Memorable Advice From 2022’s FACES of Birmingham

Charity Morgan: When I was a child, my dad gave me the best piece of advice, and it has made me unapologetically Charity. He said, “Never care about what other people think.” Image: Rachel Breakey Photography

Jennifer Lyne: “Organization and consolidation will never let you down. Always being organized is a key skill to have in the kitchen. There is the French phrase mise en place, which means putting in place, having everything ready on your station and organized. Consolidating is also an OCD [trait] of mine. If it can be put into a smaller container, then it needs to be consolidated. Working in small kitchens in NYC, you have to be very aware of this because of the limited space you have.” Image: Tasting TBL

Meg Roebuck: “‘Choose joy. Wake up every morning and choose joy.’ It’s simple, but it affects your whole day and everything you’re doing and who you’re doing it with.” Image: Gina Budny

Elizabeth Omilami: “I think the best advice I was given was to just believe. That’s how I’ve lasted the past 21 years here at Hosea Helps. I did not know what I was doing. I didn’t have an MBA. I had a degree in theater, which has nothing to do with what I’m doing. My faith is what’s gotten me this far. It doesn’t mean I’m not fearful sometimes, but I go right back to believing we’re going to make it.” Image: Hosea Helps

Taneisha Sims-Summers: “‘It’s not a sprint; it’s a marathon.’ I feel like that applies to every area in life because sometimes we’re so anxious to get to whatever the next level is, and we don’t take the time to be present and enjoy where we are. Every level of life requires something different from you, so look at the things you experience as a part of your life lesson and journey to go to wherever else it is you need to go next.” Image: Jennifer Tietjen Purser

Valerie June: “Dream big.” Image: Renata Raksha

Cheryl Day: “A mantra that I live by is something my mom said to me. She always said, ‘This or something better.’ That, to me, means keeping the door open for opportunities. Sometimes an opportunity comes your way, and if it doesn’t work out, you think your world is going to end. My mom always taught me that you have to be open to what’s best for you. I also love a quote by Maya Angelou: ‘People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.’ I always think about that because I like to think of myself as a great connector with people, and that’s something I like to live by.” Image: Angie Mosier

Dr. Sarah Boyce Sawyer: “My favorite quote is, ‘Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about.’ Image: Jacob Blankenship

Amanda Bailey Leach: “It’s a coin with two sides. The first is to enjoy the moment that you’re in. Savor that moment because before you know it, it will be gone. Relish every single day, no matter what it holds. And on the other side of that, as someone who has struggled with debilitating depression, anxiety, and a horrible journey of infertility, the best thing someone ever told me was, ‘You won’t always feel this way.’ When you’re in those tough moments, your brain tells you it’s never going to change, but I’ve lived enough to know it won’t always feel this way. Hope is coming. Change is coming.” Image: provided

Kathryn Sukey: “‘Look good, feel good, do good!’ This has always been my approach to life and career, and then I came to find out after I joined Draper James that Reese’s mother and grandmother instilled in her these same values.” Image: Draper James

Lindsey Seal: “My life motto is something Pat Summit said: ‘You can’t always control what happens to you, but you can control how you handle it.’” Image: provided

Betsy Hayes: “Be willing to get out of your comfort zone and learn as much as you can because you never know if that will be something you can use in the future. It also builds you into a better person.” Image: Kristen Joy Photography

Leanne Morgan: “Brad Upton is a comic and a friend out of Seattle who had a good career in comedy. He said, ‘Leanne, try to work clean. You can always dirty something up, but you can’t always clean something up. If you’re clean, you can do private and corporate events. You can do comedy club clubs; you can do theaters; you can do anything.’ That was really good advice because when you start doing comedy — and I did this — you say stuff that is shocking just because. But it limits you.” Image: Leanne Morgan’s team

Madison Murphy: “Sometimes it’s very easy — especially in the gift box world where there’s so much out there — to try to copy someone else or be what somebody else is. A friend of mine told me to try to be different, and I thought that was good advice. I stand out by being different and doing things well and with all my heart as unto the Lord.” Image: Meghan Gray

Dr. Sabrina Scott: “You have to do the work within to be beneficial to anybody and anything you do in life. I always tell my staff (and myself), ‘Take care of yourself outside of work so you can be the best you can be inside of work.’ If you don’t fill up your vessel, you don’t have anything to give anybody else. Practice self-care — whether that’s your spirituality and faith, relationships, eating right, or exercising. Whatever those things may be, you have to pour into your vessel so you’re able to give this world the best that you can. You can’t do that if you’re always on empty.” Image: KP Studios

Alex Graf: “Breathe and get yourself some flowers.” Image: ZZQ

Haylie McCleney: “One of my family’s mottos is: ‘The best is yet to come.’ My mom repeated that over the course of my softball career and my life. She never made me feel that my purpose was tied to softball. So she would always convey to me, ‘Your best is in front of you. You’re doing great things now but keep going.’ This relentless optimism has pushed me to keep going when things get difficult. The pandemic was difficult. Training for the Olympics was difficult. Training on my own pretty much every day is not easy. But something good is on the other side — better days are always ahead. That’s true on the really good days and the really bad days.” Image: USA Softball

Hannah Smarr: “Taking good care of yourself is important. It doesn’t matter if you’re a bartender, bagging groceries, or a heart surgeon. You’ve got to take care of yourself because if you don’t, you can’t perform. That’s mental health, and that’s physical health. And maybe that means you take a self-care day, or you need to go to the gym, or you need to eat a pizza by yourself. Whatever that is, it’s fine, but taking care of yourself is a priority.” Kristine Brown:” Remember that people’s minds and thought processes work differently than yours. The biggest growth is the ability to understand that and approach people with empathy — working to gain an understanding of why they made the decisions they made rather than jumping to a conclusion and getting angry or upset.” Image: Elise Ferrer

