Black Boomer Besties from Brooklyn
Black Boomer Besties from Brooklyn
Why I Transitioned from Corporate at 54
This episode is a rebroadcast of a previously aired recording from 2022, around the time the Besties started their podcast. It is revisited this week as a reminder of the importance of embracing flexibility, stepping out on faith and having the courage to make life altering changes. The message remains as timely now as it had been two years ago.
Original Notes:
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 again 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 folks, it's Angella from Black Boomer. Besties from Brooklyn, Brooklyn. Hey, this episode is a rebroadcast of an episode that aired in December of 2022. So it was just a couple of months after Leslie and I started this beautiful labor of love that we call our podcast and I shared because Leslie insisted I shared the story of how I left my corporate career after almost 30 years to become an entrepreneur. It goes into a lot of detail about, I think, our friendship, how she supported me, I think a friendship, how she supported me, even though it was just a shocking decision that I made, and we actually talked about how I came to be in North Carolina and, yeah, just some really good bestie stuff. And you'll also hear how my Brooklyn, how that began and why I brought it back because I totally, totally missed it. Listen, I was trying to be a sophisticate and I don't do that very well. So it is back, brooklyn is back and we hope you enjoy this episode.
Speaker 2:Brooklyn, so why do I always do that? I?
Speaker 1: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, whoop or Brooklyn, it just needs a little spicy.
Speaker 2:It needs a little, a little scots bonnet, that's what I don't know if you notice that you always end like that also it just seems wrong to end it with just but flat flatness, but let me tell you, any podcaster worth his salt has to have a signature sign off, so that 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 going to 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 pushed to do for quite a while and for some reason, she's had a little bit of resistance.
Speaker 1:Well, I can tell you why it's been resistance.
Speaker 2:I'll tell you a little bit.
Speaker 1: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 happened to get me to the point where it was time to say goodbye, and so I wanted to kind of treat all of that, to give all of that 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 because you know you made me commit to doing it. And so now I've kind of thought it through and it's because you know you made me commit to doing it. And so now I've kind of thought it through and I picked up my family and moved from New Jersey to North Carolina. Oh, my gosh year as an intern, right you were interning in Maryland remember Wow At U Maryland Medical Center.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1:That's right. Yes, and we stopped there. That puts a nice timestamp on things. Yeah, we stopped there and had a great night with you. I think the kids really 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 still going to be connected to our loved ones, so that was really wonderful. Yeah, so anyway, I remember that.
Speaker 2:Let 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 perspective, looking at you, there is so much more. So go ahead.
Speaker 1:Okay. 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 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 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 stretch it some more remind me in our day to day.
Speaker 2: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 1:Yeah, yeah, and I. 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 2:So why are you imposing your comfort zone on me then?
Speaker 1:Why I got a stress. Nah, you got your own comfort zone, baby, and you know you. You know that you get comfortable in things that I would never Okay, I'll give you that, I'll give you that it's like right, 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 space, that they want to North Carolina, to nothing that was familiar at all.
Speaker 1:And that growth I'm sure led to another big pivot that I did and that was to leave almost 30-year career in IT working for Fortune 500 companies and doing really well and really enjoying it and really feeling that I made 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 chutzpah came from recognizing that I could do hard things and I was going to 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 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 2:Okay, 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, a 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 going to leave, even though I have the ability to stay. It's not like they gave you the boot, but I'm going to leave and I'm going to turn my life around and tap into my creative ability and you've always been creative into my creative ability, and then start my own business. Right, and here I'm thinking OK, midlife crisis, my friend lost her mind. How can I pull her back so that she can keep getting a paycheck? What you talking about, ang? All right, you continue. Okay so, but you presented it well to me, so I was with you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, 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 win 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.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you called me out on it when I said we can do anything.
Speaker 1:The, the failures, the, the leaning in the, the tears, the, 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 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? And I and I think I will mention the company, we'll see how it goes.
