Tenicka Boyd was 21 years old and a new mother when she took a job working for President Obama. Nineteen years later, her daughter is a college junior living in Japan, Tenicka is a fashion voice, former ACLU staffer, and one of the most self-possessed women I've had on the couch. She is also refreshingly honest about the parts of her story most women tuck away.

In this episode, we get into the conversation Tenicka is best known for online—the honest one about money and motherhood. What it means to enter motherhood with resources, and what it costs when you don't. Why "living for your kids" is not the compliment we've been told it is. Why she believes we're not owed motherhood, and what it looks like to choose it with your eyes wide open.

From there we get into her reflection on early motherhood and the loneliness of being out of sync with the girlfriends who are now having their first child, the leap from a full-time career in politics to content creation—when she eclipsed her ACLU salary in one quarter—and why she refuses to work a sixty-hour week for herself. We talk about the uniformity that's crept into creator culture, the political history of fashion, and why she wants us to expand the definition of luxury beyond European heritage houses. She names the African, Caribbean, and diaspora designers currently defining her closet—from Hertunba to FeNoel to Tongoro to Desiree Iyama.

And then we get into decadence as refusal. Refusal of shrinking, of quiet luxury culture, of the mad dash to 40. Refusal of the small life the world has convinced women to accept.

This is a conversation about what it looks like to give yourself permission to live a life your ancestors couldn't have imagined for you.

Her affirmation this week: "I am my great, great-grandmother's wildest dream." Cheers to that.

🎧 New guest episodes every Tuesday

🎧 New solo episodes every other Thursday

Website: aishabeau.com

Instagram: instagram.com/aishabeau

TikTok: tiktok.com/@aisha.beau

YouTube: youtube.com/@aishabeau

Subscribe to the newsletter: aishabeau.substack.com

For inquiries: aisha@aishabeau.com

Multimedia Producer: Starr Callahan (https://www.instagram.com/starr_callahan/)

Video Editor: Abiola Aina

Original Music by Krisblak + Boo

Follow them on IG:

https://www.instagram.com/9.5.4

https://www.instagram.com/stezus

—

Meanwhile, She is a space for conversations on womanhood, identity, ambition, and the moments that define us.

How do you build the career you actually want—inside an industry that was not exactly built for you—without softening who you are to fit inside it? Chee Smalls has spent fifteen years answering that question. She is Senior Director of Product Development at Coach, a style voice, and a content creator. She is also a Harlem girl who has never—not once, not in a single meeting, not in a single boardroom—code-switched a day of her career.

That refusal is the whole conversation.

In this episode, we get into how she got into fashion without the resume the industry usually demands, and how curiosity became her actual professional currency. We talk about the moments when she could have softened her voice to fit a room and didn't, and what that cost her at first, and what it eventually earned her. Her personal philosophy on luxury and why she refuses to follow trends—including the very sharp question she asks about whether the algorithm is quietly killing our individuality. The features she was insecure about for years and what changed when she stopped shrinking from them. Her marriage as a real partnership—the "we take turns climbing" model she and her husband built, where one goes head-down while the other holds it together, then they switch. And how she is thinking about ambition, identity, and the life she is building on her own terms.

She closes the episode with an "I am" affirmation you'll want to write down: "I am beauty. I am woman. I am ambition. I am God's favored and blessed. I am me."

This is also the first episode with our new behind-the-scenes intro. We shot Chee arriving at the door, the two of us mixing a rosé lemonade in my kitchen, and the moment before we settled onto the couch. The full recipe is below, make it while you listen:

Meanwhile, She Rosé Lemonade

Makes 4 cocktails (about 5 oz each)

Ingredients

1 bottle (750 mL) chilled rosé (The Beach Ros√©)

1/2 cup (4 oz) freshly squeezed lemon juice

2 oz Grand Marnier

1 1/2 oz simple syrup

1 oz agave nectar

Ice

Optional Garnishes

Lemon wheels

Fresh mint

Edible rose petals (if you're feeling fancy)

Frozen raspberries or strawberries

Instructions

• In a pitcher, combine the lemon juice, Grand Marnier, simple syrup, and agave. Stir until fully combined
• Pour in the chilled rose and stir gently so you don't lose too much of its freshness.
• Taste.

Want it brighter? Add another splash of lemon.

Want it softer? Add another ½ oz simple syrup.

• Fill glasses with ice and pour over.
• Garnish with a lemon wheel and mint.

🎧 New guest episodes every Tuesday

🎧 New solo episodes every other Thursday

Website: aishabeau.com

Instagram: instagram.com/aishabeau

TikTok: tiktok.com/@aisha.beau

YouTube: youtube.com/@aishabeau

Subscribe to the newsletter: aishabeau.substack.com

For inquiries: aisha@aishabeau.com

Multimedia Producer: Starr Callahan (https://www.instagram.com/starr_callahan/)

Video Editor: Abiola Aina

Original Music by Krisblak + Boo

Follow them on IG:

https://www.instagram.com/9.5.4

https://www.instagram.com/stezus

—

Meanwhile, She is a space for conversations on womanhood, identity, ambition, and the moments that define us.

We don’t talk enough about what happens to a woman when she has to fight for her child to be heard. Asia Cabello is here to put it on the record.

This week, Aisha sits down with content creator Asia Cabello — mom of three, longtime partner to Dwayne Cabello (whom she met at 13), and one of the most honest autism advocacy voices on the internet—for a conversation about the years that nearly broke her and the ones that rebuilt her.

Asia walks us through what it took to get her daughter diagnosed with autism: the pediatrician who told her to wait, the bias she ran into as a Black mom in the medical system, and the decision to uproot her family and move states so her children could get the care they deserved. She talks about parenting two children on the spectrum 13 months apart in years she barely remembers being present for. And then she talks about how she found her way back—through the gym, a book club, friendships she made in her 30s, and a marriage she’s intentional about choosing every single day.

They get into the racial bias Black mothers face in healthcare, why her husband had to push her to make new friends in her 30s, the morning routine that changed her marriage, the Cabello Couture mommy-and-me line, why “put your spouse first” is the controversial advice she stands by, and the affirmation she’s carrying into the next chapter.

If you’ve ever been told by a professional that what you knew was true wasn’t true—this conversation is for you.

🎧 New guest episodes every Tuesday

🎧 New solo episodes every other Thursday

Website: aishabeau.com

Instagram: instagram.com/aishabeau

TikTok: tiktok.com/@aisha.beau

YouTube: youtube.com/@aishabeau

Subscribe to the newsletter: aishabeau.substack.com

For inquiries: aisha@aishabeau.com

Multimedia Producer: Starr Callahan (https://www.instagram.com/starr_callahan/)

Video Editor: Abiola Aina

Original Music by Krisblak + Boo

Follow them on IG:

https://www.instagram.com/9.5.4

https://www.instagram.com/stezus

—

Meanwhile, She is a space for conversations on womanhood, identity, ambition, and the moments that define us.