Shades & Layers
Shades and Layers is a podcast focused on black women entrepreneurs from across the globe. It is a platform for exploring issues and challenges around business ownership, representation and holistic discussions about the meaning of sustainability in an increasingly complex global context. Conversations are wide- ranging and serve not only as a Masterclass in Entrepreneurship but also provide wisdom and tools for Successful Living. It is a space for meaningful conversation, a place for black and other women of color to be fully human and openly share their quirks and vulnerabilities.
Guests include prominent figurers in the beauty, fashion and wellness industries both in the Northern Hemisphere and the Global South.
Dr. Theo Mothoa-Frendo of USO Skincare discusses her journey from being product junkie to creating an African science-based skincare range. Taryn Gill of The Perfect Hair is a brand development whizz who discusses supply chain and distribution of her haircare brands. Katonya Breux discusses melanin and sunscreen and how she addresses the needs of a range of skin tones with her Unsun Cosmetics products.
We discuss inclusion in the wellness industry with Helen Rose Skincare and Yoga and Nectarines Founder , Day Bibb. Abiola Akani emphasizes non-performance in yoga with her IYA Wellness brand and Anesu Mbizho shares her journey to yoga and the ecosystem she's created through her business The Nest Space.
Fashion is all about handmade, custom made and circular production with featured guests like fashion designer Maria McCloy of Maria McCloy Accessories; Founder and textile/homeware designer Nkuli Mlangeni Berg of The Ninevites as well as Candice Lawrence, founder of the lighting design company Modern Gesture. These are just a few the conversations on the podcast over the past three years.
Shades & Layers
Freedom Fleur and Luxury with Kirstie Fleur (S8, E3)
Embark on an inspiring journey with the remarkable Kirstie Fleur, a Ghanaian-American beacon of creativity and advocacy. Our conversation explores her multi-disciplinary artistry that finds expression in all her life's pursuits, from her brave transition from the American Air Force to fashion's forefront, to her passionate embodiment of social entrepreneurship with her brand, Freedom Fleur.
Kirstie's story is one of resilience and transformation, illustrating the potency of fashion as a vehicle for change and the profound impact of her 'Soul Health' approach on advocating for justice and empowering women founders.
As we unravel the threads of Kirstie's multifaceted identity, we traverse the sacred terrain of 'soul health' and self-discovery. Kirstie opens up about the necessity of internal work, especially for women who often balance various roles and societal pressures. She illuminates the path to finding one's essence, emphasizing the importance of solitude in nurturing well-being and inspiring creativity. The dialogue offers a blueprint for listeners to pursue their desires and articulate their goals while harmoniously blending the many facets of their lives.
In the fluid dance of solitude and social impact, Kirstie's Freedom Fleur brand emerges as a symbol of luxury with a conscience—fashion that fosters freedom and fairness. We delve into the intricacies of ethical sourcing and the human connections that fortify her brand's foundation. And in a melodic twist, Kirstie's foray into music as a form of creative activism offers a resonant close to our episode. Her Spotify playlist, a curated collection of freedom and justice, awaits in the show notes, inviting you to experience the rhythms that drive her mission. Join us, and let Kirstie's narrative awaken your own aspirations for change.
Everything Kirstie - https://kirstiefleur.com
Kirstie's Socials - https://www.facebook.com/kirstie.f.horton (FB) and https://www.instagram.com/kirstiefleur/ (IG)
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Hello and welcome to Shaden Layers. I'm your host, kiko Anus Kosanarichi. Today, my guest is Kirstie Fleur, a Ghanaian-American artist who has found her expression through fashion, music and education. Today, we get into her journey as a social entrepreneur. Kirstie is the CEO and founder of a sustainable luxury clothing brand, freedom Fleur, which has associated social clubs that center women founders with a vision. Kirstie uses her trademark soul health approach to empower these visionary women to share their gifts with the world. You will hear all about that during our conversation. You will also hear about Kirstie's career as an American Air Force veteran and when she returned to civilian life after serving, she decided to fulfill her lifelong dream of becoming a fashion designer. A quick note to let you know that we do speak about sexual abuse during this episode and if that might be a trigger, please do not tune in. Find another fun and exciting episode on the Shaden Layers timeline. As you can hear, there are many layers to this story and we need to get into all of that. So let's hear it from Kirstie Fleur herself.
