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Speaker 1: podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Money
Speaker 1: Making Conversations. It's the show that she has the secrets
Speaker 1: of success experience firsthand by marketing and Brandon expert Rashan McDonald.
Speaker 1: I will know he's giving me advice on many occasions.
Speaker 1: In the case you didn't notice, I'm not broke, you
Speaker 1: know he'll be interview with celebrity CEOs, entrepreneurs and industry
Speaker 1: decision makers. It's what he likes to do, it's what
Speaker 1: he likes to share. Now it's time to hear from
Speaker 1: my man, Rashan McDonald money Making Conversations. Here we come.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Money Making Conversation. I'm your host, Roushan McConnell.
Speaker 1: It is time to start reading other people's success stories
Speaker 1: and I can always say every week start writing your own.
Speaker 1: I always tell you if you have gifts, leave with
Speaker 1: your gifts. You have passion, leave with your passion, and
Speaker 1: don't let your age, friends, family, or coworkers stop you
Speaker 1: from planning or living your dreams. All Money Making Conversations
Speaker 1: have a lot of interviews with celebrity CEOs, entrepreneurs and
Speaker 1: people like to call industry decision makers. My next guest
Speaker 1: is Gina Yashare. Gene is releasing her first book, the
Speaker 1: memoir cack Handed. The British comedian of Nigerian heritage, is
Speaker 1: the co creator, co executive producer, writer and actress in
Speaker 1: the CBS hit series Bob Hopps Aba Shola. Her book,
Speaker 1: cack Handed chronicles her odyssey our journey. We can use
Speaker 1: the over term because she's funny and we're gonna talk
Speaker 1: about her humor to America and bringing into Hollywood. And
Speaker 1: there's lively and humorous memoir and it's I woant to
Speaker 1: say it's also informative. We should put that in there
Speaker 1: because it talks about history. Jina Yashare has appeared on
Speaker 1: appeared on countless television shows both in the UK and
Speaker 1: the US. She's on her way to being one of
Speaker 1: the great stars from Britain. And guess what we share something?
Speaker 1: She performed with Death Comedy Jam and it's the onliest
Speaker 1: British comedians performing Jeff Comany Jam. I also performed with
Speaker 1: Death Comany Jam. Please welcome to Money Making Conversation, Gina, Yeah, Shari,
Speaker 1: nice to leave you. Sean, how you doing, my friend? Uh,
Speaker 1: Let's let's start with the name. Let's start with the names,
Speaker 1: because that means you know my name is Rushan. And
Speaker 1: you know, as I was coming to them through the business,
Speaker 1: I had so many people say my name different, and
Speaker 1: sometimes I let that slide because I just wanted to
Speaker 1: I just wanted stage time. I wanted somebody to let
Speaker 1: me in the front door. So if you caught me rude, Russian,
Speaker 1: uh rashin, I went with it, you know. And then
Speaker 1: it came to the point where Rashan, what's my name?
Speaker 1: And and I held to that, and I corrected people
Speaker 1: talk about your journey with your last name. And also
Speaker 1: because I know it's important to talk about that, because
Speaker 1: people don't understand that it comes with respect, it comes
Speaker 1: with also statue because once people started saying it right,
Speaker 1: that means you elevating your game. Talk about your exact
Speaker 1: exactly I want to. Obviously, my name is Niger, and
Speaker 1: my parents and night from Benin City and Niger, and
Speaker 1: my name is Yea and that sounds pronounced yeah and
Speaker 1: it's actually spelled I y A s h g r E.
Speaker 1: But when I started doing comedy, they kept mispronouncing the
Speaker 1: name and pronouncing the eye, which is almost silent, and
Speaker 1: so I so I dropped the eye from my name.
Speaker 1: So yes, because the eyes almost saying yesterday. The eyes silent,
Speaker 1: so I dropped the eye to help people put out
Speaker 1: pronounce it probably and they still mispronounced it for a
Speaker 1: long time. I get called your sheer yes, like oh,
Speaker 1: so I have to make I've got this thing. Now
Speaker 1: I go it's yesterday. I think yes, hooray and people,
Speaker 1: you know, so I can tell who has done their
Speaker 1: research before the show when they pronounced my name quitting
Speaker 1: he did good, he did. I like that, like that,
Speaker 1: like I like the tush poray. I like that. I
Speaker 1: like that. I like that. I like that almost like
Speaker 1: cheering your name because exactly breath of fresh air. You know,
Speaker 1: you are breash of fresh air. And we to talk
Speaker 1: about a couple of things you want to talk about.
Speaker 1: The because I was a sitcom writer, you know, I did, uh,
Speaker 1: I did because I broke it with Steve Harvey and
Speaker 1: Me and the Bars on ABC. Then I did Robert
Speaker 1: Towns and Parenthood and Sister Sister with the Twins team
Speaker 1: Tomorrow Marrow and then Jamie Foxx series, and I also
Speaker 1: did Monique series The Parkers, and so I so we
Speaker 1: I wanted to do this interview because of the fact
Speaker 1: that I felt we related a lot, but you just
Speaker 1: came from British and you have a Nigerian background. But
Speaker 1: we are both people of color, which means that we
Speaker 1: also experienced racism. Also, people passing over was ignoring our talents.
Speaker 1: Talk about your journey a little bit from the writing side,
Speaker 1: the sitcom side, to get your story, your show that
Speaker 1: your co executive producer that you co created on the
Speaker 1: air on CBS. Yeah. I mean, the thing is, I
Speaker 1: never considered myself a TV my. I was like a
Speaker 1: stand up comic. That's what I do, that's what I love,
Speaker 1: That's what I'm gonna do forever. And I was hoping
Speaker 1: to become successful as that hugely successful. I mean I
Speaker 1: am successful as the stand up coming down for quite
Speaker 1: a while, but that was all I wanted to do.
Speaker 1: I've never been crazy ambitious. My dream was to be
Speaker 1: the best friend of someone else's sitcom and use that
Speaker 1: stydom to sell out bigger comedy clubs and arenas, and
Speaker 1: that's all I wanted to do. People were offering me
Speaker 1: gigs for years to write on TV shows, and I
Speaker 1: was like, no, I don't want to day job. I
Speaker 1: don't want to work for anybody else. I like working
Speaker 1: for myself. I don't and I've heard horror stories of
Speaker 1: the politics and things that go on in writer's rooms,
Speaker 1: and I was like, I want no parts of that.
Speaker 1: So I avoided writing on a TV show from all
Speaker 1: my career. This show came out of the blue. I
Speaker 1: just got to call out the blue, but from Chuck Laurie.
Speaker 1: My agent got a call saying, Chuck Laurie of Big
Speaker 1: Bang Theory two and a half men, Michael, he wants
Speaker 1: to meet and I was like, okay. And I was
Speaker 1: living in New York at the time, very happily doing
Speaker 1: my stand up. I lived in l A for a
Speaker 1: few years, struggle to make money, and I was like,
Speaker 1: you know what, I'm going to New York because as
Speaker 1: a stand up comic I can make a living in
Speaker 1: New York. I'm going to New York. So I was
Speaker 1: living happily in New York for six years, had no
Speaker 1: plans to come back to Los Angeles. So I had
Speaker 1: this meeting. I flew over to l A to meet Chuck.
Speaker 1: I mean, originally I was like, well, they they're flying
Speaker 1: the first class, right, I've just come off a long
Speaker 1: tour first class. And my agent was like, uh, they
Speaker 1: don't fly people first class because it's just from meeting.
Speaker 1: And I was like, well then I'm not going. So
Speaker 1: basically I knew my work from day one. I was like,
Speaker 1: if they really want to meet me, I've googled Chuck Glory,
Speaker 1: I've googled Warner Brothers. I see how much money they
Speaker 1: got up they could afford the first class tickets. So
Speaker 1: I held out for that and they did. They flew
Speaker 1: me first class for this meeting. And I walked into
Speaker 1: a meeting with Chuck Worri and basically he was like,
Speaker 1: I'm trying to make this show. I love Billy Gardell,
Speaker 1: who I made Michael Molly with. I want to do
Speaker 1: another show with him, but this time I don't. I
Speaker 1: don't want I want to product the female protagonist to
Speaker 1: be a Nigerian woman. Wow. I was so obviously we
Speaker 1: were three white guys because it was Chuck Loriy, Eddie
Speaker 1: Gardetski and Our Higgins where he's main two collaborators on
Speaker 1: a lot of few stuff. And he was like, we're
Speaker 1: three white guys. We need you to sort of consult
Speaker 1: on all things African. Now in in my head, I
Speaker 1: was like what I was not feeling it at all.
Speaker 1: I was based suspicious. I was like, this feels exploitative.
Speaker 1: I've seen you know, I've had ideas of mine stolen before.
Speaker 1: So I was not I was not into it at all.
Speaker 1: But in the room I was like, Okay, interesting, sounds interesting.
Speaker 1: Let me think about And I left and I called
Speaker 1: my agent and I was like, I don't want to
Speaker 1: do this. This, this sounds weird to me. They want
Speaker 1: me to consult on all things African. Sounds weird, sounds racist.
Speaker 1: Don't do it. But basically my I have friends and
Speaker 1: family who will call me up and tell me when
Speaker 1: I'm being an idiot. And my brother called me from
Speaker 1: London and screened at me for two hours. My best
Speaker 1: friend called me from London, screened at me for another
Speaker 1: two hours, and like, this is an opportunity you can
Speaker 1: play about the industry and how you're not authentically portrayed,
Speaker 1: and now you've got an opportunity to do this and
Speaker 1: you're turning it down. And I was like, you know what,
Speaker 1: You're right. So I stayed in a room with Chuck
Speaker 1: and Alan Eddie and we knocked out this pilot for
Speaker 1: the Shower, and I said to them, if I'm doing
Speaker 1: the show, it's gonna be authent authentic. We want Nigerian
Speaker 1: actors to play a lot of the roles, you know,
Speaker 1: because when you watch TV and movies with Africans, the
Speaker 1: accents are always wrong. America seems to see Africa as
Speaker 1: a country and not a continent. There's lots of different countries,
Speaker 1: different languages, different religions, different traditions, different styles of dress,
Speaker 1: different everything. So I was like, if we're gonna do this,
Speaker 1: I wanted to be authentic. We're gonna I'm gonna pick
Speaker 1: the tribe, I'm gonna pick the language. I'm going to
Speaker 1: make sure the actors, at least most of the actors
Speaker 1: are authentic. So we get that five to the Nigerians
Speaker 1: can watch it and and enjoy it and know that
Speaker 1: there's a Nigerian behind the scenes making so, and then
Speaker 1: we're willing to listen. So I sat there when we
Speaker 1: wrote this pilot and I based a lot of the
Speaker 1: characters are members of my family, my mother, and a
Speaker 1: lot of the stories in the show are based on
Speaker 1: my stand up and based on my family. And that's
Speaker 1: how I got into I didn't know if I could
Speaker 1: do this right. And thing I didn't know. I was like,
Speaker 1: You're fantastic. And years as a stand up I knew
Speaker 1: how to build the characters and we were, the jokes
Speaker 1: were and basically the rest of it. I picked up
Speaker 1: a net as much as I could along the way,
Speaker 1: and that's how I got into it. Well, they're just beautiful, Gina.
Speaker 1: I'm talking to Jennie Yashara, chief dad, co creator, co
Speaker 1: executive producer of this hit CBS series Bob Hops a Shoulder. Now,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna just tell you right now. You know, being
Speaker 1: in the writer's room with sitcoms, you know, and you
Speaker 1: were not wrong in your feelings. Somebody comes in there
Speaker 1: white and and they're telling you they won't you be
Speaker 1: the the official guide or voice for their African the
Speaker 1: African Nigerian character right there. I'm like, really, okay, who
Speaker 1: is just a joke? Really? So I felt you see,
Speaker 1: they were right too, because they said, we'll go back
Speaker 1: and ask more questions because this is you know, Chuck Lauri,
Speaker 1: you know, Big Bang theory, the guy that the guy
Speaker 1: is super rich. We all know that, okay, and so
Speaker 1: and so and so he really is, he really is,
Speaker 1: And so that's just a you know, uh, two and
Speaker 1: a half min just a number of series he's done
Speaker 1: over the years. Because barbar Lauria has been around as
Speaker 1: long as I've been doing sitcoms. Back in two I've
Speaker 1: been writing no sitcoms. So when the show Bob Hearts
Speaker 1: Bob Hearts at a Shoulder came about and you did
Speaker 1: the pilot, did you ask for any additional writers of
Speaker 1: color on staff? How did they work out? Oh? Absolutely? Um.
Speaker 1: I said to them, Look, here's the thing you've discovered me.
Speaker 1: But there's a lot of means out there. If we're
Speaker 1: gonna make this show authentic, we can't be dealing having
Speaker 1: a room full of the same old white guys that
Speaker 1: you've been working with for years. So I want to
Speaker 1: make sure we've got black lives. But what I did,
Speaker 1: I did I circumvented the normal way of trying to
Speaker 1: force them to take on black lives. What I would
Speaker 1: do with obviously on the stand up comics sell I
Speaker 1: book a comedy club and I'd be headlining, and I
Speaker 1: put my black friends on the shows, and then invite
Speaker 1: Chuck and the guys to come to the shows. I
Speaker 1: invited them shoves, and I didn't tell my friends what
Speaker 1: I was doing because I didn't want them to be nervous,
Speaker 1: and I just go, yeah, just come and open this
Speaker 1: show from me. I'm headlining. Come and do twenty minutes
Speaker 1: up in front of me. So I invited my friends
Speaker 1: onto the show and put them on the shows. And
Speaker 1: then I invited Chuck and Alan Eddie to My comedy show.
Speaker 1: And whenever they went, oh, we like that person. She's
Speaker 1: very funny. We really liked her, and I go, we're
Speaker 1: really good because she also writes I love you. So
Speaker 1: I then set up meetings between these communities that they liked.
Speaker 1: And then and that's how I got black black writers
Speaker 1: on the show. So I got Gloria Bigelow, who was
Speaker 1: a stand up comic in l A. That's how I
Speaker 1: got her on the show. I put her on my
Speaker 1: Comedy Night. They liked her. I was like, well she writes,
Speaker 1: and I put them together. They had a meeting, they
Speaker 1: loved her, and now she has been a writer from
Speaker 1: day on the show. And that's how we did. And
Speaker 1: then we went out and looked for young Nigerian writers
Speaker 1: and young black writers to put in the room. So
Speaker 1: that's you know. I insisted that the room has to
Speaker 1: reflect the show and they were open to it. They
Speaker 1: were open to noone would be the only black writer
Speaker 1: in the room fighting. I need other black writers and
Speaker 1: I need women as well. I need a nice mixed room.
Speaker 1: And that's what we did. So I'm very proud of
Speaker 1: that and that and also when we were passing the show,
Speaker 1: I made sure that I sat in all the auditions,
Speaker 1: so when those black actors walked into a room and
Speaker 1: saw me sitting there, they knew that they were not
Speaker 1: going to be asked to do any kind of coonery,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, absolutely absolutely, Well, you know what,
Speaker 1: shame up to me afterwards and said it was so
Speaker 1: good to see you in the room because it made
Speaker 1: that it put us at easy immediately. I really people
Speaker 1: needn't understand the process that you're going through and being
Speaker 1: a portrait and the person who was involved in sitcoms
Speaker 1: right there. It can lead to stupid jokes that can
Speaker 1: move to I remember when Steve Harvey was doing sitcom
Speaker 1: Me and the Boys on this first sitcom. For some reason,
Speaker 1: you know, whenever he would just let scream, then the
Speaker 1: audience in the stands would laugh, and so the writers
Speaker 1: in room suddenly will create moments won't you scream here?
Speaker 1: Won't you scream here he said, why because the audience laughs.
Speaker 1: He said, that's not me. That was just a moment
Speaker 1: that happened. And so so people you need And plus
Speaker 1: I love the fact, Gina that you said, hey, I
Speaker 1: want more than my boys, because sometimes you don't want
Speaker 1: to be the person that leads everybody down this one
Speaker 1: line and then you become an expert when you really not.
