Breaking in to the entertainment world often comes down to possessing a winning combination of sheer luck and good timing. Very few people remain in the industry long enough to become household names. While only the ones who are skilled at their craft and have the right amount of hustle, are the ones that keep us talking and watching.
La La Anthony is one of those talents who cannot be ignored. You may have started following her career years ago when she was the host of MTV's TRL, or perhaps caught on to her in recent years as she added being a New York Times best-selling author to her stacked resume. Yet the title today that keeps her name buzzing is Actress. Leave it to invested fans on social media and you'd think her name is really LaKeisha – a role she played on the hit show Power for six seasons.
Photo Credit: Robert Ector
Now, let's add that up. Television personality, New York Times best-selling author, actress, producer and businesswoman. Yes, girl. Ms. Anthony is a boss with plenty of businesses under her belt, including her own collection, the La La Anthony Collection at Foot Locker.
Recently, we spoke with La La to find out why her hustle won't stop and the baton of wisdom she would like to pass on to other boss ladies.
Don’t let the money make you.
"I'll never take a job based on money. I've always made decisions about my career based on what I want to do, what I love to do - even if it wasn't paying a certain amount of money. If it was me following my passion and dreams, I was willing to do it for free. I was willing to take a pay cut of whatever it cost me, so it was always about the passion and the drive. It was never about just chasing a dollar bill. Sometimes I feel like chasing money leads you to nowhere. Make decisions based on your passion, your heart and what you want to do."
Forget fake it ‘til you make it.
"Confidence is all about inner work. It's all about self-work, believing in yourself and having high self-esteem. You no longer need to be validated by what people say about you in the outside world. I think when you get to that place, people can feel it. When a person's confident, when they walk into a room, people treat them differently. You approach them differently. So, I think it all starts with inner work to include that confidence in all aspects of your life - your career, your personal life, with family - it all starts with you. It's a job that is never done. Every day you have to work on yourself and remind yourself how great you are. We have to learn how to be our own cheerleaders and not to rely on anyone else."
Photo Credit: Robert Ector
"Confidence is all about inner work. It's all about self-work, believing in yourself and having high self-esteem. You no longer need to be validated by what people say about you in the outside world. I think when you get to that place, people can feel it."
Tune out the noise of doubters.
"There's nothing you can do that everyone's going to like or agree with. Nothing you can wear, there's nothing you can say and there's no amount of education that everyone is going to agree on. It's just impossible. It's the world that we live in, the world of social media. A place where everyone feels like they can have a comment and opinion on every single thing that you do. I just have to learn to be comfortable with me, be happy with me. As long as I'm secure in that, none of that other stuff really matters. All of the positive energy is amazing, but for every positive there's going to be a negative. You just have to learn that it all comes with the territory."
Grind ‘til you own it.
"My story for Power is that at the time of casting and auditioning, I was pretty relentless in asking for an audition and wanting to go in there and show the room that I can play this character. Why I'm the right choice for this, and I didn't let up until I was able to get into the room and get that opportunity. But you know, when you get into that room and get that opportunity, you have to seize the moment. It's one thing to get an opportunity and then drop the ball because it might not come around more than one time. I was blessed enough to be able to seize the opportunity. I don't think any of us can do it alone. There is not a single person in their career that's successful that did it on their own without help along the way or advice along the way or a helping hand along the way. You can't be afraid to ask for these things but when you do get them, you also have to be prepared for that moment that you've been asking for."
Courtesy of STARZ
"There is not a single person in their career that's successful that did it on their own without help along the way or advice along the way or a helping hand along the way. You can't be afraid to ask for these things but when you do get them, you also have to be prepared for that moment that you've been asking for."
Stay grounded in faith.
"My faith is extremely strong. I rely on my faith and God in everything that I do and in every decision that I make. Everything starts and ends there for me. So that's what keeps me going. I know that whatever is meant for me is meant to be. My plan is already destined and I'm just trying to follow it. My faith leads me to make all these decisions and to feel comfortable in whatever stage my life is in at that moment because I know everything is playing out exactly the way it's supposed to. I think there is a lot of comfort in knowing that."
For more of La La, follow her on Instagram.
Featured image by Robert Ector; images courtesy of La La Anthony
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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.
____
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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