Latest / Speak In Flow / Stop Apologizing and Lead Authentically with Guest Masada Ellis

Transcript

Stop Apologizing and Lead Authentically with Guest Masada Ellis · Speak In Flow

• 0:02
  Melinda Lee: Welcome my friends, to the speak and flow, podcast where we dive into unique strategies and stories to help you and your team achieve maximum, potential and flow even in high stakes. Moments. I am honored to have an amazing creator, poet, Edic, father, and founder of not apologetic studios. Masada Ellis. Welcome Masada.
• 0:28
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: Welcome, Melinda. Thank you very much for having me. I'm very honored to be on the speaking flow. I thank you very much for allowing me to share my gifts with you in the world, and for sharing your gifts with me and my world as well.
• 0:40
  Melinda Lee: I'm so glad you're here. You have your sons in the background, and I'd love for the audience to get to know you more. You have a poem, you write poems, and so let's just kick it off with hearing one of your poems.
• 0:53
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: All right. Well, this poem is called Paradoxes. We live in a paradox, a paradigm at the time, and I would like to just start off by saying, paradoxes of parodies paralyze parameters around me, blossoming, beautiful beneath the images underneath the corrupt clashes of confidence creeping into the crevices exposes the evidence eventually already new foretold, foreseen dreams. Picture deja vu diluted, depleted decisions drowned in deep descend.
• 1:24
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: Can we edit that? Can I cut that? Can I cut that.
• 1:27
  Melinda Lee: Okay, okay, start from the beginning. So just pretend that I'll have her edit that. And then.
• 1:31
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: Okay.
• 1:32
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: So this one is called paradoxes. And basically, I believe we live in a paradox. So this is my feel on how we're living right now, and it has something to do with leadership, and how you are as a person.
• 1:43
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: paradoxes of parodies paralyzed parameters around me, blossoming beautiful beneath the images underneath the corrupt clashes of confidence
• 1:52
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: creeping into the crevices, exposes the evidence eventually already new foretold, foreseen dreams depicted, deja vu dilated, depleted decisions drowning deep demons arousing my anger. Arrogant anyways, I am what I am apparently has me agitated, aggregated, advancing, agonizingly, aiming to alleviate, apologetic, not Nuka never nudging, needlessly neglecting how idiotic
• 2:17
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: and vision, inner spirit, superb, surpassing shell, said, stated to be body beings, searching, seeking souls, self sad, solely realizing revelations revealed radical realizations. I'm alone
• 2:30
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: thoughts brought upon by illusions, vertical lies, lyrical, abusive, indirect, misconcept, or verbal thinking translated into dialect, not a hard concept to peak, please, melodies, same song, same tune, monkey, see monkey do, if not not hot, according to who recordings of lame in now out tomorrow, hollow records of similes that stimulate Nada and stimuli to connect with me. Not apologetic. No lo sienta, no sotros. I.
• 3:02
  Melinda Lee: That was deep.
• 3:04
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: Yes.
• 3:04
  Melinda Lee: That was deep. I love, I mean, we can do a whole episode just to break down everything that's in that poem, and it's so heartfelt. It's so. It's true, it's true. Because you could see, yeah, the dichotomy and oxymoron all these different things in our lives. And and so that's beautiful. How did you get the inspiration to to write that.
• 3:25
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: I've always tried to help a lot of artists, a lot of people doing music. I do event management. But then I also do artist management and development, and through my years I would always give an artist, and then I would be doing something really big, so they would get with me, and then they would try to lower me and say different things. And so one day we were going to a poetry contest, a rap slam, and I felt really alone, and that's the only thing I felt
• 3:50
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: untrue in a poem at the time, because I felt alone. But I've met more people like you and other people that made me realize
• 3:56
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: I'm not alone. I was just in the wrong circles. And so from that
• 4:00
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: I was writing how I feel because they were like, I'm too simplistic, or I'm Dr. Seuss, and I was like.
• 4:06
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: but Dr. Seuss is very intelligent to people who really think deep. If you know every word means something more than just the face of it, and I think that's how we live life. We always take things as face cover.
