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Speaker 1: Let's get, let's get, let's get to it, time to do it. I'm the homegirl that knows a little bit about everything and everybody. Did you hear that exclusive? You don't feel alive out there, right?
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Speaker 2: Lauren came in hot.
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Speaker 1: Hey, y'all, what's up? It's Lauren LaRosa, and this is another episode of The Latest with Lauren LaRosa. This is your daily dig on all things pop culture, entertainment news, and all of the conversations that shake the room, baby. Now, we are going to get into a conversation that I personally had that definitely shook the room when I had it. But before we get there, the conversation is about getting it out the mud and kind of, you know, what that looks like and the journey to figuring things out along the way of building something sustainable in business and in life. Y'all know I love those type of conversations, but before we get there, we got to check in on ourselves. Let's check in behind the scenes of The Grind. So this weekend, y'all, I told y'all that I was out doing all of the things, homecoming. I traveled down to D.C. on Sunday for a alumni homecoming event, which was lit. It was a karaoke event. Shout out to the Boothmakers who brought me down there. Literally was there in and out for a day. We went to drinks and kind of like dinner with friends. We, me and Bae. And then we headed back up here to home because, you know, work in the morning. But We also had the privilege and the honor, or I had the privilege and the honor, of attending Jalen Brown's birthday party. Jalen Brown, former Celtic, now a Philadelphia 76ers, along with LeBron and Tyrese Maxey and so many other people who were about to make that team. Like, y'all, they about to go up over there. But I say I had the privilege and the honor to attend because I was there. As my man's plus one in celebration of him, we were celebrating Jalen Brown's birthday. Don't know Jalen Brown personally, but we do know the team that works behind the scenes with him. And my boyfriend has an organization. It is a nonprofit organization called the Catherine Brown Foundation. And it's all about transforming people and communities and enriching people's lives. And he has just built out a partnership that he's doing with the Philadelphia 76ers across the NBA. to go back into the communities of Philadelphia where he is from and, you know, do full park rebuilds and renovations, financial literacy, education, and really just making everything that he touches a better tomorrow. I am so proud of him. So, you know, Friday night, we kicked it off there. We were really excited to go and to meet everybody. And, you know, I got to meet a lot of people that he's been meeting with and having conversations with in person, you know, everybody from politicians to, You know, the team, you know, back office people that were there. But also just we got to see so many people in general. I mean, it's Jalen Brown, who is one of the biggest conversations right now in the NBA. So, you know, there I ran into Meek Mill. I ran into I didn't get to see Keisha Cole. I got to see her perform, but I didn't get to talk to her. I was singing Keisha Cole down. OK, it was a full Hennessy sponsor bar. I had a few spritzers. But listen to me, Keisha Cole, listen to me. Yes, come on.
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Speaker 2: Oh, hey, hey. Loshimi performed.
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Speaker 1: I love Loshimi. Pretty girls in the world. Pretty girls in the world. I don't know if you guys know Loshimi, but he's one of my favorite artists right now.
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Speaker 2: Yes. And now I'm going, what am I going to do? So empty, my love, my soul can't go on. Go on without you. My rain is made of rain.
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Speaker 1: A really Gary time, okay? It was not one quiet lip in that room when Keisha Cole was performing. We love her damn. Great night. What else happened? Oh, Talil, streamer Talil, got to have a convo with him. He's one of the sweetest people ever. Taylor Townsend, world-renowned tennis player, also got to tell her how dope she is and how hard I be going for her, especially when she had, you know, the incident that happened, not this U.S. Open, but the last U.S. Open where that other tennis player tried to basically call her uneducated and not smart and all the things you don't say to black women. I had to let her know, girl, we was riding for you at dawn. Like, we was good, you know? Um, who else did we run into? LeBron James was there. I didn't get a chance to meet LeBron, but he was there. I saw him. LeBron James in real life was there. We also ran into Gilly was there, uh, with his wife too, um, who is a makeup artist in the industry, but you know, famously they have like the best, um, social media content together. So when you meet her and see them together, you feel like you already know them cause we watched them so much online. Um, even outside of what Gilly and Wallo do for a million dollars worth of game, um, just following Gilly's family story across social running into them in person it was like I already felt like I knew her but we ran into them as well I did get a chance to meet Jalen Jalen super cool one of the things I loved was seeing how surrounded by family and good people he is one of his cousins was there I don't know if she'll remember this conversation if she ever will hear this I forget her name but she came up to me and she was like I've been staring at you the whole time trying to figure out how I know you and I just realized you're the girl from the radio and I was like yep And she was like, I hope you hear on all positive vibes. Don't be, you know, rumor and reporting on all the BS with my cousin because we love him. And I was like, girl, I come in peace, love and Hennessy. I'm here to have a good time. And I was like, honestly, I don't even know what BS you're referring to. Because when we have conversations about Jalen Brown or have in the last few months, it's been about the big trade to the Sixers. how dope it was to see him do his press conference from the community center in Philadelphia and getting involved in the community. Him talking about fighting back against the big institution of the NBA and, you know, and how he alleged that like, they don't want you to give back and look out for people in certain ways so that they can control you. Those are the type of powerful conversations he is sparking in the room that we sit in. And she was like, okay, cause we love him and he has a great family and comes from a great family. She just was running all the things down to me, but I didn't need to meet her to know that. Like you get to see, you got to see him with his mom, his brother, his teammates, like there's a lot of love on that team that they all have for each other. And I love to see that. But then also surrounded and being surrounded by love in real life is important. I think it speaks to his character and the character that a lot of people feel from him, which is why when he decided to leave the Celtics and head on over to Philly, there were some people that are sad, some people that are upset, but the city of Philadelphia is excited. There were a