April 27, 2025 • 30 mins
Have you ever wondered what a long-gone voice would say about our increasingly polarized world? That's the question I explore in this deeply personal episode about my brother Julius - a true paradox of a human being whose absence I feel more acutely as our society grows more binary.
Julius was no ordinary kid growing up in the Cleveland projects. Born four years before me in 1972, he embodied contradictions that would make him impossible to categorize today: street-smart yet academically brilliant, the natural leader of every group he joined, and perhaps most surprisingly - a Black Republican from an inner-city family with deep roots in Democratic politics and civil rights activism. His Republican identity wasn't performative contrarianism; he genuinely believed in economic self-determination, telling me "If you want the money, you got to go where the money is."
From standing on milk crates to boil eggs at age seven (resulting in serious burns) to teaching me coding on his Commodore 64, presenting it as a magic trick, Julius packed immense wisdom into his short nineteen years. Some of his insights still resonate decades later: "Whoever told you that life would be fair?" and "If I have to live scared, then that's not living." He embodied fearless curiosity, describing Homer's Iliad with the same excitement others might discuss video games.
When Julius was murdered in 1992, just months before his 20th birthday, the world lost a uniquely complex voice. Today, as AI, politics, and questions of purpose collide in unprecedented ways, I wonder what he would contribute to our conversations. Would his Republican leanings have evolved toward MAGA politics? Would his entrepreneurial mind have created the next tech breakthrough? Would today's tribal thinking have space for someone who refused to fit neatly into expected categories?
Who's the person whose voice you wish was still in the room? What would they say about where you're headed? How might you carry their unique genius forward in your own way? Share your thoughts in the comments or send me a DM about your "Julius" - that rare voice you still carry with you.
https://iamjayfloyd.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
There's always somebody whose absence you feel
louder as the world changes.
For me, that was my brother,julius.
He was complicated, he was agenius, he was a Republican, and
I still think about what hewould say about the world we
live in right now, especially asAI politics and purpose collide
(00:23):
like never before.
As AI politics and purposecollide like never before,
welcome in to another episode ofUncut Gems.
I'm your host, jay Floyd.
I am a tech leader.
I'm a life coach a rare purpose, strengths-oriented life coach.
I show up to do my thing.
That's what I do.
I have a unique shape and I'mall the way leaned into it.
(00:47):
Today is going to be a reallygood one.
This one is called I Wish myBrother Julius Was here.
I know I may have touched onthis before, maybe on the
episode where I talked about mydrowning episode.
My brother was one of the keystars of that episode and that
(01:07):
story.
Right, my brother Julius.
Let's see, I was born 1976, thebicentennial year.
My brother was born 1972.
Right, he's summertime, he's asummertime baby.
He was not your average kid.
(01:30):
I can recall one of my earliestmemories.
I was probably about four yearsold, my brother was seven or
eight and we were in theprojects in Cleveland, I think
we were like at my auntie'shouse and my brother he had this
thing about food man, he alwayswanted to eat, always, right.
(01:52):
So he was like I am going to goboil some eggs.
I've discovered boiled eggs andthat's what I want to do, right
, the seven, eight year old kid,and it's nighttime and he can't
really get all the way up tothe stove, right?
(02:15):
So he goes and gets the hoodstool.
I don't know if anybody knowswhat a hood stool is.
It is a milk crate, right?
Anybody who grew up in theprojects or has spent time
around the projects, especiallyin the 1970s and 1980s.
(02:35):
Man, I don't know what was withthe surplus of milk crates, but
like, literally it was a milkcrate everywhere, right, I
actually told the story.
I said in one of my lyrics oncein the projects the milk crate
is your cradle and your rockingchair, because you will see
little kids out sitting on it,but you will also see old people
(02:56):
sitting on it, so much so thatthey would sew pillows to the
top of it and sit on it, right.
So my brother went and got thismilk crate because that's what
we had around everywhere and hewas standing on it.
He's standing on a milk crateto get to the stove to boil the
water, to cook the eggs, and I'mstanding off behind him.
(03:18):
I don't really know what's goingon.
I'm a kid and I don't even havea whole lot of awareness.
Back then, right, even fromwhat I remember, I remember
being like blank.
I'm just there and I don't evenhave a whole lot of awareness.
