Welcome to the Black Girl Burnout Podcast, Kelly here,

and we are back with another episode

and their continuation of our conversation with Les Alfred,

the host and creator of the balanced Black Girl platform.

We get into how Les centers joy and creativity in her professional life and what steps

she's taken to do that. All right, let's jump back into the conversation.

Welcome back, Les. I'm so glad you're here.

We've had such a great conversation so far.

We talked about how your journey has been to opting out of struggle and finding that kind

of blend for yourself and alignment with your values

and just creating space for yourself. And so now I want to find out what you've opted into, right?

I always tell folks, if you're opting out of something, you've got to opt into what our true

legacy is with black women. And that is one of joy. And we don't center joy enough as black

women. And so I want to hear about how you arrive to a place of joy in your professional life

and how you maintain it today in your professional life. Yeah. I think for me, finding joy

professionally has really been in the things and the professions that I have created for myself.

So I have definitely stopped looking to external jobs and professions to be a source of joy.

And I have instead said, okay, from my career standpoint or my professional career,

how can I find something that helps me hone in and develop the skills that I really want

to develop that helps me grow as a leader and that allows me to still have a life?

And if I can find something with that sweet spot, then I can do the other things, the other

types of work outside of that

...