Killer Mike Talks Building Career, Financially Strengthening the Black Community & More

Special guest Killer Mike joins the Building The Good Life Podcast with John Hope Bryant and talks about growing up with his grandparents + how financially strengthening the Black Community will help society overall succeed. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Building the Good Life with John Hope Bryant is brought
to you by Credential Financial. You know, for me, self
confidence comes from just trying. I knew I wasn't gonna
be the best basketball players only school with camerallon Dollar,
you know, Camera, I knew cal I'm gonna win to
chill when we were ten, I knew I wanted gonna
play baseball or like my cousin who were doing seventy
seven mile an hour thirteen years old. You know. So

(00:20):
I had to find what I was good at, you know,
and the things I was good at was art, talking, debate,
you know those things. So I embraced the things I
was good I built pride around those things. And I
had a group of friends around me where my talents
and needed are called upon. You know, they called me
up when the police stopped us. Michael, you're talking. You know.
So I knew I was good at. So my confidence
grew out of knowing what I was good at and

(00:41):
doing those things, not out of envying and not out
of wanting to be something other than myself. And then
when Kim Watson told me I was cute, it was
she told me that third grade it was a rap
Michael Santiago, better known by his stage name, He's an
American rap actor and an activist. But that does not

(01:02):
tell the whole story. I'll get back to that in
a minute. Mike made his debut on Outcasts two thousand
LP Stankoni and later appeared on their Grammy winning single
The Whole World from their Greatest Hits album in two
thousand and one. He has since released five full length
albums as a solo artist. He is the founder of
Ground Grind Time Official Records, which he did in partnership

(01:27):
with SMC and Fontana Distribution. In December two thousand and eight,
he cut a deal with our friend, the Atlanta rappers
t I the Grand Hustle Records. Since that time, he
has exploded in relevancy. He's known as a social and
political activist, focusing on subjects including the social inequality, police brutality,

(01:48):
and systemic racism. In addition to addressing these themes of
racism and police brutality in his music, he has also
delivered several lectures. That's right, He's a lectured the colleges
and universities. He's written about social justice, appeared on business shows,
engaged in the political stage. He was born in Adamsville

(02:11):
neighborhood of Atlanta, Georgia, a very notably. His father was
a policeman. His mother was a florist, very much like
me and my wife reminds me of butterflies and eagle.
His grandparents helped to raise him. Paul are Heights neighborhood

(02:33):
and something else we have in common. He went to
Frederick Douglas High School and the man who ran the
Freedman's Bank that I'm so passionate about. What's Frederick Douglas?
That bank was started to teach free slaves about money
in the eighteen sixty five. Now I said there was
more about him that I did not mention. Well, that
really means that the bio did not mention it. Uh,
he's hiding in plain sight, as Jay Z would say.

(02:55):
He's not a businessman. I'm a business man. He also
is a partner in Greenwood Bank or Bank Greenwood. It's
not an FBI C in short banking or talking a
little bit about that. I know he's dabbling in some
real estate and music publishing and to do singing the
backside of the business industry. Will the music industry. He

(03:17):
has a barber shop swag, which I'm sure he's gonna
talk about. Uh. Also, uh, he is a bad brother.
He's making smart sexy. He's a builder, he's my brother,
he's my friend. Keller, Mike, how you doing. It's all good.
It's good to see you, good to be seen, better

(03:37):
seen in viewed. So this is a conversation about building.
You know, we can say building for what building wind,
but let me let me be provocative and suggest that
there's never been a more important time to be a
builder in general. But certainly if we're saying that that
this is a moment in history, and history does not

(03:58):
feel historic when you're sitting you know that you're a
historian too, But that doesn't mean that moment is not
in fact historic. Dr King walked this whole same city
where in Atlanta for thirteen years and went to Para
teacher Knight and you know, the grocery store whatever. I'm
your people, So it's Dr King. But it wasn't like
every date moment was dramatic. And we've we're talking about

(04:19):
now moving that's more in the suites in the streets,
more about civil rights than civil rights. Social justice through
an economic lens so once you push back on me
if I say that, do you agree or do you
challenge me? That this is now social justice through an
economic lens and new agenda is at least in part

(04:39):
wealth creation and business. Well, I can't disagree with you
because I'm a product of wealth creation. For you know
that what I found is that I don't marry to
any extreme I've been in my time, you know, a
fist pumping, shouting radical that yelled you know, we should
lean heavy into socialism and the proletariat should have no rights.
And did you say socialism? Yeah? Eve, In some forms

(05:04):
of democratic socialism, public school is is a socialist concept
if you arguably be it. I happen to have went
to an unbelievably good so Um public school and call
your Heights Elementary School and later Frederick Guga's High School.
So he benefited yea, you know, Um, do I want
my money um regulated by government? And do I want

(05:26):
you know, I currently pay about thirty cent tax on
a dollar? You know, do I want to do? I
always like that? No, what I liked for the ten
cent extra that they'd like to add to be advocated,
I've seen it, yes, So but what I've seen is
and what I say, I'm a product of what wealth is.
My great grandparents, whether children of people who were enslaved,
their first I thought should have been of themselves in

(05:49):
their own happiness and enjoyment. My great grandmother, my great grandfather,
um n h black men and Truzella black men. They
could have just enjoyed themselves. They could have enjoyed not perpeed,
living in servitude. But what they did was they worked
the sharecroppers. They worked their butts off, their fingers to
the ball. They bought over forty something acres in Alabama,
of which some some the state had to buy back

(06:11):
because of the mem and it domain because of the
creation of a highway. And they made sure that each
of their nine children had an opportunity to own land
and to have a start through education. Because my grand
grandparents on the farm, they could sell the stores, including
white stores. Those stores would then pay them their profit
that was paid allout my grandparents to go to a
Methodist school to my grandmother. My grandfather, on the other hand,

(06:33):
his mother left, I mean his father left when he
was ten. He had to work in a sawmill in
a lumber yard. Didn't not leave him anything, So he
had to work and um take part in bootlegging to
make sure he's a young man that he had something
to give us. My great grandparents farm is still in
my family's name. My family still received money every chy
and where herself from a lumber company and owns it.