lot of change makers and tastemakers in that room from Pennsylvania, from the city of Philly, who were there in support and really excited to see what the Sixers and as a franchise and sports brings to the city, but also what it's going to bring to the community. So great time that I had this weekend. And, you know, speaking of building and a cloth that you're cut from and what you surround yourself with and what that equals, let's get into this conversation that I had. So I had the pleasure of being a keynote speaker at an event. Shout out to done and done. They are an executive team. Admin company, and they head up operations for, like, high-profile individuals. I've been working with them for some time. Even though we are about to move on and no longer work with the company, I support their founder, Ajay. who is a young woman that I met some years ago when she was celebrating her first year anniversary, and I came there as a keynote. So to go back and speak during their 10-year anniversary was such a big deal. I, along with Pinky Cole, you guys know her from Slutty Vegan. You also know her now from Real Housewives of Atlanta. We're the keynote speakers, and we talked about getting it out the mud and what that looks like for our lives right now. Let's get into the conversation. Hey, I'm Lauren LaRosa. Everything she said in the bio... That's the stuff I be doing. I was sitting over there like, dang, it's been a, from the first year when I met Ajay and learned about Done and Done and really didn't understand what having an executive assistant or admin or operations person would look like for me and how it would make sense for me to now. Life has really took, it's like a complete 360. Um, and, and I say that because it's like, y'all are sitting here today and you guys are in the space that you're in today. Mentally, I don't know where everybody is business wise. I don't know everybody's numbers and you know, what your Shopify's are doing and or not doing, but you just never know what is coming next. let me not say that you know what you want to to come next so you know what's coming next like you can manifest that um but when you talk about getting out the mud I think the only thing that I would tell people is like to always stay ready because that first year when I came and I spoke and you know me and Ajay didn't know each other I just really loved her passion about her business and about life when we got on the phone and I was like okay I want to support her um For me personally in business, I was trying to figure out so much stuff. I knew what I wanted to do. I knew where I wanted to take things. I knew what God was going to do when I trusted him. But I it wasn't like tangible yet at all like a lot of the stuff now that I'm doing and I try see and a lot of things that she read in that bio I'm like wow there's been so much that has happened and I remember um when I spoke that first year at you know the one year anniversary My message was, you know, no matter what happens, I'm going to stay dangerous. And that was my message then because I was just like, you really don't, like you can't predict the things that are going to happen. You can't. You just have to show up. You got to be prepared. You got to be ready. When you get, you know, that couple extra dollars that you can put into your business, put it into your business. Put it into your team. If you don't have a team and it's just your homies who are willing to pull up and support you, make them your team. Period. Because, no, I'm trying to tell you. Because there's been a lot of me just figuring it out as I go. You know, I was blessed to grow up in a household where get it out the mud was the mantra. My mother is an entrepreneur. I've never seen her work for anybody, ever. I'm 34 years old. And I lived a really good life as a kid. You know, I grew up in the inner city of Wilmington, Delaware. You know, everything's not perfect when you grow up in the inner city, but a lot of the imperfect things come from the outside world. My mom did everything. I mean, I was in everything. I ice skated. I was a swimmer. I was on a swim team. I played tennis. I was in theater. You know, she sent me to, if I had a cousin on Broadway, I was in New York. I have family in New York. She made sure she took us to New York often I say us me and my younger brother and just really would you know take us to Broadway and show us the fashion district where she used to sell her clothing she you know used to be a fashion designer um she did everything that she could and and it made a lot of sense then when I was younger I didn't really get it but as I got older I was like okay and you know you talk about getting out the mud I think that that's like a generational thing for us as black people And a lot of us don't understand that, you know, getting out the mud doesn't mean that you always have to stay muddy. Like you can get it out the mud and figure it out and, you know, that builds your character. But when you begin to build real business out of what you got out the mud, baby, it is a blessing. For real. So for me, just being back here again all these years later and, you know, working with Ajay for all these years, I'm going to tell you something like getting it out the mud was a process. I don't even think I understood what I, um, was really setting out to do. I just love the things that I was doing. And even today, like I met some of y'all here today and the things y'all were saying to me, I was like, Oh wow, wait, that's okay. So that's, that's happened. And that's how, you know, you guys are receiving it. Cause for me, every single day, I'm just getting up, getting up and I'm blessed to do the things that like I'm passionate about. I love, I, I love being able to get dressed and talk about things and talk to people and explore new things and dig into things. And it's not even just about people in their business. I've always been a very inquisitive person in my household. Any family managers in the building? Yeah. How many of y'all, you know, oldest kid in your family? Oldest girl in the family? Okay. Okay. So oldest kid in the family, y'all understand me. Oldest girl, especially because, you know, be the black woman. Y'all understand me a little bit differently. I've always had to be the person that acts as why. You tell me something can't be done, why? You tell me that this happened, why? You tell me that this is where this originated from, why? That was a natural knack for me. I didn't know that me asking why and wanting to understand why and wanting to be able to tell people about the why and how the why connected to the next thing and the next thing made me a producer. I had no idea at all. A lot of times when you're getting it out the mud, you don't even know what you're getting. You don't even know what you're doing. You just in the mud, fighting, figuring it out. Like a lot of times. And, you know, if you guys are in the beginning stages of your businesses, And even if not in the beginning stages, but if you are in a stage of your business where you don't necessarily feel all of the progress and the success and all the accolades and all the claps, it can feel like you're still in the mud. I'm going to tell you something right now. It don't matter where you get to with that business, with that idea, with that manifestation, you will always feel like you're getting it out of the mud still. I think