So my session today is supposed to be about, from operator to owner, to building authority, testing new pathways, and stepping into, you know, strategic lead leadership.But I have to be honest with you. The last several months have been very, very challenging for me. And I'm a person that likes to I I I live in authenticity and honesty and just who I am. And I did not feel comfortable speaking to you all about those things knowing that I was struggling with them myself. So I know that doesn't make a whole lot of sense, so we'll just get started. When I initially signed up to do this talk, I was running a tech magazine. It's called Triangle Tech Review.

I was also the principal consultant at my own IT consulting company. It's called Ramex Tech and also working full time as a senior cloud engineer for my current company. And I thought that everything was okay, that I could handle it. I'm prior military. I've been in the military seventeen years. So I'm you know, I was a single mom, so I'm used to juggling a lot of things. And this isn't my first time dabbling into entrepreneurship. I had owned a magazine some years ago. So I knew the ins and outs. This is not something new to me. I've done this several times before. And I'm like, okay. It's no big deal. Well, it was a big deal. So shortly after I decided that I wanted to do this, I started working for my current company, FIS. And it's a great organization. I love it there.

But I started in an already established team, and all all men. The guys are really great. They really are. But when you're the new person on an established team, there's a bit of trial and error in figuring out where you belong and how you fit in. My colleagues have been working together for a minimum of five years. So they know each other. They know know the ins and outs. They know the clients. They know how to do all the work. And I was a new person coming in. And I'll be honest and say, I struggled a lot trying to figure out, you know, who to go, where to go, you know, who to talk to, and the things that they already knew instinctively because they had been there for a while. I struggled with. Impostor syndrome was just kicking my butt. There's no other way to put it. I've been in tech for over twenty years.

I've worked as a system administrator. I've worked as a network engineer. I've worked in cybersecurity. I've done so many different things and in so many different industries that I felt I feel comfortable with my knowledge and my expertise. But starting into this new organization and this new team, I don't even know what the magic was, but it was difficult for me. It was very challenging. And I honestly, I think because I am the only woman on the team, I didn't feel I don't still don't feel the same camaraderie that I would have if there was at least another woman on the team. And I think that's where I struggled because I didn't want to burden men with the struggles that I was having. I don't know if that makes sense, but that's kinda how I was feeling. And so at the same time, I also had some personal struggles.

I had a couple of deaths in the family. And like I said, I have two children. My daughter had graduated college and was making her adjustments into so there was a lot of things going on in my life. I got excited about this opportunity, and I was like, yes. This is my area of expertise. I can talk about this. But the overwhelm, it started to get to me, and I didn't realize that the overwhelm was getting to me. I think around November is when I said, okay. I can do this, and I'm good to go. I had started planning out my talk, had my points together, and I started to feel the overwhelm. But I thought I was okay because I'm like, okay. December's coming. I have this big trip plan. I went to Europe for ten days in December.

We went to Portugal, Spain, and France. It was amazing. You know, I took my mom. Amazing. I'm thinking that, okay. This will be my time to reset and refocus and get back into it. But then I came back from my trip, and reality came back with me. My life came back with me. My responsibilities came back with me, and that struggle was still there. So then I told myself, okay, Bernice. So you're already dealing with some impostor syndrome. Let's step away from social media because, you know, everything this is around the time when, there was a lot going on in the media. Still a lot going on in me. I don't even remember what exactly was going on at that moment, but there was a lot going on in the media.

And I was like, let me just step back because I need to refocus and I need to keep what's the main thing the main thing for me. And that didn't work as well as I thought. I did stay off social media, and I'm still off of social media, but things just still kept spiraling and spiraling. And before I knew it, I was lost. I struggled to get out of bed. I missed very important meetings with clients. I missed deadlines at work. My mental health had tanked, and I was still trying to hold on to this I'm superwoman and I can do everything, but I wasn't. And so there are some hard truths that I had to learn. And to be completely honest, it took me till probably about mid April to kinda feel like I'm up my head is above water. I'm still rebuilding.

You know, I'm still getting back to, doing things the way that that's most comfortable for me, but I I really took a hard hit at the end of twenty twenty five, beginning of twenty twenty six. The newsletter that I was writing kinda just fell off. Not intentionally, but I was so overwhelmed with dealing with the responsibilities in my life that I didn't have time to do the research and to actually write the things that I was passionate about. My IT consulting, again, same thing fell off because I I knew that I had a full time job, and so I didn't put the energy and the time into building my entrepreneurship, you know, adventure the way that I would normally have done because, again, I was heavy. Life was just lifey. And even, to be honest, my work struggled. My focus was off. My head was foggy. I just I just struggled to maintain and just to be this senior engineer that I had been, and I didn't know how to get back to it.

