Latest / Creative Roots Podcast / How Childhood, Culture & Imagination Shape Who We Become - Zenzi | Ep. 68

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How Childhood, Culture & Imagination Shape Who We Become - Zenzi | Ep. 68 · Creative Roots Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you make it.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_02: I'm excited.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_01: Listen, this is about I think you're episode 68.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_02: Oh wow.
• 0:06
  unknown: Okay.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_02: Before I was born.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_02: I was scared.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_01: 68, if I'm remembering correctly.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_01: I think this is uh yeah, I think talking about Studio 212 was episode 67.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_01: So yes, I do believe this is so that's over a year's worth of episodes.
• 0:25
  unknown: Wow.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_02: That's insane.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, and then for like two or three weeks, we released two episodes a day.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_01: So that's why we have more episodes than the calendar.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_01: We have not skipped a single week yet.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm saying yeah, because I am highly thinking about it.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_02: Man, but I keep being told extroverting work.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_01: Some who?
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_02: This is extroverting work.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_02: It's like yes, I use extroverting, you know, as as an action word because it is.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_02: I like I have to extrovert, and it's really sometimes it's a lot.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_02: I tell people it's a it's really, really a lot.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_02: You know, and when you when I did my podcast, I was doing it weekly, and it was a it it wasn't just the prep, it was the talking, all of the talking.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_02: And so when I was done, I'm like, I don't I don't want to talk to anybody, I want to go to sleep.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_02: And I did that podcast for like 12 weeks straight, interviewing people for 12 weeks straight and editing and doing all that stuff, and I took a break.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_02: And um, I came back for like a back half of the episodes, and then I stopped, and it's been about five years, and so law and is like, um, you need to when are you gonna come back with episodes?
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I'm not, but you should.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_02: I'm done.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I've talked to capacity and I'm done.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_02: So it's it's good if you get everything recorded one time and then kind of start to go back because for me it was a little bit of a challenge.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_01: So, what's the name of this podcast?
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_02: Well, am I gonna tell you then?
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_02: Are you gonna put it in?
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_02: The name of the podcast was authored by us, it was a podcast focused on children's books by authors of color.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_02: And so I interviewed, I don't know, about 20-something authors.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, the first one was my girlfriend from Fam U, and she wrote a book called There's a Be in My Book Bag.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_02: And I called her up and I was like, hey, I'm doing a podcast and I need to interview you.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_02: I need to interview, I want you to be my first person.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um, the last episode I did was my son's favorite children's book author, who's from Concord, Kwame Alexander.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um, award-winning author.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_02: Um, his the first book of his that we bought was called The Crossover.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_02: But his parents taught at Barbara Scotia College.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_01: Barbara Scotia's right down the street.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_01: Right down the street.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_01: My wife's grandma stays behind Barbara Scotia.
• 2:55
  unknown: Wow.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_01: So I used to see that every day.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: I used to drive up here to see her because I love her so much.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_02: So man, when he when I saw that, there was um he spoke at West Kabaras High School.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_02: I think the first year they opened.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so it was still during COVID, or he came up to the school.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_02: And so we saw that before we moved here, and I was like, oh wow.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_02: I and that's how I realized he was connected to Concord.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_02: But um I bought my son the crossover on a from the scholastics order that he got in school.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_02: And um it was just it was fantastic.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_02: It was a book of poetry, but it was a story, and so each each poem formed the the full story um that they were telling.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_02: And I absolutely, absolutely loved it.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_02: And so we would read it at night, and he um, you know, it was just yeah.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_02: And so when I was doing the podcast, Raphael was like, Mom, you should interview Kwame Alexander.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, that man don't know me.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_02: We might be friends on Facebook, but it was probably accidental.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_02: And he was like, Still, you should ask him.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_02: And I sent him, uh slid into his DMs, not for that kind of purpose, but hey, I have a podcast.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_02: Can I interview you?
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_02: And I remember it was my birthday, and it was the best birthday gift because it was like four o'clock in the morning, and I saw this message come through, and he was like, Yeah, sure, reach out to my such and such.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, What?
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_01: So it's amazing of what can happen just asking.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: I tell people the worst answer you can get is no.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_02: It's no.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_02: That's it.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_01: Regardless of how it comes or how it sounds, you know, it's still a no.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_01: But you never know.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_02: You you you you you get nothing if you don't ask, right?
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_01: Ask and you shall receive.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_02: And sometimes that no is what you need to receive from some people.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_02: So you know exactly where things stand.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_01: Say that sometimes.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_02: That no is what you need to receive.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_02: So you know where you stand with some people.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_01: Y'all caught that because that, yes.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: So listen, y'all.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome back to another episode of Creative Roots Podcast, where seeing someone become visions grown.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_01: I am your host, Tay, and today's guest, as y'all can see and have already heard, she is an author, an author of just these two books.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_01: You got more, right?
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_01: I know you have more, but these are the only two books.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_01: These are the two that are published, but there's always more coming.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_01: These are the two that are published right now.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_01: We are sitting here today with the lovely Zinzi Hodge.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, she came to us as a client, and y'all know I like talking to our clients.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's very intriguing the things that our clients do and talk about, you know.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_01: But she came to us, said that she wanted to do a live, and the live went very well, if you ask me.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_01: I'm pretty sure if you ask her, she's gonna say it went very well too, right?
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_01: But these are two of her books.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_01: Y'all know how I am.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not about to butcher this intro.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_01: So, Zinzi, can you please tell the people who you are and what you do?
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_02: I am Zinzi Hodge.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_02: I am a children's book author.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_02: So you see my books here.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_02: I've written two children's books.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_02: I am in my first book, The Never Snowy Christmas.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_02: But I always stop by telling people who I am in respect to um the family that I have.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm a mother of a son who is this rising sophomore at Hampton University.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_02: I am a graduate and proud rattler of Florida AM University.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_02: I'm originally from St.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_02: Thomas, U.S.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_02: Virgin Islands.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_02: And so I represent VI all day.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, I'm just gonna say, because I have the shirt on, I'm a big Wu-Tang fan.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_02: And when I was thinking about what I would wear to come on there, I just needed to have something that, you know, that that gave me a little bit of energy.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_02: So I put on my Inspector Deck best t-shirt.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_01: You gotta love it.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_01: We was in here and I was telling her about the Just His League.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we're branded the Wu-Tang of Christian hip hop.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_01: When I saw the shirt, I instantly went into the verse.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_01: She probably didn't even think I was gonna get as far as I did.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_01: But yes, that is one of my top Wu-Tang songs that is released, you know, like commercialized to the public.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, there are some other songs that Wu Tang got that I can still somewhat remember and recite.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_02: I I I keep them in active rotation on my playlist.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_02: I'm just gonna leave it there.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_01: You have to, is Wu Tang.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_01: Of course.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_01: You know?
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_01: So listen, we have these two books.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_01: One just came out this year, and you have the what do you call it?
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_01: What's the word?
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_01: The the first one.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_01: The inaugural.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_01: And we have this one.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_01: Can you just speak a little bit about what these are?
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_02: You know, they are I'm gonna call them eggs that were hatched.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_02: So several years ago, my mother for my birthday uh gave me uh she gives very purposeful and creative gifts.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_02: So she gave me this basket of plastic eggs, and the card read, just hatch one.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, what did she have in here?
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_02: And there were all these little plastic eggs, and there were strips of paper in each one of ideas that I had brought to her.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_02: So I was like, Oh, mommy, I have an idea about this.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, I I like to do this, I should do this, I should do that.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_02: And apparently she was paying attention.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_02: Apparently, she wrote them all down and she put them in a basket.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_02: And she gave these to me at a time when I was going through a little bit of a transition.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_02: I was transitioned from a job, it had a lot going on, and I think she felt that the eggs would give me some inspiration about what to do next.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_02: And so I opened up all these different eggs and I saw all of these ideas of the past.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_02: And one was about a publishing company and writing a book and a bunch of other stuff.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_02: And so she said, just hatch one.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, well, well, what do I do with all of this stuff?
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_02: And so one day I was um, I dropped my son off to school and I was having a chat with one of the uh one of the teachers there, and I was talking about just career transition and what I was gonna do.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_02: And it was like looking for another job.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_02: And it just happened that I was driving down the street to go home, and some words popped into my head, and I decided to keep this story going as I was driving to my house.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_02: And then I got home, I started typing, and then I picked up my phone, I texted my sister, and I said, I think I wrote a book.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_02: And that's kind of how it started.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_02: And so that was the story, The Never Snowy Christmas.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_02: It's about a little boy on St.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_02: Thomas who wanted it to snow.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_02: And I wrote the story because we were living on St.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_02: Thomas at the time.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_02: I knew what it was like growing up on St.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_02: Thomas.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_02: You did not see snow.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_02: And so this was partially my experience growing up, but my son was having the same experience.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_02: And um, he wanted to see snow, and I had promised him we were gonna go on a trip and we were gonna see snow that year, and then I lost my job.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_02: I got laid off, and I'm like, well, we're not going nowhere.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_02: We might be going to the grocery store locally, but we're not going anywhere to go do anything else.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_02: And I felt so bad that I could not give him that experience.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_02: And so me writing this was sort of my my lament to this poor kid that wanted snow.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_02: And so, because he couldn't get snow on St.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_02: Thomas, all the things that he would do to figure out how to get snow on St.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_02: Thomas.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_02: So it's it's a book about dreaming, um, determination and creativity.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and then my second book, I am, is really dedicated to my father based on a poem he wrote for us.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_02: And it's it's again set in the Virgin Islands, um, and some children that are finding who they are by traveling around their neighborhood and their island home, and just identifying with their culture, identifying with themselves, and really seeing where they belong and the value that they hold within.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_02: Did I answer your question?
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_01: So it's very dear, dear and near.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_02: Dear and near to my heart.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, they both they're both very personal.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I I think that plays a good part into writing anyway.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know too many writers, including myself, that they're not pulling from some type of personal experience or something that they've witnessed, you know.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_01: And even if you witness it, it's still something that, you know, plucked a couple of emotional strings for you, right?
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_01: So these both are in a sense toward your son, because I mean both of them are boys, they're boys in both of them, right?
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: You couldn't take your son to see snow, so you helped him quote unquote create it.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I am, hey, this to me kind of goes back to remember where you come from.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah, without the extra ties that people put on that title, you know.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_01: You can find out who you are right where you are, at home, in home, the neighborhood, you know, even if it's not on the Virgin Island, you know.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_01: Remember where you come from, know who you are, where you are.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_01: Correct.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_01: I like it.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_02: It it's it's essential.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_02: So um, so I am, and so I I have to say this because today is August 7th.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_02: And so the little girl who inspired me to write this that I actually started telling the story about, today's her birthday.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_02: And so at some point when I send her these clips, I'm gonna be like, hey, Elise, happy birthday.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_02: But um, I started writing I Am as a letter to her on her 16th birthday.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_02: And so while it's based on, it's inspired by a poem that my father wrote for us when we were kids, and for his students, her mom wanted me to be able, wanted all of her friends to write letters to her daughter when she turned 16 and just to give her some words of wisdom.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_02: And I started writing this poem for her based on what my father had initially written.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_02: So when you talk about it becoming being personal, it it is.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_02: It was very, very personal because it came from something that my father did that was dear to him for us, that I turned into something for someone that was dear to me.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_02: And so um, when I started putting the book together, and I, you know, I said, listen, I wrote this story that was based on something that I was doing for you.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_02: And so you are my inspiration for this.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so for today to be her birthday and to talk about this book again.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it is definitely very personal.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: Hey y'all, this is the core creates, and I'm here with Charlotte Podcast.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, let me tell you about this Podcast Central.
• 14:24
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• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: Not only will you be able to come here and create and have your stuff done, they will edit, record, and ship it right off to you.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: So you guys don't even have to do nothing but come sit and look pretty.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: Make sure y'all book today.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: Get here fast because I'm telling y'all, with this new space that they got coming up, they're gonna be super busy and you want to make sure that you get your stuff booked and ready.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: Peace.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_02: That was based on something that I was doing for you.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_02: And so you are my inspiration for this.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so for today to be her birthday and to talk about this book again.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it is definitely very personal.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_01: So today is a very special day.
• 15:04
  unknown: It is.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_01: Today is also the day of recording Shamar's birthday and one of my niece's birthdays.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_03: All right.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_01: So happy birthday to y'all.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_01: We I know by the time y'all see this, it's gonna be a little late, but happy birthday to y'all.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_02: The the birthday intent is here with them today.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_02: But we're not gonna sing, are we?
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_02: No, I'm not gonna sing.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not gonna sing, not today.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_01: Happy no, so my voice ain't there.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_01: You see, my voice is in a little, is in a little deeper, raspier tone today.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm not gonna sing.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_01: No, no, I'm gonna do it.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_02: I I I will do the the the mime dance if you sing.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_02: I'll do that part.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not gonna sing today.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_01: I'm uh I'm gonna let y'all breathe today.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_01: Cause if Shamal was here, yes, we would be singing.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, okay.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_01: So, Zinzi, what was the initial thing that got you started as being a writer?
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_02: I don't think I had much of a choice.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_02: So my mother is an English teacher.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_02: And so you you just grew up around words.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_02: My godmothers, all of my mom's best friends, they were English teachers.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_02: So we grew up in the English department at the middle school where my mom and her best friends taught.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_02: So we were all there.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you went there, you played, you waited for your mom, and so forth.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_02: But I think um I always had a very vivid imagination.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_02: So I was always thinking about something, you know, and you, you know, if you were at your grandparents' house, we weren't, you watch TV, but to a limit.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_02: So you always had to go find something else to do.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_02: You know, go inside.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_02: You've watched your capacity, your seven and a half minutes of TV, go inside, go find something to do.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_02: My sister was always reading, and I was always writing.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_02: So if I had a piece of paper and a pencil, I was gonna draw something, I was gonna write something, and I was always making up some sort of story.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_02: And so it just it kind of happened that way.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_01: My grandmother, um, she drove a school bus.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_01: So, like all of my elementary years, I'm on this bus.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_01: School gets out at 2:15.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_01: I don't get home until 5:30, 6 o'clock.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_01: Homework is already done.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_03: Yep.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_01: You know, before we get off the bus.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_01: And I was that kid that did both.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_01: I read and I wrote, and I drew.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm listening and uh reading goosebumps books.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_01: A Mouse on a Motorcycle is my top book of all time.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_01: I can't tell you how many times I read that book.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um then there were just other books that I did read, but I know when I was in elementary school, goosebumps were very, very popular.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_03: That's right.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_01: And I started writing because, you know, you only have a certain amount of time to watch TV.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_01: And you think being on the bus until six, you know, you get home, by the time you get home, there's very little time to play, very little time to watch TV, but I was able to watch Power Rangers and things like that when I got home.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_01: And as some people already know, some of y'all already know, Shamar is gonna crack up because he laughs almost every time I say it.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_01: I used to rewrite the Power Rangers episodes.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_02: There's nothing wrong with that.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_02: So when I there's nothing wrong with that.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_01: Nothing.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_02: I used to write scripts for my dolls and my stuffed animals.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_02: There's nothing wrong with that.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_01: Nothing.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_01: I used to have a 70-sheet notebook, and those 70 sheets was either one full episode or it became a part one and a part two.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_01: Oh wow.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_01: Like I was writing in elementary, and I I wish I had any of those books.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_01: I used to draw Wu-Tane logo, Chicago Bulls logo, Mortal Kombat logo.
