Decade In Review

Foreign. Conversation podcast powered by Jesse and Shondell. Shondell, you are from Bed Stuy do or Die Brooklyn.

That little town?

That's a little town that's nothing like Hawthorne, Nevada. Population 5,000 cats and dogs.

It is my pleasure right now as we get some more chairs out. Thank you, gentlemen. I appreciate your assistance. They help these nice folks that have arrived. I need you all.

Who's calling?

Well, that's what happens with the live broadcast.

It is.

That's right.

That's what happens when it's live. So once again, very quickly, I'm going to ask everyone to please take another quick opportunity to silence your cell phone. Because we're about to begin right now, ladies and gentlemen, with our first speakers. First speakers for today at the coffee and commerce.

Yes.

Decade in review. What's your new decade resolution? So this is not just New Year's resolution. Not new year, new year. This is a whole new decade. You got a whole new 10 years to get ready for. Who's ready for the next 10 years? I read somewhere that the best time to plant a tree is 100 years ago. The second best time to plant a.

Tree is right now.

So I'm asking that question again. Who's ready for the next 10 years? So to help you continue to get ready and stay ready, because you know.

What they said, you say you're ready, get ready.

I need you to start clapping right now, ladies and gentlemen, for your first speaker this evening. Do It Brothers conversation with Jesse Farrell.

Hey, y'. All. Well, before we get this started, this. We're gonna. We're going to do the plan before the plan, and the plan for the plan is, if it wasn't for Lisa Farrell, Shondell and I would just be passing in the wind. She recognized the quality of conversation whenever Shondell and I were together, created a magical thing and an energy thing that we. Shondell and I may have been tapped into, but we didn't really tune in. We took it for granted, basically.

Yeah. She'd be sitting over there crying and laughing.

What's up with her? Right? So what Shondell and I are going to do, we're going to do some impromptu things. We're also going to interrupt one another graciously. When he's excited, I want him to cut me off. And I'm excited to get to cut him off. And we always pick up each other.

Yeah, no problem with that, right?

So there we go. Can you feel it right there?

Cut him off.

We want this to be a conversation that you like. Your eavesdropping, you know when you hear that conversation, you have no business being in Shondal, but you ease your eavesdropping because it's really good.

Fly on the wall.

That's exactly what we want to create. So we've already announced what this is about, the decade thing. Let's talk about what that really means.

Man, what does that look like? 10 years?

So decade in review. What does that mean?

What that means to me is that when I started out this decade, it was amazing. I started with an Urban Chamber. 2011. I came to the urban chamber in an effort to revive and bring it back to what everybody wanted it to be. And that was one part. But the main thing that happened in my life that really changed how I look at things was my father passed away. We went back to New York and at the end of the last decade, and it was really an up and down year. The recession had just kicked off. We had a lot of things going on. People don't realize that. Don't realize that. At that time, when the church chamber asked me to come in and be in leadership, I was also in mourning. I was in mourning because my father, the patriarch of my family was, you know, he passed away. You know, he was the guy that made sure that we got out of Brooklyn.

Sure.

You heard that story many times. Grew up in Bed Stuy do or die. And 2 out of every 10 black males supposed to make it out.

Sure.

And all of my brothers made it out. How about that?

Round of applause for that one. Let me cut into what he's saying. This is a conversation about people. Yes. Every now and then we're going to focus on different segments of people and different where you've come from and all of that. But at the end of the day, I think they were all living the same lives. And we're swinging on that pendulum. And that pendulum swings both directions throughout our lives. However, the number. What do you think or do you know the answer to the number one? The largest dying segment of our population. Do you know who that is? Those who die faster and larger than others. Young black men.

Young black men. Why is that? We talked about it. We can.

We can talk about that. I don't know that they'll be as interested in the why. I think. I think there are a number of circumstances and conditions that. That help create that. I think there's some inside stuff that happens and there's some outside stuff that happens.

Well, real quick, I'm just gonna give you a quick snapshot of my father Said we become endangered because our black men don't take care of our black men. Because there are not enough black men to take care of our black men.

Fair enough.

In other words.

Yeah. Where the black men go, where they at?

Where they at? Right. Dead or in prison.

Well, let me just say this to you.

But. But we're here, right?

Right? We are here. You funny you should say we're here.

Brandon's here.

Guess what you're gonna say. Shonda says, we're here. I never saw myself getting to the age of 30.

