Building Empires: Leadership, Failures, and Creative Triumphs (Ft. Tiffany Napper)

Episode Title:

Building Empires: Leadership, Failures, and Creative Triumphs

Guest: Tiffany Napper, Founder of The Upleveler Society

Time Stamps:

00:00 Introduction to Kelly Minds Her Manners
00:14 Meet Tiffany Napper: A Journey of Success
01:46 Tiffany's Early Life and Inspirations
04:24 Venturing into Entrepreneurship
07:24 Balancing Creativity and Business
10:33 Wellness and Overcoming Burnout
13:22 Embracing Failures and Leadership
19:47 The Fearless Five: Fun and Personal Insights
27:27 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Episode Highlights:

• Meet Tiffany Napper: Kelly welcomes Tiffany, a multi-venture entrepreneur with a thriving public relations career. She’s also a coach for creatives, focusing on wellness, financial health, and business growth.

• From Small Town to Big Dreams: Tiffany shares her early life in Ruston, Louisiana, her love for animals, and the journey to a journalism degree, sparking her love for writing and PR.

• Diving into Entrepreneurship: With ventures in PR, coworking spaces, handbags, and short-term rentals, Tiffany’s path exemplifies resilience, creativity, and the courage to pivot.

• Coaching Creatives: Tiffany describes her mission to help creatives balance their passion with business skills, empowering them to thrive in their fields.

• Work and Wellness Retreats: Tiffany’s retreats combine business coaching with wellness activities like yoga, journaling, and workshops to provide a holistic experience.

• Embracing Failures: Tiffany discusses how her past failures led her to become a better leader, entrepreneur, and coach, embracing setbacks as learning opportunities.

• The Fearless Five: In this fun segment, Tiffany reveals her thoughts on luxury brands, her favorite guilty pleasure show, and a song that gets her pumped.

• Financial Independence for Women: Tiffany proudly shares her journey to financial stability and independence, emphasizing the importance of empowering women to secure their financial futures.

Key Takeaways:

• Balance and Boundaries: Tiffany’s journey underscores the value of maintaining work-life balance, especially as an entrepreneur.

• Focus for Creatives: Learn how Tiffany’s unique approach helps creatives channel their talents into sustainable business growth.

• Leadership with Empathy: Tiffany advocates for empathetic leadership and effective communication as cornerstones for managing successful teams.

• Financial Confidence: Embracing a healthy money mindset can be transformative, especially for creatives and women in business.

Quotable Moments:

• On Self-Worth and Finances: “Numbers are neutral; they don’t define your talent or self-worth.”

• On Female Financial Empowerment: “We need to support other women in becoming financially secure and believing they can make it on their own.”

Connect with Tiffany Napper:

• Website: www.tiffanynapper.com

• Instagram: @tiffanynapper
 

Stay Connected with Kelly:

•Podcast Website: www.kellymindshermanors.com

•Instagram: @kellymindshermanors

Don’t forget to subscribe, rate, and leave a review to let us know what you enjoyed most about the episode!

