Finding opportunities to exercise gratitude allows us to keep growing through ADVERSITY. In this episode Janice Bryant Howroyd shares her life-altering experiences of disfigurement, segregation, and family illness and how she has learned to seek moments of gratitude in each. During this conversation Janice teaches how deprivation breeds appreciation, why vulnerability leads to clarity, and how you can create an impact with your company by helping the individuals within it.
Janice Bryant Howroyd is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of the Act One Group, a global leader providing customized cutting-edge solutions and the human resources industry. The Act One Group is a multibillion dollar, award winning, international talent and talent technology enterprise with multiple divisions at each service, unique area of employment and provides talent management solutions. She is currently ranked number 39 on Forbes list of America’s richest self-made women.
Learn more about Janice and purchase her book here: http://askjbh.com/books/
Episode Transcript:
00:32
I’m Marcus Aurelius Anderson, and on today’s show, our guests, her movements and her actions truly speak louder.
01:02
than any words ever could. Businesswoman, entrepreneur, educator, ambassador, author, mentor, and presidential special appointee, Janice Bryant-Howell-Royd is the founder and chief executive officer of the Act One Group, a global leader providing customized, cutting edge solutions in the human resources industry. The Act One Group is a multi-billion with a B dollar award-winning international talent and talent technology enterprise with multiple divisions at each service unique area
01:32
of employment and provides talent management solutions. She is currently ranked number 39 on Forbes list of America’s richest self-made women. In 2014, Mrs. Howroy was recognized by Black Enterprise as the first black woman to own and operate a billion dollar company. She was BET’s first ever BET Honors Entrepreneur of the Year and has received Black Enterprise’s Business of the Year Award. In 2013, she was appointed a US Ambassador of Energy at the White House.
01:59
In May of 2016, she received a key presidential appointment by President Barack Obama himself as a member of the President’s Board of Advisors on Historically Black Colleges and Universities. In 2017, JBH was appointed to the Federal Communications Commission’s Advisory Committee on Diversity and Digital Empowerment. Her newest book, Acting Up, Winning in Business and Life Using Homegrown Wisdom, is truly packed with wisdom and pragmatic knowledge and is an absolute must-read in my opinion.
02:27
And of course, we’ll probably be talking about that a little bit in our conversation. And finally, on her incredible podcast, Ask JHB, she interviews successes from all sectors of life to bring you their thought protocols, experiences, and life stories to give you the listener inspiration and edification. JBH’s personal model has always been, never compromise yourself personally to become who you wish to be professionally. To her, integrity matters.
02:53
And it is by this ethos that she’s built her entire life and business. So without further ado, JBH, thank you so much for taking the time and for being our guest today. Oh, Marcus, thank you. Thank you for having me. You know, I’m kind of excited about talking with you because the service and the work you’ve done is just so incredible. And I think words mean a lot. Decisions are certainly made by words. I think also healing and injury.
03:23
occur by words. And so I mean it deeply when I say it’s incredible to be with you today. Oh my goodness, you’re so fantastic. I know that that was a long intro, but I just wanted to give our listeners a true depth of how incredible you are and what you’ve accomplished with your life. Well, I’m kind of old, Marcus, so there’s a lot of that’s happened. That was a lot to mention.
03:50
Well, there’s a lot of people that are not young that haven’t done half of what you’ve done in your lifetime. So you’ve literally experienced and forgotten more about business. You’ve seen ups and downs, turns and markets that people weren’t even aware of. And you’ve been able to catapult your business to a higher level because of it, because you saw that opportunity and you weren’t afraid to pivot. So I think that that needs to be admired because people talk about that all day, but yet how many people are actually willing to execute it.
04:17
You make a very important point. Uh, actually two things you say just in that short conversation that stand out for me, one is when you talk about being able to see ahead, okay. I remember once we were in a presentation with a, Oh, look at me going there. We were in a presentation to a potential client who did eventually become the client and the question was asked of my brother about me. He was asked a question and he said, well, the thing about.
04:47
I wasn’t JBH yet, I was still Janice. The thing about Janice is that she’s always been able to not just see down the street, but she can see around the corner. And I think that’s instrumented our company forward to where it is. And I asked him about that later because I sat in that room and I was like, listen to him, listen to him, is he laying it on a bit thick? And then he came back at me with data to support why he said that. Very similar to what you’re saying, you know.
05:16
where you can read ahead of an economy, et cetera, and especially the one we’re in right now in decisions we made not anticipating a COVID environment that would interrupt the economy by over a third, but certainly anticipating that we were in a movement in a global perspective that we needed to respect shift span. And much of my decision-maker was actually around my not professorial level.
05:44
understanding of the environment, but certainly at a ground level, I knew some things were going to happen economically just based on weather shift, just conversations with my folks, just because we do business in all 30 countries. So yeah, that stood out for me in your conversation, Marcus. The other thing that stood out was talking about actually effecting the change, good, thoughtful, human-focused, people-friendly business change.