Speaker 2:Okay. 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 sometimes 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 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 1:Yeah, yeah, that just made me think of childbirth right, Exactly. The baby comes.
Speaker 2:It's like you forget about the pain of the delivery, and then the pain only comes back when they hit adolescence, you know, or adulthood in my case.
Speaker 1:So. 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 the technology company and they had what's called a limited restructuring. That's their way of of doing layoffs, and it usually includes some changes with the structure of the organization, some jobs change and things like that, and I was a part of that.
Speaker 1:Right got a call from my manager and you know there was there's always kind of rumor and discussion whispers about these things happening, and so when I got the call I kind of had a sense that I was going to be impacted by this. So she told me that my job was eliminated and blah, blah, blah. 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 now preparing, like OK, this is what I'm going to do next, and at some points I look forward to this type of call because you know it comes with 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.
Speaker 2:And I remember you called me that morning. Yeah, you got the call, but OK, it didn't yeah. And I remember you called me that morning.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you got the call, but OK. So the second call I got was from HR and they told me that there were a handful of people who were a part of the LR, the limited restructuring that they wanted to keep, and, angela, you're one of them.
Speaker 1:And I'm thinking great, and you know they'll each person is going to be given a recruiter, an internal recruiter, and they would help them to find another position in the company. So that was going to 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, this big global organization, and it was a position of influence, right and scrutiny. But there's a way that I wanted to show up for that and you know, hair, this thing that 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. It's also controversial. It's also controversial Exactly, which is another whole other story. Exactly, you're a miscontroversial. I don't run from it. I don't run from it.
Speaker 1: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 that. I wasn't trying to hide, I didn't want to be demure. I wanted to have big hair. I wanted to really show up bold in the meetings that I was in, when I went on 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 younger folks. I wanted to see that there were senior leaders who looked like them, who weren't trying to kind of put their authentic black selves into a box once they got into corporate. And I didn't see a lot of options for me as a.
Speaker 1:Then I was in my fifties, maybe early fifties, I don't even remember probably around fifties 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 to beauty school. I know, I know, I know I started looking into that. 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.
Speaker 1:I was like this doesn't feel right to me. I'm too old for this shit.
Speaker 2:Wow yeah.
Speaker 1:And that started to really become the thing that I couldn't quiet.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but you started feeling this what after the restructuring?
Speaker 1:After the restructuring, when people were working with me to find another position that you know that I liked, that I would be good at and so on.
Speaker 2:You said like wait, stop looking.
Speaker 1:Well, actually, what happened is and I have to say, there were some just people who she just stepped in and went to bat for me. 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 going to work out. And you know, saying thank you, but also feeling like there's just something coming up in my spirit, that was just, it was yeah, and it just made me increasingly uncomfortable that I was not taking the opportunity to step away from this. 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 when I decided to leave. Wow, what a stressful time. It was stressful, but if you can imagine that, I felt really powerful.
Speaker 2:Jeez, that's that balloon stretch again. There you go with that stupid balloon stretch again.
Speaker 1:It's like well, you know listen. At that point I was clear I could do hard things, yeah yeah yeah, right, and we all have different ways that we we stretch. There are things that you know that I don't really feel like I can do, like you know swim.
Speaker 1:We're going to cut that out, we're going to bleep that out. It ain't nobody's business but yours and mine, Anyway. So so I did, I decided to leave, and because I'd already kind of done all this pre-thinking about what I was going to do next 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 I got the return that I said I would get. So that was already kind of some of what was baked into 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 Headspace NC Headspace, because I'm always in my head.
Speaker 1:And NC, not because Headspace was already a 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 names. So I incorporated Headspace NC and I knew it was going to be kind of this umbrella company right, Because there were so many things that I'm good at and that I enjoy doing and I wanted a kind of a container for those businesses to live in.
Speaker 2:All right, so just briefly say, you know what some of those companies under the umbrella of HeadspaceNC are.
