- 22 hours ago
What if the thing holding you back isn’t lack of discipline—but lack of permission? In a culture that rewards burnout and perfection, many leaders lose themselves while chasing success. This session blends wellness and entrepreneurship to help attendees step out of overwhelm and reconnect with clarity, confidence, and sustainable growth. Attendees will learn how reclaiming their time, energy, and voice is essential to effective leadership.
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00:00Hello everyone, I am Melissa Mitchell of ABL Creations, and I will have the opportunity to warm up the stage
00:07today for our wellness retreat.
00:09So let's talk about wellness for a minute, because many of us do too much, right?
00:13I know myself, I had to balance myself to come out, even to come to Essence Festival.
00:17So today we're going to talk about burnouts and boundaries.
00:20What if the thing holding you back isn't discipline, but a lack of permission?
00:24In a culture that rewards burnout and perfection, many leaders lose themselves, myself included, while chasing success.
00:33This session blends wellness and entrepreneurship to help attendees to step out of overwhelm and burnout, to reconnect with clarity,
00:41confidence, and sustainable growth.
00:43So today we're going to learn about how to reclaim your time, reclaim your energy, and how to redirect.
00:48So I'm going to bring up Dr. Tiana Reed to help me bring out some amazing women.
00:54We're going to have Whitney Dodds, Hyacinth, and Jasmine.
00:58So let's give it up for our lovely panelists, y'all.
01:07Hello, ladies.
01:08You're going to get us right and tell us how to deal with this wellness and not be so burned
01:11out, right?
01:12Yes.
01:14Alrighty.
01:15There you go.
01:17I'll be back.
01:19You're welcome.
01:20Alright, welcome everyone to Essence Festival.
01:22Thank you for taking time out of your Essence to spend a little bit of time with us to talk
01:27about wellness and how to manage it as, how we manage it as founders.
01:32I want to introduce myself.
01:34I'm Dr. Tiana Roussel-Reed.
01:36I am the owner and founder of the Wellness Apothecary, a skincare and wellness brand for women that choose to
01:41bloom.
01:42I'm also trained in integrative medicine and health and wellness coaching.
01:47I am a proud Xavier University of Louisiana graduate, so I'm happy to be home.
01:54Right now, I practice pharmacy, well, public health pharmacy in the Washington, D.C. area, but this is still home,
01:59so it's always great to come back out.
02:01So, I'm joined here today with three incredible female founders, and so I'm going to give them a moment to
02:08give us their name again, what they do, and I'd love to all get started.
02:15All right, so I am Hyacinth Tucker, so I am the proud owner of the Laundry Basket, so we are
02:21a platform that provides full-service, on-demand laundry, dry-cleaning, and alteration services straight to your doorstep seven days
02:29a week.
02:29So, we operate in Maryland, D.C., Northern Virginia, Atlanta, Houston, and Cleveland, so nice to meet you all.
02:38Hi, my name is Whitney Dodds.
02:40I'm the founder of Wellness for the Culture.
02:43I am a licensed mental health counselor in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and North Carolina.
02:49Hi.
02:52Hi, my name is Jasmine Lewis.
02:55I am the founder of eBeauty.
02:56We are actually in BeautyCon, so if you are interested in learning more about our brand, please come see us
03:02after this.
03:03I'm also a licensed esthetician, and our brand is first dry, sensitized, and dehydrated skin at the intersection of beauty
03:12equity advocacy.
03:14Awesome, ladies.
03:15So, I want to set the tone for this discussion.
03:19So, as women of color, we often wear that superwoman cape as a badge of honor, right?
03:25But we know that it eventually takes its toll, so we want to make sure that we're taking care of
03:31our health and prioritizing us both mentally, spiritual, and overwhelmed.
03:37So, I'll start with our first question, and I'll start with Jasmine first.
03:41What was the moment you realized the way you were working wasn't sustainable anymore, and what did burnout actually look
03:48like for you?
03:50Okay, so I was going to come up here and give a PC answer, but I'm not.
03:55I would say, literally, physically and mentally exhausted.
04:00Like, I'm forgetting things.
04:02I'm having halfway conversations with people that I love.
04:05I'm showing up halfway and not 100%, even in, like, one-on-one conversations, or even in spaces like this.
