She turned her pain into purpose—and her purpose into profit. 💼✨ In this unforgettable episode, Tiffany Capri Hainesworth, the first Black woman to own a tequila brand in the U.S., shares how surviving trauma, healing through therapy, and embracing her truth led her to create a legacy in the spirits industry.This is more than entrepreneurship—it’s empowerment, elevation, and a toast to transformation. 🥂
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Watch the full interview here: https://youtu.be/EOEqBytts-k
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
What a wonderful, wonderful story you have solely owned, black owned,
solely woman owned tequila company.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Because it is very intense. It's very intense.
Speaker 3 (00:12):
Was telling me something wasn't right, and when I went
to go open the door, I had a grandma seizure.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
So when I had my.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
Seizure in my car accident, their first question was when
are you coming back to work? And it was at
that moment, Brandy, like when I say I gave my
whole life to the federal government and was proud of it,
I said, what am I gonna do with the rest
of my life and the best of my life?
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Because this isn't it?
Speaker 1 (00:36):
Yeah, Welcome to Vought Empowered Talks. So we don't just
scratch the surface. We dive deep into the lodges of
some of the world's most influential change makers.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
I'm your host, Brandy Harvey.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
Y'all, We've talked about burden on the show, but tequila
has got his voice today. Tiffany Capri Haynesworth is the
unstoppable force behind T Capri Tequila and the first black
woman to solely own a tequila brand. After surviving a
traumatic brain injury from a devastating car accident, Tiffany transformed
(01:15):
pain into passion, first launching T Capri Gourmet Treats, where
she perfected her signature boozy gummy bears. Now T Capri
Tequila is redefining what excellence tastes like in proving that vision, resilience,
and relentless belief can rewrite history. Tiffany has been featured
in Forbes Magazine, Glamour, The Today's Show, and be E
(01:36):
t just to name a few. Tiffany believes anything is possible.
Vaught Empowers Talks. Welcome founder and CEO Tiffany Capri Haynesworth
to the show.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
Thank you, How are you? I am amazing?
Speaker 1 (01:49):
Yeah, oh, it's so great to have you look beautiful?
Speaker 2 (01:52):
What is this shark Truce? What is this color? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (02:00):
Up, Sergio Hudson let him dearly, come on, Black Designer listen. Yes,
I mean, what a wonderful, wonderful story you have solely owned,
black owned, solely woman owned tequila company. I mean I
didn't even think that that we're in twenty twenty five
(02:20):
and you were the first.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
Yeah, yeah that It was strange to me too, But
when you get into it, when I got into it,
and I started learning more about it. I understood why
people have co owners and co founders and they come
into the spear industry with three and four or five partners,
because it is very intense.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
It's very intense.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
I mean talk about intense twelve twelve twelve. I mean
when I read this, I had to write it down
and then I went to give me the power.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
What's this?
Speaker 1 (02:52):
You know, I like a little numerology. I know it's
gonna be some of the Christian folks that like, oh Lord,
they got they they got their cloth.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Out right now on me right now.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
But there's something very powerful about twelve twelve twelve because
it was it's not only a life transforming day, but
your life changed forever on that day.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Yeah, it did.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
I was on my way to work my federal government job,
your good government job, good government job. Especially with everything
that's going on in the world right now, I'm gonna
still say my good government job.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
And I had to be at work at six thirty
in the morning, so I left out really early, and
I always stopped at Starbucks to get expresso because I
needed that to get my life started. I was on
my way into the Starbucks and I was hit from behind,
and the car hit me so forcefully from behind my
car spent and then when it's spun, he hit me again.
(03:46):
And when he hit me again from the passenger side,
I hit my head on a driver side window and
I had a severe concussion. So I was like, okay,
you know, my my bumper was off, my car was.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Too up, and I was like, I was just delirious.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
And so the doctor was like, Okay, you have a
severe concussion. Don't go to sleep. If you, you know,
throw up or whatever, you know, come back to the hospital.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
Because they released me.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
That day, and he just gave me some information about concussions,
you know, like NFL players have concussions and everything. So
as the days went on, my body just changed and
I was just different. I started getting severe migrains. So
this is twelve twelve twelve. So by twelve fifteen and
(04:35):
twelve eighteen, I was stuttering.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
I had a severe stutter.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
Wow, I couldn't remember anything like the cracker barrel right
up the street from my house. I knew I wanted it,
but I couldn't remember the name. And on twelve twenty
one or twenty two, my cousins were coming over for
you know, Christmas Eve brunch or something, and I was
supposed to go to the store to pick up something.
I said, you know, I'm really not feeling well, so
(05:01):
you drive like everything in my body was telling me
something wasn't right. And when I went to go open
the door, I had a grandma seizure. So I had
a grandma seizure, fell into the door, fell on the floor,
blacked my eyes, scraped my face up. Got to the
hospital and the neurologist was like, so you had a concussion.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
You had traumatic brain injury.
Speaker 3 (05:23):
And what that meant was your brain while you were
stuttering and forgetting and you couldn't remember things, your brain
was like having a thunderstorm. It was having a thunderstorm.
And this is what traumatic brain injury does. It takes
a while to happen. And when you were having that thunderstorm,
then you had a grandma seizure.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
It came out. Wow. I mean this was going on
for four years, right, So after I had the grandma seizure,
it's still going on now. Oh wow. So I don't
have grandma.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
Seizures anymore, but I have petite moll seizures, focal seizures,
I have extensive migraine headaches, and the seizures exude themselves
in other ways now because I'm still under a tremendous
amount of stress. So traumatic brain injury is a lifelong injury.
The brain is the longest muscle to hell in your body,
(06:17):
which my nearage just told me when he tried to say, oh, well,
you're gonna have you have epilepsy, and I was like no,
I said, nowhere, let's hold on. Yeah, hold on, I said,
you said that. You know, the brain is the longest
muscle to heel.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Yeah, it's so much soft tissue.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
Yeah, so let's just see how this heals. But I've
been on my own since i was seventeen years old.
I'm a mom. I'm a single mom, been in a
federal government. I had just got my home built in
twenty ten, and I'm like, I have to take care
my daughter. I had to take care at my home.
I just have to keep going. That's my mentality. It's
like survival mode. This is what we do, and this
(06:52):
is what we do was black women. It's like we
gotta keep it moving. Okay, you said this, but I
gotta take care my baby. I got bills to pay.
I got things I had nobody to fall back on.
So I was in and out of hospital for four
years having EEG's done.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
That's when they you know.
Speaker 3 (07:08):
Hook up the the things to your head and they
monitor your brain waves and see when you're having seizures
and see what makes you have seizures.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
And it's not always something you just have them.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
So I'm in and out of the hospital with the
grandmas that I knew I was having, like I'm you know,
falling out and you know, having the seizures that everybody
sees on TV that knows of, but what people don't
understand is like they're petitue malls. Like I could be
sitting and staring at you and blank out and.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
I had a seizure. Wow. So I had to.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
Educate my family and friends about everything that seizures entail.
And these are things that I didn't even know that
I was having seizures sometimes that I was still having seizures.
So they put me on a lot of medication. The
medication did not make me feel the same way. It's
like I hated the medicine. It's like I understood, like
(08:04):
I'm a law and order fanatic, so you know, when
you watch Law and Order and you see people with
schizophrenic and then it's like, I can't take the medicine
because I don't like the way it makes me feel.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
I understand that, Yeah, I understand it. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
I mean, but this season you said it taught you
so much because you had really given your entire life to.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
This, this good government job.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
I mean you've been there for over thirty years at
this point now because you still work for the government.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
Yes, yes, So when I had my seizure in my
car accident, their first question was, when.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
Are you coming back to work? Wow?
Speaker 3 (08:40):
I was like, I just had traumatic brain injury, and
Grandma sees just I'm seeing a neurologist.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
They're like, oh no, it's not that bad. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:49):
No, So when are you gonna come back and do
this work? Because your work is piling up. And it
was at that moment, Brandy, like when I say I
gave my whole life to the federal government and was
proud of it. I said, what am I gonna do
with the rest of my life and the best of
my life?
Speaker 2 (09:04):
Because this isn't it? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (09:06):
What am I gonna do with the rest of my
life and the best of my life. I mean, so
you get into this entrepreneurial journey and never wanted.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
To be entrepreneur in my life.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
Ever, most of the people who would have sat in
the seat, who worked for the government said the same thing,
like I never had an entrepreneurial bone in my body,
Like didn't want that.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
Yeah, but you're like.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
You start off with these gourmet treats and you start
infusing alcohol into these baked goods. But there's one that
really took off, and that was the boozy beerries.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:37):
Yeah, So I was known for having girls night and
I was always known for the beach too.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
I ain't never had no boozy gummy bears in my
and my girl's night more.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
I gotta think about this. I'm doing girl's night wrong.
I need some gummy bears.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
That was my thing, was to infuse cocktail cakes or
bread puddings because my my daughter's grandmother actually taught me
how to make bread pudding. And I make the best
bread pudding. So I was making like brandy peach bread puddings.
I saw it with the crown, baby had the crown. Yeah,
all of it did? It looked real good?
Speaker 2 (10:12):
I were good. They were good.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
Yeah, And then one day I saw there was like
a rose all Day beer and it was like a
twenty per twenty thousand person weightless for this beer. I
had just got out the hospital actually, and I was
from having a seizure and I was just scrolling. It
was like two o'clock in the morning. It was like, oh, yeah,
it's like a twenty thousand person weight lists and I
go to read and it was like non alcoholic, and
I was like, well, why do these people want it?
Speaker 2 (10:38):
Some we can we can updated flavor. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (10:41):
So I just started researching how to make gummy bears
and I just started ordering all the material, all the
products and all the molds and everything, and I started
with rose Pinogriggio and Merlo and it took me six
months to perfect this whiny beer.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Called them whiny.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
Bears, and they literally and they were you know, no additives,
no preservatives, so you had to keep them in refrigerator,
but they taste just like wine.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
And they skyrocketed.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
So then all the women were loving them, and so
their husbands and boyfriends was like, oh, it's if you
need to work work on a Bourbon bear or a
Hennessy bear. And I'm like, well, that's like forty percent
alcohol by volume. I don't know how that's going to hold.
Not a Hennessy Bear. I'm like, you know, wine doesn't
have that much alcohol by volume. So it was almost
like chemistry, you know. I was getting into chemistry with it.
(11:32):
And another three or four months later, I perfected the
Boozy Bear and I perfected the Hennessy Bear, and it
was just like everybody just lost it. I was like
on Good Morning Washington at home and all the you know,
local Washington stations and doing all my bears and my
cakes and everything.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
And it took off.
Speaker 3 (11:52):
And so, you know, recycling comes every other Sunday. And
so my daughter looks at me one day and she
was like, my, you know what, recycling guys gonna think something.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
We got problem going on in this house. There's a
lot of liquor bottles in here.
Speaker 3 (12:06):
And it was at that moment and I've said, I'm
using so many other people's liquor. I want to use
my own in my Gurmet Treats business.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
That was it. You look, I just want to get
a couple bottles so I can have That was it, Brandy.
Speaker 3 (12:20):
I just wanted a couple bottles. I did not want to.
In my mind, it wasn't starting the brand. It just
I needed a couple bottles so I can say I'm
using my own liquor in these gurmet treats that I'm selling.
That everybody took off. So I love tequila. I've always
been a tequila girl. So I researched where tequila was made.
I found that it was only made in the highlands
(12:40):
and the lowlands of Jalisco, Mexico. And let's just let
me just say this. I suffered from traumatic brain injury.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
She said, give me some grapes. I'd be doing business
doing I had no business store.
Speaker 3 (12:57):
When I told my sister and my best friend, I said, listen,
I'm gary a book of flight the Guadalajara.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
They's like, you're grey to do what now?
Speaker 1 (13:04):
So give me this time frame because you obviously you're
working at dis like speed. You're like, you know what,
I gotta strike while the iron is hot. I gotta
go while I'm still thinking about it. So what is
this time frame?
Speaker 3 (13:16):
So I launched Boozy bit tikpre Gonna Treats in twenty sixteen.
By two thousand and eighteen was my first trip to Guadalajara.
