Brand strategist Zaakirah Muhammad, a childhood cancer survivor, shares how surviving cancer shifted her definition of success from material goals to impact. She recommends the 80/20 give-take ratio for relationships, using NOTIQ affirmation cards for daily practice, and prioritizes travel as rejuvenation.
Chapters
Okay, hello everyone. We are getting ready for the panel. Um, what we're going to do first, ladies, you're going to introduce yourselves in 30 seconds or less and tell us about your business, your brand, and then we will get into the questions. Okay?
Hi, my name is Zaakirah Muhammad. I am a brand strategist and an author and a childhood eye cancer survivor. So I have built my brand, um, but I'm not empowering other women I help women of color, marginalized human beings, to confidently tell their story both online and offline. I have built my brand with seeing life through different lenses. So believe it or not, I'm seeing you in one eye right now. I have a prosthetic right eye. And so my brand is called See Life Different, or Seeing Life Through a Different Lens. That's the name of my book. Um, and I recently did a TEDx talk on the same topic. So seeing is thinking. So building the brand with mental health advocacy and seeing life through a different lens with empathy, um, and advocacy as well.
How has your definition of success evolved over the years? How has your definition of success evolved over the years?
Well, I still have the mic. So my definition of success has evolved over the years from kind of materialistic items and materialistic goals to impact. How much impact am I willing to make? You know, sure, I have my goals of I want to go to X number of countries, I want to earn X number of dollars, I want to buy X car. But the more I've survived cancer and lived past, you know, certain things that most people haven't, I realized the more I can impact people and the more that I know that I've impacted them, I actually see it.
Okay, the next question is, what practices help you maintain Positive mental health as a business owner.
So I'm going to start off with a question. How many of you have heard of the 5 love languages? Some of you. So there's 5 different types of languages as far as how most people do it for how they want to receive love, but the way that I interpret it is how much love, which one of those I should be giving to myself. And so my favorite is words of affirmations. And again, along the line of collaboration and women empowerment, there's actually a Black-owned organization that I, uh, utilize. She has Small handheld thirty-day affirmation cards, and the brand is N O T I Q. And I have a discount code if you want it. But you know, there's five different affirmation cards on there. I shuffle it every day depending on what my day is about to look like. I start with those affirmations: I am beautiful, I am loved, I am brave, I can conquer anything. Various affirmation with affirmation.
That's all great advice, James. Thank you, thank you. Since relationships impact our self-care and success, what power tip would you share regarding that? And again, it can address either friendship, romantic, or family relationships.
So my advice is really kind of building up that puzzle piece of what all of the ladies shared, but my word is reciprocity, right? A lot of times people give, give, give, but, uh, in lieu of setting no boundaries, in lieu of, you know, building both platonic and romantic and business relationship, um, we give more than we take. Like, how do we know that we're surrounding ourselves with people with where we want to be, right? And so making sure that you do surround yourself with people who will give either just as much as you take, or, you know, make it 80/20 in both business, platonic, and romantic relationships as well.
Oh wow, really good. So our next question is Any advice to those who may feel like they've missed their moment, or they see their peers achieving at a faster rate than they are?
So I'm going to use a couple of acronyms that you may or may not recognize. Don't have FOMO because YOLO. Don't have fear of missing out because you only live once.
I like it. I like it. That's good. That's it. Well, I believe we might have time for one question from the audience. Does anybody have a question that you want to ask the panel? Anybody? Well, I will ask a question.
Okay.
Ladies, if you weren't doing what you're doing right now, what else would you be doing?
I'd have had me some sleep.
I'll be literally right here in this moment. It's just like, if you had like another career, I guess if money wasn't an option. Like, what's with us?
No, but in reality, I love traveling. This is my 3rd time out since session began, so, you know, being able to just travel and, you know, continue to be around beautiful melanated people and just explore history and explore culture. So travel as often as possible.
Awesome, you took the words right out of my mouth. That's for me, you know, with the things that I've been through, the trauma and all of the things, I have to have a change of scenery. Like, it's important. And I was going through it during the pandemic when I had to sit still. Um, so I echo that as well. Travel— just the hustle and bustle of moving, you know, just a change of scenery, of breaking the monotony of just everyday life— I think is important. And so yes, I would travel, and I'm going to travel. I'm gonna— that's that, right? Devil, I see you trying to break this mic up. No, I'm gonna get to a place where I get to travel and do the Awesome.
For me, I would be a traveling food critic. I love wining and dining, and I would travel the world doing that if money wasn't an option— an issue. I think I would probably be a personal assistant to Oprah Winfrey. I just want to know how the rich and famous live and just be all up in there, so I know that's what I'm going to be. Yeah, I go ahead and have someone assist me. Yeah, right, right. So how can everybody stay in track with you and contact? How can everyone follow you?
And so mine is my middle name, which is, uh, means bright light. So I-L-L-U-M-I-N-O-U-S-O-N-E on all social media networks, or Zakirah Naya Muhammad, uh, You go on YouTube, look at the TEDx talk, check out the book Seeing Life Through a Different Lens. I also have the QR code if you want to join my email list for building your public speaking and telling your story confidently as well.
Well, that was awesome. Everybody give the panel a round of applause and be sure to follow their pages. And, you know, throughout the brunch, you know, talk to them if Tell them how good they did. Oh, sorry.