Back then, right, even fromwhat I remember, I remember
being like blank.
I'm just there, I don't havemany active thoughts, and the
water spills.
My brother slips off of themilk crate, the water spills on
him and it scalds his entireabdomen.
(03:41):
You know the If I could paint apicture for you, you know where
Tupac's thug life tattoo was on.
It's like rib cage area.
That whole area is a big circlefrom that area down to his
waistline.
That just burnt off and somehow, you know, I don't know, I
(04:03):
guess from him screaming.
I know I wasn't aware enough todo stuff, I probably just
screamed.
You know an ambulance came andtook him to the hospital.
He ends up being soaked in atub, as my parents, you know,
come in to see about him, soakhim in this goo, you know, to
start the healing process.
(04:23):
And we're sitting in a kind ofa lobby outside.
He's behind these glass windows.
Obviously, you have to beinside this germ-free
environment, right?
He's inside of a germ-freeenvironment behind glass windows
, and we're looking through theglass windows at him and he's
(04:44):
just in there screaming I'mnumber one, I'm the only thing
that matters.
Come see about me.
I mean, this is a seven toeight-year-old kid that is this
deep into his own narcissism,right Pain but narcissism, right
, pain but narcissism.
So I wanted to leave with thatstory to tell you my brother,
(05:07):
julius Complicated cat, far fromeasy to categorize, right Like
he Teenager, grew up in the hood.
We moved to the suburbs.
He brought a lot of the hoodwith him Super street, smart,
super book, smart, deeplyprincipled, super unpredictable,
(05:29):
probably bipolar.
He gave me some hard timesthroughout life, like our
sibling rivalry was not youraverage sibling rivalry.
I went to the emergency room anumber of times, a couple of
concussions from fighting him,wrestling him.
(05:50):
Tension and love existed aroundhim at the same time.
He was put up.
He skipped a grade, so he wasyoung for his age.
So he's always around olderkids, young for his age, so he's
always around older kids and hebecame like a leader of you
know, all of a sudden he wouldhave this friend group and then
(06:14):
it would be a crew, and then itwas a posse, and then it was a
rap group, and then it was agang, and it was always
something evolving around himand if you look on his face you
would just think it was just aparty all the time.
But there was a lot of turmoilin there.
So you know there was thistension where love and chaos
(06:34):
reigned.
You know he would have all ofthese.
He would meet friends andpeople from everywhere and do
great things for him.
There was one time he met a guyand all of a sudden that guy
didn't have a place to live andhe got my mother to let him live
with us for what was supposedto be a couple of weeks and
ended up being some months, andthen at the end of it he was the
(06:57):
one that kicked the guy outbecause they didn't get along
anymore.
So he's a really, reallycomplicated person, right?
He could have you laughing andlectured in the same sentence,
and sometimes the things that hesaid hit me later, like decades
later.
I still recall one of the mostprofound things he ever said.
(07:22):
There's a couple.
I'll probably give you a coupleof them.
One I can't remember I wasprobably crying about something.
I was a little bit of a crybaby.
I really just did.
If I didn't like things, I justwould scream like the world
should change.
You know.
(07:52):
So he would.
He just did not like that.
And I remember I wascomplaining or crying one day
and he said whoever told youthat life would be fair?
And I remember looking up athim and I mean he's probably 14
at the time and he's looking medead in the eye.
I mean he was serious, like ona whole nother level.
He was like, really, though,when you were born, what
instruction book told you thingsare going to be fair?
(08:14):
Nothing says that.
There is no promise like that.
It's amazing, it's amazing.
And the time I didn'tunderstand.
But I swear that moment hascome back to me a lot, you know.
And he also said one other thingmy mother had these.
Obviously, like a lot of moms,single moms raising two boys she
(08:37):
, she always would want us to becareful, be careful, you may
get hurt, be careful.
And I remember him saying youknow, if I have to live scared,
then that's not living Right.
I'd rather live fearless, right.
And he actually was the firstperson to go by the name Jay,
(09:00):
like my uncle Jay, right.
So before I did, he went by Jayfor two reasons because my
uncle Jay was the coolest everand because a lot of his friends
had a hard time pronouncingJulius and they had a way of
making it sound like uncool andnerdy, like it would just drool
out of their mouth Julius.
