Latest / The Steve Harvey Morning Show / Full Episode: The Today Show's Craig Melvin, Nikki Walton aka CurlyNikki, sociologist Dr. Katrinell Davis & Executive Coach Ryan Leak

Transcript

Full Episode: The Today Show's Craig Melvin, Nikki Walton aka CurlyNikki, sociologist Dr. Katrinell Davis & Executive Coach Ryan Leak · The Steve Harvey Morning Show

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  Speaker 1: Did you know? Amazon provides ways of working that fit
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  Speaker 1: up Man called those Miller of the eighty five South,
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  Speaker 1: on I Heart Radio, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
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  Speaker 1: your podcast. Welcome to Money Making Conversations. It's the show
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  Speaker 1: that she has the secrets of success experience firsthand by
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  Speaker 1: marketing and Brandon expert Rashan McDonald. I will know he's
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  Speaker 1: given me advice on many occasions. In the case you
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  Speaker 1: didn't notice, I'm not broke, you know, he'll be interviewing
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  Speaker 1: celebrity CEOs, entrepreneurs and industry decision makers. It's what he
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  Speaker 1: likes to do. It's what he likes to share. Now
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: it's time to hear from my man, Rashan McDonald. Money
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: Making Conversations. Here we come. Welcome to Money Making Conversation.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: I have your host, Rashwan McDonald. I'll tell people every
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: week as we start this show, it's time to stop
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: reading other people's success stores and actually start writing your own.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: A lot of people who are held back. I always
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: tell people you hear by gifts, you hear about passion.
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: I tell people to leave with their gifts and don't
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: let their age, especially their age, friends, family, or coworkers,
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: stop you from planning or living your dream. My interviews
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  Speaker 1: I bring on money main conversations you might see with
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  Speaker 1: celebrity CEOs, entrepreneurs and what I like to call industry
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  Speaker 1: decision makers. My next guest is a Craig Melvine. He's
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  Speaker 1: the co host of the Today Show and the author
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  Speaker 1: of the book Pops Learning to Be a Son and
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  Speaker 1: the Father. You may know Crickets and the war winning
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  Speaker 1: news anchor. As I said earlier on the Today Show.
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  Speaker 1: You also have seen him on MSNBC Live and the
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  Speaker 1: host of Dateline. He's on the show discussed this book,
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  Speaker 1: Pops Learning to Be a Son and the Father. It's
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  Speaker 1: the story of all the father figures in Craig's life
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  Speaker 1: and that includes inspiring men from his program or his
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  Speaker 1: series called Dad's Got this series on NBC NBC News Today.
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  Speaker 1: These experiences and encounters of shapes creates understanding of his
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  Speaker 1: own old as a dad. And I'm sure I can
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  Speaker 1: be relative and we'll have a nice conversation since Father's
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  Speaker 1: Day has recently passed. He has two young children. Please
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  Speaker 1: wraping the money making conversation, my man, Craig Melvin. How
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  Speaker 1: you doing, Creig Sean, I'm well, I'm well. Thank you
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  Speaker 1: so much for having me always enjoy your conversation, so
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  Speaker 1: I have to be a part of one. Thank you.
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  Speaker 1: Southern boy, South Carolina. Okay, you know, uh, you know
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  Speaker 1: when I when I see people on TV and you
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  Speaker 1: so articulate, there's no yalls, there's no access. How does
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  Speaker 1: a man come straight out of Columbia? I know color
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: because Steve Harvey. I used to go down a lot
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  Speaker 1: of performative town center selling that place out all the time.
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  Speaker 1: So I'm fair familiar with South Carolina, Charleston, that whole
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  Speaker 1: low country. There's no low country in your tone? What's
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  Speaker 1: going on there? You are? You break that low country accent?
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  Speaker 1: Low country accent? Funny because I didn't. I never I
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  Speaker 1: never had it. My mom, Uh, you'll appreciate this. Growing
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  Speaker 1: up in Houston, the way that you grew up. My
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  Speaker 1: mom grew up in the project and first in the
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  Speaker 1: family to go to college and first in the family
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  Speaker 1: to get a graduate degree. So when we came along,
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  Speaker 1: she wanted to expose us to two things and places
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  Speaker 1: that she had not been exposed to. And consequently, I
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  Speaker 1: think it's that was probably fourteen or fifteen, and she
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  Speaker 1: had us take part in these oratorical contests. Um and
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  Speaker 1: and that was was kind of how it started. So
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  Speaker 1: I took some public speaking classes and then these oratorical contests,
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  Speaker 1: and then the next thing you knew, I had what
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  Speaker 1: they what they like to call in the business a
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  Speaker 1: nondescript dialect. You can't really tell based on listening to
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  Speaker 1: me where I'm from. It's a blessing. Now. When I
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  Speaker 1: was growing up, it was always he's talking whitely, he
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  Speaker 1: talks like he talks like a white boy. So it's
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  Speaker 1: you know, it's it was a course. Now it's a blessing.
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  Speaker 1: You know, it's interesting because I knew in my middle school.
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  Speaker 1: I remember my teacher used to always ask me to read,
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  Speaker 1: just always ask me to read. And you know, people
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  Speaker 1: talk about bullying, and you know, when you people are
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  Speaker 1: talking about they call you snowflake. That was a bully.
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  Speaker 1: And then so it's it's popularized now because people are
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  Speaker 1: willing to talk about it. But we all grew up
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  Speaker 1: in some form of physical or mental abuse from high
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  Speaker 1: school kids or people in the neighborhood. And my remember this,
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  Speaker 1: this this girl. She made such a big deal that
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  Speaker 1: I was always asked to read. That it almost I
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  Speaker 1: have to say, traumatized me because I went exactly the opposite.
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  Speaker 1: I wanted to talk. I wanted to say, ain't I
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  Speaker 1: wanted to have I wanted to slur my words. I
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  Speaker 1: wanted to fit in. And so what you I bring
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  Speaker 1: that story up because you talk about because you was
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  Speaker 1: hit with it. You was hit you know, talking why
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  Speaker 1: I didn't want to act? Why you you're calling you snowflake?
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  Speaker 1: What kept you focused? What kept you from from veering
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  Speaker 1: off like I veered off? I veered off and I said, hey, man,
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  Speaker 1: I want to fit in and not be me. You know,
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  Speaker 1: I think it was I wanted. But in the book,
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  Speaker 1: my mother, my mother really sean. I mean she um
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  Speaker 1: she she kept us on the straight and narrow. At
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  Speaker 1: the time, Uh, we we resented the strictness. I mean
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  Speaker 1: my mom she knew all of our friends, and she
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  Speaker 1: all of her parents. We weren't allowed to stay out
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  Speaker 1: past you know, during the week maybe nine o'clock, maybe
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  Speaker 1: on the weekends when kids were going to parties and
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  Speaker 1: having fun. I was doing oratorical contests and activities. And
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  Speaker 1: I went to in high school. I think I probably
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  Speaker 1: went to maybe three high school football games on Friday night.
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  Speaker 1: I just I didn't. I grew up with a very
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  Speaker 1: tight leash, right, um. And and part of it was
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  Speaker 1: my mother overcompensating for for my father not being the
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  Speaker 1: kind of dad that he should have been. But part
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  Speaker 1: of it was mom knew. She knew back then, I
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  Speaker 1: think kind of what it took. She was a school teacher,
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  Speaker 1: then she went into an administration. She knew what it
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  Speaker 1: took um to to shape and mold uh, the black
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  Speaker 1: boys especially right, and and that was it. Had it
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  Speaker 1: not been for her, had I grown up in another house,
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  Speaker 1: we wouldn't be having this conversation right now. Well, you
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  Speaker 1: know writing your book, you know the book we're talking
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  Speaker 1: for talking to interview Craig Melvin, his book Pops, Learning
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  Speaker 1: to Be a Son and the Father. Is it because
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  Speaker 1: the fact that your father wasn't there, that she may
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  Speaker 1: be overcompensated and wanted to make sure you didn't you
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  Speaker 1: had a better life or you pursue the options, even
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  Speaker 1: though I knew she went to college and thinking the
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  Speaker 1: age of twenty two is when she became pregnant with you.
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  Speaker 1: But talk about that in the middle, because as we
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  Speaker 1: talked about trying to shape you because of the fact
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  Speaker 1: that you've been shaped by a lot of people, especially
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  Speaker 1: to the stories we wanta talk about the the president
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  Speaker 1: incident when he was out of camp grades. How that
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  Speaker 1: really kind of like started you in this direction of
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  Speaker 1: humanizing all men, especially men who are incos already talk
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  Speaker 1: about your mom in her role versus your dad role
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: because you mentioned it just a little bit, but that
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  Speaker 1: centers around us getting into the story and your father
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  Speaker 1: changing this life at they just seven. Mom. Yeah, mom, Mom.
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  Speaker 1: Mom had to play the role of mom and dad
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  Speaker 1: for the better part of my childhood. Um, it was,
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  Speaker 1: it was. It was a role that she was. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: she was unfortunately well prepared for it because she ended
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  Speaker 1: up she had to take care of her three younger siblings. Um,
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  Speaker 1: when she was in college and her father skipped out
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  Speaker 1: of the family, ended up essentially dying on the streets
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  Speaker 1: and squalred. But no a mom. Because my father was
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  Speaker 1: not physically president as often as I would have liked,
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  Speaker 1: and my younger brother would have liked my older brother
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  Speaker 1: as well. Mom stepped in to fill the gap. She
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  Speaker 1: filled her, She filled her boy and not just not
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  Speaker 1: just being present in a sense of Sean a little
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  Speaker 1: league games or soccer games or or concerts, not just
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  Speaker 1: physically present, but but but emotionally president right a spiritually present.
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  Speaker 1: I mean the relationship that I have with God is
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  Speaker 1: because of my mother's relationship with God. So it was
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  Speaker 1: it was divine intervention. You know, had I had any
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  Speaker 1: other mother, things would not have gone the way that
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  Speaker 1: they did. But you know, it's it's also and I
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  Speaker 1: write about in the book as you know, and I
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  Speaker 1: do appreciate the fact that you read the book. You'd
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  Speaker 1: be surprised how often to talk to people about books
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  Speaker 1: and they haven't read word one h but I can
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  Speaker 1: tell you read the whole thing. And I write about
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  Speaker 1: in the book. My father I asked him doing the
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  Speaker 1: course of my my interviews with him for the book.
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  Speaker 1: I said, Pops, what was the most money you ever wasted?
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  Speaker 1: Without missing a beat, he said it was about fifteen
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  Speaker 1: dollars back in nineteen eight six. I said, that was
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  Speaker 1: a lot of money back then. When you spend that
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  Speaker 1: money on he said, that's how much. That's how much
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  Speaker 1: it cost to put my daddy in the ground. And
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  Speaker 1: in that moment I realized, um that while I had
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  Speaker 1: been frustrated by the lack of relationship I had with
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  Speaker 1: my dad, it was finitially better than the relationship he
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  Speaker 1: had with his own father. Right, he didn't know who
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  Speaker 1: his dad was until he was almost a teenager. So
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  Speaker 1: it was it was wholly unrealistic of me to expect
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  Speaker 1: him to be the kind of dad that I had
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  Speaker 1: come to to to idolize. He couldn't be it because
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  Speaker 1: he hadn't seen it. And you can't be something that.
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  Speaker 1: It's really hard to be something. Yes, if if you
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  Speaker 1: if you haven't seen it, if you haven't been exposed
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  Speaker 1: to it. So that's when my dad was up against.
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  Speaker 1: You know, when I when I read the book, you know, um,
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  Speaker 1: you know I heard the shotgun house. Okay, I grew
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  Speaker 1: up in there. I was born in the shotgun house.
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  Speaker 1: Two very shotgun house. A lot of people if you're
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: listening to the shotgun house, over to the front door,
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: shoot the gun out, to shotgun out, to go out
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: the front back door. Don't hit anything that's a shotgun house. Okay,
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: you reference pig feats. Grew up with big feasts, but man, hey, Greg,
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  Speaker 1: I would touch but big feats or part of our
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  Speaker 1: life's style. And so that's the Southern, not from Houston, Texas.
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  Speaker 1: I'm from the South. It was. It was a lifestyle
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  Speaker 1: that was normal to me. But it was also a
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  Speaker 1: community lifestyle of people taking care of each other. And
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  Speaker 1: that was really important. Not only your dad. Even though
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  Speaker 1: there were some missteps, there were still people there to
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  Speaker 1: take care of him, you know, to make sure he
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  Speaker 1: was focused, to shout at him as he became an adult.
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  Speaker 1: There were people in the community. That's really important in
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  Speaker 1: this book that no matter what, there's some form of
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  Speaker 1: family tied to your story, and the people in your
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  Speaker 1: life talk about that. You know, it's a It's it's
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  Speaker 1: funny because long before people started talking about it taking
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  Speaker 1: a village, uh to to to rear a child. I
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  Speaker 1: had a village. You know, it wasn't called that back
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  Speaker 1: back in the eighties in South Carolina, back in the
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  Speaker 1: eighties and nineties when I grew up. But I had
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  Speaker 1: a village. And and yes, there were a number of
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  Speaker 1: men who played the role of dad along the way,
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  Speaker 1: my uncle James, my uncle Jake, my uncle Frank Um.
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  Speaker 1: But there were also a lot of women that that
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  Speaker 1: that played the part as well. I was disciplined, and
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  Speaker 1: I think that's the politically correct term I was. I
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  Speaker 1: was disciplined by more women growing up than men, whether
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  Speaker 1: it's my mom or one of my aunts and my grandma.
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  Speaker 1: I spent a lot of time with my two grandmothers
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  Speaker 1: growing up, and they really shaped me in myriad ways
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  Speaker 1: that I didn't fully appreciate until I was older. But
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  Speaker 1: and then after that, I had coaches along the way.
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  Speaker 1: I always God always blessed me with with with people
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  Speaker 1: along the road. Uh that that gave me a little
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  Speaker 1: part of something that I was I was able to
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  Speaker 1: take and build on. It's difficult for young black men especially,
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  Speaker 1: it's it's difficult to to learn how to carry yourself
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  Speaker 1: in this world, um with without examples of it. And
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  Speaker 1: I had lots of examples thankfully along the way. But
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  Speaker 1: the reality is, you know, Sean, a lot of kids
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  Speaker 1: don't have that. A lot of kids don't they just
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: you know, through no phone of their own, n G.
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  Speaker 1: They they don't have a mother or a father, or
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  Speaker 1: an uncle or an aunt to take their hands on
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  Speaker 1: this journey of life. And so they end up finding
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  Speaker 1: role models uh that they should not be held up
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: but that should not be on the paddle store, and
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  Speaker 1: they begin to emulate them. You know, the thing I
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  Speaker 1: really like about your book is that sometimes uh, because
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  Speaker 1: my father was a truck driver, you know, so you
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: know when he wasn't driving trucks, you know he was
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: he was he wasn't really connected to me. I can
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: I can tell you he was my father. I can
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: tell you that my mom was there for me. My
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: mom pushed me. My mom always felt that could be
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  Speaker 1: somebody special in life. When your father showed up for
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: your ball game, that that memory. You don't know if
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: you got to hit a home runner, got a struck
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: out adver time you went up the bat, but you
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: remember that moment. And then when your mom rescued you,
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: when you thought, uh, you had an entered early fatherhood.
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  Speaker 1: You know, those are two moments that really I bring
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  Speaker 1: up those two moments prayer because despite of all the
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: things we do in our life, there are always memories
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: that really some haunt people, some inspire people. Your father
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: showing up for your game and your mom basically coming
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: to the rescue because she did something that enabled you
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: to relax. Talk about those two key moments of parenting.
