Relationships – The Coffey Break

Coffey Break Chat: How to find the work you were meant to do

Mini Melty’s are always a good kick in the butt. Thank God for those emails Marie Forleo sends all the time. I searched her name and scrolled and scrolled until I found the subject line I needed to see –How to find the work you were meant to do.

God has this beautiful way of giving us what we need when we need it most and revealing it just in the nick of time.

Join me for this week’s Coffey Break Chat as I share where I’m at with my own journey to discovering what I’m meant to do and personal reflection on hanging in there!

Hope this will be a blessing to you guys. Praying for any and everyone out there who can relate.

Peace, Love & Sunshine, Chelsea

Let’s connect!
Twitter/Instagram @thecoffeybreak

How to know how much to charge?

Hey guys!

How do I know how much to charge? I get this question all the time, ask myself this question all the time haha, and the truth is that the answer is fairly complicated. There are a number of different variables that go into calculating a final rate, package, fee, etc.

Here are some things to consider courtesy of Stephen Fishman, J.D. over at nolo.com:

Calculate Your Hourly Rate

Business schools teach a standard formula for determining an hourly rate: Add up your labor and overhead costs, add the profit you want to earn, then divide the total by your hours worked. This is the minimum you must charge to pay your expenses, pay yourself a salary, and earn a profit. Depending on market conditions, you may be able to charge more for your services — or you might have to get by on less.

Determine your annual salary. To determine how much your labor is worth, pick a figure for your annual salary. This can be what you earned for doing similar work when you were an employee, what other employees earn for similar work, or how much you’d like to earn (as long as your goal is reasonable).

Compute annual overheard. Next, compute your annual overhead. Overhead includes all of the costs you incur to do business — for example:

telephone expenses
office equipment and furniture
rent and utilities
stationery and supplies
postage and delivery costs
clerical help
business insurance
business-related meals and entertainment
travel expenses
professional association memberships
legal and accounting fees, and
advertising and marketing costs — for example, the cost of a yellow pages ad, website, or brochure.

Overhead also includes the cost of your fringe benefits, such as medical insurance… read the rest of his article here.

There’s a sweet spot for most things, and I’d like to think that time, prayer and dedication to ironing out processes are keys to finding it!

Enjoy the journey, and more importantly, don’t be afraid to go for whatever it is you envision for yourself!

I’ll leave you guys with a quote from Brene Brown that I shared on Instagram earlier this week:

Choose growth 🙏🏾❤️ // When we choose growth over perfection, we immediately increase our shame resilience. Improvement is a far more realistic goal than perfection. Merely letting go of unattainable goals makes us less susceptible to shame. When we believe “we must be this” we ignore who or what we actually are, our capacity and our limitations. We start from the image of perfection, and of course, from perfection there is nowhere to go but down. –#BreneBrown

Peace, Love & Sunshine -Chels

Coffey Break Chat: The 5 Simple Rules to Showing Love

Hey guys!

This week’s Coffey Break Chat touches on a topic that has come up a million and one times over the last 4-5 years, online engagement. The original title for the post was 5 simple ways to show love without coming off like a fan… groupie, etc.

And this is something that I attribute especially to the digital space. There are conversations I have in person or via text that I express differently online, and what I’ve come to realize is that every time I do that, I’m essentially watering down the beauty of a sincere moment by overthinking my response.

One day, I rolled my eyes after spending more time than I’d like to admit overthinking the right response, and I was just over it. I said to myself that from there on out, I’d choose to respond, comment, post and show love as authentically as possible. It’s a good thing haha

I pulled the following quote from Show Your Work and serves as the inspiration behind this post:

“If you want fans, you have to be a fan first. If you want to be accepted by a community, you have to first be a good citizen of that community. If you’re only pointing to your own stuff online, you’re doing it wrong. You have to be a connector. The writer Blake Butler calls this being an open node. If you want to get, you have to give. If you want to be noticed, you have to notice. Shut up and listen once in a while. Be thoughtful. Be considerate. Don’t turn into human spam. Be an open node.”

Encouragement is all about empowering whoever those kind words are intended for. Enough with the cool antics. I’m too old for that. Life can be tough, and the world could use a lot more a lot more cheerleaders.

Nonetheless, there’s a sweet spot for just about everything.

Check out my video blog below on 5 Simple Rules to Showing Love:

Be sincere
Have or get your chit together
Be intentional about keeping an eye out for opportunities that benefit more than just you
Establish boundaries
Stop worrying about what other people might think

Have a great weekend guys!

Peace, Love & Sunshine ~Chelsea

Sunday Share: Growing Up With Miss Jamaica

Hey guys,

Happy Sunday! Elle Magazine never seems to disappoint, and short of slipping into a rabbit hole, I wanted to share a great read that dropped into my inbox this afternoon.

Anyone who knows me knows how passionate I am about colorism, and more importantly, its crippling affects on so many cultures and ethnic groups. Just in case:

Colorism, noun: discrimination against a person of color due to the european standard of beauty (e.g., light skin, thin lips, loosely coiled hair). this condition is most frequently present between those of the same race.

How awesome would it be if we could simply embrace the beauty of our differences and teach our kids to love themselves just as they are from the beginning? This is a huge mission of mine as it relates to the work we do with Mia’s Closet. There’s not substitute for the empowerment that comes with feeling good about yourself. Link to the original article below:

Growing Up With Miss Jamaica

It took me years to undo the sense that lighter skin was more beautiful.

In an effort to keep from assuming that this topic is common knowledge, I’ve added a couple of doll test videos to further convey the importance of spreading the word about this topic. So much love to everyone who’s contributing to the conversation of raising awareness about this issue.

Peace, Love & Sunshine ~Chels

Kiri Davis: A Girl Like Me. [black doll / white doll experiment …

Doll Test – YouTube

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Residue, 2015 Refelction

Hey guys!

HAPPY 2016!!

What a year 2015 was…

I could on forever, but honestly, I just don’t have the words yet. It’s interesting, the concept of the new year. As much as I try to fight it, it’s as if there’s this assumed sense of a grand closing of a chapter and doors flying open to a new beginning. If there’s anything the last three years have taught me, it’s that seasons are not necessarily determined by the confines of a year. So, I think it’s safest to say that I’ll be floating for a while -not aimlessly, it’s just that I’ve finally come to a place where I’m willing to yield my next steps, no matter how big or small, to wherever God’s calling me.

The guest pastor at my church, Hope City, shared a pretty awesome reference with us last week and it has stayed with me over these last few days:

Don’t carry the residue of where you’ve been into your new season. – @degroves

He then went on to explain about how in biblical times being told to take off your shoes by a superior was a sign that a promotion was coming, and how God told Moses to take off his shoes before calling him into his purpose.

I love that analogy because I would dare to say that we’re not always aware of the residue we’re tracking around. Some residue may be more obvious, like a really bad relationship or destructive behaviors. Others may be more subtle, like a bad attitude or emotional baggage that we just can’t seem to shake. Regardless of whatever our residue is, the simple truth is that we’re all carrying something, and that’s why I love that he offered such a literal description of God bringing us into a new season.

I’ve seen a ton of posts talking about leaving negative energy, people and so on behind as we approached the new year, and I think it’s especially important to do a climate check and scan, well, everything.

Kicking off those old shoes and leaving behind any residue that doesn’t compliment God’s calling requires a whole other level of faith.

As hard as it might be, I just want to encourage you guys, and myself, to keep your eyes on Him and trust the path He has us on.

Have a great night you guys!

Peace, Love & Sunshine ~Chels