Speaker 1: All right, and we're back. We're back, We're back, We're back.
Speaker 1: I feel like.
Speaker 2: I felt a little half hearted.
Speaker 3: I'm like, I know, well, you know, first of all,
Speaker 3: I spent the morning, me and Supergirl cleaning the house.
Speaker 2: I thot, wait, I just woke up, but you already
Speaker 2: had a whole day.
Speaker 1: I know.
Speaker 3: I woke up early, and I was like, I don't
Speaker 3: even know how I was able to convince Supergirl to
Speaker 3: clean without like her like, without any pushback. That was like,
Speaker 3: you know, because her father left early too, he's working overtime.
Speaker 3: So I woke up and I said, oh, you know
Speaker 3: what we should do. We should clean the house so
Speaker 3: it could be clean when he gets back.
Speaker 1: And she agreed.
Speaker 3: And I was like, who is this person? Because this
Speaker 3: is not the girl from yesterday.
Speaker 2: Mercury is in retrograde. I don't actually know what that means,
Speaker 2: and me.
Speaker 1: Either, it's just something about I don't know.
Speaker 3: All my HOTEP friends are like, it just means that
Speaker 3: communication is not going to be as clear.
Speaker 1: But she did the dishes.
Speaker 3: She she She's like, can I do it the Supergirl way,
Speaker 3: which just meant filling all the cups of wood water
Speaker 3: and playing a game. I was like, well, let's do
Speaker 3: it the regular way, because.
Speaker 2: Let's do it the way in which things get done.
Speaker 3: Exactly, I told because if you do it that way,
Speaker 3: we're gonna run out of water.
Speaker 1: She said, people went out of water. I was like
Speaker 1: all the time.
Speaker 2: Oh god, I'm first world baby.
Speaker 3: So yeah, so I'm just like I am a little
Speaker 3: bit tired, but I'm excited because we had such an
Speaker 3: awesome dinner.
Speaker 2: Yes we did. Friday was our brand Ambition anniversary dinner,
Speaker 2: and I was really impressed. All the girls showed up.
Speaker 2: You never know when you make plans with six strangers.
Speaker 1: I was surprised.
Speaker 3: I'm not surprised, but I was, I don't know, pleasantly,
Speaker 3: just like a lay and we had such a good time.
Speaker 1: I was like, Wow, good.
Speaker 2: Food, good cat drinks, good company, good conversation. It was
Speaker 2: like the best. It was like what I wish all
Speaker 2: networking events were, which is just small little groups, yeah,
Speaker 2: where you can really get to know each other.
Speaker 1: And now you did a.
Speaker 3: Really good job of keeping the conversation flowing, of asking
Speaker 3: everyone kind of like what they were up to. All
Speaker 3: the women were so amazing. I was like, what how
Speaker 3: did we find this group of like awesome.
Speaker 2: I mean we knew that, we knew our listeners would
Speaker 2: be kind of dope, but so shout out to Maxine.
Speaker 2: She came all the way from North Carolina, well to
Speaker 2: New York, to New York from North Carolina. And we
Speaker 2: had the twins Nasenga and Nazinga, who are amazing both
Speaker 2: like dope artists. One yeah, I think it was Nazinga
Speaker 2: who was on Project Rumway. I have to I have
Speaker 2: to go find that that she was on season thirteen.
Speaker 1: What's the lab?
Speaker 2: I'm not amazing? And then her sister Nasana, who's like
Speaker 2: a photographer and just got a big grant to work
Speaker 2: on a big art installation. And then we had Kristen
Speaker 2: who transitioned what was she doing before marketing at a
Speaker 2: financial firm and now she's a special education teacher.
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Just whatn't I?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 2: And the miss Janelle who came all away from Long Island,
Speaker 2: which is basically another state, even though it's not what.
Speaker 1: Did Janelle do? I know? She just had a baby
Speaker 1: eighteen months ago.
Speaker 2: Janelle works at a university okay, I think an administration. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and she just literally popped out a child and they
Speaker 2: made time found a center came to New York City
Speaker 2: from Long Island. Just I'm just so glad everyone got together.
Speaker 2: And then the other girls were from Brooklyn, like they
Speaker 2: really they went out of their way. We know what
Speaker 2: that subway system.
Speaker 3: Is, Like, yeah, it was really awesome. And then my
Speaker 3: friend I brought my best friend Linda, which is which
Speaker 3: you know, was so hilarious that because you know, like
Speaker 3: we talk all the time, but you don't I don't
Speaker 3: remember half the stuff, you know, I say. And the
Speaker 3: fact that the girls, because I had spoken about Linda
Speaker 3: on the show, We're like, oh, yeah, we know you, Linda.
Speaker 3: And then I was like, oh my god. Linda was
Speaker 3: like y'all that was so awesome that they.
Speaker 1: Knew me from the show. And I'm like, oh my god.
Speaker 3: Honestly, it blew my mind when we like, even when
Speaker 3: we talk, I don't think about people listening. I'm just
Speaker 3: talking to Mandy, I know. So for those of you
Speaker 3: who are kind of like, huh, we had it.
Speaker 1: Was our one year anniversary dinner, yes, and it was magical. Yeah.
Speaker 3: So we invited some of our most avid listeners and
Speaker 3: they came out and we had dinner on us. Oh
Speaker 3: and we had the cutest cupcakes that Mandy ordered with
Speaker 3: our faces on.
Speaker 1: I love seeing your mother in law's reaction.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, isn't she She's so cute? Yeah, she's
Speaker 2: you guys. If you guys don't you don't have to
Speaker 2: follow me, but you have to go to my Instagram page.
Speaker 2: It's Mandy with an eye money and watch my mother
Speaker 2: in law's reaction to the cupcakes with me and Tiffany's
Speaker 2: faces on them. It was so you don't have to
Speaker 2: know it Spanish. It's pretty. It's pretty universal.
Speaker 1: Oh my god. Basically, oh my god, my goodness, she's
Speaker 1: so cute. Who's that my friend? You're like, how do
Speaker 1: you stay business?
Speaker 2: What I didn't so the cupcakes had the logo which
Speaker 2: we took over a year ago, about a year old,
Speaker 2: of course, a year ago when my hair that was
Speaker 2: like maybe the last time I wore my hair kind
Speaker 2: of straight and before I went all curly all the time,
Speaker 2: big hair whatever. What I didn't show in that video
Speaker 2: is a minute fiance cut the camera. She said, oh, Mandy,
Speaker 2: put your hair back like this. It looks so nice.
Speaker 2: It's like, oh, only mother in lawsuit I.
Speaker 3: Know, no mother's parents too, because my parents always like
Speaker 3: my dad's always like, you know, your mom's hair is
Speaker 3: so pretty and street, you should try that.
Speaker 1: I'm like daddy, Honestly, it's been like thirty years. It's
Speaker 1: too late. I know.
Speaker 3: Like I had a prom literally two years out of
Speaker 3: my thirty six years of life, I've had a I
Speaker 3: had a proom for two years.
Speaker 1: That was it.
Speaker 3: I think I got it like right before I went
Speaker 3: to college and my hair promptly fell out and I
Speaker 3: was like, okay, never again.
Speaker 1: That was me.
Speaker 2: I lost it because I was watching I was listening
Speaker 2: to another round. Just shout out to another round. It
Speaker 2: it's just Tracy this week and she interviewed Ava Duverne.
Speaker 2: That was the most brilliant combination ever. I was jealous
Speaker 2: because I'm not gonna lie and trying to get Miss
Speaker 2: avon on our show. But it's gonna happen soon, it will.
Speaker 2: But she's sang the entire just for Me commercial, Like
Speaker 2: it was pretty impressive. But yeah, if you ever had
Speaker 2: your scout burned and your edge is removed from your
Speaker 2: head by Just for Me, then you don't know what
Speaker 2: life is. A.
Speaker 3: Yes, I'm so glad that I'm pre free, but yeah,
Speaker 3: so all that can say that parents and parents.
Speaker 1: In law are judging, Yes, very judgy.
Speaker 3: Speaking of love and judge, I was gonna say, like,
Speaker 3: honestly so lovey. For those of you who don't know,
Speaker 3: she was a guest on our show, awesomely lovey. If
Speaker 3: you're not following her, you're not.
Speaker 1: Living she is like every week. I'm just so proud
Speaker 1: of her, Like.
Speaker 2: I'm glad you got in early? What Literally everywhere I
Speaker 2: go there, she is there on TV, She's on my
Speaker 2: webs She's on every web page I go to, or
Speaker 2: my social media feed. The book is blowing up. I
Speaker 2: got my book. I've been reading it.
Speaker 3: It's pretty funny, so I know, and you know it's
Speaker 3: all crazy. I cannot find my kindle because I ordered
Speaker 3: it for Kindle. Oh yes, and I cannot find This
Speaker 3: is my third lost Kindle. If I lost it, I'm.
Speaker 2: Like, where you lost your whole entire kindle.
Speaker 1: I always lose my dag on Kindle.
Speaker 3: But I'm like, it has to be here, it has
Speaker 3: to be It's in the house somewhere, I hope somewhere.
Speaker 2: I know we don't want homing device.
Speaker 3: I know I wonder if there is one, but I
Speaker 3: just it wouldn't be like, literally, it's called Tiffany's Third Kindle.