it's a mindset thing. I'm in the process right now of trying to transition myself. my mindset because I think for a lot of us too, it's like the thing, it's like surviving versus actually living. And I think as business owners, especially like Black-owned businesses, and I mean, I don't got to say minority-owned because we all in here looking like me. As Black-owned businesses, a lot of times, like, you know, even when you see some success, even when you see a profit, even if you guys have gotten your businesses or, you know, your careers to the point where you can live off of it, it still don't feel like enough. Sometimes you still feel like you just this constant tension or this constant fight. And what I've learned is that no matter what stage you're at, it's a mental thing for real. Like my mentality, I was a freshman in high school, like I'm going to go to New York. I'm going to model. I'm going to, you know, be on the cover of the magazines and I'm going to act and I'm going to have a talk show. That was my mentality my ninth grade year in high school because that's the way I was raised in my household. Accomplishing things that were not tangible was what I grew up knowing was possible because my mother, like she didn't even force it on me. I could have went and became anything. She honestly wanted me to be a lawyer and then a president before she thought I could be the black, the first black president. I don't know why. You know, Black moms, they just see some stuff. You know what I mean? It, you know, be a little whatever. But my mom wanted me to be a lawyer. You know, it was stable. But also she felt like, you know, with all the things that I would encounter as a Black woman in the world, I would know how to really fight for myself and fight for other people. But she, it was always a thing of like, even if it's not tangible, you were able to do it. And she subtly put that into my life every single day. And now that I'm grown and I look back on it, I realize how much your mental matters when you are trying to figure out getting it out the mud and what that means and how you get away from, not get away from it in a way of like, you're always going to be grinding. You're always going to be figuring it out. But you got to steal these little pockets of joy for yourself too. And you got to be okay with that. Like I realized sometimes like I, it'd be small things I'll do for myself. Just as a girl, you've been working hard. You tired. Take the day to go sleep. And I feel like, Ooh, but if I go sleep, if I wake up tomorrow, it's all going to be gone. That's, that's the get it out the mud mentality because when you get it out the mud and it's so, you know, that tension is there. It's hard for you to really understand that eventually you, You clean the mud off and it's like you're still getting it. And it feels like getting it off the mud, but you ain't in the mud no more. Like the business elevates, things elevate. And that's the beauty of coming to things like this, because you meet professionals who are in their business, who are in different levels and different, you know, eras of their business. And you get to see them five years later, 10 years later, living off of their like life that they have created from something that was not tangible at one point. and how beautiful that can be but every now and then that get it out the mud like feeling and like energy oh they gotta go back in train to go you gotta be you are literally your first line of defense when you are getting it out the mud like you are and then it gets tiring it gets very tiring you know you exhaust your finances your resources You know, you're looking for like this support that doesn't really exist because a lot of times people don't understand. You know, you're blessed if you have a tribe of people who get getting it out the mud. I will say that. And I was blessed to have that to a certain extent. But there's still a certain point of your vision is yours and God gives it to you. So a lot of times you're walking alone. So you walking through that mud and, you know, you get it off of you, but you're doing it by yourself. That's tough. But if I'm being honest with y'all, once you get to a point where, you know, that getting out the mud isn't the physical swinging of the mud off of you and your business and your life and your household. And it's a mentality that you can go in and out of. Like every now and then I got to get out of my like black girl luxury. You deserve to be able to go by that and take that weekend and do this and get to the grind for real. Not even every now and then. Majority of my time is spent. grinding like brown girl grinding is a moniker for real not because you know it's just like this cute thing I started brown girl grinding in 2016 I moved to LA I had an agent tell me like you know black women on television in the talk show space and just in general period it's really difficult to tell y'all and you a brown skin girl you know like I I don't know what I could do with you And he was honest with me. He was an aging guy. He was older. He was really honest with me because he said, you know, I have a daughter your age who just also had growth. college. And if she was in the world trying to figure it out, I would want somebody to be honest with her. And I appreciated that honesty. I was pissed the hell off. I'm like, yo, I didn't move all the way to LA for you to play in my face. I did not. I've done a lot of work up until this point. But I was so appreciative of it because, number one, it was honest. But also I think it lit a spark in me. I left that office that day and I was like, okay, you know, like if I'm thinking about like we all own businesses and are creators and work within different fields here, you guys know the best thing you can do is find a hole in the market and fulfill a need that people don't even know they need. It makes you one of one. It makes you the go-to for something. That has been my life. From that moment on, I was like, okay, if you're telling me that Girls who look like me, you don't even know how to market us and how to make money off of us. I don't want to figure that out because I know it's some money out here. Like I've always been a person that has been able to get to the tangible, like the flip of the money. That was not ever my issue. Growing up in Delaware, we threw fashion shows. We threw parties. And my mom always supported all of this because her thing was whatever you set your mind out to do, you're going to figure it out. So I'm in L.A. and I get told that and I'm like, you know what? I'm going to just start documenting my journey. And I want to do it in a way where when the world finally realizes they need me, they know exactly where to find me. So I started hashtagging Brown Girl Grinding in 2016. No, actually, it was before 2016. It was around like 2014, 2015. And it was just like small stuff. Like I would get cute and come to events like this in L.A., Or I would go cover carpets and all of this for free. And I was living off of a savings account that my grandmother had put aside for me. Thank God for grandmother and their prayers and their savings, right? No, for real. Because my first time moving to LA, I was literally living off of a savings account that my grandmother gave to me. And the fact that she prayed for me and was like, I know you're going to figure this out. So I would go to these events