04:13Like, you know, I'm just, if you're physically and mentally exhausted, I think that's, like, what it looks like.
04:19And burnout could turn into, like, I don't even care, or, oh, well.
04:25Like, that's just kind of what it is.
04:27And I think, like, being able to recognize it so that you can start to wheel it back, so that
04:32you can reset is really important.
04:34But I was going to, but I'm like, that's really what it looks like.
04:39I'm just, you know, like, just being extremely tired and exhausted.
04:43Not even being able to communicate clearly and not knowing that you're not doing it either.
04:48Exactly, exactly.
04:49Sometimes we don't notice burnout until it's too late.
04:52We're already burned out, right?
04:53So it's important for us to get ahead of it.
04:55So I'll let Whitney go next with answering that question.
04:59So I'm a therapist, so I treat people with burnout, and I also use myself as the test dummy, is
05:04what I like to call it.
05:05So I live it so y'all don't have to.
05:08Okay.
05:09And so I found out too late, and I was at my black woman PCP, and she said, Whitney, you're
05:1633.
05:17I'm going to put you on blood pressure medicine.
05:19And that was strike one.
05:21And then I went to my black woman dermatologist, and I said, my hair's falling out.
05:26And she said, sis, you're 33.
05:29You got too much stress.
05:31And so I was like, okay, I think I need to reevaluate how I'm working, what I'm doing.
05:36And through the reevaluation, I was like, oh, you're a therapist, and you didn't even notice you were burnt out.
05:42That's insane.
05:44So burnout looked like consistently striving.
05:47It looked like not letting go.
05:50It looked like people pleasing.
05:51It looked like trying to save face and just over-productivity, over-production, and the inability to fail or look
05:59like I failed.
06:00And it was literally killing me.
06:03Yeah.
06:03And just one thing to note, cardiovascular disease is a top killer in African-American women.
06:10So that's one thing you want to keep in mind of, like, you want to make sure that you pay
06:13attention to the signs and symptoms that you may have when it comes to issues with your heart.
06:20Hacienda?
06:21Yes.
06:22So for me, burnout was definitely nothing dramatic, right?
06:25It was something gradual that just kind of happened.
06:27And so what's interesting is that I own a business that is all about giving people rest and relaxation and
06:36taking things off of their plate, right, so that they won't be burdened by life.
06:40And then I felt like I was burdened.
06:42So I would take on everything on myself, and I was kind of like, okay, I have to have clear
06:47-cut rules on when, you know, we're answering calls and operationally how we're doing it,
06:52because I have to make sure that I am, you know, doing the best that I can to help other
06:57people.
06:58And so when I realized that what I needed was more systems, right, so what I needed was teams, and
07:03what I needed was clear-cut boundaries when it came to the business.
07:06And so that was what helped me to actually establish more, you know, boundaries so that we didn't have the
07:13burnout.
07:13And so that was a big change for us.
07:16So that leads me to the next question.
07:18So I'll start with you, Hacienda, since you already started talking about boundaries.
07:21So what boundaries did you begin setting, and how did you give yourself permission to prioritize your well-being first?
07:28Yeah, so I had to realize that being a leader, it doesn't mean that you have to be available for
07:34everything and everyone at all times, right?
07:37And so the first boundary I had to set was with myself and giving myself permission to believe that.
07:43And so what it also did, of course, was, like I said, making sure that I understood that when I
07:48gave people tasks, like, it really can't be tasks, right?
07:51They really have to have ownership because when you just have a task that means you're just doing a thing,
07:55when things happen, guess what?
07:56They're coming back to me, right?
07:57So then I become the bottleneck again in my business.
08:00And so I had to realize that I had to give people ownership so that it's like these is exactly
08:05what I need you to own in the business.
08:08And so when I realized that, then that is really what helped me as far as setting that boundary, you
08:12know, with me and as far as the business.
08:14Because if I'm not my best self, you know, then I can't, you know, show up for my team.
08:18I can't show up for my business.
08:20Awesome.
08:21Jasmine, how about you?
08:22And I can repeat that for you if you need me to.
08:25So what boundaries did you begin setting?
08:27And how did you give yourself a mission to prioritize your well-being?
