I Just Be Talking

“You can let the negativity and overstimulation take over, or you can give into the lights and the music. See them as the supportive nightlife accessories they are – massaging stiff muscles and cooing you into release.

I started choosing the latter.”

  • When I first started collecting cash at the door for a DJ here in St. Louis, I was constantly overwhelmed. Flustered by people trying to slip in without paying, the pressure of quick mental math when giving change, or the risk of offending someone whose name wasn't on the list. The lights were loud. The energy was a lot.

    But lately, something has shifted. Doors feel different.

    I’m on a journey to make my multifacetedness work in both my career and lifestyle. Over the last year, I’ve come to realize that getting flustered is a choice. You can let the negativity and overstimulation take over, or you can give into the lights and the music. See them as the supportive nightlife accessories they are – massaging stiff muscles and cooing you into release. I started choosing the latter. And the doors got easier.

    The more I settle into my professional identity, I’m energized by the idea that I never have to be just one thing. What I once called restlessness, I’m now calling multifacedtness. I never thought I could settle into one role, dept or industry but I'm gaining a sense of peace in my intersectionality whereas before I thought it was something too confusing or burdensome to explain and embrace.

    During shelter-in-place, I launched a YouTube channel under the name b.Kori - a pseudonym I’d used for years in my writing but never in such a public way. b.Kori is a creative, a host/entertainer and a builder. Under that branding, I get to step outside of expectations for singularity and be every iteration of myself, without the burnout or the overwhelm.

    Not fully being myself was never a sustainable plan. Neither was letting a moment of overstimulation determine the outcome of a night. I’m enjoying learning when to show up as what and when to let which things go. Despite its reputation for discomfort, I think growth can be easy and even fun.

    Like dancing while you work. 

“I don’t have to look like the room. I don’t have to have the same background or ‘why’ as the people in the room. But when I listen between the words, if I can hear me in the room, it’s my room.”

  • My side-quest lifestyle and type A mannerisms have made life and career a curious battle. I’m blessed to have parents and a support system that breathe life into my curiosity, never stamping it out, and consoling me when my curiosity leads me to a corner I can’t see around.

    Coming from the events world, my experience in tech lived primarily in the physical. Mics, PAs, projectors… I utilized software and I love a good workflow solution, but developing one felt out of reach. When my curiosity started to pull me towards coding and AI, I found myself at a familiar cross-roads: I wanted to try something new and also immediately be an expert at it. I had to pivot. Not off the path that I was headed down, but mentally.

    I could keep getting frustrated with the terms I wasn’t grasping, or I could figure out how to communicate across knowledge bases. I started listening for me. Looking for ways that my expertise could interact and intersect with the new communities and resources I was then engaging with. I was able to find synergy between myself and the world of AI and software development through design and world building. Suddenly this new frontier was so much easier to navigate. It became fun!

    I don’t have to look like the room. I don’t have to have the same background or ‘why’ as the people in the room. But when I listen between the words, if I can hear me in the room, it’s my room. Software development, tech, and AI, was a pivot I didn’t see coming but it taught me that you can’t judge a pivot by how familiar your surroundings are. You navigate pivots by knowing how to find yourself even in the unfamiliar.

“The year was telling me what it wanted to be, but I needed something to help me own it. So I built something.”

  • I came into 2026 with an uncharacteristic desire to let the year tell me what it’s going to be. This is the first year in as long as I can remember that I didn’t create some sort of vison board or resolution list.

    That release led to hugely unpredictable situations. Some scary, some honestly boring and some just new. I looked up one morning while dancing to afrobeats, lighting incense and deciding if I would go with salmon or sardines for my snack plate protein, and I realized that my routines were unrecognizable. All for the better, but somehow my eating habits, the spaces I frequented, my travel all looked different. Even in this post I’m using far more -un words than I’m comfortable with! Uncharacteristic, unpredictable, unrecognizable.

