I Chose to Leap Without Clarity 

What could you achieve if you stopped waiting until you felt ready?

I began my career believing I had found my lifelong path. As a reporter, I thrived on the fast-paced newsroom environment, the challenge of sharing meaningful stories, the adrenaline of tight deadlines, and the knowledge that my work made an impact.

Journalism felt solid and respectable. It was my true source of purpose and identity. I fully expected to spend my entire career doing just that.

Meanwhile, as the digital space continued to evolve, I started a side hustle, creating an online resource for textured hair. It was born from frustration with my own out-of-control curls, curiosity, and a simple desire to share information about naturally curly hair that wasn’t being covered anywhere else.

What surprised me was how fast it resonated.

I quickly realized that I was filling a massive gap. People with textured hair craved community, education, and representation. They wanted to feel beautiful and be seen.

The site continued to grow, even as I clung tightly to my day job at the newspaper. Journalism was both my identity and my safety net. The idea of leaving it behind for something unproven was thrilling, yet terrifying.

Entrepreneurship wasn’t even a consideration. After all, I wrote about founders, but never imagined becoming one myself. Could this side hustle really turn into my next career move?

Despite the unknown, I took the leap. Deciding to go all-in on my website, NaturallyCurly, was the scariest professional moment of my life.

It didn’t feel like a calculated leap; it felt like stepping off a cliff without knowing whether a net existed. There was no roadmap, no guarantee of success, and no certainty that this was what I was meant to do.

Then life tested that decision almost immediately.

In the month after I left my job, I was diagnosed with cancer, our house was robbed, and NaturallyCurly lost its largest advertiser. Any one of those events could have stopped me, but somehow, they didn’t.

What I didn’t realize at the time was that the very skills journalism had given me—curiosity, storytelling, listening—had actually prepared me for entrepreneurship all along.

Building my company required learning in public, making decisions without precedent, and trusting that the community would help shape what came next.

That leap off the cliff didn’t just change my career. It changed how I saw myself.

At the time, I didn’t feel bold or fearless. Instead, I felt unsure and unqualified. But choosing to trust myself, even without a clear roadmap, planted something deeper than courage: self-belief.

Each decision I made and each obstacle I navigated reinforced the idea that I could figure things out as I went.

What began as a leap of faith became proof that I was capable of far more than I had ever allowed myself to imagine.

That side hustle turned into a business, which then grew into one of the leading multicultural media companies.

Building and ultimately selling that business solidified my confidence in a lasting way. I now understand that success isn’t about having all the answers up front; it’s about being willing to learn, adapt, and lead through uncertainty.

After the acquisition, I joined the nation’s largest consumer products accelerator, helping to scale early-stage startups. I show up knowing my experience matters and that I have hard-earned insight into what it truly takes to build a company from the ground up.

Today, I’m often seen as an authority on entrepreneurship, something I never set out to become. But it was earned by taking risks before I felt ready, staying open to learning, and discovering that I could handle the outcome, whatever it was.

My biggest lesson was this: Clarity often comes after action, not before it. Trusting myself even without proof or precedent continues to shape every opportunity I pursue.