Two thousand into twenty seventeen. Beginning of twenty eighteen was
my first trip to I went to port a lot
of the first time to meet like a tequila broker.
(13:37):
So he basically just told me about some distilleries and everything,
and I said, okay, okay, okay, I know the profile
that I want, but I need to go there to see.
So I started the government when I was fifteen, right,
so I'm used to learning how to start from the
bottom and work my way up to the top and
understanding the process. So to me, I needed to understand
(13:58):
the process. Regardless of where this went, I needed to
understand this process. So he was like, okay, well, you know,
going over to Jalisco, it's not like this.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
It's not beach town. It's not resort town.
Speaker 3 (14:08):
Like we're talking about mountains and roads and.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
A lot of stuff. Yeah. So I was like, okay, listen,
I don't care. I want to do it.
Speaker 3 (14:19):
So took my first trip over there by myself and
actually fell in love with Guadalajara and Jalisco. It was
I think these are I know, these are ye plants
or are they Yeah? There're okay, they might be al Yeah.
So when I went over there and I fell in
(14:40):
love with it. It was one of the most beautiful
countries I had ever been to. Because when people think
of agave plants, they think of this part. But when
you get into the field with the hemadors, you see
like a hundred to two hundred pounds pinia under the ground,
under the earth. So when they unearth this pinion which
(15:01):
makes tequila, and the hemador has the CoA that's the
name of the tool they're using, and they're literally just
carving it. It's a work of art and it was
majestic to me. It was just so majestic, and I
wanted all the parts of this.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
Wow yeah, wow, I mean I want you. Here's what
I love that you said you were never afraid to
work your way from the bottom to the top. And
I think there's so many people on the road to success.
They want to start off at the top. They don't
want to trust the process. And You're like, if I'm
gonna do this, I want to learn every step of
(15:37):
the process so that I am an equipped business.
Speaker 3 (15:41):
Absolutely, yeah, absolutely, and that is very important to me.
So the first thing I had to do was find
a small, family owned distillery that allowed me to produce
a small batch, because when you see a lot of
brands that say small batch right now and they're mass producing,
they're not small batches. So I knew that I didn't
(16:02):
have the capital to mass produce, and I knew I
just wanted it for the gummy bears.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
You funded this, yep, solely on your own, your own
good government.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
Good government job.
Speaker 3 (16:12):
So when I found my distillery, they were like, no,
we can't mass produce, We're too small.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
So I was like perfect.
Speaker 3 (16:20):
I went back home and I pulled out every dime
of my retirement. Wow, I pulled out every dime of
my federal government retirement, and I invested into my first
fifteen hundred bottles of Blanco.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
That included buying.
Speaker 3 (16:35):
The liquid, the bottles, the tops, the labels, the boxes. Now,
let's talk about doing everything from the ground up and learning.
I am the importer, I owned the liquid, and I
am the sole distributor.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
Come on, come on, black woman.
Speaker 3 (16:50):
So when you look at the back of that bottle,
it says exclusively imported by Teak of Free Spears.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
I had my warehouse, I had my whole seller's license.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
Yeah, I have my liquor license from the Certified Regulatory
of Tequila and the MP which is the Mexican government.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
She said, if you won't receipts, baby, I please check out
my bottom.
Speaker 3 (17:11):
And I have my award to diploma from the Certified
Regulatory of Tequila and I got a.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
Whole certification for are you black people out here who
ain't gonna believe none of that is certified?
Speaker 3 (17:21):
She got us all the things and.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
All by myself. Wow.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
And my distillery even said, because they've been around for
a very long time, but they are very small batch.
They said, We've never seen anyone do this by theirselves.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
I mean, you've got to feel like you're beaming though
even when you tell the story. You it's like your
whole face like lit up when you start telling the story.
Because when we look at this industry, it's very male dominated.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
You do not see.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
I mean even when we look at the distillery world,
the world of distillery, whether it's light or dark, we
are not at the forefront of these conversations. We're not
seated at many of these tables. Even when we look
at celebrity brands, those are typically distribution deals.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
Yeah, So for you to be carrying the torch in
this way is really very powerful.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
Yeah, it's still I'm.
Speaker 3 (18:20):
Still taking it in honestly, Brandy, because it is so hard.
You know, I still work my government job. I'm still
you know, the head of this company. And my company
is an all women run LGBT friendly company. And it's
only three of us. Wow, three of us. Three women
that's running this company.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
Whoa.
Speaker 3 (18:40):
And we have done so much work with so little,
with so little. And this is a capital intensive industry
which you could have bought me for a penny. Let's
go back there. I put God in a box, right.
I was like, okay, God, I just need this for
my these gummy babes. I just trying to make me
some boozy that's it, yea. And the world was like, yeah, no,
that's not happening. And the tequila was so good. And
(19:02):
it was also important to me because my boozy beers
were you know, additive free and you know, didn't have
any preservatives and stuff. And it was important to me
to also change people's perception of what tequila was. So
when I found my distillery and they had such a
quality liquid, so it was added a free Kolshure certified
(19:25):
it was made from one hundred percent Blue Webber gave
through pectants and the well water from the volcanic well
water on there the state A state. They have the
well waters on their estate, so they're literally one of
the very few distilleries as single sources everything.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
Wow, and it was so good.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
And now I was like, I don't know if I'm
being able to put these in boozy beers because it's
the tequila is so good. So I was like, okay, well,
maybe it would just be like a boutique tequila online tequila.
And mind you, I launched in the pandemic where we
couldn't sit right here and talk to each other, we
couldn't do taste things. We couldn't go on liquor stores
and do tastings. I literally, because I had my wholeseller's license,
(20:03):
I literally was knocking on doors like, hey, you know,
I started tequila line. Would you like to taste it
with my mask on? Would you like to try it?
Two liquor stores in my neighborhood was like, sure.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
We'll give it a chance. I was like, okay, great.
Speaker 3 (20:17):
You know, me still not knowing anything about this industry
going into liquor stores selling it do I just know?
I have a product and I want to sell it.
I know how much I want it to be on
the shelf because it's an ultra premium liquid. And one
of my good friends, Sean Yancey, she's an anchor at
news NBC four. I did a lot of her events
for her nonprofit organization was called Girls' Night Out, and
(20:40):
I had my baking goods and so she says, tip,
let me, let me do some research and let me
write your story. Let me run it past my people,
let me write your story. So she did everything from
the car accident to the boozy bears, to the baked
goods to the tequila. And she calls me and she says, ma'am,
I just needed you to know that you just made history.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
Wow. You're the first black woman.
Speaker 3 (21:02):
Yeah, the first black woman in the world is solely
own a tequila brand.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (21:06):
And when she launched that story on NBC four, Brandy,
it grew legs of its own, like it grew legs
of its own. So mind you, I had my truck.
I got my warehouse because I'm offul of my good
government job every Monday. So I would use that my
mondays to do distribution and I would load the truck up.
(21:26):
Tore my truck up. Oh, I tore the truck. I
was throwing boxes and throwing crazy and stuff in there.
And I'm delivering with masks on. You know, we had
to wear masks.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
We depend on me.
Speaker 3 (21:34):
And I'm delivering to a liquor store one day and
I see this guy come out with two cases on
his shoulder and I rolled a window down, got a
mask on. I said, really, that's what you're doing. He
was like, yeah, I drove all the way up here
from North Carolina. This is the first black woman owned
a tequila brand.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
And it's good. Uh. And he didn't even know he
was talking to me. Pulled my mask down. He was like, yes, you,
it's you. And I said, yeah, I'm come to make
some delivery. Oh come on, masterpiece. She said, I'm a Noliver.
I got him in my trump listen. Wow, all the
deliveries myself. And then it just it literally took off.
Speaker 3 (22:08):
But we were talking about only fifteen hundred bottles, which
equated to like three palettes. That's not a lot. When
now you're it's such a boom forward. And I'm only
in two or three stores, and now the stores are
bump rushing me, and I'm like, oh, wait a minute.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
I only have Blanco, Like I only have a little
bit of tequila.
Speaker 3 (22:30):
So I hate to tell a lot of people. No,
I had to be very strategic and where I put
the tequila in stores. But people were driving from New York,
North Carolina, South Carolina, Detroit. Me and my operations manager
did an event in Detroit and this guy comes up
to me and he says, he shows me a picture.
He said, when you first launched, I drove from Detroit
(22:50):
to your store in Maryland to get your tequila.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
Wow. And I'm just ball and I'm like.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
Oh goodness, Yeah, this got to make you feel so
good because for something that started really is like I
just need a little bit.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
I need a little bit. Guys like I got a
lot of it. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (23:09):
He's like nah, bigger yeah this And to this day, Brandy,
I'm like, okay, lord, so you put me in this
situation now, and this is like we said, it's a
male dominated industry. It's a capital intensive industry. And I
see why the big brains are successful because in my mind,
(23:32):
you can look at me and you don't drink anymore.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
But I and I have tough skins.
Speaker 3 (23:36):
So I want your staff to tell me how they
feel about it, because I think I produce a phenomenal liquid.
These big companies can look at me and like, that's cute.
It might taste good. You might have done it by yourself,
but we got the marketing. But yeah, we got the money,
hundreds of millions of dollars that you can't even come
close to.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
So it's still very hard.
Speaker 3 (24:00):
To be in this industry and not get frustrated, like
when I hear you talk and read my story because
I don't even watch my interviews or anything.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
I just keep it going.
Speaker 3 (24:07):
But I well up because sometimes I do have to
stop myself and be like, look at what you did
by yourself. Yeah, but I'm so acclimated to doing things
by myself, like getting my degrees and building my home
and taking care of my daughter. This is all survival mode, Like,
this is what I've done to survive. So after the
(24:29):
car accident, it was like, Okay, keep your brain function
and keep your brain moving, do things that's gonna occupy
your time, and go against what the neurologist said. Because
I even left my first neurologists and went to John
Hopkins because I was like, this man's trying to kill me.
He wants me to think that my life is over.
And my life is not over because I have a
daughter to raise, So I would not let him tell me, like,
(24:51):
you're gonna be on all this medicine for all your life.
Oh you have to wear a wristband because you have epilepsy.
Oh you're not gonna do So You're not gonna do that.
And it was hard because after you have a seizure,
you can't drive for a very long time. So me
being so independent on my life and having to call
my neighbors or it was all my neighbors and just
(25:11):
my friends because I'm not close with my family, to
have them take me to the grocery store, take my
daughter to school, do like depending on people the smallest
things that you used to jumping in the car, going
to the store, going to get I couldn't do that
because I didn't want to put anybody else life in danger.
I just if I had a siegere driving, I could
have kept myself and somebody else. So I wasn't gonna
(25:32):
do that, So I had to depend on other people.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
So now where I am.
Speaker 3 (25:38):
At this stage and my career as an entrepreneur. I'm like, Okay, Lord,
you said that if I won't give it to you
unless I give it to you, So now you got
to give it to Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
I mean I want you to dive into this moment
because you said just now that it was survival and
so now that you've kind of jumped over one hurdle
in your life, how are you coming out of survival
mode in this season of your life? What are you
doing to create some moments where you don't feel like
(26:14):
I'm just surviving? Wow, that's that's very interesting Because as
I turned forty nine and I said, Lord, you know
Lord Willing.
Speaker 2 (26:26):
And the creykedo't rides.
Speaker 3 (26:27):
One of my girlfriends like, who have you been around
saying Loyd Willing creekedn't rides.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
Yeah, for sure, if I.
Speaker 3 (26:33):
Turned fifty, you know, what is this going to do
for me? Because I'm still super stressed out and when
I'm stressed out, my sees or symptoms they come out
of my skin. Now, Like I thought I had lupus.
So I went to my doctor. He's been my doctor
for over twenty years, and I was like, I think
I have lupus and he's like to stay off WebMD, Like,
(26:56):
why do you think you like I'm a web MD
fanaticy right, yeah? And I said, because my skin is
very sensitive to the touch, my hands, my back, my feet.
And he said, well, what's happening before that? Are you
under stressed? I was like, I still work for the
federal government. I might lose my job. These people might
make us retire. I'm about to deal with terrors. Of course,
(27:19):
I'm under tremendous amount of stress.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
Doctor.