Speaker 1:Absolutely 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 2:So wait right there. This is what I said to you when you first told me about this. You said not only less am I leaving corporate, but now I'm going to enroll in beauty school. Remember back in the day when, in the 70s, there was like Barbizon School of Beauty? So I'm thinking this lady is the first Ivy League. She's probably like the only Ivy League educated student in her beauty school. But it made sense. Like you know, you were able to convince me that your plans make sense.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Well, all of that was true, by the way. 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 and I can't find it, and when I'm looking, I'm buying from people who don't look like us. So a part of why I chose to do that is because I wanted to take advantage of the benefits of the black hair care industry.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Right and fill a niche and fill a niche because, again, I wanted to focus.
Speaker 1:I was very clear about the people that I wanted to serve. Yeah, and that kind of stuff really, really bothers me. So, anyway, so I so the first business under Headspace NC that I created was 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. That'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.
Speaker 2:Custom.
Speaker 1:Custom, and I'm a 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 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 take you right, and when you kind of follow what you know in your heart, in your gut 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. Yeah, and who knew, who knew? So it's like a whole new stretch in that balloon.
Speaker 2:It's a whole new career, so Rhythm Wigs is one.
Speaker 1:Okay, 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 kinky, curly, coily nature of our hair, and because of what our hair is like, as you know, it is a source 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, viola Davis With Viola Davis, how to get away with murder, how to get away with murder With Viola Davis.
Speaker 1:With Viola Davis, how to get away with murder, 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 Cicely Tyson was on her bed, her mom, and she starts scratching her scalp.
Speaker 2:And I was like, oh an experience that we've all had.
Speaker 1:It was such a black moment to see on TV.
Speaker 2:It's like broke the internet. Yeah, everybody was talking. It was like, oh my God, did you see that?
Speaker 1:Yes, it was just kind of and I really wanted to kind of tell, collect these stories of 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. 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 this podcast is another, you know, kind of endeavor under HeadspaceNC, so I just call it.
Speaker 1:We do 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 not kind of seen for the power and the wisdom 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 2:So I got a question for you, though. Question Go ahead. So we started this episode of the podcast in order to discuss how you pivoted from IT to entrepreneurship Right. To discuss how you pivoted from IT to entrepreneurship Right. Could you just explain a little bit 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. I am today because now you're your own CEO.
Speaker 1:I am, and well, I mentioned before that I remember I have another friend who also had left and we always said when we left we were going to become entrepreneurs.
Speaker 1:Because it is a very entrepreneurial culture there, right, it was an expectation when you're at certain levels to see what the need was and to pitch it and to develop operational practices to get that out there and running.
Speaker 1: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 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, 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, and so for me, I can create more freely when I know that things are running smoothly 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 2:I mean, you know, obviously I'm going to be around for as this all progresses 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 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:To know that.
Speaker 1:To get more comfortable with being uncomfortable.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. That's, that's and you know, to not let discomfort stop, you To not let discomfort stop you To not let discomfort stop you.
Speaker 1: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, and everybody should take some type of risk? I think so, I agree with that, I agree with that.
Speaker 2:I agree with that because comfortable existence, in addition to it being boring. You know, it's like we're human beings, but we're like some of us, I mean the Lord made us and we have no idea what our capabilities are until we you know push against it, so I love it.
Speaker 1:And how many, how many times you've you've been forced to do things that you never thought you could do. Yeah, and you may not have made that choice yourself, but when you're forced to do it, you could actually do it.
Speaker 2:So sometimes I rather volunteer my own discomfort. Thank you very much.
Speaker 1:So anyway, that is another big pivot, that yeah.
Speaker 2:Wow, I'm just you know, I'm in awe of you, thank you, thank you. Yeah, I don't think that you're you know. Initially I'm like this woman has lost her mind what is going on, but I get it now. I'm a believer.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I thank you. I see that too, and so I now have met my commitment to talk about the second pivot that I did.
Speaker 2:We can check this off my list.
Speaker 1:You're welcome. Thank you for listening to another episode of Black Boomer Besties from Brooklyn. See you next time.
