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Speaker 1: to she Pivots. I'm your host. Emily Tish Sussman. I
Speaker 1: had left my decade long political career in DC after
Speaker 1: having my first two kids during the Trump presidency, and
Speaker 1: felt burnt out after having my third child, spending a
Speaker 1: year in lockdown with my family, and another tough and
Speaker 1: exhausting election. I began to find solace in the stories
Speaker 1: of women who had made these big career decisions and
Speaker 1: then found success and happiness and their change. I began
Speaker 1: to realize that so many women had pivoted due to
Speaker 1: personal reasons, and they still found success through non traditional paths.
Speaker 1: This new show celebrates these stories, and I'm so excited
Speaker 1: to bring them to you with she Pivots. She was
Speaker 1: on track to become one of the youngest black female
Speaker 1: editor in chiefs in history when she decided to leave
Speaker 1: it all behind due to burnout at just twenty five.
Speaker 1: Ty Beauchamp left behind her booming career in fashion publishing
Speaker 1: to pursue things that fed her mind. In spirit, she
Speaker 1: turned her burnout into one of her many pivots. Now
Speaker 1: over twenty years later, she divides her attention between Thie
Speaker 1: Life Media and Brown Girl Jane. So what exactly led
Speaker 1: to Ty's burnout and how did she turn it into
Speaker 1: the biggest pivot of her life. So justice at the stage.
Speaker 1: What is your name and what do you do? My
Speaker 1: name is ty Beauchamp and what do I do? I
Speaker 1: do a lot of things. I think first and foremost,
Speaker 1: I try and empower and inspire women. And in terms
Speaker 1: of titles, one of the co founders of Brown Girl,
Speaker 1: Jane founder of Thai Life Media, I'm a host, I'm
Speaker 1: a producer. Yeah. So that's actually not the preferred way
Speaker 1: that you like to be introduced or introduce yourself to people.
Speaker 1: You like to ask people who are you? Yeah, you see,
Speaker 1: I was really uncomfortable when you asked me. I was like,
Speaker 1: what do I do? Yeah? I think it's a it's
Speaker 1: you know, we live in a society where, you know,
Speaker 1: we're constantly asked what we do, and we are now
Speaker 1: about to enter you know what. Social scientists and anthropologists
Speaker 1: are deeming the next global epidemic of loneliness. And I
Speaker 1: think that's because we don't connect humanly as humans and
Speaker 1: ask who you are and really, how is your spirit?
Speaker 1: How is your heart? You know, where are you in
Speaker 1: your body and in your and so I don't know
Speaker 1: it just it just makes sense to me. It makes
Speaker 1: sense to me. And I also I think I'm a
Speaker 1: person who is intentional about wanting to see people, and
Speaker 1: so it feels right. But I think I've always felt
Speaker 1: something within me that felt different. So I think I
Speaker 1: always just had this thing, that thing of wanting to
Speaker 1: understand people, wanting to connect with people in a genuine way.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I'm just very curious about who we are,
Speaker 1: especially as we evolve, and especially as becoming more seasoned
Speaker 1: woman myself. I'm just really curious to understand who people
Speaker 1: are and want them to feel like their best selves, Like,
Speaker 1: how do we inspire, empower them and equip people, like,
Speaker 1: because people need tangible things to be their best selves.
Speaker 1: To really understand who Tie is and the catalyst for
Speaker 1: her pivot, we have to go back to when Tie
Speaker 1: was just out of college, coming off an internship at
Speaker 1: Good Housekeeping. My first job out of college when I
Speaker 1: was twenty two was at Oprah magazine. So I started
Speaker 1: a magazine publishing actually while I was in college because
Speaker 1: I was able to intern quite a bit. So I
Speaker 1: started publishing when I was twenty years old, So that
Speaker 1: was publishing. The goal was the goal to be the
Speaker 1: yashion editor in Yes, Yes, that was definitely the goal.
Speaker 1: Then when I started, you know, at in publishing, I
Speaker 1: definitely thought I was on pace to become an editor
Speaker 1: in chief, and I thought I would probably have that
Speaker 1: job for the rest of my life while doing some
Speaker 1: other things. I always thought entrepreneurially, so I always thought
Speaker 1: about creating, but I saw that as like that, that's it,
Speaker 1: that's the pinnacle. And Ty had a solid foundation. She
Speaker 1: had previously worked at magazines like the Oprah Magazine, Harper's Bizarre,
Speaker 1: and more. This gave her the experience she needed to
Speaker 1: truly launch into her dream career and become that editor
Speaker 1: she had always imagined. At the time, I had become
Speaker 1: the beauty director at seventeen magazine, and I was twenty
Speaker 1: five years old, and I was the first African American
Speaker 1: and youngest in history or in recent history at that
Speaker 1: time to have this title. So by all accounts outward
Speaker 1: looking in you know, I'm this, you know, young vibrant
Speaker 1: girl about town, live in my sex in the city, life,
Speaker 1: my best life, and had this incredible job with incredible
Speaker 1: access and with incredible excess. Also quite frankly at the time,
Speaker 1: and I remember going into these spaces and having great
Speaker 1: conversations with some people and being with others who were
Speaker 1: just like caught up in their own personal matrix and
Speaker 1: no judgment now because I'm on a different side, you know,
Speaker 1: and just feeling like, you know, how do I juxtapose
Speaker 1: this to the life that I was born into, as
Speaker 1: you know, a child born to young parents in Newark,
Speaker 1: New Jersey. How do I juxtapose this to the fact
Speaker 1: that my parents, my mom and my stepdad are educators
Speaker 1: in Newark, New Jersey, and I'm living this incredible life
Speaker 1: of excess, but also knowing that my parents have kids
Speaker 1: at our house often, and like, what does that look like?
