February 16, 2025 • 32 mins
I'm speaking with Ty Alexander, a best-selling author, speaker, podcaster, wellness blogger, and DJ. We're exploring Ty’s journey of embracing vulnerability, shaped significantly by the grief over her mother's loss.
Ty discusses how her multifaceted career—from being a wellness blogger to becoming a DJ—requires constant learning and adaptation. She shares insights into leveraging social media for career growth, the importance of trying and failing, and the necessity of documenting one’s journey. Ty also talks about balancing different roles and the ongoing healing and self-improvement journey.
https://tyalexander.co/
https://www.ahyianaangel.com/
Timecodes:
00:00 Welcome to Switch, Pivot, or Quit
00:32 Introducing Ty Alexander
02:35 Embracing Vulnerability
07:31 The Power of Trying New Things
09:09 Navigating Financial Security
11:42 Journey to Becoming a DJ
17:52 Overcoming the Intimidation of Learning
18:31 The Joy of Mastering New Skills
20:50 The Process of DJing and Scratching
24:40 Transitioning from Influencer to DJ
26:11 Latest Aha Moments and Wellness Journey
28:51 Favorite Apps and Tools
32:07 Final Thoughts and Farewell
Ty discusses how her multifaceted career—from being a wellness blogger to becoming a DJ—requires constant learning and adaptation. She shares insights into leveraging social media for career growth, the importance of trying and failing, and the necessity of documenting one’s journey. Ty also talks about balancing different roles and the ongoing healing and self-improvement journey.
https://tyalexander.co/
https://www.ahyianaangel.com/
Timecodes:
00:00 Welcome to Switch, Pivot, or Quit
00:32 Introducing Ty Alexander
02:35 Embracing Vulnerability
07:31 The Power of Trying New Things
09:09 Navigating Financial Security
11:42 Journey to Becoming a DJ
17:52 Overcoming the Intimidation of Learning
18:31 The Joy of Mastering New Skills
20:50 The Process of DJing and Scratching
24:40 Transitioning from Influencer to DJ
26:11 Latest Aha Moments and Wellness Journey
28:51 Favorite Apps and Tools
32:07 Final Thoughts and Farewell
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is amazing media production.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Hello, good people, this is the Switch Pivot Quit Podcast,
and I'm your host, Ayana Angel And you're listening to what.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
I like to call our good, comfortable.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Space, right our space where we can get real about
our challenges, about our switch pivotal quits, about our transitions
and all those things. And I like to bring you
people who will also get real about their transitions. And
so today we're going to be talking to the lovely
Ti Alexander, who is a best selling author, speaker, podcaster,
wellness blocker DJ and she's your wellness hype girl, teaching
(00:44):
you how to choose gratitude over grief. That's one of
her lines, you know, I stole that from her. In
her writings and teaching, she blends radical honesty and stories
with actionable AHA lessons. And in twenty ten, she created
the wildly popular blog Gorgeous and Gray. Since then, she's
become a leading authority and lifestyle beauty and wellness related content.
(01:07):
As I mentioned, she's also a fellow podcaster, hosting the
Self Care in Real Life IRL podcast, where she explores
strategies and ideas for becoming your best self through active healing.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
So Ty welcome to the Switch Papertic podcast.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
I was waiting for you to say, welcome to the port.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
That's your line.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
That's all like, oh wait, that's my last.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
I'm not gonna steal it. I'm not gonna steal it.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
But I love it. I love your energy that you
bring to all the platforms that you show up on.
And that's one of the reasons why I want us
to talk to you today. Because your energy people can
feel it through the screen. It just feels very welcoming
to your people. And I want to know how do
you feel you come off online?
Speaker 4 (01:55):
I think I come off the way I am in person,
Like when I'm on and when I'm off. I think
my community knows, Like when I'm off, they're like, oh
you okay today? Like I get lots of which is
warm and welcoming, right, Like I get lots of are
you okay today?
Speaker 2 (02:07):
Tie?
Speaker 3 (02:08):
How you feeling today? How's your heart? Because just as
happy as I.
Speaker 4 (02:11):
Can be on the internet, like the energy is up,
when the energy's down, you can immediately see it. I
don't have a poker face. I have a procle heart
or whatever. And so every emotion, everything that I go through,
it just comes out like I am as probably one
of the most vulnerable people that I know that you'll
ever meet. And so whenever something is good, bad, and different,
it's gonna come off on the internet, on the camera,
(02:32):
and I'm gonna lay it out for you vulnerability.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
How did you start leaning into your vulnerability? What did
that look like? Honestly, for me, it was after my
mom died. I didn't know any other way to exist
in my grief without being vulnerable. I could feel the
grief smothering me if that makes it like. I could
feel it closing in on me and making me smaller
and like taking up every space that I entered. And
(02:58):
so I was like, how do you I get above grief? Right?
Speaker 4 (03:01):
I know that grief is in me, it's with me.
To love is to lose, Right, There's nothing that I
can do about the grief.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
It's not gonna ever go away.
Speaker 4 (03:09):
So my thought process is what can I do to
get above it? And my thought was, I'm gonna be honest,
I'm gonna lay it on online every single time I
come outside, every single time I wake up. If I
don't feel good, I don't feel good, and that's just it.
If I feel amazing, I'm also equally gonna shout that
out and shout that loud, Like if I'm having an
amazing day, if I'm joyful, if something makes me laugh,
(03:29):
I'm gonna be loud about it. I'm gonna laugh loud
about it, you know what I mean. And so joy
and sorrow live equally in me, and that's how I exist.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
And so with that comes vulnerability.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
Is there anything that you think people can stand to
learn from using maybe vulnerability as a tool for themselves.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
Oh? Everything.
Speaker 4 (03:48):
I think being vulnerable with yourself first and foremost. Like,
even if you don't have the courage to get on
the internet and say all the things that I say,
or anybody else for that matter, I have lots that
you can talk about tabatho or been a Brown, like,
there's lots of examples of people being vulnerable on internet.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
Right.
Speaker 4 (04:04):
But even if you can't be vulnerable on the internet,
as long as you're being vulnerable with yourself, if you
can wake up with yourself and say I'm not feeling
good today, let me make some different choices so I
can create joy or find joy or be happy. Right,
once you learn that all of those things are simply choices.
Like when I get up in the morning and I
feel sorrow, I immediately think to myself, like, wow, if I
(04:27):
can just figure out how or those things that are
going to make me happy and let me do that,
then my day immediately starts to turn around, right, Like
it's one simple choice. But the minute that I allow
sorrow to seep in and I give it attention, I say,
oh my god, I'm.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
Those out of that. I don't want to do it.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
Dang.
Speaker 4 (04:44):
Another if I spend too long in that darkness, the
day is gone, when literally I could have just made
one simple decision.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Right, absolutely, So when you show up in front of
people in real life irl, right, because people see you
all the time on life, But when you're mixing and
mingling with people outside and people ask you what do
you do that don't know you? Right, how do you
answer that question? How do you kind of break down
for people what do you do? Because you are a
(05:12):
multihi fitted so how do you answer that question? Let's
have your elevator spiel.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
First of all, so let's not.
Speaker 4 (05:23):
But it's funny because when I am DJing, a lot
of I'm working on, like being an MC in addition
to a DJ, so a lot of the times I'll
say my name is Ty Alexander, and if you don't
know my name, today I'm a DJ for you. I
do a lot of things, but today i'm a DJ
for you because that is literally the day that I'm DJing.
But tomorrow I could be doing their wellness pots. Tomorrow
I could be on TV.
Speaker 3 (05:42):
You know.
Speaker 4 (05:42):
I do lots of things, and so I tell people.
It's funny because I was talking to my accountant and
she was like, what do you do? And I was like,
I'm naming down all the things that I do. And
she was like, I'm gonna put entertainer and.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
I said, I'm like entertainer.
Speaker 4 (05:54):
That fits very well. I'm an entertainer. I just run
down the gamut of things that I do. I start with,
you know, I'm a serial high and I do djaying,
I'm a podcast or I do beauty and wellness lifestyle content.
I do anything. And I like to think that I
am an early adapter of things. Right when Threads came out,
I'm gonna bust my behind to get over there to
figure out how it works. I can get on there
(06:15):
and be one to first and grow my followers it's
just in me as an influencer, as a content creator,
I'm going to be an early adapter of all the
things I'm on TikTok. I'm doing the things on TikTok. So, yeah,
it's just it can get hard. I'll confess and say
sometimes I feel I often struggle with that because I
sometimes feel like if I did one thing, like how
successful would I be? Like if I were only in
(06:38):
this one lane. But at the end of the day,
I'm an entertainer and I entertain you in different ways,
which is why I say I'm here to teach you
how to choose joy, I'm here to teach you how
to choose gratitude.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
I'm here to teach you all of those things.
