In xoNecole's Finding Balance, we profile boss women making boss moves in the world and in their respective industries. We talk to them about their business, their life, and most of all, what they do to find balance in their busy lives.
The moment Karen Civil and I got into the questions, she said "Whew, I'm about to be 100% real with you. Let's go," and I knew there was no turning back.
Karen Civil is a woman who needs no introduction — from her countless businesses, to being a certified game-changer in the hip-hop industry, Civil is a name and face you absolutely know. Many say she's "self-made" (though Civil definitely gives shoutouts to her amazing team), and for countless women, Civil is perhaps one of the first or leading examples of a female powerhouse in what has conventionally been a male-dominated arena.
Karen is also one who needs no warm up to get to her point — she jumps in head first. The first few minutes of our conversation, I found myself receding, feeling like Karen was coming in a little hot on our late night call. Immediately, I realized that I was suffering from the very disease society has taught women, and Black women especially. I was operating out of discomfort to see a woman who was fully unapologetic in her approach and the facts she was going to spit, a woman who many could term "aggressive" or "demanding" or even "scary."
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I realized that Karen was in fact none of those things, she just knew what she was going to say and wasn't going to take the scenic route to say it, and it made me wonder why we have silenced countless women before for the same thing. That's a lesson I learned right then and there, one of understanding that a woman can be confident and say what's on her mind. Point. Blank. Period.
In this installment of xoNecole's Finding Balance series, the media maven talks health, spirituality, time management, and most importantly how to walk in your highest purpose and calling.
What does an average day look like for you?
For everything a little bit changes, but there's Always Civil. That's my marketing and branding agency. We have various clients. I'm really proud of the clients that I have right now, which is Russ. Russ is getting ready to drop his project. I have London On Da Track. I have YG, Teyana Taylor, and so many more. We do activations for people, so I just helped James Harden with his James Harden weekend. That was a big moment. I'm starting to do some work with Kamaya that I'm really excited about. That's one aspect of it.
Obviously, we have the Karen Civil brand, which is all things entertainment. I have a great team set in place that's self-sufficient and it runs. I'll peek my head in. I have Live Civil, which is all things empowering, and all things motivating. I have a team for that. I peek my head in. I have the True Women brand, which is our number one vegan based bar on Amazon. We recently launched that a few months ago, so that's something that's not in the hip hop or entertainment space. It's something that's totally different. It's very health conscious. I have a lot. I've taken a lot of calls. I'm handling the schedules, making things happen. In between meetings, because I work with other brands from Louis Vuitton to XYZ, then I'm an influencer myself. I'm a lady who wears many hats and I'm living my life that I set forth for myself. Every day is a little bit different.
Karen Civil/Instagram
How do you find time to balance all your hats?
It's that time management. I make sure I put the energy and time in what needs to be done. I have a great team around me that helps elevate and execute, because that's really what it's about. It's not me just shining. It's the people around me helping us shine together. I make sure that the clients that I work with are all like, they really want it, so I don't have to chase behind and beg and plead. So, it works.
What is the most hectic part of your week? What obstacles pop up since you are juggling so many things?
The hectic things are, you know, you have very rambunctious clients. You have people who are outspoken, so I continue walking through TSA and in four minutes, I'm looking at my phone like "What the hell is this, World War III on social media?" Sometimes, I wish people would allow me to do my job and give me a minute. Then, a lot of people I have relationships with want you to be there and you can't be there for everybody. You can't be at every single event. When you're up in one place, you're down in another. If I'm at this event making sure this person is right, I try to make sure this person is well too, but it's about managing and balancing my times. I still make it work. I do it with a smile on my face and I try to give them the best effort I can to make them feel even when I'm not there that they feel Karen's presence and she still made it happen.
What does self-care look like for you?
Listen, I'm very spiritual. I'm very spiritual when it comes to that self-care. I get reiki healing, I light my candles in my home, I sage. I need the energy to be right. I pray to my God. I follow the Muslim prayer, so it's like I'm at 4:56, 12:54, 4:33, 7:24, and 8:47. I am on my rugs, I am praying to the east, and I am talking to God. That's important for me. I'm blessing my food before I eat it.
"I'm just making sure I incorporate God through my whole day."
I don't care what I'm doing. I will excuse myself so I can go pray. People understand that, they don't take offense to that. I do my healings, I light my spiritual candles. I'm just trying to make sure that in a world that honestly feels like they don't want me to belong in an industry that is trying to break me, that God continues to keep me whole and my spirit feels intact. I just got to give all glory to God and ask him to remove. Please remove the negative people in my life who are not supposed to be there. I pray for my friends and things of that nature. I've got a therapist who I will see and I lay on the couch. At the end of the day, my mental health is more important than anything else.
