Visual Artist, Oneil Gardner Teaches Self Awareness As Self Care
WITH ONEIL GARDNER
The goal we find is the evolution of the self, showing up as your best self.
Photography, Julio Nuno
Words, Caleb Church In Conversation with Oneil Gardner
VIEW GALLERY
Societal norms weren’t going to keep Oneil from his authenticity, even when it came to having dreadlocks in the financial sector long before diversity was on the corporate agenda. Now, as a thriving style influencer on the rise, he’s not just broken free from those societal norms, he’s redefining them. A stand that would earn him future collaborations with brands like Gillette, Dior and Coach.
While his drive was enough to land him promotions from teller to financial center manager, and even completing a PhD at UVA, he began to lose passion for a financial career.
The time came to fully make the jump into a creative career when the financial sector began to make him feel he was losing himself. Through the process of changing jobs in the hope of furthering his career, he found himself in a place where they demanded him present but unengaged, causing him to question if this trajectory was substantial.
With intention and self-understanding at his center, he approached his wife about becoming a content creator full time after taking it up as a hobby in 2016. Not an easy conversation to have, for sure. However, to Oneil’s surprise, his wife shared the stark awareness that it was time to move on for the betterment of himself, her and their three kids.
Citing the point-and-shoot camera he always had on hand, Oneil grew to see his creativity take flight when Facebook became popular. Now focused on empowering men through style and grooming, he’s ready to share intimate details of his story. Yes, the skincare routine, but also, how to know if your self-care is working for you.
If you're bringing in a new self care routine, or anything else that is supposed to elevate your life, it should be comfortable. If it's uncomfortable, you lose that confidence.
Oneil brings a new dimension to self-care and grooming, using it as a weapon to actualize the desired future.
In this interview, we dive into everything. From the implications appearance has in society, to what caring for yourself truly means underneath marketing tactics.
Now teaching others how to elevate their style and grooming authentically, we get a peek into how he never let criticisms of his dreadlocks define him. As the saying goes, you cannot attempt to help fill the cup of another with an empty cup yourself.
CC: What made you pursue this creative route, especially after having a career in finance?
OG: I started working in the financial industry right around the end of 2012. I was working as a teller and was just gaining an understanding of the infrastructure of the business. Quickly, I was promoted from teller to banker, then finally a financial center manager. From there, I thought this could be a career, you know, working in finance. The pay was great, I got to interact with a ton of different people from different walks of life. Fast forward four years, I wanted to become a district manager, and it just wasn't happening.
I was losing my passion - not necessarily the financial industry because I think it’s a powerful tool. I found the issue was that I started to lose myself. At the time, we had two kids at home, and I was at work. Just for me, I couldn't get past the idea that I needed to ask somebody for my time as a human being, like if you want to go on vacation and such. Obviously, it's okay for those individuals that work in those industries. If you enjoy your job, it’s flexible, and the money you’re making, stay there. My issue was, it felt like the industry was starting to take away from me, and there was no value-added.
I had a conversation with my wife and said, “Hey, I'm losing myself, you know what I mean?” I had money saved up because I knew I wanted to make this move but I have a household to support. That was probably one of the smartest things I did. I think she could see that I was not the same person I was when I started in the financial industry.
I was expecting to have a long conversation and she just said, “I completely agree with you. You’ll make this thing work.”
CC: Where do you feel like this self-awareness is rooted in - even getting to that conversation with your wife?
OG: I've always been very observant. What I learned through years of having mentorship and conversations with a lot of different people is that people that do well are self aware, right? They're not perfect, but they're aware enough to know when they need to make a correction to something when things are not going well. They have the awareness to leverage resources. I've always been good at leveraging resources, whether it be my intuition, just asking questions, or just seeking guidance from somebody that may have already gone down a path I'm planning on going down or already on.
CC: There's a little bit of a conundrum, right? Because you don't know what I don't know. So I'm really curious as to when you become aware of that need to become self-aware? Was it through a mentor, or was it a book that hit you?
OG: I guess we call it intuition. Growing up, I'd always been a problem solver. If I'm going to jump into something, I'm going to analyze what that thing is going to look like. I am also considering what potential barriers that can get in the way of me completing whatever it is that I need to complete. In most cases, when an issue does arise, I know quickly that I need to make an adjustment because I'd already thought it through.
THE LOOK
Salvatore Ferragamo
CC: I'm almost surprised that you didn’t already know when you got into finance that you wanted to pursue a creative career.
OG: A little backstory. I wouldn't consider myself a photographer, but when I was younger, I would always have a point-and-shoot or film camera. So one way or another, I was doing something with a camera. The other thing was at the same time, I was the kid that wanted to be in all the pictures. I was doing all these crazy poses. My family's from Jamaica. So, there were a lot of weddings that took place in Jamaica. I was the go-to boy to be the ring bearer at all the weddings. If there's a wedding happening, Oneil needed to be there.
Fast forward to when I started college when Facebook really started to show up, we were taking pictures and things like that. I believe that this passion started with social media.
CC: Now in your career you’re focused on empowerment through self-care. Walk me through how it started.