Oh, wow. And he's from Hawthorne.

Oh, he's gonna roll the brother under the bus. Under that?

Sure am.

I wasn't even gonna go there.

I was wanting some stray horses.

See, that's what we do. That's what we do. John. Nell, don't even give you. He just pushed you under the bus. Right?

I'm talking about bad style. I'm running through the hood.

Jess, you all right under there? You okay? I see your teethus.

Yeah, Right.

That's what's up. So out. So check this. Everybody know where Hawthorne is? Okay. There you go. Raise your hand if you know what Hawthorne is. Give me an amen. If you know what Hawthorn is. Give me an amen, my brother, if you know where the lake at Hawthorne is. Right up walking lake. There it is. So check this out. It wasn't Hawthorne that did that to me. It was a number of other conditions. But Hawthorne, Hawthorne did have some validation towards that. I saw myself getting to the age of 29, and I did not have a life plan beyond 29. When I got to 30, I said two words. Oh, shucks. Well, it was another S word. Right. So I had now had to figure it out. I'm literally double that age now.

Literally.

I'm literally double the age that I ever thought. So I am 30 years into the bonus. Right on. See, life is not about what happens to you, team. All of us spend a lot of time talking about this happened to me or this is happening to me. The focus has to be, what are you going to do about what's happening? What are you going to do? Yeah, what are you going to do about what has happened or what is happening to you?

Yeah.

I think you put some energy towards what's happened so you don't lose where you've come from. You guys get that? Say yes. Yes. But the biggest focus has to be what are you going to do about it?

So, yeah, so the biggest thing for me was, like, when my father did say, you know, when he left. I had to say, okay, now I'm the patriarch of this family, so I have to be the leader. I can't. I can't.

You got to step your game up.

I got to step my game up. So I didn't get time to mourn or do anything like that. But I did get an opportunity to deal with it mentally. You know, I got some counselors and people who helped me out. And I think it's important that people understand that you're always going to have adversity, right? You're always going to have adversity. One of my favorite quotes is Dr. Martin Luther King quote, right?

Okay.

Remember that?

Tell me which one.

So the main one. When you think about what Dr. King talked about, he said the ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in times of comfort, but where he stands in times of challenge and controversy. That is stuck in Tiara's brain. That is stuck in all my kids brain for one reason.

Did you guys hear that?

Say it one more time.

But.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

One more time, brother. Say it slower this time.

I'm New Yorker, man. The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in times of comfort, but where he stands in times of challenge and controversy. That's important.

That's huge. Yeah, that's huge.

Because challenge is going to happen. Adversity is inevitable. It's going to happen. So you just have to be prepared for it. And you got to take challenges like my man Brandon Ward. Take a challenge and turn it into an opportunity, and then turn it into opportunity for others. Right? And Brandon, Brandon will tell you his story. He'll be here tomorrow. So that's a good quick plug for him. You want to come hear what he's talking about? Come see him tomorrow.

But what Shondale's saying is really huge because oftentimes when we were living these lives, we are looking at one another all the time. And there's something happening that we say that we don't want to do, but we do it all the time. What do you think of when you see someone that has a gray beard? That's down to here. Do you think? That's down to here? 12 inches, like way long. What do you think? You think what? Okay, that's a new millennial kind of thing. Did she say, I see the brother right there behind you.

He got a beard?

No, but his is trimmed.

It's not real long.

No, but that's Joe, right? Joe's trimmed his tight. Trimmed. What do you think of when you See someone standing on the corner, let's say that they are of the age of anywhere between 19 and 22, and their jeans are hanging, drifted down about the calf level, below the butt. What are you thinking?

They have no ambition.

Okay.

They want to go nowhere.

Got it. What are you thinking over here? Right. They're not going to get a job. So what we're doing is we are judging.

Judging? Yes.

We are judging. When we do that, we have to be very mindful to not judge a book by its cover.

Yes.

You guys got that?

Yes.

All the time. Yeah. Don't think you're looking into my face. And you know all about me, right? I love being a person of color.

Yeah.

You know why I love it? Because it is one of those things that if I allowed the limitations that were placed upon me growing up in the 50s and 60s, I wouldn't be sitting here today. But I refused that, just like Shondel has. Same thing. And so I say all that to say that Martin Luther King. You don't have to see the whole staircase. You just have to take the first step. Exactly.

That's faith. Right? That's real faith.

