INTERVIEW: Tabitha Brown On Purpose, Messages From God, Retiring Her Husband, New Book + More

Published Feb 1, 2024, 2:21 PM
No description provided

Wake that ass up in the morning.

Breakfast Club Morning, everybody in Steve j Envy, Charlamagne the guy.

We are the breakfast Club.

We got a special guest in the building time time who celebrating her birthday next week.

I am this weekend.

This weekend, ladies and gentlemen, Tabitha Brown, Welcome.

How are you?

I'm amazing. If I was in the bed, i'd be two people.

I love that hoodie.

Thanks.

Freedom over colde switching? What's that mean?

Well, you know, I spent a very long time code switching and conforming and that's not freedom. So I no longer live that way. And so I always tell people, honey, we got to freedom over colde switching. We'd enough just as we are, even if we're from the country, even if we're from the South. It's just a thing. So I promote that all the time.

There you go, I feel like I know you because I told you when I saw you over the summer.

I'm like when my kids watched taping the Brown all the time on YouTube. And then you know, my wife has the cookbooks, the vegan cookbooks around the house, like she was giving them out of his gifts to people like you.

And we got to congratulate her on at me as well, just want to acting congratulations.

It still feels surreal, you know, but I feel grateful to have one for just like being myself, right, but something so powerful that it's for children. But it still feels like it didn't happen. It feels like a dream almost. But the crazy thing is there's another side of that that it feels completely normal. It's like a it's a it's a weird.

Feeling, it's yours.

Yeah, it feels like, oh, this is what God intended for my life. Absolutely, But the other side of it is like, did that really happen?

So? But yeah, how did the Internet change your life?

Shoot, honey in every way? You know, I was, I still am an actress, but for a long time, you know, I was pursuing acting and nobody really knew me from you know, acting, And I started doing content doing you know, videos, not because I wanted to, but I had a dream and God spoke to me and told me started doing videos. And I was like, no, I don't want to do that, you know, But I was also trying to live a life of obedience. And I started and nobody was watching and I was like, well, God, you told me to do this, and ain't nobody. Ain't nobody showing up on these videos to watch? Why do you have me doing this? And I started in August of twenty seventeen doing videos and by December thirtieth, one of my videos went viral.

Which one it was?

It was a TTLA. I was eating a sandwich in my car because I was driving Uber and because I was on disability for over you because I was so sick. And when I started feeling better after going vegan, I started driving Uber and I was like, you know what, I had had a job before. I didn't want to get stuck back in the nine to five. So I told my husband, I was like, you know what, I'm gonna go drive Uber. We live in LA. I'm probably get discovered in my car. In my mind, I'm thinking I'm gonna, you know, pick up a producer or director or something. And I stopped by Whole Foods because I dropped somebody off and I was like, I'm go ahead and get me a little breakfast and because I'm still a new vegan at that time, and I got a sandwich and did a review on it because I was my videos. When I first started, I was just telling people I'm going vegan. When I find new vegan options, I'm just gonna share it. And by the time I got home in the video had like fifty some thousand views, and I was like, wait a minute, who watching.

This video was before.

Listen? I love that's my nephew. But the next morning had like over one hundred thousand views, and I was like. I told my husband, I said, I think I'm going viral was and I was like and he was like, what that means. I was like, I don't know. And four days later, Whole Foods reached out. I was like, we saw your video because I got the you know, sandwich from there, and they wanted to partner with me. I became their brand ambassador and wow, you want to do so many campaigns and it ain't It's been on ever since then.

Now, why have you switched to vegan for people? I don't know?

So I got sick. So January of twenty sixteen, I woke up one morning and I had this headache in the back of my head. And I had a car accident in high school, so I'm used to like waking up sometime in the back of my neck is tied and sometime it goes into my head. So I thought it was one of those episodes. But this headache rested in the back of my head for a year and seven months wow, and it started to, you know, affect my body, and so I started to fall when I will walk as a woman. Everything was all out of whack. I just did not feel well. So every time I went to the doctor, they were doing so many tests. They was in myris trying to figure out what is wrong. So they told me. They was like, we know it's something autoimmune that's attacking your body. We just can't figure it out. I lost my vision for a day. It was a really bad time for me, and I took every drug the doctor offered me. I was like a guinea pig because you are desperate to feel better, and if anything, it probably made me worse. Nothing was working, and so my daughter came home from school one day and she was like, Mommy, we saw this documentary at school today. I think you should watch it. And I don't know if you know teenagers, honey, but it ain't every day they come home and tell you to watch the documentary. And so it was what they helped on Netflix, and so I was like, you know what, let's watch it together as a family. So I watched it. When they started talking about not all diseases or hereditary sometime you can eat the same thing in your family that will cause the same disease in your bloodline. And so that was kind of like a light bulb moment for me. My mama died at fifty one of a rare disease. My daddy is now seventy two, but he's the oldest man that ever lived in my family.

