| Recorded at | April 10, 2022 |
|---|---|
| Event | TED2022 |
| Duration (min:sec) | 15:05 |
| Video Type | TED Stage Talk |
| Words per minute | 190.32 fast |
| Readability (FK) | 71.4 very easy |
| Speaker | Bevy Smith |
Official TED page for this talk
Synopsis
In a talk packed with wry wisdom, pop culture queen Bevy Smith shares hard-earned lessons about authenticity, confidence, mature success and why, if you put in the work, "life gets greater later."
| 1 | 00:04 | I am a late bloomer. | ||
| 2 | 00:07 | In fact, a friend of mine you may have heard of -- Chris Rock -- he once called me the most late-blooming mofo he’d ever met. | ||
| 3 | 00:15 | (Laughter) | ||
| 4 | 00:17 | Now, some people might consider that snide, but I revel in it. | ||
| 5 | 00:22 | I’m 55, and I’m here in this curvy body as someone who has done the work, lived the life walked the walk in these very high heels -- (Laughter) and therefore is qualified to testify in the church and in the court of law that it does, in fact, get greater later. | ||
| 6 | 00:42 | (Applause and cheers) Now coming to this realization wasn’t easy. | ||
| 7 | 00:50 | At the age of 38, I was a very successful fashion advertising executive, and I was really living what most people considered a dream life. | ||
| 8 | 00:59 | I was jet-setting to fashion shows; I was receiving free designer clothes; I was double-kissing my way across the globe. | ||
| 9 | 01:06 | (Laughter) | ||
| 10 | 01:07 | I was. | ||
| 11 | 01:09 | And, you know, it was everything that I ever wanted it to be, and then one day I realized I was only pretending to be happy. | ||
| 12 | 01:17 | But I couldn’t blow up my good life in my prime earning years, right? | ||
| 13 | 01:22 | Wrong. | ||
| 14 | 01:24 | Which leads me to lessons my mother Lolly taught me. | ||
| 15 | 01:27 | Lolly’s number one lesson: don’t settle. | ||
| 16 | 01:33 | Don’t settle. | ||
| 17 | 01:34 | Now I’m aware that my well-paying, glamorous career is not exactly the humdrum, “I hate my job” stereotype that most people equate with settling. | ||
| 18 | 01:43 | But it was a settle for me, because when I actually did quit my job at the age of 38, it was with the intention that every day be a great adventure. | ||
| 19 | 01:53 | Now sometimes it was a very scary adventure, like being broke from the age of 40 to 45. | ||
| 20 | 01:59 | But even still, I wouldn’t trade that for the safe and settled version, because if I had, I would not be here with y’all today. | ||
| 21 | 02:06 | (Applause and cheers) | ||
| 22 | 02:08 | Yeah. | ||
| 23 | 02:09 | So you know how when you like, buck the system and go against the status quo, it makes people really uncomfortable? | ||
| 24 | 02:18 | And invariably, people will ask, “Where do you get your confidence?” | ||
| 25 | 02:23 | (Laughter) | ||
| 26 | 02:25 | Now some people mean it as a compliment, but very often it’s shady ... (Laughter) and it's a silent judgment. | ||
| 27 | 02:36 | And to those people, I respond with a quote from this Brooklyn poet you may have heard of, Jay-Z. (Laughter) | ||
| 28 | 02:43 | “She get it from her mama.” | ||
| 29 | 02:45 | I am she, and my mama is the epitome of a grown-ass woman: someone who has always been very comfortable in her skin. | ||
| 30 | 02:54 | In 1965, my mom was 37 years old. | ||
| 31 | 02:57 | She already had one child, my big brother, Gerry, and she married my dad, but she kept her maiden name. | ||
| 32 | 03:03 | And then she had my sister Stephanie and I back-to-back, but she continued to work because she refused to be beholden to my dad for money. | ||
| 33 | 03:12 | And I bet my mom was the only woman in our neighborhood who cooked once a week. | ||
| 34 | 03:18 | She made Sunday dinner. | ||
| 35 | 03:19 | It was an extravaganza, but that’s all she did. | ||
| 36 | 03:22 | She cooked one day a week. | ||
| 37 | 03:24 | My mom is just amazing. | ||
| 38 | 03:27 | And she also had this ability of talking to her children about real life and making sure that we understood the virtues of going your own way, which is why I believe today at the age of 94, and a recent widow, my mom is still carving out ways to find and determine and define her own version of happiness. | ||
| 39 | 03:50 | She cooks for herself. | ||
| 40 | 03:52 | She maintains her home exactly as she sees fit. | ||
