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LIA DIAS - Stirring Up Success · Eating While Broke

• 0:13
  Speaker 1: Hey, guys, welcome to another episode of Eating While Broke.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: I'm your host, Colleen Waitt, and today we have very
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: special guests. Entrepreneur in the building. Yes, and I'm very
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: excited about saying mompreneur because if your mom out there,
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: you know what's already that's already a full time self
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: employed type job. But to add more merit to the motherhood,
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: we added owner of Hype Hair magazine. Yes, Hype Hair Magazine,
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: and that's been around for over thirty years.
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: Thirty we're celebrating our thirty fifth year anniversary. Thirty we're
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: going into our thirty fifth year anniversary right now.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: And in publishing, that's like monumental because you had to
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: survive the facebooks, the mindspaces, the Twitter age. Print is out.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: We don't advertise in print now. We only sell. We
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: buy digital, I mean tweets and all my world. Yeah,
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: it's it's an I wasn't posting for ten years. Let
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: me tell you something that one wave where digital came
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: in and print was out, you had to change a
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: whole strategy on sales absolutely, and then and distribution. And
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: now to add more to that, you bought the Savoy,
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: which is another which, by the way, if you think
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: owning a magazine is tough, I would imagine a restaurant is.
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: Much restaurant, nightclub. Yeah, it's a whole Yeah, it's a
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: whole thing.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: I can only imagine that side. And then to add
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: even more to that, you got the Girl cave La.
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: The Girl cave La is my beauty supply store chain.
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: We have franchises here in Los Angeles and in Texas, and.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: Oh we're in Texas. Let me tell you something. You
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: are a definition. You're just on your own. It could
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: be just entrepreneur. I'll take it, you know. I mean
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: sometimes I hate when people separate it only because it's like, yo,
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: on its own, You're good, you know, because then it's like,
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: are you the top of the morepreneurs? Where do you fall?
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: Like, no, you you will be. She's a serial entrepreneur, entrepreneur.
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: I'm I'm a mother. Yes, I'm a mom, and I'm
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: just making it happen. Yes.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: So on the regular day we were talking about this.
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: You don't look this stunning.
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: Time never ever I came like this to see you.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, because you look great For all y'all listeners,
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: they can't see her. She looks ten out of ten phenomenal.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: You would never think she was a mom because you
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: know how else mom's look.
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: You should have seen me yesterday at the same time,
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: totally different person.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: I love that. I love that for you because I
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: have this new face where I gained a lot of weight.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: So if it's not stretchy or loose, I don't want
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: to wear it.
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: But you look good.
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: I'm wearing jeans for you. This is my this is
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: me trying to look good for you. I put on
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: makeup before you came. But it's an honor to meet you.
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: I'm very excited. I was very excited when we got
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: the interview with you.
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: I was excited when I got the invitation. I'm happy
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: to be here.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: Yes, girl, Yes. And then before we get into all
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: the tea of a day in the life of a
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: real serial entrepreneur that's struggling multiple businesses at the same time,
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: why don't you tell me what you're gonna be cooking
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: for lunch today?
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: So my go to my go to meal is spaghetti.
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: It's meatless spaghetti though, so it's quick. My daughter probably
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: hates this. So a single mom for a long time
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: and my daughter's twenty one now, and she says it
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: all the time, like, I can't even stand spaghetti anymore
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: because I feel like I ate it four times a week.
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: But this was easy. A bell pepper, onion, some sauce.
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: This is like less than ten.
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: Dollars, yes, yes? And then now the bell pepper and onions.
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: Was that something because you wanted to add extra like
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: bite to it?
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: Because I mean, I just felt like it was so
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: basic just to have salt, mean, just to have sauce
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: and pasta. So I was like, what can I do that?
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: And when you go to the produce aisle, it's bell
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: pepper and onion. That's something you can spice it up with. Yeh.
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: If I'm feeling really fancy, I'll add mushroom.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: Yes, yes, oh mushroom. Now do you saw tea it?
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: I sautea it first. Oh, God, sutea it first. And
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: that's kind of like your replacement for meat. Yeah, you
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: can kind of call it like spaghetti.
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: I didn't like that. I never really cooked mushrooms, but
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: I one day in my life I will venture off
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: into mushroom land. I'm not there yet. My husband hates mushrooms, so.
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: I'm there in a lot of ways.
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: But go ahead, start our lunch through the pasta in
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: the pad and take me back to what was going on,
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: and you can start. You can start since this is
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: your stable go to you can start as far back
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: as you want, which is good for me because I
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: want to be really inspired today.
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: Okay, I'm trying to think the first time this became
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: a thing in my life. I think it was when
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: I became a single. I was a teenage single mom.
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I got pregnant with Kayla, my oldest daughter,
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: when I was eighteen. I had it when I was nineteen.
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: I was in college and I was just trying to
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: figure it out, and I gotta get to work, get
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: to school, get her to school, gets everything together.
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: And you said your parents were strict, super strict. Sorry, guys,
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: I talked before we got on camera.
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: You know what, But I feel like that is the rebellion, right.
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: So I grew up very sheltered, went to private Christian
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: school my whole life, went to church every Sunday, and
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: nothing's wrong with that. But I never got a taste
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: of the outside world. So when I got a little
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: taste of it, oh, I tasted it. I was outside
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: was outside outside?
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: What was that discussion like with your parents? Like, hey, guys,
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: I'm in college and surprise, you know what.
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: My mom is deceased now. But she was very intuitive.
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: She knew the guy was dating and she was like,
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: don't get pregnant. And I was like, why would I
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: get pregnant? She was like, don't get pregnant. And I
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: felt like she knew before I told her. Yeah, I
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: didn't hide my pregnancy, but I knew something was different.
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: And because I wasn't I didn't have a wear. I
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: was a kid. I didn't know what that meant. My
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: mom knew. She was a registered nurse. So when we
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: would come home from school and the stomach churts, are
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: you pregnant? No, I'm not pregnant, And one day I
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: was just like, I think I'm pregnant. So yeah, it
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: was a eacy. Yeah, she already had the foresight. I
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: think had she been blindsided, it would have been worse.
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: But she kind of had some intuition and was she
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: so she was kind of supportive or.
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: You know what I will say, they became supportive. Okay,
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: I think they were disappointed. Obviously they were disappointed.
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: And how did that make you feel like knowing that
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: that was because that's that's got also.
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: Like you know, I mean my parents invested a lot
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: into me as a child. Like like I said, I
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: went to private Christian school, I had a lot of
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: access to a lot of things. I had a nuclear family,
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: So some of the things that I did in early
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: adulthood weren't really representative of how I felt like my
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: parents raised me to be. But they never did not
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: support me. They could have been upset with me or disappointed,
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: but I never felt like I was on my Yeah.
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: They never like turned their back on you. Yeah, like
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: I was great.
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I was a single parent and things were hard,
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: but I never was like I was down but never
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: out If that makes sense.
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: Good, Yeah, well that's good.
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's good.
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: So what the father did he poof.
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: Vanished pool Spanish? Poof Spanish? Where is he? Like? No
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: poof Banish?
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: Oh oh you no relationship right now?
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: No relationship?
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: You are a real, real real though you didn't even
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: get to argue with the other parents.
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: Like I think he was involved often on during the pregnancy,
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: but I think when Kayla got here and it was
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: a realization that, like we have this responsibility it was
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: not something he was ready for, not at all all.
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: I wasn't either, Yeah, no one's I went through a
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: phase of being a single parent. Let me just tell
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: you something. And people are like, I wasn't ready, Like
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: do you.
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: Think no one's ever ready to be a parent? You
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: kind of just it's on the job training.
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: It's on the job training and young and you're young.
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: So what are you doing to support yourself during this time?
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: And do you move in with your parents?