• 19:14
  unknown: Wow.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_01: I used to do all of this just third, fourth, fifth grade, you know.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_01: But so I I can I can resonate with all of that.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_01: You know, grandma be like, go outside and play.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_02: Go find something to do.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_02: You know, and and so when you have to, you go and create your own fun.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_02: And so you you just you just learn how to to create.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_02: And that was a lot of that was what I used to do.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_02: And I think I told you that I write a lot of poetry out of emotion.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_02: So whether it was something sad or something happy.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but one of my um earliest memories of writing, I was probably in the maybe second, somewhere between the first and second grade.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_02: And there was um, I guess I'm a fairly competitive person, maybe.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_02: And there was a competition that uh I don't remember if it was like the Humanities Council or somebody was doing in the Virgin Islands, and they were asking for submissions for a book of poetry.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_02: And they were asking for kids, adults, and whomever to submit their book of their poems.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_02: And I knew I wrote like little poems while I was in school.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know if anybody else in my class was doing it and my school was doing it.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't care.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_02: All I heard was competition submitted and see if you went.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_02: Three of my little poems made it into that book.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_02: And I was so excited.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_02: So I was, you know, I I would take an opportunity.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_02: If you gave me a chance to rhyme something, give me two words, let me rhyme.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_02: I will write and I will rhyme all day long.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_02: And I had a good time with it.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not a rapper though.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_01: So that was my next question.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_01: So you're so arguing.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_02: My lyrical flow, no, it's not like that at all.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_01: Putting these rhymes to instrumentals.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_02: No, because if I have to put it to instrumentals, I want you to know that I will have no words whatsoever.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_02: On any given day, I could talk about any topic, I could write about anything.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_02: Tell me to set it to music, it'll never happen.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_02: No, it radio silence does not happen.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_01: I started doing poems high school, I believe.
• 21:29
  unknown: Wow.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_01: I had an inch and a half notebook because I outgrew my half inch, and then I outgrew the one inch.
• 21:39
  unknown: Wow.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I had to go to an inch and a half notebook.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_01: And when that book got lost, it it took everything out of me, and I could no longer write.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I didn't write a poem for maybe two years, if that.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Like I just I mean I had stories in there.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_01: I had so many poems, so many stories, and to know you we're looking at two years worth of you know mental dumping.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_02: And it's gone.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_01: And it's gone.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna cry a little bit.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_01: But it it it bothered me so much because, like you said, you just pour so much out when you're in an in in emotional state.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_01: Correct.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_01: Regardless if it's the highs, the lows, it's you know, you just thinking, you know, wherever you are to just write and and put it in these these stanzas, yeah.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_02: I um over the last couple of years, we've had some sick some losses in our family.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_02: So my father passed away last summer.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_02: But every if I ever have to write a tribute for someone's um, you know, I think you might call it like their obituary, or we might call it a funeral booklet in the Caribbean.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_02: Um I never write a note to them.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_02: It's always like a poem, you know.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so when my when my grandma, when my grandparents died, and you know, my uncle and for my dad, I wrote like original, original poetry um for them.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_02: Uh just it's not something that they would read, but it was the way that I fully was able to express my my feelings in that moment.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_01: So I was going through a good bit of stuff and I wrote a whole verse.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_01: We got a song called Um All Falls Down.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_01: And the way my brother did that hook, and the way he did all the melodic stuff at the end, shout out to Ron Smith.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_01: Man, I listened to that song.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_01: Even though I wrote the first verse, that song still will bring you to tears.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_01: If you if you really sit with the lyrics, and you know, poetry does that.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_01: Certain songs will have you in that mood.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_01: You know, instrumentals can do that.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_02: A good instrumental can pull the emotion out of you.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_02: Oh my gosh.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_01: Listen, I created an instrumental and listening to it, all I could say was, and I just felt the tear getting ready to drop.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, that's a little powerful.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I can't just put this to anything.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_02: Oh yeah.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_02: I um so I'm a Curtis Mayfield fan, and he has a song called Think.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_02: Now I only know it as the instrumental, and I'm trying to remember someone told me like years ago, no, there are lyrics that go along with it.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_02: And the first thing I said was like, Well, I don't want to hear them because Well, you can keep them.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I don't care.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_02: Because the song that I know, there are no words.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_02: And it's called think, and it allows me to do that.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_02: I want to keep it that way.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_02: The minute I hear words, it could just ruin the whole experience.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_02: If there are words out there, please, I don't want to know.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_01: Don't send them to me.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_02: Don't send them to me.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_02: Just leave them.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_01: You'll ruin it.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_01: You'll ruin it.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_02: There are other songs that he has that have that have lyrics and they are fantastic.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_02: I'm good with that.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_02: But we're gonna leave fake as it is.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_01: Leave it alone.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_01: Don't you send them lyrics to Zinzi.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_01: Don't do it.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_01: I can't remember the name of the song, but I think it's by Isaac Hayes.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_01: And I know everybody knows this song when they hear it.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_01: When it gets toward the toward where he starts singing, I just put his voice in with the melody.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_01: Because I think it was on Dead Presidents.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_01: You know which one I'm talking about.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_02: Then Track number two, After Sliding Family Stone.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_01: I think so.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_02: And um there's oh I think it's a Walk on By What was that?
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_02: Walk on uh Walk On By.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, I think that's the name of it.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_01: Then there's another song.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um I think it's Summertime, the original.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, so not the cooling gang.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, the Coolin' Cooling the Gang.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, that one.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_01: Don't don't touch that.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_02: That's on my playlist, too, just so you know.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's on mine too.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_01: Both of those are on my playlist.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_02: It's a classic.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, don't touch nothing.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_01: Why is somebody calling me?
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_01: This is what we're gonna do right here.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_01: Decline.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_01: Anyway, yes.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_02: Summer madness is an amazing, it's an amazingness.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_02: That's what it's called.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_02: Amazing amazing, amazing piece.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_01: And there are so many stories, so many visuals that come to mind.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_01: Like Crooklin, and the kids are just playing.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_01: And then I see just literally us growing up, kids.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_01: We're running around, you know.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, some neighborhoods they have water flowing out of the fire hydrant.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_01: Others we have, you know, this one house that everybody goes to, maybe grandma, house, you, you know, your great aunt, somebody, and we're playing with the sprinkler, or we all just have the water holes and we're just outside enjoying life as we know it.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_02: Outside.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_02: Nobody had to tell you to touch grass because you were outside.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_02: That's where you're supposed to be.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_01: Outside.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_01: Enjoying life.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_01: And when I hear kids these days say, I'm bored, my question is, how?
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_02: We made fun.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, we we like we we legit made fun.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_02: Um, my sister and I, it was just the two of us, and we would spend summers by our grandparents.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so my grandfather worked at the post office.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_02: My grandmother um was a paraprofessional, and so she was home during the summer.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_02: We'd go hang out at their house, and Loanne and I talk about this experience where we were in the backyard and we were playing in the grass.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know, we were exploring because they had a lot of grass in the back of the yard, and we were, you know, trekking through the grass and we're playing.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_02: And we found this grass that made your skin feel nice and tingly.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_02: We thought it was fun.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_02: We were oh no, and so, and it was probably her idea because you know, I was the younger kid.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_02: I followed along, and we got these blades of grass, and she was like, Oh, it feels really tingly on your skin.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_02: We should rub it on our foreheads, why not?
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_02: And we were doing this.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_02: Somebody broke out in a rash.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_02: Apparently, the you know, the the parts of the grass left some little cuts.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_02: We went inside, we got in so much trouble, but that's how we used to play.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_02: That's that's what you did.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_02: We that's what our summers were like, you know.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_02: Sitting down, catching the the last bits of the young and the restless with my grandmother, country time lemonade commercials and playing out in the grass and getting cuts on your head.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_01: Life.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_02: That's life.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_01: We used to find holes and be like, I wonder what animal lives here, and poke sticks down it.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we did a lot as kids that kids today.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_01: I will say, if anybody, my baby boy will be the one to do probably 85% of the stuff that I did as a kid outside.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_01: There's a hole, wonder what's in it, shove a stick down it, pour water down it, you know, find out what's gonna crawl up, and the whole time just be snickering and laughing and just be in a ball of joy, not even knowing what's going on.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_02: Enjoying life.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_01: We have a hill in our backyard, and when it gets real cold and it snows and things like that, we have like little um what do you call it?
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_01: Like uh sleds.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you just sit in it.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_01: It's like a kind of like a bowl type thing.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_01: You just sit in it.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_01: He will go and get that thing in the middle of the summer and go down the hill, and we're like, dude, you don't feel those rocks?
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_01: He's like, no.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, I'm um, I can't say anything.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_01: You know, be a kid.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_01: I want you to be a kid.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_01: That's what you're supposed to do.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_01: Come on, man.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_02: Listen, would you not want to go rolling down a little hill right now?
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_02: See, it sounds like fun, isn't it?
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_01: Come on now.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_01: As they say, at my big old age.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_02: Something may hurt when you get up.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_01: Something might hurt when you sit down.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_01: Something might hurt just by thinking about it now.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_02: And my son went on a uh trip with his class.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_02: Um, they he went to Wes Cabaret, and so their uh teacher, oh yeah, shout out to Mr.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_02: Moore.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_02: I don't even know if he would watch this, but Brandon Moore is a phenomenal English teacher, and he was my son's English teacher, and he took him.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_02: Um he took the kids on a trip to Europe.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_02: And so my son sent me this picture, and they were in Switzerland, and it's a picture of a hill, and then he sends a video, and it's a video of him rolling down a hill.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_02: And I was I was quite happy because he looked like he was having such a fantastic time.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, oh my gosh, he's rolling down these hills.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_02: Because you see Swiss hills, that's what you're supposed to do, right?
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_02: So I asked him, I was like, when he came back, I was like, I love the video that you sent.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, you know, you had somebody take a video for you, that was great.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_02: I said, you know, were y'all just all rolling down the hill?
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_02: He was like, no.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_02: I said, nobody else rolled down the hill.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_02: He was like, no.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_02: I said, you roll down the hill by yourself.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_02: And he was like, yeah.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_02: I said, why?
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_02: He said, you see a big hill, you roll down a hill.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, yes.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_01: He gets it.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's what you're supposed to do.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_01: And you're not worried about what anybody else has to say.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_02: He made sure that somebody took a video so he can capture rolling down said hill.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_02: And that makes sense.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm the type of person that's like everybody else doesn't understand what they just missed out on.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_01: I roll down a hill in Europe.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_02: You know, the only thing he didn't do was yodel as he was going down a hill.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_02: Because now that would have been classic.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_01: Oh.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_02: I should go find it and put like some yodeling sounds to it.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_02: Put it on his Instagram.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_02: You think he might mind?
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_01: He probably won't even see it.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_01: He probably won't even see it.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I these kids, they want to keep their accounts private, don't want to let the parents know.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_01: And like my daughter's got one.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, I see you.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not gonna follow you.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_01: But she's only got like two or three pictures up there.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_01: I don't even know what you're using Instagram for.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_01: But to ignore us.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, that's what it is, to see what we're doing, to be nosy, and then get off.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_01: There's nothing wrong with that either.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_02: He um when we were here for the virtual launch with you all, he he did post.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_02: He did he sure did, and he got some of his friends uh to come online.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, Well, look at that.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_02: I so appreciated it.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you know, other than that, he leaves me, you know, what is it, on delivered or on red or whatever it is.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_01: Whatever most of the time it's on delivered, and it's by accident if it's left on red.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_01: I've realized that with my kids.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_01: I just go in their room and beat them up, you know, that's all.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_02: Didn't you see I sent you something one time?
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_02: One time he was actually impressed with um, he liked something I had on Instagram because um I was on a verified Instagram page um with my former CEO, and she took some pictures with us at an event and she posted it.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, oh, and I showed it to him.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_02: He's like, Mom, you're on a verified Instagram page.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, Oh, is that a good thing?
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_02: He was like, Yes, I think I impressed him.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_02: He was really impressed with it.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, oh, great, you know.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_02: But you know, if you got you got teens, these these young adults, if you get an impression, if you make them impressed in some way, you've done something really good.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm gonna hold on to that.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, hold on to it.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_01: My baby boy, he was super excited to be in one of my short films.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_01: And my oldest son, I kind of had to beat him up a little bit.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, dude, you only have two lines.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_01: Just two lines.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_01: Your brother has like four.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_01: You only have like two.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, you have to make it believable when you say these two lines, though.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_01: So he he does.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, do it again.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_01: He's like, okay.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, do it again.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_01: By the third time, now he's oh my god, how many times I gotta do this?
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, until you get it right.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_01: The third time is the one that said.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_01: Because now you have your emotion attached to it.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_01: And you're only asking, hey dad, what's for dinner?
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, I don't know.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_01: You tell me, can we make sesame chicken?
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not about to make that tonight.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_01: All right, then, and then you walk off.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_01: It's not that difficult.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_02: However, my son It's what you do every day.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you ask every day, what's for dinner?
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_01: That's not how you normally ask.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_01: Ask it right.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_01: You know, so they took that, you know, the clips that I made, and they just kept putting them out.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_01: Like their friends at school think that I'm somebody famous.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_01: They think that uh this is all I do.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_01: Podcasting, and I'm on YouTube, and I'm like, who are these little random people that keep following me on TikTok?
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it's it's their classmates.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_02: But come on now.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_02: If they're if their friends like you or follow you, that's a good thing.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but I'm still like kidding gonna follow you now because your kid will think you're a weirdo, but their friends think you're kind of cool.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_01: Well, the weird thing about that is my baby boy follows me on everything, even the channels that I haven't even told anybody about.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_01: He follows me on those.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I have a gaming channel.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, wow.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_01: But I don't get to game.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_01: Like I want to, you know, and he's following me on that.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_01: You know, this YouTube channel, my Tay with the edits, all of that.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_01: My baby boy, and I think the thing for him, he wants to be a uh professional streamer, as he puts it.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, okay, how are we gonna do this?
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_01: You know, what what exactly are you aiming for in this space?
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_01: And he's still honing in on it.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_01: He can't do certain things like go live on YouTube until he's 13, stuff like that.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and theory can't have a TikTok page until he's 13.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_01: So I don't know how he managed that.
• 37:19
  unknown: We'll talk about that.
• 37:20
  unknown: We'll talk about that later.
• 37:22
  unknown: Exactly.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_01: But in the post.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_01: So he's got these things.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, even his YouTube channel, he's got like 6,800 subscribers.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_01: Really?
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_01: Oh gosh, okay.
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_01: And people are like, what is he doing?
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, I don't know.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_01: All I can tell you is he's not paying for them because he ain't got no money.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_02: 6,800?
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_01: 6,800 last I checked.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_02: Oh my gosh.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, and I'm like, they have to be all organic because I have all of his stuff connected to my phone.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_01: If he spends 25 cents, I will know.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_02: That's right.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_02: That's right.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_01: You know, if he logs into um Roblox, I will know.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_01: You know, if he requests or sends money on Cash App, I will know.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_02: And don't and don't let anybody tell you that that's wrong.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_02: That's called parenting.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_02: And that's what we're supposed to do.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_01: Because my my my baby boy, born prematurely, but his mental when it comes to 98% of the things is like adulthood.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_01: So he thinks that he can just do these things because he he he knows.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_01: You know, he's that kid that's like he created his own YouTube channel.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_01: No help.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_01: He's at 6800.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_01: He's created a second channel because he lost 200 subscribers.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_01: That one went up to about four or five, six thousand.