Speaker 1: You're just a talented person who lives this protial, particular
Speaker 1: life and you need support. And that's what the writer's
Speaker 1: room is about, especially in sitcoms, because it's usually about
Speaker 1: just give people background information by tending to have writers
Speaker 1: in the sitcom room because you you pitch jokes, you
Speaker 1: pitch storylines, and I always tell people, and Gina will
Speaker 1: agree with this, you will write a script and you
Speaker 1: may think that's an eman in the script. You give
Speaker 1: that script to the writer's room and the only thing
Speaker 1: that's probably left on that script is the name of
Speaker 1: the script in your name? Am I right? Genial? Oh yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 1: we've written stopped and then we'll go back and it
Speaker 1: may change hundred percent, but the basic premise premises that,
Speaker 1: and we'll pitch it to make it better. And sometimes
Speaker 1: I've handed it a script, and because that's scene, I it,
Speaker 1: what's that toastic? And then we work on it and
Speaker 1: I go, all right, you're right, it's better now. I
Speaker 1: hate to admit it, but it's better that absolutely. But
Speaker 1: that's that's the whole part about and by bringing up
Speaker 1: virtual talent like you on because making that transition from
Speaker 1: a stand up comic to a writer, and because the
Speaker 1: check the money is good everybody. I'm just to let
Speaker 1: you know you get help benefits. And I remember the
Speaker 1: first time I saw my check, I showed it to
Speaker 1: my wife. She said, you get paid all that and
Speaker 1: I was just a staff, right I affectually I came
Speaker 1: on board as an executive story of it. And you
Speaker 1: know that checks nice. That was back in ninety two. Okay,
Speaker 1: that check was way nice back in ninety two. It's
Speaker 1: way better now. And so that's why really you might
Speaker 1: see the people in front of the cameras working, but
Speaker 1: sometimes the writers and the producers behind the cameras are
Speaker 1: actually making more money than the actors in front of
Speaker 1: the camera. Talk about that whole or awakening, because like
Speaker 1: you said, you just wanted to do stand up, You
Speaker 1: just wanted to be on stage. But then they are
Speaker 1: awakening up, getting that steady check, getting insurance, being validated
Speaker 1: as a producing the writer opened so many more doors
Speaker 1: and respect for your brand. Correct. Absolutely, I had no idea.
Speaker 1: So I had no idea, so you know, but originally
Speaker 1: they bot me as a consultant. I was just gonna
Speaker 1: be a consultant. And a couple of days in, Chuck
Speaker 1: was like, you know what, Uh, you can't take their consultant.
Speaker 1: We need you to help us wipe this show. So
Speaker 1: they bumped me up to co create it because I
Speaker 1: created the characters. I told them what the characters were
Speaker 1: gonna be about, what they were gonna do. So I
Speaker 1: literally created all the characters based so so they kind
Speaker 1: of knew we can't do this without Gina, so they
Speaker 1: bumped me up to co create and producer. And so
Speaker 1: you know, when those checks started coming, and I was like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, this white boys have been earning all
Speaker 1: this money all this time. What have I been doing?
Speaker 1: Wasting my life with this standard stuff? But you know,
Speaker 1: we last we laughed. But that's true myself and as
Speaker 1: an actor, because we're not already talking about that, but
Speaker 1: we're talking about you got a separate check when you
Speaker 1: wrote a script. Now, I know back in the day
Speaker 1: it was sixteen thousand dollars per script. I don't know
Speaker 1: what it is now, but I'm pretty sure it's more
Speaker 1: than sixteen thousand dollars per scribe. I mean, and the
Speaker 1: check she's keep coming in, I've never seen anything like it.
Speaker 1: So obviously I get a check as a writer producer,
Speaker 1: I get extra check as a co creator. Then I also,
Speaker 1: because I'm a comedian and I'm a performer, I wrote
Speaker 1: myself in as an actor. I've always wanted to be
Speaker 1: the best friend of somebody else's sitcom. So when we
Speaker 1: started writing and I was like, um, I think Sean
Speaker 1: that needs the best friend. What do you think, guys?
Speaker 1: I think she needs a confident And I created this character.
Speaker 1: They didn't know I was creating it for myself right right,
Speaker 1: this character. So you know, you've got all those checks
Speaker 1: plus to repeat fees. You know, during the pandemic, when
Speaker 1: there was a lot, not a lot of material because
Speaker 1: a lot of shows got shut down. Our show got
Speaker 1: repeated a lot, and these sex just kept coming in
Speaker 1: and mail box money, mail box money, come on now day,
Speaker 1: Oh my day. I'm like, this is madness and I
Speaker 1: was like, no one of all these white boys love
Speaker 1: beings on the shows because these checks keep currently Just Gina, uh,
Speaker 1: I still get checks from Jamie Fox Show, that's nat.
Speaker 1: I still get checks from Sister Sister. That's seven. I
Speaker 1: still get checks from from the Parkers. That's two thousands.
Speaker 1: So you do, those checks will keep coming. And that's
Speaker 1: why you go how these people living because they're living
Speaker 1: off residuals, they're living off for royalties. And I just
Speaker 1: feel it's such a blessing that Chuck really saw that
Speaker 1: and said, look, I'm gonna be I'm gonna do right
Speaker 1: by you. Okay, I can have you sitting over here
Speaker 1: as a consultant, but the real money in the game
Speaker 1: is writing, co producing, co creating. Put your name in
Speaker 1: those different titles. A check comes with each one, and
Speaker 1: now that allows you to pay it forward with your
Speaker 1: other peers on the show and educate them about the
Speaker 1: process of Hollywood really works. Isn't that really the process?
Speaker 1: You now know? Now you can share how Hollywood works exactly.
Speaker 1: I'm learning as I go, and then as I learned,
Speaker 1: I called my all my people and go listen, this
Speaker 1: is what we gotta do. This is where the money's
Speaker 1: at We got to create, We got to create. This
Speaker 1: is any what he wants to be in front of
Speaker 1: the camera, which is all good, but your mercy of
Speaker 1: the people behind the camera who are created writing those clips. Now,
Speaker 1: let's go back. Let's go back to Let's go back
Speaker 1: to my favorite part of your career, stand up comedy.
Speaker 1: Uh my degrees in mathematics. Okay, I got graduated. Agree,
Speaker 1: you're an engineer. So so, like I said, I know
Speaker 1: we've never met Gina, but I just feel that we
Speaker 1: have such a bond because we we journey. I come
Speaker 1: from a big family, six histers, two brothers, Houston, Texas.
Speaker 1: And your book Cat Handed talks about uh Nigeria and
Speaker 1: it talks about polygamy and talk about the British rule.
Speaker 1: It talks about how people are considering what you're doing
Speaker 1: to being sent for hall asious living a lifestyle of polygamy,
Speaker 1: but talked to about how that really was an advantage
Speaker 1: and also since a royalty, like we joked off air
Speaker 1: that in my family and my mom and dad just
Speaker 1: my dad was in Nigeria having six sisters in two
Speaker 1: and two sons. He was in great shape, three sons.
Speaker 1: He was in great shape. So talk about that whole lifestyle,
Speaker 1: and then we want to come with your transfer over
Speaker 1: to London, England. How that lifestyle, and then we're gonna
Speaker 1: talk about coming to America. Let's get started in Nigeria. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously, polygamy was wide the practice. My grandfather
Speaker 1: had many wives and many children, and it was a
Speaker 1: matter of survival. It was a matter of keeping a
Speaker 1: closeness in the family, and the whole family lived on
Speaker 1: one compoint pound and that's how it was. And it
Speaker 1: wasn't seen as citizal to white people came over and
Speaker 1: we're like, what are you're doing is wrong? It's time
Speaker 1: forward praying to these deities. You're gonna worship this white
Speaker 1: God and this white Jesus and basically forced their religion
Speaker 1: and their lifestyle and their beliefs on the African people.
Speaker 1: And and basically a lot of our stuff got sort
Speaker 1: of watered down and lost over the years, and to
Speaker 1: a certain point, we've forgotten some of our original um,
Speaker 1: you know, traditions because it got beaten and stolen from us,
Speaker 1: you know. Um. So that was where my father, so
Speaker 1: my mother came from that. My mother's father, she had
Speaker 1: lots of brothers and sisters from various wives of her
Speaker 1: father and all the all the women lived on on
Speaker 1: on the compound, and it's not always not always happy,
Speaker 1: you know, love and the happiness. Because my mother's mother
Speaker 1: was poisoned by one of the other wives because there
Speaker 1: was some jealousy. There's a hierarchy, and my mother's mother
Speaker 1: was the first wife and so she, you know, she
Speaker 1: was with the hierarchy and was prone, she was prone
Speaker 1: to resemblement from the other wives. It was like an
Speaker 1: episode of dynasty or something. It's like a real soap
Speaker 1: popular happily. But that was the tradition and that was
Speaker 1: the life that my mom came from. But as a daughter,
Speaker 1: which was kind of the patriarchy in Nigeria's race John
Speaker 1: as a daughter, you know, a lot of times the
Speaker 1: daughters weren't always educated. They were motherhood and wiped him.
Speaker 1: But because my mother was keenly intelligent and her father
Speaker 1: was a well traveled businessman. He was traveling all over Europe,
Speaker 1: traveling over the America, was doing business. So he was
Speaker 1: quite an open minded and well traveled guy, and he
Speaker 1: chose to educate my mother because you could see that
Speaker 1: my mother was extremely intelligent and and she sent her
Speaker 1: to really good schools and she was educated and my
Speaker 1: mother became one of the youngest headmistresses school you know
Speaker 1: school principles in Nigeria. She was in a school principal
Speaker 1: before she was twenty four years old. So she was
Speaker 1: highly educated. And eventually she ended up coming to England
Speaker 1: to further her studies. And it was in England that
Speaker 1: she met my father. But basically she was kind of
Speaker 1: like forced to go over it right when she was
Speaker 1: killing her mother was killed by the other wife because
Speaker 1: she was so educated and so beloved by her father.
Speaker 1: My mother, her mother had begged her father to send
Speaker 1: her away that she's in danger from the other wife.
Speaker 1: It was envious of her education and the fact that
Speaker 1: she was so beloved by her father. So after her
Speaker 1: mother died, her father was like okay and sent her
Speaker 1: to England, said, look, his money, go to England, further
Speaker 1: your studies. Make her life in England, because you know,
Speaker 1: England was seen as the motherland. Nigeria was a British colony,
Speaker 1: so England was seen as the motherland of night children.
Speaker 1: A lot of Nigerians wanted to go to England to
Speaker 1: study gain those qualifications and then come back and bring
Speaker 1: their new qualifications back to my jo and help build
Speaker 1: the country. So my my, my grandfather sent my mother
Speaker 1: to England to study, and that's where she was and
Speaker 1: that's where she met my father, and that's where my
Speaker 1: history begins. Well your history, well your history is a
Speaker 1: great history, you know. And the cat handed let's talk
Speaker 1: about that, Tyler, because I want to go. I'm talking
Speaker 1: to Gina Yasha. You know, she's the co executive was
Speaker 1: just he's the co creator, actress, co starring on this
Speaker 1: series Bob Hearts Bob Harts a a sholop, which is
Speaker 1: a cb A hit series. Now, when when I talk
Speaker 1: about this about you in general, um, what I want
Speaker 1: to make sure people understand is that cat handed is
Speaker 1: a word for clumsy, awkward. You know, she's left handed.
Speaker 1: That's what cat means left in the British terminology. So
Speaker 1: when where where are we leaving with? Is we leading
Speaker 1: with the word awkward tied to cak, we lead the
Speaker 1: word clumsy tied to cat or it's just out of
Speaker 1: a fish out of water, which one of those terms.
Speaker 1: There are so many meanings for the books. As you
Speaker 1: you said, cat candid is a British Old British word
Speaker 1: for left handed, also mean it's clumsy or gould, which
Speaker 1: I don't believe we are. I think we're living in
Speaker 1: a right handed world, so we're perceived as clumsy. If
Speaker 1: I'm at a bar and I'm next to you and
Speaker 1: I'm talking and I'm gesticulating with my left hand, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna knock over your drink because you've put your drink
Speaker 1: on the right hand side of your body, which is
Speaker 1: your dominant hand. My left hand is my dominant hand.
Speaker 1: I'm gonnaknock your drink over, and then you're gonna call
Speaker 1: me clumsy, but it's not. It's a right handed world
Speaker 1: and I'm just clumsy in it because everything is catered
Speaker 1: for right handers. So that's why cat handed means it's
Speaker 1: clumsy and awkward. It also talks about my journey. My
Speaker 1: journey has never been straightforward. I've had to duck, dive,
Speaker 1: and weave and and circumvent various obstacles that been put
Speaker 1: in my way. So that's also another meaning of cat handed,
Speaker 1: in that my journey has been unconventional. Also, kat is
Speaker 1: another word for poo, and I know if you knew that.
Speaker 1: I did know that, not my research. I didn't know
Speaker 1: that in my research, you know, our researching your girl. Yeah,
Speaker 1: any cultures, African culture and Middle Eastern culture. The left
Speaker 1: hand is the hand that's supposed to be the one
Speaker 1: that's used to wipe your bottom after you do a
Speaker 1: pooh kat is another word for pooh, so chat basically
Speaker 1: means pooh handed. So there are very and as a Nigerian,
Speaker 1: because my family is African, I was born left handed.
Speaker 1: For a long time, I was forced to write with
Speaker 1: my right hand because the left hand is seen is unclean.
Speaker 1: And even in the Bible, you know, there's terms that say,
Speaker 1: you know, Jesus sat on the right hand side of God,
Speaker 1: the right hand is always the good side. The left
Speaker 1: hand is always seen as unclean. So when I was
Speaker 1: a kid, yeah, I was forced to write with my
Speaker 1: right hand, forced to cook with my right hand, forced
Speaker 1: to do it. So if my mom walked into the
Speaker 1: kitchen and I was stirring upot of food with my
Speaker 1: left hand, I'd get a slap around the head and
Speaker 1: all that food would go in the flash and we
Speaker 1: start again. So hence that's why the title of the
Speaker 1: book is that because it encompasses various aspects of my
Speaker 1: life on my journey. Wow, you're amazing and I want
Speaker 1: to wrap up my ass And a couple of more questions. One,
Speaker 1: why did you write the book? Because it's a memoir,
Speaker 1: you know, and a memoir is usually told you want
Speaker 1: people to be motivated by your story, which I am
Speaker 1: motivated by your story. But why did you write the book?
Speaker 1: And also become relatable? I felt a lot of your
Speaker 1: story was relatable because if in the beginning and you know, well,
Speaker 1: you know, you may be in London, England, but you
Speaker 1: dealt with racism just like I deal with racism in America,
Speaker 1: and sometimes we don't understand that there's a Black Lives
Speaker 1: matters the movement and in London as it is in America.
Speaker 1: Talk about the importance of the memoir and also talk
Speaker 1: about how timely this book is because it also is
Speaker 1: a history lesson book. It walks through the path of
Speaker 1: how basically you can say that you know Nigeria was
Speaker 1: was was undermined it and basically uh robbed and the
Speaker 1: jurlry and the success and the wealth was brought into
Speaker 1: British museums. So talk about that and help us out
Speaker 1: as as we as we recommend people to pick up
Speaker 1: this book because it is an amazing book. Cat Candid, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean why I wrote the book. Originally, it started
Speaker 1: off as just on Instagram. There was a hashtag throwback
Speaker 1: Thursdays where you past old pictures, and I was posting
Speaker 1: old pictures and writing the story behind the pictures. But
Speaker 1: I post a picture and write an elaborate post explaining
Speaker 1: the history behind the picture, and people were really interested
Speaker 1: in saying, oh my god, your stories so good, why
Speaker 1: don't you write a book? So I started keeping those
Speaker 1: posts in a folder, and eventually a literally agent saw
Speaker 1: my post and contacted me and says, you need to
Speaker 1: write a book. So I, you know, I kept the
Speaker 1: post and like, well, maybe one day in the future
Speaker 1: I write a book. But I never really considered that
Speaker 1: this would happen so soon. So that's how the universe worked.
Speaker 1: And I wanted to talk about my history because people
Speaker 1: don't seem to realize that the UK started sleepy imperialism.
Speaker 1: The United Kingdom ruled most of the planet at one point,
Speaker 1: so people think that American racism is the be all
Speaker 1: and end all the racism. No, Americans learned that from
Speaker 1: the Brits Americans from the Bridge. What we don't what
Speaker 1: you know, you don't realize that a lot of the
Speaker 1: black people that are from the islands, Jamaica, Barbendos, Trinidad,
Speaker 1: so we should these are all Caribbean descendants of slaves.
Speaker 1: The British did their slavery slightly different from America, and
Speaker 1: that I used to do a routine on stage where
Speaker 1: I did that. The British did equivalent of the Americans
Speaker 1: did the equivalent of going robbing someone's house, as is
Speaker 1: stealing people from Africa and bringing them back home to
Speaker 1: their own house. The bridge. That the equivalent of stealing
Speaker 1: stuff but keeping it in Other people went to Africa
Speaker 1: and soul black people. They didn't bring them all to England.