(06:55):
So all the Tusky, Alabama, the same place that college
students use red clay to make the bricks to build
Tuskey Institute. My grand mother wanted nothing more for me
than to go to Duskey. I ended up going to
more House instead. I was like, I just can't go
back there. That was too bored Grandma. That was before
I realized how lit their homecoming was. But I m
so I had to understand it at some point. People

(07:16):
generations before me made an investment in me, and my
grandparents then were not only owners of the house, they
were in their owned additional house. That house was used
to create um a vacation funds savings fund from me
and my sisters. They bought us stocks and bonds when
we were really young. So I had to realize a

(07:37):
lot of the things that I thought I was fighting
against as a child, or what gave me the ability
to fight against it because I was a product of it.
And what I had to understand was older Black Juleman
telling one time, you're either gonna be you know, you said,
you were born in America. You can't help that. You
want to be a participant in the capitalist system or
victim of it. And since I was cutting grass at
about twelve years old, and I thought that, man, if

(07:57):
I can get three more of the kids to cut
grass with me, I could probably pay them at this rate.
Since I buy the gas, I got the lant Moore
to pay myself this rate. I had figured out that
it's good to be an owner. My wife and I
were having a discussion today when she was like, it's
good that you no longer tell people what you make.
She said, because sometimes when you tell people what you make,
they tend to think you know the man. I said, yeah,
I say, but I'm not cut like that's how I

(08:18):
sat next to people. I'm telling they got forty fifty
million other deals I never envied wanted that. She said, yeah,
but you've never viewed yourself as an employee, she said,
so you don't have time to worry about her. She says,
you hear it and you get inspired by it, and
then you say, if then my friend can do it,
I can do it too. I remember sitting next to
one of my dear friends when he got a forty
million ollar deal. You don't think I was happy for him.
After he left the room, everybody else crumbled and complained

(08:39):
and talked about what they should have gotten it, And
I realized that she's right. Like, I've never viewed myself
as simply an employee. I've always viewed myself as someone
who can, who must too will. So I can't, you know,
argue with how people you know their point of view
of me. But I know as I'm a product of
two black people in the very deep and rule South
from Tuskegee that decided they were going to make sure
they're children had it a little easier and their children's

(09:01):
children had greater opportunity through being able to be educated
and having something. So he just dropped like some intellectual
financial literacy genius from from from like the west side
of Atlanta. And and just to clarify, he mentioned the
words socialism. What do you really My interpret of that

(09:22):
is he means the public good. And I agree with
him on the part that we have a responsibility to
socialize our our assets for I mean, why is education
we should be a public good now a private asset? Right?
Education should be for everybody. Uh. Summer On sham On
Paris told me I was in Jordan. Wants that people
are gonna have a problem my work and criticize it.

(09:42):
And he said, Mike, he said, when they say that, John,
you tell them even if you wanted to strive with
the money like a socialist, you have the first collected
like a capitalist. Yeah. Tell me, man, how did you
get so dang a smart? I mean, I mean I've
heard I heard only set this up. I first heard
you rip rap or financial literacy rap. I don't mean

(10:03):
music rap, financial literacy rap business rap without a script,
without them with without with no notes. Really three times
one in my whole global form. You just you just
went in there with Tip t I and few others
and you just laid it out and you cleared the floor.
I mean, you knew exactly what you were talking about,
Like is if you're coming out of a busines school
number two. Y're on CNBC and you laid it out

(10:26):
and I read some other business publication. There was an
interview and you couldn't tell that you were not a
captain of industry. But you're completely down with your community.
You're like, you don't you don't switch up. You are
the same dude. How did you get so dang gone
smart and down the earth at the same time. Well,
I don't, I don't. I don't consider myself smart. I
consider myself a willing student in every situation though. I

(10:50):
just sat with a younger brother who's young and I
went to more house for a year, and then I
left to pursue music. I went to a brother who
graduated who now is a banker, had a meeting with
him a few hours ago, brother Ben, and and I
told himself, I'm sitting down as a student. Doesn't matter
from older than you, doesn't matter if I've seen more
to or none of that matters. What matters is that
you know more about financing industry, and I do, so
I am not only someone who's about to do business

(11:12):
with you. I also I'm a student. So anything that
I can learn, I'm gonna learn. And I've always been
like that, like I'm here to show up for my
ears open. You know, as much as I talk, I
listened a lot more my grandparents, Like I said, they talked,
They never hid the truth. For my sisters, and my
younger sister, Lashonda, he was raised by my grandparents with me,
they said, me loving Lashonda down. My grandmother showed us

(11:34):
how to balance the check books. They taught us you
know why you buy should buy stock or barn, why
you should save money. My younger sister got it so
well she went down to dealer, became an accountant. Now
she makes sure people and companies don't go bro I
wish I would have listen more. So I have to
get my grandparents, Um William Betty a lot of credit
because they told us by the time we were born,
there was too all the waste time and they didn't

(11:55):
have time to talk to us like children. They talked
to us like we were equal, like we were a
little here and beings. So I gotta give big credit
to them, and I gotta give credit to the institutions
that paid the big part. From Harrington Daycare centerments. Harrington
sent me into kindergarten reading whether it was Mr Twiggs,
the principle of my elementary school, all the numerous teachers,
many of whom who went to historically black college and universities.

(12:16):
Their life's mission was to make sure that we went
into the world prepared. Um. One of my favorite teachers
in high school, the Federals High Schools, a man named
Bill Murray's Cohen or Murray Brothers funeral home. And I
tell people that class was art. I was in the
art magnetism, not art, but the art talents in a program.
I knew how to draw, knew how to sketch, knew
how to paint. But I say he taught us how
to be entrepreneurs. You know. He was the first person

(12:38):
to tell us you should be trying to buy, dilapidate
the houses and the blood so you can knock it down,
just make a parking lot while the falcons play until
change happens. He's seventy two years old. Now change happening.
So what I did was paid attention, and I believe.
And then, you know, I remember neighborhood now, yeah, absolutely
it is. And we own stuff there, changing up, me

(12:59):
and my wife. Yeah, but I remember, you know, I remember,
just I remember just seeing people because I grew up
in the car your heights, so working class people and
they were like my grandparents, middle class people were there. Um,
I remember Dr Zuela well, Dr Harris, who Zuela Harris
his mother who was a psyche professor over at Georgia Tech.
They lived in our neighborhood, Rah and Bea, who I

(13:21):
think now is Deing of Technology over at Tech. It
grew up in my neighbor so I grew up around
a lot of kids who were smart. So it was
cool to be smart. It was cool to learn and
and being smart's really just about me and willing to learn.
So you know, I can't say that was a magic moment.
I could just say every step of the way, I
wanted to learn a little more. I wanted to know
a little more. I want to understand how Herman Russell

(13:41):
was rich, because if it wouldn't have been for her
and Russell, if you don't know Herman Russell was was
the wealthiest black men in America, at least in the
real estate, and to this Day's Russell Company is the
largest black owned company and at least in real estate
in the country. Google Google, Google some of the names
that were saying, so whether it was Herman Russell's house,
did I arrived bound my bike as a kid and
look and say, how did you get a basketball courting

(14:02):
the tennis court you know, and later have the opportunity
to buy and an indoor pool. Yeah, pool, Like, how
are you? How do you do that too? Now? You know?
God bless your dead. Just a few weeks ago, having
buried Noel Khalil, who founded the Columbia Company, and I
also real estate developed who first worked for Herman Russell.
Took a sixty thollar pay cut to work for Herman
Russell and say he learned more making less money and

(14:24):
was able to build something on his own. So I've
always just been a willing student. Quincy Jones says, it
takes twenty years to change the culture. In the last
twenty years, I think we've made dumb sexy. We've dumbed
down and celebrated it. But now people are starting to
make smart sexy again. But here's the here's the interesting thing.
You said. Growing up, you already around you always were
trying to be around smart people. Okay, cool, got that.
I understand that generation right after the Civil Rights movement,

