If you remember the early days of Facebook and Twitter, then there’s a good chance you know this week’s guest.
Her career started behind the keyboard with her award winning blog, Awesomely Luvvie, and has taken her to red carpets and the boardrooms of Fortune 5 companies.
She’s on Episode 020 of The MICK Show to talk about what it was like to make the leap from writing on her blog from her college dorm room to a successful career in media.
We also talk about what it’s like to run a media company, how she brings her authentic self to any room she enters, and some unexpected fears along the way.
You can follow Mick (@mick) and Luvvie (@luvvie) on Instagram.
New episodes of “The MICK Show” (presented in partnership with @maximmag) are released every Wednesday!
MICK: All right, welcome back to The MICK Show. This week, wow. We always have… We’ve been having such a great run of people here in season two, and I’m very, very excited. We have Luvvie here on The MICK Show. Hi.
Luvvie: What’s going on, MICK?
MICK: I’m good. I’m good. I’m so excited to have you, because like I hope we can fit everything I want to talk to you about in this short time period. I thought I was kind of multihyphenated in many ways, but I’m not shit compared to like… I went and did a little more due diligence on your bio and stuff, and I don’t understand how you do all of these things in a 24/7 environment. Can we talk about that?
Luvvie: We can. We can. Yeah. So, wait. What did you find out? What are the different hyphens that I take up?
MICK: Well, there’s the ones that are like on the press kit ones, like author, speaker, podcast host, intersection of comedy and technology and justice, and all those things are very real. But I feel like you also probably live in those like grey, nebulous areas in between those, as well, which is kind of I think where we all live, because that’s where the magic happens. The magic happens because this thing isn’t supposed to connect to this thing, but like in that little grey area in between is where you find the really cool shit happens.
Luvvie: Yep.
MICK: When you wake up in the morning, what’s your main thing?
Luvvie: Oooh. Dang, that’s good. When I wake up in the morning, I am thinking as CEO of my media company.
MICK: Okay.
Luvvie: So, every day looks different. Some days, I am doing podcast interviews, and right after that I might have a speaking engagement, and then after that I might have internal meetings, and then have to record my own podcast. I am multitasking throughout the day, like no one day looks exactly the same, so yeah, there are some days where I am more speaker. There’s some days where I am more visible Black woman. There’s some days where I am more of a podcaster. And then all days, I’m a writer. That’s pretty much the underlying thing. I’m usually using my words in a way to reach people and help them think critically, and feel joy, and compel them to make this world a little bit better than they found it.
MICK: Were you writing before all the speaking and before the TED Talks and all of that stuff? Was it something that’s been a big part of your personal narrative?
Luvvie: Yeah. I’ve been blogging for 18 years. I started blogging in 2003. Half my life.
MICK: Wow.
Luvvie: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I started in college.
MICK: That wasn’t even a blog, that was a weblog.
Luvvie: That was a weblog. Exactly. Exactly.
MICK: Yeah. There wasn’t any abbreviations at that point.
Luvvie: That was weblogging, yeah, and I was on Xanga. You know how like Xanga, live journal, my first blog was my college blog. I deleted that one in 2006 when I graduated from college, but my current blog, Awesomely Luvvie, I’ve had since 2006. The writing is really kind of what caused the domino effect of things that happened. My background, though, is in marketing and communications. Like when I graduated from college, I did that work for four years. Everything that I did in my marketing job, I basically do for myself now, I did for clients back in the day. I used to actually do more consulting. It’s been this crazy journey of random things that happened that now don’t seem that random.
MICK: That’s interesting. So, I went to school, had a marketing degree, went back on an MBA marketing, and I finished it in like 2004, 2005, and I literally felt like the world at that point wasn’t able to receive what I wanted to offer it in a corporate standpoint. And so, I was really glad I had my DJ career going, so I was able to put all that energy into myself and building that brand, which led to doing other things. Because now I’ve obviously, like startup culture, corporate culture’s gotten cooler, brands are cooler, social media, it’s like it’s a little bit more fun to be in corporate culture now as a marketer probably, but like in 2005, especially where I grew up in the Midwest, it would have been like Goodyear, Progressive Insurance. I mean, these were not the Facebooks, and Instagrams, and the Clubhouses of 2005. They were just jobs.