Speaker 1: They hid their dirty doings and put the black people
Speaker 1: on Caribbean islands for the for the sugar plantations and
Speaker 1: on Caribbean islands. And that's where all those black people
Speaker 1: who come from those islands are descendants of states. So
Speaker 1: when African Americans, you know, there's been a discord for
Speaker 1: a long time between African Americans and people coming from Africa,
Speaker 1: people coming from islands. Our history is almost identical. Black
Speaker 1: people in the Caribbean almost suffered exactly the same cruelty,
Speaker 1: exactly the same awfulness that they did on American land,
Speaker 1: on plant plantations within America. So what I wanted to
Speaker 1: do was when I wrote the book, I started with
Speaker 1: the history of Africa, Nigeria in particular, and the history
Speaker 1: of what Britain did to Africans and how they spread
Speaker 1: black people all over the world. That it's not the
Speaker 1: Belgians were the terrible slavers, the Dutch, the South Africa,
Speaker 1: you know, all of it. So I just wanted to
Speaker 1: show the commonality between black people. Wherever you end up
Speaker 1: in the diaspora, We've all had very similar experiences. Accents
Speaker 1: might be different, we might speak different languages, but the
Speaker 1: experiences are very similar. Um. So that's part of the
Speaker 1: history of what when I explained that, and then when
Speaker 1: I talk about my upbringing in England, I was also
Speaker 1: in England. People think called England and so genteel racism
Speaker 1: doesn't England and work you're now discovering it with what
Speaker 1: happened with you know, Megan Market and Prince Harry. But
Speaker 1: racism is just as prevalent in Europe as it is
Speaker 1: in America. I spent my life running away from skinnet,
Speaker 1: being abused racially, at work, being pulled over by the
Speaker 1: police all the time for no reason. The only reason
Speaker 1: that less black people die at police hands in England
Speaker 1: is because our police do not carry guns on a
Speaker 1: routine basis. They only carry guns for uh for for
Speaker 1: particular incidence where they are then have given special permission
Speaker 1: to have. They do not carry guns on a daily basis.
Speaker 1: And that is the only reason the black people are
Speaker 1: not dying at the hands of police at the same
Speaker 1: numbers in England as America. The only reason the police
Speaker 1: in America are just as racist as the ones in England.
Speaker 1: The ones in England just as racist as America. So
Speaker 1: I wanted to cover some of that in my book.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's obviously humor. I'm a comedian. I want
Speaker 1: to make you laugh. So I'm also talking, you know,
Speaker 1: putting injected quite a lot of humor in the book.
Speaker 1: But I want Americans reading the book to see that
Speaker 1: we have black people who have much more in common
Speaker 1: all over the world than we've been led to believe.
Speaker 1: You are amazing. Gina Yasharei a book cat handed as
Speaker 1: a memoir about her life, Her Journey. She's also CBS star.
Speaker 1: I'm a movie of To start start episode, think about
Speaker 1: Texas a comedian, writer, co producer, co creative. Thank you
Speaker 1: for taking the time to come on Money Making Conversation, Gina,
Speaker 1: You're amazing. Thank you so much for having me. I've
Speaker 1: been looking forward to this. Thank you all right, fellow
Speaker 1: def jaff coming to jam members. You keep winning now, Okay,
Speaker 1: thank you Jina for coming on Money Making Conversation, Genie Yashay.
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Speaker 1: tuned into the money making conversations. Minute of Inspiration with
Speaker 1: Rashan McDonald on the court. Chris Paul is forced to
Speaker 1: be reckoned with off the court. He's a father, husband, compassionate, philanthropist,
Speaker 1: and businessman. He makes a huge difference in this community
Speaker 1: by supporting many organizations. There's so many people who have
Speaker 1: helped me get to where I am today. That and
Speaker 1: it board and just trying to teach and educate, especially
Speaker 1: to youth, not only my own kids especially them, but
Speaker 1: everyone just trying to teach him because I'm still learning.
Speaker 1: Because what happens also is a lot of times people
Speaker 1: see you on television or they see you on that
Speaker 1: court and they think that's all you know. They think
Speaker 1: all you know is how to put the ball in
Speaker 1: the basket. That's not the case. Not only myself. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of intelligent athletes out there, and I think
Speaker 1: that's why we have to continue to learn. It's funny
Speaker 1: sometimes when you do get in the business world and
Speaker 1: people shake your hand and make a comment and they're like, oh,
Speaker 1: you know about it, Like, yeah, we only play the games.
Speaker 1: Chris Paul's full interview is available at money Making Conversation
Speaker 1: dot com. Keep winning. Welcome back to Money Making Conversations
Speaker 1: with your host Rashan McDonald. My next guest is an
Speaker 1: industry decision maker. His name is Phil Thorne. His music industry.
Speaker 1: He's the music industry executive television producer don't sleep on that,
Speaker 1: and senior vice president General manager r C a Inspiration.
Speaker 1: R C Inspiration is the number one label and gospel
Speaker 1: music home to Kurt Flanker, Bam Free Hammer, the Wroans, Broke,
Speaker 1: the Walls Group, Landraw Johnson, and many manymore. And we're
Speaker 1: gonna talk about that because I'm gonna pull out this
Speaker 1: press release to Stella Awards and so many people that
Speaker 1: actually because rename the show the Provident Entertainment Awards, That's
Speaker 1: what they rename it. Show all these folks up there
Speaker 1: jamming up there. But he's also a member of the
Speaker 1: National Museum of African American Music. Uh, he's a board member,
Speaker 1: and that's important. We talked about that because the museum
Speaker 1: is dedicated to preserving and the celebrating the many John
Speaker 1: Is created influence inspired by African Americans. The museum is
Speaker 1: located in Nashville and were featured special tributes in Black
Speaker 1: Music Month, which is the month of June and present
Speaker 1: coveted right rahaps of the Rhythm Awards to the Fish
Speaker 1: Jubilee Singers and Lionel Richie and Smokey Robertson and Quincy
Speaker 1: Jones and Shaka. Can you know if your old school?
Speaker 1: Like when you gotta say shockn name twice? Because Fieldware
Speaker 1: so many hats. There are plenty of words that can
Speaker 1: be used to describe music industry executives like him and
Speaker 1: television produces like him for those only want two words
Speaker 1: to describe. And when I see him in it, because
Speaker 1: he's a dear friend of mine, I called him the man.
Speaker 1: Please work with the money making conversations, dumb man, feel thought, well,
Speaker 1: the man, the man. I got the friend the man back.
Speaker 1: You know, you know, you know we met Mary, you
Speaker 1: came down. We had a nice meal. Actually I moved.
Speaker 1: I bought a building in Atlanta, man and um one
Speaker 1: acre a lot and just uh expanding on the opportunities
Speaker 1: of more into television production, producing to television sales currently
Speaker 1: you know, expanding in the talent. But one of the
Speaker 1: things I always appreciated you, and I think that what
Speaker 1: what you really liked about me was the ability to multitask.
Speaker 1: And you do a very good job of that field.
Speaker 1: You've always done that well. Talk about that that ingredients
Speaker 1: because a lot of people fail because they don't understand.
Speaker 1: They get I gotta do this one thing and focus
Speaker 1: on this one thing. That's true, but you have to
Speaker 1: be able to do many things while you're focusing on
Speaker 1: that one thing. Tell us about that filth thing you
Speaker 1: gotta I mean to me, it's all about multitasking. I
Speaker 1: love music, I love television and film as well. But
Speaker 1: I've been fortunate, Rashan to have great partners, you know,
Speaker 1: every steps on the label side, I have a great
Speaker 1: team that supports me, which makes life much easier there.
Speaker 1: And then from my television and film productions, A partnered
Speaker 1: with various production companies to just kind of, you know,
Speaker 1: make sure things are moving with excellence and on time.
Speaker 1: And so you know, it's really about just prioritizing, delegating,
Speaker 1: and just working with people that you know, share that
Speaker 1: same heart and dash, and that's very true because but
Speaker 1: the key is feel. You know, i'mn put the word
Speaker 1: putting up tailer on visionary, okay, because you have to
Speaker 1: see things that other people don't see. And sometimes, you know,
Speaker 1: we we take that for granted because you know, I
Speaker 1: always love the fact that when I look at my life.
Speaker 1: You know, you know, when I was branding Steve Harvey
Speaker 1: the word brand and it wasn't popular. You know, it's
Speaker 1: just something I just did naturally. And so when I
Speaker 1: used the word branding a branding expert, that's you. When
Speaker 1: you were visionary as person who sees things, he sees
Speaker 1: talent and he takes that talent into his fold and
Speaker 1: guess where they become stars or they become or they
Speaker 1: they they've lost their way. And he said, hey, come
Speaker 1: work with me, and I think we can we can
Speaker 1: do something together. That's a visionary. How is it when
Speaker 1: you look at talent. That's why I called my boy
Speaker 1: Will Packer. You know, when he came on the show,
Speaker 1: I said, Will Packer man. You know when we were
Speaker 1: doing act like Think like a man. And you know,
Speaker 1: because Steve Harvey that when we sold the book to
Speaker 1: screen gams. We envisioned that to be a white movie.
Speaker 1: We really did. And so Will Packison. Now, man, I
Speaker 1: got this guy named Kevin Hard, and I knew Kevin Hart,
Speaker 1: you know, but I didn't know Kevin Hard like he
Speaker 1: was patting about Kevin Hart. And so that was a
Speaker 1: visionary who basically launched Think like a man, basically launched
Speaker 1: Steph Kevin Hard's career. And also out of the same
Speaker 1: move um John Legend Hit came out of there, and
Speaker 1: so so the two major players in the music genre
Speaker 1: and the acting comedic drama blew up because of his
Speaker 1: vision and his association. You have the same ability, whether
Speaker 1: it's new talent or talent that has been established, or
Speaker 1: talent to look for a new vibe in their life.
Speaker 1: Talk about how you look at these different challenges that
Speaker 1: people present you from a talent standpoint. Shout out to
Speaker 1: my brother, Will Packers, that's my that's that's my brother
Speaker 1: there man, good friend of mine. But yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: on the talent level, it's it's a certain indescribable quality.
Speaker 1: You know, over someon when I meet talent that I
Speaker 1: never want to be the one to outwork talent. So
Speaker 1: when I see and hear that passion, that commitment, that
Speaker 1: clear vision that they see it as well. And I'm
Speaker 1: more so of a person that's I becoming an executor
Speaker 1: of source by having a talent that really really has
Speaker 1: a clear picture of who they are person foremost, and
Speaker 1: that's always important and and and again I mean amplify
Speaker 1: what they say and what they envisioned, but it's important
Speaker 1: for the talent to have a true clear vision of
Speaker 1: who they are. Like I don't want you to just
Speaker 1: do something because I think it's great. I want you
Speaker 1: to basically have that foresight and that vision and I'll
Speaker 1: come in like SA amplify take it to another level.
Speaker 1: But I look for authenticity. I look for just you
Speaker 1: know that that work ethic and just being clear on
Speaker 1: your purpose and this is really your this is really
Speaker 1: your purpose because not everybody wants to be an actor
Speaker 1: should be an actor, or everybody wants to be a
Speaker 1: singer needs to be a singer. So making sure that
Speaker 1: your purpose and your passion are intersecting, and but making
Speaker 1: sure that you're also authentic and there's something about you
Speaker 1: that will connect with people, and that's what people look for. Well,
Speaker 1: it's the Stellar Awards shows that you're you. You're dealing
Speaker 1: with authenticity. You know when you look at the fact
Speaker 1: that the thirty six annual Stellar Awards and profitent Entertainment
Speaker 1: celebrates twenty three nominations for the thirty six annual Stellar
Speaker 1: Hospital Music Awards, with ten artists nominating in seventeen categories.
Speaker 1: Do you what do you come on now? You know
Speaker 1: your room crowded now, your rooms crowded now, but just
Speaker 1: the nominations alone, your rooms crowded. Grateful we had some
Speaker 1: you know, we think twenty three nominations ship, well, Michael
Speaker 1: Jordan's ship. So I'm selling think about that what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: you know, but I can always I got wrong on
Speaker 1: the mantel that I'm looking at my mental now and
Speaker 1: some Stellars and some Manage awards and someone we gotta
Speaker 1: always make it wrong. I'm just come the three thing.
Speaker 1: I brought that up because you know, one of my
Speaker 1: favorite people care ship, Kelly. I gotta put Kelly on
Speaker 1: that because you're mad Artists of the Sov the Year
Speaker 1: Albertina Walker, Female Artists of the Year Album of the Year.
Speaker 1: Uh coming to your contemporary female artists a year. When
Speaker 1: I look at Madley Music, Marvin Sath, Dono mcclerk in
Speaker 1: All Nations Music, Travis Green, who I Love to death?
Speaker 1: You know, Leandrew Johnson, Corene heart On, Elvin cris Bel
Speaker 1: and KP. Now when I gotta go back after Travis
Speaker 1: Green because he's a special talent, because he has a
Speaker 1: crossover audience. If I'm my mistaken, And when I interviewed
Speaker 1: him and uh a couple of years ago, and then
Speaker 1: I look at Donnie, said, Dunnie mc clerk and I've
Speaker 1: been doing Donnie mckirklands since since two thousands, and we
Speaker 1: fall down, which which which put him in another stratosphere
Speaker 1: way back in two thousands, we falled down. So then
Speaker 1: you look at Marvin Seth, you know his back to
Speaker 1: back singles. Now he's doing syndicated radio on Sundays Weekend show.
Speaker 1: So all these people are different. And then you have
Speaker 1: this young thirty three year old kid, Sheer Kelly. You
Speaker 1: know who's out there? Madley music? Who? Who? Who? When
Speaker 1: you talk to him on phone, you're talking, You're talking
Speaker 1: like your friend. You know, you know, don't you know?
Speaker 1: Because you know, because people get that word gospel, they
Speaker 1: think they're talking to somebody who's gonna hit him upside
Speaker 1: the head with the Bible. And that's the same thing
Speaker 1: with Travis Green. You have these people all just real people. Man.
Speaker 1: I think that's what you used when you say that
Speaker 1: we're authentic, that's what you're talking about. Yeah. Absolutely, man,
Speaker 1: you gotta thinking about it. They yes, all of them
Speaker 1: love God. They have that in common. They've been called
Speaker 1: to do this, but they know more people like you
Speaker 1: or not. I literally just had a meeting with our
Speaker 1: mutual frank Kirk Franklin right before this, and you and
Speaker 1: I both over Shara. Kirk is one of the most
Speaker 1: down to earth people you know that there is, like
Speaker 1: he's gonna give you a scripture if you need a scripture,
Speaker 1: a positive word. But he's a regular brother that's going
Speaker 1: through you know, things like you and I. So I
Speaker 1: mean but again so, but the same thing with Travis Travis, which,
Speaker 1: by the way, we got a new single you heard
Speaker 1: it here first from Travis Green coming out at the
Speaker 1: end of June with Travis featuring Kirk Franklin and John p. Key.
Speaker 1: So that's that's gonna be a big record for Travis Green.
Speaker 1: So come on now, Yeah, Darth Carolina bar righttt that's right.
Speaker 1: He got me, got me going back in my roots
Speaker 1: now with John that's right there. Tell Travis Rashan wants
Speaker 1: him on the show the end of June. Just tell
Speaker 1: Travis Green that's my boy. I gotta have you know
Speaker 1: because absolutely, And so when I when I look at
Speaker 1: the whole thing and that reason, I'm just slowing it
Speaker 1: down a little bit because we all on the show
Speaker 1: to talk about you being a board men. Were only
Speaker 1: show to talk about the National Museum of African American Music.
Speaker 1: But gospel is such a key component to that music,
Speaker 1: to that genre, and so many people come out of
Speaker 1: gospel that supports the rest of the genre of music
Speaker 1: that's at these at your African American Museum. What where
Speaker 1: is gospel at? You know, we come out of COVID,
Speaker 1: where I'd like to believe faith was reinforced in especially
Speaker 1: with the civil unrest with with George Floyd. And you
Speaker 1: know the anniversary is coming up this month. Unfortunately of
Speaker 1: his one year death, murder or whatever name you want
Speaker 1: to put it, definitely wasn't right. And uh fortunately the
Speaker 1: first police officer has been in id and then this
Speaker 1: summer we'll find out how long he will be imprisoned
Speaker 1: or incarcerated. So where is gospel music at because you know,
Speaker 1: you have hip hop went out there exploded. You know,
Speaker 1: you always have R and B and then you had
Speaker 1: a fusion, you have jazz. Where is gospel music in
Speaker 1: that landscape? All uh, popularity or revenue tours, all those things.
Speaker 1: The ASPHO music is, Uh, it's continues to grow stronger
Speaker 1: than ever. Like, I mean, we had a record breaking
Speaker 1: year then for our division. So I mean we you know,
Speaker 1: great releases from care Is shared and you know, Karen
Speaker 1: Hawthorne having you know, airplay on both the R and
Speaker 1: B and the Gospel Station's Kirk Franklin had three number
Speaker 1: one singles, one of which was a gold single, and
Speaker 1: Love Theory, So I mean it was a record setting
Speaker 1: year for us as a division, but also the genre
Speaker 1: as a whole. I mean, people like Jonathan McReynolds and
Speaker 1: Tasha cop Leonard from you know, my competitors and also
Speaker 1: you got you got Maverick City Music. I'm sure you're
Speaker 1: familiar with them. That that's the new wave right now.
Speaker 1: They're doing tremendous things in the gospel realm as well.
Speaker 1: So really the future looks bright. A lot of our
Speaker 1: partners at Spotify, Apple, Amazon, pandor etcetera are seeing that
Speaker 1: this is an underserved community. See that, but that that
Speaker 1: constantly shows up, you know, with the minimal resources they've applied.
