Black Boomer Besties from Brooklyn
This is what the world needs now: two free-thinking “seasoned” Black women speaking their truth and inspiring others to do the same. Shaped by 45 years of friendship that began at the prestigious Brooklyn Technical High School through the Ivy League, medical school, marriages, divorces, triumphs, parenting queer children, life-threatening illness and many many amazing adventures. Each week, besties Leslie Osei-Tutu and Angella Fraser will push against boundaries in love, culture, careers, faith, politics and out-dated assumptions about women of a certain age. Remember, you’re never too old to change your mind…or your hair! (but more on that later :-)All views are our own and do not reflect the views of our institution/company. Information provided is not intended to serve as medical advice.
Black Boomer Besties from Brooklyn
When You Know, You Just Know: Transition from Corporate to Entrepreneurship
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During a roller coaster work situation, Angella felt increasing discontent about giving a select few decision-making power over her livelihood. So she took a leap of faith into entrepreneurship. Big pivots are inherently risky but sometimes when you know, you just know. Listen to her story about the empowerment she felt in leaving a 30 year corporate IT career. After nearly 20 years at one of the world's top tech companies she has become founder and CEO of HeadSpace NC, a beauty and advocacy company.
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Hey Ange. Hey Les. So here we are again, filming another episode of Black Boomer Besties from Brooklyn. Woohoo.
SPEAKER_01So why do I always do that? I just don't want it. I just don't want it to just be out there all by itself. It needs a little fanfare. So every time you say it, or I say it's like whoop-woop or Brooklyn. It just needs a little spicy. It needs a little, a little Scotts bonnet. That's what I mean.
SPEAKER_04But I don't know if you notice that you always end like that, also.
SPEAKER_01It just seems wrong to end it with just flat flatness.
SPEAKER_04But let me tell you, any podcaster worth his salt has to have a signature sign-off. So that's your signature sign-off. Okay. So anyway, but here we are, another episode of Black Boomer Besties from Brooklyn. And in this episode, we're gonna continue a theme that we started several episodes ago about pivoting and moving to different things in our lives. Now, this is an episode that I've been pushing Ange to do for quite a while. And for some reason, she's had a little bit of resistance.
SPEAKER_01Well, I can tell you why. I'll tell you a little bit. I'll tell you a little bit. It is because there's so much to unpack about my life in corporate, how I decided to end it, everything that that happened to get me to the point where it was time to say goodbye. And so I I wanted to kind of treat all of that, to give all of that its its due and not just kind of touch on a little bit here, a little bit there. And so now I've kind of thought it through. And it's it's because you know you you made me commit to doing it. And so now I've kind of thought it through and I decided what I wanted to focus on for this episode. Okay. So Leslie has been on my back about finishing the discussion about pivoting. I thought I was done. I talked about how I picked up my family and moved from New Jersey to North Carolina. Oh my gosh, Les, that was 19 years ago. Almost 20 years ago. I was one and he's now 20. And I forgot to mention that on the way down, on the drive down to North Carolina, you were in your first year as an intern, right? You were interning in in Maryland, remember? Wow, at U Maryland Medical Center. Oh my gosh. Yes. And we stopped there. Yeah, we stopped there and um had a great night with you. I think the kids really benefiting, benefited from that because, you know, you were familiar, they were going to an unfamiliar place, and I think it reminded them that, you know, we're we're still going to be connected to our loved ones. So that was that was really wonderful. Yeah. So anyway, I remember.
SPEAKER_04Let me just interject for a second because I can't believe that with our last episode, you actually thought we were finished talking about our personal pivots. You just left it as leaving New Jersey to go to North Carolina. And from my uh perspective, looking at you, there is so much more. So go ahead.
SPEAKER_01Okay. So what happened was, you know, what's really an interesting perspective that I have now kind of baked into the way that I look at the world is that the more that you do things that are uncomfortable, the the more you're able to do the next uncomfortable or difficult thing. Because, you know, you kind of broaden. I think we talked about that before, just this balloon, if you think about that as your comfort zone, the the way that it gets bigger, the way that your comfort level gets bigger is by stretching. And once it's, you know, once it's that's the only way is to blow into the balloon and and and stretch it some more.