Luvvie: Right. Correct.
MICK: And so, I like that you said we have a similar background in that way, and you were able to take everything that you learned. When you were learning that stuff, did you ever feel like you would just strike out on your own and be entrepreneurial?
Luvvie: No. So, marketing was not sexy like it is now back then. Yeah, you’re right, like you’re usually working for old school, traditional brand, because entrepreneurship was also not as democratized.
MICK: And that wasn’t cool either. Like I always tell people-
Luvvie: That was not cool.
MICK: When you would open up Entrepreneur Magazine in 2004, 2005, you were buying a fucking Wendy’s, bro. That’s who Entrepreneur Magazine was, like you would open it, you would flip to the back, and if you had money and you read that whole magazine, you would try to franchise a Wendy’s or like a KFC. There was no Gary Vee. There was no-
Luvvie: Exactly. That was not hot. But I started, so I’ve been an early adopter of all the social platforms, so Facebook started February 2004, I joined Facebook July 2004. Because I went to a Big 10. Illinois. I’ve been on Twitter since 2008. Instagram since 2012. So, I was a person who would show up to these nonprofits and be like, “Hey, have you considered using The Facebook for getting out the word?” I was the one that was introducing the organizations that I worked for to social media ultimately. And seeing the value of social media very early on, and with my blog I would just post about whatever I wrote on social, and other people would share it.
So, that was the value of back then, because you couldn’t necessarily break anything, because there was nothing to break, right? There were no rules. And to your point, back then, people really weren’t sure what to do with these new spaces. And for me as a digital native in that AOL, the Running Man. I’m part of the bridge generation, as you are. Those of us who remember before the internet was all over the place, and those of us who actually grew our formative years on these interwebs, so yeah, marketing was different, but I think it was a gift because I was able to basically test it out.
MICK: When did you realize that your personal brand was really resonating with your audience to the point that you could just say fuck it, I’m just gonna do me?
Luvvie: Ooh. I didn’t realize it. It was like the universe did before I did. So, in 2010, I was working as a marketing coordinator for a nonprofit that taught other nonprofits how to use digital to tell their stories. And then I was still blogging at night. I had won my first ever blog award the year before and it was for like best humor blog in the Black Weblog Awards. And I should have probably taken some of that as like, “It’s time for you to kind of branch out on your own and focus on writing.” But I didn’t think writing was a job that I could do, because I wasn’t a journalist. I wasn’t a novelist. So, it just felt too foreign, so I was like, “Okay, writing is just a thing I like to do.”
So, when I got laid off from my job in April 2010, I was still on LinkedIn or wherever and did Indeed and Monster submitting my resume every week, every day, because I was like, “I need to get a new job.” But in the meantime, I’ll consult with other small businesses and bloggers like I do for myself on social media and digital strategy. Ultimately, I actually never got a chance to get another job. I would apply, like my resume was decent, but nothing would stick. And I don’t think I finally was like, “You’re supposed to work for yourself,” until like maybe a year and a half later.
MICK: Okay. Was there somebody who reached out to you, whether it was just an audience, listener, reader, or maybe it was a celebrity or a role model, where you kind of just woke up one morning and you were just like, “This is it. The critical mass has been reached.”
Luvvie: It was 2012. Beginning of 2012, February, I was credentialed to do press coverage at the Academy Awards. Backstage and on the red carpet.
MICK: Wow.
Luvvie: So, I’m standing there in rooms with journalists from the BBC, Entertainment Weekly, all these legit people, and I think I finally had a moment when I was like, “Oh my gosh, your words got you here. You are a writer, and you should actually work for yourself.” I think that’s the moment that I was like, “Okay, I’ve been thinking this thing, this working for myself thing was just temporary as I look for a full-time job, but this is the thing. Look where you’re finding yourself.”