So you read. So that's. That becomes part of it. And so don't let your life be about what has happened to you.

So when I was and so reviewing this whole decade. Look at this. It's like I said, you know, starting Chamber business going down, 60% of revenues lost coming in now. Then my daughter enters, my son, my wife, my niece. Everybody comes in. Guess what happens through adversity.

Okay.

We became a stronger family.

Why became a strong family unit?

Because when. When. When all else fails, you reach out to the people who are closest to you to help you lift now. And then we got other family members.

Which meant you had to have been building that before you got there. Yeah.

But also other family members. Your Chamber family members. I know. Paula's one of my family members. I know. Danette's one of my family members. People. You're one of my family members. Love. Lisa, of course, don't get.

I get it. I get it.

But this is how we do things. And this unit and this is what we built at the Chamber. We built at the Chamber over the last decade. A family. People don't realize we built a strong family. This is why we are lifting up. Because now everybody who has the same issues, the same concerns, the same challenges, we came together and we brought it back.

And you know what Shonda's actually saying with that word? What he's saying is something he and I have not had this conversation, but a lot of times our thoughts are spot on. He's talking about the power of the village.

Yes.

They say it takes a village to raise a community child, right? Yeah. It takes an international village. So what he's talking about is the power of the village. In the book how you leave them feeling, I write about the power of the village. It's my favorite. Chapter nine, you will get to where you're going because of the people that you connect yourself with and who you're surrounding.

So I'm gonna. I'm gonna take you back on the history. So when Paula was on the board, we had Jess come out and speak to the Urban Chamber. 2011, 2012. We brought him out to talk about how you leave them feeling. And that was, again, another foundation of how we come together as a family. It's all about how you leave them feeling. Think about the emotional connection that I said, Ramon Savoy, because he reached out and said, hey, I want to do a story about your family.

Nice.

That is a connection. And then that. That built on a relationship that we have to this day. I look at him as a mentor. I look at him as a father figure. I look at him as a person that I can go to and really help me to grow Absolutely. In those times of challenges. So even he may not know it, but when my father passed away, I sought out other people like Ramon, like some of the other people. And some of them might, at this time, people might see as controversial, like Louis Overstreet and others. But you know what? Everybody adds something.

Always.

Everybody adds something to your life. I think people sometimes, because there are friction and things like that, I don't run away from that. I always seek out wisdom. So the dude with the long, gray beard, I'm looking for him, right? I'm looking for him.

That's interesting. He says that because I was actually. I want to come back to that. I have this program called my pick a stranger program. So I pick a stranger that I don't know, and I seek to do something to improve that stranger, whether it's buy the. Buy it. Buy them coffee, and don't put my name on it. You're at the movies and you buy their pop. Hey, you see that person in the back? They've got large popcorn and two sodas. Let me pay for that, but let me get out of the way. I don't want them to see me. So I'm driving down Charleston, and I see my. Oh, there's my stranger. He's Sitting in the thinkers pose. You know what the thinker's pose is? Say yes. Yes. He's sitting in the thinker's pose. And he's sitting outside of Carl's Jr.

Right.

All I got him, thick locks of curly gray hair, ice cold blue eyes. Oh, I'm going to get him. I walk up to this stranger and I said, excuse me, sir, do you need any money? What he said to me affected me for a solid week and changed how I do things.

Wow.

He said this to me calmly. Looks up, everybody needs a little money sometime. That's not what I meant. What I meant was, can I help you with something? Right. That's what I really meant. I go inside. He did shake me up. I buy myself a burger. I buy him a burger. I put $6 in a bag. I put it. I walk outside, I give it to him and I drive away. And it took me a whole week to get myself reconciled from that lesson. The lesson was don't walk up to people and think, you know, what they want or need. You know, ask.

Big mistake. Yeah.

What if he. What if all he needed was a hug or handshake or just a conversation? It wasn't on me to decide what he needed because of how he looked. I've never made that mistake again since then. That's good. So the highly than feeling concept, real short. It came from being on a coaching session with a Canadian client, very powerful client. And he was really hammering his vice president of marketing. And I could see it. And I began to help him with it, but he kept cutting me off. So I stopped talking. 42 minutes later, he says, are you still there? I said, yes. He said, well, what do you think? I said, well, I think if you really want to create an incentive to help people with what they want or need or what you want or need, it's about how you leave them feeling. Yes.

For real.