SPEAKER_04And I also have to say that that's something that, and you remind me in our day-to-day, pretty often, when I show some resistance to either stepping into things or doing things or even having conversations with people, you know, that are uncomfortable or I don't want to have, you remind me of how you have to stretch in that way.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. And I I uh what it has done for me is to remind me that that I do want my comfort zone to grow. And if that's the way that it has to be done, then then I'm all for it.
SPEAKER_04So why are you imposing your comfort zone on me then?
SPEAKER_01I gotta stretch. Nah, you got your own comfort zone, baby. Um, and you know, you you know that you get comfortable in things that I would never okay, okay. I'll give you that. I'll give you that. It's like right, my my sister, she will jump out of an airplane. She's done that twice, I think. Jumped out of an airplane, but she would never consider becoming an entrepreneur. Right. It's just kind of everyone has their their their space that they want to um expand into. But anyway, I digress. So that came to mind because I I thought about how much I learned about myself, about my God, in the experience of moving from everything that I knew to North Carolina to nothing that was familiar at all. Yeah. And that growth, I'm sure, led to another big pivot that I did, and that was to leave almost a 30-year career in IT working for Fortune 500 companies and doing really well and really enjoying it and really feeling that I made um significant impact on the cultures of those companies, moving into entrepreneurship, right? And all of that, and my children were, I don't think they were all maybe had already graduated university. I don't remember. But anyway, that was a big thing, and I am sure that my, you know, my my chutzpah came from recognizing that I I could do hard things and I was gonna be okay. You know, that was I remembered when I moved to North Carolina and, you know, obviously the house was already purchased. I had checked out the neighborhood as as as best I could, but there was so much that I didn't know, and it turned out to be really an incredibly wonderful, inviting, friendship-laden community that we moved into.
SPEAKER_04Okay, let me just push you back for a little bit. So hold that thought. Okay. So let me just set the scene again. So here I am, a regular, uh linear thinking person. You do this step, then you do this step, and then there's security. And oh, okay. So here you are in this 20 plus year, stable, moving up, getting raises, getting that, executive VP. I don't even know what that world looks like, and moving up these grades and what have you with your company. And then you tell me I'm gonna leave, even though I have the ability to stay. It's not like they gave you the boot, but I'm gonna leave and I'm gonna turn my life around and tap into my creative ability, and you've always been creative, um, into my creative ability, and then start my own business. Right. And here I'm thinking, okay, midlife crisis, my friend done lost her mind. How can I pull her back so that she can keep getting a paycheck? What are you talking about, Ange? All right, you continue. Okay, so but you presented it well to me, so I was with you.
SPEAKER_01Uh yeah, yeah, you're you're always with me. So, you know, earlier today you and I talked about the fact that doing big things, people once they are in it or have had victory over something, they tend to want to think about that when and not about the difficulties that came in along the way. And I think it's important to kind of call those things out because And you did. You called me you called me out on it when I said, we can do anything. That may be so, but I think it's important to really share the the failures, the the leaning in, the, the, the tears, the um the self-doubt, the you know, imposter syndrome, all of those things that get in the way are important to talk about because you know, we're not super beings. Right. You know, I I have a whole thing about the black girl magic and all that, but that's for another episode. So I want to talk about some of those things, right? So yeah, um, and I and I think I will mention the company. We'll see how it goes.
SPEAKER_04But the other thing that came up for me from earlier today when we were speaking about this ability to do it all, have it all, is that, and I think this is a gift from God for me sometime, is that I've often forgotten how difficult a road I've had and the tribulations that were behind me. I was speaking to my sister about this, and I was saying, you know, how I felt sorry for someone who's going through the trial or whatever. I'm like, you know, thank God our lives were have been so much better than that. And then she just said, Listen, Les, no, it hasn't. Don't you remember this? Don't you remember this? Don't you remember this? And I said, Wow, you know what? You're right. Thank God I really don't have such a vivid memory of how difficult our roads have been.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. That just made me think of childbirth, right? Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_04It's like the baby comes, it's like you forget about the delivery of and then the pain only comes back when they hit adolescence, you know, or adulthood in my case.