Speaker 4 (06:50):
And that comes by djaying, by podcasting, by talking about
how to do my hair, by talking about how to
do my makeup.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
It comes in different forms.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
It's just like it feels like the creativity is in you.
It has to come out, and it has to come
out in different ways because you're multifaceted, and if you
didn't let it out, then you probably wouldn't be leaning
into that authenticity.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
You would be a version of yourself. That's probably stifled.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
A little bit.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
Do you have any words or any thoughts for people
who are feeling like that version of themselves that may
be stifled right now because they are not doing all
the things. They're not even trying a fraction of the
things that they would want to do.
Speaker 4 (07:30):
Maybe it's really simple, is try all the things, which
was literally one of the very last things that my
mom said to me before she passed away. And she
died at fifty seven, not checking off half of the
things that she had done. And it's crazy because I
think we think that fifty seven at least I did, right,
I thought, like, fifty seven is a long time. But
(07:50):
as I creep because I'm forty seven now, as I
creep up to fifty, I'm like, I.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
Have so much more to learn, to give, to do.
Speaker 4 (07:59):
And so by my mom not being here or losing
life early, it just taught me that you have until
the end of your life to try something new. Of course,
DJing is what I'm doing right now. It could be
the guitar tomorrow, it I might pop out with it.
I might look tie so and now crochetan too crochet
(08:19):
and stuff. Now, oh they're gonna tie She's skiing down
now she's a tennis player, you know, Like I think
that we're the generations that are like, we don't have
to have that thirty year old job and we're not
gonna get the pension. I don't know what's gonna happen
when we retire, sistce, and we ain't gonnahead and who knows,
We just gonna be working till the day it's done.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
That's why we have to infuse our joy within everything because.
Speaker 3 (08:42):
So security is going.
Speaker 4 (08:43):
I don't know what we're gonna do about retirement, but
we are literally the first generations that are not glued
down to a desk chair for thirty forty plus years
waiting to retire. So with that being said, you don't
have to do that one thing for the next ten years.
You don't have to do the next thing for the
next five you know what I'm saying, Like, you can
do it for however long your mind says, and when
(09:04):
your mind says, I want to try something different, Okay, Yeah,
that's fine, Yeah, that's fine.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
I think something that will come up for people is
the financial security. Does that ever scare you? Do you
ever have limiting beliefs and thoughts? Especially around money.
Speaker 4 (09:21):
To be honest with you, I just don't think about it.
If I'm honest again, I'm gonna work till the day
is done. I'm a hustle to something until I can't anymore.
I don't know what that is or what that looks like,
which is maybe I'm somewhere writing book somewhere, maybe podcasting
is here to stay and I'm podcasting it out till
the end of the day. I honestly have no idea.
It's one of those things where like I should.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
Think about.
Speaker 4 (09:43):
Probably shit, figure that out and I do the thing,
you know, I save the money and things like that.
But I just it's just not something that we are
thinking about or even talking about.
Speaker 3 (09:52):
If I'm honest, what.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
Would you say you're extremely opinionated about?
Speaker 2 (09:57):
Is there anything right now that it's gotta be something
that you like, like your friends know?
Speaker 1 (10:04):
Like here she go with that again.
Speaker 4 (10:07):
I have come to a point in my life, and
maybe it's because I'm getting closer and closer to fifty.
I don't care what y'all do. I'm too engolfed in
my own thing. I'm too engolfed in progressing my needle
forward and trying to figure out again what I'm gonna
do when I want to retire, where that money coming from?
And so like, there's so many other things that I
(10:27):
just am consumed with for me to be like, wow,
I really wish y'all would stop doing this, or I really.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
Wish this would stop.
Speaker 4 (10:34):
And I kind of was like that before, but the
older I get, I literally do not.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
Care what y'all be doing, like at all. I don't
care what y'all be doing at all? You like it?
Frim I love it?
Speaker 1 (10:45):
Keep doing it?
Speaker 3 (10:46):
Yeah? Is it making you happy? Friend? Sure?
Speaker 1 (10:49):
That's a way to alleviate a lot of unnecessary stress
because sometimes we're so concerned about the people in our lives,
are the people around us and stuff that we are
opinion and maybe if we were a little less opinionated,
we'd be less stressed.
Speaker 4 (11:06):
Listen, I'm not saying I'm not stressed, but I'll be
stressed over stuff that I can control, which is the
other thing. Like I got to figure out where my
money from, how I'm gonna get a car, How I'm
gonna get this, how I'm gonna do that, Like I
want a new car right now, So I'm like, let
me see if I can say some coints, so I
could give.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
Me a new car. How many gigs do I gotta take?
You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4 (11:25):
And so I think to your point, if we spent
more time again looking in our lanes trying to figure
out how to make our grasp better, greener or whatever,
versus looking.
Speaker 3 (11:35):
At well, god, grass, she got over there, we she
got flowers over there? What's she? Or look at that car?
Like I'm focused, I'm right here, I'm right here.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
Speaking of gigs.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
So you planted the seed for DJ in twenty sixteen, right,
I'm gonna say you officially got started in twenty twenty
because you didn't really think you were getting started, but
you were getting started right. You were on your way
somewhere and maybe didn't know it. How does it feel
now to be fully immersed in the space as a
DJ and being booked?
Speaker 4 (12:05):
I literally have like chills because every time I think
about it, I'll be.
Speaker 3 (12:10):
Like, Okay, you did that. You sure did it?
Speaker 4 (12:14):
You know, like really, And I've said that before my platforms.
DJing has been just a thought since I was a kid,
since I first saw Juice, I was like, oh my god, I.
Speaker 3 (12:23):
Could do that. I could be there, But what if
it was a girl up? Dare da da da?
Speaker 2 (12:26):
Like?
Speaker 4 (12:26):
That was my first thought and I kept that thought.
But of course, back in the nineties, DJing was an
extremely expensive hobby to have between buying records and just
turned like everything about it was expensive. And so if
you didn't have no good parents and I had good parents,
but not the ones, that was wasting, not wasting, but
like investing money in that on a skill that may
or may not come into fuition. And so I was
(12:47):
like whatever, And then when the time came back around
that was a forever twenty one event or I don't
even while we were there, but we were there forever
twenty one, and I was there playing around on the turntables,
and I was just like, what if I was? And
I took a picture again, which is why I think
it's so it's such a valuable lesson to document your life,
even if you're not like an influencer. I think it's
(13:08):
really great practice to document your life because you can
go back and see how long something took, how short
it took that you actually said something. I use my
Instagram stories a lot to kind of to your point,
plant those seeds because I want them. Manifesting is a
thing for me, like I know, if I say it,
I can believe it and I can do it in
that order every single time. And so again, djaying was
(13:31):
just something I'm checking stuff off my list. We're gonna
twenty twenty and crazy enough, twenty twenty just happened to
be the year that we shut down. But I took
the class before the pandemic. So the class was from
January to February. The end of February and two weeks
later we shut down in March, and so I was like,
I have nothing else to do, so let me buy
(13:51):
some equipment and figure out these youtubes and continue on
to see what I can do. And then Twitch became
a thing, and then so I get on Twitch and
now I'm DJing on Twitch.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
Saw I'm the bedroom DJ as they call it.
Speaker 4 (14:04):
And because I tell people all the time, I am
the living proof that ten thousand hours of practice works
because I literally practice, no, lie, kid you, not every
single day, at least four to five hours every day
from twenty twenty to twenty twenty one. Because I had
nothing else to do. We were inside, we weren't going anywhere.
(14:25):
And then when we could go somewhere. It was scary
spice outside, I.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
Still wasn't going outside.
Speaker 4 (14:30):
I literally practiced every day, four to five hours a day,
every day for almost two years. There's no reason why
I wouldn't be good. And I put in the time.
Speaker 3 (14:38):
That's it. And so when twenty twenty one we.
Speaker 4 (14:40):
Got out of scary spice season, when the doors opened
up for real, I say, let me go outside. And
my first gig was a festival opening up for Djjzzy Jeff,
and I was like, all right, then, I don't never
question God. I don't know about y'all, but I don't
never question God. That's the plate, that's the stage you
want me on, right, let's figure, let's go. How did
the gig come about? We can't over that. How did
this gig foll in your lab? DJ Jazzy Jeff, like what?
