Cut The Tie | Success on Your Terms

“You Can’t Operate in Fifth Gear Forever”—How Ling Ling Nie Learned to Slow Down Before It Broke Her

• Thomas Helfrich • Episode 270

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Cut The Tie Podcast
Episode 270

What happens when a high-powered attorney walks away from a 20-year career to launch a beauty brand built around healing? In this vulnerable and inspiring episode of Cut the Tie, host Thomas Helfrich sits down with Ling Ling Nie, founder of Tender Cosmetics, a company reshaping how we think about beauty, with products that feel as good as they look.

Ling Ling opens up about health scares, identity struggles, and her journey from burnout to bold reinvention. She shares how stepping away from law helped her reconnect with her creativity, build a more sustainable life, and create a brand focused on self-care and empowerment.

About Ling Ling Nie:
Ling Ling Nie is the founder of Tender Cosmetics, a premium beauty brand designed around a unique cooling effect that refreshes the skin and uplifts the wearer. Before founding Tender, she spent two decades as a successful attorney and in-house counsel. After a health crisis forced her to rethink everything, Ling Ling cut ties with the career that defined her and stepped into a more purpose-driven, balanced path as a founder and creative entrepreneur.


In this episode, Thomas and Ling Ling discuss:

  • Why redefining success starts with reclaiming your health
    Ling Ling shares how a medical emergency forced her to reassess her identity, priorities, and purpose, eventually leading her to leave law and launch her own beauty brand.
  • How Tender Cosmetics was born out of healing
    More than a makeup line, Tender is a reflection of Ling Ling’s personal transformation. Each product is designed to help people feel good, especially in life’s hardest moments.
  • What it really takes to cut the tie to your career identity
    Ling Ling explains how she untangled her self-worth from professional titles and learned to value herself beyond performance.
  • The power of diversifying your identity
    From volunteering in hospital emergency departments to launching a startup, Ling Ling talks about the importance of exploring new roles—and finding success in unexpected places.


Key Takeaways:

  • Your job is not your identity
    Tying your entire self-worth to a career is a recipe for burnout. You’re more than your title.
  • Healing can be a brand mission
    Beauty isn’t just how you look—it’s how you feel. Products can restore confidence and energy, especially during life’s low points.
  • Just start—even if you don’t know it all
    Perfection kills momentum. You don’t need to know everything before you begin.
  • Be curious about yourself
    Try new things. Follow strange ideas. Growth happens when you step outside the role you’ve always played.


Connect with Ling Ling Nie:
💄 Website: www.tender-cosmetics.com
📸 Instagram: @tender.cosmetics

📸 Instagram: @_linglingnie_

💼 LinkedIn: Ling Ling Nie

Connect with Thomas Helfrich:
🐦 Twitter: @thelfrich
📘 Facebook: Cut the Tie Group
💼 LinkedIn: Thomas Helfrich
🌐 Websi

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Speaker 1:

Welcome to Cut the Tie podcast. Hi, I'm your host, thomas Helfrich, and I'm on a mission to help you cut the tie to whatever it is holding you back in your life from success. Now that success does need to be defined by you or you will be chasing someone else's dream. I am joined today by with Ling Ling. Ling Ling, that's not your full name. Is it Ni or Nye or Nye?

Speaker 2:

Ling Ling is my first name. Ni is my last name. I have an actual sort of formal Chinese name but I don't go by that. I go by Ling Ling.

Speaker 1:

Okay, for just entertainment purposes, let me try to pronounce it it's Kui Ling.

Speaker 2:

Ni is my Chinese yeah.

Speaker 1:

Is that right, kui Ling?

Speaker 2:

Kui Ling.

Speaker 1:

Kui Ling. Yeah, yeah, perfect, it's your niece.

Speaker 2:

Now I'll be like, okay, yeah, that's right, just say my name over and over again.

Speaker 1:

I'll be speaking Chinese, in no time, nice to see you, and will you just take a moment introduce yourself and what it is you do.

Speaker 2:

Sure Ling Ling Ni. I'm the founder of Tender Cosmetics. I'm based here in Atlanta and I started Tender in 2022 and then launched the brand online in January this year. Tender Cosmetics is a premium makeup brand. It's known for its creamy products that also have this unique cooling effect when you apply it to your skin, and it keeps you refreshed throughout the day.

Speaker 1:

Well, very good. Well, as an Atlanta person as well, that's very cool. So now I can get some stuff for my forehead wrinkles.

Speaker 2:

Forehead wrinkles you look great.

Speaker 1:

Zoom. It's a great zoom. It's just, it's a gray filter. Let's just leave there. You see me, but I can actually watch clothes, not only on his abs. That that's not even true, and and it's gonna be anyway. Sorry, see you, you're expecting one thing and now you've you set me in a whole new direction for a loop oh well, all right, very cool, so all right. There are a lot of cosmetics brands out there. Uh, why did people pick yours?