(09:20):
So he was just like call me Jay, you know.
And eventually he was Big Jayand I was Little Jay and that
was just how my name evolved,right.
Second thing about my brother hewas a genius, smartest person
I've ever met and, as my highschool guidance counselor told
(09:45):
me he was, I was almost asintelligent as him.
He was intelligent to the pointof brilliance.
Those are her words.
His mind was years ahead.
So many other things that Ilearned, and actually I think
even my thirst for knowledge wasfed.
The habit of learningconstantly was fed by him
(10:07):
because he has such a zeal forlife.
Life for him was like a meal.
It's like he was eating it up.
Right, he would go to schooland learn.
I remember he went to school andhe was reading Homer's novels
and he read the Iliad and theOdyssey.
And he came home and he waslike yo, these books man, it's
(10:29):
called the Iliad and the Odyssey.
I know it sounds weird, butit's the craziest thing ever.
And he's like describing to mewhat happened through this epic
saga.
He's describing it to me.
He's like sixth grade he'sdescribing it to me and he's
going in depth and as a secondgrader I'm eating it up.
I'm like what is this?
And I remember one day he wasnot home, he's out, you know,
(10:54):
with his friends or whatever,and I snuck into his room and on
his bed was a copy of the Iliadand I started reading it and
I'm like struggling to read allthe words or really absorb the
concept.
But I thought it was reallyinteresting that he had that
kind of zeal for life, whetherit was learning German or math,
(11:16):
advanced algebra, certainliterature, he would just come
home with it and be so on fire.
I remember him talking aboutGerman, how great of a language
it was, how interesting it was.
And he taught me that AsprekasyDeutsch means speak German.
And we discussed why Deutsch isthe word for German.
(11:38):
This is a sixth grader talkingto me about this stuff, right,
and I mean like we're in thehood man, Like this is not,
we're not surrounded by peopletaking these classes, you know.
But the key thing for my life,he introduced me to coding and
tech.
He begged my parents for aCommodore 64 and they got it for
(12:01):
him.
And you know, it was just acomputer.
To me it was like whatever,just a.
We were so accustomed toAtari's and ColecoVisions that
we were used to getting devicesand hooking them up to our TV
and playing games on them.
Right, but a computer was alittle bit different.
(12:22):
Right, it involved thatlearning aspect.
It involved a little bit ofthat.
Some devices that were lessstandard, right, like some of
them had floppy disks, some ofthem had hard cassettes, some of
them had different things.
So it was like it seemed to melike something that was less
(12:45):
universal, whereas an Atari Icould just plug it in, it's got
an AB switch, it's got ajoystick, let's roll Cartridge,
all the cartridges are the samesize, let's go Right.
The computer was different.
So when he got this Commodore64, I didn't think much about it
.
And one day he's in there in hisroom again and I see this book
and I'm like yo, what's in thatbook?
(13:06):
And he's like, well, let meshow you.
And he brings me to thecomputer and he sits, he lets me
sit down at it and he standsbehind me and he opens the book
to one of the back pages.
I remember he went like whereyou would expect, like the index
of a glossary, and he flips tothe back page and he says, um,
(13:26):
if one of them he's like you seewhat's on this page, type in
everything on this page, exactlythe way it is, I don't want you
to miss anything.
If you miss anything, we got tostart over.
So I started typing it andimmediately I recognized that
I'm not good at typing and oneof the things that stands out to
(13:49):
me is you know, you could holddown shift and it would change
what you were typing.
So I finally get all the stufftyped and he's like okay, and I
hit enter.
And I hit enter and nothinghappened.
And he's like you messed up.
And I'm like, well, how do youknow?
And he's like look, and thescreen says syntax error.
(14:12):
Syntax error S-Y-N-T-A-X.
And this was the first time inmy life I had saw that word.
And I'm like, well, what doesthat mean?
And he said well, it meansthere's an error, there's a
mistake in the text that youwrote.
Anything that you write iscalled syntax, so you didn't do
(14:32):
something right.
So we went over it and we foundthat I missed a character,
corrected the character and wehit enter and the screen turned
blue and red and green and thenthe text turned white and gray.
It was crazy, like I had neverseen anything like it and I'm
(14:56):
like what it's like?
So it was like a life hack or amagic trick, right, but this
was coding.