Speaker 1: And so I started to really ask myself, like the
Speaker 1: title that people see isn't really like what I'm feeling
Speaker 1: on my innermost self. I you know, started my career
Speaker 1: as a magazine editor and had the amazing fortune of
Speaker 1: working on incredible titles like Oh, the Oprah Magazine, Harper's Bizarre,
Speaker 1: A Good Housekeeping, where my mentor at the time was
Speaker 1: editor in chief, and went on to work for seventeen
Speaker 1: and by Vixen and Styles. So I've had this incredible
Speaker 1: but I think I started to question a lot and
Speaker 1: have some of these deeper questions in a more intimate
Speaker 1: way and in mindful way for myself when I was
Speaker 1: realizing that I was being defined by the title that
Speaker 1: was assigned to me for my job and didn't always
Speaker 1: feel like I had alignment within my spirit self and
Speaker 1: my consciousness of how I reconciled that title in the
Speaker 1: public world. I feel like for myself when I was
Speaker 1: at twenty five, twenty six. You know, for many I
Speaker 1: think young women of our generation, like us, we were
Speaker 1: so career focused that getting to the dream job for me,
Speaker 1: I didn't get there, by the way, until I was
Speaker 1: like thirty five, and then I lost it because I
Speaker 1: three kids in three years and couldn't do it. But
Speaker 1: you know, getting to that dream job at twenty five
Speaker 1: seems so incredible that I think I would have done
Speaker 1: anything to keep it, and I would have contorted myself
Speaker 1: to be able to do it because it was a
Speaker 1: different mindset. And now we talk about we talk about burnout,
Speaker 1: we talk about self care, we talk about mentalth. We
Speaker 1: didn't talk about it then. So how did you come
Speaker 1: to that realization in that moment that it just you
Speaker 1: were at the height, but it just wasn't for you.
Speaker 1: The burnout. Burnout not just to figure of speech anymore.
Speaker 1: It's actually been declared a legitimate medical diagnosis by the
Speaker 1: World Health Organization. It is officially defined as a syndrome,
Speaker 1: a syndrome resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not
Speaker 1: been successfully managed. Burnout is when the treadmill keeps going
Speaker 1: but the dopamine runs out, so you just keep running
Speaker 1: even though it doesn't feel good anymore. I mean, and
Speaker 1: I talked about it being burnout, it was burnout for me.
Speaker 1: It was burnout, and then trying to reconcile what was
Speaker 1: happening as a result of the burnout, because here here's
Speaker 1: the thing. Burnout is both mental, spiritual, emotional, and it
Speaker 1: can also obviously manifest itself physically, right, And so as
Speaker 1: I was experiencing this burnout, I was emotionally drained. I
Speaker 1: was intellectually drained, right because I was working, and I
Speaker 1: was emotionally drained like and then the spiritual, like, the
Speaker 1: spiritual side of me was just like, this is not it,
Speaker 1: this is not it. And there were pieces of me
Speaker 1: that wanted to contort and say I'm gonna make this
Speaker 1: happen by any means necessary. And then when the burnout
Speaker 1: touched my spirit in such a way where I felt
Speaker 1: like it wasn't going to be to my greater good.
Speaker 1: And then also I had this real kind of crazy
Speaker 1: moment because I was there one moment. Yeah, there was
Speaker 1: this one really crazy moment. So, I mean, I was
Speaker 1: a beauty editor, so you know, it's like a journalist obviously,
Speaker 1: because you have journalists and integrity, but you're you're also
Speaker 1: playing with makeup and talking to people about science. And
Speaker 1: it was fun work, you know, go on on photo shoots.
Speaker 1: It was fun work. It was not supposed to be crazy.
Speaker 1: It was not supposed to be that. Between all of
Speaker 1: the brands and products samples, Ty began to realize that
Speaker 1: her ability to impact someone's life might lie beyond seventeen.
Speaker 1: During her tenure, she had the idea to put real girls,
Speaker 1: the influencers of their day, next to their models and actresses,
Speaker 1: and learned an unlikely lesson with one of those women.
Speaker 1: My idea for the beauty pages, and what our then
Speaker 1: etter in chief did is that we put real girls
Speaker 1: on the pages next to models, actresses and all the above.
Speaker 1: So anyway, real girl was and her name was Caroline Oh.
Speaker 1: Caroline Oh. She was a student at FIT. If you're listening, Caroline,
Speaker 1: hit me up because I would love to reconnect with you.