and just do as much as I could for YouTube. This was when YouTube was so new. Like when I tell y'all it was new, I mean, I would reach out to people and say, hey, I got this show on YouTube sitting down and interviewing people. I got such and such views. They'd be like, YouTube sitting down with you? Like if it was a celebrity, like a real celebrity, I'd be like, no, we good. We're not sitting down with you. Like what network are you with? Now everybody has a show on YouTube and YouTube is doing basically development deals trying to get you to not go to Netflix. I hired myself a long time ago. Like I knew that this stuff was coming because I've always been an internet kid. So I'm doing all of that and figuring this stuff out. And eventually what happened through me sharing my journey, you guys can go to my YouTube channel. It's Lauren LaRosa TV. I documented the day I moved to LA and everything after. I mean, car being repo, sleeping on my homegirl couch, having to move back to Delaware and working for a bank for two years and trying to figure out why the hell I was at this bank. Like me, I'm in this bank like this. I'm in this bank with all these old, you know, rich white men trying to explain to them what the culture of women's in Delaware was. And I'm in the community relations department. So my job was to give money back to the community, which I love because I really, really understand what people say when it's like, it takes a, it takes a village. Like my mom did a lot, but, She needed those voices outside of the house, the good ones. I mean, the bad ones came too, but I understood what that meant early because my neighborhood raised me. A lot of the people I grew up with are my counterparts. We show up for each other. You know what I mean? So I'm working at this bank. I'm doing all these things. I'm documenting all of this. What started to happen was people begin to hashtag brown girl grinding as well. So there were like, you know, black girls who were like cute outside figuring it out. Hashtag and Brown Girl Grinding. And when I realized that, I'm like, oh, OK, this is like a movement. We could be like a club. So 2015, I was like, OK, I need to trademark it. But I don't want to go home. I don't want to ask for money because no one's going to understand what I'm doing. So I started selling swimsuits. I'm like, if I get enough money to trademark Brown Girl Grinding, I'm going to end the swimsuit line. I sold swimsuits for maybe a week. Everything sold out in a week. That's how God be working. When you know you want to do something, right? Sold the swimsuits, trademark Brown Girl Grinding in 2016 as a production company and has been a moniker ever since. And... When I think about just that hustle and how I've had to replicate that energy of that hustle over and over and over again, you don't get to no point in your life where all of that leaves you. Like, people talk to me about brown girl grinding. I'm like, oh, I don't want to grind because grinding is like grinding yourself into the ground. And I get what they're saying. Like, you think about a nail. Eventually, you grind a nail enough, the nail is useless. It's dull. It's nothing it can do for you. What I've had to learn through all of my experience of things, right? Like my mom in her cancer journey and her surviving stage four and all these things is that you have to figure out before you get to that point where you are no good to nobody, you got to be good to yourself. And getting it out the mud can literally drain you to the point where you're no good to nobody or yourself. So for me, when I think about getting it out the mud, I think about the mental part of it. and how you can turn it on and turn it off. And if I could tell y'all anything today, learn how to turn that on. And when it's time, I'm grinding. I'm outside. I'm frontline, trained to go. You can't tell me nothing. I'm here. I'm prepared. I'm ready. And that's why you guys have been able to see what you guys have been able to see from me. But what I'm also learning now in my 34 years of life, you know, is that At the same time, I have to take care of me as well too. So as you're getting it out the mud, also realize that getting it out the mud needs to be like a character that you like enable. You know what I mean? Like your businesses cannot sustain if you are not sustaining once you get through the mud. You gotta be able to understand that like all that y'all are doing and the work that you're putting in is seasons of you only get it out the mud. And you go in and out of those seats no matter what level of your life you're on. I promise you that. But at the same time, when there are little successes, celebrate them. When you can take a little nap, don't feel guilty about it. When you got to isolate yourself from your friends, it's okay. If they don't understand, they got to go anyway. Like getting it out the mud is not just about the physical burnout of trying to figure these things out. It's also about How are you taking care of yourself? Because you're going to have to get it again and again and again and again and again. But eventually what will happen is you got resources, you got people you can call, you understand schedules, you understand booking agreements, you understand contracts, you understand boundaries. And that's when you really get it out the mud and things are elevating for real, for real. When you have got yourself to a place where You know, you're grinding, but you're also understanding that, like, you are the magic. And you got to protect the magic. Life get tricky. You got to stay in that magic. That's it. Y'all, I'm always shedding tears, okay? Because this stuff means a lot to me. I am so grateful for everything that is happening day to day in my life. I'm grateful for God for even blessing me with the ability to recognize and to position and to think through and to strategize. I am just grateful. They say to those who a lot is given, too much is required. And I never— it' s like I understood what that meant, but I don't think I felt the weight of it until as I'm getting older now. And I want to build up my family members and my niece and eventually when I have children in the way that I was brought up because I'm realizing that everybody is not like this. People are not naturally— People that can just figure things out on everybody's not, you know, a person wanting to give back and rebuild and do things in the right way. But I think it's because people have to be impacted by the right people in their lives sometimes in order to make that trajectory a real thing. and it's like each one teach one like if I can teach somebody what I learned and the things that course corrected me I'm going to do it and as I as I realize that I'm being put in a position to be able to do that I just feel just the the grateful profound honor that God has bestowed upon my life and I don't know it gets me so emotional but I'm learning a lot about building and what get out the mud really truly means and how there's so many levels to it and That's the level of getting out the mud that I'm in right now. So y'all know, I always keep y'all posted on all the latest. I take you guys with me everywhere. It's the latest with Lauren La Rosa. I tell y'all every single episode, y'all could be anywhere with any old body, but you choose to be right here with me, my low riders. I appreciate you. I'll catch you in my next one.
