Latest / The Steve Harvey Morning Show / Rocco DiSpirito - Award-winning Chef and author; Melody Holt - Star on “Love & Marriage: Huntsville”; Christina Anthony - Actress on ABC’s “Mixed-ish”; & Sharon Smith-Akinsanya –CEO of an award-winning diversity, equity, and inclusion marketing firm

Transcript

Rocco DiSpirito - Award-winning Chef and author; Melody Holt - Star on “Love & Marriage: Huntsville”; Christina Anthony - Actress on ABC’s “Mixed-ish”; & Sharon Smith-Akinsanya –CEO of an award-winning diversity, equity, and inclusion marketing firm · The Steve Harvey Morning Show

0:04
Speaker 1: Welcome to Money Making Conversations. It's the show that she
0:07
Speaker 1: has the secrets of success experience firsthand by marketing and
0:10
Speaker 1: Brandon expert Rashan McDonald. I will know he's giving me
0:13
Speaker 1: advice on many occasions. In incase you didn't notice, I'm
0:16
Speaker 1: not broke. You know, he'll be interviewing celebrity CEOs, entrepreneurs
0:20
Speaker 1: and industry decision makers. It's what he likes to do,
0:22
Speaker 1: it's what he likes to share. Now it's time to
0:25
Speaker 1: hear from my man, Rashan McDonald. Money Making Conversations Here
0:29
Speaker 1: we come. Welcome to Money Making Conversations. I'm your host
0:32
Speaker 1: from Sean McDonald. It's important to understand that everybody travels
0:35
Speaker 1: a different path to success. That's because your brand is different.
0:38
Speaker 1: That challenges your face in your life in different So
0:40
Speaker 1: I guess that's just question to everybody. Stop reading other
0:43
Speaker 1: people's success stories and start writing your own. Now, you
0:46
Speaker 1: could be motivated by their success because their stories can
0:48
Speaker 1: offer direction to help you get to your dreams, but
0:51
Speaker 1: it's their dreams that you're trying to make your dreams
0:53
Speaker 1: and that's not fair. So really it's your community expert
0:56
Speaker 1: you're planning that will get you there on my show,
0:59
Speaker 1: I try to bring a star on that exemplify they're
1:02
Speaker 1: committed effort, their planning and their longevity. My next guest
1:06
Speaker 1: so exemplifies that. Rocko di Spirito. Rocko is a jade
1:15
Speaker 1: healthy lifestyle cruise and number one New York Times best
1:18
Speaker 1: selling author who has dedicated to proving that healthy and
1:21
Speaker 1: delicious are not mutually exclusive. He was named Food and
1:24
Speaker 1: Wine Magazine's Best New Chef, People Magazine's Sexiest Chef. I
1:29
Speaker 1: Like that Part, was the first chef to appear on
1:31
Speaker 1: Gourmet Magazine's cover America's Most Exciting Young Chef. His health
1:35
Speaker 1: is the leading health expert and often call upon to
1:38
Speaker 1: speak of events including the Partnership for a Healthy America
1:41
Speaker 1: Summer and Washington d C. The Spirit de Spirito regularly
1:46
Speaker 1: disappears on nationally telefied shows such as ABC's Good Morning
1:50
Speaker 1: America's CBS Talk, ABC's The View, and My Friend Dr Oz.
1:55
Speaker 1: Please work with the money making conversations, My man, Roco,
1:58
Speaker 1: how you doing? Hello? Hello were Sean? You read the
2:01
Speaker 1: whole thing I have to hold provided you with thank you.
2:05
Speaker 1: I would tell you, you know, actually cut down. I
2:08
Speaker 1: cut down because when you're reported towns like Steve Harvey
2:12
Speaker 1: and Steven A. Smith and work with you give people
2:16
Speaker 1: their career credit, and you know you have a career.
2:19
Speaker 1: Now you you're interesting guy because I we hear the
2:22
Speaker 1: word healthy, I hear the word food. Now I'm just
2:25
Speaker 1: letting you know what you're talking to, rock Hole. I'm
2:27
Speaker 1: a guy who has Um Crispy Cream app on my phone. Okay,
2:32
Speaker 1: you're talking just how you're talking to. I go to
2:35
Speaker 1: I go to a restaurant. I get my dessert before
2:38
Speaker 1: my meal. I would come, I go, hey, can you
2:41
Speaker 1: give me? Of course, everybody everybody looks at me crazy
2:45
Speaker 1: when I do that, Rock I said, can you get
2:47
Speaker 1: excuse me? It is crazy? It is crazy, Thank you
2:49
Speaker 1: very much. So I want to look at the people
2:54
Speaker 1: about my good ship. I want to set the stage
2:57
Speaker 1: for our relationship. You say, I don't want you to
2:59
Speaker 1: con you. I don't say you like I'm doing something
3:02
Speaker 1: right in life. I enjoy our life, but it's important
3:05
Speaker 1: that especially you know, I'm gonna go real and funny.
3:09
Speaker 1: At the same time, COVID has told us that we
3:11
Speaker 1: gotta eat right, especially in the brown and black and
3:14
Speaker 1: brown communities. We've shown that the COVID ninteen has overtally
3:18
Speaker 1: affected that and weight loss and high blood pressure and
3:21
Speaker 1: cholesterol have always been enemies in the black community. And
3:24
Speaker 1: so that's one of the reasons why I wanted to
3:27
Speaker 1: bring you on our show, just because your book, and
3:28
Speaker 1: also we're gonna talk about some some things we're gonna
3:30
Speaker 1: do by super Bowl time for for nice eats, but
3:34
Speaker 1: I really wanted to talk about you as a brand
3:37
Speaker 1: and the and the reason why healthy eating and healthy
3:40
Speaker 1: lifestyle is so important. Yeah, so you make you're you're
3:43
Speaker 1: making fun of people who think about health, But I
3:47
Speaker 1: know you must be working out or balancing your behavior
3:51
Speaker 1: in other ways because you're in great shape. You look amazing.
3:54
Speaker 1: Obviously you're in good health. So I'd like to know
3:56
Speaker 1: before you let people believe that you're crispy cream app
3:59
Speaker 1: rule your daily lives, what is it that you do
4:02
Speaker 1: to stay in such good shape. You obviously worked out, Yes,
4:05
Speaker 1: you watch, you watch, you watch other things that you eat.
4:08
Speaker 1: I'm sure you probably drink a lot of water. You
4:10
Speaker 1: probably don't drink a lot of alcohol. You know, there's
4:12
Speaker 1: probably a few things you do in your life to
4:14
Speaker 1: stay balanced. I drink a lot of water, I drink
4:19
Speaker 1: a lot of water. I I don't drink coffee your tea,
4:22
Speaker 1: not because it's negative, but I drink a ton of water.
4:25
Speaker 1: I don't eat early. If you know, I tend to
4:28
Speaker 1: want to stop eating at six o'clock in the afternoon.
4:31
Speaker 1: I'm not a big portion eating person. When I was younger,
4:35
Speaker 1: I was a big all you can eat restaurant fan.
4:37
Speaker 1: But as you get older, you do less, and so
4:39
Speaker 1: I usually do two meals a day and I eat
4:42
Speaker 1: a lot of nuts. There you go. So, so what
4:45
Speaker 1: you just subscribed includes calorie correction, card correction, intermittent fasting,
4:51
Speaker 1: even uh, metabolic fasting. Do you work out at all?
4:56
Speaker 1: I do a lot of stretching now and stretching okay,
4:58
Speaker 1: and you're probably very tip and you're probably staying busy
5:01
Speaker 1: a lot. So you're doing nine out of ten things
5:03
Speaker 1: that I recommend doing in all of my books. I've
5:06
Speaker 1: written nine books about health, and all of them include
5:09
Speaker 1: everything that you just described. So if you have a
5:12
Speaker 1: bad Krispy Creme habit, but you balance it with working
5:15
Speaker 1: out and drinking moderate amounts of alcohol and doing a
5:18
Speaker 1: lot of jail, you exercise and staying busy and living
5:21
Speaker 1: a life with purpose and staying hydrated. Those are all
5:24
Speaker 1: the things that will balance and counteract the Krispy Creame addiction.
5:28
Speaker 1: I love a Krispy Creame like everybody else. I haven't downloaded. Yeah,
5:31
Speaker 1: I have to be honest with you, but I do
5:34
Speaker 1: need to stay away from those things, and they will
5:36
Speaker 1: trigger me. So you gotta know, You gotta know what
5:38
Speaker 1: will trigger you. Getta stay away from the bad habits
5:41
Speaker 1: that will trigger you. So if I see if I
5:43
Speaker 1: walk by a Krispy Kreme, I'm likely to go in
5:46
Speaker 1: and give it a whiff and see what's going on.
5:48
Speaker 1: So I try to avoid those places. But you know,
5:50
Speaker 1: it's it's important, especially as we get older and especially
5:53
Speaker 1: during a pandemic, that you stay as healthy as possible.
5:56
Speaker 1: And one easy way to do it is with your
5:59
Speaker 1: choices about food. It's the only thing that you have,
6:03
Speaker 1: uh that's really in your control. So think about all
6:06
Speaker 1: the other influences on your health. Uh So the quality
6:10
Speaker 1: of the air you breathe, the quality of the water,
6:12
Speaker 1: the quality of process and commercial foods, fast foods. You
6:17
Speaker 1: can't control what's in any of that, right, UH, Medicines
6:20
Speaker 1: that you take, you have no idea what's in the medicines,
6:23
Speaker 1: the health care that you get. We don't really know
6:25
Speaker 1: for getting quality healthcare or fo doctors doing what's best
6:28
Speaker 1: for us, or making decisions that are in ourvesting. We
6:31
Speaker 1: don't really know for sure, right we we we know
6:33
Speaker 1: at the end of our lives what happened and what
6:36
Speaker 1: what was important, what wasn't. But the food that you
6:38
Speaker 1: eat every day you have almost control over if at
6:43
Speaker 1: some point in your life you broke the sugar habit.
6:46
Speaker 1: If you did that, and you have control over your options,
6:49
Speaker 1: you can make healthy choices. And once you start making
6:52
Speaker 1: healthy choices, you regain your power and your control over
6:55
Speaker 1: your body and your life. And UH, for every person
6:59
Speaker 1: out there, you've got our seriously consider that. And it's
7:01
Speaker 1: about eating consciously. So every time you're hungry, you feel
7:06
Speaker 1: you crave something to eat, you have to take a moment. UH,
7:09
Speaker 1: you have to think about what you're gonna do, be
7:12
Speaker 1: conscious and make a decision that's good for you instead
7:15
Speaker 1: of impulse eating and just stuffing you know, stuff in
7:18
Speaker 1: your face that happens to be around you. Because when
7:21
Speaker 1: you do that, you lose control of your health, your body,
7:23
Speaker 1: your mind, and then you're not helpful to yourself, your family,
7:26
Speaker 1: people around you, and uh lots of lots of different
7:30
Speaker 1: categories of people get caught up into this because you know,
7:34
Speaker 1: we're marketed junk food from from really really young. It's
7:38
Speaker 1: very inexpensive. I remember going to Catholic school and queens
7:42
Speaker 1: they served us junk food five days a week. We
7:45
Speaker 1: had McDonald's one day, we had Blimpy, another day, we
7:48
Speaker 1: had beats another day. I mean, when you start out
7:51
Speaker 1: life like that, you know it's it's definitely a hard road.
7:54
Speaker 1: Uh years on the road. So rock your book, our
7:57
Speaker 1: Rocko's Keto comfort food, diet e foods you miss still
8:01
Speaker 1: lose up to a pound to day. That's the book.
8:03
Speaker 1: I want that book. I'm gonna put it on my
8:05
Speaker 1: social media soon as you give me some banners. That's
8:07
Speaker 1: why I've really started when to make conversation problem because
8:10
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's all three a charge. They got
8:12
Speaker 1: like one point six social and influence followers, million followers,
8:17
Speaker 1: and I'd like to really amazing get a sense of
8:20
Speaker 1: because what happens. If you go to my Facebook, you'll
8:23
Speaker 1: see I got like eight hundred fifty followers. You see
8:26
Speaker 1: on Tuesday and three I always promote bakers they put
8:29
Speaker 1: their favorite. So I really wanted to bring you on
8:31
Speaker 1: the show because of the fact that I know native
8:34
Speaker 1: percent of my followers on Facebook or female ten percent
8:37
Speaker 1: of men. So that means that they influence dies, they
8:40
Speaker 1: influence the household. So tell us about your your diet book. Sure, Uh,
8:46
Speaker 1: since you brought up thinking and I'm just gonna point
8:48
Speaker 1: out this recipe first. It's a chocolate chips skillet cookie.
8:52
Speaker 1: This is one of my favorite recipes in the book
8:58
Speaker 1: Chocolate Skill. It yeah, chocolate chip skillet cookie. It's made
9:05
Speaker 1: without any sugar at all. It's made with dark chocolate. Uh,
9:09
Speaker 1: it's got um five grams of protein, eleven grams of
9:15
Speaker 1: carbs as compared to a normal chocol chip cookie, which
9:19
Speaker 1: would have you know, sixty seventy grams of carbs. Especially
9:21
Speaker 1: on this big This would be the first recipe I'd
9:24
Speaker 1: recommend out of this book. And uh, because I use
9:28
Speaker 1: dark chocolate, I use coconut flour, I don't use uh
9:31
Speaker 1: any traditional sweeteners. Unable to keep the grams of carbs low.
9:35
Speaker 1: And basically we're in a fight against junk carbs. Most
9:39
Speaker 1: pallots come down to avoiding junk cards. Unless you're an
9:44
Speaker 1: elite athlete, or you run five miles a day, you
9:47
Speaker 1: basically need to avoid cards. That's what it all comes
9:49
Speaker 1: down to, and that's what this book is about. It's
9:51
Speaker 1: a keto diet. It's called Keto comfort Foods because I took,
9:55
Speaker 1: you know, my top ten lists of favorite comfort foods
9:58
Speaker 1: and I turned them into Keto version, which means less
10:01
Speaker 1: than they add up to less than twenty grams of
10:03
Speaker 1: carbs per day. So if you eat three or four
10:06
Speaker 1: dishes from this book per day, you can be guaranteed
10:09
Speaker 1: that you'll stay in a keto diet, which is a
10:10
Speaker 1: low carb diet. We've all heard of low carb diet.
10:13
Speaker 1: The other part of being on a keto diet is
10:15
Speaker 1: that you eat a lot of fat. You're on a
10:17
Speaker 1: high fat, low carb diet, and if you're able to
10:19
Speaker 1: sustain that, you can lose a lot of weight very quickly,
10:23
Speaker 1: you can reverse diabetes. There a lot of health benefits.
10:26
Speaker 1: The thing with the Keto diet is it's a it's
10:28
Speaker 1: a little bit all or nothing. So if you don't
10:31
Speaker 1: stay on the Keto diet and you don't stay in ketosis,
10:34
Speaker 1: and you you have a couple of bad days, you
10:37
Speaker 1: can gain a lot of weight very quickly. So I
10:39
Speaker 1: only recommend for people who can stay on the path
10:42
Speaker 1: for at least ten days. If you're if you're gonna,
10:45
Speaker 1: you know, fall off the wagon day three, it's probably
10:48
Speaker 1: not a good thing to do. And what you should
10:49
Speaker 1: do is just basically lower your junk carb consumption. Talking
10:53
Speaker 1: about bread, rice, uh, baked goods unfortunately, were showing us
11:00
Speaker 1: you unless you're living life and balance. Now, when I
11:03
Speaker 1: say life and balance, I mean, uh, if you're within
11:06
Speaker 1: ten percent of your goal weight, your body fat is
11:10
Speaker 1: you know, somewhere between twenty uh. Your your bm your
11:15
Speaker 1: body mass index is uh, you know, equal to the
11:18
Speaker 1: amount of calories you burn every day. So our BMR
11:21
Speaker 1: is our is our basal metabolic rate. It tells you
11:24
Speaker 1: how many calories you burn without exercise every day, and
11:28
Speaker 1: for most people it's between fifteen and two thousand calories
11:31
Speaker 1: that we just burn living life, just doing nothing, just
11:33
Speaker 1: walking around. If you're eating more than fifteen hundreds of
11:36
Speaker 1: two thousand calories day, you're obviously gonna gain weight because
11:39
Speaker 1: you're consuming more than you burn. So that's what I
11:42
Speaker 1: when I say life and balance, I'm talking about iso
11:44
Speaker 1: caloric balance, meaning you burn and consume the same amount
11:49
Speaker 1: of calories. You know, there's really good that I'm hearing
11:51
Speaker 1: this conversation because because my wife, she loves my desserts,
11:54
Speaker 1: but she's she's really back off the sugar now. She's
11:57
Speaker 1: really that's just too sweet for me. Like I made
11:59
Speaker 1: some down to the raisin bread this weekend because I
12:02
Speaker 1: knew the sugar content with those. She loved it. And
12:04
Speaker 1: so you're talking about that chocolate chip skillet cookie with
12:08
Speaker 1: no sugar, I'm making that this week Yeah, you're gonna
12:12
Speaker 1: love it. You're gonna I guarantee you're gonna love it.
12:14
Speaker 1: And if if it's um, because I use alternative sweeteners
12:18
Speaker 1: like stevia and monk fruit, if it doesn't taste right,
12:22
Speaker 1: so you can always add a little bit of coconut
12:24
Speaker 1: nectar or maple syrup or something like a traditional sweetener,
12:28
Speaker 1: just a little bit to give it the just taste
12:31
Speaker 1: that you're used to. But most of the time, listen,
12:34
Speaker 1: you win people over with those baked make desserts. I'm
12:36
Speaker 1: sure fake goods. I'm sure make you a lot of friends.
12:39
Speaker 1: But you know everything in moderation. You told me before
12:42
Speaker 1: that you practice portion control, hopefully, hopefully that's true with
12:45
Speaker 1: all the baked goods. Well, my whole thing is that,
12:48
Speaker 1: like with this is out of your book, rock Hose Keto,
12:50
Speaker 1: comfort food diet, eat foods you miss and still lose
12:53
Speaker 1: up to a pound of day. Now we were talking
12:56
Speaker 1: about it. Really you are a godsen to me because
13:00
Speaker 1: in the end, you know, just talk about it. When
13:03
Speaker 1: you in your twenties, you just you know, you're just
13:05
Speaker 1: burning stuff. You're just burning, right, And then then you're
13:08
Speaker 1: getting the thirties and forties, you become you start sitting more,
13:12
Speaker 1: you don't run as much a natural activity, losing and
13:14
Speaker 1: that's when the way game comes about. And I said
13:17
Speaker 1: the guards in part about is that you're telling me
13:19
Speaker 1: I can still enjoy what I eat, but in a
13:22
Speaker 1: healthier manner. And guess what, I am a disciplined guy, Rocko.
13:26
Speaker 1: I do have discipline in my and and so, and
13:28
Speaker 1: I like to be people who follow me have that
13:31
Speaker 1: same discipline if I redirect them a little bit with
13:33
Speaker 1: your books. Yeah, listen, clear clearly you live in this
13:38
Speaker 1: is in life. Look at what you've accomplished. There's no
13:40
Speaker 1: way you you could get to where you are without
13:42
Speaker 1: waking up every day and going out there and hitting
13:45
Speaker 1: the ground with purpose. Right, It's the same thing with
13:48
Speaker 1: your diet. The one thing we think that is not
13:51
Speaker 1: in our control is our diet and our health and wellness.
13:54
Speaker 1: A lot of people in America believe that is in
13:57
Speaker 1: the control of other people. It's not true. It's complete,
14:00
Speaker 1: letly within your control. So if you again, if there's
14:03
Speaker 1: a little bit of conscious thought and impulse control, you know,
14:06
Speaker 1: we we learn impulse control, uh, either by getting in
14:10
Speaker 1: trouble or going to therapy, or you read about it
14:14
Speaker 1: in a self help book, or you know, maybe you
14:17
Speaker 1: heard Steve Harvey talked about it. I don't know, but
14:19
Speaker 1: everybody learns impulse control at some point in their life.
