I believe in the power of manifestation, where your thoughts and your energy can create your reality. I've seen how the law of attraction can positively influence your dreams, hopes, and wishes. Even more, the beauty of seeing things change by aligning yourself with the possibilities.
There have many moments in my life where I've manifested trips, gifts, and even love. However, I've experienced a profound transformation in my career in the last three years by understanding that I am worthy of receiving my "yes". Here's the thing, it wasn't easy at times, honestly, sometimes it was painful. Manifesting required me to trust the process of life, by being flexible, and less resistant to change. Sometimes those are the lessons we must learn to have a breakthrough.
- In 2017, I was laid off from my marketing job. There were signs, but I ignored them. I was too focused on pursuing my passions outside of work. This forced me to reconcile with my choices, including not being diligent about finding a permanent position. The harsh reality caused me to fall out ofgratitude. My fears slowly started to eat away at me, and I invited them to the dinner table when I didn't have the heart to keep them away.
- I applied to over 100 hundred jobs; I received only 10% of the interviews. All of the positions I thought were perfect for me did not work out. I took it personally.
- After months of searching for a job, I found a position in my field of communications. The salary was liveable with an hour-commute. Two months into the job, I was told I lacked integrity and common sense, because I wrote for a popular website offering women of color advice. Additionally, I had used my LinkedIn profile for my endeavors, and I didn't change my job title quickly enough. There was no first offense, just an ultimatum, and I quit under duress.
I continued to attract low-paying, low-vibrational positions because, at that time, I was only looking for positions that paid the bills.
That was my issue––putting money and feelings of a lack of abundance over finding meaningful work. Your dream career is the kind of work that makes your energy levels soar and gives you hope for great success. None of my previous positions made me feel this way. That's when I decided it was time to get clear on what I wanted.
By clearing the path to receive my blessings, I had finally landed my dream position at a prestigious university that came with a host of supportive colleagues. Just two years prior, I was Ubering in that same community, picking up researchers, professors, and students.
So, how did I do it?
Write Down Your Hopes, Dreams, and Wishes
I wrote down everything my heart desired, from a salary to the work environment. I had enough experience with incompetent supervisors, so I asked the universe to provide me with leaders that focused on the personal growth of their team.
Align Your Vision With Action
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Aligning with my goals included updating my resume, expanding my network, and telling people what I wanted. Yes, that's right; I asked for what I wanted. Because I was doing the work, my network showed up for me as references and as cheerleaders. When manifesting, you must take action and move towards your desire. Once you start tackling something, it becomes more manageable, and it's easier to know what the next action is to take.
Empower Yourself
As you move work towards your passions, you must continue to reaffirm positivity, because you are what you think. Staying in alignment with my goals required me to reframe my current situation with love, by giving myself grace, and taking stock of every opportunity, big or small. Focusing on what went right granted me peace, resilience, and the ability to fight and withstand adversity.
Visualize the Possibilities
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It's not enough to write your visions; you must visualize the possibilities too. Some people find vision boards helpful: a blank canvas to post images, quotes, affirmations, and drawings of anything you want to create in your life. Creating a vision board is a fun, tangible, and powerful way to say "yes please" to the abundance you'd like to receive (and deserve) in your life. Having a vision board next to my bed allowed me to come in contact with my dreams daily. The "perfect timing" was orchestrated to give me a boost of confidence when I needed it most.
Sometimes manifesting your dream career doesn't come neatly wrapped with a pretty bow. While it may take some time, the reward will pay in dividends. Trust the process.
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While an evolution is a natural progression that happens as businesses grow, a rebrand is a total change. Lola tells xoNecole, "A total rebrand is necessary when a business’s current reputation/what it’s known for is at odds with the business’s vision or direction.
"For example, if you’ve fundamentally changed what your product is and does, it’s likely that your brand is out of alignment with the business. Or, if you find your company is developing a reputation that doesn’t serve it, it might be time to pump the brakes and figure out what needs to change.
She continues, "Sometimes you’ll see companies (especially startups) announce a name change that comes with updated messaging, visuals, etc. That usually means their vision has changed or expanded, and their previous branding was too narrow/couldn’t encompass everything they planned to do."
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The Brand Doula was born in 2019, and its focus is on putting "the experiences, goals, and needs of women of color founders first," as well as brands with "culture-shifting missions."
According to Lola, culture-shifting is "the act of influencing dominant behavior, beliefs, or experiences in a community or group (ideally, for the better)."
"At The Brand Doula, we work with companies and leaders that set out to challenge the status quo in their industries and communities. They’re here to make an impact that sends ripples across the market," she says.
"We help the problem solvers of the world — the ones who aren't satisfied with 'this is how it's always been' and instead ask 'how could this be better?' Our clients build for impact, reimagining tools, systems, and ways of living to move cultures forward."
The Brand Doula has worked with many brands, including Too Collective, to assist with their collaboration with Selena Gomez's Rare Beauty and Balanced Black Girl for a "refresh," aka rebrand. For businesses looking to rebrand, Lola shares four essential steps.
1. Do an audit of your current brand experience — what’s still relevant and what needs to change? Reflect on why you’re doing the rebrand in the first place and what success would look like after relaunching.
