Meet Carla Jones

Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Carla Jones. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Carla , we’ve been so fortunate to work with so many incredible folks and one common thread we have seen is that those who have built amazing lives for themselves are also often the folks who are most generous. Where do you think your generosity comes from?

It’s interesting you chose that word, because it’s one I’ve wrestled with. Over the years, people have called me “generous,” and I never felt like it fit. I’ve never been the lavish-gift-giver type. I’ve lived a rich life in relationships, and I’ve had seasons where God opened beautiful doors for me — but I’ve never walked around with the kind of wealth that lets you give extravagantly. So when people said it, I almost dismissed it.
But an elder I respect helped me see what they were actually naming.
The people who called me generous weren’t talking about money.
They were people I had poured myself into — shared my scars with, so they’d know theirs could heal. Told my mistakes out loud so they didn’t feel like the only one who’d made them. I offered the tender, unpolished parts of myself as a soft, warm place to land because I knew exactly what it felt like to be out in the cold during hard seasons.
I think what I have is a generosity of spirit, a generosity with my lived experience.
My presence tends to make people feel welcomed, seen, and at ease.
And that didn’t come from comfort.
It came from the opposite.

I think it grew even more, through years of listening to polished, accomplished, and everyday people wrestle with truths most never examine out loud. I became deeply acquainted with the fact that no matter the accoutrements around someone’s life, everyone is wrestling with the same core human questions — if they’re paying attention. There, I learned the power of caring curiosity, the discipline of empathy, and love in accountability. And somewhere in the mix — between my own becoming as a woman, my life as a disciple, and the men and women who trusted me with their hardest questions — I realized I was carrying a well. Not the performative kind. A real one.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?

Cornell West said, justice is what love looks like in public. And I think we’ll see more of justice in public when the private quarters of the heart and the home are well-tended to first. I think that sums up so much about me.
I’m a Black girl from Northeast’s corridors. Hartford, Connecticut to be exact. I was reared in culture and coves steeped in music, education, activism and devotion. The devotion I remember most vividly is the devotion some of my nearby heroes had to the love admonished in the Christian walk. My first heroes were family, like my community icon of an uncle, Ernest Andre Dowdy. And the Black principals, judges, teachers, accomplished musicians, public servants and business owners at my church. There I fell in love with music. I fell in love with my community. I fell in love with my history. I fell in love with Love. The first and most transcendent yet tangible love story I’d ever known. I met there. The news of a God intimately acquainted with the best and worst of me, but still sought, pursued and wooed my heart in order to rescue me, from me. I didn’t see love the same after that.
There I learned the ethic of care.
Along the way, in discovering my path, not even professionally, but in service to my local community, it intersected with a now close friend and co-founder. For years I ran a community that brought strangers together and made it feel like family, discussing the big questions of life, so we could live bolder, fuller, more courageous lives. It was somewhat of a decade-long life apprenticeship in: hospitality, side-stepping pretense to get to real conversation and cultivating a place and events where people want to come. But, more than that, I learned how to create a place where a stranger feels wanted and welcomed. From a dignitary to a doorman or disk jockey That shaped so much of me. What I create for people. Who I am with people. And how I get to the deeper things with people. But, not just because.
But, because it translated into flourishing in me too. In how I met, connected and started substantive relationships in dating. Without realizing it, I was in a chrysalis — shaping the woman labeled intimidating, subtly stripped of sexuality by people uneasy with deep faith and desirability coexisting.
I carried wounds and fears that real love — the kind I imagined — might always evade me because of who I was, was not, or who others decided I was. However, a once unhopeful me, learned to navigate relationship terrain elders warned her about, but never taught her how to cross with grace, joy, fun, taking risks with courage and welcomed love without abandoning what mattered to me. And with such a divisive time in the dating world, in a cultural moment defined by gender wars and sneaky links, with fascism as the backdrop, warm love is more and more of a necessity. It’s a special opportunity to meet the moment Maya Angelou named with what she prescribed, romance. “A community without romance, risks being brutish and crass and superficial and little and cruel and even murderous, without romance.”

