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Speaker 1: Calling all my Sweetish to the forefront. I'm your host, christ Rna Hazel and this is the Keep It Positive Sweetish Show. Welcome to Keep It Positive, Sweetie, the place where we heal, grow and learn together. Today's episode feels especially important because we are talking about community purpose and what it really means to build success without leaving other people behind, and a world that celebrates individual achievement. Today's guest is challenging the idea that any of us truly make it alone. Through her work, her business, her book, and the communities she continues to build. She's showing what it looks like to lead with intention, collective care, and impact. I am so happy to be sitting down with doctor Key Hallmand. Doctor Lakeisha Key Hollman is a transformational entrepreneur, author, speaker, and founder of the Village Market Enterprises, an ecosystem that has helped thousands of small businesses grow from village retail village books to expanding Our Village United into more than thirty states.
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Speaker 2: Doctor Key has built her work.
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Speaker 1: Around two core beliefs, no one is truly self made and support is a verb. This conversation is about leadership, purpose and community responsibility, Kids, family, please give a very one.
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Speaker 2: Welcome to doctor Key. Hi. How are you doing today? I am amazing, Well you look amazing. You're radiating. Thank you.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, you came in here and we were like, yes, you brought good energy and we love that.
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Speaker 2: Yeah.
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Speaker 1: So you are so busy, So thank you for taking time to sit with us today. I'm excited, and we're gonna before we jump into everything that you have going on, because god, she has.
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Speaker 2: A lot going on.
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Speaker 1: I want to play a little game with you. This game is called it Takes a Village, a little play on what you got going on. So the first one is I'm gonna give you some scenarios and I want you to tell us who or what impacted you.
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Speaker 2: Oh that's good.
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Speaker 1: Yes, So the first one is a teacher who changed your life.
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Speaker 3: I'll go with who first came to mind. My third grade teacher, missus Drake.
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Speaker 2: Wow.
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Speaker 3: Phenomenal, phenomenal teacher who I think early on saw me and saw my love for reading, and she really nurtured that.
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Speaker 2: So shout out to miss Drake. Shout out Miss Rake. It's so funny.
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Speaker 1: Mine was my third grade teacher, Miss Sherry Gardner Wow in Topeka, Kansas.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, so when you said third grade, I was like, that was mine too. I love that. A lesson from your parents or grandparents. Oh, I would go with.
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Speaker 3: A lesson from my parents and made my mother rest in peace. To always operate in integrity. My mom, my dad. My dad still says it that if you operate in integrity, all would be well.
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Speaker 2: Yes. And not only did they say it, they also modeled it. That's so good. I love that when you can see it.
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Speaker 1: We talk about parents and children and how they emulate what they see. So I love that they modeled that for years. Yeah, we see it. We see it in the fruit.
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Speaker 2: Honey. A business lesson you learned the hard way. Oh, this is tough.
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Speaker 3: This is today a business lesson I learned a hard way. Likely holding onto people too long, Yeah, I think I've been an entrepreneur now for ten years, and I think we see the science early when someone is not a fit, and I know early on I will hold onto people because of the potential of them. I will hold on to people also because I didn't want to be a black woman that other let other black people go.
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Speaker 2: Or staff go.
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Speaker 3: But holding on too long it impacts the overall company and the mission and the vision. Yeah, and the evolution absolutely because it will stifle you.
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Speaker 1: Wow, that's good. Next one, someone who saw your vision early.
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Speaker 3: Shout out to my Grandma Josephine and crowd of Mississippi.
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Speaker 2: My grandmother.
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Speaker 3: I remember maybe being nine years old, and I would tell her all my dreams and one day she looked at me and she touched my head and she said, you are so special. I don't know who you are going to become or who you're going to be.
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Speaker 2: But you are so special.
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Speaker 3: And she has consistently said this throughout my life, and when I call her later this week, she is going to say the exact same thing.
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Speaker 2: Wow. Yeah, that's beautiful. Shout out Grandma Josephine. If you're watching, which I'm.
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Speaker 1: Sure you will, she will watch. A wellness habit that you cannot live without.
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Speaker 3: A wellness is such central my faith, and my faith is a good steward of how well I loved myself. And I cannot live without my breath work. I cannot live without the way that I affirmed myself every day. I literally anoint my vessel every day with words and how I loved myself, so I can be prepared to go into the world.
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Speaker 2: That's good. I love that the last one a moment, community saved you. Ah, that's so good. It's been I will tell you. As many.
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Speaker 3: Social entrepreneurs like myself are founders who launched a nonprofit. It has been a very interesting time for five oh one c three organizations and fundraising and last year was extremely hard for me and we're still getting out of heart. But the way that black women have, they have just known to check on me. They have just known to say, Doc, let's get on, let's get on a call. I want to see how everything is going. I wanted I want to talk to you about your strategy because while a lot is happening, you are seen. While a lot is happening, you are not forgotten. And so I have felt so tethered to love in an embrace, in the way that I give people. It has been so beautiful when I needed it to be on the receiving end without ever having to ask for it.
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Speaker 2: That's so good. Shout out to black women.
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Speaker 3: Shout out to black women. We will save us, we will we will save us.
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Speaker 1: That is so good because some women don't have that testimony.
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Speaker 2: You know, you hear the opposite.
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Speaker 1: So many times over, but to hear the positive side of that and women who really do rally around each other. As you said that, it reminded me of our good sister Kimberly Blackwell.
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Speaker 2: Absolutely, she literally does that.
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Speaker 1: What is going on, what's your strategy, what are you working on, what do you need? What's missing? She's so good at that. So I love that you have women around you absolutely will ask those questions and check on you and say, hey, we need to have dinner, let's sit down as we Overdo you know that's so important?
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Speaker 2: I love that.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that is always going to be central for how we survive times but also how we thrive into the future.
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Speaker 2: For sure. Yes, we have to have our champion. Yes, I love that.
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Speaker 1: Well, let's go back to last year. Twenty twenty five was a huge.
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Speaker 2: Year for you.
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Speaker 1: My goodness you. I don't know if you know this, but me and the sweeties are avid readers. I'm always letting them know what I'm reading. And you have Village Books right here in Atlanta, Georgia.
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Speaker 2: Congratulations. I do want to ask you.
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Speaker 1: What made you know that having a physical space to read stories, to buy books, and to have that community right here in Atlanta.
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Speaker 2: Why did you feel like that was important?
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Speaker 3: You know, I had to open Village Books beyond it being the seven year old me dream. Yeah, I wanted to own a bookstore. That should tell you a lot, you know, let me tell you a whole life that I wanted a bookstore since I was young. But it's also at this point we need to build intentionally scene Everything that I opened, Crystal, I open with a great intent. We see that I open spaces for a sense of safety. I open spaces for a sense of belonging. I open spaces for a sense of love. When you walk into any of my establishments, in particular my bookstore, you will feel the warmth of how it feels to walk into a space and know that you were chosen for it, that it was designed just for you. And I also want spaces in the bookstore is central because we need to be expanded in our knowledge. We're at a time now where taking time to actually read, to go deep into literature, to read opinions that may be different from yours, that may stretch you.
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Speaker 2: We need that.
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Speaker 3: And so I'm everything that I open I look at as safe houses.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, I love it, Like, how.
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Speaker 3: Can I build in such a way that people can come and even if you haven't read a book in years, you still know that this bookstore is right on time, just for you and where you are right now. Yes, and I'm in love with authors. I'm in love with writers. So I also wanted to open a bookstore by all my favorite authors, those who are ancestors and those who are present. It's just such a beautiful way to honor those who are gifted with the pen, yes, and gifted to in a way to be able to tell stories.
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Speaker 2: So it is literally my honoring of community every single thing that I do.
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Speaker 1: Yes, no, and we see that. Take me back to seven year old Key. What books were you reading back then?
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Speaker 2: Oh?
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Speaker 3: Everything, everything, younger version of me, I still was in love. I loved fiction, so I was reading like all the children's.
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Speaker 2: Books as well. But early, early.
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Speaker 3: On, I was already curious about the Doctor Maya Angelous of the World, because I started to hear her poetry, and so early I wanted to read poetry.
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Speaker 2: I wanted to.
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Speaker 3: There's a writer Sharon Draper, who came a little bit later, but I love Sharing Draper and so reading books that reflect who I was, books that opened my imagination. I always gravitated to and I was always writing as well.
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Speaker 2: So I would read a.
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Speaker 3: Book, then I would write and then make my mama listen to me. And you know, always your first audience, right, Yes, but I was just enamored, enamored with books. I could not get enough of it.
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Speaker 2: I love that for me.
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Speaker 1: I was the same way I was like Beverly Clearly Babysitters Club. I remember sitting in my room at my desk and I would just be in the books. My mam would have to literally say, come on, it's time to eat dinner, and I'd be like, hold on, like And then I fell out of that as I got older, and then now I'm back into it. And I was telling Shelley today, I can tell when I've taken time to really start reading again. Your conversations change, your vocabulary changes, and it's words that you knew, but then when you put it down, it's like, what was that word I'm trying to think of? But when you're constantly reading, those words stay with you. So I definitely see a change in myself when I'm actively reading, which is something that I promote through our platform. I want to ask you what role do you think that books play in healing collectively and with imagination, especially in our community.
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Speaker 2: Absolutely so.
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Speaker 3: What I am so happy to see is that so many wellness practitioners are writing books now that center us in multi, multi dimensional ways. I love doctor tama'brien's one of my favorite spiritual leaders, and to what she wrote in Homecoming, and even my good sister Tapatha Brown.
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Speaker 2: And her many books. They're so nurturing.
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Speaker 3: Yes, so much joy, so much lightness, so much, so much in the sense that while it feels like all is falling apart, you are still whole, even it's just even if it's just shattered pieces right now. That is why we need books, and not just any books, but we also need books that reflect people that look like us.
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Speaker 2: Yes, because there's a gentleness in the language.
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Speaker 3: There's a sense of even if the nudging is there, the nudging is not harsh. The nudging is for us to know that we have wings and to expand them and fly. And so I am grateful that we are that we have nedra and boundaries. There's just so many exceptional books. My good friend doctor Joy Sisterhood Heels literally cradles sisterhood and how to be in loving relationships with other women.
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Speaker 2: We need we need all of that, we do, and we.
