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Join us today for a new FB Live of Speaking with curves! Today's guests? Meet Chante of Chante Burkett!
Come on over at 12pm EST/ 9am PST as we chat about how we can best support these business owners and to talk a little bit about fashion and work from home tips!
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0:02
hello hello hello hey girl hey welcome back to speaking of curves i'm marie danae
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you're um i'm the creator of the kirby fashionista your plus size fashion resource destination
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and every tuesday and thursday we interview a different um person business owner influencer
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designer in the plus space to talk about how we can support them get to know a little bit a little bit
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about them behind the brand and today's guest i'm really excited she's been in this game
0:31
for a minute she's had a journey she has pivoted quite a few times over when it comes to pivoting and
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following your purpose and your path like this woman is a beast she has spoken at some of my blogger conferences
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she has spoken um she has she has classes she has done a lot i'm always impressed and always excited to
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hear about what she's doing and she's also pushes and gently reminds
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me like marie you need to be doing more and so um you know when we did this i was like yo
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i gotta have her on i have to have her talk so do me a favor and welcome miss shantay briquette um you may have
1:09
remembered her from everything curvy and she or she can curve everything curvy and chic but now she has pivoted
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to shawntabercat.com thank you chante for joining me hey boo
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hello how you doing today i'm doing good it's raining here in florida
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but i like it today like today i'm a fan of the rain rain like is like our best friend right
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now like we have rain too and it keeps going but it keeps people indoors and i have to worry about like
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people getting going out and doing all kind of crazy stuff like i'm afraid but how have you been what's good with
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you i've been okay um this pandemic has really
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took a toll but on i'm pretty sure everyone but i have been okay
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it's not time for me okay just okay yeah and so um let's talk a little bit
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about you know your site you've since changed your url you've really been doing a whole lot with you
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lifestyle your baby like you've really like tapped into um
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the lifestyle brand of shantae talk to us a little bit about that um
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yes i got my mentees and everything i tell them like my blog is like an open diary and
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when i started when i first started my blog yes it was like fashion focused but i knew i had more to
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share i had life experiences to share especially being a single mother on welfare
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so it's like one of those things like i gotta help my sisters out show them how you don't have to be stuck
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in that mindset where this is you know yeah this is a journey right now but you don't have to be stuck there
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so over the years i would say what the past five years or so i've been just
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making sure my blog has been a reflection of me and what i have been going through what i have been experiencing
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in life right and so before you even have like got to
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like the before your blog you had a whole other pivot before that i don't think these folks know
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um i don't even know if it was a pivot it was just me so i was known as the um everybody
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when instagram was only for iphones when it first started on iphone so i was known as the instagram
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girl because i was the basically the the main plus size girl on instagram i had
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a good number of followers and during that time i was finding my fact i was finding my
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fashion sense i had just moved to jersey probably a couple years before instagram even popped up i was trying to
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try to find my fashion sense coming from a small town and then just so happened everybody loved my fashion sense
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and in that mix i also created a boutique in that mix of finding my fashion sense
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sharing my fashion sense and helping other women find their fashion sense
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and but didn't you start off on youtube i did i did i did i reached all the way
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back in the crates baby i needed to know i wanted to tell them about youtube
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yes a lot of um youtube i and it still surprised me when people just mention that and i forget about some of
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the videos that i have done way way way back but yes youtube um that was
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my first first love i just thought you might i forgot about that marie thank you
4:43
i remember you before the blog it definitely did hair tutorials makeup
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yes it was when i was doing my little um bohemian oh what's that hair everybody loved it
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um it was like a bohemian kinky straight okay okay she said a bohemian kinky straight
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okay okay so now that you are here now that you have
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you know gone through your various and your boutique and now you have your brand and you you sometimes partner with
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your daughter to do some content like where is chante burkett now if where is she as a
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business owner and an influencer right now i'm going through a phase
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where we're always still figuring out and as a blogger we're always trying to re-evolve
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trying to always you know tap into something else that we can um just share with the world
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um another love or a baby and um gotta be all the honest i do the time
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this pandemic hit i say about two weeks into it i started going through a breakup and
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you know with every breakup something beautiful comes all right when i went to break up
