If you’ve ever picked up an ESSENCE magazine, then you’ve seen and felt the magic of current editor-at-large, Mikki Taylor. The timeless beauty maven and author of new book Editor in Chic: How to Style and Be Your Most Empowered Self, stopped by ESSENCE’s Yes, Girl! podcast to bless Black women with must-hear life gems that lead to living their best, and most stylish lives, from the inside out. The entire interview is a revelation, as Taylor beautifully explores our relationships with self-doubt and confidence, but prepare to take notes, because we pulled out a few of her most inspiring quotes.
“This is your life and you have to own it. You have to celebrate the magnificent truth of who you are and your beauty. And you have to master your purpose with distinction now. That has to be a journey that you’re on with a destination. It can’t be put on hold. You can’t allow opportunity to pass potential. You can’t allow someone else to define what your life should be.”
“I really do believe that wish lists are for children. Not for grown women. Grown women have check lists that they activate. I don’t want you to wish that you were like me when you grow up. You have a genesis statement that’s all your own. You need to identify that. There is nothing like it.”
“If the inner peace isn’t working, the outer peace is robot. And if you’re not careful, everybody will have the remote control but you”
“Far too much of the way we live is programmed and in sync with the ways of others. And the danger in that is that you lose your authentic self. For example, ships look great in the harbor, but they weren’t designed to be in the harbor, they were designed to sail. So how long do you allow the ship that is you to sit in the harbor before you sail? You gonna sit in the harbor because you see others sitting there or because everybody else is doing it? When will you take the big seas in your life?”
“Outside validation is so overrated. If you live from the inside out, you’re going to thrive. If you live from the outside in, you’re going to be in chaos, doubt and confusion. And you’ll keep taking the road well-traveled, instead of blazing a trail.”
“Nurture what you want to grow and starve what you want to check. And the only way you can do that is to get still at least on a weekly basis and do the mind work.”
“Sometimes we’re fearful of the internal conversation. Because the internal conversation will show you things that you don’t want to see.”
“You need to learn how to lovingly accept compliments because folks are really bragging on God, your architect, when they complement you.”
“Your greatness was not designed to be in spiritual poverty”
This last Mikki-ism is one we hope every woman reading takes to heart:
“May you wake up every day excited to be you.”
Listen to the full episode with Mikki Taylor below