Speaker 1: So now they're starting to really you know, ramp up
Speaker 1: more personnel and more creating more opportunities on platform and
Speaker 1: more real estate for gospel music, which is encouraging because
Speaker 1: they also see the global opportunities for gospel. We're seeing
Speaker 1: a lot of growth in Africa and Brazil, in the UK.
Speaker 1: So it's just it's really continues to just grow and
Speaker 1: grow and seeing cross genre collaborations, people like Tanye doing
Speaker 1: gospel and you know, Justin Bieber just had a gospel
Speaker 1: album Holy just continue chance to wrap a Holy I
Speaker 1: love that cup, I love that cut. Then yes, yes,
Speaker 1: much right with gospel continues to be you know, current
Speaker 1: relevant and and we see I mean even hr the
Speaker 1: singer her who just one who's won four Grammys in
Speaker 1: an Oscar just a few weeks ago, She's got a
Speaker 1: gospel song that you know, we put it out through
Speaker 1: our division. So again we're seeing a lot of our
Speaker 1: mainstream artists really paying how much to their roots and
Speaker 1: and and unapologetic about their faith, which is extremely important.
Speaker 1: So we're just like I said, we're seeing the catalog
Speaker 1: world year over year, but we're also seeing the new
Speaker 1: artists continue to have a lot of opportunity and generate
Speaker 1: revenue extremes. Well, you know, you know I'm one of
Speaker 1: those guys, man, I'm a big thinker. You know when
Speaker 1: I see Travis Scott go down in Houston do his
Speaker 1: Astra World concert and then sell out in a couple
Speaker 1: of hours and ten thousand people buying tickets, and they
Speaker 1: don't they only have a lot of just buying tickets
Speaker 1: on faith? That Can we get that in gospel? Can
Speaker 1: we get can these young stars? Can we can we
Speaker 1: get that energy where there's a huge way they can
Speaker 1: fill up you know Philadelphia for ball Stadium. It can
Speaker 1: the future get there? I know we tried it with
Speaker 1: the Three Kings when Donna mcclarg and Kirk and and
Speaker 1: uh and Marvin Sapp about ten years ago. Can we
Speaker 1: get there? Kend Jonathan McReynolds and all these talents that that,
Speaker 1: can they get on the stage and generate ten fifteen
Speaker 1: thousand people showing up? All my asking too much and
Speaker 1: making that statement, I didn't know what I think it's
Speaker 1: absolutely possible. I think Jonathan uh Karen Hawthorne, there's a
Speaker 1: few artists that immediately come to mind that could really
Speaker 1: uh be a catalyst said that. But I'm telling you
Speaker 1: keep your eyes on that Maverick City Music. I've been
Speaker 1: watching their momentum and they're independent, you know, they're they're
Speaker 1: independently young and you know, targeting a young, multicultural audience
Speaker 1: where you know it's gospel as you know, targeting at
Speaker 1: eighteen of twenty four demo. They just announced the tour.
Speaker 1: I think it was like fourteen cities a few weeks back,
Speaker 1: sold out in four days, you know. So, I mean
Speaker 1: so I feel like they are well on their way.
Speaker 1: When I look at just the next generation to actually
Speaker 1: do a ring, I see Arenas in their future. Wow.
Speaker 1: I love it. But let's get back to where I
Speaker 1: brought you on man, you know, doing his Black Music Month.
Speaker 1: You know, we know the advertisers, they've they've taken note
Speaker 1: of that. They want to spend money doing Black Music
Speaker 1: Month and the big celebration in Nashville. Why Nashville for
Speaker 1: the National Museum of African American Music, Nashville, Tennessee Music City, Right,
Speaker 1: that's what they called so but I'm Detroit up there. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: we love we love Atlanta, but you know, Nashville it's
Speaker 1: been called music city. So it's just it's so appropriate
Speaker 1: that the museum should be open here. I mean we
Speaker 1: opened it, you know, the soft opening was back during
Speaker 1: in January doing MLK Weekend and since then that, you know,
Speaker 1: it's been open, you know, for weekends, and we've now
Speaker 1: expanded it to the open Wednesday through Sunday. But this
Speaker 1: June Black Music Month seller ration, it's like the super
Speaker 1: Bowl for the museum, Like this is that's what it is,
Speaker 1: and so it's super exciting. I mean, we've got the
Speaker 1: Legends Gala on you know that Thursday, the yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: honoring some of the legends, I mean Quincy Jones and
Speaker 1: Lionel Richie and Smokey Robinson, Miss Shaka Khana. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: say Shaka. That was that was the first forty five
Speaker 1: I had on my breakfad place. I feel for you,
Speaker 1: So shout out to Miss Shaka Khan and then the
Speaker 1: fifth two Polie singers. So that's the Legends gal. And
Speaker 1: then on that Friday, you've got a series of panel
Speaker 1: discussions what we're calling the State of Black Music Summit.
Speaker 1: So I mean we're talking about everything from sports and music,
Speaker 1: to fashion of music, to business and music, and also
Speaker 1: you know, we're gonna be doing our Lives podcasts, say
Speaker 1: the Black Music Podcast hosted by Yours Truly. UM. So
Speaker 1: that's happening on that on that Friday, and then Saturday
Speaker 1: is the big Block party and June Team celebrations. So
Speaker 1: it's so much happening in Nashville, Tennessee at the museum.
Speaker 1: I'm just excited, and I just encourage everybody to come
Speaker 1: out and see this momentous institution. Let's talk about this. Shoot.
Speaker 1: I knew you're on my show, but it sounds like
Speaker 1: you should be on Good Morning in America. Sounds like
Speaker 1: you should be on Today's show right now. Seriously, you
Speaker 1: know this is the this is your music city. Okay,
Speaker 1: this ain't motor said you're in music city. This is
Speaker 1: the this is the National Museum of African American Music.
Speaker 1: You talking about when you said when you got to
Speaker 1: the black part, that was going like, okay, okay, where
Speaker 1: who else know about this? I'm trying to get it.
Speaker 1: I'm excited. So I'm saying that why can't I why
Speaker 1: can't you be on Good Morning America talking about this?
Speaker 1: Where's the press on this? Man? Where? What's who? Does
Speaker 1: anybody see what I see? Here? Feel? You know me?
Speaker 1: I see big man? You CBS, I'll say, CBS this
Speaker 1: Morning has been a great support There you go the museum.
Speaker 1: They're actually working on doing another feature to highlight this
Speaker 1: wonderful uh we celebration that we have coming up. So
Speaker 1: but they've been super supportive. We love CVS hopefully you
Speaker 1: know all friends of g m A has show us
Speaker 1: some love and the Today's Show because that's because that's
Speaker 1: Father's Day weekend, right that that June? Yeah, because it's
Speaker 1: on a Sunday, so that June Team, So I mean
Speaker 1: it's but you know again it's it's if you can't
Speaker 1: make it on that Sunday, we're not doing it. Sunday
Speaker 1: is off, or even if that Saturday you can't make it,
Speaker 1: But Thursday and Friday, it's it's gonna be so much
Speaker 1: and so many great people you can you know, learn
Speaker 1: so much amazing information and meet and network and you know,
Speaker 1: just think about what what do you know a celebration
Speaker 1: where they're honor in Quincy Smokey lion On and Shock
Speaker 1: and you release things like that's just iconic, that's I mean,
Speaker 1: some of the great and so I'm super excited about
Speaker 1: what we have. But again here in Nashville, Tennessee, that's
Speaker 1: called music city. Well you know something you sold me
Speaker 1: feel actually yourself. Why are you all just teaching anyway
Speaker 1: about that? But the thing I just love about it
Speaker 1: because I get so excited and watching your brand. You know,
Speaker 1: I feel the thing about it. I always talk about
Speaker 1: your brain. I feel your special talent. I have to
Speaker 1: be in the room where you were honored by the
Speaker 1: legends and that was a special night. And uh and
Speaker 1: you have many more personal honors coming your way. But
Speaker 1: how did you get involved with the National Museum African
Speaker 1: American Music? How did that come about? As a board
Speaker 1: member was a good friend of mine. She just was
Speaker 1: telling me about the museum maybe five years ago, and
Speaker 1: facilitated an introduction with Henry Hicks, who's our you know,
Speaker 1: president of CEO of the museum. And when I met Henry,
Speaker 1: I guess he felt that passion. My love for music
Speaker 1: and black music is black music, be clear? Is American
Speaker 1: music When you think about every genre of music black people,
Speaker 1: African Americans. I played a significant role in the creation UM,
Speaker 1: not always demonetization, but the creation has been UM started
Speaker 1: with us. And so he felt that passion in that conversation,
Speaker 1: and you know, they voted me on to the board.
Speaker 1: Like I said, almost five years ago, and I've been
Speaker 1: rocking since, did a lot of fundraisers, UM you know,
Speaker 1: only I was you know, pretty instrumental in Sony's financial
Speaker 1: gift that they donated a few months back. So really
Speaker 1: this is something that is so much Rashaan there, and
Speaker 1: I had to be a part of it because beyond
Speaker 1: the actual institution, I think about the education initiatives, what
Speaker 1: we can do on elementary all the way through college
Speaker 1: and scholarship opportunities and these are things that we're absolutely
Speaker 1: implementing now. And so that's the you know, for the
Speaker 1: museum to be beyond the institution. And I wanted to
Speaker 1: be a part of that narrative, that storytelling and and
Speaker 1: you know, Adam and doing my part, whether the part
Speaker 1: of it that the music is. You know, I'm old
Speaker 1: enough to have done that forty five single, the little
Speaker 1: forty five A and B side. I always remember that, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, and then I went to the eight track, okay,
Speaker 1: and I thought that was the cassette. And then you know,
Speaker 1: we all had that long playing album, you know, but
Speaker 1: then then all of a sudden that the CD came out,
Speaker 1: and then and then all of a sudden it became digital.
Speaker 1: And so now I'm in my car can look at
Speaker 1: you know, any type of genure music. I can make
Speaker 1: my own station if I wanted to. How is that
Speaker 1: play out for the autists, you know, because you have
Speaker 1: independent individuals got there, they can start their own labels.
Speaker 1: It's just a different game out there. And sometimes I
Speaker 1: don't even know. I'm experienced in the game, feel, and
Speaker 1: I don't even understand it. What what what? What technology
Speaker 1: or what knowledge do you have to bring to the
Speaker 1: game or or It's always a constant learning curve for
Speaker 1: you feel, throwing in the music business today, it's constantly
Speaker 1: a learning curve always. That's how you continue to be great,
Speaker 1: like because you know it was. It's as you mentioned,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's evolved over the years. And so when
Speaker 1: I think about now, even with n f T and
Speaker 1: bitcoin and everything happening with that movement with the music industry,
Speaker 1: that's the next wave of of you know, how music
Speaker 1: is going to be shared and and monetized. So you
Speaker 1: have to be a continue to be a student. I'm
Speaker 1: a student. I listened, I talked to my peers. I'm
Speaker 1: talking out only to the to the other CEOs are
Speaker 1: like my Silvia Own and John Platt. But I'm also
Speaker 1: talking to this younger generation to see what's the new,
Speaker 1: what's now, what's next? Because you can learn so much,
Speaker 1: so much. Well, you know, now I need to know
Speaker 1: about the museum. You know, when mis spawning and when
Speaker 1: it opened up and uh Washington East African American Museum lines,
Speaker 1: you couldn't get in because they told us exactly what
Speaker 1: that experience was going to be about. You know, you
Speaker 1: told us about the block what's happening on thirdy was
Speaker 1: happing on Friday, block party on Saturday. You know what
Speaker 1: is the museum experience when you walk through that front door?
Speaker 1: Is it two floors? It's in a basement. How many
Speaker 1: square footage? Let's let's take our time because I want
Speaker 1: you to be as visual and let's have fun with
Speaker 1: this because we're walking through African American history, music history here, Phil,
Speaker 1: I want I want to take our time. I want
Speaker 1: to have fun with this next this next question the museum,
Speaker 1: and the museum is, uh, how many floors is it?
Speaker 1: How many square feet? You know, just just walk me
Speaker 1: through that front door, man, and like you just the
Speaker 1: tour guy. Oh, I got visio, I got people who
Speaker 1: listening to the show. I got people watching the show.
Speaker 1: So you really got to be creative. So the people listening,
Speaker 1: they gotta feel like they're walking with you. The people
Speaker 1: who can see you, they gotta feel like, Man, I
Speaker 1: can actually see that, that that that billy, that that saxophone,
Speaker 1: I can see that gut tar. I can see it all,
Speaker 1: I can hear it all. Yeah, it's it's when you
Speaker 1: walk into this beautiful space on Fifth and Broadway, Nashville
Speaker 1: City downtown. You see instruments when you first walked through
Speaker 1: the door, and some other great artifacts wardrobe from some
Speaker 1: of your favorite artists. But then you actually the tour
Speaker 1: starts um in our Roots Theater, where we kind of
Speaker 1: show you a ten minute movie on just the origin
Speaker 1: of black music and its evolution over the years. You
Speaker 1: immediately exit the the Roots Theater and the first gallery
Speaker 1: that you enter is the Wade in the Water Gallery,
Speaker 1: which is our gospel gallery. Uh, it's so super impressive
Speaker 1: because everyone knows the music started with spirituals at him
Speaker 1: hymns and gospel music is the foundation of all genres
Speaker 1: of music. So you started the gospel. Then it goes
Speaker 1: into the Blues gallery, Uh, then Jazz and I mean
Speaker 1: just to see some of the artifacts and the awards,
Speaker 1: remember Bill, you're from, some of your favorites. And then
Speaker 1: you go into the One Nation Under Good, which is
Speaker 1: our R and B Gallery, which is probably one of
Speaker 1: my favorite galleries, and just seeing everything from history about
Speaker 1: Motown records and stacks and Billy International I means, so
Speaker 1: much history, but also you'll see some of your favorites,
Speaker 1: you know, like your your Mary J. Blige and Erica
Speaker 1: Bado was highlighted in there. So it's I mean, it
Speaker 1: takes you on a musical journey, um. But also you
Speaker 1: have these great interactive experiences within each gallery, so you
Speaker 1: can actually on your wristband that you have on against
Speaker 1: the museum, you can naturally add you know, playlists from
Speaker 1: some of the favorite artists that you may discover in
Speaker 1: the museum. And you know, there's an interactive in the
Speaker 1: Gospel gallery where Dr Bobby Jones and you can sing
Speaker 1: in the virtual choir. But in the R and B gallery,
Speaker 1: you can have a dance off, uh, you know, to
Speaker 1: some of your favorite music. And then the museum concludes
Speaker 1: with our hip hop gallery, which is really one of
Speaker 1: my favorites as well, because I mean, you can you
Speaker 1: can actually record a freestyle, you can make a bet
Speaker 1: in there. Uh, you can rhyme too, some of your
Speaker 1: favorite songs. And again at all those are your wristband
Speaker 1: that you get to save as a you know, kind
Speaker 1: of a souvenir. Electronically everything is sent to you. But
Speaker 1: so much history in there, again covering you know, gospel, blues, jazz,
Speaker 1: R and B, and hip hop. So it's super impressive,
Speaker 1: all fifties six thousand square feet of just excellence in
Speaker 1: history and musical bliss. The fact that you started with
Speaker 1: gospel and with hip hop, you know, I think it's
Speaker 1: a it's a phenomenal. And then I see, and this
Speaker 1: just fanning the whole conversation to see how blacks have
Speaker 1: finally been recognized in country and western country music, I
Speaker 1: should say country music, it's been We're finally getting recognized.
Speaker 1: We're not a fluke. And so I'm not saying that
Speaker 1: we including that I'm just saying that we finally started
Speaker 1: to get recognition about our contribution the Eacht genre. But
Speaker 1: we're putting that order together. There had to be some
Speaker 1: heated debate in the room. Do we start with gospel?
Speaker 1: Did we end with hip hop? Did we do jazz?
Speaker 1: Did we do R and B? Come on, come on,
Speaker 1: tell me about that room before we go, because you know,
Speaker 1: come on, now, come on hip hop. I know some
Speaker 1: people saying hip hop they can't because they can't say
Speaker 1: that him word. I know. It was some debate for
Speaker 1: them oldies when they can't hip hop. It was. There
Speaker 1: was some spirited discussions, and I was a part of
Speaker 1: them because I raised some of those questions. But I
Speaker 1: gotta tell you, but I gotta celetate this time to
Speaker 1: celebrate the amazing historians. It was about a dozen, about
Speaker 1: twelve thirteen historians and ethno musicologists that worked really, really
Speaker 1: hard Rashaan on the storyline for the museum, and you
Speaker 1: had to start with the gospel. That's where it started.