Wow.

People get sick at young ages in my family, and they died at young ages in my family. And the only thing I could think of that we had in common was how we ate. Now, I wasn't a bad eater because I was in LA but I wasn't eating to feel well. I was eating to look a certain way, which is is also a sickness and.

So a certain way.

So I'm not exactly. I wasn't eating to like, oh, I'm me put this in my body so I can be well. I was like, oh, let me put this in my body so I don't gain weight, you understand. So so but I said it wasn't you know, a terrible you know, I haven't eaten red metal pork since I was fifteen, and I was like, okay, and I'm allergic to the every like most people. But I also was like, it's the only thing I haven't tried. So I told my husband, let's do like a thirty day began challenge. So for thirty days and so on, like day ten, the headache I had every day for a year and seven months disappeared. Wow, and I was like, wait, min, I'm onto something. And after that, every day started geting energy again because I had chronic the tea and I had chronic panic attacks because when you sick and you know something is wrong but the doctor said, well we can't figure it out, it makes you have anxiety and depression. And so I started getting energy again because I would sleep all day all night, like I would just be exhausted all the time, and so energy start coming back. My head, you know, was feeling better. I was starting to feel like myself again. And so that day when day thirty came, I told my husband, I was like, this is gonna be my life. You know, I'm gonna go vegan. He was like, well, tomorrow we need a piece of chicken tab like.

And so.

But I always tell people that part because sometimes the journey that may change your life or save your life, you gotta be willing to go on and a loan. And so I was like, all right, and so I ain't never looked back.

That's why I got so many questions. Number one, you said something earlier about God spoke to you. What does God sound.

Like for me? Yeah, so I always tell people I get to asked that a lot. Now I am gives it in a different way than most people. So for me, I can hear like your voice, I can hear sometimes it sounds like a flutter, like a hummingbird would be close to my ears. So it's like a wind and it's a flutter, but you can hear sound in it. I can see it, I can dream it. I'm a seer, but in my dreams, like my dreams can speak to me and things come to pass. So that's what it sounds like for me. For most people who are always trying to figure out is this God speaking to me? Is this just my thoughts? I will tell you that when you think of something, you'll think of it and you may lose the thought later right may not even come back to you. But when God is speaking to you, when he's putting something inside of you, it won't let you rest. It'll keep coming back. And so that's how you can kind of decipher. And then sometimes he will use a voice that's familiar to you, like for me, when my mama was sick, she lost her voice because she had ls or at the end she could either whisper or we'd have to read her lips. So I would be at her house on the other side of the house, in her office, and she would be in her bedroom in the hospital bed, and just as clear as I can hear, you know, us having this conversation, I would hear her call me like tab and I'll go in there and be like, momy, you called me. And she looked at me like, nah, I call you, you know, like I can't. She can't. But that's how God will get your attention sometimes, not to scare you. Now, I've only heard this one time, and this is when I was living in Greensboro, North Carolina, when I had kind of given up on my dreams and thought I couldn't have them anymore. I woke up one morning it felt like an earthquake had happened in Greensboro. Like my bed shook me awake, and I heard a voice that sounded like thunder, and the boy said, this is not the life I plan for you. And I got on knees of us started praying. I was like, now, God, if this is you speaking to me, I need you to show me a sign.

Just shook the house.

But listen, I woke up like this. I had never heard that before and it was scary, and I was like, either you got to show me today that this is you. Ioran to time my husband take me to the hospital because I thought I was losing it. And when you gifted, sometime they do feel like you're crazy and other people think that it's well. But now of course I know like, oh no, this is just my gift and I don't hide it anymore. I don't straight away from it. I wrote it buy it in my first book because I wanted people to know, like, this is me. If you want to rock with tail, honey, this is who I really am. I don't hide that part of me anymore.

So what was the other sign that God shows you?

Oh? So later that day, because I had kind of given up on my acting dreams because I had a baby, and you know, me and my husband's working jobs. We was living in North Carolina, So you have a baby early in a small town, you pretty much are like, oh, you go get this regular job and y'all going to get a house and cars and that's gonna be it. And so in Greensboro, North Carolina, where no acting or TV shows and nothing was happening. Later today, we was on our way tomorrow and on the radio, Bustin Brown was the DJ, and he came on and was like, Hey, I just got a new TV show on the WB network and I'm looking for a female co host. I'm holding out And I was like, that's my sign that I gotta go to this audition. And I want to say that audition I booked. The job was the first audition I ever had for a time.