Speaker 1: But she came into my office and she said I
Speaker 1: changed her life by sending her to the dermatologist. And
Speaker 1: I thought to myself and again juxtaposing that with the
Speaker 1: fact that my parents, as educators, had kids at our
Speaker 1: house all the time, and I'm thinking, what could I
Speaker 1: do to change these kids live? If I could do
Speaker 1: that for Caroline, you know, what else could I do substantively?
Speaker 1: And then I started to think, like, I've done and
Speaker 1: had these quote unquote achievements professionally, but it's so far
Speaker 1: removed from actually having the type of, you know, grassroots
Speaker 1: connected impact that I wanted. And my spirit spoke to
Speaker 1: me and I was like, I'm out, And you know,
Speaker 1: it was hard. It was a very difficult decision because
Speaker 1: I know that there were a lot of people at
Speaker 1: Hirst believing in me and really investing in me, as
Speaker 1: they had all of my career. But I knew that
Speaker 1: my emotional wellbeing, my mental wellbeing, my physical wellbeing, especially
Speaker 1: my spiritual wellbeing, was at stake, and so I was
Speaker 1: out well being the first black beauty editor I imagine
Speaker 1: that means that you probably didn't have a lot of peers.
Speaker 1: Do you think that contributed to the burnout. I had
Speaker 1: a couple of peers, not very many. Tia Williams, who's
Speaker 1: an incredible writer and author, Tasha Turner who also is
Speaker 1: a journalist. Mickey Taylor, who was more seasoned. There were
Speaker 1: just a few of us. But we didn't talk honestly
Speaker 1: about these things because you didn't speak about it because
Speaker 1: you were just glad to in the room number one.
Speaker 1: I was acutely aware that though I was in the room,
Speaker 1: the room was not necessarily built or intended for me.
Speaker 1: I was not white, I was not blonde. I was
Speaker 1: not the daughter or the niece of someone who had
Speaker 1: an affiliation to the company. There was no nepotism. So
Speaker 1: when I entered these spaces, I held back parts of
Speaker 1: me that I thought wouldn't fit, And though conflicted in
Speaker 1: doing so, I had learned to compartmentalize. And so we're
Speaker 1: constantly trying to teach ourselves to be humbled and grateful
Speaker 1: for the experience, but sometimes to the detriment of what
Speaker 1: our truth is. So we didn't have those conversations. I mean,
Speaker 1: we talked about like the latest Manolo's, but we certainly
Speaker 1: were not having those conversations at the time. You bring
Speaker 1: up a really good point that it is possible to
Speaker 1: have burnout in something you love. For sure, I mean
Speaker 1: absolutely well, And I think that that just goes back
Speaker 1: to what I am so grateful for today, you know, one,
Speaker 1: with the work that I do with Brown Girl Jane
Speaker 1: and the work that I do with mourning mindset, and
Speaker 1: just it is okay to feel, you know, And I
Speaker 1: think we're living in a time where there is a
Speaker 1: new global consciousness of what wellness looks like, a celebration
Speaker 1: of individuality around it. So absolutely you can have burnout
Speaker 1: in something that you love, and sometimes that's just another
Speaker 1: part of you saying to you, look at me, restore me,
Speaker 1: you know, support me. And so, if you're experiencing it intellectually,
Speaker 1: what is your creative side saying to you? If you're
Speaker 1: experiencing emotionally, what is your spirit side saying to you?
Speaker 1: And so I think, yeah, they're not mutually exclusive at all.
Speaker 1: I definitely felt that when I step back from my
Speaker 1: political career because of having three kids so close in age,
Speaker 1: that I loved you. I thrived off of it. It
Speaker 1: was my identity. I felt like I was doing good
Speaker 1: work that helped people's lives, and so I think it
Speaker 1: made it harder for me to accept that I was
Speaker 1: burnt out from it and that I wasn't able to
Speaker 1: continue doing the work at the level I wanted to do.
Speaker 1: It's would actually I had to rethink the whole thing.
Speaker 1: I couldn't I couldn't keep doing it, and so it's
Speaker 1: still hard for me to not be to not have
Speaker 1: that same mindset that I had because when I stepped
Speaker 1: back from the political career, I didn't know what a
Speaker 1: next step could look like. Did you feel like you
Speaker 1: knew where you wanted to go when you step back
Speaker 1: from the editor job? Not at all? And I actually
Speaker 1: and thank you for sharing and for being so transparent
Speaker 1: about that, because I think so many of us do
Speaker 1: wrestle with knowing that it's time to go somewhere, but
Speaker 1: not knowing exactly how to get where we want to go. Now, again,
Speaker 1: remember what I did know that I wanted to do
Speaker 1: is that there was this spiritual side and what ultimately
Speaker 1: equated for me philanthropic work that I wanted to do.
Speaker 1: So I knew somewhat of the direction I wanted to
Speaker 1: go into, so I spoke with my mentor and I
Speaker 1: ended up becoming a consultant to his family foundation, where
Speaker 1: I did very different works, starting a program in Newark,
Speaker 1: New Jersey and developing partnerships with organizations like Prudential and
Speaker 1: others and what have you, in order to support high
Speaker 1: school kids on their job writing a journey. At any rate,
Speaker 1: you know, doing that was a step in the right direction.
