In 2010, Cerece Rennie Murphy saw a man walking toward her.

He had a cataract-like film over his eyes and ash blonde hair, even though he was a Black man from Tanzania. She knew he was a seer. She knew he was enslaved for that ability. She knew there were people all over the world suffering that fate.

She wanted to know how that story would end. She would not know unless she wrote it.

That vision became Order of the Seers, her bestselling trilogy. It launched what is now fourteen books, an SFWA Kate Wilhelm Solstice Award (alongside Octavia Butler and Carl Sagan), and three platforms — LionSky Publishing, Narazu, and Virtuous Con — built to amplify BIPOC creators that traditional publishing had told there was no audience for.

On Episode 10, Cerece walks through what it took to trust a vision no one else could see. And what it means to build infrastructure for futures that do not exist yet.

The frameworks Cerece named

Six frameworks emerged across the conversation. All six matter. Three of them are the ones I want to walk through here.

1. The Not a Conference Call Principle

Cerece’s central reframe: your vision and your calling is not a conference call. Not everyone is meant to or able to hold your potential. And that is okay.

The shift is from seeking consensus before you start building to seeking discernment about who has the capacity to hold what you are seeing. Just because no one else can see your vision does not mean it is not real. It means you have to be clear and true to your vision.

Before you share a vision, ask: does this person have the capacity to hold my potential? If not, that is information. Not rejection.

2. Platform vs. Business Distinction

A business is about you. A platform amplifies other people’s voices.

The shift: move from “how do I grow my audience” to “who else should be here that is not here?”

Cerece’s origin story sits at New York Comic Con 2012. She was the only woman selling a book she had written in the small press section. Not the only Black woman. The only woman. Period. At an event of 100,000 to 150,000 people in the same city where NK Jemisin and Daniel Jose Older live. None of them were there because their publishers did not believe this was the audience for them.

Cerece sold over 100 books that weekend because she believed she could and no one was there to stop her.

The kernel question: who else should be here that is not here? How can I empower people to be in spaces where they are being told there is no room for them?

That question became Virtuous Con. It became Narazu. It is what separates a business from a platform.

3. Innovation by Necessity

What they call innovation, we call moving through the day.

Black women push boundaries by definition because the boxes systems put us in are always too small. We are not learning to be innovative. We are descendants of ancestors who hoped in utter darkness and imagined possibilities they would never see. That is the heart of innovation.

Cerece’s reframe goes further: systems are built to invalidate us at the same time that we are the validators. We set trends. We innovate. The idea that we are not the origin of validation is profoundly inaccurate.

If you have been waiting for someone to validate your vision before building it, you are waiting on the wrong people. The validators are us.

Three more frameworks named (deeper coverage in the book)

The episode also covered: Humility in Platform Building (opening doors versus gatekeeping), Protecting Your Creative Space (rest as creative requirement), and Ask for Help Early and Often (if you are doing everything yourself, the vision is probably not big enough). Each one is its own substantial frame.

Key Takeaways

• Not everyone has the capacity to hold your vision. That is information, not rejection.

• The validators are us. Stop waiting for permission from systems built to deny you.

• A business is about you. A platform amplifies other voices. Know which one you are building.

• Your body is a whole other person with an attitude. Listen to her. Rest is not optional.

Power Activation Prompt

Cerece’s platform-building question, adapted as the Power Activation Prompt for this episode:

Look at what you are currently building — your work, your network, your platform, your career.

Ask: who else should be here that is not here?

Then ask: what would it take to make space for them?

If the answer is something only you can do, the vision is bigger than your immediate scope. That is the platform calling. Build accordingly.

About the Cerece Rennie Murphy

Cerece Rennie Murphy is the bestselling author of fourteen books in speculative and science fiction, including the Order of the Seers trilogy. She is the recipient of the SFWA Kate Wilhelm Solstice Award.

She founded LionSky Publishing in 2012, Narazu, and Virtuous Con — platforms built to amplify BIPOC creators in speculative fiction and adjacent genres.

She holds an MSW from Boston College and an MA in International Relations from Johns Hopkins SAIS. Before becoming a full-time author and platform builder, she was a nonprofit development executive.

Find her: cerecerenniemurphy.com | virtuouscon.com

Cerece’s central reframe — your vision is not a conference call — names something the dominant career narrative misses entirely. Not everyone is meant to or able to hold your potential. Treating the absence of validation as the absence of viability is the move that ends most revolutionary work before it starts.

My research surfaced what changes when leaders stop seeking external validation before building. The pattern is durable enough to name as a pillar.

For Blueprint Circle members, the pillar Cerece’s framework opens — and how it differs from the Expanded Success angle in Episode 9.

Read more