Latest / Rise and Thrive with Dr. J. Nicole Podcast / God Where Were You? Trust the Process with Robert Boyd, Jr.

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God Where Were You? Trust the Process with Robert Boyd, Jr. · Rise and Thrive with Dr. J. Nicole Podcast

• 0:16
  Good morning, good morning. Welcome to Rise and Thrive with
• 0:19
  Doctor J Nicole, where we are rising in faith and thriving in
• 0:23
  purpose. Today's episode I am joined by
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  Robert Boyd Junior. He's the middle school Dean of
• 0:31
  culture and behavior at Saint Marcus School in Milwaukee, WI.
• 0:36
  He's the author of God, Where are You Trust the Process and
• 0:40
  the founder of Bros Brothers Rising Over Our Streets.
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  Together, we're going to unpack Brother Boyd's personal journey
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  of questioning God, his testimony of trusting the
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  process, and how faith has shaped his work with youth and
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  families. You all are going to gain some
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  practical tools to cultivate resilience, discipline, and
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  legacy, both in your personal wealth with God and in the
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  raising of the next generation. All right.
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  Well, welcome, Rob. What you want me to call you
• 1:12
  today? I already nicknamed you RBJ, but
• 1:15
  I don't know if that's the thing.
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  So there's only one other person called me RBJ, but they call it
• 1:22
  RBJ too because I'm a giant. So that's.
• 1:26
  See, now you say that now I'll call you Deuce, right?
• 1:29
  Like I, I'll just like pop out, pop out names.
• 1:32
  But what do you? What do you prefer to be
• 1:34
  referred to? I get a ton of different names,
• 1:37
  whatever you comfortable call me because I get different names
• 1:40
  depending on who I'm talking to. So whatever start coming in
• 1:43
  then. That's why I normally used to
• 1:45
  hear it. I heard he was 50 back in the
• 1:48
  day. Robert Coach, Boy, I, I get all
• 1:51
  of that. I did.
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  You hear me too much? I said back in the day I heard
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  you used to go by 50. And the crazy part is I don't
• 1:59
  get it too much except in my household.
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  My wife told me. I knew you was 50.
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  You going to always be 50? All right, she said.
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  I'm at 50. I'm married 50.
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  That was just 50. I fell in.
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  Love with 50. Oh, I love that.
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  All right, So what was your God? Where were you moment and how
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  did it shape your decision to write your book?
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  Trust the process. I think that moment probably was
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  the same moment as the few of us and probably had, and it was
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  during the pandemic, OK? The pandemic was a different
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  time. I think in all of our lives
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  where we didn't have a choice but to actually get to know
• 2:42
  ourselves better. You didn't have no outlet where
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  you can go when the city is shut down, everything is closed and
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  you can't really be outside. You don't get a chance.
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  But to know yourself and everyone that surrounds you a
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  little bit more better. And God spoke to me so clear
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  about writing this book. OK.
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  And when it started, I was just like, God, I don't want to write
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  this book. People told me for a long time,
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  your story is your your life is a story that everybody needs to
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  read. But I never wanted to do it.
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  I was so afraid of doing it because if I decided to take
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  that leap of faith and write this book, then I had to relive
• 3:19
  everything that I tried to forget about so long ago.
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  My gosh, there's so many layers in that like and what a lot of
• 3:29
  people do and just because, OK, you lived it, it's still in
• 3:34
  there. Had you had an opportunity to
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  process it? That was actually the book was
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  actually my therapy coming from everything I came from.
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  I not once had the therapist, I not once had counseling, but
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  writing that book was 100% therapy and healing all in one
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  big old ball. OK, so RBJ, take us back.
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  What's your story? So going back to as small as a
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  kid growing up in Chicago, IL on the West side S out to the West
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  side, West End and pine. So that's.
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  The whole thing. But I was just a kid.
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  Two older sisters. Oh, my mother's only son, my
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  daddy's little boy just growing up taking trips back and forth
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  to Milwaukee over the summer, Man, my sisters to come up to
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  Milwaukee over the summer to go with some of my cousins on my
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  mother's side. And it just was one day where we
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  was here 1 summer in the midst of 1988 when we got a phone
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  call. And that phone call we didn't
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  know was going to change all our lives forever.
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  Yeah. So the phone call which came
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  about seven o'clock 8:00 at night, which led my auntie into
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  going off into a private room. And you could just hear the the
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  groans and the cries and, and at that time I was, I was only
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  about 5 years old, but I didn't know what was going on.
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  But when she walked out that door and she looked at us and
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  she just told us that my sister first question was what happened
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  to my Mama because she was older at that time.
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  So if I was 5 my sister had to be about 9.
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  And she said what happened to our Mama.
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  And my auntie just just shook her head and started crying.
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  And when my sisters broke down, I didn't fully understand what
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  was going on but I knew that they was hurting.
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  So that was hurting which made me hurt.
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  So I felt they pain. And then I started to realize we
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  wasn't going back to Chicago. So in that moment, my auntie
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  pretty much told us this is what's going to be the game
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  plan. But my daddy was saying that you
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  know what? I know that you want to keep
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  them together. However, I want to take my boy
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  with me. So I moved back to Chicago
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  without my two sisters, with my dad.
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  And the following year, the following year I was over.
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  I was in Milwaukee with my sisters when I was told that my
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  daddy had just passed away. So now it's it's a kid who now
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  starting to understand life and death a little bit more, which
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  is the reason why a lot of the title of my book came from
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  because I was to the point where I hated God.
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  I didn't know who this this evil guy that everybody said was this
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  guy to love. But yeah, he would do this to A5
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  and a six year old. How can you be a guy to love but
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  take away my entire foundation? And then I thought it was me.
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  What did I do to deserve this to be that young?
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  Going a little further, trying to get my mind together and wrap
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  it around that mom and daddy ain't never coming home.
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  Few years later, I wake up to everyone in the living room
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  watching television. And when I'm trying to figure
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  out what everybody is watching on the news, all I see is a 13
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  year old shot and killed to death.
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  And the name that read up under it was Danielle Linton, which is
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  my sister. So goodness, it was, it was the
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  process of healing, trying to heal.
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  And so I was angry. I walked around and I carried a
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  whole lot of anger. I didn't know how to control my
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  emotions like I do now, talking about redirecting, trying to
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  emotion, intelligence, all those things I didn't never have
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  training on. So I had to figure it out on my
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  own. And trying to figure it out, I
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  just stuffed things away. I just kept stuffing them down.
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  I was to the point where they want nobody to see my emotions.
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  I don't want you to feel my emotions, but it was certain
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  instances in a book that you'll read about where all of that
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  will come out and they would come out at the wrong time.
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  Always. Wow, so you lost your mom, your
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  dad, then an older sister? Yes.
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  Wow, like summer 88 was a pivotal summer for me.
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  So I, I resonate with like things just changing in the
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  blink of an eye. And for a 5 year old to have to
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  try to process this and fathom this and get with the program
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  these big changes. And then it's maybe as soon as
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  you're starting to settle in, like you said you were your
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  daddy's. How did you say your daddy's
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  baby? How'd you put it?
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  I was just, boy, I was just. Yeah, my daddy's boy.
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  Yep. Yep.
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  My daddy's baby boy. So I could hear the affection
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  and fondness just in the way that you said it.
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  And so you had that right. And we're adjusting to that.
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  And then he's gone. Did anybody talk to you or your
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  siblings or say let's put them in therapy or at least talk to
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  like the school counselor when you experienced all of these
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  things? So if I never remember actually
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  seeing a counselor or therapist, but believe it or not, if those
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  things were said, I have no recollection of them.
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  Like people would be like, hey, I remember my second grade
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  teacher. I remember the school I went to
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  when I say I wanted to forget everything of that trauma that
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  happened in my life. It's crazy because when you want
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  to forget, you're just gonna forget.
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  So I, I forgot all of those years.
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  I can't tell you what my 3rd, 4th grade teacher name was.
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  I can't tell you what school I went to until I started doing
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  research as I was older. But just to sit there and think
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  about those memories. It's certain times though, it's
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  certain smells, it's certain things.
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  I see certain sounds out here which will bring some of them
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  back. But just to sit there and try to
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  go down memory lane, that was the hardest part about writing
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  this book because I had to think so hard and I had to go deep
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  down inside my inner feelings to try to let go of all of this
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  pain and want to forget it. To actually want to remember
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  some of the good times and some of the things in the ways I
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  felt. Because when I had the shouts
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  out to Elizabeth Lucky, who helped me, like without her, I
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  don't know if this book could be possible because I could never
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  just sit there and physically write it out.
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  She had me doing different assignments where I had to write
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  down pieces. I record myself talking and she
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  actually was the brains behind putting it all on the paper.
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  But I could have never just sat there and wrote out a book like
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  that myself. It was too hard.
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  Yeah, that's a lot to have to relive things.
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  And like you said, this was deeply traumatic, and our brains
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  are designed to protect us. You were five years old, and you
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  learned that your mother was gone, and you didn't mention how
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  either of your parents passed away.
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  Is that something you're comfortable sharing?
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  Well, yeah, it it was in the book.
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  So my mother was actually stabbed to death on the city
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  bus. It was a situation where I hired
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  another young lady was actually dating the same fella.
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  And when my mother got there, she seen it and my mother walked
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  away. My mother My mother was walking
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  away and. The woman.
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  She followed her on the bus and she stabbed her 23 times.
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  I'm so sorry, I'm at a loss for words for that and I can
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  understand why you would be so angry and what I also know about
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  spirits. Yes.
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  That wasn't God and that Lady that came and attacked your
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  mother, your mother walked away. She walked away.
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  She walked away, her and her peace walked away.
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  Two people had made a choice. She found out, she walked away.
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  I'm having a hard time hearing. That's why I can only imagine
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  what a 5 year old would do. And I I would imagine like
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  they're still healing. That could still be possible
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  even after like, writing the book, which is, you know,
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  processing that on many layers. It's going, it's going to be a
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  continuous healing process. Like people tell me all the
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  time, I don't understand how you sow a delight to be around you
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  always cheerful you always. I wouldn't be able to to live
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  life the way you did. And I tell them my answer is I
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  just don't think about it. And I said, I know that might
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  sound foul and wrong. I love my parents to death, but
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  I will sit there and turn myself into an early grade if I
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  constantly sit there and thought about it every single day.
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  So I just don't think about it. Our the other part is focus on
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  the good memories too, right? Like you don't have to focus on
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  there. Like you obviously know that
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  they're not there and it's a choice and it's one of those
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  things that it can consume you if that's what you focus on and
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  you focusing on it doesn't bring them back.
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  It doesn't serve you. It doesn't.
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  And your father, How, how did he pass away?
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  So my father, I never, I never really asked about my father all
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  my life, but I just knew that I was always told or I was always,
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  I always heard no one just set me down.
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  Seeing that's another thing where the healing really
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  couldn't really start to take place because I never knew
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  exactly how my father passed away.
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  I, I knew how my mother passed away.
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  I knew the story forever, but I was told that my father was
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  drugged, right? So in my mind as a kid, when you
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  think of someone being drugged, you think of somebody having a
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  drink and somebody putting drugs in the drink and they drinking.
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  And so all the years of my life, college and everything, when I
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  was in the out here in the world party and I was always that
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  person where if I set a drink down and I walked away from it,
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  I need a new one. And I taught that to everybody
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  that I knew. I need to know, even with my
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  kids nowadays. You said a soda, whatever it is
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  that you leave it, that is the companies, that is the
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  communities now that's not yours anymore.
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  You need to get you another one and that's what I I had in my
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  mind for so many years that he was drugged.
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  But as I started to write my book and film my documentary
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  just asking different questions. And honestly still to this day
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  I'm still getting mixed answers. But it all boiled down to they
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  found my father with a needle when his arm so OD whether that
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  came from him, himself or someone else putting it there.