• 4:18
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: and you don't read deep more into it. So I wanted to put together something kind of being a holish to people. When I'm writing to some of the artists, who thought they were very intelligent, and I was pinning every word to mean something. So when they were like, it's very simplistic. I gave them a dictionary, and I said, Go back and look up every word I put together, and look at what, how I put it together, and then see the sentences that each word forms
• 4:41
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: from the definition of what the word meant. And then they were all like Wow! And then we went to the poetry, slam, the rap slam and I did it, and several brilliant minds came up to me from authors and all, and in front of everybody, and they were like, that's 1 of the deepest things I heard, and I just kind of like smirked like it's all from what I feel.
• 5:00
  Melinda Lee: Yeah.
• 5:01
  Melinda Lee: it's so true. It's 1 of the deepest things I've heard. That's why I feel. I truly mean that when I was like we need a whole other episode to dissect every single thing that was in there. It's a lot in there.
• 5:11
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: Thank you. I try to slow it down. Because
• 5:13
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: I say it faster. But I want people to actually catch the meaning of it. And so saying things too fast sometimes I've heard that I talk too fast. And then from Louisiana, Mississippi, we're like, no, you listen too slow. So I wanted to make sure I slowed it down so that people can hear, and I thank you for saying that.
• 5:30
  Melinda Lee: Yeah, well, we could put it into the show notes or something, or maybe we could put a link to it somewhere that they can.
• 5:35
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: I.
• 5:35
  Melinda Lee: Read it some more would love that. And so I see you do a lot like I mentioned. You're a poem. You're poetic. You have your father, the sons behind you, and you also have your event management studio. Would you like to share more about that? And what you do in the community, too?
• 5:54
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: Yes, so.
• 5:55
  Melinda Lee: Passionate about that, because you obviously have a lot of passion in what you do.
• 5:59
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: My passion comes from life. I'm from Hattiesburg, Mississippi, which we all know. Mississippi is one of the lowest states in the United States. Whether it's economy, education, health, care. We're in the top bottom. 5 top, 3 of all those stats. What people don't know.
• 6:18
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: and a reverse that that's mind blowing. If you look with the most famous, most influential people, from sports to Arthurs. To people even like Oprah, we have some of the most powerful, influential people ever that come out of the State of Mississippi. And so it's disheartening that we're kind of one of the lowest states right along with our sister Brother State, Alabama, and Louisiana, and we have a lot of brilliant minds and brilliant things that came from out of there. So.
• 6:44
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: growing up, I read a meme the other day that said that I had to eat whatever's on my plate, and I had to wear whatever my mom could afford, and to me that it hit home to me because that was me.
• 6:57
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: I tell people I'm a spoiled poor kid, and that means something different. Because I grew up with 6 sisters. I grew up with 3 whole sisters by my mom, and then 3 God sisters that live with us at different times, because that's how it is when you're from a community in the culture I'm from and living in poverty, you have to do what you have to do to survive. So, coming from that being the only boy I get all the new clothes I get, all the new shoes my sisters and them all have to share, and then we eat
• 7:25
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: the leftover meals that we eat, whatever's made up from. You know everybody thinks the black culture is cool because of hip hop, and how we take poverty and make it feel like success.
• 7:35
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: But it really isn't so. Coming out of that. I got involved with head start when I was a really young kid. My mom put me in head start as she was, a single mother head start put me into plays like the Dr. Martin Luther King. I have a dream speech that gave me more found inner pride within myself that my mom and grandmother also instilled in me.
• 7:55
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: and then from that I wanted to read more. I love reading. I wanted to learn more, and I started, seeing that I was different from my surroundings while other people were getting into games and all that. Mama would beat the crap out of me if I would have got into anything like that. So they put me into more
• 8:11
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: educational stuff. I got good grades. I got into sports. I was a all star in every every sport except baseball, which is funny, because these are my kids back there. Messiah, Minar and me here. That was their 1st season in baseball last year. Shout out to Skyline Pony League. They did a real good job with them. But I was a scholar athlete, and yeah, all A's was on a roll, had perfect attendance.
• 8:35
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: but still grew up in the hood, so I still did bad crap still hung out with some bad people. That seems bad to society, but they kept me good, and that showed me that everybody isn't like you have to judge them so from being with like a Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. Hailey, Selassie, and reading different things like that from Mega, ever eggers to Fred Hampton.
• 9:00
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: Just all them. It got instilled in me, and I felt like, why not give back to people? Why try to be bigger than other people when you can be friends with them.
• 9:10
  Melinda Lee: Yeah.