06:14
is something that if I had anything to do with was simply bringing in good, people-focused, smart people. So the conversation we’re having around business side of what I do has to be a conversation about so many incredible people who work in the Act One group. And you and I have seen people stand on stages and receive awards or have conversations and feel it’s the appropriate thing to do.
06:43
Thank those who’s you know upon whose shoulders we stand and certainly that’s legitimate and praiseworthy What i’m talking about in a very profound way is we got some of the best Hearted people in the act one group and we are family since i’ll just i’ll just finish my thought with this Since we’ve been in a distance environment My teams and I have never been closer We are
07:12
talking with each other. We are sharing in ways that while HR appropriate, still get to the heart of not just the matters, but what matters to the heart of the people. And I am so proud of the people who work at Act One, because we’ve always had a culture of inclusiveness. And if you go in any of our businesses or look at any of our content around ourselves,
07:41
development, you see the word FEET, F-E-E-T, freedom to innovate, excellence in delivery, because everything matters, invest the time to understand. We’ve done that dynamically for clients, which is how we built a business, especially as a minority, you know, fee bill owned company. But we’re doing that with each other and for ourselves as well, you know, so you put a lot into that.
08:11
couple of sentences you said that really give me occasion to think about who we are. And I’m grateful for that. Thank you. Well, I’m grateful for you. I’m grateful that you were leading by example. We see so many books and so many people that talk about leadership development or even personal development where they will wax poetic and they’ll have semantics, but they will not give any hard concrete specific ideals that they follow that are execution driven. And I love in your book, your philosophy is very much the result is truth.
08:41
Yeah, yeah, the result is the truth. Yeah. Yes, and and and you know, there’s an incredible again the word incredible And I think we’re seeing things not with so much fresh eyes these days I think we’re seeing things with vulnerability And vulnerability oftentimes can offer as much clarity as it can Sometimes make you know your your sense of certainty murky and here’s the things
09:10
There is a doctor who I think I talk about him in my life in this book It may have been in my first book, but his name is dr. John kim Dr. John kim pressed for our practices eastern medicine with western And I saw him for the first time after I had a horrible accident That left me disfigured to the point that I literally would scare small children and
09:38
I was making a lot of decisions around that about what my life would be like and what my business would be like until my daughter and son set me down. I was scheduled to go on, I believe it was MSNBC back when Erin Burnett was still with them. So it could have been CBCNBC, I’m not sure. But I know Erin Burnett, I was going on for maybe the third time as a subject matter expert. And I was scheduled to be in London, Marcus.
10:07
And I was so concerned that I looked so bad. It hurt to laugh. And I’m a laugher, and it hurt to laugh. Even now, I still have to cover my face to laugh, but I go ahead and do it, right? And I shared with Erin that I was just figured I didn’t think I should come. And she said, we’ve got some really kind people here in the studio. They’re gonna be gentle to you. So I went ahead to the studio in London for that conversation, and I saw myself, and I promised that I would not.
10:36
do TV again because of what I saw. My son told me, well, if people are paying more attention to what’s on your face than what’s on your head than in your head, you know, mom, you’re missing the mark. And I don’t think that’s why people are interested in who you are. In any event, my daughter said, let’s get you fixed so you can laugh again. And she took me to Dr. John Kim. Dr. John Kim suggested that he could help relieve a little of the.
11:05
pain and if I would lay down, relax, and he does acupuncture. Well, my daughter had had a lengthy conversation with him and they had a plan beyond pain. Let me just fast forward this for you to say, within 60 minutes, I sat up and he said, now laugh, and I was so afraid to laugh. He encouraged me to it. I laughed and there was no pain.
11:35
And six months later, some of the disfigurement started to disappear. And I’m not back where I was. And when I laugh a lot in a day, by end of evening, it starts to hurt a little bit. I mean, you’ve been through body tragedy. You’ve lived a life of service, which I thank you for, to this country and world that you actually paid for so much of the freedom that we still have.
12:05
And I know talking to you, you can relate Marcus to what it feels like to have to rethink your life based on a tragedy and to find laughter again. And to appreciate it, right? Yes. People say you don’t know what you got till it’s gone, but that’s not true. We know what we have, but we assume that we will always have it. Yeah, yeah. So once it’s gone, all of a sudden, like you said, something as simple as a laugh, having an exchange, making you have to think twice about an emotion that’s true for you.
12:36
I’m actually kind of getting emotional because really what we are talking about here is being grateful for laughter and the ability to laugh. And when we think about where we are as a world right now, if we don’t appreciate that, my daughter said to me a few weeks ago, mom, I pray we don’t lose the opportunity to learn from this and all the little things.
13:05
that we invest big thought on missing, like sitting in a restaurant or going to get services that are purely, whether it’s massage or whatever, those little things, I pray we remember what it felt like right now. And so you and I, we’re talking about living so, you used the word appreciate, appreciating what it feels like to laugh.