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: Yes? So at this point, I'm living in a dorm
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: with my best friend. I'm living my best life. And no,
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: this is when I find out I'm pregnant, and so
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: I have my baby shower. Well, actually I take that back.
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: I have like a small baby shower. And then the
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: reality of all the things that I need and I
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: don't have kind of sets in. And so I asked
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: my parents to come back home. Of course they immediately
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: were like yes. But my mom made me pay rent
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: and she made me have like a plan of action
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: to get out. She would always tell me there cannot
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: be two queens in this castle. So you're the queen
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: now of your house. So you got to figure this out.
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: And so there was support but there was a very
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: big push to get me out. And when I oversaved
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: my welcome, my mom put me out for sure.
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: Oh damn.
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you're saying that she never turned her back, but
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: she had this.
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: It was her, it was her rule.
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: It was did you understand it at the time.
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: I didn't understand it at the time. We fall you know,
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: had a big falling out. I felt like she didn't
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: have my back. But really what it was is that
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: I made my bed. I had to lie in it.
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: It was my responsibility, it was my daughter, was not
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: her responsibility. And she saw me not doing the things
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: that I needed to do to prepare for my life
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: as a single parent, and she just said, you got
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: to learn. So damn.
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: But you want to know something, I know for a
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: fact that this is why you are as strong and
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: powerful as you are today.
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: I say all the time that that those moments are
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: the moments that like cultivate, like there's nothing that I
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: feel like I can't do. You know what I mean,
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: Like if you can be nineteen years old trying to
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: figure out how you're going to pay rent and feed
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: a kid, and you could do anything.
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's when my homeboy told me once, me and
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: my husband severay I became a single mom, and he
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: told me, if I can survive this chapter, absolutely, he
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: was like, you will be invincible. Do you know that?
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: I feel even remember what we're talking about before, part
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: of me feels like I've seen I've seen the worst.
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: I feel like I've seen the worst. I'm just saying, like,
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: if I survived that shit and things is cool.
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: I'm just saying. I'm just saying, so I feel that experience.
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: You know what that feels like, right, Like when you
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: get through like the trenches, you're like, oh, there a
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: walking apart.
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: And I think it's a balance of Also, i'd imagine,
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: and I want to talk about the emotional sign is
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: like you're going through the motions of heartbreak and oh
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: my god, what did I do? And also survival where
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: you got to almost bench press or you know, shove
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: your feelings yeah, and be like Okay, I'm gonna have
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: to deal with you at a way later date and
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: put on my survival skills.
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I don't have time to be emotional. The rents,
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: do the baby school, tuition, is do all the things, oh,
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: the daycare. I gotta be at work, so I feel
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: like I didn't even really feel it, you know what
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: I'm saying, because I was just in survival mode. It
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: took me years and years to kind of like understand,
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: Like I'm not even gonna say trauma because that's so dramatic,
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: but like the weight of it, yeah, like it's heavy.
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you don't think there's a little bit of trauma
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: in there?
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: Is it trauma?
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: I mean, you remarried, so maybe, but if you hadn't,
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: you'd have to wonder if there was a little bit
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: of trauma there.
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: I actually remarried twice, so sorry, okay, okay, but yes,
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: all of it. Yeah, but I don't know, girl.
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: Okay, So I'm glad you're not laboring it labeling it
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: as trauma. That's I'll attribute that to your strength.
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: Okay, Yeah, but you're right, it is a little bit
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: of trauma. I'm maybe never pictured it as that it is,
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: to be honest with you, though, because it's something you
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: do have to heal from.
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, it's trauma. Yeah, because eventually you had
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: to revisit.
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: It, right for sure, and it comes up in the
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: moments and the seasons that you're not expecting. Yeah, right,
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: like even now, when I feel pressure, I'm like, oh
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: my god, like I'm reminded of those times, even at
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: forty one years old, and that was when I was eighteen.
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: Ye so yeah, it's real. Dang, it's real.
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: Okay. So how long were you at Mama's house before
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: the queen had the little mini queen had lived.
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: I know, my dad is probably gonna say it wasn't
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: we let you know, dad, y'all put me out.
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: It was as good though.
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, it's good. I tell them all the time.
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: I had the best parents in the world because they
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: taught me to have to be self sufficient.
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: It was maybe about ye okay, Oh yeah, that's brutal.
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: That's brutal, okay, but that okay. So you move out,
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: you get like a little.
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: Bent, a little like I'm like, I don't even want
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: to call it a one bedroom. It might have been
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: a studio. I don't even I remember looking at all
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: areas of the house for one space. It was a
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: little small space and Kaylyn and I made it work.
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: I remember she painted like the walls pink, black and white.
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: And she was one or two or something. No, no, no,
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: whoa as you got as we.
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: Got older, but yeah, that was like kind of like
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: our hug. That was our place for a while until
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: I figured it out.
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: And what were you doing for work?
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: Let's see, I was working at Burlington Coke Factory as
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: a lost prevention agent. Yeah, yeah, what was I doing?
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: I was working just like for a temp agencies. Like
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: because I was in school too, so I was going.
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: To You were still going to school too, jesus.
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: So no, this is a good thing that my parents did.
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: So they would not watch Kayla for me if I
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: had to go out or hang out with friends, but
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: if I had school or work, they always helped. So
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: even if I was living on my own, So the
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: routine was I would go to work at night. I'm sorry,
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: we go to school at night, get off obviously, do
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: my mom thing, wake up in the morning and take
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: her to school and just start all over again and
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: go to work. And I was kind of like my
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: routine to help me with her in the evening.
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: Well that's that's a blessing exactly. And let me tell
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: you something, no disrespect to having children, shout outs. I
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: love my child. But like if I had to choose
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: between school and like an additional three hours with my
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: kid every day, I'll choose school. Yeah, I'm glad I
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: would take this guy.
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: The moms understand what that mean, like you, it's inaction.
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: I will gladly take school.
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: Look at this, I'm about to burn over three hours.
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: I don't think you could burn it overcook it, that's
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: what Okay, okay, so already fascinated by this, this chapter
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: of Brokeness, so super brokeness. So your daughter and was
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: living off spaghetti.
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: You were living off spaghetti. We were living off a
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: poyo loco.
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: Like, okay, in school? So you graduate school for what.
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: I graduated with my degree in social work.
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: Social work? Isn't that an industry that doesn't really pay.
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: Not at all? But I just wanted to fix the world,
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: I said. I wanted to tell pregnant and parenting teens.
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: I wanted to I.
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: Feel you, though, because I always tell myself, if I
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: became rich, smart, like my whole life's work would be
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: dedicated to single moms, like I would be like, yo,
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: I'm totally we're gonna help you all out. And okay, okay,
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: so you're don't burn itself.
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: I don't.
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: I got the fake insurance here. I try to y'all all,
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: y'all successful people will be relying solely on your insurance.
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: I think I got this. I've done it too many times. Yes, yes,
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: oh that's up. Oh we we got it.
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: You got it?
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: I do.
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: Okay. So at what point after this degree comes in,
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: do you say, hmmm, I think I want to venture
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: off into crazy, crazy entrepreneur lands.
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: It was a long time, so the degree was life
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: changing for me because I was able to go get
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: a job where I had a regular paycheck benefits because
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: I worked for La County DCFS. Okay, like eight years.
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: Okay, do you get pensions and all that?
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: All of that. I didn't stay long enough to get it.
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: I think you have to stay like ten years to
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: get vested. I left right before that point. But the
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: benefits are amazing, health insurance, paid time off, vacation, all
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: the stuff that you don't get at the kind of
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: jobs I was working before. So that's kind of like
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: when my life got easier. Okay, Yeah, I think Kayla
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: would say the same thing.
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: God and she and then were you vocal about what
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: you guys were going through because it was the two
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: of you?
