Ambition 0:00
I'm going to put all this in my book bag because I'm from the streets the Yeah. Oh, what's going on? It's your boy ambition. And welcome to another episode of the MYFB podcast. And today I have with me the soul Liberian herself. Miss Tiffany Kimbrough? Or did I say that right? Yes. You did. Always ask if I say it right. I should just ask that before but I never do. How're you doing today, Tiffany?
Tif 0:30
I'm awesome. How are you?
Ambition 0:31
I'm pretty good. Pretty good. So nicknames are we on like nickname basis? Can I call you TIFF?
Tif 0:37
Definitely. I prefer just tip, although my dad was like, You're the last one to carry last name. And I was like, just call me.
Ambition 0:46
Okay, so tiff mononym, like Cher? Got it? All right. So tell us a little bit about what you do Tiffany, or TIFF?
Tif 0:55
Oh, um, what I do is basically I'm a stay at home mom that likes to work. Basically, that's how I'm gonna keep it nice and simple. I, I wouldn't say I'm entrepreneur, of course I am. But I work. And honestly, what I do is making sure entrepreneurs are just checking in mentally and emotionally and spiritually into themselves as they work. I know it's a trendy thing now to just stay home and work on little things and trying to get a business up and running. But I really, really am grateful for COVID. And I'm grateful for this trend that everybody's working on themselves and working on their own businesses, because, honestly, that's just the new direction we're going into. And I just want everybody to understand that they need to check in with themselves constantly for their health. Yes. So that's basically what I do. I, I try to tap into all the entrepreneurs out there to see if they need me in their corner, whether it's to just bounce off some ideas or need an ear, or a shoulder to lean on. And that's just what I'm here to do.
Ambition 1:59
Oh my gosh, you're so humble. You're so humble. It's, listen, you can't just say you're a stay at home mom that works and then go, but you know, help entrepreneurs get into their self care routine. And like, that is a major industry for you. Right? Like, that's, and that's major value. Right? In terms of, you know, some of my listeners may know, I was a hypnotherapist just in terms of, you know, some of the things that we were talking about. It's unbelievable the amount of entrepreneurs that I know that will work on a project out of spite, right? They're working on this project, or they're working on this business, because, you know, the love of their life hasn't come along yet. Right? And happiness isn't on the horizon. So if you're not going to be happy, I might as well be rich, right? Like, I know those guys, and I'm not knocking it. But that's why what you do is valuable because sometimes many of us can lose sight of what the real goal is. And that's a healthy life, right?
Tif 3:03
Yes. So I'm so guilty of that though. I want to tell you y'all out there. I was guilty. I was like, I'm gonna be white first before I started making some racks and honestly, I didn't choose to entrepreneurship lifestyle, because I know how much work it is I hate when people go into it and be like, Oh, it's so much easier than a nine to five it is not know me for my hubby before I started making some some coins on my own. But here I am still making that money.
Ambition 3:28
Okay, so now can we have a real conversation? Of course. Alright, so the real conversation is men are actually aware nowadays. So if a man wants to be able to get married to a woman that he truly believes loves him. Right, one of the prevailing thoughts among men right now is that she has to be able to hold her own. Yeah, right. Um, and a lot of you know, I've heard a lot of people go, Oh, well, why is it love enough? It's like, well, love isn't enough because love isn't enough for you. Right? Like, because even in that mindset, you would have to marry someone with some coins in order for it to work out. Yeah, there's, there's a lot of balance. So I think that is the route to everything that you want. You have to be work willing to work for everything that you want. And even once you get the partner, you have to maintain the master and the business is the same way.
Tif 4:27
My dad raised me to be self sufficient. And of course a lot of women now are saying I'm independent women, bla bla bla, and I'm not saying bla bla bla to discredit. Yes, we are. And that same breath nowadays, although we might all just end up multimillionaires. I'm just putting it out into the universe to come in with two bank accounts to come into with two people on their you know mission and on their their drive. Yes, you can say money's not everything but incidents. sense to live a comfortable life. And for two people to have that, that's, that's amazing. So when I went out came to across the path of like, I'm not going to do too much until I get my husband's because I knew once I start combining a lifestyle with somebody, it was going to be business oriented, I was going to marry my business partner, whether he was helping me with my business, or I was helping with his business, or we have two different businesses. That was my more more like, important thing about like, if I were to going to be an entrepreneur, I would need my man to be with me, because business was very important to me. Yeah, and I
Ambition 5:35
think one of the things that needs to be taken into consideration with that, too, right is, um, you know, a lot of times you, you want to step in, on equal footing, right, so that that mutual respect can be there. So, that's why it's important that you build yourself first, because I have to be able to see something that, you know, earns you the right to be an advisor, not just give you the advisory role, because that's something that you want. So, I think it's beautiful that you're saying, Let me work on me. As our listeners are about to find out, there's a book on the way, right. So tell us a little bit about your book.
