Level up your career and tap into your full potential with host Tayler Bradford one episode at a time. From editors and entrepreneurs to fashion designers and influencers, Girl Gazer guests share inspiring stories and insights related to career, mindset, wellness and fashion.
Episodes
Wednesday Oct 13, 2021
Wednesday Oct 13, 2021
Hey Girl Gazers,
After a long break, Girl Gaze Pod is BACK! I've missed you all so much.
October is World Mental Health Month, so today's episode is inspired by that. In this solo pod, I talk about knowing your worth as it relates to career, friends and life, and how to protect your energy by letting go of what no longer serves you.
Leave a written review if you enjoy, and make sure to follow me on IG and TikTok @taylerbradford! ✨
xo
Tay
Wednesday Feb 03, 2021
Wednesday Feb 03, 2021
Hey Girl Gazers,
Let me introduce you to the ultimate career queen, Ruby Buddemeyer (@rubybud). She’s a 25-year-old beauty editor at Cosmopolitan Magazine. Yep, she’s twenty-freaking-five. Want to know how she climbed the editorial ladder at such a young age? Well, you came to the right place, because Ruby is spilling her secrets to success on this special episode of Girl Gaze Pod.
When Ruby isn’t writing or editing stories, she’s doing cool editor things like interviewing Selena Gomez and working with Barbie Ferreira from Euphoria on a virtual set. NBD.
In today’s episode, we’re embarking on Ruby’s career journey from intern to editor, doing a deep dive into her day-to-day, learning how to maintain relationships with people in the industry & SO. MUCH. MORE.
Leave a review and share a screenshot to your IG Stories if you enjoy our candid conversation!
xo
Tay
Wednesday Jan 13, 2021
Wednesday Jan 13, 2021
Hey Girl Gazers,
Here’s another solo pod for you all. ✨ Leave a written review if you enjoy!
✨5:50✨ Step 1: Discover your passion, choose a niche and pick a platform.
✨9:30✨ Step 2: Perform a competitive analysis.
✨10:00✨ Step 3: Brainstorm a name.
✨10:45✨ Step 4: Brainstorm a few more name options and ask your friends, family and mentors for feedback.
✨11:00✨ How I completed steps 1-4 for University Girl Magazine.
✨13:30✨ Step 5: Design a logo and establish a brand aesthetic.
✨14:10✨ Step 6: Write a mission statement.
✨15:25✨ Step 7: Compile an ongoing list of ideas.
✨16:15✨ How I got funding to start University Girl Magazine at Syracuse University.
✨19:50✨ Step 8: Clearly define your voice.
✨20:45✨ Step 9: Join a Facebook group to learn more information from others with similar passion projects. If you want to start a podcast, join the group called She Podcasts.
✨21:30✨ Step 10: Start creating and ask your friends, family and mentors for feedback.
✨22:35✨ How I created Girl Gaze Pod’s name, logo and cover art.
✨25:00✨ Extra tips and words of inspiration.
xo
Tay
Wednesday Oct 28, 2020
Wednesday Oct 28, 2020
Introducing Season 3 of Girl Gaze Pod: Tay Talks.
Girl Gaze Pod is for 20-something aspiring career queens by 20-something career queens. Whether we’re girl gazing over a cup of coffee or a glass of wine, we’re focusing on two types of journeys this season: Career journeys and self-love journeys.
Follow on IG + TikTok: @GirlGazePod
Episode Summary:
5:00 - Gaze of the Week: Take feedback constructively, not personally.
8:20 - Lesson #1: There will always be a learning curve when you enter a new position.
9:55 - Lesson #2: Learn how your company and team operates.
11:30 - Lesson #3: Make work friends on your team who you can confide in and learn from.
13:45 - Lesson #3: Develop an organization system that works for you.
16:25 - Lesson #4: Learn how to become efficient and thrive in a fast-paced environment.
17:30 - Lesson #5: Bring a notebook EVERYWHERE.
