Leadership In These Uncertain Times

Welcome to our Brothers in 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. Lawrence, you're looking good, sir. You're looking good.

Thank you, sir. I got a hat on today. As you can see, my social distancing have kept me from my barber.

That's right.

Okay. Thursday, March 19, 2020 Episode 22 this is Brothers in Conversation. I'm Jesse Farrell. And you are?

Shondell Newsome.

Shondell Newsom. Shondell. We got a super special guest today. Our special guest is Lawrence Weekly. Lawrence, say hello if you can real quickly.

What's up, everybody? Good morning.

Now I'm gonna read some stuff. Try not to fall asleep on this because I want to read a little bit about your bio. I could actually. I could be reading. I could be reading six weeks of Lawrence Weekly on this bio. It is very serious. I'm just gonna start here. No. Congratulations. Lawrence Winkley, Commissioner, is the very first African American to chair the Las Vegas Convention Visitor Authority. That's big.

That's huge.

That's a big job. I was there.

I was there when he got that. I was so pumped.

I was there.

So outstanding. What was the heaviest part about that load that you carried on that one, Commissioner?

Well, I think, you know, first it was an honor to even have the public and the private sector to even have that vote of confidence in me. Shondell's absolutely right. He was there in the audience. He saw how it all unfolded. But you know, what's interesting about it, Jess, is that although I am the first African American to serve as chairman, I believe that I am the only elected official to have served in every leadership capacity. I came on, I was the secretary, then I was selected as the treasurer, and then I became the vice chairman, and then I became the president of the board, so. And then I am one of only two people whom have ever served a four year term. Oscar Goodman was the only other person that had done that.

Do you mind if I give you a standing ovation on that one right there? Wow. You know what, Lawrence? That's more powerful than anything on this sheet that I haven't even started reading yet.

Listen, but please don't read all.

Don't read any of that.

Let's talk about the good stuff because I appreciate you brothers so very much for embracing me and welcoming me in on your brotherhood conversation. You started out the question in reference to what was one of the most heaviest loads. And I can tell you that I thought it would be. When we started talking about the expansion of the convention center and it was presented to me as the president of the board, I don't know how we're going to come up with $1.2 billion. You know, we looked at all the shows that we had coming in from context, Kane, to the magic show, to the. What's the big one in January? Come on, help me. Chandella. What you call it? Yeah. Yes, that one. That. The big one. You know, we started looking at all of the revenue that we were generating, and we were falling real, real short. And with the opposition, of course, that we had against us, you know, it was kind of like, well, we're gonna have to take this to the legislature. And I thought then, wow, on my watch, there's going to be pie on my face, because I don't know if we're going to be able to pull it off. But thank you to our Nevada state legislature, who saw fit, and the governor at that time, we had Governor Sandoval, who at that time saw fit to help us move this project forward. And so what I then thought would be the heaviest load for me became a blessing. We were able to go to the legislature, and they unanimously approved us for that expansion project. And so what you see happening out there right now, Shantel, you truly was a witness to that is something that I will always remember and cherish for the rest of my life.

Well, Lawrence, let me. First off, that's an exceptional share. I tell you, the best part of what I love what you just shared is you said what you thought was going to be the biggest challenge of your life. Ultimately came the biggest blessing of your life.

Yes.

Yeah.

So. So that's. That's actually a solid metaphor for leadership during these uncertain times. When we talk about this whole coronavirus thing that's. That's attacking globally or this in front of us globally, it feels for a lot of people. We'll get into that in a second. But about how people are responding more. More importantly, reacting to this, People feel like the world is coming to an end.

You.

Yeah.

Oftentimes, if you go back and if the three of us were to go back into our personal and professional lives and you look at your biggest growth spurts ever that you've ever experienced, likely there was a major challenge just preceding that. Your thoughts?

You know, Jess, you're spot on. But as I travel around my community here in southern Nevada and I talk to some of my colleagues up in northern Nevada. People are just very concerned.

Yes.

You can call it fear, you can call it panicking, you can call it whatever it is. There are so many people, and I'm gonna go ahead and say it, there are so many people that do not trust politics and do not trust government. Let's just be real.

I agree.

