Hey, hey, hey, Mandy's trying to take my hey hey, hey all isn't that great though?
Look she's on board. I feel like we both own co owned the hey hey hey, oh really, or maybe fat Albert does. Since technically we stole it, you stole it from there? Why did steal it with fad Albert?
Since that Bower is a fictional character, it's true, he merely he just influenced my hay hay head. No, you know who influenced it, Dwayne from What's Happening?
Oh okay, yeah, legit, thanks Dwayne. Hey guys, it's episode eleven, and we have some big news. This is a very same week last week, Brown Ambition, our little podcast that could, made it to the iTunes New and Noteworthy page, which is major, major Maja like Victoria Beckham major. This the big deal. It means that you guys have been downloading, you've been subscribing, you've been leaving reviews, but do not stop now. Yes, we need to keep this momentum going.
We want everyone to know about Brown Ambition, so leave us some reviews. We gave a great giveaway last episode to little miss LaToya. She contacted us. Yes, LaToya LaToya it's the gift will be on its way soon and we maybe will host another iTunes giveaway. But don't let that stop you've leaving a review.
Yes please do, because honestly, we were just like all geeked up.
I don't know if you saw it.
We were posting me and Mandy all over our personal social media pages like wooo, we're famous now.
It's exciting. It means more people can find us exactly. Thank you, Brad. The love so buzzworthy. The first thing I wanted to start with this week since it was Halloween. Did you see Viola Davis daughter? She dressed up?
How cute she dressed up? She said, Mommy, I don't want to be Elsa. I don't want to be batwoman or whatever the other choices were.
I want to be you. That's so sweet. It is so sweet. And she was brained. She gave her like a little fro like her basically her Emmy speech outfit. So Minica, Supergirl, my Superman, my boo. His daughter.
He has a nine year old daughter. She was a dead prom queen. Okay, yeah it was, I said, okay, I just can't she died. I'm not sure, but she was wearing you know, the gray cast face and the you know gray in her hair. And I think her father loves zombie shows, so I think it was a nod to.
His love of zombie show. Did you take her trick or treating? No, but her mom did. She was super cute. She's not even a candy girl. Oh great, so mom got that duty. Yeah, like nice one. I literally I stayed home. I did not leave the house. I ate some candy. I showed up to write aid Sunday morning in an emotional state, and you know how like all the Halloween candies like so I was like, I will take that one and that one and that one. I'm not gonna lie.
When she was downstairs, I snuck upstairs and I saw her bag on the bed, and I said, I'm.
Just gonna take all. I did all of it, but I had all the chocolate. I feel that's like the mommy, like the stepmommy share. I know, in your official step mom but you know what I mean, Yes, no, it's I mean literally I ate all of the chocolate. She didn't even notice the texts. Yeah.
I was just like, you know, I want to make sure it's not poison. I would rather take the poison and ingested.
That's true. Some kids found needles in their snickers, like that actually happened. I remember when I was a kid. It was like people found razor blades. Someone stuck like sewey needles into Snickers like mint fun sized candy bars here in New York, at both places, I can't trust anybody. My kids are not going to go trigger to you. No. I stayed my butt at home and did nothing. So Happy Halloween all you, all you fools, and that black face, we saw you, and that's why you got dragged. Our message.
Our message did not reach everyone in America. There were a couple of black faces out there, yeah, but then a couple of like I saw this really hilarious. So apparently coming to America was like the thing for Halloween. Beyonce and jay Z were coming to America. Yeah, and but there was this whole like I don't know if they were a family, but it was like ten white people, like they were all different cast members, no black face, they just were the outfits. Go figure, and you could
tell everyone got it. Yes, here was.
Another little boy I was talking to you about earlier, who dressed them as Malcolm Max, who was a little white boy. Heah, the glasses, the suit, no black face, and I just thought that was so c you.
Know who he was, Yes, he chose I would be Malcolm Max. And I said, well, okay, look at that. Good for him, good for those parents. Okay, what else is buzzing? I saw this article and my favorite magazine ever, the only magazine I actually subscribe to, New York Magazine, Okay, and it talked about how we need more older women in the office, yes, and in just in careers in general.
And I was thinking, like, as I was sitting there, I'm like, let me think of older and I'm thinking older is like past fifty, maybe past forty, although that's not so old. Yeah, please don't. And there aren't any in my where I work, Like in my area, No, there's no older women. And I'm like trying to I'm even trying to think back to my last couple of jobs.
Definitely when I was in my life. I worked at a startup, my last job, and it was all twenty somethings, like someone had a baby right when I quit, and they were like, oh my god, the first baby. We're
all kind of growing up. And the point that the writer makes is the fact that women, young women especially need to see examples of what it looks like to juggle a career and if you have a family, a family, and when you're in your forties and fifties, and you know, not to be sexist, but you know, I think it's helpful and beneficial for a young person to be able to look to an example of like, oh, she is doing She's leaving at six pm every day, no matter what,
she's setting aside her priorities, and she's still getting shit done around the office. Exactly.
