hello and welcome to the i'm going to show up close and personal i mean has been is and i'm here to take you through this musical dance we call life to do that bring on such talented and wonderful people to help us make it through today's guests let me tell you she is a force to be reckoned with she is an entrepreneur she is a speaker she's writing books she's doing all kinds of things she proves that tenaciousness and determination and believing in yourself and believing in your dreams really really pays off so i don't want to waste any time because we don't have that much time thirty thirty minutes without the much time so i don't want to waste it i want to get up close and personal with my girl alexandra burke a r a s simmons how are you i'm doing great doll and  again six years you've been busy since then i've been so busy just so many great things are happening i'm just blessed and i thank god every day so i want to start there and put my glasses so i can see i want to start there you've been really really busy you've been out  is ongoing everybody has a birthday every year right and we have so many different families from so many different backgrounds that comes to our studio in new york to party with us and dance with us and that is our flagship service and you're teaching right and sometimes i teach at the kind of take back a little bit because you know i have so many things going on and i have some great employees shout out to my whole team from evolution to hip hop but you know they kind of keep the business going while i'm out here doing everything else ok and you've been involved with so many of the hip hop group so we can see the background stage amazing people i did music video with french montana back in the day when before he got really big and he fell you know hip hop has just been always ingrained in me so i knew that my first company was going to be a hip hop in the company awesome awesome now act like a lady think like a boss brand we do workshops all over the nation we do women retreat and home and right now we're on tour with our with our events and our next one is june seventeenth and it's in brooklyn it's going to be a tea party so every theme is different and we just love doing that and uplifting women in addition to that i wrote a book called think like a boss like you mentioned before and it's basically we need to teach women that it's ok to follow your dream be a mom like that is all right sometimes we feel we give so much of ourselves to everyone else we forget to do it for our selves so that think like a boss platform is to help so many different entrepreneurs so many just different as firing entrepreneurs to get adventures and we've been featured in essence magazine we just got featured in a book and we just got a trip paid for to go to italy to write about that so ok so she's living my life because that's one of the jobs i want to do so when i grow up i want to be like her and my grown up at and i do it to whatever you know we're going to come back to to both of those but what is it one hundred thousand dollar pyramid oh girl wait a minute tell us about that how did that come about did you win any money was the money all up in the business is up close and personal did you win any money was if a charity was yours how does it go that's a great question and such a great experience so i actually have that story in my book because one of the tips in my book is you never know who's going to change your life that's right so you have to be nice to every single person absolute wrong said janitor to the c e o so i was working with this gig with  because it was so hilarious but yes that's alan ball and i love him and i was at that gig and i was talking to you know the person i was at the door just a regular conversation kind of close circle of conversation we spoke about life spouses astrology like you just never know could change your life but she just remembered me from that conversation and she like your personality was just so boisterous yes i feel like i have something for you this might fit and i open the email and for the  asked me when i was in when the circle what are you going to do with this money and i said i'm going to give back to my people course and what that means is it goes back into my company's it goes back to think like a boss so we don't have to charge two hundred dollars for conferences twenty dollars is sufficient we're not trying to break your pockets we want to make sure you have all the information you need to change your life and that's exactly what i've done with the money and of course i saved because my main reasonable that's right that's when we got to say and relationships were important you have to like she said be nice to everybody you meet you never like any kind of infringement there copyright or anything you that anybody can just take whatever somebody else says and make it there's an ad a different post to the ending that's a good question so with that my company is think like a boss and we play with the words act like a lady think one of us because we know the connotation that steve harvey put behind that but we don't really use it for any of our business type of and devers but when i thought about act like a man you know think like a band i had to change for myself think like a boss i don't want to think like a man you know you guys are cool and you guys have your own way of thinking but i want to be a lady and what ever that means for you but i want to think like a boss i don't  oh venus and where does alexis part come in what is that yes so traveling says my soul on fire and i feel like anything that sets your soul on fire you need to