YOU'RE TOO SMART FOR THIS
Issue Four of The New New Magazine ft. Alexis Barber
In 1954, a man named Roger Bannister did what was long considered scientifically impossible: he ran a mile in under four minutes. Before that, researchers and experts believed that the human body would collapse under the strain, that physiologically, we simply weren’t meant for such feats. Forty-six days after Bannister broke the record, another runner followed suit, and within a year, several others had done the same. Today, a four-minute mile – which had previously been considered outside of the realm of possibility – is considered a standard goal for elite runners.
This series of events created what is called The Four-Minute Mile Paradox, the psychological and societal shift that occurred after Bannister accomplished what no human being had done before. The paradox lies in the fact that before Bannister’s achievement, what kept the four-minute mile out of reach was a mental barrier, not a physical one – nothing about human physiology suddenly changed in 1954. What did change was the collective belief system of humanity: once other runners saw this was possible, they recalibrated their assumptions about what was doable for them and their bodies followed suit to realize these assumptions.
I had planned to use this story as the opening for the most recent episode of my podcast, on the law of assumption and creating new belief systems, many months ago – but I didn’t expect a similar idea to come up in my conversation with author, entrepreneur, and lifestyle creator Alexis Barber, who, in addition to being a Wharton MBA candidate and ex-Google and YouTube, is a certified cosmic girl. This is just one of the many synchronicities that popped up in this interview, which is full of her insights on faith, knowing who TF you are, and not being stupid – a favorite tagline of mine from her popular podcast, Too Smart for This (Apple, Spotify). “There’s a quote I think about a lot, which basically says, you not being your best self is actually hurting the entire world. It's not just you…Think of the women coming after you, or looking for someone like you, to believe that they can do what they want,” she said, just one of the many gems she shared during our lunch at the East Village café Little Ruby’s, just days after her first book, which shares a name with her podcast, was published.
Read on to learn more about Alexis’s journey from struggling with anxiety to tapping into the power within, going from girl boss to cosmic girl, and to get her thoughts on what young women today need to be smarter about.
Lola Kolade (LK): To start, where are you from, and what messages about faith and spirituality did you get when you were growing up?
Alexis Barber (AB): So I'm originally from St. Louis, but before we moved there, we lived in a really small town called Fayette, Missouri, like 2000 people. My mom had me really really young, and our family was very religious. Her parents were both preachers, and everyone else in my family was homeschooled in Christianity. So a very religious family – everyone works in the church, is very involved in the church, so I grew up around that kind of traditional religious process. But at the same time, I was a really, really anxious child, and so I think that really contributed to my relationship with it, [the idea of] not wanting to sin or anything.
LK: Can relate.
AB: Literally. My relationship with faith really started there, and that anxiety really led to me wanting to be perfect. So things really started there and those are sort of the messages I got. I have a really big family – I'm the oldest of eight, so there's been a ton of differing opinions about faith throughout the years, but yeah, there was a lot of Christianity in my house.
LK: So where do you stand now in the "spiritual vs. religious" debate?
AB: So in my undergrad in Northwestern, we had a class called the Bible as Literature and it just really helped me reframe the idea that the Bible was written as a set of metaphors, in my opinion. Because you're not gonna remember the message if if it’s just like, “don’t sin.” You need a fun story. So I think taking the Bible literally is not the move. As far as religion -- I don't care whatever religion you're subscribed to. I do think that Christianity and many religions, particularly Christianity, have been used to oppress people for so long and to keep people silent and to spur colonization and wage wars, that it makes a lot of sense to take a step back and assess your relationship to the idea of organized religions if you’re going to continue with it.
But again, I just see it all as a blank spiritual power as opposed to something that belongs to whatever religion. Like there's Christians, there's Buddhists, there's all these different paths. But I don't care, if you know what I mean?
LK: No, I completely understand.
AB: Just don't use your religion to hurt other people. That's my big thing.
LK: That's so interesting, because I had a similar experience, growing up in a very traditional Christian household. And then I had a class in college where we also read the Bible as literature.
AB: No way.
LK: No, I'm serious. And that's the first time I was like, wait, this is a metaphor. There's no man sitting in the sky.
AB: Yes, exactly! And I've had the man in the sky in my head before and it's taken me years to get it out and unlearn it. Most recently, maybe like a couple months ago, that's when I got into Neville Goddard, and he explains it really well.