Speaker 1: But I did not plan to start a business. I
Speaker 1: did not plan to become a consultant outside of that.
Speaker 1: I only thought I was going to do it for
Speaker 1: one year. But what I was open to, and this
Speaker 1: is what I think is really critical about pivoting. When
Speaker 1: we talk about the idea of pivoting to go from
Speaker 1: one thing that can seem super drastic or different to
Speaker 1: another is get to that pivot, and if you're not
Speaker 1: certain about it, lean into that very heavily and ask, like,
Speaker 1: what is being taught to you there, Like what other
Speaker 1: sides of you have you not tapped into that you
Speaker 1: really want to tap into more, And how can you
Speaker 1: bridge the gap between what you were doing historically. I
Speaker 1: don't want to oversimplify it, but I think oftentimes we
Speaker 1: become paralyzed because we're so concerned with what the next
Speaker 1: move looks like, and we're also comparing it to what
Speaker 1: the previous move looked like. I remember very consciously saying,
Speaker 1: I'm going from this tower of an office to a
Speaker 1: little cubicle in this comprehensive high school. I had to
Speaker 1: lose my attachment to that identity. We talked about it
Speaker 1: at the beginning like this title. So all of that
Speaker 1: exercise really ultimately led me here right ultimately knowing that
Speaker 1: I wanted to create and build something as I did
Speaker 1: with the job writing a training program or the magazines,
Speaker 1: to impact and elevate women and for them to feel spiritually, emotionally,
Speaker 1: professionally well and healthy, and so looks it's working well.
Speaker 1: I think that's part what's so interesting about this moment
Speaker 1: that we're in culturally right now. The things that tied
Speaker 1: you down now feel like it's all kind of blown up,
Speaker 1: but there might be incredible things that come out, and
Speaker 1: so you free yourself from what had been holding you
Speaker 1: before to explore those sides. Did you feel like you
Speaker 1: were able to tap into the thing that you were
Speaker 1: reaching for in that moment with that first job that
Speaker 1: you took after the magazines or did it was it?
Speaker 1: Did it come after that? Now? I think I tapped
Speaker 1: into it, like very very quickly. You know. I've always,
Speaker 1: like I said, my family are all educators, and so
Speaker 1: I've always loved school and education and teaching and the
Speaker 1: idea of teaching and learning. And I was given some license,
Speaker 1: in some leeway in my new role to carve out
Speaker 1: what that meant for me. And so that tapped into
Speaker 1: what I had done historically, because I've always worked on
Speaker 1: launches or relaunches, and so it was always about building.
Speaker 1: And then I got a call to come back into
Speaker 1: being editor in chief for Vibe Vixen magazine, and I
Speaker 1: was able to when I went in to talk about
Speaker 1: this role connect immediately that I wanted it to have
Speaker 1: this less of a hierarchical kind of like dissemination of
Speaker 1: information in this ground swell. And this was in two
Speaker 1: thousand and six or two thousand and seven, and that's
Speaker 1: how that magazine then was rebirth, you know, with this
Speaker 1: consciousness of connection to community while also being this editorial
Speaker 1: inspiring platform. Do you think that was the beginning of
Speaker 1: working philanthropy into the different businesses that you've had and
Speaker 1: where did you go from the editor in chief of
Speaker 1: Vibe Vixen. Yes, to answer your first question, I do
Speaker 1: think that it was definitely a catalyst for a lot
Speaker 1: of things, a philanthropic role. I was only in corporate
Speaker 1: really for five years of my career. I definitely know
Speaker 1: that it was like an entry point for me because
Speaker 1: it helped me to tap into what I knew about
Speaker 1: building creative spaces as an editor and working on these
Speaker 1: launches relaunches. It also taught me business because I was
Speaker 1: working with my mentor, Raye Chambers, so I worked directly
Speaker 1: with him for eight years, so I was able to
Speaker 1: learn business as well with him, and then I was
Speaker 1: able to apply that when I was always consulting with
Speaker 1: the Family Foundation, and so even when I became an editor,
Speaker 1: I went that was the beginning of my entrepreneurial thing.
Speaker 1: I said to the magazine, I can come in three
Speaker 1: days a week and I continue my consulting work with
Speaker 1: the Foundation in New York, so that way I could
Speaker 1: stay connected to the young people in order to inform
Speaker 1: the content that we were then designing at the magazine.
Speaker 1: And so when the magazine folded, I continued to consult
Speaker 1: and I continue to consult with that with the foundation,
Speaker 1: but then I also took on additional clients and you
Speaker 1: know p andngs and what have you around brand narrative
Speaker 1: and brand storytelling. And then that is what jump started
Speaker 1: my television career because as I was doing a lot
Speaker 1: of this brand consulting work with beauty, entertainment media and
Speaker 1: fashion brands, Procter and Gamble invited me to become a
Speaker 1: spokesperson for them. So then I became more visual, but
Speaker 1: I was always producing the content behind the scenes too,
Speaker 1: which a lot of people didn't realize. And love both
Speaker 1: of them, yeah, so it definitely was a gateway for me.
