Latest / The Steve Harvey Morning Show / Full Episode: Chris Lee discusses the Broadway musical “Hamilton,” Amar’e Stoudemire tells how former NBA Players transition, former Atlanta Falcons Lawrence Sidbury Jr., & Antone Barnes discusses his Brand

Transcript

Full Episode: Chris Lee discusses the Broadway musical “Hamilton,” Amar’e Stoudemire tells how former NBA Players transition, former Atlanta Falcons Lawrence Sidbury Jr., & Antone Barnes discusses his Brand · The Steve Harvey Morning Show

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Money Making Conversations. It's the show that she
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: has the secrets of success experience firsthand by marketing and
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: Brandon expert Rashan McDonald. I will know he's giving me
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: advice to many occasions. In incase you didn't notice, I'm
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: not broke. You know, he'll be interviewing celebrity CEOs, entrepreneurs
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: and industry decision makers. It's what he likes to do,
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: it's what he likes to share. Now it's time to
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: hear from my man, Rashan McDonald money making Conversations Here
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: we come. Welcome to money Making Conversation. As you know,
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: I'm your host from Sean McDonald. It's time to stop
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: reading other people's success stories. I say that all the
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: time on this show. Stop reading other people's success stories
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: and start writing your own. That's their story. You need
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: to write your own story. Put time into yourself and
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: always tell people leave with their gifts, your passion, your drive,
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: and don't let your age. So many times people are
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: of their age, they get thirty, hit forward it. They
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: started feeling they can't do anything. When they the sixties,
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: they want to try to retire, retire to what because
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: the government is not gonna take you. And if you
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: have friends who don't believe your family or co workers
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: don't believe you, you cannot let anybody stop you from
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: planning or living your dreams. That's why I bring interviews
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: on my show, Money Making Conversations celebrities, ceo s, former athletes, athletes,
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: entrepreneurs and industry decision makers. My next guest is a
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  Speaker 1: Mari Startermira the six time NBA All Stories currently an
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  Speaker 1: assistant player developer coach for the Brooklyn Nets, and he's
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  Speaker 1: an entrepreneur get it entrepreneur. Omar is the first and
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  Speaker 1: only black kosher winemaker. Amri's owned star STARTERMRA Farms, an organic,
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  Speaker 1: family run farm in Duchess County, New York, which raises
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  Speaker 1: black angers. Amar wants to raise awareness about struggling black
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  Speaker 1: farmers and teach the next generation a three sixty degree
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  Speaker 1: view of wellness, which includes not only exercising, food, but
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  Speaker 1: financial wellness and community service. A. Mari is also currently
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: pursuing his master's degree in business from the University Mary
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: I Am. That's to you, y'all. Do you please work
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: with the Money Making Conversations. Happy to have one more show,
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  Speaker 1: Amri out of mind, man, Thanks for having me. How
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  Speaker 1: you doing, sir? Feeling good, brother, feeling good? No, you know, Maria,
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  Speaker 1: I would tell you something. I'm a big NBA fans,
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  Speaker 1: so I can I can see those uh those lives
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  Speaker 1: from Steve Nash to you and you slam ducking and
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  Speaker 1: you was like you were an incredible athlete in the NBA.
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  Speaker 1: And talk about that portion of feeling invincible, feeing all
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  Speaker 1: world because you were all world. Talk about that whole
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  Speaker 1: part of your life and then trashing the transitioning out
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: of the game. We want to talk about it as well,
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: but just talk about when you're the top of your
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  Speaker 1: game athletically. You know what, when you're when you're playing
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  Speaker 1: the game at the high level, UM, you put in
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: so much work to to reach a level of expertise
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  Speaker 1: in your craft. I think for me, I was able
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  Speaker 1: to somewhat strive for greatness and my and my feeling
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: to be able to try to reach my full potential.
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  Speaker 1: So when you're in that space, man, you feel like
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  Speaker 1: you're just in a different world. You're in a different stratosphere. UM.
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  Speaker 1: And so the energy along kind of cords in with
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: if you plan and succeeding at whatever you're doing. And
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: for me it was basketball playing, going to the you know,
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  Speaker 1: conference finals, planning the Olympics, All Star Games, and all NBA.
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  Speaker 1: All these were incredible accolades that I felt amazing during
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: that stretch. Now, when you when you feel amazing, like
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: you was saying, um, you know, any point in that part,
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: there's you know, because you kind of had your game
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: when it wasn't social media and the social media is
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: now so prevalent, and I'm sure you own social media now.
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: But when social media made a difference in who are
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: Mari stottom Rars if he had it when he played,
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: yeah for sure with me. When I played, I was
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: I was one of the first guys to put together
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: All Star campaign like a like a mini TV show,
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  Speaker 1: trying to tell you it goes over the you know,
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  Speaker 1: uh you know, getting fans get out there to vote
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  Speaker 1: right on the vote initiatives. Uh So, I was the
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  Speaker 1: first guy to kind of start that whole movement. And
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: I was also one of the first guys. I have
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  Speaker 1: my own uh uh YouTube show, you know so, YouTube channel,
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: I should say so back back in the early two thousands,
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: I started a YouTube channel, and I was I was
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: just you know, recruiting all this content. Even back in
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: the early two thousands, for all the social media came out.
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  Speaker 1: So I was for sure out of the curve. And
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  Speaker 1: if I would have had social media back then, I
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: would have took for advantage of it. You've been a beast,
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: You've been a social media beast. Where I liked this,
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: they say, well, I liked in the game. But you
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: know the thing about it, man, when you're you're so
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: articularly you're so you, so you you resonate at a
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: high level of professionalism. And so there's so many stereotypes
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: of the black athletes. How do you break that mode?
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: How did you break that mode? Because you know, even
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: when you were successful, they're still gonna be stereotypes. How
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: do you go through dealing with that? Or do you
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: deal with it at all? You know what? I think
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: the idea has been able to to step outside of
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: your box. Right. You know, I grew up in a
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: small town of Florida, and I was also raised in
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: New York and so always in my community box. Um,
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: and so for me, I was able to step outside
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: the box and learn new things, uh, advance my conversation,
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: advanced my thinking, and so I think that helped me
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: somewhat advanced mentally, you know, and so educational wise, I
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: was able to somewhat pursue education, continue reading and just
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: trying to trying to improve myself over the years. I
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  Speaker 1: think that helped me somewhat, you know, iron out or
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: straighten out my conversations and my way of thinking about business.
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  Speaker 1: Right now, you assisted one of your one of your titles,
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: because you're run us man, I put up there. If
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: I mentioned everything else, you almost a reality show. You know,
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: a camera should actually follow you around. You know, you
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  Speaker 1: got the farm, you got the wine, you got the education,
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: and you also assistant player development coach for the Brooklyn Nets.
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: Tell us exactly what that is. Yeah, so right now
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: it's my first ship being a part of like a
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: coaching staff. Right. Actually, I played over season Israel in
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: the championship there. I got the m v P last season,
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  Speaker 1: and so I was looking to go back overseason play
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  Speaker 1: another year. But when I got the opportunity to coach
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  Speaker 1: with the Nets. Uh, my role now is to to
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: to help develop players, but at the same time learn
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: from the front office and the coaching staff to see
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: where I want my future to go, whether it's front
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: office work or whether it's coaching. Okay, cool, now, okay,
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  Speaker 1: now the Brooklyn Nets. Brother, now you you you were
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  Speaker 1: special when you played there, Imori, I ain't gonna lot
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: to you. Now you get to see three players I'm
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: talking about Kevin Durant, James Harden, Kylie r. As a player.
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  Speaker 1: How would you guard them or what is their greatest
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: asset as a player? Individuals? I mean, you can't really
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: guard him. He's got this guy a special These gots
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: a special offensive players that you just cannot find way
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: to guard these guys. And you know the strengths is
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: Kevin duran is a complete all around players guys like
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: six or eleven, and he plays like a guard. He
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: shoots the ball with the best of him. He's sure,
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: he's for sure one of the all time great scores
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: that we the game. I've ever seen. Uh. Kyrie Irving
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  Speaker 1: is a point guard that is so creative. I mean,
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: you can never you could. I mean I have never
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: seen a guard that's this creative before. As far as
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: the way he finished around the basket, by the way
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: he gets a shot off, the way he approached the
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: game is sensational. And then James Harden. Before we get
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: to James Harden, Let's let's stay on Kyrie because I
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: was talking to Stephen A. Smith. He you know, you
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: know what he does with that ball man when he's
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: dribbling it. I saw him doing moved with Toy Gibson
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: in the last game they played against the Knicks, and
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: he went back and forward, back and forward, and he
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: took him to the whole and all the time he
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: was dribbling. I've never seen that in my life. I'mori, yeah, man,
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  Speaker 1: he I mean, he's incredible. Man Like, like I watched
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: him every day in practice. As you know, I was
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: every game and what I see every night is always
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: every every game I turn, you know, I have a
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: moment in the game where I just like just shave
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: my head like this. And I'm a guy who's seen
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: at all I've been running over. But but Kyries are different.
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: He's he's he's a remarkable player. Now I played. I'm
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: originally from Houston, Texas, so I got to see the
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: trade of James Harden to Houston. Didn't know he was
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: that great. He was a sixth man at the Oklahoma
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: Thunders and uh and then they have him come to
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: Houston and suddenly blossom into a superstar. What makes him
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: so unique in your eyes? As an former athlete and
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: as a as a coach, Well, James is also a
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: creative in his own way, right, So make this guys special.
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: The creativity that one bringing to the game that the
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: game have never seen it make you a special player, right.
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: And so with James, his creativity, being able to draw fouls,
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: being able to manipulate the defense, being able to take
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: with the offense, gives him if you're back off from
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: three point, if not, he drives to the basket. He
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: has just he has just stepped back to the side.
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: I mean, I mean we saw, we saw YouTube clips
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: of him creating different type of shots. It's like the
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: creativity is something special. And for a guy like him
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: to be now the leading assist guy, after being after
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: being the leading score of the year prior, it shows
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: you how great, how great James really is and how
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: he's not selfish And a lot of people thought that
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: wouldn't be enough balls k when he got traded over there. Now,
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: let's let's talk about you and the transition up. You
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: were currently pursuing a master's degree in business from the
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: University of Miami. Why is that important to you? Well,
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: for me, I felt like, you know, when I was
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: in NBA, I had you know, associates that did a
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: lot of my finances for me as my and my
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: team did a remarkable job. But I felt like I
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: want to be the one also knowing about all the
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: intricate details that's concerning the business you know on my side,
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: right so I have my hands involved in a lot
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: of different businesses. I want to be able to know
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: how to articulate my conversation acts the right questions uh
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: with with future you know partners or have you so
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: that will can conduct myself properly in meetings and so
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: and and note and be more knowledgeable about things going forward.
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: You know that it's really you know you're in You're
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: in a special era for especially NBA players because NBA
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: players are not what they used to be. Their their
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: their leaders in the corporate space, their leaders and entertainment.
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: What what is making like NBA players so unique and
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: how they approach the game, why they're playing as well
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: and also the excellent because you can actually see you guys,
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: you guys have we know you don't have a helping
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: on your face. I don't look at baseball because it's
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: not enough blacks to make a difference in baseball. At
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: one time they felt that too many blacks will ruin
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: the game of basketball. And that's not the case. What
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: is really making that transition for you guys so successful
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: because you play the most games other than outside of baseball,
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: so you're busy all the time. So how you were
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: able to pursue a degree plan and also you still
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: coach you okay, and but you also we're gonna talk
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: about the other two businesses, winery and the black angles
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: parm in a minute, because you're still as busy as
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: you were when you're playing, right, And so the idea
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: has been able to put people in power and position
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: of power to bear to articulate these businesses for you,
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: right and oversee each individual entity, which is all which
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: is very important. But you also have to be knowledgeable.
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: You have to be up on your game to to
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: hold the people accountable that are in charge of these
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: different businesses. Um And so for me, what I think
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: in my generation was myself like this whole error right now.
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: And I think the next generation is starting to you know,
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: figure out as well. But me Lebron, Carmelo, Chris Paul.
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: You know this mean started with Kobe and Garnett and
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: those guys, but this whole era of of of guys
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: and players that are thinking more so about intelligence and
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: also basketball. Right, So for it's always been like a
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: narrative of like all the basketball players or athletes are
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: just dumb jocks like sports, and so we're like, that's
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: not true, and it's that's that's that's a bad narrative.
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: That's false. So what we're doing now is proven that
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: by being uh someone educated on on everything that we
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: do and being innovative without without businesses. Now, it's an
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: interesting thing because I read this when I introduced you
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: to talking about financial wellness and community service because it
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: was together and I think they do run together. So
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: because throughout your career, I always knew about you community service. Now,
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: what is that conversation that you're trying to create when
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: it comes to financial wellness? Well, financial wellness is important.
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: I mean, obviously we had a lot of systemic racism
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: where a lot of the African American culture have been
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: somewhere behind the paradigm when it comes to being able
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: to to obtain wealth and pass their wealth down to
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: the next generation. Um. And so we're somewhere behind schedule
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: at the play the catch up game uh for us now.
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: And I think, uh, you know, financial literacy and financial
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: you know, wealth is important because we have to now
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: understand how to uh not only make the money, but
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: also save the money and then also invest. And those
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: are those are those are interricate balances between knowing how
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: to save, which means you have to somewhat disconnect yourself
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: from certain possiblanity because you don't want to get caught
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: up in spending money that's not gonna do you any good.
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: You have to also know how to invest, because investing
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: would allow that money to then make money for itself. Um.
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: And then you have to aw to save. When you're saving,
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: you can now put to put aside certain funds for
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: your children so when they become an adults, that can
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: have a head start on a head start in the
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: financial space moving forward. So you have to be able
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: to have that financial literacy for sure. Well, you know
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: an interesting thing when I'm hearing you talk about your
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: brain and your career. First of all, you know, uh,
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: if you ever want to go back on TV, please
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: call me tomorrow. You're a fantastic but you know, you know,
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: I don't know if you have a TV representative, but
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: please call ra Sean McDonald because you're you're special. Brother.
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: You know, I don't know what they're paying you be
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: the assistant player development code, but you need to be
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: on TV. Brother. Uh, your insights incredible, great smile and say,
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: I'll be breaking it down. May you do you know
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: maybe you might know in the Google me a little bit.
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: You know, you'll find out when I tell you you're special. Man,
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: You go that brother does know what you're talking about.
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: But when But I had C. J McCullough on on
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: show twice. Now he has a wine line that's sold
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: out as well. Now you got into wine business. But
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: you know, but you're a black kosher winemaker. Please tell
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: us the significance of that well ben business. First, I
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: don't think there's another black coachure wine make graphs in
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: the world. Um and so I wanted someone trans that narrative.
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: Also is being able to now step into a coatural space,
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: to space where where health is wealth, right, um and
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: so and so you know, the winery out of out
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: of Israel was important for me. To get involved in
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: becau as you know, obviously having the biblical ties and
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: knowing that throughout the whole biblical context there's always been
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: wine involved in the Bible, right, so I wanted to
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: kind of back with that soil and create a juice
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: that people here in American drink and be a part
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: of Israel like they can be a part of that
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: biblical connotation. Um. So that's how the originally started. And
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: then now I just released two more bottles. That's made
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: in California. There's there's a cabinet Savoon that's cab that's
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: made in California. Mr said it again, seven, I got,
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: I got articularly like you. How do you say that? Man?
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: Just lay it? Roll off your lip, savenon what you say? Brother?
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: You need to stop man, You're a smooth operative brother.
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: Come on, come on say it one more time. What
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: you're saying. That's the that's the cabinet Savona from California.