Speaker 2:

Well, I think what makes what makes Tinder unique is that we prioritize how beauty actually feels, not just how it looks. It's that sensorial experience that really is at the center of our brand, and that cooling sensation is what sets us apart, in my opinion. So the person wearing the products not only looks great, but they also feel great, and so, in that way, these products kind of give back to the person wearing them, which is not something you typically see. And you know why I started developing these products was because of some health issues I had as a result of being a workaholic.

Speaker 2:

To be frank, I've been an attorney for 20 years now. It's a very stressful job to have, and I neglected my health for a really long time and ultimately got pretty ill and I spent years having to, kind of, you know, put myself back together. But one of the good things that came out of that was wanting to create products that would help other people feel great, so that they can, you know, thrive in whatever they set out to do. Did you become an attorney when you were like 12?

Speaker 1:

that would help other people feel great, so that they can thrive in whatever they set out to do. Did you become?

Speaker 2:

an attorney when you were like 12? No, I started practicing.

Speaker 1:

I was a licensed attorney at age 24. And now you're full-time into Tinder Cosmetics. You've left that world.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I left my legal career. I'm not sure if it's forever, but at least for some time I left my legal career, you know at least. You know I'm not sure if it's forever, but you know at least for a time for some time. I left it in in March and so I've been working exclusively full time on building Tender Cosmetics because I felt like it really needed some dedicated time. When things started really ramping up, I just felt like Tender was gaining, like whatever was left over at the end of the day in terms of energy, so I just really wanted to take the time to give it my best.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, you put the script on it. That's hard to do and we're probably going to explore that here in a minute.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, totally.

Speaker 1:

Take a moment here, though define, you know, before we get into your journey, and kind of the metaphoric ties that you've cut to get where you are. How do you currently define success?

Speaker 2:

I think there are two ways that I define success.

Speaker 1:

I mean for me and a lot of people, especially a lot of the people that have been guests on your show, I'm sure, success means the freedom to spend your time the way you want to. That's one way I define success. But you know, I also know that you can't be successful, you know, on your own and help from other people is really key.

Speaker 2:

So success for me is also being able to help others discover their talents and help them along their journey in the same way that others have helped me. Well, tell me about your journey a little bit. And to achieve that success, what was kind of the biggest tie you've had to cut? Yeah, I think one of the contributing reasons that I think led me to neglect my health in the past is that I tied my identity solely to my legal career, and that's a tie that I had to cut because what that did was make me value myself, you know, only through my career accomplishments and I became kind of a one-dimensional person, which is probably not that exciting to be around and pretty harmful in the long run, because that investment, you know, of all my energy and my time into my legal career did not allow me to develop a system to value myself outside of work and that would have brought a lot more equilibrium, I think, and sustainability to that equation for me.

Speaker 2:

Having said that, I do think that a high degree of intensity is necessary at times, you know, particularly if you have a specific goal that you're trying to chase and you know being overweighted in your career is kind of part of that sacrifice you make to be successful. But I just don't think it's possible to operate in that gear forever without suffering some type of consequence. Um, you know, there's that expression like if your laptop is acting up, you know, go ahead and unplug it, and then when you plug it back in, it seems to work perfectly again. So I think you can, definitely can and should at times kind of go all in in your career, but you do have to also be set and sort of unplug, so to speak, to make sure your body, you know, and your mind can actually support, you know, your ambition.

Speaker 1:

Was your, was the? Was the career? First of all, acknowledge that. Yes, I struggle with this too. I think many people do struggle with the idea that your identity is not wrapped up in your work somehow and it is. I mean if you're separated and you're creating duality of life, and that's not healthy either. So it is part of the journey. It can't be the only part of the journey. But did you find that, that that definition of success back when you're an attorney and you're chasing it was? Was that something you defined or was that something parents or other influences were saying? That's what you should do.

Speaker 2:

Experience as an Asian American, especially one whose parents immigrated here in that, you know, I was sort of told what I was going to be when I grow up and I grew up in a culture where you don't really challenge that.

Speaker 2:

So from a very young age my parents wanted me to be a lawyer. So that's what I did and I didn't, you know, disagree with them. I said that sounds great, I'll do that. But it wasn't really sort of that self-selection to be an attorney. So when the pressure got really, really intense, I didn't sort of have that purpose to fall back on to keep me going, and that was a very challenging thing to deal with and sort of part of why wrapping myself up in this identity that wasn't really one I'd chosen for myself was a struggle. Not to sound ungrateful, I'm glad I'm a lawyer. It's been a really fruitful career for me and I really do enjoy it now. But when you didn't gravitate towards something, quite naturally because of your own personal interests, when the pressure comes, I think the way you cope and the way you manage it is really different.