Right now. I’m in a building season. I am quietly building a beta coaching experience — one-on-one and in small cohorts — for people who want to learn how to date with joy, discernment, and depth without abandoning faith, desire, or self-respect. I’m also expanding my writing through The Examined Life with Carla, a newsletter and creative home where a flirty, frolicking, and winsome woman’s whimsical — and sometimes weighty — wonderings lead toward fearless love in dating, faithful thought, and joyfully living the examined life as well as media projects and more in development.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

This question has me reflecting, and with the turbulent terrain on something new, I think I need this for me too. Because. I think whenever we’re building, growing, creating especially something new it can feel like starting over. but, starting over isn’t the same as starting from scratch.

But, in each era of me, three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in my journey, were my quality of being kind but simultaneously firm, being a thorough researcher, and using peers as a resource.

Each of these has both been a big part of me and hard lessons learned. A famous quote from Beyonce’ s 2012 documentary, “Life is but a Dream’ says it completely.” Business and being polite don’t match.” I care about how I speak to and treat people. I care about kindness. But, sugary sweetness at the expense of truth, honoring myself or compromising what matter. Not acceptable. And, i’m guilty of not honoring myself, and later knowing I stole from my peace or paycheck, to appease someone else’s comfort and it’s too expensive. Having uncomfortable conversations, in deals and contracts, honoring your time and value, articulating ambitions that other people don’t understand: it requires firmness. But, as great as that sounds, being firm, having boundaries, will make you enemies, and all kinds of names too. But it will also make you the right kind of allies/partners. It will make you at peace with you.

But, I think relationship recovery becomes less necessary that way.
Something that I’m proud of as a part of me is my curiosity. And I think that has fueled one of my greatest skills: researching. Not ChatGPT. Not Siri. But, learning trusted sources, processes and institutions for information. It has helped me sharpen my eye, be a quick study when I’ve been a beginner trying to be an asset to projects and it shaped my voice.
But, I quickly learned: don’t research yourself into in-action. With new ventures, artistic output, taking risks. Information is only one element. Action is the other.

Of all of the knowledge, I’d say this has been one of the hardest for me to master. And I’m not the only one. Use your peers as a resource. Your network influences the quality of your opportunities. I used to be afraid that I was inconveniencing people by telling them my path and its needs. Or asking for advice. Or Insight. Or appearing frail in ways I wanted to appear strong.
I wasted valuable time as a result.
Not to mention, wanting certainty of direction has me in a chokehold. One thing i wish i knew sooner was: the only thing I oughtta be sure of is my desired impact more than my desired method.

So if I’m honest, the advice I’d give to anyone early in their journey is the same advice I’m still learning to take myself.
Be kind but firm.
Stay curious. But don’t wait for certainty to act. Clarity is often the reward for movement, not the prerequisite. And don’t build alone. Ask sooner. Say what you’re trying to do before it’s polished. Let people see the unfinished version of you.
If there’s one thing I’d hold onto as I keep building, it’s this: Every boundary learned, every question asked, every conversation I was ashamed to have and later regretted —. None of it was wasted.
I’m not starting from scratch. I’m starting with a clearer sense of what I’m here to do because of it. And that, finally, feels like enough to begin.

How can folks who want to work with you connect?

Yes — thoughtfully and selectively.
At this stage, I’m most interested in collaborating with people who care deeply about human connection, cultural formation, and building things that influence. I’m currently in a beta season, which means I’m especially open to partnering with people who enjoy co-creating, experimenting, and helping shape work while it’s still becoming.
On the relational side, I’m welcoming a small number of individuals interested in participating in my beta coaching offerings — both one-on-one and in intimate cohort settings — designed for people who want to cultivate depth, discernment, and relational soft skill shaping in dating and relationships.
On the business and creative side, I’m open to collaborations with:
Social enterprise leaders building mission-driven work
IRL event curators creating spaces for meaningful connection
Dating or connection app owners and developers interested in designing with a tuned eye or beginning.
Experiential marketing professionals who understand story, atmosphere, and human behavior
Brand partners with aligned values of care, beauty, and relational health
Filmmakers and documentarians exploring love, identity, faith, and culture, history and Black history
Editorial magazine editors, columnists, and creative writers
Visual artists interested in translating intimacy and connection across mediums
If something in this work resonates — whether as a collaborator, creative partner, or participant — the best way to connect is by reaching out directly through my writing and newsletter, The Examined Life with Carla, via my email or social channels, where I share updates, invitations, and ongoing projects.
I’m less interested in scale for its own sake, and more interested in aligned partnerships rooted in curiosity and integrity.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://medium.com/@c.yvon.jones
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carla-jones-intl
• Other: https://forms.gle/PSimtDBTNaaNX6eTA