(14:47):
that that holds that hold piece when you get away
with it. Today was I find interesting two things people
make assumptions about you. They see you coming in with
some some some chilled out genet. You got your nikes on,
you got your T shirt on. You know you got
you got a little bit of a little bit of blame.
Not too much, right, it's all, but but people not
looking at closely, people making assumptions right about well, particularly

(15:11):
if you're not from our community, and I would never
I don't think they would ever assume or presumed that
you that all this intellect is inside of you. You
don't care because you're not gonna answer. Your self esteem
depends on somebody's acceptance of you. So that self esteem,
not just confidence. I want to know where that came from.
The other side of this piece, though, is you're in
the music business principally where I would think I would

(15:36):
love to say I'm wrong here. This sort of high minded,
high frequency conversation with right now may not be all
that shined upon, but you're accepted as one of the crew.
How did you negotiate all these worlds? I can remember
being in elementary school and sitting in class him as
prior as class, and I'm surrounded by like kids who

(15:59):
I know they're going to college. They know I'm going
to college because people like Asha Jackson are pushing us,
and she's now chief Chief judged Um out in Decab County.
But as young as eleven, I shall tell us we
were going to college college, and she's like, we're going
to college. But I remember being an elementary school class
even though I wasn't in that school. She just would
encourage it. But like with tar Shell, people's now Dr

(16:20):
tarshall Um and my friends sleeping, he was far more
intelligent me in the streets sleeping with was who didn't
even go to my school, was on the court like
fat Way, fat Way, and I was just I wouldn't look.
I would just I'm not gonna get introll. He was like,
I see you out the school. But before school he'd
be telling me you go to school. He said, we
might not go to school there, but you're going to school.

(16:42):
So my friends encouraged me because they saw it early
and they didn't discourage it. But and I went to
school with the highly intelligent group of kids. But in
different things. Cameron Dollar n a champion at U c
l A. His father coach Donald Dollar, coach Frederick Douglas.
Cameron was smarter on a basketball court and probably anybody

(17:05):
ever seen. And it was smart off the court too,
we got slid grat but on the court he was
fiercely intelligent, so I knew intelligence mattered in sports. Zuela Harris,
whose mom again was a psychologist. Zeuela was fiercely intelligent
in class. So if I knew if I want to
do well in class sitting next to Zula, because the
competitiveness and me was gonna make me the same way
I wanted to compete with cam on a on a

(17:26):
basketball court. So I saw the competition, the friendly competition
of my friends, because I knew my friends weren't dumb.
And I always liked reading. For some reason, I was attracted.
I'm dyslexic, but I was always attracted to reading. But
because of dyslexi, you have two reading to three five
time people are dyslexic, and a lot of folks in

(17:47):
the music business interesting. Quincy's dyslexia in baste Young is
a little dysilection me so, but it forces you to focus.
So now you're not only reading your memory because you're
having to read stuff. So by the time your master
reading stuff once and twice, you learn how to lock
stuff in. So it's just a it's just a condition
of circumstance and who you choose and who you choose

(18:10):
to involve yourself with. I knew very young that dumb
people um or people who pretended or acted dumb did
not get treated well. WHOA WHOA say that one more time.
People who acted or pretended to be dumb did not
get treated well. And I was not into being treated badly.
So I presented myself intelligently, you know, and and I
and I realized that the results came from it. So

(18:33):
I valued intelligence, you know. And I come from a
family that welcomes and values intelligence too, So I'm lucky
to have been an environment that was very um It
cultivated that. And I try to do the same thing
with my children and other children that from my nieces
and nephews, the kids that are just family and friends.
I try to encourage that because there's nothing that beats
a mind that wants to learn. There's nothing that beats

(18:54):
a curious mind. If you're in Europe, you gotta be multilingual,
bilingual to translate you walk in these different worlds. How
do you translate and still keep that core of you
and keep the respect from you? I think you let
people know who you are from the start, like, you know,
like I went to Douglas, but I'm not gonna, you know,

(19:14):
being being in Frederick Douglas. You I knew everybody. I
knew everybody said, Um, I knew that I knew the
preachers and the thugs like I knew. I knew. I
knew everybody, and I wanted to. I wanted to know everybody.
Everybody didn't move between groups of friends and different culturally
different groups. I did because I instantly understood them. And
I like, some of my friends were thugging it and

(19:36):
some of my friends were plugging away academically, and I
had no problem being with either of them because I
was comfortable at who I was already, Like you know,
I didn't. I didn't. I wasn't um, I wasn't ashamed
to be smart, and I wasn't. I wasn't ashamed of
my friends who was just like, hey man, we're gonna
stay and thugging because they were my friends too. But
what I didn't do was succumbed to other people's wants

(19:58):
who wishes for me? What I did was decide what
I wanted for myself. When I when I heard people
like Osha talk about college It made me know, Okay,
you gotta go to college too. You know. When I
heard Mr Murray talk about entrepreneurship, it made me say, okay,
I can do this too. Why am I not doing this?
You know? So for me it was I've just never
had I've never questioned it. I just did it because

(20:20):
you're comfortable with it. You're saying your your your peers
in the music business who made speak only one language
there there they respect you because you're authentic. Yeah, okay,
And what do you think that they admire it? I
never thought about it. I just knew that they accept
me for who I am. I accepting for who they
are because I don't think these guys dumb at all.
If they choose not to, you know, if they choose

(20:42):
not to use the King's English like I do, that's fine.
They're intelligent. They're intelligent enough to buy property to intelligent
enough to employ people. You know, I've met some, I've
met hit talking folks in North Florida, South Georgia. They
have a lot more money than me, and a lot
of rappers. But you know their their family is on
five acres and grown for the government for the last

(21:03):
hundred years. You know what I mean. So for me,
it's a it's a matter of you. To me, you
show yourself unintelligent when you don't save, when you don't
live below your means, when you don't know how to
operate in a room that feels strange to you by
simply being your most humble and honest self, that's a
sign of low intelligence to me. Like t I use

(21:23):
a lot more you know, big words that how I do.
And you know he was the one that dropped out
of Douglas, you know he but but he got a
he got a firm hold of encabulary. I'll tell about
time like you talking like our principle, like Dr Hill.
So he you can't assume that man unintelligent. That man
has read at the sars and knows more SnO ms
than any of us. And that brother is fiercely intelligent
business perspective, it's a lot of real estate around here

(21:45):
and and has no doubt on it, No, absolutely got
he bought it straight out. So for me, I look
for intelligence not only in how you sound, but like
what are the sound movement you're making? What's the common sense? Yeah,
you know that's that's that's truly intel, just to me.
My grandparents taught me about living below my meanings. They
taught me about doing things that freed you up. Everyone

(22:06):
wants money and everyone, you know, if intelligence equal money,
every college professor be a millionaire. Oh as wisdom there.
If intelligence people they're getting intelligence equal money, every college
you know professor will be a millionaire. That's right, you know.
And you gotta be a pH d and a pH
d two, yeah, do something. And that's not criticizing and