Speaker 2: The book is She's very She gets a little raunchy,
Speaker 2: and I'm like, on, I'm on the train and I'm like, oh, okay,
Speaker 2: we're going there, We're going right right there. At page
Speaker 2: twenty five. No, it's it's funny stuff. I was cracking up.
Speaker 2: But the title of the book, if you don't remember,
Speaker 2: it's I'm Judging You, the Do Better Manual.
Speaker 3: Yes, I can't wait, Yes, if I can only find
Speaker 3: my kindle. But yeah, people love you said something that
Speaker 3: I think was hilarious. That's what I love about her.
Speaker 3: She was like, honestly, I would hate to hate me
Speaker 3: right now because I'm everywhere.
Speaker 1: Yeah, somebody made a meme of that. Do you ever
Speaker 1: think about that?
Speaker 3: Like, I don't really unless it like comes up of
Speaker 3: people who are like mad at you or unhappy with
Speaker 3: you or just you know, I don't really believe in haters.
Speaker 1: You know, people say like, oh, I've got haters. I
Speaker 1: was like, do you really? You know?
Speaker 2: There is a chapter, one of the chapters in her books.
Speaker 2: It's really funny because this is why I have a
Speaker 2: column for teen Vogue that I do and my this
Speaker 2: is my tenth column, and I've been wanting to write
Speaker 2: this for a while, and I wrote the five types
Speaker 2: of friends that you should avoid a life avoid in life,
Speaker 2: it should have been the five types of frenemies. And
Speaker 2: then in Lovey's in the Big Like, very early on
Speaker 2: in her book, she talks about the friendship personalities of
Speaker 2: people who need to do better, that like are kind
Speaker 2: of toxic in our life, and it was it was
Speaker 2: funny that there was that overlap. But we both talk
Speaker 2: about the friend who like kind of wants you to
Speaker 2: not do well, Like it's really overly competitive. And I
Speaker 2: feel like, you know, it's not that these people like
Speaker 2: like they're not wishing for you to They're not like
Speaker 2: Tanya Harding they're gonna like whack you with the steel
Speaker 2: bar before. But it's I think it comes from a
Speaker 2: place of like insecurity. Yes, and you could be you
Speaker 2: can get you can get upset at them or whatever,
Speaker 2: you know, when they send that negative energy your way.
Speaker 2: But I just try and think of it. It's like, well, Okay,
Speaker 2: they're a little insecure. It's very competitive right now. It's
Speaker 2: ever been more competitive because literally you can be everywhere.
Speaker 2: Because we didn't have social media, or Facebook or Instagram
Speaker 2: and all that kind of crap, you know, even a
Speaker 2: few years ago. So it's really hard to see your
Speaker 2: your peers doing amazing things and you may feel like
Speaker 2: a little you know, left behind.
Speaker 3: No, it is, I mean, honestly, it is easy to
Speaker 3: get caught up. I mean to me, I found that
Speaker 3: the best cure for oh you know, I call it
Speaker 3: not not jealousy, but like, oh I wish I was
Speaker 3: doing better, you know what I mean, Like some I
Speaker 3: might look at someone and not be like, oh man,
Speaker 3: I want what she has, but instead it kind of
Speaker 3: makes me say.
Speaker 1: Like, ah, like, what am I doing wrong? I gotta
Speaker 1: do better, you know.
Speaker 3: And then but I've learned that well, one of the
Speaker 3: things I do is I like unfollowed folks that kind
Speaker 3: of put me in that mind frame, not because they
Speaker 3: did anything wrong, but for whatever reason, it was a
Speaker 3: trigger for me to compare myself and then find myself lacking.
Speaker 3: I'm like, simply that's not healthy, you know. So then
Speaker 3: I learned, I said, at first, I used to try
Speaker 3: to tough it out and say no, you're gonna follow them.
Speaker 3: And you know, when even when you feel like that,
Speaker 3: you're gonna work through it. Then I realized that's not working,
Speaker 3: so I would still were still friends, but I unfollowed
Speaker 3: their notifications so that way I could just like live
Speaker 3: and enjoy like what I'm doing.
Speaker 1: And I mean, I'm.
Speaker 3: Sure that's something, you know, that's definitely something I want
Speaker 3: to work on on that side. But I'm not gonna
Speaker 3: throw myself in the fire. There's plenty of tests in
Speaker 3: life unfollow you know, you know, like this.
Speaker 2: Think you also you have to think of people as humans,
Speaker 2: Like I know how much I leave out. I'm not
Speaker 2: putting on Instagram that I just had to drop down
Speaker 2: drag out fight with my fiance or that you know,
Speaker 2: I was rude to the guy at Dunkin Donuts because
Speaker 2: I was in a hurry and he got my order wrong.
Speaker 2: You know, like you don't show the worst part of
Speaker 2: yourself on social media. And I know I leave a
Speaker 2: lot of crap out, you know, all my you know,
Speaker 2: my flaws and stuff. And if I just remind myself
Speaker 2: that there's you know, people have so many issues that
Speaker 2: you don't put on which I had a conversation with
Speaker 2: someone close to me and I know what's happening in
Speaker 2: her life right now, and you go to our social
Speaker 2: media feed, and you know, she had just this is
Speaker 2: a long, long time ago, a different friend she had
Speaker 2: posted something, so I knew that day that she had
Speaker 2: had a really bad breakup with the guy she was seeing.
Speaker 2: And the next day she posted these roses and she
Speaker 2: was like, I'm just so happy with life and like
Speaker 2: everything is fine, and I was like, yeah, you know,
Speaker 2: I it makes me sad because I don't want you
Speaker 2: shouldn't feel like you have to put up a strong
Speaker 2: social media front, you know, to keep up whatever illusions.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's life now. And honestly, I find myself.
Speaker 3: I when I look at my social media feed, I
Speaker 3: know when when things are hard because I go quiet. Yes,
Speaker 3: you know, that's what I tend to do, not so
Speaker 3: much like and even it's not even sometimes when things are.
Speaker 1: Bad, when if I'm like really overwhelmed, like right now.
Speaker 3: I just was like, as I was cleaning, I said, okay,
Speaker 3: we have to do better like you're doing.
Speaker 1: There's so many amazing things and I'm trying.
Speaker 3: To do them all and this morning I realize you're
Speaker 3: not doing them well. And I've just been so and
Speaker 3: it's not even like I'm overwhelmed because I'm like, things
Speaker 3: are good, so I can't even complain. But it's just that,
Speaker 3: like I was always cleaning the house. It hit me,
Speaker 3: when's the last time you cleaned the house?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 3: And I thought, okay, and so I have not I
Speaker 3: mean I'm not usually, you know, like when when things
Speaker 3: are kind of light and it's airy and whatever, I
Speaker 3: post a whole lot. And when I'm either overwhelmed or
Speaker 3: just like not feeling good, you know, then I don't
Speaker 3: post at all.
Speaker 1: I'm just kind of like silent. I'm just a silent watcher.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I just that.
Speaker 2: Picture of you elbow deep in the sink. I didn't
Speaker 2: let America know the truth.
Speaker 1: I know, right right, It's just that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but I mean, social media does have you thinking that, like,
Speaker 3: you know, everyone has this perfect and even though you
Speaker 3: know that that's not true, it's hard not to see.
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, this is what I wanted to say. So,
Speaker 1: you know, did we talk about Nicole last week?
Speaker 2: The teacher?
Speaker 1: No, Nicole BITCHI who's not ex so Nicole Nicole Caine?
Speaker 2: Oh no, I don't know.
Speaker 3: No, Okay, this is a perfect example of that. So
Speaker 3: have you heard of Nicole BITCHI? Like she had a website.
Speaker 1: No, okay, you haven't.
Speaker 2: Wow, So I mean maybe, but I never read it.
Speaker 1: No, no, I never read her website either. But Nicole
Speaker 1: Bitchi was like huge. She was a big celebrity gossiper,
Speaker 1: especially for brown folks.
Speaker 2: That's not her real name isn't.
Speaker 1: No, her name is Nicole Caine.
Speaker 3: But Nicole Bitchy was was really it was indicative of
Speaker 3: like the kind of step on the site, like gossip,
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 1: And so it did really well, I mean like really well.
Speaker 1: I mean she was all over.
Speaker 3: She was invited, she's a beautiful woman too, invited to
Speaker 3: red carpets, all this kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: But this is a woman who was getting millions of
Speaker 1: hits a month.
Speaker 3: And then last year she kind of and I think
Speaker 3: probably before last year, she had a change of heart
Speaker 3: and was like, what am I really doing?
Speaker 1: This is not contributing to society. So she shut down
Speaker 1: her wildly.
Speaker 3: She was like the go to gossip site for black
Speaker 3: celebrities basically, and she shut it down last year and
Speaker 3: she re emerged this year with Exo Nicole, which was
Speaker 3: really supposed to be an empowerment website for women of color.
Speaker 1: And I actually wrote a few articles, oh.
Speaker 2: That I've heard of. I've heard ex Nicole.
Speaker 3: So it was formerly Nicole Bitchy. So she just did
Speaker 3: a video maybe like a week or so ago or
Speaker 3: basically where she's like, I'm broke and darn and almost homeless.
Speaker 3: That she did not anticipate how hard the transition.
Speaker 1: Was going to be, and that you know that the.