LK: Wait, crazy synchronicity, because I was literally listening to Neville Goddard on the way here.
AB: Are you serious?
LK: Yes, seriously! I was listening to his book Out of this World.
AB: Wait, when's your birthday?
LK: I'm a Taurus. April 29th. [Note: A game to play when you're out with your cosmic girl friends: whoever mentions astrology first has to cover the bill...you'll be silent the whole time.]
AB: Oh well, happy early birthday, but I'm asking because like -- what's going on? We're having a lot of similarities.
LK: It's the energy! But everything is!
AB: No, you're so right. But yeah, I was reading Neville Goddard and it helped me understand Christianity so much better. Because he’s using these metaphors to explain the relationship. And I've always heard that we're all God, but I didn’t really get it. And I think that's more what I'm leaning towards now. Now that I'm understanding things differently, I just think it's really sad that a lot of people don't get to experience the closeness of that relationship because they're believing in something that actually might be holding them back.
LK: Yeah, I completely understand you. And when you go into the Bible, even Jesus is like, "one who believes in me will also do the works that I do. And he will do even greater work than these." He's literally like "get like me."
AB: For real. He's like, you could rise from the dead too, and now I'm like, "oh? This is new information.” [Laughs.]
LK: Kind of related to what we're talking about -- how has your spiritual practice evolved over time?
AB: I always was a little uncomfortable with church growing up. Because it was "necessary" and had all this stuff involved, and I didn't really like singing. I prayed, but worship…not so much my vibe. So when I got into college, I took a break from spirituality. And then when I was graduating college in 2020, I was alone in Evanston because I couldn't travel because I'm immunocompromised. And so I was completely alone. I had just gone through a really traumatic event and the pandemic had started, and so I graduated from girlboss literature and self-help into the spiritual world.
It was Gabby Bernstein, I don't even remember what the title is, but one of her books really helped me with listening to myself, going more inward, and journaling, and just getting me through that really hard time. Particularly with journaling, which is why I've written a journal now. But that's where it really started, with long walks and journaling. And then over the past two-ish years or so, I've delved into more spirituality, largely because I was introduced to a lot of it through [Intuitive Entrepreneurship brand] Holisticism and The Twelfth House, which is one of my favorite podcasts.
Michelle Pellizzon[-Lipsitz , the CEO of Holisticism] is amazing, and I've worked with her one-on-one and I really love her. And before that I didn't really know anything about tarot or anything like that, but then I decided like, okay, I'm gonna get into this. And so now I have a tarot deck that I'll pull from once in a while, just whenever I'm feeling called to do it, and that really helps me a lot. I've had a lot of fun synchronicity moments with that. Overall, lots of walks and lots of journaling, I would say. And I like to make my TikTok algorithm really positive so that I don't get wrapped into other stuff. I think a big part of my spirituality is that I filtered out a lot of noise. I used to be deeply anxious and concerned. I was a poli sci major, so I was constantly consuming news and now I consume it in a very purposeful way.
LK: To switch gears a bit, what is the most important belief that you've unlearned during this process? Because I feel like so much of this process is unlearning harmful beliefs that you've internalized so you can start taking action.
AB: Well, the hardest one I haven't overcome yet, which is about deservingness and feeling like you have to be perfect to deserve things. I fought really hard to be perceived in a way where everyone would like me for a really long time. And then when I got to this space where I was incredibly successful and had everything going for me, then people started to attack me for the perfection. Then I realized, okay, I built this armor and it's taught me that you have to work really hard to be perfect and now you've lost your whole personality. And you get to a point where you realize, [the perfectionism] doesn't save you, it's never gonna save you. Being yourself is more important anyway. And it feels better.
Even yesterday, I was meeting with my therapist, and our takeaway from the call was that my self-worth hasn't caught up with my external reality. Like, I can do a lot of things, but I still don't feel it inside, so I'm still working through a lot of it. It's been a lot of months where I've been chugging along and I chip away at it.
LK: So cliché to say, but it truly is a journey. But speaking of your external reality, you just hit a major milestone. You just published your first book! What role, if any, did your sense of spirituality play when you were writing that?
