This article is in partnership with Visit Charlotte.
Trading the security—hello, regular paychecks and benefits—that come with a 9-to-5 for the unknowns of entrepreneurship requires a big leap of faith. Yet, for the women who dare to start their own venture, and muscle through challenges (particularly those of the last year), the experience is intensely rewarding—doubly so when your business helps bring vitality to your neighborhood, and is supported by your neighbors. But where to start?
These three women, all of whom left successful careers with big corporations to be their own boss, found the welcoming, mid-sized city of Charlotte to be fertile ground for opening up shop. Spoiler alert: They're happier than ever!
Remi Haygood, Charlotte Yarn
Courtesy of Remi Haygood
Remi Haygood learned to knit to deal with the stress of a corporate banking job. As she knit and purled each new skein of yarn, this calming pastime slowly became her passion.
In 2005, Haywood learned that the owner of Charlotte Yarn was looking to sell the store and she decided it was time to leave the corporate world and embark on a new career.
"Even though I had never worked retail, I have never been shy about trying new things," she says. "I liked knowing that I was in control of whether it failed or succeeded."
Haygood admits the learning curve was steep: She'd never used a cash register or run payroll and had no idea about business essentials like applying for tax identification numbers or paying sales tax, all while researching knitting trends, building a local knitting community, and marketing her store to bring in shoppers.
"I thought, 'I'll order yarn and teach people to knit,' but there was a lot of work on the back end to make the business run," she says.
It didn't take long for Haygood to master the basics; she took to entrepreneurship the same way she took to knitting: quickly and passionately. Charlotte Yarn customers embraced the business—and the change in ownership—and cheered Haygood on as she put her own spin on the shop.
The business skills that Haygood developed running Charlotte Yarn were essential for navigating the pandemic. She changed the store hours, introduced beginner knit kits to help people learn the craft during quarantine, promoted one-on-one (socially distanced) knitting lessons and introduced virtual "sit and knit" gatherings. Haygood's now launching corporate team-building events to help others relieve stress through knitting.
"I don't knit as much as I used to and my hobby is now my work," she says. Yet the locals who've supported her from the start are all the better for it. "I find joy in seeing how much knitting has helped other people."
Lindsey Williams, Davidson Wine Co.
Courtesy of Lindsey Williams
After graduating from law school, Lindsey Williams spent a decade working for a big bank. Williams was successful, climbing the corporate ladder and receiving accolades for her work, but she was burned out and looking for new opportunities.
"I started thinking, 'What if I went out on my own? What is something I would want to do?'" she recalls. "I'd always loved wine…and I fostered that love of wine into my next career."
Williams took winemaking classes and participated in an internship with a winemaker in California before opening Davidson Wine Co. in 2019. "As a lawyer, when you have a difficult case, you do a lot of research," she recalls. "I wasn't going to feel comfortable going into wine without knowing a lot about it."
The "urban winery" in Davidson (about a half hour from Charlotte) produces popular wines like merlot, cabernet and chardonnay as well as unique wines like petit verdos and pinotages. As head winemaker, Williams makes all of the wines and offers tastings, wine sales and a bistro menu from the wine bar in bustling downtown Davidson.
Her legal background proved helpful for navigating the federal and state regulations but, Williams admits, "I had no idea all of the hats I'd be wearing: winemaker, retail, marketing, human resources all fall on me."
Opening a wine bar meant trading a (mostly) 9-to-5 career for one that requires working nights and weekends, and the transition to entrepreneurship required several other adjustments. Williams credits local mentors for helping her navigate the challenges and celebrate the successes of being her own boss.
"It's important for women to find other mentors and support," she says. "Having someone to provide a sounding board when I'm having a challenge and leaning on others to help is one of the things that's been really beneficial to me."
Sherry Waters, The Pauline Tea Bar-Apothecary
Courtesy of Sherry Waters
Although Sherry Waters had a background in marketing and public relations, she credits her work as a hospital chaplain for inspiring her to open an herbal tea lounge. "The idea of having a sacred space for the community was planted in my heart," she recalls.
In 2019, Waters opened The Pauline Tea Bar-Apothecary in Charlotte's Camp Greene historic neighborhood district. Customers order steaming mugs of herbal tea, read, meditate, journal or engage in quiet conversation. A grant from the Center City Small Business Innovation Fund allowed Waters to build a labyrinth behind the building in the Camp Greene neighborhood.
