Show Transcript

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I want to ask you right off the bat, what do you need to hear today?

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Could you use some inspiration from somebody who figured out how to turn pain into purpose?

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What about a story of a woman who went from being hurt to hosting healing retreats?

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And what about a story of that same woman who went from being homeless to housing

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and helping other women?

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And of course, I couldn't fail to mention the fact that this woman,

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the Inspirational Beauty Boss, she's going to teach you what it means to be walking in your faith.

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You are about to meet the absolutely incredible Takiyah LaShawn,

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a woman who is going to blow your mind at her level of positivity,

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at her incredible story of the challenges she's overcome,

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the challenges she still overcomes.

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And yet she is here today with a mission to inspire and empower you.

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My friend, I welcome you to episode 292.

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What's up, my friend? And welcome to Grit, Grace, and Inspiration.

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I am your host, Kevin Lowe. 20 years ago, I awoke from a life-saving surgery

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only to find that I was left completely blind.

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And since that day, I've learned a lot about life, a lot about living, and a lot about myself.

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So in here on this podcast, I want to share those insights with you because

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friend, if you are still searching for your purpose, still trying to understand why,

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or still left searching for that next right path to take, we'll consider this

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to be your stepping stone to get you from where you are to where you want to be.

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So listen, I'm putting the PSA out there. It is not too late for you to still

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Find all details and information inside of today's show notes.

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So the Inspirational Beauty Bots is a moniker. It's a name that I go by to describe

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myself. And that came about.

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Maybe about four or five years ago, when people started asking me, you know, what do you do?

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And I kind of would freeze up, not because I didn't want to tell people what

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I did, but God has put my hands to so many amazing things that narrowing it

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down, it was almost like giving that 60 second elevator pitch.

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And so I had to come up with something that encompass everything that I am, that explains it all.

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So the inspirational beauty boss is exactly who I am and what I do.

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I have been in the beauty industry for the last 14 years.

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I'm an entrepreneur with my own line of salons and spas. And I also have launched

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my own brand of beauty products.

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So in the beauty industry, I'm an entrepreneur. So that's where the boss part comes from.

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And then the inspirational part is everything that that ties into that.

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It's the foundation and it's the platform of who I am.

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I use every bit of what I've come from and what God has brought me through.

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And he's blessed me to turn that into business, into entrepreneurship.

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And it's my purpose and it's my calling. And I just for years heard so many

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people say, you're so inspiring.

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You're so inspiring. You inspire me. What you're doing is inspiring.

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So I became the Inspirational Beauty Boss.

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I love it. That is a amazing title to have.

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I think any of us would be proud of that. And so, well, that was really amazing,

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the story behind that, because my next question is trying to figure out where it all began.

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Where does your story, your journey begin that kind of leads up to becoming

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this Inspirational Beauty Boss? Take me back to earlier years and give me an

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idea of where it all begins.

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Yeah, good question. So where my foundation begins would be in my childhood.

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I am not only a survivor and overcomer and a thriver of abuse.

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I have encountered pretty much every form of abuse that there is to have mental,

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emotional, physical, psychological and sexual abuse. And so those are things

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that where my the root of my story starts.

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And I endured many of those things in my childhood and on through my teen years,

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young adult years, and even things that God is still healing me through and

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teaching me to overcome now.

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And that foundation is where my story began.

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It's things that on the outside to the exterior were things that people would

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look at and go, wow, that should have took you out.

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Those things going through not one, not two, but many traumas are things that

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you should have lost your mind.

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You maybe should not be here. Just by statistics, God has allowed me to overcome those things.

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And he taught me to turn that pain into purpose.

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And I had to determine very early on, and I say early on because I knew before

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leaving my parents home, which was the birthplace of the trauma,

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the dysfunctional family.

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I knew very odd that I was not going to allow what I was going through to dictate

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who I was going to become.

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OK, I knew that I did not want to allow the pain of my past to be something

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that I use as an excuse in life to have this self-pity or look down on myself.

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I knew that I wanted more out of my life.

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I knew that when I became a parent, I was going to be the best version of myself that I could be.