It was two I think with a teacher, because I was really fortunate in that I've had older women around me. I was a school teacher, so you know, it's nothing but women for the most part, and so had I used to get such great advice from the older women, and most of them had kids, so they would just give me good advice about, you know, doing what I wanted to do now before the kids came. I remember one woman in particular, she changed the trajectory of my career.
I was, I don't think like nineteen or twenty. I was working or I had an internship at this corporate office, and I remember trying to decide whether or not. I just stay with them, even though I didn't like the job, but they were offering me a lot of money after college, like fifty thousand dollars a year, which is huge money for a nineteen twenty year old. And then but I really wanted to teach, so I was kind of juggling, like, oh, teach,
make thirty something, corporate place, make fifty something. And she pulled me into the office and said, I heard they made you an offer and I said yeah. She said, this is a black, older woman, and she said, if you take that offer, you were be damn fool.
I love that.
Oh why what was her reasoning because quite honestly, she said, she said, take a look around you.
Do you see how they treat because it really was not the best place to work for personal color. I will say that like everyone of color seems to be demoded, there was really there just was nobody in like higher positions for people of color.
It just was not like the best place. And I knew that.
My energy, my spirit everything said this is not a good place for you, Tiffany.
But I was just thinking, Oh, the money's good. Yeah, And so they have that perspective.
MM hm, and so she's like, I've been here long enough to know, and I was just so glad I listened to her. I instead went on to teach, and then teaching led to me being the budgetista, led to me to being on broad ambition.
So here we are. You know, we're going to talk about mentors later in the show and how to how to find a mentor the right way. Yes, but I think this kind of ties into why for now in
the past, I don't know. It seems like in the past few years, mentorship has become so huge, and I feel like women especially are so hungry for mentors because we don't have like like this article points out, like an older stage wise woman in the office, and not just like we need to have just one, you know, we need men like multiple, Like we need women who maybe aren't, you know, work all the time and chose not to have kids, women who have kids and work
some of the times, like different examples, women who when I'm attorney leave and came back and some who didn't come back and maybe they're working you know, remotely some days of the week. We need very like diverse examples of what it's like to be older as a woman.
Yeah, It's true. I always have questions. I'm always like, well, so what does this look like?
But what if I make this choice? So what if you know?
Because even I mean now with growing my own business, entrepreneurship and relationships, sometimes I just want like a romantic relationship mentor like, well, how are you managing with your husband?
Because you travel a lot and I travel a lot, So how does that look like? You know, how do you know if I have a kid? What happens to that? Like? Are your kids mad that you're always on a plane?
You know?
And so it's like I've got questions and no answers. Yeah, so how do we fix this? How do you get more women to stay around? I mean, part of the problem is the fact that women, you know, tend to not get promoted as readily as men. And then also just realistically, a lot of women, not a lot of me.
I don't know the exact statistic, but you have to factor in the fact that some women scale back as they go through their career, and they you know, scale back for legitimate reasons because they you know, it's a lot if you choose to have kids to juggle that and do a good job and then also kick ass and be promoted, like maybe you don't want to be the boss having to work twenty four to seven, be on email all the time when you have kids at home,
like and no one can fault them for that. And that's why again, I feel like we need diverse examples like women who choose that path and women who choose other paths. But yeah, so we're going to talk to you really about how do you find someone to say yes? Oh my god, wait for our Oh wait what I say?
No?
How do you like? That's going to be all like our shit at the end, like, oh yeah, mentors, how to find a good mentor yeah, how to get someone to say yes? How do we get other other buzzwords? These words for today? I have one more I want to talk about. I love how it's like my job to find the buzzword. My brown break is when Tiffany shows up and has no ideas for what we're going
to talk about. It's been a hard week. Listen, I know, I know, I know, Mandy is I'm gonna make for every time you go on Instagram, you have to read one article. You can read some headlines. Okay, that's my chashamed her that to love you, I couldn't do the show with that. I was just looking like, Oh, I hope baby doesn't don't have any I have one more I want to talk about. So something that was really important to me as a person, because I wasn't like,
I don't feel like I was a mature person. Not that anyone is when they're eighteen, but when I went to college, I didn't really have a mature view of the world. I never knew gay people, I had never met anyone really have a different religious faith. In me. I was just you know, I grew up in the South, and even though I was open to new experiences and so very i think at a young age pretty liberal, I wasn't didn't have access to very diverse groups of people, and I was hungry for it. So when I got
to college, everyone's talking about study abroad. You know, are you going to go you know, oh, going to go to con for the con festival with my you know, with my journalism program. Are you going to go to Spain for a semester a broad and you know some people spent a whole year abroad. And I was like, yes, absolutely want to do that, and then I looked and it's like thousands and thousands of dollars, and I shut
it down immediately. And that's what a lot of people do if you're from poor backgrounds, which you know, obviously a lot of minorities fall into that category. And there's this group called the Council on International Educational Exchange and they're trying to make it less of a barrier financially for minorities to study abroad, which I think is so important for me. The only reason I studied abroad when I was eighteen is because I found like a very
obscure scholarship. It was like I think, and I wrote an essay and I had to keep emailing them like did you get my essay? Did you get my essay? And they gave me two thousand dollars, which was just enough, and it was like down to the wire. I wanted to go to Argentina for the summer, and I got this two thousand dollars scholarship which pretty much paid for airfare and paid the fees for my homestay. And that was the only reason I got to go to Argentina.