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  Speaker 1: Even though your father wasn't there, that was a key
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  Speaker 1: parenting moment that he provided for you that stays with
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: you today. It probably cares into your parenty with your
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: with your children today, and then your mom being there
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: for you at a moment of doubt, frustration, fear. But
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: both of them were there at different times. I mean,
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: you're you're you're talking about department book where I am.
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: I almost became a teenage father. I was almost just
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: statistic at the age of fourteen. Uh No, that's I
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: made a a bad choice. I made a bad choice.
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: And you know what, I write about it because I
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: wrote about it because I wanted people to understand. Uh.
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  Speaker 1: There but for the grace of God, go I and
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: and and and I think a lot of folks can
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: relate to this, this idea that you know, there's that
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: night or sometimes that day, but usually it's it's that
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: night where you went left, but you could have gone
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: right right right, and and and had you made a
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: different decision, it would have altered the course of your
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: life in a dramatic way. Um, that almost happened to me.
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: I got lucky and and and at that point in
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: my life, I was I didn't have much of relationship
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: with my father. I was I was afraid of my mother, Uh,
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: definitely afraid. I couldn't talk to her about it, and
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: it was a situation where you know, this young lady
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: was convinced she was pregnant, and I like, I had
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: to I had to do something. This was not one
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: of the situations where in action was an option. And
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: uh and I write in the book about how I
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: went to my my aunt and it was my aunt
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  Speaker 1: that finally convinced me that I had no choice but
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: to talk to my mother. But my mom has always
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: been long before we started calling people fixers, my mom
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: was a fixer like it was. It was that that
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: honestly was an extreme example. But there were so many
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: other times in my life where I thought I was
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: out of option. I didn't know what I was gonna do,
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: and I prayed to God and put trust in Betty
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: Joe Melvine and and Betty Joe Melvine always came through
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: and still does now. Mind you, in a different way,
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: my dad, you know, rute about that, that that part
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: in the book with Schean where he showed up at
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: my little league game, and the memory steed with me
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: because it was so rare to that point, my dad
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: um and and again now looking back on it, knowing
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: what we know about addiction, about it being a disease,
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  Speaker 1: and not a weakness. I understand why he wasn't there.
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  Speaker 1: I understand why he had walled himself off from our
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: family and society at large. But back then I was
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: a kid, you know, I was a kid in one
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  Speaker 1: of my my my dad to to be proud of
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  Speaker 1: me and see me, uh and certainly watch watch my
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: little league games. And so when he showed up that evening,
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: I saw him down the third baseline there on the
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: on the fence. It's a it's a memory that that
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: stayed with me because it was so weird. That being said, now, um,
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: he's everywhere, like you know, he was up. Two weeks ago,
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: my son had a soccer game. My dad was right
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: there with me on the sideline and thirty seconds in
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: my my boy hadn't scored a goal all season, thirty
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: seconds in dribble dribble, dribble, dribble, dribble, shoot score first
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: goal of the game, and and me and my pops
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: are half five and like he had just won a
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: green jacket at Augustina. You know, um it was The
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: book is um an emotional book. I say emotional because
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: I told people when I get a book like this
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: outter slow read it because sometimes they hit points where
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: I go, I'm about to about to go there, I'm
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: not let me finish this moment. And because I remember
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: a moment with my dad, uh two, when I owned
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: a comedy club and my dad had never ever been
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: to anything I've been, and he just showed up at
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: the comedy club and uh it was sold out and
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: looked at the libbarists. What you're doing, your dad, He goes,
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: I come to see my son. And he looked around.
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: He looked, wow, this you this you this you? And
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: I went, uh, yes, sir, yes, sir you. Because always
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: said certain to my dad, and uh he said, he said,
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: he said, I'm proud of your son. And and and
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: like I said, this is because that's what the book
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: did to me as a dad. Because when you start
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: talking about incarceration and you talked about remember you're talking
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: you said earlier right turn, left, turn those turns. I
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: always say that. When I was in college, you know
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: you you played a fraternity. I pledged to make a
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: side five, and you always do stupid things. I remember
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: that the Big brothers said we want some plants. Well,
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: we didn't have no money, and so I remember just
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: just giant open field where they had plants back in
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: the day, and reminded the Lyon brothers. We went and
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: stole these plants. Man. I mean, if you look back
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: on the Craig from the freeway, you would have seen
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: us running across this field with these plants. Okay, So
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: anybody could have went, what are those black dudes boys
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: doing running with all these giant plants. And I had
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: a little Fiat X one nine, which is a two seater,
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: and the truck was in the front, so I had
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: to put the plants in the front and black and
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: my win seal. So along the way I could have
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: stopped and stopped by the police and been incarcerated, and
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: my life could have changed. On that right turn left
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: turn that you were talking about earlier, you are meeting
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: men who've done something far worse than what I've talked about,
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: but they have made a mistake. And sometimes because they
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: made a mistake, we don't give them a second chance
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: because we feel that they're unworthy of that second chance.
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: And then in your book you talk about guess what
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: they are fathers too. Let's talk about their journey of
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: you doing a story I think basically changed your life,
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: and it started with Camp Grace. Yeah, it was one
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: of the most impactful stories I've ever done. Uh, there's
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: a I don't even remember how we found out about
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: this camp, but um, I was probably reading some article
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: in an obscure publication about this UM summer camp at
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: a maximum security prison in uh California, Salina's State Valley
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: Prison is the name of the facility, and for one
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: week every summer UM they bring in about a dozen
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: or so kids to basically have a camp experience with
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: their dad's I mean, you know, arts and crafts, and
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: they play games, and they sing songs and they do
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: all the stuff that do at a camp. And these
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: kids are between the ages of you know, sad under
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: eight and in fifteen or sixteen. And the guys who
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: are part of the program have to um exhibit good
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: behavior for a full year the campus. A it's a privilege.
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: And UM I went out and spend some time talking
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: to these guys and it ended up being just an
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: emotional day because these these are men. First of all,
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: most of them are not going to be getting out
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: of prison. I mean they've some of them have have
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: have been convicted of doing some pretty heinous things. UM.
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: But the two women that started the camp, both of
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: their husbands were incarcerated and consequently weren't really a part
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: of the child's lives. They would get the occasional visit,
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: you know, on a weekend, and you've got the glass,
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: and but they weren't able to really be a part
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: of the child's lives. So they came up side there
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: for a camp. And I talked to one of the
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: guys out there, and I asked him the question I
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: knew a lot of people are going to be asking
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: when they watched the read this story. How can someone
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: um accused of some of the things these guys were
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: accused of. How in what universe do they deserve the
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: right to spend time with with it with the child?
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: And without missing a beat, he said to me, tears
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: in his eyes. Um, they might be right. I may
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: not deserve it, but you know what credit my kids do.
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: My kids deserve to know their father. They didn't do
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: anything wrong, they didn't make any bad choices. Uh. And
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: his larger point, and I think this was just a
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: valid If we're serious about stopping the prison pipeline that
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: we always talk about, uh, then we need to make
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: sure that kids of of incarcerated individuals have relationships with them.
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: He spent a fair amount of his time talking to
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: his daughter about choices, making good choices, not ending up
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: where he ended up. It's a fantastic pro women. It
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: moved me. It also moved me, Sean because my grandmother,
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: and it's the first line in the book. Not to
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: give away too much, but you know, my my grandmother.
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: Uh now, when I knew her, she was here, she
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: was going to church at the church, coming home from church,
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: like she she only loved the Lord, but apparently long
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: before I came along. But this just just say she's
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: a bootlegger. I want to give it no more than that.
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: Just say she's a bootleg. I don't want to give
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: her the earther part. Okay, see a bootlegger. She was
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: a bootlegger. She was a bootlegger. And and and and
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: got a second CHANCEY did. And had she not gotten
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: a second chance, who's to say whether I would be
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: here right now, you know. But it is the thing
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: I want to point out about that. Now, his grandmother
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: was in the same jail that Martha Stewart was in.
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: So she got how many chances as she's got. Okay,
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: but in the same facility now. And so so when
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: I when I when I read the book and and
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: and and it's consis an emotional journey because it's your story,
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: but it's a relatable story because I remember when my
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: younger brother was incarcerated in California and uh glass talking
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: and uh and I was in tears and and and
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: he told me he couldn't cry. He's I reached. I
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: can't cry. I can't They can't, he said, I kid,
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: and my nicknames Ricky and Rickie. I can't cry because
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: they see me cryed out here. I pay a price
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: when I go back inside. And in that book, you know,
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: you know when you interview and he said, look, he said,
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: thank god, I have a sale by myself because now
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: I can't cry. And so I love the fact that
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: you were humanizing people because we we see these we
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: see this, we see the violent size, and nobody is
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: trying to downplay that. But we have made mistakes. There
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: are people on the other side of this that have
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: to deal with the emotionalise the kids, and like one
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: of them said, look, um, it's all right early on
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: when you're playing cards and you're playing catch, but when
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: they become teens, the conversation becomes different. And that's what
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: fatherhood's all about, which leads to your whole life or
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: being a father, being connected to your dad and not
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: being a present day father. Let's talk about that great,
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: you know it. I think that I think that you
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: can be shaped by negative examples, um, just as much
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: as you can be shaped by positive examples. In fact,
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: I think in so many instances, maybe even more so. So.
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: You know, growing up, I didn't know the kind of
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: man that I wanted to be. I didn't certainly know
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: the kind of father that I wanted to be. But
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: up until a few years ago, I knew I didn't
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: want to be anything of anything like my dad. Yes, um,
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: and and and and that was what what motivated me
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: personally and professionally, probably to a certain extent now that
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: I'm talking about it. But no, it's it's it's funny
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: because I have to remind my kids sometimes and I
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: have a job, and and and consequently I cannot be
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: at their back and call uh they and not because
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: you know, when my dad was there when we were younger,
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: it was it was big, like it was a wedding
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: or funeral or graduation, or that that Little League game
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: that I write about it I remember because it was
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: so weird. Dad didn't show up with stuff, in part
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: because he worked third shift at the post office, but
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: in larger part because because of the addiction issues that
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: he had um So as a result, I'm going to
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: the other end of the spectrum. So if you know,
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: I'm there for soccer games and my daughter had a
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: gymnastics recital last Sunday morning, and you know something, I'm
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: physically present as often as and as much as I
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: came to do you know, pick I do school, pick
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: up and trying to do it all because you know,
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: my dad didn't do any other Another problem that that
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: that you create when you do that, and it took
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: me a while to pigure this out. I've created expectations
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: so if if I'm not there to go that he
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: has got to travel for work, Well, Daddy, why can't
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: you can you take a later flight? And they can
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: you go tomorrow? And I've had to say a few times,
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: you know that it's the job that pays for all
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: of this. You don't get to go to dance or
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: you don't get to go with the soccer If Dad
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: is not hopping on playing like so that that's the
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: that's the that's the the unfortunate part. But there you
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: know they're starting to understand. But it's funny as you
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: become a parent, how you at some point to come
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: you become the kind of for me at least, the
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: kind of father that I used to mock, yes, hate
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: it with My dad would talk about, you know, how
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: much something costs you don't have money to and and
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: when we were younger, we didn't like he wasn't lying,
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: like we knew we didn't have a lot of money
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: when we had enough with my kids, you know, I've
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: I've said a few times and we can't afford this,
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: and myself was I missing Beto say yes we can,
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: what you can, and I'm like, and then you then
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: you find yourself trying to come up with a new
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: excuse like, uh, well maybe we can't afford it, but
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: that we don't need it. You don't need that, right
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: right right. It's hard And I know we're about to
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: wrap up. I want to bring up a very um
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: a fun moment as a parent, and I I want
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: to share with you because you wrote about it when
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: your son climbed into bed, and you know, and then
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: then your kids when they sleep. If you if you
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: don't have kids children you got a very young child
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: when they climb in the bed, they forget you in bed.
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: They kids got the worst sleepers in the world, especial
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: when they get that six to ten years of age
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: were sleep And so when you said that in the book,
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: you said, you you may miss that. I remember I
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: talked to my daughter when she was like seventeen. I said, hey,
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: what you what you're hopping bed watching TV? Sh what
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: you're talking about? I said, you know, can we not
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: watch the TV? Can we not watch TV? Together? And
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: then we used to go, I don't do that no more, dad, No, no,
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: we're not doing that. So I would tell you this, Craig,
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: that more brought laughter to me. They brought back memories
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: as your book, you know, the amazingly good book Pops
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: Learning to Be a Son and the Father. Man. Uh,
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: it's a great read. And like I said, it slowed
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: me when I said the word slowed me because I
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: was becoming emotional because, like I said, my father was
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: a beer drinker. My father worked hard as a truck driver.
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: My father, like I said, was he in my life.
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: I don't know, but did he shaped me to be
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: the man I am today? Yes, he did because he
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: had a role in it, and that that role has
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: made me to be the man I am. ID like
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: to believe. I'm a good parent to my daughter, a
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: good husband to my wife. And those are the things
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: that that the stories that you tell out of this book,
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: from the incarcerated to individuals who raised you as a family,
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: the community, and whether teachers who shaped you as third grade,
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: teachers who shaped you as as you go through life
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: and you went to school and you didn't want to
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: didn't want to shame your uncle when you didn't pledge
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: calf outside. But it was all good. Man. I love
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: your book, Craig. I want to appreciate you for putting
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: it out there. Man, thank you, Thank you for your time.
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: I've enjoyed this conversation. You're very good at what you do.
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: Thank you for having Okay, we talked, so man, I'm
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: gonna put this on I got look, I got a
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: nice little social media I'm gonna put that out there
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: and my newsletter. We're gonna get that out there for you. Okay, Craig,
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: thank you? All right, by bye, we will be right
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: back with more money making conversations with your host or
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: Sean McDonald. It's finally here, the season of celebration, and
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• 32:23
  Speaker 1: Minute of Inspiration with Rashan McDonald. Despite being known for loud,
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  Speaker 1: softer side of Stephen A. Smith if revealed when discussing
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  Speaker 1: If you want to hear this full interview with Stephen A. Smith,
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: visit money Making Conversation dot com. Keep winning. Welcome back
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: to Money Making Conversations with your host, Rashan McDonald. My
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: next guest is a longtime friend. Her name is Nicki Walton.
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  Speaker 1: Nick is the best selling and nub A CP Award
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• 33:33
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  Speaker 1: talk about in detail. In two thousand and eight, Walton
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: launch Curly Nikki dot Com, which became the number one
• 33:42
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• 33:46
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  Speaker 1: a daily morning show to help listeners find peace and
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: chaos and light and darkness. It debated in the top
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: five and spirituality on Apple Podcasts. Nikki Walton is dedicated
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: to helping people find freedom through their natural hair, healthier
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: lifestyle choices, and ultimately through their spiritual enlightenment. Please walking
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: with the money making conversation. It's been too long, was fouling.
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: She has arrived. Nikki Walton, thank you, thank you. I'm
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: so honored to be here. You have a powerful, powerful platform.
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: I absolutely appreciate everything you do to keep us all
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: inspired and push for greater like leveling up, always leveling up. Well,
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: you know, I thank you, thank you. You know we've
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: we've known on each other for a long time. You
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: know when Steve and I was at HarperCollins and was
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: introduced when your first book came out and uh and
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: and I want to start there. I want to start
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: there because of the the natural hair care boom, which
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: I like to believe you were in front of, and
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: now it seems to be. You know, we've seen lawsuits,
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: we've seen uh, we've seen corporate structures change, We've seeing
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: the military service change their standards. With that being said,
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: let's talk about that journey that started. And it started
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: before two thousand and eight. But then you launch your
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: site currently Nikki dot com, in two thousand and eight.
