She Became Her & Then She Built the Table
by Deneen L. Garrett
A Dreaming After 50 column on identity, purpose, and the courage to become the woman you chose to be
What happens when you stop performing the life and start living it?
Becoming her doesn’t start with a new resume or a bold career move. It starts with a harder question: Who are you, underneath everything you were told to be?
That’s the question I sat with after my conversation with Isimemen “Isi” Aladejobi, CEO and Founder of Fulfilled, Career and Business Growth Strategist, and 2024 Aspen Ideas Festival Fellow. And it’s the question she asks every client before they touch a single job application.
Isi’s own story starts with failing organic chemistry — her father’s dream, not hers. That failure was redirection. She came out of college with two job offers she barely had to apply for, then went looking for whoever had taught her to do that — and found no one was teaching Black women that process. So she reverse-engineered her own success, tested it on her first client, watched her land a job and a $15,000 raise, and built Fulfilled from that gap. Her clients have collectively generated over $7 million in new salaries. But what she told me that stopped me cold was this, “We don’t even touch your resume. You’re not leveling up because you’re not her yet.”
Through her Golden Triangle process, clients excavate the limiting beliefs planted by teachers, systems, and years of “practical” choices. Her Joyful Job process helps them discover roles at the intersection of their gifts that they didn’t even know existed. Isi doesn’t call herself a savior. She calls herself a midwife. “There’s gold in you,” she says, “I’m just here to move the dirt.” Becoming her is the work that comes before everything else.
That inside-out truth showed up again in my conversation with Dr. Connie Y. Bell, Senior VP of Security Risk at Teleperformance and author of the forthcoming Shades of Strength. Dr. Bell didn’t arrive at purpose-driven leadership through a framework. She learned it through experience, from the years she spent checking every box, managing every risk, meeting every standard, and quietly losing the thread back to her why. She taught me that becoming her isn’t just about arriving at a title. It is about leading from the inside out. Purpose first. Performance second.
Three Practices for Becoming Her
Do the inner work first. Isi is clear: you cannot level up into a life that doesn’t fit the woman you are becoming. Before the next move, ask yourself: What do I actually believe about who I am? What limiting beliefs am I still carrying that belong to someone else’s story?
Return to your why. Every Sunday inside the Dream Lifestyle™ Collective — a newsletter community for Black women 50+ — the Reset begins with one feeling-based question designed to help you pause before the week takes over. Not what’s on your list. Not what you’re behind on. What is actually true for you right now — and is it aligned? That is the thread. Pull it.
Build what doesn’t exist. If the room you need was never built for you, you are not behind. You are early. Isi didn’t find a roadmap — she became one. Dr. Bell didn’t wait for permission to lead with purpose — she built from what she learned. Becoming her means building what’s needed, for yourself and for the women coming after you.
The woman you are becoming is not a future version of you. She is the truest version — the one that has always been there, waiting for you to stop performing and start living. She doesn’t need a perfect moment. She needs your decision.
She is you. Become her.
Deneen L. Garrett is a Cultural Alchemist and Media Architect who shift shapes culture through storytelling — writing, speaking (international), podcasting and community building. She is the Founder of the Dream Lifestyle™ Collective — a newsletter community where Black women 50+ Dream, Decide/Design and Drive™ their next chapter with joy and intention. Explore the movement at deneenlgarrett.com. Deneen is also the creator and host of Women of Color: An Intimate Conversation — a Top 20 Women’s Empowerment podcast, Top 5% of 4M+ podcasts worldwide — now streaming live every Thursday at 1p ET as WOC Live on YouTube @deneenlgarrett.