I ended up interviewing Melissa McCarthy on that red carpet, and Paul Feig, because it was around the time when Bridesmaids came out. It was huge. Yeah, Bridesmaids was nominated that year, so that’s why I got to interview them. I think that moment was like the catalyst moment of like, “You can’t doubt it anymore.” This is not just a hobby. This is the thing. And I think that’s when I finally stopped looking for full-time jobs.
MICK: I love it. And now would you… I guess is professional troublemaker part of your 97 million amazing jobs that you do?
Luvvie: Absolutely. Absolutely. I’m a professional troublemaker in all things, right? My whole thing is I want to disrupt for good. Whether it’s disrupting by creating a great campaign, which I did with Share the Mic Now last year, or disrupting by… Yeah, hitting the Times list again in a category that was so freaking difficult, or by being the speaker who goes internally and tells companies to get their shit together. The professional troublemaker is underlying all of it.
MICK: I love it. What is something that you fear? You know, as your book helps people overcome their fears, and as people overcome the things that are holding them back, is there something that without going too personal, but is there something that you could share to show that you also are… I mean, God forbid, you are human as well. I’m sure somehow under all of this, all of these hyphens, there’s a human.
Luvvie: I’m afraid of driving.
MICK: Wow. That’s not where I thought you were going.
Luvvie: I have a fear of driving. I don’t have my license yet.
MICK: Wow.
Luvvie: Yeah. And I’ve been saying I’m gonna get it for a decade and I’m just like, “Ah!” Yeah, so that’s something that shocks a lot of people to hear.
MICK: So, we just gotta get you like that self-driving Tesla deal and then you’re good.
Luvvie: And I’m good.
MICK: You could just be fucking writing, and podcasting, and just be… You know. That’s hilarious. We gotta put that into the world. Let’s switch topics for one second. Music is the genesis of my career. Music is the DNA of my entire life. It’s true for most people. Not all people, but most people, and I know it’s something that is obviously like near and dear to your heart. What are you listening to right now that’s really just making you go?
Luvvie: So, I have a few playlists that are my go-tos. One, I am a big R&B head. ‘90s R&B, by the way. And I could listen to that all day, every day, without a problem. I also love Afrobeats, so I also have an amazing Afrobeats playlist on Spotify that’s like 21 hours long, so it is my, “I gotta clean on Saturday morning.”
MICK: And Burna Boy just won a Grammy, so that’s amazing.
Luvvie: Word, word. Burna Boy, I was like, “Yes!” And I love me some gospel, too. So yeah, I think I’m very much a ‘90s kid in that I don’t know contemporary artists much or a lot of contemporary music. Like I’m watching the Grammys, being like, “I’ve never heard of this person before.” So, yeah.
MICK: Growing up, what music inspired you to be creative? Do you have any first recollections for maybe the first thing you bought with your own money, or the first song you remember when you just really felt like your teenaged angst-
Luvvie: So, I’ll tell you the first time I bought myself a Walkman-
MICK: Cassette or CD?
Luvvie: It was the CD one with anti-skip. I remember I was feeling myself. I was in high school.
MICK: Oh, if you had anti-skip you were balling.
Luvvie: Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I saved up my money because I was like, “Oh my God, they have anti-skip.” And I must have saved up my allowance for months, okay? To be able to get this thing. I remember I went to Walgreens and bought it so I can play my NSYNC CD.
MICK: Ooh.
Luvvie: It was when… Which CD was it? Whichever CD Bye Bye Bye was on.
MICK: Okay. I don’t… I try not to know that. But I only liked one NSYNC song ever. It was like the Pharrell remix of Girlfriend that was sounding like an R&B record.
Luvvie: Oh yeah, that was hot. That was hot. That one, so in high school the two CDs that I listened to the most, Brandy’s Never Say Never, which is still one of my top favorite CDs, probably top 10 of all time for me, and that NSYNC CD. I just remember the CD having circles, the design on it was circles. Yeah. Wore that out.