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: And I have a I have a petite bird dough
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: that's also rose also California. Right now, Why you know,
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: two years ago reading USA to Day and they was
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: talking about NBA players and why why it was such
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: a popular Uh, drink and NBA players walk around with
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: little cases with wine in the little cases and they
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: travel with their whine. Why is that the case? Well,
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: you know what, I think the NBA nowadays is becoming
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: a luxury brand. A lot of the players that are
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: in the NBA and have played in the NBA are
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: you know, their brands are considered to be luxury brands.
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: So why is a part of their luxury connotation? So
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: I think, wh A lot of the guys who like
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: to go out and have dinner, as you know, five
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: star restaurants, mission the restaurants, I want to sit down
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: and drink wine. I want to smoke cigars, I want
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: to drink whiskey and chill relas, have a good fun night.
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: Those are those are the ideas that a lot of
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: NBA guys are thinking and so getting into that wine
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: space kind of goes with their brand. Now, now let's
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: go to another part of your entrepreneur career. Is that's
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: why I love about you? It's not like you your pigeonhole. Okay?
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: Now they start Mire Farms, which is an organic family
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: round farm in Duchess County, New York that raises black angers.
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: Talk about how did that come about in your life.
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: Who turned you on to the opportunity? Well, you know
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: what I mean. You know, it's funny. I grew up
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: in a small town in Florida, which is like, you know,
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: it's like a farmtown kind of type. Deal. Also lived
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: in New York for a while, right, So my grandfather
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: was my grandfather, Jack was an entrepreneur himself. He had
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: like fish in the morning, he had grape vines and
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: peace trees in the backyard. He would have, you know,
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: all these different agriculture uh elements and you know at
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: his home. And so when I when I go to
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: my grandfather's house, I would see all this and I
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: would see how he works in until the soil. And
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: so I was like, there's an opportunity that came along
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: my way here in New York where a friend of
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: mine we're moving to Italy and had this massive ranch
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: out upstate New York. And they're like, hey, we you know,
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: we have this ranch. We're just you know, really just
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: trying to get rid of it. And so I was
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: like sure. You know, for me, my initial thought was
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: having a nice getaway place for the family. They can
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: have a nice vacation, uh and go out the log cabin, relaxed,
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: light up, the light up the fire pit. Um. But
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: then I turned it into a working farm, and so
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: I used about a hundred and eighty five acres of it,
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: and I brought in some black angers. I brought a
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: farm hand. And now, and this is about seven to
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: ten years ago. So are you and the horse? No,
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: I have no horses. Okay, you're not riding the har
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: you do how do you get out there? And and
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: and corral the the anger? See what do you do?
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: You know? Up what you're out there doing? Yeah? I
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: got I got, I got the a t V. A TV.
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: You rolling? Huh yeah? Man? So so so the farm hand. Actually, whenever, whenever,
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: whenever you go on the farm, you have like a
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: certain feed and the cows that come to you, you know,
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: because they're coming right to you, and you can somewhat
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: you know, showing which way to go, and you fence
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: some men depending on which right which in the land
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: you want them to graze right, because you have some
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: parts of some parts of the land needs to grow back,
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: and so you take them to another part of the
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: land fencing mail at them graze that right, and then
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: you read them out that way, uh field by field.
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: But it's an easy deal, man, you know, it's it's
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: it's an easy deal, and it's fun because now there's
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: a new there's a new situation now with the American
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: government that now are giving back to the black farmers. Yeah,
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: because before um, um, you know, there was like I
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: think like sixteen percent of the population were black farmers,
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: and now it's down to like point two percent of
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: the farmers that are black. And so now the government's
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: are gonna re issue that and try to enhance black farmers.
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: So I was also ahead of that curve as well.
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: You know, Congressman uh Lindsay Ram called it reparations. That's
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: what he was calling. That was in this deal, you know,
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: funding for black farmers. You know, when you you are
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: a man of many hats, what you know, I won't
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: use the word where had are you most proud of? Win? Now?
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: But what allows you the ability to multitask? Well? I
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: think for me, everything everything that I get myself involved in,
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: our passions that I love doing right and and I
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: also learned about it first. I learned about it and
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: understand it first before I really get involved. Um. And
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: so it allows me to do it naturally. You know.
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: I feel like if you force something you're not too
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: sure about it, then it makes it doesn't look as natural,
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: doesn't feel as clean, it doesn't feel as right, you know. So, uh,
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: everything that I do is based upon like my passions,
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: what I enjoy doing. How can I now pass this
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: down to the next generation right and set the tone
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: for for them? So let's talk about that next generation
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: that you talk about a wellness and and then you
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: talk about that, you know, so they won't struggle. You know,
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: do you feel a responsibility And I'm not trying to
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: put your own but I hopefully we're just having a
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: really good conversation with a successful person who has been
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: successful in so many of its level as an athlete,
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: now as an academic because you got to give your masters. Agree,
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: you gotta an undergraduate degree you can't get you can't
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: skill to get that. So you've been successful at that
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: level as well. Your entrepreneur you you wouldn't have step
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: on in the beauty of having land. I always my
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: dad just always said God ain't making no more land.
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: So when you buy the land, that's an investment. Did
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: you should hold on too? So that's a smart move
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: on your part right there. But when you talking about
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: next generation, what is your responsibility especially in wellness because
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: in twenty we discovered how a global pandemic can affect
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: African Americans and we saw the George Flaw situation. What
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: role did you feel you've had to play? What role
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: did you play from a pandemic side and from a
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: civil unrest and trying to try to get people understand
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: that we are and we should be represented properly as
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: African Americans. Yeah, for sure. I mean I think I
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: think my ideal of it is being able to understand
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: our heritage, sir. And I think that's key because I'm sure,
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: I'm sure it's governmental facts and paperwork and the files there.
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: But a lot of the African Americans that were brought
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: to America are from like the children of Israel, from
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: a Dane that you Dan region. So for us, for me,
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: what I always try to connect the people with is
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: being able for them to reconnect with the Bible so
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: they can understand their heritage and then start to follow
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: suit in that way. And so that is that's an
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: important message for me to someone give to the children,
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: because we have our heritage only goes back to slavery,
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: you know at one point, like we've we've been there's
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: so many different titles of of heritage that we've been given.
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: Whether it's Black, it's Negro, whether it's African American, whether
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: it's you know, whatever these names are. But what's our heritage,
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: and our heritage is the Bible, our here, our heritage
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: is inside the history book. Not important for us to
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: reconnect with that and to understand what that means and
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: do your own particular learning to figure that part out
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: and then go from there. Oh man, it's been a
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: wonderful conversation. I'm already and uh, you're special, brother, But
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: of course you know that, and I hope you understand
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: that the gifts that you're given to us as an entrepreneur,
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: as a leader, as a as a person who's understands
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: the value of education, as a landowner, which is beautiful
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: for black people to say that, because we know that
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: land has been stripped away from us illegally at times, uh,
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: from a scam way, and we're not and not being
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: in the position to make money from the land that
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: we buy. And you were smart enough to see there
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: was value in it and having the black angers for
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: me raising uh as these these cattle, i'ms wooing up
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: there and making money out of it. Continue to do
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: what you do, man, I want to. I wanna thank you,
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: brother for coming on my show Money Making Conversations. Absolutely, Bro,
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: thanks as an amazing conversation. That's do it again. Yeah, man,
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: I'll tell you something more. I'm not lying, man. You
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: are gifted, brother. But you knew that al right, because
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: you're the YouTube show. I just to watch it. I
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: would looking at it to you. You you're creating Chris Boss.
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: Chris Boss followed you with that little commercial he did.
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: I'm not looking at man. You are a special man,
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: and I was happy to see you on Steve and
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: as Stephen's steven A's World, Man, because you know a
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: lot of people. They have an image of you, of anybody,
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: especially from an athletic standpoint, and you're so smooth and
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: you're so smart. Uh, don't stop, man, And I'll always
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: to let you know. Man, I'm a fan of yours
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: just as a man and because you are doing some
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: man stuff. And don't stop. Okay you all right, we
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: will be right back with more money making Conversations with
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: your host Rashwan McDonald. It's finally here, the season of celebration,
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: And no matter how you celebrate with family and friends,
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• 24:40
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• 25:23
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• 25:27
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  Speaker 1: Forest Service and the AD Council. Hi Roshan McDonald's the
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: host of Money Making Conversation. The Cafe Mocha Swag Award
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: is a celebration of black men who are making a
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: difference in our community by empowering others to reach their
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: life goals. From civic leaders, businessmen, activists, celebrities and everyday dad's.
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: The Cafe Mocha Swag Award winner this week is PRIENTSS.
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: Penny He is a Peabody and Golden Globe Award winning writer, director,
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  Speaker 1: and producer who continues to change the game with his
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: groundbreaking Netflix original film On Cork, where he is the
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: writer and director and is the showrunner and executive producer
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: of they hit HBO series Insecure, Super Glass to Like
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: mostly had the same writers from Man, So I think
• 27:02
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• 27:04
  Speaker 1: super familiar with how we want to tell the stories
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: and the way to tell stories and what works and
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: what doesn't work on our shows, but still offering you know,
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• 27:14
  Speaker 1: I think that and other thing you have an amazing
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: it just makes our job easier. Cathey March Squag Award
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: represents men who have strength, whose wisdom is assertive, and
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: who is genuine in their spirit. Welcome back to Money
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: Making Conversations with your host Rashaan McDonald. My interviews that
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: I have on Money Making Conversations provide the consuming business
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: owner access to celebrities. That's who I'm about the interview next.
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: He's an entrepreneur, he's a CEO, he's an industry decision maker.
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: His name is Chris Lee He's played many roles on TV. Actor, singer, dancer, vampire,
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: drug dealing, musician. He is currently on the cast of
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: the c W series Legacy. He don't know but I
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: watched that too. Currently are and uh season three He's
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: a vampire and that. On the music side, his latest
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: release is the new single Miss, available now. But Chris
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: was in the college when from college, he was casting
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: the broad we hit musical Hamilton's, where he played two
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: characters We're gonna talk about that, how you swing between them?
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: To Thomas Jefferson and all that stuff for their Chicago production.
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: After that, he shifted to television, appearing on The Empire
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: because you can say swap because he got physicality and
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: recurred where I really fell in love with him on
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: the shot he was he was the coolest drug dealer
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: since Fringer Bell. That's what I'm just telling you right now.
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: It's Fringer Bell is legend there from the wire. Please
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: welcome to money making conversation telling the young act. I'm
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: happy to have more money making conversation. Chris Lee. How
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: you doing, Chris doing well? And I thank you for
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: having to start tell Chris. Have to let you know
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: I appreciate. I appreciate it. Well, let's let's talk about
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: you man a little bit. You where you based, are,
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: where you get started and how did you get started
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: in the and the just the love of entertainment because
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: we have so many people have these aspirations but don't
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: know how to jump it off. Yeah. Yeah, So, I
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: mean I'm originally from Georgia, right outside of Atlanta. I
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: was born in Augusta. My mom moved to uh, Atlanta
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: when I think I was going for and uh so
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: that's that's where I grew up in. I mean, you know,
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: grew up in a regular you know, black household, you know,
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: a single parents situation. Um. And you know, my mom,
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: you know, instilled in me the ideals of of Christianity
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: and and and my entire life is definitely rooted in
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: the true relationship Jesus Christ will first given honor to him.
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: And so thankful that I'm here to be able to
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: share with you guys and everything. But yeah, man, so
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: I went to actually went to a boarding school when
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: I was about fourteen years old, and uh just to
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: kind of get out of the situation I was in
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: and to kind of explore more opportunities when it came
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: to you know, the potential I I feel my mom
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: thought I had, and um my my peers and my
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: my educator start I had. And so the school is
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: called My College School located in Chaga, Tennessee, and college
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: prep school, and they really just offer everything, you know.
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: I mean I remember the first time I toured the
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: campus and you know, found that you could not only
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: do the you know, like basketball and football and soccer
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: and baseball, but they had like water polo and ning
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: and canoeing and and crew like growing and so it
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: was just seeing stuff I had never known and being
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: cultured in a way that was that can only be
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: beneficial because you know, the knowledge I would gain, I
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: didn't know I could use it later, one of those
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: things being theater. And so make a long story short,
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: I lost a bet and and I had to auditions
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: for the play. And I loved it. I mean I absolutely,
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: you know, I was so I wasn't really drawn to it,
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: but once I was in it, I mean, the feeling
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: that I had it was kind of that that space
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: where you just know where you're supposed to be for
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: the first time in your life. And I was, you know,
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: fifteen years old. I think fifteen, sixteen years old, I knew, okay,
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: I want to be on stage. I didn't even know
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: what that would look like. I didn't think I could
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: have a career doing it, you know what I mean?
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: Because I was informed and just where I grew up,
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: you didn't really hear about too many people trying to
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: pursue acting for real, you know, I mean, it just
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: kind of you saw people on TV and that's where
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: it was. Um. But thankful God. I thinking for my
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: mom for encouraging me. Seeing the gifts that I had.
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: I was you know, I came from a musical family.
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: Everybody could sing, so it wasn't really impressive to me
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: that I could. I could that I was musical at
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: all because that's just I was normal in my household.
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: You sing all the time, singing church. It was kind
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: of like more like can write a passage, you know
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: what I mean. You have to be kind of musical.
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: You have to know how to worship, and you have
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: to know how to use that game. And so you know,
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: I'm in high school and my mom she sees me
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: do a play and she's like, well, you're really good, dude.
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: You should you should think about going to college for it,
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: and I was like, oh, you could, you could like
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: major in this. She's like, yeah, you can major musical theater,
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: acting music, all that, okay, And I was like, what
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: would I do? You said, you can go to Broadway
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: and I was like they paid. She's like, Chris, they
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: get paid. I was like, oh, no, let's just do that.
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: And that's really how I went down. Bro. It really
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: went down like that. Like I I auditioned at a
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: bunch of schools, fell in love with Bellmount University and
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: that's where I began my formal education on theater, where
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: I had my first voice lessons, acting lessons, dancing lessons,
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: and um kind of honed the talent I had into
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: like real skill. And during that time, I think it
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: was around Hamilton's came out, and I became obsessed with
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: the soundtrack like everybody did. Because at the time you
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: couldn't see it. You could just listen to it um,
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: you know, via Spotify iTunes. You could hear the plot
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: and you can hear everything the characters are going through,
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: and it was becoming this phenomenon and I remember hearing
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: it for the first time saying like, I'm gonna do
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: that one day. I didn't think it'd be six months later.
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: It ended up being six months later. I was UM
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: casting a role and opening in Chicago. When did Chicago
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: started doing Hamilton, I played the roles of Lafayette, mar
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: keep La Thomas Jefferson, which is an iconic today UM
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: role originally performed by Darby did who was a good
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: friend of mine now and at the time, I was
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: just blown away for for the opportunity. So I was
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: just a sponge. I was on stage with Broadway stars
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: Tony or winners, Tony on the knees like taking that
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: in and and to me at I remember at that
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: point feeling like, okay, this this is it, Like this
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: is as big as it's gonna get, Like this is
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: I've reached a pinnacle. I'm gonna just sit here and
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: enjoy it. And immediately, you know, after having done it,
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: I felt this, you know, this kind of unsatisfactory feeling,
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: like this thing like, oh wait, there must be more.
