Recap: Beauty & Brains Empowerment Series Cleveland

Deidre Miles-Manning, Courtney Ottrix, Maria Cribbs, Edith Wheeler, Miesha Wilson, Jeff Johnson, Me

First off, shout out to Ohio State for winning the National Championship, Woot! Now, you want to talk about an afternoon filled with empowerment, fellowship, uplifting and more, well you missed out if you live in Cleveland, Ohio and you didn’t attend the First Annual Beauty & Brains Empowerment Series! The powerful event was held at Aloft hotel in Downtown Cleveland. I was one of the panelists and I was uber excited to be there! What a great idea it was for my buddy/co-founder of Beauty & Brains Edith Wheeler and Deidre Miles-Manning/Strategic Planner and Miesha Wilson to put this fabulous affair together to uplift women in the city! I placed on my instagram page that I was a nervous wreck because I speak all the time but I’d never spoken in my hometown, so I ofcourse had the jitters.

I prepared a speech and everything but it didn’t feel authentic enough to me, so I just prayed and asked God for guidance and Lord and behold, after speaking, I got a standing ovation! I was so shocked! I had no clue that I had people in the audience crying! Twenty minutes is really not enough time to speak about my journey but I tried to do the best I could with the time allowed. People came up to me afterwards saying that I really inspired them and that they were mad at me for ruining their makeup lol! I had to share my journey with these beautiful spirits because it has been a long road for me as well and I felt I had to inspire them and give back. It was so much fun and I want to thank the Beauty & Brains staff and my dear friends Edith & Dee for inviting me back to my hometown for this amazing experience! I must say EVERYTHING was top-notched and I do not have one complaint but heck, these are my girls and we go WAY back! I wouldn’t have expected anything less from them! Check out a few snaps from the event inside! xoxo