Speaker 1:

Spot on. So when I coach work with entrepreneurs, the first thing we do on day one is a three P exercise, which is your, your passion, your potentials, your skills, and then you're the problem you solve. And if those three bubbles aren't of some size, you don't go there. You got to rethink one of them. And if your passion keeps shrinking, shrinking, shrinking, shrinking, and it doesn't matter how big your skills are, how big of a problem you solve, eventually you won't have a center to go after, uh, and your, your light and your eye direction will go someplace else, and and that's that's. That's a great thing, because then you're really kind of, you're moving to where you're supposed to have gone or where you're when you're supposed to go. So I I think it's very natural, um, but do you look? I guess mary's question is do you look? I guess Mary's question is do you look at it, as this happened for me or happened to me?

Speaker 2:

Oh, I never. I will never subscribe to the belief that life is happening to me. I firmly believe you have to have this sort of mental model in your mind that you're't want to happen. But if you adopt a mindset that it's happening to me, you take away the agency and the actual choices. You do have to sort of put things back on track. So yeah, I believe that there's a choice in every situation.

Speaker 1:

I mean especially set up a new company. I got the legal part. We're easy here, we're good, Don't need counsel on that one.

Speaker 2:

I've worked in-house primarily for most of my career as a lawyer, so just understanding how business operate, that was really helpful and it gave me a little bit of a leg up to kind of know what it's like to set up a company and then sort of know the different work streams involved in running a business. You know that's not something I would have had had I not worked in-house for years.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I mean you can draw upon the advantage of it. For sure that's a pretty good one. Because you're like I don't know, we're talking about a contract. I'll actually read it. It's like to us other layman's we just throw in the GPT and say, hey, what's wrong with it? Which is actually still pretty helpful for negotiation. But we'll take that on a different show.

Speaker 2:

GPT is great. You know, I'm not going to say I didn't do that.

Speaker 1:

I hired a attorney not so long ago for a fair credit reporting act issue that has popped up for me and we were negotiating the deal and I was like I put it in there and it came back with a whole strategy of how and I got, like you know know, a third instead of 48. I did this whole, I did and they, they took it. They even argue. I'm like, man, you guys, you guys got work anyway. I'm not sure I should hire you as an attorney at this point. I'm like you didn't even negotiate with me, so you're all right. Well, in your own journey, the health things were huge. A person without their health has but one dream, right, you know, and if you have, if you have it, you got a million. So, and not asking you to get into that as much, but it just you have the moment, everyone has it. Some people say it's over time. It's usually just one moment that you realize I'm making the move, I'm done.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, what was your moment.

Speaker 2:

It's really hard I think you would agree and others would agree. It's really hard to change the way that you value yourself. And it didn't happen for me, you know, in a single moment or overnight. It was kind of a long process to trying to discover who I am, when I'm not being a lawyer. But I do recall the first moment I realized that I had to be serious about changing things, even though I didn't really know exactly how I was going to do that. But it was when I was in the hospital the night before I had to have surgery and I remember saying a prayer, you know, that everything would go well and I promised myself that if everything did go well, I'm going to turn things around and you know I'm going to be. I'm going to be that laptop that gets unplugged for a bit so I could create a healthier life for myself.

Speaker 1:

Good for you and that I mean that's really a moment About to go on.

Speaker 2:

Renee, when you're punched in the face with your mortality you know it's true your entire perspective changes and all the things that were so important to you just seem so trivial and you just want to feel better. You don't want to be laying in a hospital bed. You know watching the world go by and people having you know amazing memories and experiences, and you're just laying here.

Speaker 1:

It's very sobering I don't want to go in the hospital. That's the sounds horrible. Uh, sure, extended, but you give it in and out.

Speaker 2:

Let's make that like a like a chick-fil-a speed, you know well, during my, during my journey in, in, in my health journey you know it was all during COVID, so I couldn't even have visitors and the entire time I was in the hospital I never saw a single face, because everyone was wrapped up in masks and goggles and face shields. It was like I wasn't human. You kind of felt like a science experiment in some ways.

Speaker 2:

I bet you wish you had some tender cosmetics to cool your shoes Well what's interesting is I I remember I would drag my body out of bed every morning just to put moisturizer on, because it made me feel human. It really made me feel human again, and that's something I kept coming back to when I was developing a company, about why I'm doing this and how it's important for people, especially during difficult times, to feel good about themselves.

Speaker 1:

We'll move forward. But I will tell you I don't wear makeup. But if I did, I wouldn't want plumper over my face because it burns. Just going to throw that out there. Cooling sounds better. Cooling lips on cheeks is much better than plumper burning a hole in the side of my cheek, yeah.

Speaker 2:

I think so too.