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: I've accomplished one thing. Maybe there's more to Maybe there
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: isn't a line, Maybe there isn't like a ceiling, you
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: know what I mean. Maybe I can you know, do
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: some TV like see you know, grow up watching A
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: Murphy and Mark Lawrence and Will Smith and Denzel these
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: black actors have such a wide range and do comedy
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: and do music and play roles that you know, we're
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: more serious and heart thrives and you know, more drama
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: and dangerous and action packed and superhero stuff. Maybe maybe
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: I can do all that kind of stuff. And so
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: I took a shot. I left Hamilton in twenty I
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: think January twenties or I guess it was June, and
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: just moved to l A with no job, just took
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: with a little money I had had acquired UM doing
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: Hamilton and went out there got a spot audition for
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: a show called Legacies. A week and a half later,
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: I was not even though it was I think it's
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: about five days I was casting. Told I gotta come
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: back to Atlanta because we're shooting Atlanta, and I've been
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: here ever since. Um in between that time, I got
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: the pleasure because I was doing Hamilton's Chicago, the pleasure
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: of doing shows like Empire that shoots there and other shows,
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: and the shot was was definitely the one that kind
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: of gave me the book. The shot was the one
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: where luckily, you know, lean away than Adam Glass. I
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: mean shout out to everybody who was, you know, helping
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: me out over there. Um, I got they let me fly,
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: like they let me take a character that they wrote
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: for me. Oh it was beautiful, beautiful character. Man. Yeah,
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: I appreciate. I think he's great. You know, I remember
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: auditioning for a role and I can't I think it
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: might have been. Um, I think the character's name is
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: Melgic and he's just weird older, do you know what
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: I'm saying with a trap house? And I remember they said, yeah,
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: you're not the right age, the right look like, we're
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: not really looking at you for that, but you're really talented.
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: So we'll see if anything comes up. Next day, I
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: get a call saying like, hey, we want to write
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: a road for you. We want you in the show. Bro.
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: That's why you see him show up in the third
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: episode and eventually have a you know, make his appearances
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: here and that. Right. But I remember by the time
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: I got to the fifth episode, which is the block
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: part of the big one, where he uh Brandon and
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: spending the whole day with his cousin Hannibal. Um, it
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: was just it was one of those those weeks where
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: we shot it, and I was like, they really let
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: me play, Like they're really letting me come up with
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: who I think this guy is in conjunction with who
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: they the spirit of what they want the character to have,
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: and they let me, i mean, go off script and
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: just kind of beauty of it. The beauty of Chris
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: was that you know that, like I said, you know,
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: you're a drug dealer, okay, and and and it so,
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: but you were able to make him likable. You were
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: able to make him like, man, I like that dude.
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: You was first of all, you want to make everybody
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: day you're a new stupid guy. Okay, this is a
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: busy decision. You know, you're just making business because and
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: I love that spin on it, because you're going like, okay,
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: look at hello, Hello, hello, especially when you open that
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: a little cool shot where you always had to have,
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: you know, uh membership to get in, you know. But
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: but what I want to talk about that character because
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: the brilliant because you're brilliant. Man. I'm just gonna let
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: you know it. Because I had the pleasure of being
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: a lot of a lot still today, work around a
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: lot of chalented people, and that little acting step the
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: ability to be able to connect the dots. You're able
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: to pull it off. We were talking about the whole
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: scenario of you've been a drug deal Okay, what you
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: what your tendency to be the most like and despised
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: character in the black community because you feel like you
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: you you want to bring the community down. But you
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: were important that you said, hey, man, look at I'm smart. Okay,
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: you come to me. I make decisions. I make things happen,
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: even to the point when you set up that little
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: that little underground, a little place where you had almost
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: had a membership to be able to get there to
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: get the right drugs. And so my whole thing is
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: that stepping beyond what they put on paper, what natural
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: instinct is leading you in that direction because you're brilliant,
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: you know, man, it was a person like you I
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: wanted to bring on the show because you step into
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: another level. And I was just gonna throw it out there.
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: We're talking on that Denzel Washington level. You know what
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: I'm saying, and and and and that's a beautiful thing.
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: But he can't see though. So you got that blessing. Okay,
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: So so talk about really trusting yourself walking through that
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: that that next wall. Yeah, it really is. I think
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: it's all about what your desire is, you know what.
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: I mean, a lot of people value um different things.
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: I find that and when people have to pursuit of entertainment,
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: a lot of times they see the glamorous part of it, right,
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: Like they see the money you can make, the fame
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: you can gain, Instagram followers, TikTok streams and all that
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: kind of stuff, like you see, you know what it
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: what it could what you could gain from it. And
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: I think that I just kind of I don't I
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: don't know why. I just never had that in me.
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: It was really more about the art. Like I love acting,
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: I love seeing your love writing, I love performing, I
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: love telling stories and completely different vehicles. And so I'm
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: not really concerned. I never was really concerned about getting
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: the job or or or making the money or or
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: what I'm a the level I'll be at, And I
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: think that's what it is. I think the trick is too,
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: the level should be personal. Right. If you're trying to, uh,
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: you know, reaching the next pinnacle of whatever it is
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: you do, let you you be the pioneer of that journey,
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: you know. I mean don't let it be uh some
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: kind of outside standard informing where like what move you
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: should make? Right? Like the if if that's like money
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: follows excellence, right, So you walk in anything and the
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: excellence and and and in the heart like crazy work,
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: ethic and um, and you keep there's this reality check
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: that you're keeping yourself saying I'm in the right place,
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: doing the right thing, and you consistently better yourself in
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: that regard. You never have to worry about what it
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: looks like to everybody else. You know, Oh what do
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: I make this look like? Oh? You know, YadA, YadA, YadA.
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: And so it really comes down to what is what
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: is your true goal? What is your true passion? If
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: it is being an excellent actor, it shouldn't be about
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: the oscar. It should be about being an excellent actor.
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: If you get the oscar. Cool, that's that like that's
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: for something, no shade to any kind of wards. But
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: like the goal shouldn't be to to to get a
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: thing rather than to be a thing. And so when
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: it comes to that role, like the shy, I was
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: given an opportunity to do something that hadn't been done
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: in some regard, and so that was what was important
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: to me, So I studied, you know, when it came
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: to him, the guy has multiple streams and of revenue.
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: Him being likable is beautiful, the fact that he's a
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: drug dealer, But it's because him being a drug dealer
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: was only a means for him to uh broaden the
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: scope of his revenue income. It wasn't like he was
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: trying to push on anybody. You know, you need to
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: sell weed because you know, you know, you need to
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: be a bad person. It's like, no, we're in a
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: situation as black people in Chicago, but they're we're limited.
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: There's always so many things the people are checking for
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: us to do. And so I found a way to
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: take that thing that is bad or evil or whatever
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: and turn into a positive hurt into something I could
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: build on, employ people, keep myself eating, and eventually, you
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: know what's gonna happen. It's gonna be legal anyway. You know,
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: like we're talking about is special. Man. When I see you,
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: I see you as directing one day, and I'm pretty
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: sure you because the creative side of you, here's a
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: great thing about it. I gotta go back to your mom,
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: you know, because you know, as kids she didn't you know.
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: You know a lot of people say they see entertainment,
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: they see sports, they go, my kid can't do that.
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: Your mom. Your mom said broadway. And she wasn't thinking
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: small with you. She said broadway. So talk about your mom, man,
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: because beautiful. I mean, I'll get to emotion if I
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: get two D. But I can. I can definitely say
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: that my mom is is the reason that I mean,
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: anything good in me can't from her, you know, anything
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: bad at me. That was what I learned them all
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: because because it's just not an evil bone in her body,
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: and the and the encouragement was specific because I I
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: want to I want to make myself clear. I don't
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: think you know. My mom is a big believer, and um,
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: she doesn't like the same follow your heart right. She
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: doesn't like that the idea that if you want to
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: do something, that's the thing you should do. She believes
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: that God gaves us, gave us specific gifts. There's something
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: that makes people individuals, right, like you know that I
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: can't do what you can do, what he can do,
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: what she can do. We all are different for specific reason.
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: Find what it is that is your gift and then
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: think big with that right. If I would have gone
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: to her and said, I want to be a vallerina
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: and I'm fourteen years old, never taking a class, you know,
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: never you know, stretched the day in my life, never
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: done any kind of dancing, that would be kind of
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: out of pocket, right, and that I would be kind
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: of like, well, that may not be your gifts. You
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: have not shown any interest in it. We don't really
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: seem like you have the talent or the discipline to
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: live that life style. What you do, however, show is
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: that you know you you have a very creative mind
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: and you can translate that very well physically in your voice,
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: and you're acting and you're writing, et cetera. So why
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: don't we see if you know we we can go
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: in that lane. And I want you to think big.
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: I want you to think, what's the best thing you
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: can do? Maybe that the goal, and do all you
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: can do to get to that place. It's never and
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: there's no plan B. There's no second option. There's no like,
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: if this doesn't work out, I should go here. It's like, no,
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: you said you were gonna do this, do what you
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: can to make that happen. To die trying you know what,
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: I'm saying, and that that is something that's practical for you.
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: But you say, Christie, you understand you said no Plan B,
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: but you're planing A, acting your Plan A, singing your
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: Plan A, dancing, you're playing A, being a musician. That's
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: a hell of a plan A. Brother, that wasn't Plan A.
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: And one thing that where she saw she was telling you, look,
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: you are my child. But this is where I see.
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: That's what I say for you, that you can't say
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: there was no Plan BE because your Plan A was
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: stacked stand him. I think I think it just kills
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: the narrative that your career has to be singular, that
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: there's a one thing you do and one thing you're
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: good at. Right, I believe wholeheartedly that. And and this
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: is why we have different kinds of friends, and we
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: meet people in different areas of life and they are
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: they we have a relationship with them that's very specific
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: to how we met them. Is because people are multi facinted.
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: Who are we to limit anybody? Who? Who who am
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: I to tell you I stick to that and don't
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: ever think about doing that? Why would why would I
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: do that? And who has interested in that? Like you know,
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: the beautiful thing man, is that you can have multiple
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: plan AI's for sure, but it's because you're a multiple
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: planned person, like you're a multiple multi facinting human beings.
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: So there shouldn't just be one thing that you're good at,
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: you know what I mean? Something I know when I
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: think about some of my favorite actors that also have
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: these hobbies of like making shoes or design and clones.
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: I mean, you look at the the icons, when you
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: look at the Kanye Age and jay Z, you know
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: your leader like you think of people who we they
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: started out as something that they were excellent that and
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: today we know them and kids know them to the
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: kids that are coming up know them for completely different things.
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying. I remember going up with
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: Jamie Fox being on in Living Color and having the
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: Jamie Fox Show. Today he's an Oscar War winning Grammy
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: War women like household name. That's not the same thing,
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: and it's because of it's mostly fact multi faceted um
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: way of going about life. Wayne Brady another example. I
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: remember him from the show Whose Line Is It Anyway?
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: And like, okay, that show talent you can improv. I mean,
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: I've seen that man that he's grammar nominated and in
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: multiple active world roles from all stretches of the imagination,
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: and it can it has his own multiple businesses. You
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: know what I'm saying, it's a household name. So for me,
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: it's about if one human being can do that, who's
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: to say that all human beings can do that? So
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: I'm in. I'm an encourage the young people. I'm a
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: encouraging to people, to older people, to anyone in their journey.
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: It's it's all about that. It's all about where they say,
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: success happens when preparation meets opportunity. If you're prepared for
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: multiple things and opportunities for multiple things come up, you
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: will succeed in those things. Right, But you have to
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: have the preparation. You have to have done the work
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: and have the discipline and and and really home and
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: work ethic to get this thing that you do. You know,
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: as a book called Outliers I Love, and it talks
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: about ten thousand hours, ten thousand hours doing any one
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: thing makes you an expert in that thing. How many
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: of us have actually spent ten thousand hours a week
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: can count you know, honing us for the skill. You
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: know what I mean, you spend ten thousand hours here, here, here,
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: and here, you know, you say two hours a day
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: and do the three things that you love. Eventually you
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: get to the point where you're a master those three
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: things simultaneously. And so I think it's just a different
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: way of disciplining yourself and really believe in a big
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: part of it, bro big part of it is that belief,
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: right that that faith aspect that I that I hold
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: so dear is that there's nothing you could tell me
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: I couldn't do if I say I want to do
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: it and not believe that, And that's that. I think
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: that's a choice people really have to make in their lives.
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: Is you know, how much am I gonna let the
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: practicality of my situation, of my circumstance define what I'm
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: really gonna do? How much of it? Can it just
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: be me saying I'm gonna do it and really dying trying,
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, because I'm really willing to
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: go that. I'm really willing to die broken, hungry, chasing
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: the thing that I know I was purposed to do. Wow. Uh,
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: when you said the word imagination, Okay, and I want
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: to bring imagination when we're talking about the third season
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: of Legacies, because you better have an imagination where you're
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: dealing with vampires, wear wolves, wolocks, uh, demons. Okay, now
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: that's the stretch of your imagination. You have an opportunity
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: to see you m l A you're audition for is
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: the third season. You play the character Caleb and the
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: other brother in the show. His name is MG. You
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: know that you said now your family in the sense
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: you know he's a vampire, So talk about that whole
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: because you know I want you on the show. It's
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: like you know, it's because because I've been around acting
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: so much. You know you gonna see a moment you're
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: here where you have to imagine this is I gotta
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: act like this real? But I know when they're real.
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I mean, especially when you're into those scenes
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: where you're just acting at a green screen or like,
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: you know nothing. You know that moms are supposed to
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: ain't nothing that right, you know what I mean? But
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: but that I mean the big reason, like, if not
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: the number one reason I accepted the role and it
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: was awful, was because it was something completely left field,
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: different than anything I ever thought of, you know, and
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: it takes I think personally, it takes a very committed
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: actor to do a good job in a supernatural world,
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: you know, because you're dealing with things that absolutely aren't
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: you know that just that cannot be proven that not
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: we don't, like we're not talking about just you know,
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: all my girlfriend breaking up with me and I slept
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: with the best friend. And so now that's the story
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: of the me, you know what I mean, if I
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: can get her back, that's something that can happen in
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: real life. But a dragon appearing out of the air
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: breathing fire and me, you know, taking my things and
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: biting some girls neck off like that, that doesn't happen.
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: So imagination is key, and and and and and to
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: be able to live in a world, world where you
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: truly have to you have to believe in the moment
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: as the actor that the character really believes this thing
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: and is really living in this world. That's the whole gig, Like,
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: that's the whole in order for the show to work,
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: everyone has to be that committed to that thing. And
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: it's the same thing with superheroes. It's any any you know,
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: Superman movie, Justice League, Marvel movie. Those actors the reason
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: they're so successful is because we look at that world
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: and we believe it. We believe yep, I am man,
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: he is going because he's what I'm saying. The hope
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: is gonna get mad and turn green, because that's what
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: happens in this world. We're not thinking about all this
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: is make believe. That there's no fun in that. There's
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: like we're not watching it to pick it apart and say, oh,
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: this is a make believe world. Now we're in it
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: because it is convinced us in our imagination that it's
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: a world that could exist, that does exist. And so
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: that's the fun part of it that I think imagination
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: is key, and it's the it's so like that's the
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: that's the fun part. I could, I mean, I could
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: play some kids from Atlanta that's black with dreads that
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: you know is musical. I could. I could do what
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: I am. But to to to portray something that I'm
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: just not to that, I mean, that's the that's the
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: acting part, you know what I mean. But you know
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: the beauty of it is that when I'm watching these
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: different levels, you know, whether it's a suad empire, the shot,
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: you know, the Hamilton experience and now there's legacies. I'm
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: I'm looking at you and going, Okay, then he's unstoppable.
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: You know. My purpose of bringing you on the show
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: with just let you know you're unstoppable. Just and and
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: I didn't know that you already had that that queen
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: pushing you. Call your mom, you know, then she'd let
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: you know he was unstoppable. So I'm just added fuel.
