Embark on a journey of self-discovery and community upliftment with the wisdom of Emmanuel White, cousin to the legendary Deontay Wilder. This episode unravels the threads of imagination and initiative that weave together a purposeful existence. As we converse with Emmanuel, you'll uncover the profound impact of strong associations and learn how to redefine success on your own terms, all while being inspired to take the reins of your life and contribute positively to those around you.
Delving into the essence of identity and leadership, we discuss the inspirational legacy of Oak Park River Forest High School alumni and draw from encounters at Marquette University and beyond. Our dialogue is aimed at igniting a transformation in how you approach your career trajectory—turning aspirations into actions that benefit not just yourself but your community. By embracing the Interview Institute's methods and understanding your unique narrative, you'll find yourself on a path to both lateral and upward mobility.
Concluding with practical advice on trust, financial literacy, and health, this episode is a treasure trove of insight for crafting a life rich in meaning and impact. We explore the delicate interplay of trust and trauma and how it shapes our destiny, the empowering role of money as a tool for growth, and the vital importance of time management in fulfilling our purpose. Join us and let the valuable lessons shared by Emmanuel guide you to a heightened sense of personal empowerment and a deeper commitment to community transformation.
Embark on a journey of self-discovery and community upliftment with the wisdom of Emmanuel White, cousin to the legendary Deontay Wilder. This episode unravels the threads of imagination and initiative that weave together a purposeful existence. As we converse with Emmanuel, you'll uncover the profound impact of strong associations and learn how to redefine success on your own terms, all while being inspired to take the reins of your life and contribute positively to those around you.
Delving into the essence of identity and leadership, we discuss the inspirational legacy of Oak Park River Forest High School alumni and draw from encounters at Marquette University and beyond. Our dialogue is aimed at igniting a transformation in how you approach your career trajectory—turning aspirations into actions that benefit not just yourself but your community. By embracing the Interview Institute's methods and understanding your unique narrative, you'll find yourself on a path to both lateral and upward mobility.
Concluding with practical advice on trust, financial literacy, and health, this episode is a treasure trove of insight for crafting a life rich in meaning and impact. We explore the delicate interplay of trust and trauma and how it shapes our destiny, the empowering role of money as a tool for growth, and the vital importance of time management in fulfilling our purpose. Join us and let the valuable lessons shared by Emmanuel guide you to a heightened sense of personal empowerment and a deeper commitment to community transformation.
All right, welcome to another edition of the Journey to Freedom podcast. This is an exclusively for Black men podcast, as I'm trying to state out, not that I only want Black men to watch it, but we're highlighting Black men that are doing something in community so other Black men or other community leaders or other just men in general can see hey, these are the things that we've gone through, these are the things that we've ever overcome, and this is why we're doing this, so that we can help community, because we realize that community is everything, and being able to help people through community means so much to what we do. And so today I have Emmanuel.
Speaker 2:White. And what's funny is, if you don't want to mess it up, my cousin is the former heavyweight champ of the world, so let's get the name right. I don't want to have to call him Deontay Wilder, if you know who that is.
Speaker 1:There we go. So Deontay Wilder, cousin, oh my gosh, sorry about that, I don't know Sometimes, yeah, I just that's all I'm going to say. I just I, just that's all I'm going to say and I apologize, and that won't happen again. And I'm excited to have you on today because he's going to talk to us about imagination. He's going to talk about to us about a vision. He's going to talk about initiative, how these things combine into our life, and how he has gone and developed you know business and his, his worth and what he does through helping people understand these things.
Speaker 1:You know, because you know the Bible says that a man without vision shall perish. You know a man that doesn't have initiative, that wants to move through, and I think he's going to share with us different types of initiatives and different types of what it means to us. But, more importantly, what we're going to get out of today is seeing somebody who has gone from you know his childhood, just like we all have, but to being somebody that the community respects, being somebody that the community wants to be around, being one of those associations. You know I talk about this often how who we become is based on their associations, the people that we hang out with, the people that we spend our time with, that those top five group people that are, you know, on talking to us on a daily basis, is you know, even when you think about income levels? You know, I don't know if you know this, emmanuel, but or usually the five or six people that you hang around with in fact, I'm sure you know this are usually within like $10,000 to $20,000, that you are right.
Speaker 1:And so if your association let's say you're not making very much money because we probably talk about financing you know you're making $20,000 a year Look at those top five people and see what those associations are, and they say, but I want to make a million dollars. Well, how many millionaires are you hanging out with? Because if you're not, then we got to figure out how to. Now millionaires are you hanging out with? Because if you're not, then we got to figure out how to now. I'm not going to say a whole bunch of millionaires are going to want you hanging out with them. You just knock on their door and they say hang out with me. Right, you're going to have to evolve and develop into that, into that stratosphere where those folks are at.
Speaker 1:But associations are so important and this is one of those associations, whether it's association by podcast that we're doing now, or does the association that you go, seek the things that he's doing out and get close to him and his organization and the people that he works with, so that you can better yourself. And so, emmanuel, again, thank you for being on the show. Thank you, if you could just start out just kind of introducing who you are, how you got started. You know where you grew up, all those wonderful things that can give us an insight into who you are.