Tif 6:19
I'm excited for this. But okay, so it's called meaningful when your soul meets the ground. I literally am not a writer, I want people to know, I was not trying to be an author. I collect books, I live in a library. I live in bookstores, I sniff books, it's crazy how addicted to books. But um, I have a medical condition that doesn't allow me to work consistently. And so when that happened, I ended up at home. I journal like a crack addict, I go through three journals a year, which is 300 pages if you buy them from Barnes and Noble. So over the course of several years, I thought up 2000 pages, and I was like, You know what, I need this to be a book on my shelf, I wasn't going to publish it. Professionally, I was just going to publish it, put it on my shelf. So when I go back to it, I have all the 2000 Journal writings in one book. So I sat there, and I spent three weeks and I didn't even know it was just kept going out of me. And I spent three weeks and I had a book and I was like 10 chapters. Wow, of course, I need a lot of editing and things of those sorts. So that's why it's in the process of being actually published. I actually told myself, I need to publish it. So it can be at least professionally, drawn out beautifully, but it's literally about self journey. Purpose. We all want to know our purpose. I don't care if you try to ignore it. We all want to know our purpose. Okay. And so it's literally about and I hate self help books, I'm gonna tell you straight up, I read so many self help books, and my book is a self help book. It doesn't have the answer to your purpose. It does not. It has these tools that may help you on your journey to find purpose. It's very unorthodox tool. So don't have your Christian mama coming in to like, oh, read this book with me. They might come after me like, Ooh, no.
Ambition 8:19
When you say don't have your Christian mama come in, we could talk about it. Right? We could talk about it. What did what do you think of some of the things that may perturbed someone and what that really does sound like is your target audience are more so New Age and spiritual folk?
Tif 8:39
Yes. Sadly, I'm not trying to leave my Christian based out I am Christian based born and raised Baptist grew up my grandmother would probably turn in her grave at this point. Like I knew this girl was a black sheep. She's, she's gonna bring us all down. But um, bless her heart.
Ambition 8:56
So was Jesus.
Tif 8:59
And nobody ever says that. Now I'm not discrediting the Bible. I'm not discrediting religion, although religion irks me to my very core, I'm not, I'm not turning against God, or Jesus or the Bible or anything. Sorry, actually, my book actually says, if you use the Bible as a tool to yourself journey, do so. But don't do it as habit. Because we all grown up in the church, doing things out of habit, instead of a relationship with our spiritual selves. We just start off and not knowing why we're doing it. But Grandma told her to do it. Mom told us to do it. The pastor told us to do it or we go to hell. But my book does say if the tool is church, if your tool is the Bible, please take it as a relationship to it. Use it as a tool. Well, not just reading through the pages.
Ambition 9:45
I love the fact that you basically give people the framework. Right? And I also love the fact that you just told everyone straight up look, this is not going to give you the purpose. This is A tool so that you can discover your purpose. And that's very important, right? Like I think people forget what empowerment is about. Empowerment is about giving you the tools so that you can build your own house so that you can do it the way that you see fit. And if more authors were doing what you were doing, you would have had less rebellion within the self help movement for a long time, right? Because I went through the phase two, right, like I have the, the audible badges to prove it, I listened to all of the books, right? The you know, we all start out with thinking grow rich, and then it's Richest Man in Babylon, all of those books. And I'm not saying they're bad books. I'm not saying that the self help movement is bad. I'm saying that there can be an oversaturation of hyped
Tif 10:53
up marketing. Yeah, it's like, I'm gonna tell you your purpose. You'll know after you these three.
Ambition 10:59
I started to for me personally, I started to feel a little sleazy. After a while I was like, Ooh, like, I feel like you're trying to sell me my dream. Right? And it's like, don't do that. Just give me I'm capable, right? I'm here because I want to release my potential. Not follow your system to a tee. Right? So
Tif 11:23
oh, sorry, not to cut Oh, no, no, you're
Ambition 11:24
good. You're good. You're
Tif 11:26
excited about this. Because I want people to know, like my book literally say, hey, go Google it. Like, it's part of the area's gig. Because the fun part of myself journey, I read so many self help books, like I am an addict at reading, I read three books at a time, and 300 pages each. That's not impressive, but I get done so quickly. But the fun part was like, I'm gonna challenge what they said, I'm gonna Google this, I'm gonna find a research, I'm gonna find a different book that that kind of tells the opposite of what they're saying. And that was the fun part, I learned so much about myself. Like, I'm a little feisty nugget, like I will, I won't take your word unless I look at it. Like, I like looking at stuff. So in my book, it says, go Google it. I'm not here to teach you this. I'm not here to tell you how to do this. I'm just giving you some stuff that may make your mama turn in her grave or your grandmother turned it in great. But there's so many other tools out there to find yourself.
Ambition 12:23
Can we be real? Can we be just very honest about this? Right? Rightfully so there are several, like traditional norms that needs to be dismantled so that we can have healthy relationships with our family again, right? Um, people often prioritize family to a level where there are highly traumatized people within that family. And you have multiple narcissists, not just one. So every time I hear someone say, Oh, well, you know, my family's just a bunch of narcissist. And it's like, okay, if there are eight members in your family, and seven of them are narcissists. You're the eighth one, right? So and the fact that you are calling out other people's narcissism. It's as a justification for your problems, means that you haven't yet taken accountability. And that's like a key ingredient to narcissism. Right? So with all of that, I love the fact that you're just like, listen, whatever attorney in your grave like, well, what's what's the worst thing is gonna happen. You either go down this road, you discover it's wrong, and you turn back. Or you go down this road, you discover it's right. And you build a better tomorrow, the future looks amazing.
