Despite being the mother of one of today’s greatest entertainers, Tina Knowles has managed to maintain a low-profile. She’s been credited with designing and coordinating attire for her daughter since the beginning of Beyonce’s career with the singing group Destiny’s Child to her now solo career that has taken her on tours worldwide. While Knowles, who some refer to as Mama T, has never been one to ask for the spotlight, much of her personal business has managed to make its way into the media.
Last week, Knowles served as keynote speaker at the Texas Women’s Empowerment Foundation’s 8th Annual Women & Money luncheon in Houston.
Opening up about everything from early childhood memories, to motherhood, a booming career, a divorce, and self-esteem issues, check out are five key lessons we learned from Knowles’s speech.
Lesson 1: Never let anyone dictate who you’re going to be
Tina Knowles, whose birth name is Celestine Ann Beyincé, was born in 1954 in Galveston, Texas, and is the youngest of five. With hopes of providing their kids with the best education, Knowles’s parents worked at a local Catholic school so that their kids could attend school free of charge, but Knowles said that the trade-off wasn’t always pleasant.
In her speech she opened up about how mean the nuns were to her because she and her siblings were the poor kids at the school.
“The thing I learned from that is that I became a warrior at 5. I refused to let them take my spirit,†she said. “I decided then that I would never let anyone decide for me who I am or what I was.â€
Lesson 2: Find your passion.
After graduating from high school, Knowles said that she wasn’t 100% sure about what she wanted to do with her life, but she knew that she wanted to get out of Galveston and do something related to beauty and making women feel good.
She went to California to work as a makeup artist for a Japanese company; she was the only African American woman there. She also moved to Denver for a little while and did a bit of modeling.
“All of these were tools that came back to me that I didn’t know I was getting at the time. And that’s how God works. Sometimes you don’t understand it, but he is giving you things that you can take out of the toolbox,” said Knowles.
Lesson 3: Use your adversity as motivation to do something about your situation.
After having her first child, Knowles admitted to her marriage going through a major rough patch. With motherhood on her plate, a rocky marriage and no form of her own income, Knowles took matters into her own hands and started her own salon.
She went to beauty school and started a small salon in her house to help build up her clientele. Eight weeks after Beyoncé was born she said that she took her to her grandmother and said, “Listen, you have to keep her because I have to open this business so I will never be in this position again. I will never be totally dependent on someone.â€
“The adversity of me having this bad marriage caused me to go do something about my situation,” added Knowles.
Lesson 4: Always stand by your morals.
During her speech, the 60-year-old mom and entrepreneur said that she was the one to blame for Destiny’s Child’s first record deal falling through. She says that after speaking up about the record label exposing the young girls to things that she didn’t think were age appropriate, she was told to leave the offices and never bring the girls back. Three months later, Knowles says that the girls got a bigger and better deal, proving that it always pays to stick to your morals when it comes to business.
Lesson 5: Take time out for yourself.
Knowles admitted that it wasn’t until after her divorce that she started to take time out for herself and do things that really made her happy. She says that with the start of her clothing line, long work hours and a divorce, she really felt as if she had lost herself.
“It was always something new coming up. An opportunity, and an opportunity can sometimes not be the best thing when you need to take time out for yourself,” said Knowles.
So she started to get back to discovering what made her happy, and that included reading art books, traveling the world with her daughter for vacation and not work purposes, and telling her kids that it was time for her to have a selfish moment.
“I had really just forgotten how to live. I had lost all of myself,” said the mom of two.
In the midst of discovering her happiness, Knowles revealed that she also found love with an old friend of hers, who she’s now been dating for over a year, and says that she’s the happiest that she’s been in a long time.
“Most of the times in my life that have been the toughest and the worst and I thought I would die and not get through them, they turned out to be the best times.”