Speaker 1:

But cayenne pepper in the makeup should be flogged with a rubber chicken. There's one thing to know your journey and the tie you need to cut. And you got the moment. But then there comes the how. Yeah, and that's hardest, because it's commitment to a moment that's now fading.

Speaker 2:

It's like, oh, I'm OK, now Talk to me about your how in actually taking on even more things and adding more to my plate.

Speaker 2:

But what that did was help me diversify my identity and that's like a mantra I kind of live by now is to diversify my identity to see myself pursuing and actually enjoying things outside of the legal career I'd been, you know, so devoted to. So one example of something that I did was I became an emergency department volunteer at the hospital near me, and I show up every other Saturday morning at 6 am and my job was to make sure the staff had, like, all the medical supplies they needed, that there were enough wheelchairs at the entrance to help patients and that the nurse's stations were fully stocked. And it was a completely different exercise from what I'm used to doing day to day, but it was truly rewarding. And it was truly rewarding to see myself being fulfilled and successful at something different. And then, of course, the other you know big leap I took to diversify my identity was starting my business, and that's really kind of set me on a new course, both professionally and personally, that I'm pretty excited about.

Speaker 1:

Are you finding in your falling back the habits of you're going to go way too fast into the new thing and end up in the same spot?

Speaker 2:

No, I don't think I can ever allow myself to get to that point again. It was truly life altering to find myself, you know, unwell and unable to pursue the things that really brought me joy, and I mean I've got scars all over my abdomen to remind me every morning. You know about what happens when you don't take care of yourself. So I'm fairly confident that you know I'll be able to pursue sort of new endeavors with a much healthier sense of sort of equilibrium. Just the idea of you and being in the hospital again is quite upsetting when you've been there for a while. So I'm fairly confident I can keep things on track. Of course I have sort of a tendency to be a workaholic. It's my DNA. But I just got to keep reminding myself. It's a daily sort of exercise.

Speaker 1:

That's good. Scars are cool. If anybody doesn't know this, the more scars you have, the better story is yours Always About. Scars concern me. I don't know what they've been doing in their life. I mean, how have you not fallen off of one thing? Really, laudra Witch, you're anyway got in a knife fight. I don anyway got a knife fight.

Speaker 2:

I don't know no, you're right, you're right. That's actually so much more interesting, though, to have scars from a knife fight rather than scars from a story.

Speaker 1:

You can tell the story however you want. You gotta tell the rest of the story. You know it was a vicious night fight in hong kong. I was dizzy. All I wanted was a mexican food, which you can't fall right. Right anyways, I was looking for that atlanta barbecue down down hong kong.

Speaker 1:

Uh got a knife fight over a tri-tip steak right I can do this for hours but I'm not going to all right. What's been the impact? I mean, you've touched on a lot of it, but you know, maybe the impact not even just to yourself, to others around you.

Speaker 2:

You know just in life what's been your impact since I mean, the impact has reverberated just throughout everything that I that I do now. You know, when I stopped making my legal career, my entire personality, my entire identity, it really was as if these like blinders came off and I was actually able to see and appreciate all the world buzzing around me. You know, like nobody actually cares about this new company policy that I'm drafting and implementing, you know, but I was making it the most important problem on my plate and I would think of nothing else until it was like finished. And again, I'm not advocating against that level of, you know, dedication to your job, but it can't be, you know, at the cost of shutting out the life around you and the people you know who love you. That doesn't feel great. It doesn't set you up for sustainable success. That's another sort of mantra I repeat to myself is sustainable success.

Speaker 2:

And it was through that personal transformation that I discovered I wanted to develop products that would actually make you feel great and refreshed and that can help you start the day off with energy and with positivity, so that you can really accomplish the things that you want without, you know, sacrificing your well-being. And I think I also discovered that I really love expressing myself creatively and artistically, which is not something you get to do often when you're sort of just doing day-to-day legal work. But I get to do that now in designing my packaging, in creating photos and video content for my company and sort of managing the website and all sorts of e-commerce things that come with it. So I feel like it's helped me see and develop multiple dimensions of myself, which is not something that I could have done had I not gone through this experience.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I mean listen, I have so many questions. My little 10-year-old, since she's eight, has been selling light. We make her own all natural lip balm. We make stuff. She sells it at school and they told her she can't sell school, but she's like she got cash and even the family. I'll tell you right now, like that girl, like I'm serious, like she is, like she, she comes up with stuff. So I've already bought a deep braille for her to the natural entrepreneur.

Speaker 2:

That's amazing she.

Speaker 1:

She says she's learning from daddy and I'm like let me tell you all the stuff you shouldn't do. Um, watch what I'm doing and don't do any of that, and then no, I need an additional question to be a layer, if you'll take. It is uh, you touched about it just briefly and I wanted to come back was you can't do it alone and and so you talk to me about maybe the relationships around you that's been supportive, not there there that have formed sense. Like just because I think this is a part a lot of entrepreneurs get stuck in, is this I'm alone somewhere actually, and that's just. You're not going to go anywhere really, or it's very difficult, and now they just feel alone. You meet someone who is, who believes in you and can see skills and talents that you don't even recognize in yourself.