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just you know with you know healing every healing when you heal from something something beautiful comes and you always
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realize something you know a part of yourself that you wasn't paying attention to or you probably
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you know you probably didn't know about it but you neglected it right and but i have been
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constantly i wouldn't say constantly i had been working on these past what two months we've been in quarantine
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or so i have been really working on that so i can get my full purpose
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my full purpose in life i want to just embark on that fully and you know it's
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interesting you talk about like the the pandemic and and purpose and embracing like
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it's forced us to slow down oh yes it forces us to be still
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and in this like we have like different revelations different um eye opening like oh my gosh
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like or realizations within yourself either strength opportunity like how has that in like
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what's probably something that you've recognized within yourself that you probably wouldn't have it would
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have taken you a little bit longer to see patience oh patience
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i knew i had an issue with it before but now is um i definitely recognize it
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and i have been working working on just trying to have patience and especially
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with you know being stuck in a house not knowing when the world is going to be fully open and knowing that you have plans so you
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have to be patient it's like i can't even fully plan out a full two months right now because you don't know
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what's going to happen tell me about it tell me about it like
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my planner has been sitting next to my desk for the past month i have not like i
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look at my dates and everything but i'm like what am i planning i don't know what to plan
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and it's crazy and it's insane because as a business owner like we're control freaks like we want
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to know do talk everything like we need to know everything that's going on what's happening how this you know like
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the who what when where and why and be able to make it happen for ourselves now for you like
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do you think that this is a um how do you say i don't want to say a
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blessing in disguise because like you know the world has fallen as like we're over here trying to figure out patience
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we're over here you know you've learned patience i think i've actualized like self and realize like marie stop being a
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scared cat um you know what like how do you
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stay in christ i truly view this as a blessing in disguise because
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i get the pause and i'm blessed to be able to pause real quick pause and take care of me take care of
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my mental figure out what's going on with me so i can embark on my purpose fully
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so i look at it as a blessing yes it's yes it's crazy what's going on i don't like it
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but for me personally i get to pause real quick and really just be like okay what does shantae really want out of her
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life what is she doing
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what does chantay want um shantae wants a lot of things um
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i know i put you on a spot huh go for it girl that's therapy that's therapy right now
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hey sometimes conversation can be yes um my my my main thing
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when it comes to just just life in general it's just helping people um i come from
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a social work background i love helping others just helping other if i can be if i can help you get to
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your next level that's what i want to do and um i definitely would love to get back into youth
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development that's my thing i love because you know kids they they can change the world
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and you start dogs are stuck in our ways we are but kids you know they can change
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the world and and it starts with character building um just really just driving that into them and working with
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them on just that solely and helping them map out their world
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yeah you know and that's so real and i think one of the things that we often times like don't pay attention
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to are the kids because like i'm an auntie and i'm asking my sister how are the kids doing
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right now because you know everyone's like oh they'll be fine put them on the computer tell a class or whatever they call it
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what's the word what does it call like online schooling like home home schooling
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whatever it is right like that's an adjustment for them too
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yes my poor nephew didn't he just decided he was just gonna you know get up and walk to 7-eleven because he
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needed to start his life over like you know every everyone's kind of
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hurting a little bit i mean i know it's funny but it's like oh poor baby you know everyone's processing
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so as an influencer here's the thing a lot of people view influencers kind of
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very uh they have a very preconceived notion of who we are
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and what we do and not realizing your background your education
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your purpose like how which for someone who doesn't understand influences how do you define this
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because in this time we're here to help we still need help like how do you define this
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so for me it's all about when it comes to um of course my my tribe is full of
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women so it's inspiring women to be the chic masterminds behind their life and if i can use my
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influence to help them do that i'm happy