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Speaker 3: Also need books that name how we feel so we can feel less alone, because I do think vulnerability is something that we're still finding as a strength, vulnerability and emotions early on. You know, I don't know how you was raised, but I was just raised to be strong. Yeah, yeah, you don't really have time for all the feelings and things like that. And as the great ancestor Bell hooks right about and all about love, so much of how our parents raised us was from a sense of them just wanting us to be safe. Yes, but because of that, we've had to go to root cause analysis that there is space for our big feelings. There is space for having your feelings hurt. It is space where business does feel personal and this hurt my feelings. It is space for I am emotionally tapped, and I think I am burnt out. We didn't even have these words. We're literally I think just now we're really honoring. Doesn't mean that you cannot pour from an empty cup, and it's because people have named it that your cup has to be full in order to continue to pour. Right, That's why we have to go to the well of reading to be to be safe and to be held in such a way and also to just be affirmed.
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Speaker 2: Yeah.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, so that is why I think we need to get back to text. I think we need to also get back to beautiful conversations like this is why I'm so happy that you launched your podcast. Thank you, because listening to you and seeing how well you are in these conversations feels like a really good book.
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Speaker 2: Yeah.
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Speaker 1: I appreciate that, Thank you, Thank you so much. This brings me to you actually being an author. You talk about all these other amazing authors, you are one as well, and you wrote a book called No One Is Self Made.
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Speaker 2: I feel like our culture.
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Speaker 1: Specifically has made self made into this north star, like this is what you should to be, like do it yourself. And anybody who knows me knows that I'm big on team, like I can't do this all by myself. And I love just why. I even love the title like she gets it, she gets it. I want to know why do you feel like we are so attached that idea that we have to do it ourselves?
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Speaker 3: You know, to even think about any form of an attachment of why we aspire for the things we aspire for. I'm always questioning our pursuit and our ambitions. Are we striving for something that is inherently inside of us or have we been conditioned to aspire? And so individualism is a very American, westernized concept, and self made largely came from magazines and publications that when we talked about someone reaching the pinnacle of success, they're called a self made person, self made person of the year. So then I wonder if an entrepreneur or someone in entertainment, I wonder if they think the pinnacle requires that, because that is all they've been conditioned to believe. We don't have publications that talk about the village that is propelling that person up to even be on the cover of a magazine. So I think it's sometimes hard to know when you have been programmed. My book is a loving deprogramming of the consciousness of how we talk about success ancestrally. We are communal people ancestrally and present day. Whatever success that we may have, and it may not always come in a form that we want.
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Speaker 2: Any great thing.
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Speaker 3: That we have done well in life, there have been prayer partners, there have been a group text of friends. Yes, There have people that slide you twenty dollars when you needed it, when you're an undergrad. There are people who have affirmed you since you were little, and that that's not all. I always come into currency in the way that we talk about it, but there is a spiritual currency that has continued to propel us forward. To take on the title of self made erases every one of those currencies that have been put into us, and I don't believe that is our intent. And so no one is self made is requiring us to be intentional. But how we tell our stories because every single opportunity that every opportunity that I have, I make sure that my mother is written into my success, my father is seeded into my success, my grandparents, my family, my friends, my staff. Because if I accept self made, then I began to erase people who've been very vital to the own fabric of my existence.
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Speaker 2: And so no one is.
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Speaker 3: Self made is to say, be intentional about every single thing that you say thank you to, even the titles that people give you. And I have sat for interviews and people have said, doctor Keith, how does it mean to be a self made woman? And because I know that words are prophetic, and I know that words and have an opportunity to teach. In a moment, I always say, but actually, I'm village made, and I begin to name all the people and all the places and all churches that I have seen. Because if we want to shift how we talk about success, then someone has to be a steward of it. We can talk about it, we can write about it, or we can do it. And I think we need more people who get on stages and lift all the names and all the people. So every person aspiring who's watching on television, when they start to think about their own success, then they know the most powerful thing that they can do is to stand with their village.
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Speaker 2: Yeah.
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Speaker 1: I love that reframing the psychology of what it takes to succeed, because you're absolutely right.
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Speaker 2: When I think about Forbes articles or all.
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Speaker 1: These wealth magazines that we read, and this is the pinnacle of what we're trying to get to, and they've reset pinnacle, and you do oftentimes see self made, self made, and most of those people are standing on a lot of people are staying on shoulders and shoulders of different people that have helped them get there. That is so good and also it's profoundly untrue very much. It is just it's, you know, beyond all the things, it's just also profoundly untrue.
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Speaker 2: It definitely is.
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Speaker 3: But I am always very sensitive when I talk about this because my book was also sticky. For some people, it felt like a judgment of their hard work. And so what I'm very clear of I'm never neglectful for the three o'clock hours that it was nobody but you and God. I'm never neglect for of that, because then I would be neglect for of my own on three o'clock kind of mornings and it was me trying to figure out. I would never neglect the intestinal fortitude. I would never neglect that there must be a vessel. Yeah, there has to be an individual. But I'm also not neglectful in my knowing.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, and my knowing is.
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Speaker 3: Self determination is needed, intestinal fortitude is needed. There must be an individual. But I also know that there are so many people tied to that individual that have steward us throughout life and will continue. Yes, that that is what's true.
00:20:43
Speaker 1: I love that when people read this book, what is something that you hope they unlearned? Because even the person who says it's a little sticky for them.
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Speaker 2: In my opinion, I would hope they read me like, dang, you're actually right.
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Speaker 1: I wouldn't take offense to it and be like, no, I know it's really hard, but that's actually true.
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Speaker 2: There's so many other people that helped me. Yeah.
00:21:01
Speaker 1: So what is something that you hope people unlearned when they read this book?
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Speaker 2: Yeah?
00:21:04
Speaker 3: What I can tell you what people are un learning. And I'm always so touched when I get you know, super kindems about you know, doctor key, I ain't know about this no one and self made things and then they say to me, you're right. You made me step back and realize that I'm not alone. I may not have everything that I need, but I have some things and I have some people. And so you know what I'm hoping And truly, what's been affirmed to me that no one is self made has really allowed people to know that you have people and to really be reflective over their lives that it may not be the million dollar investment that you need. Yeah, because they're qualifiers of what we think support is. Yes, and I'm always going to be advocates that business owners need investment, primarily black business owners. We are still deeply underfunded. But if we're only thinking about support by those who fund us, we're not seeing the sea of people around us.
00:22:14
Speaker 2: Wow.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, And it has been very, very affirming to see people have a paradigm shift with how they see their success, even people who have said doctor key. I took a moment and I sent an email to all the people who helped me when I was early on, who volunteered for me when I literally didn't have it, and people who have seen me throughout my life. I'm always just striving for us to have physical representation that there is a village, there are people, there's a blanket of care around you, even when it does not feel that. It's because I think we all have felt that I wish I had different relationships, I wish I had this. So I won't counter that. Yeah, but I want us to know that we're not in a deficit, right. We're not in a deficit maybe at a baseline where there's so much opportunity for more, yeah, but you, if you are here, you're not in a deficit for sure.
00:23:16
Speaker 1: You talked about last year was a really hard year for you and something you're still coming out of.
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Speaker 2: But there's been so much success. Let's talk to.
00:23:25
Speaker 1: The person that may be looking from the outside, looking in and saying, man, she's got it all going on, but not knowing what else you're coming up out of. I want to speak to that because so many times they see where we are, but they don't see the daily fight and the daily struggle. I want to talk to that person who may be thinking like I'm trying to get there, but they don't know what all comes along with being where you are.
00:23:45
Speaker 2: Absolutely I try.
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Speaker 3: I strive my best to be a very transparent entrepreneur and founder. So if you look at my socials, it's largely about the work, because there's really no highlight reel, you know, and because two things are often true that whilst I mean incredible things have happened for my company and being able to scale. We also in twenty twenty five, as so many other nonprofit organizations through my organization, our Village, you name it, we saw the drastic rollback and funding and to have so many of our funders say that they've gone in a different direction, that they're no longer focused on small businesses. In this way, every single note, for any founder that has to pay payroll, you start to calculate numbers you start to think about Because I am not just the CEO who thinks about what is good for me.
00:24:54
Speaker 2: I feel it.
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Speaker 3: To be a privilege to be a leader, to have an incredible team. So I'm always thinking about all our livelihood. Yes, and so last year I was deeply prayerful. I'm always clear that God always comes through. Now, that is one thing that keeps me steady, and that keeps me anchored. My spiritual compass is my eye in the storm, and so that is why I can stay have a sober spirit in spite of all things.
00:25:30
Speaker 2: But yeah, last year was hard.
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Speaker 3: I mean it was literally and it continues to be hard because we need those in philanthropy to be bold, yeah, to continue to make good on getting organizations the funding that they need to do the work that will reach to people. When is that ever a bad thing?
00:25:54
Speaker 2: Right?
00:25:54
Speaker 1: Yeah?
00:25:55
Speaker 3: So you know, for the founders who or people currently who may listen to this number one, you are not by yourself and largely a lot of the people that you admire and look up to who look like they have it all together, probably like twice a week, three days a week.
00:26:16
Speaker 2: But I can almost.
00:26:17
Speaker 3: Assure you there is two days during the week, at least one day during the week that you're going to have to sit with yourself and know that where you're thinking about your own pivot. I also want a name for those entrepreneurs of how normal that is. It will not always be easy, but it also will not always be hard. That is what has been foundationally true for me. And I'm always so clear that my heart has a timeline, but my good is for it is always our current is always running, and so there are moments when those trying days feel louder than the good days.
00:26:59
Speaker 2: But the good is.
00:27:02
Speaker 3: If we can shift our mindsets to believe that the goodness is omnipresent. That means sweetness is always close to us, that the yes is always just so close, even though it feels so far. But I know that it is hard. I've had to affirm myself so much. I've had to tell myself the work is good regardless of the no right, and that I must continue to be a good steward of the work. When it is overflowing, it is good. When it is slowly flowing, it is still good.
00:27:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's still good.
00:27:40
Speaker 3: And sometimes we quit too soon, but also sometimes we don't pivot soon enough. And I think that just because it is your baby, at every gross stage, it requires something different of you. I think we have to be willing to pivot and our businesses, we have to be able to pivot in our visions. So maybe the Valley is time for you to do some pivoting. And I also know that it has been important for me, Crystal, is that I am not reactionary. I am very clear when it's a lot happening that it's meant to discombobulate my own vision and distort what I believe is true. So when it feels like all is falling apart around me, I get still.
00:28:27
Speaker 2: That's good.
00:28:28
Speaker 3: I get still because I don't want to react to the falling. I want to be a steward of the vision, so I need it to fall so my path can be clear for the vision. And I think sometimes I know it's survival that we have a tendency to be so reactionary, because you're simply trying.