• 9:11
  Melinda Lee: I love. Let's talk about that. Let's actually dive into the dichotomy of both. And even in your whole poem. That's what it talks about the dark and the light, and we're living in poverty. But you've risen above that. You've done a lot for yourself, with your company and with the community. Now
• 9:33
  Melinda Lee: for a moment, let's talk about what it was like to be. You said you had a leader that didn't treat you well like. Can you describe those behaviors of what that
• 9:43
  Melinda Lee: meant for you?
• 9:44
  Melinda Lee: It meant it meant a lot. So, being a all star athlete, I had great leaders in football
• 9:50
  Melinda Lee: leader, let's.
• 9:51
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: Yeah, I'm going to get into that great leaders in the school, and then from out of school and study, going into college, I had a scholarship to Lsu a 2 and a half year scholarship. I didn't know any better. I went to the Marine Corps with my best friend in the Marine Corps, I saw a different type of leader. I had leaders that just yelled at you, and you know they try to make you strong and all that, and then they'll bring the senior drill instructor in, who will be
• 10:15
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: kind of harder and kind of nicer to you. And then from out of that I got into the workforce. And that's when I started really paying attention to the more of the people who are supposed to be your leaders and supposed to be your mentors and start seeing that
• 10:28
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: they're they're the kind that something wasn't right with them. They wanted to take credit for things you did. They didn't want to give credit to their subordinates. They didn't essentially know how to lead, or what I thought a leader would be. A leader is supposed to bring you up with them and help you out. But I found out that a lot of leaders nowadays are in it for themselves, and a lot of leaders nowadays.
• 10:49
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: They want all the recognition, all the accreditation, all the acknowledgement, and they don't want the team to win. They'll rather get individual success than have a company or a team success, and that really hurt me. And I didn't ever want to be like that.
• 11:03
  Melinda Lee: Yeah, and is there a specific moment that you can remember?
• 11:08
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: I've had one really recently in the past couple of years. I'll just say it like that to where I did something with some leaders, some people who were supposed to be my leaders and supposed to be on my team. And then the next time we did an event or certain things I didn't get mentioned. My name wasn't on it. I led most of it. People came to see me, and then they were telling me that nobody's here for me. Nobody's here for that. And when I researched the things I found out that no, I just didn't get
• 11:36
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: put on there because they were trying to overshadow me. They thought my shine would outshine theirs, and then I started getting questions on. How could they be like me, or how? Why do people gravitate towards me, and I don't know what to tell people. Besides, you know I'm just me.
• 11:49
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: Be honest, be your true self, be your authentic self, and people will come gravitate towards you, and people can tell when your energy is off. And so I've had leaders in the past all the time, always trying to take more credit and more shine, and
• 12:04
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: it's not about the credit for me. My name is Masada Ellis, so I have a me not apologetic, so I want other people to say me for themselves as in like, if it's Melinda Lee, I want you to be able to wear me, not apologetic and be like. I'm not apologetic, not because I'm rude, but it's because I'm not apologetic. I shouldn't have to apologize because my intentions have no malice. All my intentions are pure, and I found out what a lot of leaders their intentions aren't pure.
• 12:28
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: their intentions are to get greed, to overcome and get better in a better circumstance or situation than others, and not really help others get up out of
• 12:38
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: whatever we're trying to help lead them out of.
• 12:41
  Melinda Lee: Yeah. And do you said in the beginning that these people there's something off, or there's something. That is why they're doing what they're doing.
• 12:50
  Melinda Lee: They're they're greedy. They're because it's all about them.
• 12:53
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: Yes.
• 12:54
  Melinda Lee: Yeah, and it's hurtful to other people. And and it sounds like you've learned a lot from what not to do.
• 13:01
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: Yeah, I would say, I've learned I learned every day because something inside me still won't let me be like them, or let me turn it off and be cold. I try to instill it in my sons, who you see right now. I tell them, love yourself 1st
• 13:15
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: of the world, and then that way. If you love yourself, then you won't. It won't matter if you think somebody's better than you. If somebody's better than you learn. How how did they get as good as they are at that position they're in, and they can help you if you're better than somebody else. Don't dog them or look down on them, help them come up to you, and that's what I try to instill in my boys, and that's what I would like to instill in the world, because I feel like. If the world has that, then nobody
• 13:40
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: there won't be no need for corruption, lies or manipulation, and lies is another big part of it, as kids kids are. My favorite people also teach kids chess in public and private schools. Chess is one of my favorite games ever, and kids are my favorite things, and people are like, why.