Speaker 1: It helped me to understand that, you know, business doesn't
Speaker 1: have to be this space that is you know, unhealthy
Speaker 1: and toxic and unkind and not fair. And so those
Speaker 1: are all principles and values that I carry with me now.
Speaker 1: As you know, founder of Morning Mindset and Thigh Life
Speaker 1: Media and co founder of Brown Girl Jane. It's it's
Speaker 1: you can do well and do good. Tired of ads
Speaker 1: interrupting your gripping investigations. Good news, AD free listening on
Speaker 1: Amazon Music is included with your Prime membership. Ads shouldn't
Speaker 1: be the scariest thing about true crime. Just head to
Speaker 1: Amazon dot com slash ad Free true Crime to catch
Speaker 1: up on the latest episodes without the ad shows a
Speaker 1: free for print descriptions. Some shows me have that ready
Speaker 1: to disrupt your industry without disrupting your flow. The LEV
Speaker 1: Evening NBA program at Santa Clara University could be the
Speaker 1: perfect fit. The Lev School of Business is where you'll
Speaker 1: reach new heights without compromising your current career. You'll meet
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Speaker 1: Lev's campus in the very heart of Silicon Valley, where
Speaker 1: innovation and creativity thrive. Join Silicon Valley's premiere part time
Speaker 1: MBA program for working professionals. Search Levy Evening MBA to
Speaker 1: discover more. Her philosophy on do good and do well
Speaker 1: is evident in her work with Thai Life Media. I
Speaker 1: had just met Ti when she created Thaie Life Media,
Speaker 1: and I remember being so impressed. Here was this woman
Speaker 1: who had already done one hundred different things now creating
Speaker 1: new opportunities for herself and for others. Thaie Life Media
Speaker 1: is a multi brand agency focused on helping to tell
Speaker 1: stories and help brands to be energized around community and
Speaker 1: telling those stories as a part of Thaie Life Media.
Speaker 1: This whole new venture has just started to take off
Speaker 1: called Morning Mindset with Thie. It's a daily motivational, inspirational,
Speaker 1: productivity conversation I like to have every single morning on
Speaker 1: IG at six fifteen ampst. And we also had an
Speaker 1: experience so well have the Morning Mindset with Ti Hiken
Speaker 1: experience and that right now is a monthly series that
Speaker 1: is taking place here in LA but also traveling now
Speaker 1: and partnering with organizations and corporations to help galvanize women
Speaker 1: around mindset. Good morning, Happy Monday. Everyone, Welcome to Morning
Speaker 1: Mindset with Thie. This is where we come together and
Speaker 1: we set our hearts, our intentions on being great for
Speaker 1: the day. And then thirdly, I have Brown Girl Jane
Speaker 1: and I'm a co founder of Brown Girl Jane and
Speaker 1: I am chief brand Officer at Brown Girl Jane. And
Speaker 1: Brown Girl Jane is a vegan beauty and wellness brand
Speaker 1: that is there to elevate your mood and create anti
Speaker 1: stress solutions for your every day and we were founded
Speaker 1: by myself and my co founders Malika Nia Jones, who
Speaker 1: are biological sisters, were all Spelman sisters, and we are
Speaker 1: here to change the face of wellness. How did you
Speaker 1: connect with them and decide to launch this brand together?
Speaker 1: So Malika and I went to college together. Her sister, Nia,
Speaker 1: also went to Spelman College, but not at the same time,
Speaker 1: so I knew Malika. We were reconnected actually through another
Speaker 1: Spellman's sister who Malika. Nia had started to plan out
Speaker 1: this idea for this brand and they were like, you know,
Speaker 1: we really do want another co founder. And Malika and
Speaker 1: I got together. We had a couple of meetings, we
Speaker 1: talked a little bit. I was actually at this crossroads.
