Our Story

In 2018, Brittany served on the Marketing committee for TEDx Normal in Bloomington, IL. Knowing this would be the perfect platform for her mom's timeless wisdom to reach a broader audience (outside of Nashville, TN), Britt encouraged her mom to apply to be one of the speakers. Rita won her spot in the line-up and delivered a powerful talk on when to say yes and when to say no. 

With 40+ years of corporate success in the highly competitive, male-dominated world of financial services, Rita always knew she wanted to write a book to help young women succeed in their careers. But not just any kind of book. In 1986, Rita read the book Who Moved My Cheese and it made her stop, reflect, and change. Thus, she wanted to write a short and powerful go-to-guide that would do the same, make the reader stop, reflect, and change. 

In 2018, Rita retired from First Tennessee Bank as Executive Vice President and Manger of Private Client Services for Nashville and Middle Tennessee. While Rita worked culminating her career life lessons into a short guidebook, her daughter, Britt was facing major corporate challenges of her own as a new manager at a Fortune 50 company. Britt would call her mom almost everyday and ask "is the Oracle available to chat" which meant, "can I get some work advice?" As Rita helped her daughter overcome her corporate obstacles, they decided to fold those stories and lessons into Rita's  book as well. Britt ended up being an integral part of the creation of Rita's first book, Own Your Phenomenal Self: A Guide on Character, Success, and Leadership, including writing the forward. 

In January 2019, Rita and Britt published Own Your Phenomenal Self: A Guide on Character, Success, and Leadership which fans fondly refer to as a "pocket mentor." Rita describes her book as a path to "move 40 steps ahead without receiving 40 lashes." Rita encourages young women to learn from her mistakes and avoid them as they follow the path to their desired success. 

In 2019, Britt took the opportunity to move to her dream city, New York City to further her corporate career. By early 2020, coronavirus shut the world down and Rita moved up to NYC to stay with Brittany during lockdown and the pandemic. 

In 2021, Rita and Britt decided to get a bigger place in New York and make this a more permanent living situation. In the process of decorating their new apartment, they were struggling to find inspirational art for their living room and Britt, leaning into her passion and talent for painting, decided to paint something special. Britt wanted to paint 3 strong black women in a bold way: minimal background, a few key colors (red, black, and brown), and one large stand our feature (i.e. an afro so big it comes off the frame of the canvas).

Rita was so inspired by Britt's 3 paintings that she wrote 3 matching poems. Rita saw these 3 women as representations of herself throughout the phases of her life: just starting out, in the middle of her corporate career, and post-retirement looking to leave a legacy. Britt's art was so powerful it made Rita want to speak to it, hence the book title Spoken Art. Ultimately, Spoken Art: Too Brave to Back Down became a book about taking your dreams off the shelf and finding joy in challenging times. 

In July 2021, Rita and Britt published their 2nd book Spoken Art: Too Brave to Back Down a mother-daughter memoir of Britt's 20+ years of paintings, Rita's poetry, and their personal affirmations. 

In December 2021, Rita and Britt spoke about the power of affirmations and vision boarding to Pinterest's 3,000 employees globally at The Pinterest Global Women’s Conference 2021: Building Better. This conference kicked off a whirlwind speaking tour in 2022. 

Moving into 2023, Rita and Britt want to have a bigger impact on women in the workforce. They plan to accomplish this through their newly launched online course How to Own Your Phenomenal Self and Not Get Lost in the Sauce. They've also launched a Q&A platform were people can submit their corporate questions.