• 13:56
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: kids haven't been tainted yet. No kid grows up with a bias. No kid grows up with nothing. A kid may tell you. Your breath stinks, and they don't really harm by it. They're just telling you what they're observing and what they feel, and they'll still be your friend, a kid.
• 14:07
  Melinda Lee: That's all.
• 14:08
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: You ugly, you tall, you skinny! They don't mean anything by it except what they're perceiving. They have no malice with it. They're pure and innocent, and so they'll tell you that, and still be like you want to play with me. The only time that comes about in the wrong way is when we get adults, or when honestly, adolescents and teenagers, and they start learning the
• 14:26
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: traits and behaviors. I always say my kids don't just hear what I do. They watch what I do, and they go about that if I'm not doing something right, my kids will tell me my 9 year old I had a friend, or I'll say acquaintance, because my son said he's not your friend. They came over. They worked on a project of their project with me for like a year I helped them out, helped them out. It was time to work on my project. They disappeared. They told me they had something medically wrong with them. I forgave them. My son said, why did you do that, Dad? And I was like.
• 14:55
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: because you have to. And then, 3 months later, they showed me again. They just left, and never helped me finish my project.
• 15:00
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: and so my son called me out on it. He was like, Dad. You told me that you have to start treating people and holding people accountable, and then I have to try to wiggle my way out, because if you can't explain something to a child, and it doesn't make sense to a child. Then it really probably doesn't make sense.
• 15:15
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: We're living in today. People are growing up talking about childhood traumas. We're talking about things that hurt us, but we're not healing ourselves from it because we're not doing the things we want to see. We're not being the person we wanted as a kid. We're not being the person we wanted to see as a leader, as a father, as a mother, as an employee as anything you could name. We're really not being. We're saying it, but we're not following it.
• 15:39
  Melinda Lee: Yeah. And so you think that's the reason for some of these poor behaviors and these leaders they're kind of, they're manifesting and projecting because they're not doing what they're really meant to do. Maybe they're doing something different. They're they're not living out what the childhood dream was. And they're they're projecting onto other people, or they're angry, or whatever and I love how you related it to kids right? Like just having that pure innocence of the kid, and
• 16:06
  Melinda Lee: and there's your brand there, your event studio. Yeah.
• 16:11
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: Clear it up now, because that's what not apologetic means. It means, yeah.
• 16:15
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: be who you are, love, who you want to love. Do what you want to do just don't hurt anybody, and that anybody is including yourself. And the way we hurt people I found out is, once we love somebody. Then we start telling them lies because we don't want them to judge us, because far too many of us judge, and we judge, knowing that we have faults and flaws. So my company I try to put out to the world who I am, and sometimes it doesn't backfire, but sometimes it hurts, and I understand why we got the mentality that we have, because
• 16:42
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: people judge me. They'll judge my life with my wife, my kids. They'll judge me for whatever I do, they'll judge me for my old music. I have to my newer music, and I tell them I have music for saints and sinners, because
• 16:54
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: I don't come from a squeaky, clean background. I come from
• 16:58
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: what we call the hood. Some people call it the Ghetto. You understand the difference only when you lived it. It's the difference between Hood and Ghetto Ghetto is when a lot of people are stuck together. Hood is when you're poor, you're surrounded by crime. You're surrounded by violence. You're surrounded by the drugs that they put in our neighborhoods. The drug dealers I heard cool Modi said. They're the 1st people that turn on their own family and friends because they sell us the drugs to their own community, same as some of the artists do with the music they put in our ears. I had to learn from that
• 17:23
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: I had to learn, not to say the n word. I had to learn not to call women bees all the time, because I was being influenced with that, and I grew up with it. And then I had to really think what I was doing to my sisters, and I call every woman my sister, even if I like you at different times. Obviously we're not kin and related, but somewhere down the line. We are cousins and family along the line in this line of the human race.
• 17:46
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: So with that being not apologetic is really being who you are, and it's really hard to be who you are, because once you tell somebody your secrets, or let them see who you are, they judge you. I tell people. I don't like chocolate ice cream or chocolate in period. You know how many people are like. Oh, you're weird because you don't like chocolate. I'm like, no, I don't like the way it tastes of cocoa. I'm kind of, you know there's wrong something wrong with coconut with me. I don't like it. Why am I weird for that? I tell people I don't eat meat. I tell my kids because we're pescatarian. They never eat meat.
