Latest / Freshwater Yankee / The Ugly Duckling (Stephen Vekovius Part 1 of 2)

Transcript

The Ugly Duckling (Stephen Vekovius Part 1 of 2) · Freshwater Yankee

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Hello and welcome to the Freshwater Yankee Podcast.
0:02
SPEAKER_00: As always, I'm your host, Wendell O'Reilly.
0:05
SPEAKER_00: And listen, I know y'all have been patiently waiting for this episode.
0:09
SPEAKER_00: I had to take a small hiatus.
0:11
SPEAKER_00: Uh life and work just got in the way of things, which is pretty common among podcasters.
0:17
SPEAKER_00: But, you know, truth be told, even though I was extremely busy, I was also a little stuck in terms of what episode to put out next, especially coming off of what I thought was a really great episode with uh Dr.
0:31
SPEAKER_00: Charlene Sinegal de Queer of Xavier University, Louisiana, where we talked about the African diaspora and the influence of it on the modern world.
0:40
SPEAKER_00: So I was just kind of trying to figure out what the next episode was.
0:43
SPEAKER_00: And funny enough, I was preparing uh for a class that I just taught at Centenary College in Shreveport, and I ran into Steven Vakovious, who is a good friend of mine.
0:55
SPEAKER_00: I was at a coffee shop just kind of prepping for my class, and he I looked up and he was there, and we decided to have lunch.
1:02
SPEAKER_00: And so I met Steven in 2012 when I joined Moonbot, which is an animation studio that was here in Shreveport, Louisiana.
1:12
SPEAKER_00: And Moonbot was just coming off of an Oscar win.
1:15
SPEAKER_00: And Steven and his team provided IT support for the entire studio, including the render farm.
1:20
SPEAKER_00: And uh, Steven was and and still is a larger than life character.
1:25
SPEAKER_00: He is extremely smart, uh, he's very funny, and most of all, he's very, very interesting to talk to.
1:30
SPEAKER_00: And so a few years ago, he sold his very successful IT company and began a journey of self-discovery.
1:38
SPEAKER_00: And it it has been really, really cool to just check in with him and chat about it from time to time.
1:44
SPEAKER_00: Now that said, I really had no plans on Steven being the next freshwater Yankee guest.
1:50
SPEAKER_00: But when we met for lunch, we actually started talking about life and where we are, and and he asked me about the podcast and I told him what it was about.
1:58
SPEAKER_00: And the conversation took a rather unexpected turn.
2:02
SPEAKER_00: Because Steven explained that he had many similar experiences to me, even though I was born in Trinidad and came to Shreveport, Louisiana as an adult.
2:12
SPEAKER_00: He was actually born in Baton Rouge and then came to Shrevewood as a very young child.
2:19
SPEAKER_00: But we got to talking about his ethnic and cultural background and how those things set him apart from the crowd and and how those things shaped who he is today.
2:30
SPEAKER_00: So the the episode that you're about to listen to is part one of two, because we had a really long conversation about all kinds of stuff, and we basically started at childhood and then ended up kind of where we are today, as essentially middle-aged men who, in all for all intents and purposes, we try to be leaders in in spaces that we are in and we try to give back to our communities.
2:54
SPEAKER_00: And so I hope you enjoy.
2:56
SPEAKER_00: And before we go any further, please remember to like, subscribe, and give us a five-star review on your favorite platform.
3:04
SPEAKER_00: It helps us reach a wider audience and it allows us to have meaningful discussions about culture, the movement of people, and the similarities we all share.
3:15
SPEAKER_00: So, right now we'll just drop right into the conversation and I hope you enjoy.
3:29
SPEAKER_00: So, Steven, let's just jump in, right?
3:31
SPEAKER_00: So tell me a little bit about um your background, how you got because I I met you in Shreveport.
3:38
SPEAKER_00: Like you were here when when I came, right?
3:41
SPEAKER_00: I have always been sort of the outsider.
3:43
SPEAKER_00: So tell me a little bit about your story and and um how you got to Shreveport and you know.
3:49
SPEAKER_01: Okay, well, thanks for having me first.
3:51
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
3:51
SPEAKER_01: It's good to see you again and reconnect.
3:53
SPEAKER_01: I had a good time at lunch the other day.
3:55
SPEAKER_01: Uh well, my I my parents are both from Detroit, Michigan.
3:59
SPEAKER_01: So north.
4:00
SPEAKER_01: They're both Yankees.
4:01
SPEAKER_01: So I think it's fitting that you're naming their show.
4:03
SPEAKER_00: It's a Yankee, yeah, yeah.
4:04
SPEAKER_01: Right.
4:04
SPEAKER_01: I don't I don't know the tie yet, but I think it's there somewhere.
4:07
SPEAKER_01: We'll find it as we go.
4:08
SPEAKER_01: And so my dad was finishing up his doctorate in mathematics at the time.
4:14
SPEAKER_01: This is like in the late 60s.
4:16
SPEAKER_01: And so they had more mathematicians on staff in at LSU Baton Rouge than they did at Ann Arbor.
4:21
SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, in Arbor, Michigan, for University of Michigan.
4:24
SPEAKER_01: So we had both of my parents, interesting enough, graduated from college from Wayne State University.
4:28
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
4:28
SPEAKER_01: Which is pretty interesting to say the least, especially back then.
4:32
SPEAKER_01: I mean, both my parents were born in the early 40s.
4:35
SPEAKER_01: So uh well I ended up coming back to coming down to New Orleans, I'm sorry, Baton Rouge, and that's where I was born.
4:41
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
4:42
SPEAKER_01: So I was born in Baton Rouge.
4:43
SPEAKER_01: And then my dad got a job at LSUS as um a professor.
4:48
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
4:48
SPEAKER_01: And that's what brought us to Street Port.
4:50
SPEAKER_01: Gotcha.
4:50
SPEAKER_01: So I was a young boy.
4:51
SPEAKER_01: I was probably maybe three or four, I don't know.
4:54
SPEAKER_01: I don't remember.
4:55
SPEAKER_01: Um, that's what got me here.
4:57
SPEAKER_01: And then they started to, you know, my dad stayed there for a while, and then he went to the med school.
5:02
SPEAKER_01: And I just started to stay around here.
5:05
SPEAKER_01: I went to Montessori School, the original Montessori School of Shreveport.
5:08
SPEAKER_01: And then from there I went to young to AC Steer, which is a grade school, and then middle school and middle magnet, first seventh grade class there, and then I went to Magnet High, yeah, and then Louisiana Tech.
5:19
SPEAKER_01: And so I found that this is kind of a place that had a lot of need.
5:23
SPEAKER_01: So I didn't go look anywhere else for a job.
5:25
SPEAKER_01: And my father at that time had started a software company in 81 called Soft Disc.
5:29
SPEAKER_01: And so I left college and went back to work for him for a little while.
5:33
SPEAKER_01: And so that's kind of my and then from there in 1995, I started my business.
5:37
SPEAKER_01: I went to work for EDS at a Plano in '97 to 2000.
5:42
SPEAKER_01: And then 2000, I went full-time with my business.
5:45
SPEAKER_01: Gotcha.
5:46
SPEAKER_01: Too many people called me for help, and I just said, okay, there's gotta be a reason why I'm doing this.
5:50
SPEAKER_01: So I just started doing it.
5:51
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
5:51
SPEAKER_01: And started to charge in for it.
5:53
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
5:53
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
5:53
SPEAKER_01: And along the way I got certified as a Microsoft certified systems engineer back in the late 90s, and I kept that being nude for a little bit.
6:02
SPEAKER_01: And then after a while, I just became a business direct.
6:04
SPEAKER_01: So that's kind of it in a very short time frame.
6:07
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
6:08
SPEAKER_01: But yeah, it's been interesting to say the least.
6:11
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
6:11
SPEAKER_00: And and I I I just want to tease this because I hope at some point we could sit down and maybe have a conversation about soft disk.
6:18
SPEAKER_00: But the the that tree that you are part of is like one of the most influential software companies uh foundationally uh in in the United States with and probably worldwide, in terms of the like the stuff that you guys were doing uh before anybody else was doing.
6:39
SPEAKER_00: You you truly were pioneers.
6:41
SPEAKER_00: So this is not just like a local deal.
