Speaker 1: This is something I want to do. I'm not a
Speaker 1: model trying to be a producer. I'm a producer that
Speaker 1: happened to be like modeling, and he's like, no dumb idea. Hello.
Speaker 1: My name is Jeffrey Z Carrian, and I'm so excited
Speaker 1: to welcome you to the very first episode of Four
Speaker 1: Courses with Jeffrey Z Carian from My Heart Radio. I've
Speaker 1: been lucky enough to have a wonderful forty year career
Speaker 1: as a chef. Along the way, I've developed restaurants and products,
Speaker 1: worked with the top talent in the world, and met
Speaker 1: countless fascinating and inspiring people. And it's those people that
Speaker 1: inspire me as I head into the next chapter of
Speaker 1: my life and career. I'm inspired by fashion designers and painters.
Speaker 1: I'm inspired by entrepreneurs and athletes. I'm also inspired by
Speaker 1: anyone who was able to perform at the highest level
Speaker 1: and replicate it again and again. So in Four Courses,
Speaker 1: I'll be taking you along for the ride while I
Speaker 1: talk with the top talent of our time. In each conversation,
Speaker 1: I focus on four differ in areas from my guest
Speaker 1: life and career, and during those four Courses, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: dig deep and NCover new insights and inspirations that we
Speaker 1: can all use to fuel ourselves to push forward. My
Speaker 1: guest for a debut episode is a professor at Stanford
Speaker 1: University School of Business. She's a TV producer, writer, and actress,
Speaker 1: and she's also one of the biggest supermodels of all time.
Speaker 1: Without further delay, let's get into my conversation with the
Speaker 1: legendary Tyra Banks Hi Jeffrey for our first course, I
Speaker 1: wanted to ask Tyra about stories that highlight the influence
Speaker 1: of her parents, who had a surprisingly unique effect on
Speaker 1: her development. So, your mom was a medical photographer. Did
Speaker 1: she show you like pictures and stuff that were like gruesome?
Speaker 1: I grew up visiting her after school very often at
Speaker 1: the hospital that she worked at. Yeah, so yes, surgeries,
Speaker 1: anatomical dissections, lots of different deformities and autopsies, and she
Speaker 1: would take these pictures. And I would always look at
Speaker 1: her portfolio ship this huge portfolio. It was like bigger
Speaker 1: than eight by ten, number twelve. I don't just like
Speaker 1: a Lembi fourteen size photos in her portfolio, and I
Speaker 1: saw all kinds of stuff. So to this day, Jeffrey,
Speaker 1: if something happened to you and you were like bleeding, Like,
Speaker 1: I would not freeze, I would go into action. I
Speaker 1: would not be grossed out. I would do what I
Speaker 1: had to do to keep you alive and safe before
Speaker 1: we get to the hospital. Because of my mom. That
Speaker 1: can either be like one of those experiences that traumatizes
Speaker 1: you as a child, or you use it and it
Speaker 1: seems like you've used it to your benefit. But how
Speaker 1: odd is that growing up with medical photography. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's not like it's showing you anything beautiful. It's showing
Speaker 1: you everything that's flawed. So you grew up with visions
Speaker 1: of imperfection. Yeah, and maybe that's why later in life
Speaker 1: I never connected this. But I wonder if that's why
Speaker 1: I was very attracted to things that were not like
Speaker 1: super traditional when it comes to beauty, Like when I
Speaker 1: meet people and I'm like, oh my god, and their
Speaker 1: nose is slightly crooked and hooked to the left and
Speaker 1: the light is hitting it this way, and oh my god,
Speaker 1: that would be gorgeous in a photograph. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Is that because my mom was a
Speaker 1: photographer and I knew lighting, or was that because she
Speaker 1: was a medical photographer. I have no idea, but I
Speaker 1: like interesting beauty, like unique things about people in very
Speaker 1: My eye is attracted to that, and I always want
Speaker 1: to photograph it or tell them that, oh my god,
Speaker 1: your eyes are too far apart. Do you know that?
Speaker 1: That is amazing? That's like antelope signifies kind of beautifulness
Speaker 1: and it actually photographs well. Like people like you just
Speaker 1: tell me my eyes to do far apart. I'm like,
Speaker 1: no, no no, no, it's a compliment. I'm going to remember
Speaker 1: that because I know a lot of people with their
Speaker 1: eyes far apart. I never mentioned it, but now that
Speaker 1: you said something, I'm gonna say. I talked to Tyra
Speaker 1: and she's an expert of this. Its photographs beautifully. Why
Speaker 1: is that? I don't know. If you think about Oprah Winfrey,
Speaker 1: her eyes are far apart and Oprah and a photo,
Speaker 1: it's so beautiful and commanding. Sometimes on my social media,
Speaker 1: I post photos of Oprah because it's really beautiful. I
Speaker 1: don't know why, but the camera loves it. What did
Speaker 1: your dad think about all this? Was he a quiet one?
Speaker 1: You know? There's the mother of the dad ones, the
Speaker 1: acquiet one ones, the sting one is the disciplinarian, which
Speaker 1: one was, how do you know this about my family?