Tif 13:46
You took the words right out of my mouth. I'm like, That's the tone of my book. It's like, my publisher was like, I can you hear your voice in this. And then my cousin who read it, like three times was like, I can hear you either this book because it's literally my talking like, I don't have the answers. And I keep telling each chapter like, Look, I'm not here to give you the answers, just do something. And more on the topic of the tools and practices that I put in there. It's like, the tools I my family was like, I went through a journey from the age of 27, which I can talk forever about North Node and South Node and natal charts and things of why you start thinking at 27 to 30, why you kind of transition the way you think. At the age of 27, I went on a journey of like, I'm not believing in God right now. He's screwed my mind and my brain out of church, keep telling me this or that and have faith and it's not working for me, so I'm going to try everything else. So I went to different religions, different practices. You can say I was dancing with the devil. That's when my dad was like, Oh, we're gonna pray for you because you just dancing with the devil. And I was like, honestly, I went to go talk to a sickness. I went to go talk to people who practice Wicca I want to talk talk about talk to Jewish people, the Jews, Hinduism. I went through every religion just to speak. And I realized as much as I talked to them, I was like, we all say the same stuff. So let me do these practices. I went to taro and went to Natal charts I went through I love natal charts, I found out later chart is my thing. Taro doesn't work for me. But now I'm addicted to every deck, and I might make a deck or art deck of tarot. But I suggested in my book, so many tools that may just make you go, this works for me, this makes me find out who I am. And so I, in my book, I talk about a little bit about every little kind of tools that may be something you may like, and then I go off on a tangent of, hey, let's try meditation. And I know people roll their eyes like, oh, I don't have time to sit for 40 minutes, I did 40 minutes, but 20 to 40 minutes of meditation, okay. My book literally says, pick up the remote, turn it off, inhale, exhale, turn back to TV back on nice and do that every single day and take a longer time, you'll see the smallest changes, we are so consumed by our bodies, our bodies live our life, are so supposed to live our life like the same. The soul is, what is the same the body is you're not a body with a soul, your soul with a body. And we forget that are so nice to live our life. We forget that. So the book is actually trying to make your soul before front, not your body, your body lives out of habit. Your body is told what to do. Yes, we have involuntary Oregon, so I'm a condition kidneys major as well. We have involuntary organs that, you know, work on their own. Involving involuntary, involuntary oriens, you know, depending on what you're you're you kind of going in and out. But your body works out of habit. If you eat hamburgers everyday, it's going to naturally go gravitate to the craving of hamburgers. So your soul is just sitting there like, dude, what am I supposed to be doing today? We're so mind numbing, we're not doing anything. So the book really pushes that forward, like your soul wants to be forefront?
Ambition 17:20
Well, one of the things you're talking about is the primary, like the source of imposter syndrome, I believe. You don't feel attached to what you're doing. Right? You don't feel like it's your purpose. Right? You don't feel like you're you should even be good at it. Because why do you even want to be good at it. So here you are in the position that is leagues above the novice, but you still have the novices mind as you're stepping into the experts role. And that's because you, the body went there. But the soul was never fortified. The soul never did a push up. It never took a step. So I definitely agree with what you're saying. Even as a martial artist, right, and I take this stance because this is where I learned like the deepest information about meditation. And I've mirrored that with my experience in hypnotherapy. And what occurs is a lot of people say meditation and what they really mean is trance. Right? And it's trance when you're focused on something. So if someone says, oh, well, you know, I had a vision while I was meditating, well, you weren't meditating. You You were in trance, right. And that's why you were seeing things or thinking about nothing. But meditation is the absence of right. The absence of it's nothing but the breath, right. And since breath is already automatic, you don't have to think about breathing. That's why they tell you to think about breathing. But nobody ever explains this. Right? So that everything that you're saying is spot on to me, right? I'm right there with you. And I can't wait for the sole Liberian webinars to come out so that you can tell so many more people about, you know, there's these small ways that they can enhance and optimize their life and discover their own purpose.
Tif 19:20
Exactly. And I'm not here to inconvenience people's lives because a lot of people like that's a lot of work. And people do. Self journey is a lot of work. But you do a lot of work every day.
Ambition 19:31
Sometimes a lot of work traumas a lot of work.
Tif 19:33
Exactly. And so you're like, why is you knowing yourself a lot too much work. So I said, Okay, I'm not going to inconvenience anybody with my book. What I'm going to do is add little things that are going to be simply easy for you to do throughout the day and then you get so addicted by it that you're like Hmm, let me do a little bit more.
Ambition 19:54
But okay, so what do you say to this right? I am one of those people. You know, along my journey, and I relate to you a lot, right? Um, no, when I was 15, Episode Six is all about my experience in a call. And even though it was a Christian based call, and I say called because like, there's burns on my body, and you can't really tell people about stuff like that and say church because they go away kind of churches that want to say coat, it makes a lot more sense, right. But, you know, a very West Indian eyes or African eyes, Christian base coat. And, you know, that didn't cause me to lose my Christianity. Right? What caused me to lose my Christianity is 2014. My son is about to be born. And I know history. I know facts, right? I don't want to tell my son that the reason I am a Christian is because some people kidnapped some other people, brought him to a place, gave them a book. And then we just kept doing that. I didn't want to say that to him. Right? I wanted to actually have a good reason, right? I wanted to tell him that son, I've went around, right, just like they say King Solomon, journeyed and traveled and learned all those things, and then came back. If I was to be Christian, I felt like I wanted to say to my son, the reason I chose this is because I felt this is the best for us. And at this moment, I can tell you, this is the best for you until you can go on the journey yourself. Right? And in so doing that, in the end of it, yeah, I didn't end up Christian. Like I don't say I'm Christian. But I didn't end up hating Christianity either. Right. And I think that's what was most important to me. If I hated this thing, I would have broken up with a major part of myself. Right? Instead, I discovered where, you know, bits and pieces of my ancestors had, you know, different beliefs and how those beliefs were merged into Christianity to create what I'm seeing today. And, you know, that even makes some of the practices when someone says, I'll pray for you. I don't have to feel offended, right? I don't have to feel like, Oh, you're saying you'll pray for me? Because, you know, you wish you're actually wishing bad on me. Because you know, how we do. We see somebody doing something where we want to judge them, but we don't want to judge them out. I'll pray for you. Right? So I don't gotta get into that with you. Right? Yes, I actually do want you to pray for me, I want you to pray that, I get it right. And I just want you to leave that to God, because he's going to make sure that I get it right. And that has strengthened my relationship being that you've gone through all of that and discovered your purpose. I know what I discovered on the other end of all of that, what would you say your purpose is your purpose.