And then I got off the phone. I wanted to hurry up and find that book. I wanted to get him the book. And I couldn't find the book. I know it's got to be a book called how youw Leave Them Feeling. It's not there. So then I think about my village. Who can write the book so I can get it to my client? I get. No, no, no. Holy smokes. I'm supposed to write that book. And that's where. And that's where it came from. Who do you think was the first person to buy that book?

Me.

No, that guy.

Why didn't I buy it first? You told me I didn't know.

But I didn't know you yet. You my second. So that particular guy, he bought the first 2,500 copies.

Nice.

And he invested $14,000. And he never knew that he was the concept that the book was built around.

Wow.

He might. Now he's watching.

Now he knows. But. But. So that's the concept. So let's get into this in terms of this decade review. So you've given your decade review, and so what do we want our folks in here to gain from what you've given us?

So let me tell you about the decade in review. And I say this many, many times, so if you heard this before, I apologize. But I always say, you know, you look in the rearview mirror for perspective, and you look into the windshield for focus and opportunity. So what you do is in your decade in review, make it a snapshot. Because when you drive, you don't drive like this, right? You don't look in your rearview mirror because you run into somebody going forward or you have a terrible wreck. So what I say all the time is glance in your rearview mirror, look at the perspective, look at where you came from, look at what God has done for you. And then you look forward, look into the windshield and look at the focus and opportunities that you have. Don't let things like procrastination. Don't let things like other people. The worst thing you can do is have the wrong people around you. Let me just tell you. And you know, and I'm hoping. I'm hoping my youngest son is listening to this, because I. You know what I always give him. This is my youngest son, always tell me, well, Dad, I can't believe this girl did this to me, and this girl did this to me, and this girl did this to me. And I said, because you keep dating the same girl, right? He said, what you mean? No, they different. I said, no, no, they're the same girl, right?

Same profile.

One of them kicks you out, one of them burns your clothes, one of them steals your money. That's the problem. They're the same, but they're the same girl. That's the same chick.

You Shawn's son. I'm sorry. No, no.

Hey, listen. They know they're fair game. They know they're fair game. That's why Tiarra messed up that much.

You watching? I'm sorry.

I'll put you on blast. But my point is this.

If you. If Tiara's in the back going, don't you go there. Oh, yeah.

No, no. She learned quickly when she had that bad boyfriend. She got rid of him quick. My father hooked him back up again.

But let me tell you, whole nother story. Whole nother story, that's another podcast, right?

But the biggest thing you have to understand is sometimes you have to pay attention to what's happening. It may not be that other person. It is you. So you know, I've been married twice. I have Arlene right now, My soulmate, my family, my wonderful wife. The second. Yeah, right now. Right now I'm married to Arlene. Arlene, right.

Arlene. I'm married and for life, babe. We love you, girl.

She already on the. She already cussing on this podcast. He wait till I talk to him. And you know, the biggest thing you got to see is when I was married, before I sat down and I was complaining to my grandmother. My grandmother, God blessed her, God bless her. She was from South Carolina, but she lived in Brooklyn for 40 years and never lost her accent. And she said, baby, let me tell you something. I said, grandma, something, boy. I said, what I say, right? She said, let me tell you something. You know, all of the women's that you could have talked to in New York City, you picked the one that you can't get along with. She said, there are millions of people and a lot of girls you've been going out with, church girls, all this, but you chose that one that you could have kids with in high school, and it caused you this whole thing. So you are the one to blame because you made bad decisions, right? I said, whoa, that was my old moment. I can't cuss right now because I know Pastor Falua, but that was that moment where I woke up and said, you know what? I'm accountable for everything that I do if I make a bad decision with bad people. And I, you know what? I was a teenage father. I can't blame that on anybody else. It took two to tango, right? I don't care what she did. It was something that I did that got me involved with her.

Right? Fair enough.

And yeah, for many years I had.

To deal with, ultimately turned out to be a blessing and a good thing. But to Shondell's point, whenever we make mistakes in life, what typically happens when someone makes a mistake and the bigger the mistake, the bigger the what? Yes, but most people don't take it that way. Most people take those things personally and they allow it to affect them. And typically that'll affect your self esteem, that'll affect your confidence, that'll affect your next actions. Whenever we lose in Life. You said it best. We don't want to lose the lesson.

Yes.

You got to do something with that lesson.

I understand that.