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel like maybe a little too vocal, right.
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: She knew a lot of things she knew. You know
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: that sometimes I didn't have it and sometimes but what
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: I never tried to do was make her feel it
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: too much, you know what I mean? Like I never
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: had her excluded from anything at school, you know, the
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: field trip or something like that. I always tried to
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: send her with the best. Yeah, because I never her
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: to feel what I was going through. Yeah. Yeah. So
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: even now, like we've had conversations she's twenty one now,
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: thank god, and she'll say, you know, I remember having
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: this and that and I don't know how you did it.
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: And I'm like, I don't know how I did it either,
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: but we made it happen. So I made it happen.
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: But now, are you guys because you went through that,
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: are you guys like more like best friends ish parents type?
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: I feel like even though her mom, we more have
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: like a big sister little sister type relationship. She still
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: very much relies on me and listens to me. But
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: we're just so close.
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: Okay. I love that close. I love that so close,
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: so close. Okay, So okay, you're doing the social work,
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: you're working for eight years.
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: You say, mm hmm dcfs yep.
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: Where does the bugs start to pivot.
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: So I got married, Okay, Yeah, I got married and
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: my ex husband was a business owner and a physician, okay,
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: and he kind of put in my ear so you
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: know you. I helped him with his business while I
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: was working at DCFS, and he said, you you can,
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: you figure the things out, like you could do this. So,
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: even though we're not on good terms now, in those moments,
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: he did inspire me to let me know that if
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: he could, you know, have a full time job as
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: a physician and run a business like I could do
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: it too. Like I have that insight, I have that instinct,
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: and I came from a family.
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: Of business owners. He was he was a physician and
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: running a business, yes, and then he realized you could
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: do the same.
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: Yep.
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: I was helping him a lot, okay right with his
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: business and what business was he in.
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: He had a juice bar. He had a franchise juice bar,
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: so I helped run that, and then he had a
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: practice as a position he practice, so there were a
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: lot of things that we did together to put in
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: place to get his business off the ground. And being
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: successful in his space empowered me to say, if I
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: can help this man make.
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: It, do it for yourself.
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: Absolutely hell yeah.
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: So how so when from that point did that transition.
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: Did you go Okay, I'm gonna do it. And then
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: obviously you're saying you kept a job too at the same.
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: Time I did. So this is everybody's like, I quit
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: my nine to five baby girl, don't do that. I
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: needed that, even being you know, married to a physician,
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: even having I wouldn't say a rich lifestyle, but it
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: was comfortable. I wasn't worried about like the roof over
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: my head. I still never was comfortable quitting my job.
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: And then were you able to fully trust I guess
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: after being a single mom where you did you have
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: like secret person money where you Okay, yeah, I'm saying,
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: because I don't have to be in a single parent
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: you like.
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: I.
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: Like your hands.
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: There was always a trust fund somewhere somewhere.
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: Okay, hey, I like it. Yeah exactly.
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: I think you can do things when you're married community like,
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: there's nothing wrong with that, But that foresight of knowing
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: like I've had to do this on my own before
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: never allowed me to like relinquish like full.
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: And I feel like a little bit of trauma speaking up.
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying because because you know what
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: I'm saying, It's like, yo, he never gonna happen to
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: me again.
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: Exactly, I'll never live in a studio apartment with That's
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: what I'm looking for, Like a look at me. This
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: is the real struggle right here, cooking with a fork.
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: You scratching the heck out of that pot.
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: I am, I am, I hope it. Oh there we go.
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: That's better.
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, much better. Okay, so you're in this marriage, you
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: start to go, You're right, I'm a baddie. Let's go
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: do this. So what's the first play?
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: The first play is is I'm into hair. So part
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: of what I did I didn't even bring this up
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: when I was a single parent, is I had a
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: friend that worked in the industry and she would sometimes
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: have like stand in modeling gigs or things like that.
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: So I modeled. I'm like almost six feet tall, so.
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: You are tall, huh Yeah.
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: So there were times that I did, like infomercials, like
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: modeling gigs on the side just to kind of get through.
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: And so I always was obsessed with my hair. That
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: was just like a thing. So I said, what could
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: I do as a business that I like I love
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: and wouldn't feel like work. And the first thing was hair.
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: I love beauty supply stores. I love hair. You'll see
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: me today with this hair.
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: You'll see that I love your hair. But thank you
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: love it you already know, thank you.
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: I love mixing it up. So every week, even when
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: I was working for a DCFS, like when I got
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: my paycheck, one of the first things I would do
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: after I paid my bills was, you know, go get
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: a new wig, Go get some new hair, mix it up.
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: Like That's how I felt good about myself. So I
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: knew that that was something that would never feel like
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: work to me if I found a niche in the
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: hair business. And so I started a hair company.
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: Okay, a hair company. And what did that hair company do?
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: So we sold hair extensions, weaves, wigs, and then I
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: took the proceeds from that, and then I started a
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: beauty supply store. And then that's where the chain the
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: girl Kvetlet came from.
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: Wow, and you were competing against Now that industry is
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: monopoly by I want to I don't want to say,
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: is it correct very much? Okay? Okay?
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: And so you're getting into a space where there's not
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: that many people that look and feel like you.
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: Correct, So I started my stores ten years ago. When
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: I started ten years ago, there was no one that
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: looked like me and my distributor. I think now it's
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: kind of shifted where there's more black ownership and beauty
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: supply stores. But when I started, absolutely not. So being
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: able to even get my distributors to open up accounts
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: for me was like a hard a hard test. Wow.
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: And you say distributors, is that the people that sell
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: you the middleman?
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: Basically wow, yes, because obviously you don't buy from the
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: manufacturers because they have these huge minimums fifty sixty seventy
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: eighty thousand and oh.
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: We don't know that, just so you know, Oh, ok,
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: got it educated up right, because everyone has not opened
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: up a beauty supply store. I just thought. You go
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: to the manufacturers, and they are I mean.
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: In some cases, but a lot of the bigger manufacturers
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: because they are so large, they have six figure minimums
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: fifty sixty seventy eighty thousand dollars, and so you carry
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: so many lines, you can't go to every manufacturer, so
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: you go to essentially a wholesaler. Yeah, so that was
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: the struggle.
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: You learned all this on the boots on the ground.
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: Okay. I was a stalker and beauty supply stores for
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: probably like six months before I even started. I would
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: go in and see like if they had boxes on
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: the floor, if they were restocking, like where their boxes
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: were coming from.
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: You, Yeah, all right, go ahead, my kind of gang.
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: So okay.
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: So I figured it out. And then when I found
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: out where some of the main distributors were in LA,
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: I just went in and I, you know, finagled them
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: to open up my accounts.
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: Okay. And then once you had accounts, did you go
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: online or did you go store right away?
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: I did a pop up shop first. So I didn't
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: sign a long term lease because at this point I'm
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: still not like confident. I don't know if this is
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: going to work. I took a leave of absence from
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: my job. I didn't quit because I was scared that
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: I wouldn't be able to figure it out.
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: How long is a leave of absence?
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: So I took like a three month one. Then I
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: renewed it for like another three months. So I took
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: like do.
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: You get paid on leaves of absence?
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: You can use your time, So I saved up like
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: my vacation time, my PTO time. So you use that you're.
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: Smart smart Yeah, okay, and then that's when you would
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: just pour into the business. Okay. I love the way
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: you're thinking. This is chess, not checking, this.
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: Is and I need my pay checks st at this point,
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: I need something coming.
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: And are you still married at this I'm still married? Oh?
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: Still married? Okay, still married.
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: And he's he's he's he's whispering supportive things in your
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: ear to keep.
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: For the most part at this point, Yeah, he's like,
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: you know, figure it out, quit your job. You got it.