Tif 23:08
My purpose is simply being creative. And I want people to understand this when I say this, because we are so surrounded by everybody should know your purpose. And it should be clear to everybody else, and it should be strong and you should know your service right away. Sometimes simply being you is your purpose. And I say that less than most anointing somebody can give you an answer about your purpose because I hated that. I grew up with the family that their purpose was to send the word to God and focus on children. My sister is a teacher. My mom is a Sunday school teacher. But my sister is a teacher in church and in school, she is great with children. You can look at her and say, Hey, she's her purpose is to be children. She has five children. She takes my children. She has eight people, she feeds random children in the neighborhood like that. Wow. That's like mind blowing how awesome that is. Me was Tiffany's purpose. She makes art. She writes poems. She she writes a whole entire book that's kind of impressive. She She taps into people who also our creative and gives her her opinion and they appreciate that. Like I was like, okay, but then I start thinking about it. That is my purpose to tap into my creativeness and then not only is it just a piece of art, it speaks loud into the message of look, being you is so important. Being beautifully designed by God in you being you is important. You see that in all my work, every poem, every art piece, every every talk I have with another artist, every book I write, it's all have a message and that's when I was like, that's my purpose. literally sitting at home. Creating is my purpose because everything I push out into the world will always have a message that you matter and I do focus on people of color. Because we, we matter, and people don't hear that. And it's just like, we matter as much as anybody else. And if I can speak that every single day, with every breath until I die, then I'm living my life, I'm living my purpose. And I want people to understand if your purpose don't fit in one box, but if it's 20, it's your purpose to the world keeps telling, you know, it has to be one thing, and it has to be understood and has to have a title and it has to be perfectly wrapped. Bullshit. I'm sorry, sorry, no, no.
Ambition 25:33
Why are you saying sorry? We
Tif 25:35
just put it in this way. This, that's, that's bullshit. Like, no, it's not, you can jump into each box. And I always tell people of color, but it might get a little bit, a little strong here. So just follow me. We need to be in every thing that we feel passionate about, because honestly, the world is not ready for us and don't want us to be successful. If we came with one thing, and we focused on one thing, and we came to America and be like, This is what I have, they'll slap it out your hand and be like, Nope, we're not doing that. And then all sudden, you're like, Well, I have nothing else, no dad into everything you have, because then they can never shut you down. Ever.
Ambition 26:15
Check this up? Right? This is a conversation that I just had it yesterday, and our conversation has mirrored a lot of conversations that I just had yesterday. Right? Um, so number one was purpose, and this idea that your value, your purpose is attached to the value that you bring to others. Right? Um, and I tell people that right, that is the only advice that I give people aren't on purpose. It's about what you do for someone else. Right? What you put out into the world that changes lives is your purpose. And even if you say, Well, you know what my purpose is to do makeup, or my purpose is to be in beauty and transform the way that people feel about themselves. That is perfectly fine. If you say that my purpose is to do spoken word and shake the room every time I go into it. I know a lot of men do that. Right? That again, perfectly fine. If you say my purpose is to be the best rapper ever. That again, perfectly fine. But what you do and who you do it for purpose, then if we translate this into the business world, we'd be talking about niches right and niching down. And this is where the conversation about niching down, I realize hits on so many people's traumas. Right. And it hits on their traumas. Because when I say hey, you need to focus on a single target market, or you need to do you know, one thing for one group of people, right, that focus is about earning the money to continue to expand your purpose, right. And I need people to understand that, as your business coach is telling you niche down, yes, a niche is a box, and I get it, you don't want to go inside of a box. But everything is a box. If you step outside of the box, you're still in a box. If you go outside of your house, you're still in a box, your house has a box. And when you're outside in the world, you're still within the worlds gravity, right? You're still inside of a vessel. If you escaped the ozone, you're still within the gravity pull of the earth. And if you go to the sun, right, if you escape the gravity pull it up Earth, you're in the gravity pull up the sun, if you escape the gravity pull the sun, you're no within the galaxy. And my point is, if that is all the case, you're right. How many boxes do you want to be in? These are people that want to be in multiple boxes. But I will say the resistance to commit to one box first. It does hurt you. Right? Yeah. And it does take longer. So this is really about balance. I will say that.
Tif 29:10
I want to I want to go into detail what I meant by that as well. Because I have a certain compensation i i Don't knock boxes. I think it's a beautiful thing to be, but I feel like people if I stay in this box until I'm 99 eventually over the years, it's gonna work for me. No, sometimes you have to breathe and adapt. And I'm not saying jump into 20 different boxes. I did that earlier. But I'm just saying if you have this amount of capabilities, the world is just like, they don't have a lot of they act like they don't have a lot of room for people of color. Okay. And so what I mean by these boxes is like, I may do I mean, I do art pieces I've been an X animation artists like like I used to do that. for Cal State Fullerton, that's where I went to school for it for art. I mean, paint 2020 art pieces, and it never sells, but it still has that message, right? Then I was like, You know what I also write, I'm going to write, I also I also do a dance, I'm going to dance. So what I mean by the bulk of my message is still the same. And my goal is still the same, and my audience is still the same. And my focus is still the same. But I'm allowing myself to jump into these boxes back and forth. Because like you said, I need some, I need some kind of revenue to keep that freedom of my purpose to keep going. So of course, you need to find a niche that will allow me to give me that money to give you that freedom to reach out to the people that I need to reach out to. So I understand I don't want to drive people the wrong direction. Like Jeff said, jump into every single box. No, I'm just saying, Be kind to yourself. Don't sit in that same box until you're 99 hoping something will work out. Right.
