| | | September horoscopes, the mind-stomach connection, and more. | | | | | | | | | |  | | | | September 5, 2017 | Letter No. 102 | | | | | | | | | | | | Hey Lennys,
Every time I sit down to write this, I'm distracted by the endless churn of my Twitter feed. I am certainly procrastinating, but I also feel an almost physical jolt of anxiety every time I click away from the latest in America!: a dystopian reality show. I'm scared of not knowing what to be scared about, I suppose, and it materializes as nausea.
—Because this is a feeling I have on a daily basis, I was very excited to edit acupuncturist Russell Brown's piece about the mind-stomach connection.
—We have Lenny's erstwhile deputy editor, Laia Garcia, with a piece about learning how to invest. She enlists the straight-talking Sallie Krawcheck, the CEO of Ellevest, the digital financial adviser for women, to teach her the basics.
—September Horoscopes are here, and Melissa Broder is fixing our existential dread with new astrological tools for self-definition.
—Olivia Clement writes a gorgeous essay about growing up with a post-divorce mother who was intoxicated with her newfound freedom.
—And finally, the Phenomenal Woman herself, Meena Harris, interviews Zim Ugochukwu, the founder of Travel Noire, the boutique travel company and website for black travelers. Get inspired by Zim's hustle to commit to your own projects this fall.
I hope your mind-stomach connection pushes you in a good direction this week, Lennys — maybe toward some real nourishment.
Xo,
Jess Grose Lenny editor in chief | | | | | | | | | | | | The Digestive Mind | | | | By Russell Brown | | |
Information consumption used to be cuter. A few years ago, too much Internet just meant I got a manageable stomachache scrolling through a relationship-exhibitionist friend's yucky trip to Puerto Vallarta. But my tolerance has dropped, and its effects are hitting me harder — now, too much Internet means I get explosive diarrhea from a single, all-caps HuffPost headline.
One reason for this is obviously the accelerating existential terror of our world. But another cause is something that many people may not know: that the Mind is housed in the stomach, and the way we take in information is not great for our digestive systems.
Part of the central philosophy of the medicine that I practice as an acupuncturist is the assignment of unique components of a person's spirit to anatomical organs. According to the HuangdiNeijing, which is the fundamental doctrinal source for Chinese medicine, the stomach contains a spirit called Yi, which translates to "Mind" or "intellect" — our ability to process information and organize thought.
Now, it makes sense that the Yi is in the stomach when you think about what digestion really is: swallowing what the world gives us; processing it; breaking it down; sorting it out in terms of what is nutritious and what is waste; and integrating the good parts and disposing of the rest. The goal of digestion is to foster nourishment. This is the same job as that of the mind.
To the mind, information and experiences are the "food" that we consume. We read; we do; we learn; we comprehend. We absorb some of it to improve our lives, then forget the rest. When the Yi is healthy, this digestion process nurtures us and strengthens us with the virtues of clarity, honesty, empathy, and equanimity. But when we overload ourselves — when we eat too much — we shut down the stomach/mind's capacity to process.
This is the problem. The amount of digital information we are now consuming is greater than our ability to digest. Up-to-the minute minutiae on Russia, health care, Beyoncé's twins, my weird aunt's endless gratitude memes — in the bathroom, on the treadmill, in the Lyft. Emmy snubs. The Bold Type season-two spoilers. "Which Pasta Are You?" quizzes. (I'm rigatoni.) Senators you must call, updated and revised and then updated again. Our systems simply cannot sort it all. God forbid I should sit quietly not reading something on my phone for the two minutes I wait for my friend to go the bathroom at brunch.
We are processing so much, so rapidly: The Yi is becoming totally overtaxed and can no longer figure out what is nourishment and what is waste. (And I have no shame in fully admitting: For me, a lot is waste. My boyfriend once looked at my phone and saw that I had recently Google-searched "Tyra Banks news," which I assure you, in the moment, felt incredibly wholesome. While writing this, I am on my phone reading two articles on the latest with the Flip or Flop divorce while concurrently watching an episode of Flip or Flop. It's a flop.)