00:28:48
Speaker 2: To survive, for sure.
00:28:50
Speaker 3: But sometimes the job is to be still, to be still so you can be clear and path your in charge, your path forward. Because all while that was going on, I was also quietly working on the airport opening.
00:29:06
Speaker 2: For village retail. Yeah, come on, all at the same time, Yes, exactly, all at the same time.
00:29:12
Speaker 1: We talked about that before we sat down about it's so much going on. Everyone is going through so much, but there's still a peace and a calmness where you still have the fortitude to push forward or sit still to get the direction that you need to move forward.
00:29:28
Speaker 2: I absolutely love that.
00:29:29
Speaker 1: And you speak about vision, yeah, And I want to know what is the bigger vision of tying all your ventures together, because you do have village market enterprises, you got books, you got retail, wellness, community education, all the things. I want to know, what is that vision that you have for all those Yeah.
00:29:46
Speaker 2: I want us to love each other. That's it. Yeah, that's it.
00:29:53
Speaker 3: I only build from a place of building a village because I know that that is my god assignment, so clear that it is. I'm on a divine assignment to create spaces that awaken our heart in our mind and lift the collective consciousness of how we see each other when we shift in how we see each other, all the things that we believe that we are fighting against Willows, and I am so clear of that. We have to train our gaze to see each other and to honoring what we're seeing.
00:30:26
Speaker 2: So, yes, I have my retail stores.
00:30:29
Speaker 3: Yes I have our village NATed and we're working with small businesses across the country. Yes, we deployed millions in grants. Yes I have my bookstore and all the village market enterprises. But every single thing that I build is the deep roots are in the ground and the seeds that I have planted. And the only thing that I ask God for is at the end of this let the light be the light of you, and we can hold space and whole light that I can see you, and nothing inside of me feels that my light was dimmer. I see you, and I know that my light is even more, ever present, evervescent. And that is the word.
00:31:15
Speaker 2: I love that, that is the word.
00:31:17
Speaker 1: When did you know this was a God appointed assignment? Because it was not what I wrote for myself? What did you write for yourself if you would have asked me? Maybe fifteen twenty years ago.
00:31:32
Speaker 3: My first career path I was an educator, So I taught high school tenth through twelfth grade English, and I loved it, absolutely loved it. And then at the end of my educational career. I worked at a Georgia Department of Education and I loved it. Nowhere in there have I said anything about a village.
00:31:51
Speaker 2: Nothing.
00:31:52
Speaker 3: And so when I started to get the vision for village market my very first company, I was like, Oh, that's nothing, because I think it is true. We write a vision for ourselves and that's the first draft. Yes, the blueprint is the path that God wrote for us.
00:32:14
Speaker 2: And I know that.
00:32:18
Speaker 3: My deep belief that it takes a village and that the village will be the only thing that saves us. I know that that is something that God put inside of me because he knew that I would be a worthy steward and I would carry it well. And I also know that that is what we need it. Yeah, that is what we need it. We need it, We need it in a way. Also, what doesn't seem superficial because we love We're in a time that when a marketing industry know that there is a buzzword like community, then we start to manufacture community and so then people start performing community rather than being in.
00:32:59
Speaker 2: It being actual.
00:33:01
Speaker 3: Yeah, people perform being sisterly, yes, rather than being a sister.
00:33:05
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:33:06
Speaker 3: Absolutely, for sure, there's nothing performative about my work. And I do believe those of us who have been called light workers called at this time to be light workers because we don't need more performance. Yeah, we need true models and models. That's not perfection because we're all human beings. But there needs to be things out there that is genuine so people can believe that that love and light and care and warmth. Yeah, it is the human existence and what we were also created.
00:33:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, No, for sure, for sure.
00:33:42
Speaker 1: I love that everything you do you're intentional about it, absolutely, and I can see that in everything and how there's so much synergy in between every venture.
00:33:50
Speaker 2: It's so good. You recently just opened a retail store and one of the biggest, if not the busiest airport in the world, Atlanta harts Feel Airport.
00:34:01
Speaker 1: Tell me about that whole journey, because one, I know it's it's not easy to get in that airport. This is a big deal. Congratulations versus you, But yeah, take us on that journey.
00:34:12
Speaker 2: How this came about.
00:34:13
Speaker 3: I wrote the vision for opening the Village Retail, so I have my first location. We're still opening Punt City Market on the second floor. Yeah, Village Retail pun City Market location would be open six years. In November, five years ago is when I was walking on the Beltline and I said, I'm going to scale to the airport because Atlanta has the world's busiest airport, over one hundred and eight million annual visitors.
00:34:45
Speaker 2: Crazy.
00:34:46
Speaker 3: That is that is incredible, a global audience. My that's the way I vision cast.
00:34:56
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:34:57
Speaker 3: I vision casts in such a way that how do I create access in the way that it's undeniable for the acceleration of my people. There is no airport that it's more proficient or better position for it. And so but I'm also clear. I'm a quiet builder, and so it's almost hard to know what I'm working on because I don't work on anything until I don't announce anything until the announcement. But I've been working on this for five years. I had to ensure that we were prepared for where we were going, because I was clear five years ago that this is where we were being.
00:35:41
Speaker 2: With no experience of it, by the way, wow, none, none, none.
00:35:46
Speaker 3: But I was so clear. I was so clear that we were going to be there. I was so clear that my job was to train my staff. My job was to ensure that I can prepare entrepreneurs for that level of volume, and that is also me being disciplined enough.
00:36:04
Speaker 2: To not scale too fast.
00:36:07
Speaker 3: I intentionally took my time to be prepared for where I knew I was going to be. That there was never a doubt in my mind that we would not be where we are, even the location I chose that location word is because.
00:36:22
Speaker 2: Were going to be at the airport.
00:36:24
Speaker 3: Concourse being center, absolutely, and when you all see the location, what I want people to understand is that that is what I said I was.
00:36:37
Speaker 2: Where we were going to be. That's crazy. I know that.
00:36:44
Speaker 3: Vision casting that it is anointed by the love of God. I don't vision cast along. I asked God to anoint every one of my visions, so I don't build in fear. I build with clarity that it will be every single thing. I do not need a lot of people to tell me, doctor Key, I believe in you. Yes, I believe in me. I am so clear. So I don't need a lot of fan fare and all the things that we need.
00:37:14
Speaker 2: I don't need it because.
00:37:16
Speaker 3: I inherently know that every single thing that is chosen for me will come to.
00:37:20
Speaker 2: Pass for sure.
00:37:22
Speaker 3: And I knew this while all literally funding was grant after grant hour, was like, we're no longer funding. So I'm getting nose, and I'm also building for a yes. I'm getting nose, and I'm building for my yes because we do not have the privilege of not operating in duality. We do not have the privilege of there's a no here, and that's my final no. That's a no here, and I will continue to see my yes.
00:37:54
Speaker 2: And so I just build quietly.
00:37:58
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I told my team to trust me because your team also sees what is going on. And I affirmed them that there will.
00:38:10
Speaker 2: Be hard days in business.
00:38:12
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's inevitable, and you all would be at a ribbon cutting in twenty twenty six.
00:38:18
Speaker 2: I know that's right.
00:38:19
Speaker 3: So every hard day that you have experienced, a celebration is coming. And I don't give my team platitudes. I give my team evidence of what happens when you are clear of your path, because I also want to model to them to be clear of their path. And so a lot of red tape. To get the airport open, I had to learn a whole new industry, but I gave myself five years to learn.
00:38:47
Speaker 1: I was going to ask you, like you didn't come from this background at all.
00:38:50
Speaker 2: But I was going to ask you, how did you prepare for that? Number One? It takes a village.
00:38:57
Speaker 3: I surround myself with people who are far more hard and experience. And the thing that I'm not experienced there is.
00:39:04
Speaker 2: I am.
00:39:05
Speaker 3: I'm always confident enough to know that it is a gift to sit at the table with brilliant people.
00:39:12
Speaker 2: It is.
00:39:14
Speaker 3: I'm also deeply humble enough to know that it is a gift to being's faced with other brilliant people. And so I surrounded myself with good people. And then I'm a student. I am forever learning. I do not require people. Two, it's you know, forever athlete.
00:39:37
Speaker 2: I'm in the gym, yeah, I get up. Yeah yeah.
00:39:42
Speaker 3: And when you have trained yourself to be in the gym and to be fit in staying with that analogy, the musclim memory.
00:39:50
Speaker 2: It kicks in quick.
00:39:53
Speaker 3: And so I may not have experience of being in the world's busiest airport, but I have experience of doing big things well yes, yeah.
00:40:02
Speaker 2: And so.
00:40:05
Speaker 3: It was literally me arming my team with what we needed, me learning a new industry, like really learning it, having dinners with people so I can make the best business decisions in the faith that every single gap that I may possess, I will find I will attract what I need for sure. And I always say one of my prayers is that God protect my blind side. If that is a prayer, always just protect my blind side, because we don't know what we don't know.
00:40:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, we don't.
00:40:41
Speaker 3: Know, especially when it's something new. But I knew, Chris. I can't tell you enough that I knew that the Village Retail would be at the world's busiest airport. I knew that it was going to transform the lives of every black business in our store. I knew that it was going to put this company on a global stage. And I'm also clear that that is our rightful place.
00:41:05
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
00:41:06
Speaker 1: I want take me to the day waking up knowing that you are headed to Hartsville Jackson Airport to cut that ribbon. Take walk us through that day, because I know that had to be a glorious day for you from the moment you woke up.
00:41:19
Speaker 2: You know.
00:41:21
Speaker 3: Actually before our ribbon cutting, I was in San Francisco speaking at a conference WOW, and I could I can only I was only there to speak at the conference, and I couldn't stay and I humbly, you know, quietly, told people, I got a ribbon cutting in Atlanta tomorrow, so I have to get back.
00:41:39
Speaker 2: This is your ownership.
00:41:42
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, absolutely, ribbon cutting tomorrow. I have to get back to Alan. But I was walking through the airport when I landed, and because the store was open already, we is.
00:42:00
Speaker 2: Having a big reveal.
00:42:01
Speaker 3: So I walked by the story when I got back to Atlanta and I said, tomorrow, tomorrow, God, we did it.
00:42:12
Speaker 2: Wow. Yeah. And so.
00:42:17
Speaker 3: What I felt and what I continue to feel in as a massive amount of joy, and I'm so proud of myself, my teen.
00:42:27
Speaker 2: But also.
