SUMMARY

The first step toward living out loud personally and professionally is to drop the veil. But integrating all that honest visibility into your business, your brand, and your day-to-day can be challenging. No wonder. Society has long kept women, Black folks, and people of color from showing up as fully realized, multi-faceted humans––to the point that we impose these restrictions on ourselves. Time to reclaim our agency, experiment with identity, and share our joy!

India is joined by her occasional co-host and co-founder of Pause On The Play The Community, Erica Courdae. Together, they explore how all of us can create impact by becoming more of ourselves through the liberating act of dropping the veil, which, coincidently, happens to be the name of their brand new virtual event.

In this discussion:

• Aligning the soul of your brand with what the world sees

• Making space for ease by promoting the work you genuinely want to do

• Experimenting with and sharing what brings you joy

• Rewriting the narrative around our past, present, and future selves

• Letting go of expectations in favor of exploring possibilities in work, in life

• Committing to the process of uncovering our genuine identity

• Redefining personal and professional integrity

• Introducing Dropping The Veil virtual event

QUOTED

India Jackson

“I feel like you can't drop the veil without visiting who are you behind that veil, your identity.”

“The business will always be there. The clients will always be there, and, you know, both Erica and I are living proof that the more we've been ourselves, the more we've attracted.”

Erica Courdae

“I feel like when you drop that veil, you not only get an opportunity to see the world differently, but you get an opportunity to be different.”

ARTICLE

Many of us desire to feel seen, witnessed, supported, empowered and assured. We want to align the things we believe about ourselves, our businesses with what people see. When you synchronize the soul of your brand with what the world sees, you attract clients, invite ease, and exude confidence––all the things that naturally flow when you're promoting work that you want to be doing, not just what will sell the fastest. 

This is business that feels as good on the inside as it looks from the outside and, to foster that, we have to be willing to drop the veil.

India and Erica share their personal process of dropping the veil.

Unobstructed Views

“What comes up for you when you think about dropping the veil, Erica?”, India asks.

“When I think about it, it's very much this...almost like a two-way mirror; you can see through, maybe people can't see you. And, it's almost like you think that you're hiding,” Erica says. “I feel like when you drop that veil, you not only get an opportunity to see the world differently, but you get an opportunity to be different. So it's just almost like your eyes are able to see this entire reality you didn't even know existed previously.”

“Oh, thank you for saying that,” India says. “I feel like that's true a lot. When it comes to showing up in the public space, like social media and podcasting and things like that, you get to decide what people see about you and how much of that is the full you.” 

Erica agrees. “And, the interesting thing about it is that often the veil is self-imposed.” She’s getting reacquainted with those parts of herself behind her veil. “I'm a writer. I create words. I create poems and movements and impact with that. And being able to kind of reintegrate these pieces of yourself into your visibility and how you exist... just being on a regular day-to-day basis. I mean, there's so much power in it, and I hope that people don't underestimate how powerful that concept of dropping the veil really is.”

“I think that that's what stands out to me for myself as well is, it doesn't have to be this or that, right? I can keep the pieces that inspire me and excite me or that I love doing on the weekends and that can also still be a part of the business or a part of the public image or a part of the brand,” says India. “It doesn’t have to be disjointed. I think there's a happy place in the middle where it's not fully one side of all humaning over here and all businessing. Right? There's a happy place in the middle of that.”

The Happy Place

“What do you think your personal happy place is?” Erica asks. 

“Ooh, that's a good question—a lot of them. I got a long list. I don't think we have time on this episode for it,” India laughs.

“Can I acknowledge, though, that to say that you have multiple, and to acknowledge that out loud is a big thing? It's not something that I think people of color, specifically Black people, often feel as though they have the agency to acknowledge that, let alone to actually revel in that. I just kind of felt like I had to pause on that for a minute”

“The truth of the matter is that I didn't always feel that way,” India admits. “I didn't always feel like I could acknowledge it publicly or not feel guilty about it and things like that. And that's been a journey in itself of number one, creating more joy in my life, working through trauma and stress, and things like that. But then also, actually giving myself permission to continue to invite more of that in and to live it out loud.” 

Friends and family have become a significant source of her joy, “not just the individuals themselves and how they show up for me and each other, for themselves and in the world,” she says, “but it also is the quality time and the way that we're spending time together. I've been really happy about watching that evolve into us doing more joyful things.” This is especially revolutionary because she comes from a low-income family where necessity dictated that daily survival and joy were not often compatible. “There was a lot of adulting and not a lot of living,” she says.

“I think that that can absolutely put you in a place to where all of the joyful or fun and full and youthful, and what some may even call frivolous pieces do have to go hide behind the veil because they feel like afterthoughts, they're not priorities. They're not necessary, so put it away,” Erica points out.

India acknowledges that, at times, those pursuits may have also felt like procrastination. “I've come to know, and to accept and embrace that it's actually the joyful pieces of my life that contribute to everything that you see happening in the business that we have and the brands, really being able to kind of put that oxygen mask on first concept,” she says.

“This is a life affliction for many people,” says Erica. “It's not something that only women have or only people of color have. I think everybody has it to some degree and that there's a lot of value in not only considering what it can mean for you as an individual to drop the veil but understanding in a lot of cases, where you're really going to be challenged and invited to truly drop it, it's likely going to come from people around you. It's really not a solo act in a lot of cases.”