Speaker 1: So musically, I mean, but they did. This is you're
Speaker 1: talking about years upon years of research and you have
Speaker 1: some of the best and the brightest that just know
Speaker 1: about music and so but you can't. But you know,
Speaker 1: we gotta acknowledge where it started gospel, and we also
Speaker 1: got to acknowledge where it is now hip hop. And
Speaker 1: I will tell you country, you know. I know they're
Speaker 1: working on some special exhibits and there's been a number
Speaker 1: of country artists. You know, Darius Rucker is one of
Speaker 1: our national chairs. You know, Kane Brown actually celebrated at
Speaker 1: the opening, uh soft opening during MLK weekend and Willie Jones.
Speaker 1: So again, country is very much part of the storyline,
Speaker 1: and we're doing more to expand it because we need
Speaker 1: to make sure the country as well as rock and
Speaker 1: roll me a little retards. And I mean, you know
Speaker 1: so many people that you know represented throughout the museum.
Speaker 1: I really can't wait for you to see next week.
Speaker 1: So you coming come on. So, so where did you
Speaker 1: go to college that man? To get all this college? Man?
Speaker 1: What school did you go to? Norfolk U? Going on?
Speaker 1: Now see proud graduate. This is the whole thing. I'm
Speaker 1: going through the resume and many times I interviewed you,
Speaker 1: I've never know said it's born from Norfolk State HPCU
Speaker 1: and we never talked about that on the during the
Speaker 1: end of you Now you know, you know, and that's
Speaker 1: my home, that's home for me. Norfolk is home, so
Speaker 1: d A is home. I was actually I was hanging
Speaker 1: with Ms. Elliott the other day in Atlanta. We were
Speaker 1: catching up at dinner and we were just talking about
Speaker 1: how grateful we are to be from Virginia. Just we
Speaker 1: learned so much forget Norfolk State and the whole degreen
Speaker 1: ain't gold. Come on, before we last thing, I want
Speaker 1: you to talk about the values of attending to HBCU
Speaker 1: and high has made you the person you are today.
Speaker 1: Feel Thorn tell us about being attending inn HBCU one
Speaker 1: of the absolute best experiences in my life. I will
Speaker 1: I will never. I don't regret. It was one of
Speaker 1: my dreams. As a child. I used to watch a
Speaker 1: Different World and my mom allowed, you know, allowed me
Speaker 1: to watch School Days. So after watching both Different World
Speaker 1: School Day, I was like football and the experience is
Speaker 1: like no other. The community, uh just whether it's just
Speaker 1: students or even your professors, but the party and I
Speaker 1: was also great. The football game, the football basketball game,
Speaker 1: the tailgate, the fraternities and the sorority shout out to
Speaker 1: the noops. You know what I mean. Springing two thousands,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, that's that's what it is.
Speaker 1: Got outside I'm gonna do that. But but but it
Speaker 1: was no, it was the best, one of the best experiences.
Speaker 1: I learned so much. I've met some amazing people that
Speaker 1: I'm still in contact with to this day. But it
Speaker 1: was just and just it felt like such a like
Speaker 1: I didn't want to leave. I know I had to leave,
Speaker 1: but it's just like I really didn't want to because
Speaker 1: of the community and just the bond. I mean, Pharrell Williams.
Speaker 1: Pharrell used to come to Norfolk State to hang out
Speaker 1: with me on the yard because he was just and
Speaker 1: all just the whole college lifestyle. Said you should have
Speaker 1: wrote here. But he used to come and hang out
Speaker 1: with me. And when I used to do college radio,
Speaker 1: we'd hang out and just the student union because it
Speaker 1: was just such a great energy and it was positive
Speaker 1: and you know, I just love it. Man, thank you
Speaker 1: as always when you come on my show Field Thorn,
Speaker 1: you know, I just had to, I said, Man, I've
Speaker 1: been It's boy been on my show three times. We
Speaker 1: hadn't brought in his HBCU experience. We got to knocking
Speaker 1: out because it's because you know, black music Mark coming up.
Speaker 1: He about to be board member. You know, we gotta
Speaker 1: know why your blacks come from. Now we know, Phil Thorn,
Speaker 1: Thank you for coming on money making conversation. Brother than
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Speaker 1: Making Conversations with your host Rashan McDonald. My next guest
Speaker 1: is what I like to call an industry decision maker.
Speaker 1: She's a good she changes the game. My name is
Speaker 1: Dr Don Brown. Dr Don Brown is a double Board
Speaker 1: certified Child, adolescent, adult and sports psychiatrist. That's a lot.
Speaker 1: Let me see that one with that. Brown is a
Speaker 1: double board certified child, adolescent, adult, and sports psychiatrist. Reason
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Speaker 1: pioneer of the mental health movement and then nationally recognize
Speaker 1: two time number one best selling author Forbes. Right there,
Speaker 1: a d h D coach, mental health expert, and public speaker.
Speaker 1: We're going to discuss with Dr Brown why she chose
Speaker 1: psychiatry as our specialty, how to prioritize your health and
Speaker 1: the stigma regarding mental health. That's a big one right there.
Speaker 1: Plus Dr Brown's secrets to being a successful serial entrepreneur.
Speaker 1: You know this money main conversation, you know how to
Speaker 1: bring that up? Please, working to money, make conversations. She's
Speaker 1: living in Houston, straight out of Michigan. Dr Don Brown,
Speaker 1: how are you doing? Dr Brown? Mr Sean, thank you
Speaker 1: so much for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.
Speaker 1: I'm doing great. Thank you for well. First of all,
Speaker 1: you look fair task got that got money green on?
Speaker 1: You got money green on. Now I'd said it a
Speaker 1: little bit earlier, Flip Michigan. We know what's going on
Speaker 1: up there now, just not the story about trying to
Speaker 1: get find out what's going on with the drinking water.
Speaker 1: But it is a part of your past and part
Speaker 1: of your life, because I'm sure your relatives still in
Speaker 1: up there. Now. You're in Houston, Texas, and we just
Speaker 1: came off that freeze storm to basically shut down the
Speaker 1: state of Texas, and and saw how they weren't prepared
Speaker 1: and what we call a state that supposed to how
Speaker 1: they act together. That's the state of Texas. And we're
Speaker 1: still dealing with the consequences of that freeze that really
Speaker 1: caused the loss of a lot of lives, and that's important.
Speaker 1: So when you're dealing with that, that's all the reason
Speaker 1: I bring this up is that those situations calls mental stress.
Speaker 1: The flip mission that you Michigan situation where people are
Speaker 1: drinking water that they have the word if that water
Speaker 1: is gonna cause a deformity and a childbirthing situation or
Speaker 1: cut short their life where their children grow up, where
Speaker 1: they affect their brain or they grow they or their
Speaker 1: growth patterns. That's Flint Michigan. Then you deal with the
Speaker 1: free situation that happened in Texas and people are still
Speaker 1: trying to recover from the mental I guess I want
Speaker 1: to say effect of trust. Will it happened again? Will
Speaker 1: I be prepared to happen? With that? Talk about the
Speaker 1: whole mental makeup of people in general when stress comes
Speaker 1: into their life. It's a very interesting question you bring up,
Speaker 1: and even to mention Hurricane Harvey in there as well,
Speaker 1: writing the comparisons. You know, trauma can be a blessing
Speaker 1: and a curse. It's actually a silver alignment trauma. And
Speaker 1: how I say that is because it's obvious the curse, right,
Speaker 1: the traumatic experience that people can experience with how traumatizing
Speaker 1: the situation and condition experience could be for someone, How
Speaker 1: that affects the mentality, the iff's, their emotional health, and
Speaker 1: even their physical health. And then just like you're saying
Speaker 1: their trust factor, you know what's gonna happen next? Is
Speaker 1: the bottom gonna drop out again? I cannot be happy
Speaker 1: because I know something bad is going to happen. But
Speaker 1: then it's it's the blessing many people. Have you been
Speaker 1: motivated by trauma? You know, the determination, the diligence, the drive,
Speaker 1: the resilience of trauma, right, and so wanting to motivate
Speaker 1: yourself out of a situation, find the tools and the
Speaker 1: keys necessary to do so, and never stop getting up so,
Speaker 1: But but then the baggage is still there and if
Speaker 1: you don't address, if you don't deal with it, it
Speaker 1: can actually affect your mental health particularly and leave a
Speaker 1: lot of starters. Well, let's talk about the mental health
Speaker 1: from a standpoint of just day to day living. Let's
Speaker 1: talk about the minority community and what we all know
Speaker 1: in the minority community kind of shuns from showing weaknesses.
Speaker 1: And some people feel that if you admit that you
Speaker 1: have a mental illness, then you are weak, that you
Speaker 1: are shown that flaw, a flaw that can that can
Speaker 1: have people measure you based on your credibility, your sustainability
Speaker 1: as far as what you can do with your life. Now,
Speaker 1: let's let's backtrack a little bit about the minority community
Speaker 1: in Houston, Texas. I'm just using the Houston, Texas as
Speaker 1: an example because I forgot about Hurricane Harvey, and twenty seventeen,
Speaker 1: Hyricane Harvey happens to twity devastated the city of Houston.
Speaker 1: That's minorities. Who would affected the most minorities. Then you
Speaker 1: move forward into and COVID hit on top of devastated
Speaker 1: the minority community. Okay, Then the George Floyd situation came out,
Speaker 1: riding on social and civil unrest. Still on top of that,
Speaker 1: you were dealing with COVID nineteen. How do you deal
Speaker 1: with that? No vaccination? Then we moved into Texas. Then
Speaker 1: we did there. Still on top of that, no vaccination.
Speaker 1: Yet the big Texas freeze hit. Who did it affect
Speaker 1: the most minorities? Okay, now we're coming out. We have
Speaker 1: a vaccination set up when we can get vaccinated, and
Speaker 1: minorities are one of the slowest group that want to
Speaker 1: get vaccinated. So that's what the trust comes in. But
Speaker 1: there's also distress because not jobs are saying if you
Speaker 1: don't get vaccinated, you may not have a job. Here anymore.
Speaker 1: Dr Brown, the floor is yours now. You know, it's
Speaker 1: so much to unpack there, right, because historically mental health,
Speaker 1: physical health, just medical and general medical health has not
Speaker 1: done people of color due diligence, has not been cuified. Right.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is an actual industry that has actually
Speaker 1: been targeted towards people of color. Haven't been there, mistreated, um,
Speaker 1: not treated, not diagnosed properly. I mean, I can go
Speaker 1: on and on, and when you talk about mental health,
Speaker 1: all of those factors play a role in it's few
Speaker 1: of us. The lack of access, the lack of education
Speaker 1: coming from people like me that look like people who
Speaker 1: want to hear information, who want help but just don't
Speaker 1: know who to trust, where to go to if they
Speaker 1: have the financial need or the financial reasons of being
Speaker 1: able to go. Um. I mean, it's just so much, right,
Speaker 1: and so what we try to do is we try
Speaker 1: to just start it one step at a time. Um,
Speaker 1: when you have insult after insult, um that you're saying
Speaker 1: rashan from you know, things outside of our control such
Speaker 1: as weather patterns and you know the traumatic effects of
Speaker 1: Harvey in Houston, and then like you're saying the power
Speaker 1: outas the water outage here in Houston, and then you're
Speaker 1: talking about um COVID nineteen and you're talking about people
Speaker 1: like look like me that are you know, brutalized and
Speaker 1: murdered in the street protests going on. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: insult after insults. So what happens to our emotional health?
Speaker 1: Traumatized and it's hard and if we don't do something
Speaker 1: about that, then it could be actually jeopardizing and very
Speaker 1: dangerous because those scars don't heal, they don't heal at
Speaker 1: all unless you address them. You know, you can have
Speaker 1: a physical wound and you can actually see how the
Speaker 1: wound is is how the skin, which is the largest
Speaker 1: organ oured system, can actually do miraculous things. And just
Speaker 1: covering up that scar, you may have something to remind
Speaker 1: you of that scar, but it's not a wound that's open,
Speaker 1: it's cut, that's not you know, vicious. But you're talking
Speaker 1: about emotional health is something completely different, and a lot
Speaker 1: of the scars actually can become generational, It can actually
Speaker 1: be triggering and actually can come up in different situations
Speaker 1: where you're not even thinking about it subconsciously. So, yes,
Speaker 1: if emotional health is just as equally as important, as
Speaker 1: physical health and in our community people of color, we
Speaker 1: definitely have to talk about well, let's talk about that
Speaker 1: because I really like that analogy of the open scar
Speaker 1: a wound that doesn't heal, because let's talk about that
Speaker 1: for missing, because that's what happens. From the mental lass,
Speaker 1: we can't see it, so it cannot be acknowledged as
Speaker 1: a problem to the every day viewer or the every
Speaker 1: day five you came in if you if I came
Speaker 1: into the house and my daughter came into the house
Speaker 1: and her knee was scarred, we go, what's wrong, Let's
Speaker 1: fix that. We put some salve on his some alcohol
Speaker 1: shild screams. I got it now though didn't put the
Speaker 1: band aids on. Then all of a sudden, we will
Speaker 1: watch it, make sure it doesn't get infected, and then
Speaker 1: when it's when it's when it's repaired fully, then we're
Speaker 1: comfortable again. Now from a mental aspect, we don't see that.
Speaker 1: So if we did come in here and we saw
Speaker 1: a wound on the side of your head and that's
Speaker 1: signified that you were having mental stress, then we will
Speaker 1: know what to do. And guess what we would do,
Speaker 1: Dr Brown, We will want to fix that problem but
Speaker 1: when it's mental, then all of a sudden, you know,
Speaker 1: a lot of terms he crazy, he don't have good sense,
Speaker 1: a lot of terms that I've heard in my neighborhood
Speaker 1: where you know, that's don't don't, don't go, that's to him,
Speaker 1: that's the crazy to do it in the corner, you know,
Speaker 1: walk pack, walk fast past him, because it was always
Speaker 1: deemed that body who was not who is mentally stressed,
Speaker 1: was a person that you should stay away from in
Speaker 1: the minority community. Am I right or wrong? No, You're
Speaker 1: exactly a hundred percent right. I mean a band aid
Speaker 1: is to cover up a wound, just like a smile.
Speaker 1: That's cut up depression. Right. But again there's a historical
Speaker 1: analogy here. We were taught not to show emotions, right,
Speaker 1: think about slavery. If you showed a bigger emotion, then
Speaker 1: you were actually beaten, bruised, victimized, shunned all of those things, right,
Speaker 1: And so we had to be strong um in order
Speaker 1: to survive that time period, in order to make it
Speaker 1: to another day, in order to be okay. But again,
Speaker 1: historically we were taught to do that, and that's become
Speaker 1: generational part of the generational First, if you will that. Nowadays,
Speaker 1: we still many of us don't show that emotion, right,
Speaker 1: And it's taught that if this is a sign of weakness,
Speaker 1: just like as a slave, it's a signing weakness. You're
Speaker 1: not good enough, you're not built well enough, all these
Speaker 1: type of things. But I often tell my people of color, hey,
Speaker 1: you don't have to do that anymore. That is back then,
Speaker 1: This is now. You have me to hear, to support you,
Speaker 1: your family that loves you, hear the other support systems,
Speaker 1: and it's okay. It's okay not to have to smile
Speaker 1: all the time. It's okay to cry. It's God's tears.
Speaker 1: Let you say, hey, I need an emotional release because
Speaker 1: I'm human. And back then we weren't considered human, considered animals,
Speaker 1: we were considered victims, we were considered all these things
Speaker 1: that we couldn't actually express ourselves. And part of that
Speaker 1: mentality is still again a part of today's society, especially
Speaker 1: in people with color. But again even if we encourage
Speaker 1: for people like me to encourage our people, yet and
Speaker 1: still in different environments, atmosphere, work, whatever social circles, that
Speaker 1: mentality still exists. We know, it's really interesting just hearing
Speaker 1: you talk said, you know they you know, I hear
Speaker 1: the words counsel, council, culture, which I can't stand. Are
Speaker 1: he worries about? You know, why do we have to
Speaker 1: worry bout chance transgender? Why do you have to worry
Speaker 1: about the issue. Why all these people coming out of
Speaker 1: the closets, why why why? Because they have been afraid,
Speaker 1: They have been afraid to live a life. So now
Speaker 1: we're the mental health We are afraid, and we're trying
Speaker 1: to erode or remove the barriers of fear. It's all
Speaker 1: right to say you are depressed. It's all right to
Speaker 1: say that you that you don't feel good, and and
Speaker 1: that you you're stressing, and that you this is you,
Speaker 1: you reach your moment. You need time for yourself. It's
Speaker 1: all right to take vacation away from your world. And
Speaker 1: so I say that because when I talk, when I'm
Speaker 1: talking to you, Dr Brown, take this stuff very personal
Speaker 1: because of the fact that people can criticize, and people
Speaker 1: don't know the power of criticism and really can stop
Speaker 1: a lot of people from seeking help. And am I
Speaker 1: am I correct what I'm saying that yes you are.
Speaker 1: It is because not only do you have to consider
Speaker 1: the criticism that comes externally, but how internally as well?