AB: Well, it's the whole book, honestly. I look back and I'm like, I must have channeled this. I'm literally like, who wrote this? Because I need this. Every four-to-six business days I go back and I'm like, wait, yeah, that's actually true. And it's really nice, because the whole point of the book is to let people know the answers are within you if you just take the time to reflect, and I feel like I’m finding that out again and again throughout it. It's really all about tuning out the noise to figure out who you truly are. Because we are selling ourselves short every single day all the time every time we doubt ourselves. So I'm actually in the process of relearning that, after achieving this, but I used spirituality heavily to figure things out and actually get it done.
LK: The book is called Too Smart for This, which is also the name of your podcast, which I love. And I love that one of your taglines is "don't be stupid," because like, yes, exactly -- don't be! Related to that, what do you think young women need to be smarter about right now?
AB: Their careers and making their own money. Because listen, I've fallen into the TikToks watching women marry rich and be a stay-at-home girlfriend --
LK: Stay-at-home girlfriend is crazy.
AB: Crazy! And obviously I wish that I was marrying into a billionaire family and didn't have to do any work, but also, when you think about it, that's stupid because their money can control you. Money is control. We're in a capitalist society. Sorry, but it's true -- money is control. So yeah, even though I want the fairytale too, I'm not gonna be dumb. I'm gonna build my own wealth. And that's what we need to be smarter about.
Right now, I'm in grad school and I'm struggling. Well, I'm not struggling -- I'm being irresponsible with my money, 100%. But I'm still investing in myself very heavily while I'm young, and that's what we need to be smarter about. And also, hold men to higher standards.
LK: Say it again for the girls!
AB: Seriously. It really starts with you. Anything you don't like in a man is just a reflection of something you don't like within yourself and you're allowing it around you. And that’s not good energy at all.
LK: Such necessary advice. So what would you say is the biggest turning point in your journey?
AB: Turning point?
LK: Yeah, if there is one.
AB: Honestly, I feel like I'm always turning and then turning back. [ Laughs.] I don't know if there is one moment. I mean, there's been hard moments of facing criticism as an influencer that have really altered my brain chemistry and made me really boring and afraid to show up as my authentic self. I experienced two really big hate chains in 2020 and 2022. But honestly, I think about it this way: I asked God for confidence. He made me an influencer. He made me have to go through these things, where now it's like, everything I post, everything I do, if I get a negative comment, it can only hurt me if I believe it. And I don't believe it. I genuinely think I'm a smart, interesting person and I have humility -- I will apologize and look at things in a different way because you've gotta remain flexible. But now I have that confidence in myself now that I don't believe I did in the past, that's probably the biggest thing this whole career has taught me.
LK: That point you made -- the idea of, I asked God for something and then He put me in the situation where I was forced to develop it is very real. I've experienced it myself. How did you come to that insight?
AB: Well, my mom always says that she asked God for patience and she got eight kids. And so I figured the same was true for me in my life. Once I realized that I had to be confident and be proud of what I was putting out, and be proud of myself in order for things to work out and for me to not fear criticism anymore, that's when I realized this was all for a reason. It was all to teach me something and it’s taught me so much.
LK: And it's all always working out for your good. And once you affirm that, you see how physical reality aligns to make that the case.
AB: Like my grandma always said, count your blessings. So I feel like that's where this all started, learning to always look at the brightside.
[Edit: At this moment, Jack Harlow made an appearance outside the restaurant we were at, donning matching Moncler vests with his dog. Obviously, this means we were vibrating at the celeb frequency, which -- of course we were!]
LK: How has your sense of spirituality impacted your personal relationships?
AB: Incredibly positively because you start to see things in a different way and realize when people are coming from a place of hurt. I feel like people are very quick to be dismissive about Black women who are successful or beautiful or fun or all three--
LK: God forbid all three!
AB: God forbid! And they're constantly looking for reasons why you’re not and why you don't deserve what you have. But at the same time, I know it's because within themselves, they haven’t dealt with their own desires and self-belief, so they’re being triggered. And I've been in that place before, so I get it. As much as I can get frustrated with people, I also have a greater sense of what's going on, so I don't let things bother me as much. I can be so dramatic – I'll yell about something, have a moment, whatever -- but I'm never thinking about it after. I accept things a little bit better and it's made my relationships a lot stronger.
