When people think of runners, they don’t think of black women. Toni Carey knew she was up against this perception, but what she didn’t know is that there was a lot of misinformation about running. People told her it would ruin her hair, or maybe her uterus would fall out.
So Toni started a blog called Black Girls RUN! (BGR!) It was education, advocacy and personal experience all rolled into on.
It caught on like wildfire, and it achieved the kind of “viral” effect that you can’t engineer. Soon black women were meeting up together at BGR! running groups all over the country. Before long, Toni was dropping out of the corporate world to run BGR! full time.
That was 10 years ago. In 2018, Toni made the decision to sell her business. In this episode, she reflects on returning to a 9-5, how she’d do things differently today and what may be ahead. Listen for –
- Why an exit strategy is critical (yes, even if you love your business and want to be in it forever)
- Reflections on 10 years in business – what worked and what Toni would do differently
- Finding your balance in a chaotic environment
- An entrepreneur’s advantage – and challenge – when returning to the corporate world
- Retaining your creative edge with an eye on the bottom line
- Dealing with difficult people
- What it feels like to create a brand that lives beyond yourself
Follow along with Toni Carey:
About Toni Carey:
After finding running in 2008, Toni Carey co-founded Black Girls RUN!, a nationwide movement to empower and encourage African-American women to live a healthy lifestyle. She left behind her career in public relations and marketing, where she worked for a top agency is the Southeast, before venturing into corporate communications at a Fortune 500 company.
Years into her entrepreneurial pursuits with Black Girls RUN!, she found herself in the middle of her own work/life balance crisis. That’s when she founded KeepingBalanced.com and refocused on her health, became a yoga instructor – and ultimately sold her business in 2018.
Today, Toni is Senior Manager of Marketing and Communications at national nonprofit, a freelance contributor to Conde Nast publications, and yoga instructor in Washington, D.C. She considers herself a lifestyle architect empowering and inspiring others to find balance in their own lives. You can connect with Toni at tonicarey.com or on Instagram at @toni_carey.
