Chrisette Michele is a Grammy Award-winning R&B recording artist best known for her wedding hymn, “A Couple of Forevers” and her hit with Rick Ross, “Aston Martin Music”. Michele made a groove in the music industry stretching from 2007 to the present day. She has worked with John Legend, Anthony Hamilton, Musiq Soulchild, Jay Z, Kierra Sheard, TD Jakes and Tyler Perry. She has also toured with Maxwell, Solange, India.Arie and Marsha Ambrosius.

His philanthropic efforts include working with Unicef, Girls Inc., Save the Music from VH1, Amnesty International USA and many local charities from Las Vegas to Atlanta.

Michele has supported the Obamas in the White House from Obama’s run for the DNC until he left office at the Last Supper. He mentioned her as one of his favorite top R&B singers and chose her to sing before speaking on several occasions.

Michele traveled to Iraq, Kuwait and many other areas to support and raise American troops. She is committed to nurturing the broken, hard workers and those in excellent service positions.

Passionate about cultivating a community of safe spaces and intercultural understanding, she has found her place in the speaking space and has started running in recent years. She had the opportunity to speak about the lives of students at Harvard, Spelman, Temple, Howard and many more.

In 2020, Michele created the Academy of Inner Peace, a space where men and women can come together to explore purpose and hear positive and encouraging messages through his Academy podcast “Peace & Pages”. His “Peacemaker Tribe” collects wisdom and insight from his journey as a public figure who has known the glory and pain of celebrity. If you’re looking for the story of someone who understands how to find inner peace and an outward glow after adversity, look no further than writer, singer, speaker and sister friend Chrisette Michele.

BLACK COMPANY: Tell us about your Inner Peace Academy and what inspired you to create it?

Michele: I coached entrepreneurs for years through Rich Hipster University and started to notice a shift from entrepreneurs who wanted to make money, to entrepreneurs who wanted to make money on purpose. .

I was starting to see a change in the business owners I had trained who had built a foundation for financial security. They wanted more than financial success, they wanted to make an impact in the world and they wanted to find their purpose without feeling judged for their success.

The Inner Peace Academy is for those who are not afraid of the hard work it takes to create peace within, and how to bring that peace into the life they live and the world they live in. they serve.

It is an honor to sit down with people, teams, artists and entrepreneurs and help them navigate to success inside and out with the satisfaction of knowing that what they are doing is truly meaningful.

TO BE: How does your new podcast, “Peace & Pages” coincide with the Inner Peace Academy?

Michele: I am first and foremost an artist. Much of my art comes from writing. Whether it’s books, music, poetry, essays or lectures, I always write. I decided to take the most vulnerable parts of my writing and say them out loud in podcast form.

My intention is to be permission for creatives and entrepreneurs to say that you can be ridiculously flawed, have ugly experiences, make terrible mistakes, and keep pushing. I want people to know that inner peace is available even in times when the world tells you that peace is not available.

Business is for adults. Entrepreneurs are made to think that they have to have everything together all the time. My podcasts, an eclectic mix of poetry, quiet tracks and meditative essays on the ups and downs of life in the public eye, provide a beautiful backdrop for the relaxed evening of an entrepreneur, a dreamer. and a motivated business owner. You will feel heard. You will feel seen and you will feel understood. Both the podcast and the academy aim to bolster perspective as it moves from what feels like a rat race to what can be a life of goal-driven inner and outer alignment.

TO BE: Do you have any advice on the first step someone should take to realign themselves to their goal?

Michele: Of course, be honest about what is not your goal. Feel. As difficult as it can be. I haven’t felt for about a decade. I was broken, rich and disenfranchised. Cognitive behavioral therapy put me back in my thoughts. As I began to display my thoughts on the mat in front of me, my therapist helped me look at them in a safe space. I admitted what made me feel good and what wasn’t. I cried for the first time in many years.

Be brave enough to examine everything around you and choose what is and is not part of your goal. What’s wrong ? What is not resonating? You will need to be brave enough to feel and respond to your feelings.

It is difficult and it takes time. I like to accompany individuals through this process. We often need a friend or a coach by our side to navigate this truth. The hardest part is often to trust yourself. We’ve been around for so long. We have created a life that we see every day. It can be shocking to decide that it doesn’t feel good, but our minds know it. We will have to be brave enough to feel and as business owners we have often been trained not to feel.

Feeling my way to a goal has required me to feel my thoughts, to recognize and accept their effect for about a decade. I was broken, rich and disenfranchised. Cognitive behavioral therapy put me back in my thoughts. As I began to display my thoughts on the mat in front of me, my therapist helped me look at them in a safe space. I admitted what made me feel good and what wasn’t. I cried for the first time in many years.

I do feel a little guilty when I walk people through their path to their goal, but it’s liberating and it rebuilds the foundation of goal-driven entrepreneurs.

TO BE: What’s the next step for you in 2021?

Michele: Moody by Chrisette Michèle. This fall, I’ll be launching an online store for those of us who need help managing our moods. Working as a full-time, creative business owner can sometimes be a difficult task. I firmly believe that peace can be created. I want to provide the tools to help people do it no matter how busy life requires them to be.

The Moody Shop is connected to my InnerPeace.Academy website. I think this will show many of us just how available “making peace” really is. It is my dream to put peace within the reach of people.

You can find out more about the Inner Peace Academy by visiting my InnerPeace.Academy website. Customers ask me all the time, “Are you going to keep doing this when you go on tour?” “The pandemic has allowed me to meet so many beautiful faces and to support so many motivated entrepreneurs, I have decided to keep a team within the staff specifically to continue to do so, no matter where the road takes me. as God says.