SPEAKER_01So, so here's how how all of that went down. So the fact of it is that the company that I was working for is a the technology company, and they had what's called uh limited restructuring. That's their way of doing layoffs, and it usually includes some changes with with the structure of the organization, some jobs change and things like that. And I was a part of that, right? So one morning I got a call from my manager, and um, you know, there was there's always kind of rumor and um discussion, whispers about these things happening. Uh and so when I got the call, I kind of had a sense that I was gonna be impacted by this. So she told me that my job was um eliminated and blah, blah, blah. It didn't, it didn't really matter what else she had to say, but basically that was it. So that was like in the morning. And by early afternoon, I got another call. And this is now me, I'm I'm now preparing. Like, okay, this is what I'm gonna do next. And at some points, I look forward to this type of call because you know it it comes with a lot of perks. I don't think I was ready at that point, points before to have left the company. But at this point, it didn't hit me so hard. It didn't hit me. Yeah, and I remember you called me that morning.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, after you got the call, but okay.
SPEAKER_01So the second call I got was from HR. And they told me that there were a handful of people who were a a part of the LR, the limited restructuring, that they wanted to keep. And Angela, you're one of them. And And I'm thinking, great! And you know, they'll each person is gonna be given a recruiter, an internal recruiter, and they would help them to find another position in the company. So that was gonna be the next part of my journey, I thought. But what had happened before is that I had become a leader of the black employees organization, I think this big global organization. And it was a position of influence, right? And scrutiny.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_01But I there's a way that I wanted to show up for that. And you know, hair, this thing that is is coming out of our heads, has always been this source of pride and artistic expression. And I always knew the power in the hair of black women. I've always kind of felt it from when I came to America and the way that hair was one of the things that I used to connect with the little girls that I wanted to be friends with, right?
SPEAKER_02Um it's also controversial.
SPEAKER_01It's also controversial, exactly.
SPEAKER_02But who am I?
SPEAKER_01Exactly.
SPEAKER_02And you miss controversial.
SPEAKER_01Um I don't run from it. I don't run from it. But so I mentioned hair because hair became this thing that I chose to use to be really bold about who I was as a black woman leader at right. I wanted to represent the that I wasn't trying to hide. I didn't want to be demure. I wanted to have big hair. I wanted to like really show up bold in the meetings that I was in, when I went on um college campuses to recruit black and brown people to work for. I wanted them to see, especially with natural hair and curly hair, kinky hair becoming more and more common with um younger folks, I wanted to see that there were senior leaders at the who looked like them, who weren't trying to kind of put their authentic black selves into um a box once they got into corporate. And I didn't see a lot of options for me as a then I was in my 50s, maybe early 50s, I don't even remember, probably around 50s or soon to be 50, and I didn't see a lot of options for my my hair was starting to really show its fineness, its thinness, and it wouldn't really do all of the kind of big hair things that I wanted it to do. So I've always experimented with my hair, and I saw that there were not a lot of options for women of my age, right? And so I had already started looking at going to beauty school. I know, I know, I know. I I'd started looking into that. I will I wanted to do it while I was working and with kind of being very West Coast dominant, because that's where their headquarters was, I was seeing how I could maybe do beauty school in the morning and all kinds of configurations. But anyway, even though I had been offered the opportunity to stay at and that whole internal recruiting process was going exceedingly well, I must say, exceedingly well, because I'd made great relationships and people wanted me to stay. And I was in line to get a position that was actually at a higher level than the one that I had been in. What started to make me more and more uncomfortable is that other people were making decisions about me, my life, my livelihood, my children. I was like, this doesn't feel right to me. I'm too old for this shit. Wow. Yeah, and that started to really um become my my kind of the thing that I couldn't um quiet.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. But you started feeling this, what, after the restructuring?
SPEAKER_01After the restructuring, when people were um working with me to find another position that, you know, that I like that I would be good at, and so on.
SPEAKER_04You said, like, wait, stop looking.
SPEAKER_01Well, actually what happened is um, and I have to say, there were some um just people who just stepped in and went to bat for me. Yeah. You know, this is the person that yes, that that is the position for for her. She'll be amazing, and so on. And I was getting calls late at night, you know, yeah, so this is gonna work out. And, you know, saying thank you, but also feeling like there's just something coming up in my spirit that was very it was, yeah. And it just made me increasingly uncomfortable that I was not taking the opportunity to step away from this. I'd I'd given a lot of my talents to the company, and I started feeling like, no, it's time for me to make decisions about these things and not other people kind of pulling. Yeah. And that's that's when I decided to stressful time. It it was stressful, but if you can imagine that I felt really powerful.
SPEAKER_03Jeez, that's that balloon stretch again. There you go with that stupid balloon stretch again.