God.

Yeah, and I've been pursuing it ever since.

Wow.

When you say you have gifts, so are you clairvoyant? Are you like a medium? No?

I call it I'm a seeer. Right, It's just you know, that's a gift that God gave me. I was born with it in that way. Yeah, my whole life, I feel like we all have discernment, we just don't all lean into it, right. But for me, I, as a little girl would dream about people I've never met before and wake up and tell my mom and dad. They're like, oh, I such and such, and they'd be like, that person been dead twenty years. Like you would never know that person, right. I can remember being in my grandfather's funeral, but they're like, you were ten months old. It's no way for you to remember that. It's just I don't know, and I can't control it. That's the thing. It just happens. Like I can be talking to you and something can just appear. I can see and it may be for you, or it may be to protect me. It just depends. But I have no control over that.

Absolutely my Now, I'll tell you later.

I was going to ask you, so you know North Carolina?

Uh huh?

So now you pick up your family and you move to La Yes, I was that conversation with your husband and your child and let's.

Just go to l A, a place we don't know. You gotta find a new job and.

It's good Carolina.

Yeah, yeah, it's crazy because at first my husband's like, so in ninety eight, I moved to California in pursuit of acting. But I wasn't in LA and I was like in Orange County, and I didn't tell my husband. He was my boyfriend at the time, Like how bad it was. I ain't telling nobody. I was renting the room from somebody who was like taking all my money. But you know, I'm like young, like nineteen, I really want to get this dream out of me and I want to do something. And so our plan was for him to move out a couple months later, you know, and then we would get our own place. But when he moved out and saw how I was living, he was like, no, this is crazy. He's like, you're working two jobs and survive. You ain't nowhere near LA. You're not pursuing acting. He was like, we need to move back to North Carolina so that you can. We can say, but money, because it's cheaper. He was like, we can stay for one year, then move back to LA so you can really pursue your dreams. That one year turned into five years and a forgotten dream right until I had that experience that morning. So when I told my husband after I worked that job for like a year, I was like, now, it's time for us to move back to LA. He was like, nah, I'm working there. He was like, we got this baby, you know, he had I also had a step daughter who was older. And he was like, we got we got you know, responsibilities now, Like we can't just get up and go to LA. And he had just built like a music studio in the house. So he was like, no, we were good. We had good jobs for Greensborough. No, but he just loved like making music. And so I was like, well, listen, I can I can go out there, but like I can feel it calling me and I can come back and forth. He was like, oh, no, we're not going to do that.

I can imagine those arguments you're go with.

I don't know what money I thought I had to I can be by coastal okay and go back and forth. I don't know what I was thinking, but we saved up like eight thousand dollars. Took us some months and we moved to LA And we first got there, we was living in Barwen Hills and my husband, I mean, we're both from the same hometown. You know, we're from Eden. It's a bear small town in North Carolina. And our apartment. I had flew out there to find our apartment because back then my husband used to be afraid to fly, you know, people from the country. They'd be like, I ain't getting on no plane, you know. So I had went back and forth to find us a place and I had found a cute this this spot was cute to me, right. But it did have the bars on the window, because most of them do in La right. So, but we weren't used to that. But I didn't tell him because in my mind I thought it was nice and it was. It did turn out to be nice.

Was he able to bring his gun with him? He did?

Actually, okay, you know what he did.

He did Carolina Garden.

No, he did. But when we got that he was hot. He was like you what we was like right off Crenshaw. She was yeah. He was like, what the hey we got a door to I was like, babe, I didn't scoped it out. This is a good area, I promise you. And because there was you know, that was when the reality show balw When Hills was out. Remember that, I said, we live in Balwen Hills. It's just that we don't live in View Park. But where we parked, we could see the view like I was trying to sell it right, But he got used to it over time. But you know, in the beginning, we was a little we was at odds for a while, but you know, we saved there for five years and we loved it.

Wow.

So that's I see now I hear the story. I get a glimpse of why I retire and your husband was important to you.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean we came out there and after what the first like year or so, that's when he was like, I think I'm I'm gonna join LAPD. And I was like, because where we from, you're not no police officer, Like we don't even trust police officers right even in La too. But he was like, I met some like cool black officers that looked like me. They won't judge me. It was like cool, like they was like real people. And he felt like he could do wouldn't make a difference. But then also he thought, Okay, this is a good career. I'll have a good salary and benefits and you can pursue your dream. And that's that's what he did.

Wow.

Yeah.

