Black Family Table Talk
Black Family Table Talk
S6:E3 | What does "Live Your Best Life" Really Mean?
This week we sit down with Julia Royster. She teaches us that "living your best life" means living in your truth and not the truth of someone else. It means living the life that you were meant to live and being okay with it deep down inside yourself and not based on what others think, believe, or approve of.
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I'm like, you know what if I ever get out of here, but ever get a chance to do what I love full time, now I was still doing it, been doing my thing for 20 years, but I'm like if I ever get a chance to be able to do what I love full time, as they say bet on black me. Oh, I'm going all out.
Tony:Welcome to season six of Black Family Table Talk. We are your host, Tony and Tony. Listening weekly as we share unique stories that inspire, build and give voice to strengthen black families.
Toni Henson:This season is sponsored by Frans body care. These are handmade products made from organic ingredients. I personally recommend you try Free Me deodorant. It really works! And it's free of aluminum, taupe perfumes and other harmful pore clogging substances. You can shop these and other black businesses on our website at BlackFamilyTableTalk.com. We appreciate you we know this. This has been a long time coming. And we so happy to have you. Miss Julia Royston, Welcome to Black Family Table Talk!
Julia Royston:Thank you. Thank you. So glad to be here.
Tony:Welcome!
Toni Henson:So tell us your story, you've got a very, very positive spin on everything you do. And I absolutely love that. We need your energy on this earth is.
Julia Royston:Well, thank you so much for having me. My parents said that I was pretty positive and an extrovert at birth. So it kind of comes naturally for me. My story started, I was married before, in 1994, I was getting my first master's and going through divorce at the same time. So getting a degree and a divorce at the same time is not very positive. It's extremely negative, and very emotional. But what was very therapeutic for me was the ability to journal so as soon as I had my degree in my hand, I started journaling. As a matter of fact, it had nothing to do with my divorce. It had nothing to do with the hardships I had endured the years before. It had everything to do with a bright future. I knew with that degree in my hand, and the future was bright. So I really strive to instill that in everything I do. I write in multiple genres. So therefore, I want to instill that to the next generation. In my children's books. I want to empower adult women in what they do. I want to empower those who are entrepreneurs, or start on the entrepreneur journey, because as you will know, it is not for the faint of heart. And so therefore, I really strive to empower, educate, but also encourage as I go along the journey. I've been teased often I have one of my clients who tell me, Julius, social media is so boring. It has no controversy. It's all that you can do it, you can be it, you can have it- all that encouragement scriptures. Positivity. Whoo! It's so boring. No drama. I'm like, No, it's not that I don't have drama going on in my life. I just don't need to share with the world. I don't need that. And I don't want to exude that for my brand.
Toni Henson:I love that. I love that. So how did you get started with this whole live your best life thing? How did that come about? You know, you talked about your journey through through getting a divorce and trying to get a master's degree at the same time, which is in of itself on so many levels challenging?
Julia Royston:Yes, on so many levels.
Toni Henson:What did it culminate into?