I mean, I didn't have I certainly couldn't save enough working part time while in school my first year to study abroad, and well.
That was good, because you're right, I wanted to study your broad But I'm like, where, houseway, where's somebody coming from?
Kids take out student loans for this really? Oh yeah, I've talked and I talked to them. They're like, oh, I have this much done. I'm like, well, you say, tuition, you know costs us much a year, but that yet you have twice as much. So what's the story. You're like, Oh, yeah, I studied abroad for two years, and you know, I think that's stupid to take student loans out for study abroad at the same time.
But there are programs that are kind of like trying to Like one of my friends has this organization called Traveling mad Her name is Madeline and she was born and raised in Newark Brick City stand up, boo boo for those of you familiar with Newark. It's similar to like a Compton Detroit, that kind of thing. And you know here in Madeline was a little brown girl from Newark and she got her her master's doe I believe
in Paris, and that's where she went to school. And so she because she knew she really wanted to you know, live somewhere else and study abroad. And so now she started traveling mad to take kids, especially from Newark who've never been anywhere, never had had a passport to take them to other countries for a few weeks. So she just last year she successfully successfully took between ten and twenty kids from Newark to London.
I did like an exchange program.
Yeah, it was just so great, and I'm just like, wow, so these high school kids got to go to London.
That's important. Yeah, And this is where I was going with the whole stupid anecdote about my gay high school boyfriend and like how I wasn't a mature adult, cause I feel like it wasn't until I went to Argentina when I was eighteen. When I when I lived in like a kind of poor neighborhood, and I you know, I volunteered at a prison at one point. I didn't understand all the Spanish, so I didn't know I was
a prison. They were like alcoholics or something. And it really like changed my worldview, I mean, and not just like little things too. I didn't eat vegetables before I moved to Argentina, like I didn't like tomatoes. I didn't like onions, lettuce, like nothing. I like ate potatoes and corn. Wow. And then I went to Argentina and you have a family preparing you a meal for you know, out of their own good will and heart. You can't and you
can't not eat it. And then I just, you know, my entire, my entire like view of food change and now I eat everything, and it's like and it was just it was a very crucial sort of like nothing I could have learned in a classroom experience. But sure travel is critical. Yeah, so yeah, And just so you know, this group again is called counsel and International Educational Exchange. They are giving twenty million dollars in scholarships over the next five years to people of color when you study
abroad and passwords. It is www dot c I EE dot org c I E E E C E yay. And by the way, when I just a real quick note on traveling, maybe we should bring us up another time. But like when I graduated college, I turned out a job and I went to travel for six months. And when I came back without having any job experience, the number one thing people wanted to talk about was that trip I went on, Like I put it on my red that I've been traveling and like, I mean, I
was working kind of abroad. But it's just it's like the kind of experience that job, like hiring managers want you want to see in someone and like I want to see Yeah. So I feel like it helped me that. All Right, blawn break, brown break, bbe do you want to go first? Yes? Did you come with the brown break?
At least? So my brown break is actually kind of serious. Y'all know to me to meet it. Y'all know me to be a little bit silly, just a little bit, but honestly, this is a serious one. I want to take a brown break from victim shaming. So victim shaming is basically when something happens to someone and instead of saying, hey, person who attacked said victim, we are instead of going to blame the victim and said, well, what could you
have done differently not to be raked? Or what could you have done differently not to be persecuted, or what could you have done differently not to be you know, abused or just like attacked. It just seems ridiculous, right, So you think here, so well, that just seems crazy.
But we do it over and over. Like the young woman who we all saw.
I'm sure if you have not seen it, then you are not on social media, or don't watch the news, or just don't have TV or live in nineteen eighty five, that the young girl who was in middle school, that middle school, elementary school, No, it.
Was middle school, it was middle school. He was fourteen, she was fourteen.
Okay, she was in her classroom and I guess she wasn't participating. The teacher called a security person and he came to the classroom and you see him, I guess, speak to her and then you see him like kind of put her in the headlock and then flip her chair over and then.
Very disturbing, Yeah, throw her.
Across the room and then like drag her and then you see, I guess there's the students describe that he's now putting her hands behind her back like this is like literally the girls like hmm, maybe five six, like one hundred and ten pounds, and this guy's a powerlifter, like to something three hundred pounds huge, and so many people, of course, you know, there's outrage against this huge man attacking this girl But what really surprised me and disappointed
me were so many people were like, well, these kids today, they got to learn to respect folks, these kids today, are you?
Are you kidding me?
I Like, if you were physically here, and I don't even get violent, I just would would like to just mush you in the face.
What does that even mean?