"It's quite different from a normal café," she says. "The intention here is to unplug and find respite and solace in a peaceful environment…it's a sanctuary space."
Creating that kind of environment required a great deal of work. Waters studied herbal teas, tapped into community resources, hired staff and maintained long to-do lists to keep things running. In an attempt to do it all, she realized the need to prioritize self-care.
"I've gotten better about learning to say 'no,'" she says. "There have to be boundaries to protect my time."
It's hard to take time off when the demand is so great. The community has embraced the unique space, dropping in for tea and renting the tea bar for special events. During the pandemic, Waters received invitations to sell loose leaf teas and cold brews at two local farmers markets. It added to her schedule but offset COVID-19-related business losses—and brought Waters even closer to her community.
"I've always found Charlotte to be generous, supportive and innovative," she says. "One of the most important skills you can have as a business owner is being part of your community, aware of their needs and able to respond."
Featured image courtesy of Lindsey Williams
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Ding. Ding. DING.
A life coach by the name of Thomas Leonard once said that “Clarity affords focus” and, believe you me, when it comes to dealing with other human beings, if you don’t get clear on where you stand when it comes to your interactions with them, you can very easily find yourself “focusing too much” on those who don’t deserve it and too little on those who absolutely do. And y’all, this lil’ PSA couldn’t be more relevant than when it comes to what I call “casual friendships.”
Let’s dig — and for some of us, dig our way out of — what it means to have a casual friend, so that you can get clear on if you really need those in your life…and if so…why?
Article continues after the video.
It Can’t Be Said Enough: Always Remember What “Casual” Means
GiphyThere’s a reason why I decided to share two videos by mental health coach Isaiah Frizzle at the top and bottom of this article. It’s because a lot of what he shares in both of them complements a piece that I wrote for the platform last year entitled, “This Is Just What Purposeful Relationships Look Like.”
It’s the author M. Scott Peck who once said, “Until you value yourself, you won't value your time. Until you value your time, you will not do anything with it” and please believe that the older (and hopefully more mature) you get, the more you tend to see just how valuable — and fleeting — time is; and that is what plays a huge role in motivating you want to only involve yourself with people, places, things and ideas that will honor your time — and when something is casual? In my opinion, it’s highly debatable that it’s worth much of your months, days, hours, or even too many of your minutes.
The main reason why is addressed in an article that I wrote back in the day entitled, “We Should Really Rethink The Term 'Casual Sex.'” The gist? When it comes to relationships, “casual” is certainly not a favorite word of mine because I know what it means. Have mercy — why would you want to invest your time, energy, and emotions into something that is, by definition, apathetic, indifferent, careless, lacking emotional intimacy, and/or is without purpose?
I don’t know about y’all but that sounds like a complete and total crap shoot to me — especially if you are going to go so far as to consider this type of dynamic a true friendship (check out “Ever Wonder If A Friend Is Just...Not That Into You?,” “6 Signs You're About To Make A Huge Mistake In Making Them A Close Friend,” “5 Signs Of A Toxic Friendship That Is Secretly Poisoning Your Life,” “12 Friend Facts That Might Cause You To Rethink (Some Of) Your Own,” and “Less & Less Of Us Have Close Friends These Days. Why Is That?” ).
To me, when you decide to call someone “friend,” it means that they are loyal, reliable, consistent, trustworthy and willing to be there to support you to the very best of their ability — even if it’s inconvenient to do so sometimes (check out “Life Taught Me That True Friendships Are 'Inconvenient'”). How in the world can you expect that from something that has the word “casual” in it?
And you know what? That actually segues into my next point about casual friendships pretty darn well.
Ponder the Purpose “Casual Friends” Serve in Your Life
GiphyA couple of years ago, Verywell Mind published an article entitled, “How the 4 Types of Friendship Fit Into Your Life.” The four that it listed were acquaintances (which I actually don’t consider to be friends; check out “6 Differences Between A Close Acquaintance And An Actual Friend”), casual friends, close friends, and lifelong friends. After reading the piece, I think they consider casual friends to be the “pleasure” friends that I mentioned in the article, “According To Aristotle, We Need ‘Utility’, ‘Pleasure’ & ‘Good’ Friends.”
And although I certainly get that, I think my “cause for pause” is calling those people “friends” when they probably should be called something like an associate or possibly even a buddy instead. Why do I feel this way? Well, I’ve shared in other articles that I think social media has jacked up vocabulary words and their true meaning on a billion different levels.