(15:04):
Literally the production company found me on the internet because
I had been posting mashups or posting me practicing and
using hashtags, and so they needed a DJ in the
DMV area and the person literally hashtag dmb DJ and
found me. And of course, because I have numbers, you know,
I have one hundreds, however, many thousand followers but the
(15:26):
numbers go up, right, and so of course I'm the first.
Speaker 3 (15:29):
One that comes up.
Speaker 4 (15:30):
I'm good, and so he reaches out and I'm like, sure,
let's why not? Yeah, I love it? Okay, So tell
us what you thought of the pay for this gig.
Was it more than you expected or unless you expected?
Sagett to the nitty gritted guys in general, like coming
(15:50):
from Inflorencer to DJ. It literally is like Inflorenza to DJ.
Because DJing you start at the bottom. So I had
to start at the bottom, but I did. I was
your girl, ain't stupid. So I had to leverage some
things and oftentimes, especially in the beginning. Now I can
say it's talent, but in the beginning I leveraged my
social media a lot to get more money because I'm like,
(16:11):
I'm at this event one people have followed this journey
since twenty twenty, so now they're following the journey of
me outside at gigs and they want to see it.
So the minute I post it, the minute I say
the flyer is, they're going to come out. And so
I'm saying to promoters and event people like I can't
take the five hundred because I also have to charge
you another thousand for the social media that I'm about
(16:31):
to do, and that's cheap on the land of influencer's.
Speaker 3 (16:35):
That's a steal for y'all. In case you didn't know.
Speaker 4 (16:37):
That's a still when we talk about real influencers who
are making real money, who have real engagement, who can
really move numbers and have a real ROI for their
customer or their client. Rather, that's payday for people. I
had to be smart about it. This little bit of
coin I'm not gonna be able to take, but I
can do it. And I can also post a flyer
three times, like I had to go back to like
(16:57):
my influencer part and add in that.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
Point there, everything builds, right everything.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
Yeah, if you didn't do some of the influencer work
and have that behind you in your back pocket, you
would know how to negotiate better for yourself after the
DJ stuff. Yeah, because the DJ world is still very
much like you just got here, so you got to
pay your dues. You may or may not, because even
if you are, it's very much like you should be
getting the three hundred dollars because you haven't been doing
(17:25):
it for eight years.
Speaker 3 (17:28):
Geez.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
I hate to break up a good conversation with an
ad break. But that's what we gotta do. A girl's
gotta pay the bills, right, So hold type for me
and we'll be right back before you know it. Okay,
talk to us a little bit about your hours. Was
there any time where you felt discouraged frustrated about just
(17:51):
like learning the craft? Because people get intimidated by learning
something new. It feels like you hit a wall sometimes
when you're learning something new because it's just so foreign
to you.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
What was that experience like for you.
Speaker 4 (18:02):
Djaying is such a level based career because there are
so many stages of it, and so of course I
know the mashups, I know how to do blends, and
so now I'm going back to learn scratching. I showed
it on my Instagram today. Girl, I am tired. My
brain said, get somebody else to do it. We don't
want to do this no more. We learned all the
(18:24):
things that we're supposed to. Girl, you are forty seven,
you have learned a nuss it for today we are
done and so yes, I still experience that, but I
know that in order for me to be better as
a person, I have to keep learning, learning to dj
was more than just me learning to DJA. It really
was teaching me that no matter how old I get,
(18:46):
I always have to learn something new. I'm always using
my mind, I'm always sharpening my skills. It doesn't matter.
And the joy that I get or got, yes I
did it, I conquered it, I'm successful. Whatever that joy
that you get, that little kid joy like it took
me back to being the high school or the middle school,
or that got a good grade or a pass the
(19:06):
test or whatever, like it takes you back to there.
And we don't acknowledge enough that we need that as adults.
We get to that stagnant point where we're like, we're bored,
we're not fulfilled. You know, we don't know what our
purpose is. And I completely understand. I have a friend
who's a scholar, and all that means is is she
gonna be in school forever. She loved to learn, she learned,
(19:28):
she got four or five six degrees, she loved to learn.
And I can learn so much from her because it
just keeps your mind sharp, like you're just again constantly
learning something, constantly getting fulfilled from new things. And maybe
you pick up something you don't like that you pick
up something else, like we again, we put too much
weight on only knowing one thing or only being one
thing or one.
Speaker 3 (19:48):
Type of person. We're so multi dimensional.
Speaker 4 (19:51):
It's no reason why we wouldn't learn that way, or
we wouldn't experience joy that way, or it's just the
way we think about straight lines.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
Life is wild because there's nothing straight about this life
yet nothing Now.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
I don't know why we're taught that it is, or
I would get so imbedded in us that it is,
because it never is. And I think that is what
really f's with some people's mind, is that they are
living in expectation of walking this straight line and it
doesn't happen, and then you shook.
Speaker 4 (20:19):
I've been fascinated about the conversation about like how people
become millionaires, like millionaires versus regular people. And I think
there's so much to being a millionaire that people don't
tell us. And a part of that, as you know,
is failing. A lot of millionaires have had six, seven, eight, nine,
ten businesses before they got to that one business that
jumped off and gave them lots of profit, right, Like,
(20:40):
they've tried and tried again, But if each tried they've
learned something different, they've implemented something else, and we could
stand to learn a lot from just that process of failing.
So of course DJing came pretty not I'm wanna say easy,
but I would I had an easier path. But I'm
scratching now, and I'm like, I'm gonna die.
Speaker 3 (20:59):
What a scratching?
Speaker 4 (21:00):
For people who scratching is so scratching is it's just
another skill. I think of it as like the hot
sauce on top of a transition, or like a blend,
and so you might scratch a song in it's this
little scratch battle like I can just think of like
juice and they were in the battle and he's doing
this to the record. Sorry, he's moving the record back
and forth, making the needle make this scratch sound on
(21:22):
the needle this end. So that scratching. But with scratching,
there's so many techniques. There's so many different types of scratching.
There's scratch patterns, like it's an intricate skill to learn
and have, And so pray for me, yes see, will
we will.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
I'm just sitting here listening.
Speaker 4 (21:40):
Like wait, what Yeah, I don't share it a lot.
And I said I was gonna do like a TikTok series.
Even with the blends and the mashups that I do
for me to get to the one that y'all liked
and sounded good, there was twenty other ones that sounded.
Speaker 3 (21:54):
Horrible before that. Like, very rarely do I pick two
songs and they're like magic. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
So it's a trial and error process.
Speaker 3 (22:03):
Yeah, yeah, you like what I hear in my head.
Speaker 4 (22:05):
Like I might hear a song and I'm like, oh,
it might be good with this beat, and so I'll
try it.
Speaker 3 (22:10):
But then it beat be like not me, get somebody else.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
We don't know it.
Speaker 3 (22:15):
I'm not the beat for you, and so I'll go again.
Speaker 4 (22:19):
And so sometimes it might be me three or four
hours later I'm like, yes, now I got it. The
more I do it, obviously, the better you are with anything.
But I think which is also why I love sharing,
because you get to see the process, right. You get
to see that it isn't always the first time out
this is one hundred percent amazing. It might be the
eightieth time or the one hundredth time. I think we
(22:40):
can stand to learn a lot from just the process
of things.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
Absolutely, a lot of times we just don't get to
see the process. And then sometimes we say we want
to see the process, but then when the process gets
too cumbersome, where like yeah, I didn't really want to
see all that skip, or you get discouraged. Yeah, yeah,
ooh that's a lot. I can't even imagine myself doing
all that. I really appreciate you saying how many takes
(23:05):
and tries it may take you to get to that
one that sounds fire, because I know I was saying
to you before our conversation started, I'm just so proud
of you and I love your mixes, and I'm like.
Speaker 3 (23:16):
Oh, she did that.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
I like the way, but I didn't think about how
many times it may take.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
To get there. Here, I am naively thinking Ty.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
Is good at this, she got this, and she is
because I'm taking your first time this.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
You heard you said these two songs go together. I'm
putting it together.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
Done.