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And I also learned very quickly that once I turned that pain into a purpose

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to help other people, because that's where I found my healing and I'm still

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on that healing journey. But that's where I found joy.

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I found joy in linking arms with other women and other people that had come

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from situations where doing things like I was in showing them that,

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you know, hey, I went through that as well.

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But I'm not letting that dictate who I am.

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I'm gonna take that and I'm actually gonna flip it upside down and I'm gonna

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step on that and I'm gonna use that as my platform to propel me into my purpose.

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And as the years went on, I started to turn that purpose into passion and that

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passion into profit, P-R-O-F-I-T.

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And so that's how this became who I have become.

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Hmm. Incredible. I listened to you.

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And the next question I have to ask is, where do you get this,

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this mindset, this amazing, I mean, boss woman spirit?

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Did it come from a role model? Or is this just you through and through?

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Wow. I think I certainly have role models, but in this sense of the term, it's who I am.

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I would say I love how you put that me through and through. It's my heart and

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my heart is rooted in my faith.

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Going through the things that I did, I went through a lot of trauma.

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I had a lot of setbacks. I had a lot of questions.

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God, why and how come? And there was this hurt and this pain and anger.

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But when I really found my relationship and my faith in Christ and with God,

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God loved on me and showed me how to heal those things.

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And he showed me his love and in showing me his love, that did something to my heart.

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And it caused me to have a heart to see people the way that he sees people,

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even in all their brokenness and their mess and their hurt and their trauma.

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I have a heart to see people.

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And so it's just who I am because God is in me and God is love.

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And I also determined I came from some of that abuse that was verbal abuse.

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I was told consistently in my childhood that I would never be anything,

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that I would not amount to anything,

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that I would just turn out to be the single mother on welfare,

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all of these things that I was still a child and didn't even really know what I was being told.

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But again, my mindset, I just knew I'm not those things.

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I'm not going to be those things. I'm going to prove people wrong and show them

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that I am something, that I do have value. you.

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And so I adopted that mindset that the only person that I have to compete with is myself.

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And each day I strive to be a better version of myself. And so it's not, I'm not this superhero.

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I go through things every day. I'm human. Like I tell people,

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you cut me, I'm going to bleed red, just like the next person.

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So I have emotions and feelings and things as well. But I just simply have a

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mentality of, I will not quit.

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I'm not built to quit. I don't know what that means. It's not in me.

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And I believe for me, having children helped to further that because I have

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these lives that I'm responsible for, not just myself.

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So I just never adopted a mentality of, I'm going to quit or give up.

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And while those things that were said to me were intended to put me down,

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they were things that I actually took and said, I'm going to prove you wrong. And I did that.

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You talk a lot about your faith. Where did that begin for you,

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your journey with faith?

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My journey with faith began when I was about 21 years old, 2021 years old.

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I was eight months pregnant with my first child, my daughter,

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and that was, gosh, she's 26 now.

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She's almost 27, which is crazy because I feel like I'm still 25.

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I was eight months pregnant with her.

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She was in in my womb, and I was working as a child care provider at a daycare.

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And the woman that owned the daycare, she invited me to her church.

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And that was my first experience.

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I didn't grow up in church. I didn't grow up in a household where we went to

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church or we talked about God or anything like that.

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So fast forward to me being 20, 21 years old, someone invites me to church and I go.

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And I just remember being encompassed by such this feeling and this desire and

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this drive to accept Christ when the altar call, when it was offered that,

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you know, ask Christ to come into your life.

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I just felt like that was the right thing to do. And I did it.

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And that was the entrance of my walk in faith.

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It took many years to get to the place where I've learned earned relationship

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and cultivating, you know, my faith with God.

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But it was started in that moment when my daughter was, I was eight months pregnant

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with my daughter in the womb and the belly.

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And so now, like I said, that was almost 27 years ago. Yeah.

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Amazing. Wow. Now my next question is before I have us kind of move forward in your, in your story,

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you sound like obviously Obviously, the home that you grew up in was not,

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and I'm just going to assume,

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a loving home, an encouraging home.