For example, I think that my two best friends and I have gone through this self-confidence arc together because when we became friends three or four years ago, none of us were super confident, even though we all were great. Since then, we've just consistently been leveling up and having similar experiences where we're like, oh, this is happening to all of us at once and we get to this next level together. Like, we went to a Drake concert once, and we were like, we shouldn't be going to concerts where we're not invited by somebody or connected in some way and now that's how we do it.
LK: And the real is like, why wouldn't that be your reality?
AB: Exactly. And we just know who we are, that we're meant to be in certain rooms and do certain things. Like one time I brought my friend Alexis -- yes, her name's also Alexis -- to this celebrity-ish party in the Hamptons. And when we walked in, everyone was taking pictures of us and everything, but it's not even about that. Like, I'm probably the smallest person in this room in terms of numbers, but it’s just the aura and the energy. And that just reminded me -- don't play with me. I know who I am and what I deserve.
LK: We love a woman who knows who she is!
AB: No, 100%. Like I am who I said I am, and who I think I am, so now what? Why would I doubt myself? You need community to get through [this journey] and it’s been such a blessing to have people see me how I see myself. And that's what's really been so great about surrounding myself with people on a similar journey, and being so lucky to have these people that I can talk about this with and experience life together.
LK: That's incredible. What advice would you give to someone who's just starting out this journey, and the situation is at a crisis point? What's step one?
AB: What I did was I wrote it all down, and that's a form of facing it. I had put a lot of energy growing up into getting external validation or achieving some milestone and thinking that moment would make all the pain go away. And it wasn't until I had a similar turning point as I'm having right now -- it's a cycle -- where I had this uncharacteristic outburst January of my senior year [of college]. Things were really stressful, I’d had a really difficult experience, and my friend, he was just like, “you're so amazing and you have no self worth. Like you're incredible but you have no self-esteem.” And it was painful, but I just had to accept it and see that he was right. And that's when I started journaling and talking to myself differently.
It starts with facing it. Whether that's through talk therapy or writing things down, you've gotta face what's really going on, and only then can you really start to piece together what you want. And that's why in the journal, I start with looking at your childhood, looking at your past, and then figuring out why you are where you are based on those things. And then we can dream, and then we can figure out ways to support that dream. You can't just start to dream from that rock bottom. You gotta be like, well, what's going on here? Because otherwise you're always gonna repeat a lesson until you learn it.
LK: You've talked a lot about journaling and facing it, which is so important. I've gone through periods in my life where my journal has been calling out to me, but I just can't bring myself to do it. What advice would you give to someone who's in that place?
AB: I do think you have to do things at your own pace. I've taken time off of therapy and in that time something will happen and then I'm like, oh, that's why I'm in this. And so I do think that in order to recognize how powerful journaling is as a tool, you have to experience time without it. So if that's part of what your journey is, then I'm not gonna shame anybody for that. I even say in the journal, do this in one sitting, take a year -- I don't care how you do it, just do it.
But if you're in the place where you're like, I know I need to lock in, there's a quote I think about a lot that basically says, you not being your best self is actually hurting the entire world. It's not just you. When you don't show up, think of all the women who came before you, who fought so hard for what you think of as basic shit. And think of the women coming after you, or looking for someone like you, to believe that they can do what they want. You can also reframe that and self-parent and think, "what would I tell my daughter here?" Think of it that way and you'll figure out what's in your best interest pretty quickly.
LK: That's such a good way to think about that. What advice would you give to someone seeking to become their best self?
AB: You're already your best self. You already are. If you can imagine your best self, you're already her. I think we're really mean to ourselves.
LK: It's the ambitious woman curse.
AB: Absolutely. When I shut down product for Too Collective [her premium robe brand] in December, I had to make a very hard decision and listen -- my advisors had been telling me to make this decision since [last] September, and I was like, no, because that's the type of person I am.. I'm gonna do what I want. I'm an Aries rising, triple Leo, triple fire sign. I'm gonna do what I want.
But I learned the hard way that sometimes you gotta make hard choices to have a better life. And I was really afraid that people would say, “oh, you're like a failure to have to let that go,” but no. I just thought of the worst possible thing anyone would say, instead of people being like, "I'm so excited for what you could do next," or "This is so great, you have a book coming out."