Speaker 1: Is it always like that? I think we all have
Speaker 1: this similar thing if we have like normal parents, ones
Speaker 1: like quiet but like authoritarian. You know. It was actually
Speaker 1: the opposite of that my mom was. It is. Yeah,
Speaker 1: my mom was loud, crazy, fun, authoritarian, like I'm having
Speaker 1: fun with you. Don't forget I'm your mama, and I
Speaker 1: will cuss your ass out. So it was this like
Speaker 1: balance and my dad was quiet, more reserved, and I
Speaker 1: could do no wrong. So he was he was in
Speaker 1: the computers and was he a new curious research Yeah. No,
Speaker 1: I want to know about your family because this triangle
Speaker 1: made you special, and I want to know more about
Speaker 1: at home, Like how did that triangle sort of like
Speaker 1: unite for you. I think more of the influence on
Speaker 1: me of who I am today on the business side,
Speaker 1: on the discipline side, I would have to say my mom.
Speaker 1: But it's interesting when it comes to like school and stuff.
Speaker 1: I was a self starter. My mom didn't say did
Speaker 1: you do your home mark? Did you do this? For
Speaker 1: some reason, it just was naturally in me to just
Speaker 1: finish it and make sure I did it as soon
Speaker 1: as I came home so I can get it out
Speaker 1: of the way and watch my TV. But my dad
Speaker 1: was harder on me. I remember one year in school,
Speaker 1: I got all a's and I got a C in
Speaker 1: p that's almost like a badge of honor. Now I
Speaker 1: don't I guess, I don't know, but he was like,
Speaker 1: he didn't even say, oh wow, I'm so happy these a's,
Speaker 1: but you know, let's let's talk about the sea and see.
Speaker 1: All he said was, what's going on with that C?
Speaker 1: And I will never forget that to this day. What's
Speaker 1: going on with that C? And what he didn't know
Speaker 1: was I didn't dress every day at Pe because I
Speaker 1: was ninety eight pounds in five nine and I was
Speaker 1: insecure about my body because it was so skinny, and
Speaker 1: I didn't want the girls in the locker room to
Speaker 1: see me. So that's where the CEA came from. Just
Speaker 1: some days I just couldn't do it, and I would
Speaker 1: just say, I don't, I don't know. I just forgot
Speaker 1: my uniform or my PE uniform or stuff like that.
Speaker 1: So that's where it came from. But perhaps that made
Speaker 1: me stronger, I don't know. In our second course, I
Speaker 1: had to find out how Tyra found her place in
Speaker 1: the world of modeling. She went from an undiscovered high
Speaker 1: school student in Los Angeles to a global superstar just
Speaker 1: a few years later. But it turns out that early on,
Speaker 1: she had a much different vision for her career. I
Speaker 1: wanted to be a film and television producer, writer, director.
Speaker 1: I wanted to write commercials. That was my passion. That's
Speaker 1: what I wanted to do since I was nine years old,
Speaker 1: just naturally attracted to that. Did not want to take
Speaker 1: pictures of dead people. I wanted to, you know, write
Speaker 1: and direct and produced for a live people. And that's
Speaker 1: what was That was my path, that was my plan.
Speaker 1: But on the first day of high school when I
Speaker 1: was thirteen, a girl came up to me and asked
Speaker 1: me was I a model? And I was sitting there
Speaker 1: by myself, kind of insecure here for stay of high school.
Speaker 1: But we ended up becoming best friends and she taught
Speaker 1: me everything. This woman girl at the time, was like
Speaker 1: a modeling like maybe I learned from her how to
Speaker 1: teach other models later because she taught me everything, posing clothes,
Speaker 1: buying cheap clothes, how to do my hair thirteen How
Speaker 1: did she know all this? She was obsessed with magazines
Speaker 1: and modeling already, and she taught me so so much.
Speaker 1: And then I think she got an agency in like
Speaker 1: the ninth grade or tenth grade, and then I got
Speaker 1: an agency in the eleventh grade. When'd you get your
Speaker 1: first check? And how much was it? And when you
Speaker 1: looked at that, could you really believe it? I don't
Speaker 1: remember my first modeling check. It probably was like fifty
Speaker 1: dollars or something. I don't remember that. I remember my
Speaker 1: first modeling job, but not the check. The first big check, Jeffrey,
Speaker 1: it was five thousand dollars, and I was like what
Speaker 1: I was in high school? I got a five thousand
Speaker 1: dollar check. Now that was over thirty years ago. A
Speaker 1: five thousand dollar check for a high school or today
Speaker 1: is a hell of a lot of money, so imagine
Speaker 1: what that is thirty years ago. I was still a
Speaker 1: hell of a lot of money. And my mom and
Speaker 1: me we went to the California Pizza Kitchen to celebrate.
Speaker 1: So you're having pizza kitchen, you got five grand in
Speaker 1: your pocket. Was your mother congratulating you or cautioning you,
Speaker 1: or some balance of each, Because it seems like your
Speaker 1: mom was such a good effect on you. How did
Speaker 1: your mom get comfortable with this. Honestly, she was shocked
Speaker 1: because she didn't even see it in me, you know.
Speaker 1: And and yeah, no, she she never thought I was
Speaker 1: a model. And and my mom had a side business
Speaker 1: where in our living room on the weekends she would
Speaker 1: transform it to a photo studio and our back porch
Speaker 1: on top of the washer and dryer she transformed into
Speaker 1: a dark room. And so she had her own photography
Speaker 1: business separate from the hospital where women would come and
Speaker 1: my mom would do their hair and their makeup and
Speaker 1: their clothing styling and the photography. And I was her assistant,
Speaker 1: so I would hand her the makeup brushes, I would
Speaker 1: check her you know, the light meter thing like check
Speaker 1: the light meeter for her. While she was over there,
Speaker 1: I would get the women that she was photographing and
Speaker 1: sometimes men like water or snacks. And this was for years.