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like i that's my mission my mission is to help others fire others whether it's through fashion
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lifestyle style you seeing me be a single mother killing it knowing that you are in the you you
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i am you we are in this together so for me influencer is deeper than just
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taking a pretty picture or um it is me is me just really just inspiring other
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women i think it's also like you leveraging your gifts to further kind of give or nurture
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or celebrate and you know you really you're really leveraging your platform in a way um
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that's unexpected because we didn't have this like 15 years you know maybe like 12
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13 14 years ago we didn't have any of this and now you know it's kind of um
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democratized fashion democratized um the media
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it's given voices to people who didn't normally have a voice so when we're in this space and we talk about
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you as an influencer in your tribe of influencers and women like how should folks support
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like y'all in this time how can folks support it's it's just all about
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when it's a when it comes to support support it's just so tricky that's a tricky tricky question and
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tricky way people view support in this different ways and it's just you know i i i don't even want to say support i
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would say um whatever when it comes to social media
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when it comes to you know the internet whatever whatever drives you what
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you should be only engaging with things that drives and pushes you to be the best version of yourself um
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and if that is driving you and pushing you that's what you are supporting
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nice nice and so like and i think a lot of times when people hear support like you talk about it's a
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layered it's a tricky thing and there are reasons why you support but support can look like a like
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a comment a share um if you're going to if you're looking
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to shop for something using the links that the the that the influencer shares
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and uh and support can be just encouraging
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like like straight up we're sharing our lives with you like we have some influences there influencers that really you know they
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share everything with us and are digging deep and you just like we are inspiring you
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you guys are inspiring us you guys are pushing us to be able to be able to put be vulnerable and put our stuff out
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there so you can see like hey we're going to do the same things that you're going through
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and so i have noticed the shift with your content over the years and
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it's really you have come you know you have blossomed you have emerged and you're having fun you have
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found like your uh je ne sais quoi or your like
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thing right like so what can we see coming with strante like you know you
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had your boutique what happened there is it still going have you paused it
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it is totally on pause right now it's on paul's um uh and it's been on
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pause ever since about what september october when i came back from my
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fire accident um and it was just one of those things i was like hold up
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am i doing too much let me backtrack let me get everything let me get eight and b squared away and
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let me come back to this seat and it's something that i know i can do i master i've done it so i can come back
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to the c later on let me take time out for shantae and really
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get back to a b and c because i also in october i left my agency so that was
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a whole nother thing too so it was back to my own hustle and muscle me getting my deals me
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negotiating on my how does that feel how does that feel i'm happy i'm definitely happy to be
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back everything back my hands um it's a challenge at times but
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hey i tried it i like it back with me right now um but for the most part um is
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is it's just you know
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there's a lot there's a lot there because it's kind of like this uh roller coaster in this space it's a
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roller coaster life is a roller coaster but not only is it
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it it's crazy sometimes you might you know you might be doing a third thing and then two months
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later like even this influences space i know all influencers who have
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like we you've been doing this full time for a minute you know your high and low moments you know
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when it's peak time when you're going to be getting a bunch of jobs when you can be pitched and you know when you're
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going to have your low moments you know when it's time to sit down and refocus and re-evolve
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and it's in this influential world it's all about real volume you cannot stay the same you can't
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right okay and that's sometimes like pressure because i can tell you right now like this whole these
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past couple of months i'm over here living on hope and a prayer
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and and coffee and sometimes wine oftentimes wine
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um you know and and one of the things interestingly it's it's funny because you know we pivot and we learn something
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about ourselves or we pivot and then we receive a blessing or we you know
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become a blessing and in this space especially now like being able to talk with folks like
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yourself and other business owners it's been really inspiring to hear
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what like how they feel what they're going what's going on and then they pour it into me without even realizing it