Speaker 2:Well, first off, thank you for the opportunity for again having a vision for this type of work, the timeliness of it and how it's landed with the audience and really discerning what that target is. So really good work on your behalf and I'm humbled to be a part of this. We were able to meet by chance, and I think that's where real collaboration and real change happens. No one's ever planned chance meetings, but those meetings always seem to have a bigger impact. So thanks for the opportunity, emmanuel Wilder. I think, before getting into background and story and where I'm from and then where I'm headed, it's really important to know my whole paradigm and I've been fortunate to learn from great leaders. But for me, my whole sort of life's work is to get people to reimagine the word initiative. I think there's so much opportunity when we understand that term, embrace it in a different way, as a people, as a nation, as a group, as an individual. That interpretation matters. I'll give you a quick example of what I've been doing in my work, but one of the fundamental examples is when I say the word initiative to a single mother, she's going to hear that and she's going to see it through the lens of putting her kid in a great school, or sacrificing to make sure they have the right essentials to survive, and she's going to see it through the lens of putting her kid in a great school, or sacrificing to make sure they have the right essentials to survive, and she's going to give of self, and I think that's one of the best types of initiatives we can have. I think, when I say the word initiative to a child who's four years old, he goes, he sees a toy box, his initiative is to build a cool Lego set, and he shows action and he shows sort of this, you know this primary nature of building, and that's what initiative means to him. When I say that word, though, to Napoleon Bonaparte and Alexander the Great, when I say the word to Elon Musk, they literally take over the world. So I'm not really trying to replicate that. We all have a different angle and a different lens. You mentioned scripture earlier, and I think it's really important. Some are governing or ruling thousands. Some are captains of 10,000. Some are captains of 100. Saul and David had a big quarrel around how many they were destined to lead, but the goal is make sure you're maximizing what it is you set out to do. Unfortunately, more than 80% of us. If we want to talk, percentages are not maximizing that. So it's not about making everybody Bill Gates, it's about getting the average thinker to reimagine destiny. And it all starts with initiative and a real vision. So I've kind of come to that precipice.
Speaker 2:As you will my background. I'm from a town, oak Park, which is a suburb immediately outside of Chicago, and that town really boasts some really great names of folks we know Ray Kroc, the founder of McDonald's, went to my high school. Ernest Hemingway graduated from my high school. Ludacris, the rapper, went there. I mean, the list goes on. There's a lot of cool people that have gone there to that type of, I think, being exposed to that type of impact and seeing the wall of success. Every time you walk down the corridors of Oak Park River Forest, you're reminded of folks who are really making a difference and have really exercised their gift through, hopefully, through a lens of purpose.
Speaker 2:And so for years, you know, I've kind of really worked on not just self-improvement but getting other people to sort of maximize where they're at, and that high school gave me really good roots in that. I think my parents for sure, who made sure I went there, you know, did great work to encourage me in the studies. I did really good in basketball, but I had an affinity for broadcasting and I wanted to be the next Conan O'Brien and I don't know if I was as funny as him, but I just didn't see limits on what I could do and I think that's going to be a really strong foundation as we talk about African-American men and the plight if we call it that of our group. But it all starts with what we can perceive and then how we understand those boundaries either real or perceived. So from there I was able to go to school at Marquette. I had a few classes with Dwayne Wade. He never really went to class. You see him in the morning, just kind of walking around. He was destined for other things. So I'm really, really proud of what he's done and I had the privilege to work with some cool people.
Speaker 2:I worked for Oprah Winfrey some years ago and right now I'm proud to be the executive director of the Interview Institute. I'll wrap by saying that work has been really transformational for me, as it is intended to transform the thinking and minds of others. We want to help people really interview with the command or the language of leadership that's needed to inspire a person, not just impress them, and so I've spent some time talking to different universities and workforce development centers around the country, and they're all teaching their clients and students upon graduation, upon completion of a program. How do you impress the recruiter? I'm trying to get folks to realize the real key is how to inspire them, because that's where transformation happens and that's where opportunity lands. Can we inspire the boss? Can we make them feel good about coming to work, not so much getting a job? How do you make that boss feel great about the career they've chosen? If you can do that, you get promoted, and I want to teach people how to do it. So, in a nutshell, that's who I am.
Speaker 1:Wow, I love it. Literally we've had a nine-minute conversation so far and I've taken a page of notes because I'm so excited about some of the conversation and I'm not exactly sure where to go with it yet. But I know identity is one of our pillars that we talked about and shaping our identity and I want to get to my dissertation was hiring black administrators in public schools. So I definitely don't want to circle back to get to talking about your interview institute. But when we think about identity and you think about initiative and you think about you, you know you explain the different levels of initiative depending on our lens that we look through. How would you help define or help us create an identity that is one that can move forward?
Speaker 1:Because I think, with a lot of Black men, is that the identity that we hold for ourselves? You know I don't know who it was I think it was Tony Robbins that might have said you know, the identity being congruent with the identity to hold yourself is the most powerful force in the universe. But how do we do that? How do we move with the things and the work that you've done in initiative and vision? And you know all these things that you've done? How do we help move the identity to a place that we can feel like we're successful? Because successful is right. That's subjective as well. You know, successful doesn't mean a billion dollars. Success could mean that you've changed your community, but I think for a lot of us we don't believe we're successful. So I'll let you go ahead and unpack that. I threw a lot in there. There's a lot there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, our identity, how do we move forward as a group? How's identity important in that whole effort to sort of help us upwardly mobilize and then laterally mobilize and all this mobilization. So it really starts with purpose and it really starts with an individual sort of grasp of what that is understanding your USP, your unique selling product, your unique selling purpose, your unique selling point of view, and not blending that, dr Brian Arnold, with other people's ideas of what identity should be. So you know it's a loaded question and we're still trying to figure that out. But I think the second part of that, there's a sort of collective nature that real purpose is discovered in and I'll back up a little more even before we can get together, purpose is always understood.
Speaker 2:People always say what's my purpose, what's my and I don't do life purpose talk, I'm not qualified, my life is not perfect, so I'm not a life coach. Career purpose is easy. Identity stuff is pretty easy because I have a cool lens to see it. But we talk about what it is we were sort of destined to do. Or how do we first understand our identity before we can move a group forward? And purpose is always discovered in where you have a character excess. What that means is the thing that you have in abundance, the thing that you can't stop doing, the thing that other people say, oh, that's too much, please stop. Please stop talking about that. Okay, you did that already. Okay, you're bringing it up again. You're smiling too much, you're critically thinking too much, you're helping too much. All that you have that in abundance for a reason. It's in abundance to be shared and given to others. That's why you have extra, the people who can't stop laughing I mean they're not necessarily silly it's that they have a purpose to get rid of some of that, and all that energy needs to be harnessed for others, and so purpose always starts there. Anybody can kind of think through what that is in their life that they have in abundance. It's nothing material, these are areas that are all character. They're foundational, they are the essence to who we are, and we have to understand what those are. I think after that, identity is always sort of birthed when purpose and destiny kind of understand. You know what our purposes are, how that destiny kind of looks, and now we can know how we're uniquely suited to work on that angle.
Speaker 2:Identity has been a struggle for men of color for many years, and intentionally it has sort of been a struggle to sort of grasp who I am, what's my role, how do I want others to perceive me? Those who are thinking from a business point of view are simply talking brand, and sometimes our group Black men might not have a brand, or if they do, they have one, that this might have been a little limited in how they should really be thinking about who they are. And so you know, moving forward is another really big thing. But to answer your question, part two, we have to be collected and united to kind of move a thing forward. I want black men to see themselves as parts of a body.
Speaker 2:Christ speaks of this, and the body can only move if all parts are aligned and know where they're headed. They can look different, they can do different things, they can think differently, they can have different skills. That's okay. Our identity should be just as diverse as the phenotypical skin colors. That's fine. But what we need to do, what I would suggest not need I know it's bossy what I would like to see happen, is just work together collectively and then, you know, we can see real change, we can see real progress. But we only can get together and unify. If we all know I'm a finger, I'm a white blood cell that's on top of the kidney. I'm a white blood cell that's near the heart, like that granular, that nuance, like, hey, I'm a nervous, I'm part of the nervous system, hey, I'm the left nail on the pinky toe. If we can appreciate that, if we can be the best nail on that pinky toe, we can get others to buy into what we're learning about ourselves in this body. We could do great things.
Speaker 1:I love you. You say character excess and then I start thinking, ok, so what are the things that I love to do or what are the things that I see in other people as a track coach or business coach or however you're going to say it? What are some things that people can do? Because sometimes that gets squashed right. We get excited and then somebody else in our lives tells us that's not what we're supposed to do. You need to go, do this, this, this or this or this, but that still, character excess continues to surface.
Speaker 1:Excess continues to surface. How do we develop that and find that and hone that so that we can utilize that to be the best we can be, without the other influences that are in our lives that are telling us this is what you can do, this is what you're capable of doing, this is what you should be doing. I think there's a lot less of that, probably, than when we grew up, but still, you know, I think of you, know I think of you, know my sons and them thinking of, like, what their careers or what they should be doing and what they're really good at. How do you help people, or what are your thoughts on helping folks move through that?
Speaker 2:That's a good point, because people will say, no, you should be doing that and you should be doing that. So now we're getting inundated with all these thoughts and we're being pulled to all these directions. I think one example or one pillar that helps is kind of removing money or financial gain or wealth from the purpose equation. I have an idea around how that works. But there's two things I want to share. One is our 3.30 am moment. At 3.30 am, all the criminals are asleep, the blacks are asleep, the white people are asleep, the rich are asleep, the poor are asleep. The only people awake are those that have night jobs. If they didn't, they'd be asleep too. Animals are asleep, except the nocturnal insect.
Speaker 2:The point is, I picked that time because everyone's at rest. If I were to knock on your door at that hour, there's only a couple of things, dr Arnold, that are going to get you up. There's only a couple of things that'll get me up. Let's assume, for this example, your family is safe and no one has $3 million to give you because people get lazy, I'll get up. If my mom is sick, I'll get up. If my kid is in trouble, let's say they're fine. Let's say no one's offering you a huge boatload of cash either. So now, what gets you up?
Speaker 2:It's different for all of us, but I think, if we're honest around it because here's the thing, the question that I'm posing now if we're honest around it, because here's the thing, the question that I'm posing now universities will never teach you.
Speaker 2:We usually don't entertain, and then by the time you're 80, it's like oh, I really had a knack for this, or I felt inspired or alive when I did X, so we only got a few more years to go and it's over. And so giving thought to these kinds of 3.30 am moments is what I call them Really helps us to figure out, outside of the noise you spoke about, what it is that we are geared for. Destiny is going to come a little later, but how are we wired? And so, for me, my example I give it often, but if you knock on my door at 3.30 am and you said, hey, ball arena is filled with 40,000 people Right now, at this hour, they need help acing an interview. They all have interviews. Can you come teach them? Before you could finish that phrase, I'm up, I'm in my suit and I'm heading down.
Speaker 2:Nothing else in this world is moving me at that hour because that's not what I'm here to do. So as we think about those examples, it really helps us to kind of weed out the noise. I think the next thing is this sort of I call it the formula of career purpose. I never really applied it to life purpose and identity, but I think it does help. I think our composition plus our perspective, multiplied by curiosity, gives us purpose. And so composition is just what you're made of. What is your structure? How is your day put together? What's your character? What's your capacity? Some of us are much better in one-on-one settings. Some of us are much better in one-on-one settings. Some of us are much better in groups. When you think about what you're made of and then you add that to perspective how you see the world Some of us are pessimistic, some are optimistic. Some of us see the world from the top to the bottom. Some of us see the world from the bottom up. All that stuff matters, it's just the angle. We all see stuff different. Our value is in our perspective, it's not in what we do.
