Latest / The Steve Harvey Morning Show / Overcoming the Odds: She grew up on a cotton farm as one of 17 children and overcame domestic violence, and poverty.

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Overcoming the Odds: She grew up on a cotton farm as one of 17 children and overcame domestic violence, and poverty. · The Steve Harvey Morning Show

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  Speaker 1: Him.
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  Speaker 2: Rashan McDonald host this weekly Money Making Conversation Masterclass show.
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  Speaker 2: The interviews and information that this show provides off for everyone,
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  Speaker 2: and I'm talking about you. It's time to stop reading
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  Speaker 2: other people's success stories and start living your own.
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  Speaker 3: Now.
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  Speaker 2: If you want to be a guest on my show,
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  Speaker 2: Money Making Conversations Masterclass, please visit our website, Moneymakingconversations dot
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  Speaker 2: com and click to be a guest button. Now we've
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  Speaker 2: said all that, Now let's get this show started. My
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  Speaker 2: next guess is a nationally recognized author, podcaster, and motivational
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  Speaker 2: speaker whose storytelling journey begin on a sixty acre cotton
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  Speaker 2: farm in with Tompka, Alabama, which is right outside of Montgomery,
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  Speaker 2: where she was born. The third of seventeen children, Now
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  Speaker 2: retired it executive. A bestselling memoir, Daddy's House, a daughter's
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  Speaker 2: memoir of setbacks, triumphs, and rising above her roots, offers
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  Speaker 2: a raw and healing account of childhood, trauma, domestic violence,
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  Speaker 2: and resilience. Please welcome to Money Making Conversation Master Class.
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  Speaker 2: Mildred J.
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  Speaker 3: Mills. Hey, don Mildred, Well how about you miss Mills?
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  Speaker 3: Which which way, Mildred is wonderful, great, you look very fashionable.
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  Speaker 2: Is fashionate part of your past and your current future?
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  Speaker 3: Well we move forward?
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  Speaker 4: Well, I don't know about that. No, no, no, I
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  Speaker 4: was a model at one point, but I.
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  Speaker 3: Also okay, you see you model at what point?
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  Speaker 4: I was? But I also grew up picking cotton, so
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  Speaker 4: there were no modeling in that in that field?
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  Speaker 2: How do you balance? How did how did that happen
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  Speaker 2: to go from? Because that's part of your intro cotton,
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  Speaker 2: you know, And you hear that word cotton, you hear
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  Speaker 2: hard work, you hear slavery, you hear South.
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  Speaker 3: Did I miss anything?
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  Speaker 4: No, you didn't. It's so funny that you should mention slavery.
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  Speaker 4: When I one of my nieces told her little boy
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  Speaker 4: that I had written a book. He said, and he said,
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  Speaker 4: she grew up picking cotton. He said, WHOA were you
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  Speaker 4: a slave? I said, no, I wasn't a slave, but
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  Speaker 4: I worked on daddy's far.
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  Speaker 3: Tell us about picking cotton? What was that like?
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  Speaker 4: Oh, it's a it's a brutal business, it really really
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  Speaker 4: is it. You know, think about being a little girl
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  Speaker 4: sticking your fingers in those bulls. I don't know bulls
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  Speaker 4: as in bol l not bill w Well, it just
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  Speaker 4: kind of tears your cuticles up.
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  Speaker 3: You know, it's it's hard. You have to bend your back.
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  Speaker 4: Of course, when you're little you have to you can
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  Speaker 4: reach up, but as you grow older you have to bend.
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  Speaker 4: So you're bent at a ninety degree angle all day
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  Speaker 4: picking cotton. And it's a it's a nasty business and
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  Speaker 4: it hurts.
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  Speaker 3: Now as you're growing up.
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  Speaker 2: You know your book, I got to copy your book,
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  Speaker 2: Daddy's House, A Dolter's memoir of set back triumphs and
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  Speaker 2: rising above her roots?
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  Speaker 3: What are you saying in this title?
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  Speaker 4: What I'm saying in that title is where I grew
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  Speaker 4: up was in my daddy's house, and nobody there was
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  Speaker 4: no confusion about who ruled that house.
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  Speaker 3: That was my daddy.
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  Speaker 4: But what I'm saying in that title about a daughter's
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  Speaker 4: memoir of growing up and rising above her roots, You know,
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  Speaker 4: it doesn't matter where you're born. I was born in
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  Speaker 4: a place on a sixty acre farm where my father was.
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  Speaker 3: He was pretty.
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  Speaker 4: He was a rough guy, but he taught me so
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  Speaker 4: much about life, and so I rose above those routes
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  Speaker 4: by becoming somebody. As a child, I was who my
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  Speaker 4: father and my mother wanted me to be. But as
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  Speaker 4: a woman, I was determined to be myself. I didn't
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  Speaker 4: know who that was as a child, but as I grew,
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  Speaker 4: you know, I just decided that I wanted something different
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  Speaker 4: for myself.