14:22
Speaker 1: If we apply it, like you know, when you talk
14:25
Speaker 1: back to your mom and she's snacks me because you
14:27
Speaker 1: didn't wait a second to to keep to make a
14:29
Speaker 1: better decision, that's that's another lesson in impulse control, and
14:33
Speaker 1: my mom did that a lot. But if you apply
14:35
Speaker 1: that to eating, you'll you'll do yourself a huge favor
14:39
Speaker 1: because most people when they're making conscious decisions about what
14:42
Speaker 1: they eat, make better decisions. And also if you cook
14:45
Speaker 1: at home a lot versus eating out, you'll make much
14:48
Speaker 1: better decisions than commercial food manufacturers will make for you.
14:52
Speaker 1: And the reason you start to gain weight in your
14:53
Speaker 1: thirties and forties is because hormones like testosterone and estrogen
14:58
Speaker 1: start to decline. Your body produces much less of those hormones.
15:02
Speaker 1: Muscle mass starts to decline. Your muscle is the only
15:05
Speaker 1: part of your body that burns glories, so you you
15:07
Speaker 1: start to add You know, some people have five to
15:10
Speaker 1: ten pounds a year starting in their thirties, and it's
15:14
Speaker 1: really through no fault of their own. They're doing the
15:16
Speaker 1: same thing they've always done, but all of a sudden,
15:18
Speaker 1: now we're gaining weight. So you have to counteracted either
15:21
Speaker 1: by exercising more, which at some point you have to
15:24
Speaker 1: do because you'll you'll never add muscle in your thirties, forties, fifties,
15:29
Speaker 1: sixties unless you're purposely trying to add muscle by working out.
15:35
Speaker 1: You know, stretching is a great form of exercise. It's
15:37
Speaker 1: it's essentially uh another form of yoga, which is all
15:44
Speaker 1: resistance training, which fills muscle. And if you don't do that,
15:47
Speaker 1: weights or push up and pull ups, those all help
15:49
Speaker 1: a lot. Let me ask the thing about the word
15:53
Speaker 1: diet and use the word healthy food, it tends to
15:57
Speaker 1: not sound like it's good food? Am I wrong with it?
16:00
Speaker 1: People know you're right, and you're absolutely right about that.
16:02
Speaker 1: Healthy and delicious we're always mutually exclusive. If you really
16:06
Speaker 1: read my first book, it says healthy and delicious are
16:09
Speaker 1: no longer mutually exclusive. So my goals is as a
16:12
Speaker 1: chef and a diet a diet a person or an
16:15
Speaker 1: advocate of healthy diets, was to make sure that the
16:18
Speaker 1: food tasted just as good as it did before I
16:22
Speaker 1: put the diet onto it. So before I take away
16:24
Speaker 1: all the bad stuff and add all the good stuff,
16:27
Speaker 1: I make sure it's still tastes good. So in your book,
16:29
Speaker 1: you you have recipes like chocolate glazed donut, cinnamon roll bytes,
16:35
Speaker 1: mac and cheese, which is my daughter is gonna love. Now.
16:37
Speaker 1: This is what I love right here, because I bag
16:40
Speaker 1: some fried chicken for my staff last week because in
16:43
Speaker 1: my office I have a full kitchen and so I'm
16:47
Speaker 1: always cooking for him, and so a lot of these
16:49
Speaker 1: recipes and I enjoy, like the hot Crispy Keto, fried
16:52
Speaker 1: chicken does spaghetti squash? The meat lover is cauliflower pizza.
16:56
Speaker 1: Come on, now, this pizza is insane. You have to
17:00
Speaker 1: make that and that it's so good people love it.
17:02
Speaker 1: The fried chicken is great. Fried chicken is naturally keto.
17:06
Speaker 1: You just got to replace the bread crumbs with something
17:08
Speaker 1: that's that's more Keto friendly. Okay when you say that,
17:11
Speaker 1: what do you mean when you say that? Because now
17:13
Speaker 1: you got me. Yeah, so so in this book, I
17:17
Speaker 1: use either one of two things, a nut mixture or
17:22
Speaker 1: because it's keto. I'm not saying this is good for everybody,
17:24
Speaker 1: but pork crackling, ground up cork cracklin as a as
17:28
Speaker 1: a coating instead of bread crumbs. So that's protein and fat,
17:32
Speaker 1: no carbs. I know that sounds insane and totally unhealthy,
17:35
Speaker 1: but if you're on a Keto diet, it works. Now
17:40
Speaker 1: you crazy for you? I know right, it sounds crazy.
17:44
Speaker 1: Pork cracklan. I grew up on that rocko. Come on, now,
17:48
Speaker 1: you eat too much, you choke on it. If you
17:53
Speaker 1: smash it up. If you smash it up, you can
17:56
Speaker 1: use it as a coating for all your fried foods
17:58
Speaker 1: instead of bread crumbs. So instead of a junk carb,
18:01
Speaker 1: you using a protein and effect. Those are some of
18:04
Speaker 1: the tricks that we do in the book. Wow see you.
18:09
Speaker 1: You you scoff. When I said you are gods in
18:11
Speaker 1: you looked at me. What's he talking about? You telling me? Modesty?
18:16
Speaker 1: Kicking up? Now? Here's here's here's the right there. Now
18:22
Speaker 1: the super Bowl is coming up. We all know that
18:25
Speaker 1: everybody gotta have the right thing. Is that that's that
18:27
Speaker 1: the colifil pizza. That's a that's pizza. Yeah, yes, a
18:32
Speaker 1: square I love that. It's a square pizza. Well, you're
18:37
Speaker 1: probably gonna say some of my staff because, uh, the
18:40
Speaker 1: way I cook that chocolate guge don't love it. Cinema
18:43
Speaker 1: role bytes, mac and cheese, so many of the things
18:46
Speaker 1: that I'm gonna be buying to that. So with super
18:48
Speaker 1: Bowl coming up? What what? What of the things you
18:50
Speaker 1: got on your menia there for us there? So here
18:53
Speaker 1: here you go. If you want to be on a
18:54
Speaker 1: keyto diet for super Bowl, which by the way, I
18:57
Speaker 1: don't necessarily recommend, there have to be some days where
19:00
Speaker 1: you just don't care. Right, There's there's gotta be a
19:02
Speaker 1: few days a year where you're just not worried about
19:04
Speaker 1: that stuff. And super Bowl is a good one. Thanksgiving
19:07
Speaker 1: is another good one, Christmas is another good one. Just
19:10
Speaker 1: don't worry about it on those days. If you're worry
19:12
Speaker 1: about it the rest of the year, you'll be fine
19:14
Speaker 1: on those days. Uh. This is guacamole served with pork
19:17
Speaker 1: cracklin right, So high quality fats, lots of protein, and
19:22
Speaker 1: pepitas which are yeah right, that's fried pork correctly. Yeah,
19:29
Speaker 1: instead of tortillas, which are junk cards. It's pork cracklin crazy.
19:33
Speaker 1: I know it sounds insane, but it's really good and
19:36
Speaker 1: it works. This is and this is all in there
19:41
Speaker 1: the book rock O Keto Comfort Food Diet. Wow. The
19:46
Speaker 1: other thing, the other thing you have to have on
19:48
Speaker 1: on Super Bowls is chicken wings, right, gotta have chicken wings.
19:53
Speaker 1: So my recommendation for chicken wings comes from another book
19:55
Speaker 1: I wrote called now This, and it's basically Frank's hot sauce,
19:59
Speaker 1: butter and just fresh chicken wings. That's the original recipe.
20:03
Speaker 1: So in the eighties, when I was in cooking school,
20:05
Speaker 1: I traveled to Buffalo, New York with my roommate who's
20:08
Speaker 1: from Buffalo, and I went to Anchor Bar and to Dust,
20:12
Speaker 1: the two bars that claim to have originated the Buffalo
20:15
Speaker 1: chicken wing, and I learned the recipe from them and that.
20:18
Speaker 1: All it is is Frank's Hot sauce, butter, and fresh
20:21
Speaker 1: fried chicken wings. There's no flour, there's no sugar, there's
20:24
Speaker 1: no crazy stuff. That's all it is. Three ingredients. Just
20:27
Speaker 1: try that. Try that for this Super Bowl and I
20:30
Speaker 1: think you'll be very, very happy. And it's keto. Okay,
20:33
Speaker 1: So what are you frying any what? What's what's what's
20:35
Speaker 1: on it? Oil? You're frying it in oil. Whatever oil
20:39
Speaker 1: you want, obviously the listen. If you could afford grape
20:42
Speaker 1: seed oil, avocad oil, go for it. But otherwise, vegetable
20:46
Speaker 1: oil is fine. It's raw, it's dry, it's it's season
20:49
Speaker 1: with salt and pepper. It's deep fried until it's crispy
20:52
Speaker 1: about ten minutes, and then it goes into a bowl
20:55
Speaker 1: with about two thirds Franc's Hot sauce one third butter.
20:58
Speaker 1: I like to use grass fed butter you can, and
21:01
Speaker 1: then you cover the bolt for a few minutes, toss
21:03
Speaker 1: it around and that's that's the original recipe for Buffalo
21:06
Speaker 1: chicken wings from Buffalo from Anchor Bar. Wow. Yeah. So
21:11
Speaker 1: no flour, no dredging, no nonsense, no sugar, none that stuff. Okay. Now,
21:17
Speaker 1: the one thing I never hear people talking about is
21:20
Speaker 1: I'm going to my heart now desserts for super Bowl snacks?
21:25
Speaker 1: You know you can't be around and just what what
21:27
Speaker 1: what would you recommended? You can grab and you can
21:31
Speaker 1: eat real quick, make real fast for super Bowl weekend.
21:34
Speaker 1: So I have a flowerless chocolate cake in this and
21:36
Speaker 1: this Keto Comfort book that I think is a fantastic
21:39
Speaker 1: go to. You can make days ahead, leave it in
21:41
Speaker 1: the fridge. You mentioned monkey bread before. I love monkey bread,
21:45
Speaker 1: and uh I like I like to use um pre bought,
21:50
Speaker 1: you know, like a dough in a tube. Like I
21:52
Speaker 1: don't want to mention the brand, but you guys know
21:53
Speaker 1: what I'm talking about. To buy those biscuits and you pop,
21:57
Speaker 1: you pop them open and then you you semble them
22:01
Speaker 1: like a tower so you can make it pull apart.
22:03
Speaker 1: I like that for the Super Bowl. I think that's fun.
22:07
Speaker 1: Pull apart monkey bread. Okay, so what are the ingredients
22:11
Speaker 1: with that? What do you know? Just I'll give you
22:13
Speaker 1: a rescue. But this is not a healthy one, by
22:15
Speaker 1: the way. This is this is conventional. This is conventional.
22:18
Speaker 1: I used white chocolate, maple syrup bacon in mine. I
22:23
Speaker 1: just made it on Guy's Ranch kitchen. On the Food Network.
22:25
Speaker 1: It was it was delicious, and uh, it'll be I'll
22:28
Speaker 1: be on the air on the thirty one January. Actually
22:31
Speaker 1: you'll be able to catch me making it and I'll
22:33
Speaker 1: get you a rescue for it. But it's basically a
22:35
Speaker 1: white chocolate bacon monkey bread. I know it sounds awful,
22:38
Speaker 1: but it's really good. Rock You you are man, you're
22:43
Speaker 1: a man out there, my hall. Everything you're saying I
22:46
Speaker 1: grew up eating indeed, but it sounds like I shouldn't
22:49
Speaker 1: be eating it now. But you said, chan, trust me.
22:53
Speaker 1: This is the pork ryans, the crackling I mean crackling, Brad.
22:57
Speaker 1: I remember I grew up with that. You know, takes
23:00
Speaker 1: bare room or a shotgun house. But my dad, my mom,
23:04
Speaker 1: you know, we were said, they're nine kids, so we
23:07
Speaker 1: ate like that. That's what we ate, and so we
23:09
Speaker 1: enjoyed it. And so you bring back memories. And you're
23:12
Speaker 1: telling me you have to hear that, Rock, Well, you
23:14
Speaker 1: created a cookbook that I can get all this stuff
23:17
Speaker 1: and bring back my food memories. For sure. For sure,
23:20
Speaker 1: there's a lot of comfort food in there that I'm
23:22
Speaker 1: sure we'll bring back the memories. That was the way
23:24
Speaker 1: it was designed. That's why it's called the comfort food diet.
23:27
Speaker 1: The ideas you can eat the foods you love, still
23:29
Speaker 1: lose the weight, still manage the weight, and and be happy.
23:31
Speaker 1: Right because at the end of the day, we're not
23:33
Speaker 1: feeling happy and satisfied and we don't reach society, which
23:38
Speaker 1: is hard to reach. You end up cheating on your diet.
23:40
Speaker 1: You end up messing up, You end up drinking too
23:42
Speaker 1: much or eating too many sweets, and it doesn't work.
23:45
Speaker 1: So I gotta you gotta be able to uh hit
23:47
Speaker 1: the spot if you know what I mean. Well, I
23:50
Speaker 1: know what I'm gonna do. I'm going to Bonds and
23:52
Speaker 1: Nobles and get your book today. I'm surprised my wife
23:57
Speaker 1: this afternoon with this book. Uh it sounds amazing. Thank
24:02
Speaker 1: you so much, Rockell. Here's a deal. I have a
24:05
Speaker 1: lot of chefs come on show. I'm I'm a fan
24:07
Speaker 1: of chefs. I want you to be a friend of
24:09
Speaker 1: my show anytime you want to come on, because you're
24:13
Speaker 1: changing my life in a way. And I'd say these
24:15
Speaker 1: things because of the fact that as you get older,
24:18
Speaker 1: you know that you can see the finish line more
24:20
Speaker 1: so I'm trying to push the finish line and but
24:23
Speaker 1: it was more importantly I want to enjoy life. But
24:25
Speaker 1: you're telling me, Rashan, there's comfort food out there that
24:28
Speaker 1: you can eat and if you do it right, you
24:31
Speaker 1: can still smile at the dinner to or still the
24:34
Speaker 1: word healthy. Don't don't act like that's a deft finding turn.
24:40
Speaker 1: And that's what you'r sir, rocos keyto comfort food. Died
24:43
Speaker 1: eat the foods you miss and still lose up to
24:45
Speaker 1: a pound of day. And you say, as you need
24:47
Speaker 1: give yourself a ten day window to try ket or
24:51
Speaker 1: give yourself tenday twenty days would be a deal. Ten
24:54
Speaker 1: days ten days minimum, Uh to see some big results.
24:57
Speaker 1: You'll see results in the first few days. Give yourself
25:00
Speaker 1: ten days being a dent on the path I'm talking about,
25:05
Speaker 1: you know, holy no, no mistakes for ten days and
25:09
Speaker 1: you'll see big results. Let's talk about your book just
25:12
Speaker 1: a little bit more sure. Yeah, do you have like
25:14
Speaker 1: like a morning, a breakfast, lunch and dinner type of regiment?
25:18
Speaker 1: I do, yes, so, Uh. The book has diet plants.
25:22
Speaker 1: It has four four tiers tier once or two, three,
25:25
Speaker 1: and four which takes you from uh smaller amounts of
25:28
Speaker 1: calories to larger amounts of calories, but also from extreme
25:32
Speaker 1: keyto to a Keto friendly diet. So at some point
25:36
Speaker 1: keto becomes um a little bit unsustainable because you don't
25:41
Speaker 1: want to eat that amount of fat for the rest
25:43
Speaker 1: of your life. You want to get into eating healthy vegetables,
25:46
Speaker 1: eating a lot of plant based foods. And this book
25:48
Speaker 1: gets you from there to there. So, but it starts
25:50
Speaker 1: off with keto coffee and bone broth. So you do
25:55
Speaker 1: that for three days, and that's called the cleans. So
25:58
Speaker 1: bone broth gives you all a necessary protein and fat
26:01
Speaker 1: that you need to sustain you know, your energy, and
26:04
Speaker 1: you can drink as much bone broth as you want.
26:06
Speaker 1: And I'm talking about a rich, powerfully favorite bone broth
26:10
Speaker 1: and Keto coffee, which is black coffee with either a
26:13
Speaker 1: coconut milk or coconut coconut fat or grass fed butter
26:18
Speaker 1: in the blender. You probably heard of this, you know,
26:20
Speaker 1: bullet bulletproof coffee. It's the same thing. And if you
26:24
Speaker 1: drink that in the morning and then you continue to
26:26
Speaker 1: eat bone broth and have one meal a day for
26:28
Speaker 1: three days, you'll get your body to understand that you're serious.
26:32
Speaker 1: Your body will immediately understand something is different, and it
26:35
Speaker 1: will convert it's car burning engines into fat burning engines
26:40
Speaker 1: pretty quickly. During that time, you have to stay a
26:43
Speaker 1: hundred percent hydrated. So let me explain hydration. Your your
26:48
Speaker 1: muscle cells are seventy water. They're made out of water.
26:52
Speaker 1: If they are deprived of hydration, if they are hydrogen starved,
26:57
Speaker 1: they do not work. It's like trying to run us
27:00
Speaker 1: worts car with a few quarts of oil. Short you
27:02
Speaker 1: can't do it. So you have to stay hydrated. And
27:05
Speaker 1: staying hydrated means drinking at least four of these a day,
27:08
Speaker 1: if not five or six. It should be half your
27:11
Speaker 1: body weight and ounces. So if you wait two hundred
27:14
Speaker 1: pounds a hundred ounces of water and so on, you
27:17
Speaker 1: need to You need to be drinking enough water where
27:19
Speaker 1: you're You're going to the bathroom a little more frequently
27:22
Speaker 1: because your body knows it can process the water instead
27:25
Speaker 1: of storing it. And those are all parts of getting
27:27
Speaker 1: into the Keto diet. Then in Tier two I add
27:30
Speaker 1: two more meals to the day, and Tier three I
27:32
Speaker 1: had another meal. Tier four I ad dessert. That is
27:35
Speaker 1: a twenty eight day plan. I'm gonna do it. You
27:40
Speaker 1: don't need to do it. Look at you're in great shape.
27:42
Speaker 1: You don't need to know. You can try it, and
27:44
Speaker 1: you could try it and tell your fans if it
27:45
Speaker 1: works or not. I'm gonna do at least for ten day.
27:53
Speaker 1: I got bad habits there, all right. It sounds like
27:57
Speaker 1: it sounds like you cook a lot of your bad
27:59
Speaker 1: habits very very frequently. So, but ketos Keto diets are
28:04
Speaker 1: also therapeutic in other ways, not just for weight loss.
28:08
Speaker 1: It reduces your A one C. It can reduce your
28:11
Speaker 1: A one C, which is a big number for those
28:14
Speaker 1: who are, you know, thinking about type two diabetes. That's
28:18
Speaker 1: the number you're always looking at blood gluecoast levels. Uh,
28:22
Speaker 1: it can some people feel like they get a brain
28:26
Speaker 1: boost from a keto diet. So there are a number
28:28
Speaker 1: of therapeutic benefits other than weight loss that you should
28:32
Speaker 1: be looking for as well. Energy. Wow, thank you for
28:37
Speaker 1: coming on my show, man, my pleasure. Really, I've heard
28:41
Speaker 1: about you for a while. I was actually one of
28:43
Speaker 1: your You produced me on Steve Harvey Show about ten
28:47
Speaker 1: years ago, and I appreciate that and I'm thrilled to
28:49
Speaker 1: be on. Well. Well, first of all, I'm a fan,
28:53
Speaker 1: and uh, I'm gonna reach out to you and let
28:56
Speaker 1: you know when I started, because I'm gonna do with
28:58
Speaker 1: the Chocolate Days donnut for my half and the cinnamon
29:00
Speaker 1: roll bytes. I'm gonna do a lot of this stuff.