Speaker 2:So I consider myself an interdisciplinary artist, so I use different spheres of art I guess you could say interconnected together to weave or to articulate my message, and so for me, that message is always freedom and justice. I do this through music, my recording artist, as well as fashion designer and fashion.
Speaker 1:I didn't know that part. I only got the fashion part Okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, see, they left that for now. Oh, wow, okay, All right, I use music to do that as well. But yes, I do some creative activism, artistic activism. So I do R&B, jazz, soul, do a little bit of country.
Speaker 1:Like a proper Southern now, of course, yeah, yeah, okay. So justice and freedom are the themes that run through your work. What is it that drives these interests?
Speaker 2:You know the crazy thing for me is it feels like a birthright type of thing, because I'm gun and American and so you know Ghana's theme is freedom and justice, but it feels like it's a thing that's inborn in me. But also, just growing up, I went through this experience where I was abused as a kid and so I just always kind of had this kind of like this passion or this fight for freedom, because my voice was dimmed or pushed down, and so, you know, that became the way that I articulated. Everything that I touched, everything that I put my hands to, was all about okay, everybody needs freedom and justice. I need freedom and justice. Who are the people who need this as well? And start finding a way to advocate for not only myself but for other women who are in the same position that I was in.
Speaker 1:So you started advocacy work. When did it come to you? When did you fall into this work?
Speaker 2:I would say probably around 2015, is when I kind of leaned into it. I realized that was something happening and I was on my own journey already. I was doing my thing, I was doing church worship, leading, and I was like, you know, I'm on my path, I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing, and then, something you know, over time, just didn't feel right, just didn't sit right. It felt like something was coming up for me and so that's when I took the journey, because you know, life can lead you on this journey. You just have to accept it. So life was leading me, calling me on this journey, and I was like, okay, I need to deal with the thing that happened to me when I was a little girl. So it's like the little girl was saying, knock, knock, you know. Well, that came into the picture and I started dealing with it and, you know, doing therapy and counseling for that. And as I started doing that, I started. You know, that's when the work what I feel like it is the work of my life started coming into play.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. And what does that work of your life look like now?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so fashion is a very interesting story for me. I'm a self-taught artist and designer, so when I was younger I got into a fashion design school and my mom didn't want anything to do with it. She was like you really need to get a real job.
Speaker 2:You need to get a job that's going to pay some money. So I did follow my fashion design dreams, but life just kept leading me right back to it. I still did design work anyway. So, as I've been on this journey, you know, like I've always said, okay, I want to do fashion design at some point. But when I had that moment back in 2015 to 2017, where you know all the things were coming together, I said, okay, you know, maybe I can use the thing that I'm passionate about, the art that I love to do, you know, to help speak for women and, you know, do things this way. So that's when I decided to use art as a form of artistic activism, as well as being able to create a line of clothing and say that, okay, women deserve justice and luxury and ease and all these things as well. And then you know how do I weave it together, how do I use the gifts that I have to make something meaningful. So that is kind of what that looks like now.
Speaker 1:Okay, and how does this ethos articulate itself in the way you work and your business practices?
Speaker 2:Absolutely so we call it luxury with a purpose, and so we know that. You know, with the fashion industry and what's happening behind the scenes in a lot of spaces within sustainability with fashion, there are people in the background that are making the clothes that don't get fair wages. A lot of those people are women. They don't get ethical treatment, fair pay, all the things. And so I was actually able to see those things in person and I couldn't keep going the direction that I was going and I was like selling t-shirts at first like, oh, here's a shirt, you know, like I think it's about.