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  Speaker 3: So why was important you write a book? It was important,
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  Speaker 3: well after age sixty.
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  Speaker 4: I think so many of us have so much knowledge
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  Speaker 4: after a certain age. You know, when you're twenty, what
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  Speaker 4: are you going to talk about? You know, how bad
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  Speaker 4: your parents treated you, those kind of things. But after
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  Speaker 4: age sixty, and especially I think as a black woman
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  Speaker 4: growing up in the South and noticing so many changes
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  Speaker 4: that happened. Some of them were amazing, you know, but
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  Speaker 4: then there are some other things that like I never
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  Speaker 4: ever as a child, so a white only sign all
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  Speaker 4: those things, even though I grew up in the fifties
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  Speaker 4: and the sixties. So I thought that it was important
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  Speaker 4: to write this book to first of all, heal myself
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  Speaker 4: from some of the things that I did experience as
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  Speaker 4: a child and that I did experience as an adult
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  Speaker 4: as an adult, but also to tell about some of
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  Speaker 4: the beautiful things that happened to me and as a
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  Speaker 4: woman and as a person. I think about buying my
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  Speaker 4: first house and I didn't realize that when I bought
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  Speaker 4: that house in nineteen seventy six, that it was only
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  Speaker 4: the year before that a woman could get credit in
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  Speaker 4: her own name.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, you just think about these things. And I
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  Speaker 3: was so.
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  Speaker 4: You know, they say ignorance is bliss, and I absolutely
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  Speaker 4: believe that, because I was ignorant to the fact that,
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  Speaker 4: first of all, women hadn't been able to do these things.
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  Speaker 4: And when I met the realtor, he said, you're divorced.
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  Speaker 4: I said I am, and he said we don't normally
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  Speaker 4: sell houses to divorced women.
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  Speaker 3: And I thought, wow, well I really don't care. I
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  Speaker 3: want to buy to seventy six. This was nineteen seventy six.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, that's you know, when you think about it that
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  Speaker 2: you know slavery, you talk about emancipation, you talk about
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  Speaker 2: the voting right acts.
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  Speaker 3: It's not that far apart. It's not that far that
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  Speaker 3: I was living during all those things.
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  Speaker 2: Now, when you this is a very honest book that
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  Speaker 2: you've written, you're married.
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  Speaker 3: I am when you.
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  Speaker 2: Thought about this idea of pretty much confessing about your
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  Speaker 2: past and offer it as motivation for others who realize
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  Speaker 2: you overcome the odds. Oh, this is about overcoming their odds.
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  Speaker 2: It is what was it conversation like with your husband.
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  Speaker 4: I didn't have a conversation with my husband about writing
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  Speaker 4: my book. The first time my husband knew what was
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  Speaker 4: in that book was when he read it.
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  Speaker 3: Was it published? Yeah? What was it published? When you
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  Speaker 3: read it? I was finished with it for sure. I
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  Speaker 3: think it might have been published me too, pull it
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  Speaker 3: back those memories. Yeah, it was absolutely it was published. Okay,
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  Speaker 3: it was published. Okay, why did you do it that way?
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  Speaker 3: Because first of all, it is my story?
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  Speaker 4: And second of all, you know, the more people you
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  Speaker 4: stick you say, well, what do you think about this?
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  Speaker 3: What do you think?
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  Speaker 4: I'm not sure I really care what anybody thinks about it,
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  Speaker 4: because it is my story and I wanted to be
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  Speaker 4: an honest story. And you know, I remember being in
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  Speaker 4: a writing group one time and this woman and this
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  Speaker 4: is before I published anything, so and this person would
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  Speaker 4: always say all these negative things, and you know, you
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  Speaker 4: get all this stuff stuck in your head and you think, well,
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  Speaker 4: why would I write a book? You know, nobody's gonna
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  Speaker 4: read it, nobody's going to like it, all these things.
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  Speaker 4: So when I decided that I was going to write
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  Speaker 4: this story, I just sat down. I worked with a
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  Speaker 4: mentor and I wrote it, and I did it that
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  Speaker 4: way because I didn't want anybody telling me, well, why
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  Speaker 4: didn't you remember memoir? It is my story, and if
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  Speaker 4: you have a different one, you tell it.
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  Speaker 2: But in telling the story, and you have somebody you love, yes,
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  Speaker 2: and you still move forward with this honest telling. And
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  Speaker 2: I want to say, the honest telling is Daddy's House,
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  Speaker 2: a daughter's memoir, memoir of set back triumphs and rising
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  Speaker 2: above her roots.
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  Speaker 3: I'm speaking with Mildred J.
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  Speaker 2: Mills, the author of this basically an autobiography of her
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  Speaker 2: life of a resilience. What does resilience mean to you?