23:00 - Lesson #6: You won’t get along with everyone you work with.
25:00 - Lesson #7: There is some truth to “The Devil Wear’s Prada.”
26:35 - Lesson #8: Never burn bridges!
28:35 - Lesson #9: Keep your cool in tough situations.
32:40 - Lesson #10: You won’t love every part of your “dream job.”
34:10 - BONUS LESSON #11: Your first job out of college is a launching pad into your career.
Tuesday Sep 08, 2020
Tuesday Sep 08, 2020
Hey Girl Gazers, welcome to the season finale of Resilience Required! In today's episode, I walk you through my top takeaways from each episode. Enjoy xx
Connect with me on Instagram!
@GirlGazePod; @TaylerBradford
Support my small business sponsor!
Use code GIRLGAZE when you schedule a coaching call with @LivSchreiber // LivSchreiber.net
Sunday Aug 02, 2020
Sunday Aug 02, 2020
Connect with us on Instagram!📱⠀
@TaylerBradford @GirlGazePod⠀
@AmandaZuckerman @Dormify
Girl Gazers, today you are meeting the girl boss brain behind the brand Dormify: Amanda Zuckerman. Dormify is a one-stop-shop for all things stylish space decor, so you can love where you live 🤩 Amanda launched Dormify with her mom as a college student, received a Forbes 30 Under 30 recognition back in 2017 and has continued to grow her business ever since 👏
In today’s episode, we are doing a deep dive into Amanda’s career journey as a female entrepreneur and peeling back the layers to truly understand what it takes to start and grow your own business 👊
⚡️ See below for time stamps ⚡️⠀
2:00 - 📒 GAZE OF THE WEEK 📒 - Amanda: Although social distancing is the new norm, connection is not cancelled. Maintaining personal and professional relationships during this time is super important. Tayler: Get comfortable being your biggest cheerleader.
7:20 - Amanda kicks off our candid conversation by explaining how Dormify has pivoted its strategy during Covid 📈
13:15 - Find out how Amanda and her mom came up with the idea for Dormify 🛏
17:15 - Believe it or not, this mother-daughter duo launched a Dormify blog before launching the business 📝
22:15 - Amanda spills her secrets to turning the Dormify blog into a business and opens up about what it’s like to work with family 🔐
26:10 - We all know finding a work-life balance can be a major struggle, which is why I loved hearing about Amanda's ultimate work-life balance hacks 🧘♀️
29:55 - Amanda gives us insight on her role at Dormify and how it has evolved over time. Needless to say, she’s a career queen 👑
32:50 - This multi-million dollar business is backed by a team of 18. We learn how her company operates and what Dormify WFH meetings look like. Spoiler alert! Younger team members are always empowered to speak up and even lead meetings. Remember when I said PERSPECTIVE IS POWER in S2E4? Well, it’s true 📝
38:20 We get a BTS look into Dormify’s creative marketing campaigns and product development process 🤯
48:00 - We chat about milestone moments in Amanda's career. This includes her "Forbes" 30 Under 30 recognition, a "Good Morning America" segment and more. NBD 🥳
55:35 - Aspiring entrepreneurs, listen in on Amanda’s top tips for starting your own brand 🙌
59:36 - What’s next for Dormify? A podcast, a younger demographic, product development and more 😱
1:02:00 - 💪 GAZE GOAL OF THE WEEK 💪 - Amanda: Less desserts on the weekdays. Tayler: More movement.
Sunday Jul 26, 2020
Sunday Jul 26, 2020
Girl Gazers, today you are meeting Rachel Wilkerson Miller (@the_rewm), the deputy editor at VICE Life, who published not one, but TWO books! Her post-grad career journey began at ELLE Magazine as an accessories assistant. Flash forward five years, Rachel landed a leadership role at BuzzFeed, and now she’s killing it at VICE. In today’s episode, we explore Rachel’s non-linear career path, find out what it takes to be a deputy editor at a major company, how to freelance and work for your dream editorial publication & SO. MUCH. MORE.
