 I had a child by someone prior to my husband. I messed up. The shame said, you messed up. You're not gonna do this again. I knew I messed up. I wasn't gonna do it. So from that point on, I was gonna be in total alignment with what God had for me. Listen, it's the message right here. Black boy, tell me how you really feel. Cause I just wanna build with you. Black girl, tell me how you really feel. I wanna keep it real with you. I wanna live better, eat better. I wanna love better, sleep better. Yeah, I wanna feel so aligned. I want you to speak on something that, I don't know, maybe you and your husband have had this conversation, but as a black man, I feel that type of resistance with black women. I feel that sense of, number one, I'm guilty until proven innocent. Number two, I don't really know what I'm talking about. Even if I do, like even like speaking about my experience in college being in leadership, like, it was that like, Alan, he thinks he's somebody, you know what I mean? Do you think, like where do you think that comes from? I have no idea. Cause I've always known men to be very smart. And I always ask my husband question after question after question. Because I always knew that he would know something that I didn't know. That I wasn't even needing to know. But I'm hearing and thinking now in this modern time that women have, or I can tell you where it's coming from, women have had to adapt or adjust to men not being there. So it's a lot of things they had to learn how to do and to do. So it's just been carried down from generation. And, you know, when a woman is sad, there's somebody to say, you a strong woman, you can get, you can do it, you can do it. And she probably gets it done. So it's just been, that's what's been taught since they've had to adjust and adapt to men not being in the home so much. And it's just something that they carry. Now it's true and real, no, because they still call the exterminator, who's probably a man, when the rat has to be caught, or when the roof has to be fixed, it's still a man that probably shows up. But it helps us get through those hard times. And, you know, it keeps us from giving up. So one of the things, and you just brought this up in my mind. So I did a conversation with the divester recently. I know you've probably heard of that movement. And the entire time we were having the dialogue, there were certain points that she made that, you know, when I pushed back on it crumbled, like it didn't really make sense. And I think she realized it didn't make sense. But in that moment, I realized she, she had to believe a certain narrative about black men to make her trauma make sense. So whatever happened to her, like if black men are good, then it doesn't make sense. But if black men are evil and violent and criminal and murderers and this, this and that, then it all makes sense. Do you think that's part of the general trauma amongst our women right now? Like I have to, my dad wasn't there, or he was abusive, or my uncle was abusive. So I have to think you're guilty until proven innocent. You're unintelligent until sometimes even when you prove yourself unintelligent, there's some, he might be gay, you know what I mean? There's something else. Do you think that's part of it? I do think there are some experiences, but maybe not theirs. I think it's still, that's one of those things that that strong woman had to do. Them adapting to the man not being there or either to the abuse that they did. Now this is a real thing. Y'all do know that in past, there has been some men that have been very violent to women. Sometimes in marriage relationships, they were not good. So I do think some people have seen some terrible things and it's just been carried on. And I think if you give a certain amount of people a voice, it is very contagious. And I think that's what's happened. I also think that sometimes these experiences are not all of theirs. You know, they're just grabbing hold of it. I didn't know people do that, but they do. Just to fit in. They'll get on that same women do this more. My husband had to enlighten me about that. My story may not be bad at all. You know, I could have been just my daddy cheated, but if that's not enough, I may hear my other girlfriend's story of her daddy cheated and did some things more. And now that has become my story, you know? And so I just adapted to whatever I was hearing the young ladies I was with or what have you. And it now became who I am. And then if I kept telling myself the same thing, now that's what I think. Because, you know, we are what we think. And we keep thinking about these negative things. That's who it is. And when I see a good man, because no one's perfect, I'm not gonna identify with it. You know, cause at this point, I want you all to be perfect. You can't, I can't identify with anything that you do wrong. Cause if you do wrong, it'd be like, I knew you was gonna do it. I knew it was coming. Yeah. And then a big one is leaving. A lot of times I hear in arguments, men do, they walk out, not to leave, but they do leave temporarily. Even in the midst of an argument, they may walk out. And I understand that they do have to walk out sometime just to, you know, bring the