Ambition 30:56
And I do want to say I wasn't thinking that that's what you were saying. It was just that this was the first time that I had clarity on that, right? Because I'm one of those people as well, like you told me Oh, niched down. I'm like fucking Christ. Right? Like, who, who wants to just focus on one industry, and you start thinking of all of the problems and you're like, once you once you learn how to meditate, though, you can shut that up, you can go Shut up. Let me let me think about that for a second. Right? If I niche down into this market right now, I don't have to do it forever. But if I keep trying to build out and create a message that'll hit everyone, I'll offend people more than attract people. Right? So you have to choose who you're talking to first, right? And we mentioned Christianity. And I think I'm this is the my go to analogy, when I talk about niching. Down. And this is going to be my go to analogy when it comes to talking about purpose as well. Right? Not a Christian, not a preacher, right. But we would say the story of Jesus is the number one motivational story told around the world, right? Everybody understands it, and everybody has been impacted by it. So whether you like it or not, I know you understand the story. Yes, that story has been impactful to more people in the world than almost any other story. Right? Now, I want you to imagine, if Jesus was an entrepreneur, he'd be phenomenal at marketing. Right? Now, take this into consideration. Jesus started doing one thing, miracles, for one group of people, Jews, right, or the Hebrews or Israelites, right? And then the Romans saw that he's like, Hey, man, that guy's really good at doing miracles. For those people. I wonder if he do miracles for us? I don't know. Let's go get it. And now all of a sudden, miracles are being done by people who follow Jesus for the Romans. Right? If that process didn't continue, we wouldn't be where we are right now. Right? We wouldn't be talking about Christianity, whether you're a Christian or not. Right. So my point is just niche down. Because you're not walking on water and turning it into wine yet.
Tif 33:38
We just had a conversation about the miracles of Jesus is like, Oh, my God, we just off before I even got on here who's just talking about that. That's crazy. Alignment is crazy. But yes,
Ambition 33:51
I just I thought about it in that way. And it just hit me it was like, Well, I'm not walking on water. So how dare I say that I am for this broad base of multi coloured people, multi ethnic people, multiple problems, multiple backstories, and multiple reasons why they don't want to do something that I'm saying, when I can just figure out the reason for one group of people. And that can be a motivator for a next.
Tif 34:18
And it's funny because I get a little bit black backlash. I have a lot of businesses in my pocket at this moment. Just trying to get them up and running. But then I also advocate for I say, people of color, but when you get down to the niche of it, and I liked that we're seeing a niche. I advocate more for black men and the black lash from my black women because they like or that you're advocating for people of color, but I am I'm starting somewhere I'm narrowing it down. And I'm not saying black men needs to be fixed or have issues. I feel like there's not enough room for them. There's no space in America for them and a sense of everything's built against them. So I love that concept like you have to find a focus. And then from that you never know from me starting there. You never know. Like, I know, I can see the, if you help the men in the black man, it helps the family and then the family grows. And then there's entrepreneur, you know, there's businesses building their steady foundation and things of those sorts. Start somewhere. And that's also when my book it says start somewhere. I mean, make no sense Miss 10 chapter book, you may hate me, you want to fight me, I want to buy Don Miguel Jr. rulez. I don't know who that is. For agreements for the five agreements or agreements.
Ambition 35:35
I want to fight Eric Thomas.
Tif 35:37
So we all have somebody who want to fight fight me, like literally my book says, fight me, if you hate my book, if you hate my tools, whatever you need, but it gets your mind thinking it's like, Hmm, I can think something better than this. Or I agree, something, start somewhere. That's what just irritates me about. People just start somewhere.
Ambition 35:55
So for all of those listening, TIFF is taken all fair wins, and one on ones will have a Calendly set up. So you can book your schedule or these revenue, refereed matches, or just get everybody first reshot because I find dirty. So you know, it's all right. So now with you with your purpose, right and saying that you started with black men? Number one, thank you, as a black man, thank you. Right. Um, and I do kind of agree with that. Right? Like, there are several businesses that are say they, they work with women, I go, Oh, man, you you actually do some cool stuff, it would be nice to work with you. But I also get, you know, kind of feel a little bit of heat from that movement, right? Like, you go on some of the forums and it's like, patriarchy, this man, this I'm like, This doesn't seem like a safe space for me. Right? I'm gonna go over here. But with that being said, I do want to highlight that, even as you niching down. You want to move your pupil towards pleasure, right? Yes, not just away from pain. So people are either moving away from pain and towards pleasure. And the difference between, you know, moving your people towards pleasure, pleasure and moving them away from pain, is you don't want your people walking forward, looking back. Right? And what I mean by walking forward, looking back, your life is getting better. You're making money, you can support yourself. But you know, if you're a woman, men stealing shit, or if you're a man, all these women and shit, why can't I? Listen? Listen, as you're moving forward, like one of the things that people just don't recognize is, as you level up one area of your life, you'll be afforded to meet new people. And those people are going to be different than what you think the generalization of a woman is, or the generalization of a man is, or the generalization of whatever group, right? That's all people need to realize. But we don't tell them that. We don't tell them that like for me, right? I once sat in on a men's men's group where they were complaining about women, I had to tell him like, hey, but it's a different type of woman when you're actually making money, like we meet two different types of women. Yes, right. Like, oh, well, you know, if we meet the same woman, I'm not gonna talk to the woman you're talking to? Because I don't have to. Right. But the women that I'm talking to, they actually don't want me for my money. But they also want to make sure that I don't want them for their money. Exactly. So we're meeting on equal footing. Yeah, but you gotta have some bread to come to the party. Right? And that's all anybody saying. I think it's just an equivalent exchange. And as you level up as you move forward, look at the world through a different lens. Right? Like, what's the point of growing up and getting money if you're still going to look at the world through the lens of a 10 year old boy or girl?