• 18:14
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: and they tried telling me about their friends, and I said, Hold on, you can't judge them. Dad used to eat meat. You can't judge them because they're just given what their parents told them, and that's what they want to do. But let that person be that person, and not enough of us have been taught to do that.
• 18:28
  Melinda Lee: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I love that accepting of other people's what what they do just like.
• 18:36
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: As long as it's not hurting anybody.
• 18:37
  Melinda Lee: Just as long as you're not hurting anybody right? Right?
• 18:40
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: To include yourself.
• 18:42
  Melinda Lee: And and so tell me like more about your I so I hear you saying, like to be yourself to be unapologetic. That means just to say the things that even if you are afraid of the judgment, or you think you're going to be judged.
• 18:58
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: But just do it anyways, and
• 19:00
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: have a little tag with it. Don't just hurt people's feelings just to hurt people's feelings. Think of my mom always told me to say with the 1st thought in your mind, because that's who you really are, and I've started that. But then I had to realize some people don't take it the way I mean it, even though I say it with pure intentions. It can come off bluntly. I come off aggressive because I have passion. My voice is deep.
• 19:22
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: I'm a really tall, big dude. You can't see it with me sitting down. I'm a little smaller than I'm usually am because of an accident. But I walk around around like 6, 4, maybe 6, 4 and a half and around 2, 30. And to me, that's small, because my grandmother was 6, 3. My grandfather was 7 feet. I've been around Nba. Players 6, 6, my cousin 6 9. That's the older brother. His nickname is 6 9. The younger brother is 6, 11. So I got told that we're all big inside and be who you are with that. And I noticed that
• 19:50
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: like I said, if I tell somebody I don't eat chocolate or I don't eat meat, they start judging me and start thinking I'm gonna judge them, and I'm like, no, my friend, I do it for my health reasons. You do what you want to do. I do it for health reasons. I do it because, as you see, the Shiva in the background, I love animals. I love different things, and I start learning with everything I do. I learn.
• 20:09
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: And I really try to emphasize learning to people. Because once you start learning, then you start seeing and being able to accept things that are not like you cultural differences, you're from a different culture than I am.
• 20:23
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: We're all same human. Once I got into different households and friends of all different types of cultures. I start learning. People are way more similar than they're not. I went to the Museum of used to be the Museum of Man. Now it's the museum of us in San Diego, Balboa Park. And it's like, besides a banana. And the next person we share 98% of DNA to the next person next to us into a banana. So why would why would I judge you for being a woman? Why would I judge you for being whatever.
• 20:48
  Melinda Lee: I love it. I feel like when you come with this mindset of not apologetic. It helps you be in flow. We're all about speaking in flow. So can you tell me about when you don't have that? You're like, I'm not gonna like worry about everybody else's judgment. I'm just gonna just be here and be in this flow, and speaking like, can you tell me more about that moment where you just felt that that sense of I'm just in this flow state, because your poem, or in speaking and.
• 21:16
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: No, it's fine. I wish I can give credit to the actual artist who said that we were in the studio one day, though, and they they were talking to me, and I was doing some type of rap, and I was telling somebody something, and they were like, man. You're really not apologetic for how you say stuff! I said. I really am. And then, opposite, I've had a girl. Tell me, you know why we don't like you, and I was like, why? And they say, when you say something you say like you mean it.
• 21:39
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: and it really confused me. I was like, why don't you say what you mean, or why don't you mean what you say? And then I kind of paused them, and I was like.
• 21:47
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: why shouldn't I mean what I say and feel like. I mean it because what I'm saying once again I say it with pure intentions, and I say it with love, because I get judged because I'll walk in the room and try to speak to everybody, and then sometimes I can't, because those same people that I speak to see me every day. They'll speak to me one on one, and then say it's a room full of other people.
• 22:06
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: They'll act like they don't see me. They don't notice me. And sometimes it's weird because I don't wear a hat all the time, and I'm like, so you didn't notice a big black dude or African American, or a color dude, whatever you want to call me. You didn't notice me and my energy, but when it's just me and you or 5 people. You try to say, Hi, Masada. But now it's a lot of other people that you get around and probably talk and said other things around. You can't be cool with me, and that actually hurts my feelings. But it gave me the more authority to be more of who I am, because I understood that
• 22:34
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: some people are inspired by me. I get a lot of calls, a lot of text, a lot of Dms and emails from like, if I post something, because we all know social media runs the world now, and I'll go back and look at the post, and I'll be like I had 6,000 views.