Well, one of the moments that we all saw that went viral was when you retired your husband, and you know, Wendy Williams had made some statements about you and the way you responded.

You responded with such grace and such love. It was almost like, I hope you heal absolutely moment. Do you respond like that always in.

This season in my life? Yes? Yeah. I mean the old tab probably would have had that get back spirit, right, But she didn't even know me, and I don't know her other than knowing her from you know her her career. But you can also tell when somebody is hurt. And we've all been through things that caused us to project and feel a certain way. But I'm not going to exhaust energy and give anybody control over me to anger me.

Right.

So, but also I just love people despite what anybody have to say about me. There's so many people now that that hate me, that don't know me, but I love them. It also makes me want to love harder in the world because people are hurting. Right. You know, a lot of people think that I'm fake because I'm nice and I'm like, I'm a kind, I'm compassionate. I held my mama's hand while she died, like I've seen death so many times, Like I have also almost lost my life. Why would I not be happy and joyful? I'm still here, right, So it hurts my heart for other people when I know that they're just hurting and they don't mean any harm in a way that they it's really they're trying to make themselves feel better projecting, right, they're projecting, and so the harm is really they're doing it to themselves because they're not instead of projecting, you should be trying to heal yourself and get what you need to feel better. But I don't know.

Because you get a lot of flak for it, because you know what it took me during that time. As people don't understand love. Yeah, right, you love your husband. You were financially fine, and you can make sure that he's okay, you know, And it doesn't matter if he's a man, he's a woman or what he is. You love me and you had the opportunity to retire man and men do it for women all the time. So I didn't see it. So did you get a lot of flat for it?

Oh? Yeah, I mean a lot of people had something to say about it, but that's their opinion. I don't I don't care. That ain't my business. But I also realized that a lot of people don't understand partnership. Right, I've been my husband twenty six years, amazing, more than half my life. Right, most people don't even understand that.

How did he feel?

Felt?

He felt amazing. But after what people don't know is I had been trying to retire my husband for like two years. We had enough money, and he was like, that money came too quit, bab, I don't want to do that to.

You now, just in case.

Yeah, he was like, nah, I know one plus one equal two. We don't know. Because he also has watched me in Hollywood over twenty years not get jobs for six months or two years or whatever. He was like, we can't. We can't count on this new money, right. And so I was like, Babe, I promise you I got the amount of money that we have always said that we have this amount of money in the bank, tax has been paid. We don't owe nobody that you will retire. And he was like, all right, let me think about it. He took a leave first. He just was like I don't want that on your back, you know, even though he has a nonprofit, but it wasn't gonna make the you know, coming straight down, he won't gonna make the kind of money he was making before. And I was like, but now you can build it. Now, you can do all the things you wanted to do. Right. So it took him a while, but afterwards. Now listen, right now, what time is that they might be on the golf course? Okay, listen, he worked with his kids three four days a week, but he'd be on that golf course. He is, he is feeling it now. He's always heard about it, absolutely well.

The trustee has for you, you know, because as a man, you know, they always tell us our job as the protect Yeah, and to provide.

Yeah, I think that we forget that. We're a unit. You've been together twenty six years. Me and my wife been together twenty six years.

Ohner, South Carolina from Yeah kids, you know.

So it's like I understand that. And it don't matter who make.

It, if one of us make it, we in it together.

We in it together.

That's exactly right.

Yeah.

I mean he carried me. I used to have odd and end jobs. You know, I would go work in maces. I'll go working you know, calls and I would go and I did CNA work. I would do all kinds of jobs to make sure because we are partners. So I would pay like utilities and stuff. I'm like, oh, let me take the kids school shop and let me do this because you're gonna handle the big bills. That's partnership, right, And so he did that for fifteen years.

Man, when I was getting fired from radio and it was too proud to go collect unemployment checks, my wife was the one working, yeah, paying the bills.

We was getting a victed.

She was the one going in front of the judge and tell them why we shouldn't get a victed.

So I overstand absolutely.

I mean, that's what partners do. But so people who had, you know, problems with it, they ain't never had real partnership.

That's right. So let's talk about this book.

I did a new thing, your new book, Yes, all thirty days, the Living Free.

What is living free?