29:02
Speaker 1: I know I'm doing a hot Crispe Keto fried chicken,
29:05
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna look through the book and I'm gonna
29:06
Speaker 1: start to die. Probably my birthday is Fabruary, okay, so
29:11
Speaker 1: very cool. So I'm gonna probably start like the last
29:15
Speaker 1: like January. It's one of thena starts, all right, okay,
29:19
Speaker 1: because sixty four, I'll be sixty four, and so I
29:22
Speaker 1: want to that's amazing. Wow, you look amazing. I'm trying
29:28
Speaker 1: to look at the camera so I know it doesn't
29:30
Speaker 1: look like I'm not looking at it. I have to
29:32
Speaker 1: look close. Now you do not look sixty four. And uh,
29:37
Speaker 1: I wanna use your dad to slive me right on
29:39
Speaker 1: in there, sir, Thank you for coming, Thank you, brother,
29:43
Speaker 1: appreciate you. Man. I think president my pleasure. Thanks for
29:45
Speaker 1: having me on. We will be right back with more
29:48
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Speaker 1: of Money Making Conversations. The Cafe Marcha Swag Award is
31:53
Speaker 1: a celebration of black men who are making a difference
31:56
Speaker 1: in our community by empowering others to reach their life
31:59
Speaker 1: goals from civic leaders, businessmen, activists, celebrities and everyday days.
32:05
Speaker 1: The Cafe Marca Swagger Award win this week is James Lopez.
32:08
Speaker 1: He is the president of Will Packer Production. As a producer,
32:12
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32:16
Speaker 1: The Perfect Guy, and many more have grossed more than
32:19
Speaker 1: eight hundred million dollars at the box office today. Box
32:22
Speaker 1: office numbers are great if you have a piece of ownership.
32:26
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32:31
Speaker 1: work towards. There's the ownership. The Cafe Marcus Swagg Award
32:35
Speaker 1: represents men that have strength. The vision is assert and
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Speaker 1: they are genuine and their spirit. Welcome back to money
32:42
Speaker 1: making conversations with your host, Rashaan McDonald. My next guest
32:46
Speaker 1: is one of my favorite Melody Hope. She's a producer
32:49
Speaker 1: and stared owned series Love and Marriage, hunt Field entrepreneur.
32:53
Speaker 1: She's a home builder. The Doctor series follows three power
32:56
Speaker 1: couples longtime friends. I don't know if they're long time
32:59
Speaker 1: friends no more. Melody and Martel Hope Find You Doctor,
33:04
Speaker 1: a girl litician and also that's my friend brother and
33:08
Speaker 1: Kimmy and Maurice. I don't know Kimmy and the Board.
33:10
Speaker 1: More recent he tried to be a businessman in the
33:12
Speaker 1: HUSBITELD I Don't Know and Love and Marriage and Husbield.
33:15
Speaker 1: But she has also hosted one of my favorite shows,
33:18
Speaker 1: Behind every Man, which is also on my own Please
33:21
Speaker 1: work in the Melody took plea for him about to
33:23
Speaker 1: say her name. Please work with the Money Making Conversation,
33:25
Speaker 1: my friend, Melody Hope. How you doing, Melody? Hey, I'm
33:29
Speaker 1: doing great. How are you? You know, it's always just
33:32
Speaker 1: a pleasure being able to be a part of your show.
33:35
Speaker 1: You are so phenomenal, so inspiring and encouraging, So I'm
33:39
Speaker 1: just very thankful for the opportunity. Well, you know, it's
33:42
Speaker 1: really interesting about your whole career and just go tracking,
33:46
Speaker 1: you know, like you came into my life. And the
33:48
Speaker 1: first interview I did on Money Making Conversation with you
33:50
Speaker 1: and Martel and it was a it was an inspirational
33:53
Speaker 1: interview about a couple that work their way through high
33:58
Speaker 1: school and beautiful kids. And then the second time I
34:01
Speaker 1: got you on the show, Used by Yourself, And now
34:04
Speaker 1: the third time I have you on the show. I
34:05
Speaker 1: saw the episode, the premier episode of I would say
34:12
Speaker 1: after the episode, you're gonna really be by yourself? After
34:15
Speaker 1: the three episode you buy yourself down. You ain't kind
34:18
Speaker 1: of by yourself. You buy yourself in trying to change. Well,
34:25
Speaker 1: I understand because you know, if you're fan of the show.
34:27
Speaker 1: I'm a fan of the show, and you brought me
34:29
Speaker 1: into the series, you know, and my boy Carlos came,
34:32
Speaker 1: he created his that could produce to the series very talent,
34:34
Speaker 1: the EP of Doctor Serious type dramas. Here's another series
34:38
Speaker 1: on on called Bell Collective. But we're talking about love
34:41
Speaker 1: and marriage Huntsville and the question. You know, this ain't
34:45
Speaker 1: a messy show. This is a show about watching an entrepreneur,
34:48
Speaker 1: watching a young lady. I still consume you very young,
34:53
Speaker 1: an entrepreneur, minded, and it almost it almost looks like
34:56
Speaker 1: a serious where I got to see you grow as
34:59
Speaker 1: a woman as a mom, and then the other half
35:02
Speaker 1: of you do want to see that same growth. Am
35:05
Speaker 1: I correct? So you know what I will say is
35:09
Speaker 1: definitely being a part of um the Kingdom Raine family
35:12
Speaker 1: and being a part of lot of marriage Huntspill. You know,
35:15
Speaker 1: you're absolutely correct in terms of the growth that you've seen.
35:19
Speaker 1: And that's really because you know, as you go through
35:21
Speaker 1: things in life and you experience certain things, those are
35:24
Speaker 1: really the things that help shape and mold you to
35:26
Speaker 1: be who you are and um, who you're supposed to be.
35:29
Speaker 1: If that's really what my viewers have been able to
35:32
Speaker 1: witness the past few seasons, UM, is me really going
35:35
Speaker 1: through one of life's biggest challenges. UM, when one of
35:39
Speaker 1: the you know, supposed to be strongest buns um is
35:43
Speaker 1: broken and disconnected and what it looks like to maneuver
35:47
Speaker 1: through those type of waters. And so that is how
35:50
Speaker 1: you guys have been able to really you know, as
35:51
Speaker 1: you say, have seen me grow because you watch me
35:56
Speaker 1: go through, um, something that a lot of people can't
35:59
Speaker 1: even go through, but I closed doors and I've had
36:01
Speaker 1: to live it out loud publicly, so it's been a
36:04
Speaker 1: little bit different. UM. What I will say, UM, you know,
36:09
Speaker 1: when it comes to U X about my you know
36:11
Speaker 1: Martel and that supporting that growth, what I will say
36:15
Speaker 1: is that there was a time in our marriage in
36:18
Speaker 1: our life. You know, I'm not gonna sit here and
36:19
Speaker 1: at like we had a whole bunch of years of
36:21
Speaker 1: some terrible marriage, because that's just not the case. UM.
36:24
Speaker 1: We had a beautiful, beautiful union, beautiful time, UM, beautiful
36:31
Speaker 1: you know, family, children, UM, a real friendship definitely, you know,
36:36
Speaker 1: we were definitely great friends. And so I was saying
36:39
Speaker 1: that there was a time when he definitely pushed me
36:43
Speaker 1: and m motivated me, and really, you know stood, you know,
36:47
Speaker 1: kind of stood with me with some of the things
36:50
Speaker 1: I wanted to do. Um. But sometimes in life, people
36:54
Speaker 1: just start kind of going different ways and things change.
36:56
Speaker 1: I did an interview earlier and I shared with them that,
36:59
Speaker 1: you know, O, studies show that people change every five
37:02
Speaker 1: to seven years, and you know that's just real. No
37:06
Speaker 1: one's gonna stay the same. You know, I really, um,
37:10
Speaker 1: because because I care about you a lot. You know,
37:11
Speaker 1: I have six sisters, so I consider you one of them.
37:14
Speaker 1: Six uh too and passway. So I'm asking you to
37:17
Speaker 1: feel in one of those slots in my life because
37:19
Speaker 1: I I believe in you. And when I watched the show,
37:22
Speaker 1: especially premiere episode this season, you know I was I
37:25
Speaker 1: was pained a little bit because I could, you know,
37:27
Speaker 1: we're watching you on TV play out some emotions, especially
37:30
Speaker 1: when Martell talked about he going to the custody of
37:33
Speaker 1: the children, and you really, you really live up the
37:35
Speaker 1: room because you weren't gonna let this act like this
37:39
Speaker 1: even sense of a possibility. These are four beautiful kids
37:42
Speaker 1: that you've delivered to the world and then all earlier
37:46
Speaker 1: in the episodes, by the way she showed off her
37:48
Speaker 1: little body, by the way she showed off her little body,
37:50
Speaker 1: just embarrassing everybody in the nation. She didn't dropped four
37:53
Speaker 1: kids come around the corners, like it looks like she's
37:56
Speaker 1: like a fresh out of high school body. So we're
37:59
Speaker 1: gonna talk about that. Let's go back today the emotional
38:00
Speaker 1: I just had to throw that out there and like
38:02
Speaker 1: step on her because that was unfair. That was unfair, Melandie,
38:07
Speaker 1: Like you have seen a little bit more than I
38:09
Speaker 1: have seen. Just know that, well I don't here I saw,
38:13
Speaker 1: I said, she come out of Poe destiny. She like
38:16
Speaker 1: just dropped one you destinely whoa my goodness girl? Where
38:20
Speaker 1: you know what can I say? It's time for me
38:23
Speaker 1: to show the where what's going on with Melody? Hell okay?
38:28
Speaker 1: And then we go forward. You know you're back, and
38:30
Speaker 1: you know because you was there a land with your
38:32
Speaker 1: brother hanging out in the back, you know, drinking a
38:34
Speaker 1: little white and didn't get your act together for two
38:36
Speaker 1: weeks and then now the reality is back. You're in
38:40
Speaker 1: the house with the man who, let's say, you don't
38:43
Speaker 1: trust you need with children that you love that you're born.
38:46
Speaker 1: Like you said, you're not here to talk about like
38:48
Speaker 1: this relationship was a bad relationship. But when he says
38:52
Speaker 1: the possibility that he wants to get full custom to kids,
38:57
Speaker 1: you lost it. Yeah, you know, UM, it's one of
39:01
Speaker 1: those things where I think for most parents when it
39:05
Speaker 1: comes to your children, that's just that's one thing you
39:08
Speaker 1: just really don't play about, no matter who it is, obviously,
39:12
Speaker 1: UM and so UM we all have those triggers, certain
39:15
Speaker 1: things that trigger us and unfortunately a lot of times
39:18
Speaker 1: people know what your triggers are. UM. And so for me,
39:23
Speaker 1: when it comes to being a you know, a woman
39:26
Speaker 1: of many hats, being an entrepreneur, being a mom, being
39:30
Speaker 1: a white all of those things, you know, me being
39:34
Speaker 1: able to um fully engage in all of those roles
39:39
Speaker 1: was one of the things that was a problem um
39:41
Speaker 1: in the marriage and one of those things that was
39:43
Speaker 1: somewhat trying. You know, I would say he tried to
39:46
Speaker 1: use against me at times, UM, And that was when
39:49
Speaker 1: it came to the kids. And so for him to
39:51
Speaker 1: make a statement like that despite knowing deep down that
39:56
Speaker 1: I'm really wearing all these hats very well, like they're
40:00
Speaker 1: my kids are very well taken care of. We do
40:02
Speaker 1: the occasions we do chips. They've been out of the country.
40:05
Speaker 1: Hell I hadn't even been out of the country when
40:06
Speaker 1: I was their age. Okay, Um, so it's like, don't
40:10
Speaker 1: play with me like that. And in the show. But
40:14
Speaker 1: but this series, as as I see, because you know,
40:16
Speaker 1: I can't wait till this the next episode and the
40:18
Speaker 1: next episode out there, because really it's about watching the
40:22
Speaker 1: I on this shows about motivation. It's about people overcoming
40:25
Speaker 1: furious pope of walking in the darkness, walking into the
40:27
Speaker 1: unknown and you. And that's why I'm standing on this
40:30
Speaker 1: a little bit because I want a lot of people
40:31
Speaker 1: to hear this, because a lot of people don't go
40:34
Speaker 1: to the next level of life because they fear change,
40:37
Speaker 1: They fear the unknown, they fear the what ilf what
40:40
Speaker 1: if it's not something I expect? And you're doing a
40:43
Speaker 1: courageous thing with your life because this is not This
40:46
Speaker 1: is bigger than the television show to me, because it's
40:48
Speaker 1: about you, because when the lights go down and cut off,
40:52
Speaker 1: you really live in the life that we're just getting
40:54
Speaker 1: little bits and pieces of. With that being said, what's
40:57
Speaker 1: the next path for Melody what's the that's what now
41:01
Speaker 1: path for you and career playing in because you know
41:03
Speaker 1: I call you sometimes. You said, we show I got
41:05
Speaker 1: people in l A. I got people in Huntsville. I
41:07
Speaker 1: got a team around you because you know, I'll be
41:09
Speaker 1: talking to Union every time I talk to you. Know,
41:11
Speaker 1: it's more advancement in the in the various business ventures,
41:15
Speaker 1: more opportunity that you want to engage in, and you
41:18
Speaker 1: surround yourself with a much stronger team that allows you
41:21
Speaker 1: to win. So talk about that. And you know what,
41:24
Speaker 1: it's so funny that you mentioned a team and just
41:27
Speaker 1: you know, the people that you have around you. I
41:29
Speaker 1: feel like, you know, you can't do anything alone in life. Period.
41:33
Speaker 1: You've got to have a team, a team who believes
41:37
Speaker 1: in you, that supports you, um, that pushes you even
41:40
Speaker 1: on the days when you barely can push yourself. And
41:43
Speaker 1: I'm so thankful and blessed that I have been surrounded. Um.
41:48
Speaker 1: You know, God just placed the right people in my
41:50
Speaker 1: life at the right time. You know, I can speak
41:52
Speaker 1: all the way, you know, to my management team. As
41:54
Speaker 1: you said, you know, I have, you know, a team
41:56
Speaker 1: in l A. I have a team in Atlanta. UM,
41:58
Speaker 1: And when I look at the time that they came
42:01
Speaker 1: into my life. And they're older than me. And that's
42:04
Speaker 1: another thing. It's kind of crazy because it's like, I'm
42:06
Speaker 1: thirty five, but God has surrounded me with people who
42:09
Speaker 1: are older than me and who have so much wisdom,
42:12
Speaker 1: you know, and that wisdom comes from their own life experiences.
42:16
Speaker 1: So when I hear their stories of things they've experienced
42:20
Speaker 1: and that they went through early on in life and
42:22
Speaker 1: what I'm going through right now, I know that it
42:24
Speaker 1: was a divine connection and meant for them to be
42:27
Speaker 1: in my life. And so, um, you know, we're we're
42:30
Speaker 1: always working on things, and I hope that's what people also.
42:33
Speaker 1: You know, of course our reality show you have a
42:34
Speaker 1: little bit of drama, but I hope that people really
42:37
Speaker 1: get to um tune in and pick up and understand
42:40
Speaker 1: and see that, you know, the sky really, you know,
42:43
Speaker 1: is the limit. It doesn't matter what what you go through,
42:46
Speaker 1: what you experienced. I wake up every day and I
42:48
Speaker 1: put a smile on my face and I'm hey, good morning,
42:51
Speaker 1: how are you. Positive affirmations all day period, um, And
42:57
Speaker 1: from there it has just really allowed us to move
43:00
Speaker 1: been to some different areas. I have music that I'm
43:02
Speaker 1: working on I can't wait. I've teased my fans a
43:05
Speaker 1: little bit um with my song by dropping it on
43:08
Speaker 1: social media pieces here and there. Um. So I have
43:11
Speaker 1: music I'm working on. I'm actually about to go in
43:13
Speaker 1: the student and record the second song because I'm done
43:15
Speaker 1: with the first one. Um. And then of course also
43:18
Speaker 1: i have my acting career um that I'm working on
43:21
Speaker 1: as well. I actually just finished doing some acting stuff.
43:23
Speaker 1: I've been in Atlanta doing a movie um the past week.
43:27
Speaker 1: So just moving, shaking and trying to fully um being
43:32
Speaker 1: the purpose and my God given purpose. Because life is
43:36
Speaker 1: so short. You have to wake up every day. You
43:38
Speaker 1: have to make it count. You have to make every hour,
43:41
Speaker 1: every minute, in every Seclet Meller, don't you ever because
43:45
Speaker 1: even in this yeares I gotta mad at you because
43:47
Speaker 1: you know I'm based in the lat He was in
43:49
Speaker 1: Atlanta for two weeks. Okay. Then in the interview right
43:52
Speaker 1: back where I just got back from l A, I
43:54
Speaker 1: mean from Atlanta. You know, I just got back from
43:57
Speaker 1: no call, no text, because you're you know, no no
44:01
Speaker 1: no no something, no no, no, no no up whatever
44:09
Speaker 1: she had dar me in a minute. Hey, Richelle, how
44:12
Speaker 1: you're doing well? This is one thing I love about her,
44:14
Speaker 1: And I responded back to her, I said, look, she
44:17
Speaker 1: will recommend people to be on my show. I mean
44:21
Speaker 1: and uh, and she's supportive. That's not I laugh at
44:24
Speaker 1: her in a good way. It's not a bad lad
44:26
Speaker 1: because here she is. You know, she's out there trying
44:29
Speaker 1: to make her career work. She's trying to be a
44:32
Speaker 1: good person because she is a good person. But she
44:34
Speaker 1: will not hesitate connecting somebody for an opportunity. And that's
44:39
Speaker 1: a quality that when you say, Richard, why do you
44:41
Speaker 1: like Melody Hope? Why do you Why are you always
44:43
Speaker 1: champion her? Because she's so busy champion other people, she's
44:46
Speaker 1: not about You know, a lot of people in competition
44:50
Speaker 1: because it is competition, they fear I ain't gonna learn
44:53
Speaker 1: nobody get my hook up. I'm not gonna let anybody
44:55
Speaker 1: get my connection. And that's not you talk to us
44:58
Speaker 1: about that personality all you know. Let me tell you so,
45:02
Speaker 1: I am big on making connections. I will be honest,
45:06
Speaker 1: I'm that person who and I'm not gonna be like, oh,
45:09
Speaker 1: i've seen you the number. Later if we're having a
45:11
Speaker 1: conversation and I know someone who can maybe help catapult
45:15
Speaker 1: you to the next level, take you to the next
45:17
Speaker 1: level in your life or goals career wise, whatever it is. Oh,
45:21
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be like, Okay, I'm testing. I'm sending you
45:22
Speaker 1: the number right now. You want to call him right now? Like,
45:26
Speaker 1: That's what I love and I love to do that.
45:28
Speaker 1: That's just a genuine part of me, um, because I
45:32
Speaker 1: feel that you never know what someone else can do,
45:37
Speaker 1: whether it's a simple word, whether it's you know, a
45:40
Speaker 1: simple connection that can just really change someone's entire life.
45:45
Speaker 1: And I have to believe that, Um, through that goodness
45:50
Speaker 1: of my heart and purity of all of my intentions,
45:53
Speaker 1: that that is why God has continued to bless me,
45:56
Speaker 1: and he has continued to look over me and put
45:58
Speaker 1: me you know, the paths of the right people, because
46:01
Speaker 1: I'm always looking to find a way to bring people
46:04
Speaker 1: together on the same path. You know, there's enough out
46:07
Speaker 1: here for everyone. And if we stopped being so selfish
46:11
Speaker 1: and we become more selfless, man, let me tell you,
46:16
Speaker 1: we learn how to come together. And I don't say
46:19
Speaker 1: it's always easy, because it's not. But if we can
46:22
Speaker 1: learn how to come together, there's just so much that
46:25
Speaker 1: we can do. So Yes, I love connecting people, and
46:29
Speaker 1: you do a great job of it. Now, before I
46:31
Speaker 1: go on to the series Behind every Man, I want
46:34
Speaker 1: to talk about other characters on the show that I
46:36
Speaker 1: shouldn't say character other other couples, other people, because it's
46:39
Speaker 1: got more expansive on the show. You know, we see
46:42
Speaker 1: more on this season. We see more of a Kimmy
46:45
Speaker 1: and uh Maurice's son and then of course a team
46:48
Speaker 1: shirt they got the Cigar plays Black that they're building
46:52
Speaker 1: out this season. Give us a little sneak preview of
46:54
Speaker 1: what's coming up on this season because of the fact that,
46:57
Speaker 1: uh My, when I tell people to watch the show
47:00
Speaker 1: because I'm a fan of Love and Marriage Huntsville, it's
47:03
Speaker 1: because their individuals, who are black individuals in in a
47:07
Speaker 1: town like Huntsville, they have big city problems and that's
47:13
Speaker 1: the fun. I think all the couples, in some shape
47:16
Speaker 1: form or fashion, UM bring a great dynamic to the show.
