We’re looking forward to introducing you to Bianca B. King. Check out our conversation below.
Bianca B., so good to connect and we’re excited to share your story and insights with our audience. There’s a ton to learn from your story, but let’s start with a warm up before we get into the heart of the interview. What do you think others are secretly struggling with—but never say?
That they’re exhausted by their own ambition.
Many high-achieving women entrepreneurs I work with have built impressive businesses and careers, yet they’re tired. They followed the broken playbook: hustle harder, sleep less, grind now, rest later. But “later” never comes, and now they wonder if this is really what success should feel like.
This exhaustion is compounded by the weight of everyone else’s expectations. Society says lean in. Family says be more present. Social media says scale to seven figures. Your mother-in-law says you work too much. You’re supposed to be building an empire while also being the mom who never misses a school event, the wife who has dinner on the table, the daughter who calls every Sunday. The math doesn’t math.
The secret struggle is permission. Permission to define success on your own terms and let some of those expectations go.
I know this challenge well. For years, I believed I had to choose between joy and ambition. I didn’t. They can coexist. Joy is the foundation, and your agency is the compass. I call it Joyful Ambition™. When you build from that place, ambition stops feeling like a grind and becomes momentum.
Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
Throughout my nearly 30-year business career, I’ve seen firsthand how defining your own success makes a difference. I’ve been part of teams responsible for $1.6 billion in transactions, my work has appeared in Forbes, Fast Company, Entrepreneur, and SUCCESS Magazine, and I launched my marketing agency in 2008 with $700 during the Great Recession. Seventeen years and over $280 million in client revenue later, we are still here, and the agency is still thriving.
I’m Bianca B. King, CEO and Founder of Pretty Damn Ambitious™, a collective for service-based women entrepreneurs (consultants, coaches, agency owners like myself) who refuse to sacrifice joy for success. I’m also President & Creative Director of Seven5 Seven3 Marketing Group and serve on the board of Texas Wall Street Women, a 3,500+ member nonprofit for women in finance, as VP of Operations and Development.
Pretty Damn Ambitious exists because I got tired of watching brilliant women run themselves into the ground chasing someone else’s definition of success. To address this, our community operates around three pillars: Mindset, Marketing, and Money. We focus on business elevation without the burnout.
Right now, I’m deep in building season. I’m launching the Joyful Ambition podcast, working on a book and producing our 4th Annual Level Up Summit happening this March. Everything I’m creating centers on one idea: joy is the foundation, agency is the compass, and ambition is the tool that helps us accomplish our goals and achieve greater success.
Great, so let’s dive into your journey a bit more. What part of you has served its purpose and must now be released?
The part of me that believed exhaustion was evidence of effort.
For years, I thought being busy meant I was building something. If I had a margin in my calendar, I was leaving money on the table. I built two successful businesses with that mindset, so it worked. Until it didn’t.
Toxic ambition got me far. It also cost me sleep, presence, and seasons of joy I can’t get back. I’m a recovering Type A, and recovery means accepting that the version of me who needed to prove her worth through overwork has done her job. She got me here. But she can’t take me where I’m going.
Now I’m building from a different place. I protect my time. I travel with my husband without guilt. I say no to opportunities that don’t align, even when they pay well. That’s smarter ambition, Joyful Ambition™.
Releasing her isn’t easy. She still shows up when I’m stressed, but I know better now and that means I can choose better. Joy and ambition can coexist. I’m living proof, as well as women in my collective.
Was there ever a time you almost gave up?
In 2010, I pulled up my bank statement and it read $38.63
I left a six-figure career I spent over a decade building. I’d walked away from commercial real estate deals worth hundreds of millions. I bet everything on myself and landed here. Thirty-eight dollars. It was a gut punch.
That morning, I had a decision to make. Go back to the safety of corporate, or refine and rebuild my agency into the business I knew it could become.
I chose to rebuild.
In addition to running my agency, I started a blog called Successful Southern Sistas to highlight other successful Black women entrepreneurs and share marketing strategies and tips with those who were growing like me. I showed up consistently, built an audience, created value, and positioned myself as someone worth paying attention to. And then a reporter from JET Magazine found and featured me, and I was ready. I had offers. I had systems. I had something to sell. The visibility only worked because I’d done the work to be ready for it.
I didn’t almost give up. I almost went back. There’s a difference. Giving up means you stop. Going back means you settle. Neither one was an option I could live with.
Sure, so let’s go deeper into your values and how you think. How do you differentiate between fads and real foundational shifts?
Fads solve surface problems. Foundational shifts address what’s been breaking beneath the surface for a long time.
Since 2020, we’ve watched quiet quitting go mainstream. We’ve seen record numbers of women leave corporate jobs and become entrepreneurs because of a lack of support and flexibility. We’ve watched burnout become a clinical diagnosis, not just a complaint. This isn’t a trend. This is a correction.
Women have been told for decades that success requires sacrifice. Work harder. Sleep less. You can have it all if you just do more. And women did more. They leaned in, burned out, and started asking: What if this isn’t working?
Many of these women are sandwiched between raising children and caregiving for older parents or relatives. Corporate didn’t make room for that reality. So they made their own way.
The pendulum swung and some women responded by opting out entirely. The tradwife aesthetic. The soft life movement. But for a lot of ambitious women, that answer doesn’t fit either. They don’t want to stop building. They want systems that actually work for their lives and communities that support the way they need to grow.
That’s the foundational shift I’m building for. Women who refuse to choose between ambition and joy. Women who want to grow their businesses without grinding themselves down. They’ve been underserved for decades and they’re finally saying enough.
Joyful Ambition isn’t a reaction to hustle culture. It’s the answer that was missing all along.
Before we go, we’d love to hear your thoughts on some longer-run, legacy type questions. Could you give everything your best, even if no one ever praised you for it?
Yes, I did it for over 20 years.
I spent most of my career behind the scenes, in corporate, building my agency, serving clients, and generating impressive results that made others look good. No stages, features, or applause. And I was fine with that because I was proud of what I was creating.
If you need praise to perform, you’ll always be at the mercy of other people’s attention. I’d rather be at the mercy of my own expectations. They’re higher anyway.
When you’re doing work that matters to you, external validation becomes a bonus instead of the fuel. The applause is nice, but it’s not necessary. Being satisfied with your results is. Ambition should be a force that pulls you, not one that pushes you, toward achieving your version of success, regardless of the accolades.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.levelupsummit.co/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iambiancabking/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/biancahenryking/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/biancabking
Image Credits
Bri Crow Creative