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How did you make it not turn out to be what they told you you would be, that mother on welfare?

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How do you feel like you didn't fall victim to your circumstance and instead

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broke outside of it? Yeah.

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So I'm smiling as you say that because I don't know that anybody has ever actually

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asked me that so poignantly.

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And I'm smiling so big because the first thing that comes to mind is I'm stubborn.

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If we want to sum it up in a ball, in a nutshell, I'm stubborn.

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I am going to prove you wrong.

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I am going to prove you that I'm not the negative things. I wouldn't say I'm

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competitive, but I have always been someone that's like.

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If you tell me I can't do that, I'm going to show you I can do it.

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And if you tell me that it can't be done, I'm going to show you it can be done.

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And so I just believe I have always had that as a child.

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And I wouldn't say, you know, it was a very difficult home environment.

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There are times that I recall love and laughter and joy in the home,

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but there are also times that it just turned into discord and dysfunction and no peace.

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And so I just I was stubborn. I just was like, I'm going to you tell me I can't do it. Yes, I can.

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I believe it's Audrey Hepburn.

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She said the word is actually it's not impossible.

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It's I'm possible. impossible.

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And I always see the glass is half full, never empty. Yeah, I love it so much.

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Wow, wow, wow. I love the impossible. No, I'm possible that I've never heard that before. I love it.

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I have it in I have a bunch of affirmations throughout my studio in my home.

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And that's one of them. When you walk in, when people walk in to visit me,

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there's all of these positive affirmations. And that's one of them.

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Wow. That's incredible.

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So back kind of on, on your life, you talked about when, when you were pregnant,

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but give me an idea of, of life from childhood, moving into adulthood,

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what did life kind of go from there?

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Oh, well, you know, Kevin, I was a mess.

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I mean, coming from trauma and abuse, I again, Again, grew up in a two-parent

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home, but my stepfather was my abuser.

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So it was like a two-parent home physically, but lacking all the other aspects of what I needed.

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And so I grew up with...

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Some traits that I had to learn lessons from.

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Like I said, I had to walk out. There was no one there to tell me what was right

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and wrong and those things that were done.

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And really no one there to tell me that, you know, this is the path that you

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should or shouldn't take.

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And so I learned a lot of lessons.

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Like I'm cautious to use the word made a lot of mistakes because I feel like

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it's only a mistake if we don't learn from the lesson, right?

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Like if we We don't learn from it. We're going to keep going through it.

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But looking back over that, I have learned in my life that to be human,

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to be easy on myself, to acknowledge what I've gone through and what I've come from,

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and to also acknowledge all the amazing things God has given me to do and just

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to be easy on myself, as well as give myself that grace to be human.

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And again, to learn those lessons as quickly as possible so I don't have to

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keep going through them again.

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Wow. Yes. Powerful, powerful, powerful.

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Talk to me about some of these these things that you went through,

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because I know at some point and you'll have to fill in the gaps. You were homeless.

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How did that all come about? Yeah. So that's one of the things that happened.

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My children and I, when my son was about four years old, my daughter was about 10 at this time.

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And I had found myself in a relationship.

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I thought I was going to marry this guy. We had a home together.

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He had his business. At this time, I had walked into entrepreneurship.

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I'd started a cleaning company. My daughter was two years old,

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was very successful. I got with someone who I thought we were successful together,

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and he turned out to be physically abusive.

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So it was just that pattern of what I'd come from. I still found myself falling

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into relationships like that.

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And I found myself in this state of deep depression because here I am,

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not only myself being subjected to this, but my children.

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And how do I get out of this? How did I get in the middle of something that

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I said I never would again?

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And I really started to spiral until one day, I actually, God gave me this,

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all I know how to describe it as is this out-of-body experience.

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Like you see in the movies, the action movies going on and then the screen slows

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up and everything's in slow motion and the sound goes away.

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I had an experience like that one day. I was standing in the home.

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And the guy, the gentleman that I was dating at the time engaged to,

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he was really angry with me.

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And he started walking towards me screaming and yelling as if he was going to physically harm me.

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And in that moment, my children were upstairs. Again, my son four, my daughter 10.