6:43
SPEAKER_00: Like there are branches that there's lots of cold range.
6:47
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
6:48
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
6:48
SPEAKER_01: And that would be a fun like just to sit down and draw those out is to see all the things that they were doing back then.
6:54
SPEAKER_01: And the irony, the only thing I will say of all of it is soft soft disk was a in 1981 is when it started.
7:00
SPEAKER_01: And it was for the Apple II, and it was a subscription-based model.
7:04
SPEAKER_01: Right.
7:04
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so here we are in 2026.
7:07
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and they're all you subscribe to software now.
7:10
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
7:11
SPEAKER_01: It's funny how it went like soft disk was way country.
7:14
SPEAKER_01: In 81, you all were doing subscription-based stuff.
7:16
SPEAKER_01: Way country before country was cool.
7:18
SPEAKER_01: Like everybody at from then started growing, and you bought software retail at Babbage's top USA.
7:24
SPEAKER_01: Right.
7:24
SPEAKER_01: And then you could download it, of course, once the internet came around and people bought software, package software.
7:29
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
7:29
SPEAKER_01: And it was yours, not anymore.
7:32
SPEAKER_01: Soft disk.
7:33
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
7:34
SPEAKER_00: Well, it's funny.
7:35
SPEAKER_00: The first PC that we owned in my family back in Trinidad was an Apple IIC.
7:42
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I remember that because.
7:43
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we weren't cool enough to get the 2E because it was a little more expensive.
7:46
SPEAKER_00: I had a cousin, my cousin James and Felicia, they had the 2E, but we had a 2C, but it was awesome, man.
7:52
SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's it.
7:53
SPEAKER_00: I played Castlevania on it.
7:54
SPEAKER_00: You took the little disc and shut it in the tight.
7:56
SPEAKER_01: That's right.
7:57
SPEAKER_01: You ran off a floppy.
7:58
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
7:58
SPEAKER_00: And I remember I could still remember the sound of it booting up.
8:01
SPEAKER_00: Oh, of course.
8:02
SPEAKER_00: You know?
8:02
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
8:03
SPEAKER_00: And then you get your little C prompt.
8:04
SPEAKER_01: And that was it?
8:06
SPEAKER_01: And then and then you just change it to your drive loader and you start watching it.
8:09
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
8:09
SPEAKER_01: One of my favorite games ever is on the Apple II.
8:13
SPEAKER_00: So so you are from uh Baton Rouge, but sort of like, you know, Detroit is kind of the roots.
8:20
SPEAKER_00: But yeah.
8:21
SPEAKER_00: But part of the the thing that that really sparked the conversation that got us to this point is the fact that you are um you are from a multicultural background, right?
8:30
SPEAKER_00: For sure.
8:31
SPEAKER_01: So my mom is 100% Syrian.
8:33
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
8:33
SPEAKER_01: And my dad is like German, German French.
8:37
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
8:37
SPEAKER_01: So he's tall, blonde, you know, fair skinned, blue-eyed.
8:40
SPEAKER_01: And my mom was 4'11 and you know, very short, very dark eyes, dark complexed, and came from a full Syrian family.
8:48
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
8:49
SPEAKER_01: Now, the thing is, they were from Detroit, so we would spend all of our summers in Detroit.
8:53
SPEAKER_01: I mean, there were times when I thought I knew, that's like I thought I was from there because we would spend all of our time there.
8:59
SPEAKER_01: So every holiday we'd go to Detroit.
9:01
SPEAKER_01: Now, my ma's folks relocated to Miami before I think before I was born.
9:06
SPEAKER_01: So if we would go see her folks, we'd go to Miami.
9:09
SPEAKER_01: But they're from Detroit too.
9:10
SPEAKER_01: Right.
9:11
SPEAKER_01: And there's lots of stories.
9:13
SPEAKER_01: But coming down here, like my mom would tell would tell this story when she was alive.
9:17
SPEAKER_01: She means she left like nine years ago.
9:20
SPEAKER_01: But she used to tell me when I was a kid, I like right when I went to grade school here in Treeport, I went to AC Steer and they used to serve breakfast, right?
9:29
SPEAKER_01: You go there for breakfast.
9:30
SPEAKER_01: And we weren't, we didn't have a lot of money.
9:33
SPEAKER_01: We were middle class people and living in Broadmore.
9:35
SPEAKER_01: So it wasn't like, you know, I never got to bring my lunch.
9:38
SPEAKER_01: I never, I always ate the school meals, right?
9:39
SPEAKER_01: I ate school lunches my whole life.
9:41
SPEAKER_01: I'm, you know, I still miss them.
9:43
SPEAKER_01: At least somebody would cook.
9:45
SPEAKER_01: And then, you know, and for me, that's a big deal now, because I don't, I mean, I don't have any food.
9:49
SPEAKER_01: But right now, right now, like my my my if you come home and she said, I she said, I came home and I asked for grits.
9:56
SPEAKER_01: And she's like, I don't know what a grit is.
9:58
SPEAKER_01: I don't know what grits is.
9:59
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
10:00
SPEAKER_01: Because my mom would serve us Arabic food, right?
10:01
SPEAKER_01: And all my friends would come over and we'd have Arabic food.
10:04
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
10:05
SPEAKER_01: For for just, and they would like it, I think.
10:07
SPEAKER_01: You know, some of them would like it, some of them wouldn't like it, but they would still tell me as an adult, they go, Oh, I remember going to your mom's house and eating those grape leaves.
10:15
SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
10:16
SPEAKER_01: Those roll grape leaves.
10:17
SPEAKER_01: And these aren't like Greek grape leaves, these are like Arabic grape leaves.
10:20
SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay, yeah.
10:21
SPEAKER_01: The the dolmas are the Greek ones.
10:23
SPEAKER_01: They sure they're they're served differently.
10:25
SPEAKER_01: It's a totally different dish.
10:26
SPEAKER_01: I don't think they have meat in them, but these were the old, you know, these were ones where you get meat and rice and you pull them up.
10:31
SPEAKER_01: So my mom would make these every weekend.
10:33
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
10:34
SPEAKER_01: Right.
10:34
SPEAKER_01: And this is how she was taught.
10:35
SPEAKER_01: This is what she did.
10:36
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
10:37
SPEAKER_01: And so there, my family, my mom's stimulant was from this little city in Syria called Humps, which is not done well.
10:44
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I uh you'd have to look at pictures of it.
10:46
SPEAKER_01: I think they're rebuilding it, but it got beaten up pretty bad in the last several years.
10:50
SPEAKER_01: So anyway, but they had very regional food and very regional dialect, right?
10:55
SPEAKER_01: And so we would call different words different things, and some other Arabic people, like their Arabs, don't know those words.
11:02
SPEAKER_01: Right.
11:02
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
11:03
SPEAKER_01: Like watermelon is petite in Arabic.
11:06
SPEAKER_01: We called it jabbas.
11:08
SPEAKER_01: So they're kind of like they don't know jabbas is that's what we would call it.
11:10
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
11:11
SPEAKER_01: Anyway, little words like this along the way.
11:13
SPEAKER_01: But yeah, being in the South, no, there was nobody like me.
11:18
SPEAKER_01: And so it was fun.
11:19
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
11:20
SPEAKER_01: But at the same time, I was kind of this.
11:22
SPEAKER_01: I mean, not I would never say I was ostracized.
11:24
SPEAKER_01: I would never say that that, but it did shape who I am.
11:27
SPEAKER_01: Right.
11:28
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I this is like the most important part of that, of that world.
11:32
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
11:32
SPEAKER_01: So you I would come to school, and I had friends, of course.
11:36
SPEAKER_01: We all everyone got along, but you know, it's still a little bit different.
11:40
SPEAKER_01: Just a little bit, a little odd.
11:42
SPEAKER_01: Just something, yeah.
11:42
SPEAKER_01: Just something, right?
11:43
SPEAKER_01: Just enough to be a little bit.
11:45
SPEAKER_01: Plus, I was probably pretty hyperactive and you know, it's probably a little annoying.
11:49
SPEAKER_01: I don't know how I acted when I was a kid, but I know I didn't get good grades in conduct.
11:52
SPEAKER_01: And so I would, I would, you know, but like if I scratched myself, you know, or something, I would have they all the kids don't always tease me.
