Two-time Emmy and Three-time NAACP Image Award-winning, television Executive Producer Rushion McDonald interviewed Mildred J. Mills.
Topic: Life journey, resilience, and her memoir Daddy’s House: A Daughter’s Memoir of Setbacks, Triumphs, and Rising Above Her Roots
Mildred J. Mills shares her powerful story of growing up on a cotton farm in Alabama as one of 17 children, overcoming domestic violence, poverty, and systemic barriers to become a successful IT executive, author, podcaster, and motivational speaker. Her memoir is a testament to resilience, faith, and self-determination.
🎯 Purpose of the Interview
- Promote her memoir and its message of overcoming adversity.
- Inspire entrepreneurs and small business owners with her story of resilience and reinvention.
- Highlight the importance of storytelling as a healing and motivational tool.
- Encourage faith over fear in personal and professional growth.
🔑 Key Takeaways 🌾 Humble Beginnings
- Grew up on a 60-acre cotton farm in Whitaker, Alabama.
- Picking cotton was physically brutal and emotionally taxing.
“You’re bent at a 90-degree angle all day picking cotton… it hurts.”
📚 Writing the Memoir
- Wrote the book after age 60 to heal and share wisdom.
- Did not consult her husband before publishing — it was her story to tell.
“I didn’t want anybody telling me… ‘Why didn’t you do it this way?’ It is my story.”
💪 Resilience Defined
- Resilience means getting up after being knocked down.
- She credits her mother’s wisdom and her own determination.
“Failure is not an option… I wasn’t going back to that cotton field.”
🧠 Faith Over Fear
- Her guiding principle is faith over fear — trusting in the journey despite uncertainty.
“Fear sits on your shoulder and says you’re not good enough. Faith says walk through the door.”
🏫 Education & Mentorship
- A white teacher saw potential in her and helped her escape the cotton fields by recommending a tech school.
- Her father, despite initial hesitation, paid for her education in cash.
“He paid \$500 in 1969 — a lot of money for a farmer.”
👩💻 Career & Independence
- Became an IT executive, starting in 1969 as a computer programmer.
- Advocates for women’s financial independence and self-worth.
“God gave me gifts that I must share… I’m not going to depend on somebody else.”
📖 Future Projects
- Upcoming book: The Hope Club — explores the impact of incarceration on families, especially children.
“I’ve seen what such a life can do to children… it breaks up families.”
💬 Memorable Quotes
- “Do the best you can with what you have.” — Her mother’s mantra.
- “Don’t expect someone else to pay for your dreams.”
- “I’m no victim. I’ve never been a victim.”
- “We’re not dreaming big enough.”
#SHMS #STRAW #BEST
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Him.
Speaker 2 (00:00):
Rashan McDonald host this weekly Money Making Conversation Masterclass show.
The interviews and information that this show provides off for everyone,
and I'm talking about you. It's time to stop reading
other people's success stories and start living your own.
Speaker 3 (00:13):
Now.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
If you want to be a guest on my show,
Money Making Conversations Masterclass, please visit our website, Moneymakingconversations dot
com and click to be a guest button. Now we've
said all that, Now let's get this show started. My
next guess is a nationally recognized author, podcaster, and motivational
speaker whose storytelling journey begin on a sixty acre cotton
(00:35):
farm in with Tompka, Alabama, which is right outside of Montgomery,
where she was born. The third of seventeen children, Now
retired it executive. A bestselling memoir, Daddy's House, a daughter's
memoir of setbacks, triumphs, and rising above her roots, offers
a raw and healing account of childhood, trauma, domestic violence,
(00:56):
and resilience. Please welcome to Money Making Conversation Master Class.
Mildred J.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
Mills. Hey, don Mildred, Well how about you miss Mills?
Which which way, Mildred is wonderful, great, you look very fashionable.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Is fashionate part of your past and your current future?
Speaker 3 (01:13):
Well we move forward?
Speaker 4 (01:15):
Well, I don't know about that. No, no, no, I
was a model at one point, but I.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
Also okay, you see you model at what point?
Speaker 4 (01:22):
I was? But I also grew up picking cotton, so
there were no modeling in that in that field?
Speaker 2 (01:26):
How do you balance? How did how did that happen
to go from? Because that's part of your intro cotton,
you know, And you hear that word cotton, you hear
hard work, you hear slavery, you hear South.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
Did I miss anything?
Speaker 4 (01:41):
No, you didn't. It's so funny that you should mention slavery.
When I one of my nieces told her little boy
that I had written a book. He said, and he said,
she grew up picking cotton. He said, WHOA were you
a slave? I said, no, I wasn't a slave, but
I worked on daddy's far.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
Tell us about picking cotton? What was that like?
Speaker 4 (02:04):
Oh, it's a it's a brutal business, it really really
is it. You know, think about being a little girl
sticking your fingers in those bulls. I don't know bulls
as in bol l not bill w Well, it just
kind of tears your cuticles up.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
You know, it's it's hard. You have to bend your back.
Speaker 4 (02:19):
Of course, when you're little you have to you can
reach up, but as you grow older you have to bend.
So you're bent at a ninety degree angle all day
picking cotton. And it's a it's a nasty business and
it hurts.
Speaker 3 (02:30):
Now as you're growing up.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
You know your book, I got to copy your book,
Daddy's House, A Dolter's memoir of set back triumphs and
rising above her roots?
Speaker 3 (02:39):
What are you saying in this title?
Speaker 4 (02:42):
What I'm saying in that title is where I grew
up was in my daddy's house, and nobody there was
no confusion about who ruled that house.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
That was my daddy.
Speaker 4 (02:51):
But what I'm saying in that title about a daughter's
memoir of growing up and rising above her roots, You know,
it doesn't matter where you're born. I was born in
a place on a sixty acre farm where my father was.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
He was pretty.
Speaker 4 (03:07):
He was a rough guy, but he taught me so
much about life, and so I rose above those routes
by becoming somebody. As a child, I was who my
father and my mother wanted me to be. But as
a woman, I was determined to be myself. I didn't
know who that was as a child, but as I grew,
you know, I just decided that I wanted something different
(03:29):
for myself.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
So why was important you write a book? It was important,
well after age sixty.
Speaker 4 (03:34):
I think so many of us have so much knowledge
after a certain age. You know, when you're twenty, what
are you going to talk about? You know, how bad
your parents treated you, those kind of things. But after
age sixty, and especially I think as a black woman
growing up in the South and noticing so many changes
that happened. Some of them were amazing, you know, but
(03:55):
then there are some other things that like I never
ever as a child, so a white only sign all
those things, even though I grew up in the fifties
and the sixties. So I thought that it was important
to write this book to first of all, heal myself
from some of the things that I did experience as
a child and that I did experience as an adult
(04:16):
as an adult, but also to tell about some of
the beautiful things that happened to me and as a
woman and as a person. I think about buying my
first house and I didn't realize that when I bought
that house in nineteen seventy six, that it was only
the year before that a woman could get credit in
her own name.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
I mean, you just think about these things. And I
was so.
Speaker 4 (04:38):
You know, they say ignorance is bliss, and I absolutely
believe that, because I was ignorant to the fact that,
first of all, women hadn't been able to do these things.
And when I met the realtor, he said, you're divorced.
I said I am, and he said we don't normally
sell houses to divorced women.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
And I thought, wow, well I really don't care. I
want to buy to seventy six. This was nineteen seventy six.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Yes, that's you know, when you think about it that
you know slavery, you talk about emancipation, you talk about
the voting right acts.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
It's not that far apart. It's not that far that
I was living during all those things.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Now, when you this is a very honest book that
you've written, you're married.