• 38:58
  unknown: Wow.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_01: He's tired with that page.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_01: He's gonna create another one.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_01: He's here doing these things.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_01: So when you have a kid like that, and then you you kind of like watch the post and you're listening as he's playing the game online, and it's like, hey, dude, so where do you live?
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_01: Well, what's your real name?
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_01: You have to watch, you have to monitor.
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_02: That is correct.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_01: This is the kid that we're talking about whose mental is advanced when it comes to some of this technology, social media, internet stuff, but he's still a kid to where, oh, I live here, and this is my address, and yes, that's my mom and my dad's full name.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_02: Correct.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_02: Because they're thinking, first of all, they're thinking that they're talking with another kid.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_02: Because you they can't fathom that they're talking to someone that's not their peer.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_02: Or if they're an adult, it's someone that knows their parents.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_02: And so, you know, you talk to your parents' your parents' friends, Ms.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_02: Such and Such, Mr.
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_02: Such and Such.
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_02: And that's what they're thinking.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I tell my kids, if you've never seen them come to this house, we don't know them.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_01: We don't know you.
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_01: If you've never heard me talk about them, we don't know them.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I have a lot of family that's not, you know, related by blood, but at the end of the day, they know 99% of these people.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_01: There may be one or two people that they don't know because their names just haven't come up.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_01: But either way, no, you you let me know.
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_01: Correct.
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_01: You know, say something.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_01: Correct.
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_01: But I still do love the fact that they know how to be kids.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_01: Like they'll sit there and play video games for four or five hours straight, but then they're outside until 9, 10 p.m.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, do y'all not realize the sun is gone?
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_01: How are y'all playing football?
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_01: How are y'all playing basketball?
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, how are y'all playing kickball?
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_01: What are y'all doing?
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_01: And like I told my wife, you try not to take the kid out of them, but we gotta set boundaries.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_01: I don't want to hear that basketball bouncing at 9 p.m.
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_01: Get your butt.
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_01: And it's in the neighbor's driveway, and I can hear it.
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_02: I hear the kids in our neighborhood, and there's a part of me that's like, okay, it's too late to be playing ball.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_02: Oh my gosh, the kids are playing ball late at night, you know, and you try to balance that off.
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_01: My house is the neighborhood house.
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_02: I'm glad that I'm glad that there are kids that still do that.
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_02: You know, um, that they that they get together and they have play communities.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it's yeah.
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_01: My house is the neighborhood kids' house.
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_01: Because my kids don't like really going anywhere.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_01: And if they do, they're asking when are they coming back home?
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_02: So people can come here.
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_01: That's my and that's how I was growing up.
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_01: My mama was my mom was like, you would go places, but you didn't really care to go anywhere.
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_01: You prefer everybody to come here.
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, yeah, because I don't want no, I don't want to go to everybody's house.
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_01: But at least if they come here when this is over, they can leave.
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_01: I don't have to wait for a ride.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's true.
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_02: Well, where we grew up, we kind of lived, it wasn't remote, but it was not as easily accessible.
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_02: Now it is more easily accessible, but we grew up in St.
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_02: Thomas.
• 42:28
  SPEAKER_02: And um, so if we were by our grandparents' house, we were in the more town part of the island.
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_02: So people knew, you know, we their house was right across the street from high school.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_02: So people knew where we we lived or where they thought we lived, and that that was fine.
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_02: But when we went out to our house, no one came out that way.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_02: Now it's a little bit different, you know.
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_02: Now, you know, when I my son goes home, his friends know exactly where to go pick him up.
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_02: People will come by and knock on a door and he goes out.
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_02: It's weirdest thing.
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah.
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_02: Having the hangout houses is you have to have a place where either your kids feel comfortable and their friends are comfortable coming over, or you're comfortable with the place where your children are hanging out.
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_01: So that's very important.
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_01: It is very important.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_02: It always is.
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I and some people like, I couldn't do that.
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_01: That couldn't be my house.
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, at least I know where my kid is at.
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 43:21
  SPEAKER_02: And you know where your kid is at.
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I know who who they're hanging around with.
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_01: Correct.
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_01: I think since we've been in this house, I've only had to ban one kid.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_02: Oh.
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_02: You ever came home and find children in your house eating your food?
• 43:33
  SPEAKER_02: I came home one day from work and I'm like hearing all these voices.
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_02: And then they're up in the kitchen and they're cooking and baking things.
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_02: And my first thought is like, you could cook.
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, What?
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_02: But it it they felt comfortable being at the house.
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_02: And it was a place where they were safe, their parents knew where they were.
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_02: And if anything, a parent could call and say, Hey, is such and such there?
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_02: We're good.
• 43:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, or to walk in your house or Come downstairs and then it's like, what are you doing?
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, oh hey, Miss Harris, I'm just getting some water.
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just getting a popsicle.
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_01: Go live here.
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_01: Get your little dirty hands out of my refrigerator.
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you buy groceries.
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_01: You just came in from outside.
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_01: Go get this.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_01: There's a whole water tank in the garage.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_01: Don't try to take my water bottles.
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_01: Like I've told the kids, I say, make sure you bring you a water bottle, like what y'all have at football practice.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_01: You can fill up and get as much water as you want out of the water cooler.
• 44:32
  SPEAKER_02: Out of the community cooler in the garage.
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_01: In the garage.
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_01: Y'all don't even have to step foot in the house.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_01: You go out there, you get your water, you go.
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_01: If we have popsicles, I'll let y'all know.
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_01: Get your popsicle.
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_01: That is it.
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_01: But y'all are not about to eat up all my fruit.
• 44:49
  SPEAKER_01: Y'all not about to eat up all my chicken nuggets.
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_01: My chicken nuggets.
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
• 44:55
  SPEAKER_01: You're not about to come up in here and think you're about to eat what we cook for dinner unless we invited you.
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_01: You'd be oh my God.
• 45:03
  SPEAKER_01: Then one thing that is good though, when some of these kids get dropped off, next thing you know, there's like little Caesars, dominoes, and Papa John's being delivered to the house.
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_01: And all you can say is, who ordered that?
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_01: Who ordered this?
• 45:21
  SPEAKER_01: And then you get a text message.
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, this is so-and-so.
• 45:25
  SPEAKER_01: Or hey, pizza should be there in the next 20 minutes.
• 45:30
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, I don't know if the kids had anything to eat, but I ordered them pizza.
• 45:37
  SPEAKER_01: Then you have somebody that's like, hey, I ordered them some wings.
• 45:41
  SPEAKER_01: What do y'all plan on picking y'all kids up?
• 45:44
  SPEAKER_02: Did they move in?
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_02: I'm glad you're feeding them, but they're getting way too comfortable.
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_01: We've had kids get dropped off as early as 7 a.m.
• 45:51
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, sir, ma'am.
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_01: We sleep.
• 45:53
  SPEAKER_01: Are you running a camp?
• 45:54
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_01: During the summertime, I ask myself that question.
• 45:59
  SPEAKER_01: They get dropped off.
• 46:00
  SPEAKER_01: They have food for them.
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_01: They have food for my sons.
• 46:04
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my God.
• 46:04
  SPEAKER_01: And then that same parent will say, Hey, thank you.
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_01: We appreciate it.
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_01: I'm ordering them pizza and wings.
• 46:12
  SPEAKER_01: It should, I got it scheduled to be there by one o'clock.
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_01: I'll be there to pick them up at seven.
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_01: So wait a minute.
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_01: Your kid's standing at my house for 12 hours.
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_01: I don't even remember us having this conversation as adults.
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_01: When did this happen?
• 46:26
  SPEAKER_01: But they outside.
• 46:30
  SPEAKER_02: But they feel comfortable, they feel safe.
• 46:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and your children know that these are people who are in their community.
• 46:40
  SPEAKER_02: And that's a that's a that's a very valuable, a valuable thing.
• 46:44
  SPEAKER_02: You gotta know who your friends are, you gotta know who your people are.
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_01: You have to know.
• 46:49
  SPEAKER_01: You have to know.
• 46:50
  SPEAKER_01: And again, I talk to the majority of the parents, so it's not just me getting to know these kids and saying, okay, that's not your friend, that's not your friend, that's gonna be somebody that's gonna ride with you until the end.
• 47:04
  SPEAKER_01: You know, y'all will grow up together.
• 47:06
  SPEAKER_01: It's not just that, because where I come from, it's as a parent, we're gonna come in the house.
• 47:13
  SPEAKER_01: We're gonna see what the house looks like.
• 47:16
  SPEAKER_01: Because I'm dropping my kid off here.
• 47:18
  SPEAKER_02: Correct.
• 47:18
  SPEAKER_01: No, this is what these kids do.
• 47:21
  SPEAKER_01: Hello?
• 47:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 47:24
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_01: Dad, so-and-so is here.
• 47:28
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, okay, cool.
• 47:29
  SPEAKER_01: Walk downstairs thinking I'm about to meet the parents.
• 47:32
  SPEAKER_01: Guess what?
• 47:32
  SPEAKER_01: The parent is already out of the neighborhood.
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, so y'all not gonna my mother's thing is that you don't live outside, right?
• 47:41
  SPEAKER_02: So if somebody came to pick you up, there was no beep beep outside.
• 47:46
  SPEAKER_02: You you don't answer to a car horn.
• 47:49
  SPEAKER_02: You know, um, you you don't live, you don't live outside.
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_02: And so somebody got to come inside, come in, knock on a door, and come inside so that they can be received.
• 48:02
  SPEAKER_02: So we um we moved here when my son started high school.
• 48:07
  SPEAKER_02: And so for his 16th birthday, he had, you know, had some of his his friends uh from uh Concord, and then two of his friends came from St.
• 48:15
  SPEAKER_02: Thomas.
• 48:16
  SPEAKER_02: And I remember, you know, I was like, well, who are you inviting?
• 48:19
  SPEAKER_02: What are we doing?
• 48:20
  SPEAKER_02: You know, he had a whole day of activities and what have you.
• 48:23
  SPEAKER_02: And he told me these kids he wanted to invite.
• 48:25
  SPEAKER_02: And at that time, I think I only knew one of his friends um that I met.
• 48:30
  SPEAKER_02: And so there were uh two other kids that were coming, or uh one young man, his dad dropped him off.
• 48:38
  SPEAKER_02: And so they were getting ready to leave to go to their lunch.
• 48:42
  SPEAKER_02: And the dad pulled up and I went to greet him and so forth.
• 48:45
  SPEAKER_02: And so he was like, Yes, I'm here to meet the parents.
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, hi, I'm Raphael's mom.
• 48:50
  SPEAKER_02: And he was like, Okay, and where's his dad?
• 48:52
  SPEAKER_02: I said, Well, you know, and I had to explain to him that, you know, my husband had passed away.
• 48:56
  SPEAKER_02: And so, but I this gentleman got out of this car and he walked with swiftness and purpose over to me to make sure he what?
• 49:04
  SPEAKER_02: Met the parent that night.
• 49:07
  SPEAKER_02: They, you know, they went to lunch, they went, they hung out, they came back to the house, and Raphael says, Hey, mom, such and such wants to stay over.
• 49:14
  SPEAKER_02: Such and such was plural because there were about eight kids in my house.
• 49:18
  SPEAKER_02: And so I said, Well, what about, you know, the one kid I knew?
• 49:21
  SPEAKER_02: And I said, Well, is it all right with his parents?
• 49:24
  SPEAKER_02: And his dad had been blowing up my phone.
• 49:27
  SPEAKER_02: He could not come over to meet me, but he wanted to talk to me to make sure that he knew me, that I knew him, and so on and so forth before his kids stayed at the house.
• 49:37
  SPEAKER_02: And I was just pleased because I knew how it was growing up in a Caribbean household where my mother, you didn't go somewhere if you didn't know somebody.
• 49:47
  SPEAKER_02: You know, my mother knew my friends and their parents and so on and so forth.
• 49:51
  SPEAKER_02: Embarrassing.
• 49:51
  SPEAKER_02: They the way it may have been that my mother wanted to talk to my my parents, friends, my friends' parents, but you knew who people were.
• 49:58
  SPEAKER_02: And so I was just so happy that my son had found a community of friends where that was the norm as well.
• 50:05
  SPEAKER_02: You know, and whether he's in college now, I knew his roommate's parents.
• 50:10
  SPEAKER_02: That's what you're supposed to that's what you're supposed to do.
• 50:13
  SPEAKER_02: That's what you're supposed to do.
• 50:14
  SPEAKER_02: That's what you're supposed to do.
• 50:15
  SPEAKER_02: You have to, you have to have context.
• 50:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 50:19
  SPEAKER_01: So and my son's been playing football, so on any given day, I could go home today and half of the football team might be at my house eating your food.
• 50:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 50:30
  SPEAKER_01: With the pizza that their parents deliver to.
• 50:33
  SPEAKER_01: And anytime I pull up, they'll be like, What's up, coach?
• 50:37
  SPEAKER_01: What's up, Mr.
• 50:38
  SPEAKER_01: Harris?
• 50:38
  SPEAKER_01: How you doing?
• 50:39
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, um, man, you ain't gonna believe this, man.
• 50:42
  SPEAKER_01: My mama says she can't pick me up till nine o'clock in the morning.
• 50:45
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, there's no way.
• 50:47
  SPEAKER_01: Because they just want to stay.
• 50:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 50:49
  SPEAKER_01: You know, he has a birthday party and it's like Jacob.
• 50:52
  SPEAKER_01: How many people do you expect to be here?
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_01: He runs the list and I'm like, that's like 15, 20 kids.
• 50:59
  SPEAKER_01: He's like, Yeah, I know.
• 51:01
  SPEAKER_01: I say, okay, more important question.
• 51:03
  SPEAKER_02: When to go home.
• 51:05
  SPEAKER_01: How many of them plan on spending the night?
• 51:07
  SPEAKER_01: Because I know you.
• 51:08
  SPEAKER_01: He's like, Well, I know.
• 51:10
  SPEAKER_01: And he runs off a list of about 10 people.
• 51:13
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, they gotta go home.
• 51:18
  SPEAKER_02: Then turn your house into the army barracks.
• 51:21
  SPEAKER_01: Turn my house into football camp.
• 51:23
  SPEAKER_02: People sleeping on your floor, all over the place.
• 51:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 51:26
  SPEAKER_01: And these kids literally sleep almost anywhere.
• 51:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 51:29
  SPEAKER_01: They sleep in my son's room, they sleep in my baby boy's room, they sleep in the loft.
• 51:34
  SPEAKER_01: They one kid fell asleep in the hallway.
• 51:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, you couldn't find nowhere else.
• 51:43
  SPEAKER_01: There were so many kids in my house.
• 51:48
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm waking up like this looks like a fret party gone wrong.
• 51:54
  SPEAKER_01: And they're all laid out.
• 51:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I always tell make sure you bring you a cover or a blanket and a pillow.
• 52:00
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 52:00
  SPEAKER_01: And a toothbrush and some deodorant.
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_02: You gotta keep the extras.
• 52:05
  SPEAKER_02: You gotta keep the extras.
• 52:07
  SPEAKER_01: We don't have any more extras because they even use them all.
• 52:11
  SPEAKER_01: They've used them all.
• 52:13
  SPEAKER_02: Be like, this is your toothbrush, and we're gonna keep it here.
• 52:17
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, you know, in a little bag from when you come over the next time.
• 52:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 52:23
  SPEAKER_01: So I think we'd have gone left enough.
• 52:26
  SPEAKER_01: Oh God, we went all the way left.