Speaker 1: So for years, you know, she's photographing you know, hospital
Speaker 1: people in the day, but like people just you know,
Speaker 1: wanting beautiful pictures of themselves by night. And still never
Speaker 1: thought that I could model. And I didn't even think
Speaker 1: about it or wanted to. So when like my friends
Speaker 1: said that to me and I came home, my mom
Speaker 1: was like, what are you talking about? What's your friends
Speaker 1: talking about modeling? You know, it was just not a
Speaker 1: thing um. And then when I told her I really
Speaker 1: wanted to do it, she was nervous about it, but
Speaker 1: she did support me, but she had her reservations. It
Speaker 1: sounds like that was the start of everything. I mean,
Speaker 1: here's this peatreet dish. It's just blossomed. Like you have
Speaker 1: your mom doing night end day work, one of beautiful people,
Speaker 1: one of you know, not so beautiful things, and then
Speaker 1: you coordinating it. You were actually producing it right there.
Speaker 1: You were a producer at fift You were helping her
Speaker 1: do that. That that's what doucers do. Then I was
Speaker 1: all set to go to college. Got accepted to every
Speaker 1: single college I applied to for film and television production.
Speaker 1: I decided on Loyola Marymount University. I want to stay
Speaker 1: close to home. And two weeks before my first day
Speaker 1: of school, after I had towards the campus, I had
Speaker 1: met my professors, I had bought l m U sweatshirts,
Speaker 1: t shirts, everything. Two weeks before my first day of
Speaker 1: l m U, I got discovered by a French agent.
Speaker 1: A second discovery. First was the girl at the bench
Speaker 1: at high school. But this was a French agent saying
Speaker 1: they came to my modeling agency was Elite Models at
Speaker 1: the time in l a and they were like, that's
Speaker 1: the only girl I want to take back to Paris
Speaker 1: fashion Week. What year was this? Wow, what a fantastic
Speaker 1: time to be in Paris. Yes, did you have someone
Speaker 1: they're guiding you? What did your mom go with you? No?
Speaker 1: My mom couldn't afford to because she had to pay
Speaker 1: the rent, so I went to Paris by myself. I
Speaker 1: remember in the airport my parents were there and sending
Speaker 1: me off, and I waved to them and hugged and
Speaker 1: then as I was walking away from them, they see
Speaker 1: my back only I'm walking away and I boo hooed
Speaker 1: and started crying. But I did not want them to
Speaker 1: see that because I'm gonna cry right now. I didn't
Speaker 1: want them to see that. So I'm like waving like
Speaker 1: this and waving so they see the back of my
Speaker 1: head and me waving, but really I'm bawling. And I
Speaker 1: never turned back around because I knew they would panic.
Speaker 1: And I remember that eleven hour flight kind of in
Speaker 1: the back of the plane near the toilet, and you know,
Speaker 1: after the mill cart comes, everybody has to go to
Speaker 1: the toilet, and I spelled crap for about eight hours
Speaker 1: on that flight. And I was in the smoking section.
Speaker 1: I mean not in the smoking section, but the smoking
Speaker 1: section was like two rows ahead of you. So I'm like,
Speaker 1: what does that mean? I still smell smoke and crap.
Speaker 1: Thank god, there's no more smoking on airplanes. So where
Speaker 1: do you stay? What I know Paris really well, where
Speaker 1: do you stay? I stayed in the model's apartment in
Speaker 1: the beautiful and the model's apartment was only a model's
Speaker 1: apartment that had two people, meaning me included. It wasn't
Speaker 1: like a big dormhouse, because they did have those, but
Speaker 1: I was. It was just I was with a small
Speaker 1: agency that didn't have like a lot of money for
Speaker 1: those big dormhouses. So it's just me and this beautiful
Speaker 1: Israeli model by the name of Yeah. And I lived
Speaker 1: Dorid for for many months, and it was hard as
Speaker 1: hell living in Paris and not speaking the language, but
Speaker 1: then learning to use my Spanish to mixed with French
Speaker 1: to like get by. And I noticed that if I
Speaker 1: tried to speak French, that French person w then starts
Speaker 1: speaking English with me. But if I tried to speak English,
Speaker 1: I'd be like, do you realize what country you're in?
Speaker 1: Can you at least try? And I learned that trying
Speaker 1: to buy a Metro card my first day, when I
Speaker 1: was like an Orange card. I need an Orange card,
Speaker 1: an Orange card, And this woman was just looking at me,
Speaker 1: blank face behind the glass, blank face. And then the
Speaker 1: man behind me says, madame, you should try to say
Speaker 1: car donge and just say this sentence to her. And
Speaker 1: then I asked her in my broken friend and she
Speaker 1: just opened up to me and she like franglished English
Speaker 1: French to me and was like, you have a knew?
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, respect where you go. Don't be
Speaker 1: the ugly American thinking everybody needs to acquis to you.
Speaker 1: Because it was a huge lesson. How long was the
Speaker 1: contract and when you sign a contract like that, what
Speaker 1: do they expect? How do you know what's going to happen.