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying. If you're on five, I'll
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: just putting more wood on the five, put more gas
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: on that five, because you're special man. And I but
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: before we leave, I just want to talk about you know,
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: one at once scene, you know you're you're wrapping. I said,
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: that's brother's brother, you know, and I can tell you're
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: adding man. Yeah, I'm telling I've been looking at this.
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: I love I love looking the talented people. Man, I
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: just sit back, my wife, go boy you, I said,
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: I said, I'm gonna interview this younger man. I said,
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: look at him, I said, and and then and so
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: you have so music is a point. You got a
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: single I called miss you get a new album one thousand,
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: you know, so talk about the single because I want
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: to make sure you know we're gonna play music on
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: our show, but I wanted to talk about why music
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: is a passion. Why is it important to release this
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: single and your upcoming CD. Absolutely so. Yeah. First of all,
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: misses out streaming on all platforms. You can get on Spotify,
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: Apple Music, wherever you listen to music is there, um
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: missed by Chris Lee. That song was fun, man, it
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: was it was. It was one of those beautiful moments
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: that I wrote a song, um that I did not
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: play on writing or necessarily being good, and I put
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: no effort into it. I was just having fun and
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: I would show every friend I showed it was like, oh, yeah,
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: this is the one you need to drop like now.
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: And so uh, my partner, I got it together and
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: we released it and yeah, man, I mean the whole
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: music is it is truly a part of like the
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: fabric of my being. Like it. I could not escape
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: it if I wanted to. Like I said, my whole
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: family's musical. My mom is the musician of the family.
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: She's the singers, she has the voice. Um she is.
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: I mean, she has the annointing on her that is
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: just undeniable. And you know, and my grandmother, grandfather, my
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: my father his, his mother, my entire family it can sing,
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: making their musical. So again, I came from a household
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: that it wasn't really like. I just didn't think about
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: it being something that you show off to make money,
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: like something that you use to to really like, you know,
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: in a in a career, because it was just it
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: was like it was like drinking water. It was just
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: the way it was. I as a kid, thought everybody
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: could sing because my family could sing. I thought the
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: whole world knows how to sing. It took a while
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: for me to realize, oh, some people really don't have
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: the same you know, ability of the same talent. But yeah, man,
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: it's just a part of who I am. And so
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: I've always sang. And then you know, I always wrote
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: songs and I never really thought that I could really
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: do it, as I didn't know if I wanted to
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: be a music artist. Per se Um and I had
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: been in a group in college, you know, two of
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: my friends, Uh and I would we would performed shows
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: and we had a fun run. And then when I
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: got Hamilton's, like I said, it was a spark when
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: I got there, like you know, after I had performed
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: the first night, I realized, oh man, I really can
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: do I could do anything I want to do, like anything.
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: So while I try to like make music, and so
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: I released the EP entitled MFL Feelings that's available everywhere too,
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: And it was my first thing and I did it
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: by myself with with my friend. We wrote and produced
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: everything by ourselves and just drop just to see the effects.
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: And I had gained fans from Hamilton and fans from
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: the shot saw with two of the different cities and
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: do little shows you know, where about two other people,
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: three people would come out and they will come out
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: and love the music. So I was like, oh, maybe
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: I need to like really kicking and gear and do
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: this for real. At the same time, I booking legacies
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: and my TV career is kind of taking off and
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: taking a lot of my time. So it's been like
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: a balance of like doing trying to like, you know,
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: do my due diligence with my music and do my
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: due diligence uh in my acting career. So it's it's
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: a it's a it's a fun ping pong that goes
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: back and forth. Um. But music is definitely a huge
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: passion of mine and I'm big on writing, you know,
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: I'm doing did the writing session, a copy writing sessions
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: this past week for some core artists that we're gonna
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: drop some core music. Um. I've been in the studio
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: with you know, legends in it and it's been so
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: fun to absorb. So I consider myself in the beginning
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: stages of putting my music out there. So ms is
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: is a single that is starting a new era of
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: the sound that you will you a game for me
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: going forward. UM, So please listen to it, y'all definitely
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: enjoy send me comments, feedback in your Instagram, dams, all
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: that kind of stuff. UM, let me know how y'all
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: revived into the music. And I'm gonna continue to release more. Uh,
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: and just to share with you what what what it
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: is that I love to do. Well, I want to
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: thank you. You know, we we we did a journey.
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: In this interview, we talked about the Hamilton experience, playing
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: two roles, talked about being a Georgia boy, you know,
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: talking about a mom who believes you and your boy
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: in the school. Uh. Talk about going from Empire Swath
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: you know, the shy where I fell in love with
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: your your abilities, brother, your abilities and now you're in
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: the Legacies, which is on the c W in the
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: third season, playing the character Caleb Harkins. Like I said
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: you had, you said playing b what the option? I
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: go back to what I say. You're playing anchors Lee
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: is stacked, the same dance the musicians. I don't tell
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: you more stack it is. In the beginning, I said
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: I have celebrity. You got that. I say, I'm CEO
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: key your game music. Okay, okay, I'll say that, entrepreneur
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: keep of game music, okay, industry decision maker, you'll beach boy,
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: You'll be no encouragement. I appreciate you, and I love
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: what you're doing. I love the encouragement you're given the
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: black people to all people, man, and and and you
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: know it's it's confident as I am, and I'm sure
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: a lot of performers are. It always feels good to
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: to to be reaffirmed over and over again. We have
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: to build each other up, man, especially during this time
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: during pandemics. Um we're coming off of a lot of
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: huge racial tension and people dying. It is important for
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: us to be able to boost each other and can
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: see you to share our guests. So I appreciate you
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: in your time thank you for having me on the alright, man,
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: thank you for coming on Money Making Conversation. At ADP,
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: we work with more than eight d sixty thousand companies worldwide.
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: That gives us a pretty good idea of how to
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: help businesses grow stronger, whether it's through data insights that
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: help you make informed decisions about building a team that
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: works better as a team, or by keeping you ahead
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: of thousands of changing regulations so you can keep ahead
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: of everything else, like building that better team, grow stronger
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: with a dp HR talent, time and payroll. And we're
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: live here outside the Perez family home, just waiting for
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: the and there they go, almost on time. This morning.
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: Mom is coming out the front door strong with a
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: double arm kid carry. Looks like dad has the bags.
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: Daughter is bringing up the rear. Oh but the diaper
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: bag wasn't closed. Tapers and toys are everywhere. Oh but
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: mom has just nailed the perfect car seat buckle for
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: the toddler. And now the eldest daughter, who looks to
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: be about nine or ten, has secured herself in the
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: booster seat. Tad zips the bad clothes and they're off. Ah,
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: but looks like Mom doesn't realize her coffee cup is
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: still on the roof of the car, and there it goes.
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: That's a shame that mug was a fan favorite. Don't
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: sweat the small stuff, just nailed the big stuff, like
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: making sure your kids are buckle correctly in the right
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: seat for their agent's eyes. Learn more n h t
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: s A dot gov slash The Right Seat. Visits n
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: h s A dot gov slash The Right Seat, brought
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: to you by Mitza and the ad Council. Adoption of
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: teens from foster care is a topic not enough people
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: know about, and we're here to change that. I'm April Dinnuity,
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• 57:05
  Speaker 1: or subscribed to Navigating Adoption presented by adopt Us Kids,
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: brought to you by the U. S Department of Health
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, and the Council.
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: My next guest is an industry decision maker. His name
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: is Anton Bonds Or fifteen years in the music industry
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: as a record executive Rockefeller Records or Sonylaoud Records, Universal
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: Motown Records, Couch Records, as regional and national director of promotions.
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: He left the music industry right there is key because
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: a lot of you out there are sitting in positions
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: where you want to transition, You want to move with
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: fear stops you. So in two thousand and nine he started.
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: He decided to start the Brand Architects, which is informed
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: that specialized in pro athletes individual brand development. I know
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: a lot about brand have been fortunately work with a
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: lot of high profile talent, and Brandon is uh, we're
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: just throwing around a lot. I remember when I started
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: in two with Steve Harvey, and I brought up the
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: idea of branding to him in two thousand too. Do
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: you nobody know what I was talking about? But I
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: worked at IBM, and I always felt that if a
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: company could have its standards and and brands and and
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: can stay there an individual, why can the individual have
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: those same standards. Well that's what he does with pro
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: athletes brand development. Please work with to money making conversations.
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: He's down in PGC, y'all, that's in that DC area.
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: That's an Tom. How you doing that? Tom? Hey, I'm
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: great today? Or so how you doing? As the weather
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: that you know, we all in the spray time. You know,
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: it's kind of like starting is thirty five when I
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: wake up, sixty five when I when I walk out
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: of my office. How is it down there in the PGC?
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: Pretty much the same? You know today, Well, yesterday it
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: was in the thirties. Tomorrow is supposed to be almost
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: seventy two. So what I'm saying, you know, is that
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: time of the year is that for the grass totard green?
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: The beauty of uh? Because you know, I know of
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: you we've talked before, is that you have the ability
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: to communicate. Is that you feel that's that's when you
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: true gifts, your ability to be relatable, your ability to
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: communicate with people. I concur. I concur one thing. I'm
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: a firm believer, and it is also transparency. You know.
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: I was born in New Jersey, so I'm very frank
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: with people. You know, I think there's too many How
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: can I say, too many people being misled and missing
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: from and misinformed. I was always taught, you know, I'd
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: rather you be mad and be I grew up during
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: the age of constructive criticism, you know, and you know, listen,
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: we all make mistakes, we all we don't know everything.
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: And the only way you learn is by listening and
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: by making mistakes, and you know, being honest with anyone
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: because I want that. I want the same treatment to me,
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: you know. Don't beat me around the voice, don't feed
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: me no bs the truth, because they're not the only
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: way you can make. You can fix things, or advance
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: or learn yourself. And in the process of learning. Now
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: you know, you have educational learning, you have learning in
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: the streets, and you have learning life. You know, So
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: what lay out those three paths that will that helped
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: you to from the educational standpoint, the streets and then life. Well,
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: I uh, my father was a very successful black business
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: owner in New Jersey, so I was thank god, I
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: was blessed to see it forehand. Born and raised in
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: Jersey City, you know, came from very humble beginnings and
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: the projects my father uh went on to become a
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: councilman in Jersey City in the eighties, actually initiated the
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: the Jersey City Redevelopment Project which is now you see
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: Newport Downtown Newport City. So my father was very uh
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: involved in the community in regards to politics, but also business.
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: You know, he owned business stores, he owned car dealership,
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: so I was able to see what hard work. But
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: then also I saw with him how you know, also
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: the difference being a black man, what he had to
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: deal with, but he never let it stop him and
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: he really used it his motivation. But one thing I
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: also saw was his connect with the community. He always
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: gave back and took care of the community and vice
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: versa back in those days. Now, unfortunately he passed away
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: when I graduated high school, so I had to really
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: take lessons that I saw his mistakes and his advancements
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: and use it to myself. And then I attended Morgan
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: State University HBCU proudly in Baltimore. So I went there
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: and that's kind of that's kind of where I found
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: myself as a man. But also what I wanted to
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: do in the industry. I wanted to sell cars. I
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: want to be in the music industry. I gonna be
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: honest with you, you know. It was by chance, um
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: me and a group of friends of mine, we used
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: to throw parties in concerts and upon a chance meeting
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: with Jay Z. We had jay Z. I wanted to
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: where people that I could say I had jay Z
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: performed for me for free. He had jay Z performed
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: for us for free for Faith Evans album released party
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: and to Baltimore grant. This may have been n And
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: upon meeting jay Z and the Rockefeller Croup we hadn't perform,
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: they offered me a position of Rockefeller records that I
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: couldn't turn down. And that kind of was my you know,
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: my opportunity. You know, you being an individual like yourself,
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: you know, opportunities come. You gotta be able to go
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: with it. Don't be like you said, fearful or scared
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: of opportunities, because sometimes that may take you on a
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: path that you never even intended on, that could take
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: you the biggest dreams that you really initially didn't plan.
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: And you said that because you said, Richard, look, first
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: of all, if I go to you, you selling cars
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: and now you just music, and now you know managing
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: and branded athletes. Let's talk about HBCUs. Yeah. And then
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: in twenty twenty, during the pandemic, somehow white America discovered HBCUs,
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: especially corporate America. They decided to start donating uh there's
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: a good and bad to that because of the fact
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: that it means that you know, this is not something
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: new in the black community. What HBCS was founded due
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: to racism because there you can see that there, but
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: made basically in the southeast part of the country as
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: it rolls up the Eastern Carter because of racist admission
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: practices and prevented black people from trying to pursue the
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: next level education. But you went to Morgan State, which
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: is right outside of the Baltimore area. Talk about your
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: HBCU experienced and then seeing what's happened in and moving
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: forward like the All Star Game. Three million dollars were
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: donated from the All Star Game to the HBCUs UH
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: athletes who went to p w I. That's predominant white
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: institutions are now focusing their attention on HBCU. You gotta
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: be proud, but you also got to be you know
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: what's going on. Yes, I'm glad you brought that up.
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: I was coming out of high school. I was actually
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: a highly recruited football player. Actually uh, I had every
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: intentions on playing at Clemson University out of scholarship and
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: highly recruited. But going back, I lost my father, uh
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: literally a month the palm graduating, so I actually wanted
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: to take some time for myself. I mentally just couldn't
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: do it, and I asked for some time to leave
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: Clemson and basically get my mind right. I was mourning
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: the death of my father and I saw had Ay
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: treated me differently, see what I'm saying. Like they were like, well,
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: you you're committed, you know, using his motivation to hit
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: harder on the football field. They didn't care about my
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: emotional wealthy and it rubbed me the wrong way. So
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: that's when I decided to go to an HBCU. And
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: I always had interested because I grew up watching school
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: days in a different world and I was always intrigued.
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: I was like, wow, that's amazing, Like wow. So I
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: went to Mortgage State, went for a visit, and fell
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: in love. And it was the best decision me personally
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: that I ever made because I was able to be
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: around like minded individuals but that had other interests. Like
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: I was around friends that wanted to be engineers, chemist,
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: uh you know, other business profession Where is that a
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: p w y. Most of the black faces that I
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: saw were just athletes. They weren't trying. They didn't have
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: any interest in other professions. So it was it was
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: a very interesting and great developmental stage for myself because
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: I was able to find out who I was as
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: a man, not just an athlete. And we'll kind of
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: get into that later on what why I started to
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: brand architects. But it's like it was I went through
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: that personal experience in regards to developing as a man
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: and being at a historically black, black university. And this
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: was in the nineties. Like you said, you know, I
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: go to Morrigan. Now it's like I'm in all like wow,
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: they put all this money, Like the campus looks nothing
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: like but you know, the experience was definitely mind boggling,
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: and like you said, all of a sudden, everybody sees
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: the I call them the hidden gems of our society
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: HBCUs and I'm proud. I'm glad now people are finally
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: giving them the credit that they deserve because they also
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: need that to support you know that that they haven't
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: beginning for so long. That's really it's interesting that you
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: say to a campus change and when you went to
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: I know, I graduated p w I, which was uh
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: University of Houston, Cougars and three uh five sla my
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: Jamma Clyde Drexler and uh uh they lost the championship.
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: I still don't have the ring, so I could not
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: pay myself, I said with them, but I couldn't put
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: a ring on my finger. Man, when they lost that
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: A three championship, it was I take credit for it.
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: I tell you it's my boys, though. But when you
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: but you're absolutely right. I remember when I was at
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: the University Houston, it's about thirty or five thousand students
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: on campus, it was probably by two thousand black people.