11:58
SPEAKER_01: I had orange blood.
11:59
SPEAKER_01: You know, it's like, how about orange blood?
12:02
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
12:03
SPEAKER_01: Because my skin was olive colored, and for some reason, you know, and I favored my mom, right?
12:08
SPEAKER_01: So all everybody knew I looked a little different.
12:10
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
12:10
SPEAKER_01: And growing up here, I would be associated with the Greeks, with the last name Vacovius.
12:16
SPEAKER_01: Right.
12:16
SPEAKER_01: So I said, Oh, you must be Greek.
12:18
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
12:18
SPEAKER_01: Well, I don't, I don't, I'm not Greek, but that's nice.
12:22
SPEAKER_01: But that's who my like I would associate with that group.
12:24
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
12:25
SPEAKER_01: And then I remember one time when I was in like, I mean, I'm talking in my 20s.
12:28
SPEAKER_01: I was somewhere, and it was one of these Greek festivals, and this guy comes up to me.
12:32
SPEAKER_01: He goes, Oh, yeah, like a good Greek boy.
12:35
SPEAKER_01: Like, like, not like that, but like he was it being nice.
12:38
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
12:39
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, the Greeks, you know, I was like, yeah, well, like it's like strong.
12:42
SPEAKER_01: Laying along, and I just played along.
12:44
SPEAKER_01: And then I remember like when I was in my in high school, from high school to, oh, I don't know, easily in my 30s.
12:51
SPEAKER_01: I looked like this man from Chile, from South America.
12:54
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
12:54
SPEAKER_01: And his name was Fernando.
12:55
SPEAKER_01: And so people would come down.
12:57
SPEAKER_01: And he was very well known.
12:58
SPEAKER_01: He has an editor for the newspaper, and he could see him from downtown.
13:01
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
13:01
SPEAKER_01: From time to time.
13:02
SPEAKER_01: Young man.
13:03
SPEAKER_01: He's older than me by about three or four years, but I knew his brothers, my same grade as me in high school.
13:08
SPEAKER_01: And they'd go, they people, I'd walk down the street, oh, hey, Fernando.
13:11
SPEAKER_01: I was like, well, I know Fernando, he's a really great guy.
13:13
SPEAKER_01: I'm Steven.
13:14
SPEAKER_01: And so I did that a couple times, and after while I just sit on there.
13:17
SPEAKER_01: Right.
13:17
SPEAKER_00: I just said, hey, Fernando.
13:19
SPEAKER_00: Hey, how are you?
13:20
SPEAKER_00: I just gave up.
13:21
SPEAKER_00: So, so so just to kind of give people some context for what you're talking about, you you could pass for many things, right?
13:30
SPEAKER_00: Many things.
13:31
SPEAKER_00: You could some if somebody looked at you, they could say you look like Isaiah Morales a little bit.
13:36
SPEAKER_00: You look Hispanic, right?
13:37
SPEAKER_00: Of course.
13:38
SPEAKER_00: Or or you you look like any um of like any Arabic tribe or Yeah, of course.
13:46
SPEAKER_00: Um and I will tell you, like, when I'm this is the craziest thing, and I cannot believe like it took us like a decade and a half of knowing each other to actually have this conversation.
13:57
SPEAKER_00: Because I have never even wondered like what your ethnicity is in all the time that I've known you.
14:05
SPEAKER_00: Because when I met you, you had such a big personality.
14:09
SPEAKER_00: Uh-huh.
14:09
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, oh, that's just Stephen.
14:11
SPEAKER_00: And like, and but but that that also kind of goes back to like my upbringing because in Trinidad we have so many races and cultures that are mixed together.
14:23
SPEAKER_00: And so my best, like the best friends that I grew up with, none of them look like me.
14:28
SPEAKER_00: And I and and most of them don't look like each other.
14:31
SPEAKER_00: We have so you know, people from of Indian descent, Chinese descent, like full Chinese.
14:36
SPEAKER_00: I am half black, half Chinese.
14:39
SPEAKER_00: Uh, we have people of African descent, and it's just a mix.
14:43
SPEAKER_00: So we often don't really relate to each other based on our differences.
14:48
SPEAKER_00: We just kind of figure out what our similarities are, and then we reconnect and relate to that, right?
14:54
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, of course.
14:55
SPEAKER_00: So, but coming to a place like like Shreveport, which does not have that much diversity, I mean, and that's kind of what this this whole podcast is about, is that I am treated like a curiosity a lot of times, especially when I open my mouth and people hear my accent.
15:12
SPEAKER_00: So I am sure you had to deal with that.
15:15
SPEAKER_00: But for for slightly different reasons, but it's kind of the same thing, right?
15:18
SPEAKER_01: Right.
15:19
SPEAKER_01: But it's that's exactly that's exactly right.
15:21
SPEAKER_01: And it's fun though, but you know, when you're a kid, it's not that much fun.
15:25
SPEAKER_01: But as I grew older, I I kind of realized they just don't know.
15:29
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
15:30
SPEAKER_01: And, you know, they don't know what I am.
15:32
SPEAKER_01: They don't they don't understand.
15:33
SPEAKER_01: So as time went on, I went to grade.
15:35
SPEAKER_01: I went so I went to middle my first day at school there, the maybe the first week.
15:40
SPEAKER_01: I mean, my buddy was in class with me, he still laughs at it.
15:43
SPEAKER_01: We actually talked there the other five, but we didn't talk about this, but we still talked.
15:47
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
15:47
SPEAKER_01: Mr.
15:48
SPEAKER_01: Jackson was my our English teacher in seventh grade, first seventh grade class.
15:52
SPEAKER_01: So it was the last sixth grade class before they split up middle school and grade school to where the sixth grade becomes part of middle school.
15:59
SPEAKER_01: It used to be part of grade school.
16:00
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
16:00
SPEAKER_01: And so elementary school.
16:01
SPEAKER_01: Right.
16:02
SPEAKER_01: And so he has this census.
16:05
SPEAKER_01: And the guy, the guy asked me of all people to take it to the to take it to the office.
16:11
SPEAKER_01: So I read it on the way.
16:12
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I mean, I can read.
16:14
SPEAKER_01: And he says, like, white kids.
16:17
SPEAKER_01: He's an old black man, right?
16:18
SPEAKER_01: Glasses, white kids, I don't know, you know, 15, black kids, 13.
16:23
SPEAKER_01: And then underneath it, he wrote, except Stephen Vacobius, who is question mark, Mexican.
16:31
SPEAKER_01: He didn't know what to do with me.
16:33
SPEAKER_01: So I mean, this has been my whole life.
16:35
SPEAKER_01: I mean, no one knows what to do with it.
16:37
SPEAKER_01: So I take it to the office my whole life.
16:40
SPEAKER_01: I remembered exactly what that piece of paper was.
16:42
SPEAKER_01: How did you feel in that moment?
16:43
SPEAKER_01: Oh, I don't, I mean, I I've I've assimilated with this.
16:46
SPEAKER_01: I'm just not yeah, and it's a word that that means a lot to me to assimilate, but I'm okay with it.
16:52
SPEAKER_01: I'm past this.
16:53
SPEAKER_01: I mean, even then I was okay with it.
16:55
SPEAKER_01: And when I was a kid, I mean, yeah, I mean, I th I mean the I was always kind of picked on in a way, yeah, but it never I never took it personally.
17:04
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
17:04
SPEAKER_01: I always took it like these guys, they just don't know.
17:08
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
17:08
SPEAKER_01: And you know what?
17:09
SPEAKER_01: And so I'll tell you, this is important to me.
17:11
SPEAKER_01: Tell because it's not just about your your race of how you look, but it's about your culture of where you're from.
17:19
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
17:19
SPEAKER_01: And so my parents, right, my family's transplanted, right?
17:23
SPEAKER_01: And I know a lot of people can relate to this, but I would be in in class, like, and I'd talk to this was like all through grade school and in middle school, even.
17:32
SPEAKER_01: I didn't really get it, right?
17:33
SPEAKER_01: And so they would go something like this.
17:36
SPEAKER_01: Oh, we're gonna go see our grandparents.
17:39
SPEAKER_01: I'd be thinking, what the?
17:40
SPEAKER_01: What are they?
17:42
SPEAKER_01: How are they gonna get to Detroit?