Speaker 3 (27:21):
Yeah, And he said, I know you don't want to
hear this. And he said, what else is happening? And
I said, I'm having my migraines, but that's normal. And
he said, okay, I want you to go back and
see a neurologists. And I go back and see a neurologists.
I said, my doctor already ran all the tests. I
think it's you know, lupus or whatever. But he wants
me to see you. And so she runs some more
tests and you know, she says, yeah, no, these are seizures.
(27:46):
She said, this is another way seizures can come out.
They come out through your skin.
Speaker 2 (27:51):
Wow. She could again could have brought me for a penny.
Speaker 3 (27:55):
She's like, I know you are such in denial and
you are such a fighter for this seizure. Like, I'm like,
these you can't tell me I'm having seizures. She was like, yeah,
you're having migraines, and it's like a perfect storm. Your
migraines are competing with your seizures, and then it's exuding
through your skin. So like you know, if you burn
yourself and you put on clothes and it hurts, that's
how it feels like you can't even touch me.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
WHOA.
Speaker 3 (28:16):
So when I realized that and I started thinking about,
you know, my life and you know what's next, and
how am I gonna handle things? I did the same
thing I did when I went to Mexico the third time.
Was by the third time I went to Mexico by myself, Brady.
Speaker 2 (28:35):
It was wild.
Speaker 3 (28:36):
It was wild, and I said, I won't write a book,
but literally, the guy that was supposed to come pick
me up to take me around, I was coming out
of the airport, he was.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
I was coming out of the airport. He was coming
into the airport.
Speaker 3 (28:49):
He quit, He left me and he put me in
an uber non English speaking.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
So you get there. He's supposed to be your driver. Yeah,
he quits in the middle, like before, were you even
getting the car?
Speaker 2 (29:00):
He didn't quit.
Speaker 3 (29:01):
He didn't quit the agency we were working for. And
he was getting on a plane to leave.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
Oh my god, I was going. I was getting on
getting out of the airport. He was coming in the airport,
get on a plane. So he puts me with this guy.
He's like, he'll get you to where you want to
get to.
Speaker 3 (29:16):
And I said, God, third trip, I said, if I'm
supposed to be doing this, you will open doors. If
i'm not, you can close them. And I'll accept that
because I've done what a lot of people haven't done.
If I'm not supposed to be doing this, let me
get home safely. And I accepted. Two weeks ago, three
(29:38):
weeks ago, I said the same thing. I said, God,
if I'm not supposed to be doing this, I accepted.
But if this is what you're supposed to have for
me to do and talk to people about my journey
and talk to people about my life, I'll accept it
because you'll keep opening doors for me, and I'll my
spear will calm down, my body will calm down, will.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
Stop being sick.
Speaker 3 (30:01):
But I'm listening to you right now because right now,
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (30:06):
I don't know what to do.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
That's so good though, Like if this is for me,
you'll open doors. And I think that that's a prayer
that so many people can take with them on these journeys,
because right, you have the mountains, but you have the valley.
It's the peaks, right, it's the highs and the lows.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
Right. But then if you are.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
Able to remind yourself that God, if this is your will,
if this is what you would have for me, you
will open up doors.
Speaker 2 (30:31):
Yep. I won't even I won't have the wonder. But
there are people out here who keep.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
Running to these closed doors, banging on the door saying
I know, I know you were in there, let me in,
and you're like, if it's yours, the door is gonna open.
Speaker 3 (30:47):
Yeah, because you know what I always I use analogy
of map quests and is a math quess a way?
Speaker 1 (30:55):
Yeah, you just a map questers when we was back
and back in the day, Tien Okay, that was that
was the first one. That was the when you printed
out you have to print it out. Maybe that's how
that's how I moved to La. That's how I moved
to La. You know I'm showing my Listen, that's I'm.
Speaker 2 (31:10):
Right here with you. You are not alone. I am here
with you.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
Use the analogy of ways, ye ways, here we go,
we current now we came up to the to the
twenty twenty five.
Speaker 2 (31:22):
Yeah. Yeah, so it's like waves.
Speaker 3 (31:25):
If you run into traffic or accident, ways is going
to reroute you and still get you to the destination
you're supposed to be in.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
I use my life as ways.
Speaker 3 (31:37):
If I am not supposed to be there, I'm not
gonna get there.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
If there are alternate roots.
Speaker 3 (31:43):
God is going to take me through these alternate roots
like he's been doing since I want to go to
and I will keep saying since I went to Alisco,
Mexico by myself. He's gotten me unscathed to where I
was supposed to go. Now I am going through trials
and tribulations. I'm dealing with things in the spirit industry
I never thought I would be able to deal with
(32:03):
in my life. But I'm built for this, clearly, Yeah, clearly,
I've been built for it tough. Because that accident was
the third thing that almost took me out. I had
three major things that happened to me in my life.
And when that accident happened, I said, Okay, God, something
is supposed to happen that you want me here for,
but the enemy does it. So what do you want
(32:24):
me here for? And clearly it was for me to
make history, to show little girls like me that you
can do something by yourself.
Speaker 1 (32:32):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, with a with a little with a
whole lot of faith, with the whole and a whole
lot of perseverance, a whole lot of faith.
Speaker 2 (32:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:40):
And the willingness, I think too, the biggest thing is
like the willingness to start from the bottom, the willingness
to learn.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
And I think for young.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
People who are watching this, you have to have the
willingness to learn something new and say you don't know everything.
Speaker 3 (32:59):
Absolutely, yeah, absolutely, because if you're the smartest person in
the room, you're in the wrong, run, wrong, wrong room.
I am like a sponge. I absorb knowledge. Like when
I went to Halisco the last time, I met with
the owner of Fordelay's phenomenal tequila. And you don't find
that tequila everywhere. He s he closed his distillery for
(33:20):
me and sat down with me all day and talked
to me, and he gave me so many nuggets just
about life and lessons in entrepreneurship. And I was just
like learning from the ground up and knowing was very
profound for me and others in the industry to respect
(33:43):
me and to know that I was serious about this.
So when you have people that you can go to
that you know that they started from the ground up
and you knew you know, it's been in the their
family for generations, and you know know they're still working
it and you see that and you know that, like,
this is how it's supposed to be, as opposed to
(34:04):
people on social media that want things microwave, they want
the great instant gratification and they don't want to put
into hard work and it's literally blood, sweat and tears.
Speaker 2 (34:16):
Yeah, And just to get that.
Speaker 3 (34:20):
From him, to understand, like this has been his family
for generations, this is what I'm doing, this is what
I'm still doing. You're on the right path, You're doing
the right thing. And I try to be so transparent
on social media now because I don't want people to
think that I was born for silver spoon in my mouth.
I don't have a mother, father, husband, nobody to fall
back on. If I fall Brandy, I.
Speaker 1 (34:42):
Fall yeah, And I think that there's so many of
our stories, right, there's so many of us who are
watching who are like, if I fall, I fall, you know,
and it's gonna be on me. What is the thing
that's anchoring you though in this season so that you
don't fall.
Speaker 3 (35:00):
I just want to live my life, you know. I
want to experience life. I want to be happy. I
don't want I want to live the rest of my
life and the best of my life. And I don't
want anything that's gonna hold me back or stress me out.
(35:24):
I think I've made so many accomplishments and what holds
me down is to know that I made history. I
my footprints are left on this earth. If nothing else
happens with this tequila, like I told my staff said,
we got a wearehouse full of tequila. We can drink
because guess what, I own everything. I don't owe anybody anything.
(35:46):
Come on, I don't owe anybody anything. I don't have
investors down my back. I don't have bank loans now
on my back. I don't have If this winds fails,
whatever it does, I can walk away from this peacefully
and still live my life. Retired from my government job,
and say I've done. I've made major accomplishments in my life.
(36:06):
I've showed my daughter major things in life. I've showed
my staff major things in life. I can walk away
and be at.
Speaker 2 (36:13):
Peace and I need peace. Yeah, I love that. I
love that. I mean.
Speaker 1 (36:20):
One piece of advice, though, you would give to any
woman that is looking to get in the spirits the
wine or spirits industry. What's the first piece of advice
you would give them. Never take no for an answer.
Never take no for a answer. I was told no
so many times going to jalis Goo.
Speaker 2 (36:39):
They probably.
Speaker 3 (36:42):
They had dead nose ready. They told me what I
couldn't do. You would never be able to do this
by yourself.
Speaker 2 (36:49):
You can't do it.
Speaker 3 (36:50):
But it only takes one yes to catapult you into
your destiny.
Speaker 2 (36:55):
You might hear a billion nos, but this world is huge.
Speaker 3 (37:01):
But you have to have the dedication, perseverance. You have
to be able to keep knocking on doors and knowing
that all the doors are not going to open, but
again praying God, if it's meant for it to happen,
that door is going to open up for me. So
you can't say, oh, well, one hundred people told me no.
Speaker 2 (37:17):
So this is not meant for me. Okay, those are people.
Speaker 3 (37:22):
There's a lot of people out here that wasn't a
physical obstacle that stopped you. That was a person, a person.
I don't listen to what everybody says, and I will
always tell them to be educated. You know, educate yourself
on whatever you're doing in the spear industry, if it's
(37:42):
wine or bourbon, or vodka or tequila, know.
Speaker 2 (37:46):
It from the ground up. No, be smart. Knowledge is
power the more you know. But it only takes one yes. Yeah.
I love that the the power piece.
Speaker 1 (38:01):
Because Terry Vaughan was here and when she came on,
she said, you know, after she left the Steve Harvey Show,
she said, you know, I thought I was gonna get
my own show, like I was just I always knew
I was gonna get my own show. She said, it
took twenty years, but she got her show. And when
we talk about that level of faith, that level of belief,
(38:23):
that level of I'm gonna hear a million no's, but
she said, Tyler Perry's yes. Taler Perry's yes opened up
so many doors for her. And I think that that
just speaks to your point. It's like there are people
who are not gonna believe in you. They're not gonna
believe in the vision that God has given you. But
as long as you believe and you keep working at it,
(38:43):
that's my voice is gonna, it's gonna, it's gonna push you,
it's gonna propel you.
Speaker 2 (38:47):
Faith as small as a must have seed. Yeah, yeah,
small as a musta sey.
Speaker 3 (38:51):
But you have to you have to have that dedication
and know, like, you know what, I knew that my
life had purpose. I just didn't know what the purpose was,
but I knew it was something that I was supposed
to be doing. And I will always pray to God,
like what am I supposed to be doing? What am
I supposed to be doing? What am I supposed to?
Speaker 1 (39:11):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (39:11):
Yeah, And I'm like really like, I had seizure's traumatic
brain injury.
Speaker 3 (39:15):
Tequila, and honestly after, you know, I was having seizures
and in and out of the hospital, and because I
weaned myself off the medication, they had me on so
much medication, I was like, this medicine is making me sicker.
Speaker 2 (39:29):
Let me stop.
Speaker 3 (39:30):
And when I first took a drink, I drink wine,
I got an instant headache. And I said, okay, I
can't drink. And I said, well, let me.
Speaker 2 (39:37):
Try a tequila because I love tequila. And it didn't
give me a headache.
Speaker 3 (39:42):
And that's when I really started researching the additive free,
Kosher certified, you know, the way it was made and everything.
And my tequila is I don't anybody that drinks my
tea like, I don't have a hangover.
Speaker 2 (39:56):
I'm not sick. You know, it makes me feel no additive.
Speaker 1 (40:00):
So when I was drinking, I like tequila, and I
always drink until we drank tequila that was added to free.
Speaker 2 (40:07):
And I mean, you don't. You don't have the hangover,
you don't have the you know, the feeling afterwards. It's all.
We're not in college anymore. We don't wake up. Listen, listen,
I'm down, bad tip. I'm in my bathroom. I can't
do it.
Speaker 1 (40:21):
I'm alcacelsa tablet. As soon as I wake up. You
know too, I be proping in alcacels Alcotta tablets.
Speaker 2 (40:28):
I call us.
Speaker 3 (40:29):
We're cocktail snobs. Now, I'm a cocktail snob. Give me
a good cocktail and I'm good. Yeah, And I know,
I know that's what my tequila is so I am
very proud of it. I have one physical daughter, but
these are my kids.