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  That's the end result of what I keep being told.
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  I never. And like I said you, you only
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  leave it to my imagination because no one ever said, well
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  Jr. come here, let me tell you how your father actually
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  transitioned. And I never wanted to ask about
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  it because I didn't want to know.
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  But that's a child growing up getting older you started to
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  want to know some of these things and I still haven't got a
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  clear cut answer on the exact reason for my father's passing
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  besides the fact of him having the needle stuck in his arm.
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  Yeah, there's so much that could surround that, the context, like
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  who was he with where and when? And during that era, they didn't
• 16:05
  care as much about the. No, it wasn't.
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  It wasn't. It wasn't.
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  It was, it was big. It was a big epidemic with all
• 16:12
  of that, with the drug use and all that.
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  And it was, it was like it was that was recreational, like
• 16:18
  smoking weed nowadays. That's how that was in that era.
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  Exactly. So it was just like, OK, just
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  another, yeah, overdose. Just another overdose.
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  Yeah. Understood.
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  Yeah. My family, my parents both
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  struggled with with with with substance.
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  My mother, she's been, I got to call my Mama.
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  It just it just dawned on me that she made it to four years
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  clean. Wow.
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  Yep, she just it just yeah, she's Yep, it will really
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  August. So I'm a couple weeks late,
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  yeah. So I owe her a call about that.
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  Yeah, yeah. Celebrate you guys.
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  Are celebrate. Thank you.
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  Thank you for for reminding me of that.
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  There's, you know, so much stuff going on.
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  So I owe her a call. I get it.
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  I get it. I get it in in that some of that
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  in that respect. But yeah, it became so casual,
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  so social. And that was how she, you know,
• 17:18
  got wrapped up in it from what I understand.
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  Wow. OK, so you go through all of
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  this, what does like? So I'm going to lay the
• 17:28
  groundwork right before we get into all the other things so
• 17:33
  that people can go on the journey with you.
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  So then this anger you take this with, you went to high school,
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  but you still go to college. Yes.
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  Talk. Talk me through that, how you
• 17:46
  decided to go to college and what you majored in, some of
• 17:49
  those things and just like what your experience was.
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  So a lot, so a lot of my life was ups and downs.
• 17:56
  It was to the point where I was introduced to Christ at an early
• 18:01
  age by my auntie Joanna Linton when I came to Milwaukee.
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  So I knew exactly who God was. I knew the ones that he can work
• 18:10
  the miracles, the healing and all that, but it didn't feel
• 18:13
  like I was getting a pardon, any of that.
• 18:17
  It felt like maybe I don't know him the way I thought I know
• 18:20
  him. But then life was starting to
• 18:22
  move and it started to feel better that, like I said, I
• 18:26
  started to heal from my parents. And then you get the tragedy
• 18:29
  with my sister, which was a tragedy that it wasn't even for
• 18:33
  her. She was actually trying to save
• 18:36
  one of her friends whose uncle was molesting her, and he shot
• 18:40
  her in the chest with a shotgun and still a.
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  Man shot a child with a shotgun 30.
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  The newspaper Air article reads Danielle Linton died as a hero
• 18:56
  because she got her friend out of the house, but then he pulled
• 19:01
  a gun and shot, shot this little girl in the chest off the porch
• 19:06
  and and in the front yard. So when the police arrived, my
• 19:10
  sister wasn't dead on sight, but she died at the same because
• 19:15
  they couldn't approach the body because he wouldn't put the gun
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  down. Wow.
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  You know, I am a believer and it's, you know, it's hard to
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  reconcile sometimes that the earlier and the greater, more
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  intense the trauma, the greater the calling because the enemy is
• 19:42
  working overtime. He's sending his best to.
• 19:48
  Yeah, you're preaching. You're preaching and for real,
• 19:51
  at some point get a tour. But that's the way you got to
• 19:54
  trust the process. Yeah, my book.
• 19:56
  Yeah, yeah. Listen cuz I'm like the way he
• 20:03
  was just coming for your family. Yeah, for you.
• 20:08
  And whomever else, right? Because everyone's experiencing
• 20:12
  this and in and in different ways.
• 20:15
  Yes. OK, so you're introduced to
• 20:18
  Christ at an early age. In spite of all of this, you're
• 20:22
  able to get into college. You go to college.
• 20:25
  Who'd you major in? Physical Education.
• 20:29
  OK. What a minor in culture.
• 20:31
  OK, OK. How'd you land there?
• 20:35
  So here's the thing about college.
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  College wasn't on my radar at all.
• 20:43
  I just wanted to get out of high school.
• 20:45
  I, I, I was the type of person where I I didn't want to be at
• 20:48
  school. I didn't.
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  But I knew I needed school. I know I needed high school.
• 20:53
  I didn't want to go to college. It was 2 reasons to send me to
• 20:55
  college. 1 is my mother, which is not my godmother but my
• 21:02
  godsend lovers. That's what I call her.
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  She was definitely godsend. I love that.
• 21:08
  And she wanted me to go to college and I could continue to
• 21:12
  play football. Football was my release.
• 21:15
  So when I when I found football, when they say leave it all on
• 21:19
  the field, when I say I left it everything I had on the field
• 21:23
  and I was so angry on the field and people knew it like it was
• 21:26
  to the point where they had the coach had to pull me out some
• 21:29
  games because I couldn't slow down.
• 21:32
  And he was just like, you need to breathe, son.
• 21:35
  But that's that was my only release where I knew I could
• 21:38
  just hit hard, get frustration out and not be in trouble for.
• 21:43
  It and we didn't have rage rooms back in the day for that.
• 21:46
  No, no, it was the football field.
• 21:48
  I put that helmet on it and what was in front of me was
• 21:51
  definitely my rage room. It was nothing personal to that
• 21:53
  person or that young man, but he felt every piece of the pain I
• 21:57
  felt since I was five years old, whoever that was on any given
• 22:01
  night. Yeah, so they knew.
• 22:05
  OK, So we kept playing football. We get through college.
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  What's your first job? So we don't fully get to
• 22:16
  college. Oh, I'm all feeling it.
• 22:18
  It was, it was, it was another moment to the point where this
• 22:22
  is where it was to the point where I was over the top with
• 22:27
  you know what? I'm done trying.
• 22:30
  So I'm in college doing well and I tear my AC here.
• 22:36
  So now is to the point where if it's not one thing, it's another
• 22:41
  thing. And now the thing I love so much
• 22:44
  that gives me the chance to release, give my mind together
• 22:48
  that's snatched away from me in in my mind.
• 22:51
  Here's another thing that this God that we serve then took away
• 22:55
  from me. So three years into college, I
• 23:00
  actually dropped out and I and I fell into a stage of depression.
• 23:07
  Any major injury like that will do it, but then also your
• 23:11
  connection and what this was for you.
• 23:14
  Yeah, I can see that. So I went into a stage of
• 23:19
  depression and at that point I, I went into a party and when I
• 23:24
  say party and I, I was party and it was to the point where I, I
• 23:30
  was so angry and I was so deeply hurt.
• 23:33
  Where I didn't want to sit still because if I sit still, then I
• 23:38
  had to feel. I didn't want to feel no more.
• 23:40
  So I was getting drunk, I was getting high, different houses
• 23:45
  every night. I didn't want to go home.
• 23:47
  I didn't want to be in the space where I had to sit still.
• 23:51
  So I just moved. I was here, I was there.
• 23:53
  And then I get right up in the morning and I start all over
• 23:56
  again because I didn't want to feel.
• 23:57
  And when I was, it was, it was so dangerous because in that
• 24:03
  state, I didn't really care whether I lived or died.
• 24:07
  And if you was in front of me, I didn't really care if you lived
• 24:10
  or died either. If it came between one of us
• 24:13
  happened to go that day. So I was probably the scariest
• 24:17
  thing walking at this time. Dreadlocks to my back, gold
• 24:23
  teeth. I I I was out of control.
• 24:28
  Have a visual, I can see it. I can see it.
• 24:32
  OK, OK, OK, different person. It completed it and that's when
• 24:40
  it turned into every until 50 came from high school playing
• 24:44
  basketball. I was calling myself a big
• 24:47
  thing. So like, you know, you got like
• 24:48
  the Big 10 conference and all that.
• 24:50
  So I'll do a layup or something and not how loud.
• 24:52
  Big 50 instead of Big 10, right? So they just start calling me
• 24:55
  Big 50, Big 50. They carried on to college to
• 24:58
  50. But then when I left college, I
• 25:02
  had this, this, this, this image of myself.
• 25:04
  I wasn't this, this big 50 no more.
• 25:08
  I was 50 to pause. I'm in charge.
• 25:10
  I'm making my own rule. And I used to, I used to always
• 25:14
  put a hashtag out there, Amore. I make my own rules.
• 25:21
  And that's what I was living off of.
• 25:23
  My hashtag always said amore and it stood for I make my own rules
• 25:29
  and that's the life that I was living.
• 25:30
  There's so much in there, but the you're OK.
• 25:33
  Well, I'm hearing a thing. God is stripping away things and
• 25:39
  people to get your attention and you think it's punishment?
• 25:42
  Yes, when he's really saying focus on me.
• 25:47
  I got I'm building you up for your greater purposes.
• 25:50
  I didn't understand that part in that moment.
• 25:55
  Yeah, yeah. And even the I'm more that shows
• 26:01
  your creativity, like your depth, your intelligence, even
• 26:05
  though you weren't using it for good at that time.
• 26:08
  Yeah, I was absolutely not because you you had influenced
• 26:12
  Big 50. You you had influence and
• 26:17
  obviously could connect with people.
• 26:18
  And I think that's something that sometimes people can't
• 26:20
  forget because you're so disconnected from yourself and
• 26:24
  you just doing whatever would like You just you just out here,
• 26:27
  right? Yes.
• 26:29
  OK, so how do we end up at Saint Marcus?
• 26:37
  Or is that too big of a jump? So what?
• 26:40
  It's not? It depends on how you want to go
• 26:42
  St. Marcus.
• 26:44
  So well, wanted to say, well, let's let's back up a little bit
• 26:49
  because we got to go into the book, which let me know exactly
• 26:53
  what my purpose was. So my first chapter in the book.
• 26:56
  And what's really crazy, I told my wife that I haven't called
• 26:59
  Bishop yet when I was at service this morning.
• 27:02
  Yeah. And when I wrote my book, I
• 27:05
  wrote my book out of of the topic is God, where were you?
• 27:10
  And then it was trust the process when I became the youth
• 27:14
  president over a holy cathedral of Church of God in Christ, I
• 27:18
  started to understand my purpose with the youth.
• 27:21
  And then it was when I became a minister.
• 27:25
  And then the start at 35, I started realizing everything
• 27:30
  that God has sent me through was to build me up for this moment.
• 27:36
  And I knew it was trust the process.
• 27:38
  So I ran into the scripture in Galatians where it said you will
• 27:41
  reap if you faint not after I read the entire and that was my
• 27:45
  scripture for my message. But what's crazy with the the
• 27:51
  moment when you come into God's when I say when he give you
• 27:56
  clarity Bishop this morning and maybe you're supposed to do this
• 28:00
  interview Friday, but you got ill and then remember I booked
• 28:03
  the date, but that date didn't work because the timer didn't
• 28:05
  work. But now we doing it today.
• 28:08
  But this morning at 8:00 service, Bishop read those same
• 28:13
  3 scriptures and his topic was don't give up now.
• 28:18
  And in the midst of him preaching, he was he's preaching
• 28:21
  out trust the process. And then in my in my topic, I
• 28:26
  don't believe he brought me this far to leave me.
• 28:29
  And he kept saying it all through his message.