Julia Royston:Well, it culminated into a second master's or doctorate and all of that, educationally wise, and then entrepreneurship, marrying a new great husband. That's the reason why I'm able to be on the road and travel and do as much as I can because I connected with the right person. So therefore, I mean, I really encourage that a lot, too, as well. My husband is Brian Royston. And, entrepreneurial single women is like I want my Brian as a baby. He's already taken. He's already mine. But I'm praying that God sent you yours. Now, as far as live your best life. I'm a retired teacher and librarian. So I was corporate law, medical, school libraries for 30 years and simultaneously, I was also the computer technology teacher. I kind of did that at the same time so therefore, sitting there, teaching children, as they say, being cussed out by eight year olds. I'm like, You know what, if I ever get out of here, if I ever get a chance to do what I love full time, now I was still doing it, been doing my thing for 20 years. But I'm like, if I ever get a chance to be able to do what I love full time, as they say bet on black me, oh, I'm going all out. And so therefore when I was approached about having a broadcast and having a show, and and having a podcast, I said, I wanted it to be live your best life, because I want it not to be my life but I want you to live your best life. I want to bring helpful tools, people, information to help you live your best life. But I wanted those tools selflessly for me so that I can live my best life. Once you have an opportunity, and the world is wide open to you, and you control your time, you control your efforts, you control what you do, because my husband's retired too, as well. So we're to retirees on the road, we are just like, Ooh, what have we always wanted to do? Because we control that. No one controls that. We can say yes, and we can say no. And we can say, Oh, I'm gonna stay in the city another day or another week. I mean, whatever we choose. So it's a beautiful thing. But I realize everybody is in different stages of their life, that live your best life for me at 58 is totally different than the 28 year old, who's just getting started, still got a mortgage, still got a little children, still trying to find a way, maybe a single mother looking for Mr. Wonderful. That whole facet, but I feel like a part of my purpose is to help you live your best life by saying, Okay, now you can do it, it's gonna be a minute for you get to be 58. But along your journey, don't make the same mistakes, don't repeat generational cycles, or generational curses. Let's do better, be better, have better and do better for the next generation that might not have been done for our generation. So that's really, in a nutshell, what live your best life all in a nutshell is and more importantly, your best life, not mine, and not what living vicariously your parents won't and Big Momma said you should do. You need to sit down and map out that strategy for you. Because at the end of the day, you want no regrets. You want to live your best life on your terms.
Tony:Julia, let me let me ask you, so you mentioned living your best life. You mentioned your age, most women don't get that age.
Julia Royston:I don't care when I was 18 They said I wouldn't live. They said I wouldn't live to be 21, so when you live past 21 I don't care nothing about telling my age.
Tony:That's quite all right. So let me ask you at age 58 and this stage you are in your life right now, your second husband and you're retired, you have a lot of flexibility to really kind of cultivate your best life. Yes. What will you tell your 28 year old self on how to live her best like if you can go back and speak to her.
Julia Royston:Keep going. Don't stop you have what it takes those gifts, talents and abilities that you think are hard right now are gonna come in handy in that next life. Drop negativity, people are gonna hate forever, people are gonna hate and be jealous of you forever. Love hard, work hard, but play harder. I don't think I'm kind of a workaholic. So I don't relax as much as I should or could. I'm learning how to do that now. My husband's helping me with that. But probably then I was just on my grind and never did stop to smell the roses, cups of tea and coffee and and even if it's a peanut butter and jelly sandwich by the back river with a lawn chair. Taking that self care time for you and then realizing my 28 self, girl you in the pramod life, keep going girl! Keep going! You are worth it. You are enough. You have enough. Back then it's all about self doubt. It's all about how you look. Are you small enough? Which I never was but are you thin enough? Are you cute enough? Do I need weave, do I need hair. You are enough.
Tony:A follow up to that because you mentioned some life trappings, living for others, living for your parents, living for your friends. The responsibility of trying to find a husband, should I have children. All those things. How do you tell a young person to live their best life when you got all of that on you. You're trying to live for everybody else, you're not really living for yourself, trying to make everybody else happy. So going back, how would you do things differently and move forward?