• 52:28
  SPEAKER_01: But I mean, that just goes to show that we love our kids and we pay attention to who they're around.
• 52:34
  SPEAKER_02: That's correct.
• 52:35
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and and again, we're talking about children.
• 52:39
  SPEAKER_01: You write children's books.
• 52:43
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think we got too far off the path.
• 52:45
  SPEAKER_02: No, because what if you take what three lefts you end up at a right?
• 52:47
  SPEAKER_02: So we we we're we're right on target.
• 52:49
  SPEAKER_01: We can see spin the block.
• 52:53
  SPEAKER_01: Not like that, but spin the block.
• 52:54
  SPEAKER_01: Just keep making a left.
• 52:56
  SPEAKER_01: You end up back where you're supposed to be.
• 52:57
  SPEAKER_02: Right where you're supposed to be.
• 52:59
  SPEAKER_01: So I know you have had time between these two books, right?
• 53:06
  SPEAKER_02: About a 12-year gap.
• 53:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 53:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 53:11
  SPEAKER_01: So time with that, right?
• 53:15
  SPEAKER_01: You have other books that are in the process, but in your current state, with all the chatter with with the children that that we have, that we are watching become grown men and women, how how's the support been from first book to second book to the live stream to now?
• 53:43
  SPEAKER_02: Um I guess I'll I'll answer it like in a couple of ways.
• 53:46
  SPEAKER_02: So, first, when I wrote The Never Snowy Christmas, my son was in the second grade.
• 53:52
  SPEAKER_02: Um the next book I am, he and his friends were at this came out as they were finishing their freshman year of college.
• 54:00
  SPEAKER_02: So there's been some time, some evolution.
• 54:03
  SPEAKER_02: And it's so funny because one of his friends would keep asking and asking Raphael, hey, is your mom gonna write another book?
• 54:12
  SPEAKER_02: Because he he got the book in the second grade.
• 54:14
  SPEAKER_02: But so the reception of the books, the books has has always been great for me in St.
• 54:22
  SPEAKER_02: Thomas because I go places and then you see his little friends, and oh, you're Raphael's mom.
• 54:27
  SPEAKER_02: And now they get older, and there's another generation of kids that are reading the Nervous Snowy Christmas.
• 54:34
  SPEAKER_02: So I really, I really like that to see how it continues to another group of children.
• 54:40
  SPEAKER_02: Um in terms of the reception of I Am.
• 54:45
  SPEAKER_02: And because we try to do this, um, we did this a little small, um, making sure that we took it back to St.
• 54:51
  SPEAKER_02: Thomas for our on island launch.
• 54:54
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, just being able to have the conversations and or I was at a bookstore and doing a reading, and they had the Never Snowy Christmas and they had I Am.
• 55:02
  SPEAKER_02: And it was now another generation of kids.
• 55:05
  SPEAKER_02: And there was a little girl who was um a student at the school where my son attended.
• 55:10
  SPEAKER_02: And she's probably, you know, for second grade, and it took me right back to to thinking about the launch of the book, so the of the original book.
• 55:18
  SPEAKER_02: So that's um that's always that that is very humbling because when I go places and um a parent might say to their kid, and I had that happen, a parent said to her child, This is a lady who wrote The Never Snowy Christmas.
• 55:35
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, Oh my gosh.
• 55:36
  SPEAKER_02: And like I just thought I was writing a book for my son.
• 55:40
  SPEAKER_02: So I I think about what you start and thinking that it's something very simple, but but it is also very impactful.
• 55:51
  SPEAKER_02: So the day we launched I Am, I was on St.
• 55:54
  SPEAKER_02: Thomas, and um I wanted to start launch that book the way I launched the first one with reading to students.
• 56:02
  SPEAKER_02: And so, well, my son is no longer second grade, so I can't go read to a second grade class, but I went back to his preschool and I read to a group of students there, and it was just so much fun um to be with those to the with that new group of children.
• 56:16
  SPEAKER_02: But there was a young lady there who I think she's about in the sixth grade, and she struggles with um a little bit of anxiety and shyness, and she's with some bullying at school.
• 56:29
  SPEAKER_02: And so her little brother is a student at the preschool.
• 56:33
  SPEAKER_02: And so the director of the preschool invited her to come and read to the children just to kind of help her to blossom and step out of being shy.
• 56:43
  SPEAKER_02: And so she was already there to read to the kids.
• 56:46
  SPEAKER_02: And um, and so here I come deciding I want to read a book too.
• 56:49
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, well, I'm not gonna overshadow this little girl.
• 56:52
  SPEAKER_02: So I had her read the book with me to them.
• 56:56
  SPEAKER_02: And so I see it as a continuation, you know, you go from one book to the next, from one small group of children to the next group.
• 57:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so that's kind of where I am from like the book standpoint.
• 57:07
  SPEAKER_02: But I've also taken it, and you saw a big piece of it when we did the virtual launch here, that we wanted to elevate beyond just a book.
• 57:17
  SPEAKER_02: And I say this a lot that I am is more than just a book.
• 57:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I really think of it in terms of uh an ecosystem, an extension of certain things.
• 57:27
  SPEAKER_02: So a lot of people, and um this some this is a project that I'm working on right now for children's book authors, that we think about the fact that we've written a book and that's kind of where it ends.
• 57:38
  SPEAKER_02: And so as I started this, and I told you when I wrote The Never Snowy Christmas, I you know, texted my sister and I said, Hey, I think I wrote a book.
• 57:45
  SPEAKER_02: And that's kind of what we think about.
• 57:46
  SPEAKER_02: I wrote a book, I'm gonna get it published, whether I put it on Amazon or or you know, Ingram Spark or whatever, or I settle sell it independently, I have this book, and that's what that's all it is.
• 57:57
  SPEAKER_02: And that's sort of where I started with the first book, but I started to see that really there's more from it because you want to engage people.
• 58:07
  SPEAKER_02: There's there's a there's a message, um, there's a a promise essentially behind every book.
• 58:15
  SPEAKER_02: This book, yes, it's about a little boy who wanted it to snow on St.
• 58:18
  SPEAKER_02: Thomas, but is it really?
• 58:21
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's about dreaming, it's about the determination of believing in something and how how you go about creating it, right?
• 58:30
  SPEAKER_02: I am, yes, it is a story that's inspired by a poem my father wrote about children on on St.
• 58:36
  SPEAKER_02: Thomas and looking for these jewels, but it's about connection and identity and even in community because they're doing it together.
• 58:45
  SPEAKER_02: And so, what is the promise behind your book?
• 58:48
  SPEAKER_02: And then how do you extend that?
• 58:50
  SPEAKER_02: And so, what we did with I Am, we had our collection box that we we showed during the virtual launch.
• 58:57
  SPEAKER_02: And so the collection box brings the book to life in other forms.
• 59:03
  SPEAKER_02: And so children have a chance to um not just read the book, but be able to experience it, right?
• 59:09
  SPEAKER_02: And bring it into their daily practice.
• 59:11
  SPEAKER_02: And so we built affirmations that went along with the book because I didn't want to just leave it there.
• 59:16
  SPEAKER_02: I want to just say, hey, this is a book you should feel empowered and believe in yourself and you were a jewel the end.
• 59:21
  SPEAKER_02: Let's move right along.
• 59:22
  SPEAKER_02: No.
• 59:22
  SPEAKER_02: So I want to do something else with that.
• 59:24
  SPEAKER_02: And so there was the creation of our stickers that went with our affirmations, and then the creation of our I am 30-day jewel journal, where it's a whole program that's based on the five core affirmations and how to support how to support a child, even an adult, because I'm doing the jewel journey myself right now, but really taking them through, you know, who you are and how do you affirm yourself and how do you put that into everyday practice?
• 59:53
  SPEAKER_02: And so it's really just it's now looking at where do we go from just this particular product?
• 1:00:02
  SPEAKER_02: Because it's really not, I don't think a book is just to be there to be read.
• 1:00:07
  SPEAKER_02: Where do you take it beyond that shelf?
• 1:00:09
  SPEAKER_02: And so if you go based on the promise that's at the heart of your book, how do you continue to extend that experience?
• 1:00:17
  SPEAKER_02: And so it's a book, it's a journal, it's a curriculum that if you put it into a school while they're set in the Virgin Islands, there's the opportunity if I were if I were talking to a teacher in a classroom, how do you teach about geography?
• 1:00:34
  SPEAKER_02: How do you teach about, how do you teach math?
• 1:00:37
  SPEAKER_02: So I am is a perfect example of teaching a math, uh, a math lesson because they start on St.
• 1:00:43
  SPEAKER_02: Croix and then they go to St.
• 1:00:44
  SPEAKER_02: Thomas and they go to St.
• 1:00:45
  SPEAKER_02: John and they go to Water Island.
• 1:00:47
  SPEAKER_02: Well, how do you get from one place to the next to the next?
• 1:00:50
  SPEAKER_02: What's the distance?
• 1:00:52
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you can teach science.
• 1:00:53
  SPEAKER_02: What is the topography?
• 1:00:55
  SPEAKER_02: So you create a whole ecosystem around what is just considered a book.
• 1:01:02
  SPEAKER_02: You teach rhyme scheme, you teach literary devices, it becomes a whole tool.
• 1:01:08
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and by extension, takes you really beyond just, oh, I wrote a book.
• 1:01:14
  SPEAKER_01: So it's definitely more than just words on a paper with some pictures.
• 1:01:20
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, yeah.
• 1:01:22
  SPEAKER_01: You have to lead them on a journey, even if they don't realize what their journey is in the process.
• 1:01:30
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and and I think about that, which is kind of a bad comparison, but I think about that like some video games, you know.
• 1:01:37
  SPEAKER_01: There are games that teach you these things, you know, and it helps with what is it, the the cognitives and you know, placement.
• 1:01:51
  SPEAKER_01: Spatial awareness.
• 1:01:52
  SPEAKER_01: We're we're talking about going to different cities in the book where there are games where you drive or ride a horse, and it's literally that real distance in the game.
• 1:02:05
  SPEAKER_01: So if it's like a normal 30-minute drive, it's literally gonna take you 30 minutes in this video game.
• 1:02:13
  unknown: Wow.
• 1:02:14
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you have to ride a horse five kilometers.
• 1:02:18
  SPEAKER_01: You might not know what five kilometers really is, but by the time you get halfway there, you you're learning, oh, okay, well, if I arrive here, that means I've gone this far.
• 1:02:30
  SPEAKER_01: It's gonna take me maybe another five-minute ride on this horse to reach it.
• 1:02:35
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you have to spend coins, you know, uh credit.
• 1:02:41
  SPEAKER_01: So you're learning math.
• 1:02:42
  SPEAKER_01: That is correct.
• 1:02:44
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and you're giving them a space to remove the video game, still learn some of the same things, and go on an adventure that nobody else is going on with you except the characters in this book.
• 1:03:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 1:03:01
  SPEAKER_01: Did I sum that up real good?
• 1:03:03
  SPEAKER_01: That sounded real good.
• 1:03:03
  SPEAKER_02: It didn't sound good.
• 1:03:05
  SPEAKER_02: It did.
• 1:03:06
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, you did.
• 1:03:06
  SPEAKER_02: You summed it up really well.
• 1:03:08
  SPEAKER_02: Because it's I don't, even in anything that we do, I don't think it's just um, was it Luther Van Dross?
• 1:03:16
  SPEAKER_02: What do you say?
• 1:03:16
  SPEAKER_02: A chair is just is is just a chair?
• 1:03:18
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I don't think it's just a chair.
• 1:03:19
  SPEAKER_02: It always, it always becomes something more.
• 1:03:22
  SPEAKER_02: So I'll take, so I'll start with the Never Snowy Christmas.
• 1:03:27
  SPEAKER_02: Again, when I wrote it, that was it.
• 1:03:29
  SPEAKER_02: It was, I just wanted to write this book so I can satisfy this egg that my mom told me I needed to hatch.
• 1:03:34
  SPEAKER_02: Boom, done.
• 1:03:35
  unknown: Right.
• 1:03:36
  SPEAKER_02: But I couldn't just be done.
• 1:03:37
  SPEAKER_02: Because as I got into it, I was like, well, what if?
• 1:03:40
  SPEAKER_02: What can I do?
• 1:03:41
  SPEAKER_02: What else?
• 1:03:42
  SPEAKER_02: And so I came up with this contest called Be the Story, because I wanted to see if school kids can, you know, create their own version of the story.
• 1:03:52
  SPEAKER_02: What would y'all come up with?
• 1:03:54
  SPEAKER_02: And um, this fourth grade class, they created like a whole little musical and they made a little movie.
• 1:03:58
  SPEAKER_02: And I was blown away.
• 1:04:00
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 1:04:01
  SPEAKER_02: And then we did um we did like a painting event, you know, where you paint the story.
• 1:04:07
  SPEAKER_02: And so there are all of these different, you know, pieces of of extension, things that you can uh we've had people that have done science lessons about why it doesn't, you can talk about why it doesn't snow in St.
• 1:04:18
  SPEAKER_02: Thomas, you can talk about geography, and you can talk about the science.
• 1:04:20
  SPEAKER_02: So they're like science kits.
• 1:04:22
  SPEAKER_02: So there's always something that you can use to teach.
• 1:04:25
  SPEAKER_02: But people, I'm gonna jump on the from that to the video games, right?
• 1:04:30
  SPEAKER_02: So you mentioned Roblox.
• 1:04:31
  SPEAKER_02: My son played Roblox all the time, and he also played Minecraft.
• 1:04:34
  SPEAKER_02: Now we were having a conversation about Minecraft.
• 1:04:39
  SPEAKER_02: I do not know how to play Minecraft.
• 1:04:41
  SPEAKER_02: Never learned, and I'm okay if I haven't, but I understand some very basic concepts.
• 1:04:45
  SPEAKER_02: And from watching him, and I remember years before, he had said something about, Mom, I have to finish this before it gets dark, because if it gets dark, I can't see and blah, blah, blah, whatever happens in the game.
• 1:04:56
  SPEAKER_02: And so we were talking, you know, recently just about timing and the importance of doing things at a certain time.
• 1:05:06
  SPEAKER_02: Now, time management.
• 1:05:09
  SPEAKER_02: And I said, You remember when you used to play Minecraft?
• 1:05:12
  SPEAKER_02: And if you didn't do such and such, you had to go collect all of your blocks and your food and your this or that.
• 1:05:18
  SPEAKER_02: And if you got stuck outside at night, what used to happen?
• 1:05:21
  SPEAKER_02: Time management.
• 1:05:23
  SPEAKER_02: That's what robots, that's what Minecraft taught you.
• 1:05:26
  SPEAKER_02: We were talking about things like um just how to, even if you want to call it early project planning and how to manage your schedule or put things in order.
• 1:05:36
  SPEAKER_02: My son's a big Lego builder.
• 1:05:37
  SPEAKER_02: And so we were talking about um something very recently, just about how to how to structure and how to kind of move through in an order to execute, you know, plan step, step, step to execute on your goal.
• 1:05:50
  SPEAKER_02: And I grabbed um, I think it's we have this iron hulk Lego thing, right?
• 1:05:55
  SPEAKER_02: That we we're supposed to put together.
• 1:05:57
  SPEAKER_02: I promise you we're gonna put it together.
• 1:05:59
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 1:06:00
  SPEAKER_02: But I open up the box and I'm big on metaphors.
• 1:06:04
  SPEAKER_02: And I thought about, you know, Legos as a metaphor.
• 1:06:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, if you step on them, they they could cripple you, you know, but there's some value, some additional value, right?