• 28:31
  And I'm like, wow, this is what we feel to talk about this
• 28:35
  evening. And this is the first chapter in
• 28:37
  my book is that entire sermon that I preached that day because
• 28:41
  I knew at that moment God built me up to be able to tell my
• 28:46
  story to so many people and encourage them.
• 28:49
  So when I'm with these young men and they're telling me you don't
• 28:52
  understand Coach Boyd, I lost my mother, you don't understand
• 28:56
  Coach Boy, I lost my father, you don't understand Coach Boy, I
• 29:00
  lost a sibling. You don't understand Coach Boy.
• 29:02
  I've been homeless. I haven't had stuff to eat.
• 29:05
  And I look at that young man in his face and say absolutely
• 29:08
  understand all of that. I can't say I feel the way you
• 29:12
  feel, but I understand everything you're saying right
• 29:16
  now. And this is how I.
• 29:18
  Can handle. I can't say that I feel how you
• 29:22
  feel. And I understand because that's
• 29:25
  that's the part like that people, they no one understands,
• 29:29
  nobody gets it. And you like, no, I get it.
• 29:31
  But I might not feel the way that you feel or didn't feel the
• 29:34
  same way to me. Yeah, That validation is
• 29:37
  crucial. Yes.
• 29:39
  So you've got all this this confirmation.
• 29:43
  This morning, yeah, this morning was.
• 29:48
  And when I preached that message, I knew where I was at.
• 29:51
  I knew what my purpose was because at that time is when I
• 29:55
  started trying to figure out, I told my wife, I said I need to
• 29:58
  do something for the youth of the city.
• 30:01
  I said our youth are so lost right now.
• 30:04
  I need to figure out something to do for the youth in our city.
• 30:08
  And I said I want to start an organization.
• 30:12
  And I said, but I want it to be only for young men.
• 30:14
  I need them to be able to be, I need to be a Big Brother, a
• 30:18
  mentor, someone where they can give them the game before they
• 30:21
  go down the road that I went down and I had to figure it out
• 30:24
  for myself. We need those type of outlets.
• 30:27
  And I said, this is what I want to do.
• 30:28
  And she said, well, what you and so I'm, I'm praying about, I'm
• 30:32
  thinking about it. And bro came to me because we
• 30:35
  know right now and the generation that we're looking
• 30:37
  at, everybody is bro, whether that's their friend, their they,
• 30:41
  they got a friend, their girlfriend, their sister, that
• 30:44
  everybody. I was a bro.
• 30:46
  So I'm going to take that because that's the language
• 30:48
  y'all speak. So I said, God, you got to give
• 30:51
  me an acronym for this. And I was I always good at
• 30:55
  acronyms making the title like when it came to our music title
• 30:58
  on the song called I used to be a party promoter letting you
• 31:02
  know what the promotion was the drinks.
• 31:04
  But that was that's just what I do.
• 31:05
  That's a gift that I have, and I was always.
• 31:07
  Talking to creativity. Yeah, the gift that you have in
• 31:11
  this world, got to take that and use it in his Kingdom.
• 31:15
  So I'm using that and I'm like, God.
• 31:16
  So. And it was for a long time it
• 31:19
  was the Bros. And it was, I used to say it was
• 31:22
  going to be brothers rising over streets.
• 31:24
  And that was broad. That means the brothers, the
• 31:26
  rise over streets. That's cool.
• 31:29
  But I said it got to be personal.
• 31:30
  It got to touch them personal. So that's when you look at the
• 31:33
  Bros. Now if you look at the O, it's
• 31:36
  actually an O on the inside. Yeah.
• 31:39
  It's the old on the inside. So now you got 2 acronyms right
• 31:43
  there. And I turned it into brothers
• 31:45
  rising over our streets because now it's personal.
• 31:49
  Now it's my street. I got to rise over my my
• 31:52
  situation, my circumstances. And I tell a young man we can't
• 31:57
  try to change everything around us with the outside O until we
• 32:02
  change the inside O, which is what we got to start on the
• 32:07
  inside before we could change everything on the outside.
• 32:09
  It sounded like a social worker a little bit.
• 32:12
  OK, come on this this person and environment perspective.
• 32:17
  I'm here coming up out of you. OK.
• 32:20
  I love that ourselves and then it goes outward into our
• 32:24
  community. I love this.
• 32:26
  This is so good. So I want to go back a little
• 32:30
  bit. So when did you So how did you
• 32:33
  transition from coming up out of the streets to becoming a
• 32:37
  minister? That's a good question.
• 32:40
  I was terrified when I knew. I'm sure I was terrified.
• 32:46
  I always made sure I was at church.
• 32:49
  Like my wife would tell you, I don't matter what I was doing
• 32:52
  that night, on Saturday I was in church.
• 32:55
  The next day I was in church 'cause I never wanted to, I
• 32:58
  would never wanted to sit still. So Sunday was church.
• 33:01
  So when I went out that night and I stayed out all night, then
• 33:03
  I got up and I went to church. So it was to the point where I
• 33:07
  always heard the word and it was to the point where Bishop and
• 33:11
  the pastor shouts out to Pastor Steven Tempton.
• 33:15
  He's just just feel as though they was just talking to me.
• 33:18
  Every Sunday I walked up in that church and I'm sitting away in
• 33:21
  the back minding my own business.
• 33:23
  Got my dreads, my gold teeth. It's all I thought it was a
• 33:27
  couple of times where I actually just got up and then I left
• 33:30
  because I'm like, I ain't got to listen to this, right?
• 33:33
  So so then, but then it started to convict me and then those to
• 33:36
  the point where it's like, I want to do better.
• 33:40
  I want to do better. I want to do something
• 33:42
  different. This is what I want to do with
• 33:44
  my life and and I started wanting to change so that you
• 33:48
  can nobody can change as you tell them to.
• 33:50
  You got to want to change for yourself.
• 33:52
  I can sit there and give you all of the things and tell you all
• 33:55
  of the stuff, but until you want it for yourself, I can let
• 33:59
  everything outstanding is in one ear out the oven because you
• 34:01
  don't want to change. So I wanted to change.
• 34:05
  So I wanted that change. And then I had my first
• 34:09
  daughter. I had my first daughter, which
• 34:12
  is Jenna Monet boy. She was born May 5th, 2009.
• 34:17
  And when my daughter came out, my daughter came out.
• 34:22
  He at first looking up, he looked me right in my face.
• 34:26
  Yeah. And when I say I crumbled like a
• 34:29
  cookie in that hospital room, I I fully tore apart into my
• 34:35
  mother-in-law arm. Like I literally broke down and
• 34:39
  I understood now you're not living this life just for
• 34:43
  yourself no more. Somebody needs you.
• 34:46
  Yeah, now you got a purpose. I had a purpose.
• 34:50
  I was dealt with that purpose right there and and then my
• 34:53
  book, if you look at it, if you so I dedicated my book to to all
• 34:58
  of them, to my wife and all of my kids and my book I dedicated
• 35:02
  to my first child. That said, you saved my life
• 35:05
  because she gave my purpose. How old is she now?
• 35:10
  She's just turned 16 in May. Yeah, she's just turned 16 in
• 35:15
  May. Dean, that's a critical.
• 35:16
  You know, I got a different purpose in life with her.
• 35:20
  And so like it's purpose. Well, let's see.
• 35:23
  Because we say it's, it's, it gives you a purpose, but it's
• 35:27
  not the purpose, right? So she saved you?
• 35:33
  She gave me a purpose to want to live.
• 35:35
  There we go. That was the purpose.
• 35:38
  They gave me and I still didn't understand what my purpose was,
• 35:42
  but she gave me a purpose to actually want to live.
• 35:44
  The one that changed my life, the one to be because I didn't
• 35:47
  care what was going on in the streets if it happened to
• 35:49
  happen, but I needed now. Someone needed me.
• 35:52
  So I had to change my lifestyle because I couldn't just do and
• 35:56
  go the way at things that I was doing because I wanted to come
• 36:00
  home at night to my daughter. And also five year old, you know
• 36:04
  what it's like to not have your parents.
• 36:07
  Absolutely. Yeah.
• 36:09
  Five year old me, 42 year old me.
• 36:11
  And that's why when people start following us on social media,
• 36:15
  the life that my kids live, it's the life that I feel as though
• 36:19
  every kid should live because I didn't have any of that.
• 36:22
  So people be like, y'all did this then?
• 36:25
  So my kids probably got more states on a on a name right now
• 36:31
  than the years they've been born because I just believed in
• 36:35
  memories. I create the memories because
• 36:37
  memories will last forever. Dad like now you're re parenting
• 36:42
  yourself. Yes.
• 36:44
  You're healing yourself by giving yourself all the things
• 36:47
  that you wanted with your parents.
• 36:51
  Yes. That's God is so good, like for
• 36:57
  real. But some people they get stuck.
• 36:59
  That is not how they want it to be or the way that they want it
• 37:03
  that they can't appreciate and really see what he's done.
• 37:07
  And not only are, you know, your daughter saved you, you're able
• 37:11
  to be present for her. All of these hardships, all of
• 37:15
  these just traumatic, awful things, you're able to now help
• 37:21
  save other people. Yes.
• 37:24
  Like there's so many layers to that and it just, you know,
• 37:27
  makes me think about like Joseph in the Bible, right?
• 37:32
  Like how all those awful things happen to him and, you know, get
• 37:36
  his soul. Yup.
• 37:37
  Sold into slavery by his brother.
• 37:39
  The woman lied on him. Now the king looking for him,
• 37:41
  trying to kill him, he end up in prison.
• 37:44
  And then somehow he finds himself in favor with one of the
• 37:47
  Pharaohs, and now he in the palace and the family come and
• 37:50
  he get to save everybody. And he don't hold none of them
• 37:53
  grudges. None of none of them like, but
• 37:58
  that's it's, it's just amazing how those stories are.
• 38:01
  But at 5, we don't understand that complicated story to be
• 38:06
  like, oh, this is just a a Joseph moment, like and
• 38:12
  sometimes the adults in our life, they're hurting so deeply,
• 38:16
  they're struggling to find meaning.
• 38:18
  And it's a reference it to try to break that down for a 5 year
• 38:22
  old, a six year old to understand, because the Bible it
• 38:25
  could be understood. We just got to break it down
• 38:27
  based on like, you know, what's appropriate for age.
• 38:33
  Daughter's born in O 9. When do you become the minister?
• 38:37
  I became ordained minister in 20/18/2018.
• 38:45
  So we got. Nine years, Yep.
• 38:47
  So I was just, I was living my life trying to do better, trying
• 38:52
  to end up getting married in 2011.
• 38:55
  So I was taking the right steps, taking the right steps, wanted
• 38:58
  to do better. And so I just started just going
• 39:02
  frequently to church, going to church, going to church.
• 39:05
  But then it was a loud voices telling me that I'm supposed to
• 39:11
  speak to God's people. And I don't know what that was.
• 39:15
  I'm just like, absolutely not. No one's going to take 50
• 39:18
  serious. Not 50 the boss, not no preacher
• 39:21
  50 the boss. I was just like, they're not
• 39:23
  going to take me serious. So I think the first thing I did
• 39:26
  before I even told anybody or said anything to anybody, my
• 39:29
  name on Facebook for a long time was 50 The Boss.
• 39:34
  I changed my name on Facebook to Robert Boyd.
• 39:37
  OK, great start 'cause this is about identity.
• 39:41
  This is an identity thing. Yep, I did was the first step I
• 39:45
  did. And then I spoke.
• 39:47
  I spoke to my pastor who was a Bishop and I told him said no, I
• 39:54
  told my wife first. I said I said very, I think
• 39:59
  thank God is telling me that supposed to be preaching.
• 40:02
  I said, but I'm not no preacher. I said I'm not no preacher.
• 40:04
  I don't do all, I don't hoop and I don't do all of that.