To Tabitha Brown, Well, you know freedom over coad switch and right, we talked about that. But living free is like taking the opportunity to do something even if it scares you, right, just doing something new. Right. I started doing this challenge in twenty fourteen. I was really just in search of, like getting to know myself better because I still was not free, and I would do something new, whether it be with my kids or by myself, and just to see how it would open my mind and how it would make me feel. And so I did that over the years, and I would always, you know, learn something new about myself. Like I discovered my love for hiking, and I was like, oh shoot, I never would have thought that I would love hiking. And then now it's something I have continued to do over the years. And so I was like, if I do this again, I think I want to write a book. So last year I did it for thirty days and I journaled it and made it into a book. And my hope was that other people want to, you know, live free and try new things and the other thing about freedom. In order to like really go out and do something new, that's the only way you're gonna know if you love something or you don't like it, right, you have to be willing to be like, I don't care, I just want to find out. Let me just see, right. So it also could be something as simple as I'm gonna word my hair different right now, I'm doing a you know, my hair name is Donna. So I'm doing while I'm on tour. I'm making a new hair style every day.

He says. His name is Donna.

Yeah, her name Donna like Donna. Oh, it's just Donna. Well, I named after Don.

King put together don King today.

But she got her name because when I was I did the big chopping when she was growing back. One night I was cooking live and it was like straight up in the top. I was like, why's that piece of hair, you know, sticking straight up looking like Don King. I was like, I'm about to call her Donna, and it's stuff.

It's stuck.

Yeah.

I love that you dedicated your new book to you.

Yeah.

Why was that important to do?

Cause I'm the one who made the decision to choose myself, sure right, And I made the decision to stop being afraid and to live my life my way and to try new things. And the biggest thing I ever did for thirty days was go vegan and it saved my life. And I was like, girl, this for youtab. I prayed that I forever and always do new things every day. I want to do that for the rest of my life, cooking like I want to.

I'm gonna go back to I did a new thing, but you keep bringing up the vegan thing. Cooking with spirit, what does that mean? Because I've heard cooking with love spirit.

Cooking from the spirit, it means you you cook from the spirit. I don't do measurements, so I cooked. I just throw it together. That's how most people cook.

That's why so money it wasn't healthy now.

But that's the thing. I'm also sought free most of the time, you know, because I know my family dynamic, right, so all my seasonings are sought free. But yeah, but we cooked from the spirit, you know a little bit of that. And when your spirits say, oh that's enough. But also you you know what you like and you know what you don't like, Well, don't put the thing you don't like in there. Cook from your spirit.

I was gonna ask, you know so many people listening, right, and how did you know not to give up? Right?

Because I'm sure there's somebody listening right now that's been trying music for ten years and it didn't work. And somebody that's trying acting it didn't work. Somebody's trying to be in a chef, somebody's trying to be an author, somebody is trying to do something online and creating videos and nobody's watching, and they probably said I felt I got a sign. Yeah, when did you tell them to say, maybe that's not the sign and maybe the change or you know, how do you tell somebody to continue to keep doing what they're doing because you could have give up so many times?

Yeah, I would never really tell anybody to give up, right if you think God has given you a sign. Didn't trust the signs. For me, it was always signs, and that's confirmation if it won't let you rest, if you try to give up and it won't let you. I tried to give up in Greensborough. I was like, I'm gonna just have to live this, you know, a lot. I'm working ups, go to this call center, you know, and and we got a nice little house, you know, got cars like that's that's We're going to church on Sundays, like it's gonna be our regular life. God wouldn't let me stop. He woke me up and it shifted me. I would see people. I worked at a staffing agency for a while in Greensboro, and I never forget we talking. Two thousand and three and I had went to I was in the drive through on my lunch break, and when I got to the window, the little guy was like he's a little white guy. He was like, oh my God. I was like, oh my God, like what we like, what are we doing? He was like, aren't you the lady on the on the kids show? I was like, now, I work as collective staffing. He was like okay. I said, oh okay. He was like, no, you're not. Yes, you're the lady that has a kid. I ain't got no kids show. I have a kids show now, absolutely. But it was like God was just telling me he sees your destiny. Wow, he sees what's com But I had no like it would happen to me all the time, Me and my husbandhen we first moved to la but this would happen even when we lived in North Carolina. We would go to the mall with our little girls. People would stop us all the time and be like, y'all look like y'all are y'all famous? And we're like, we live in Greensburg, we work at ups, Like what are y'all talking about? But people would just stop and stare and we never understood why. But God would always say, they see your destiny. So it would be signs like that. Then also I would dream and I would see these things, and I would tell my husband, I'm like, this is gonna happen. We're gonna have this house, the house I live in now. I describe to a t to my husband to the point we were in escrow on another house and this house just popped up and we was like, let's just go see it. I had a phone call, so I couldn't walk in the house. When he did, he walked in the house, he came back out. He was like, this is our house. This this the house you described we're gonna we're gonna get this house. You might as well call the people and tell me close the ass grown other and like we're gonna follo out as grown that this is our house. I walked in. I was like, dang, this is the house. Of course, that's the house we live in now. But those are the signs that we have to not ignore. But also we have to kind of ignore the noise of people who tell you can't. But also we have to be honest with ourselves. If you are not really doing the work for the dream that you have, is it really your dream? Right? Because sometimes it might be a goal. And the difference between a goal and a dream is a goal is something that you create. A dream is deposited inside of you. God does that. You don't make up a dream, It lives inside of you. So be honest with yourself. Do you want it because you see somebody else with it? It would look cool to you? Do you just want to make money? Or is it something that won't let you rest.