We become literally bloated with news, images, and opinions, with no sense of what is nutritious. Without proper digestion, the stomach/mind either unhealthily attaches to information (obsession, fixating, over-rumination) or dumps it (forgetfulness, confusion, lack of focus), which is why my memory seems worse than ever, as I forget much of what I read on the Internet almost immediately, if I remember that I read it at all. It's constipation or diarrhea.
The addictive consumption of information has entirely twisted the Yi's virtues of nourishment and clarity into obsession, regret, self-doubt, dread, and the ultimate disease of the stomach: worry. It is chewing on thoughts till it makes you sick. It is the poisoned, misused imagination causing illness. And its physiological symptoms are familiar to all of us: stomachache, flatulence, the aforementioned constipation or diarrhea, acid reflux, distention after eating, and most of all fatigue. Like, for real fatigue, the kind that a nap or a good night's sleep can't fix.
Curing the Yi is hard. There are a lot of things we can do to help the stomach digest better. Paul Pitchford's Healing With Whole Foods, the modern authority on Asian nutrition, suggests eating only warm or well-cooked foods, chewing more, eating smaller and more frequent meals at the same time every day, and avoiding sugars, dairy, and raw foods. But worry is insidious, and our culture encourages and celebrates it. Particularly in this political climate, we are made to believe we need to know more, that our current information fill will not equip us to cope.
So be kind to your mind. Don't ask too much of it. It shouldn't be working endlessly. It needs rest, too. Stop feeding it. I take care of myself by processing the world at my own rate, not at the rate that the media or Facebook or 24-hour news cycles or "new expanded formats" want me to. I turn off my ringers, my vibrations, and all push notifications: my phone does not need to tell me when it wants my attention. My laptop rarely comes home with me, and when it does, it isn't allowed in my bedroom. I don't read when I eat. I breathe into my belly when I sit in traffic. I let air be all that I am swallowing.
And most important, I reevaluate my relationship with how much information I really need on a daily basis. More isn't necessarily better. I leave a few fries on my plate. I tell myself I am already full … and I know everything I need to know right now. Ten times a day, I practice my new mantra: I need no new information, for right now. I need no new information.
My mind hates this. The baby cries when you take away the lollipop.
But we can't live on candy. Only a child thinks she can suck down sweet, gooey sugar treats all day long and not expect to be nauseated and hungover all night. We are adults. I am responsible for what I swallow, for what I digest. No one else has been assigned to my case: No one has my file. I say when I am full.
I need no new information. I have everything I need.
Russell Brown is an acupuncturist and owner of POKE Acupuncture in Los Angeles who has on occasion used Facebook for "emotional cutting" in the middle of the night. | | | | | | | | | | | | You Can Still Buy Avocado Toast | | | | By Laia Garcia | | |
They say that millennials aren't buying houses because we spend all our money on avocado toast. While that's definitely, irrevocably, 100 percent true, it's probably also because we've seen too many movies about Wall Street disasters and have decided Hmm… I don't know that I want to give Leonardo DiCaprio money to buy wolves or whatever (that's what The Wolf of Wall Street was about, right?). Or maybe millennials aren't investing in real estate because we've all been working an insane number of jobs that don't offer benefits or a 401(k); because we live paycheck to paycheck; and because the prospect of investing money for your retirement or for buying a house one day seems crazy when you need to eat lunch today and pay your rent right now.
Then, suddenly, you look at your life, and you're in your 30s and you're like, Shit, I should've started thinking about this a couple of years ago! Which is why, when I brought this up in one of our edit meetings, I was thrilled that Jess knew exactly the person who could help me — and all of you who might be in the same boat — Sallie Krawcheck.
Sallie is a total powerhouse. Currently, she is the CEO and co-founder of Ellevest, a website that helps women invest and plan for their future. Before that, she worked as a CEO and CFO of a variety of investment firms. Most notably, she was ousted as CEO of Citigroup's wealth-management business because she thought Citi should reimburse its clients for money it lost due to bad investment decisions by the company. So, you know, she is legit.