So there are a few things that I learned during this time, and I'm hoping that, you know, my experience will help someone else not make the same mistake I did because I literally almost burned it all down. The first thing I learned is to, not isolate. That's a bad habit that I do. I don't know if any others do the same thing, but I do. When things get overwhelming and they get tough, I tend to turn in on myself. You know? I go and I not necessarily cut my friends and family off, but feel like I don't wanna burden them with things that are going on in my life. Whether it's because I don't feel like I understand or they have enough going on. You know? I can deal with it. I can handle it. That's something that I kept telling myself. I got this. I got it. It'll be okay. I just need to take a nap, or I just need to prioritize.

I need to get a new planner. There were so many different tips and tricks that I thought I could try to dig myself out of this hole that I found myself in. But that wasn't the case. I needed my community. I needed my friends. When I finally opened my mouth and said to my friends, I'm struggling, they were there to help me. Whether they were business owners or not, they were there to say, okay, what do you need? What do you need from me? How can I support you? How can I help you? And sometimes, that just meant sitting on the couch and just talking about everything that was going on in our lives.

Not solutions, not wallowing in it, just saying it out loud. I am struggling here. Another thing that I did is I reached out to my manager, and I told him I said, hey. I'm struggling, and this is what I'm struggling with. And, you know, he was very very, very compassionate. He was like, why didn't you say anything? And I was like, because I didn't feel like I could burden you with what I was feeling. And so, I mean, those things were very helpful. But that's the first thing I learned is to not isolate. The second thing I learned is to celebrate the small wins. When I was feeling like I was failing miserably, I was barely able to stay focused at work, I felt like I was letting my subscribers down because the newsletters wouldn't get now, like, that I was supposed to do, my schedule, my plan, those items that were not getting checked off just made me feel worse and worse and worse about myself.

And so that compounds the mental fatigue and, you know, all the confusion and the impostor syndrome. It just makes it bigger and it makes it worse. And so what I started to do is to count the small wins. You know? If I got an email out, that's a win. If I was able to go to a networking event, whether I've met any potential clients or just meeting other people, that was a win. When I completed a project at work, that was a win. Whether it was a big project or a little project. When I was able to go outside and walk three miles, that's something that I started to do. I started walking three miles a day with my dog, and that was yes. Brush my teeth.

That I literally I still had to add that to my those are all wins. When you're struggling, you need the small wins. Some days it's hard to get out of bed to take a shower. Taking a shower is a win. Your win doesn't have to be, I closed a 100 k on this deal or I got 17 new clients in this month. Your win could be, I got up and although I work from home, I put on clothes and didn't work in my pajamas. That is also a win. So celebrate the small wins. Another thing that I learned thank you. Another thing that I learned is to talk to somebody even if and I know that I said stop isolating, but isolate not isolating and talking to someone is are completely different things.

And I don't mean necessarily a therapist. That's also a great idea. But just talking to somebody in your industry, in your field that's doing what you want to do, just having somebody that you can say, okay. This is where I'm stuck and I need help. We're not an island. We were not meant to be alone. We were not meant to live this life alone. We're not meant to work alone. You're not meant to build a business alone. You should have at least one person, preferably two, but at least one person that you can go to when things are you're struggling in your business, whether it's your work or your entrepreneurship goals, and say, this is where I'm at. And have you been here? Do you, you know, do you have any thoughts? Can I talk through this with you? Maybe we can figure out something together.

Or can I just tell you what's going on and tell me that I'm not crazy? There were times, especially with my newsletter. I enjoy writing tank Triangle Tech Review. The newsletter is about emerging technology and industry. I like to talk to college students. I like to talk to those working in health tech and, you know, environmental tech. I love to talk to different people about what they do in technology, but I kinda got a little overwhelmed. It's difficult to meet. I'm in a new area. I recently moved to North Carolina, and so I don't have the same network here that I had in my hometown from Virginia originally. So it's difficult to put yourself out there in front of people that don't know you and don't know of you, but you need their help. And I don't know about you, but I'm like a person, I don't like to ask for something unless I'm giving for something.

I think that each relationship should be reciprocal. If you're giving pouring into me, then I should be pouring into you. So it's a struggle for me to ask people for help that I don't know. It's that's just honest. But it's also important that you talk to people that are doing the same things that you're doing because they can help you. And another thing that I learned, and this one is so important, so important, stay true to who you are. I'm an introvert. I love people, and I'm not shy. And I was in the military for seventeen years, so I've learned how to lead, and I've learned how to speak, and I've learned how to present, and I learned how to do all those I know how to network. I know how to be out in public. But to my core, I am an introvert.