Speaker 3 (05:21):
I am when you.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
Thought about this idea of pretty much confessing about your
past and offer it as motivation for others who realize
you overcome the odds. Oh, this is about overcoming their odds.
It is what was it conversation like with your husband.
Speaker 4 (05:43):
I didn't have a conversation with my husband about writing
my book. The first time my husband knew what was
in that book was when he read it.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
Was it published? Yeah? What was it published? When you
read it? I was finished with it for sure. I
think it might have been published me too, pull it
back those memories. Yeah, it was absolutely it was published. Okay,
(06:13):
it was published. Okay, why did you do it that way?
Because first of all, it is my story?
Speaker 4 (06:20):
And second of all, you know, the more people you
stick you say, well, what do you think about this?
Speaker 3 (06:24):
What do you think?
Speaker 4 (06:25):
I'm not sure I really care what anybody thinks about it,
because it is my story and I wanted to be
an honest story. And you know, I remember being in
a writing group one time and this woman and this
is before I published anything, so and this person would
always say all these negative things, and you know, you
get all this stuff stuck in your head and you think, well,
(06:47):
why would I write a book? You know, nobody's gonna
read it, nobody's going to like it, all these things.
So when I decided that I was going to write
this story, I just sat down. I worked with a
mentor and I wrote it, and I did it that
way because I didn't want anybody telling me, well, why
didn't you remember memoir? It is my story, and if
you have a different one, you tell it.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
But in telling the story, and you have somebody you love, yes,
and you still move forward with this honest telling. And
I want to say, the honest telling is Daddy's House,
a daughter's memoir, memoir of set back triumphs and rising
above her roots.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
I'm speaking with Mildred J.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
Mills, the author of this basically an autobiography of her
life of a resilience. What does resilience mean to you?
And I will get back to your husband, but I
want to get the resilience first.
Speaker 4 (07:38):
Resilience to me me, Well, I'm an aries woman. Let
me just say that, you know, and I mean that
doesn't define me. But I am just willing to take
chances first of all. And resilience means to me, when
you get knocked down, get up, don't lay there wallowing
in it. I've said to my children before. I remember
(07:58):
driving my son, or flying on an airplane with my
son headed to University of Michigan when he was starting college,
and I said, we all have we all have.
Speaker 3 (08:08):
Set That was your son with your first husband.
Speaker 4 (08:09):
Right, that's no, my son is my youngest child.
Speaker 3 (08:12):
Okay, cool, I apologize, that's right. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (08:14):
But anyway, I said to him, we all fall. But
it isn't the bump in the road that you hit.
It's whether you sit there and stay in it. I said,
a car hits a bump, you got to keep moving
or you're stuck.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
So resilience to me means move on.
Speaker 4 (08:30):
I'm no victim. I've never been a victim, and I'm
not going to be a victim. So resilience means just lord,
take those lessons and learn from you.
Speaker 3 (08:39):
And read your book. I don't want to. I never
saw you as a victim in this book. I'm not actim.
And I want to make sure.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
People understand that this is a book about her life,
about the relationships the men who came into her life.
The man who's currently in her life is supporting her,
and I love her, loves her dealers, she loves him
and the children that are in her life. But along
the way, we all have bumps in the road. And
this is an entrepreneurial show. It's based on motivation. You're
(09:07):
an influencer, your podcaster, from an entrepreneurial stand, from a
small business owner, how do you equate resilience to them
when they are struggling to overcome their odds.
Speaker 4 (09:21):
Well, I get up and look in that mirror every
day and I say, you know, you've been through some things,
But guess what you can teach somebody else to keep
moving through these things, because just you can't teach resilience.
I don't think. I think you either have it or
you don't.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
That's true. I really believe that.
Speaker 4 (09:42):
And to me, failure is not an option. It's never
been an option for me. So if I hit a bump,
I knew I wasn't going back to that cotton field.
I grew up picking cotton. So I figured out how
to keep moving forward. And not only that, I hear
my mother's voice in my ear saying, do the best
you can what you have.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
And I didn't always.
Speaker 4 (10:03):
I couldn't always sit here in a nice, as you say,
fashionable kind of way, you know, But she said.
Speaker 3 (10:10):
She's very fashionable. For everybody who's listening to the show.
I can't see her.
Speaker 4 (10:15):
Yeah, but she said, if you only have one dress,
or if you only had one she said, pair of underwear,
whatever that is. She said, wash it the night before,
get your tail in the bed, and get up in
the morning and put it on. And I've done that now, yeah,
I've been there, so have I, you know, and it's okay.
And so she taught pride, so that resilience. I think
(10:35):
there's a lot of pride in being resilient. You know,
you get knocked down, and I can't imagine going telling
my father. I wouldn't have told my parents, well I'm
struggling out here, because he would have said, I got
a cotton sack with.
Speaker 5 (10:46):
Your name on, so you're never going to pick up again. No, no, now,
let's get back to my favorite person to husband. Book
comes out, you can't tell them anything about it. When
did he start reading, how did he read it? And
did he finish it?
Speaker 2 (10:59):
When he read it or did he comment on certain
parts of the book as he was going through the
process of reading it.
Speaker 4 (11:06):
He did not say a word. I handed him the
book when it came out, and I said, I know
you don't like to read.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
He doesn't like to read books.
Speaker 4 (11:16):
He my husband reads all the time, but he does
he won't pick up a book to read it. So
I handed him that book. I said, no, no, but
here's my story, most of it, most of it, you know.
And when he finished, he said, on this one point,
he said, you didn't tell me such and such. I said,
(11:38):
when I met you, I had two children, you know,
and when I met you you had a child. I said,
we had lives. And I said, I've told as much
as I could. But you know, when you're sitting to
write your book, sometimes things come to you.
Speaker 3 (11:53):
That's very true. I've been unfortunate, I would.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
Steven Ah Smith is one of my clients, and I
worked with his on his memoir Straight Shooter.
Speaker 3 (12:02):
I loved his book.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
And as we were going through and the storytelling it,
actually your mind kind of like blocks out, especially blocks
out bad stuff.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
It does.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
And as you start writing, you started remembering things and
the details of your mind is really impressive when it
starts revealing details. Tell us about that whole storytelling, like
your husband, you.
Speaker 3 (12:26):
Didn't tell it because guess what, you probably didn't remember it.
Speaker 4 (12:29):
Right, And that isn't what our life has been about,
is just sitting there telling you every detail of my life,
you know, because how boring is that usually, but sitting
there writing that book, like for instance, things, I worked
in it for almost forty years. I started out as
an eighteen year old girl back in nineteen sixty nine,
learning how to come how to how to program computer boards.
(12:54):
So computers have memory, and you know, and whenever you
needed you go in. I mean there's an or whatever
and it goes and picks up that data or whatever.
So as you're writing, all these things come back that
you haven't thought about in forever. So you know, absolutely
I didn't. But anyway, when he finished it, I said,
so you read my story of setbacks, triumphs and rising
(13:17):
above my roots, and that's what you brought to me.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
I said, come on absolutely. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (13:26):
After then, so of course you then you start seeing
the Amazon reviews come out and they are all these
things like, oh my god, how courageous, how brave to
tell that story, you know, And I.
Speaker 3 (13:37):
Said, please don't go anywhere.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
We'll be right back with more Money Making Conversations master Class.