• 1:06:14
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of kids decide to go into engineering and architecture because of Legos.
• 1:06:17
  SPEAKER_02: Yay.
• 1:06:18
  SPEAKER_02: But I pulled the bags out and I said, when you are putting together your Legos, right?
• 1:06:26
  SPEAKER_02: Well, what do you do?
• 1:06:27
  SPEAKER_02: You, you know, you go with the instructions.
• 1:06:29
  SPEAKER_02: They give you instructions for a reason.
• 1:06:31
  SPEAKER_02: And they don't give all the instructions.
• 1:06:33
  SPEAKER_02: They don't say just go put all this random stuff together.
• 1:06:35
  SPEAKER_02: No.
• 1:06:36
  SPEAKER_02: It's in some kind of order.
• 1:06:38
  SPEAKER_02: And I said, the pieces are the pieces in the big old mosh pit?
• 1:06:43
  SPEAKER_02: No.
• 1:06:44
  SPEAKER_02: They are organized.
• 1:06:45
  SPEAKER_02: If you have, I've put Legos together.
• 1:06:48
  SPEAKER_02: I had this wonderful Gomorrah Lego uh figurine.
• 1:06:52
  SPEAKER_02: And I got a little frustrated because it gave me very precise things that I have to do.
• 1:06:58
  SPEAKER_02: I got to put her whole face together and then her arm.
• 1:07:00
  SPEAKER_02: Can I not just do it how I want?
• 1:07:02
  SPEAKER_02: That's how I can may flow.
• 1:07:04
  SPEAKER_02: But he was like, the reason why you have all of the face here in packet one is so you create that and then you move to packet two, and then you do the arms and packet three.
• 1:07:16
  SPEAKER_02: And so there's an order to it.
• 1:07:18
  SPEAKER_02: And so even in things that are designed for play, you know, we grew up on Sesame Street.
• 1:07:24
  SPEAKER_02: I grew up on Sesame Street.
• 1:07:25
  SPEAKER_02: It was designed for, we think it was designed for entertainment and play.
• 1:07:29
  SPEAKER_02: It was designed for us to learn a lot of the tenets that we needed back then, and it's now the application of that prior knowledge.
• 1:07:38
  SPEAKER_02: So, yes, in all things there's a lesson in Minecraft, Legos, and in books.
• 1:07:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, and it is up to the reader, the consumer to pull it.
• 1:07:53
  SPEAKER_01: And we might not even go on the same journey reading the same book.
• 1:07:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:07:58
  SPEAKER_01: Because we're we're thinking differently.
• 1:08:02
  SPEAKER_01: Same thing with video games.
• 1:08:04
  SPEAKER_01: Like we might follow the same path, but I'm gonna remember certain things that you're not gonna remember.
• 1:08:09
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I I tried to get into Minecraft long time ago.
• 1:08:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, I'm not about to walk around and just be chopping down blocks.
• 1:08:21
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not, this ain't it.
• 1:08:23
  SPEAKER_01: This is not, nope, I'm not gonna do it.
• 1:08:26
  SPEAKER_01: But you give me Zelda, Oak Arena of Time.
• 1:08:30
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my God.
• 1:08:32
  SPEAKER_01: I beat that game three times minimum already.
• 1:08:36
  SPEAKER_01: So I go and buy the next Zelda, and my mind is blown because it is a bigger open world.
• 1:08:45
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm learning where things are, then you know, every video game, there are things like um, like you said, metaphors.
• 1:08:55
  SPEAKER_01: You have to understand what this riddle is in order to solve it.
• 1:08:59
  SPEAKER_01: Even if they give you clues, you have to solve it.
• 1:09:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, and it to me, those are the best games, those are the best books, those are the best moments, not just as a kid, but even as an adult, because we're still focusing on critical thinking, yes, education, making sure you can understand what's going on and not just reading a prompt and acting it out.
• 1:09:29
  SPEAKER_01: You can read the instructions.
• 1:09:30
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes those instructions quote unquote be wrong until you realize they're not.
• 1:09:37
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes the instructions are just pictures.
• 1:09:41
  SPEAKER_01: We have to make out.
• 1:09:43
  SPEAKER_02: You have to determine what you do based on what you see.
• 1:09:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 1:09:48
  SPEAKER_02: And I with with with any with any kind of um thing you use, you talk about games.
• 1:09:54
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm thinking like Oregon Trail.
• 1:09:58
  SPEAKER_02: And so I've seen a lot of creators talk about, you know, Oregon Trail when you were, you know, that you played it when you were in school and so forth.
• 1:10:05
  SPEAKER_02: But I remember if you think back on Oregon Trail, what you learn from that, you know, you you you you learn geography, you learn how to take care of community, you know, because they give you the option, like if you want to go off by yourself and do something, next thing you know, you get attacked by, you know, a pack of coyotes or something like that.
• 1:10:25
  SPEAKER_02: You know, but um in elementary school.
• 1:10:28
  SPEAKER_02: I know, right?
• 1:10:29
  SPEAKER_02: Like, yeah, I didn't even know what dysentery was.
• 1:10:32
  SPEAKER_02: I still don't know what dysentery is, but it it it it taught you, it it sets you on a mission.
• 1:10:39
  SPEAKER_02: And I think things like Oregon Trail got you to the Zeldas, got you to the Fortnites.
• 1:10:47
  SPEAKER_02: Like my I, my son and his friends, they play Fortnite and so forth and whatever else they play, but I couldn't get into Fortnite.
• 1:10:56
  SPEAKER_02: But if somebody puts Oregon Trail back out, I would do that because I want to see if I can bring my whole, you know, my whole little tribe from where they are over to out west.
• 1:11:06
  SPEAKER_01: But as bad as it it is, if you if you dig into it, Sims, I'm not gonna I'm not gonna lie.
• 1:11:17
  SPEAKER_01: I want to be able to sit with Sims and you know weed through it and get my kids on it.
• 1:11:25
  SPEAKER_01: Because I mean, you're learning how to grow up being adult, responsibilities.
• 1:11:34
  SPEAKER_01: But I've even seen things where it's like a lady left the game on, next thing she knows, her character's pregnant, and then come to find out her character is pregnant by a vampire that she invites to meet the kid at a park, which kills him.
• 1:11:54
  SPEAKER_01: Now she's got all these crazy things going on with her character.
• 1:11:58
  SPEAKER_01: So it's like even with that, it's reminder of like lock your door, lock your door, you know, and you gotta safeguard yourself.
• 1:12:08
  SPEAKER_01: Like she like she just oh, I'm about to go to the store, I'll be back.
• 1:12:13
  SPEAKER_01: Comes back and she goes to sleep, or whatever the situation was, and it's just like how this happened, you know.
• 1:12:21
  SPEAKER_01: Now you got all these issues going, so it still teaches you a very valuable lesson.
• 1:12:28
  SPEAKER_01: And again, I kind of want to vet through it myself because I got the game.
• 1:12:34
  SPEAKER_01: I've never played it.
• 1:12:35
  SPEAKER_01: I I haven't either.
• 1:12:37
  SPEAKER_01: I just I have it, I've got a lot of games.
• 1:12:40
  SPEAKER_01: Wow, you know, they used to give games out like one free game, two free games a month.
• 1:12:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, I might play this, you know, download, install, own, you know, whatever the case may be, add to my collections.
• 1:12:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:12:56
  SPEAKER_01: And I used to have a plethora of books the same way.
• 1:13:00
  SPEAKER_01: And if oh, if I could find it, I have almost every goosebumps book.
• 1:13:05
  SPEAKER_01: I have almost every goosebumps book.
• 1:13:09
  SPEAKER_02: My son had a goosebumps, so all these different series.
• 1:13:13
  SPEAKER_02: So you had like the goosebumps, and then you had um, well, he loved, what is it?
• 1:13:20
  SPEAKER_02: Mighty robot.
• 1:13:21
  SPEAKER_02: And then there was um a bunch, oh my goodness, I can see it.
• 1:13:26
  SPEAKER_02: It was the magic.
• 1:13:27
  SPEAKER_02: I bought him like all the magic tree house, anything that came in a series, just so that you know you can continue to go through that.
• 1:13:36
  SPEAKER_02: And then he there was all obviously Diary of the Wumpy Kid, but then he got into reading James Patterson.
• 1:13:42
  SPEAKER_02: Like, what are you doing with a James Patterson book?
• 1:13:45
  SPEAKER_02: James Patterson wrote children's books as well, well, young adults.
• 1:13:49
  SPEAKER_02: And he did a collaboration with Kwame Alexander.
• 1:13:52
  SPEAKER_02: So they have um, I think it's yeah, they did a book several years ago.
• 1:13:56
  SPEAKER_02: But they're just there were some really cool series that um that the kids could get into.
• 1:14:04
  SPEAKER_02: And if you you know, way before the Harry Potters, and I think it teaches them like some continuity of things, you know.
• 1:14:12
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, and I love them, I love the mystery ones.
• 1:14:15
  SPEAKER_02: So see, I grew up with like Sweet Valley High, and okay, Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys, it was kind of weird, but anyway, you know.
• 1:14:23
  SPEAKER_02: But goosebumps, yeah.
• 1:14:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I I kind of slowed down on reading books after like middle school.
• 1:14:32
  SPEAKER_01: Why does that happen?
• 1:14:34
  SPEAKER_01: I know for me, it was like, ew, you read books, you wonder.
• 1:14:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, at that time, I didn't know how to embrace that.
• 1:14:43
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and I stopped.
• 1:14:45
  SPEAKER_01: But I mean, I also wrote the school bus with my grandma, and I read the dictionary.
• 1:14:51
  SPEAKER_01: So I was into I read the thesaurus, yes.
• 1:14:56
  SPEAKER_01: I dabbled in it, I left it.
• 1:14:58
  SPEAKER_01: I even read the the Spanish thesaurus just so I could use bad words later.
• 1:15:04
  SPEAKER_02: Hey, you know, you have to have that there has to be something that drives you.
• 1:15:07
  SPEAKER_02: It's okay.
• 1:15:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, no judgment there at all, you know, none at all.
• 1:15:12
  SPEAKER_01: But I'm I'm I I slowed down, and now I when my kids do certain things and they tell me something, I'm like, oh, okay, give me a research paper.
• 1:15:23
  SPEAKER_01: It's not punishment, it's because I want you to really take the time to think about what you what you're saying.
• 1:15:31
  SPEAKER_01: End of you.
• 1:15:32
  SPEAKER_01: You know.
• 1:15:33
  SPEAKER_01: My baby boy did something, and I made him uh a list of seven things.
• 1:15:38
  SPEAKER_01: Some of these things were like one A and one B.
• 1:15:41
  SPEAKER_01: You know.
• 1:15:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, You can't touch that game until I get this report.
• 1:15:46
  SPEAKER_01: He gave me that thing the very next day.
• 1:15:48
  SPEAKER_01: I said, Now what I want you to understand is you just learned that determination can go a long way.
• 1:15:57
  SPEAKER_01: You just taught yourself how to research for a cause.
• 1:16:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 1:16:04
  SPEAKER_01: So when you ask me certain things or you're trying to know certain things, I want you to understand this is part of what you did, what you did is gonna help you.
• 1:16:12
  SPEAKER_01: Like you can't ask Siri everything because I I I'm thinking about these college papers or these papers in high school where you have to give references.
• 1:16:21
  SPEAKER_01: Correct.
• 1:16:21
  SPEAKER_01: I said, for each thing, I need three YouTube videos and I need the links so I can go and verify.
• 1:16:31
  SPEAKER_01: Correct.
• 1:16:32
  SPEAKER_01: So he he's basically learning how to research things on his own in the midst of being in trouble.
• 1:16:39
  SPEAKER_01: Like you are you might look at this as punishment, but I'm not punishing you.
• 1:16:44
  SPEAKER_01: I just want you to take what you do to the next level.
• 1:16:47
  SPEAKER_02: Because it's going to, it's gonna get you somewhere.
• 1:16:50
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 1:16:50
  SPEAKER_02: And they they they they may not they may not see it, they may not appreciate it, but the importance of research, um, being able to know where to find information, knowing what information is, being able to find information and knowing how to appropriately use it, I don't want to say see it become a lost art.
• 1:17:12
  SPEAKER_02: But correct.
• 1:17:14
  SPEAKER_02: Because it's not, it's not always, it's not always happening.
• 1:17:17
  SPEAKER_02: You know, and I know once my son started getting into YouTube, um, you know, he would talk about certain things.
• 1:17:22
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, what are you watching?
• 1:17:23
  SPEAKER_02: Who are you watching?
• 1:17:24
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know those people.
• 1:17:25
  SPEAKER_02: You can't believe everything from these weirdos that you see talking about yakkada yakada yakada.
• 1:17:30
  SPEAKER_02: And so he's a he's a news watcher and a news reader, and you know, he likes history.
• 1:17:38
  SPEAKER_02: And so when when kids are in when they're in school, now I know in high school, in his old school before he moved here, they would have to do um, they did these cross-curricular papers uh because they the students needed to get more practice and writing.
• 1:17:54
  SPEAKER_02: And so they would give them a paper that was tied to English history and science, you know, or something like that.
• 1:18:02
  SPEAKER_02: And so he made, I think he he wrote a paper on um, it was either English and science or English and history, and he wrote a paper on, you know, famous revolutions in the Caribbean, right?
• 1:18:16
  SPEAKER_02: And so one of his um best friends, his family's from Haiti, and so he wrote on the Haitian Revolution, you know, and in the US, in the now U.S.
• 1:18:26
  SPEAKER_02: Virgin Islands, um, we had multiple um revolutions starting as early as 1733 in St.
• 1:18:33
  SPEAKER_02: John.
• 1:18:34
  SPEAKER_02: And so he started writing about that.
• 1:18:36
  SPEAKER_02: And you can't, yes, you can find some of that on YouTube.
• 1:18:41
  SPEAKER_02: It's not in the encyclopedias that are at his nana's house, but you know what you can do?
• 1:18:45
  SPEAKER_02: You have their people that you can go and talk to.
• 1:18:48
  SPEAKER_02: They're elders in the community, they're historians.
• 1:18:50
  SPEAKER_02: And so as children write papers and they hopefully engage in research, it can't always be a hyperlink that you drop.
• 1:19:01
  SPEAKER_02: You know, go talk to somebody, go find somebody, interview them and ask them questions.
• 1:19:06
  SPEAKER_02: You're watching people on YouTube that interviewed someone to say what they're saying.
• 1:19:11
  SPEAKER_02: Now you do that.
• 1:19:13
  SPEAKER_02: Interview someone to get that knowledge so that you can put that back out there.
• 1:19:17
  SPEAKER_02: And um I I think some people lean on the extent of research, unfortunately, kind of becomes what they may have Googled or seen from one source or heard from one place.
• 1:19:33
  SPEAKER_02: And I think we need to really get back to the art of fully researching and gathering your information.
• 1:19:39
  SPEAKER_02: So kudos to you.
• 1:19:40
  SPEAKER_02: I hope you made that child submit an annotated bibliography with some footnotes or something.
• 1:19:45
  SPEAKER_01: I mean this time, but maybe next time.
• 1:19:48
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, he's only 12.
• 1:19:49
  SPEAKER_01: He's only 12.
• 1:19:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's a perfect time to learn, I'm scared.
• 1:19:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, but you might be right.
• 1:19:54
  SPEAKER_01: Because I mean, I and I did the same thing with my older son.
