A Season of Stillness, Pivoting & Growth – Blog Update

I have been a bit extra quiet on the blog in the last few months. I was rereading at a post from last around this time where I talked about having “blogger burnout“, and while I have been experiencing some “blogger burnout”, and some boredom, I think I’ve mainly been in a “be still” period. Every time I would try to force myself to write a post, it’s as if God kept whispering “be still“, so that’s exactly what I did.

So I have been intentionally quiet on here, but I’ve definitely been working where God has diverted my focus. In the last few weeks and months, I’ve made the decision to let go of some things, increase focus on other things and press the pause button on others. I don’t have any immediate plans to give up my blog, but I also know that I’m in a season of growth. This year (2016), as you may know, I picked IMPLEMENT as my word, and I’m very proud of everything I’ve been able to accomplish, but I’m not done yet 😉

So what have I been up to while I was “away”?

As I mentioned in this post, I was a presenter at Live Intensive Workshop in St. Louis. I presented on the topic of “How Create Additional Income – Successfully Selling High-Quality Physical Products Without Keeping Inventory“. I got so many rave reviews on my presentation that I may have something else up my sleeve. Sign up below if that’s something you are interested in.

I also started officially made public my new Vashti A Joseph page. If you’d like to see more of my entrepreneurial journey, get tips you can possibly apply to your own business, learn more about my speaking engagements, workshops and more, you can follow me there.

For the second year in a row, I also participated in the BellaKinks DFW Natural Hair Expo here in Dallas. I had the honor of moderating a discussion of “The Black Owned Beauty Supply” with three amazing, female, beauty supply owners. (Fabulous Freddy’s, TexturesNaturalHairCare & Tendrils & Curls)

Although the Expo name includes “natural hair expo” it was definitely so much more than that. One of my favorite segments was the POWER panel which included CEOs of some of the top beauty brands (including NaturallyCurly, The Mane Choice, Mielle Organics, CURLS & VPs at Sally Beauty) in the natural hair space. These ladies are all amazing, inspirational business owners who openly shared their stories, tips, and best practices.

One of the highlights of the Expo however, was the opportunity to be a vendor for Ven & Rose. Last year’s expo was my very first vending experience ever, and I was happy to be back bigger and better. We got to connect with so many of the “Ven & Rose crew”, and we also debuted some new products (including pillows and tumblers) which will be added to the site soon. I’m so grateful for the growth of Ven & Rose in this past year and I look forward to climbing ever higher in the coming years.

RELATED: Meet Ven & Rose

The entire experience (though tiring for me 🙂 ) was amazing, and I finally got the chance to meet Afrobella and the Kaye sister from NaturalHairDoesCare after following them online for years. I met Christina of LoveBrownSugar last year so it was great to see her again as well.

I also had a really unexpected, but special moment (read: there were tears) with Sumetra Reed aka NaturalMetra during her session on “Knowing Your Worth”. It was shared LIVE on Facebook so you can watch it HERE.

So that’s what I’ve been up to during this season of stillness, pivoting and growth. I know it may sound a bit weird for all of these to be happening at the same time, but that has definitely been my experience. I also know from experience that God sometimes puts us in timeout AKA “still season” when he’s preparing us for GREATER.

Thank you for sticking with me during this season. Let’s finish 2016 with a bang 🙂