• 40:07
  And then she's just like, well. He's probably just let you know
• 40:11
  that she wants you to testify about the goodness of him to the
• 40:16
  people. You don't need to do all of that
• 40:18
  and she always just be yourself. She said just be yourself.
• 40:23
  She said when you go every time I she don't really do it too
• 40:25
  much. No anymore now, but when I go up
• 40:27
  there, she's at 50. Just be yourself.
• 40:30
  You said Bishop appointed you where you at right now because
• 40:33
  of who you are, your originality and you being you don't try to
• 40:36
  go up there and sound or look like nobody else.
• 40:39
  He put you where you at because of you.
• 40:41
  So just go up there and be yourself.
• 40:43
  And that's what I started doing and I talked to Bishop and, and,
• 40:49
  and I, I told him no matter of fact, I didn't talk to Bishop
• 40:52
  yet. I was still nervous.
• 40:53
  I only person I told was my wife.
• 40:54
  So I'm just sitting there still sitting on it.
• 40:56
  But then there was a guy, it was a younger guy.
• 41:00
  He went up there and he didn't do nothing but go up there and
• 41:03
  pray. But when I say it was the
• 41:05
  coolest, most clear prayer I ever heard in my life and it
• 41:09
  just sounds so genuine. He was so swaggy about it.
• 41:13
  I was like, that's what I'm talking about.
• 41:17
  And I'm not. So, so now I identify with these
• 41:21
  preachers because it was one who sound, it looked like I will
• 41:24
  probably go up there and sound. I said he is and I told my wife.
• 41:28
  I said the guy prayed at church today.
• 41:30
  I'm like I said, I was so excited.
• 41:32
  So then at this point I'm like, I can do this, I can do this,
• 41:36
  but then I'm still in the back of my mind like nobody's going
• 41:39
  to take me serious. But then I told myself I got to
• 41:42
  start worrying about what everybody else don't think and
• 41:45
  just do what God is calling me to do.
• 41:48
  Yes, 'cause they'll take care of him.
• 41:50
  I spoke to Bishop about 2015, the 15.
• 41:55
  I spoke to him and he was like, well, the first thing I would
• 41:59
  say is continue to stand prayer about me and my wife wouldn't
• 42:02
  talk. We said stand prayer about it.
• 42:03
  This is what God called me to do.
• 42:05
  He said, then we give me some time, we'll work through it.
• 42:08
  And then he said, well, first thing I want you to do is go to
• 42:11
  the school of Bishop, Bishop with Dothis Island School of
• 42:14
  Ministry. So OK, cool.
• 42:16
  I said, but Bishop, this, this was the I said, I want to do it,
• 42:20
  but I think we also thinking about moving to Arizona.
• 42:25
  Yeah. And he was like, well, can't, we
• 42:30
  can't go to that school. We supposed to be leaving.
• 42:32
  It's so I'm like, what? Yes, that's all I really know.
• 42:35
  So here's the thing. Towards the end of 2015, my
• 42:40
  heart was set. We moved to Arizona.
• 42:42
  My wife, I was looking for opportunities.
• 42:44
  What we thought we this opportunities over there.
• 42:47
  The market is bigger for our jobs.
• 42:49
  I'm for the start of this organization.
• 42:51
  Like we feel to go over there, we feel to thrive.
• 42:53
  That's what we feel to do, right?
• 42:54
  Yeah, I go over there, we can't get a house.
• 43:00
  Nobody's calling us back for a house.
• 43:02
  I was a manager at the trash company for years and I was
• 43:05
  willing to take a step back and actually get back on the trash
• 43:08
  truck and run routes. I'm telling them I'll take a
• 43:11
  step down. No one that hired me at no trash
• 43:13
  company over there. I didn't have a bad reputation.
• 43:16
  Nothing was happening. It was.
• 43:18
  As dry as the air in Arizona. It was just dry as there in
• 43:21
  Arizona, so I told. And then what was real crazy is
• 43:24
  we never resigned our lease on our loft down at Park East loft.
• 43:27
  We never resigned. We tried to go through all this
• 43:29
  stuff. We literally had one day and we
• 43:32
  called this lady and said, hey, we wanted to know, did you rent
• 43:38
  out our apartment yet? And she said no, somebody wanted
• 43:41
  to come and view it, but it haven't been rented out yet.
• 43:44
  Do you guys want to stay? And we said yes, we did.
• 43:48
  Like literally if it would have been a day later, we wouldn't
• 43:51
  even had nowhere to stay, would have been moving our stuff out,
• 43:53
  trying to figure it out. So I'm like God, God is not
• 43:58
  trying to. I said there's work to be done
• 44:00
  in Milwaukee right now and God is telling me this before we
• 44:04
  leave. And that same year I went into
• 44:07
  that school of ministry. I graduated from that school of
• 44:10
  ministry and that same year we got on that altar.
• 44:14
  Well, it was it was before this we had bought a while before
• 44:17
  that we got on the altar and we prayed because I always wanted a
• 44:20
  son. At this point, I got two
• 44:21
  daughters in I'm like, I, in my mind, my mom playing tricks and
• 44:25
  I'm like I said, I hope God ain't just trying to get me back
• 44:28
  from how I was out here in these streets.
• 44:30
  That's why I give me all these girls.
• 44:32
  I'm that's what I'm telling myself.
• 44:33
  I'm keeping it real. I just hope he ain't trying to
• 44:35
  give me back from how he's to be out here in these streets.
• 44:38
  So I'm so me and my wife go to the altar and we asked God for a
• 44:43
  son and we just lay out on the altar but we didn't know we had
• 44:46
  a son. We had a gender reveal May of
• 44:49
  2016 and I say that ginger reveal came with blue balloons,
• 44:55
  perfetti all over the place and I'm like, God, it's so they they
• 44:59
  tell us Tony, they was like y'all and y'all see them right
• 45:02
  now, like literally we I go through ministry school, I
• 45:05
  become a minister. We got my son.
• 45:07
  We get approved for this house out in the common walk.
• 45:11
  I got a new position at this job.
• 45:12
  Now I'm on the different. It was just everything was just
• 45:15
  happening. I'm just like, OK, God, OK, I
• 45:17
  said, well, I see what you're doing.
• 45:19
  So I'm just like still, I got to start digging back into to this
• 45:23
  organization now I got to start getting back focused and and my
• 45:26
  friend shout out to James Hayes. You know James Hayes, he was
• 45:30
  creating my logo for about a year and a half.
• 45:34
  And I know I was working his last nerd because every time he
• 45:37
  had sent it to me I say bro that's cool, but that ain't
• 45:42
  near. Yeah.
• 45:44
  He I'm like switched in switched that switched that he'll send it
• 45:46
  back. I can't tell you how many e-mail
• 45:48
  we went to the e-mail thread and me I'm going back for about a
• 45:50
  year and a half. I said bro, it got to say
• 45:53
  everything without saying nothing at all.
• 45:56
  It have to. That's hard.
• 45:58
  That's hard, yeah. And with my logo, my logo is a
• 46:02
  young man looking in the in the mirror of Edmonton himself, but
• 46:06
  he has on the hoodie, the jeans, and then the mirror.
• 46:10
  He has on a full black tie suit with a bow tie.
• 46:13
  And he look like he's stepping out for business.
• 46:16
  And I said that's what I get. And so I said that's it right
• 46:19
  there. I said, because my business
• 46:21
  statement is because your reality doesn't have to be
• 46:24
  someone else's perception. So what you see in the mirror is
• 46:28
  what you get, not what everybody else see.
• 46:30
  They see you in the city in these jeans, they see a thug,
• 46:33
  but you actually out here in the three piece suit about to go
• 46:36
  land a business proposal. So what you see is what you get.
• 46:41
  And when he gave me that, I said, bro, that's it.
• 46:44
  He said. I hope so because I'm tired of
• 46:46
  you. Look sick of you That and I said
• 46:51
  no bro. I said this is it.
• 46:53
  I said, this is it and I was so excited.
• 46:56
  So not a logo done at that point.
• 46:59
  I'm still talking about it. So I had to call him back one
• 47:02
  last time because that bro, I need you to make another.
• 47:06
  Oi said, because I want to change it.
• 47:08
  I want it to be brothers rising over streets no more.
• 47:11
  I need to be brothers rising over our street.
• 47:14
  He said, man, I'm sick of you. I'm sick of you.
• 47:17
  I said, all right, give me. I said, I said OK, I got you.
• 47:22
  I said just give me, give me that one and then we'll be good.
• 47:25
  And I said, now you got to change the lettering and then
• 47:28
  make one matter of fact. Now he had all of the same
• 47:30
  color, all over the same color. I said, yeah, that's it.
• 47:33
  I said one last thing, change the color in the over because
• 47:38
  they got to represent two different OS.
• 47:40
  And he was like, he didn't even respond.
• 47:43
  He didn't respond. I just got the e-mail of it.
• 47:46
  He did it. So he's gonna send me an e-mail
• 47:49
  of it changed because he was sick of it.
• 47:53
  Oh, that's so I can only imagine y'all went back and forth with
• 47:56
  this for this long. Yeah, he was Beyoncé.
• 47:59
  That had to be your boy, boy, boy.
• 48:01
  No. 1. To do all the things.
• 48:05
  But some people would have been like it's time for you to find a
• 48:08
  different. I'm convinced I'm not who you
• 48:10
  did like. I'm not who you are or you don't
• 48:13
  have to continue. You have to put something down
• 48:15
  and then I recreate it. Yeah, under that I just was
• 48:19
  working his nerves for about a year and a half.
• 48:21
  Oh my goodness, but that that was that's how that's man,
• 48:26
  that's that's funny, but like that's how it works like with
• 48:29
  God and how things work. So there's so much in there.
• 48:33
  One you changing your name from 50 to boss to Robert Boyd
• 48:39
  Junior. It occurred to me you created 50
• 48:45
  and whatever iteration of 50 because you needed 50.
• 48:48
  Yeah, I needed that's that's I needed some type of a mask.
• 48:52
  I needed something that how how I was feeling.
• 48:55
  So I want you to feel as though I was good and I wasn't.
• 48:59
  Yeah, so you needed fifty, and then once God started to show up
• 49:05
  in you, you didn't need 50 because you had.
• 49:08
  No, not at all. Exactly.
• 49:11
  And then I'm here. It's a baby 50 out here.
• 49:15
  You got your son. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 49:17
  Robert Boyd the third. Yes.
• 49:20
  How old is he? He just turned 9 in.
• 49:24
  July love that, love that and then also you really started
• 49:30
  obeying. You got into alignment, but
• 49:35
  well, part of it, right? Like you were still figuring it
• 49:37
  out because in your heart you thought it was Arizona.
• 49:40
  It was real dry out there. It was not happening.
• 49:42
  And God was like, go ahead, but that's not what I want from you
• 49:45
  because you got free will. So He gets y'all back in
• 49:49
  Milwaukee. Y'all are able to stay in the
• 49:50
  same place? Excuse me?
• 49:53
  And then everything starts happening.
• 49:55
  Like people don't really understand that.
• 49:57
  Like when you get into alignment with God and when you obey, he
• 50:01
  just starts doing things like and you see it.
• 50:06
  How did you avoid sabotaging any of this after all that you went
• 50:12
  through? Right?
• 50:12
  Because some people, they are so used to all of those unfortunate
• 50:16
  things happening, the ups and downs, that they get scared when
• 50:19
  up is up. See, I And that was me for a
• 50:25
  little bit because I used to always sit there and pray.
• 50:30
  God, why me? Why me?
• 50:32
  Why me? Why is this happening to me?
• 50:35
  And then when it started happening to me, I caught myself
• 50:38
  and I had to sit there and check myself because I was asking God,
• 50:42
  why me? Why?
• 50:43
  Why are you doing all this good stuff?
• 50:44
  Why not you? Is what he told me.
