In this YouTube recap, Zaakirah Muhammad walks viewers through her experience at the Black in Tech conference, highlighting the event’s relaxed, inclusive atmosphere and logistical details (check‑in, meals, mentorship app Brella). She reflects on her participation in a panel titled “Human and AI in the Workplace,” praising the moderator’s timing and the expertise of fellow panelists. Zaakirah then shares her personal health background—PCOS and being a childhood eye‑cancer survivor—as a lens for why authentic storytelling matters. The bulk of the video is a mentorship‑style coaching session with Speaker C, where Zaakirah offers concrete storytelling hacks: reveal little‑known personal facts, craft a re‑introduction video, experiment with a 30‑day content challenge, and leverage specific platforms (TikTok, Instagram, Threads) and editing tools. She emphasizes consistency, authenticity, and using personal narrative to build audience trust, while also noting the practicalities of scheduling one‑on‑one mentorship sessions through the conference app.
Chapters
This entire tech conference has been so laid back. I think that's the first thing. If you're looking for a tech conference that is not all of the bro hype, this is the one you need to come to. So checked in, had a pretty smooth bag check-in, and was able to meet in person with one of the speaker coordinators. So what's so cool about this conference is the founder and the speaker coordinator, they're just, you know, personable. They're navigating around, making sure that we're all just good to go, we're okay. Go to blackagtech.com to learn more about it. So we're about to eat lunch, and it's like this delicious buffet of like salad and chicken and lamb and turkey and take your pick. And it's, it's so revitalizing because I'm gonna need it because it's panel day. So after I eat, finish going through all the final logistics of the panel, the quiet before the storm, and away we go.
Muhammad, brand and business strategies at C Live Different Media, a TEDx speaker, also an outgoing CEO at Selling Coolers US. Zaakirah empowers diverse varieties through branding and storytelling, overcoming unique challenges as a deaf-blind cancer survival, a commitment in facilitating mental and inspiring in parents who will share a PCOS story and the compelling value clinical product offers to employers. Welcome, Zakirah.
So how many of you know what PCOS is? I'm gonna start here. Polycystic ovarian syndrome affects 1 in 10 women, so that can include symptoms like heavy breasts, irregular menstrual cycles, um, and lots of facial hair, um, or hair everywhere else. So prior to the pandemic, uh, before I went all in into entrepreneurship, I chose to work a couple of retail jobs. And so another one of the symptoms is extreme fatigue. So there'll be some weeks where I am extremely productive, some weeks where I am extremely tired. And instead of my boss trying to ask, what's going on? How can I help you? I'll get chastised and belittled. And the further I got into my role, especially, you know, being the board mentor CEO and CEO of Mechanical, the more I realized that a lot of women who menstruate have the same issue— being belittled, not being understood, not being seen, not being heard. So once I was able to have a conversation with them, I realized, okay, there is a problem that needs to be solved here. Women still need to be seen and heard and understood. And in order for, um, the inclusivity— and even though they're breaking down all the easy higher walls right now, people still need to be heard. And that's just for both genders. Although it's menstruated, the men are the ones who are the bosses. The men are the ones who are the decision And I believe that PCOS is just one aspect. There's so many other irregular periods symptoms going on that I hope people should be able to understand. Okay, so I just finished the panel, Human Versus AI— no, Human and AI, Bridging Human and AI in the Workplace Community. And it was very engaging. It flew really well. I was a little concerned about time, but we did really good. That's the power of moderating. So we had a really good moderator. Chase did a really good job making sure that we stayed on time, and if he needed to kind of go around and go out of order, because he was really meticulous about making sure we followed the script, but he was willing to go with the flow. So it was really good, and I feel like we got some mic drop moments from everyone because everyone is so knowledgeable about their topic. And then it was so exciting to be able to see some online connections in real life and vice versa. So it's been an amazing day of networking and watching other people complete their pitch competition and have their solo shots and workshops and breakout sessions. So it's been an amazing time at Black in Tech. I'm honored to have been chosen to be on the panel, and I'm so excited for what's to come. But we get one-on-one mentorship sessions. And so they have this cool app, I think it's Brella, B-R-E-L-L-A, and people could book to have a one-on-one mentorship with you. And so I'm getting these email requests like, oh, okay, I'm gonna be a mentor today. So I gotta factor that into my schedule. So I'm gonna— we're gonna go check out the rooms of where that's gonna be, and then I can tell people to come join me. So follow me. Tama'leikum. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you too. Yes, nice to meet you. I put your session on my schedule, but there's all these mentorship, um, I don't know if you're in the app and you saw that mentorship thing.
Not yet.
Yeah, well, I joined the app and people are scheduling stuff with me, so I'm gonna try to come, come see yours and go do the mentorship thing though.
Now I'm just—
okay, so let's rewind a little bit. Tell me More about what excites you the most.
I do love storytelling because when I'm on my own social media and I'm— I live on a ranch, so I got cows, horses, and I'm from the city.
Yeah, I have an accent and people thought I was from the country, but that's not the case.