MICK: That’s crazy. You just blew my mind with that, with NSYNC. If you had a dream dinner party with… I’m gonna suggest one person and then because you said… You, Justin Timberlake, to discuss this NSYNC album, and then four other people, who’s that?
Luvvie: Four other people at this dinner party. You know what? I’m gonna keep it with the musicians. I would want Brandy there, for sure. I would want Burna Boy for that… Yeah, Burna Boy would be a move. Let me see, two other people. Beyoncé gotta be there. Has to. And Janelle Monáe.
MICK: That’s funny.
Luvvie: Yeah. That’d be a very interesting dinner.
MICK: I want to DJ your dinner party. I want to just be in the corner. I won’t be a guest, I just want to be like way in the back, like nobody has to see me. I just want to play the songs.
Luvvie: I’m with it. You bring all the vibes.
MICK: All the vibes.
Luvvie: Yeah.
MICK: When you work, just going back to businessy inspirational stuff, I think it’s really interesting what you do in that you could speak to high level brands, you could do very high level things, but you’re also super, super, super, super, super relatable to the most person starting out, the most… I don’t want to use the word common man, because that almost sounds like degrading towards somebody who’s made billions of dollars, but like you are super relatable to the average person, the person ready to get all their life together. Yeah, you could flip the script and go talk to a Fortune, not even 500 company. A Fortune 10 company.
How do you manage that level of dissonance?
Luvvie: You know what’s funny, is because when I am talking to the Fortune 50, Fortune 5-
MICK: Ooh, 5? I love it.
Luvvie: Okay? I’m still the same.
MICK: [Crosstalk] that 10. It’s 5. We’re going.
Luvvie: I give them the same thing, you know what I mean? I give them the same energy in that I’m expecting the people in the room to take what I’m saying and do something with it, like I don’t necessarily soften my voice, or change the way my voice is sounding. We will all code switch just naturally, because certain rooms have you calmer, certain rooms would have you more hyped, but I still bring the same type of energy to them. And when I go in, like there are times when I will know the dress code for a company is like business casual, and I’ll on purpose come in some sweats. And some fire sneakers, of course. Right?
Because I always want them to understand that I am who I am, whether I am wearing the blazer, which I love to also wear, or whether I’m in the sweats. I’m gonna give you the same excellent product if I’m wearing the hat or not. I think it’s just exhausting to constantly be changing ourselves. That is… How do we do the best work possible if every single room we’re in we’re now having to shift everything about ourselves? You’re spending a lot of time figuring out how to be the person they want you to be as opposed to bring the work that you’re supposed to bring. So, I’m just like, “I don’t got time for that. Y’all gonna get what you get.”
MICK: Do you find that just the fact that you have a really good sense of humor and comedy has been omnipresent throughout your brand, just from the other podcast things and all of that, and just your natural persona, that that’s been a great equalizer for situations where it could have potentially been standoffish? Did it create a more level of just like human connection?
Luvvie: Yeah.
MICK: Because for me, that connection is music, so I can talk to anybody in any room when I’m DJing, because I can get to your heart and I can get to your emotions through playing a record, and then that… anything I want to ask you after that is just… It’s just fair game, because I’ve already made that connection. So, I’m wondering, like is that what that is for you? Or what is that version of that for you?
Luvvie: Absolutely. I think humor is a great equalizer in the way music is, in that if you make people laugh, their defenses are brought down automatically, even if they don’t realize it. But I don’t necessarily go in with the intention of making people laugh. If you laugh as a result, which I’m hoping you do, that’s great. And that speaks more to the authenticity of me than me trying to make people laugh, because that’ll probably be the moment when I bomb. So, I think yeah, humor, like music, is absolutely something that brings people together, that makes them listen more, that lets them see that we’re not as different as we all think.
Yes, humans are different in certain ways, but how we are wired, what we need, which is community, is still pretty standard across the board.
