Latest / The Steve Harvey Morning Show / Remi Adeleke Full Interview
Transcript
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- 1:21Speaker 1: heart or text I Heeart to five hundred five hundred.
- 1:24Speaker 1: My next guest is on the show to talk about
- 1:26Speaker 1: his new book, Transformed. He takes us back to the
- 1:30Speaker 1: stories from his childhood, from living his Nigerian royalty, to
- 1:34Speaker 1: losing his father early in life, being stripped financial of
- 1:37Speaker 1: everything by the Nigerian government, to travel in the unlikely
- 1:40Speaker 1: play from drug dealer to Navy seal. Please welcome to
- 1:44Speaker 1: Money Making Conversation. The author of Transform, Remy at a
- 1:48Speaker 1: lek Ay, Good morning. Before they take your fatly on
- 1:52Speaker 1: the show, Well, first of all, all right, I got
- 1:55Speaker 1: your name right, thank my. I'm that's a littlement. Let's
- 2:01Speaker 1: go give me some a little grand All day thinking
- 2:04Speaker 1: about that name sir, doesn't trust I get it all
- 2:07Speaker 1: the time. I've heard it all kinds of ways. Use
- 2:12Speaker 1: right because I respect because my name is Roshane, people
- 2:15Speaker 1: get it wrong. And I think there's part of the
- 2:16Speaker 1: process of building your brand is people say your name
- 2:19Speaker 1: correctly when you're walking in the room, and sometimes strangers
- 2:22Speaker 1: come up and see your name. Then you know you're
- 2:24Speaker 1: on the right track. That's when you know you're moving
- 2:27Speaker 1: up to the world. Well, my friend, you have an
- 2:30Speaker 1: interesting world. Like I said before I brought you up,
- 2:33Speaker 1: it's about being a member of the Navy Seal? Uh
- 2:37Speaker 1: Will you always be a member? When you even leave
- 2:39Speaker 1: the military? Are you still considered a member of the
- 2:42Speaker 1: Navy Seal? And our community wants to seal always a
- 2:45Speaker 1: seal um, so it kind of never leaves you. It's
- 2:48Speaker 1: always a part of you, and it's we call it
- 2:50Speaker 1: the brotherhood, so it kind of never ends. Yeah, And
- 2:53Speaker 1: so a couple of there's a serious of question. You've
- 2:56Speaker 1: got two breaks, and I wanted to slow it down
- 2:57Speaker 1: to talk about it because one of the I want
- 3:00Speaker 1: to start out initially said how Jesus transform your life?
- 3:04Speaker 1: You know, so religious played a major role in you.
- 3:07Speaker 1: I want to start the interview out with that because
- 3:09Speaker 1: faith is important. Otherwise I wouldn't even bring that part
- 3:12Speaker 1: of the conversation up. So how did how did faith
- 3:15Speaker 1: play such a strong role in your life? And what
- 3:17Speaker 1: part did it become a significant player in your life?
- 3:21Speaker 1: You know, early on from from you know, from adolescence
- 3:24Speaker 1: to high school to college, not colleges, but you know,
- 3:28Speaker 1: early twenties to bid twenties. I had no faith background.
- 3:32Speaker 1: I would fluctuated between eight years of agnosticism growing up
- 3:35Speaker 1: UH and the Bronx. My mom would take it to
- 3:37Speaker 1: a Baptist church and I personally, as a young kid,
- 3:39Speaker 1: I saw a lot of hypocrisy and so that's what
- 3:42Speaker 1: really kept me away from it. Fast forward, my brother,
- 3:46Speaker 1: he had became a Christian UH in his early twenties,
- 3:49Speaker 1: and he would he would always tell me, Remy, when
- 3:51Speaker 1: you hit rock bottom, just remember cryots of Jesus and
- 3:54Speaker 1: you're trying everything and nothing's worth pryor to Jesus. And
- 3:57Speaker 1: at twenty six, I kind of, you know, I hit
- 3:59Speaker 1: rock They were there, you know, going to detailing my book,
- 4:02Speaker 1: but you know I was struggling with it. I had
- 4:04Speaker 1: it all on outside. I was a davy seal as
- 4:06Speaker 1: girlfriends all over the place. I had money, I had
- 4:09Speaker 1: a beautiful place in San Diego, California. But on the inside,
- 4:12Speaker 1: I just I was empty. And uh, I was battling
- 4:16Speaker 1: with depression. I was battling went through a bad break up,
- 4:19Speaker 1: battling with guilt from decisions that I made, and I
- 4:22Speaker 1: just I just cried out. Like my brother told me to,
- 4:24Speaker 1: I said, let me try this. Jesus out it. And
- 4:26Speaker 1: I did. And that's what was the X factor for me.