When you see something like this and then you start seeing casualties and then when you start seeing pictures from around the world where you see so many people who have lost their lives, it really drums up a lot of concern. And so the big thing for me that I'm still trying to figure out is I understand water and I understand having a supply of things in your home. Vegetables and certain things that you'd be able to eat non perishable items. What I'm not understanding is why so much toilet paper? Right. I don't get that either. I know as we ingest food, you know, is going to have to come out one way or the other. But it's just that part there that just drives me crazy.

What that is, I think what that is, is I think that's playing. And unfortunately, as human beings, we can start this monkey see, monkey do campaign.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And so that, that became someone's biggest concern and that got perpetuated out there. And it's. And it's. And it's run off the charts. There are many things we can do for the lack of toilet paper, like towels that you can also wash and so forth. So there's so much more that we can do. But I think the biggest thing Shondell and Lawrence is this. I think the biggest thing is the unknown. When people are in a situation where they don't. People like knowing. In fact, it even goes to our habits. Our habits. Even when we have bad habits, we keep them because we know what they are. Oftentimes we know what we need to do to improve our conditions. Whether it's health or safety or relationships or job or whatever. Sometimes we stay frozen and stuck in our habits because that's what we know.

And I'll tell you what.

Yeah.

Because you know, when you talk about leadership in uncertain times, you know, I've watched over the years and even, even from early on with the city council, I've watched weekly be in some very uncomfortable positions but he and on an island by himself. So again, it goes back to that, you know, quote that I love the most by Dr. King is the ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in times of comfort and convenience. But where he stands in times of challenge and controversy and what happens with a person like Weekly is if you're. And we got a lot of similarities in that way, is that there's so much challenge and controversy that it becomes what people think is easy for us to deal with, but it's not so easy. And if you ask our wives, our wives probably sit back and say, boy, those guys get on my nerves, some of the stuff that happens. And I want to share something with you because I kept something that Weekly's going to be surprised by. And I waited for this show, and this is something that I was so proud of. This is a leadership moment that I love with Commissioner Weekly. I'm going to let him talk about it because this. To allow himself to become vulnerable and talk about his personal life showed more leadership than anything with the lvcva, with anything else. I was so impressed with this dude. I didn't care what he did. I didn't care what happened. I was Team Weekly.

And where was that spoken at? This piece that he was speaking to.

I believe this was at the culinary academy. I think this particular where he was talking about him being adopted, and he went through. I mean, it was just amazing. And then last year, like, going through the thing with his brother passing away and then Tyrone passing, and people don't realize that we still have lives. Even though you sit as a public figure in this big seat, you still have a life as a person. And he opened up as a person, which I think was the biggest leadership move. I'm forever impressed with this guy.

Let me hear your thoughts on that, Lawrence. I'd love to hear what you have to say about.

Well, I appreciate you saying that, Shawn. Adele, that means a lot to me. 2018 started out as. 2018 was a very rough year for me. It was. But I just give all glory to God and thank God so very much for helping me survive and get through it. It wasn't easy. I crumbled. I'm not gonna lie. I crumbled starting in 2018. But Jess and Shonda will tell you that this type of job that this community have afforded me to have, it doesn't allow you to 100% crumble. You still have to put that face on, and you still have to go out there and you still have to do the job through all of your pain and through everything that you're suffering through, you have to suffer through it. And that's really unfortunate because, you know, people expect you to still stand up and be strong and still in the Face of a storm, you still have to be able to, as they say, push through. And so for me, you know, me talking about my upbringing, Jess, I mean, we could sit here and we could talk about, you know, a bit about my upbringing.

I can't wait to talk about it. I won't go too deep with your. At the right time. Yes.

Yes, sir. Yes, sir. It was a really a surprise to a lot of folks. I have been carrying that burden on. On me since I was a little boy finding out that I was adopted, but I was so afraid.

You didn't find out as a little boy, though, did you?

I found out at about the age of 10.

Okay. And let me say something else that you say. You talked about crumbling and so forth.

Yes.

