A Mission to Impact 1 Million Women | Business with Purpose Podcast EP 154: Kisha Mays, Just Fearless
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Kisha Mays is a woman who’s not only changing the world, she’s also empowering other women to do the same. She’s on a mission to help 1 million women generate $1 million in revenue by the year 2025. Kisha is an entrepreneur, producer, author, speaker, and so much more. She helps develop more successful female owned businesses through her business, Just Fearless. She also supports nonprofits worldwide that empower women and girls. Join the conversation as I join Kisha to talk about the good things as well as the hard things in the world of woman-owned businesses.
2:24 – The Kisha 101
- Growing up in a single-parent household in an urban community, Kisha has known since high school that she wanted to work for herself.
- The main mission of Kisha’s business, Just Fearless is to help 1 million women entrepreneurs generate a minimum of $1 million in annual revenue by December 31st, 2025.
- When living in chaotic times, Kisha desires to focus on helping women with their business. If she focuses on helping women general $1 million in revenue, that’s a trillion dollars back to the global economy. That will have far greater impact than any protest.
- Kisha’s grandmother and a deep-seeded belief in herself have been the greatest catalysts for pursuing a counter narrative to what she’d been told for so many years as a young woman wanting to be in business for herself.
- Even with a high GPA, a high school guidance counselor told Kisha she wouldn’t have a good chance of getting into the college of her choice. We all need those people who are a generation ahead of us to speak life into us and mentor us and push us through those voices of doubt. Maybe you’re that person for someone else.
- After high school, Kisha moved to New York and working for Continental Airlines. While working full time, she also tried to find her way through the music industry as a songwriter. It was her training ground that prepared her for building her own companies.
15:35 – Investing in Women
- Kisha worked a professional job during the day and became involved in an illegal business at night. Through her experience, she met so many women who wanted more for their lives but didn’t know how to get started.
- In 2007, Kisha partnered with Dress For Success putting on empowerment events for women. In 2009, she ran a huge conference for women and experienced one of her biggest public failures.
- Failures teach us who’s in our corner in the hard times and show us the strength we have to get back up and go again. In the same year, Kisha managed to pull off a successful event on a smaller scale.
- As her company grew internationally, the vision to help 1 million women earn $1 million in revenue emerged, Kisha realized she can impact the world over and over again by empowering women grow their own talents and visions.
- Giving women opportunities to pursue their dreams simply comes down to creating confidence, resources and access.
33:00 – Moving Forward, Just Fearless
- Kisha is focusing on ways to continue growing the Angel Fund that helps finance invest other women-owned companies from the seed stage and beyond.
- She’s focusing on a new facet of Just Fearless called Her Story Connections to bring women together on everything women-owned. It features women in the business, creative, and literary fields through webinars, courses, classes, and a podcast.
- Just Fearless will continue growing various events in different parts of the world to bring experts together who help women-owned businesses build revenue and expand their markets.
- Kisha has all the foundations and programming in place for Just Fearless. The main focus now is getting the word out through podcasts, media outlets, social media, etc., to tell the world “we’re here and we really want to help.”
36:32 – Getting To Know Our Guest:
Find out what TV shows Kisha loved to watch growing up, what cheesy songs she has memorized, and which authors who are inspiring her right now. Don’t forget to stay tuned to hear the answer to the most important question of “What does it mean to you to run a business with purpose?”.
- Link to Kisha’s book: From Failure to Fearless
Meet Your Guest:
Kisha Mays is a Successful Serial Entrepreneur, Visionary Global Business Development Strategist, Best Selling Author, Angel Investor, and Philanthropist. Her primary focus is on helping to develop 1,000,000 Fearless Female Entrepreneurs generating a minimum of $1,000,000+ in annual revenue. Turning them into unicorn global businesses through the Just Fearless Angel Fund which is a fund exclusively for female founded companies. She pays it forward by supporting non-profits worldwide that specifically support & empower women and girls.
Kisha and her team are developing strategic partnerships for 2019 and beyond to take this international business and brand to an explosive level bringing Just Fearless from behind the scenes to the forefront. In 2019 they are launching HERstory Connections for Women in Business, Women in Creatives, and Women in Literary to help them increase their revenue and help us reach our 1,000,000 goal mentioned above. She and her team are excited for the abundance of opportunities, expansion, and partnerships to be announced very soon. She has been featured in the Business Insider, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Fast Company, and Forbesto name a few. The Just Fearless team has worked with Pepsi, GE, and Home Depot to name a few.
Kisha released her Best Selling book “From Failure to Fearless: Still Completely Flawed BUT Thriving Fearlessly” to rave reviews. Most successful people only talk about the good parts of their journey. In her book, “From Failure to Fearless,” Kisha details her many, some very public, failures and how she overcame them in a transparent and vulnerable way. Based on the many positive reviews readers can relate to this from both a personal & business perspective.
Her major influences are Madam C. J. Walker, Oprah Winfrey, Sara Blakely, Malala Yousafzai, Nelson Mandela, and Richard Branson, for their fearlessness, exceptional courage, drive and ambition, willingness to go after what they desire & believe in all while setting the standard and breaking through any and all ceilings. Even with all the success she has achieved, Kisha still feels like she is only getting started. Based on her early success at a young age and her drive and ambition, her future and continued success is undoubtedly going to leave a major mark in history.