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June 28 - August 22, 2020
As you continue crafting the life you want, I hope you are reminded that it is the very things you underestimate about yourself that will help you create your own magic. Find it. Use it. Trust it. We spend too much time hearing and telling ourselves we are not enough. Not smart enough. Not beautiful enough. Not successful enough. Not young enough. Not old enough. Not woke enough. I want this book to be the voice reminding you to say ENOUGH with all that. You are enough. You were BORN enough.
when the world tells you to shrink, expand.
Over time I’ve learned to accept and even appreciate this part of my story. What I discovered is that my dad is beautifully flawed just like the rest of us, and his struggles played an important role in making me who I am. And I’ve learned to love who I am. Even if certain parts were forged by fire. Sometimes the things that hurt the most propel you the farthest.
When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time. MAYA ANGELOU, VIA OPRAH, VIA DEBRA WELTEROTH, MY MOM
The place in which I’ll fit will not exist until I make it. JAMES BALDWIN
But that night I learned that as much as it is our shared history and a pride in our culture that connects us, being part of the Black experience is being bonded by the painful and sometimes violent experience of exclusion.
As a black woman, the decision to love yourself just as you are is a radical act. BETHANEE EPIFANI J. BRYANT
“There is a divine order, a divine flow to our lives. We don’t need to have all the answers. But our job is to keep on dreaming and trusting enough to put one foot in front of the other.”
“Discovering what you don’t want is just as important as finding out what you do.”
The world doesn’t prepare girls—especially little brown girls—to see the bigness of their dreams. It doesn’t train us to embrace the expansiveness of our own possibilities. And small towns tend to reinforce small thinking. So seeing our full potential isn’t work we can do alone. We need the other women in our tribe. Friends. Sisters. Mothers. Professors. When women affirm women, it unlocks our power. It gives us permission to shine brighter.
“When women affirm women, it unlocks our power. It gives us permission to shine brighter.”
It’s time for you to move, realizing that the thing you are seeking is also seeking you. IYANLA VANZANT
I realized that if we aren’t vigilant, we can move through our entire lives feeling smaller than we actually are—by playing it safe, by unconsciously giving away our power, by dimming our radiance, by not recognizing there is always so much more waiting for us on the other side of fear. But when we are brave enough—to go there, to grab what we want, to tap into who we are—damn, it feels so good.
“If we aren’t vigilant, we can move through our entire lives feeling smaller than we actually are—by playing it safe, by unconsciously giving away our power, by dimming our radiance, by not recognizing there is always so much more waiting for us on the other side of fear. But when we are brave enough—to go there, to grab what we want, to tap into who we are—damn, it feels so good.”
they don’t give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair. SHIRLEY CHISHOLM, FIRST BLACK WOMAN ELECTED TO CONGRESS
I had only ever flipped through Vogue for fleeting moments of a fantasy, like everyone else, but I never saw myself on those pages or thought the magazine was for me. Now from my new vantage point, I vowed to myself that if I could make it this far into a world that was once only a dream to me—even if it was the very lowest rung—then surely I could aspire to chart my own path to the pinnacle of it.
My takeaway was clear: in business, no matter how much value you bring, you will always be disposable.
GROWING UP, whenever I’d present anything to my mother as “unfair,” she’d quickly clap back: “Guess what else ain’t fair? Life.”
Eventually, I’d come to see her frustrating response as a training ground, preparing me for a truly unfair world, where the facts frequently get twisted or overlooked. She was teaching me that the world wouldn’t always see things the way I saw them. She wanted me to know I wouldn’t always have a say in the matter either—“That’s just the way it goes, princess,” she’d say. Her message to me was clear: “Falling down is inevitable. It’s the getting back up that’s on you.”
The point was to become unbreakable. My mother’s words were the warning shot that fairness, justice, and security are not guaranteed to any of us. No matter how hard we work. Especially for women of color.
the magazine industry was just a first stop—not a place you stay forever. Take it as far as you can, and when the time comes, jump. And by then, be ready to fly.
In business, time is money, and it became clear this exec didn’t think a twenty-three year old was a worthy investment of either. That experience burned through more than just my bank account; it was etched into my mind as a reminder to guard my age as if my job depended on it—because one day it just might.
Age, I’d learn, is a precarious issue for women in any industry. You want to be in the game long enough to be revered, but you also never want to be considered “too old.”
“Falling down is inevitable. It’s the getting back up that’s on you.”
The best worst news—no one is going to come and save you. KATE DEARING, TV WRITER
We spend so much of our twenties searching. For ourselves. For our soul mates. For success. For the illusion of security. In some unconscious way, our relationship to people, things, and titles can become a projection of how we want to be seen in the world, especially when we are still forming our own identities.