Speaker 3: Readers, not that the readers don't want to hear good news,
Speaker 3: but that's a different reader, Like.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they don't throw, they don't like I mean, people
Speaker 2: consume negative blogs like they do tabloids, like with the
Speaker 2: with the fervor, like like a pac man, just chomping
Speaker 2: up those little bits. It's like gives them more energy
Speaker 2: or something or fuels something in them.
Speaker 1: Goodness, you don't want to hear good news.
Speaker 3: But it's like if I kept if I was coming
Speaker 3: to you for gossip and I come back to your
Speaker 3: website and now it's all sunshine of lollipops.
Speaker 1: I'm like, cause I.
Speaker 3: Wondered why I wrote an article and it wasn't It
Speaker 3: was about credit Girl. The comments were vicious because her
Speaker 3: readers were so used to we're so used to being
Speaker 3: negative and mean. I'm like, what what is happening in
Speaker 3: these comments sections? And I just I didn't realize that,
Speaker 3: like wow, it was just a culture that she had
Speaker 3: created and she was trying to bring those people along,
Speaker 3: but it was like they could not make the transition.
Speaker 1: And so she just talked about how.
Speaker 3: Because you go to her social media, this is a
Speaker 3: woman who travels all the world. I mean, like I said,
Speaker 3: she's beautiful, and you would think everything was great. And
Speaker 3: I thought that her YouTube video and you guys get
Speaker 3: a chance just type in Nicole Caine, you know YouTube
Speaker 3: or whatever. I think it's called I Am Nicole her
Speaker 3: YouTube channel, but she basically talks about that. You know,
Speaker 3: she was putting up a front and being an entrepreneur's hard,
Speaker 3: and she didn't manage her money well. And maybe we
Speaker 3: could talk about that if we don't have a question
Speaker 3: about what does that look like when you have your
Speaker 3: own business or you know you're making a transition, what
Speaker 3: money things can people do to put themselves in place
Speaker 3: to not go through that, because I'm sure that she
Speaker 3: has seen a ton of money, but now it's no
Speaker 3: longer here. And she said when she first moved, her
Speaker 3: parents passed away when she was younger, and she moved
Speaker 3: in with her aunt eight years ago to try to
Speaker 3: make her dream happen, and she had to call her
Speaker 3: on again eight years later, after traveling the world and
Speaker 3: running the super successful site, and ask her is my
Speaker 3: room still available? And I thought, Wow, just a good
Speaker 3: lesson of social media, money, entrepreneurship all wrapped into one.
Speaker 1: Well.
Speaker 2: I hope she gets back on her Yeah, I think,
Speaker 2: and I think she won. I we have good news
Speaker 2: to win exactly.
Speaker 3: And plus two, I always think this that if the
Speaker 3: work you put in to get there, that that personality
Speaker 3: is still in you. You know that you you know
Speaker 3: it wasn't easy to get where she got to, even
Speaker 3: though Nicole BITCHI might not have been, you know, helping society,
Speaker 3: but still you put that same hustle and effort back
Speaker 3: in to create your new reality.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: When you first said, Nicole, I don't know if this
Speaker 2: is actually the teacher's name, but there was. Did you
Speaker 2: see all the hot teacher debate last week?
Speaker 1: Yes, what did you think?
Speaker 2: Well, I wanted to hear what you think because you
Speaker 2: were a teacher. Yeah, so I don't know. This is
Speaker 2: how I found out from my friend Jess. You know,
Speaker 2: the Beyonce hater. Whenever I get like a long text
Speaker 2: from Jess, I'm like, what happens happened now in the news,
Speaker 2: And she went on and on about this teacher. So
Speaker 2: I don't know her name, but she was a she's
Speaker 2: a school, an elementary school. Like, she's not a teacher,
Speaker 2: she's like a teacher's assistant or something, I think. But
Speaker 2: she wears these tight sort of hugging She's very curvy,
Speaker 2: looks great, but she wears these very tight dresses to work.
Speaker 2: And she's become known for like being the hot teacher.
Speaker 2: And I don't know how these pictures got out on
Speaker 2: the internet, but they are. And of course everyone's dragging
Speaker 2: her and saying that this is inappropriate, too sexy for
Speaker 2: you know, a young school teacher. You know, I would
Speaker 2: not wear that to my job with grown ups personally,
Speaker 2: But that's that's me personally, Like I wouldn't wear tight
Speaker 2: stuff like that to work. And I've always thought the
Speaker 2: you know, I think you should feel. I think what
Speaker 2: you wear is, you know, is really important when you're
Speaker 2: going into a job, especially when you're doing things you know,
Speaker 2: you and I do public speaking and things like that,
Speaker 2: and I think how you look it, you know, influences
Speaker 2: you and how you feel and can make you really confident,
Speaker 2: and that's important. But at the same time, I've always
Speaker 2: thought if people are focusing on what I'm wearing, They're
Speaker 2: not going to be focused on what I'm saying and
Speaker 2: the work that I'm doing. So personally, I always thought
Speaker 2: it was it's better to I don't know, have the
Speaker 2: right balance, like dressing your age and looking young and stylish,
Speaker 2: but then also being taken seriously.
Speaker 3: I mean, I mean, I'll say this, it was because
Speaker 3: not every not every outfit, because you know, they showed
Speaker 3: a bunch of them, not every outfit of hers to
Speaker 3: me was and I hate to use the word inappropriate,
Speaker 3: it was specifically to me, the pink. She had this
Speaker 3: pink dress that was really body It was definitely covered,
Speaker 3: like it went to her knees, but it was body hugging,
Speaker 3: like you know, you could almost see.
Speaker 2: Like the v Yeah, that's the one I saw. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you know that's what everyone's leading with.
Speaker 3: Yes, because but there were other dresses she had that
Speaker 3: were like, you know, you could tell.
Speaker 1: I mean, she has the type.
Speaker 3: She's a beautiful woman, she has the type of body
Speaker 3: no matter what she wears. You don't see she has
Speaker 3: a body, which is fine because that's your body, because
Speaker 3: I have a behind, like no matter what I wear, honestly,
Speaker 3: like you see my behind, but I know that, and
Speaker 3: as a teacher, like that pink one, I mean, people
Speaker 3: are like, oh, you're just because they What people did
Speaker 3: was they showed a other women with the same dress
Speaker 3: on with different body types.
Speaker 2: Oh sorry, can you hear that?
Speaker 1: No? What was that?
Speaker 2: Never mind? A clip just started playing automatically.
Speaker 3: So they showed other women with different like skinny and
Speaker 3: slim or not that she's not slim, but other body
Speaker 3: types that wore the same dress and it looked obviously
Speaker 3: different on them. The thing I say is this that
Speaker 3: pink dress. I didn't think it was appropriate. I was
Speaker 3: a teacher for a number of years and that doesn't
Speaker 3: make me an authority, but I didn't think it was appropriate.
Speaker 1: It was skin type, Mandy, I mean skin type.
Speaker 2: They're looking at it.
Speaker 1: There were other outas she had that were really cute.
Speaker 3: Still showed her curves and they were just like, okay,
Speaker 3: these are I have curves, so no matter what, you're
Speaker 3: gonna see them. But these are dresses that I thought
Speaker 3: were basically appropriate. But that skin type pink dress that
Speaker 3: was a club dress. And to me, it's not curved shaming.
Speaker 1: You know, people are like, oh, black women's bodies are
Speaker 1: always girl. I have a big gold behind.
Speaker 3: I've always had a big goal behind and I know that,
Speaker 3: and so there are certain things. For example, when I
Speaker 3: played tennis, like my skirt was always up in the back,
Speaker 3: and I played tennis with a lot of girls who
Speaker 3: didn't have behind, So there were certain sizes that I wore.
Speaker 3: Maybe I might wear something, you know, I wore tights
Speaker 3: under my skirt because I knew my body type.
Speaker 1: That's the thing. It's not about body shaming.
Speaker 3: It's like like I don't think skin tight is appropriate
Speaker 3: no matter what your body type. You might have no boobs,
Speaker 3: no butt, but if it's still super skin tight.
Speaker 1: I don't think it's appropriate for school.
Speaker 3: Sorry, Like there are places for that, and I just,
Speaker 3: you know, because a bunch of my friends were like, no,
Speaker 3: I just think, no, girl, it's not appropriate for school
Speaker 3: because what do you what is what's the purpose of that?
Speaker 1: Are you like trying to attract the fourth grader, like.
Speaker 2: You know, you know those those little boys are so confused.
Speaker 1: Yes, I know, I mean, which is it's.
Speaker 2: Just all the hormones are it's just starting to like
Speaker 2: perk up a little bit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I just didn't. Yeah, I thowt that.
Speaker 2: It's an awkward debate to have, right because you don't
Speaker 2: want to be sexist, and then you don't want to
Speaker 2: body shame, but you do. I mean from a career perspective.
Speaker 1: You have to know you know your body.
Speaker 3: It's like saying that my friend is five to five
Speaker 3: and I'm six foot, and you know, we both are
Speaker 3: wearing this like you know, we're both a size six
Speaker 3: and we're both wearing the same medium skirt. But the
Speaker 3: medium skirt on me looks like a mini skirt because
Speaker 3: I'm so tall, and on her it goes to her knees.
Speaker 1: And you're like, well, we.
Speaker 3: Wear in the same skirt, don't shame me because my
Speaker 3: leg's a long girl, Like, honestly, let's not be foolish.