| 41 | 03:55 | She enjoys champagne and R-rated films. | ||
| 42 | 03:59 | (Laughter) (Applause) | ||
| 43 | 04:02 | My mom has managed to maintain her glamour, her sex appeal, you know, her independence. | ||
| 44 | 04:10 | And I really hope some of that rubs off on me. | ||
| 45 | 04:13 | You know, recently I’ve been thinking about one of the best lessons that my mom ever taught me, which is the literal beauty in aging. | ||
| 46 | 04:22 | Now, we all know that Black don’t crack, right? | ||
| 47 | 04:26 | OK... | ||
| 48 | 04:27 | Black don’t crack. | ||
| 49 | 04:29 | So at the age of 50, my mom could have easily passed for the age of 35. | ||
| 50 | 04:34 | And you know, that’s back during the time when people -- women were really coy about their age. | ||
| 51 | 04:39 | “Oh, a lady never tells her age.” | ||
| 52 | 04:42 | My mom never subscribed to that. | ||
| 53 | 04:44 | She was always proud of her age. | ||
| 54 | 04:45 | As a matter of fact, she believes you may not tell your age, but your hands and your neck will. | ||
| 55 | 04:52 | (Laughter) | ||
| 56 | 04:53 | So make peace with aging, or prepare for an entire wardrobe of gloves and turtlenecks. | ||
| 57 | 04:59 | (Laughter) | ||
| 58 | 05:04 | Yeah, my mom has always done these wonderful things like that, but I wish she could rub off on everyone because I feel like now I’m looking at even 20-somethings who have a fear of aging. | ||
| 59 | 05:15 | I watch them on social media, like, you know, compulsively practiclng the latest 10-second dance craze, and it feels like their angsty and asking, “Is that all there is?” | ||
| 60 | 05:26 | And I just want to yell, “Yes, that is all there is if all you’re going to do is settle for dancing to someone else’s TikTok beat!” | ||
| 61 | 05:33 | (Laughter) (Applause and cheers) | ||
| 62 | 05:37 | Settling is very insidious. | ||
| 63 | 05:40 | It keeps us dancing on this string, waiting for this elusive, better day to miraculously appear. | ||
| 64 | 05:46 | Now thanks to Lolly’s tutelage, that’s not my story. | ||
| 65 | 05:50 | In fact, I take each day as it comes but I try to make it better than the last. | ||
| 66 | 05:55 | So, you know, I’m single ... | ||
| 67 | 05:57 | but I’m always ready to mingle. | ||
| 68 | 06:00 | (Laughter) | ||
| 69 | 06:02 | I’m an entrepreneur, but I keep multiple revenue streams. | ||
| 70 | 06:07 | I’m a solo traveler, which means I’ve done the sepia version of “Eat, Pray, Love” on six continents. | ||
| 71 | 06:16 | Because I don’t settle. | ||
| 72 | 06:19 | What that means is that I also don’t second-guess my decisions, and I’m also not worried about my future because I’m firmly rooted in the present. | ||
| 73 | 06:28 | Settling is a really sinister thing. | ||
| 74 | 06:30 | It will keep you up at night tossing and turning, trying to figure out why and trying to answer that age-old question of “Is that all there is?” | ||
| 75 | 06:38 | Personally, I don’t have time for that, because the only time I want to be kept up all night long tossing and turning is when I’m in the company of a fine-ass man. | ||
| 76 | 06:47 | (Laughter) (Applause and cheers) | ||
| 77 | 06:50 | That's it. | ||
| 78 | 06:51 | (Applause) | ||
| 79 | 06:54 | I wish I could tell you guys that I learned all these valuable lessons from Lolly and they were instilled in me and it was great, but alas, I am a late bloomer in all regards. | ||
| 80 | 07:03 | So I had to learn a couple of lessons from the era of Bitchy Bevy. | ||
| 81 | 07:12 | What kind of person has 10 assistants in five years? | ||
| 82 | 07:17 | Bitchy Bevy, that’s who. | ||
| 83 | 07:18 | (Laughter) | ||
| 84 | 07:20 | Now I didn’t start out my career with a toxic attitude. | ||
| 85 | 07:22 | No, initially I was really happy to be in the fashion industry. | ||
| 86 | 07:26 | You know, but then I began to compare my trajectory to others, and I also began to feel burned out because I was burdened by these personas that I had created that were allegedly going to help me progress in my career. | ||
| 87 | 07:37 | I made a couple of mistakes. | ||
| 88 | 07:39 | One, I thought that being snarky was a good career move. | ||
| 89 | 07:42 | It wasn’t. | ||
| 90 | 07:43 | I also thought I look good in the color brown. | ||
| 91 | 07:45 | I actually don’t. | ||
| 92 | 07:46 | (Laughter) | ||
