The Art of Doing

The Motivational Speaker: How Jae Found Her Road

Jae Scott @JaeScottStyle shares stories on how to find your purpose with groups around the world.

HOW JAE SCOTT FOUND HER ROAD: “After both my parents passed (Dad, when I was 3 months old, Mom, when I was 7), I was raised by my grandmother in Washington D.C.. She had 10 children and I have roughly 30 first cousins, and we called her Gangsta Grammy cause she would tell us stories about when she was a girl in New Orleans and she wouldn’t get into a fight with another girl, she’d say, ‘Girl, I’m not going to fight you. Go get your brother.’ Grammy would fight the brother and win. Here I was this nice quiet girl with a high-pitched baby voice, really into fashion, but that was by no accident. My grandmother would have me looking all fresh. She prided herself in up keep. We both would get our hair done every two weeks. That didn’t sit well with the other girls in school. They would just get jealous. I had a tough time. There was a lot of confrontation. At night I would sit up in Grammy’s room with her. She’d sit on the edge of her bed and I would roll her hair and tell her about my day and what was going on at school, and she’d say, ‘If you don’t learn to stand up to people now and speak your mind, you’ll be running for the rest of your life.’ Grammy was fierce. She didn’t back down. She told me if someone came after me and I didn’t stand up for myself, she’d be the one to show me tough love. One day in school, there was this girl. She was big. I mean really big. The girl said something to me in the hallway, after bullying several people. I thought about backing down. Then I just made up my mind. I said, ‘Here we go.’ I took off my boots with little chunky heels and started hitting her with them. After that, the girl stopped bullying me. Eventually, we became friends. I’ve always been a fashionista so after college, I studied fashion merchandising and specialized in fashion show production and personal shopping in grad school. I got a fairy tale job as an assistant to a personal shopper at Bergdorf Goodman. Some of my heroes shopped there. Cicley Tyson, Diana Ross. I learned a lot as an assistant. Then I moved to a new department and became one of the youngest personal shoppers. I learned there, too, but the people were cutthroat and territorial. The focus shifted from me helping my clients define their style to me defending my turf. I realized, life’s too short. As tough as Grammy was, she was big on us sticking together as a family. I saw a way to bring that type of sticking together kind of thing into my work. Ever since I was a young girl I’ve used my voice to make my mark. I realized the most powerful way to use my gifts would not be to style people, but to share those lessons I’d learned from my grandmother about the essence of realness, the core values of faith, the power of consistency, the power of love, the power to follow my heart, and the power I have within myself to make sure I’m equipped to grasp whatever I want in this world. That’s what I do now.”

You can find @JaeScottStyle going to places like South Africa and Dubai to speak and organize events to encourage, inspire and challenge women to stand up, stick together, and find their purpose.

Find Your Road is a NEW SERIES we’re excited to share with you, based on our upcoming book. The book is filled with stories and strategies on how to find work you love that pays the bills. Visit us @Camille_Sweeney on IG to see more, and share with the community there in the comments what valuable lesson someone in your family’s taught you.