← The Journey with Morgan DeBaun
The Journey with Morgan DeBaun
Morgan DeBaun Unfiltered: Ask Me Anything (Life, Love & Business Success)
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Morgan Debann
Hi friends, it's Morgan debann and I have some exciting news. My book, Rewrite youe Rules the Journey to Success in Less Time with More Freedom is now available for pre order. Pre orders are so important, not just for me as a first time author, but for the message of this book. Ordering this book helps amplify the message that more people can break free from the grind, rewrite their own rules in life, and live a rich, juicy life full of joy and empowerment. So if you resonate with any of the content that I put out over this last few years, this podcast, any of the stories I share on social, and you've been inspired by my work at Blavity or Afrotech, pre ordering is the best way to show your support and your gratitude for any of the work that I have done. Plus, you'll be the first to get your hands on the book when it launches next spring. And that will mean literally the world to me. So make sure you check out morgandebond.com to secure your copy and join me in this movement to create a life of freedom, abundance, and more importantly, to have the tools and the frameworks that you need to take control of your life. Hey everybody. Welcome back to the Journey Podcast. I'm here today for a solo episode answering all of the questions that you guys have been submitting via my channels, on Instagram, on TikTok, everywhere that you guys can find me, you all send me all types of questions. So once a month, once a quarter, I like to just compile everything and make sure that I'm giving you the answers that you need to be successful in your life and your business without working your butts off. So let's get into it. Hey everyone. I'm Morgan debont, a passionate entrepreneur and life advisor. With the Journey podcast, you'll discover that success isn't about the destination, it's about the journey. I'm sharing stories of amazing people who've taken control of their lives. Join me on my own journey to discover the secret sauce behind reaching success with permission from no one else. One of the things that keeps coming up is how do you think about a virtual assistant? How do you incorporate a virtual assistant into your life? But more importantly, how do you find the right one and how do you know that they are the right one once you found them? So here's how I think about virtual assistants. I outline all the tasks that I need to do every single day and then I outline all the tasks that are weekly and monthly tasks. You guys know I talk about this all the time. It's called your operating versus your CEO task. So what are the tasks that only you can do? Those are your CEO tasks. And then what are the tasks that you're doing? Because ain't nobody else to do them. Okay. And that's the type of stuff that you can start delegating to someone like a virtual assistant. So once you have that short list of all the tasks that somebody else could do, and it could be everything as simple as doing research for flights for your upcoming vacations. It could be something like booking the hotels for a business trip that you have coming up. It could be researching titles for your upcoming blog posts that you're trying to batch. So it could be anything, and it should be everything when you're making that list. And then I want you to go ahead and start grouping those tasks by category. So marketing, administrative, family, administrative business, administrative finances. All of your tasks can then get grouped from there. That's the beginning of your job description for a virtual assistant. You want to start to look for virtual assistants that are experts in that specific specialty. There are virtual assistants out in this world that are incredibly effective at traveling and managing travel and schedule. There are virtual assistants that are incredibly effective at social media management and administrating and automating social media. There are virtual assistants that are incredibly great at sales management and can do outbound sales for you and can qualify leads. There's amazing virtual assistants that are good at administrative tickets for support. If you have a small business and you get a lot of people with refunds or chargebacks and there's all types of tasks that you have to do there, there's people who are experts at that. One of the ways that I see people be unsuccessful virtual assistants is that they hire somebody with a skill set and then they start to add all these things to that person and that's not what they were originally hired for. So if you hire someone to do your travel in your hotels and your booking, and then you try to get them to do sales automation, they're not going to be successful at that. And then you're mad that they did it bad and you wasted your time and they wasted your money and you're annoyed. So don't make that mistake. Hire the expert. There's nobody who says you can't have five virtual assistants. Nobody is paying attention. You guys, there's no rules. There's no person hovering over your shoulder who says, no, you can't do that. You can't have five people. You must have one. Nobody's there, okay? So you've got to break out of your own mindset, your limiting brain that is telling you, I can only have one person. You can have five. I have multiple