• 1:19:56
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, you know, you're about to start taking college classes as you enter high school.
• 1:20:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 1:20:03
  SPEAKER_01: So ninth grade, high school classes, and college classes, you're gonna graduate with an associate's degree at the end of these four years and a high school diploma.
• 1:20:14
  SPEAKER_01: What are you wanting to learn?
• 1:20:16
  SPEAKER_01: Think about it.
• 1:20:18
  SPEAKER_01: He comes back, he says, marketing.
• 1:20:20
  SPEAKER_01: I said, Okay, I need a paper.
• 1:20:24
  SPEAKER_01: What is marketing?
• 1:20:25
  SPEAKER_01: What are the different branches of marketing?
• 1:20:28
  SPEAKER_01: What is what is how much do you make in marketing?
• 1:20:32
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, then I need to know where you're trying to go with marketing because you've got instantly two or three clients that live in your house.
• 1:20:46
  SPEAKER_01: You have the podcast, you have my Tay with the Edditz YouTube channel, you have Charlotte Podcast Studio, you have Alan Lux Studios, and you have Artbox Charlotte.
• 1:20:57
  SPEAKER_01: We're here.
• 1:20:59
  SPEAKER_01: Let's start with this.
• 1:21:01
  SPEAKER_01: Let's let's start with me.
• 1:21:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 1:21:03
  SPEAKER_01: Because I'm already here.
• 1:21:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 1:21:06
  SPEAKER_01: Do your do this paper.
• 1:21:08
  SPEAKER_01: By the time you graduate high school, you at minimum have five clients.
• 1:21:14
  SPEAKER_01: You know, that's right.
• 1:21:15
  SPEAKER_01: You can start your own marketing firm at the age of 16, as far as I'm concerned.
• 1:21:20
  SPEAKER_01: So this is me teaching my kids things that were not taught to me, things that I had to learn.
• 1:21:26
  SPEAKER_01: You want to be a professional streamer?
• 1:21:27
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, great.
• 1:21:28
  SPEAKER_01: I need you to get your anger issues together.
• 1:21:32
  SPEAKER_01: So by the time you turn 13 or you're going live, you're not raging on camera and being the angry black kid that people are only watching as you break your controllers.
• 1:21:42
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you know, break your keyboard, things like you have to fix that in order for me to allow you to go live.
• 1:21:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, again, you have everything you need right here.
• 1:21:54
  SPEAKER_01: Dad got you.
• 1:21:55
  SPEAKER_01: But the thing is, I need to know this is what you want to do.
• 1:21:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:21:59
  SPEAKER_01: You know.
• 1:22:01
  SPEAKER_01: So even with that, we we have to just make sure that we continue to teach our children.
• 1:22:10
  SPEAKER_01: You know, sometimes like, don't let YouTube raise your kids, don't let the internet raise your kids.
• 1:22:15
  SPEAKER_01: But sometimes that tends to happen.
• 1:22:20
  SPEAKER_02: It's, I mean, I I don't know.
• 1:22:24
  SPEAKER_02: It it's what's there.
• 1:22:27
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you have to be able to exist within the environment.
• 1:22:29
  SPEAKER_02: It's kind of like, you know, baking a cake.
• 1:22:31
  SPEAKER_02: I used to live in in Denver.
• 1:22:33
  SPEAKER_02: Now it was Christmas.
• 1:22:34
  SPEAKER_02: My sister and I were baking some pastries, and I'd baked, I baked the very same recipe when I lived in Atlanta, and I was fine.
• 1:22:43
  SPEAKER_02: All right.
• 1:22:44
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:22:44
  SPEAKER_02: My cake was fine.
• 1:22:46
  SPEAKER_02: I moved to Denver, same recipe, did not turn out fine.
• 1:22:50
  SPEAKER_02: Turned out like a cookie.
• 1:22:51
  SPEAKER_02: Batter tasted great, but you try to make it, it didn't work out so well.
• 1:22:55
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, my my point is a lot of environmentally things are going to change.
• 1:23:01
  SPEAKER_02: They're going to be things that are around, and you've got to know how to operate within that context, within that framework.
• 1:23:08
  SPEAKER_02: And so, oh, I have to now learn how to bake at altitude, right?
• 1:23:14
  SPEAKER_02: So we live in a time where there's the ubiquity of social media, pervasiveness, some some people may say, of social media, of technology, of all of these different things.
• 1:23:25
  SPEAKER_02: Well, it it's not really practical to say, you know, there was this movie, I can't, I can't think of the name of it right now, but it was like with Brandon Fraser and um oh Christopher Walken, and they thought that the bigot, it was during the Bay of Pigs, and they thought that a nuclear bomb had hit the United States.
• 1:23:43
  SPEAKER_02: So they went into a family bunker, right?
• 1:23:46
  SPEAKER_02: And um, they stayed down there for a couple decades.
• 1:23:51
  SPEAKER_02: And what had actually happened is like a plane had crashed near their house or something, and it really was no explosion.
• 1:23:58
  SPEAKER_02: And because they had no access to the outside world, they didn't know what was going on.
• 1:24:01
  SPEAKER_02: So they stayed out there until they thought the radiation would be gone.
• 1:24:05
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know, they had essentially insulated themselves, bunkered themselves, and they had missed out and then he emerged and you know came out into the world to what it was.
• 1:24:14
  SPEAKER_02: And we cannot put our kids, we cannot live in a bunker just because of everything that's going on.
• 1:24:20
  SPEAKER_02: You can't live in a bunker.
• 1:24:21
  SPEAKER_02: So you've got to now learn how to contend, live within the context of what's going on.
• 1:24:28
  SPEAKER_02: And so if they're on YouTube, then you make sure that you are connected to their account.
• 1:24:35
  SPEAKER_02: You know who they're chatting with, what it's who they're talking to, and what they're doing.
• 1:24:38
  SPEAKER_02: But now it also can't just be for the for your consumption of someone else that's monetizing your consumption.
• 1:24:48
  SPEAKER_02: I need you to now think about how do you go from, you know, signing on the back of the check and they they signing on the front of the check because you essentially paying them.
• 1:25:00
  SPEAKER_02: So how do you do use this to create something else for you?
• 1:25:05
  SPEAKER_02: You know, if you are, and I've told my son, I was like, I am not spending real money for fake V-Bucks in Fortnite, and you want, you don't have no money.
• 1:25:16
  SPEAKER_02: That's my money.
• 1:25:17
  SPEAKER_02: So you don't get to just spend V-Bucks.
• 1:25:20
  SPEAKER_02: Think about that.
• 1:25:22
  SPEAKER_02: The more money you spend on these games, that's the less money you have to spend on things in life.
• 1:25:27
  SPEAKER_02: So think about what you can create.
• 1:25:29
  SPEAKER_02: If you are into coding, create a game that's somebody not gonna pay you for some V-Bucks, you know?
• 1:25:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 1:25:36
  SPEAKER_02: If you're gonna be, if you are playing this game so well, become a streamer and give, you know, be able to teach people about it.
• 1:25:45
  SPEAKER_02: There, there's something in everything that we're doing, even if I'm writing a book.
• 1:25:50
  SPEAKER_02: How do I, how do I teach somebody else?
• 1:25:53
  SPEAKER_02: Because somebody out there is watching, they want to write a book.
• 1:25:56
  SPEAKER_02: You want to write a book?
• 1:25:57
  SPEAKER_02: Well, let's sit down and talk.
• 1:25:58
  SPEAKER_02: We can talk about writing a book, but I can also talk to you about how to take it beyond the book that you've just written and how you extend it and what do you do that that takes it to another step.
• 1:26:08
  SPEAKER_02: And so we can't shelter them from you know, from the outside.
• 1:26:13
  SPEAKER_02: We're not gonna put them in a in a bunker and we're gonna grow tilapia, you know, in a bathtub.
• 1:26:18
  SPEAKER_02: We're not gonna do that.
• 1:26:19
  SPEAKER_02: We're gonna let them be outside in the world in context, but for them to really understand because they won't know how to navigate.
• 1:26:28
  SPEAKER_02: You know, somebody asks, oh my gosh, are you gonna, your son's gonna go off to school in Virginia?
• 1:26:34
  SPEAKER_02: Are you gonna move to Virginia?
• 1:26:36
  SPEAKER_02: Why am I moving to Virginia?
• 1:26:37
  SPEAKER_02: I live here.
• 1:26:38
  SPEAKER_02: No.
• 1:26:38
  SPEAKER_02: Well, how are you gonna deal with him being away at school?
• 1:26:41
  SPEAKER_02: Or why don't you have him stay, you know, stay here for school?
• 1:26:44
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, because when I graduated from high school, my parents let me leave.
• 1:26:50
  SPEAKER_02: They let me pack up my little things, put them in a suitcase, and go off to somebody's college.
• 1:26:57
  SPEAKER_02: When my mother graduated from high school, her parents let her leave.
• 1:27:03
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, she went to school in the 60s and she packed up her stuff, and my grandparents, I don't even think they traveled with her.
• 1:27:11
  SPEAKER_02: They put on a plane and she went to Illinois.
• 1:27:15
  SPEAKER_02: And so why would we we have to we we have to make sure that we give them the ability to operate it, you know, we call in context.
• 1:27:27
  SPEAKER_02: You've done all these things to raise.
• 1:27:29
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not saying take your foot off the gas now.
• 1:27:32
  SPEAKER_02: I I believe in a good life 360.
• 1:27:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 1:27:35
  SPEAKER_02: I told somebody um I was talking to some parents um at a college fair for Hampton, and I said, you know, because they wanted the perspective of someone whose kid was a freshman.
• 1:27:44
  SPEAKER_02: And I said, Well, my new favorite show to binge watch is called Life 360.
• 1:27:48
  SPEAKER_02: And somebody got on their phone and they were like, Is that on Netflix?
• 1:27:52
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, No, no, Matt is me.
• 1:27:58
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, He's there?
• 1:28:00
  SPEAKER_02: Why are you not there?
• 1:28:02
  SPEAKER_02: Where do you go?
• 1:28:03
  SPEAKER_02: And it's not, and you know, it's not that you spend your entire time.
• 1:28:07
  SPEAKER_02: I spent the first couple of weeks, life 360 in it, but you also have to, you got to give him the opportunity to go and do whatever that is.
• 1:28:17
  SPEAKER_02: Put some parameters in place.
• 1:28:19
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm not saying just let him go free range, because when he turns 13 and he's on that YouTube channel, you're going to be his 6801 subscriber.
• 1:28:29
  SPEAKER_02: I might be 6802.
• 1:28:30
  SPEAKER_02: Let me know.
• 1:28:31
  SPEAKER_02: Because somebody he has to know that there are people that are there that are that are kind of keeping you honest on what it is that you have to do.
• 1:28:40
  SPEAKER_02: Um and making sure that, because we also don't want them to, we don't want them to be afraid, but we don't want them to also think that everything is just rosy either.
• 1:28:50
  SPEAKER_02: You know.
• 1:28:52
  SPEAKER_01: They've seen some things, nothing bad, but we do have those conversations.
• 1:29:05
  SPEAKER_01: There are things that we cannot avoid, you know, within our lives.
• 1:29:13
  SPEAKER_01: But this is how you recognize it.
• 1:29:16
  SPEAKER_01: These are the things that you need to do to stay away.
• 1:29:20
  SPEAKER_01: But at the same time, don't live in a state of fear.
• 1:29:24
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you you still need to be a kid.
• 1:29:27
  SPEAKER_01: Correct.
• 1:29:28
  SPEAKER_01: You know, if the police show up, don't run.
• 1:29:31
  SPEAKER_01: Because if you're running, that means you were doing something that you shouldn't have been doing in the first place.
• 1:29:35
  SPEAKER_01: And my question is, why were you there?
• 1:29:37
  SPEAKER_01: Correct.
• 1:29:38
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you you need to know, hey, how's it going?
• 1:29:42
  SPEAKER_01: If they say anything, you say, hey, I'm getting my phone to call home.
• 1:29:47
  SPEAKER_03: My dad.
• 1:29:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, definitely call your daddy.
• 1:29:50
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:29:51
  SPEAKER_01: I'll go to jail.
• 1:29:52
  SPEAKER_01: I ain't worried about it.
• 1:29:54
  SPEAKER_01: Shamar can handle the studio.
• 1:29:55
  SPEAKER_01: I'll be back.
• 1:29:57
  SPEAKER_01: But, you know, I know how to have those conversations, you know, compared to a 12 and a 14-year-old kid as the police is riding down the neighborhood.
• 1:30:09
  SPEAKER_01: And it's rare that the police is in my neighborhood.
• 1:30:12
  SPEAKER_01: We live in a good neighborhood.
• 1:30:13
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I'm saying?
• 1:30:15
  SPEAKER_01: But if you just hop on your school and you decide to go to the gas station, that's literally not even half a mile outside of the neighborhood.
• 1:30:24
  SPEAKER_01: I know where you are.
• 1:30:25
  SPEAKER_01: Correct.
• 1:30:26
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I know how you're gonna get there, and I know how long you should be there and when you're coming back.
• 1:30:30
  SPEAKER_01: But in the process, you know, if the police decides to stop, you just tell them who I am.
• 1:30:38
  SPEAKER_01: Correct.
• 1:30:38
  SPEAKER_01: Not say that I know the police, but hey, my dad is so-and-so, I stay here.
• 1:30:43
  SPEAKER_02: You have context.
• 1:30:44
  SPEAKER_02: You have to give, yeah.
• 1:30:46
  SPEAKER_01: You know, so no, my kids are they're outside, but they're not outside, but they're they're outside.
• 1:30:55
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, like you said, you you don't want to shelter them too much.
• 1:31:01
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we grew up in a sense, we were outside, but we were sheltered.
• 1:31:07
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and and I'm speaking for like me, my brother, and my sister, like yeah, we were outside, but we were also sheltered.
• 1:31:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, like to go to sixth grade and you're literally the only person that's still wearing a high top fade.
• 1:31:19
  SPEAKER_01: Come on, mama.
• 1:31:20
  SPEAKER_01: Come on, you you should have told me nobody's wearing that anymore.
• 1:31:23
  SPEAKER_01: Listen.
• 1:31:24
  SPEAKER_01: Sheltered.
• 1:31:26
  SPEAKER_02: I yeah, I think people said that my sister would have said my sister and I were we're kind of sheltered.
• 1:31:33
  SPEAKER_02: But I would just say is that you were you were raised, you're raised a certain way.
• 1:31:37
  SPEAKER_02: Like, um, you know, we had curfews.
• 1:31:40
  SPEAKER_02: My mother's thing was that you could not go in high school, you could not go out to any school parties until 10th grade.
• 1:31:48
  SPEAKER_02: So all in ninth grade, I was at home.
• 1:31:53
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you went out at, you know, when you got into 10th grade, and um, I think my curfew used to be like till one o'clock in the morning.
• 1:32:03
  SPEAKER_02: And I think you didn't drive.
• 1:32:04
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I was 14, 14, 15.
• 1:32:07
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know, I wasn't driving.
• 1:32:08
  SPEAKER_02: My mother had to pick you up from a party, and she's like, listen, one o'clock is one o'clock.
• 1:32:14
  SPEAKER_02: She's like, I gotta go to church tomorrow.
• 1:32:16
  SPEAKER_02: I gotta do whatever I gotta do tomorrow.
• 1:32:18
  SPEAKER_02: And one o'clock is one o'clock.
• 1:32:20
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know, you there were parameters.