Welcome back to Money Making Conversation master Class with me
Rashaun McDonald. You know, I love your story. I love
stories about individuals come out.
Speaker 3 (13:59):
One of my face.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Every people's attorney tesse efforts. You know she had. She
she's now very popular, a lawyer, an attorney, and a
firm in the city of Atlanta. Had two children before
the age of eighteen. She had five kids before she
was thirty. And her resilience. And I have to use
(14:20):
that word because, like you said, that that's something you're
born with. You know, you can be born with being stubborn,
you can born with being outspoken.
Speaker 3 (14:30):
I guess resilience guides me.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
I think the ability to be able to not accept
failure guides me. Now, let's talk about going back to
the cotton form, because that was an environment. Seventeen kids, yes.
Speaker 4 (14:46):
Okay, third seventeen children.
Speaker 3 (14:49):
Yes, how did you get out?
Speaker 4 (14:52):
How did I get out of the cotton field? Interestingly enough,
back in nineteen sixty seven, my father decided to send
us I should say my parents, but it was my
father's decision to send us to an all white school.
It was in our all black we were in the
middle of segregation and it was you could volunteer to
(15:13):
send your children to a white school as a black parent,
and my father decided to send us to a white school.
So during that time, I had a social studies teacher
who would read from these books.
Speaker 3 (15:26):
I mean we read. She taught et cetera.
Speaker 4 (15:28):
And she would when she read about negroes, which is
what we recalled back then, she would say nigra And
it was just such a it just made the hair
on the back of your next stand up.
Speaker 5 (15:41):
Think.
Speaker 4 (15:41):
And this lady is oviicually educated, so you mean to
tell me. But anyway, so I thought that she was
a racist. I mean I didn't. I thought she had
something against black children, that's who she was teaching. But
in my senior year, this lady asked me to come
to her office. She says, what you going to do
when after high school? And I said I'm not sure.
(16:04):
She said, do you think your father would let you
go away? I said I don't know. And she said, well,
I'm going to give you a test, and she did it,
and I now know that that was the act test,
and she said, you scored very high in the math area,
very high math aptitude. So one day she gives me
this envelope, a white envelope and it's sealed, and she says,
say take this to your father. And now I know
(16:25):
that inside that envelope was information about this technology school
to learn how to program computer boards and keep unch.
Speaker 3 (16:35):
So to my father's credit.
Speaker 4 (16:38):
And he said to me the day before he drove
me to Ohio, who do you think is going to
Who do you think is going to do all that
work we've taught you how to do? Because I did
a lot of things that some of the other children didn't.
And I thought to myself, how is that my problem?
Speaker 3 (16:53):
I don't know?
Speaker 4 (16:55):
And I did say I said, I don't know, and
he said, well, I'm going to talk to Mama tonight.
We're going to decide whether we can still let you go.
And I thought to myself, I've never done anything except
be just this obedient child and done everything you've ever
asked me to do. And I thought, you better make
the right decision because I'm out of here. Whether you
I'm saying this to myself absolutely or whatever, but that's
(17:19):
how I got out. And they actually allowed me to leave.
And not only did he allow me to leave, he
paid cash for my education five hundred dollars back in
nineteen sixty.
Speaker 3 (17:30):
Nine, which is a lot of money, A lot of
money at Fort Farmer. Right.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
Now, let me ask you this, okay, was your father
a cotton picker?
Speaker 3 (17:37):
Or did he have another job or that was his job.
My father was a brick mason and a carpenter.
Speaker 4 (17:43):
Okay, yeah, and he now during during the cotton picking kill.
Oh absolutely, my father was a Yeah. In fact, he
built he built my aunt's house by himself. I'm just
saying he yeah, he had Yeah, he had a skill.
In fact, in the winter time when they're us no
cotton to pick and no way to earn money and
feed his family through that farm, he traveled to Mississippi
(18:08):
and Louisiana to He left out on a Sunday night
with his chicken and all this stuff packed in a
packed and then he came back on Friday nights. And
I tell you he was a rough fella in that house.
But when we saw him coming home on a Friday night,
his children were running out the house, just welcoming daddy home.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
You know, when you leave that world, you know now
you're into another world, another space. How did the men
get introduced into your life? The very first one that
had an important role in your life?
Speaker 4 (18:40):
The first the person that had the first man that
had a role in my life was my first boyfriend
and I met him at a night club years two.
Speaker 3 (18:51):
Other girlfriend didn't think highly correct.
Speaker 4 (18:54):
No, no, no she did, she told you, yes she did,
but she wasn't very good either, very nice.
Speaker 6 (19:01):
No.
Speaker 4 (19:01):
But I met my first boyfriend at a night club.
He was singing A Change is Gonna Come.
Speaker 3 (19:07):
Sam and Cook, Yeah, my favorite song.
Speaker 4 (19:10):
Yeah, I met I met him there, and actually I
dearly I loved I dearly loved that guy.
Speaker 3 (19:15):
You know, it was my first love.
Speaker 4 (19:17):
And so but when something terrible happened in my life,
I didn't have his phone number, any of these kind
of things. So I evaporate. I we evaporated out of
each other's lives and that.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
But that's part of life. But one of the three
words you live by is what fear?
Speaker 3 (19:37):
Fear, faith, not faith. Faith over fear, Faith over faith
over fear are the three words you live by.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
Now, A lot of people use the word faith when
they are when they're making decisions, they are fear. Faith
comes into everybody's life, you know, But fear over faith.
Speaker 3 (19:58):
Explain that to us, Faith over fear, faith fires.
Speaker 4 (20:01):
Yes, I mean, fear is something that kind of sits
on your shoulder and tells you you're not good enough.
Beer is something that sits on your shoulder. And say,
what makes you think you should be in this sitting
in this seat talking to Rushan McDonald. You know, for
goodness sake, that's a pretty Yeah, that's that's really something.
(20:21):
But faith is you know, you walk to a door.
I heard a sermon this past Sunday and this guy said,
when I think about faith, I think about Goldilocks. He says,
you think about Goldilocks walking into a bear's house.
Speaker 3 (20:34):
You know.
Speaker 4 (20:34):
She said, I'm tired. She went and sat in somebody's chairs.
She said, I'm sleepy. She laid in that bed. You know,
so the door was there, you just walk through it, right,
just having faith that you know, if I get on
the other side of that door, there's something that can
help me move on through this this thing called life.
Speaker 6 (20:52):
So well, i'd buy that if it was a real story.
It goes locks into three baths, you know, No, I
did after the show.
Speaker 3 (21:02):
Yeah, but I feel kind of that same way. You know,
if you I think that in life.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
You know, the reason I'm impressed with you and impressed
with the people that come on my show is I
try to delve into the truths because there's so many
people out there that are living life, dreaming, about options,
dreaming about in pain, and so you wrote a book,
and your book is telling your pain, and you're using
(21:29):
that pain to motivate others. And I try to translate
to to entrepreneurs, influencers and small business owners because that's
what you are doing. You know, I'm not you know
there are people working forty our week jobs. But I
really do believe that what you do and what you're saying,
(21:51):
it's a different type of person that takes this story
and values and even more so not saying that the
forty hour week person doesn't. But when you make a
commitment meant to be an entrepreneur, you have walked through
a different lane of life. You said, look, I'm betting
on myself. That's when you got in that called your
dad and he told you, hey, me and mom got
(22:13):
to talk. You went, Dad, you don't when I'm gone.