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  Speaker 2: And I will get back to your husband, but I
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  Speaker 2: want to get the resilience first.
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  Speaker 4: Resilience to me me, Well, I'm an aries woman. Let
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  Speaker 4: me just say that, you know, and I mean that
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  Speaker 4: doesn't define me. But I am just willing to take
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  Speaker 4: chances first of all. And resilience means to me, when
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  Speaker 4: you get knocked down, get up, don't lay there wallowing
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  Speaker 4: in it. I've said to my children before. I remember
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  Speaker 4: driving my son, or flying on an airplane with my
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  Speaker 4: son headed to University of Michigan when he was starting college,
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  Speaker 4: and I said, we all have we all have.
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  Speaker 3: Set That was your son with your first husband.
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  Speaker 4: Right, that's no, my son is my youngest child.
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  Speaker 3: Okay, cool, I apologize, that's right. Yeah.
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  Speaker 4: But anyway, I said to him, we all fall. But
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  Speaker 4: it isn't the bump in the road that you hit.
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  Speaker 4: It's whether you sit there and stay in it. I said,
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  Speaker 4: a car hits a bump, you got to keep moving
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  Speaker 4: or you're stuck.
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  Speaker 3: So resilience to me means move on.
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  Speaker 4: I'm no victim. I've never been a victim, and I'm
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  Speaker 4: not going to be a victim. So resilience means just lord,
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  Speaker 4: take those lessons and learn from you.
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  Speaker 3: And read your book. I don't want to. I never
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  Speaker 3: saw you as a victim in this book. I'm not actim.
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  Speaker 3: And I want to make sure.
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  Speaker 2: People understand that this is a book about her life,
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  Speaker 2: about the relationships the men who came into her life.
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  Speaker 2: The man who's currently in her life is supporting her,
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  Speaker 2: and I love her, loves her dealers, she loves him
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  Speaker 2: and the children that are in her life. But along
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  Speaker 2: the way, we all have bumps in the road. And
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  Speaker 2: this is an entrepreneurial show. It's based on motivation. You're
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  Speaker 2: an influencer, your podcaster, from an entrepreneurial stand, from a
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  Speaker 2: small business owner, how do you equate resilience to them
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  Speaker 2: when they are struggling to overcome their odds.
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  Speaker 4: Well, I get up and look in that mirror every
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  Speaker 4: day and I say, you know, you've been through some things,
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  Speaker 4: But guess what you can teach somebody else to keep
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  Speaker 4: moving through these things, because just you can't teach resilience.
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  Speaker 4: I don't think. I think you either have it or
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  Speaker 4: you don't.
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  Speaker 3: That's true. I really believe that.
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  Speaker 4: And to me, failure is not an option. It's never
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  Speaker 4: been an option for me. So if I hit a bump,
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  Speaker 4: I knew I wasn't going back to that cotton field.
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  Speaker 4: I grew up picking cotton. So I figured out how
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  Speaker 4: to keep moving forward. And not only that, I hear
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  Speaker 4: my mother's voice in my ear saying, do the best
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  Speaker 4: you can what you have.
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  Speaker 3: And I didn't always.
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  Speaker 4: I couldn't always sit here in a nice, as you say,
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  Speaker 4: fashionable kind of way, you know, But she said.
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  Speaker 3: She's very fashionable. For everybody who's listening to the show.
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  Speaker 3: I can't see her.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, but she said, if you only have one dress,
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  Speaker 4: or if you only had one she said, pair of underwear,
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  Speaker 4: whatever that is. She said, wash it the night before,
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  Speaker 4: get your tail in the bed, and get up in
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  Speaker 4: the morning and put it on. And I've done that now, yeah,
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  Speaker 4: I've been there, so have I, you know, and it's okay.
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  Speaker 4: And so she taught pride, so that resilience. I think
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  Speaker 4: there's a lot of pride in being resilient. You know,
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  Speaker 4: you get knocked down, and I can't imagine going telling
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  Speaker 4: my father. I wouldn't have told my parents, well I'm
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  Speaker 4: struggling out here, because he would have said, I got
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  Speaker 4: a cotton sack with.
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  Speaker 5: Your name on, so you're never going to pick up again. No, no, now,
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  Speaker 5: let's get back to my favorite person to husband. Book
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  Speaker 5: comes out, you can't tell them anything about it. When
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  Speaker 5: did he start reading, how did he read it? And
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  Speaker 5: did he finish it?
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  Speaker 2: When he read it or did he comment on certain
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  Speaker 2: parts of the book as he was going through the
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  Speaker 2: process of reading it.
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  Speaker 4: He did not say a word. I handed him the
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  Speaker 4: book when it came out, and I said, I know
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  Speaker 4: you don't like to read.
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  Speaker 3: He doesn't like to read books.