47:20
Speaker 1: And I feel that, you know, um, this season, you
47:24
Speaker 1: guys are going to be able to see more business
47:28
Speaker 1: moves taking place, which is something I'm very proud of
47:30
Speaker 1: because you know, I don't think anyone goes into rally
47:33
Speaker 1: reality TV hoping that there will be drama It's just
47:36
Speaker 1: kind of one of those things that that can end
47:38
Speaker 1: up happening because life and you know, so when you
47:41
Speaker 1: imagine being put in situations where maybe you would have
47:45
Speaker 1: avoided that person for another month or two because you
47:47
Speaker 1: know you kind of ain't feeling them right now, then
47:49
Speaker 1: you see them instead in a day, so sometimes those
47:52
Speaker 1: emotions may still be up. So you know that just
47:55
Speaker 1: that's the piece that brings the drama in. But um,
47:58
Speaker 1: I'm looking forward to our audience really seeing, um, you know,
48:02
Speaker 1: especially with the climate of the economy and where we
48:05
Speaker 1: are as a culture, as people, where we are as
48:08
Speaker 1: a country right now, that was important to show unity
48:13
Speaker 1: and how despite differences, despite um, you know, difficulties within
48:20
Speaker 1: the friendships or the relationships, at some point in time,
48:24
Speaker 1: you guys are going to see, you know, some of
48:26
Speaker 1: us come together and be able to do some great
48:29
Speaker 1: things and and actually be able to be in the
48:31
Speaker 1: same room pushing for a positive purpose or a positive cause.
48:35
Speaker 1: You're gonna see businesses, you know, excelling and growing in
48:39
Speaker 1: you know, individuals figuring out different paths of entrepreneurship. Um.
48:44
Speaker 1: And so those are the things that I'm really looking
48:46
Speaker 1: forward to being displayed and showing to see it and
48:50
Speaker 1: showing a lot the great thing about it. Now your masterclass,
48:53
Speaker 1: which I saw kind of like boring out of COVID
48:57
Speaker 1: COVID nineteen. Uh, create a lot of creative approaches to
49:01
Speaker 1: us tell about the master classes. So HP a Holp
49:06
Speaker 1: Preservation Academy. Um, that is my baby. Matter of fact,
49:09
Speaker 1: I have a class tonight. So UM, what I do
49:12
Speaker 1: is I've had the UM. You know, I just say
49:15
Speaker 1: it's a complete blessing then opportunity to actually now it's
49:19
Speaker 1: about a hundred and eighties since June, about a hundred
49:23
Speaker 1: and eighty individuals. Um, I've been able to help them
49:26
Speaker 1: become entrepreneurs and start businesses in property preservation, which is
49:30
Speaker 1: a multibillion dollar industry that has been a white male
49:34
Speaker 1: dominated industry for a very long time. Most of my students, however,
49:38
Speaker 1: have been African American women. And so what I have
49:42
Speaker 1: been doing is, you know, having um weekly meetings with them,
49:46
Speaker 1: one on one cost with them, helping them set up
49:48
Speaker 1: their LLCs, their business checking, teaching them the game about
49:52
Speaker 1: this industry, and helping them get contracts. Meaning when they
49:56
Speaker 1: get contracts, they start receiving work from the bank and
50:00
Speaker 1: they get paid um as they complete those work orders
50:03
Speaker 1: and so um. I you know, it was, like you said,
50:06
Speaker 1: born out of covid um. My first class started in
50:09
Speaker 1: June of and it has been phenomenal, phenomenal. I'm very
50:16
Speaker 1: thankful to God for you know, for that whole avenue
50:19
Speaker 1: being opened for me. We know when God gave you
50:22
Speaker 1: his ability to talk, because you've been talk. That's why
50:25
Speaker 1: you to me. You know you always teach you about that.
50:27
Speaker 1: You know, you just you don't know me, melody. We'll
50:29
Speaker 1: be talking to me. We'll be talking in a little
50:31
Speaker 1: direct DM and all that. Girl, give me your number
50:35
Speaker 1: till all this a d M and back because it
50:37
Speaker 1: DM me like texting her though that you say that
50:41
Speaker 1: because earlier, like I said, I did an interview earlier
50:44
Speaker 1: today and they said to me, they saying, oh yeah,
50:47
Speaker 1: your manager said, we're gonna enjoy our interview. We all
50:50
Speaker 1: enjoy because you love the talk. I said, oh, I
50:53
Speaker 1: sound like she tried to throw a little side jam
50:55
Speaker 1: up in there. I'm gonna make sure I call it
50:58
Speaker 1: when we get done. Now here you go, and that
51:06
Speaker 1: that that's why I love talking to you, because you
51:08
Speaker 1: know there's a journey and I will never ever stop
51:12
Speaker 1: you from your dreams. I will always encourage you, I
51:15
Speaker 1: always will support you, I always will push you to
51:18
Speaker 1: the next level because I know there are only greater opportunities.
51:21
Speaker 1: You're at the right age and start discovering yourself and
51:23
Speaker 1: pushing those dreams. Because a lot of people wait till
51:26
Speaker 1: they farty fifty, or I'll wait to my kids graduate,
51:29
Speaker 1: or I'll wait till I wait to get out of college.
51:31
Speaker 1: All that weight, all that weight, all that weight, and
51:33
Speaker 1: that's not your DNA. And that's what I love about
51:35
Speaker 1: talking to you, and I encourage people who listen to
51:38
Speaker 1: these shows. When you when I get a person on
51:40
Speaker 1: the air, like you, listen to what she's saying. Listen,
51:44
Speaker 1: you know there are setbacks in her in her life
51:46
Speaker 1: there and she don't let that. Become a champion talk
51:49
Speaker 1: about that, you know, I will say that. You know,
51:54
Speaker 1: So I got married when I was twenty two, and
51:57
Speaker 1: you have this whole thing planned out of what you
51:59
Speaker 1: think your life will be. I don't think anyone gets
52:01
Speaker 1: married um expecting or hoping for a divorce that happen.
52:05
Speaker 1: You think that that's your forever, and you think that
52:08
Speaker 1: that is how your life will be. And so For me,
52:10
Speaker 1: I went from feeling like I had everything together. I
52:16
Speaker 1: had these beautiful children, I had anything I wanted to get.
52:19
Speaker 1: I could go get when I wanted to. You know,
52:21
Speaker 1: I had my husband, We had these businesses. You know,
52:25
Speaker 1: we're we're being able to travel and go whenever we
52:28
Speaker 1: want to, and then boom, just like that, there's a change.
52:35
Speaker 1: And so at first, you know, of course, you you know,
52:39
Speaker 1: the heartbreak and the disappointment and the tears and the
52:43
Speaker 1: depression and all of those things that come with um,
52:46
Speaker 1: you know something, it's major's infidelity hitting your marriage. I
52:50
Speaker 1: went through all of that and UM, I went through
52:54
Speaker 1: a lot of different layers of it. So um for me,
52:59
Speaker 1: you know, going through those things and experiencing such a
53:03
Speaker 1: big change in life. And then I didn't know that
53:05
Speaker 1: I was gonna have to play it out on national television.
53:08
Speaker 1: Even so, that was another thing, you know what I'm saying.
53:12
Speaker 1: When we started filming the first season, UM, I had
53:17
Speaker 1: just recently found out about, you know, what had been occurring. However,
53:22
Speaker 1: I thought everything was done over and we were good.
53:25
Speaker 1: Well right when we started shooting, I find out, oh,
53:28
Speaker 1: it ain't done and over, we ain't good. So that's
53:31
Speaker 1: when people got you know what I'm saying, kind of
53:33
Speaker 1: got all the other um, and so all the other
53:36
Speaker 1: emotions and other sides of melody, the angry side. UM.
53:40
Speaker 1: But you know, I didn't expect that that was something
53:43
Speaker 1: that was gonna be played out on TV. I didn't
53:45
Speaker 1: think that was gonna be continue to be a part
53:47
Speaker 1: of my life story, my marriage story. UM. And so
53:51
Speaker 1: now here I am, you know, going through a divorce
53:54
Speaker 1: with four children, um, and trying to make sure that
53:57
Speaker 1: I'm taking care of me and keeping myself together, but
54:00
Speaker 1: then also making sure that I'm you know, there for
54:03
Speaker 1: my kids and helping them to keep it together too. Um.
54:06
Speaker 1: And at the same time, still refusing to allow the
54:09
Speaker 1: choices of someone else to affect my purpose and the
54:15
Speaker 1: goals that I have set for myself. So it's a lot.
54:19
Speaker 1: It's a lot, and it's a lot of moving pieces.
54:22
Speaker 1: But let me tell you, I just get up every
54:24
Speaker 1: single day and I start moving those pieces absolutely. You know,
54:30
Speaker 1: on Saturday night you can see her series. All right,
54:34
Speaker 1: I'm gonna call it your series, Loving Marriage, Hunts Fear.
54:36
Speaker 1: That's that's why I watch. I'm just doing on Saturday.
54:40
Speaker 1: I'm not just watching the air Bound show. I watched
54:43
Speaker 1: a girl melody. Now guess what it's gonna be this Saturday.
54:46
Speaker 1: Gonna be back to back melody, Hope, Melody, Hope, hind
54:52
Speaker 1: to night. That's what we're gonna pull it up to
54:54
Speaker 1: our block. Behind every Man, I'm just let everybody know.
54:58
Speaker 1: She calos king makes me head Now. This is this serious, right,
55:01
Speaker 1: this this she got me. He got me mad. See
55:04
Speaker 1: because see, I watched this series that you're hosting, and
55:08
Speaker 1: I'm mad. I'm going to like he thought of that
55:11
Speaker 1: wrong because it's such a beautiful series, because I got
55:14
Speaker 1: six sisters. So why did I think of this? Because
55:18
Speaker 1: you know you have you have more Kurt Franklin and
55:20
Speaker 1: his wife Tammy on the show. You have the wife
55:23
Speaker 1: of white Cliff John on the show. You have the wife.
55:28
Speaker 1: I didn't even know that uh Neil was married. Seriously,
55:32
Speaker 1: I didn't know he was married. And that the only
55:35
Speaker 1: he's on He's on the show, and it's it's like
55:37
Speaker 1: DJ Envy and his wife, but it's the wife's who
55:41
Speaker 1: are the stars of the show. Behind every Man? How
55:44
Speaker 1: did you become a part of this series? And I'm
55:46
Speaker 1: just about one thing. I'm gonna tell you the truth about.
55:49
Speaker 1: This is an engaging series. Well done the women. You
55:55
Speaker 1: get a personal journey about them. It's not a serious
55:58
Speaker 1: that they're trying to hook you in with a famous husband. No, no, no,
56:03
Speaker 1: it's about these women. How they have survived physical drama,
56:07
Speaker 1: sometimes abuse, sometimes, near life death experiences sometimes and each
56:13
Speaker 1: one of them have survived and they coming to the
56:16
Speaker 1: lives of these famous men helped them to be successful
56:20
Speaker 1: along the way, and they have sustained longevity in their
56:23
Speaker 1: marriage and blossom to a loving relationship. How did you
56:27
Speaker 1: give a volva Behind every Man? Well, you know that's
56:31
Speaker 1: why it's so important, um, to speak out loud your
56:35
Speaker 1: goals and your dreams and speak those things into existence. UM.
56:39
Speaker 1: And so you know, I shared with Carlos a long
56:41
Speaker 1: time ago, you know, my goals in terms of hosting
56:44
Speaker 1: and acting and things like that. And so when the
56:47
Speaker 1: when the opportunity came, and you know, he was awarded
56:50
Speaker 1: the opportunity to do Behind every Man, you know, he
56:53
Speaker 1: reached out to me, he said, hey, so guess what,
56:56
Speaker 1: And I'm like what And he was like, we're gonna
56:59
Speaker 1: do another show. This is what's gonna call and we
57:02
Speaker 1: want you to host. I'm like what. Really are you serious?
57:06
Speaker 1: And so you know it went from there and um,
57:09
Speaker 1: it was another again, something filmed during the pandemic, So
57:13
Speaker 1: of course we had different parameters. Of course, we would
57:15
Speaker 1: have loved to have had it where you know, I
57:18
Speaker 1: could have flown into different places and actually sat down
57:21
Speaker 1: in person with these individuals, but we've got to be safe.
57:24
Speaker 1: So we still made it happen and made it, you know,
57:26
Speaker 1: made it work. Um, and for me when he called
57:30
Speaker 1: me that day, I'll never forget and he had, um
57:34
Speaker 1: his other producer Angela on the phone as well. I
57:38
Speaker 1: teared up when he shared with me what Behind every
57:42
Speaker 1: Man would be about. And here's why. Um, you know,
57:46
Speaker 1: I'm big on women empowerment. I'm big on strong women
57:50
Speaker 1: and women, you know, just being coming together and really
57:55
Speaker 1: pushing one another and being able to be authentic and
57:59
Speaker 1: trans parent and share your journey, share those you know,
58:03
Speaker 1: we love the glamour, we love to show off the
58:06
Speaker 1: Rose Royce, the Lamborghinis and all this thing. However, right
58:11
Speaker 1: being able to show the times that weren't so good
58:13
Speaker 1: and talk about that, which is what really helped you
58:16
Speaker 1: move to the next level. I love when people can
58:19
Speaker 1: be transparent. I think that's the reason that a lot
58:22
Speaker 1: of people connect with me on love and marriage Himesville.
58:25
Speaker 1: So when he shared that with me and I heard
58:27
Speaker 1: what it would be about, I just literally teared up.
58:29
Speaker 1: I said, wow, Wow. It was just something within me.
58:33
Speaker 1: And I'm big on intuition and being led by the spirit,
58:38
Speaker 1: and there was just something within me that was like, Yes,
58:42
Speaker 1: this right here is God sent for you. The experiencing
58:47
Speaker 1: what I was experiencing in my marriage and knowing that,
58:50
Speaker 1: you know, it wasn't going to be too much longer
58:53
Speaker 1: before it wasn't you know, I wasn't married anymore. It
58:55
Speaker 1: wasn't about that. It was about what I love to do,
58:59
Speaker 1: shine a lot eight on other women, like you know,
59:02
Speaker 1: I do my mamos with Melody event Um, I always
59:05
Speaker 1: award women Women on Woman on Purpose, award, Um still
59:09
Speaker 1: I Thrive Woman of the Year and all these different things.
59:12
Speaker 1: And so any way that I can, um just really
59:15
Speaker 1: shine a light on women who are doing some amazing things,
59:18
Speaker 1: That's what I love to do. And so this was
59:20
Speaker 1: just I mean, this was perfect and it was truly
59:24
Speaker 1: an amazing experience. Well, I'm gonna tell you, I'm a fan.
59:29
Speaker 1: I get to see you back to back the back
59:31
Speaker 1: to back to back. I know that, Melanie. I want
59:34
Speaker 1: to I wanna. I want to back the back the
59:38
Speaker 1: back Melanie whole Saturday on Network. Because you're gonna do it.
59:42
Speaker 1: You're gonna do it because we all over. Oh there
59:46
Speaker 1: you go, there you go. The thing about it is
59:48
Speaker 1: that I'm so proud of you, and uh, I watched
59:51
Speaker 1: this journey. You know when I said that, I'm sincere
59:54
Speaker 1: and I know you do a lot of interviews and
59:56
Speaker 1: watching you grow, and like I said, I've seen this
59:58
Speaker 1: journey play out, and and when you come on my show,
1:00:01
Speaker 1: we can have honest conversations. And the only thing only
1:00:03
Speaker 1: negative in your little book is you come to Atlanta
1:00:06
Speaker 1: and you don't come see your board. Okay, because I
1:00:08
Speaker 1: bought a new building. That happen again. I bought a
1:00:11
Speaker 1: little bit. I gotta show y'all. I gotta, I gotta,
1:00:13
Speaker 1: I gotta you gotta take a picture bout my new
1:00:15
Speaker 1: business sign all that stuff. I gotta. I gotta get
1:00:17
Speaker 1: some of your shine on my building. Okay, let's do it.
1:00:21
Speaker 1: Let's do it absolutely well. I will to hold you
1:00:24
Speaker 1: but again, thank you again again. You know, any time
1:00:28
Speaker 1: your flyer come out, I gotta promote you this weekend
1:00:31
Speaker 1: and uh, you know your Siroty remember and all that
1:00:33
Speaker 1: good stuff, and uh, girl, you know, keep winning and
1:00:36
Speaker 1: keep I got your support and your brother. You can
1:00:39
Speaker 1: tell your brother to call. But with a little time
1:00:41
Speaker 1: behind here in Atlanta as himself, you know, he got
1:00:44
Speaker 1: nothing to do absolutely, so that would be great, you know.
1:00:47
Speaker 1: And I love you already know. I love you. Thank
1:00:49
Speaker 1: you for you know, you're always opening your doors and
1:00:52
Speaker 1: opening you know, but just being welcoming with me coming
1:00:54
Speaker 1: in on the show. I appreciate that so much. It's
1:00:57
Speaker 1: kind of like like you said, sometimes they're just those
1:00:59
Speaker 1: guys given connections. And I feel like from the first interview,
1:01:03
Speaker 1: we've just always you've been what you're saying that you are.
1:01:05
Speaker 1: You've been encouraging. UM. You let me know multiple times
1:01:09
Speaker 1: that I have your support, and I really appreciate that, UM,
1:01:13
Speaker 1: and I love you know. We have to pull strength
1:01:16
Speaker 1: from one another, especially when we're going through different, you know,
1:01:20
Speaker 1: difficult times. It's so important for us to pull strength
1:01:22
Speaker 1: from one another. And you, my fans, the viewers of
1:01:28
Speaker 1: Love and Marriage Huntsville, everyone has been my family, my
1:01:31
Speaker 1: management team, everyone has just been so amazing and I
1:01:34
Speaker 1: know I wouldn't be where I am right now if
1:01:37
Speaker 1: it wasn't for all of you. Awesome. Well, she's the
1:01:40
Speaker 1: star of a Saturday night on the Own Network, Loving Marriage,
1:01:44
Speaker 1: Huntsville and um you know behind every Man. Wow, that's
1:01:48
Speaker 1: my show. She's the star, Melody Holt, Melody, thank you
1:01:51
Speaker 1: for coming on. Money making Conversations again. Sticky notes, email alerts,
1:01:56
Speaker 1: a string around your finger. They're just not big enough.
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Speaker 1: So here's a big reminder from the California Lottery. Tomorrow's
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Speaker 1: making millions, jack potties the whe million play now, please
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Speaker 1: play responsiblely. Must be eighteen years older to purchase Player Blie.
1:02:09
Speaker 1: If I could be you and you could be me
1:02:12
Speaker 1: for just one hour, if you could find a way
1:02:14
Speaker 1: to get inside each other's mind, walk a mile in
1:02:18
Speaker 1: my shoes, wac a mile in my shoes shoes. We've
1:02:23
Speaker 1: all felt left out, and for some that feeling lasts
1:02:26
Speaker 1: more than a moment. We can change that. Learn how
1:02:30
Speaker 1: it belonging begins with us dot org. Brought to you
1:02:32
Speaker 1: by the Act Council. Welcome out in the machines. Look
1:02:39
Speaker 1: to your children's eyes to see the true magic of
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Speaker 1: a forest. It's a storybook world. For them. You look
1:02:46
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Speaker 1: I bring people on the show to talk about the
1:03:11
Speaker 1: effort that they're putting, the committed effort, the effort to
1:03:13
Speaker 1: be successful. My next guest is one of those people.
