You never know when your hard work is going to pay off, but you have to believe that it will. What I’ve learned over time is that you have to put a lot of hard work in to reap any sort benefit. It’s been more than a minute ya’ll, but the years of hard work my team and I have put in is beginning to pay off. A few weeks ago I walked into a luncheon at the Goldman Sachs’ New York headquarters and saw 150+ women wearing a scarf we made. Hard work pays off.
My Heart Was Full
I was invited to speak on a panel to the inaugural cohort of Goldman’s One Million Black Women :: Black In Business and I was running late. As I was being ushered to my seat at the luncheon prior to the panel; I saw the scarf everywhere I turned. Hard work pays off. The individuality and originality blew my mind. I consider myself a master scarf wearer, but after the scarf tying techniques I saw, I will gladly relinquish my title!
I was overwhelmed.
Overwhelmed with joy.
Overwhelmed with pride.
Overwhelmed with relief that the scarves had arrived.
Each of the 170 participants of Goldman Sach’s inaugural cohort of One Million Black Women: Black In Business received an Effie’s Paper scarf. It was amazing to see the scarf styled in so many different ways! Ya’ll, my mind was blown. Right there in that room was proof that hard work pays off.
People Are Watching
When I was a kid, my mom always said, you never know who’s paying attention but trust that people are watching you. At the time, I really thought she meant that her friends were all around and would report any misbehavior to her. And there’s some truth to that, but her point hit home the older I got and began to realize just how small the world really is. You never know who knows who, you don’t know who works for who or who’s paying attention to your “little business”. And let’s add in the special role social media plays in all of our lives nowadays. Even if you only have a few hundred followers on any particular platform; it’s impossible to know who’s viewing and devouring your content. All of this to say, trust and believe that people are on the sidelines watching your every move. Decision makers see the hard work you put in and make decisions based upon it. Hard work pays off in ways you can’t imagine – spend the time to get your SEO right, make the effort to post consistently on social media, put energy into everything you do because the measure you receive will be the measure you get back. Hard work pays off.
A Seat At The Table
A lot has changed since June 2, 2020 – Blackout Tuesday – and a lot remains the same. Almost every corporation in America vowed to make their environments more diverse in every way imaginable. The jury is still out on how much progress has been made. BUT, the one thing I do know, is that when there are people who look like me with a seat at the table, the conversation is often different. I owe a big debt of gratitude to the amazing ladies at the @goldmansachs Foundation and the 10,000 Small Business Program, who made space for @effiespaper at their table 💕. Hard work pays off.
Stylishly yours,
Kalyn
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