For women building something — a life, a business, a self. Field Notes from The Audacity Project, essays on culture and self-awareness, and the kind of honest reflection your group chat has been having for years. Direct to your inbox.
The Work Was Always Just Mine
|
THE AUDACITY DISPATCH A LETTER FROM JOYHDAE. Wow. I'm actually here. When I started the Audacity Project in April, I had a vision for what it could become. What I thought I would build. What I thought the public showing up would feel like. I was wrong about almost all of it. Phase 1 was The Declaration. Me saying my goals out loud, to the public, and inviting them along. What I learned is that declaring something out loud doesn't mean people are going to sign up for it with you. At least not out loud. And that's okay. The wins feel like yours alone. The journey feels isolating, not because people aren't watching, but because the praise almost always comes after. You realize how much you were counting on others to push you forward, and then you realize you have to want it more than you need them to want it for you. The audience is the bonus. The work was always just yours. Now I'm standing at the edge of Phase 2, and here's what's different about it. This phase asks for evidence, not intention. A score. A number. A partnership that either lands or doesn't. Phase 1 let me point to the launch and the consistency and call that enough. Phase 2 wants receipts. I'm chasing partnerships with brands that are, if I'm being real with myself, bigger than where my numbers currently are. I don't have an unshakeable belief in myself yet. I'm building the belief and the evidence at the same time, which is its own kind of audacity. This is the longest commitment I have ever made to myself. Thirteen weeks in, and I'm not done yet. Welcome to Phase 2. The Build starts now. WHAT I SAID I WOULD DO. Build in public. Document everything. No waiting for permission. Grow the community. 300 to 500 new followers per month across platforms, with the long-term target of 5,000 to 7,500 by project end. Launch the free Audacity starter kit and prove demand for a paid digital product. Pursue brand deals and PR relationships. Plant the seeds. Show up consistently. Note to Self. The Audacity Score. Every week, in public, on record. THE AUDACITY SCORE AT CLOSE: 6/10. I showed up. Not perfectly. But I showed up. WHAT THE BUILD REQUIRES. I. Grow the community with intention. 1,000 on Instagram. 1,750 on TikTok. 250 on YouTube. Not vanity metrics. Evidence that the work is reaching the right people. II. Earn it. Close at least one paid brand partnership at $500 or more and lock in a relationship built to last. Three to six months minimum. This is not about the check. It's about proving that I am worth investing in. III. Launch In My Friends' Business. The series that has been living in my head gets a home. On camera. In public. IV. Build with others. Intentional collaboration with creators doing similarly positioned work. Because isolation is a Phase 1 lesson I'm not repeating. V. Grow the number. I won't give you every detail, but by October 15 my personal financial picture will be measurably different than it is today. I'm putting that on record. The audience is the bonus. The work was always just yours.THE RESIDUAL QUESTION. Phase 1 was truly a declaration. There were early wins, but the middle is where I learned that the work not only gets done, it gets done in a silo. The wins may feel small. They are setting the stage for something bigger. Phase 2 is where the work really begins. It will require you to dig deeper and think less about the wins and more about the process. About closing things out. You are truly building something here. And Phase 2 will be the part of this journey that pushes you the furthest and has you doubting yourself the most. That's not a warning. That's the point. WHAT I'M READING, WATCHING, THINKING. Listening to: Redefine Wealth for Yourself by Patrice Washington. Because Phase 2 is about more than the numbers and I needed a Black woman to remind me of that. Playing: My own playlists. The ones I built for exactly this. Some things you have to soundtrack yourself. Sitting with: What if The Build is a dud? I'm doing this scared. Out loud, in public, and genuinely unsure of the outcome. We push through anyway. The Build has truly started. |
Joyhdae
For women building something — a life, a business, a self. Field Notes from The Audacity Project, essays on culture and self-awareness, and the kind of honest reflection your group chat has been having for years. Direct to your inbox.
The Ask I Have Not Made Field Notes — This Week's Audacity Thursday, August 13 Observation: We were raised to be so competent that asking for something feels like admitting the competence was a bluff. Her answer: I have been building this whole thing, the page, the numbers, the pitches, without once asking for what I actually think it is worth. I keep letting the numbers set the price instead of me. And under that, there is a smaller question I have never answered either. When someone lands...
I sent the emails. Carefully written. Genuinely considered. The kind of pitch that took longer than I want to admit because I kept second-guessing the tone, the ask, the way I positioned what I'm building here. I can see that they were received. I cannot tell you they were opened. There is a specific kind of waiting that lives in the gap between sent and seen. You check. You tell yourself not to check. You check again. You read the email back looking for the thing that was wrong, the word...
Nobody tells you that growth at this age isn't additive. That's the version they sell you. The one where you become more. More confident, more certain, more yourself. Where the work of becoming adds layers and dimension and you emerge richer than you went in. Where the upgrade is a plus sign. What they don't tell you is that some of it is subtraction. I have been quietly losing things this year. Not dramatically. Not in a way that makes a good story with a clean ending. Just slowly, piece by...