1:03:16
Speaker 1: Her name is Christina Anthony. You know we already talked
1:03:19
Speaker 1: a little bit. She's based in Los Angeles. She's from
1:03:22
Speaker 1: Chicago Vibe Way of East St. Louis. So we're gonna
1:03:24
Speaker 1: talk about that because I was traveling to stand up comedian.
1:03:26
Speaker 1: So I've been in St. Louis, I've been in Chicago,
1:03:29
Speaker 1: and I've definitely been in Los Angeles. She's a mostly
1:03:32
Speaker 1: talented actress, writer, vocalist, and comedian. She's originally from the
1:03:37
Speaker 1: Chicago comedy scene and is best known as an Alarm
1:03:40
Speaker 1: or the featured Second City, which we all know I
1:03:43
Speaker 1: never went there. It's a talent. I know that because
1:03:46
Speaker 1: I never had an improvisational skill. That's something I could
1:03:48
Speaker 1: not do. I would tell anybody I cannot act, but
1:03:51
Speaker 1: I can tell you a good joke. She's three times
1:03:53
Speaker 1: an award nominated Sketch Revenue Sketch Sketch performer and performed
1:03:58
Speaker 1: thousands of shows for Chicago Larties. Currently, Christina is a
1:04:01
Speaker 1: series regular on the ABC's Mixes, a Black Is spin off.
1:04:05
Speaker 1: Christina currently starts at Denise on ABC's series, returning for
1:04:11
Speaker 1: a second season on Tuesday, January twenty six. What you
1:04:14
Speaker 1: call regular check, regular check, regular check of this year one?
1:04:18
Speaker 1: Please work with the money making conversation. She looks like
1:04:21
Speaker 1: a diva than me, she says. She does stand up,
1:04:23
Speaker 1: but she got that Deeva looked out. Pat y'all please
1:04:25
Speaker 1: work with Christina Anthony. Hey, Sean, thanks for having me. Well,
1:04:29
Speaker 1: I'm I'm like, you know, you know, let me you say,
1:04:33
Speaker 1: a multi talented actress, writer, vocalists. We stopped right there
1:04:37
Speaker 1: right now. You look like you're about the bus out
1:04:40
Speaker 1: with a good old I'm telling you, you know what,
1:04:45
Speaker 1: that's really how I got my start was doing musicals
1:04:48
Speaker 1: in uh, in Chicago, I really got to start there.
1:04:53
Speaker 1: I wouldn't say I love to do musical theater, and
1:04:55
Speaker 1: I've worked off Broadway in New York. But where I
1:04:59
Speaker 1: really found my moves was like that funny part in
1:05:02
Speaker 1: the musical. And I would remember I would go to
1:05:05
Speaker 1: auditions or I would be in a show and they're like, look,
1:05:08
Speaker 1: we need to work on this. This dancing, for sure,
1:05:10
Speaker 1: you need to practice. But the and the singing, everybody
1:05:14
Speaker 1: can get better at that. But the comedy, they're like,
1:05:16
Speaker 1: you have this down. And but the dancing. But the dancing,
1:05:22
Speaker 1: though they said you couldn't dance. The dancing a black
1:05:26
Speaker 1: person couldn't dance. You know we could, we we could,
1:05:28
Speaker 1: we could do. We could talk about that. Now. Well
1:05:31
Speaker 1: it's it's different kinds of dancing now, you know in Chicago.
1:05:37
Speaker 1: You know were they dance in Chicago. You know that
1:05:40
Speaker 1: come on, step, come on, come on, come on now.
1:05:43
Speaker 1: And you're telling me in Chicago you couldn't step. I
1:05:47
Speaker 1: can step. But you when you go to Broadway for
1:05:50
Speaker 1: the Lion King, they don't want to see you do
1:05:52
Speaker 1: some old lounge dancing in your church shoes. They want
1:05:56
Speaker 1: to see some real dancing, So yeah, not form a chain,
1:06:00
Speaker 1: but I got it together. So I've done some dancing
1:06:04
Speaker 1: off Broadway. But comedy is my sweet spot. I mean,
1:06:07
Speaker 1: that's what comes naturally. You know. You know my history.
1:06:11
Speaker 1: I left IBM to pursue a career stand up comedian,
1:06:15
Speaker 1: The def Jam BT, all the comedy shows, UH Road
1:06:19
Speaker 1: on comedy, sitcom. So I cut my teeth at comedy.
1:06:22
Speaker 1: Comedy is why the basis of my success, you know,
1:06:25
Speaker 1: So what what? What's that natural? Always your people? Comedy
1:06:28
Speaker 1: is like making a sharp left or right turn when
1:06:31
Speaker 1: you from the Pacific point of view, and that's where
1:06:34
Speaker 1: laugh comes from. So so are you a comedy actress
1:06:39
Speaker 1: or comedian? You know what I would say? I started
1:06:42
Speaker 1: off as a comedy actress and then eventually yeah, I
1:06:48
Speaker 1: you know, earned my stripes and have done the rounds
1:06:51
Speaker 1: in the stand up world. So yeah, I consider myself
1:06:54
Speaker 1: a comic now. Um and then interesting enough, like when
1:06:58
Speaker 1: I was in when I came to up in in
1:07:00
Speaker 1: l A ten years now, you know, I started hitting
1:07:02
Speaker 1: the stand up scene and people have been so warm
1:07:06
Speaker 1: and so welcoming. I mean they hate you at first,
1:07:09
Speaker 1: but once you're in, you in, and I think there
1:07:12
Speaker 1: I started to just focus on my stand up, and
1:07:15
Speaker 1: it was I was really surprised to end up on
1:07:17
Speaker 1: Mixed Dish as an actors um and as an improviser.
1:07:21
Speaker 1: You know, it's just it's just you never know. So
1:07:23
Speaker 1: that's why you just kind of keep just saying yes
1:07:26
Speaker 1: to the next thing and keep honing those skills because
1:07:29
Speaker 1: you don't know where the next opportunity is coming. But
1:07:32
Speaker 1: don't ever, you know, just completely throw something away. So acting,
1:07:36
Speaker 1: you know, now I have to focus on that because
1:07:38
Speaker 1: I'm giving other people's words. It's not my jokes. I'm
1:07:40
Speaker 1: writing someone else's. But you're still have been in into
1:07:43
Speaker 1: your personality because you know, as a sitcom writer, I
1:07:46
Speaker 1: know that what I've written I expected to be funny,
1:07:50
Speaker 1: you know, I expected that right there that I've written
1:07:52
Speaker 1: certain lives that when you get to that point, some
1:07:54
Speaker 1: hubors should come out of there. But a talented actress
1:07:57
Speaker 1: are an actor because sometimes find humor. I didn't see
1:08:01
Speaker 1: a humor. Are humor that wow, that's funny? Are you
1:08:04
Speaker 1: just are natural on your feet or you just especially
1:08:07
Speaker 1: those table reads because those table reads are like you know,
1:08:10
Speaker 1: because you walk away saying make an adjustment to the script.
1:08:12
Speaker 1: So a table read can be a nightmare for a writer,
1:08:15
Speaker 1: could be a blessing for a writer based upon how
1:08:18
Speaker 1: it's done and just playing everybody's table. What happens is
1:08:21
Speaker 1: you write the script and then all the actors and
1:08:24
Speaker 1: actresses sit around the table along with this that could producer,
1:08:27
Speaker 1: and they read every line in the script to the
1:08:28
Speaker 1: end of the script. Unless you go through that, you know,
1:08:31
Speaker 1: you make notes where that didn't work, or that or
1:08:33
Speaker 1: that storyline direction is not making any sense. Or sometimes
1:08:37
Speaker 1: you might you might increase an actor and actress's role
1:08:40
Speaker 1: based on how that reaction was in the script. You go,
1:08:43
Speaker 1: why I didn't see that, we should build that up.
1:08:45
Speaker 1: More So, when you're doing these table reads, and like
1:08:48
Speaker 1: you said, you're doing somebody else's words. You're not as
1:08:51
Speaker 1: a stand up, You're just doing the words that you created,
1:08:53
Speaker 1: and you putting your bins on that. What what you
1:08:55
Speaker 1: take when you first get the script or sitcom script
1:08:58
Speaker 1: in this case, nixious, are you looking for your scripts? Um?
1:09:03
Speaker 1: I think that that. Um, you bring up a great point.
1:09:06
Speaker 1: It is somebody else's words. So the first thing I'm
1:09:08
Speaker 1: gonna try to do is read the whole thing, and
1:09:11
Speaker 1: I have to say, if you're starting out and acting,
1:09:13
Speaker 1: no matter what it is, if it's you know, plays
1:09:16
Speaker 1: or you're doing on camera, you want to do TV film,
1:09:20
Speaker 1: try to get your hands on the whole piece of
1:09:22
Speaker 1: the script, the whole body of work. You don't ever
1:09:25
Speaker 1: want to just read your part. So that's the first
1:09:27
Speaker 1: thing I do is make sure I read the whole thing,
1:09:29
Speaker 1: so understand what everybody is going through in the episode.
1:09:33
Speaker 1: And then I'll go back and circle around to to
1:09:35
Speaker 1: my to my scenes and then those scenes really um,
1:09:40
Speaker 1: like you said, yes, kind of bending it towards your personality,
1:09:43
Speaker 1: making the words my own. Um, you know, the writers,
1:09:47
Speaker 1: our writers are amazing. I'm mixed dish. They come from
1:09:49
Speaker 1: so many different great shows. But um, there's a time
1:09:54
Speaker 1: sometimes I will improvise and maybe throw something in myself,
1:09:57
Speaker 1: but I don't do that during the table read. During
1:09:59
Speaker 1: the table a read, like you said, it's the time
1:10:01
Speaker 1: for the network, is there, the producers, all the different
1:10:04
Speaker 1: departments that we're listening, So you want to do it
1:10:07
Speaker 1: word for word and then um, yeah, once I've done that,
1:10:11
Speaker 1: I think, you know, try to think about each scene
1:10:13
Speaker 1: they tell you the next day, here's the scene we're
1:10:15
Speaker 1: gonna be working on and then you start working on
1:10:17
Speaker 1: that scene and thinking about the things that you want,
1:10:20
Speaker 1: what my character wants to achieve. But really also just
1:10:24
Speaker 1: even though I have the words, they're acting as if
1:10:26
Speaker 1: I'm doing this for the first time, and I think
1:10:29
Speaker 1: for improvisers and stand ups that can come. Hopefully it
1:10:32
Speaker 1: comes naturally to you because you learn how to do
1:10:35
Speaker 1: stand up. The key to stand up is working a
1:10:37
Speaker 1: joke over and over again, sometimes for years on the road,
1:10:41
Speaker 1: but always making it seem fresh to the audience. And
1:10:43
Speaker 1: so that's what I try to do personally when I
1:10:45
Speaker 1: approached the script, is even though I've read this, you know,
1:10:48
Speaker 1: ten twenty times, even though we've done the scene ten
1:10:51
Speaker 1: twenty times, I want to make sure it always sounds fresh,
1:10:54
Speaker 1: because when the audience is that, they don't know that
1:10:56
Speaker 1: I've been doing it over and over and over again.
1:10:58
Speaker 1: You know. It's really funny. I remember when I first
1:11:00
Speaker 1: uh went on stage as a stand up. I remember
1:11:03
Speaker 1: the first time I did the stand up, I got
1:11:05
Speaker 1: a standard ovation, you know, and it was like one
1:11:07
Speaker 1: third in the morning. I was still working at IBM
1:11:09
Speaker 1: four time, and so I ran off stage. And so
1:11:12
Speaker 1: the next time I went on stage, I had a
1:11:14
Speaker 1: totally different set, and the next time I went on stage,
1:11:16
Speaker 1: I had a totally different set that I think I
1:11:18
Speaker 1: wasn't getting. I didn't get the response that I gotten
1:11:20
Speaker 1: the first time. And then this comic walks up to
1:11:22
Speaker 1: me and said, hey, man, why do you keep changing
1:11:25
Speaker 1: material every week? I said, don't you supposed to do that?
1:11:28
Speaker 1: He said no, he said, dude, dude, whatever you did
1:11:31
Speaker 1: the first time, you're supposed to still be doing that
1:11:33
Speaker 1: and then adding to the funny parts of that set.
1:11:37
Speaker 1: That's how you get the five minutes, ten minutes, fifteen minutes,
1:11:40
Speaker 1: so he said. I said, but he said, dude, it's
1:11:43
Speaker 1: a different audience every time you go on stage. Food.
1:11:46
Speaker 1: Oh okay, So what she's saying is basically, you have
1:11:51
Speaker 1: to do that. You have to be able to get
1:11:53
Speaker 1: that to get to that forty five minutes. Unless you
1:11:55
Speaker 1: do a comedy special, didn't you have to do the
1:11:58
Speaker 1: material or no old new array of jokes. But your
1:12:01
Speaker 1: goal is to be funny five minutes, ten minutes, fifteen minutes,
1:12:06
Speaker 1: and you may be doing the same joke maybe two
1:12:08
Speaker 1: or three years to get it right. That might be
1:12:11
Speaker 1: your killer ending or your killer opening, or you know,
1:12:15
Speaker 1: you know, you know, you've been on, you've been out
1:12:16
Speaker 1: in the comedy close because at the end of the
1:12:18
Speaker 1: shows a lot of times they'll be paying those tabs,
1:12:21
Speaker 1: and people be more concerned about paying the tabs than
1:12:24
Speaker 1: listen to your jokes on stage. So you really have
1:12:26
Speaker 1: to have your killer moments to be able to hold
1:12:28
Speaker 1: their attention in the end. So, as a stand up,
1:12:31
Speaker 1: what has been the most frustrating part of being a
1:12:33
Speaker 1: stand up and then the blessing of being a stand up? Um, well,
1:12:39
Speaker 1: I will say that was that what you talked about
1:12:41
Speaker 1: is a big lesson I had to learn as an improviser.
1:12:45
Speaker 1: You know, when I would work at the Second City,
1:12:46
Speaker 1: people were paid to come see us, get a suggestion
1:12:49
Speaker 1: from them, and do a completely made up scene and
1:12:52
Speaker 1: make it look as if it had been rehearsed. And
1:12:55
Speaker 1: you can do something new every single night, every single set.
1:12:59
Speaker 1: And then when I position to stand up, I had
1:13:01
Speaker 1: to learn, like you said, how to keep working the
1:13:03
Speaker 1: same joke over and over again and adding to it.
1:13:05
Speaker 1: And that's a lifelong lesson. I will say though, one
1:13:10
Speaker 1: time at the Second City, I can remember when the
1:13:13
Speaker 1: check dropped, like you said, when the tabs come called
1:13:16
Speaker 1: the check drop. The checks were being dropped, and this
1:13:20
Speaker 1: group of ladies, you know, they were all having a
1:13:22
Speaker 1: great time, and they just I guess they wanted to
1:13:24
Speaker 1: split this bill and it was too complicated trying to
1:13:27
Speaker 1: figure out who had what and then how much tip
1:13:31
Speaker 1: because they were on a trip and they didn't know
1:13:33
Speaker 1: they were in a big city. When you come to
1:13:35
Speaker 1: a big city, they got to be so loud. I
1:13:38
Speaker 1: stopped the show, bent over, went to the table, grabbed
1:13:45
Speaker 1: the check and split up the bill for them and said,
1:13:49
Speaker 1: why don't you have fift if each of you putting
1:13:52
Speaker 1: thirt or two dollars, that's a nice tip, back to
1:13:55
Speaker 1: what I was saying. The audience laughed, But I was
1:13:59
Speaker 1: so for straight, right, right right. But you had to
1:14:02
Speaker 1: do that because, like I said, she's absolutely correct. The
1:14:05
Speaker 1: one thing that would destroy stand ups, and you would
1:14:07
Speaker 1: know this, Miss Anthony, is drunks. And somehow drunk women
1:14:13
Speaker 1: were the worst because somehow, when a woman got drunk
1:14:16
Speaker 1: in public, that means that everything was off. You know,
1:14:19
Speaker 1: they didn't care about nothing. They would be the worst people.
1:14:24
Speaker 1: A drunk woman at a comedy club was the worst
1:14:26
Speaker 1: because you can't tell them nothing once they do once
1:14:29
Speaker 1: they've acknowledge that they're drunk in public, you can't shut
1:14:32
Speaker 1: them down, you can't get them out, keep your hands.
1:14:34
Speaker 1: I don't care if you're white or black. I'm talking
1:14:36
Speaker 1: about no math. A drunk woman period at a comedy
1:14:40
Speaker 1: club is a natural disaster. To try to gain control
1:14:44
Speaker 1: of them. Either gonna kick them out or you're just
1:14:46
Speaker 1: gonna kick them out, just one option that well, I
1:14:48
Speaker 1: don't say drunk people period. I've been on both sides.
1:14:52
Speaker 1: People who talk, yes, people who talk as a struggle,
1:14:55
Speaker 1: but that that that also as the performer, that's an
1:14:59
Speaker 1: indication to you go back and work on this material,
1:15:03
Speaker 1: tighten up that joke, you know, don't you know? Sometimes
1:15:06
Speaker 1: you can be a girl. I will say I only
1:15:08
Speaker 1: did that one time where I like broke out and
1:15:11
Speaker 1: just was like, let me just talk to y'all for
1:15:13
Speaker 1: a second. Um. But I will say like that that
1:15:16
Speaker 1: means you need to tighten something up. It's not funny.
1:15:19
Speaker 1: You need to move more quickly, and then later go
1:15:21
Speaker 1: back home and work on that, you know, put that down.
1:15:24
Speaker 1: And also if somebody comes to you afterwards and I
1:15:27
Speaker 1: was like, hey, you know, can I can I make
1:15:29
Speaker 1: a suggestion? Can I give you something. You know, be
1:15:32
Speaker 1: open to that too, because other comics are watching you
1:15:35
Speaker 1: and it's so helpful. Um, you can't, you know, you
1:15:38
Speaker 1: can't kind of be outside of yourself because in the
1:15:40
Speaker 1: moment you feel like, oh, the crowd was ganging up
1:15:43
Speaker 1: on me. But other comics that they really respect you
1:15:46
Speaker 1: and they like your work. They'll they'll come up to
1:15:48
Speaker 1: you afterwards, and I say, receiving in the spirit is given. Well,
1:15:52
Speaker 1: you know, the interesting thing about your career is, like
1:15:54
Speaker 1: I said, you could act, I can't act, you know.
1:15:57
Speaker 1: I I've had acting opportunities and perform in the acting capacity.
1:16:01
Speaker 1: But your ability to be a uh, improvisational comic, you know,
1:16:05
Speaker 1: I means that you know, you throw harror scene and
1:16:07
Speaker 1: she just pulls it out. You know. I always tell
1:16:10
Speaker 1: people when you're improv and especially you know, acting the artist,
1:16:14
Speaker 1: I always say, if you get you have to get
1:16:15
Speaker 1: the three lines. Get the three lines of conversation with
1:16:18
Speaker 1: somebody in the improv, you know, so you can deliver
1:16:21
Speaker 1: funny what we're rethm. What techniques that you use Christina
1:16:25
Speaker 1: when you were doing your improv, um, I would say,
1:16:29
Speaker 1: and I still use them now because I see the
1:16:31
Speaker 1: writers on mixed to use it. I still use it
1:16:33
Speaker 1: in my stand up when I'm writing stuff. But um,
1:16:36
Speaker 1: the rule of three is invaluable, you know, so learning
1:16:40
Speaker 1: if you can learn that, um, it's pretty easy. So
1:16:43
Speaker 1: when you're setting up a joke, you know you want
1:16:45
Speaker 1: to if you're listing items, you know, the first thing
1:16:48
Speaker 1: fits in the category, the second ding fits in the category,
1:16:52
Speaker 1: and then where you make the sharp turn and you
1:16:53
Speaker 1: make the third thing? What what the punches of the joke? Um?