Speaker 1 (40:46):
I mean, yeah, she's over here looking at these bottles
like she is in admiration.
Speaker 2 (40:52):
It is like she's just like.
Speaker 1 (40:56):
It's like that moment. But but that is how you
should feel about something that you have birthed. Yes, seriously, yes,
that is how you should feel.
Speaker 3 (41:04):
It it is And then let's go back to you
talking about like things that takes a long time in years.
And I always use analogy too, of an elephant. I'm
not a delta, but I love elephants. I collect elephants.
And I started researching and going back to Hullisco twenty seventeen,
twenty eighteen. I signed a contract with my distillery in
twenty nineteen, but because of the pandemic, my tequila didn't
(41:27):
get over into the United States until twenty one. It
didn't land on US soil until twenty one. And I
always tell people and they're like, oh, things take a
long time, And I said, you know, an elephant is
pregnant for twenty four months, twenty four months, two years,
almost two years. An elephant is pregnant, and when they
birth that baby, the earth shakes car stop. People look,
(41:54):
it's noticeable. It's not like she had she was pregnant
a puppy and had was pregnant for a couple of
weeks ahead a litter of puppies and they're gone. That elephant,
that baby elephant weighs about two hundred pounds, and people
take notice. My dealing with my tequila and the whole
process took me almost two years, and I made history
(42:17):
the earth move. So when things take a long time,
it's to me, it's God getting things out the way
and making people recognize and realize and putting you into
positions sometimes when it takes a long time. So don't
give up on when it.
Speaker 2 (42:36):
Takes a long time.
Speaker 1 (42:37):
Yeah, yeah, I received that even in my own journey
to Fanilas and I received that. So what are you
learning in this season? Because I have to imagine that
this cannot be your only stop. There's some other things
that you are thinking about, dreaming about that you're envisioning.
What's that one thing that you're like, I feel like
(42:57):
that might be my next chapter.
Speaker 3 (43:02):
Well, in the spirit industry, if I continue to go
in the spirit industry, I want to start a mescal
nice tequila's made in the regions of Pellisco, Mexico, Mexico.
Mescals are made in the regions of Wahaka, so it's
a whole different region and I want to study Wahaka.
It took me a long time to like mescal, but
(43:23):
I actually love it because.
Speaker 2 (43:24):
It's such a smokiness. It's very rare that I've like.
Speaker 1 (43:28):
I've found mescal's that I've that I've liked along the way,
but it's that smokiness is like it leaves a lot
to be desired.
Speaker 3 (43:35):
It's very unique. It's an acquied taste, and I absolutely
love it. Yeah, I absolutely love it. Now if I
stay in that industry, that's where I want to go.
I also believe Brandy, you probably would't even believe this,
but I was not a speaker and I wouldn't tell
my story. And Sean Ynce he told me the first
(43:55):
anchor that did my story, because I wouldn't tell my
whole story. And She's says, you're gonna have to tell
your whole story. You're gonna have to speak to audiences,
You're gonna have to speak to people, You're gonna have.
Speaker 2 (44:09):
To tell your whole story.
Speaker 3 (44:12):
And I wasn't ready to do that because I was
still dealing with traumatic brain injury and just still trying
to suppress that.
Speaker 2 (44:19):
I do believe that that's what I'm supposed to do.
Speaker 3 (44:21):
I do believe that I am supposed to do speaking
engagements and that I am supposed to talk to people
about my journey. And I always say it's from it's
from tragedy to triumph. It literally is like I wasn't
supposed to be here, but I am here, so I
do want to continue to make my story known. I
(44:43):
was also featured in Because of Them We Can, and
that was a very significant article for me because that
week someone sent me an inbox message and not you know.
Speaker 2 (44:56):
Mind you, I'm still doing my deliveries. I'm delivering to
the liquor store.
Speaker 3 (44:59):
And the lady inbox me on Instagram and she says,
I was on my way to take my daughter to
the dentist and I saw you delivering, getting out getting
your boxes because they got Teacaprie all over them. I'm
out your truck and I stopped and showed my daughter
and told my daughter.
Speaker 2 (45:13):
Who you were, and that hit me hard. I was like, oh,
I am not a cryer. I'm not a cry I'm tough.
I am tough.
Speaker 3 (45:22):
But that hit me hard for that mother to tell
me that she told her daughter that I made history,
and I'm working in the male dominated industry, and look
at her making the deliveries on her own and she
made history.
Speaker 2 (45:37):
Like that hit me hard. So I know that there's so.
Speaker 3 (45:40):
Much more that I have to give as far as
my communication and speaking to the world.
Speaker 1 (45:46):
I mean, children become what they see, right, and so
they have to see women are who are breaking barriers,
who are like knowing that there is no glass on
that ceiling, that the skuy really is a limit to
be able to see that.
Speaker 2 (46:01):
Right.
Speaker 1 (46:01):
And then when we think about black culture, right, as
much as they want to rip our culture out of schools,
out of colleges, out of spaces and places to show
us that you weren't here, we have to remind our
own community that we are powerful, that we were here,
that we made a difference, that we left our mark
on the world.
Speaker 2 (46:22):
Yes, And so it's so important for you to tell
your story. It is so important. And another article that
I was mentioned in was look at her, y'all. You
see she's driving a receipt She said, I got another one.
It was another article that I was in hold on
because this was so profound for me too.
Speaker 3 (46:40):
It was a US Mexico foundation and I was like wow,
you know, and it basically was like, you know, first
black woman to solely own a tequila brand, she journeyed
to Halisco, Mexico on her own. But it's unity, you know.
To me that that article was like unity, We're acknowledging
(47:03):
that this like I went into their culture. You know
what I'm saying. I respect their culture. I respect it,
I love it.
Speaker 2 (47:11):
There's so much beauty in their culture. I respect it.
Speaker 3 (47:14):
I'm not taking away like, oh, I'm not Mexican and
you know Hispanic and you know that's what they do
over there, that's what they love. They take, they pride
themselves on their God. The Govet plant is actually protected
by UNESCO, so it's a protected plant and they protect
their plant.
Speaker 2 (47:34):
It's like it's beautiful.
Speaker 3 (47:36):
So for me to be acknowledged by this foundation saying,
you know, the things that I did as a black woman,
to come over to another culture and learn not just
slap my name on a bottle and not just give
the distillery money to produce a liquid but I learned
you have the footage and seeing me learning and staying
(47:56):
over there, and that's one of the hardest things I've
ever done, was to, you know, cultivate a Gove opinion
to Ahima Door and Agavi pinion.
Speaker 2 (48:05):
It's hard work.
Speaker 3 (48:07):
I have so much respect for the Hima Doors and
the Tequila Master because it is one of the hardest
things to do. So may it matters to me that
we as black women, are showing the next generation what
is so so possible, so possible. Do not let anyone
(48:28):
try to remove you out of the history books. Keep
One marketing agent told me it takes someone up to
seven times to see something to remember it. Well, we
have to work as black people, as black women, seven
times harder.
Speaker 2 (48:43):
We have to always work harder to be.
Speaker 3 (48:46):
Successful and to show them I made history in twenty one,
but I still have to show people, Hey I still exist.
Speaker 2 (48:53):
Hey this tequila is still on the market. Hey you survive.
I survived the pandemic of liquor companies taint for sure. Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (49:04):
I mean this story is so powerful, it is, it
is so moving it is, but it's also very enlightening
because I think oftentimes we look at brands and we
just say, oh, they just slapped their name on and
it was like a white label situation. And you're you're
giving us the intel and the insight to know that's
the furthest thing from the truth. You put boots on
(49:25):
the ground. Literally, Yes, this is what we're talking about.
We talked about boots on the ground, y'all.
Speaker 2 (49:31):
This is what we mean.
Speaker 1 (49:32):
Not the damn fast Okay, we talked about I put
some boots on the ground and change your life. Yes,
put boots on the ground and change the trajectory of
your family. You can make history when you really put
boots on the ground, you can make history and change
the trajectory of your family.
Speaker 3 (49:46):
Yeah, for sure that that was very significant and very
important to show my daughter like we've been on our
own for a very long time, but to lead by example. Yeah,
I had to by example. I had to show her
like we made it, like we made it, like I
went to school and got one college degree, two college degree,
(50:08):
three college degrees just because I was trying to overly
prove myself in the federal government that I'm worthy of
getting these higher positions. I am worthy. But that was
what they were saying, like oh you don't have a degree.
Oh you don't have a degree. So I literally been
in school all my daughter's life, you know, going to
school part time and via audio cassette videos.
Speaker 2 (50:29):
Weekend. I mean every way you can tell you. I
took a class. I took a class, you know. So
it was always to show her what is possible.
Speaker 3 (50:38):
Yes, I'm a single mom, which her dad was still
very active in her life, but she lived with me.
Speaker 2 (50:42):
I was a single mom.
Speaker 3 (50:44):
But we went through a lot, you know, living on
our own since I was I graduated from high school
and working full time in a federal government, having a vehicle.
Everything things was just you know, it was a little rough.
She sent me a video yesterday and this song came
(51:04):
out in ninety eight. My daughter was born in ninety seven.
CC Wine. It was a CC wineing song.
Speaker 2 (51:11):
Alright, and I have.
Speaker 3 (51:13):
And I'm brady when I tell you I am not
a cryer. I am not a cry said, but we
didn't always say we didn't clock two times you didn't cry.
You keep saying I'm not a cry I am we
clocking a tear. I am that girl where I'm like, no,
I am a male dominated entry. You are not having
that part of me. But I played that song on
the way taking her to daycare every morning and for her,
(51:37):
at twenty eight years old, to remember that like it
was embedded in her. I played that song alright, cec
wine is every morning, and I'm like, this girl was
really listening.
Speaker 2 (51:50):
She was as a baby.
Speaker 3 (51:52):
She was paying attention, she was. It resonated in her soul,
It resonated in her spirit. Everything to her mom is
doing is resonating in her. That meant a lot, cause
it's like, you never know when these kids are paying attention,
but they are paying attention. Yeah, so they're watching how
we move and and why we're.
Speaker 2 (52:12):
Moving and the ultimate goal. And they oh, they didn't
just get this. She didn't just get this.
Speaker 3 (52:19):
Like I don't give my daughter anything. I don't give
my staff anything. I make them work. My my assistant,
I tell her. She'll say, miss Tiff, well, how do
you do it? I said, you figured it out.
Speaker 2 (52:30):
I'll let me know.
Speaker 3 (52:31):
She said, well, Miss Tiff, I'm aksing you. She said, missif.
This is not when you were fifteen years old in
the federal government anymore. I said it is, Yeah, I said,
you're you appreciate it? Yeah, and now she can talk
about my business like I can talk about my business.
Speaker 2 (52:43):
Yeah, cause I just wouldn't give it to her. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (52:46):
I made her research, I made her do all the
things because, like I tell my staff too, I said,
we are a black, woman owned, minority owned LGBT friendly company.
Speaker 2 (53:02):
We have no room for air. Mm I said. I'm
hard on y'all.
Speaker 3 (53:06):
I said, because every publication that we're in, everything that
we do, they will find one thing wrong and they
will tear the shreds and I will not allow y'all
to do that.
Speaker 2 (53:18):
Yeah. So I'm hard on y'all because we have very
little room for air.
Speaker 1 (53:22):
Yeah, absolutely very little room for era. As we begin
to close out one word you're committed to in the
season of your life, hm, Wow.
Speaker 2 (53:39):
There are so many words gratification mm an cause that
doesn't always look like things.
Speaker 3 (53:54):
Gratification is not always awards, and it's not always words
of encouragement and accolades. My gratification is my peace and
the things that I know that I have done and
I can smile about it, and I have to be gratify.
(54:16):
I have to have gratification because I know it was
all God and I was on an angel's winging and
prayer all my life. I can't take I can't take
accountability for any of that. My gratification came from what
God did for me. So I am grateful. I have
gratification for all the big wins, the small wins, everything.
(54:40):
Gratification is important to me.
Speaker 1 (54:42):
Amen, you have been such a pleasure to sit down with.
I am so honored, I am so proud to know you,
to share space with you. Your perseverance, your grit, your
determination is one for the books. Thank you so much
for joining me today. Bottom Powers Talks another good one
for the books. Be sure to send this to someone
(55:03):
who could up that level of gratification in their lives
in this season. Until next time, I'm your God, Brandy
Harvey eat Well, give a damn move your body every
single day.