“I feel like you can't drop the veil without visiting who are you behind that veil, your identity,” India agrees. “There's been so much freedom, and I'll say ease––not necessarily easy, but ease––in really exploring and playing with the idea of who I am. And I've seen you do it too, Erica, playing with who you are and not feeling like that has to be fixed in any particular story from past, present or future that you want it to be, allowing yourself to be fluid in your identity and I think a big part of that for me started with actually experimenting with asking myself, what does fun feel like for me?” 

Over the last two years, India’s committed herself to experimentation, trying something new every month and becoming more aware of which activities bring her joy.

“That speaks to that curiosity, that willingness to experiment and give it a shot without any attachment to an expectation. It's just like, all right, let's see what happens and whatever happens. It's cool,” says Erica. “Part of what I find to be important, and it's a little thing that I think is an act of rebellion, is not only experiencing the fun, but if you are going to live out loud, I think we have gotten very conditioned to live trauma out loud and challenges out loud, and we don't often live joy out loud enough. And so those opportunities where you're like, let's try something different, or I'm curious about this. Those are the things that I really do invite people to live those things out loud because that is not nearly enough of that.”

“I think it's even more true for Black and Brown people like ourselves,” says India. “I think we're given a narrative that we can't and that we are here to be modern slaves, to do, to produce, to grow, to expand, to work. We're not here to play. Like How dare you! How dare you have fun; that's frivolous.”

“The reality is that fun for people that have been denied access to fun, that is an act of rebellion. And so I think it's so important for that to be understood,” Erica says.

Reclaiming Fun and Rewriting that Narrative

Experimenting with “fun” and shedding the weight of preconceived notions around that pursuit has had a domino effect in India’s life. “You begin to explore so many other pieces of yourself and, really, for me, it began this process of how much of who I am or who I thought I was is actually coming from me and how much of it was a script that I was given to follow? How much of it maybe was created at a much younger age, but maybe I'm not that person anymore?” She wonders if Erica has experienced this same domino-ing in her life. 

“Oh yeah,” Erica says. “If you really are open and curious enough, you begin to question everything from, you know, who was I told that I have to be? Is this actually who I am? Do I like this individual? Does this feel aligned? Is this what I want for myself? Do I actually dislike this, or was I told that I'm not supposed [to]? You question everything, and I think it really puts you in a place to have to claim who you are consciously versus. ‘Oh, well. That's just what a person that looks like me does.’”

“Something about you saying that made me cringe,” India says.  

“It makes me cringe too when I feel like there's so many narratives that I was given of how I was supposed to operate,” Erica admits. “And, it took a lot of very conscious effort on my part to say ‘no’ to that. And it's a lot; it's not a small thing to say that I was programmed to be this thing, and I won’t. That’s a lot.”

“It really starts there,” India says. “We talk about visibility here so much, but I do believe that a part of who you show up as publicly in the public image that you're creating for yourself, for your brand, for your business, it does go back to what you believe is happening inside as far as that identity, the identity of yourself as a human, but also the identity of your brand (‘cause that's different), and the identity of your business if you own a business (because that’s also different). It's been so beautiful to watch both of us experimenting with identity and then actually taking the courageous step to say that we're not just going to unpack these things privately; we’re going to be visible about them. And we're going to share with people these new areas of joy or these new areas that we're experimenting with, or that we've discovered about ourselves publicly.”

“It's an ongoing action. It is not one and done,” says Erica. “It is not ‘Oh, I'm finished now!’  because once you begin, it's almost something that you crave because you're like, I'm creating this amazing individual by choice, and I love where this is going! What else is possible? It's such an inspiring thing to do for yourself and to witness other people doing it. I cannot state that strongly enough”.

“It makes me think about the word “integrity,” and it's so overused,” says India, “but this is the definition of integrity for me, is being who you know you truly are here to be and not compromising that. Being that person in all the places, being the brand or the business that you were meant to have, and not compromising on what that is and how it is. And consistently being that in all the places and in all the ways and not backing down because society told you it needed to be something else...The business will always be there. The clients will always be there, and you know, both Erica and I are living proof that the more we've been ourselves, the more we've attracted.”

CO-HOST CONTACT & BIO

www.pauseontheplay.com/community

www.ericacourdae.com

Erica Courdae has dedicated her life to expanding how others interact with the world through powerful conversations. As an entrepreneur and certified coach, her work is focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), imperfect allyship, and imposter syndrome. This work has taken her into communities and onto national stages as a speaker and educator at noteworthy industry events like AltSummit, ShePodcasts Live, and Being Boss.

Erica is also the owner of an inclusive beauty salon, Silver Immersion, and the host of Pause on the Play, a podcast that features open dialogue on topics like company culture, visibility, and mindset. She lives in Maryland with her two children.

YOUR ACTIONS FOR THIS EPISODE

Drop.That.Veil. This is your invitation to live out loud once and for all. Integrate honest visibility into your business, your brand, your life. India Jackson and Erica Courdae welcome you to Dropping The Veil, their 3-day virtual event featuring a diverse panel of guests. Explore what’s possible when you commit to being more of yourself. Details at pauseontheplay.com/events. 

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