Rachel kicks our candid conversation off by walking us through her day-to-day responsibilities as an editor, why a healthy work environment is so important, how she injects vulnerability into her personal essays and how she manages her endless to-do list (8:10).
Aspiring journalists, listen in on Rachel’s top tips for freelancing and pitching stories to your dream publication and networking on Twitter (18:05).
We dive into the most helpful journalism skills we learned in college and embark on Rachel’s post-grad career path. First, Rachel reflects on her internship at ELLE Magazine and how she turned it into a full-time job (24:30).
As we make our way through her career journey, we take a pit stop at BuzzFeed to unpack her four and a half years there (34:40). In addition to writing an editing, Rachel hired and managed a team. She spills her secrets to standing out as a job applicant as well as the benefits of pursuing a passion project, especially during COVID times (39:10).
When Rachel isn’t working at an impressive online magazine, she’s blogging, writing a book or sending out a weekly newsletter. How does she do it all (45:15)?!
Before we chat about her two books, Rachel reveals her frustrating and shocking experience of getting laid off from BuzzFeed at the end of Jan. 2019 (47:25).
Between then and now, Rachel has become a two-time author of the books “Dot Journaling—A Practical Guide” and “The Art of Showing Up" (51:10).
We close our honest conversation with one last piece of advice from this career queen: “Figure out what you want to do and find a way to do it for YOURSELF. Don’t wait for anyone to give you permission. Whether that gets you a job directly or not is kind of not the point. It keeps you fresh; it keeps you curious; it keeps your mind working.” (57:10).
Connect with us on Instagram!
@GirlGazePod
@TaylerBradford
@The_Rewm
Sunday Jul 19, 2020
Sunday Jul 19, 2020
Girl Gazers, today you are meeting Ji Won Choi (@ji.won.choi), a dope NYC-based fashion designer who is 26 years old. Most of you probably already know her, because she was 1 of 12 designers chosen from around the world to compete in Amazon’s Original series “Making The Cut.” You know, that fashion show with THE Tim Gunn and Heidi Klum? Yeah, NBD. In the past, Ji has collaborated with notable brands like Adidas and has even shown her work at fashion week. In this episode, we are getting to know the girl boss behind the brand. We’re chatting Adidas collaborations, what it’s like to be a fashion designer in NYC, how to kickstart your career after college and of course what it was like to be a contestant on “Making The Cut!”
We kick things off with a discussion about the affect the BLM movement has had on fashion/beauty brands, the lack of diversity within the fashion industry and Ji’s personal experience with racism as an Asian-American designer (3:25).
Ji opens up about the culture shock and racism she faced growing up in Oklahoma (6:30).
When she graduated from high school and moved to NYC to study fashion design at The New School’s Parsons School of Design, Ji embarked on a journey to self-love and self-acceptance (8:45).
Ji developed a newfound passion and appreciation for culture, including her own, when traveled the world during and after college (11:20).
Upon graduation, Ji received an award to design and develop her first collection in Milan (15:20).
She gets real about gaining confidence in her abilities and touches upon the role manifestation plays in her life (18:35).
When she returned to NYC after living in Milan, Ji got the opportunity to show a collection at NYFW through a sponsorship with the CFDA (Council of Fashion Designers of America) (23:20).
Because Ji understands the importance of curating an Instagram aesthetic, her page doubles as a portfolio and has a loyal following (24:30). “Yeah, so the creative director of Adidas slid into my DMs,” Ji mentions casually (25:20). A simple DM quickly transformed into three collaborations and one London Fashion Week show (32:10).
