Latest / The Steve Harvey Morning Show / Don't quit! Comedian Kier "Junior" Spates is living his dream despite being told he would not live past 11 years.
Transcript
- 0:05Speaker 1: Welcome to Money Making Conversations. It's the show that she
- 0:07Speaker 1: is the secrets of success experience firsthand by marketing and
- 0:10Speaker 1: Brandon expert Rashan McDonald. I will know he's giving me
- 0:13Speaker 1: advice on many occasions. And in case you didn't notice,
- 0:15Speaker 1: I'm not broke. You know he'll be interviewing celebrity CEOs,
- 0:19Speaker 1: entrepreneurs and industry decision makers.
- 0:21Speaker 2: It's what he likes to do, it's what he likes
- 0:23Speaker 2: to share.
- 0:24Speaker 1: Now it's time to hear from my man, Rashan McDonald
- 0:27Speaker 1: money Making Conversations.
- 0:29Speaker 2: Here we go.
- 0:35Speaker 3: Hello, I'm Rashan McDonald's hosts a weekly money making conversation
- 0:39Speaker 3: masterclass show. The interviews and information that this show provides
- 0:43Speaker 3: off for everyone. It's time to stop reading other people's
- 0:45Speaker 3: success stories and really started living your own. My next
- 0:48Speaker 3: guest is here Spate. He is a sickle cell warrior
- 0:51Speaker 3: and when he was diagnosed, he was told he would
- 0:53Speaker 3: not live past eleven years old. Today is a circle
- 0:57Speaker 3: sell survivor. Hollywood television writer co host popular Steve Harvey
- 1:01Speaker 3: Morning Show hosts his own show in Atlanta every Saturday,
- 1:04Speaker 3: and it's a touring stand up comedian. He started his
- 1:07Speaker 3: foundation called Keere's Hope for Sickle Seales survivors and hosts
- 1:10Speaker 3: his motivational podcasts Living Your Life. Success is part of
- 1:14Speaker 3: his future. Please welcome the Money Making Compensations masterclass here space.
- 1:19Speaker 3: How you doing care?
- 1:20Speaker 2: Hey, mag how you doing rather well? Carry?
- 1:22Speaker 3: You know it's gonna be a journey, because I want
- 1:24Speaker 3: to make sure people who walk away with this interview
- 1:26Speaker 3: understand that people can tell you expectations, people can try
- 1:30Speaker 3: to predict your future, but it's really balls down to
- 1:34Speaker 3: the people around you and also what you want to
- 1:37Speaker 3: get out of life over the effort that you want
- 1:39Speaker 3: to put into your dreams. Start me off with being
- 1:44Speaker 3: told of being aware that you wouldn't live past eleven
- 1:48Speaker 3: years of age.
- 1:50Speaker 2: You know, when I go back to that part of
- 1:51Speaker 2: my life, MAC is always a difficult thing because my
- 1:55Speaker 2: parents are young. They were young parents. They're twenty years old,
- 1:59Speaker 2: and here they are at thirty one. And then a
- 2:02Speaker 2: doctor had the nerve to tell them that, hey, listen,
- 2:05Speaker 2: don't plan a future for them. I mean literally, don't
- 2:08Speaker 2: plan a future. He's not gonna make it past eleven.
- 2:12Speaker 2: Now I'm seven at this time, you know, I'm seven
- 2:15Speaker 2: years old, So he's thirty seven years old. So now
- 2:18Speaker 2: they think about the next four years, we're gonna start
- 2:20Speaker 2: planning the funeral. And at that time, they didn't really
- 2:24Speaker 2: know what civil cell was. They had no idea about
- 2:27Speaker 2: what it is to be a parent having a child
- 2:29Speaker 2: with SIVI sell and for them it was devastating. For
- 2:34Speaker 2: me as a child, not knowing what death meant, it
- 2:38Speaker 2: was just for me, it was like another day. They
- 2:40Speaker 2: told me, listen, we're gonna have to make some changes
- 2:44Speaker 2: according to your life. And then when I passed eleven
- 2:48Speaker 2: and I made to fifteen, I'm scared at this point
- 2:50Speaker 2: because I'm supposed to be out of here, and then
- 2:53Speaker 2: now you look at me today, I'm still here. So
- 2:56Speaker 2: I never believed in the mantra of hey, this is
- 3:01Speaker 2: it for you, And I didn't know at eleven years
- 3:03Speaker 2: old that was going to be a definition for my life,
- 3:05Speaker 2: like hey, you'll never make it. It really didn't have
- 3:08Speaker 2: an effect. All I had is chance. That's all everything
- 3:11Speaker 2: I did was based upon chance. I'm gonna take the
- 3:15Speaker 2: chance because you already told me that I wasn't gonna
- 3:18Speaker 2: make it past eleven. Now here I am at thirty nine.