Speaker 2:The conversation was like my first t-shirt I ever sold, Right With a logo on the front of it. And then, you know, as I learned more about the industry, I was like I can't say that I am empowering women and for women in this way and then know what's happening in the background and not do the work. So it's been a long journey of making sure that we partner with the right manufacturers, that the women who are working in these meals are being paid well or being treated well, can feed their families, and then, you know, we love when we can partner with somebody with a meal where they are already sustainable where they're already educational initiatives in place. But if there's one that doesn't have that in place, you know, we have a program we call the FF social club, where we it's local and global and it's emerging. So we have this space where women can upscale and like learn entrepreneurship. And then there's this space for wellness, because we know that we need that as women as well.
Speaker 1:Okay, let's get to the suppliers part, where you know you make sure that they're engaging in ethical practices. Do you find them locally abroad and do you know how do you balance that supply chain spread with your sustainability goals?
Speaker 2:Right, so I'm not always able to go to the factories that are in other countries, but the ones that are local, that I went. We personally go there and check those factories out. We see what their certifications are, those type of things that they have in place. We just ask the hard questions. In some places that we went to they have not answered those questions because you know they're doing something they shouldn't be doing. So we know we should be partnering there, but I also there's networks that I'm a part of that are in the UK and other places where they are specifically creating platforms for manufacturers and suppliers. So I have the plug, this platform that I only use to go to to connect with if it's buttons, if it's embellishments, if it zippers, whatever it is.
Speaker 1:So yeah, yeah, and I've heard you speak about luxury as sustainability. Can you, can you elaborate on that and what it looks like for you in real life?
Speaker 2:Yes. So I had this thought process around luxury with sustainability. When I thought honestly, I thought about my grandmother. You know, she was growing up. We didn't have much, she was poor, but she always was dressed beautifully, and I feel like the mindset was more of the shift and it was like look at these expensive clothes that I have on, look at the garbs that I'm wearing, look at, you know, this station or position that I'm at in life. I didn't know that we didn't have the things that we were supposed to have, because her mindset and her lifestyle was just one of luxury anyway, and so it was such a beautiful thing to me that I thought every woman should be able to have this. But how do we do this? Because we need to partner this in a way that these are clothing that are made well, the garments are, the fabrics are coming from Italy and France, so they're not cheap garments and they're not you know they're being made, you know, very quality and well.
Speaker 2:So how do we provide a space where women can have either access to this or have access to the like, I said, the educational initiatives around it? So we decided what we would do is take a portion of the proceeds from each garment and then we put it into a fund and then women are able to receive grants off of the product that we're selling. So for us it makes luxury feel, I don't know. It makes it feel right, you know, to be able to say, okay, here's this garment, that this is the price of this garment. But we're also helping women move their businesses forward because we feel like women are multipliers. When we get the resources in our hands, when we're given opportunities, we go and we change our families lives. We change our lives and the communities around us.
Speaker 1:So yeah, so this leads me to talking social enterprise. So are you a social enterprise? Do you consider yourself a social entrepreneur?
Speaker 2:Yes, this is. I was a nonprofit at first.
Speaker 2:So, first started years ago, we were a nonprofit and we were doing advocacy work for women who were, you know, going through rape trials, and we did this whole shame to freedom, you know, kind of Saturday meetings or whatever that we would do with women who had those similar issues that I had walked through.
Speaker 2:But while we were doing that I realized, okay, I'm doing this work is not sustainable for me, I'm giving my everything to it, I'm wiped out here, you know. And so I took a break, took a pause from it, and then, while I was in the middle of doing that, I was like we need to consider ourselves or we need to pivot and become a social enterprise, which I know you can do that the nonprofit way. But I said, you know, for me what is going to feel right for me is let's do this for profit, let's make sure that every garment, everything that we create, you know, has a meaning behind what we're doing. And so that is essentially what I consider a social enterprise is that we are focused on the person behind it is our main focus. Like, the garment is great, the design is nice, but really, at the end of the day, it's the point.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely, absolutely. We are talking fashion with a purpose today, on shades and layers, and my guest is Kirstie Fleur, founder of the luxury, sustainable fashion brand freedom Fleur. Her dedication to freedom for everyone, and especially women, is the driving force behind all that she does. Up next, she discusses her FF social clubs, balancing the multiple facets of her professional and personal life and the ins and outs of running a sustainable fashion brand.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so the FF social club is for black and brown women who need a space Really. It's for aspiring entrepreneurs what I call them.