Mushy right, like you know, like the old school mush like you do your little sister when they're all in your business, Like just mush you in the face. Because how foolish do you sound to say that somehow a fourteen year old is big enough or intimidating enough to require a man that is nearly three hundred pounds and power lifts six hundred pounds, that it would require him to throw her cross the room, flip her desk over,
and just treat her like a rag doll. And it just the fact that the other students didn't seem even as shocked, because this is some person who was known for his violence against the students. And then to say, somehow, these kids today need to be respectful. Not that it should matter, but that girl apparently has lost both her grandmother and her mother in the last year and she was not participating because she is in a state of deep depression, as we all would be, and she's in
a foster home. Not that that should matter, but cause I was a teacher, quite honestly for ten years, I've had kids spit literally in my face, like hawk spit, that's when you.
Go a t in my fi in my face.
I actually had a child to use his head against me as a weapon. They used to teach us this hold when like a little one was like really like like about to hurt himself, that you would basically give them a beer hook from behind and just kind.
Of subdue them.
He would wait until he was calm and trick me, and then this little boy would use his head and throw his head back into my chin. And one time I nearly blacked out and still didn't throw him. And so it is possible to deal with children and know that sometimes kids come with their issues and not abuse them. And it's just so crazy to me that someone would look at that and say, well, what did she do?
I don't care what she did. She's not light common. Yeah, victim shaming, I mean victim blaming. It's I mean this, and especially when it comes to young black. Mm hmmm,
we're brown kids. And I remember that the pool party in Texas where those kids were like you know, the cops were called for some reason or another, and then there was all there was this one young woman she was about the same age as this girl too, about fourteen, and she you know, was talking back to the cop and then he dragged her and put her on the
ground and like was being forceful with her. And then there were I mean, I think in that situation like we wouldn't ever The question is when you when people are afraid of being blamed for what they've done, Like, the question is like would they ever report mistreatment? Like if there were if these kids in this classroom or at us pole party hadn't taken cell phone videos and had this evidence, would these girls feel you know, or would people believe them when they spoke up for them? Likely?
Not.
That's the sad part. It's not that the stuff is happening more frequently, these attacks on brown people in general, black people, young people, old, But the fact that we have evidence now and people are taking it, you have to take it seriously.
Can't people say that video you know he's not and you know, so crazy and ridiculous when they said, like, oh, he has a African American girlfriend.
First of all, is the flying.
I saw, I met, I saw the best comment. Someone said, if having sex with a woman of color cured you of your racism, then Thomas Jefferson would have would have freed the slaves.
So what does that even mean?
He's having sex with a black woman that makes him not It means nothing, because honestly, let's be real, like everybody knows Terry Crews, right, Terry Crews is like this huge black guy who he like, what's some movies that he's in?
Everybody he hates Chris.
He'sn't even Brooklyn nine nine I think, so he's also the father and everybody hates Chris.
He's huge, he's muscular. You must watch his lip sync battle performance Vanessa Vanessa, what's her face? A thousand miles? Oh yeah, yes, he is hilarious. So Terry K's huge black dude.
Imagine Terry Crews throwing Dakota Fanning like the little girl from right, or just anybody tailor not even Taylor Swift, Like I'm thinking of like one of these little like a good breeze would throw Taylor Swift right, like Ariana Grande all the little girl fall with love area Gronde right.
Just imagine him throwing her.
They would be up they would he would be in jail right now because it would be so much upward.
How dare he?
So don't tell me it's not about race, because if the shoe was on the other foot, there would be this rage of how dare someone do this to this girl? But instead it's you know, what does she do to deserve it? She must have sassed him, Like I don't know, I'm just so sick of it.
There And you know what black women especially are throughout history. I mean, let's not get too deep into it, but let's just be real, and black women are more likely to be abused than other women in general. Yeah, I mean by by police, by the financial system, by pretty much every establishment in the country. I was just and
this sort of ties into it too. There was this and especially about the fact that the black female body has been abused in so many different ways, over sexualized, you know, physically abused for so long without any repercussions for those who have been doing it. There was this cop that who's just starting the trial now, although it happened a year ago, he was found to have sexually assaulted eight black women who lived in this all this one neighborhood. I forget, I forget exactly where it was.
But the only reason he was caught, he was he was he was patrolling a low income kind of area and the only reason he got caught was because a woman who was returning from like a book club or something, or a cooking club with some of her friends, who was middle class and educated, and you know, he stopped her and she didn't unlike the other women he'd been stopping who had like prior arrests, drug convictions, you know, stuff that he could hold over their head. Yeah, she
didn't have any of that. So she called the cops on him. And that's the only reason because she felt she felt empowered enough to speak up. And so often women of color don't feel that empowered. And it's sad because it was going How long could that have gone on? Exactly whatever? People?
Because you choose, you know, he was so careful to choose women that he knew that felt powerless.
Then it's like his word and oh my god, you read the article. BuzzFeed did a really, really good in depth article on it. At the very end, they put in this quote from an attorney who's like, you know, these are people who have drug convictions and prostitution, and like you're going to believe them over him. That's literally what he was saying. And that's what drives me nuts because they're basically like he can get away with it because he's choosing people who, you know, people will never
believe their word against me an upstanding white man's word. Yeah, and it's just so crazy. It's just I'm just so sign.