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  Speaker 4: He my husband reads all the time, but he does
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  Speaker 4: he won't pick up a book to read it. So
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  Speaker 4: I handed him that book. I said, no, no, but
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  Speaker 4: here's my story, most of it, most of it, you know.
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  Speaker 4: And when he finished, he said, on this one point,
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  Speaker 4: he said, you didn't tell me such and such. I said,
• 11:38
  Speaker 4: when I met you, I had two children, you know,
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  Speaker 4: and when I met you you had a child. I said,
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  Speaker 4: we had lives. And I said, I've told as much
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  Speaker 4: as I could. But you know, when you're sitting to
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  Speaker 4: write your book, sometimes things come to you.
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  Speaker 3: That's very true. I've been unfortunate, I would.
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  Speaker 2: Steven Ah Smith is one of my clients, and I
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  Speaker 2: worked with his on his memoir Straight Shooter.
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  Speaker 3: I loved his book.
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  Speaker 2: And as we were going through and the storytelling it,
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  Speaker 2: actually your mind kind of like blocks out, especially blocks
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  Speaker 2: out bad stuff.
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  Speaker 3: It does.
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  Speaker 2: And as you start writing, you started remembering things and
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  Speaker 2: the details of your mind is really impressive when it
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  Speaker 2: starts revealing details. Tell us about that whole storytelling, like
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  Speaker 2: your husband, you.
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  Speaker 3: Didn't tell it because guess what, you probably didn't remember it.
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  Speaker 4: Right, And that isn't what our life has been about,
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  Speaker 4: is just sitting there telling you every detail of my life,
• 12:34
  Speaker 4: you know, because how boring is that usually, but sitting
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  Speaker 4: there writing that book, like for instance, things, I worked
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  Speaker 4: in it for almost forty years. I started out as
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  Speaker 4: an eighteen year old girl back in nineteen sixty nine,
• 12:49
  Speaker 4: learning how to come how to how to program computer boards.
• 12:54
  Speaker 4: So computers have memory, and you know, and whenever you
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  Speaker 4: needed you go in. I mean there's an or whatever
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  Speaker 4: and it goes and picks up that data or whatever.
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  Speaker 4: So as you're writing, all these things come back that
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  Speaker 4: you haven't thought about in forever. So you know, absolutely
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  Speaker 4: I didn't. But anyway, when he finished it, I said,
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  Speaker 4: so you read my story of setbacks, triumphs and rising
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  Speaker 4: above my roots, and that's what you brought to me.
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  Speaker 3: I said, come on absolutely. Yeah.
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  Speaker 4: After then, so of course you then you start seeing
• 13:28
  Speaker 4: the Amazon reviews come out and they are all these
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  Speaker 4: things like, oh my god, how courageous, how brave to
• 13:35
  Speaker 4: tell that story, you know, And I.
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  Speaker 3: Said, please don't go anywhere.
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: We'll be right back with more Money Making Conversations master Class.
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: Welcome back to Money Making Conversation master Class with me
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: Rashaun McDonald. You know, I love your story. I love
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  Speaker 2: stories about individuals come out.
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  Speaker 3: One of my face.
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: Every people's attorney tesse efforts. You know she had. She
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: she's now very popular, a lawyer, an attorney, and a
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: firm in the city of Atlanta. Had two children before
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: the age of eighteen. She had five kids before she
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: was thirty. And her resilience. And I have to use
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  Speaker 2: that word because, like you said, that that's something you're
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: born with. You know, you can be born with being stubborn,
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: you can born with being outspoken.
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  Speaker 3: I guess resilience guides me.
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  Speaker 2: I think the ability to be able to not accept
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  Speaker 2: failure guides me. Now, let's talk about going back to
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  Speaker 2: the cotton form, because that was an environment. Seventeen kids, yes.
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  Speaker 4: Okay, third seventeen children.
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  Speaker 3: Yes, how did you get out?
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  Speaker 4: How did I get out of the cotton field? Interestingly enough,
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  Speaker 4: back in nineteen sixty seven, my father decided to send
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  Speaker 4: us I should say my parents, but it was my
• 15:02
  Speaker 4: father's decision to send us to an all white school.
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  Speaker 4: It was in our all black we were in the
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  Speaker 4: middle of segregation and it was you could volunteer to
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  Speaker 4: send your children to a white school as a black parent,
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  Speaker 4: and my father decided to send us to a white school.
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  Speaker 4: So during that time, I had a social studies teacher
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  Speaker 4: who would read from these books.
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  Speaker 3: I mean we read. She taught et cetera.
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  Speaker 4: And she would when she read about negroes, which is
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  Speaker 4: what we recalled back then, she would say nigra And
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  Speaker 4: it was just such a it just made the hair
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  Speaker 4: on the back of your next stand up.
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  Speaker 5: Think.