17:44
SPEAKER_01: Like I thought everybody's grandparents lived real wait, so I thought grandparents were always enigmas.
17:49
SPEAKER_01: They were they were not real people ever.
17:51
SPEAKER_01: They didn't live down the street.
17:53
SPEAKER_01: No, oh my gosh, I never knew you could do that.
17:55
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
17:56
SPEAKER_01: I was like, wait, what?
17:57
SPEAKER_01: And I like I remember this one girl, I was like, how are you gonna see your grandparents and be back by Monday?
18:04
SPEAKER_01: You know, to me, seeing grandparents meant you get in a car and you drive.
18:08
SPEAKER_01: Right.
18:08
SPEAKER_01: You didn't fly.
18:09
SPEAKER_01: We don't have no money.
18:10
SPEAKER_01: We don't need money.
18:10
SPEAKER_01: We would drive across country from Treeport to Detroit.
18:15
SPEAKER_01: And that's probably like a 13, 14 hour dressing, 1,100 miles.
18:20
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
18:20
SPEAKER_01: And then there are these old people, and that's all they are, old people who sit around and complain about.
18:25
SPEAKER_01: And there's no, like my my dad's family, there were no men, and the men had all died.
18:29
SPEAKER_01: So it was just my aunt, right?
18:31
SPEAKER_01: It would be my great aunt, his aunt, which is his mom's sister and their mom.
18:35
SPEAKER_01: So there's just three of them.
18:36
SPEAKER_01: That was it.
18:37
SPEAKER_01: And the oldest lady was from Germany, so she was an old German lady, and the other two were, you know, they were just old, old ladies.
18:45
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
18:45
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you couldn't do anything.
18:47
SPEAKER_01: And so then they would have to take us out of that house and plop us with my mom's family, which was a hundred people deep, right?
18:54
SPEAKER_01: Right.
18:54
SPEAKER_01: We had cousins.
18:56
SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
18:56
SPEAKER_01: We had everybody food everywhere.
18:58
SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah, food.
18:59
SPEAKER_01: Every, every Sunday they had there was this area called Gross Point Park, and it's a big swimming pool, is what I remember.
19:04
SPEAKER_01: I hadn't been there in years.
19:06
SPEAKER_01: Big swimming pool.
19:06
SPEAKER_01: Every Sunday they would foot put their food out, and there'd be 20 different foods, like, you know, Arabic bread and it's all Arabic food, right?
19:16
SPEAKER_01: It's my mom's family.
19:16
SPEAKER_01: It's my dad loved it.
19:18
SPEAKER_01: And so anyway, that that's all I knew about grandparents.
19:21
SPEAKER_01: So when they said that, and I said, Well, okay, I finally asked, like, where do your grandparents live?
19:26
SPEAKER_01: I was like, Where?
19:27
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, where are you going?
19:29
SPEAKER_01: She said, Raville.
19:31
SPEAKER_01: I said, Where's Raville?
19:32
SPEAKER_01: So I had to look at it.
19:34
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's like, what is this?
19:36
SPEAKER_01: Oh my goodness, it's an hour and a half down the road.
19:39
SPEAKER_01: I was like, oh.
19:41
SPEAKER_01: And I started to put it together, but what I didn't put together was people could do this.
19:45
SPEAKER_01: Right.
19:45
SPEAKER_01: This was the association.
19:47
SPEAKER_01: This was like, yeah, I don't understand.
19:49
SPEAKER_01: I was like, how can you see your grandparents?
19:51
SPEAKER_01: Then I find out as you grow up and you the world becomes a much different place.
19:56
SPEAKER_01: People live next door to their grandparents.
19:58
SPEAKER_01: People live in the same house, yeah.
20:00
SPEAKER_01: Take care of their kids.
20:02
SPEAKER_01: What?
20:03
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I didn't even know this.
20:05
SPEAKER_01: So this is part of learning different cultures, right?
20:08
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
20:09
SPEAKER_01: So for me, it was this kind of fish out of water, right?
20:12
SPEAKER_01: A little bit.
20:12
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I had friends, don't get me wrong, but yeah, that had also had people that didn't know what I was, and they would be happy to tell me you're a and they would do their best guess because they call me a sand something, and I'd be like, sand.
20:24
SPEAKER_01: Well, I not guess.
20:27
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
20:28
SPEAKER_00: So so sand meat.
20:31
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, I was called that some, but not by somebody who like liked to me.
20:36
SPEAKER_01: Right.
20:37
SPEAKER_01: But so they knew I must have been that's what I like.
20:39
SPEAKER_01: I was like, oh, good.
20:42
SPEAKER_02: At least you know honestly.
20:46
SPEAKER_01: So we're getting close now, yeah.
20:47
SPEAKER_01: Yes, I'm not Puerto Rican.
20:49
SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
20:50
SPEAKER_01: I'll take it.
20:53
SPEAKER_00: And again, not nothing against Hispanic people or I got to do it.
20:57
SPEAKER_00: It's just that like that is not who you are, right?
20:59
SPEAKER_01: It's just I'm not that that nationality.
21:02
SPEAKER_01: There's nothing.
21:03
SPEAKER_01: No, I loved it.
21:03
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
21:04
SPEAKER_01: You can I could pass for anything.
21:07
SPEAKER_01: I mean, okay, so I could.
21:08
SPEAKER_01: I could pass for any, kind of any nationality.
21:11
SPEAKER_00: They thought I was Italian for a while because you look like um you could be in like an Italian officer movie.
21:21
SPEAKER_00: Right.
21:21
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
21:22
SPEAKER_01: So now today, because now I'm 55 years old.
21:25
SPEAKER_01: And now, although, having this this world we live in, this DEI, diversity, equity, inclusion, all of these, you know, pronoun stuff, what wherever we are in the world today, I'm a perfect person.
21:38
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
21:39
SPEAKER_01: You are kind of a unicorn.
21:41
SPEAKER_01: Right.
21:41
SPEAKER_01: Now I'm like the ugly duckling grew up, right?
21:43
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
21:44
SPEAKER_01: You know, didn't get many dates in grade school.
21:46
SPEAKER_01: Now I got what I'm a leg up.
21:47
SPEAKER_01: Now I'm a leg up because so there was this photo shoot.
21:51
SPEAKER_01: And that's true, true stuff.
21:53
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
21:53
SPEAKER_01: And I got somebody submitted my picture.
21:57
SPEAKER_01: It was my ex wife.
21:59
SPEAKER_01: She said, Can you um do a two-day photo shoot for some some ads and they this is a couple years ago they paid me a thousand bucks okay this is true yeah yeah for two days and they paid for all my food and a place to stay and I would go to this photo shoot and I kind of did some mock acting I was it what they call they called me background which is fine yeah yeah yeah I don't know anything about this this is my first experience with it and then the the leads were called something else primary they were called primary and background yeah and you know me within a day I was primary I was primary on the second day and I'm like I was like when I started looking at I realized they had black girl black boy white these are men I should say women yeah white girl and then they had a uh kind of a studious kind of a uh professor looking guy and then they had me and then you know I covered all kinds like that check check check yeah we got that one we got that well we got like seven national grout between the tiles just to bring everything together funny you say that because I've always thought of myself that way I have I've always thought of myself as mortar between the bricks I didn't do ground between tiles wow my whole life I've always thought of myself as mortar because I can't I'm not quite a brick right I'm not I'm not one I'm not in one group right in in grade school middle school high school I was not a clique I was very diverse right even in the national the nationalities I was diverse in my behavior too yeah so like I remember in high school I didn't have like a group of friends I had one or two close friends I'm still close friends with them today but that's it same in college one or two and that was it but I could easily be but I would be invited to things so I could easily fold into things which was nice.
23:42
SPEAKER_01: And I think some of that comes from being around my mom and this is where the tide comes back in for assimilation.
23:49
SPEAKER_01: So my mom was I've taught us at young ages first she was she was of a Syrian descent but her mother was raised Syrian Orthodox in Syria.
24:02
SPEAKER_01: So when she came to the United States they were Christian Catholic Christian based religion and she taught us my mom taught us so much about religion and other cultures from Detroit.
24:17
SPEAKER_01: Like we would go back up there for the Greek festival.
24:20
SPEAKER_01: My mom would tell us everything about the Jewish culture.
