Before I start…

Just know it’s currently 6pm on the same day the newsletter is published, which really should tell you all you need to know about how the past 2 weeks have been. I’ve had so much to do in the job, business, school, my child giving me COVID, needing to wash my hair and do laundry every week of it all.

I regret to inform you…

That the original newsletter I had planned is not edited to the standard it needs to be to be published, so I had to scrap it all because I’m exhausted and simply don’t feel like editing anything past this intro.

BUT

In my quest to do a newsletter bi-weekly no matter what this year, I leave you with…

A STORY FROM THE BACKLOGS

The story time corner. As I reflect on what makes my lore my own, I hope you can see a piece of yourself in it too.

— I ❤️ THE DARK WEB

Did I ever tell y’all about the job I got on the dark web? 

It was the job that put me on to the beauty of working to French pop, how trusting middle aged people are of strangers, and that running a business is basically yelling on the phone and paying people to do things you could do yourself.

What had happened was…

In the summer of 2018, my internship at Target had just ended and due to POOR money management, I was back broke within a week. A friend at the time told me that their partner had found a job on the dark web and I should try it out for some extra cash.

So I took my ass on the dark web, Craigslist, and found a job as a personal assistant.

I had no idea who the person was. Did no background checks. I simply showed up to an apartment on 5th ave (in Pittsburgh, don't get excited ya'll) and started working for this little white lady with huge tits, a terrible sunburn, and adult braces. Her stories of working as a wedding planner and telling of all the places she’d been felt fabulous to me, so without much thought, I signed on to start work that same day.

Much of the job revolved around me listening to her scream at her boyfriend over some payroll or scheduling issue as I racked up the hours. She had me doing things like listing things to sell on OfferUp, calling GoDaddy to find her domain, and putting her French lessons on the stereo system. Mind you, within maybe 2 weeks of knowing me, she was encouraging me to memorize the passwords to all her accounts for easy use - many of these passwords leading to accounts with every detail of info a virtual stranger shouldn’t have had.

It was nuts working there. Not just from all the screaming and lack of boundaries, but because her business structure was an absolute train wreck and the more I helped her on tasks I considered rudimentary, the more I gained confidence that I could run a business one day too. When she told me herself after successfully logging her into Gmail, she told me, “you could run a business.”

I'd be lying to tell you that that comment didn't plant in my subconscious. Being a personal assistant on the dark web thankfully got me over the hill of lacking money, then stationing me at the base of the mountain of fully embracing her words - going out on my own to run a business (while playing French pop in the background like she taught me).

My parting lesson, question, or word of advice—it'll vary each time, but it'll always be something to help you tap into your best self - starting today.

— Ask yourself: 

What’s stopping you?