Meet Tia: Heart of the Matter
Tia is a firecracker of fun, intention, and empowerment! As a host, speaker, and influencer for beauty, lifestyle, and fashion, she started with a small Youtube channel that grew into unexpected success. Her humility has led her down paths she never imagined with her business- she just launched a Talkshow as well called Heart of the Matter! Read about her humble start and love for empowering women in an authentic way- the positive energy she exudes is evident in all that she does!
Tell us a little bit about your journey to where you are now and who you are.
My name is Tia Kirby and I am an influencer, event MC, host, and speaker! I am mostly known for delivering lifestyle and fashion content, and then I also have a YouTube channel that's really kind of how my journey started way back when with chat rooms! I was posting videos of how to do natural hair- I started this whole hair journey accidentally just posting pictures and telling people what I was doing with my hair. Then people began to follow me from the chat room asking if I had a blog and YouTube channel. Long story short, I started a blog and it was called me “Me, My girls and Our Natural Curls”.
I was always so relaxed when I grew up with my hair- I used to get perms but it started to effect the health of my hair- it was breaking off and everything. I took all of this to my youtube channel, but it took me a while to start it until one girl inboxed me in the chat room and told me that I was doing them a disservice by not starting a Youtube Channel- something about that hit a nerve. So I finally started my YouTube channel, but I would only tell people about it in the chat rooms that were asking. If they didn't ask, I never shared because I was shy at the time. And before I knew it, even with me not telling anybody about it, it took me about a year of having a YouTube channel before I started really kind of promoting it because a girlfriend of mine encouraged me to do so. Now that my girls are older, my business now-showcasing hair, beauty, and lifestyle content-really allows me to keep doing what I love which is focusing on learning and loving myself. This really is where my tagline comes from: “Inspiring others to learn and to love themselves while enhancing their own individual style and beauty.” I want you to you know it's about learning yourself on the journey like learning all the new parts of you and learning to love each stage of yourself in every stage of life flaws and all.
On Fridays now, I have a talk show that I recently launched called “Heart of the Matter.” It’s a platform where we get past the facade of social media and the appearance of “I got it all together.” People share the parts of their journey that not many people know about- the vulnerable not so social media parts. I get people to share parts of their story that you don't get to see behind the scenes or things that they've gone through. I do this because people have to connect and create community to find their story in someone else's and be encouraged that if she can get through this, I can get through what I'm going through. Beauty is evolution because it speaks to the life changes we come in and out of.
2. Tell us about the mission of your brand, which I think you've hit on it a little bit. How does it empower?
I think that right now we're in a stage or a day and age where everything is about being the boss, and everything is so boss related. I think that that's good, and I think it's a beautiful thing, but when we are so focused on being the boss, that when we actually become the boss, we can't really enjoy being the boss. This is because we're not facing the underlying issues, or we're so focused on meeting up to the standards of someone else's highlight reel rather than our own vision. I believe that it's about the journey, not necessarily the end goal. Of course, while we're in pursuit of the end goal, it is about learning ourselves during the journey. How can I be a better me along the journey so that I can sustain myself? Success also comes with a lot of stress, and it comes with a lot of anxiety and demands. I want to help us be able to better handle the stress, the anxiety, and the demands, so that we can actually enjoy the journey. Success is not happiness, but joy and knowing that I can conquer anything, regardless of how tough it is- that’s success.
3. What is the biggest challenge you have faced as a female entrepreneur? What are the steps you've taken to overcome it?
Social media can overwhelm us- it takes us down this rabbit trail of “oh, let me do this,…oh, my god…they're doing this…I just learned this”, and I'm learning to unplug from those kind of thoughts. Sometimes this means realizing what you're signing up for. Social media can get you so caught up in what you want to be, rather than just being present on your journey and allowing God to lead you. When we spend all the time mulling over all of that in our heads, we waste time. The most valuable thing you have is your time. The steps I’ve taken has first been to learn how to unplug, and second, to be okay in the space of unplugging. I’ve realized that when I just wait a couple of days, the work will still be there. It'll be okay. It's okay. And we're actively okay. And if someone who was following us falls off, then they weren't a true follower in the first place, and that just makes more space for new followers. I also want to just make sure that I keep in contact with the audience that I have and be consistent with them. In summary, my goals are to stay authentic, consistent and be persistent when going after what I want. I am right now in pursuit of excellence in everything that I do- I want it to be excellent, not perfect.
4. How do you collaborate with others working to create a better world?
You know I used to be very much of a hermit! I made a declaration last year though that I would be a professional socialite this year and go to at least two events per month! I love it now! Now, if I can fit into my schedule, I try to make it all work! These events have really helped me networking too because I'm just meeting more women like me or more women who are doing great things. Going to all of these events too has sparked my inspiration to learn about new ways to collaborate! I also only attend events that are a good fit for me- they have to align to my brand and my values!
5. What advice would you give to a female entrepreneur in the beginning stages of launching her brand or business?
It's super simple-the advice I always give is to start where you are with what you have. I always tell people how my YouTube journey started off- I didn't have a fancy camera, but my most watched video got over 100,000k views and it had no editing! My lighting was also horrible! Then my upgrade equipment was my iPhone 4 (LOL). I taped up a white board poster board, and I was in my bathroom because the best lighting in my household was my bathroom. Then, I learned imovie on my iPhone and edited using that! Not having state of the art tools allowed me to realize that I am in this to stick it out because why buy expensive equipment that you won’t use more than a few times. So I slowly got things as I could afford it versus me buying the equipment before I had the money. When you start with where you are and use what you have, you allow yourself to take on things as you grow versus making this big dive into this big thing and feeling overwhelmed and under equipped. I didn't start out as this perfectly skilled person, but the more persistent you are, the more growth you will have.