(22:26):
college professor, right, but but it's just saying it's simply
being smart. It's not enough. It's not enough, right, all right.
This is John Hopebriyant and The Building a Good Life
podcast is brought to you by Prudential. For over one
hundred and forty five years, millions of people have Counada
and Prudential to help solve for life's most important financial needs.
Because at Preudential, they lived their purpose to make lives

(22:48):
better by solving the most pressing financial challenges of our
changing world. Pridential will continue to focus on financial literacy,
nancial education, business development, and opportunities to provide financial products
and serve those dispupportionately impacted tear and around the world.
This is doing well, like doing good, and I'm John
Hoope right. I want you know, if you want to,

(23:10):
I want to cover a lot of ground up on
our session together so people leave better when I'm gonna
leave this podcast better. But I want you to talk
about how do you built self esteem? You've talked around it.
I think it had a lot to do with your grandparents,
people like in bass, around your young and others. But
how did you build self esteem? You have another question
for you? Um I remember, man, I got called to

(23:30):
play on the you know you play shirts and Skins
basketball already got count the camp council grand and put
me on the Skins team. Man. By middle of the game,
I thought I was the man. I thought he was
tearing from on the sideline, so a couple I was
laughing at me barely flopping there. Well, but we won
the game, and after that I was our Skins every game.

(23:51):
I had to be because I was playing with the
best players on skin. I just had to get the ball,
pretended to pay to kick it back out to my man,
who thought he was Steph Curb before that time. So
you know, once I understood that, my purpose, you know,
my daughter just started playing j V ball. Not a
shooter yet because she just started playing ball. And I said, well,
they can't stop you from being a great defender. Put
your hands up, put your arms out, don't give them

(24:12):
an easy shot, you know, give them some trouble on
the way up right. And then and then even the
games they lost, they lost by two to three points.
There they were, you know, they're winning games. So you know,
for me what I what I'm When she learned something, yeah, absolutely,
And if you learn, you're not losing. So you know,
for me, um, self confidence comes from just trying. I
knew I wasn't gonna be the best basketball players only

(24:33):
school with camera and dollar, you know, like camera. I
knew cal I'm gonna win a cheffy chill when we
were ten. I knew I wasn't gonna play baseball or
like my cousins who were throwing seventy seven mill an
hour thirteen years old, you know. So I had to
find what I was good at, you know. And the
things I was good at was art, talking, debate, you
know those things. So I embraced the things I was
good I built pride around those things, and I had

(24:53):
a group of friends around me where my talents are
needed are called upon. You know, they called me up
when the police stopped us. Michael, you're talking. You know,
so I knew I was good at. So my confidence
grew out of knowing what I was good at and
doing those things, not out of envying and not out
of wanting to be something other than myself. And then
with Kim Watson told me I was cute. It was
it was that third grade. It was a wrap. I'm like,

(25:16):
I'm good exactly. Um. You know I'm sitting here listening
to you and looking at you with so much pride. Man,
thank you. I see you and t I and others
in your ILK as like professional athletes of the voice
and of creativity and of the and of of the
creative space. I'm a pro athlete. I think of the mind. Uh.

(25:37):
You know, it's just like at the top of your game,
hopefully in your chosen space, and using that skill and
that talent to now create, you know, rippled influence in
other places, which your your activism and your community involvement.
You you were walking through the airport in l a X.
When you're public, When you're public person, your friends don't

(25:59):
need to hit you up on text. They just look
at TMZ and you're a TMZ hit you and said
and and you said something, tell them what I'll tell
you because you spout so much. You you're asking you
basically about you know, the crime in l A. Yeah,
and that's how do we what we're gonna do about
this crime? And you said something really prophetic. You said, basically,

(26:21):
if you want to stop crime in in l A
or anyplace else, you need to have jobs, business and
the home ownership. The same things that stabilized to grow
and grow everyone else everywhere else should stabilize and grow us.
You agree with that absolutely. If you got home ownership,
you don't have people living essentially like gypsies. And you
know when when you're when when you're living like a jumpy,

(26:42):
you might not care about the home you're inning. You
might not care about the place we are because you
don't feel you wanna be there the rest of your life.
The difference in the neighborhood like the one me and
t I grew up in any time we were growing
up in, it's that people all on their home, so
people cut their grass. People make sure their neighbors grass
was cut. If a roof was messed up, people got
together and help with that roof. They help one another
there because there was a certain pride in being there. Um,

(27:03):
if you can't make sure people are prideful, then you
get neighborhoods that are dilapidated. Well, how do people assess pride?
Men assess pride by what they can do, what they
can protect, what they can provide for If our young
men in particular had trade skills to be able to
build themselves, to be able to be hired by contractors
that are building scotscrapers, you know, as well as the
houses that are around, there's a sense of pride that

(27:23):
comes with that. For our kids that are using their
mind or have an opportunity to come out of college
without the riddon, without the the the burden of debt,
then we can have those minds free to think a
new in innovative ways to be making money. If you
create that space and you create that opportunity. And he
told me there's nothing that happened for yeah, yeah, so um,

(27:45):
there's no There's there's nothing that happens politically that we're
not aware of twenty years ahead that can be that
that's gonna happen. So we know that the conditions at
the end of the last century were ones that would
lead to certain places we are now, and we can
start to self correct those too. If you take the
average eighth grader now, if we start teaching the eighth
grade of financial literacy now UM like my man Um,

(28:07):
Tony Rechler is into your into Um, Randall Solomon is
into Robert um Smith is into. If we start doing
those things right now, then that eighth grader, by the
time and graduates high school, it's ready to function financially
as an adult in the way the eighth graders aren't.
If we start bringing bad trades to high schools, book
Washington UM High School here not only offered academics UM

(28:30):
thirty years ago, it offered trades, whether it was out
of body mechanics, airplane mechanics. At George High School, one
of my favorite English teachers at my rival high school
actually learned how to poster chairs at books you watched
in high school. Then you get people who, while they're
pursuing a higher education at your more House, your Clark's,
your Morris Round Spellman's, can still go out on weekends
and do more than help with habit had for humanity,

(28:51):
but build their own houses to sell on lots that
their parents may have bought, and you start to fix
the bigger problem because people who are prideful don't need
to be running in the stores grabbing stuff out taking
it because they're able to buy it there. I called
my my wife called a contractor um on the property
I bought her for a birthday a few years back,
and she sent me a picture of him, and she said,

(29:12):
you stop up, stop slow, stop the press and stop everything. Slow,
slow the heck up. You're a rapper, you're a singer,
you're you're you're a TV personality, or you're an artist,
you're creative, genius, you you you, you know. You got
blinged up one side down and the way we're back up.
Tell me what you said. You bought your wife for

(29:32):
her birthday. Bought the house that her grandmother bought. Her
grandmother worked as a janitor and the housing projects and
owned h M a liquor house. The shot house is
what they would call the black community where you buy
because you used to couldn't buy. Look on Sundays in
Georgia and her grandma would sell shot to liquor and
she saved up that money and bought her house on
Norton Street. I bought that house back from the owner