Transcript

0:01

Welcome to Kelly Minds Her Manors, a podcast about real estate and entrepreneurship with a twist. Here's your host, Kelly Robinson. Hi and welcome to another episode of Kelly Minds Her Manors. Today I have the amazing Tiffany Napper with me. She is so incredibly accomplished for her young age. She's got four ventures under her belt that were all successful. Currently she's focused on her public relations career. as well as coaching creatives, on getting their works out to the masses, wellness balance and financial wellness. And you'll hear her talk about that. She's got a really interesting story of where she grew up, what she did when she was a young kid that led to to what she's doing today, what failures led to her success and her greatest achievements to date, how she feels about leadership, so I think you'll be really inspired. She's worked with the likes of Elton John and Grandmaster Flash If you like the show, make sure to subscribe comment and like it below. please welcome the incredible Tiffany Napper. Tiffany, I'm so excited to have you here today. And thank you so much for your flexibility with my crazy schedule. I know you have a crazy schedule probably, but I also know that you are very much into wellness. So you probably are able to balance things, which I probably could use some help with. So I want to get going because I have so many questions for you. I think that you're so interesting and inspiring. And I'm glad that we have this chance to meet and get to know you a little bit better. So let's start from the beginning. Where did you grow up? I know you're in Nashville now. What was life like, what type of kid were you? Okay. So I grew up in Louisiana, small town called Ruston, Louisiana. Most of my childhood from like the age of five, all the way through to 18 years old. And I was a high achiever from a very young age. I was the youngest of two. My older sister was also pretty perfect. So I spent my childhood feeling like I was needing to follow in her footsteps and impress my teachers the same way she had impressed them. So I was always a bit of a high achiever. I was a good kid. I had a extreme love of animals. One of my favorite things people don't expect to know about me is that I had pet pigs when I was a child. I like begged my parents for a pig for so many years that they finally said, okay, and we moved out into the country so I could have a pet pig. Yeah, I loved animals. I loved music and I loved writing. That was really it. And I loved dance. I was a dancer always. Different types of dance my whole childhood all the way through high school. So you were writing music. Were you also singing, performing? No, I was just writing. I was listening to music and writing. I wasn't writing music. I always thought I could have been a songwriter, but I never really did that. I was just a writer always and forever and knew at a pretty young age that I wanted to be a writer. I thought I wanted to work for a fashion magazine. So I wrote to all of the editor in chiefs of Mademoiselle and Vogue and Seventeen and all the magazines I read as a kid. I wrote a letter to each editor in chief asking them how, basically, how do I become them when I grow up? And I got a couple of responses back, I'm sure from their assistants or interns, but it's okay. And they said to get a journalism degree. And so that's what I did. At a pretty young age, I was like, okay, journalism degree, here we go. And where did you go to school? I went to school at the University of South Alabama and Louisiana Tech University. So I ended up getting my degree from Louisiana Tech in journalism. So back to when you were listening to songs and writing. Yeah. So were you writing songs? Sometimes I would write lyrics. Yes. Or poems. I was like broody. I suppose as a teenager, so I would write poems and I had discovered my mom's old music. So my grandparents had a record player and all the old vinyl. So I was a teenager listening to all of the music from the sixties, basically anything that was like a, the fill in the blank, the Beatles, The Doors, I listened to all of that long before it was hip and cool. I actually listened to a lot of that stuff too, but I'm older than you. I don't know. Yeah, probably. Okay. So you have not one, but four successful ventures under your belt. What was your first one? When did you start your first venture? So I started my first PR and branding agency. My first venture was a PR and branding agency. My one and only. And I did that in 2011. I was leaving the music industry. I had a really great job in the music industry, but I was really burnt out and I knew that I was working way too hard, that it wasn't sustainable for me to continue to work to that degree. And I also very quickly started to realize there was definitely a ceiling with me and with what I was doing and that the possibility was there. And I'm one of those people who once I set my sights on something, once I decide something, it's really hard to get me off track. It's really hard to convince me of anything else. So I decided I would start my own venture. That was in 2011. And your music industry career, what were you doing? So I was doing PR branding for Yamaha for the big music manufacturer. And I worked in the artist relations department. So I was at Elton John's house and I was doing photo shoots with John Legend and Sarah McLaughlin and all these amazing people traveling the world. It was a great gig and I learned a lot and they gave me a lot of room to really