Speaker 2:And those who are already founders and CEOs, and I put this club together, the main two spaces. I put this club together because for myself, as a founder and CEO, what I was finding is having these higher level issues and things that I needed to talk through, but I didn't have the women who were at that level could sit at the table with me and have these conversations. I might talk with an investor and be like what should I have done better in this pitch, or how can I present my business in a way that is ready for investment and different things like that, but I wasn't finding that. I was have the black and brown women to communicate about it. I could talk to several different women about it, but there was a different space that I was navigating as a black woman. So I was I need that piece. So I opened that portion of it up.
Speaker 2:And then the aspiring is the. I'm constantly met with the woman that's like well, how do you do this and how do you start a business? What about this? But our thing is I don't want to teach a woman how to just start a business like hey, here is where you go and you go to the Secretary of State's office. There's somebody else can help you do that.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you can read about it, I mean absolutely, absolutely, yeah.
Speaker 2:But what I, what my goal is behind the FF Social Club is that we create more social enterprises so that these companies or these women who are aspiring, when they come in, we are sure to make sure that, like, what is your passion, what's your drive, and let's attach a social piece to it so there can be something that grows and that flourishes forever. I feel like if you do your soul work, you go deep within and you figure out what it is your meaning to life, then this is something that can carry you for the rest of your life, that you can leave a legacy behind.
Speaker 2:Instead of just creating another business, because, yeah, we need businesses out there, but we need businesses that are sustainable, that women care about, that they're connected to move society forward.
Speaker 1:So what's the soul work? I've heard it. What did you call it? Soul health, that's it I think you mentioned soul health in one of your other interviews. Can you expand on that concept? Yes, so soul health.
Speaker 2:It's an approach that I created. I didn't set out to create too. I always say that, that I didn't set out to create it. It kind of set out to create me. Maybe I don't know, but as I was on this journey of finding myself navigating through life and trying to put meaning to what the different things were that I was doing, I realized that the work, more than anything, was internal. I needed to go and have the conversation with the little girl, see what it is inside of there that I was lacking and missing, learning how to ground myself and be present in the moment.
Speaker 2:So just this wellness component of knowing what your soul is saying. What is the soul saying? And for me, I had been in so many spaces where I was suppressed as a black woman, even in the music industry and different things like that that hold to sing and be a certain way, and so that is who I thought I was, until I went inside and started doing the soul work and I'm like, wow, this woman has something to say and I've been suppressing this or this has been being suppressed. And so my position with the soul health approach is that women would go inside and they would do the work, because there are so many things that can, though.
Speaker 2:They're beautiful things marriage and family and all the things in life, you know but they get in the way and they can bog down what it is we really are truly, what is our true essence. And some women say I'm just a mother. That's all I'm supposed to be as a mother. Maybe so, but for some other woman they may have their soul maybe saying something else. There's something else, some other meaning that I need to be attaching to life and that I need to be doing, and so that is what the soul health approach is. I help women go on that journey to figure out what it is that they're meant to create. They call it to bring forward, get them where they need to do that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, like all of us, you are multifaceted. You know, as I listen to you speak, there are many elements about you that are coming through and we know that balance is elusive. So how do you see those things kind of merging together for you so that you don't have this fragmented, anxiety inducing experience or life journey?
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, that is a brilliant question and so beautiful, because what I find is that we, as women, we are multifaceted. You know, people, humans, we're all multifaceted and we do feel like here's this one thing that we need to do, and then we just do this for the rest of our lives. This is the way that it goes, but I do find that there is an interplay. It may not be a balance, but there is a way that you can weave your passions, your life, your disciplines together that create something unique for you. Like you know, I think there's a writer out there that calls it like being your brand. You are the brand, or something like that.
Speaker 2:Really it is. It is what your true message is. You know, I can't not be an artist, I'm an artist. When I walk into rooms with investors, they tell me I should be one or the other. They're like you're going to either be an artist or you can be a business, an entrepreneur. I'm like my degrees are in entrepreneurship and business. I'm going to be both.
