Starting the New Year the Right Way

Happy Monday honeys and hustlers,

The end of each year always brings me to a place of rest, reflection, and planning. Today I’m sharing my 2023 reflections, both professionally and personally.

2023: A Year in Review

There are many frameworks for guiding a year-end reflection. James Clear, Ali Abdaal, Dickie Bush, Greg Isenberg, and others have templates and questions you can use if you’re interested in deeper questions. For this video, I’m using a template I modified in Notion for yearly planning, quarterly check-ins, and a year-end reflection. It’s a simple system that prompts me to answer questions about

• what I’ve accomplished

• what goals I didn’t reach

• what things I would like to stop doing

• what things I would like to do more of

• how I grew from my experiences this year (personally and professionally).

What was one of your biggest takeaways from 2023? I’d love to hear it!

I had a great time at my first event of the year, the Triangle Creators MeetUp, held at Raleigh Founded - Gateway on 1/3. I’m looking forward to more in-person events this year, in North Carolina and other places. Some events you might want to attend and programs you might be interested in applying to if you’re an early-stage creator or entrepreneur (and please feel free to share these with folks who might be interested)!

If you’re in North Carolina:

• ENCEP is now accepting applications from companies across the state of NC! The 10-week program is a virtual incubator for companies owned by minorities and women in underserved counties of North Carolina. We're looking for companies who: Are eager to learn from experts, work with a mentor, network with other entrepreneurs, have less than $250,000 in annual revenues, and want to scale to million in revenue and/or 50 employees within 5 years. There is NO COST to participants. Now accepting applications for our next cohort, launching March 5, 2024. The deadline for applications is January 31st at 5pm. Learn more and apply online today at https://www.encep.org (I was a mentor for the previous cohort and highly recommend this program!)

• Give It To The People is partnering with Thread Capital to curate the Rural Road Trip: Small Business Edition. These informative events will be happening once a month from now through June across the state of North Carolina. Find out how and where to attend at https://web.cvent.com/event/0d2b728f-6e66-4525-a808-a210173b4b4c/summary

If you’re anywhere in the U.S.:

• If you’re a person of color working in journalism, the Fundraising For Community Media has opened applications for their inaugural cohort. Applications are due February 19th: https://www.journalism.cuny.edu/2024/01/applications-open-for-first-national-fundraising-cohort-for-poc-led-community-media/

Do you have any upcoming events, programs, grant opportunities, or projects that would be great to share? Reply to this email! I’d be happy to put it in Thursday’s post!

Please Hustle Responsibly,

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