Brown Ambition

In this BA Q&A, Mandi kicks off a brand‑new listener clinic for the Summer Money Reboot series and answers a letter from a listener she calls “Erin,” who is juggling Walmart shifts, side hustles, vending machine dreams, and plans to become a single mom by choice.
Mandi shares why she’s finally ready to try stock trading after attending Teri Ijeoma’s New York City book launch and breaks down the real numbers behind vending machines as a business—so you’re not accidentally living life on hard mode in your financial safety season.
Listener letter: Erin’s story
Erin is 36, divorced, and living in a small town in Texas. She’s transferred to Walmart full‑time, applied to jobs with almost no luck, put a successful vintage booth on pause, and is now working toward her notary license while researching vending machines and planning for single motherhood.
Join the Summer Money Reboot!
This BA Q&A is part of Mandi’s six‑week Summer Money Reboot series, designed to help you name your financial season, rebuild financial safety, and then move toward growth and alignment.
Download the workbooks for weeks 1:
https://mandimoney.myflodesk.com/summermoneyreboot
and week 2
https://mandimoney.myflodesk.com/vr4mxs90xk
Other Resources and mentions
• Teri Ijeoma – The Risk Worth Taking
• Thinkorswim practice trading account (paper trading for beginners)
• SCORE small‑business mentorship
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

MandiMoney continues the Summer Money Reboot series by tackling one of the hardest financial seasons to navigate: rebuilding after life knocks you off course. Whether it was a layoff, medical emergency, divorce, caregiving, or simply an economy that changed faster than your paycheck could keep up, this conversation is about letting go of shame and creating a realistic path forward.
Grab the Week 2 Workbook here: https://mandimoney.myflodesk.com/vr4mxs90xk
Special guest: Jaspreet Singh, founder of https://theminoritymindset.com/
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey BA fam, Mandi is back (!) in the studio and kicking off a brand new Summer Money Reboot series.
In this kickoff episode, Mandi shares why she rewrote her book into Brown Ambition: How to Reboot Your Career and Money After Life Throws You Off Track and introduces a new framework for thinking about your finances when life is life‑ing: the four financial seasons.
You’ll learn:
• Why “I did everything right” and still feel stuck is more common than you think.
• The four financial seasons: Safety, Growth, Alignment, and Protection—and the main job of each.
• Why you cannot and should not try to be in all four seasons at once.
• How to start naming your current season (without shaming it) using real questions about your debt, savings, income, and stress level.
• Why it’s taking so many of us years, not months, to bounce back from layoffs, caregiving, and health challenges—and why the old “3‑month emergency fund” advice doesn’t match reality anymore.
Instead of trying to fix your whole financial life by Labor Day, this series will help you figure out which season you’re in right now and what that season actually needs from your money over the next 90 days. You don’t need a perfect budget or a 37‑step plan this summer; you need a truthful starting point.

<<GET THE FREE SUMMER MONEY REBOOT WORKBOOK>>

Mandi also created a free Summer Money Reboot companion workbook to use alongside this series.

The workbook will help you:

• Identify which of the four seasons your financial life is in right now.
• Reflect on how you got here without spiraling into shame
• Start mapping out a simple, realistic 90‑day plan aligned with your current season.
Download the free Summer Money Reboot Workbook via the link in the show notes and follow along week by week
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey BA fam, it’s Mandi. Today I’m bringing you a Brown Ambition Rewind that feels so on‑time for where a lot of us are in our careers right now.
This conversation is with executive coach and author Sabina Nawaz, whose book You’re the Boss: Become the Manager You Want to Be and Others Need is all about helping high‑achieving leaders avoid the traps that come with success.
We talk about why promotions are actually the riskiest moments in your career, how pressure — not power — can corrupt even the best bosses, and what it really looks like to be the kind of manager your team needs without losing your values or your identity as a woman of color.

If you’ve been feeling stretched, misunderstood, or like you’re constantly in a pressure cooker, this one will hit. Let’s get into ‘How to Be the Kind of Boss Your Team Needs’ with Sabina Nawaz.”Follow Sabina Nawaz!
Website: https://sabinanawaz.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sabinacoaching/?hl=en
Have a Question for the show?Email us at brownambitionpodcast@gmail.com or DM us @brownambitionpodcast!
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey BA fam! We’re bringing back one of our most powerful conversations with writer, editor, and cultural critic Roxane Gay — just in time as we come out of Pride Month and Juneteenth, and as I celebrate finishing the 12th and final chapter of my manuscript ahead of my July 1 deadline.
Even though I had to give up my spot at Roxane’s Black writers convention last weekend because of surgery, I’m grateful we get to sit with her voice again in this feed. Brown Ambition will be back with brand‑new episodes starting July 8, and I can’t wait to update you more on this book journey and what’s next for BA.
In this encore episode, Tiffany and I sit down with Roxane to talk about what it means to stand your ground as “a Black, queer, fat woman” in America — her words — and how she thinks about safety, gun ownership, and the reality that no one is coming to save us but us. Roxane walks us through years of threats against her, the decision to buy a gun during the pandemic, and what she learned when she realized Black women are the fastest‑growing group of gun owners in the U.S.

We also get into the heart of Brown Ambition: Black women’s ambition, entrepreneurship, education, and generational wealth. Roxane talks about multiple income streams, negotiating her worth in publishing and media, and why she still has to fight for her value even with a “media empire” and a team of top‑tier agents and lawyers behind her. Tiffany shares her own journey selling hundreds of thousands of books and doing 90% of her own marketing, and I ask Roxane for advice as I write my first book with Legacy Lit.

Along the way, we discuss:
• Roxane’s book Hunger and how it cracked me open and helped me love myself.[Attachment]
• Growing up in gun‑saturated environments and raising Black boys in a country obsessed with guns.
• Sonya Massey, Tamir Rice, Trayvon Martin, and why police violence remains a constant threat no matter what we do to protect ourselves.
• Black women’s dominance in degrees, entrepreneurship, and readership — and what that means for wealth‑building.
• The importance of Black editors, hiring independent publicists, and insisting that your book still sounds like you.
• The power of “living in the gray” instead of pretending life is black‑and‑white.[Attachment]

Content note: This episode includes discussion of gun violence, police killings, and anti‑Semitic threats. Please listen when you feel emotionally ready and take care of yourself as you do.

Resources & mentions:
• Roxane Gay – Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body and Bad Feminist (essay collection).
• Roxane’s essay series on gun ownership and power on Everand (formerly Scribd).

If you enjoy this encore, please share it with a friend, grab Roxane’s books, and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts so more BA fam can find the show. Supporting our living legends — and the storytellers in progress — matters.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.