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: And I'm like, no, I'm not quitting my job. I
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: need my job. Ye, I need exactly, exactly exactly. We're
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: not quitting any jobs that pay us on the first
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: and the fifteenth. I need that. So yeah, it was
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: really like, once I got the store off the ground
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: and I saw that I could get to a point
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: to make it profitable, then I felt comfortable quitting my job.
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: But it wasn't immediate. It wasn't like, oh, I have
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: this great business idea, I'm gonnaquit my job tomorrow.
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And did you wait for the cash flow to
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: build up before you actually pulled that trigger?
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I did. I did, and I waited until I
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: had like a profitable season, like.
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: I didn't just season.
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it wasn't like I had a profitable week. I
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: went like thirty days and I'm like, okay, we're tracking up.
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: We're tracking up. Cool because obviously in the beginning you don't. No.
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: No, I usually trying to avoid pulling a check from
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: any company now until year two, which is hard to do.
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: But I'll tell you this. I like to build up
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: a healthy cash flow before I jump on payroll. That's
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: just my thing because it is just I don't know
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: if it's the pandemics and all the hurdles we done
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: went through. I'm traumatized.
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: I get it.
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: I'm like, no, after year two, we could start dipping
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: into the kiddie fund that everyone else gets paid obviously first,
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: but I try and survive lean and not off that
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: company for the first two.
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: That's that's good. Yeah, that's but I wasn't that disciplined
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: I was.
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: I was doing that means you were doing that means
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: you were doing good though good enough. I feel like
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: sometimes people underestimate, like and I have this discussion all
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: the time. There's a difference between how much money you
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: make and cash flow and the cash flow, I believe
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: it or not, it does no matter how much money
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: you generated as a company. If you can't manage that
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: cash flow, it means absolutely not.
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: You can make one hundred thousand dollars today, but if
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: you've got to spend ninety nine thousand to get there.
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: What is it? Yeah? And people, I meet too many
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: entrepreneurs that don't quite understand cash But no, no, no,
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: you have to respect that one little You gotta respect
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: that flow you do and that's the only way you
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: could really grow. In my opinion, it looks.
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: Good though you know, now I know this is this
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: is a little nostalgic for me. Yeah, I remember like
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: having to do this after work.
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: And so how many beauty supply stores do you own?
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: It? We actually so in the height when I the
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: Girl Cave, we had seven six locations. Now we've scaled
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: back and we have four. We've closed two of them
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: that were in areas that just didn't they just weren't working.
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: So after the pandemic, we decided to close those two locals.
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: But you close or so close, totally closed, and then
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: we filtraded the inventory into other stores. So there wasn't
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: like a total loss, so we kind of just saw
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: it through at the end of those leases and said
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: thank you, Ben, no thanks and yeah, focused on the
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: stores that were super profitable.
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: And are they all in LA.
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: Yes, So we have one in Inglewood, I went in
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: South Los Angeles, one in Anaheim, and then the other
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: location in Texas.
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: Oh Anna, what made you go all the way to Anaheim?
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: A franchisee? So some of the.
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: Franchises, I mean, you are a franchise.
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: Sorry, correct? Correct? So when I had a mother and
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: daughter approach and they wanted to open up a location
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: and they were comfortable in Orange County and they found
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: a location in Anaheim, and so we opened it. Wow.
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And now can you tell us the pros of
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: being a franchisee For all those listeners out there that
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: are thinking, hey, I want to open a beauty supply
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: stories seem it's really easy.
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: You know what. I think that's the irony of it.
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: People think because it's hair and because it's beauty, it's easy.
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: It's actually not, like the industry doesn't make it easier.
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: So I would say, yeah, don't get into a franchise
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: model and think because the model already exists that it
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: somehow is like easy. It's not.
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: Oh, I thought it would be easier if you do
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: a franchise.
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: You still got to have that instinct to go get it.
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying. It's not like a blueprint
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: of success. It's maybe you know some systems in place,
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: which is helpful. I'm not going to say it's not.
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: But but you also have the distributors, right, correct, So
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: those are things that are easier, right, So it's built in.
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: You don't have to go find your distributors, you don't
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: have to go find your product list, but you still
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: got to be in there and interacting with your staff
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: and making sure you meet payroll and making sure you're
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: meeting your sales goals. Like that doesn't yeah, that doesn't
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: go away. Yeah. Yeah. So and I learned that because
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: the juice bar that my ex husband had was in
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: a franchise model. So I learned the pros and cons
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: of being a franchisee. Yeah.
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: But for any listeners out there, would you advise franchise
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: over or starting on your own?
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: It depends on the industry. I think, Okay, this industry,
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: beauty supply industry. I would say yes, because there's so
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: many pieces that go with it. If it's something that
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: you're familiar and then a lot of people are not
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: familiar with the hair industry. Like I just started talking
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: about manufacturers and stuff and you're like, hold on this
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: and go back. Oh no, we don't know, we don't know.
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: So if that is not instinctual to you, if that
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: doesn't make sense to you, then yeah, obviously a franchise model.
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: But if it's an industry that you're familiar with, I
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: wouldn't go to the franchise out, Okay. I just wouldn't, okay,
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: because part of being the business owner is you get
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: the creativity and you get to build, and the franchise
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: you don't. It's no creative. The creative is.
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: There already controlled. You gotta ask for permission, right because
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: that's the queen of the house.
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: It's exactly down to the color of your walls, right.
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: Like I remember being in a franchise model with the
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: juice bar and they say, you know what, we're changing
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: all the stories, concepts and you have to pay for that.
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: Franchise is not giving you money to pa cheap. Hey,
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: we don't want to do plastic anymore. We want wood finishing.
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: Like you're at the discretion of a corporate model. So yes,
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: great when you're starting, but as you grow as a
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: business owner and you want that leverage to be able
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: to be creative, you don't really have that in a
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: franchise model. Dang. Yeah.
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: Okay, so after the Cave the Girl Cave La. Now
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: you have all your stores. It's been in business for
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: over ten years now.
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: Yes, we just celebrated ten years in April this year.
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: Okay, so what is your next place? Because you have
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: multiple businesses.
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: You know what, I Oh, my goodness, I'm becoming less
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: fascinated with retail, and I really want to dive into
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: more the digital marketing space with our brand, because you know,
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: we have hype Per now under the Hypeer before though
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: or I brought hype Peer after hyper has been existence
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: for thirty five years, but I purchased it five years ago.
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: Oh okay, so I really want to dig into that more.
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: Retail is cool, but it's brutal. Yeah, it's like, honestly,
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: sometimes I think, how did you get into the restaurant
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: business and the retail business, Like you pick the most hardest.
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the restaurant business, the club business and the magazine
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: business are like the worst. I mean, not the worst,
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: and they are.
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: They're the worst to make money.
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: And I feel like you just have to have a
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: real good, strong sales ethic. And I don't know if you,
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: as the owner, are that much removed because I feel
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: like the owner is always the best sales person.
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: I am.
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: I am, and I hate that. I know, I hate that.
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: Don't you wish you could clone yourself?
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: I know, I said all the time, if I have
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: five of me's, i'd be a billionaire.
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, for sure, it would be well same my number.
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: You know, maybe you Okay, So okay, tell me about
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: Hype hair.
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: Got it? So everybody knows hype hair, Like it's just
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: nostalgic for for all women of color. I think I
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: don't think it's just black women, because I have a
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: lot of friends from different races, and when I told
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: them I was purchasing Hype Hair, They're like, oh, I
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: remember that magazine. So we've had Beyonce on the cover,
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: Rihanna Nyah Long like, think of every staple. It's a
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: staple magazine exactly. So through the process of owning The
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: Girl k La and I was doing reality TV. I
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: was doing some press with Hypeer. A friend of mine, Mimi,
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: who's in Atlanta, has a sister publication, and she said,
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: you should meet the owner. I think he's going to sell. Yeah,
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: a guy, a white guy from New Jersey own Hypeer.