tension down. But that is one of the major fear. It was even a major fear of mine that my husband wouldn't be in the marriage. I mean, you always, a woman needs to have that stability and satisfaction of knowing that that man's gonna be there even when it's tough. And if you, if you don't do that, if that's not one of the first things you do for your foundation, then the relationship probably won't work cause she's always got a fear that that man's gonna leave. You won't get that total submission. You won't, the man won't get what he needs to have. But if he can work through that part where he can make sure that that woman understands that I'm gonna be there, I'm not leaving. No matter how hard we fight. I mean, not literally fight, but argue. I'm going to be there. If he can make her understand that and she's trusting in that, you can build on it. It's there. So to elaborate on that, like what do you think in your experience, black men who are interested in partnering with black women where we haven't divested or whatever? Even if we've had bad experiences, what can we do to navigate that trauma that a lot of black women are coming with and add that sense of reassurance? Well, before you even marry this person we need to have real hard conversations. Cause things are different now. With me and my husband got married, there was no, we was just in love. We love each other. We were doing wrong things and needed to get married. We got married within six months cause we wouldn't go to sleep together. We just wouldn't go do it. We were doing it, but we felt so convicted. So we had to learn a lot of things along the way. But now you have people like myself and others telling you that these conversations need to be had. So you need to break out those traumas. You need to talk about those traumas. What happened to you when you were younger? Anything, you know, how's your dad? How, you know, how's your mom? How was the relationship? If you can't obviously see it, you know, if they're not there, you want to have the conversations to find out what the relationships are like. And if it's any toxicity in it, you need to say, listen, I want to be with you but we're going to have to divest ourselves away from that toxicity. You know, even if it means we got to pull back for the next three years and just concentrate on what me and you want or how we want our family to be, that's what we need to do. And then you can identify the traumas and you can work, y'all can work your way through it only if she's willing. If she's not willing to have those conversations, those hard conversations and you too, willing to actually express those real vulnerable moments. I'm saying vulnerable, but you have to decide what it is because you're a man. Then if both parties are willing, then you go ahead and do it. But if not, you'll have a tough time in a marriage because it's gonna love reveals, love reveals all these things. So in time it's gonna come out if it's genuine. So that's what you have to get to. So even if it doesn't come out initially, if you have two willing participants, it will come out. And then it may be designed to be that way because that tough, tough stuff may need to be three or four years later, those real traumas that were not her fault that somebody took advantage of her, not the bad relationships, but deeper things. So. So, a conversation that's often had in barbershops, now it's on YouTube, is this idea that women do not police other women. Women don't call other women out on their BS. A lot of times it's like, girl, I understand. Girl, I see why you did that, right? And men feel like y'all definitely aren't gonna listen to us unless we're saying something uplifting and flattering and you're a system of the God. So why do you think the black female delegation is unwilling to put into place any checks and balances of some dysfunction that is popular these days amongst our women? Because we are, I've noticed that women, we are a mean group of people, very mean. And sometimes angry. And you can't really call them out without an argument or without a fight, maybe even during they get cussed out. So it's almost best to put together a platform like mine where you set a standard on how we should behave or what our responses should be and allow them just to watch it in their own time. And if they feel like they're convicted of those things, then they'll correct themselves because the only thing you can do is sow a seed. You can't change a grown person's perspective. So they're still gonna do what they want to do. And then when they continuously find themselves alone then they may say, you know what? Maybe I am doing something wrong, but I've tried really to call an individual out a woman. And sometimes it does work. I'm like, now listen, you shouldn't be rejoicing in being a single mom right now, at this age in your life. That's not, we don't need to have a baby shower. This is not something, and you said the dad's not here. No, this is not a cute, this is gonna be hard. Have you thought about the other side? Because we're not planting a seed of the consequences that are there to come. It's always joyous. When we mess up, it's just joy, joy, joy. When I messed up, it was shame. And