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  Speaker 4: And this lady is oviicually educated, so you mean to
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  Speaker 4: tell me. But anyway, so I thought that she was
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  Speaker 4: a racist. I mean I didn't. I thought she had
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  Speaker 4: something against black children, that's who she was teaching. But
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  Speaker 4: in my senior year, this lady asked me to come
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  Speaker 4: to her office. She says, what you going to do
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  Speaker 4: when after high school? And I said I'm not sure.
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  Speaker 4: She said, do you think your father would let you
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  Speaker 4: go away? I said I don't know. And she said, well,
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  Speaker 4: I'm going to give you a test, and she did it,
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  Speaker 4: and I now know that that was the act test,
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  Speaker 4: and she said, you scored very high in the math area,
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  Speaker 4: very high math aptitude. So one day she gives me
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  Speaker 4: this envelope, a white envelope and it's sealed, and she says,
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  Speaker 4: say take this to your father. And now I know
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  Speaker 4: that inside that envelope was information about this technology school
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  Speaker 4: to learn how to program computer boards and keep unch.
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  Speaker 3: So to my father's credit.
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  Speaker 4: And he said to me the day before he drove
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  Speaker 4: me to Ohio, who do you think is going to
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  Speaker 4: Who do you think is going to do all that
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  Speaker 4: work we've taught you how to do? Because I did
• 16:49
  Speaker 4: a lot of things that some of the other children didn't.
• 16:51
  Speaker 4: And I thought to myself, how is that my problem?
• 16:53
  Speaker 3: I don't know?
• 16:55
  Speaker 4: And I did say I said, I don't know, and
• 16:57
  Speaker 4: he said, well, I'm going to talk to Mama tonight.
• 17:00
  Speaker 4: We're going to decide whether we can still let you go.
• 17:02
  Speaker 4: And I thought to myself, I've never done anything except
• 17:06
  Speaker 4: be just this obedient child and done everything you've ever
• 17:10
  Speaker 4: asked me to do. And I thought, you better make
• 17:12
  Speaker 4: the right decision because I'm out of here. Whether you
• 17:15
  Speaker 4: I'm saying this to myself absolutely or whatever, but that's
• 17:19
  Speaker 4: how I got out. And they actually allowed me to leave.
• 17:23
  Speaker 4: And not only did he allow me to leave, he
• 17:26
  Speaker 4: paid cash for my education five hundred dollars back in
• 17:30
  Speaker 4: nineteen sixty.
• 17:30
  Speaker 3: Nine, which is a lot of money, A lot of
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: money at Fort Farmer. Right.
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: Now, let me ask you this, okay, was your father
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: a cotton picker?
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: Or did he have another job or that was his job.
• 17:40
  Speaker 3: My father was a brick mason and a carpenter.
• 17:43
  Speaker 4: Okay, yeah, and he now during during the cotton picking kill.
• 17:49
  Speaker 4: Oh absolutely, my father was a Yeah. In fact, he
• 17:52
  Speaker 4: built he built my aunt's house by himself. I'm just
• 17:56
  Speaker 4: saying he yeah, he had Yeah, he had a skill.
• 17:58
  Speaker 4: In fact, in the winter time when they're us no
• 18:00
  Speaker 4: cotton to pick and no way to earn money and
• 18:02
  Speaker 4: feed his family through that farm, he traveled to Mississippi
• 18:08
  Speaker 4: and Louisiana to He left out on a Sunday night
• 18:11
  Speaker 4: with his chicken and all this stuff packed in a
• 18:15
  Speaker 4: packed and then he came back on Friday nights. And
• 18:17
  Speaker 4: I tell you he was a rough fella in that house.
• 18:20
  Speaker 4: But when we saw him coming home on a Friday night,
• 18:22
  Speaker 4: his children were running out the house, just welcoming daddy home.
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: You know, when you leave that world, you know now
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: you're into another world, another space. How did the men
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: get introduced into your life? The very first one that
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: had an important role in your life?
• 18:40
  Speaker 4: The first the person that had the first man that
• 18:44
  Speaker 4: had a role in my life was my first boyfriend
• 18:47
  Speaker 4: and I met him at a night club years two.
• 18:51
  Speaker 3: Other girlfriend didn't think highly correct.
• 18:54
  Speaker 4: No, no, no she did, she told you, yes she did,
• 18:57
  Speaker 4: but she wasn't very good either, very nice.
• 19:01
  Speaker 6: No.
• 19:01
  Speaker 4: But I met my first boyfriend at a night club.
• 19:04
  Speaker 4: He was singing A Change is Gonna Come.
• 19:07
  Speaker 3: Sam and Cook, Yeah, my favorite song.
• 19:10
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I met I met him there, and actually I
• 19:13
  Speaker 4: dearly I loved I dearly loved that guy.
• 19:15
  Speaker 3: You know, it was my first love.
