From Broken Home to Beauty Empire

grace a pageant stage. It was not on my radar, but it was on God's radar and that's how I ended

“up on that stage. Brandy Pope is a resilient empowering and purpose-driven beauty influencer,”

former Mrs. Virginia and the creator of the glam bill. Through her work, she empowers women to embrace their authentic beauty, strengthen their confidence and live with greater self-love, resilience and authenticity. So, my faith is who I am. It is infused in everything that I do.

I'll always say if you only hear about Jesus, then don't have a conversation with me because it's just

it's in me. So it has to come out of me in some way. I have brought that to every space. Every video, everything that I do, even if I'm not putting that as the forefront of that particular video, that light still shines through me and God has used that to draw an audience that I can really reach so much further than just for beauty. If there's one key takeaway, one key message that you would have for the audience based on everything that you've shared in your episode, what would that

“key takeaway be? I think through my interview, I would just say,”

"Hi, I'm here. Today, Apple is going to reinvent for fun." It's our over, I'm telling our weird. The living your legacy podcast for those who live to leave a legacy. Welcome back guys to another episode of the inside success podcast where we go inside the success of all of our clients and today I have with me Brandy. Brandy, you just finished filming your episode. Tell me a little bit about what our viewers are going to be able to learn from your story.

I think you're going to be able to learn a little bit about my entire life from my upbringing to how I got into pageantry and how that led me into the online space and how I've been able to grow and become successful in the beauty and fake space online. And you mentioned pageantry there, like, as we can see, you are very well put together. Somebody clip in the Will Smith meme just like, "Hello, are we seeing this?" Talk to me a little bit about pageantry. How do we get here? How

do we get to this version of Brandy that's sitting across really? It's a crazy journey. It would take me a while to tell you about all of the ends and outs, but I'll keep out here for long stories. I love a long story. I always say short story long, but essentially my husband is the one that that encouraged me to compete for the title of Mrs. Virginia America. Back in 2011, I competed for the

2012 title. Never in a million years thought that I would ever grace a pageant stage. It was

“not on my radar, but it was on God's radar and that's how I ended up on that stage.”

Well, won't he do it? Well, he'd do it. And man, not only did I win that first pageant, but that led me on an entire pageant journey of directing. And then 10 years later, I ended up on another pageant stage, Mrs. United States. And that eventually led me to this chair right here with you. Wow. Ladies and gentlemen, we have royalty in the studio with a pageant royalty. Now, I want to talk, you mentioned that you were a director. Yeah. For a second, and my director,

brain, perked up, I was like, oh, the one director to another. Talk a little bit about

direction. What does that mean in the space of pageants? You know, what? I never saw myself

on a pageant stage, let alone becoming a director of a state pageant for one of the biggest pageant systems out there for married women. But I stepped into the role as Mrs. Virginia America's Pagent Director. And I did that for five years. And I learned so much about production, about putting on really putting on a show, connecting with women, hearing their stories. It's crazy. You probably do it. Oh, yeah. As you're saying, you know, like, you, you, you know the struggle.

Yeah. You know, you know how it can be. You know, for me, personally, like, I've been working in production for the last better part of a decade. And it's, there's so much behind the scenes that people don't see. There's so much that goes into it. The planning, the pre-production,

that you have to fill. How's the lighting going to look? How's my audio going to sound?

“Where am I getting my audio from? Do I have an AV team? Do I have a video team?”

Yeah. What is everything going to look like at the end of it? What's my post-production process? Yeah. Talk to me a little bit about like, organize chaos is what I love to call it. Talk to me about your experience with organized chaos. Organize chaos is the perfect way to describe, putting on a pageant. It is a year full of just work and trying to rally contestants to be a, I mean, it's marketing. It's all of these things. It's everything everywhere. All at once.

Shout out. Shout out my favorite movie. Oh, my goodness. It is literally everything all at once. And what I will say is there's absolutely no way that I could have ever done it without my family, kind of come in and lock in arms with me and saying, hey, this is going to be a family effort. Yes, I was the director, but I could not steer that ship alone. It takes a village. Yes.

“And so even though I was behind the scenes and putting in all the work throughout the year,”

when it came pageant weekend, it was a family affair. I mean, I had my daughters were doing ticket sales and my moms and the bags zipping up zippers and my husbands, you know, trying to direct people where to go. It was a whole, it was a whole thing. It was, it was a whole thing. It was an adventure. I want to, I want to kind of pivot now into the today. Where is Brandy right now? Because I kind of overheard. I was, I was in here editing as you were kind of getting

into the last part of your episode with Kofi. But I kind of overheard that you might be an internet micro celebrity. A little bit. A little bit. A little bit. What's the social media life looking like right now it is? So right now, I will say that I have seen rapid growth over the last few years. I've been in the online space. I really threw directing is what gave me

“pageant. Excuse me. Through pageantry and directing is what gave me the confidence to even”

start on social media because that was never on my radar. Never saw myself sitting in front of a camera and speaking. And yet here we are. But yet here we are. God can do a lot with our obedience, right? And so through, you know, through years and years and years of being online and slow growth, the last few years I've seen an accelerated growth. And I just see so much for the future. Like, I feel like I'm still just experienced the beginning of all of this. The doors that he's already

open is just incredible. Like I sit back and I'm just in all of everything that I've been able to experience everything that I've been able to do. I've been able to grow my platform. I'm not like,

oh my gosh, I've got 10 million followers. And it's never been about the followers. It's yet.

