Taylor Rae March 16th 2020

What do you do?

I own and run Leaf & Ladle & L&L Libations with my business partner.

Advice/words of wisdom that affected your life you’d like to pass on?

There's a few pieces of wisdom, or mantras (?) for lack of a better term that I really attribute to being where I am, and who I am. One of them came from my mom, growing up, “in a world of big deals, is this really one of them?” For a [not so slightly] obsessive, perfectionist like myself, it’s good to be pulled down to earth every now and then. Comparing whatever issue is on my plate to the rest of the...world (yikes!) is pretty grounding. As far as my personal advice or words of wisdom, so much of it has to do with combating or rewiring habits and narratives that I think it’s so easy for people, but especially women, to acquire in our lives. I made it a personal goal a few years back to only compete with myself, and I mean RELENTLESSLY stick to it, and it has been the single greatest thing I could’ve done for myself. It’s so easy these days with social media, and media, and society in general to fall into a place of feeling “less than,” or “not enough,” which in turn, makes it so hard to support and be excited for the people around you when they’re doing something awesome. The reality is, we all have our own strengths and skills and if you spend your whole time comparing yourself to someone else, you rob yourself of the time to even figure out what yours are, let alone perfect them. And as women especially, it’s so important that we use our energy to celebrate and empower each other! We are absolute badasses and when we stop thinking we have to shove each other down to get ahead, we get to instead build each other up! Plus, It’s been way harder to compete with myself than with others! Which leads me into my second best piece of advice, “just because you haven’t, doesn’t mean you can’t!” This has been my constant mantra these last couple of years and it has pushed me to do ALL kinds of new things. When we decided to open L&L Libations, we were working with a pretty limited budget & a pretty blank slate, but I made the choice to tackle each piece of it, head on and as a learning opportunity, or at least a “fake it till ya make it” opportunity. I ended up teaching myself how to do everything from drawing up building plans and city regulations, to building walls, building a bar from the ground up, pouring concrete & epoxy, running lighting, painting “wallpaper,” upholstering furniture, tiling, designing menus and signs, and every other piece in between! With each new thing that came up, I thought to myself, “well, just because you haven’t, doesn’t mean you can’t!” And eventually it was all done! It would have been so easy to just think “I can’t do that because I don’t know how,” but instead, it ended up being one of the most personally rewarding things I’ve ever done. So I guess my advice is this: remember to look at the grand scheme of things, focus on being the best version of yourself, [sincerely] congratulate those around you, always challenge yourself to do new things, and if you can, find yourself a partner who tells you that you’re a boss ass bitch anytime you might even remotely start to question it.