24:22
SPEAKER_01: She was a folk dancer.
24:24
SPEAKER_01: So we learned all this from my mom because in Shreveport well that isn't really you're not gonna learn that anywhere to know somebody correct you have to be a part of some other culture to learn that culture.
24:36
SPEAKER_01: Yes and Shreveport's a very small city.
24:38
SPEAKER_01: I mean it's not really that and um which is fine and there's nothing I'm not there's not there's not a a judgment of Shreveport just it just doesn't offer those things.
24:46
SPEAKER_01: And so my mom would folk dance in Batrouge and then being a you know a wife of a professor or a studying professor she learned how to cook all these meals.
24:56
SPEAKER_01: So here we are in Shreveport and and my brother and I would eat we call them seaweed hot dogs of all things and we've eaten seaweed all of our life with rice in it and and egg and pickles and spam all things.
25:10
SPEAKER_01: Well here I am I get married and and this woman I mean get married and throughout those years her dad ends up marrying this Korean woman and you know what she makes the exact same thing my mom made because my mom learned how to cook from all these Koreans in in Bat Rouge while they're studying for their their doctors.
25:30
SPEAKER_01: And um so anyway we learned so all this like weird cultural stuff that I know and it doesn't apply weird shape where I'm still perplexed as to how people even see their grandparents.
25:40
SPEAKER_01: I'm like I like I said I'm the fish out of water.
25:42
SPEAKER_01: I'm like I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing here.
25:44
SPEAKER_01: But I learned all these things and as I've gotten older like I've eaten hummus my whole life I've eaten you know rolled grape leaves we call it water some people call it water wali.
25:55
SPEAKER_01: We eaten kubi my whole life and so I come across people today who are in their 40s and 50s and they've never seen it touched it known it exists in this area.
26:11
SPEAKER_00: So in the United States from my experience you kind of if you are of a specific culture or race you celebrate your thing you have your holidays and then other people have their thing and their holidays you know so like if you're Jewish you probably don't participate in Christmas.
26:28
SPEAKER_00: If you're you're Hindu you might do Diwali and we may not do any any Jewish festivals or or Christian but in Trinidad we celebrate all of it like we celebrate everyone else's stuff because we just love to hang out and party and drink.
26:46
SPEAKER_00: We're highly ranked in terms of the number of public holidays that we have so like Diwali is a public holiday for the entire country.
26:54
SPEAKER_00: Christmas of course is a public holiday um you have Eid uh which is uh Muslim so you have so for us the default setting isn't really your own thing because you have your thing but you also have access to everything else and I think that really shapes your worldview in a way that when you come to a place like Shreveport people almost don't know what to do with you.
27:19
SPEAKER_00: Right.
27:20
SPEAKER_00: Yeah but it but it also allows you because you have this intrinsic understanding of participating in different cultures you can move between groups as well which you which you alluded to right that's exactly so you you people always know that you are different but they accept you because because you just you can just kind of fold in you're used to doing that and you kind of have to do that because like you said your mom would would just put stuff in front of you and this is what you eat.
27:54
SPEAKER_00: This is what you know right and you don't go well gross I don't like that I don't know it's just it's just what you is what you know.
28:00
SPEAKER_01: That's how you were raised yeah no you're right that's exactly how it's been for me is I've been able to easily kind of move from from group to group but I mean I don't I don't quite have a group of my own which is okay but I mean but I think what what it is is the group of my own is is finding group and other people you know and I think part of it too is the person that I am as is because of that.
28:24
SPEAKER_01: Like I said I didn't hold it against anyone when they would say something awkward or rude or I wasn't mad or something like this.
28:31
SPEAKER_01: I would just be like well okay well they don't quite understand me.
28:36
SPEAKER_01: But so but but with all respect I do have to say this it's part of the way I think because this is a story my dad will tell you and he'll if you ever meet my dad he will tell you the story.
28:47
SPEAKER_01: I've heard this story my whole life it's a very short one but it's interesting because I didn't get it until I was like 16 years old 15 years old.
28:54
SPEAKER_01: I didn't think there was anything wrong with this.
28:56
SPEAKER_01: So when you're a little kid they ask you what do you want to be when you want to group who doesn't want to be a major league baseball baseball like three to five years old I want to be this I want to be a a fireman or what yeah I don't know whatever you come up with.
29:09
SPEAKER_01: I never even thought about you know they said what do you want to be when I grew up and I said I want to be a house and I you know I didn't think it was funny.
29:16
SPEAKER_01: Like I did I was like that was my answer.
29:18
SPEAKER_01: Like you like you were serious I was serious.
29:20
SPEAKER_01: I want to be a house and like and I didn't think there was anything wrong with that my whole life until it was about 14 or 15 and then and sure enough it dawned on me when I was about 14 wait a minute you can't be a house you know what I mean it's like you can't be that I didn't even think that was like out of the realm of possibility.
29:41
SPEAKER_00: So in so in your in your childlike mind you could be literally anything you want to be and that's extended beyond the norms of what kids are sort of programmed to see.
29:53
SPEAKER_01: That's how it was wired my whole life but truthfully no like I'm like I said 55 today even today I don't quite accept it as it's not a possibility.
30:06
SPEAKER_01: And I and I it's funny because I I don't I think I told you this once before but so I was up in New York I don't know what I was doing.
30:12
SPEAKER_01: I was going to one of those museums and you had told me this before when you were working with me you mentioned that and that towards the end of that relationship and you weren't working with me anymore I said well what are you gonna do?
30:22
SPEAKER_01: You go you know Steven I think I'm just gonna go keep chasing dragons and I was like yeah that's the greatest thing I've ever heard and it's funny and then I go to New York and I was a post frontal wall I think they may take a picture of you and it said something like still chasing dragons.
30:40
SPEAKER_01: Yeah and it's like it's a metaphor for your the wonderment of your life yeah you still kind of said you know what I'm still not ready to be here right now.
30:49
SPEAKER_01: I'm still gonna go forward.
30:50
SPEAKER_01: And that's the way I feel about that thought.
30:52
SPEAKER_01: Yeah I'm like there's probably a percentage of me a very large percentage of me not half of it still believes that can be true.
30:58
SPEAKER_01: Yeah like that's the right answer.
31:01
SPEAKER_01: And so that what that does is it takes away all it it throws me into this humility is what it does.
31:07
SPEAKER_01: I find that's the part that's interesting to me is that there's a humility that you learn from being like you had mentioned earlier multicultural coming from a background of being able to be exposed to other other white I guess festivals is what you use religions.
31:24
SPEAKER_01: Religion and so now like some of my closest connections are are like the some Jewish people from New York.
31:31
SPEAKER_01: I have a friend who's a doctor he is a Jewish man from New York and whatever he talks about it's like oh yeah that's exactly like I got it.
31:38
SPEAKER_01: I'm with you I understand and it makes like there's a connection there.
31:40
SPEAKER_00: Yeah and so I've noticed that each person in those types of communities like my Chilean friend and just people from other cultures it's a lot easier to connect with and I think as we get older because we're we are like looking at the third act right we are like we're thinking about mortality but you're absolutely right I feel like there are people who are settled into their lives and they they live this idea of what success is and and they are happy and I look at them and I'm like man I love that for you but that has never been me and I've tried and I couldn't quite fit in you know so I have been I'm I'm so comfortable with just traveling and and like when I say travel I mean like traveling through life and and really just absorbing as much of the journey as possible and meeting the most interesting people that I can and having like meaningful conversations because when I look back on my life like that's the stuff that sticks that's like that's the stuff that feels like something found and something that is special to hold on to.
32:53
SPEAKER_00: You know I mean money is great comfort all of that good stuff is great.
32:57
SPEAKER_00: But it's not enough it's not enough.
33:00
SPEAKER_01: No I totally I understand that completely because part of my journey right right now like is I'll go sit with people and have coffee.
33:08
SPEAKER_01: And so part of that is when we would when we'll visit we'll kind of dig into that realm of what life really is meaningful and what's meaningful to you right now.
33:17
SPEAKER_01: Because you get to that place where you're not I mean money is nice.
33:20
SPEAKER_01: I mean I think money is and I well my so last 10 years I've taught inside of high schools.