I have a chapter in my first book called fuck your dreams if it's not because a lot of times we see things working for other people.

That's why we think that's our dream.

Like, no, that's not your dream, that's something that God had for somebody else.

But what do you find your dream?

Absolutely never never compare your life and absolutely don't try to get it because somebody else got it. You could be inspired by anybody, but you got to set your own path. But your dream that has to live inside of you, because then it won't ever feel like You'll have moments because I definitely have moments of like, Lord, when it's going to happen or you feel stuck, but it still won't make you give up on it. You'll still be like I gotta figure it out, like, well, what are you calling me to do?

Lord?

But also for me, I only wanted to be an actor for so long. That was my goal, and God had to really like sit me down and say, listen, you can be an actor. You can you can be a series regular, you could be in films. You can do that tall, but let me show you what I can do. And that's when the overflow came. I still am a actress, but I'm also a CEO of my own business, multiple businesses, right, I have multiple partnerships. I have two New York Times bestsellers. Right, it's so many different things that I do now that I was keeping myself in a box because I only had one thing. Then when I was like this thing that lives inside of me, the dreams I've had. I didn't just get that from being an actor. I got it from doing whatever God called me to do. So when I gave him my life, that meant I'm going to live my life however you tell me God, And that opened the door for me to allow him to bless me in the way he has.

How important is being of service?

It's so important.

You know.

I live a life of obedience, but I feel like I'm supposed to be for people. I feel like that's what I was called to do, to love people, to be compassionate, to bring joy, help people laugh, also help people cry who need that. I understand that's a superpower to have that everybody doesn't have to control somebody's emotions and to help them, And that's my assignment. I believe that, and God has set me on a path and I will forever do that.

You got to tell me your morning routine, Tabitha.

I need to know mentally, spiritually, emotionally, what do you do in the morning to get grounded?

Drink water, a glass of water in the Holy water.

What is it out the line?

It's a regular old filter water, but that is a part of it. I drink. I drink water in the morning. I pray in the morning. Of course when I work out, most times I work out in silence because that's when I hear a lot and so I allow God to, you know, just pour into me whatever I need in that moment for that day, maybe even for that hour. Sometimes you'll see me do videos of them in the gym. It's because He just gave it to me. But yeah, but I spend my my quiet time in the mornings. I do self checking throughout my day, and I always in my night with myself and make sure I'm not taking nothing into my sleep like hearing it, you know, from the day, like something I might be holding onto, because I don't want to be heavy in my mind in my sleep.

How do you do that and navigate social media? Because social media can be one of the most toxic places on the planet. So how do you spend time on social media but still be able to disconnect, to reconnect with yourself?

I think because the things that I look at, a lot of positive stuff show up on mind. But I also if it's if it's toxic or if it's negative, it ain't my business. I don't want I don't want no part of it.

You know.

I look for joy. I'm intentional with that. I'm intentional with spreading that. You know, when people come to my my page, whichever one it is, it's gonna be joy, it's gonna be laughter, it's gonna be inspiration. It's enough negative in the world. I don't want to be part of it. So I'm just intentional with it, and so it don't bother me.

Can we talk about some of these chapters. Yeah, do something new with check your triggers.