08:31I would say number one is being aware of, like, what my real bandwidth is and not the one that
08:37I have, like, created in my mind that I think that I can really do.
08:41And basically building off of that, being able to say no and being okay with it and saying, hey, I
08:47really don't have the capacity or the bandwidth with this.
08:49And that has been helping a lot of the conversations that I've been having recently, even, like, leading up to
08:56festival.
08:57Like, I had a lot of opportunities with FIFA.
09:00And I had to tell them, like, I don't have the bandwidth.
09:03And I really wanted to do it.
09:04And I knew what it was going to do for me if I did do it.
09:07So it was like, yeah, that would have been a great opportunity.
09:10But I want to be able to show up for us and love all my people here as our second
09:15year and at least give as much as I can.
09:18Yeah, but you definitely want to take time to soak in the experience, too, right?
09:22Right.
09:22Yeah.
09:23Whitney, how about you?
09:25And I can repeat it again for you.
09:26I think so.
09:27So what boundaries did you begin setting and how did you give yourself permission to prioritize your well-being?
09:35Okay, so, again, it wasn't something that I just said aha to.
09:40And as a therapist, something I hate is when people use the word self-care as, like, the fix-all,
09:45solver problem.
09:46And I'm like, there's no glass of wine or nail or pedi that's going to solve this.
09:51And I was in Greece in Santorini in a wedding dress with my 10-year renewal thinking about payroll and
10:01how I was going to do payroll all over again.
10:03That was the moment.
10:04I prayed and I said, God, please just give me peace, please.
10:07And he said, peace is a choice with me.
10:10Peace is decisions every day.
10:12Peace is balance.
10:13Peace is no.
10:14Peace is that I can't just give peace because when you go back into your everyday life, you're choosing things
10:21that do not serve you.
10:22So that's the decision I had to make.
10:24Every time I am asked to do something, every time someone is needing something from me, it is, do I
10:31feel peace in this?
10:32Do I have capacity?
10:34And not just like, I don't want to do that.
10:35I mean, realistic, I can show up better here, like you said, with my people.
10:39I can show up better with my children.
10:41And I think that was a problem, too.
10:43I was coming home and I was not the greatest mother.
10:45Yeah.
10:45I know as founders, a lot of us are moms, we're caregivers.
10:50We also have full-time jobs and we have full-time businesses, so it's a lot.
10:56So you have to make sure that you pace yourself, you prioritize the things in your life that you need
11:01to make sure that you thrive and survive, right?
11:03So I want to take us home with our fire, our fire round of questioning.
11:09So if someone leaves this session today and can do only one thing differently starting tomorrow, what would you tell
11:17them to do?
11:18So I'll start with Whitney first.
11:21I would tell you that what if you were the one that considered yourself an expert?
11:27I think we come to these places and you're looking for us to tell you and you want to be
11:32reinvigorated, but if you would have listened to yourself say, maybe I should eat breakfast today.
11:37Maybe I should.
11:38You are the expert in your life.
11:39So if you ask yourself and answer truly, I think lives would change.
11:45Hacian?
11:46Okay, sure.
11:47So I think that I would say, so the first thing is realizing that your well-being is not separate
11:52from your business, right?
11:54It is, if you cannot show up right for yourself, then it's hard for you to show up for other
11:59people.
11:59So I would say for you to find one thing that no longer serves you, right?
12:04What is one thing that you can actually either delegate, you can delete, or you can automate it?
12:10And then I would think that starting like tomorrow, see how you can put some type of systems in place
12:14to do that.
12:18I was actually going to say that system, but kind of a little different when it comes to look at
12:24your list of things.
12:25Because, like, for me, I'm a checklist person, and I like to work off checklists just throughout my day.
12:30And some of the things I put all as high priority, and I need to reevaluate, like, is this really
12:36priority and what is going to happen if I don't do it?
12:39Like, is this priority because I'm saying that it's priority, or is it really going to have an impact on
12:42something?
12:43And so for me, I would say, look at what you're saying is priority and what is going to be
12:49the impact.
12:49If it's not an impact at all or in a positive direction, I would just say it's just need to
12:54go.
12:56So I would also tell the audience today, we don't think about how important sleep is.
