We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Dr. April Bee a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Dr. April, thanks so much for taking the time to share your insights and lessons with us today. We’re particularly interested in hearing about how you became such a resilient person. Where do you get your resilience from?
Oftentimes, we focus on resilience coming from a place of forced strength. The truth I’ve come to experience is that my resilience did not come from being strong. My resilience actually came from my weakest moments. When I allowed myself humility to acknowledge my mistakes, or even my intentional unhealthy patterns, that is when I truly strengthened through the most difficult experiences. My vulnerability is my greatest catalyst. As I continued to embrace unfiltered expression, it then reminded me that there was nothing to fear and that nothing can have power over the power that I give to myself.
I think having this experience of confidence and resilience is essential, especially as a black woman. In our community, we are taught to hide weakness to present as the most confident and most resilient. As we begin to express boldly in our weakness, it will help us to finally be liberated in being our fullest best selves, versus trying to be the world’s perspective of best. Additionally, true confidence breeds through the empowerment of others. When we see the best in others, it stems from a recognition of seeing the best in ourselves, and others highlighting the best in us. That’s true confidence and that’s true esteem.
Because of such humility, resilience, and confidence I have been able to navigate through my experiences of mental health, specifically surrounding depression. By leaning into the most intricate parts of who I am, I have been able to birth an authentic, bold, woman who audaciously navigates how depression impacts major situations. Through this, I have recognized that mental illness isn’t powerless. It is powerful in the sense of activating my purpose.
Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?
By primary trade, I am a Wellness Coach that currently serves small groups, organizations, businesses, and communities through programming, curriculum implementation, workshops, and events. I am excited about the opportunity to walk with others in becoming everything that they are purposed to become while being equipped and resourced along the way. I am committed to breaking the stigma on the necessity of the “hustle” and “grind” culture to feel safe in valuing a highest quality of life, and I am seeking to dismantle institutionalized barriers that prohibit such practices of wellness. We deserve the freedom to be healthy!
I have recently published my first book, “Mama, What’s Cookin’. This book shares the warm experiences of my mother and all of her abilities despite her being disabled with Multiple Sclerosis. My goal of writing and sharing this book is to humanize the experience of disability within families and communities and allow people with disabilities to be seen for their abilities and not just their barriers. Additionally, I want to humanize the caretaker experience and focus on the needs of those who support those with disabilities to create a more empathetic interaction within our society. I am passionate about creating the fullness of humans as we connect with each other through our personal stories and experiences.
I am also currently still deeply involved with non-profit work, serving to create events, curriculums, and initiatives that directly impact the wellness and well-being of the black community. This includes mental health events for parents, entrepreneurship workshops for community members, and healthcare curriculums to implement for both youth and young adults. Additionally, I have recently become part of the Parkland Hospital Advisory Board, so this has allowed me to directly become involved in addressing the social determinants of health and filling in the gap with health outcomes in the southern sector of Dallas. I also am actively involved in the community initiatives at Redbird to help bring greater resources to the area without taking away the culture. I like to stay involved with the community as much as I can.
On the business side, I am currently pivoting on my previous wellness coaching endeavors to create a new product that I will be excited to launch before the end of this year. I am truly committed to addressing the health and wellness disparities for executives and entrepreneurs, as it directly impacts how the community is treated. There will be more to share about this in the fall!
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
1) Failing big. If you are going to do it wrong, do it big and wrong. I often learned my greatest lessons from my greatest imperfections. Let me clarify–doing it big does not mean to do it with cockiness, gloating, or superiority over others. That can just make you look bad. But, to dare in making big decisions and trying things boldly only breeds large lessons. It grows your integrity, wisdom, discernment, and gratitude.
2) Be empathetic, flexible, and willing to learn. I truly believe you should humble yourself before you let life humble you. If we cut ourselves off from people or opportunities that instantly rub on us the wrong way, we may miss out on a multitude of blessings. Everyone doesn’t have to be our best friend, and every moment doesn’t have to be life-changing, but there can be a gem in everyone and anything, even in the most “off-putting” moments. We don’t have to stick around them long to learn from them. By allowing myself to understand the background of people or the context of a situation, it helped me to be more grounded and receptive towards the attributes of them that help me to grow as a person.
3) Emotional intelligence is essential. Having a healthy mind, effective communication, useful conflict resolution skills, and stress management is key. With this, treating people well and being a person that is easy to treat well helps so much. This not only helps for you to have better relationships with others, but this eases stress for yourself, which is a true catalyst for success.
We’ve all got limited resources, time, energy, focus etc – so if you had to choose between going all in on your strengths or working on areas where you aren’t as strong, what would you choose?
As a Wellness Coach who focuses on strengths to guide individuals towards success, I believe that our strengths are truly our gifts and superpowers. In fact, our strengths are so powerful that they may even enhance the spaces where we may be as strong in. Operating in our strengths also creates an ecosystem of strength through numerous individuals within society. Together, we all fuel strength. Here’s my greatest example:
Imagine a concert of your favorite artist. This artist has a strength in singing and possibly dancing. In addition, there are musicians, dancers, stage crew, lighting crew, publicist, assistant, marketing manager, sales manager, voice coach, designer, and numerous other role that are involved in this concert. Because every person at the concert is operating at their strengths, it has now created an entire successful experience. If the main artist tried to do all of those jobs, it would be a disaster. Plus, it would be quite stressful if it is even pulled off. Nonetheless, because people are more at ease when they are operating in their strengths, they may be more inclined to help someone out in another position to ensure that things remain in place.
I think oftentimes, we work in spaces where investments have been decreased in having the adequate amount of people to create something successful, so the value of investing in other talents has been stressed on our society not because it makes you more productive, but because it fills their missing gaps. We have been conditioned to believe that having more “strengths” is better, but that is a tactic to convince people on the benefit of utilizing less people for more tasks.
Contact Info:
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