- 4:29Speaker 1: And that's what changed my life to transform me ultimately
- 4:32Speaker 1: into into the man I am today. And what what
- 4:35Speaker 1: type of man is that? Uh? Well, well, I want
- 4:39Speaker 1: a man of a man of faith, a man who
- 4:42Speaker 1: puts Christ first. And uh, and everything I do and
- 4:45Speaker 1: what I mean by that in my decision making, um,
- 4:47Speaker 1: as it relates to to my businesses and my decision making,
- 4:50Speaker 1: as it relates to me being a husband and and
- 4:53Speaker 1: honoring my wife, and and being being a father and
- 4:56Speaker 1: honoring my kids and and leading by example. Uh, you know,
- 5:00Speaker 1: and it's just just in everything that I do. I'm
- 5:04Speaker 1: on the phone with speaking to Remy the Lek. His
- 5:07Speaker 1: new book, Transformed, is the personal journey that he took
- 5:10Speaker 1: from the streets of the Bronx to become a Navy Seal, actor, entrepreneur, writer,
- 5:15Speaker 1: husband and father. Now when we when we talk about
- 5:18Speaker 1: this journey in your book transformed what was the purpose
- 5:21Speaker 1: of writing that book? You know, because there's a lot
- 5:23Speaker 1: of layers in that book and actually you can like
- 5:26Speaker 1: stayed on one part and I've just been because the
- 5:28Speaker 1: Navy Seal was a whole book. You know what I'm
- 5:30Speaker 1: saying that the whole, the whole Getting out of the
- 5:33Speaker 1: Hood is a whole book. You know, the educational factor there,
- 5:36Speaker 1: the relationship with your wife, that's you know, there's so
- 5:40Speaker 1: many different chapters, but you managed to put it all
- 5:42Speaker 1: in this book. Why well, you know, for years, people
- 5:46Speaker 1: who had heard my story, just just the African part
- 5:49Speaker 1: of my story going from royalty and riches in Africa
- 5:52Speaker 1: to being stripped of everything and and then moving to
- 5:55Speaker 1: the Bronx and being poor and that's living in that
- 5:58Speaker 1: street life. People who just heard that one of my
- 6:00Speaker 1: story would tell me, brother, you need to write a book.
- 6:02Speaker 1: The story is inspiring and can inspire people. And for you,
- 6:06Speaker 1: as I said, no, I'm not gonna do that because
- 6:08Speaker 1: being a naked seal, there's a stigma attached to seals.
- 6:11Speaker 1: You write books and as you know, you kind of
- 6:13Speaker 1: break the code and I never will. You know, I
- 6:16Speaker 1: had a great reputation and the seal teams that did
- 6:18Speaker 1: seven and a half years UM and the thirteen years
- 6:21Speaker 1: overall in all of the military, and I didn't want
- 6:24Speaker 1: to want to, you know, hurt my my my reputation,
- 6:26Speaker 1: and so I avoided that until I went on to
- 6:28Speaker 1: Today's show. Was I was in the poltical Transformers and
- 6:31Speaker 1: I wasn't it enough to be part of the press tour.
- 6:33Speaker 1: And I went on went on a Today's show and
- 6:35Speaker 1: after one went back stage captive the gift or said
- 6:37Speaker 1: to me, you know you could get the story is
- 6:39Speaker 1: just to inspiring with me. You need to write a book.
- 6:41Speaker 1: And I told her no, and she and I told
- 6:43Speaker 1: her why, and she said, that's foolish. I know your heart.
- 6:45Speaker 1: I know your your heart would be to write a
- 6:47Speaker 1: book in a way to inspire positive instorpation and people.
- 6:50Speaker 1: And when she said that to me, that's when a
- 6:52Speaker 1: switch went off in my head. And that's when I said, Okay,
- 6:55Speaker 1: I need to do this book, cause I know it
- 6:57Speaker 1: won't be about me beating my chest and say, hey,
- 6:59Speaker 1: look at me. I'm an av shield on this. I
- 7:00Speaker 1: know it would be for me to inspire people to
- 7:03Speaker 1: reach for their dreams, reach for their goals despite the
- 7:06Speaker 1: odds that they may be basing on the deficiencies that
- 7:09Speaker 1: they may have as it relates to their dreams. Now,
- 7:12Speaker 1: you know you mentioned the movie The Transformers last night.