Yet. That's right. So you guys stick up in there. There's always a butt, right? There's always a yet. Yet, God said, I'm going to, I'm going to grow your audience, right? And so he's been able to grow my audience to what it is. And I have such a dedicated community. I probably across my platforms have close to 700,000 followers or so. Amille is right around the world, right? Right. And it's not even about that for me. It's about just like I was saying in my interview. It's about the impact.

And so the community that I have built that is consistently showing up for me, they, I mean, they do not miss a video. And it is, it feels so good to me that people even want to watch me. First of all, but that I have the opportunity to pour into so many people's lives, people that

I'll never meet, you know, but, but I get to make an impact. It's so funny how God works because

you think to yourself, these are people that I can never meet. And then you go to the grocery store one day and it's somebody, hey, I'm falling on social media. I love your videos. Have you, do you have any experience with that happening? Yes, it's happening more frequently now. It's going to, yep. Kind of bugs me out, still like, whoa, this is really weird. One of the most, well, say the most recent, it was about a year ago, but one of the weirdest I would say is my husband and I

were flying from Greece to Turkey. We had done like a whole two week tour of different countries. I sit down and my seat on the plane and a girl sits down beside me and she said, you're the glam belle and I was like, hold on, I'm literally in Greece and I want to plane in Greece and I was like, country entirely. Yes, she was like, I have followed you. Not just, I've just started following you. I have followed you from the beginning of your social media journey.

go to like, what do I do with my hair? So that was really wild and of course my husband was with me, so who's like, what? This is wild. We love, we love the curls in this house pocket. That's right, come on. Ain't nothing like a curly hair girl. I know it. I know it. And so

“throughout this entire process, one of the key, you know, narrative through lines that I've noticed”

is your emphasis on faith. So I want you to talk to me a little bit about how does your faith inform the brandy of today? How does your faith inform your actions, your decisions? Where does that faith piece come in? Everything that I do, I do to glorify God. Literally everything. I don't care if I am in the, I don't care if I'm in the online space. I don't care if I'm on a page and stage. I don't care if I'm mopping my floor at home. It's all for the glory of God. So my faith is who I am.

It is infused in everything that I do. I'll always say if, if you want here about Jesus,

then don't have a conversation with me because it's just, it's in me. So it has to come out of me in some way. And so that's just it's who I am. So I have brought that to every space. Every video, everything that I do, even if I'm not putting that as the forefront of that particular

“video, that light still shines through me and God has used that to draw an audience that I can”

really reach so much further than just for beauty. You know, it's the beauty that draws them in, but then the Lord impacts them through what I do and through what I share from the faith side. And it's been, it's been incredible to watch that unfold. He's using you as a microphone. Yeah. Yes. And you know, what what a blessing it is to be an amplifier for God's message. Yes. You know, I've just now re-awakened in my faith. I grew up, you know,

Christian background grew up and then I had a period of time where I was just, you know, a straight. I was not walking the path. I was not really, I just didn't want to hear it anyway. Yeah. I got tired of it. And I love having these conversations because I love being able to be re-introduced to people who are walking so strongly in their faith. So thank you for coming on.

I appreciate that divine appointment. If there's, if there's one key takeaway, one key message

that you would have for the audience based on everything that you've shared in your episode,

“what would that key takeaway be? I would, I think through my interview,”

I would just say the key takeaway is to never let fear stop you from pursuing purpose and and walking in your full identity and your full destiny. Some telling you, I think a lot of people, they, they put themselves in a box because they feel like they have to look a certain way or they have to sound like someone else or I can't be successful because this is what success looks like in this space. But it looks like that because

you're not there yet. The world is waiting for you and in your part in this space. And so I, I would just say to people, don't let fear stop you. I think that's my biggest message. Is if I let fear stop me, I would not be where I'm at today. Fear may have made me stumble. I may have failed a few times, but I kept getting back up. I kept running the race, which produces perseverance, right? And ultimately, I want to finish this race strong.

And I want everyone out there to never have to look back at their life and say, man,

I wasn't even running the race that was that I was supposed to be running in. It's not how you start. It's how you finish. That's it. It's not how you start. You know, I said this in a podcast with, it wasn't even, this was probably a year and a half ago, but it's one of my favorite clips. And it didn't even do anything online. But I said that faith is the antithesis to fear. Come on. Walk in faith. Then you have no reason to fear negative

outcomes. Negative outcomes are going to come to you regardless. That's a part of life. Things are going to go wrong. Things aren't going to go according to plan. But if you have faith, that your steps are guided by God, that's right. Who cares where I end up. It's his plan. It's on mine. Come on. Come on. So faith is the antithesis to fear. Now before we go ahead and wrap up here, where can everybody find you on social media? We want to grow that audience even more.

We're trying to, guys, we need to get her over a mill. That's the goal of this podcast that accomplishes one thing. It should be that. So where can people find you? They can find me anywhere

YouTube, Facebook, all the platforms. Everywhere. Everywhere. Under the Glambel. You can find

“me a brandy pope too. But the Glambel is what people know me as. And yeah, they're so much more”

in store. So people do not want to miss. Like I didn't tell you, you've got to subscribe to

the surface. We've got to keep it rolling. That's right. That's right. That's right. All right,

“guys. Well, that's another episode here of the inside success podcast. I'm your host Jason Hamilton.”

Here with Brandy Pope. We will see you guys in the next one.