13:33
There were times when things were funny and it hurt me to laugh. And the ability to just laugh for the sake of it. Yesterday, I attended virtually the home-going celebration for JRL, John Robert Lewis. And he was a friend in life. And one of the things that was so
14:02
expressed by everybody who spoke, and this was a service intended for the family that happened to be televised for many of us, is that he was able to find the laughter underneath the pain. You know, I think in a way laughter is that little trigger that keeps us human, that keeps us grounded, and also allows us to elevate.
14:32
And maybe it’s just another form of God’s medicine. I don’t know. But it’s real important that people laugh right now. I’ve been hosting and I’ve been sharing in conversations with folks. You gotta keep your happy. It’s big what we’re going through, but it’s not too big, you know? And you’re absolutely correct. Deprivation breeds appreciation. If we’re deprived of something, we appreciate it that much more when we have it. And just like you’re saying as well, that happiness, that joy, that love.
15:01
It creates that emotional reciprocity and it’s it is absolutely contagious. And so it is so important, like you said, not to try to hold that back. The world needs this now. The world needs laughter and needs positivity. It doesn’t need somebody that’s not being honest, but there is still joy. There is still laughter to be had if we seek it out. And if we, and it doesn’t have to be funny to laugh, it can simply be joyful.
15:29
It’s so important. Again, that all comes back to the gratitudes and stuff. I think that’s a fantastic point. There’s so many different places that we can go with this. I love that you love a book that I love, and I love that you were turned onto it by Bernie, correct, your husband. Yes, my husband, Bernie. You’re probably talking about the art of war. Let me just tell you that when you bring up Bernie, and we were just having this conversation about laughter.
15:59
My husband is 86 and he has Alzheimer’s and he is in the sixth phase of what I’m told is a seven phase disease. Some days are much better than others. Talk about finding laughter or joy. When we were announced to stay at home in Southern California where I live, I was in Atlanta and I was flying from Atlanta to San Francisco for a meeting before coming back to LA.
16:29
The hours of flight that I engaged were filled with thoughts and concerns about how I’m going to do all the things that I’m already scheduled to do that all require face-to-face and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Let me tell you, fast forward to today, one of the biggest gifts has been that I have time with Bernie and I have seen him be better with the presence of just being.
16:58
with him able to spend more than a good morning kiss with him, but a good morning breakfast or let people know, hey listen, I’m talking with you and I’m meeting from Bernie’s room and people kind of know what that means now, you know, and they may hear him talk or to his special friends or to us or whatever, but the energy and the joy that I see in him, he has not lost his personality. He has lost his connectivity in many ways.
17:28
He has not lost his genius. He has lost his connectivity. I have learned so much during this period that I do understand a lot of people are feeling fright or fear and have concerns about their day to day. I understand that at the federal level, we’re still deciding what the assistance will be for many people out of work. I’m in the work business. What I’m sharing with you is that
17:57
could default to the burdens of getting this company through COVID. By the way, I’ve told my team, we’re not just gonna go through this, we’re gonna grow through this. And that’s what I’m telling you about. The professional growth is there, but the personal growth opportunities to really be there and know from minute to minute what kind of triggers delight Bernie versus confuse him. The ability to glow under his lovingness.
18:27
that he has and I’m told that people with Alzheimer’s and dementia sometimes can go the other way and be very sad or very aloof. He is so social, he is so happy and you get the understanding of what he’s communicating even without the words. Marcus, your experience that you lived through and grew through, the experience that Bernie’s
18:56
even in the minor way on the scale of what you and Bernie survive and thrive through. I think it’s so teaching. I think it’s so teaching for us. And if I can say anything about what Bernie gave me, the art of war is great. And it did have a lot of lessons to apply to business and to interpersonal relationships, but it’s the art of maintaining his health.
19:26
has taught me so much, but we don’t talk about health a lot. You know, I remember once he said to me I was going to go on a diet to lose weight, not to be healthy, to lose weight. And he said to me, there is nothing sexier to me than a healthy woman. And when he said it to me, I was like, oh no, you just want to keep your dinner made, right? And he
19:54
took my shoulders the way our kids used to do. Our kids would take our shoulders and say, look at me, look at me, you know, multitasking parents, right? Wow, isn’t there a lot in that? And he took my shoulders and he held me in front of him. And he said, look at me. You’re never going to be as sexy as you are when you’re healthy. I love when you’re healthy. When I go in in the mornings now and I see him.
20:23
and I’m able to hug him and love him. I’m so grateful that he’s healthy. And my mom said, do not take your tears and your worries and your fears to his bedside because he still will understand who you are and what you’re going through. If you gotta do that, you go do that on your own and give him the joy you find in how he’s living now. And I.
20:50
think that’s what we all need to do for each other in this time of COVID, is to gift us each with the joy in how we’re living now. And we will live through this, and we will live best through this when we give best through this. Does that make sense? I couldn’t agree more. And like you say, the art of Bernie teaching us that being truly present, the best gift that we could give anybody is truly
21:19
just being here, just listening, just having that ability to be there, that vulnerability. That’s what everybody wants so much of and they crave it, whether it be from a book or from a TV show. But the idea is we can do that right now. And that’s something that we have this huge opportunity to do.
