My racism, seemingly quiet, is, in fact, the catalyst of a devastatingly painful reverberation, particularly when coupled with millions upon millions of other people who like me, fail to question their privilege. By accepting my privilege, I have volunteered for racism. By failing to challenge my own privilege, I have implicitly accepted the task to carry out the oppressive goals of a racist majority.

Happy Wednesday, powerful people! Last post, we discussed a few of the most popular ways of acquiring a physical space for your business - purchasing, leasing, or co-working. Today's post will focus on the nuts and bolts of a commercial real estate purchase, including a general, and highly simplified, overview of the process and what you need to know if you're thinking about buying commercial real estate to house your business.

Congrats, fellow boss lady! You’re ready to create a physical space for your business. Luckily, there are a variety of options available for new business owners, ranging from co-working to traditional leases to buying. This post is an introduction to the variety of options that are available and will kick off a series about taking up physical space that complements hustle and doing so in a way that protects you legally and financially. Without further ado, let us introduce the applicants.

What I can tell you is that renting a commercial space is nothing like renting an apartment or a home. Negotiating a lease for commercial space takes due diligence, business planning, budgeting, patience, and a willingness to walk away from a bad deal. For the purposes of this article, I want to give you a sense of what to expect when thinking about entering into a formal lease for your business. I do not mean a co-working space agreement or a sublease. When I say lease here, I mean a lease where your business is named as the tenant (or the "lessee"). You might personally sign a guaranty, which we will talk about more a bit later.

For me, as a woman of color, being "woke" is not a trend. Being woke started when I opened my brown eyes at birth, my dark brown eyes set inside of my brown face and my brown body at birth, and saw America for the first time. For me, and for countless others, woke-ness is not a hobby or a cause for me. It is existence. It is irrevocably a part of who I am. For a person of color, sometimes I feel like I’m keeping my tired eyeballs open to make sure I survive in a world full of misunderstandings, misrepresentations, missed kindnesses. To me, acting purposefully, with an aim toward social justice and promoting the normalization of diversity, is how I stay aware of the ways that American society treats different communities differently, how the external world tears down some while uplifting others, and how society often seeks to minimize the personhood of those termed as “Other.”

In a sincere effort to be viewed as a polite and a selfless individual that lives to care for and accommodate others, we forget that these characteristics are "sold to many of us as a defining feature of the good woman." As women, we are forever faced with the catch-22 conundrum of how to be “good women,” as defined by antiquated social norms, while being fierce in our business endeavors?

The cycle must be broken. Just look at successful women - the women that we envy and admire, like Madeline Albright, Michelle Obama, Valerie Jarrett, Lilly Singh, Mindy Kaling, Elaine Welteroth - these are just some of the women that broke free from the binds of traditional definitions of what makes a woman “good.” Does this mean that these women don't care about their families, are bad mothers and partners, or are somehow not good people? No. In fact, many of these women are visionaries, community advocates, and true exemplars of conquering for causes of positive consequence. If you dig deeper, the stories of these women show a pattern of bravely embracing the un-traditional.

An LLC is form of doing business, registered with the Secretary of State, that combines the tax advantage of pass-through tax treatment for income with the limited liability and flexible ownership structure. I know, I know, I've fallen into legal-ese again. Let's break this down: