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Speaker 1: every Thursday on the Heart Radio at Apple Podcast or
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Money Making Conversations.
Speaker 1: It's the show that she has the secrets of success
Speaker 1: experience firsthand by marketing and Brandon expert Rashan McDonald. I
Speaker 1: will know he's giving me advice on many occasions. In
Speaker 1: the case you didn't notice, I'm not broke, you know
Speaker 1: he'll be interviewing celebrity CEOs, entrepreneurs and industry decision makers.
Speaker 1: It's what he likes to do. It's what he likes
Speaker 1: to share. Now it's time to he from my man,
Speaker 1: Rashan McDonald. Moneymaking Conversations. Here we go. Welcome to Money
Speaker 1: Making Conversations. I am your host, Rashwan McDonald. It is
Speaker 1: time to stop reading other people's success stories. You hear
Speaker 1: me say that every week and start writing your own.
Speaker 1: And they always talk about gifts, they talk about passion.
Speaker 1: Will leave with your gifts and don't let your age, friends, family,
Speaker 1: or co workers stop you from planning or living your dreams.
Speaker 1: My interviews include CEO, celebrities, entrepreneurs, and people I like
Speaker 1: to call industry decision makers. My next guest is truly
Speaker 1: an industry to decision maker. He's Dr George T. French, Jr.
Speaker 1: In twin in nineteen, he became the fifth president of
Speaker 1: Clark Atlantic University, the largest United Negro College Fund member
Speaker 1: institution in the country and the largest private HBCU within
Speaker 1: the state of Georgia. During his tenure at Clark Landed University,
Speaker 1: President of French has brought millions of dollars to the institution,
Speaker 1: increased corporate partnerships and sponsors, and has led the university
Speaker 1: through a worldwide pandemic which we know is so important.
Speaker 1: Prior to his appointment, President Frich served for fourteen years
Speaker 1: as the president of Miles College, making him one of
Speaker 1: the longest serving the university presidents in the country. Dr
Speaker 1: French recently made positive headlines when I was reading my
Speaker 1: Houston Chronicle and he announced in that article as president
Speaker 1: of Clark Atlantic University, student account balances for the spring
Speaker 1: of summer, fall spring and summer one semesters, we will
Speaker 1: be brought to a zero balance. Please work with the
Speaker 1: money making conversations. The President of Clark Atlanta University, Dr.
Speaker 1: George T. French Jr. How are you doing, sir? Thank
Speaker 1: you so much. I'm privileged and honored to be with
Speaker 1: you this morning. Well, first of all, I had a
Speaker 1: lot to say, because you're doing a lot of great things.
Speaker 1: But there's always a journey to get to this conversation,
Speaker 1: and the conversation is that when I read a headline
Speaker 1: like that and I realized that in the pandemic hit
Speaker 1: it limited did uh a lot of African American students
Speaker 1: from taking a C T S and S A T
Speaker 1: S to enroll in various not only a SPCs, but
Speaker 1: in any college across the country. When you were here
Speaker 1: about all these situations, how did this come about? And
Speaker 1: what led up to the announcement that the zero balances
Speaker 1: for the dates I mentioned for students attending Clark Atlanta University.
Speaker 1: So so what led up to it is is, as
Speaker 1: we know, we've experienced worldwide pandemic, the first such pandemics
Speaker 1: since the influenza flew of nineteen eighteen. So it's been
Speaker 1: a century since the world dealt with pandemic. This generation
Speaker 1: has never dealt with pandemic. So what led up to
Speaker 1: it was the fact that we were on campus at
Speaker 1: Clark Atlantin University and and we had to take transition
Speaker 1: from on ground to an online platform for four thousand
Speaker 1: students within two weeks because people were dying worldwide. The
Speaker 1: COVID nineteen was spreading at unprecedented rates. So we had
Speaker 1: to get our students back home off of campus. We
Speaker 1: had to d uh centralized, we had to uh dedentsify
Speaker 1: the campus. So we sent students back to forty two
Speaker 1: different cities. But as we're on the way home, we
Speaker 1: realized all of them would not be able to go
Speaker 1: online because all of them didn't have laptop computers at home.
Speaker 1: So what did we do? We went and we purchased
Speaker 1: four thousand We spent three million dollars to purchase four
Speaker 1: thousand students, one for all of our graduate and undergraduate students.
Speaker 1: What else did we do? We we refunded tuition, We
Speaker 1: refunded housing calls pro raded, we refunded a dining, parking, everything,
Speaker 1: We reduced tuition by ten We did everything that we
Speaker 1: could to help our students. We even paid for airline
Speaker 1: tickets and bus fare for students to get back home
Speaker 1: because we realized the gravity of the situation. So fast
Speaker 1: forward to to now. Now, five semesters later, our students
Speaker 1: are preparing to come back to school for the fall. However,
Speaker 1: nine hundred of them had outstanding balances, and the pandemic,
Speaker 1: as we know was was was devastating to our nation,
Speaker 1: not just to our students, but to Black America when
Speaker 1: we talk about making money. In fact that fifty percent
Speaker 1: of all African American businesses went out of business during pandemic.
Speaker 1: This is unprecedented. So our students were suffering. Yet they
Speaker 1: were preparing to come back in the fall to the
Speaker 1: campus on ground, but they had balances. So what we
Speaker 1: decided to do was we decided to take two million
Speaker 1: dollars and pay off student balances so that they could
Speaker 1: return to school in the fall. Students are I'm gonna
Speaker 1: tell you, for the last two months, every day I've
Speaker 1: got an email and cause wondering how we can help
Speaker 1: them to return to school in the fall. This was
Speaker 1: one of the solutions. Well, here's the good, the beauty
Speaker 1: of what we're talking about. HBCUs for several reasons in
Speaker 1: Corporate America discovered HBCUs, you know, with massive donations and
Speaker 1: led by Mackenzie Scott who's delivered the four point one
Speaker 1: billion dollars I believe to various HBCUs across the country.
Speaker 1: But this happened in pandemic awareness. Why do you think
Speaker 1: that suddling in twenty that corporations started to acknowledge the
Speaker 1: quality of education is being produced at HBCUs Dr French
Speaker 1: And how do we move forward to continue that resonating
Speaker 1: within the corporate community as well as the general community
Speaker 1: overall for donations? Well, I think I think in actuality,
Speaker 1: we've been on the precipice of the relationship that we
Speaker 1: had with corporate America for some years now. I don't
Speaker 1: think it just occurred to corporate America what actually happened.
Speaker 1: And I think you and I both have witnessed the
Speaker 1: fact that at one time it was a moral imperative,
Speaker 1: it was a moral imperative to hire African Americans, to
Speaker 1: hire the graduates of our HBCUs. But empirically based data
Speaker 1: informed these corporations that their bottom lines would be increased
Speaker 1: should they diversify. So it's no longer a moral imperative.
Speaker 1: But it's a smart business decision to find the crime
Speaker 1: data crime to come to the Atlanta University Center, which
Speaker 1: is the largest consortia of HBCUs in the nation, and
Speaker 1: you find the best and the brightest students there. So
Speaker 1: these corporations, yes, some of them gave because of the
Speaker 1: tragedies of social injustice, but most of them, now my
Speaker 1: conversation is not talking about how they can give us
Speaker 1: a gift uh to create their conscious. What they're talking
Speaker 1: about now is how African Americans are proficient in artificial
Speaker 1: intellig and coding and how we catch on very quickly
Speaker 1: to any new environment. So it's a good business decision.
Speaker 1: Let me follow up there with what Dr French is saying,
Speaker 1: who was the president of Clark Atlanta University. When it
Speaker 1: comes to the black community, HBCUs, I call hbc U
Speaker 1: is Black excellence. You have roughly hundred and seven historically
Speaker 1: black colleges and university across the country that have produced
Speaker 1: within the Black community percent of the Black judges. This
Speaker 1: is HBCUs when he's talking about excellence. When you're talking
Speaker 1: about the corporations recognizing seventy of the Black Dennists comes
Speaker 1: from HBCUs. Seven of the black doctors come from HBCUs.
Speaker 1: Of the black public school teachers, fifth percent of the
Speaker 1: black lawyers, for the percent of the black engineers, for
Speaker 1: the percent of Black members of Congress. We're not just
Speaker 1: talking about our Vice President Kamala Harris. Eighteen percent of
Speaker 1: the Black fortune, five hundreds of CEOs and eighteen percent
Speaker 1: of CEOs in general come from HBCUs. And this is
Speaker 1: the whole purpose of this interview. When I saw that
Speaker 1: announcement by doctor French, who was the president of Clark
Speaker 1: Atlanta University, renouncing these, like you said, roughly nine students
Speaker 1: who were struggling to deal with the dead balance, and
Speaker 1: they rectified that. He rectified the situation when students had
Speaker 1: to go home by by getting laptops so they can
Speaker 1: continue their education. Because what we cannot do within any community,
Speaker 1: especially the African American community, is limited our opportunities to
Speaker 1: be educated. How important is that is that? In general?
Speaker 1: I can say it, I'm a novice, I'm on the outside,
Speaker 1: but you are an educator. Dr French, talk about education,
Speaker 1: the impact it has on our Black community and how
Speaker 1: it levels the playing fields for opportunities in general. But
Speaker 1: thank you said, and those statistics where um, I mean,
Speaker 1: you're imminently correct on those statistics. We are the creators
Speaker 1: HBCUs are the creators of the Black middle class. That's
Speaker 1: that's that's essentially what we do. And we were proud
Speaker 1: that the United Negro College Fund, under the leadership of
Speaker 1: Michael Lomax and Rodriguez Mary, went to Washington. They led
Speaker 1: the effort amongst h d C used to go to
Speaker 1: Washington to push for the cares that to get the
Speaker 1: billions of dollars for the Hearth Relief which is Higher
Speaker 1: Education Emergency Relief Fund, which is the way that we're
Speaker 1: able to use and to fund some of our initiatives.
Speaker 1: Because the United Negro College Fund and the whole world
Speaker 1: understands that to receive a college education is just not
Speaker 1: self um edification, but it's the only way that you
Speaker 1: build generational wealth. What we see, what we see today
Speaker 1: is we need generational wealth, not just for one generation,
Speaker 1: but it has to be inter generational as well. And
Speaker 1: the only way you do that that we've seen empirically
Speaker 1: based data indicates that you do that with a college education.
Speaker 1: It indicates The United Negal College Fund also been a
Speaker 1: study indicating that with a college degree, on average, African
Speaker 1: Americans earned at least one million dollars more per their lifetime.
Speaker 1: And more importantly, they set the stage for those who
Speaker 1: would come behind them as the first generation college students graduate.
Speaker 1: You have other members at family reunion tell us about college,
Speaker 1: tell us about university, and they get excited and they
Speaker 1: look forward to going to college and university and it
Speaker 1: perpetuates our entire race African Americans. That's why we are
Speaker 1: doing so well because we have embraced two things. In
Speaker 1: my opinion, we even embraced the church and we've embraced
Speaker 1: education and these this formula is the formula for success.
Speaker 1: I do believe, sir well, that is the formula. But
Speaker 1: when you look at the school or hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: year legacy, that's what we're talking about, Dr French. You
Speaker 1: know a legacy, which that's powerful, and you're a powerful
Speaker 1: man to be able to have the responsibility of that,
Speaker 1: not only four thousand young people who are going to
Speaker 1: out and change the world, because that's what they're gonna do.
Speaker 1: That's why I put those numbers out there, because so
Speaker 1: many people like you said, giving it become money out
Speaker 1: of diversity. Please don't do that give money to us
Speaker 1: because we're producing cream Daylight, Cream Black Excellence on a
Speaker 1: daily basis, not just at Clark Atlanta Universe, but all HPCUS.
Speaker 1: But we're doing this interview by Clark Atlanta University, a
Speaker 1: school is on this that the President decided, you know something,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna handicap these young people, these nine young people.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna help these young people because in the end,
Speaker 1: it's all about passing forward. That's where God comes in,
Speaker 1: That's what partnership comes in, that's what friendship comes in.
Speaker 1: With that level of articulation, Dr French, talk to us
Speaker 1: about how you feel and how the response is within
Speaker 1: the community, because it's all about the community and all
Speaker 1: about trying to make a difference, and you're making a difference.
Speaker 1: Expound on that, sir, Well, it's it's interesting that you've
Speaker 1: raised that point because my spirit it has been so
Speaker 1: lifted during this process and seeing how how students are impacted,
Speaker 1: but more importantly, how the community is impacted. We are
Speaker 1: the first institution HBCU in the nation to provide graduate degrees.
Speaker 1: Atlanta University is where w Eb the Boys did his
Speaker 1: greatest work, and he didn't just stay within the Ivory
Speaker 1: Tower of Academy. But the Boys was the advisor to
Speaker 1: the Department United States Department of Labor. Based on and
Speaker 1: predicated upon his studies of African Americans in Atlanta as
Speaker 1: well as Philadelphia, he was able to garner data, empirically
Speaker 1: based data to indicate what it means for African Americans
Speaker 1: to be in the mind in the minds, what it
Speaker 1: means for them to be in the steel factories. However,
Speaker 1: would it also means for them when they transition to
Speaker 1: higher education, what the difference it makes. That was the
Speaker 1: very beginning of the social justice conversation. And I have
Speaker 1: to say to you said that a lot of times
Speaker 1: we talk about social justice when we when we're marching
Speaker 1: in the streets and we're talking about jobs and fair housing.
Speaker 1: But it goes a little bit deeper. If you go
Speaker 1: to the emergency room today, you may not get the
Speaker 1: same level of treatment because the the trials for um UH,
Speaker 1: the trials for these different medicines didn't always include African Americans.
Speaker 1: So we have to make sure that we're in those
Speaker 1: trials because it's more than just about a dollar. It's
Speaker 1: also about the health of our communities. So so social
Speaker 1: justice impacts us on so many different levels. And it's
Speaker 1: the job of the Academy to stand on that wall
Speaker 1: and to say to the community, to to society, this
Speaker 1: is what social justice equity actually looks like. And that's
Speaker 1: what we do on a daily basis by showing excellence.
Speaker 1: And anytime you want to see black excellen, you don't
Speaker 1: have to just come to clock at lant University. You
Speaker 1: can go to over one hundred institutions across this nation
Speaker 1: and witness black excellence every single day. I love it.
Speaker 1: I love something. Dr Fred you grind. They're just like me.
Speaker 1: And so that's why you were surprised at the reaction.
Speaker 1: You're just serving your purpose. You were delivering a cause
Speaker 1: on the need. And that's why when I saw the article,
Speaker 1: I meet it really called my friend Wendy Williams over
Speaker 1: at w C okay. I said, I gotta get him
Speaker 1: on that air. Can you give it? I want to
Speaker 1: put it on my show on Tuesday so we can continue.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna feature you on my social media as my
Speaker 1: motivational Monday talking about you do. Gonna put my newsletter
Speaker 1: that goes out to twention thousand subscribers. My whole thing
Speaker 1: is that it's about brand building. All I can do
Speaker 1: is tell your story. But your story that you're trying
Speaker 1: to create is new opportunities for students who just asking,
Speaker 1: but asking. And I always tell us about a college degree.