- 3:21Speaker 2: I have a career, I'm doing this. But I also
- 3:25Speaker 2: realized one thing, Mac, there's somebody coming behind me. They
- 3:28Speaker 2: gonna tell the same thing too.
- 3:31Speaker 3: Talk to me about that. Because you're sickle cell, you
- 3:34Speaker 3: have sickle cell disease, a lot of other people out
- 3:37Speaker 3: there would come people who may see the disease, that
- 3:40Speaker 3: might illnesses that might be terminal, and they might go, hey, man,
- 3:46Speaker 3: I'm looking for the exit plan. I don't have a
- 3:48Speaker 3: future now. They're different stuff. You went past elevel and
- 3:51Speaker 3: you was fifteen. Did you play sports in high school?
- 3:54Speaker 3: Was you a social high school? How was you and
- 3:58Speaker 3: how truly?
- 4:00Speaker 2: I was playing sports and my dream was to play
- 4:02Speaker 2: in the NFL. That was my dream. And I was
- 4:05Speaker 2: a running back out of Texas. I was ranked and
- 4:07Speaker 2: I was this, it's really good at football. I loved it.
- 4:10Speaker 2: I love the strategy of football. Loved the game of football.
- 4:13Speaker 2: And when I was playing that doctor told my mother
- 4:18Speaker 2: when I was eleven, and my number in high school
- 4:20Speaker 2: was number eleven because I wore it with passion. Everything
- 4:23Speaker 2: I did was based upon the number eleven because that's
- 4:26Speaker 2: the number. Y'all told me. So we needed eleven yards.
- 4:28Speaker 2: I'm finna get these eleven yards, right, Everything didn't matter.
- 4:34Speaker 2: But did I just say? Well, I got kicked off
- 4:36Speaker 2: the team in high school my senior year, the year
- 4:39Speaker 2: I had the scholarships that were up for me to
- 4:43Speaker 2: go play collegeball, and they took it from me. And
- 4:47Speaker 2: the thing about that was it hurt me so hard.
- 4:51Speaker 2: I cried. I cussed the whole coaching staff off because
- 4:54Speaker 2: I've been in this one program. And then one player
- 4:56Speaker 2: comes in and tells the team doctor that I have
- 4:58Speaker 2: six sell and they snatched me off of it. So
- 5:01Speaker 2: now they didn't just take me off because I had
- 5:03Speaker 2: sickle cell. They took my future too. That's how I felt.
- 5:07Speaker 2: They took my future. And the thing about it was,
- 5:10Speaker 2: I made a decision at that moment in my own
- 5:13Speaker 2: mind that I would never let single cell take another
- 5:17Speaker 2: thing from me. Nothing will ever be taken from me
- 5:21Speaker 2: based upon my habit of having sickle sell. The team
- 5:23Speaker 2: doctor told my mother, he said, well, we're only doing
- 5:26Speaker 2: this out of side of cautions. My mother stood in
- 5:29Speaker 2: there and my father was sitting there, and my mother said,
- 5:31Speaker 2: why would you take something from somebody You wouldn't want
- 5:33Speaker 2: to take it from your children. It's my child. He said, well,
- 5:37Speaker 2: he could possibly die. Mother said this, and this is
- 5:39Speaker 2: why I take the chances that I take and the
- 5:41Speaker 2: things that I do, and how I respond. She said,
- 5:43Speaker 2: if he does die, he died doing something that he loved.
- 5:48Speaker 3: Right.
- 5:49Speaker 2: That was so important to me, which propelled me to
- 5:52Speaker 2: the next point of my life because I started doing
- 5:55Speaker 2: stand up at.
- 5:56Speaker 3: Nineteen, right, nineteen years old years old, nineteen ninety nine.
- 6:01Speaker 3: Who inspired you as a stand up? Who inspired you?