It's just you know, ever since, I mean just even recently, ever since, just like talking about the over sexualization of black women in their bodies. I mean, you know, I speak professionally and there I've been in locations where someone has said to me, Wow, Timmy, you're behind it's so big. I'm like, how how was that appropriate conversation? I'm about to come up here and you've hired me to come speak,
Like what does that even mean? Or just like I'm always like I always think to myself like, oh, like there's nothing i can do. I'm just built a certain way, but I'm always so self conscious about covering up, covering up.
This kind of ties into my brown break. Okay, way, yes, I wanted to talk about and Tiffy and I talk about it too, like how do you dress for success when you're a woman of color and you have assets and a body type that you know clothes don't fit you. They don't fit you like everyone else. And if you wear something tight, you can be seen as being sexy when you're just trying to look good for work. So
my brown break this week is actually dress codes. This is at like the high school, middle school, elementary school level. I saw this posts. It's kind of going viral. This young girl, she's white from the school I think in Texas. Yeah, Texas again, right, I'll check on that, but I'm just like one more reason to hate Texas. Sorry, Texans, I'm not sorry. So this girl she posts this outfit she's wearing like a three quarter length shirt covered up to the collar. It's not even a cute outfit. I mean,
I'm just like, yeah, it's not. And like a black and white striped shirt completely covered up, baggy too, and then like a it would be on a normal average height girl, a knee link khaki skirt, and on her because she's very tall, it comes up a couple inches above her knee. Apparently she was walking down the hallway in an administrator or just another teacher stops her and makes her basically tells her to go home and change.
I think she ended up getting suspended too. And this girl wrote like a really badass Facebook post, she said, yes, I am a woman. I'm a woman with thighs, a butt, and a brain. I am bigger than this high school is called Beaufort High School. All of us are. Maybe instead of wearing about my skirt, the school should take notice of its incompetent employees and sexist leaders. Wow. I'm
sure they're gonna love her go tomorrow, right. But I can't help but think of the fact that so dress codes are a hot, like a very like a hot debated topic. I feel like in the school, if you're a parent or you're you know, you study education anyway, because research has shown that when you're talking about enforcement of dress codes, who do you think it's punished more girls, of course, but like white girls are brown.
Girls, I'm assuming brown girls definitely all that base, all that base because there's just certain things it's like, oh, your body.
I just I can't help the fact that I have.
A behind, Like I've literally been like, all right, if I get a size fourteen, which is ginormous, I can cover my butt, but then it doesn't fit anyplace else. And if I wear my size, it's like, well sheesh, look at that behind, and you're just like, well, what am I supposed to do?
And there's no like, there's no like nationwide data on how people are punished, how young people are punished. But there's one example in North Carolina. For two thousand and nine academic year, black students in North Carolina were suspended at rates significantly higher than white students, eight times higher for self and you six times higher than white kids for dress code violations. I think this is for both
men and or girls and boys. But I just feel like the fact that women, black women are just already seen as like hyper sexual creatures, like oh, when a young girl starts developing, it's like her breasts are dangerous. A brown girl's breast are dangerous. And you know you're Latina, you're black, you have hips and thighs, like that's just part of the package, you know, for not everybody, obviously,
but for a lot of you. And it's hard being young when you have these like restrictive dress codes telling you what to wear. So I feels you and for people trying to dress for work, I don't know. It takes a while. How old am I twenty eight and I'm still trying to figure out, Like, oh my god, the other day I was walking, I was wearing a skirt and my boyfriend happened he would just like happened to be on the same train. Who's behind me? And I
get a call from him. He's like, babe, I can see your underwear because my skirt was high in the back and I didn't realize and they had been hiked up from when I was sitting down. And I'm like, oh yeah, because it looked right in the front.
Yes, I remember the first time I realized I had a But I had to be like I used to play on the tennis team, so here I was a little chocolate chip amongst all this vanilla, and I mean, honestly, I loved it. We had a good time. And then I remember, like I was wearing my tennis skirt. You know, tennis skirts are short, but you wear these little like tennis shorts underneath them, and like the girls on the tennis team were like Tiffany like she.
Was like pulling down the skirt from the back.
She's like, your skirt is like up in the back, and it took her a minute to realize.
That's your bud. Oh my god. Oh yeah before would you say? I said, you told that story before?
Yeah, And I was just like that was when I first realized, like I'm built different.
Oh, the schools in South Carolina. Sorry, Texas, you off the hook for now, I'm sure. Well, let me stop. The Carolinas are good. And that wasn't that the story of the girl who was thrown by the officer wasn't I South Carolina? I resa mm hmmm. So we're taking a break from y'all. We need to break from dress codes maybe South Carolina in total, and also victim shaming. Yeah, you know who you are. What's support each other?
Wait, okay, we're gonna harmonize.
Okay, I'll do some right now, I'll do whatever I just did.
Fun too, ready to go exactly what big sap M?
Maybe not? I'm bored. We're gonna do this now. I like karaoke. I know my limitations, I know your weaknesses. Me. I'm going for I'm microphone check want to I'm gonna
try not to get angry about these tips. This topic, which is how to find a mentor, how to secure a mentor, it sounds like catching a fish or like trying to hunt something down because some and I'm especially thinking about girls now having like being in a place now where people are asking me for advice, and like they come up to you with this glint in their eye like I want to collect you, yes, or I want you to make me the weirdest career pick your brain.