- 7:15Speaker 1: That was the movie you played in, and you've you've
- 7:17Speaker 1: you've started to carve out an acting career. Was that
- 7:20Speaker 1: the goal or that's just one of the many blessings
- 7:22Speaker 1: that by having strong faith and being uh, being purposely driven.
- 7:26Speaker 1: I considered that type of personality I took away from
- 7:29Speaker 1: the book You're focused person. You know you you plan,
- 7:32Speaker 1: your your your You're a man of plan and a
- 7:34Speaker 1: man of action. Absolutely, you know, for me, I wasn't tasting.
- 7:39Speaker 1: It wasn't part of my plan. If I was actually
- 7:40Speaker 1: grad spooking and my master's when I received the phone call.
- 7:44Speaker 1: My plan was to get my education and going to
- 7:46Speaker 1: full time consulting as a business consultant. And I was,
- 7:50Speaker 1: you know, writing papers in my phone ring or the
- 7:52Speaker 1: other end of the line was a woman to work
- 7:53Speaker 1: with director Michael Pain and she asked me what I'm
- 7:55Speaker 1: doing tomorrow and I said, I'm like paper. She said,
- 7:57Speaker 1: come down to the book. He said, I got a
- 7:58Speaker 1: boy for you to be in. So that's kind of
- 8:01Speaker 1: how my my film and TV and slow that down. Now,
- 8:05Speaker 1: how did you get into a major movie? Going back
- 8:08Speaker 1: back then up there? You you missed some steps and
- 8:12Speaker 1: Burger Key if I computed that at the universities called
- 8:18Speaker 1: to West Virginia and what happened. You know, there's lady shop.
- 8:22Speaker 1: Michael Day, he likes he likes to use real Navy
- 8:25Speaker 1: seals and some of his films and uh, you know,
- 8:28Speaker 1: there's not that many African Americans. That's like, there's less
- 8:31Speaker 1: per than one percent of the Special Operations communities African American.
- 8:36Speaker 1: I was around the fifty of Navy seal in the
- 8:38Speaker 1: history of the seal teams and his Steal Teams was
- 8:40Speaker 1: creative nineties sixty two. Um, so Michael Day was looking
- 8:44Speaker 1: for some diversity in the film. He wanted a former
- 8:46Speaker 1: Navy seal who was African Americans to be a partner
- 8:49Speaker 1: of the film. And I just happened to be that
- 8:53Speaker 1: and and and and you know that's when when when
- 8:55Speaker 1: of the casting, uh, women reached out to me, and
- 8:59Speaker 1: that's how I got into it. Okay, but you but
- 9:00Speaker 1: you were talking though, what do you mean in the movie? Right?
- 9:05Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yea, yeah, that's what I'm saying. See, they
- 9:09Speaker 1: call you on the phone, they call you on the phone. Right,
- 9:13Speaker 1: This ain't no extra now I'm just leaving thereby. That's
- 9:15Speaker 1: not an extra. Now he's talking about an extra. To
- 9:19Speaker 1: be honest, I started out of extra because it was
- 9:21Speaker 1: just for me one day and then um, after two
- 9:24Speaker 1: weeks later, they called me back and they said, fight
- 9:26Speaker 1: they likes your look and he likes you that you
- 9:28Speaker 1: could take direction. So they kept me on for three weeks.
- 9:31Speaker 1: And then then that's at the end of the third week,
- 9:33Speaker 1: that's when I started get in line. And that's when
- 9:36Speaker 1: production approached me and said, hey, they wants to bump
- 9:38Speaker 1: you to a principal role until you stay on the film.
- 9:41Speaker 1: And I stayed on the film until we wrapped in December,
- 9:43Speaker 1: so that so I was supposed to start out of action.
- 9:45Speaker 1: But then I've gotten I got up. Let's talk about this.
- 9:49Speaker 1: Let's talk about this because see this is what I
- 9:50Speaker 1: talked about. People fear, they fear opportunity. They questioned themselves,
- 9:55Speaker 1: you know, because opportunity that comes a person's way on
- 9:58Speaker 1: a regular basis. But a lot of people see there,
- 10:00Speaker 1: they're they'll say they that keep over there, or that's
- 10:03Speaker 1: not my time, or it's not I don't feel I'm
- 10:05Speaker 1: educated enough, that's not my my game plan. You you
- 10:08Speaker 1: give me a little cracking it though. I mean because
- 10:11Speaker 1: because I'm always preparing myself every day for an opportunity.