Speaker 2:I can find robots that can do what a lot of production folks are doing. I can find folks like me who are way better and more skilled. They won't have better suits, but they will have better everything else. And what will happen is I'll be replaced. But what I can't replace, what they can't replace, is what I see, how I see the world of information technology. We take an IT professional. There are about 304,000 in the country, a million IT folks. Everyone can do what the next guy can do. There's one, mark Zuckerberg. He saw something that none of those folks saw. Well, technically, sir, he stole the idea from his counterparts. You get the point.
Speaker 1:The point is he's the face of what happened.
Speaker 2:What he was able to see really drove him to what he is now for fifth richest man in the world. We all have a cousin that can sing. There's one, beyonce. Everyone can sing. She saw entertainment differently. Well, sir, she just has lots of gifts and talents. We all have more than that. The thing is she's unlocked a few and we're still trying to find a key, and so I don't want to get too far off, because what you said makes sense, but I hope those examples can kind of at least get people to critically think around. Okay, here's where I can, here's where the gears are for me. And then if you multiply these two things composition plus perspective, multiplied by your curiosity, that's going to give you, that'll give you more than purpose. That's going to start helping you inspire others, and all of us have a piece of that to do. So you know, these things kind of helped me, and that's what I think our community may lack sometimes.
Speaker 1:I love that and, as I was thinking through it, you know the spiritual aspect and who we are, you know and who's we are, you know I think of you know I'm going through a program called Call to Govern, which is through the issachar foundation for urban develop leading urban development leaders that they're developing, and one of the things that we came up in our purpose statement is god made me too, because he loved, and I started thinking, okay, so now I have my three o'clock moment that you just talked about. That says okay, at three o'clock in the morning I would get up and do this, and then I start thinking about okay, but God made me too. If those things come together, right, who can stop you? How could you be stopped? But I think there are folks that get stopped that way. I mean, what are your thoughts about? You know the spiritual side of your purpose that goes along with what your purpose is.
Speaker 2:So you know, as we understand it as believers, the unseen is more real than the seen. So the spiritual realm is not this sort of ghostly, casper, cloud, smoking mirror realm. It's in another dimension. It's really real. It's just not visible to us. And on the spiritual side, those are the elements that really propel us. They're always a catalyst for what we do. Catalyst is important because we don't have much time, so they're always the spirit role gives us the energy, speeds us up.
Speaker 2:Elijah's eating angel's food and he's outrunning chariots Like this real stuff has come from a spiritual realm, but the Bible says man did eat angels food. That means angels are eating the stuff too. They're probably eating manna. It gives you supernatural ability. So the spiritual world has very real physical consequences in a good way, and I think it all starts there.
Speaker 2:Your question you know I don't even know so much that the two worlds are married. It's one is real, important, and one is extremely solid, and one is eternal and the other is a vapor. However, that fast vapor is still meaningful in the plan of our spiritual creator, of God, the Father. So you know, when we talk about inspiration and vision and initiative, we talk about being indispensable, thinking about ourselves or thinking through our identity with all those I words I just said. None of that, none of that really matters. You know, unless we have, unless we, unless we realize, you know to your front whose we are, what he kind of purposed us to do and how he empowers us to do it. There's people who are really considered successful by world standards and spiritual standards. They have a few things in common and they're able to, in the faith realm, the spiritual realm, they're able to really lean into a power to help them accomplish things that they know they cannot do in their own might. That becomes important because you know it's a really big ask and you know you have a big destiny. We all do.
Speaker 2:When you know you can't do the work, that's where God has to step in. If it's stuff that you can do, if you can run a business and start a 401k and make great investments, there's no room for him to really operate. Imagine what you could do to his end with all that stuff. They don't have to be separate. It's not just well, god wants me poor and destitute, but I'll save a lot of poor people and I'll work in the shelters and I'll build habitats for humanity. Scriptures teach us that, the people that he used. He uses all kinds, but he used a ton of rich ones too. He used rich ones. Esther was beautiful. He uses rich beautiful. He'll beautiful. He's into the. He uses rich, beautiful, he'll use ugly poor. To him all you have to do is kind of be willing.
Speaker 2:And what I find fascinating is about these captives of industry and people that have so-called made it, who still have a humble spirit. They realize it was never really about them. It wasn't about their gift, their ability, their IT prowess, their singing ability. In my example, they really truly believed it came from him. And that kind of attitude, although rare, is so important for our natural world to thrive, because you need that spiritual sort of battery and you need his hand. Those who don't need his hand do it on your own.
Speaker 2:But you know, I think there needs to be more of a appeal to appreciating things of the spirit, that they are real, more real than what we see. It's counter to what we experience because hey, this is a mouse, this is real. I can't see the spirit, so it's not real. And modern science and the Stoics and the philosophers have convinced us. Oh no, it's all experiential. If you can't see it. It's probably not real, but that leaves so many gaps and we don't have time for that. But yeah, the spirit world is real. We need to believe it.
Speaker 1:There's such an invisible world that is out there that I wasn't aware of as I was growing up, because I mean, I heard it. But since we've had these things that are devices that we can do so much, and somehow what we're doing right here having this conversation in different parts of the world, it's just there is a whole, a world that god has designed for us. I'm going to pivot a little bit and, um, I have a couple. I have a couple questions I really want to ask you. But one of the things is, you know, sometimes I set up, when I talk about the word trust and I kind of set up what it means and stuff. I don't want to do that with you because, you know, I feel like the conversation we are having is so good.
Speaker 1:I don't know if you've ever seen interviews with Thomas Soule yeah, you know where. You just know this is a brilliant man and I just want to say what I'm feeling here is there's so much that you're unpacking in here that if you're listening to this, you're going to have to listen to this a couple of times because I'm taking notes and getting so much out of it. So I'm not saying you're Thomas, so I'm just saying that I'm having a conversation that feels like this is where we're going. So I just want to say the word trust and then let you go, because I don't. I don't want to frame it, because if I frame it then it has connotations of what I, my beliefs, my thoughts. So If I frame it, then it has connotations of what I, my beliefs my thoughts.