find a way to get paid for that because passion come together yes yes so once i found out that i was traveling every year for my birthday to crazy places and then i just turned to six vacations a year to a vacation a year i'm like look this is expensive habit really not as much as i love it there is a way that my personality can turn this into a business and again you have to find a way to think like a boss so i started the travel blog and it's called travel bit and lex though that term you get bit by the travel bug  k so that's where i got travel between lex as and alex you know cadillac and it's a blog and it's also of law the blog is a video blog and i just have so much fun with it and the response that i'm getting from people my is on fire my you tube is on fire like one video has like fifty sixty thousand views on there so i'm just grateful to those followers as well travel is such a big market and it best something that you're passionate about you need to definitely try to get int you actually tell people where they should go or you're just taping your experiences are you advising them go here do this do that are you doing them yeah absolutely i'm telling them what to do what not to do what to eat what not to eat l'engle i try to that will throw up like it is that type of experience because sometimes when you go to like places like africa or even like greece you kind of don't know where to start if you see me gallop and out there you know who try to tell you what to do it makes your traveling experience easier do you actually do any booking or anything trips with i'm planning a group trips or anything like that yes so again you got a merger purposes some time so right now we're booking women retreats for a think like a boss and our first retreat is instant temper and i'm taking these beautiful queens to arizona now arizona to my  get girl we go on a bad word we're going to do yoga we're going to the grand canyon and i mean i just want these women to have that type of experience and my love of travel and my love of inspiration just got linked in there that one area when you're talking of these women are you talking about women of any age are you talking to young adults women of any age women of any age we kind of capital of eighteen and older because sometimes the conversation special we're talking about relationships and things like that if you get a little you know a dot like but it's for any age so right now we have thirty women that were taken to the west coast all from different parts of the u s that's coming with us ok so we have women that are young girls are you know i'm old young girls that are eighteen are you having chaperones for them so for the oh no that's a great question because you know it kind of makes me think about something else that has to be talked about with young girls we have to penetrate them now so we have a think like a boss program that's in school ok great yes so we just finished one in brooklyn girls graduated back in may to them unless they graduated from your program from the program in may and were starting a summer program in queens in july so now the big thing a very is young girls again in high school they're still kind of feeling themselves out and they're still trying to figure out who they are and i want them to graduate with not the fact that you know you can go and work for somebody else but now you have the skill set that you know that you can be your own boss like my girls in brooklyn they know how to build their own website like who who does that you know at that age so again the think like a boss program is in schools and we're trying to get it in as much schools and along is at the whim of the program it depends on how much the school can kind of give to us but usually is around three months but the one for the summer is going to be only a month and a is that a part of their curriculum or do they have to this is something they have to pay for obvious something they have to pay for but we bring our whole curriculum we bring the whole crew curriculum ready with worksheets and just step by step instructions so another thing that we're doing now is we're bringing other entrepreneurs from different backgrounds to actually teach these programs to again i have a performing arts company and a woman upon a company what about so i want to owns a hair salon we have so many girls that want to be make of ours and things like that so i do want other entrepreneurs so yes this is a plug come out and help with this because the girls need us and that can help you with sponsoring too because they can bring in some supplies which would make it cheaper for the students that are taking the clothes absolutely  have one team member that's across the board i want to give a shout out to diana she by thinks i'm crazy but i love her so much she is my virtual assistant so she actually helps me across the board would love all of this virtual assistants are everything there and she actually helps me across the whole board she sets the parties for the evolution of hip hop she answers some of the emails for think like a boss and some of the inquiries on instagram for travel the elect so she's amazing and she's been around for six years now and i hope she doesn't leave me anytime soon why would she  mom my husband a lot of they they help me out my sister they help me out a lot and then we have a lot of volunteers to come do that as well though that team of my best friend also she helps colque i mean we just have it's just such a close knit type of family right there and travel believe it or not my son is my photographer and all of us i know he's twelve wow and my son jim from the