| 93 | 07:47 | Yeah. | ||
| 94 | 07:48 | (Laughter) | ||
| 95 | 07:51 | And, you know, I just -- in my dream montage, I wanted to get away from Bitchy Bevy. | ||
| 96 | 07:57 | I wanted to get away from the color brown. | ||
| 97 | 07:59 | And so in the movie version of my life, as soon as I quit my job, I’m a yoga guru. | ||
| 98 | 08:07 | I’m extremely limber and very happy. | ||
| 99 | 08:10 | Come to think of it though, guys, I’m actually limber and happy right now. | ||
| 100 | 08:14 | But I would be lying -- and I believe it is against international law to lie during a TED Talk -- (Laughter) | ||
| 101 | 08:21 | so I’m not going to do that. | ||
| 102 | 08:23 | And as a matter of fact, my insecurities popped back up as late as last year. | ||
| 103 | 08:28 | I was minding my business, as one does, perusing social media, and I saw people excelling in a space where I, you know, traditionally had a lot of success. | ||
| 104 | 08:39 | So I’m looking at it and I’m like, “Well, why the hell they ain’t call me for that job?” | ||
| 105 | 08:44 | And I have this, like, angst, and then I realize they didn’t call me for that job because you already said you didn’t want that job. | ||
| 106 | 08:51 | You told the universe you weren’t into working like that. | ||
| 107 | 08:54 | You don’t want a job -- I really don’t. | ||
| 108 | 08:56 | (Laughter) | ||
| 109 | 08:57 | I’m not into it. | ||
| 110 | 08:59 | So... that’s why it happened. | ||
| 111 | 09:02 | And what I realize is that intellectually I had grown and evolved, but emotionally ... | ||
| 112 | 09:10 | I was Tom Petty and I was living in “Petticoat Junction.” | ||
| 113 | 09:14 | (Laughter) | ||
| 114 | 09:15 | I told y’all that brown doesn’t look good on me; petty looks even worse. | ||
| 115 | 09:20 | It’s not my shade. | ||
| 116 | 09:23 | And so what I wound up having to do was really get a grip. | ||
| 117 | 09:28 | I had to assess a few things about myself, and I decided to do a little self-help ritual called ... | ||
| 118 | 09:34 | “Take a note, give a note.” | ||
| 119 | 09:36 | It’s easy. | ||
| 120 | 09:37 | When you see someone having something that you believe you deserve, you take a note. | ||
| 121 | 09:41 | You ask yourself a few questions. | ||
| 122 | 09:43 | Is it something that you really want? | ||
| 123 | 09:45 | Perhaps that person is better suited than you are for that. | ||
| 124 | 09:49 | Does the universe -- is the universe conspiring for you to have that? | ||
| 125 | 09:52 | Really kind of try and be honest with who you are and where you’re at in life. | ||
| 126 | 09:57 | Once you do that, you take a deep breath -- (Inhales) and you say, “Their wins have nothing to do with my worthiness.” | ||
| 127 | 10:05 | And then you’re ready to give a note. | ||
| 128 | 10:08 | You go on social media, and you say congratulations. | ||
| 129 | 10:12 | Or my personal favorite, you pick up the phone, like it’s the 20th century, and you say, “Congratulations, kudos, you did that, Al! | ||
| 130 | 10:20 | You go, girl!” | ||
| 131 | 10:21 | You do all the things. | ||
| 132 | 10:22 | Instantly you feel like a better human being because you have actually extended grace. | ||
| 133 | 10:29 | You’ve extended grace. | ||
| 134 | 10:31 | You’ve extended grace to someone else. | ||
| 135 | 10:34 | And I believe that when you remove malice from your heart, not only do you feel better, you look better. | ||
| 136 | 10:40 | I think you lose your frown lines and your wrinkles lessen and your age spots disappear. | ||
| 137 | 10:46 | I believe it’s better than Botox, extending grace. | ||
| 138 | 10:49 | I do. | ||
| 139 | 10:50 | (Applause) | ||
| 140 | 10:53 | Yeah. | ||
| 141 | 10:55 | No, but let me get back to the note thing. | ||
| 142 | 10:57 | So one of my favorite notes is from Willie Shakespeare. | ||
| 143 | 11:03 | “To thine own self be true.” | ||
| 144 | 11:06 | Now we’ve all read self-help books, and the first line of defense is always “Be your most authentic self.” | ||
| 145 | 11:13 | And I believe in that. | ||
| 146 | 11:15 | I believe that nobody can be you but you, so you might as well show up and show out. | ||
| 147 | 11:21 | But here’s the quandary that the bard never put forth. | ||
| 148 | 11:24 | What if you don’t really know who you are because you suppressed your inner self? | ||