(29:52):
from um who are momed so too? After remember the
dad I bought it for for a birthday and I
was making smart sexy baby. And that's what I'm talking only,
I think maybe the only piece we don't altogether, that's
just her house, right. So she sent me a picture
of the contractor who had been a deep way back
in the eighties and he still had his dope, jury
still had on a big run. Okay, this might not

(30:14):
be cheap, you know, but but you think about it.
You're a little boy, you're coming out on the driveway
in the nineties and you see him. He's not a
drug dealer. He's a contractor. There's a contractor here called
the Modern Crafts. When you guys go check him out.
VJ he um, he just did that beautiful modern modern
crasping in. Yeah, yeah, it's right on. But that brother

(30:36):
is on, the brother who did um TIA's bedroom and
he put up and and that beautiful lights and sofa.
See he looks like a club and soil in the bathroom. Yeah,
divine for me. By the stand up, going on, look
at check it out to your design. I asked that
brother that, I said, where, what what? What made you
want to be a contractor? He grew up in Chicago,
he said, I come out, he said, this one guy

(30:57):
man who had beautiful cars. Closer, he say, but it
was a van. He was a contractor. He owned this van.
He was contract And he said that made me want
to do that because he saw that example of success.
He saw, Yeah, I don't have to be a pimp,
a player, or a gangster in order to have a
nice car, in order for women to a door like me,
in order to have a nice house, I just have

(31:18):
to use my mind in my hands. And that's what
he did. And brothers one of the best contractors. I mean,
he ain't. He ain't building low class houses. This brother's
man I'm talking about. I had him do my basement.
I think, Lord have mercy. Well, I'm so glad he
was finished. I pay him. I'm gonna put some kids
through college. But um, but for for me, it's just
about putting the examples. I gotta think it was the

(31:39):
white teacher name Mr Jim Burton when I say that,
because I grew up in an area where they I
just I didn't experience white teachers. I had exactly so
growing up in Atlanta. Because the man name Mr. Jim Burton,
I'll never forget. He drove up to my summer school.
It made and he says, um, I gotta, I gotta
being dyslexic, I didn't want to do math all year,
so I go to summer school. I figured out going

(31:59):
to some school, I get my credits in summer school,
and that I could just do an extra art course
in the falling winter. And Mr Burtell said, how'd you
like to learn how to fly? And I was like,
I love, Let's do it. What do we need to do?
And he paid me and Slim from one twelve and
about twelve other students aviation mechanics and aviation. And that's
when I started learning using your mind. And my father

(32:20):
would say, who was a blue collar? Work? And my
father would say, you know, think work smarter, not harder.
And I just said, man, this is what it's about.
It's about figuring out beyond base education, what else can
I learn while I'm here? How are the products and
that I could think of, how the services I can
think of, how they're valuable in the bigger marketplace in
the world, and what could I do? And I just

(32:40):
I've been sewing it out my whole life. I don't
have it all figured out, but I'm figured that. I
was like, Oh, like you saw on the barbershop, we
actually on three well on the original barbershop on Roosevelt Highway,
we on um one end that the swack shop, the
shave washing groom shop. Um. If you look at corporations
like Floyd, like Rudy's, like Super Great Clips, traditionally these

(33:01):
are white owned establishments. He's a white thought of Um
there for black barbershops to have such a dominant force
in our community. There can be eight barbershops on one
block like over now on models came out of old pascals,
no remember closed now. So there's obviously a great business
in that, but no one has ever thought, let me
build a brand around Barbara and a lifestyle brand at
mass Craze is a barbershop, and let me grow this

(33:22):
a lifestyle brand that masquerais is a barbershop. That's what
my wife and I are doing with the swag shop.
Where what would you say again, your wife and you
are doing You know, I'm the co owner. I always
let people on the car on her. So you're doing
this with your with your wife as a business woman. Yeah, absolutely,
absolutely absolutely, She's sharpened me on business. So I listened
to her a lot. I know there was another time.
I'm like, gonna tell your business, but I know there's

(33:43):
another time. For her birthday. You gave her some money
put in an investment account or whatever for her birthday. Yeah,
So I want you guys to think about this now.
You know you you know, you can go get the
purse or whatever you want, But those are depreciating assets.
My man is investing in his woman. Who is which
is an appreciating asset. Yeah, she's she's an investing in
appreciative Yeah. She still gets some of adult girls stuff too,
Like she got the Gucci boost in the purse. I

(34:05):
think I bought her like thirty grand and stock that year,
and then another year I gave her like a Hunter
grant and for investment. So I just I want because
I know she's smart, turns in me many things, and
I don't ever want her to feel as though she's
only my wife. She's a fully functioning human being. She's
my partner and I honored that, but I sing it
like she She's fine to tell him, she said, make

(34:26):
sure you tell people I see it. I sing a
dance for folks for a living. You know, That's what
I do. But we ain't singing and dance. And once
I'm off that stage, we're doing business. My wife is since,
as you know, singlarly similarly smart. Yeah, she owns real
estate and uh Harlem one a few blacks owned property
and still in Harlem, uh in in Miami and in Chicago.

(34:47):
I tried to buy her property in Chicago. She's like, no,
you're not getting my nugget. This is my little nugget.
This is my nugget. I just asked her to day
to co chair the Family Foundation together and she's like,
you mean you mean Coley. So so look, you said
something earlier that reminds me of something Dr King's, I mean,
Ambassador Andrew Young said the same thing. By the way,

(35:08):
it's Dr Dr King's right arm in the civil rights
movement was Dr was Ambassador Andrew Young. He said about
a decade ago, John, if African Americans and minorities lose
political power and civil rights protections, we need the work
You're gonna be doing because because all will have his economics.
And he said, I don't think we're gonna get to

(35:29):
this point. I think it's gonna get that bad, but
but just make sure you stay focused. And now, unfortunately
we're at this moment, this inflection point where it looks
like this is actually, you know, if everything is sort
of at risk and we do need to be about economics.
You said something to me. I don't know if you
know how much I listened to you. I was in
the car. I know exactly where I was is four
o'clock in the afternoon. I was going around the corner

(35:51):
at the airport on the freeway, and you said to me,
John Black, people need an outsize business success story, an
outside business image of itself that's not just limited to
entertainment in sports. What do you mean by that that
we have to understand that the Robert Smith's to Michael V. Roberts,
to John Hope Bryant's, the Herman Russell's have existed, and
we have to understand that they're still in creation and existing.

(36:13):
Now we have to see ourselves as owners and we
and I don't mean in an imaginary place like to
see ownership Tony Rechler is the majority owners of HAGS,
A minority owner is Grand Hill business partner. And in
one and one day they're going to have majority owners
that look exactly, I'm gonna have more Magic Johnson's than not.