33:25
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
33:26
SPEAKER_01: And I teach and I come I don't I'm not a school teacher, but I'm a volunteer right because I have time now and and they'll call me in and I go for the for the spring I'll I'm sorry for the fall I'll do a business plan, kind of teach the kids a business.
33:38
SPEAKER_01: It's only one class maybe once a week for about five to six weeks.
33:41
SPEAKER_02: Right.
33:41
SPEAKER_01: But I go to every high school who wants it.
33:44
SPEAKER_01: So sometimes I go to three or four high schools in the in one you know semester.
33:47
SPEAKER_01: And then in the spring I'll go in and do like personal finance.
33:50
SPEAKER_01: And you'd be surprised these kids don't know anything which is to be expected unless their parents have taught them.
33:57
SPEAKER_01: Right.
33:57
SPEAKER_01: Because there's no educational system at that age that has taught them anything, which is I guess it's okay, but they're really getting to that age when they're especially sophomore juniors and seniors, one of the questions I always ask is who here has a job and who here you know has started has done a business and we got to give them some frame of reference.
34:14
SPEAKER_01: Well what I tell them is I say listen I say I want you to know something this is important.
34:21
SPEAKER_01: Reserve the word rich for doing one thing and that's describing chocolate.
34:25
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
34:26
SPEAKER_01: That's what it's for the word rich is to describe chocolate.
34:29
SPEAKER_01: I said and if you want these things in life if you want to accumulate things like horrors and if you want a lifestyle that has that and I'm saying it if you want it meaning you know it's something that you will have to work for and know that it's okay it's okay to be a high income earner.
34:46
SPEAKER_01: That's what you want to be.
34:47
SPEAKER_01: Yeah you don't want to be rich.
34:49
SPEAKER_01: Rich is a this has a stigma to it it has a almost a negative connotation right but what you want to be is a high income earner and I'll be honest with you the most fulfilling thing you're going to get should you become a high income earner is to fulfill to give back your community in any capacity, whatever that looks like because I'll tell you something the money will be nice to have you can buy the things that you think you want.
35:13
SPEAKER_01: And at this age of course you know I'm talking as sophomores, juniors and seniors in high school and some of them, you know, money is a very strange thing.
35:22
SPEAKER_01: They don't know how to use it.
35:24
SPEAKER_01: They don't know what to do with it.
35:25
SPEAKER_01: And then I find out and as talking to them I realize it's really not you I need to talk to it's your parents your parents are the ones that don't know this.
35:34
SPEAKER_01: Remember the community I'm in.
35:35
SPEAKER_01: Some of the schools I go to are entirely impoverished, right?
35:39
SPEAKER_01: And you know they're in and they're all 100% black schools and I'm going, why am I having this discussion with them?
35:46
SPEAKER_01: And so I'll actually change their curriculum even though I'm not supposed to but it's not a big deal.
35:50
SPEAKER_01: And I'll I'll retool it for them.
35:52
SPEAKER_01: Yeah yeah what I but I'll tell them that I'll tell them that as you go through you know those things may not find you might not find the fulfillment that you think you're gonna find and that's okay doesn't mean don't pursue it.
36:02
SPEAKER_01: It means that as you go through there you need to find what brings you joy in that income or in that lifestyle but please know that it's okay.
36:13
SPEAKER_01: It's completely acceptable there's nothing wrong with it in any religion there's nothing wrong with it.
36:18
SPEAKER_01: If that's something that you want to aspire to do as long as you're doing it legitimately.
36:22
SPEAKER_01: Right, right.
36:23
SPEAKER_01: I mean as long as it's going to be something that's legal right and and moral.
36:27
SPEAKER_01: Yes of course there's all of these these ramifications I get too but that's okay.
36:32
SPEAKER_01: I mean it's okay.
36:33
SPEAKER_01: It's not your focus in life but you know some people are going to be high income earners.
36:38
SPEAKER_01: They might end up becoming doctors or lawyers or some sort of job that pays them a lot of money.
36:43
SPEAKER_01: And you know and if you really want to know where your joy is going to come from it's gonna be coming from the joy of doing the job not getting paid for it.
36:50
SPEAKER_01: That's the reward.
36:51
SPEAKER_01: That's what I noticed about myself is sure I mean I had a I never knew how much money I made I didn't until I until I gave my taxes.
37:00
SPEAKER_01: I never knew I would just remember to bill and I hated it.
37:04
SPEAKER_01: You know that I was in business for 25 years.
37:06
SPEAKER_01: I remember that billing was your least favorite thing.
37:08
SPEAKER_01: I hated it because I hated to send them a bill for something that was so easy to me and fun.
37:13
SPEAKER_01: Right.
37:13
SPEAKER_01: It's like I can't believe I have to do this.
37:15
SPEAKER_01: And it it took the fun out of it for me like there was money so dirty.
37:21
SPEAKER_01: Yeah to me it was and I was like well okay and then you know I don't believe in riches but you should see where I live right I mean it's a tough battle it's a tough battle you know here I am in this beautiful 1100 square foot house.
37:35
SPEAKER_00: Yeah I mean but but again you are comfortable in this space you have the you have earned the right to know what is enough for you.
37:49
SPEAKER_01: And I think a lot of people don't ever earn that they are they're either they're chasing something that they never achieve or maybe they are chasing something that they think that they want and and they kind of talk themselves into that okay this is it I'm good you know oh well some people are never fulfilled I mean that I mean I'm I've been exposed to them countless times where the world is not enough.
38:13
SPEAKER_01: And you'll find if you dig enough, if you scratch that surface enough yeah you will find that it has something to do with some sort of comparison some sort of something in life some sort of value system.
38:26
SPEAKER_01: And we talked about this for a second the other day was I, you know I'll I'll sit with my the the people that I talk to like I've a lot of people will ask me to come talk to their children.
38:35
SPEAKER_01: Right.
38:35
SPEAKER_01: Especially post post-college I can't get them out of the house.
38:38
SPEAKER_01: What am I gonna do?
38:39
SPEAKER_01: I don't know what to do with them.
38:40
SPEAKER_01: Why will you talk to them?
38:42
SPEAKER_01: And I was like well sure I'll talk to them.
38:44
SPEAKER_01: And and even now I have some college like I have a post post back student called me the other day she goes I need you to kind of you know you know help me with this decision.
38:54
SPEAKER_01: I'm trying to decide whether I should get a job in Dallas or do this.
38:57
SPEAKER_01: I said okay well lay it all out for me and let's talk.
38:59
SPEAKER_01: And she goes and of course when we're done she's like thank you for mentoring me it's been really nice.
39:03
SPEAKER_01: And so I have this weird role that I get assigned every once in a while a little tag.
39:07
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
39:08
SPEAKER_01: And part of that journey is I'll look at these five values.
39:12
SPEAKER_01: And these five values are dictated by your belief system.
39:15
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
39:15
SPEAKER_01: So remember this is not something that and you can do this but everybody's gonna be different.
39:20
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
39:20
SPEAKER_01: But I can still quantify in some way.
39:22
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
39:23
SPEAKER_01: And they're your financial values like I talked to that's to talk to my students about that.
39:27
SPEAKER_01: That's what I've been asked to talk to them about.
39:29
SPEAKER_01: And then your um your psychological emotional right but you have to be old enough to know what these mean.
39:34
SPEAKER_01: So you can't do this with a child right they don't know what this is.
39:37
SPEAKER_01: You have to do this with someone who is at least the age of college age or after typically after college.
39:44
SPEAKER_01: So I usually talk about 22 to 30 in this range.
39:47
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
39:47
SPEAKER_01: So psychological emotional spiritual and then physical like your physical is so important.
39:56
SPEAKER_01: Like sometimes and people come to the gym all the time and I go to the gym every day like I go at five o'clock every day is where I'll go if I'll go to the gym and I'll say something like yeah people are here to work out here.
40:08
SPEAKER_01: No a gym isn't for people to get fit physically it's for their mental it's to me it's your your body is this is your mental work now just as much as it is your physical I mean if not everybody in the gym to me has a little loose can their little loose and it's okay they need it.
40:27
SPEAKER_01: If they don't get that then their body their whole body change I know a lady I talked to her and she runs every single day God bless her every day and the heat she runs she tells me she was asked yeah I can I tell her so you know um you know and I'll I'll be you know I'm kind of streaky and I'll ride my bike for a few months she go nope I run every single day and she does yeah and her mental is so strong because of that and all the things in the world that have to hit her she's strong.