• 50:46
  Yeah, why not you? And, and and it was to the point
• 50:51
  where he got me together real quick.
• 50:53
  And I said you right, I deserved it because I was in the
• 50:57
  lifestyle where I felt like I was never going to accomplish or
• 51:02
  get nothing in life because everything that was good was
• 51:06
  taken away from me. So I'll I had my guards up for a
• 51:08
  long time and I don't want to get too comfortable because I
• 51:13
  might lose this. I might lose this person, or
• 51:16
  this might only be for a moment because this is the way my life
• 51:19
  is set up right now. That's just me.
• 51:22
  I'm a theropise that for a second sounds like anxiety.
• 51:28
  Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And, and a lot of this stuff we
• 51:33
  didn't realize was carrying it until the pandemic.
• 51:37
  OK. OK.
• 51:39
  Yeah, a lot of stuff. A lot of people did make it
• 51:42
  through the pandemic. A lot of things, a lot of things
• 51:47
  happened in households and in in the pandemic for sure.
• 51:54
  Wow, wow, God is just moving OK. See, one thing I tell people I
• 52:01
  didn't, I didn't. I didn't want to be going
• 52:05
  through the pandemic just like everybody else.
• 52:07
  But I'll be lying if I didn't tell you that the pandemic was
• 52:12
  probably one of the best seasons of my life.
• 52:16
  Same on same. Pandemic is when the pandemic is
• 52:19
  when birth fully. So God is to the point where I
• 52:23
  was supposed to get Bros off the ground and I'm constantly, I
• 52:26
  ain't got time for it. I got to do this, I got to do
• 52:29
  this, I got to do this. So I feel as though God told me
• 52:32
  this, what I'm going to do, I'm going to just shut everything
• 52:34
  down around you so you don't have to do that.
• 52:38
  No more down. Do what I'm calling you to do.
• 52:40
  And that's all I had time to do. I started revamping Bros,
• 52:45
  writing my book, and filming my documentary all at the same
• 52:50
  time. Yeah, in the midst of the
• 52:52
  beginning of the pandemic, through the end of the pandemic.
• 52:55
  And drop the name of your documentary real quick too.
• 52:59
  Where people? Can my name of my documentary is
• 53:01
  the Pain behind my Smile? OK, y'all heard that?
• 53:05
  And where can I find it? They can find that on YouTube at
• 53:09
  A Tribe Called Boy. A Tribe called Boy on YouTube,
• 53:14
  OK. And a lot of it.
• 53:15
  And that name came from all of the masks that we was wearing
• 53:19
  because of the pandemic. And I realized I was wearing a
• 53:22
  mask for a long time and I finally had to take it off.
• 53:29
  I'm hearing you and then my mind is going deeper because of
• 53:31
  course when you say A Tribe Called Boy, I think A Tribe
• 53:33
  called Quest. But when you say the masks,
• 53:36
  right? But then with the mask, I'm just
• 53:38
  thinking about the different tribal masks and how, you know,
• 53:42
  and the different cultures, they have masks for different things,
• 53:44
  different ceremonies. They represent this and that.
• 53:47
  See the creativity that you have.
• 53:50
  I love it. Go ahead.
• 53:53
  So A Tribe Called Boy is showing up in the pandemic.
• 53:56
  Everybody's wearing masks. And so before everything was
• 54:03
  shut down in my mind, I'm already Bros is pretty much set
• 54:07
  ready to go. I have some meetings, I'm talk
• 54:09
  to a few people and I'm ready to launch it.
• 54:12
  Yeah, I set a date. I started doing registrations.
• 54:15
  People started to sign up. My, my open registration was
• 54:19
  going to be November 2020. So at that point, you know
• 54:25
  what's happened. At that point everything shut
• 54:27
  down and you had the social distance.
• 54:29
  So how do you create a whole organization where you want to
• 54:33
  give young men in the same room with each other to pour into
• 54:36
  each other and now y'all can't even gather?
• 54:40
  And this is November. Right.
• 54:42
  And this is November in, yes, the Midwest.
• 54:45
  So it's cold. Yeah, and it's cold.
• 54:48
  Yeah, I'm like, I told her. She was like I said, I don't
• 54:53
  know if this is going to work. She's like, well, I mean, you
• 54:56
  just got a social distance they got to have on match.
• 54:58
  You have all these protocols. So I'm just like, I called, I
• 55:01
  pray and I said God, I didn't want.
• 55:04
  I said all I want is 10 young men every session.
• 55:07
  I just want 10 young men. You can send me 10 young men
• 55:10
  every session, Send me 10 young men because I don't want them to
• 55:13
  turn into a number. So now when I do schools and
• 55:16
  stuff, it's smaller intimate sections and it's more, more
• 55:20
  sessions. So I got larger classes because
• 55:22
  they are already in the class. But when I do it in my own
• 55:26
  setting in the community, I'm going to take more than about 10
• 55:29
  to 15 because I wanted to be intimate, safe, and I want to
• 55:32
  them to know me and get to know them so they don't this fall
• 55:36
  behind. So we're in the background and
• 55:38
  somebody does get noticed. So I don't want it to turn it to
• 55:40
  a number. I want to know them
• 55:42
  individually. So my God, send me 10, young
• 55:44
  man, I know we're in the midst of this pandemic.
• 55:47
  I know we everybody's scared, everybody nervous.
• 55:49
  Don't everybody know what's going on?
• 55:51
  So I said at this point, God, whatever you send me, I'll be
• 55:55
  grateful. So I showed up to that first
• 55:57
  session. It's the midst of the pandemic.
• 56:00
  I sent out to communication like, hey, we're going to have
• 56:02
  some hand sanitizer. Make sure you got on the mask.
• 56:04
  We will be 6 feet social distance all this.
• 56:07
  So I'm like, ain't nobody for the and it's cold.
• 56:09
  Ain't nobody for the brain. I was.
• 56:10
  Going to say, where'd you do it? Yeah.
• 56:13
  It was in the basement of in the garden level of Holy Cathedral,
• 56:17
  which shout out, shout out to my Bishop, Bishop Sears McClellan.
• 56:21
  When I ran it past him. It was a no brain, he said.
• 56:25
  That's amazing. Set me up with the office at the
• 56:27
  Werner fault. None nonprofit.
• 56:29
  He's just like you. This is needed right now.
• 56:32
  So he's just took off with it and he said this is your office,
• 56:34
  whatever you need, whether it's Prince, this and that, Holy
• 56:37
  Cathedia and Word of Hope is going to sponsor it.
• 56:40
  I said wow, look. At look at the timing you were
• 56:43
  trying to do Bros before all of that.
• 56:45
  You needed to really build that relationship with him because he
• 56:50
  had access to the stuff, right? Like the the resources, right?
• 56:55
  Like, yes, wow. So we get we get to that first
• 57:00
  session and I'm just like, I don't know what it's going to
• 57:02
  look like. And I prayed for 10.
• 57:04
  I said, God, whatever you give me, I'll be happy with.
• 57:07
  And I every time I tell people this story, they just get real
• 57:10
  biblical on me and they go so deep instead of God.
• 57:14
  Where you for the go? Instead of God sending me 10,
• 57:18
  God send me 12 young men. OK, OK, come on disciples.
• 57:23
  I thought she was about to say 20 and that he gave you W double
• 57:27
  for your trouble. You know what I mean?
• 57:29
  But the. 12O that's good, that's good, that's good.
• 57:36
  And I'm like, wow. And it's just like, hey, so to
• 57:43
  go, but to get 12 in the midst of the pandemic, I know that
• 57:46
  this is a vision from God. This ain't just me.
• 57:48
  Something I thought about that that I'm carrying on right now.
• 57:51
  He gave me the access to what I needed.
• 57:54
  He gave me all of the supplies I needed.
• 57:56
  He he sent the young men in for me to know saying mentor.
• 58:00
  So I said, this is definitely a vision that God gave me.
• 58:04
  It's all said and done and we went off.
• 58:08
  The November 2020 had of my first session was amazing.
• 58:13
  OK, so now that we're talking more about Bros, like what
• 58:19
  chapter or story in your book from like what you've
• 58:24
  understood, like what, what, what part of that resonates most
• 58:27
  with the men, the young men in your Bros mentorship program,
• 58:31
  what are what do they tell you they identify with most?
• 58:35
  So the one I would say is the most relevant for them in
• 58:39
  chapter 13, which is boys to men.
• 58:43
  So and, and the chapter chapter is titled Boy to man.
• 58:47
  And it was me talking about my life journey as a kid, but with
• 58:53
  big boy responsibilities. And when I say big boy
• 58:56
  responsibilities, I'm I'm talking to the point where I'm
• 59:00
  I'm in middle school. But my day started off with me
• 59:04
  waking up, waking all of my other cousins up.
• 59:07
  That was someone was older than me to get ready for school, Then
• 59:10
  me getting myself together, then me going to the front room to
• 59:14
  get my baby twins, which is 1 years old, get them bathed,
• 59:18
  dressed and took to school and then get on the bus and for me
• 59:23
  to go to school myself. After school, get on that bus
• 59:27
  stop at their daycare, pick both of them up and then walk them
• 59:31
  back to home after. And that was Rain Sneed or snot
• 59:35
  and I walk. I was walking from 39th and
• 59:39
  Galena over to 27th and Walnut, so probably.
• 59:45
  You end up with those responsibilities.
• 59:49
  And the crazy part about it, that's amazing question.
• 59:52
  And to this day, I don't have a clue.
• 59:55
  And I tell people that no one told me that, Jr. this is your
• 59:58
  responsibility. And I think that's the majority
• 1:00:01
  of my life. No one just identified what my
• 1:00:03
  responsibility did. I just go into them because I
• 1:00:06
  see the need is there. No one told me that was my job.
• 1:00:09
  Let me find out. You've been moving in the spirit
• 1:00:11
  since she was a child. I just started doing it.
• 1:00:14
  No one said that was my job and I wasn't the oldest in the house
• 1:00:17
  and it wasn't my sisters that was my.
• 1:00:20
  That's what I heard you say clearly.
• 1:00:25
  Until this day, I don't know how it started.
• 1:00:28
  I just woke up one day and I was in the midst of it.
• 1:00:32
  Yeah, that was my routine. I get home from school, get them
• 1:00:38
  there, make sure that the homework was dead, school closes
• 1:00:41
  out and then it was made because in my mind, my auntie was
• 1:00:45
  working 2 jobs and I don't want to be a burden.
• 1:00:49
  So what I'm going to do is I'm going to try to take as much off
• 1:00:52
  of her plate as possible because I know she's trying to provide
• 1:00:56
  for this entire household. That's how I've seen it as a
• 1:01:01
  child. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:01:03
  And isn't that like, so I don't even know what were, But when
• 1:01:08
  you see as a child, you have that ability to like, see the
• 1:01:13
  need. It's good in a sense, but it
• 1:01:16
  also speaks to like being a parentified child that you'd
• 1:01:19
  like. You said you didn't get to just
• 1:01:21
  be a kid and not worry. You were doing all these other
• 1:01:27
  things. But it also shows that you had a
• 1:01:30
  different type of capacity, right?
• 1:01:34
  And maybe that also gave you herpes, a reason to wake up.
• 1:01:40
  Yeah. And build like connection.
• 1:01:43
  Yeah, and the biggest thing, so like even with my program and
• 1:01:48
  the Bros showing them that. So I I've tried to Google so
• 1:01:53
  many different ways on the age it is to become a man and
• 1:01:58
  nothing gives you a solid number.
• 1:02:00
  There's no number on the age to be a man's I, I make sure I
• 1:02:05
  bring it up to my young man's my program.
• 1:02:07
  I say, well, what makes you a man?
• 1:02:09
  And you are here 21 because that's the legal age out here,
• 1:02:13
  18 because then you at this age, you in college out here 25.