I'm like picking sounds terrible. So mentors are important, especially when we're just talking about how there's not enough older women, like established career women around the office. Maybe so you need to reach out to other people like you need for us like a Linnet Kalifani cop Yeah, Gale Harry Mason, Well, I just met.
She's the author of like the Girl, Get Your Credit Straight, Girl, Get Your Money Write Books. She's totally dope, one of the first first women of color to actually talk to other women of color about money and write a book about it and be a bestseller.
So the problem is there's not enough of these people to go around, and everyone wants and needs and should be looking for someone to mentor quote unquote them. And I want to talk about for me, like first to talk about the definition of mentorship. I don't think that you should. I feel like you should adjust your expectations before you look for a mentor, especially now everyone is
so busy. I feel like an email once a month is a lot, I mean, and I feel like when you're asking for advice, you should always keep that in mind. It depends on your relationship with someone too. If it's someone that you work with every day, that's a little bit easier. Obviously you'll see them, but you need to look at who the person you're talking to and who you're trying to reach. Look at who they are, and you can pretty much get a good idea of how
busy they may be. And then Taylor, how often you're bombarding them with questions around that?
And you know Tim Ferriss of four Week, the four Hour work Week fame, right, So she has this actually a really great post about how he got Jack Canfield, the guy who does the chicken soup for the Soul series, how he got him to be a mentor. They talk once a year, once a year, but Jack gives him his entire life, and he said what he did was he met Jack Canfield. Jack Campill was like, Oh, if you don't have any questions whatever, make sure you call me,
email me. And you know, everybody says that they don't need it, that's a lie. They don't need him. And so he Tim Ferris said it took him like a year or six months something like that to figure out the perfect question to ask Jack, because he knew that he'd if he asked him a question that he could google or get the answer from from someone else, then that would be like his last time to kind of like connect with him. So he said it took him months on months on months to find a question that
only mister Canfield himself could answer. So WANTI would show that that Tim had done the research too, that he respected his time, and three that he was insightful and that he could be poured into.
And so he came up with this question.
Jack loved it, answered him when above and beyond, And the next time they spoke was like a year later.
But you want to know the question. I know, I guess you get lesson though that's true, you should really think. Yes, it's kind of like when you. I hate feeling out job applications. We have to write a new When you have to write a new like missions, what's it called cover letter each time, and you really have to tailor it to the job that you want into the specific Yeah,
try and figure out exactly who you're talking to. Yeah, that's because that obviously it shows that you really take time out here.
Because if you reach out like so, I get a lot of young girls that reach out to me and they're like, hey, miss Bunjaniza, I'd love, you know, to ask you this question. The young girls, I don't mind because y'all don't know no better. So you're like, you know, nineteen eighteen whatever. But then when I get someone who's a little bit older, like once you pass your mid twenty twenties, I'm like, okay, I want you to be just a little bit more mindful.
But if you ask me a.
Question that it's like if obvious a quick surveillance of my website that I don't do, or a question that literally it is something that you could google, it seems like like you're not even willing to put the effort in.
But then you want me to pour into you, so you might ask me.
A question like, Hey, how much do speakers get paid?
Or something like that. I'm like, that's a quick google.
Now if you were to say, Hey, Tiffany, you know I'm really going into I want to start teaching financial education and I live in Detroit. I see that you started off with, you know, nonprofits. Did you feel that that was the best way to begin something like that? Now you have my attention. Now, I'm like, Okay, I can give you a specific answer because you might not get because you know, you might be number I don't know.
Sometimes I get like twenty or thirty people a day asking me, you know, a question, So you can't keep coming back to the well, I can't allow for that. So if you wasted your question on something you can google, Well, they want a.
Question, y'all better be careful with one question.
No, that's not what it is, Just that, like when people show thoughtfulness, it makes me want to give more.
I've never really been one to like look for a mentor. I've asked people for advice, but I don't even put that pressure on someone in my own head to think they're my mentor they're gonna help me. I have a bunch of different people I've asked advice not just women, but men too, and I talked about that before. It's
important to have male mentors. You want to know what they're making, so as you know almost more than maybe a woman, or at least know what a man and a woman are making, so you can compare and see if something's going on there you should pay attention to. I think it's important to look for mentors who are
not always just like you. Yeah, agreed, maybe not, you know, if you're obviously and then this is just a thing like when you're brown and you see the other brown person in the office, maybe you gravitate toward them for a certain way. But I don't think that you should
limit yourself in that way either. And don't look only for you know, if you're Latino, only look for Latina woman mentor, or only look for a black mentor if you're black, Like I think that's important, but you need other perspectives too, And just know that.
Being a mentor mentee it's a give it like a give and take, meaning that what do you bring to the table, So you.
