Tackling the world’s business challenges, with Dr. Brandi Baldwin of Millennial Ventures

An award-winning startup CEO and founder of Millennial Ventures Holdings, Brandi Baldwin is shaking up the future of business by helping launch social impact brands. In this episode, learn what motivates her and how you can follow in her footsteps to shake up and invigorate your own organization.

Transcript

Donald Thompson 00:00

Welcome to another episode of the Donald Thompson podcast. I am very blessed today to be spending time with Dr. Brandi Baldwin and welcome to the show Dr. Brandi,

Dr Brandi Baldwin00:09

Thank you for having me, excited for today’s discussion.

Donald00:12

One of the things that I like to do is just give you space to talk about, we’re going to get into diversity equity inclusion, we’re going to get into some of the books that you’ve authored and things you’ve done, but talk to us about you as a person, where’d you grow up? Where’d you go to school? What kind of led you to the work that you’re doing? Let me give you some space to introduce yourself to our audience.

Dr Brandi00:32

Okay. I love that. Love to start the conversation that way. I grew up actually right outside of Washington, DC. In a single parent household and I am Jamaican. So I let folks know in my household the rules were, you know, God, Jesus and education will get you through everything in life. That’s pretty much what you need as a solution for everything. But I was raised, no, by my mother. She shared with me that education is the great equalizer, you know, make sure that you get your education and take your studies very seriously. I internalized that and became this sort of overachiever, I think very early in life and, was student government president and on the track team and an orchestra and honor roll and all of those things.

But when I graduated from high school and went off to college, I kind of took that overachieving mentality to my collegiate studies. Did the bachelor’s, did the master’s, got the PhD before the age of 30 and actually graduated feeling pretty empty, feeling pretty unfulfilled. You know, I know it’s like a plot twist there, feeling like everyone else saw me as someone who was super successful, but on the inside, I tell people I was struggling with something called per-fake-tion, which is not a real term, but I made it up, uh, you know, when you’re kind of just, you know, pretending that things are okay and they’re not.

And so I went back to my mom like, hey, you know, you told me education was going to be that thing, you know, to help me be successful. And quite frankly, it didn’t work. Was that a lie, what’s going on? You know, and she pretty much said, look, girl, you got to figure this out on your own. You’re old enough now.

And so I went through a kind of a self-discovery process and realized they really leadership is the great equalizer leadership and choosing to be in control of what you can control. Um, it’s something that really transformed my life. So now many years later, I started college about 20 years ago, um, and so many years later I’ve been able to take some of what I learned in college and turn those into thriving businesses as an entrepreneur and thought leader.

Donald02:29

That is fantastic. Both, uh, the background, the personalization of that background, and then bringing us to present day where you’re chasing the dream and helping other entrepreneurs as well, in terms of what are some of the financial impacts, but also some of the emotional impacts of owning your own business and chasing your dream.

My first question, because we’re going to talk about it for a second, inclusion, but I’m gonna start with entrepreneurship. What are some of the characteristics that you’ve seen in successful entrepreneurs, the folks that really get it done and really keep it moving?

Dr Brandi03:01

Yeah. So I think the first thing will be:

they’re very connected to why they’re launching out into entrepreneurship. And usually it has nothing to do with escaping the corporate slave ship as we hear people say. That sure maybe something that is like an impetus, it’s the first thing, reason why you launch, but you really have to be connected to who you’re going to impact.

Full Episode Transcript

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