A big part of this is reframing your mindset to see the positive. And knowing that you're allowed to rest. Now I can have a lazy Sunday and not be anxious and be so mean to myself, all day, every day. I thought my best self was all about getting to the million dollar mark, and it actually wasn't. It was taking a break and pouring back into myself. And that has felt so, so rewarding over the past few weeks and months. I'd say that's really key as well -- remembering this isn't about the external milestones. Like, what's the point if you don't get to really enjoy life at some point?
LK: Can you talk a little bit more about that experience of breaking from the external milestones to understand the value of these more personal ones?
AB: Well, I had this really crazy period where I was in school, taking a lot of classes, and we were launching a new product, and I got accepted into the Wharton startup accelerator, which is very difficult to get into. And then also I'm trying to be a good influencer and manage my life and I'm waking up every day at 5:00 am with terrible anxiety to do the most pressing thing I had to do, pushing to get through the day, then doomscrolling on TikTok.
And while I was doomscrolling, I started really tailoring my feed to positive stuff, more law of assumption, things like that. And so in that scrolling, I was still doing something nice for myself by filtering negative content. And honestly, a lot of that opened me up to new ways to do shadow work, to go deeper within myself, and to recognize that the reason I was doing it all was because I had a scarcity mindset. It wasn't necessarily because I enjoyed it because handling operations -- I didn't enjoy it. I love that I started a business from scratch and learned so much, but I like learning and I'm not learning anymore. And it was the same when I left YouTube – I wasn’t learning there anymore. And I always want to be learning.
LK: That's so insightful. And you should be so proud of yourself for recognizing that and doing it.
AB: Thank you. Oh my God, it was the hardest thing.
LK: I'm sure. Another thing that's just come up for me is that you’re so bold about claiming the "influencer" title. And I find that people run from it. I run from it, if I'm being real and I know it's silly, but there is a stigma. I'd love to hear your perspective about why you're so comfortable with the term.
AB: Oh my God, there's so much here. When I sort of accidentally became an influencer in 2020 into 2021, it actually coincided with my first day Google, September 8th, 2020. And that was when everything happened.
LK: God said big shit poppin.
AB: Truly, it was just like big shit poppin up all at the same time, and I was like, okay, this is crazy. And I struggled until maybe March [of 2021], and that's when I opened my LLC, so four years now. Until then, I was really struggling to admit to myself, to my partner at the time, that I wanted to be an influencer too, because I worked so hard and I got the big girl job and I'm making good money, so it's like, what do you mean, there's something else I'm enjoying and want to work at? And so I did struggle with it for a bit, but me being myself online gave me so many opportunities. I was basically poached to go work at Youtube to help launch YouTube Shorts and I had the best job with the best manager.
He let me be my full creative self offline and I got to continue to grow and I got to create a business. I was also working with top creators at YouTube. I was working with Mr. Beast, doing stuff with Jackie Aina and so I saw up close how massive the creator economy is and how incredibly important it is to the way the whole cultural zeitgeist moves. And it's a disservice for us to continually put down what it is or make fun of people who are doing it when it's real money, it's real eyeballs, and it's also a woman-dominated industry, which of course that plays a role in why people talk shit about it.
But now I'm so comfortable with it. I make more money than my salary at Google, and I get to do whatever I want and live life on my own terms. And honestly -- when Kim Kardashian came out and said, "I'm an influencer," that also helped me come out and just claim it. And to be real, at school, I was embarrassed. They made fun of me, but when you're looking at the dollars and cents...now what?
LK: [Laughs.] Such a great question. But onto my last question, which is a big one. As of right now, what would you want to be remembered for?
AB: Oh wow.
LK: Yeah, it's a doozy.
AB: You know, I've been thinking about this a lot as I decide what my next phase of my personal brand will be. But right now, two words come to mind -- authenticity and taste. I wanna make sure that I'm a part of something that's preserving the beauty in the world because I really am passionate about that and I feel like we're getting into just being obsessed with productivity and work and I don't like that. I care about beauty and contributing to the arts and making sure valuing beauty stays important. I don't want beauty and art to just get lost in a vacuum of content. I'm a natural sharer, and I just feel like -- why else would I feel this way, and have these intense emotions, if not to help somebody? That's a big part of what I'm here to do.
Follow Alexis on Instagram, TikTok, and Youtube and get a copy of the Too Smart for This guided journal.