SPEAKER_01It's like well, you know, listen, at that point I was clear I could do hard things.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Right. And we all have different ways that we we stretch. There are things that you know I that I don't really feel like I can do, like, you know.
SPEAKER_03Swim.
SPEAKER_01We're gonna cut that out. We're gonna bleep that out. Anyway, so um, so I did, I decided to leave, and because I'd already kind of done all this pre-thinking about what I was gonna do next, and and really has a really kind of entrepreneurial culture, right? So as a manager, I was always kind of planning my next thing, pitching, getting funding, then you know, putting it in place and measuring to see if it's if if I got the return that I said I would get. So that was already kind of some of what was baked into um the work that I was doing there. And so I left, that was like late October, I think, of that year. And by November, I had an LLC and I started the company um Headspace NC, Headspace because I'm always in my head. And NC, not because Headspace was already company, but NC because North Carolina had become my new chosen state, and I really fell in love with a lot of what I experienced here. And a lot of the kind of North Carolina built companies, they use NC in their name. So I incorporated Headspace NC. Okay. And I knew it was gonna be kind of this umbrella company, right? Because there were so many things that I'm good at and that I enjoyed doing, and I wanted a kind of a container for those businesses to live in.
SPEAKER_04All right. So just briefly say, you know, what some of those companies under the umbrella of Headspace NC are.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. So the first one, because when I left, I went to beauty school and I became a licensed natural hair care specialist after 350 hours of school.
SPEAKER_03And so wait right there.
SPEAKER_04This is what I said to you when you first told me about this. You said, not only not only less am I leaving corporate, but now I'm gonna involve beauty school.
SPEAKER_03Remember back in the day when in the 70s there was like Barbazan? School of Beauty. So I'm thinking this lady is the first Ivy League. She's probably like the only Ivy League educated student. But it made sense. Like, you know, you you you were able to convince me that your plans make sense.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, well, well, so you finished viewing. Well, all of that was true, by the way. I I admit all of that. All of that was true. But here's the thing: the black hair care industry is multi-billion dollar industry, and there aren't enough black people in it. We buy, we're consumers, but we're not the producers. And that bothered me, right? Remember, I'm looking for products for my hair, you know, and I can't find it. And when I'm looking, I'm buying from people who don't look like us.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So a part of why I chose to do that is because I wanted to um take advantage of the benefits of the black hair care industry. Yeah. Right?
SPEAKER_04And fill a niche. And fill a niche.
SPEAKER_01And fill a niche because again, I wanted to focus. I was very clear about the people that I wanted to serve, and that was black women, 40 and over. They were not represented. We are not represented in even the most progressive advertising around black products. You don't see people who look like us. And that kind of stuff really, really bothers me. So anyway, so I did so the first business under Headspace NC that I created was um is called Rhythm Wigs. It is my my first kind of significant product that I launched. You know, it's curly wigs for discerning black women over 40.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_01That's what I wanted. I wanted people to who choose to wear big curly hair to have options that suit them style-wise, comfort-wise, custom. Custom consumer, custom-wise, and really giving them the service, like pampering these women, right? Because it's like we deserve it. We've earned it, we've worked hard, you know. And so that was my my first, and that led, which I won't go down here, but you know, it's just you never know where your right decisions will will take you. Yeah right. And when you kind of follow your, what you know in your heart, in your gut, in your, and you know, I'm always checking in with the Lord on these types of things, that has led to me becoming a wig designer for film and theater. So a lot of the work that I do now is doing wig design and supervising. Um yeah. And who knew? Who knew? Who knew? So it's like a whole new stretch that balloon. Stretching that balloon. It's a whole new career.
SPEAKER_04Rhythm Wigs is one understanding. So rhythm wigs is one.
SPEAKER_01Okay, and so another project that I have out there is called the Hair Stories Project. Look, I just there are things that just kind of I investigate, right? And so the thing was, our hair is so unique in the world, right? The one thing that connects us as people from the African diaspora is our hair. The, the, the kinky, curly, coily nature of our hair. And because of what our hair is like, as you know, it is a source of of real connectedness for us, right? Our hair takes longer to style. And so we develop connections with our grandparents who do our hair, with our hairstylists who do our hair, with our mothers who do our hair. And there was this one scene in Yeah, what Viola Davis? Viola Davis. How to get away with murder. And there was this one scene where she's having like her worst day ever, and Cicely Tyson plays her mom, and she comes in, she's like taking off all her makeup, her wig comes off, and she sits on the floor of on her. Um Cicely Tyson was on her bed, her mom, and she starts scratching her scalp.
