Latest news with #SuperwomanSchema
Forbes
29-04-2025
- Business
- Forbes
3 Financial Systems Solopreneurs Need To Build To Avoid Burnout
Entrepreneurship has been a viable path to financial stability, especially for women who want to build wealth with the flexibility needed to balance various responsibilities. In 2025, that trend shows no signs of slowing. More than 33.3 million small businesses fuel the U.S. economy, and solopreneurs are at the heart of this movement. Data reveals that the share of American businesses operated by solopreneurs grew from 76% in 1997 to 84% in 2020, and recent surveys suggest that figure may be even higher today. Despite this growth, solopreneurs face a unique set of challenges that require strategic and emotional resilience. Unfortunately, burnout has become a common reality, especially for those entrepreneurs who lack systems in place to manage their finances, time, and may be carrying the added weight of cultural expectations. Research highlights how many Black women internalize the Strong Black Woman or Superwoman Schema (the belief that they must be emotionally resilient, financially self-reliant, and constantly successful, even at the expense of their own health and sustainability). While these narratives celebrate strength and perseverance, they can also lead to chronic stress, overwork, and financial self-neglect, further exacerbating the risks of burnout. Technology has made it possible to grow a solo business without employees or co-founders. But there is a catch: it has been reported that nearly 42% of small business owners mention having limited or no financial literacy when they launched, and 45% say they have lost $10,000 or more in profits due to that lack of knowledge. So, how can solopreneurs grow and stay protected in today's business landscape? These three financial systems offer a starting point. In business, clarity is currency. Without a consistent system to track income and expenses, it becomes challenging to make informed decisions, plan for growth, or avoid financial pitfalls. Relying on memory is not a sustainable path, and it increases the chances of making financial decisions driven by the current moment, motivation, or financial trauma, rather than ones based on data that can be anticipated. Instead, building a simple but structured tracking system allows you to see where your money is coming from, where it is going, and what is staying in the business. More importantly, it gives you the confidence to scale with intention rather than guesswork. Start setting up your financial system by separating your personal and business finances. Open a dedicated business bank account, and set up a tool to track your money flow. Today's tools make it easy to automate financial tracking with various budgeting apps, or even a simple spreadsheet or traditional financial journal can help. Set a weekly time block to review your income and outflows. One of the most common mistakes solopreneurs make is waiting to 'feel ready' or 'make enough' before paying themselves. But building a sustainable business does not start when your business hits six figures, it begins when you create a habit and support the growth with those habits. Paying yourself consistently signals that your work has value, that your well-being matters, and that your business exists to support your life and not the other way around, so you know how much revenue you will need to aim for to keep paying yourself and growing your business while it prepares you forecast from an objective perspective. When you neglect to pay yourself, you risk reinforcing cycles of under-earning and burnout. Start by calculating a reasonable baseline amount you can pay yourself regularly, even if it is modest at first. Whether you choose a fixed amount or a percentage of net revenue, consistency is key. Paying yourself also has practical benefits: it helps you establish credit, manage personal budgeting, and invest for retirement, which becomes important if you are, for instance, planning to buy a house in the future. It also reduces financial stress, boosts confidence, and creates a clear boundary between personal and business money, critical for long-term peace of mind. One of the biggest financial challenges solopreneurs face is volatility on both sides of the ledger. Unlike traditional employees who manage expenses against a fixed paycheck, solopreneurs often deal with fluctuations in both income and spending. That unpredictability can lead to stress, reactive decisions, and financial instability. In the conversation we had in the Brown Way To Money Podcast with Paula Pant, host of the Afford Anything podcast, she mentioned: 'Everyone has volatility on the spend side. And what's unique about being an entrepreneur or being self-employed is that you also have volatility on the income side. So you have volatility in both directions.' Pant suggests that entrepreneurs review their actual bank deposits from the last 12 to 24 months (not just invoices sent) and then identify the month with the lowest income during that period. 'Can you peg the fixed costs to the lowest income month?,' she asks. 'If you can at a minimum do that, then that means all of the excess you make above that lowest amount is money that you can then put into a discretionary fund… that you can pull from on months where your expenses trend higher.' And here is where a revenue distribution system can be powerful in avoiding burnout, in addition to setting up your tracking system for income and expenses: Determine your baseline income from the lowest month, match your fixed expenses to that baseline, allocate any income above the baseline into flexible buckets like your emergency or buffer fund, Owner's pay, business investments and profit or savings. By anchoring your spending to a conservative, data-driven baseline, you can stabilize your financial decisions, even in months when your income fluctuates. This reduces burnout, builds resilience, and gives you more freedom to plan and grow, without panic. Bottom line: Implementing simple financial systems becomes non-negotiable as you grow and want to protect your well-being. By tracking income and expenses, paying yourself consistently, and planning for volatility with a revenue distribution system, you have an opportunity to reclaim control of your business finances and peace of mind.