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: So but a lot of people question your journey, your
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: decision and said, hey, what's wrong with straight hair. You
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: never said it was anything wrong with straight hair or
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: processed hair or permed hair. It just say why can't
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: I do it naturally correct exactly, Let's get some healthy
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: options and versatility. I've never been anti straight hair, or
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: anti weed, or even anti relaxed. I just wanted to
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: show women that they had the option to embrace and
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: work with their texture, which can truly improve your quality
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: of life. I mean, I grew up being afraid to
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: get in a swimming pool. I grew up being afraid
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: to get in the drop top car. I grew up
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: being afraid to go on vacation without a plan for
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: my hair. You know, you can't go to a job
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: interview unless you already know like what I'm gonna do
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: with my hair, And when you're trying to figure that out,
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: you're not caring for the interview itself, right, You're not
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: on your a game. So learning how to work with
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: your hair, learning and like learning how to appreciate it
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: and feel good in your own hair free up some
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: bandwidth to be able to actually succeed and focus on
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: the things that need to do. So it's like it's
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: it completely changes your entire life when your hair isn't
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: the foremost the foremost thought in your mind. Okay, let's letten.
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: I grew up with six sisters, because I'm not saying
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: that my authority on anybody's hair, especially my own. I
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: don't even have hair, Okay, so at some point I
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: had it. I had it, but I thought I was
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: looking good. I still think I'm looking good without it.
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: So we work picking up at all. I thought I
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: was a baby Michael Jackson because we was the same age.
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: So Mike me going out there and grooving together. When
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: I when I look at what exactly, because I want
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: to really get a clear definition with natural hairets because
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: my mom, you know, she would take a curling iron
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: to my sister's hair and straight in it. Okay, now
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: is that the natural hair? That are we saying that
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: that's what straightening is? Yeah, no, that is heat style
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: natural hair. So that's when I grew up with. We
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: weren't allowed to get terms or relaxers in my household.
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: That was the decision that we were gonna have to make,
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: you know, got out the house. But eat sally, that's
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: blow dryers, that's hot curlers, that's pressing combes off, so
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: that's flat iron. You can eat sell your natural hair.
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: But if you don't do it carefully, and if you
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: do it too much, you can end up damaging your
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: your natural hair. And it's actually called it a permanently straighten.
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: You have to throw that out or to just get
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: dry and break off, which I dealt with in college
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: when I started playing the key too much. Right, And
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: now then I'm gonna go to my daughter. You know,
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: she was a tennis prodigy, prodigy, and so you know,
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: wanting to you know, you get a process, so it's
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: quick and easy, and I'm not using terminology. I'm not
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: trying to get anybody mad not, I'm just speaking roushan
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: point of reference, okay, my sister's my next point of
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: references my daughter Okay, And I would say that I
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: did the permanent. We have to stop because of the
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: fact that it broke all our hair out, okay, But
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: we were doing it because it was convenient. We were
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: doing it because it lasts a certain period of time.
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: I didn't have to be bothered. Is that what it is?
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: That is that part of the problem of women's convenience.
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: Convenience as major, that's all of us. But the problem
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: is why why is that work convenient? And it's because
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: of the standard society standard that straight hair is better.
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: So it's convenient to get a firm instead of, uh,
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: you know, get your hair blacker, because it's going to
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: actually last longer. I might would stand the humidity. If
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: you'll get it wet, you know, it'll stay straighter, you know,
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: versus you having it pressed out. So it's convenient if
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: you're trying to mimic a certain standard of beauty. But
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: it's less convenient, you know, if you're actually trying to
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: work with the texture, Like my hair doesn't grow O,
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: don't mind scout straight you know, if I worked with
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: the highly textured fors and waves, then it's convenient to
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: do a twist out. You know, it's convenient to keep
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: it in twists, it's convenient to do a curly fun
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: So it's just like we have to change the way
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: we think about stuff. On the other hand, natural hair
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: is a lot. Our hair is amazing, and we are
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: some of us are blessed with great density. Like my daughter,
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: her hair comes like it goes to her, but that's
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: how long it is. But it's three times as thick
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: as mine, and it takes like a full Saturday. And
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: I would never let her know that it's a burden
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: like as it is. It takes from like nine am
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: until five pm for the selling process. I mean, so
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: when I'm doing her hair, it's like, oh, your hair
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: is supportious. Oh my goodness, you have so much hair.
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: So trying to instill in her your hair as beautiful
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: as it is. You don't need to do anything to
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: be better. You're already perfect. Now. You was was talking
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: about your hair from nine to five and you and
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: you empower her with the knowledge that she's beautiful with
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: her natural hair. Now with that empowerment, leads to a
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: lot of adult conversations that you have with women who
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: aren't kids anymore, who may have kids, who may have
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: been um pushed in the in the wrong direction about
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: what beauty is. Because I always tell people this is
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: that what you what you, what do you? What people
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: think of you can lead you in a lot of
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: different directions. If people are saying positive things about you,
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: then it can uplift you and motivate you to success.
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: If people drop a knowledge that you have to look
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: a certain way to appeal to a certain lane of success,
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: it also can diminish your success story or opportunities because
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: you feel if you're not looking like that, how can
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: you be successful exactly now. It's very, very challenging, and
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: you have to find a center within yourself so that yes,
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: you received constructive criticisms, but that you're not on a
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: roller coaster going up and down with people praising you
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: or people putting you down. When I first decided to
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: go natural, my family was not for it, and that
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: it wasn't coming from a place of um hate, It
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: was coming a place of protection. They wanted to see
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: me have the most, you know, opportunities, the to get
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: into the best schools to get the best jobs, and
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: they honestly didn't think because of the society that we
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: live in, that I would have the opportunity to do
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: that with my hair and looking like this, you know.
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: So they were like, no, no, no, re sacrificed so
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: much for you, just just where it's straight, and I couldn't.
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: I respect them and I love them, but I knew
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: that that advice wasn't something that I could take, you know,
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: because I was coming I was beginning to come into
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: my own and into my self love. And I'm like,
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: if the world can't accept me how I was born,
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: if you know, this job or this school, this university
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: can't accept this in this package without it, you know,
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: being modified, then I don't need to be there. I'll
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: take it somewhere else and succeed there. And thankfully, you know,
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: I paved away for myself and other women who look
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: like me to be able to stand in rooms and
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: stand in the light with their hair the way it
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: naturally grows. And if I want to straighten it tomorrow,
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: which I do, sometimes, I can do that and I'll
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: feel just as pretty that way it now. Thank God,
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: I don't only feel pretty when my hair is straight
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: because I went through that. You know, all through college,
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: I only felt pretty when my hair was straightened. And
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: that's not healthy because that's not what it looks like
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: most of the time. You know. It's really interesting because
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: when I'm talking to I'm talking to Nicki Walton Um,
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: founder of the Curly Nicki dot com website, and I'd
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: like to say, um movement. Let's let's say curly Nicki
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: dot com movement because you know, but you know, you
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: have to deal with a lot. Let's let's go and
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: break it down when we talk about natural hair because
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: natural hair within our black community, okay, you have to
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: deal with that, you know, and then you have to
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: each other, right, and you have natural hair within the
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: white community, because they really didn't understand what's wrong with
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: your hair? While your hair all over the place? Why
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: is it so big? You know? So how do were
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: you able to because that's what they were worried about,
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: you know, you know, as a parent, that's all I
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: worry about my daughter. I was just trying to give
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: her a better life, a better opportunity to not endure
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: the pain and suffering that I have endure. And if
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: I can get her there a lot better with some advice.
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: That's all they was doing. But in the process of
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: saying who you want to be, that was your community,
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: your people telling you know. So now you have your
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: community telling you know. And then you know. In the
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: real world, like we talked about, the military has changed
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: their laws you still read about periodically, or some athletes
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: or some student has been forced to change the hair.
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: The hair was cut during a wrestling match or sporting event.
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: Just cut their hair because it was natural, and they
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: perceived that it would be a disadvantage for you to
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: go out there with natural hair. It would get in
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: the way. Now, with all that being said two thousand
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: and eight, which twelve thirteen years ago, it was uglier
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: back then. How did you break through the noise? You know,
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: I say, it's each individual. So when I would post
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: every single day Monday through Friday, three times a day
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: on Curly Nikki, I was reaching obviously millions of people.
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: But whenever I'm writing those articles, it's like I'm reaching
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: that one person that's on the other side of the screen,
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: and I know that she is going to be touched
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: and then she's gonna take it to her real life network,
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: her real life. She's gonna impact her mother, her sister,
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: her best friend, her cousin is they're gonna see her,
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: you know, applying the tips and the principles and the
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: love from the inside out, you know, and using these
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: products and getting great results. And her family, her network
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: is gonna see it, and they're gonna be intrigued and
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: they're gonna do it. And that was what happened between
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: two valcondate and like twenty twenty, like everything changed and
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: it caught on like wildflower, like wildfire, because people can
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: see she's self confident, and it's not just because her
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: hair looks good, like something has shifted in her from
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: the inside out. And hair leads you into that journey.
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: It guides you into that journey, but it's just the
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: beginning of that journey. And the outside world, the people
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: closest into you, they see that change and they're like,
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: I want some of that, and then it just continues
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: to spread out. And so with you're confident in yourself,
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: when you go out into the world, people don't have
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: to understand you. So when we go into like rooms
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: where there's white people, if you are firmed here, they
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: don't have anything to say. They have nothing to say,
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: and if they do, they're not saying it to your
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: heat right to ast you, just Curly Nicki of the
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: Niki Movement, the Curly Nicki Movement, Nicky Vaultan, you know,
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: I've seen so many pictures of you travel, you know,
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: and it was always a journey of like trying to
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: find yourself in my mind, you know, because I tell
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: everybody you know, in twenty sixteen, when I stopped managing
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: Steve Harvey, I had to find myself. I didn't even
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: see myself as being successful because I didn't have a
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: voice of what success was. And so I don't find
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: that as a negative when I say that, because if
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: you don't have to define understanding of who you are,
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: then how can you chase success. If you do chase success,
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: it's going to be temporary because confusion is gonna set in.
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: And when the mistakes happen that you don't understand how
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: to fix, didn't fail, you will become the champion. And
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: so those journeys, because this journey is gonna lead to
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: your relationships I'm gonna be talking about, which it's going
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: to lead into your very popular Good Mornings with Nikki
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: Curly Nikki Podcasts right now in the top five on
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: the spirituality on Apple Podcasts. Those journeys. Talk to me
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: about that. Yeah, so I could tell in about after
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: meeting you, I had hit the bestseller's list with my
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: book with HarperCollins. Very successful, you know, have husband, healthy kids,
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: the house, the bins, big diamonds, traveling all over the world,
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: you know, doing great nonprofit organization partnerships for content on
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: curly dot Com, beautiful charmed life, Dr Oz Spots, Steve
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: Harvey spots, you know, hanging out with you life. But
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: I wasn't happy. And I'm like, if I can't be
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: happy with all of this stuff, and I'm still looking
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: for the next magazine interview, the next TV spot, the
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: next this, the next at the bigger diamond, the bigger car,
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: Like I'm never gonna be happy. And I could feel
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: that emptiness, and so I knew I needed to continue
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: to seek further. And I had already been on a
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: spiritual journey I've been on once since I was a kid.
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: My parents that I started asking questions that, like seven,
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: I was raised Catholic, and they had no answers for me,
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: and so I just decided to start reading again, and
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: I read probably six hundred books between two thousand and
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: twelve and two thousand eighteen from all the different world religions,
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: traveled to India, travel to Spain, traveled to Africa twice,
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: you know, and sitting in these different oshrooms and temples
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: and churches, And at some point when I was in Jerusalem,
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: I could tell, I'm like, no matter where I am,
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: this presence is this love. There's like an inner exhil
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: and inner peace. Like right now, if you can you
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: at home and you two are shown just like lower
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: your shoulders a little bit and like breathe into your
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: stomach and let your stun attention in your stomach go
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: and just kind of like come into your body and
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: come into the moment. And it's a different way to exist.
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: It's like being home, being in church. No matter I'm
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: at charge, wherever I am, it's like there's everything is holy.
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: So when I noticed that, it didn't matter where I
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: was or who I was with, I'm like, it's always here.
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: This happiness that's natural peace is always right here where
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: I am. And that was freedom for me. And I
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: started reading more specifically about enlightenment and what that meant
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: two different cultures and two different people and different religions,
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: and it all pointed out to the same thing. There's
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: a light that we all have, but most of us
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: are unaware of it, and so then we seek stuff
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: out here, the shining things out here, to try to
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: replace that. But if you can just find that light
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: within your true purpose and the that's and all of
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: that unfolds from that light. But you have to be
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: aware of that light here or you'll be distracted and
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: empty looking out here in the world. You know, it's
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: really interesting because my gift is seeing people for for
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: who they are what they can be. And you know,
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: I've seen you a lot like and we have hung out.
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: I remember sometimes hanging out of the neighborhood awards or
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: the hood whatever time about life backstage and but and
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: you know, even in those periods, I saw a talented person,
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: but I didn't see a voice. You know what I'm saying,
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: It's almost like you and this is not in it.
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: So you're almost like, you know, you know, you have
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: this crowd of people and then this person trying to
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: get into the crowd. That was who I always kind
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: of saw you, and I couldn't really figure out why
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: you couldn't be in the crowd even though you had
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: the statue you have, you were beautiful, you articulate, you
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: have a resume, but it almost felt like you were
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: trying to look at me, look at me. I got
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: something to say, I got to something to say. Now
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: I see a much more focused person. There have been
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: some changes in your life, but you're more focused about you.
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: And I tell people it ought to be successful. You
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: can talk to anybody. A lot of people used were
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: selfish in a bad way, but at some point in
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: your life to be successful, it has to be about you.
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: And if it's never been about you, then guess what.
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: Confusion sets in and also frustration sets in. And I
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: saw a talented, frustrated person. Why isn't this talented, frustrated
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: person frustrated anymore? Because I found my message and my passion.
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: Like I said, when you saw me, I was definitely
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: in the light and and not in this light, but
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: I was like the world viewed who I was as
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: this figure that you know, natural hair, public figure. But
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: when I would go on TV for that, it didn't
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: feel completely I wasn't completely meat and I didn't know
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: who me was, Like what that was, and so I
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: dug deep, Like from the time the last time I
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: saw you, like until last year, I've been off the map.
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: You know this it's been all about, like you said,
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: it's not you can call it selfish, you know, I
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: call it like being selfless. I needed to get the
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: Nikki ego out of the way, you know, the part
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: of NICKI that thought she knew where Nikki's life was
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: heading and what they needed to do. And most of
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: that came from what other people thought Nikki should do.
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: You know, almost all of my desires and once and
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: the goals were coming from society and from the people
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: posts to me, and even people just kind of on
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: the outside, like in the comments section, like you should
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: do this, and you should do this, and you should
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: launch that. And like you said, you get confused. You
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: don't know which way to turn. And so when I
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: shut all that out and I went inward and found this,
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: I could see very clearly at times like I helped
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: black women find freedom through breathing their natural hair, and
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: now I helped myself find like a deeper, more real,
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: more full freedom through finding this light that we all have.
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: No matter who you are, you can have it. If
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: you're sitting in it, you're sitting at it. And now
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: I want to help people move into that freedom. And
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: it's the only button I have, one switch, no matter
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: what I'm interviewed about. I was being interviewed by like
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: team boats about hair and skin and immediately turned it
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: turned to this. This is the only switch. I can
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: talk about it till I'm doing the face. I'm here
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: on this earth at this time to present this message
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: of self, love and self with the capital S not
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: just you're human, buts this presence that's beyond your love
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: it love it Now. I would get phone calls, you know,
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: we shine, you know what. All these women showed up.
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: They showed up and they're sitting on pillows and they
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: want to hit me, speak and relax. We shine, you know.
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: And but but that was that journey, you know, you
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: know maybe the last time I saw you. But we've
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: been talking and that's all you're talking about it and
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: absolutely and you've seen you just wanted to go up
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: to New York and he was working at some storyline
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: with Dr Oz TV show What can we do with that?