Speaker 1: You cannot reapo a college degree, so when you get it,
Speaker 1: they can and take it away. I want to tell you,
Speaker 1: Dr French, keep keep doing what you're doing. I've taken
Speaker 1: up a little bit more in your time than I requested,
Speaker 1: but I appreciate the time you gave me and allowed
Speaker 1: me to tell your story and the story incredible story
Speaker 1: of Clark Atlanta University. Thank you, sir, and we look
Speaker 1: forward to having you on our beautiful campus to speak
Speaker 1: directly to our students. Because while we exercise black excellence,
Speaker 1: our students do best when they see black excellence. So
Speaker 1: I need to see you on my campus so that
Speaker 1: they can see black excellence in motion. Well, you know
Speaker 1: you got a man, Kenny Leon, one of the top
Speaker 1: directors you my boy and Kenya Barras, I know him
Speaker 1: my girl Jackie Reid, So you know you're already rocking
Speaker 1: over there with a black excellence. So I would be
Speaker 1: born happy to come on your campus on a regular
Speaker 1: basis to be able to showcase why I love what
Speaker 1: you're doing, high respect, Black excellence, and the power of
Speaker 1: what you're being able to present at Clark Atlanta University
Speaker 1: is defined by the excellence that you've been delivered by
Speaker 1: what I just talked about domination as far as in
Speaker 1: the community, what you guys deliver on a daily basis.
Speaker 1: Thank you for coming on Money Making Conversations. We will
Speaker 1: be right back with more money Making Conversations with your
Speaker 1: host Rashaan McDonald. It's finally here, the season of celebration,
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Speaker 1: money making conversations. Minute of Inspiration with Rashan McDonald's gospel
Speaker 1: rapper Lacrai has won multiple Grammar and bill Board awards
Speaker 1: and he is one of my favorite Christian rappers. He
Speaker 1: stated that he is focusing on faith over religion. I
Speaker 1: asked him to explain, sometimes I think you wear that face.
Speaker 1: You just put on those lenses that allow you to
Speaker 1: just keep going and pushing through without dealing with the
Speaker 1: problems and the trauma, and you allow successes to define you.
Speaker 1: Instead of you being successful out of a healthy and
Speaker 1: whole version of yourself, You're allowing the successes to convince
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Speaker 1: that's a very different thing. And so for me, it
Speaker 1: was a matter of becoming a healthy, whole individual and
Speaker 1: dealing with some historical traumas and recognizing that it was
Speaker 1: a slave what other people wanted of me and not
Speaker 1: being who I was created to be. If you want
Speaker 1: to hear this full interview with the Craiz visit Moneymaking
Speaker 1: Conversation dot com. Keep winning. Welcome back to Money Making
Speaker 1: Conversations with your host, Rashwan McDonald. I guess today's a
Speaker 1: very old friend. His name is not in age. Is
Speaker 1: just an old friend. Ryan Smith. He joined ESPN in
Speaker 1: February twenty seventeen. He left me when I was still
Speaker 1: with Steve Harvey, just watching them on TV. I was
Speaker 1: just doing radio with him, this little low Steve Harvey
Speaker 1: Morning Show with the Back of the Day hold on
Speaker 1: ESPN is Outside the Line in East East sixty as
Speaker 1: well as New York based corresponding. He added anchoring Sports
Speaker 1: Center to his role in twenty and eighteen. In addition
Speaker 1: to his role as a host, Smith reports on feature
Speaker 1: stories and investigated pieces while providing legal analysts across multiple
Speaker 1: ESPN platforms and ABC News. Before joining ABC News, Smith
Speaker 1: served as the nightly news anchor is Seeing his headline
Speaker 1: news That's where We Met, Where he Were. He reported
Speaker 1: on a variety of stories, including the tragedy of Sandy
Speaker 1: Hook Elementary School and some of the most high profile trials,
Speaker 1: including the Casey Anthony trial and Joint m As a
Speaker 1: legal analyst, he's offer perspective of many sports related stories
Speaker 1: for ESPN, including recently to shift an n c A
Speaker 1: a policy on players or any money. He's here today
Speaker 1: to talk about that. And by the way, he's from
Speaker 1: Philadelphia and he's proud of it. Please welcome nobody making
Speaker 1: conversations my man, Ryan Smith. How are you doing, Ryan Good?
Speaker 1: What's going on? I'm doing great, man, Just watching a friend,
Speaker 1: you know, just see you know, we all got that
Speaker 1: hustle and uh of trying to And then first of all,
Speaker 1: let me tell you that he ain't through sitting there there,
Speaker 1: that he doing some amazing things. But this rise is
Speaker 1: still on the rise. And when I see where you're
Speaker 1: adding what you're trying to achieve, what's the goal for you, Ryan?
Speaker 1: What's the goal? You know? It's funny. When I first
Speaker 1: started in this industry, I always had this thing where
Speaker 1: every year I would say, well, I want to have
Speaker 1: this role, I want to have this job, I want
Speaker 1: to have this I want to anchor this show, I
Speaker 1: want to leave this brand. And after a while I
Speaker 1: just ever rashan that it wasn't getting me happy. I mean,
Speaker 1: I felt like I was always chasing something. So the
Speaker 1: goal actually for me right now is to love what
Speaker 1: I do. And I know that's cliche, and I know
Speaker 1: people are gonna be like, oh, whatever, man, you would
Speaker 1: love love to like run the eleven o'clock Sports Center. Actually,
Speaker 1: what I would love to do is be able to
Speaker 1: continue to anchor, which is my favorite thing in the
Speaker 1: world to do work wise, and still have time to
Speaker 1: spend time with my boys. My family got two boys,
Speaker 1: they're seven years old, twins my wife. I like having
Speaker 1: a balanced life. So for me, it's not just about
Speaker 1: anchoring one show or doing one brand or making this
Speaker 1: amount of money. For me, it's can I continue to
Speaker 1: anchor shows that I love, that I'm interested in and
Speaker 1: stuff that motivates me. And so right now I'm kind
Speaker 1: of living my goal. But to be honest with you,
Speaker 1: I mean, for me, it's continue to do this work
Speaker 1: and continue to do it better and better every day.
Speaker 1: Well you know it, sports is really um we see
Speaker 1: a transcendie, you know, we're seeing uh the on Steve.
Speaker 1: I remember with Kevin Love several years ago admitted he
Speaker 1: had an emotional health crisis and that everybody went, Wow,
Speaker 1: it's so proud of you to step out of your
Speaker 1: your your your window, you know, your shale in a
Speaker 1: situation because people used to say and then recently, um
Speaker 1: Dak Prescott uh spoke of his issues that he was
Speaker 1: having emotionally. And then if we look at now what
Speaker 1: happened with Osaka when she pulled out of the French Open,
Speaker 1: and then we see what happens to Own Biles. When
Speaker 1: you see as a reporter, that has to be a
Speaker 1: high level of sensitivity because you can't take anything personal
Speaker 1: or you can't judge anything. How has that changed your perspective?
Speaker 1: Ryan Smith? Reporting just in general, but it's more importantly
Speaker 1: on the platform of ESPN. Yeah, it's been really interesting
Speaker 1: when Kevin Love came out with this statement, and other
Speaker 1: folks like Dak Prescott, like you mentioned, came out with
Speaker 1: their statements about taking care of their mental health. We
Speaker 1: recognize them, we heard them, but it never stopped them
Speaker 1: from doing their athletic competitions. Now we're seeing athletes saying, look,
Speaker 1: I know this is the biggest stage in the world,
Speaker 1: but uh, you know at this time, it's not the
Speaker 1: right time for me to perform. That's something we haven't
Speaker 1: seen before. So I think for us the important thing
Speaker 1: is a like you say, not judge and be sensitive.
Speaker 1: We are in a different time now. I know there
Speaker 1: are people out there who are saying, what your mental health?
Speaker 1: Come on, you're at the Olympics, Simone Biles. You gotta perform.
Speaker 1: But you know what, we are in a different generation.
Speaker 1: We are in a generation where I think and I
Speaker 1: give young people credit, where young people are willing to say,
Speaker 1: you know what, there might be another opportunity down the road.
Speaker 1: There might not be, but what's more important for me
Speaker 1: is that I perform when I feel mentally right to perform.
Speaker 1: And that's something we haven't seen before. I gotta say
Speaker 1: it's something that I have never seen. I mean, I
Speaker 1: can tell you many times when I played sports and
Speaker 1: I was younger, I was not in the right mind frame.
Speaker 1: I felt like it was all the pressure was getting
Speaker 1: to me and it was difficult, but I felt like
Speaker 1: I had to do it. I think it's interesting that
Speaker 1: the younger generation Simone Biles, now, SoC and others are
Speaker 1: stepping up and saying, I don't have to do this
Speaker 1: if I don't feel right about doing it right, and
Speaker 1: I don't know Rushan, if there's anything wrong with that.
Speaker 1: I think that's actually right. We assert that in our
Speaker 1: own lives, we tell our own children. Don't be bullied
Speaker 1: into doing something. Don't. Don't people tell you to do
Speaker 1: something you don't want to do it, you say no.
Speaker 1: We tell that to our children, and yet on the
Speaker 1: biggest stage in the world, when they're feeling uncomfortable, we say,
Speaker 1: I'm sure some people out there are saying, you know what, no,
Speaker 1: go perform. That's the antithesis of what we've been trying
Speaker 1: to establish in our own lives. So I say, if
Speaker 1: I'm able to do it in my own profession, in
Speaker 1: my own life, I need to give that same leeway
Speaker 1: to to athletes out there. And that's kind of how
Speaker 1: I approach it and reporting. I don't judge, I don't
Speaker 1: say anything about that. I acknowledge that it's different, but
Speaker 1: at the same time, I leave room for the explanation.
Speaker 1: Let's hear why, and also let's be sensitive to why,
Speaker 1: understanding that everybody is different and everybody has their own
Speaker 1: perspective when it comes to mental health. Well, you know
Speaker 1: the thing about it would give you reference when you
Speaker 1: when you were playing and you you was uncomfortable. But
Speaker 1: then when you was uncomfortable, you didn't have to deal
Speaker 1: with social media. You have to deal with the likes
Speaker 1: the criticisms, and that's really the baggage. I always tell
Speaker 1: people social media really is your own personal press conference.
Speaker 1: You don't have to call a press conference, you just post.
Speaker 1: And because of that, you know, you have the cell
Speaker 1: phones where a video can be you you can stream,
Speaker 1: and so the electryn to leash and so you can't
Speaker 1: really get away. You know, back in the day, when
Speaker 1: I was going up, you know I could just I could.
Speaker 1: I was, I was, I wasn't at home. Okay when
Speaker 1: you called, that's not an excuse anymore, you know, then
Speaker 1: they went, oh you I text you, I didn't get
Speaker 1: your text. Guess that excuse anymore. And so now if
Speaker 1: you some on Biles and you and you stumble or
Speaker 1: you or you do a spin or you fall off
Speaker 1: the balance being she goes to the home, it's criticism
Speaker 1: and some of it's just nasty. And then it's the
Speaker 1: the commercial endorsement of people that put you on the pedestal.
Speaker 1: All of that and then the highlight reels, whether they're
Speaker 1: whether the instances or not to go go home, and
Speaker 1: you realize that you can't watch TV, you can't watch
Speaker 1: the media because they we have all have their base stories.
Speaker 1: So somewhere an athlete now is trapped in the media
Speaker 1: that also, you know, emoted their success. Right. Yeah, But
Speaker 1: I will say this, and to your point, by the way,
Speaker 1: I was the last guy, of all people I knew,
Speaker 1: to get a cell phone. I was the last guy
Speaker 1: to want to get to be reached anywhere. My whole
Speaker 1: thing was when social media, cell phones, all that stuff
Speaker 1: blew up. That was the last thing I wanted to
Speaker 1: participate because I love my animenity. I love being able
Speaker 1: to do my thing and then disappear. So this whole
Speaker 1: new generation of everybody putting their stuff out there all
Speaker 1: the time, I've just never really been in touch with
Speaker 1: that in the same way. But to your point, here's
Speaker 1: the issue that I think a lot of athletes face.
Speaker 1: They want the adulation that comes with the success, but
Speaker 1: ultimately you are not always going to be successful, and
Speaker 1: you have to be willing to accept the other side
Speaker 1: of it. Now, I'm not speaking to Naomi Osaka or
Speaker 1: Simone Biles directly, but what I'm saying is I'm fairly certain,
Speaker 1: at least in some place in in their minds, that
Speaker 1: they knew that criticism was going to come from making
Speaker 1: these moves. What I admire in them is that they're
Speaker 1: doing them anyway, because that's hard. I mean, you talk
Speaker 1: about Simone Biles or Naomi Osaka. You know, millions of followers,
Speaker 1: people dissecting their every move, and yet still they're saying,
Speaker 1: you know what, I know that heat is going to come,
Speaker 1: but I'm still willing to stand up for what I
Speaker 1: believe is my mental health. And I really encourage people
Speaker 1: to take a long term view of this, and I
Speaker 1: promise you I'm not trying to be PC, but let's
Speaker 1: just think about this. Let's say that she performed in
Speaker 1: the Olympics and her mental health was really deteriorating in
Speaker 1: ways that we could never imagine. And let's say things
Speaker 1: went really poorly for her, or in her mind, went
Speaker 1: really poorly. The Olympics is over, we all move on,
Speaker 1: we do our thing. She's still in that space. Months later,
Speaker 1: she's still in that space. Years later, she's still in
Speaker 1: that space. And I think that's what we miss when
Speaker 1: we're so quick to hit Twitter and criticize. Naomi Osaka
Speaker 1: talked about suffering from depression, not from a week ago
Speaker 1: before Wimbledon, but for months for ages, thinking about what
Speaker 1: it was like to face these questions. I think we
Speaker 1: don't think about that because we're so short term in
Speaker 1: our thinking. We're so like anxious to read the next
Speaker 1: tweet or see the next win, that we don't think about.
Speaker 1: Maybe someone Biles is making this decision because it's not
Speaker 1: about today or tomorrow or the Olympics, but it's about
Speaker 1: how this might affect her for years to come. And
Speaker 1: I have to tell you, I have spoken to many
Speaker 1: athletes over time. They talk about the different things that
Speaker 1: affect them, and some of the deepest conversations I've had
Speaker 1: with some of the top athletes out there, when they
Speaker 1: talk about what affects them, it's not you know, hey,
Speaker 1: it affected me for a month or two and then
Speaker 1: I got back on the horse. Every athlete has that
Speaker 1: sense of you gotta forget about the last play, You
Speaker 1: gotta forget about that. But I've spoken to a ton
Speaker 1: of athletes who don't who who are dogged by that
Speaker 1: play that happened two years ago, that miscatching the Super Bowl,
Speaker 1: that thing they didn't do in high school. I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't think people think enough about the long term
Speaker 1: effects of what can happen, And so I give them
Speaker 1: credit for in the face of all the criticism they
Speaker 1: might face, still stepping up and saying, you know what,
Speaker 1: you guys aren't gonna think about how this might affect
Speaker 1: me today, tomorrow, next year, or the year after. But
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about it, and I'm stepping up for myself. Well,
Speaker 1: I agree with that because of the fact that that
Speaker 1: shared off air my daughter. You know, she was a
Speaker 1: tennis phenom and I could just tell you know, the
Speaker 1: game and her effort was starting to different, you know,
Speaker 1: our expectations and the efforts you wanted to do. Was that. Okay,
Speaker 1: she had been hitting the bosses. She was six years
Speaker 1: old and she was sixteen. You know, she was definitely
Speaker 1: a probrate. And then she broke her foot and then
Speaker 1: she came back and there was a shoulder, and then
Speaker 1: it was like an injury at the injury, and then
Speaker 1: she kept coming back and it was like every time
Speaker 1: she came back, it was like you can see a deterioration,
Speaker 1: mental and physical deterioration. And so a lot of people
Speaker 1: don't put that in perspective to come back. But more importantly,
Speaker 1: what we take away from this, and we're gonna move
Speaker 1: on to other stories because your your careers are it's
Speaker 1: something I want to talk about how you can be
Speaker 1: able to transition from the George Zimmerman's to the some
Speaker 1: own bio stories and so seamlessly, and so especially legal analysts.