Speaker 3 (22:17):
Talk all you want to. My time on this war
is over is gone.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
And then when you got out there, you know, the
teachers saw something in you academically and gave you an
option that you didn't even see. Because that's about mentorship.
That's about I will tell people, and I repeat the
story a lot. When I was fifteen years old. My
first job because my father was a truck driver. He
took me to get a job loading boxes. And the
(22:43):
first guys who impressed me were forkliff drivers, these black guys.
Speaker 3 (22:46):
They were driving a forklift. Boy. There I was like,
I was like, my mom was dropped over. I couldn't
believe it.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
And so, despite all my academic training in high school,
the job I wanted was to be a fork cliff driver.
And so when I got out of high school, I
became a forklift driver because that's all I wanted to be,
because that's all I thought I could be. But somebody
told you, no, you could be more than that. So
you've lived your life with somebody planting that sea is.
Speaker 3 (23:16):
That's what this book about.
Speaker 4 (23:18):
That book is about that because my mom always said
my mom and I talk about my children, and my
grandkids probably get sick of me saying what Mama told me.
Mama said, do the best you can what you have,
and whatever that is, you know you can always do
better if you just keep looking for keep your eyes
on the prize, keep looking. She said, don't be like me,
(23:40):
And I thought, Mama, what's wrong with you? She said,
don't allow somebody else to always have to hand you something.
She said, don't put yourself, she said, I want my
girls to have something for themselves. I always want you
to have something for yourself. And that always stayed with me.
And I remember my first husband said to me once that, well,
what are you gonna What do you want to go
(24:02):
get a job for. I said, I have a child
to take care of. And he said but and I thought,
but you're.
Speaker 3 (24:09):
Not worthing me. You know, I'm gone.
Speaker 4 (24:12):
And not only that, I said, God gave me gifts
that I must share, right, you know, and I'm going
to share the gift of my hands and my talent
and all these things. I'm going to get out of
here and go to work and I will never ever
My mother said, have something for yourself, and I thought,
I'm never going to have to. I'm not going to
depend on somebody else.
Speaker 3 (24:33):
I'm going to ask you this question.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
At eighteen years of age, you left the house, right, okay,
and you spend a dominant amount of your life not
in your father's house. Why is the name of your
book Daddy's House?
Speaker 4 (24:45):
Because I mean, even when I left that house, when
I would go back to that house and Also when
my mother passed, we always said, we go into Daddy's house.
And I still see in that house. I was the
first of those seventeen children born in that house, and
it's still standing today. And when we and I have
(25:06):
three siblings who have built a house on the property
that I grew up on, and my parents left us
acreage on that property. So for you, at Christmas time
or Thanksgiving time, we go to Daddy's house, you know,
and we still call it Daddy's house. I call it
Daddy's house because that was very fond to me. And
actually a book person told me, well, I don't like
(25:31):
the name Daddy's house. And I said, I do you know.
I like the name of Daddy's house. And then I like,
you know what comes after that?
Speaker 2 (25:38):
Well, I think it's important to tell your story. I
can question it. I can question it. I've been fortunate
in my life to be a storyteller. I like to
tell people I am a storyteller because I hear so
many stories. And I see you read so many different books,
and and but what I can read books about motivation,
I go, I do that. I can read books about
(25:58):
planning and goals. I said, I do that. But I
can't when I read this book, this is your fuck.
I wasn't in daddy's house. I was not picking college.
Speaker 3 (26:08):
You were.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
Nobody drove me to a school. In fact, my father
didn't want me to go to college.
Speaker 3 (26:12):
You know.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
He wanted my sisters to go to college because he
thought that was what they were.
Speaker 3 (26:16):
Supposed to do.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
But he thought I should be doing manual label. That
was the house I grew up in, and that was
my father's value. So I'm not upset with him because
I did.
Speaker 3 (26:25):
Like you. I don't care what you do. I don't
care what you say. Dad. I'm going to college. I'm
going to do this.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
And I need to understand why I was going to
college because a teacher saw something in me and pushed
me to go to college after I made a commit
the commitment to be a fuck lyft driver.
Speaker 3 (26:40):
And so that's what that's what my dream. I was
gonna mean, what else is there? Right? Right?
Speaker 2 (26:46):
Because that's all I knew. But so many people see
things in you that goes beyond that. So as you
go through life, I know in your book there's a
there's a pimp in your life, and there was a
lead to me.
Speaker 1 (26:57):
Now I just want people to know because of you know,
but those are the moments when life.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
I can tell you some stories in my life where
even though I didn't tell drugs, I was in drug
related environments, you know, and because that's what life is.
But as for aspiring entrepreneurs and creators, what advice do
you give them based on who you are and what
you've accomplished as a person who came from this point
in life, got educated, has had children, went in to
(27:34):
the direction of it, and we know they weren't.
Speaker 3 (27:36):
Talking it on that cotton form.
Speaker 4 (27:41):
Talk to us, having come from where I came from.
You know, I just say dream We're not dreaming big
enough some of us.
Speaker 3 (27:51):
Right, Why do you say that?
Speaker 4 (27:53):
I say that because, well, you didn't dream very big,
but something took you outside.
Speaker 3 (27:58):
Yeah, something took you outside of that.
Speaker 4 (28:00):
In fact, open your mind up to see something. Besides,
you're in the environment you're living in. How many people
do you know have never left their hometown? There is
nothing better than this. Well, you know, I'm a very
curious woman. I was a very curious girl. I wanted
to see things. I read books. I wanted to know, well,
what is there besides what's going on right now.
Speaker 3 (28:22):
So what I would say to.
Speaker 4 (28:23):
Those aspiring entrepreneurs, don't listen to the naysayers. Go get
it if you have a dream, but don't expect somebody
else to pay for your dreams.
Speaker 3 (28:33):
You know, here's the thing.
Speaker 4 (28:34):
There are a lot of people who have dreams and
they want you to finance their dreams.
Speaker 3 (28:38):
I'm saying, I've got dreams, but.
Speaker 4 (28:40):
I got off my backside and I worked my tail
off to make sure that I could I could put
the bill for my dreams. So I just say, get
up and don't allow anybody to take your dream away
from you.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
She's the author of Daddy's House, a dollar's memoir of setbacks, triumphs,
and rising aboffer roots. I don't speak with Mildred Jay Mills. Mildred,
this is not the only book in your life.
Speaker 3 (29:04):
No, it isn't. Yeah books coming up in the future,
I do.
Speaker 4 (29:08):
I have a book entitled The Hope Club, and it
is about the impact of incarceration on families, especially children.
And I'm writing this book because, in fact, it's now
with an editor writing this book because my grandchildren are
Two of my grandchildren are impacted by this, and I've
(29:28):
seen what such a life can do to children. I mean,
first it breaks up a family and then secondly, you know,
it just takes a parent away. I mean, there are
many ways that a parent can leave, but when they're
behind those bars and the only way they can see
them is through this plexiglass or whatever clanet glass. So
it puts a lot of strain on other people in
(29:50):
the life, especially that parent that's left behind, sometimes a grandparent,
sometimes aunts and uncles and all these things. But yeah,
I'm writing that book and I have met so many
people who are actually i mean nonprofit folks and all
kinds of people who are doing things to help re entry.
And I'm specifically looking at the women who are incarcerated.
Speaker 3 (30:13):
Absolutely, And that's how can we get Daddy's House.