21:40
You mentioned something and it’s actually the little phrase that I keep framed in my office and it says the result is the truth. You mentioned that earlier when speaking to me and I brought up Dr. John Kim. Dr. John Kim taught me something that is really at work right now and maybe you and I should talk about this later, okay? I’m sincere, we really should talk about this
22:10
will reveal itself. And it comes from a teaching that he has studied and he’s kind of guruish, you know, in that beautiful energy sense he has, but he says it will reveal itself. I think that’s so basic and so pure. I think it’s also iterative. So I just wanted to throw that in there because when we talk about Bernie and whether he has the great use of his language in one moment or the lesser use of it in another,
22:40
it, the it that he’s sharing still reveals itself as it did for you. Your it, your truth, your path, albeit iterative, revealed itself for you, irrespective of the circumstance of where you were physically. Is that true? Oh, that’s absolutely true. And it took stripping away all that stuff that was superfluous, that wasn’t serving me, that was clouding the mind. Nietzsche says that they
23:09
to make it seem deep and that’s what you’re talking about. The it with you and Bernie is that it of love, that it of relationship, that it of that strong foundation that you’ve had for years, so that now irrespective of what’s going on on the outside, that is still the path, that is still the foundation, that’s still the truth. And that’s not something you can fake, because it’s like you said, something that’s unsustainable if it’s fake. And if it is true, it will truly be iterative in any capacity and in the arena that you walk in.
23:36
Oh, wow. And it’s the fake stuff that typically creates the biggest burden for us. When we get to what’s really true, what’s real, what’s highly transparent, you and I spoke about transparency, that stuff we can do. It’s the fake stuff that creates the… I mean, we’re talking about a world right now where we’re seeing racism and anti-racism discussions.
24:04
Years ago, regardless of how people feel about it. My mom told me years ago, you know this idea about race Really is made up. This is years before I ever left my home And we already agreed I’m an older woman right and I look I love it people say oh no, you’re not that old Yes, I am that old. It just depends on what old looks like to you that you receive it, right? But years ago, my mom told me
24:31
all this race stuff is just made up. She said, I’ve given birth to 11 children. And she said, I will tell you that identifying my children by race is just criminal. And she said, it was created for us to be able to create false distinctions between ourselves. Consequently, when each of our children were born, we happened to be able to get away with this in California. So on that little line that said race, we put human.
25:01
Now, there may be some ideas and political around that that don’t work now. I mean, we want everybody to count in the census, right? But I did. I played healman on the line for race for my children. And I did that in homage to my mother’s spirit, because mom and dad raised 11 kids, one mom, one dad, and the genius of the work that they did in having a happy home where it sounds
25:29
unbelievable to some people. We all went to bed at night in harmony. Dad told us, if you had, you read this in my book, if you go to bed angry with each other or unresolved, it’s your attitude, not your aptitude, because your momma didn’t have no dumb kids, right? And just those kinds of things that fueled us. And so I do think that the ability to, as you were talking about all this extra stuff and what’s real and what’s true.
25:57
The ability to get to what’s true makes life easier to solve. Simple isn’t always easy. I’m not talking simple, okay? But what is always easier is the ability to separate the wheat from the chaff. I absolutely agree. Why do you think people try to complicate it so much? Well, I do believe that. And it…
26:23
Mind you, this is historic about us as humans, so I don’t know what the great answer is unless we, you know, we sit and we think about it. But let’s talk about where we are right now. I think people are seeking more to uncomplicate than to complicate it because it got big and unnecessary. And so folks are seeing that. I think that the enemy that technology was thought to have potential to…
26:48
Is now the friend or as my mom would say if god can use everything for the good Okay, so all of that fear about oh look. I need to get off the grid. This is just too much technology I do think that we we are using it for the good So the the question about why do people tend to complicate? Let me lean in on something that I think a little bit stronger about because I don’t know the answer to that I think we have to solve to that. But what I do think is
27:17
this technology we have is allowing us to see it for what it is, and we can see it in real time. And not only do I see it in real time, you see it in real time, we see it at the same time together. And so I can see it, and I can have it to you in a matter of moments. And our lying eyes don’t deceive us in real time. And…
27:45
I think we’re all getting to see what we, I mean, think about it. We’re in business, right? We each appreciate the value of business. The data around how people use their technology is even a business in itself. And then privacy rights and how people can use your data now that you’re engaged. All of these things were big.
28:13
things that without the technology were still occurring, but the technology makes it more evident to us how we live together or how we don’t live together. And so I’m leaning in more thinking we can use it for the good and people are now figuring out how to unfetter. You’ve got people who are wanting to live further out. Working from home, distance working, is teaching companies that they can lose some of the cost.