Speaker 2:So just trust, interesting, really good skill as a moderator. I'm going to use that because that's cool. Say a word, robin Williams style, let's see if someone can just run around and go with it. No context, no, no framework Trust Go.
Speaker 2:So trust is is really important. I think there are different views of what it means. I think there are different levels to how it's applied and that has corrupted the thinking of a lot of people they have. Trust is similar to the word love Sounds pretty good, but the root sometimes can be on shaky ground. Pretty good, but the root sometimes can be on shaky ground.
Speaker 2:And so when you start using that word in relationship to build a relationship, to evaluate relationship, and it's on a ground that is not solid, what happens is the word now is attributed to a holy concept, but we've understood it in an unholy way, and so now all of a sudden, trust to the world has sort of crept into our psyche and our sort of standard, when really it needs to be different. When you say the word trust, I'll try to talk about in the context of our conversation and through the African-American male and his lens and where he's at, with spiritual connotations attached. But trust is. For me, as you're talking, these are such big words and concepts. I think the way our worlds, the way our destiny, the way our character, the way our successes and achievements are all bonded together is through the word trust. I think it's all through trust and I think it all has to be a trust in the higher power, trust in Jesus Christ, a trust in God the Father. I think we can get away with the polluting of that word, but at its core, god has always designed us as these agents who need to trust. To a degree. He's made us a little lower than angels, a little lower than himself, so he doesn't need us to determine if we want a ham sandwich or a turkey sandwich today. That doesn't take much faith, trust, guidance. What he does appreciate is when we can defer not just big decisions, but when our whole existence is rooted in this idea, the symbiotic relationship that he is cause, we are effect. If we can trust that, we will reach destiny, we will be united as a people, we will grow enterprise. Because he's cause, we are effect. There's two simple concepts, but it takes an eternity to unravel, and we have to trust that he's cause, we are effect. There's two simple concepts, but it takes an eternity to unravel and we have to trust that he's cause. He's outside of everything else. I think real trust has to start there.
Speaker 2:Unfortunately, through vehicles of not just social media, but as the world gets more knowledgeable, as people start to interact more, there's different understandings of the word trust and there's different measurements of it. It's been broken usually. I guess I could have started with everyone has had trauma in trust yes, everyone and so usually that doesn't get fixed. I broke my pinky here when I was playing football at Marquette University and that night all I did was kind of pull it back in place. But to this day it wasn't set right and it's always been, and I'll probably go to my grave with a bent little finger because I didn't set it right early.
Speaker 2:Trauma is going to happen to us. Trauma will break our trust. Trust is so important because that's what little kids have. They're so naive, they're so loving, loving, but they're full of trust Because they usually haven't had trauma yet, and so they can trust in a God, they can trust in a mother, they can trust in a bishop, they can trust in a preacher, they can trust in a system. Because it's not broken, there's no trauma.
Speaker 2:But when trauma happens, it starts to expose things. When Adam and Eve are eating fruits, it's exposing things. The stuff was already there. They've been naked the whole while, but now they see it. Now they're starting to see things that they needed a mentor to walk them through, not experiences they should have understood on their own. Because when you're doing that, you're trusting in your own lenses, your own experiences, your own senses. And now trust has become polluted. So I think that's the core of it, and the unadulterated trust is a trauma-free trust.
Speaker 2:We have a dilemma. All of us have had trauma. So now, how can trust be trauma-free? We have to work back towards that. We have to regain that, not from the father. He didn't break it. It was trauma that did it to us. It was an enemy. It was circumstances that have broken trust. So trauma and trust is such a relationship. People who don't have trauma till later in life will all have it. But people who don't have it till later are more trusting. They've built that muscle longer. They've had no reason to doubt, and kids are the best example of seeing this.
Speaker 2:So you know, yeah that's its own kind of issue there, but I think there's that relationship, trust and trauma.
Speaker 1:I am so glad that I said it that way, because all these interviews you know that.
Speaker 1:I said it that way because on all these interviews, you know trust is one of my pillars, is, as you know, the five pillars of you know, working into, you know, our journey to freedom, and I've never heard it put that way where the trauma interacts to trust and stops the stress, and so that answers a whole bunch of questions as to our experiences as Black men and what that trauma was and how early you know, you think of, you know homes without fathers in it, or you think of you know taking men out of homes, or you think of, you know our slavery experience.
Speaker 1:This is part of our DNA. If I take that from the macro, which you did such a great job into the micro, and I think about interviews such a great job into the micro, and I think about interviews and how I show up, what kind of trust do I have to have, like all the skills you're teaching, but what kind of trust do I have to have to show up to an interview to be successful in the interview? If my belief system believes that, whatever I'm believing about the people that are interviewing me, won't that affect my ability to interview well?
Speaker 2:Yeah, because now you've got Trump interfering with trust, and then trust is one of the early precursors to real confidence. Confidence is only established when purpose is known. Purpose leads us to destiny. So now, if your trust is shaky, your confidence might appear somewhat gathered and composed, but it's also going to be shaky too. So we talk about the interview, as people are not just interviewing, but as they're going out into community and making financial decisions, they're trying to build capital. There's a whole world that they, that their confidence lacks and because of that they'll say some of the right things, they'll look the right part. But confidence is one of those spiritual things that we cannot really touch. We just know it when we see it, we feel it, we experience it. When it's there it's spiritual, it's really real.