• 22:46
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: I got 10 likes in 2 comments, but I got a hundred calls of people telling me they were inspired by it, but I didn't see their name on it at all. I didn't. I didn't do this. What makes them not want to show other people that they rock with me, and then I say, you know what I got to be myself, even more authentically, even more unapologetically, or more, not apologetic in a way that they're gonna have no choice to be like
• 23:10
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: like like comment. Comment. I rock with you, and all the calls and all the Dms put that in the public so the public can know. Don't be afraid to be who you are. We all can be judged. Everybody can judge me on something for being a man and having to learn from being a boy and having to learn from being a human and having to learn. We all have to learn. You learn by going through the fire. You don't just learn from reading. You learn by personal experiences, and we all have flaws.
• 23:36
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: When I said I had a 2 year scholarship to Lsu. I had one to 2, Lane as well. I didn't know. That meant that I had to play hard to earn another 2 years, and so I went with one of my best friends, who I've been spoken to since I went into the military. He came way later after me, and then in the military I got in trouble, and the trouble I got into not speaking too much on it, because I don't know if I'm able to. But basically the trouble I got into was, it was during 9, 11,
• 24:03
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: and we had a lot of my people that I considered friends and family. They were going to war, and they weren't getting the equipment they needed to protect themselves. I was in control of it. So I let somebody else who worked with me convince me, hey? Let me get that, and I'm going to give it to our people.
• 24:17
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: Well, come! A couple of years later, a year later, I found out they weren't giving it to our people, and they were getting a lot of profit off of it. And Ncis is real, and I found out that's real. And so me myself went to a brig which is like a military prison for a year and a 19 months, almost 2 years. I got out early because of good behavior. And my mom was really sick.
• 24:37
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: And I don't really talk about that, because that's 1 of the bad times of my life, because before the military. I was all on the road student, all good, a good person, and when I say that I say that, meaning that in high school I actually got an award from our city council, from our mayor of the city of Hattiesburg for, and it actually says it for being a good person. But what it said for having respect
• 25:02
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: for having respect and something else for all people, and that was actually award. I got in high school, and then in the military. I got in that one time trouble. And then after that I put myself through college because I didn't get my Gi. Bill. I got my master's in business administration, and then I started my company, and I've always just been meeting a lot of people. Tell me all the time you're too good of a person, and I've read Nietzsche before I read Machiavelli, and what they mean by that is.
• 25:29
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: somebody who's a king or a prince, or is a good person will get taken advantage of in this world, and I've been taking advantage of so many times that I've been wanting to quit. But I always say no, just because that one person did that just because this one person did that that doesn't exercise or give me the right to turn into them. I don't want to be them, and that is so hard when it's happened. Over and over and over over again. We talked about me being in music. Me being a poet, me being an artist.
• 25:55
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: I'm from a hip hop background. So I do rap. I'm from big earrings, bling gold chains, watches, all of that being in that type of environment where it's braggadocious and people step on each other a lot to get where they're going. I get looked at as a clown or as a fool, because I'm really trying to be who I say I am. I'm trying to be friends with you. I'm trying to be friends with you, and you can't be friends with everybody, because frenemies are a real thing. People using you are a real thing, and I don't know how we break that, besides being me and showing the world that
• 26:24
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: you can't be like everybody else. Don't do.
• 26:27
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: don't do somebody else. What was done to you don't be that person that you didn't like that you hate. Now that made you want to turn still, be who you are. What I'll say about that is, me and my sons watch a lot of anime. A lot of people are into anime now I see I've been in anime for years, so it's kind of cool and funny that people are now into anime. But we got avatar aim. We got Narato. We got black clover. We got a lot of these Animes and I mentioned avatar aim because they're making real life movies of them like the one piece they're making real life character movies of them.
• 26:57
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: And I get so confused because so many people are into them. And I'm like, don't y'all see the main character as somebody who's always trying and always getting doubted and looked at. But they're always succeeding, because they never stop being who they are.
• 27:08
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: Yeah. So why aren't you? I didn't get my personality from them. I felt like the the anime creators got their personalities from me. So people are like, Oh, you're just like that, my son tells me. Oh, you're just like this one.