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: Isn't that crazy? Would Yeah, a white guy from New
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: Jersey super He's like I could call him to this day.
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: He's a really good guy. But he was going to
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: sail and he said, you know what, I feel like
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: the right thing to do is to park hype Haer
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: in the hands of a woman of color. So yeah,
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: we got to know each other. We negotiated, We went
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: back and forth, we tried to decide what we were
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: going to do, and then we came to an agreement.
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: And then we went and he sold me Hypeer.
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: Wow, Now what did that body of work look like?
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: Come on, we gotta we gotta dive. You see the
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: pot is even.
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: Oh my god, it's so much. It's so much like
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: hype Pair is a legacy publication, so there's so much
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: responsibility in that. You can't just slap anything on the cover.
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: Like our subscribers are savvy, they're loyal, they've been a
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: part of the magazine for years. So it's just a
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: lot of I could go on and on. It's just
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: a lot of work.
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, what hat do you wear? Primarily since taking over.
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: Everything, really, I'm really focused on visibility and sales right now,
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: so making sure we have the right partnerships, the right
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: brand partnerships, to make sure that people don't see us
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: as just you know, going to grab money, but they
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: see it as authentic relationships. So a lot of the
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: brands that we're working with and a lot of brands
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: want to work with Hype Pair. I'm super grateful for that,
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: but sometimes we're not able to work with them because
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: we don't want our subscribers and the people that are
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: following us to feel like we're just putting something in
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: front of their face.
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: You're turning down checks.
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: Sometime, what if it doesn't align what I know? It's no,
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: I know, if it doesn't align with the vision and
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: of Hypair, you know it just it doesn't look. That's
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: how I feel. Sometimes I'm like, no, we.
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: Can't now, Yeah, you're making that executive decision to say no,
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: you making.
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: Because it's a legacy brand.
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: I get it.
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: It comes it's a lot with it. So I can't
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: just you know, there's so many brands that just want
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: to get on the backs of that voice, because you
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: do have a strong voice. And no, we're not turning
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: down a lot of checks now, but I'm just saying
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: just every once in a while, yeah, if it doesn't
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: align with the mission. To me, all money is not
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: good money.
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: I only say that when a person haggles me. Whenever
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: a person haggles me, I'm like, no, no, no, keep your money.
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: I already know you, already know what that's going to
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: turn into exactly.
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: But if you're not haggling, I'm I'm up for negotiation.
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: That's the only time I label bad money is when
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: you haggle. Anytime someone haggles, I'm like, I'm.
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: Good, you know what that comes.
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: I don't mind a discount, but a haggle, A haggle
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: is out. It's a non negotiable. We don't even have
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: to need We part in peace. But you're turning out checks,
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: okay for our legacy on.
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: A scalt of one to ten, that's like a point five. Yes.
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: The point I'm making is is that because there's so
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: much history with the brand, we can't just say yes
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: to everything. I like that we have to be in
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: you know, we are inclusive, but we have to be
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: exclusive also at the same time.
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: So what's the day in the life working for Hype Air, Well.
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: We ask my publisher, I probably get on her nerves.
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: I love you, Trish, But we are always posting on
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: socials or making sure our voice is heard. We're talking
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: to brands about advertising with us. A lot of things
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: that we've done in the last four years under my
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: leadership is not traditional advertising. We're doing like activations, So
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: we've done activations in Miami for brands. Essence Fest is
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: another big platform for us where we activate with brands.
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: Finder Brothers the show have you familiar Runner Brothers. They
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: do a huge hair show in Atlanta, so we've been
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: their media partners. So just really cultivating those relationships. I say,
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: you don't always get on the phone with someone just
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: when you need money, right, Like a lot of it
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: is like checking in, like what is the brand need
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: from us? And sometimes we do things for free because
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: brands are loyal to us. So it's now do cultivate.
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: Ever bring the two companies you have together.
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: All the time. I'm actually in the process of dissolving
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: the girl k La and making all of our stories
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: hype here, so.
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: We'll be the beauty umbrella that actually makes absolute perfect sense.
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: And that's actually very brilliant, very that's smart.
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: I'm excited for that transition. It should be done by
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: the end of this year.
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's that's a big move and it's a big movie.
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: That was your genius.
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I just felt like I was working on two ships.
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: It's like, no, no, let's put everything together and let's
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: drive the same boat.
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: So now you have a retail section of h and
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: now you have the magazine digital where you bring in
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: all these other additional partners that are targeting that same demo.
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: Correct, and then we have a we have licensing deals,
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: so we like a licensing deal with Connie, the haircare
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: company of the you did that do so it was
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: it was existing, but it was dormant. So under my leadership,
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: I cultivated the relationship where we relaunched our lines. So
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: we're in I want to say, like eight thousand stores
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: right now Burlington, North Trump's, Rag Walmart's and Walmart's in Canada,
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: but I think we're in like eight thousand doors right now.
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: That's amazing. Yep, all right, and then let's move into
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: the last well, the last currently that I know about. Yes,
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: if I'm missing something, the Savoy hah, I just wanted
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: to make it harder.
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, like you have a magazine and retail stores, like
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: let's go open a club, right.
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: And this all happened around the same time as Hype.
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: Pair, right, Yes, so high Pair came first. Okay, super
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: super successful, like right when I took over it, and
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: my confidence was like, oh cool, Like I'm like, we're
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: doing this, and the opportunity the Savoy I'm from Inglewood,
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: still live in Inglewood.
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: That's like, you like these legacy things I do?
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: I do. I feel like it. I feel like parts
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: of our culture should be owned by people that care,
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: and I feel like I care good. So yeah, the Savoy.
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: I was literally driving down the Brain and I saw
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: for sale sign. I called my sister and I say,
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: let's the SA Boys for sale, and she immediately says,
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: let's buy it. I'm thinking my sister is going to
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: be like, girl, keep driving. She is.
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: She is You guys are terrible to get she is
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: my sister. I love that for you.
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, she owns They actually are ranked one of the
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: top wine bars in the country in Inglewood. It's called
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: ten ten Wines and it's.
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, oh, y'all are like a dynamic.
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah. So when they did see this is
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: what I'm saying. It's hard for me to be upset
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: that they put me out because they put they put
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: that in us.
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: If you were homeless, I'll blame them to You could
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: have gone either way to feed us.
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: Yes, okay, I'm sitting here talking and I'm gonna mix
• 38:08
  Speaker 2: this in because I don't want to make too much
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: of a mess. And go ahead, there we go.
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: I'm sure people in the back are hungry too. I
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: know you're feeding the whole crew today.
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: Is that okay? Well, I hope.
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: I made brenzino for lunch. I make a mean brenzino.
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: Do you know that that's my favorite fish?
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: Are you a mean?
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: I love a good whole branzino with some olives and tomatoes,
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: and like a.
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: Girl, I don't do all that you just made my bandle,
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna make you a really good Brenzino. I make
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: really good brinzino. I practice it almost every week. I'm
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: prating ways. Yes, I love prinzina. Okay, yes, my favorite fish.
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: It's my favorite too.
• 38:49
  Speaker 3: That's crazy, Okay, we have a lot of common, all right,
• 38:54
  Speaker 3: So this is the boy you call, y'all A like,
• 39:00
  Speaker 3: let's do it.
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: She says, let's buy it. So I called the real
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: estate agent and they say, well, come see it. I'm like,
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: well when they said, well, we're actually here now.
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: Now, when they say for sale, they mean the restaurant
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: was for sale or the brand was for.
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: Sale, so not the business. The building. Oh, the building, Yes,
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: the building was for sale at this time. I didn't
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: know what was for sale. I just saw it for sale. Song.