(36:35):
So the question becomes, why aren't we talking about that
as much as we're talking about the people who singing dancing,
the people that run bass very important to singing dance.
But when I hear about a player again the forty
and a hundred million dollar contract, my question becomes, who
can afford to pay it? So so when as you know,
Tony Resler pays that with this petty cash, absolutely the

(36:57):
billionaires showing up in a in a non script car,
sitting in the tenth row, he owns, the owns the team,
He writes the check, they cash it right, and the
ball is a running around with chains on and least
Ferrari's stuff. And it's all good. But I don't I
don't have I don't have with it. But just just
from Jamal mash Burnett, Shaquille O'Neil it, you know, Magic Johnston.

(37:19):
Figure out a way to make sure that your image
and what you're doing can make you and money in
the same way it makes money for others and understanding
the difference between making money and building wealth. Absolutely, you
can be you can have lifestyle riches, uh, but you'll
still go broke. You've got to build wealth, and you
build wealth in your sleep. Let's let's I don't want

(37:40):
us to run out of time. If we get to.
I want to get to one of your mini ventures,
which is Bank Greenwood. But Uh, the larger issue for
me is I'm gonna come back to this tsue of
of this moment in time post George Floyd got blesses
and got rest his soul. Uh. He gave his life
so we might have light. Um, we're in this inflection point, man,

(38:01):
and I don't know if this is gonna come around again,
but you know, I think we have ten years and
what I call a third reconstruction period, uh to get
this right and again social justice to an economic lens.
How I frame it, you may frame it completely differently.
What why are you doing what you're doing? What are
some of the things that you're doing the audience needs
to know about how can they support it? Uh? Let's

(38:21):
get into your vision for uh society right now? And
what's the opportunity for not just Black America, but all
of America. Well, let me tell all of America one thing.
When the black economy and the Black community is strong
and stable, the wider community is more strong and more stable. Boom,
all right, So when black families are strong, the greater

(38:44):
community is strong. When Black economics is strong, the greater
communities economics is strong. Right, That's just what it is.
So there's an there should be an interest in strengthening
the black communities from from a financial standpoint, because by
see the wider community get stronger, thanks get more um
loans given, those loans get paid back on time, those

(39:06):
neighborhoods stabilized, they create better schools because better tax neighborhoods
create better schools, creates better people in the workforce. Right,
if you don't have a strong Black community, and what
you're doing as achilles healing one of the greatest potential
economic driving forces in the world. So we need to
end the the the Achilles tending tear by finally making
good on what this country has promised us, and that's

(39:28):
equal opportunity for all. We have not had the equal opportunity.
I know a lot of my white brothers and sisters
listen to the radio on conservative stations and they hear
that things aren't fair. You had to get it out
the mud for Yeah, you know, you hear that stuff.
But you weren't red lined out of housing for eighty years.
You were. And that's not blaming pointing at you. That's

(39:52):
just saying that your great grandparents, your grandparents, and your
parents had an opportunity to build things like equity that
paid for education in a different way, even even an
educating educating students by you being under educated. When I
say Frederick Douglass to you, you just say, well, wow,
that's a piece of black history. You don't understand. That's
the most photographed person of the nineteenth century. He was

(40:14):
not only an advice of the President's and and and kings.
He was the person that was would have if clinking
and I've been assassinated, helped Lincoln set this country on
a path of true equity for people. It was a
doctor Martina King Jr. And Nelson Mandela of the eight hundred,
all wrapped in the one you know, and absolutely and
had the Freedman's Bank been successful and not been sabotaged

(40:36):
and really had been able to see this country would
be stronger economically now because it wouldn't have been walking
on an Achilles Hill because Jim crow last Is allowed
part of it to be kept eighty years behind so
that the real estate in Baltimore, Maryland after rented it
out the working class blacks, which gave him the financial
freedom to be a civil rights leader and a social
justice leader. Back to you, absolutely. So for me, what

(40:57):
I want for myself and for my wife is to
build our individual wealth because my grandparents told me take
care of yourself first. That individual wealth will help us
take care of, educate, and take care of not only
our family, but our friends and families in our direct
community around us. The stronger our community is, the more
we become a prototype for other communities to do the same.
That's why I want Atlanta to win. That's why I

(41:18):
want City of South full Toon to win. I want
the Calf County to win. I want Douglas Field to win.
I want newly elected people in Cobb County to win
that look like me, because if that happens, then this
state becomes an economic example for what's possible in Florida
and North Florida. What's possible in Laura and eastern Alabama's
possible in the Carolina's you have of African Americans living

(41:38):
in the South. Imagine if the South once again, you know,
past the King of the king Cotton days, where you
had the planner class who use a poor white class
as a buffer between them and those people that were slaved.
You could, finally in South Georgia have equality amongst working
class men because they're both making equal wages. At the
time the Civil rights movement was happening, the most the

(41:59):
big a group of people against unionizing in Civil rights
were poor white men in Mississippi who are being underpaid
by factories used by master class who looked just like them,
and then pitted against working class men whose fight for
unions made it better for everyone. That's the that's the
that's the pit we have to stop falling into. What

(42:20):
I would like to see for this country is for
this country to rise to James Baldwin's challenge and realize
that we're not going to pack up and go back
to Europe. We're not going to pack up and go
back to Africa. What we what we can do is
figure out a cooperative living here, a cooperative push for
one America in a way that one America does not

(42:40):
have to be ruled by one class of Americans, not
by one color, not by one creed that we could
finally take the best of George Washington Carver, with the
best of Franklin Devil de Leonore Roosevelt. We can take
the best of Frederick Douglas with the best policies that
were signed, even though reluctantly by the Baines Johnson, and
we could create some thing that's new and something that

(43:01):
delivers on the promise of equality and equity for all.
If we could do that, if we were willing to
put our egos to the side, this could possibly be
the greatest country that every came man. And when Madam C. J. Walker,
the first black manaire one her white suppliers, one absolutely
when when uh when uh doctor Dorothy Hight, who counseled
twelve presidents National Council of Negro Women, when she advised

(43:25):
Eleanor Roosevelt, a white, the white the female wife of
the president, the whole nation was h that the day.
The color is not white, black, red, brown, and yellow.
The colors green. That's right, It's not red or blue
as in political parties say it's always been green. We
just never we just didn't have it this ever had
this straight conversation. I want people listening to this, and

(43:47):
please tell everybody you know to listen to this podcast
and pass it on. I want people to listen to
this when we need to make things like this go viral.
This has been a wonderful conversation. I want people to
listen to this who are afraid of black progress US.
I want them to understand. This is about, to quote
my friend Stephanie Rule, this is about expanding the table
and adding a seat. This is not about a serial

(44:08):
some game of we win and you lose. There's four
things that never gone backwards, Mike, in all the world history,
American history. Real estate values, they've gone up, gone down.
Uh took we then unfortunately we've We've sold on the
dip when it went down, went back up, corrected above
the line, came down again, corrected above the line, went
back up. Stock market values the same thing went up,