Do something new and check your triggers. Absolutely. So I had my first mammogram when I was doing my thirty days, and my first one was supposed to be during the pandemic, but you know how everybody counseled their appointments, so I never did it. I was like, oh, I put it off for so long. I was like, let me go ahead and do me a mammogram since I'm doing a new thing now. When I go to the doctor, I'm always triggered, just because I was sick for so long, so just a regular checkup to me is triggering. But I always be like, all right, girl, you all right. You know that's a you gotta check yourself. So when I went in from a mammogram, it was a normal thing. They called me a couple of days later and said, hey, we want to take a closer look. We saw something in the image, and I was like, okay, but they did say, you know, don't be alarm, this is this is a normal kind of routine thing. So I go back in. So they did a closer look, and before they did it, the nurse told me she was like, if they see something and their concern, they'll ask for ultrasound after and I was like okay. So they did the image and they came back in and it was like multiple doctors. They was like, we saw something, we would like to take an ultrasound. So now I'm like, well, she said if they was concerned, they want to do it, you know, ultrasound. So I was like okay, and my husband was in the lobby. I was like, have my husband come back here so he knows why it's taking so long. And so I told him and I could see he kind of got like a little you know trigger as well. So they did the ultrasound and then they you know, took us in the office and they was like, there's there's definitely a mask that we see and we're gonna need to do a biopsy. And they couldn't do the biopsy. It was like a couple of weeks, like maybe two weeks. And this was during the first time I was nominated for Emmy last year, so I don't I had to go through you know, press and go to the Emmys knowing that I had to go get this spot the day after the Emmys, and so the old Tab would have got online and researched everything about you know, mass and breast cancer, and I would have told myself it's cancer. I would have went into straight on panic attack everything. But the moment that I started thinking about it, I was like, no, Tab, we gotta check this trigger. You can't just diagnose yourself. You can't start thinking the worst. You can't go back to your old habits. Right. They said it could be something or it could be nothing. Let's wait to find out what it is before you have any kind of reaction. And in that moment, I realized I really been doing the work on myself.

You know.

It made me proud. I was like, I'm really on the healing journey. I've come a long way. Because it's rough when you've been sick, and it's a real trigger, right, So you check your triggers, but you can still do something new. So that's where that came from. And when I went ahead to biopsy it was nothing.

Is it better to just stay in that gray area when things like that happen, When somebody says it could be something or it can be nothing, of course you'd be like, well, I'm hoping there's nothing, yeah, right, or you might be like, well, it's probably something, isn't it.

Just to stay in Yeah, I mean in my mind, I was like, I ain't gonna claim nothing, so of course I'm gonna say, oh it ain't. You know, the name of Jesus ain't gonna be nothing. Right, But in being in reality you wanna. For me, I was like, I'm gonna stay in this. I'm gonna listen to what they said. It could be something, could be nothing. I'm gonna claim nothing. But for most people, if they're not there yet in their faith, then stay in that middle ground until you have evidence of what.

It is that's right.

Now another chapter, do something that breaks the rules but not the law.

Oh so I tell people that all the time, Like, you know, some rules are said by us, you know, by people as well as laws.

Right, But your kids come back with you all the time, Mommy said, break the rules.

It's not exactly exactly, but I talk about this in the book that you know. I had got invited to a party, you know, and it was a strict dress code where they wanted you to wear black. I don't like wearing black, and this is about as black as a get for me. I love color it makes me happy when I wear like all black, it makes me feel weird. Yeah, I don't know, like even at funerals, like in my family we wear a lot of colors or we were white, but it just makes me feel a little I don't know, maybe sad. And I realize that if I do wear I gotta have like a proper color my lips or something. I don't know, but I was like, I don't want to wear black to this thing. I gotta figure something out. So I found like I had this it was like a blazer, but it was the background was black, but they had a bunch of colors and patters on it, and I wore like some black bill a bottomed pants. Got there and a lot of other people had more black, and so I was like, this is why we can break the rules sometime. You know. I could said okay, I'm we're all black and being uncomfortable all night and then got there and being mad, like look at other people. They ain't wear what they said. We're supposed to wear it, right, So that's what I mean by that, sometime we can break the rules. Just don't break the law.

So you ain't never gonna follow in a dress code. If it's an all white party and nothing.

You can ye, but yeah, I mean I would wear it. But it's gonna have to have a little something that make me feel like tap, you know, because I also want to go in and be myself, you know, So do something.

That requires you to face your losses. That's a powerful one.

So when I you know, I had a restaurant, right and when I had my restaurant, it was a partnership, and we had a lot of problems with the building. And so because the kill my Name is the restaurant in Chicago that I fell in love with. So when he came to l A, I was like, Oh, I partnered with you in an open a restaurant. I didn't know the restaurant business, but this building gave us a lot of issues, and so we ultimately had to to close. And so I was like, oh man, it felt like a loss to me because I had had, you know, so much happening. People would come in. I would people come from all over to just meet me at the restaurant. And I wasn't there every day, but on the weekends or whenever I could, I would go and just be there all day to make sure, I got to see people when they came, and so we ended up having to shut it down, and I was like really kind of hurt about, you know, for a while, and I really couldn't talk about it because were having legal problems with the you know, the building on it, because it was the whole thing. And so when it was time to do my taxes, I've been carrying this, like, man, I feel so bad about it. I realized that the loss had really blessed me. I wasn't win, right, and so I was like, sometimes we got to look at the loss for what it is. Maybe it ain't a loss, you know, but also it opened up doors to me and now I have you know, my food and stuff at Target. So I was like, it won't necessary a loss, you know, we can't always look at them, you know, things like that. So it actually blessed me because I ain't have to pay as.