Julia Royston:Well, I was a real people pleaser. I mean, I'm who I am now because you have to have those experiences. You have to have those disappointments and some things be avoided, it's just a part of life. So, you have to, I wish I could go back and relive but some of it, I don't want to relive, I don't want to go back through it. But I am who I am today, just because I endured it, I went through it. And so therefore having that private time of sitting down devotional prayer, meditation, whatever you do, yoga, have you get it, but centering yourself, based on you, and not, not on waiting 20/30/40 years until either you're don't have the energy or you don't have the money to do it. Now, this generation of 20, somethings, they kind of clear on what they want. The millennials, they really have an idea, they don't have a problem doing different. Me, I was still 80s graduating from high school, and it was all about then, the zen and they got a whole lot more options. They got diversity and inclusive, when I start seeing commercials, and the main character is about a 20 to 24 size, I know we've come a long way from the 80s. When I started seeing the diversity of biracial couples, children, all of that it's a little bit more open. So I don't think the 28 year olds now do not have the pressure, they're really living their best life. And I'm gonna do it on my terms. I don't care who now as far as me, it was a learned lesson. It took a while, it took the hurt, the tears, pain, and all of that to realize, when I was 38, almost headed to 40 like, come on bigger, what you gonna do? How are you going to do this? Because they do what they want to do, are you going to ever do what you want to do? So that's the biggest thing. And it is a lot, and making that decision to not have children. I don't have children, my husband doesn't have children, either. And making that decision to be the great aunt and uncle that we are, is a decision that we had to make and people like I can't believe it. I know me. So getting to know you is really key to that as well. What others think and keeping people from the inside of you, and keeping them on the outside saying thank you for your opinion, I really, you know, that's good. And that worked for you. But that's not gonna work for me.
Toni Henson:I really think it's so important to keep having these conversations. And because I think what happens is we get into a grind. And then we don't really realize that we know that intellectually. Everything you said, everybody really truly knows that intellectually, but we get into a grind and before we know we were in the habit of the grind, and not able to come out of it. I absolutely love, love, love that you are talking it and continue to talk it in spite of what you said in the beginning. When you said, why is it all this positivity? Because I think that that's the narrative that we need to promote. Here's a quick question. What do you wish you knew when you started out that you didn't know, that you know now, but you wish you'd known before you started?
Julia Royston:Ooh, this started my businesses are started. Um, I wish I had been better money manager. I wish I had saved more. I wish I had been an investor. My current husband's big on that. So I'm playing catch up as far as that's concerned. I wish I hadn't wasted as much money on the outward appearance as I did. Now, I want to be cute. I like to dress but going into debt for it really at this juncture was not worth it because culture has changed. And so the only added is then it was it was a bigger deal about how you looked on the outside, because people accepted you or rejected you a lot on what you your parents. So I spent a lot of time, I sang in church, I spent a lot of time on stage. So that have dictated a lot but I wish I had been a better saver and a better investor. That's one of the main regret I really have. Everything else, just came with life. But that was a choice that I made and didn't make.
Tony:That was very powerful. You sound like someone who's grounded in faith. How how did that play a role and in your journey?
Julia Royston:It's everything. It's everything. It's the reason why I'm able to sit here still clothed, and in my right mind. They brought me to church at six weeks old, but it wasn't the church's response. My parents were committed to raising their own children. They didn't bring me to church and say y'all raised them, it was just a part of my whole life. So even though I was raised Pentecostal, very fundamentalist, apostolic, we had a whole life. We did participate in activities at school. We're active in community activities. We did travel. We did take vacations. My sisters did learn how to swim. We did go to the beach. So we had a whole life. And then my father was a teacher in the day and then we had a janitor service in the evening. We had at one time 50 employees, so entrepreneurship was just a part of our whole life. But we had a whole life. It was work hard, play hard. Enjoy your life, too, as well. So believing God was going to help you and do it was just not a fantasy now. A lot of people say, Oh, I'm waiting on the Lord. Well, no, boo, what you doing. We believe the faith without work to do. So we believe in a lot of working. But we also believe God was going to open the door, if you prepared yourself, if you educated yourself, if you controlled yourself and discipline yourself, you would have the favor of God on your life. But coming into empty handed, you haven't done any preparation. You haven't done any work, you haven't put any effort in, you have invested your time, money and effort in any any part, Okay, well, you just sit there and still hope and pray. But results require work. Results require effort. Results require faith and going to school. Faith and putting in the effort, and all of that working together, not just one part and not the other.
Tony:Amen. Toni, I got one follow up question. So as you gone through life, and you had different trials and errors, what would you say was your turning point? What was your aha moment that you said, Okay, this is not working. I'm going in different direction. You mentioned the difficulties of your first marriage and, and going through graduate school, getting your masters and everything. Was it during that time before that time after that time? Or what was that light bulb moment for you?
