Seek Help - 18th Edition

Happy January Fellow Seekers!!! Hope you are having an excellent 2025 despite the chaos that is this administration. If you haven't started journaling, I'd highly recommend it to help process the madness and create space to focus on what works for you!! In this edition of Seek Help, I'm focused on looking in but I will hold space in the next edition for more resources! I do want to hold space and send love first to those who are suffering right now in our country, those impacted by the LA Fires, my federal employee friends and those lost in the recent airline crash in DC just to name a few. If you are going through a trying time, give yourself grace and space to heal and let others know to be gentle with you for now.

Seek Learning

Where to begin?!?! The first excitement of year started in Vegas with CES 2025 supporting Rakia Finley being a boss and speaking at The Female Quotient lounge and on the CES stage!! (Check out their Youtube for all the wonderful work they do!!). This was my first time attending CES and it was so wonderful getting to cheerlead for a friend who's doing incredible work (and looking fabulous while doing it!!). It was also really cool to see the incredible innovation and technology emerging. Nasir C. Qadree is another DC entrepreneur we ran into while making the rounds in Vegas.

One of the best parts of CES was meeting other wonderful Black women from around the world and sharing a meal thanks to Copper & Vine Studio, Co. bringing us all together! There were so many magical moments and meals shared in between sessions and conversations.

Some of my favorite random small world moments were meeting my literal neighbor (like 2 houses over), having our housemate Katrina's sister in law show up to dinner (as a guest of someone else lol) and running into a childhood friend at dinner.

Some folks to watch in 2025 from CES:

• Rakia Finley because she continues to create, innovate and inspire on a daily basis!!
• Amber Coleman-Mortley was crushing the stage at The Female Quotient and I suspect she's a big part of their secret sauce making things hot over there!!
• Shannon Nash, Esq., CPA is an inspiration and someone I look forward to connecting with again in the future!!
• ????????ERIN (Ear-in) HORNE MCKINNEY, M.A.???????? is a super connector and inspiration!
• Tiffany M. Moore was getting her well deserved flowers because so many people were in the room because of her and the work that she does!
• Esosa Ighodaro is the founder of Black Women Talk Tech AcceleratorCON and so many other incredible community building events you should know about!
• Alethia Jackson who founded The Ultimate Power Play who is another super connector.
• Marie Long, who's also in DC and I definitely should have met much sooner!!
• Emily Hawkins - someone who is equally as brilliant as she is kind!!
• Omi Bell of BLACK GIRL VENTURES FOUNDATION who just had an awesome start at the The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts for her wellness work!
• Sanika Gentles who is another wearer of many hats!!
• Degion (Di-jion) Craddock, MBA, MSD is a part of BLK Men in Tech and I look forward to connecting around Blk Men in Wellness!! Let's get well together.
• Candace Solola was another first timer at CES and was a delight to connect with!! I look forward to us connecting at more conferences and events.
• Adriann G. of CreateHER Fest.

These are just a few of the incredible folks I connect with at CES this year!!

If you still want to learn a little more, I'm still thinking about this sermon on Trees so if you haven't watched it, check it out!!

Seek Doing

One of my favorite events in January is the Mindful Drinking Fest which has already grown 10x from the 120 people we started with 4 years ago at the first Festival. Thanks to a beautiful picture by Mariah Miranda last year, my face was all over the deck and promotional material for this year so it was a lovely and fitting surprise when Derek Brown reached out to ask me if I wanted to do one of the opening sessions for the fest!! We sat down and talked about "Why Mindful Drinking Matters: Connecting the Dots Between Mindful Consumption, Health, and Social Wellness". It was a great conversation that really brought together my many hats, experiences and passions. I really loved these visuals that Change Artfully created for each session (you can see ours below!)

I want to give a shout out to Derek Brown and Maria Bastasch for creating the festival and bringing so many wonderful people together to support it like Marcos Salazar ?????? Pauline Idogho, Michelle Garske, Anika Sawni and the entire team that showed up to make it all work!! Already excited for next year and watching it continue to grow!!