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 1: It looked like it was a ton of us until
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: you actually with the what they found out, I mane
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: it really was of us. But it tends to be
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: that the case of where if you go to h
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 1: h you see you everybody on their representative of who
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: you are and who you can be, and it feels
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: like a much more communal format. But again, when you
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: see the n b A and you do what they
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: did on Sunday, you know the HP the court was HBCU.
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: You see the donations they make, you know, inspiring. I'm
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: just saying, man, you know I didn't go there, but wow,
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: I have to say Wow. When I see that, it's
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: unique for Sean, and I'm gonna be honest with you,
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: they're thirty years upon leaving Morgan State. There are people
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: we still Like I tell everyone, when you go to
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: a p w Y, you don't know a home coming
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: until you go to HBCU. Yes, yes, it's it's a
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: totally different experience. And I have friends that went to
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: p WISE and when they come to our home commings
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 1: there and all, they're like, wow, I said, came through
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: and I'm glad you brought that up too. We there's
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: not just that family look, but we also still do
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: business together. See that's critical. That's critical. Like I get
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: my advice from black doctors that graduated from Morgan I know,
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: I know black judges, like if I need that. That
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: is unique and I cherish it because I could talk
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: to people that can relate to me as a black man,
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: but also make that connection on a professional level. You
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: see what I'm saying where I could like, Okay, you
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: know everybody's talking about the vaccine now, like okay, should
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: I take it or not? I have four professional black
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 1: doctors that I could call to that I went to
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: Morgan State with. You're gonna give me that straight up answer,
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: you know, for thirty years and we do. I got
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: an individual what I'm doing with he's a secret service
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: agent and I'm actually consulting him now because he wants
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 1: to do something about mental health and if we're gonna
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: talk about that later, especially in the black community. So
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 1: it's like, you know, it's not just a family. It's
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: a family, but it's also business unification. I call it
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 1: as well too. I cheated, though, and Tom, because see,
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 1: I went to University of Houston, and I could walk
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 1: down the Texas Southern University, all right, and then I
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: could drive forty five minutes to prayer for you NM.
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 1: So I cheated, and I cheated. Now, I don't gonna
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 1: lie to you about something. Have social media back then, right,
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: I cheated. I'm just gonna let you know show what
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: you're talking about, yea, brother, I want right down the
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 1: Texas univers and drove forty five minutes off the prayer
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 1: of you Panthers, the Tangers and the Panthers thought you
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 1: went there. The Tagers and the Panthers at this cougar
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 1: right here locked up, So you gotta taste of the day.
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: So that's why I gotta tell you, I cheat it.
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 1: I cheated and talm, I cheat it. Let's tell you
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: about you a little bit more. We live in a
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 1: capitalistic state. There's a lot of cheating going at fluid.
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about the brand architect you know the reason behind.
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: And you the African American man, you're black man. You know,
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 1: we live in the society where black athletes have a
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 1: shocked window and they make can make a lot of money.
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 1: And we heard the horror stories about black athletes spending
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: my money and walking away broke, not understanding how or
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 1: why they do with their money. I don't know if
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 1: I hear that story is much now and talk, but
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 1: you know, one time it was pretty bad. So talk
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: about why you started the brand Architects. Well, I started
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 1: the brand Architects back in UH two thousand nine. While
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 1: I was in the music industry. I would meet these athletes,
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: of course, you know, because we would always have these
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: concerts and parties and in the club, so we will
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: always meet. And I had an interesting conversation with Burning
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: Davis Bernon. Davis was actually the first NFL player I
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 1: started working with, and he would always tell me how
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 1: he was interested in other things like he was like, Anton,
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 1: there's other things I want to do besides being known
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 1: as a football player. Um, and he was like, how
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 1: do I go about that? And at the time, I
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 1: was kind of brushing up, like burning I got to
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: the artists. I gotta I don't have time for this.
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: But then I started doing research. And but let's let's
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 1: tell everybody who Vernon was. Now. He was the number
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 1: six pick in the draft. You know, University of Maryland,
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 1: tighty in San Francistical for now. The sad part about
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 1: that I know all that, and then I didn't know
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 1: you're gonna bring up his name. That's the sad part
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 1: about this conversation. So didn't everybody know It wasn't just
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 1: a low level guy talking to you. This was and
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 1: that one of the bad physically built bodies in NFL
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 1: was was him. I was on a tour with Nellie
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: and Cash Money because like whatever, but Vernon, yeah, you're cool,
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: like like dude, I don't get all strugg and I
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 1: tell him straight up, like I tell him, I'm not
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 1: a fan, like you know, I'm I've been on tour
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 1: with Prints, I've been I've been Brian McKnight's been to
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: my house, Like I'm like, okay, I don't get into
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 1: all that. It's about the person, you know, That's what
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 1: matters to me. And when I started doing the research,
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 1: I saw similar a lot of similarities between artists and athletes,
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 1: how the record label pretty much sucks the artist dry
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 1: runs them like literally one week you're relevant, the next
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 1: week you're not. And I started seeing that and I
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 1: sat back and I did the research and athletes, and
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 1: I met I met an athlete I won't say his
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 1: name is a Hall of Famer, and I met him
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 1: at Super Bowl event, and I mean when I saw
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 1: what he was going through in regards to mental health, financial, uh,
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 1: just identity crisis in regards to and he had a conversation.
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 1: We had a very in depth conversation. He said, Anton,
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 1: there's so many things I would have done differently while
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 1: I was still playing then now and see. And that's
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 1: the thing where I started the brand architects. I was like, Okay,
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 1: you know what these young men, like we said they
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 1: come from, they go there, They're instantaining. They get money
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: like out of nowhere. I mean a lot of them
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 1: come from nothing, so they're instantaining there instantly. I'm sorry,
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 1: put into a situation where they got all this money,
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 1: but also they have a lot of relevancy. It's like, okay,
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 1: now people know your name, like you said, you know
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 1: Davis he ran the four three a forty. You know
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 1: he was the fastest tight end. But what else do
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 1: we know about Vernon Das Nothing? We just know the
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 1: athletes side, and you're not gonna be an athlete your
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 1: whole career. Let's be honest here. That's a short period
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 1: of time. Burning was in the league for eleven years.
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 1: That's a rarity. You're lucky to get five years in
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 1: the NFL. Now, let's be honest here, especially now now
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 1: is three to five years. So what are you gonna
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 1: do with this platform to make a transition? That's the
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 1: been The issue with Sean is a lot of guys
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 1: they get I call it the track and this is
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 1: what I'm gonna get real deep, Okay, A lot of
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 1: them depend on their agents to uh. I guess you
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 1: could say take care or run things to them. That's
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 1: the number one makes that's the number one mistake that
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: they make. I'm gonna just be honest with you. Your
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 1: agents should only negotiate your contracts between you and the teams.
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 1: They shouldn't have anything to do with your marketing, your
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 1: branding because first off, okay, most agents don't even care
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 1: about what you want to do. It could be painting,
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 1: it could be pottery, like Vernon was into painting. And
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: now he wasn't a Picasso. But since it was Vernon,
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: Davis and San Francisco loved him so much. We did
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 1: art exhibits, you know, we did fashion stuff. We did
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 1: you know, home the court. Vernon was not known as
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: being the renaissance man as he is now. Okay, Emmanuel
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 1: Acco was one of our first clients. Man. He was
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 1: about the host the Bachelor. Now, Emmanuel wasn't even a
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: starter on his team when he was with the Philadelphia Eagles,
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 1: but we had a conversation. He wanted to get into
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 1: sports analysts. He wanted to be an analyst, so he
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 1: was on tuesdays he would catch a train from Philly
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 1: to New York intern at NBC ABC for free, learning
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 1: the industry that he did not know. See, if you're
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 1: just a football player, I tell the most important advice
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 1: I tell any potential pro athlete. Have someone when you
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: when you make it, Okay, have a team or someone
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 1: on your payroll does that does not care about football,
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 1: or does not care about basketball. They care about Okay,
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 1: what you're gonna do when you're done playing, because you
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 1: have to do it while you're in the league. That's
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 1: when you have relevancy. That's when the opportunities are going
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 1: to be there for you, not when you're not when
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 1: it's over. See, a lot of them the mistake that
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 1: they make, a lot of them get trapped into. They
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 1: get convinced into waiting, Oh, don't worry about that until
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 1: you're done playing. Well, you don't know when you're done playing.
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 1: It takes one weekend that you get hit and it's over.
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 1: And now even with the salary cap structure, okay, you
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 1: could be making a league minimum. Team doesn't even want
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: to pay you because you your league minimum. Now you
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 1: you get aged out. A lot of players get aged
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 1: out that you don't hear about. And then that on
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 1: that will on set to mental issues too, because now
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 1: all these people have around them they're gone, including their agent,
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 1: and a lot of them think there that they they
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 1: they work for their No, the agent works for you.
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 1: He's not your boss. Let's be honest. That's the number
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 1: one thing a lot of these guys. The worst thing
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 1: that I hear a lot of these athletes say, oh,
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 1: let me talk, but ask my agent why while you
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 1: have to do No, you need to tell your agent
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 1: this is what I'm gonna do. I'm anna hire an
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 1: outside marketing, branding firm that's gonna focus on my lifestyle, branding,
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 1: my image, not my football moms to totally different things
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 1: and exactly right, because like I said, you know these
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 1: agencies that you sound with, whether they're I know them all,
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 1: you know we're MARS c A, you know U t A,
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 1: and they've all developed little sports divisions, and so what
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 1: they don't do is day to day they're not there
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 1: what you They won't talk to you through or four
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 1: times a day. What you have to do if you
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 1: want somebody that there's no your brand, no your interests,
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 1: no your good days and your bad days. Not somebody
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 1: who shows up at game time high fives you, pointing
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 1: at you from the stand. That's not a person that's
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 1: gonna carry you to the next level. And that's the
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 1: part that they make the mistake on because they allowing
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 1: these people to make financial decisions and career decisions for
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 1: them that like you said one bad moment, and let's
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 1: take the salary cap this year with the NFL. It
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 1: has this is a billion dollar industry and guess what.
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 1: The cap was reduced, which means the cap instead of
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 1: going up, it was reduced, which is crazy, all right.
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 1: So it means that athletes are being cut right now,
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 1: not because there they don't have the ability to play
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 1: in the NFL, is because a billion dollar industry has
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 1: made a decision that they need to reduce the salary cap,
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 1: which means that players are being cut right now and
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 1: will take less money for the two seasons because of
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 1: the salary cap. This is this is what you're talking
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 1: about the business side, and that's what you try to
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 1: protect your athletes and your friends. Moving yes, because I
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 1: take it personal. You know, it's a sob story. Like
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 1: you know, half of our roster rashan or retire guys
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 1: they've been on the late three, four or five years.
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 1: That shows the value on what we do because once
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 1: we once I signed a client, I tell him first off,
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 1: first off, I don't care about football. En If I don't,
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 1: I don't even have ever been to a game of
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 1: five years. I don't need to go and be honest,
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 1: I know, I forgot gout. I have a guy's playing
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 1: the Super Bowl. I don't need to go for that.
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 1: My job and my team's job is to keep you
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 1: relevant Monday through Friday. Okay, you know, let's get you
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 1: in the room. You got these fans cheering for you
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 1: on Sunday. Let's make you relevant. Let's make sure you're
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 1: in the room with them on Tuesday. Let's utilize your
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 1: base to create it to increase your personal value. Okay,
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 1: see there's a difference. And even now with the league,
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 1: let's be on. The league is all about their brand.
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 1: You have the brand, the NFL brand, and you have
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 1: the team and their brand. The more value you put
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 1: on your individual brand, the actually more value it creates
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 1: for your agent. Because guess what it's like, I tell
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 1: people you have Lebron fans, you don't have Laker fans.
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 1: Wherever Lebron goes, this fan base is going scenario. These
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 1: are you know, these are big time examples. But it's like,
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 1: if you create your own individual brand, it follows you
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 1: while you're in the league. But guess what most importantly
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 1: when you're done with the league, but you you you
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 1: have to utilize the platform. Now, the interesting part about
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 1: it because we were the same page, because we're talking
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 1: about media. Now we're seeing brands that really in some
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 1: ways are bigger than the football teams. Okay, especially from
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 1: a football perspective. We're seeing it being challenged now by
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 1: by by UH Dwayne Watson and UH Houston Texas and
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 1: also Russell Wilson up in cl Seahawks. And you know,
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 1: you get that little racism type statement where they should
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 1: keep their mouth shut. Huh okay, keep your mouth shut?
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 1: Who who were talking about here? You know? And then
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 1: usually the person who's saying that was the most vocal
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 1: person in sports. But now they want to tell athletes
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 1: who to happen to be color of color, they should
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 1: keep their mouth shut. With social media, and we see
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 1: how athletes are now becoming more and more engaged in
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 1: entertainment entertainment productions. How do you tell your athletes that
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 1: do that are steer plan and athletes who are transitioning
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 1: post athletics, how do you evolve it with the social
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 1: media growth partition of the partition of the brand as
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 1: well as the entertainment side of it. Well, social media
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 1: nowadays literally your resume. Let's just be to be honest,
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 1: when someone brings up your name, first thing they're gonna
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 1: do is google you, okay, And a lot of times
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 1: what comes up if you don't have a Wikipedia page,
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 1: is your Instagram, your Facebook, your website. But then also
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 1: what follows and I'm glad you brought that up? Song?
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 1: What other what other categories will come up? What interviews
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 1: that you have you conducted, Like if you're just doing okay,
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 1: ESPN or CBS sports or and you're just talking about sports,
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 1: guess what, You're just relevant in the sports for me.
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 1: So you're just relevant to Nike, Adidas, etcetera, etcetera. You're
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 1: not relevant to lifestyle brands. Okay. Like, let's just say hypothetically,
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 1: if a client's interested in the fashion Ronnie mclaus my lines,
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 1: it's very into fashion. So we set him up with
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 1: doing interviews with fashion magazines talking about fashion, not talking
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 1: about how many passes he intercepted or how many tackles
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 1: he had. See what I'm saying, it's about expanding your
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 1: knowledge while also gaining your knowledge and expanding your relevancy
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 1: in the in the other industry. Because now you're in
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 1: the NFL, people want to talk to you it's interested
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 1: in what you want to say, and to be honest
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 1: with you, a lot of the times media you'll get
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 1: a better interview out of an athlete if you're talking
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 1: about things that's not just athletes. Like athletes get tired
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 1: of talking about how many tackles they had and how
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 1: many and then they were like, well that was a
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 1: sorry interview. Well you're talking about something that they To them,
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 1: this is their job, and that's what I tell them too.
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 1: I'm like, listen, Okay, you're in a unique position. Isn't
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 1: there something else that you like to do? Football after
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 1: a while isn't fun to them, it's a job. So
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 1: it's like, okay, let's start invest let's you need to
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 1: invest in cars or you know, house building, whatever your
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 1: other interests are, because that's the American can dream right
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 1: to get paid doing what you like to do. You're
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 1: in a unique position at the typical year old young
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 1: male isn't so you have this door that doors that
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 1: doors cracked open for you where we got to pick
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 1: the rock and work through in and trying to figure
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 1: out a way that doors cracked open for you. What
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 1: are you gonna do with it? Because if you wait
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 1: until you're done playing guess what to shut you got?
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 1: It took your spots. Well. You we were talking about
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 1: talking to Anton Barnes, you know, the founder of the
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 1: brand Architect, and you brought up something I definitely want
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 1: to talk about before we leave the air, the mental
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 1: health part of it. Because athletes, they seem invincible, they
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 1: seem that they're your heroes, but we don't see the
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 1: the when they're off the main stage, or when they retire,
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 1: they land in bed and afraid to get out, or
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 1: can't get out due to some ailment or due to
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 1: some head injury. Let's talk about that which is not
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 1: often discussed. You know, there was a settlement several years
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 1: ago and it's kind of been brushed aside, but we
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 1: know that problem still exists out there. So let's talk
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 1: about the mental health side of being a professional athlete.