We met in a conference room of the Ellevest offices in Manhattan, which were under a bit of construction. Talking to Sallie really is like talking to a cool friend or cool aunt who is just extremely knowledgeable and no-nonsense. We discussed the basics of investing and navigating Wall Street jargon, and she also walked me through Ellevest (which, real talk, is super-easy to use). By the end of our conversation, I left with a clear to-do list, so it looks like I'll be able to continue eating all the avocados and own a house one day after all.
Laia Garcia: You studied journalism in college. How did you end up working in finance?
Sallie Krawcheck: I had two job offers when I was coming out of college. I had an offer from the Miami Herald, writing obituaries for $12,000 a year — this may not be exactly right, but in my mind it's right. It was 1987 and Wall Street was hot, and I also had a job offer from Salomon Brothers for $32,000. My father forbid me to move to New York, so I'm like, "I am going to New York for my $32,000." The thinking was, I will do this for a couple of years, and then I'll become a business journalist. I just really loved Wall Street. I became a research analyst, which is a lot like a journalist because you write, but you also do the investment models, and that for me was a really good combination.
LG: Were you familiar with the stock market before then, or did you just learn on the job?
SK: Oh, God, I learned on the job. That is sort of the secret: It's hard, but it's not that hard. I took one math class in college and went to Wall Street anyway.
You know, it's funny, because a lot of women talk about having "impostor syndrome," and I came to Wall Street like, Wow, this is supposed to be so hard, and it's not. We just make it sound hard. We just throw on the jargon. Like, if you're the one with all the knowledge and nobody else has it, you're in a pretty good position. Once the knowledge is spread out, all of a sudden, you're not the expert, it's hard to charge as much.
LG: Given this secrecy, how are you supposed to get started? I can't see myself walking into an investment bank and just being like, "Help me!" It's intimidating!
SK: The research I did when I was at Smith Barney showed that neither men nor women understand. It just is what it is. There are so many guys out there who don't really know what a stock is. What is it? I've tried to explain to my kids, it's a portion of ownership in a company. There's cash flows; people will talk about alpha and beta — these are stock-market words. Men will not ask because they don't ask for directions. Women won't ask because they don't want to bother. Neither gets it, but the men still invest, and the women say, "I'll wait till I figure it out, and then I'll invest," and it's costing them hundreds of thousands of dollars over their lives.
Everybody says retirement [is the most important]. OK, but maybe you want to buy a house. That's a great investment. Maybe you want to start your own business; that's a great investment. Obviously you want an IRA or a 401(k) that will get you sort of a double bang for your buck, but not everybody wants to get themselves completely set for retirement before they start their business, buy their house, have their baby, take their trip around the world, etc. So you can make those trade-off choices.
LG: I always thought that only rich people can have investments. If you start a job and you make $35,000, what money do you have to invest?
SK: What I would say to you is, number one, pay down the credit-card debt. Number two, pay down your high-interest-rate student-loan debt. Number three, get some cash and put it aside, at least one month of take-home pay. Number four, I want you to choose an amount that you can invest every month. I don't want you to start with your expenses and then decide how much you can invest, because the answer will be zero. I want you to have a target of maybe 10 percent of your salary. I want you to see if you can adjust your expenses.
I want that 10 percent then to go, most likely, into a 401(k) or IRA. Most likely, that would be a default because those grow; you don't have to pay taxes on those till later, so those can grow more quickly for you. But if you have some goals in life that are going to come before that, that you want to invest for — again, buy a house, have a kid, start your own business, quit your job, travel the world — then you might want to invest in a non-retirement account.
I want you to find a firm that is a fiduciary, who operates in your best interest. I want you to go to that firm, and I want you to ask them to put you in a diversified investment portfolio. I don't want you to buy stocks. That's a loser's game. I want you to be in exchange creative funds. They are like mutual funds, but cheaper.