Speaker 3: And that's the part that piss me off because it's like, well,
Speaker 3: how come this super.
Speaker 1: Skinny girl can wear it and she can't?
Speaker 3: You know, your body certain things If I'm taller than
Speaker 3: this shorter girl and we were in the same size
Speaker 3: skirt and it comes to the bottom of my behind.
Speaker 3: It's not appropriate. I don't care that we we're in
Speaker 3: the same side where we're in. I'm not being body shamed.
Speaker 1: It's just that this is I have to know my
Speaker 1: body and dress appropriately for where I work. Because she
Speaker 1: also had pictures of her, like, you know, going out
Speaker 1: and going to the clip in very similar dresses.
Speaker 3: So what does that tell you that you think club
Speaker 3: gear is is is the same as you know, teacher gear.
Speaker 3: Like I said, all of her outfits were not inappropriate,
Speaker 3: but I found that one to be.
Speaker 1: It was skin tight.
Speaker 3: It wasn't not her body, it was just getting tight
Speaker 3: and just I don't know, I'm just like whatever. And
Speaker 3: they showed a picture of a guy with his like
Speaker 3: tattoos out and like.
Speaker 1: I don't know, and they were like, well, what about
Speaker 1: this teacher, he's a man. Is this appropriate? Now?
Speaker 2: It just comes down to workplace attire, and you should
Speaker 2: know to dress for your place of work. Like I said,
Speaker 2: I work. I would never wear something super sexy to work.
Speaker 2: It just doesn't feel appropriate. I would feel uncomfortable, Like,
Speaker 2: you know, you stick out in a workplace sometimes if
Speaker 2: you were you know, if you were something super sexy
Speaker 2: and like, I don't know it just and I think
Speaker 2: it's important for young women to know. I think that,
Speaker 2: you know, I got a question one time from a
Speaker 2: young girl who was I got, you know, I helped
Speaker 2: her get an internship in New York City, and she
Speaker 2: was like, man, what do I wear in the office?
Speaker 2: And I was like, that's a good question. You should
Speaker 2: read the room and see what kind of attire is appropriate.
Speaker 1: Because the thing is you can wear whatever you want.
Speaker 3: People forget this that like, fine, wear that, but then
Speaker 3: you're going to be treated a certain way. Like that's
Speaker 3: what people don't get that you can do whatever you want,
Speaker 3: but then then those people around you will judge you
Speaker 3: as a result. So yes, wear skin tight if you like,
Speaker 3: but then you know, that's you know, people are going
Speaker 3: to look at you a certain way and the truth
Speaker 3: of the matters and people forget this, especially people who
Speaker 3: are not teachers. I'm sorry, but when you're a teacher,
Speaker 3: there is a you are held to a higher standard,
Speaker 3: Like there are certain things that I could not do
Speaker 3: on my social media or I could lose my job
Speaker 3: as a teacher. So it's not just like, oh, you
Speaker 3: can wear whatever you want. This is no, no, this
Speaker 3: is not corporate America, that it is made very clear
Speaker 3: that when you're a teacher that even your personal like.
Speaker 2: Ooh sorry, look at this, and maybe it was laundry day,
Speaker 2: you know, even your party got nothing else to wear.
Speaker 3: Like I said, she's a beautiful woman and I'm not,
Speaker 3: you know, like, oh people are hated, don't girl, I
Speaker 3: got it behind.
Speaker 1: I don't have I don't have the top part like
Speaker 1: she has.
Speaker 3: I'm like, girl, we can switch up, but but no.
Speaker 1: I think that she is absolutely dropped dead gorgeously.
Speaker 2: But did it just become like a forty year old
Speaker 2: soccer mama. I was like, it's a message you're getting
Speaker 2: to children.
Speaker 1: I think children.
Speaker 2: I think Getney Kiddy watches the vma' has already been scandalized.
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, for sure it is inappropriate. Girl, you're not
Speaker 1: going to be once concert.
Speaker 2: I was going to Beyonce count But.
Speaker 3: I am interested in thinking, like that's just my opinion,
Speaker 3: just from being a teacher and just from like, you know,
Speaker 3: doing that for ten years and like what the expectations
Speaker 3: were and what you know, I knew what the expectations were.
Speaker 1: There as certain places.
Speaker 3: That you work that there are expectations that you're not
Speaker 3: held to in other places, you know, and so I
Speaker 3: think that I would. I'd be interested though, in hearing
Speaker 3: our b A listeners thoughts on her.
Speaker 1: You know what they think about?
Speaker 2: Yeah, email us at the BA. Wait what is I'm
Speaker 2: turning into you? Email us the b A pot Wait
Speaker 2: what the hell is our gmails hell Brown Ambition Podcast
Speaker 2: at gmail dot com. Oh my god, what is happening
Speaker 2: to you?
Speaker 1: Because you know what it's the BA at the BA
Speaker 1: podcast is Twitter?
Speaker 2: Right, Yes? I just want to say, if you own
Speaker 2: the at Brown Ambition Twitter handle, you're messing us up
Speaker 2: big time, okay, because you never tweet and I have
Speaker 2: sent a letter to Twitter to tell me you never
Speaker 2: You have not tweeted since two thousand and nine, and
Speaker 2: why can't we have your Twitter handle? Okay, And it's
Speaker 2: just not fair, your Twitter squatter and it's rude. They
Speaker 2: are super rude. But yeah, tell us what you think
Speaker 2: of hot for teacher or a sexy teacher. Email us
Speaker 2: at Brown Ambition Podcast at gmail dot com. There you go, thank.
Speaker 3: You breaking Brown boosting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what do we go? I see? I feel like
Speaker 2: we have it's like double the pressure because we had
Speaker 2: to Brown break and boost at dinner on Friday, we
Speaker 2: like did around. We did a round table boost and break.
Speaker 1: I know, but I got a.
Speaker 2: Little some something.
Speaker 1: Okay, you go first.
Speaker 2: I was gonna give a boost. I need a boost
Speaker 2: from myself. So I'm taking a break from coffee. That's
Speaker 2: one thing I had that one week where I was like, man,
Speaker 2: I'm really anxious at work and I was working late
Speaker 2: and getting up early, and I was like doping on
Speaker 2: the caffeine, like I had like an ivy a central
Speaker 2: line to the coffee. And I didn't grow up drinking coffee.
Speaker 2: So it makes me really crazy, and it makes all
Speaker 2: my anxieties and my stress just go through the roof
Speaker 2: and I can't sleep, and I have to tend to
Speaker 2: have more stress streams when I'm on the caffeine. So
Speaker 2: I'm taking a break from coffee and I'm trying to
Speaker 2: replace it with and don't judge me. I've been getting
Speaker 2: green juices in the morning, green juices that have like cucumber, celery, ginger,
Speaker 2: nothing fun, spinach a little green apple for some extra fun.
Speaker 2: And because I heard that you drink green juice that
Speaker 2: has ginger and that's kind of like vegetables in it.
Speaker 2: Then it'll give you energy in the morning. It's been
Speaker 2: about four days and I can't exactly say that it's working,
Speaker 2: but what I will say is that like stops me
Speaker 2: from eating like crappy food in the morning. Like I'm
Speaker 2: not really craving like bad sort of breakfast foods, but
Speaker 2: I am hitting a wall at the round three pm.
Speaker 2: And might I may have cheated and had a little
Speaker 2: green tea with some caffeine in it. But I've been
Speaker 2: sleeping a lot better. That's good, which is good and
Speaker 2: no more stress streams. But yeah, I was waking up
Speaker 2: at like three in the morning and then five in
Speaker 2: the morning and then six in the morning, and just
Speaker 2: like you know, not getting good sleep. Not a cute look.
Speaker 1: I used to do like my own I used to do.
Speaker 1: You make your own smoothies. So you're buying the well,
Speaker 1: here's the thing.
Speaker 2: They're super expensive in New York. You can pay like
Speaker 2: twelve to fifteen dollars for a green juice. But my
Speaker 2: hidden secret is in Inwood everything is cheaper. So there's
Speaker 2: a little there's a little juice store down below us
Speaker 2: round the corner, and if I get there, they open
Speaker 2: at eight o'clock. So if I get there right at eight.
Speaker 2: It's only six dollars for a large green juice, although
Speaker 2: that's not so much more than my regular coffee, which
Speaker 2: was a four and five dollars daily habit.
Speaker 3: So I used to make my own, honestly, and that
Speaker 3: was really good. I used to make a green smoothie
Speaker 3: and it would give me so much energy. I don't
Speaker 3: know why I don't do it anymore.
Speaker 2: Because it's a pain in the ass. That's why pretty
Speaker 2: much cleanup. I used to have a juicer too, and
Speaker 2: you know why I stopped because it was a pain
Speaker 2: in the butt. I'd much rather paste among a little
Speaker 2: six dollars to make it for me and not to
Speaker 2: do zero cleanup.
Speaker 3: Like I'm like, Tiffany, what are you doing? Like you know,
Speaker 3: I have plenty of time. I don't schedule any meetings
Speaker 3: before like eleven, so I'm like, make it. So I'm
Speaker 3: gonna try to get back into it, because I used
Speaker 3: to make smoothies out of them, like I would put spinach, kale,
Speaker 3: peaches were my favorite with it, and I just it
Speaker 3: would be honestly, it would taste really good. I would
Speaker 3: make it for Superman in the morning and he would
Speaker 3: just be like zing zing zing off to work.