Speaker 1: This was before COVID, right before COVID started. We had
Speaker 1: started having conversations about six months before, and I was
Speaker 1: really in this place of transition. I was between New
Speaker 1: York and LA At the time, I was producing and
Speaker 1: hosting a travel show, so that was traveling like crazy,
Speaker 1: and I was like, I really wanted to put my
Speaker 1: teeth into something. I really wanted to sink my teeth
Speaker 1: and see like what we could do to build something new,
Speaker 1: but something tangible. See, the other thing about my other
Speaker 1: businesses is that it's either a service oriented business or
Speaker 1: it's a brand individual oriented business. So it requires me
Speaker 1: a physically, and I've always just been really curious, since
Speaker 1: my beauty editor day is about products, I've always envisioned
Speaker 1: going into product and probably multiple times. First and foremost,
Speaker 1: we share values. We share enthusiasm for celebrating and honoring
Speaker 1: black women. We saw a mutual white between us, a
Speaker 1: mutual white space where you know, wellness solutions for women
Speaker 1: as a whole may be talked about for black and
Speaker 1: brown women, the conversation around wellness just isn't there. I
Speaker 1: was also experiencing this, So timing was all there, and
Speaker 1: I was also very intentional about wanting partnership in my
Speaker 1: next venture. I've been a solopreneur for you know, at
Speaker 1: that point thirteen years and now it's fourteen years, sixteen
Speaker 1: years now, and I was, you know, exhausted of doing
Speaker 1: it on my own. You know, I'm still not married yet,
Speaker 1: and so being a single woman, unmarried single woman, I
Speaker 1: just you know, had started to think about like partnership
Speaker 1: all the way around, and so I was really excited
Speaker 1: to partner with them. Yeah, but so you did launch
Speaker 1: the business just as Covid was hitting literally staying at
Speaker 1: a girlfriend's house on her couch when COVID hit because
Speaker 1: I had moved my stuff out of my place here
Speaker 1: in LA, had gone back to New York because I
Speaker 1: was shooting a travel show and I ended up in
Speaker 1: New York for like seven weeks, and then I wasn't
Speaker 1: sure whether I was coming back to LA to move
Speaker 1: or just coming back for work. So it was it
Speaker 1: was crazy. All this time, Malika, me and I are
Speaker 1: having conversations about, like, you know, when I'm coming on
Speaker 1: in the timeline, I just really knew that there was
Speaker 1: so much alignment around, you know, what we could do,
Speaker 1: and wanting to start a product was always something and
Speaker 1: just partnership is just key, you know. And for me,
Speaker 1: I realized that having partnership in life and in work
Speaker 1: is a good thing, you know, and you can still
Speaker 1: be badass at the same time, I think, you know,
Speaker 1: we have to also be intentional about how we navigate
Speaker 1: and manage the narrative around us having to do it
Speaker 1: all and celebrating that all the time. You know, you
Speaker 1: can still be a feminist and woman woman is and
Speaker 1: still want support and so partnership I think is really
Speaker 1: key for me at this juncture and understanding that for myself,
Speaker 1: ties intend to focus on partnership expanded beyond her business
Speaker 1: and her relationships as she began to think about freezing
Speaker 1: her eggs. She was in her mid thirties, and, like
Speaker 1: so many women, had focused on her career so much
Speaker 1: that she hadn't spent too much time thinking about it. So,
Speaker 1: just like with tie life media, she knew that if
Speaker 1: she wanted something, she'd have to create it for herself.
Speaker 1: I will tell you, up until that point, I didn't
Speaker 1: think about it hardly ever, And that's what I want,
Speaker 1: you know, and hope young women will ascertain from me
Speaker 1: sharing so much is you know, I waited until I
Speaker 1: was thirty three to actually be like, oh, yeah, I
Speaker 1: freeze my eggs. And then even after I froze my eggs,
Speaker 1: I was like, oh I froze my eggs. I froze
Speaker 1: my eggs. And you know, it wasn't really until recently
Speaker 1: where I am at a place where I'm like, I
Speaker 1: really am ready to lean into those other aspects of
Speaker 1: my life. And I think young women having this information
Speaker 1: and knowledge from all different aspects and understandings is so
Speaker 1: healthy so that you can think about it. And I
Speaker 1: just don't know. I when I was at age, I
Speaker 1: was thinking about a lot of things, and so I
Speaker 1: feel like I got to thirty five and froze the
Speaker 1: eggs because it's like, oh, yeah, this sounds like a
Speaker 1: great idea, and it's insurance, and I need insurance, and
Speaker 1: that's how I look at it as insurance. I still
Speaker 1: haven't decided if I would ever have a family on
Speaker 1: my own, or even if I'll need the eggs. I
Speaker 1: just think it's healthy that truths come out and women
Speaker 1: have an option to think differently for themselves, and also
Speaker 1: great that we have options now, yeah, that we can
Speaker 1: think about it. I mean that was really, honestly the
Speaker 1: purpose of this whole show, that trying to open up
Speaker 1: the curtain of how we factor in our personal decisions
Speaker 1: into our professional narratives. And so in that sense, do
Speaker 1: the personal and professional factor at the same time for
Speaker 1: you or do they kind of take turns. I am
Speaker 1: revisiting them right now in real time, because I was
Speaker 1: told that professional has always taken priority. I don't want
Speaker 1: that to be the case. I'm also at a place
Speaker 1: where this is not what I desire. I want to
Speaker 1: build businesses. I want to continue to impact the world,
Speaker 1: but I want to do so as if I'm a
Speaker 1: forty four year old woman who has worked her ass
Speaker 1: off and also doesn't need to work at that pace anymore,
Speaker 1: and also knows like my genius and my ability to
Speaker 1: do operates at a higher frequency, and I want to
Speaker 1: that's where I want to be, and I want to
Speaker 1: spend more time investing in the areas where I haven't
Speaker 1: invested as much. And because I have partners and great teams,
Speaker 1: two shout out to my team members that then it
Speaker 1: would take turns. But I think, you know, again, it's
Speaker 1: about the options, and I don't feel that overwhelming sense
Speaker 1: of you know, joy and saying I'm doing all the
Speaker 1: things anymore. Hearing you say that you want to make
Speaker 1: more space for the personal, because right now, at the
Speaker 1: place that I am in my life right now with
Speaker 1: three toddlers, I worry about the kind of judgment that
Speaker 1: I get or would get if I was with people
Speaker 1: who weren't in a similarly situated position. So to hear
Speaker 1: you say that, just as a professional woman, that you
Speaker 1: also want to prioritize that personal and it makes me
Speaker 1: feel more comfortable engaging in business in that way. Do
Speaker 1: you find that with your business partners, with the people
Speaker 1: that you work with now for sure, A lot of
Speaker 1: our team or West Coast bas so, we all flew
Speaker 1: in because we launched this business during COVID and one
Speaker 1: of our team members is works on our product development
Speaker 1: and her son is with her. He came to dinner
Speaker 1: and that's fine. I think, you know, Malika is a
Speaker 1: mother of three. I think that that's also what makes
Speaker 1: what we're building so dynamic because we have this insight
Speaker 1: and intel. I mean, you know, it's the real identity
Speaker 1: and real sense of what and who we are. We
Speaker 1: want to shift narratives around what wellness looks like. If
Speaker 1: we don't have insight in data points as a brand
Speaker 1: and as a business of what that actually looks and
Speaker 1: feels like, how can we be a solution? Right? And
Speaker 1: so us having you know, women with dynamic experiences as
Speaker 1: a beauty and wellness brand, supporting women with dynamic experiences
Speaker 1: is essential. Well, it's clearly working and connecting because even
Speaker 1: though you launched a beauty brand during COVID, it took off.