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so in many ways this becomes therapy for me oh yes it becomes encouraging because
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you're like oh like we can do this we got this
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like and then you know i've had some folks who stay on and like we end up talking for hours after and they're like
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no marie get it together now for you you spoke
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about tribes and we're in this space where and we talked about like i just mentioned you know other people pouring into me and me
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pouring into other people we talk about tribes like when it comes to your tribe like what's the why is it important
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to have a tribe because some people don't have it or they think they have to reach like way far
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and wide when it comes to these tribes like can you talk about that a little bit when you talk about my personal trap
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right well you reference whatever you're referencing in tribes of tribe like however
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however you define trump as a personal choice so my in my experience with space i have
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my tribe my tribal women we have grown together i like they have watched my baby from a
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baby baby to now her they are aunties um and that's right right there they're
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special to me because they know they saw me grow they they we were in this together they're full of
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single mothers just like me they're watching me i'm watching them we're giving each other tips and stuff
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and and it's important to build your tribe in that cause those are your supporters those are your supporters those are the
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people you're engaging with on a regular and also i have my personal tribe my
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personal tribe and it's important to me to have a personal tribe
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because um you can't i i don't think you can do this life alone that's how i
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just feel i don't think you can do that you you would drive yourself crazy um
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you'll make up so many different scenarios in your head you need your tribe to
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help you pull it together so you should try your cocktails like girls slow down come here come back like like i said i i went
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through a breakup at the beginning of this pandemic and it was just like i was in a long distance relationship my
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tribe actually pulled me together and was like come on you got this and it's important
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to have people like it to help you through the tough times and you know sometimes like you know
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both personal and professional your tribes will also help you see yourself and help
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you grow um in ways that you didn't even think you could
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like i'm over here like i've got three different ideas of spin-offs just from tcf i have like
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all these i have a road map now for up until 2023
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barring the you know life but some things don't have to be but some things are but it's like kind of crazy
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but like how did i not have my folks and they'd be like girl i'm gonna need you to stop playing i'ma
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need you to go like and then you have the moments where you're like what the hell is happening
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i don't know what to do i'm about to lose my mind your folks your village your folks pull
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you together and there you can lean on them and they can lean on you and it's important
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like i like how you just mentioned both your professional and your personal and it's important to
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kind of keep those separate right now yes
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right right now because when it comes to me and my influence i try to
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like i'm very vulnerable i try to share as much as i can without it turning into something else
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or without um yeah without it being bigger than what it is or
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i i'm there i'm i try to be selective but i also try to be very open so like um for example going through
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what i'm going through now of course you'll be shared later but i have to go through it right i
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don't want i don't want a million people in my head while i'm going through it i want to go through it so i can make
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sure i you know i i ironed out everything so i can help the next person for when they're going through it right
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right and it's it's important i think it's important to to look for
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i like to in the middle of these things i was about to cuss um because i totally cuss like a sailor
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but in the middle of these times like i like to look for the blessings or the lessons
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yes everything is a lesson like i don't think everything everything happens for a reason everything is a lesson
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um it just doesn't it's a lesson to everything and it's not and don't always put it on the
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person the other person also it's it might be something you need to look at within and this definitely
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taught me i needed something i just dig deep i remember when you turned this on you said i'm always in
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i've been meditating wait you meditate yeah girl
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i get up um every day my body naturally wakes up around like 4 30 in the morning like i
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said yeah it's a natural wake up about 4 30 and then about five
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i'll probably roll out of bed and i'll meditate and sit there like this
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i don't do this i i put my hands i crossed my legs i have on my patio i created a nice little zit area on my
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patio i saw that picture i saw that yeah and i sit out and i meditate
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huh and it really in it um the other day i just had a problem with
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sleeping and i meditated and i tell you no lie after not meditating i went to sleep like an hour
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later i slept for like five hours straight nice wait like you went to sleep so you