28:42
of people being facilitated in one place. It’s teaching folks that they can get as much, if not more accomplished in ways they hadn’t thought before. And even in my conversation with you in our opening, I was sharing with you that the beautiful people at Act One are closer together now in distance work than before. I mean, we’re looking at each other camera to camera now, you know, and we can see all this stuff behind. And you know, we have the,
29:12
intimacy of being in the places that we call home, married to the ability to conduct work. What better opportunity than you can you have than to work life balance? That, I mean, that was a big subject. You can Google it and see people are writing books and running sessions on it. So, Marcus, I do think that we have an opportunity right now to solve for why the stuff.
29:39
guiding our way, whether it was the physical stuff we bought or whether it was the emotional or political stuff we bought. I think many people are being clearer about that. And that’s an advantage of technology that some who fear technology, the AI and the big brotherness of it, did not speak to that I think is actually going to help us to solve ourselves. Did I answer anything you asked?
30:08
You went above and beyond. That was fantastic. Back to like you’re saying that simplicity. It’s important to have that because again with business Simplicity is what we’re able to execute on if we’re in the heat of combat. We talk about bottom line Absolutely bottom line is everything and I tell my teams look give me the data first They will put put the picture to it or my salespeople don’t sell from adjectives sale from data
30:34
You know, well even in your book I in the art of war I love where they say keep your friends close and your enemies closer and you had some beautiful points in your book where you mentioned At one point that you would buy stock in your competitors and it when I first read that I thought what is she doing? But then you were saying no, this is the best way to have legitimate real-time data unadulterated this is what’s going on and
31:00
But that is more important than anything else you could have. And then you also took it to another level when you were talking about bidding for something. And there may be another company that came in second or third, and you turned it into a triple win because you would work with that company, those third and fourth companies. Not only would they win, you would learn. So it was an incredible situation where now you took that opportunity, turned it into a huge boom for everyone. It builds that trust. It builds that reciprocity. You learn about business.
31:29
A lot of people are very close to the chest about what they’re doing, but you have no fear because you understand what you’re doing so well. When you could walk into one of our development centers about five months ago, now nobody’s going in, right? Physically. But if you walked in physically five months ago, the one right in Torrance, California, Marcus, you would see on the wall, when you’re green, you grow. When you’re white, you rot.
31:56
And you see it throughout the content that we share and teach from inside our organization. And that’s what you’re talking about. You know, you’ve got to stay green, you’ve got to stay growing. You hear me talk about growing a lot. And I did not realize just how much I use the word grow until someone pulled me on it and asked me, you always talk about growing, you always talk about growing. And for a CEO.
32:26
you’re typically not using it when you’re talking about volume of profit. You’re talking about people or you’re talking about experiences. And I was like, okay, maybe I better change that. Should I, should I have a different look at how I’m thinking about growth? Uh, I do believe though that when you focus on the growth of individuals or you focus on, I get to tell you that statement is up in our development room, right? When you focus on growth in that way.
32:54
I think the rest of it takes care of itself. So let me just flip note back. No, I absolutely agree. And you are the master of figuring out what is truly a priority and then executing against that religiously because that’s how you get there. Again, I believe that the reason why people try to complicate things is because if it’s simple, they see that there’s gonna be work that has to be done. And lots of times work, whether it be personal work or business work is not sexy, it’s difficult.
33:22
and it takes a lot of effort to continually endure that. We call that going hard in, okay? So here’s a gift for you, go hard in, okay? And what that simply means is simply, what that simply means is look at what matters, look at the core and then you work with that, you know? That’s it, and if everything is a priority, then nothing is a priority. So just like you’re saying, if you take care of the big things, all these small things that you have on this list that is
33:51
You know superfluous and unnecessary the smaller things at the very bottom will get taken care of if you take care of the top Three and just continue to cultivate those things let them grow and I again I love the way that you invest in your people the way that you trust them there are so many businesses that I’ve worked with with leadership where you have a CEO or a CEO that’s afraid to hire people because They don’t want to take their hands off the wheel or they they don’t trust that person or they had this
34:18
You’re shaking your head because you you see it and you’ve understood it But you hire people that don’t fall into those traps And I believe that that’s why you’ve been able to have not only this Multi-billion dollar success but just like you said this connection to the people that you’ve hired so powerfully Even now when we’re supposed to be less close. You’re actually getting closer in the process of this adversity And I’m not suggesting for one moment that our execs are all
34:45
having this kumbaya moment in the midst of copia. Or contrary, I mean, some of our most robust arguments have occurred. Some of our biggest questions have surfaced. What I’m telling you is that these are some of the most capable, caring people who put their best energy into who we become.
35:14
We have a hashtag that has existed for us before the hashtags existed as a theme And it’s called together we win and we used to call it our tag line And the whole understanding of it wasn’t just Okay, everybody gets it that you know, we all went together and we are the world. We are the children It was also about What we do we have to be very clear that
35:42
the whole company wins or that the whole team wins or that the whole engagement wins, the client, the applicant and us. And so we use a lot of technology to metric that, but at the end of the day, it has to have the emotion in it that people are feeling that it’s been worth the thing. And so it’s that balance, people talk about work-life balance, it’s that balance of making sure the data supports the…
36:12
outcome you want, not putting the work in to support the data you want. Exactly. We let the truth dictate our actions, not our actions to dictate the truth. And that’s what’s so necessary. Amen. Amen. Amen. You have to have those things. And that’s why, again, I’m so impressed with what you’ve been able to do. You give that spirit, you give that freedom to each person there and you, you allow them to push themselves and then you give them that additional component that helps them expect even more the standard. They give back to me. That’s exactly it.