Speaker 1: I might have had a contract, but I gave myself
Speaker 1: one year to be booked directly, meaning not having to
Speaker 1: do auditions. I was like, if I can be booked directly,
Speaker 1: I'll put off school for a couple of years and
Speaker 1: model and make some money so that I can pay
Speaker 1: for college. So that's why I said, one year, if
Speaker 1: I'm not direct booking, if I still have to go
Speaker 1: to auditions, I'm leaving this modeling crap because I got
Speaker 1: college waiting for me. And then I prepared like crazy
Speaker 1: for Paris. I went to a French fashion library and
Speaker 1: studied every designer, how they walk, how they want you
Speaker 1: to look, and and broke history and had twenty five
Speaker 1: fashion shows that first season. Two weeks after I arrived
Speaker 1: to Paris as a no name nobody for our third course,
Speaker 1: I knew that Tira could share some incredible business lessons now.
Speaker 1: Unlike so many stars that shine bright for short amounts
Speaker 1: of time, Tara found a way to pivot away from
Speaker 1: a fragile modeling career into building a resilient business empire.
Speaker 1: When did you go from knowing your very successful model
Speaker 1: doing all kinds of incredible stuff, Victoria's secrets everything, to
Speaker 1: leveraging that and making this foresight into a business. How
Speaker 1: did that transfer in your mind? It transferred in my
Speaker 1: mind when my mother would tell me, and I thought
Speaker 1: she was being mean, but she would tell me that
Speaker 1: it's not gonna last forever, that models have an expiration
Speaker 1: date on them like football players, like an athlete exactly,
Speaker 1: and you don't know when that expiration date is. They're
Speaker 1: in control over that, and so it's important for you
Speaker 1: to be in control and leave this industry before it
Speaker 1: leads you. And I was like crushed, like what that's
Speaker 1: so mean? Well, what a great advice, Yes, amazing advice.
Speaker 1: But back then I was like, well, what are you
Speaker 1: talking about. Everybody wants me, everybody wants me on their magazine,
Speaker 1: you know, and in their fashion show. She said, not
Speaker 1: for long. What happened to Home Girl? That was here
Speaker 1: last season in like twelve shows out of your thirty,
Speaker 1: where is she? I'm like, oh my god, Mom only
Speaker 1: saw her in one fashion show she goes and that
Speaker 1: will be you unless you get in front of it.
Speaker 1: And I remember being backstage once in Paris and seeing
Speaker 1: Cindy Crawford and Cindy Crawford was not walking the runway,
Speaker 1: she was leading a crew of MTV's House of Style
Speaker 1: and hosting. That was the first time I was like, oh, wow,
Speaker 1: you could do something else and be a model. You
Speaker 1: don't just have to be a model all the time.
Speaker 1: So that was like a serious moment for me of
Speaker 1: saying Okay, there's something else. Although the passion to produced
Speaker 1: television and film was still there, it never left. So
Speaker 1: lightbulb moment really was because your mom said, you gotta
Speaker 1: think a hundred years, not five years. Was there another mentor?
Speaker 1: I had to be another businessman tour. You mentioned Cindy Crawford.
Speaker 1: It was Cindy Crawford. For me, I used to be
Speaker 1: really obsessed with her career. I used to look at
Speaker 1: her Pepsi commercials and being like wow, and she used
Speaker 1: to have it all sounds so archaic now, like swimsuit calendars,
Speaker 1: but back then for me, I was like, Wow, just
Speaker 1: swimsuit calendars. She's producing them, and like I was just
Speaker 1: like so enamored. So I I kind of followed a
Speaker 1: lot of things that she did. I did to swimsuit
Speaker 1: calendars over the years, and I realized I didn't know
Speaker 1: it was called white space at the time, but I was.
Speaker 1: I was looking like, Okay, Mom says different different have
Speaker 1: to be different, not the same. Okay, there's there's no
Speaker 1: like black model that's like a Cindy Crawford, like Americana girl,
Speaker 1: just you know, Inglewood, California girl, and just happened to
Speaker 1: be modeling, and you know, not like runway diva. You know,
Speaker 1: I started as a runway diva, but my body was
Speaker 1: telling me you ain't gonna be able to sit into
Speaker 1: them closed for much longer. And you know, pivoted and
Speaker 1: and really studied Cindy and said, how can I do
Speaker 1: that as the girl next door that's black? It hasn't
Speaker 1: been done before. When You've got that first anchoring for
Speaker 1: the production for America's Next holp Mon, I would describe
Speaker 1: how that came about. In a business sense. I had
Speaker 1: ideas for film and television, and I don't know where
Speaker 1: those scrap papers are, but I had ideas, and at
Speaker 1: the time I had an agent and I would pitch
Speaker 1: them to him. I showed him. I was like, I
Speaker 1: had this idea. What do you think about this? He
Speaker 1: was like, it's a dumb idea. A couple of months later,
Speaker 1: what about this idea for a TV show? I can produce?
Speaker 1: This is something I want to do. I'm not a
Speaker 1: model trying to be a producer. I'm a producer that
Speaker 1: happened to be like modeling. And he's like, no, dumb idea,
Speaker 1: And I was like, what about this idea? Like models,
Speaker 1: they live in a house together. They it's like that
Speaker 1: American idol new thing that's really doing well. But but
Speaker 1: also I can like mix it with like the real world.