Speaker 1: Side of it is that now when you look at
Speaker 1: young athletes, the part that really affects me of the
Speaker 1: emotion now is the young athletes who are not getting
Speaker 1: paid in the n c a A because of the
Speaker 1: fact that now you know, the expectations are differently now
Speaker 1: you know, like they said, the young quarterback for the
Speaker 1: Alabama he has almost a million dollars endorsement. No, I'm
Speaker 1: pretty sure that's not just one million. You mighty have
Speaker 1: like ten different people who have given him money. So
Speaker 1: that's like ten different people able to pull him or
Speaker 1: make demands on him and to have expectations if he
Speaker 1: doesn't throw a touchdown, if he throws an interception, And
Speaker 1: so that whole part of the of the wire because
Speaker 1: when you look at these high profile people, they do
Speaker 1: have you know, people's psyche, you know, UH coaches who
Speaker 1: are motivating there and they're brought on board to make
Speaker 1: sure they psychists together they understand why they fail and
Speaker 1: why they achieve. Talk about that perspective. Ryan would you
Speaker 1: see these young eighteen sixteen year players getting ten thousand
Speaker 1: dollars a hundred thousand dollars and being turned around. But
Speaker 1: the expectations come with a penalty. Sometimes, Oh, it's gonna
Speaker 1: be a challenge to say, and we got to see
Speaker 1: how it goes because name, image and likeness has just
Speaker 1: started giving the athletes the ability to get this. But Rashan,
Speaker 1: I start from this place. The n c A is
Speaker 1: a billion dollar industry. Multibillion dollar industry. For years, everybody
Speaker 1: has been taken home the money except the people on
Speaker 1: the field, mostly black and brown boats. Yes, So to me,
Speaker 1: the fact that athletes are now able to get money
Speaker 1: to make these deals is a win, a huge win,
Speaker 1: because we have to have that kind of system. We
Speaker 1: cannot simply say, oh, amateurism dictates that this guy can
Speaker 1: go run into a wall. He has to prove himself
Speaker 1: every single year because a lot of people don't know
Speaker 1: when you get a four year full ride, it's not
Speaker 1: a full year for year full ride. Every single year
Speaker 1: they got to re up that ride. So if you
Speaker 1: didn't perform that first year, even though you're the best
Speaker 1: athlete in your state, they could be like, we're taking
Speaker 1: your scholarship away. Oh you don't have them enough money
Speaker 1: to go to the school. That's too bad. See you later.
Speaker 1: It doesn't matter what happens to you. That has been
Speaker 1: the life for tens of thousands, if not hundreds of
Speaker 1: thousands of athletes. So the fact that they're able to
Speaker 1: collect and capitalize on their talent now, I think young people,
Speaker 1: and I think it's a great thing. Now you talk
Speaker 1: about the idea of the pressure they face because of that,
Speaker 1: I think you're right, and I think it behooves them,
Speaker 1: and I think you're probably gonna see industries popping up
Speaker 1: of folks who are going to manage those athletes and
Speaker 1: manage those folks to make sure that the pressure isn't
Speaker 1: too great. Sports were even part of our conversation. You know,
Speaker 1: I was still business managers Steve Harvey The Highlights and
Speaker 1: still very successful Steve Harvy Morning Show, and we both
Speaker 1: based in Atlanta. He was in Atlanta, and I was always, uh,
Speaker 1: get him on the show to talk about cases, cases
Speaker 1: like the Casey Anthony story from a legal perspective, from
Speaker 1: his perspective to George Zimmilam story that we know they
Speaker 1: went down with Trayvon Martin and that whole trial at
Speaker 1: this roy that that control of the country and launched
Speaker 1: Benjamin Crump into his RAPHI our our civil rights are
Speaker 1: that he is in today. But I never saw this coming.
Speaker 1: I never saw the ESPN anchor. I never saw the
Speaker 1: sports side of you coming out. Talk about where you
Speaker 1: were where it then, and then we're gonna talk about transition,
Speaker 1: because then I would see you pop up on ESPN
Speaker 1: doing legal analysts work. So let's talk about that journey
Speaker 1: in Atlantic when you and I first met, the perspective
Speaker 1: and the mindset you had to have versus the mindset
Speaker 1: that you have now as a sports anchor and an
Speaker 1: expert on sports. Because you are an expert on sports?
Speaker 1: Could you anchor sports? Yeah, I gotta tell you so.
Speaker 1: So first to your question, I want to say when
Speaker 1: I when you and I met in Atlanta, I had
Speaker 1: basically just gotten into TV. I was a lawyer, and
Speaker 1: around two thousand and ten, two thousand eleven, I just
Speaker 1: decided I kind of hit a wall with as far
Speaker 1: as I wanted to go practicing law, and I ended
Speaker 1: up getting in television because I did guest spots here
Speaker 1: and there. Just uh, first I made a real I
Speaker 1: had a producer friend who was like, you gotta make
Speaker 1: a real if you want to get into television. I
Speaker 1: was just kind of thinking, maybe I'll do something, So
Speaker 1: I went out. I made a reel on the streets
Speaker 1: of New York, just interviewing random people. I interviewed a
Speaker 1: film director, a couple other folks. Somebody saw me on BT.
Speaker 1: Somebody saw my real and they put me on a
Speaker 1: show called My Two Cents. I hosted that for a while.
Speaker 1: Then they was basically a show about the black community,
Speaker 1: curated by three other me and three other people. And
Speaker 1: then uh I ended up doing a Sharp Talk which
Speaker 1: was Al Sharpton's talk show on TV one. Somebody on
Speaker 1: CNN saw me. Went from there when other networks and
Speaker 1: then finally cour TV brought me on to be an
Speaker 1: anchor for their new brand that they were launching at HLN.
Speaker 1: But Rashaana, I gotta actually say thank you to you,
Speaker 1: because early on when I started doing HLN, I was
Speaker 1: still learning how to build beyond my job. And you
Speaker 1: noticed me on HLN and Core TV talking about these cases,
Speaker 1: and you brought me onto the Steve Harvey Show, and
Speaker 1: I gotta tell you that did wonders not only for
Speaker 1: my ability to communicate with people, but forgetting to know
Speaker 1: a new audience and forgetting people to trust me in
Speaker 1: these areas of cases. Because Steve Harvey's audience was so big,
Speaker 1: and it was so diverse, and and the talent on
Speaker 1: the Steve Harvey Show was so willing to engage with
Speaker 1: me on the show. It taught me that I didn't
Speaker 1: have to just be restricted by what I was doing
Speaker 1: in television. I could do other things. I could jump
Speaker 1: on Steve Harvey Show, I could jump on all these
Speaker 1: other shows, and it gave me the level of confidence
Speaker 1: that I didn't have before that moment. So I just
Speaker 1: I just wanted to step out and say thank you
Speaker 1: for that, because you kept putting me on um in
Speaker 1: a way that like shocked me so much and made
Speaker 1: me so happy, but at the same time got me
Speaker 1: out of his mindset of just television. I would tell
Speaker 1: you anybody because when I look at somebody like Ryan,
Speaker 1: he's talent and plus he's a grinder. I said, it's
Speaker 1: a lot of people want to do what you do.
Speaker 1: A lot of people don't answer the call. Oh I'm tired,
Speaker 1: uh tomorrow because I call him at the last minute.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I see, I said, Monica, call call right, I
Speaker 1: see if you can do the show tomorrow. And then
Speaker 1: I was asking him to come into an environment where
Speaker 1: I had comedians. Uh, and he didn't. And honestly, he
Speaker 1: had to trust me too because of the fact that
Speaker 1: he was he was a lawyer. He was on he
Speaker 1: was talking serious stories and sometimes Steve Harvey or few
Speaker 1: Tommy what Ben. Of course, you to him that he
Speaker 1: had to stay focused on he had to see the
Speaker 1: story true. And so that's why I respect to the
Speaker 1: most about it. You understood the balance of what I
Speaker 1: was trying to do. You understood entertainment, but you're also
Speaker 1: in understood the storytelling of telling the story correctly. That
Speaker 1: was a gift that you have, my friend, and it
Speaker 1: shows up. It shows up on TV every time I
Speaker 1: watch you. It's a it's a nice humbleness in your reporting.
Speaker 1: And uh, we were on radio back then. Now you're
Speaker 1: on TV. So nobody saw us back then. You just
Speaker 1: just heard your voice, just heard your articulation, and now
Speaker 1: just seeing your TV it's still it's still watching the
Speaker 1: sports side of you. You know, you come from a
Speaker 1: Philadelphia market which is like crazy about sports. It's so opinionated,
Speaker 1: so in your face, it's like, how do you how
Speaker 1: do you you know your Philadelphia just had a just
Speaker 1: a disastrous basketball season. Yeah, the baseball team still frustrate you.
Speaker 1: They got rid of the quarter back that they thought
Speaker 1: it was gonna be the quarterback of the future. We
Speaker 1: don't know if Jalen Hurts is a quarterback. Talk to
Speaker 1: us about I'm so proud to be for Philadelphia. How
Speaker 1: proud are you in football, basketball, and baseball? I'm always proud.
Speaker 1: Let me tell let me tell everybody the key to
Speaker 1: be at a Philadelphia sports fan, and why everything you
Speaker 1: said doesn't even make me angry. We expect, we expect
Speaker 1: to be bad, we expect Wow, if good things happen,
Speaker 1: were elated because we always thought we were gonna lose.
Speaker 1: It's like, I gotta tell you this funny story. Like
Speaker 1: a friend of mine called me after we won the
Speaker 1: Super Bowl a couple of years back, and he was like, man,
Speaker 1: you finally did it. We've been ripping on Philly all
Speaker 1: this time. You finally wanted the Super Bowl? What do
Speaker 1: you think? I'm like, Man, I don't know. Can we
Speaker 1: do this again next year? It's like that's the Philly
Speaker 1: fans mentality. It's like, we can't accept anything for being
Speaker 1: real in terms of success because we've had so much failure, right,
Speaker 1: And I hate that on that way. And it's like
Speaker 1: I got I have two young kids now and their
Speaker 1: Eagles fans, and I try to tell them, like, you
Speaker 1: gotta be positive about your team. They're like, well then, Daddy,
Speaker 1: why do you always think they're gonna lose. I'm like,
Speaker 1: don't listen to me, spokeus on I gotta I got
Speaker 1: a sports expert in the Philadelphia fan You see Ben Simmons.
Speaker 1: You see Janice who had who went to that line
Speaker 1: despite the booze, He went to that line. He and
Speaker 1: he took two shots. Kim Ben Simmons make that transition. Yeah,
Speaker 1: let me tell you so so that this is what
Speaker 1: we all kind of feel about Ben Simmons. We think
Speaker 1: that the first couple of years in Philly, because he
Speaker 1: was such a great talent and because he could do
Speaker 1: so many things well, the coaching staff there and the
Speaker 1: management there didn't push him to go beyond what he
Speaker 1: was good at. And so the demands. What you got
Speaker 1: to say to a player is look, you gotta shoot
Speaker 1: in this game. You're not gonna shoot, You're gonna sit
Speaker 1: on the bench. You're the superstar, great, you made the
Speaker 1: All Star team. Great, but you're not shooting. You're on
Speaker 1: the bench. Oh, he didn't take a shot in this game,
Speaker 1: Let's put him in a second quarter, Like, you gotta
Speaker 1: teach him that way. He gets mad, he sulked whatever,
Speaker 1: dudes under contract, where is he gonna go? So it's like,
Speaker 1: you gotta treat him like that. And that didn't happen
Speaker 1: in Philly. So years and years and years go by
Speaker 1: and that didn't happen coming into this season. So he
Speaker 1: learned this mentality of being good at what he was
Speaker 1: good at, but not wanting to try and not wanting
Speaker 1: to work at what he wasn't good at, despite the
Speaker 1: fact that he knew that would hamper him in the playoffs.
Speaker 1: So once we got into the playoffs and he was
Speaker 1: turned up and people started hacking him, and I gat
Speaker 1: give the Wizards credit because they came up with the
Speaker 1: system of let's hack, then let's send him to the line.
Speaker 1: Once he couldn't make the shot, his mental broke down
Speaker 1: and he said, uh, I can't do this, so I'm
Speaker 1: gonna avoid it at all costs. Now, I'm not driving
Speaker 1: to the basket because I don't want to get foul.
Speaker 1: This is a really important lesson for all your listeners
Speaker 1: and anybody who's to you today. And we're talking about
Speaker 1: getting into the TV business and all of this, because
Speaker 1: I've learned this lesson firsthand when I started in this business,
Speaker 1: and Rashaun, I'm sure you have the same experience. There
Speaker 1: was a lot that I wasn't good at a lot.
Speaker 1: But the thing is, you gotta go on air and
Speaker 1: make the mistakes. I used to have a YouTube channel
Speaker 1: where people could look me up and see all the
Speaker 1: mistakes I made, including not knowing where the camera was,
Speaker 1: not knowing what show I was on. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: like you got to go on and make these mistakes
Speaker 1: in order to get better. If you're not willing to
Speaker 1: make the mistakes in terms in front of everyone, if
Speaker 1: you're not willing to ask the stupid questions, if you're
Speaker 1: not willing to extend in ways that you haven't extended before,
Speaker 1: you don't get better and you remain the same exact talent.
Speaker 1: And I gotta tell you, Rasund, I've known people in
Speaker 1: this industry it's like they're playing the same old song
Speaker 1: every single day. And I'm not knocking them. I'm just saying,
Speaker 1: how can you expect to get further and be better
Speaker 1: unless you're extending beyond your comfort zone. So that's the
Speaker 1: big problem with Ben Simmons, and we can related to
Speaker 1: what we're talking about right now. It's like anybody watching
Speaker 1: who wants to get into anything or wants to be
Speaker 1: like you be a top of their industry. You didn't
Speaker 1: get there without making mistakes, public mistakes, mistakes other people
Speaker 1: can see, and you grew from them and you got
Speaker 1: better from them. And that's what I hope Ben Simmons.
Speaker 1: I don't think we should trade him. I think we
Speaker 1: should keep them. I think we should give him another chance.
Speaker 1: I think he's so good at the things he's good at.
Speaker 1: But the thing is, this is crunch time summer, and
Speaker 1: he's got to realize it is the life lesson time.
Speaker 1: Am I willing to make the mistakes and be better
Speaker 1: and look foolish in front of a lot of people
Speaker 1: at the things I'm bad at in order to be great?
Speaker 1: If he's I'll give him another year with that. If
Speaker 1: he's willing to try that awesome, he's gonna be an
Speaker 1: amazing talent, maybe one of the best ever. If he's not,
Speaker 1: he's always gonna be who he is. Uh. My last question,
Speaker 1: is this just just a part about it that I
Speaker 1: love about you? That about you? Is this? Okay? Being
Speaker 1: a sports analyst, you know, anchor, you know, you the
Speaker 1: monitor feed you the information, okay, and then you come
Speaker 1: on there, Then you come on there, and then you
Speaker 1: are analyst from a legal perspective, Which is which which? Which? Which? Which?