Only a few years out of college, Ji is already making a name for herself within the fashion industry. Not only did Netflix ask her to participate in the competition series “Next In Fashion,” but Amazon also asked her to be on its version of a fashion reality show called “Making The Cut” (39:35). Naturally, we do a deep dive into everything “Making The Cut”: What it was like to be on a reality show, what it was like to work with and present her designs to an unreal judge lineup (Tim Gunn, Heidi Klum, Naomi Campbell, OG fashion influencer Chiara Ferragni, former editor-in-chief of Vogue Paris Carine Roitfeld, designer Joseph Altuzarra and Nicole Richie), the biggest lesson she learned from the show and more (44:15).
We close our candid conversation with a gaze into Ji’s future as well as one last piece of advice for aspiring designers and entrepreneurs (1:03:10).
Connect with us on Instagram!
@GirlGazePod
@TaylerBradford
@Ji.Won.Choi
Sunday Jun 14, 2020
Sunday Jun 14, 2020
Step 1: Take a step back to re-evaluate your career (7:00).
Step 2: Become a networking queen (8:40).
Step 3: Work on your personal branding: Wipe the dust off of your resume, update your cover letter, create a visual aesthetic on your Instagram, make a website, design a business card & build your work wardrobe (16:00).
Step 4: Work on a passion project (33:40).
Step 5: Do a deep dive into your skillset (36:00).
Connect with me on Instagram!
@GirlGazePod; @TaylerBradford
Support my small business sponsor! Use code GIRLGAZE when you schedule a coaching call with my girl @LivSchreiber // LivSchreiber.net.
Contact Sarah Bernadette for all things business card related at SarahBernadette.com // SarahBernadetteDesign@gmail.com.
Sunday May 31, 2020
Sunday May 31, 2020
Get ready for a quarantine brunch with me and a panel of refreshingly relatable and inspirationally insightful Girl Gazers as we chat all things fashion, career building and adulting. This week, I am so excited to introduce you to three of the most creative, fashionable people you probably already follow on Instagram. Today, we’re spilling our secrets to staying inspired, because let’s be real, we have all hit creative blocks during quarantine.
As you begin to prepare your avocado toast, meet @Margot.Lee, a lifestyle vlogger who recently graduated from the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University. Margot has 437k subscribers on Youtube and 195k followers on Instagram.
Next up, we have Caroline Vazzana (@CVazzana). Whether this fashionista is sitting front row at fashion week or on her couch in the Q, you will always catch her in an outfit that is extra AF. She not only has 224k Instagram followers, but in 2018, Caroline also published a book called "Making It In Manhattan" ... NBD.
Our third guest today is the self portrait queen, @PaigeArminta. She possesses a creative vision and recognizable photo editing aesthetic that has helped her page grow to 200k Instagram followers.
Catch up with the girls, find out where they are quarantining, and unpack how they're actually doing during these unprecedented times (8:20).
We do a deep dive into how quarantine has affected their content creation processes (13:30) and discuss ways to keep your screen time at bay (20:10).
Each panelist spills their special secrets to staying inspired (24:40).
Since starting her Youtube channel seven years ago, Margot has developed a strong sense of comfort and confidence when talking in front of the camera (32:20).
Afterward, Paige reveals the reason she's shocked she hasn't made it onto the @InfluencersInTheWild Instagram page yet.
Caroline tells us all about traveling to NYC, Milan and Paris for fashion month (37:20); Margot gives us an inside look at her Germany trip with Sephora collection (42:00); and Paige reflects on one of her favorite brand trips with the Ritz Carlton (45:20).
Get ready for a Girl Gaze Game (49:35)! We blaze through rapid fire questions like "What's your go-to quarantine outfit?" & "Who is your favorite designer?"
We close this candid conversation with a silver lining that has come out of all this as well as a Gaze Goal of the Week.
Connect with us on Instagram!
@GirlGazePod; @TaylerBradford;
@Margot.Lee;
@CVazzana; @MakingManhattanOfficial;
@PaigeArminta
Support my small business sponsor!
Use code GIRLGAZE when you schedule a coaching call with my girl @LivSchreiber // LivSchreiber.net