00:42:30
Speaker 3: I also want to be clear that there are moments in your life when you know, like God, you really rock with me, like you really you really trust me with this. And so the only what I what overwhelmed my heart is that God, you really trust.
00:42:47
Speaker 2: Me with this.
00:42:49
Speaker 3: And I am always so aware of that because I'm only going to be a good.
00:42:54
Speaker 2: Steward of it.
00:42:56
Speaker 3: And I couldn't wait until the businesses saw it. I could not wait. And for the businesses being a part of the ribbon cutting is a requirement for me. There's a lot of red tape to have big reveals at the airport, a lot of security, and I fought for every single brand to have that opportunity and.
00:43:18
Speaker 1: Tell people as well that you open this so that small businesses and owners can come and sell their products in your store.
00:43:24
Speaker 3: Absolutely, yes, thank you for naming that, because when I open a location of Punt City Market, why I built the Village Retail. I built the Village Retail because we need spaces that honor and center our products. We need a space that is curated beautifully. We need a space, and we not just need deserve, We deserve a space that people from all over the world, because that's what happened in Punt City Market as well, have an opportunity, a privilege to take our products back home with y and six years ago that was my mission and you bring such a You bring me back to a place of something that is also very important to me. I do not believe in supporting and buying black from a place of protest. I don't think that we should only patronize black businesses as a response to a boycott. I think we condition ourselves that we only choose us when we're mad at someone else. And so I opened the Village Retail, and it's open seven days a week. To six years ago, not in a place of boycott, nothing was happening in.
00:44:46
Speaker 2: The world in that sense.
00:44:48
Speaker 3: Or ten years ago when I launched Village Market, I literally have opened and created my spaces. It's simply because we should choose us every day, and we should have a space that has been designed and chosen for us, created by us, that we don't have to figure it out or one day something may change and there's no longer space for me on the shelves. If we build and create our things for ourselves, we are not controlled by any of the forces that tell you right now, at this time, you are not important. The Village Retail says you are important every single day. You are worthy every single day. You are good enough every single day. But let me be clear, we require excellence, yes we do. We require excellence in the Village Retail. The back of our shirt says excellence is a standard, not perfectionism, but excellence. Because I build from the place of I drive for experience, from customer service to our bags, everything is in peckably branded, and that is by design of excellence. And now the Village Retail scaling to the airport. This is placing brands on a global stage. Also, it is so hard to get in the airport. It is, it is, It is so hard to get.
00:46:24
Speaker 2: Into that industry.
00:46:26
Speaker 3: But when you have a village, when you have a village, you don't have to go by yourself.
00:46:32
Speaker 2: We go together.
00:46:33
Speaker 3: Yes, and when people have shopped at Village retail and they understand that's thirty plus black businesses, that that ribbon cutting was yes for my company, but it was symbolic of so many other companies that that is my wife and I want to shift.
00:46:55
Speaker 2: I want to shift our the way we choose lose each other.
00:47:01
Speaker 3: Do not choose me because you're mad, because when the emotion sobers, then often we go back to the very place. Yeah, they were no longer upset, and then our community is left behind. But if we make patronizing black businesses a lifestyle, that it becomes the first thought. I am striving that we become each other's first thought. If our books are coming out, we're each other's first thought. If a podcast is being announced, there's an episode, we are each other's first thought. That is community to me.
00:47:41
Speaker 2: And I love that.
00:47:43
Speaker 1: When you were opening the store and you saw that I had a hair Caroline, so you literally hit me and said, Crystal, we need to get your products in the stower. The fact that you even reach out and you know you spoke our good friend Tabitha Brown.
00:47:57
Speaker 2: Yes, I still love her. When I launched this line.
00:48:00
Speaker 1: She also has her own hair cair line. She text me and said, I'm so proud of you. If you need anything or help navigating different spaces, you call me. And I just want to say thank you, tab because she is just a diamond in the rough.
00:48:14
Speaker 2: She's a true gem that we should all cherish.
00:48:16
Speaker 1: But it's the dms like that and the text messages that means so much from women that see we see each other, you know, and even if we are navigating the same space, I'm letting you know there's room for you.
00:48:29
Speaker 2: You know there's room for us.
00:48:31
Speaker 3: Yes, the elevator, the elevation of consciousness is that the sun shines on you and I at the same time. Come on, and neither one of us is is we're we are not without it's warmth. So if there is enough space for the sun to shine on both you and I at the same time, let's put that in practice in our lives. There is room. There is room in the lane, there is space. Scarcity is another conditioning to make us feel that if Krystal has a product, then and the way I can support her, because it's going to take away from me. That is the conditioning of scarcity. And there are opportunities that you do feel that it is competition, but we also have been conditioned to believe that we are meant to be each other's competitors, then each other's sisters, and each other's collaborators. That is why words matter and really doing the root cause analysis of why we think the way that we think, and if we go deep into the roots, a lot of this is environmental conditioning that we have been programmed. There is space. I want every single person to hear this. There is room for all of us and even the goodness that we see and other people on how we may see them doing. Yeah, that is still bread crumbs by those who do not look like us. Yeah, that it is mere bread crumbs.
00:50:14
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:50:15
Speaker 3: Imagine if we decide to elevate our consciousness and to know that I require there be a room, I require there be space. I require that I require collaboration. My reaching out to you is like absolutely, I have a retail story. Come on, let's do this, And I think that is I'm a girl's girl anyway. Yeah, but I also think we have to live the things that we talk about.
00:50:46
Speaker 2: For sure. That's what tab does. She does. Yeah.
00:50:49
Speaker 3: No, my sister has helped me down. Tabithan Brown is all that people think she is and all that people have no.
00:50:59
Speaker 2: Idea that she is.
00:51:01
Speaker 3: Listen, she is one of the most genuine people I.
00:51:05
Speaker 2: Have ever met him. She really is.
00:51:07
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm so grateful to know her. I met her for the first time at the White House when Trail did the Black Experts question in DC, and She's like, me and my husband watch you all the time. I got to get a picture so I can send it to him, and I was like, oh, thank you. Then we end up exchanging information and then end up doing a movie together last year, and we have just been locked in and I just love her because she is one of those people that are randomly text you and let you know that she loves you and I'm thinking.
00:51:32
Speaker 2: About you, and that goes so far. You know.
00:51:36
Speaker 1: It's because a lot of times people are just so coughing their lives that we don't take a moment to just check in you know, so, I just love that and I.
00:51:43
Speaker 2: Love everything you are doing. It's just it's impactful.
00:51:46
Speaker 1: It is necessary, especially for our community Atlanta, a largely African American community, to have someone like you right here at home to show us, Hey, guys, we got what we need.
00:51:58
Speaker 2: We just need to support each other. I absolutely love it.
00:52:01
Speaker 1: Do you have anything else that's coming up that we can be on the lookout for? We know, concourse be at Atlanta Hartsville. We're going there for sure. Right across in the Dell's a lounge.
00:52:10
Speaker 2: We got that.
00:52:11
Speaker 1: Is there anything else that we can be on the lookout for or other places we can support you in?
00:52:15
Speaker 3: Yes, of course, always go by the book No One is Self Made. Yes, stop by my bookstore, Village Books. If you're in Atlanta. What you're waiting on when you're flying to Atlanta, add us a part of your destination. And if you are a small business owner and you are just looking for a village and your people, check out our Village United dot org. We built something so special with the organization. But I will say this, one of the greatest ways that you can support my work is by loving yourself. The greatest ways that we can support each other, it's by doing our own individual work. Because when we do our INDI visual work, we will put the weapons down and we will train our eyes to see each other and not be intimidated by what we see, but see it from a gaze of love. When we get to this place of deep healing, when we get to this place of deep knowing that it's not by any accident. We were created by such divine loving hands, and that it's not by accident that we share time together, that we were chosen for such a time as this. If you ever want, if you ever want to love and support doctor Key, do your work. I'm going to do my work and we will be well and do great things together.
00:53:48
Speaker 2: I love that, Dot Keith, thank you so so much.
00:53:52
Speaker 1: And closing, I do want to ask our theme this season is unapologetic. We are walking through life unapologetically. I want to know what is doctor Key unapologetic about in this season of her life?
00:54:04
Speaker 3: Chris, I'm so clear and unapologetic about who I am. Yes, I am so clear. I'm grateful that I still my feet are anchored so deeply enjoy I'm unapologetic about my joy. I am unapologetic about my clarity about this divine mission that we're on. And I'm also unapologetic that I will say the things that needs to be said out loud, affirmingly, still with love. But I am wavering and what I believe the light at the end of the tunnel is for us. Yeah, I love that, doctor Keith.
00:54:50
Speaker 2: Thank you so much.
00:54:51
Speaker 1: I know you got a crazy schedule. Thank you for sitting down with us. I know this blessed me, so I know it's gonna bless our listeners. Thank you, Thank you absolutely, thank you good. What I appreciate most about this conversation is that it reminds us that success means very little if it only benefits us individually.
00:55:13
Speaker 2: Doctor Key's work is.
00:55:14
Speaker 1: So powerful because she's not just building businesses, she's building community, access and systems of care. In a time where so many people feel disconnected, overwhelmed, or isolated, this conversation reminds us that we are never meant to do life alone. Thank you, doctor Keith for your wisdom, your intentionality, and for reminding us the power of collective care and community. Be sure to grab your copy of No One Is Self Made where books are sold. Thank you all for tuning in to another episode of Keep It Positive. Sweetie, don't forget to download the season eleven Kip's Reflection Guide at Christineheesa dot com.
00:55:50
Speaker 2: Subscribe and share this episode with someone who could use a little positivity.
00:55:54
Speaker 1: And if you want advice, positivity, or just want to share what you're going through, email us at keep it Positive dotcoms at gmail dot com. As always, stay blessed, stay encouraged, and keep it positive.
00:56:05
Speaker 2: Sweetly, I'll see you guys next time.
Speaker 1: Calling all my Sweetish to the forefront. I'm your host, christ Rna Hazel and this is the Keep It Positive Sweetish Show. Welcome to Keep It Positive, Sweetie, the place where we heal, grow and learn together. Today's episode feels especially important because we are talking about community purpose and what it really means to build success without leaving other people behind, and a world that celebrates individual achievement. Today's guest is challenging the idea that any of us truly make it alone. Through her work, her business, her book, and the communities she continues to build. She's showing what it looks like to lead with intention, collective care, and impact. I am so happy to be sitting down with doctor Key Hallmand. Doctor Lakeisha Key Hollman is a transformational entrepreneur, author, speaker, and founder of the Village Market Enterprises, an ecosystem that has helped thousands of small businesses grow from village retail village books to expanding Our Village United into more than thirty states.