Should have accomplished thing like whatever question you're asking. Let's say, and I just had someone come to me actually for a while, and I talked to her for a long time because I ramble, but she wanted to know about she had a question about she she wanted to get promoted, but she didn't feel like it was going to be happening. And I was like, well, you know, have you been keeping track of what you've been doing the past year? Do you have an exact idea of what job you want?
She's working for a startup, so the job she get promoted you doesn't really exist yet, and she's like, yeah, no, I've only thought about it. I'm like, well, you have to have some sort of a plan before. How can I help you? Like, you know, I feel like the questions shouldn't have been like how do I get promoted? It should have been like, how do I figure out what's the job that I want to do that I
can pitch to them? Or how do I what's the right way to bring up all the things I've done in the past year when I'm building my keys for promotion, And that would have been a much more like efficient use of time.
And also too, it's like do the work like I love you, like if you're asking me like how do I take the first step, I'm like, oh boy, you're not. You have to do the work, like, do the first five to ten steps on your and when you literally have no other steps to take, that's when you're like, Okay, now I can ask because then when you come to me, or you come to Mandy, you come to somebody that you have a question, you can say, look at all
the work that I've done. I'm fully invested in this new project or whatever it is I'm trying to do.
I just don't know where to go next. Now that's an.
Easy direct versus like how do you start a business?
What that? Oh my god? You know what? The biggest question I get now is how do you start a podcast? It's just like I'm like, well, I'm you know, I just went to a conference and I signed up to tell people how to start a podcast. So I blame myself for this. And now I'm like, I'm I and if anyone's listening from that conference, I'm preparing that tip sheet as we speak, I'm going to do it. It's only been three weeks. I'm late, I know, but yeah, it's such a broad question. And the way that I
found out was www dot Google dot com. You know, did you know Google is free? What? Maybe even charge you what for free? There's no libraries or you do be a library card exactly. You can do Google on the train, on the plane. Words are hard, I know, reading is difficult even I'm like reading these A lot of the stuff I've done with this is I don't
read directions in general. So doing this podcast and learning how to edit and learning what equipment I needed, I just skimmed and I was just like, I'll just buy this thing and hope it's right. So I did like that groundwork myself, and the kind of questions I'm asking, Like we are part of this really seecer like financial kind of group, and I never want to ask a dumb question in that group. I want to ask a
very specific question. People can answer questions, answer, you know, and answer in a way that'll make them look smart. People like you to ask questions that only they could know that makes them look good, you know. And so I waited to have really specific questions about the inner workings of a podcast, like specific things like you know, did you use this platform to edit?
Not?
How do you edit? Yeah, like what did you think of this certain platform? What do you think of this certain show. If you're doing some of the work, Oh yeah, hella. And and I feel like with any big thing like that, you should always do the work yourself. I mean, no one's gonna walk you through, no one has time to watch every step, no one has time. It's just and you shouldn't feel you shouldn't get let down when people aren't sitting down with you for two hours to tell.
You how, because yeah, and I get it, because I mean, I'm sure, Manda, you've done that before. Because I know I've made the mistake of like asking for too much, you know when I first started out, and I look back at that and I'm like, Okay, so now I don't, you know, I.
Really do the work.
I google YouTube by, I do as much as I can, and then when I'm at the end of my rope and then I'm like, okay, I just don't get it. Then I'll reach out and then usually it's just a quick redirect then I'm back to work again.
Yeah.
So there's some tips about how you can get yourself a mentor. We have not mentioned any of our social media platforms.
We're doing terrible.
Yeah, So, if you have a brown break, if you have some tips that you like for us to go over.
You can tweet it at the BA podcasts at Twitter or email us Brown. You guys have been emailing a lot actually Brown Ambition Podcasts at gmail dot com. We actually just love if you have any questions, like if you have a question that you want answered on the air, quote unquote, we'd love to get those from you. Yeah, you could also hit us on Facebook, Brown Ambition.
So our wins were wrapping up with some wins wins well, of course, our huge win is being on New and Normal.
New and Noteworthy, and yes, please leave reviews. M h. We sound a little greedy, but we want we love it, we need it, we need it real quick. I want well I can, I can give myself a win representing Brown Ambition. I was interviewed on Stacking Benjamin's podcast, Yeah Past Week, which is a huge podcast. Yeah super so, Hi Joe Money, thanks for having us on, and you guys should definitely check out his podcast, you know after
you download ours. Of course, it's called Stacking Benjamin's and he does a lot of like great personal finance investing advice and sometimes he has great guests on including yours truly trying to think what are the wins. We had a win, a submission from a reader, which we love. Yes, this reader's name is Tip, I think so. Yeah. She called out a young woman, a youth entrepreneur from New Jersey, I think Jersey Jersey. Her name is Essence Moore as a teenager. She as a teen. I don't know exactly
how old she is. How old is she? She's really young. She's like young teen, not like eighteen, like oh man, yeah, like, So she owns she owns a company called Essence Couture and Essence Couture University and Essence Couture Publishing. What what it's she woman? Wait? She released a book called sixth Grade Middle School Chronicles. Wow this I thought she owned a spa. She does. It's oh my god. She also owns a spot. I didn't even know about the other stuff.
And on that. She's a teen mogul. Okay, no wonder she's wait, she's only sixteen years old. Wow.