Speaker 2:And so one of the issues because there's been trauma in a breach of trust that has affected our confidence on these, you know sort of interviews, or as we get to these, you know big tables and we get to sit with decision makers. Confidence is kind of gone, but you know there's always a solution, always a solution, and you know that really starts with reengaging with our creator, understanding you know God's design for us, macro, and then knowing his plan for us micro and then really, you know, taking time to unknot the trauma and deal with it. And it's messy, it's different for everyone. Some people's traumas are, I won't say, more real, but I would just say, very different than some other.
Speaker 2:Trauma is just how you deal with tragedy, that's all it is. So it's. You know, we all go through it. But I think it's in the creator's hand how he can help us unknot some of those tight spaces and really leads us to confidence. Trust in the Black community is huge, whether you're talking about medical trust and doctors back in the 30s or you're talking around and some people say, well, even now, even today, I do think there's a danger in not trusting anything because of what they did to us. Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:You know, but I do think you know you just want to be wise and understand the only person who's got your best interests at heart 100% of the time is two people Jesus Christ and your mom, and that's it, like that's all they wanted to love you that much. Sometimes mom might not be one of those mothers, but you know it's. It's having a faith in that and, as you're, in that three thirty am moment, taking time to pray, taking time to you know. Invite him in to these decisions. Yeah, you're right. I mean all those interviews as we do business. Trust is breached, confidence is affected. Do is. We'll have the biggest thing, newest phrase coming around. What's it called? Fraud, not fraud, but it's the identity. It escapes me.
Speaker 1:You'll think of it for the end of the year.
Speaker 2:I'll think of it the end of the year. I'll think of it. I'll think of it, but we, oh. Imposter syndrome A new phrase, a new phrase that just got coined 10 years ago. It's always been around, but somebody told me once it takes a lot to be an imposter. You have to put on clothes that are not yours. You have to put on makeup that's not yours. You have to act in a way that's not you. You have to act in a way that's not you. So that's not a good thing. And the fact is, we're trying so hard to be someone else in an effort to show our real self. It's just so mixed up, and that's how the enemy can play on that. That's how we can stay stagnated in our growth. That's how unity is breached and broken and you get a lot of scattered leaders. I think we have tremendous leaders in our community. There's not enough unity, so I don't care about leaders.
Speaker 1:I care about unity, wow, and I'm just thinking about, like the interview and showing up if you're out of purpose and where's your confidence If your 3 am moment? This is who I am and now I've been asked to interview for something that doesn't have that. Plus, I have the trauma of you know, I don't believe these people are genuine, or I have the trauma of, you know, the last time that I did an interview like this, it didn't go well. The last time I got hired and this and this and this happened and we bring all that stuff and then we get, we go to you and you have to like unpack it and say no, no, no, no, no. That's what you really need to do. Like you said, there's answers for everything.
Speaker 1:I want to talk about money, you know, and the reason is because, in all of our interactions and all the things we're talking about, you know and I don't 100 percent don't believe money is everything and I don't 100% don't believe money is everything.
Speaker 1:However, money is what allows us to move through our lives in the ways that maybe God has us to, or that God would love us to, or that God has purposed us to. It's a thing that we spend most of our time in our days either trying to make or use. I don't know if there's a 10 minute period in time in my life where I'm not spending money. You know, because I have all these auto drafts and I have electricity on and I have. You know, that would be every second right that I'm spending money. So it's something that's super important and yet in our community we choose not to talk about it. We choose not to learn how to utilize it in ways that it would work for others. What are your thoughts about growing a, you know, a money thought process or a money? I'm not even thinking of the word that I'm trying to think of, but I think you're in mindset.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there we go, there you go, talk to us about it mindset.
Speaker 2:There we go, there you go, talk to us about it. Yeah, that's a really good point. I think money and health in our communities are kind of taboo, and we just don't talk about that stuff with just anybody, and you'd think we'd be past that, but you can know about the deeply entrenched traumas that we needed unknotted. So you're talking about a lot. There's poor, there's poverty, there's all these different kinds of mindsets, very different vehicles yeah, that's a good point, I think money. So I would challenge my students years ago, and I would teach the financial course I taught, and I would always ask them what's the purpose of money? And they would say to buy this, to buy that? I don't know, and while we use it for that, it's only got one purpose. That purpose is to grow. That's it. It's not to spend. It's to grow. To grow, that's it. It's not to spend, it's to grow.
Speaker 2:No one really thinks of it like that, though, except the billionaires, because they've understood something They've understood I don't need to spend this. It'll just multiply if I invest here and I'm still learning around investment vehicles but they understand its concept At that fundamental core. But they understand its concept at that fundamental core. All these dollar bills are seeds to grow bigger gardens, not so much seeds to grow a fruit to eat. And so if a people's mentality is around, let's make enough so we can start eating. You've missed the point. You have people who make generational wealth in the sports arenas, but it's not so much to invest, it's so they can have enough of a nest egg to support a generation or two and just eat that. And we'll invest some. But the real purpose is to enjoy life. We're about to be dead soon. We need to turn up. We need to turn up and while I think you know you can get to a certain point of money in this country where you cannot spend it, where you will always make more.
Speaker 2:Because Floyd Mayweather 800 million he can buy 10 diamond Rolexes. We call it a waste. It probably is, but those Rolexes are still worth money. He didn't even get rid of the money, he just transferred it to something else. It's too much to get rid of. But I think understanding money at first as seeds that need to be grown, and then do we really believe that. And then, secondly, do we see the seed harvest process kind of happening.
Speaker 2:God's all about seeds and harvest, he's all about growth. He's never really about eating and if he is just a small portion to expand that which he gave you the Bible's litter with examples of how he has determined his seasons to work seed, harvest time, reaping and sowing and he reprimands people in parables who did not invest his money. Some people hid it and when the master came back he said why didn't you invest it? I want more. Oh no, I was trying to be humble. Oh no, I was trying to take care of my family and stuff. Oh no, I was just going to eat for me and just belittle me.