• 19:17
  Speaker 4: And so but when something terrible happened in my life,
• 19:23
  Speaker 4: I didn't have his phone number, any of these kind
• 19:25
  Speaker 4: of things. So I evaporate. I we evaporated out of
• 19:28
  Speaker 4: each other's lives and that.
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: But that's part of life. But one of the three
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: words you live by is what fear?
• 19:37
  Speaker 3: Fear, faith, not faith. Faith over fear, Faith over faith
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: over fear are the three words you live by.
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: Now, A lot of people use the word faith when
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: they are when they're making decisions, they are fear. Faith
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: comes into everybody's life, you know, But fear over faith.
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: Explain that to us, Faith over fear, faith fires.
• 20:01
  Speaker 4: Yes, I mean, fear is something that kind of sits
• 20:05
  Speaker 4: on your shoulder and tells you you're not good enough.
• 20:07
  Speaker 4: Beer is something that sits on your shoulder. And say,
• 20:10
  Speaker 4: what makes you think you should be in this sitting
• 20:13
  Speaker 4: in this seat talking to Rushan McDonald. You know, for
• 20:17
  Speaker 4: goodness sake, that's a pretty Yeah, that's that's really something.
• 20:21
  Speaker 4: But faith is you know, you walk to a door.
• 20:24
  Speaker 4: I heard a sermon this past Sunday and this guy said,
• 20:27
  Speaker 4: when I think about faith, I think about Goldilocks. He says,
• 20:31
  Speaker 4: you think about Goldilocks walking into a bear's house.
• 20:34
  Speaker 3: You know.
• 20:34
  Speaker 4: She said, I'm tired. She went and sat in somebody's chairs.
• 20:37
  Speaker 4: She said, I'm sleepy. She laid in that bed. You know,
• 20:39
  Speaker 4: so the door was there, you just walk through it, right,
• 20:43
  Speaker 4: just having faith that you know, if I get on
• 20:46
  Speaker 4: the other side of that door, there's something that can
• 20:48
  Speaker 4: help me move on through this this thing called life.
• 20:52
  Speaker 6: So well, i'd buy that if it was a real story.
• 20:56
  Speaker 6: It goes locks into three baths, you know, No, I
• 20:58
  Speaker 6: did after the show.
• 21:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but I feel kind of that same way. You know,
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: if you I think that in life.
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: You know, the reason I'm impressed with you and impressed
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: with the people that come on my show is I
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: try to delve into the truths because there's so many
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: people out there that are living life, dreaming, about options,
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: dreaming about in pain, and so you wrote a book,
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: and your book is telling your pain, and you're using
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: that pain to motivate others. And I try to translate
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: to to entrepreneurs, influencers and small business owners because that's
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: what you are doing. You know, I'm not you know
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: there are people working forty our week jobs. But I
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: really do believe that what you do and what you're saying,
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: it's a different type of person that takes this story
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: and values and even more so not saying that the
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: forty hour week person doesn't. But when you make a
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: commitment meant to be an entrepreneur, you have walked through
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: a different lane of life. You said, look, I'm betting
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: on myself. That's when you got in that called your
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: dad and he told you, hey, me and mom got
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: to talk. You went, Dad, you don't when I'm gone.
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: Talk all you want to. My time on this war
• 22:20
  Speaker 3: is over is gone.
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: And then when you got out there, you know, the
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: teachers saw something in you academically and gave you an
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: option that you didn't even see. Because that's about mentorship.
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: That's about I will tell people, and I repeat the
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: story a lot. When I was fifteen years old. My
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: first job because my father was a truck driver. He
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: took me to get a job loading boxes. And the
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: first guys who impressed me were forkliff drivers, these black guys.
• 22:46
  Speaker 3: They were driving a forklift. Boy. There I was like,
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: I was like, my mom was dropped over. I couldn't
• 22:52
  Speaker 3: believe it.
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: And so, despite all my academic training in high school,
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: the job I wanted was to be a fork cliff driver.
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: And so when I got out of high school, I
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: became a forklift driver because that's all I wanted to be,
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: because that's all I thought I could be. But somebody
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: told you, no, you could be more than that. So
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: you've lived your life with somebody planting that sea is.
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: That's what this book about.
• 23:18
  Speaker 4: That book is about that because my mom always said
• 23:21
  Speaker 4: my mom and I talk about my children, and my
• 23:24
  Speaker 4: grandkids probably get sick of me saying what Mama told me.
• 23:27
  Speaker 4: Mama said, do the best you can what you have,
• 23:30
  Speaker 4: and whatever that is, you know you can always do
• 23:33
  Speaker 4: better if you just keep looking for keep your eyes
• 23:36
  Speaker 4: on the prize, keep looking. She said, don't be like me,
• 23:40
  Speaker 4: And I thought, Mama, what's wrong with you? She said,
• 23:43
  Speaker 4: don't allow somebody else to always have to hand you something.
