DreamChaser | Bria Davenport
General Information
Name: Bria Davenport
Age: 27
Pronouns:n she/her
Education/Background: I have a bachelor of science from North Carolina A & T in fashion merchandising and design
Job Title/What you do: CEO of By Bria Lynn
In-Depth Questions
1. Tell us a little about who you are.
I am from Durham, North Carolina. Born and raised here, and I still live here. I was raised in a single-parent home. I'm the oldest of three. I work full-time for a nonprofit as a program coordinator with middle schoolers, which I enjoy a lot.
2. What sparked your interest in starting your business?
My business transformed from “Cocoa and Shea” to “By Bria Lynn” because it was just easier to talk about myself, and the things that I like to do. I've always been a planner, and into planners. I probably was one of the few kids at school that used the agenda that the school gave without being forced to do so. I got back into planning in college, buying Happy Planners, and then I started sharing that process because I wanted to share how cute my layouts were.
People started seeing how much I was doing, and started asking me how I was able to keep up with working as well as with doing the Girlfriend's Pod at the time. So that's when I started teaching people about how to plan, and then it all rolled into being how to build a schedule. I thought I'd create a planner because people kept asking me about it. Later, it turned to workshops and stuff like that.
3. Who are you most influenced by?
I love Myleik Teele. I like the way she gives advice, especially career advice. For a long time, I didn't know what I wanted to do, but she was always saying to just do the work, and do it well. That's how I got into this position. I was not an education or policy major, nor did I take any education or policy classes. I have an entrepreneurship certificate, and a fashion degree, but because I put in the work and did my best even with something I didn’t know how to do, I think that helped me excel at a lot of things. I think Myleik is a great influence.
4. What was your first job and how long did you hold that position?
My first job was at Hope Valley Country Club. I worked one day a week. My cousin, who is two years older than me, also worked at the country club as a babysitter one day a week - we would babysit for parents while they were at dinner. It was a cool gig. I stayed there from the time I was 16 until the summer before my sophomore year in college.
Once I left, my little cousin who is two years younger than me got the job. Even though we only worked once a week, it was a cool hookup. We got to eat whatever we wanted, because we knew the people in the kitchen. I liked it a lot.
Then, I did summer camp the summer I came back from school, and that was dope. It really was. I even got to bring my friends. So, if a girl couldn’t come into work, our manager would ask us if we had any friends that would want to come in and work, and they would pay them! It was so much fun.
5. Can you share one of your proudest achievements with us?
One of my proudest achievements to date is getting the position that I'm in now. I was a program coordinator assistant for almost two years. When I got that position, I realized how good I was at it. I thought to myself, “I'm really coming for my supervisor's job.” Then this year, things changed, because when you turn 26 in America, you get kicked off of your parents' health insurance. This position was part-time, which is great when you're trying to be an entrepreneur and also trying to keep a job that pays you consistently. But it isn’t great if you’re a 26-year-old in need of health insurance.
So, I was looking for a job that was pretty similar to the position I have now, and I wrote that as an intention for the year: I wanted a very flexible full-time job that had benefits, and I pretty much described everything about this position at our organization. I was hoping that either I would get this position or get a position at a similar place. I wanted it to happen by August 2020 and it happened by June, so I was super-stoked.
““ Sharing is caring sometimes, but sharing what you have, you know, and what information you have to offer, is definitely what’s going to set you apart. “”
6. What were your initial goals with your work? How have they evolved?
There were no initial goals with regards to my job. My initial thought was that I liked kids for the most part, and that maybe I’d stick around for a bit. Then I stayed and never left.
7. What do you think is the most important life skill you learned through your work?
The most important life skill I learned is delegation, and that applies to everything. As I dug deep into what women want, I was able to participate in a lot more Zoom meetings and workshops. Hearing what ladies were saying about not having enough time and stuff like that, I realized they needed help delegating things - like buying groceries. Just giving people the permission they needed to delegate all those things, while also delegating those things myself… it’s not just a work skill - that's a life skill. There are simple things that you can delegate rather than trying to do them yourself. Not just with my full-time job and with the side hustle, but also teaching other women and giving them permission to do the same thing. It's okay to eat a salad kit for dinner or order a meal prep kit. That's pretty much just like delegating. So that's been my main life skill lesson. I think for a long time, I had an “either I'm doing it, or nobody's doing it” mindset, and that's not helpful.