Speaker 1: Let's get, let's get, let's get to it, time to do it. I'm the homegirl that knows a little bit about everything and everybody. Did you hear that exclusive? You don't feel alive out there, right?
00:00:07
Speaker 2: Lauren came in hot.
00:00:09
Speaker 1: Hey, y'all, what's up? It's Lauren LaRosa, and this is another episode of The Latest with Lauren LaRosa. This is your daily dig on all things pop culture, entertainment news, and all of the conversations that shake the room, baby. Now, we are going to get into a conversation that I personally had that definitely shook the room when I had it. But before we get there, the conversation is about getting it out the mud and kind of, you know, what that looks like and the journey to figuring things out along the way of building something sustainable in business and in life. Y'all know I love those type of conversations, but before we get there, we got to check in on ourselves. Let's check in behind the scenes of The Grind. So this weekend, y'all, I told y'all that I was out doing all of the things, homecoming. I traveled down to D.C. on Sunday for a alumni homecoming event, which was lit. It was a karaoke event. Shout out to the Boothmakers who brought me down there. Literally was there in and out for a day. We went to drinks and kind of like dinner with friends. We, me and Bae. And then we headed back up here to home because, you know, work in the morning. But We also had the privilege and the honor, or I had the privilege and the honor, of attending Jalen Brown's birthday party. Jalen Brown, former Celtic, now a Philadelphia 76ers, along with LeBron and Tyrese Maxey and so many other people who were about to make that team. Like, y'all, they about to go up over there. But I say I had the privilege and the honor to attend because I was there. As my man's plus one in celebration of him, we were celebrating Jalen Brown's birthday. Don't know Jalen Brown personally, but we do know the team that works behind the scenes with him. And my boyfriend has an organization. It is a nonprofit organization called the Catherine Brown Foundation. And it's all about transforming people and communities and enriching people's lives. And he has just built out a partnership that he's doing with the Philadelphia 76ers across the NBA. to go back into the communities of Philadelphia where he is from and, you know, do full park rebuilds and renovations, financial literacy, education, and really just making everything that he touches a better tomorrow. I am so proud of him. So, you know, Friday night, we kicked it off there. We were really excited to go and to meet everybody. And, you know, I got to meet a lot of people that he's been meeting with and having conversations with in person, you know, everybody from politicians to, You know, the team, you know, back office people that were there. But also just we got to see so many people in general. I mean, it's Jalen Brown, who is one of the biggest conversations right now in the NBA. So, you know, there I ran into Meek Mill. I ran into I didn't get to see Keisha Cole. I got to see her perform, but I didn't get to talk to her. I was singing Keisha Cole down. OK, it was a full Hennessy sponsor bar. I had a few spritzers. But listen to me, Keisha Cole, listen to me. Yes, come on.
00:03:09
Speaker 2: Oh, hey, hey. Loshimi performed.
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Speaker 1: I love Loshimi. Pretty girls in the world. Pretty girls in the world. I don't know if you guys know Loshimi, but he's one of my favorite artists right now.
00:03:44
Speaker 2: Yes. And now I'm going, what am I going to do? So empty, my love, my soul can't go on. Go on without you. My rain is made of rain.
00:04:26
Speaker 1: A really Gary time, okay? It was not one quiet lip in that room when Keisha Cole was performing. We love her damn. Great night. What else happened? Oh, Talil, streamer Talil, got to have a convo with him. He's one of the sweetest people ever. Taylor Townsend, world-renowned tennis player, also got to tell her how dope she is and how hard I be going for her, especially when she had, you know, the incident that happened, not this U.S. Open, but the last U.S. Open where that other tennis player tried to basically call her uneducated and not smart and all the things you don't say to black women. I had to let her know, girl, we was riding for you at dawn. Like, we was good, you know? Um, who else did we run into? LeBron James was there. I didn't get a chance to meet LeBron, but he was there. I saw him. LeBron James in real life was there. We also ran into Gilly was there, uh, with his wife too, um, who is a makeup artist in the industry, but you know, famously they have like the best, um, social media content together. So when you meet her and see them together, you feel like you already know them cause we watched them so much online. Um, even outside of what Gilly and Wallo do for a million dollars worth of game, um, just following Gilly's family story across social running into them in person it was like I already felt like I knew her but we ran into them as well I did get a chance to meet Jalen Jalen super cool one of the things I loved was seeing how surrounded by family and good people he is one of his cousins was there I don't know if she'll remember this conversation if she ever will hear this I forget her name but she came up to me and she was like I've been staring at you the whole time trying to figure out how I know you and I just realized you're the girl from the radio and I was like yep And she was like, I hope you hear on all positive vibes. Don't be, you know, rumor and reporting on all the BS with my cousin because we love him. And I was like, girl, I come in peace, love and Hennessy. I'm here to have a good time. And I was like, honestly, I don't even know what BS you're referring to. Because when we have conversations about Jalen Brown or have in the last few months, it's been about the big trade to the Sixers. how dope it was to see him do his press conference from the community center in Philadelphia and getting involved in the community. Him talking about fighting back against the big institution of the NBA and, you know, and how he alleged that like, they don't want you to give back and look out for people in certain ways so that they can control you. Those are the type of powerful conversations he is sparking in the room that we sit in. And she was like, okay, cause we love him and he has a great family and comes from a great family. She just was running all the things down to me, but I didn't need to meet her to know that. Like you get to see, you got to see him with his mom, his brother, his teammates, like there's a lot of love on that team that they all have for each other. And I love to see that. But then also surrounded and being surrounded by love in real life is important. I think it speaks to his character and the character that a lot of people feel from him, which is why when he decided to leave the Celtics and head on over to Philly, there were some people that are sad, some people that are upset, but the city of Philadelphia is excited. There were a lot of change makers and tastemakers in that room from Pennsylvania, from the city of Philly, who were there in support and really excited to see what the Sixers and as a franchise and sports brings to the