This month’s book club pick hit me in a place I didn’t expect — right in the center of reflection season.
December is that moment in the year when we start taking stock of our lives. We look at what we accomplished, what we didn’t, what surprised us, and what honestly humbled us. And when I opened Successful Failure by Kevin Fredericks (yes… KevOnStage), I realized immediately:

This is the perfect book for December.

Kevin walks us through the totality of his journey — the wins, the setbacks, the beautiful mess of figuring life out without a handbook. And he calls himself a “successful failure,” not because he failed, but because of what the failures taught him.

And baby… that’s the part that got me.

Why This Book Resonated So Deeply With Me

What resonated most wasn’t a single story — it was the overall theme of his journey.
Like Kevin, I’ve been pursuing my calling for a long time.
Fifteen, twenty years of empowerment work, blogging, storytelling, digital media…
and not one person handed me a guidebook for how to do this.

We were all out here learning as we go.

And when you’re learning as you go, you’re going to make mistakes.
You’re going to try things that don’t work.
You’re going to pursue dreams that shift, collapse, or reform themselves into something you didn’t expect.

Sometimes those moments feel like failure.
But I picked up this book because I wanted to see whether someone else — someone just as determined and passionate and committed — made the same mistakes I did.
And more importantly… what they did with them.

How do you turn the things that disappoint you into the things that develop you?
Kevin answers that over and over again, with truth and humor.

Why This Book Speaks to Black Women So Powerfully

We’re in a season where many Black women are redefining themselves.
Shedding old expectations, old versions, old narratives.
Stepping into a more honest, aligned, soft, and grounded self.

And Successful Failure speaks directly to that moment.

It reminds us that we can take the lemons of our lives — the moments we didn’t get right, didn’t nail, didn’t foresee — and turn them into lemonade.
Not cute lemonade.
Not Instagram lemonade.

Real lemonade.
The kind that teaches you.
The kind that nourishes you.
The kind that becomes ammunition for your next chapter.

Because there’s always something to learn, no matter what the season looks like.

And once you learn it?
That’s power.
That’s clarity.
That’s the wisdom your next season will run on.

What I Hope Readers Carry Into 2026

I hope this book helps women do what it did for me:

Load up.
Not with hustle.
Not with burnout.
Not with pressure.

Load up with the ammunition your life has already handed you.
Load up with the lessons you had to learn the long way.
Load up with the clarity you didn’t even know you were earning through every misstep.

Then walk into 2026 using everything you’ve learned to build a year that feels like alignment — not survival.

Why You Should Read This Book (Without Spoilers)

Because you’re not alone in your mistakes.
Because someone else has been where you are.
Because you deserve a story that shows failure as something formative, not something final.
Because you deserve to feel seen — even in the parts of your journey you don’t talk about out loud.

Kevin writes with humor, heart, reflection, and honesty.
And he reminds us that failures don’t disqualify us — they shape us.

That’s why Successful Failure is our December Real Women Read book of the month.

📚 Join Us for Our First Virtual Real Women Read Book Club Meeting!

**📅 January 8th, 2026

🕖 7:00 PM EST
📍 Virtual via Zoom**

I’m looking forward to meeting new women, sharing our goals, laughing, unpacking the hard parts, and empowering each other.
This is not just a book club — it’s a community for women who want to grow, heal, and light up their creativity together.

If you want to tap in with a collective of women who read to become better, softer, and more aligned, this is your invitation.

👉🏾 Grab the book from my Amazon Book Picks store here

👉🏾 RSVP for the January 8th Book Club Meeting

This is the start of something good.
I hope you’ll be in the room.