8. Where do you hope to be in five years?
At the beginning of the year, I made this declaration that I wanted to be the millennial version of Martha Stewart - without going to jail. I love how people cling to what Martha Stewart says about your home or really anything. You can go into almost any store and find something by Martha Stewart. I think that is a place I want to be in five years. I want organizational systems for your home and other things that have my name on it, but the planner is a good start.
9. What is a typical day like for you?
I have a designated time now that I wake up, because I have this whole workout situation going on, so I’ll wake up, journal, and do my devotional. Then I might watch a YouTube video because I have my iPad or something before I get up. Lately, I’ve been going on a morning walk, and by the time I get back, I'm trying to be on Instagram for a little while, just so people can see my face - especially since the planner is about to come out.
After that, it’s work time. Either I'm sitting in meetings online or trying to troubleshoot some things for kids and for parents during the regular times I would be in programming in the afternoon with children running around until about 6:30pm. I'm a little bit thankful for COVID, because I can get off a little bit earlier. So from about ten to about five or six, I'm working on work stuff and taking breaks, then from four or five or six, I'm doing another workout. I've been doing two workouts a day, but it's also a good break from business work. And then for the rest of the evening, I’m usually watching TV, and doing as much business work as I can until about 10:30 or 11. That's when I shut it down.
10. What was the biggest obstacle you’ve faced so far in the process of pursuing your goals?
I would say finances and focus.
Everything needs money. No matter what business idea you have, you always need the funds to make it happen. Even for this planner, I wanted it to be fully manufactured by this company in China, but dishing out $3,000 at the drop of a hat is not an option for me right now. There are times you’ll have to rework things, because you don't have the funds. It can be a little brain-tingling situation.
It’s also critical to be focused. There are times when I’ll have these grand ideas, but everything doesn't come to fruition. Sometimes you lose the buzz after a while, or it just ends up being too much. I would say I'm thankful for 2020 and the slowing down it brought about, because it definitely helped me to scale back and to focus more. Honestly, that's the way you flourish: by just being able to focus on a few things versus trying to build a super empire the first year you're in business.
11. What is the best piece of advice you have received?
Another person I look up to is Rachel Rogers. She and Alicia Robertson, the founder of Living Over Existing, said to focus on one thing or one offer versus always launching something new; keep the focus on that one thing, and build it up to the point you can move onto something else or it can run on its own. So that’s been my biggest piece of advice that I'm always thinking about, and it’s helping me stay more focused on the planner until I make the money that I want to make.
12. When do you get your best ideas?
I always think about stuff when I'm in the shower or I'm in the bathroom. Afterward, I'm trying to remember what it is, and texting someone randomly asking them to hold this idea or hold this information for me.
““The most important life skill I learned is delegation, and that applies to everything.””
13. Can you share with us one time that you failed and what you learned from that failure?
I tried to create a digital community that I really had no time to run. I was trying to put together what I called TGP Digital at the time, but I really didn't have any passion to do it. It was kind of a pivot out of necessity, not because I wanted to do it. Then after a while, I really had no more ideas. I had no more drive. I had no more anything. I hit a block on how to run it in a way that would lead to it being sustainable and all those different things.
14. How do you unwind?
I watch TV - a lot of TV. I love TV. Most of the time, I don't watch anything new during the week. I normally watch new shows on the weekends. So most of the time, if I'm watching something during the week, it's either probably Living Single or Reba, which are on two very different spectrums of the world.
15. What would you tell someone else who is interested in entering your field?
If someone is trying to enter the world of planning or stationary, I would say to definitely use yourself as an example of what you do. A lot of people want to see how things are used, and they want to see testimonials.
Sharing is caring sometimes, but sharing what you have, you know, and what information you have to offer, is definitely what's going to set you apart. That's definitely something I've learned from just watching other ladies on Instagram - they're giving so much information, but their businesses are thriving too. So that's been one of the things this year I've been really focused on - just sharing as much information as I can.
To go into the education field, if you don't have the background, do a lot of research.
16. What do you hope people take away from your story, and anything else you would like to share?
I hope that people take away from my story that you can build the life that you want. We have systemic racism and all these other things that obviously hold us back, but I think when you stick with something, and you stay consistent with it, you can eventually build the life that you desire.
If you have a desire, you're able to build your life. At the end of the day, you are in control. So even if you have a nine to five, it's still your time. It's still your day, and you still can build around those things.
You can set yourself up for that, as long as you open yourself up, and create those pockets of time to work out or wind down and all those different things. Everybody has different things that can hinder them from doing those things sometimes, but as long as you have the desire to want to create and be consistent, I think it is possible.