- 10:14Speaker 1: So so you got this phone call, you went down there,
- 10:17Speaker 1: You're next? What were you doing that was like making
- 10:22Speaker 1: you stand out? You know, were you friendly on set?
- 10:25Speaker 1: Will you cooperative? It's just let people know how did
- 10:28Speaker 1: you get bumped up? Because it applies to everyday jobs too. Yeah, yeah,
- 10:33Speaker 1: you know, that's a great question. I think, you know,
- 10:35Speaker 1: going back, I think the seal teams prepared me for
- 10:37Speaker 1: that opportunity big time because in the Seal team, you've
- 10:39Speaker 1: gotta be able to take orders and not question those orders,
- 10:42Speaker 1: and you gotta trust that direction. When I wanted that,
- 10:45Speaker 1: you know, one, I just want to kept my mouth shut.
- 10:47Speaker 1: I wasn't that guy walking around set like hey, I'm
- 10:49Speaker 1: gonna see them. There's some that trying to be bunty
- 10:51Speaker 1: funny with anybody that just in my corner, and when
- 10:54Speaker 1: I was told to go on set and when I
- 10:56Speaker 1: was sold to do when Michael Bay told me to
- 10:58Speaker 1: move in certain ways, I just did it. And after
- 11:01Speaker 1: I did it, I didn't try and make friends. I
- 11:03Speaker 1: walked back to my corner and I get my mom,
- 11:06Speaker 1: and I think, that's what did it? You know? And
- 11:09Speaker 1: I saw other people who would be on set and
- 11:11Speaker 1: and they're trying to have conversations with the DP and
- 11:14Speaker 1: the director and this and then and you know, trying
- 11:17Speaker 1: to hand out business cards, and you know, I think,
- 11:20Speaker 1: you know, for me, it was either because I didn't
- 11:22Speaker 1: want to be an actor, you know what I mean.
- 11:24Speaker 1: So I wasn't out there trying to impress anybody. I
- 11:28Speaker 1: was just there because I was asked to be there.
- 11:30Speaker 1: So because I didn't have that I need to do,
- 11:33Speaker 1: this is my big brink I needed because that seal
- 11:36Speaker 1: or that that that anxiety wasn't there. I just did
- 11:38Speaker 1: what I was supposed to do. And I think that
- 11:40Speaker 1: that's I think that that was recognized and I think
- 11:42Speaker 1: that that's what led to the to the opportunity after that,
- 11:45Speaker 1: the bigger opportunity. That's awesome, that's an awesome story because
- 11:48Speaker 1: I already I wanted to pull that out of you
- 11:50Speaker 1: because because so many people can apply that to everyday life,
- 11:54Speaker 1: everyday job, because I've applied that same principle, you know,
- 11:57Speaker 1: and the thing about it. But you looked apart though.
- 12:00Speaker 1: Come on, when you put on that uniform, when you
- 12:02Speaker 1: put on that uniform, you know, it looked like you
- 12:06Speaker 1: could do something. I was perfectly you know. You know,
- 12:10Speaker 1: after I got out the military, I didn't just I
- 12:13Speaker 1: was still hitting the gym like I was still in.
- 12:16Speaker 1: I was still trying to keep it together. There you go.
- 12:18Speaker 1: So so now let's telling people. My wife sometimes I
- 12:21Speaker 1: always tell her that, you know, certain things, what I
- 12:24Speaker 1: gotta lose weight, or change clothes or change a look.
- 12:27Speaker 1: I said, something's about to happen in my life. I'm
- 12:29Speaker 1: just preparing for that. I can't tell you what's gonna happen.
- 12:32Speaker 1: I know because I will, first of all, always keep
- 12:34Speaker 1: a positive look. And when you've read this book Transform,
- 12:36Speaker 1: you'll see despite all the obstacles in his life, he
- 12:40Speaker 1: keeps an uplifting approach, even though when he knows he's
- 12:43Speaker 1: made a mistake. He's a quick thinker, you know, like
- 12:45Speaker 1: when he got when when you got busted, going down
- 12:47Speaker 1: to San Diego and didn't think they're gonna page him
- 12:52Speaker 1: and went down there and half drive later. Yeah, but
- 12:57Speaker 1: we're gonna be back and talking more about this book.