Speaker 1: You had huge success. Congratulations from the beginning, big success
Speaker 1: just with the brand and also with the brown Girl pledge.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, the Brown Girl swap was a call to
Speaker 1: action that is still very much alive. Continue it hashtag
Speaker 1: brown Girl Swap on Instagram, where we challenged everyone to
Speaker 1: give up five of their everyday beauty and wellness brands
Speaker 1: for brands owned by black and brown women. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: been incredible. I think well wellness, I think resonates with everyone.
Speaker 1: You know, even though our brand focuses and tells and
Speaker 1: narratives of centering, you know, multicultural women, all women and
Speaker 1: even men love our brand. And we love that because
Speaker 1: the conversation around wellness is never any more relevant than
Speaker 1: now and during COVID or on the heels of COVID,
Speaker 1: we were voted Refinery twenty nine Beauty Innovator of the Year.
Speaker 1: In twenty twenty, Thank you Refinery. We were voted to
Speaker 1: wwd's Wellness Power Player List fifty top power players along
Speaker 1: the likes of some major major brands. So we're deeply humble.
Speaker 1: We have more than thirty five plus billion and media impressions.
Speaker 1: We launched the Black Beauty and Wellness Summit, wanting to
Speaker 1: elevate conversations around what it means to be a black
Speaker 1: woman entrepreneur on the heels of everything that was happening
Speaker 1: during the summer of twenty twenty with George Floyd and
Speaker 1: wanting to also be a part of the solution that
Speaker 1: we know that the way that we're going to really
Speaker 1: you know, close this racial you know, economic divide is
Speaker 1: through economic opportunity. And so when you support black women businesses,
Speaker 1: what you're in fact doing is actually building community and
Speaker 1: helping society to advance. And we have a grant initiative
Speaker 1: with Shame Moisture and Unilever where we've granted four hundred
Speaker 1: and five plus thousand dollars to twenty eight black women
Speaker 1: owned businesses. In that moment in twenty twenty, when you
Speaker 1: launched it, I felt like every brand was crawling all
Speaker 1: over tripping all over themselves trying to either highlight what
Speaker 1: they had done for the black community, their black staff,
Speaker 1: and a lot of promises were made. How do you
Speaker 1: feel like that looks two years later? It was in
Speaker 1: a it was at a conference a couple of weeks ago,
Speaker 1: and this conversation came on. Performative marketing has always been there.
Speaker 1: It's always been asn't you know someone who has spent
Speaker 1: twenty plus years in the media industry. Unfortunately a lot
Speaker 1: of things are promised and very little happens. Any change
Speaker 1: that we're going to see, any institutionalized change that we're
Speaker 1: going to see, cannot happen seasonally. It cannot it cannot
Speaker 1: happen during certain months, only February being one of them,
Speaker 1: or you know, it can't happen seasonally. This is an
Speaker 1: ongoing thing, and so unfortunately, you know, as someone who
Speaker 1: knows the space and also as someone who runs a
Speaker 1: business that is deeply connected to community three hundred and
Speaker 1: sixty five days a year, both Brown Girl Jane and
Speaker 1: Anti Life Media, you know, the way that any anything
Speaker 1: is really going to happen on a consistent basis requires
Speaker 1: consistent investment, consistent awareness, you know, changing your hiring practices.