• 1:02:18
  And I'm like, so show me where it says that, right?
• 1:02:22
  And and what I let them know is you are a man when you fully
• 1:02:27
  understand your not when you fully understand your purpose,
• 1:02:30
  but you understand responsibility, accountability,
• 1:02:35
  work at this and then experience.
• 1:02:37
  I said so when I tell y'all I'm a man now.
• 1:02:40
  And in my book I tell my daddy, Daddy I'm a man now.
• 1:02:44
  And that was at the age of 12 because I was working a third
• 1:02:47
  shift job. Hold on that violence child in
• 1:02:51
  laws help me understand. 12 third shifts.
• 1:02:56
  Help me understand. It was it.
• 1:03:04
  It wasn't legit at all. Couldn't have been.
• 1:03:07
  BAE Home bakery down in Glendale, WI so all the way down
• 1:03:12
  Silver Spring all we pass Bayshore Mall.
• 1:03:15
  It's a movie theater right there and there was a bakery across
• 1:03:17
  the street. My uncle used to work there.
• 1:03:21
  OK. On on weekends, he asked me if I
• 1:03:25
  wanted to help out. Absolutely, because I knew he's
• 1:03:28
  going to give me a couple of dollars, so I'd go in with him.
• 1:03:31
  And then it was a guy that he was working with that was either
• 1:03:33
  always late or calling in. So that's why he used to ask me
• 1:03:36
  to come. So I was sitting there, I was
• 1:03:38
  making the dough, I was making the glaze, I was frying the
• 1:03:41
  donut. I knew everything about the
• 1:03:42
  donut industry at the age of 12. I'm in there cooking.
• 1:03:45
  I can make dough from scratch right now.
• 1:03:47
  I can do. I make glaze from scratch,
• 1:03:49
  chocolate from scratch, All of this stuff right Rolling out
• 1:03:52
  pasaki. I'm going to need a order of
• 1:03:55
  croissants, OK? Yeah, I take.
• 1:03:58
  So you know, my daughter is a chef so I told her how to make
• 1:04:00
  glazed croissants because those are amazing.
• 1:04:03
  But do you see that? Do you see the the the seeds?
• 1:04:08
  You put this in you and then God gives you a chef, a daughter
• 1:04:12
  that's a chef. OK, OK.
• 1:04:16
  So what happened is my uncle literally pulled the manager to
• 1:04:21
  the side and said, hey, this man is not showing up.
• 1:04:25
  My nephew's always doing the work.
• 1:04:27
  He's here helping me out. He says, so this is what I asked
• 1:04:30
  you to do with his salary. You can cut that, pay me X
• 1:04:33
  amount of dollars and pay my nephew this in cash and I bring
• 1:04:38
  them with me. And so he agreed to it.
• 1:04:42
  So as a 12 year old, I'm making $500 a week, As a 12 year old,
• 1:04:48
  $500 a week at the banker because I was going in Friday
• 1:04:53
  night and Saturday night. But then it was to the point
• 1:04:56
  where I started going in Sunday night and then I get up, I get
• 1:05:01
  off of work, take a shower and then go to school.
• 1:05:04
  She said you oy work. Yes, that work at there.
• 1:05:10
  Wow, this, this just gets more interesting by the moment.
• 1:05:18
  These are the this is. And we're not even through the
• 1:05:21
  entire life and nor can we get through that in one sitting.
• 1:05:24
  Obviously, they gonna have to get the book right.
• 1:05:26
  Yeah, I see why people are saying like this needs to be a
• 1:05:31
  movie. Like, well, I'm saying a movie
• 1:05:33
  now. They said it was something that
• 1:05:35
  need to be told. Now it's a movie.
• 1:05:37
  Because in my mind I see a movie and God's not done.
• 1:05:42
  Like the end of it has not it's it's still coming.
• 1:05:46
  Like, yeah, Oh, I can't wait. Oh, I can't wait.
• 1:05:52
  I can't wait. Like I'm just getting excited
• 1:05:55
  because I know how God, how he does it.
• 1:05:59
  And like, you just have to trust him to like really bring it into
• 1:06:02
  fruition because if God told you at, I don't know, 11 or 12 that
• 1:06:10
  you were going to be like a minister, you don't like it out
• 1:06:12
  of here, God. No, that wasn't my plan.
• 1:06:16
  I wanted to be aceo of a a music label, so I wasn't going to be
• 1:06:19
  nobody's minister. I had different plans.
• 1:06:22
  I knew how I wanted my VIP room set up.
• 1:06:25
  I knew how I. Now, that might just be your
• 1:06:29
  green room in the church or, or a space for the Bros.
• 1:06:36
  That's the Because those are your VIPs.
• 1:06:41
  Yeah. See my office?
• 1:06:42
  That's exactly what it is. I got a snack.
• 1:06:44
  I got a refrigerator, microwave, a snack thing.
• 1:06:46
  Like how I wanted that VIP room to be set up for shows, like our
• 1:06:50
  green room. That's how my office is set up.
• 1:06:53
  Yep. So he gave you visions, you just
• 1:06:56
  needed the proper direction on where to aim that.
• 1:07:00
  Wow. So currently you're working at
• 1:07:05
  Saint Marcus. So how do you or how does, if at
• 1:07:10
  all, your lived experiences, the work that you do with Bros?
• 1:07:14
  Like how does that translate or transfer over to the work that
• 1:07:20
  you're doing with the middle schoolers at Saint Marcus?
• 1:07:26
  So 1st, we got to back up a little bit because I don't want
• 1:07:29
  nobody to get the wrong impression because, OK, I
• 1:07:32
  actually don't, I don't work at Saint Marcus.
• 1:07:34
  I retired this past June. I retired from the workforce
• 1:07:39
  June 2025 at the age of 42. I don't work no more.
• 1:07:43
  What I do now is God have called me to operate in my gift and
• 1:07:48
  walk into purpose. OK, I walk in my purpose every
• 1:07:52
  day. I don't work no more.
• 1:07:53
  This is what I I was designed to do.
• 1:07:55
  So when I go into St. Marcus, I'm actually walking in
• 1:07:57
  my purpose. I don't work no more.
• 1:08:00
  Love that Roberta, that's so good because I tell people all
• 1:08:06
  the time I work for the Lord like I work for God, like God is
• 1:08:09
  my boss and the freedom that comes in that.
• 1:08:12
  And I'm like, I do a whole lot more but I'm a lot less tired
• 1:08:16
  even though I do way more. You know, I don't work.
• 1:08:21
  I and I'm a true believer that so when people I literally and
• 1:08:25
  people will be looking at me like, huh, Oh, I was talking to
• 1:08:29
  one of my cousins and he was we just having a deep conversation
• 1:08:33
  and what we got to start understanding is money, right?
• 1:08:36
  Money is a tool. Money is a tool to get you the
• 1:08:39
  things that you need to have you take care of the business.
• 1:08:42
  You need to take care. It's just a tool, just like a
• 1:08:44
  hammer. You need a hammer to nail the
• 1:08:46
  nail in the nail in the wood. So money you need to make sure
• 1:08:49
  that you can live a life that you want to live.
• 1:08:51
  So it's a tool and and not I literally without thinking
• 1:08:56
  twice, without you know what I'm saying, having any regret.
• 1:08:59
  I walked away from a six figure job in June and I walked into my
• 1:09:04
  purpose because I'm a true believer.
• 1:09:06
  If God gives you the vision, he also set up the pro vision.
• 1:09:10
  Come on. That's what.
• 1:09:12
  He did and and now I'm I'm I'm operating in my gift and serving
• 1:09:17
  my purpose as the Dean of Culture and Behavior at Saint
• 1:09:19
  Marcus in a partnership with my organization, Bros.
• 1:09:27
  Why are you an entrepreneur too? Because that's a business move.
• 1:09:31
  That that the way you just said that.
• 1:09:37
  I see why. I see why you came highly
• 1:09:39
  recommended for the podcast. Without hesitation, Brittany
• 1:09:44
  said it. Serena immediately cosigned it
• 1:09:47
  immediately. OK, OK, so proceed.
• 1:09:53
  So, and what was the question you said?
• 1:09:55
  How did my previous life tied into Bros?
• 1:09:58
  And well your purpose, how does your purpose tie in since?
• 1:10:02
  So I think you've done that beautiful repackaging.
• 1:10:06
  Yeah, so my purpose honestly is to actually serve, though.
• 1:10:11
  That's what I do. I serve.
• 1:10:13
  So I'm here to serve the young man.
• 1:10:14
  And I think everything that I've been through and the reason why
• 1:10:17
  I created Bros is because I was a bro.
• 1:10:20
  I was the first ever bro. So when I get into the space
• 1:10:23
  with some of these young men, and my title was Culture and
• 1:10:26
  Behavior, at the end of the Day, I just need them to understand
• 1:10:31
  how great they are, how much power they possess.
• 1:10:33
  Especially our young men, they're so powerful, but yet
• 1:10:36
  they don't understand how much power that they carry.
• 1:10:38
  They don't understand how powerful their voice is.
• 1:10:41
  So when you're in the classroom and you're doing different
• 1:10:44
  things and you're getting a reaction out of 30 other young
• 1:10:47
  individuals, it's because you carry that much power.
• 1:10:51
  And so I just need for you to take that power and use it for
• 1:10:55
  the good of the classroom because you're a leader.
• 1:10:58
  And if I can get 2 to lead them in a positive way, everybody
• 1:11:02
  else will fall into place. So I'm intentional about going
• 1:11:05
  to young men in these classrooms, pouring into them,
• 1:11:08
  encourage them. Just let them know how much of a
• 1:11:10
  boss and a young king that they are.
• 1:11:12
  Because when they start identifying that they walk a
• 1:11:14
  little different, they talk a little different.
• 1:11:16
  And that's why I wanted to partner Bros with them, because
• 1:11:20
  Bros carry your expectation. If you a bro, oh, you got a high
• 1:11:24
  expectation, that means you walk upright.
• 1:11:26
  You, you got responsibilities. You carry yourself a certain
• 1:11:29
  kind of way. You pick your head up when you
• 1:11:31
  talk to somebody because there ain't nothing on the floor for
• 1:11:33
  you. Square your shoulders up.
• 1:11:35
  You got your pants and your bed on them.
• 1:11:36
  I don't care if the pants do fit the belt, just look good.
• 1:11:38
  It looks good at the uniform. So at the end of the day, I, I
• 1:11:43
  make them understand how much of A statement they're made just by
• 1:11:48
  their print. So I pour into them everything
• 1:11:52
  that somebody never poured it to me and I had to figure it out
• 1:11:56
  for myself. So I take this role personally
• 1:11:59
  because it gives me the opportunity every single day to
• 1:12:02
  let one of these young men know just how great they are.
• 1:12:07
  That's so good. And I had the privilege of
• 1:12:09
  visiting y'all school and as I took time and I looked around, I
• 1:12:13
  was like, I love this. I think I went from, I was
• 1:12:18
  walking back from the bathroom and I saw that.
• 1:12:20
  I saw a scripture and I was like, yes, I am.
• 1:12:23
  And then I started paying attention to more of everything
• 1:12:26
  that was up on the walls and the intentionality.
• 1:12:28
  And I said to Serena, I said, I just wonder if I were a kid
• 1:12:34
  growing up schooling in this environment, being affirmed in
• 1:12:40
  this way, how different would I be or how much deeper into my
• 1:12:45
  purpose would I have been like in sooner?
• 1:12:48
  But obviously it wasn't for me at that time.
• 1:12:50
  But I'm just like, thinking about what this is doing, how
• 1:12:53
  this is truly shaping the identity of these kids.
• 1:12:56
  And even if they do go away from it, they'll come back.