So she owns a spa in Paseic, New Jersey. So it's Essence Couture Spam Boutique, seventy one Market Street, Pasaic, New Jersey. So she started it for teens and tweens. How dope is that? Wait?
I can't even handle her about me? Hold on it, says teen preneur, teen preneur, children, tweens and teens, stylist, fashion designer, actress, motivational speaker, and author Essence More has been in various fashion shows, passions and karate turning. Yes, this is so cute, Essence, this is adorable. I'm gonna need you, Essence though, to pick a lane. No, but no, I mean I feel like this was how I was when I was in college. I was literally in every
single extra. She's still trying to figure it out. No, I think I think this is exciting, And I think this is like the part when you're when the time in your life when you're so young and energetic, I'm gonna try every single thing and I don't want to just be pinned down to one thing.
Yeah, And I think this is just so great because honestly, when I was fourteen, I was still trying to figure out which hairstyle works best for my face.
When I was fourteen, I was trying to figure out why my hair would not do what Lizzie macguires did. Yeah, I gave up on when I was ten. I was still trying to have white girl hair. When I was Oh, I didn't even a baby, bro, you did, Oh, well, you know I was a hot mess. I had the most listened I know I'm segueing but like or going off topic, but I had the most like straight to my heart conversation in the bathroom last week with another mixed girl in my office who I've seen around but
i'd never like, I don't know her story. I don't know she's like black and white or whatever, but she's we're both black and white, both had white mothers, both raised a majority of time by the white mothers. And she and I just had this like come to Jesus moek with each other. We just like later we were like your mom too, your mom took you to the mall and got the one black salon to do your hair when you're young. And we're like, I'm like, i've never seen my hair natural. I don't know what my
whole real hair looks like. And she's like me either, and she's, you know, going through the whole transition thing and I'm transitioning and I was giving tips and she was giving me tips. It was like you found your sister from another mixer and it was nice to relate. Sorry, essence, more, I just hijacked your wind.
Yes, but Essence, you are a winner, chicken dinner overachiever.
Keep going. Yes, I think that she seemed to be my mentor, right, essence? Can you teach me your ways? See how that sounds? That's how y'all sound? Tea? Oh I had one? Well when oh two? Mara just kidding, I have all the ideas. Addition, I'm not really like mad I'm not. I love Ti so real quick. You know, The Wiz is coming out the live Broadway show. They're doing it. They're doing like a mini documentary on today's show, I think, going behind the scenes like the the Dorothy
for The Whiz Live. It's a girl called Shaw niece Williams. She's from New Jersey and the Jersey Girl and she's like so cute and so sweet. Have been following her on Instagram. It's just cute to see her, Like, you know, she's surrounded by all these really famous like the who's Who of Black entertainment. Who's else said it like Alfred Woodard, Jennifer Hudson. Yeah, she's Nigerian. Whoo Woo Niga girls and she's ebo. Yeah bo. That's just a huge brown wind
when you pay attention to that. I think it's coming out early December or late November. That's like, that's gonna be fun. Yes, And then I you know, I told you last week, I'm obsessed with Jane the Virgin. Yeah. I spent all weekend catching up and it's so good. You need to watch it when next time you get sick or something like that, just watch. So, Gina Rodriguez is the main character, and she has been getting flack because people say she's not Latina enough to play Latina
personality or Latina character. Why she's half Latino, she's not. She's full Puerto Rican. The thing is, she doesn't speak one hundred percent fluent Spanish and people are calling her out for it. And here's the thing about it, and I can really I can understand because my boyfriend is Dominican, but he is not one hundred percent fluent. How part of the reason is because when you're in a lot of Latino households, the parents want their kids to speak English.
And in my boyfriend's case, he was also like taking care of the household, like paying the bills for them. He would be calling Time Warner to argue what the he will bill, and he had to speak English. And you speak to your parents in English and they speak back to you in Spanish. This is a modern day Latino family. And this is what Gina kind of calls out in this amazing interview with Huffington Post. She basically says, like, it doesn't get more Latina than I am. You know,
I am my own version of Latina. I don't think there's any one Latina story which is so true. There's no one version, there's no like, there's no like scale of how Latino are you? And I thought I was a win because she said it so eloquently. At the same time, it's crazy to me that we have to still tell people, explain to people that there's different ways of brown and different stories and stuff.
But you leftin it on lady.
All right, Thanks, that's that's so number eleven.
Please please please stay connected the BA podcast on Twitter. If you want to find us via email, send us a little message say hey, you know, send a brown break or questions or tips or something. You can email us at I always forget them.
I gonna get it right No, I'm not. I'm not like, hey man, it's not hard Brown Ambition Podcast. I'm Ambition Podcast at gmail dot com. And Facebook got Brown Ambition, yes see, I would get Facebook in Twitter right, it's just Brown.
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Oh And if you guys are listening on Stitcher or iTunes where you can currently find us, we are coming to Google Play very soon. I wish I could tell you when, but it's going to be soon, so all you Android users will be It's good news for you guys. Yes, thanks guys. Thanks see you next week. Be Brown