Speaker 2 (55:11):
Peace,
What a wonderful, wonderful story you have solely owned, black owned,
solely woman owned tequila company.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Because it is very intense. It's very intense.
Speaker 3 (00:12):
Was telling me something wasn't right, and when I went
to go open the door, I had a grandma seizure.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
So when I had my.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
Seizure in my car accident, their first question was when
are you coming back to work? And it was at
that moment, Brandy, like when I say I gave my
whole life to the federal government and was proud of it,
I said, what am I gonna do with the rest
of my life and the best of my life?
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Because this isn't it?
Speaker 1 (00:36):
Yeah, Welcome to Vought Empowered Talks. So we don't just
scratch the surface. We dive deep into the lodges of
some of the world's most influential change makers.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
I'm your host, Brandy Harvey.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
Y'all, We've talked about burden on the show, but tequila
has got his voice today. Tiffany Capri Haynesworth is the
unstoppable force behind T Capri Tequila and the first black
woman to solely own a tequila brand. After surviving a
traumatic brain injury from a devastating car accident, Tiffany transformed
(01:15):
pain into passion, first launching T Capri Gourmet Treats, where
she perfected her signature boozy gummy bears. Now T Capri
Tequila is redefining what excellence tastes like in proving that vision, resilience,
and relentless belief can rewrite history. Tiffany has been featured
in Forbes Magazine, Glamour, The Today's Show, and be E
(01:36):
t just to name a few. Tiffany believes anything is possible.
Vaught Empowers Talks. Welcome founder and CEO Tiffany Capri Haynesworth
to the show.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
Thank you, How are you? I am amazing?
Speaker 1 (01:49):
Yeah, oh, it's so great to have you look beautiful?
Speaker 2 (01:52):
What is this shark Truce? What is this color? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (02:00):
Up, Sergio Hudson let him dearly, come on, Black Designer listen. Yes,
I mean, what a wonderful, wonderful story you have solely owned,
black owned, solely woman owned tequila company. I mean I
didn't even think that that we're in twenty twenty five
(02:20):
and you were the first.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
Yeah, yeah that It was strange to me too, But
when you get into it, when I got into it,
and I started learning more about it. I understood why
people have co owners and co founders and they come
into the spear industry with three and four or five partners,
because it is very intense.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
It's very intense.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
I mean talk about intense twelve twelve twelve. I mean
when I read this, I had to write it down
and then I went to give me the power.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
What's this?
Speaker 1 (02:52):
You know, I like a little numerology. I know it's
gonna be some of the Christian folks that like, oh Lord,
they got they they got their cloth.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Out right now on me right now.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
But there's something very powerful about twelve twelve twelve because
it was it's not only a life transforming day, but
your life changed forever on that day.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Yeah, it did.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
I was on my way to work my federal government job,
your good government job, good government job. Especially with everything
that's going on in the world right now, I'm gonna
still say my good government job.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
And I had to be at work at six thirty
in the morning, so I left out really early, and
I always stopped at Starbucks to get expresso because I
needed that to get my life started. I was on
my way into the Starbucks and I was hit from behind,
and the car hit me so forcefully from behind my
car spent and then when it's spun, he hit me again.
(03:46):
And when he hit me again from the passenger side,
I hit my head on a driver side window and
I had a severe concussion. So I was like, okay,
you know, my my bumper was off, my car was.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Too up, and I was like, I was just delirious.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
And so the doctor was like, Okay, you have a
severe concussion. Don't go to sleep. If you, you know,
throw up or whatever, you know, come back to the hospital.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
Because they released me.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
That day, and he just gave me some information about concussions,
you know, like NFL players have concussions and everything. So
as the days went on, my body just changed and
I was just different. I started getting severe migrains. So
this is twelve twelve twelve. So by twelve fifteen and
(04:35):
twelve eighteen, I was stuttering.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
I had a severe stutter.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
Wow, I couldn't remember anything like the cracker barrel right
up the street from my house. I knew I wanted it,
but I couldn't remember the name. And on twelve twenty
one or twenty two, my cousins were coming over for
you know, Christmas Eve brunch or something, and I was
supposed to go to the store to pick up something.
I said, you know, I'm really not feeling well, so
(05:01):
you drive like everything in my body was telling me
something wasn't right. And when I went to go open
the door, I had a grandma seizure. So I had
a grandma seizure, fell into the door, fell on the floor,
blacked my eyes, scraped my face up. Got to the
hospital and the neurologist was like, so you had a concussion.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
You had traumatic brain injury.
Speaker 3 (05:23):
And what that meant was your brain while you were
stuttering and forgetting and you couldn't remember things, your brain
was like having a thunderstorm. It was having a thunderstorm.
And this is what traumatic brain injury does. It takes
a while to happen. And when you were having that thunderstorm,
then you had a grandma seizure.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
It came out. Wow. I mean this was going on
for four years, right, So after I had the grandma seizure,
it's still going on now. Oh wow. So I don't
have grandma.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
Seizures anymore, but I have petite moll seizures, focal seizures,
I have extensive migraine headaches, and the seizures exude themselves
in other ways now because I'm still under a tremendous
amount of stress. So traumatic brain injury is a lifelong injury.
The brain is the longest muscle to hell in your body,
(06:17):
which my nearage just told me when he tried to say, oh, well,
you're gonna have you have epilepsy, and I was like no,
I said, nowhere, let's hold on. Yeah, hold on, I said,
you said that. You know, the brain is the longest
muscle to heel.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Yeah, it's so much soft tissue.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
Yeah, so let's just see how this heals. But I've
been on my own since i was seventeen years old.
I'm a mom. I'm a single mom, been in a
federal government. I had just got my home built in
twenty ten, and I'm like, I have to take care
my daughter. I had to take care at my home.
I just have to keep going. That's my mentality. It's
like survival mode. This is what we do, and this
(06:52):
is what we do was black women. It's like we
gotta keep it moving. Okay, you said this, but I
gotta take care my baby. I got bills to pay.
I got things I had nobody to fall back on.
So I was in and out of hospital for four
years having EEG's done.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
That's when they you know.
Speaker 3 (07:08):
Hook up the the things to your head and they
monitor your brain waves and see when you're having seizures
and see what makes you have seizures.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
And it's not always something you just have them.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
So I'm in and out of the hospital with the
grandmas that I knew I was having, like I'm you know,
falling out and you know, having the seizures that everybody
sees on TV that knows of, but what people don't
understand is like they're petitue malls. Like I could be
sitting and staring at you and blank out and.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
I had a seizure. Wow. So I had to.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
Educate my family and friends about everything that seizures entail.
And these are things that I didn't even know that
I was having seizures sometimes that I was still having seizures.
So they put me on a lot of medication. The
medication did not make me feel the same way. It's
like I hated the medicine. It's like I understood, like
(08:04):
I'm a law and order fanatic, so you know, when
you watch Law and Order and you see people with
schizophrenic and then it's like, I can't take the medicine
because I don't like the way it makes me feel.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
I understand that, Yeah, I understand it. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
I mean, but this season you said it taught you
so much because you had really given your entire life to.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
This, this good government job.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
I mean you've been there for over thirty years at
this point now because you still work for the government.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
Yes, yes, So when I had my seizure in my
car accident, their first question was, when.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
Are you coming back to work? Wow?
Speaker 3 (08:40):
I was like, I just had traumatic brain injury, and
Grandma sees just I'm seeing a neurologist.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
They're like, oh no, it's not that bad. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:49):
No, So when are you gonna come back and do
this work? Because your work is piling up. And it
was at that moment, Brandy, like when I say I
gave my whole life to the federal government and was
proud of it. I said, what am I gonna do
with the rest of my life and the best of
my life?
Speaker 2 (09:04):
Because this isn't it? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (09:06):
What am I gonna do with the rest of my
life and the best of my life. I mean, so
you get into this entrepreneurial journey and never wanted.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
To be entrepreneur in my life.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
Ever, most of the people who would have sat in
the seat, who worked for the government said the same thing,
like I never had an entrepreneurial bone in my body,
Like didn't want that.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
Yeah, but you're like.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
You start off with these gourmet treats and you start
infusing alcohol into these baked goods. But there's one that
really took off, and that was the boozy beerries.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:37):
Yeah, So I was known for having girls night and
I was always known for the beach too.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
I ain't never had no boozy gummy bears in my
and my girl's night more.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
I gotta think about this. I'm doing girl's night wrong.
I need some gummy bears.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
That was my thing, was to infuse cocktail cakes or
bread puddings because my my daughter's grandmother actually taught me
how to make bread pudding. And I make the best
bread pudding. So I was making like brandy peach bread puddings.
I saw it with the crown, baby had the crown. Yeah,
all of it did? It looked real good?
Speaker 2 (10:12):
I were good. They were good.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
Yeah, And then one day I saw there was like
a rose all Day beer and it was like a
twenty per twenty thousand person weightless for this beer. I
had just got out the hospital actually, and I was
from having a seizure and I was just scrolling. It
was like two o'clock in the morning. It was like, oh, yeah,
it's like a twenty thousand person weight lists and I
go to read and it was like non alcoholic, and
I was like, well, why do these people want it?
Speaker 2 (10:38):
Some we can we can updated flavor. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (10:41):
So I just started researching how to make gummy bears
and I just started ordering all the material, all the
products and all the molds and everything, and I started
with rose Pinogriggio and Merlo and it took me six
months to perfect this whiny beer.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Called them whiny.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
Bears, and they literally and they were you know, no additives,
no preservatives, so you had to keep them in refrigerator,
but they taste just like wine.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
And they skyrocketed.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
So then all the women were loving them, and so
their husbands and boyfriends was like, oh, it's if you
need to work work on a Bourbon bear or a
Hennessy bear. And I'm like, well, that's like forty percent
alcohol by volume. I don't know how that's going to hold.
Not a Hennessy Bear. I'm like, you know, wine doesn't
have that much alcohol by volume. So it was almost
like chemistry, you know. I was getting into chemistry with it.
(11:32):
And another three or four months later, I perfected the
Boozy Bear and I perfected the Hennessy Bear, and it
was just like everybody just lost it. I was like
on Good Morning Washington at home and all the you know,
local Washington stations and doing all my bears and my
cakes and everything.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
And it took off.
Speaker 3 (11:52):
And so, you know, recycling comes every other Sunday. And
so my daughter looks at me one day and she
was like, my, you know what, recycling guys gonna think something.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
We got problem going on in this house. There's a
lot of liquor bottles in here.
Speaker 3 (12:06):
And it was at that moment and I've said, I'm
using so many other people's liquor. I want to use
my own in my Gurmet Treats business.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
That was it. You look, I just want to get
a couple bottles so I can have That was it, Brandy.
Speaker 3 (12:20):
I just wanted a couple bottles. I did not want to.
In my mind, it wasn't starting the brand. It just
I needed a couple bottles so I can say I'm
using my own liquor in these gurmet treats that I'm selling.
That everybody took off. So I love tequila. I've always
been a tequila girl. So I researched where tequila was made.
I found that it was only made in the highlands
(12:40):
and the lowlands of Jalisco, Mexico. And let's just let
me just say this. I suffered from traumatic brain injury.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
She said, give me some grapes. I'd be doing business
doing I had no business store.
Speaker 3 (12:57):
When I told my sister and my best friend, I said, listen,
I'm gary a book of flight the Guadalajara.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
They's like, you're grey to do what now?
Speaker 1 (13:04):
So give me this time frame because you obviously you're
working at dis like speed. You're like, you know what,
I gotta strike while the iron is hot. I gotta
go while I'm still thinking about it. So what is
this time frame?
Speaker 3 (13:16):
So I launched Boozy bit tikpre Gonna Treats in twenty sixteen.
By two thousand and eighteen was my first trip to Guadalajara.
Two thousand into twenty seventeen. Beginning of twenty eighteen was
my first trip to I went to port a lot
of the first time to meet like a tequila broker.
(13:37):
So he basically just told me about some distilleries and everything,
and I said, okay, okay, okay, I know the profile
that I want, but I need to go there to see.