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And they ran down and stood on the stairwell. And they're watching this whole

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scene between he and I. All of a sudden, everything slows down like a movie.

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I could see faces, but I couldn't hear voices. I could see actions.

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And I hear the voice of God speak to me and say, look at your son.

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Is this what you want him to think he's supposed to do, how he's supposed to

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treat women? You know, and my son had this look on his face,

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like it just excited him.

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And then I hear, look at your daughter. And my daughter looked terrified and

00:18:14.303 --> 00:18:15.503

she's crying and she's afraid.

00:18:15.783 --> 00:18:19.083

And I hear, is this what you want your daughter to think women are supposed

00:18:19.083 --> 00:18:22.223

to be treated like? And I remember I screamed, no.

00:18:22.443 --> 00:18:27.563

And whoosh, all the sound, everything came back in. And I yelled for my kids,

00:18:27.683 --> 00:18:29.223

come on, come on, come on, let's run, let's go.

00:18:29.503 --> 00:18:34.623

And we ran in our pajamas with no shoes on our feet, left everything behind,

00:18:34.883 --> 00:18:43.023

the cleaning business, the home, vehicles, personal items, just left and ended up homeless.

00:18:43.023 --> 00:18:46.323

Homeless but I walked away with my life I

00:18:46.323 --> 00:18:49.203

walked away with my children seeing that their mom

00:18:49.203 --> 00:18:52.223

was not going to allow them to

00:18:52.223 --> 00:18:55.683

grow up in a environment that

00:18:55.683 --> 00:19:00.123

perpetuated the abuse that I had come from and so in that day I changed the

00:19:00.123 --> 00:19:04.963

trajectory of my children and their mindset my daughter knows you do not allow

00:19:04.963 --> 00:19:09.803

a man to physically hurt harm or endanger you my son knows you do not ever put

00:19:09.803 --> 00:19:13.203

your hand on and physically hurt, harm or endanger a woman.

00:19:13.343 --> 00:19:19.623

And so we ended up homeless. And that actually was one of the most pivotal moments

00:19:19.623 --> 00:19:22.083

in my life because it was tough.

00:19:22.803 --> 00:19:28.263

But it was in that moment that God gave me a clean slate and he put me in the beauty industry,

00:19:28.403 --> 00:19:31.383

which took me through the 14

00:19:31.383 --> 00:19:36.983

year journey of self-esteem and self-love and self-care and women's empowerment

00:19:36.983 --> 00:19:41.403

and becoming the inspirational beauty boss and authoring and publishing six

00:19:41.403 --> 00:19:46.243

books and becoming a talk show host and a podcast host and just so many things

00:19:46.243 --> 00:19:49.563

and sitting here now sharing that testimony and telling this story.

00:19:50.383 --> 00:19:57.583

Wow, wow, wow, wow. Before I get to the question of how do you transition from

00:19:57.583 --> 00:20:03.763

running out of that home to being homeless to all that you just gave us a preview you for.

00:20:04.043 --> 00:20:09.543

I just want to acknowledge one fact that even way back then,

00:20:09.643 --> 00:20:12.143

what an amazing mom you were.

00:20:13.058 --> 00:20:18.938

The fact that the fact that you put your children first, you put their safety

00:20:18.938 --> 00:20:25.238

first, but not even just their safety, but you had this opportunity to make a glimpse at the future.

00:20:25.638 --> 00:20:30.818

And again, you were able to remove them from a situation, remove yourself,

00:20:31.038 --> 00:20:34.598

throw yourself into homelessness.

00:20:34.898 --> 00:20:36.078

So scary.

00:20:36.578 --> 00:20:41.698

So just unknown, uncertain. certain, but you knew that was worth it.

00:20:41.718 --> 00:20:46.378

If you could save the lives of your children and not just their life,

00:20:46.438 --> 00:20:47.718

but who they would become.

00:20:48.358 --> 00:20:50.098

Yeah. Amen. Exactly.

00:20:50.838 --> 00:20:56.278

Exactly. Gosh, you had me tearing up, just reminding me and