Throughout my career, there has always been a black woman who had pulled me into her room.
Let me explain.
In 2014, I was invited to be included in a Cosmopolitan Magazine feature that ran online and in their physical magazine titled "4 Fierce Top Fashion Bloggers You Need To Know". On the day of the photoshoot, I walked into NYC's Cosmo Studios excited to be included.
The first thing I noticed were fully-stocked tables of jewelry and accessories that aligned one wall, rows of shoes in every color and pattern along another. The once bare, all-white room, was now vibrant and in full-effect.
The second thing I noticed was that I was the only black blogger involved in the shoot.
Shiona Turini, most known for her styling of Beyonce, HBO's Insecure, and the movie, Queen & Slim, was the reason I landed that spot in Cosmo's May 2014 issue. They were featuring bloggers, and she said, "We have to get a black girl!"
That black girl was me.
Another example is when I was contacted by The Wing in West Hollywood to be a panel expert for their Pitch Perfect event. Up until the event, I had no idea how I ended up on The Wing's radar, but I found out later that Shauna-Kay Campbell from their sponsor brand Pantene advocated for me to participate. When I arrived, she was chilling with a Howard U shirt on. A black woman at the event of a $1 billion company, representing an HBCU. I had never met her before in my life.
Tamisha Harris was responsible for showcasing me on "The Career Crossover" special which aired on HLN/CNN this past Sunday. She's a black woman at a major network that was in a position to highlight women like me, on a mainstream platform where there are so many who aren't familiar with who I am.
I share all of this to say, that as much as I thrive within Black Girl Magic environments, that magic often returns to me as opportunities that I wouldn't otherwise have access to.
My Cosmo photoshoot introduced me to households of a new audience that I hadn't reached before. Pantene allowed me to rub elbows with women who have raised 100+ million dollars in funding. My HLN special was aired on one of the largest media outlets and will be shown in airports throughout the country for the rest of the year.
As a black woman, I stand in full appreciation. Black women brought me to the table for these moments, and I'm in a position where I'm trying to be more intentional in, not only making room for us at these tables, but bringing us directly to them as well.
Data journalist, Sherrell Dorsey, recently shared this tweet that I'm loving at the moment:
Yes, sis.
We're only as successful as those we motivate. Let's purposefully seek moments that allow us to pull up other women to share our light—whether we have an invitation or not.
xo,
Featured image via CNN/HLN
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Skylar sees things differently. At the time, she was shooting content on her iPhone. Temi came into the picture with a new perspective, an understanding of tech, and, eventually, a camera. “He doesn't give himself enough credit,” Skylar says. “He wasn't just my tripod. He wasn't just standing behind the camera and going ‘click.’ He was giving advice. He was giving me insight to how I could look at things from a different perspective. And I was like, 'Oh, he’s an artist.' I think it was maybe a heartbeat of that kind of energy of like, ‘Baby, can you take this picture?’ And it turned so quickly into, we're partners. We can work together in a way where we're advancing each other's creative thinking.”
The pair often says they’re two sides of the same coin. Skylar is an Aquarius. She attended art school, paints, and loves poetry. She’s more than happy to let the couple’s management firm and agency, Kensington Grey, handle their admin work. And, she loves to sleep in. Temi, on the other hand, wakes up early. He’s a Virgo. He loves a to-do list and regularly checks in on the couple’s brand partnerships spreadsheet to make sure everything is on track.
Because his storytelling was steeped in his love of technology, he didn’t always think of himself as a creative person. “Where I [am] the dreamer who wants to pluck things out of the sky and spend all day with my head in the clouds, Temi [is] so good at grounding me and helping me figure out how to make things make sense on paper. We just work together in such a complimentary way,” Skylar says.
It’s been more than six years since Brooklyn-based couple Temi and Skylar started dating, and nearly four since they cemented their working relationship. On TikTok and Instagram, the couple’s travel, fashion, and home content regularly rack up hundreds of thousands of views. They’ve worked with brands such as Coach, Aesop, Away, and Liquid IV, bringing their vibrant perspectives to every campaign they execute. Still, nearly two years since both Temi and Skylar committed to full-time content creation and creative directing, the couple says their romantic connection remains their priority.
“We told each other we would much rather go back to full-time jobs and preserve our relationship than to be full-time freelancers, barely getting a night's rest [and] barely kissing each other because we're so busy shooting,” Skylar says.
Working from home can make it hard to separate work from personal life for any entrepreneur. It can be even more challenging when your business partner is also your lover. Temi and Skylar had already used couples therapy as a tool to help them effectively communicate with one another. When they ran into challenges while working together, their therapist helped them set physical boundaries to help combat the issues.
"We told each other we would much rather go back to full-time jobs and preserve our relationship than to be full-time freelancers, barely getting a night's rest [and] barely kissing each other because we're so busy shooting."
“It actually took us doing very specific physical things to create boundaries between work and play in our relationship,” Skylar says. “So, for instance, we will only have conversations about work when we're out of bed or we're at the table or in the office. Initially, when we started, we had to light a candle to say that, 'Okay, this is a space where we're connecting, we’re not talking about work.' We needed really hard boundaries at the top. And then it became a little bit more organic.”
The boundaries have been crucial to implement, especially because the couple began working together so naturally. When the pair first met, Skylar was NY-based a social strategist for BuzzFeed and was using content creation to drive business to her lingerie company. She was shooting her own content. Temi was working for Microsoft in D.C. He’d recently traded in his DJing equipment for a camera. “I've always loved taking pictures,” he says. “Even when I was a kid, my African mother would wake me up at 3:00 a.m. [during a] party, and be like, 'Come take the family picture.'”
Growing up, Temi says he watched his parents support each other and be the true definition of partners. He knew he wanted the same for his own relationship. But, the couple also wanted to make sure they were being financially responsible. The pair didn’t quit their traditional jobs until they’d saved up two years' worth of their cost of living. And, Temi received his Master of Business Administration from New York University with the knowledge that it could either help him advance in his corporate career or be applicable to his business with Skylar.
Temi and SkylarCj Hart @hartbreakToday, they say their working relationship is more of a “quiet dance.” They still implement some of the boundaries they learned in therapy, but they also lean into their natural strengths and deep love for one another. When we speak, Temi has planned a date for the couple to see Princess Mononoke in 4K IMAX and added it to their Notion so they can factor it into their busy schedules. “I fully plan to date for the rest of my life,” he says.
Skylar says the couple doesn’t just wait for date nights to check in with one another, though. This often happens in the mornings, after Temi has made her peppermint tea and poured himself a cup of coffee. When they ask each other how they slept, she says, it’s not just a “nicety.” It’s a genuine question meant to foster connection.
“A lot of it happens during the day in the midst of work. We'll stop and we'll hug. Or we’ll slow dance in the kitchen,” she says. “Sometimes it's hard to set a whole date night when you have 7,000 things going on. So, we must grasp these moments and check in when we can. And I think it's become so organic to us that I actually didn't even realize how often we do it. But all day long, we're like, 'Are you good? I felt like your energy shifted,' because we're best friends, we just know. We just feel it happen.”
What’s better than being in love? Building wealth while doing it. Watch Making Cents here for real stories of couples who make money moves together.
Featured image by Cj Hart @hartbreak