- 6:04Speaker 2: It was so many man at that time. Man, you
- 6:06Speaker 2: got to think about what was happening. Death, comedy, jam
- 6:08Speaker 2: was happening. See, my parents were the parents that let
- 6:11Speaker 2: me do what I wanted to do because I had
- 6:14Speaker 2: sils some time. But I was watching death Jam, I
- 6:16Speaker 2: was watching everything. I was watching Marden, I was watching
- 6:20Speaker 2: Eddie Murphy. I saw Richard Pryor with my grandmother when
- 6:23Speaker 2: I was ten, so I knew it was always in
- 6:26Speaker 2: my future, you know. I saw Steve Harvey, I saw
- 6:30Speaker 2: Bill Bellamy, I saw Martin Lawrence, I saw a Lavelle Crawford,
- 6:37Speaker 2: I saw Sheryl Underwood. I was going back to high
- 6:41Speaker 2: school doing their sets in the comments before we had
- 6:44Speaker 2: started class. Did y'all see what this fool said? And
- 6:47Speaker 2: that was my thing? And so it was always interwoven
- 6:50Speaker 2: into my car. I pretty much knew about fourteen, this
- 6:55Speaker 2: is what I was gonna be doing, right, because it
- 6:57Speaker 2: was in me too hard. It was just in my
- 7:01Speaker 2: character too hard. I was always doing the church plays.
- 7:04Speaker 2: I was not only doing the church play. I was
- 7:07Speaker 2: five characters in the church play because there was nobody
- 7:09Speaker 2: more talented than me. So I was Lazarus was I was.
- 7:14Speaker 2: I was the wise man. I was everybody. I was
- 7:18Speaker 2: punch as pilot. I was everybody in the church play
- 7:22Speaker 2: because I would go back there change. I was the
- 7:24Speaker 2: only person in the church with a quick change booth.
- 7:28Speaker 2: I go change, come back out our demonic man. I
- 7:31Speaker 2: was everybody in the church play. It's like what talented
- 7:34Speaker 2: he could play all these characters at one time.
- 7:37Speaker 3: Now in the past stand up comedy. That's an extreme
- 7:40Speaker 3: from your lifestyle. You know, as a person who has
- 7:43Speaker 3: sickle cell. You know sickle cell. If you watch the
- 7:46Speaker 3: commercials on TV, they always talk about the pain, They
- 7:49Speaker 3: always talk about the struggle, They always talk about the
- 7:52Speaker 3: time limit. You know, it's that old number one hundred
- 7:54Speaker 3: thousand people. It's been around for fifteen years. One hundred
- 7:57Speaker 3: thousand people out sickle cell we all know that's not true,
- 8:00Speaker 3: and we want to make those changes. But as you
- 8:03Speaker 3: start going off that stand up comedy ladder start, people
- 8:07Speaker 3: start looking at you different, your parents start looking at
- 8:09Speaker 3: you different. How did you start to feel when you
- 8:11Speaker 3: start making people laugh? And then it started inspiring you
- 8:17Speaker 3: to say I can.
- 8:18Speaker 2: Do this too.
- 8:19Speaker 3: Correct.
- 8:20Speaker 2: Yes it was, you know, going up to stand up
- 8:26Speaker 2: ladder was for me with nothing but another challenge is
- 8:31Speaker 2: what it was. But it was something that I knew
- 8:34Speaker 2: at the point I had the gift to do the
- 8:39Speaker 2: challenges that I was facing at that point in time
- 8:42Speaker 2: in nineteen wasn't good. At nineteen, I just had about
- 8:46Speaker 2: three or four jokes. That's it. That's all I could do.
- 8:49Speaker 2: But I worked at it. The first time I got booed,
- 8:52Speaker 2: I knew then it didn't deter me. I just went
- 8:55Speaker 2: home and started trying to be better. I started watching
- 8:59Speaker 2: other professionals do it. I said, okay, cool. Then I
- 9:03Speaker 2: started getting to know these guys. I started to hang around,
- 9:07Speaker 2: and then I started learning, and then I was started
- 9:09Speaker 2: letting my pen write, and then I started learning how
- 9:12Speaker 2: the things that I need to talk about are not
- 9:13Speaker 2: the things that other people want to hear. You just
- 9:17Speaker 2: start telling your story, right, and so then you started
- 9:20Speaker 2: thinking about You know, Mac, when when when I first
- 9:24Speaker 2: met you and we were doing the auditions for Comic View,
- 9:28Speaker 2: crazy situation in the world because you were selecting talent
- 9:33Speaker 2: back then, were talking about in two thousand and one, right, yes, yeah,
- 9:39Speaker 2: I'm telling you. I'm sitting there and then I'm sitting
- 9:41Speaker 2: here and a lady comes up to me and she
- 9:44Speaker 2: started talking to me, and you already told me just
- 9:46Speaker 2: sit down, shut up, cause I tried to introduce myself
- 9:48Speaker 2: to you. Sit right, hey, man, I know who you are.