Speaker 1: MTV is the real world because an American idol, you
Speaker 1: don't see them at home. What if I mix those
Speaker 1: two together and said it in the modeling industry, which
Speaker 1: is my people always say, right, what you know, produce
Speaker 1: what you know. That's what I know. I know that world.
Speaker 1: He was like, Nah, models are unsympathetic characters and vapid.
Speaker 1: Nobody would watch that. That's what he told me. And
Speaker 1: I was tired of this because I felt like I
Speaker 1: had a natural instinct for producing. I felt I felt
Speaker 1: like I did, and so I complained to my best
Speaker 1: friend at the time, and we're still super close, Kenya Barris,
Speaker 1: who's the creator of Blackish, and he's one of the
Speaker 1: writers on the new movie coming to America, and he
Speaker 1: says tons of huge success Kenya. At the time, he
Speaker 1: was still a younger writer, and I was like, Kenya,
Speaker 1: I'm so tired of this. He's like, yo. He starts
Speaker 1: like this, yo, tie like your ideas are dope. I'm
Speaker 1: tired of hearing your agents say that they're dumb, like, YO,
Speaker 1: like this model one is a really good one, Like
Speaker 1: you want me to do something about it? I'm like what,
Speaker 1: he goes, just trust me. So then he comes back
Speaker 1: a couple of days later and he's like, I talked
Speaker 1: to my agent who's a scripted agent. He connected me
Speaker 1: to the unscripted agent at my agency, meaning his agency,
Speaker 1: And there's some dude that they want you to meet
Speaker 1: that they represent called Ken Mock. What do you think
Speaker 1: about that? And I was like all right, And so
Speaker 1: I met Ken Mock at the Standard Hotel and I
Speaker 1: pitched him the idea and he was like that genius
Speaker 1: and Ken Mok was like a godfather of competition reality
Speaker 1: at the time. He started a lot of these wonderful
Speaker 1: formats that to this day people have copied everywhere. And
Speaker 1: he said it was a good idea, but later he
Speaker 1: confessed that it was a good idea, but he thought
Speaker 1: that he would have to share producing with me, with
Speaker 1: me being a vanity producer meaning I'm not doing work.
Speaker 1: I'm just my name is on the credits, and yeah,
Speaker 1: but that's what he thought. And then a month later
Speaker 1: he confessed me, He's like, Wow, you're really good at this,
Speaker 1: and you know what you're doing, and you've never done
Speaker 1: this before, And I honestly thought I was gonna have
Speaker 1: to be splitting this morning with you but doing all
Speaker 1: the work. But you're such a fun partner and really
Speaker 1: have instincts, And I don't think that America's Next Top
Speaker 1: Model would have ever been successful with just me, and
Speaker 1: it would have never been successful with just Ken. Like
Speaker 1: we are Yin and Yang and we need each other,
Speaker 1: needed each other to make this jugger not you know
Speaker 1: show that ended up being twenty four seasons in America
Speaker 1: hundred and eighty countries. The show has aired forty international versions.
Speaker 1: So I don't like to produce them to the expected.
Speaker 1: I like to bring things that are fresh, unique and different,
Speaker 1: give people what they don't know they want. And at
Speaker 1: the same time, once I give them what they want,
Speaker 1: I think it is imperative to stay asymmetrical and not
Speaker 1: continue to have them know what's coming. I think asymmetry
Speaker 1: is key, and I think it's one of the reasons
Speaker 1: why America's Next Top Model has been on for so long,
Speaker 1: because we're like, okay, you think you got you got that,
Speaker 1: and then boom or we had so many copies of
Speaker 1: our show. Over time, different models starting America their their
Speaker 1: versions and we kept pivoting, so they just constantly kept
Speaker 1: looking like they were copying and they were way behind,
Speaker 1: and these shows never took shape. I was going to
Speaker 1: ask you as a question, I crossed it out because
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, what do you say to a
Speaker 1: young woman who wants to be a business person and
Speaker 1: take ownership? And I'm like, you just have to listen
Speaker 1: to this podcast and you'd have everything you need to know.
Speaker 1: But if you get a bulleted I mean, what would
Speaker 1: you say to a fifteen year old that is going
Speaker 1: to choose to be a business person. I want to
Speaker 1: make my own money. I want to be independent, and
Speaker 1: I want to like I want to rule the world.
Speaker 1: Want is obsession and and particularly to this to this generation.
Speaker 1: Popularity and likes are now on on social media? Are
Speaker 1: I predict in five years it's going to be a commodity.
Speaker 1: So what is the thing that's going to make you
Speaker 1: stand out? And obsession and studying those areas that you're
Speaker 1: interested in where you know, it's so much staying on
Speaker 1: the internet all damn night and searching ice cream this
Speaker 1: or potato chips that, or lip gloss this or whatever
Speaker 1: it is, and knowing so much about your competitors that
Speaker 1: you know them more than they know themselves. I think
Speaker 1: the next thing is if you can afford to to
Speaker 1: try to become an intern and either work for free
Speaker 1: or for minimum wage as an intern, get in, get
Speaker 1: into the companies that you admire, or the competitor of
Speaker 1: the company that you admire, because the one that you
Speaker 1: admire won't accept. You be unembarrassed about maybe having to
Speaker 1: have ten roommates, or to stay home a little bit
Speaker 1: longer with Mama and Daddy, your grandma or whoever you're
Speaker 1: living with, so that you can, in turn and not
Speaker 1: have to worry about making a lot of money in
Speaker 1: the beginning if you have that luxury. If you don't
Speaker 1: have that luxury, have a job that affords you to
Speaker 1: be able to to tackle your passion while you're making money.