stretch my wings. I got to take over and. start social media for them, started Facebook, started an Instagram account and really got to learn a lot in a very pivotal season of my life. Cause that was like early thirties for me, but I walked away from all of that to start my own venture. That takes a lot of chutzpah and, a lot of courage. What are the other three ventures? Yeah. When I decided to become an entrepreneur, I clearly lost my mind a little bit because in 2011, I started the PR and branding agency that was going swimmingly. Within a year I had three people on my team and a full roster of clients and we were doing great. And then I decided that we needed an office space. So I started, rather than just getting an office space, I started a co working space for creative entrepreneurs. And that was more of a lateral business move, but a business nonetheless. Then in that same year, I got wind that the NFL was going to be passing a new regulation for clear or small handbags to enter stadiums. And I at the time was a big New Orleans Saints fan. I'm still a New Orleans Saints fan, but at the time I was going to all the games because I lived in New Orleans. And I was like what am I going to, I don't have a purse that meets those dimensions and I don't have a clear handbag. What am I going to do? So I started producing clear handbags. I sketched something up and that's a whole nother story. So that was my third business. And then I had a long term Airbnb rental for 10 years as well. And now my fifth business now is what I do now, which is a business coach. You have coached the likes of Elton John and Grandmaster Flash, and you have some pretty big names under your belt as well as you've done some PR for some big publications, right? So at such a young age you've come so far. I'm curious why a PR and coaching agency for creatives specifically because you were a creative. What is it about creatives that you think is important to have these things? Yeah, I love coaching creatives because, at the heart of all of the things I've done throughout my seasons in business, at the heart of it all, I was a creative or I was serving a creative. And that's because that's who I am. I am a creative. I knew it, at a young age, I thought I wanted to work for a fashion magazine and move to New York city. Then like this small town Louisiana gal. That was my dream. And so I am a creative, so I relate really well to creatives. I, I relate to the struggles of being a creative. I relate to the struggles of always having fresh ideas of not loving the strict rigidness of Excel spreadsheets and business plans and the things that are required for us to be successful and order for our art or whatever it is to be able to be experienced by the masses, right? So I've just gravitated towards it because it's who I am. And I feel like I am lucky in the sense that my dad was very type a business money just very smart about all of that. And then my mom is the epitome of a creative and just always was. And so I feel like I'm lucky that I got a little bit of both of that and I bring that to the table. So working with other creatives who maybe didn't have that balance. I love that balance for them. I love that you say that because it's true. Creatives are some of the most talented, amazing people on this planet, right? But so many of them do not have a business acumen, and it's so important for them to learn that, but to go and have some sort of boring financial coach when they can have you, who is a creative but just both sides of the brain. it's a really great thing for them. What do you think is most challenging when helping creatives with their financial goals or the business aspects of their careers? I would say, I almost feel like this needs to be a twofold, a two parter. Cause there's two things that come up for me. The first is simply. getting them to focus. Obviously that comes up a lot and sometimes that can feel like they're getting restricted or constricted and you know, really getting them to understand that when we're focused and we're consistent, you can you can impact more people and you can have more success. And then you get to be more free and more creative and like understanding how that whole dynamic plays out... that can be a challenge. Sometimes if they're feeling a little bit all over the place. And then the second part obviously is just getting them over the hump of thinking that numbers are bad or numbers are negative or numbers are scary. And I was there once. So I get that and that is something that takes time. It takes time for us to get to a place where we see numbers as neutral and it's not about my self worth. It doesn't mean I'm not good at what I do. It doesn't mean I'm not talented. So I call it playing with numbers. When I get on a phone call with my client and we're going to look at their numbers or, work on pricing for an offer, I'm like, let's play with the numbers. And I say that on purpose. I use that language on purpose. You also have wellness retreats for your clients. What do those entail? Do those entail balance and relaxation and stuff like that? Or do you also have financial wellness? Yeah, they're really business and wellness retreats and this is because when I, if you can imagine when I was running those four businesses at one time, I hit severe burnout. Did not recognize myself, did not like who I was, Didn't like the way that I was responding. Found myself being activated a lot quicker than I normally would be. I'm a really