You know, I heard it said that whenever you stand at the top of the mountain, you want to throw a little dirt in the valley to cushion the fall. See, because life is always this for all of us. And I don't care how much money you have. Yeah. Or don't have. I can tell you if you don't have any money, you're going to have some problems. If you have all the money in the world, you're still going to have some problems. Okay. Everyone's going to be tested to be resolved. Be resolving something. You want to get very, very good at resolving problems.

Yes.

Because they keep coming. Am I right? Yeah.

Yeah. And you. And you have to have a focus. You really have. And I know it's tough for everybody.

To really shift that focus is. So when you talk about. Have to have a focus. Now we're talking about you want to set the standard. You want, you want.

You want change the game.

Yeah. And you want do something new. Something new. God, where'd that slip out? That was a slip.

My bad.

My bad. You could take the boy out of the hood, but you can't take the hood out of the boy.

That's right.

We both come from the hood. His hood's a little different than my hood.

Yeah, yeah. Mine don't have cattle running around.

Oh, but the cattle spoke standard English.

That's true. You're right.

You're right. Hey, let's go there.

That dude right there, man. I tell you.

So my mother, to Shondell's point. Let me defend Shondell because he's my boy. Boy in a good way. My mother calls me when she was alive across town in Vegas. 14 miles a baby. The baby thing. Baby, baby. You got extra answering machine. I go. I think I do. I drive it across town 14 miles. I lay it out. Answer machine is for what purpose? When people call, what's it for? Right. You're not available. Correct.

Right.

So I put the outgoing message on it. We listened to it. My mother, Southern sister from the South, Louisiana. Or as they say, Louisana. Okay. She crosses her arms. She smacks her lips. Mm. Can't. You sound more black than that?

I can see that. I see you with a wig on looking like your mama.

I can see. I said, mother, you have five other very black children. Okay. If you want this to sound more black than this, I highly recommend you call one of them. I said, because my Understanding is these devices are for anybody that calls, not just black people, to know you're unavailable. I said, I am not going to rerecord that. I said, and quite frankly, let me tell you something. When I was a child, I had to move where the family went, and they moved to a predominantly white area. My mother and father did this to me. So you might want to get over and call one of your other black children. I'm driving home, and every mile I get madder and madder. I'm sick and tired of black people.

Telling me I'm not black enough and.

White people telling me, you're not black, you're not black. You're like us. You're like, whoa, wait a minute. I'm just who I am, who I am. I get home and I spit up on the page. I'm like, I'm letting it all. Put it down. Wait, let me call it something Black on black prejudice. I put it down. I wake up the next day reading this now saying, wait a minute, this is kind of good. I swear to God, I said, this is kind of good. You could literally put any oppression in there. Indian, South African, Mexican, Hispanic, red hair, nice figure, whatever. You could put it in here and just replace the black on black. And it fits. I call up the rj. I said, listen, I just wrote an article I think your people need to read. I sent them that article. One draft they printed in the next Sunday paper. Double truck ad. A double truck ad is when they printed on both sides black on black prejudice. I have never defended how I sound since then.

Yes. And you know, one thing I'm glad Jess bring that up, because here's one thing that I'm making as even not necessarily a resolution, but a promise. One thing that I'm going to promise to do is to help black folks understand that if we are actually the first people on earth, then we should not be monolithic. Because some people have kind of put us in a box and said, this is how you should sound. This is how you should look.

Some of our own people. Yeah.

And probably. And you know what's funny is, as I'm reading a book again, Tiara and I are reading a book by. Help me out. What is it? David L. Stewart. Right. David L. Stewart has a book called Doing Business by the Good Book. If you don't know David L. Stewart, he owns Worldwide technologies. In the 70s, he created his business. Last year, it went over $10 billion. He actually sponsors NASCAR races and everything. So the guy is very, very successful. African American and he said one of the biggest detractors from him going into the it business, because they said it was a white business, right? The. One of the biggest detractors were African Americans. And I said, well, why would we do that to him when he's trying to grow? Because people are afraid of the unknown. People are afraid of going to places where they're like, oh, no, that's not for you.

Even if it's good for them.