For your very long-term goals, like retirement, I want you to be much more in equities because that can get you a higher return over time. For your shorter-term goals, I want you to be more in bonds. Lower risk, less risk of loss, lower return over time. I want you to set up a recurring deposit, and I don't want you to look at it again. That's all I want you to do. This is the advice I would give you if I was your friend.
Then you'd say, "Sallie, there are all these articles about investing mistakes people make." I'll be like, "No." "Like we over-trade." I'll be like, "No. These are investment mistakes men make. You just need to do this, and you need to do it this week. If you really can't do it this week, you need to do it next week, because you are losing ground every week." That would be that. What we've tried to build, this is something that turns it into what your goals are. Ellevest tries to do all of this with this, but if I didn't exist, that's what I'd tell you to do.
LG: It's crazy to think about all the money that I've lost by not investing in the last ten or fifteen years.
SK: I know, but you know what? That's OK. In finance, we call that a sunk cost. A sunk cost is a cost that is in the past, and there's nothing that you can do about it. Unfortunately, we make too many decisions in life about a sunk cost. For example, here is this outfit. I paid $300 for this outfit. Now I'm about to go out on a date. I don't like the outfit. Do I wear it anyway? It's a sunk cost. You can't get the 300 bucks back anyway, so forget about the $300. Just make the decision about which dress you want to wear. You can't help the fact you didn't invest before. You just need to invest now.
This interview has been condensed and edited.
Laia Garcia hopes that her collection of '90s magazines will one day be worth thousands of dollars and she can maybe buy a summer house with it. | | | | | | | | | | | | Revel in the Undone, the Unfinished, the Broken | | | | By Melissa Broder | | |
VIRGO
(August 23 to September 22)
Happy birthday, Virgo! This month is sort of like if you've always used the same ten emojis and then, suddenly, three random emojis make their way into your most-used. At first, it's kind of uncomfortable, like, How did these get here? I don't like them in my palette. But then you try using one of them, and it's like, Hey, this is kind of good. And then you use another one and it's like, Hey, this is fun. And suddenly your conception of what defines you shifts ever so slightly.
LIBRA
(September 23 to October 22)
The art of wanting what you have is really all there is. We are going to keep looking outside of ourselves for glittery things that we think will fill us up, because that is what humans do. And it's OK. But what is really yours is inside you already.
SCORPIO
(October 23 to November 21)
It's important to never totally have your shit together. If we were to actually reach our ideal of perfection (which is usually a warped view of perfection anyway), it would quickly become depressing as hell. An "Is that all there is?" vibe would set in, because no achievement can permanently fulfill the human need to keep growing. Nothing stays static. This month, revel in the undone, the unfinished, and even the broken.
SAGITTARIUS
(November 22 to December 21)
In the beginning, God created something, or something created something, and then something created something else, or something. The truth is, nobody really knows, but we do know what we feel. This month, remember that you don't have to understand magic for it to be all around you.
CAPRICORN
(December 22 to January 19)
Beware of oversimplification this month, in terms of both others' views as well as your own. Simplicity can be beautiful, and it can also be terrible. Remember that most of the time in most human beings, perspective cannot be divorced from ego. Ask yourself why you, and others, hold the views you possess so tightly.
AQUARIUS
(January 20 to February 18)
One thing that is tough is that we are powerless over so many things in life. But one thing that's beautiful is that means we can't possibly control everything. This is terrifying and also fabulous news! Make a list this month of all you are truly powerless over, and refer to it often when you find yourself obsessing.
PISCES
(February 19 to March 20)
Do you ever feel like you're expected to feel guilty for your own happiness? Like there is some cosmic force that is judging you and saying you have to have regrets, or else it isn't real? If you don't, that's awesome, and you can skip this month, because you are more evolved than I am. But if you do, here is a reminder that this voice is not the one you have to listen to.
ARIES
(March 21 to April 19)
If everything feels annoying right now, that's because it is. I'm not sure why life is designed that way, with all the little tasks and errands and people with their dumb opposing viewpoints. But if everything were smooth, nothing would be funny, and that would suck. This month, indulge your sense of humor as much as possible.