Speaker 2:He didn't make little old hymns. Here's the problem. What he made was people a little lower than him. We are not deities. We are none of that stuff. We don't become deities. We get new spiritual bodies. We get to fellowship with him, as he would have had it from the beginning. That is good enough for us, but what I'm saying is we're so much beyond what we sometimes live in, and it starts with money for any group.
Speaker 2:Lastly, I'll say this there's principles in scripture that don't care if you believe in God or not. These are principles that work for Satan. They work for your favorite bishop, they work for your holy grandma. They work for Jesus Christ and they work for someone who hates the name of God and everything in between. Sometimes we don't believe that. We think well, you know it don't really work, for all of it does, because it's a principle he's put forth. So you'll see people with ungodly amounts of wealth who don't love God, who have it all because they understood something. They would say it's investments. It's not really what God calls it. He calls it seed and harvest, he calls it reaping and sowing. But the point is they've taken this principle and they made tons. We can do the same.
Speaker 2:I just want our community and I've learned from my own community. My mom, my wife will talk to me about this cool stuff. So it's about all that stuff I had to learn. We're doing great. We just learned to read. It was legal for us to read in the 20s. That's not bad, man, like from just being able to legally go to school and not harassed. You get harassed up until the 60s when you have these kids going to Arkansas. You get harassed up until the 60s when you have these kids going to Arkansas. So just to have a regular education and you can see the folks that have been produced in less than a century. That is fantastic work. Imagine if we had two centuries. So I'm very proud of where we come.
Speaker 2:But the money game it doesn't take ability and skill. It doesn't take gifting. What it takes is trust, the seed harvest principle. If you trust that you are going to see your finances really start to increase and what he'll do, he'll give you more. One of his jobs, he said himself, is to help spread this around to others. He blessed Abraham and David was wealthy and Solomon is super rich and you can just go through scripture. He doesn't care about the money, he cares about. How can we use this to help others? How do you leave an inheritance for your family? God said if you don't leave an inheritance, I got an issue with you. So that means he expects you to have something when you, when you, pass on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and there are principles, and what's so amazing in this day and age is we have access to those principles and to the into finding, finding exactly what God would have us to learn about. And you think of, like I will go learn how to do a sprinkling system and replace a head on a sprinkler on YouTube, but I won't go and learn about principles of money, because somehow either I think I know it or I'm scared that it will reveal a, and what's funny is so many people suffer for so long because they're not willing to learn the principles, and so I would say I will give you some principles. Just put comments here. Emmanuel will give you some principles. We will send you the things that you need to start working on it if you're not willing to have conversations, but we have to have more conversations.
Speaker 1:One that he talked about is about money, and we need to be talking about money a lot more than than we do. The next one is health, and so we don't talk about health either, and so I'm going to let you spend a few minutes talking about what are some things that you do, or some things that we can do, or some things that we should understand about our health in order to live longer, because none of this is fun, none of this makes sense if your body doesn't work. And our African-American men life expectancy is 72 years old. I'm getting way too close to 72 to think that that's how long I'm going to live my dad's 85, so I'm pretty excited about that, but there's no way. I mean, obviously we don't know the time that we're going to leave the planet. But there's some things that we can do, and so maybe talk a little bit about health.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think and this is just sort of globally for this point, but since our rates are higher based on different factors, based on trauma and trust, it starts with one word appetite. And the Bible is pretty clear when it says taste and see. The Lord is good. And we read and say, oh yeah, he is good, oh, girl, he's so good. What he's trying to say is, if you eat the right things early, if you taste of him and build a rhythm or a cadence for the things of God and for how he, how you can digest the foods of God to produce service and wealth and all these cool things, your appetite for life changes. He's using a food analogy and I'll use it as we go into health. It's around building the right, not just habits, but appetites. If you don't taste the wrong thing, not even the wrong thing, if you don't taste a certain thing, you'll never like it, you'll never dislike it. It becomes neutral. So I think in our community it's not just the foods. I think that's huge, I always say that's a big deal, but it's the whole thinking around vehicle. We are vehicles and bodies and some of us put better gasoline in our cars than we do put in ourselves some of the processed stuff, but the car gets grade A gas. We will eat some of the manufactured items, but the motorcycle is getting top-notch oil and what that's showing is we've got a very different understanding of life expectancy. It doesn't have to end at what the stats say. We can live longer. I'm not saying you're going to live forever, but we can go a lot longer. That stretches out our capacity, our mantle, our purpose, our destiny, and it starts with the right appetite. So I think a lot of it comes from education and not just some of the basic food groups, but really kind of finding an enjoyment in eating healthy things.
Speaker 2:God didn't say the fats of the spirit. He didn't say the oils of the spirits, the sweets of the spirits, the candies of the spirits. Now God does. Let you eat fat. You read about it. He told the priest you get the best cut of fat, and I love that verse because I love fat. I love to eat the fat part of a pot roast or ribs and these beef ribs, but but he said they're fruits. He didn't say the vegetables of the spirit. There's a whole breakdown of why he kind of used that, but he's trying to get us to see if he's connotating this stuff with fruit. We need to be eating a lot more of it. I don't want diabetics to just eat strawberries and get sick off the glucose. I'm not trying to encourage that.
Speaker 2:Exactly yes, but health is more than just what we eat. I think it's really a whole kind of understanding of kind of your place in the community and then how you take care of this vehicle. I think sometimes we just don't know. I was talking to my dad on Mother's Day. I talked to my father and I was like, yeah, I remember that time you said some of our cousins don't even know they have a pancreas or they have no idea what a liver does and I don't profess to be a doctor, but these are things that you should know exist within you. And some people in our community don't even know they have a spleen. And so if you don't know that, then what you do know is Burger King's got a $4.99 meal and his food is okay because they got some flaming hots. I'll eat salad once in a while. That stuff, man.