So I started the government when I was fifteen, right,
so I'm used to learning how to start from the
bottom and work my way up to the top and
understanding the process. So to me, I needed to understand
(13:58):
the process. Regardless of where this went, I needed to
understand this process. So he was like, okay, well, you know,
going over to Jalisco, it's not like this.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
It's not beach town. It's not resort town.
Speaker 3 (14:08):
Like we're talking about mountains and roads and.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
A lot of stuff. Yeah. So I was like, okay, listen,
I don't care. I want to do it.
Speaker 3 (14:19):
So took my first trip over there by myself and
actually fell in love with Guadalajara and Jalisco. It was
I think these are I know, these are ye plants
or are they Yeah? There're okay, they might be al Yeah.
So when I went over there and I fell in
(14:40):
love with it. It was one of the most beautiful
countries I had ever been to. Because when people think
of agave plants, they think of this part. But when
you get into the field with the hemadors, you see
like a hundred to two hundred pounds pinia under the ground,
under the earth. So when they unearth this pinion which
(15:01):
makes tequila, and the hemador has the CoA that's the
name of the tool they're using, and they're literally just
carving it. It's a work of art and it was
majestic to me. It was just so majestic, and I
wanted all the parts of this.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
Wow yeah, wow, I mean I want you. Here's what
I love that you said you were never afraid to
work your way from the bottom to the top. And
I think there's so many people on the road to success.
They want to start off at the top. They don't
want to trust the process. And You're like, if I'm
gonna do this, I want to learn every step of
(15:37):
the process so that I am an equipped business.
Speaker 3 (15:41):
Absolutely, yeah, absolutely, and that is very important to me.
So the first thing I had to do was find
a small, family owned distillery that allowed me to produce
a small batch, because when you see a lot of
brands that say small batch right now and they're mass producing,
they're not small batches. So I knew that I didn't
(16:02):
have the capital to mass produce, and I knew I
just wanted it for the gummy bears.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
You funded this, yep, solely on your own, your own
good government.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
Good government job.
Speaker 3 (16:12):
So when I found my distillery, they were like, no,
we can't mass produce, We're too small.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
So I was like perfect.
Speaker 3 (16:20):
I went back home and I pulled out every dime
of my retirement. Wow, I pulled out every dime of
my federal government retirement, and I invested into my first
fifteen hundred bottles of Blanco.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
That included buying.
Speaker 3 (16:35):
The liquid, the bottles, the tops, the labels, the boxes. Now,
let's talk about doing everything from the ground up and learning.
I am the importer, I owned the liquid, and I
am the sole distributor.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
Come on, come on, black woman.
Speaker 3 (16:50):
So when you look at the back of that bottle,
it says exclusively imported by Teak of Free Spears.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
I had my warehouse, I had my whole seller's license.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
Yeah, I have my liquor license from the Certified Regulatory
of Tequila and the MP which is the Mexican government.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
She said, if you won't receipts, baby, I please check out
my bottom.
Speaker 3 (17:11):
And I have my award to diploma from the Certified
Regulatory of Tequila and I got a.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
Whole certification for are you black people out here who
ain't gonna believe none of that is certified?
Speaker 3 (17:21):
She got us all the things and.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
All by myself. Wow.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
And my distillery even said, because they've been around for
a very long time, but they are very small batch.
They said, We've never seen anyone do this by theirselves.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
I mean, you've got to feel like you're beaming though
even when you tell the story. You it's like your
whole face like lit up when you start telling the story.
Because when we look at this industry, it's very male dominated.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
You do not see.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
I mean even when we look at the distillery world,
the world of distillery, whether it's light or dark, we
are not at the forefront of these conversations. We're not
seated at many of these tables. Even when we look
at celebrity brands, those are typically distribution deals.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
Yeah, So for you to be carrying the torch in
this way is really very powerful.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
Yeah, it's still I'm.
Speaker 3 (18:20):
Still taking it in honestly, Brandy, because it is so hard.
You know, I still work my government job. I'm still
you know, the head of this company. And my company
is an all women run LGBT friendly company. And it's
only three of us. Wow, three of us. Three women
that's running this company.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
Whoa.
Speaker 3 (18:40):
And we have done so much work with so little,
with so little. And this is a capital intensive industry
which you could have bought me for a penny. Let's
go back there. I put God in a box, right.
I was like, okay, God, I just need this for
my these gummy babes. I just trying to make me
some boozy that's it, yea. And the world was like, yeah, no,
that's not happening. And the tequila was so good. And
(19:02):
it was also important to me because my boozy beers
were you know, additive free and you know, didn't have
any preservatives and stuff. And it was important to me
to also change people's perception of what tequila was. So
when I found my distillery and they had such a
quality liquid, so it was added a free Kolshure certified
(19:25):
it was made from one hundred percent Blue Webber gave
through pectants and the well water from the volcanic well
water on there the state A state. They have the
well waters on their estate, so they're literally one of
the very few distilleries as single sources everything.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
Wow, and it was so good.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
And now I was like, I don't know if I'm
being able to put these in boozy beers because it's
the tequila is so good. So I was like, okay, well,
maybe it would just be like a boutique tequila online tequila.
And mind you, I launched in the pandemic where we
couldn't sit right here and talk to each other, we
couldn't do taste things. We couldn't go on liquor stores
and do tastings. I literally, because I had my wholeseller's license,
(20:03):
I literally was knocking on doors like, hey, you know,
I started tequila line. Would you like to taste it
with my mask on? Would you like to try it?
Two liquor stores in my neighborhood was like, sure.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
We'll give it a chance. I was like, okay, great.
Speaker 3 (20:17):
You know, me still not knowing anything about this industry
going into liquor stores selling it do I just know?
I have a product and I want to sell it.
I know how much I want it to be on
the shelf because it's an ultra premium liquid. And one
of my good friends, Sean Yancey, she's an anchor at
news NBC four. I did a lot of her events
for her nonprofit organization was called Girls' Night Out, and
(20:40):
I had my baking goods and so she says, tip,
let me, let me do some research and let me
write your story. Let me run it past my people,
let me write your story. So she did everything from
the car accident to the boozy bears, to the baked
goods to the tequila. And she calls me and she says, ma'am,
I just needed you to know that you just made history.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
Wow. You're the first black woman.
Speaker 3 (21:02):
Yeah, the first black woman in the world is solely
own a tequila brand.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (21:06):
And when she launched that story on NBC four, Brandy,
it grew legs of its own, like it grew legs
of its own. So mind you, I had my truck.
I got my warehouse because I'm offul of my good
government job every Monday. So I would use that my
mondays to do distribution and I would load the truck up.
(21:26):
Tore my truck up. Oh, I tore the truck. I
was throwing boxes and throwing crazy and stuff in there.
And I'm delivering with masks on. You know, we had
to wear masks.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
We depend on me.
Speaker 3 (21:34):
And I'm delivering to a liquor store one day and
I see this guy come out with two cases on
his shoulder and I rolled a window down, got a
mask on. I said, really, that's what you're doing. He
was like, yeah, I drove all the way up here
from North Carolina. This is the first black woman owned
a tequila brand.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
And it's good. Uh. And he didn't even know he
was talking to me. Pulled my mask down. He was like, yes, you,
it's you. And I said, yeah, I'm come to make
some delivery. Oh come on, masterpiece. She said, I'm a Noliver.
I got him in my trump listen. Wow, all the
deliveries myself. And then it just it literally took off.
Speaker 3 (22:08):
But we were talking about only fifteen hundred bottles, which
equated to like three palettes. That's not a lot. When
now you're it's such a boom forward. And I'm only
in two or three stores, and now the stores are
bump rushing me, and I'm like, oh, wait a minute.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
I only have Blanco, Like I only have a little
bit of tequila.
Speaker 3 (22:30):
So I hate to tell a lot of people. No,
I had to be very strategic and where I put
the tequila in stores. But people were driving from New York,
North Carolina, South Carolina, Detroit. Me and my operations manager
did an event in Detroit and this guy comes up
to me and he says, he shows me a picture.
He said, when you first launched, I drove from Detroit
(22:50):
to your store in Maryland to get your tequila.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
Wow. And I'm just ball and I'm like.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
Oh goodness, Yeah, this got to make you feel so
good because for something that started really is like I
just need a little bit.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
I need a little bit. Guys like I got a
lot of it. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (23:09):
He's like nah, bigger yeah this And to this day, Brandy,
I'm like, okay, lord, so you put me in this
situation now, and this is like we said, it's a
male dominated industry. It's a capital intensive industry. And I
see why the big brains are successful because in my mind,
(23:32):
you can look at me and you don't drink anymore.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
But I and I have tough skins.
Speaker 3 (23:36):
So I want your staff to tell me how they
feel about it, because I think I produce a phenomenal liquid.
These big companies can look at me and like, that's cute.
It might taste good. You might have done it by yourself,
but we got the marketing. But yeah, we got the money,
hundreds of millions of dollars that you can't even come
close to.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
So it's still very hard.
Speaker 3 (24:00):
To be in this industry and not get frustrated, like
when I hear you talk and read my story because
I don't even watch my interviews or anything.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
I just keep it going.
Speaker 3 (24:07):
But I well up because sometimes I do have to
stop myself and be like, look at what you did
by yourself. Yeah, but I'm so acclimated to doing things
by myself, like getting my degrees and building my home
and taking care of my daughter. This is all survival mode, Like,
this is what I've done to survive. So after the
(24:29):
car accident, it was like, Okay, keep your brain function
and keep your brain moving, do things that's gonna occupy
your time, and go against what the neurologist said. Because
I even left my first neurologists and went to John
Hopkins because I was like, this man's trying to kill me.
He wants me to think that my life is over.
And my life is not over because I have a
daughter to raise, So I would not let him tell me, like,
(24:51):
you're gonna be on all this medicine for all your life.
Oh you have to wear a wristband because you have epilepsy.
Oh you're not gonna do So You're not gonna do that.
And it was hard because after you have a seizure,
you can't drive for a very long time. So me
being so independent on my life and having to call
my neighbors or it was all my neighbors and just
(25:11):
my friends because I'm not close with my family, to
have them take me to the grocery store, take my
daughter to school, do like depending on people the smallest
things that you used to jumping in the car, going
to the store, going to get I couldn't do that
because I didn't want to put anybody else life in danger.
I just if I had a siegere driving, I could
have kept myself and somebody else. So I wasn't gonna
(25:32):
do that, So I had to depend on other people.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
So now where I am.
Speaker 3 (25:38):
At this stage and my career as an entrepreneur. I'm like, Okay, Lord,
you said that if I won't give it to you
unless I give it to you, So now you got
to give it to Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
I mean I want you to dive into this moment
because you said just now that it was survival and
so now that you've kind of jumped over one hurdle
in your life, how are you coming out of survival
mode in this season of your life? What are you
doing to create some moments where you don't feel like
(26:14):
I'm just surviving? Wow, that's that's very interesting Because as
I turned forty nine and I said, Lord, you know
Lord Willing.
Speaker 2 (26:26):
And the creykedo't rides.
Speaker 3 (26:27):
One of my girlfriends like, who have you been around
saying Loyd Willing creekedn't rides.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
Yeah, for sure, if I.
Speaker 3 (26:33):
Turned fifty, you know, what is this going to do
for me? Because I'm still super stressed out and when
I'm stressed out, my sees or symptoms they come out
of my skin. Now, Like I thought I had lupus.
So I went to my doctor. He's been my doctor
for over twenty years, and I was like, I think
I have lupus and he's like to stay off WebMD, Like,
(26:56):
why do you think you like I'm a web MD
fanaticy right, yeah? And I said, because my skin is
very sensitive to the touch, my hands, my back, my feet.
And he said, well, what's happening before that? Are you
under stressed? I was like, I still work for the
federal government. I might lose my job. These people might
make us retire. I'm about to deal with terrors. Of course,
(27:19):
I'm under tremendous amount of stress.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
Doctor.
Speaker 3 (27:21):
Yeah, And he said, I know you don't want to
hear this. And he said, what else is happening? And
I said, I'm having my migraines, but that's normal. And
he said, okay, I want you to go back and
see a neurologists. And I go back and see a neurologists.