Speaker 4 (23:33):
Yeah, yeah, Well I think that's the language change, right. Yes,
I am good at this, but it took me a
minute to get here, right. I think the idea that's
bad is that she's good if that means she instantly
got it, and that's usually never the case. She's good
at this or he or they or whatever. It's good
at this because they've done it a thousand times. They've
tried a thousand times because they failed and they got
(23:56):
back up and they did it again. I know lots
of people who try mash ups and be like, I
don't know, this is not for me. Yeah, I can't
hear it. It don't feel right, I don't understand.
Speaker 3 (24:04):
Never mind.
Speaker 4 (24:05):
But I was like, I can figure this out. I
know I can figure this. That's the other thing that
I'll share. I'm the kind of person always was. If
you act my mom and my dad, they would tell
you I'm gonna figure it out. I'm never gonna be like,
I might put it down because it's frustrating me, and
I'm like, I'll come back. Same thing with scratching. I
tried to learn scratching. When I first started.
Speaker 3 (24:25):
It was a lot.
Speaker 4 (24:25):
I think it was a lot because I was already
still learning to DJ and so learning how to DJ
and the other advanced skill, I was like, let me
put you to the side. And so now that I'm
kind of advanced in DJing, I know a lot of things,
I'm like, let me go back and pick up scratching again. Okay,
So a lot of people don't know, but there are
some of your core people who know that you came
(24:47):
from largely like this influencing world. Writing you you slightly
mentioned it. How does that transition now? People are probably
still thinking that you are just an influence. They are
still and you have not added DJ to your back pocket.
How has that transition been.
Speaker 3 (25:06):
It's a little bit of both.
Speaker 4 (25:07):
When I feel like I'm still transitioning, I don't know
if I'll ever like, I think it'll always be a gap, right,
because the two worlds are so starkly different.
Speaker 3 (25:16):
I have lots of people who.
Speaker 4 (25:17):
Know I influence and don't really know that I DJ
like I DJ, And then I have new followers who
only think I DJ, like I did a story one
time and I like went back, like I'm pulling press,
I'm pulling magazine articles, all the campaigns I'm in, Like
I'm flexing right right, And people are like, oh my god,
I didn't know that you did all this, Da da
(25:37):
da da da.
Speaker 3 (25:38):
I'm like, I did, I.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
Lived a life before you knew me as a DJ?
Speaker 3 (25:42):
Yeah, yeah, I did.
Speaker 4 (25:43):
So I think there'll always be a gap, just because again,
they're just two very different worlds, and I have a
gambit of followers again, from people who've been following me
since twenty thirteen to people who just found me because
of the mashups that I do.
Speaker 3 (25:56):
So it's always going to be a gap.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
Ooh, this is.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
The stuff I like to hear on the Switch Pivot
or quick podcast.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
But we will be right back after this quick break.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
What has been your latest AHA moment? Because you you
drop a lot of good knowledge on your podcast, and
I'm curious, has there been a recent moment that you're like, Aha,
now I get it, or I didn't think of it
that way, but now it's all making sense.
Speaker 4 (26:31):
I mean, I think my latest AHA would be that
I'm just never gonna have it all figured out. I'm
always have an aha, right, no matter how small or
how big. I talk about a lock on the podcast
like it is truly a journey and not a destination.
The minute that we stop growing and learning, and oh
my god, I can't think the minute that we stopped
(26:52):
doing that. You have gone up yonder your time. Your
number was called your time is up friend, And so
I talk.
Speaker 3 (26:59):
About a lot.
Speaker 4 (27:00):
I'll probably do a podcast soon, but just this idea
that and because healing is so hard, right, learning to
unlearn things, learning new things, learning how to be better,
right when there's so many opportunities to choose to be petty,
to be angry, to be you know, like, you have
so many opportunities to be the negative. So when we
think about being better, it's a constant test. It's just
(27:23):
like choosing joy or choosing happiness. Choosing to be better
in every single situation is a task and it can
be hard. It's the journey that we go on every
single day. That's the aha, I'm gonna forever be like,
let me choose to be better today. Let me not
cust them out today. I'm the wellness girl. Can't be
on the internet cussing people out, even though I'll be
wanting to.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
Right right, And how does being the wellness girl? Like,
how does that feel?
Speaker 3 (27:50):
Sometime? I want to take it off.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
You got to take off the wellness cap.
Speaker 4 (27:53):
I want to take off the cape and to stop, like,
because when you start to talk about wellness, people really
do think that it's online like a holier than vowel thing.
Like people start to think, oh, she could never have
a bad thought or have a bad day. She has
to have it all together. Like I tell people all
the time, I am learning with you. My podcast is
literally me venting about something that I learned. I learned this.
(28:17):
Here are the steps I took to get here. Here's
what happened.
Speaker 3 (28:20):
Hope you do it.
Speaker 4 (28:21):
Too, goblin Right, that's all my podcast is. That's why
I say I'm a hype girl. I'm hyping you up.
I'm getting you ready to be well. I'm not ever
gonna say that I'm the expert in this because I
am again still learning.
Speaker 3 (28:32):
I ain't got anir degree.
Speaker 1 (28:35):
Figure it out.
Speaker 4 (28:36):
Yeah, I am figuring it out. But people really do
charge you with this idea that. Okay, so she's talking
about wellness. She can't possibly get nasty with these people
who get nasty with her on internet. Oh but I can't.
I'm apologized for it because I probably shouldn't. Okay, you
mentioned before that you are like the early adapter all
(28:56):
of that. So we want to know what apps are
you using, what apps you rely on, even if it's
not a new app like clue us in What's.
Speaker 3 (29:04):
On Times Phone.
Speaker 4 (29:06):
Instagram obviously is my first love. Like I'm gonna always
go on Instagram. I love Instagram Stories. Reals all that
kind of stuff. I use Twitter for news like the election,
that they what's the guy, the orange guy, that guy
and the indictment, all that kind of stuff. When I
got wind of it, I know I can go to
Twitter and I can find the articles people have shared it.
Speaker 3 (29:26):
So I use that a lot for like news.
Speaker 4 (29:27):
I don't really I post sometimes, but mostly I use
that from news and if there's an award show.
Speaker 3 (29:32):
It's really good to.
Speaker 4 (29:33):
Have a collective conversation on Twitter. I'm hoping that Threads
will pick up where Twitter is because I'm really over
Elon Musk, but Threads is also high on my list.
Speaker 3 (29:44):
It's really sleek. I like the way it looks. It's
really easy to use.
Speaker 4 (29:48):
There's a black owned app that came out right before Threads.
Speaker 3 (29:51):
It's called spill. I really tried.
Speaker 4 (29:53):
It's more like a meme based app, and so like
when you share your thoughts, you share it with a
meme and then type stuff for that kind of thing.
Speaker 3 (30:00):
I tried. I still have it on my phone.
Speaker 4 (30:03):
But I won't lie and say that Threads didn't win
my heart just because it is very simple. It's just
some texts that kind of thing, and all the other
things on my phone are like editing stuff.
Speaker 2 (30:13):
Like I do have a lot, okay, people want to
know what are you using for editing that?
Speaker 4 (30:18):
Like when I edit my pictures of the app called
Taza Tezza, I use that. There's light Room, I use
cap Cut. I learned about cap Oh, how do I
forget about TikTok? I use TikTok. I watched TikTok like
it's a movie.
Speaker 1 (30:30):
Like, then you are thoroughly editing TikTok.
Speaker 4 (30:33):
Then it is some really entertaining people, like it's legit
the way they be doing, like the jump cuts, all
of these high level type of editing skills that people have.
It's very entertaining. I usually don't scroll during the day,
but like when I go get in a bed, that's
my scroll until the phone hit my face.
Speaker 3 (30:51):
It's want TikTok.
Speaker 4 (30:53):
But through TikTok, I learned about cap cut, which is
an editing software similar to light Room or somewhere where
you can edit photo or also edit videos, and so
I use it. What else is on here? Then there's Canva, Yeah,
I think that's it.
Speaker 2 (31:05):
Okay.
Speaker 4 (31:06):
Oh, and then I have Discord discords for the kid
I'm telling you I'm an early adopter. I have a
discord because when I was on Twitch, they use discord
to talk either while or after your streaming, and so
I did a discord during the twitch and so now
I still have it. A part of what I do
on discord a lot is talk to other DJs, so
(31:27):
we'll either share songs or ask I was at this
gig and this happened.
Speaker 3 (31:31):
What could I have done better?
Speaker 4 (31:32):
Just like a little DJ community, because I don't think
that there's like I'm in a lot of DJ groups,
but a lot of them are, sadly enough, hosted by
men who really do lead with their ego a lot,
and so it's a lot of look at me.