36:42
When they are doing that, think about the gift I have. Now, look, you’ve heard me say this possibly if you looked at anything I’ve done on YouTube. This nappy-headed little colored girl, and I’m sitting here talking to you with braids because you promised me this video ain’t going nowhere. This nappy-headed little colored girl growing up in Tarboro, North Carolina, and I’m talking with you as a person who has brick and mortar in 32 countries.
37:12
I’m born at a time when Racism was alive and well expected And honestly people would say you got to understand this for my people too. I attended segregated schools For all but one year of my one through 12 My first through 12 and I was 12 before I touched the hand of a white person and so for me to be able to
37:41
Talk with you from this platform that ain’t just me kid. That’s those people in this company who are making that possible. So yeah, we can talk about me gifting them, empowering them, respecting them. I get that back in. You know, what do they say? You get it back, tempo shaking down. That, you know, I don’t wanna go Bible on you, but hey. That’s absolutely true.
38:09
And that’s what you were saying in your book. You talk about this, that you were segregated until the 11th grade. What is the biggest lesson that you learned going through that process? Because from there, you came to California with $900 in your pocket, not too long after that, and started your business for your vacation in California that you never left. How did that shape you? How did that form you? How did that impact you?
38:36
And then we see this incredible person before us today. So many people hit adversity like something like that, and they let that stifle them. That’s their ceiling. But every strong person I’ve met, every successful person I’ve met like yourself, they’ve hit adversity. They’ve been able to learn, they’ve turned it. They’ve taken that energy, they’ve blended with it, they lean into it, and now they’ve been able to catapult to another level with it. What did that lesson, that experience, what was the gift in that for you?
39:02
Well, you asked the question initially, what is the biggest lesson I’ve learned? And that’s kind of I can’t answer the biggest lesson I’ve learned because it’s kind of like, you know, do I value my eyes or my legs more? You know, that I have eyes and legs. And so I will tell you things that pop to mind to answer that question, though, are one, I learned the power of my relationship with God.
39:31
You’ll hear a lot of people do a call and answer that goes kind of like, it’s not what they call you, it’s what you answer to. And for us, they can nigger you all day, but it’s what you answer to that defines who you are. And that was literally what I got called a lot. Oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah. That was the worst year of my life, my 11th grade year of school. And I’m an old woman who has lived a lot.
39:59
and I can still to this day say that was the worst year of my life. And people will ask me questions. And I’m sure you’ve been asked if you had it to do all over again, what would you change? And people graciously and likely honestly say, I wouldn’t change any of it because it made me who I am. I would change so much. OK, yes, I would. And does that sound like a person who’s not grateful? I’m very grateful for where I am right now.
40:28
I didn’t need all of that to get here, okay? I didn’t need all of that challenge to get here. But the other thing that I learned was that my family was a strength for me. We were brought up under the understanding, again, it’s a biblical, you know, I’m from Tarboro, North Carolina, so you know, Bible and Sunday were big, and Bible lasted all weeks. Sunday is just where we all got together to talk about it.
40:56
But I was raised under the understanding that I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Now, whether you’re Christ-based or not, it’s about doing things through the strength of your belief, you know? And I did learn that. That’s something I learned from that year. I also learned something that my mom taught me. Maybe it was in the book you read where mom taught me to harness that anger.
41:25
don’t disrespect it, but turn it into passion. She said, anger feeds the cancer and passion heals it. And so she taught me to, she said, they’re the same emotion and they’re differently focused, differently applied. That was a lot for me in the 11th grade to learn because most people in my neighborhood who were in the 11th grade were thinking about boyfriends and girlfriends and prom or.
41:55
you know, who they were gonna be when they grew up, whatever, you know, and I’m looking at how am I gonna get home safe from this and how am I gonna get the grades I need in order to get a scholarship because dad said everybody had to go to college and you know, those of us who could get scholarships at Sherwood help the family a lot. You know, those kinds of things. So I took a lot from that year.
42:21
Perhaps the bigger thing is what that year gave me was a confidence in all of the stuff that mattered in my life and that helped to make me me. It was the brothers who walked early and got permission to be there to walk me home back across town so I’d be safe. It was the lady in the department store, Rose’s Dime Store, who defended me against my classmates.
42:51
who taunted me and filled me with fear in a store. We’re talking about a time to be very clear where in my community, like many communities throughout the South and other parts of the United States during this pre-civil rights period, if I were walking down the street and a white person were approaching me, I had to step into the street and lead the sidewalk to them. We’re talking about a time where if you were black.