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 1: The mental health side is very, very it's it's brushed under.
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 1: The league doesn't really want that to get as much
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 1: shine as it deserves. You know, let's be honest here,
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 1: and then, especially amongst our black athletes, we all noticed that,
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 1: you know, the black community is a stigma that we're
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 1: already fighting through. You know, back in the day, you know,
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 1: suck it up or you know, so it's you know,
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 1: it's a sign of weakness looking for help. But especially
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 1: in a pro athletes, people don't realize, especially in the NFL,
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 1: the pressures that these young men go through. Okay, it's
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 1: such a physical sport. And then it's also to availability.
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 1: Means if you're not available, you're more than likely gonna
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 1: get cut in the team. Isn't doesn't not gonna pick
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 1: you up. You don't know how many times these guys
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 1: have gone. I see the comments that these people make,
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 1: and they don't realize what when I talk to these
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 1: guys on Monday, it's like they went through a car crash. Literally,
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 1: it's it's been proven that their body has been through
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 1: a car crash. You got these ultimate athletes that can't
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 1: be that could barely walk. Okay, so you got the
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 1: physical aspect, but then we're sawing the most important thing
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 1: is the mental aspect. They don't have anyone that they
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 1: can really talk to. Okay, they can't. You know, it's
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 1: that you know, it's it's not it's not my cheesemo,
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 1: it's not man enough to talk about whatever you're going
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 1: through mentally. And then by the time it comes out,
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 1: it's too late. You know how many pro athletes have
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 1: committed suicide. You killed themselves, and people think, oh, it's
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 1: all financially based. No, it's not that. And then it's
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 1: also part, like I said, of that transition stage that
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 1: we focus on. You go from being the man one
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 1: day to no one calling you. Tori Smith actually put
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 1: a tweet out the other day saying the same thing.
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 1: You know, He's like, listen, you know, one day you're
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 1: the man. Everybody's calling you, everybody is available. The next day,
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 1: nobody's answering your call. Your agent mon't even your agent.
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 1: Most of their the biggest problems, Okay, having all those
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 1: people that were around you when you were scoring touchdowns
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 1: and ducking the basketball. They're going right, and you don't
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 1: have anything to transition to. You have no self value.
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 1: And that's what we try instilling our guys. You have
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 1: to have self value in you as a person, not
• 1:25:10
  Speaker 1: just an act. I tell you this has been an
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 1: incredible interview. In two thousand nine, he left the record
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 1: business and decided to a bed on himself and found it.
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 1: The brand architect and now not unless he changing lives,
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 1: but he's also improving lives and especially in the African
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 1: American Black Athlete Area arena, not only for himself but
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 1: also letting people. You know, you think they had the
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 1: head coaching problems in all these pro leagues, management and agency,
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 1: it's worse. It's worse, and and and gentlemen like Anton
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 1: a very important in breaking down those walls. And I
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 1: want to thank you for coming on Money Making Conversation,
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 1: Mr Barnes. Thank you. Yeah, I appreciate that you're having
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 1: me on. And hey, listen anytime, you know, anytime I'm gone,
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 1: because I may, I'm telling we could have It's like
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 1: thirty minutes we've been talking about time we got because
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 1: we had you talked about the b GC yet you
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 1: know that was part of stuff off and we said
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 1: we're gonna talk about PTC and so the Holy Spirit,
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 1: so no that we're gonna get back on the line
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 1: real quick, kid, probably about draft time a little bit
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 1: after that. Come back on the show, and I can
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 1: see your friend, my brother, he has like some barbershops
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 1: in the DC area, and so you know, the COVID
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 1: died down. I'll be back out there often like I
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 1: awards previously, and we're gonna connect, but importantly, most importantly,
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 1: I just wanted to share your story about the brand architect,
• 1:26:28
  Speaker 1: who you are and uh and and and how you
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 1: are changing the game. And I appreciate you. I appreciate it.
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 1: And hey, listen, I'm trying to keep over there your
• 1:26:36
  Speaker 1: trailblaze yourself, so it's always a privilege to be on it.
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 1: Which thank you. If we hear more money making conversations
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 1: and interviews, please go to money Making Conversation dot com.
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 1: I am Rashan McDonald. I am your host. We will
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 1: be right back with more money making conversations with your host,
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 1: Rashan McDonald. Him. Rashan McDonald's the host of money Making Conversation.
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 1: The Cafe Moka Swag Award is a celebration of black
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 1: men who are making a difference in our community by
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 1: empowering others to reach their life goals, from civic leaders, businessmen, activists,
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  Speaker 1: celebrities and everyday dads. The Cafe Moka Swagger Award winner
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  Speaker 1: has admission of using family engagement and social empowerment to
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  Speaker 1: strengthen families throughout the city of Atlanta to generate stronger communities.
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  Speaker 1: The Q Parker Legacy Foundation was established five years ago,
• 1:27:29
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  Speaker 1: and the AD Council. Welcome back to money making Conversations
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 1: with your host, Rashaan McDonald. My next guest is a
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 1: successful person who've made the transition athlete to entrepreneur. You
• 1:29:35
  Speaker 1: hear so many harror stories about athlete. Not Lawrence Sidbury Jr.
• 1:29:40
  Speaker 1: A former two thousand nine fourth our draft pick of
• 1:29:42
  Speaker 1: the Atlanta Factors. He graduated from Richmond University in Richmond, Virginia,
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 1: and was part of that famed two thousand and eight
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 1: National Championship team. Lawrence Is on, I think that team
• 1:29:52
  Speaker 1: was undefeated. To Lawrence is on the show that they
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 1: discussed the importance of preparing for life after the NFL. Please,
• 1:29:58
  Speaker 1: welcome to Money Making Conversation, Lawrence sit Bury Junior. How
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 1: are you doing, my friend, I'm doing pretty good. Thanks
• 1:30:04
  Speaker 1: for having me now, Lawrence, that team that you want,
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 1: the two thousand eight National Championship team, that team was undefeated, right,
• 1:30:10
  Speaker 1: Did they have any losses? Uh? Not quite. We actually
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 1: had a pretty trying season get into the championship game.
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 1: We won a bunch of games in the beginning of
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 1: the season, and we hit a rough patch and we
• 1:30:21
  Speaker 1: lost like three or four games in a row. We
• 1:30:22
  Speaker 1: were kind of at a point well, you know, we
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 1: actually called the players only meeting and we just we
• 1:30:27
  Speaker 1: had to you know, galvanize everybody and we had to
• 1:30:29
  Speaker 1: win every game. You know, to the end of the season,
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 1: pretty much every game was like a playoff game, and
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 1: we just you know, we pulled it out game at
• 1:30:38
  Speaker 1: the game at the game gotten to the playoffs, and
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 1: one of these games finally we won. We beat Montana
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 1: and uh in Chattauga, that's where the championship game was
• 1:30:46
  Speaker 1: at that point, and I brought the first first championship
• 1:30:49
  Speaker 1: home school history. Right now, I hear that a lot
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 1: in sports, the team only meeting players only, players only meeting.
• 1:30:57
  Speaker 1: Right Absolutely, we're not, you know, giving away name I'm
• 1:31:00
  Speaker 1: asking for names. What is the purpose of the players
• 1:31:02
  Speaker 1: on their meeting and uh and why what what was
• 1:31:05
  Speaker 1: accomplished out of that players only meeting that you guys
• 1:31:08
  Speaker 1: did that led to the run for the national championship
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 1: in two thousand and eight. You know, sometimes you get
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 1: to a point where the coach's voice can go still
• 1:31:18
  Speaker 1: and they coaching that they coach you every day, they're
• 1:31:20
  Speaker 1: telling you what you're doing along every day. You know,
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 1: when you got a group of guys, at some point
• 1:31:25
  Speaker 1: everyone has to hold each other accountable. It's really to
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 1: the point where the coach doesn't even matter because we're
• 1:31:30
  Speaker 1: truly playing for each other. Right. Um. You know, I
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 1: wasn't really I'm not really the vocal leader. I'm kind
• 1:31:36
  Speaker 1: of a lead by action type person. But I was
• 1:31:38
  Speaker 1: kind of vocal at that point plus and I had
• 1:31:40
  Speaker 1: some aspirations after the season, so I kind of needed everybody. Yeah,
• 1:31:45
  Speaker 1: I wanted to win, but I kind of needed to
• 1:31:47
  Speaker 1: happen to keep going, so I get you know, get
• 1:31:49
  Speaker 1: more film about the Scots to see. But we know,
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 1: we brought it together and kind of looked at each
• 1:31:54
  Speaker 1: other and man and man and we just you know,
• 1:31:57
  Speaker 1: we just banded together and decided, you know, we had
• 1:31:59
  Speaker 1: a bigger miss wanted you know, something, wanted to accomplishment,
• 1:32:02
  Speaker 1: and we got it done. So that's absolutely true because
• 1:32:04
  Speaker 1: you know, for a fact there winn the National Championship
• 1:32:07
  Speaker 1: two thousand and eight versus not winning it. It's a
• 1:32:11
  Speaker 1: difference between being a forefround draft tick maybe a seventh
• 1:32:14
  Speaker 1: round draft pick, or being an undrafted free agent correct,
• 1:32:18
  Speaker 1: especially especially at the level of which I played. Um,
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 1: we played at the FCS level, which is the back
• 1:32:23
  Speaker 1: then it was called the one double A level, So
• 1:32:25
  Speaker 1: we kind of we had to prove ourselves. You know,
• 1:32:28
  Speaker 1: there's a there's a question about level competition came to
• 1:32:30
  Speaker 1: play against. Yeah, you know, from the bigger school. So
• 1:32:34
  Speaker 1: you want to get as much film, as much tape
• 1:32:36
  Speaker 1: out there as possible, and not only for myself. You know,
• 1:32:39
  Speaker 1: us making that run, you know, gave other people on
• 1:32:41
  Speaker 1: the team opportunities and you get seen that we have
• 1:32:43
  Speaker 1: guys that signed this free agents. Uh that played a
• 1:32:46
  Speaker 1: few years in the league as well. So it just
• 1:32:48
  Speaker 1: was it was big for everybody. Now that that's now,
• 1:32:51
  Speaker 1: I'm just talking about college and two thousand they win
• 1:32:53
  Speaker 1: the national championship is Richmond University of Talking to Lawrence
• 1:32:56
  Speaker 1: said Burrow Jr. For fround draft tick back then in
• 1:32:59
  Speaker 1: two thousand nine. So preparing for the draft, how did
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 1: you prepare for the draft? And then when you got drafted?
• 1:33:05
  Speaker 1: How did that change your life financially? Uh? He got
• 1:33:10
  Speaker 1: me going way back machine, So come on down for
• 1:33:12
  Speaker 1: the Preparing for the draft was like it was a
• 1:33:15
  Speaker 1: world win for me because you know, in college we
• 1:33:17
  Speaker 1: actually played sixteen games with the regular season and the playoffs.
• 1:33:22
  Speaker 1: Um then it was I played in two All Star games.
• 1:33:24
  Speaker 1: So I played in the Shrine Game and also played
• 1:33:26
  Speaker 1: in the Senior Bowl, and I went I did all
• 1:33:29
  Speaker 1: that and I went to New Jersey and Pure C
• 1:33:30
  Speaker 1: Speed School. Uh I trained for the Combine, and uh
• 1:33:35
  Speaker 1: I went to the Combine ran the fastest for they
• 1:33:37
  Speaker 1: had all the defensive mends there. I really was kind
• 1:33:40
  Speaker 1: of tired. My body never really got arrest um. And
• 1:33:44
  Speaker 1: then after that this protoy workout was like what's going
• 1:33:46
  Speaker 1: on right now? So it's the whole game of things
• 1:33:49
  Speaker 1: that had to be done before April. Then once you
• 1:33:51
  Speaker 1: get drafted, you know, yeah, I got drafted in the
• 1:33:54
  Speaker 1: fourth round. It was considerable sign up, honest and then
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 1: see it up. You wake up one day and don't
• 1:34:02
  Speaker 1: have any money. You wake up the next day you
• 1:34:04
  Speaker 1: do have some money, So it's it does change now, Lauren.
• 1:34:06
  Speaker 1: So so I you know you have the first round,
• 1:34:09
  Speaker 1: So did you have an idea through your agent round
• 1:34:12
  Speaker 1: you may go. Uh. I thought that there was a
• 1:34:16
  Speaker 1: chance that I would go on the second, but we
• 1:34:19
  Speaker 1: were predicting anywhere between kind of two to five, and
• 1:34:22
  Speaker 1: I happened to be the facons in the forth round.
• 1:34:25
  Speaker 1: So you're sitting there, Ride, I'm just going through the
• 1:34:28
  Speaker 1: emotion because what happens is people in life have so
• 1:34:30
  Speaker 1: many emotions. They have certain dreams, and when they don't,
• 1:34:33
  Speaker 1: like you said, you think about the second But now
• 1:34:36
  Speaker 1: the second pass, third pass, where were you alady emotionally?
• 1:34:40
  Speaker 1: And then the people around you, where were they at
• 1:34:43
  Speaker 1: emotionally prior to the selection. Um. You know, I didn't
• 1:34:46
  Speaker 1: really have too many people there. Actually what I did
• 1:34:49
  Speaker 1: the first day because I thought it was a chance
• 1:34:51
  Speaker 1: that will go in the second round. Actually had coaches
• 1:34:54
  Speaker 1: throughout my you know, my life that was influenial to me. Right. Uh.
• 1:34:58
  Speaker 1: They sat me the first day they be a chance
• 1:35:00
  Speaker 1: that my name get called at the end of the
• 1:35:02
  Speaker 1: second round. Um. And I did that because of appreciation, man,
• 1:35:06
  Speaker 1: because I had a lot of people help me on
• 1:35:07
  Speaker 1: the way, right, and I didn't I didn't know how
• 1:35:09
  Speaker 1: to probably do that with my family. So I broke
• 1:35:12
  Speaker 1: it up in two days. So they sat with me
• 1:35:14
  Speaker 1: the first night. I was a little dejected at first.
• 1:35:16
  Speaker 1: Then the second day game, I didn't know what was
• 1:35:18
  Speaker 1: gonna happen. I didn't have many people at the house. Um.