Tif 39:28
Yes, I think that's our downfall. And that's why we're not moving forward. It's like this cycle is we call it karma. Uh, you know, it's a karmic cycle, or whatever we want to call it but it's like, you are in power of this start and restart. It starts with the mindset and it drives me absolutely insane. But I also want people to understand that it's our fault, but it's there's there's patterns that need to break down around us. as well, okay. And that's why I focus on black men, because there's so much built around them, that they can't even see that we have control of X, Y, and Z. If I can break down all of this and give, I call it safe placing, and I'm still trying to see where I want to go with that. But if I can create safe place for black men, and it's not people thinking, Oh, it's a community center, no, it's a safe placing within each black woman, if we can create, it's just like a video game, where man goes, like, like the player goes out, gets killed, and they respond somewhere safe. That's where I want women to start understanding, like, we need to become that safe place and not saying that we need to cuddle everybody that comes around us. But if we can be that part of the world where we give peace, because men want peace, that's all they want. If we can create that, then we can start somewhere in validating the black community. And it really starts somewhere.
Ambition 40:59
And I do want to mention on the other half of that for the men, right, you have to be able to do the same. Right? The the time where, and this was something, this is something I'm working on, right, I'm currently working on this longer content on changing my leadership style, right. And the work required to go from a command based leadership style, to an intellectual based leadership style. And the immediate difference is, most of us tend to rely on authoritative or autocratic leadership styles, because they get things done quicker, right. And people don't have to think in fact, that's the very system that most people are coming from with their jobs. Right. But if you've worked for a boss that respects your level of expertise, and respects your input, and they get that input, they sit down, they mull it over with other people's input, and then they make a decision, say I make this decision because this, this and this, and you now have to accept that decision. It's a little bit more persuasive. That's the leadership style that I want to move into. Right. Along with that, you know, what was required for me to develop a more intellectual base leadership style. It wasn't more intellect. It wasn't more knowledge. It wasn't anything having to do with my actual mind, it was more emotional intelligence. Right. And I had to break emotional intelligence down into two versions. There's emotional intelligence version one, which is about me understanding myself. And then there's version two, which is me being able to accurately understand others. So yeah, as a man, if you want to, if men want to maintain that mantle, or that shroud of leadership, right? Neither here nor there for me, let me just say that. But if you want to maintain that, you have to come in with intellectual base leadership. Yes, because the world is smarter. Now. It's not just rough and tumble. Yeah, you got to be able to go outside and physically protect. But if you're not intellectually, protecting emotionally, protecting mentally protecting your family, then you're not really a leader. And if you're not giving them tools to develop, you're not a leader, right, you have to provide a foundation that's healthy enough for shit to grow. And you got to have more than just one tool. You can't grow a plant with just soil and soil, water, sunlight, everybody knows that.
Tif 43:47
Exactly. And I had this upcoming business, I try not to speak too much on it, but I'm still passionate about it. It's like, purchase and present. Listen to not for that in the future approaching president is literally bringing that emotional, and I'm gonna say still spiritual support within the business. So to have somebody sitting in your corner, it's like, instead of sitting to meditate, yes, I do encourage that. But to have somebody a corner who's watching out for you while you're in your, your business that you're running, all that stress piles on you, and you kind of get so narrow. Focus on one thing that you kind of miss out the other things. Just imagine having somebody in your corner that is completely unbiased, who doesn't work for you, in the sense? I mean, you still pay that person but right doesn't work for you. Who's there for you, who loves your baby as much as you love your baby, which is your business is sitting there and just waiting for you to just like, Do you need any help with anything and so much of like, the meticulous thing of course, I can't take if you're a photographer, I can't sit there and be like, Oh, this is how you adjust your camera. But if you need to bounce off ideas or your mind is exploding in areas that you might do this right should I change up this or Shouldn't the I'm here for you to help you spiritually mentally it's like, in a sense of having a therapist but not a therapist is somebody unbiased? Not, not there to leech off of you? Or is filming of
Ambition 45:14
someone who's there to actually support and prop you up?
Tif 45:18
And then I can the business actually, the surfaces actually have me going home, making sure everything in your not so much your books financially, but everything that you have questions about, or you need bouncing new ideas about, and I look at it in a different perspective. And we have conversations about it like, is this what you're looking for? Is this the audience is still you're still in for? Are you trying to change your audience? Who are you trying to address now, what location you're trying to go, what's the best location just to get some some things off your shoulder so you can be the best you on your, on your business, you have somebody in your corner that can just help you dish out some things. And I literally make portfolios and paper stack which you can just or, in this sense, not so much paper on your computer that you can sift through later. Even if you don't want to tackle it now at least it's written through the conversations there, and you have it to go to later. So I make portfolios in no sense for creatives, entrepreneurs, or whoever, you can be a mom who has a star player in a football game, and you're like, I wish I can brand him, I got you, I got you everything you need to do for your child, whatever you need to do. And that's part of the business that I'm trying to pick up and get some momentum with. I have a few clients, but they're more like helping me
Ambition 46:34
shape the system. So it's in beta right now.