Speaker 2: So what about you boosting and breaking.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna take a break.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna take a break from multitasking. Not well, I
Speaker 3: don't think I can ever fully take a break from multitasking,
Speaker 3: but just to the extent that I have been doing
Speaker 3: so because I'm just looking and things are you know,
Speaker 3: I've heard the studies that people have done that says
Speaker 3: you actually get less done when you multitask.
Speaker 2: And I can see that depends.
Speaker 1: So I found that.
Speaker 3: I mean, I mean, I don't know that you can
Speaker 3: live in twenty sixteen and not be multitasking to a
Speaker 3: certain degree.
Speaker 1: But I have found that what I've.
Speaker 3: Been doing is too many big projects at once. And
Speaker 3: I never used to do that before. Before I would
Speaker 3: always have one main project when it as it relates
Speaker 3: to my business, and then I would have like, you know,
Speaker 3: some like underlying smaller ones.
Speaker 1: But as it is right now, I've got like four
Speaker 1: big projects.
Speaker 3: I'm like, tiffany how, this is why things and I
Speaker 3: see the difference, and things are not going as well
Speaker 3: as as they should be, you know, some things are
Speaker 3: actually declining, and I'm like, okay, so I had to
Speaker 3: take a steack. I always like, you know, take a
Speaker 3: step back. It's really important if you have a business
Speaker 3: or even if you're working in someplace. And I'm always
Speaker 3: taking stock and what's working, what's not working, and being
Speaker 3: honest with myself when things are not doing well.
Speaker 1: I don't like living in denial.
Speaker 3: And I have a really great team and I really
Speaker 3: encourage them, like, Yo, the minute you see something's not working,
Speaker 3: I need you to tap me on the shoulder and say, girl,
Speaker 3: I'm in the trenches, this ain't working, you know.
Speaker 1: And so my knows. We have an open door policy.
Speaker 3: So I say all that to say like, Okay, I'm
Speaker 3: gonna have a team meeting and to talk about what
Speaker 3: is our even if it's week by week, like well,
Speaker 3: what project are we gonna work on this week?
Speaker 1: Okay? Then the next week, what does that look like?
Speaker 3: Because I think that that would just do better for
Speaker 3: what I'm doing, just because right now I'm just looking
Speaker 3: and I'm like, oh, there's so many things, Mandy. I'm like,
Speaker 3: how is this all gonna get done? Like I'm speaking
Speaker 3: at thinkan next week, ask me if I've written anything.
Speaker 1: I don't even know what I'm talking about. I know.
Speaker 3: Meanwhile, I'm doing like a mini like a mini keynote,
Speaker 3: and I'm just like, oh my god, just because on
Speaker 3: top of everything, I haven't even bought my fincon flight
Speaker 3: and I.
Speaker 1: Leave next week, say what to who? Okay, I know,
Speaker 1: it's just I know.
Speaker 3: And the thing is so crazy is that the team
Speaker 3: has been walking out. It's not even the part that
Speaker 3: i've I've and I.
Speaker 1: Don't know if this if it's a mistake or I
Speaker 1: don't know.
Speaker 3: If you own a business and you're listening, be a listeners,
Speaker 3: let me know. But the team has done so well
Speaker 3: that since they've come on, Mandy, I have grown like
Speaker 3: I've never grown before.
Speaker 1: And it's almost like I can't I can't keep up.
Speaker 3: It's like the team alleviated so much of what I
Speaker 3: used to do before that it allowed me to grow
Speaker 3: the business. I mean, from last year to this year,
Speaker 3: we have grown times five. And usually I double my
Speaker 3: business every year. This year we've I don't even know
Speaker 3: the word.
Speaker 1: Can tupled it. That's the word. As a result of
Speaker 1: the team.
Speaker 3: So it's not that the team is not working, it's
Speaker 3: like they're working almost too well and now I'm like
Speaker 3: I need more team.
Speaker 2: So it's your fault, really, I know.
Speaker 3: I'm like, so I'm like, okay, well, how do you
Speaker 3: I don't want to slow down progress, but I also
Speaker 3: know that it's just a lot of great things, and
Speaker 3: how how do you make all of these great things?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 3: Like, I know, it's a good problem, so I'm definitely
Speaker 3: not complaining. But it's also something new for me because
Speaker 3: I'm used to growing at a speed that I can
Speaker 3: manage where I'm like, okay, new one good good thing. Okay,
Speaker 3: Sierra handles that. Ohdanita handles that. Now it's like ten
Speaker 3: good things.
Speaker 1: What are you gonna do?
Speaker 3: You've got four new sponsorships, five new brand ambassadorships, you know,
Speaker 3: ten new speaking engagements.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, wait, wait, this is great, but half houseway.
Speaker 3: And you know, family and Boo time and supers you know,
Speaker 3: spending time with Supergirl and Superman and cleaning the house
Speaker 3: and yeah.
Speaker 1: So I'm just trying to figure out, like what the.
Speaker 3: Like, what systems I can put in place so the
Speaker 3: business continues to grow. And I don't even know, I
Speaker 3: mean I wish I could. I don't really have a mentor.
Speaker 3: I'm not even gonna lie, like is it okay to
Speaker 3: say I I'm debating with do do I want to
Speaker 3: grow more? You know, I don't want to stop growth,
Speaker 3: But at the same time, I'm like, I don't want
Speaker 3: to grow so much that I don't have time for
Speaker 3: what's important.
Speaker 1: Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 2: I think this is a really important time for you
Speaker 2: because you'll figure it out and you'll figure out the
Speaker 2: right balance. But you have to kind of go through
Speaker 2: the storm to kind of like hit the wall and
Speaker 2: then figure it all out. You'll you'll find the balance
Speaker 2: you have to.
Speaker 3: Yeah, No, I know, it's just I guess I'm just like,
Speaker 3: I don't want to not grow, but at the same time,
Speaker 3: I don't want to put business before all else because
Speaker 3: I could do that, but at what cost. That's not
Speaker 3: the BUDGETISA doesn't mean more to me than my family.
Speaker 2: You know, you'll find out what's enough and when you
Speaker 2: can start saying no to yeah. You know. That was
Speaker 2: something that Ava du Verne was talking about on with
Speaker 2: Tracy on another round, because right now she has I
Speaker 2: mean totally different industries, but she has Queen Sugar coming out,
Speaker 2: and she's the first female black female director to get
Speaker 2: one hundred million dollar budget to do the film A
Speaker 2: Wrinkle in Time for Disney, which she's scouting right now.
Speaker 2: And while she's doing all that, she was also doing
Speaker 2: that documentary The Thirteenth Hour for Netflix, and she has
Speaker 2: like she was exactly saying what you were saying right now,
Speaker 2: like I'm living my dream, but everything is happening all
Speaker 2: at once, and I am struggling.
Speaker 1: Yes, because you're like, what do you do? Because you know,
Speaker 1: people are like, well, Tiffany, that's such a blass. It is.
Speaker 3: It is a blessing, and I can honestly say I'm
Speaker 3: not unhappy. I'm just like, okay, Like my inner Tiffany
Speaker 3: is like you ever see like when girls play double Dutch,
Speaker 3: and like right before you jump in, you do that
Speaker 3: back and forth like.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, you know that's literally like sometimes you don't
Speaker 2: jump exactly.
Speaker 1: You're like, okay, do I jump in this rope? Okay?
Speaker 1: Like what should I back forth? Back forth? And That's
Speaker 1: how I'm feeling.
Speaker 3: And I think what I usually like to do is
Speaker 3: I like to throw everything up against the wall and
Speaker 3: then I'll pick what I want to move forward with.
Speaker 3: But what's a little bit what's harder now and is
Speaker 3: that usually I don't have to account, I don't have
Speaker 3: to hold anybody, I don't have to think of anybody else.
Speaker 3: So if I decide to cut something like when I
Speaker 3: started in the beginning and something wasn't a fit, I
Speaker 3: can't be like, I don't want to do that anymore.
Speaker 3: But now me saying I don't want to do that
Speaker 3: anymore means that maybe a team member doesn't have a job.
Speaker 2: And you're managing people now in people's jobs to livelihoods
Speaker 2: are printed upon that work. Yeah, I see why you're stressed. Like, yeah,
Speaker 2: i'd be stressed too with that.
Speaker 3: Oh no, But honestly, because you should see when we
Speaker 3: have our team meeting, Oh my god is the best
Speaker 3: because all you see these beautiful brown faces of women
Speaker 3: where you have our team meeting, like I w with
Speaker 3: ninety percent of the staff, it's like women of color
Speaker 3: and like almost all of us are natural. That wasn't
Speaker 3: like on purpose, like hey you black girl with no
Speaker 3: perm you work for me.
Speaker 1: It's just that, like when we were reading and to
Speaker 1: find people who are a great fit. So I just
Speaker 1: love seeing like when we do like a like a
Speaker 1: Google hangout and there's six of us and I'm like,
Speaker 1: look at this, How awesome is this? That that the.
Speaker 3: Because they are a true reflection of who I serve,
Speaker 3: women of color who are largely ignored, and here is
Speaker 3: a team of beautiful black women of color helping women
Speaker 3: of color worldwide to do better.
Speaker 1: So I mean that trumps everything.