13:04And so sleep is one of the most important things that you can do for yourself each and every day.
13:11We think that we're running off of four to five hours of sleep, and that's enough for us every day.
13:17But eventually, it takes so much longer for the body to keep up when you haven't prioritized sleep.
13:23So one thing I would tell the audience to do is to make sure that you figure out a system
13:29to help you go to sleep at night.
13:31So turn off your phones.
13:32Get that blue light out of your face at least 30 minutes before you get ready to go to sleep.
13:37Turn off the television.
13:38Don't sleep with the TV in your room.
13:39Maybe you have to take the phone and just turn it off altogether.
13:43So whatever you have to do to prioritize your sleep, because your brain is like your main computer, right?
13:49You want to make sure that you can reset that computer every night.
13:52So if you keep operating on a computer that hasn't been reset, right, you're going to have a lot of
13:58issues.
14:00So I want to make sure that I thank everyone for being here today.
14:04Oh, we have more time.
14:06Sorry.
14:06So I'm going to ask an additional question since we have more time.
14:11So as founders, I want to make sure that I ask, we talked a little bit about boundaries, but how
14:17did you make sure that you set the boundaries with the persons that you have in your businesses?
14:23Because we know we have to have the boundaries, but how did you go about doing it?
14:27Because sometimes it can be hard, right?
14:29People don't like to hear no.
14:31So I'll start with Jasmine first.
14:34I think sometimes if you don't set those boundaries, you run into an issue where you can hit a stage
14:41where it can be detrimental to your relationship with that person.
14:44So if you say yes and, you know, you committed to something and they're depending on you for this thing
14:50and you can't show up 100%,
14:52you risk losing the person just because you couldn't tell them that you didn't have the bandwidth.
14:56So I just kind of go back to the, what's the impact?
15:00Is it going to be positive?
15:01You can't show up 100% or even if it's not 100%, if it's the 100% that they need,
15:09if that makes any sense.
15:11Or I just think that you're going to have to set the boundaries because is it worth your social capital?
15:17Is it worth the relationships that you built?
15:19Is it worth the relationships with your loved ones or anything, partners, exhibitors, however you want to lay, is it
15:27worth that relationship that you built here as a building?
15:33So, listen, entrepreneurship is not easy, right?
15:37So when you get into entrepreneurship and as a founder, you realize there's some hard decisions that you have to
15:42make, right?
15:43And so your job as a founder is to be the captain of the ship.
15:48And so it is very important that you take that seriously, right?
15:52And so it is something where you find people, the right people in the right seats.
15:56And that is what I think sometimes is the hardest thing to do.
15:59But it is making sure that the culture that you create in your business, that is all, it's all about
16:06the culture that you create.
16:07Because as the founder, sometimes you are not the face.
16:10Sometimes, like in my business, I'm not the one washing your clothes.
16:13I'm not the one delivering it.
16:15So I have to depend on the people that I hire, right, to be the face of the brand.
16:20And so I have to make sure that the boundaries that I set so that we can still have a
16:23business that's sustainable.
16:24Because what's another thing is that we have businesses that are not sustainable, right?
16:28And so we know how it is when they talk about black-owned businesses.
16:31I can't do the quotation marks because I have the mic in my hand, right?
16:34But we have to make sure that we're doing the correct things so that our businesses are sustainable.
16:39And one of the things is that we have to make sure that we are leading the ship correctly.
16:43And that is going to involve boundaries.
16:45If I see that you're nasty, guess what?
16:47We're going to have to have a talk, right?
16:48Because I can't have you being nasty, right?
16:50If I see that you're not following the rules that we set, we're going to have to have a talk.
16:54So those are also the boundaries when we talk about it as well as making sure that our businesses are
16:59sustainable.
17:00Whitney?
17:00Yeah, so how I set the boundaries was first with myself, what I can and what I can't do.
17:08And then it was really just being transparent with everyone.
17:13I know, you know, this system is supposed to look like this, but, you know, it's maybe not the Google
17:19system at full.
17:20We don't got AI to transcribe your notes this week.
17:23I can't afford that one.
17:25Or, like, payroll looks like this this week.
17:27And if you like it and you love it and you understand entrepreneurship and running a business, fine, I'm happy
17:34to have you stay.