• 23:47
  Speaker 4: She said, don't put yourself, she said, I want my
• 23:49
  Speaker 4: girls to have something for themselves. I always want you
• 23:53
  Speaker 4: to have something for yourself. And that always stayed with me.
• 23:57
  Speaker 4: And I remember my first husband said to me once that, well,
• 24:00
  Speaker 4: what are you gonna What do you want to go
• 24:02
  Speaker 4: get a job for. I said, I have a child
• 24:05
  Speaker 4: to take care of. And he said but and I thought,
• 24:09
  Speaker 4: but you're.
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: Not worthing me. You know, I'm gone.
• 24:12
  Speaker 4: And not only that, I said, God gave me gifts
• 24:16
  Speaker 4: that I must share, right, you know, and I'm going
• 24:19
  Speaker 4: to share the gift of my hands and my talent
• 24:21
  Speaker 4: and all these things. I'm going to get out of
• 24:23
  Speaker 4: here and go to work and I will never ever
• 24:26
  Speaker 4: My mother said, have something for yourself, and I thought,
• 24:29
  Speaker 4: I'm never going to have to. I'm not going to
• 24:31
  Speaker 4: depend on somebody else.
• 24:33
  Speaker 3: I'm going to ask you this question.
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: At eighteen years of age, you left the house, right, okay,
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: and you spend a dominant amount of your life not
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: in your father's house. Why is the name of your
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: book Daddy's House?
• 24:45
  Speaker 4: Because I mean, even when I left that house, when
• 24:49
  Speaker 4: I would go back to that house and Also when
• 24:52
  Speaker 4: my mother passed, we always said, we go into Daddy's house.
• 24:56
  Speaker 4: And I still see in that house. I was the
• 24:58
  Speaker 4: first of those seventeen children born in that house, and
• 25:03
  Speaker 4: it's still standing today. And when we and I have
• 25:06
  Speaker 4: three siblings who have built a house on the property
• 25:10
  Speaker 4: that I grew up on, and my parents left us
• 25:13
  Speaker 4: acreage on that property. So for you, at Christmas time
• 25:18
  Speaker 4: or Thanksgiving time, we go to Daddy's house, you know,
• 25:21
  Speaker 4: and we still call it Daddy's house. I call it
• 25:23
  Speaker 4: Daddy's house because that was very fond to me. And
• 25:26
  Speaker 4: actually a book person told me, well, I don't like
• 25:31
  Speaker 4: the name Daddy's house. And I said, I do you know.
• 25:34
  Speaker 4: I like the name of Daddy's house. And then I like,
• 25:36
  Speaker 4: you know what comes after that?
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: Well, I think it's important to tell your story. I
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: can question it. I can question it. I've been fortunate
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: in my life to be a storyteller. I like to
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: tell people I am a storyteller because I hear so
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: many stories. And I see you read so many different books,
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: and and but what I can read books about motivation,
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: I go, I do that. I can read books about
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: planning and goals. I said, I do that. But I
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: can't when I read this book, this is your fuck.
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: I wasn't in daddy's house. I was not picking college.
• 26:08
  Speaker 3: You were.
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: Nobody drove me to a school. In fact, my father
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: didn't want me to go to college.
• 26:12
  Speaker 3: You know.
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: He wanted my sisters to go to college because he
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: thought that was what they were.
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: Supposed to do.
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: But he thought I should be doing manual label. That
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: was the house I grew up in, and that was
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: my father's value. So I'm not upset with him because
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: I did.
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: Like you. I don't care what you do. I don't
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: care what you say. Dad. I'm going to college. I'm
• 26:30
  Speaker 3: going to do this.
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: And I need to understand why I was going to
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: college because a teacher saw something in me and pushed
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: me to go to college after I made a commit
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: the commitment to be a fuck lyft driver.
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: And so that's what that's what my dream. I was
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: gonna mean, what else is there? Right? Right?
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: Because that's all I knew. But so many people see
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: things in you that goes beyond that. So as you
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: go through life, I know in your book there's a
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: there's a pimp in your life, and there was a
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: lead to me.
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: Now I just want people to know because of you know,
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: but those are the moments when life.
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: I can tell you some stories in my life where
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: even though I didn't tell drugs, I was in drug
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: related environments, you know, and because that's what life is.
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: But as for aspiring entrepreneurs and creators, what advice do
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: you give them based on who you are and what
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: you've accomplished as a person who came from this point
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: in life, got educated, has had children, went in to
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: the direction of it, and we know they weren't.
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: Talking it on that cotton form.
• 27:41
  Speaker 4: Talk to us, having come from where I came from.
• 27:46
  Speaker 4: You know, I just say dream We're not dreaming big
• 27:50
  Speaker 4: enough some of us.
• 27:51
  Speaker 3: Right, Why do you say that?
• 27:53
  Speaker 4: I say that because, well, you didn't dream very big,
• 27:56
  Speaker 4: but something took you outside.