Speaker 3 (31:45):
I can go to Instagram to do that.
Speaker 4 (31:46):
I got again, one hundred thousand people over there that
can hype me up. I'm over here to get the
real deal with the real knowledge, right, And so I
was like, let me create my own group so that
I can tell her to the questions that I want
to ask that I know other people might want to.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
This cord is definitely good for community. I don't use it,
but when I was introduced to it, it was by
way of community. Yeah, yeah, well this has been so good.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
Thank you so much for spending time with us.
Speaker 2 (32:12):
We know you don't shit chat with that many people,
so your presence is appreciated.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
This has been a great conversation.
Speaker 3 (32:18):
Yeah, thank you for having me. I appreciate you. Love
you always.
Speaker 1 (32:21):
Yes, YouTube, and you guys, thank you so much for listening.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
As always, be well. This podcast is produced by Maziemedia.
Maze Media as a woman led podcast production company that
works with small businesses and corporations. Visit mazimedia dot com
for more details on how you and your organization can
go from ideation to podcasting.
This is amazing media production.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Hello, good people, this is the Switch Pivot Quit Podcast,
and I'm your host, Ayana Angel And you're listening to what.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
I like to call our good, comfortable.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Space, right our space where we can get real about
our challenges, about our switch pivotal quits, about our transitions
and all those things. And I like to bring you
people who will also get real about their transitions. And
so today we're going to be talking to the lovely
Ti Alexander, who is a best selling author, speaker, podcaster,
wellness blocker DJ and she's your wellness hype girl, teaching
(00:44):
you how to choose gratitude over grief. That's one of
her lines, you know, I stole that from her. In
her writings and teaching, she blends radical honesty and stories
with actionable AHA lessons. And in twenty ten, she created
the wildly popular blog Gorgeous and Gray. Since then, she's
become a leading authority and lifestyle beauty and wellness related content.
(01:07):
As I mentioned, she's also a fellow podcaster, hosting the
Self Care in Real Life IRL podcast, where she explores
strategies and ideas for becoming your best self through active healing.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
So Ty welcome to the Switch Papertic podcast.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
I was waiting for you to say, welcome to the port.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
That's your line.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
That's all like, oh wait, that's my last.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
I'm not gonna steal it. I'm not gonna steal it.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
But I love it. I love your energy that you
bring to all the platforms that you show up on.
And that's one of the reasons why I want us
to talk to you today. Because your energy people can
feel it through the screen. It just feels very welcoming
to your people. And I want to know how do
you feel you come off online?
Speaker 4 (01:55):
I think I come off the way I am in person,
Like when I'm on and when I'm off. I think
my community knows, Like when I'm off, they're like, oh
you okay today? Like I get lots of which is
warm and welcoming, right, Like I get lots of are
you okay today?
Speaker 2 (02:07):
Tie?
Speaker 3 (02:08):
How you feeling today? How's your heart? Because just as
happy as I.
Speaker 4 (02:11):
Can be on the internet, like the energy is up,
when the energy's down, you can immediately see it. I
don't have a poker face. I have a procle heart
or whatever. And so every emotion, everything that I go through,
it just comes out like I am as probably one
of the most vulnerable people that I know that you'll
ever meet. And so whenever something is good, bad, and different,
it's gonna come off on the internet, on the camera,
(02:32):
and I'm gonna lay it out for you vulnerability.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
How did you start leaning into your vulnerability? What did
that look like? Honestly, for me, it was after my
mom died. I didn't know any other way to exist
in my grief without being vulnerable. I could feel the
grief smothering me if that makes it like. I could
feel it closing in on me and making me smaller
and like taking up every space that I entered. And
(02:58):
so I was like, how do you I get above grief? Right?
Speaker 4 (03:01):
I know that grief is in me, it's with me.
To love is to lose, Right, There's nothing that I
can do about the grief.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
It's not gonna ever go away.
Speaker 4 (03:09):
So my thought process is what can I do to
get above it? And my thought was, I'm gonna be honest,
I'm gonna lay it on online every single time I
come outside, every single time I wake up. If I
don't feel good, I don't feel good, and that's just it.
If I feel amazing, I'm also equally gonna shout that
out and shout that loud, Like if I'm having an
amazing day, if I'm joyful, if something makes me laugh,
(03:29):
I'm gonna be loud about it. I'm gonna laugh loud
about it, you know what I mean. And so joy
and sorrow live equally in me, and that's how I exist.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
And so with that comes vulnerability.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
Is there anything that you think people can stand to
learn from using maybe vulnerability as a tool for themselves.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
Oh? Everything.
Speaker 4 (03:48):
I think being vulnerable with yourself first and foremost. Like,
even if you don't have the courage to get on
the internet and say all the things that I say,
or anybody else for that matter, I have lots that
you can talk about tabatho or been a Brown, like,
there's lots of examples of people being vulnerable on internet.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
Right.
Speaker 4 (04:04):
But even if you can't be vulnerable on the internet,
as long as you're being vulnerable with yourself, if you
can wake up with yourself and say I'm not feeling
good today, let me make some different choices so I
can create joy or find joy or be happy. Right,
once you learn that all of those things are simply choices.
Like when I get up in the morning and I
feel sorrow, I immediately think to myself, like, wow, if I
(04:27):
can just figure out how or those things that are
going to make me happy and let me do that,
then my day immediately starts to turn around, right, Like
it's one simple choice. But the minute that I allow
sorrow to seep in and I give it attention, I say,
oh my god, I'm.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
Those out of that. I don't want to do it.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
Dang.
Speaker 4 (04:44):
Another if I spend too long in that darkness, the
day is gone, when literally I could have just made
one simple decision.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Right, absolutely, So when you show up in front of
people in real life irl, right, because people see you
all the time on life, But when you're mixing and
mingling with people outside and people ask you what do
you do that don't know you? Right, how do you
answer that question? How do you kind of break down
for people what do you do? Because you are a
(05:12):
multihi fitted so how do you answer that question? Let's
have your elevator spiel.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
First of all, so let's not.
Speaker 4 (05:23):
But it's funny because when I am DJing, a lot
of I'm working on, like being an MC in addition
to a DJ, so a lot of the times I'll
say my name is Ty Alexander, and if you don't
know my name, today I'm a DJ for you. I
do a lot of things, but today i'm a DJ
for you because that is literally the day that I'm DJing.
But tomorrow I could be doing their wellness pots. Tomorrow
I could be on TV.
Speaker 3 (05:42):
You know.
Speaker 4 (05:42):
I do lots of things, and so I tell people.
It's funny because I was talking to my accountant and
she was like, what do you do? And I was like,
I'm naming down all the things that I do. And
she was like, I'm gonna put entertainer and.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
I said, I'm like entertainer.
Speaker 4 (05:54):
That fits very well. I'm an entertainer. I just run
down the gamut of things that I do. I start with,
you know, I'm a serial high and I do djaying,
I'm a podcast or I do beauty and wellness lifestyle content.
I do anything. And I like to think that I
am an early adapter of things. Right when Threads came out,
I'm gonna bust my behind to get over there to
figure out how it works. I can get on there
(06:15):
and be one to first and grow my followers it's
just in me as an influencer, as a content creator,
I'm going to be an early adapter of all the
things I'm on TikTok. I'm doing the things on TikTok. So, yeah,
it's just it can get hard. I'll confess and say
sometimes I feel I often struggle with that because I
sometimes feel like if I did one thing, like how
successful would I be? Like if I were only in
(06:38):
this one lane. But at the end of the day,
I'm an entertainer and I entertain you in different ways,
which is why I say I'm here to teach you
how to choose joy, I'm here to teach you how
to choose gratitude.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
I'm here to teach you all of those things.
Speaker 4 (06:50):
And that comes by djaying, by podcasting, by talking about
how to do my hair, by talking about how to
do my makeup.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
It comes in different forms.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
It's just like it feels like the creativity is in you.
It has to come out, and it has to come
out in different ways because you're multifaceted, and if you
didn't let it out, then you probably wouldn't be leaning
into that authenticity.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
You would be a version of yourself. That's probably stifled.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
A little bit.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
Do you have any words or any thoughts for people
who are feeling like that version of themselves that may
be stifled right now because they are not doing all
the things. They're not even trying a fraction of the
things that they would want to do.