Speaker 1: So it's a standard like actor thing, bartending restaurants, working
Speaker 1: at night on that money making jobs, so that in
Speaker 1: the day, during day daytime hours, when people are available
Speaker 1: by email and phone calls, you can pursue the passion.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's as about as well said as I
Speaker 1: can do it, and I really love the fact that
Speaker 1: I did the same thing as an intern. I said
Speaker 1: to myself, this chef is the greatest chef I've ever seen.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna work for nothing and suck his brains and
Speaker 1: get every idea he has, and it's going to be
Speaker 1: the best university. And I don't care if I don't
Speaker 1: get paid. I'll borrow money. And I borrow money to
Speaker 1: live was way cheaper than tuition, so I could get
Speaker 1: the skills, and after two years I had a notebook
Speaker 1: like that. And it's what you're saying. I think it's
Speaker 1: such an easy recipe in some profound ways, but it's
Speaker 1: tough when your friends are doing this and knowing that,
Speaker 1: going here, going that, hanging out, and you're not hanging out.
Speaker 1: You're you're like you're making things happen. Four or fourth
Speaker 1: and final course, I got to speak with Tyra about
Speaker 1: ice cream. Yes, ice cream. If you haven't been living
Speaker 1: under a rock for the last ten years, you know
Speaker 1: that Tyra Banks invented the words smiles spelled s M
Speaker 1: I Z E. And it means to smile with your eyes. Well,
Speaker 1: now Tyra and her team are deep into research and
Speaker 1: development or you guessed it, smiles cream. Her brand new
Speaker 1: ice cream company. So I was just saying smiles cream.
Speaker 1: We said, what a genius name. I want to taste.
Speaker 1: I want to be on the tasting board. Oh my god,
Speaker 1: I would be very intimidated by you being on my
Speaker 1: tasting board. Cream. So we have our own proprietary Bass
Speaker 1: ice cream. Bass was very important to me. At first
Speaker 1: we were going with co packers or they would give
Speaker 1: us their base and all that, and then we like,
Speaker 1: we're like, you know what, we want to own this space.
Speaker 1: And I am now I went from being an ice
Speaker 1: cream with Fionado. Did I say that right to a
Speaker 1: to an expert? I would like to say. And I,
Speaker 1: over the course of I don't know, I don't know,
Speaker 1: six months or so, ordered from any company and every
Speaker 1: ice cream company that would deliver any and everyone. And
Speaker 1: I was, you know, because I was studying and understanding
Speaker 1: overrun and butterfat and you know, just all this stuff.
Speaker 1: And I would be like too much air to dance,
Speaker 1: I can't pound the pint, meaning like I want to
Speaker 1: be able to like just get in there, and if
Speaker 1: it's too too heavy, I was like, Or sometimes I'd
Speaker 1: be like, oh tastes too expensive, meaning I don't want
Speaker 1: a five star restaurant experience with the ice cream. You
Speaker 1: know that ice cream. It comes in like that speaking
Speaker 1: to the choir here, preaching to the choir. But you
Speaker 1: know at the five star restaurant Jeffrey, and it's like
Speaker 1: shaped like an almond. It's not like a scoop, and
Speaker 1: it's like canal. That's called a canal. Oh canal, can
Speaker 1: a canal. Let's not shape like a canal, and it
Speaker 1: is very rich, but it is very little, you know,
Speaker 1: and so but a point you can't. So after all
Speaker 1: that time, I realized the type of basse that I
Speaker 1: want um leaning more on the custard style base. So yes,
Speaker 1: we do got some eggs up in there, some egg
Speaker 1: You'll gotta have good vanilla. Yeah. You have to have
Speaker 1: really good butterfat content. Yeah. Really, you have to really
Speaker 1: have a good sugar. You have to have terbinado or
Speaker 1: a sugar that's pure cane that isn't processed. I think
Speaker 1: because sugar does everything. It keeps it soft, pliable, and
Speaker 1: it also gives it that after taste. So if the
Speaker 1: sugar is not good, you're screwed. And it's the hardest
Speaker 1: thing to do is to get that mouth feel that's
Speaker 1: just luxury, but not like like your have you just
Speaker 1: took a bath and cream exactly. I don't want that that.
Speaker 1: I call it greasy sometimes slimey taste in the mouth,
Speaker 1: you know. And so we finally hit it. So we
Speaker 1: are a custard base. But I feel like saying custard
Speaker 1: to like Americans in certain states they'll be like, what
Speaker 1: is that like some creamberu let, what you're talking about? No,
Speaker 1: frozen custard is like, you know, that's old fashioned stuff.
Speaker 1: I want to ask you about did you eat ice
Speaker 1: cream in your childhood? Like is this a memory that
Speaker 1: you like, I just got to go back and recreate
Speaker 1: something and and how did that happen? Ice Cream for
Speaker 1: me is a huge memory. There's two big food memories
Speaker 1: for me. One is barbecue, And I did not understand
Speaker 1: why I loved barbecue, and it means so much to
Speaker 1: me and the smell of smoked meat and charcoal all
Speaker 1: that for me, it makes me feel really good. And
Speaker 1: I didn't know why. I was like, I just like barbecue,
Speaker 1: la barbecue sauce. And then I realized it's because it
Speaker 1: reminds me of my dad who's still with us. But
Speaker 1: like summers and him barbecuing and the family coming over
Speaker 1: and my dad cooking these ribs and making his own
Speaker 1: sauce and used to put pineapples in his sauce. And
Speaker 1: so there's just this memory of me and being Daddy's
Speaker 1: little girl and having that time with him at the grill.