Much's a little bit. Let's run some of this stuff done now. So you got deals with Target?

Who else? Come on?

Don't need to be humble in this moment like a rapper right now? You know, you got the tap time booming on YouTube. I got deals with Target? You got book deals?

What else.

I have my own seasoning with McCormick Spice. I have six of.

Those Fridays with tab and I do have.

Frides having Chance. I do very good Mondays where I blessed small businesses every Monday. Of course, I have my own merch that feel weird to just name everything, but I don't even you know, I still do my active thing, you know. I launched a production company in a partnership with Stephen Love with may Love Media.

Yeah, I don't know when I thought about you, uh, And I mean I knew you was coming in, but when I heard Eastern Ray talk about how she's just basically tired of dealing with the Hollywood ringham Mo roll and she just wants to do things independent, You're one of the first people that I.

Think about it. Because it took a while for me to.

Even realize you weren't on Nickelodeon or something, because I just would always see you on my TV and then that I was.

Like to turn time time on. I'm like, what channels have on you? She's like, it's YouTube or like YouTube. I didn't really I didn't even realize.

Yeah, because the YouTube had YouTube originals for a while and they don't have it anymore, but the show is still there while we're searching for a new home for it, but we still own it. Right, nobody owns the YouTube didn't own it.

I can't believe that.

Nickelodeon, Netflix, all the people not beating your door down, well, you.

Know some of them are okay.

But it has to be right.

Absolutely.

I won't say yes to just anything. It's got to be right. There's no people have to understand. You can't own me, right, there's a price that we can partner, but you can't. You can't own tab.

And you have all the leverage.

Yeah, I mean we got all the you know, the data is there, the numbers don't lie, and so like country wa ain't saying. I mean you got to tell me why I need you? So yeah with love.

No, that's a great thing to say. You can't own me. But there is a price department.

You can always there's always a price department because I'm priceless, Like, there's no amount of money that you can can say, oh this is no out take that, but that ain't what I'm worthy.

There's a value amount exactly.

There'sn't there's an amount absolutely, what.

Does it mean?

To have a free soul, I think, I mean, my life is a kind of example of that. And you, you know, you kind of don't let the world in. Don't worry about what but other folks think about you. Live your life for you and do it in a way that is graceful, and just let God guide you. But don't worry about what somebody think about you. And you know what the world tells you you should be because I know what it's like not to be free, and being free is the best gift you can give to yourself. That's how we were born to be.

Do you feel like you're walking in the purpose that God has to you?

Absolutely, do something that reveals your purpose? Chapter thirty, day thirty.

Do something I don't even know which one that is.

Since day thirty, do something that reveals your purpose in the chapter.

Titles, I mean, because I talk about it throughout the book, I'm trying to remember which one that is that reveals your purpose. But I mean, I'm sure we've talked about it, like with dreams and being vocal about it. For me, it's always that, you know, don't shy away from your gifts, be honest, be open about it, even if you think people are gonna think you crazy. People love to call me like a witch or crazy. Like there's a certain amount of people I guess, like on TikTok and stuff, they'd be like, oh, that you a witch, you know, And I'm like, I'm not a witch. Right. I know what my purpose is and I know that I have a gift, and I give God all the credit for everything that I am. And so my purpose is to love people, to uplift people, but also help people heal. But also if God gives me a word, I'm going to share it. You know, when I was on Club with Shannon, I gave him a word in you know, confidence, like off camera. It was his choice to share that. And after that people even more was like I told y'all that girl, I told you. And I'm like, that's not being a witsh that is being you know, God's servant and being a vessel. And that's part of my purpose.

So it is amazing to me that we give everybody credit except for God.

We will put labels on all types of stuff, always say it's got to be something evil. No, God gives you clear vision, give.

It to all of us. And he also gives all of us the good right, you know that gut feeling. I always tell people that's called the gift under the tummy. That's the good.

Brown. I can be there talking to you forever.

New book.

I did a new thing.

We appreciate you for joining us stage.

Should I end it? How I end my video? Okay, Well listen. First of all, thank y'all for having me. I appreciate y'all. This is my camera. Yes, honey, Oh you've been there the whole time. Well, lord, well listen, thank y'all. Y'all going bout y'all business. All right, have the most amazing day. But even if you can't have a good one, don't you they'll go messing up. Nobody else is here. God, bless y'all. Love y'all.

It'sakfast, good morning.

Wake that ass up in the morning. Breakfast Club.