When this session is over, I'm probably gonna go lay down and take a nap because it's a lot for me. It takes a lot for me to step out of my comfort zone. I enjoy doing things like this, but it's also very, very draining for me because I like my solitude. I like my quiet time. I need to decompress at the end of a day like this or a moment when I'm out in public speaking. It's not that I don't wanna be around people. It's that I need to recharge afterwards. And that's something that I was not honoring in myself the last several months. I was going to I had set an aggressive schedule for myself. I don't know what I was thinking.

And I was doing, like, two networking events a week, and I was having client meetings three days a week. And then I had planned to work at a coffee shop to get the newsletter going, and I was going to talk to, like, twice a month, sit down and do interview. It was a lot. It was a lot for me. I knew better, and yet I was like, no. I can do it. And that really is the catalyst to where the mental fatigue started coming in and the impostor syndrome started coming in because I was being somebody that I'm not. That's not who I am. I can't maintain that schedule and that level of social just awareness as being out there. It started to feel like things were closing in. And so I started off strong. I started off very, very strong, and then eventually, the decline came in.

And I was showing up less and less, And I was being less and less consistent. And I was being less and less reliable. And that hurt. That really hurt because I like to be someone I pride myself on being someone that's reliable, that's loyal, that's trustworthy. What I say is what I do. That's who I am. And I wasn't being that person because I was overwhelming myself trying to be someone I'm not. So I've learned that I need to honor myself. I know that I can handle maybe three networking events a month, not a week, a month. And I also learned that because of that, I need to be intentional about the times and the ways that I am social, that I'm out in public, and that I'm using my voice, and that I'm being seen, and I'm being noticed. I can't show up to everything.

Just because it sounds good and just because it might be fun, I can't show up to all of those things because in the end, I'm drained. I get home, and I can't move, and I can't do anything. And I spend more time recovering than I am actually following up on the people that I met and I talked to and the connections that I made. I'm also not a person that I know it's very, I need to work on this. I do. But I'm not a person that is very active on social media. I just do not like I I like the face to face conversation. I don't like the back and forth over texting because I feel like there's a lot of conversation that's missed that way.

Communication is all about your facial features, the energy you have, the movements, your tone, how you're looking, how you're speaking. All of that I feel is missed in typing communication. I I agree that there's a place for social media, but that's not where I like to build community. I like to build community in person. And because I know that about me, I know that I have to be, you know, outside and I have to meet people, but I also have to be strategic and intentional about it. So those are the most important things that I learned, in the last several weeks. It has definitely been a challenge. And, to be honest, like I said, I am still walking back to where they go.

I have every intention on revising and revamping and bringing Triangle Tech Review back out again because it's something I enjoy. That's a passion. I don't make any money from it. I do it because I enjoy I love tech. My kids tease me all the time, and they say I'm a tech nerd. So that's definitely going to come back. But I've learned some lessons over the last few months that I think are be will be impactful and extremely helpful for me moving forward. And I really, really hope that you all got something out of my story and what I went through over these last couple of months. I know this session isn't as long it was intended to be, but, I mean, that's just honest.

I I struggled over the last few months, and I just was not prepared to come to you all and tell you that I'm amazing and you can do it. No. The reality is that you'll have some times like that where it feels like your life is falling apart around you and your your mind's your your your headspace is not where it needs to be. But knowing how to get back to who you were before, not rushing on your own time, on your own way, but knowing that it's normal and it's okay and it doesn't last always. That is the most important thing. Failure is when you quit. If you stop for a moment and restart, you're not starting from the beginning. You're starting from more knowledge. You're starting from more experience. You're starting from a place of different intelligence.

You know what didn't work the fur the last time, and you know what things you need to reset, realign, and refocus on to be even more successful moving forward. I mentioned before, this isn't my first time dabbling into entrepreneurship. I had a magazine that I had some years ago. And when that season ran out, I didn't I wasn't angry. I wasn't set up upset about it. I knew that that season had ended. So when I started something new, I had new lessons. I had a new perspective. I had new ideas that I learned from what I did before. So, again, thank you all so much for joining me today. I have some time. If anyone has any questions that you want me to answer, I'm an open book. I don't mind sharing, you know, just about anything. Is there any questions? Thank you, Amanda. I don't know any other way to be. I promise you I tried.

I said, well, maybe I can just go through. And I was like, yeah. No. That's just not me. Thank you, Cheryl. I appreciate you. Alright. Well, if we don't have any questions, again, like I said, my session was kinda cut short, but I hope it was impactful. You ladies have an amazing day, and thank you so