• 1:32:24
  SPEAKER_02: We had friends who could, you know, that had no curfew, that could hang out all night or or whatever.
• 1:32:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and one of the things like with my dad, um, you know, we my sister and I we talked about this, that she there was a different level of freedom that um I had with my dad.
• 1:32:42
  SPEAKER_02: So my mother was like, this is your curfew, this is the time.
• 1:32:46
  SPEAKER_02: My father was like, he didn't give you a time, but he believed you needed to govern yourself accordingly.
• 1:32:53
  SPEAKER_02: So I don't have to tell you to come home at one o'clock, and I don't have to tell you to come home at five o'clock is unacceptable because you should know that.
• 1:33:01
  SPEAKER_02: And so he would allow you to determine said time.
• 1:33:10
  SPEAKER_02: And based on how you determine, if you did determine incorrectly, you know you weren't going out again, right?
• 1:33:17
  SPEAKER_02: And so I think it's a it's a balance of giving structure and guardrails, but giving you the ability to kind of be free-range to see how it goes, but they can still snatch you back, you know?
• 1:33:32
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna let you be free with boundaries.
• 1:33:35
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
• 1:33:36
  SPEAKER_01: You know, my daughter doesn't have a curfew, but she also knows I'm not going to sleep until she's in that house.
• 1:33:45
  SPEAKER_01: And she knows if I have to get up at a certain time the next day, then it's like, yeah, tonight is not one of those nights to be out late.
• 1:33:53
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:33:53
  SPEAKER_01: You know, she knows that I need to be up at seven o'clock in the morning.
• 1:33:59
  SPEAKER_01: She's not gonna be out until one o'clock, two o'clock.
• 1:34:02
  SPEAKER_02: Because I might have to get up, unlock the door, and not even just get up.
• 1:34:06
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not gonna go to sleep until um until you get home.
• 1:34:12
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and that's I have an appreciation for my mother doing that when we were kids.
• 1:34:19
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you in college, you go out, you go hang out.
• 1:34:22
  SPEAKER_02: And well, my mother also didn't give you a key to her house.
• 1:34:26
  SPEAKER_02: She was like, You don't pay no bills here, you ain't got no key.
• 1:34:28
  SPEAKER_02: So you gotta come home.
• 1:34:30
  SPEAKER_01: Oh.
• 1:34:31
  SPEAKER_02: And knock on the door, right?
• 1:34:34
  SPEAKER_02: And I think by the time we got to college, maybe you got a key or something like that.
• 1:34:39
  SPEAKER_02: But um, you know, she would still stay up until you came home because she was like, Well, I can't go to sleep properly until you're here, and I gotta be able to lock up my house.
• 1:34:48
  SPEAKER_02: And that that was her thing.
• 1:34:50
  SPEAKER_02: And so it's weird now that my son, you know, we were, you know, back in St.
• 1:34:55
  SPEAKER_02: Thomas and he was out with his friends.
• 1:34:58
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm here sitting up waiting for him to come home.
• 1:35:02
  SPEAKER_02: And you know who we're staying with my mom, and you know who was up to?
• 1:35:05
  SPEAKER_02: My mom, because she wasn't going to go to sleep until he came home either.
• 1:35:08
  SPEAKER_02: And so it's, but it's I think knowing that you have those kinds of guides in place, it's important.
• 1:35:21
  SPEAKER_02: You give you, you give some flex, but you give some guides because you don't know.
• 1:35:28
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, come on now.
• 1:35:30
  SPEAKER_02: Uh we did certain things when we went, when we went wherever we went in our our young adulthood, and you didn't know how you would react or how you would respond or how anything would be when you didn't have the the rules that your parents um enforced when you were, you know, you were a kid.
• 1:35:53
  SPEAKER_02: But um you knew what some, you know what some of those guides were.
• 1:35:58
  SPEAKER_02: So you knew to govern a govern accordingly, because there was gonna be some kind of accounting that you would have to do, you know, whether you decide to party really late or you engage in some drinking or something like that, there was gonna be some kind of accounting.
• 1:36:14
  SPEAKER_02: And for some, you know, I I don't know about anybody else's parents, but my mother always knew.
• 1:36:19
  SPEAKER_02: So you governed accordingly.
• 1:36:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I I was never the one to stay out late.
• 1:36:25
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I'm cool going out, being out, but it's like, all right, it's time to go.
• 1:36:33
  SPEAKER_01: Man, it's only nine o'clock.
• 1:36:35
  SPEAKER_01: Listen, mm-mm, I don't care.
• 1:36:37
  SPEAKER_01: I'm going home.
• 1:36:38
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not about to be out here ride riding through the streets, and that's when trouble comes looking for you.
• 1:36:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, nah, dog, I'm going home.
• 1:36:47
  SPEAKER_01: Y'all can drop me off.
• 1:36:48
  SPEAKER_01: As a matter of fact, I'm dropping y'all off.
• 1:36:50
  SPEAKER_01: I'm taking a car.
• 1:36:51
  SPEAKER_01: You know, y'all go home.
• 1:36:53
  SPEAKER_01: I'll bring you your car in the morning.
• 1:36:54
  SPEAKER_01: I'm going home, you know, whatever the case may be.
• 1:36:58
  SPEAKER_01: You know, never had the thing of I have to call my mom to get picked up.
• 1:37:03
  SPEAKER_01: But it's like, my mom's, I I think I had a 11 o'clock curfew, 12 o'clock until I got to like 17, 18, like 11, 12th grade.
• 1:37:15
  SPEAKER_01: But even then, I'm like, why am I gonna be out there late?
• 1:37:18
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:37:19
  SPEAKER_02: My dad's thing was like, you don't want to be the last person to leave the club, leave the party.
• 1:37:23
  SPEAKER_02: He was like, no, you leave before it ends.
• 1:37:26
  SPEAKER_02: And I remember saying that to my son when he went out.
• 1:37:28
  SPEAKER_02: He was going out with his friends.
• 1:37:29
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, leave before it ends.
• 1:37:31
  SPEAKER_02: You know, let me tell you why you leave before it ends.
• 1:37:34
  SPEAKER_02: Because when it's ending, that's when all the stuff happens.
• 1:37:37
  SPEAKER_02: You need to leave before it ends.
• 1:37:39
  SPEAKER_02: Let's go.
• 1:37:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, go ahead, wrap that up.
• 1:37:41
  SPEAKER_01: Come on home.
• 1:37:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, my daughter, she doesn't go out a lot either.
• 1:37:45
  SPEAKER_01: So when she does, I kind of give her that space, but she's not out late.
• 1:37:54
  SPEAKER_01: And it's a to me, it's a good thing.
• 1:37:56
  SPEAKER_01: And like I said, my my oldest son, he's like, they need to come here.
• 1:38:00
  SPEAKER_01: Their parents can come pick them up, but I ain't going nowhere.
• 1:38:03
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm fine with that.
• 1:38:04
  SPEAKER_01: I'm fine.
• 1:38:05
  SPEAKER_02: That's right.
• 1:38:06
  SPEAKER_02: It's a it's a comfortable home, comfortable place to be, and you don't have to be out, you know, in the streets and so forth.
• 1:38:13
  SPEAKER_02: Partying here and there.
• 1:38:14
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's it's good.
• 1:38:16
  SPEAKER_02: It it's good for the experience, but you know, I'm not saying don't don't go hang out, please.
• 1:38:22
  SPEAKER_02: But I'm not saying be out in the street all the time either.
• 1:38:24
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:38:25
  SPEAKER_01: Because some of y'all just need to stay at the house anyway.
• 1:38:28
  SPEAKER_01: And some of y'all just need to go out just a little bit.
• 1:38:31
  SPEAKER_02: A little bit.
• 1:38:32
  SPEAKER_02: It's a little bit a little bit of balance, right?
• 1:38:35
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you you indulge so you don't overindulge.
• 1:38:38
  SPEAKER_02: You just but go back home.
• 1:38:40
  SPEAKER_02: I was um I some I I heard somebody say something about if you're if your shadow leaves you, it's time to go home.
• 1:38:46
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's nighttime, go to bed, or something like that.
• 1:38:48
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm like, you know, uh if I if I if I can't see my shadow, maybe I need to be inside.
• 1:38:55
  SPEAKER_01: Shadow gone, it's time to go to go home.
• 1:39:00
  SPEAKER_01: So we we talked a lot about everything.
• 1:39:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, primarily our kids and and our childhood and things that we've done leading to where we are.
• 1:39:16
  SPEAKER_01: From that, what seed would you plant to someone else that um is still experiencing life, that's thinking about becoming an author or a content creator or anyone that's just listening and watching now.
• 1:39:38
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I would say create where you are, because I I've thought about it.
• 1:39:44
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you sent me the questions, and I thought about, you know, I'm glad that you used the word creative because I never thought of myself as being talented, right?
• 1:39:55
  SPEAKER_02: So, I mean, there are things I knew how to do, right?
• 1:39:58
  SPEAKER_02: But I never thought of those as talents.
• 1:40:01
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I played in the band, I played the clarinet.
• 1:40:03
  SPEAKER_02: I was section leader, you know, two years, yay, you know, I kept my seat, nobody could beat me in challenges.
• 1:40:09
  SPEAKER_02: Great.
• 1:40:10
  SPEAKER_02: Would I say that I was talented?
• 1:40:11
  SPEAKER_02: No, I just knew how to play the clarinet.
• 1:40:13
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I was I was okay in school.
• 1:40:16
  SPEAKER_02: I was a good student, you know, I was on the honor role in the honor society.
• 1:40:20
  SPEAKER_02: Do I think that I was academically talented?
• 1:40:22
  SPEAKER_02: No, I just, you know, did my work to get decent grades.
• 1:40:25
  SPEAKER_02: And so I never thought of myself as a talented person.
• 1:40:30
  SPEAKER_02: And so when I saw you, you use the word creative, that made sense to me.
• 1:40:34
  SPEAKER_02: Like, yeah, I'm a creative person.
• 1:40:36
  SPEAKER_02: I I sure am.
• 1:40:38
  SPEAKER_02: I, you know, I used to, you know, design clothes for my dolls, and I'd find some fabric that my grandmother had laying around, and I'd create a new little elephant for my dolls.
• 1:40:48
  SPEAKER_02: I would, you know, find a little camping book and they taught you like a boy scout book, a girl scout book, and they taught you how you could turn a Hawaiian punch can into a stove.
• 1:40:57
  SPEAKER_02: I hey, I need to go do that.
• 1:40:59
  SPEAKER_02: Let me go do that outside, you know, get a can open.
• 1:41:02
  SPEAKER_02: I made my little stove.
• 1:41:03
  SPEAKER_02: I could create something.
• 1:41:04
  SPEAKER_02: I would create something out of nothing.
• 1:41:06
  SPEAKER_02: And so I like the whole element of being a creative.
• 1:41:12
  SPEAKER_02: And so I would say, create where you are.
• 1:41:15
  SPEAKER_02: If you are playing with Legos, create something.
• 1:41:18
  SPEAKER_02: My son would build the Legos that were on the box with the instructions, and then he'd create a completely different design, all of his own.
• 1:41:27
  SPEAKER_02: If you are someone who likes to cook, if you, you know, create that.
• 1:41:32
  SPEAKER_02: If you are a kid that like me that likes to cook and thinks that you can make up your own recipes, you know, I did have a little recipe in my head that was kind of like a mashup of some mashed potatoes, tuna fish, and some cheese.
• 1:41:44
  SPEAKER_02: Don't ever try that.
• 1:41:45
  SPEAKER_02: But I decided, you know, you you create, create where you are.
• 1:41:51
  SPEAKER_02: And so if you are a chef in a restaurant, you're a line cook in a restaurant, if it's creating the right kind of plating, you know, um, just creating with napkins.
• 1:42:01
  SPEAKER_02: If you are a if you are a dancer, if you are a painter, I don't care what it is, just add some creativity to everything you do.
• 1:42:09
  SPEAKER_02: Even if you're at work and you are a project manager and you got to lead a meeting, there's something that you can do that adds some creativity to it.
• 1:42:18
  SPEAKER_02: Because it comes from inside of you.
• 1:42:22
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's that essence of you that allows you to shine and you know, I guess feel happy.
• 1:42:30
  SPEAKER_02: And so I would just say create where you are.
• 1:42:34
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's similar to what I say when it comes to being a lyricist, right where you are.
• 1:42:42
  SPEAKER_01: W-R-I-T-E.
• 1:42:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 1:42:44
  SPEAKER_01: Right where you are.
• 1:42:45
  unknown: Yes.
• 1:42:46
  SPEAKER_01: Even if you don't use it, you know, you don't necessarily have to use that verse or that whole song, but write it.
• 1:42:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:42:54
  SPEAKER_01: Create it.
• 1:42:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 1:42:55
  SPEAKER_01: You know.
• 1:42:57
  SPEAKER_01: So I wholeheartedly agree with that.
• 1:43:00
  SPEAKER_02: Because if you don't, I mean, that's kind of like a and I would say this as someone who did not hatch all of their eggs and still have a lot to hatch.
• 1:43:10
  SPEAKER_02: Not honoring your creativity is a betrayal.
• 1:43:14
  SPEAKER_02: I'll say that for me.
• 1:43:16
  SPEAKER_02: It it is a betrayal.
• 1:43:17
  SPEAKER_02: And I I think about um times when, you know, I had this idea.
• 1:43:23
  SPEAKER_02: And a friend and I, you know, we talk about having different ideas, and she was like, we came to this um conclusion.
• 1:43:30
  SPEAKER_02: She's like, you know, if you have an idea and you talk about it enough and you don't do anything with it, she's like, you know, God gonna take it from you.
• 1:43:37
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, I said, you're right, because we were talking about something one day, and we saw XYZ, and I was like, I had this idea about doing this about five years ago.
• 1:43:46
  SPEAKER_02: She was like, Do you know I had this idea about doing this about two years ago?
• 1:43:49
  SPEAKER_02: And the two of us are standing there talking about these ideas that we had in the past that somebody's executing right now.
• 1:43:54
  SPEAKER_02: And so she was like, you know, yeah, I believe if you have an idea and you don't do something with it, God gonna take it from you.
• 1:44:01
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, I am trying not to have my ideas snatched.
• 1:44:06
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm the same way.
• 1:44:10
  SPEAKER_01: I've had songs that I were that I was gonna do, and so many people were like, I don't think you should do that.
• 1:44:18
  SPEAKER_01: You're gonna, you know, open up some some, you know, uh healed wounds, and you know, you're gonna do all these things, and the next thing you know, popular artists are doing these same songs.
• 1:44:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, Exactly.
• 1:44:37
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 1:44:37
  SPEAKER_01: I have a song where every line in the verse is referencing TV shows, like the whole song is just like referencing TV shows according to my life, and because some people didn't understand certain words, they were like, you don't put that out, nobody's gonna get it.
• 1:44:59
  SPEAKER_01: Next thing you know, there are artists that have done the same thing with some of the same exact references, almost as if they've heard this song and just copied it.
• 1:45:10
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 1:45:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, this reminds me of T-Pain when he had wrote um uh what was it?
• 1:45:20
  SPEAKER_01: One of those songs, one of his very early songs, he wrote it for Acon or something along those lines.
• 1:45:26
  SPEAKER_01: And Akon was like, I wouldn't do that.
• 1:45:29
  SPEAKER_01: T-Pain still did it.
• 1:45:31
  SPEAKER_01: You know, he did it on his own instead of Akon doing it, he did it.
• 1:45:35
  SPEAKER_01: And look at T-Pain now.
