L’Oreal Thompson Payton is an award-winning journalist and the author of the forthcoming book, Stop Waiting for Perfect: Step Out of Your Comfort Zone and Into Your Power (BenBella Books, August 2023). She is also a health and wellness reporter at Fortune where she covers women and wellness in the workplace. Her professional writing is often inspired by her own personal experiences of trying to navigate the world as an ambitious Black millennial woman who was raised to believe that she could outwork all obstacles, but who has come to learn over time that success is not always guaranteed even if you follow all of the “rules.”
Her personal essays, feature stories and celebrity interviews have been published in esteemed media outlets such as Bustle, Essence, SELF, Shondaland, People, Publishers Weekly, and Well + Good. Her writing, speaking engagements, and wellness facilitation work pull from her personal struggles with issues such as self-doubt, imposter syndrome, infertility, and postpartum depression to encourage and inspire other Black women to see, trust, and believe in the beauty of who they are as enough even as they strive to become more than that. When she’s not busy writing–which, to be fair, isn’t often–she can usually be found reading, on her yoga mat or riding her Peloton. L’Oreal lives just outside of Chicago with her very patient husband and brilliant daughter whose laugh lights up her world. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram at @LTIntheCity. Subscribe to her motivational newsletter and listen to her podcast at ltinthecity.com.