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: We later found out that the building was for sale,
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: and so that's why we we kind of gutted it,
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: renovated it, and we've made it our own. It's actually
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: called Free event Space now.
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: Free event Space okay, so we're not plugging this boy.
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: We're plugging Free events Space.
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: You know what we get away from the name, though, I.
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: Know, I love that she loves her legacy. You can't
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: get a Savoy you end up at the same spot.
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: I was there this morning and a lady called and
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: she said, where are you guys? And I just said,
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: where the old Savoy is. She immediately knew what I
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: was talking about. So it's like, so, okay, so you
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: can fight it. Okay, I love that for you. I
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: love the Savoy. When it was the Savoy, I loved it.
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: So listen, it's called for event space now, but it's.
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: Free form event space, but it's formally the Savoyd correct. Okay,
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: Well I'll be going there.
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah. We have amazing food, amazing staff. I
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: love it. Okay, I'm there every Now.
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: Are you guys competitively priced like comparison to people who
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: host events at the like the hotels.
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: Oh, we're way more affordable.
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: All of our client we do have corporate clients, but
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: ninety five percent of our clients are people that are
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: in the community. We do repass as birthday parties.
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: What's the capacity on it?
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: Oh, I think we're at like five twenty.
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: Five twenty is it layers?
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: It's ten thousand square feet.
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: I haven't been in there because I know you remodeled it, right.
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so we have like a little small staircase that
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: leads to outdoor patio, but it's all one level.
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: Awesome, ten thousand square and then can you break up
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: the room if you're doing less? How what are the
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: breaking sets, the event.
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: Planner and guys, I know, I know you have a
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: lounge area, okay, that we accommodate seventy five or less, okay,
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: but the main space is five five twenty twenty awesome.
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: Who who's events to be hosted? If you don't mind
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: me as we let's see.
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: We've had so many artists. Romaine Virgo, who's my favorite
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: Jamaican singers. He's performed there.
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: You are going to destroy your clothes. Girl. You are
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: not bad and good right now I'm Talking's the other
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: tool to feed us?
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: Please? Like I gotta eat, listen, I don't want to taste.
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: I gotta taste to be prest servant because I don't
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: want you.
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: You can't mess some spaghetti, especially if you know how
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: to make you be able to mess it up, because
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: I don't. You was pulling a lot of soap, but
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: you know because.
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: It's slap you guys have to slap your mama. That's
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: like one of my favorite that's real New Orleans.
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: I know it's good. Is it good? Please don't judge it.
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: Come on, just feed us, man, feed us.
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: No, I don't even want to give it to you.
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: Why it can't be that bad.
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: No, it can be.
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: Look, don't worry that they halfn't wait and me will
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: enjoy it regardless. Okay, I don't feel right serving, let's
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: see it. We'll be fine. This is just for the show.
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: And then I'll tell everybody. We'll tell everybody listens how
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: it's terrible your.
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: No, no, no, it's bad. We go it's bad.
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: I hope it's good.
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: No, no, no, it's not. I'm not even gonna blame you.
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: Did I give you an don't mom, No, it's not bad.
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: No, okay, maybe and you can give me more smarty. Okay,
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: it was not bad at all. Okay, it wasn't bad
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: at all. I don't know what she's talking about.
• 42:33
  Speaker 2: I had higher expectations for it. Maybe that's what.
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: Okay, So then we'll blame the half white. We'll blame
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: the half white of me for enjoying this regardless. You know,
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: look at it. It has the peppers in it, just
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: a little bit like the onions. It feels like it's
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: a real Plasta dish like you. You know, it's official.
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: Don't hate on your food.
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: Isn't it a little bit more? Slap your mama?
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: No, it's okay, fine, okay, you want to add more
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: salt and poisoning, right, because.
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: That's a whole nother thing.
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: Ms. Fine, was okay, it's delicious. I would love to
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: hate on you, but it's fine.
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: It's perfect on a scale of one to ten. My
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: feelings won't get hurt.
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: I did not eat. For all your listeners, it is
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: a certified nine. What I didn't eat though I was starving. Okay,
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: I had apples for breakfast.
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: Okay, I'll take my nine. I'm taking my nie take
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: your name, I'm taking it.
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: I think it's perfect. Okay, cool, all right, I don't
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: know what what do you think is bad about it?
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: It's seasoned, it has enough.
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: Maybe the noodles are a little bit overcooked. Maybe that's
• 43:46
  Speaker 2: what I'm feeling. No, no, are.
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: You judging yourself hard?
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: See why am I like that?
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah? Here, move the things before you spill that on yourself.
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: And moved that to the side so we get a
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: get shot of you.
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: Oh no, I got it?
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah you good? Yeah, this is delicious.
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: What do you think you would change the Pastasa does
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: not know? Maybe that's what's.
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: Not at all?
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: Okay, So it's just perfect.
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: M right, you're over judging it. H You're totally over
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: judging it. Matter of fact, I would have messed up
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: the pasta because you totally freestyled of with no timer.
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: So I did. And you know this is perfect pasta. Congratulations.
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: Not only are a great entrepreneur, but you can cook.
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: Okay, I can throw something together ant.
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: And you know what, if I cook pasta from now on,
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: I will add peppers and onions to it because I
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: think it makes a difference.
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: It does, It totally does. Absolutely.
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: Now I get why when you was broke, you still
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: you still hooked it up much as a bell pepper,
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: Like yeah, like this whole meal was less than five bucks.
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: See yeah, and we had protein pasta, come on, so
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: you could feel a little less guilty about eating it.
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: You know all the time you can make it work
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: with less than ten dollars.
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: So okay, So the savoy take me into the day
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: in the life, the ups and downs of what happened
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: with that whole transaction, because I know no transactions ever smooth.
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: Oh my god, I could literally does it come with
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: a liquor license? M hm okay, good right, well tell.
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: Me no, it didn't. It came with an opportunity to
• 45:24
  Speaker 2: buy a liquor license, but we ended up going through
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: a broker. But yes, it was for sale with the
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: liquor license. We went on our our own journey to
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: get our own but and.
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: Then did you have someone else negotiate your lease?
• 45:36
  Speaker 2: So we ended up buying the building.
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: Oh you bought the building. Oh you guys were like,
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: I don't want to use Donald Trump, but you are Trumpet.
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: I don't know another person to use. But oh, y'all
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: are like that. And you did it as sisters.
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: Yes, so yeah, my sisters and I were call owners. Yes,
• 45:55
  Speaker 2: three of us. My sister Leslie and I are like
• 45:58
  Speaker 2: super involved though we're the and y'all.
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: Want it together. Oh, this story just got better. And
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: what did the husband say? So the husband that's.
• 46:11
  Speaker 2: The ex husband. Now, so that's a whole story. So
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: we brought it obviously I'm married, California everything.
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the unity say, did y'all buy it under a
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: corporation or we did?
• 46:20
  Speaker 2: We did, and then it was separate, So no, the
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: problem we brought it with the it was my sisters
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: and obviously I'm married, so it was the ex husband
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: and so part of the struggle after we purchased the
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: building is we were going through a divorce. We ended
• 46:35
  Speaker 2: up filing for a divorce shortly after we got the
• 46:38
  Speaker 2: building and we ended up litigating the ownership of it
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: for about a year and a half.
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I know that was tough.
• 46:48
  Speaker 2: I'm so connected to that space because I really fought
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: for it. It went through a court receivership while the
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: judge was trying to decide who was going to get
• 46:54
  Speaker 2: it civil law. Yeah.
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: Ultimately, Now did your sisters give you a little bit
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: hell for that?
• 47:02
  Speaker 2: I think I'm still paying for it. That's why I'm
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: so dedicated. Yeah, they put their life savings into buying
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: this amazing so they were shook.