Speaker 2:

And so there was a period of time in my career in my mid-30s that I met an attorney who has truly changed my life in terms of helping me develop some of these roles that I never really considered would be part of my career because I just didn't think I had the pedigree for them or whatnot. So in my legal career certainly there have been very influential people like that who have basically sort of built the bridge for me to go from one role to the next. And I try to do that for up and coming attorneys as well, because I'm just so grateful and there are just some opportunities that I would never even have been able to apply for or even be considered for, even know existed without these people in my life. So I tried to pay it forward and continue to do that for the generation coming up behind me. And then I think in my current sort of endeavor as an entrepreneur, what's been extraordinarily inspiring is how much other entrepreneurs want to help other entrepreneurs. It's incredible. You know I was a bit scared to ask people for advice or help because you know they're busy or you know who is this annoying person trying to start a business asking me like really basic questions, but the level of sincere interest in trying to understand what I'm trying to build and helping me unpack some of the challenges that I'm coming up across, and you know what are some potential solutions and the appetite to help me through that for no cost, like they weren't charging me, you know, to kind of help me run through issues. They really really enjoyed problem solving and I think that's a common thread you see in entrepreneurs is that they truly enjoy the difficult things, the untying knots. You know something they really really thrive on whether it's a problem directed to their business or someone else's, they really want to help you figure it out. So that's been really really inspiring. Very surprising to me and they've been some.

Speaker 2:

There've been some difficult. You know just logistical things I had to work through in terms of you know ordering, you know plastic tubes and you know just logistical things I had to work through in terms of you know ordering, you know plastic tubes and you know formulating products and how many times we want to go back and do that and is it really worth the investment to do you know a, b or c versus x, y and z to get the right return. You know these are questions that I would sit alone when trying to wrangle my brain around, um, but the minute I would just sort of you know, casually mention it to another entrepreneur, they would say, okay, here's how, here's what I would do, here's how I would think about it, how about this, how about this, how about that? And it's amazing that that level of like collaboration that you don't even have to ask for, they just sort of dive in wanting to help you.

Speaker 2:

So I couldn't have gotten to where I am now with Tinder because I had no experience in the beauty industry or any connections whatsoever. I was just trying it on my own. But I couldn't have gotten to where I am without people just volunteering to help me solve some of these problems.

Speaker 1:

I love that and the reason I ask that question is because that move that you made is a whole new world in every aspect of it, and specifically the collaboration piece is because they've been through stuff and someone else has also helped brainstorm with them and entrepreneurs tend to have that slight touch of ADHD that goes for the association of ideas and you get a few that are in control, that can really help you. It's a good spot to be. There's a few that are like okay, just stop talking, because we're very good at giving advice, and sometimes we're like I didn't ask for any, but that's okay.

Speaker 2:

I mean because you but at that point you have to be careful too, because I'm a sponge and I want to hear everyone's perspective. I really do, because everyone's got a unique line of sight into solving a problem, based upon their career and what things they've seen and what things they've seen. But you can't let yourself get too far away from the DNA of your brand and the reasons why you started this brand and the purpose and the mission of the company. It's really easy, because you'll talk to someone who's been proven to be a successful beauty entrepreneur, for example, who's developed a multi-million dollar brand, and they're telling you to do these three things just seem really sort of unusual at this time, and so you really have to think okay, do I just do those three things or do I take a minute to think are these the right things for me to do at this stage?

Speaker 2:

In my company and I have a bias towards action I always want to just jump on the next thing, and when I come away from some of these meetings, I almost have an action item list and I think, okay, now I got to do these 10 things they told me to do, and I have to remind myself that I need to be a little bit more deliberative and actually work through each of those to make sure this is the right time to do it. You know the advice is sound, it's very good and they're proven to be successful. So I know it's good advice, but it might not be the right time for me.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I try to give some reflective points. Sometimes the audience are in. You know, take it if you want to. This is a big thing, as people give you information, capture it, and my background is AI and some other stuff around this. So before I became this, I was consulting on AI and intelligent automation.

Speaker 1:

So I say this with the idea that capture as much data as you can and about the person, their success, who they are, their lens, if you will and start putting it into a thing called a Google notebook LM, a private LM for yourself, a chat GPT for you, and just start putting your data in there, because you're going to forget about some of the stuff, and some of the stuff they're telling you is incredibly important, because they're five years down the road and they're like I wish I would have done this, but you're like I don't have the time for that.