Speaker 1: Right well, criticize ourselves, you know, and that's important. So
Speaker 1: so because I you know, I said, we have allowed
Speaker 1: to talk about it, but I want to just talk
Speaker 1: about that little portion. But I want to talk about
Speaker 1: the mental health athletics athletic centers that you have and
Speaker 1: the services that they offer. And why was it important
Speaker 1: to you know, wrap put the word athletic and health
Speaker 1: together and maybe they understand it's all has always been one.
Speaker 1: You know, I don't care if you Venus Williams or
Speaker 1: if you're Tom Brady. There is a psychology, there's a
Speaker 1: mental ability. There's been known that that the reason Serena
Speaker 1: Williams has not one her gram Sleer record because she
Speaker 1: stresses out too much in the finals. And you said,
Speaker 1: Serena Willims, yes, yes, stress and mental breakdowns have cost
Speaker 1: her from achieving her dream of winning all the last
Speaker 1: few Grand Slams that she's been in. And so even
Speaker 1: at that high level, how did you come in with
Speaker 1: these clinics that you created a combined health and athletics
Speaker 1: That reason right there you mentioned the mission. You know,
Speaker 1: I want athletes to understand that they're human, just who
Speaker 1: happen to have athletic abilities, so we recognize them as
Speaker 1: human first. And a lot of times when they were younger,
Speaker 1: you know, they were identified as athletes. So many of
Speaker 1: them don't even understand who they are. You know, they're
Speaker 1: trying to find your identity through it all, through their journey,
Speaker 1: and oftentimes that comes too late during retirement, and that's
Speaker 1: where we see a lot of mental health conditions as
Speaker 1: well that may come up. But when you talk about
Speaker 1: an active athlete who is injured, who actually is trying
Speaker 1: to top last year's numbers, who is going for the
Speaker 1: three p I mean all of these pressure mental conditioning
Speaker 1: cannot deal with. I mean they have mental health issues
Speaker 1: just like us. Actually, in a matter of fact, more
Speaker 1: of them have mental health issues than the general population.
Speaker 1: So I thought it was critical too so they can
Speaker 1: understand that, Hey, I see you, you're human first. As
Speaker 1: a recognized psychiatrist, I'm here this issue. All of you
Speaker 1: may not need medicine. All of you may just need
Speaker 1: a listening ear. How about just wanting to hear what
Speaker 1: you want in life? Right? Wanting to understand what happened
Speaker 1: to last night's game that the interview didn't address. There
Speaker 1: are criticizing you before you were able to even you know,
Speaker 1: process what's happened. So you know, it could be as
Speaker 1: little as that or as big as an issue as
Speaker 1: having a family history of trauma that got them out
Speaker 1: of the neighborhood to go pro That was a part
Speaker 1: of their journey, right, So I wanted something that it
Speaker 1: can be all inclusive, that UM athletes can take advantage
Speaker 1: of and working with someone like me, and that is trust.
Speaker 1: You know that they can trust. So you were there
Speaker 1: for them. So why did you I hear what you know,
Speaker 1: just the journey we were talking about now, but earlier
Speaker 1: when we came out of high school we started going
Speaker 1: into college. What led you to this field? What led
Speaker 1: you this range of study? Why it came to me?
Speaker 1: Rashaan Um? I actually um recently. I graduated from my
Speaker 1: child Fellowship program at Baylor, and I was in private
Speaker 1: practice for about two too and a half years and
Speaker 1: a Houston Rocket player came to see me in my
Speaker 1: private practice and here his wife came and he was
Speaker 1: experiencing anxiety. He didn't know what the terminology was at
Speaker 1: the time, but he actually said, I'm just I'm short
Speaker 1: of air, like I'm short of Brett, I can't breathe,
Speaker 1: and these are the conditions that lead to me not
Speaker 1: being able to breathe. And so he was describing some
Speaker 1: of these instances and we actually came up with the
Speaker 1: terminology that identified him having pastic attacks underneath the umbrella
Speaker 1: of having an anxiety disorder. And so that's how it started.
Speaker 1: And you know this, their schools are so small, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, nowadays do you have different professional associations um
Speaker 1: that are gun Hole for mental health, nontal awareness and
Speaker 1: I'm loving these initiatives that are now out. But back then,
Speaker 1: even just six years ago, it was difficult for him
Speaker 1: to come to me. He came with his wife his
Speaker 1: experiences for four or five years. It affected his game.
Speaker 1: It affected his game to the point he's not even
Speaker 1: playing anymore. He could very well be playing, right. Um.
Speaker 1: So yes, that's how it says. You know, the thing
Speaker 1: about it first of all, when we're talking about mental
Speaker 1: health and uh, because I people always say how do
Speaker 1: you juggle so much? Because it's levels of stress, you know.
Speaker 1: And I also know how to walk away, you know,
Speaker 1: like I watched TV. You know, you know you asked
Speaker 1: me on Netflix. I watched Netflix. You know I watched Disney,
Speaker 1: you know I watch sports. So what I'm telling everybody
Speaker 1: is that what helps you is what walks you away
Speaker 1: from the stress. And I remember when I bought the
Speaker 1: house in Atlanta and I told my wife, I said,
Speaker 1: I gotta be near water, as she said, she said why,
Speaker 1: I said, because I need to be able to walk
Speaker 1: out there and just see something simple. And and I
Speaker 1: remember we was I'm just telling everybody and jo just
Speaker 1: listen to how ideal would stress. And because they're they're
Speaker 1: they're little tricks to it, and their tricks that you
Speaker 1: can do yourself. But what I try to do myself
Speaker 1: is that I try to make sure that every day
Speaker 1: looks different. In other words, we was in a high
Speaker 1: rise dr Brown and I started noticing that the tree
Speaker 1: tops look the same every day. And I told Mark,
Speaker 1: we can't stay here. She said, what I said, it
Speaker 1: looks the same. I said, I gotta have something that
Speaker 1: triggers my mind to be creative into another journey. And
Speaker 1: so she said, okay, she's that's their prison. Now it
Speaker 1: looks same every day. Say I got trees like trees
Speaker 1: I used to account them. Okay, and so so what
Speaker 1: happens I think in a lot of things, and I'm
Speaker 1: talking to a professional and I'm talking to you. Is
Speaker 1: that how I deal with that and being able to
Speaker 1: deal with stress, deal with the inside, to deal with depression.
Speaker 1: I tried to take myself in something normal. That's when
Speaker 1: I say normal, Go to the park, you know, go fishing,
Speaker 1: do normal things that are breaking the cycle create a
Speaker 1: different conversation. And with people stress, they're stressing because they're
Speaker 1: not breaking the norm. This is just Rashan McDonald's way
Speaker 1: of thinking about it. I just want to know, have
Speaker 1: I been on the right path all these years? Can
Speaker 1: you help me? Your doctor, listen? Can you be out
Speaker 1: this curiously curious cycle of you To even bring that up?
Speaker 1: Because it's about taking a break from that has been
Speaker 1: my complete message to people. Um, you gotta take breaks
Speaker 1: and then you have to take a lot of them.
Speaker 1: Similar to you, Rashan, I actually relocated to another part
Speaker 1: of Houston because my primary goal was to have a
Speaker 1: view of the city gent Michigan. I wanted a view
Speaker 1: of the same need because that's what helps, you know,
Speaker 1: just really bring me back to reality. But I'm hearing
Speaker 1: different stories, traumatic story situations, people's anxieties, depression. It's easy
Speaker 1: for me to take that on. So I have to
Speaker 1: take a break and having a view was very important
Speaker 1: and so that's help determine where I am and that
Speaker 1: has been a lifesaver for me. But you have to
Speaker 1: find something that's allowing you to break away from routine,
Speaker 1: from stress. Vacations are important. You've gotta schedule them like
Speaker 1: your schedule me even even your daily breaks. Even the
Speaker 1: prize will show how many people don't even break during
Speaker 1: the day, you know. That's that's why I was important
Speaker 1: when I when I schedule this interview because of the
Speaker 1: fact that when you're starting a business, stress, when you're
Speaker 1: starting a relationship, stress, when you're having children, stress, when
Speaker 1: you're doing a job. You know different. That's why I
Speaker 1: had to mention about especially in Houston market. We can
Speaker 1: go to different parts of the country. You can do
Speaker 1: the stress that came in a state of Georgia when
Speaker 1: President Trump and was down here saying that the voting
Speaker 1: was was illegal, that they were cheating. You had the
Speaker 1: Republican stress, you had a Democrats stress, and then you
Speaker 1: had then you had the Black Lives Matter movement running around.
Speaker 1: They were being called thugs, being called a terrorist group.
Speaker 1: That level of stress your profession, I would have to
Speaker 1: believe it's understressed too, because so many people are coming
Speaker 1: to you for so many new answers. Dr Brown. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're in a pandemic as well. Mental health is in
Speaker 1: its own pandemic. The good thing about is whatever shan
Speaker 1: is that people are coming to get help, and technology
Speaker 1: has been a huge king um in creating that access
Speaker 1: for many people who formerly didn't have access, who didn't
Speaker 1: want to come to a place to get help. The
Speaker 1: screen these stigma is a part of that. The stigmatized
Speaker 1: as an experience from people where they're in the comfort
Speaker 1: of their homes talking about something that's triggering and they're
Speaker 1: able to communicate that through a screen has been helpful.
Speaker 1: Insurance companies have gotten on board to provide coverage for
Speaker 1: Telly psychiatry so that people can get help. E A
Speaker 1: p S are on board to be able to allow
Speaker 1: therapy sessions for their employees who have been at home
Speaker 1: over a year and a half. So people are understanding
Speaker 1: this mental health movement. Now, they understand how important mental
Speaker 1: health is and it is amazing to see that. But
Speaker 1: we're still in the pandemic and we're gonna be in
Speaker 1: this for quite some time. So you know, yes, threat everywhere.
Speaker 1: It's a part of our normalcy, our normal day life.
Speaker 1: But we have to understand that, hey, there is help
Speaker 1: out there in order for you to help manage that
Speaker 1: while you're dealing with it as well. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: the help is first of all, have to be acknowledged
Speaker 1: by youth, you know. I you know, like I said,
Speaker 1: I've acknowledged the fact that I need, I need. I
Speaker 1: need to see things, movements and things like that. That relaxed.
Speaker 1: That's my triggers. And that's that's a popular word you're here,
Speaker 1: especially when you talk about mental health. What are your triggers,
Speaker 1: whether what are the bad triggers or what are the
Speaker 1: good triggers. The good triggers for me is that I
Speaker 1: gotta be so I gotta see change all the time.
Speaker 1: I gotta be. And I'm not talking about I gotta
Speaker 1: hear loud music, I gotta go to a party, I
Speaker 1: gotta drink, I gotta be the life of that. And
Speaker 1: I'm stepping out of my own being to know I'm
Speaker 1: talking about I go down to my little late I
Speaker 1: sit down and I watched the fish and it relaxes me,
Speaker 1: and if and then and it takes me down a
Speaker 1: little bit where I can't see any streets. I can
Speaker 1: see part of my house. So I'm almost in my
Speaker 1: little world. And so and it's kind of like that
Speaker 1: been that way for me, you know, my whole life though,
Speaker 1: Dr Bro, I've I've I've unconsciously figured out positive triggers
Speaker 1: for me. You know, in New York, a lot of
Speaker 1: people I can't stand those crowds. I love the crowds.
Speaker 1: But then you come to my My place is spacious,
Speaker 1: you know, and so I'm so I don't care that
Speaker 1: crowded environment of the streets into my home environment. Hey hey,
Speaker 1: I got these walls too close. Okay. So so it's
Speaker 1: really about some of the decisions. But the bigger thing
Speaker 1: I'll take away in this conversation and why you're so important,
Speaker 1: is that there's so many people who have not found
Speaker 1: the positive triggers. And that's why you are so important
Speaker 1: to talk to us about that. Hey man, hey man,
Speaker 1: I have an a dh D mind. I mean I
Speaker 1: have a d h D and the MP with a
Speaker 1: d h D if you will, and so, like you,
Speaker 1: I love the noise, the action, the stimuli because it
Speaker 1: allows me to be moving with it right. I'm motivated
Speaker 1: by it, I'm driven unproductive. But then there are times
Speaker 1: when it's just too much for me and it's overstimulating.
Speaker 1: So I have to travel. So my pos of triggers
Speaker 1: international travel. And the reason I say international because it
Speaker 1: gets me out of my comfort zone. I go alone.
Speaker 1: I want to learn about different cultures that I don't
Speaker 1: know anything about, meeting new people, so it's a lot
Speaker 1: of newness that allows me to be in a very calming,
Speaker 1: right type of mood and zone. Positive triggers are so important.
Speaker 1: I'm glad you brought that up because often times when
Speaker 1: we talk about triggers, the automatic thought process about that
Speaker 1: is it's negative. But no are positive triggers, and we
Speaker 1: need positive triggers to balance out um our ability to
Speaker 1: manage stress. We need positive triggers to understand when it
Speaker 1: need to know when it's time to take that break,
Speaker 1: when it's time take that vacation, right when it's time
Speaker 1: to go to bed at night. It's not you know,
Speaker 1: being up at two o'clock in the morning because you
Speaker 1: always gonna have work to do. I want to take something,
Speaker 1: I want to say something, you, Dr Brown, because I'm
Speaker 1: kind of a not a know that you, but a
Speaker 1: know it in this system, you know, like because you
Speaker 1: know May is you know, mental Health Awareness month. Okay,
Speaker 1: it's not just one month, everybody, okay. And and and
Speaker 1: that gives you a false sense that we're gonna recognize
Speaker 1: this month. And the problem goes to way it's every day,
Speaker 1: every hour, how you deal with it, how you relate
Speaker 1: to it. And I brought Dr Brown on this show,
Speaker 1: you know, to let you know that she's here for you.
Speaker 1: She's here to to give you a sense of awareness,
Speaker 1: a sense of a hope. Uh ear, and when when,
Speaker 1: when that ear is listening to you, she's gonna give
Speaker 1: you answers. And if you if you don't have the answers,
Speaker 1: then she's willing to walk you through the steps to
Speaker 1: get to that answer. You come and when you come
Speaker 1: to a person like Dr Brown, her centers and and
Speaker 1: what she's trying to do is she's trying to let
Speaker 1: you know that it's time to acknowledge there is something wrong.
Speaker 1: She that's the key, right, Dr Brown, that's the key.
Speaker 1: And you know, mental health doesn't necessarily just mean um,
Speaker 1: I'm having some little thoughts I'm hearing voices or you know,
Speaker 1: these these the kind of the extreme of it. It
Speaker 1: could be that I'm fatigue, I'm tired, I'm using my
Speaker 1: ear nothing is you know, I'm having thoughts that I'm
Speaker 1: not necessarily worthy. Like mental health shows up for different
Speaker 1: people at different levels of severity. And I love people
Speaker 1: just think, you know, just like they get physical evaluations
Speaker 1: and physical checks up, checkouts, people check ups. I would
Speaker 1: love it people can go to a mentalth professional and
Speaker 1: get an annual mental health check up. Wow, how better
Speaker 1: they would be? How better this world would be? Um,
Speaker 1: it just will were normalize. We've gotta normalized mental health
Speaker 1: because it's important. We all experienced mental health. Like, just
Speaker 1: like you said at the beginning of our conversation, we
Speaker 1: all have mental health issues and wellnesses, and so it's
Speaker 1: important for us to take care of it. What level
Speaker 1: it is? The thing about it when you talk about fatigue.
Speaker 1: I remember one day my wife, I'll get up and
Speaker 1: I'll just drive myself to the airport. She one day
Speaker 1: she's I drive, you know, I gotta get up earlier.
Speaker 1: And we were we were driving, and she was driving me.
Speaker 1: She was looking at me in the passage. She says.
Speaker 1: She said, Wow, we don't you tired? When do you?
Speaker 1: When are you tired? I said, I'm tired right now.
Speaker 1: I said, but what I've learned and I've created triggers
Speaker 1: to to be able to mask that, okay. And I said,
Speaker 1: that's not a good thing too, to mask fatigue. And
Speaker 1: so when you when you're doing things, mask is a
Speaker 1: dangerous term in the mental and physical awareness because you
Speaker 1: can mask fatigue and it can lead to other issues.
Speaker 1: That's why you have to know your body. In this case,
Speaker 1: you have to know your mind. And and I'm not
Speaker 1: saying I'm a specialist. I'm just bringing you on the show.
Speaker 1: You are especially and believe me, you got to come
Speaker 1: back on my show. I could be talking to you
Speaker 1: for another hour because you and I, first of all,
Speaker 1: we're connecting. But I think you understand how I think.
Speaker 1: And I have a lot of natural awareness, and but
Speaker 1: you have the technical awareness. Because I can't teach anybody
Speaker 1: what I know. It's it's just something I've designed for myself.
Speaker 1: But you can't teach individuals and get him to walk
Speaker 1: the path of lightness, you know, come out of the light.