40:56
SPEAKER_01: So I only say that to tell you that your physical isn't very important.
40:59
SPEAKER_01: But I get these people and I ask them do a little self-assessment you know where are you and what do you want?
41:05
SPEAKER_01: You know these seem to be the directions that I go in when I speak to these people.
41:09
SPEAKER_01: Just take those five value systems and break them down.
41:12
SPEAKER_01: And as you do that you can kind of learn where you are and what it is that you that can help you redefine what you want.
41:20
SPEAKER_00: You know it's interesting you say when you when you when you mentor people and you talk about like their readiness to have that conversation to listen and and actually hear what you're saying.
41:31
SPEAKER_00: Like I have this I tell people all the time like I don't feel like I started doing real thinking until I was like 45.
41:39
SPEAKER_00: That's when I feel like I started actually like understanding things.
41:44
SPEAKER_00: So you seem like someone who is a lifetime learner.
41:48
SPEAKER_00: I feel like that's just baked into your who you are right but when did you start making that shift into wanting to mentor people and and sort of impart like what drove you to this place where you are now where you essentially live a philanthropic life in terms of wanting to provide guidance to people, mentoring people, teaching your neighbors kid guitar, you know?
42:15
SPEAKER_01: Well I can tell you this and this is probably the one of the I knew this was coming because you could feel it you feel it in inside of you as you journal through this right you feel like where where am I supposed to be happy with this?
42:29
SPEAKER_01: Yeah because it felt like and then at some point and this is going to sound I don't know I'm not knocking anything understand this is not a criticism or admonishment for any reason but I realize the narratives of what we're taught in this country specifically the United States I don't know what Trinidad and Tobago is like I've never been but specifically here the narratives that you're taught and what I mean by taught is you're influenced every single day.
42:56
SPEAKER_01: You're influenced by television and even so I don't have a TV because I do that purposefully.
43:01
SPEAKER_01: Right.
43:01
SPEAKER_01: Like I don't watch TV on purpose.
43:04
SPEAKER_01: I have no criticisms against anyone who watches television by all means if that's an escape for you and or they say well do you people say it's all this do you read books?
43:11
SPEAKER_01: I was like no I haven't read a book since I haven't read a book in 10 years.
43:16
SPEAKER_01: I don't want to read a book yeah I mean I couldn't make it past the first page I'd fall asleep.
43:20
SPEAKER_01: Yeah and so no I don't read books and I don't I play some I play chess online sometimes with my phone um and that's enough for me.
43:27
SPEAKER_01: Yeah and the rest of the time I like studying stocks and the stock markets and things that I'm gonna teach about which the kids are interested in this everybody seems to be interested in this right now.
43:36
SPEAKER_01: So what I noticed was the narratives of television and what you're taught in in scripted content.
43:43
SPEAKER_01: And this is what you said when did it really start?
43:45
SPEAKER_01: I'll tell you I know exactly what happened.
43:47
SPEAKER_01: Like I said I like to play chess and I was chess chess has always perplexed me and I was terrible at it.
43:52
SPEAKER_01: Terrible and I could never get past that stage of understanding how pieces moved but what am I supposed to Be thinking when I'm playing this game.
44:02
SPEAKER_01: And this gets a little philosophical, so just please bear with me.
44:05
SPEAKER_01: This is interesting.
44:07
SPEAKER_01: So there was a TV show that came out.
44:09
SPEAKER_01: This is back in my TV watching days.
44:11
SPEAKER_01: And it was about this girl.
44:12
SPEAKER_01: It was called the Queen's Gambit.
44:14
SPEAKER_01: And it was a show about some little prodigy girls.
44:16
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, Netflix, great show.
44:18
SPEAKER_01: Netflix, great show, right?
44:19
SPEAKER_00: And yet Taylor Joey.
44:20
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
44:20
SPEAKER_00: I listen to the soundtrack all the time when I'm wooking.
44:23
SPEAKER_01: Okay, good.
44:24
SPEAKER_01: Well, you know what I'm talking about.
44:24
SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
44:25
SPEAKER_01: So I watched three episodes, right?
44:26
SPEAKER_01: And I'm watching her, and she's she's playing this guy in some championship type game.
44:32
SPEAKER_01: And, you know, I'm watching her play, and I'm thinking to myself, is this story true?
44:38
SPEAKER_01: And because it was chess, because it was something that was important to me, you know, I had some connection to that.
44:46
SPEAKER_01: I went and looked, and the story's not true.
44:49
SPEAKER_01: Right.
44:49
SPEAKER_00: It's based on something else, but it's not true.
44:52
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they probably took like two or three lines and then they they extrapolated out.
44:56
SPEAKER_00: But this happens all the time.
44:57
SPEAKER_00: And they say based on a true story or based on true events.
45:01
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
45:02
SPEAKER_01: So I realized it wasn't true.
45:04
SPEAKER_01: And I thought to myself, well, it's not true.
45:05
SPEAKER_01: Then the writer can make her do anything she wants.
45:08
SPEAKER_01: Correct.
45:08
SPEAKER_01: She can win any game she wants.
45:10
SPEAKER_01: She can play Alakai's Defense.
45:12
SPEAKER_01: She can play the, you know, the London system.
45:14
SPEAKER_01: She could open in any type of, she could do whatever she wants.
45:17
SPEAKER_01: Well, by golly, if you could do whatever you want, and and then that was it.
45:21
SPEAKER_01: That was my turnoff.
45:22
SPEAKER_01: The Queen's Gambit.
45:25
SPEAKER_01: Because I realized that that this is just fiction.
45:30
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
45:30
SPEAKER_01: There's nothing about this story.
45:32
SPEAKER_01: And then, of course, that somebody was a drunk, like her mom was a drunk or something, or something had something.
45:37
SPEAKER_01: Then, of course, here comes the standard narratives, right?
45:39
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
45:39
SPEAKER_01: Here comes the here comes the villains.
45:41
SPEAKER_01: Oh my gosh.
45:42
SPEAKER_01: And then I realized I am being instructed on who I need to like and dislike.
45:48
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
45:48
SPEAKER_01: I am being taught everything about love, villains.
45:52
SPEAKER_01: Everybody has to have a protagonist and it's a story.
45:57
SPEAKER_01: And I was like, you know, I don't like this story.
45:59
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
45:59
SPEAKER_01: I don't like the stories I'm told.
46:01
SPEAKER_01: And most of the stories, like even now, I want to go sit for 10 minutes and I'll watch a show because and so now, jump to today, I sit around with my family, once again, a group.
46:11
SPEAKER_01: And of course, click, here comes the talk.
46:14
SPEAKER_01: Oh, would you watch, would you watch the series of Hubble Duppity?
46:17
SPEAKER_01: And I was like, and they're like, and I'm sitting there watching them in a circle.
46:21
SPEAKER_01: We're at this table.
46:22
SPEAKER_01: This is true.
46:22
SPEAKER_01: This is a true story.
46:23
SPEAKER_01: This one's a real one.
46:24
SPEAKER_01: And so they're like, uh, yeah, did you see so-and-so?
46:28
SPEAKER_01: Can you believe John did something?
46:29
SPEAKER_01: Blah blah blah.
46:30
SPEAKER_01: John did this.
46:31
SPEAKER_01: And do you know he was gonna marry?
46:32
SPEAKER_01: No, I haven't seen that episode yet.
46:34
SPEAKER_01: He wanted to marry Susan, and Susan was, you know, love kitty.
46:38
SPEAKER_01: And oh what?
46:39
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I haven't seen that yet.
46:40
SPEAKER_01: I have to wait.
46:40
SPEAKER_01: Oh, and so they're connecting, which is great.
46:43
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
46:44
SPEAKER_01: I think it's great.
46:44
SPEAKER_01: Please understand.
46:45
SPEAKER_01: Right.
46:46
SPEAKER_01: I think it's great that they connect over fictitious things.
46:50
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
46:50
SPEAKER_01: That I'm with my family for about an hour, and I get to listen to them talk for about 10 minutes about something that isn't even real.
46:58
SPEAKER_01: And I'm going, my goodness.
47:01
SPEAKER_01: Do we just I look down on the watch I don't own because I don't wear a watch.