Speaker 1:

They know that. But they're like, man, I wish I would have made the time for that, but you're like there's no way I'm doing that, and so, as you start thinking through that, then you can start asking this on your own LLM questions, like, hey, I want to stay on, that's going to get me off brand, or is this a business thing I should be doing now, and those two are usually the two decisions I ask. Is this something that gets me away from what I sell, do and solve? Or is this more of a setup for better success, scale and anyway? So capture it all, put it somewhere and go query it occasionally. You'll find that you'll. You'll really be happy you did that a year or two years I've never even considered doing that.

Speaker 2:

I think that's a really really good suggestion. Yeah, thank you for that Wow.

Speaker 1:

It's a way to scale your thinking, because you will not be able to keep up with it.

Speaker 2:

I have stuff scribbled on notes and they're literally like scattered all over my desk right now.

Speaker 1:

Just start putting into a note file and then you dump it in there or put it on your app and you just get a context and just put in and save it, save it, save it. It's very worse. Just put it in the chat. I recommend doing that because it's a lot to keep up on and there are a lot of gold nuggets. But you'll not see it with the rock encrusted around it, right? So the AI will start.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I love that. Thank you, thank you.

Speaker 1:

More work for you. Here you go, list of things to go do shit's a brain dump. Take all your stuff and brain dump it somewhere else and then, when you get stuck, go query it.

Speaker 2:

Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's a great idea.

Speaker 1:

I never heard of that. Well, I mean, hey, this is why I business coach people, right, I can show them how to spend their money. So well, no, this is free. Actually, what are you most grateful for?

Speaker 2:

I am most grateful, I guess, for being alive, first and foremost, good one. Someone I used to work with actually recently passed away from cancer, and she was really in the prime of her life, very joyful person. She brought a lot of positivity to the world and those tragedies, I think, make it really clear that you can't be wasting your time being unhappy or being stagnant. Everyone's been put on this planet for a reason or many reasons, and the journey is getting to discover what those reasons are. So I'm very thankful that I'm healthy now and I had this opportunity to have new experiences and just continue to learn new things. That's what I'm grateful for and just continue to learn new things.

Speaker 1:

That's what I'm grateful for.

Speaker 2:

Take our conversation and give a lawyer's closing statement of advice to the listener. Hmm, I would say my advice is to be more curious about yourself. More curious about yourself. Don't have a single track mind, but feel free and safe to explore the things you might be great at but just never thought was part of your story, and you don't have to turn like your current life upside down to do that. You know that's a scary thing to do and also not actually totally practical or feasible, depending upon know your circumstances.

Speaker 2:

But you can do it in small ways to. To start, you know, by taking on like a new hobby. The other day I was thinking I want to learn to tap dance. Um, and you can just learn how to do that on youtube and just try it and see how that changes how you feel about yourself and does it unlock some new, like newfound interest in expressing yourself through through movement. You know, um so things like newfound interest in expressing yourself through through movement. You know, um so things like that helps yourself in a different way, helps you see other people in a different way and I think it ultimately brings you closer to knowing who you are. So I think that would be just across the board advice.

Speaker 1:

I love it. You know the idea. The idea behind that is something that I think I see a lot. I've done it myself. Where it's you myself, where it's stagnant and you stop learning new things or trying new things. And we left the autobiography. But the other day I was like I wouldn't play tennis for the first time it sounds crazy in Atlanta, but I loved it. I'm like, oh gosh, this might ruin my relationship because I'm having too much fun and I might want to do this way too much, because anything worth doing is worth overdoing. Right and come on anyway.

Speaker 2:

Look, if you're an extremist, then you're in good company, because that's how I am. I'm like all in or not Do this.

Speaker 1:

My friend was like, don't go buy rackets. Like, oh, I'm going to buy three. Like, if there's not one, we've got to get backups right. Just because I get pissed and break one, we've got to.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Personally no.

Speaker 2:

That is crazy that you just discovered tennis and you live in Atlanta, because I feel like you can't drive more than half a mile without coming up across some tennis court somewhere.

Speaker 1:

A little backdrop. I played racquetball competitively through high school and college and I love racquet sports and I kind of got burned out on it for like 15 years. Then I got really fat and then I had gotten back in shape and and then I got hurt and then I was like you know, I don't want to play racquetball anymore. I I'll do it recreationally maybe, but I'm more likely to get hurt Cause anyway. So I was like I and all these people are complete tennis and they knew it. And I went and played and my one friend was like for your first day, you're pretty, you can really hit it like, well, I go once I get into this.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, my point being is on that list is also stand-up comedy. I've been talking about that. I'm gonna go do it. I'm gonna go find a place and go try it and and I'm like I shouldn't be, I'm on tv. The point being, you're making such a great point because it's like go, go, embarrass yourself, go try things, go do it, because that's where life happens and we're all guilty of saying till tomorrow, right oh yeah, I mean I recall my first vendor meeting when I was building this company and I'm so like embarrassed but also just I think it's very funny now when I look back.