But the way that he presentedit to me, it felt like I just
showed you a trick, right.
And so then he flips to thenext page and he's like if we do
this page page, it's like italmost sounds like a eagle was
going to attack me.
(15:16):
I don't know if you heard that.
That's what happens when youlive in North Carolina.
Now, right, I guess I got toget used to different wildlife.
So he flips to the next pageand he's like well, something
even better happens if you dothis one.
But you got to remember don'tmake syntax errors.
And so I typed it all in.
(15:37):
I didn't make any errors thistime I hit the button and the
screen turned red again and thena ball bounced.
It came from one side of thescreen and bounced to the bottom
of the screen and bounced outthe other side of the screen and
I'm like whoa and he's justlooking at me like magic, right,
(15:59):
it's amazing.
It's amazing, you know.
It was kind of like just likeall learning, right, you know,
his mind was 10 steps aheadpattern recognition systems,
thinking, creative logic.
He didn't just see tech, he sawthrough it.
He understood how the toolswould impact the audience, me,
(16:23):
and that's why I lean into technow.
That's why I love tech, I loveautomation.
Now, I was watching him havethis excitement, you know, just
light up for things, and I stilllove to see that and I still
have that today.
Now I did give three things thatwere interested about my
(16:45):
brother, and the third one isprobably the least expected.
He was a Republican.
Yeah, this black inner city kid.
I mean, he was an anomaly andthis was not performative.
He wasn't doing it to be like,uh, you know, cool or uh, anti
(17:09):
or uh, you know, he was serious.
Right, he had studied, you know, he loved Ronald Reagan, he
loved trickle down economics.
He believed in it.
He's like you know, this is asystem Everybody around us is
complaining about it because wecome from.
My grandmother was very involvedin politics, in the civil
(17:33):
rights movement.
She was at the March onWashington.
She was a key contributor andhelper to George Forbes being
elected and Carl Stokes beingelected and so, yeah, we were
our family was deep intoCleveland politics on the
(17:53):
Democrat side, so he was reallybreaking the mold, but he
believed in it.
He believed like why are wecomplaining about it?
This is America, this is thegame, this is what the game is.
You got to play the game.
If you want it, go get it right.
He believed that.
(18:13):
He's like and the Republicansare teaching you the blueprint
of how to go get it.
If you want the money, you gotto go where the money is.
That's what he used to say.
He valued his independence.
He valued structure,self-determination and he was
like I'm going to go get it whenhe turned 13, we didn't have
any money in the house and hewanted things that we couldn't
(18:36):
afford.
So he went out and got a job.
He went to the golf courseright around the corner from
where we had just moved inCleveland Heights.
He got a job as a caddy and hestarted networking and he met a
lot of people and he talkedabout these Republican tenets
and values and it solidified iteven more for him and he knew
(18:58):
what to say to those people, toget more tips from them so that
he could make his dreams cometrue.
And he took that and parlayedthat into a job at Burger King
and then he became a team leaderthere and moved into being a
manager of people.
That was his thing.
That was his thing.
Go get it, don't wait.
(19:18):
He was young doing it.
He didn't wait for permission,right.
So yeah, he was very.
An anomaly is different, and Ithink about you, look at all of
(19:40):
that and I wonder what he wouldbe like now being such a complex
person in today's day and age.
Would he get canceled?
Would he be beloved?
Would he be successful?
You know, I've told the storybefore to my brother.
You know he well.
He did join a gang and he wasmurdered in 1992 when he was 19
(20:02):
years old, just two monthsbefore his 20th birthday.
He was shot and killed in avery similar fashion to, in a
very similar fashion toNotorious BIG right he's in a
car and he was killed.
I always wonder what he would belike now.
What would it be like to bethat complex now?
(20:23):
Would he still be that complexnow?
Would he have settled into oneside or the other as he got
older?
What would that genius looklike?
Would he have his own company?
Would he have been anentrepreneur?
I really think so.
(20:44):
You know, like the way that hismind worked, the way he was
thinking outside the box, somuch this would have been a
prime time for him to be here,you know, and I think about that
.
And what about him being aRepublican?
How would that work?
Would he be MAGA?
Would he be a Trump supporter?
(21:06):
I don't know.
I don't know.