OG: Confidence. You see this now, a lot of people walk around, and they act like they're confident. But really, there's something underneath that, that isn't confident. I'm looking deeper than face value, I'm looking deeper than just the sales pitch that everybody does to make themselves look good. There's something that everyone is struggling with. I think we all struggle with certain things.
That’s where the thought began. The importance of self care to me started from understanding myself.
I’ve got to have time to think and to clear my mind.
CC: Relationships are such a huge part of self care. At times, ideas of self care can be very misconstrued to be self serving. With you, it almost sounds like it’s more about protection. It's protecting your own space and mental honor.
OG: You hit the nail on the head because that's essentially what I'm doing. It's relationships, it's confidence in myself, it's taking care of myself. Taking care of my well-being so that I can take care of other people. It’s so that I'm in shape. I know when I'm not in shape, not from a workout standpoint, but just overall.
It’s hard not to string it back to social media. You have to protect yourself because there's a lot of steering of certain ideas and values. There are a lot of things that we consume daily and we have to make sure that we don't lose ourselves. My goal is honestly to protect my authenticity.
CC: What does your self-care practice look like right now?
OG: I’ve got to have time to think and to clear my mind. For example, I just went to Italy alone. I went to meet up with a few other creators just to get back in the creator's mode. Sometimes you can't do that if you're with family or friends, sometimes you can.
In general, for right now, it’s travel and being alone, but also working on my skincare routine. [laughs]
THE LOOK
Coat, Paul Smith; Boots, Givenchy; Turtleneck, Tom Ford; Trousers. Bottega Veneta
CC: Through using travel as self care, I would love to know which places you have been to that have inspired your best work.
OG: I've been to Jamaica, Hawaii and a few countries in Europe. Europe was probably was the most eye opening for me. In Europe, I actually, other than Jamaica, have really connected with people that really enjoy life.
The very first time I went to Italy, I saw just a bunch of friends early in the morning, meeting each other, and just having conversation over coffee. Just sitting down and observing everybody walking by. They're just watching it in a relaxed mode. In the states, it can be so fast paced.
That moment stood out to me because I couldn’t really remember the last time that I had actually done something like that. I couldn’t really think through a time where I spent time with friends and we just actually enjoyed the moment.
CC: How did that impact your creativity?
OG: It made me look at things more carefully — ethically and aesthetically. While I was there, the experience forced me to always look at things in a creative way, no matter what it was. How I could capture a moment, how I could speak to or about something, how I could keep things with me even after returning to my daily life.
CC: A lot of times when talking about self care, people immediately reference more surface level things like skincare, but I really like that you didn't start out with that. When you mention getting time alone, that resonates with me as an introvert.
OG: That's what I am. A lot of people don't realize that I'm an introvert, but I really am. I guess, in this social media era, and because I'm working in this field, it's forced me to know how to operate when I'm in certain places. I think introverts in a nutshell protect their alone time and time in general. We protect our space, right? We will go out into other spaces, but we need our own space in order to function.
THE LOOK
Sunglasses, Tom Ford
CC: When you're bringing that new practice into your life, what are the guidelines?
OG: The first thing is comfort. If you're bringing in a new self care routine, or anything else that is supposed to elevate your life, it should be comfortable. If it's uncomfortable, you lose that confidence. I ask myself, “Do I feel good about this? Is it making me better? Or is it just taking away from my time?” It’s doing that self assessment internally and just looking at it logically, right?
CC: Online, it seems as though your mission is to inspire others to better themselves through dress and grooming as an act of self care. How do you feel like you’ve been able to make that impact?
OG: Online, I've been doing it primarily through my style — Being confident in the clothes that I'm wearing, in the way that I put things together, and just making it look effortless. People resonate with that. They want to understand more about that process and I'm using my style to lead people into a vessel where we can have a real conversation.
I have this ability to put things together internally before I actually get there. I don't follow trends. I like to study certain things.
CC: Have you ever found yourself editing your personal style and overall outlook in certain situations?
OG: I graduated from an HBCU with a degree in microbiology. Then I was trying to get my PhD at the time, and that's probably the most uncomfortable that I felt in life. In some situations, I could subconsciously feel the look of, “is he really supposed to be here?
I had dreadlocks for a while and you know, I'm a tall person, right? So you have all these characteristics and you're walking around this university and you're getting people looking at you because obviously you're kind of a sore thumb in their eyes. You can't hide. So that was probably the most uncomfortable that I felt during my lifetime.
CC: I'm really curious as to where you feel like you've been able to use your style to break down that discomfort.
OG: I went through all the phases that everybody does when they’re young. I went to college and I started to refine my personal style just a little bit. When I went to UVA for my PhD, that's where I kind of thought to myself, “Alright, I am not necessarily trying to fit in, but I'm just seeing how everything's going.”
I realized I didn't need to pull away from the way that I dressed, I just needed to find a good balance portraying who I am all willing and who I am in respect to specific occasions if I intentionally wanted to be in certain rooms.
THE LOOK
Knit, Sandro; Wrist Watch, Carl F. Bucherer; Sunglasses, YSL
I have this ability to put things together internally before I actually get there. I don't follow trends. I like to study certain things.