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only need five hours of sleep no i i was having a problem sleeping that night oh
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morning i had woke up it was like three or four o'clock in the morning and i was like i just kept on getting up
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on it out every hour and i was like let me just calm down and i did it
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literally slept like longer than because i i'm up by like at least seven
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at the earliest um so i literally i slept to like 10
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o'clock i was like whoa okay so this meditation
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thing now i'm a virgo with a cat moon so my mind is always racing and the only way that i
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can find my own like zen is by my games
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like my my games on my phone because it allows for me to just like you know it that's how i relax
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you don't have to sit still you can meditate while you're exercising so that's another thing i picked up the past um
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april i've worked out what 26 days straight yeah well not straight but 26 days i
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worked out and that's a form of meditation too just as you're walking just clearing your mind with smoke on my
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dog you do it then so you don't have to actually just sit still it's just all
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about you know controlling your breathing just um clearing your mind and really just whatever you are trying
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to focus on and not focus on just putting that in huh i am impressed
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and i'm very happy for you and that has helped with my patience because you're like glowing like you're
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like radiant and stuff and i was like oh girl you owe zed over there so that's that's what meditation do to you meditation exercise
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lots of water get your life like i'm i'm
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impressed i am very like that's really encouraging to like watch and see how that's like
26:40
worked because i've downloaded all the apps i just never used them because i just don't understand but it's just
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once you read up on it you is different forms different ways and it's whatever works for you
26:53
you just got to fit you got to figure out your group whatever works for you okay so no right or wrong
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i'll have to check in with you later and be like okay i tried this i don't know i got i gotta work i gotta
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work on that so switching gears a little bit what is next with which what's next before
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shantae like what can we look forward to seeing from you that you could share i am hopefully
27:21
i'm eyeing out a couple of things i'm relaunching my mentorship in a different kind of way
27:26
oh the different kind of ways so hopefully um details with that will definitely
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start dropping about september october um i'm actually
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you know the the one thing we hate doing redoing our website
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redoing the website i hate doing that so that is a whole
27:51
process a creative process and me just you know
27:58
just this pandemic really messed up things i was looking for traveling in the summer living london
28:03
right so now it's just like oh my goodness no beaches no well no islands
28:10
no and so like i'm trying to figure out like how am i gonna just process well i'm
28:16
processing how summer is gonna look for me how the next comes especially my daughter
28:22
especially with her because she's a child she's been stuck in the house like for two months like
28:27
it's just crazy like and i know she misses her friends
28:33
school everything so it's kind of like what are what are we gonna do how creative we're
28:39
gonna get because i don't watch every damn near show on netflix damn here almost do so that's that's
28:47
the next page just figuring out our summer plans because i am a mom first so whatever it is she has to be
28:54
included in everything and um hopefully we can get on this tick tock
29:00
listen like i know what's her name um from canada oh my
29:08
gosh i'm blank sasha from canada yes yes yes killing it
29:14
yeah yeah yeah she's killing it christine from trinity curvy you're killing it yes yeah yeah like that's just so much for
29:21
me for mommy daughter videos with her we actually to try one this week uh hopefully it
29:27
pans out right because she's in a phase where she argues with me
29:34
so it's kind of like if i don't do it her way the right way she might just quit
29:40
oh yeah is that what do they say your daughter is always ten times worse than
29:45
you yes and i'm prepared for that i'm scared if i ever have kids
29:51
if i ever do i am terrified of having a girl because why sometimes i
29:57
may come off as like real square and real distant and like kind of just like like i was a wild ass child i was
30:06
i i i'm not in fact what do they call it fast i have got two
30:12
more years before she really gives it to me so i'm prepared for her and we have been
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it has been sometimes this year but hey i love it what's the word you said at the beginning of this uh
30:24
this live what's the word boy patience patience oh yes that one a lot of
30:31
patience a lot of her all day every day has definitely it has been
30:38
full of that especially with mommy what are you doing every five minutes
30:44
bless you because how old is she now he's 11.
30:49
and i have to work for her with her patients because she is she's bad with it too so she got it
30:55
honest bless you honey well thank you like i can't believe we've already hit 30
31:01
minutes girl can you believe that oh we did oh okay right we've already hit our 30 minutes just having a good
31:08
conversation talking about business life mom mental health and
31:13
meditation meditation like i'm gonna try to figure out what that looks like for me
31:19
because lord knows i need it i just read up on it like literally there's so many
31:24
different ways you can like incorporate meditation into your lifestyle and it's
31:29
whatever works for you it's no right or wrong and start small and grow
31:35
okay yogurt you're doing everything i do want to do yoga because i used to
31:41
cheer and use gymnastics and so i feel like that's like a natural
31:46
you know kind of flow into that so we shall see but i keep talking about it so i need to
31:52
just be about it because i surely talk enough crap about it well thank you
31:57
thank you thank you for joining us thank you for having us um to you guys on facebook thank you guys
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so much for watching this will also be shared to instagram youtube and on the kirby fashionista um again
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thank you guys for joining us we will be back on thursday with another um face another interview for speaking of
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curves i am marie danae your um creator of the curry fashionista
32:21
we just had on the lovely and beautiful chante briquette thank you so much dante for joining us
32:26
and you guys have an amazing day bye now
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