Marianne Eaves: “It was from my dad, and it was one of the things that made me stand out at Brown-Forman. He said, ‘If this is really where you want to work, tell them that you’ll mop the floors — any way that you can get in the door, and then show them the value you bring. Operate like you are doing the job that you want to be doing.’ You’ve got to make sure that when people think of a job they need to have done, they think of you.” Image: Sweetens Cove

Dr. Virginia Campbell: “If there’s somebody in your life that you have a difference with, try to leave a place to build the bridges back in the future. Remember that everybody else is human, too, and your relationship with them doesn’t have to be totally tied to believing the same thing. Remember that for whatever differences you have with other people; you still have more in common with them.” Image: Dr. Virginia Campbell

Liz Allison: “Love what you do!” Image: Liz Allison

Jenny Waltman: “‘Stay behind Jesus and let him receive the glory for your life.’ He’s got such a big, incredible plan for each of our lives; we can’t even fathom it. We don’t even think that big. So, if we can stay behind him, he will take us to places and adventures we would never have dreamed of. He’s showing me a concept called ‘the compounding yes.’ If we say ‘yes’ to what he asks us to do today, then that ‘yes’ builds on the next ‘yes’ and the next ‘yes,’ and when we look back, all of those yeses have accumulated to what we get to call our amazing life.” Image: Grace Klein Community

Danielle Hines: “‘Be present.’ We all have goals, but you can get caught up in achieving the goal and not be present while you are going through it. You look up, and you’re in the middle of success but can’t enjoy it. When I’m present, I can flow, think creatively, and interact better with people. It’s better for my self-care.” Image: provided

Melonie Lusk: “Never enter a room thinking you know more than everyone else. To think all you might never learn!” Image: Lena Banks

Tiffiany Ward: “The best advice I can give someone that has ever been given to me is, ‘Wake up, pray, and hustle.’ That’s something I’ve lived my entire life by. You can say a lot of things, but you’re not going to say you outworked me.” Image: Amber Helms Photography

Kathleen Roth: “‘Enjoy what you do; life is too short.’ And my husband always says, ‘Nothing’s worth doing if it’s not worth doing right.’ He is a type-A lawyer and very meticulous. I think that’s rubbed off on me! I am a very detailed person.” Image: provided

Abra Barnes: “One thing that has taken me far is that my mom always told me, ‘You give the same respect to the garbage man that you give to the President of the United States.’ I don’t care who you are or what walk of life [you’re from]; I’m going to show you the same respect. I think that has helped my business a lot.” Image: D. Jerome Smedley

Christie Wallace: “I don’t know who specifically said this, but as I’ve grown over the years, I try to live my life caring way less about what other people think about me than I did when I was younger. I focus on the things that bring me joy and fill my life with happiness. For many people, including me, the pandemic helped weed out the stuff that wasn’t fulfilling. Now, I am more mindful about only having people in my life who contribute positively to it. It’s the same with my interests because time is fleeting, and we can’t get it back. I want to make the most of life by doing things that I find enjoyable and fulfilling.” Heather McKinney: “My high school teacher, Mrs. Muhl, gave us so much good advice, but she gave us the advice to take ownership over things. She would say, ‘If you have a problem, think about what you can do to take ownership over that problem. In short, make it your problem.’ That doesn’t mean that you can solve everything in the world, but in any situation, you (at the very least) have autonomy and control of your choices and decisions. If you feel like something is happening to you, always try to search within yourself and say, ‘What can I do to improve the situation?’… It’s about taking ownership of something, making it your problem to the extent that you have control over it, and then working from there. She said, ‘It will empower you and help you feel less powerless,’ which I’ve found to be very true.” Image: provided

Lauren Roberts: “I have a picture of my favorite spot on the Lakeshore Trail in my office. It’s right in the middle, and it shows a line with 1.25 miles written on both sides. It reminds me that there is always more than one way to reach a goal. You just may need to be creative and approach an obstacle from a different angle to figure it out.” Image: Heather Swanner

Amanda Sudano Ramirez: “These are the good ol’ days.” Image: Amy Waters

Jonece Starr Dunigan: “‘Our mistakes are fertile grounds for growth.’ I see that happening over and over again in my life, professionally or personally. It’s a privilege to know me even when I do make mistakes. It doesn’t make me any less loving, kind, and brave. Because I haven’t given up, I feel grateful that despite my dark days, my brightest moments are still shining.” Image: Jonece Starr Dunigan

Kendra Scott: “One of my early investors told me to focus on building a unique, disruptive business first, and the rest will follow. If you’re solely in it for the money, you have already failed.” Image: Kendra Scott

Cyndi McCormick: “‘Strive to be the very best at what you do, even when no one is looking.’ That’s from my dad.” Image: Cyndi McCormack and Dollywood

Kendyl Crooks: “I’m not sure if I can consider this the best piece of advice I’ve ever received, but a comment my mom made once has really helped me take healthy risks in my adulthood. She told me once when I was torn between decisions, ‘Nothing you decide is going to be detrimental,’ shares Kendyl, “Obviously, some decisions are detrimental. But when it comes to those should-be simple decisions, remembering that has often helped remove anxiety from decision-making and made it a little easier to take risks, both in this business and in life. I know that whatever decision is made, everything is still going to be okay.” Image: Dimples Flowers