How do you find balance with friendship?
Listen, I realized I did quantity over quality and then people's true colors started to come out. Now, more than anything, I reversed it. It is all about quality and not quantity, because people will burn you out. Especially being in Los Angeles. They pretend they are for you when the objective and the motive is to align... It's like spaghetti to the wall. They want to stand with whatever sticks. People want to stand in your light. Now I have a great tribe of women around me who believe in me, who uplift me, and guess what? We uplift each other, so I'm good in that space. God has helped me gravitate all these wonderful people around me that I can call friends, that I can call sisters, that are part of my tribe.
Do women find balance or do you have to settle?
When it comes to my life... I'm not settling. I'm not settling in a personal relationship, I'm not settling in my business, because I want more for myself. More than anything now, we are in a day and age where they respect [women of color] and they are listening to us. We are running the boardrooms. Forbes said we are listed as the fastest growing entrepreneurs. You think I'm not running around with my invisible cape and knowing what I'm capable of? Ain't nobody going to diminish my light. You will never diminish my life.
"Ain't nobody going to diminish my light. You will never diminish my life."
How do you find balance with love and relationships? Do you even have time to date?
I did a public relationship and I embarrassed myself. You know why? Because I wanted to pretend to have it all. And that was my fault because I wanted girls to know you could have a career and a man, and you can do this and you can support him, and you can do everything else. I knew he wasn't right for me but I cared more about what social media thought because I wanted people to be like, "Oh, perfection," and this and that. That's where I failed myself and I failed the audience and the people who believe in me because that relationship was a sham and a lie. Now, more than anything, I am dating. I'm in a great place. I have people who appreciate me, who understand me, and who want the best for me. It's me and us. It's not me, us, and social media.
How do you find balance between your sanity and haters?
People will diminish your light before you even get to turn it on. No sir, no sir. I pay my light bill on time every month. You will not have me in the dark, you will not dim nothing over here unless it's some dim sum and we eating. Nothing over here will be dim. Nothing. I walk in purpose and I walk in light. I'm not dimming down nothing.
How do you find balance in your life with exercise, health, eating?
I have an incredible chef who helps me stay on my diet. My trainer. He is like everything. His name is James Banks and James will be like like, "Karen, let's get it together. Let's get you where you need to be." From training and everything to train, [if] you want change, James is it.
When you are going through a bout of uncertainty, when you're feeling stuck, when you're hitting obstacles and whatever else, how do you handle it?
Oh, I'm got my female tribe. I talk to God, I pray to Him on it to give me clarity. I write it down. I write my thoughts down just to make sure I'm not missing anything. Then, I have my tribe of women that I talk to to help guide and understand me. Those are my three things to provide that balance and to make sure that I'm making the right things. I never want to make a decision out of a heated argument or just in the moment.
What does success mean to you ?
Success to me is living in purpose. This society and this world when it comes to people of color, the race was not set up for us to win. Not being afraid of failure, not letting it hinder or dictate where you see yourself. That is success. I don't put a monetary value on it because when you're chasing your purpose and you're chasing your goals, that comes with it.
"Success to me is living in my purpose."
Success is looking my momma in the eyes and knowing I got her a house, you know what I mean? Success is knowing that I'm able to create opportunities for the people around me. Waking up happy knowing I'm living the life that I chose for myself.
For more of Karen, follow her on Instagram. Also be sure to check out some of the other amazing ladies we've featured in our Finding Balance series by clicking here.
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The seeds for these entrepreneurs were planted during their time as students at schools like Spelman, North Carolina A&T, and more, which is why xoNecole caught up with Look Good Live Well’s Ariane Turner, HBCU Buzz’s Luke Lawal and Morehouse Senior Director of Marketing and Comms and Press Secretary Jasmine Gurley to highlight the role their HBCU roots play in their work as entrepreneurs, the legacy they aim to leave behind through the work that they do, and more as a part of Hyundai’s Best In Class initiative.
On Honoring HBCU Roots To Create Something That Is For Us, By Us
Ariane Turner
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When Ariane Turner launched Look Good, Live Well, she created it with Black and brown people in mind, especially those with sensitive skin more prone to dryness and skin conditions like acne and eczema.
The Florida A&M University graduate launched her business to create something that addressed topical skin care needs and was intentional about its approach without negative terminology.
Turner shared that it is important to steer clear of language often adopted by more prominent brands, such as “banishing breakouts” or “correcting the skin,” because, in reality, Turner says there is nothing wrong with the way that our skin and bodies react to various life changes.