00:01:04
Speaker 2: Doctor Key has built her work.
00:01:06
Speaker 1: Around two core beliefs, no one is truly self made and support is a verb. This conversation is about leadership, purpose and community responsibility, Kids, family, please give a very one.
00:01:18
Speaker 2: Welcome to doctor Key. Hi. How are you doing today? I am amazing, Well you look amazing. You're radiating. Thank you.
00:01:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, you came in here and we were like, yes, you brought good energy and we love that.
00:01:32
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:01:32
Speaker 1: So you are so busy, So thank you for taking time to sit with us today. I'm excited, and we're gonna before we jump into everything that you have going on, because god, she has.
00:01:40
Speaker 2: A lot going on.
00:01:41
Speaker 1: I want to play a little game with you. This game is called it Takes a Village, a little play on what you got going on. So the first one is I'm gonna give you some scenarios and I want you to tell us who or what impacted you.
00:01:54
Speaker 2: Oh that's good.
00:01:55
Speaker 1: Yes, So the first one is a teacher who changed your life.
00:02:02
Speaker 3: I'll go with who first came to mind. My third grade teacher, missus Drake.
00:02:06
Speaker 2: Wow.
00:02:07
Speaker 3: Phenomenal, phenomenal teacher who I think early on saw me and saw my love for reading, and she really nurtured that.
00:02:15
Speaker 2: So shout out to miss Drake. Shout out Miss Rake. It's so funny.
00:02:17
Speaker 1: Mine was my third grade teacher, Miss Sherry Gardner Wow in Topeka, Kansas.
00:02:21
Speaker 2: Yeah, so when you said third grade, I was like, that was mine too. I love that. A lesson from your parents or grandparents. Oh, I would go with.
00:02:33
Speaker 3: A lesson from my parents and made my mother rest in peace. To always operate in integrity. My mom, my dad. My dad still says it that if you operate in integrity, all would be well.
00:02:46
Speaker 2: Yes. And not only did they say it, they also modeled it. That's so good. I love that when you can see it.
00:02:52
Speaker 1: We talk about parents and children and how they emulate what they see. So I love that they modeled that for years. Yeah, we see it. We see it in the fruit.
00:03:00
Speaker 2: Honey. A business lesson you learned the hard way. Oh, this is tough.
00:03:05
Speaker 3: This is today a business lesson I learned a hard way. Likely holding onto people too long, Yeah, I think I've been an entrepreneur now for ten years, and I think we see the science early when someone is not a fit, and I know early on I will hold onto people because of the potential of them. I will hold on to people also because I didn't want to be a black woman that other let other black people go.
00:03:38
Speaker 2: Or staff go.
00:03:40
Speaker 3: But holding on too long it impacts the overall company and the mission and the vision. Yeah, and the evolution absolutely because it will stifle you.
00:03:50
Speaker 1: Wow, that's good. Next one, someone who saw your vision early.
00:03:57
Speaker 3: Shout out to my Grandma Josephine and crowd of Mississippi.
00:04:02
Speaker 2: My grandmother.
00:04:04
Speaker 3: I remember maybe being nine years old, and I would tell her all my dreams and one day she looked at me and she touched my head and she said, you are so special. I don't know who you are going to become or who you're going to be.
00:04:18
Speaker 2: But you are so special.
00:04:20
Speaker 3: And she has consistently said this throughout my life, and when I call her later this week, she is going to say the exact same thing.
00:04:30
Speaker 2: Wow. Yeah, that's beautiful. Shout out Grandma Josephine. If you're watching, which I'm.
00:04:35
Speaker 1: Sure you will, she will watch. A wellness habit that you cannot live without.
00:04:40
Speaker 3: A wellness is such central my faith, and my faith is a good steward of how well I loved myself. And I cannot live without my breath work. I cannot live without the way that I affirmed myself every day. I literally anoint my vessel every day with words and how I loved myself, so I can be prepared to go into the world.
00:05:09
Speaker 2: That's good. I love that the last one a moment, community saved you. Ah, that's so good. It's been I will tell you. As many.
00:05:24
Speaker 3: Social entrepreneurs like myself are founders who launched a nonprofit. It has been a very interesting time for five oh one c three organizations and fundraising and last year was extremely hard for me and we're still getting out of heart. But the way that black women have, they have just known to check on me. They have just known to say, Doc, let's get on, let's get on a call. I want to see how everything is going. I wanted I want to talk to you about your strategy because while a lot is happening, you are seen. While a lot is happening, you are not forgotten. And so I have felt so tethered to love in an embrace, in the way that I give people. It has been so beautiful when I needed it to be on the receiving end without ever having to ask for it.
00:06:24
Speaker 2: That's so good. Shout out to black women.
00:06:26
Speaker 3: Shout out to black women. We will save us, we will we will save us.
00:06:31
Speaker 1: That is so good because some women don't have that testimony.
00:06:36
Speaker 2: You know, you hear the opposite.
00:06:37
Speaker 1: So many times over, but to hear the positive side of that and women who really do rally around each other. As you said that, it reminded me of our good sister Kimberly Blackwell.
00:06:48
Speaker 2: Absolutely, she literally does that.
00:06:50
Speaker 1: What is going on, what's your strategy, what are you working on, what do you need? What's missing? She's so good at that. So I love that you have women around you absolutely will ask those questions and check on you and say, hey, we need to have dinner, let's sit down as we Overdo you know that's so important?
00:07:07
Speaker 2: I love that.
00:07:08
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that is always going to be central for how we survive times but also how we thrive into the future.
00:07:15
Speaker 2: For sure. Yes, we have to have our champion. Yes, I love that.
00:07:20
Speaker 1: Well, let's go back to last year. Twenty twenty five was a huge.
00:07:25
Speaker 2: Year for you.
00:07:26
Speaker 1: My goodness you. I don't know if you know this, but me and the sweeties are avid readers. I'm always letting them know what I'm reading. And you have Village Books right here in Atlanta, Georgia.
00:07:36
Speaker 2: Congratulations. I do want to ask you.
00:07:39
Speaker 1: What made you know that having a physical space to read stories, to buy books, and to have that community right here in Atlanta.
00:07:48
Speaker 2: Why did you feel like that was important?
00:07:50
Speaker 3: You know, I had to open Village Books beyond it being the seven year old me dream. Yeah, I wanted to own a bookstore. That should tell you a lot, you know, let me tell you a whole life that I wanted a bookstore since I was young. But it's also at this point we need to build intentionally scene Everything that I opened, Crystal, I open with a great intent. We see that I open spaces for a sense of safety. I open spaces for a sense of belonging. I open spaces for a sense of love. When you walk into any of my establishments, in particular my bookstore, you will feel the warmth of how it feels to walk into a space and know that you were chosen for it, that it was designed just for you. And I also want spaces in the bookstore is central because we need to be expanded in our knowledge. We're at a time now where taking time to actually read, to go deep into literature, to read opinions that may be different from yours, that may stretch you.
00:08:56
Speaker 2: We need that.
00:08:57
Speaker 3: And so I'm everything that I open I look at as safe houses.
00:09:01
Speaker 2: Yeah, I love it, Like, how.
00:09:02
Speaker 3: Can I build in such a way that people can come and even if you haven't read a book in years, you still know that this bookstore is right on time, just for you and where you are right now. Yes, and I'm in love with authors. I'm in love with writers. So I also wanted to open a bookstore by all my favorite authors, those who are ancestors and those who are present. It's just such a beautiful way to honor those who are gifted with the pen, yes, and gifted to in a way to be able to tell stories.
00:09:35
Speaker 2: So it is literally my honoring of community every single thing that I do.
00:09:40
Speaker 1: Yes, no, and we see that. Take me back to seven year old Key. What books were you reading back then?
00:09:46
Speaker 2: Oh?
00:09:47
Speaker 3: Everything, everything, younger version of me, I still was in love. I loved fiction, so I was reading like all the children's.
00:09:56
Speaker 2: Books as well. But early, early.
00:09:59
Speaker 3: On, I was already curious about the Doctor Maya Angelous of the World, because I started to hear her poetry, and so early I wanted to read poetry.
00:10:10
Speaker 2: I wanted to.
00:10:13
Speaker 3: There's a writer Sharon Draper, who came a little bit later, but I love Sharing Draper and so reading books that reflect who I was, books that opened my imagination. I always gravitated to and I was always writing as well.
00:10:29
Speaker 2: So I would read a.
00:10:30
Speaker 3: Book, then I would write and then make my mama listen to me. And you know, always your first audience, right, Yes, but I was just enamored, enamored with books. I could not get enough of it.
00:10:41
Speaker 2: I love that for me.
00:10:43
Speaker 1: I was the same way I was like Beverly Clearly Babysitters Club. I remember sitting in my room at my desk and I would just be in the books. My mam would have to literally say, come on, it's time to eat dinner, and I'd be like, hold on, like And then I fell out of that as I got older, and then now I'm back into it. And I was telling Shelley today, I can tell when I've taken time to really start reading again. Your conversations change, your vocabulary changes, and it's words that you knew, but then when you put it down, it's like, what was that word I'm trying to think of? But when you're constantly reading, those words stay with you. So I definitely see a change in myself when I'm actively reading, which is something that I promote through our platform. I want to ask you what role do you think that books play in healing collectively and with imagination, especially in our community.
00:11:28
Speaker 2: Absolutely so.
00:11:29
Speaker 3: What I am so happy to see is that so many wellness practitioners are writing books now that center us in multi, multi dimensional ways. I love doctor tama'brien's one of my favorite spiritual leaders, and to what she wrote in Homecoming, and even my good sister Tapatha Brown.
00:11:57
Speaker 2: And her many books. They're so nurturing.
00:12:01
Speaker 3: Yes, so much joy, so much lightness, so much, so much in the sense that while it feels like all is falling apart, you are still whole, even it's just even if it's just shattered pieces right now. That is why we need books, and not just any books, but we also need books that reflect people that look like us.
00:12:21
Speaker 2: Yes, because there's a gentleness in the language.
00:12:26
Speaker 3: There's a sense of even if the nudging is there, the nudging is not harsh. The nudging is for us to know that we have wings and to expand them and fly. And so I am grateful that we are that we have nedra and boundaries. There's just so many exceptional books. My good friend doctor Joy Sisterhood Heels literally cradles sisterhood and how to be in loving relationships with other women.