Speaker 3: So you know, like I said, it's a good problem,
Speaker 3: and I'll share, like you know, as I start to
Speaker 3: figure out what the best solution is, I will certainly
Speaker 3: share you know what that's looking like. And because I
Speaker 3: know a lot of you want to start your own
Speaker 3: businesses and you know, so you could kind of see
Speaker 3: the good, the bad, the ugly, the hard, the easy.
Speaker 2: You know, well, thank you for being honest, No, Brada,
Speaker 2: I appreciate it on behalf of our listeners, I think you.
Speaker 1: So now it's time for tips.
Speaker 3: I don't think we have any questions this week, but
Speaker 3: I did want to share some student loan stuff that
Speaker 3: I just learned, and I think that it will be
Speaker 3: helpful for our listeners who maybe have kids that you
Speaker 3: want to go to school, or maybe you yourself want
Speaker 3: to kind of like reduce your student loan debt. So
Speaker 3: let me start the whole get your kids to school
Speaker 3: for free. So I was working with this woman. Her
Speaker 3: name is Angela house a housy housing something like that. Anyway,
Speaker 3: her site is the Financial Aide Strategist and Angela I
Speaker 3: paid her to help me figure out a program to
Speaker 3: get rid of my student loan debt because I used
Speaker 3: to be a teacher, and I learned if I would
Speaker 3: have met Angela years ago, i owed fifty thousand dollars,
Speaker 3: I would be my student loans would be completely forgiven
Speaker 3: by now Here's how So, when I lost my job
Speaker 3: in two thousand and nine, I could not afford my
Speaker 3: student loans, so I put them in deferment because I thought,
Speaker 3: I'm being responsible. I'm not going to default, which means
Speaker 3: not pay. I will instead delay, which is defer. So
Speaker 3: that's what I did.
Speaker 1: I deferred. I deferred.
Speaker 3: I deferred up until basically like a couple of years ago,
Speaker 3: so I was actually paying.
Speaker 1: I paid about three.
Speaker 3: Years worth of student loans that had I known better,
Speaker 3: what I would have done back then is instead of defer,
Speaker 3: I should have applied for income based repayment. And what
Speaker 3: that would have done was I was making nothing, so
Speaker 3: my repayment based upon my income would have been zero
Speaker 3: dollars or like ten dollars a month.
Speaker 2: You had federal. Most of your debt was federal.
Speaker 1: Yes, this is oh sorry, yes, thank you for that, GEB.
Speaker 3: Yes, so my debt is all federal, okay, so this
Speaker 3: is for federal people with federal student loans. And so
Speaker 3: I should have done income base for payment and I
Speaker 3: could have paid like next to nothing because I wasn't
Speaker 3: making any money for a number of years. So now
Speaker 3: I have I'm trying to think from twenty nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen,
Speaker 3: fifteen sixteen.
Speaker 1: That would have been eight years of payment.
Speaker 3: Now, because I was a teacher, after year ten, my
Speaker 3: loan is forgiven. Had I enrolled in loan forgiveness and
Speaker 3: and enrolled in income base.
Speaker 2: For payment public student loan forgiveness people who work in
Speaker 2: public service.
Speaker 3: Yes, So like whether you work for a nonprofit, you work,
Speaker 3: you know, you're like a police officer, you know, for
Speaker 3: me as a teacher, And so I found out, I
Speaker 3: was like, oh, so basically I could have only had
Speaker 3: three more years left to pay, but because I was
Speaker 3: deferred and I was not making a payment, you have
Speaker 3: to make a payment, even if at zero dollars a
Speaker 3: month for ten years.
Speaker 1: So instead I only paid three years.
Speaker 3: So I still have seven more years on my student
Speaker 3: loan forgiveness track, and I was just like, oh, man,
Speaker 3: I wish I would have known.
Speaker 1: But the good thing that she did help me with
Speaker 1: is I enrolled in student loan forgiveness.
Speaker 3: I consolidated my loans, so instead of paying twenty five
Speaker 3: years because I was on a twenty five year plan
Speaker 3: with student loan folks. So now I'm on a seven
Speaker 3: year plan, which I only have because I paid as
Speaker 3: of my ten years for forgiveness, I paid three. So
Speaker 3: I'm on a seven year plan instead of twenty five
Speaker 3: years where I was before. So for the life of
Speaker 3: the loan, I would have paid about one hundred and
Speaker 3: seventy two thousand dollars. And now for the life of
Speaker 3: the loan, if I continue on my track, I'll pay
Speaker 3: about forty eight thousand. So basically I said one hundred
Speaker 3: and twenty four thousand dollars over the life of the
Speaker 3: loan making this change.
Speaker 1: And so I see all that to say that if
Speaker 1: you have.
Speaker 3: Federal loan and you cannot afford to pay, instead of
Speaker 3: deferring or forbearans, really look into income base for payment
Speaker 3: because your payment might be zero dollars.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but real quick though, So public student loan forgiveness,
Speaker 2: how can you qualify for that now?
Speaker 1: So if you I know, I was like, wait, how
Speaker 1: did that work?
Speaker 3: So I because I was a teacher for ten over
Speaker 3: ten years, So they said, like, I don't know, they're
Speaker 3: giving me credit for being a teacher for those years.
Speaker 3: I didn't apply then, And so when I got on
Speaker 3: the phone with federal, Oh, don't give me the name
Speaker 3: of the agency. Federal whatever government agency was handling my
Speaker 3: student loans, she called with me. But I had been
Speaker 3: I had been a school teacher for that length of time,
Speaker 3: so she said. He told me on the phone that
Speaker 3: I could still apply and you know, lock in my
Speaker 3: right now and pay for the next seven years. So
Speaker 3: I said okay. And then two because I work with
Speaker 3: the United Way too, he was like, let's just say
Speaker 3: when you apply, because you still have to be either
Speaker 3: they still have to kind of give me the stamp
Speaker 3: of okay. But because I work with the United Way,
Speaker 3: the United Way kind of signs off and says, Tiffany
Speaker 3: works with us, then I.
Speaker 1: Can go that route as well because I currently work
Speaker 1: with the United Way. So I was like okay.
Speaker 3: So yeah, so there's that, and then so one thing
Speaker 3: I thought was interesting too, like let's just say you're
Speaker 3: trying to get your student into college for free. So
Speaker 3: Angela was telling me about this. The scholarship called the
Speaker 3: Gold Medal Scholarship. That's if you take the ACTS and
Speaker 3: you score.
Speaker 1: A certain score.
Speaker 3: I don't remember what the score is, and she was
Speaker 3: saying that start your eighth grader, when your child is
Speaker 3: in eighth grade practicing the Acts, so like lots of
Speaker 3: times during testing time, libraries or different nonprofit organizations will
Speaker 3: will allow your child to take practice tests for the ACTS,
Speaker 3: and that to get your child from eighth grade to
Speaker 3: eleventh grade to take as many practice tests as possible
Speaker 3: because a lot of that those testing, especially SATs and ACTS,
Speaker 3: is about practice. And get your child to take that
Speaker 3: test as many times as possible from eighth grade to
Speaker 3: eleventh grade, so when they take it in twelfth grade,
Speaker 3: they score the highest possible.
Speaker 1: Score that they can and if.
Speaker 3: They reach a certain score level, you get the Gold
Speaker 3: Medal Scholarship is forty four thousand dollars in scholarship money
Speaker 3: for college a year, so basically free college, because I mean,
Speaker 3: you know, there's not too many schools that are more
Speaker 3: If you stay home at least.
Speaker 1: Forty four thousand dollars a year.
Speaker 3: So I thought that was really smart, Like, you know,
Speaker 3: I never thought about that, that practicing for this test
Speaker 3: way in advance, getting your child all geared up, and
Speaker 3: you know, working towards something like a scholarship like that.
Speaker 1: She had a whole bunch of stuff.
Speaker 3: She was also telling me, like, if you're let's just
Speaker 3: say you're an usher at a church and you volunteer
Speaker 3: and I think she said two hundred and fifty hours
Speaker 3: a year, which I don't know how many days that is.
Speaker 3: But if you usher your deacon or whatever, there's actually
Speaker 3: a grant that you can apply for and it's like
Speaker 3: fifty two hundred dollars year. Your pastor signs off and says, asked,
Speaker 3: this person volunteers with us, and you can apply for
Speaker 3: this grant and it's free money because you're of service
Speaker 3: to your church or nonprofit because you give this much
Speaker 3: of your time. They were just it just there's so
Speaker 3: many things. It's like the scholarship guy.
Speaker 2: I remember that guy on TV, the scholarship guy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was like he would be like, there's a
Speaker 1: scholarship for that.
Speaker 3: I remember being a kid and there was all this
Speaker 3: guy on TV that would had like a scholarship book
Speaker 3: and he would be like, this is Scott, are you
Speaker 3: left handed?
Speaker 1: This is a scholarship for that. Are you a mom? This
Speaker 1: is a scholarship for that?
Speaker 2: There really are you know, our fairy money godmother, Lynette
Speaker 2: has a really good book. Yeah, I'm forgetting the name
Speaker 2: of it. Now. Just go to ask the money Coach
Speaker 2: dot net. You can see the name of the book.