My other highlight for January was going to Davos for the World Economic Forum with Cannes Can: Diversity Collective to support Adrianne C. Smith and her fearless supporters Francesca Weems Juan Woodbury Sebastian Hagan Tope Ajala who all showed up to make magic on the mountain. Also want to give props to Cheyenne Cameron-Pruitt who was on call in a whole different time zone backing us up!! It was such a privilege to be a part of this magical event on Martin Luther King Day in Switzerland even as this administration tries to roll back our civil rights.

Also shout out to the AskKat team for all their support in making it happen: Katherine "Kat" Randel, Lauren Gilbert, Megan O’Neill, Curtis Jewell, Bianca K. Biscaino, Beatriz Calleja, Pasha Kalachev.

I spent the day turning on the charm and welcoming everyone to the mountain top!

Sessions and the Folks to watch from Cannes Can: Diversity Collective Inkwell Davos 2025:

• The Future of Women in Leadership – Winning in spite of Headwinds featured Valeisha Butterfield Ana Domingues Trisha Rao Dr. Monique Gary, DO, MSc, FACS, FSSO Rachel Catanach
• Culture Capitalism: The Role of Pop Culture and Media in Building Inclusive Economies featured Seth Schachner Larry Adams Nicole Loftus Ebony Young, MSOL Katja Iversen
• Water: Salty & Fresh featured Sarah Howard J. Carl Ganter ?? Deborah Brosnan Stewart Flink Mary de Wysocki
• Inkbox Talk: We Are Family Foundation featured Adrianne C. Smith in conversation with @Nile Rodgers Chmba Ellen Chilemba
• Power Redefined: Owning Ambition, Influence, and Equity featured Chris Foster Avra Goldstone Lorrimer Candace Montgomery Miatta Johnson Luana Génot
• Tomorrow’s Finance: Shaping the Future featured Nneka Ukpai as moderator (my girl held it down!!) with Adrian Zduńczyk, CMT Steven Orr Livio Scalvini Janina Bauer
• Advancing Malaria Solutions: Enhancing Drug Development, Access, and Global Health Equity featured Ana Maria Montero - Moderator Frank Gupton Ramu Veerapaan
• AI For Good? How To Build for Inclusion and Belonging featured Doug Melville a speaker and writer to watch who had everyone tuned in when he moderated his panel - check out this piece he wrote for Forbes about the event (DEI in Davos) with Wanji Walcott Dr. Joy Buolamwini Aftab “Af” Malhotra

Seek Eats

I've been eating all the good food (maybe a little too much lol). Here are some highlights from Vegas, Davos and DC (where it's Restaurant Week).

Seek Nature

Go touch some grass!! Cruelty and Chaos is the point right now so make sure you are taking care of yourself and protecting your peace. Please Please Please make sure you are hydrating, exercising and resting. Being outside on the mountaintop was restorative for me and my moment with nature. The clean crisp mountain air was recharging.

Seek to Help Others

Here are a few things to help yourself or those around you!

• TAKE A BREAK - Fill your cup first, do whatever you need to do to be okay, to be safe. We can resume the work tomorrow because we know it's not done but today we can grieve and breathe and heal a little before we get back in the trenches.
• When you are ready, TAKE REAL ACTION. The best way to show you are a safe person is to be on with your words and actions. It's about to get rockier so we need to look out for each other. Be more than an ally, be an accomplice.
• Stand up for each other, vulnerable people need us now more than ever. If you see something problematic, speak out against it because silence is complicit and remember the more people there are the less likely someone will say something because everyone assumes someone else will. Go against the grain, be someone else.
• KEEP A JOURNAL!! These are wild and traumatic times and I know I'm going to block out so much of this period so I'm getting back into journaling so I can have a record of the chaos.we ran into while making the rounds in Vegas.