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: But I always felt that in Tracey would go traces
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: about producer for thirty fift media ink. And so she
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: would go and go, wis what we're gonna do? I said,
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: I don't know if she knows who she is? I say,
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: I said, I don't. I don't get her. And I
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: would tell her in trade to go you'll get her. No,
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: I don't get her, Okay, because there has been a
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: certain degree of clarity. And now I get you now
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: because I understand there's some because sometimes, yeah, just be honest.
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: A lot of times in your life, even though I
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: was talking to you, I felt like somebody else was
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: talking through you, Okay, And now when I'm talking to you,
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: I feel like I'm talking to the person that's making
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: the decisions about what you want to be, not because
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: it's an opportunity, it's what you want to do that
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: it's what I'm here to do. And I took that
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: advice you gave me back, like you are amazing, You
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: will be successful. You have to get clarity. I can't
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: help you be successful in spirituality until you make some
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: moves and spirituality and to step out very start sharing
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: your message and stop being scared basically. And so I
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: took that medicine and started just kind of dipping my
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: toe and you know, and easing in there and I've
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: reached back out after I had jumped in and found
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: my I found my voice. Come on, now, Good Mornings
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: were Curly Nikki. Come on now, natural hair, spirituality, found yourself.
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: Been stepped on a little bit emotionally, been been ran over,
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: like we're supposed to get run over. I've been run over. Okay,
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: we go into this. It's like when you get ran over,
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: when you get beat up a little bit, you know,
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: like it brings you more clarity. And so I'm radically
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: grateful for the lessons, you know, in these last ten
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: years to just bring me closer to myself. So I
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: need nothing but this love. So tell us about this
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: amazing podcast. It was so fantastic on Apple Podcast. Now
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: I'm just telling the worst spirituality. Kind of scared some people.
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: Are she gonna be preachy to me? I don't know
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: the Bible that well, oh my god, I don't even
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: go to church. What is you're doing? She's Curly NICKI
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: I got straight air. Can I listen to her? I do?
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: I got priv Can I listened to her? Tell us
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: about what you're Good Mornings with Curly nick is all
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: about and it's welcome to all people. Yes, welcome to everyone.
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: So in twenty in November, something different because I wanted
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: to see something different. So I started waking up and
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: actually getting out of the bed at five o'clock in
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: the morning. And I've done that every day since November.
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: I meditate, journal, do my yoga all before the kids
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: got up calling my name or I had to be
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: curly Nikki, or I needed to be a daughter or sister.
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: I could just beat during those two hours and during
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: that time, Like somewhere in the last few months, this idea,
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: this clarity came that you know, I share on Instagram
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: every day, but it's words I write. I type many
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: many words using that platform in a way. It's not
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: intim it's used. And I'm like, maybe with all these
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: d ms I'm getting from women and men from all
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: over the world, you know, like my demographic is just
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: expanding and expanding, I'm like, maybe there's another platform that
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: I can answer these questions, you know, because I'm only
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: one person. Because it was getting overwhelming, and so I thought,
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: I set this intention to get up before the sun
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: every morning, and it's changed my life. And I'm not
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: gonna tell people they have to get up before the sun.
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: But I am going to tell them they need to
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: set an intention by getting quiet and spending time with
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: You can call it God, you can call it love,
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: you can call it the I Am. It doesn't need
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: a name because it existed before language did. So whatever
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: you wanna call it source the universe. That we're gonna
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: sit with that every morning for just five to two minutes,
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: and then you go into the day. Like you said, leading,
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: you know, with your your success or leading with your passions.
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: They're gonna lead with their love. With this light. They're
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: gonna go out into the world as light as love,
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: and it changes their lives and the lives of the
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: people that they bumped into along the way. And the
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: feedback has been tremendous. You know, it's all already grown greatly,
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: just like it's only this is moving into week two,
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: and it's amazing like word of mouth, you know, because
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: it's not preaching. It's an easy it's a it's a reminding.
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: So you already know this. Whoever you are listening to me,
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: you already know that you feel stuck and you feel unhappy,
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: even if you appear to be happy. Something's not quite right,
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: and you know it's not quite right, and you're like,
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: this can't be. Like I'm living the same day over
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: and over again. It sucks. That's how everyone feels until
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: they find this. And once you have this, everything else
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: starts to work. You know, Good Mornings with Curly Nikki
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: is the podcast, the fair popular podcast that you can
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: find on Apple Podcasts, which you know, always tell if
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: you if you're not on Apple, well yet, okay, exactly,
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: you know, the Apple is the place to be. I'm
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: on Apple podcast and so but when I look at
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: different lanes, this is different line. Your lane is different,
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: my lane, my money making conversation. I'm trying to motivate
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: people through entrepreneurship. You're trying to motivate people through futuality,
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: which would in some ways slide into people who want
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: to be entrepreneurs, people who want to find the right
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: person in your life, people who want to graduate from
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: high school, people want to graduate from college, people want
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: to meet the right person in their life. People want
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: to be able to get along with their kids. It
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: is such a huge bandwidth of opportunity for you, because
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: mine is really a niche. Your is You're covering all
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: these bases. How confidence do you feel you'll be able
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: to cover all these bases, Nikki Walton, Because I know
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: that there is only this one presence, this one love,
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: and it is the essence of everything. So it is
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: the essence of your health, it's the essence of your wealth,
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: you know. And so if you can get into touch
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: with this and practice it, meaning keeping some attention on it,
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: you have your thoughts, but right now to see your thoughts,
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: there's a place inside where you don't have to quiet
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: your thoughts. There's a place inside that's already quiet. There's
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: a place inside that's already relaxed with the place inside
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: that's already meditating. So if you can get into that place,
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: then all of those other areas work. And it's just
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: that's just what it is. It's like law, and it
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: works beautifully. And I've seen it happen in thousands of
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: women's lives that I've worked with. In my life, I'm living,
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: absolutely living my whole life change, you know, in a
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: matter of like three or four years, from the inside out.
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: After finding this and then practicing it every day and
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: every moment. She's a nominated author. I first met her
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: on the first book at HarperCollins and the twenty thirteam
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: Better than the Good Hair and the second hair was
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: when Good Hair Goes Bad and now Good Mornings with
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: Curly Nikki. Curli Nikki dot com is a website where
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: it's worldwide or with thirty countries, millions of people are
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: traffic is amazing. She has a total ownership of curly
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: Nikki dot com. Now. One of the changes that she's
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: promoting the ownership and controlling your voice. She's not jumping
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: on the outside trying to get in. She is in
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: and when she's inside, she's changing lives and welcome to
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: the world of being who you are. Because we need
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: a responsible individual will respond so before us being able
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: to show us to light. Thank you Curly Nikki for
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: coming on money making conversations. Thank you. We will be
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: right back with more money making conversations with your host
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: or Sean McDonald. Every year, compliance regulations change thousands of times,
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: and every year ADP makes thousands of seamless platform updates
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: so businesses can focus on everything else like running their
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: business grow stronger with ADP HR talent, time and payroll.
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: Hi everyone, i'l roker here as a guy with his
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: own catchphrase. I appreciate that Smokey's only said only you
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: can prevent wildfires, but I'm filling in because there's a
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• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: the Perez family home, just waiting for the and there
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: they go, almost on time. This morning. Mom is coming
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: out the front door, strong with a double arm kid carry.
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: Looks like Dad has the bags. Daughter is bringing up
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: the rear. Oh but the diaper bag wasn't closed. Diapers
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: and toys are everywhere. Oh but mom has just nailed
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: the perfect car seat buckle for the toddler. And now
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: the eldest daughter, who looks to be about nine or ten,
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: has secured herself in the booster seat. Dad SIPs the
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: bag clothes and they're off. Ah, but looks like Mom
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: doesn't realize her coffee cup is still on the roof
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: of the car and there it goes. Ah, that's a
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: shame that mug was a fan favorite. Don't sweat the
• 1:01:43
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  Speaker 1: Mitza and the ad Council are now tuned into the
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  Speaker 1: money making conversations. Minute of Inspiration with Rushan McDonald Lamar
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  Speaker 1: Rucker beginning his career on daytime soap operas As the
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  Speaker 1: World Turned and All My Children Lament discovered when COVID
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: nineteen hit, it changed the game in television production. You know,
• 1:02:16
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• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: also trying to not only minimize costs, but minimize this
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  Speaker 1: leaves exposure, risks and all that. So you're literally working
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: virtually every day for a month, one day off every
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  Speaker 1: six you know, seven days or something like that. The
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• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: your body and be careful about being fatigued and make
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  Speaker 1: sure you're getting the proper rest and recovery and nutrition.
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: I have COVID compliance officers on set. You know, again,
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: we get tested on a regular basis. I think that
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: people are doing the best they can because again, they
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: also don't want to get shut down. If you want
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: to hear this full interview with Laman Rocket, visit money
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: Maker Conversation dot com. Keep winning. Welcome back to Money
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: Making Conversations with your host, Rashan McDonald. My next guest
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: is Dr Katrinel Davis. She's an Associate professor of sociology
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: and African American Studies at Florida State University. She's a
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: social change scholar inspired by the struggles of working class
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: people in the urban areas who contend with extraordinary socio
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: economic constraints despite their best efforts, basically trying to get
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: out of the hood and nobody's trying to help. Through
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: a teaching in scholarship, Davis explores how racial, gender, and
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: class biases, as well as institutional constraint, shaped Black neighborhoods
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: their resources, and how social groups navigating through these existing hurdles,
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: which leads us to Dr Davis's latest book, Tainting Tainted
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: Tap Flinch Journey from Crisis to recovery again Tint Taint
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: Proof Tainted Tap Flints Journey from Crisis to Recovery, focused
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: on the origin and health consequences of the water crisis
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: in Flint, Michigan, by the way, where she was born.
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: Please work with the money making conversations, Dr Katrina Davis.
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: How you doing, doctor, I am doing great. Thanks for
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: having me or then getting tongue tied on the tile
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: of your book, Flints Journey from Crisis to recovery. Now
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: when I see that, has that been a recovery? Well,
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: they're in the process of recovery, but Flint has not
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: recovered from the water crisis. And the water crisis, as
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: we can say, is one giant cover up. Can I
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: say that? I love that. Let's talk about that cover up. Absolutely,
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: Let's let's call it a cover up, because that's what
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: it is. Absolutely, And so because a lot of people
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: knew it before the people were drinking the water, like
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: when I think General Mojors stopped accepting water, okay from
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: Flint so and then the local city hall started getting
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: water delivered to them, and it wasn't until January where
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: in your book that it was acknowledged that there's a
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: problem with the water and the public was being notified
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: about it. Talk about, let's start there when when I
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: have to say it's a cover up, when the when
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: the business world is aware, because they cover in their
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: basis so they won't get sued. Okay, that's why they
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: stopped accepting water, but the general public and then and
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: then when they stopped accepting it, they didn't tell their
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: employees where the water was coming from. So that's when
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: you start using word cover up. And I use it
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: in the professional manner because I do. In other words,
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: you can use if you if you know some information
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: that I need to know that's going to affect my life,
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: but you refuse or failed to tell me, that's a
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: cover So you were born in Flint, You're a person
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: who's seen this neighborhood transition. You talk about how all
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 1: the all the because in seventeen it was recognized that Flint, Michigan,
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: was the poorest city in the United States. That's your
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: story in the book basically starts in correct. Well, the story,
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: the main story about the crisis starts in UM two
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: thousand and fifteen. But the story about what's happened to
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: Flint actually began in the nineteen sixties, because I think
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: it's important for us to understand that this whole the
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: struggle that that flipped faced during this crisis, UM is
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: a struggle that has a lot to do with this
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: history of uneven development, this whole idea of we're gonna
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: pour money into the downtown areas, but let the the
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: north side of the of the city struggle and suffer
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: from decay um uh, no maintenance, et cetera. And so yeah,
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: this cover up UH, or the part of the cover
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: up that we're very familiar with, starts somewhere in two
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: thousand and fifteen. But I would say it starts a
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: bit earlier than that, because what's what the public that
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 1: know about the crisis is that the State of Michigan
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 1: had it effectively uh disinvested from its water protection protocols
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: UH somewhere around two thousand and six two thousand seven.
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 1: So even if it was even if the e p
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: A and the state was doing what it was supposed
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: to do UM around two thousand and fifteen or in
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: in position to do to respond to residents concerns, UM,
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: we would have seen a better response had they been
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: positioned to do the things that they were supposed to do.
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: Have they've been agencies working like they're supposed to work,
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: but they weren't. And so we're talking about a cover up,
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 1: and we're also talking about years of benign neglect. Dr
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: Catrio Davis, you know when you say we say it
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: happened earlier. I will show you an example of recently
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: that how the called the state can change the rules
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: on you don't tell you they've changed the rules, but
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: in fact and in fact impacts low income people the worst.
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: The state of Texas just recently when they had the
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: big freeze because they had changed the way the building
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: system went down and changed the way the grid was
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: being allocated, and so the state of Texas was shut
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: down doing the freeze, and so that would no one
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: would never have known that if the freeze didn't come along.
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: And so people were being built differently. People were suddenly
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 1: getting two thousand dollar bills when they were previously getting
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 1: the normal maybe a hundred dollar bill. The bills were
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: tied to their bank accounts, so the money was automatically
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 1: be pulled out of their bank account where they had
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 1: the money or not. And so these are situations where
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 1: you're saying, like you said, in the social makeup of
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: the world, their decisions being made, they're not they're not
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: acknowledged that they are major decisions. They're might not acknowledge
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: that their big decisions. But in the end, the person
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 1: who gets affected the most is the person who has less.
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: And that's what your book is about. Absolutely. I think
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: so so often we pay attention to the absence of
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: overt racism. Uh. We say, no one's burning crosses, um,
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: no one called me out of my name, no one
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: pulled me off of a counter, you know, at a
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 1: at a or lunch counter because it's I'm not supposed
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: to be there, right. But what we don't pay attention
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: to is the this. The this is in the disrespect
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: that poor people encounter on the daily because there are
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: things in their environment that just aren't right. They're being shorted,
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: um when with regard to educational services, they're being shorted
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: with regard to environmental protections, being shorted with regard to
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: police protection, fire protection, um, left and right. And this
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: is again, we don't pay attention to these things because
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 1: we spend so much time talking about whether or not
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 1: we're dealing with overt racism, whether or not somebody's playing
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 1: us right. But what we need to be paying attention
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: to is what institutions are doing well. You know, here's
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: let's let's slow down my my relationship with you and
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: regards to sociology. My degrees in mathematics. Dr Davis, You're
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 1: associate professor of sociology and African American Studies at Florida
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: State University in Tallahassan, or Um. I was rolling through
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 1: college doing good, and then I took a sociology class,
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 1: and I realized that I was being uneducated. I was
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: not being educated properly about this country's history, especially when
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: it came to African Americans, or what my people had accomplished,
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 1: or why our racism in general, or how it is
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: being treated. Basically, I would tell people, when you look
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 1: at the life of a black people in history books
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 1: that they teach you, you know, they brought us over
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: through slavery, they freed us, and then they then they
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 1: don't say anything about the World War One participation, World
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: War two participation. Then you go to Brown Versus Board
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 1: of Education, then you hear about the Martin Luther King speech.
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 1: You kind of talk about the civil rights speech. Then
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 1: you hear about Martin Luther King's assassination and it kind
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 1: of stops because it's the Civil Wars, Civil Vietnam War
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 1: in the next in years. So black people kind of
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: like stopped producing after Martin Luther King. Dr. Mart Luther
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: King died. That is what if anybody disbelieve, just read
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 1: your books. That signs being played to us. Oh you
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 1: get the back of the day. I get the maps
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 1: from the beer companies talk about the kings and queens
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 1: and they tell me that, you know, the cotton gin
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 1: was built by a black person, But it wasn't in
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 1: any book that I read in the high school or
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 1: the elementary school or middle school. It was in something
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 1: that I bought that had a beer ken on it
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: or bill or was sponsive by a beer company. And
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 1: not saying that's negative, but that's how it's being educated, okay.