“I think what I have taken with me regarding my HBCU experience and translated to my entrepreneurial experience is the importance of not just networking,” Turner, the founder and CEO of Look Good, Live Well, tellls xoNecole.
“We hear that in business all the time, your network is your net worth, but family, there’s a thing at FAMU that we call FAMU-lee instead of family, and it’s very much a thing. What that taught me is the importance of not just making relationships and not just making that connection, but truly working on deepening them, and so being intentional about connecting with people initially, but staying connected and building and deepening those relationships, and that has served me tremendously in business, whether it’s being able to reach back to other classmates who I went to school with, or just networking in general.”
She adds, “I don’t come from a business background. As soon as I finished school, I continued with my entrepreneurial journey, and so there’s a lot of that traditional business act and the networking, those soft skills that I just don’t have, but I will say that just understanding how to leverage and network community and to build intentional relationships is something that has taken me far and I definitely got those roots while attending FAMU.”
On Solving A Very Specific Need For The Community
Luke Lawal Jr.
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When Luke Lawal Jr. launched HBCU Buzz, his main focus was to represent his community, using the platform to lift as they climbed by creating an outlet dedicated to celebrating the achievements and positive news affecting the 107 historically HBCUs nationwide.
By spotlighting the wonderful things that come from the HBCU community and coupling it with what he learned during his time at Bowie State University, Lawal used that knowledge to propel himself as an entrepreneur while also providing his people with accurate representation across the internet.
“The specific problem in 2011 when I started HBCU Buzz was more so around the fact that mainstream media always depict HBCUs as negative,” Lawal says. “You would only see HBCUs in the mainstream media when someone died, or the university president or someone was stepping down. It was always bad news, but they never shed light on all the wonderful things from our community."
So, I started HBCU Buzz to ensure the world saw the good things that come from our space. And they knew that HBCUs grew some of the brightest people in the world, and just trying to figure out ways to make sure our platform was a pedestal for all the students that come through our institutions.”
“The biggest goal is to continue to solve problems, continue to create brands that solve the problems of our communities, and make sure that our products, our brands, our companies, and institutions are of value and they’re helping our community,” he continues. “That they’re solving problems that propel our space forward.”
On How Being An HBCU Alum Impacts The Way One Shows Up In The World
Jasmine Gurley
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Jasmine Gurley is a proud North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University alum. She is even more delighted with her current role, which enables her to give back to current HBCU students as the Senior Director of Brand Marketing and Communications and official press secretary at Morehouse College.
“It was a formative experience where I really was able to come into my own and say yes to all the opportunities that were presented to me, and because of that, it’s been able to open the doors later in life too,” says Gurley of her experience at North Carolina A&T. “One thing I love about many HBCUs is that we are required to learn way more about African American history than you do in your typical K through 12 or even at the higher ed level."
She adds, “It allowed us to have a better understanding of where we came from, and so for me, because I’m a storyteller, I’m a history person, I’m very sensitive to life in general, being able to listen to the stories and the trials that our ancestors overcame, put the battery pack in my back to say, ‘Oh nothing can stop me. Absolutely nothing can stop me. I know where I came from, so I can overcome something and try anything. And I have an obligation to be my ancestors’ wildest dreams. Simultaneously, I also have a responsibility to help others realize that greatness.
Gurley does not take her position at an HBCU, now as a leader, lightly.
“People think I’m joking when I say I’m living the dream, but I really am,” she notes. “So I wake up every day and know that the work that I do matters, no matter how hard it might be, how frustrating it may be, and challenging it. I know the ripple effect of my work, my team, and what this institution does also matter. The trajectory of Black male experiences, community, history, and then just American advancement just in general.”
On the other hand, through her business, Sankofa Public Relations, Gurley is also on a mission to uplift brands in their quest to help their respective communities. Since its inception in 2017, Sankofa PR has been on a mission to “reach back and reclaim local, national, and global communities by helping those actively working to move” various areas of the world, focusing on pushing things forward for the better.
“Through Sankofa, we’ve worked with all different types of organizational brands and individuals in several different industries, but I would think of them as mission-based,” says Gurley.
“So with that, it’s an opportunity to help people who are trying to do good in the world, and they are passionate about what they’re doing. They just need help with marketing issues, storytelling, and branding, and that’s when my expertise can come into play. Help them get to that moment where they can tell their story through me or another platform, and that’s been super fulfilling.”
Join us in celebrating HBCU excellence! Check out our Best In Class hub for inspiring stories, empowering resources, and everything you need to embrace the HBCU experience.
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