17:35But understand also, you've got to pay bills.
17:38You've got kids to feed and all the other things.
17:40So if this is not good for you, you are more than welcome to go.
17:43And it was a loss.
17:44And I think I lost a couple of employees the same way.
17:48So, like, but at the end of the day, I was calmer.
17:51I was free to be transparent and let everybody else make their own decisions.
17:58So that's kind of how I set the boundaries.
17:59And not telling them everything all the time.
18:02And I forgot I was the boss, I think.
18:03Yes, you want to make sure that they can be autonomous sometimes, right?
18:07So let me ask you ladies this.
18:09How has prioritizing your own wellness, mentally, physically, spiritually, actually made you a better leader and better at what you
18:17do?
18:17I'll start with Jasmine.
18:20I mean, it kind of goes back to what you said about just being able to show up whole and
18:25fully.
18:26Like, you have to be able to lead the team.
18:28And if you can't lead the team because your mind is everywhere, you're not in a good space, you're not
18:33feeling well, and you're not feeling well consistently.
18:36And it's because of underlining things like stress that's, like, just killing your body.
18:41It's just, like, you can't show up 100% and give the people that, you know, look to you to
18:47lead the ship, in a sense, in the right direction.
18:50And they also start to lose confidence and faith in you when they realize you're not even making this a
18:55priority.
18:56How do we know anything else is going to be a priority?
18:59Hacienda?
19:00So, you know, of course, I'm a big proponent of outsourcing and delegation being a laundry company.
19:06And so what I always say to some of our clients is sometimes we have to take off this cape,
19:12right?
19:12This cape of we need to do everything ourselves and that I don't want to ask for help.
19:18And, you know, my mama said this is how we're supposed to do things, so this is how I'm doing
19:22things.
19:22But also having conversations like this, right?
19:25Because as many times as we continue to have these conversations, we make people understand that it's okay.
19:30It's okay, right?
19:32You know, life sometimes, you know, it is where you're just, like, hustling, hustling, hustling, hustling.
19:37But there has to be a time of rest.
19:38You know, so even though I'm out here working, trust me, I'm going to have a good time out here
19:43in New Orleans, right?
19:43So this is going to be, like, my rest time as well.
19:46So we have to take off this superwoman cape, have to laundry basket, launder it, and put it in the
19:51closet, right?
19:51And so it is really about making sure that the whole you shows up at every time.
19:57Yes, I love that.
19:59How about you, Whitney?
20:00So I recently lost 20 pounds.
20:04That was just stress.
20:05I made the choices of saying you come or you don't, you do or you don't, and if not, I'll
20:13live.
20:14I can do it.
20:16I'm able and I'm capable.
20:18And I realized I started singing again.
20:21I was cooking dinner again and not eating the kids' snacks for survival.
20:25And I was like, did you just make a steak and a salad?
20:28Look at you.
20:29And so, like, I was eating healthier.
20:31I had the brain capacity, the bandwidth to actually take care of myself physically.
20:37And then I showed up better at work.
20:39I, like, my clients were bouncing around now in session.
20:41And I'm happier.
20:43I'm more joyous.
20:44And just because of small yeses and probably big noes for some people.
20:50It's one step at a time, right?
20:52Well, I want to thank everyone for spending time with us today.
20:55Can you guys quickly tell us where to find you?
20:58And then we'll close it out.
21:00I'll start with Jasmine.
21:02So you can find us at VBeautyX.
21:05So that's V as in Victor, I-E, B as in boy, E-A-U-T-Y-X on our
21:11social.
21:13You can find me at wellnessfortheculture.com.
21:17You can book a consultation or anything you need on there.
21:20And every social is still wellnessfortheculture.com.
21:23And that's T-H-E, not a four.
21:25And you can find me at the Laundry Basket Delivery on Facebook, Instagram, and, of course, the website.
21:32And then come hang out with me on LinkedIn as well.
21:35I love to meet some new people.
21:37Awesome.
21:38And you can find me at Dr. Tyana Reed on IG.
21:41You can find me at the Wellness Apothecary on IG.
21:45And then you can also find me at twapothecary.com.
21:48Thank you all so much for your time.
21:50Have an amazing Essence Festival.
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