00:12:59
Speaker 2: We need we need all of that, we do, and we.
00:13:01
Speaker 3: Also need books that name how we feel so we can feel less alone, because I do think vulnerability is something that we're still finding as a strength, vulnerability and emotions early on. You know, I don't know how you was raised, but I was just raised to be strong. Yeah, yeah, you don't really have time for all the feelings and things like that. And as the great ancestor Bell hooks right about and all about love, so much of how our parents raised us was from a sense of them just wanting us to be safe. Yes, but because of that, we've had to go to root cause analysis that there is space for our big feelings. There is space for having your feelings hurt. It is space where business does feel personal and this hurt my feelings. It is space for I am emotionally tapped, and I think I am burnt out. We didn't even have these words. We're literally I think just now we're really honoring. Doesn't mean that you cannot pour from an empty cup, and it's because people have named it that your cup has to be full in order to continue to pour. Right, That's why we have to go to the well of reading to be to be safe and to be held in such a way and also to just be affirmed.
00:14:20
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:14:20
Speaker 3: Yeah, so that is why I think we need to get back to text. I think we need to also get back to beautiful conversations like this is why I'm so happy that you launched your podcast. Thank you, because listening to you and seeing how well you are in these conversations feels like a really good book.
00:14:38
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:14:39
Speaker 1: I appreciate that, Thank you, Thank you so much. This brings me to you actually being an author. You talk about all these other amazing authors, you are one as well, and you wrote a book called No One Is Self Made.
00:14:51
Speaker 2: I feel like our culture.
00:14:53
Speaker 1: Specifically has made self made into this north star, like this is what you should to be, like do it yourself. And anybody who knows me knows that I'm big on team, like I can't do this all by myself. And I love just why. I even love the title like she gets it, she gets it. I want to know why do you feel like we are so attached that idea that we have to do it ourselves?
00:15:18
Speaker 3: You know, to even think about any form of an attachment of why we aspire for the things we aspire for. I'm always questioning our pursuit and our ambitions. Are we striving for something that is inherently inside of us or have we been conditioned to aspire? And so individualism is a very American, westernized concept, and self made largely came from magazines and publications that when we talked about someone reaching the pinnacle of success, they're called a self made person, self made person of the year. So then I wonder if an entrepreneur or someone in entertainment, I wonder if they think the pinnacle requires that, because that is all they've been conditioned to believe. We don't have publications that talk about the village that is propelling that person up to even be on the cover of a magazine. So I think it's sometimes hard to know when you have been programmed. My book is a loving deprogramming of the consciousness of how we talk about success ancestrally. We are communal people ancestrally and present day. Whatever success that we may have, and it may not always come in a form that we want.
00:16:43
Speaker 2: Any great thing.
00:16:44
Speaker 3: That we have done well in life, there have been prayer partners, there have been a group text of friends. Yes, There have people that slide you twenty dollars when you needed it, when you're an undergrad. There are people who have affirmed you since you were little, and that that's not all. I always come into currency in the way that we talk about it, but there is a spiritual currency that has continued to propel us forward. To take on the title of self made erases every one of those currencies that have been put into us, and I don't believe that is our intent. And so no one is self made is requiring us to be intentional. But how we tell our stories because every single opportunity that every opportunity that I have, I make sure that my mother is written into my success, my father is seeded into my success, my grandparents, my family, my friends, my staff. Because if I accept self made, then I began to erase people who've been very vital to the own fabric of my existence.
00:17:51
Speaker 2: And so no one is.
00:17:52
Speaker 3: Self made is to say, be intentional about every single thing that you say thank you to, even the titles that people give you. And I have sat for interviews and people have said, doctor Keith, how does it mean to be a self made woman? And because I know that words are prophetic, and I know that words and have an opportunity to teach. In a moment, I always say, but actually, I'm village made, and I begin to name all the people and all the places and all churches that I have seen. Because if we want to shift how we talk about success, then someone has to be a steward of it. We can talk about it, we can write about it, or we can do it. And I think we need more people who get on stages and lift all the names and all the people. So every person aspiring who's watching on television, when they start to think about their own success, then they know the most powerful thing that they can do is to stand with their village.
00:18:55
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:18:56
Speaker 1: I love that reframing the psychology of what it takes to succeed, because you're absolutely right.
00:19:01
Speaker 2: When I think about Forbes articles or all.
00:19:04
Speaker 1: These wealth magazines that we read, and this is the pinnacle of what we're trying to get to, and they've reset pinnacle, and you do oftentimes see self made, self made, and most of those people are standing on a lot of people are staying on shoulders and shoulders of different people that have helped them get there. That is so good and also it's profoundly untrue very much. It is just it's, you know, beyond all the things, it's just also profoundly untrue.
00:19:33
Speaker 2: It definitely is.
00:19:34
Speaker 3: But I am always very sensitive when I talk about this because my book was also sticky. For some people, it felt like a judgment of their hard work. And so what I'm very clear of I'm never neglectful for the three o'clock hours that it was nobody but you and God. I'm never neglect for of that, because then I would be neglect for of my own on three o'clock kind of mornings and it was me trying to figure out. I would never neglect the intestinal fortitude. I would never neglect that there must be a vessel. Yeah, there has to be an individual. But I'm also not neglectful in my knowing.
00:20:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, and my knowing is.
00:20:21
Speaker 3: Self determination is needed, intestinal fortitude is needed. There must be an individual. But I also know that there are so many people tied to that individual that have steward us throughout life and will continue. Yes, that that is what's true.
00:20:43
Speaker 1: I love that when people read this book, what is something that you hope they unlearned? Because even the person who says it's a little sticky for them.
00:20:50
Speaker 2: In my opinion, I would hope they read me like, dang, you're actually right.
00:20:54
Speaker 1: I wouldn't take offense to it and be like, no, I know it's really hard, but that's actually true.
00:20:59
Speaker 2: There's so many other people that helped me. Yeah.
00:21:01
Speaker 1: So what is something that you hope people unlearned when they read this book?
00:21:04
Speaker 2: Yeah?
00:21:04
Speaker 3: What I can tell you what people are un learning. And I'm always so touched when I get you know, super kindems about you know, doctor key, I ain't know about this no one and self made things and then they say to me, you're right. You made me step back and realize that I'm not alone. I may not have everything that I need, but I have some things and I have some people. And so you know what I'm hoping And truly, what's been affirmed to me that no one is self made has really allowed people to know that you have people and to really be reflective over their lives that it may not be the million dollar investment that you need. Yeah, because they're qualifiers of what we think support is. Yes, and I'm always going to be advocates that business owners need investment, primarily black business owners. We are still deeply underfunded. But if we're only thinking about support by those who fund us, we're not seeing the sea of people around us.
00:22:14
Speaker 2: Wow.
00:22:14
Speaker 3: Yeah, And it has been very, very affirming to see people have a paradigm shift with how they see their success, even people who have said doctor key. I took a moment and I sent an email to all the people who helped me when I was early on, who volunteered for me when I literally didn't have it, and people who have seen me throughout my life. I'm always just striving for us to have physical representation that there is a village, there are people, there's a blanket of care around you, even when it does not feel that. It's because I think we all have felt that I wish I had different relationships, I wish I had this. So I won't counter that. Yeah, but I want us to know that we're not in a deficit, right. We're not in a deficit maybe at a baseline where there's so much opportunity for more, yeah, but you, if you are here, you're not in a deficit for sure.
00:23:16
Speaker 1: You talked about last year was a really hard year for you and something you're still coming out of.
00:23:22
Speaker 2: But there's been so much success. Let's talk to.
00:23:25
Speaker 1: The person that may be looking from the outside, looking in and saying, man, she's got it all going on, but not knowing what else you're coming up out of. I want to speak to that because so many times they see where we are, but they don't see the daily fight and the daily struggle. I want to talk to that person who may be thinking like I'm trying to get there, but they don't know what all comes along with being where you are.
00:23:45
Speaker 2: Absolutely I try.
00:23:48
Speaker 3: I strive my best to be a very transparent entrepreneur and founder. So if you look at my socials, it's largely about the work, because there's really no highlight reel, you know, and because two things are often true that whilst I mean incredible things have happened for my company and being able to scale. We also in twenty twenty five, as so many other nonprofit organizations through my organization, our Village, you name it, we saw the drastic rollback and funding and to have so many of our funders say that they've gone in a different direction, that they're no longer focused on small businesses. In this way, every single note, for any founder that has to pay payroll, you start to calculate numbers you start to think about Because I am not just the CEO who thinks about what is good for me.
00:24:54
Speaker 2: I feel it.
00:24:55
Speaker 3: To be a privilege to be a leader, to have an incredible team. So I'm always thinking about all our livelihood. Yes, and so last year I was deeply prayerful. I'm always clear that God always comes through. Now, that is one thing that keeps me steady, and that keeps me anchored. My spiritual compass is my eye in the storm, and so that is why I can stay have a sober spirit in spite of all things.
00:25:30
Speaker 2: But yeah, last year was hard.
00:25:33
Speaker 3: I mean it was literally and it continues to be hard because we need those in philanthropy to be bold, yeah, to continue to make good on getting organizations the funding that they need to do the work that will reach to people. When is that ever a bad thing?
00:25:54
Speaker 2: Right?
00:25:54
Speaker 1: Yeah?
00:25:55
Speaker 3: So you know, for the founders who or people currently who may listen to this number one, you are not by yourself and largely a lot of the people that you admire and look up to who look like they have it all together, probably like twice a week, three days a week.
00:26:16
Speaker 2: But I can almost.
00:26:17
Speaker 3: Assure you there is two days during the week, at least one day during the week that you're going to have to sit with yourself and know that where you're thinking about your own pivot. I also want a name for those entrepreneurs of how normal that is. It will not always be easy, but it also will not always be hard. That is what has been foundationally true for me. And I'm always so clear that my heart has a timeline, but my good is for it is always our current is always running, and so there are moments when those trying days feel louder than the good days.
00:26:59
Speaker 2: But the good is.
00:27:02
Speaker 3: If we can shift our mindsets to believe that the goodness is omnipresent. That means sweetness is always close to us, that the yes is always just so close, even though it feels so far. But I know that it is hard. I've had to affirm myself so much. I've had to tell myself the work is good regardless of the no right, and that I must continue to be a good steward of the work. When it is overflowing, it is good. When it is slowly flowing, it is still good.
00:27:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's still good.