Speaker 2:I've been art my whole life, so I'm going to be both. But I do find that there are seasons where one plays, I guess, heavier than the other, like there may be a season where I'm touring more, or there may be a season where I'm leaning into one area more than the other, like as now, I am a mother to a three month old.
Speaker 1:Yeah, congrats.
Speaker 2:Thank you, that was a newer experience but, you know, this morning I was on a call and the baby was here with me, you know, for the call, and so you just navigate the seasons and the pieces of you in you know, in the moments when you're there, in them. But there's definitely a way, and I feel like you have to take the time to sit with yourself and say what is it that I want? What do I want my life to look like? You know, do I want to constantly be saying one day, oh, one day, I want to, you know, do pottery? Or one day I want to do this, or do I want to step out and do those things and integrate them into my life? I think that's the thing. It may not be a balance, but it is a pieces of this brought together to create you as a whole person and think that's a beautiful experience?
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. And you know, in a world full of distraction, where do you and how do you carve out that space to be quiet and see how all these pieces fit together? Oh, that's so lovely.
Speaker 2:One of the things that is really important for me is my practice of solitude and silence, and so it's a spiritual practice for me. But I pull myself back and sit, maybe in the beginning of the day or whenever I can find a pocket in the day.
Speaker 2:But it is my intentionality to sit in silence and solitude so that the day does not run me or control me, and so that is a very important practice for me, because I feel like now I can hear myself thinking you know, I can hear maybe I need to pivot in this direction, but I'm not actually entering into the moment looking for ideas or anything, I'm just I'm bringing me into that moment and I'm sitting with that moment. What does that moment want to say? It's the same thing I do with when it's time to write a song. I sit and I say what song wants to be written right now? I just don't want a meaningless thing. So I want you to be spoken.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. And you know I can also see the deliberate effort that goes into making your garments so much color Craftsmanship. I mean, you can see the quality. So who's wearing these clothes? Who is the freedom floor woman?
Speaker 2:The freedom floor woman. She is entrepreneurial, she's in the city centers, she cares about women's rights, she cares about what's happening in the world today. She's not disconnected from what's happening in the world. She makes it her business to know what is happening while also being really in tune to herself as a person. You know who am I, what do I need, when do I need to pull back? And knowing that she does not need to die on the on the stoop of each one of you know these moments or movements or things that are happening in the world today. But she's confident, she's sure of herself. She understands that she needs luxury. She wants luxury, she wants ease and she wants it on her own terms. And so it's a women in business. These are women who are artists, they're creatives. Yeah, they're living life on their own terms, wonderful.
Speaker 1:And how did you strike? You know how did you come to a point where you found the right quality fabrics. You know the right manufacturing process and the sweet price point where it's still accessible but it's luxurious.
Speaker 2:That has been. That has been a work because again, you partner with different manufacturers or different meals and they have different what are called MLQs, like their amount, that they can do, their minimum order quantity, and so for a smaller brand, you know, we don't want to like have hundreds of thousands of garments sitting at the studio and we can't sell them, or we're having to figure out what can we because it's not sustainable. So what can we do with all of these products? So we look for factories and meals that have the lowest MLQ possible so they were not keeping a whole bunch of stuff on back order that way. So it has really been. It's been a journey Like we just start out and we reach out and see whose goals and whose values align with ours and then, once we start the process, we either find out that this was just words on a piece of paper, maybe a little bit of brainwashing, you know or yeah, yes, so common.
Speaker 2:Right, very common. We don't make a big deal about it, we just okay, this is not the right fit and then we just keep going, because we know that. You know, this is important work to us. We feel like we're in the middle of something that's movemental and that's important. So, yeah, we just keep going. Anytime there's a hiccup, we keep going.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so who is we? Is their business partner? Is their team?
Speaker 2:Yes, as a team we have a small team. It's a sweet team. My husband is my operations guy. He's growth and development. It just felt right to pull him in. He's built several multimillion dollar companies.
Speaker 1:I need you on my team.
Speaker 2:Yes, and then you know, I can bark a little bit of orders around to him too, and he didn't get, you know, offended by it.
Speaker 1:So it works.