Something that's really powerful. And I'm going to paraphrase this. You both have probably heard it. You and Shondell and people like us are not afforded the privilege of being average. You are not avoided the privilege of being average. You have got to shine and power through, even when you're brought to your knees. What was the number one thing, if you can share, if not, at another time that you said you crumbled in 2018, what brought you to your knees?

Well, what really hurt me was that when I went through a situation with the lvcba, that really hurt me so bad because it had always been my prayer to God that I could serve in office and do the best I can. I came in the office not having anything. I came in office with student loans with all kind of, you know, I didn't have anything. Actually, my spouse's credit was way better than my credit. I had no credit.

Right.

You both, who are businessmen, will tell all of our folks out here, especially our young, naive individuals, citizens out here who don't know better. Like I was in that position, having no credit is worse than having bad credit.

Right, Right.

Exactly. And so, you know, I really started out on a really. It was kind of an ignorant side of the road for me because I just was not in that environment where I was taught to learn how to establish credit or anything like that. And so when I went through that period with the lbcba, you know, I felt like I had let my whole community down. I felt like I let so many people down. And it was so me trying to get out and explain to people. Someone came to me and said, lawrence, don't do it, because you look defensive. You look like you're admitting to guilt. And I says, well, I don't understand. How do I tell my side of the story, because God knows I had no idea. Everybody around me and even they report reported that, no, he really didn't know. But I got drugged through the mud because I actually spoke up on behalf of a gentleman that I still in my heart believe is a standup guy. I think, had it not been for him when Nevada went through our first. When we went through that big recession, what was it? Shonda 060808 yeah. Yeah. This guy just really, really, really took Nevada, took Las Vegas particularly, to a whole nother level. And me serving as his president of his board, I saw another side of him and I stood up for him. And as a result of that, I suffered the consequences of that. My credibility was questioned. Drug that hurt me really, really bad because here I am, having been in office now going on 20 years. You know, my goal was I wanted to do it right. I wanted to have one of those political careers that when I leave my legacy would be, well, hell, he didn't change the world, and he didn't do everything I thought he could have done, but he did his very best and he stood up for things that he thought was right for not just himself, but for the greater good of Nevada, being a native. And that just kind of crushed me, man.

So you're saying. So there was a whole push on your credibility when you were doing the best that you could on authenticity and integrity, and you were being challenged for.

For.

You didn't get it because you're giving them integrity, you're giving them authenticity, you're working hard, you're working smart, and you were still being rolled under the bus. That was the thing that bothered you.

Just, you know, for me, you know, I signed up for the job. And at one. At one time, I was serving as chairman of the board of six boards. Six boards at one time for four years. Wow. I don't know any other elected official who can, and I challenge them right now. I don't know any other elected official who can, who can. 100% say they chaired six boards at one time. That's four years. Yeah, I did that. And people said, you're crazy as hell. You don't have any money. I says, well, I've never been rich anyway. I came into the world an indigent child. So all my needs and my wants, I believe, will come from who I believe, at the end of the day, have all the answers. That's kind of how I live. That's. That was my philosophy. That's how I live my life. And that's kind of how I went about in this position that I'm in.

That's powerful. That's very powerful, Lawrence. I'll get Shondell to weigh in on this, but I'll say this. As I listen to you and I hear this, which I wasn't even aware of. So it's some heavy stuff. That's very heavy. I do know how you came into this world, because like you said, we got started together in Reno, Nevada, and our parents were best friends their whole lives. Our parents were best friends, and we spent a lot of time in those early years in Reno, Nevada, down there near Glen Duncan. I know. Hawthorne, Hawthorne and Hawthorne. Right, right. Yeah.

Let me tell you something, Jess and Lisa, thank you so very much for sharing your husband with this community. Because I, too, know his upbringing and as children, what you all are experiencing now with Jessica. He was like this as a kid. He really was. He was an organizer when we. When we were kids and we were trying to figure out what we gonna do for the day, he always organized activities. And the interesting part about it is he's not even the oldest.