virtual assistants, people who do one thing for me. They're not with me every day. It's not like I hit them up every week. Like, okay, you do this task literally. Like, I have virtual assistants that have been with me for over a year, and I will literally hit them up once a year, like, okay, you do this thing. And they're like, yeah, because it's money. So if you treat people right, you pay them well, you can have a roster of people that can flex up and down based off of your business. And so that's how I recommend that you hire the right virtual assistant to accomplish the specific task on a repeat basis for you, for your personal life, so you can spend more time doing things that you love and less time doing things that you don't. All right, Another question from you all has been, how do you decide when you move in silence? And how do you decide when you move loudly? When do I decide when to do which? Now, if you know me, which none of y'all really know, some of y'all do, but most of you watching this don't know me. I am working two to three years out. Like, I'm in 2026, okay? My brain is in 2026. My team has to be like, okay, but what about tomorrow? And I'm like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, this is what we should do tomorrow. But in 2026, that's where I operate two years out, because that's my responsibility as a CEO, is to be the visionary to be thinking through these things ahead of the game so that by the time it happens, I've already formulated an opinion. I don't tell anybody what our 2026, 2027 plans are. That's just for me. Nobody needs to know, okay? Because that's how we stay ahead of the game. That's how we're able to manage all the conflicts, the trends, the market shifts is because we're constantly thinking through at the executive level, all of these different nuances of how things like macro trends like technology are going to impact our business or impact my life. That's a silent game. And I think the real GS in business, the real successful people in business, they're operating in the future and they're building now for the future. They're not necessarily operating on the day to day. Now, when it comes to when to be loud about Something. I believe that you should be loud about something when it's tied to your bag. Be loud about something when it's tied to your revenue. Be loud about something when it's going to impact your business or your life in a positive way. Do not be loud about something because it makes you feel good. Do not be loud about something because it impacts your ego. It makes you feel like you've made it. That is never going to work out for you. And there's people that make a lot of money doing that. Don't get me wrong, there are people, I consider those people kind of scammers. But there are people that do this for a living. They're very loud every time they have a win. You see all their receipts, they're screenshotting all this stuff. But that playbook is over. Like, that playbook worked when we were not smart consumers. Everybody is much smarter now. So you just look like a scammer straight off the bat if you're trying to prove through these receipts publicly or when you win and when you don't win. So my recommendation is if you're going to be public with your accomplishments or public with your moves, then it needs to be tied to some sort of business outcome for you. So let me give you an example. Afrotech is right around the corner. Now, when I talk about Afro Tech, I'm not talking about our prior success. I'm talking about what we're about to do so that people can decide to participate in Afrotech or not. So I'll say something like, hey, we're doing a hackathon. And I'm going to talk about that a lot in the next few weeks because it's something that we're doing. We're actively looking for people to participate in it. We're actively trying to build this new program for Afrotech because we believe over time, Afrotech having a centralized community of incredibly smart, innovative engineers that can build products and solutions for the Afrotech community is going to be a good place for Africa to be in the next five to 10 years. So we need to start building that community now and incentivizing them to engage with us. And the best way to do that is to give them an intellectual problem and pay them a reward when they make an awesome solution. So we're doing a hackathon. So that's going to be a part of me being loud. That's not boastful, that's just being clear with my PR strategy, my public relations strategy and how I want to position the things and the trends and, and signaling for Afrotech this year. The other thing that I'm loud about is the founder circle, which is a new program that we just did for Afrotech that helps people who are earlier stage in their ventures get access to community, one another and also executive coaching for skill based learning. Because when I talk to VCs behind closed doors and I talk to venture capitalists and I say, you haven't invested a significant amount of money in a variety of black founders in a while, why behind closed doors? They say they're not ready. The stakes are higher in this type of environment and these venture funds and these VCs do not want to place bets with founders that they don't think can weather the storm. And so their criteria has changed, it's gotten way more strict and they expect a higher level of excellence from an operator. At the same