1:16:59
Speaker 1: And then and in prova, we have a rule of
1:17:02
Speaker 1: always learning to say yes. And so if somebody comes
1:17:05
Speaker 1: to you and says, man, did you see that man
1:17:08
Speaker 1: welcome down the street with the blue hat, you don't
1:17:12
Speaker 1: stop the joke to say no, I didn't see that.
1:17:14
Speaker 1: You say yeah, and he was walking to alligator. You know.
1:17:17
Speaker 1: You you want to keep adding to the bit when
1:17:21
Speaker 1: you're in and that's when you're telling jokes with somebody
1:17:23
Speaker 1: else an ensemble, and it also works on mixed this.
1:17:26
Speaker 1: We try to do that too. You know. Our our
1:17:28
Speaker 1: family is hilarious. You know, uh, Kenya Barris and Tracy
1:17:33
Speaker 1: Ellis Rosels created this world and we're just trying to
1:17:36
Speaker 1: keep it going. It's a prequel and you know, take
1:17:39
Speaker 1: a Sumter, Mark, Paul Gossler, uh, Gary Cole. They're all
1:17:43
Speaker 1: like really well known actors and comedians. And so even
1:17:47
Speaker 1: if though the work is scripted, I'm still saying yes
1:17:50
Speaker 1: to the bits, to the jokes that you have, and
1:17:52
Speaker 1: I'm trying to keep them going. You know. Now, now
1:17:55
Speaker 1: when I look at your bio, I see stand up
1:17:58
Speaker 1: but also see serious roles. You know, I'm assuming that
1:18:01
Speaker 1: Why Women Killed that wasn't a comedy moment. Uh e
1:18:05
Speaker 1: er the dilemma, So how will you able because but
1:18:07
Speaker 1: then I see multi talented actress. You do put that
1:18:10
Speaker 1: at the very top front. But Joe says, of comedic
1:18:13
Speaker 1: side on it, how did you translate a serious role
1:18:17
Speaker 1: in a comedic role? Because I wanted my listeners to
1:18:19
Speaker 1: hear that, in my viewers to hear that about a
1:18:21
Speaker 1: person who's as talented as you, because you're willing to
1:18:25
Speaker 1: not limit yourself. And that's what you say. If an
1:18:27
Speaker 1: opportunity that comes to you, Christina, You're going to present
1:18:30
Speaker 1: yourself for that opportunity. Correct for sure? For sure? Yeah,
1:18:35
Speaker 1: I think you know Why Woman Kills a good example
1:18:37
Speaker 1: of um, that's a show about women who murder their
1:18:41
Speaker 1: husbands is very funny. You haven't check it out for
1:18:45
Speaker 1: those sister and one of the women that um. But
1:18:50
Speaker 1: I think even in that role, I still was being
1:18:54
Speaker 1: a comedian. But in a serious moment, like we think back.
1:18:57
Speaker 1: You can think back of like in black families, like
1:19:01
Speaker 1: when somebody passes away, even though it is a somber
1:19:05
Speaker 1: occasion and there it is a sad event and it's
1:19:08
Speaker 1: a transition, there's still somebody that you know, Uncle Pete
1:19:12
Speaker 1: always ask somebody, can't you get a ride to the refest?
1:19:15
Speaker 1: Why don't you have a car? You know? Or you know,
1:19:18
Speaker 1: unless it's always gonna bring a boyfriend to a funeral?
1:19:20
Speaker 1: Why are you doing this? And so you realize you
1:19:23
Speaker 1: find you know the funny moments even in the tragedy
1:19:26
Speaker 1: and your family. So I think, so why wo mckill
1:19:29
Speaker 1: is a good example of that. It's about a serious
1:19:31
Speaker 1: topic of domestic abuse and murder. But the sister is
1:19:37
Speaker 1: like I think I put a sister this, like girl,
1:19:39
Speaker 1: I always knew that wasn't the man for you. You know,
1:19:42
Speaker 1: it's like why are you guys have been at this
1:19:44
Speaker 1: point we're trying to put a murder together, but there's
1:19:46
Speaker 1: always like somebody like that. So I think finding those
1:19:49
Speaker 1: light moments, you know, or people. I can remember when
1:19:53
Speaker 1: my grandmother passed, you know, people were talking about you
1:19:58
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying. You not even trying, You're just
1:20:01
Speaker 1: talking and I'm just laughing and you just really just
1:20:04
Speaker 1: just really just having the conversation with me. But it's
1:20:07
Speaker 1: such a relatable conversation. That's your blessing, you know. So Yeah,
1:20:12
Speaker 1: now you say you started in East St. Louis, how
1:20:14
Speaker 1: did you make it up to Chicago. I grew up
1:20:18
Speaker 1: in East St. Louis. And if you know, the famous
1:20:20
Speaker 1: people from St. Louis are Miles Davis, he joined a Curtsey,
1:20:24
Speaker 1: the Olympian and and Me and me centric centric entertainment
1:20:31
Speaker 1: you wanted from East St. Louis, such as the entertainments
1:20:33
Speaker 1: from St. Louis, I think, which is the fancy city
1:20:37
Speaker 1: on the other side of the about Lovere Crawford, Lovere
1:20:39
Speaker 1: Crawford from St. Louis. He's what I'm saying, OK. St.
1:20:44
Speaker 1: Louis is on the other side in Illinois. Yeah, and
1:20:48
Speaker 1: it's you know, it's the cut, it's it's tough over that,
1:20:51
Speaker 1: it's tough over that, I know. Yeah, yeah. So but
1:20:55
Speaker 1: I went to college and you and I in Champagne,
1:20:58
Speaker 1: which is a little bit outside of Chica. I go
1:21:00
Speaker 1: ninety minutes. And so afterwards, all my friends, I think
1:21:03
Speaker 1: my boyfriend at the time, they went back after graduation,
1:21:07
Speaker 1: they went to Chicago. So I just moved there too.
1:21:10
Speaker 1: So you followed your man, you followed your man to Chicago,
1:21:12
Speaker 1: or you just my man at the time said there
1:21:17
Speaker 1: you go. And if you're gonna I'm gonna say, don't
1:21:20
Speaker 1: follow man places. But if you're gonna follow a man,
1:21:22
Speaker 1: do it after college, but be on your own, right. Oh,
1:21:29
Speaker 1: and so that's I started my art career. So your
1:21:32
Speaker 1: your college degree was what my college degree is actually
1:21:36
Speaker 1: in psychology. Okay, my college degree it's mathematics, so neither
1:21:43
Speaker 1: you know nothing. But my mind was sociology, but my
1:21:46
Speaker 1: degree was mathematics. And so I went to work for IBM.
1:21:49
Speaker 1: So when you went from Champagne, got your degree, packed
1:21:51
Speaker 1: your bag, followed home board to Chicago. You got a job.
1:21:55
Speaker 1: What was your first job? My first job. So my
1:21:58
Speaker 1: degree was in social side I think a social psychology,
1:22:01
Speaker 1: child psychology, I can't remember now, but it was a
1:22:04
Speaker 1: social work basically a social work type bachelor's. So I
1:22:07
Speaker 1: went to work. I went I think I went to
1:22:09
Speaker 1: work for the university doing outreach like art programs, so
1:22:13
Speaker 1: I was still art adjacent. And the reason I didn't
1:22:18
Speaker 1: go to college for acting, which maybe some of your
1:22:20
Speaker 1: listeners are like at that age and they're thinking about
1:22:23
Speaker 1: doing that, um, was because my parents they went to
1:22:26
Speaker 1: segregated schools. They came from Tennessee, and they were like,
1:22:29
Speaker 1: you are you know, I was second generation to go
1:22:31
Speaker 1: to college, but first generation out of segregation. And they
1:22:34
Speaker 1: were like, you're not gonna go to school to be
1:22:36
Speaker 1: an actor. You're gonna get a real job. There's just
1:22:39
Speaker 1: too much on the line. But my father said, if
1:22:42
Speaker 1: you're really good, it's gonna find you. And so I
1:22:47
Speaker 1: went to school for something else. But then after that,
1:22:49
Speaker 1: you know, I kind of became a journeyman, right. I
1:22:52
Speaker 1: had to piece my art education together. So I started
1:22:55
Speaker 1: taking acting classes at night, and then I got into
1:22:58
Speaker 1: a play with other actors that have been to acting school.
1:23:01
Speaker 1: So I would watch them and see what they would do.
1:23:03
Speaker 1: How would they learn their scripts? How would they break
1:23:05
Speaker 1: stuff down? You know, even now too, when I go
1:23:08
Speaker 1: to comedy, you know, not so much right now, during COVID.
1:23:11
Speaker 1: But when I would go to comedy shows, you know,
1:23:13
Speaker 1: I'm watching other people to see what you do, and
1:23:16
Speaker 1: so much of um this business you can't just you don't.
1:23:19
Speaker 1: You're not just what you want to be. But you
1:23:22
Speaker 1: need to study to to become that. But you can
1:23:24
Speaker 1: study in a variety of ways. That's not college. Well
1:23:28
Speaker 1: many stand ups. No, you don't go to absolutely, I
1:23:31
Speaker 1: you know, you learn on the road. But you know
1:23:33
Speaker 1: I look at you and you know, you know I
1:23:36
Speaker 1: went through and did my little extra work on what
1:23:38
Speaker 1: they sent over, and you know, you have so many
1:23:41
Speaker 1: different looks. That's on social media. You know what I
1:23:44
Speaker 1: think is a blessing. You know, because you you can't
1:23:46
Speaker 1: be pigeonholed. You know you can character you know, fantastic,
1:23:52
Speaker 1: fantastic character actress. And because you know you can look homely,
1:23:56
Speaker 1: you can look beautiful. Thank you. I se some homely photos.
1:24:00
Speaker 1: I would just like homely yere I put the homely
1:24:02
Speaker 1: in the beautiful photo together as just the same person.
1:24:05
Speaker 1: So I went, that's that's that's beyond acting, you know,
1:24:07
Speaker 1: to be able to pull that off. But the beauty
1:24:09
Speaker 1: of you know, you know, just mind everybody, I'm talking
1:24:13
Speaker 1: to Christina Anthony, I one of the stars of Mixus.
1:24:16
Speaker 1: Uh on the ABC series that follows Blackish. Uh. You
1:24:20
Speaker 1: know she plays at Denny's on the ABC series. Uh,
1:24:23
Speaker 1: she's out of Chicago. You know the Second City, one
1:24:26
Speaker 1: of the famous Second City. Uh what the John Belushi
1:24:30
Speaker 1: who all came out of the Second City. That's the
1:24:31
Speaker 1: name some of the famous Saturday Live alarms that came
1:24:34
Speaker 1: out of the Second City. Yeah, Belushi, Tina Fey, um,
1:24:41
Speaker 1: many people. But John Candy came out of there. I
1:24:44
Speaker 1: don't think he was on us another thing, but yeah,
1:24:46
Speaker 1: a lot of people have and then a lot of
1:24:48
Speaker 1: people they didn't go on S and L like Stephen
1:24:50
Speaker 1: Colbert came out of there. It's really amazing that. Uh. So,
1:24:56
Speaker 1: before I let you go, because I feel that, you know,
1:24:59
Speaker 1: when I look at your career and I look at
1:25:01
Speaker 1: your resume, I have to believe in myself speaking honestly,
1:25:04
Speaker 1: the star is only gonna get brighter for you. I
1:25:07
Speaker 1: I you know, COVID with the COVID that set us
1:25:10
Speaker 1: all back. But I think in my life I feel
1:25:12
Speaker 1: that it's only let you catch up with your competition.
1:25:14
Speaker 1: You're coming back in January, where the show that's on
1:25:16
Speaker 1: the air, and so it it focuses you, tells you
1:25:21
Speaker 1: what your gifts are. And I think your gifts is
1:25:23
Speaker 1: if I'm looking at you, I'm managing you. I say
1:25:26
Speaker 1: that it's unlimited. First of all, this is me just
1:25:30
Speaker 1: looking at the person I've seen. I've been blessed to
1:25:32
Speaker 1: be working with a lot of star talent. And you're attractive.
1:25:35
Speaker 1: You you you are just naturally funny. I mean, you
1:25:38
Speaker 1: just start talking, Christina, and you're funny, and that's very key,
1:25:42
Speaker 1: you know, I I and so I just know that
1:25:45
Speaker 1: you can do drama. You you I haven't heard you sing,
1:25:48
Speaker 1: but you know you you bold enough tell me that
1:25:50
Speaker 1: you got the chops because you've said Broadway several times
1:25:52
Speaker 1: during our interview, so obviously somebody let you in the
1:25:55
Speaker 1: room and let you make some noise and it made
1:25:58
Speaker 1: sense and it sounded like singing, and every I said,
1:26:00
Speaker 1: she got the skie. And uh, but what's just the
1:26:03
Speaker 1: future hope for you? Besides me being so caught off guard,
1:26:06
Speaker 1: but how talented you you are, because you never know
1:26:08
Speaker 1: what you interview somebody. Because some people can be uh,
1:26:11
Speaker 1: you know, just really good at what they do. I
1:26:13
Speaker 1: think you can be good at anything that you do. Yes, well,
1:26:17
Speaker 1: first of all, thank you so much for that. Um. Yeah,
1:26:20
Speaker 1: I consider myself a comedians comedian, so I aspire to
1:26:25
Speaker 1: to still just be really good at what I'm doing,
1:26:29
Speaker 1: no matter what level it's at. So if I'm teaching
1:26:31
Speaker 1: children after school how to write jokes, which is something
1:26:34
Speaker 1: I love to do, or if I'm in a big film,
1:26:37
Speaker 1: that's great too. Um. But as far as what's next,
1:26:41
Speaker 1: I love my job is underneath on ABC's Mixed Dish. Um.
1:26:46
Speaker 1: But eventually, you know, all things come to an end.
1:26:48
Speaker 1: So I was I can't wait to see, like what
1:26:50
Speaker 1: the next job is. I'm also very interested in getting
1:26:53
Speaker 1: into um film and doing I love I'm obsessed with
1:26:59
Speaker 1: action movies, Marvel movies. What's your favorite action movie? Because
1:27:04
Speaker 1: I love action movies like you know, I love it? What? What? What? What? What?
1:27:08
Speaker 1: Action movies this year caught your eye on on Netflix? Along?
1:27:12
Speaker 1: Do you watch Netflix? Yes? I do? Come on, come
1:27:19
Speaker 1: on now, come on now, come on now. That was
1:27:21
Speaker 1: a sleeper hit right out that we talk show. Lease
1:27:26
Speaker 1: walked up to I'll be right back, I get your signal,
1:27:29
Speaker 1: and she walked out that door and wipe all those
1:27:32
Speaker 1: men that's my girl right there. That right there, that
1:27:34
Speaker 1: movie was so unexpected, right, I didn't know what to
1:27:37
Speaker 1: think of it. It was so amazing. Yes, I love
1:27:40
Speaker 1: to try my hand in action. Of course. You know,
1:27:42
Speaker 1: black panther holes such a special place in my heart.
1:27:46
Speaker 1: I love that, so yeah, I would love that. I'm
1:27:48
Speaker 1: also like, I still have my eyes. I'm doing a
1:27:51
Speaker 1: comedy special, my brand of comedy, um, and then I
1:27:55
Speaker 1: love to have my own sitcom. You know, you up
1:27:59
Speaker 1: on your chair on that one. I'm going through. Okay,
1:28:02
Speaker 1: you know all, I know you've probably got super management
1:28:05
Speaker 1: around your super ages around you. But you know, I
1:28:07
Speaker 1: always know the call Rashaw. You know the idea that
1:28:11
Speaker 1: you want to get it from some people. But of
1:28:13
Speaker 1: course you're working with Ken your barrass you know you
1:28:15
Speaker 1: can't get any better than that. So I'm sure you
1:28:17
Speaker 1: can walk through the next door and pitch your ideas
1:28:19
Speaker 1: to those people over there. But again, you got an idea,
1:28:23
Speaker 1: you open your mouth to anybody that we listen. I
1:28:25
Speaker 1: love you for that. Again, I want to thank you
1:28:28
Speaker 1: for coming on my show. You you really really all.
1:28:30
Speaker 1: You know, You've been introduced to me and I'm a fan.
1:28:33
Speaker 1: I'm gonna follow you and uh, I'm support you have
1:28:36
Speaker 1: anything that you're doing. I'm gonna definitely a post you
1:28:38
Speaker 1: on my social media. You are the star of of
1:28:42
Speaker 1: Mixes as far as I'm concerned, because guess what, I've
1:28:44
Speaker 1: interviewed Job also interviewed Teaker, but I'm interviewing you right now.
1:28:47
Speaker 1: You are the star Denise that appears on January twenty six, Tuesday.
1:28:52
Speaker 1: Mixes returns for a second season on ABC. Thank you
1:28:56
Speaker 1: for coming to my show. Oh, thank you so much
1:28:58
Speaker 1: for having me Shaw. We be right back with more
1:29:01
Speaker 1: money making conversations with your host Rashawn McDonald. Look to
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Speaker 1: Brought to you by NITZA and the Ad Council Hi
1:31:05
Speaker 1: and Rashan McDonald, the host of Money Making Conversations. The
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Speaker 1: Cafe Marka Swag Award is a celebration of black men
1:31:10
Speaker 1: who are making a difference in our community by empowering
1:31:13
Speaker 1: others to reach their life goals from civic leaders, businessmen, activists,
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Speaker 1: celebrities and everyday days. The Cafe Marca Swag Award winner
1:31:20
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Speaker 1: Kevin Hart. He is the president of Pole Black Films,
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Speaker 1: Laugh Out Loud and Heartbeat Digital. Despite Jeff's business schedule,
1:31:35
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1:31:38
Speaker 1: mentor program that he does every Yeme, Okay, I've been
1:31:41
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1:31:43
Speaker 1: take five students every summer and I put them through
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1:31:59
Speaker 1: The Cafe marka Swag Award represents men who have strength,
1:32:02
Speaker 1: whose wisdom is assertive, and who are genuine in their spirit.
1:32:05
Speaker 1: Welcome back to money making conversations with your host, Rashwan McDonald.
1:32:10
Speaker 1: My next guest is Sharon Smith. I can sign you.
1:32:13
Speaker 1: She's the CEO of Ray Mackenzie Group, an award winning diversity,
1:32:16
Speaker 1: equity and inclusive marketing firm. Sharon worked for Fortune five
1:32:20
Speaker 1: hundred companies, nonprofits and in October sixteen founded the People
1:32:23
Speaker 1: of Color Career Fair as a way of closing the
1:32:26
Speaker 1: gap between between professionals of color and hiring managers. Sharing
1:32:30
Speaker 1: is all about diversity, equity and inclusion with marketing strategies
1:32:33
Speaker 1: that affect and attract, recruit, retain talent of color. Listen
1:32:38
Speaker 1: to me, talent of color. That's what this interview is about.
1:32:41
Speaker 1: Her new book, Colorful, Competitive Strategy to Attract and Retain
1:32:45
Speaker 1: Top Talent of Color, releases on February night of one,
1:32:49
Speaker 1: but she here to do a presale request. I'm gonna
1:32:52
Speaker 1: here to promote the book ahead of time because you
1:32:53
Speaker 1: can buy the book, put it on reserve, be the
1:32:55
Speaker 1: first to get it. Please. Welcome to Money Making Conversation,
1:32:58
Speaker 1: Sharon Smith. I can sign you. Thank you so much
1:33:02
Speaker 1: for Sean, thank you for that awesome introduction. I'm really
1:33:04
Speaker 1: happy to be here with you today. Well, first of all,
1:33:06
Speaker 1: you're a talker. You're a good talker. I have some
1:33:07
Speaker 1: good questions. A little background on me, my degrees in mathematics,
1:33:11
Speaker 1: my miners, and sociology. Uh, even though I have a
1:33:13
Speaker 1: strong entertainment background. But in college two and a half
1:33:16
Speaker 1: years I worked undergrad at IBM. I was in the
1:33:20
Speaker 1: administrative executive and then I worked two and a half
1:33:23
Speaker 1: years professionally at IBM. And when I got there, and
1:33:26
Speaker 1: I eventually left in eight six to pursue a career
1:33:29
Speaker 1: as a standard comedian, I thought I'd be the next
1:33:31
Speaker 1: Aid in Murphy. And I guess what, I've been successful.