43:17
You didn’t try on a pair of shoes to buy them. You bought them and there was a no return policy on anything you took out of the store. We’re talking about if you wanted to go see a movie, you sat up in the balcony and you entered on the back. You bought your ticket and then you walked around and went up the back to the balcony. Now my husband has told me on two counts that one, the fact that I couldn’t try on shoes, I sure made up for that because folks send me shoes.
43:46
And he suggested that the balcony may have been the better view if he were going to the movie with me because he loved to smooch and bringing that sense of I feel your pain and here I’m with you and I love you and again, you and I talked earlier about Finding a way to laugh in the middle of stuff that ain’t funny, you know So yeah, there’s a lot that that year took from me, but there’s so much more
44:15
that gave me that passion. I talked to people about, I call it an adversity scale where the hardest thing that ever happened to me on that 10 was, was being injured, being paralyzed, being told I never walked down on the table twice. Yeah, twice, twice. And that’s the thing that’s my litmus test. So now if business is hard or if I’m overrun or whatever’s going on, I step back and I say, okay, in the grand scheme of things, is this really that bad? And so that’s what allows me to take that.
44:45
And now say, you know what, it’s not that bad. It helps me take a breath. It helps me find true gratitude and then be grateful for having the opportunity to have this much trouble with having to do things. And once I do that, it takes all of that. Again, it takes that victim mentality away from me. Good trouble, good trouble. Good trouble to have. We talked about JRL yesterday, homecoming and-
45:09
good trouble. He was a fan of good trouble and you helped to define what good trouble looked like for you. There’s one thing that I really want to hear from you on if I may and that is you know people speak about you and that you die twice and keep going with that. I think there is something to be studied that we don’t just say you die twice and hear
45:38
As oh he died on the table and came back the fact that it was twice I think has to be studied. I do you you know what i’m saying? There’s a gift that you can give us from dying twice because Folks can go through something And get to somewhere do it twice There’s a gift in that we need to study that
46:08
I absolutely agree. It’s given me tremendous urgency. It’s given me tremendous filtering. So when I talk to people, I want to talk to a person like you, somebody of your caliber, who’s saying stuff that’s truly important, saying stuff that gets down to the it, as opposed to people that are, again, trying to just look like they’re famous on social media. Being famous on social media is like being rich in monopoly in my mind. It’s like that doesn’t really matter. Are you truly helping people? Are you making an impact? Are you moving the needle?
46:36
And if you’re able to do that from a way that truly feeds you. And then like with you, where you, I love how you talk about the, the vision that you have for your company, where you want your, all of your employees to succeed. You talked about the idea of them all being able to have homes and that picture, all that kind of stuff. That’s exactly what people need as opposed to just saying, what’s the kind of impact you want to make on the world? And they’re like, I want to make a, a, but trillion dollars. That doesn’t mean a whole lot, but at your level, There’s a VP in our company who
47:05
really loved the urgency of people who worked under his leadership being able to own a home if they wanted a home. And since COVID, see, Marcus, you’re into something, since COVID, he approached me and he said, wow, I’m thinking about all the people who we helped buy homes, and now they’re working from those homes.
47:33
Do you know how many have expressed gratitude for that?
47:39
That’s it. Nobody does it for that, right? But wow, when that’s it, when you’re talking about that it or when Dr. John Kim says it will reveal itself. It’s power and it’s undeniable. It’s something that you can’t just, you know, make an excuse for it to go away. It’s there, it’s in your face. And when it’s something powerful that’s beautiful like that, it makes you smile, it makes you laugh. And so many people I’ve met on my journey think that good is
48:09
of weakness, you know, it’s the softer side of who we are. We stop all the stuff we really do to have a moment to be good. Good is the most powerful thing there is. Good is the root word for God. Good is the most powerful thing there is. Another thing that I grew up with is we can do well and do good at the same time. You don’t have to do well and then go back to do good.
48:37
You know, oh, well, when I earned this, I’m going to do this. You know, I remember pledging once that if I got a contract, I would dedicate the first month’s profit to a school to educate folks. And I felt so proud of myself being able to share that iPhone with my mom. And my mom has a very soft voice, and she used to sing every day. OK? Now, this lady knew speaking truth to power.
49:07
Okay, because she didn’t have a lot to sing about a lot of hooch years. There were tough times But she sang a lot because she saw a lot, right? And mom people you say oh miss them people will walk by our house and stop and linger just to hear her sing beautiful voice and don’t let her sit down and play the piano and sing which she did very infrequently But when she did it was a treat, but I was so proud in telling mom that you know I had made a decision to
49:36
gift the first month’s profit to a school. And she said, why do you have to wait to do that? Where’s your confidence lacking that you can’t do it now? Where’s your confidence? Now, I’m not talking about spending money you don’t have. I’m talking about sowing seeds on your faith, you know? And faith is the evidence of things unseen. And so mom was saying there are sometimes that
50:05
The good you do, but it you do, like Dr. John Kim says, reveals itself for you, right? I didn’t need to wait to get that money. What’s stopping me from doing it now? Exactly. Just such a powerful force in my life. Yeah, and you were saying that that’s sort of your direction, your compass, even now you kind of ask yourself morally, what would your father or mother think about what you’re doing? Yes, yes. And then-
50:33
That’s your default. So if there’s ever any question, you can just go back to that. Boom. And now you execute doing the right thing. We do Sibling Sunday, okay? There are eight of us of the 11 who are still trekking around on Planet Earth. We do Sibling Sunday. We do assignments. We do book reports. We do cub reporting. What’s in the news that ain’t in the news right now?