Speaker 1: That's why I like barbecue so much. And ice cream
Speaker 1: memories with my mama. So my mom and I probably
Speaker 1: like Friday nights. I still had my school uniform on
Speaker 1: and we would get in the car after dinner and
Speaker 1: we would drive to Hollywood Boulevard and go to the
Speaker 1: Hogan Dahs Yeah, or she would get two scoops of chocolate.
Speaker 1: I would get two scoops of coffee. My twelve my
Speaker 1: thirteen year old self gets of coffee. I love the taste.
Speaker 1: And we would sit in the car and we would
Speaker 1: just talk about anything and everything and watch all the
Speaker 1: interesting people in Hollywood, from like you know, like tourists
Speaker 1: to the people in weird costumes and stuff, and just
Speaker 1: my mom and I had a hat and still have
Speaker 1: a relationship where nothing is off limits. Everything, boys, men, sex, anything,
Speaker 1: I ask anything, she would tell me the truth. And
Speaker 1: and so those two things barbecue and ice cream are
Speaker 1: something special to me. I love that you go right
Speaker 1: to ice cream and barbecue. That is so fantastic. And
Speaker 1: I always find ice cream is one of those things.
Speaker 1: It's sort of self soothed. You know. That's when you're
Speaker 1: really you're either in pain, or you're in love or
Speaker 1: something else is something going on, and ice cream is
Speaker 1: like one of the answers. It's one of the answers
Speaker 1: to self soothe. I teach personal branding at Stanford the
Speaker 1: Business School, and I first day of school, I tell
Speaker 1: my students difference is better than better. You can't just
Speaker 1: be better. What are you bringing different to the table?
Speaker 1: You as a chef, I mean these original recipes and
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, like you have this different thing.
Speaker 1: You'll take something classic and you put your spin on it,
Speaker 1: and that's it. You can't just be better. And so
Speaker 1: as as an as an entrepreneur with ice cream, I
Speaker 1: was like, Okay, amazing, bass, it's going to be this,
Speaker 1: gonna be that. It's gonna be luscious but not too lushi.
Speaker 1: It's gonna be this, it's gonna be that. But the
Speaker 1: differentiator for me was finding something else and not just
Speaker 1: marketing and I'm very inspired by cracker Jacks. Did you
Speaker 1: eat cracker Jacks as a kid? Oh? The prize at
Speaker 1: the bottom of that You kidding me? I would open
Speaker 1: the box just for the prize. I wouldn't even eat
Speaker 1: this exactly. I don't know how many people remember that,
Speaker 1: but it's it was really it was a brilliant marketing
Speaker 1: brilliant Basically, the prize was less than a penny cost
Speaker 1: of something that was so nefarious and silly that you
Speaker 1: would like, why did I just put six hundred collies
Speaker 1: of sugar in my body? You're right, Like, as business people,
Speaker 1: we now look at that prize and see that it
Speaker 1: was not worth a damp penny to the company, but
Speaker 1: worth everything to us. And you wanted that prize, whether
Speaker 1: it was a temporary tattoo or a little ring or
Speaker 1: whatever it was. And so inside of every serving of
Speaker 1: SMIs cream there is a prize, and it's an incredible prize. Yes,
Speaker 1: inside the ice cream. Inside the ice cream. Yes, so
Speaker 1: it's okay. So how did you I mean it has
Speaker 1: to be frozen. Obviously, there's no fake compartment under it
Speaker 1: that you slide it up. You know, it's just as
Speaker 1: you're digging digging, digging, you are eating that ice cream
Speaker 1: and then you are rewarded with this prize. And there's
Speaker 1: different types of prizes, so we have in robed cookie
Speaker 1: doughs and different flavors of cookie dough, and that cookie
Speaker 1: dough corresponds to the flavor of the ice cream. So
Speaker 1: birthday cake type of strawberry birthday cake ice cream. There's
Speaker 1: like a sprinkle cookie dough. And this is really high
Speaker 1: quality cookie dough. It's not like this is like serious
Speaker 1: gourmet cookie dough. In the future it would be different chocolates,
Speaker 1: but low temp chocolates. It doesn't like hurt your teeth
Speaker 1: when you're in there, and chocolates that are like cereal
Speaker 1: milk flavored and berry flavored stuff, and you open that
Speaker 1: prize and there's like fantastic fun inclusions in that ice cream.
Speaker 1: And then for me, it's also not just about like
Speaker 1: digging and finding like some spice surprise. It's connected to goals.
Speaker 1: If you dig, you work hard, and then you were
Speaker 1: a word when you work hard for your goal. So
Speaker 1: that's kind of the whole process behind SMA scream um wellness.
Speaker 1: What do you eat, what wakes up in the morning,
Speaker 1: how do you take care of yourself, and how do
Speaker 1: you balance mental health and real health. So if I'm
Speaker 1: a honest with you and I feel like I should be,
Speaker 1: right now, I am not taking the best care of myself.