Speaker 1: Is also I think even more difficult because you're sharing
Speaker 1: facts and you're siring defended to moments like if you say,
Speaker 1: somebody missed the free throw, we see it? Will you?
Speaker 1: Will you come down as a legal analyst, and they're
Speaker 1: asking you your perspective, the journey, the consequences. How are
Speaker 1: you able to shift those two gears comfortably like that?
Speaker 1: Ryan Smith? Oh man, it's hard. I tell you, it's hard.
Speaker 1: And let me tell you. It's you and I met
Speaker 1: when I was covering Casey Anthony and Jody Arius and
Speaker 1: those kinds of trials. And I gotta tell you, it's
Speaker 1: really funny to say that the the anger and the
Speaker 1: venom you get for talking about a legal issue in
Speaker 1: sports was ten times greater than anything I ever experienced
Speaker 1: talking about Casey, Anthony, Jody Arius, George Zimmerman or any
Speaker 1: of those cases. It's just the intensity. Like I remember
Speaker 1: I covered the Zekiel Elliott uh story when he was
Speaker 1: he was facing some domestic violence issues and the NFL
Speaker 1: was suspending him. Cowboy fans were all over every word
Speaker 1: I said, and it was like, I'm just trying to
Speaker 1: report the facts, just trying to tell you how the analysis.
Speaker 1: They don't care what you're anti cowboy. I hear you're
Speaker 1: from Philly. You're trying to sink my board like so
Speaker 1: that that makes you even have to have a higher
Speaker 1: standard of I gotta get everything right. I can make
Speaker 1: you mistakes. So you asked how I make the transition.
Speaker 1: To me, it's almost different sides of your brain. So
Speaker 1: you're right when you're anchoring a lot of times you've
Speaker 1: got prompter and your ad living too. But I gotta
Speaker 1: tell you, I'm gonna come back to you again. Being
Speaker 1: on Steve Harvey, having a flex with being like getting
Speaker 1: into working with comedians but also giving analysis, it taught
Speaker 1: me flexibility. Being on HLN and CNN a lot of
Speaker 1: times you're ad living in the field. It taught me
Speaker 1: that sometimes you're reading the prompter, but then also sometimes
Speaker 1: you have to be able to give coherent thoughts quickly.
Speaker 1: And so for me, it's almost about separating different sides
Speaker 1: of your brain. One is I'm reading, I'm telling the news,
Speaker 1: which is you're anchoring. But the other side is when
Speaker 1: you're doing legal analysts. When you're doing legal analysis. The
Speaker 1: key from Erashawn research research research before I even show
Speaker 1: up on air. So my whole job is I got
Speaker 1: to know the issue back and forth, left and right,
Speaker 1: be ready for any question. And sometimes I tell them
Speaker 1: don't even tell me the question. I just put the
Speaker 1: onus on myself to know as much as I can.
Speaker 1: Then when they asked the question. The first job I
Speaker 1: have to the viewer is whatever is complicated, I gotta
Speaker 1: make it simple. I gotta start out with a way
Speaker 1: to take whatever is most complicated about this is you, Okay,
Speaker 1: here's what Deshaun Watson might be facing. Make it simple.
Speaker 1: Give me one statement right up front, just the crux
Speaker 1: of it, and then go into the analysis. To me,
Speaker 1: if I know my material well, I can boil it
Speaker 1: down and give it to you in thirty seconds to
Speaker 1: a minute. The most important facts and I can only
Speaker 1: do one or two things. I can't try to jump
Speaker 1: on seventeen different things. And that's the key. The key
Speaker 1: is like taking that complicated stuff and making it simple. Research,
Speaker 1: do the work, and then when I'm giving the presentation,
Speaker 1: know my audience. If my audience is Sports Center, I
Speaker 1: know the time frame that they've got to listen to
Speaker 1: me talk about a legal issue. Each question is like,
Speaker 1: what can I give them that's powerful about this case
Speaker 1: that is different in terms of the Analogis that's something
Speaker 1: they didn't know in forty seconds? And how can I
Speaker 1: do it as simply as possible using the easiest possible words.
Speaker 1: That's the challenge. And so the way I do it
Speaker 1: is I just think about how we're talking right now,
Speaker 1: we're just having a normal conversation. Well, Ryan, um, I
Speaker 1: understand you, my friend. I'm glad we took time to
Speaker 1: talk again your family and so we're talking again in
Speaker 1: the fall. But again I'm so proud of you. I
Speaker 1: am so absolutely proud of your man. And uh, when
Speaker 1: I get the New York with with we'll connect, but
Speaker 1: again in Bristol will connect. But again keep winning, man,
Speaker 1: and don't change, and thank you for coming on money
Speaker 1: and conversations. We will be right back with more money
Speaker 1: making conversations with your host Rashwan McDonald. What grows in
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Speaker 1: money making conversations. Minute of Inspiration with Rashan McDonald. Lizzy
Speaker 1: Davis is currently an anchor for ABC News Live Prime
Speaker 1: and Weekend World's News Tonight on Sundays, we talked about
Speaker 1: the difference between news and opinionated journalism. It's always about
Speaker 1: the facts. I think that it's also about knowing what
Speaker 1: you don't know, and so I think that when you
Speaker 1: don't have a lot of variation, a lot of variety
Speaker 1: of perspectives and lenses and experiences at the proverbial table,
Speaker 1: then you're missing some of the nuance to the story
Speaker 1: right and some of the relevant facts get thrown aside.
Speaker 1: I don't think that I'm coloring it if with anything
Speaker 1: except that I do come with the perspective and the
Speaker 1: experience of being a black woman in America, and so
Speaker 1: I think that I may have certain questions that I'm
Speaker 1: gonna ask or that I'm going to lean into based
Speaker 1: on my own experience. If you want to hear this
Speaker 1: full interview with Lindsay Davis, visit money Making Conversation dot com.
Speaker 1: Keep winning. Welcome back to Money Making Conversations with your
Speaker 1: host Rashan McDonald. My next guest is Kenneth for Read.
Speaker 1: He's a professional basketball player, something I could never do.
Speaker 1: I was dreamed of being in the league, but all
Speaker 1: I can do is watch being in the league. He
Speaker 1: put the Devon Nuggets books the next Houston Rockets from
Speaker 1: a span of eight years from eleven to winning the eighteen.
Speaker 1: He also will spend time in China. We'll talking about
Speaker 1: that in part of his interview. Your entrepreneurship is his
Speaker 1: is his? His His foundation I'd like to talk about. He's
Speaker 1: the founder of the Kenneth for Reed hat Foundation, which
Speaker 1: stands for Humble, Appreciative and Thankful. Kenneth is a video gamer.
Speaker 1: He stated, I got into gaming because of my dad,
Speaker 1: and weirdly enough, because of my mom. My mom and
Speaker 1: dad are both Xbox gamers. He's pretty good at it
Speaker 1: because at Fortnite and the Charitable Foundation, he was able
Speaker 1: to win two hundred and fifty thou dollars in prize money,
Speaker 1: which had to be used for a charitable purpose. He
Speaker 1: finished second and got two hundred fifty dollars, which launched
Speaker 1: his foundation, the Humble, Appreciative and Thankful Foundation, which stands
Speaker 1: for hat Kennada is definitely more than the athlete, Like
Speaker 1: I teached him about it earlier, because I saw him
Speaker 1: in the Body issue with ESPN, I guess he showed
Speaker 1: a little bit more of his athleticism. Okay, conversation, my man,
Speaker 1: Kenneth Freed. How Kenneth, thank you, thank you. I'm excited
Speaker 1: at I'm excided here. Uh, this is a great opportunity
Speaker 1: for me, I just as a person and as a man,
Speaker 1: and to be up here with I mean no other
Speaker 1: than what Sean. I mean this This is love right here. Well,
Speaker 1: it is love because you know, I always like to
Speaker 1: bring individuals on like you because you can get stereotyped
Speaker 1: and and uh, you know, and when I say stereotyping,
Speaker 1: Stereo Talpico for being a black man. You can stereotype
Speaker 1: a tall black man. You can stereotype being an athlete,
Speaker 1: which can come into play about your intelligence. Come to
Speaker 1: that's all you can do. How do you deal with
Speaker 1: I mentioned several I depended being a black man. I've
Speaker 1: been being a tall person. I've been there an athlete.
Speaker 1: Which one do you want to come in first? Being stereotyped,
Speaker 1: because there's three of them. I know you can stereotype though,
Speaker 1: well it's only because of course, you know my persona
Speaker 1: of my hair goes with it. Um, people as soon
Speaker 1: is hey, you're tall, you're you're also black. To be honest,
Speaker 1: you're tall, you're black. You got this athletic build about
Speaker 1: you and your handsome so I'm assuming you you play
Speaker 1: basketball and football. But yeah, that's pretty much, um, the
Speaker 1: stereotype of my whole life. Man. For me, I've been
Speaker 1: dealing with that and I just take it with a
Speaker 1: grain of salt. Sometimes I like to play a little
Speaker 1: games for people like, oh no, I'm not him, I'm
Speaker 1: actually play lacross. I'm not that guy. Actually I actually
Speaker 1: played on soccer, you know, I'm a goalie for Manchester United.
Speaker 1: But I just like the best with people, So taller,
Speaker 1: but at the same token as a blessing and the curse.
Speaker 1: You know, you God put you on this earth and
Speaker 1: gave you these blessings, and you either you either use
Speaker 1: them to your advantage or you take it as all
Speaker 1: why me, white me. And I've never been a person
Speaker 1: who sayd why me, always said try me right. You know,
Speaker 1: it's really interesting because of the fact that you know
Speaker 1: your athleticism, you'll be all force you in a direction.
Speaker 1: And there's some words I would I apologize, I won't
Speaker 1: use the work force, but it tends to put you
Speaker 1: in the direction of expectations, you know, like you know
Speaker 1: when you when you're a smart person. Intelligence isn't isn't
Speaker 1: isn't written on your face, isn't written in your abs,
Speaker 1: just isn't written in your height. It's just you have
Speaker 1: to show people that you're intelligent. Do you feel that,
Speaker 1: because of your bill, that you you have to show
Speaker 1: people that you're more than an athlete, that you can
Speaker 1: do more, that you're capable of achieving things beyond the
Speaker 1: basketball court. Yeah, a hundred percent. Um. But one thing
Speaker 1: my parents was blessed to. I was blessed to I
Speaker 1: guess reciprocate when they was telling me back in the day,
Speaker 1: because they told me a lot. So it was one
Speaker 1: thing they always said, to use what you got to
Speaker 1: your advantage. And I always wonder what they mean by
Speaker 1: that when I was younger. But as I got older
Speaker 1: and going to the man I am today, I just
Speaker 1: understood it more and more. And I'm thirty one today,
Speaker 1: my partent use Like I said, I was younger, they
Speaker 1: told me a lot. But now that I'm thirty one
Speaker 1: and I understood what they the Hey, I have a
Speaker 1: chance here just because I'm tall and because I'm black
Speaker 1: and people see my athleticism and all that stuff. To
Speaker 1: use that to my advantage. So I went to more
Speaker 1: Head State. Yeah, everybody expecting be not even make it
Speaker 1: to the NBA. But I use it to my advantage.
Speaker 1: I said, Hey, I'm here, I might as well keep
Speaker 1: going graduate, get my education, show other people and my family.
Speaker 1: Not just like I didn't really care about the outside
Speaker 1: world in the sense of the public thought about me.
Speaker 1: I only cared about my family and what they thought.
Speaker 1: And it was, Hey, I want to show my family
Speaker 1: and have a eleven year old Now I had her
Speaker 1: my junior in college named Kira on free I want
Speaker 1: to show her, Hey, just because daddy is in the
Speaker 1: n b A, he doesn't mean you can't graduate, get
Speaker 1: your degree, become that that pillar of foundation from your family.
Speaker 1: From not just a financial aspect, but a mental aspect,
Speaker 1: because you have to be intelligent with the money. You
Speaker 1: can't just have it and go Okay, I got money, right,
Speaker 1: spend it, foolers free, Oh get this person to house,
Speaker 1: get this person to car, and all this stuff. You know,
Speaker 1: you gotta understand that, hey, that wealth last you for
Speaker 1: that amount of time. Right then and there, you're making
Speaker 1: that much money because you're because of your talents and athleticism.
Speaker 1: But what are you going to do after? Right? Right?
Speaker 1: But your most interesting, Kenneth, because you know, I've been
Speaker 1: fortunate in my life, you know, because when you're in entertainment,
Speaker 1: it's kind of like athletics, as an income can come
Speaker 1: in and large amounts, and sometimes you don't know what
Speaker 1: to do with that large amount. And sometimes it comes like, oh,
Speaker 1: I just get this, you know, I just leased this,
Speaker 1: you know, and but you don't think anything of it
Speaker 1: because guess what, you're able to buy it. You're able
Speaker 1: to purchase, you able to live that lifestyle. But then,
Speaker 1: like you said earlier, your conversation is about longevity because
Speaker 1: you're not gonna play forever and that big check needs
Speaker 1: to need to go down the line at least twenty
Speaker 1: thirty years. That's the process, you know. But you're a
Speaker 1: young guy. You're thirty one now. Now this is where athlete,
Speaker 1: the sism and then longevity comes into play, because I
Speaker 1: know when I was a team, thirty was a long
Speaker 1: wailway forty I could even imagine forty fifty. Come on, dude,
Speaker 1: really you're talking about So we did the process of
Speaker 1: being thirty one and become a reality to you. Um,
Speaker 1: it just became a reality this I mean it's COVID
Speaker 1: pandemic hit, you know. Um for me, I was in
Speaker 1: my twenties and the NBA enjoying life, having fun. By
Speaker 1: the same token, just making a little smart investments here
Speaker 1: and there, like my Manumal Elite that's where I'm wearing
Speaker 1: right now, this shirt. My AU team made an investment
Speaker 1: in that and that's through the like you said earlier,
Speaker 1: Kenning Free Hat Foundation. So it was it was a
Speaker 1: blessing to be able to have that on my I
Speaker 1: guess a patch on my shoulder like, Hey, this is
Speaker 1: something I've done, this is something I build in Now,
Speaker 1: I guess I believe it's nine years the Yeah, nine
Speaker 1: years later, but to be ten years next summer. Nine
Speaker 1: years later, I still have it up and running every
Speaker 1: The kids are untremendous job of promoting the brand, being
Speaker 1: part of the brand, and really understanding what the brand means.
Speaker 1: And that's just being a hat being humble, appreciated, thankful,
Speaker 1: And that's my biggest I guess, my biggest chip on
Speaker 1: my shoulder. I always been humble, appreciated, thankful for anything. Really, really, kid,
Speaker 1: you've been You've been humble? Now, could I could? I
Speaker 1: gotta stop you that? If anybody just to start just
Speaker 1: just google the body issue. Okay, definitely got to stop
Speaker 1: him on his humble talk. See, I know for a fact,
Speaker 1: I know for a fact. See I wouldn't even gonna
Speaker 1: go that. But he keeps throwing out the word humble.
Speaker 1: But you know, I'm humble. I'm humble. I'm humble. Uh So,
Speaker 1: how does that because I'm just having fun with you?
Speaker 1: Can because I love you to death, man, we're talking
Speaker 1: about that. But I gotta be able to slide this
Speaker 1: into the conversation because you did it. You didn't. I didn't.