city, but also what it's going to bring to the community. So great time that I had this weekend. And, you know, speaking of building and a cloth that you're cut from and what you surround yourself with and what that equals, let's get into this conversation that I had. So I had the pleasure of being a keynote speaker at an event. Shout out to done and done. They are an executive team. Admin company, and they head up operations for, like, high-profile individuals. I've been working with them for some time. Even though we are about to move on and no longer work with the company, I support their founder, Ajay. who is a young woman that I met some years ago when she was celebrating her first year anniversary, and I came there as a keynote. So to go back and speak during their 10-year anniversary was such a big deal. I, along with Pinky Cole, you guys know her from Slutty Vegan. You also know her now from Real Housewives of Atlanta. We're the keynote speakers, and we talked about getting it out the mud and what that looks like for our lives right now. Let's get into the conversation. Hey, I'm Lauren LaRosa. Everything she said in the bio... That's the stuff I be doing. I was sitting over there like, dang, it's been a, from the first year when I met Ajay and learned about Done and Done and really didn't understand what having an executive assistant or admin or operations person would look like for me and how it would make sense for me to now. Life has really took, it's like a complete 360. Um, and, and I say that because it's like, y'all are sitting here today and you guys are in the space that you're in today. Mentally, I don't know where everybody is business wise. I don't know everybody's numbers and you know, what your Shopify's are doing and or not doing, but you just never know what is coming next. let me not say that you know what you want to to come next so you know what's coming next like you can manifest that um but when you talk about getting out the mud I think the only thing that I would tell people is like to always stay ready because that first year when I came and I spoke and you know me and Ajay didn't know each other I just really loved her passion about her business and about life when we got on the phone and I was like okay I want to support her um For me personally in business, I was trying to figure out so much stuff. I knew what I wanted to do. I knew where I wanted to take things. I knew what God was going to do when I trusted him. But I it wasn't like tangible yet at all like a lot of the stuff now that I'm doing and I try see and a lot of things that she read in that bio I'm like wow there's been so much that has happened and I remember um when I spoke that first year at you know the one year anniversary My message was, you know, no matter what happens, I'm going to stay dangerous. And that was my message then because I was just like, you really don't, like you can't predict the things that are going to happen. You can't. You just have to show up. You got to be prepared. You got to be ready. When you get, you know, that couple extra dollars that you can put into your business, put it into your business. Put it into your team. If you don't have a team and it's just your homies who are willing to pull up and support you, make them your team. Period. Because, no, I'm trying to tell you. Because there's been a lot of me just figuring it out as I go. You know, I was blessed to grow up in a household where get it out the mud was the mantra. My mother is an entrepreneur. I've never seen her work for anybody, ever. I'm 34 years old. And I lived a really good life as a kid. You know, I grew up in the inner city of Wilmington, Delaware. You know, everything's not perfect when you grow up in the inner city, but a lot of the imperfect things come from the outside world. My mom did everything. I mean, I was in everything. I ice skated. I was a swimmer. I was on a swim team. I played tennis. I was in theater. You know, she sent me to, if I had a cousin on Broadway, I was in New York. I have family in New York. She made sure she took us to New York often I say us me and my younger brother and just really would you know take us to Broadway and show us the fashion district where she used to sell her clothing she you know used to be a fashion designer um she did everything that she could and and it made a lot of sense then when I was younger I didn't really get it but as I got older I was like okay and you know you talk about getting out the mud I think that that's like a generational thing for us as black people And a lot of us don't understand that, you know, getting out the mud doesn't mean that you always have to stay muddy. Like you can get it out the mud and figure it out and, you know, that builds your character. But when you begin to build real business out of what you got out the mud, baby, it is a blessing. For real. So for me, just being back here again all these years later and, you know, working with Ajay for all these years, I'm going to tell you something like getting it out the mud was a process. I don't even think I understood what I, um, was really setting out to do. I just love the things that I was doing. And even today, like I met some of y'all here today and the things y'all were saying to me, I was like, Oh wow, wait, that's okay. So that's, that's happened. And that's how, you know, you guys are receiving it. Cause for me, every single day, I'm just getting up, getting up and I'm blessed to do the things that like I'm passionate about. I love, I, I love being able to get dressed and talk about things and talk to people and explore new things and dig into things. And it's not even just about people in their business. I've always been a very inquisitive person in my household. Any family managers in the building? Yeah. How many of y'all, you know, oldest kid in your family? Oldest girl in the family? Okay. Okay. So oldest kid in the family, y'all understand me. Oldest girl, especially because, you know, be the black woman. Y'all understand me a little bit differently. I've always had to be the person that acts as why. You tell me something can't be done, why? You tell me that this happened, why? You tell me that this is where this originated from, why? That was a natural knack for me. I didn't know that me asking why and wanting to understand why and wanting to be able to tell people about the why and how the why connected to the next thing and the next thing made me a producer. I had no idea at all. A lot of times when you're getting it out the mud, you don't even know what you're getting. You don't even know what you're doing. You just in the mud, fighting, figuring it out. Like a lot of times. And, you know, if you guys are in the beginning stages of your businesses, And even if not in the beginning stages, but if you are in a stage of your business where you don't necessarily feel all of the progress and the success and all the accolades and all the claps, it can feel like you're still in the mud. I'm going to tell you something right now. It don't matter where you get to with that business, with that idea, with that manifestation, you will always feel like you're getting it out of the mud still. I think it's a mindset thing. I'm in the process right now of trying to transition myself. my mindset because I think for a lot of us too, it's