What I do know is I think aboutwhat he would say now, where
everything is either red or blueor binary or banished, or when
he didn't fit these molds and henever tried to.
(21:27):
I always wonder.
You know, I wish my brotherJulius was here, not just for me
, but for this moment.
He would challenge what youthink, you know.
He would push you and in doingso he would make space for
(21:48):
brilliance that doesn't fitcleanly into categories.
I would absolutely get him onmy podcast if he was here to see
what he would say.
So listen to everybodylistening.
Who's the person whose voiceyou wish we had still in the
room right now?
What would they say about whereyou're headed?
(22:10):
How would you carry that partof their genius, your part of
their genius, forward in yourlane?
Drop me a comment or a DM.
Tell me about your Julius thatyou wish was still here, that
(22:30):
one rare voice that you stillcarry on.
Thank you for joining me.
Y'all, I love y'all.
No-transcript.
There's always somebody whose absence you feel
louder as the world changes.
For me, that was my brother,julius.
He was complicated, he was agenius, he was a Republican, and
I still think about what hewould say about the world we
live in right now, especially asAI politics and purpose collide
(00:23):
like never before.
As AI politics and purposecollide like never before,
welcome in to another episode ofUncut Gems.
I'm your host, jay Floyd.
I am a tech leader.
I'm a life coach a rare purpose, strengths-oriented life coach.
I show up to do my thing.
That's what I do.
I have a unique shape and I'mall the way leaned into it.
(00:47):
Today is going to be a reallygood one.
This one is called I Wish myBrother Julius Was here.
I know I may have touched onthis before, maybe on the
episode where I talked about mydrowning episode.
My brother was one of the keystars of that episode and that
(01:07):
story.
Right, my brother Julius.
Let's see, I was born 1976, thebicentennial year.
My brother was born 1972.
Right, he's summertime, he's asummertime baby.
He was not your average kid.
(01:30):
I can recall one of my earliestmemories.
I was probably about four yearsold, my brother was seven or
eight and we were in theprojects in Cleveland, I think
we were like at my auntie'shouse and my brother he had this
thing about food man, he alwayswanted to eat, always, right.
(01:52):
So he was like I am going to goboil some eggs.
I've discovered boiled eggs andthat's what I want to do, right
, the seven, eight year old kid,and it's nighttime and he can't
really get all the way up tothe stove, right?
(02:15):
So he goes and gets the hoodstool.
I don't know if anybody knowswhat a hood stool is.
It is a milk crate, right?
Anybody who grew up in theprojects or has spent time
around the projects, especiallyin the 1970s and 1980s.
(02:35):
Man, I don't know what was withthe surplus of milk crates, but
like, literally it was a milkcrate everywhere, right, I
actually told the story.
I said in one of my lyrics oncein the projects the milk crate
is your cradle and your rockingchair, because you will see
little kids out sitting on it,but you will also see old people
(02:56):
sitting on it, so much so thatthey would sew pillows to the
top of it and sit on it, right.
So my brother went and got thismilk crate because that's what
we had around everywhere and hewas standing on it.
He's standing on a milk crateto get to the stove to boil the
water, to cook the eggs, and I'mstanding off behind him.
(03:18):
I don't really know what's goingon.
I'm a kid and I don't even havea whole lot of awareness.
Back then, right, even fromwhat I remember, I remember
being like blank.
I'm just there and I don't evenhave a whole lot of awareness.
Back then, right, even fromwhat I remember, I remember
being like blank.
I'm just there, I don't havemany active thoughts, and the
water spills.
My brother slips off of themilk crate, the water spills on
him and it scalds his entireabdomen.
(03:41):
You know the If I could paint apicture for you, you know where
Tupac's thug life tattoo was on.
It's like rib cage area.
That whole area is a big circlefrom that area down to his
waistline.
That just burnt off and somehow, you know, I don't know, I
(04:03):
guess from him screaming.
I know I wasn't aware enough todo stuff, I probably just
screamed.
You know an ambulance came andtook him to the hospital.
He ends up being soaked in atub, as my parents, you know,
come in to see about him, soakhim in this goo, you know, to
start the healing process.
(04:23):
And we're sitting in a kind ofa lobby outside.
He's behind these glass windows.
Obviously, you have to beinside this germ-free
environment, right?
