Essential Takeaways
- The fact that she was due to give birth any minute wasn't going to stop radio host and model Tiana Warren from entering the next phase of her career as a DJ—she graduated from a time-consuming 10-month course mere days before giving birth.
- Warren's success can probably be traced to her willingness to break through moments of doubt. "When I show up to do something that I'm really passionate about, that light is brighter than anything anyone could assume or try to put on me, any box that someone would try to put me in," she says.
The greatest tool in a woman’s toolbox isn’t a cosmetic or a brush. It’s self-determination—the daily commitment you make to yourself and your future, and the hard work and rituals that create the foundation for that journey. Make Your Self is a series that spotlights the stories of women who fiercely embody this relentless pursuit.
"I want to be that grandma that DJs the parties," says Tiana Warren. It's a future that technically might be awhile away—when we speak, the model and radio host is 9 months pregnant with her first child—but then again, Warren has an uncanny habit of willing her goals into existence.
Consider, for example, the start of her radio career: She found herself at a studio, fell in love, and as she tells it, refused to leave until she was offered a job. When she knew that she wanted to become a DJ, she enrolled in a 10-month course despite some fleeting doubts about the investment of time and money—and graduated late this summer, days before giving birth to her son.
If anything, those moments of uncertainty—which definitely surface, by the way—only seem to ultimately fuel the fire. "In these latter of weeks and months of my pregnancy I've been welcoming the help, but in the beginning it was like, 'Don't tell me what I can't do because I have a person inside my body,'" she says. "I can do everything. I'm still DJing. I'm still modeling. I'm not tired. I'm good."