• 1:45:37
  SPEAKER_01: Correct.
• 1:45:37
  SPEAKER_01: You know, this guy got paid something crazy like 250,000, a million dollars, whatever the number is, just to stream.
• 1:45:47
  SPEAKER_01: And every 30, 45 minutes say, Man, I wish I had a pizza from 7-Eleven.
• 1:45:53
  SPEAKER_01: Man, them pizzas at 7-Eleven show good, man.
• 1:45:55
  SPEAKER_01: I wish I had me one right now.
• 1:45:57
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, man, anybody know if 7-Eleven's still open?
• 1:46:00
  SPEAKER_01: Give me one of them pieces.
• 1:46:02
  SPEAKER_01: Hey man, he got paid a lot of money just to do that every 30 minutes.
• 1:46:10
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like, think about if he'd just listened to Akon way back then.
• 1:46:14
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:46:14
  SPEAKER_01: He would have never came up with that album.
• 1:46:16
  SPEAKER_01: We wouldn't still be listening to these songs, and he would not have been able to do everything else that he's done because he's decided to listen to somebody else.
• 1:46:26
  SPEAKER_02: To the wrong person.
• 1:46:27
  SPEAKER_01: That part.
• 1:46:28
  SPEAKER_02: To to the wrong person.
• 1:46:31
  SPEAKER_02: I um I I'm gonna I'm gonna jump ahead to one of your questions I know that you put on there about the naysayers.
• 1:46:39
  SPEAKER_02: Because that that's a part of what we have to we have to get get past.
• 1:46:47
  SPEAKER_02: And and that's hard because it's not every vision that you have that somebody else is gonna see.
• 1:46:53
  SPEAKER_02: And so um I think you know, sometime back, uh, you know, are you going with publishers, NC?
• 1:46:59
  SPEAKER_02: Are you gonna get a company to publish it?
• 1:47:01
  unknown: No.
• 1:47:02
  SPEAKER_02: Why?
• 1:47:02
  SPEAKER_02: Because I don't want to.
• 1:47:03
  SPEAKER_02: Are your books gonna be on Amazon?
• 1:47:05
  SPEAKER_02: No, not right now.
• 1:47:07
  SPEAKER_02: Why?
• 1:47:08
  SPEAKER_02: That that gives farther reach.
• 1:47:09
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, no, it gives my money to Amazon.
• 1:47:12
  SPEAKER_02: So if the same way I have to brand and market my book to get you to go to Amazon, I might as well brand and market it for you to come to my site.
• 1:47:21
  SPEAKER_02: But I um when I did The Never Snowy Christmas, I had this um this one underlying thought that kept pushing me forward that because there's always the fear, oh my God, I'm gonna do this book, and what if nobody buy it buys it?
• 1:47:40
  SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna spend all this money to do this book and nobody's gonna buy it.
• 1:47:42
  SPEAKER_02: And I knew that at least one person was gonna buy that book.
• 1:47:47
  SPEAKER_02: My mom.
• 1:47:48
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, more than one person.
• 1:47:50
  SPEAKER_02: My mom's gonna buy it, my dad's gonna buy it, my grandmother's gonna buy it.
• 1:47:54
  SPEAKER_02: And my grandmother, um, she passed away two years after the Never Snowy Christmas came out.
• 1:48:01
  SPEAKER_02: And I have a picture of her holding one of the first copies, and I will always cherish that because she bought her copy, she believed in it.
• 1:48:13
  SPEAKER_02: And I remember when I showed her just like the rough illustrations of it, she was like, do something with this idea now.
• 1:48:20
  SPEAKER_02: And I took that as a charge because I'm like, I can't let my grandmother down.
• 1:48:23
  SPEAKER_02: And so even if no one bought my book, I know my grandmother's gonna buy it.
• 1:48:30
  SPEAKER_02: If nobody else believed in it, I know she believed in it.
• 1:48:33
  SPEAKER_02: And I was joking with my mother about this, um, with I am.
• 1:48:37
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, my my grandmother's gone, my father's gone.
• 1:48:40
  SPEAKER_02: And I told my mother, I said, if nobody else buys I am.
• 1:48:43
  SPEAKER_02: I know my grandmother, my father would have bought it.
• 1:48:46
  SPEAKER_02: So it doesn't matter.
• 1:48:47
  SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna continue to do it regardless of.
• 1:48:50
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that there is uh an amount of audacity that you have to have at all times.
• 1:49:04
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it is the audacity that cool and the gang had to go make summer madness and say we ain't gonna put no words to it.
• 1:49:15
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it is the audacity that Prince will get up there and with multiple guitars and play a different one for each song.
• 1:49:28
  SPEAKER_02: I think that we all have to have a healthy amount of audacity because not everybody's gonna see what you see and believe what you believe.
• 1:49:40
  SPEAKER_02: And you have to have the the audacity of a uh temperamental teenage teenager that rolls their eyes at you and be like, I'm gonna do it anyway.
• 1:49:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, you know, it it's it's it's it's really important because if you let all uh of the the extra voices um say what they say then you'll you'll never um you'll never get anything done so when I read that question I was like I gotta tell you the story because it made me it's something I I hadn't thought about for a while but it's something that I um that that still hadn't it still has an impact because it reminds me of of something so I've done two printings of the Never Snowy Christmas right so if you read it there's there's a typo in the book it's not it's not misspelled just there's actually a literary word for it anyway the word it's it's the correct pronunciation of the word but the wrong spelling of the word anyhow who knew somebody called me about it after you know the um after they got their copy of the book and really wanted to say hey zenzie just so you can catch it.
• 1:50:54
  SPEAKER_02: So one day um I was at home you know my husband comes home and he was like hey I was at the barbershop okay and he was like you know the barber was saying that you know someone came up and told them that there's a typo in your book and so I knew this was not going to be a really great story because it was it was about the barbershop and it was about someone uh I don't I don't really like someone I was like so somebody was up there talking some little mess and so he said yeah the barber said that someone said you have a typo in your book I said am I what he said you have a typo in your book I said am I what he said you have a typo in your book and I think when I said am I what the third time he thought maybe I was hard of hearing I was like no am I what in your book I said exactly my book my book that I wrote that I started a publishing company to publish that somebody had to buy to see said typo thank you and I just leave it at that and I remember that all the time yeah so on the second printing I did fix the you know I I re I removed the um the errant letter and we're good and nobody knows about it but if you have the hard copy hardcover copy of the Never Snowy Christmas we'll just call it a collector's edition because it's got a typo in it and it comes with a story but you know what I still did it no matter what I wrote the book we got I found my illustrator sourced it started my publishing company and and went forward with that and it's a publishing company that I still have that produced published another book so yeah I'm good with that so listen listen listen because we we're gonna close with the and and I'm gonna add on to that the key thing is create where you are even at the risk of making mistakes still do it.
• 1:52:46
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my gosh yes I can't tell you how many things are misquoted or you know misspelled or miscon uh what's the word um misconstrued misconstrued misinterpreted is a whole lot of things yes but people still did it people still do it I'm pretty sure I sit here and I say certain things wrong but people are still gonna watch I'm still here doing this I'm not gonna completely cancel an episode because I said something wrong I can always come back and fix it later you can edit it or you can edit yourself right I'm like I'm not gonna do I'm not gonna do all of that and sometimes you just you just own it okay so all right fine I said um you know there's a typo or this may not have looked perfect or what have you yeah it's all right yeah it's fine it's fine so let's do this without typos can you or miss spelling can you please tell the people uh where to find these books where to find okay well I'll start with telling you where to find me so again I am Zenzi Hodge and these are my books The Never Snowy Christmas and I am and you can find me very easily on social media on Facebook Instagram and TikTok at I am zenzi hodge purchasing copies of the book you can do that directly at my website which is spbookshop.com and there we have it all right I think almost two hours long I don't know what the editing is gonna be but that's fine because I'm going to still open the floor for you to ask me a question make a statement give advice whatever it's gonna be I used to be afraid of this section because I never know what's gonna be asked but now I'm just like I'm here what's up you know um I'm gonna go back to um I guess ask a question make a statement and give advice all in in one um when we started before we started rolling we were talking about capturing content and recording and you know really telling your story through video in all that you do and I shared with you I am very vulnerable and I don't like to do that it seems weird to me so how does one become comfortable or how do you how do you create yourself um as a brand that you are able to see always recording making being the star of your own story and creating that content regularly how do you how do you get us from where I started saying I don't want to go I don't want to record myself to being able to be comfortable and recording and understanding the importance of doing that there's really not a space of comfortability and I say that because it depends like if you're home it's your house nobody can see you just nobody there to quote unquote judge right if you are in your car you have your camera mounted or you're holding your phone whatever the case may be that's also a no judgment space but once you get into public you basically have to put race force blinders on because the majority of the people around you they don't know what you're doing they're a little nosy but for the most part they came to Walmart to shop not try to figure out what you're doing.
• 1:56:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah and there have been times where I've had my Osmo or my phone in Walmart and I'm literally holding it and recording and as people are walking by it's like oh my God they're watching me I can't talk right now and I've gotten to the point where after watching so many other people on the internet do it they they're saying the same thing like there's to an extent there's a level of um uncomfortable uncomfortable there's a level where you're not gonna be comfortable yes and you just have to work through it.
• 1:57:21
  SPEAKER_01: If you understand your mic placement and how loud you have to talk in order for your mic to capture your voice you don't have to worry about yes I'm back at Walmart again that you don't have to worry about speaking loud.
• 1:57:34
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 1:57:35
  SPEAKER_01: You know like there are times I put my mic here or it's on my shirt, my hoodie and I'm like I know if I hold my voice at about this tone okay regardless of how much bass or raspiness might be there, this mic is going to pick it up and I'm gonna be fine.
• 1:57:51
  SPEAKER_01: But then I also might have to remove all of that and speak in this tone that I'm speaking in right now in order for my mic to pick it up and people around me to not be a nosy.
• 1:58:02
  SPEAKER_01: To air yeah yes you know and and sometimes you do get people that stop you and be like hey what's that what what are you doing?
• 1:58:10
  SPEAKER_01: Hey man that that's a little fancy little gadget you got there you know it's content at this point.
• 1:58:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah and I do like you know when we were talking about you know the AboP I just hold up yeah so you do this right here and be like hey what's your name and now now they're on my just done some some UGC yes yeah you know so I give them this you know I let them see this stuff right and to get comfortable it's just a if I don't then who will number one number two it's how else am I going to promote me you know like if you do makeup you have to in a sense record yourself picking the makeup get going to the store getting the makeup doing whatever it is you have to do and then go home that to me is a better story compared to okay guys I got and where'd you buy it from did you order it online?
• 1:59:09
  SPEAKER_01: How'd you decide on that color?
• 1:59:10
  SPEAKER_01: Right yeah what are the other colors that were available to you you know um just being in public you have to understand everything is free range everybody has access to the internet but that doesn't mean they have access to you oh that's a good point that's a really good point yes so I can go to Walmart I can pull up at the drive thru in any restaurant you know fast food restaurant whatever but I can have my camera roll I don't necessarily have to capture them in the shot but I can talk while I'm in this drive thru.
• 1:59:47
  SPEAKER_01: You can see me placing my order you hear me and see me getting my food you know it comes to a point where I got to do what I got to do for me and I can't worry about what everybody else is saying or thinking you always you're always gonna have eyes on you.
• 2:00:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah at least watch me for doing something good watch me for doing something right watch me for building myself watch me for doing something that's gonna teach another generation or my generation or you know my kids you always got a camera you always got a camera and I'm like and you're always watching you know I have a camera and you know it's choose who you want to be on camera and if it's a different person than you are off camera reevaluate that I am who I am I'm gonna use specific words on a regular basis.
• 2:00:47
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna say um because I say um uh is gonna happen because that's how I naturally talk.
• 2:00:55
  SPEAKER_01: You know some people like oh sometimes you just talk so I'm thinking through what I gotta say because if I just said everything that comes to my mind like my mom said I'm gonna be in trouble.
• 2:01:04
  SPEAKER_01: Correct correct you know I don't use profanity you know so you won't hear that but if you do and I allow that to be in the final edit that means something terrible has taken place and I feel you need to see it.
• 2:01:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah I have a vlog episode and it's literally just me in my car and I'm talking I'm thinking through things and I make one statement and I just pause next thing you know I'm wiping tears out of my eye because I'm literally driving and I have a mental breakdown functional but now I'm crying you know so how do you get comfortable being in this place I do video work I do photography I have to let people know what I do to me it's all BTS telling you who I am in order for you to hire me for what I do I think that's a short version long right there but at the end of the day you're on a mission yeah and there's something that you said in that that resonated with me because um in in my day job right or in in someone else's day job I told you I can I can teach classes I can speak in front of a large group I can lead meetings I can you know audience of a thousand and I'm fine because I am now I of course it's content with which I'm well versed.
• 2:02:47
  SPEAKER_01: I'm teaching something I'm communicating about an event or or or something a project a program whatever it is and I know that content I know that product really well right that's why I'm comfortable but the product me that I'm supposed to know the best why I'm not able to do at the same level as someone else's product and I think that's where the shift is is for us to become comfortable as comfortable with us as I don't want to say as a product but we have to be as comfortable with us as we are in our in the comfort of someone else's in someone else's thing if you can sell somebody's tennis shoes if you can sell somebody's car or sell somebody's job why do you not put that same level of energy emphasis and promotion into yourself and what you do so okay yeah a lot of us don't know how to like when it comes to a lot of the stuff I'm I'm still figuring it out okay but I would prefer to be doing it and trying to figure it out than doing nothing with nothing to figure out all or something something you gotta do something.
• 2:04:09
  SPEAKER_01: You have to do something yeah or nothing will ever happen.
• 2:04:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah and how far can you get doing nothing just saying I I agree with you I agree with you on that I um we've talked about your your podcasting journey how you got to here so when I think about 10 years ago people were still listening to radio stations whether in their cars streaming them and now that has shifted and we are here podcast I mean you may have you were lucky if you had a podcast right about 10 years ago and now there's the ubiquity of podcasting so take us 10 years into the future what do you what do you see media becoming everything is going to end up on apps like Netflix Paramount Plus they're becoming and then YouTube you know Netflix is picking up podcasts now Paramount plus Hulu these will become our new uh our new cable channels you know I see some of them getting bundled together like Hulu Disney Plus and uh ESPN and that's a packaged deal but there's gonna come a point where everybody's not gonna want to pay for these things separately and they're gonna choose one or two and I see YouTube as the number one place because one it's free you don't have to have YouTube premium or YouTube TV to watch we're already getting hit with ads then it's accessible everybody has it people post clips from TV shows and movies I've almost watched the whole movie of centers just in clips I don't I don't think I need to go out you know and figure those things out right but at the end of the day that's that's where I see us being and podcast will be the new TV show there's a new feature on YouTube that allows you to turn things into shows so you can create a show do some research on that that that's a deeper topic um because that camera about to die too okay listen Zinzi I appreciate you being here today thank you to me this was a very healthy conversation I feel that a lot of things were said that people can pick up on you know from all ages um but that's it so yeah I appreciate you being here well thank you so much for having me here I told you I'll come back anytime.
• 2:07:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yes thanks for the invite thanks everyone yes so that is it for this episode of Creative Res Podcast we're seeing some become visions grown I forgot to do it at the beginning but I would like to give a shout out to I'll look studios Charlotte Podcast Studio and Artbox Charlotte that is it for this episode and we are out peace