He's inside of a germ-freeenvironment behind glass windows
, and we're looking through theglass windows at him and he's
(04:44):
just in there screaming I'mnumber one, I'm the only thing
that matters.
Come see about me.
I mean, this is a seven toeight-year-old kid that is this
deep into his own narcissism,right Pain but narcissism, right
, pain but narcissism.
So I wanted to leave with thatstory to tell you my brother,
(05:07):
julius Complicated cat, far fromeasy to categorize, right Like
he Teenager, grew up in the hood.
We moved to the suburbs.
He brought a lot of the hoodwith him Super street, smart,
super book, smart, deeplyprincipled, super unpredictable,
(05:29):
probably bipolar.
He gave me some hard timesthroughout life, like our
sibling rivalry was not youraverage sibling rivalry.
I went to the emergency room anumber of times, a couple of
concussions from fighting him,wrestling him.
(05:50):
Tension and love existed aroundhim at the same time.
He was put up.
He skipped a grade, so he wasyoung for his age.
So he's always around olderkids, young for his age, so he's
always around older kids and hebecame like a leader of you
know, all of a sudden he wouldhave this friend group and then
(06:14):
it would be a crew, and then itwas a posse, and then it was a
rap group, and then it was agang, and it was always
something evolving around himand if you look on his face you
would just think it was just aparty all the time.
But there was a lot of turmoilin there.
So you know there was thistension where love and chaos
(06:34):
reigned.
You know he would have all ofthese.
He would meet friends andpeople from everywhere and do
great things for him.
There was one time he met a guyand all of a sudden that guy
didn't have a place to live andhe got my mother to let him live
with us for what was supposedto be a couple of weeks and
ended up being some months, andthen at the end of it he was the
(06:57):
one that kicked the guy outbecause they didn't get along
anymore.
So he's a really, reallycomplicated person, right?
He could have you laughing andlectured in the same sentence,
and sometimes the things that hesaid hit me later, like decades
later.
I still recall one of the mostprofound things he ever said.
(07:22):
There's a couple.
I'll probably give you a coupleof them.
One I can't remember I wasprobably crying about something.
I was a little bit of a crybaby.
I really just did.
If I didn't like things, I justwould scream like the world
should change.
You know.
(07:52):
So he would.
He just did not like that.
And I remember I wascomplaining or crying one day
and he said whoever told youthat life would be fair?
And I remember looking up athim and I mean he's probably 14
at the time and he's looking medead in the eye.
I mean he was serious, like ona whole nother level.
He was like, really, though,when you were born, what
instruction book told you thingsare going to be fair?
(08:14):
Nothing says that.
There is no promise like that.
It's amazing, it's amazing.
And the time I didn'tunderstand.
But I swear that moment hascome back to me a lot, you know.
And he also said one other thingmy mother had these.
Obviously, like a lot of moms,single moms raising two boys she
(08:37):
, she always would want us to becareful, be careful, you may
get hurt, be careful.
And I remember him saying youknow, if I have to live scared,
then that's not living Right.
I'd rather live fearless, right.
And he actually was the firstperson to go by the name Jay,
(09:00):
like my uncle Jay, right.
So before I did, he went by Jayfor two reasons because my
uncle Jay was the coolest everand because a lot of his friends
had a hard time pronouncingJulius and they had a way of
making it sound like uncool andnerdy, like it would just drool
out of their mouth Julius.
(09:20):
So he was just like call me Jay, you know.
And eventually he was Big Jayand I was Little Jay and that
was just how my name evolved,right.
Second thing about my brother hewas a genius, smartest person
I've ever met and, as my highschool guidance counselor told
(09:45):
me he was, I was almost asintelligent as him.
He was intelligent to the pointof brilliance.
Those are her words.
His mind was years ahead.
So many other things that Ilearned, and actually I think
even my thirst for knowledge wasfed.
The habit of learningconstantly was fed by him
(10:07):
because he has such a zeal forlife.
Life for him was like a meal.
It's like he was eating it up.
Right, he would go to schooland learn.
I remember he went to school andhe was reading Homer's novels
and he read the Iliad and theOdyssey.
And he came home and he waslike yo, these books man, it's
(10:29):
called the Iliad and the Odyssey.
I know it sounds weird, butit's the craziest thing ever.