time, it's not as if the qualifications or the skill sets of black founders have also increased at the same rate, which is resulting in a bit of a gap. There's people who have great ideas that have great technology that five years ago would have gotten funding and now can't figure out why they're getting a bunch of no's. My perspective is the reason they're getting a bunch of no's is actually their soft skills. It's not their technology, it's not who they are. It's genuinely they need to get tighter with how they operate, how they communicate, their confidence levels, even the cadence in which they speak so that they can inspire confidence when they're sitting in those rooms trying to close partnerships, trying to close enterprise deals and trying to close VCs. So that's where we're focused now. This is my hypothesis. We'll see what happens, right? But we have over 100 plus founders in this program. It's free for them. They get tickets to Appertech, they get access to executive coaches, office hours. I'm literally in people's decks, like in their Google Slides, leaving comments like a maniac because I want these people to win. I'm going to talk about them too nauseam. Like you guys are going to be annoyed with me when I'm like, look at this founder, look at this founder. Because I want these people to win. That is loud, productive, boastful situation, right? That's what we should be doing. What you're not going to see me do is be like, hey, yesterday Belavity closed a million dollars. Look at all these enterprise deals that we closed yesterday. Look at a screenshot of my salesforce that shows you my dashboard and how much we close. Please believe there are days where Blavity closes a million dollars a day. But you'll never know that. I think I maybe posted it once because it was the first time it happened and I was so proud. And we were also out, and I was out with my girl Simone, who was also a heart of sales at the time, and we were lit. But other than that one moment. You're not going to hear me talk about this all the time because it does nothing for my business. It does nothing for me personally, it does nothing for my clients, it does nothing for my employees. To publicly celebrate this privately, we might raise a glass, but publicly, there's no benefit to it. It's just ego play. You've got to make that decision for yourself. But that's how I operate. Okay, so this is a question for the girls and the girls only. They have been asking me about how I met my man and how as a successful entrepreneur, I've been able to like, live this soft life. I've talked about this before in prior episodes of the podcast, so I encourage you to go back. And Even on my YouTube, I did a whole series with Josh. Actually, we've done two episodes together. You can see one, I think it was like early in pregnancy and then the other one after the baby got here. So I would go on my YouTube channel if you really want the tea. But the Cliff Notes. As a new mom, let me tell you, life has been so busy lately. Between working, taking care of a nine month old who's starting solace, and trying to stay on top of everything else, sitting down to eat a nutritious meal myself can feel out of reach. That's why I'm so grateful for HelloFresh. HelloFresh delivers fresh ingredients and easy, delicious recipes right to your doorstep every single week. For me and my partner, it's an absolute lifesaver. But we're focused on getting our new baby to eat solids for the first time, plus still have all of his milk intake. HelloFresh. Make sure that we actually get to eat too. Their new Build a Plate meals are perfect because we can customize our plates just the way we like them. No extra cooking, just one meal with something for everybody. So if you're ready to simplify your mealtime routine and make sure everyone in the family is eating well, here's something special for you for a limited time. Kids eat free. Go to hellofresh.com journey kids to unlock this exclusive offer. That's one free kids meal per box for two months while your subscription is active again. That's free. Kids Meals Just by going to hellofresh.com Journey Kids HelloFresh makes sure that even in the chaos of life, you can still enjoy a great meal. That's why they're America's number one meal kit. If you're anything like me, you didn't start a business to spend the bulk of your time managing your finances. Between budgeting, tracking expenses and staying organized for tax time, there goes a good chunk of your day. Get back to doing what you love and let Found do the rest. I've always wondered why there wasn't a baking tool designed specifically for us small business owners who need something simple, cost effective and tailored to our needs. I used to waste money and time every single month juggling multiple apps and complicated accounts and now Found has a solution for all of that. Found is an all in one business banking solution designed for small businesses and solopreneurs. Seriously, it's an absolute game changer. With Found, you can manage your money, track your spending, send invoices, pay contractors, and even handle your own taxes all in one app. No more jumping around between five different tools just to keep your business running. And I'm not the only one who's loving Found. Just listen to what one of their users had to say. Found has made managing my small business finances so much easier. I used to dread tax season, but now