What Black Women Know

Most of the rules running your life, you never actually agreed to. You inherited them — from a mother working three jobs, from a culture that told you what a young lady does, from a workplace that rewarded you for being the strong one who never asks for help. Petra Owusu-Brandstaeter has spent fifteen years figuring out how to take those rules apart.About this episode:Petra calls it the inner architecture of self-leadership — the layered operating system of emotional rules, personality, values, and beliefs that drives every decision you make before you're aware you've made it. In this conversation she breaks down why knowing better rarely changes behaviour, why the strengths that carried you up the ladder eventually become the ceiling, and how to tell which of your rules still belong in the life you're living now. Jamilia goes first, unpacking her own rule live — "young ladies always wear earrings" — and tracing it straight to the perfectionism she leads with today. You'll leave able to name at least one rule you've been following without choosing it.About Petra:Petra Owusu-Brandstaeter is the CEO of Unbox Leadership Consulting and a Founding Coach at She Leads Here. Born in Ghana, raised in Germany, and shaped by eight years building a life and raising her son in Guangzhou before settling in Dubai, she has spent over fifteen years working across Europe, China, and the Middle East. She started in emotional intelligence training for leaders — then went underneath it, to the self-leadership that decides whether any of it ever sticks.In this conversation:Why "the knowing does not equal the doing" — and what's actually blocking the change you keep failing to makeEmotional rules: the inherited, unspoken instructions that quietly run your career, your relationships, and your reactionsHow independence becomes a strength that turns into a cage — and why high-performing women are so often the ones who hit the wallJamilia unpacking her own emotional rule on air, and what she'd be doing if she'd never learned itThe "soft life" reframe: how the rule you live by becomes your identity — and how to rewrite it on purposeJoin the community:What Black Women Know is brought to you by She Leads Here — the global membership community for Black women who are building something, at every stage. Coaching, community, and real connections across the US, UK, Africa, Europe, and the Gulf. These conversations are also recorded live inside the community, where members go deeper, ask the guest their own questions, and bring the lesson into their own work.Join us at sheleadshere.org

You were taught to be strong. To show up for everyone. To give to your family, your community, your partner, your colleagues — and to do it without complaint, without rest, and without putting yourself first.But nobody told you what that would cost you.The panic attacks. The high blood pressure. The resentment that builds quietly until one day you do not recognise yourself. The exhaustion that has nothing to do with how much sleep you got.This is what happens when the strong Black woman label stops being a compliment and starts being a cage.In this episode, Haamacha Ngandu — self-prioritization coach, founder of The Art of Self-Prioritization, and a woman who has lived every word of this framework — breaks down what it actually means to put yourself first. Not selfishly. Not at the expense of the people you love. But strategically, incrementally, and with the kind of unapologetic clarity that changes how everyone around you treats you.Haamacha speaks from Milan, Italy — where she rebuilt her life after 20 years of marriage, navigated a five-year court battle, and discovered that the boundaries she fought for in a courtroom were the same ones she had been afraid to set at home.In this conversation:Why the strong Black woman label is one of the most dangerous identities we carry — and what it is quietly doing to our bodiesThe Art of Self-Prioritization framework — soft nos, deep whys, and the small incremental choices that compound into a completely different lifeWhy resentment is not about the other person — and what it is actually telling you about yourselfHow to identify your deep why and use it to stay consistent when every instinct tells you to give inWhat Black women specifically have been conditioned to believe about rest, boundaries, and self-worth — and how to start deprogramming it nowWhy self-prioritization is not a destination but a daily practice — and what that looks like even on the hardest daysReady to be in the room where this conversation continues?She Leads Here is the global membership community for Black women in leadership and entrepreneurship — where the coaching is real, the community is global, and the women you meet here have been exactly where you are.Haamacha Ngandu is a founding coach inside She Leads Here. You can work with her and coaches like her inside the community.Join us at sheleadshere.org

What if the most powerful tool in your leadership arsenal was the one you were taught to leave at the door?This episode makes the case that love is not a soft skill. It is a strategy. One that increases retention, reduces burnout, grows profits, and fundamentally changes how you show up as a leader, a colleague, and a human being in every room you walk into.Annie Paraison — leadership and relational intelligence coach and founder of Love Before All — breaks down exactly how to use love as an actionable framework in business and in life. This is not a conversation about being nice. It is a conversation about building the relational skills that most of us were never taught, and that Black women in business and leadership need now more than ever.In this conversation:Why love is an action, not a sentiment — and what that means for how you lead your team and run your businessThe stories your eight-year-old self is still telling you — and how to rewrite them without losing yourself in the processWhy Black women are often the most relationally skilled people in the room and the least protected by itThe three shifts that change everything: from fixing to seeing, from perfection to repair, from time management to energy scaffoldingHow to stop taking it personally — and access your full brilliance to solve what's actually in front of youReady to be in the room where this conversation continues?She Leads Here is the global membership community for Black women in leadership and entrepreneurship — where the coaching is real, the community is global, and the women you meet here have been exactly where you are.Annie Paraison is a founding coach inside She Leads Here. You can work with her and coaches like her inside the community.Join us at sheleadshere.org

There is a name for what you have been carrying — and it has been costing you more than you know.In this episode, Jamilia Grier sits down with Dr. Aleesha Grier-Rogers, clinical psychologist and women's health coach, to break down the Triple Tax — the layered, compounding weight that Black women absorb daily across every space they occupy. The performance tax. The emotional labor tax. The resilience tax. And for many, the maternal mental load multiplier sitting on top of all of it.This is not a conversation about struggle. It is a conversation about clarity — naming what is real, understanding what it is costing you, and beginning to put some of it down.Dr. Grier-Rogers specializes in working with women of color navigating women's health, fertility, and the psychological weight of showing up in spaces not built for them. This episode is her first session inside She Leads Here — and it will stay with you.In this conversation:What the Triple Tax actually is — and why Black women carry it in ways others simply do notThe performance tax: why we are always monitoring, editing, and translating ourselves even when we are exhaustedThe resilience tax: how the cape that was supposed to protect us has been quietly depleting us for generationsThe maternal mental load multiplier: the invisible cognitive weight that does not stop, even in sleepWhat it actually looks like to start putting it down — boundaries, emotional selectivity, and redefining what strength meansReady to be in the room where this conversation continues?She Leads Here is the global membership community for Black women in leadership and entrepreneurship — where the coaching is real, the community is global, and the women you meet here have been exactly where you are.Dr. Grier-Rogers is a member of She Leads Here. You can connect with her and coaches like her inside the community.Join us at sheleadshere.org

What Black Women Know is the podcast for Black women in business, leadership, and life — featuring candid conversations with coaches, mentors, and experts from around the world who have navigated exactly what you are facing right now.Every week, host Jamilia Grier sits down with an expert guest who has climbed the mountain — and she tells you what it actually takes to reach the summit. Not theory. Not polished success stories. The real, hard-won knowledge that gets you through the challenge, the decision, the week in front of you.This is coaching for Black women, by Black women. Business. Leadership. Career. Entrepreneurship. Life. Wherever you are in the world, the expert you need is here.What Black Women Know is brought to you by She Leads Here — the global membership community for Black women in leadership and entrepreneurship. Coaching, community, and real connections across the US, UK, Africa, Europe, and the Gulf.New episodes weekly. Subscribe now.Join the community: sheleadshere.org