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: And so so sociology is key for me because it
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 1: talks about how people engage and how people treat you
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: in that engagement. So tell us about the impact of
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 1: what you do as a sociology professor at Florida State
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 1: and African American Studies, because I want to get to
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 1: the critical race theory which has been bombard in the headlines,
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 1: and maybe you can help my audience digests or understand
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 1: that a lot better. Was a sociologist, I care most
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 1: about explaining the concrete circumstances that people encounter that make
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: it difficult to make ends meet and do the things
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 1: that they need to that that they need to do
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 1: to take care of their families. UM. Oftentimes we ignore
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 1: those things about our realities that make things difficult, UM
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 1: that are UM boundaries or barriers that that seem to
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 1: be UM hard to to remove, etcetera. And and I
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 1: also want to say, in our society, we have a
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 1: tough time believing that, UM, it's okay for a problem
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 1: to last longer than thirty minutes, right, And so if
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 1: it's not solved in thirty minutes, we're almost in the
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 1: space where we're gonna move on even if it's not solved.
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 1: And so I think part of the problem that we're
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 1: dealing with is one this whole issue of having a
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 1: very short attention span UM with regard to understanding and
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 1: even trying to UM deal with process social problems. And
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 1: then we we also have a problem where we don't
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 1: as a society, we're not willing or I don't believe
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 1: that we've uh developed the stomach or in or the
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 1: political will to really deal with um um longstanding ratio
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 1: class um, antagonisms and issues. And so what we do
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 1: We set up curricula where we go around these issues. Yeah,
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 1: we say, um, the problems start stopped after we discover
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 1: that Martin Luther King had a dream, um, and we
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 1: got on board with his dream. And and now look
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 1: at those black folks. You know, doors are openings, all good,
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 1: but the problem is that it's not all good for
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 1: most black folks. Most most black folks are near poor,
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: which means that they're struggling on levels that that are
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: invisible in places that we don't even see because our
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 1: worlds are so wrapped around what we do and not
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 1: what other people are really dealing with. So fields like
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 1: socialate aology help us understand um, you know. And it's
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 1: sometimes academicians you know, really help us understand what um
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 1: since uh, what society's narrative has to say about us.
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 1: And it's not always very critical of that narrative. UM.
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 1: But in my work, I try to center the problems
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 1: of the individual, and in particular black people, poor black people,
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: to sort of help us understand both historically, uh economically, socially,
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 1: how these problems, how we got these problems, why we
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 1: still have these problems, or what we need to do
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 1: to deal with these problems. And again, I think the
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 1: pushback um is, particularly the pushback with regard to critical
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 1: race theory, is about silencing you know, what, what we
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 1: know because I think we know too much and they
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: want to shut us up. Well, I think that if
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 1: it's all times of information, right, the more you know,
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 1: the more dangerous you can become. And so when when
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 1: you look at because that's what I discovered. I discovered
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 1: in my sociology class at the University Houston that I
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 1: didn't know enough and it brought me to tears because
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 1: of the fact that I thought I was smart. I
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 1: thought I knew what I needed to know. When I
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 1: realized that I was I was being denied an opportunity
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 1: to get a full spectrum of education and information. And
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 1: so when I hear people, whether it's the Trump administration
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 1: trying to favor the Confederate statues and say they have
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: a place in our society, but don't want to recognize
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 1: that racism truly exists. I don't know how you can
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 1: bounce it to I don't know how you can recognize
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 1: Confederate monuments as saying these are heroes, but you can't
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 1: recognize the fact that racism it's very prevalent. And as
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 1: you say, it's not always overt. But you still have
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 1: red lining of districts, you still have reasoning, you have
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 1: you have people going around right now they are it's
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 1: still audit the President Biden. Okay, that's racism. That's gonna
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 1: be real because it's tied to black voters, it's black
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 1: to people who leave. There's a need for change. And
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 1: so when you look at what you're doing and you
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 1: look at the critical race theory, there's been bantered about
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 1: what is the problem. Is it the information or is
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 1: it is it? Is it something that was done in
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 1: eighteen seventy nine trying to be implemented in two one.
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 1: It's I've I've looked at some of these people that
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 1: that have commented on critical race theory, particularly those people
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 1: who have been against uh, this particular theory being taught
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 1: um at the post secondary level, primarily because that's what
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 1: where it's taught. Essentially, my my take on Their argument
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 1: is that, um, this happened a long time ago, and
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 1: why should we talk about, you know, information that may
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 1: or may not be true. It's really interesting. Um. The
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 1: the argument is that it happened a long time ago.
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 1: Then the corollary to that is that this information may
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 1: not be true, right, Um. And and then it's how
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 1: and we can't get along? Why can't we get along? Right?
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 1: I'm an Italian American? Right? Um? And mind you, this
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 1: person doesn't want to own that he has white skin,
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 1: you know, and that skin speaks for him, you know. Uh.
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 1: But I'm an Italian American. Why should we have to,
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 1: you know, learn about this history? Uh? And it's it's
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 1: it's part of the American program that we have in
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 1: that program is all about denier. We deny what's true,
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 1: We deny what's real in the lives of people who
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 1: are dealing with tough stuff, Okay, and then we turn
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 1: around and we blame them for what they're experiencing, as
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 1: though they created those issues. But I would submit that
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 1: the real problem is that we've never gotten around to
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 1: dealing with the fact that when black folks stopped giving
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 1: their labor to white folks after slavery never quite stopped
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 1: being the white man's right, you know, for the wrong reason. Absolutely,
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 1: when I when I hear you talk, you know, I
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 1: smile and that you know I said, you go, girl,
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 1: you do what you gotta do. I need you to
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 1: be a professor somebody talking to people in general, so
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 1: they have somebody that can come up and talk to
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 1: that has it. I'm on this conversation that necessarily isn't
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 1: their color, because that's where you get on this conversation
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 1: when somebody who's not your color comes up to you
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 1: in communication. Because so what happens within our community sometimes
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 1: we don't even want to talk about slavery. We want
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 1: to say that we want to why why why we
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 1: gotta talk about that? You know, we're moving forward. There's
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 1: a section of us that want to talk like that
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 1: at all. Maybe you may say that we are maybe
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 1: in an affluent or maybe are doing well or at
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 1: a certain tax bracket. But I've always been a person that,
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 1: no matter how successful I've been, Dr David's always felt
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 1: that if I can't help more people get where I'm
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 1: trying to get or where I'm trying to go, then
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 1: I'm not winning for the overall picture. Isn't that what
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 1: we're trying to do. Isn't that what your book? The
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 1: information we're getting out of your book that is about
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 1: a group of people. And this happens to be a city,
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 1: not not a community, a city where the world, where
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 1: the work factories moved, drugs came in. You know, Burton,
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 1: which was right less than a mile away, and their
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 1: billing system was different than Flip Michigan's building system. And
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 1: nobody and then if if, if, if the snow was
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 1: on their street, it got plowed. First snow was on
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 1: your street. Uh, we we get with you. The trees
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 1: were dying over there and flint over in burden. Hey
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 1: the tree just can just a leaf can fall off
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 1: the tree. Excuse me, I got that leaf? Bat Oh,
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 1: go about your business. You know that's what you're talking
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 1: about in your book. You you you clearly made me go.
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 1: You made be mad. Dr Davis. You may be mad.
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 1: I wanted to make you mad. You may be mad, girl,
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 1: because you were telling the truth. Why don't people want
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 1: to hear the truth? Come on, the truth is uncomfortable.
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 1: Sometimes when certain people hear it, they think that you know,
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 1: I'm listening to this truth. And that means that something
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 1: that I had may be taken away, right, my privilege,
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 1: my the benefits that I that I um enjoy, I
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 1: may need to share, you know, Oh, they gotta put
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 1: money on this. That money may be taken from some
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 1: things that my children might or my child might need.
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 1: And I want to tell you it's something that was
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 1: brought up in this podcast that i've I've done related
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 1: to the book. One of my guests shared with me.
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 1: And this is a very very important um um statement
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 1: that he made. And this is when I was pushing
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 1: him to why aren't cities doing what they need to
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 1: do to take care of everybody? Why they're playing for
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 1: people right um? And he was talking about what we
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 1: haven't gotten around to dealing with legacy costs, how to
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 1: help cities deal with costs that they can't deal with
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 1: because they have poor people, etcetera, etcetera. Um And and
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 1: so again I was pushing him, why is this the issue?
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 1: Why hasn't the state and the powers that be come
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 1: up with better models? And he said, essentially, we don't
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 1: have a problem handing a person of food stamp, but
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 1: we have a problem giving people access to jobs via
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 1: programs like affirmative action because you know why, because when
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 1: you hand somebody or food stamp, you can label them
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 1: as a person that's that's um irrelevant, and then that
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 1: same person you can start taking away rights. Okay, Now
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 1: you give somebody an opportunity to affirmative action, then they
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 1: can be on the level playing field. That's right. Economically, socially,
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 1: they can move into their neighborhoods, they can bank for
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 1: their bank, they can do the things that they do.
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 1: They can eat in the restaurants they eat in them.
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 1: And so I know because I came from the hood.
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 1: I came from far for I came from a neighborhood
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 1: where my parents had to get us out and we
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 1: moved to a little neighborhood a little bit better, but
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 1: it wasn't that neighborhood, okay. And so when I see
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 1: about you in your book, is right you talk about
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 1: when you talk about where it was changing the communities
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 1: and sweeping through and now they call the gentrification. They
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 1: put a fancy name on it now, but it's the
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 1: same thing. They gave us a nice title. It gets
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 1: the same thing, you know, moving black people to lesser communities,
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 1: less property values, and then go what's the problem now
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 1: you say richean. Doesn't that sound familiar? Doesn't that sound
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 1: like the American Indian? Do you not realize that that
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 1: that ghettos are just fancified reservations, Just fancified reservations, That's
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 1: what they are. There are some people I know for
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 1: a fact, deliving these communities who never leave, who have
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 1: never driven out, who never shocked or eating out of
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 1: that community. They are trapped into that world. If they're
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 1: trapped into the world, guess what you're trapped to. And
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 1: then so when you come into that world, you're seen
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 1: as a stranger, which impacts them, and they're gonna treat
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 1: you different, which may lead to negative consequences. When I
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 1: started reading that part of your book, it just really
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 1: made me even more mad. Dr David, you really you
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 1: You're the first book I've ever had on the show.
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 1: Just had me positively mad. This is not a mad
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 1: mad because I can't win because of my skin tone
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 1: according to America. Well, I'm sorry that I made me mad,
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 1: but it's it's really my job to tell the truth
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 1: and to say it in a way where people can
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 1: understand it, where there's teeth and you understand that this
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 1: is not a game, right, they have been playing with
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 1: our lives. But for some reason we don't want to
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 1: call it um genocide. We we we stopped at that.
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 1: We we say, well, it's you know, um, we're doing
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 1: what we can and we're not killing people at will
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 1: and things of this nature. But I would submit this.
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 1: If you poison people over time with with um materials
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 1: or toxins that could I don't know, um make them
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 1: less smart, make them more prone to violence and anger,
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 1: make them um less likely to be able to self govern.
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 1: What you're doing is is basically doubling down. You have
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 1: this theory of who we are, but then you you
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 1: poison our communities and help that happen. Right, And so
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 1: the thing is, yeah, I'm absolutely sorry that I have
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 1: to let folks know that problems don't get solved. I
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 1: gotta let folks know that they're playing poor black people
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 1: left and right, leaving them out of resources or keeping
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 1: them from resources that they actually need to make ends
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 1: meet and to um take good care of themselves. UM.
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 1: I have to let you know because it's my obligation,
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 1: because I don't need us us as a people walking
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 1: around thinking that we got it made we got some
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 1: work to do. You know in your book Tanned Tap
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 1: flintch Journey from Crisis to Recover in chapter six, which
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 1: is the blame game of legal circus and public finger pointing.
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 1: And this is basically because what I try to do,
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 1: what I bring individual only my show talking about that books,
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 1: I'm not trying to I don't try to get My
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 1: job is not to give away the book. My job
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 1: is to gain interest. So somebody wou want to read
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 1: your book? And what you just talked about, it's basically
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 1: what the blame game is. You know, you know, it's
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 1: it's good to say that you know that there's a
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 1: problem in the minority communities because we go black and
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 1: brown right now, because I'm African American. That's why we're
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 1: talking about this fact of community having the same issues
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 1: and and in the American Indian community is a lost community. Okay,
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 1: it's a lost community. And so and so when we
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 1: talk about through sociology, which guys are through this whole
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 1: situation here, what is the blame game and who is
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 1: running the blame game? Well, I would say the blame
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 1: game is is essentially this, it's we know that a
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 1: problem exists, However, we're gonna let you believe that you
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 1: created that problem, or we're gonna let you believe that
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 1: the problem doesn't exist. So that's the first rob So
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 1: then after you you effectively prove that you didn't create
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 1: the problem, then we have to work at trying to
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 1: distance ourselves from that blame because we don't want to
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 1: take that heat. We don't want to be in a
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 1: seat of or in the be placed in the process
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 1: of actually trying having to fix the the institutional problems
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 1: and and replace those strategies and policies that enable us
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 1: to do the stuff we do. Well, you know, it's
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 1: it's just an interesting because I'm a closed doctor, Dr Davis,
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 1: and it's all positive. You know, when I say I'm mad,
• 1:27:16
  Speaker 1: it's a good man, because I've been filled with information,
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 1: the information I got from your book, Tainting Tap Flinch
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 1: Journey from Crisis to Recovery. In twenty seventeen, Flint, Michigan
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 1: was the poorest city in America. Who wants that title? Okay,
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 1: who wants to know that right down the street less
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 1: than a mile somebody's paying less And guess what they
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 1: as they say, they look like you, They're just a
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 1: different color. But more importantly, when you look at all
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 1: this critical theory, look at all these arguments about we
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 1: don't want to let anybody know that the Americans has
• 1:27:45
  Speaker 1: done nothing wrong. How and maybe you might not can't
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 1: answer this, How did you team get recognized as a
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 1: national holiday? How did that slip past? When that was
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 1: the ultimate level of recognition that black people boom, we'll
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 1: enslaved and black people were released due to slavery because
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 1: they were brought over to this country against their will.
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 1: But somehow I got passed unanimsally, a bunch of people
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 1: are arguing about the critical race theory. Does that make
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 1: sense to you? I'm glad it got passed because I'm
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 1: used in Texas and it's always been a holiday in
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 1: the state of Texas, but it was never recognized national holiday.
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 1: So when everybody started getting on board in twenty I
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 1: kind of smiled, and I'm happy that in it was recognized.
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 1: But how does June team get passed with all this
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 1: denial going on in the public's eye about racism and slavery?
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 1: M hmm. I love that you asked that question. So
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 1: I'll be brief because we can write a dissertation on this,
• 1:28:44
  Speaker 1: but I would I would say that, UM, you know,
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 1: essentially what we're looking at is a political maneuver. Um.
• 1:28:52
  Speaker 1: We're we're sort of addicted to and attracted to symbolic gestures,
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 1: and this is one of them. So, because I can
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 1: tell you this, if we can set up up a holiday,
• 1:29:03
  Speaker 1: UM great. I'm all Ford in Flint, Michigan. We've been
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 1: celebrating June tenth, June tenth for you know a long time. Uh.