teeth hello he has already three business ideas and he has been published twice as a photographer me ok well there's a number of publicist manager agent you have any of those i have a publicist she's you know she's great she does a great job she got me my book signing at barnes and nobles and things like that manager no agent no all these gigs even when i did like the step of three movie all of these gigs i got by myself my p r person just came on maybe like three months ago and how do you find a p r person i found of p r person through word of mouth because i believe in supporting black owned businesses yes so i asked my peers like hey who do you use for p r because at the end of the day i want to make sure our money is going back into our community and i want to drive that home we have to support black own business and we have to work to give gathered yes absolutely and not want to pull each other down we are one people no crab in a barrel mentality is i can't do that exactly exactly all right so when you access person do they say oh well you have to have done x y z amount of things or how does it work yet they you know they do there is a client then good for her exactly exactly still work that you know if you weren't using some of the family and friends how would you pick a team to work with you because it's so important about the people you surround yourself with absalom would you pick a team and didn't have your husband or your mother or your son how would you pick your team to work in these businesses any time i pick a team have to make sure they have the same spirit as me absolute so what that means is they have to make their values have to their value system has to be in the link with mine because that's very important because my morals drive me and they drive my businesses so i want to make sure that the person that's going to work with me had the same type of moral in the same values that i'm ok and what type of person do you think is everybody can do this what type of person do you think should be an entrepreneur for  because everybody i meet a lot of people and i've been doing a lot of different businesses all the time even with corporate america and we'll come back to there for you for a minute so i know a lot of people who don't understand the concept of even being an entrepreneur much less how to be and know when you give them advice they don't seem to take as it will understand right so what kind of people do you think should be entrepreneurs because everybody can be one no it's not for everybody and it is absolutely real however in order for you to tenacity has to be on one hundred and all that all the time all the time and i feel like it takes a special type of person because you have to be felt motivated you have to know how to find motivation and inspiration and everything to keep going like mental health and taking care of yourself is the first step in order to be a successful entrepreneur because you have to make sure you are always ready for what's happening so your mental health you have to make sure that you are reading doing yoga doing meditation doing something like that to make sure your mind is up to par and you're one with yourself and so i think that's that's pretty important all right let's move into the book this is my think like a boss yes thirty one i read an interview somewhere that you did where you said thirty one because you were thirty one when you decided to what was going to be your next path or where you were going to go from this would you pick thirty one now and can i put in at your age because i think it's  but you can definitely start early if you start now i predict she's going to be a billionaire if she's not already she's been working on it she's working and she's going to be a billionaire by the time she gets forty or fifty you know and she'll have generational money to pass on all right so tell us what gave  the idea to do this book and why so it comes to a point where it's you know the key to success in this like how do you pass it on and reach the masses so i thought of i'm like ok think i was doing really well but i need to i need more i needed to reach more people be like this in memoir and it was going to be like i'm going to be like in my sixty's writing about life and i'm like no like i need to do this now god told me to do it now so i'm doing it now and i thought about the book at the temper and i was done in november and like that again  sometimes it just takes that and i'm like i need to sit down and think about everything that made me successful i was pulling everything every bits and pieces of why i got where i was and that's how these thirty one tips came up and i was saying treating people like you never know who's going to change your life or my first hit number thirty one is get your mind right get your mind right just what i was saying meditation yoga making sure that you're one with yourself spirituality spiritual he is very important who is your anchor what is keeping you grounded so there's a lot of tips like that in the book and i'm like ok we need to talk about this because we need more business people out there because you don't want to be a slave to someone else's dream your whole life now like you will sometimes you have to do it yes because your job have to fund your not for you to just jump out of the window you know we're grown we're grow we got kids we got mortgages we got rent we got car payments so we have to make sure that this is something that makes sense for you and this is like kind of like you know your god to do that are you working in corporate america at all no no i mean if when did you stop as you were