• 1:13:00
  The foundation is set. Yes, trying up a child and the
• 1:13:04
  way that they should go and when they get old, they would not
• 1:13:07
  depart from it. That's one of the solid
• 1:13:10
  scriptures that I live by. Telling you because I baby, I
• 1:13:13
  departed and I ain't never leaving.
• 1:13:15
  I mean, you know, I was gone. I straight away, but I ain't
• 1:13:18
  never believed it. Never.
• 1:13:21
  Oh wow. And one the beauty of the like
• 1:13:24
  you saying is I didn't have that coming up.
• 1:13:27
  It was actually like somewhat banned to be actually talking
• 1:13:30
  about God and praying at school, even though it weren't right.
• 1:13:34
  When I was with the trash company, everybody knew my role
• 1:13:37
  because at that point I was a full-fledged minister, but I
• 1:13:40
  didn't just walk around with a cross and the Bible.
• 1:13:42
  They just seen it in my personality.
• 1:13:44
  Like it was some old lady walked up to me and said they said you
• 1:13:48
  a pastor ain't you? I'm like, no, I don't know
• 1:13:50
  pastor. She said you're a elder or
• 1:13:52
  something. I'm like, well why you saying
• 1:13:55
  it's just I? She said, I just see it all over
• 1:13:57
  you and I'm just like, well, whatever you see it to God be
• 1:14:00
  the glory, I said, but I don't I don't wear a cross.
• 1:14:03
  I don't wear a carry a big old Bible like wear a suit on this
• 1:14:07
  type of stuff. It's just, she's like, it's just
• 1:14:09
  all over you. That's how it's supposed to be.
• 1:14:12
  It's the light, it's shining. Like my minister was saying, him
• 1:14:15
  and his wife, they went on a cruise.
• 1:14:17
  They were, I don't know, state. They take so many cruises, I
• 1:14:19
  can't keep up. That's what they love to do.
• 1:14:22
  But they were like in Dominican Republic, somewhere in Mexico,
• 1:14:25
  and somebody was came up to him like, are you a pastor?
• 1:14:27
  And he was like, actually, yes, like a minister.
• 1:14:32
  People, people can tell. No, my sister is the funniest.
• 1:14:37
  She's like, she can look at a person, be like, he was a church
• 1:14:40
  boy. He a church boy.
• 1:14:42
  And like, it's funny. Like she was like, you just know
• 1:14:45
  him when you see him, like it's so funny.
• 1:14:49
  But I was like, OK, sis, you wanted something like she was,
• 1:14:52
  she was not on. Yeah, but like people can tell.
• 1:14:57
  People can really tell. And that, like you said, glory
• 1:15:00
  to God. Absolutely.
• 1:15:02
  Because that's the idea. It's not about being like the
• 1:15:05
  Pharisees and the Sadducees and you just looking like it or
• 1:15:08
  whatever and doing all the things for show.
• 1:15:11
  Like it's really and truly about the character, the light and
• 1:15:16
  just letting, letting yourself be used because we're a vessel
• 1:15:21
  and you're pouring in, you're pouring in with God.
• 1:15:24
  And so they overflow, they getting it.
• 1:15:28
  You're getting it here and then it goes this way.
• 1:15:30
  Yeah. So it's like and.
• 1:15:33
  And I think the biggest thing is the the ability to actually be
• 1:15:38
  able to prayer covering over my youth every morning in assembly.
• 1:15:42
  That right there is a was a game changer to me that hits all them
• 1:15:48
  in the room. Get their attention and prayer
• 1:15:50
  covering over their lives every single day.
• 1:15:54
  Man, I'm just like, I feel the Holy Spirit and I can, I'm like
• 1:15:58
  I see in color, like I said, I see movies, I see picture, I see
• 1:16:01
  video like in my mind. So I'm seeing kids in an
• 1:16:04
  auditorium. I don't even know what your
• 1:16:05
  auditorium look like, but in my mind it's great.
• 1:16:10
  And just what that would feel like to be a kid in that space.
• 1:16:14
  That kid that's going through something, their home life is
• 1:16:20
  unstable. They are unsafe, needs are not
• 1:16:25
  being met. It's just just so many things.
• 1:16:29
  And to have someone every day telling them you are somebody,
• 1:16:35
  this is how you carry yourself. This is what God says about you.
• 1:16:40
  Those things, they are day-to-day and God is on the
• 1:16:44
  throne giving them a foundation. And this is also really speaking
• 1:16:48
  to me because I worked in a mental health clinic where we
• 1:16:51
  specifically served adolescents and I didn't like make hash
• 1:16:56
  marks, document the data. I don't work there anymore.
• 1:16:58
  I could probably go back in like count from who I remember, but I
• 1:17:02
  would say 80 to 90% of those kids that were in that program
• 1:17:09
  over the almost two years that I worked there.
• 1:17:12
  They well, I'll back up and describe the things.
• 1:17:15
  So they're dealing with anxiety suppression, self harm.
• 1:17:18
  Some have been hospitalized, gone to residential care, have
• 1:17:22
  had non fatal, non fatal suicidal behaviors like
• 1:17:28
  significant impact on them. 80 to 90% of them, I would say they
• 1:17:35
  either did not believe in anything, were questioning or
• 1:17:40
  some aspect of their identity that they were questioning made
• 1:17:44
  them feel like they didn't fit in with the whatever the belief
• 1:17:49
  system was that like, you know, the religion or you know,
• 1:17:53
  regardless of what what's or spiritual practice.
• 1:17:56
  And I knew there's something to it.
• 1:17:58
  I said because you're not anchored in anything and I
• 1:18:02
  wasn't where I am now in my work, and I don't think that's
• 1:18:05
  by mistake that God allowed me to see that and then gives me a
• 1:18:09
  faith-based business where I provide mental health services.
• 1:18:13
  Anything without the anger is going to drift.
• 1:18:16
  Come on, the simplicity of it, like it's so simple and we think
• 1:18:23
  that things have to be so deep in the world tries to tell us
• 1:18:27
  that that it's not that simple and it is.
• 1:18:31
  It really and truly is. I am really enjoying this.
• 1:18:37
  Now I'm having a good time. Yes, Yeah, this is honestly,
• 1:18:43
  this is another therapy session to me.
• 1:18:46
  Whenever I do these interviews, I, I, I get the therapy that
• 1:18:49
  I've never had and 'cause it's like constantly getting it out
• 1:18:53
  and then then being there. It just feel like a release when
• 1:18:56
  you get done with it because you just got it out once again.
• 1:19:00
  And I'm going to tell you a secret, since I wrote my book, I
• 1:19:06
  still haven't finished reading it yet.
• 1:19:08
  I can believe that you have to get it out.
• 1:19:12
  Yeah, I got it out, but I tried it on the airplane several
• 1:19:15
  different times. I travel all the time and I
• 1:19:18
  still, I only, I'm only halfway through my own book and it's and
• 1:19:22
  it's, it's a short read because I it's going to be a series.
• 1:19:25
  But you left it. You probably asked for that.
• 1:19:28
  I was like, what was that? The so people, what they don't
• 1:19:33
  know Well, when you read it, when you get to the end of it,
• 1:19:36
  it's a statement that says something.
• 1:19:38
  Unless you know that this ain't the end.
• 1:19:41
  No. It's it's another one covered.
• 1:19:43
  OK, OK, that's good. But you didn't.
• 1:19:46
  It's like it's not ruined, ruined because you're still, you
• 1:19:49
  know what I mean? But what I like, I think that's
• 1:19:52
  a lot to try to read it all. You lived it.
• 1:19:56
  You have it in this condensed version.
• 1:19:59
  There's so much more, but that's what you were able to get out at
• 1:20:03
  that time. Like that's probably like an
• 1:20:05
  outline now we think as things are coming back to you and the
• 1:20:10
  therapist in me is like, we'll read as much as you can and then
• 1:20:14
  reflect on it and write because then you're journaling your
• 1:20:17
  reflection on what you've already written is giving more,
• 1:20:21
  is giving more depth to the story and it gives you healing
• 1:20:25
  because when we write your process, you can process it up
• 1:20:28
  to 10 times through. Writing.
• 1:20:30
  That's why journaling is so dope.
• 1:20:32
  And I had the realization more recently and I was like, because
• 1:20:36
  I was watch. Have you watched The Chosen?
• 1:20:38
  Yep. OK, so you remember Matthew,
• 1:20:41
  they'd be showing him writing the most right in the in the
• 1:20:43
  show, right? And so I was thinking about it
• 1:20:46
  and I was like, and this is so simple.
• 1:20:49
  Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, like these people are the authors.
• 1:20:53
  And I was like, these were basically journals that the
• 1:20:57
  apostles were keeping and that became the Bible.
• 1:21:06
  The Bible. It's that simple, like, but it
• 1:21:08
  speaks to the power of writing. It speaks to the longevity.
• 1:21:12
  It speaks to having things left behind for others to consume, to
• 1:21:17
  learn how to live like all of these wonderful things.
• 1:21:21
  And I just recorded an episode before you where he said I
• 1:21:27
  believe every single person has at least one book in them.
• 1:21:33
  Yeah, wow. Absolutely.
• 1:21:35
  The way that all this lined up. So I was like, so are you going
• 1:21:39
  to come back for another episode so we can break this down so we
• 1:21:42
  can get the people to create and pour out the things that God has
• 1:21:44
  in them? Like, do you have this in a
• 1:21:47
  format so that we can get this to the masses, so that the
• 1:21:50
  people can do that one book? Let's do it.
• 1:21:54
  Absolutely. And I think we overthink these
• 1:21:58
  things. No, we do.
• 1:22:01
  We do because I overthought it for a long time.
• 1:22:04
  Well, and you said you was running from it, you was ducking
• 1:22:06
  it. Oh yeah, no, I was running for
• 1:22:09
  and I think it says it on there. I want to say it's my back map
• 1:22:12
  or something like that where it says that you can't just
• 1:22:15
  continue to run from yourself because once you get there, are
• 1:22:20
  you going to be there and now all y'all there together because
• 1:22:25
  where you going? You can't run from yourself.
• 1:22:28
  It's not going to work. And I say that stuff that we
• 1:22:31
  don't unpack. So like, you know, on the back
• 1:22:34
  of cars. But in movies and stuff and back
• 1:22:35
  in the day, people get married, they put like the cans on the
• 1:22:38
  back. So it starts with a couple of
• 1:22:40
  cans, depending on what you got going on.
• 1:22:42
  We're like, in your case, like the loss of parents.
• 1:22:45
  That's a whole trailer hitch. Then you add another, then you
• 1:22:50
  add another plus everything else that's going on and that gets
• 1:22:54
  heavy. Like you got to have a different
• 1:22:57
  type of engine after a while to carry all of that stuff.
• 1:23:01
  That's why a lot of us are so tired, because we're carrying
• 1:23:05
  things that need to be surrendered and that we need to
• 1:23:08
  really trust God, right? So with that in mind, how do you
• 1:23:14
  model that when you're working with youth about meant like, you
• 1:23:18
  know, getting through hardship and then trusting God?
• 1:23:22
  How do you how do you help them? So I'm it's, it's good you asked
• 1:23:27
  me that because I was just going to tell you when you said that
• 1:23:30
  statement, I was going to tell you what I normally do and how
• 1:23:33
  my life and knowing that how God tells you to cast all your cares
• 1:23:38
  on him because he cares for you. So I, I read that scripture to
• 1:23:41
  them and let them know that you caring a lot of this stuff that
• 1:23:44
  you necessarily don't have to care.
• 1:23:46
  So what I do in my room when I'm talking to these young men, I'm
• 1:23:49
  mentoring them. I have the round table and I
• 1:23:52
  have a couple of chairs. So I have them.
• 1:23:53
  I said bring me that chair right there.
• 1:23:56
  Then I have them bring me another chair.
• 1:23:58
  I haven't bring me about 5 chairs.