- 9:50Speaker 2: Sit down right here. You may be sitting next to you.
- 9:52Speaker 2: Then ladies are talking to me. I didn't say nothing.
- 9:55Speaker 2: The lady starts talking. I said, ma'am, you need to
- 9:57Speaker 2: go away, and you trust me out. Would you like
- 10:00Speaker 2: somebody talking? When you all stayed and I didn't even
- 10:03Speaker 2: do nothing because you were specifically there to see talent, right,
- 10:09Speaker 2: and then I was going through this ladder. So then
- 10:12Speaker 2: you gave me the opportunity that was the year on
- 10:14Speaker 2: Comic View. I gotta stand in ovation on Comic View
- 10:19Speaker 2: for the jokes I was doing. And Mac, you didn't
- 10:22Speaker 2: even stay around. You had left. You was done you are,
- 10:25Speaker 2: knew what we had put together, and so then I knew.
- 10:28Speaker 2: Then I said I can really do this. Nobody had
- 10:33Speaker 2: to applaud me. I was looking for the applause. I
- 10:34Speaker 2: looked for the pat on the back. No, you really
- 10:38Speaker 2: could do this. Y'all left me in that moment. Let
- 10:40Speaker 2: me have that moment and said, no, what you have it?
- 10:43Speaker 2: You can really do this. And that's when I knew.
- 10:45Speaker 2: At that point in time, at twenty three years old,
- 10:48Speaker 2: so know what I was going to be faced with.
- 10:51Speaker 2: Just like everything else I was doing, there are challenges
- 10:55Speaker 2: you can always overcome with the right support of people.
- 11:00Speaker 3: Did you position yourself to be two thousand and two?
- 11:03Speaker 3: You know you met me? It was a comedy comic
- 11:06Speaker 3: view edition and then you're on tour. What just people
- 11:10Speaker 3: listening watching the show, listening to the show. What did
- 11:13Speaker 3: you put in place? What did you how did you?
- 11:16Speaker 3: How did you make that happen?
- 11:18Speaker 2: First of all, I was long enough to listen, m h.
- 11:22Speaker 2: First thing I had to do was listen understanding that
- 11:25Speaker 2: I didn't get in the way. I never I knew
- 11:27Speaker 2: I was talented. I never let it get in front
- 11:30Speaker 2: of what I was. My end goal was and I'm
- 11:33Speaker 2: still the same way today. I was able to listen
- 11:36Speaker 2: to the people who are already there. They're already in
- 11:38Speaker 2: the position that you're trying to get to. So I
- 11:40Speaker 2: remember when y'all had the UH, when y'all had the
- 11:43Speaker 2: New opp, y'all had New opp, y'all had the exhibition
- 11:47Speaker 2: for all the networks, and y'all brought us down there
- 11:50Speaker 2: to do right right, I wasn't even yeah, I wasn't
- 11:53Speaker 2: even doing comedy. I was just acting right now. I
- 11:57Speaker 2: remember mister Harvey sitting in there in audition one day
- 12:01Speaker 2: when we were rehearsing, and he said, hey man, good job.
- 12:04Speaker 2: He said, I don't know you, brother, he said, but
- 12:07Speaker 2: I'm gonna see you again. I'll never forget when he
- 12:10Speaker 2: said that. He said, it's not me to make you nervous.
- 12:13Speaker 2: It's that red light on that camera. It's gonna make
- 12:14Speaker 2: it nervous. If you can overcome that, you'll be fine. Now.
- 12:20Speaker 2: Ten years later, you hired me on this show. See see,
- 12:25Speaker 2: he said, I don't know. See I went out before
- 12:28Speaker 2: he hired me on the show. I remember James Thomas
- 12:31Speaker 2: called me and said.
- 12:32Speaker 3: Hey man, barber James Thomas his barber.