Speaker 1: So how do I think we've measured up. I haven't
Speaker 1: done a case by case report. I think some people
Speaker 1: have done extremely well. We've seen some institutional advancements in
Speaker 1: some place and in others perhaps a little less. When
Speaker 1: you were talking, when I started thinking about I started thinking, yeah,
Speaker 1: what am I doing? How can I what can I
Speaker 1: do in my own position? So I love the swap
Speaker 1: because I think it feels incredibly tangible and doable. Five
Speaker 1: seems like a good amount of products we're all thinking
Speaker 1: about using our consumer spending, I think more than we
Speaker 1: ever have. So being intentional in that way I think
Speaker 1: feels really very tangible and realistic and I think can
Speaker 1: also make a big impact. I mean it's a huge category. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a massive category. I mean US and global just
Speaker 1: it's it's ridiculous. But the thing is that the consciousness
Speaker 1: has to be seated there and consistently watering. And I
Speaker 1: also say, like from a philanthropic standpoint, I encourage people like, whatever,
Speaker 1: whatever your cause is, your cause doesn't have to be
Speaker 1: the same thing as mine. I do think that there
Speaker 1: is wonderful when there is unity and you know, collective
Speaker 1: kind of like movement and support. But whatever you know
Speaker 1: resonates with you, Because when it resonates with you, that's
Speaker 1: when you'll commit. That's when it won't seem like a chore.
Speaker 1: And can you explain the philanthropic piece of your business now? Absolutely? So.
Speaker 1: We actually we haven't been public about it, but we've
Speaker 1: launched our Brown Girl Jane Foundation, and so we're on
Speaker 1: a mission to really advance the wellness of black and
Speaker 1: brown women and multicultural women here in the US to start,
Speaker 1: but we're definitely thinking global, but you know, a percentage
Speaker 1: of all of our proceeds go to support organizations that
Speaker 1: either work with black and brown women around health and
Speaker 1: wellness or advocacy around cannabis and the plant. Because our
Speaker 1: first collection harnessed the power of CBD, we are also
Speaker 1: working on something that will provide more tangible resource to
Speaker 1: black and brown women in order to support their mental
Speaker 1: health and wellness. That's all I'll say. Just know, some
Speaker 1: really great announcements are coming down the pipe. So what
Speaker 1: is something I asked this of all of my guests,
Speaker 1: and I'm excited to hear your answer. What is something
Speaker 1: that at the time you thought felt like an insurmountable problem,
Speaker 1: but now that you look back on it, you actually
Speaker 1: now view as maybe putting you in a positive direction.
Speaker 1: I was a caregiver to my grandmother. My grandmother fell
Speaker 1: and broke her neck in two thousand and six, the
Speaker 1: same year I launched the business. And I was a
Speaker 1: caregiver to my grandmother along with my beautiful mom for
Speaker 1: thirteen long years. And it was very hard. And now, actually,
Speaker 1: when I look back and I think about me saying
Speaker 1: that I didn't focus on my personal life. I didn't
Speaker 1: focus on my love life as much with intention, but
Speaker 1: I did have my family that I was incredibly focused
Speaker 1: on being a caregiver at such a young age. You know,
Speaker 1: becoming a caregiver at twenty eight years old seemed very
Speaker 1: you know, insurmountable for a long time. But I think
Speaker 1: now looking back, not only did it expand my capacity
Speaker 1: to do a lot of things, but it also created
Speaker 1: in me a real appreciation for or the sacrifices that
Speaker 1: my grandmother made and and you know, just rich legacy.
Speaker 1: And that is the reason why I say that that's
Speaker 1: been so important and critical for me, because that's a
Speaker 1: big driver for me. I remember having the conversation with
Speaker 1: my mom because I was visiting my grandmother every single
Speaker 1: day at the nursing home, and I said, look, if
Speaker 1: I take this job as then the editor of VI Vixen,
Speaker 1: I was already consulting, if I take this job, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know my schedule, and you know my grandmother
Speaker 1: would be in and out of the hospital. No, I
Speaker 1: think it was you know, and even when my grandmother
Speaker 1: passed just a couple of years ago, I know that
Speaker 1: those transitionary seasons like ultimately are birthing seasons as well.
Speaker 1: That's so beautiful. Thank you so much. It's been such
Speaker 1: a pleasure having you. I feel like I've learned. I mean,
Speaker 1: is this I that was so good? Ty still lives
Speaker 1: in la and somehow juggles her work with Thie Life Media,
Speaker 1: Morning Mindset and Brown Girl Jane. She is a motivator, innovator,
Speaker 1: and bridge between so many women in communities. Her philanthropy
Speaker 1: has impacted the lives of thousands of women of color,
Speaker 1: and she is continuing to expand that work every day
Speaker 1: despite her impressive roster of pivots. I'm sure this is
Speaker 1: not the last time we'll be hearing of Ty Beauchamp
Speaker 1: and her ventures. Thanks for listening to this episode of
Speaker 1: She Pivots, where I talk with women about how their
Speaker 1: experiences and significant personal events led to their pivot and
Speaker 1: eventually their success. To learn more about Thi and her
Speaker 1: latest book, follow us on Instagram at she Pivots the podcast.
Speaker 1: Leave a rating and comment if you enjoyed this episode
Speaker 1: to help others learn about it. A special thank you
Speaker 1: to our partner Marie Claire and the team that made
Speaker 1: this episode possible. Talk to you next week. Tired of
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