your Brand: PR, Marketing and More by Nichole Lynel where she shared some real life matters, like getting a tax lien, ruining her credit , overcoming that and now running a biz with over a mil in revenue! She taught us that being consistent with your message and learning how to convey that will get you to sell anything. Transparency and authenticity is key to building your brand!
Fireside Chat: A Conversation with Congresswoman Maxine Waters with Morgan Debaun.
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Maxine challenged us to think about our community philosophy. What do you care about and what are you willing to do with that care? It is very important for us to nurture our purpose and invest in the matters we care about. She challenges us to speak truth to power. Sometimes we need to be still and really pay attention to what we’re doing and how that is impacting our life. Maxine also touched on the subject about working many jobs and how negatively that can effect you and that prohibit loans.
We also loved Nicalia from Side Hustle Pro Podcast
Nicalia made it a statement to not work on things that are “hot” right now. It is vital to stay true to your brand and not follow the latest trends. If it’s done already, make sure to do it better!
I also loved this next line:
“It is important to be rejected”.
That sounds crazy right? Well there’s GRIT AND RESILIENCE THROUGH REJECTION.
Rejection is basically the other side of the reality that not everything will go your way. That’s a really good thing. Rejection will make you better, stronger. You learn how to dig in deeper, consider doing something a different way, or re-imagine how to reach goals. That leads to her next point, “change your mindset. The things you imagine don’t come true.” That’s just to say stop imagining and MORE doing.
and lastly the KEYNOTE speaker:
Tina Knowles-Lawson, yes, Beyoncé’s mama herself! As Summit 21 stated, Lawson revealed that she is working on a book that she hopes will capture the experiences she’s had throughout her journey and the important lessons she learned from them.
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“Everybody should write a book, everyone’s got a story right?” she said. “ Even if it’s not for you, even if it’s for you to leave for your kids — just write your life story. Because everyone has an interesting and amazing story, so I encourage you to do that.”
Ms.Lawson even gave us a corny joke, what a way to end the night!
The resources areas were equally as amazing! An entire bookstore full of black authors!! They had really cool MEET AND GREETS with the authors too. It was absolutely beautiful! We are already excited for next year. If you or someone you know would like to attend a similar event make sure to check out PublisHER coming to a city near you and our annual Flourish Media Conference: Where Women Do Business!