Speaker 2:The whole world is on notice from the processed foods, from not letting the earth rest and re-harvesting the crops the right way. Our group specifically has to do a lot more to educate ourselves. Same bodies as other people have. Each group is prone to more genetic things. We get that. That's a part of the fall of man. These things are going to happen, but we don't have to let them govern our existence. We can start tasting some of the right things and building an appetite for them early on. I will love kids to eat more. Appetite for them early on. I will love kids to eat more. I think that kind of ours. The world gets more global. You'll have little kids with friends in China they never met and they're talking about eating some kimchi, whatever. But until that happens at whole scale, we're at a disadvantage and our goal is to taste the good things, stay away from the bad.
Speaker 1:I love it.
Speaker 1:I love it.
Speaker 1:I follow a guy on YouTube, myron Golden, and he has a one of his YouTube is called the Satan's Secret Weapon, and Satan's Secret Weapon is food, you know, and he kind of talks about all the way back to Eve and the Bible and you know eating of the food and you know it goes through the Bible and all the different the food and you know it goes through the Bible and all the different times that food has impacted.
Speaker 1:You know our growth, and so I love the fact that you said that, and I know we have about five minutes left and I know, at the beginning of this conversation which I have thoroughly enjoyed Me too, about being going into broadcasting and being a person who likes to talk and being a person who has things to say. So I want you to take the last five minutes and whatever it is that we didn't cover, whatever it is that you would love whoever listens to this particular podcast to know or to understand or to even start the process of thinking about, because we're not going to get into. You know a whole bunch in five minutes, but I want you to take your time to be able just to discuss whatever.
Speaker 2:I didn't ask you.
Speaker 2:No thanks for the platform, the opportunity, really appreciate the trust as we talk about, and just let me use a moderator flow through this. I'll leave on this one thought. I want everybody listening, whether this is recorded or live. I want us to do a little activity. I want you to say your age and then I want you to snap your fingers at the same time. I'm going to do it for us now and then I want you to do this whenever you get the urge. So here we go 39.
Speaker 2:That's how many years are gone that fast. See, that's how this thing works Like. It's not so much. Oh, I'm 19. I'm going to enroll in a university, or I'm 60. I get about 20 years before I check out. It's about snapping the thing. That time is gone. It happens that fast. When they say stuff went by that fast, I just proved it. It happens that fast when they say stuff went by that fast, I just proved it.
Speaker 2:So because of that, everything we do has to be geared or leaning towards purpose. That's the only way we're sustained. That's the only way time is managed. The Bible tells us, or Moses wrote this psalm. This one is attributed to him. He said teach us to number our days. This stuff is running out and we have so many people dying.
Speaker 2:That's not a tragedy. The real tragedy is they didn't know what purpose was. If a three year old passes away in purpose, that's much better than a 90 year old who thought he changed the world outside of purpose. It's about purpose and so timing helps us stay true to that. So you know, that's something I'm challenging myself with every day. I'm not reached all this stuff. I'll just learn from great men and I'm still trying to share what bits and morsels fell from the table.
Speaker 2:But everything we do can yield the results. You just have to outwork the person in front of you. My last thought Tom Brady has dedicated his life to avocados and eating right and if it affects his performance on the field affected, he wouldn't do it. If that meant one more joke, he wouldn't tell it. If it meant one more avocado fry was going to slow him down, he wouldn't touch it. If it meant one more date with his wife, giselle, who's a supermodel ex-wife, he wouldn't go on the date because he's got to win rings. I'm not saying that's how we need to live, like who knows if he got it all right. What I'm saying is, have that kind of mentality and we'll see how purpose and destiny really align for our community.
Speaker 1:I love it. Oh man, that's so good. I was recently somebody took a tape measure and they you know, they told me kind of same concept pulled it out and said, ok, you know, pull it out. I don't know 72 years old, you know the age of that black man lived to. And then they said, ok, now put the. Put your finger at your age.
Speaker 1:You know, then there's, like this, much left between where I've lived and my average life expectancy, like you said, just like that, right, and it is so important and so, oh my gosh, I hate that we're done, because this has been such an enlightening conversation and I honestly, you know, I felt like when I was watching you I felt like Thomas Sowell was talking to me in our area we're talking to, and he's probably one of the greatest economists that has ever lived. If you haven't watched anything through him, look up some YouTube. They'll be like 1970 film strips, but they are so good and just your thoughts on trauma and the thoughts on health and the thoughts on trust, it's just been just so enlightening and so hopefully we'll be able to do this again. I appreciate you again, you know, taking the time and the effort to be on another episode. I hope that folks watch this. I hope they watch it over and over again, because I think there's so many nuggets that you talk to us about that we can apply in our lives.
Speaker 1:And that's the big thing is, you know, it's great to hear this and if you sit here for the whole hour, that it was enlightening and maybe even some entertaining in some ways. But if there's no application, you know, if you're not taking any of the things we talked about and either learning more or applying it or putting stuff, then this hour was just so that you, I guess, could learn a little bit more about stuff. So I'm encouraging you to apply these concepts that we've talked about today and then keep listening to other episodes as we do more, because this year we will get 100 black men that are going to talk, just like Emmanuel talked today. So thank you again, emmanuel. I appreciate you being on. Look forward to talking to you again.
Speaker 1:Emmanuel talked today. So thank you again, emmanuel. I appreciate you being on. Look forward to talking to you again If there's other folks that you know that I need to have on there, because I know you can't talk the way you're talking and not have other mentors and other people who have helped you along the way. So thank you again for being part of it. Thank you.