Speaker 1: I wake up in the middle of the night. I
Speaker 1: pick up my phone. I'm doing emails because I don't
Speaker 1: have time to do it in the day because my
Speaker 1: scream is taking okay, So same, okay, So we're the same.
Speaker 1: This this new business is consuming me, and I'm okay
Speaker 1: with that because I know that there's an end to
Speaker 1: a startup. A startup is not always a startup, but
Speaker 1: in order for the startup to be successful, I have
Speaker 1: to go back to that word, and I have to
Speaker 1: be obsessed. I know that, and I have to push
Speaker 1: my team, but pick up the slack and know that
Speaker 1: I can push them. But I'm not going to push
Speaker 1: them till they're crazy. I'm gonna go crazy. So I'm
Speaker 1: gonna say I need you to do X y Z.
Speaker 1: Don't worry about that. I'll do that because I need
Speaker 1: them to still be strong long and I know that
Speaker 1: I have a lot of capacity to take on a lot.
Speaker 1: So I wake up three o'clock in the morning like
Speaker 1: I did last night and did all kinds of stuff.
Speaker 1: I did notes on a new packaging. We have a
Speaker 1: huge collaboration with a very huge person that will have
Speaker 1: a smile scream flavor, and I was going over the
Speaker 1: packaging of that. I was going over some strategy, all
Speaker 1: kind of stuff. Then wake up in the morning, grab
Speaker 1: a phone. Shouldn't do that, but I do. I do
Speaker 1: not get on a treadmill. I do not get on
Speaker 1: that damn peloton that is in my basement until it's
Speaker 1: a closed rack. Right, Oh my god, it is the
Speaker 1: most beautiful closed rack. Oh my god, the sweats and
Speaker 1: the socks on it, and just more emails, phone calls
Speaker 1: to people in Europe, phone calls to people in the
Speaker 1: Middle East, phone calls to you know, West coast of
Speaker 1: East Coast of New York. And then just zoom meeting
Speaker 1: after zoom meeting, after zoom meeting, after zoom meeting, Tasting
Speaker 1: with our ice cream scientists and chefs, NonStop. However, six
Speaker 1: o'clock pop stop, time with my son, playing Legos, cuddle
Speaker 1: with mommy, wonderful time until bedtime with him, and of
Speaker 1: course we have morning time together to I've learned now
Speaker 1: to put my phone down for an hour from morning
Speaker 1: time with him. So what do you eat? Do you cook?
Speaker 1: Are you in the kitchen? Are you a farmer's market?
Speaker 1: You go there, you shop, You do everything to the
Speaker 1: farmer's market about three times a year. Well that's not bad.
Speaker 1: Who cooks in the house. My mom cooks, my man cooks.
Speaker 1: I'm not the cook, but I am the queen of
Speaker 1: the leftovers. I know how to take something from two
Speaker 1: days ago. Of course you do, and mix that up
Speaker 1: and oh my gosh, it's amazing. So I'm the leftover
Speaker 1: chef and the table chef. So if something is nasty
Speaker 1: in a restaurant, not yours, because yours are amazing. But
Speaker 1: you know, a little taste is a little something. I
Speaker 1: tell the waiter. Can have a little soy sauce, can
Speaker 1: have some honey, can have some sarracha. And yeah, my
Speaker 1: son's favorite cartoon is About to Tui, which touches my
Speaker 1: heart being a foodie, isn't it amazing? Unbelievable? So our
Speaker 1: home thing is if something is bland, he goes, Mama,
Speaker 1: can you rat to tat that? Mama rat to tat it?
Speaker 1: Oh my god, we could go on and on. First
Speaker 1: of all, I wanna. I want to thank you for
Speaker 1: all the time you've given me, and it's incredible what
Speaker 1: you've done. You are really a model for every young
Speaker 1: woman out there. And I don't mean just a model,
Speaker 1: I mean a real model of life, model of how
Speaker 1: do you want to be in life, and how respectful
Speaker 1: and kind you are, and you have so much empathy
Speaker 1: and I really appreciate the time. And I need some
Speaker 1: ice cream. So I'm gonna give you your pr person
Speaker 1: my address. I will shift you some ice cream on
Speaker 1: some drying allergic to nothing, So whatever you want to
Speaker 1: ship me, I will have. You can put whatever surprise
Speaker 1: in there. I will take it gladly. Alrighty well, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna ship you ice cream, and I'm going to give
Speaker 1: you a scorecard so you can let me know what
Speaker 1: to do because and never stops, R and D never stopped.
Speaker 1: I would do that, and I would like you to
Speaker 1: read that at it's not at three o'clock in the
Speaker 1: morning on a normal day. Thanks very much for listening
Speaker 1: to four Courses with Jeffreys and Caring a production of
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio and Corner Table Entertainment. Our executive producer
Speaker 1: is Chris of her hasiotis four Courses, is produced, edited
Speaker 1: and mixed by Jonathan Hawes Dressler. Our research is conducted
Speaker 1: by Jesselyn Shields. This episode was engineered by Cibet Party,
Speaker 1: Joe Tis Dahl and Louis Belane Melton. Our talent booking
Speaker 1: is by Pamela Bauer at Dogtown Talent and special thanks
Speaker 1: to our entire team, Margaret Scarion, Jared Keller, Tara Halper
Speaker 1: and Molly Swanson, without whom this would not have come together.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the i
Speaker 1: heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.