to the point, I wouldn't do it again. But now it's like, you just say, girl, it'll be all right. But we're not there with that woman when it's not all right. Cause it's not all right. There are times when those women get by themselves and it's real quiet, and it's just them and God in the room and they're breaking down and they're wishing they had a different situation. But I'm here to tell them too, they can recover, but you gotta be accountable first before the, so the behavior can stop. So you can do something different. You gotta stop the behaviors first. So one of the conversations I've been having, and I think it's a complicated conversation. It's around shame, right? And there's a woman named Renee Brown, and she talks about it a bit. And you have other people, sometimes older folk, they'll tell you that, you know, what's missing right now is shame. People are shameless, you know. People don't have any sense of like, I shouldn't have done that. There's always an uplifting. So what is your, you know, one camp is saying, we need to renegotiate shame. Another camp is saying, we need more shame. Where do you fall on that spectrum? And how do you feel shame? I'm not saying that I agree with shame, but shame is necessary, but I don't think we're without shame. I think like I just said, when those women, or when men both are by themselves and they're having those moments when they can just think along with their thoughts, there's some form of shame. There's something, there's a buildup of a wrong decision. Or if not, you just don't have any morals. But I do think it's still there. Now for us to call people to the front of the church or what you used to when we were younger, no, it's not gonna work anymore. That's just gonna build up a whole lot of hate and dissension. But there has to be some accountability. But shame is what kept me, but we're not gonna go, it's not gonna go back to that. So this has to be another way. And the only other way I think is for the accountability to happen, but who does that? How can you successfully do that unless you have a circle of people that you're working with? But now you don't really have those, I mean, you have the sisterhood, but this sisterhood is 100 strong of wrongdoing. You know, they just doing what they wanna do. They saying crazy stuff on YouTube, outrageous stuff that I don't even understand how they could even say these things. So you're not gonna get it there, but that's what the sisterhood is about. You know, doing what you want, you're being liberated. But there's a lot of people who have said this feminist movement did me wrong. And now I wanna get it right, but I've done so many things out of order. Can I get it right? That's shame. You know, and they found that way themselves. So I think it all depends on how you was raised and who you are, that it would always bring you back to what was right for you. And to me, that is still shame, whether you get it at 21 or whether you get it at 31, it always comes back to where it should have been. So talk about accountability, because that is a word, especially in this side of YouTube, that comes up a lot. There's a lack of accountability. People are not accountable this and that. What is your view, and I want you to tell in your work, what is your view of accountability? Is there a proper method of instilling, enforcing, policing accountability? Like tell me about accountability, how you think about it? Now accountability is simply just becoming an adult and being responsible for yourself and your actions and knowing exactly what you're doing. And if you don't know, you still take responsibility for it. That's how it is. I'm grown now, I did it, I made the decision to do it. But if you put the word accountability on it, it makes you think about it and it also makes you think about what you're doing. Now you know if you're gonna be responsible, you will think twice about eating four cookies. If I get fat, I'm gonna think twice about it. Now I gotta be accountable for it. But it used to be how these cookies was in here, they was just so good, I'm just gonna eat them. Now guess what? You're older now, you're an adult. You're responsible for everything that you do. Your mom's not there anymore. You can't go back to her apartment. It's all on you. Now what? It changes the way you think. It changes the way you move. Cause now you're accountable. It's just being an adult growing up, having a tad bit of wisdom, but you just have to allow it into your life. Because up until a certain point, we can blame other people for everything that we do. You know, women, he got me pregnant. He got you pregnant. What do you mean? You wouldn't there? I mean, you know, and it's been okay to say that. But what's wrong with a woman saying, him and I laid down and we had this baby. It's totally, you know, like funny. But when you say him and I laid down and had this baby, now it's, I was responsible too. And I made this decision to do it. So it's just, it's just being mature, growing up, becoming an adult. It's actually another stage in life. I don't know why people resist it, because it's actually freeing to be accountable because once I'm accountable for something and I tell you, I did it. What