Speaker 1: And because mental health is darkness. If you live in
Speaker 1: you live in mental health. That light is not on
Speaker 1: in that room. It's not on, and you can help them.
Speaker 1: So tell us a little bit about in the website
Speaker 1: so we can get that out there, so we can
Speaker 1: just start. You know you, you, you're my one. You Texas, Texas, Texas,
Speaker 1: the High, the High Thights. Let's walk us out of here. Rishan.
Speaker 1: You know that's why I really appreciate and respect your platform.
Speaker 1: I listened to you all the time, and I love
Speaker 1: your openness with others. I love your realness and you
Speaker 1: sharing your personal experiences so people can connect with you.
Speaker 1: That's why we connect so well. Because you're a realist.
Speaker 1: You don't have to be an expert to understand how
Speaker 1: this works. Your realness and so I appreciate that about you.
Speaker 1: So thank you for having me. Um. You can find
Speaker 1: me at Dr Dawn psych m D. That's probably my
Speaker 1: main hub dr on psyche m D. That's c r
Speaker 1: D A w n P S and Paul s y
Speaker 1: c h m D. On all social media platforms. Please
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Speaker 1: making conversations. Minute of Inspiration with Rushan McDonald, Lenny Love
Speaker 1: with Your Pray of You and m University in Houston,
Speaker 1: Texas for about four years and got her engineering degree.
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Speaker 1: interview is available and money Making Conversation dot com keep winning.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Money Making Conversations with your host, Rashaan McDonald.
Speaker 1: My next guest is Todd Jones. He has been in
Speaker 1: the donut making game for over forty five years and
Speaker 1: I'm a donut eating man. He started Cousins does His
Speaker 1: twenty six years ago. He is a mini donuts shop
Speaker 1: in downtown Brooklyn, New York, which I have visited and
Speaker 1: enjoyed eating those donuts because the reason I love it.
Speaker 1: He makes the donuts right in front of you. You
Speaker 1: can just see him go rind there, I want that
Speaker 1: when I want that one. It's really cool. They have
Speaker 1: different topies like glades, cinnamon sugar, and funnel cake powder.
Speaker 1: They also have what we're gonna talk about, have fun
Speaker 1: with donuts for grown ups. Please work on the money
Speaker 1: making conversations. A good friend of mine out of Brooklyn,
Speaker 1: New York. Because it's dozen Todd Jones. Are you doing talk?
Speaker 1: I'm well with how are you today? Because you should
Speaker 1: be happy? Man. You know you have to selling doughnuts
Speaker 1: coming out of the pandemic. You look like you're tired. Man,
Speaker 1: you look like you're tired and selling donors. Come on, Todd,
Speaker 1: that's not the Todd out though. Now I'm not. I'm
Speaker 1: not tired now, I'm excited. As a matter of fact,
Speaker 1: I had to get up this morning four o'clock in
Speaker 1: the morning to get an order out um to a
Speaker 1: client that I had, so um, I'm off of making like,
Speaker 1: uh eighty boxes of donuts this morning. Man. So I'm ready. Man,
Speaker 1: those little mini doughnuts right, yes, so we say many
Speaker 1: is a new skinny, but well, I'm looking I had
Speaker 1: a lot of your skinnies the other day because you
Speaker 1: because you shipped me like two boxes those little skinny
Speaker 1: doughnuts and gets what they're tipping though, the mini donors
Speaker 1: because they're not regular sized so you can just wind
Speaker 1: yourself eat them like free though with like potato chips. Exactly.
Speaker 1: Tell me about the popularity of your many don't understand. Well,
Speaker 1: we've been in downtown Brooklyn for a number of years now, um,
Speaker 1: and we started to make the mini donuts down there,
Speaker 1: and uh, I came up with a new brand of
Speaker 1: new flavor called Donuts for grown Ups, and uh, right
Speaker 1: now we're featuring Hennessy, you know. So we say anything
Speaker 1: is possible, you know. So we we're just some you know,
Speaker 1: turning out those donorts. Man, we wanna make a franchise
Speaker 1: out of it. We should be ready by the end
Speaker 1: of the year. And we actually want to sell the
Speaker 1: franchise as a woman entrepreneurs because the women are the
Speaker 1: fastest growing segment of the population that's starting businesses, especially
Speaker 1: Black women. Now, let's let's talk about you know, because
Speaker 1: I've interviewed you before, Todd, and actually, you know I
Speaker 1: said earlier in my interview that I've been to your
Speaker 1: location in Brooklyn, which is really cool, very busy area
Speaker 1: in that little mall that you're in. Now. You just
Speaker 1: didn't just get in the donut game, you know, you
Speaker 1: just just wake up and say, Hey, I'm gonna just
Speaker 1: start doing donuts. Like I said, you've been in the
Speaker 1: donut making game for four and five years. Talk about
Speaker 1: how how you got in it, and let's walk through
Speaker 1: those steps as we go through your journey of cousins,
Speaker 1: of developing cousins, doesn't right? So? Um what? Or six
Speaker 1: years ago? I got a job at a donuts shop
Speaker 1: called A Cup and two, which was owned by three
Speaker 1: African American brothers. It was a unique experience for me
Speaker 1: because I got to see African American men run businesses
Speaker 1: and it really intrigued me. And you know, I just
Speaker 1: have the entrepreneurial bug from there. So I worked with
Speaker 1: them for about four years and then I went to
Speaker 1: UH Duncan Donuts, which uh. I stayed there for twenty years.
Speaker 1: And I can say, and they can say, I was
Speaker 1: the highest paid baker and Duncan donor history. You know,
Speaker 1: I mean, Shan is making so much dull man. I
Speaker 1: was driving the BMW man unlike said five donuts man.
Speaker 1: You know me. So, so when you started first, were
Speaker 1: you inter baking or that was just a job you
Speaker 1: took the responsibility on when you started working with the
Speaker 1: gentleman the African American debate are donut owners donor store?
Speaker 1: It was a job at first, but then I really
Speaker 1: begin to like it because of the fact that you know,
Speaker 1: was shane as as a chef and cook. You know,
Speaker 1: when somebody takes your stuff and really like it to
Speaker 1: put a smile on your face. I was seeing a
Speaker 1: response that people we were having, you know, when I
Speaker 1: made the donuts, you know, so I was doing it
Speaker 1: after school and in the summer came I do it
Speaker 1: during the summer, and it just became a passion man, right,
Speaker 1: And so the cool thing about it is that, you know,
Speaker 1: two of my favorite desserts are doughnuts to night cream,
Speaker 1: you know, and so doughnuts I love. I like, I
Speaker 1: like the glazed donuts. I like doughnuts with something. I
Speaker 1: like those cake donuts, you know, I like uh donuts
Speaker 1: and stuffed. So, so what were you making and what
Speaker 1: became your favorite donut in the early years, because you
Speaker 1: said you went with the duncan They do a lot
Speaker 1: of stuff donuts so talk to the steps of what
Speaker 1: what what is the difference between the cake, the glaze,
Speaker 1: why the glaze is so popular, and then the and
Speaker 1: then the and then the evolution of the stuff donut right. Well, well,
Speaker 1: first and foremost, there's two types of donuts. There's a
Speaker 1: yeast donut, which is the soft ones, which is the
Speaker 1: glaze and the jellies, and then there's the cake donor.
Speaker 1: The difference between the two. With the yeast, it takes
Speaker 1: more time to make because you gotta let it sit,
Speaker 1: you gotta let the rise. You're putting yeast in it,
Speaker 1: you know. The cake donuts, you know, you flour, you know,
Speaker 1: some water, some other ingredients and you can go right
Speaker 1: away with the cake donuts and make them right away. Um,
Speaker 1: But because it doesn't obviously we use the cake donors
Speaker 1: because you know, it's it's faster, you know, and I
Speaker 1: think it's a better tasting donor. You know, I like
Speaker 1: the density UH of a cake donut and the type
Speaker 1: of uh donors that we have. It's like preparatory with
Speaker 1: It's like a bunt of milk cake donor. You know,
Speaker 1: that's where you get that when you want it hits
Speaker 1: your tongue man, it melts right in your mouth. This
Speaker 1: is true. This is true. You know now the stuff
Speaker 1: donut Now, like I'm just talking about the donuts in general,
Speaker 1: because that's not what you get in you know, and uh,
Speaker 1: your your locations Cousins doesn't specializes in many donuts. But
Speaker 1: why donuts. I can tell you why. I just like donuts.
Speaker 1: But donuts generally are are something that you eat early
Speaker 1: in the morning or is it a snack? Or am
Speaker 1: I just assuming that because I get my donuts in
Speaker 1: the morning. Because a lot of people drink coffee, they
Speaker 1: tie donuts and coffee together. What is the evolution of
Speaker 1: the donut? What what tell us about that the donut
Speaker 1: in this popularity? Well, well, well now it doesn't want
Speaker 1: from just being a breakfast item to a twenty four
Speaker 1: hour item, you know. Um, from the evolution of what
Speaker 1: I'm doing. As far as the donuts for grown ups,
Speaker 1: that's the alcohol if you donuts, you know. So, I mean,
Speaker 1: people aren't gonna eat Hennessy donuts in the morning, but
Speaker 1: you know, you never know, it might eat for lunch
Speaker 1: for sure, Hennessy donut. I usually tell people at six
Speaker 1: o'clock somewhere in the world. You know absolutely, so you
Speaker 1: know another but you have other flavors in Hennessey of
Speaker 1: Sharrock and you have to other than yeah, yeah we
Speaker 1: do Strock, do pink for scotto, you know any any
Speaker 1: type of look I've done do say you know, we've
Speaker 1: done all types of donuts, man, as far as your
Speaker 1: imagination can take you. Now, let's when we talk about donuts,
Speaker 1: you know, because we just came out of COVID and
Speaker 1: New York was hit the worst. Would shut down? You
Speaker 1: shut that and I like to think about it is
Speaker 1: all my friends like you dealing would you know, no
Speaker 1: customers when they get a p p P, you know,
Speaker 1: payroll protection plan? A long? So how did you when?
Speaker 1: When when we got shut down in the first too
Speaker 1: much walking through that stuff, the anxieties of what's gonna
Speaker 1: happen at your business? H what? What? Well? For me? Um,
Speaker 1: I had to do a pivot. And the pivot that
Speaker 1: came to me straight from God was mail order. Start
Speaker 1: to do mail order, and I came up with this concept. Well,
Speaker 1: God gave me the concept do to door and I
Speaker 1: was shipping doing us all across the country. Sean. It
Speaker 1: saved me. It saved me, you know, and another idea
Speaker 1: came to me that instead of doing brick and mortar,
Speaker 1: do mobile. Mm hmmm, so we're gonna be franchising mobile
Speaker 1: donor trucks. M you know, I got theme music to
Speaker 1: go with a tub of shots, like the Mr Softy Man. Man.
Speaker 1: When you hear this cousin does the song, you know
Speaker 1: we're on our way man. Well, you know, you know
Speaker 1: we're growing up. When that ice cream truck came in
Speaker 1: the neighborhood, I don't care how old you are. I
Speaker 1: don't care if your mama was spanking, she stops spanking you.
Speaker 1: Go boy, here's a quarter. Go I think cream and
Speaker 1: we you come back. Don't be don't be crying out there.
Speaker 1: Don't no nobody know how to finished banking you. It
Speaker 1: was like, that's what the old the Oh. The thing
Speaker 1: I love about your charger is that, first of all,
Speaker 1: you're you're you're you're a businessman, but you're alls you're
Speaker 1: passionate about your product. Because even when I was in
Speaker 1: your store and customers are coming in there, it was
Speaker 1: almost a relationship that you're creating with your customers as
Speaker 1: well as the passion that wanted to deliver a product
Speaker 1: that's gonna put a smile on their face. That that
Speaker 1: that just really so it's beyond just making franchising and
Speaker 1: making donuts. It's like a cultural or cultural change for
Speaker 1: you when people eat your food. For us, it's just
Speaker 1: not selling donors. It's an experience. We want you to experience.
Speaker 1: We want you to see the donors, we want you
Speaker 1: to smell the donors, we want you to taste the donors.
Speaker 1: You know, it's an experience. Cousins doesn't as an experience,
Speaker 1: you know, And that's when we're we're creating that the
Speaker 1: Cousins doesn't store. Now when you when like you said,
Speaker 1: he said he ships is on uts, it's absolutely he
Speaker 1: shipped me some donors. He DM me on social media's Richard,
Speaker 1: you wants to donuts. I gave my email address, I
Speaker 1: gave my my building. The dress food don't have to
Speaker 1: ride fresh with three types of toppings, you know, it
Speaker 1: was it was it was the final cake powder, it
Speaker 1: was the cinnamon chero and there was the glazy the
Speaker 1: glazy type of icing as well. And I was able
Speaker 1: to put them on all three of them. And now
Speaker 1: I like my donors a little a little bit of
Speaker 1: room temperature. I stuck it in the oven for like
Speaker 1: fifteen seconds, only part of but I put them, plated them,
Speaker 1: took a photo of sent it to you with me smiling,
Speaker 1: because if you just saw five minutes later the plates
Speaker 1: were clean. So I should have done that. I should
Speaker 1: I should have showed you to play empty in the
Speaker 1: plate food because a lot of people don't think I
Speaker 1: eat food. You don't eat them? How can you stay
Speaker 1: as skinny as y'all? Hey, don't worry about how I
Speaker 1: stay as skin as I am. What you worry about?
Speaker 1: You sent me some good food. Rashaan is gonna eat
Speaker 1: it and give your answers the PA. And like you said,
Speaker 1: when I ate the donuts, which is I'm gonna chach
Speaker 1: somebody about his cousins. Doesn't donuts because if you, if
Speaker 1: you try to watch your weight, don't go there because
Speaker 1: the donors to sneak up on you because they're so
Speaker 1: small and so tasty that I ate. I ate fifteen donuts. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I fifteen. I won't tell you the truth. I did
Speaker 1: eat fifteen donuts. Needs a little mini donuts. And in
Speaker 1: my mind I was rationalizing by it was like four
Speaker 1: equals one normal size donuts. That's how it was rationalizing.
Speaker 1: So I really ate four donuts, Todd. So just the
Speaker 1: mantra is when you eat the donuts, Many's new skinny.
Speaker 1: Many is a new skinny skins. Well, I'm skinny and
Speaker 1: I'm many, and I'm we keep doing so I shouldn't
Speaker 1: be ashamed in my game if I'm even, cause it
Speaker 1: doesn't donors like this. I'm taught. So so when we
Speaker 1: when we talk about this, you know, in Brooklyn, Brooklyn's
Speaker 1: how I got them and got the Brooklyn Nets. It's
Speaker 1: a city in itself. You know. Everybody talks about Manhattan.
Speaker 1: Everybody talked about Holler, but really Brooklyn is the new
Speaker 1: city borough. That's an exciting Burro. Tell us about that
Speaker 1: community of Brooklyn. Brooklyn, man It's it's it's a uh
Speaker 1: diverse neighborhood. You know, You've got different ethnic groups, different
Speaker 1: you know, financial groups, and you know we were all
Speaker 1: in there doing that thing. You know. And with that
Speaker 1: being said, uh huh, love Brooklyn because I know that
Speaker 1: Spike Lee his office is over there. You know, I
Speaker 1: know the Brooklyn Nets over there. I know high rises
Speaker 1: are being built out there over there in the Brooklyn area,
Speaker 1: Brooklyn area, I you know, that whole. It's a large
Speaker 1: African American, very diverse population is based in Brooklyn. And
Speaker 1: Brooklyn started the hum you know because like growing up
Speaker 1: all you heard about Manhattan, then you heard about Hall
Speaker 1: of Hall of Man not then you heard by Queens.
Speaker 1: But Brooklyn, man, Yeah, yeah, Brooklyn is it man. And
Speaker 1: I've been in Brookelyn down for about I would say
Speaker 1: about fifteen sixteen years in the community embraces me. You know,
Speaker 1: um when when we went through that gentification situation, I
Speaker 1: survived that, you know, so, I mean, you know Bruler's home.
Speaker 1: But but the Sean, I'm I'm announced right here on
Speaker 1: your show. I'll be down back to Georgia. Man, I'm
Speaker 1: coming back down there. Man. Okay, Okay, you're bringing the
Speaker 1: Cousins dozens to Georgia. That's what you're saying. Are you
Speaker 1: making an I'm bringing the Cousins dozen down Georgia. I
Speaker 1: think that's gonna be the first place I uh put
Speaker 1: the food trucks down there, because you guys have a
Speaker 1: very diverse and booming food truck a business and I'm gonna,
Speaker 1: you know, add my flavor to Okay, here's your den say,
Speaker 1: you know you gotta let me know ahead of time,
Speaker 1: so I can, like, you know, because because we're gonna
Speaker 1: treat it like a pop up. It's like a pop
Speaker 1: up because of the fact that see what I've been
Speaker 1: knowing Tird a long time and he's always been uh see.