like the thing, it's like surviving versus actually living. And I think as business owners, especially like Black-owned businesses, and I mean, I don't got to say minority-owned because we all in here looking like me. As Black-owned businesses, a lot of times, like, you know, even when you see some success, even when you see a profit, even if you guys have gotten your businesses or, you know, your careers to the point where you can live off of it, it still don't feel like enough. Sometimes you still feel like you just this constant tension or this constant fight. And what I've learned is that no matter what stage you're at, it's a mental thing for real. Like my mentality, I was a freshman in high school, like I'm going to go to New York. I'm going to model. I'm going to, you know, be on the cover of the magazines and I'm going to act and I'm going to have a talk show. That was my mentality my ninth grade year in high school because that's the way I was raised in my household. Accomplishing things that were not tangible was what I grew up knowing was possible because my mother, like she didn't even force it on me. I could have went and became anything. She honestly wanted me to be a lawyer and then a president before she thought I could be the black, the first black president. I don't know why. You know, Black moms, they just see some stuff. You know what I mean? It, you know, be a little whatever. But my mom wanted me to be a lawyer. You know, it was stable. But also she felt like, you know, with all the things that I would encounter as a Black woman in the world, I would know how to really fight for myself and fight for other people. But she, it was always a thing of like, even if it's not tangible, you were able to do it. And she subtly put that into my life every single day. And now that I'm grown and I look back on it, I realize how much your mental matters when you are trying to figure out getting it out the mud and what that means and how you get away from, not get away from it in a way of like, you're always going to be grinding. You're always going to be figuring it out. But you got to steal these little pockets of joy for yourself too. And you got to be okay with that. Like I realized sometimes like I, it'd be small things I'll do for myself. Just as a girl, you've been working hard. You tired. Take the day to go sleep. And I feel like, Ooh, but if I go sleep, if I wake up tomorrow, it's all going to be gone. That's, that's the get it out the mud mentality because when you get it out the mud and it's so, you know, that tension is there. It's hard for you to really understand that eventually you, You clean the mud off and it's like you're still getting it. And it feels like getting it off the mud, but you ain't in the mud no more. Like the business elevates, things elevate. And that's the beauty of coming to things like this, because you meet professionals who are in their business, who are in different levels and different, you know, eras of their business. And you get to see them five years later, 10 years later, living off of their like life that they have created from something that was not tangible at one point. and how beautiful that can be but every now and then that get it out the mud like feeling and like energy oh they gotta go back in train to go you gotta be you are literally your first line of defense when you are getting it out the mud like you are and then it gets tiring it gets very tiring you know you exhaust your finances your resources You know, you're looking for like this support that doesn't really exist because a lot of times people don't understand. You know, you're blessed if you have a tribe of people who get getting it out the mud. I will say that. And I was blessed to have that to a certain extent. But there's still a certain point of your vision is yours and God gives it to you. So a lot of times you're walking alone. So you walking through that mud and, you know, you get it off of you, but you're doing it by yourself. That's tough. But if I'm being honest with y'all, once you get to a point where, you know, that getting out the mud isn't the physical swinging of the mud off of you and your business and your life and your household. And it's a mentality that you can go in and out of. Like every now and then I got to get out of my like black girl luxury. You deserve to be able to go by that and take that weekend and do this and get to the grind for real. Not even every now and then. Majority of my time is spent. grinding like brown girl grinding is a moniker for real not because you know it's just like this cute thing I started brown girl grinding in 2016 I moved to LA I had an agent tell me like you know black women on television in the talk show space and just in general period it's really difficult to tell y'all and you a brown skin girl you know like I I don't know what I could do with you And he was honest with me. He was an aging guy. He was older. He was really honest with me because he said, you know, I have a daughter your age who just also had growth. college. And if she was in the world trying to figure it out, I would want somebody to be honest with her. And I appreciated that honesty. I was pissed the hell off. I'm like, yo, I didn't move all the way to LA for you to play in my face. I did not. I've done a lot of work up until this point. But I was so appreciative of it because, number one, it was honest. But also I think it lit a spark in me. I left that office that day and I was like, okay, you know, like if I'm thinking about like we all own businesses and are creators and work within different fields here, you guys know the best thing you can do is find a hole in the market and fulfill a need that people don't even know they need. It makes you one of one. It makes you the go-to for something. That has been my life. From that moment on, I was like, okay, if you're telling me that Girls who look like me, you don't even know how to market us and how to make money off of us. I don't want to figure that out because I know it's some money out here. Like I've always been a person that has been able to get to the tangible, like the flip of the money. That was not ever my issue. Growing up in Delaware, we threw fashion shows. We threw parties. And my mom always supported all of this because her thing was whatever you set your mind out to do, you're going to figure it out. So I'm in L.A. and I get told that and I'm like, you know what? I'm going to just start documenting my journey. And I want to do it in a way where when the world finally realizes they need me, they know exactly where to find me. So I started hashtagging Brown Girl Grinding in 2016. No, actually, it was before 2016. It was around like 2014, 2015. And it was just like small stuff. Like I would get cute and come to events like this in L.A., Or I would go cover carpets and all of this for free. And I was living off of a savings account that my grandmother had put aside for me. Thank God for grandmother and their prayers and their savings, right? No, for real. Because my first time moving to LA, I was literally living off of a savings account that my grandmother gave to me. And the fact that she prayed for me and was like, I know you're going to figure this out. So I would go to these events and just do as much as I could for YouTube. This was when YouTube was