do you got? Nothing. You can't say nothing to me. But I just said, I did it. Now what? Yeah, it was me. Now what? You have no fire. There was nothing. So I don't know. I don't know why people don't embrace it. I guess sometimes it looks really ugly, but I'm saying, no, all you gotta do on it. And that changes the way you move. It changes completely the way you move. Because now you're saying, oh, I gotta be responsible for that. So maybe I won't spend that $200. But when I could fall back on my mom, it was okay to spend it, because I knew she got my back. Or I could move back into her house. I'm 30 years old, now I can't go back to my mom's house. I gotta watch out what I do. So it's just a freeing. For me, it was very freeing to become accountable. Now I wanna be accountable in everything, because I don't want somebody holding me up against the wall. You did this, oh, I did, okay. Now what? Tell me what's next. What can I do? How can I fix it? You know, it's a solution base moving forward. It keeps everything moving forward when you're accountable. This is a question I'm really excited to ask you. There was a podcast and the young man said he was talking to a young lady. And she said she had gotten all these degrees. She had moved up in the workplace. She was making real good money. All she's missing is a man. And the conversation was then had about, you know, the whole boss bae phenomenon, you know, of women, particularly our women, prioritizing things that, in the barbershop, men are saying, we don't care about it. And there's this idea that, you know, the more I earn, the more degree I am, the more successful I am in business, it makes me a more attractive woman to men. And you know, some women believe they can have both. They can be the boss and be the housewife. And there's no problems. For somebody who is currently doing that, I guess, you could say, what is your take on that conversation? What do you think women are saying? What do you think men are saying? Where do you think we're missing each other? I think the women are being adults. They're taking care of themselves until the man or the husband comes and says, I choose you for my wife. I have no problem with that. I think that is a good thing. I think the more a woman knows the better, she's better of an asset she is. But money has become so powerful here lately. And I think it's because men mostly leave with money. They do. So I think men, you all brought that to the table. Because my husband and I built, we came to British ship broke. We built together and it's just no big deal. You know, you make money, you lose money, you make money, you lose money. So that's just ebbs and flows. But a woman that has created a niche for herself or made herself successful, I think that's a good thing. But the next part of your question, who made her boss? Because in my life, my husband created a business, has been an entrepreneur for ever since I've known him. And he made me the face of our business. So that's how I got to be security boss. And we do everything together. So do I work? Yes, but I work for our business. And if a husband is willing to take that on, if a woman really wants a husband and he's a leader, she'll do it. So whatever she went out and got for as degrees, you know, I've been a real estate agent for 20 plus years. I've sold houses. There was many times when I've made six figures for years and years and years, I bought the money on and gave it to my husband and went in one pot. So it didn't matter because it didn't take away from him being a man. And it should never take away, me making money as a woman shouldn't take away from my husband being a leader. I don't understand why I would. Because if it is, we just rely too much on money. The power is not in the money, it should be in the leadership of the man and who he is. So why are we getting lost there? I don't understand. You just pissed a bunch of people off. I'm sorry. My husband was a man when he was broke. He was still a leader. He was kicking in and kicking doors down then. I'm serious, he was. Just to find the business he wanted to be in. We did several businesses. He kicked the doors down every time he was that man. Even before me, he was that man who pretended he was the man walking downtown with his briefcase. Look at my office is gonna be up there one day, even when he wasn't there. That's who he was when I met him. He knew what he wanted. And that hasn't changed whether we were 100 plus, 100,000 plus per year or whatever. It never changed. I just became an asset. He made me somewhat of an entrepreneur because I was fine with just working. Working a job, I was fine. He was like, no, no, no, no. I learned a long time ago. No, you work for yourself. This is how you do it. You can control this part of your life. And that's what he brought to me. And I was like, you know what? I like this. So I followed it. And broke, he was still a leader. Money, he was still a leader. So the fact that we had lots of money or a little bit of money never changed the fact that he was still the man and he was the leader. So I don't understand why men need to leave with money. I think it's example that needs to be said. So what men say sometimes or what men