Speaker 2:

I didn't, I didn't know like the terms of the trade, you know. So I would call things the thingy. I was like, how do I pour the formula into the thing that houses the product? And the lady was just confused because she didn't know what I was talking about. I didn't know the correct words to use. But you can't let that sort of embarrassment, you know, stop you. If you really want to do something, just do it. No one's going to that. That meeting was not recorded. No one's going to play it back for me to hear you just have to just bite the bullet and be like well, if I embarrass myself, that's fine as part of the process yeah, you should have recorded it, play it for yourself later, just when you you know you sell the company for 100.

Speaker 1:

You'd be like.

Speaker 2:

Let me show you my first meeting yeah, I don't even know what to call a tube.

Speaker 1:

I don't even know what you think of a jigger when you fill with stuff from that that's exactly what I was talking about. I was like call me, you can rub it on the face. What are you making exactly? All right, four rapid fire questions. Let's do this, okay, and I'm going to flip it, cause I usually use the positive going negative today, I don't know why. What is the worst business?

Speaker 2:

advice you've ever received oh, the worst business advice I've ever received. I mean, I understood what they were saying. It was to really do your research and homework before you start. And I understood what they were saying. I wanted to make sure, as someone who's not part of the beauty industry, I really need to understand the landscape. Um, and so they said, you know, make a business plan. Uh, research your competitors, read about the risks inherent in beauty.

Speaker 2:

You know one thing I do when I interview for for jobs or try to get to know a company if they're public, I read their form 10k and there's a whole section on on risks, and I really suggest that you know, really understand, what you're getting yourself into. And I don't think that was great advice, because I think when you're trying to start your own company, it's important, of course, to kind of know what you're getting into in a general sense, but start. So, if I flip the question around back, what was the best advice I got? It was to just start. Just start and the pieces will sort of fall into place.

Speaker 2:

You take the first step and then you take the next step and suddenly you're like, oh, wow, I'm actually doing this and it's really hard and it's very confusing and painful at times, but that's what it means to run a business. It's not this sort of romanticized idea of you sitting in your office and everything's going great. Everything's always falling apart. That's just the nature of running your own company. So I think that probably wasn't the best advice. I didn't take it, obviously.

Speaker 1:

I think there's a degree of personality in it too. Right, you should be learning the business all the time. But I agree with you, and we're probably on the same wavelength of extreme is just start, just go, and we'll you know, let's head south Off. We're heading to Florida. We don't need to plan everything. The idea is, though, focus on the problem that you're solving, and who cares what's the desperate problem you're going to solve and for whom? And if you got those two things together, the offer, the service, the product will come screaming at you of what you need to go build or do, and then it's just a question of well, how do I do that? And then that's just a question of well, how do I do that? And then that's that's when it kicks in.

Speaker 2:

That's when you do the research of, like, what product cools a face and send burnt the hole inside of my face, right and really, because now it's around a problem, it's around an adventure, a story it actually makes me kind of sad sometimes when I think about how many incredible ideas for new products and services are out there that someone has thought about but they never acted on, because they were just like waiting for the right moment. They're waiting for the right partner they were waiting for I don't know something to force them to do it. You know, there's just not a right time. You just gotta, you just gotta do it. And I, I, I just wonder how many wonderful ideas haven't been born yet. Someone's not ready, you know.

Speaker 1:

More than have made it out.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

See it kind of repeats in life, right, there's like a million things that go to one egg and it's like not everything survives, right. So, like that, one good idea I got through. So anyway, that's probably the same ratio. Life tends to repeat itself in math. Who gives you inspiration?

Speaker 2:

Oh, my parents. My parents give me a lot of inspiration. I would say you know about them. You may have incredible stories. My dad's actually written his memoirs. I wish my mom would too as well, because it's so, so unique. But they both left their home countries to experience the world. And they didn't have to leave, they just chose to take kind of a leap of faith and see what was on the other side, and I think that sense of adventure, sense of curiosity, is something that really inspires me.

Speaker 1:

I love that. It's beautiful. Not everybody can say that, Okay. So if somebody is about to go start, do you have a book, though you would say this is a good one to read first.

Speaker 2:

There are so many books. I mean I think I haven't quite found the book that gives me inspiration as an entrepreneur yet I like read several, but I haven't found one that was like this is the Holy Grail. But when I think back on my legal career, there definitely is a book that comes to mind. When I graduated from law school my dad gave me this book. It was called Nice Girls Don't Get the Corner Office and I really liked that book a lot because I'm people please their by nature and the book sort of talks about how that type of behavior, while very positive in day-to-day life, it doesn't really get you far in the professional world because people misinterpret that as weakness or incompetence. So that's a book I'd recommend just for people in their legal careers, especially women.