Speaker 4 (07:30):
Maybe it's really simple, is try all the things, which
was literally one of the very last things that my
mom said to me before she passed away. And she
died at fifty seven, not checking off half of the
things that she had done. And it's crazy because I
think we think that fifty seven at least I did, right,
I thought, like, fifty seven is a long time. But
(07:50):
as I creep because I'm forty seven now, as I
creep up to fifty, I'm like, I.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
Have so much more to learn, to give, to do.
Speaker 4 (07:59):
And so by my mom not being here or losing
life early, it just taught me that you have until
the end of your life to try something new. Of course,
DJing is what I'm doing right now. It could be
the guitar tomorrow, it I might pop out with it.
I might look tie so and now crochetan too crochet
(08:19):
and stuff. Now, oh they're gonna tie She's skiing down
now she's a tennis player, you know, Like I think
that we're the generations that are like, we don't have
to have that thirty year old job and we're not
gonna get the pension. I don't know what's gonna happen
when we retire, sistce, and we ain't gonnahead and who knows,
We just gonna be working till the day it's done.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
That's why we have to infuse our joy within everything because.
Speaker 3 (08:42):
So security is going.
Speaker 4 (08:43):
I don't know what we're gonna do about retirement, but
we are literally the first generations that are not glued
down to a desk chair for thirty forty plus years
waiting to retire. So with that being said, you don't
have to do that one thing for the next ten years.
You don't have to do the next thing for the
next five you know what I'm saying, Like, you can
do it for however long your mind says, and when
(09:04):
your mind says, I want to try something different, Okay, Yeah,
that's fine, Yeah, that's fine.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
I think something that will come up for people is
the financial security. Does that ever scare you? Do you
ever have limiting beliefs and thoughts? Especially around money.
Speaker 4 (09:21):
To be honest with you, I just don't think about it.
If I'm honest again, I'm gonna work till the day
is done. I'm a hustle to something until I can't anymore.
I don't know what that is or what that looks like,
which is maybe I'm somewhere writing book somewhere, maybe podcasting
is here to stay and I'm podcasting it out till
the end of the day. I honestly have no idea.
It's one of those things where like I should.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
Think about.
Speaker 4 (09:43):
Probably shit, figure that out and I do the thing,
you know, I save the money and things like that.
But I just it's just not something that we are
thinking about or even talking about.
Speaker 3 (09:52):
If I'm honest, what.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
Would you say you're extremely opinionated about?
Speaker 2 (09:57):
Is there anything right now that it's gotta be something
that you like, like your friends know?
Speaker 1 (10:04):
Like here she go with that again.
Speaker 4 (10:07):
I have come to a point in my life, and
maybe it's because I'm getting closer and closer to fifty.
I don't care what y'all do. I'm too engolfed in
my own thing. I'm too engolfed in progressing my needle
forward and trying to figure out again what I'm gonna
do when I want to retire, where that money coming from?
And so like, there's so many other things that I
(10:27):
just am consumed with for me to be like, wow,
I really wish y'all would stop doing this, or I really.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
Wish this would stop.
Speaker 4 (10:34):
And I kind of was like that before, but the
older I get, I literally do not.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
Care what y'all be doing, like at all. I don't
care what y'all be doing at all? You like it?
Frim I love it?
Speaker 1 (10:45):
Keep doing it?
Speaker 3 (10:46):
Yeah? Is it making you happy? Friend? Sure?
Speaker 1 (10:49):
That's a way to alleviate a lot of unnecessary stress
because sometimes we're so concerned about the people in our lives,
are the people around us and stuff that we are
opinion and maybe if we were a little less opinionated,
we'd be less stressed.
Speaker 4 (11:06):
Listen, I'm not saying I'm not stressed, but I'll be
stressed over stuff that I can control, which is the
other thing. Like I got to figure out where my
money from, how I'm gonna get a car, How I'm
gonna get this, how I'm gonna do that, Like I
want a new car right now, So I'm like, let
me see if I can say some coints, so I
could give.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
Me a new car. How many gigs do I gotta take?
You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4 (11:25):
And so I think to your point, if we spent
more time again looking in our lanes trying to figure
out how to make our grasp better, greener or whatever,
versus looking.
Speaker 3 (11:35):
At well, god, grass, she got over there, we she
got flowers over there? What's she? Or look at that car?
Like I'm focused, I'm right here, I'm right here.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
Speaking of gigs.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
So you planted the seed for DJ in twenty sixteen, right,
I'm gonna say you officially got started in twenty twenty
because you didn't really think you were getting started, but
you were getting started right. You were on your way
somewhere and maybe didn't know it. How does it feel
now to be fully immersed in the space as a
DJ and being booked?
Speaker 4 (12:05):
I literally have like chills because every time I think
about it, I'll be.
Speaker 3 (12:10):
Like, Okay, you did that. You sure did it?
Speaker 4 (12:14):
You know, like really, And I've said that before my platforms.
DJing has been just a thought since I was a kid,
since I first saw Juice, I was like, oh my god, I.
Speaker 3 (12:23):
Could do that. I could be there, But what if
it was a girl up? Dare da da da?
Speaker 2 (12:26):
Like?
Speaker 4 (12:26):
That was my first thought and I kept that thought.
But of course, back in the nineties, DJing was an
extremely expensive hobby to have between buying records and just
turned like everything about it was expensive. And so if
you didn't have no good parents and I had good parents,
but not the ones, that was wasting, not wasting, but
like investing money in that on a skill that may
or may not come into fuition. And so I was
(12:47):
like whatever, And then when the time came back around
that was a forever twenty one event or I don't
even while we were there, but we were there forever
twenty one, and I was there playing around on the turntables,
and I was just like, what if I was? And
I took a picture again, which is why I think
it's so it's such a valuable lesson to document your life,
even if you're not like an influencer. I think it's
(13:08):
really great practice to document your life because you can
go back and see how long something took, how short
it took that you actually said something. I use my
Instagram stories a lot to kind of to your point,
plant those seeds because I want them. Manifesting is a
thing for me, like I know, if I say it,
I can believe it and I can do it in
that order every single time. And so again, djaying was
(13:31):
just something I'm checking stuff off my list. We're gonna
twenty twenty and crazy enough, twenty twenty just happened to
be the year that we shut down. But I took
the class before the pandemic. So the class was from
January to February. The end of February and two weeks
later we shut down in March, and so I was like,
I have nothing else to do, so let me buy
(13:51):
some equipment and figure out these youtubes and continue on
to see what I can do. And then Twitch became
a thing, and then so I get on Twitch and
now I'm DJing on Twitch.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
Saw I'm the bedroom DJ as they call it.
Speaker 4 (14:04):
And because I tell people all the time, I am
the living proof that ten thousand hours of practice works
because I literally practice, no, lie, kid you, not every
single day, at least four to five hours every day
from twenty twenty to twenty twenty one. Because I had
nothing else to do. We were inside, we weren't going anywhere.
(14:25):
And then when we could go somewhere. It was scary
spice outside, I.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
Still wasn't going outside.
Speaker 4 (14:30):
I literally practiced every day, four to five hours a day,
every day for almost two years. There's no reason why
I wouldn't be good. And I put in the time.
Speaker 3 (14:38):
That's it. And so when twenty twenty one we.
Speaker 4 (14:40):
Got out of scary spice season, when the doors opened
up for real, I say, let me go outside. And
my first gig was a festival opening up for Djjzzy Jeff,
and I was like, all right, then, I don't never
question God. I don't know about y'all, but I don't
never question God. That's the plate, that's the stage you
want me on, right, let's figure, let's go. How did
the gig come about? We can't over that. How did
this gig foll in your lab? DJ Jazzy Jeff, like what?
(15:04):
Literally the production company found me on the internet because
I had been posting mashups or posting me practicing and
using hashtags, and so they needed a DJ in the
DMV area and the person literally hashtag dmb DJ and
found me. And of course, because I have numbers, you know,
I have one hundreds, however, many thousand followers but the
(15:26):
numbers go up, right, and so of course I'm the first.
Speaker 3 (15:29):
One that comes up.
Speaker 4 (15:30):
I'm good, and so he reaches out and I'm like, sure,
let's why not? Yeah, I love it? Okay, So tell
us what you thought of the pay for this gig.
Was it more than you expected or unless you expected?
Sagett to the nitty gritted guys in general, like coming
(15:50):
from Inflorencer to DJ. It literally is like Inflorenza to DJ.