- 12:35Speaker 2: Yeah, his barber. Jay Thomas said, hey, man, miss, I
- 12:37Speaker 2: want to know you want to come on the road
- 12:38Speaker 2: and open up for him. And I'm thinking at this time,
- 12:41Speaker 2: I'm nobody. Do you know how many people you got
- 12:44Speaker 2: to go through to get to me? Right, it's a
- 12:47Speaker 2: list of people, MH. That you got to talk to
- 12:50Speaker 2: before you even get to my name.
- 12:52Speaker 3: Right.
- 12:53Speaker 2: But the fact he saw something I just remember two
- 12:56Speaker 2: thousand and two. Now we're in two thousand and nine now,
- 13:00Speaker 2: and then I go to Miami and I opened up
- 13:02Speaker 2: for him, and mister Harvey came out and he said, brother,
- 13:05Speaker 2: great job. That's what I'm looking for. I need that
- 13:07Speaker 2: young energy.
- 13:09Speaker 3: Mm hmm.
- 13:09Speaker 2: I remember Max, you called me and said, mister Harvey
- 13:12Speaker 2: want to hire you on this morning show, m H.
- 13:14Speaker 2: And I'm sitting there.
- 13:15Speaker 3: Steve har Steve Harry Morning, National Platform, National Prep Dog.
- 13:20Speaker 2: Is that Is that a big enough red light for you? Okay,
- 13:23Speaker 2: you talked about that a big enough red light for you? Hey, man,
- 13:26Speaker 2: I just remember what I was doing, man, I was
- 13:28Speaker 2: watching college football, right, and you asked me, hey, mister
- 13:31Speaker 2: Harry Wondo, can you come meet him at his ranch tomorrow?
- 13:34Speaker 2: So I turned that TV off, started packing bags. I
- 13:37Speaker 2: would get Saturday. I just had directions to the ranch,
- 13:41Speaker 2: right and then he told me what the mission was.
- 13:44Speaker 2: And then that's when the journey really started. See everything
- 13:47Speaker 2: else was just prep Right now I'm actually on the
- 13:52Speaker 2: mission and the journey and my career just catapulted.
- 13:57Speaker 4: Please don't go anywhere. We'll be right back with more
- 14:00Speaker 4: Money Making Conversations Masterclass. Welcome back to the Money Making
- 14:04Speaker 4: Conversations Masterclass, hosted by Rashan McDonald.
- 14:08Speaker 3: From that one that one moment, you know, when I
- 14:12Speaker 3: think about this and think about the journey of what
- 14:14Speaker 3: you're dealing with and overcoming the odds, you know people,
- 14:18Speaker 3: but then meeting people who can care less about sickle sale,
- 14:24Speaker 3: you know that wouldn't That wasn't introduct you into the
- 14:26Speaker 3: conversation about are you sick? Are you healthy? Do you
- 14:30Speaker 3: you know, It's like if you allow that to be
- 14:32Speaker 3: your calling card, if you allow that to be your
- 14:36Speaker 3: opening statement, if you said something like, hey, I want
- 14:39Speaker 3: you know, if you said I want you to do
- 14:41Speaker 3: I want you to do the comedy tool, you didn't say, Hey,
- 14:44Speaker 3: by the way, I got sickle sale. You know what
- 14:46Speaker 3: I'm saying. That was, you know, and that's what a
- 14:48Speaker 3: lot of people will tend to do. They want to
- 14:51Speaker 3: put a roadblock in front of their dreams. Unnecessarily, some
- 14:55Speaker 3: information should not be shared.
- 14:57Speaker 2: Correct, correct, It does not even have to be shared
- 15:00Speaker 2: because I made it a point, because I wanted to
- 15:04Speaker 2: leave with me right, not what I have. My introductory
- 15:11Speaker 2: will always be me. See, I don't need the pity party.
- 15:16Speaker 2: You give me a microphone, you put me on a
- 15:17Speaker 2: state with anybody. I go toe to toe with anybody.
- 15:19Speaker 2: I don't care who it.
- 15:20Speaker 3: Is, right right, right, right, right, dude.