Speaker 1: I didn't want you to do it. Nobody told you, Hey, man,
Speaker 1: you wouldn't be naked. And then how some people put
Speaker 1: some hot a little basketball on certain parts of your
Speaker 1: body and you jump up and down and we will
Speaker 1: put in the magazine. How how did that sounded? Was
Speaker 1: that a hard pitch cannon or was that a picture?
Speaker 1: You just? Oh, I got this covered. You saw earlier dishes.
Speaker 1: You go, man, why they ain't picked me yet? How
Speaker 1: I talk about that whole journey that, Kenny, Because see,
Speaker 1: I know you did something again. You're an NBA something
Speaker 1: I can never do. You in the Body Issue again,
Speaker 1: something I can never do. But talk about your humbleness
Speaker 1: in doing the body issue of ESPN. Okay, well it
Speaker 1: was I guess it's not. I guess I can't. I'm
Speaker 1: so confused, right, it's hard. It's hard to say, you know. Uh.
Speaker 1: I went out there. It was funny because my my
Speaker 1: rookie year in the league. Basically I saw the Body
Speaker 1: Issue and no or ESPN. I saw the SPS Awards
Speaker 1: and I saw all that beautiful stuff and I said, hey,
Speaker 1: that's the Body Issue, and whoa these people are really naked.
Speaker 1: I love to be naked. I love to be free.
Speaker 1: I want to do that. It looks like all right,
Speaker 1: So I didn't think of it as Okay, you have
Speaker 1: to be naked and you about to be basically showing
Speaker 1: all your stuff off. I thought, maybe you be like naked,
Speaker 1: but you you're covered in certain areas right right right,
Speaker 1: But no, you just free. And I was like, wow, okay,
Speaker 1: I'm ready here to do this. I'm not gonna be afraid.
Speaker 1: And it was the second year. Um, they basically said,
Speaker 1: hey you, we'll we'll love to have you. Um, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of other players that's gonna be in there.
Speaker 1: But all you gotta do, all you have to do
Speaker 1: is just play. Play in the playoffs, like you have
Speaker 1: your team make the playoffs. And that was my second
Speaker 1: NBA and I'm like, oh, well, we're going to do that.
Speaker 1: I want to make sure that whatever I gotta do,
Speaker 1: and it's just so happened. We made the playoffs, was
Speaker 1: the third seed and we lost the Words that year.
Speaker 1: But I guess I made an impact and the image
Speaker 1: for myself for the rest of my life. Well you
Speaker 1: did Kenney for Reid, you know. Uh, but it isn't
Speaker 1: a good way because it's part of your brand, you know,
Speaker 1: because you know, Lord knows, you know, you're using your
Speaker 1: second year. So I know the players on the court
Speaker 1: gave you a hard time, fund a hard time about
Speaker 1: that when they were guarding you and all that stuff
Speaker 1: and warm ups and all that stuff. So I know
Speaker 1: they've taken care of you. But what I love about you, man,
Speaker 1: is that there is a position that people do in
Speaker 1: life where they stopped themselves. They say they don't want
Speaker 1: to do something, They worry about what people think and
Speaker 1: and but it's all part of a brand build, you know,
Speaker 1: that's part of your personality. Like you said, you know,
Speaker 1: you're tall, you're black, your hairstyle, you're a good looking guy.
Speaker 1: So that's part of being a I I think it's
Speaker 1: just like being a model. You know, you are you.
Speaker 1: You can't be a model, you know, and that there's
Speaker 1: no doubt in my mind. But that's that's physical, you know.
Speaker 1: You know the thing about being physical, there's always a
Speaker 1: time living on being physical. And so that's what we
Speaker 1: said right now, you know, because of COVID and you
Speaker 1: went over to China and and to extend your basketball
Speaker 1: career because I guess what they write nice checks over
Speaker 1: in China. By the way, y'all okay, and uh and
Speaker 1: so and so. Now you're back at home right now.
Speaker 1: What is it from a physical standpoint? Do you stand
Speaker 1: with your career? I know you still stand in shape.
Speaker 1: Is it stand in shape to continue a basketball career
Speaker 1: or you're ready to move on? Um? I'm standing in
Speaker 1: shape because I want to get back into the NBA. UM.
Speaker 1: I'm pushing myself and doing things that pretty much got
Speaker 1: me there and just standing focused like them, not letting
Speaker 1: the outside distractions. Oh, I have fun in my twenties
Speaker 1: pretty much, and it was it was nice, you know,
Speaker 1: enjoyed that. Me going over to China was also a blessing. Um.
Speaker 1: Most people, we wouldn't see that as that because of
Speaker 1: the fact that it did kind of stop me from
Speaker 1: going to the NBA with the bubble and everything. It
Speaker 1: kind of holding me from that decision, even though I
Speaker 1: got out of it early. But COVID protocols and the
Speaker 1: way he was setting up things that just wasn't letting
Speaker 1: fever players in. So I just respected that and had
Speaker 1: to respect it, and I just put my acts pretty
Speaker 1: much to the ground and showed everybody why they called
Speaker 1: me manimal and why everybody say, hey, this kid never
Speaker 1: stopped working. He's a worker, he's he's this, he's that.
Speaker 1: You give it as all every time you step on
Speaker 1: the court. And that's truly who I am. And I
Speaker 1: just wanted to show everybody that and remind everybody that,
Speaker 1: and slowly but surely people want to see it. People
Speaker 1: going to see it. Well, I have no doubt about it.
Speaker 1: But you've always been had a life where you know,
Speaker 1: you weren't the five star athlete coming out of high school.
Speaker 1: You know, you more hair stayed, You finished your career
Speaker 1: as at all time rebound on it broke, I think
Speaker 1: Tim Duncan's record all times rebounds and so but along
Speaker 1: with that, it's like you don't let what people think.
Speaker 1: And I guess that's that's the core my interview with
Speaker 1: you cannot because you know, not letting people put you
Speaker 1: in the box, letting letting people limit you based on
Speaker 1: your capabilities. What drives you? Is that what was instilled
Speaker 1: in you by your parents that drives you, or just
Speaker 1: a natural level of competition that drives you. It's it's honestly,
Speaker 1: both um, my father would my father would say when
Speaker 1: I was younger, I would do things like here, do
Speaker 1: things in the house with me. Man, he saw me
Speaker 1: doing in the house with me, and I just do it. Listen,
Speaker 1: listen to them and pay attention. And I probably get frustrated,
Speaker 1: like I don't flet doing this with you every day.
Speaker 1: But it was it was my dad, and as to
Speaker 1: say token, it would translate to hey, my cousins will
Speaker 1: come over and I would instantly tell them, Hey, we
Speaker 1: waking up in the morning, we're gonna work out. Hey,
Speaker 1: when you get up in the morning, I don't want
Speaker 1: to hear you complaining about like while we're getting up
Speaker 1: this early, like we're working. And then it turned to
Speaker 1: my father just no new every time around my cousin, YO,
Speaker 1: come on, push. I was pushing my cousins just as
Speaker 1: much as my father would say, Hey, you got it,
Speaker 1: you got this, son, just give it your best. But
Speaker 1: it was it was never my father was never as
Speaker 1: a forcing me to do it. He was always telling me, hey, son,
Speaker 1: I'm telling you didn't do this to work out, keep
Speaker 1: your body and shape because just you need it for life.
Speaker 1: It's not because hey, you want to be this superstar
Speaker 1: basketball player. Is that a third. No, you need to
Speaker 1: just have your body and shape and ready for whatever.
Speaker 1: For life and your mind. It's gonna help your body.
Speaker 1: Your body and mind will help each other. If you
Speaker 1: work your body and you work your mind, they're gonna
Speaker 1: come hand in hand. So you can think, you can
Speaker 1: think on a go. It's gonna help you for basketball later.
Speaker 1: You want to be an NBA player, That's what you
Speaker 1: keep telling me. So you gotta sharp not just your body,
Speaker 1: you have to sharpen your mind. So I would wake
Speaker 1: up with my cousins when they was there, tell them
Speaker 1: come on his work out. I'm all hype. My father
Speaker 1: didn't really have to bring the energy. Then afterwards I'm like, hey,
Speaker 1: I gotta do crossword puzzles. But it wasn't crossword puzzles
Speaker 1: like your typical Hey, you know, kids get to find
Speaker 1: the word. It is not the third. No. I had
Speaker 1: to look at the cross word, look at the words
Speaker 1: on the side and read them, read the words and
Speaker 1: know how to spell the words, then know the meaning
Speaker 1: and definition of the word. Didn't put the same words
Speaker 1: in a sentence right. That drove me to go, you
Speaker 1: know what, when I got to college, I want to
Speaker 1: do speech communications. Absolutely. You know the interesting thing about
Speaker 1: we hit that a lot like you were at the
Speaker 1: beginning to the end of y'all saying I wanted to
Speaker 1: be an NBA and then of course what and you you.
Speaker 1: I want to say this real clean because a compliment
Speaker 1: to an individual who are encounter like you, who are
Speaker 1: living a dream that we watch on television, we admire
Speaker 1: the accomplishment. There's a limited roster space. There are guys
Speaker 1: in the G League who are trying to get in there.
Speaker 1: There are guys who are not in the league trying
Speaker 1: to get in there. What made you or what enabled
Speaker 1: you to reach your dream of being and able to
Speaker 1: play in the NBA Kenning for red Um the motivation
Speaker 1: of like I said, my parents. Honestly, my dad, I'm
Speaker 1: pushing himself going to the way we lived in He
Speaker 1: lived in Geersey City, but every day from Monday to Friday,
Speaker 1: he worked for the Union in New York. He will
Speaker 1: catch the train, wake up dumb early in the morning
Speaker 1: just to catch the train to go all the way
Speaker 1: to New York to be at work at eight o'clock
Speaker 1: in the morning. And we'll work from eight o'clock all
Speaker 1: the way to I don't know, like five sometimes right six,
Speaker 1: But we're working during pain and jobs for the buildings
Speaker 1: that they were constructing, to help hang sheet rock and
Speaker 1: do all that stuff and hang it was but he
Speaker 1: did go construction work. His main thing was painting, but
Speaker 1: he learned the construction part of it in order to
Speaker 1: make sure he did was able to build other things
Speaker 1: later in life and hand do other things at his
Speaker 1: own house that he owned at the time. So it
Speaker 1: was just amazing to watch him do that. Then my mom, uh,
Speaker 1: like she just been a battle in my whole life.
Speaker 1: She she got lupus when I was really young, and
Speaker 1: ever since then it's been like a fight for her
Speaker 1: to survive and just see me grow into the man
Speaker 1: I am today. And I always said, Hey, every rebound
Speaker 1: that I get in my life, I'm hoping and praying
Speaker 1: that it just goes towards my mom another day towards
Speaker 1: her life. That's it. Just another day and not even
Speaker 1: a week or a month. And I just went it
Speaker 1: made me go after every rebound that same way, because
Speaker 1: every time I'm out there on the court, her mom
Speaker 1: always just yell at me, nor that's your house, nor
Speaker 1: nor just my nickname, my member name is Bernard, so
Speaker 1: she my father was Bernard, right right right, You better
Speaker 1: go out there and get that rebound. Stop playing. No,
Speaker 1: that's your house. Don't let nobody get no rebounds, get
Speaker 1: shoot no shots at your house. You better go in
Speaker 1: there and block that shot, rebound the ball, and run
Speaker 1: the floor. So, I mean, my career is there. It's
Speaker 1: this time to you know, try to just try to.
Speaker 1: You know, we always talk about motivation. We always talking
Speaker 1: about somebody is stealing a constant, constant montraump into your mindset.
Speaker 1: And if you keep hearing I always tell people, especially
Speaker 1: with children, if children here negative, then they will live
Speaker 1: a life of negativity. If you're a children in your situation,
Speaker 1: they kept telling you what you could do and what
Speaker 1: you could not do. And that's what I hear. Let's
Speaker 1: keep the screaming out of this conversation and screaming out
Speaker 1: in a good way, you know. And when I talk
Speaker 1: about you being more than an athlete, we gotta go
Speaker 1: over to the gaming and and I'm gonna just tell
Speaker 1: you this nord you know, is that you know black people,
Speaker 1: they're gonna give your nickname, my nickname, Ricky. Okay, So
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, I gotta call you nod
Speaker 1: okay okay. And so when when I look at look
Speaker 1: at in Naty, I was I was goos that could
Speaker 1: have producing of the Jamie Fox Show. And I was
Speaker 1: in the writer's room and they had a game on.
Speaker 1: They had a video game on gaming on and they
Speaker 1: they they and I sat down and I went, let
Speaker 1: me play. And then they handed me something. I wanted
Speaker 1: to say something because it was far into me because
Speaker 1: they got next to me. Was able to flip, he
Speaker 1: was able to kick, he was a spending he was
Speaker 1: able to blow torches. Right then I realized I can't
Speaker 1: do this. So the ability to be able to manipulate
Speaker 1: these games and play basketball, play football, to play Fortnite,
Speaker 1: talk about that journey of developing these talents, these skills
Speaker 1: as a game gaming pro, talk about it. Honestly, it's
Speaker 1: just my way of escape me from my environment. I
Speaker 1: grew up. I grew up in the hood. Like I mean,
Speaker 1: like the typical hood story. Hey, this kid came from
Speaker 1: nothing and he he didn't have no finance, you backing,
Speaker 1: or real wealth and he still made it out. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's that's typically what you're here nowadays. And typically us.
Speaker 1: Black people are the odds that were hal to face
Speaker 1: every day. So for me, it was either hey, the
Speaker 1: streets is calling you. You live right across the street,
Speaker 1: well right across street from a park where a lot
Speaker 1: of murders happened, a lot of dead vouties happen. Then
Speaker 1: hey you right there, you live right down I mean
Speaker 1: right upstairs from where they sell drugs out at the
Speaker 1: corner store. Right there, you live right upstairs from that.
Speaker 1: So and then all these game members, Hey, you got
Speaker 1: crips and bloods all in your building, and they all
Speaker 1: wanted you to join in. Hey represent us, represent us.
Speaker 1: Hey you you're part of us. We're gonna protect you
Speaker 1: and make sure we got your back. And but my
Speaker 1: foundation is what kept me from going there. My mom, no,
Speaker 1: you can't go outside. My dad, Now, that's not that,
Speaker 1: that's not the environment for you. You don't need to
Speaker 1: be there. So what has the kid to do? Okay,
Speaker 1: it's snowing, it's raining. You can't go outside and go
Speaker 1: to the park like I usually do. I usually go
Speaker 1: to Weekway Park, go up the street where the courts hat,
Speaker 1: and I'm playing there. Then I come back home. I'm
Speaker 1: dead tired, THENK shirt was white, now was black. But
Speaker 1: you know, you gotta get it in. You gotta hustle.
Speaker 1: So it's raining and snowing outside. What else is there
Speaker 1: to do? You can't like, you don't have the ex
Speaker 1: accessibility of a gym because you can't afford that. You
Speaker 1: can't afford to go to a gym, you can't afford
Speaker 1: to have a gym membership. So you play video games.
Speaker 1: You sit back and imagine, Hey, this is a world
Speaker 1: that's outside of the my outside world can be like.
Speaker 1: Or this is a world where my life can be like.