mellow, easygoing person at my core. So if I start getting road rage, something is wrong. And I had to take, a bunch of. Steps backwards. I had to really look in the mirror. I got on my, I started getting on my yoga mat every day as a bit of a challenge to myself to say, what does it look like if you start to put yourself first again? What does it look like if you decide that you want to come back home to yourself and not be this person that you're currently identifying as and it played out in a number of ways just to fast forward that story. But I was fighting with my mom a lot, who's my best friend. I wasn't really loving the way I was leading my team. I didn't feel like I was being the best version of a leader to them. There were just so many things going on behind the scenes. And through that journey of coming back home to myself and learning how to be a more balanced, that B word that we all want trying to be that more balanced boss and more balanced entrepreneur. I started to really wish that there were these experiences that I could partake in where I would see these retreats and I'm like, that sounds great, but I can't take a week off work. I run my own business. How am I going to take a week off work? That doesn't sound realistic. So the idea of building something where we could do work and wellness and play all at once was what really was the starting point for what I do. So we do yoga every morning, but we don't wake up at the crack of dawn. I don't believe in that. I want you to be able to calm and relax, but we do yoga every morning. We do journaling every day. I lead you through different types of business workshops, depending on what we're there for. Every retreat has a different theme. I've got one coming up and the theme is really all about revealing your bigger vision for where the business is headed. So I'll lead you and guide you through business coaching workshops, but The beauty is we get to do it all poolside. So it's really fun. And then we eat meals every day together and do breath work and cold plunge and sauna and, again, all that wellness stuff. So it's a nice hybrid. It sounds amazing. Where do I sign up? It sounds unbelievable. You mentioned something in one of the articles that was written about you or an interview that you did in a magazine about using your failures for the greater good and to embrace them. So tell me more about that. Yeah. Everything I've ever accomplished to date has been on the other side of a failure to some degree. Even, as I mentioned, even these retreats that I do and what I do now as a business coach, I would not be able to do this to the degree that I do. If I hadn't already fallen on my face a few times and recovered and and walked the walk before you so that I can say, take my hand, I can guide you through this better than the way I navigated it. I've had lots of failures. I've had financial failures. I've had plenty of relationship failures. I've had hiring failures, I've taken risks that didn't always pan out, but I think that's just part of it. But I don't know. I think my, probably my biggest failure was when I decided to approach relationships like a business, because I thought to myself I can make any business I want be successful. So I just need to treat a relationship like a business and I'll be fine. And that didn't pan out very well. I ended up getting married to a narcissist and got divorced pretty quickly He did not realize who he had picked and I was not about to sit around for much more of that. So I got out pretty quickly, but. But it was on the heels of that, that I really started that journey that I mentioned before, where I was like on my yoga mat every day. And just what does it look like to rebuild my life? Cause at that point. It really felt like it was crumbling around me. And I thought, what does it look like to rebuild it in a way that feels good to me? What do I want? What do I want my life to look like and feel like when I wake up every day? And that took a lot of heart to hearts with my business coach at the time. Lots of tears shed lots of solo journeys and trips and just, deep, like discovery work around what I wanted my life to look like and feel like, and, that journey probably started in 2016, 17, and here we are fast forward so many years later and it went by like that, but I feel like a completely different human, I am a completely different human. In a good way, I'm I suspect. Yes. Yes. So going back to leadership, what do you think makes a great leader? Empathy, obviously, is the first thing that comes to my mind, because I encounter this a lot with my clients, especially if they're new to the leadership role that we can make up narratives in our head about what's going on behind the scenes. And so really, truly leading with empathy and assuming the best and giving people the benefit of the doubt and being able to hold space for honest conversations. I think it's just such an integral part of being a good leader. Obviously the ability to communicate comes in pretty high up there as well. If you don't know how to communicate in a nice, neutral, compassionate, way, then you're going to have a lot of turnover and that's going to be pretty dramatic and and not very fruitful. So I would leave with those two. And do you still have your own coach? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I've had several amazing coaches through the years. I love my coach I have right now. I purposefully picked her because she's younger than me. She's the first time I've hired a coach who's younger than me. And I Was going into this year feeling like I want more fun in my life. Everything's been so serious and that's great. And I'm really at a point in my life where I want things to feel a little bit more exciting and fun. And I just really liked her energy and her vibe. And I adore her, but I'm a big believer for me, it matters that I have the person to turn to that, that my clients are, that I am for them, right? Cause it's an energetic exchange as a coach. It's not just strategy. There's a lot of energy that's exchanged as well, holding space for them and being able to listen and it can be draining. And so I need someone to be that for me in order for me to show up at my best. I agree. I agree with always having a coach, even if you're a leader. What has been your biggest obstacle in your career thus far and how did you overcome it? Oh my gosh, biggest? I would say, I'm gonna say my biggest obstacle in my career so far was and is I'm sure it's a never ending thing that I'm constantly improving, but I would point it back to limiting beliefs around money, actually. The reason I would pick that is because it's something I never would have thought of, no one ever warned me about, no one ever said, Oh, before you become a business owner, make sure you've thought about your limiting beliefs around money. That's not a thing and yet it is. There's all these studies that show our subconscious belief we make controls 95 percent of our decisions, 95%. So if we don't pay attention to what's going on, then it really does impact our ability to scale and grow and build something to the degree in which we say we want to build and so I would pinpoint it all to that my money mindset and the limiting beliefs that I was carrying around unbeknownst to me, right subconsciously about money and how hard it is to make it and how bad I quote unquote bad I was at numbers because I was a creative like I had to really overcome all of those limiting beliefs Tell me more about Upleveler. I see that behind you. Yeah, so that's the name of my business, the Upleveler Society. This business was born in 2020 as I was still running my multi six figure PR agency as just an answer really. People were asking me, how do I work with you? How do I work with you? Cause I had led some webinars during COVID. During the first early days of the pandemic. And I was just trying to come up with a business name and Upleveler Society is what I came up with. So it's fun. We call ourselves the uplovelers and we're always up leveling and yeah. How did you come up with that name? I don't remember. I'm sure I just wrote a bunch of words down on a piece of paper and moved them around. No, it's great. When I form a new business...one of them, I named myself the other ones. I've always had those naming contests where you pay all these people from around the world, to win the contest, if they pick the name and then they find the domain and all, and they trademark it and everything. I really like the name of your business and that's awesome that you thought of it, but you're also a creative. Yeah, I wanted it to feel uplifting, obviously. So do you have animals now? I have one toy poodle and her name is Nola and she's 16. That's so cute. I have two rescue dogs that always decide to play and bark while I'm doing a podcast. They lay around the rest of the day, but as soon as I start doing a podcast, they're going absolutely crazy. Seamus and Fiona They're Irish, obviously. I'm super impressed with you and I would love to talk to you more and I would love to talk to you again, but now it's time for my fearless five. Are you ready? You get five questions and two passes. Okay, let's do it. So this one is one that I tend to ask almost everybody because I love hearing the different answers. What is something you feel most people value that you don't necessarily subscribe to or value and why? The first thing that comes up for me, and this is tough for me because I'm not saying I don't love it. Okay. Cause I already told you what I wanted my first job to be, but I think a lot of people put maybe too much value around designer brands and names and I love a Chanel. I love a Louis Vuitton, Do not get me wrong, but you're not going to find my closet stuffed with that for a reason. I've just really invested my money in other places and I just don't want someone to judge me or think that I'm successful or not successful based on that. I think there's so many other ways to prove your worth. So that's the first thing that comes to my mind and it hurts me because I love Chanel. Love love. You're speaking my language. I love Chanel too. I have too much of it. And I've recently said to myself, you know what? There will be no Chanel bags for me this year. And maybe not next year because I have enough and I don't need anymore. And it doesn't define me. And like you, I don't want people to judge me based upon what I'm wearing. I dress for myself. Because I love fashion. But and a little bit because in New York and luxury real estate, you have to look the part. Otherwise I'd be wearing t shirts from Amazon and yoga pants all day long. And I do when I'm home by myself, but I think it's really true. I think especially with Instagram and all of the social media where half of these influencers are just in a changing room, changing their background, trying these things on and they don't own them before they get big and they start getting sent things. People think that's what you have to be somebody and