it's a breeze with all the tools that Found provides. If you're ready to simplify your business finances and get back to doing what you Love, check out found. Over 500,000 small business owners have already made that switch. Try Found for free at found.com Journey Sign up for found for free today at f ound.com Journey here's the thing I had to work on myself to be completely and utterly at peace, happy and living a full, rich life for myself so that if and when I was in a position to meet somebody else, that he wanted to be the best version of himself for me and that we were choosing to then do that at the same time, serendipitously with one another. I actually think that is the secret sauce for my personal life. Why we're able to be so happy, so joyfully in love, despite a bunch of chaos around us constantly and tons of issues. It doesn't matter because I'm like we're going to make it through every single thing no matter what, because we have made this intentional decision to be our best selves and then also to be the person that the other person needs for them to be their best selves. But how do you get there? That's really the question. Particularly as an entrepreneur. I carry a lot of masculine energy. I carry so much masculine energy. I have to as an executive, because that is how I had to operate when I was raising venture fund and I had to come in aggressive. I had to be really boastful and confident. I had to be loud. I had to show up and be this bigger than life figure. And then when you're operating in a deficit where you know you're struggling to make ends meet because your business is growing, you've got cash flow issues, you're raising venture capital, you've got employees who are mad, you've got new clients that you've got to onboard. Everybody wants a piece of you. When you're operating in that level of intensity, it's very difficult to then come home and light a candle and say, oh, it's so nice to be here. Oh, you look so handsome. This is so lovely. Oh, yes. Oh, I would love to go out to dinner. Oh, that sounds so nice. Let me put on your nice dress, bro. I got the time to be cutesy nor demure. Okay? I'm like, bro, what are you talking about? What you mean right here? Like, let's go. So I had to figure out how I could allow myself to be who I needed to be at work and then also completely release that by the time that I was transitioning into my evening. But again, I had to do that before I even met this person. So I had to establish that sort of routine for myself and figure out that balance. And that took a lot of work. I hired executive coaches that were relationship coaches. I went through different programs on feminine energy. I read books. Miley Teal gave me a set of books to read about Alpha women dating and Alpha women in life and the difference between an Alpha man and an Alpha woman and all the different things. Like, I genuinely treated this like a job. My friends thought I was nuts because I was intentional and serious about what I wanted. And even the men that I dated, I remember one guy, we were such a vibe. We had such a good time. But it came to a point where it was like, I think I was so clear about what I wanted that he opted out. And I was upset about that. I was really upset about that. I was like, what you mean you opted out? And you know what he said to me? I don't think I've ever shared this, but it was very sweet. He said, you deserve someone who can love you unconditionally. Not someone who has to love you with condition. And I was like, damn, damn you right? Okay, cool, cool, cool. You know, and that was really hard for me because he was right and I had been a really good partner for him and we had had a great time. So it's not like something happened, but it was just that I was also clear that I wanted to have kids at some point, I wanted to be a wife. At some point I was clear about the type of relationship I wanted to have. And he was not capable of doing that for me. So one shout out to him. Thank you. I'm sure someone somewhere is going to send this to you. You know who you are. I appreciate you. I'm glad you're doing well. I'm glad you're happy. Okay. Anyways, don't get me off, y'all. This is why don't talk about relationship stuff on the show anyways. You have to have that boundary. And it has to be also in a non confrontational way, like the fact that I was able to be clear in a way that was. I'm sure he was a bit upset because it was like probably annoying how clear I was, but he understood where I stood and then he was able to make a decision for himself if he was willing to also be that version of himself for me. And Josh and I met at a time in which we were both capable of doing that at the right time for each other. If I had met Josh three, four years prior, it would not have worked just like if he had met me three or four years prior. No, absolutely not. For both parties. So part of it is also the right timing, but being able to receive that, being clear on who you are and what you want. And then I think the last part is you have to be 100% happy alone. And I think a lot of women, particularly entrepreneurs, who've sacrificed a lot of their work life, when you talk to them about their personal life, and I don't mean relationships, I just mean personal life for themselves. Do you have hobbies? Do you have time for reading? Do you like how you feel about your body? Are you investing in being the best, beautiful