have observed, including myself, is some of our women are literally becoming their dream man instead of becoming his dream woman. And part of the tension is like, you know, the sometimes it seems like the traits that make you successful at the law firm at your company, at your, you know, as a doctor in law school, in med school, don't translate well. When you come home. When you come home. So how do women who are trying to get themselves together but also still want husband and family? How do they navigate that? That's a hard thing because I'm over a lot of officers in most of my men. It's a way, but you know what? They tell me they never feel challenged. I'm still a woman. I'm still a lady. So it's a little different. I do more probably, no, I'm still the boss. They still listen, but it's just different. I don't, I'm not, I don't challenge them in any way. So they don't feel that for me. I still think a woman can be a lady and still get it done. But if it's putting her in a wrong position, she might need to find another course of action to do whatever she has a degree in because it shouldn't be brought. You can't come home and tell your husband what to do. You shouldn't even want to do that. And that's just that simple. I don't know if that all depends on the career path but that can't happen. And she shouldn't want to do that. But also you mentioned that they're becoming that woman or that man. They're becoming their dream man. I would think that's a woman that does not want to be married. That's a single minded person. And her concerns are only about herself. And that's not a person that should be married. You can't go into a marriage with a single mind mindset. You have to go into a marriage knowing full well that you're gonna be coming one with someone else. It's not about you anymore. Sacrifice. So if thought experiment, if you were dropped into 2022, you were 18 years old, for instance, 17 years old. And you got college in front of you. You got, you want to be a doctor, lawyer. You got med school, law school in front of you. But you also still want to become a wife and you want to do it before the window of opportunity ends for women, right? How does a young girl who's watching this, for instance, how does she navigate that of like being successful but not letting it take away or not having to pay the opportunity costs of becoming masculine in the process? It goes back to her examples, whatever she's seen. If she has a mother and a father in the home and her mom was a wife, then that would be what she would. That's what she knows. That's innately in her at this point. And she would be able to reproduce that. If she hasn't seen that, she's gonna make a lot of mistakes along the way and has a lot of growing pains along the way. And hopefully she gets a degree to take care of herself. I don't necessarily believe in the fact that it's over or that it ends. I still think your life is your life. So if it doesn't happen for you or if you don't have kids by a certain age, you wouldn't meant to. That's all. I don't believe in that exactly. So much about the wall. The wall is there, your opportunities do drop or far as the men you would like to be with. But guess what? That's the man you wanna be with. Probably it wasn't the man for you. So I don't think we in control of this. I don't. I think we just walking it out. So I think when we can submit to that, then we'll have a better life. It's easier for you. So that's a really good transition because the wall is a big conversation, especially in this place. And as somebody who found success before any wall was able to be hit, what do you think you did that women who haven't found success are not doing? What do you think they messed up at? I didn't do anything. I just went with it, if that makes sense. I just, again, I don't feel like I'm in control. Now this is me telling you this later. I'm just trying to clarify what I did, not knowing what I was doing. I just went with the plan. I feel like that was the plan for my life. And I just followed it. I didn't have my own agenda, not knowing I didn't, but I just followed it. I think when we get too old or like you said, when I got married at 25, if 25 would have escaped me and I'm 30 hit me and I wasn't married, then I would have to start somewhere in between their plan in my life. And then maybe I would have started taking control of what I was doing. Does that make sense? And then I probably would have messed it up. I may have added too many things or saw me too many things that I couldn't unsee. So then the decisions I made would have been reflective of what I was doing versus the plan for my life. I messed up the plan for my life initially because I had a child by someone prior to my husband. I messed up. The shame said, you messed up. You're not gonna do this again. I knew I messed up. I wasn't gonna do it. So from that point on, I was gonna be in total alignment with what God had for me. And that was what I did. Not knowing this though, I'm just saying it was just a fear. Seeing it now, I'm going back now thinking, why, I wonder why you didn't do this and why you didn't do this? Even the fact that my husband and I got married within nine months, we were so convicted by