2. Tackle the overall strategy first — before you start redesigning logos and websites, align on a new vision for your brand. How do you want your company to be positioned moving forward? Has your audience changed at all? Will your company have a fresh personality and voice?
3. Bring your audience along the journey — there’s no need to move in secret. Inviting your current audience into the journey can actually help them feel more connected to and invested in your story, enough to stick around as changes are being made.
4. Keep business moving — one of my biggest pet peeves is when companies take down their websites as soon as they have the idea to rebrand, then have a Coming Soon page up for months! You lose a lot of momentum and interest by doing that. If you’re still in business and generating income, continue to operate while you work on your rebrand behind the scenes. You don’t want to cut existing customers off out of the blue, and you also don’t want so much downtime that folks forget your business exists or start looking for other solutions.
While determining whether the rebrand was successful may take a few months, Lola says a clear sign that it is unsuccessful is negative feedback from your target audience. "Customers are typically more vocal about what they don’t like more than what they do like," she says.
But some good signs to look out for are improvements in engagement with your marketing, positive reviews, press and increase in retention, and overall feeling aligned with the new branding.
For more information about Lola and The Brand Doula, visit her website, thebranddoula.com.
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“I’m in constant discovery and learning about myself, about life, about love, about communicating, and I just say discovery is my current era, and to me, the possibilities are endless of what my capacities are,” the “Motivation” singer told xoNecole during an exclusive interview.
A part of that discovery is acknowledging all of the different looks she’s trademarked over the years, whether it’s her classic short red cut or the blonde she’s been known to lean toward recently. She attests a lot of her iconic looks to her bonus mother, Tina Knowles.
“I’m really grateful to Mama T for that because since she owned and worked in a hair salon, she would say, ‘Well, let’s try this. Let’s cut it off. Let’s grow it back. Oh, it’s just hair,’ you know what I mean?” the 43-year-old recalled.
“I’m definitely in that spirit when it comes to hair and glam and just seeing what pops and what doesn’t. I think that there are no rules.”
“For a long time, brown girls were told you can’t do this, you can’t do this, and you shouldn’t do this. It won’t look good on your complexion. That’s not our story. That does not belong to us at all.
"Our possibilities are endless. If anything, we make the trends and we make it look good. We make gem tones look wonderful because of the brown skin that pops off of the gem tone. We make it look wonderful.”
As the mother of two boys, Noah and Titan, Rowland still aims to create tradition through a good meal. She notes how she manages to balance maintaining quality time with her family as a woman who wears many hats.
“One thing that we’re trying to stay on top of right now is one-on-one quality time,” she shared. “I like to do that with my boys. They both get their own afternoon or day with me, so we have these little dates. Noah and I were sitting at this ice cream spot in LA the last time, and we just sat there and talked. It also made me sad because I was like Oh my God, this three-year-old is growing up so fast. I can’t believe he’s even three, and we’re sitting up here and having this whole conversation.”
“One thing that we’re trying to stay on top of right now is one-on-one quality time. I like to do that with my boys. They both get their own afternoon or day with me, so we have these little dates.”
Rowland added, “Then, with Titan, he likes a sushi spot that we go to for hand rolls, and so, we definitely bond over food and over certain outings that we might have. I just like for them to be one-on-one so that we can create our memories together, and they feel seen by me, their mother, and we just enjoy each other’s time. We laugh, and that means a lot to me.”
She is also very intentional in stressing the importance of giving back, something that was instilled in her at a young age by her mother that Rowland is ensuring her sons get a taste of.
“For Christmas, we like to be home, but we also like to give back,” said Rowland.
“Around Christmastime, I want my kids to understand how important it is to give back. So this year, I think we will pile it on because both of them will understand now even more.
"The three-year-old might miss it, but the nine-year-old is definitely starting to catch on. My mom poured that into me about the spirit of giving, and I want my kids to have that same tradition that my mom gave me.”
Today, she continues to give back by pouring into a locally owned eatery that made her, even having a meal named in her honor in a new partnership centered around spreading the love when it comes to patronizing local restaurants nationwide.
This Is It! is one of her childhood favorite Black-owned restaurants in her home city of Houston. During the earlier DC days, she recalled bonding with her bandmates-turned-family members over a delicious plate of soul food at This Is It!, a fourth-generation, family-owned establishment known for its comfort dishes.
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“I love the idea that a huge corporation like Pepsi wants to make sure that in their budget, they’re giving back to communities that have supported them for many years,” she said.
Rowland added, "This Is It! is a place that grew me up and helped me to keep my feet on the ground. This always brings back such fond memories for me.”
In honor of Rowland’s favorite This Is It! meal being named after her, which includes pepper steak with rice and gravy, green beans, peach cobbler, and an ice-cold Pepsi, the “Like This” crooner discussed her recipe for a good time.
“I would say good food,” she laughed. “Not that I need it, but a good Espresso Martini or a French white wine. Sometimes, I might lack energy, so I need a Pepsi to pick me right back up.”
“What else? Good energy. You need good energy. Like, good people with good energy who know how to have a good time. Who aren’t going to look around and see what the other person is doing," Rowland added.
"Because just when people are so good in their body and self-aware and self-assured, they are the funnest people to hang out with because they don’t give a crap about what’s happening around them. They just want to have a good time. I like those people.”
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