• 1:29:11
  Speaker 1: That said, UM, if you really want to make progress
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 1: in the black community, you will pass laws that make
• 1:29:18
  Speaker 1: UM folks accountable for the things that they do to
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 1: the people that they're supposed to be accountable to. You
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 1: want to pass laws and make things uh a bit
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 1: more transparent, right, give people a seat at the table. Uh.
• 1:29:32
  Speaker 1: You want to make sure that people aren't being played
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 1: the extent of which they are being played in their communities. UM.
• 1:29:38
  Speaker 1: You know you're drinking water that is not safe and
• 1:29:42
  Speaker 1: you know they'll take your house away if you don't
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 1: pay for that for poison water. Um. And so we're
• 1:29:48
  Speaker 1: in a space where we love um symbolic empty gestures. UM,
• 1:29:53
  Speaker 1: but we're not. We don't. We haven't um summoned the
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 1: political will to do what's required to move things FA.
• 1:30:01
  Speaker 1: Dr Catcher Neil Davis, thank you for coming on my show.
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 1: You associated with the professor of Sociology and African American Stories,
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 1: and you know they say the Seminar State Florida State
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 1: University down in Tallahasan, Florida. Your book Tainted Tap Flinch
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 1: Journey from Crisis to Recover as a wonderful read. Is
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 1: an informative read. It's an educational read. Is a reader
• 1:30:21
  Speaker 1: will tap into your emotions, give you information that you
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 1: may not have known, or reminded you of an experience
• 1:30:27
  Speaker 1: or lifestyle that you want experience so you can understand
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 1: the complications that people are dealing with now because guess
• 1:30:33
  Speaker 1: what they've taken away all of our options are so
• 1:30:36
  Speaker 1: many of our options within the black community, that we
• 1:30:39
  Speaker 1: have to fight back, We have to scream, We have
• 1:30:42
  Speaker 1: to some way rab because guess what, like you said,
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 1: if you get what's your option once you once you
• 1:30:47
  Speaker 1: corner somebody, you're taken, where all their food taken, where
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 1: all their options to survive? The only option is to
• 1:30:53
  Speaker 1: be violent. And we can start curbing a lot of
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 1: this violence if we treated everybody equal and gave them
• 1:30:59
  Speaker 1: equal opportunity to in again. Dr Davis, thank you for
• 1:31:02
  Speaker 1: coming on Money Making Conversations. Thank you so much for
• 1:31:05
  Speaker 1: having me a pleasure. Thank you. We will be right
• 1:31:08
  Speaker 1: back with more money Making Conversations with your host Rashan McDonald.
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 1: You are now tuned into the Money Making Conversations Minute
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 1: of Inspiration with Rashan McDonald's Hollywood is changing its perception
• 1:31:21
  Speaker 1: of African American programming, just as entertainment trail Blazer Deborah
• 1:31:25
  Speaker 1: Martin Chase, who is currently the executive producer on Queen
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 1: Latifa's new CBS drama series, The Equalizer. I got in
• 1:31:32
  Speaker 1: this business because when I was growing up, I did
• 1:31:35
  Speaker 1: not see people on screen who looked or felt like me,
• 1:31:38
  Speaker 1: and so I wanted to break down stereotypes. I wanted
• 1:31:42
  Speaker 1: to create images that would empower us and would help
• 1:31:45
  Speaker 1: people to understand that, you know, they had the power
• 1:31:47
  Speaker 1: to do whatever they wanted to do in life. And
• 1:31:50
  Speaker 1: there was a period in Hollywood where people weren't interested
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 1: in making movies about women, about people of color. It
• 1:31:57
  Speaker 1: was all about the big temp pole movies and action movies.
• 1:32:00
  Speaker 1: I would walk into offices and people's eyes with glaze
• 1:32:04
  Speaker 1: over when I told them, you know what I was
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 1: thinking about. If you want to hear this full interview
• 1:32:08
  Speaker 1: with Deborah Martin Chase, visit money Making Conversation dot com.
• 1:32:12
  Speaker 1: Keep winning Welcome back to Money Making Conversations with your
• 1:32:16
  Speaker 1: host Rashan McDonald. Adoption of teams from foster care is
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  Speaker 1: a topic not enough people know about, and we're here
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  Speaker 1: for Children and Families, and the ad Council. If I
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• 1:32:54
  Speaker 1: inside each other's mind, walk a mile in my shoes,
• 1:32:58
  Speaker 1: wacome mile in my shoes shoes. We've all felt left out,
• 1:33:04
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  Speaker 1: We can change that, learn how it belonging begins with
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  Speaker 1: us dot org brought to you by the AD Council.
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  Speaker 1: Welcome out and the machine. Look to your children's eyes
• 1:33:20
  Speaker 1: to see the true magic of a forest. It's a
• 1:33:23
  Speaker 1: storybook world for them. You look and see a tree.
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  Speaker 1: outstretched to the sky. They see treasure and pebbles. They
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  Speaker 1: they see you. They're fearless. Guide if this fascinating world,
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  Speaker 1: perfect from that statement that I laid with leading with
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  Speaker 1: your gifts and all that your age freance family of
• 1:33:54
  Speaker 1: coworkers stop you from playing in the living your dreams.
• 1:33:56
  Speaker 1: Because his book is about pushing through failure because as
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 1: that sets you up for success. And his name is
• 1:34:02
  Speaker 1: Ryan Leek. He's an author, speaker, executive coach, and podcaster.
• 1:34:06
  Speaker 1: He's known for two documentaries, The Surprise Wedding and Chasing Failure.
• 1:34:11
  Speaker 1: Ryan's careers split fifty percent speaking in churches and fifty
• 1:34:14
  Speaker 1: percent doing executive coaching through his company, The Ryan Leek Company.
• 1:34:18
  Speaker 1: He's on the show to talk about his new book,
• 1:34:20
  Speaker 1: Chasing Failure. How falling short sets you up for success.
• 1:34:24
  Speaker 1: It stated in his book, kids can dream uninterrupted because
• 1:34:27
  Speaker 1: their failure has not yet become something that they fear.
• 1:34:31
  Speaker 1: In the book Chasing Failure, Ryan lays out the framework
• 1:34:34
  Speaker 1: you need to chase failure successfully, which means living a
• 1:34:37
  Speaker 1: life where you are pursuing your dreams, living in your purpose,
• 1:34:40
  Speaker 1: and experiencing fulfillment. Please walk with the money making conversation.
• 1:34:45
  Speaker 1: I hope I laiter that well for him, Ryan Leek,
• 1:34:48
  Speaker 1: it's an honor to be here. So glad to be
• 1:34:50
  Speaker 1: on the show. Well, good my friend, and I'm allegation
• 1:34:54
  Speaker 1: one of my one of my little mentees are Ricky
• 1:34:56
  Speaker 1: Smiley kind of remind me a little bit of Rickey
• 1:34:58
  Speaker 1: smiling here. Ryan, you know that make look. I looked
• 1:35:01
  Speaker 1: at you looked just like a little Rickie smiler there.
• 1:35:04
  Speaker 1: But that's a couple because he's that. I love rick yeh,
• 1:35:08
  Speaker 1: good people, man. We talked about at least two or
• 1:35:11
  Speaker 1: three times a month about stuff like this, about chasing
• 1:35:14
  Speaker 1: the dreams, about position yourself for success. Now this is
• 1:35:19
  Speaker 1: what the fifth version of our addition, I should say,
• 1:35:22
  Speaker 1: of chasing Failing. Yeah. Absolutely. You know, the first one
• 1:35:26
  Speaker 1: was really just the story of I mean, trying out
• 1:35:29
  Speaker 1: for the Phoenix suns and you know, diving into the
• 1:35:31
  Speaker 1: surprise wedding. So that was only about sixty pages. Found
• 1:35:35
  Speaker 1: some typos in it, which is the thing every author
• 1:35:37
  Speaker 1: hates to hear. And you know, we kind of kept
• 1:35:40
  Speaker 1: trying to revisit it and rebrand it, but it just, well,
• 1:35:43
  Speaker 1: in my estimation, you know, kept kept failing. And so
• 1:35:47
  Speaker 1: um So you know, five years later, when having a
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 1: conversation with my literary agent about, hey, I think you
• 1:35:53
  Speaker 1: need to squeeze his limit again, and I'm thinking, like, hey,
• 1:35:56
  Speaker 1: that's that's that. I already talked about that. And and
• 1:36:00
  Speaker 1: she challenged me. She challenged me. She said, yeah, but
• 1:36:02
  Speaker 1: you didn't. You didn't actually market it. You didn't actually
• 1:36:04
  Speaker 1: like really write like a book book. So how about
• 1:36:08
  Speaker 1: you to write a book book this time? And so
• 1:36:11
  Speaker 1: I said, all right, let's do it. And and so
• 1:36:13
  Speaker 1: here we are again. And uh, if at first you
• 1:36:16
  Speaker 1: don't succeed, then maybe you should try again. Well I'm
• 1:36:19
  Speaker 1: gonna jump right into it because on the fourth version
• 1:36:22
  Speaker 1: if we talk. In the book, it talks about shame,
• 1:36:24
  Speaker 1: and shame is always tied to failure because I'm gonna
• 1:36:27
  Speaker 1: go right there, because I wanted to talk about the
• 1:36:28
  Speaker 1: version because I feel that that stops a lot of people,
• 1:36:31
  Speaker 1: you know, the fear of failure, fear what people would think.
• 1:36:34
  Speaker 1: And I thought that chapter should be the proper chapter
• 1:36:36
  Speaker 1: to start out in this conversation with because I think
• 1:36:39
  Speaker 1: it stops a tremendous amount of people. I'm not gonna
• 1:36:42
  Speaker 1: put a percentage on that, but I know I talked
• 1:36:44
  Speaker 1: to a lot of people, I'm motivating a lot of people,
• 1:36:47
  Speaker 1: and it's always tied to the what if. So talking
• 1:36:50
  Speaker 1: about the fourth Version and that shame and the fear
• 1:36:53
  Speaker 1: of failure wrapped up into that chapter, well, you know,
• 1:36:57
  Speaker 1: there can be a lot of what are people thinking
• 1:37:00
  Speaker 1: about this? What are are people going to shame me?
• 1:37:05
  Speaker 1: How much of that shame is something that I put
• 1:37:07
  Speaker 1: on myself? What are the expected? Who's writing the rules?
• 1:37:11
  Speaker 1: At some point you got to ask yourself that question.
• 1:37:14
  Speaker 1: Who's making up the rules to say this is how
• 1:37:17
  Speaker 1: things have to look? And so at some point you
• 1:37:20
  Speaker 1: gotta wake up and go, Okay, what what what do
• 1:37:23
  Speaker 1: I what do I actually really want to do and
• 1:37:25
  Speaker 1: do I believe that it can actually make a difference
• 1:37:27
  Speaker 1: and add value to people's life. And if it can,
• 1:37:30
  Speaker 1: then we should just go for it and not wait
• 1:37:33
  Speaker 1: for other people's permission to do what God has already
• 1:37:36
  Speaker 1: gifted us to do. And so sometimes we're looking for
• 1:37:39
  Speaker 1: somebody else's approval before we make decisions or take next steps,
• 1:37:43
  Speaker 1: and there's so much of a now, how are they
• 1:37:46
  Speaker 1: going to make me feel? But what I've tried to
• 1:37:49
  Speaker 1: do in this book is almost reverse that, a little
• 1:37:51
  Speaker 1: bit of going, hey, you know, you you need to
• 1:37:52
  Speaker 1: make a decision about how you're going to feel before
• 1:37:55
  Speaker 1: you do something, not acting. You know, it's really interesting
• 1:37:59
  Speaker 1: because I I wat that quote and it came from
• 1:38:01
  Speaker 1: the foreword of your book. Kids can dream uninterrupted because
• 1:38:05
  Speaker 1: their failure has not yet become something that they fear.
• 1:38:08
  Speaker 1: And and we always I have a daughter, and I
• 1:38:11
  Speaker 1: was always the kids always. I remember as a kid,
• 1:38:13
  Speaker 1: I could sitting down looking at the television show and
• 1:38:15
  Speaker 1: I wanted to be on TV or I wanted to
• 1:38:18
  Speaker 1: I remember I wanted to saw some things off short,
• 1:38:21
  Speaker 1: I wanted to I wanted to work off shore, and
• 1:38:23
  Speaker 1: eventually in life I did work off shore, and so
• 1:38:26
  Speaker 1: how I got there was it tied to my wish
• 1:38:29
  Speaker 1: as a kid. All I know is nobody stopped me
• 1:38:33
  Speaker 1: from that dream or that process. And so when I
• 1:38:35
  Speaker 1: look at you, I know that that's the word has
• 1:38:37
  Speaker 1: been out there a lot because of the Philadelphia seven
• 1:38:39
  Speaker 1: and six is the process? There's a process. When you're
• 1:38:43
  Speaker 1: talking Ryan about chasing your dreams in your book, when
• 1:38:46
  Speaker 1: I said it right here, you outline it. What is
• 1:38:49
  Speaker 1: the process? Let's start there. Is it just having the
• 1:38:52
  Speaker 1: idea or just having the aspiration, but what is the
• 1:38:55
  Speaker 1: process of fulfilling or chasing your dream? Well, I go
• 1:39:00
  Speaker 1: often happens. You know, people ask me, Ryan, do you
• 1:39:02
  Speaker 1: really believe that I should shoot for the moon? I
• 1:39:06
  Speaker 1: say absolutely. You just need to know what it costs
• 1:39:09
  Speaker 1: to get to the moon. You should also know that
• 1:39:12
  Speaker 1: very few people have ever actually made it to the moon.
• 1:39:17
  Speaker 1: You should also know that there are a lot of
• 1:39:19
  Speaker 1: people that help other people get to the moon. They
• 1:39:21
  Speaker 1: work at NASA. Do you know how hard it is
• 1:39:24
  Speaker 1: to get accepted at NASA? It is literally eighty times
• 1:39:29
  Speaker 1: harder to get accepted in the massa than it is harder.
• 1:39:33
  Speaker 1: And so I'm always telling people, You've got to ask yourself,
• 1:39:37
  Speaker 1: is your idea, is your dream? Is your goal a
• 1:39:40
  Speaker 1: top one percenter? Because if it's a top one percenter
• 1:39:44
  Speaker 1: type idea, a top one percenter type dream, you better
• 1:39:48
  Speaker 1: have top one percenter type habits. You better have top
• 1:39:52
  Speaker 1: one percenter type disciplines. Your schedule should look like the
• 1:39:56
  Speaker 1: top one percenter. Your money should be spent top one
• 1:40:00
  Speaker 1: percenters spend their money. And so oftentimes what I'm encountering
• 1:40:05
  Speaker 1: is people have top one percent of dreams with percentile
• 1:40:09
  Speaker 1: tight habits and expecting extraordinary results from ordinary habits, and
• 1:40:15
  Speaker 1: that's just not how it works. And so part of
• 1:40:18
  Speaker 1: the processes is actually evaluating, Okay, where is my idea,
• 1:40:24
  Speaker 1: where is my goal, and being able to assess, Okay,
• 1:40:27
  Speaker 1: how hard is this going to be pull off? And
• 1:40:29
  Speaker 1: what is it going to cost me in terms of
• 1:40:31
  Speaker 1: my time, my finances, even relationships to pull this thing off.
• 1:40:36
  Speaker 1: And that's where I think people often missed the mark.