• 27:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah, something took you outside of that.
• 28:00
  Speaker 4: In fact, open your mind up to see something. Besides,
• 28:04
  Speaker 4: you're in the environment you're living in. How many people
• 28:07
  Speaker 4: do you know have never left their hometown? There is
• 28:11
  Speaker 4: nothing better than this. Well, you know, I'm a very
• 28:14
  Speaker 4: curious woman. I was a very curious girl. I wanted
• 28:17
  Speaker 4: to see things. I read books. I wanted to know, well,
• 28:19
  Speaker 4: what is there besides what's going on right now.
• 28:22
  Speaker 3: So what I would say to.
• 28:23
  Speaker 4: Those aspiring entrepreneurs, don't listen to the naysayers. Go get
• 28:28
  Speaker 4: it if you have a dream, but don't expect somebody
• 28:31
  Speaker 4: else to pay for your dreams.
• 28:33
  Speaker 3: You know, here's the thing.
• 28:34
  Speaker 4: There are a lot of people who have dreams and
• 28:36
  Speaker 4: they want you to finance their dreams.
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: I'm saying, I've got dreams, but.
• 28:40
  Speaker 4: I got off my backside and I worked my tail
• 28:42
  Speaker 4: off to make sure that I could I could put
• 28:45
  Speaker 4: the bill for my dreams. So I just say, get
• 28:48
  Speaker 4: up and don't allow anybody to take your dream away
• 28:52
  Speaker 4: from you.
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: She's the author of Daddy's House, a dollar's memoir of setbacks, triumphs,
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: and rising aboffer roots. I don't speak with Mildred Jay Mills. Mildred,
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: this is not the only book in your life.
• 29:04
  Speaker 3: No, it isn't. Yeah books coming up in the future,
• 29:07
  Speaker 3: I do.
• 29:08
  Speaker 4: I have a book entitled The Hope Club, and it
• 29:12
  Speaker 4: is about the impact of incarceration on families, especially children.
• 29:18
  Speaker 4: And I'm writing this book because, in fact, it's now
• 29:21
  Speaker 4: with an editor writing this book because my grandchildren are
• 29:25
  Speaker 4: Two of my grandchildren are impacted by this, and I've
• 29:28
  Speaker 4: seen what such a life can do to children. I mean,
• 29:33
  Speaker 4: first it breaks up a family and then secondly, you know,
• 29:36
  Speaker 4: it just takes a parent away. I mean, there are
• 29:38
  Speaker 4: many ways that a parent can leave, but when they're
• 29:40
  Speaker 4: behind those bars and the only way they can see
• 29:42
  Speaker 4: them is through this plexiglass or whatever clanet glass. So
• 29:46
  Speaker 4: it puts a lot of strain on other people in
• 29:50
  Speaker 4: the life, especially that parent that's left behind, sometimes a grandparent,
• 29:53
  Speaker 4: sometimes aunts and uncles and all these things. But yeah,
• 29:56
  Speaker 4: I'm writing that book and I have met so many
• 30:00
  Speaker 4: people who are actually i mean nonprofit folks and all
• 30:04
  Speaker 4: kinds of people who are doing things to help re entry.
• 30:08
  Speaker 4: And I'm specifically looking at the women who are incarcerated.
• 30:13
  Speaker 3: Absolutely, And that's how can we get Daddy's House.
• 30:16
  Speaker 4: Daddy's House is available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble. In fact,
• 30:21
  Speaker 4: if you google my name, Mildary J. Mills and Daddy's House,
• 30:25
  Speaker 4: you can see where it's sold. But who doesn't have Amazon?
• 30:28
  Speaker 4: I guess lots of people have Amazon.
• 30:31
  Speaker 3: Amazon's Amazon Amazon.
• 30:34
  Speaker 4: And the thing I would love though, if you read
• 30:36
  Speaker 4: my book, and if you've read my book, please leave
• 30:38
  Speaker 4: me a review. There are lots of reviews on the
• 30:41
  Speaker 4: book and reviews help that book get noticed.
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: Absolutely. Thank you for coming on my show, Mildred. Again,
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: your stories compelling. Thank your husband for not going berserk
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: because they didn't read the book. Prime wrisen you and
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: realize now I guess what, honey, I didn't know, but
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: now I know. This is me an honest story. Ory
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: you know faith over here. Yes, thank you for coming
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: on my show, Mildred.
• 31:05
  Speaker 3: Thank you very much for having me. I greatly appreciate it.
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: This has been another edition of Money Making Conversations Masterclass
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: hosted by me Rashawn McDonald. Thank you to our guests
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: on the show today, and thank you our listening audience. Now,
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: if you want to listen to any episode I want
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: to register to be a guest on my show, visit
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: Moneymakingconversations dot com. Our social media handle is money Making Conversations.
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: Join us next week and remember to always leave with
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: your gifts. Keep winning