47:05
SPEAKER_01: And I was thinking to myself, well, I guess I'll just sit here and look at the ceiling and listen to y'all talk about something that isn't even real.
47:13
SPEAKER_01: And you can all connect, and they all connect.
47:16
SPEAKER_01: And it's this, this it's once again back to assimilation.
47:19
SPEAKER_01: It's a bat, it's about connecting.
47:21
SPEAKER_01: And people connect with this.
47:23
SPEAKER_01: And it's totally acceptable.
47:24
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
47:25
SPEAKER_01: It is.
47:25
SPEAKER_01: It's I didn't have I didn't have one objection to it.
47:28
SPEAKER_01: It's just I don't fit in.
47:30
SPEAKER_01: Right.
47:30
SPEAKER_01: Back to not fitting in again, back to being a fish out of water with my own family.
47:34
SPEAKER_01: And so I don't.
47:35
SPEAKER_01: And so then then you think I'm gonna sell out, right?
47:38
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna go get a TV and watch Netflix.
47:41
SPEAKER_01: How could I?
47:42
SPEAKER_01: I can't believe the narratives that they're telling me.
47:44
SPEAKER_01: I I try, don't mean.
47:45
SPEAKER_01: I do try once in a while.
47:46
SPEAKER_01: Every once in a while I'll sit down and watch a show.
47:48
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
47:49
SPEAKER_01: And after about 10 minutes, I'll be like, oh my goodness.
47:52
SPEAKER_01: Well, I get it.
47:53
SPEAKER_01: I'm sorry.
47:54
SPEAKER_01: I get it.
47:54
SPEAKER_01: I totally get the story.
47:56
SPEAKER_01: I know what's gonna happen.
47:57
SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
47:58
SPEAKER_01: And it's okay.
47:59
SPEAKER_01: But people find that entertaining.
48:00
SPEAKER_01: I want them to have that.
48:02
SPEAKER_01: That's a very important thing for their lives.
48:04
SPEAKER_01: That's the way they decompress.
48:05
SPEAKER_01: That's the way they get out of that.
48:07
SPEAKER_01: That's the way I do it.
48:07
SPEAKER_01: That's the way, you know, everybody does it.
48:09
SPEAKER_01: It's very common.
48:10
SPEAKER_00: First thing I do in the morning, Steven, I brew my coffee and I I sit in front of the TV and I watch about 20 minutes of a horror movie.
48:18
SPEAKER_00: And it could be something I've seen before.
48:20
SPEAKER_00: It just, it it kind of puts me.
48:23
SPEAKER_01: Right.
48:23
SPEAKER_01: It resets you.
48:24
SPEAKER_00: It does.
48:25
SPEAKER_00: It resets you really does.
48:26
SPEAKER_01: And that's completely listen, that's that if that's what resets you, and that's how you find that center, then you need to do that.
48:33
SPEAKER_01: Because it really is about centered, it's about being centered, it's about having clarity.
48:37
SPEAKER_01: And so you asked, what was it?
48:39
SPEAKER_01: What where was the point?
48:40
SPEAKER_01: Where did you finally feel like?
48:42
SPEAKER_01: And so knowing this, and I think this is an important thing to understand about people in general that I've exposed to I've experienced to this point in life, is that people don't change until it gets bad enough.
48:53
SPEAKER_01: People will not change.
48:55
SPEAKER_01: The problem is it was bad enough a long time ago for a lot of people.
48:59
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
48:59
SPEAKER_01: They don't know that.
49:00
SPEAKER_01: And so as they journey through this life, they don't realize it was bad enough.
49:06
SPEAKER_01: It's been bad for a long time.
49:08
SPEAKER_01: And you've just been dealing with it.
49:10
SPEAKER_01: So what we find that then we have this enlightenment moment or we have this time where I like said, okay, I've had enough.
49:17
SPEAKER_01: What would happen if I just turned off the TV?
49:20
SPEAKER_01: Well, a lot happened.
49:22
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's a completely different world.
49:24
SPEAKER_01: No, I am, I don't get to keep up with conversation about, you know, you don't know what John is.
49:30
SPEAKER_01: I don't know what John is.
49:31
SPEAKER_01: And the irony is Bill Joyce is a really great friend of mine.
49:34
SPEAKER_01: I mean, we talk all the time, and he is a movie fanatic.
49:36
SPEAKER_01: I mean, and I appreciate that about him, but I have no connection with him on those movie discussions.
49:42
SPEAKER_02: Right.
49:42
SPEAKER_01: But you know what?
49:43
SPEAKER_01: We connect in all different other ways about movies.
49:47
SPEAKER_00: Well, hold on.
49:47
SPEAKER_00: I do want to say, like, because I I think it's worth mentioning this, it just makes this kind of more interesting and slightly funny.
49:54
SPEAKER_00: Like, the reason why we met was because you were basically supporting the entire IT infrastructure for an Academy Award, an Emmy Award-winning animation studio.
50:07
SPEAKER_00: So you were around people who all we did was talk about movies and TV and just on and on and on and act like it was the highest form of actualization ever.
50:21
SPEAKER_00: Like we made cartoons for a living.
50:24
SPEAKER_01: Well, I remember all that.
50:26
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
50:26
SPEAKER_01: I agree with you a hundred that I was around all that.
50:29
SPEAKER_01: And I never, and so I never really engaged with the um creative of it.
50:36
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I would watch from the from the outside, from the fringe, right?
50:40
SPEAKER_00: But you but you always did but but the thing that set you apart, Steven, is the fact that you never treated us with disrespect.
50:49
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
50:49
SPEAKER_00: If it's not for you, it's not for you, but you never treated, you know, all of the as we call them, the kids.
50:58
SPEAKER_00: You never treated the kids like they were pursuing nonsense by playing video games for seven hours a day.
51:05
SPEAKER_00: Oh no.
51:06
SPEAKER_00: You would never do that.
51:07
SPEAKER_01: I would support you a hundred, you give me 110%.
51:10
SPEAKER_01: So it's funny you say, and it's funny you bring up Moonbach.
51:13
SPEAKER_01: Um, so there was a young man there named JD.
51:16
SPEAKER_01: Nobody ever knew his name.
51:16
SPEAKER_01: I still don't know his name.
51:18
SPEAKER_01: He was a sweet kid, and he had to come new, and I used to take you guys bike riding.
51:23
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
51:23
SPEAKER_01: That was one of the things I did, played soccer with you guys.
51:26
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
51:26
SPEAKER_01: And so I was kind of this older person.
51:29
SPEAKER_01: I just kind of like just ask Steve and he'll fix it, and then he'll come fix it.
51:33
SPEAKER_01: And I would, you know, I would always kind of just be called.
51:36
SPEAKER_01: I would come, I kind of came out there three times a week.
51:38
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
51:38
SPEAKER_01: Just for a few hours, but I would come out there to fix something or do something or set up something.
51:42
SPEAKER_01: Ask Steven and he'll fix it, right?
51:45
SPEAKER_01: So Juan Dai H A D is, I don't know where he's from, or I think he works for Apple now.
51:50
SPEAKER_01: He looks at me and he goes, Steven.
51:52
SPEAKER_01: He shook his head and kind of laughs when he said he goes, What's your kryptomite?
51:56
SPEAKER_01: I looked at him.
51:57
SPEAKER_01: I didn't give it, I didn't say a word.
51:59
SPEAKER_01: I just looked at him for a second.
52:01
SPEAKER_01: I don't think I was prepared to answer that question.
52:16
SPEAKER_00: And that is the end of part one of our conversation with Steven Vikovious.
52:21
SPEAKER_00: We will leave it on a slight cliffhanger.
52:23
SPEAKER_00: But I hope you join us in just a few days as we will have part two of our conversation where we dive deeper into our journeys of self-actualization.
52:31
SPEAKER_00: And I hope you enjoyed part one and we look forward to seeing you soon.
52:36
SPEAKER_00: Bye bye.
52:40
SPEAKER_00: Freshwater Yankee was produced by Jesse Stevenson Riley.
52:44
SPEAKER_00: Our contributing producers are David McMillan and Lauren Leon McMillan.
52:50
SPEAKER_00: Music was provided by Peter Stanley of Home Based Productions, and I am your host, Wendell Reilly.