• 1:40:38
  Speaker 1: And actually the reason why they fail is because they
• 1:40:41
  Speaker 1: failed to actually do the pre planning to actually make
• 1:40:44
  Speaker 1: your idea have well, isn't it Ryan also tied to
• 1:40:47
  Speaker 1: people's perception of what they feel you should be or
• 1:40:50
  Speaker 1: you could be or you should be, and you're not
• 1:40:53
  Speaker 1: evaluating properly what you want it to be in your life,
• 1:40:56
  Speaker 1: what the path you want to take, because you hit
• 1:40:59
  Speaker 1: on that in the book, But I just want to
• 1:41:00
  Speaker 1: pull that out and let people hear that coming out
• 1:41:02
  Speaker 1: coming from you in particularly because you know you you
• 1:41:06
  Speaker 1: could be a great athlete. People think you should go
• 1:41:08
  Speaker 1: into sports, but then you may have the desire to
• 1:41:10
  Speaker 1: be a doctor, and so so you have to shift.
• 1:41:13
  Speaker 1: In the end, like you said, you have to be
• 1:41:15
  Speaker 1: happy with you, and you're chasing failure and setting yourself up.
• 1:41:19
  Speaker 1: Success is the success what you want or success you're
• 1:41:23
  Speaker 1: trying to achieve for somebody else. Let's talk about that
• 1:41:25
  Speaker 1: a little bit. Absolutely, Yeah, I think that. I like
• 1:41:30
  Speaker 1: to say God has a plan for your life, and
• 1:41:32
  Speaker 1: so do other people. Other people have a plan for
• 1:41:36
  Speaker 1: where you should work, the car you should drive, the
• 1:41:38
  Speaker 1: neighborhood you should live in, who you should date, what
• 1:41:40
  Speaker 1: your kids should do, where your kids should work, where
• 1:41:42
  Speaker 1: your kids should go to school. I mean, everyone's got
• 1:41:45
  Speaker 1: their plans for your life, and at some point you
• 1:41:48
  Speaker 1: gotta wake up and ask yourself, am I living out
• 1:41:50
  Speaker 1: God's plan with my life? Or am I living out
• 1:41:53
  Speaker 1: somebody else's plan for my life. And so some people
• 1:41:57
  Speaker 1: I talked about in the book the story of Andrea Agassi, well,
• 1:42:01
  Speaker 1: in his memoir I think he came out in two
• 1:42:03
  Speaker 1: thousand nine he revealed that he didn't really love tennis.
• 1:42:08
  Speaker 1: And you're going, how is one of the greatest tennis
• 1:42:10
  Speaker 1: players of all time? How does he not like tennant?
• 1:42:13
  Speaker 1: And he goes on to say, my dad like tennis,
• 1:42:17
  Speaker 1: and and so here you and I and again. I
• 1:42:21
  Speaker 1: just hope that nobody ever wakes up realizing they've been
• 1:42:24
  Speaker 1: living out somebody else's passion, somebody else's dream. I can't
• 1:42:28
  Speaker 1: tell you how many times I've sat would stay at
• 1:42:30
  Speaker 1: home moms who are now entrepreneurs, and when they first
• 1:42:34
  Speaker 1: had the ability to stay at home because their husbands
• 1:42:37
  Speaker 1: made enough money for them to do so, people would
• 1:42:39
  Speaker 1: say to them, you're living a dream, You're living a dream,
• 1:42:43
  Speaker 1: and they would be going whose dream? Whose dream? That
• 1:42:48
  Speaker 1: might be your dream? But who who said that it's
• 1:42:51
  Speaker 1: my dream? And so there can be some assumptions that
• 1:42:54
  Speaker 1: we all have of oh, they've got it made, they
• 1:42:57
  Speaker 1: they've they've got it good because as an X, Y
• 1:43:00
  Speaker 1: and Z. But that doesn't mean that that's something that
• 1:43:02
  Speaker 1: they actually want it. And so so those are things
• 1:43:05
  Speaker 1: that I think we all have to navigate ourselves to go, Okay,
• 1:43:08
  Speaker 1: is this something that is a true desire of my
• 1:43:10
  Speaker 1: heart to do? Or am I doing it because someone
• 1:43:13
  Speaker 1: else has either pressured me to do it or that
• 1:43:16
  Speaker 1: was just part of the expectation. I can't tell you
• 1:43:19
  Speaker 1: how many business owners are just doing the family business
• 1:43:23
  Speaker 1: just because it's the family business and haven't paused long
• 1:43:28
  Speaker 1: enough to go what else would you do? And there
• 1:43:31
  Speaker 1: was so much pressure on them from a very early
• 1:43:33
  Speaker 1: age that you're going to take this business. In some cases,
• 1:43:36
  Speaker 1: you're gonna take this church, you're going to take this
• 1:43:39
  Speaker 1: up of this medical practice, you're going to take this
• 1:43:43
  Speaker 1: family law. You're and so that that can bring about
• 1:43:47
  Speaker 1: tremendous pressure of going You've already filled in the blank
• 1:43:50
  Speaker 1: with my future. And so some people don't feel the
• 1:43:53
  Speaker 1: permission to start over and have a clean slate. And
• 1:43:56
  Speaker 1: I like to just tell them who's making those rules.
• 1:43:59
  Speaker 1: And and you know, you're in your thirties and forties,
• 1:44:02
  Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure you get to make a decision about
• 1:44:04
  Speaker 1: what you want to do in your life. Well, you know,
• 1:44:06
  Speaker 1: it's really interesting because I would like to share and
• 1:44:08
  Speaker 1: be honest about you know, characterization and examples, you know,
• 1:44:12
  Speaker 1: chasing failure. I'm talking to Ryan Leek, how falling shorts
• 1:44:15
  Speaker 1: set you up for success? I know that early on
• 1:44:19
  Speaker 1: in my life. You know, my degree is in mathematics, marning, sociology.
• 1:44:22
  Speaker 1: But I was very talented stand up did everything, deaf comedy,
• 1:44:25
  Speaker 1: jam did the t common view everything, you know, so
• 1:44:28
  Speaker 1: one that shared stage with everybody from Dave Chappelle to
• 1:44:32
  Speaker 1: Chris Rock to Martin Lawrence. But that wasn't my goal.
• 1:44:37
  Speaker 1: That wasn't my I just God just gave me that talent.
• 1:44:39
  Speaker 1: But everybody saw that as my own game. And so
• 1:44:41
  Speaker 1: when I went to manage Steve Harvey, people were questioning
• 1:44:44
  Speaker 1: that decision. I was very happy, but people were questioning that.
• 1:44:48
  Speaker 1: I told this is what I want to do. I
• 1:44:51
  Speaker 1: love being behind the camera. God gave me a gift
• 1:44:53
  Speaker 1: to be in front of the camera. I actually love
• 1:44:55
  Speaker 1: being behind the camera. And I point that out because
• 1:44:58
  Speaker 1: that's a that was that's a blatant example. Even though
• 1:45:00
  Speaker 1: I went out to pursue the career as a stand
• 1:45:01
  Speaker 1: up comedian. That was my exit plan from my PM.
• 1:45:04
  Speaker 1: But that wasn't my end plan, and so sometimes people
• 1:45:07
  Speaker 1: only see what they see. And if you have a plan,
• 1:45:10
  Speaker 1: like you said in your thurs and forties, you should
• 1:45:12
  Speaker 1: be in the position to make your own decisions. Absolutely,
• 1:45:16
  Speaker 1: and that's really important. And a lot of these examples
• 1:45:18
  Speaker 1: of whether you whether you're financially success or that's how
• 1:45:22
  Speaker 1: to your popularity. That decision of where you go your
• 1:45:25
  Speaker 1: end game is really tied to you correct right facts. Absolutely.
• 1:45:32
  Speaker 1: I think people sometimes just get stuck in other people's
• 1:45:36
  Speaker 1: plans because it's more comfortable. You won't get as much criticism.
• 1:45:41
  Speaker 1: You can acquiesce to the status quo because no one
• 1:45:44
  Speaker 1: will bother you, you think. But I think I think
• 1:45:52
  Speaker 1: the world has been given the greatest inventions, the greatest
• 1:45:58
  Speaker 1: innovations from people that stepped out and took risk. So
• 1:46:03
  Speaker 1: I just encouraged people, Hey, if, if, if you can
• 1:46:06
  Speaker 1: take a calculated risk. I'm not I'm not. It's chasing failure,
• 1:46:11
  Speaker 1: it's not chasing foolishness. Okay, right, so, but taking calculated risks, yeah,
• 1:46:17
  Speaker 1: I think you should. I think you should do a
• 1:46:19
  Speaker 1: lot of math and if math makes sense, go ahead
• 1:46:24
  Speaker 1: and go for you. You should make a move. You know.
• 1:46:26
  Speaker 1: The interesting thing about it like I shared my story
• 1:46:28
  Speaker 1: about my relationship with how as a stand up comedy
• 1:46:33
  Speaker 1: I decided to go and become a writer and a
• 1:46:35
  Speaker 1: very successful producer and marketing and branding expert um, even
• 1:46:40
  Speaker 1: though that was my end game. Now, in your book,
• 1:46:44
  Speaker 1: you shared what I felt was a very funny story
• 1:46:46
  Speaker 1: was your NBA experience. And I say it was funny
• 1:46:50
  Speaker 1: because that was a that was a that was a goal,
• 1:46:53
  Speaker 1: but the way you approached it and how you pursued
• 1:46:56
  Speaker 1: it was what is I think it's really what this
• 1:47:00
  Speaker 1: book is all about. You know, you know, you know,
• 1:47:03
  Speaker 1: emailing NBA teams randomly, emailing them right random, random and
• 1:47:09
  Speaker 1: that right there when people say you shouldn't do that,
• 1:47:11
  Speaker 1: but you're chasing failure because you're achieving success. Let's talk
• 1:47:15
  Speaker 1: about that in the reality of people saying no to you,
• 1:47:19
  Speaker 1: telling you that doesn't make any sense. And we hear
• 1:47:22
  Speaker 1: that a lot about inventions. We hear a lot about
• 1:47:25
  Speaker 1: free agents who make NFL teams. We have people who
• 1:47:28
  Speaker 1: leave leave school early to pursue a career professionally, or
• 1:47:32
  Speaker 1: going to a college while you're going to HBCU when
• 1:47:35
  Speaker 1: you can go to our Harvard and achieving. Now we
• 1:47:37
  Speaker 1: have a vice president of the United States. So these
• 1:47:40
  Speaker 1: are the things that we hear all the time. But
• 1:47:42
  Speaker 1: your pursuit of an NBA opportunity a trial is is
• 1:47:47
  Speaker 1: dynamic and very entertaining from a from a writer's standpoint,
• 1:47:50
  Speaker 1: but from a personal it was a passion. Let's talk
• 1:47:53
  Speaker 1: about that well. That I think whenever you're trying to
• 1:47:56
  Speaker 1: do something, people are always going to have their opinions
• 1:47:58
  Speaker 1: about what you're trying to do, and you can't let
• 1:48:01
  Speaker 1: that cloud your end goal. And you also have to realize,
• 1:48:05
  Speaker 1: for me, you know, trying to get an NBA workout
• 1:48:09
  Speaker 1: via email, but it's not I would agree with my naysayers,
• 1:48:16
  Speaker 1: like that's not a great idea. That's fine, I'm still
• 1:48:20
  Speaker 1: going to do it because I don't have anything else
• 1:48:22
  Speaker 1: and I'm chasing failure, and so what's the worst that
• 1:48:28
  Speaker 1: can actually happen? A they don't respond at all, be
• 1:48:33
  Speaker 1: they say no or see they say yes. Those are
• 1:48:38
  Speaker 1: the options, and you won't know which of those options
• 1:48:41
  Speaker 1: you're gonna get if you do nothing. And so I
• 1:48:45
  Speaker 1: think so many people are afraid of the word no,
• 1:48:47
  Speaker 1: But it's just a two letter word. That's it. No.
• 1:48:51
  Speaker 1: I just said it, no, No, no, And so I
• 1:48:55
  Speaker 1: think so many people can get devastated by the word no.
• 1:48:59
  Speaker 1: But it just man, no, right, you gotta keep moving, right,
• 1:49:05
  Speaker 1: I know that, you know growing up, you know how
• 1:49:08
  Speaker 1: a friend of mine, he said, Rishon, just know he
• 1:49:10
  Speaker 1: would ask every girl in the dance club. In the
• 1:49:12
  Speaker 1: nightclub to dance, he said, said, he said, may no,
• 1:49:15
  Speaker 1: he's not gonna shoot me. No, it's not gonna turn
• 1:49:17
  Speaker 1: me that. But when they said yes, I'm winning. And
• 1:49:20
  Speaker 1: so he was chasing failure by asking all these different
• 1:49:24
  Speaker 1: women who may or may not udate him. But when
• 1:49:26
  Speaker 1: he got there, yes, he won. And so that simple example, right,
• 1:49:29
  Speaker 1: there's what we're talking about in life. Correct. But but
• 1:49:34
  Speaker 1: but but the ultimate thing when you talk about this
• 1:49:36
  Speaker 1: book is the you know when you said, at what
• 1:49:38
  Speaker 1: moment did you find your why? What advice can you
• 1:49:40
  Speaker 1: give others looking to find theirs? Because I don't know
• 1:49:44
  Speaker 1: if I found my why. I'll be honest with you, Ryan,
• 1:49:47
  Speaker 1: because I'm always moving, to moving the needle for the
• 1:49:50
  Speaker 1: next opportunity. But I do know that my why is
• 1:49:53
  Speaker 1: that I'm living the life that I want to live.
• 1:49:56
  Speaker 1: I left I be You know, I have a degree
• 1:49:58
  Speaker 1: in mathematics. You know, I have a family that I'm
• 1:50:01
  Speaker 1: happy to call my wife and my daughter and my
• 1:50:04
  Speaker 1: my the staff that works around me support me. Building
• 1:50:07
  Speaker 1: on that bought is the building of my dreams are
• 1:50:10
  Speaker 1: called by dreams that that may be the why. But again,
• 1:50:14
  Speaker 1: what what advice can you give the others looking for theirs?
• 1:50:16
  Speaker 1: And how do they find it? Yeah? I think finding
• 1:50:20
  Speaker 1: your why is a journey. I don't know that there's
• 1:50:23
  Speaker 1: a prime age to to get it or a prime season,
• 1:50:26
  Speaker 1: but when you get it, it will change your life.
• 1:50:28
  Speaker 1: And for me, I found my why. I was working
• 1:50:32
  Speaker 1: at a church. I was on our executive team, and
• 1:50:35
  Speaker 1: so I was helping manage a lot of different systems
• 1:50:38
  Speaker 1: at a at a large church in Dallas, and I
• 1:50:40
  Speaker 1: was twenty nine years old, and I was doing a
• 1:50:43
  Speaker 1: speaking gig talking about chasing failure um at a at
• 1:50:48
  Speaker 1: at a at a corporate engagement, and the person that
• 1:50:51
  Speaker 1: brought me in was like, hey, I want you to
• 1:50:53
  Speaker 1: know your story. You know, literally pulled a boy off
• 1:50:57
  Speaker 1: the ground and literally he was in a crack house
• 1:51:01
  Speaker 1: on the ground and and and she said, hey, you know,
• 1:51:05
  Speaker 1: we disapprove of our daughter's boyfriend. And that was just kid.
• 1:51:08
  Speaker 1: It was his kid, but he does love basketball. We
• 1:51:10
  Speaker 1: showed him your documentary and now he's applying for jobs.
• 1:51:13
  Speaker 1: He called his mom for the first time. You know
• 1:51:15
  Speaker 1: he's going to be playing sports and a junior college
• 1:51:18
  Speaker 1: as fall like you pulled somebody's life off the ground.
• 1:51:21
  Speaker 1: Until for me, that was the day I got my
• 1:51:24
  Speaker 1: why and it and I enjoyed my twenties, but that
• 1:51:27
  Speaker 1: gave my thirties a whole new purpose. And I said,
• 1:51:30
  Speaker 1: I want to spend the rest of my life helping
• 1:51:31
  Speaker 1: poll people's lives off the floor. In every room I
• 1:51:34
  Speaker 1: walk in, I want to add value. And so that's
• 1:51:36
  Speaker 1: the filter in which I live my life. That's my why.