Speaker 1:

All right, Now exploring Pierce versus Post.

Speaker 2:

What is that?

Speaker 1:

Come on, it's like day one of law school Pierce versus Post Bucks get shot. You know what I have to tell you this.

Speaker 2:

I hated law school. I hated day one of law school. Pierce versus Post Bucks get shot. I have to tell you this I hated law school. I hated every second of law school. I got there and I was like what is this? My goal my whole life because my parents told me to be a lawyer was to get into law school. I just never even thought about what actually is taught in law school. And I got there and I found it so boring. And it's a struggle to get through.

Speaker 1:

I gotta pay back the law school loans but never got my jd. I'll leave it at that, okay. Okay, I was like doing payroll in the background. I don't say I'm running, I anyway. Another day over coffee I'll explain. Um, yeah, I was like who cares about this stuff? If you had to start over today, where in your timeline, where would you go and what would you do differently?

Speaker 2:

this is a very, almost like, difficult question for me to answer because I actually wouldn't do anything differently, and I'm sure you get that response. But I wouldn't do anything differently. All the good parts, all the bad parts, all the painful parts make up your life story. You know, maybe I wouldn't, maybe I wouldn't have like permed my hair when I was nine because I looked like a poodle in some of these photographs. Like maybe that. But in terms of like decisions, in terms of you know, when you reach a fork in the road and you take the road less traveled or whatnot, like, I wouldn't change any of those decisions, even if they turned out you know to think it's part of my story.

Speaker 1:

This was a. This is one of those weird person I test you had said everything happens for me. You just confirmed it. Um the uh. Actually only about two people out of a few hundred interviews have ever said that and truly the best answer anyone's ever given though, though that is a great one. It's a, it's a life and no regrets was. I wish I would have gotten a black coffee instead of a latte. And he said but I'm gonna correct that right after this.

Speaker 2:

And he said but I'm gonna correct that right after this.

Speaker 1:

It's pretty damn good answer right there next present in the moment. So if there's a question, I should have asked you today I didn't.

Speaker 2:

What would that question have been? It would be where can you purchase tender cosmetics? It's coming next you have that one coming so all the answer is tender dash cosmeticscom, but if you want something, I guess more.

Speaker 1:

I mean, I like she was, that's a pretty good, no, meaningful, it didn't.

Speaker 2:

I would say maybe the question she asked me but didn't is when do I see myself in 10 years? Is where do I see myself in 10 years? And the answer is I can't think of like a specific role or like a specific scenario that I want to be experiencing in 10 years, but I just hope that I'm happy, I hope that I'm healthy and I hope that I'm doing things and spending time, you know, with people that appreciate and love me.

Speaker 1:

I was going to ask you really actually about the safari you're going on here tomorrow, so give me, give me the two minutes on the safari, cause you've talked about doing different things. You've left that one off. That's a pretty cool one. That's beyond tap dancing.

Speaker 2:

It is. We're still coming back to that, though, yeah, so I just uh, I've always wanted to go on safari, and now that I'm my own boss and I make my own schedule, I can actually make it happen. Um and so Kenya is the destination. I heard that was the place to see the most diverse sort of range of animals, and, uh, I'm a little scared because I had to get like three vaccines and I'm taking these anti-malarials. I just hope I come back alive without some, you know, deathly illness. But, yeah, I think it's going to be fun. I think I think nature is healing. I think watching animals in the wild just survive and and and live the way I think God intended all creatures to live is profound, and so I'm really looking forward to feeling, you know, changed by that experience. I hope I will be.

Speaker 1:

I can't imagine you wouldn't be, and hopefully for the more positive. And I do hope you come back with great skin, because it really is going to wreck your brand if they can't use your face. You're like I went to after and I didn't. We'll change the story at that point. Shameless plug time for you. Uh, who should get a hold of you? How do they do it?

Speaker 2:

um, anyone who wants to learn about more, learn more about tender cosmetics, anyone who wants to, uh, consider a career pivot, or who's starting business. I love to talk with people like that because I find it very encouraging. It kind of keeps me going when I'm sort of surrounded by people who are kind of in the same world as I am now. And you can find me on LinkedIn. I have a personal Instagram it's underscore, linglingme underscore and then my business Instagram is tendercosmetics and you can sort of follow the brand, follow what we're launching, all the different campaigns we're doing on Instagram.

Speaker 1:

Well, thank you so much for taking a few moments of your day with me.

Speaker 2:

Thank you very much. This was really great. I really enjoyed it.

Speaker 1:

Appreciate it and anybody who's still here. Thank you for being here and making it to this part of the show. If this is your first time here, I do hope it's the first of many, and if you've been here before, thanks for coming back. Get out there, go cut a tie to something holding you back, but first define.

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Thomas Helfrich

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