I said, my doctor already ran all the tests. I
think it's you know, lupus or whatever. But he wants
me to see you. And so she runs some more
tests and you know, she says, yeah, no, these are seizures.
(27:46):
She said, this is another way seizures can come out.
They come out through your skin.
Speaker 2 (27:51):
Wow. She could again could have brought me for a penny.
Speaker 3 (27:55):
She's like, I know you are such in denial and
you are such a fighter for this seizure. Like, I'm like,
these you can't tell me I'm having seizures. She was like, yeah,
you're having migraines, and it's like a perfect storm. Your
migraines are competing with your seizures, and then it's exuding
through your skin. So like you know, if you burn
yourself and you put on clothes and it hurts, that's
how it feels like you can't even touch me.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
WHOA.
Speaker 3 (28:16):
So when I realized that and I started thinking about,
you know, my life and you know what's next, and
how am I gonna handle things? I did the same
thing I did when I went to Mexico the third time.
Was by the third time I went to Mexico by myself, Brady.
Speaker 2 (28:35):
It was wild.
Speaker 3 (28:36):
It was wild, and I said, I won't write a book,
but literally, the guy that was supposed to come pick
me up to take me around, I was coming out
of the airport, he was.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
I was coming out of the airport. He was coming
into the airport.
Speaker 3 (28:49):
He quit, He left me and he put me in
an uber non English speaking.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
So you get there. He's supposed to be your driver. Yeah,
he quits in the middle, like before, were you even
getting the car?
Speaker 2 (29:00):
He didn't quit.
Speaker 3 (29:01):
He didn't quit the agency we were working for. And
he was getting on a plane to leave.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
Oh my god, I was going. I was getting on
getting out of the airport. He was coming in the airport,
get on a plane. So he puts me with this guy.
He's like, he'll get you to where you want to
get to.
Speaker 3 (29:16):
And I said, God, third trip, I said, if I'm
supposed to be doing this, you will open doors. If
i'm not, you can close them. And I'll accept that
because I've done what a lot of people haven't done.
If I'm not supposed to be doing this, let me
get home safely. And I accepted. Two weeks ago, three
(29:38):
weeks ago, I said the same thing. I said, God,
if I'm not supposed to be doing this, I accepted.
But if this is what you're supposed to have for
me to do and talk to people about my journey
and talk to people about my life, I'll accept it
because you'll keep opening doors for me, and I'll my
spear will calm down, my body will calm down, will.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
Stop being sick.
Speaker 3 (30:01):
But I'm listening to you right now because right now,
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (30:06):
I don't know what to do.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
That's so good though, Like if this is for me,
you'll open doors. And I think that that's a prayer
that so many people can take with them on these journeys,
because right, you have the mountains, but you have the valley.
It's the peaks, right, it's the highs and the lows.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
Right. But then if you are.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
Able to remind yourself that God, if this is your will,
if this is what you would have for me, you
will open up doors.
Speaker 2 (30:31):
Yep. I won't even I won't have the wonder. But
there are people out here who keep.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
Running to these closed doors, banging on the door saying
I know, I know you were in there, let me in,
and you're like, if it's yours, the door is gonna open.
Speaker 3 (30:47):
Yeah, because you know what I always I use analogy
of map quests and is a math quess a way?
Speaker 1 (30:55):
Yeah, you just a map questers when we was back
and back in the day, Tien Okay, that was that
was the first one. That was the when you printed
out you have to print it out. Maybe that's how
that's how I moved to La. That's how I moved
to La. You know I'm showing my Listen, that's I'm.
Speaker 2 (31:10):
Right here with you. You are not alone. I am here
with you.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
Use the analogy of ways, ye ways, here we go,
we current now we came up to the to the
twenty twenty five.
Speaker 2 (31:22):
Yeah. Yeah, so it's like waves.
Speaker 3 (31:25):
If you run into traffic or accident, ways is going
to reroute you and still get you to the destination
you're supposed to be in.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
I use my life as ways.
Speaker 3 (31:37):
If I am not supposed to be there, I'm not
gonna get there.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
If there are alternate roots.
Speaker 3 (31:43):
God is going to take me through these alternate roots
like he's been doing since I want to go to
and I will keep saying since I went to Alisco,
Mexico by myself. He's gotten me unscathed to where I
was supposed to go. Now I am going through trials
and tribulations. I'm dealing with things in the spirit industry
I never thought I would be able to deal with
(32:03):
in my life. But I'm built for this, clearly, Yeah, clearly,
I've been built for it tough. Because that accident was
the third thing that almost took me out. I had
three major things that happened to me in my life.
And when that accident happened, I said, Okay, God, something
is supposed to happen that you want me here for,
but the enemy does it. So what do you want
(32:24):
me here for? And clearly it was for me to
make history, to show little girls like me that you
can do something by yourself.
Speaker 1 (32:32):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, with a with a little with a
whole lot of faith, with the whole and a whole
lot of perseverance, a whole lot of faith.
Speaker 2 (32:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:40):
And the willingness, I think too, the biggest thing is
like the willingness to start from the bottom, the willingness
to learn.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
And I think for young.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
People who are watching this, you have to have the
willingness to learn something new and say you don't know everything.
Speaker 3 (32:59):
Absolutely, yeah, absolutely, because if you're the smartest person in
the room, you're in the wrong, run, wrong, wrong room.
I am like a sponge. I absorb knowledge. Like when
I went to Halisco the last time, I met with
the owner of Fordelay's phenomenal tequila. And you don't find
that tequila everywhere. He s he closed his distillery for
(33:20):
me and sat down with me all day and talked
to me, and he gave me so many nuggets just
about life and lessons in entrepreneurship. And I was just
like learning from the ground up and knowing was very
profound for me and others in the industry to respect
(33:43):
me and to know that I was serious about this.
So when you have people that you can go to
that you know that they started from the ground up
and you knew you know, it's been in the their
family for generations, and you know know they're still working
it and you see that and you know that, like,
this is how it's supposed to be, as opposed to
(34:04):
people on social media that want things microwave, they want
the great instant gratification and they don't want to put
into hard work and it's literally blood, sweat and tears.
Speaker 2 (34:16):
Yeah, And just to get that.
Speaker 3 (34:20):
From him, to understand, like this has been his family
for generations, this is what I'm doing, this is what
I'm still doing. You're on the right path, You're doing
the right thing. And I try to be so transparent
on social media now because I don't want people to
think that I was born for silver spoon in my mouth.
I don't have a mother, father, husband, nobody to fall
back on. If I fall Brandy, I.
Speaker 1 (34:42):
Fall yeah, And I think that there's so many of
our stories, right, there's so many of us who are
watching who are like, if I fall, I fall, you know,
and it's gonna be on me. What is the thing
that's anchoring you though in this season so that you
don't fall.
Speaker 3 (35:00):
I just want to live my life, you know. I
want to experience life. I want to be happy. I
don't want I want to live the rest of my
life and the best of my life. And I don't
want anything that's gonna hold me back or stress me out.
(35:24):
I think I've made so many accomplishments and what holds
me down is to know that I made history. I
my footprints are left on this earth. If nothing else
happens with this tequila, like I told my staff said,
we got a wearehouse full of tequila. We can drink
because guess what, I own everything. I don't owe anybody anything.
(35:46):
Come on, I don't owe anybody anything. I don't have
investors down my back. I don't have bank loans now
on my back. I don't have If this winds fails,
whatever it does, I can walk away from this peacefully
and still live my life. Retired from my government job,
and say I've done. I've made major accomplishments in my life.
(36:06):
I've showed my daughter major things in life. I've showed
my staff major things in life. I can walk away
and be at.
Speaker 2 (36:13):
Peace and I need peace. Yeah, I love that. I
love that. I mean.
Speaker 1 (36:20):
One piece of advice, though, you would give to any
woman that is looking to get in the spirits the
wine or spirits industry. What's the first piece of advice
you would give them. Never take no for an answer.
Never take no for a answer. I was told no
so many times going to jalis Goo.
Speaker 2 (36:39):
They probably.
Speaker 3 (36:42):
They had dead nose ready. They told me what I
couldn't do. You would never be able to do this
by yourself.
Speaker 2 (36:49):
You can't do it.
Speaker 3 (36:50):
But it only takes one yes to catapult you into
your destiny.
Speaker 2 (36:55):
You might hear a billion nos, but this world is huge.
Speaker 3 (37:01):
But you have to have the dedication, perseverance. You have
to be able to keep knocking on doors and knowing
that all the doors are not going to open, but
again praying God, if it's meant for it to happen,
that door is going to open up for me. So
you can't say, oh, well, one hundred people told me no.
Speaker 2 (37:17):
So this is not meant for me. Okay, those are people.
Speaker 3 (37:22):
There's a lot of people out here that wasn't a
physical obstacle that stopped you. That was a person, a person.
I don't listen to what everybody says, and I will
always tell them to be educated. You know, educate yourself
on whatever you're doing in the spear industry, if it's
(37:42):
wine or bourbon, or vodka or tequila, know.
Speaker 2 (37:46):
It from the ground up. No, be smart. Knowledge is
power the more you know. But it only takes one yes. Yeah.
I love that the the power piece.
Speaker 1 (38:01):
Because Terry Vaughan was here and when she came on,
she said, you know, after she left the Steve Harvey Show,
she said, you know, I thought I was gonna get
my own show, like I was just I always knew
I was gonna get my own show. She said, it
took twenty years, but she got her show. And when
we talk about that level of faith, that level of belief,
(38:23):
that level of I'm gonna hear a million no's, but
she said, Tyler Perry's yes. Taler Perry's yes opened up
so many doors for her. And I think that that
just speaks to your point. It's like there are people
who are not gonna believe in you. They're not gonna
believe in the vision that God has given you. But
as long as you believe and you keep working at it,
(38:43):
that's my voice is gonna, it's gonna, it's gonna push you,
it's gonna propel you.
Speaker 2 (38:47):
Faith as small as a must have seed. Yeah, yeah,
small as a musta sey.
Speaker 3 (38:51):
But you have to you have to have that dedication
and know, like, you know what, I knew that my
life had purpose. I just didn't know what the purpose was,
but I knew it was something that I was supposed
to be doing. And I will always pray to God,
like what am I supposed to be doing? What am
I supposed to be doing? What am I supposed to?
Speaker 1 (39:11):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (39:11):
Yeah, And I'm like really like, I had seizure's traumatic
brain injury.
Speaker 3 (39:15):
Tequila, and honestly after, you know, I was having seizures
and in and out of the hospital, and because I
weaned myself off the medication, they had me on so
much medication, I was like, this medicine is making me sicker.
Speaker 2 (39:29):
Let me stop.
Speaker 3 (39:30):
And when I first took a drink, I drink wine,
I got an instant headache. And I said, okay, I
can't drink. And I said, well, let me.
Speaker 2 (39:37):
Try a tequila because I love tequila. And it didn't
give me a headache.
Speaker 3 (39:42):
And that's when I really started researching the additive free,
Kosher certified, you know, the way it was made and everything.
And my tequila is I don't anybody that drinks my
tea like, I don't have a hangover.
Speaker 2 (39:56):
I'm not sick. You know, it makes me feel no additive.
Speaker 1 (40:00):
So when I was drinking, I like tequila, and I
always drink until we drank tequila that was added to free.
Speaker 2 (40:07):
And I mean, you don't. You don't have the hangover,
you don't have the you know, the feeling afterwards. It's all.
We're not in college anymore. We don't wake up. Listen, listen,
I'm down, bad tip. I'm in my bathroom. I can't
do it.
Speaker 1 (40:21):
I'm alcacelsa tablet. As soon as I wake up. You
know too, I be proping in alcacels Alcotta tablets.
Speaker 2 (40:28):
I call us.
Speaker 3 (40:29):
We're cocktail snobs. Now, I'm a cocktail snob. Give me
a good cocktail and I'm good. Yeah, And I know,
I know that's what my tequila is so I am
very proud of it. I have one physical daughter, but
these are my kids.
Speaker 1 (40:46):
I mean, yeah, she's over here looking at these bottles
like she is in admiration.
Speaker 2 (40:52):
It is like she's just like.
Speaker 1 (40:56):
It's like that moment. But but that is how you
should feel about something that you have birthed. Yes, seriously, yes,
that is how you should feel.