I know. Wait a minute. Wait a. Wait a minute, smarty pants. I'm not gonna go too deep on this, but Lawrence Weekley is on it. Lawrence. We do this thing in our family called farrelllympics. We took the last name Farrell, the word Olympics, we smushed together. It's a new world called Farre Olympics. Well, last two years ago, Farre Olympics was in Sacramento, sitting on the couch, all the brothers and sisters, some from New York, from. Some Landing, Utah from Las Vegas, from Reno, from Hawthorne. We were all in one room, and my big brother Al, to your point, was sitting on the couch. It chilled my bones. I never. It chilled my bones because my brother was a super athlete, as you remember.

Yeah, okay.

And he was exceptional. And in Hawthorne, Nevada, you had two choices for activities, drugs or athletics. That's it. We didn't have everything.

Wow.

So I chose athletics, but I always made the team, but I didn't always make it as quickly as he did. And I didn't start as much as he did. So I was trying to be like him. And my brother sat in this paralympics room, about 18 of us in this room. And he said, my brother Jesse will tell you how he tried to be like me growing up.

He goes.

He goes, it's not true. He said, lawrence, he says, it's not true. He says, I was trying to be like him because he said everything that I did, Jesse did first. But I didn't think of it that way because he was such a sports phenom, that he was so powerful as an athlete that I really was trying to be at his level. But he said I played baseball. First I set pins at the bowling alley, then he followed me. I never saw it that way. So to your point, how do you, how in the heck do you actually even remember that?

LAWRENCE I remember. I remember a lot of it because Shondell and to our viewing audience here, let me explain something to you, Lisa. Let me, let me just tell you just what Jess and his family did for my family. And I probably need to grab. Here I go now. I probably need to grab some Kleenex on this part.

Well, I'm already, I'm already crying over here in my. And you know what you're doing before you go there? My mother in law in Salt Lake City, Midge Porter, she's crying like a baby right now. She doesn't know what you're gonna say, but she know you're gonna bring it, so bring it.

So when my mother, God rest her soul, the mother that I knew who adopted me, my parents, when they came up to, they were living in northern Reno and they wanted a kid and my mother couldn't have any more children. Now you remember just after she had Joanne, we called her JoJo. That's one of my older sisters. She couldn't have any more kids. And so they came to southern Nevada and they adopted a kid, which was me. They took me out of foster care at 11 months old. And they moved us back, they moved us back to Reno. So I lived up in Reno all the way up until I was five years old. And then we moved back down to southern Nevada. And while we were there, you know, my father, who was the socialite, like he was. Yes, had a lot of women fans out there.

Yes, he did.

Yeah. And it became a bit overbearing for my mother. And she, during the course of that time, she went through a lot of domestic violence. Violence, lots of domestic violence with him. And it got so bad to the point where one day she just said, enough is enough. And she packed up a U Haul truck and we drove all the way to Hawthorne, Nevada. And that's where, you know, we had to start a life all over again. And Jess's mama, my, I call her my Aunt Willie Mae, she just, man, she loved on us. And she was, man, it was, it was just a time where you're part.

Of our family, you were part of her family.

Yeah, she took up, she took a Broken. She took a broken woman who had gave up everything, you know, and had to move her kids there. And it was tough because she didn't have anything. And it was my aunt Willie Mae, who is Jess mom, who helped build her, rebuild her confidence. Wow. And say you can do it. There wasn't much there in Hawthorne as far as employment opportunities. And so I ain't willing may help my mom get her stuff back together and got her back down here to Las Vegas. Wow. That's where, you know, things began. And it was really challenging. And Jess's home with my Aunt Williams house there, there wasn't a lot of space because it was his mother and their dad and my uncle Jesse and Al and Jess and Pam and, you know, their siblings. It was all of them. And we were all crowded in their house. It was weird, but somehow they made it work.

Lawrence, you have got my sister Pam Farrell crying like a baby. On the other hand, because we remember you guys. We saw you guys. We didn't see you guys as friends. We saw you as family. We treated you like I saw you as a little brother. Lawrence Weekley was. He was the. That guy. That kid was a rascal. He was tons of energy. He always had a smile on his face, and he was always poking and pricking and just testing. And he kept us all active all the time. And so when what Lawrence is telling you the story, we always had someone in our home that didn't look like us, didn't behave like us, that wasn't like us, but was part of us.