• 27:20
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: They're like me because I've been like this since I was little. I can't change. I won't change. I refuse to not be me. I'm going to be forever. Not apologetic. Last thing with my company about saying, not apologetic. I've heard so many artists say unapologetic, so many artists rap no apologies. I'm not that when anybody does that look up the definition of unapologetic being unapologetic, there's 1 definition, the word not apologetic.
• 27:45
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: So it's trademarked as brand giving recognition to people who aren't, who you don't want to see come up is a bad form of leadership, not helping somebody that, you know, is a great person, because you don't like the way they dress. You don't like the way they talk. It goes against what you stand for is bad leadership, not liking somebody because they're bigger than you, in a sense of they're taller, or or they're more handsome, or they're more. Whatever you think.
• 28:09
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: Maybe that person I don't think that, and that's a reflection of you. So when Michael Jackson came out with the man in the mirror, we all will say that. But how many people look in the mirror. I look in the mirror every day and every day, when I don't live up to the standard of being not apologetic and being me, it hurts whether that's with me when my kids that's me telling my kid I'm going to play with him, and then he gets home from school, and I went out working, and then we come back and he has to go to bed. That happened last night. We're supposed to be putting a puzzle together he got, and we didn't do it.
• 28:36
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: That happens to me when I disrespect my wife in a way, if we arguing, and you know 2 people arguing, and I say something bad, and I don't mean that hurts me when I'm not being the example that I want to see in any form
• 28:49
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: that hurts me with everything, because
• 28:52
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: I feel like it's inside of all of us that we all know what's right, and we all know what's per se wrong, and nobody really wants to do that. So if you go to sleep at night, or if you do go to sleep at night, and you still feel that just change change you want to see in the world.
• 29:08
  Melinda Lee: Be the change that you want to see in the world, be it even if it's scary, even if.
• 29:12
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: All right.
• 29:12
  Melinda Lee: It's going to be hard. It is going to be hard because everybody else is going that way. So you got a strong person, the strong leader to stand for what's right, even if people do you wrong, even if people are different than you.
• 29:24
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: Challenge you. They come and try to get you off your game. They want to see.
• 29:28
  Melinda Lee: Right.
• 29:28
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: Be that. Be that bad person they want to see you raise your voice, get out of character.
• 29:32
  Melinda Lee: Yeah.
• 29:33
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: So I can't get out of character, even with talking with anybody from anything they're like. Hey! Can you read this again? I was like. I already know what I'm gonna say, because it's inside of me. And they're like, How do you know that? And I'm like, it's what I feel.
• 29:44
  Melinda Lee: Yeah, what do you do when people bully you?
• 29:48
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: Hello!
• 29:49
  Melinda Lee: That's a tough one. I struggle with that.
• 29:51
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: It is when people bully me or try to bully me.
• 29:54
  Melinda Lee: Try to.
• 29:55
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: I laugh about it at times, and sometimes I get a little combat battle. I'm an Aries. I'm
• 30:01
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: 39% nice.
• 30:03
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: I don't have any back down in me, but I've had to learn to let it go a lot and know that that's a problem with that person when somebody challenges you and bullies you. It's a problem with that person. I use my kids, for example, on everything my 9 year old. He's a little big for his age. He's mixed. He's half white, half black. He's have Lithuanian, half Nigerian, half all over the world. I've done 2 dnas
• 30:27
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: I compared against each other. And literally, it says, I'm 59% Nigerian, and then the rest of the world. And I mean any any race you can name from Asian to Pacific Islander to European.
• 30:39
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: and so he had kids at school trying to call him an N-word trying to bully him. He had women and other people call him girls all the time, or tell them. Ask him, what do you do with his extensions? Because I don't know if you saw in the beginning they have really long hair, and I'm like I tell them.
• 30:55
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: Baba, I call him Baba. I call him Messiah. I call him different nicknames and all. And I say, that's because that's an insecurity inside them. The only thing you can do is continue being you, and know when you get
• 31:07
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: that influence and you get looked upon. Help them people out, that's all you could do. One of the kids that was bullying him. I actually went to his mom when I saw him, and he was all scared. My son was like, Oh, because he's a kid, you know.