Speaker 2:And then there's my project manager. She's decided my brain that I don't have, so she dates the calendar, you know, making sure that everything's lined up and in place. And our creative director that's like all the graphics, the font, the branding, what that piece is, social media director, and then editors, and then everybody else that's on board. The team is freelance right now.
Speaker 1:You're right, perfect. Sounds like a very happy situation. Do you operate out of specific offices or at home?
Speaker 2:We do so the ones that those who are freelance. We come together, we have like a once or twice a week meeting. We don't need it, we don't have it, but once a week meeting at our office downtown in Nashville and so, yeah, we just get together like that. Some of us joined via Zoom. Sure it works.
Speaker 1:Fun times. Kirstie Fleur is the founder and CEO of Freedom Fleur, a sustainable fashion brand for women, and she is my guest on today's episode of Shades and Layers. Up next, we talk about the influential people in her life, her upcoming memoir and other aspirations for life going forward. Yeah, so I want to get into your story a little bit more, your personal story. You mentioned your grandma, who was influential, of course, in this idea of luxury and, of course, you do recognize that we don't get through life alone. So who are some of those other people who made this huge impression on you? Or you know the events that made a huge impression of you that you know. You look back and you think, yeah, it makes sense that I ended up here, Absolutely.
Speaker 2:My grandmother would definitely be one of those person people. She was a super kind soul, so sweet, but she always seemed to have like this, like this compassion or this hurt for anything that was broken or anybody that was going through anything. And so I love that about her because her heart was so tender and so sweet. But then she was also like the jokester of jokesters. She cracked so many jokes. It was just a really, really good mixture that she had. I love it.
Speaker 2:She was one of my favorite people, but she was also the seamstress and designer in our family. So she made all of her kids clothes growing up. All of my aunts and my uncles she made all their clothes growing up. Back then it wasn't for reasons of I'm doing this because I'm going to be a fashion designer, but it was out of need, out of necessity, and so it was just beautiful to watch her do that. All her clothes were always beautiful. She made her clothes and everything was always steamed and pressed to the nines. She was pretty amazing. And then there is my mother who at the time when I was younger it wasn't popular to be a woman that was a preacher who was standing in a pulpit, and my mom was a preacher, motivational speaker, in a time, like I said, when it was not popular to do so.
Speaker 2:I remember sitting on the front row at these really old churches and she'd just be sometimes up there with her eyes closed, speaking, or she'd look at me to kind of get some encouragement because I'm like her person.
Speaker 2:I could tell as young as I was, but it wasn't until I got older that I realized, wow, she was doing this afraid. You do it scared. So, without knowing it, these two people, I think they really taught me to just like go for it. I've never lived in a world where I haven't seen a woman be in leadership or leading, so yeah, lovely Speaking of leadership.
Speaker 1:I know you are a veteran, you were in the Navy and in the. Air Force. Okay, oh, so you fly planes. Oh my goodness, oh my gosh, oh yeah, fantastic. So you know how did you end up there and how has that influenced your trajectory.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So nobody ever asked me how I ended up in the Air Force. That's a good question. Well, I was in college, and in the middle of college I was like, okay, I need help paying for school, but also the Air Force's mission was something that I loved. Even when I was in high school I was like at some point I want to join the Air Force, I'm going to get my bachelor's degree, I'm going to go in as an officer, all the things. But while I was in college I decided I'm going to go ahead and go in now. I needed the assistance. I need the school benefits and the assistance and the mission aligns the freedom, the justice, all those components and pieces, and I feel like I got more than I bargained for when I went to the Air Force In a lot of ways.
Speaker 1:That's great. I hope it's in a good way.
Speaker 2:Yes, but I was taught leadership in a way that I didn't realize that I would be taught. I didn't realize that I was going into it, that I would be being prepared as a leader like I was, and I didn't really know how to study before I went into the military, but I mean the Air Force. The way that you have to study all these tests and everything coming up. It was just a level of, like, discipline and leadership that I really needed to learn and get quickly, and so it just felt like it was the right time in my life to do that, and so I've used everything I've learned from that season in my life over and over again.