- 15:22Speaker 2: I've never ever thought that I can never be the
- 15:25Speaker 2: funniest person in the room. I never thought that I
- 15:28Speaker 2: never operate like that. Now has that gotten me in
- 15:32Speaker 2: trouble sometimes? Yes, because people fear your talents. That's just
- 15:37Speaker 2: what it is. See, I never take a day off
- 15:41Speaker 2: from my talents. My goal is I don't care who
- 15:44Speaker 2: the headline is. Did you see me? I've never said
- 15:48Speaker 2: did you see me? Because I have civil sale.
- 15:50Speaker 3: As we go through the process of developing your career,
- 15:56Speaker 3: you came in as an actor where you're nineteen, you
- 15:58Speaker 3: want to be a stand up comedian, then acting to go, well,
- 16:01Speaker 3: you I don't want to say what we're acting? Where
- 16:03Speaker 3: you know we're doing road plays or what were you
- 16:07Speaker 3: doing out there?
- 16:08Speaker 2: Yeah?
- 16:08Speaker 3: Get to build your acting career.
- 16:11Speaker 2: Yeah, I did. About about five years of my career
- 16:14Speaker 2: was doing stage plays.
- 16:16Speaker 3: Uh huh.
- 16:17Speaker 5: And uh you know who jack with the names we know,
- 16:21Speaker 5: Gerald of Vert, I mean, I mean Essence Atkins, Miguel Nunez,
- 16:28Speaker 5: Carl Payne, Patrese Lovely.
- 16:32Speaker 2: I mean, it's so many of us, man, it was
- 16:35Speaker 2: so many of them. I met him, Robin Gibbings, there
- 16:39Speaker 2: were will be on the road for nine months, you know, right,
- 16:43Speaker 2: and so Essence like you see these people, man, and
- 16:46Speaker 2: these are people that you developed friendships with, right, you know?
- 16:51Speaker 2: And I mean it was it was a different life
- 16:55Speaker 2: for me because in the plays I got to do
- 16:59Speaker 2: standing my character with a set in the place. Always
- 17:04Speaker 2: was a want to be I don't care you could
- 17:06Speaker 2: tell me. I was a ups driver, but his dream
- 17:09Speaker 2: was to be a stamp and and then man on
- 17:14Speaker 2: the road. When I was doing these plays, man, I
- 17:16Speaker 2: had to earn everything. Man. I was not only just
- 17:19Speaker 2: doing the plays. I was driving the cast to the show,
- 17:22Speaker 2: taking them back to the hotel. I was selling the
- 17:25Speaker 2: programs and intermission. I was acting in the play. I
- 17:29Speaker 2: was doing the introductory. I was doing everything, man, and
- 17:32Speaker 2: I wasn't making but eight hundred dollars a week.
- 17:34Speaker 3: That's a nice amount of money now a week.
- 17:37Speaker 2: What what? Well?
- 17:38Speaker 3: You know we we were putting you up right, they
- 17:40Speaker 3: were putting you in the hotel, right.
- 17:42Speaker 2: Yeah, we're in the hotel man.
- 17:44Speaker 3: No no, no, no, came.
- 17:47Speaker 2: Out to eight hundred. He we all, we all brought
- 17:54Speaker 2: a lot of buffets. These black people, don't I wasn't
- 18:00Speaker 2: the Hall of Renaissance to know, right right right right,
- 18:04Speaker 2: right right right right? How do what's see? At the
- 18:09Speaker 2: same time, it came to challenge because they said I couldn't.
- 18:11Speaker 3: Do Let me ask you this because now you're really
- 18:14Speaker 3: speaking a conversation that because we're about to go to
- 18:18Speaker 3: another conversation regards to you being the brand ambassador for
- 18:22Speaker 3: UH and Dory. You know, but before that, Junior, I
- 18:27Speaker 3: did Steve Hardy Morning Show. I was there on tour.
- 18:32Speaker 3: I saw you, I saw you do Betes coming for you.
- 18:36Speaker 3: Where was the circle sell disease? What was all these
- 18:40Speaker 3: these these these prices that.
- 18:42Speaker 2: Pop up, Max? Why am I seeing this? There was
- 18:46Speaker 2: one time you saw you just didn't know it. I
- 18:47Speaker 2: didn't tell you mm hm. Like I said, I always
- 18:50Speaker 2: introduced myself first, and didn't when we the next year
- 18:53Speaker 2: when we did come to view in l A and
- 18:56Speaker 2: they didn't air that one, but I was on stage.