Speaker 2: But she, you know, she came on. I interviewed her
Speaker 2: at Yahoo when I was there. She saved her daughter,
Speaker 2: Golly almost she her daughter earned half a million dollars
Speaker 2: in college scholarships across all the colleges that she was
Speaker 2: accepted to. And I feel like my family was one
Speaker 2: of those families.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: When I was in high school, I dreamed of going
Speaker 2: to Colombia and NYU, and my mom's answer was like,
Speaker 2: there's no way we can afford that not happening and
Speaker 2: go to a state school. Now everything worked out for me.
Speaker 2: I went to a great school, but at the same time,
Speaker 2: I wish we had known that. You know, there are
Speaker 2: ways you can make really expensive schools affordable. There are scholarships,
Speaker 2: there are you know, different forms of financial aid out there,
Speaker 2: and the net price that you end up paying after
Speaker 2: all that is a lot lower than what the sticker
Speaker 2: price looks like, and it can be possible.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So just longing, like I just for me, just
Speaker 3: you know, even though you know I talk about financial
Speaker 3: education student loans, that's just not my that's not my specialty.
Speaker 3: So just figuring out like oh, a little bit of research,
Speaker 3: a little bit of digging, and so I just thought
Speaker 3: that that was like, oh, who knew.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's so the federal government has made it
Speaker 2: so complicated. And I know because I've been covering student
Speaker 2: loans for as long as I've been a personal finance
Speaker 2: reporter for like seven years now, and there is now
Speaker 2: four or five different repayment plans and come based repay
Speaker 2: plans out there, and they're all slightly different and they're
Speaker 2: all slightly confusing. But if you're interested in income based repayment,
Speaker 2: and it can be a great way to get more
Speaker 2: affordable payments. You know, if you're struggling to pay out
Speaker 2: your federal student loan debt now federal only because private
Speaker 2: student loan DOT doesn't qualify, call the lender and you
Speaker 2: may have two or three different student lenders who are
Speaker 2: working with your loans, but call each of them and
Speaker 2: ask them about your options for income based repayment and
Speaker 2: whether you qualify and how low your payments will be.
Speaker 2: And there's like some students, some income based plans are
Speaker 2: ten years, and there's a fifteen one, then a twenty
Speaker 2: and a twenty five. And of course the longer your
Speaker 2: payment plan is, like Tiffany said, yours was twenty five,
Speaker 2: your payments may be a lot lower. But yeah, you
Speaker 2: have to think about all that interest that you're paying
Speaker 2: because you have such a long term for the loan
Speaker 2: and public student loan forgiveness. Here's one thing that people
Speaker 2: don't know about, including my fiance who had to tell
Speaker 2: about this. So he works for the government, he's been
Speaker 2: working there for seven eight years now. But you have
Speaker 2: to ask to be enrolled in those sorts of programs.
Speaker 2: But it doesn't automatically happen. So if you're a teacher
Speaker 2: or you work for the government and you just think
Speaker 2: you're making these payments, your your employer is not telling
Speaker 2: the Department of Education. Hey, you know, Susie has been
Speaker 2: making payments. She's public student loan forgiveness. You have to
Speaker 2: actually call your lender make sure you're enrolled, and then
Speaker 2: every year you're you have to you have to re enroll,
Speaker 2: Like every year you have to re enroll for income
Speaker 2: based repayment, and every year you have to call them
Speaker 2: back and make sure that your year's worth of student
Speaker 2: loan payments have been applied to your one hundred and
Speaker 2: twenty payments for public student loan forgiveness. So don't forget
Speaker 2: that you have to reapply.
Speaker 3: CLOUD just assuming that. I'm like, well, why wouldn't they
Speaker 3: know that. I was like, you know, a teacher. She
Speaker 3: was like, no, girl, you have to you have to
Speaker 3: sign up for that. I was like, oh, it's just
Speaker 3: so much adult thing.
Speaker 2: It's not that you mean, it's not hard. You just
Speaker 2: have to call your lender. And I do want to
Speaker 2: throw a word of caution out there on the subject
Speaker 2: a Magnify money. We have people send us questions, dozens
Speaker 2: of questions every day. We get so many questions from
Speaker 2: people who say, hey, I got a phone call, or
Speaker 2: hey I saw a Facebook ad for United States Student
Speaker 2: Loan Forgiveness program, and you know, they want me to
Speaker 2: pay four hundred dollars and then enroll me in a
Speaker 2: student loan forgiveness program. I'm like, oh, you mean the
Speaker 2: public student loan forgiveness program that is free for anybody
Speaker 2: to enroll by themselves without a company helping them. There's
Speaker 2: all these scams out there where they convinced you to
Speaker 2: pay them hundreds of dollars for something you can do yourself,
Speaker 2: which I just said, which is to call your lender
Speaker 2: and say, hey, hi, enroll me an income base or payment,
Speaker 2: or hey, hi, enroll me in public student loan forgiveness.
Speaker 2: There are these companies out there, and they always have
Speaker 2: a very official sounding name like United States Student Loan
Speaker 2: Forgiveness Program. A lot of them have Barack Obama's face
Speaker 2: by them or an American flag and a website's looko legit.
Speaker 2: But they're scams, they really are. I mean, you shouldn't
Speaker 2: be paying hundreds of dollars for something you can do
Speaker 2: for free.
Speaker 1: This life, I tell you.
Speaker 3: Sometimes you're just like, oh, just when you think you
Speaker 3: read it's like a video game. Just when I think
Speaker 3: I've gotten to level, like you know, level three, You're like,
Speaker 3: oh god, there's twenty levels to this game.
Speaker 2: That's a good thing. You have Federal debt. That's what
Speaker 2: I'm I mean, those people have private student loan debt.
Speaker 2: I mean, the best you can hope for is to
Speaker 2: refinance your debt at a lower rate because there's just
Speaker 2: not as many, you know, options out there.
Speaker 3: People like man, stay away from those if you can
Speaker 3: private student loans, They're like, oh, those are the worst.
Speaker 1: I'm just thankful that my dad was like, do not.
Speaker 2: It's hard, you know, if you go to graduate school.
Speaker 2: I mean a lot of times you max out your
Speaker 2: federal student debt allowance and you have to go to
Speaker 2: private debt. I mean, there's a a and this is
Speaker 2: getting the gap between what tuition and financial aid cover
Speaker 2: and how much colleges cost now is getting bigger and bigger,
Speaker 2: and it's like, how do you how do you feel it?
Speaker 2: Parents are getting parents loans.
Speaker 3: No, you're right, I have to say that I don't
Speaker 3: even know how I was able to do it because
Speaker 3: I have my graduate degree, and I don't know how
Speaker 3: I was able to go maybe because I went to.
Speaker 1: I went to school.
Speaker 3: Right here in New Jersey, but I don't have any
Speaker 3: private loans, although I use loans for my graduate degree.
Speaker 3: Like my undergrad I had loans, but Honestly, it wasn't
Speaker 3: that much. So I paid them off really like a
Speaker 3: year or two after school. I think I had owed
Speaker 3: like ten thousand dollars because my parents paid and you know,
Speaker 3: I always paid the interest each semester, and so I
Speaker 3: didn't owe that much.
Speaker 1: But it's my graduate degree that I'm still paying for it.
Speaker 1: I'm just like, it's the only dead I have.
Speaker 3: I don't have credit card debt, I don't have a mortgage,
Speaker 3: I don't have anything else, just these dagon student loans.
Speaker 2: And if you guys have any student loan questions, I'm
Speaker 2: surprised you don't get as many student loan questions as
Speaker 2: we do, about like four or one k's and stuff.
Speaker 2: But you guys should email us at as gmail dot com.
Speaker 1: I got it.
Speaker 2: It's not fair. I'm off coffee now, I'm off my
Speaker 2: a game.
Speaker 1: That's where I'm gonna pick up the flack.
Speaker 2: I haven't had my juice either yet.
Speaker 1: Oh man, So you want to end with some win.
Speaker 3: I know the winds that we're gonna do, Right, We're
Speaker 3: gonna have some some wins from our Oh right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So at the end of the show, So I'm
Speaker 2: going to do I have another win. But at the
Speaker 2: end of the show, I wanted to so the contest
Speaker 2: that we ran to have our listeners come to our
Speaker 2: anniversary dinner. Part of that was writing us a letter
Speaker 2: and telling us what Brown Ambition meant to them. And
Speaker 2: it was a very vague prompt. Sorry for that, but
Speaker 2: the girls that we invited, the women we invited had
Speaker 2: some really heartfelt things to say about Brown Ambition, and
Speaker 2: I invited some of them to record themselves reading a
Speaker 2: bit of their letters. So we're gonasure that with you
Speaker 2: guys at the end of the show. So we'll end
Speaker 2: on a very very high high note and hopefully inspirational.
Speaker 2: But separately, I wanted to give a win, just a
Speaker 2: shout out. I have a lot of a lot of
Speaker 2: my my my journalist friends who are out there. They've
Speaker 2: been all in. It seems like everyone is in DC
Speaker 2: right now. Every African American reporter in America is in
Speaker 2: DC now because the opening. It's the opening of the
Speaker 2: National Museum of African American History and Culture in d C.
Speaker 2: So it's it's it's huge and the museum looks incredible.
Speaker 2: I cannot wait to go. You know, Oprah put a
Speaker 2: lot of money into the museum, so you know it's
Speaker 2: going to be right, and just I think there's a
Speaker 2: lot of good coverage of the museum opening, and from
Speaker 2: what I've seen of the exhibits, it's it's not like
Speaker 2: a it's not a comfortable history of African Americans in America.