(44:31):
crash went down. We sold in the dip because we
were afraid correct the financially literacy corrected above the line,
kept g d P gross domestic product are income for
this country never gone down, and the prospects of a
fifty five year old college educated white man has never
gone backwards in the history of this country. There's nothing
for from our white brother and sisters to worry about,

(44:52):
because when we win, they win. When we succeed, they succeed.
Because all boats rise, GDP increases, the economy expands. I
want that that message to be heard loud and clear,
that that either we succeed together as brothers and sisters,
or we will die together as fools. You can take
no pleasure from the fact it's a hole in my
end of our boat. And that's why I love for

(45:13):
a guy like you, who've got so much social currency,
who's so bilingual. I love seeing you go from Wall
Street to Main Street, from the Black Street to the
Latino Street. I love I love it that you started
you that your music crosses all racial barriers. By the way,
tell us a little bit about your music. On one
half of a rap group called Runner Jewels, It's me

(45:34):
and a white guy from Brooklyn, Me and Jamie Mullene
better known as LP the Creative Death Chucks Records, formerly
a member of company Flow to me, the greatest rapper
producer in the world because he writes his own wraps.
I sit there and watch him do it. He produces
his own beats. I sit there and watch him do it.
I UM, it took me ten years becoming overnight success.

(45:54):
You know, I tried along, and I pushed along and
had moderate success, had a lot of critical um, you know,
a lot of critical clapping. But what I didn't have
for the I had a one goal record, but I
didn't have a hugely successful singles career like my say
good friend to ya tea. I can make a hit
record and sleep, wake up, do it again after that. UM,

(46:16):
what I have is one of the most successful touring
groups in the world. When LP and I started working together,
in the first three hours, I called it guy to
put it together, like we're supposed to be making. This
is like Bomb Squad and Ice Cub together. UM. Since
then in the last ten years, ten years next year
will be the anniversary of rap music. On first solo
record he produced UM that came right out of Williams Street,
right overall, not not too far from here. And then

(46:37):
we formed a group. And there's something about cooperation and
collaboration that makes it unstoppable. And he and I have cooperated, collaborated.
He's one of my best friends in the world. We
make some of the best rap music in the world.
We get some of the best shows. And next year,
come March, will be opening for Rage against the Machine
um for for the full year. I was gonna be
out there, you know, and I'm gonna I'm gonna my

(46:58):
wife saries'ly gonna go make a lot of money. Were
going to invest in Bury and we'll visit in twenty years,
you know. So you're not just doing this for you
every time you say something it's a week. Yeah, yeah,
you know there was. You're trying to grow something for
your family. Yeah, leg I see your family, generational wealth
for your community. Got to do it. So so you're
better that if you believe that we're better together, yeah

(47:19):
we are. I mean what are we? You know? What?
What what can you? You know? If everyone does a little,
nobody has to do a lot. I truly believe that
if all of us do our little part, no one
has to do a lot. If there's one house on
the block whose yard is constantly unkept, if we as
neighbors agree to meet there on Saturday, we could spend
two hours in the yard has kept all us, you know.

(47:41):
And I'm not saying that because that's the philosophy. I'm
saying that because that's what we did in my neighborhood.
I remember cut miss Ruby Yard and my grandmother getting
twenty bucks one time. I thought I got twenty bucks
every time coming and she was like, no, you're not
gonna charge her. I was like, why is it? Because
she lived here before you did. She kicked up stuff
off the street for you, you know. And what I
and I understood and when whether it was there or

(48:01):
us going to say they made nursing home to help
people on Sundays, is that you owed something to the
people who had laid the foundation before you. And the
owen was was actual sweat. The owen was your little
bit of of a piece of your income going into
the pot that made sure that groceries you know, got around.
You know. So I owe So I say we, because
it is truly we. I can't do the ship myself.

(48:24):
You know, I'm married. I married. I married the woman
I married because you know, she's beautiful. Girl, got got
great bumpers, you know, top and bottom. But with that said,
man her mentality, her mentality bumpers. Yeah, you know, she's
felt like a Ferrari man sexy lines. But it's her mind. Absolutely,

(48:46):
it's it's her mind. I knew that as an artist,
I could get frivolous, I could get dreamy and flighty.
She wants to know the numbers, you know, and that
that's important that you have that balanced. Proverbs thirty one
ten through thirty one talks about that talks about the
type of woman. I'm not even I was raised in church,
but I'm not the most religious guy. But the lessons
and the moral lessons that you learned where I've I've

(49:07):
kept for most of my life. And I appreciate my
grandmother for in posing the money. I was talking to
shape my shade you this morning that where my shade
loves your shape yea, And yeah, I was talking about Uh.
They hung out so late one night I had to
go home and come back and get pick her him later.
But uh, I was talking to her this morning about
the donation that we're gonna make and I want to

(49:28):
check it with her, make sure she was cool with
it from a transaction I'm doing. And she's like, this
is cool, John's really nice. You're doing it. What are
you getting. She's like, I don't see anything in here
about what you're getting. Like, you know you're not gonna
spend all this time building up this company whatever, and
then you don't get anything now that that dog don't hunt,
charity starts at home. She wanted to make sure that
that her man was Okay, you need you need something.

(49:49):
You need something other than just arm candy, just something
other than que Look, when you go the folks, young people,
there's some young young people watching. Listen to this podcast.
I want you to do something. When you go to
COVID friendly vaccinated club. By the way, I got the
Blushers shop and just walk right through some COVID stuff
last week without being touched. I'm telling the shot works.
But you're going to you you go to the vaccinated

(50:11):
club or whatever, and you in there and you see
somebody attractive, good guy. You see a fine woman. Ladies,
you see a handsome man. He said, oh baby, you're
so fine, you're so gad. That's cool. Wait, what's your name?
Okay cool? What's your credit score? Yeah, with the credit score,
what are you passionate about? What's your purpose? Are we

(50:31):
better together? Because two plus two equals six or eight? Uh,
you know, can you raise children? Can you? Can you
run a household? If I build a house, can you
can you turn into a home? You know what? What's
your vision? We're gonna build something that we just were
we have. This is your partner, this is your business partner,
your life partner. It's serious, absolutely absolutely absolutely absolutely absolutely

(50:52):
so somebody, let's let's let's let you drop the mic
here as we wrap this thing up. Man if if
this all is about building, right, this about building the
good life? And I don't tell people what good life
they should want to just talking about building, building self esteem,
building your community, building spirituality, building net worth, build your
financial literacy. What's your building? As we wrap this thing up?