Tif 46:36
Exactly. No, I
Ambition 46:38
like that. And I like that from a standpoint of I've been telling people for almost many years now. Number one, business is the best personal development tool, right? If you want to see how shitty of a person you are gonna try to sell something. Yes, right. Um, and you'll quickly find that you probably need to be a little bit more pleasant, right? So people can tell you when I was 19 I was not smiling, like, people did not get smiles at me. One of my best friends in the Marine Corps, right? I think he's a gunnery sergeant now. He can't he was like, I think it was like 730 in the morning or something. And I was just standing there waiting in line. He's like, man, you gang banging a bacon. I was like, bro, leave me be man. I'm focused. I'm driven right now. Right? So, but for myself, you can't go into business with that mentality. Who am I going to sell to other type A men? Right? If you notice most type A men don't like other type A men. Another when you think about it. Yeah, it's like yeah, no, he over there in his corner. We're gonna be over here. Yeah. How do you make friends, we go to a UFC training and we punch each other in the face for five minutes. And I respect the strength that came from. So now I'm his friend. Like, like, that's how we make friends. It's just like, I'm good, bro.
Tif 48:07
Yes, oh, my goodness. Well, we
Ambition 48:09
had the gym. And it's just a series of head nods like, Oh, you want to put that up? I am watching. If you need a spar, you Oh, you need somebody to sponsor you. Okay, cool. Let me get that up. All right. But you got it by yourself. Like, okay, let me give them another head nod. Their head nod meaning about four more weeks, I might be able to say oh, that's what Yeah, because that's what we do. So I like exactly everything that you're saying. And I like to focus on, you know, men. And yeah, I think this is a service that really is needed. Right? Um, even for myself, like, I sometimes like, I sit down and I go, Okay, I should go like meditate, or I should go do something. Now I should go on a walk. Because I've been staring at this computer for five hours. Right. And I fall in love with the grind, right? So that the second part of this was going to be as you're focusing on the the bike, this niche market of doing these things, sometimes you mentioned, you mentioned helping mothers with their sons and different branding opportunities. The other thing that just kind of stood out immediately is the body of work that you're helping them create. Right? No one can be successful without a body of work. Right? Um, and for artists who aren't successful. Your body of work, like where is it? Like, who knows that you draw? Who knows that you write poems? Who knows that you rap? Right like that? That's the people have to know you do what you do. And if they don't know you do what you do, they can't hire you for it. Neither can they figure out whether or not You're good or bad at it. And that's usually what people are afraid of is like, well, I want to get better and in secret. So I can put out something amazing is like, but is, is that just because you want the value for yourself what you want the praise of the adoration. Because if it's truly about the purpose, you put it out, get the input and make something better. What
Tif 50:27
inspired me is being around so many entrepreneurs and great creatives, there's a creative who's a rapper and Charleston, South Carolina. Lou as as Yachty, ldrd. Sorry, he's an amazing rapper, right. But he also has these different multi facets about him. And he was talking about, like, I wish I had a team. And we're all been arched. We're all entrepreneurs, now we're all doing our own thing. So it's kind of tiresome to be like, Okay, I need some help, but other people are doing their own thing. And what I told him was, because everybody's like, couldn't you can I have your Can I have you on my team, I was like, I don't focus on your, I can't be a rapper, you know, I can't make beats. But I can sit here and listen to it. But what I can do is make your portfolio of different styles that look good on you. albums that stuck out to me. Here are things you can do for NF T's and I started just making a portfolio of just things he could be doing, if he needs to come back to it or to organize his thoughts, or just talk to me, and I'll just like typing it out, and like, Oh, here's a music video. I do boards, mood boards for music videos, and things of those sorts. And I did a whole portfolio all sudden, it's like a 20 page. And I was like, Do you want this? And he was like, wow, you went to detail. And I was like, Yeah, and that's what inspired me like these entrepreneurs, these creatives are just like, want to do so much and need some help. And I'm like, I got you, this is the best I can do. So these are some phenomenal people out here just in the corners in the darkness of Shadows of things that haven't came up front yet, that just needs this extra help. And you don't have to use this 20 page or a 50 page portfolio I made you can you can always come back to it.
Ambition 52:05
Listen, I have a couple of friends that say they want to start labels, right when they start asking me about a&r. I'm like, yo, I was working. Yeah, like, you should probably look into ANR. Right. Like, discovering talent would probably be really good for you. But let's see. All right, so now we got a very special section that will podcast right, this is how we start to wrap it up, right? It's just called story for a story. And what I'm going to ask you for is a wild, maybe fun story. Something that you don't normally tell something that'll help us get to know you better. Maybe even something that seems a little bit out of character.
Tif 52:46
To prepare me for this one.
Ambition 52:50
No, I don't I don't I don't tell anyone. I just if you listen, like I had one, one guest that listened to the one of the episodes when I started doing story for a story. And she was like, I had my story, right? I was like God dammit. I like when people don't really have this story is ready because truth be told, I don't have my story either. Right. But I've gotten some amazing stories out of that. Right. Like I've gotten one of my guests snuck into Mexico. I think we didn't get caught. So snuck in to Mexico didn't get caught on some El Chapo ish type deal. So yeah, the road tunnel.