TAURUS
(April 20 to May 20)
There's an old saying: "Let go or be dragged." Usually we surrender only when there are claw marks all over the thing we are letting go. But what would it look like to surrender something right now, before the clenching onto it nearly kills you? Do you think that it will feel like being erased yourself? Or could there be any peace in it?
GEMINI
(May 21 to June 20)
There is a lot of talk about polarity in our world right now. Some dichotomies are true; some are untrue. This month, take shelter instead in that which is multifaceted and nonbinary, or, as poet Stanley Kunitz said, "Live in the layers / not on the litter."
CANCER
(June 21 to July 22)
OK, this month I have a super-simple thing for you to do. Take a blank piece of paper, put it in your bag, wallet, or pocket, and carry it around with you. Every time you find yourself judging anyone else, draw an X on it. This is not an exercise in self-torture or punishment or even turning the other cheek. I'm not asking you to learn any lessons. It's merely an experimental-art project.
LEO
(July 23 to August 22)
There's a moment when we realize that no person or idyllic future is coming to save us from our lives and that the sanctity is only in the very now. Some people realize this once, absorb it, and move on. Others of us learn it over and over. Most of us are the second way. Is it possible for you to find excitement in the learning?
Melissa Broder is the author of four collections of poems, including Last Sext (Tin House 2016), as well as So Sad Today, a book of essays from Grand Central. | | | | | | | | | | | | Willoughby, Where I Grew Up, or How I Learned to Cook a Chicken | | | | By Olivia Clement | | | |
The first time I saw the apartment on Willoughby Road, I instantly disliked it. It was old and cramped, perched above a Persian-rug shop. My sister Julia and I were told that we'd be moving — from our large house in the suburbs — to Willoughby Road within the week. I was sixteen, she was twelve, and we loathed the idea. My mother, newly separated and independent, was exhilarated. As we drove away, she blasted Joan Armatrading's "Me Myself I" on the car stereo. The sunroof was down. Her hair flapped in the wind.
The apartment was long and narrow, starting with the kitchen. You entered from the back of the shop, up an old concrete staircase with a very loose railing. It was a nightmare in heels. The living room looked out onto our very own slice of busy Willoughby Road: a liquor shop, a Domino's Pizza, and a fish-and-chips joint. The fish and chips were our favorite until my sister caught the chef wiping her armpits. Typically a very shy child, Julia leaned over the counter and asked the woman if she wouldn't mind please using some latex gloves. The lady snorted. We never went in again.
My sister and I shared a bedroom. We put the computer in the middle, so we could take turns playing the Sims while the other watched from her bed. The room's only window looked directly onto a brick wall and a family of pigeons. Somehow, the birds never flew in. Above my bed, I hung a street sign that said "Hump"; my friend Tom had stolen it for me, and it was my most prized possession.
"It's an apartment for just the girls," my mother kept saying. She knew we hated it, but she was desperate to make it fun and fresh and different. In the living room she laid out a Persian rug — a gift from downstairs! — and hung some hot-pink curtains. "Aren't they cool?" she said. She invited her friend Candy over, and they repainted the kitchen. I watched them sitting on the floor in old T-shirts, drinking tea and mulling over my parents' separation. When they laughed about getting high on paint fumes, I laughed along with them. I had a hint of a feeling. Maybe this apartment might just be the thing. Just the girls.
Not long after we moved in, my mother got a new boyfriend and seemed to change completely. Suddenly, we were enemies. On warm nights, we kept the front door open, while our neighbors, the quiet and lovely owners of a vegan café, would listen to our screaming matches with disconcerted faces, their scrappy old dog Tin Tin howling in solidarity. Inside, we were suffocating. I have the clearest memory of sitting on the concrete steps and crying. Of looking out at the car park that faced our kitchen and feeling everything I'd known to be certain disappearing. The panic was unnecessary but so intensely overwhelming.