Because DJing you start at the bottom. So I had
to start at the bottom, but I did. I was
your girl, ain't stupid. So I had to leverage some
things and oftentimes, especially in the beginning. Now I can
say it's talent, but in the beginning I leveraged my
social media a lot to get more money because I'm like,
(16:11):
I'm at this event one people have followed this journey
since twenty twenty, so now they're following the journey of
me outside at gigs and they want to see it.
So the minute I post it, the minute I say
the flyer is, they're going to come out. And so
I'm saying to promoters and event people like I can't
take the five hundred because I also have to charge
you another thousand for the social media that I'm about
(16:31):
to do, and that's cheap on the land of influencer's.
Speaker 3 (16:35):
That's a steal for y'all. In case you didn't know.
Speaker 4 (16:37):
That's a still when we talk about real influencers who
are making real money, who have real engagement, who can
really move numbers and have a real ROI for their
customer or their client. Rather, that's payday for people. I
had to be smart about it. This little bit of
coin I'm not gonna be able to take, but I
can do it. And I can also post a flyer
three times, like I had to go back to like
(16:57):
my influencer part and add in that.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
Point there, everything builds, right everything.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
Yeah, if you didn't do some of the influencer work
and have that behind you in your back pocket, you
would know how to negotiate better for yourself after the
DJ stuff. Yeah, because the DJ world is still very
much like you just got here, so you got to
pay your dues. You may or may not, because even
if you are, it's very much like you should be
getting the three hundred dollars because you haven't been doing
(17:25):
it for eight years.
Speaker 3 (17:28):
Geez.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
I hate to break up a good conversation with an
ad break. But that's what we gotta do. A girl's
gotta pay the bills, right, So hold type for me
and we'll be right back before you know it. Okay,
talk to us a little bit about your hours. Was
there any time where you felt discouraged frustrated about just
(17:51):
like learning the craft? Because people get intimidated by learning
something new. It feels like you hit a wall sometimes
when you're learning something new because it's just so foreign
to you.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
What was that experience like for you.
Speaker 4 (18:02):
Djaying is such a level based career because there are
so many stages of it, and so of course I
know the mashups, I know how to do blends, and
so now I'm going back to learn scratching. I showed
it on my Instagram today. Girl, I am tired. My
brain said, get somebody else to do it. We don't
want to do this no more. We learned all the
(18:24):
things that we're supposed to. Girl, you are forty seven,
you have learned a nuss it for today we are
done and so yes, I still experience that, but I
know that in order for me to be better as
a person, I have to keep learning, learning to dj
was more than just me learning to DJA. It really
was teaching me that no matter how old I get,
(18:46):
I always have to learn something new. I'm always using
my mind, I'm always sharpening my skills. It doesn't matter.
And the joy that I get or got, yes I
did it, I conquered it, I'm successful. Whatever that joy
that you get, that little kid joy like it took
me back to being the high school or the middle school,
or that got a good grade or a pass the
(19:06):
test or whatever, like it takes you back to there.
And we don't acknowledge enough that we need that as adults.
We get to that stagnant point where we're like, we're bored,
we're not fulfilled. You know, we don't know what our
purpose is. And I completely understand. I have a friend
who's a scholar, and all that means is is she
gonna be in school forever. She loved to learn, she learned,
(19:28):
she got four or five six degrees, she loved to learn.
And I can learn so much from her because it
just keeps your mind sharp, like you're just again constantly
learning something, constantly getting fulfilled from new things. And maybe
you pick up something you don't like that you pick
up something else, like we again, we put too much
weight on only knowing one thing or only being one
thing or one.
Speaker 3 (19:48):
Type of person. We're so multi dimensional.
Speaker 4 (19:51):
It's no reason why we wouldn't learn that way, or
we wouldn't experience joy that way, or it's just the
way we think about straight lines.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
Life is wild because there's nothing straight about this life
yet nothing Now.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
I don't know why we're taught that it is, or
I would get so imbedded in us that it is,
because it never is. And I think that is what
really f's with some people's mind, is that they are
living in expectation of walking this straight line and it
doesn't happen, and then you shook.
Speaker 4 (20:19):
I've been fascinated about the conversation about like how people
become millionaires, like millionaires versus regular people. And I think
there's so much to being a millionaire that people don't
tell us. And a part of that, as you know,
is failing. A lot of millionaires have had six, seven, eight, nine,
ten businesses before they got to that one business that
jumped off and gave them lots of profit, right, Like,
(20:40):
they've tried and tried again, But if each tried they've
learned something different, they've implemented something else, and we could
stand to learn a lot from just that process of failing.
So of course DJing came pretty not I'm wanna say easy,
but I would I had an easier path. But I'm
scratching now, and I'm like, I'm gonna die.
Speaker 3 (20:59):
What a scratching?
Speaker 4 (21:00):
For people who scratching is so scratching is it's just
another skill. I think of it as like the hot
sauce on top of a transition, or like a blend,
and so you might scratch a song in it's this
little scratch battle like I can just think of like
juice and they were in the battle and he's doing
this to the record. Sorry, he's moving the record back
and forth, making the needle make this scratch sound on
(21:22):
the needle this end. So that scratching. But with scratching,
there's so many techniques. There's so many different types of scratching.
There's scratch patterns, like it's an intricate skill to learn
and have, And so pray for me, yes see, will
we will.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
I'm just sitting here listening.
Speaker 4 (21:40):
Like wait, what Yeah, I don't share it a lot.
And I said I was gonna do like a TikTok series.
Even with the blends and the mashups that I do
for me to get to the one that y'all liked
and sounded good, there was twenty other ones that sounded.
Speaker 3 (21:54):
Horrible before that. Like, very rarely do I pick two
songs and they're like magic. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
So it's a trial and error process.
Speaker 3 (22:03):
Yeah, yeah, you like what I hear in my head.
Speaker 4 (22:05):
Like I might hear a song and I'm like, oh,
it might be good with this beat, and so I'll
try it.
Speaker 3 (22:10):
But then it beat be like not me, get somebody else.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
We don't know it.
Speaker 3 (22:15):
I'm not the beat for you, and so I'll go again.
Speaker 4 (22:19):
And so sometimes it might be me three or four
hours later I'm like, yes, now I got it. The
more I do it, obviously, the better you are with anything.
But I think which is also why I love sharing,
because you get to see the process, right. You get
to see that it isn't always the first time out
this is one hundred percent amazing. It might be the
eightieth time or the one hundredth time. I think we
(22:40):
can stand to learn a lot from just the process
of things.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
Absolutely, a lot of times we just don't get to
see the process. And then sometimes we say we want
to see the process, but then when the process gets
too cumbersome, where like yeah, I didn't really want to
see all that skip, or you get discouraged. Yeah, yeah,
ooh that's a lot. I can't even imagine myself doing
all that. I really appreciate you saying how many takes
(23:05):
and tries it may take you to get to that
one that sounds fire, because I know I was saying
to you before our conversation started, I'm just so proud
of you and I love your mixes, and I'm like.
Speaker 3 (23:16):
Oh, she did that.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
I like the way, but I didn't think about how
many times it may take.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
To get there. Here, I am naively thinking Ty.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
Is good at this, she got this, and she is
because I'm taking your first time this.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
You heard you said these two songs go together. I'm
putting it together.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
Done.
Speaker 4 (23:33):
Yeah, yeah, Well I think that's the language change, right. Yes,
I am good at this, but it took me a
minute to get here, right. I think the idea that's
bad is that she's good if that means she instantly
got it, and that's usually never the case. She's good
at this or he or they or whatever. It's good
at this because they've done it a thousand times. They've
tried a thousand times because they failed and they got
(23:56):
back up and they did it again. I know lots
of people who try mash ups and be like, I
don't know, this is not for me. Yeah, I can't
hear it. It don't feel right, I don't understand.
Speaker 3 (24:04):
Never mind.
Speaker 4 (24:05):
But I was like, I can figure this out. I
know I can figure this. That's the other thing that
I'll share. I'm the kind of person always was. If
you act my mom and my dad, they would tell
you I'm gonna figure it out. I'm never gonna be like,
I might put it down because it's frustrating me, and
I'm like, I'll come back. Same thing with scratching. I
tried to learn scratching. When I first started.
Speaker 3 (24:25):
It was a lot.
Speaker 4 (24:25):
I think it was a lot because I was already
still learning to DJ and so learning how to DJ
and the other advanced skill, I was like, let me
put you to the side. And so now that I'm
kind of advanced in DJing, I know a lot of things,
I'm like, let me go back and pick up scratching again. Okay,
So a lot of people don't know, but there are
some of your core people who know that you came
(24:47):
from largely like this influencing world. Writing you you slightly
mentioned it. How does that transition now? People are probably
still thinking that you are just an influence. They are
still and you have not added DJ to your back pocket.