51:02
That’s not the headlines. And just really, it’s such a nurturing and beautiful time. We also share a lot of lies and you know, die, right? Well, it’s family. You have to have that in there. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s so incredible though, because we’re able to, during Sibling Sunday, be able to go back to so much of that stuff that mom and dad were teaching us. And we talk about dad so alive.
51:32
and so present on those Sundays. I think that when Kay told me she hoped that we don’t lose, she hopes that we don’t lose what we’re experiencing right now once we’re through COVID, I think that has such a great relationship to what we’re doing when we’re having those sibling Sundays. Does that make sense, Marcus? Oh, I absolutely agree. It’s that moment to step back and reflect and really look at it.
52:00
unadulterated just the way it is, strip away all the other stuff that’s going on. And again, we get to focus on what’s truly important as opposed to in my mind, either we choose what is important to us or somebody else would choose something that they feel is important and then it will be forced upon us. And that’s not where I want to live my life. And clearly that’s not where you’ve lived your life. So I’m so proud that we’re on the same path with that. I want to be respectful of your time. And I can’t thank you enough for all that you’ve given us already.
52:28
At the level of success that you’re at as this incredible business owner, this role model, this mentor, this leader, how do you stay motivated? How do you stay inspired to continue doing what you’re doing as opposed to just saying, okay, well, I’ve reached X amount of companies or businesses or monetary investment worth, and then just kind of give up and say, I’m going to put my feet up and just kind of let it ride. How can I not stay inspired? How can I have?
52:57
any consciousness of what’s going on in the world today at any level and not be inspired to bring my best to the world. You know, the world can be better or worse for how we collectively honor it. I think that for me at the individual level, it’s such a disrespect to the God I say I honor. And we, I told you I believe
53:26
Good is the root word for God. If I honor good, then how do I not stay inspired by that? 5.30 every morning, my executive aide slash niece, Christie and I are walking. We see squirrels, we hear the whole hoop owl sometimes if it’s still dark enough. And we’re watchful for the coyote impassioned.
53:55
who lived here before we got here. We get to see the sun come up, and on one side we see the ocean, and on another side we see the city, and we watch them both wake up before we journey back to my house. That I get up to walk to that is inspiring. And the reason I give that to you in answer is because I was asked by someone, wow, they told me you walk. You get up every morning and you’re walking at 5.30.
54:24
you’d think you’d be getting that extra nap or blah, blah, blah, or whatever. And I’m like, okay, you do understand that before COVID, I was getting up at three o’clock to catch flights to get to LA. I can’t, so we’re ever in guys flights. You do understand what a gift is. What a gift of nature. Dr. John Kim told me talk with the birds and the squirrels.
54:49
and they’ll send the message to the coyote and the possum. Now I’m not out here being disrespectful of what that really represents, okay? But I also am very respectful of what he’s saying, that it will reveal itself in that. And so inspiration for me is kind of like, I think it was Jesse Jackson once who said, I don’t get up on an alarm clock, I get up on purpose. I don’t live by, you talked about amassing stuff and accumulation.
55:18
I live for the experience and I’m excited to get up every day and enjoy this experience. And I’m not so afraid of losing my relationship to this existence that I would value it above how I live through eternity. And so I’m really inspired to enjoy all of it. You know? I absolutely agree. Everyone, if what you heard JBH talking about was important to you.
55:48
go grab her book, go subscribe to her podcast, go give it a five-star review. If what we talked about here was powerful for you, send it to somebody that needs it because if you didn’t learn something from this conversation, then you better shake your pulse because we had everything from business to philosophy to spirituality to finding what’s truly important in your life. I’ve met so many people that are grateful when things are going well because that’s when it’s easy to be grateful. But then when things get difficult, their gratitude kind of goes out the window. But…
56:16
Even now you’re finding these things to be grateful for and I can’t thank you enough for what you’re doing and the example that you’re You’re studying for everyone in this world and what’s going on and and with the love that you’re spreading. So thank you so much jake Okay marvin gay what’s going on? Hey marcus, you’ve heard this song before my mama used to sing This is the one people used to wait for because she’s singing for when we were kids I’m no singer. I’m just gonna tell you what she said. She’s this little light of mine. I’m gonna let it shine
56:46
This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine. Let it shine. And then she would go on to sing it everywhere I go. I’m gonna let it shine. And then she’d sing even in the dark, I’m gonna let it shine. I think maybe it’s growing up under that, that inspires me. Thank you.