Well, you know, and it makes a lot of sense of why, you know, when I heard the stories from weekly, then I was just like, wow. And so it gave me an insight as to why he does a lot of things that he. And he would take in people, family.

Yes.

And here's the challenge for us. And you know what? You got to do that color thing on him because, okay, the color code, awesome.

But color code, personality assessment is what he's talking about. Lawrence, we specialize in that because we're certified trainer color code company. We use that as far as our coaching, our speaking. So to Shondell's point, once we finish with this, oh, we're going to color code you, sir. We want to get to the bottom of this.

And the reason is because there's so many things when you learn about a person and you learn about what they've been through and what they've come through, you start to appreciate them a lot more. You start to feel when you see them Making decisions. You say, I know why he's making that decision. So what I did is I said, okay, how can I help him and assist him in the lane that I play well in? Right? Because we all grew up different. We all grew up in a different way. Had some challenges along the way. Right? But how do you come together? Especially us, right? Brothers, at the end of the day, black men don't have a great reputation of getting along or loving each other, loving on each other. We have to figure out, why are.

We all crying on this line right now. If we don't love each other, we don't have that reputation.

But I think we need more of that.

We need more.

That's why, brothers in conversations. You and I always had these kind of conversations going on years.

That's what Lisa recognized.

Hey, bring these guys. You guys gotta do this in a forum where everybody else hears this. And then we bring in people like Lawrence, who actually is. You know, he wears his emotions on his sleeve, and. And he doesn't have a poker face. I'm just gonna tell you that I always laugh, and he sees me out, and whether it's at the LVCVA or the county meeting, I could see what he's thinking, and I just text him and go, I know what you're thinking.

He doesn't have a poker face.

And I make no secrets or bones about it, because there are times when I'm saying, this chick next to me or these dudes on the other side of me, are those dudes a little down the way? Right? Period.

Oh, you got to see his expression. I wish I would have took. I wish I would have took a camera and took all of his expressions at all these meetings and then kind of frame them, put it there. It would make you just. Yeah, it's just amazing.

Well, this is. I really appreciate the storytelling that was. Those are. That's compelling. Thank you, Chandel, for backing that up. And, Lawrence, that's a very powerful story that a lot of people don't know. And I think that story in itself is representative of leadership during these challenging and tumultuous times, because you told the story of your early upbringing of your mother, who made a very difficult decision. That's a difficult decision today. But imagine what it was like for women, and especially black women back in the day, for his mother to have the strength and faith to make a decision to drive 330 miles north on Hope. On Hope that her friend Willie May Farrell and Jesse Farrell, her friends, would allow her and her children in to get A restart in life sometimes, sometimes it's these restarts is about going after it again, not starting all over again, but starting again. So, Lawrence, for you sharing that vulnerability, like Shondell has just mentioned that you have, I believe that's 100% powerful. And let's talk about what, what can the people listening or watching this, what can they take from that story that you shared and borrow that strength to pull us through these times right now? Lawrence, what are your thoughts about that story and how we can, how we can use that?

Yeah, well, my thoughts is that, you know, people have to understand through whatever adversity that you're going through, that it's possible when you allow yourself to be vulnerable and allow yourself to open up and allow people to help you. I know that there are a lot of folks out there that prey on weak folks and they take advantage of situations. But then there are loving people like Willie Mayfairrell, who she opened up her heart and she saved a woman and her children from just drowning in despair. And so I say that it's so important that especially in a time like this when we're going to grocery stores and we're stockpiling, if you're going to stockpile, I know that it's many of us out here that know a senior, A senior or we know a mother at home with four, five, six kids. Kim and I, my wife and I went over to Smith's because the hours are from 7 to 8, Monday, Wednesday and Friday for seniors. If I tell you that that line was wrapped around and we went to four different stores wrapped around the building. And if you could see senior citizens that were 60, 70, I guarantee you, 80 years old standing there on walkers trying to make it happen because they had no one to do it for them, Right? What are we doing? What are we doing? And so I say, regardless of whether you agree with what Governor Sisolak is saying or whether you agree with what you, Mary Carolyn Goodman is saying, it doesn't matter. At the end of the day, we have some very afraid people out here. We have some very vulnerable people out here. And we have a population of people, my seniors right now over at MLK and Doolittle and Walnut Recreation center, you got a lot of people who are sick and shut in. It's okay. If you reach out to one of us, Jess Shondell, myself, any one of your community leaders and say, hey, listen, I have a four pack of toilet paper, I have a case of water, I have some non perishable items that you guys can get and take it to someone that, that really, that's how we're going to get through this thing. Regardless of partisan politics, regardless of who's struggling to be in leadership. I think what the governor is asking us to do, people, let's be safe. Yeah, let's. Whatever this is that's out here, let's be safe. And at the end of the day, you got people like Sean Bell Newsom, who's in communications with folks back in Washington D.C. trying to figure out what can we do to help our small businesses so that they don't have to close their doors. Because I too believe, like Shondell and you just. Small businesses is what makes the world go right.