• 1:35:22
  Speaker 1: And then once in my name we got called, people
• 1:35:23
  Speaker 1: started coming over and the cookout stuff because I know,
• 1:35:27
  Speaker 1: because this is gonna air as we're leading up to
• 1:35:30
  Speaker 1: the fame NFL Draft, So I wanted to I'm asking
• 1:35:33
  Speaker 1: you some questions to understand that mindset and so people
• 1:35:36
  Speaker 1: can understand that mindset because you know, they fly in
• 1:35:39
  Speaker 1: the first round draft picks. You know, they would get
• 1:35:42
  Speaker 1: to walk on stage. But really the workhouses of this
• 1:35:46
  Speaker 1: league is the people who are not the first round
• 1:35:48
  Speaker 1: draft picks. They undrafted the draft picks. And so you drafted,
• 1:35:52
  Speaker 1: you come on the team and the Atlanta factors in
• 1:35:55
  Speaker 1: the city of Atlanta. You still stand in the city
• 1:35:56
  Speaker 1: of Atlanta. I'm assuming correct, right, Atlanta brought you in
• 1:36:00
  Speaker 1: and you have not left. This is where you do
• 1:36:02
  Speaker 1: your business. So what what were the positives other than
• 1:36:05
  Speaker 1: just having to play for the Atlanta Falcons and what
• 1:36:08
  Speaker 1: did they do to help you transition out of the
• 1:36:11
  Speaker 1: NFL Playing for the Atlanta famconis you know? I started
• 1:36:15
  Speaker 1: working on my transition while I was so active. So
• 1:36:19
  Speaker 1: the the Players Association in the leadue they have but
• 1:36:23
  Speaker 1: you know, they have a bunch of programs that guys
• 1:36:24
  Speaker 1: can take advantage of in the off season. They have
• 1:36:27
  Speaker 1: business management, entrepreneurship programs, Guys can go back to their
• 1:36:30
  Speaker 1: degrees U there's internships and externships you can do. So
• 1:36:34
  Speaker 1: I tried to stay active um as much as possible
• 1:36:37
  Speaker 1: each off season. So even if I, you know, travel
• 1:36:40
  Speaker 1: worked out, have fun, always made sure I did something
• 1:36:43
  Speaker 1: to enrich myself. So I did two business management programs
• 1:36:47
  Speaker 1: one Awarded Business School and you Can and Wanted kell
• 1:36:50
  Speaker 1: All Business School and nor Western. I did those. I
• 1:36:52
  Speaker 1: did two internships UM, one with under Armor at one
• 1:36:56
  Speaker 1: of the events DC and Washington d C. And then
• 1:36:59
  Speaker 1: UH prior of too conclusion of my career as she
• 1:37:01
  Speaker 1: started my NBA UH while I was still playing at
• 1:37:04
  Speaker 1: the University of Indiana Online and finished it as soon
• 1:37:06
  Speaker 1: as I got done. So I just did a pretty
• 1:37:08
  Speaker 1: good job of taking advantage of the resources that were
• 1:37:10
  Speaker 1: there so that my transition would be a little bit easier.
• 1:37:13
  Speaker 1: So I wouldn't get to the end and be like, Okay,
• 1:37:15
  Speaker 1: I'm done, Now what do I do because there's always
• 1:37:17
  Speaker 1: that startup paid well, that's always that period. I'm sorry,
• 1:37:20
  Speaker 1: we just have to kind of figure it out. So
• 1:37:23
  Speaker 1: why not try to get it figure out a little
• 1:37:24
  Speaker 1: bit earlier so you're not caught behind the eight ball.
• 1:37:25
  Speaker 1: Wants some check stop. But so many get caught behind
• 1:37:29
  Speaker 1: the eight ball, So many don't see the incoming Is
• 1:37:33
  Speaker 1: it is it? It's just just youth because you've seen
• 1:37:36
  Speaker 1: their figured it out. You know, you played and you
• 1:37:39
  Speaker 1: realize that, hey, there is a stopping point to this.
• 1:37:41
  Speaker 1: Let me take this money and not spending on everything
• 1:37:44
  Speaker 1: or every good party or every good car and every
• 1:37:47
  Speaker 1: good house, you want those things. What it was, it
• 1:37:50
  Speaker 1: was it role mardels on the team, or just you know,
• 1:37:53
  Speaker 1: your your your parenting background that allowed you to be
• 1:37:56
  Speaker 1: able to uh support these ideas and see things a
• 1:37:59
  Speaker 1: lot clearer than average person your age. I had a
• 1:38:03
  Speaker 1: combination of all of that. I did have both my
• 1:38:06
  Speaker 1: parents were there, which is, you know, today's world unfortunately
• 1:38:09
  Speaker 1: not as common. So they did teach me a lot,
• 1:38:13
  Speaker 1: kept me grounded. I did develop relationships within the locker room.
• 1:38:17
  Speaker 1: You know, guys, you know that was a little bit smarter.
• 1:38:20
  Speaker 1: You know that's that you know, we're kind of moving,
• 1:38:23
  Speaker 1: you know, outside of football, but not not really doing
• 1:38:26
  Speaker 1: too much. You don't want to be seen as someone
• 1:38:28
  Speaker 1: who just not focused on your craft. But the fact
• 1:38:31
  Speaker 1: is there's there's gonna be him. There's only one player
• 1:38:35
  Speaker 1: that's playing well into his sporties right now, and that's
• 1:38:37
  Speaker 1: Tom Bray. Everyone else you know, you're gonna you're gonna retire.
• 1:38:42
  Speaker 1: The game is gonna be done with you before you're
• 1:38:44
  Speaker 1: done with it. Um. But there's also see your point,
• 1:38:48
  Speaker 1: there's a guys are getting a lot smarter. You know,
• 1:38:50
  Speaker 1: you're seeing guys kind of walking away early. You don't
• 1:38:52
  Speaker 1: want to they' one of dam with their bodies as
• 1:38:54
  Speaker 1: much this guy's taking advantage of some of these programs.
• 1:38:58
  Speaker 1: Um probably not as much, uh you know as when
• 1:39:01
  Speaker 1: they get done. But they are all guys who focus on,
• 1:39:03
  Speaker 1: you know, what's going on after they understand the business,
• 1:39:05
  Speaker 1: like the business of the league is. They're telling anybody
• 1:39:08
  Speaker 1: every day on TV guys losing their job because of
• 1:39:10
  Speaker 1: contract situations, capt room, not necessarily because of their talent,
• 1:39:14
  Speaker 1: because of the business. So you gotta respect it as
• 1:39:16
  Speaker 1: a business that you gotta handle your business right now.
• 1:39:19
  Speaker 1: You you grew up your career grew up in the
• 1:39:22
  Speaker 1: era of social media, you know, you know, I I
• 1:39:26
  Speaker 1: know when I was managed Steve Harvey, uh in social media,
• 1:39:29
  Speaker 1: we had like a big old fan club about me
• 1:39:31
  Speaker 1: and people. We didn't give a hood about social media
• 1:39:34
  Speaker 1: because we have fan club members. Now you did. I'm
• 1:39:37
  Speaker 1: sure you use social media as a player, and now
• 1:39:40
  Speaker 1: you as a as a businessman. You're a businessman, how
• 1:39:43
  Speaker 1: do you social media to grow your business or promote
• 1:39:46
  Speaker 1: your business. I'm still still trying to figure that out
• 1:39:51
  Speaker 1: because I'm in a transportation transportation industry, so there's really
• 1:39:55
  Speaker 1: not much social media needed. And I'm saying that because
• 1:39:59
  Speaker 1: I'm young in this game. I'm less than a year end,
• 1:40:02
  Speaker 1: so I really haven't quite found out how I can
• 1:40:04
  Speaker 1: really leverage uh my social media page, um to my
• 1:40:09
  Speaker 1: business unless I moved into the consultant area, which I
• 1:40:11
  Speaker 1: am saying that do. Um. But I will say I
• 1:40:14
  Speaker 1: didn't take the advantage of social media as much as
• 1:40:16
  Speaker 1: I should as a player that I've always been like
• 1:40:18
  Speaker 1: a private person. I kind of didn't want to just
• 1:40:20
  Speaker 1: do too much. But now that that I'm done, I
• 1:40:22
  Speaker 1: wish I would have done it a little a little
• 1:40:24
  Speaker 1: bit more. I was playing ABU that left for a million,
• 1:40:27
  Speaker 1: Left for a million, yea, I wish I would have
• 1:40:29
  Speaker 1: used it. I wish I would have used a little
• 1:40:30
  Speaker 1: bit more while I was playing to you know, grow
• 1:40:32
  Speaker 1: my following. But uh but um, you know, but it's
• 1:40:39
  Speaker 1: it's not it's not hurting my performance. My performance of
• 1:40:42
  Speaker 1: my company is kind of helping it. Bro. But I
• 1:40:45
  Speaker 1: wish I would have been a lot more active to
• 1:40:47
  Speaker 1: grow that follow up plane. Now. Now, first of all,
• 1:40:50
  Speaker 1: this is not a negative conversation, but you know, all
• 1:40:53
  Speaker 1: my life I did with talent like you, you know,
• 1:40:55
  Speaker 1: marketing brand and and and talk to him about who
• 1:40:58
  Speaker 1: they are. Let's talk about you. Now, it's not about
• 1:41:02
  Speaker 1: your business, Lawrence, It's about you, Okay, you know that.
• 1:41:05
  Speaker 1: That's what this conversation is about. This is about the
• 1:41:07
  Speaker 1: money making conversation is that your social media post really
• 1:41:11
  Speaker 1: is translates into what you're doing with your foundation and
• 1:41:14
  Speaker 1: with your businesses and the employees and how you're growing.
• 1:41:19
  Speaker 1: And so that's the story that you want to tell
• 1:41:21
  Speaker 1: on your social media. That's the story I want to
• 1:41:23
  Speaker 1: hear about your success story, what you're doing and changing
• 1:41:27
  Speaker 1: the community. That's what your point of view, because you
• 1:41:30
  Speaker 1: are a brand. And so that's what I did with
• 1:41:33
  Speaker 1: Steve Harvey. You know, I had the brand conversation because
• 1:41:36
  Speaker 1: I used to work for IBM, so I knew about
• 1:41:39
  Speaker 1: a corporate philosophy and I felt that why can't individual
• 1:41:44
  Speaker 1: have that same standards? And so a lot of people
• 1:41:47
  Speaker 1: throw the word brand out. I don't I know where
• 1:41:48
  Speaker 1: it came from because I started using problem it for anybody.
• 1:41:51
  Speaker 1: So when I look at you and you said wherever Sean,
• 1:41:54
  Speaker 1: you know, uh, you know, you know, I don't know
• 1:41:57
  Speaker 1: about promoting my company I'm not asking you to promote
• 1:41:59
  Speaker 1: your company. I'm talking about you. And if we talk
• 1:42:02
  Speaker 1: about you, your company is gonna get promoted, and all
• 1:42:04
  Speaker 1: your brands and all your tentacles of success will get promoted.
• 1:42:08
  Speaker 1: So as we go through this conversation today and you
• 1:42:11
  Speaker 1: hang up, I want you to hang up and step
• 1:42:12
  Speaker 1: off the call and go. You know what he's saying.
• 1:42:14
  Speaker 1: He's saying, it's all about me. It's not about my
• 1:42:18
  Speaker 1: foundation over there. It's not about my my trucking business.
• 1:42:20
  Speaker 1: It's about me. So if I focus it's about me,
• 1:42:23
  Speaker 1: then guess what everything makes sense? And that's what I'm
• 1:42:27
  Speaker 1: asking you to do when it comes to your social
• 1:42:29
  Speaker 1: media because you could have left with social media followers
• 1:42:33
  Speaker 1: from football, but guess what that have been? Football social
• 1:42:36
  Speaker 1: media followers. You are a businessman and I'm asking you,
• 1:42:39
  Speaker 1: as a businessman to understand how much value you're bringing
• 1:42:42
  Speaker 1: to the table as a brand. Does that make sense?
• 1:42:45
  Speaker 1: You got cool? Now, let's talk about these companies I've
• 1:42:48
  Speaker 1: been talking about. Do we want to go to the
• 1:42:49
  Speaker 1: foundation conversation first or the trucking business first? Which one
• 1:42:53
  Speaker 1: you want to do? Let's go, Let's go. Let's go
• 1:42:56
  Speaker 1: to the UH Foundation. That's actually one of my most
• 1:42:58
  Speaker 1: product that. Well, I'm gonnaell yourself, Lawrence. I'm proud of
• 1:43:02
  Speaker 1: everything you do. You made the transition because I because
• 1:43:06
  Speaker 1: talk to you, Manute. So you've done a lot of
• 1:43:08
  Speaker 1: mature things in your life. And also you understand how
• 1:43:11
  Speaker 1: you got here, and so you you you self educated yourself.
• 1:43:15
  Speaker 1: You could have you could have just not self educated yourself.
• 1:43:18
  Speaker 1: But you say, I want to take advantage of the values,
• 1:43:21
  Speaker 1: and you take advantage of the coaching, You're taking advantage
• 1:43:24
  Speaker 1: of the good parenting. And then you got over here
• 1:43:26
  Speaker 1: and you took advantage of being drafted by the Atlanta Falcons.
• 1:43:29
  Speaker 1: So you have a you have a d n inside
• 1:43:31
  Speaker 1: of you. Is that if you give you an option,
• 1:43:34
  Speaker 1: you're gonna use it to be a positive And so
• 1:43:37
  Speaker 1: that's a quality inside of you. Man. Then not many
• 1:43:40
  Speaker 1: people have. And I just want to point that out
• 1:43:42
  Speaker 1: to you. Let's talk about now. Yeah, I want you
• 1:43:44
  Speaker 1: to hear that, man, because a lot of people I
• 1:43:46
  Speaker 1: get to talk to a lot of people, I get
• 1:43:48
  Speaker 1: to uh and I've had a lot of layers of
• 1:43:50
  Speaker 1: success in my life, and I've been successful with a
• 1:43:52
  Speaker 1: lot of different people, actors and entrepreneurs, and business owners
• 1:43:56
  Speaker 1: and corporate leaders and all that the quality that stands
• 1:43:59
  Speaker 1: out to you. And I was hapy to get back
• 1:44:00
  Speaker 1: on the go do another interview with you, was to
• 1:44:03
  Speaker 1: tell you that because you're a grinder and a grinder
• 1:44:07
  Speaker 1: and oftentimes doesn't appreciate what they are accomplishing. And so you, sire,
• 1:44:13
  Speaker 1: I'm really proud of the foundation. Brother, I proud of
• 1:44:15
  Speaker 1: the foundation because you've taken time to get back but
• 1:44:18
  Speaker 1: all shoot, you're employing people, you're paying taxes, You've been
• 1:44:21
  Speaker 1: a functional person that this country often says about people
• 1:44:25
  Speaker 1: of color don't do. So proud of you, man, Thank you, man,
• 1:44:29
  Speaker 1: I appreciate that. Now let's talk about this a foundation
• 1:44:32
  Speaker 1: all right? How it started? Why? Man, it's actually the foundation.
• 1:44:38
  Speaker 1: That's something that I've been one to do for a
• 1:44:40
  Speaker 1: long time. When I when I played a battle with
• 1:44:43
  Speaker 1: starting my own foundational partner with somebody, so when I
• 1:44:46
  Speaker 1: was a player partner with Big brothers, Big exists. But
• 1:44:48
  Speaker 1: now that I'm you know, I've done um, I still
• 1:44:51
  Speaker 1: had that urge just to want to just empower people
• 1:44:54
  Speaker 1: to just know that, man, you really can do anything
• 1:44:58
  Speaker 1: you set your mind to it. There's no limits. Hence
• 1:45:00
  Speaker 1: the name zero Limitations foundation. A lot of times people
• 1:45:03
  Speaker 1: may lack an example, they may not have to drive,
• 1:45:06
  Speaker 1: and you might can say or show somebody that one
• 1:45:08
  Speaker 1: thing that can spark them into greatness. And that's really
• 1:45:11
  Speaker 1: that's really what I believe. I tell my friends all
• 1:45:13
  Speaker 1: the time. Sometimes I think I'm preaching that it, but
• 1:45:15
  Speaker 1: I really just true to believe you can do anything.