the fact that we were out of order, it was like, okay, get this in order. So even though it was hard and things we had to do, we still made some mistakes along the way. I was, per se, I was saved, let's say. I was saved by 25. And if you're not, then you have to be an adult. And when you become an adult, those decisions are all up to you per se. And you may make some bad decisions that will keep you out of alignment with what you're supposed to be doing. So I'm not gonna say that they made a mistake. I'm just saying they need to maybe submit to what's right in front of them. I think to that point, one of the critiques that men have is that part of the reason some women are hitting that wall is because they're creating arbitrary, baseless means of evaluating men. And not just evaluating, but eliminating men. If you don't make six figures, I can't even look at you. If you're not six foot, I can't even look at you. If you're not charismatic or the known dude in town, I can't even look at you. And inevitably you hit that wall because the traits that create a good father aren't necessarily the traits that create a good pimp or a good player or whatever the case may be. So why do you think there is such a refusal to let go of some of those less significant things for the more significant things? Because in your success story, you weren't evaluating your husband based on what he was. It was what he wanted to become, right? So how would you talk to the women, the younger women? How would you talk to them around that? Let's just get it straight now. My husband was all of that, but I didn't think of that though. I still was attractive to him and he just happened to be the man. But I don't even know if that's real. I hear people say that, but I think women and my husband always go back and forth with me on this and y'all can do it too. But I think women just want men to love them. And I think if the right man shows up and loves them without all these terms and conditions that they'll submit to that man. It just has to be genuine and organic. But in the meantime, if I got to go out there and look for him, okay, he has to be six feet. He's got to be attractive. He's got to be this. He's got to be that. And so that's how we miss each other. Those are my thoughts. So I don't think it's this real that, I don't think women are as complicated as y'all make them. But when we leave it to, when we left to ourselves, you asked us the question, I got to have something for you. So if I'm out here looking or availing myself for someone, oh, he need to look like this. He need to look like that. I never said those things when I met my husband, but he was that. He was all of that. But I never said that. But if he didn't come in that package, he would have been okay. As long as I was attracted to him. So I don't know if I really believe all that. But again, another talking point that we have. Honestly, I don't either. But a lot of dudes who have been burned by say that, you know, I was a great dude, but because I wasn't this thing, she didn't like me. She probably didn't like you. For some other reason. Yeah, to begin with. So let's talk about men. How, cause you have a very interesting vantage point. You occupy a very, very unique space. You're a woman who's been successful and a lot of things that women want to be successful in. For a man, if you could talk to your younger husband, right? How should men evaluate women? Well, I'm going to take it from what my younger husband said. My younger husband said he prayed for me. He prayed for a wife. He, cause he, I'm his second wife. So he prayed for a wife. He knew what he didn't want. And one thing it had to be, they had to be on, have godly principles. And they had to be on the same page. He was a man. So for him, he wouldn't say things like, I need my woman to be submissive. It wasn't necessary. It wasn't necessary. But he did need his woman to be all about him. You know, cater to him. He said that. But all these, I hear men now say, I'm not tolerating, I'm not tolerating. I'm like, wait a minute, you married a child? It's not a child, right? It's an adult. Don't use those words because that doesn't sound right. She's a woman. She has a mind of her own, you know? But it was more so of an example. Cause like even with the principles of God, he was a praying man. He was the minister. All these things that a leader is supposed to be, he demonstrated those things in front of me. So what was, I had to fall in line. What was I gonna do? I either get away, go away, red flag, wrong woman, are you falling line? And that's what women look for. And that's what it was. So I would just say to the man, be genuine on your purpose or whatever it is and just do it, whatever it is. Now have you out here given some chaotic messages or you're not focused, then that it will be the woman that you attract. It's just real. Because it has to be something organic about a relationship that you're gonna spend the rest of your life with somebody about. It's gotta be something. It can't all be all be mapped out. It's gotta be something organic. And typically that's spiritual. You know, it's not what you see the feeling that you get or the emotions underlying the connection.