(51:12):
What is your building advice that you have for the listeners? What?
What vision do you have you want to leave these
folks with? And by the way, when you finish, how
can they reach you? How can they support you? But
what's your And we didn't tell me talking about Greenwood? Uh,
you can conclude that if you're like, but what what
what is before we get out of here? What's your building?
Perl of wisdom? Well, follow at bank Greenwood and follow

(51:36):
at Killer Mike and you can learn more about Greenwood
going to be talking about. That's the fintech company focused
on the black and Latin UM Latin X community. UM
focused on building wealth, focused on making sure we are
banking and not just simply check cashing places prevailors UM.
In terms of what's my personal philosophy and building, I
don't know if it applies to you, but what I

(51:57):
do know what has helped me is in dreaming far
bigger than that currently dream. That means, whatever my biggest
dream is, now, force yourself to dream bigger. I wanted
to own um my uncle's garage. You own. He was
the first business owner that that. I just admired it.
My wife says, now that you've gotten a building to
do your office, I'm gonna take this and we're gonna
go four flows up. We're gonna build apartments. I never

(52:19):
thought of that. She thought of that. You know, So
be with someone that thinks of dreams bigger than you.
If you're not live less than people suspect um, you know,
live below your means. If you can get the million
on at home, get the half a million on at home,
you know what I mean? You don't, you don't have
to show everything. I always tell people, you know, be
cool at lane, being rich, play broke. You know, those

(52:44):
are the things, and this is all things I just
learned from old people, you know what I mean. So
be modest um, like for the jury I have on
the day, I have lots more jury. I warned my
mother and my grandmother just watch. I bought off a
widow who just had you know, she didn't want to
keep for husband's watched. She didn't want someone to have
it who wouldn't care about it. So I bought it off.
You know I didn't. I never would have bought a

(53:06):
Rolex with diamonds um, but if it would help a
friend out and then keep it around and she do
not take care of it, I did it because my
favorite Rolex is a submariner. My wife bought me for
my birthday with no jewels in it. It's just beautiful
blue and gold. I had always wanted a submarine. I
didn't need to watch after that, so I tried my
very best to live like my grandfather fifty. I'll probably

(53:26):
just start wearing overalls and work boots like him, you know,
So you know, be cool egg Lane. You know what
I'm saying, be rich, play broke, you know, just just
be be modest. Be My friend Bear told me Barlow
a bear strong shouts out to them. They just collected
a bunch of money and stuff um for kids who
don't have Christmas and essentials like you know, the underwear,

(53:46):
socks and winter coats, stuff like that. And we're gonna
go to four seasons. I think that Sunday and gives
them stuff away. But Bear says, you know, when you
hear the meek schelling hair dirth, you often think the weak,
weak meek people aren't weak. A meek man don't have
a sword and have the ability to kill you. But
simply because he knows you're a fool, won't you know?
He says, so the intelligent will, those that are prepared

(54:07):
for war but don't have to engage in it, Those
are going to be the inheritance because they're using their mind.
You know, if you read the article or it talks
about the ultimate form of war, being able to solve
the problem with your mind. Talks about the brother whose
name is no not not even outside the house, because
he can see sickness before whatever forms and correct behaviors
that start sickness. So just try to be that, try
to use your mind on a daily basis. You know,

(54:29):
think it's nothing, it's nothing shameful about making a mistake.
Make the mistake, learn from the mistake, adjust and try
it again. You know, give yourself some time and give
yourself a break. Don't beat yourself up for failing. You know, um,
I would almost say expect failure, don't expect failure, and
just later and say I failed, but expect something not
to go perfect. So when it doesn't, you learn from

(54:51):
the imperfections and you're starting to appreciate the skills you
developed as a result of it. That's how. And accept correction.
You've had to call me and correct me. And you
when you have to accept correction, you know, but but
but but absolutely it was done in love, and you
wouldn't have corrected me some people, you know, and people
don't love you to help. Just watch you fail and
watch it be a fool, but accept correction. You know.

(55:12):
I know people used to hearing sexyr stuff. But but
you know, very very plainly, very very simple stuff, very
very um using common sense, you know, trusting your intuition
when something sounds too good to be true, you know,
doing your homework, really doing your due diligence. That type
of stuff comes into play, you know, And I think
you'll be okay and realize that much like my great

(55:34):
grandparents realized we are the cornerstone for something greater. I
know my great grandmother I knew so she was I
was ten years old, I think when she died, for
I was the sickly child. They sent us to the farm.
I got als and I can't do much. I'm scared
of everything. You know what I'm saying. I'll never forget
a dog out at a chicken. And I went in

(55:55):
and said dogs that the chicken. She came out, pulled
a twenty two, like out of an apron po pop
the dog like a wild dog, right in the thigh.
It's getting out of there. She picked up the chicken,
rain the neck, the chicken hands in her the chicken
heads in her hand. The chicken I was just playing
with his running around headless. She looks at me and says,
go fetch me some water. So I run out of
the back door all the way to the lake. And

(56:16):
I tell my cousins like big moms who went crazy.
She killed the dogs to kill the chicken. You're gonna
kill us all. And they laughed at me. They brought
the girls throughout the water back and water was boiling.
That chicken was plucked. The chicken was on the table
at three or thirty because she wasn't gonna waste that chicken,
even if the dog at it. But she took me
behind the house later on family some ice cream and
just kind of sat and had a moment with me

(56:37):
because what she understood is that I was afraid. I
was scared, but I wasn't above learning. I had to
understand where food really came from. I had to understand
in the process to learn not to waste, and I
had to learn to not let fear consume me. And
after that moment, I was never the same. After that moment,

(56:57):
I was much stronger on that farm. After that moment,
I was much more a brave, much more adventurous. But
it took her having to show me this is the
world is hard, the world is not fair, but you're
built for it, your child, You're mostly made a water.
You follow, You'll get back up, wipe y'all. You know,
I'll never forget one time I pete in my pants
on the farm. She just put me in front of
the fire, let me draw out, send me back outside.

(57:18):
I mean so and and I have been blessed to
have been around people that did not protect me from struggle.
Run into the fight that rainbows after storm. Absolutely so,
here we go with another master class, my man killing
Mike A Michael Render. It's proven that you can be

(57:40):
high tech and high touch. You can go from your
street to Main Street to Wall Street and back. You
can be authentic. You can speak to King's English and
translate into job as you want to and retain your dignity,
your authenticity, and your and show your intelligence all the
same breath. He tells you to run into the fight,

(58:04):
don't don't run away from it. He tells you that
the calmest place in the hurricane is a center. He
tells you that we may want to be locked into
fear and I talked about in love leadership, or we
want to embrace struggle as what happens when you're just
dealing with drama all the time. Then you get a

(58:27):
surviving mentality. He tells you to rise above that and
find the light and gain a thriving mentality and then
a winning mentality, because winners of buildings. Everybody who's a
winner believed they are a winner before they ever wanted anything.
And going back to every segment of Michael's story, even
though he wasn't really raised by his mom and his dad,

(58:48):
he was raised by his grandparents. He had all he
raised so called poor. He was raising underserved areas he had.
He did not the advantages, but he made his own
advantage over the round it, through it, he just got
to it. He decided he was going to build his
life as he was going to live his life to
a maximum potential. Reminds me of Dr King said, if
you are going to be a trash collector, to be
the best trash collector of the world's ever seen. Whatever

(59:12):
you do, do it with excellence, do it with your
whole life, leaning it with and run into the fight.
This is John Hope bryan and this has been building
the good life. Building the good Life with John Hope
Bryant is brought to you by Predentials Financial