- 18:59Speaker 2: I was in crisis. D I came up after Mark
- 19:03Speaker 2: Curry and I was on that show. I was in
- 19:06Speaker 2: a full fledged sickle cell crisis, and I still tried
- 19:09Speaker 2: to go do it. You walked by me, you said,
- 19:12Speaker 2: you can't go out there with that man. You can't
- 19:14Speaker 2: do that. And at this point in time, you got
- 19:17Speaker 2: to stand now. I have no insurance. So I spent
- 19:23Speaker 2: a majority of my twenties and early thirties chasing my
- 19:27Speaker 2: dream with no insurance, and that crisis was happening. And
- 19:34Speaker 2: yet I still told you in the beginning, I would
- 19:37Speaker 2: never let sickle cell take nothing from me. Good dad
- 19:40Speaker 2: is in different I meant that it already happened to me.
- 19:46Speaker 2: I was not gonna let it happen at a moment
- 19:48Speaker 2: in my life. Well, this could change my life. It
- 19:50Speaker 2: didn't work out at that point in time, but the
- 19:53Speaker 2: crisis was happening. But I never showed anybody when I
- 19:58Speaker 2: was going through it. I was a shamed to talk
- 20:00Speaker 2: about it myself because I didn't think people would understand.
- 20:04Speaker 2: Everybody would look at me like, oh, he just weak.
- 20:07Speaker 2: He's just weak, man, don't look at That's why the
- 20:11Speaker 2: challenges that I'm faced with, I have to take them
- 20:14Speaker 2: as they come because I'm not weak. I'm not that
- 20:19Speaker 2: I am talented. But society wants to tell you, because
- 20:22Speaker 2: you have sickle cell, we have to keep we have
- 20:24Speaker 2: we have to treat you with kids, gloves, have we
- 20:26Speaker 2: got to you know, we have to take care of you.
- 20:28Speaker 3: So now you're gaining popularity. You know, I'm sure you
- 20:32Speaker 3: can tour by yourself, filling up comedy clubs and still
- 20:37Speaker 3: become being a powerful ambacheldor or advocate for people with
- 20:43Speaker 3: sickle cell. Because you have sickle cell? How did you
- 20:47Speaker 3: become an ambassador for Indari? And what is in dorry?
- 20:50Speaker 3: First of all?
- 20:51Speaker 2: And dirry is a medication. It's a powder that I
- 20:54Speaker 2: take every morning and it's like, uh, giving you a
- 20:59Speaker 2: boost of art to feeling normal. H You know I
- 21:05Speaker 2: have I have not had the issues I have with
- 21:07Speaker 2: my sickle cell because of in Dari. I just lived
- 21:10Speaker 2: my life. Now now I feel like I really have
- 21:12Speaker 2: a shot at just feeling normal, right, you know, because
- 21:18Speaker 2: I do have the chronic pains, the chronic fatigue. I
- 21:21Speaker 2: do have that. I struggle that and I keep a
- 21:23Speaker 2: heavy schedule. But in Dari will give you a boost
- 21:27Speaker 2: to feeling like, hey man, he's you feel normal. You
- 21:30Speaker 2: feel like this is this what normal people walk around
- 21:33Speaker 2: feel like all the time, Like you just got to
- 21:35Speaker 2: the party. That's when I darted. So I had met
- 21:39Speaker 2: doctor Abart. He came on the morning show to promote
- 21:42Speaker 2: in Dark and he said, hey man, I want to
- 21:44Speaker 2: get you on this drug, and I did so. Then
- 21:47Speaker 2: after that they saw the benefit for me having sickle cell,
- 21:51Speaker 2: being on the platform that I have, and then they say,
- 21:54Speaker 2: hey man, we want to get this drug out here
- 21:57Speaker 2: and we want to help other people like you have
- 22:00Speaker 2: the success that you're having on the drug. I said,
- 22:04Speaker 2: I would love to, and it growing to a really
- 22:08Speaker 2: great business deal for both sides to actually change the
- 22:13Speaker 2: world in what we're doing. And I didn't want to
- 22:17Speaker 2: take the deal because you're gonna pay me some money
- 22:20Speaker 2: to just say all taken Dark. No, No, I didn't
- 22:24Speaker 2: want that. What I wanted them to do was if
- 22:27Speaker 2: I do this, then you have to commit to giving
- 22:29Speaker 2: me this. You have to give me y'all as a
- 22:34Speaker 2: business to help me, help y'all get this out here,
- 22:36Speaker 2: because we have to go out here as a unit.