Thankfully, I had women like her and my mom in my life who were there to remind me that dating is a process. One that is inevitably unpredictable, often disappointing, and sometimes painful. But the important thing to remember is that it’s your garden. Nothing good can grow if you don’t nourish your own soil. And only you can decide when to stop feeding dead things.
And I was still hoping to just fit in—in my personal life and at work. Assimilating became my M.O. for survival in spaces I wasn’t yet convinced I belonged in.
I never saw it that way then, but learning her perspective made me even more empathetic to the ways in which so many of us—Black, White, young, old, rich, poor, and everything in between—are plagued with a comparison complex. At various times in our lives, we all struggle with feeling good enough, pretty enough, skinny enough, worthy enough, as we are.
“Nothing good can grow if you don’t nourish your own soil.”
What I know now is that when we derive our worth from the relationships in our lives—the intimate ones, the social circles we belong to, the companies we work for—we give away our power and become dependent upon external validation. When that is taken away, our sense of value, and identity, goes with it.
You can, you should, and if you’re brave enough to start, you will. STEPHEN KING, ON WRITING
Editorially, I saw beauty as a lens through which to explore identity, culture, self-expression, self-acceptance, and diversity. That, for me, made working in beauty endlessly inspiring. It felt like fun but important work, particularly speaking to young people who are still developing their sense of self and identity. I got excited by the idea of making the kind of magazine I needed when I was growing up. One that reflected all different kinds of beauty. That broke down the hierarchies we see every day, and challenged the damaging beauty standards that convince so many of us from a young age
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A funny thing happens when you become what Shonda Rhimes has so brilliantly dubbed an FOD: First. Only. Different. There is an assumption that simply by being first, by succeeding in rarefied White spaces, your existence comes with built-in credentials that make you an expert on diversity and inclusion. And maybe to some degree it does, but sensitive topics surrounding race and gender are not easily unpacked in America, and the truth is we have to teach ourselves how to speak intelligently about them, just like anyone else. Yet we are expected to learn quickly how to walk the often precarious
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An artist’s duty, as far as I’m concerned, is to reflect the times. NINA SIMONE
From that moment on, I knew I was put in this industry to serve as a change agent, too. I didn’t want to just take up space at the table, I wanted to use my seat to shake things up. I also realized that in order to truly change an industry from the inside out, to rebuild broken systems, and to change hearts and minds, it takes more than just one voice and more than just one way.
While I admire and revere Bethann—we need people who are willing to call out injustice, face-to-face, on the front lines—I recognized that my activism would look different.
In an era that applauds even the most superficial embrace of diversity, equating tokenism with progress, I was determined to use the opportunity I was given to make a difference by bringing more of my authentic self to the role. I’d had enough of feeling intimidated by self-important airs, sterile environments, and some of the stiff personalities in the industry.
As an FOD, sometimes just being yourself is the radical act. When you occupy space in systems that weren’t built for you, your authenticity is your activism.
But doing any radical work that has the power to shift systems—especially from within a corporate structure—requires allyship. Before I could go from assimilator to disrup...
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That this was even considered an unconventional hire reflects the cultural landscape at the time in “pre-woke” America, even in a creative industry. We desperately needed more diversity—of thought, of lived experience, of points of view—on our team.
“Sometimes just being yourself is the radical act. When you occupy space in systems that weren’t built for you, your authenticity is your activism.”
When I dare to be powerful, to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid. AUDRE LORDE
“In order to change the stories, you must change the storytellers.”
It looks great on the internet. THE INTERNET
There is power in speaking your dreams into existence.
AS A CULTURE, WE love a celebration. We love a first. We hold them high. We all marvel at headlines and highlight reels. But we rarely discuss the marks and scars and bruises that come with breaking through glass ceilings. Rarely do we talk openly about the tumult of the come up, the underside of a dream realized—rarely do we share that even good things can sometimes play out in complicated, painful, and confusing ways. We feel pressure to post about the joy and the gratitude and the triumph of the biggest moments in our lives—promotions, graduations, engagements, marriages, even
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ONE LESSON I LEARNED the hard way: Never give your number before you’re ready to. Do not allow anyone to force you into a negotiation that you haven’t had time to prepare for. You can simply say, “I’d love to take the night and come back to you on that first thing.” If I had someone coaching me, I would have been so much more prepared in that moment. But I wasn’t. I had no coach and no idea that this happens all the time—especially to women. Even more often to young women of color.
Women are taught to work hard and to play by the rules. We are taught to never overstep, to stay in our lane, to keep our head down, to go with the flow, to never be too loud or disagreeable. Not to be bossy. Not to be pushy. We are not encouraged to know our worth, let alone to demand it. We are not given the tools to fight for ourselves or taught to challenge authority. Instead, we are taught—in subtle and overt ways—to give up our power, to take what we can get, and to be grateful.
Women aren’t taught to get comfortable with making people uncomfortable.