Tif 53:34
My stuff is brought to you and I want my parents to watch this.
Ambition 53:41
There's a couple that, like I think I've told the story about driving around naked in Japan. Um, so yeah, okay. I'll match your level.
Tif 53:54
Oh, no, I gotta do what I'm not good with him. But, uh, man, a lot of people know this about me. I might say, Oh, this girl's crazy. But I am a Pisces. So a lot of crazy mystical things happening to me. So when I was little, I cried. My grandmother wasn't the kindest person but she wasn't the kindest person towards because I was the black sheep that spoke out of turn. But I start crying. And she was like, what's wrong? And I was like, I keep seeing things. And yes, this is what I see that people kind of story, but I keep seeing things and I had really bad Deja Vu and I still have deja vu because I I live life and cycles in my head for some reason. And it was this little girl that follows me. And when I say it's like the ring stuff, but she didn't look scary. She would just follow me as you always say like five feet away from me. And that's from age 11 all the way up to like college where I thought it was crazy, but I became numb towards it. So me and my friends were you know at night we all just go hang out at night and just go places because we have the freedom now we're in college right except for me and a couple friends was like, running around just randomly at parks. And my best friend at the time was like, hurt the swing, start squeaking squeak, squeak and it started moving. And we heard a little girl giggle. And I didn't faze me because I knew who it was. And I looked over and I saw the little girl. So they start running black people run out the essence of this, I start running with them. And I'm just like, jogging because I know what it is. And she turns around, she's like, Did you see that? And I was like, yes, little girl that bothers me. She's like why are you with us? If you have debt, people call you. I was like, Yeah, you know, she's been falling since I was 11. And she was like, This is crazy. And that solidified that I wasn't that crazy. And then it gets kind of worse, because I was on my like, third child. I was like, No, my second child, I was pregnant with my second child, and the little girl came again. She came again. But this time, she was ready to fight. And when I said, Thank God for grandmothers and prayers, because I had a rebuke that, that that that same little girl that's been following me from 11, because she was so jealous of my oldest daughter at the time, I was pregnant with my second, but it felt like she was trying to get closer and closer to my daughter. And I was like, I turned off everything. And I was in the house that I grew up in because I this little girl always follows me. I was like, oh, no, literally, I got up. I was just like rebuking and talking and talking. And ever since then, that little girl never called me again. So yes, I see that people or Yes, I see figures. And I guess to this day, when I go to different houses and things I but oh, you have somebody here. And people now know me well enough. Some of them know that. Like, people want to hire spiritual counselors, because I see things like this. They're like, Oh, who is it? And I'll just tell them and try not to acknowledge it as much. Yes. With the whole dead people follow me until I'm 99. situation. But that's that's my life. I see shadows. I see people. Yeah, it's my life.
Ambition 57:02
All right. All right. Oh, man. I don't tell those stories. That I will say I don't tell those stories. No, no, no.
Tif 57:16
What am I says Cobain's. And I don't want to talk about that right now.
Ambition 57:19
Right. And I was perfectly ready for that story. Right. That would have been much more comfortable to talk about. Okay, I got you. Alright. So, right. So when I was kid, I, my mom wanted me to learn how to read. So they thought I knew how to read. But they had been these books that I had memorized because they read them to me so often. And I would just go through and memorize these books. So when my grandma was holding the summer, she had was tasked or she decided she wasn't attached. She decided that she was going to make me read four hours a day, right? I was like, this was before I learned how to read and I didn't learn how to read until I was seven. I want to say she was there in 96. I was like five or six. Right? So five or six years old. I'm scamming grandma every day, think they think and I know how to read, right? Finally, my grandma discovers she's like he can read these books, right? So they go now and they go get Hooked on Phonics. And you know what my punishment is? Because I fake knowing how to read. Now I've got to learn how to read but I got to go through the whole Hooked on Phonics system. So I learned how to read and then they still need me read the four hours a day. So thank God for grandma's wisdom, figuring out that I was a little mischievous trickster, and forcing me to learn how to read that much better story. That's
Tif 59:03
a really good story. Actually. No, no, it's my kids faking to read. Thank you. Thank you for that.
Ambition 59:08
Oh, no, I definitely fight fake it. So wrapping it up, right? What's one thing that you would leave our listeners with that you think would help them achieve that balance when it comes when it comes to their entrepreneur journey? Right. And that balance I'm talking about is their well being their success, their mental well being? What's the one the best tool that you can give them that will help them achieve that balance?
Tif 59:35
Silence. If you're anything like me, your mind goes 24/7 That's why everything in my life is around business. My husband has to be like that. When I go walking, I think about that I go to bookstores just to sit down and work silence let it and when I say silence is not so much meditation and this is also I'm not trying to promote the book but is in the book. It talks about silence It's totally do From from meditation, I want you to literally enjoy and actually, I, there's a book on this, and I gotta look it up and I'll let y'all know. Walk in nature. And don't be. I mean, stare at paint drying and don't think it's the most relaxing, most interesting things you can do. And once you go back into your business, it's just like, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And it's just like this flow of non stress because everybody hates who's an entrepreneur. Everybody hates making money out of something you're so passionate about. It's awesome. It's great. It's the purpose we want to do. But sometimes you be like, dang, I gotta monetize everything that I'm passionate about, like dang dang Dang. But to relieve yourself of stress and then go back into it. It comes like an easy flow and then that money just just working in silence, silence. Meditation, I'm stressed that silence is key. Yes,
Ambition 1:01:00
I love that for everybody listening. Go be great.