Ray Bans: Recognizing the Time to Broaden or Narrow your Cognitive Scope During Goal-Directed Tasks
Cognitive scope can fluctuate over various time frames and is shaped by surroundings or intentional efforts. The beauty in this mental process lies in treating it as a creative instrument for exploring perspectives.
Ray Bans: If it didn't go exactly as planned, that doesn't mean that your plan isn’t good. It means that you may have to find a different approach.
Ray Bans, musician, owner of Bans Bundles and manager of Foreign Family Clothing, finds herself in a balanced state where she senses when to focus, and when to expand her attention. This feeling allows her purpose to ripple through all that she does.
Ray Bans: Every action we take must have a purpose, whether it’s to help others or achieve our goals. When you try to do things by yourself, you are going to be limited to how much you can do. Everyone has a life outside of their business. Whether it’s children, work, whatever it is, you literally can only do so much as one individual.
I feel like what helps me be able to be organized, a lot involves a team. Everyone has their own roles in exactly what they do, and then when someone cannot attend or help with something, there is a person for each person that helps pick up the slack for those days. I feel like that has a lot to do with it.
How do you feel creativity and optimism is important to promote to our generation?
Ray Bans: I believe creativity and optimism are essential for longevity. I feel like you need both to keep both. Everything is in a constant state of change, and we have to adapt with the times. It’s like what we do with our business. If we do not continuously adapt to how things are going, we may find ourselves falling behind. So both, creativity and optimism are highly important.
Ray Bans speaks about how she went from nursing school to obtaining her degree in liberal studies. During Liberal Arts School, she watched a women’s history film that motivated her. Then eventually opened The Foreign Family Clothing Store with her family.
Ray Bans: I went to college for nursing after high school but I started to deviate from my academic path once I got into the business side of things with my family. We fully committed to our clothing business, which played a big part in my decision to take a break from school.
We successfully opened 4 store locations, my favorite was our Foreign Family Clothing Store in Fairfield. It was spacious and allowed us to do more than sell clothes. Being able to see everything that you have done, all of your hard work pay off, it exposed us to what we were capable of.
I felt like I spent a lot of time at school so last year I decided to go back to finish, I switched my major to liberal studies. Close to the time for me to graduate, I watched a women's history film. The film showcased a diverse range of rich and successful women, the showed a variety of rich women, there was only one black woman featured. Her success served as a source of motivation for me.
It is impressive how you all were able to transition from one Foreign Family Clothing Store location to the next, despite the closure of certain places. That had to take a certain level of thought.
Ray Bans: Between my team and me, we had around 4 to 5 long meetings to discuss the decision of closing our Foreign Family location in Fairfield. Each person had to provide valid reasons as to why we should or shouldn't close that clothing store. In these meetings, no one person’s opinion is above another. By the end of the meetings, we all seemed to be on the same page.
I realized that perception plays a role in how we interpret things. Some of us took the decision to heart because that first Foreign Family store in Fairfield was our baby, that’s what we started with. However, we had to consider the reasons behind our initial decision. Holding onto a store without a clear purpose doesn’t make sense.
On the other hand, not having that store opened up new opportunities to everyone to explore different business ventures. We all just had to start as a family. So I feel like it was a brighter side to it so instead of us looking at it, i feel like it opened up our eyes more. Looking at it this way, I’m proud that we closed the location and started a better business.
Optic flow is how we perceive people or objects in motion as we ourselves move. Ray Bans and her family gained insight by observing movement patterns during certain times when making decisions about store front locations.
Ray Bans: When selecting a store location, it takes effort. We thoroughly examine potential sites for about a month, including weekdays and weekends. Especially the weekdays, to make sure the foot traffic is consistent. You won’t know how a location would do without staking it out first. It could be fine one day in the area that your store is located and then the rest of the days it could be terrible. Foot traffic and location is how we figure out how to move forward.
How does your brand promote equality?
Ray Bans: We usually organize a series of shows called Soulful Sundays. We hosted these at our previous location in Fairfield, California, situated within a mall. Our store, at the time, had a huge area in the back that we transformed into a stage. These shows, known as Soulful Sundays, provided a platform for upcoming artists to perform with me and my family. The artists would perform alongside myself and my brother, Foreign Glizzy.
We took on the responsibility of funding the event. Artists would message us to let us know that they wanted to perform. We carefully selected around 10-11 artists to be a part of the show. Soulful Sundays gives us a chance to hear music from upcoming artists, even collaborate with them. This was a way for us to give back to the community. Since people would come to watch the performances, it benefited both the artists and our business. It worked out on both ends.
In music, have you experienced a moment that sparked an idea for a song bar?
Ray Bans: Absolutely. Situations I've encountered, possessions I have or plan to get, personal goals have all put me in a creative space to write lyrics. My music is diverse, including my "Do What I Want" album, which features Hip Hop tracks, as well as some R&B music and even more upbeat songs that I collaborated on with Even Rights.
During our interview with Ray Bans, she spoke about songwriting. On several occasions she was able to broaden and narrow her cognitive scope during the creative process.
Ray Bans: Sometimes I would start writing, or I would get an idea without having a beat yet. After I write it down I would see if I could come up with a couple more bars. In the recording studio, I would blend in something that I wrote previously with something that I just created.
How were the names "Foreign Family" and "Ray Bans" created?
Ray Bans: The name "Foreign Family" was not specifically created by us, but rather by people from our hometown who knew us. We all owned foreign cars for as long as I can remember, and they started referring to us as "Foreign Family" due to our shared connection with these cars and the fact that we are family.
As for my musician name, "Ray Bans," it came from my family nickname, "Ray Ray," and them saying I had money or "bands" on me. My family would often joke about holding some of my money.