Even if it's good for them. Because I'll tell you one thing, my grandmother thought my grandmother like, baby. And again, remember, she's from South Carolina. She grew up, you know, in the early 20s and 30s and 40s and stuff like that. And she said, I don't want you to go out there on the west because, you know, they killing all them Indians and guess, you know, they might lynch you when you get out there. I just don't want you out there. And I said, wow, that is really. But that's her perspective, and that's really how people think. That's their perspective. And so I'm giving people advice. Like, this is like, look, open up. Because we have a global thing going on here at the chamber. We are very, very global. We're focused on the world. We have one of our members who is helping the NBA to expand out in Africa. We got people who are going to Australia. We got people going to different places. What I want people to think about in the next decade is not think of African Americans as this. As this group of people who all grew up in the South. I don't want you to think of us like that because they have slaves everywhere, right? They have slaves in many different places. But what I want you to think about is open up your mind to the greatness, especially those of you who are of African descent. Think of the greatness that you can actually be and not limit yourself based on that greatness. Then I want other people. When you look at an African American, I don't want you to look at the dude with the saggy pants, because that's not where we came from. Don't look at the person who was out creating mischief. I want you to think about the people who are the great people who happen to be African American. I want you to think about the Paul Robesons. I want you to think about the worldwide technologies and David Stewart. I want you to think about the Shondal Newsoms, because we are going to be great despite all of the challenges that have come against us. So that's what I think is the next decade for the me is we're going to another level of greatness. And that's, that's, that's all, that's all I could think about.

Well, no, I appreciate that, Shyanal and I know that.

I know we got time. We're going down to like three or four minutes.

Okay. So I want. Let's. Let's open it up to our audience then. And is there anything that you've heard that's resonate. Resonated with you, that can actually serve you, or do you have any comments or questions for us in the back?

I've always been different in my family, but I don't mind people put me in a box. I'll think for myself. Don't tell me how to vote. Don't tell me where I should go live. Don't tell me what kind of job I should have. Cuz I want to do what God put inside of me to go do. And if it's following somebody, I listen on people who are very smart. I want to learn from them. I don't care where you from.

Right, right.

I want to learn. I talk with guys who were in a, in a home. Idea what it was like back then.

Nice.

What it was like for.

Because that gives you additional perspectives. Right. What's your first name? Let's give Greg a round of applause on that. Good. Next. This is David, right?

David Thomas. Christian kind of talked about what he was saying over here. I'm from Waukegana, Illinois, about 40 minutes from Chicago. I went down to Mississippi in 2014 to college HBCU to get my bachelor's degree.

Okay.

When I decided to go down to HBCU in Mississippi, my family was like.

Oh, don't go down there.

Right. Gonna get you.

They gonna do all this. I decided to take that step, go down there. I got my bachelor's, I came back to teach now then I moved over here to the west coast to teach. And I grew up in a community with Hispanics and blacks. And I tell my students all the time, since we're predominantly Latino and African American school, I let them know, you're in the same. You're in the same boat. So don't think you're better than the next person. You got to uplift each other.

Yeah.

Good job.

That's perfect. Round of applause for that. Thank you, David. Because. Because. Because we're all in this together. Yes, we're all in this together.

Another one, Shondell, said that it's not enough black women taking care of black men and you know, I'm just a big proponent of that because I feel like we're the most influential. And I feel like just one of us can make, you know, so many different lives change. And we need to be aware of that when we tap into that energy. And we need to really get out our messages and really reach to, hopefully, youth, because that's. That's the foundation of where we're headed in the future.

Let's give Brennan a round of applause on that one. Don't lose your thought. Don't lose the thought.

Because, you know, one of the things I want everybody to understand what that means, because here's the thing. And it's been this way since the 70s. It's been this way since the 70s. People got mad at me on KCP one time because I said, we have to stop. We have to stop normalizing or making it normal for us to praise black women for being single mothers and just so black women. So you understand. I was a single father with four kids, so I understand what you're going through, but stop praising and start doing something about it, because that is actually a tragedy. And that's why the stats are hitting the way they are. Only out of. In the United States of America, only 2 out of every 10 household has a black father in it. Only 2 out of 10. And that. That is a tragedy. And it has been that way for over 50 years.

And the biggest component that he's saying is that affects all of us. That affects the people. You had a thought you want to share?

Oh, I just wanted to share that. I think it really does take a village. And I think it is very important that you stand on your own ground and where you are with God. When I left the Nebraska, everybody told me not to leave Nebraska. When I moved to Utah, I had seven phone calls, eight phone calls on the way there. Don't go there.

Thought, wow.

And I shouldn't have, but.

But you learned something from that experience.