• 31:20
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: and me and the mom became cool, and the kid became cool. And now, my son and the kid, they play in different baseball leagues, but when they see each other they're cool now, because the same kids that were that he was going with bullying. My sons were bullying him before, and when me and his mom sat down and talked with both of them, they realized they have more in common than they're not. And that's all people have to do is really sit down and converse, have a conversation with each other, and you might not agree with everything I say. You might not like everything I say.
• 31:46
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: but respect it, and I'll respect you, and we can be cordial. We can be friends and not be friends at the same time.
• 31:53
  Melinda Lee: Oh, that's a beautiful story. What a wonderful story to end the the episode with! I I love it. It's
• 32:00
  Melinda Lee: wonderful! I know our leaders out there. They are trying to do. You know, they're trying to move up the ranks, go up in the corporate, or just be somebody in the world. And what a wonderful message to no matter what you're trying to do, what your goals are to not be, you know, to be unapologetic, to be not apologetic to be who you are, and even if people are trying to take you down, bully, you threaten you just to continue to spread the love and the light.
• 32:24
  Melinda Lee: and that will support, and that will go a long way.
• 32:27
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: If you spread the love and the light as a leader, your followers, your people that you're leading, they will see, and you become more of a leader in their eyes and real quick. That's what this book is about to give love. We wrote a.
• 32:40
  Melinda Lee: Oh!
• 32:40
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: Published a book called Group Hug.
• 32:42
  Melinda Lee: Oh! That!
• 32:43
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: Seconds. What a group hug is! It's everybody in our family gets to call one. This is Sada, the oldest son. This is Manar, that's mahir, and that's Messiah. This is the wife Crystal, and that's Grandma Dukes
• 32:56
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: Group Hug. Each one gets to call 1 1 a day. If me and mom are not getting along. If the kids are in a bad mood, everybody gets to call one group hug. You have to come together for 30 seconds or a minute to hug because hugs releases endorphins and hormones that make you feel each other better. It releases cortisol in women to make you feel better, releases the stress. And so that's what this book is about. It's called group Hug. And it's to show the world
• 33:21
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: to give more love. And if you give more love as a leader you will get more respect, and you will get further than you ever will alone, because we cannot make it in this world alone.
• 33:29
  Melinda Lee: I love it. I love it. Thank you, Masada. So how do people find you are we? We're gonna put your website in the show notes. So click on the website, it's not apologetic studios.
• 33:40
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: notapologetic.com. We do business as Dba doing. Business is not apologetic for people. The formal is not apologetic studios. Llc. You can type in not apologetic. If you want to find me online, you can type in M. Dot e dot underscore, not apologetic, is right there. If you want to find me online. I'm Google. You can type Masada Ellis. And that's thanks to head start. I have to give a shout out to them
• 34:03
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: neighborhood house and Episcopal community services because they got me in it. My son's school got me in it. I was the chairperson, and from that I went to speak in Washington, DC. And Advocate, and people hear me out. And they feel me because we need to really change what's going on in this world. We don't need a leader of the people. We need a leader with the people for the people.
• 34:22
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: And that's what we really need. And that's what we're missing. We, the people. I don't.
• 34:26
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: I'm not saying I'm a leader. I'm not saying I'm not, but putting in certain positions. If I was a leader, if anybody else was a leader. I want the world to lead with me, because I can't tell you how to be a woman. I can't tell you about your culture, but you can guide me and help guide me on others about being a woman and about your culture, and we need more than just your opinion. We need 2 or 3, because we all live different experiences. So we really want America to be great. We want the world to be great.
• 34:49
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: and I say the world. I don't leave no country out. We need the best scientists, the best doctors, the best engineers, the best architects to make this world better for all of us together. Inclusion and not exclusion. Inclusion is what we need. We need everybody to be together.
• 35:08
  Melinda Lee: Love it, love it, love it. Thank you, Masada. Thank you so much. I learned a lot today. I'm truly inspired, and really, you know, enjoyed our conversation.
• 35:19
  Melinda Lee: and thank you all. Thank you, listeners, for being here. I trust that you got your takeaway for today. Just be you, and spread light and love in the world. Even group hugs 30 second group hugs, spread the endorphins, and until next time, remember anytime you have a chance to communicate. You have a chance to connect and to inspire and make a bigger difference in the world.
• 35:42
  Melinda Lee: Much love. Take care, bye, bye, thank you. Thank you.
• 35:49
  Masada M.E._NotApologeic: I'll suppose.