- 12:59Speaker 1: I got another break because I really want to break
- 13:01Speaker 1: down that Navy Seal experience of how you got that
- 13:04Speaker 1: because you overcame a lot of flaws, physical flaws like
- 13:08Speaker 1: swimming that he couldn't do that he was able to
- 13:10Speaker 1: come through it and guess what he had to go
- 13:12Speaker 1: through Hell week twice. So so we'll be back with
- 13:17Speaker 1: more of my man. Uh, this book is transformed. His
- 13:20Speaker 1: name is Remy Out of late K money making conversations.
- 13:24Speaker 1: You hear all. That's what we do here, give you information.
- 13:26Speaker 1: We tried to share advice that will label you to
- 13:28Speaker 1: win in your personal and your professional life. And when
- 13:31Speaker 1: you do that, guess what you got it from me?
- 13:34Speaker 1: Roshan McDonald. You know, after ending a successful naval career
- 13:40Speaker 1: in twenty sixteen, he was led to pursue a career
- 13:43Speaker 1: in acting, writing, speaking, and including appearance in the twenty
- 13:47Speaker 1: seventeen Blockbuster when he went from Sideline Extra to a
- 13:51Speaker 1: speaking role transform The Last Night, and So to lead
- 13:55Speaker 1: technical advice on Netflix of Coming Motion Pictures six Underground
- 14:00Speaker 1: and every turn Remy found a way to overcome the
- 14:02Speaker 1: odds even when it didn't make sense. His story is
- 14:05Speaker 1: inspiring and uh, if you're a fan, club members have
- 14:08Speaker 1: over two thirty thousand fans. I am actually sending out
- 14:11Speaker 1: his book as part of my newsletter today. It's going
- 14:16Speaker 1: out this this morning. That trying to drive traffic to
- 14:19Speaker 1: Amazon dot com. That boy, this book. It's an amazing
- 14:21Speaker 1: books entitled Transform the Navy Seals Unlikely Journey from the
- 14:25Speaker 1: throne of Africa to the streets of the Bronx to
- 14:28Speaker 1: define all odds. When you say the word define our odds,
- 14:31Speaker 1: what does that mean, Remy? It means, you know, getting
- 14:34Speaker 1: over those obstacles that you're not expected to get over. Um,
- 14:39Speaker 1: when you look at my story, you want to you know,
- 14:41Speaker 1: there were so many obstacles who on Goop transitioning from
- 14:44Speaker 1: Africa being rich to the Bronx just making it to
- 14:49Speaker 1: be where I'm at today. You know, that was a
- 14:51Speaker 1: huge odds to define and there were people, know who
- 14:54Speaker 1: my mom would say, you know, there are people never
- 14:56Speaker 1: thought we would make it. Once we came back to
- 14:57Speaker 1: this stace. Um, you know what we did. You know,
- 15:00Speaker 1: defining the odds from the education statistics in the Bronx
- 15:03Speaker 1: at the time, I think it was only of uh
- 15:06Speaker 1: people from the Bronx went to college and graduated. Uh, no,
- 15:10Speaker 1: I have a master's now, you know. Um, you know, uh,
- 15:13Speaker 1: the sixties to seventy percent at the time dropped out
- 15:16Speaker 1: of high school. I graduated high school. I deified those odds.
- 15:19Speaker 1: And we can go on and on being trying to
- 15:21Speaker 1: get it become a Navy seal, not able to swim,
- 15:23Speaker 1: not having the academic scores and skinny, but defining those odds. So, um,
- 15:28Speaker 1: that's that's what I mean by that. Let's talk about
- 15:30Speaker 1: that not being able to swim and becoming a Navy
- 15:33Speaker 1: seal because when reading book, now you trained, you know,
- 15:36Speaker 1: because you meet with my man every day every weekly.
- 15:39Speaker 1: He was training you how to get through the process.
- 15:42Speaker 1: Now I thought you were ready. But when you got
- 15:45Speaker 1: to the actual US budgets first, right, but b uds right, yes,
- 15:51Speaker 1: or basically the water demotion seal training. Okay, cool and
- 15:54Speaker 1: uh and so you go to buds, it did it
- 15:56Speaker 1: all kind of like fell apart? What what happened? You know?