And that's the thing, is if I would have stopped in the move and stuff, I would have known not to go there. My car broke down on the north and south side of Vegas. There were all kinds of things telling me not to go there.

In other words, follow your intuition and.

Follow yourself and just get quiet and listen to yourself and quit listening to the people around you because they're always going to give their view. Not yours.

Say your first name.

My name is Dawn.

Dawn just made a very, very huge point.

Point.

Get quiet. I know we have to wind this down, but let me Ask you guys this. Get quiet by a round of applause. How many of you ever take moments like 5, 10, 20, 30 minutes out of the day to do absolutely nothing? No sound, no music, no nothing? Right? But it. But it takes some work to get quiet and listen right within. So that's really huge, Don. So that's a very, very good point.

Well, now I feel like I should give you guys another point because when.

You should get quiet, but when you.

Should get quiet is in the morning when you wake up and at night before you go to bed. Because that's when your realm and your subconscious comes to work and comes out. So don't go to your phone. Don't do anything for a half hour after you wake up.

Don. The only correction I'll put on that is I believe the people that I get the opportunity to serve. I believe this. Don. Nobody likes to be shit on. I'm not going to tell you what you should and shouldn't do because nobody likes to be shit on. Yeah, we don't. What Don is saying as a recommendation, right. You have an opportunity of choice, and the choice that she's recommending is that. And I agree with her because we do morning silence, midday silence, and evening silence. We literally do it three times a day.

Well, it's hard. It's hard when you got grandkids around. I'm just telling you.

No, you walk. No, no, you walk outside.

No, they follow you.

You take a trip around the block.

They follow you.

I got two. All right. Okay. But so I know we have to close. We have to close to be on time.

Okay.

If Shondell and I could literally do what. This is what we call the short of an hour. But with the five minute hour, that's when you're having a conversation and it's a two way conversation, not just people speaking ads. And the dialogue is so good between the two of you that the hour that you think it's really. It feels like five minutes. It's an hour and it's gone. So we want to close it so it can be respectful of the other speakers and their time and timing and all of that. What's your closing point? I'll have a closing point.

You go first and then we'll wrap it up. So my closing point is make sure that you are always looking at the perspective and looking at the opportunity and focus. Don't get stuck in the past. Don't get stuck in what happened. Focus on what you can do to change the world.

I like that. And take that what Chandel says about the focus on what you can do, which a lot of you already know. Don't listen like you already know this. Listen like it's new so that you can do something different with it. And I would say this is life is the most meaningful parts of life is all about relationships.

Relationships. Come on, man, get it right. It's in my book.

I know realtionships. But you wrote that book and I wrote this one.

This book is R E A F.

So it ain't in mine, it's in yours.

I'm gonna have to do it. You got a typo in it.

Okay, fair enough. So Shondale's real relationships. And it's true. When I taught at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, I was fortunate to teach there for six years. And every semester, the very first day, I would say to my class, if you're in my class, just to get an A, step up to the podium, get the A, and never come back to my class again, I don't want to see you. I want you to get the lesson. And the first lesson I want to give you is getting a college education is not all. It's what it's all about. That's 17, 18, 19, 20. That's what you believe. I said I want you to get some relationships. I say it's better to be related than simply college educated. Good deal. Get a wife, get a boyfriend, get a husband, get a best friend. Reconnect with your father, your mother, your aunt. Build relationships. Because when you get out there, you need to know how to play well in the sandbox with others. There you go. You guys got that?

Got it.

How about an amen?

Amen.

All right, what do we do?

Social media. How do you reach us? You reach us on I'm at some newmarketing.com and Shondell Newsom. You can hit me up on any of the platforms.

Yeah. And so with us with justtalk.com j, e s s t a l k dot com, we're going to leave a series of cards here in case you guys want some to reach out for further communication or whatever. You can also catch us on YouTube. You can catch us on Facebook for sure. And Shawn, Del, and Lisa and I always close our programs with a signature program. By the way, we want you to subscribe to our podcast even if you don't listen all the time. Go and subscribe. You know, even if you pretend like you listen. Now, I know you listen, but listen for a minute and hang up. We don't know, but get some. So go, go subscribe. And that'll be on there too. So we like to close with this. At the end of the day, no matter how you're living your life now, if you really want to evolve and progress and pursue a life by design, not a life by happenstance, one that you're actually design designing, it's all about.

How you leave the feeling. Thank you. All right. Thank you for the time.

Sa.