Beverly Osemwenkhae

I think my work ethic comes from my parents. They both came here from Nigeria in the 80s, and they really just made something for themselves. They also sacrificed a lot for us. I have three sisters who are very successful as well, and they're all doing amazing things. I feel like our parents kind of paved that way, so I definitely have to give it to them. They showed us what it means to work hard and build something from nothing, and that foundation has been everything for me.

I would just say that it's really good to kind of try everything. The reason why I say that is you never want to look back and say, I wish I've done that. I think it's great to just dabble and just see what works. A lot of times, you'll probably hear people say do what you love, but also do what you're really great at. I think once you can really conquer that skill, that skill could turn into any sort of business. We're living in a really digital age, so you can kind of make a business out of anything. I think it's just having to just not be afraid and take some risk. Moving to London for 5 years, I moved right before the pandemic hit, even not knowing that the world was gonna shut down, was a huge leap of faith. I'm kind of glad that I did that, because that opened so many different doors for me. I met my partner there. I think that we have to kind of learn and kind of just take a leap of faith, and the worst that can happen is that it doesn't work out, and you can start all over again, and that's totally fine as well.

I think that a lot of people are facing challenges because we're living in a very digital age, and AI comes up a lot with how that shapes the work that we do now, and whether our work will become obsolete if this continues. I've had clients tell me that they used ChatGPT to better understand their color palette and personal style profile, and they said it's good, but honestly, this does nothing better than just working with an expert. I think I am gonna face that as a challenge - it's either you can use this AI to advance your business, which I have used it and I use it on a daily basis, or it could make your business obsolete, because people have that option there. There's so many apps about how to manage your wardrobe, you can upload photos, and they can create outfits. But I think it's how you position yourself. I think using AI as a tool with your business to kind of enhance the whole thing will be beneficial, and not thinking whether this is going to be a challenging space for me, because there's so much technology around fashion and styling. People have the world of resources to look at, but I think there's still that human connection and that touch that people still want when it comes to personal styling. I think a lot of things are moving very quickly, and I think we need to kind of get up to speed with that.

I want to say definitely gratitude. I think that's something that I have really learned to do over the last couple of years, especially because I actually just moved from London, but I was there for 5 years. It kind of just taught me patience, and that's a big value of mine - just kind of being patient with myself and the journey that I'm actually on and building something great. Just kind of showing gratitude, because I think sometimes we forget to self-celebrate our wins, whether that's small or big. I actually had to kind of learn to be like, you know what, that was actually amazing. If I was to tell a friend, oh, this actually is happening, or this just happened, they're like, oh my god, that's amazing, and I'm like, it is? I actually kind of miss the mark sometimes. I kind of have to be a little bit more just showing gratitude with my big wins and then my small wins, because it is a big deal. I think having your own business is a huge leap of faith, and there's a lot that goes into that.