00:27:40
Speaker 3: And sometimes we quit too soon, but also sometimes we don't pivot soon enough. And I think that just because it is your baby, at every gross stage, it requires something different of you. I think we have to be willing to pivot and our businesses, we have to be able to pivot in our visions. So maybe the Valley is time for you to do some pivoting. And I also know that it has been important for me, Crystal, is that I am not reactionary. I am very clear when it's a lot happening that it's meant to discombobulate my own vision and distort what I believe is true. So when it feels like all is falling apart around me, I get still.
00:28:27
Speaker 2: That's good.
00:28:28
Speaker 3: I get still because I don't want to react to the falling. I want to be a steward of the vision, so I need it to fall so my path can be clear for the vision. And I think sometimes I know it's survival that we have a tendency to be so reactionary, because you're simply trying.
00:28:48
Speaker 2: To survive, for sure.
00:28:50
Speaker 3: But sometimes the job is to be still, to be still so you can be clear and path your in charge, your path forward. Because all while that was going on, I was also quietly working on the airport opening.
00:29:06
Speaker 2: For village retail. Yeah, come on, all at the same time, Yes, exactly, all at the same time.
00:29:12
Speaker 1: We talked about that before we sat down about it's so much going on. Everyone is going through so much, but there's still a peace and a calmness where you still have the fortitude to push forward or sit still to get the direction that you need to move forward.
00:29:28
Speaker 2: I absolutely love that.
00:29:29
Speaker 1: And you speak about vision, yeah, And I want to know what is the bigger vision of tying all your ventures together, because you do have village market enterprises, you got books, you got retail, wellness, community education, all the things. I want to know, what is that vision that you have for all those Yeah.
00:29:46
Speaker 2: I want us to love each other. That's it. Yeah, that's it.
00:29:53
Speaker 3: I only build from a place of building a village because I know that that is my god assignment, so clear that it is. I'm on a divine assignment to create spaces that awaken our heart in our mind and lift the collective consciousness of how we see each other when we shift in how we see each other, all the things that we believe that we are fighting against Willows, and I am so clear of that. We have to train our gaze to see each other and to honoring what we're seeing.
00:30:26
Speaker 2: So, yes, I have my retail stores.
00:30:29
Speaker 3: Yes I have our village NATed and we're working with small businesses across the country. Yes, we deployed millions in grants. Yes I have my bookstore and all the village market enterprises. But every single thing that I build is the deep roots are in the ground and the seeds that I have planted. And the only thing that I ask God for is at the end of this let the light be the light of you, and we can hold space and whole light that I can see you, and nothing inside of me feels that my light was dimmer. I see you, and I know that my light is even more, ever present, evervescent. And that is the word.
00:31:15
Speaker 2: I love that, that is the word.
00:31:17
Speaker 1: When did you know this was a God appointed assignment? Because it was not what I wrote for myself? What did you write for yourself if you would have asked me? Maybe fifteen twenty years ago.
00:31:32
Speaker 3: My first career path I was an educator, So I taught high school tenth through twelfth grade English, and I loved it, absolutely loved it. And then at the end of my educational career. I worked at a Georgia Department of Education and I loved it. Nowhere in there have I said anything about a village.
00:31:51
Speaker 2: Nothing.
00:31:52
Speaker 3: And so when I started to get the vision for village market my very first company, I was like, Oh, that's nothing, because I think it is true. We write a vision for ourselves and that's the first draft. Yes, the blueprint is the path that God wrote for us.
00:32:14
Speaker 2: And I know that.
00:32:18
Speaker 3: My deep belief that it takes a village and that the village will be the only thing that saves us. I know that that is something that God put inside of me because he knew that I would be a worthy steward and I would carry it well. And I also know that that is what we need it. Yeah, that is what we need it. We need it, We need it in a way. Also, what doesn't seem superficial because we love We're in a time that when a marketing industry know that there is a buzzword like community, then we start to manufacture community and so then people start performing community rather than being in.
00:32:59
Speaker 2: It being actual.
00:33:01
Speaker 3: Yeah, people perform being sisterly, yes, rather than being a sister.
00:33:05
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:33:06
Speaker 3: Absolutely, for sure, there's nothing performative about my work. And I do believe those of us who have been called light workers called at this time to be light workers because we don't need more performance. Yeah, we need true models and models. That's not perfection because we're all human beings. But there needs to be things out there that is genuine so people can believe that that love and light and care and warmth. Yeah, it is the human existence and what we were also created.
00:33:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, No, for sure, for sure.
00:33:42
Speaker 1: I love that everything you do you're intentional about it, absolutely, and I can see that in everything and how there's so much synergy in between every venture.
00:33:50
Speaker 2: It's so good. You recently just opened a retail store and one of the biggest, if not the busiest airport in the world, Atlanta harts Feel Airport.
00:34:01
Speaker 1: Tell me about that whole journey, because one, I know it's it's not easy to get in that airport. This is a big deal. Congratulations versus you, But yeah, take us on that journey.
00:34:12
Speaker 2: How this came about.
00:34:13
Speaker 3: I wrote the vision for opening the Village Retail, so I have my first location. We're still opening Punt City Market on the second floor. Yeah, Village Retail pun City Market location would be open six years. In November, five years ago is when I was walking on the Beltline and I said, I'm going to scale to the airport because Atlanta has the world's busiest airport, over one hundred and eight million annual visitors.
00:34:45
Speaker 2: Crazy.
00:34:46
Speaker 3: That is that is incredible, a global audience. My that's the way I vision cast.
00:34:56
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:34:57
Speaker 3: I vision casts in such a way that how do I create access in the way that it's undeniable for the acceleration of my people. There is no airport that it's more proficient or better position for it. And so but I'm also clear. I'm a quiet builder, and so it's almost hard to know what I'm working on because I don't work on anything until I don't announce anything until the announcement. But I've been working on this for five years. I had to ensure that we were prepared for where we were going, because I was clear five years ago that this is where we were being.
00:35:41
Speaker 2: With no experience of it, by the way, wow, none, none, none.
00:35:46
Speaker 3: But I was so clear. I was so clear that we were going to be there. I was so clear that my job was to train my staff. My job was to ensure that I can prepare entrepreneurs for that level of volume, and that is also me being disciplined enough.
00:36:04
Speaker 2: To not scale too fast.
00:36:07
Speaker 3: I intentionally took my time to be prepared for where I knew I was going to be. That there was never a doubt in my mind that we would not be where we are, even the location I chose that location word is because.
00:36:22
Speaker 2: Were going to be at the airport.
00:36:24
Speaker 3: Concourse being center, absolutely, and when you all see the location, what I want people to understand is that that is what I said I was.
00:36:37
Speaker 2: Where we were going to be. That's crazy. I know that.
00:36:44
Speaker 3: Vision casting that it is anointed by the love of God. I don't vision cast along. I asked God to anoint every one of my visions, so I don't build in fear. I build with clarity that it will be every single thing. I do not need a lot of people to tell me, doctor Key, I believe in you. Yes, I believe in me. I am so clear. So I don't need a lot of fan fare and all the things that we need.
00:37:14
Speaker 2: I don't need it because.
00:37:16
Speaker 3: I inherently know that every single thing that is chosen for me will come to.
00:37:20
Speaker 2: Pass for sure.
00:37:22
Speaker 3: And I knew this while all literally funding was grant after grant hour, was like, we're no longer funding. So I'm getting nose, and I'm also building for a yes. I'm getting nose, and I'm building for my yes because we do not have the privilege of not operating in duality. We do not have the privilege of there's a no here, and that's my final no. That's a no here, and I will continue to see my yes.
00:37:54
Speaker 2: And so I just build quietly.
00:37:58
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I told my team to trust me because your team also sees what is going on. And I affirmed them that there will.
00:38:10
Speaker 2: Be hard days in business.
00:38:12
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's inevitable, and you all would be at a ribbon cutting in twenty twenty six.
00:38:18
Speaker 2: I know that's right.
00:38:19
Speaker 3: So every hard day that you have experienced, a celebration is coming. And I don't give my team platitudes. I give my team evidence of what happens when you are clear of your path, because I also want to model to them to be clear of their path. And so a lot of red tape. To get the airport open, I had to learn a whole new industry, but I gave myself five years to learn.
00:38:47
Speaker 1: I was going to ask you, like you didn't come from this background at all.
00:38:50
Speaker 2: But I was going to ask you, how did you prepare for that? Number One? It takes a village.
00:38:57
Speaker 3: I surround myself with people who are far more hard and experience. And the thing that I'm not experienced there is.
00:39:04
Speaker 2: I am.
00:39:05
Speaker 3: I'm always confident enough to know that it is a gift to sit at the table with brilliant people.
00:39:12
Speaker 2: It is.
00:39:14
Speaker 3: I'm also deeply humble enough to know that it is a gift to being's faced with other brilliant people. And so I surrounded myself with good people. And then I'm a student. I am forever learning. I do not require people. Two, it's you know, forever athlete.
00:39:37
Speaker 2: I'm in the gym, yeah, I get up. Yeah yeah.
00:39:42
Speaker 3: And when you have trained yourself to be in the gym and to be fit in staying with that analogy, the musclim memory.
00:39:50
Speaker 2: It kicks in quick.
00:39:53
Speaker 3: And so I may not have experience of being in the world's busiest airport, but I have experience of doing big things well yes, yeah.
00:40:02
Speaker 2: And so.
00:40:05
Speaker 3: It was literally me arming my team with what we needed, me learning a new industry, like really learning it, having dinners with people so I can make the best business decisions in the faith that every single gap that I may possess, I will find I will attract what I need for sure. And I always say one of my prayers is that God protect my blind side. If that is a prayer, always just protect my blind side, because we don't know what we don't know.
00:40:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, we don't.
00:40:41
Speaker 3: Know, especially when it's something new. But I knew, Chris. I can't tell you enough that I knew that the Village Retail would be at the world's busiest airport. I knew that it was going to transform the lives of every black business in our store. I knew that it was going to put this company on a global stage. And I'm also clear that that is our rightful place.
00:41:05
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
00:41:06
Speaker 1: I want take me to the day waking up knowing that you are headed to Hartsville Jackson Airport to cut that ribbon. Take walk us through that day, because I know that had to be a glorious day for you from the moment you woke up.
00:41:19
Speaker 2: You know.
00:41:21
Speaker 3: Actually before our ribbon cutting, I was in San Francisco speaking at a conference WOW, and I could I can only I was only there to speak at the conference, and I couldn't stay and I humbly, you know, quietly, told people, I got a ribbon cutting in Atlanta tomorrow, so I have to get back.
