Living Strong: The Flip Side of Adversity

Networking is a Verb: Collaboration, Co-Creation, & Partnership

“It's possible for anyone to overcome their challenges and it's never too late to live purposefully. My family and I survived civil war; that's shaped the way that I do life professionally and personally. Whether you started out with a great start, or you come from humble beginnings, everyone has a story to tell. Once I discovered what God was calling me to do in my community, it's shaped the businesses I've launched, the relationships I invest in, and how I position myself to know what He wants me to do next.”
Originally from Freetown, Sierra Leone, Andrena Sawyer and her family moved to the United States when she was nine years old due to a civil war that left thousands dead and untold numbers maimed and displaced. She now credits her family's move during the war for her interest in human triumph and perseverance. She has since actively worked to mobilize and empower others.
She is the President of P.E.R.K. Consulting, an advisory firm for small to mid-sized nonprofits and businesses, and the Founder of the Minority Christian Women Entrepreneurs Network. Her passion for community, storytelling, and empowerment show up in The Minority Christian Women Entrepreneurs Network (MCWEN). MCWEN is a thriving community for Christian women of color who have an interest in entrepreneurship and business ownership. Using the Proverbs 31 woman as a model, MCWEN seeks to support women to become impactful and positively influential in their homes, community, and at work. For us, it's not just business as usual. Networking is an action work. Let’s get to work, TOGETHER!

The Adolescent Mental Health Journey and Digital Therapeutics

Reconciliation, reconnection, and support from within and from others, while important, can be difficult to achieve on our own. Join Dr. Benjamin Alouf, board certified Pediatrician and Chief Medical Officer at Limbix, on a Flip Side conversation about the role these factors and more play in a young person’s mental health journey. Dr. Alouf and the diverse team of clinicians, product designers, researchers, and engineers at Limbix are on a mission to make mental health treatment accessible to young people who need it the most, when and where they need it the most. He will share his knowledge about treatment options for adolescent depression, namely digital therapeutics. Digital therapeutics allow young people to feel more comfortable with their feelings and connect with mental health treatment, like cognitive behavioral therapy, which has been shown to be very effective in this population. Hear from Dr. Alouf the story of a digital therapeutic user who gained a deeper understanding of their feelings and symptoms with the guidance of a digital therapeutic. This Flip Side conversation will also delve into real issues young people in minority and marginalized communities are facing when accessing mental healthcare.

It’s Time to Soar

It’s not easy to watch someone perform or do what you’re called to do and get a different response or more opportunities than you get when you do “the same thing”. The process and journey to purpose and promise is different for everyone, and it’s easy to get distracted by someone else’s success when you feel like your success is long overdue. If you’re not careful, your frustration can turn bitterness, making you critical, cynical even and further delay your success. Let’s expose that subtle plan of the enemy and make sure we don’t self-sabotage and postpone our “release” date.

Trust your timeline to profitability

Most emerging entrepreneurs are not exposed to business developmental resources. Growing a profitable business can seem unrealistic. Aundra Williams helps cultivate female entrepreneurs into industry disruptors through authentic, heartfelt marketing and creative strategies that will create a lasting brand. Join us for a flip side conversation of faith, finances, and forward movement that help entrepreneurs trust their timeline and building unwavering faith in God as He develops character and resilience within business and life.

Getting Through Your Worst Moments

Maryann Reid is a 7-time award-winning author published by St. Martin’s Press and a Forbes.com contributor. She’s been featured in Glamour, Newsweek, USA Today, The New Yorker, Essence, and more. After challenging times in her life, financially and emotionally, she cofounded Alphanista, a peer mentoring platform for multicultural women in senior management. She works with high-achieving women who are exhausted, yet gifted, and talented, but struggle with identifying concrete gaps they have to reaching the next level and would like to get there with ease. Join her Flip Side Conversation of moving through bankruptcy, divorce, and business start up to invest in relationships and discover what they do to change us first, then others.