version of yourself? If you don't feel good about that stuff, it's really hard then to enter a relationship and set that up for success, in my opinion. I'm sure people do it, but that's not what I was doing. And that's what you asked for. So that's what I'm going to give you. So I have lots of other episodes on how to start to do those things. I have episodes about hobbies. I have episodes about creativ creativity, episodes about wellness. I'm sharing those things because those are the milestones on my journey that I've had to invest in so that I can be in a healthy, happy relationship in which we make each other better every single day. I'm gonna read you a text my mom sent me last night, which was really sweet. Okay, so the baby was sick. He hasn't really been sick like this before, so he had, like, a cold, and he had, like, a little bit of a fever. Josh had been out of town all week, so I was like, mayday, mayday, mom, can you come over? This is so sweet. I might cry. Guys. Okay. I just want to tell you how heartwarming it is to see you and Josh in love and support each other. You both make each other better people. I used to ask you when you brought a new boyfriend to me, how does this person make you a better person? I don't have to ask that. When it comes to Josh, I have seen and benefited from his influence in your life firsthand, and I will forever appreciate it no matter what life brings us. And the way you support and encourage Josh is so loving. It's a beautiful thing to see as a parent, to see your child happy and healthy, in love, and to a good man, I hope one day I can send that kind of text to my baby. I think that if you're really in love with the right person, it does positively impact everyone else around you, because your aura, your energy is just on a thousand. And I think that if you're unhappy with yourself, it just shows up so many different places. So it's a tall order, ladies. It's not supposed to be easy. It's not supposed to be easy. Just like you working at work, you got to work on your personal life. You got to work on yourself. But I believe it is absolutely worth it. So one of the questions that I get sometimes is about relationships and my relationships with other people as I've become more successful and more importantly, I think, more visible. And I do think that my relationships changed over time. I mean, there was definitely an inflection point in my early 20s where everybody was kind of at the same level. We all had our first jobs out of college. We were all making roughly the Same plus or minus 10 or 15k, which back then was a lot of margin difference, but now nobody cares. We were on different pathways, but we were all kind of at the same level. Because we had all graduated at the same time. And as life happens, people make different decisions. Some people got married young, had kids, some people went back to school, took themselves off the career path. I went hard for 10 years before I took myself on a slower path when I decided to be a mom. So my trajectory and their trajectory definitely has shifted. What I've tried to do is just be as generous along the way. And if that looks like paying for dinner, if that looks like paying for people's trips, you know, if we're going on a group trip or paying for the hotel or paying for the Airbnb, if that looks like support, supporting people and me being the one that goes out of my way to fly for just overnight, just to support them at their baby shower or their whatever, I take that on because I feel like I'm the one who has been the most financially blessed within reason at the individual level. Now some people have married into money and I'm mad at you, girl. But from like an individual career perspective, I think that there's a way to be humble but also conscious and not in a offensive way. And I've had to have those conversations with people say, how do you want me to show up? I think that's the other thing that I encourage you as you get more successful, it's just to ask people, don't make assumptions about what they want or what they don't want. How can I support you? How can I show up? Is there anything that I can do? If people are like, oh, can my cousin come to Afrotech? I'm like, yeah, like be incredibly generous. And I think that's what happens a lot is like someone's like, oh, my mom wants to like speak at Afro Tech. I'm like, okay, here's the process. Like I'm not going to necessarily give your mom a speaking slot, but let me make it a little bit easier for her. Or hey, I'm thinking about writing a book. Like can we talk about that process? So just trying to be as available within reason and also not being judgmental. I think at times earlier in my career I took for granted maybe the self esteem comparison that could happen. And so I would like just go really hard when someone asked for my feedback or advice. And I think that made me a little bit unapproachable. So now I'm not super soft. Y'all know me. So I'm more soft now than I was back then with how I approach giving people feedback or advice or guidance when they ask for my input. And then when it comes to my community, I try to bring everybody along the way. Like when Aphroditex around the corner, people know I'm a send them a ticket. Whether you come or not, I'm a send you a ticket because I know that going to that community is going to only help you in whatever your career wants to do, whatever you