• 1:24:01
  I did not tell them carry all of them back over there and they
• 1:24:06
  can't. Yeah, I can't, Mr. Boyd.
• 1:24:09
  It's too heavy. I said yes because you just
• 1:24:11
  stacked up every one of these chairs together instead of
• 1:24:16
  letting it sit where it's supposed to.
• 1:24:17
  Because some of this stuff I need for yours, you only can sit
• 1:24:20
  in one chair at a time. Why do you have five of them?
• 1:24:23
  So why are you going to try to carry this entire stack?
• 1:24:25
  So what I want you to do right now is to unload and put them
• 1:24:29
  back where they go. Stop carrying everybody else
• 1:24:31
  stuff. You don't need to sit in all
• 1:24:33
  five of these chairs. You only need one.
• 1:24:36
  Come on. Yes, that's so good.
• 1:24:39
  And people, they get that when you can either paint a picture
• 1:24:43
  or take them through a physical. Yep.
• 1:24:47
  It unlocks it. That's so good, unload it.
• 1:24:53
  Yeah, unload it. Yes.
• 1:24:56
  So what, What have you seen happen?
• 1:24:58
  Like how do they respond to that?
• 1:25:01
  So yeah, the last young man I was talking to and he was
• 1:25:03
  dealing with some personal stuff and I did it and I and I, so I'm
• 1:25:07
  transparent. So at the end of the day, I
• 1:25:09
  believe in when you build trust with somebody, they got to trust
• 1:25:12
  you. So a lot of times trust come
• 1:25:14
  from being transparent or being vulnerable with somebody.
• 1:25:17
  That's how you feel. Self disclosure, yeah.
• 1:25:19
  So I shared I shared some stuff about with me and when me and
• 1:25:23
  this young man got done talking, his question to me was can I
• 1:25:27
  give you a hug? So I I gave the young man a hug
• 1:25:31
  was. He wanting to hug you or was he
• 1:25:33
  wanting to be hugged? I think it was to the point
• 1:25:37
  where he wanted to be hugged because he lays so deep into my
• 1:25:40
  chest. OK like he was learning for
• 1:25:44
  something and he asked me can can he hug me?
• 1:25:48
  And I hugged him and he just laid into my chest.
• 1:25:50
  So real quick, the therapist and me hears it.
• 1:25:53
  He said can I hug you? This is him not even expressing
• 1:25:56
  his need. When really, can I have a hug?
• 1:26:01
  Yeah. And him not even knowing the
• 1:26:02
  difference. But either way, you were a safe
• 1:26:05
  space for him. Yeah.
• 1:26:06
  He needed that because I heard the language.
• 1:26:10
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:26:12
  But you are healing generations of young men.
• 1:26:18
  You really are. It's already.
• 1:26:20
  It's happening. It's not.
• 1:26:22
  That's the prayer. You got to embrace that part,
• 1:26:24
  too. Like that's what's happening.
• 1:26:27
  And I understand, like there's a certain level of humility, but
• 1:26:30
  like, you know, I'm just a vessel and this is what's
• 1:26:33
  happening and Milwaukee needs it.
• 1:26:37
  No, it does it. Does like.
• 1:26:39
  I have a young man. I have a young man the other day
• 1:26:43
  and I don't know what sent them off but he walked from his desk
• 1:26:48
  to the door but in the midst of it flipped about 3 desks and
• 1:26:52
  threw 2 tears and he came out the door and I said you want to
• 1:26:58
  finish the conversation and he's like I don't got nothing to say.
• 1:27:03
  I said you have a whole lot to say.
• 1:27:05
  I said you just said it walking out the classroom but you did it
• 1:27:09
  through your accent. I said now let's turn it into
• 1:27:11
  our words. I said if you feeling upset
• 1:27:14
  that's OK. If you're mad that's OK, but
• 1:27:16
  let's talk about it because you're just doing a lot of
• 1:27:18
  talking as you just walking. That was talking to me.
• 1:27:20
  It was communication, but you wasn't using words.
• 1:27:22
  So you was communicating, but you wasn't using your words.
• 1:27:25
  Now let's use our words and see how we can figure out what
• 1:27:28
  caused you to get that upset. So good.
• 1:27:34
  How did he respond to that? I'm curious again.
• 1:27:36
  I'm seeing this whole thing playing in my mind.
• 1:27:38
  No, at first he was, he was a brick wall and he just said it's
• 1:27:41
  because this, because I told him first he had nothing to say.
• 1:27:44
  I said you do have some. You said you just said a lot.
• 1:27:47
  You just said a whole lot. Probably ever asked him why?
• 1:27:52
  Yep. And I said, what is Bobby?
• 1:27:54
  I said are you upset? I said are you mad?
• 1:27:56
  I said you are. That's fine.
• 1:27:58
  Those are totally good. Those are totally OK emotions to
• 1:28:01
  have. Now let's talk about what we can
• 1:28:03
  do to actually heal. Yeah, this is what I mean.
• 1:28:08
  You're teaching him there's another way because this is that
• 1:28:12
  behavior. School to prison pipeline is
• 1:28:16
  real because you can't go out into the world and do that.
• 1:28:19
  You're already the way society is set up based on your gender
• 1:28:24
  and your your race. And then depending on his build
• 1:28:28
  and complexion, there's so many layers to that.
• 1:28:31
  How much of A threat is is he seeing as but regardless of that
• 1:28:35
  him flipping all those things and if that's not caught and
• 1:28:39
  checked and corrected another. It just escalates and it gets
• 1:28:45
  worse. And the number of people he
• 1:28:48
  could hurt, well, really, he's just hurting on the inside.
• 1:28:52
  Empty. Needed a hug?
• 1:28:54
  And he's expressing this stuff. He's expressing this stuff.
• 1:28:59
  Wow, wow. Listen, keep letting the Lord
• 1:29:03
  use you. I'm gonna ask you one, one
• 1:29:07
  question before I wrap you up with the signature question
• 1:29:09
  because clearly we can, we can keep going.
• 1:29:13
  I have been given the gift of Gaff and I'm glad I'm being able
• 1:29:17
  to use it in a way. And I think I have too.
• 1:29:21
  My wife and I like everywhere we go, you always know somebody.
• 1:29:24
  You always know somebody, this and that.
• 1:29:26
  I'm like, sometimes I don't even remember where I know I'm from.
• 1:29:29
  But we have an amazing conversation.
• 1:29:31
  It's like time to go. It's time to go.
• 1:29:34
  And to connect with people for sure.
• 1:29:37
  So you've spoken a little bit about like kind of seeing what
• 1:29:40
  God has done. But I want to ask, since
• 1:29:44
  publishing, where are you God trust the process?
• 1:29:48
  How have you seen God show up in unexpected ways?
• 1:29:53
  Well, the biggest thing recently is where I'm at in my life.
• 1:29:57
  I was asked so many times if you can just paint a picture of your
• 1:30:03
  day-to-day life, what it look like.
• 1:30:05
  And I used to always tell them I would get up, pray, probably go
• 1:30:11
  work out, put on something fancy.
• 1:30:13
  When I want to put on a suit, when I want to put on a dragon
• 1:30:16
  suit, wherever they may be, I'll put it on.
• 1:30:18
  And then I'll go out and I'll walk into my purpose and I'll go
• 1:30:22
  and I'll set a meeting up or either I'll go deal with the
• 1:30:24
  youth and a lot of people who had these prayers and these
• 1:30:28
  ambitions and all these different things and they
• 1:30:30
  constantly waiting on to happen then like that.
• 1:30:34
  You walking in it. Yeah.
• 1:30:36
  And that's where I'm at right now at Saint Marcus.
• 1:30:39
  Right now, I'm doing everything that I always told people my
• 1:30:45
  day-to-day life will look like. And I'm literally in the midst
• 1:30:48
  of it right now. Yeah, the power of our words.
• 1:30:54
  God spoke it, and it was We're made in his image.
• 1:30:57
  We have that same authority. That's so good.
• 1:31:02
  If you could leave the audience with one powerful truth to help
• 1:31:07
  them rise and thrive, what would it be?
• 1:31:13
  Probably the biggest thing I would say is it's OK to not be
• 1:31:19
  OK. And a lot of us is walking
• 1:31:22
  around right now and people ask us how we're doing that.
• 1:31:26
  We tell them I'm good, I'm OK. But we got to realize it's OK to
• 1:31:31
  not be OK. And you can never start to heal
• 1:31:35
  what you don't feel. And if you don't feel it, then
• 1:31:38
  how can you heal it? Because you ain't even
• 1:31:41
  identified it. So where do what are you
• 1:31:42
  healing? But you got to be OK with that
• 1:31:45
  and and you got to speak those things and you got to speak to
• 1:31:49
  it because now you can start to operate on how you move forward.
• 1:31:54
  But until you identify that it's something wrong and it's
• 1:31:57
  something that's not right, you'll never start to go into
• 1:32:01
  trying to fix it or heal. I see it.
• 1:32:04
  That's so good. Well, RBJ, thank you so much and
• 1:32:09
  I'm so glad that you came highly recommended.
• 1:32:12
  And I, I'm just so grateful for the time that we had here
• 1:32:15
  learning more about your story. And I know that it'll inspire
• 1:32:19
  others and keep doing the Lord's work, keep operating in purpose.
• 1:32:24
  He'll bless you and he'll, he'll continue to open the doors.
• 1:32:27
  And like you said, you've essentially retired because you
• 1:32:32
  don't, you're not working anymore.
• 1:32:34
  Absolutely. Yes, all right, audience.
• 1:32:38
  Well, this is where we ship to you.
• 1:32:40
  One, I want you to reflect. Where in your life have you
• 1:32:43
  asked God, where are you? And I want you to write down and
• 1:32:47
  acknowledge the process he may be leading you through.
• 1:32:51
  And then I want you to take action.
• 1:32:53
  Choose one truth from this episode to apply this week,
• 1:32:58
  whether it's practicing patience, offering grace,
• 1:33:01
  mentoring a young person in your community, and finally, I want
• 1:33:05
  to affirm you. I trust God's process for my
• 1:33:11
  life, even the in the unknown I am guided, I am strengthened and
• 1:33:17
  I will rise and thrive. Well, thank you all for joining
• 1:33:22
  in for another episode of Rice and Thrive with Doctor J Nicole.
• 1:33:26
  Make sure you check us out next week.
• 1:33:30
  We do this every Tuesday and the merch is available if you go to
• 1:33:35
  www.evolvewithdoctorjnicole.com you can find it there.
• 1:33:39
  RBJ How can the people re reach you or how can they follow you?
• 1:33:44
  Keep up to date and what you got going on?
• 1:33:46
  Where are you? I'm on social media, so
• 1:33:50
  Facebook, Robert Boy, of course, Instagram is elder under slash
• 1:33:56
  boy junior. Also, you can follow my family's
• 1:34:00
  page. We do a lot of encouraging
• 1:34:02
  stuff. A tribe called Boy, A tribe
• 1:34:05
  called Boy that's on Instagram, that's on Facebook, that's on
• 1:34:09
  YouTube and that's on TikTok. OK so I got a lot more following
• 1:34:13
  to do right after this. And they can catch a documentary
• 1:34:18
  on YouTube too, correct? And a tribe called Boyd.
• 1:34:22
  Awesome. So you all can consume this
• 1:34:26
  goodness, this all this greatness that's this light that
• 1:34:30
  Brother Boyd is offering or Elder Boyd is offering through
• 1:34:35
  his book, and I'll make sure everything is.
• 1:34:37
  So just check the description down below.
• 1:34:38
  What's there? So there's a book, there's a
• 1:34:40
  documentary, there's social media content.
• 1:34:44
  Thank you again for joining me. It's been an absolute pleasure
• 1:34:48
  being here and hearing your story.
• 1:34:51
  Thank you for having me. Absolutely.