The Guardian
20-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
New play about impact of dementia on Black Britons can start ‘conversation'
Part of the creative team behind a new play about the impact of dementia on a Black British family hope it can provoke a conversation about the disease, which disproportionately affects Black Britons. Miss Myrtle's Garden is part of Lynette Linton's final season at the Bush Theatre in London, and the artistic director said the 'beautiful and heart-wrenching' production was an important opportunity to discuss the havoc dementia causes. A report released in 2022 found that Black people had a 22% higher incidence of dementia recorded than white people in the UK. The play will be directed by Linton's successor Taio Lawson and is written by Danny James King. 'Dementia, particularly in the Black community and in the Caribbean community, is a conversation that we need to talk about more,' Linton said. 'It's affecting so many people … let's talk about it now and let's give people the support they need.' Linton's final season will also feature Superwoman Schema, which stars Golda Rosheuvel and Letitia Wright as two women struggling to come to terms with the death of their family's matriarch. It's about 'what that brings out for them and their relationship as they go on this journey to to work out what her death means,' Linton said. Several of the plays in Linton's final season focus on older characters and those in middle age. As well as Superwoman Schema and Miss Myrtle's Garden, Sweetmeats looks at forbidden love between two middle-aged South Asian characters. Linton recently directed Alterations at the National Theatre, which was a revival of a play by Michael Abbensetts, the ground-breaking British-Guyanese playwright who became established in the 1970s. She said there wasn't a conscious effort to include stories about older people in the season, but she did feel more stories that revolve around middle-aged Black and Asian leads need to be created. 'What's so beautiful about Sweetmeats is it's a love story between these two elders: how often do we see a love story between characters of a certain age? 'I think that's happened because there's something about us honouring our elders at this point as well. I feel very passionate about that. I've always felt passionate about that, but Alterations has really opened that up for me.' Other plays in Linton's final season including After Sunday, which is set in a cooking class that takes place in a prison psychiatric unit; Heart Wall, Kit Withington's play about the challenges of returning home as an adult, and House of Jenin, written and performed by Alaa Shehada. Linton is taking a break after she finishes at the Bush in two weeks before returning to direct Superwoman Schema. She has been a vocal advocate for creating a more diverse theatre landscape in the UK and for 'disrupting' the established canon with new work and rediscovered pieces that go beyond the likes of Ibsen, Pinter and Miller. She said: 'It was about really looking at the canon and making a decision to tell specifically British and Irish stories with a specific focus on Black and Asian voices, so that we could go: 'Look, we are here, and our stories are deserved to be in the West End.'' Her six-year run as artistic director alongside associate director Daniel Bailey who is also leaving, has seen more than 50 plays performed that were written by British and Irish playwrights, with a particular focus on writers of colour. During the pair's tenure they won four consecutive Olivier awards for productions and earned West End runs for original work, including Red Pitch and Shifters. They also founded the Bush Young Company during the Covid lockdown, and produced Lenny Henry's debut play, August in England. Did Linton have any advice for new boss Lawson? 'Follow your instincts … and remember the people that are around you are the heartbeat of that building,' she said.