- 22:40Speaker 2: And they believed in it. They believe in their drug.
- 22:43Speaker 2: And doctor Nahara said, Yes. I love his passion, I
- 22:47Speaker 2: love his testimony. I love the way he talks about it.
- 22:52Speaker 2: I love the way he represents the success. I love
- 22:54Speaker 2: the way he talks about how he wants to succeed
- 22:57Speaker 2: and how he wanted to bring others along. That's what
- 23:00Speaker 2: made the deal good for us, right, and then so
- 23:03Speaker 2: we started living your life. So when I started doing
- 23:05Speaker 2: living your life, that became because they sickle cell community
- 23:10Speaker 2: didn't have that. There's no way. See. I started thinking about,
- 23:15Speaker 2: when I'm no longer here, can a kid with sickle
- 23:18Speaker 2: cell turn this own look at it and they have
- 23:21Speaker 2: a road map to success for their own life. That's
- 23:25Speaker 2: what I was thinking when I started living your life.
- 23:27Speaker 3: Junior here, Junior space here, Space straight out of Houston, Texas,
- 23:33Speaker 3: Traveler of the World, based in Atlanta, Georgia, going on
- 23:36Speaker 3: one year married to your beautiful wife, living.
- 23:39Speaker 2: The life, living your life.
- 23:41Speaker 3: I live my life, living your life. But more important,
- 23:44Speaker 3: I just wanted to down man and I felt that
- 23:46Speaker 3: your story is motivational and I wanted to share with
- 23:49Speaker 3: my money Making Conversations Master Class audience because a story
- 23:53Speaker 3: has been told that when people tell you you're not
- 23:56Speaker 3: supposed to do it, don't do it. You've been told
- 23:59Speaker 3: all of your life not supposed to do that, and
- 24:01Speaker 3: you've been doing it and you've been very successful and
- 24:03Speaker 3: you continue.
- 24:04Speaker 2: So it's the future.
- 24:05Speaker 3: I got the Award Show, I got the Steve Hard
- 24:07Speaker 3: Morning Show, I got is it acting?
- 24:10Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, yeah, man, you know, like you know, I'm
- 24:14Speaker 2: in the process beyond switch. I'm in the process of
- 24:16Speaker 2: planning my comedy special. Uh same time. Yes, I want
- 24:22Speaker 2: my own sitcom because I want to. I want to
- 24:25Speaker 2: showcase that part. You look like you're twenty two.
- 24:28Speaker 3: I'm just telling you're younger looking.
- 24:29Speaker 2: Do you can throw out that for it if you
- 24:31Speaker 2: want to.
- 24:31Speaker 3: But you're a young looking dude.
- 24:33Speaker 2: Man, I ain't be good to you.
- 24:36Speaker 3: Sickle Seal will be good to you.
- 24:37Speaker 2: Okay, man, God, I've been way better. Man. Yeah, man,
- 24:44Speaker 2: I want to. I want to do allose things, man,
- 24:45Speaker 2: Like you know, I'm in the process right in the
- 24:47Speaker 2: sitcom man, I have so many aspirations on that endeavor,
- 24:53Speaker 2: you know, and you know, I really want to show
- 24:57Speaker 2: people with single cells say, hey, man, you can be
- 24:59Speaker 2: successful as I am, not maybe in my field, but
- 25:02Speaker 2: in whatever fill you in and that's the goal. That's
- 25:07Speaker 2: what we're reaching for. We'm driving for and ma'amo tells
- 25:10Speaker 2: some man until there's no more breadth than my bike.
- 25:13Speaker 2: I have done everything that I said I was going
- 25:15Speaker 2: to do.
- 25:16Speaker 3: Thank you for coming on Money Making Conversation Magical Class, and.
- 25:18Speaker 2: Man, thank you for having me. Matt, I appreciate your brother.
- 25:23Speaker 4: Thank you for joining us for this edition of Money
- 25:26Speaker 4: Making Conversations Masterclass. Money Making Conversations Masterclass with rough Shan
- 25:32Speaker 4: McDonald is produced by thirty eight fifteen Media Inc. More
- 25:35Speaker 4: information about thirty eight fifteen Media Inc. Is available at
- 25:39Speaker 4: thirty eight to fifteen media dot com. And always remember
- 25:43Speaker 4: to lead with your gifts.