    The year was telling me what it wanted to be, but I needed something to help me own it. So I built something. Anointed & Appointed is a digital life organizer that comes with calendar sync, a multi-part to-do list, my contact list with notes and a task creator, a wellness (fitness and mealprep) tracker and a Christ-centered coach to help me navigate my surface-level tasks and prioritize my deeper goals.

    There's something really cool about building a tool for yourself. I know exactly where the friction is, what features I’ll actually use and I used my own templates/excel sheets/language to make it custom tailored to me.

    And it’s cute!  

    If you want the prompts, workflow and tools I used to build your own coach, grab the package here.

“The concept of a uniform exists to eliminate decisions, creating one less thing to think about before the day begins. But I've never wanted fewer decisions about how I show up. I want aligned ones.”

  • The only reason I got in trouble in middle school was the uniform policy. 🧍‍♀️

    Navy polo, grey or dark blue bottoms, black shoes. And a lanyard around your neck. I didn't egregiously disobey the rules but something was always off enough to be noticeable – my shirt was blue, but definitely not navy and god forbid a polo, never wore my lanyard, “accidently” spilled paint on my pants in art class and was glad it didn’t come out.

    Maybe I was being a brat. Maybe I was practicing something I didn't have language for yet.

    My soft protests were less about the actual clothes or colors and more about not wanting to looking like everyone else. Not wanting to feel like another lump of clay on the public school system’s manufacturing belt. We all carry different gifts and messages, so why should we all look the same?

    I still love clothing as communication and what I wear is rarely accidental.

    But lately, the question of what to wear has gotten more complicated.

    Most days, it feels like I'm living two lives. I spent one morning last week untangling InDesign errors, building branded virtual backgrounds, and scheduling content. That same evening, I was in a room with founders leading a panel on the ethics and technical disruption of AI. There wasn't one outfit that belonged in both spaces.

    I don't think that's a problem to solve. I think it's a practice to learn.

    The concept of a uniform exists to eliminate decisions, creating one less thing to think about before the day begins. But I've never wanted fewer decisions about how I show up. I want aligned ones. I want to walk into every room — whether that's a pitch meeting, a panel, a party, or a coffee shop — having chosen, clearly and deliberately, what version of myself belongs there.

    The uniform was never going to work for me. I think I always knew that. But tell me: are you #teamuniform?

“I cleaned my elbow wound, fixed my hair, and stared in the mirror like I was the main character in a coming-of-age, female-lead Netflix series.

“Everything’s ok. Let’s get it.”

  • Recently, my knee violently collided with crosswalk asphalt in front of a cop, drivers, workers, God and other passersby. There are two important things to note as I recount my travesty. 1. This is a walk I’ve taken many times to Spark Coworking 2. This was my first day working at Spark Coworking.

    I did enter my job and pretend nothing was wrong – like I wasn’t sweating profusely, my knee wasn’t burning hot, my elbow wasn’t bleeding and my hair wasn’t aggressively tousled. I smiled brightly, because I was excited for this new chapter, and after setting my things down I cutely announced I needed “a quick run to the bathroom.” The quick run was an excruciating limp. I cleaned my elbow wound, fixed my hair, and stared in the mirror like I was the main character in a coming-of-age, female-lead Netflix series.

    “Everything’s ok. Let’s get it.”  

    I did indeed limp around the entire day while loading dishwashers, learning systems and greeting the members. I also had the full empathy and love of the staff and acknowledgment that falling day 1 was cinematically ludicrous. I'm still not sure if the universe was hazing me or welcoming me. Maybe both.

    As my first month at Spark comes to a close, I keep returning to that morning. The asphalt, the cop, the mirror… humor and humility arrived together, hand-in-hand, to usher me into my next. Between Kaliber, Spark and b.Kori, I wake up knowing that I am living my dream professional life and despite the Netflix of it all, I’ve learned that entering any dream stage (career, relationship, wellness, etc) feels a lot less like sprinting through a finish line with a fist in the air. And more like a slow gait – or maybe a limp - into who you’ve always been.

    #IJustBeTalking