when i first met you yes absolutely i stopped maybe two and a half years ago one of the hardest decisions to make you know when you're you know when you're you're in your twenty's and you're already making six figures from corporate america and it's just like my soul is dying here though when you're twenty and you're working for corporate america and you make in six figures back up what were you doing i was a channel manager for a technology company so what that means is i was working with a lot of different partners like the googles of the world and autodesk and redheads and basically doing marketing and sales for them so it was pretty lucrative ok but my soul was dying it was like this cubicle life that i just could not nickel or live i couldn't live there for the rest of my life is just it just wasn't working for me but take note when you're working in corporate america and the skills that you learn translate over into the businesses that you do so even though the job may be monday and you want to continue to grasp what you're doing take heed because you can always use it for yourself i don't want to miss anything let's keep going so t v show act like a think like a boss radio show like a boss where we're can we hear or see those yes i'll think like a boss on t v show that is on cable vision that com as far as a radio show where i'm actually done with that portion but i just moved on to the t v show because sometimes i do bigger and better right absolutely so right now we're just focusing on a t v show and trying to get these episodes in and everything's so who are your mentors my mentors who would have a great question i feel like i pick i get some things from a lot of different people have a lot of different mentors in the dance community and they're the ones who who kind of taught me that you can turn passions into a business because i made sure as a dancer i built a brand there so once i figured out how to do that that's when it kind of transcended into everything that the whole you thought how important is your brain to your business all the brand your brand is your business because you are you are your business and i don't think people understand that they keep separating themselves and you have to put them back together because you have to learn how to build a brand first a lifestyle so people can follow you people love following companies that have a heart that have a soul so it's very important to build that brand first mike so that reminds me if you had you have two three four businesses and i asked this of people who are singers dancers choreographers that would you could you separate them and if you had to pick two questions if you had to pick one of the other could you win would you so can i separate them i say yes because i feel like the performing arts company is definitely separate from think like a boss it was the winning if you could only do not so for the company you can only do one of the other would you go on no i have to do them or would you go you know i'm only going to do so and so  also because people in this industry like this if you have more than one or two or three times you can they're all part of the whole right every single company is part of me is like a piece of my  or something oh i don't hear about that one again should you want to cruise oh my goodness ok so i'm just so excited she's got me so filled and i feel like i'm on speed here what's next for you yeah you know i just i just want to just keep inspiring everyone that's always been the goal that's always the purpose but from there i want to make sure that i make it to the bigger platform and right now i just got the t v show with something so new but that was affirmed i've been saying my affirmations for the past couple of years and everything is just coming to fruition still again it's just keep going keep going like i don't know where this journey is going to take me i have my five year plan set out for my business and how going to help people but as far as what's next i just kind of like god is there i have a book all i want to do a workbook so this this is kind of like that how do you do all of those that's a good way to take time for yourself because you know you've got to have time for yes yes i absolutely do take time for myself and i think the only reason why i would have to do all these things is because i keep myself happy thing like i always say if you take care of yourself first taking care of others becomes easier because you're doing it with a smile on your hand involving them yes and it's only did yes specially if you have someone that supports you but you know when you've got someone to support doesn't support you and by the way if you have some people who don't support you that's awkward and i need to go we're going to run out of time and i need you to give me two to three tips preferably three the first thing is to know yourself love yourself and take care of yourself so that wes wanted all right too because you have to make sure you're ok in order to start this journey ok number two is don't take no for an answer i love that one right don't take no for an answer because society is putting us in boxes and you have to make sure you break out that box and and just make sure that you are knocking down doors that people say you cannot go through and if they say no find someone who's going to say you want someone who's going to  com all right this is venus it's been the army before up close and personal thank you so much to my my guest alexander you make sure you tune back into us the next time we're on on venus you can find me venus curtail on facebook venus nine and seven and on twitter venus