And he's like describing to mewhat happened through this epic
saga.
He's describing it to me.
He's like sixth grade he'sdescribing it to me and he's
going in depth and as a secondgrader I'm eating it up.
I'm like what is this?
And I remember one day he wasnot home, he's out, you know,
(10:54):
with his friends or whatever,and I snuck into his room and on
his bed was a copy of the Iliadand I started reading it and
I'm like struggling to read allthe words or really absorb the
concept.
But I thought it was reallyinteresting that he had that
kind of zeal for life, whetherit was learning German or math,
(11:16):
advanced algebra, certainliterature, he would just come
home with it and be so on fire.
I remember him talking aboutGerman, how great of a language
it was, how interesting it was.
And he taught me that AsprekasyDeutsch means speak German.
And we discussed why Deutsch isthe word for German.
(11:38):
This is a sixth grader talkingto me about this stuff, right,
and I mean like we're in thehood man, Like this is not,
we're not surrounded by peopletaking these classes, you know.
But the key thing for my life,he introduced me to coding and
tech.
He begged my parents for aCommodore 64 and they got it for
(12:01):
him.
And you know, it was just acomputer.
To me it was like whatever,just a.
We were so accustomed toAtari's and ColecoVisions that
we were used to getting devicesand hooking them up to our TV
and playing games on them.
Right, but a computer was alittle bit different.
(12:22):
Right, it involved thatlearning aspect.
It involved a little bit ofthat.
Some devices that were lessstandard, right, like some of
them had floppy disks, some ofthem had hard cassettes, some of
them had different things.
So it was like it seemed to melike something that was less
(12:45):
universal, whereas an Atari Icould just plug it in, it's got
an AB switch, it's got ajoystick, let's roll Cartridge,
all the cartridges are the samesize, let's go Right.
The computer was different.
So when he got this Commodore64, I didn't think much about it
.
And one day he's in there in hisroom again and I see this book
and I'm like yo, what's in thatbook?
(13:06):
And he's like, well, let meshow you.
And he brings me to thecomputer and he sits, he lets me
sit down at it and he standsbehind me and he opens the book
to one of the back pages.
I remember he went like whereyou would expect, like the index
of a glossary, and he flips tothe back page and he says, um,
(13:26):
if one of them he's like you seewhat's on this page, type in
everything on this page, exactlythe way it is, I don't want you
to miss anything.
If you miss anything, we got tostart over.
So I started typing it andimmediately I recognized that
I'm not good at typing and oneof the things that stands out to
(13:49):
me is you know, you could holddown shift and it would change
what you were typing.
So I finally get all the stufftyped and he's like okay, and I
hit enter.
And I hit enter and nothinghappened.
And he's like you messed up.
And I'm like, well, how do youknow?
And he's like look, and thescreen says syntax error.
(14:12):
Syntax error S-Y-N-T-A-X.
And this was the first time inmy life I had saw that word.
And I'm like, well, what doesthat mean?
And he said well, it meansthere's an error, there's a
mistake in the text that youwrote.
Anything that you write iscalled syntax, so you didn't do
(14:32):
something right.
So we went over it and we foundthat I missed a character,
corrected the character and wehit enter and the screen turned
blue and red and green and thenthe text turned white and gray.
It was crazy, like I had neverseen anything like it and I'm
(14:56):
like what it's like?
So it was like a life hack or amagic trick, right, but this
was coding.
But the way that he presentedit to me, it felt like I just
showed you a trick, right.
And so then he flips to thenext page and he's like if we do
this page page, it's like italmost sounds like a eagle was
going to attack me.
(15:16):
I don't know if you heard that.
That's what happens when youlive in North Carolina.
Now, right, I guess I got toget used to different wildlife.
So he flips to the next pageand he's like well, something
even better happens if you dothis one.
But you got to remember don'tmake syntax errors.
And so I typed it all in.
(15:37):
I didn't make any errors thistime I hit the button and the
screen turned red again and thena ball bounced.
It came from one side of thescreen and bounced to the bottom
of the screen and bounced outthe other side of the screen and
I'm like whoa and he's justlooking at me like magic, right,
(15:59):
it's amazing.
It's amazing, you know.