Speaker 1: So I got into playing. Back then, it wasn't Mad,
Speaker 1: and it was Game Day for me. Back then, it
Speaker 1: wasn't two K. It was INBA Live. So I was
Speaker 1: playing NBA Live, it was playing Mad, I was own
Speaker 1: excuse me, I was playing Game Day. Then I was
Speaker 1: playing Resident Evil. I was playing Uh. I was playing
Speaker 1: Hey outside of my environment, my father, and I'm telling me, hey,
Speaker 1: this this game because games didn't have no ratings back
Speaker 1: then brand that far though. Playing that, I'm like, hey,
Speaker 1: this is where I live at. I could I could
Speaker 1: be the person that's doing all the negative stuff and
Speaker 1: all that stuff that's not supposed to be like that's
Speaker 1: gonna get you locked up and not on the right path.
Speaker 1: I can be this person on the game right, So hey,
Speaker 1: mistick to this right and okay, hey, it's not just
Speaker 1: my parents make me play video games. Hey, you gotta
Speaker 1: read these books and do this stuff too. So it
Speaker 1: was okay, I can read these books real quick, do
Speaker 1: all this stuff. Uh, do all these words, keep learning,
Speaker 1: keep expanding my brain then or let me go over
Speaker 1: here to these video games because I don't want to
Speaker 1: think about the outside world and what's really going on
Speaker 1: and the negativity. I want to think positive and I
Speaker 1: feel like I can control stuff. And that's what it does,
Speaker 1: is a control thing. We know the thing about it
Speaker 1: when you when I look at you, first of all,
Speaker 1: I appreciate the the humbleness, which is part of half
Speaker 1: foundations narrative being appreciative. I hear that in my interview.
Speaker 1: I hear the word thankful in the interview. You know
Speaker 1: you you do represent that, and then you represented all
Speaker 1: phases of HAT in this interview, and I think that
Speaker 1: would that being the foundation. How does your foundation work?
Speaker 1: Who you're focusing on helping with your HAT foundation, and
Speaker 1: what's the future of HAT well, hopefully the future of
Speaker 1: HACK can be expanded to many of states. Um, just
Speaker 1: it's just basically the health that you. It's healthy youth
Speaker 1: through programming and not programming of of oh like, hey
Speaker 1: you gotta do this, listen to this and be this
Speaker 1: type of person. No, it's programming of having fun and
Speaker 1: joining and understanding that your knowledge can get you further
Speaker 1: than your athletic abilities ever can, because hey, at the
Speaker 1: end of the day, yeah, you can play hard and
Speaker 1: do everything possible to try to make it to that
Speaker 1: next level of the NBA or overseas, but it may
Speaker 1: not pan out for you, or injury maybe happen. What
Speaker 1: we want to make sure that you've got a scholarship,
Speaker 1: and not just any scholarship, but four years scholarship to
Speaker 1: a D one school to get your education first, because
Speaker 1: that's what we care about here and have foundation and
Speaker 1: it it's about your education, about you going to that
Speaker 1: next level of education, about you graduate in high school
Speaker 1: a better person, not just man, not just female, because
Speaker 1: we have manual ely boys, we have manly girls. Just
Speaker 1: a man or a female being a better overall person
Speaker 1: going out there feeling as confident as you were on
Speaker 1: the court, but in the classroom or just in the dorms,
Speaker 1: because at the end of the day, our whole objective
Speaker 1: is to get you to d one so you can
Speaker 1: make the world a better place and have a full
Speaker 1: ride in your parents. Don't don't have to worry about.
Speaker 1: Nothing I gotta do is worry about whole I got
Speaker 1: a little bit of money, I can come see you. Hey,
Speaker 1: we got a little bit of money, you could come
Speaker 1: see me, right, And that's what my parents had to
Speaker 1: worry about. And that's what I believe that the youth
Speaker 1: should be able to pretty much having their hands with
Speaker 1: the with the proper lane, with the proper opportunity, And
Speaker 1: that's what hat's all about, giving you the proper opportunity.
Speaker 1: I know that I come from an inner city, six shisters,
Speaker 1: two brothers, so I know about what you're talking about.
Speaker 1: You know, I didn't when I grew up. I didn't
Speaker 1: have video games, you know. I just I always tell people,
Speaker 1: you know, when we moved to a better neighborhood, but
Speaker 1: it was the same black people. It was the same experience.
Speaker 1: When I walked outside that door, it was just a
Speaker 1: little bit better. And that was just my parents desire
Speaker 1: just to give us a little bit better to seek
Speaker 1: a little bit better opportunity because they saw there were
Speaker 1: opportunities out there. And when I look at your skill set.
Speaker 1: I have Rick Fox on the show and he was
Speaker 1: talking about he owned a gaming leave part of the
Speaker 1: Gaming League, and he owned a game team a team,
Speaker 1: and he was just talking about the value of these teams. Now,
Speaker 1: I know you wanted Fourth Night, you want this second place.
Speaker 1: Where does the future hold for you in that whole
Speaker 1: Fortnight and then the whole gaming industry? Are you gonna
Speaker 1: be built part of Are you gonna own a team?
Speaker 1: We're gonna be part of the league. What does it
Speaker 1: take you? Kenneth f reed A k A. Nord, Well,
Speaker 1: that's where we're building right now. Um uh. Like I said,
Speaker 1: I see the future in the youth, and the Half
Speaker 1: Foundation is kind of that. I'm looking for people to
Speaker 1: help give back and not just because it's Kenne Freee hat. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but it's not for me. I don't see it down
Speaker 1: from it on. Anything I'm doing is just giving it
Speaker 1: back to the kids everything. That's everything I'm about. I
Speaker 1: have five kids of my own, three boys, two girls,
Speaker 1: So for me is hey, I'm building them to understand
Speaker 1: that you gotta work your tel all to reach your goals.
Speaker 1: Back the same token, make little make impact in the world.
Speaker 1: Don't just be a person who, oh make their dreams
Speaker 1: come to all that other stuff, and like, I want
Speaker 1: to isolate myself from very body. No give back the bill.
Speaker 1: Continue to be a great person. Build your your name
Speaker 1: in the history books. Asked, Hey, tire Free, did this?
Speaker 1: Kinsey Free? Did this? The third? Kinneth? Because I have
Speaker 1: a like, I said, my son, so the third, he's
Speaker 1: the third. I'm the second. My father is the first.
Speaker 1: Hey the third, Like, you got the name, so you
Speaker 1: got it? You better so and then you know kena
Speaker 1: and tie in there. I want of course them, Yo, y'all,
Speaker 1: just because your brother got the name on me, y'all
Speaker 1: can't do the same thing. Y'all boys, All y'all boys,
Speaker 1: y'all go. But for me, I'm more so on my
Speaker 1: girls than anything, because yo, y'all, little girls. Everybody looking
Speaker 1: for y'all to be black little girls who just look
Speaker 1: for handouts and marry athletes or whatever. Then oh, just
Speaker 1: have plenty of baby like baby fathers or whatever. No,
Speaker 1: you're gonna be better than this. You're gonna be smart, educated.
Speaker 1: You Google be a doctor, you can will be a nurse,
Speaker 1: you google be freaking astronaut, anything in as world. But
Speaker 1: you're going to be educated for sure, and then you're
Speaker 1: gonna have the You're gonna be tossed. I want to
Speaker 1: make sure you have the physical body to not be
Speaker 1: a little fat kid because at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: kids nowadays just want to watch the high pad and
Speaker 1: play video games because you can make money from it,
Speaker 1: a lot of money. But now you gotta do everything.
Speaker 1: You gotta play sports, still be active, focus on, focus
Speaker 1: on school. Of course, school is first student athlete. That's
Speaker 1: why I tell my kids your student athlete. So for me,
Speaker 1: I'm building this video game stuff and I got my
Speaker 1: kids who play video games. So I'm like, hey, once
Speaker 1: you incorporate your AU team too, hopefully you take the whole.
Speaker 1: Are you team kids today? Anybody? And I'm like, hey,
Speaker 1: you got a man and we leave gaming now there
Speaker 1: you go. I love it. Man, Hey kiddeth Man talking
Speaker 1: to Kenny for red Man. He's the second and saw
Speaker 1: Us the third. He's building a legacy. He's been a
Speaker 1: foundation for us. You know, we all need him, we
Speaker 1: all need a Kenneth in Our Life and Right Now.
Speaker 1: He shared his story on Money Making Conversation. Kenneth, thank
Speaker 1: you for coming on Money Making Conversations, Sir, Thank you
Speaker 1: for having man. Man. This is a great conversation. I
Speaker 1: love talking to man. You can take a good joke. Man.
Speaker 1: You could be teased. Man. You understand who you are. Man.
Speaker 1: You really are humble man, and you are appreciative and
Speaker 1: you are thankful. Thank you for coming on the show
Speaker 1: talking about the half Foundation. Man. And you won't lose
Speaker 1: me as a friend. I'm gonna I'm putting me in
Speaker 1: that friend docket that you have about of course, of
Speaker 1: course you Ricky. I love it. I love it. I
Speaker 1: love it. Thank you for coming on Money Making Conversation. No, man,
Speaker 1: love it. We will be right back with more money
Speaker 1: Making Conversations with your host Roshan McDonald. And we're live
Speaker 1: here outside the parent family home, just waiting for the
Speaker 1: and there they go, almost on time. This morning. Mom
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Speaker 1: Welcome mile in the machine. You are now tuned into
Speaker 1: the money making conversations. Minute of Inspiration with Rashan McDonald.
Speaker 1: Jermaine dupri is a hit maker, songwriter, rapper, entrepreneur, record
Speaker 1: executive DJ and we're always having an opinion about music,
Speaker 1: but were discussed making mailbox money doing the pandemic COVID
Speaker 1: hit and that's where the attention went and went straight
Speaker 1: to my mailbox. That's what I am. I'm a songwriter
Speaker 1: that's written songs that goes to the mailbox and picks
Speaker 1: up that that that mailbox check every month or every
Speaker 1: whatever it comes. You know, you don't know, you know,
Speaker 1: you don't know how freak when it is. But if
Speaker 1: you write enough records, and you write enough hit records,
Speaker 1: that check is definitely there. And it's another one that
Speaker 1: comes right after that, and there's another one comes right
Speaker 1: after that. And I think, for the first time in
Speaker 1: my career, this is the first time that I actually
Speaker 1: paid attention to that because I always was getting money
Speaker 1: so many multiple places. If you want to hear this
Speaker 1: full interview with Jermaine Duprix, visit money Making Conversation dot com.
Speaker 1: Keep winning. Welcome back to Money Making Conversations with your host,
Speaker 1: Rashwan McDonald. My next Jeff is Chef Q. Chef Q
Speaker 1: is a veteran to serve eight years in the Navy.
Speaker 1: He's in the great example of perseverance and not giving
Speaker 1: up on your dreams. He opened Q seven, which is
Speaker 1: his month and date of his birthday, as a restaurant
Speaker 1: in December and had to close four months later due
Speaker 1: to the pandemic. Chef Q made adjustments and created to
Speaker 1: go ardiers and the family menu menu, which became a
Speaker 1: big healthful parents working home remotely. He also had working
Speaker 1: at home, working remotely at home and Instaid like that.
Speaker 1: He has received exceptional reviews for his great tasting food
Speaker 1: and service from President Bill Clinton, TV radio host My Boar,
Speaker 1: Steve Harvey, singer songwriter Sean Mendez, loved his music, actor
Speaker 1: Danny Glover, comedian George Lopez, NBA player Chris Paul Houston,
Speaker 1: astro's manager Dusty Baker, and a host of others. They
Speaker 1: have all enjoyed the delectable meals of Chef Q. Let's
Speaker 1: find out why please working the money making conversations my man,
Speaker 1: Chef Q, how you doing, sir, I'm doing good man.
Speaker 1: Thank you for the invite. This is awesome. Well, first
Speaker 1: of all, I know, just lay out to the food carpet.
Speaker 1: I'd like to say the food. Let everybody know what
Speaker 1: I'm talking to. You know what I'm saying. So tell
Speaker 1: us about you know, you know, because I read your bio,
Speaker 1: is that you yourself talk? Chef? You know you I am.
Speaker 1: I started washing dishes and um, get working my way
Speaker 1: up the ladder. Um not then you know, giving that
Speaker 1: red carpet treatment. Kind of had to do what you
Speaker 1: had to do. And uh, you know, keep keep working hard.
Speaker 1: Don't work hard, my mom taught me. Now you know,
Speaker 1: when I hear that term, you know, just you know,
Speaker 1: started washing dishes. Now, okay, I would tell you my
Speaker 1: little funny story. And I remember I was six years old.
Speaker 1: I worked at Burger King. They hired me to do
Speaker 1: the hamburgers, you know all I do. But I didn't
Speaker 1: like that job. I worked my way up to the
Speaker 1: cash register every time the manage to come and go,
Speaker 1: why are you not making burgers? Well, because I wanted
Speaker 1: to work to cass so but it's so eventually he
Speaker 1: let me stay at the cash register. Now, you started
Speaker 1: washing dishes? How did you start, you know, being invited
Speaker 1: over to me, you know, make food or could participate
Speaker 1: in setting the food up in a sue chef? How
Speaker 1: did that work? Well? And started in the prep room right,
Speaker 1: because the guys would go out on their smoke breaks
Speaker 1: and they needed, you know, somebody to watch their station.
Speaker 1: Bob volunteered. And I just picked up a knife one
Speaker 1: day and the chef at the time walked by, saw
Speaker 1: me with a knife and said, hey, let me show
Speaker 1: you how to hold that knife. It started there. Well,
Speaker 1: you know the interesting you say that because man, you
Speaker 1: know we we can assume because you know, we watched
Speaker 1: TV all the time, Food Networks and video They said
Speaker 1: the most watched videos on social media food videos. That
Speaker 1: knife and how you use it. First of all, he
Speaker 1: should have a sharp knife, you know, don't you want
Speaker 1: to be frustrated? Try to do something with a dog knife?
Speaker 1: Talk about that because we all know that, you know,
Speaker 1: we have steak knives, you have you know what's just
Speaker 1: take now you're lives? Did you have with your kitchen?
Speaker 1: It with your focking? That talk about the whole process
Speaker 1: of things we take for granted the chef, they should
Speaker 1: not be taking grant, especially a sharp knife in your
Speaker 1: kitchen when you're trying to prepare food. You know that
Speaker 1: that's a great point because I learned that the young young,
Speaker 1: young young and nut calling their career that there's the
Speaker 1: right tool for the right job. So you have to
Speaker 1: understand that and able to use the two that's supposed
Speaker 1: to be for the job. And it really is gonna
Speaker 1: make your job a little less cumbersome. Um, sharp knives
Speaker 1: is important. I sharpened my knives all the time. So
Speaker 1: it's little things like that that will help you, you know,
Speaker 1: do the task more efficiently. Because I see, if you know,
Speaker 1: when I'm watching the pro whether his Bobby Flay or
Speaker 1: on on TV or any of the prominent sheriff that
Speaker 1: come on these foods are watch the the Chops shows
Speaker 1: when they start chopping at those knives coming in sleep.