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: Absolutely, See absolutely, I think there is trauma. I'm gonna
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: take it back to the single momhood because even though
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: I am married. Yeah, this is horrible to admit, and
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: you know, but I always think about if divorce happens,
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: Like I owned the property before I bought I got married.
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: People always ask me, are you're gonna sell itry? Absolutely not,
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: And because once you sell, it becomes communal. And in
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: the back of my mind, I know, as messed up
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: as it is, like, oh I can get we can
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: get gold together on some things. But in the back
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: of my mind, whatever was a communal is safe, you know,
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: or whatever. And if I were to do something with
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: my family, I'd be like, look, man, we're gonna have
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: to have a promisary. Note that thing is going on
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: the yo ning seriously, you know what I'm.
• 47:56
  Speaker 2: Saying, seriously. So that was my mistake. My mistake was
• 48:00
  Speaker 2: not understanding you know you. I didn't. I never thought
• 48:04
  Speaker 2: I would get divorced, but I never thought like divorce
• 48:07
  Speaker 2: was so nasty and messy, and when emotions and money
• 48:09
  Speaker 2: and four point five million dollar property is involved, the
• 48:15
  Speaker 2: guns come out. So we have to deal with a
• 48:18
  Speaker 2: lot to get it.
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: I was having a discussion with my dad and shout
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: out to my dad. He just started a company called
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: La County Politics dot com, all right, and he was
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: gonna let one of his employees create the one of
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: the Facebook pages. I was like, absolutely not, absolutely not,
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: absolutely not. He was like, oh, but she's such a
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: good work. I said, yeah, but you don't know how
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: people battle. When I have a girlfriend who told me
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: that when she dates, she's a public record. She says
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: people that have been divorced are the greatest to date
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: because you need to look at how they handled and
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: treated their spouse in a divorce.
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: That's so true.
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: And I was like, Yo, you need to screen on
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: all my lovers in the future. But the truth of
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: the MATTERSS, you can't predict them. You can't predict anything
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: like that.
• 49:01
  Speaker 2: I never imagined in a million years of things that
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: I went through my divorce I would go through, right.
• 49:06
  Speaker 2: I never, I've never guessed it.
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: But that's where I think for me, the trauma's there.
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: It's a real thing. Yeah, even here in this store,
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: I'd be like, you know what, in future, this business
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: is going under such and such as name you know,
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: because you're right, damn that's crazy.
• 49:23
  Speaker 2: Quick claim, quit claim deeds, all of that. If you
• 49:26
  Speaker 2: buy a property, like you have to be mindful the
• 49:29
  Speaker 2: person you divorced is not the person you married. I
• 49:31
  Speaker 2: remember my attorney would tell me that.
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: I would be like, why is he doing this?
• 49:35
  Speaker 2: He would never She's like, he's not the guy you married.
• 49:39
  Speaker 2: Stop thinking, yeah that he's that guy. He's not that
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: guy anymore. And so when I came to terms with that,
• 49:45
  Speaker 2: then I just like accepted that I'm in a battle,
• 49:48
  Speaker 2: right Like I'm in a fight.
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: Is what it is. And you, guys, at this point
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: you have to break communication like opposing sides, right.
• 49:55
  Speaker 2: Tell the attorney we're not even communicating at this point.
• 49:58
  Speaker 2: We still don't really communicy in this.
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: But yeah, because that's years, you know, that's a whole relationship.
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: That's a I don't I can't imagine how tough it is.
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: But like I said, I think the greatest teacher of
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: all time, it will be the single parent error because
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: after that.
• 50:11
  Speaker 2: You And that's how I got through my divorce because
• 50:14
  Speaker 2: I reminded myself you've done this by yourself before, so
• 50:17
  Speaker 2: don't think you can't do this by yourself.
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: And this person played a pivotal role in also believing
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: in you. So that's got to be a tough one too.
• 50:24
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: So a day in the life of Savoy now I
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: already know, Hypair. I kind of get a core of
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: your who you are as far as your integrity when
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: it comes to legacy and branding and respecting these brands.
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: I see your passion and your love for that, and
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: I love that for you, even though integrity where you
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: turn down to check it's crazy. I love that not
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: too many you've been a business for yourself for over
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: ten years, you haven't worked for someone officially, and over
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: probably of say twenty.
• 50:51
  Speaker 2: Let's see, it hasn't been maybe fifteen years.
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: Okay, that's great, Okay, and then you survive the pandemic.
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: Mm hmmm, because let me tell you something, d the pandemic.
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: I took a little job. I went for a startup.
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: Murdered it. By the way, I love it, but I
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: had to. I had to get on that knee. And
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: COVID was a humbling reminder that all my eggs can't
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: be in one basket. I was like, man, my company's
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: killing it, and COVID this seconds all right. So with
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: that being said, now we get into the savoy and
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: a divorce in the middle of savoy.
• 51:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, And I'm still got to be a mom, right,
• 51:32
  Speaker 2: got three kids?
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: You got three You have two kids together, and you
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: guys aren't talking. But now you're remarried. Shout outs to
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: you are a gags.
• 51:42
  Speaker 2: The fact that I even got remarried it was crazy
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: after everything I went through. But yeah, yeah, I have
• 51:48
  Speaker 2: an amazing husband, super dope. He's at the building now
• 51:51
  Speaker 2: making sure an event we're doing is going the way.
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: Okay, I love that. So it's like a partnership thing,
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: right or died.
• 51:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you signed that paperwork though, like prenup all of
• 52:01
  Speaker 2: it whatever. No people tell you to sign sign it
• 52:05
  Speaker 2: m hm, because I can never go through that again.
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's smart, that's smart. I love that for you, Okay,
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: I love that for you. I have so much respect
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: and admiration for you right now. Okay, So okay, tell
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: me a day in the life of running the Savoy.
• 52:19
  Speaker 2: Oh okay.
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: So you don't get to actually eat on the show.
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: You get to nibble.
• 52:24
  Speaker 2: I know. I'm learning that because I want to like
• 52:26
  Speaker 2: dig in. You're right, it's not that bad. And I'm
• 52:28
  Speaker 2: actually hungry too, really good, okayod this is what I needed.
• 52:32
  Speaker 2: A day in the life of the Savoy or me
• 52:34
  Speaker 2: of no of you in the Savoy Okay, got it.
• 52:37
  Speaker 2: So usually starts okay, usually it starts off with walkthroughs.
• 52:44
  Speaker 2: That's how we start our day because we're always selling
• 52:46
  Speaker 2: the space. So even if we just open the doors
• 52:48
  Speaker 2: and just three people walk through that day, that's a success.
• 52:51
  Speaker 2: So it's usually getting there early, making sure the cleaning
• 52:55
  Speaker 2: who did their job, making sure our walkthroughs are scheduled,
• 52:57
  Speaker 2: doing our walkthroughs, making sure we allow up with people,
• 53:00
  Speaker 2: have then walk throughs earlier in the week, secure those dates,
• 53:03
  Speaker 2: adding dates to our master calendar. And then we have
• 53:06
  Speaker 2: a restaurant there. So then there's a whole operation of
• 53:09
  Speaker 2: restaurant depot, alcohol distributors, this and that and that's going on.
• 53:13
  Speaker 2: So I'm managing that and sometimes I am at restaurant
• 53:15
  Speaker 2: depot getting what we need.
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: But smart cool that means you're just riding it out,
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: doing whatever you gotta.
• 53:20
  Speaker 2: Do, whatever I gotta do. And then we go into
• 53:22
  Speaker 2: lunch service, then we going to dinner service, and I
• 53:25
  Speaker 2: say probably four days out the week we have a
• 53:27
  Speaker 2: private event. So just making sure the client has four.
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: Days out of a week, that's great. That's really great
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: for you guys.