Speaker 1: The reason I like him is that he does what
Speaker 1: I always tell young entrepreneurs to do. He reaches out
Speaker 1: and then he follows up and he's professional. See a
Speaker 1: lot of people when they reach out, if they don't
Speaker 1: get a response, they frustrate, they blow it off, and
Speaker 1: and so. And when I say that, you can't always
Speaker 1: assume that just because somebody they immediately respond back to you,
Speaker 1: that there's a negative situation that's developing. Work with their schedule,
Speaker 1: send them samples of what you're trying to get them
Speaker 1: to understand. But you always have variety, and he always
Speaker 1: led to your success. Tell everybody about how important it
Speaker 1: is for relationships Todd and building out your business and
Speaker 1: also franchise in your business, also create a mobile business.
Speaker 1: Relationships is the key to cousins doesn't success? Correct? Yes, absolutely,
Speaker 1: It's all about relationships with sean Um before anything. People
Speaker 1: want to, you know, have great relationships with people. You
Speaker 1: know it's not about money so much. It's all about
Speaker 1: people in relationships. You get your people in your relationship straight,
Speaker 1: you'll be successful. It's definitely be successful. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: I want to und percent agree with that. I also
Speaker 1: agree that you know there are other entrepreneurs out there
Speaker 1: that that give your platform. You know, I know that
Speaker 1: when I was building out Steve Harvey's career, I looked
Speaker 1: at other talents and what they're doing. Denserlve Washington is
Speaker 1: doing this, or Berning Max doing this, or Cedric's doing this,
Speaker 1: or dal doing this which was in his lane. You know,
Speaker 1: Chris Tucker's doing this, or Chris Rocks doing this, just
Speaker 1: to compare what their social media look like, what their
Speaker 1: career platform like look like, and find out what is
Speaker 1: that lane for Steve Harvey to be successful in. And
Speaker 1: so so I'm sure when you're looking at your platform,
Speaker 1: and not necessarily you looking at other donut companies, but
Speaker 1: what other all your favorite entrepreneurs that you look at
Speaker 1: as examples for a model that you can use in
Speaker 1: your many don't an empire. Well first and almost Roshan,
Speaker 1: I gotta say, quite truthfully, you're one of my my, my, my,
Speaker 1: my idols man, you're like the black god father business.
Speaker 1: The way that you take care of business, man is phenomenal.
Speaker 1: You're an example of what black business should look like.
Speaker 1: You know, another one of my favorites. He's not here anymore,
Speaker 1: but Reginald Lewis, Yes, the black the black boy. Did
Speaker 1: you know he used to own chrispy Creme? Absolutely, it's
Speaker 1: conglomerate own chrispy Creme. You know, he's like an idol
Speaker 1: of mine. Man. It's like the example of how to
Speaker 1: run business, you know, and I'm very fortunate that to
Speaker 1: have people like you in my life to to to
Speaker 1: you know, to show me how to do business correctly. Well,
Speaker 1: you know the thing about it is that and and
Speaker 1: thank you for that compliment because my wife part was saying,
Speaker 1: when people compliment you must say thank you. That'll be
Speaker 1: so embarrassed when people compliment me. Then this shows about you.
Speaker 1: It shows about your brand and put the word out
Speaker 1: and somebody compliments it always catching in your card. But
Speaker 1: I'm also always appreciated of it. But like when you
Speaker 1: post a lot of times I just like your posts
Speaker 1: or I comment keep winning, uh looking good, because just
Speaker 1: saying that's not do that a lot Sometimes I just
Speaker 1: sit in my house or in my office. I just
Speaker 1: go through my timeline and just look at people and
Speaker 1: I just give him. I'll give him a fire, you know,
Speaker 1: some hand claps or I'm praying for you. So that's
Speaker 1: that that that does, that level of motivation when you
Speaker 1: see that does how does that make you feel? Man? Oh?
Speaker 1: But shutting. The very first time you called me when
Speaker 1: I was in the Lamber three years ago and I
Speaker 1: knew who you were, you know, I followed you and
Speaker 1: you hit me up on Facebook and you said to me,
Speaker 1: have you ever been on a Steve Harvey show? Almost faded?
Speaker 1: I'm like, you know, and that's how relationship started, you know. Um, yeah,
Speaker 1: it does. Man, motivation, it's great man, people really liking
Speaker 1: your finally saying great things about you. And that's how
Speaker 1: I am too. I shot out a lot of people,
Speaker 1: a lot of other donor shops and a lot of
Speaker 1: other entrepreneurs. I think that's important because whenever you give
Speaker 1: out comes back to you. Well, you know, the beauty
Speaker 1: of the beauty of your business and the beauty of
Speaker 1: you and your personality, you know, because you gotta look
Speaker 1: you know, and it's always about it. That's your brand.
Speaker 1: You know when I'm looking at you on TV right now,
Speaker 1: this is your brand, which means that you have you
Speaker 1: you learned from being in the corporate world, working for
Speaker 1: small entrepreneurs, working for dunking donors, and then stepping out
Speaker 1: on you. I want to talk about stepping out on
Speaker 1: Some people used to worry faith, but I always always
Speaker 1: tell people when you step out on faith, you better
Speaker 1: have a plan with that. Okay, So talk about making
Speaker 1: that transition to believing in yourself from leaving a safe
Speaker 1: but successful corporate environment. Well, well, first of almost, Sean,
Speaker 1: I got to your dad from cousins. Doesn't I always
Speaker 1: give give uh acknowledgement to God, And I say, all
Speaker 1: idea has come from God. And if God gives you
Speaker 1: an idea, God's gonna make sure that it happens. You
Speaker 1: just have to be persistent. You have to believe in yourself,
Speaker 1: which is very important, and know what's going to happen,
Speaker 1: you know, and give thanks for it in a in
Speaker 1: advance like it already happened. It's it's a God idea. Well,
Speaker 1: you know the thing about it is that I hear
Speaker 1: that you know. But a lot of people, I want
Speaker 1: to say, put too much faith in God because you
Speaker 1: gotta work. You gotta get up. And like you said
Speaker 1: before him, he was making you was making eighty boxes
Speaker 1: of donuts, you know, And so God woke you up,
Speaker 1: But you gotta be work applied to the work, because
Speaker 1: I always tell you a lot of clock may go off,
Speaker 1: but it didn't really wake you up. You know, God
Speaker 1: woke you up. But when you wake up, what did
Speaker 1: you do with that effort that he put into you?
Speaker 1: And that that that tells you you need to get up? Well,
Speaker 1: like they say, faithful that works? Is that? Yes, you know,
Speaker 1: you're gonna have as much faith as you want. But
Speaker 1: if you're not working, and and you know a lot
Speaker 1: of people say, you know you gotta work hard, No,
Speaker 1: just consistently work. It ain't hard. I'll be on my effortlessness. No,
Speaker 1: just let's talk about this time. You're not the one
Speaker 1: man operation man? Who is who is your team or
Speaker 1: some of your key members that have supported you all
Speaker 1: these years, that have supported you now the position because
Speaker 1: you're not gonna be down here in Atlanta with your
Speaker 1: mobile Trump making these donors by yourself. What's going on
Speaker 1: with the with the with the with the Todd Jones empore.
Speaker 1: Then that the Cousins Dona empire duc Well, well, you
Speaker 1: know I have a whole team of cool. I got
Speaker 1: to the donor princesses, my daughter, I got p dough
Speaker 1: which is uh my friend Johnny. Uh I have you know,
Speaker 1: even though you know when that plartners no more, I
Speaker 1: have my man easy Glaze to fall back Water. As
Speaker 1: far as advice, you know, all my people got donut names, man,
Speaker 1: you know. And also you know I have one the
Speaker 1: team now my coach Stephanie roll Um for nominal woman.
Speaker 1: Man's really you know, directing me on how to build
Speaker 1: his empire. You know. So it's a it's a team effort. Man.
Speaker 1: We're all Cousins. Well, the beauty of it if you're
Speaker 1: in there, if you're in the like we all know
Speaker 1: he's here's franchising. But if you're in the Brooklyn, downtown
Speaker 1: Brooklyn area, you know, Cousins doesn't been in there. Started
Speaker 1: at twenty six years ago. I've been there the beauteo.
Speaker 1: When I'm talking to somebody that called him a friend,
Speaker 1: I support him because first of all, he delivered quality.
Speaker 1: You know, he sells the fresh hot many donors right
Speaker 1: in front right there, you asked for him. He's made
Speaker 1: on the spot. He has these cool little black boxes
Speaker 1: that he puts them in that you can walk around
Speaker 1: and eat him in the streets as you or you
Speaker 1: can put him in your car, or you can take
Speaker 1: in the work and give them to some friends. He
Speaker 1: has cool top ins, but it's all fresh. And that's
Speaker 1: really what we're talking about. Its quality. And that's what
Speaker 1: your number point selling point is. Quality service, great personality,
Speaker 1: great experience, and cousins doesn't correct. That's the correct. Don't
Speaker 1: forget two of Sean the little doughnuts stick up putting there,
Speaker 1: yes your hands, you see. See, I gotta admit you
Speaker 1: sent me like six of them. Okay, but I'm from
Speaker 1: the country Houston texts. See that's for people who you
Speaker 1: know in the streets, walking around in public. The little sticks,
Speaker 1: you know, you just put it in the box, you know,
Speaker 1: daintily put it in your mouth, your boy, like I
Speaker 1: told you a fifteen donors, I would have to tell
Speaker 1: you this top. I didn't use your stick, brother, okay,
Speaker 1: even on the little glaze, because the glaze is wet,
Speaker 1: you know right now, I just put in my ball
Speaker 1: and licked the little glaze off. The tips of the
Speaker 1: edges of my finger that went on by my business. Okay,
Speaker 1: it's doing elant. Don't talk. I don't know if it's
Speaker 1: don't know that ette. All I know is this. I
Speaker 1: knew I could not eat the weint dough nothing for
Speaker 1: it to dry doughnuts. Okay, so I started with the
Speaker 1: dry I thought it with the powder. Then I went
Speaker 1: over to the cinema. Okay, it's the order to my math.
Speaker 1: People say, do you just know? No, no, no, See
Speaker 1: when you're uh dessert nothing like me, and I have
Speaker 1: to say I'm a dessert. People call her foodie. I'm
Speaker 1: a dessert foodie. Okay, I'm gonna put the work foodie
Speaker 1: behind dessert. So when I saw your stuff, because Samantha
Speaker 1: she's you know, she's an executive producer. She always see
Speaker 1: me get delivered. She always little nosy, you know, wanting
Speaker 1: the oh, did did you get the donuts from cousins? Taught? Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I just stared at her because you know it
Speaker 1: ain't gonna be yeah, and I'm and I'm sharing, Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's silenced. Okay, Yeah, I got him. Well, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: send some manth with health. No no, no, no, don't
Speaker 1: you do that? Don't you do that? Don't you do that?
Speaker 1: See what she what you can't do with cousins does?
Speaker 1: This is my relationship to what you can't do is
Speaker 1: you cannot pity back off of my hard work, my
Speaker 1: heart eating. Okay, So when she when the donuts came
Speaker 1: down here to Atlanta, George, and where you shipped from Brooklyn,
Speaker 1: New York, Atlanta, George ride fresh. I got my two boxes,
Speaker 1: put them in a refrigerator. She looking around the corner
Speaker 1: because you know, her office is next to my kitchen,
Speaker 1: so she peeps a lot. Okay, I put it strategically.
Speaker 1: Everybody knows you can ask anybody that works for me,
Speaker 1: do not just go in my refrigerator, Todd, you have
Speaker 1: to have a purpose because see you're going to refrigerator.
Speaker 1: I may be standing behind you because you keep me
Speaker 1: stealing my doughnuts. So we keep the show Rashawn's kitchen.
Speaker 1: I asked. I asked her for permission. So if it's
Speaker 1: all right if I do, Todd, you know, the donuts
Speaker 1: is my example because I want people what what what
Speaker 1: I realized is that a lot of people send me food,
Speaker 1: pray leads, and I'm gonna make that a section of
Speaker 1: the segment of my show, and I introduce you as
Speaker 1: my premier episode where I invite people who are young
Speaker 1: small businesses or franchise and type businesses like yourself to
Speaker 1: introduce you to my audiences like two million homes in
Speaker 1: the Atlanta, Georgia area. It streams internationally, So I definitely
Speaker 1: want to get the word out about what you're doing, Todd,
Speaker 1: because you're such an amazing you see person, that's that's
Speaker 1: important to me. You have a great product that's very
Speaker 1: important to me, and you're consistent and that's key. And
Speaker 1: if are those are traits that you're trying to sell
Speaker 1: and trying to promote the most when you're doing Cousins
Speaker 1: doesn't talk absolutely Um. That's why it's very important when
Speaker 1: I get franchise zs that they're able to follow instructions
Speaker 1: because we want them to have that same experience wherever
Speaker 1: Cousins doesn't it if it's in Japan, I want you
Speaker 1: to have that same experience. You know, consistency is what
Speaker 1: people look for. Again, let me just fill everybody out.
Speaker 1: Todd Jones. He's been in the donut making game for
Speaker 1: over forty five years. Hear me out on that. He
Speaker 1: started cousin does. It's twenty six years ago. He is
Speaker 1: a Many donut shop and down tied Brooklyn, New York.
Speaker 1: They say a hot fresh Many donors made right in
Speaker 1: front of you. I was accustomable. I was there. I
Speaker 1: know they have topics like glades, which I just told
Speaker 1: y'all that's the weapon right there. Then a sick of centiment,
Speaker 1: and then the funnel If anybody loves funnel cake, they
Speaker 1: know what we're talking about. That powder and when you
Speaker 1: eat the doughnuts, I kid you not, it's just kind
Speaker 1: of like melting your mouth, That's what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1: And then if you if you want to be a
Speaker 1: little you know, naughty, as they say, he has doughnuts
Speaker 1: for growing ups. You know what I'm saying. Hennessy flavor.
Speaker 1: You know Sharrock. Oh good for that. So you're gonna
Speaker 1: make it big under that, make it make it happen big.
Speaker 1: You want my favorite entrepreneurs of that interview on my
Speaker 1: show on Money Making Conversation TID, I want to thank
Speaker 1: you for taking the time. I know you got up,
Speaker 1: did all the doughnuts, but you still took time to
Speaker 1: promote your product on money making conversations. It was one
Speaker 1: question I got to ask you with Sean. Okay, how
Speaker 1: do you stay so clean after eating powdered doughnuts and
Speaker 1: cinnamon donuts? Here's the funny quarterbody. I'll tell you something.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna tell you something talking. I wear all black
Speaker 1: on my show when I tape, I people ask me
Speaker 1: all time. I don't want to know, April, Okay. I
Speaker 1: I know how to lean forward and eat, lean fold
Speaker 1: and eat, and plus you have an order to you
Speaker 1: mad and not. I see if I just went in
Speaker 1: there grabbing it with my hand like this, I got
Speaker 1: piled all over my hand. That can get on your clothes.
Speaker 1: I go in with my little finger. That's why the
Speaker 1: stick is cool. But it also could like flick. You
Speaker 1: know you can flick see see see you have the listen.
Speaker 1: I think now, so I'm not gonna I can't take
Speaker 1: that risk. So these fingers I can control. Pick up
Speaker 1: that little little doughnut popping in my mouth, Go for
Speaker 1: around two fifteen straight doughnuts, nothing on my clothes. You
Speaker 1: see it on the show Rishard's Kitchen. You'll see it
Speaker 1: when you do it like being on the show. I
Speaker 1: want to come down there a live Okay, you know what,
Speaker 1: you know, whatever we do because you know we we
Speaker 1: we can zoom live. I'm gonna do a zoom from
Speaker 1: your location in Brooklyn. Can we make that happen to Matha. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we'll do a live from your kitchen and put it
Speaker 1: on the show. That's what we should have done this time.
Speaker 1: But next time we're doing so. When you when you
Speaker 1: were when you were about to come down here to
Speaker 1: do the mobile pop up in Atlanta before that, we're
Speaker 1: gonna do alive into your location in the Brooklyn store. Okay,
Speaker 1: that's great, sounds great, looking forward, looking forward to always
Speaker 1: looking forward to talk to you. Thank you for coming
Speaker 1: on the show. Money Making Conversation. I appreciate Todd Jon
Speaker 1: Cousins doesn't thank you. You are now tuned into the
Speaker 1: Money Making Conversations. Minute of Inspiration with Rashan McDonald. Following
Speaker 1: Tamaron hall Is bittersweet exit from NBC Today Show more
Speaker 1: than two years ago, a lot of people wrote her
Speaker 1: off and some said it was a mistake to leave
Speaker 1: the show. Well, Tamarin Hall has overcome the odds and
Speaker 1: now hosts one of the hottest shows in daytime talk
Speaker 1: most important to me and for me is that folks
Speaker 1: who are at home launching know what they're getting. They're
Speaker 1: getting a real conversation. I hope they're getting smart questions.
Speaker 1: We are looking for substantive ways to make our lives
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Speaker 1: want someone keeping me from dream I don't want someone
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