Speaker 4 (30:16):
Daddy's House is available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble. In fact,
if you google my name, Mildary J. Mills and Daddy's House,
you can see where it's sold. But who doesn't have Amazon?
I guess lots of people have Amazon.
Speaker 3 (30:31):
Amazon's Amazon Amazon.
Speaker 4 (30:34):
And the thing I would love though, if you read
my book, and if you've read my book, please leave
me a review. There are lots of reviews on the
book and reviews help that book get noticed.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
Absolutely. Thank you for coming on my show, Mildred. Again,
your stories compelling. Thank your husband for not going berserk
because they didn't read the book. Prime wrisen you and
realize now I guess what, honey, I didn't know, but
now I know. This is me an honest story. Ory
you know faith over here. Yes, thank you for coming
on my show, Mildred.
Speaker 3 (31:05):
Thank you very much for having me. I greatly appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (31:09):
This has been another edition of Money Making Conversations Masterclass
hosted by me Rashawn McDonald. Thank you to our guests
on the show today, and thank you our listening audience. Now,
if you want to listen to any episode I want
to register to be a guest on my show, visit
Moneymakingconversations dot com. Our social media handle is money Making Conversations.
(31:32):
Join us next week and remember to always leave with
your gifts. Keep winning
Him.
Speaker 2 (00:00):
Rashan McDonald host this weekly Money Making Conversation Masterclass show.
The interviews and information that this show provides off for everyone,
and I'm talking about you. It's time to stop reading
other people's success stories and start living your own.
Speaker 3 (00:13):
Now.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
If you want to be a guest on my show,
Money Making Conversations Masterclass, please visit our website, Moneymakingconversations dot
com and click to be a guest button. Now we've
said all that, Now let's get this show started. My
next guess is a nationally recognized author, podcaster, and motivational
speaker whose storytelling journey begin on a sixty acre cotton
(00:35):
farm in with Tompka, Alabama, which is right outside of Montgomery,
where she was born. The third of seventeen children, Now
retired it executive. A bestselling memoir, Daddy's House, a daughter's
memoir of setbacks, triumphs, and rising above her roots, offers
a raw and healing account of childhood, trauma, domestic violence,
(00:56):
and resilience. Please welcome to Money Making Conversation Master Class.
Mildred J.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
Mills. Hey, don Mildred, Well how about you miss Mills?
Which which way, Mildred is wonderful, great, you look very fashionable.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Is fashionate part of your past and your current future?
Speaker 3 (01:13):
Well we move forward?
Speaker 4 (01:15):
Well, I don't know about that. No, no, no, I
was a model at one point, but I.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
Also okay, you see you model at what point?
Speaker 4 (01:22):
I was? But I also grew up picking cotton, so
there were no modeling in that in that field?
Speaker 2 (01:26):
How do you balance? How did how did that happen
to go from? Because that's part of your intro cotton,
you know, And you hear that word cotton, you hear
hard work, you hear slavery, you hear South.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
Did I miss anything?
Speaker 4 (01:41):
No, you didn't. It's so funny that you should mention slavery.
When I one of my nieces told her little boy
that I had written a book. He said, and he said,
she grew up picking cotton. He said, WHOA were you
a slave? I said, no, I wasn't a slave, but
I worked on daddy's far.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
Tell us about picking cotton? What was that like?
Speaker 4 (02:04):
Oh, it's a it's a brutal business, it really really
is it. You know, think about being a little girl
sticking your fingers in those bulls. I don't know bulls
as in bol l not bill w Well, it just
kind of tears your cuticles up.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
You know, it's it's hard. You have to bend your back.
Speaker 4 (02:19):
Of course, when you're little you have to you can
reach up, but as you grow older you have to bend.
So you're bent at a ninety degree angle all day
picking cotton. And it's a it's a nasty business and
it hurts.
Speaker 3 (02:30):
Now as you're growing up.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
You know your book, I got to copy your book,
Daddy's House, A Dolter's memoir of set back triumphs and
rising above her roots?
Speaker 3 (02:39):
What are you saying in this title?
Speaker 4 (02:42):
What I'm saying in that title is where I grew
up was in my daddy's house, and nobody there was
no confusion about who ruled that house.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
That was my daddy.
Speaker 4 (02:51):
But what I'm saying in that title about a daughter's
memoir of growing up and rising above her roots, You know,
it doesn't matter where you're born. I was born in
a place on a sixty acre farm where my father was.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
He was pretty.
Speaker 4 (03:07):
He was a rough guy, but he taught me so
much about life, and so I rose above those routes
by becoming somebody. As a child, I was who my
father and my mother wanted me to be. But as
a woman, I was determined to be myself. I didn't
know who that was as a child, but as I grew,
you know, I just decided that I wanted something different
(03:29):
for myself.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
So why was important you write a book? It was important,
well after age sixty.
Speaker 4 (03:34):
I think so many of us have so much knowledge
after a certain age. You know, when you're twenty, what
are you going to talk about? You know, how bad
your parents treated you, those kind of things. But after
age sixty, and especially I think as a black woman
growing up in the South and noticing so many changes
that happened. Some of them were amazing, you know, but
(03:55):
then there are some other things that like I never
ever as a child, so a white only sign all
those things, even though I grew up in the fifties
and the sixties. So I thought that it was important
to write this book to first of all, heal myself
from some of the things that I did experience as
a child and that I did experience as an adult
(04:16):
as an adult, but also to tell about some of
the beautiful things that happened to me and as a
woman and as a person. I think about buying my
first house and I didn't realize that when I bought
that house in nineteen seventy six, that it was only
the year before that a woman could get credit in
her own name.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
I mean, you just think about these things. And I
was so.
Speaker 4 (04:38):
You know, they say ignorance is bliss, and I absolutely
believe that, because I was ignorant to the fact that,
first of all, women hadn't been able to do these things.
And when I met the realtor, he said, you're divorced.
I said I am, and he said we don't normally
sell houses to divorced women.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
And I thought, wow, well I really don't care. I
want to buy to seventy six. This was nineteen seventy six.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Yes, that's you know, when you think about it that
you know slavery, you talk about emancipation, you talk about
the voting right acts.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
It's not that far apart. It's not that far that
I was living during all those things.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Now, when you this is a very honest book that
you've written, you're married.
Speaker 3 (05:21):
I am when you.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
Thought about this idea of pretty much confessing about your
past and offer it as motivation for others who realize
you overcome the odds. Oh, this is about overcoming their odds.
It is what was it conversation like with your husband.
Speaker 4 (05:43):
I didn't have a conversation with my husband about writing
my book. The first time my husband knew what was
in that book was when he read it.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
Was it published? Yeah? What was it published? When you
read it? I was finished with it for sure. I
think it might have been published me too, pull it
back those memories. Yeah, it was absolutely it was published. Okay,
(06:13):
it was published. Okay, why did you do it that way?
Because first of all, it is my story?
Speaker 4 (06:20):
And second of all, you know, the more people you
stick you say, well, what do you think about this?
Speaker 3 (06:24):
What do you think?
Speaker 4 (06:25):
I'm not sure I really care what anybody thinks about it,
because it is my story and I wanted to be
an honest story. And you know, I remember being in
a writing group one time and this woman and this
is before I published anything, so and this person would
always say all these negative things, and you know, you
get all this stuff stuck in your head and you think, well,
(06:47):
why would I write a book? You know, nobody's gonna
read it, nobody's going to like it, all these things.