- 15:59Speaker 1: When I ain't that trained without fins because I didn't
- 16:02Speaker 1: know that when you went to fluds you had to
- 16:04Speaker 1: swim wh strips. I thought that, you know, I thought
- 16:05Speaker 1: you just had to pass the five hundred yard screening
- 16:07Speaker 1: tests to get into buzzs five of the York swimming
- 16:10Speaker 1: spin tests to get into buzz and then after that
- 16:12Speaker 1: you just ran around and they push up and pull
- 16:14Speaker 1: up and got yelled at and all that kind of stuff.
- 16:17Speaker 1: I didn't know that you had to swim in the
- 16:18Speaker 1: ocean with fins for two miles, then three miles, then
- 16:22Speaker 1: five miles. How didn't know that? So when they put
- 16:24Speaker 1: those fins on me and threw me in the water,
- 16:27Speaker 1: I was like confused, confused, and uh, it was a struggle.
- 16:34Speaker 1: It was a huge struggle for me that you know.
- 16:36Speaker 1: There were times when the ocean swim they gave us
- 16:38Speaker 1: eighty five minute time limits and I was out there
- 16:41Speaker 1: for two hours and the freezing cold water, and they
- 16:43Speaker 1: would keep me in the water because they figured, old,
- 16:46Speaker 1: let's just wait for him to either he'll quit or
- 16:48Speaker 1: he'll fill this one and come back next week and
- 16:50Speaker 1: getting that cold water and quit again. But I just
- 16:52Speaker 1: kept showing her. It was It was horrible. It was horrible.
- 16:55Speaker 1: When he said cold water. His body tempered to drop
- 16:57Speaker 1: to eighty degrees yep, and so they had to rush
- 17:00Speaker 1: the hospital and woman back up real quick. Now at
- 17:04Speaker 1: that point in the book, were you ready to get out?
- 17:06Speaker 1: Were you ready to like, hey, this is not for me. Nope?
- 17:10Speaker 1: Never never? Why not? Um? For two reasons run. You know,
- 17:15Speaker 1: my mom always preached this concept of excellence to my
- 17:18Speaker 1: brother and I when we're your little kids in the Bronx.
- 17:20Speaker 1: She would always tell me and my brother, you have
- 17:22Speaker 1: to be excellent. Whatever you do, don't half way it.
- 17:25Speaker 1: You know, she can do a word. But I wanted
- 17:26Speaker 1: to don't half way, you know, to give a draw,
- 17:30Speaker 1: and I wanted to give it my all. I wanted
- 17:33Speaker 1: to be part of the best, you know. I didn't
- 17:35Speaker 1: want to sail at that And which brings me to
- 17:36Speaker 1: my second answer. I have failed so much at life
- 17:39Speaker 1: up to that point. I didn't want to sail with
- 17:41Speaker 1: something else. Now, so they were that concept of quitting never,
- 17:47Speaker 1: And that's that's amazing because of the fact that fear
- 17:50Speaker 1: had to play a part. Overcoming fear had to play
- 17:53Speaker 1: a party and decision making because there's a history of
- 17:57Speaker 1: you know, people not survived physically survived this these training sessions. Correct, Yeah, yeah,
- 18:03Speaker 1: I got that in my class. I mean it happens
- 18:06Speaker 1: right hap to other classes, right and right. And then
- 18:08Speaker 1: your second run through the lead or the lead he
- 18:12Speaker 1: quit and you had to take charge because of your
- 18:15Speaker 1: right yep, yep, and that that that happened. That happened
- 18:18Speaker 1: a lot too lovely to happen multiple times. And now
- 18:20Speaker 1: I found myself in the leadership position. How to having
- 18:22Speaker 1: deleted motivated other other guys, and they also motivated myself
- 18:26Speaker 1: to keep pushing. Now that's that's that's what I thought
- 18:28Speaker 1: was really that that to me in the book was
- 18:30Speaker 1: a key moment for me. Here was a person, you know,
- 18:33Speaker 1: knowing your background, you've been dis disenfranchised from Nigeria because
- 18:37Speaker 1: of your because of your royalty. You know, you're in
- 18:40Speaker 1: the streets just hustling. You know, you can say drug deal,
- 18:43Speaker 1: Lets just hustle. You know, you know, you don't have
- 18:46Speaker 1: mentor mentors out there to guide you in the right direction.
- 18:48Speaker 1: You're gonna do what everybody else is associated with your
- 18:52Speaker 1: posset or your road, your crew or whatever tells you
- 18:54Speaker 1: to do. Okay, that's what's hop do that My my
- 18:58Speaker 1: seller Southern Drugs I played basketball because crew just play basketball. Okay. Yeah,
- 19:02Speaker 1: So so then then you you're coming along and you
- 19:05Speaker 1: and you and you pursue an opportunity where you cannot swim.