Take “friend,” for example. Facebook had us out here calling everyone we connected to on their platform “friends” when some of them, we’ve never even spoken to before — and I personally think that influenced, affected and perhaps even infected our psyche to the point where we will call folks, both online and off, “friend” even when they haven’t earned it and/or who possibly don’t deserve it.
That said, do I think that we all could use lighthearted interactions that don’t go very deep and are filled with not much more than fun? Sure. However, if we were to move this over into a sexual thing — those types of people would probably be called a sneaky link, and there is nothing significant or substantial about ‘em. In fact, if anything pretty much automatically comes with an expiration date, sneaky links would have to be it.
And that’s kind of the point that I’m trying to make about a casual friend — so long as you know that the word “casual” is being used to describe them, while you may enjoy the people who fit that bill, they aren’t really anything that you can or even should fully rely on. Instead, take them for what they are and don’t really expect much more than that. Otherwise, you could be in for some profound levels of disappointment. And who wants that?
Final point.
How a Casual Friend Can Become a Huge Red Flag
GiphyI’m telling you, y’all gonna quit clowning Tubi. LOL. To me, the best way to describe it is it’s the Cricket of current streaming apps. What I mean by that is, back when Cricket (the cell phone service) first came out, people, like me, who used it service got incessantly clowned because it was seen as a bootleg provider. Now it’s owned by AT&T, and as someone who has rocked with them since I was in my 20s, I don’t have one regret for doing so. Cricket has always been good to me, chile.
And Tubi? Well, when you get a chance, check out CNBC’s article, “CEO at 33, Tubi’s Anjali Sud on success hacks she learned at Amazon, IAC on way to top of Fox streaming” — take note of the moves the streaming app is making and the quality of programming that is transpiring in real time.
Anyway, I find myself bringing up Tubi more and more in my content because it helps to amplify some of the points that I like to make. This time, it’s a movie that’s (currently) on there calledRight Man, Wrong Woman. If you haven’t seen it before, I don’t want to give too much of the film away. What I will say is that the main female character, she had a casual friend and then she had a close friend.
That casual friend—the one who liked to kick it all of the time—was a lot of fun; however, dealing with her came with a ton of semi-unforeseen consequences. Meanwhile, the close friend? She’s what the Aristotle article (that I mentioned earlier) would call the “good friend” because she tried her best to hold her friend accountable.
And really, it shouldn’t be a shock that the casual friend turned out to be a plum trip because if someone is loads of entertainment and pleasure and yet they are indifferent towards you, they make careless decisions around you and/or they don’t really make known the purpose for you being in their life other than to pass some time — where really do you and that person have to go past drinks after work or dinner on a rooftop restaurant from time to time? And if that is all that the two of you are doing, again, why are they deserving of the word “friend”?
Hmph and don’t get me started on the lack of reciprocity that typically transpires when it comes to dealing with people like this because, while they won’t mind you spending your coins on them, taking their calls in the middle of the night or listening to all of their issues — when it comes time for them to show up for you, they very well may gaslight you into thinking that you are being dramatic, clingy or “doing the most.” Why? Well, it’s mostly because the two of you never really established what the hell the both of you are to one another.
And so, while you’re somewhere taking them seriously, they are out here seeing you casually, and as much as it might hurt to hear, that doesn’t automatically or necessarily make them a bad person. You shouldn’t expect much where no clarity is involved. After all, casual is just that: CASUAL.
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I’m hoping that you can now see why I entitled this piece in the way that I did. It’s because a red flag is pretty much a warning, and to me, a casual friend is about as big of an oxymoron (again, to me) as casual sex is. Friends and sex are both too intimate to be seen or treated casually. Oh, but if you step out and take that risk, you could find yourself getting far more involved than the other individual ever wanted to go, because casual is how things have always been. “Friend” was simply to get you more mentally and emotionally invested. SMDH.
American columnist Walter Winchell once said, “A real friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out.” A wise person once said, “One good friendship will outlive forty average loves." Former President Ulysses S. Grant once said, “The friend in my adversity I shall always cherish most. I can better trust those who helped to relieve the gloom of my dark hours than those who are so ready to enjoy with me the sunshine of my prosperity.” Does any of this sound casual to you? Yeah, me neither.
Again, I’m not saying that you shouldn’t have people in your life who aren’t on deep levels. I’m just saying that you might want to consider putting them into another category than friend, because what friends do for people? There ain’t nothin’ even remotely casual about it, sis. Not even a lil’ bit.
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