So when I decided that I was going to write
this story, I just sat down. I worked with a
mentor and I wrote it, and I did it that
way because I didn't want anybody telling me, well, why
didn't you remember memoir? It is my story, and if
you have a different one, you tell it.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
But in telling the story, and you have somebody you love, yes,
and you still move forward with this honest telling. And
I want to say, the honest telling is Daddy's House,
a daughter's memoir, memoir of set back triumphs and rising
above her roots.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
I'm speaking with Mildred J.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
Mills, the author of this basically an autobiography of her
life of a resilience. What does resilience mean to you?
And I will get back to your husband, but I
want to get the resilience first.
Speaker 4 (07:38):
Resilience to me me, Well, I'm an aries woman. Let
me just say that, you know, and I mean that
doesn't define me. But I am just willing to take
chances first of all. And resilience means to me, when
you get knocked down, get up, don't lay there wallowing
in it. I've said to my children before. I remember
(07:58):
driving my son, or flying on an airplane with my
son headed to University of Michigan when he was starting college,
and I said, we all have we all have.
Speaker 3 (08:08):
Set That was your son with your first husband.
Speaker 4 (08:09):
Right, that's no, my son is my youngest child.
Speaker 3 (08:12):
Okay, cool, I apologize, that's right. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (08:14):
But anyway, I said to him, we all fall. But
it isn't the bump in the road that you hit.
It's whether you sit there and stay in it. I said,
a car hits a bump, you got to keep moving
or you're stuck.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
So resilience to me means move on.
Speaker 4 (08:30):
I'm no victim. I've never been a victim, and I'm
not going to be a victim. So resilience means just lord,
take those lessons and learn from you.
Speaker 3 (08:39):
And read your book. I don't want to. I never
saw you as a victim in this book. I'm not actim.
And I want to make sure.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
People understand that this is a book about her life,
about the relationships the men who came into her life.
The man who's currently in her life is supporting her,
and I love her, loves her dealers, she loves him
and the children that are in her life. But along
the way, we all have bumps in the road. And
this is an entrepreneurial show. It's based on motivation. You're
(09:07):
an influencer, your podcaster, from an entrepreneurial stand, from a
small business owner, how do you equate resilience to them
when they are struggling to overcome their odds.
Speaker 4 (09:21):
Well, I get up and look in that mirror every
day and I say, you know, you've been through some things,
But guess what you can teach somebody else to keep
moving through these things, because just you can't teach resilience.
I don't think. I think you either have it or
you don't.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
That's true. I really believe that.
Speaker 4 (09:42):
And to me, failure is not an option. It's never
been an option for me. So if I hit a bump,
I knew I wasn't going back to that cotton field.
I grew up picking cotton. So I figured out how
to keep moving forward. And not only that, I hear
my mother's voice in my ear saying, do the best
you can what you have.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
And I didn't always.
Speaker 4 (10:03):
I couldn't always sit here in a nice, as you say,
fashionable kind of way, you know, But she said.
Speaker 3 (10:10):
She's very fashionable. For everybody who's listening to the show.
I can't see her.
Speaker 4 (10:15):
Yeah, but she said, if you only have one dress,
or if you only had one she said, pair of underwear,
whatever that is. She said, wash it the night before,
get your tail in the bed, and get up in
the morning and put it on. And I've done that now, yeah,
I've been there, so have I, you know, and it's okay.
And so she taught pride, so that resilience. I think
(10:35):
there's a lot of pride in being resilient. You know,
you get knocked down, and I can't imagine going telling
my father. I wouldn't have told my parents, well I'm
struggling out here, because he would have said, I got
a cotton sack with.
Speaker 5 (10:46):
Your name on, so you're never going to pick up again. No, no, now,
let's get back to my favorite person to husband. Book
comes out, you can't tell them anything about it. When
did he start reading, how did he read it? And
did he finish it?
Speaker 2 (10:59):
When he read it or did he comment on certain
parts of the book as he was going through the
process of reading it.
Speaker 4 (11:06):
He did not say a word. I handed him the
book when it came out, and I said, I know
you don't like to read.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
He doesn't like to read books.
Speaker 4 (11:16):
He my husband reads all the time, but he does
he won't pick up a book to read it. So
I handed him that book. I said, no, no, but
here's my story, most of it, most of it, you know.
And when he finished, he said, on this one point,
he said, you didn't tell me such and such. I said,
(11:38):
when I met you, I had two children, you know,
and when I met you you had a child. I said,
we had lives. And I said, I've told as much
as I could. But you know, when you're sitting to
write your book, sometimes things come to you.
Speaker 3 (11:53):
That's very true. I've been unfortunate, I would.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
Steven Ah Smith is one of my clients, and I
worked with his on his memoir Straight Shooter.
Speaker 3 (12:02):
I loved his book.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
And as we were going through and the storytelling it,
actually your mind kind of like blocks out, especially blocks
out bad stuff.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
It does.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
And as you start writing, you started remembering things and
the details of your mind is really impressive when it
starts revealing details. Tell us about that whole storytelling, like
your husband, you.
Speaker 3 (12:26):
Didn't tell it because guess what, you probably didn't remember it.
Speaker 4 (12:29):
Right, And that isn't what our life has been about,
is just sitting there telling you every detail of my life,
you know, because how boring is that usually, but sitting
there writing that book, like for instance, things, I worked
in it for almost forty years. I started out as
an eighteen year old girl back in nineteen sixty nine,
learning how to come how to how to program computer boards.
(12:54):
So computers have memory, and you know, and whenever you
needed you go in. I mean there's an or whatever
and it goes and picks up that data or whatever.
So as you're writing, all these things come back that
you haven't thought about in forever. So you know, absolutely
I didn't. But anyway, when he finished it, I said,
so you read my story of setbacks, triumphs and rising
(13:17):
above my roots, and that's what you brought to me.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
I said, come on absolutely. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (13:26):
After then, so of course you then you start seeing
the Amazon reviews come out and they are all these
things like, oh my god, how courageous, how brave to
tell that story, you know, And I.
Speaker 3 (13:37):
Said, please don't go anywhere.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
We'll be right back with more Money Making Conversations master Class.
Welcome back to Money Making Conversation master Class with me
Rashaun McDonald. You know, I love your story. I love
stories about individuals come out.
Speaker 3 (13:59):
One of my face.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Every people's attorney tesse efforts. You know she had. She
she's now very popular, a lawyer, an attorney, and a
firm in the city of Atlanta. Had two children before
the age of eighteen. She had five kids before she
was thirty. And her resilience. And I have to use
(14:20):
that word because, like you said, that that's something you're
born with. You know, you can be born with being stubborn,
you can born with being outspoken.
Speaker 3 (14:30):
I guess resilience guides me.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
I think the ability to be able to not accept
failure guides me. Now, let's talk about going back to
the cotton form, because that was an environment. Seventeen kids, yes.
Speaker 4 (14:46):
Okay, third seventeen children.
Speaker 3 (14:49):
Yes, how did you get out?
Speaker 4 (14:52):
How did I get out of the cotton field? Interestingly enough,
back in nineteen sixty seven, my father decided to send
us I should say my parents, but it was my
father's decision to send us to an all white school.
It was in our all black we were in the
middle of segregation and it was you could volunteer to
(15:13):
send your children to a white school as a black parent,
and my father decided to send us to a white school.
So during that time, I had a social studies teacher
who would read from these books.
Speaker 3 (15:26):
I mean we read. She taught et cetera.
Speaker 4 (15:28):
And she would when she read about negroes, which is
what we recalled back then, she would say nigra And
it was just such a it just made the hair
on the back of your next stand up.