So when I get on my social media and I'm like, oh my God, one of the cows had a baby today, and I, I I get a lot of, you know, feedback or whatnot. So I'm like, oh, they're interested in that. So the stories that I tell about my day-to-day, I get a lot of feedback, and I'm like, oh, okay, that could be one direction for me to just focus on that.
Yeah. But career-wise, I really do want to go higher than just handling Yeah, okay, so one thing, one tip that I can give you, definitely when I first started out, because I've been in the storytelling world before it was predominantly social media, right? So for me, it was just a matter of bringing it online. But what happens is, it was the same thing for me, like I'm used to the one-on-one interaction, but if I have to go on a video and just, just talk, it kind of gets uncomfortable. And then of course, that's all you hear. You hear, oh, what are they What are they gonna think about my accent? What are they gonna think about what I'm saying? All of these other thoughts are in your head, right? So first thing first is always to just kind of separate yourself from those thoughts because there will always be a distraction. And so what have you already been doing, um, socially, social media-wise, for your own brand?
Oh yeah, I have a YouTube, but I've neglected it. But anything to date is probably TikTok or Instagram.
Instagram for the most part.
And the content is, well, first of all, I have my own company that's a virtual assistant business, Social Creative Studios.
Yeah.
So I have the page where I'm basically giving people information on, you can use these apps to do X, Y, and Z. You can use this. This is how you get, um, advanced and all this kind of stuff. That's one thing. And then My personal is more farm content, film, just random stuff when it comes to me. Yeah, but I don't have a problem sitting down creating content. I can do that easily. Yeah, but it's just how do I structure it to really work together?
Okay, so, um, the first tip— well, congratulations, because I know that it can be Hard and confusing and draining, especially if you get clients and they're not the best clients and you know you're in a pivot. So congratulations on that. And next is—
Oh, thank you.
I think it's Zaakirah. So the key thing is to kind of reintroduce yourself to people. So a little bit more background for me, I really started confidently telling my story online because I'm also a childhood eye cancer survivor, so I see you in one eye. Right? So that really opened those doors of like, oh wow, okay, I didn't know that about you, right? So sharing little-known facts about you will really first get people opening up. That is always 9 out of 10 times, no matter what the data or the analytics say, is always going to be your most popular post. Little-known facts about you that most people— you, you think about it all the time, but most people don't know that about you. So when you start off that way, that kind of breaks it down into who you are, and then of course go back into how you serve people with your You know, your services and things of that sort. But when you kind of get more comfortable with showing yourself and talking about yourself, it's not necessarily selfish. It's in a way you practicing to toot your own horn. You're on the right places because short content, video content is the next big thing.
Right.
There's so many apps out there now that will make it easy for you to edit anyways. So you're on the right one. But I say, you know, we're about to approach September. I always say do like one thing for 30 days and get a feel for which one it's gonna be. So out of YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram, which one is your favorite?
I would say probably TikTok. TikTok picks up quicker. Um, I already have like a community on Instagram, but I don't know, I I feel like veering off from Instagram right now, but I enjoy TikTok more.
Okay, so how about that? This is what I hear so far, and then of course you tell me yay or nay or any other question. But I hear that, you know, starting in September, you narrow down your top 3 facts that people don't know about you, make that your first video, like a reintroduction video. I don't know if you're at that point where you can go live on TikTok yet, But not yet.
Okay, okay, cool.
So then make that your first video, reintroduction video, just nothing but you reintroducing yourself, um, and build content from there for the next 30 days.
Hello, this sounds good. Now I have a TED Talk, a TED Talk speaker telling me that I should do it.
Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And I enjoyed your, um Yeah, I thought it was very unique because I've never known about that type of cancer before.
Yeah, okay, well, thank you for watching. And, and that's pretty much it. Like, um, what I'm starting now in my, my online community, my email community, is I tell people how I got to that state. They're like, how did you do that? I wouldn't have been That same story that you saw, I've been talking about it for 10 years. Different variations of it, different stories, but I've been talking about the same thing for 10 years. And as redundant as it may feel to us because we know our story, it's not redundant to social media because there's still people like you who are still learning about the cancer itself, about me, you know. So, um, get comfortable with talking about it over and over and over.
Well, thank you for taking the time to talk to me.
Yeah, absolutely. You're very welcome. We recommend— we're approaching September. I'm always about a 30-day experiment. Do one thing for one month. My suggestion is to create a Threads account and treat it as if you were about to post on X from the brand version. Okay, so the same thing, your story, especially we're about to, uh, preseason, you know, about to start for a lot of the sports. So use Threads, because what's happening is Threads is doing a lot better with pointing you in the right direction with the right people, as long as you use the right words. I'm bringing stuff out of them that they didn't even realize what it was. But, um, I just— I think if I'm gonna get, you know, acknowledge you, compliment you, and hopefully you take this with you and think about it for the next 365 days, is that you have a unique personality that people need to hear from. And when you're excited about what you talk about, it will show in the video.