SPEAKER_03And I was like, sits between the knees. An experience that we've all had.
SPEAKER_01It was so black moment to see on TV. It's like broke the internet.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, everybody was talking about it. It was like, oh, please leave ass.
SPEAKER_01It was just kind of, and I really wanted to kind of um tell, collect these stories of um the hair of black folks, especially black women. I wanted to really investigate that. And so the Hair Stories Project, I started interviewing people to share their stories about their hair. Um, one experience that I had is being fired because I had braids and they told me I had to take them out or leave, and I didn't take them out. And so we all have these sometimes beautiful and love-filled, sometimes painful, sometimes political stories around our hair. And so that's what the Hair Stories Project is all about. And um this podcast is another, you know, kind of endeavor under Headspace NC. So I just call it, we do head heady stuff. It's like at the intersection of beauty and advocacy, that's the work that I do. I focus on black women because that's who I am, that's who I know well. And that is, we are a group that is often ignored, you know, or we're not kind of seen for the the the power and the wisdom that that we have. And so I'm kind of really wanting to make sure that we're represented more and more out there in the world.
SPEAKER_04So I got a question for you though. Question. Go ahead. So we started this uh episode of the podcast in order to discuss how you pivoted from IT to entrepreneurship. Right. How could you just explain a little bit of and we're running out of time, but how your experience in corporate prepared you to be the business person that you are today? Because now you're your own CEO.
SPEAKER_01I am. And well, I mentioned before that um I remember um I have a another friend who also had left. And we always said when we left, we were gonna become become entrepreneurs because it is a very um entrepreneurial culture there, right? It was um an expectation when you're at certain levels to see what the need was and to pitch it and to develop operational practices to to get that out there and running. And so my kind of operational, when I mean operational is how things run, right? I am right brain, but I'm very comfortable in the analytical left brain space. That's why I'm an engineer. That's why I'm a good, that's why I was a was was good at that, is because I see the value of the logic and so on. And so operations to me is kind of the how things kind of run kind of procedurally or you know, time after time. What how do how do you kind of run the company? So that was in place. I knew how to do that well, and so on top of that is where my creativity comes in.
unknownRight.
SPEAKER_01And so for me, I can create more freely when I know that things are running smoothly as a as a business, right? So the boring stuff that I really don't like, I know that it's important because I want to be really creative. And so I get that stuff in place so that I can play on top of it.
SPEAKER_04So I mean, you know, obviously I'm gonna be around for as this all progresses and and to see how it works out and what have you. So it's really exciting. I think the overall theme is to be able to step out on faith, to be uncomfortable with your discomfort.
SPEAKER_01Yes, to know that um to be comf to get more comfortable with being uncomfortable.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that that's that's and you know to not let discomfort stop you.
SPEAKER_01To not let discomfort stop you. That is exactly right. You know, this isn't for everybody, you know what I mean? Everyone has to kind of understand their own level of risk that that they're willing to take.
SPEAKER_04And um everybody should take some type of risk.
SPEAKER_01Every I I I think so. I agree with that.
SPEAKER_04I agree with that because safe, comfortable existence, in addition to it being boring. Yeah, you know, it's like we're human beings, but we're like some of us. I mean, the Lord made us. Yeah. And we have no idea what our capabilities are until we, you know, push against it. So I love it.
SPEAKER_01And and how many, how many times you've you've been forced to do things that you never thought you could do?
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And you may not have made that choice yourself, but when you're forced to do it, you could actually do it.
SPEAKER_03So sometimes I'd rather volunteer my own discomfort. Thank you very much.
SPEAKER_01So, anyway, that is another big pivot that, yeah.
SPEAKER_04Wow, I'm just, you know, I'm in awe of you. Yeah, thank you.
SPEAKER_01So um thank you.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I don't think that you're, you know, initially I'm like, this woman has lost her mother. What is going on? But I get it now. I'm a believer.
SPEAKER_01You you're uh I thank you. I see that too. And so I now have um come may met my commitment to talk about the second pivot that I did.
SPEAKER_04We can check this off the story for a while. Check this off my list.
SPEAKER_01You're welcome.
SPEAKER_04Indulging me.
SPEAKER_01Thank you for listening to another episode of Black Boomer Besties from Brooklyn. See you next time.