Speaker 1: Those are sharp knives that they're using to really really chopped,
Speaker 1: especially when you do it with veggies, chopping it real
Speaker 1: quick and all those things. And so so that was
Speaker 1: your first lesson. Somebody saw you over there just handling
Speaker 1: a knife really wrong. When did you start moving in
Speaker 1: and said, this is what I want to do. Because
Speaker 1: you know, we always have different dreams and different aspirations,
Speaker 1: but when does when does it become a reality? Did
Speaker 1: you that this is something that you could do and
Speaker 1: you wanted to do well? When that same chef had
Speaker 1: a little faith in me, he looked at me and
Speaker 1: he said, hey, you're pretty good at this. This could
Speaker 1: be a career if you wanted to be. Because in
Speaker 1: my mind, I was just working my way to get
Speaker 1: a little extra money, working my way through college. Um.
Speaker 1: And then when he told me that, it kind of
Speaker 1: dawned on me. And then I started doing a little
Speaker 1: bit of research and asking more questions than you know,
Speaker 1: writing down more things that he would say, and kind
Speaker 1: of getting serious about it and saying that it's more
Speaker 1: than just flipping burgers, because that was the misnomer to me.
Speaker 1: To be a cook means I gotta flip burgers or
Speaker 1: I gotta you know, brought chicken for the rest of
Speaker 1: my life, right, So that was a miss nomen for me.
Speaker 1: So when I learned out that there was so much
Speaker 1: more to do in this career or culinary arts, then
Speaker 1: I got more interested in it. Yeah, because you can
Speaker 1: be um. Like I said, you can't be stereotype about
Speaker 1: what a chef does. You know, and there's nothing negative
Speaker 1: you have a chef for. Like I go to I
Speaker 1: Love wife a house, you have a chef there, called
Speaker 1: out the ticket, knowledge and even remember everything you need
Speaker 1: to make your food. Then you go to a high
Speaker 1: end restaurant or you can go to other restaurants where
Speaker 1: you can have different titles for different things. So that's
Speaker 1: that's a respect. And also I always tell people in
Speaker 1: my show is that if you're gonna go into a field,
Speaker 1: learn what you're going into. And that's what you had
Speaker 1: to do because you had these stereotypes of what a
Speaker 1: chef was. They were totally incorrect, right, you know. And
Speaker 1: another thing I think I want to add on to
Speaker 1: that because I think that we have a talent, but
Speaker 1: I think we have to have a knowledge of what
Speaker 1: we're go into. Right, that's two totally different things. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, so that chef saw in me a talent
Speaker 1: that I could do this for a profession, but I
Speaker 1: had to learn the knowledge of what it meant to
Speaker 1: do what he was asking me to do. So I
Speaker 1: think that's two totally different things. And if we can
Speaker 1: understand that. Um, And then I wanted you know again,
Speaker 1: it was a long, long road. I don't want anyone
Speaker 1: to think it was easy. Um. I got turned down
Speaker 1: many jobs, I got told no a lot um, but
Speaker 1: I just kept at it. I kept at it. I
Speaker 1: kept at it. And then, um, you know, sooner or
Speaker 1: later you get that break. But you gotta be ready
Speaker 1: for that break. You gotta be able to perform, and
Speaker 1: you gotta be ready to Um. You know, you gotta
Speaker 1: show up on time. That's the little things, right. You
Speaker 1: gotta do what you do, what they ask you to do.
Speaker 1: That those are the little things. So work the shift
Speaker 1: that no one else wants to work, that was all me. Um,
Speaker 1: long hours, first one there, last one to leave, that
Speaker 1: was all me. But I wanted to prove and to
Speaker 1: myself first and then to those around me that I
Speaker 1: could do this. Well, that's that's absolutely true when you
Speaker 1: caught window because being a chef, of being a cook,
Speaker 1: you know, usually you're the only want. In other words,
Speaker 1: if you have a normal job and you an administration
Speaker 1: or your secretary you don't come to work, or or
Speaker 1: your salesman, then they can slide somebody in that can
Speaker 1: cover for you. If you all these shifts. There is
Speaker 1: no covering right chief, right right when I take a
Speaker 1: day off, we close the restaurant. But not that we're
Speaker 1: working on that. Though, we're working on that. I got
Speaker 1: a great team that we're training that we're working on that.
Speaker 1: But you know, but but you want to get away
Speaker 1: all your secrets either, do you? You know people can
Speaker 1: take your secrets and goes to place house with it. Right. Well, hey,
Speaker 1: so here's my thing on that if if they take
Speaker 1: it from me, and then I'll just create more. So
Speaker 1: I'm not really you know, how caught up on that.
Speaker 1: There's a recipe book. Everything we do in the restaurant,
Speaker 1: there's a recipe book. So all the cooks and all
Speaker 1: the you know, people that work there. If they want
Speaker 1: to grab a page and steal it, so be it.
Speaker 1: You know I think that you know, that just leaves
Speaker 1: me more room to create more. So you know I'm
Speaker 1: not up on Oh it's mine. It's a secret because
Speaker 1: you know what, I'm standing on the shoulders of someone, right,
Speaker 1: you know, my mom, my grandmother, my aunties. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm standing on the shoulder of those TV shows that
Speaker 1: I watched as well. I'm standing on the should of
Speaker 1: those books that I read when I when I was
Speaker 1: coming through the ranks. So if someone wants to stand
Speaker 1: on my shoulders and so be it. Well, you know
Speaker 1: it's interesting you say that because when I was doing
Speaker 1: standing up comedy, you know, it's always a fear of
Speaker 1: somebody's stealing your joke. You know. Now, I would hear
Speaker 1: the comments, man, somebody walking arover, here's still your joke, Here'
Speaker 1: still your joke. And I was I was like you,
Speaker 1: I said, you know, I don't think I'm I'm this
Speaker 1: is all the jokes. I'm right in my life and
Speaker 1: so I'm a one hundred percent guy. I would always
Speaker 1: going to get my best. And that's what you're saying,
Speaker 1: that you're not gonna limit yourself because you fear, fear
Speaker 1: that something you can't control, because you can't control somebody
Speaker 1: come in and figure out your recipe and taking someplace else.
Speaker 1: If that's all, if you only got one hamburger in
Speaker 1: your life, then you got a problem. I don't think
Speaker 1: you want a hamburger man chef Q right, right right,
Speaker 1: And you know, it just leads the room to create.
Speaker 1: And you know that's the thing about food. It's ever changing,
Speaker 1: it's forever changing, and they the melting part of food
Speaker 1: is endless. So it really is about to create creative
Speaker 1: mind of the chefs. So I don't get caught up
Speaker 1: on all of that, you know. And you know, I'm
Speaker 1: asked a lot of times, you know, by younger chefs
Speaker 1: or younger cooks coming up through the ranks about helping
Speaker 1: them and all that. And I'm really really gay because
Speaker 1: I wanted somebody to do that to me, especially as
Speaker 1: a black chef coming up, right. I wanted to see
Speaker 1: me at those executive chef positions and I didn't. So
Speaker 1: I'm really really really mindful about you know, you know,
Speaker 1: talking to the younger chess or younger cooks, especially of color.
Speaker 1: You know, you do based in a suburb right out
Speaker 1: saw the Sacramento, California. And now, like you said, early
Speaker 1: on in your life, you got a taste for the
Speaker 1: culinary flair. Uh, Now do you put eight years in
Speaker 1: the Davy was that was that after you started cooking,
Speaker 1: or you'd sample a little cooking training. And that was
Speaker 1: before my military career, was before I started cooking. Um,
Speaker 1: but um, when I got out of the military, when
Speaker 1: you know, I kind of got a little training in
Speaker 1: the military, if you will, because when I was changed
Speaker 1: over my job in the military, they sent me to
Speaker 1: what we call the galley, right, and they made me
Speaker 1: cook a little bit there. Um. And again there was
Speaker 1: no intention of me to be becoming a chef or
Speaker 1: work in this industry. But when I got out of
Speaker 1: the military and I needed a job, I knew I
Speaker 1: could watch dishes. I knew that. So that's where it started.
Speaker 1: And then, um, just I don't know the hand of God,
Speaker 1: the few breaks here and there, and um, you know
Speaker 1: here we are. Well I think that Uh, it takes
Speaker 1: a certain amount of perseverance, a certain degree, a whole
Speaker 1: lot of humfulness. Just say hey, And I always tell
Speaker 1: people sometimes you have to you know, it's not about
Speaker 1: the money. It's about the opportunity. That's how I saw
Speaker 1: when you talked about watching dishes. You know, you saw
Speaker 1: an opportunity, and that opportunity that led to the conversation
Speaker 1: we're having on my show, Money Making Conversation speaking with
Speaker 1: Chef Q. He opened a restaurant twenty seven, that's the
Speaker 1: month and date of his birthday, outside of the small
Speaker 1: suburb in Sacramento, California area. And then everything's feeling good.
Speaker 1: The walkers through the steps, this step of well, you're
Speaker 1: starting to see it go bad, but you're not admitting
Speaker 1: that this can really happen. Not now, God, come on that. God,
Speaker 1: you can't do it like this right right, So you
Speaker 1: know it's everything we did at the inception of the
Speaker 1: restaurant was intentional. We intentionally opened December to seven, like
Speaker 1: you said, on my birthday, because in the restaurant industry,
Speaker 1: I know that that is a slow season of restaurants.
Speaker 1: It's holiday season. Two years resolution, nobody is coming out
Speaker 1: to eat my mind. That gave me. That gives me
Speaker 1: time to hit my legs under us, get our staff together,
Speaker 1: and make sure we get things right outside the public eye.
Speaker 1: So it was very intentional. But then you know, but
Speaker 1: and uh, I don't think. I don't. I wasn't ready for.
Speaker 1: I don't think nobody was ready for. But I sat
Speaker 1: down with my wife, who is my general manager, and
Speaker 1: I said, well, it's not only here us or affected us,
Speaker 1: It's infected everyone. So how are we gonna come through
Speaker 1: with it? And we did. We looked at other restaurants
Speaker 1: and we saw what they were doing that just didn't
Speaker 1: work for us because we were so new, nobody knew
Speaker 1: who we were, so the door dash and the grub
Speaker 1: hub and all of that stuff, it didn't work for us.
Speaker 1: So we created, Yeah, we downsized our menu, created a
Speaker 1: family style menu for you know, for the families that
Speaker 1: are was around us, and we you know, we put
Speaker 1: it on our social media. But on top of that,
Speaker 1: we started feeding the front line health workers in the hospitals.
Speaker 1: We started giving them box bunches and you know, sharing
Speaker 1: the love with them and saying thank you. Um, and
Speaker 1: that started becoming I don't know, a buzz in the hospitals.
Speaker 1: And then people started ordering our family meals and they
Speaker 1: started enjoying our family meals and then it just kept
Speaker 1: escalating and going from there and um, you know, from
Speaker 1: that when they were. When we were able to open outside,
Speaker 1: people just kept coming and kept coming, and you know,
Speaker 1: then you know, we were fortunate enough to be you know,
Speaker 1: supported by the black community, and then so they started
Speaker 1: supporting us UM and it just balloon to you know,
Speaker 1: a really really busy, busy restaurant, which I'm very grateful for. Well,
Speaker 1: tell us what exactly is a family meal, Chef Q.
Speaker 1: You said it several times, and that that I just
Speaker 1: seen when I hear the word family and the meal.
Speaker 1: I had large portions just to meet to meet in
Speaker 1: two veggies and meeting two veggies and a bread what
Speaker 1: their family meal? So so, and in my mind, what
Speaker 1: I wanted to do was create something to where all
Speaker 1: the family had to do with just go home, open
Speaker 1: the box, put it on the table and have a dinner,
Speaker 1: mill have a family meal with their kids and all
Speaker 1: that stuff. Because you know, remember kids wasn't the kids
Speaker 1: were at home, schooling at home, and parents just didn't
Speaker 1: have time. So we created this menu to where they
Speaker 1: could choose you know, one or two uh of proteins,
Speaker 1: whether it's protistory, chicken, fried chicken, meat loaf, um. They
Speaker 1: we had a seafood platter, we had all of this
Speaker 1: stuff on there, and then they could choose potatoes, rice
Speaker 1: call it greens back and cheese. So they kind of
Speaker 1: pieced together their own little meal and we just put
Speaker 1: it together in a box and had it ready for
Speaker 1: him when they came. What you just said is a
Speaker 1: family meal mac. Come on, now, that that's that food again.
Speaker 1: That's what they call hardy meals. And also you know,
Speaker 1: it's just a light season if you want to put
Speaker 1: a little salt and pepper on it, you know, and
Speaker 1: all those things. So it didn't take no, you know,
Speaker 1: because who they say, what kids don't like mac and geese?
Speaker 1: So you went in there, but every kid. But but
Speaker 1: you know something, Chef Q. Everybody can't do mac and cheese,
Speaker 1: right though? You know that though everybody can't, everybody can't.
Speaker 1: But I'm from the South, don't so because because I
Speaker 1: always talk about food and didn't know, you know, you're
Speaker 1: coming down in my area and you say from the South.
Speaker 1: I born in Houston, Texas right now, my my my
Speaker 1: my headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia. I come from a big family,
Speaker 1: not as big as you. And I come from six sisters,
Speaker 1: two brothers, okay, and you come from the youngest or seventeen,
Speaker 1: and so I'm the middle child, you know, for for
Speaker 1: above me before below me, you know. So so they
Speaker 1: said I was treated special because I was in the middle,
Speaker 1: but I don't believe that, Chef Q, I don't believe that.
Speaker 1: So so what about in the south did you? Did
Speaker 1: you feature my friend? Man, I'm from a small town
Speaker 1: called Cross City, Florida outside of Games though I'm the youngest,
Speaker 1: so you know, I don't want that I was treated
Speaker 1: uh uh specially treatment. I was bullied by my brother's man.
Speaker 1: It took me through. I know, the feel it, you know,
Speaker 1: because you know you're younger, because they always said, you know,
Speaker 1: they didn't have what you get, you know what I'm
Speaker 1: saying at all the clothes with my mom. My mom
Speaker 1: kept me close. So that's why I got to learn
Speaker 1: the secret Russa beans because she kept me close. Absolutely.
Speaker 1: You know. It's really interesting, man, when we talked about that,
Speaker 1: that chef world, you know, like, you know, I didn't
Speaker 1: really start. I would like you. I used to watch
Speaker 1: my mom, but my mom was traditionalist. She wouldn't let
Speaker 1: me come in and kitchen my dad, no boy come
Speaker 1: over here, let them let them girls they're supposed to
Speaker 1: be in the kitchen. No, that's a mentality back then,
Speaker 1: so I never I could only watch And so when
Speaker 1: I got in college, I should always remember what she
Speaker 1: did and I kind of like put it together and
Speaker 1: then and then so I always it was a natural cook.
Speaker 1: You know, I can go into I can go into
Speaker 1: kitchen just start putting stuff together, you know, and things
Speaker 1: like that. So I get that person that you are
Speaker 1: just a natural person with the culinary experience. Are watching
Speaker 1: your mom and being there, which has let you have
Speaker 1: a year over twenty five years because you self talked,
Speaker 1: like I said earlier, of that process. What surprises the
Speaker 1: people the most about you your skills when you say
Speaker 1: to tell them yourself talk. I think it's the flavor
Speaker 1: pompound that we put together. We have bold flavors um
Speaker 1: and then we have some unique flavors um then from
Speaker 1: the South, and then you know, I'm not afraid to
Speaker 1: try different things. Um, you know back in that day,
Speaker 1: you know, and I'm like, you a big family, but no,
Speaker 1: my mom, I didn't have a father in the home,
Speaker 1: helped me to stay out of the kitchen, right so
Speaker 1: that my mom she was like, well, coming here, boy,
Speaker 1: just sit down over there in our corner to keep
Speaker 1: me out of trouble type thing, or to keep my
Speaker 1: brothers from jumping on me or whatever. But you know, so,
Speaker 1: so you started asking questions for Mom. And you know,
Speaker 1: it wasn't like she wrote everything down or she explained
Speaker 1: everything to the t She gave her best knowledge of
Speaker 1: what she was doing. But it really was like by
Speaker 1: taste or by sight. And I don't know, I don't
Speaker 1: I can count on my hands how many times I
Speaker 1: saw Mom used measuring cups or boons and things like that.