1:33:34
Speaker 1: I'm not the next Aid to Murphy, but I'm the
1:33:35
Speaker 1: first Rochelle McDonald. That's why I should have realized from
1:33:37
Speaker 1: the very beginning that it's really when you start talking
1:33:40
Speaker 1: about talent and recruiting that talent. It's about being yourself
1:33:43
Speaker 1: and understanding your value, isn't that correct? Sharing? Absolutely, we
1:33:47
Speaker 1: have to know our value, We have to understand, you know,
1:33:51
Speaker 1: where we fit in, and we have to always be
1:33:53
Speaker 1: willing to bring our authentic self to whatever it is
1:33:56
Speaker 1: that we're doing and we're trying to pursue because you
1:33:58
Speaker 1: cannot be your best. You cannot be productive at home,
1:34:02
Speaker 1: you cannot be productive at work unless you keep it
1:34:04
Speaker 1: real and you always keep aware because you're in a
1:34:07
Speaker 1: world where really, um, you're talking to white people. Absolutely,
1:34:11
Speaker 1: I'm talking to white people every day, giving them a
1:34:14
Speaker 1: safe space to have this real conversation about making sure
1:34:18
Speaker 1: that they uh do a better job at making rooms
1:34:21
Speaker 1: so that we can have a seat at the table. See,
1:34:23
Speaker 1: we need to be at all levels of the organization,
1:34:26
Speaker 1: from boardroom to the c suite to middle management, all
1:34:29
Speaker 1: the way through to make sure that we're impacting change,
1:34:32
Speaker 1: not just because of us. Right, this is just good business.
1:34:36
Speaker 1: When you think about the population shift, the demographics shift,
1:34:41
Speaker 1: you know, people will tell us what bo we will
1:34:45
Speaker 1: be a majority minority nation, that will be more black
1:34:49
Speaker 1: and brown people in this nation and then when you
1:34:51
Speaker 1: add on top of that, rashaant the buying power consumerism,
1:34:55
Speaker 1: corporations must be reflective of the customers they served. And
1:35:00
Speaker 1: were you talking about one point five one point seven
1:35:02
Speaker 1: trillion dollars in buying power just with the African Americans
1:35:05
Speaker 1: consumer another one point five or so with the Latino community.
1:35:09
Speaker 1: You cannot afford not to make sure that your workforce
1:35:14
Speaker 1: is reflective of the consumers you serve. Because we're getting
1:35:17
Speaker 1: smarter and we're becoming more using our activist gene, and
1:35:21
Speaker 1: we're asking more questions as we think about where we
1:35:24
Speaker 1: want to land for our next big career. You know,
1:35:27
Speaker 1: it's really interesting because, let's say, my miners and sociology,
1:35:31
Speaker 1: so I'm always looking from a black perspective, and I
1:35:33
Speaker 1: have to look at life. So when you talk about
1:35:36
Speaker 1: that minority number being the majority, there's a there's a
1:35:40
Speaker 1: that's a majority of this current majority fear that. And
1:35:43
Speaker 1: so when you come in and talking about trying to
1:35:45
Speaker 1: be inclusive and trying to be a more diverse a
1:35:49
Speaker 1: color pattern that fits the general population, there's also an
1:35:53
Speaker 1: older generation that sees that that shrinking number, and we've
1:35:57
Speaker 1: seen it during this last presidential administration and just gonna
1:36:00
Speaker 1: carry on, uh, the next four years or six years.
1:36:04
Speaker 1: And we've seen how I read an article as a
1:36:06
Speaker 1: church out there as white only people church on the
1:36:09
Speaker 1: only white people to come to their church. So when
1:36:11
Speaker 1: you see this, this upheaval of negative spirit that don't
1:36:15
Speaker 1: want to include, that don't want to share the opportunities
1:36:18
Speaker 1: at the table, how do you deal with that? How
1:36:21
Speaker 1: do you see that as a visionary? Yeah, I think that,
1:36:24
Speaker 1: you know, I really feel bad, I really feel awful,
1:36:28
Speaker 1: Uh that people are such a disadvantage, especially some white
1:36:31
Speaker 1: people who haven't had the opportunity to learn how fulfilling
1:36:35
Speaker 1: their life would be by not having people in their
1:36:38
Speaker 1: lives that don't look like them. It is so sad,
1:36:42
Speaker 1: you know. And it's something that I teach young people
1:36:44
Speaker 1: as well, and I when I speak in schools, I said,
1:36:47
Speaker 1: you really have to understand how fulfilling and how important
1:36:51
Speaker 1: it is to make sure that you switch things up,
1:36:54
Speaker 1: you know, really make sure that you are being intentional
1:36:57
Speaker 1: about building strong relationships with people who don't look like you.
1:37:00
Speaker 1: It changes things. And so when I see what happened
1:37:04
Speaker 1: in the election, when I see what happens in the
1:37:06
Speaker 1: White House, it's just very sad because they're just cheating
1:37:09
Speaker 1: themselves out of a fulfilling opportunity, UH, to just make
1:37:13
Speaker 1: their lives better because it's so important. You know, Brian
1:37:16
Speaker 1: Stevenson teaches us about proximity. I don't know if you've
1:37:19
Speaker 1: read the book Just Mercy, but teach us about proximity,
1:37:23
Speaker 1: and it's so important to do that. This is how
1:37:26
Speaker 1: we create empathy when you are getting closer to people
1:37:30
Speaker 1: who don't look like us, and there and there, and
1:37:32
Speaker 1: it's a shame to have fear. Who wants to live
1:37:35
Speaker 1: like that? In fear of another human being? That's that's
1:37:37
Speaker 1: just nuts. So what we have to do as black
1:37:40
Speaker 1: people and people of color is just to keep moving forward,
1:37:44
Speaker 1: keep being who we are, keep being authentic, and keep teaching,
1:37:47
Speaker 1: educating and using our voice to make sure that we
1:37:50
Speaker 1: are creating change and embrace those allies and as my
1:37:54
Speaker 1: mom called him, embrace those good white folk. Right. Well,
1:37:58
Speaker 1: that's what we saw during the civil unrest during the summer,
1:38:02
Speaker 1: because white people came out and supported racial change. Police
1:38:07
Speaker 1: brutality we had to stop, you know, I would tell people,
1:38:11
Speaker 1: you know, some of the some of the heavy riding
1:38:14
Speaker 1: was done in Portland, Seattle, and I can assure you
1:38:17
Speaker 1: I've been to both cities. Very few black people up there. Okay,
1:38:20
Speaker 1: there was a mad white people up there who finally
1:38:23
Speaker 1: were open, and then when they saw try to create conversation,
1:38:27
Speaker 1: they would trying. They were they were, they were trying
1:38:29
Speaker 1: to shut them down. And that's when the face of
1:38:32
Speaker 1: reality kind of came back a wild you mean, like
1:38:34
Speaker 1: we changed just talk about this, and this is what
1:38:36
Speaker 1: black people have to deal with. I'm white and you
1:38:39
Speaker 1: treat me like this, Treat me like I am a terrorist,
1:38:42
Speaker 1: treat me like I am uh was supposed to have
1:38:45
Speaker 1: the first right amendment of freedom of speech and you're
1:38:47
Speaker 1: telling you denying me that. And so when I look
1:38:49
Speaker 1: at what you're doing, and I do want to point
1:38:52
Speaker 1: something that. First, from an advertising standpoint, when I look
1:38:54
Speaker 1: at commercials, I see diversity, incredible amounts of diversity. I
1:38:58
Speaker 1: see black and white couple was layd in bed. I
1:39:01
Speaker 1: see him driving cars with Nix Races kids in the
1:39:03
Speaker 1: back seat. I see them jumping out to each other
1:39:06
Speaker 1: when they come into the airport. So from an advertising standpoint,
1:39:09
Speaker 1: I think diversity is working. They they have understood that
1:39:14
Speaker 1: we need to show how America looks and should interact.
1:39:18
Speaker 1: Now we're talking about employment, we're talking about leadership, we're
1:39:21
Speaker 1: talking about upper management. We're talking about that's a lot
1:39:24
Speaker 1: different than a sixty second or thirty second or fifteen
1:39:27
Speaker 1: second b roll on YouTube. A lot of harder journey.
1:39:30
Speaker 1: It's it's it is a harder journey. But I don't
1:39:33
Speaker 1: understand why, because when you understand good business, that same
1:39:38
Speaker 1: CEO who may ensure that that who hired that ad agency,
1:39:42
Speaker 1: who created that the average the advertisement that you speak about,
1:39:46
Speaker 1: is that same CEO who needs to make sure that
1:39:50
Speaker 1: his organization reflects the consumers that they're serving. So that CEO,
1:39:56
Speaker 1: that c h R O needs to just decide that
1:40:00
Speaker 1: we're going to reflect that. You've seen the articles, the
1:40:02
Speaker 1: recent articles, um you know about Coca Cola, right and
1:40:06
Speaker 1: there you know, and they started years ago. They used
1:40:08
Speaker 1: to be leading in this space when we're talking about
1:40:11
Speaker 1: CEOs at the highest levels of the organization, and they
1:40:15
Speaker 1: just took a temperature check. If they they went backwards,
1:40:19
Speaker 1: they're going back and even as they have gone backwards,
1:40:23
Speaker 1: and this was as a result of a multimillion dollar
1:40:25
Speaker 1: lawsuit that happened, right, and so they're going backwards. But
1:40:28
Speaker 1: even as they are, they're still ahead of the game.
1:40:32
Speaker 1: They still the game losing ground. Well, when CEOs just
1:40:37
Speaker 1: have to decide what type of organization do I want
1:40:41
Speaker 1: to be? What do I want to represent? What do
1:40:44
Speaker 1: I want my legacy to be? When I think about
1:40:47
Speaker 1: how all of this got started in sixteen nineteen, when
1:40:51
Speaker 1: the first slaves you know, rode up on the shores
1:40:54
Speaker 1: of Virginia, you know, uh uh in chains. But do
1:40:59
Speaker 1: I want my I can see to be And I
1:41:02
Speaker 1: believe that CEO's board members just have to decide that
1:41:06
Speaker 1: this has got to stop. And just like when this
1:41:08
Speaker 1: started in Minneapolis, after George Floyd was murdered eight minutes
1:41:13
Speaker 1: and forty six seconds, that awakened all of us, you know,
1:41:16
Speaker 1: and and the world saw all races. As you mentioned earlier,
1:41:20
Speaker 1: it wasn't just because there's not that many black folk
1:41:22
Speaker 1: in Minnesota either. So everybody came together and said, you
1:41:27
Speaker 1: know what, this is enough is enough, Enough is enough.
1:41:31
Speaker 1: It is not okay that Sherion Smith Akin Sagna has
1:41:33
Speaker 1: to have a talk with her twenty four year old
1:41:36
Speaker 1: you know about you know, every single time she leaves
1:41:39
Speaker 1: my presence. She lives in Boston now, but ever since
1:41:42
Speaker 1: she was a baby. You know, we have to have
1:41:44
Speaker 1: that talk. You really are black. Here's here's you have
1:41:47
Speaker 1: to be aware of that. You know, when I talked
1:41:50
Speaker 1: to my white friends about that, they're just the paul
1:41:53
Speaker 1: that I have to do that not only with her,
1:41:55
Speaker 1: but my nieces, my nephews, you know, just anybody. Just
1:41:58
Speaker 1: remember we have to be careful. And so it awakened
1:42:01
Speaker 1: all of us and we have to keep the pedal
1:42:04
Speaker 1: to the metal. You know. I wrote about it in
1:42:06
Speaker 1: my article in b ET recently, and I talked about
1:42:10
Speaker 1: how it's very nice that we have Rashida Jones, who
1:42:14
Speaker 1: now is the head of MSNBC News, you know, the
1:42:16
Speaker 1: first black female head of cable news, a cable news network.
1:42:19
Speaker 1: You know, we've got Kamala Harris, right, first of a
1:42:22
Speaker 1: black vice president. We've got all female communications staff in
1:42:28
Speaker 1: the Biden Harris cabinet, with three of those members being black,
1:42:32
Speaker 1: all with natural hair by the way. So we're seeing
1:42:35
Speaker 1: so much progress right and in a short period of time.
1:42:39
Speaker 1: But I also wrote about I see some flashing yellow lights,
1:42:45
Speaker 1: ship warning warning. We have been here before, So what
1:42:52
Speaker 1: do we need to do to make sure that we
1:42:55
Speaker 1: don't backslide, as they say in church. We need to
1:42:59
Speaker 1: make sure or that we are giving those ceo s hey,
1:43:03
Speaker 1: this is awesome that you did this. Who's Next? Because
1:43:06
Speaker 1: we own social media? Use it right, we own it.
1:43:09
Speaker 1: So make sure you're letting the CEOs and we're watching,
1:43:11
Speaker 1: we see you. Thank you so much for that. Who's Next.
1:43:15
Speaker 1: And we also need to make sure that we are
1:43:17
Speaker 1: congratulating those leaders and saying we're looking forward to the
1:43:20
Speaker 1: change that you're gonna make. You know who you're bringing
1:43:23
Speaker 1: up behind you, you know. So there's lots of things
1:43:25
Speaker 1: that are happening, but I see warning science. You know
1:43:28
Speaker 1: you remember this book, what was it, Cracking the Corporate Code?
1:43:31
Speaker 1: You remember absolutely absolutely did this a long time ago.
1:43:36
Speaker 1: Like I said, you know because I've worked at IBM,
1:43:39
Speaker 1: so I know that, uh, you know, I would tell
1:43:42
Speaker 1: people about, you know, the story. I always say that
1:43:44
Speaker 1: when I was an IBM, I said, decisions are made.
1:43:47
Speaker 1: You have to do you have to get in the
1:43:48
Speaker 1: eyeline of people when they make decisions. And that's what
1:43:51
Speaker 1: black people really need to understand before we throw the
1:43:53
Speaker 1: word racism out there, not be included. And I would
1:43:56
Speaker 1: tell people decisions are made in front of you, left
1:43:59
Speaker 1: and right. If you send to been hiding that decision maker,
1:44:02
Speaker 1: you won't get choose. You won't get chosen. So that
1:44:04
Speaker 1: means that you have to you have to work your
1:44:06
Speaker 1: way through proper training, proper relationships, or clear understanding that
1:44:11
Speaker 1: you want to be successful. Because I mean, when I
1:44:13
Speaker 1: came on board IBM full time, uh, you know, I
1:44:15
Speaker 1: sat down with my supervisors. He asked me what I
1:44:18
Speaker 1: wanted to do at IBM, and I told him I
1:44:19
Speaker 1: get back with him meany times. With twitter white guys, obviously,
1:44:22
Speaker 1: they told him exactly what they wanted to do and
1:44:25
Speaker 1: they would move in front of me. Well, you know,
1:44:27
Speaker 1: four months later I came in there, you know, crying wolf, Hey,
1:44:30
Speaker 1: what's going on here? Why is Bill and Ted flying
1:44:33
Speaker 1: past me? And they said he white guy said nights
1:44:36
Speaker 1: every shine. You didn't ever get back to me about
1:44:39
Speaker 1: your goals that IBM. So I'm not I'm not saying
1:44:42
Speaker 1: that's holding all black people back, but no, there are
1:44:45
Speaker 1: certain things that you have to be positioned and ready
1:44:47
Speaker 1: to tell people you want to be great, if you
1:44:49
Speaker 1: if your goal is to be this, to run this company,
1:44:51
Speaker 1: to be a vice president, to be a manager. When
1:44:53
Speaker 1: they asked you, you better tell them, and you better
1:44:55
Speaker 1: tell them how you're gonna do that, because that shows
1:44:57
Speaker 1: leadership and so. And I also know that raises promotions
1:45:02
Speaker 1: are tied to not because of hard work, but what
1:45:04
Speaker 1: people think of you. Absolutely, absolutely you must know your value.
1:45:09
Speaker 1: And you know how close mouth won't get faith, mouth
1:45:13
Speaker 1: won't get promoted. Jared jaredy. I mean we talk a
1:45:15
Speaker 1: long time because see you you're starting to rock on me.
1:45:17
Speaker 1: Not girl. You know what I'm saying, Yeah, that elbow
1:45:21
Speaker 1: your weight in right, you know, to make sure that
1:45:25
Speaker 1: you're saying yes to those networking opportunities. Absolutely, yes to
1:45:29
Speaker 1: those virtual coffees, Yes to those quick fifteen minutes you know,
1:45:33
Speaker 1: catch ups. That's how we learn those things. We must
1:45:38
Speaker 1: know more people. I can't tell you how many calls
1:45:41
Speaker 1: I get after someone has you know, been downsized because
1:45:44
Speaker 1: of the pandemic or for whatever reason. And this says Sharon,
1:45:48
Speaker 1: I really need to get to my next episode, And
1:45:50
Speaker 1: I said, well, who you know? You know, who have
1:45:52
Speaker 1: you kept in relationship with where That's where we're gonna
1:45:55
Speaker 1: start first. Well, you know, I've been so busy, I
1:45:58
Speaker 1: haven't done the networking that I need to and you know,
1:46:01
Speaker 1: I have my head down. No everybody three to five
1:46:05
Speaker 1: networking calls a week, fifteen minutes, three to five, no agenda,
1:46:09
Speaker 1: get to know people you know and let and you
1:46:11
Speaker 1: could be genuinely interested in what's going on with them,
1:46:15
Speaker 1: all right, and be able to share what's going on
1:46:17
Speaker 1: with you and your future goals and opportunities, especially now
1:46:20
Speaker 1: because we're all in this box, in this square called zoom,
1:46:24
Speaker 1: and we have time throw a fifteen minute meeting on that.
1:46:27
Speaker 1: I've been meaning to catch up with that h r
1:46:29
Speaker 1: oh at you know said company. I've been meaning to
1:46:32
Speaker 1: catch up with a friend of mine who I had
1:46:34
Speaker 1: just you know, lost touch, you know, from years ago.
1:46:37
Speaker 1: Catch up, y'all. We need to have access, and that
1:46:40
Speaker 1: is why I created the People of Color Careers Social
1:46:44
Speaker 1: Hiring Network for Professionals of color, because we need to
1:46:48
Speaker 1: do a better job at networking with each other, and
1:46:52
Speaker 1: also we need to do a better job at networking
1:46:55
Speaker 1: and getting access to those hiring managers and decision makers
1:46:59
Speaker 1: rashan that can help us move the needle forward faster
1:47:02
Speaker 1: on our careers. So I want to make sure everybody
1:47:06
Speaker 1: they don't do anything else. They need to create their
1:47:09
Speaker 1: profile at people of Color Careers dot Com because that's
1:47:12
Speaker 1: where we're gonna get it done. I love that we're
1:47:14
Speaker 1: talking about her new book, Colorful Competitive Strategies to Attract
1:47:18
Speaker 1: and Retain top Talent of Color. It releases in February,
1:47:21
Speaker 1: but you can pre order this book right now. I'm
1:47:23
Speaker 1: talking to Sharon Smith. I can sign you and we're
1:47:27
Speaker 1: making it. There's when I've reading the book, as a
1:47:29
Speaker 1: couple of terms that I always here pop out, what
1:47:32
Speaker 1: exactly or c suite executives? What is that? What are those?