Speaker 5 (15:41):
Think.
Speaker 4 (15:41):
And this lady is oviicually educated, so you mean to
tell me. But anyway, so I thought that she was
a racist. I mean I didn't. I thought she had
something against black children, that's who she was teaching. But
in my senior year, this lady asked me to come
to her office. She says, what you going to do
when after high school? And I said I'm not sure.
(16:04):
She said, do you think your father would let you
go away? I said I don't know. And she said, well,
I'm going to give you a test, and she did it,
and I now know that that was the act test,
and she said, you scored very high in the math area,
very high math aptitude. So one day she gives me
this envelope, a white envelope and it's sealed, and she says,
say take this to your father. And now I know
(16:25):
that inside that envelope was information about this technology school
to learn how to program computer boards and keep unch.
Speaker 3 (16:35):
So to my father's credit.
Speaker 4 (16:38):
And he said to me the day before he drove
me to Ohio, who do you think is going to
Who do you think is going to do all that
work we've taught you how to do? Because I did
a lot of things that some of the other children didn't.
And I thought to myself, how is that my problem?
Speaker 3 (16:53):
I don't know?
Speaker 4 (16:55):
And I did say I said, I don't know, and
he said, well, I'm going to talk to Mama tonight.
We're going to decide whether we can still let you go.
And I thought to myself, I've never done anything except
be just this obedient child and done everything you've ever
asked me to do. And I thought, you better make
the right decision because I'm out of here. Whether you
I'm saying this to myself absolutely or whatever, but that's
(17:19):
how I got out. And they actually allowed me to leave.
And not only did he allow me to leave, he
paid cash for my education five hundred dollars back in
nineteen sixty.
Speaker 3 (17:30):
Nine, which is a lot of money, A lot of
money at Fort Farmer. Right.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
Now, let me ask you this, okay, was your father
a cotton picker?
Speaker 3 (17:37):
Or did he have another job or that was his job.
My father was a brick mason and a carpenter.
Speaker 4 (17:43):
Okay, yeah, and he now during during the cotton picking kill.
Oh absolutely, my father was a Yeah. In fact, he
built he built my aunt's house by himself. I'm just
saying he yeah, he had Yeah, he had a skill.
In fact, in the winter time when they're us no
cotton to pick and no way to earn money and
feed his family through that farm, he traveled to Mississippi
(18:08):
and Louisiana to He left out on a Sunday night
with his chicken and all this stuff packed in a
packed and then he came back on Friday nights. And
I tell you he was a rough fella in that house.
But when we saw him coming home on a Friday night,
his children were running out the house, just welcoming daddy home.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
You know, when you leave that world, you know now
you're into another world, another space. How did the men
get introduced into your life? The very first one that
had an important role in your life?
Speaker 4 (18:40):
The first the person that had the first man that
had a role in my life was my first boyfriend
and I met him at a night club years two.
Speaker 3 (18:51):
Other girlfriend didn't think highly correct.
Speaker 4 (18:54):
No, no, no she did, she told you, yes she did,
but she wasn't very good either, very nice.
Speaker 6 (19:01):
No.
Speaker 4 (19:01):
But I met my first boyfriend at a night club.
He was singing A Change is Gonna Come.
Speaker 3 (19:07):
Sam and Cook, Yeah, my favorite song.
Speaker 4 (19:10):
Yeah, I met I met him there, and actually I
dearly I loved I dearly loved that guy.
Speaker 3 (19:15):
You know, it was my first love.
Speaker 4 (19:17):
And so but when something terrible happened in my life,
I didn't have his phone number, any of these kind
of things. So I evaporate. I we evaporated out of
each other's lives and that.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
But that's part of life. But one of the three
words you live by is what fear?
Speaker 3 (19:37):
Fear, faith, not faith. Faith over fear, Faith over faith
over fear are the three words you live by.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
Now, A lot of people use the word faith when
they are when they're making decisions, they are fear. Faith
comes into everybody's life, you know, But fear over faith.
Speaker 3 (19:58):
Explain that to us, Faith over fear, faith fires.
Speaker 4 (20:01):
Yes, I mean, fear is something that kind of sits
on your shoulder and tells you you're not good enough.
Beer is something that sits on your shoulder. And say,
what makes you think you should be in this sitting
in this seat talking to Rushan McDonald. You know, for
goodness sake, that's a pretty Yeah, that's that's really something.
(20:21):
But faith is you know, you walk to a door.
I heard a sermon this past Sunday and this guy said,
when I think about faith, I think about Goldilocks. He says,
you think about Goldilocks walking into a bear's house.
Speaker 3 (20:34):
You know.
Speaker 4 (20:34):
She said, I'm tired. She went and sat in somebody's chairs.
She said, I'm sleepy. She laid in that bed. You know,
so the door was there, you just walk through it, right,
just having faith that you know, if I get on
the other side of that door, there's something that can
help me move on through this this thing called life.
Speaker 6 (20:52):
So well, i'd buy that if it was a real story.
It goes locks into three baths, you know, No, I
did after the show.
Speaker 3 (21:02):
Yeah, but I feel kind of that same way. You know,
if you I think that in life.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
You know, the reason I'm impressed with you and impressed
with the people that come on my show is I
try to delve into the truths because there's so many
people out there that are living life, dreaming, about options,
dreaming about in pain, and so you wrote a book,
and your book is telling your pain, and you're using
(21:29):
that pain to motivate others. And I try to translate
to to entrepreneurs, influencers and small business owners because that's
what you are doing. You know, I'm not you know
there are people working forty our week jobs. But I
really do believe that what you do and what you're saying,
(21:51):
it's a different type of person that takes this story
and values and even more so not saying that the
forty hour week person doesn't. But when you make a
commitment meant to be an entrepreneur, you have walked through
a different lane of life. You said, look, I'm betting
on myself. That's when you got in that called your
dad and he told you, hey, me and mom got
(22:13):
to talk. You went, Dad, you don't when I'm gone.
Speaker 3 (22:17):
Talk all you want to. My time on this war
is over is gone.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
And then when you got out there, you know, the
teachers saw something in you academically and gave you an
option that you didn't even see. Because that's about mentorship.
That's about I will tell people, and I repeat the
story a lot. When I was fifteen years old. My
first job because my father was a truck driver. He
took me to get a job loading boxes. And the
(22:43):
first guys who impressed me were forkliff drivers, these black guys.
Speaker 3 (22:46):
They were driving a forklift. Boy. There I was like,
I was like, my mom was dropped over. I couldn't
believe it.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
And so, despite all my academic training in high school,
the job I wanted was to be a fork cliff driver.
And so when I got out of high school, I
became a forklift driver because that's all I wanted to be,
because that's all I thought I could be. But somebody
told you, no, you could be more than that. So
you've lived your life with somebody planting that sea is.
Speaker 3 (23:16):
That's what this book about.
Speaker 4 (23:18):
That book is about that because my mom always said
my mom and I talk about my children, and my
grandkids probably get sick of me saying what Mama told me.
Mama said, do the best you can what you have,
and whatever that is, you know you can always do
better if you just keep looking for keep your eyes
on the prize, keep looking. She said, don't be like me,
(23:40):
And I thought, Mama, what's wrong with you? She said,
don't allow somebody else to always have to hand you something.
She said, don't put yourself, she said, I want my
girls to have something for themselves. I always want you
to have something for yourself. And that always stayed with me.