How has that transition been.
Speaker 3 (25:06):
It's a little bit of both.
Speaker 4 (25:07):
When I feel like I'm still transitioning, I don't know
if I'll ever like, I think it'll always be a gap, right,
because the two worlds are so starkly different.
Speaker 3 (25:16):
I have lots of people who.
Speaker 4 (25:17):
Know I influence and don't really know that I DJ
like I DJ, And then I have new followers who
only think I DJ, like I did a story one
time and I like went back, like I'm pulling press,
I'm pulling magazine articles, all the campaigns I'm in, Like
I'm flexing right right, And people are like, oh my god,
I didn't know that you did all this, Da da
(25:37):
da da da.
Speaker 3 (25:38):
I'm like, I did, I.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
Lived a life before you knew me as a DJ?
Speaker 3 (25:42):
Yeah, yeah, I did.
Speaker 4 (25:43):
So I think there'll always be a gap, just because again,
they're just two very different worlds, and I have a
gambit of followers again, from people who've been following me
since twenty thirteen to people who just found me because
of the mashups that I do.
Speaker 3 (25:56):
So it's always going to be a gap.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
Ooh, this is.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
The stuff I like to hear on the Switch Pivot
or quick podcast.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
But we will be right back after this quick break.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
What has been your latest AHA moment? Because you you
drop a lot of good knowledge on your podcast, and
I'm curious, has there been a recent moment that you're like, Aha,
now I get it, or I didn't think of it
that way, but now it's all making sense.
Speaker 4 (26:31):
I mean, I think my latest AHA would be that
I'm just never gonna have it all figured out. I'm
always have an aha, right, no matter how small or
how big. I talk about a lock on the podcast
like it is truly a journey and not a destination.
The minute that we stop growing and learning, and oh
my god, I can't think the minute that we stopped
(26:52):
doing that. You have gone up yonder your time. Your
number was called your time is up friend, And so
I talk.
Speaker 3 (26:59):
About a lot.
Speaker 4 (27:00):
I'll probably do a podcast soon, but just this idea
that and because healing is so hard, right, learning to
unlearn things, learning new things, learning how to be better,
right when there's so many opportunities to choose to be petty,
to be angry, to be you know, like, you have
so many opportunities to be the negative. So when we
think about being better, it's a constant test. It's just
(27:23):
like choosing joy or choosing happiness. Choosing to be better
in every single situation is a task and it can
be hard. It's the journey that we go on every
single day. That's the aha, I'm gonna forever be like,
let me choose to be better today. Let me not
cust them out today. I'm the wellness girl. Can't be
on the internet cussing people out, even though I'll be
wanting to.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
Right right, And how does being the wellness girl? Like,
how does that feel?
Speaker 3 (27:50):
Sometime? I want to take it off.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
You got to take off the wellness cap.
Speaker 4 (27:53):
I want to take off the cape and to stop, like,
because when you start to talk about wellness, people really
do think that it's online like a holier than vowel thing.
Like people start to think, oh, she could never have
a bad thought or have a bad day. She has
to have it all together. Like I tell people all
the time, I am learning with you. My podcast is
literally me venting about something that I learned. I learned this.
(28:17):
Here are the steps I took to get here. Here's
what happened.
Speaker 3 (28:20):
Hope you do it.
Speaker 4 (28:21):
Too, goblin Right, that's all my podcast is. That's why
I say I'm a hype girl. I'm hyping you up.
I'm getting you ready to be well. I'm not ever
gonna say that I'm the expert in this because I
am again still learning.
Speaker 3 (28:32):
I ain't got anir degree.
Speaker 1 (28:35):
Figure it out.
Speaker 4 (28:36):
Yeah, I am figuring it out. But people really do
charge you with this idea that. Okay, so she's talking
about wellness. She can't possibly get nasty with these people
who get nasty with her on internet. Oh but I can't.
I'm apologized for it because I probably shouldn't. Okay, you
mentioned before that you are like the early adapter all
(28:56):
of that. So we want to know what apps are
you using, what apps you rely on, even if it's
not a new app like clue us in What's.
Speaker 3 (29:04):
On Times Phone.
Speaker 4 (29:06):
Instagram obviously is my first love. Like I'm gonna always
go on Instagram. I love Instagram Stories. Reals all that
kind of stuff. I use Twitter for news like the election,
that they what's the guy, the orange guy, that guy
and the indictment, all that kind of stuff. When I
got wind of it, I know I can go to
Twitter and I can find the articles people have shared it.
Speaker 3 (29:26):
So I use that a lot for like news.
Speaker 4 (29:27):
I don't really I post sometimes, but mostly I use
that from news and if there's an award show.
Speaker 3 (29:32):
It's really good to.
Speaker 4 (29:33):
Have a collective conversation on Twitter. I'm hoping that Threads
will pick up where Twitter is because I'm really over
Elon Musk, but Threads is also high on my list.
Speaker 3 (29:44):
It's really sleek. I like the way it looks. It's
really easy to use.
Speaker 4 (29:48):
There's a black owned app that came out right before Threads.
Speaker 3 (29:51):
It's called spill. I really tried.
Speaker 4 (29:53):
It's more like a meme based app, and so like
when you share your thoughts, you share it with a
meme and then type stuff for that kind of thing.
Speaker 3 (30:00):
I tried. I still have it on my phone.
Speaker 4 (30:03):
But I won't lie and say that Threads didn't win
my heart just because it is very simple. It's just
some texts that kind of thing, and all the other
things on my phone are like editing stuff.
Speaker 2 (30:13):
Like I do have a lot, okay, people want to
know what are you using for editing that?
Speaker 4 (30:18):
Like when I edit my pictures of the app called
Taza Tezza, I use that. There's light Room, I use
cap Cut. I learned about cap Oh, how do I
forget about TikTok? I use TikTok. I watched TikTok like
it's a movie.
Speaker 1 (30:30):
Like, then you are thoroughly editing TikTok.
Speaker 4 (30:33):
Then it is some really entertaining people, like it's legit
the way they be doing, like the jump cuts, all
of these high level type of editing skills that people have.
It's very entertaining. I usually don't scroll during the day,
but like when I go get in a bed, that's
my scroll until the phone hit my face.
Speaker 3 (30:51):
It's want TikTok.
Speaker 4 (30:53):
But through TikTok, I learned about cap cut, which is
an editing software similar to light Room or somewhere where
you can edit photo or also edit videos, and so
I use it. What else is on here? Then there's Canva, Yeah,
I think that's it.
Speaker 2 (31:05):
Okay.
Speaker 4 (31:06):
Oh, and then I have Discord discords for the kid
I'm telling you I'm an early adopter. I have a
discord because when I was on Twitch, they use discord
to talk either while or after your streaming, and so
I did a discord during the twitch and so now
I still have it. A part of what I do
on discord a lot is talk to other DJs, so
(31:27):
we'll either share songs or ask I was at this
gig and this happened.
Speaker 3 (31:31):
What could I have done better?
Speaker 4 (31:32):
Just like a little DJ community, because I don't think
that there's like I'm in a lot of DJ groups,
but a lot of them are, sadly enough, hosted by
men who really do lead with their ego a lot,
and so it's a lot of look at me.
Speaker 3 (31:45):
I can go to Instagram to do that.
Speaker 4 (31:46):
I got again, one hundred thousand people over there that
can hype me up. I'm over here to get the
real deal with the real knowledge, right, And so I
was like, let me create my own group so that
I can tell her to the questions that I want
to ask that I know other people might want to.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
This cord is definitely good for community. I don't use it,
but when I was introduced to it, it was by
way of community. Yeah, yeah, well this has been so good.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
Thank you so much for spending time with us.
Speaker 2 (32:12):
We know you don't shit chat with that many people,
so your presence is appreciated.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
This has been a great conversation.
Speaker 3 (32:18):
Yeah, thank you for having me. I appreciate you. Love
you always.
Speaker 1 (32:21):
Yes, YouTube, and you guys, thank you so much for listening.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
As always, be well. This podcast is produced by Maziemedia.
Maze Media as a woman led podcast production company that
works with small businesses and corporations. Visit mazimedia dot com
for more details on how you and your organization can
go from ideation to podcasting.
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