Speaker 1: It was all tasting it. You know, it's crazy. I know,
Speaker 1: I deal with that, man. I I just watching your parents.
Speaker 1: Just just throw it in there. Just throw it in there, dude,
Speaker 1: just throw it in there. Just throw it in there.
Speaker 1: So you know, you you you fast forward and then, um,
Speaker 1: so now I'm in my career and I had the
Speaker 1: pleasure to travel the world through the military. I traveled
Speaker 1: the world, and I tasted some great foods in foreign countries.
Speaker 1: So now I come back to California and I'm really
Speaker 1: serious about this culinary thing. So, um, I reached back
Speaker 1: to the South, my roots in the South, and then
Speaker 1: I reached all the way, you know, to the my
Speaker 1: national travels, and I started playing with all of these
Speaker 1: different ingredients if you will. Um. And then I'm here
Speaker 1: in California, which is a form of fresh capita, so
Speaker 1: I got fresh produce and fresh products at my disposal.
Speaker 1: So it really is like, let's just try this and
Speaker 1: see how it works. So this tastes great, this sounds
Speaker 1: good together, Let's let's just play. And it really has
Speaker 1: been that for me and for my career. And I'm
Speaker 1: not afraid to fail. I'm not afraid to try addition
Speaker 1: and oh that didn't work, dispatch that, um, So I'm
Speaker 1: not afraid that that at all, or changing it up
Speaker 1: a little bit because you know, um, in the South,
Speaker 1: we cooked a lot of things or my my, my
Speaker 1: mom and them, they cooked a lot of things that
Speaker 1: wasn't exactly healthy for us. So can I take those
Speaker 1: ingredients or that that way changed up just a little
Speaker 1: bit and make it a little bit more healthy for
Speaker 1: for our lives today. So I'm challenged with all that,
Speaker 1: but I take those challenges head on. And you know,
Speaker 1: to me, it's it's our calling. Their industry is every changing,
Speaker 1: is forever, like just fans forming. Um, it's that's the
Speaker 1: growth in our culinary industry. For me is I want
Speaker 1: to stay true to the roots, right where the food
Speaker 1: comes from, but I want to make it. I want
Speaker 1: to modernize it. Thus we kind of call our restaurant
Speaker 1: modern Comfort Food absolutely Q twelve twenty seven, located right
Speaker 1: outside of Sacramento, California. I'm talking to chef Q. Chef
Speaker 1: tell us about this restaurant. Tell us what inspired you
Speaker 1: to open a restaurant? First, and then let's go to
Speaker 1: the menu and some of the discussions of what's on
Speaker 1: that menu and what really pops out from you, because
Speaker 1: everybody knows there's certain things on the menu customers just
Speaker 1: asked for. They go, I gotta have this, this is
Speaker 1: my favorite, is my favorite. But then all but but
Speaker 1: you keep your whole menu because you gotta have variety
Speaker 1: and the different people like different things. So talk about
Speaker 1: what inspired you. I've told everybody why why this name
Speaker 1: Q twelve twenty seven. But what inspired the concept of
Speaker 1: modern comfort food struck? Well, first of all, it inspired
Speaker 1: me was I was UM. I was at my wits
Speaker 1: and working and other high end restaurants. UM all my life,
Speaker 1: I worked in pretty you know, white table class restaurants,
Speaker 1: if you will, and UM, it just got to a
Speaker 1: point to where you know, I'm giving them, you know,
Speaker 1: fourteen fifteen, sixteen hours a day, six seven days a week,
Speaker 1: and just feeling really unappreciated and that you know a
Speaker 1: lot of people get to that point. But when I
Speaker 1: got to that point, I was like, Okay, it's really
Speaker 1: time for me. Either it's now or never. UM, I
Speaker 1: gotta do this. Um. And we looked for building. We
Speaker 1: looked all over the place, and when we found our
Speaker 1: current location, it really was this fits what I want
Speaker 1: to do. And then we created Because you know, we
Speaker 1: talked earlier about steps to get stereotyped. I didn't want
Speaker 1: to be called a soul food chef. I didn't want
Speaker 1: to be called even a black chef, if you will, right,
Speaker 1: I just want to be a great chef. UM. So
Speaker 1: we found our building, and then what we did was
Speaker 1: we looked around at all the other restaurants around us,
Speaker 1: and we said, well, nobody's doing who like this now.
Speaker 1: So then that's when we be created the menu. And
Speaker 1: then that's when I said, okay, if I pull a
Speaker 1: little bit of the South and a little bit of
Speaker 1: this farm freshness, oh my travels to Japan. Let me
Speaker 1: pull that in here and let me let me do this,
Speaker 1: and let me marry these two together. So the restaurant,
Speaker 1: the menu, I should say, just evolved around what wasn't
Speaker 1: in the area and from my travels and from my
Speaker 1: experiences and from my childhood. So the menu just kept
Speaker 1: evolving until what it is now. And and some of
Speaker 1: the favorites ideal is like the lobster bikes, Like I
Speaker 1: if brock lobster years ago when I was a caterer
Speaker 1: and I had this one client. He's former Major League
Speaker 1: baseball player. He's a really good friend of mine. Um
Speaker 1: and uh when I opened, when he heard I was
Speaker 1: gonna open a restaurant, he goes, and you gotta put
Speaker 1: those loft things there the way, you know. I was like, no,
Speaker 1: first of all, loss is super expensive. Um, and I
Speaker 1: own if I could you know, execute it right. It's
Speaker 1: it's it's more. We can have a great thing in
Speaker 1: mind to put on the rest of on the on
Speaker 1: the menu, but we gotta be able to execute it.
Speaker 1: There's nothing like having something great but you can't execute
Speaker 1: it and get it to the table to the guests.
Speaker 1: So that's that's horrible. So I was like, no, I
Speaker 1: can't execute it. I can't put them on. So then
Speaker 1: I had to figure out a way because he kept
Speaker 1: at me. So those lobster bikes are probably on ninety
Speaker 1: nine percent of our table when guests come, then they
Speaker 1: gotta have him other favorites. Um. Because my wife likes
Speaker 1: to say the meat loaf we bake can wrap our
Speaker 1: meat loaf, but she calls it a grown man meat
Speaker 1: loaf because it's really nice and hearty, and it comes
Speaker 1: with our mashed potatoes, um, and some mushroom gravy. It's
Speaker 1: really nice and hearty. It's really a good meet gravy
Speaker 1: or tomato bach gravy that you use there for the
Speaker 1: for your beat loaf. It's the brown gravy or tomato
Speaker 1: bached grade tomato based. Baby, it's a little sweet. You
Speaker 1: got a little sweetness in it? No, man, No, it's
Speaker 1: got a little fice in it. Okay, Okay, you know
Speaker 1: exactly what I'm talking about. A lot of people they
Speaker 1: put their little sugar in it. Give a little sweet Okay,
Speaker 1: I love you. Sugar out a little bit under health care,
Speaker 1: I love it. I love it. Now. You know you
Speaker 1: seeing something earlier but not want to be Recre's two
Speaker 1: things that I always here when I talk to African
Speaker 1: American black chefs the word so food, which I still
Speaker 1: don't know what that means, because I can go to
Speaker 1: restaurants teach the same save menu and I don't see
Speaker 1: the word so tied to it. And then it's being
Speaker 1: discriminated because you're black, because they just say you can
Speaker 1: only do a certain type of menu. So talk about
Speaker 1: that experience because and I won't let people know that.
Speaker 1: I don't care how talent you are, it all comes
Speaker 1: down to color your skin. You know what people think
Speaker 1: about you and how they can stereotype you, and what
Speaker 1: exactly is so food Chef Q? You know, you know what,
Speaker 1: that's a great point because you know, Um, I have
Speaker 1: been stereotyped, and um, you know it's not fun. It's
Speaker 1: not fun at all to be stereotype Um. Oh, hold on, man,
Speaker 1: what's Samantha talked about muting your screen? What's that? If
Speaker 1: somebody is speaking, I don't know who it is, is
Speaker 1: iPad two or whoever that is on iPad, We just
Speaker 1: need you to mute who's our pad too? I thought
Speaker 1: it was one of a rep of Mr Chef Q. Now,
Speaker 1: so who I don't know, we're good here or we'll
Speaker 1: check that out there. But let's go back to the
Speaker 1: only person I heard talking was you, Samantha. You know
Speaker 1: that you know what I was talking. But thank you.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about that whole discrimination thing that we deal with.
Speaker 1: I dealt with it as a writer in Hollywood. You know.
Speaker 1: I did sitcoms like you know, Sister Sister Jamie Fox,
Speaker 1: the Parkers, but they always said that, okay, that's a
Speaker 1: black sitcom. I could. They would never consider me for
Speaker 1: the sign fields of the home improvements and things like that,
Speaker 1: and it always annoyed me because we were doing the
Speaker 1: same thing and I had the same creative skills. The
Speaker 1: same thing happens in the restaurant beings, especially when you're
Speaker 1: shelf you know the word soul Like I said, I
Speaker 1: kid you not, I'm a foodie. I go to different
Speaker 1: restaurants and I go, isn't this what they call soul
Speaker 1: food over here? But they go to a black restaurant,
Speaker 1: they just pigeonhole. And sometimes we do over the indulge
Speaker 1: with the lord with the sugar at these quote unquote
Speaker 1: soul food restaurants. But you're doing modern comfort food and
Speaker 1: so you shouldn't be pigeonholed like that, talk about that
Speaker 1: being a black shelf, especially opening up, we were pigeon
Speaker 1: toote and we were stereotyped, right because a lot of
Speaker 1: my counterparts in the industry, you know, um, you know,
Speaker 1: they did say that, right, and I you have to fight,
Speaker 1: you know, from being offended by it, right. So I
Speaker 1: just wanted to prove them wrong. And I'll be a
Speaker 1: hundred percent transparent with you. It really angered me to
Speaker 1: to kind of go there like I'm a chef. I'm
Speaker 1: not I'm not, you know, I mean, there's nothing I
Speaker 1: can do about being black, right, So that's who I am.
Speaker 1: But I'm a chef and I'm I'm in this industry
Speaker 1: and I'm doing what you're doing. So either you've gotta
Speaker 1: recognize me as your peer or just don't recognize me
Speaker 1: at all. Um. I've been called racial names. I've been
Speaker 1: I've been stereotyped in the industry. I've been giving hifts
Speaker 1: that the white chefs don't want because the black Now,
Speaker 1: I've been in management my entire life, but they've been
Speaker 1: high in restaurants now. And I'll tell you something else.
Speaker 1: I've been I've interviewed for jobs that I've not gotten
Speaker 1: because I'm gonna use the word color of my skin.
Speaker 1: So I would I would, I would interview for executive
Speaker 1: chef job. They would say, well, we want to hire
Speaker 1: you for sous chef and I would like, be why
Speaker 1: the guy that you're you know, eventually looking at is
Speaker 1: less experienced than I am. Um, not only would want
Speaker 1: to hire me for lesser position, but give me less
Speaker 1: money than what the average is. One of the corporate
Speaker 1: chefs said, well, I didn't think you had what it took.
Speaker 1: So it's that sort of um racism that I've had
Speaker 1: to counterpart in my career. Um. And it's sometimes it's
Speaker 1: it's sometimes it's blatant, is in your face. Other times
Speaker 1: it's subtle. Um, but all at all, Man, my end
Speaker 1: game was I'm here to learn. I'm here to um yeah,
Speaker 1: the information, and I'm here to better my career. So
Speaker 1: it's not about you. It's not about the racist the
Speaker 1: racism that you that you you know, you put out.
Speaker 1: So when we opened on restaurants, yeah, we were labeled
Speaker 1: all of that, man, and I couldn't let it get
Speaker 1: to me. Um. I just had to you know, stay
Speaker 1: with it all through the pandemic, all through all of that. Um,
Speaker 1: we were labeled because we had a predominantly white area.
Speaker 1: I think it's probably about ninety five nine white out here. Um.
Speaker 1: And you know, but it was both ways, right. We
Speaker 1: had some black patrons wonder why we were out here
Speaker 1: and why we wasn't you know, why we wasn't in
Speaker 1: the hood, right, you know, So it worked both ways, um.
Speaker 1: And to me, that's all educational, right, it's a time
Speaker 1: for me to educate both races. And when you walk
Speaker 1: into Q twel seven, it really is about love. It's
Speaker 1: about love, it's about diversity. It's not about the color
Speaker 1: of your skin, it's not about your political background. It's
Speaker 1: really about love and diversity. We want to love on you.
Speaker 1: We want to love on you. That's our thing. So yeah,
Speaker 1: well I love this interview. Man. I really appreciate Chef Q. Really, man,
Speaker 1: I like said Dustin Baker, that's my boy. You know,
Speaker 1: we order his whine. My wife loves his wine and
Speaker 1: get it out of California. So a lot of names,
Speaker 1: Chris Paul, that's my boys. This a lot of names.
Speaker 1: Steve Harvey that's you know, come on that that's his
Speaker 1: TV show there in Hollywood. Man, come on that. I
Speaker 1: really understand what's going on man with you and your brand,
Speaker 1: and I really appreciate you taking the time to come
Speaker 1: on Money Making Conversation to tell your story. It's an
Speaker 1: outstanding story to tell. And thank you for the invitement.
Speaker 1: I really appreciate it. And I look forward to Senior
Speaker 1: in the restaurant one of these days when you up
Speaker 1: in this area. Oh you will. Yeah, I'm gonna come by,
Speaker 1: bringing my friends too. And I'm gonna just tell you this.
Speaker 1: I chef Q I pay. I don't have for no
Speaker 1: I asked. I'll pay every time because as part of
Speaker 1: the whole process of being an entrepreneur, can't win if
Speaker 1: everybody coming there chopping for free. Okay, I appreciate you
Speaker 1: so much. I love you, man, Stay strong and thank you.
Speaker 1: If you want to hear see any of my interviews
Speaker 1: on Money Making Conversations, please go to money Making Conversation
Speaker 1: dot com. I'm Rashan McDonald. I am your host. Please
Speaker 1: remember always lead with your gifts and don't let your age, friends, family,
Speaker 1: or co workers stop you from planning or living your dreams.
Speaker 1: You are now tuned into the money making Conversations Minute
Speaker 1: of Inspiration with Rashan McDonald. Patty La Belle isn't a
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Speaker 1: Hell of Sunshine, repealing back the layers around why society
Speaker 1: makes it so easy to guard men's time like it's
Speaker 1: diamonds and treat women's time like it's infinite, like sand.
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Speaker 1: a place for you, for people of all family structures.
Speaker 1: So take this time out with us to learn, get inspired,
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Speaker 1: a fair Play podcast on the I Heart Radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. We've all
Speaker 1: felt left out, and for people who moved to this country,
Speaker 1: that feeling lasts more than a moment. We can change
Speaker 1: that learn how it Belonging begins with us dot org.
Speaker 1: Brought to you by the AD Council