Oh, 100%. Well said.

I thank you both for your leadership. And it's a forum like this, you, I hope that brothers will see this broadcast that we have going on right now. We'll use this as an example. And being that we are all social distancing right now, we can all hop online. If somebody old like, if somebody old like me can learn how to zoom, then surely you can zoom, baby. Put your Lionel Richie zoom on away. And everybody, let's zoom. You get a zoom, you get.

Would you like to fly away now, Lawrence? This is amazing because the last time I got to sit in front of you I listened was an executive at the Rio Hotel casino. That was in 2001. So here we are, 2020. And you know why? We're sitting here across from one another, even though it's not physically in the same room, but we're all visual, we can visually see one another. Because it's important. Because to your point, life is not about what happens to you. Life is about what you do, about what happens and how you serve others. We are all in this together. We are all in this as one common people. We are. So what can we do like this broadcast? We're doing this because we want the power of the three of us to send waves out there into the universe. This is energy happening. Energy is going out into the universe, putting some positive dose out there right now. And that's what this is all about, wouldn't you say?

Yeah, I 100% agree. And the energy is just fantastic. And you know, when I first saw you all's first broadcast, I went to Shonda. I called him up on the phone. I said, how do you know him? And he was like, man, that's my boy. I was like, dude. I said, dude, I have history with that dude. And it was, it was. It was amazing because Jess you know, I had seen you some years back, and at that time, you were like, you know, of course you're still a big wig, but, you know, one of the. One of the big guys over in the hotel industry. Right. And then when I started going through my. I started to reach out to you. I remember, I think I saw you on social media first.

Okay.

And I said, well, I'm gonna reach out to him. And then all of a sudden, all hell started breaking loose for me with that controversy I spoke about. And then I thought maybe I shouldn't. I don't want to embarrass him or let folks know we're kind of like family. So I backed off. Shondell is so cool at also helping to connect dots and bringing people together. And that's what it's about. And so it was just a matter of time before I would be a special guest on Brothers Con.

And you are a special guest, and it's so important. And you know what?

We have a brother and a brother. Exactly. A real brother.

100%. And Shondell, we, as all of us, both Lawrence, you and myself, we all owe this to Lisa, because this is Lisa's vision coming to life. She saw the magic between the two of us.

Yay, Lisa.

Yeah. Yeah. In fact, like you talk about this program helping others, it will. Lisa came up with another idea that's along the lines of what we're doing here. And we have this program that we. Another version of conversation. We created. Let me let that go. We created.

Sure it's not us.

Nope, not over here. No worries. So we created what we call virtual conversations. And we're going to have our very first virtual conversation tonight at 5pm with one single purpose. Bring people together, converging different dynamics of eclectic people to have a single, empowered conversation with zero agenda. There's no agenda. And so the first ones happen. We limited it to 10 so that people can have a voice in there. And depending on how this goes, we'll keep doing this. We're doing this as added value. We're not charging people for our services. On the coaching side of what will happen on these calls, and this was Lisa's idea and thought, let's do a virtual form of conversation so an eclectic group of people can have a conversation. It won't be advertised. This one's going to be private to start with so people can really feel free. At some point, we may, you know, turn it into something where people can see it.

I think that's a great idea, Jess. I think you know, like as we're practicing the social distancing, there'll be some innovation that comes out of it. But I also want to tell you who are some of our friends, because we're going to.