Speaker 1:What attracted you to the Air Force? It was Top Gun, wasn't it?
Speaker 2:No, I'm joking, oh, you know it, I'm just joking it was the suits. I wanted to be cool. I'm a very as. I could say craftsman type person, like hands on.
Speaker 2:So at one point I even worked for American Airlines and I did every component of working at American Airlines, from throwing the bags to check you know, all the ticket agent things or whatever. But Air Force attracted me because it was one of those things where I'd be able to use my technical skill sets. I worked on computers so I was able to fix computers, work computers, take them apart. I did the actual computer, the customer service piece of it, so just every piece of it. But then I also was going into it knowing that in a couple of years I'd be able to kind of transition to different aspects of the career field, and so I liked that I could kind of switch it up a bit and I didn't feel like I was stuck, so that was a piece of it Lovely.
Speaker 1:So now we get into the rapid fire, yeah. First question is if you had to write a memoir today, what would it be called and why?
Speaker 2:I'm in the middle of writing a memoir, so this is yes, and I've been playing around with the name for quite a while, but I think it'll be something like finding your voice, something about beacons and finding your voice in the middle of the noise. Yeah, and the reason why would be, you know, me going on this journey and realizing that I needed to go internal. Like I've said a few times on here, I need to go inside and find my voice, get reacquainted with who the little girl was inside, to find out what I'm really meant to do. What's the journey, what's the path that I'm taking?
Speaker 1:Right. And if you had to turn the story into a film, who would you pick for the lead actress?
Speaker 2:Oprah Yay, I love Oprah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, she's fantastic. Actually, nobody has chosen Oprah before, so Really yeah. And if you had to invite a famous black woman, living or dead, apart from Oprah, to dinner, who would it be and why I?
Speaker 2:think that it would be Maya Angelou. Just for the activist that she was and the constant seeker, you know, it seemed like her entire life she was a constant seeker and learner and open and also feels like she was on a journey and had found something on her journey that she had been convinced of and convicted by. And I feel like I'm on that similar path or that similar journey. So people like that, who are, you know, connected to their souls, mission and vision and, you know, kind of in that state or whatever, I am drawn to and I would. I just feel like I would love sitting at her feet and listening to everything that she would have to say, guiding along the journey.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, she was quite a force.
Speaker 2:Yeah, amazing.
Speaker 1:Is there anything else that you would like to mention that people need to know about you? What else is there? I mean, there's so many things. And I'm glad you have discovered some of them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just some of them for now. There's more to come. I think the biggest thing is to continue you Journey, and that is the place where I'm at. You know, I feel like everybody is an expert. You know everybody wants to be an expert or is an expert, and there is sometimes nothing wrong with that. But there is also this place where we need to be okay with the journey. You know, our whole will be made up of becoming and journeying, and being and growing, and I think that's how people get caught up in this alternative, alternative mindset. Where they're like I don't feel like I deserve to be here is because they're not grounded in where their feet are currently. So if I could encourage anybody to stay grounded in the reality where they are right now, while still being forward thinking, and look into the future, having hope for the future, that would be probably those would be my dying words, fantastic.
Speaker 1:So if people want to work with you or find out what you do and get a taste of your work, where can they find you?
Speaker 2:Yes, so if you want to work with me, I do some business consulting on kirstiefloorcom. So that's kirstiefloorcom. If you want to shop some of our pieces, you can go to wwwfreedomfloorcom, and you can also find me on Instagram at kirstiefloor as well, as freedom floor is where the fashion design is at on Instagram.
Speaker 1:Perfect. Do you have a playlist on Spotify or anywhere that I could also include in the show?
Speaker 2:notes. Yes, yes, so type the same name in on Spotify, You'll find my music. One of my favorite songs that I've written is reform, so you'll like them.
Speaker 1:Okay, great, and that is all from me this time around. Thank you for listening and supporting, as always. If you want to learn more about kirstie's work, do visit the show notes and, while you're there, please be sure to rate and review the podcast so that others can find it. Five stars would be amazing. Thank you, I am Kutlu Anus Khosana Reishi. Until next time, please do take good care.