It was kind of like just likeall learning, right, you know,
his mind was 10 steps aheadpattern recognition systems,
thinking, creative logic.
He didn't just see tech, he sawthrough it.
He understood how the toolswould impact the audience, me,
(16:23):
and that's why I lean into technow.
That's why I love tech, I loveautomation.
Now, I was watching him havethis excitement, you know, just
light up for things, and I stilllove to see that and I still
have that today.
Now I did give three things thatwere interested about my
(16:45):
brother, and the third one isprobably the least expected.
He was a Republican.
Yeah, this black inner city kid.
I mean, he was an anomaly andthis was not performative.
He wasn't doing it to be like,uh, you know, cool or uh, anti
(17:09):
or uh, you know, he was serious.
Right, he had studied, you know, he loved Ronald Reagan, he
loved trickle down economics.
He believed in it.
He's like you know, this is asystem Everybody around us is
complaining about it because wecome from.
My grandmother was very involvedin politics, in the civil
(17:33):
rights movement.
She was at the March onWashington.
She was a key contributor andhelper to George Forbes being
elected and Carl Stokes beingelected and so, yeah, we were
our family was deep intoCleveland politics on the
(17:53):
Democrat side, so he was reallybreaking the mold, but he
believed in it.
He believed like why are wecomplaining about it?
This is America, this is thegame, this is what the game is.
You got to play the game.
If you want it, go get it right.
He believed that.
(18:13):
He's like and the Republicansare teaching you the blueprint
of how to go get it.
If you want the money, you gotto go where the money is.
That's what he used to say.
He valued his independence.
He valued structure,self-determination and he was
like I'm going to go get it whenhe turned 13, we didn't have
any money in the house and hewanted things that we couldn't
(18:36):
afford.
So he went out and got a job.
He went to the golf courseright around the corner from
where we had just moved inCleveland Heights.
He got a job as a caddy and hestarted networking and he met a
lot of people and he talkedabout these Republican tenets
and values and it solidified iteven more for him and he knew
(18:58):
what to say to those people, toget more tips from them so that
he could make his dreams cometrue.
And he took that and parlayedthat into a job at Burger King
and then he became a team leaderthere and moved into being a
manager of people.
That was his thing.
That was his thing.
Go get it, don't wait.
(19:18):
He was young doing it.
He didn't wait for permission,right.
So yeah, he was very.
An anomaly is different, and Ithink about you, look at all of
(19:40):
that and I wonder what he wouldbe like now being such a complex
person in today's day and age.
Would he get canceled?
Would he be beloved?
Would he be successful?
You know, I've told the storybefore to my brother.
You know he well.
He did join a gang and he wasmurdered in 1992 when he was 19
(20:02):
years old, just two monthsbefore his 20th birthday.
He was shot and killed in avery similar fashion to, in a
very similar fashion toNotorious BIG right he's in a
car and he was killed.
I always wonder what he would belike now.
What would it be like to bethat complex now?
(20:23):
Would he still be that complexnow?
Would he have settled into oneside or the other as he got
older?
What would that genius looklike?
Would he have his own company?
Would he have been anentrepreneur?
I really think so.
(20:44):
You know, like the way that hismind worked, the way he was
thinking outside the box, somuch this would have been a
prime time for him to be here,you know, and I think about that
.
And what about him being aRepublican?
How would that work?
Would he be MAGA?
Would he be a Trump supporter?
(21:06):
I don't know.
I don't know.
What I do know is I think aboutwhat he would say now, where
everything is either red or blueor binary or banished, or when
he didn't fit these molds and henever tried to.
(21:27):
I always wonder.
You know, I wish my brotherJulius was here, not just for me
, but for this moment.
He would challenge what youthink, you know.
He would push you and in doingso he would make space for
(21:48):
brilliance that doesn't fitcleanly into categories.
I would absolutely get him onmy podcast if he was here to see
what he would say.
So listen to everybodylistening.
Who's the person whose voiceyou wish we had still in the
room right now?
What would they say about whereyou're headed?
(22:10):
How would you carry that partof their genius, your part of
their genius, forward in yourlane?
Drop me a comment or a DM.
Tell me about your Julius thatyou wish was still here, that
(22:30):
one rare voice that you stillcarry on.
Thank you for joining me.
Y'all, I love y'all.
No-transcript.
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