| 149 | 11:29 | You’ve suppressed the core of you. | ||
| 150 | 11:31 | You’ve suppressed the best parts of you because you took on these other identities and these personas in an effort to make your life better. | ||
| 151 | 11:39 | Because, you know, we all buy into some things about what we’re supposed to be doing and who we’re supposed to be. | ||
| 152 | 11:45 | So what if you squelch that? | ||
| 153 | 11:47 | Because I know I had to excavate to dig up a Little Brown Bevy. | ||
| 154 | 11:51 | But the way I found her was with three questions. | ||
| 155 | 11:54 | Who am I at my core? | ||
| 156 | 11:55 | How am I being perceived? | ||
| 157 | 11:56 | How would I like to be perceived? | ||
| 158 | 11:58 | Who am I at my core? | ||
| 159 | 11:59 | At my core I’m looking to authentically connect with people. | ||
| 160 | 12:03 | I don't like a cursory, you know, interaction, and I do not believe in networking. | ||
| 161 | 12:08 | I like an authentic connection. | ||
| 162 | 12:11 | I’m also curious and I’m adventurous and I’m kind and I’ve got big dreams. | ||
| 163 | 12:16 | How am I being perceived? | ||
| 164 | 12:18 | Well, y’all know the nickname, Bitchy Bevy ... | ||
| 165 | 12:21 | so, duh. | ||
| 166 | 12:22 | But here’s the problem. | ||
| 167 | 12:24 | There’s a lot of power in that persona, and I actually really enjoyed it for a time, you know, because you can make a lot of money being a bitch, especially in fashion. | ||
| 168 | 12:33 | (Laughter) | ||
| 169 | 12:35 | But it’s also incredibly lonely and isolating, and I didn’t want to live that life anymore. | ||
| 170 | 12:40 | And so I decided to change my life. | ||
| 171 | 12:42 | And I left all of that alone. | ||
| 172 | 12:44 | I really did, like, just change my spirit. | ||
| 173 | 12:47 | And leaving fashion obviously helped. | ||
| 174 | 12:50 | And when I did that, all of a sudden, I let Little Brown Bevy out to play. | ||
| 175 | 12:57 | Little Brown Bevy. | ||
| 176 | 13:00 | I love her so much. | ||
| 177 | 13:01 | Little Brown Bevy is a nerdy girl, and so I let my nerdy pursuits come out to play. | ||
| 178 | 13:07 | I must have joined every museum on Museum Mile in New York City. | ||
| 179 | 13:11 | I began to travel the world just to look at architecture I had always dreamed of. | ||
| 180 | 13:15 | I learned how to be alone without being lonely. | ||
| 181 | 13:18 | My spirit shifted. | ||
| 182 | 13:20 | I became a better person. | ||
| 183 | 13:21 | You can ask people -- I became a better person. | ||
| 184 | 13:25 | And now I get to stand here in front of you guys with no bravado, with nothing to prove, I tell you, with nothing to prove. | ||
| 185 | 13:33 | I’m not trying to prove nothing to y’all. | ||
| 186 | 13:35 | (Laughter) (Applause) | ||
| 187 | 13:37 | (Cheers and applause) Thank you. | ||
| 188 | 13:40 | (Applause and cheers) | ||
| 189 | 13:42 | I have an open heart. | ||
| 190 | 13:45 | And I can’t even believe that Little Brown Bevy from 150th Street and Eighth Avenue, from the hamlet of Harlem, is now an award-winning radio and TV host, an author, an actress, a creative consultant. | ||
| 191 | 14:00 | I would do all those things for free. | ||
| 192 | 14:02 | But here’s the thing. | ||
| 193 | 14:03 | I ain’t cheap, and I’m definitely not free, so don't get any ideas. | ||
| 194 | 14:07 | (Laughter) (Applause) | ||
| 195 | 14:11 | But I am here in this “Mama I made it” moment as someone who can show up as her most Bevyest self because I’ve done the work. | ||
| 196 | 14:21 | Yeah, my most Bevyest self. | ||
| 197 | 14:23 | So, you know, I’m going to show up -- some of you’ve met me -- you know I’m vibrant and boisterous, AKA loud. | ||
| 198 | 14:30 | OK, you know that I’m going to show up, and I’ve got a pep in my high heel, red-bottom step. | ||
| 199 | 14:37 | I do have heaving cleavage. | ||
| 200 | 14:39 | (Laughter) | ||
| 201 | 14:40 | And I’ve got a tell-it-like-it-is approach to life that’s always dosed with a ladle of love. | ||
| 202 | 14:47 | It took me 55 years to get here. | ||
| 203 | 14:50 | So, Chris Rock, you’re right. | ||
| 204 | 14:53 | I’m a late bloomer. | ||
| 205 | 14:54 | And that’s OK. | ||
| 206 | 14:56 | Because I’m right on time, Because it gets greater later. | ||
| 207 | 15:00 | Thank you. | ||
| 208 | 15:01 | (Applause and cheers) |