My mother, now newly in love, spent more and more time away from the apartment. To make up for her absence, I invited friends over whenever I could. I threw parties and we'd sit on the roof, smoking and drinking, yelling at the cars streaming down Willoughby. We were teenagers, desperate to grow up quickly. Too fast and too keen, bound together by our urgency. Some nights, we'd drag all of the mattresses and pillows into the living room and have sleepovers. We'd wear my mother's cotton nighties and hold hands in the dark, sharing a rare kind of intimacy. The kind only found in the liminal space that belongs to adolescence.
It was a time of freedom, but with it came a new kind of responsibility. Julia had not taken my parents' divorce well, and I felt the weight of her struggles on my unprepared shoulders. At times, my inadequacy was glaringly obvious. I once forgot a raw chicken in our oven, and it wasn't until several days later, when my mother returned, that she found it, rotting. The smell had filled the entire apartment, but we'd barely noticed it.
By the time high school ended, I was a combination of obligation, outrage, and rebellion. One night, my friend Josie and I ran out onto Willoughby Road in the pouring rain and hailed a taxi. We were wasted, wearing two of my mother's Peruvian ponchos, headed to the 24-7 pancake restaurant in the city. We put on our best British accents and demanded a bottle of the finest Chardonnay. We ended the night chased by a security guard, and then Josie fell into a fountain.
When I was twenty, my mother told us she wasn't going to renew the lease on Willoughby Road. She planned to move in part time with her boyfriend and wanted a new apartment for the remainder. She was ready for a change again. I told my sister that we'd get our own place, without realizing she was still in high school and that I was about to start college. At the last minute, I changed my mind and decided to move in with roommates instead. Julia said she understood. But I knew it to be a betrayal. Her pale, anxious face wondered what was next. I told her she could keep the Sims, and we packed up the apartment in separate boxes.
My mother found a new place that was far from Willoughby Road and even farther away from where I was living. I was grateful for the distance. Slowly, the anger I'd been feeling toward her began to dissipate. I no longer resented her empty bedroom, or the envelopes in the freezer stuffed with money for dinner. I was relieved of the need to judge her and free to love her again. It happened without my trying. I didn't stop to think that Julia was still dealing with the same frustrations. Or maybe I did, and that's why I felt guilty. I tell my sister everything, but that was a conversation left unspoken.
Now, ten years later, I find myself longing for the days in that apartment. Willoughby Road has stopped feeling too steeped in growing pains, too sensitive to touch, too layered. I'm nostalgic for the last time we were all together, when we were somehow united. When my sister's face was the first thing I saw in the morning. When it was just the girls, starting something.
Olivia Clement is a playwright and writer based in New York. | | | | | | | | | | | | The Future of Black Travel | | | | By Meena Harris | | |
During the early days of Instagram, and even now, if you searched the hashtag #wanderlust, it might have taken several page scrolls to find images of black American travelers. And then, along came #travelnoire. What started in 2013 as a virtual community to showcase inspiring images and insights of black travelers has grown into not only a global digital-publishing platform but also IRL experiences: facilitated trips intended to foster meaningful connections between fellow travelers, predominantly black millennials.
While Travel Noire leverages technology to drive greater awareness of and engagement with black travel, it builds on a tradition within the black community of guided and group travel, which historically was influenced by necessity — practical information-sharing about destinations across the United States that were welcoming to black people during Jim Crow. Travel Noire's real innovation comes in the form of a platform that inspires the proliferation and accessibility of prideful imagery of black travel. And that's what creates new possibilities for travelers today, according to the founder, Zim Ugochukwu.
What follows is an interview with Zim about growing a side project into a full-time business, the challenges of entrepreneurship, and how Travel Noire promotes black excellence.
Meena Harris: How did Travel Noire start? With the website or with your beautiful Instagram page?
Zim Ugochukwu: The first point of contact was the website, travelnoire.com, which we grew to about 100 writers, who lived all over the world. They were travelers who wanted to share their stories and experiences about what it was like to travel as a person of color. From there, I went to Instagram, and it was such a challenge — it was like the burden of my life trying to find beautiful pictures of travelers of color! I would spend an hour trying to get one photo. But I knew in the back of my head: If I post consistently, something will pay off. So we posted twelve photos a day for eighteen months.
