Hey Reader,
​
We're only 10 days into 2025, and what a week it's been. I turned 40 on January 5th. 40 feels so grown and all I am is a babygehl 👼🏾so I'm not understanding that number. But I am so thankful for God's grace, and that we don't look like what we've been through. This is definitely giving GROWNNN and I appreciate that. I had such a great birthday and felt adored and adorned.

But since then? January 6 was the 4-year anniversary of the insurrection, and Vice President Kamala Harris had to certify the election. She's so classy because I would have certified and then flipped at least one table in that Capitol over and told everyone to go to hell as I stormed out. 😩
​
And now the wildfire devastation in Los Angeles. I don't have words to capture the magnitude, the horror, the loss. 😰 I'm simply saying "I'm sorry" to everyone affected. And trying to make sure I practice what I'm about to preach.

RANT

The platitudes and the lack of empathy is appalling.
​
​We need to have a word about these responses to the LA fires because the way folks are handling this is beyond disappointing. 😤
​
To everyone who keeps saying "it's just stuff" or "material things can be replaced," I need you to stop that RIGHT NOW. The audacity to tell people who just lost EVERYTHING but the shirts on their backs to "look on the bright side!" Nope. We're not doing that. 🙅🏾‍♀️ What’s the bright side?

Then there's the folks talmbout "Well they're rich so..." UMMM WRONG 😒. Everyone who lives in LA isn’t rich. Altadena, which was decimated, was a neighborhood built by generations of Black and Brown people. And also… rich people ain't people? I need us to get a fcking grip and not be so terrible at humaning. Last I checked, trauma don't check your bank account before it hits. A home is a HOME. Whether it cost $100K or $10M. It's where memories live. Where safety was supposed to be guaranteed. Where people built their lives.
​
Homes hold the first steps of our babies. The height marks on the wall showing how tall our kids grew. The kitchen where grandma taught us her secret recipe. The living room where we celebrated every milestone. That photo album we inherited when our parents passed. The artwork our kids made in kindergarten. The things money literally cannot replace. 😭

People are either being toxically positive or hellish and insensitive. And I hate it for all of us, because this is a moment when our collective humanity needs to rise up and show up. As the world burns.

Let people FEEL THINGS. Hold space for their pain without trying to manage it. Your job right now is to listen, support, and keep your empty platitudes to yourself. No matter how much money someone has or doesn’t have, looking at a pile of ashes in a spot that used to be your resting place is intense trauma. 🙏🏾
​
Let us do better by each other. This brings me to…

REFLECTION

We are who we need. Community is a verb.
​
​Yesterday morning, I got a call that broke me open and showed me exactly what we need in times like these. The owner of the hammam spa I mention I went to on Instagram a couple of days ago called me to say “You saved me.” After I went to his spa and posted the name online, folks have been making appointments, and going! And because of the new patronage, we might have helped save this small business! 🥹
​
In the middle of watching LA burn, watching folks lose everything, watching crisis after crisis unfold there and around the world, it was an affirmation of something we cannot ever forget: COMMUNITY WILL SAVE US. WE ARE WHO WE NEED.

We keep depending on government, corporations, politicians, billionaires, etc. to save us. We keep putting the bulk of our hope and waiting on the folks that have been deemed powerful in this fickle world to have the answers to our problems. We keep waiting and hoping that people who have a financial interest in our struggles will wake up and be ethical and dig us out of the holes THEY put us in.
​
​And all along, WE have been the ones who need to save each other. 🤲🏾
​
​Community isn't a noun. It's a VERB. It's active. It's showing up before the crisis hits. It's building networks of care that can sustain us through every season. It's what y'all did for that spa owner without even knowing how much he needed it. 💪🏾
​
We're watching Airbnb offering free housing to folks who are now unhoused because of these fires (which is good!). Restaurants are giving out free food to anyone who needs it. Folks have donated to many clothes to the Pasadena Convention Center that they say they have enough.
​
And what I’m thinking is: why can’t we be there for each other like this BEFORE the world burns? Why do we gotta wait for disaster to strike before we extend radical grace? Why does devastation have to happen before we decide to be kind?
​
RADICAL COMMUNITY is what will carry us through, these four years and beyond. When we show up for each other, open hearted, open handed, open doored, we can start rebuilding what we have lost. That's the real infrastructure we need. ❤️

That spa owner's voice yesterday? The way it cracked with gratitude? That's the sound of community in action. That's what happens when we decide to be responsible for each other's success, for each other's survival. When we understand that my win is your win is OUR win. 🙌🏾
​
I think about the Gwendolyn Brooks quote, and I hope we meditate on this: “We are each other's harvest; we are each other's business; we are each other's magnitude and bond.” ​
​
Let us not wait for the next crisis. This is a divine duty. What if we practiced community as a collective obligation? What if we showed up for each other radically, consistently, intentionally? What if we understood that the safety net we're looking for is US? 🤔💭

RECOMMENDATION

Save your seat in my FREE masterclass.
​
​As for me, one of the ways I’m going to do my part is to double down on purpose work. Because one thing I believe we must do is make sure our stories, our truths, our lessons learned don't disappear into the wind. 🙏🏾 And way too often, we say “I’ll do it later?” What if LATER doesn’t come? We assume we have time. We assume we will have the chance to do it in the future.
​
I think of my bestie Boz’s words (and her book The URGENT LIFE) about how she lives like there are no other chances to do what she wants to do. Boz, who btw, lost her Malibu dream home in the LA wildfires this week 😓😨. It’s devastating. But she has no regrets about the fact that she moved with urgency to do what she wanted and built that sanctuary.

For me, that urgency is in the form of the books we must write. Books that could outlive us. And I want to help more people see their book dreams come true.

Next week, I'm hosting a FREE masterclass called "From Idea to Ink: 7 Steps to Write & Publish Your Book." Because your story? The lessons you've learned? The wisdom you've gained? That needs to be preserved. Not just on social media. Not just in your head. But in a form that can't be erased. That can sit on someone's shelf and remind them they're not alone. Even burned books are books. Even banned books are books. 📚❤️
​
Soooo if you’ve ever thought about writing a book, I welcome you to save a seat and attend this session, even to spark your curiosity about what it takes to make books happen.

🗓️ The masterclass is happening on January 14th at 7pm CT/8pm ET, and your seat is waiting for you at TBAMasterclass.com.

So tell me, what will you commit to doing to showing that COMMUNITY IS A VERB? What is an action that you are going to take to be a good community member? Reply and let me know. 💬
​
​In community and truth,

P.S. BTW, ONE lucky live attendee to my masterclass will win a FREE 1:1 Power Hour coaching session with me (valued at $3,000). But you gotta show up live to be eligible! 🎯Soooo see you there! It could be you! 🙏🏾