want to do with your life. And as people's kids get older, we're thinking about that too. I'm like, how do you want me to show up as an aunt? How do you want me to show up as somebody in your children's life? I've had people be like, oh, can so and so, like my niece or nephew have an internship? Sure, whatever. Like, if nepotism for me, then why, like, what. What are we talking about here? Like, we work hard to have nepotism as black folks, as women, as women in business. So, yeah, let's do it. You know, let's do it. They got to work, but let's go. And I think that my best piece of advice would be to just ask people how they want to engage with you and support you. And don't assume just because you've become more successful that people aren't going to, like, want to ride with you on the way up. Like, I think a lot of people do. You still have to have your boundaries. But actually, surprisingly, no one's ever really crossed my boundaries. Like, nobody's ever, like, explicitly asked me for money or been like, oh, can you loan me something? You know, no one's ever done that. It's been, can you invest in my business? Can you help me get a job? Those types of things. And I will evaluate them just like everything else. So I recently joined the board for Leading Women Defined, which is a nonprofit focused on helping black executive women have community and network and be their best selves so they can be leaders on behalf of the rest of us. It's an organization I've been a part of for over five years. I'm incredibly blessed to be a part of it and would pinch myself every time I was in those rooms. It started by a incredible woman named Deborah Lee, who's the former CEO of BET, one of the first black women CEOs of a huge network. I was thrilled to be invited to be on their board. I've been on advisory boards for corporations quite a bit. So I'm on the advisory board for PepsiCo. I'm on the advisory board for America American Airlines, on the advisory board for Black Economic alliance, which is the biggest Black PAC in the country. What I've learned through those experiences is that one getting those seats is typically about recommendations from other people. So it's not like an application process, right? Like, there's a short list, there's a private conversation, and people are putting people into that short list for consideration. So what you have to focus on if you want to be put in those positions to be on these advisory boards or boards in general, is your network. And not just having a lot of people that know who you are genuinely having relationships with, people who know your skill set, have worked with you before, and therefore can vouch for you and how you would be able to make an impact on that organization. So my brand in the corporate executive world is the young executive, because relative to my peers, I'm always the youngest person in the room on these boards who is incredible at building digital brands, digital transformation, and workplace equity talent acquisition. So when these organizations are evaluating their strategies, if that is a pillar that they care about, then I'm in consideration for that. And I want to be the best in those categories, right? Because if there's someone else that's better than me in those categories, then they're going to be on the short list, and I won't make it on there. Because you only need one person to fill that spot. Because you need a diversity on your board of people with different skill sets to help that organization move forward. So as you're developing your personal brand and as you're developing your unique place in the world, consider that actually being more specific, but being the best is going to be how you get more opportunities. So if you're going to be an AI person, be the best. If you're going to be someone who's into risk and cybersecurity, then be the best and build your brand on that. Being someone who's just a general business person is like, not a thing. Okay? And when it comes to advisory boards and boards in general, you need to have a personal brand that speaks for itself through also your portfolio of work, what you say and what you do. Your say do ratio, which I've talked about before, needs to be very aligned when it comes to actually getting a board seat. Know what you bring to the table. So if you don't have that clarity in your brain, if you can't say these are the three things I can bring to an organization and I'm actually the best at this for this specific category, then that's where you really need to focus. All right, y'all, hopefully this episode was helpful. For you. I love the AMAs. I love them so much. So make sure you continue to submit questions in my channels on Instagram, which are free. You can join my newsletter@morgandevon.com I send out a weekly newsletter, sometimes a couple times a week if I've got something that I want to share. Resources, tools, just random thoughts. So make sure you are on my newsletter. And lastly, you can of course, always leave me a comment on YouTube or TikTok and if I don't read it, somebody else will and make sure it gets to me. So thank you for joining the Journey Podcast. Talk to you soon. Bye. Thanks for listening to the Journey Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure you leave a review and head to our Instagram and YouTube to leave a comment. I look forward to hearing how this podcast has made an impact on your own Journey.