00:41:39
Speaker 2: This is your ownership.
00:41:42
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, absolutely, ribbon cutting tomorrow. I have to get back to Alan. But I was walking through the airport when I landed, and because the store was open already, we is.
00:42:00
Speaker 2: Having a big reveal.
00:42:01
Speaker 3: So I walked by the story when I got back to Atlanta and I said, tomorrow, tomorrow, God, we did it.
00:42:12
Speaker 2: Wow. Yeah. And so.
00:42:17
Speaker 3: What I felt and what I continue to feel in as a massive amount of joy, and I'm so proud of myself, my teen.
00:42:27
Speaker 2: But also.
00:42:30
Speaker 3: I also want to be clear that there are moments in your life when you know, like God, you really rock with me, like you really you really trust me with this. And so the only what I what overwhelmed my heart is that God, you really trust.
00:42:47
Speaker 2: Me with this.
00:42:49
Speaker 3: And I am always so aware of that because I'm only going to be a good.
00:42:54
Speaker 2: Steward of it.
00:42:56
Speaker 3: And I couldn't wait until the businesses saw it. I could not wait. And for the businesses being a part of the ribbon cutting is a requirement for me. There's a lot of red tape to have big reveals at the airport, a lot of security, and I fought for every single brand to have that opportunity and.
00:43:18
Speaker 1: Tell people as well that you open this so that small businesses and owners can come and sell their products in your store.
00:43:24
Speaker 3: Absolutely, yes, thank you for naming that, because when I open a location of Punt City Market, why I built the Village Retail. I built the Village Retail because we need spaces that honor and center our products. We need a space that is curated beautifully. We need a space, and we not just need deserve, We deserve a space that people from all over the world, because that's what happened in Punt City Market as well, have an opportunity, a privilege to take our products back home with y and six years ago that was my mission and you bring such a You bring me back to a place of something that is also very important to me. I do not believe in supporting and buying black from a place of protest. I don't think that we should only patronize black businesses as a response to a boycott. I think we condition ourselves that we only choose us when we're mad at someone else. And so I opened the Village Retail, and it's open seven days a week. To six years ago, not in a place of boycott, nothing was happening in.
00:44:46
Speaker 2: The world in that sense.
00:44:48
Speaker 3: Or ten years ago when I launched Village Market, I literally have opened and created my spaces. It's simply because we should choose us every day, and we should have a space that has been designed and chosen for us, created by us, that we don't have to figure it out or one day something may change and there's no longer space for me on the shelves. If we build and create our things for ourselves, we are not controlled by any of the forces that tell you right now, at this time, you are not important. The Village Retail says you are important every single day. You are worthy every single day. You are good enough every single day. But let me be clear, we require excellence, yes we do. We require excellence in the Village Retail. The back of our shirt says excellence is a standard, not perfectionism, but excellence. Because I build from the place of I drive for experience, from customer service to our bags, everything is in peckably branded, and that is by design of excellence. And now the Village Retail scaling to the airport. This is placing brands on a global stage. Also, it is so hard to get in the airport. It is, it is, It is so hard to get.
00:46:24
Speaker 2: Into that industry.
00:46:26
Speaker 3: But when you have a village, when you have a village, you don't have to go by yourself.
00:46:32
Speaker 2: We go together.
00:46:33
Speaker 3: Yes, and when people have shopped at Village retail and they understand that's thirty plus black businesses, that that ribbon cutting was yes for my company, but it was symbolic of so many other companies that that is my wife and I want to shift.
00:46:55
Speaker 2: I want to shift our the way we choose lose each other.
00:47:01
Speaker 3: Do not choose me because you're mad, because when the emotion sobers, then often we go back to the very place. Yeah, they were no longer upset, and then our community is left behind. But if we make patronizing black businesses a lifestyle, that it becomes the first thought. I am striving that we become each other's first thought. If our books are coming out, we're each other's first thought. If a podcast is being announced, there's an episode, we are each other's first thought. That is community to me.
00:47:41
Speaker 2: And I love that.
00:47:43
Speaker 1: When you were opening the store and you saw that I had a hair Caroline, so you literally hit me and said, Crystal, we need to get your products in the stower. The fact that you even reach out and you know you spoke our good friend Tabitha Brown.
00:47:57
Speaker 2: Yes, I still love her. When I launched this line.
00:48:00
Speaker 1: She also has her own hair cair line. She text me and said, I'm so proud of you. If you need anything or help navigating different spaces, you call me. And I just want to say thank you, tab because she is just a diamond in the rough.
00:48:14
Speaker 2: She's a true gem that we should all cherish.
00:48:16
Speaker 1: But it's the dms like that and the text messages that means so much from women that see we see each other, you know, and even if we are navigating the same space, I'm letting you know there's room for you.
00:48:29
Speaker 2: You know there's room for us.
00:48:31
Speaker 3: Yes, the elevator, the elevation of consciousness is that the sun shines on you and I at the same time. Come on, and neither one of us is is we're we are not without it's warmth. So if there is enough space for the sun to shine on both you and I at the same time, let's put that in practice in our lives. There is room. There is room in the lane, there is space. Scarcity is another conditioning to make us feel that if Krystal has a product, then and the way I can support her, because it's going to take away from me. That is the conditioning of scarcity. And there are opportunities that you do feel that it is competition, but we also have been conditioned to believe that we are meant to be each other's competitors, then each other's sisters, and each other's collaborators. That is why words matter and really doing the root cause analysis of why we think the way that we think, and if we go deep into the roots, a lot of this is environmental conditioning that we have been programmed. There is space. I want every single person to hear this. There is room for all of us and even the goodness that we see and other people on how we may see them doing. Yeah, that is still bread crumbs by those who do not look like us. Yeah, that it is mere bread crumbs.
00:50:14
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:50:15
Speaker 3: Imagine if we decide to elevate our consciousness and to know that I require there be a room, I require there be space. I require that I require collaboration. My reaching out to you is like absolutely, I have a retail story. Come on, let's do this, And I think that is I'm a girl's girl anyway. Yeah, but I also think we have to live the things that we talk about.
00:50:46
Speaker 2: For sure. That's what tab does. She does. Yeah.
00:50:49
Speaker 3: No, my sister has helped me down. Tabithan Brown is all that people think she is and all that people have no.
00:50:59
Speaker 2: Idea that she is.
00:51:01
Speaker 3: Listen, she is one of the most genuine people I.
00:51:05
Speaker 2: Have ever met him. She really is.
00:51:07
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm so grateful to know her. I met her for the first time at the White House when Trail did the Black Experts question in DC, and She's like, me and my husband watch you all the time. I got to get a picture so I can send it to him, and I was like, oh, thank you. Then we end up exchanging information and then end up doing a movie together last year, and we have just been locked in and I just love her because she is one of those people that are randomly text you and let you know that she loves you and I'm thinking.
00:51:32
Speaker 2: About you, and that goes so far. You know.
00:51:36
Speaker 1: It's because a lot of times people are just so coughing their lives that we don't take a moment to just check in you know, so, I just love that and I.
00:51:43
Speaker 2: Love everything you are doing. It's just it's impactful.
00:51:46
Speaker 1: It is necessary, especially for our community Atlanta, a largely African American community, to have someone like you right here at home to show us, Hey, guys, we got what we need.
00:51:58
Speaker 2: We just need to support each other. I absolutely love it.
00:52:01
Speaker 1: Do you have anything else that's coming up that we can be on the lookout for? We know, concourse be at Atlanta Hartsville. We're going there for sure. Right across in the Dell's a lounge.
00:52:10
Speaker 2: We got that.
00:52:11
Speaker 1: Is there anything else that we can be on the lookout for or other places we can support you in?
00:52:15
Speaker 3: Yes, of course, always go by the book No One is Self Made. Yes, stop by my bookstore, Village Books. If you're in Atlanta. What you're waiting on when you're flying to Atlanta, add us a part of your destination. And if you are a small business owner and you are just looking for a village and your people, check out our Village United dot org. We built something so special with the organization. But I will say this, one of the greatest ways that you can support my work is by loving yourself. The greatest ways that we can support each other, it's by doing our own individual work. Because when we do our INDI visual work, we will put the weapons down and we will train our eyes to see each other and not be intimidated by what we see, but see it from a gaze of love. When we get to this place of deep healing, when we get to this place of deep knowing that it's not by any accident. We were created by such divine loving hands, and that it's not by accident that we share time together, that we were chosen for such a time as this. If you ever want, if you ever want to love and support doctor Key, do your work. I'm going to do my work and we will be well and do great things together.
00:53:48
Speaker 2: I love that, Dot Keith, thank you so so much.
00:53:52
Speaker 1: And closing, I do want to ask our theme this season is unapologetic. We are walking through life unapologetically. I want to know what is doctor Key unapologetic about in this season of her life?
00:54:04
Speaker 3: Chris, I'm so clear and unapologetic about who I am. Yes, I am so clear. I'm grateful that I still my feet are anchored so deeply enjoy I'm unapologetic about my joy. I am unapologetic about my clarity about this divine mission that we're on. And I'm also unapologetic that I will say the things that needs to be said out loud, affirmingly, still with love. But I am wavering and what I believe the light at the end of the tunnel is for us. Yeah, I love that, doctor Keith.
00:54:50
Speaker 2: Thank you so much.
00:54:51
Speaker 1: I know you got a crazy schedule. Thank you for sitting down with us. I know this blessed me, so I know it's gonna bless our listeners. Thank you, Thank you absolutely, thank you good. What I appreciate most about this conversation is that it reminds us that success means very little if it only benefits us individually.
00:55:13
Speaker 2: Doctor Key's work is.
00:55:14
Speaker 1: So powerful because she's not just building businesses, she's building community, access and systems of care. In a time where so many people feel disconnected, overwhelmed, or isolated, this conversation reminds us that we are never meant to do life alone. Thank you, doctor Keith for your wisdom, your intentionality, and for reminding us the power of collective care and community. Be sure to grab your copy of No One Is Self Made where books are sold. Thank you all for tuning in to another episode of Keep It Positive. Sweetie, don't forget to download the season eleven Kip's Reflection Guide at Christineheesa dot com.
00:55:50
Speaker 2: Subscribe and share this episode with someone who could use a little positivity.
00:55:54
Speaker 1: And if you want advice, positivity, or just want to share what you're going through, email us at keep it Positive dotcoms at gmail dot com. As always, stay blessed, stay encouraged, and keep it positive.
00:56:05
Speaker 2: Sweetly, I'll see you guys next time.