We then started offering free webinars and classes about how to travel for free, or how to convince your boss to let you work remotely. People started to gravitate toward that, so for the first eighteen months, it was just all about giving people what they wanted.
But if you go back in time to the beginning of TN, the idea came from my time living abroad in India. I had braids, and when I took them out, I thought that I could find resources on how to take care of my hair in India. All I found was "You can use this coconut oil, or you can use these Ayurvedic products," and it just broke my hair. I realized there was nothing on the web about an experience like mine, so I thought it could be interesting to gather people together to bring that space to life.
That was kind of where the idea for TN was born, but it was still very much in its nascency. I didn't even think about it much again until I had moved to San Francisco. I was working four jobs. I was a nanny. I was selling luxury sunglasses. I was just being a crazy person and sleeping on somebody's couch for six months. When I got my feet on some stable ground after six months of hustle, I started TN. I just needed to be off that $3-a-day budget, so I could focus on other things.
MH: You started off while having another full-time job. What was your approach back then to maintaining Travel Noire as a side hustle?
ZU: I was working both jobs for nine months. I didn't know when exactly, but I knew that at some point — I had told myself July of 2014 — I would bounce from my job. The problem is, I got fired before that happened. Even at that point, though, people like Facebook and Marriott were reaching out to us because they were interested in what we were building. We were just a fraction of the size we are now, but that's how I knew that we had a lot of traction.
MH: How did you transition into doing it full time? Was it difficult?
ZU: It was weird, because you go from working on it from 6 p.m. to midnight, and 6 to 9 a.m., to working on it from 6 a.m. to midnight. This whole world was unlocked, so I started to think about all the other things that I could do. My advisers even said, "This is what we needed to know, that you were 100 percent serious." You can't be 100 percent serious about something by just doing it halfway, so that was important feedback. How much more could I do if I gave something 100 percent versus the 50 percent or 40 percent that I had been giving it?
MH: It sounds like you received feedback that almost questioned your commitment because you weren't working on TN full time. Recognizing still that so many people start off with a part-time project, what's your advice for those folks?
ZU: My best advice is that you're never going to be ready. People wait for the best moment, but you'll never be ready for the change you're meant to make. I think when people sometimes have these timelines in their head, like, "By this time, I'm going to leave. By that time, I'm going to do this," then they just get comfortable. Sometimes you need an outside force to be like, "Sorry. Not today. This is going to be the limb that you're going to be out on today."
MH: You're the daughter both of immigrants and of a single parent, and you've mentioned knowing about "being scrappy and stretching dollars." Do you attribute your entrepreneurial sensibilities to your upbringing?
ZU: One hundred percent. We were on welfare. We were in shelters. We were everywhere. If you're a first-generation American, you understand the struggle of what it was like for your parents to get to the country. Growing up, you would always hear about what they had versus what you have, and it was constantly a conversation about doing more with less. For those who've had parents grow up in another country, there's a different sense of hustle that comes with that. It's a "We all we got" type of thing.
The way that we were raised was very different from our counterparts. If I came home with an A, my mom would be like, "Where's that A+?" If I came home with an A+, my mom wants extra credit. It was always about being better and beating yourself. It helps a lot in business, for sure.
MH: For TN's digital images, you talk about depicting "beautiful images of brown excellence." What does brown excellence mean to you, and how do you equate that with world travel?
ZU: It's showing this life that people have told us for so long that we don't have access to, or that it's something we can't accomplish. It's seeing someone in Iceland, or under the Eiffel Tower, or just living life and being happy and feeling like they're meant to be in that place.
This interview has been condensed and edited.
Meena Harris is the founder of the Phenomenal Woman Action Campaign. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | The email newsletter where there's no such thing as too much information.
From Lena Dunham + Jenni Konner. | | | | | | | |  |  | | |
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