you don't. 1000%. And I guess that's really what I'm so glad you said that. Cause that's really where I was going with that. It's if you are successful and you want to treat yourself to something beautiful and designer made by all means, but I I think it's a slippery slope and I don't ever want someone to feel like they have to keep up with the Joneses just to prove that they're a valuable human being in the world. I agree with you. Okay. So would you rather dip your toe in or do a cannonball? I'm gonna go toe in. It's a pin. Sometimes I'm a total cannonball girl. What is your guilty pleasure? Oh my gosh. What is my guilty pleasure? This is going to come as a surprise to some people because for very, for a very long time, I did not even own a television. Oh my goodness. But I know I was a weirdo. But my guilty pleasure these days is this show called Married at First Sight. It's terrible, but I love it. Sometimes you just need something on in the background right? Exactly. I just need something that I don't really have to think about and doesn't give me any anxiety at all. No suspense, no thrillers, just easy watch. You know what? I think I should try and do that because I tend to watch Dateline before bed, which is like asking for a nightmare. Yeah, no, don't do that. I know. I just love murder mysteries. I don't know. Things that actually happen, which is weird. Anyway. So here's number four. What is the last thing you googled? I don't, I'm going to have to pass on this one only because I can't remember. What was the last thing I Googled? I don't remember. I'm sure it was something boring about work or how to do something in a platform. I don't know. Okay. No problem. What song gets you pumped up for your day? Ooh anything like Lizzo, Taylor Swift, Beyonce. Yeah. All those good ones. And you live in Nashville, so you have access to so much indie music as well, which I love. It's true. It's true. So before my final question of the day, I want people to know where they can reach you or where they can find you. And your Instagram or your website, which we'll all, we'll have all of that in the show notes as well. But why don't you tell people where they can reach you? Yeah, it's super easy. I'm Tiffany Napper. So it's either www.tiffanynapper.Com or on Instagram@tiffanynapper. Awesome. So my last question of the day, is there any question that you wish I had asked you and what would it be? That's such a good one. Okay. Question. I wish you would have asked me. Maybe God, so many things are flooding through my mind right now, because I'm like, I could talk to you for a really long time. And and I think it's so beautiful for us, two women, obviously who have paved a path for ourselves and made success to a degree to be able to show the good and the bad, the ins and the outs of the whole journey. So I love that you asked me about failures. Maybe What is my proudest moment? Let's go with that. What is your proudest moment? I think my proudest moment is to be able to say, and I just had this conversation with another fellow fierce business owner woman, and she was like, Tiffany, the fact that you and I are able to stand here and we bought our own houses and we drive nice vehicles and we don't have any major debt and we, we treat ourselves and we go to the gym and, all we buy the groceries, everything we need is here. We were able to supply that for ourselves. And the fact that you and I can do that puts us in this top percentile of people and we should be really proud of it and I think it's something that we're taught sometimes to downplay and you don't want to come off as bragging but it is something i'm really proud of and it is something that I hope that we're going to continue to see more and more younger women rising up and feeling like they have the confidence they need to be financially independent. So I would say that's what i'm most proud of I think, especially as women, we need to support other women becoming financially stable and secure and not depending on somebody else and really believing in themselves that they can make it on their own. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I remember when I bought my first house and crying on the way there to sign the papers because it never dawned on me that I would be doing that as a single woman. In my mind as a child, I'm sure I just always imagined when that day came, I would be married or with a partner. and now, I'm on my second home that I own. And and I just think it's so important that we're able to have open and honest conversations about money and finances as women and what it looks like to feel confident talking about all that. Yeah, absolutely. And I'm glad that you answered that question that way and that we got to talk about it. Thank you so much for your time. I would love to speak with you again. I would love to have you on again. I would love to hear more about your coaching program and everything else. And I'm sure the rest of the listeners would love to hear more too. So we're going to put all of your information in the show notes that people know where to find you. And I wish you many blessings and you have such a bright future. Oh, thank you so much. This was so much fun. Thank you for having me. Thank you for watching and listening to Kelly Minds Her Manors. Make sure to subscribe to the show and leave us a review to tell us what you liked about the episode. You can connect with Kelly at Kelly Minds Her Manors on Instagram or on her website, www.kellymindshermanors.com