- 19:09Speaker 1: He says this in the book. I can not swim,
- 19:11Speaker 1: but I want to be an ab seal. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
- 19:16Speaker 1: I just wanted it. You know, I just wanted it.
- 19:18Speaker 1: There was no offensive but and you know I wasn't
- 19:21Speaker 1: gonna And then that's the question I try to teach
- 19:22Speaker 1: people to this day. When you have a deficiency as
- 19:25Speaker 1: it relates to your dream, you do one or two things.
- 19:28Speaker 1: Either say you know what, I have this major deficiency
- 19:30Speaker 1: which means I cannot do that and then you can
- 19:33Speaker 1: go about your life and try something else. Or be
- 19:35Speaker 1: you could just do the extra extra hard work to
- 19:39Speaker 1: overcome that deficiency. And that's what I did. I did
- 19:42Speaker 1: the extra extra hard work to overcome that deficiency, and
- 19:45Speaker 1: that's how it got over. Awesome. Now, with that being said,
- 19:49Speaker 1: getting over when you asked to speak, what is the
- 19:52Speaker 1: message you're trying to deliver when people invite you in
- 19:54Speaker 1: this because it could be different age groups. I know,
- 19:57Speaker 1: if you if you deal with young people as this age,
- 19:59Speaker 1: when you do of a people who are more focused
- 20:01Speaker 1: in the corporate environment that speak. But what is the
- 20:04Speaker 1: overall message you're trying to deliver when you when you're
- 20:06Speaker 1: asked to speak? There are so many but I was
- 20:09Speaker 1: just so I would just boil it down to to
- 20:11Speaker 1: the lesson that that I pulled out of the book,
- 20:13Speaker 1: and a lot of people are pulled out of the
- 20:15Speaker 1: book as well, And that is this concept of failure.
- 20:17Speaker 1: You know, none of us are immune to failure. We
- 20:20Speaker 1: will all fail at some point, that's something in our life.
- 20:23Speaker 1: And and and but it's important that when we fail, um,
- 20:27Speaker 1: we have to you know, I have a saying, our
- 20:28Speaker 1: failure is only a failure if you don't learn from it.
- 20:31Speaker 1: But if you learn from it, it's a lesson. It's
- 20:34Speaker 1: a lesson, and and and and and and then we
- 20:36Speaker 1: could either allow our failure to define our future or
- 20:40Speaker 1: we can find a lesson within our failure that we
- 20:43Speaker 1: can use for our future, for the success of our future.
- 20:46Speaker 1: And so that's the main thing. I tried it out,
- 20:48Speaker 1: because when you read this book, this book is nothing.
- 20:51Speaker 1: It's all about a man who failed over and over
- 20:53Speaker 1: and over and over again, but he eventually learned to
- 20:56Speaker 1: take hold those failures and turn them into lessons and
- 20:59Speaker 1: then use those lets such a tournament to successes. So
- 21:01Speaker 1: that's what I want people to get away from from
- 21:04Speaker 1: from my talks. My talk from this book is that
- 21:07Speaker 1: don't give up after you fail. Don't let that fail
- 21:09Speaker 1: you define, you, find a lesson you use, just move forward.
- 21:12Speaker 1: So on what I'm hearing is that he is a
- 21:14Speaker 1: man who failed over and over again, then he used
- 21:17Speaker 1: those lessons of failure to transform that transformed him to
- 21:22Speaker 1: be the man he is today. That's a man who's
- 21:24Speaker 1: who was admitted flaws, which I always tell people, but
- 21:27Speaker 1: you don't admit a flaw, that's a that's a problem
- 21:29Speaker 1: because you're seeking perfection, which is impossible. So if you
- 21:33Speaker 1: seeking possibility, then guess what comes into your life frustration?
- 21:37Speaker 1: And if you're a frustrated person, guess what. Don't nobody
- 21:39Speaker 1: want to be around a frustrated person. Nobody want a
- 21:43Speaker 1: champion of frustrated person. So so what is your message?