And I remember my first husband said to me once that, well,
what are you gonna What do you want to go
(24:02):
get a job for. I said, I have a child
to take care of. And he said but and I thought,
but you're.
Speaker 3 (24:09):
Not worthing me. You know, I'm gone.
Speaker 4 (24:12):
And not only that, I said, God gave me gifts
that I must share, right, you know, and I'm going
to share the gift of my hands and my talent
and all these things. I'm going to get out of
here and go to work and I will never ever
My mother said, have something for yourself, and I thought,
I'm never going to have to. I'm not going to
depend on somebody else.
Speaker 3 (24:33):
I'm going to ask you this question.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
At eighteen years of age, you left the house, right, okay,
and you spend a dominant amount of your life not
in your father's house. Why is the name of your
book Daddy's House?
Speaker 4 (24:45):
Because I mean, even when I left that house, when
I would go back to that house and Also when
my mother passed, we always said, we go into Daddy's house.
And I still see in that house. I was the
first of those seventeen children born in that house, and
it's still standing today. And when we and I have
(25:06):
three siblings who have built a house on the property
that I grew up on, and my parents left us
acreage on that property. So for you, at Christmas time
or Thanksgiving time, we go to Daddy's house, you know,
and we still call it Daddy's house. I call it
Daddy's house because that was very fond to me. And
actually a book person told me, well, I don't like
(25:31):
the name Daddy's house. And I said, I do you know.
I like the name of Daddy's house. And then I like,
you know what comes after that?
Speaker 2 (25:38):
Well, I think it's important to tell your story. I
can question it. I can question it. I've been fortunate
in my life to be a storyteller. I like to
tell people I am a storyteller because I hear so
many stories. And I see you read so many different books,
and and but what I can read books about motivation,
I go, I do that. I can read books about
(25:58):
planning and goals. I said, I do that. But I
can't when I read this book, this is your fuck.
I wasn't in daddy's house. I was not picking college.
Speaker 3 (26:08):
You were.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
Nobody drove me to a school. In fact, my father
didn't want me to go to college.
Speaker 3 (26:12):
You know.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
He wanted my sisters to go to college because he
thought that was what they were.
Speaker 3 (26:16):
Supposed to do.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
But he thought I should be doing manual label. That
was the house I grew up in, and that was
my father's value. So I'm not upset with him because
I did.
Speaker 3 (26:25):
Like you. I don't care what you do. I don't
care what you say. Dad. I'm going to college. I'm
going to do this.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
And I need to understand why I was going to
college because a teacher saw something in me and pushed
me to go to college after I made a commit
the commitment to be a fuck lyft driver.
Speaker 3 (26:40):
And so that's what that's what my dream. I was
gonna mean, what else is there? Right? Right?
Speaker 2 (26:46):
Because that's all I knew. But so many people see
things in you that goes beyond that. So as you
go through life, I know in your book there's a
there's a pimp in your life, and there was a
lead to me.
Speaker 1 (26:57):
Now I just want people to know because of you know,
but those are the moments when life.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
I can tell you some stories in my life where
even though I didn't tell drugs, I was in drug
related environments, you know, and because that's what life is.
But as for aspiring entrepreneurs and creators, what advice do
you give them based on who you are and what
you've accomplished as a person who came from this point
in life, got educated, has had children, went in to
(27:34):
the direction of it, and we know they weren't.
Speaker 3 (27:36):
Talking it on that cotton form.
Speaker 4 (27:41):
Talk to us, having come from where I came from.
You know, I just say dream We're not dreaming big
enough some of us.
Speaker 3 (27:51):
Right, Why do you say that?
Speaker 4 (27:53):
I say that because, well, you didn't dream very big,
but something took you outside.
Speaker 3 (27:58):
Yeah, something took you outside of that.
Speaker 4 (28:00):
In fact, open your mind up to see something. Besides,
you're in the environment you're living in. How many people
do you know have never left their hometown? There is
nothing better than this. Well, you know, I'm a very
curious woman. I was a very curious girl. I wanted
to see things. I read books. I wanted to know, well,
what is there besides what's going on right now.
Speaker 3 (28:22):
So what I would say to.
Speaker 4 (28:23):
Those aspiring entrepreneurs, don't listen to the naysayers. Go get
it if you have a dream, but don't expect somebody
else to pay for your dreams.
Speaker 3 (28:33):
You know, here's the thing.
Speaker 4 (28:34):
There are a lot of people who have dreams and
they want you to finance their dreams.
Speaker 3 (28:38):
I'm saying, I've got dreams, but.
Speaker 4 (28:40):
I got off my backside and I worked my tail
off to make sure that I could I could put
the bill for my dreams. So I just say, get
up and don't allow anybody to take your dream away
from you.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
She's the author of Daddy's House, a dollar's memoir of setbacks, triumphs,
and rising aboffer roots. I don't speak with Mildred Jay Mills. Mildred,
this is not the only book in your life.
Speaker 3 (29:04):
No, it isn't. Yeah books coming up in the future,
I do.
Speaker 4 (29:08):
I have a book entitled The Hope Club, and it
is about the impact of incarceration on families, especially children.
And I'm writing this book because, in fact, it's now
with an editor writing this book because my grandchildren are
Two of my grandchildren are impacted by this, and I've
(29:28):
seen what such a life can do to children. I mean,
first it breaks up a family and then secondly, you know,
it just takes a parent away. I mean, there are
many ways that a parent can leave, but when they're
behind those bars and the only way they can see
them is through this plexiglass or whatever clanet glass. So
it puts a lot of strain on other people in
(29:50):
the life, especially that parent that's left behind, sometimes a grandparent,
sometimes aunts and uncles and all these things. But yeah,
I'm writing that book and I have met so many
people who are actually i mean nonprofit folks and all
kinds of people who are doing things to help re entry.
And I'm specifically looking at the women who are incarcerated.
Speaker 3 (30:13):
Absolutely, And that's how can we get Daddy's House.
Speaker 4 (30:16):
Daddy's House is available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble. In fact,
if you google my name, Mildary J. Mills and Daddy's House,
you can see where it's sold. But who doesn't have Amazon?
I guess lots of people have Amazon.
Speaker 3 (30:31):
Amazon's Amazon Amazon.
Speaker 4 (30:34):
And the thing I would love though, if you read
my book, and if you've read my book, please leave
me a review. There are lots of reviews on the
book and reviews help that book get noticed.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
Absolutely. Thank you for coming on my show, Mildred. Again,
your stories compelling. Thank your husband for not going berserk
because they didn't read the book. Prime wrisen you and
realize now I guess what, honey, I didn't know, but
now I know. This is me an honest story. Ory
you know faith over here. Yes, thank you for coming
on my show, Mildred.
Speaker 3 (31:05):
Thank you very much for having me. I greatly appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (31:09):
This has been another edition of Money Making Conversations Masterclass
hosted by me Rashawn McDonald. Thank you to our guests
on the show today, and thank you our listening audience. Now,
if you want to listen to any episode I want
to register to be a guest on my show, visit
Moneymakingconversations dot com. Our social media handle is money Making Conversations.
(31:32):
Join us next week and remember to always leave with
your gifts. Keep winning
Popular Podcasts
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show. Clay Travis and Buck Sexton tackle the biggest stories in news, politics and current events with intelligence and humor. From the border crisis, to the madness of cancel culture and far-left missteps, Clay and Buck guide listeners through the latest headlines and hot topics with fun and entertaining conversations and opinions.