Khadijah Adams: Business Coach, Author, Motivational Speaker, Powerhouse

Khadijah Adams. Sourced from her website.

Khadijah Adams, author, motivational speaker, and founder of Girl Get That Money, a coaching and business consultancy firm, knows how powerful women can be when they work together. Unfortunately, she told Emerald, patriarchal society enforces the notion that women must compete with each other to be successful, in life and in the business world. 

“You’ve got pageants and homecoming queens… [and] we grow up thinking, ‘I gotta outdo everybody to be the best,’” she said. 

In her public speaking, she attempts to show her audience that cooperation between women is far more beneficial. “What it comes down to,” she explained, “is that you can be the best and collaborate and [succeed] by helping other women get what they want.”

This belief helped inspire her LLC Girl Get That Money. The business helps women make their way as entrepreneurs; not just in the cannabis industry, but in a multitude of fields. Through her coaching, her book Rewriting Your Mental Script: 8 Mindsets That Defeat Self Sabotage, and her public speaking, Adams’s ultimate goal is to share her story and show her fellow women that “they can make it in cannabis and any other industry they want.” 

Her Story

Originally from Sugarland, Texas, Adams knew when Colorado legalized cannabis in 2012 that the industry would be forever changed. 

She sold “everything [she] had except for [her] computer, cell phone, car, and clothes,” and moved to Denver. By November of 2014, she had started her first company, Marijuana Investment and Private Retreat or MIPR Holdings. She served there as the “the founder and senior managing partner for 3-1/2 years and was responsible for consulting and connecting accredited investors to viable investment opportunities in the [cannabis] space,” according to her LinkedIn. 

But in 2016, Adams faced a series of devastating blows. 

“I went through a divorce and lost my whole team,” she told Emerald. “I gave myself about 24 hours to grieve and blame everybody. And then I woke up the next morning, took responsibility for my role in each situation, and then created a plan to get myself out of the mess I had made.” 

She put her head down and worked even harder than before. In 2017, Adams sold MIPR Holdings LLC to C. E. Hutton LLC, a business development and management firm in Denver. However, she remains a majority investor and partner. 

Then, during the midst of the pandemic in 2020, Adams launched Girl, Get That Money. As the website specifies, she aims “to empower women in business by providing them with the resources and tools they need to help them reach their goals.” 

That same year, she published Rewriting Your Mental Script: 8 Mindsets that Defeat Self Sabotage. In it, Adams argues that to be successful, not just in business but in life, one must have the correct mindset. 

Using her experience with self-sabotage, she wrote her book to share “how to reprogram your mind for success [using] eight key mindsets,” as per her website. 

Setting an Example

As a Black woman and a mother in an industry dominated by rich white men, Adams knows that the representation and involvement of minorities is crucial. 

According to Insider,  “between 80% to 90% of the [cannabis] industry is run by white owners.” 

Furthermore, NBC notes that in 2017, “less than a fifth of the people involved at an ownership or stake-holder level [in cannabis] were people of color.” Disturbingly, “black people made up only 4.3 percent.” 

According to CNBC, failed social equity efforts, the lasting effects of the War on Drugs, and systematic racism prevent this inequality from being addressed. 

Ironically, as Adams noted, “[minorities] started the industry!” 

She emphasized how police target people of color, and the role cannabis plays in this unfair treatment:

suburbs, there’s no police out here. If I went to the hood right now, there’s a cop on every corner. I can go to any one of my neighbors, majority white, and I can sit down and smoke a joint with them. But I can’t do that in the hood because the cops would come in at any moment. But they won’t come to the suburbs where a majority of white people are.” 

While officials disproportionately arrest people of color for cannabis possession, minorities are still prevented from participating in the industry that was created at their expense.

Working For the Right Reasons

Adams has made many efforts to help address this injustice. She co-authors The Minority Report alongside C.E. Hutton. The report is “an annual marketing analysis of minority-owned companies in the cannabis and hemp industries,” explained Blurb. “The text highlights the lack of diversity in both industries and “gives attention to the voices of the LGBTQ+ community, people of color, people with disabilities, veterans, and women.”

Additionally, she is the 2020-2021 chair of their Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee at the National Cannabis Industry Association (NCIA), and hosts its Cannabis Minority Report podcast. Each week, Adams has a different guest and gives updates regarding the “policies, practices, and chatter [affecting] minority ownership and executive leadership in the industry,” reports Apple Podcasts. 

Currently, Adams devotes a majority of her time to Girl, Get That Money and public speaking. 

She further explained, “every year I bring on three women who are seeking to be entrepreneurs on a pro-bono basis.” She and her team customize their work on the specific needs of each client, for instance building websites and social media platforms. “I coach them and help review and build their business plan,” she added.

The company also offers workshops at no cost as well as hourly or package coaching services. 

United We Stand

Through her work, Adams hopes to inspire women who want to be successful in business, especially the cannabis industry. She told Emerald, “I think it’s important for other women to know that there are women out there who have accomplished what they’re seeking to accomplish.”

By her own example, she wants to show that serious pitfalls will occur; but that success is possible despite these obstacles. 

She laments the rivalry between women in the business world. In fact, Forbes reports that “the male-dominated workplace sets women up to compete due to increased [male] scrutiny and a scarcity of top leadership positions for women.” 

According to the Pew Research Center, as of 2017 “women held only about 10% of the top executive positions […] at U.S. companies.” 

While Adams acknowledges that perhaps “healthy competition” is necessary, she asserts that women benefit far more when they work together. The performance of her business model emphasizes this fact. Girl, Get That Money functions as a mutually beneficial system; Adams assists and invests in women, and in return, they mutually benefit.  

Ultimately, the company demonstrates the truth in Adams’ statement: “I know that when one woman collaborates with another woman; when one of those women wins, they both win.”

Written by Moira Mahoney