Live A Life of Peace After the Pain

Have you ever sought to disappear from excruciating pain?
Are you tired of questioning how you’ll go on after your loss?
Wouldn’t it be nice to be in a crowded room and not feel completely alone?
Wouldn’t it be nice to know your life still has meaning and purpose even after your hurt?
As a survivor of sexual abuse and loss, Katherine Barner is here to tell you life can be meaningful again in spite of what pain, grief or loss wants you to believe. She has created resources and community for healing and managing triggers, dealing with intimacy issues, shame, self-care, financial fitness, spiritual growth, and more.
She is the founder of Sisters Speak Up Society www.SistersSpeakUp.org and Living Beyond Loss Academy www.livingbeyondloss.org . These communities have been designed to provide inspiration, encouragement, support and accountability for a journey toward healing and living the life members desire and deserve. With her engaging, powerful, and down to earth communication style, Katherine has entertained and challenged audiences across the country as a national motivational speaker, Bible teacher, Emcee, and Host.

Removing The Mask

Many of us have allowed obstacles and adversaries to leave us in a stagnant place of pain. We are haunted by the faces of those who have hurt us in the past, and we wear a mask to conceal our emotional identity. But we cannot allow those faces, even if they are our own, to haunt us forever if we want to move on and grow in our purpose. Instead, we must learn to unveil our truth, acknowledge it, and embrace the lessons that can be found in those painful moments.
Join entrepreneur, speaker, author, coach- Monique Smith in a conversation of healing, worth, courage, trailblazing, and leveling up on the Flip Side of Adversity.
With the understanding that knowledge is the key to success, Monique Smith will share leadership tools to prepare listeners with strategies to break through limits and plant the Seeds of Empowerment. Monique has dedicated her life to marketing the success of others, developing opportunities for the underrepresented and influencing decision makers to embrace all that makes them unique and powerful. These actions have led to extraordinary opportunities to facilitate change and see strides in the development of others.

Worthiness, Trauma, and Healing

One of the biggest lessons T.W. Suggs has learned has been that there is a correlation between forgiveness, healing, and worthiness. When we fail to forgive, we’re tethered to painful stories and memories which prevent us from growing and learning how amazing we really are. The absolute biggest lesson T.W. learned in his journey is that surrogates are not allowed. That is, you can’t have someone birth something for you (healing, a sense of worthiness, etc.). You are meant to give life to yourself.
Join us as we explore the connection between trauma and worthiness and how we can heal from our traumatic experiences while “While Running Through The Rain”. T.W. Suggs’ latest book, 'Running Through The Rain' examines serious issues of forgiveness, identity, rejection, and the unseen trauma black men and boys encounter but seldom express. This Flip Side Conversation will examine real issues that also remind us of the importance of opening our hearts to the little moments that make us smile, that exist around us all.

Lessons for Every Teen Girl’s Journey to Womanhood

Kizzy Kittrell Dogan transforms and empowers teen girls to discover their purpose, passion, and superpowers as The Teen Girl Mentor. Her book, Thirteen, was written to motivate, inspire, and empower young girls to speak up freely and truthfully, feel free to show up as their authentic selves, and learn how to articulate their feelings without the fear of being misunderstood, ignored, rejected, unseen or unheard. Join our Flipside Conversation, as Kizzy encourages girls and women, caring for the girl inside, to “Work Hard Daily At Becoming The Best Version Of Yourself Because Everyone Else Is Already Taken. She works to send the message that Love Grows Here; and as a teen, becoming the best version of yourself may sound like a massive goal because it is … but with just the right amount of intention, consistency, dedication, commitment, honesty, bravery, planning, and prayer… it can and will happen! Tune in for the lessons and tools to stay the course to the best version of you, and know it’s enough.

Permission (to lead) Granted!

Black Women's Educational Alliance, referred to as BWEA, is an organization that was founded in 1976 in response to the expressed concerns about the equity of opportunities for black women in all divisions of the field of education. Tameron Dancy, the current Vice President of the Philadelphia Chapter of BWEA, chairs the Career Mobility Committee and offers women the opportunity to move from managing problems to leading solutions.
Understanding that education is the most valuable tool anyone can attain to enrich their lives, BWEA strives to develop resources that support sound thinking patterns for women leaders to enrich their mind, sharpen skills, and strengthen emotional resilience and inspire the same within children, families, and communities they influence. Join us for a conversation with Principal Tameron Dancy and explore myths about leadership, professional growth strategies, and ways to invest in your capacity. What do you need to lead in a time of change and strain? Our flip side conversation will empower women to understand the impact of their voice and give themselves permission to FULLY lead.