Centering Joy & Cultivating Healing: Janet Stickmon’s Mission to Empower Professionals of Color

Janet Stickmon has spent over two decades creating spaces where reflection, healing, and joy take center stage. As the Founder and CEO of Janet Stickmon Consulting LLC, she’s helping professionals of color reclaim their well-being through CenterJoyPWR®, an online experience designed to heal racial battle fatigue and prioritize self-care.

Janet Stickmon, Founder and CEO of Janet Stickmon Consulting LLC | Wellness Consultant & Coach | Founder of CenterJoyPWR®

With a career spanning 26 years in education, Janet has built a legacy of leadership, authorship, and advocacy, but her most powerful impact comes from the deep connections she fosters. Whether leading transformative workshops like her recent SXSW EDU session or guiding individuals through her courses and books, her mission is clear: to help people heal, thrive, and embrace the joy they deserve.

In this spotlight, Janet shares her journey to entrepreneurship, the defining moments that shaped her path, and what being a Fireista means to her.

What’s your Zone of Genius? (What do you absolutely rock at in business?)

My Zone of Genius is creating healing spaces allowing people to slow down, reflect on their lives, open up, and connect with each other.

What makes your business unique?

What makes my business unique is the CenterJoyPWR®: Strategies for Healing Racial Battle Fatigue—an online experience for professionals of color who want to heal their racial battle fatigue and center joy in their lives. CenterJoyPWR®  provides a space that values and prioritizes self-care while recognizing how systems of oppression impact our well-being.

Share a story about your biggest milestone or proudest achievement so far.

My proudest achievement so far was leading a health and wellness workshop at SXSW EDU 2025 entitled "Healing Racial Battle Fatigue and Reconnecting with Joy." I experienced a beautiful connection with an audience of nearly 90 attendees and received an overwhelmingly amount positive feedback about how personally transformative my session was.

What's the number one thing you’re doing to help you create personal and financial freedom? 

Generating revenue through online courses and programs, speaking engagements, and book sales.

What does being a Fireista mean to you?

Being a Fireista means being uplifted, supported, and inspired by fellow high- achieving women entrepreneurs.

What inspired you to become an entrepreneur?

What inspired me to become an entrepreneur were various personal and professional circumstances that helped me realize that I needed me more than any institution needed me. Working for someone else and devoting so much time to institutions which were willing to take as much as I was willing to give was stunting my growth.  I did not feel like my adulthood nor my expertise as a professional were getting the level of respect they deserved. I needed to be my own boss and, as Maurice Mitchell aka Chef Moebetta puts it, I needed the freedom to own my own day.

Do you have a personal motto or a quote you live by?

Our liberation lies where our joy resides.

If you could grab coffee with any woman in history, who would it be and why?

Zora Neale Hurston; I think we would have great conversations about Black folklore, the joy of writing, and all things sacred. And I think we would make each other laugh uncontrollably.

What’s your go-to hype song when you need a confidence boost?

Ratata by Skrillex, Missy Elliott, Mr. Oizo

More about Janet Stickmon: 

Janet Stickmon, founder and CEO of Janet Stickmon Consulting LLC, is an author and wellness consultant who has been an educator for over 26 years.  Stickmon is a professor of Ethnic Studies at Napa Valley College where she has been teaching for 19 years.  She is also the founding Program Coordinator of the Humanities, Ethnic Studies, and Philosophy Departments and the founding Program  Coordinator of The Cultural Center at Napa Valley College.  Stickmon is the author of Crushing Soft Rubies—A Memoir, Midnight Peaches, Two O’clock Patience—A Collection of Essays, Poems, and Short Stories on Womanhood and the Spirit, and To Black Parents Visiting Earth:  Raising Black Children in the 21st Century. She is also known for her article, “Blackapina,” on life as a biracial woman of African American and Filipino American descent.  Stickmon’s essays have appeared in The Huffington Post, Mutha Magazine, The Sage Encyclopedia of Filipina/x/o American Studies, Read to Write Stories, Positively Filipino, and Red and Yellow, Black and Brown:  Decentering Whiteness in Mixed Race Studies (Rutgers University Press, 2017).  She also has over 25 years experience practicing meditation and integrating mindfulness practices throughout all her courses. Janet Stickmon is the founder of CenterJoyPWR®: Strategies for Healing Racial Battle Fatigue—an online experience for professionals of color who want to heal their racial battle fatigue and center joy in their lives.