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We might want change now—but change is almost always met with resistance.

And resistance to change is, at its core, protective.

Yet, this well-intentioned approach can end up hurting instead of helping especially when the desire to protect is at the expense of the well-being of others.

When we look at the industries that focus around our image, it gets even messier.

I am late to the fashion, make-up, skincare party—and I have loved playing around with style and products that make me feel good. It has been fun to support some incredible companies caring more about just the bottom line and support causes that serve the greater good.

Still, the messaging around beauty and health can be disorienting… and sometimes downright demoralizing to the point where we confuse the truth on our worth and value.

This is where leaders transform their care into activism in order to cultivate spaces that are brave and safe for all.

This is work.

This is THE work.

So what does cultivating spaces that are brave and safe actually look like? How do we dismantle our own internalized bias or oppression to create spaces where people truly feel welcome and included in the work at hand? And how does this all relate to the work of building a business or managing a team or leading a movement?

That’s what we’re going to be exploring in today’s episode.

My guest today has been called a beauty activist. She is someone who models what it looks like to do the inner work that allows her to keep showing up and disrupting homeostasis for the greater good.

Nikia Phoenix is a content creator, storyteller, and occasional commercial actress with a passion for social change and conscious living. She is also the founder of Black Girl Beautiful, a loving and safe space that celebrates Black women. After diving deeper into wellness and self care, Nikia recently became a Reiki master and meditation practitioner.

Listen to the full episode to hear:

  • How Nikia sees the intersection of beauty and leadership and how she defines leadership
  • Nikia’s experience growing up and how she cared for the young parts of her story through how she is leading her life as an adult
  • Nikia’s experience on how she navigated a work betrayal
  • A story from Nikia’s childhood that’s still echoing in my heart today (don’t tap out early on this episode or you might miss it)

Learn more about Nikia Phoenix:

Learn more about Rebecca:

Resources from this episode:

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meet the founder

I’m Rebecca Ching, LMFT.

I help change-making leaders get to the root of recurring struggles and get confidently back on track with your values, your vision, and your bottom line. 

I combine psychotherapeutic principles, future-forward coaching, and healthy business practices to meet the unique needs and challenges of highly-committed leaders in a high-stakes world.

This is unburdened leadership

EP 29: Frank Anderson, MD – Challenging the Fear of Rejection and Leading with Vulnerability – Part 2

Everybody’s carrying a burden that’s weighing them down. If you dare to care, it is inevitable you will end up carrying the burdens from grief, betrayal, and rejection. And these burdens are often unseen. These invisible struggles fuel loneliness, shame, and despair. Eventually, the unaddressed burdens we carry start to impact our ability to live […]

Trauma

EP 27: Frank Anderson, MD – Challenging the Fear of Rejection and Leading with Vulnerability – Part 1

We watch leaders crash & burn all the time. We watch with morbid fascination as leaders fall out of grace because their unaddressed pain led them on an unsustainable path of poor choices–even dangerous and deadly choices–to avoid feeling the vulnerability of rejection. Those times when you experienced the pain of rejection leave their mark […]

Trauma

EP 21: Leading With Body Resilience with Co-Author of More Than A Body, Lindsay Kite, PhD

Caring about those you lead means caring about the harm you may unknowingly be doing. Many of us who fit western standards of beauty and live in conventionally abled bodies don’t understand how our choices can cause pain. We’ve internalized ableism and fat-phobia to the point where we can’t even grasp how our words & […]

Mental Well-being

EP 19: Defining Your Own Version Success with Natalie Borton, Founder of Natalie Borton Designs

The quickest way to crash and burn your business and life is to place your worthiness and safety with the opinions of others. This may sound like a captain-obvious statement but the pull to care what others think is something fierce. And it is sneaky. The competitive drive is no stranger to many of you. […]

Work-life Integration

EP 17: Community Over Competition with Co-Founder of The Rising Tide Society Natalie Franke

Community over competition is indeed a well-worn hashtag. The cynical can dismiss it. Those beat up by year after year of injustice understandably call BS. But in practice, leading with the lens of community over competition is subversive and culture-shifting. Community over competition requires deep life-long work to unburden the load we carry of scarcity […]

Leading Teams

EP 02: How Self-Leadership Saves You From The Relentless Drive To Succeed with Dr. Richard Schwartz

My body was telling me to take a step back and reevaluate. Five years ago I had pneumonia and I couldn’t really do anything other than prop myself up on the couch and breathe… …breathe and think about how I ended up in this mess I’d run myself into the ground. My schedule was full-to-overflowing. […]

Uncategorized

And clearing the way for a more innovative, inclusive future.

Unburdened Leaders are breaking
cycles of workplace burnout…

Are you about this, too? Let’s meet and see if I’m your coach – no expectations. Just connection.