1:47:36
Speaker 1: The c suite executives are those executives that work directly
1:47:40
Speaker 1: for the CEO, report directly to the CEO, so that
1:47:45
Speaker 1: you can have a seat at the table where the
1:47:47
Speaker 1: decision makers the citistems are being made. Because because I thought,
1:47:52
Speaker 1: because I'm going through your book, it was it was
1:47:54
Speaker 1: kind of like, you know, it's like a recipe book,
1:47:55
Speaker 1: and it was so term. I went, you know, you
1:47:57
Speaker 1: gotta know this term because it pops up a lot. Yeah,
1:48:00
Speaker 1: I know what it is, but people they just walk
1:48:02
Speaker 1: quite past what exactlys c suite executives. Okay, that person
1:48:06
Speaker 1: you need to get cop to the top of the
1:48:08
Speaker 1: food chain. That's what you need to be working your
1:48:09
Speaker 1: way up to the top. Now, another person in reading
1:48:13
Speaker 1: they said that that you are a proof of concept?
1:48:17
Speaker 1: What exactly that that when they made that reference, I
1:48:19
Speaker 1: really I said, I'm gonna let her explain what he
1:48:21
Speaker 1: meant when he said you are a proof of concept.
1:48:24
Speaker 1: We talked about my good friend Richard Davis, who is
1:48:27
Speaker 1: the former CEO of the nation's fifth largest bank, US Bank,
1:48:30
Speaker 1: and he's currently the CEO of Make a Wish America.
1:48:34
Speaker 1: And I believe what Richard meant was is that I
1:48:36
Speaker 1: do what I say I'm want to do, and that
1:48:38
Speaker 1: I you know, so when you have a conversation with me,
1:48:41
Speaker 1: it's going to be authentic, It's going to be safe,
1:48:44
Speaker 1: there won't be any recrimination. We're gonna be able to
1:48:47
Speaker 1: have an honest dialogue because I recognize that as a CEO,
1:48:51
Speaker 1: particularly as a white male, because that was the point
1:48:54
Speaker 1: of view he was speaking for. He called himself. You know,
1:48:56
Speaker 1: I'm an old white dude, and I support here of
1:49:00
Speaker 1: what he was saying is is that when I tell
1:49:02
Speaker 1: you that I can help you do better and be
1:49:04
Speaker 1: better and recruit and retain top talent of color, if
1:49:08
Speaker 1: you listen, then I will be able to do that
1:49:11
Speaker 1: because what was important. See Richard than I, we used
1:49:13
Speaker 1: to have these knockdown dragons. They were in safe spaces
1:49:17
Speaker 1: and we had them and we moved on. Well, we
1:49:22
Speaker 1: learned from one another because I can ask him anything, right,
1:49:24
Speaker 1: And so that's what we're saying that if you want
1:49:26
Speaker 1: to save space to be able to have these conversations
1:49:29
Speaker 1: to help move your organization forward, then Sharon can do that. Well.
1:49:33
Speaker 1: I took it as you are the truth. You know,
1:49:35
Speaker 1: just people like truth man. Just just just let her
1:49:38
Speaker 1: talk for five minute. Understand that's the truth talking right there.
1:49:41
Speaker 1: And then because because that's what I took from a
1:49:43
Speaker 1: proof of concept, because okay, you know each how you go,
1:49:46
Speaker 1: Why does this work? Sharon, please come forward and tell
1:49:50
Speaker 1: everybody the truth that just walked into the room. Because
1:49:53
Speaker 1: because you're constantly in mental and you have to maintaining
1:49:57
Speaker 1: certain tones that you don't become the angry black woman
1:50:00
Speaker 1: that can be too too aggressive because you're trying to
1:50:03
Speaker 1: bend thought process. You're trying to create acceptability, and you
1:50:07
Speaker 1: can't be the person. You know what you don't want
1:50:09
Speaker 1: sharing it's somebody doing it because out of fear. That
1:50:12
Speaker 1: doesn't work let's talk about that whole process. Because you
1:50:16
Speaker 1: can't protest your way to diverse opportunities, they can assign
1:50:20
Speaker 1: wanted to to shut you down. We're talking about a
1:50:22
Speaker 1: plan in place that you are trying to implement. Not
1:50:25
Speaker 1: saying trying, but you are implementing that allows people to
1:50:28
Speaker 1: understand this is the right thing to do. This can
1:50:30
Speaker 1: make your company more profitable. This can make your your
1:50:33
Speaker 1: work staff much more clear. Understanding what goes on in
1:50:36
Speaker 1: all the communities. They can understand why, Okay, this person
1:50:39
Speaker 1: feels a certain way when they walk out there are
1:50:41
Speaker 1: police stops them, or or their children go to school
1:50:44
Speaker 1: where they have different ways of communicating. This is what
1:50:46
Speaker 1: this is about. An acceptance and the mental acceptance that
1:50:50
Speaker 1: this should be done this way. There are no other
1:50:52
Speaker 1: way it shouldn't be done. Absolutely, that's exactly right. And
1:50:56
Speaker 1: those leaders who get that Rashaun are winning. They're going
1:51:00
Speaker 1: to leave their competitors in the dust. I promise you,
1:51:03
Speaker 1: when you truly understand the importance of building stronger, more
1:51:09
Speaker 1: authentic relationships inside and outside your organization with people of color,
1:51:14
Speaker 1: those that don't look like you, you will increase your profits.
1:51:18
Speaker 1: Their studies that we know take my word for it.
1:51:20
Speaker 1: Their studies, you know, into all of them, right, you know,
1:51:24
Speaker 1: the Mackenzie pick them. There's thousands of studies that tell
1:51:28
Speaker 1: you you will increase your profits, you will increase innovation,
1:51:31
Speaker 1: and you will absolutely leave your competition in the dust,
1:51:35
Speaker 1: and personally you will be better for it. See, my
1:51:39
Speaker 1: best friend is very rich and very white, very white,
1:51:44
Speaker 1: and we have these conversations that put us in different places. See,
1:51:50
Speaker 1: she enhanced my life because of her network and her
1:51:54
Speaker 1: circle and where we were able to get some things
1:51:57
Speaker 1: done around diversity, EQUI and inclusion where she can introduced
1:52:01
Speaker 1: me into that world. And then she was able to
1:52:04
Speaker 1: have a better understanding and be a better c. H. R.
1:52:06
Speaker 1: Oh in her work because of what she was able
1:52:09
Speaker 1: to do with me in my world and learn. I
1:52:12
Speaker 1: gotta tell you. I'll tell you a quick story. When
1:52:14
Speaker 1: we went out to sit to a party to a
1:52:18
Speaker 1: professional couple. You know, they had just moved to the
1:52:21
Speaker 1: Twin Cities area, and it was a beautiful, I mean beautiful,
1:52:24
Speaker 1: beautiful home. And so it's a Saturday afternoon. I'm being casual.
1:52:28
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, look at y'all, y'all living like rich
1:52:31
Speaker 1: white people out here, and Jenny, and Jenny looked at me.
1:52:36
Speaker 1: She said, no, I can't say that, right, that's exactly right,
1:52:42
Speaker 1: you know, I said, but eventually you know, right, right,
1:52:46
Speaker 1: But those are the things, right, those are the things
1:52:48
Speaker 1: that I want. I want to comment on that. You know,
1:52:50
Speaker 1: when you're saying living like white people. See, that's which
1:52:55
Speaker 1: is really, really, really key because you know, I because
1:52:59
Speaker 1: I'm a former sitcom writer, and I will tell you
1:53:01
Speaker 1: know what happens is, you know how some people create
1:53:04
Speaker 1: a hit show and they can't create another hit show
1:53:06
Speaker 1: because when they used to they create the first show,
1:53:08
Speaker 1: they were driving to work, they were needing the regular stories.
1:53:11
Speaker 1: When they made the hit show, they started helicopter in
1:53:13
Speaker 1: the world, they started getting their news from CNN. And
1:53:15
Speaker 1: so so basically, people are rich white people, they have
1:53:19
Speaker 1: to be educated because guess what they're missing steps, you know,
1:53:23
Speaker 1: they're missing steps. Food is being brought to them. They
1:53:25
Speaker 1: have made service and so they're looking at people from
1:53:27
Speaker 1: a different perspective and the information they're getting it from
1:53:29
Speaker 1: people from from maybe from a non educated level. And
1:53:33
Speaker 1: so when we have to surround their folks with information,
1:53:35
Speaker 1: if their eyes open, go, I didn't know. That's why
1:53:38
Speaker 1: I'm with George Florida. A lot of white people didn't
1:53:40
Speaker 1: know they really they were allowed. The white people black
1:53:42
Speaker 1: people just complaining and didn't didn't look caring. She out
1:53:45
Speaker 1: there just I'm a column, I'm a call of police
1:53:47
Speaker 1: right now and tell them you're about to attack me.
1:53:49
Speaker 1: When that got caught on film, they were like, Wow,
1:53:53
Speaker 1: this really does happen. It really does happening, and it
1:53:57
Speaker 1: just you know what, it wasn't a We were in
1:53:59
Speaker 1: the middle of a pandemic when George Floyd happened, and
1:54:01
Speaker 1: as we still are, it wasn't a baseball game, a
1:54:04
Speaker 1: football game, get nothing to get in a way. Everybody
1:54:08
Speaker 1: saw that. Everybody witnessed it, and it wasn't awakening. It
1:54:11
Speaker 1: really wasn't awakening. And I encourage everyone in the sound
1:54:14
Speaker 1: of my voice to be intentional about changing your friend group,
1:54:20
Speaker 1: because I want to know, you know, who do you
1:54:22
Speaker 1: call when you want to celebrate, Who do you call
1:54:24
Speaker 1: when you're sad? Who's on your Christmas party list? Tell
1:54:29
Speaker 1: me about your golfing buddies, because it just changes your
1:54:33
Speaker 1: life for the better. When you diversify, you learn, So
1:54:37
Speaker 1: we have could be intellectually curious too about what's happening. Sharon,
1:54:40
Speaker 1: love you because you have that. You know you could
1:54:42
Speaker 1: be a minister. You know that that you've been told
1:54:43
Speaker 1: that before. Now, the couple of questions about ask you
1:54:46
Speaker 1: have to read the book. The first one, it's a
1:54:49
Speaker 1: strong question, but I just need you to answer. Why
1:54:52
Speaker 1: should we trust you? You should trust me because I
1:54:57
Speaker 1: have been doing this for twenty plus years, really working
1:55:03
Speaker 1: hard to impact my community, really hard to be making
1:55:08
Speaker 1: sure that we're making a change in closing those gaps,
1:55:10
Speaker 1: you know. So you know, I'm an open book. I'm
1:55:12
Speaker 1: pretty transparent, and I get results, and and Richard Davis
1:55:17
Speaker 1: is one of those people that share that information with you,
1:55:20
Speaker 1: as those other UH executives in the book that I
1:55:23
Speaker 1: talked to. So I get results. I am proof positive.
1:55:28
Speaker 1: You know that when you work with me and my team,
1:55:32
Speaker 1: we're gonna help you move the needle forward and it's
1:55:34
Speaker 1: going to be safe. So you should trust me because
1:55:37
Speaker 1: I've done the work. I've been in the trenches, and
1:55:40
Speaker 1: I have those corporations that are behind me that say, hey,
1:55:45
Speaker 1: you know, she and her team are really moving the
1:55:48
Speaker 1: needle and getting it done. And because my mama said,
1:55:51
Speaker 1: so you know, you know me, She said look, little girl,
1:55:55
Speaker 1: I know you are in a fetal position. This was
1:55:58
Speaker 1: after George Floyd. You got to get up because it
1:56:02
Speaker 1: is a sin not to use your gift. It is
1:56:06
Speaker 1: a sin to keep it to yourself. Now you can
1:56:07
Speaker 1: be part of the solution or walk around soaking of oxygen.
1:56:10
Speaker 1: Right now, I'm saying you shouldn't feel what you feel.
1:56:14
Speaker 1: But I'm gonna need you to do what it is
1:56:17
Speaker 1: that you do your god giving gifts and let this
1:56:19
Speaker 1: make even more change in the community because you have
1:56:22
Speaker 1: accessed to people that most people just dream of, and
1:56:25
Speaker 1: you need to use that access to move things forward
1:56:29
Speaker 1: and make real change. Now get on up. My other
1:56:33
Speaker 1: question for a close out the end of view, what
1:56:35
Speaker 1: are the real obstacles? We've talked about them for d E. I, Yes,
1:56:41
Speaker 1: what are they? Well, the real obstacles um lie in
1:56:46
Speaker 1: the inability for those in charge to just decide that's
1:56:53
Speaker 1: the obstacle. And sweet because because I say that, because
1:56:56
Speaker 1: I want to go to chapter three. The key to
1:56:58
Speaker 1: attracting qualified professionals of color, and that's what you say.
1:57:03
Speaker 1: Make sure every message you send tells them you want them,
1:57:07
Speaker 1: welcome them, and value them as unique individuals. Right, because
1:57:12
Speaker 1: how what message are you sending? You know, when I
1:57:15
Speaker 1: look at your LinkedIn profile, when I look at your
1:57:17
Speaker 1: company profile, I don't see anybody looks like me. I
1:57:20
Speaker 1: don't see you with anybody that looks like me. So
1:57:23
Speaker 1: you have to be intentional. It's almost like that boss
1:57:26
Speaker 1: of yours who talked about talked to you when you
1:57:29
Speaker 1: were at IBM. What do you want to do? You
1:57:31
Speaker 1: know what you didn't tell him. Okay, you got around
1:57:34
Speaker 1: to it, but you didn't do it right away. Same
1:57:37
Speaker 1: thing is happening in corporate America. You say you want me,
1:57:41
Speaker 1: but tell me how much you want me. You know,
1:57:44
Speaker 1: it's like a dating relationship. You know, why don't I
1:57:47
Speaker 1: hear anything about it? Why don't you tell me you?
1:57:49
Speaker 1: Why don't you show me? And so that is the
1:57:52
Speaker 1: most important thing to aid. Just decide and then make
1:57:55
Speaker 1: it clear. We really do want to increase racial inclusivity
1:57:59
Speaker 1: at all levels of the organization, and we're willing to
1:58:01
Speaker 1: do and learn whatever we need to do and learn
1:58:04
Speaker 1: to make that happen because we know it's good for
1:58:07
Speaker 1: business and we know that we lose our competitive edge
1:58:10
Speaker 1: when we don't do that. Awesome, She's amazing. She has
1:58:13
Speaker 1: a book out colorful competitive strategies to attract and retain
1:58:17
Speaker 1: top talent of color. Sharon Smith at Consagna, You're wonderful, Minnesota.
1:58:21
Speaker 1: That's a cold state, young lady. Thank you so much,
1:58:25
Speaker 1: and we're gonna just keep it moving. I know, by
1:58:26
Speaker 1: the way, the book, you can get the e book
1:58:29
Speaker 1: right now on Amazon as well. So I'm I'm gonna
1:58:31
Speaker 1: bring you back, you know, because I was. You know,
1:58:33
Speaker 1: we're closing out the year, but I want to bring
1:58:35
Speaker 1: you back in like in the late first quarter because
1:58:38
Speaker 1: you know, you know VA vaccines, it's gonna be starting
1:58:41
Speaker 1: to get distributed and I want to get your mindset
1:58:44
Speaker 1: there as well, because what you talk about is, uh,
1:58:47
Speaker 1: it is really important from a standpoint, Like I told you,
1:58:50
Speaker 1: you know, from an advertising standpoint, there's a clear understanding
1:58:54
Speaker 1: that by being diverse in the advertising world, your product
1:58:57
Speaker 1: can be sold. That's what they're doing. You said that
1:58:59
Speaker 1: in your book about brand loyalty. It hasn't been shown
1:59:02
Speaker 1: that once once African Americans feel that you care about them,
1:59:06
Speaker 1: you create brand loyalty. What the advertising world is accepted
1:59:10
Speaker 1: that you know, they're rolling in there and so. But
1:59:13
Speaker 1: from the corporate standpoint and had those closed doors. When
1:59:16
Speaker 1: you walk through those doors, they're still not admitting there's
1:59:19
Speaker 1: a need for that change. They have to just decide
1:59:23
Speaker 1: those that do and make it happen. Like I said,
1:59:26
Speaker 1: we'll leave their competition in the dusk. Well you are
1:59:30
Speaker 1: you fantastic, glad? Like I said, I have six sisters.
1:59:33
Speaker 1: I want to bring you on board and my seven
1:59:34
Speaker 1: sister because because you you're entertaining your I love your
1:59:39
Speaker 1: style and love your personality. I feel that you one
1:59:43
Speaker 1: of these people I can really really have a great
1:59:45
Speaker 1: conversation about life learn something from because of the fact
1:59:48
Speaker 1: that you're not a person that I felt was supplying
1:59:51
Speaker 1: with information that I was being forced upon me. And
1:59:53
Speaker 1: I think that's what we were talking about earlier. When
1:59:55
Speaker 1: you talk to these white people, and I would say
1:59:57
Speaker 1: white people in the negative state, but there are the
1:59:59
Speaker 1: people in power, and we were talking to it. It
2:00:01
Speaker 1: is a stunt point. You have to be able to
2:00:03
Speaker 1: have a conversation with them, because what happens is when
2:00:06
Speaker 1: they throw your left, you have to have a right,
2:00:08
Speaker 1: but a soft right, a counter point, a counter punch answer.
2:00:12
Speaker 1: Because of the fact that they don't see nothing wrong
2:00:15
Speaker 1: they see they feel that successfully stock is high a
2:00:18
Speaker 1: classic example is h mackenzie who was formerly the the
2:00:23
Speaker 1: Amazon head. Jeff's from a wife. She giving that money
2:00:27
Speaker 1: left and right to HBCUs. Absolutely, he hasn't given that anything,
2:00:32
Speaker 1: nothing one of our good non proplems and fifteen million
2:00:37
Speaker 1: dollars gifts from her. It's out the blue changed their
2:00:41
Speaker 1: entire lives. That's what I'm saying. So that's what I'm saying.
2:00:43
Speaker 1: That you can have two people they're getting their money
2:00:46
Speaker 1: from the same location where one person has been exposed.
2:00:50
Speaker 1: She has opened the book. She is a clear understanding
2:00:53
Speaker 1: there is a need over there. The same person over
2:00:56
Speaker 1: here getting that same money has not been told. Is
2:01:00
Speaker 1: a need for this has not been told. There's a
2:01:02
Speaker 1: clear understanding that he can make a change and effort
2:01:05
Speaker 1: to be able to move forward and create and educate
2:01:08
Speaker 1: African Americans. Will making for better employment, better doctors, better teachers,
2:01:12
Speaker 1: better lawyers, Barrika Congressman, better vice presidents of the United States.
2:01:17
Speaker 1: That's what happens when you participate. That's what happens when
2:01:19
Speaker 1: you diversify. Sharon, thank you for coming on the show.
2:01:22
Speaker 1: I gotta let you go come and keep talking to
2:01:23
Speaker 1: you and that's not good, but thank you so much
2:01:26
Speaker 1: for having me. I appreciate you and I cannot wait
2:01:28
Speaker 1: to see you again in the new year. You will
2:01:30
Speaker 1: definitely and please be safe and tell your daughter high
2:01:33
Speaker 1: Ray McKenzie Group. That's the name of her company was
2:01:35
Speaker 1: she was one years old. She named that company after
2:01:38
Speaker 1: her daughter. Twenty four years later, she still has the problem.
2:01:41
Speaker 1: But guess what we got. We got shared here. She
2:01:43
Speaker 1: not has not left it at all. And a mama
2:01:45
Speaker 1: still living because my mama still passing out that great advice.
2:01:48
Speaker 1: One thing your mama said that I believe into. I
2:01:50
Speaker 1: would tell people, you know, twenty four hours in a day,
2:01:53
Speaker 1: learn to use each hour. And when your mama said
2:01:56
Speaker 1: that about the twenty four hours, I said, I love her. Mama,
2:02:00
Speaker 1: my MoMA to thank you. We're talking thank you. In
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Speaker 1: Mega Millions jack potties over which million play out. Please
2:03:17
Speaker 1: play responsible. You must be eighteen years older to purchase
2:03:19
Speaker 1: Blayer Final