• 1:51:40
  Speaker 1: Is this adding value to the most people that I
• 1:51:43
  Speaker 1: possibly can with the twenty four hours I've been given today?
• 1:51:46
  Speaker 1: And so I'm going, I'm on your show right now,
• 1:51:49
  Speaker 1: processing through how can I add value to your viewers
• 1:51:53
  Speaker 1: and your listeners. I write a book, and I think
• 1:51:55
  Speaker 1: who could pick up this book and is it going
• 1:51:56
  Speaker 1: to add value to their life? And so when you
• 1:51:59
  Speaker 1: have me why, it creates a filtration system for you
• 1:52:03
  Speaker 1: to decide what you say yes to you and what
• 1:52:05
  Speaker 1: you say no to to go? Does it does it serve?
• 1:52:08
  Speaker 1: Does it serve my why. I'm not going to judge
• 1:52:11
  Speaker 1: your why because some people's why is money, and that
• 1:52:15
  Speaker 1: that's kind of what. Hey, I'm I'm trying to make
• 1:52:18
  Speaker 1: as much money as I possibly can. For some people,
• 1:52:20
  Speaker 1: I'm trying to make the greatest impact. For some people,
• 1:52:23
  Speaker 1: it's I'm trying to have as much satisfaction as I
• 1:52:26
  Speaker 1: possibly can. Everybody has a different why, and your why
• 1:52:30
  Speaker 1: is your why. But when you don't have one, I
• 1:52:33
  Speaker 1: think you you should be asking yourself the question why
• 1:52:36
  Speaker 1: am I doing it? Sometimes it's just pausing at Some
• 1:52:40
  Speaker 1: of us are moving out a pace that's so fast
• 1:52:42
  Speaker 1: we haven't even paused long enough to go why am
• 1:52:46
  Speaker 1: I doing it? Well? Why why am I? They're just moving?
• 1:52:50
  Speaker 1: What's nice? What's next? What's next? So what I encourage
• 1:52:53
  Speaker 1: a person to do is to pause. It's to pause.
• 1:52:56
  Speaker 1: Sometimes that's an hour, sometimes it's a day, sometimes it's
• 1:52:59
  Speaker 1: a week. Some time somebody needs to just go sit
• 1:53:01
  Speaker 1: on a beach or sit under a cabana and just
• 1:53:03
  Speaker 1: go what am I doing my life? And why am
• 1:53:08
  Speaker 1: I doing that? And is that a why I can
• 1:53:13
  Speaker 1: live with? Because for some people who are going, they're
• 1:53:15
  Speaker 1: doing it for the money. But I know a lot
• 1:53:17
  Speaker 1: of people who make a lot of money, but they're
• 1:53:20
  Speaker 1: so busy making the money they never even get to
• 1:53:23
  Speaker 1: spend it. Yes, I know people that have thirty five
• 1:53:27
  Speaker 1: apartments that they're never in and it's going. I mean,
• 1:53:34
  Speaker 1: maybe that's your why. One person could be a lawyer
• 1:53:36
  Speaker 1: for the money. Another person could be a lawyer for
• 1:53:38
  Speaker 1: the justice system. You or why is your why? But
• 1:53:41
  Speaker 1: your why should be something that gets you out of
• 1:53:44
  Speaker 1: bed in the morning and one that you can live with.
• 1:53:47
  Speaker 1: We know it's important that you say that when I
• 1:53:49
  Speaker 1: when I when I listened to your talk, you know,
• 1:53:51
  Speaker 1: when you used to or added value. Because I always
• 1:53:53
  Speaker 1: try to explain to people that your your early years
• 1:53:57
  Speaker 1: eighteen or twenty five, is when you define what you
• 1:53:59
  Speaker 1: want to do with your life. You know, that's when
• 1:54:01
  Speaker 1: you ure, That's when you I guess you, like you
• 1:54:03
  Speaker 1: said earlier, there's less fear. Your dreams are bigger, they're
• 1:54:06
  Speaker 1: reachable because guess what, they're your dreams. You know, nobody's
• 1:54:09
  Speaker 1: told you you could fail. When you're a teen, you're
• 1:54:12
  Speaker 1: just walking out there. And so when I got into
• 1:54:15
  Speaker 1: my forties was when I took responsibility of my life.
• 1:54:18
  Speaker 1: When I say that, I mean admitted that this is
• 1:54:20
  Speaker 1: my I guess you can say my wife. And when
• 1:54:22
  Speaker 1: I look back when I was a teen, I realized
• 1:54:24
  Speaker 1: that all my life, I've been adding value to people,
• 1:54:27
  Speaker 1: you know, whether it was whether it was tutoring people
• 1:54:30
  Speaker 1: who was who needed tutoring, whether it was during events,
• 1:54:33
  Speaker 1: whether it was pleasing my fraternity in college, which changed
• 1:54:35
  Speaker 1: my whole perspective on life within the community to uplift
• 1:54:39
  Speaker 1: the whole process. The sitcoms that I wrote, the tours
• 1:54:42
  Speaker 1: that I did, it was always about making people feel
• 1:54:44
  Speaker 1: good and it wasn't really about the money. And even
• 1:54:47
  Speaker 1: the sitcoms of the shows I took, whether it was
• 1:54:49
  Speaker 1: Sister Sister, whether it's Jamie Foxx Show, whether it was
• 1:54:51
  Speaker 1: The Parkers, whether it was Robert Townsend show, Uh Doing
• 1:54:55
  Speaker 1: Family Feud or the Steve Harvey Talk Show, it was
• 1:54:57
  Speaker 1: all about uplifting African Americans and showing us in a
• 1:55:00
  Speaker 1: positive life and not the meaning the principles that we
• 1:55:04
  Speaker 1: want to be. We just want to fit in, We
• 1:55:05
  Speaker 1: just want to be appreciated with. And I guess when
• 1:55:08
  Speaker 1: I bring that up right now, because when you talk
• 1:55:10
  Speaker 1: about the why, when you talk about defining yourself, that's
• 1:55:14
  Speaker 1: why It's important to read a book like this because
• 1:55:16
  Speaker 1: sometimes you can walk through life not really understanding your value,
• 1:55:21
  Speaker 1: but certain words like adding value, which I've never used
• 1:55:24
  Speaker 1: in my life. By the way, Ryan, until read it
• 1:55:28
  Speaker 1: in this book and heard you spoke it. Speak it
• 1:55:31
  Speaker 1: on my show really locked in exactly who I am.
• 1:55:35
  Speaker 1: And when I read it, I went, wow, I got
• 1:55:38
  Speaker 1: to talk to this guy because and I was talking
• 1:55:40
  Speaker 1: to Tristan, you know, my director and one of my
• 1:55:42
  Speaker 1: EPs on the show money Making Conversation, and he was
• 1:55:45
  Speaker 1: saying he was asking me because I got two copies.
• 1:55:47
  Speaker 1: He said, Riean, should I read? I said, yeah, as
• 1:55:49
  Speaker 1: you should read the book? He said why? I said,
• 1:55:50
  Speaker 1: because you know you go through life and it will
• 1:55:53
  Speaker 1: reinforce some of your values or something. The things you're
• 1:55:56
  Speaker 1: doing and added adding value to people's lives is what
• 1:56:01
  Speaker 1: I do. Yeah. And can I say this, If you
• 1:56:07
  Speaker 1: want to make money in this world, every room you
• 1:56:13
  Speaker 1: walk in, think to yourself, how can I add value
• 1:56:16
  Speaker 1: to the error. If you do that the rest of
• 1:56:19
  Speaker 1: your life, you will always make money because you will
• 1:56:21
  Speaker 1: always be coming up if idea is that add value
• 1:56:25
  Speaker 1: to the room. And sometimes you have to ask the
• 1:56:26
  Speaker 1: room what would add the most value. What is it
• 1:56:30
  Speaker 1: that people need? What is a problem that everybody continues
• 1:56:33
  Speaker 1: to have. If you can come up with solutions that
• 1:56:36
  Speaker 1: add value to solve those problems, you will always be
• 1:56:40
  Speaker 1: making money in some way, shape or form. If you
• 1:56:43
  Speaker 1: walk into every job that you have and go, how
• 1:56:45
  Speaker 1: can I add value to our customers? How can I
• 1:56:47
  Speaker 1: add value to my leader? How can I add value
• 1:56:50
  Speaker 1: to the CEO? How can I add value to my director,
• 1:56:53
  Speaker 1: my regional manager, you name it. If you're constantly thinking
• 1:56:56
  Speaker 1: about adding value, you will always be making money. I
• 1:56:59
  Speaker 1: want to I want to clothes on this statement from you,
• 1:57:01
  Speaker 1: because it's a really good question. I had my questions
• 1:57:03
  Speaker 1: and you were sitting. I was sent questions by Sure
• 1:57:06
  Speaker 1: for the interview, and one of the questions I have
• 1:57:08
  Speaker 1: to ask it's like, how do you network within your failures?
• 1:57:11
  Speaker 1: When I say that is that I thought that was
• 1:57:13
  Speaker 1: the most important question that that I needed to get
• 1:57:16
  Speaker 1: asked after this interview, because failure stops us. Failure chams
• 1:57:20
  Speaker 1: us failures stops us from actually pursuing our dream because
• 1:57:25
  Speaker 1: I feel I'm not gonna try it again. And so
• 1:57:28
  Speaker 1: how does one network within their failures to achieve their goals?
• 1:57:33
  Speaker 1: On it, on it on it. Walk in the room, man,
• 1:57:39
  Speaker 1: I failed, haven't you right? You? You? You have you
• 1:57:42
  Speaker 1: ever walked in a room full of perfect people? I haven't.
• 1:57:46
  Speaker 1: And so yeah, all of us can walk in the
• 1:57:48
  Speaker 1: room and networking event you feel like, well, let me
• 1:57:50
  Speaker 1: just me hide, let me hide my shame, let me
• 1:57:54
  Speaker 1: I don't want them to know that I felt. I
• 1:57:56
  Speaker 1: don't want them to know that I've made some mistakes.
• 1:57:58
  Speaker 1: But the common denominator amongst us all is that we
• 1:58:01
  Speaker 1: all have failures. We all have mistakes. So be the
• 1:58:05
  Speaker 1: first one in the room to own it and just go, yeah,
• 1:58:09
  Speaker 1: I failed. What's the difference. I just owned it, and
• 1:58:13
  Speaker 1: I owned it with a smile on my face. And
• 1:58:15
  Speaker 1: typically what happens when you own at first, somebody else
• 1:58:18
  Speaker 1: goes second. In fact, when you own your own failures,
• 1:58:21
  Speaker 1: you give permission in space for others to fail. And
• 1:58:24
  Speaker 1: that's what a lot of people I think missed is.
• 1:58:27
  Speaker 1: Failure has this ability to isolate you and put you
• 1:58:30
  Speaker 1: on this mental island where you feel like you're the
• 1:58:32
  Speaker 1: only one that's ever failed. That's just not true. You're
• 1:58:38
  Speaker 1: in a very very long line, there's a lot of
• 1:58:41
  Speaker 1: people in front of you, and there's a lot of
• 1:58:43
  Speaker 1: people behind you. And so I think even in networking,
• 1:58:47
  Speaker 1: I think you just you just got to own it.
• 1:58:49
  Speaker 1: Are there going to be some people that look down
• 1:58:51
  Speaker 1: on you. Yeah, that's just because they haven't been able
• 1:58:54
  Speaker 1: to admit their own failures out loud either, And so
• 1:58:57
  Speaker 1: on some level or another, you've got to own it
• 1:59:00
  Speaker 1: and take lessons from your past failures. Are going. Hey,
• 1:59:03
  Speaker 1: I don't want to fail the same way over and
• 1:59:05
  Speaker 1: over again. I'm taking notes and I'm getting better, but
• 1:59:08
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna own up to the fact that I've made
• 1:59:10
  Speaker 1: some mistakes and that I fail. I am human, But
• 1:59:13
  Speaker 1: I am getting back on the horse and I'm moving off.
• 1:59:16
  Speaker 1: Whether the beauty of this conversation is our conversation that
• 1:59:19
  Speaker 1: we had today, Ryan, It's not about money, It's about you.
• 1:59:22
  Speaker 1: It's about adding value of yourself, Uh, seeing yourself through failures,
• 1:59:27
  Speaker 1: owning that failure, and then finding how you can achieve
• 1:59:30
  Speaker 1: success from that failure. And but more importantly, is not
• 1:59:34
  Speaker 1: positioning yourself by saying no to an opportunity that you
• 1:59:39
  Speaker 1: haven't even pursued. And an example I want to give.
• 1:59:42
  Speaker 1: It was always always stuck in my mind because your
• 1:59:44
  Speaker 1: book is full of examples, and I don't want to
• 1:59:46
  Speaker 1: give away these fantastic examples, so I can take examples
• 1:59:49
  Speaker 1: from my life. It was this comedy club in the
• 1:59:51
  Speaker 1: Boston here called stev D's. It was packed Thursday night,
• 1:59:54
  Speaker 1: even don't do commedy on Thursday night. And uh, and
• 1:59:57
  Speaker 1: you go in there and it was picture of every
• 2:00:01
  Speaker 1: major celebrity in the world on the wall. It was
• 2:00:05
  Speaker 1: like stunning to me. How did this guy get all
• 2:00:10
  Speaker 1: these there was autographed to TV Stevie, Stevie Stevie. And
• 2:00:13
  Speaker 1: one day I sat down and said, that's a that's
• 2:00:15
  Speaker 1: a that's a Stevie. Can I ask you a question?
• 2:00:18
  Speaker 1: Do you know these people? Nope? I said, so how
• 2:00:23
  Speaker 1: did you get there? He said? I just emailed. I
• 2:00:25
  Speaker 1: just mailed back. Then with mailing, he said, I just
• 2:00:27
  Speaker 1: mailed him, asked him he could give me an autograph
• 2:00:30
  Speaker 1: photo of themselves and sign it to me, and I
• 2:00:32
  Speaker 1: just put it on the wall. So everybody who comes
• 2:00:34
  Speaker 1: to the club because I know all these people, I said, wow.
• 2:00:38
  Speaker 1: And that's the example. Fast forward, that's you emailing the
• 2:00:43
  Speaker 1: NBA teams asking for a tryout, and then it happened.
• 2:00:47
  Speaker 1: And guess what you learned something about your life. You
• 2:00:50
  Speaker 1: added value to your life, and it also writes you
• 2:00:53
  Speaker 1: on the course of where you should be taking your life.
• 2:00:55
  Speaker 1: And so those two examples are examples of don't say
• 2:00:58
  Speaker 1: no to yourself. Are pursuing the opportunity? Correct? Absolutely, I
• 2:01:03
  Speaker 1: love that. I appreciate you man. Thank you for coming
• 2:01:05
  Speaker 1: to conversations. Great book. Man's Chasing Failure, How falling short
• 2:01:10
  Speaker 1: sets you up for success by my man Ryan Leek,
• 2:01:14
  Speaker 1: Keep winning And I know you're in Dallas. I'm a
• 2:01:16
  Speaker 1: Houston boy. I'm gonna let you off the hook. Okay,
• 2:01:20
  Speaker 1: I appreciate you. You are now tuned into the money
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  Speaker 1: making conversations. Minute of Inspiration with Rushan McDonald. Comedian Kim
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  Speaker 1: training leaders in community groups, companies and women conferences. And
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  Speaker 1: I'm Tanya Sam, host of the Money Moves podcast powered
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  Speaker 1: by Greenwood. This daily podcast will help give you the
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  Speaker 1: keys to the Kingdom of financial stability, wealth and abundance
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