- 21:46Speaker 1: What is your message for young people who may be
- 21:49Speaker 1: struggling out there today? Uh, you know, you know, don't
- 21:55Speaker 1: get caught up in this concept of everything should happen
- 21:59Speaker 1: right now. I want young people to realize that things
- 22:03Speaker 1: take time. As she said, I you went through seal
- 22:06Speaker 1: training twice. That sounds when you know me saying that
- 22:09Speaker 1: may not sound like a long time. But we're talking
- 22:11Speaker 1: from the time I started training to be a seal
- 22:14Speaker 1: to the time I finally graduated from seal training. We're
- 22:17Speaker 1: talking two thousand and three to two thousand and seven.
- 22:21Speaker 1: That's four years of constant, day in and day outglinding.
- 22:24Speaker 1: But you don't see that. You just see the end results.
- 22:26Speaker 1: I want young people to realize that you gotta put
- 22:30Speaker 1: in the work and it's not gonna happen overnight. You
- 22:33Speaker 1: got to show up every single day and that's how
- 22:35Speaker 1: you you achieve what you want to achieve. And what
- 22:39Speaker 1: what is it that you want to achieve? Really now,
- 22:43Speaker 1: I mean it changes old time. Well uh well, now
- 22:47Speaker 1: you know, I you know, I've got the book out,
- 22:49Speaker 1: so obviously I want that to be successful, which is
- 22:51Speaker 1: being very successful, uh to uh you know, you know
- 22:55Speaker 1: now moving you know, I'm a writer producer now in Hollywood.
- 22:57Speaker 1: You know I've been I'm in talking and it really
- 22:59Speaker 1: still now here here here from an answer to a
- 23:02Speaker 1: writer producer in Hollywood. Yeah, yeah, man, I'm gonna talking
- 23:05Speaker 1: with the major studio right now to option the rights
- 23:08Speaker 1: to my book and option a screenplay I wrote and
- 23:10Speaker 1: some other projects. So I'm gonna talk to kind of
- 23:13Speaker 1: set up an overall deal flash our first book deal
- 23:15Speaker 1: with a major studio. I'm still taking other offers that
- 23:18Speaker 1: people want to throw me some offers, I'll entertain them.
- 23:21Speaker 1: That's that's a day, is uh, getting that production company
- 23:29Speaker 1: off the ground and just putting out amazing inspirational stories
- 23:32Speaker 1: and a lot of black stories as well. You know,
- 23:34Speaker 1: I'm writing a film now about one of the first
- 23:36Speaker 1: groups of African Americans to serve in special operations and
- 23:41Speaker 1: the story that that you know, it's hidden, it's like
- 23:43Speaker 1: a hidden figure story, but these are probably one of
- 23:45Speaker 1: the first groups of guys to serving Special Forces. No
- 23:47Speaker 1: one knows this story. So as a guy who was
- 23:50Speaker 1: in Special Forces and you know, I'm telling that story now.
- 23:53Speaker 1: So so that's that's what my next goal in life
- 23:55Speaker 1: is getting these amazing stories out um via film and TV. Well,
- 24:00Speaker 1: I would just tell you this, first of all, you're unique, okay,
- 24:03Speaker 1: you know and that that kid that and you're special
- 24:06Speaker 1: because of the fact that you you crossed uncharted waters
- 24:10Speaker 1: when you started with a number of African American men
- 24:13Speaker 1: who and we look at him. Man, you gotta tell
- 24:16Speaker 1: this story who started because we know there's racism at
- 24:19Speaker 1: every level. And when you when you're when you're the
- 24:21Speaker 1: first ding, when you first did, it's worse because guess what,
- 24:24Speaker 1: they don't want anybody to break cold break to break
- 24:27Speaker 1: the new members of the club. And I'm not saying anything,
- 24:30Speaker 1: and that's just life that happens in any environment, you know,
- 24:33Speaker 1: all right, and so but I just want to let
- 24:35Speaker 1: you know, I'm glad. I know we kept hitting and
- 24:37Speaker 1: missing and coming on the show and getting the time right,
- 24:39Speaker 1: and I'm glad I wanted to show you respect and
- 24:42Speaker 1: say I really want to jeel my show. I'm glad
- 24:44Speaker 1: we was able to schedule list. And I read your
- 24:46Speaker 1: book and I'm inspired by your book, and I just
- 24:48Speaker 1: wanted anybody who reads this book transformed to just to
- 24:53Speaker 1: value what he did and used the same values and
- 24:56Speaker 1: failures and successes and let you know that you can
- 24:58Speaker 1: do it too. Rem thank you for coming on my show, man,
- 25:02Speaker 1: thank you for having me on the show. I appreciate it.
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