• 53:32
  Speaker 2: Like today we have two events. We have a repass
• 53:34
  Speaker 2: during the day and then we have a private birthday
• 53:35
  Speaker 2: party tonight. So just doing it nice scheduling.
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: Now, now, with all these businesses you have going on,
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: I just want a small recap of an actual Okay,
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: I wake up at six, What does this routine look
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: like on an average day? Don't give me a lounger.
• 53:50
  Speaker 2: Day, got it? Sure doesn't happen you know, my lounger
• 53:53
  Speaker 2: day is Monday, Okay, cool, So when everybody's starting their week,
• 53:56
  Speaker 2: I'm like chilling because the Savoy is closed and my
• 53:59
  Speaker 2: beauty so apply stores. That's like our slow day. So
• 54:01
  Speaker 2: Monday is my day off. Okay. But yeah, on an
• 54:03
  Speaker 2: average day, I get up at like five am. I
• 54:06
  Speaker 2: don't get out of bed, but I'm up. I'm responding
• 54:09
  Speaker 2: to emails for hype Pair because a lot of our
• 54:11
  Speaker 2: ad partners are on the East Coast, so I want
• 54:13
  Speaker 2: to match their response time. So checking in with my
• 54:16
  Speaker 2: team for Hypeaer who are in Atlanta. Usually I'm up
• 54:21
  Speaker 2: in out the house around like eight thirty nine o'clock
• 54:23
  Speaker 2: and then we go right into Savoy mode, right into
• 54:26
  Speaker 2: checking on the store.
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: How do the kids get routed there?
• 54:30
  Speaker 2: So the kids are with their dad a lot of times.
• 54:33
  Speaker 2: That's a whole nother story. My ex husband is Middle
• 54:36
  Speaker 2: Eastern and in their culture, when you divorce, I think
• 54:39
  Speaker 2: in the black culture, when you divorce, you like it's
• 54:42
  Speaker 2: just known, you go with your mama. It's not that way.
• 54:45
  Speaker 2: So I have a lot of what's the word, I
• 54:47
  Speaker 2: don't want to say, free time, but I have a
• 54:49
  Speaker 2: lot of discretionary time when it comes to my kids.
• 54:51
  Speaker 2: And then my oldest is twenty one, she's an adult.
• 54:53
  Speaker 2: So the kids, you're not managing like a day to day,
• 54:56
  Speaker 2: not all of their schedules at routine like their dad
• 54:59
  Speaker 2: does a lot of that. Today I have them, but
• 55:01
  Speaker 2: it's not until the afternoon until the evening, so I'm
• 55:04
  Speaker 2: able to do my thing and do my work thing and.
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: It's kind of cool though it is to be honest,
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: because it's like a balance versus it is.
• 55:15
  Speaker 2: But it isn't right. So part of it is like
• 55:17
  Speaker 2: when you divorce, you have to create a new normal
• 55:19
  Speaker 2: for your children, and I just feel like my ex
• 55:21
  Speaker 2: husband and I we haven't gotten to that place and
• 55:22
  Speaker 2: so we kind of just have to do what we
• 55:25
  Speaker 2: got to do to get through it. But it's not
• 55:27
  Speaker 2: ideal for me as a parent, But I accept that
• 55:30
  Speaker 2: that's just the place that I'm in and that's who
• 55:31
  Speaker 2: I'm married, and.
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: That's yeah, okay, what can you do? Okay, that makes sense.
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: So you go to the Savoy and say you start
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: your day at nine thirty nine, you leave the house
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: and then you go to the Savoy.
• 55:43
  Speaker 2: Yep, And then I'm there. I'm doing the walkthroughs I'm
• 55:45
  Speaker 2: making sure it's clean, I'm getting us ready for lunch service,
• 55:48
  Speaker 2: and then usually I'm able to brand shop during the
• 55:50
  Speaker 2: day and then go check on the retail stores, going
• 55:53
  Speaker 2: to the distributors, making sure we're fully stocked, scheduling, payroll,
• 55:57
  Speaker 2: all the things, business, whatever comes up that day, go
• 56:00
  Speaker 2: to the city.
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: Whatever that is.
• 56:02
  Speaker 2: And then I usually take a break during the middle
• 56:05
  Speaker 2: of my day, go home, regroup because usually I start
• 56:08
  Speaker 2: off my dance sweatpants and a hoodie. I like to
• 56:10
  Speaker 2: go back to this avoid looking like the owner, so
• 56:13
  Speaker 2: I'll usually transition arriving correct.
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: Correct, I love that.
• 56:17
  Speaker 2: Okay, So my break is during the middle of the day,
• 56:20
  Speaker 2: I go home, get ready for my evening, and then
• 56:22
  Speaker 2: I'm there all night like there, it was there till
• 56:24
  Speaker 2: midnight last night, Jesus. We had a comedy show.
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: Comedy shows, yeah, yeah, And then where can everybody see
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: the schedules of everything you have going on?
• 56:32
  Speaker 2: For Instagram, we post when we have events. So it's
• 56:34
  Speaker 2: free events space on Instagram and.
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: Free event space on Instagram. Okay, no dots, no dat,
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: free event space, not la, just free events okay, free
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: event space.
• 56:48
  Speaker 2: So that's that, and then I'm into event mode or
• 56:51
  Speaker 2: whatever comedy show mode.
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: Or now your sisters were involved in the Savoy, So
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: how does that work? Do they do dai to day operations?
• 57:00
  Speaker 2: So they're very focused on their wine bar ten ten,
• 57:03
  Speaker 2: which is booming right now. I'm so proud of what
• 57:06
  Speaker 2: they've created. So the operations really falls on you.
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: Oh got it all right? All right? Yeah?
• 57:14
  Speaker 2: Girls, okay, exactly.
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: Well, thank you so much for feeding me today, diving
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: extremely deep. I know I was all up in your business. No,
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: it's good though.
• 57:25
  Speaker 2: I needed this need. I needed a break, I needed
• 57:27
  Speaker 2: a conversation, I needed some nerves moves.
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: And when you look back and reflect on it all,
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: would you do it all over again?
• 57:33
  Speaker 2: Yes, but not in the same way. Not in the
• 57:36
  Speaker 2: same way, for sure. Not in the same way. I
• 57:38
  Speaker 2: would be more trusting of myself. I would be less
• 57:41
  Speaker 2: trusting of other people. I would definitely have gotten a
• 57:44
  Speaker 2: prenup because it'spent a lot of time fixing things. So yeah,
• 57:48
  Speaker 2: I would absolutely do it again, just in a different way.
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: Got it? And that would be the advice you give
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: to your younger self.
• 57:54
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, girl, get an attorney, Get an attorney, get a
• 57:58
  Speaker 2: business coach, get all those you're gonna end up paying
• 58:01
  Speaker 2: for it anyways, I don't wanna spend that money. You're
• 58:02
  Speaker 2: gonna end up paying for it if you don't do
• 58:04
  Speaker 2: it the right way the first time. You're gonna pay
• 58:06
  Speaker 2: you in some way down the line.
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: But all right, thank you guys for tuning in. Keep
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: up with everything, Leah how I'm on social media.
• 58:20
  Speaker 2: I'm super active on social media. I'm on Instagram, Leah
• 58:23
  Speaker 2: l I A B d I A s on Instagram
• 58:25
  Speaker 2: and Facebook li b liah b ds my name.
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: On Instagram Facebook.
• 58:30
  Speaker 2: No underscores, no underscore, just L I A B my
• 58:34
  Speaker 2: middle initial d I A S.
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: All Right, you heard it here first, guys, and free
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: to reach out to us or her on Instagram.
• 58:42
  Speaker 2: There, Thank you, Thank you.
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: This was a bye all right, Thanks guys for tuning in.
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: Peace out for more eating while broke from iHeartRadio and
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: The Black Effect, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your Fabi Rick shows