MICK: Let’s go back to the book for a second. You were doing a virtual tour and when I looked at your website, I’m just like… It looked like a real… I was like, “How is she doing an in-person tour right now? How did she figure this out? This is incredible.” And then I looked, and I was like, “Oh, it’s virtual.” But I love that you… It feels personal even though it’s a virtual thing, and I really like that. How is that going for you?
Luvvie: MICK, it has blown my mind. It’s blown my publisher’s mind. We’ve had five events so far. 4,100 people.
MICK: Wow.
Luvvie: Five events. I picked my conversation partners based on people who I think are troublemakers in their industry. Everybody has somebody to pick from. So, Glennon Doyle was the first one. She’s a New York Times best-selling author. Then Kev On Stage, who’s a comedian. Then Esther Perel, who’s a therapist, world renowned psychotherapist. Brittany Packnett Cunningham, activist. Gabrielle Union, actress. My last two are Myleik Teele, who’s a beauty CEO, and Kahlana Barfield Brown, who was formerly director at InStyle Magazine.
MICK: Right.
Luvvie: There’s somebody for everybody, but what has been amazing for me in this tour is that people are buying multiple tour stops. There are people who are like, “Oh, I’ve been to three.”
MICK: Wow.
Luvvie: Or, “I’m coming to five.” Or they’ll be on one tour stop and say, “I just bought tickets to the next one because this is so good.”
MICK: That’s amazing.
Luvvie: It’s amazing.
MICK: It’s so funny how the great things that can actually happen in this pandemic situation, where like you could have actually just been pigeonholed to a store that could hold 60 people-
Luvvie: Exactly.
MICK: Now you could have 800 people tuning in multiple times.
Luvvie: 1,500.
MICK: Times five. Yeah.
Luvvie: 1,500 was the biggest tour stop so far. 1,500.
MICK: That’s amazing. What’s next for you as the world continues to open back up? You’ll have the success of this book and everything else going on. What does the end of your 2021 look like?
Luvvie: That’s a good question. I have no clue. I’m really open to seeing what comes next, right? I think I spent a lot of my career kind of doing that, where I don’t necessarily plan out exactly what I want the year to look like. I’ll have my overarching thing, like this year’s was the book, and then I just welcome what opportunities come as a result of the success of it. So, I’m looking forward to… yeah, just being approached with different things. I do think I will be teaching a book publishing course.
MICK: Oh, that’s cool.
Luvvie: I do have that, because I want to demystify the process of writing a book, publishing it, marketing it properly, because it’s not enough to write a good book. You have to also now compel people to buy it. You know, so how do you do that? So, I do want to teach that as a class.
MICK: I love that. I have a kids’ book coming out, but I’m gonna sign out for your big person’s book class, because that… My grownup book needs to happen at some point in 2022, and so I want to be your first purchase for this-
Luvvie: Yes. I’ll let you know once it drops, so that’s why when you’re developing, once I take a few weeks break, I’ll get back to actually doing that work, because that one is sitting on my shoulders. That’s why I was like, “I need to get it done.”
MICK: I love that. Luvvie, thank you so much for finding some time to join us. I mean, obviously this is a hectic month for you right now with the Zoom backlog you’re creating, along with all the book sales, and all the great stuff that you have going on. Thank you. Really appreciate you finding time to be on our self-titled MICK Show. I love it.
Luvvie: Yes.
MICK: So, we will make sure we link to all your things, and all the things, and do all the things that you’re supposed to do on a podcast when you’re on a podcast, and link all the things, and send you all the things, and it’ll be all good, and we will be back here next week for another episode of The MICK Show.
MICK: That was it for another episode of The MICK Show. Thank you so much for tuning in. Please rate and subscribe to The MICK Show wherever you like to listen and make sure to follow on Instagram @Mick and on Twitter @iamMICK. Let me know who you want to hear on a future episode, and we will see you back here next week.
The MICK Show is presented in partnership with Maxim. The show is produced by Lantigua Williams & Co. Cedric Wilson is our producer and mixed this episode. Manuela Bedoya is our social media editor.