• 1:45:17
  Speaker 1: You can do anything such your minds. But some sometimes
• 1:45:20
  Speaker 1: people just need they may need that one thing, a
• 1:45:22
  Speaker 1: little bit of help. So, uh, you know, we we
• 1:45:25
  Speaker 1: we started with a food give way around the holiday time, um,
• 1:45:29
  Speaker 1: you know because of COVID and people you know, just
• 1:45:31
  Speaker 1: you know this food and security. But as we move
• 1:45:33
  Speaker 1: forward and were really working towards programming scholarships, mentorship programs
• 1:45:39
  Speaker 1: and just I'm really passing about this developing people. I
• 1:45:42
  Speaker 1: just I just feel like everyone could do their best
• 1:45:43
  Speaker 1: as a place for everybody, this girl to be successful
• 1:45:46
  Speaker 1: with contrary to probably believe. And with that being said,
• 1:45:49
  Speaker 1: zero limitations. That's a problem. How did you come up
• 1:45:53
  Speaker 1: with that? You know? Actually I named it the large
• 1:45:56
  Speaker 1: City Berry Jade. If I think, son, you need you
• 1:46:00
  Speaker 1: need something else, something catching. So it took me a
• 1:46:04
  Speaker 1: few days to UH to come up with it right,
• 1:46:07
  Speaker 1: And at first I was thinking, though lives like man,
• 1:46:10
  Speaker 1: you can't use that. We might come out. He will
• 1:46:12
  Speaker 1: come after you. He will come back to you. He said,
• 1:46:16
  Speaker 1: he might come at you. So zero limitations. Foundation. Once.
• 1:46:19
  Speaker 1: Once I said it the first time, that was it. Uh,
• 1:46:22
  Speaker 1: that was it. That's how I came up with it. Cool. Now,
• 1:46:25
  Speaker 1: that's awesome. Now, how does one become a part of it?
• 1:46:28
  Speaker 1: Is in the age group that you're dealing with, or
• 1:46:31
  Speaker 1: is it the annual event? Is a summary event? What
• 1:46:33
  Speaker 1: exactly comes out of your foundation? Right now, We're gonna
• 1:46:38
  Speaker 1: keep everybody updated on programming. So right now, the first
• 1:46:40
  Speaker 1: thing we have going on, we partnered with a high school.
• 1:46:42
  Speaker 1: What we're gonna actually be, I'm actually gonna be getting
• 1:46:44
  Speaker 1: scholarships to uh some of the students who perform well,
• 1:46:48
  Speaker 1: um and they has aspirationally go to college, and we're
• 1:46:51
  Speaker 1: gonna help. We're gonna have quill some of that financial needs. Eventually,
• 1:46:54
  Speaker 1: one day I want to get to the point where
• 1:46:55
  Speaker 1: I can pay someone's entire scholarship. But we're not there yet.
• 1:46:58
  Speaker 1: We're working there, but we're gonna start with scolarsars first,
• 1:47:01
  Speaker 1: and we're gonna start some mental programs throughout the summer.
• 1:47:04
  Speaker 1: So this you can you can visit us at zero
• 1:47:07
  Speaker 1: limitations order and you can sign up and put your
• 1:47:11
  Speaker 1: email in. You can also donate there and we keep
• 1:47:13
  Speaker 1: everybody abreasts on the program that we have coming up. Okay, uh,
• 1:47:17
  Speaker 1: you know you're a planner and you're a goal setting
• 1:47:19
  Speaker 1: you will get there. But I know that about you.
• 1:47:22
  Speaker 1: Now you're playing football. You're tackling people. You got that.
• 1:47:24
  Speaker 1: You got that little spin that you came up with.
• 1:47:26
  Speaker 1: Tell us about that and a little a little spin
• 1:47:28
  Speaker 1: that you came up with. Did you are you developing it?
• 1:47:32
  Speaker 1: You don't know what? You don't know what. I actually
• 1:47:34
  Speaker 1: I have us have a little football conversation. So like
• 1:47:37
  Speaker 1: my head coach at the time, Mike hunder Um, He's like, man,
• 1:47:41
  Speaker 1: the Scotts is looking. They know you fast, and you
• 1:47:43
  Speaker 1: know you're trying to get around the head need to
• 1:47:45
  Speaker 1: kind of moves Like damn. I'm sitting there thinking what
• 1:47:47
  Speaker 1: can I work at the time. You know one of
• 1:47:50
  Speaker 1: them two of my favorite rushers at the time. Actually
• 1:47:53
  Speaker 1: I got to play with one of them, White Freeny
• 1:47:55
  Speaker 1: and Robert Mathis. Everyone knows if you watch any of
• 1:47:57
  Speaker 1: that coach coming out the balls to guys had this.
• 1:48:01
  Speaker 1: I was in college at the time, so I was like, damn,
• 1:48:04
  Speaker 1: maybe I can do that one day in practice. I
• 1:48:07
  Speaker 1: just I just tried and net work and after that
• 1:48:09
  Speaker 1: it just that's that's the way I went to when
• 1:48:11
  Speaker 1: I was in school. Well, you know, you know, you
• 1:48:14
  Speaker 1: make me sick, Lauren. You you're so you don't you
• 1:48:16
  Speaker 1: don't tell the truth about how talented you are. Well,
• 1:48:19
  Speaker 1: you know, I was just just practice and just but
• 1:48:22
  Speaker 1: that's really but you were the fastest defensive end and
• 1:48:26
  Speaker 1: come by Okay, you know you you you you just
• 1:48:30
  Speaker 1: can't do that. I'm it's a whole lot of people
• 1:48:32
  Speaker 1: wish they could just do a spin move and go
• 1:48:34
  Speaker 1: to a cornerback or stop running back. So you we're gonna,
• 1:48:39
  Speaker 1: we're gonna, we're gonna have a relationship because what I'm
• 1:48:41
  Speaker 1: gonna get you just started doing. Man, is it's all
• 1:48:44
  Speaker 1: right to be prime time. It's all right. You know
• 1:48:48
  Speaker 1: what they you know, they're saying Church favorite, So I
• 1:48:50
  Speaker 1: guess thank God for that. So so, so you got
• 1:48:56
  Speaker 1: you got the moves. You know, you're a man, you're
• 1:48:58
  Speaker 1: a young man. And Atlanta, you know, Atlanta is a
• 1:49:02
  Speaker 1: great capital, a city for African American men and women.
• 1:49:07
  Speaker 1: When did you make the decision? Man? Like you said,
• 1:49:09
  Speaker 1: you thought the process, you knew you weren't gonna play.
• 1:49:12
  Speaker 1: But the business that you're doing, now, how did that
• 1:49:14
  Speaker 1: come about? Actually it started in covid Um. You know,
• 1:49:20
  Speaker 1: before I got out the league, I was already started
• 1:49:22
  Speaker 1: an investments in real estate, actually living in some properties
• 1:49:25
  Speaker 1: back in Maryland. While when I'm from and uh, you know,
• 1:49:29
  Speaker 1: I had a deal go south. I was gonna be
• 1:49:31
  Speaker 1: my first project here in southwest Atlanta, and you know
• 1:49:33
  Speaker 1: where everything shut shut down, like nobody basically bout the
• 1:49:37
  Speaker 1: calendar year from from today. You know, the real estate
• 1:49:40
  Speaker 1: market is doing well now, but everyone was not. Everyone
• 1:49:42
  Speaker 1: was certain how things look go about the banks pulling
• 1:49:45
  Speaker 1: fund in the bank I was dealing with, they pulled
• 1:49:47
  Speaker 1: a fund and they put a fund on the new
• 1:49:48
  Speaker 1: construction project I had. So we'll say I kind of
• 1:49:51
  Speaker 1: had my back nest the wall, but I just knew
• 1:49:53
  Speaker 1: it I had to do something essentially that something catastrophic
• 1:49:57
  Speaker 1: wasn't happening again. I'll be in a central end of
• 1:50:00
  Speaker 1: tree and I can continue to make money. And prior
• 1:50:02
  Speaker 1: to that, I had spoken to a college teammate who
• 1:50:04
  Speaker 1: would just jump into the transportation industry. Maybe about a
• 1:50:06
  Speaker 1: year ago. I just met which is now a good
• 1:50:08
  Speaker 1: friend of mine. Uh, probably about a month before, and
• 1:50:12
  Speaker 1: I took the information that they both gave me. I
• 1:50:14
  Speaker 1: put it together and I started Clipper Logistics. And man,
• 1:50:17
  Speaker 1: it's been. It's been probably the biggest blessing on my life.
• 1:50:20
  Speaker 1: Like you should. I've been able to employ people. I
• 1:50:22
  Speaker 1: just just we brow to the point I just hired
• 1:50:24
  Speaker 1: an assistant. Um, I've been able to give a black
• 1:50:26
  Speaker 1: of people jobs. Man, I can't say enough. Man, just
• 1:50:30
  Speaker 1: it's been the best thing that happened to me. It's
• 1:50:31
  Speaker 1: a scalable business and still be able to provide opportunity.
• 1:50:35
  Speaker 1: So it's just a win win all the way around. Okay,
• 1:50:37
  Speaker 1: I got again Clipperal Logistics. Where did that come from? Again?
• 1:50:42
  Speaker 1: I always have trouble coming up with names. I just
• 1:50:45
  Speaker 1: I didn't want to use my name. It's like it's
• 1:50:47
  Speaker 1: typical and I kind of want to detach myself from
• 1:50:49
  Speaker 1: the business a little bit. But the clippers Clippers is
• 1:50:53
  Speaker 1: actually my high school mascot. My hospital we were the
• 1:50:55
  Speaker 1: Oxting Hill Clippers, So I said Clipper logistics and it
• 1:50:59
  Speaker 1: just it just went. So I went with it. Always
• 1:51:02
  Speaker 1: always fall into the names of the club. You know,
• 1:51:07
  Speaker 1: you're about to get beat up by masterp Okay, then
• 1:51:10
  Speaker 1: you went back to your high school, got to Stone
• 1:51:12
  Speaker 1: the Clippers. Second generation. That's that's another one of your business. Correct, Yeah,
• 1:51:20
  Speaker 1: that's that's the LLC I run. Uh, you know my
• 1:51:23
  Speaker 1: real estate projects to that was pretty simple, right. My parents,
• 1:51:27
  Speaker 1: Uh you know, they probably the first people in our
• 1:51:30
  Speaker 1: family kind of start, you know, owning properties, right, and
• 1:51:33
  Speaker 1: uh I came after them. So second generation development, that
• 1:51:36
  Speaker 1: one was. That was pretty easy. I knew the name
• 1:51:38
  Speaker 1: of that one before before I got started. I shouldn't.
• 1:51:42
  Speaker 1: There's truly the name about you because your second generation, right,
• 1:51:47
  Speaker 1: I love it. I love it. Lawrence Man. You Uh,
• 1:51:51
  Speaker 1: you're humble. You're absolutely correct about that. You're talented, you
• 1:51:55
  Speaker 1: won't don't want to admit that, you're very smart, somehow
• 1:51:58
  Speaker 1: you don't want to admit that, and guess it, you're
• 1:52:00
  Speaker 1: special and somehow you don't want admit that. But all
• 1:52:03
  Speaker 1: those things I just said, man makes you in an
• 1:52:05
  Speaker 1: incredible brand. And please man, start telling people about that
• 1:52:09
  Speaker 1: man in your social media post and let everybody understand
• 1:52:12
  Speaker 1: how you're shining in the pandemic times in African American. Man,
• 1:52:17
  Speaker 1: there's doing it and paying taxes out there and making
• 1:52:19
  Speaker 1: the difference in this country, not only for your life,
• 1:52:22
  Speaker 1: for people that you don't know. And I think that's
• 1:52:24
  Speaker 1: the blessing that you are. I appreciate, I really do. Hey, brother,
• 1:52:29
  Speaker 1: he looking at it. Man. I had to get back
• 1:52:31
  Speaker 1: on with you, man, because you know, the thing about you,
• 1:52:35
  Speaker 1: Lawrence is that man. You know, when I meet people
• 1:52:38
  Speaker 1: like you, Man, it's a blessing to me to pole
• 1:52:40
  Speaker 1: had this conversation. But the gifts that I have, the
• 1:52:43
  Speaker 1: Guard gave me was to be able to motivate people
• 1:52:45
  Speaker 1: also tell the truth. And so when I talk to
• 1:52:48
  Speaker 1: you about your gifts and talk to you about what
• 1:52:51
  Speaker 1: you're doing, I'm just asking you to take one more step.
• 1:52:54
  Speaker 1: And the next step is about you and when you
• 1:52:57
  Speaker 1: taught telling your story, and that's what we're doing today
• 1:52:59
  Speaker 1: the US. Hey, man, I'm going I'm in the way
• 1:53:01
  Speaker 1: back machine. You gotta be going way back to two
• 1:53:03
  Speaker 1: thousand and eight, because man, you have a career that's
• 1:53:06
  Speaker 1: worth telling you. You've transitioned into a academia person and
• 1:53:12
  Speaker 1: an athlete now you're a businessman, you're philanthropist. That's a
• 1:53:16
  Speaker 1: lot of powerful titles. That's a lot of power that
• 1:53:19
  Speaker 1: you own. And sometimes I really and I gotta do
• 1:53:24
  Speaker 1: better at this. I get caught up and like you said,
• 1:53:27
  Speaker 1: the ground and trying to build something you know, you
• 1:53:30
  Speaker 1: really to leave, you know, after I'm gone. Sometimes I'm
• 1:53:33
  Speaker 1: guilty of not cherishing the moment. Like I'm guilty. I
• 1:53:37
  Speaker 1: know I've been told that, and I really, honestly, I'm
• 1:53:40
  Speaker 1: just sitting back a couple of days ago, really having
• 1:53:42
  Speaker 1: this exact same conversation, uh with a friend of mine.
• 1:53:46
  Speaker 1: And sometimes just I just I get so all caught up.
• 1:53:49
  Speaker 1: I just don't. I gotta do better. I really gotta
• 1:53:52
  Speaker 1: do better. I know, appreciate, I appreciate, give me. Uh.
• 1:53:58
  Speaker 1: I always look, hey, look, call me your life coach.
• 1:54:01
  Speaker 1: I mean, look, you had head coaches, assistant coaching. Rishan
• 1:54:04
  Speaker 1: McDonald's your life coach. So you go, hey, ma, I
• 1:54:07
  Speaker 1: gotta called more part Roshan and run this idea by him.
• 1:54:09
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna tall you go ahead and do it. Because
• 1:54:11
  Speaker 1: anything you put your mind to, brom brand, you're gonna
• 1:54:13
  Speaker 1: be successful at it. And that's the part of your genius.
• 1:54:16
  Speaker 1: And I'm gonna put the word genius on you because
• 1:54:19
  Speaker 1: layers of success are not accidental in your life. And
• 1:54:24
  Speaker 1: but you know, you know, it's interesting how some people
• 1:54:27
  Speaker 1: who have less will screamed like they got more. Well,
• 1:54:31
  Speaker 1: you have more, and you don't say anything by how
• 1:54:34
  Speaker 1: you're accomplishing it. And I want you to go to
• 1:54:36
  Speaker 1: the front of the line with that story. All Right,
• 1:54:39
  Speaker 1: we're gonna get it done. We're gonna we're gonna rap
• 1:54:41
  Speaker 1: outter we get finished. All right, there, your life coach
• 1:54:44
  Speaker 1: just spoke to you. Okay. I wanna thank you Lauren
• 1:54:47
  Speaker 1: for coming on the show man telling me about your life,
• 1:54:50
  Speaker 1: talking about your your career, talking about being an athlete
• 1:54:53
  Speaker 1: who made the transition from college to the NFL to
• 1:54:57
  Speaker 1: a businessman to a philanthropie. Thank you for coming on.
• 1:55:00
  Speaker 1: Want to make conversations, appreciate Thank you cool. If you
• 1:55:03
  Speaker 1: want to hear more money making conversation interviews, please go
• 1:55:05
  Speaker 1: and mindy making Conversations dot com. I'm with Sean McDonald.
• 1:55:08
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