Julia Royston:Okay, so, have you ever seen the Eddie Murphy stand up? It's back in the 80s. I think he had the red jumpsuit, the purple suit on. When he said, as long as a black woman is crying and fussing and cussing you out, you're good to go. But when she goes calm on you and shuts down and doesn't say anything, you're in big trouble. Well, that's me. As long as I've caught crying I said, Okay. And that was my aha moment, with as far as my ex husband, and the same to this day, as long as I'm trying to figure it out and get a solution and you're still not, then I finally go silent on you. My current husband will tell you, uh-oh, Julie's not talking. That's not a good thing. Because that means I have made a decision. That means I clearly weighed all my options, determine what you're going to do and what you're not going to do, and how much it cost and the path to take. That social media famous thing move in silence. That's me. I arrived and they say, Oh, she's here. Yes. Because while I'm waiting and talking, okay, you still got a chance to change my mind but when I go solid on you, it was during all of that. When I am begging you and please you, Oh, come on, come on, we're going back and forth. And what about this? What about that? But when I finally said, Okay- you're in deep trouble. It means I'm making moves for myself without you. That means I'm determining a path and a plan for my life that doesn't include you. We don't have to fight and fallout. It just goes silence. And then you know, it's over. It's done. Even in business today, I don't have a "You can go on my page. You can go all my social media." I'm not calling anybody out. I just don't answer the phone. We don't do lunch. I clearly do silence and we move head into a totally different direction. You'll see me somewhere else. And those are my aha moments when I'm when I'm done. I'm done.
Tony:So what you just mentioned was kind of contrary to being a people pleaser. So you no longer people pleaser now?
Julia Royston:No, I'm no longer a people pleaser unless it's a client. That's paying me some real money. And then I want to make you happy that you continue being a client. But after that, no, I'm done with that. My husband, Brian Royston helped me with that. He helped me clearly with that, and, and no means no. And I even had a shirt on "no and no". He's always concerned that people are going to take advantage of me. And he's like, no, and no. If you didn't get the first No, you're going to get the second No.
Toni Henson:I love it. Last question. What are the three things that you want people to take away about Julia Royston and her journey? What are the three things that absolutely want hands down, want people to know.
Julia Royston:There is a purpose and a plan for your life. It's going to take time for you to discover it. But know that there is a purpose and plan. Be not dismayed. God will open up a door and provide a way. The second thing is, once you discover your purpose and plan, you've got to work it, it's not going to be handed to you. It's not going to be without effort, sweat, and tears. And then number three, you're going to have to invest in that work, you're going to have to invest in it. As a matter of fact, I was recently told, We don't get any of the behind the scenes because you, you make it look so easy. People think anybody can do it. And they don't see the effort, they don't see the work that goes into it. So you might need to start a video blog so that you show people the behind the scenes, the packing the car, the messy hotel room, the preparation, the what goes into what you do every day. I know my purpose, I know the path that I'm on, and I'm willing to work for it. But I'm also willing to invest my blood, sweat and tears, money, time and effort to get that done and get that accomplished. So those are my top three things. It's all about whatsoever a man do shall prosper.
Tony:Amen.
Toni Henson:Julia how can people get in touch with you?
Julia Royston:They can go to solo.to forward slash JuliaARoyston that has everything there. I know. It looks like a strange website. but believe you me it's a one pager, it has my social media, all my bookstores, all my other websites, it's all there. So solo.to forward slash JuliaARoyston for everything you want that's Julia Royston related
Toni Henson:Awesome. That's Black Family Table Talk!
Tony:That's what's up! That concludes this week's talk. We hope you found some tools to add to your strong black family toolbox. And be sure to sign up for a free subscription at BlackFamilyTableTalk.com for special discounts and product offers reserved exclusively for you.
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