Speaker 2: It seems quite like you see the shackles that you
Speaker 2: know we're used that you know we're used on slaves
Speaker 2: alongside you know, Oh, this is one exhibit I saw
Speaker 2: Thomas Jefferson. There's like this big, you know, regal statue
Speaker 2: of Thomas Jefferson, but behind him is the name of
Speaker 2: all the slaves that he owned. And that's the kind
Speaker 2: of stuff you don't see a lot of. It's like
Speaker 2: America's history is very positive, but it's also very dark,
Speaker 2: and I think it's you know, it's it seems like
Speaker 2: one of those museums where you want to spend hours
Speaker 2: and hours walking around and like letting everything sink in.
Speaker 2: But I can't wait to go.
Speaker 3: One exhibit I really want to see that I saw
Speaker 3: posted on Facebook. It's a newspaper clipping that said something
Speaker 3: to the effect of six hundred dollars for the rape
Speaker 3: of his wife. And I was like, what, so, apparently
Speaker 3: a woman had.
Speaker 1: Been walking home.
Speaker 3: This is like old Jim Crow segregated South, had walked
Speaker 3: home and was kidnapped by six white men and rape
Speaker 3: and the husband went to the police and you know,
Speaker 3: filed complaint and they went to trial, but of course
Speaker 3: they were acquitted by a jury of their peers. And
Speaker 3: but the judge did offer six one hundred dollars for
Speaker 3: each man that had raped his wife. And I'm like,
Speaker 3: when you hear stuff like that, you just think to yourself, like, what,
Speaker 3: I don't know? Sometimes sometimes do you ever just get
Speaker 3: like You're just like, what are you supposed.
Speaker 1: To do with this emotion? When you read something like
Speaker 1: that or you see something like that, What am I
Speaker 1: supposed to do with this emotion? Am I supposed to
Speaker 1: break this window? Am I supposed to flip over a card?
Speaker 3: Because that's how much rage or sadness or anger you feel.
Speaker 3: And you're like, and then when people don't acknowledge that
Speaker 3: this is happening and this is still happening, and people
Speaker 3: are like, because sometimes I write stuff on my Facebook
Speaker 3: page and I have some of my my my white
Speaker 3: friends from Westfield will write something like like I had
Speaker 3: something I said something about black girls rock, and this
Speaker 3: girl was like, I just wish it wasn't black.
Speaker 1: All of our girls rock.
Speaker 3: I wanted to strangle her and be like, girls, shut up, Like,
Speaker 3: can't you see beyond your own foolishness. We know all
Speaker 3: girls rock, but black girls have been told otherwise. That's
Speaker 3: why this exists. It's not that your girls don't rock.
Speaker 3: Your girls have always been talked to day rock they're white,
Speaker 3: but our girls have not.
Speaker 2: I think it's you shouldn't feel obligated to explain the
Speaker 2: way you feel to people who don't get it. And
Speaker 2: I think that's you know, that's that racial syndrome fatigue. Yeah,
Speaker 2: what's it called again? Racial?
Speaker 1: I'm calling in black today. I can't. I can't. I'm
Speaker 1: not there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but you know, I just went and saw I
Speaker 2: went to an advanced screening of the movie Loving, which
Speaker 2: is about the famous Supreme Court case rich Or Robert
Speaker 2: Loving and his wife Mildred were an interracial couple in Virginia.
Speaker 2: And this was back in the civil rights areas in
Speaker 2: the sixties. And as you know, I'm a biracial baby
Speaker 2: was eighties baby, just twenty years after they went through this,
Speaker 2: and it was it was really hard to watch this
Speaker 2: movie because that you know, well, I it's like you
Speaker 2: feel the rage of this couple who are in love
Speaker 2: and all that they are country people. They just want
Speaker 2: a little house in the woods, not bothering anybody with
Speaker 2: their babies, and just to live a nice, simple life.
Speaker 2: And they were dragged into the national conversation and you know,
Speaker 2: threatened and thrown in jail just for loving each other.
Speaker 2: And you want to get outraged, and it's like a
Speaker 2: it's a mixture of outrage, but it's also like defeatism
Speaker 2: and in the sense that like, well, it's it's already happened,
Speaker 2: Like your outrage isn't really helping. You know, they've both
Speaker 2: passed away since then, And then I guess gratitude for
Speaker 2: what they went through as a couple, because if they
Speaker 2: hadn't gone through that, my parents never would have been
Speaker 2: able to get married. And it was hard enough for
Speaker 2: my mom and dad in the eighties, you know, just
Speaker 2: twenty years after that, it was hard enough for them,
Speaker 2: even though it was legalized. So I can't imagine what
Speaker 2: it was like for that couple. And I guess you
Speaker 2: just have to replace it with the I guess the
Speaker 2: sense of gratitude for the struggle people went through to
Speaker 2: make life easier for us today, and then we just
Speaker 2: have to do whatever we can to continue that, to
Speaker 2: continue that journey, because you know, everything's not fixed today.
Speaker 2: There still is a long way to go.
Speaker 3: And I think, like, honestly, I feel like when you
Speaker 3: have that rage, you don't have to replace it. I
Speaker 3: feel like, then, for me, what I told myself is that, Okay,
Speaker 3: this is what I tell my sisters too when they
Speaker 3: get mad at something. So what are you going to do?
Speaker 3: You know, meaning like what constructive thing? Take that anger
Speaker 3: and to create a solution, you know, in your small
Speaker 3: little corner of the world. It's one of the reasons
Speaker 3: why I do the Budgetista. I mean, people are like,
Speaker 3: you know, is it only for black women?
Speaker 1: No, it's not.
Speaker 3: But do I think it's you know, I'm inclusive, but
Speaker 3: am I specifically?
Speaker 1: Did I start specifically because people were ignoring us? For sure?
Speaker 3: Ninety nine percent of the women are black. I didn't
Speaker 3: put out a call, hey, black women, come this way,
Speaker 3: but I know that, like, yes, finally there's something that's
Speaker 3: speaking to this population. So it's like I try to
Speaker 3: take that anger and say, well, what can I do
Speaker 3: to make where I am the small little corner of
Speaker 3: the world.
Speaker 1: What can I do to make that better? You know?
Speaker 2: Yeah, we got we got some pushback when we had
Speaker 2: from a couple people I talked to when we first
Speaker 2: launched the podcast and when I said we were calling
Speaker 2: a brown ambition, and a couple people asked me, well,
Speaker 2: aren't you worried about alienating, you know, people who aren't
Speaker 2: of color. And I was like, no, not at all.
Speaker 1: I'm the worlds in the world.
Speaker 2: You got it, You got it going on. You know what,
Speaker 2: go to go to the top one hundred business podcast
Speaker 2: and tell me how many brown phases using.
Speaker 1: All the podcast is you?
Speaker 3: So, this one little brown podcast, if you could listen,
Speaker 3: we will welcome you. But I don't think having this
Speaker 3: one little podcast is going to be a drop in
Speaker 3: the bucket of literally every other podcast out there.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So I'm like, yes, we are brown, and I think
Speaker 2: that we are looking at it from a position of inclusiveness.
Speaker 2: Inclusiveness bringing people to the conversation, you know, acknowledging that
Speaker 2: we have the same financial and career and business questions
Speaker 2: that everyone else has, but may not be getting the
Speaker 2: same kind of advice and the same kind of education
Speaker 2: as other people out there.
Speaker 3: So did you want to end on an extra extra
Speaker 3: high note and have our beautiful, amazing BA listeners that
Speaker 3: won dinner with us read their their letters that got
Speaker 3: them chosen.
Speaker 1: They got chose, they got chose.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so this is what our listeners said, Brown Ambition
Speaker 2: means to them.
Speaker 4: Brown Ambition came into my life while I was in
Speaker 4: the PR marketing industry. I was commuting from Jamaica Queens
Speaker 4: to Manhattan and so thankful that I had you two
Speaker 4: to accompany me on my community.
Speaker 5: Being a part of the Brown Ambition family encourages me
Speaker 5: to keep striving for what I desire, and it is
Speaker 5: exciting to know that there is a community of women
Speaker 5: experiencing the same and uplifting one another along the way.
Speaker 4: Brown Ambition has taught me to aggressively go after what
Speaker 4: I want. As Tiffany has once said, and I'm sure
Speaker 4: has said numerous times, I'm dope. Your personal testimonies on
Speaker 4: careers and relationships have been nothing but inspiring and have
Speaker 4: kept me going when I wanted to tap out.
Speaker 5: My Tuesday ritual after lunch is listening to Brown Ambition
Speaker 5: as a wine educator turned biotech employee. I am encouraged
Speaker 5: to hear another career switcher thriving in her second field
Speaker 5: of interest. I also enjoyed the discussions amongst you all
Speaker 5: because it reminds me of conversations I have with my
Speaker 5: best friend Lauren, who is also a listener, whether living
Speaker 5: with in laws, anticipating a proposal, or celebrating each other's successes.
Speaker 5: Y'all embody the ambitious black millennial woman's experience.
Speaker 4: As you can see, I could write a book, but
Speaker 4: I'll cut this short. I love you guys with much
Speaker 4: ambition and brown skin popping. Kristen