MORNING MINDSET with Tai Beauchamp by Deidre Dashay

Good Morning, MB Mag Fam!!

This greeting is stated with the intention to help you focus your mind on a divine higher power. Proclaiming this greeting helps you elevate your heart, mind, and spirit. Yes, that’s right: we’re going deep to encounter the inner and outer beauty of the notorious Tai Beauchamp. The illustrious Tai is known as a host, founder, speaker, gatherer who elevates and empowers women. She’s most notably accomplishing that purpose by hosting Morning Mindset with Tai where she starts each morning going Live on Instagram with her greeting of God Morning and then closes the Live by illuminating an intention on which our minds can focus.

Tai Beauchamp would tell you she’s a vessel. “Many people, especially Black women, might think about a vessel being something that is used to pour into [something else]. And while I am that, I am also a receptacle of a vessel. I want and desire to receive, first and foremost. I desire to receive and be in the bosom of God where I feel held.” Tai is a powerfully purposed vessel, one that not only receives but also pours out. That purpose in her was recognized by her early on in life as a child. Oftentimes we as a people recognize our purpose as a child but we allow outside noise to distract us from the heart of that purpose. We become overwhelmed by the opinions of others, and we hold ourselves back from authentically sharing that purpose with others.

Tai was raised by powerful women, which in turn helped her to believe in herself and hold firm to her purpose. It was these women in her life that gave Tai a point of reference of understanding and being connected to God. Her grandmothers and her mother specifically are who helped her to understand that we have agency and fortitude even when we don’t necessarily believe we do. That fortitude also came as a product from attending an all girls high school, St. Vincent Academy in Newark, New Jersey. And then an all women’s college, Spelman College. It helped Tai to see not only our divine power, but then also our earthly brilliance and capacity. These experiences shaped her to be a person who is focused on making manifest that purpose on this earth. Tai’s purpose? To elevate and inspire people. To love people, and be a catalyst of love. She seeks to live purposefully daily and does not shy away from acknowledging that it’s not always easy, especially when you experience fatigue.

Tai’s catalyst for her journey into mental and physical wellness began because she experienced various points of burnout, depression, and uncertainty. She realized that if she did not own the agency that she has over her mind, body, and spirit, she would be unable to manifest her purpose. Tai began her career as a magazine editor. She was a beauty editor at Oprah Magazine and Seventeen Magazine. Tai also worked for an offshoot of Essence, was the editor-in-chief of Vibe Vixen Magazine, and then became a style ambassador for In Style. Tai shares that, “I’ve always been connected to beauty and to women. And at the time, because I was so young, I didn’t really have words for it. But I see that beauty is really a form of identity. And that’s how I see wellness. Even now. It is about identity.”

Tai had a very accelerated, fast tracked career with a lot of responsibility, a picture of many of our lives and especially the lives

of Black women; we’re capable and we do the most. And Tai did the most. She did the most with a great sense of pride in those seasons of her life. Tai would go on to a pressurized lifestyle, becoming a caregiver for her grandmother, starting a business, and experiencing anxiety and uncertainty as a result of her moving from New York to LA, which all led to her burnout. Now she’s trying to do the least with that same great sense of pride in a way that’s impactful. Tai also recognized that her spirituality was also a part of wellness. Her faith journey in the form of hiking was just as much of a catalyst to her overall wellness.

Tai began hiking every day because she was committed to her physical wellness. The stress of drinking and adding extra pounds had to go. She considered hiking not just a physical training but also a spiritual grounding for herself because through it she felt connected to God. Working out became her worship. It became her time to pray and a time to listen. Tai pointed out that hiking was also metaphorical for life. “It’s one foot after the other. You’re gonna have valleys. You’re gonna have plateaus. You’re gonna reach a peak. It’s gonna be arduous. You’re not gonna be able to breathe. You’re gonna want to fall out. You might fall down. You might feel dusty. You might stub a toe. All these things … but if you have the ability to walk on this journey called life, you take a step. You hold, you breathe, you pace, and you take another step. You trust God in those steps. You ask God, which way do I go? How do I step? You pause, and you pray.”

Movement and understanding healing were important to Tai and

her passion for women, especially our Black and brown women. Thus hiking became the catalyst for Morning Mindset with Tai to be launched and an avenue for her divine purpose to manifest. It also allowed her the platform for her to help women recognize their own divine purpose and calling. The monthly hikes she hosts are centered around women, but men are welcomed, too. The hikes provide a safe place to help the participants focus on the four pillars of Morning Mindset. Those four key pillars include 1) to affirm yourself 2) to move 3) to connect and 4) to reset. Tai goes on to explain, “It’s not just a hike. It’s an experience where you’re connecting with yourself, you’re connecting with your sister. You’re connecting with God. You’re affirming yourself. You’re affirming your tribe. You’re affirming your community. You’re moving, you’re being active. God wants us active. And then we reset and ground ourselves because we also have to rest.”

Audaciously, Tai also joined with two of her Spelman sisters to found a fine, functional fragrance line during the pandemic called Brown Girl Jane. They use scent technology as the leading force to help women see themselves and create a sanctuary through scent. Tai shares, “It’s all neuro scientifically proven. We have 25 years of study that show the impact of the olfactory system and how it impacts our wellbeing.” She continues, “It's interesting because I went from beauty to wellness, and wellness is nothing but beauty on the inside.”

That inside beauty erupts from the vessel that is Tai Beauchamp. Her joy and passion for walking out her purpose prove evident in her tone and on her face. All the pivots she’s encountered became opportunities for her to challenge her thinking and perspectives. Those pivots — along with her obedience to share authentically with her audience, every morning, the downloads that God shared with her — became the birth of her ministry.

Indeed, hers was a ministry that Tai was encouraged to recognize as such by three specific women who are powerhouse bosses in their own right. Tai, being the light that she is, had to give those three their flowers. “It was very early before Morning Mindset started to take off. I was at the intersection of talking about wellness and fitness in mind, psychology, emotional wellbeing, and infusing spirituality. Faith is the biggest part of me. I honestly wasn’t trying to be

a pastor. I had a whole conversation with my pastor. I was like, ‘Well, I’m kind of interested in theology school and divinity school just because I wanna learn. I have all these things in my head, in my mind, about it.’ And these three women in particular helped me see how the Morning Mindset with Tai was my ministry: Shout out to Piera Gelardi, co-founder of Refinery29; Katia Beauchamp, founder of Birchbox and the CEO of Victoria Beckham Beauty; and Alex Williamson, who’s the former chief brand officer at Bumble.”

This is a prime example of why it’s imperative that, as women, we find our tribe. Especially a tribe that allows for a healthy, loving relationship with people who really have the spirit of God. Surround yourself with people who are going to remind you of your greatness so you can step boldly into your next season. Everyone has a divine light within them.

Let go of doubt. Let go of your worries. Stand in your power. Find your tribe at the crossroads.

We shine brighter when we all shine together.

Connect with TAI BEAUCHAMP

Join Morning Mindset with Tai LIVE every Monday through Thursday at 6:30 a.m. PST/9:30 a.m. EST for a spiritual supercharge for your day. You’ll be motivated and forever changed, thus cultivating the breeding ground to let YOUR light shine.