so new. Like when I tell y'all it was new, I mean, I would reach out to people and say, hey, I got this show on YouTube sitting down and interviewing people. I got such and such views. They'd be like, YouTube sitting down with you? Like if it was a celebrity, like a real celebrity, I'd be like, no, we good. We're not sitting down with you. Like what network are you with? Now everybody has a show on YouTube and YouTube is doing basically development deals trying to get you to not go to Netflix. I hired myself a long time ago. Like I knew that this stuff was coming because I've always been an internet kid. So I'm doing all of that and figuring this stuff out. And eventually what happened through me sharing my journey, you guys can go to my YouTube channel. It's Lauren LaRosa TV. I documented the day I moved to LA and everything after. I mean, car being repo, sleeping on my homegirl couch, having to move back to Delaware and working for a bank for two years and trying to figure out why the hell I was at this bank. Like me, I'm in this bank like this. I'm in this bank with all these old, you know, rich white men trying to explain to them what the culture of women's in Delaware was. And I'm in the community relations department. So my job was to give money back to the community, which I love because I really, really understand what people say when it's like, it takes a, it takes a village. Like my mom did a lot, but, She needed those voices outside of the house, the good ones. I mean, the bad ones came too, but I understood what that meant early because my neighborhood raised me. A lot of the people I grew up with are my counterparts. We show up for each other. You know what I mean? So I'm working at this bank. I'm doing all these things. I'm documenting all of this. What started to happen was people begin to hashtag brown girl grinding as well. So there were like, you know, black girls who were like cute outside figuring it out. Hashtag and Brown Girl Grinding. And when I realized that, I'm like, oh, OK, this is like a movement. We could be like a club. So 2015, I was like, OK, I need to trademark it. But I don't want to go home. I don't want to ask for money because no one's going to understand what I'm doing. So I started selling swimsuits. I'm like, if I get enough money to trademark Brown Girl Grinding, I'm going to end the swimsuit line. I sold swimsuits for maybe a week. Everything sold out in a week. That's how God be working. When you know you want to do something, right? Sold the swimsuits, trademark Brown Girl Grinding in 2016 as a production company and has been a moniker ever since. And... When I think about just that hustle and how I've had to replicate that energy of that hustle over and over and over again, you don't get to no point in your life where all of that leaves you. Like, people talk to me about brown girl grinding. I'm like, oh, I don't want to grind because grinding is like grinding yourself into the ground. And I get what they're saying. Like, you think about a nail. Eventually, you grind a nail enough, the nail is useless. It's dull. It's nothing it can do for you. What I've had to learn through all of my experience of things, right? Like my mom in her cancer journey and her surviving stage four and all these things is that you have to figure out before you get to that point where you are no good to nobody, you got to be good to yourself. And getting it out the mud can literally drain you to the point where you're no good to nobody or yourself. So for me, when I think about getting it out the mud, I think about the mental part of it. and how you can turn it on and turn it off. And if I could tell y'all anything today, learn how to turn that on. And when it's time, I'm grinding. I'm outside. I'm frontline, trained to go. You can't tell me nothing. I'm here. I'm prepared. I'm ready. And that's why you guys have been able to see what you guys have been able to see from me. But what I'm also learning now in my 34 years of life, you know, is that At the same time, I have to take care of me as well too. So as you're getting it out the mud, also realize that getting it out the mud needs to be like a character that you like enable. You know what I mean? Like your businesses cannot sustain if you are not sustaining once you get through the mud. You gotta be able to understand that like all that y'all are doing and the work that you're putting in is seasons of you only get it out the mud. And you go in and out of those seats no matter what level of your life you're on. I promise you that. But at the same time, when there are little successes, celebrate them. When you can take a little nap, don't feel guilty about it. When you got to isolate yourself from your friends, it's okay. If they don't understand, they got to go anyway. Like getting it out the mud is not just about the physical burnout of trying to figure these things out. It's also about How are you taking care of yourself? Because you're going to have to get it again and again and again and again and again. But eventually what will happen is you got resources, you got people you can call, you understand schedules, you understand booking agreements, you understand contracts, you understand boundaries. And that's when you really get it out the mud and things are elevating for real, for real. When you have got yourself to a place where You know, you're grinding, but you're also understanding that, like, you are the magic. And you got to protect the magic. Life get tricky. You got to stay in that magic. That's it. Y'all, I'm always shedding tears, okay? Because this stuff means a lot to me. I am so grateful for everything that is happening day to day in my life. I'm grateful for God for even blessing me with the ability to recognize and to position and to think through and to strategize. I am just grateful. They say to those who a lot is given, too much is required. And I never— it' s like I understood what that meant, but I don't think I felt the weight of it until as I'm getting older now. And I want to build up my family members and my niece and eventually when I have children in the way that I was brought up because I'm realizing that everybody is not like this. People are not naturally— People that can just figure things out on everybody's not, you know, a person wanting to give back and rebuild and do things in the right way. But I think it's because people have to be impacted by the right people in their lives sometimes in order to make that trajectory a real thing. and it's like each one teach one like if I can teach somebody what I learned and the things that course corrected me I'm going to do it and as I as I realize that I'm being put in a position to be able to do that I just feel just the the grateful profound honor that God has bestowed upon my life and I don't know it gets me so emotional but I'm learning a lot about building and what get out the mud really truly means and how there's so many levels to it and That's the level of getting out the mud that I'm in right now. So y'all know, I always keep y'all posted on all the latest. I take you guys with me everywhere. It's the latest with Lauren La Rosa. I tell y'all every single episode, y'all could be anywhere with any old body, but you choose to be right here with me, my low riders. I appreciate you. I'll catch you in my next one.