Speaker 3 (41:04):
It it is And then let's go back to you
talking about like things that takes a long time in years.
And I always use analogy too, of an elephant. I'm
not a delta, but I love elephants. I collect elephants.
And I started researching and going back to Hullisco twenty seventeen,
twenty eighteen. I signed a contract with my distillery in
twenty nineteen, but because of the pandemic, my tequila didn't
(41:27):
get over into the United States until twenty one. It
didn't land on US soil until twenty one. And I
always tell people and they're like, oh, things take a
long time, And I said, you know, an elephant is
pregnant for twenty four months, twenty four months, two years,
almost two years. An elephant is pregnant, and when they
birth that baby, the earth shakes car stop. People look,
(41:54):
it's noticeable. It's not like she had she was pregnant
a puppy and had was pregnant for a couple of
weeks ahead a litter of puppies and they're gone. That elephant,
that baby elephant weighs about two hundred pounds, and people
take notice. My dealing with my tequila and the whole
process took me almost two years, and I made history
(42:17):
the earth move. So when things take a long time,
it's to me, it's God getting things out the way
and making people recognize and realize and putting you into
positions sometimes when it takes a long time. So don't
give up on when it.
Speaker 2 (42:36):
Takes a long time.
Speaker 1 (42:37):
Yeah, yeah, I received that even in my own journey
to Fanilas and I received that. So what are you
learning in this season? Because I have to imagine that
this cannot be your only stop. There's some other things
that you are thinking about, dreaming about that you're envisioning.
What's that one thing that you're like, I feel like
(42:57):
that might be my next chapter.
Speaker 3 (43:02):
Well, in the spirit industry, if I continue to go
in the spirit industry, I want to start a mescal
nice tequila's made in the regions of Pellisco, Mexico, Mexico.
Mescals are made in the regions of Wahaka, so it's
a whole different region and I want to study Wahaka.
It took me a long time to like mescal, but
(43:23):
I actually love it because.
Speaker 2 (43:24):
It's such a smokiness. It's very rare that I've like.
Speaker 1 (43:28):
I've found mescal's that I've that I've liked along the way,
but it's that smokiness is like it leaves a lot
to be desired.
Speaker 3 (43:35):
It's very unique. It's an acquied taste, and I absolutely
love it. Yeah, I absolutely love it. Now if I
stay in that industry, that's where I want to go.
I also believe Brandy, you probably would't even believe this,
but I was not a speaker and I wouldn't tell
my story. And Sean Ynce he told me the first
(43:55):
anchor that did my story, because I wouldn't tell my
whole story. And She's says, you're gonna have to tell
your whole story. You're gonna have to speak to audiences,
You're gonna have to speak to people, You're gonna have.
Speaker 2 (44:09):
To tell your whole story.
Speaker 3 (44:12):
And I wasn't ready to do that because I was
still dealing with traumatic brain injury and just still trying
to suppress that.
Speaker 2 (44:19):
I do believe that that's what I'm supposed to do.
Speaker 3 (44:21):
I do believe that I am supposed to do speaking
engagements and that I am supposed to talk to people
about my journey. And I always say it's from it's
from tragedy to triumph. It literally is like I wasn't
supposed to be here, but I am here, so I
do want to continue to make my story known. I
(44:43):
was also featured in Because of Them We Can, and
that was a very significant article for me because that
week someone sent me an inbox message and not you know.
Speaker 2 (44:56):
Mind you, I'm still doing my deliveries. I'm delivering to
the liquor store.
Speaker 3 (44:59):
And the lady inbox me on Instagram and she says,
I was on my way to take my daughter to
the dentist and I saw you delivering, getting out getting
your boxes because they got Teacaprie all over them. I'm
out your truck and I stopped and showed my daughter
and told my daughter.
Speaker 2 (45:13):
Who you were, and that hit me hard. I was like, oh,
I am not a cryer. I'm not a cry I'm tough.
I am tough.
Speaker 3 (45:22):
But that hit me hard for that mother to tell
me that she told her daughter that I made history,
and I'm working in the male dominated industry, and look
at her making the deliveries on her own and she
made history.
Speaker 2 (45:37):
Like that hit me hard. So I know that there's so.
Speaker 3 (45:40):
Much more that I have to give as far as
my communication and speaking to the world.
Speaker 1 (45:46):
I mean, children become what they see, right, and so
they have to see women are who are breaking barriers,
who are like knowing that there is no glass on
that ceiling, that the skuy really is a limit to
be able to see that.
Speaker 2 (46:01):
Right.
Speaker 1 (46:01):
And then when we think about black culture, right, as
much as they want to rip our culture out of schools,
out of colleges, out of spaces and places to show
us that you weren't here, we have to remind our
own community that we are powerful, that we were here,
that we made a difference, that we left our mark
on the world.
Speaker 2 (46:22):
Yes, And so it's so important for you to tell
your story. It is so important. And another article that
I was mentioned in was look at her, y'all. You
see she's driving a receipt She said, I got another one.
It was another article that I was in hold on
because this was so profound for me too.
Speaker 3 (46:40):
It was a US Mexico foundation and I was like wow,
you know, and it basically was like, you know, first
black woman to solely own a tequila brand, she journeyed
to Halisco, Mexico on her own. But it's unity, you know.
To me that that article was like unity, We're acknowledging
(47:03):
that this like I went into their culture. You know
what I'm saying. I respect their culture. I respect it,
I love it.
Speaker 2 (47:11):
There's so much beauty in their culture. I respect it.
Speaker 3 (47:14):
I'm not taking away like, oh, I'm not Mexican and
you know Hispanic and you know that's what they do
over there, that's what they love. They take, they pride
themselves on their God. The Govet plant is actually protected
by UNESCO, so it's a protected plant and they protect
their plant.
Speaker 2 (47:34):
It's like it's beautiful.
Speaker 3 (47:36):
So for me to be acknowledged by this foundation saying,
you know, the things that I did as a black woman,
to come over to another culture and learn not just
slap my name on a bottle and not just give
the distillery money to produce a liquid but I learned
you have the footage and seeing me learning and staying
(47:56):
over there, and that's one of the hardest things I've
ever done, was to, you know, cultivate a Gove opinion
to Ahima Door and Agavi pinion.
Speaker 2 (48:05):
It's hard work.
Speaker 3 (48:07):
I have so much respect for the Hima Doors and
the Tequila Master because it is one of the hardest
things to do. So may it matters to me that
we as black women, are showing the next generation what
is so so possible, so possible. Do not let anyone
(48:28):
try to remove you out of the history books. Keep
One marketing agent told me it takes someone up to
seven times to see something to remember it. Well, we
have to work as black people, as black women, seven
times harder.
Speaker 2 (48:43):
We have to always work harder to be.
Speaker 3 (48:46):
Successful and to show them I made history in twenty one,
but I still have to show people, Hey I still exist.
Speaker 2 (48:53):
Hey this tequila is still on the market. Hey you survive.
I survived the pandemic of liquor companies taint for sure. Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (49:04):
I mean this story is so powerful, it is, it
is so moving it is, but it's also very enlightening
because I think oftentimes we look at brands and we
just say, oh, they just slapped their name on and
it was like a white label situation. And you're you're
giving us the intel and the insight to know that's
the furthest thing from the truth. You put boots on
(49:25):
the ground. Literally, Yes, this is what we're talking about.
We talked about boots on the ground, y'all.
Speaker 2 (49:31):
This is what we mean.
Speaker 1 (49:32):
Not the damn fast Okay, we talked about I put
some boots on the ground and change your life. Yes,
put boots on the ground and change the trajectory of
your family. You can make history when you really put
boots on the ground, you can make history and change
the trajectory of your family.
Speaker 3 (49:46):
Yeah, for sure that that was very significant and very
important to show my daughter like we've been on our
own for a very long time, but to lead by example. Yeah,
I had to by example. I had to show her
like we made it, like we made it, like I
went to school and got one college degree, two college degree,
(50:08):
three college degrees just because I was trying to overly
prove myself in the federal government that I'm worthy of
getting these higher positions. I am worthy. But that was
what they were saying, like oh you don't have a degree.
Oh you don't have a degree. So I literally been
in school all my daughter's life, you know, going to
school part time and via audio cassette videos.
Speaker 2 (50:29):
Weekend. I mean every way you can tell you. I
took a class. I took a class, you know. So
it was always to show her what is possible.
Speaker 3 (50:38):
Yes, I'm a single mom, which her dad was still
very active in her life, but she lived with me.
Speaker 2 (50:42):
I was a single mom.
Speaker 3 (50:44):
But we went through a lot, you know, living on
our own since I was I graduated from high school
and working full time in a federal government, having a vehicle.
Everything things was just you know, it was a little rough.
She sent me a video yesterday and this song came
(51:04):
out in ninety eight. My daughter was born in ninety seven.
CC Wine. It was a CC wineing song.
Speaker 2 (51:11):
Alright, and I have.
Speaker 3 (51:13):
And I'm brady when I tell you I am not
a cryer. I am not a cry said, but we
didn't always say we didn't clock two times you didn't cry.
You keep saying I'm not a cry I am we
clocking a tear. I am that girl where I'm like, no,
I am a male dominated entry. You are not having
that part of me. But I played that song on
the way taking her to daycare every morning and for her,
(51:37):
at twenty eight years old, to remember that like it
was embedded in her. I played that song alright, cec
wine is every morning, and I'm like, this girl was
really listening.
Speaker 2 (51:50):
She was as a baby.
Speaker 3 (51:52):
She was paying attention, she was. It resonated in her soul,
It resonated in her spirit. Everything to her mom is
doing is resonating in her. That meant a lot, cause
it's like, you never know when these kids are paying attention,
but they are paying attention. Yeah, so they're watching how
we move and and why we're.
Speaker 2 (52:12):
Moving and the ultimate goal. And they oh, they didn't
just get this. She didn't just get this.
Speaker 3 (52:19):
Like I don't give my daughter anything. I don't give
my staff anything. I make them work. My my assistant,
I tell her. She'll say, miss Tiff, well, how do
you do it? I said, you figured it out.
Speaker 2 (52:30):
I'll let me know.
Speaker 3 (52:31):
She said, well, Miss Tiff, I'm aksing you. She said, missif.
This is not when you were fifteen years old in
the federal government anymore. I said it is, Yeah, I said,
you're you appreciate it? Yeah, and now she can talk
about my business like I can talk about my business.
Speaker 2 (52:43):
Yeah, cause I just wouldn't give it to her. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (52:46):
I made her research, I made her do all the
things because, like I tell my staff too, I said,
we are a black, woman owned, minority owned LGBT friendly company.
Speaker 2 (53:02):
We have no room for air. Mm I said. I'm
hard on y'all.
Speaker 3 (53:06):
I said, because every publication that we're in, everything that
we do, they will find one thing wrong and they
will tear the shreds and I will not allow y'all
to do that.
Speaker 2 (53:18):
Yeah. So I'm hard on y'all because we have very
little room for air.
Speaker 1 (53:22):
Yeah, absolutely very little room for era. As we begin
to close out one word you're committed to in the
season of your life, hm, Wow.
Speaker 2 (53:39):
There are so many words gratification mm an cause that
doesn't always look like things.
Speaker 3 (53:54):
Gratification is not always awards, and it's not always words
of encouragement and accolades. My gratification is my peace and
the things that I know that I have done and
I can smile about it, and I have to be gratify.
(54:16):
I have to have gratification because I know it was
all God and I was on an angel's winging and
prayer all my life. I can't take I can't take
accountability for any of that. My gratification came from what
God did for me. So I am grateful. I have
gratification for all the big wins, the small wins, everything.
(54:40):
Gratification is important to me.
Speaker 1 (54:42):
Amen, you have been such a pleasure to sit down with.
I am so honored, I am so proud to know you,
to share space with you. Your perseverance, your grit, your
determination is one for the books. Thank you so much
for joining me today. Bottom Powers Talks another good one
for the books. Be sure to send this to someone
(55:03):
who could up that level of gratification in their lives
in this season. Until next time, I'm your God, Brandy
Harvey eat Well, give a damn move your body every
single day.
Speaker 2 (55:11):
Peace,
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